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Joining The InForm Fitness Podcast is Exercise Physiologist and Certified Master Trainer, Ryan A. Hall. Ryan has over 25 years of experience in the health and fitness industry. Ryan’s Exercise and Genetic Variability Lecture formed the basis of Chapter 8: The Genetic Factor in Body By Science by Dr Doug McGuff and John Little. He also contributed to Chapter 3: The Dose/Response Relationship of Exercise. This is part one of a two-part series titled: Working Out According to Your Genetics For more information regarding Ryan A. Hall please visit http://exercisesciencellc.com To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.com If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question. The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen If you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com
Now listened to in 100 countries, The InForm Fitness Podcast with Adam Zickerman is a presentation of InForm Fitness Studios, specializing in safe, efficient, High Intensity strength training.
Adam discusses the latest findings in the areas of exercise, nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness and to replace those sacred cows with scientific-based, up-to-the-minute information on a variety of subjects. The topics covered include exercise protocols and techniques, nutrition, sleep, recovery, the role of genetics in the response to exercise, and much more.
31 Working Out According to Your Genetics with Ryan Hall
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, oxidative, exercise, training, glycolytic, subjects, sessions, pounds, person, intensity, adam, seconds, repetition, increase, inform, clients, fibers, rep max, ryan, fitness
Ryan Hall 00:06
So I mean, our number one goal with resistance training, right is to have that person get stronger, and that's our objective measurement of improvement. And over time as that load increases, and that absolute intensity increases, it's going to affect them eventually metabolic, but our main our main goal is to get them stronger in that muscle.
Tim Edwards 00:34
This is episode 31 of the inform fitness podcast 20 minutes with New York Times bestselling author, Adam Zickerman. I'm Tim Edwards with the inbound podcasting network and client of inform fitness at the Toluca Lake location, which is CO owned by our very own Sheila Melody who will be with us shortly. Also joining us as always, is Mike Rogers, the general manager of the Manhattan location of inform fitness. Alright, so we're about to kick off a two part series talking about genetics. Now hold on. For those of you who might be scientifically challenged like me, don't think that this information is going to sell right over your head, because joining us is exercise physiologist and certified master trainer, Ryan A. Hall, Ryan does a terrific job of explaining how our individual genetic makeup affects the results from our high intensity strength training. Are you oxidative? Or glycolytic? I have no idea what that means. Neither did I. Until Ryan explained it. I guarantee as a listener of this podcast, I know that you're going to find this information not only entertaining, but very helpful. Ryan has over 25 years of experience in the health and fitness industry. As a matter of fact, he contributed the chapters three and eight in Dr. Doug macguff book Body by science, which is an absolute staple for this protocol. Oh, and one final note before we begin, for those of you who participated in our month long contest to receive Adams autograph inside his New York Times best selling book, power of 10, the slow motion fitness revolution, and to receive inform fitness apparel, and an Amazon Echo. We will announce our winner at the end of the episode. In the meantime, let's talk genetics with Mike Rogers, Sheila Melody, Adam Zickerman and our guest for the next two episodes. Ryan Hall.
Adam 02:23
Ryan, you and I go back a while now we've been we've been in this game. You said you started this at 18 years old? Correct?
Ryan Hall 02:30
Yeah, it's like 1989. Yeah. When I started.
Adam 02:34
Yeah How old are you now?
Ryan Hall 02:36
45. I'm old dude.
Sheila 02:37
He's a baby.
Adam 02:39
25 years, 26 years of doing this?
Ryan Hall 02:42
Yeah, longtime man, longtime
Adam 02:44
how many sessions have you overseen in these 25 years would you estimate.
Ryan Hall 02:48
So at one time at one to one I was training between 100 and 120 sessions a week. And I mean, sometimes I've trained a lot less. But I averaged it out to maybe about 80 training sessions a week. And I gave myself a margin of error to say maybe 75 a week. And so I multiplied that out by about 50 weeks a year. And I'm coming clocking in around 100,000 sessions.
Adam 03:18
So I guess that means Yeah, I'm doing is 20 years. So I'm probably you know, I'm probably just about 20,000 less than you.
Ryan Hall 03:25
Yeah. And I would say probably around that. Yeah.
