Mindset During an Injury, Nitrate Supplementation, How to Deload and more [Podcast]

To deload or not to deload? Join Jeff Hoehn and me on this podcast episode of ‘The Mind Muscle Connection’ as we unravel the latest research surrounding the quest for hypertrophy. We talk about the importance of your mindset during an injury, the latest supplementation trends on dietary nitrates, protein requirements during a cut vs. surplus, my thoughts on deloading, and much more.

Check out the time stamps below for an overview of the topics.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

TIME STAMPS:

• (0:00): Update on Menno.
• (7:45) Update on my training/back injury.
• (26:22) New study on dietary nitrates.
• (34:10) Protein targets during a cut vs. surplus.
• (44:40) His method and thoughts on deloading.
• (53:06) Are deloads necessary, or can you just do a session at 3-4 RIR?
• (55:50) Best body fat% during off-season for a powerlifter.

TRANSCRIPT: 

This is an automatically generated transcript of the podcast.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 0:00
This podcast is a show that is dedicated to educating you on applying science based nutrition and mindset strategies from some of the top minds in the industry to help leaner stronger and more confident. So I’m your host Jeff Payne. Let’s dive in

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 0:25
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the mind muscle connection podcast and today I have a special guest Menno Hanselmans. He is back on for the third time so metal Welcome back on our pleasure. So I think last time we talked I think you were in Mexico, I believe. And I always every time you come on I like to ask you where in the world is Menno.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 0:46
Currently I’m in Lisbon, Portugal.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 0:49
Awesome. Is that is that kind of a regular place for you is there’s the first time you’ve been there.

Menno 0:55
Been here a few times and I’ve lived here now for about three months. So it’s a relatively long stay like It’s like Portugal and Brazil in general. And I could get by with Portuguese. Here in Lisbon, everyone speaks English. Pretty much so you don’t really need to, but it’s nice. Nice atmosphere. Great sushi, which is my favorites. Yeah, just very tranquilo. And nice place to live.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 1:26
Awesome. So you you big sushi guy myself. What’s your what’s like your go to roles do you have any like that? Or is it just kind of anything or you know, what does that look like?

Menno 1:35
I like a very traditional, so lots of fish. Not too much fusion stuff. I do like Salman avocado a lot. I think it’s a great combination. And I make my own sauces with sucralose so I always bring sucralose and use it in soy sauce to make sweet soy sauce. And I like Nagi sauce. And yeah, it’s a little more sweetener to that as well so you only need the tiny little bit you can get pretty creative.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 2:03
Yeah, that’s that’s cool thing with sushi. There’s so many things I feel like probably for a lot of people. That’s where you know, sushi can add up in terms of calories, as you kind of mentioned that you add to your own sauce. And I’m assuming that’s probably just to kind of watch make sure they don’t add a ton of calories or is that just kind of preference in terms of like, like just the taste of it or is there like maybe gut issues there with you or yeah, what does that look like? Or is it just yeah, just because you know you are in more control of the calories because I feel like for most sushi if you get like a roll or something like that that’s probably where they can really start to add up in terms of calories is this sauces that they put on their

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection2:37
So most of what I eat is simply soy sauce with sucralose so in that it becomes sweet soy sauce, but it’s still almost zero calorie and you need very little because it’s very strong in taste. So I don’t think it consumes a lot of calories from the sauce. If you have like mayonnaise or you know cream, those kinds of things on the future rolls that racks up calories a whole lot faster indeed.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 3:01
Yeah, I guess what would you consider fusion is that like kind of the the crazy like these like insane roles that they have that just have all kinds of toppings is that which what would what would be considered fusion?

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection3:11
Yeah, that’s definitely fusion. Traditional is basically rice fish soy sauce. And you know it gets, it doesn’t get much crazier than tobacco. So the aqwal for the Ag nigori Maki, Temaki Bukom. That’s, yeah, rolls are mostly simply maki that California has already technically Susan. Here’s some interesting

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connectionn 3:36
Yeah, those are those are usually the pretty popular ones. I feel like over here in the States, the fusion ones, but those are usually the ones that are the most tasty and again, are the most calorie dense ones. As far as like traveling to you, you try to stick with places that are like certain time of the year in terms of weather and you just Yeah, do you kind of base your decision off that or is it just again, where you’re just where you guys are open to going during that time?

Menno 3:59
Mostly for sure. Research actually finds that all the things we have which way to in terms of subjective well being, the weather is not one of them. So sunlight consistently makes people happier. And it keeps making people happier, even in the long run. So I think it’s whenever possible like most people say, you know, everyone likes on and I think it is very valuable to have a good amount of sun in your life and if not use daylight lamps. With 10,000 Lux that also really helps to compensate. So most of the time I do spend in relatively warm, sunny areas. I don’t like the heat so much I’m actually relatively intolerant to heat. So air conditioning for me is a must. But I do love the sun, which means I spent most of my times in tropical areas and when it’s winter in Europe, I typically go to Asia or some other place. There have been I think, almost 10 years of my life where I didn’t even have a coat

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 5:00
That’s crazy. I’d say so definitely I figured it was more you and usually I feel like when people travel like that and are nomads I feel like they usually try to stick to places that are usually warmer and I don’t blame you know it gets where I live it gets pretty cold here in the winter and man I’ll tell you what I definitely noticed a difference in terms of mood you know when it when it’s cloudier and colder out, you can’t really get outside and I know that’s you know, that’s probably why a lot of places like for example California it’s like such a popular place to go to and live and why it’s so expensive to live there. You know, there’s definitely something to that for sure. But you said there is research to back up that you know being in the sun more what leads to general happiness for most people.

Menno 5:37
Yep. Lights therapy really works. Well think it looks like therapy with an artificial sun or daylight lamp wherever you want to call it. And vitamin D supplementation if needed. It really makes a difference.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 5:51
Now, do you think that is because of the vitamin D or is it just multiple multiple reasons in terms of that? Maybe because we evolved like being outside and being in the sun or what do you think what are your thoughts on that?

Menno 6:01
No, the light exposure is circadian rhythm effects. Okay, there’s actually typically no UV light in these kind of lamps. So even though it’s to be full spectrum, it’s not really full spectrum and that it doesn’t have you will feel light like sunlight so it won’t get you a tan. It’s not like a turning kind of light. Below chatting has actually been found to make people happier as well. If when people use a tanning booth, it actually has a significant measurable effect on their well being as well. So that’s I wouldn’t be opposed to choosing that either. But the skin cancer risk is all sorry, like so. There’s that to consider.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 6:41
But sorry, go ahead.

