Dr. Eric Helms: 0:00

Someone might have the capability and the opportunity to do something. But if they're not actually interested and they don't their autonomous desire is not to do something or any other element of it is not actually leading to them having the motivation which doesn't mean like the group X instructor yelling at you, but like the motive to do something. I don't have a why I don't want to do this. It doesn't matter. You know what resources or ability you have to do something you just want to do it.

Philip Pape: 0:27

Welcome to the Wits& Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. I am beyond ecstatic to welcome the Dr. Eric helms to the show today. Eric's work has been a huge influence on me in my personal journey, and in my coaching, education and philosophy. And today we're going to discuss evidence based research coaching, communication, what Eric's been up to in the world of powerlifting, and bodybuilding. And we may dive into topics like self determination theory, training strategies, plant versus animal protein, and adaptation during weight loss among others. Eric is an accomplished coach, athlete, author, educator specializing in Natural Bodybuilding and strength training. As a director and chief science officer of 3d muscle journey. Eric leads a team that provides evidence based information, community support, and holistic coaching to drug free strength and physique competitors. With an impressive educational background, including a PhD in strength and conditioning from Auckland University of Technology. He's published numerous peer reviewed articles, and co authored the muscle and strength pyramids, which in my opinion, are among the best training and nutrition guides out there. In fact, that's how I first learned about him about four years ago. But before discovering his other content, including a couple podcasts 3d muscle journey, and iron culture, and his work with mass monthly applications in strength sport, a monthly review of strength and physique training research. In addition to all of that Eric has an impressive athletic career, having competed in Natural Bodybuilding unequip powerlifting, and Olympic lifting since the mid 2000s. Eric's definitely been through the trenches. And he's prepping for both a powerlifting meet and bodybuilding show this year. Eric, it is an absolute pleasure to welcome you to the show.

Dr. Eric Helms: 2:32

It's a pleasure to be on. And thank you for the very generous introduction. I appreciate it.

Philip Pape: 2:36

Absolutely well deserved. I was very excited for this Sower, my listeners, I'm going to sneak in some questions from them along the way. But for the for the two or three people listening to this show who don't know who you are. Lay it on us. You know, we've given them the official introduction. So just tell us about what you've been up to lately and in the research and lifting communities.

Dr. Eric Helms: 2:56

Yeah, like I said, I appreciate the introduction. So if anyone's not familiar with me, I guess a little more of a from the heart introduction of who is Eric helms is someone with an obsessive streak who got hit by the iron bug. Gees close to 20 years ago. Now, I'm turning 40 This year, and I thought it'd be really cool to get back on stage. This will be my fifth season. And I have always been just in love with the pursuit of strength as I have the pursuit of the artistry of bodybuilding, which I really do see as an art and a sport. I'm a competitive person, I like to compete. I want to see how far I can push myself. But I also really appreciate it as an art form. So yeah, it's fun for me, I express myself through the pursuit of strength as well as bodybuilding. And I am currently geez, what does it mean now, so I have a tentative powerlifting meet, which is about as hard as I'm gonna commit. In early July. I live here in New Zealand. You mentioned I got my PhD at the Auckland University of Technology. That's the biggest city in New Zealand in the North Island. I moved out here 10 years ago with my wife had been here since after I did my PhD. I just liked it so much that couldn't get rid of me. So now I'm a research fellow here and I have the privilege of mentoring masters and PhD students just like I used to be and especially if they're down to to do some muscle nerd research that I'm there guy. So yeah, powerlifting meet coming up potentially. The reason why I say it's potential is because I'm going to be dieting down. Oh, I'm dieting down. So I'll be an 83 kilo lifter. I'm six foot for referencing

Philip Pape: 4:34

versus versus maybe 993. Yeah, okay.

Dr. Eric Helms: 4:37

Exactly. If you look at my my competition history, I've only done like two other meats way, way back in the day at 83. And it was also during a bodybuilding contest prep where I'm gonna get that light anyway. And yeah, so I'm also an M one so a Masters one lifter, so I'm 40 I'm 83 kilos I'm trying to like basically cheat to be slightly better than

Philip Pape: 4:59

me Yeah, 20 years, all these years of working hard and getting to his point, it's cheating. Yeah.

Dr. Eric Helms: 5:05

100% That's the way that works, you know? Yeah. Cool.

Philip Pape: 5:09

Yeah. So welcome to the over 40. Club. You said you're turning 40. But I think it's already happened, hasn't it?

Dr. Eric Helms: 5:14

It has. Yes. So, yeah, yeah.

Philip Pape: 5:17

And then this, and then doing well. Okay. So back to something you mentioned, which I really liked is the artistry of bodybuilding. And then the muscle nerd research. Maybe that's why I resonate with you. And a lot of other listeners do, too, that just want to know as much as they can about this stuff. And I know you cover this on the iron culture podcast, which I love. It's, I'll say it's not for everybody. And I say that in a good way, because it's very unique. In the pantheon of fitness podcast, it's almost its own little beast out there. But you seem to be balancing it all. And one of the things you just said is you're balancing two things this year, you're balancing powerlifting and bodybuilding. I know you said you're not 100% committed, we'll see what happens, I guess in a few months, right when you get there. But how do you manage them both? I know you've done like whole podcasts on this, but just at a high level, people listening want to excel in both sports, and yet the muscle strength pyramids distinctly talk about strength and hypertrophy and different programming. So how do you balance those?