Adam 03:28
Mike is averaging that amount of sessions per week now. 90 to 100. A week now. And he's been doing is like 12 years. 15 years. Excuse me. So I mean, between the three of us alone, we got we got quite a number of sessions under our belt. So Ryan, like me, you're you're an exercise geek. And isn't it true that for fun that you dig around for relevant and quality research studies? Just for fun
Ryan Hall 03:55
all the time. I mean, I pretty much keep my nose in the research literature every day
Adam 04:00
and talk about you have a couple of college degrees Correct. Like what are they?
Ryan Hall 04:04
So both my undergraduate and graduate degrees are in exercise physiology. I had gotten accepted. Before I opened one to one, I had gotten accepted into the Ph. D. program in Baton Rouge LSU for exercise phys, but I decided to open a business instead. So I said I'm not going to continue getting myself in debt. And that's when we opened one to one in 1996. But my education didn't stop. Oh, you know, when I stopped going to school, I mean now it just gave me the freedom to research and read exactly what I wanted. So I didn't have to follow any syllabus or anything like that. And I learned most of what I learned honestly, by doing experimentations of my own clientele and actually writing my own research papers that way I could you know That way I could target indirectly I wanted what I wanted to study.
Adam 05:04
So like, yeah, so So between all the 100,000 sessions that you've overseen, not to mention your background in exercise physiology, and all the research you've been doing and all the digging, you know, is into all the current research you've discovered, then you've noticed a couple of things I would say. And today's discussion is really about genetics. So what have you discovered regarding genetics and people's response to exercise? Generally speaking, right?
Ryan Hall 05:38
Well, I mean, first of all, genetics are extremely, extremely powerful. I think the last estimate I read, it was about 60% of all of your results from exercise are pretty much to knit genetically predetermined, or at least limited. And so there's a, by looking at my own clientele that I've done, and my trainers, and the research literature, there's, there's a huge amount of inter individual variability between results from exercise. And so, you know, there's people very few, these are really far outliers that gain let's say, a lot of muscle mass, you know, from normal, it's, I shouldn't say normal research protocols, but higher volumes of resistance training, okay, like three days per week, multiple sets, there's only a few people who actually adapt really, really well to that. And also, there's people who lose muscle mass and strength on such programs. Depending upon the stimulus that we initiate, right, we can observe or maybe make some observations on how those clients respond. And depending on those observations, or how I'm going to structure their routine going forward. But the thing is, is, as that client continues to adapt, you know, the stimulus is going to have to be changed a little bit more to fit their new adaptation levels. So that's what I've been doing a lot of work on lately.
Tim Edwards 07:10
Ryan, how do you know when a client has adapted is it a plateau? How would you define adaptation
Ryan Hall 07:16
in science, we usually want to have an objective measurement of improvement. And for me, our one objective measurement of improvement are consistent strength gains. And so that's the first adaptation that I'm looking at that we can measure from workout to workout. Okay. Um, so that's what I'm mostly looking for. Now, as they continue to adapt as they continue to get stronger, they may, for example, hit a plateau at some point in time. And the thing is, is you need to figure out what you need to do to get that past that plateau. Okay. So, when I was in grad school, I conducted a study and there's, there is a link on my website. It's a, it's an article, it's called Exercise results curve. And by this time, I had already trained, you know, several 100 people, a few 100 people, I should say, handful, and, you know, some of these for multiple years. And what I started to do, I had to do a project for exercises for my exercise phys classes. And what I did was look at all this neat data that I had on the workout charts, so I started entering everything into Microsoft Excel with the statistics package, and, you know, trying to analyze this data, and what I really wanted to see was that if we correctly manipulated stimulus and recovery, um, how long did it approximate these individuals to, to come close to their genetic potential? Okay. Um, but there was something, there was an anomaly that appeared in the data that I wasn't necessarily expecting right away. And the anomaly that appeared in the data is that the people that I started training twice per week, made results faster, but they hit an artificial plateau Much, much sooner. And it was almost 100% It was 97% of my subject population. When I reduced the frequency of training from twice a week to once every five days or once a week, there was almost an immediate improvement in strength where they continued gaining strength. And again, I said this is 97% of my subject population. So there was a small percentage of people who did not do better changing from once a week, they didn't necessarily do any worse, but they didn't do any better. And so, but most people did, and that was the number one aspect that stood out in my mind. As the most significant,
Adam 10:01
that's 97%. So you'd say for the most part, on on the bell curve, most people do well, with a once a week workout working out one set to failure in general, right? Is that what you find with your population of clients over the years?
Ryan Hall 10:18
Adam, I would say so with my subject population. Now, I mean, I'm real specific to say that because we have selection bias, in just about everything, and I don't even know if we can have a true random sample in exercise research.