Menno 6:43
Yeah, no, so it’s not the vitamin D that’s the daylight lamp operates under the vitamin D is separate mechanism, simply vitamin D depletion if you will get no sunlight at all during the winter. That’s also responsible for some of the more prolonged winter blues.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 7:01
Gotcha. Yeah, that’s that’s really interesting because yeah, so it’s mostly circadian rhythm. What you said but obviously Vitamin D plays a role but also with the tanning beds and that is kind of funny like you said, though, definitely make sure that you know, there’s obviously the skin cancer risk, but it’s funny to hear that because I feel like most of the time, not most of the time pretty much all the time. You’re going to hear negative things about tanning beds. So it is kind of interesting to hear something positive about it. So but like you said obviously you know there’s there’s still the risk of skin cancer. So yeah, so obviously, you’re you tell us where you’re at where you’re at now.

So living in Portugal for the current time being what about your back? I know that last time we had you on that was bothering you. But I did see recently on Instagram that you kind of gave everybody an update on it and you did kind of mention that it’s a little bit worse than what you would thought

Menno 7:51
definitely. Oh, ad for prolonged that it simply hasn’t healed yet. And in fact, it’s not really better than it was. It’s better now than it was way at the start. I think what I’m currently doing is working slowly, very, very slowly. But yeah, it’s not soft tissue. I thought it was like quadratus lumborum tear, which was seemed to be the only thing that made sense to me at the videos I talked about because there was an audible pop. It wasn’t that severe, seemingly in terms of pain and the like, functional restrictions. And it happened during double benchpress so I thought Yeah, with the pop and the pain location being clearly to the side of the spine. I felt okay. should be soft tissue. Everyone pretty much the doctor agreed. I mean, it might still be but it doesn’t show on the MRI. And what the MRI does show is at least one significantly herniated disc and one below it’s also slightly bulging. And then there’s strong debates about what are L one L two is anteriorly. Herniated? I’m not quite sold on that. And even if that is true, I doubt it’s responsible for my symptoms. But yeah, just goes to show with these banks, you get a million different opinions and there’s almost no consensus. It’s crazy how little consensus there is also after my update, I got like 50 Different unsolicited diagnosis, physios all sorts of different professionals that Instagram me, Facebook, me, emailed me. People connected me to other people and it’s really completely all over the place. It’s crazy how little even off the most basic facts like could a hernia be responsible for these symptoms. Zero consensus some people say yes or if your symptoms are typical. Other people say no, these symptoms are literally impossible to have with our Indiana disk.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 9:56
Yeah, that’s so so that is crazy because you’re really like you said you’re getting so many different opinions on it. And it does make you really think like, I mean, to me that just tells me Hey, you definitely want to get at least a second opinion on injuries when you if something pops up. So with all that information, then what are your next steps and I mean, are you gonna just keep trying to do what you’ve been doing and try to get better or do you kind of have a game plan there to Yeah, start to get better.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection10:27
Yeah, my current method is much like the McGill methods. So I’m doing his his rehab drills with some modifications. And I’m mostly following is kind of setup where you’re monitoring the amount of pain freeness especially for me mornings are probably the best indicator is the one big difficulty for me is that almost nothing I do hurts unless it really makes it a lot worse. So when when it’s painful for me, I know it’s got a lot worse typically. And I only noticed the next day, which is very, very difficult. So if I walk too much for one day, for example, then the next day I’ll know it but I won’t know it during the day. So it’s just everything is a very slow process where it’s like two weeks, three weeks, I do method A and then oh no I did something wrong and I’m back to square one and then all I’ve learned okay cannot do this. And then again another three weeks pass. And then okay, cannot do this. And so very very gradually moving towards being paid free now I was actually been free for a few days. But now I found out that bird dogs you cannot do but I cannot do bird dogs with straight legs. So pretty much any any dudes activity is a huge risk factor for me.

Unknown 11:44
And you can’t do bird dogs because of the injury or just your like your body type.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 11:50
The the injury Yeah, it makes it worse. So whenever I do if I do dogs with glutes extension, so fully straightening the leg as is typically instructed which is funny because at the same time they say look, you cannot move the pelvis and spine when doing the burdock. So you should stay fully tight, maintain your spinal race and then you fully extend the leg. Like those things are literally mutually exclusive. It’s impossible to fully flex the glutes without moving your pelvis and probably also the spine to at least at least a few degrees.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connectionn 12:23
Yeah. Wow. So that sounds frustrating just because like you said, it’s like it doesn’t you don’t get that like indicator right away. It takes like you said a day so it’s almost like you kind of have to wait and see and then from there. It’s like you Yeah, it just takes a little while to figure out what is bothering and what is and I can definitely see where that can get very frustrating. So as far as like training goes, is that still kind of the same as last time or do you switch that up? Or are you not training at all right now?