Dr. Eric Helms: 6:15

Yeah, it is. I think probably the best way to put it is a you need to understand what the minimum effective dose is for you to improve it both. And that's a really interesting concept that we often don't explore in sports science, because sports science is often all about getting the maximum out of yourself, because it's competitive sport, right? Health Science, however, I would argue should definitely always be focused on the minimum effective dose, like committing to a lifestyle of exercise and nutrition is very challenging. So what's, what's the amount that we need to move the needle in terms of health and so anyway, that rather unexplored perspective, in sports science has been explored more and more, my good colleague, affectionately called Dr. Pack, but his full name is Dr. Patrick close entrelac, his core cactus, you, of course, have a Greek descent and a proud Greek man and on awesome researcher. He's in Solon University, with Dr. James Steele, who is just, in my opinion, a legend a meta science and pushing sports science forward. And anyway, they've collaborated over the years. And he did his entire PhD looking at what's the least amount of power lifters need to do to get meaningfully stronger. And it's a lot less than the average power lifter probably thinks, which speaks to the kind of the diminishing returns of doing a ton of volume. It's not that it's not worth it. But you know, if we were to look at some of the meta analyses on, say, what does it take to get the highest effect size of improving your one arm strength, there's data that indicate doing one to four sets is at 85%, as good as doing, say, five to 12 sets per week, on average, for someone, you're not an average, you're, you know, an individual. So your mileage may vary. But just to kind of give you the idea that there might be someone out there who does just as well on three sets of squats per week, if it's pretty specific training compared to 10. So you've tripled your volume, and then some, and you're not getting much more out of it. So that kind of perspective helps you program for these things. Because the biggest issue with training for strength and hypertrophy is not their conflicting goals. It's the opportunity cost. It's not like getting stronger to squat, make your quads smaller, which some people talk that way, like like it does. But if anything, if you take any high level power lifter, and you were to diet them down, they'd probably look the part of a bodybuilder just because squats, bench deadlift, and the accessories cover a lot of ground. However, it is very challenging to really get the most out of yourself and balance the two. And if you can, no, what did it take for me to move the needle on one? And that's kind of like my minimum baseline. And you distribute that in an effective way across your your your training split? And you see kind of what juice do you have left? You know, what's left in the tank for me to distribute? And then what choices do I make what is already taken care of with my strength training? And then how do I distribute what was needed for my individual physique. So I'm a little lucky in a way in that my lower body seems to respond quite readily to training. And my upper body seems to require the more volume and also that I'm a lot more resilient to benching a lot in terms of injury aches and pains and strengthen recovery than squat and deadlift. I'm not unique in that way, but I probably am a little unique in that I don't require a ton of leg training. So I can do a fair amount of squats and bench and deadlift and then really I just need to get some calf training in and maybe a couple sets of leg extensions, leg curls, right.

Philip Pape: 9:56

So wait, hold on real quick on the bench thing. So you said you're both resilient to that amount of volume and you need it, which is that is a nice combination, which I know people shoulder issues that's very other than low back, that seems to be the most common thing. So if you needed the volume and you couldn't, then that that could be a little bit more of a challenge. Yeah,

Dr. Eric Helms: 10:13

absolutely, this is not necessarily an option for everybody, you know. So you sometimes if you're very creative, you might have to do you know, partial training, you might have to figure out what movements that are not actually the competition lifts transfer the most that you can do. And I've been in that position in the past with prior injury, and it's not fun. And I can deal with it when I need to, but at the moment, I'm healthy, and it's just more of a matter of balancing, you know, fatigue, and, and soreness. And, and like, you know, like elbow tendinitis, but nothing real major that can really take, you know, take me and put me on the sidelines.

Philip Pape: 10:51

Yeah, so, okay, there's a number of concepts here. They're all they're all great concepts. And I want to, I want to come out with strategies or actions that people can take from this. So you talked about minimum minimum effective dose, versus, you know, maxing out all the time, you also gave some examples, like the minimum amount of sets that you need to get most of the results kind of the 8020 rule, or 85%, which is a common theme in this in this world, it seems which proportion which comports with reality, you talk about protein, in the same way, you know, do we really need to get x grams for for a kilogram when this this can do it? Because you're gonna sacrifice other things? Is this is this a concept that a new lifter should be very concerned about? Or is this more for an advanced trainee?

Dr. Eric Helms: 11:33

It depends on the context, really, I think, new lifters, the most important thing is developing a good consistent set of habits and supporting adherence, which is ultimately the most important thing. And unfortunately, you don't have to look very far to find people who are extremely motivated, and then kind of get burned out and stop lifting only a few years later, and they were all about that life, you know, and sometimes it's because I always like to use the analogy of the person who came out a little too strong in a relationship. You know, like you love lifting, that's great. But you got to wait a day to call them you know, give them some space, they need to adapt their life. You don't tell them you love them on the first date, that kind of thing. So,

Philip Pape: 12:21

yeah, go watch Swingers, if you're not familiar with this concept, right?

Dr. Eric Helms: 12:25

Absolutely. Which I hope your audience is in the same age bracket as we are, or they're not gonna know, even though they know that people are because they're famous now, but they will

Philip Pape: 12:34

select my audience with these things. Okay. gaming culture to

Dr. Eric Helms: 12:41

not mad about that, dude. So as a Street Fighter two player, I mean, 93. But anyway, the Yeah. So I think one perspective is that a novice only needs so much to progress. So most people who really get bit by the iron bug are doing two to three times the amount of training they can benefit from. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. But it probably wouldn't make more sense to focus on you know, a good three sessions on the fundamentals. And, you know, give yourself a little more time to recover. And, you know, distance makes the heart grow fonder kind of thing, and just set up a consistent set of habits, rather than just jumping in full bore immediately. And then as you need it titrating up the volume, or the total stress of your training to continue to progress. So that's kind of my perspective on how beginners should take it.

Philip Pape: 13:36

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense that you're either doing too much, you know, when you get really into, you're doing too much, maybe too many days too many sets, trying to do too much, you know, hypertrophy, your direct work, when maybe you just need the big lifts. How do you reconcile that with? In fact, just today, I think there's, I think, stronger by science and data. I don't know if it's associated with mass, but the study about how people may not be training hard enough, right, like in terms of either going to failure or just volume. So how do you reconcile those two concepts? Because there are people that think they're, they're doing something that's effective? And they're not training hard enough?