Adam 10:34
Okay. Okay. Why don't you explain for us what selection or survivorship bias? It's also known as explain that a little bit. What is selection bias?
Ryan Hall 10:42
Sure. Okay. That's a great question, too. So, naturally, we gravitate towards things we do well, at, okay. If we don't do well, at something, we're probably not going to continue with it, or at least not try. So I mean, it can be in any type of sport, any type of activity could be like, if I don't, if I don't do well, at playing chess, I'm probably not going to be very competitive. I'm not going to continue playing chess, if I'm not large enough to be a football lineman, I'm simply never going to get selected or ever be a football linemen. So you know, that's, there's some genetic dictation with that also, um, and the, the latest statistics I looked at is that maybe about, I think it was 10% of the US population actually participates in strength training. So in order to even, you know, want to participate in strength training, that's something that you have to be interested in, I'm not going to say everybody has to do that very well. But that you have to be interested in that. Now. There's guys that are genetic freaks, right? That tend to just go to any gym and pick up weights and start throwing them around. And those people are far and few between, but they make great results. I mean, my, one of my, one of my tagline statements is there's guys that just have great genetics, I could probably throw tomatoes at them, and they'd still get big.
Adam 12:10
I use a similar I say, if somebody just looks at a barbell, they start getting bigger.
Ryan Hall 12:14
Yeah, absolutely. They take it, they smell it, or what I smell a gym and they get big. So you know, but for otherwise. So, you know, we look at people that are going to seek out a trainer, we're likely to get people with average to below average genetic potential, because these are people that did not do well on their own. Okay. But even in the research literature, it shows that those people that do well, it's there's a positive skew. And what that what that means is, is that there's a few individuals that do really, really well, that throw off the average result. And some of these people do exceedingly well. Well, as some of the research I've looked at is that, literally, with a fairly short term resistance training program, it was relatively high volume, that there's people that a few guys that gained up to 60% increase in muscle mass, but there was only like two people that did that. The rest of the people made average results. And some people even lost muscle mass and strength.
Adam 13:18
I agree with you. I mean, again, you know, both of us have a lot of experience of people and given the selection bias. And I agree with you, I think most people that seek out our services are baby boomers in general, their affluence, and they are the average type when I getting to many professional athletes in our gym, because, you know, again, like you said about selection bias. I think people that do really well with strength training, naturally. They don't need a trainer. They they they go they smell a gym, and they get bigger, and, you know, they move on it, why do they have to sport or they have to pay the money, even if they can afford it? They they're doing fine all by themselves?
Ryan Hall 13:57
Absolutely. 100% agreement.
Adam 13:59
So So yeah, so when we start training people, they they they do, I would say most of our clients, and we've been doing this for a long time, we have lots of clients, and I would say they are average genetics. Yeah. So let's dig deeper into this genetics for a second. All right. So one of the big, big determined determining factors of somebody seeing results, or how they should train is based on their blend, if you will, of fast twitch versus slow twitch. And then to me, even the intermediate twitch muscle fibers. And I would assume that if somebody possesses a large amount of one of the other or a blend of one or the other their their training protocol might might vary accordingly. So before we get into that, why don't we Why don't you speak to explain to our listeners about what exactly is fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers because there's a lot of confusion around that.
Ryan Hall 15:02
Okay. And so this is actually, I mean, it can be a difficult topic to discuss. It can be technical. But, um, so we don't normally Yes,
Adam 15:14
that's why I asked you the question and said, I'd rather you answer that question than me.
Ryan Hall 15:20
So let me think how to describe this. So you know, it's funny because I have like visuals of this that are easier. But this is the audio format. So the deal is that we can think of, we use the term Twitch to describe the motor neuron or the neuron, which is in the spinal column, and all of the muscle fibers innervated by that neuron, that's called a motor unit, okay? And the motor neuron is what twitches. So when we call when we specifically talking about fast twitch or slow twitch, you're actually talking about the motor neuron or the motor unit. The muscle fibers themselves are usually stained for enzymes. And that's why we normally use the term fast glycolytic or slow oxidative, or what's called fast oxidative glycolytic. And oxidative enzymes are going to really be more specific to endurance type training, okay, or longer times under load. Okay, so they're fatigue resistant. They make, think about I love automobile analogies, it makes a lot of sense. Think about the slow oxidative fibers as a Honda Civic. You know, or one of those Fiat 500, right? It's a small engine, it doesn't make a lot of horsepower, right? But it gets great gas mileage. Okay. Now think of those really large, fast glycolytic fibers, they're very strength base, that's more strength tissue, okay. So think of a Hemi V eight in the quarter mile running off a nitrous oxide, right, makes a lot of power, a ton of horsepower, but done in you know, 10 to 12 seconds or whatever the case, boom, it's out.