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 12:51
A lot less my volume was about for two if I recall correctly from where it was. Last time. My leg workouts are basically leg extensions, leg curls, calf raises. That’s it. And in the like spinal stabilization drills so like we’re dogs for they’re nearly stimulating enough for me to gain muscle mass probably not even to attain it. Upper body, even anything remotely inducing spinal stresses is also out. So it’s basically minimum effective volume aiming for six sets for muscle group per week. So very, very low. Volume and very controlled rate spinals to stability during all exercises. And yeah, that seems to calm me down gradually. But yeah, it’s it’s so a very slow process because one day if I stand too long or too much, whatever any day like they did, if activity or change exercise even just a little bit can set me back another two weeks and while we’re in the process, just gotta stick with it.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 13:57
Yeah, I guess my question you then off of that. So you’ve cut down volume, big time. I think again, you know, research has shown that you can maintain I mean what you’re doing now, like you said it’s more MeV. So minimum effective. So you are seeing like some progress, just very small amounts. But the cool thing with that is like maintenance is a lot lower than what you would think it would be and so I’m assuming you’re probably using that to your advantage there and I guess to follow that up you know, how are you mentally about are you feeling kind of frustrated with the process? Are you more just like hey, I’m just able to learn a little bit more about this. What’s going on? Or yeah, I’m curious to hear how you kind of are mentally about everything going on.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 14:37
There are always these moments where especially every setback, you have to mentally reset, because it just I mean, it’s really sucks. It’s such a slow process. It’s I mean, it’s been since September, and I’ve had maybe 20 pain free days. So the pain I can deal with very well. I’m not. I’m not too fussed about the pain but as long as long as I knew for sure I was on the track where Okay, I’m going to recover as long as I just do this. For me the biggest problem is the old setbacks and knowing or not knowing for sure like am I ever going to get over this because my the timeline is already much worse than it’s been for many individuals. So that’s probably the worst part for me. And training wise, um, I think I’m pretty good with mentally resetting. For example, first I have to face where I’m trying I’m going to try to get my squat and deadlift strength up like in September and while that quickly went out the window so I was like, okay, strength, not a priority for me. Just gotta try to maintain my size and then well next thing that I always tell my clients as well is okay if we can at least train all of your muscle groups with at least minimum factor volume. we’re golden. Now we will be a bit taller. But if we can rehab this and still get at least minimum effective volume and for muscle groups, and we’re doing well, you know, we’re making progress. And the fact that we’re not doing the exact exercise that we’d like to do all of these things are relatively trivial. We can still make progress and move in the right direction. And we had this but then now I’m also at the level where Yeah, that’s definitely not going to happen. That’s for the rector, spina and the glutes at a minimum. So Okay, those are always also out not the most important muscles. So, again, we can live with that and that the main thing is simply knowing, you know, is this is this going to be what I’m gonna do the next year, or at least I’m gonna know if the next year I’m gonna be better. Well, there’s no way to tell. So I’m just gonna have to stick with it and learn as much as possible from it. And focus on other things in life.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 16:50
Yeah, so it sounds like you know, mentally you’re, it’s obviously not easy for you, but it’s, it seems like overall, you’re in a pretty good spot here. But also, like you said, just kind of like being able to reset has been key for you in terms of like, Hey, I’m gonna, you know, get my squat and bench up and then obviously, like you said, Now that wasn’t able to work out now you’re kind of resetting. Okay, now I’m gonna be able to keep up certain muscle groups, but I believe I heard if I heard correctly, like glutes and like erector spinae ‘s are ones that you’re not going to be able to keep up so you’re just kind of just basically just like, Okay, that is what it is. And now I got to work around this as best as I can. And then basically, the mental part that you struggle with the most is just like not knowing when you’re going to the timeline of that basically, because like most injuries, I feel like other than like, maybe a sprain, but even a sprain you kind of have a concussion to I guess you don’t there’s not really a timeline, but are there is a timeline, but there’s not for those and so like I could see where that’s like, probably the biggest thing that would mess that would mess with me mentally the most to it’s just like not knowing when this is going to be over. Yeah, or if it’s gonna be over, or Yeah, even if it’s gonna be over, right? Yeah, that too because like you said it could hope hopefully not hopefully you get a good prognosis eventually here and things start to calm down. So you kind of mentioned pain too. Are you do anything specifically there to kind of reduce the pain that you feel during this time? Like, I don’t know if like supplementing or nutrition wise or anything like that?

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 18:10
No, I’m actually deliberately including the pain. So I’m not taking any pain killers at all. Because I think it’s very important to stay sensitive to your basic goals. These are one of the only things you have. So I mean, we have the imaging and I have pain signals. And that’s that’s pretty much it. Like other than this. What do you have to go by like, how do you know when to stop if I was taking painkillers, and I would just keep walking? I wouldn’t feel anything. I mean, this is basically not I didn’t take painkillers, but that’s the method I tried for the first two months, you know, to sort of modern pain science, okay. Theoretically, this injury does not correspond with major tissue damage. So maybe it’s a neural thing. Maybe it’s muscle cramps actually tried even taurine supplementation at start. Because I was like, God, this doesn’t make any sense. Maybe it’s just cramps cuz it wasn’t Mexico and you sweat a ton, so maybe electrolyte deficiency or some kinds. Yeah, obviously didn’t do anything. But that didn’t do that didn’t help at all. Like just walking through the pain and ignoring it, which is a method that’s often that’s okay, that’s actually especially when it comes to walking. But yeah, that there were at all. So I’ve tried a few of these different methods. And for me, the the MRI at least, even if it like that’s another big uncertainty if the hernia the herniated disc is actually the cause of the symptoms, because it doesn’t correspond with the original pain location, but then again, nothing does. So it’s a weird injury for sure. But at least it’s excluded a lot of diagnosis and it definitely made me realize, okay, this is really where this could very well be a very significant structural issue that’s going to last at least months, probably a year until it’s react. So mindset wise, it helps and it also made me realize how important it is, or very well could be and it excluded a lot of the other diagnoses that others have made, like productive Summorum strain dare so you know, even Of course, there are still people that say like, Yeah, but maybe those children right Well, it’s, it’s at least not a fully checked turn off without this on board because that you would definitely see right so it definitely I think helps more than some people now give it credit for

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 20:31
Yeah, so with that that was interesting with the pain like you said you, not taking anything because you do want to be you know, in touch with your with your pain and like you said that what I got out of that was like he didn’t want to take anything because you want to make sure that like it’s getting better and you’re not like out of touch with what’s going on to where it’s like you could potentially make it worse. Is that kind of

Menno 20:49
exactly. That’s been there for many for many straight for a nice. One of the most important things with injuries. I think one of the biggest gaps that’s towards a lot of public debates is between officials that have experienced with strike trainees, the physios that do not work for strength friends, and that is a world of difference. So if you have an individual, like my parents, my parents currently or my father as knee problems, now probably one of the best things he can do is just to be as active as possible because he doesn’t train or anything. So he just needs to walk a lot. And if painkillers help him walk more, it’s probably going to be net beneficial for him. Because just the act of recovery, the fact that he’s doing something is more important than anything else. For more strength trainees that have something like a real tissue damage, injury or overuse injury. Pain is one of the most important things to listen to, if they start walking through pain. Many of my hardcore clients if I tell them you know, just you know push for a little pain. They’re just gonna make it worse and worse and worse.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 21:50
Yeah, so really just kind of getting you know taking the individual person into account, you know, it’s what they need, like you said, somebody that strength, strength, strength training, they need to probably rest like you said, whereas like somebody like your father who has knee pain, he probably needs to continue to stay active and move and if you just give a kind of one size fits all approach, you know, that’s you’re going to run into some some issues there. Um, what about your nutrition if you change anything on that side like are you going through any phases are you just kind of keeping your calories around like maintenance during this time?

