Lindsay: Okay.
Welcome to the Lifting Lindsay podcast.
Today I'm really excited to have a guest on, uh, Lauren
Colnso-Semple, and I'm gonna have her go ahead and introduce herself.
Lauren: Thanks so much for having me on.
I have a PhD from McMaster University where I studied the influence
of the menstrual cycle phase and oral contraceptive pill phase
on the muscle protein synthesis, response to resistance exercise.
I have a master's degree in exercise science from the University of
South Florida where I studied resistance training volumes for
strength and hypertrophy in women.
And before I got into higher education and the the science world, I was a personal
trainer and a group fitness instructor.
So I definitely come from a lens of curiosity where it started, just for me
trying to optimize my own results and the training programs for that of my clients.
Lindsay: That is awesome.
I did not know, I've heard you on a bunch of different podcasts, but I
actually didn't know that you studied, oral contraceptives and pretty much
how that influenced what was, what, what exactly did you study with that?
I wanna hear more about that.
That's really interesting.
Lauren: Yeah, so typically with oral contraceptives, you're taking an
active synthetic hormone for 21 days.
Sometimes it's 24 days, but typically it's 21 days, and then,
uh, for seven days you're taking.
A placebo or an inactive pill, and that's when you experience a withdrawal bleed.
So it's not actually a menstrual period, it's just a withdrawal
bleed because you're no longer on the synthetic hormones.
And so, and I've, I've, I've spoken about this before and perhaps your listeners
are aware, but doing this type of research
uh, where you compare one group to another group.
So let's say we were comparing people on hormonal birth control to
people off hormonal birth control.
Sometimes the results can be a bit muddied because we're also different.
And so what I was looking at is in the same individual, let's look at
what happens during the active phase, so when they're taking the hormones,
and then is it any different during the week where they're not taking the
hormones within the same individual?
Lindsay: Okay.
Okay.
This is really exciting.
This makes me even more excited to talk to you about this topic because I
invited Lauren on to talk about, I feel like a hot topic right now on social
media, a lot of women are being told, will you, in order to optimize your,
muscle growth or your performance, um.
Yeah, or even fat loss.
We really need to make sure that our training is timed
really well with our cycle.
So there's so many things that I feel like just that alone, women get lost in
'cause they think, oh, okay, so when I am on my period, I can't be training hard.
Or they don't even really know what, what's part of the.
The menstrual phase they're not supposed to be training in and
they're told they should do yoga during that time or not do anything.
And so I'm really excited.
I'm gonna have you start, if you don't mind talking about the, maybe the hormonal
changes that happen and why people are saying we should change our training.
Specifically,
I think they're referring to more of weightlifting.
Maybe not.
That's just kind of my world.
Lauren: That lifting is sort of my world as well, but this is certainly
a research question that is a hot topic in the endurance training world,
in the the vascular research world.
Um, so there, there are a lot of, um.
Kind of niches in exercise nutrition and metabolism science that are starting
to be more and more interested in the influence of the, the menstrual cycle.
And from a scientific perspective, it it, it's also a kind of a
bigger picture issue of women being historically excluded from studies.
And part of that is because of this potential concern that, oh, there
might be an influence of this or that and we need to standardize.
Training or testing in research around cycle phases, which is
logistically really, really difficult.
And so a lot of scientists have historically said, Hey, I just study men.
It's easier.
Mm-Hmm.
Um, or perhaps they don't have the capability or the resources to do all
of this cycle tracking and hormone measurements and ovulation testing,
that that would be, you know, required.
To publish research in women if, and I say if cycle phase is a, an influential
factor in the outcomes of interest.
So when we think about the menstrual cycle, there is a lot of misunderstanding
here because when I say cycle, some people, as you say, hear menstrual period.
The cycle is the, the full cycle from bleed to bleed.
So the first.
Five, seven days or so of your menstrual cycle is your menstrual period.
But the, the rest of that cycle is when we actually see the more substantial
hormone fluctuations, and we're primarily talking about fluctuations in estradiol,
progesterone, and then for a brief time luteinizing hormone and follicle
stimulating hormone, and obviously the primary purpose of these fluctuations,
and of the menstrual cycle in general, is for reproductive function, but because.
Of our interest as exercise physiologists in the influence of hormones, and we've
explored that in men for a long time.
Um, there, there are some questions about, well, if you do an acute
performance test, like let's say your one rep max, or if we do training over
several months and we're able to measure muscle growth, is menstrual cycle phase
meaning, you know, a few days here or a few days there, a week here, a week
there where we're seeing a different
hormone profile going to influence those outcomes of interest.
So that muscle hypertrophy, that strength performance.
And I'll just add that if you're somebody who is on hormonal birth
control, whether that is a birth control pill or an IUD, uh, you
don't have a menstrual cycle anymore.