Adam 17:05
Runs out of gas quickly.
Ryan Hall 17:06
yeah. Now these classifications are convenient teaching tools for students. But a fiber can lie anywhere on that oxidative to glycolytic spectrum, okay. And muscle has a high degree of adaptability. So depending upon how it's used, it can adapt and change. Its ends aromatics, or enzymes properties, either oxidative or glycolytic. The way it's being trained, however, there's only so much adaptation that occur can that can occur through normal exercise a normal exercise stimulus. So where you are born on that oxidative glycolytic spectrum, and that muscle is how it's going to generally perform best. Okay, so glycolytic, fast glycolytic, those are strength based fibers and everyone's going to have, some people may have a little more of that than others, okay. And if someone has a lot of oxidative fibers, and they're going to be better at a longer time, when they train right or more endurance based activities, not strength based, they're going to get great gas mileage, but not put out a lot, a lot of horsepower. And so here's another analogy, I use Adam. Let's say, Tim, is more oxidative. And I'm more glycolytic. Okay, if we're both sled dogs, if we're pulling the same load, Tim could pull it farther than I could, right. But if the sled weighed a certain amount, he couldn't pull it at all. And I still could, is that a nice analogy kind of makes sense
Tim Edwards 18:46
I do like that, especially since you made me go really far really fast.
Ryan Hall 18:51
Now, most people are gonna fit in the middle. Okay, so with most people, we don't have to make severe adaptations in the training response. But what I find most interesting to me are the people, the individuals that fall outside of that are the outliers. And so those are the people I will love. I have a saying you probably know this too. I love difficult cases, because it makes me think a lot more and work a lot harder. I don't necessarily like difficult people. But I like the difficult cases because it really makes me work and use my brain a lot more in order to get those subjects that are the outliers that lie to the outside of the glycolytic oxidative spectrum. Those are the people that make me think the hardest I have to work harder to get those subjects optimal results from exercise. And that's what I enjoy doing. I enjoy challenges.
Sheila 19:52
Is there a way that you can assess what a person is on that spectrum or what they are, what their tendency is toward
Ryan Hall 19:59
absolutely Um, so there's a way to do that. And, you know, and Adam can probably tell you from his experience, also, we can do something called a one repetition maximum test, that's the maximal amount of weight that that individual can lift at one point in time. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of doing that, because there's a certain injury potential that comes with doing that. Okay, so I'll only do this test with clients that have more experience that are well trained, that have relatively perfect form. You know, there's no slop in the form, and there's no jerking, there's no heaving or anything like that. So you can do this one repetition, maximum test, and then take a percentage, generally 75 to 80% of that one repetition maximum. But you have to make sure that these clients are training with perfect form, if they're not training with perfect form, then that pretty much kills the test, okay. And I like to pick exercises that are not as easily as easy to cheat with, okay, for example, something like the medics chest press, um, rather than a seated dip, if you're doing a seated dip, people can rock back and forth, you know, they're, they, you know, it love it, leverage and all this other stuff, so that I don't like doing that test necessarily, but if you're doing something like chest press, or overhead press to kind of give you a little bit of idea of what the upper body does. And then I generally pick leg extension. You know, just because again, that's a little bit more difficult to cheat on, if you're, there's less movement of the body that's gonna come into play, and you could do other exercises, but they're more likely to cheat on those, like, let's say, you do, you know, use the medics bicep, right, people are gonna, they can, they can lean back into it, right, I mean, arch their back, stick their belly forward, you know, they try to cheat with it, if you're doing lateral raises, it's an independent movement arm, right. And they might not be doing full range, or whatever the case may be. But if you take this 80% on some specific exercises, and you have that client go to failure, again, with imperfect form, you're going to see a variety of responses between individuals. And people that have more strength based fiber or more glycolytic fibers, fast glycolytic are going to lift a heavier load, but they're going to get less repetitions and be on the machine for a lower time. On the other hand, people with oxidative fibers, the more endurance based tissue, they don't have enough of those strength based fibers to lift a very heavy load, but they can go for a very long period of time. And so those people are the outliers again, and so they're more difficult to get results with. But they're more interesting, in my opinion, at least to work with, because it requires some more thought process and some more skill for the trainer in order to get those particular clients great results from exercise,
Adam 23:20
you know, so So let's use an example for seconds just to make sure it's clear if everybody listening so the one repetition Max, meaning the most you can lift in one repetition. So let's say the most a person can lift on a leg extension machine for one repetition is 100 pounds. So what you do is you take 75% Of that number, so 75 pounds, you start putting them through a set at 75 pounds, and you're doing an imperfect form. So let's say a slow protocol like 10 seconds up 10 seconds down nice turnarounds not jabbing at it not not resting at the bottom turnaround or anything like that. And they end up lasting let's say 60 seconds until failure versus somebody else that can also do a 100 pound repetition max. And then they do 75 pounds and then lasting for let's say three minutes. So you'd be able to say alright, the person that lasts three minutes is more of the slow twitch oxidative muscle fiber type whereas the person that lasted only 60 seconds is more of the fast twitch glycolytic type. True?