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 22:20
Yeah, maintenance main gaining I would say like, I mean, such a lean bulk with barely any energy surpluses or I recently did a shortcut, which also didn’t seem to help the recovery process but I need to get some fat off so that I’m just sort of main gaining on a lot lower calorie intake because of the volume reduction, and I’m not doing you know, squats deadlifts, these big kind of compound lifts. A lot of machine work. So my energy expenditure in the gym is measurably reduced as well.

Unknown 22:55
Yeah, that’s, you know, I’m glad you brought that up. Because, you know, a lot of people think that their calories are going to be this fixed number but it’s like, you know, that can change over time like you said, you’re not doing as many squats and compound movements, you’re doing more machine work, but I mean, also probably even just like movement as well, right? Where it’s like, overall movements probably down because you said even sometimes if you move too much that can bother your back. So probably overall movements down a little bit as well, which is going to you know, probably have a pretty significant impact on your metabolic rate. Especially with somebody like you that has, you know, a lot of muscle on your on your body so well that little bits going to add up. And you said you cut for a little bit and you said that wasn’t really great for your recovery.

Menno 23:35
No, they seem too weak cuts and yeah, there was no progress during that time, whereas there should have been and using similar methods the next week, there was so I mean, I’m right now I think I’m still at the stage of the sort of initial healing trying to get pain free to you know, at least wake up being free, which I’m now almost almost out again. And it’s very, very delicate. I think overall, people probably overestimate the effect of nutrition on healing, especially when these kind of serious injuries because the body prioritizes its nutrients quite well. Just like if you go into energy deficit, it’s not like your body goes metabolize the heart and the brain and vital organs. There’s actually good research on organ prioritization of the human body and its organ sparing tendencies. And strength training essentially puts muscle tissue at the organ level or a little interest in terms of what it does with it in energy deficit. So he tries to steal spirits and that’s why you will you’re able to lose falsely or even exclusively fat, we go into energy deficit and you have a properly set up training program. So I think many people think, Oh, I cannot see or I’m not an energy supplies. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Because if you think of the awful hospital foods most people get, I think the vast majority of people in the hospital are in an energy deficit, especially bigger people, because they all get the same food, right? It’s crazy how bad hospital food is.

(26:22) New study on dietary nitrates.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 25:08
Yeah, no, that is a really good point you bring up your body is going to be really good at prioritizing like what what it needs to do and so know that that makes a lot of sense. And like you said to the hospital food, yeah, that food. The whole I don’t know about that. And then like even even on the fact to that, the Sir, I’m assuming what you were talking about, there were the serving sizes, right? I mean, the serving sizes are going to be the same for somebody that’s 275 pounds and probably 130 pounds, right. I mean, is that kind of eluded? Yeah, that’s what I figured. Yeah. Cool. So basically, like you said, I mean, just be like, basically, people overestimate the role of nutrition. When it comes to injury. Again, your body’s going to do a really good job at prioritizing those things on its on its own. Cool so hopefully, next time we chat, your back is almost fully healed. You know, I know that you’ve been dealing with this for a while. So I hope that you know, I know you’re working hard to get back to normal. So I hope that you know, things start to head in that direction here soon. Cool. So I want to kind of let’s go to the next thing I wanted to chat about with you was are there any new either nutrition or fitness or really any any other studies out there that are either coming out or that have recently come out that you have found to be super interesting you pick maybe like one or two or something like that whatever you think is necessary for the audience. To hear?

Menno 26:23
Sure, today, I can talk about the study I looked at today, which was I read the EPUB before, but it says new study from Thompson’s at all, and they looked at dietary nitrate supplementation in the form of red spinach extract which falls under the no booster category that nitric oxide booster kind of supplements along with citrulline. And they felt no beneficial effects at all. And they measured body composition strength development, power outputs, they were concurrent athletes Division One baseball players, so doing strength and endurance training essentially, which should be a pretty ideal scenario for nitrates and yeah, no effects and also no effects on health markers like blood pressure and heart rates. Because some people they say like okay, well if it doesn’t, you know, improve my gains at least. It’s very good for my heart. But in reality, it’s probably too short left to have a meaningful impact on things like your total average daily blood pressure, because even if you take nitrates and even if they they do significantly decrease your blood pressure is such a transient effect. That over 24 hours is not that meaningful, like your blood pressure reading, for example, we see quite clearly that a single reading is not as predictive as a 24 hour reading.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection27:43
There I think so what’s kind of the general consensus consensus on dietary nitrates because I feel like it’s I feel like that’s sort of a newer kind of supplement that people have kind of in. I guess this is dietary nitrates though, but I know this is kind of a newer thing that people kind of been talking about a bit more lately. So what’s kind of the general consensus Do you does is kind of more in line with what you think with it or is it something that’s kind of changed your opinion on on them?

Menno 28:09
I think it’s in line with I think, but not in line. With the consensus. Well, maybe not consensus. But there are quite a lot of people who advocate for it to think examined are calm is pretty hyped on them. For example, I think in general, they may be slightly overly positive about supplements, but also I think the stronger by science guys, who I think are absolutely awesome. They they have also advocated I think Eric helms is on board.

So most of the like the most esteemed professionals are think the the nitric oxide booster category of supplements is always is very promising and worth taking for at least some individuals. So this study definitely cast some doubt on that on the relevance of the effects. I think in particular, you know, most of the research shows it can acutely announced performance, but then we’re still a step away from rules when what people really care about is if you just go to the gym and you can take a supplement, and it makes you do a few more reps in the gym. I think not many people will really care about that. You know, if you do 12 or 14 reps of biceps curls, that’s not really worth paying for. What you want is that that extra performance translates into greater bicep growth or strength development. Now that is definitely a leap because normally you expect okay. There is a generally a correlation between work outputs, and gains like long term muscular development and your key performance. However, in the case of nitric oxide boosters, the main benefit is vasodilation. So basically improving blood flow. And we know that hypoxia which is kind of the opposite, restricting oxygen and blood flow restriction training, which is very much the opposite of improving blood flow. They actually improve muscle growth, if anything in research. So, the idea of any of these kinds of metabolic stress buffers is very theoretically shaky. Because peak metabolic stress itself is not detrimental, it’s actually muscle growth purposes. beneficial in the sense of peripheral neuromuscular fatigue, especially in the form of metabolic stress, lowers the activation threshold threshold motor units. So, it basically increases muscle activity when you start getting fatigued. And by virtue of that Godswill training, like loss restriction training can make lightweights as effective as heavier weights. So the extra performance you get is sort of reverse Godswill effect, which would probably mean it’s not going to be beneficial because it’s not really making the muscle work harder. It’s just enabling it to do more work for a given level of neuromuscular effort.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 31:04
Interesting, so it’s almost it almost sounds like it’s like increasing like work capacity in a way or am I not understand? Yeah, okay. Yeah. So it’s kind of increasing work capacity. But basically, you can just like do more now than that and that’s really it right? It’s not like necessarily going to have 20 games. We’re just going to be able to do a little bit more.

