This week we’ve got a MONSTER episode in the form of a live Q&A episode with Dr. Helms and Dr. Trexler. The Good Doctors begin with a recap of the recent WNBF World Championships, followed by an insightful discussion about whether or not humans have a “factory error” in our design that promotes obesity. This is followed by a number of listeners’ questions about functional anatomy, exercise selection, the importance of the eccentric phase of a lift, factors impacting reps in reserve (RIR) accuracy, biceps contributions to back exercises, hypertrophy considerations for the deadlift exercise, mini-cuts, set-to-set fatigue, energy expenditure limits, “delayed” hypertrophy, how to tell if you’re a creatine nonresponder, and velocity-based training.

0:00 Intro 

5:30 WNBF Worlds recap 

15:25 Do Humans Have a “Factory Error” in our Design That Promotes Obesity?

Pontzer 2023 The provisioned primate: patterns of obesity across lemurs, monkeys, apes and humans https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37661747/

25:45 How important is the eccentric portion of the lift for hypertrophy?

Roig 2009 The effects of eccentric versus concentric resistance training on muscle strength and mass in healthy adults: a systematic review with meta-analysis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18981046/

Schoenfeld 2010 The mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy and their application to resistance training https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20847704/

37:15 Exercises with brace points 

Haugen 2023 Effect of free-weight vs. machine-based strength training on maximal strength, hypertrophy and jump performance - a systematic review and meta-analysis https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37582807/

44:56 Biceps functional anatomy during back compound exercises and epistemology

Pelland 2024 The Resistance Training Dose-Response: Meta-Regressions Exploring the Effects of Weekly Volume and Frequency on Muscle Hypertrophy and Strength Gain https://sportrxiv.org/index.php/server/preprint/view/460/version/587

50:25 Muscles to hypertrophy to increase deadlift strength

57:55 Rapid fire questions – Q1 Mini-cuts and bulking

1:05:15 Q2 Bench repetition performance across sets

1:08:35 Q3 Extreme energy expenditure

Areta 2024 Energetics of a World-Tour Female Road Cyclist During a Multistage Race (Tour de France Femmes) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38796175/

Thurber 2019 Extreme events reveal an alimentary limit on sustained maximal human energy expenditure https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31183404/

1:12:34 Q4 Latent or delayed hypertrophy following a diet

Bjørnsen 2019 Delayed myonuclear addition, myofiber hypertrophy, and increases in strength with high-frequency low-load blood flow restricted training to volitional failure https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30543499/

Damas 2016 Resistance training-induced changes in integrated myofibrillar protein synthesis are related to hypertrophy only after attenuation of muscle damage https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27219125/

1:31:26 Q5 Where to find information on velocity-based training 

https://massresearchreview.com/

1:37:16 Closing out