So when you take a hormonal contraceptive, it suppresses those endogenous,
are natural, uh, hormone fluctuations that occur during the, the natural cycle,
natural menstrual cycle because you're introducing these synthetic hormones.
So this wouldn't actually apply to the, the hormonal birth control users.
This is specifically to those who are what we would call, you know,
quote unquote naturally cycling.
So they're not taking any hormones and they are, uh, pre meni menopause.
Lindsay: I love that you brought that up, because that is so key.
There are a lot of women who are on hormonal birth control, and yet they're
getting pulled into this because they have a time period where they bleed,
and so they think that that's, oh, everything is still functioning as usual
except for I just can't get pregnant, and so this still applies to me.
I need to buy a program like this.
And you also brought up those that are going, like you're in perimenopause
or post menopause, like I, I feel like that's often not talked about
too, because you look at perimenopause and the shifts in hormones with women
and they're all over the place and they're so different per person.
This clearly isn't talking to those groups of individuals on hormonal birth
control and like peri post menopause.
Did I get that right?
Lauren: That's
right.
Lindsay: Okay.
Lauren: And one thing that is sort of in, uh, you, the perimenopause
or individuals and the premenopausal individuals have in common is what you
just pointed out, the difference between individuals and the fact that the hormones
can kind of be all over the place.
Because what we see in this textbook.
Diagram of the menstrual cycle is that it's 28 days and during the
first 14 days, all the hormones are low and then estradiol increases.
And so we're seeing this estradiol peak right in the middle of the cycle or right
just before the middle of of the cycle.
And then right in the middle we see.
Uh, luteinizing hormone peak, and that's indicative of ovulation.
And then during the second half of the cycle, so post ovulation,
we see progesterone increase and then peak sort of mid, uh.
second half or what we would call the luteal phase, and we also see
a secondary peak in estradiol.
It's not quite as high as the first pre ovulatory peak, but we we're still
seeing moderately high estradiol there.
So just to kind of simplify it, we'd say.
The, when you're on your period, all the hormones are low.
The week or so after we see an increase in estradiol and then the
increase in, in, uh, glut luteinizing hormone and there's your ovulation.
And then during the, the latter half of the cycle, it's cat
characterized by high progesterone and moderately high estradiol.
Now, when we actually measure those hormones in different people
through multiple cycles, it looks.
At the individual level, almost never like it does in that
really pretty textbook picture.
And what I mean by that is that the timing of those fluctuations differs
from women to women and the magnitude of those fluctuations, meaning,
uh, if you, if you Google menstrual cycle hormone fluctuations, you see.
These really substantial hormone spikes when you actually
measure people's blood hormones.
Some people have very small spikes and that's just normal for them.
So what's quote unquote normal?
Um, meaning reproductive function as far as we know is normal.
Um, and healthy and cycle or bleed to bleed is normal and regular.
And these aren't people who have.
Any sort of menstrual cycle dysfunction.
Um, it's a, a regular cycle and these are healthy individuals, but the,
the cycle length or the timing of the ovulation, or the extent to which
these hormones spike is really, really variable from one woman to another.
So we can't really say, well, this is the hormone profile for everyone across the
board, and that's where it starts to be.
Really questionable when people, uh, market these kind of one size fits
all programs in the fitness space.
Lindsay: So, with that, let's go, let's review.
When do women usually see, uh, a, a lowering of strength,
maybe recovery and performance?
'cause a lot of women, like we talked about at the beginning,
they think, oh, well this is just talking about when I'm bleeding.
So during bleed, that's when, and you said hormones are low.
Women think, oh, because hormones are low, then I don't have
strength, I don't have recovery.
All of those things.
But when is it actually, when we see strength recovery, all
those things be hit a little bit.
Lauren: Statistically speaking, uh, there's, there's one good
meta-analysis, uh, on this topic.
And they, and they did find that.
Performance.
And that was exercise performance overall, not just strength, um, but that it, it
might be slightly lower, uh, like during that, uh, earlier half of the cycle,
but it wasn't statistically significant.
There were a ton of flaws when it comes to the methods of the study.
And so their kind of practical takeaway was that this should be, um, from a
kind of fitness prescription or athlete.
Prescription point of view, it should just be individualized and we
shouldn't be making any sort of blanket statements around during this time.
You should expect performance to be reduced or you should expect to feel worse
because the reality is that might be true for some individuals, but, uh, there's
certainly not enough evidence to suggest that this is sort of across the board,
something that all women will experience.
Lindsay: Mm-Hmm.
What are your thoughts of, I know Stacy Sims talks about this a lot, that
it's usually the peak of progesterone, um, where we see moderate levels of
estradiol and a peak of progesterone, and that's usually when, uh,
strength we're seeing that lowered.
Lauren: I've never seen any evidence to suggest that that would be the case.
The assumption that progesterone is somehow.