Dr. Eric Helms: 14:11

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a there's an interesting interplay with effort, if you will, and in volume, that's pretty important. Like, all of the research we have on specifically hypertrophy, and the amount of sets that are probably appropriate at a broad population level, their meta analyzed, which just means their studies of studies. So someone has taken all the various studies on saying, hey, how much muscle can you grow by doing X number of sets versus x number sets? And oh, can we get 20 of those studies? Let's put them all together and see if we can get a better estimate with a more robust sample size. And, you know, that's been done a number of times. There's the classic one that's probably most well known, known by Schoenfeld. It's Brad Schoenfeld, who's done a lot of the research we have on hypertrophy. There There was one in the last couple years, that was done by bass Val which kind of explore some of the higher volumes. And when you look at the two, you see a pretty clear relationship where it's not a one to one improvement, you know, you do get more bang for your buck per se in your first few sets. But there's a more notable increase in hypertrophy, when you add more volume in there is in strength, makes kind of sense strength is specific skill, you can only go gets get so much of that. And hypertrophy is more of a physiological adaptation. But anyway, so when you when you look at this research, you have to keep in mind that the vast majority of the studies that have been meta analyzed, they are observed training studies where researchers were in the lab motivating the individuals and encouraging them to go to various forms of failure. And I see various forms because there are various forms that the participant thinks they've reached failure or the, the researcher thinks, Okay, that you know, at bars slow down enough, I think you're at failure, or they actually make them go to the point where they miss a rep. So that describes 95% of the studies that have been meta analyzed. So that means that our understanding of volume is with the assumption of there being sufficient effort. Now the data we have on failure is a whole nother kettle of fish. And it suggests that you don't need to go to failure to get the benefits, but you need to be reasonably close to failure, you can't be six, seven reps short all the time and expect to get the same kind of gains you would be if you were to three, or maybe even for reps short. But therefore, it is an issue if someone is doing what they think is an appropriate amount of volume, but they don't know that they're not training nearly hard enough. However, I think for novices, this is actually less of a problem than than it might necessarily be, so long as they have a mind towards progressive overload, which is such a critical concept. Because if if they are, you know, doing, you know, a five by five with their 12 rep max initially, you know, you're like, Oh my God, that's seven reps on failure, that's never gonna work. Well guess what the heaviest squat they ever did was getting off the toilet last week, you know, like, so putting, you know, is 60 kilos on their back, or 135 pounds, even though they're a 200 pound person. And they could squat that for 12 reps, and only doing sets of five is absolutely progressive overload compared to what they've done. And it will be a sufficient stimulus to give them gains. And as they get more acclimated to the weights, and if they hopefully get feedback from either, you know, a trusted workout partner, or eventually a coach, or just, you know, thrown out a video on or on a Reddit forum being like, Hey, how's my form, people are gonna be like, you know, what did you think your proximity to failure was? You know, I think I had another couple, like, try seven, and like, Oh, really, you know, so, I think, so long as you don't let your ego get in the way. And as you get a little more integrated into the culture, which I think is an important part of any pursuit, then it typically takes care of itself. And some of the research we have on people who are just probably, quote unquote, not training hard enough, is kind of just like a random selection of people at the gym is not necessarily when we're looking at, you know, well trained lifters. And in fact, when we look at well trained lifters, they're actually very accurate at estimating the proximity to failure, which you can experimentally do. And when you meta analyze that scene, so I talked about meta analysts meta analysis, there's a great meta analysis by helpern colleagues was suggested on average, in the studies where we've looked at how accurate are people gauging their proximity to failure, with a fair number of them being on trained lifters? While there's a wide point estimate, on average, it's being one rep off. So the average person who lifts is probably doing fairly well in their estimations or proximity to failure, certainly well enough to be, you know, making their volume matter.

Philip Pape: 18:50

Yeah. And I think that you had a lot of great concepts here for the newer lifter, as they're getting into what you call it, the culture, right? That eventually it's going to work out. And I experienced this myself, a lot of people struggle, even knowing what to do, right and listening to folks like you and understanding the research, but basically, just getting out there, and finding a program and doing it right, because adherence is number one, and then building over time, whatever that is, like you said, you may have seminar AR, and then as you if you do sets across and then you add weight, it's going to catch up to where you need to be and you're really going to push yourself that getting ingrained in the culture, I think is is a good segue into self determination theory because one of the elements of that you talked about recently with your friend Omar on Iron culture, I love that show man. Is is relatedness. And you talked about self determination theory, the idea that three three aspects autonomy, competence and relatedness right so autonomy being you know, having agency and then competence and competence building skill and and relatedness having some sort of community or like you said culture, and then having this athlete centered approach if you're a coach to help someone develop that and increase self esteem You also talked about how we could use that ourselves as sort of a checklist. You talked about the Combi model, I'm not gonna get into all the details, if you want to learn the details, folks, go check out iron culture. But putting it all together, it seems that we're not talking so much about a specific program or specific, you know, style of lifting. We're really talking about mindset and agency and self determination, right? So these are valuable things, challenging people giving them knowledge giving them agency. Where am I going with this? I guess I'm looking for you to elaborate a bit on that topic in the context of maybe some stories that you've had, or athletes you've worked with, and share strategies that listener can use to take action in that context.

