Transcription
I want to build my muscles, Lane, like your muscles. I want muscles like yours.
Um, question on the way that I'm working out. Just sort of practical advice. Do I have to work out to sort of overload till I fail? To to to build my muscles so that they're like yours?
Great question. So, uh, if I had to say how to build muscles like me, you put your biceps three hours a day, you know. Um, can we use AI to shrink them? Stephen just having the biggest arms in the podcast.
Um, what matters for building muscle we think. Um, we we have the amount of hypertrophy research in the last 10 years has absolutely exploded compared to what it was before. And hypertrophy is muscle growth is what we're talking about. What seems to be the cause of it is what's called mechanical tension. So just creating a lot of tension on the muscle because now we're actually having studies coming out where doing like hard stretching. They actually see increased muscle growth from like sustained hard stretching.
There was a a study done um with the calf muscles. So they put them in this contraption where basically they're like stretching their calves and holding it there. I think I can't remember what the duration was but it was it was a long time, right? And they were comparing that to traditional resistance training and it was I mean it was a pretty painful stretch. I think they said it was like a seven or eight or nine out of 10 in terms of pain level for this stretch but they built as much muscle as people who were doing calves three times a week resistance training. I think they were doing these stretches every day. So it was it was pretty intense. But that's really interesting, right? Because even if you don't have weight, you can still create that tension through stretching, right?
Um, now the stretching again, not your traditional like, you know, it it's pretty intense and pretty painful. I would argue that resistance training is probably a more practical methodology to getting it and more fun. But in terms of mechanical tension, it does to maximize muscle growth. So, we always have to be careful about like a lot of things could cause muscle growth, but if we're talking about absolutely maxing muscle growth, you do have to get close to volitional failure, which is basically like if I'm doing say a bicep curl, right? Or maybe a bench press, better example. I'm doing reps, reps, and start. That's failure, right? The research suggests you don't have to go to failure, but you have to get pretty darn close within a couple reps, you know, and if you've never trained to failure, it's actually really hard to know what that feels like.
Um, and so like and actually in in research studies where they take people who are beginner intermediate and they ask them like they have them do a set and they ask them, "Hey, how many more reps could have you gotten?" They underestimate by like five.
Yeah.
Especially difficult when you're training alone. Something like bench press, if if I fail the thing back fing. So, I'm like I've put in a buffer of maybe three reps there just so that I don't embarrass myself in front of, you know.
Exactly. Um, mechanical tension appears to be cumulative. And what I mean by that is if it was just about creating as much tension as possible, just load the bar up and just do one rep, right? So, it's it's cumulative throughout a set. Now the way I like to describe it is intensity is the medicine and the number of hard sets which number of sets close to failure is the dosage.
Now when you first start um you can get results on a very low dosage because your body has literally done nothing. It'll grow off anything as you progress. Remember remember when you first started lifting you'd add 5 10 pounds every week right like clockwork. Well eventually you can't add that anymore right? But you can still a lot of times you can increase the reps, right, with the same weight. Well, eventually you can't do that anymore. So, how do you continue to progress? Well, you can add more hard sets.
And what do you mean by hard sets?
Uh volume. So, for example, if I'm let's just take bench press again, right? Let's say I'm doing three sets close to failure and I eventually stop progressing.
I can add another set. And that is still another form of progressive overload, right? Because again, mechanical tension is cumulative. And I mean, there is there's some debate about this in the the resistance training field, but for the most part, I would say it's generally agreed upon by most experts that higher volumes improve muscle growth relative to lower volumes, meaning more hard sets. And it doesn't really seem to matter about machines versus free weights either. Uh seem to cause equal kinds of muscle growth. So, when it comes to building muscle, the cool thing is you got a lot of options. And if you have pain doing one thing, you know, joint pain, whatever, lower back pain, try something else.
Fantastic news for me. Lane, we have a closing tradition on this podcast.
Okay.
Where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're going to leave it for. And the question that's been left for you.
Oh, I like this. I know what my question will be.
Your one's a really difficult one. Okay.
So, I don't get to see it until I open this book, but Jack has a has a little peak before I ask the guests.
No, it actually wasn't Andy because there was one person between them and they're the person that left this question for you. Very difficult question.
I think.
Have you ever stayed in a relationship that was harming you and why?
Yeah. Um because of a lot of reasons. One being uh perception from other people, I felt like I had to make it work. Um the other being because of some of the remnants of bullying. Um, I found it very hard to trust myself in personal relationships to I could be easily talked into me being the problem for everything. And I'm not saying that I was never the problem because I definitely was. I've made a lot of mistakes in personal relationships and I've I've had my own toxic behaviors that I know I do. Um, but yes, I have definitely stayed in a relationship too long. And I think one of the hardest things for me and for a lot of people is knowing when is it time to give up and when is it time to push through? And I don't think we have I don't think anybody has a clear parameter. But for me, staying in was not trusting myself, not trusting my gut, and feeling like I had to make it work.
Because of the kids or because of this or because of whatever.
Because of a a whole host of of many things. And again, you know, I I think I'm not a relationship expert, but you know, I've I've I've gone to therapy for eight years now. Um, one of my good friends, John Deloney, is an expert on this. And, and very rarely does a relationship break down because of just one person. It it's usually a dynamic. And but I think that is one of the hardest things to figure out when when is it time because we talked about like not quitting, you know, these sorts of things. But there's also like sometimes it's not quitting, it's just moving on to possibly something better, right? And learning from what happened. And yeah, that is a really tough question. And um I've definitely stayed in things too long and not just not just like romantic relationships but also like um business partnerships, friendships, you know, where it became highly toxic. And again, um I think the next hardest thing to do after that is looking back and going, what did I contribute to that lane?