Antagonistic or catabolic or going to negatively affect muscle growth really
has, has never been proven in cell cultural work, culture work in animal
studies, or certainly not in humans.
We know very, very little about the influence of progesterone on muscle
period, and we know a bit more about the influence of the sun hormones
overall and a bit more about.
Estradiol from some animal model studies, but in those animal models, they basically
shut down all hormone production, and then they see that that's problematic for the
maintenance of muscle and muscle growth.
So without any of these ovarian hormones, it it, it appears that that's problematic.
And with the reintroduction of a synthetic hormone, a synthetic
estradiol, then it appears to kind of recover some of that inability
to grow or maintain muscle growth.
But that's a very, very extreme model that's obviously not
translatable to humans because in the human menstrual cycle, we're
talking about really short term.
Fluctuations not a sustained suppression of all of those hormones.
And even when we think about menopause, that's a gradual decline of hormones.
It's not sort of an on off switch.
And so when you're, you're doing a, a rodent study and you're doing a, what we
would call an ovary, ectomy mo, removing the ovaries, shutting down hormone
production, that's not something that.
Is really comparable to humans, but it's mechanistically interesting
because we can say, well, when the hormones are completely shut down, then
muscle growth and muscle maintenance is, uh, is obviously not optimized.
Lindsay: Mm-Hmm.
That's really interesting.
I, I wish I had this study in front of me.
I, um, I can't remember the name of it or anything, but I, I did see one
study that they did where the first.
The first half of the menstrual cycle, they noticed that there was better
growth, muscle growth, and then the second half of the menstrual cycle is
actually where they saw that lowering.
So their suggestion, or the whomever it was that I was reading, their suggestion
was, okay, so first half of the cycle, which does include bleeding, um, that you
should be lifting weights the second half.
Don't, don't lift weights.
It's pointless.
'cause you're not gonna grow.
Have you heard of that?
Lauren: Yeah.
I'm familiar with that study.
Um, and I, I would love to see it replicated because it's
a, a very, very bold claim.
What we know just as fitness professionals is that consistency is important, right.
And so the idea that this effect or lack thereof is so powerful that it would make
sense to prescribe one programming, uh, one, one program for half of your cycle,
and then to not lift for the other half.
It is essentially if you, if you're just saying 14 days, 14 days, it's cutting
your resistance training volume in half.
And what, what we know in about muscle protein synthesis about
muscle growth is that it's the repeated stimulus that is required
in order to promote muscle growth.
And so by just.
Stopping your training for for half the, the month.
I just can't see how that would benefit not only muscle
growth, but also strength gains.
Because strength performance requires practice, which requires, you know,
repeat, uh, performance, re repeat, uh, sessions and whatever else you're
doing for the other half, whether it's yoga or jogging or stretching.
Um, I mean, it's sort of the same thing if, if then you stop doing that.
For, for the next two weeks.
We're not gonna see a lot of progress there too.
And so my concern about anybody making these recommendations is that the,
the woman who is implementing them is actually really sacrificing her gains,
whether it be strength or muscle growth.
Um, and from a just behavioral perspective, motivational perspective,
we need some consistency in order to maintain the habits that we're forming.
Um, and so I, I, I find that that problematic as well.
I, I don't know anyone who has ever actually attempted to structure their
program this way, just even anecdotally.
So I, I couldn't say if there are people who are doing it
and, and loving the results.
But, uh, just from what we know about exercise science prescription
and mu muscle adaptations.
Um, I, I, I struggle to see why and when that would make sense.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Do you find, um, any use to, to trying, well, I have two
questions that come to mind.
Do you, how hard is it to actually track and monitor or hormonal changes in women?
'cause I would imagine that in doing research around this, that that would
be kind of one of the, the limiting.
Um, factors.
That'd be really hard to make sure that we're even monitoring that.
Well, and the other question is, so is there any point to try to gauge or
change programming or what are your suggestions after studying all this?
Lauren: It's incredibly difficult to, to track, um, and to do
all of this well, which is why.
I am hesitant to put a lot of stock in some of the papers that are out
there because not everybody has done what we would say, uh, implemented
the kind of gold standard methodology to make sure that you are measuring.
Strength or growth in the phase in which you intend to.
And what I mean by that is we can discuss a menstrual cycle as 28 days
with ovulation occurring in the middle.
But in reality, a normal menstrual cycle can be as short
as 21 days, as long as 37 days.
And sometimes people don't have a consistent cycle
length from one to the next.
And ovulation doesn't necessarily occur in the middle.
And so that could mean for some people they have the a, a much shorter first
phase or follicular phase and a much longer second phase or, or lute phase.
So when we think about prescribing training around that in the the 28
day example with equal phase lengths.
Logistically that's straightforward.
Whether it makes sense or not is a, is another question.
But from a logistical perspective, yes, you can say 14 and 14, but what do you
do with a person who ovulates earlier and only has a 10 day follicular phase
and then has a 20 day luteal phase?