Ryan Hall 24:32
absolutely. Yes that is true.
Adam 24:34
so here we are so that we got that straight. So now how do you train each person? So you discovered alright, this person has glycolytic fast twitch muscle fiber type and then you have another person here who's definitely you know, the the endurance type. So, how do you design the protocol accordingly.
Ryan Hall 24:52
So, you know, what I would do is that basically that time under load that repetition scheme is going to be What I'm going to use to train them. Now what I found, though, in working with these subjects that sort of lie to the outliers is that fast glycolytic subjects, they tend to increase on resistance more rapidly. So you can jump the weight at a faster pace. Where what we're looking for with the slow oxidative subjects, they increase on time, much better. So if you one of the things you'll see with oxidative subjects, when you try to increase the weight significantly, it drops their time way down. And that's an observation you can actually make without even doing the one rep, you know, the 75, or 80%, or one rep max test is that you'll see those subjects wind up improving on time. So let's say I have someone that needs to be on three minutes or over three minutes. If I go up a little bit on weight, let's say two to four pounds, right? So I go up from 100 to 100 200, for that time, under load is going to be knocked down. They may be you know, two minutes, 20 seconds, or somewhere around there.
Adam 26:09
Some cases, I found that, you know, you even increase the four pounds, they can't lift it at all. And I think I'm like, Yeah, ma and you get mad at them? Because you really don't you think they're totally faking it?
Ryan Hall 26:18
Right.
Adam 26:19
But it's not true. No,
Mike 26:20
I think I think the you know, we don't do the one rep max test, as you know, and I think we find our answer, or we get close to our answer within just a trend. After a few sessions, you know, you see how they adapt over, like a little increase or a lot increase. And you can see, it just takes I think the answer the question that a real assessment takes, you know, a handful of sessions or maybe a little bit more even sometimes, you know,
Ryan Hall 26:46
yeah, and you know, honestly, that's the way I prefer to do it. That's the way we normally do it. So and there's some things that you can watch for, there's some responses you can watch for, usually you'll see oxidative subjects, they don't get very winded or make a very, very intense cardiovascular sponsor metabolic response from the training stimulus. It's not, it's not quite as high. I've done things like measure heart rate, and they just don't get all that high, unless you're doing some really large exercises for like time under load. Like we have that squat machine Adam that, you know, for something like Leg Press Right?
Adam 27:29
Where you like, put me on? Yeah
Ryan Hall 27:30
yeah, it's right. Where, where the the fast twitch glycolytic more strength based subjects is that their metabolic responses, their heart rate, their chest is, you know, the hearts pounding of their chest with a short time under load. And so, yeah,
Mike 27:51
I'm sorry, it's a good point. Because we you, you observe lots of different people in the gym, we have several trainers in there, and people are constantly judging ahead of that person working hard. And we know that we I know that that person's going to muscle failure, but a little bit differently, but they display it. Some people are very, very visually, in an intense situation, whereas other people, they're, they're going to muscle failure, but it just doesn't like doesn't visually or audibly look like a very intense situation. But we know that they are, you know
Adam 28:23
so let's get back to that. So so let's talk, let's continue to talk about this oxidative person, right, who after they go to failure doesn't even seem like they had any experience at all, yet. We know they want to muscle failure. So so how are you training this person, you're just kind of keeping the weight the same for a while and let the letting them keep increasing in time until they reach failure. So let's say using that 75 pounds, and they last three minutes, and then you do it again, at 75 pounds, the next time they come in, and they last three minutes and 10 seconds or 15 seconds and you do it again with not changing the way and they start to maybe even get towards four minutes. And then you finally maybe raised the way to let's say 78 pounds. And then you see all of a sudden their time drops back down to like two minutes or something. So you keep it there for a while until they get back up to like four minutes. Would you say that would be a good approach to somebody like that.