In my life, I've lost people. I've lost a lot of, you know, people along the way from, you know, grandparents, um, friends. Lady who used to was sort of my proxy mother when I was younger died in a motorcycle accident. Um, and it's only in those moments that you you kind of have the regrets of all the things that you could have said.
You know, you you wish you could go back. And often for people somewhat similar to me, somewhat maybe similar to you who have had struggles with expressing their emotions, um, we probably have the greatest amount of regret because we found it harder to maybe tell these people when we had the chance.
So, my closing question for you, which is a question of my own.
Mhm.
Is if right now you could send a message to your kids.
Mhm.
And I'm going to let you send one as well to your granddad and your dad and it was the last thing you were going to say. What would you say?
Uh, okay. My kids, I would say, of course, I love you more than anything. Um, you, God dang it, you, um, you fulfilled a hole in my life I didn't know I had. Um, and I wish I could go back and do a lot of things differently, but I love you more than anything. And I don't care what you do with your life. Find something that you love and it is a positive contributor to the world and go do that and try to make somebody else's life better along the way.
And to my dad, I would say thank you like for not following in your dad's footsteps and not like stepping in front of that wildfire and saying not on my watch. Sorry. Um, you know, my dad's not perfect, but both my mom and dad are really great people. and um you know um they've they've um struggled with some health issues. Um and um you know if I had to say one thing it would be you know thanks for always believing in me, always having my back, accepting me for who I was. In some ways, I feel like they're the only people who always accepted me for who I was. And they never put expectations on me for what I want to do with my life. When I told them I wanted to get into bodybuilding, they were like, "Oh, this seems weird." But, okay. When my first bodybuilding show, they were the loudest people up there supporting me. You know, they're um you know, when I won Worlds in 2022, I was going through a very hard personal time in my life. um basically the front end of a divorce and it had just kind of come to a head um like just the whirlwind kind of chaos stuff and my mom called me. They were they were watching online um with my kids and my mom was like, "Son, how the hell did you just do that with everything going on in your life? How did you do that?" Um, and um you know, they've just always been such big supporters of me even when they didn't understand. you know, my mom didn't understand like, you know, every what are you studying again? What are you studying again? But, you know, came to my PhD exit seminar, you know, mom was at every baseball game growing up. Uh, dad was on the road a lot, but, you know, couldn't um but came to everything he could, you know, they they they showed up for me a lot, and I knew, you know, I knew I was loved. And so if I had to say anything to them, it would just be, "Thank you for everything that you did." And when I had kids, I was like six weeks in, I called my mom. I'm like, "Oh my god, you did all this stuff for me and I gave you all that grief. I'm so sorry." You know? Um, so yeah, they're amazing.
And if I had to say something to my grandfather, it would just be, "God, um, you know, I would give somebody asked me this the other day. I would give anything to have five more minutes with my granddad and ask him so many questions about life that I just didn't know enough about to even ask the question, you know, cuz the man just oozed wisdom.
You know, but if I had to say anything, I'm like I would just say, "Thanks for what you did for your family." Um, you know, my grandfather when he passed, I mean, this is a man who had like he had his first heart attack in his 50s and this back in the 19 like late se like 1970s when like open heart surgery was like carpentry, you know. His expect his like life expectation I think was five years at the time. He was in the Battle of the Bulge, the deadliest battle in World War II. Um, one more story. Um he um I forget what country he was in, but he was supposed to go on leave the next day and a convoy was coming through and was going to the place where he was going to go on leave right behind the lines. And uh his commanding officer said, "Hey, why don't you just take it? Like just go today." That night uh a German soldier dropped a grenade down and killed his entire unit. And uh sorry, dang, I didn't think you'd get me to cry on this podcast, man.
So much.
Uh and he said, you know, after that day, I just everything was I was living on borrowed time in my opinion. He's like, I should have been down there. And uh he said, I get up every day. I look at the obituary and if I'm not in it, I figure I'm good for another day. And uh he had I think three heart attacks, three open heart surgeries, two strokes. He had a boat fall on him. Long story. Um so this guy just we always joked he had nine lives. And um whenever um he was on his deathbed, I mean we kind of it was we knew like six weeks in advance he had kind of multi-systemm just basically old age. And um it never occurred to me. I was 20 years old. It never sorry 22. It never occurred to me the idea of how you die as being so important and he went exactly how you would draw it up. Um, you know he was in hospice so he was at his home his whole family was around him and again he was the funniest man I ever knew. And I walked in and all the seats are taken and he's still lucid talking and um I said uh he had his little like portable toilet, you know, but he hadn't been using it, whatever. The seat was down and I said, "Do you mind if I sit here?" Cuz I was going to sit next to him and he said, "Yeah, you can't clog that one up." Cuz I was known in my family for clogging toilets, right? So he's still cracking jokes on his deathbed. And even like uh the doctor asked him when he was basically the doctor telling him, "Hey, you've got like six weeks left." Doctor said, "Hey, we you know, you're an organ donor, but we can't really use anything uh you know, it's all bad basically. Would you be interested in donating your body as a cadaavver for med students?" He goes, "I always wanted to go to med school. I figured it's the only way I'm getting there now." So just like had this great outlook on life, you know, and um just when he passed um I can remember my sorry my mom looking at him and saying, "It's okay, Dad. It's okay. We're going to be okay." And uh I wasn't even sad because I'm like that guy, he got every bit out of it. He he milked life for everything he had and a great family and so many people who loved him. And if I could just have that kind of impact, even half that impact on my family, oh man, that'd be worth so much to me. So I would just tell him, "Thank you for being an inspiration."
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