Are they, are they only getting a couple of lifting sessions in and then they
have to stretch for the next 20 days?
You know, it's, um.
It's, it's logistically really complicated and very few women actually know what
menstrual cycle phase they're in.
We know, okay, this is the first day of your period.
That's an easy one, but in what happens from from bleeding
stage to the next menstruation.
It, there's, there's no real way for you to know unless you are actively
tracking your ovulation, which you can do, um, by measuring me, sorry, measuring
luteinizing hormone either with, uh, urine reactive strip or with a blood test.
People will typically do this, uh, when they're trying to track their fertility.
And we do this in research because as I said, it's really important
that, that we know exactly when the.
When the phases start and finish, meaning we have to know when you're ovulating.
And if we were to just assume, hey, everyone has a 28 day cycle, everyone
ovulates on day 14, we would get it really, really wrong in the science.
And so when we try to translate that to practice for fitness professionals
or for women who are interested in optimizing their training.
If they are taking on a program that makes that assumption, it's also
problematic because you don't actually know that, that you're in the, the phase
that that program assumes you're in.
And then of course, we have the blood work to measure hormone levels, which
in my work we will do at various points throughout the cycle to determine
that, you know, this hormone profile is really what we would expect.
During this particular day of your cycle, and as I said before, that is
highly variable as well between women and also from cycle to cycle in some cases.
So this is way, way more complex than these types of programs
would lead you to belief.
Lindsay: Mm-Hmm.
Yeah, I um, I was really, really curious 'cause Stacy Sims, I
feel like was one that was.
Um, more outspoken about this and how, um, this can be utilized with athletes.
And, um, and, and I don't wanna make, I'm not making this about her, I'm just
taking the information that was presented.
So, um, in taking a course from her, 'cause I'm like, I really want to learn,
like, why do you believe this way?
Like, why?
And is there something to this?
Can I learn something from this?
And the idea was that, post ovulation, the degradation of the, the follicle is
what stimulates the rise in progesterone.
And then the high progesterone, with the, the lower estradiol is
actually what would, would make an athlete or, you know, strength,
uh, training athlete feel weaker.
And I just thought to myself, but what about those that, that, I mean.
When you have anovulatory cycles, when you're not ovulating.
So then does that not all happen?
And then how do you know that, that there's just, just so much around this?
Why can't we just say, Hey, when you don't feel as as recovered, as strong,
and you just listen to your body and take it down the notch, like why do
we have to make it so complicated?
I don't knowledge of your thoughts on that to Stacy
Lauren: Sims has I, I don't know her personally.
Um, I, I am, I know that she has a PhD, but to my knowledge, she hasn't
really done research in this area.
She's published review papers, meaning she's made commentaries on, on the topic.
But I'm not aware of any actual study that she's done that would.
Really lend to expertise in this area that would really lend to the understanding of
this tremendous level of inter-individual variability that I described.
And so I, I, I would love to know exactly, you know, where that is coming from.
But to your question, can't we just say, you know, leave it to the individual.
I think that.
Especially in fitness and nutrition and in the supplement world and all of it, right?
It, you get more attention if you say, I have the way and I, and I'm
gonna give you the answer, and you should be doing something different.
Instead of being the person who says, you know what, it probably doesn't matter.
People wanna hear, yes, it matters.
And this is how, how you can optimize it and this is how you
can get that extra, um, fat loss or muscle growth or what have you.
People don't wanna hear, you know what, like.
You're probably gonna get the same results either way.
Don't worry about it.
Um, and that's how programs sell.
That's how supplements sell.
That's how diets become popularized.
That's just sort of the nature of the business.
Lindsay: It is so true.
Just teaching, um, habits and just instilling those habits, making
programming, you know, enjoyable.
And depending on your goal, you might have to be.
And, how advanced you are.
You, you may have to optimize some things here and there, but maybe you don't,
maybe you just wanna lose five, 10 pounds.
And it's like, do you know what the optimization of your training
programs to your cycle really doesn't matter for, for you and your goal?
Right.
So it's, it's so interesting.
I think you nailed it with social media right there.
It has, definitely has, its its pros and cons.
I think one thing that's really hard too.
Because I, I have my beliefs around this, um, this subject that, like I just said,
why can't we just listen to our body?
And sometimes too, I've noticed with individuals when they're like, oh
yeah, I went in and this time my cycle was a little different and I
noticed I was weaker at this point.
I'm like, but do you realize how many variables go into how you
go walk into a training session.
Was your sleep crappy?
Was your nutrition crappy was, and there's so plethora of things.
Were you able to recover well enough from your last training about like,
there are so many things that I feel like how can we even know if we're just
going off of our feeling of, well, I'm a little bit tired, so my suggestion
to people has always been well.