Dr. Eric Helms: 20:41

Yeah, I think what might be useful, just because I'm kind of often position as the Science Guy is to talk about how sometimes when we get a little too rigid with our perspective on evidence based practice, and a little too dogmatic and maybe a little too prescriptive, and feeling like, you know, if there's a study on something, you know, therefore, it's actually a commandment of what we must do now, in what can sometimes turn people off, is that when they're doing something that they like, that they've set out, they've written down, maybe it's not perfect, per the PubMed guidelines right now, but it is sufficient, it covers the big rocks, you know, and they're told, don't do that do this, you should expect based upon our understanding of human motivation, that their knee jerk reaction will be various shades of Go f yourself, you know, depending on how nice they are. Because what you're essentially doing is subverting what we understand from the evidence, ironically, about human nature and human motivation. And you're telling someone, you know, you don't get to decide what you do for yourself, you know, so that may not be your intention, it probably is not. But I think when I have been in a coaching position, or in a science communication position, I've not always been super aware of this, and I've tried to be more aware of it, that I'm essentially, you know, throwing a threat towards someone's autonomy. It's kind of like, you know, you know, you're supposed to clean your room, but you get told to clean your room, and I like a lot of want to clean my room. Now, you know, it's things you otherwise might even want to do bother you, when when someone else is trying to impose what feels like their will on what things that you would do anyway. And this is something I think we can all relate to. And it's kind of the quote unquote, trick of therapy. If you talk to therapists, the reason why they ask questions, and they probe deeper, and they don't just tell you, you're an abusive relationship, you should probably leave this person is because that's far less effective than you realizing and saying to yourself, I'm in an abusive relationship, I should probably leave this person, same message, two very different things, and you can't have a realization for someone else. But you absolutely can assist them and share your perspective so that they might be able to get there faster, or get there at all. And that's ultimately what the role of a coach is. And I think scientists, in an applied field, like sport science, or health science, or exercise science, or nutrition science, would do very well to understand this very basic concept of the way people operate. Because then they can help get someone towards a more effective approach, which will get them better progress, potentially enhance adherence, make them happier, make them more resilient to injury, and maybe less likely to make errors quit getting give up or get frustrated, without actually making a threat to their autonomy. So the idea of autonomy, supportive coaching, is exactly that. It's the idea that it's not about you is the coach, yes, they hired you, yes, you're the expert. But that doesn't mean that you are a dictator, or authority or authoritarian, who just tells the person what to do. And a lot of the times you take a collaborative stance, you might make a suggestion, you might ask for permission, even to make a suggestion. And if there's a given, you know, program that you've been following, or the person has been doing with success, and then you go from there. Cops weren't there for me, we're good. So a lot of the autonomy supported coaching, or what you might call person centered, athlete centered or client centered coaching is based around that principle. It's intertwined with other things like you know, motivational interviewing and other skills that you can build around that. And it's not that it's like all of a sudden, your, your your bachelor's degree in exercise. Science doesn't matter or your certification is not important. But it's really just more about how you get to delivering that information. And it's not something that's just trying to avoid a negative. My experience has been that it's actually a positive that when you communicate with people in this way, they get far more excited, far more invested, they're more likely to train hard and not miss sessions. And they're more likely to communicate with you and give you information because they know that's their role, rather than being told I am a cog in a wheel or I'm the soldier you're that Captain, you know, I'll drink blood, you know, tell me tell me whatever you do, Coach, you know, like, we think that's a good thing like the good soldier, but ultimately, the only access, we have to how is that athlete adapting? You know, what's their their mental outlook on this? What do they think is it working because we're not there in the kitchen with them. Even if we're there in person, we're only there with three hours, you know, a week on average, as a personal trainer, with someone out of the 24 times seven hours they have in a week, the best access, we have to their experience is them telling us that, and if they're not taught that that's an important part of the relationship with the trainer, especially if it's an online trainer who's not even getting those in person. hours, it's just a weekly report, and maybe a video, and hopefully, sometimes some Skype calls or whatever video platform is your preference, the window into their insight, you know, we can make up a lot of things in our head. That's incorrect, but they can tell us a lot. And that's really where we get all our information.

Philip Pape: 25:58

Yeah, so one thing I got out of that is never never coach your wife, because a lot of these, a lot of these tips are very much relationship advice as well. But anyway, regarding training, how do you deal with someone? If you have a client? Who is the type that says, Just tell me what to do? Tell me what to do. I'll do it. And I think I hear a lot of, you know, athletes who've just been around, you know, been around the block for years. And now they kind of know what to do. And they want the guidelines and the recommendations, how would you respond to that? Are you trying to help educate them on this motivational research and enlighten them as to how this relationship can be even more fruitful using this? Or what's your approach?

Dr. Eric Helms: 26:35

Yeah, a little bit of both. So I mean, one thing is that they're being very clear with what they want. They don't want to sit here and tell you all bunch of shit. Just give me what you think is best, which

Philip Pape: 26:43

is agency? Yes. Yep,

Dr. Eric Helms: 26:46

yep. You I've hired you to tell me what to do. So quit walking around and talking about this fufu stuff and telling him what to do. Right. And I think you do have to meet them there. I think some of the things that you need to do as a coach is essentially going very kind of, you know, straightforward. If that's the way the athletes kind of delivering that. It's like, Yeah, cool. Well, I need to know X, Y, and Z. So I can tell you what to do. You know, and then, you know, they'll respond to that and kind like, so I need to know, I need you to give me a like a rating of perceived exertion on the whole session on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Wednesday is supposed to be an easier session. So you recover before Friday. But hey, if your if your RPE is similar to day one, three, or higher than that's an issue, I need to know that and we need to change the program. Let me know how the body's holding up when we do this kind of volume. So you need to have give them clear, and not kind of these open ended things. But give them clear things. And I want X, Y and Z from you on these days in this way. And then, you know, I think you do educate them a little bit you explain to them that the best tool, I have to know how you're recovering is what you tell me. My best understanding of your motivation levels is what you tell me. You can absolutely ask them Hey, like, what are your goals? Where do we want to get to? And even ask some wise? Oh, goodness, you know, I think it'll be okay. Sure. So, yeah, I think getting them to open up to you to the degree that they're willing. And if if they if they kind of start with Hey, like, coach, tell me what to do. I want to know what to do. And I've hired you as a consultant kind of deal. Give me the guidelines, then that's great. You just need to always frame things through that. So that's the lens you take. And you okay, for me to do that. I need x, y and z. And then I think you'll you'll find that relationship works quite well. And yeah, so the athletes will tell you what they want on almost all cases, even when what they want is not to tell you much. But they might not know what that actually looks like. And on the other side of it, because they aren't you, right. So they've never been on the other side of a coaching. Well, not that's not true. Many times they haven't been on the other side of the coaching relationship. So being able to communicate to them your needs is pretty important in in all coaching relationships, and framing it in such a way that these are my needs so that I can be of service to you in the most effective way possible. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that