Ryan Hall 29:19
That's exactly what we do. Adam totally matter of fact, there's a number you know, sometimes like you said, you takes a handful of sessions to sort of figure this out. Sometimes you can almost figure it out in the first session. There was this there was this woman who her name is Mary Lee, and she trained at another high intensity training facility in in the new uptown New Orleans area. And well, that's what we actually turned out that way there were not she was not being trained nearly as intense as we train people. Okay. But the first time she came in, I put her on the medics right Oh, and I'm figuring Okay, she's been doing this for several years now, she should at least be able to handle but 100, maybe 140 pounds. So I put her at 140 pounds and she couldn't budge it. So 140 pounds was not even her one repetition maximum. Okay, I put her on 120 pounds. And she stayed on for over four minutes. So that is a definite example of someone who is extremely oxidative, extremely enduring. So I mean, you know, let's say you could guess that her one rep max might be 130 pounds, whatever the case may be. But so her ideal training protocol was to keep her on until she was over four minutes and then bump the weight up. And what you found is when you bump the weight up even a little bit, her time under loads came way back down. But you just like you said, they improve on time. And sometimes they'll improve, you know, I don't know, 40 seconds a minute at a time. You know, sometimes it's a big, big difference.
Adam 31:01
Yeah, and then the only other spec on the other on the other side of the spectrum, then you have these people that the glycolytic fast twitch muscle fiber types, you know, you pick a weight, and they last a minute to failure that, like you said, they're breathing like a freight train, their chest is pounding out that their heart's pounding out of their chest. And then the next time you raise the weight, 10 15 20 pounds, and they they still last 60 seconds. They don't drop in time. And but but you can improve, you can keep increasing the weight. And they're always metabolically devastated.
Ryan Hall 31:34
Right? Absolutely. And I've also found out that, and you probably noticed the same thing is that over time, because those people are giving, you know, they're they're having these extremely deep metabolic responses. Those are the people that we have to sort of reduce the number of exercises, so the total because their intensity winds up being so high, they can't do as many exercises and they can't do it as long we had one real outlier with that one of my trainers, Shelley's training this girl, Lisa, and Lisa is in her early 30s. And she's gonna be getting married pretty soon. I'm really sorry to hear for that man. But she's a nice lady. But anyway,
Adam 32:24
Better hope Kelly's not listening to this episode.
Ryan Hall 32:28
She's extremely, she's so far on the glycolytic spectrum. That her first workout, she worked so hard. She literally went to vomit after like four exercises, okay, only the second shoe didn't vomit on the second. And then she didn't on the third. I told Shelly look for this girl, she doesn't stay on the machine any more than a minute. That's it one minute, boom, four exercises, okay, well, she doesn't have the problem with the nausea anymore, right. But her resistance has increased rapidly. And she's only made a few alterations to her diet really just by an increase in the protein content and reducing carbohydrate. And she dropped 12 pounds in a relatively short period of time. It's unbelievable how quickly she responded to it. But if we tried to train her the other way, you know, for more time under load. Literally, her metabolism just couldn't handle it. I mean, she doesn't adapt well to endurance training at all, but she's literally a high intensity superstar.
Adam 33:37
Yeah, it's it's astounding how much variation exists between people. And you know how, like Mike said, some people will be observing other clients working out and say that person, they've been breathing hard. Are they even working out hard? And vice versa? It's like, they'd look at the person after three exercises, you know, crawling on the floor, out of breath. And they think, Oh, they're just faking it. There's no way you know, like they're being the being
Mike 34:03
or they are they judge themselves and think, like, why am I not? What Why am I thought I was working hard? Obviously, I'm not working that hard. And it's what's amazing as some people could, they literally could come in here. Every session is slotted for 30 minutes, and they can be out and eight minutes.