Menno 31.23
Probably not. Based on this study, and the only other study we have, which says, one at all from at the top no different from long term gains from SIDS wine in the previous studies case and aesthetic in this study from nitrates. So Retrophin is extract specifically now both studies were not super highly those two this those which I think was 180 milligrams of nitrates, which was two grams of rich bass pastorates or not, once they get this was enough to increase nitric oxide levels in previous research. So it was definitely enough to do something physiologically. You could say okay, maybe you just need more to get better gains. And I never really sold on the argument so much because if there’s not least a transfer, some benefits and a lower dose, I’m very skeptical the first time you’re gonna see magic with higher doses. You know, you can basically always make that argument like you just need more. Yeah.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 32.20
Yeah, it’s like if you’re if you’re not going to see a lot from from a little bit, it’s like, is it really going to make that big of a difference? If you start to just take like, an obscene amount of that, whatever that may be? Because it’s like, I mean, at what point is like, okay, plus, even even from like a practicality standpoint, to I’m assuming where it’s just like how much you know, how much is actually practical for you to actually do anyways?

Menno 32:39
Yeah,it’s kind of funny. In the running spirit of the pharmaceutical industry’s arguments, during the opioid crisis, where they started making these painkillers, and people got addiction symptoms, and then they came up with the rhetoric that the symptoms they got, were because people weren’t taking enough painkillers. So rather than saying, okay, these are the withdrawal and addiction symptoms, they were saying, no, look, what’s happening is you’re not giving them enough. Therefore, they’re still symptomatic. So you should give them more.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 33:09
Yeah, just right. Just Just give them more.

Menno 33:12
Yeah, and of course, the manufacturers. They love that arguments.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 33:16
Oh, yeah, that’s that’s exactly what they wanted to hear. That was that was music to their ears because then that’s you know, obviously more money in their pocket. So what about on your end? Do you have any, any supplements, any studies that you’re coming out with soon or you’re involved in or anything like that?

Menno 33:30
I’m still working on the fasting study. Okay, it’s been massively delayed during the pandemic. I think that will be late this year that we can hopefully start wrapping it up. I don’t know mostly spending time on my PT course, at the moment. So doing a lot of updates on that. And after that, it launches in the late August. I’m gonna have time again to take on some new projects.

(34:10) Protein targets during a cut vs. surplus.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 33:56
Awesome. Yeah. Well, obviously link the PT course, in the show notes as well. So cool. All right. Are you ready to dive into som e questions? Sure. Well, so one of the questions I got was what protein targets you would set in a deficit first a surplus?

Menno 34:10
The same actually, I think the current research does not show differences in protein requirements between energy deficit and surplus. I had a very long debate with Eric Helms about this on my websites, you can still find it. It’s pretty dated now. But briefly in untrained individuals, we very clearly have research showing that while the requirements do not change, an energy deficit or surplus, so what we’d be looking at is a free way interaction between training status, protein requirements and energy balance, which in itself, you can only say if you’re a scientist, or physicists you can say that soon as your anyone’s talking about a freeway. It’s rare actually, you should be skeptical because these things are incredibly rare in nature. But, okay, it’s possible maybe energy balance does change both requirements, specifically for strength trainees. There’s no research actually showing that protein requirements are higher than 1.8 grams per kilogram, which I typically recommend for most trainees regardless of energy balance. So we kind of have to go by some cross sectional comparisons, which is a little shaky. And the only other thing we have is a lot of effort of debates that think only maybe this year or not, it was the last year I think, a study was actually done that looked at least protein requirements per meal to maximize muscle protein synthesis at a given sitting, both post workouts and fasts if I’m not mistaken. And they found that the dose commonly used which I think is point three gram per kilogram, body weight that maximizes photosynthesis in states of energy maintenance, or surplus is still sufficient to maximize it in energy deficits. So that’s provides decent evidence that cultural performance or probably need the same energy deficit principles even in trained lifters.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 33:17
Interesting, Yeah, so I think there are two I mean, the my thought on it is like, I feel like that could just add a lot of confusion as well, if you’re like, Okay, well, now I’m in a surplus. So now I need to add, or either add, or I would imagine most people’s thought process would be they would do less, they would eat less protein in a surplus than in a deficit and I could just see a lot of confusion there. What about like, what are your thoughts on increasing protein slightly like during a surplus because you might get a little bit more protein through like, kind of like trace proteins Right? Like say for example, you eat a lot of like carbohydrates like oats or some rice right and you know, some of that protein will add up. Do you is there any merit to potentially increasing that a little bit because of that, or I’m curious to hear your thoughts there.

Menno 37:00
Yeah, that’s actually a good argument against the idea that you need more protein in deficits because typically, when you’re cutting, you have, your protein intake is going to take up a larger share of your calories. So you’re going to have more of that that’s gonna be chicken breast and you know, high quality protein sources, as opposed to saying cereals, rice and other foods you may consume during a bulk. So your average protein quality is probably higher on average energy deficit than energy supplies, which would further contract the practical needs to increase protein intakes. Now, we could take that argument the other way, as you say, and say okay, maybe energy loss, we actually need more protein to offset the potential decrease in body quality. Now, most research it’s it actually has a somewhat eloquent solution to that. And they say that the protein requirements that they’re looking at the most consistent baseline is given with the assumption at least 50% of the total protein intake comes from high quality sources. So as long as you make sure that they’re still getting that, I think that you won’t get into trouble and more practically even simpler speaking, I’d say, if you’re getting your protein target every meal, and every meal has a high quality protein source regardless of amount. I think it will almost never be an issue. We should almost never see anyone eats you know, 30 grams of chicken or something. There’s simply not a practical portion size. So as soon as you’re eating chicken breast or eating at least 100 grams, that was 20 grams, that’s most likely going to be more than half of what you need for that meal. So, African practice, it is not going to be an issue.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 38:45
Right? Yeah, it’s that makes a lot of sense. You really don’t need to make too big a changes, I guess. Really, it probably just comes down to you know, you kind of have your I think you said your recommendation was 1.8 which is what that’s around like, point 8.9 grams for pounds, I believe, right? Or two. Okay. And I’m assuming probably preference right plays a role in this too. Right. But as far as like if somebody does like to eat a little bit more protein, you know, obviously you will be a little bit higher if if they want but if not, then there’s you don’t really have to change it from a deficit to a to a surplus,