Unknown: 29:10

makes a lot of sense. Hi, my name is Lisa. And I'd like to Big shout out to my nutrition coach Philip pape, with his coaching, I have lost 17 pounds, he helped me identify the reason that I wanted to lose weight, and it's very simple longevity. I want to be healthy, active and independent until the day I die. He introduced me to this wonderful app called macro factor. I got that part of my nutrition figured out along with that is the movement part of nutrition. There's a plan to it and really helped me with that. The other thing he helped me with was knowing that I need to get a lot of steps in. So the more steps you have, the higher your expenditure is and the easier it is to lose weight when it's presented to you like he presents it it makes even more sense. And the other thing that he had was a hunker guide, and that really helped me so thank you, but

Philip Pape: 29:54

what about on the other side where somebody doesn't have a coach and it's a it's a The challenge of motivation, I guess, right? And we throw that word around a lot. But you did talk about this Combi model the capability, opportunity and motivation, driving behavior and using that as a checklist, even for yourself. So how can someone do that someone listening was like, I don't know, I don't want to work with a coach can't afford a coach, I just want to do it myself and learn to lift and make progress, but I'm not motivated.

Dr. Eric Helms: 30:20

Yeah. So first, I just want to say that absolutely, you can make this thing work without a coach. And when we think about self determination theory, you know, there's relatedness doesn't need to be a coach, it just means that part of the community, feeling like you're understood being acknowledged, kind of no persons in Ireland, yada, yada, yada. A lot of respect to this the psychology there you like that?

Philip Pape: 30:41

No, no, it's very important community isn't.

Dr. Eric Helms: 30:44

It is the yatta yatta yatta didn't quite give it the the gravity of intended. Competence is essentially feeling you're getting better at something over time, like when we get frustrated, as we feel like we're putting forth effort, but nothing's changing, right. And that makes you want to quit. So you can very clearly see how that's a threat to, to sticking with something and then finally, autonomy that the goals are pursuing our hero. And none of that requires having a coach. But you can use that as checklist. And then also, like you introduced another really cool model that is often used in understanding the pursuit of health behaviors, or not the pursuit of health behaviors, or the cessation of health behaviors is the Combi model, like you said, and that is exactly what you said competence, which lines up very much with the SDT model opportunity, which I think is very complementary to the self, the stt model. So determination theory is understanding that, yeah, like, if you want to have a community, but you live in a very remote area, and you don't have an internet access, or don't have you like, or you're really not good with technology, you don't have the opportunity to develop relatedness very, very easily. Right? Or if you want to, you know, I watched the documentary or the new the, the real life Hollywood story of the Williams sisters and their father coaching, like, if you want to get into tennis, but you live in, you know, like an inner city, when you don't have a lot of money, that's going to be harder to do than then if you live in the suburbs, right. So those types of things, it helps explain some of the realities related to self determination theory. So you can self identify those things. A coach should also pay attention to those things. So capability, opportunity, and the M, which I'm blanking on at the moment, motivation, motivation, thank you, which is why I forgot it because it's get the CORE Center of STP STP explains all of that. So that's where the link to. So when you look at the con V model, someone might have the capability and the opportunity to do something. But if they're not actually interested, and they don't, they're autonomous desires not to do something, or any other element of it is not actually leading to them having the motivation, which doesn't mean like the group X instructor yelling at you, but like the motive to do something, I don't have a why I don't want to do this, it doesn't matter. You know what resources or ability you have to do something, you just want to do it. I think back to when I was running track in high school, I just did not like running the foreigner meter, even though I was reasonably good at it. And I made up a pretty solid four by 14. And I just did it because I didn't want to let the team down. But as soon as I get out of high school, I never run a foreigner meter again. You know, right. So

Philip Pape: 33:30

you're talking about an incentive. So if you're a professional athlete, your incentive might be millions of dollars. And like you said, Yeah, okay.