Ryan Hall 34:21
Right
Adam 34:21
Yeah, that would be the glycolytic side. But you know, I have a question for you now, which comes to mind when you have that oxidative person that you do nine exercises with them. And at the end, they look like they just you know basically got you know that they didn't do anything they just got out of bed. You know they're fresh as a daisy. Is your goal as a trainer to somehow push their energy systems to the point when they do pants and get their heart rate up at no matter what you know, at all costs. Are you trying to do that? Or do you just accept the fact that they're never going to get to that point? But they're still gonna be gaining muscle because what's the point of all we're trying to whether they're oxidative or glycolytic? Whether they're somebody that has, you know, slow twitch muscle fibers and endurance type fibers? Or glycolytic? Isn't the goal to ultimately build muscle for that person? And do you have to get them to that point of exhaustion where they're panting? To help them build that muscle? Or do you accept the fact that they're never going to be breathing like a freight train, but they're still going to get stronger.
Ryan Hall 35:29
So I mean, our number one goal with resistance training, right is to have that person get stronger, and that's our objective measurement of improvement. And over time, as that load increases and the absolute intensity increases, it's going to affect them eventually, metabolically, but our main our main goal is to get them stronger and add muscle. Okay? Now, it depends on what the client's goal is, for example, I recently I had this lady Leslie, I've been training her for a number of years, and her and her husband, they went to on a biking trip in Europe. Okay. So she wanted to increase her cardio respiratory a little more. And for those people that that is their goal. We will offer, you know, the high intensity interval training on a cycle ergometer. So it really depends upon what their goals are, in the long term just for people that just want to function in their day to day everyday life. I don't necessarily think that's necessary. But again, it all depends on what their goals are. And so if you can, if you can get that person stronger, that oxidated subject stronger, that's all that really matters. Now, let me take a step back one, we, we often use the term intensity, and I write this, I wrote this a long time ago, and that I use three different types of intensity to define intensity. Okay, if you look in the research literature, they're going to define intensity as a percentage of the one repetition maximum. So that's what they use in the research. And I call that just intensity of load, meaning for them doing 80% of a one rep max is higher than doing 50% of a one rep max. That's not the type of intensity that you and I think of you and I think of intensity as the degree of momentary effort. Okay, and I call that either relative intensity or intensity of effort. But then there's another intensity, and I don't think a lot of people look at this, which I call absolute intensity, okay. And what I mean by absolute intensity, is the total stress that the body can tolerate, at one time, or at least over time. Okay, so let's say you have any subject, let's say they start out, they come in really weak, I'm sure you've seen people like this, right? Let's say they start out chest press. And literally, they can only do 30 pounds, before they reach failure on chest press. I mean, I've had, you and I probably have both had have had people who've never exercised in their entire life, okay. But you train that that person over a certain amount of time. And they literally over triple their strength, they're doing more than 90 96 pounds 100, their absolute intensity has effectively tripled. So the total stress that their body is tolerating, at that point in time has really gone up. And I think what we want to see, when we say we want to see someone stronger, we want to, we want to see their absolute intensity increase. And when we increase their absolute intensity, if they're doing much more of a workload, right, or for that specific time that they're working, then eventually it is going to have a pretty big effect on on their metabolism on their metabolic system and the cardiovascular system. So for everyone, as they get stronger, they're going to be increasing that absolute intensity.
Adam 39:02
You recommend doing intervals for people that are that you notice are primarily a slow twitch muscle fiber type versus the strength train, do you feel mixing that in is helpful to get their heart rate up and to push their their metabolism?
Ryan Hall 39:17
You know, again it all depends on what that person wants. I mean, there's some people that just don't want to do that. There's some people you know, I mean, New Orleans is a is an interesting place as you know, and our number one activity is probably drinking alcohol for most people that live here. Pretty much can't do anything in the city unless it involves alcohol. So
Adam 39:40
Food, and music
Ryan Hall 39:42
exactly totally. So um, you know, there's not a lot of so you know, selling what we do actually sells pretty well because many people don't want to do more than 30 minutes, one day a week. Okay. Now, you know if they want to if that is part of their Goal and they want to really increase that. Yeah, that's an additional service that we offer. But again, that person might not want to pay for that service, they might not want to pay for it, they may not be interested, and might not be able to afford it, they might not want to come back a second time of the week to do that, or even you know, and not have enough time to dedicate to it, and that training session, or whatever the case may be. So I have found that for oxidative subjects, incorporating intervals, depending upon their goal, it does help them I've had some clients tell me over again, very small handful, this is what I felt like I've been missing by just doing the resistance training. So even though they've gotten stronger, they, some people want to feel that, you know, that type of that push then, and some people don't. And again, we all go back to the individual client and what their goals are.