If I'm a little bit tired because I didn't get enough sleep, or my nutrition
sucked, or recovery was somehow impaired, I'm gonna treat it the same way as if,
well, around the same time of my cycle.
I always feel sluggish.
I'm gonna listen to my body.
I want to keep the the habit and the routine of showing up for myself that
day, but I'm not going to be doing a pr.
Maybe I'm just going in and just checking it off that day.
Right.
I, I just, I, another thing though that I wanted to bring up was,
it's really hard on social media when men speak on these subjects.
A lot of times women get very, very angry when they hear from men.
Like, it doesn't matter.
Just listen to your body and they can get pretty,
outraged over that, that no, we only need to hear about this from, from women.
Not sure why I brought that up, but it was just a, a post from men know,
came up where he shared a study saying, you know, this meta-analysis
is showing that in the end it really, it's not impacting women like we think.
And there was some outrage on, on that post.
Lauren: I think you nailed it in terms of it's really difficult to attribute,
you know, a particular session or, or even a month of programming
and progress to just your cycle.
Um, because as, as you said, there are so many variables
that are going to influence.
How you feel day to day walking into the gym.
And so I think the, the one thing that we might.
Say is consistent for some individuals is that they have pretty
regular, uh, menstrual symptoms.
So maybe on it's the day before I get my period, or it's the first day of my
period, for some people it's longer, but typically it's one or two days and
that it's kind of clockwork for them.
Like, I have terrible, terrible cramps.
I don't wanna train.
Um, and I say.
Fine.
Uh, you know, go for a walk or don't go to the gym that day.
Um, I think that is a totally different conversation than overhauling your
whole program to accommodate, you know, these sort of potential.
Influences of these hormone profiles that you're not even measuring,
but that we're talking one session when we say this is two weeks, the
influence of, of, you know, not lifting for two weeks is going to matter.
The influence of, of skipping or maybe decreasing the volume or i I swapping
out some exercises or whatever it is for one or two sessions, isn't
going to have this huge result, uh, effect on, on your results.
As far as men speaking out on this, I as a scientist, I don't
really understand the vitriol.
Um, I think that you can be a scientist who studies a variety of things that
influence a variety of populations, um, with a variety of ailments, uh, and.
You're an expert because you're an expert.
I have problem with people who are not experts speaking out on this.
Mm-Hmm.
Um, but you don't hear that when it's somebody speaking about,
you know, exercise for elderly individuals and you don't hear people
being like, you're not elderly.
How dare you give recommendations for that population?
Uh, or people who do research in kids, you're not a child.
How dare you give recommendations for, so, I, I, I really, I
don't get it to be honest.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Yeah, it is pretty wild.
Um, I got sadly pulled into that, that conversation with men.
'cause I'm like, well, I'm a trainer and I just, this is, this is my takeaway and
I'm a woman and so can I speak on this?
But then I was told I couldn't because, um, yeah, yeah.
Just women attacked.
Well, you don't agree with me.
You can't speak on it either.
It was just really, really funny.
It is really, really funny.
There are people
Lauren: to, you know, to your point though, there are people who take that,
take this really personally, or Mm-Hmm.
They have extremely strong feelings about it, and I think I, I, I don't really
understand why, except that that's just sort of the nature of the internet.
People kind of form these.
Really strong communities around doing something right?
Like yeah, if you're on the ketogenic diet, then you're part of this, this
community, and you identify deeply as being somebody who is a fan of that diet.
And so perhaps this is sort of similar to that,
Lindsay: That that is an excellent point.
We really do.
We choose our teams and then it doesn't matter if our team is
just like done a personal foul.
We're like, what?
What's wrong with you ref?
Right.
We just have our, or our political teams or whatever.
It doesn't matter.
We'll, we'll look the other way.
It is kind of funny.
That is very, very much human nature.
I, I was very, very intrigued that you also did studies on, and, you really
looked into volume as far as for women.
And I really wanna talk about that.
Do I have my opinions on this?
And I'm just so curious what yours are, uh, and what
you've seen in the literature.
'cause usually when we're talking about volume for hypertrophy,
people will always say, well, 10 to 20 sets a week is, is perfect.
That's usually the general rule that's kind of thrown out there.
Now, do you find that that's true?
Do you find that that's different for women?
What are your thoughts on this?
I'm really curious.
Lauren: At the time there, volume was a really hot topic in general, and people
were, were really trying to kind of push the threshold and there was this
theoretical model that, you know, um, you, you get sort of increased benefits
on, on, uh, up to a certain point.
And then theoretically there has to be a point where you're doing way too
much and then so maybe it's sort of eventually kind of an inverted u or
eventually there's a plateau and you can't benefit from any more volume.
But they really weren't doing this in, in women, and so I compared,
there was a group doing two sets of five exercises three times a week.