Dr. Eric Helms: 33:37

Well, interestingly enough, the strongest incentive is actually not the pay, although I've never been paid a million dollars to do anything. So that might make me change. My perspective on this theoretical construct is actually intrinsic motivation. You know, I would say that competing in bodybuilding is a lot harder than running the foreigner meters, even though they're running the four meters is very hard. But because I have a strong intrinsic drive to do it, and I get something out of it, I will keep doing it. And extrinsic motivators are at best things that support that or add on to it or is the cherry on top of the cake. But at worst when they supplant that when you start doing it purely for the win for the trophy, or for the million dollars, you find yourself just feeling like I just don't have the same drive. It's not like it used to be I'm doing this like a job. It feels like a job now. And that's something you want to avoid at all costs. And it is easy with the reward structure of sport, when competitive desire sometimes supplant our initial process oriented drive for those things to get subverted. So it actually takes effort and in purposeful thought to hold on to an intrinsic drive to do something while you're also pursuing extrinsic outcomes. Easy example was the athlete who has their best showing ever best performance ever, but places lower just because the field was more challenging, but they feel like a failure. You know, they did everything right and If they were not competing, and they're just going to the gym and looking at their logbook, they're like I crushed it. But because they got ranked, you know, that whole Comparison is the thief of joy, that actually turned it on its head. And now they are not as motivated to do what they love doing, which can be can be tragic if it leads to burnout, but being able to hold those two things, appreciate the progress you've made, the place where you're at your commitment to something, and have the pursuit of excellence, but then also have a competitive goal and outcome and say, hey, I want to do better. Where am I at realistically is it is hard, and a coach can also help with that. So to answer your question, the Combi model is great, you can assess the opportunity, you can assess the motivation, and that kicks you back up to SDT. It's like a flowchart. And then you can also assess, you know, competence or capability, which are kind of one of the same. And that creates this ecosystem, if you're self coached of where am I at? And what do I need to work on? What do I need to identify what resources do I need to connect myself with. And another piece that's not connected to any of this, but just advice I have for self coached individuals is report into yourself, it's gonna feel weird. But get a spreadsheet, have a plan, and then record a message as if you had a coach on a weekly or bi weekly basis, will write an email, and you can even send it to yourself. And this is something that makes sense. If you have coached before, if you're just an athlete, this is gonna sound weird. But for someone who has used this coaching model for others, it puts you in a certain frame of mind, and allows you to be a little more objective. You go okay, what would I do with this person if their name was not their account, and they said they did X, Y, and Z. And you can be more objective about what might be the best decision. So it's kind of like a little Jedi mind trick on yourself to be the same type of coach you can be for others for yourself, which is generally quite hard, because you're so emotionally close to

Philip Pape: 36:52

decisions you're making. And you have to have the knowledge and tools, like you're sharing here to even know to do that. But I do have a friend who kind of has a ranking system for multiple areas of his life, you know, relationships, fitness, and so on and kind of coaches themselves and then reports add on to it to it with a group of other men that he talks to. So that's kind of the relatedness part. So you had me a flowchart You had me at Jedi mind trick now I'm wondering, Eric, your personal routine, like how do you right now? What is the the big motivator for you? Is it the competition? Is it yourself? What is it?

Dr. Eric Helms: 37:27

Yeah, I'm I'm very solid in in, in what I'm about. And my best guess is my future, it's very hard to predict who I will be at 65. But having been doing this for now, my first comp competitive season was oh seven and bodybuilding. And oh six in powerlifting. I started lifting in oh four. So I'm coming up on two decades of lifting and loving it. And having that relationship change in my meaning and wise change and becoming more aware. I think I'm pretty bought in intrinsically. And I don't think that's going to change. I suspect I will be getting on stage as an M one competitor, but also m two and M three in the future. And just doing it to see being the best version of myself at any given time. And that makes sense to me. And I look forward to it. But because of that I'm allowing myself to be able to lean a little more into my competitive side. So one of my my goals, not my main goal, but one of the goals I have this year is to try to get my WMV F pro card, and something that wasn't a goal in prior years. But it's been something I've thought about for a long time. My first introduction to Natural Bodybuilding was I was a test judge at a show in 2006. That was a WMV F show and my first time I learned like, oh, Natural Bodybuilding, it's a thing. And I was like, Oh, this is cool. I want to compete in this. And it was Rodney hilarious show in Georgia when my wife was still stationed in the Air Force Rodney Hilaire is a multiple time, late 90s, early 2000s WNBA F pro champ, and the heavyweight division won world titles in the heavyweight class. And, and yeah, in Augusta, Georgia, are making around the area, I can't recall exactly where he had the show. And I got to see these competitors. And ever since then I've like oh, so a good goal would be to get my WNBA pro card, which is probably at this stage in Natural Bodybuilding, the hardest professional status to get and you know, I haven't got it yet. I've gotten pro qualified and smaller organ, a smaller organization back in my third season. So it's something that means a lot to me. And then in turn with that, then competing as a pro at the highest stage worlds is kind of like those are my final bosses that might change. Like if I do decently well at Worlds as a pro. And I'm like, let's see how far I can take this. You know, like, I'll go wherever my body will let me go. But I am noticing that the gains are coming harder and harder to come by at this stage, which I don't think it's an age thing, but I think it is I have been lifting for 20 years thing and I may be closer to the ceiling that I'd like to admit.

Philip Pape: 39:57

Yeah, no, I would love to be there someday fortune Only fortunately for me, I started lifting about three years ago and still a lot on the table to go after, as are a lot of my listeners who want to understand how to do that how to. So you've been doing it for this many years. First First question is, would you go back and tell your younger self to do it differently? And then second, what is right now having written the muscle strength pyramids, and all these different ways to program and everybody's individual different levels of volume? Still? What are the principles and the bedrock of just the basic programming for a new lifter? Who actually does want to prioritize both strength and size?

Dr. Eric Helms: 40:33

Hmm, yeah. So the first thing, what would I tell myself is that just because you've never been injured, and you've never been a little overweight, doesn't mean they can't happen, you young, skinny person, and perhaps plan for those things. But you don't know what you don't know. Because I did have a fair number of lower back injuries, just from kind of not thinking about what I was doing in my lifting early on, which set me out a good bit. And then after my first season, I didn't think at all about there being any I figured I would, I'm really, really hungry. That's fine. I'll eat a lot. And I'll get back to my offseason weight and that's it. But I actually gained like 44 pounds in three months, and then spent most of my next offseason, like dieting off that after dieting, which is less than ideal. So anyway, you know, just kind of tell tell me some things that are coming down to then like around that corner, there'll be monsters was essentially what I would tell myself, and then I let the rest sorted out, because I kind of like where I'm at. But I wouldn't have minded not getting, I don't know, it's tough to say like, I don't think three would be around if I didn't have those things.

Philip Pape: 41:37

But have you had to have all those experiences? Yeah,

Dr. Eric Helms: 41:39

I did. Yeah. So Yeah, take that, for what it's worth.