Mike 40:57
And here's an observation, you know, like, we have clients who, if they do the MEDEX, chest press, and they do it to muscle failure, but it doesn't display, like they don't feel like they got that cardiovascular push. And then I'll have them do like, on that same day later in the session or on a different session, slow push ups, like five seconds down very, very slowly and five seconds up. And and when they go to muscle failure in that exercise, which obviously is not just a chest exercise. They are much more metabolically challenged and actually feel that there is like their heart really was working and that the intensity that they saw somebody else do want a machine, they actually did beat when they held a plank, did some wall squats, or did like a bodyweight exercise versus a machine based on that observation and pushing the like, what what do you say about that in regards to what's going on with the body right there?
Ryan Hall 42:06
I would say I'd have the same observation as you exactly, totally, those people can not only tolerate a longer time under load, but can usually do more exercises. And in the workout. And I mentioned before some of the early work that Arthur Jones did before he started MedX. They this stuff was never made available to the public. He was doing some testing with servo powered Nautilus isokinetic devices. And he he saw
Mike 42:41
Everybody got that?
Tim Edwards 42:45
For those listening to the podcast, hit the 15 second button to go back 15 seconds to absorb that,
Adam 42:49
Hey Ryan Ryan, here real fast explain what an isokinetic machine is.
Mike 42:56
Because it's all ball bearings these days.
Ryan Hall 42:57
So what an isokinetic machine does is it these were servo powered. So what they do is it limits it limits movement at a specific speed. So you can literally try to lift it as hard and as fast as you can, and you're simply not going to be able to go any faster. And what Jones was doing is it was a it was a it was a nautilus leg extension machine, which he limited to 25 degrees per second. And a leg extension machine is basically about 110 seconds. I mean, I'm sorry, 110 degrees. So they were finishing each positive and negative stroke and a little over four seconds. So their reps were lasting about eight seconds. And what he noticed was, there was again, this huge amount of variability even with the same percentage to 75% of the one repetition maximum. Some people failed in as little as three repetitions, right. So that would be like as little as 24 seconds. And other people there was some one subject that needed a total of 34 repetitions in order to feel so that would be another a much higher time under load. So you know what was cool about that is he wasn't just observing this, but he was actually testing it and documenting it. And I mean, later they started doing this the something similar with MedX, where they used 50% of the static tests or the isometric test, which is you know, basically as much force as you can exert without moving right, that would be isometric. And that was about the same as that dynamic test or with the movement test with the isokinetic at but he lot he noticed this large variability and so that would be that would literally be exactly reflected in what we're discussing here today. And what he noticed though, is that with the oxidative subjects, they don't inroad, or they don't create, they create a very shallow fatigue, where glycolytic subjects create a very deep level of fatigue. So for someone who is oxidative not only do they need to stay on the machine more time, but they can actually tolerate more exercise. And so I'm just like you were saying that if you put another exercise in there or two, whether you're doing push ups or if you wanted to do like a pre exhaust type protocol where let's say we did leg curls, leg extension for legs, but then you put them on leg press afterwards, or then you can really get that metabolic demand without doing anything interval training.
Tim Edwards 45:50
That was part one of our two part interview with exercise physiologist and certified master trainer Ryan Hall. We''ll continue our conversation in next week's episode. And if you happen to be listening down in the Big Easy hit Ryan up at exercise science, LLC, personal training and physical rehabilitation for New Orleans, Louisiana, check out his website at exercisesciencellc.com. For inform fitness locations across the US check out informfitness.com To find the location nearest you and to pick up Adams book, visit Amazon then add power of 10 the slow motion fitness revolution to your shopping cart. In the book Adam discusses the three pillars necessary to burn fat build muscle and reboot your metabolism, as well as exercises you can perform if you are not near an inform fitness location. Or how about a free copy of Adam's book personally autographed by the guru himself, and perhaps an inform fitness hat, t shirt and a hoodie jacket. And for good measure. How about an Amazon Echo to listen to Amazon music, audio books and audible and even this podcast through the tune in app. Well if your name is Sandy dairy, Hamburg, it's all yours, courtesy of Adam Zickerman and the entire team at inform fitness. Congratulations, Sandy. And thank you and all of inform nation for participating in our contest. And for being a member of the inform fitness family. Look, we have a lot more fun stuff like that planned in the near future. So don't forget to subscribe to the podcast in whichever platform you might be listening from. Until next time for Sheila melody Mike Rogers and Adam Zickerman of inform fitness. I'm Tim Edwards with the inbound podcasting Network.
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