And it, this was all a lower body training study, so it was a squat, a
stiff leg deadlift, a hip thrust, a leg extension, leg curl, and then so
two sets of each of those three times a week versus five sets of each of
those exercises three times a week.
And there were no differences in hypertrophy or strength.
And
Lindsay: Really, how long was that?
Lauren: This was over 10 weeks.
Lindsay: No way.
And this was only in women.
Lauren: Mm-Hmm.
Lindsay: Um, were things taken to failure or how close were they?
Was this monitored by by someone?
Like, I'm so curious.
Lauren: Yeah.
We had a full team of people.
Every, every workout was, uh, monitored by one of the, the coaches who was a,
you know, research assistant for me.
Um, and the, the sets were taken to, to reps from failure.
Or two reps in reserve, if you wanna use that terminology.
And we did before and after strength testing, before and after
ultrasound hypertrophy of the quads, hamstrings, and glutes.
And the, the lower volume group was putting in about 40 minutes per
workout, you know, three times a week.
And the high volume group was taking 90 minutes plus.
Yeah.
Lindsay: Easily.
Lauren: And so it, you know, it was really interesting to then see,
I know the, the rest periods were standardized to, um, two minutes per,
uh, in between sets and all that.
But it was really interesting to see how much more time, um, that the high
volume group was spending in the gym for.
Like, at least in my results, not a lot of reward.
Lindsay: Yeah, that's so fascinating because I feel like we keep seeing
people test the limits of volume, right?
I mean, yeah, we, we saw in, in triceps and quads, I mean the, what was it, 56
sets or for quads or something outrageous.
Um, I think the tricep one that I'm thinking of, a study that I'm
thinking of was, was it in the thirties or No, it was up to 30.
That's, that sounds
Lauren: right.
Yeah.
Lindsay: And from what they saw, I think that they, it was predominantly
men doing it, and from what they saw was that, um, they were able to squeeze
out a, a little bit more hypertrophy.
Um, now I haven't been suggesting people do 56 sets, but I don't think anybody
took, went away thinking that, but.
With what you just barely shared and what we're kind of now seeing come out.
Um, have you changed your mind on volume?
Like what is your overall thought as far as volume in women
Lauren: from just working with women and people in general, regardless of sex?
I find that the volume people can tolerate is really, uh, different between people.
There are some people who feel like I get so beat up if I.
Do more than three sessions a week, or I, I can't squat more than once a
week, or I can't deadlift more than once a week without starting to get some
kind of nagging pain here and there.
And then I've trained people who could wanted to do six sessions and recovered,
and they could squat three times a week and they could do, you know, um,
four sets, five sets of every exercise.
And they just had that level of recoverability.
And so I think when it comes to, you know, you as an individual trying to.
Put together your program or if you're somebody who's coaching other people
and, and trying to, um, put together or adjust their program over time.
Getting feedback consistently is really important.
Monitoring the, the, the strength gains is another proxy for, you know, how they're
progressing and how they're recovering.
And then getting feedback on things like, uh, in program enjoyment, stress
levels, sleep, um, and, and also, you know, for if you can monitor their
nutrition, if that's relevant, then taking all of that into account.
And making sure that you are working with them and adapting along the way
to help them reach their goals in a way that's sustainable and also enjoyable.
Because I think that sometimes we get in this phase of, you know, kind of we're
in a fitness craze and we're really trying to optimize everything and this
is the most important thing to us.
And then we get into a slightly different phase of life.
Mm-Hmm.
Where we realize, you know what, fitness is really important to me.
It's always gonna be part of my life, but.
My whole day to day isn't spent thinking about my macros or my program
or what I'm doing at the gym later.
And so it's at that point that we wanna make sure people don't just
stop lifting or stop exercising.
Mm-Hmm.
We want to work with them to, to create kind of a more moderate, sustainable
program so that they're still getting the benefits of, uh, lifting without feeling
like this all or nothing mentality.
Lindsay: Yeah.
I, um, I also think that there's something to exercise selection
as far as volume as well for sure.
Like if people are overloading in that, in that stretch, that lengthened
position, and they're just like, all of their exercises are just in that
lengthened, they may find that the amount of volume, the amount of sets
that they can do are not near as many.
'cause I'll watch, um, like bikini competitors.
I have a, a few friends that are bikini competitors.
And I'll watch them and their, their, their competitor friends,
just two hours at the gym.
But they're doing so much like short contracted position work that
I'm like, yeah, they can do that.
And they can handle the volume really well because I feel like those, those types
of, um, exercises are really, uh, popular for, for females like kickbacks, you know?
Mm-Hmm.
We're really just working the shorten that you can't compare a kickback.
And the amount of recovery time that's needed compared to a squat, right?
Absolutely.
Yep.
Or a leg press even.
Like, you just can't, and so it just depends too on the exercises
that an individual is drawn to.