Philip Pape: 41:43

You know, it's funny, you say that, because I can really tell a little bit because when I when I started lifting, and a lot of it was based on your stuff, and reading, you know, Andy Morgan, right, who you co wrote the author with, and are co authors with, and I kind of neglected the new drip nutrition, half of that. And also gained quite a bit of weight on I don't know whole milk and whatever I wanted to eat, you know, to, but but unless you go through that process, you don't realize that on one hand, it does help with the lifts. And on the other hand, well, now you need to learn about nutrition.

Dr. Eric Helms: 42:13

Yeah, having the experience I had with nutrition and being someone who grew up skinny and never even thought about I just ate, you know, it's like whatever, the first time having body image dissatisfaction and feeling like I wasn't in control of my own eating, that gave me a window into something that a lot of people deal with in our in our society, unfortunately, and which gave me the drive to then learn more about it. And now a significant chunk of what I do as a researcher, and a significant part of my part of my writing is, you know, talking about what is sometimes been considered the elephant in the room in the bodybuilding community, which is, you know, body image dissatisfaction and disordered eating patterns, if not full blown eating disorders. And that's a common thing in sport, especially weight class, restricted sport and physique sport even more so. So, you know, helping people kind of recapture some of that control in a healthy way is, is what I do. So anyway, a bit of an aside. So your second question, if I, if I remember correctly, was, what is my basic advice for early stage or late stage novices early stage intermediates, they want to pursue both strength and hypertrophy? Yes. Yeah. So yeah, first thing I would advise is, do do some work to figure out what your minimum effective dose is. Some of the research we have would suggest it is probably you know, one to five hard sets that are specific on the lifts you care about for getting stronger. And that's easily work into workable into a program English. And the way I'm currently doing, it could be somewhat of a model, where one to three times per week on the squat, the bench and the deadlift, I'm working up to a heavy single, this is a single I probably couldn't do a second rep with but that I don't feel so unsure of that I need a spotter. If your experience level is not such where you can be that precise, get a spotter or just be a little bit lighter, the heaviest, you're comfortable without a spotter and certainly going to be sufficiently heavy enough to drive strength.

Philip Pape: 44:13

So this would be this would be like a 90% 90. Maybe 95%. Yeah,

Dr. Eric Helms: 44:17

yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay. Now the thing is, for folks who've only been added a couple years, just do this, doing this will change what that number is sometimes even week to week, if you're used to doing say five or something like that. The reason why the minimum effective dose can be quite effective is because these specific stimulus is a more potent stimulus, right? So you might find yourself starting to do these singles and every week you can add five pounds to inhibit the the same feeling of the same percentage, which is a good thing when you're getting stronger. So yeah, I would typically recommend you can do that. And then for your back off work, it doesn't necessarily have to be the same movement. So you could do a single at a squat and then move on to a leg press for you backoff work, if you happen to be well built for a squat, you could then move into your hypertrophy work. So these, these top singles are a really useful tool to get good at the skill of the lift. And then to actually do the hypertrophy work, you can do movements that are a little more suited towards bodybuilding. Not that the deadlift, the squat, and the bench aren't great builders of muscle is that they also tend to come with, you know, costs associated with them. Yeah, they're more stressful. Mentally, it's harder to work up to a heavy set of five on a squat than it is on a leg press for most people. And if you want to have a you want to modulate you're stressed down mental or physical. Or if you have joint pain, where you can only do so much volume on a thing like you brought up earlier shoulders and benchpress. This gives you a lot of flexibility, you know, you can do your top single on bench shoulder start to get a little niggly like, that's good, move over and do some some cable flyes or something like that. So

Philip Pape: 45:56

this is a really good concept to sit with, because I hear it all the time. And I'm always talking to all my 40 Something friends, you know, we have little aches and pains from lifting. These are really good concepts, you know, one being top setback offset, right, the other being going to support supportive or accessory movement, rather than over stressing on on the max reps for that first movement. Good, really good advisor just wanted to sit with that let people soak it in.

Dr. Eric Helms: 46:22

Absolutely. And kind of the way I see it is for strikes, specifically, there's a hierarchy of what is like useful, productive time. And the specific movement itself, you know, without any other context is your best bet at improving that specific movement. But there are costs associated with it, you can only do so much of it, especially at that heavy load. And then from there you kind of you can, it's useful to have schema for what are the different exercises for So a common mistake you see is someone in a strength phase, or they're going to do tricep pushdowns, or doing heavy sets of six to eight, like well on the strength phase. So all my movements, I'm just doing lower rep. That's a reasonable thing to do. But then you have to think, Okay, well, why am I doing a tricep push down, it's probably not for direct transfer of strength to a benchpress. Right? I mean, bench press, you're lying down on your back, you've got a bar on your hands, you're trying to be tight and arch a little bit, a tricep push down, you're standing up, it's a cable, your hands are way closer together. It's a single joint movement, there's no coordination with your your shoulders and chest, you know you're stabilizing yourself at standing. So there's going to be next to zero transfer of actual skill. The reason we're doing tricep pushdown is because trying to increase the cross sectional area of our triceps so that there's more contractile tissue so that when we bench, we're probably able to produce more force. So it's this is a long game, right? So what's the best rep range for you to do a tricep push down is the real question. And a six to eight bothers your elbow, but I got to do X, I'm going to strike face shadow do 15 to 20 reps, that's fine, you know, because we know from the data on hypertrophy, and so long as the effort is there, approximately to failure, if you will, that, you know moderate reps or high reps are going to be roughly equivalent on a set set basis. For most people. Your mileage may vary. But I wouldn't start with the assumption that you're, you know, a special snowflake who responds better to high reps than low reps or vice versa. Unless you have good personal data, you're most likely to be someone who is going to get the same bang for your buck if the RTR is similar when you're doing 12 or sixes, right. So that's one thing to consider that the movements that are there to produce hypertrophy, hypertrophy will help strength, but they don't need to be done in such a specific narrow confines that you typically see in some of the quote unquote, power building programs. Yeah,