Menno 39:20
But exactly, it’s a minimum. So there’s no need to, you know, some people say, they get sort of offended and they say, Well, I like protein. And they always reply, okay, great, you know, fine, it’s, it’s essentially just a positive message. You don’t need that much protein. So if you want to eat more protein, fine, go ahead. But other people maybe don’t like it. And it gives them more options for variety and makes it easier for them to consume a diet that they’re happy with and they can stick to it. But I think that’s once you’ve been sort of almost brainwashed with an I certainly happen with the need for super high protein intakes, your sort of internal menu of what you consider as a practical meal decreases so you have a much more limited scope of what kind of foods you can make. And if you notice your protein intake is not that large, and some other foods are certainly going to be an option for example, cheese. For many people, cheese is not a practical protein source, because it’s relatively caloric compared to how many how much protein it has, but it does have quite some protein. And if you have X cheese, for example, or maybe fatty kind of meat if you notice your protein intake isn’t that I mean you can potentially fit those in so you don’t just have to live on whitespace and chicken breast and 0% Beef

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 40:41
No that’s that’s really good point you bring up and that’s one thing too that I you know, I’ve definitely looked at cheese I’m like, man, you know, if you actually look at cheese, I mean it’s I think for it, yes. I think one servings like six to 10 grams of fat, but it’s also about eight grams of protein I believe. What are your thoughts on like, dropping that down to potentially doing like a lower fat version or reduced fat version of that is? I’m just kind of curious to hear your thoughts on that if that’s kind of a viable option for some people to do that with like cheese.

Menno 41:09
Definitely. I mean, cottage cheese is the best example of that. It’s still cheese. And that’s super lynchings in Brazil. I’ve seen cheeses which have about 20 gram protein, one gram fat and almost no carbs. So they are, it’s like chicken restaurant. And it’s white cheese almost as the kind of presentation of chicken breasts as well, ie none, but at least interval of texture and it’s easily being able to mix it into a meal. It’s pretty awesome that at least exists. And I think for a lot of people, especially when they’re bulking they can actually spice up their meals a lot more. We have some fatty or kinds of options than just, you know, always going for the elite options. It’s funny actually, a lot of people that have always done high carb low fat diets. When they start doing an eye fat diet. They will very often come to me and say look, it’s how do I get this much fat in like this is ridiculous. I feel like I’m gonna have to drink olive oil and I look at their diet and it’s like, okay, so you’re consuming Greek yogurt, which has all the fat removed. We’re consuming the 0% beef which is beef with all the faculty moves and you’re consuming the leanest cuts of the chicken. They are consuming only lean pieces of fish. But your cans consume more fat. And then they’re like, Okay, I see what you’re spending.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 42:31
Yeah, no, I mean, that’s a good point you bring up I mean it really if you really want to, you can definitely increase your fats and when I’m when I’m going from like a cut to uh, to more of a surplus like you know cheese is definitely something that I’ll definitely start to add in a little bit more but but like I said, I’ve also used like reduced fat and low fat cheese and that really can increase your your protein intake there and like you said, you don’t have to just stick to like you said chicken breast and like fish and stuff like that. You have some have options out there. I heard you kind of mentioned that you were kind of brainwashed with all the protein talk. What about what are your thought like? What are your preferences with protein? Do you kind of are you more of a higher protein guy or like in terms of obviously we know for body comp, we want a certain low protein but if that wasn’t necessarily an issue, where your preference is that with with protein,

Menno 43:19
I wouldn’t consume near that much for sure. I mean, I like quark, and we greek yogurt in general So I’d continue eating those. But they’re not that rich in protein. You know, youd need to eat a lot of them. Which is fine for me, but I’d probably eat more eggs and chicken breast. I mean, does anyone really like chicken breast? I think it’s fine. You can make a flavorful but in itself it doesn’t have that much taste. So if I didn’t have to go to any protein at all, yeah that will definitely reduce my protein intake.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 43:53
That’s that’s how I that’s how I am to, I’m just if I didn’t if I don’t like actually track my protein and if I didn’t have to eat a lot protein I would definitely lean more towards you know, lower protein for sure. Because I’m just like you said I’m not a huge fan of chicken breasts and I always just find that if I just kind of eat more intuitively on more like lower protein for sure.

Menno 44:13
Yeah, I think that’s the case for most people. There’s we have here a research showing that people’s food preferences and brain reward pathway activation, and the hormonal release after they’ve consumed meals is typically orders in favor of fats and carbs over protein.

-(44:40) His method and thoughts on deloading.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 44:32
the it makes sense. I think I think that’s going to be a little bit the palatability of it that’s going to be a little bit higher with the carbs and fats so it makes sense. Let’s go on to the next one.

So your opinion and method for Deloading they said they listened to coach Kasim and Dr. Mike on revived stronger so they just wanted to kind of hear your opinion on Deloading what that was like.