Lauren: Yeah, I, I think you make an excellent point and there is a lot of,
of kind of glute isolation ish exercises that you can do with bands or cables that
are, are fairly easy to recover from.
I'd say the same thing with.
With dealt, if you're doing a lot of lateral raises or maybe face pulls,
um, and it, but when you think about compound exercises that are not, that
are taxing multiple muscle groups.
Mm-hmm.
And.
Joints as well.
Uh, you know, even like if you're doing a barbell squat, it, it's even
the stabilization of the bar using the upper body that is, um, and using the
spinal erectors that that's taxing.
So it's a kind of a full, uh, system challenge there.
And so of course that's going to be more fatiguing and if you try to do
set after set, after set after set, eventually form is going to start
to weaken and, and potentially fail, and then your, uh, possibility for
injury is going to start to increase.
And so I think we need to be really careful there.
But you're right.
You know, when we talk about co the comparing this type of set to
another set and we're calling it.
You know, a lower body set or a set for your glutes, um, even doing a,
a really heavy barbell hip thrust is going to take a, a bigger toll than
doing a, a kickback or, or doing Mm-Hmm.
A abduction machine, for example.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm curious, what are your thoughts about the differences in rest
times for men versus, uh, women?
Lauren: I think that when we look at the research as a whole, there really
isn't enough there to say clearly women recover faster and can either
rest shorter or train more frequently.
That's another argument that I'll see that that's made.
Um, I, I think when we look at sort of men as a whole and women as a
whole, we try to make these broad.
Arguments or, or suggestions about sex-based differences.
And it's really similar to what I was saying before about the
the menstrual cycle stuff and how much, uh, inter-individual
variability there is on that front.
Same goes for, for just people across the board, regardless of sex.
We see higher and lower responders, both men and women in every study with
every outcome that, that we measure.
And so my take.
From what I know about the science and also what I know from working with a
lot of people, uh, in, in a coaching capacity, is that it's, it doesn't
really help the, the fitness consumer nor the coach to say, this is what you
do for men and this is what you do.
For women, it's much more, uh, beneficial to say, you know what we're gonna expect.
A, a large amount of variability.
Um, and maybe there's something there for, for women versus men,
and so test the waters there.
Be aware that perhaps they'll be able to, to train more frequently or, or
have, but I just wouldn't make that assumption because there the literature
isn't strong enough to, to make that claim and I think it can set up,
they coach to walk into the coach-client relationships with
a set of assumptions about that individual based on their biological
sex, which isn't actually helpful.
You'd rather you'd be better off walking in with a blank slate and just working
with that individual as a whole person.
Lindsay: That is so powerful.
That is so powerful.
This past week I had, um, I don't take one-on-one clients anymore.
I've moved to, um, just.
Delivering training programs on my app, but I have a community where we talk
through a bunch of things and I had a woman reach out saying that after her,
I can't remember if it was a squat or an RDL, but she's like, I, I feel like
I need three, four minutes of rest.
And you know, if somebody was just like, Nope, you only need two minutes.
The literature says you only need two minutes.
To me, I was like, oh, well there's, there might be a few things we can
do to like help your recovery intro.
Like maybe we should introduce like some more cardio if you're not doing any, or,
um, or if you don't have time for that, then take that extra time that you need.
And then I have other women on the other side saying, Lindsay, it's
a two minute rest, but I'm, I'm feeling really good at 90 seconds.
I'm like, well, yeah.
Then if you feel really good and you feel like your strength isn't impacted.
By starting a little bit earlier, and I think we just need to get better, maybe
as coaches of teaching the principles and then allowing people that flexibility.
I think that will be really freeing.
I don't know what your thoughts are on that.
Lauren: I, I think that's really key and that applies sort of across the
board because if we can, if we can train people or people can train themselves
to kind of auto-regulate and say.
Whether it's how you feel walking into the gym that day or how you feel
after that set, you know, then we, we don't even need to worry about setting
the timer for the, the rest period.
We can just say, I'm doing four sets of squats and I, I'm, I'm in tune
with my body to know when I'm about ready to go and I'm not going to force
myself, to, to go, you know, to sit around waiting if I feel ready or to
go before I, I feel really recovered.
And I mean, the only exception to that would be if, if you were, um, in doing
some sort of lifting competition that required a, a finite amount of rest.
But I think in general, in a, in a lifting session and just in your kind
of fitness world as a whole, it's really valuable to, to be able to put the.
The rules down and say, I've been doing this long enough, I can trust myself.
Uh, I think it's really similar with people who are tracking
their macros for years.
And I'm like, you've been doing this long enough.
You know what 20 pound, 20 grams of protein looks like?
Mm-Hmm.
You know what, uh, a half a cup of looks like you, you're, you don't,
you don't necessarily need the crutch of the, the tracking app.
Because you've taken the knowledge and the tools you need to implement
them into your everyday life.
Lindsay: Yes, 100%.
And I love that you call it a crutch too.
'cause I do, I say that all the time.
I'm like, if you feel bound to it after years and years, this is no longer a tool.
This is a crutch.
Yeah.
And you've gotta learn to trust yourself and step away from these things.
Uh, yeah.
It's, and same goes, I feel like.
In the gym.
It's really funny because I feel like, um, when you first get into fitness,
you have no idea what you're doing.
Well, I didn't, maybe I should speak to them.
You probably did Lauren, but I didn't.
Um, and I got caught in, I like into the extremes and I got really pulled
into, you have to do X, Y, and Z.
And I got so pulled into that extreme.
I.
And then you kind of see that no, you actually don't have to.
You, you just swing from one pendulum, like one side of the
pendulum to the other, right?
You are not working at all to optimizing every tiny little thing, and then
you kind of come back in the middle where wisdom lies, I feel like, and
you realize, no, those, some things matter more than others, but probably
not even as much as I, I think that they do consistency over time.
Learning to use the tool wisely for my needs.
My time period, my goals, like in the end, I feel like that's where
like that's a sweet spot once you've gotten there in fitness.
I feel like I,
Lauren: I think we all kind of experience some kind of journey like that.
Um, and that is the goal.
And then sustainability again, because it's just, you're not going to be
that into every little or, or just able to prioritize every little thing.
Um.
That, that's going to optimize your results.
Or maybe you're not even doing it to optimize results.
Maybe you're just wasting your time and money.
Um, but yeah, the, that, that typically isn't, isn't sustainable for very long.
And so at, at that point, do you just sort of lose interest in fitness and
move on to a new hobby, or do you kind of come back to the middle as you say,
and and incorporate it in, in a more kind of moderate way that isn't as extreme?
Lindsay: Yeah, exactly.
Oh my goodness.
Well, I love it.
Lauren, it has been amazing having you on.
I'm so glad that we gotta talk about these different topics and have, um, and also
expose you to, uh, a lot of my clients.
You don't have, you don't really post a ton on Instagram, do you?
Lauren: I don't, I'm, it's, it's on my list of, uh, goals for the future.
I'll try to be more out there and, and share more high
quality information, but, um, I.
I know that the, the Instagram fitness scene is a lot, and I've mostly
been focused on finishing up my PhD.
So now that I've, I'm officially done with that, I will have a bit more time.
And so I hope to be more active on social media and people can
reach out if they have questions.
Lindsay: Well, I would love to see you more active on there just because
I feel like this space and especially women in this space would really
appreciate just, kind of your wise approach to, to health and fitness.
So I think it would be awesome.
But I also understand from being in the space, it is overwhelming.
So, so anyways, but where can they, where can they find you?
How can they reach out to you?
Lauren: Yeah.
My Instagram is Lauren CS one, and that's, you can.
Send me a message and, um, I, I will try to start posting more.
'cause I agree.
I, I mean, and I wanna put up information that, that will be helpful.
Um, I'm, I'm not interested in battling those with, you know, different
opinions because I don't have Mm-Hmm.
An investment one way or another.
You know, I did the science because I was genu, genuinely curious As a
woman, as a coach of women, I want, I wanted to know if it mattered.
Um, and I, I didn't, you know, go into doing this work with any
kind of bias one way or another.
I would be equally excited to share the results if they
had come out the other way.
Yeah.
Um, I'm also, uh, an author of the Mass Research Review.
And so if, if people wanna check that out, uh, it can be really
helpful for translating the latest science in exercise, nutrition,
behavior change, sports psychology, kind of everything that, that we're
interested in when it, when it comes to optimizing performance for lifters.
That is a monthly research review, but we also post a free content on the Master
Research Review Instagram, and we host a weekly YouTube live kind of q and a.
We call Office Hours if people wanna check that out.
Um, that's a another great source of information that I would highly recommend.
Lindsay: I've been a mass member for like five or six years, and I always encourage
people when they're like, how do you,
how do you keep up on studies?
Because there's, there's low quality studies, there's high quality studies.
I mean, there's an array of them and I don't have time
to, to read through it all.
But, um, I always encourage coaches, like, if you're serious
about, about this field, I.
Mass members is awesome.
Like, and
Lauren: Even if
you did have the time, you know, it's a, it's a really technical skill Yes.
To be able to read, interpret, and critique research.
So yeah, I think it's, it's really valuable.
And if, if anyone is a trainer that needs to get their continuing education
for, uh, the NSCA, ACE nasm, um, they, we also offer those, those CEUs
and it's a really cost effective way to get your continuing education.
Lindsay: That's awesome.
Awesome.
Okay.
Well thank you so much.
I'm excited.
I'll probably have you on again.
You are awesome.
Thank you, Lauren.
No
Lauren: thanks.
Thanks for having me.
I'd be happy to come back.