Menno 44.40
I’m gonna say I’m a proponent of reactive feed on it typically rather than proactive. So the main effects of our reactive fields over what’s called proactively D load most people don’t call it that but it is. For example, just take a week off or take a week. When you train very likely you’ve got the five and a half or the weights and a half. Those are typical approaches. That the downsides of that is that a) you never know for sure when you need to deload. I think a lot of people deal too. Much. For example, one week off every four weeks or every free three weeks on one week off, that is a lot of deloading, that’s 20 25% of your time, that you’re not training. So that’s a lot. You know, even if we’re saying I can just create a program so that you can keep training and we assume that your gains are linear over time, you can get 25% more gains just from skipping the deloads. So that is very significant. And then B even if you do need a deload, you probably don’t need one for the whole body. For example, if you you’re prone to overusing your elbows as I am, then it doesn’t mean you should deal with your hips. Because for example for me, my hips never have issues. So many people ask that everyone has some weaker joints and some stronger joints, and they’re totally fine with banging on volume. Just pretty much non stop for very long periods, indefinitely. In many cases, we never have issues with certain joints. So injury wise they don’t need it. And certain muscle groups also, like the glutes, there are many women who train their glutes every single session. Never have any issues with that. Bucha generally seem to tolerate it pretty well. So you know, when you’re deloading your knees or your quads, maybe the groups don’t need it. And that is the big difference. So, combine the two main benefits of being able to deaload only specific body parts or muscle groups or exercises and deloading when you feel you really needed like when your performance shows it’s starting to decline or it’s not increasing as expected. Then you could do a reactive deload to just skip that exercise or skip the volume for that muscle group or body part. I think it’s much more targeted than the blankets week off.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 47:09
Yeah, so yours is a little bit more like you said it’s you know like you said it’s not they don’t call it a proactive D load but proactive would be like hey every you know four to six weeks you’re taking D load week no matter what’s going on. That’s pretty much what it’s going to be but for you you kind of like the more reactive because it’s more so when you when you need it. And then you kind of mentioned some things or what would be some other kinds of like indicators that you would need to take one outside of like you said training performance was one that if that’s not going up what what are some of the things you kind of like pay attention to that like OBM okay, I definitely need to take a deload week here now.

Menno 47:40
I think performance is by far the number one probably the main issue with these were the losses that people look at the relevant indicators, more so than they that they’re not looking at enough indicators. A lot of people will say, and I see this all the time in clients, especially people that aren’t as motivated. They will say a fear that I’m overreaching and then I tell them okay, you are making great strength gains, which by definition, precludes any definition of overreaching or overtraining. Many people don’t realize that Scientifically speaking, regression of performance is the first and foremost criterion of overreaching and overtraining. You cannot have it. You can’t be overtraining if you’re making progress, because that means you’re not just recovering, you’re super compensating. And the whole idea of reaching over training is that you’re not recovering. So these things completely exclude each other and many people they look at motivation or pain, no, injuries are definitely a reason to potentially take to reduce the volume but there are many more effective methods to keep training and still get productive volume and without aggravating certain injury. Higher reps, controlling tempo, different exercises, changing technique. So I think for many people, they mistake their, like slight pains or fatigue as a need to deal out when in reality, but I find it’s very often the case that they’re just stressed in general, or you haven’t slept enough or there’s something else entirely that’s causing them to not feel as as good. And another general tendency, I think, is that many lifters they’re serious about training. We massively overestimate how big of an influence our training and our nutrition has on our daily life. Influence is much, much stronger and the other way so have your gentle life goes how happy you are in a much bigger effect than writing. Then the effect of you know how many sets of bicep curls you’re doing the effect on your overall happiness level.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 49:45
Right? In my understanding to the research is that it’s really hard to like overtrain per se from like weight training is probably more so people are not getting in enough like energy. That that was my understanding of kind of the research. I’m not sure if you have any thoughts on that or if that’s kind of in line with what you see as well.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 50:03
Yeah, any such criteria are always secondary to regression of performance. Yeah. What Uh, what about,like, you mentioned that like, performance is pretty much like your main thing you want to pay attention to but you kind of briefly touched on like motivation but with with low motivation constitute a deload in your mind, even though it’s not necessarily like a physical thing. Yeah. What do you think there?

Menno 50:30
No, I don’t I don’t think so. I think in most cases, it doesn’t solve the problem at all. You’re just it’s like a diet break. Reasearch shows it does not aid adherence overall. It just puts it on hold. So r any, any problems that you’re facing, you’re still gonna face them next week. And it’s a little weak or diet break or whatever it is. So unless you’re training for like contest prep, or you’re doing something unsustainable, maybe your training volume is deliberately pushed up to a level that you know, you’re not going to do for life, then I get it, but otherwise, you’re just doing what should be a manageable program. If you’re not feeling motivated, you should address that. And we need to look at both factors. Is it a lack of progression, which is a big one, I think, or is there something else like in my experience, it’s very often sleep or stress or something else in their life that’s they project into their training, rather than that is really a something related to the training itself.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 51:27
Yeah, so keep looking at outside factors in I’m assuming to like maybe even switching up like so. So really for you like if you have a plan that is like unmotivated, more so hey, we’re looking at sleep, you know, okay. Are you progressing in your workouts? You know, sleep and stress, like you said, those are going to play a huge role in terms of how you feel about your training. With this worn potentially like a changeup and like like maybe even like rep ranges or like exercises as well at that point, potentially?

Menno 51:53
Yeah, if it’s boredom in particular, I have some clients that say look I’ve been on this program for like a few months now. Even though it’s still working as intended, I’m just I’m just bored as hell, I can’t stand another session of front squats, I have to do something else. And then we say okay, so you know, which exercises are you rewarded with? Because maybe, you know, they still love the butterfly lat raises or the lap prayers. And then we keep those in and we, we switch out what they’re unhappy with, or we introduce some variety, for the sake of it. Sometimes just, you know, even a few different sessions can have a big impact example. We could do one or M testing and as more kind of an inmate maybe with post activation potentiation just for a little different workouts and in the process, also going to benchmark their well read strength, which can be useful for benchmarking performance later on. So yeah, you just have to play around and go with what the individual likes, doesn’t like what kind of variation they would prefer.

-(53:06) Are deloads necessary or can you just do a session at 3-4 RIR?

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 52:57
Right? So just yeah, just kind of feel out and everything like that. So that’s where you would start to make some changes in terms of of programming and whatnot. So this was a different question, but it kind of goes off of it, oare deloads necessary or could like a session of 3-4 RIR provide some more similar benefits?

Menno 53:06
A deload is not necessarily for sure, I mean, you can theoretically at least design programs so that you don’t do any deloading reactive or proactive. I think reactive is very, very important to have in there because you never know if someone’s gonna have stress in their life. If you’re not going to sleep as well, to die, it’s not going to be as onpoint if they drank alcohol. So it’s very hard, I think not to have any kind of de loading mechanism in place, because it’s just hard to control for all of these things. Then next question is do you really need to skip sets. Now what I typically do with React to deal with this, I do speed work. So I cut the weight a lot to maybe 60% or one or M or up to 80% upon around but then I only have to do three reps. So they should be very explosive reps. And I find that that achieves a the needs to still move a be some energy expenditure. See some still some technique training and d still some neuromuscular training like speed work can aid strength development in certain contexts, like the west side kind of method without inducing much neuromuscular fatigue. Now, I think it’s very difficult to go if you’re not doing speed work, or just taking sets off, but you’re just making it a bit easier to find that sweet spot, because there are many people who in my experience, they will still go to arch and then your especially with injuries, very, very easily to get into a situation where you’re not training hard enough to really make progress but you are training hard enough so that you are not recovering. And I like I said with injuries in particular, I see this a lot where most people’s intuition is to just stay a few more reps away from failure. Or if they have knee pain while squatting. They will squat light. And my recommendation that is almost always, at least for the beginning. Just stop squatting, because you’re not going to gain any muscle with 50% of your normal weights, but it’s still gonna aggravate your knees. So you have kind of a worst of both worlds scenario.

55:50 Best body fat% during an offseason for a powerlifter.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 55:21
Yeah, I remember on our last podcast, you did talk about that with your injury where it’s like you have to be careful here because like you said, you get the worst of both worlds where you’re not fully recovered, but you’re also not going you’re not creating any adaptation. or anything like that. So just you’re just like you said, it’s the worst of both worlds. Um, cool. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And so if we have time this I think this will be super quick. I don’t think it will take too long for you to answer it and then we’ll wrap things up best body fat percentage for powerlifting in the offseason?

Menno 55:50
Well, that depends a lot on your weight loss and where your current weight is in relation to your weight class. I think for powerlifters you have a lot of leeway. And also depending on the questions that said, I wrote an article a long time ago a very long time ago called critical mass. And the main thesis I propose is that many power lifters have an excessively high body fat percentage to be competitive. Because if you just look at the research and the effects of body fat and muscle mass, and muscle mass correlates extremely strongly with powerlifting performance like extremely strongly. Pupils are the first in a DEXA scan or some body composition scanner that their rankings of fat free mass are going to be pretty much identical to their competition, right? The queue could basically for go to competition and just rank them by muscularity. So what can we do with that information? Well, if we cut out all the fats, you restrict your muscle, then you have a huge competitive advantage over people that are at a similar weights, but have a lot of fat on them as well. I think most power lifters they they massively overestimate the importance of their total strength. So they’re not willing to dive down even if they lose some strength. But you have to think of your world score your IPF powerlifting score. And if you’re really competitive, you keep that in mind. You’ll see that you’re actually very often best off maybe you don’t want is but like if you’re going from purely competitive standpoint, then you’re probably best off being pretty shredded. If not like bodybuilding shredders. Like it really can make a very, very big difference in your relative strength.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 57:33
Well, that makes sense because I feel like you would, because it’s gonna depend on I believe, I don’t I’m not super familiar with powerlifting but it’s based off of like weight into like if you can get lower in a weight class, but you’re also like most of your weight is muscle like you’re going to put yourself in an advantage and that group is what you’re exactly and that’s kind of counterintuitive, I feel like to like, again, I’m not like super in depth or into power through what goes on with it, but my kind of like perception from the outside is that it’s like, oh, you can eat whatever you want. You can you know, get as big as you want. And it’s like, is that really the best way to go about it though? So what you’re saying is, I mean, almost it sounds like 10 to 15 ish percent, maybe even lower than 15% is probably around that range, maybe even lower than 10% Or would you start to think that you would potentially start to lose some strain being lower.

Menno 58:18
I mean, even if you’re, you know, strength going from 20 to 10%, which if you’re highly competitive RFA, you probably will. It’s worth it’s now below 10%. Yeah, it’s, it gets dubious. A great analogy, I think here is sprinting, sprinting. It’s well known that being super lean is good for performance gymnastics as well. And that’s because the outcome measure itself directly shows that you’re getting improvements with powerlifting. You don’t see it. It’s like if you were sprinting on a ForcePlates then the ForcePlates would show as you lose a lot of body weights that you’re probably outputting less force and you think oh damn, but you can see your Sprint’s are faster, and that’s what matters. With powerlifting you don’t see that your world scoring post, you just see that you’re lifting us and therefore people think it’s like they’re only looking at the Force Base. They think, you know, oh, this is not good. I need to you know, keep my keep my size because otherwise I lose strength. You need to do the math. Is it worth being in a weight class with and then compare your numbers to the people in that weight class? Okay, if I lose five kilos on my squats, but I’m in a wastebasket, thank you, the lighter it’s for sure going to be beneficial.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 59:33
sounds like it’s the tip, the person that like is so worried about their body weight that they forget to realize that like, okay, maybe you’re going to be a little bit heavier body weight, but you’re going to have like more muscle right? It’s almost sounds like it’s that you’re just so focused on one aspect of it that you’re not like thinking big picture with with everything there. Exactly. I’ll also wonder too if like, you know somebody like you take sprinters I wonder if like genetically you know, they can stay leaner, but still stay strong if those like leader body fat percentage and that and it’s just a genetic thing that obviously makes them like just be outliers and like, you know, really good at what they’re doing. I’m assuming that pride plays a massive role in that.

Menno 1:00
Yeah, it’s but it’s, it plays more of a role because it’s known that you have to be lean. So powerlifting probably plays the same role, but it’s not as well known because parts are typically don’t get as shredded as sprinters and bodybuilders

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 1:00:26
Awesome.Well, Menno, another great episode, as always, hopefully we can get you back on here in a couple months and finish up these questions. But yeah, I think that’s enough information for now. And so before I let you go, is there anything you kind of mentioned your PT course or if there’s anything coming out that you want to leave the audience

Menno 1:00:37
If you’re not familiar with my work, you can go to my website mennohenselmans.com
and then probably best ways to get on my email newsletter because you get a tour of my most popular contents, and things that I think most people enjoy the most. And otherwise, I’m very active on social media and planning to be more active. So, see you there!

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 01:00:57
Yeah, we’ll we’ll make all that and you know, you had two articles. I believe you had the critical mass I think was one you said. Right. That was the name of one article. And then

Menno 01:01:05
yeah,that one. I think it’s a paid one. Yeah.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 01:01:08
And then you had the article with Eric Helms. Is that also a paid one as well on the one

Menno 01:01:12
No, that’s available for free the debates is, if you Google epsilon Helms, you’ll probably get it.

Jeff, The Mind Muscle Connection 1:01:23
Awesome. Yeah, I’ll link those as well in there. So again, Menno thank you for your time and we will talk to you soon.

Menno 1:01:25
My pleasure, talk soon.