Philip Pape: 48:37

yeah, no, that's, that's good, that's good as well. And even alternating between those rep ranges to take the stress off, right and rotating. So that's all really good before, I know, we only have 10 minutes left. So I wanted to get to like one or two other topics real quick. Let's do it. And the nutrition we covered nutrition a little bit, there's a friend of mine, he's a fellow coach, shout out to Dustin Lambert. For this one. There's kind of I don't know if it's a debate or just, you know, as always, there's there's camps with different things when it comes to plant versus animal protein. And whether one is whether one is more beneficial than the other. And of course, you have to look at the context and the goal right is are we talking body composition? Are we talking strength, cardiovascular health, hypertrophy, and so on. So you can cherry pick made analysis like there was one I found my limb at all 2021 That showed a slight benefit for animal protein for lean mass secretion, but no difference in strength. Anyway, that's just one of many. So what is the evidence tell us about the differences between animal and plant protein in terms of outcomes, not just proxy measures, which is another thorny area, right, but real human outcomes? Is there a rule of thumb that works for most people like you know, get a certain amount of grams protein from plants for overall health and nutrients and the rest of them whatever you want, or, you know, what are your thoughts on this?

Dr. Eric Helms: 49:51

I liked how you just framed up there at the end because in reality, we don't eat animal and plant proteins. We eat animals and plants, right. And it's very difficult in these analyses to tease out whether it is the food that contains the amino acids, or whether it is and the nutrients associated with those foods, or whether it is the specific, you know, like, like amino acid in them. And I can tell you that when it comes down to a very reductionist take on protein, it shouldn't make any difference at a certain with certain caveats. So the reductionist view of why animal proteins are typically better, or animal source proteins are typically better than plant source is because they generally have a more complimentary, essentially amino acid profile, they have higher amounts of Leucine, they're not quote unquote, missing or low in any specific essential amino acid. So is this as a random example, pea protein, very robust in branched chain amino acids, high leucine content relatively comparable to way, but if I recall correctly, it's relatively low in myth union, which is one of the other essential amino acids. So it's a problem, right. But again, we don't eat proteins, we eat foods. So it is very rare that you will find a vegetarian or a vegan, who has a pea protein shake, post workout, but then doesn't have any other protein sources have any meaningful amount or sufficient amount of protein by the end of the day. So that shortfall of methionine is not a problem, when they're also having rice and beans, chickpeas, and all the other foods that they're consuming in a day. So you could ask the question, all right, well, if these various different plant based proteins are, you know, you know, not not that high and certain essential amino acids, that means the overall quality is lower. And you could probably make a mechanistic argument like you alluded to that, yeah, when we compare like just the protein quality, you generally see a hierarchy. Not always, but generally, were plant based proteins are a little lower in terms of their amino acid composition and digestibility scores compared to animal proteins. But the differences are not as extreme as most people think. And we're extremely efficient at extracting everything out of the food we eat. And most importantly, is when you look at Applied outcomes is that when you're consuming the ranges of protein that we recommend for sport, decent kind of threshold of where you start to maximize the benefits of protein is right around 8.7 grams per pound, or 1.6 grams per kilogram. We actually have studies now on vegans lifting weights compared to omnivores, where they're consuming at least this amount, and in the periods of time studied, you know, typical training study six to 12 weeks, we don't see any significant difference between groups. And now that's kind of like addressing the typical argument against, like, you know, the vegan protein and the thing, oh, you need to eat a little more something like that. The argument for is generally Hey, you know, we look at these studies on vegetarians and vegans population level, we cherry pick certain meta analyses, and hey, these vegetarian or vegan diets look healthier. They seem to have better health outcomes than omnivorous diets that include meat. But when you start to control for a lot of the confounders and the covariates, which is really difficult to do, because you don't get to really experimentally control these things. So there's observational research, which is highly valuable, but it has some limitations, you start to see that the picture that gets gets painted, is that vegetarians in general, are more health conscious people. If they're adopting a specific way of eating, they're less likely to smoke, they're less likely to drink, they're more likely to be active. And when you control for those factors, all cause mortality starts to be very similar. So when you have comparable omnivores and comparable vegetarians, like you specifically look at omnivores, who exercise, don't smoke, don't drink, a lot of those things go away. And I think the best overall big picture interpretation of the data we have is that a plant based diet is beneficial for you, rather than an omnivorous diet being automatically a negative for you. That's not to say there aren't some things in some omnivore omnivorous diets that have maybe a negative signal in the noise. Like if you were to eat a whole lot of processed meats, or like charred food, or trans fats, or a very high diet very high in saturated fats, you could run into some some problems that would be of course greatly mitigated by the fact that you're exercising and doing all these other things that I discussed. But there's no reason you can't do those things. And also be an omnivore. Like, I'd be hard pressed to see how a, you know, like a pescatarian wouldn't be in as good or a better position than than a vegan, you know, because you've kind of avoided all of those things. But then you've got a you know, the end the protein quality might be a little higher on average, and they're also getting probably more DHA in their diet. So, you know, if we really wanted to kind of play like the health Olympics, you start splitting hairs but at that point, once you start to kind of play the health Olympics, we are talking about so small differences that they don't matter in the long run, and you've ticked all the boxes. So, so long as you're consuming complementary proteins as a vegan throughout the course of the day, not necessarily the same meal, and you're hitting that threshold of protein intake, and you are lifting weights, you're probably good to go. And likewise, if you have a omnivorous diet, but it's heavily plant based, you're probably good to go.

Philip Pape: 55:18

Yeah, and that's a good one that was actually the one I was really getting at was the idea that a lot of omnivores don't eat very many plants, let's just be honest. And so this could be a little bit of incentive to say, well, you know, getting some some of your protein from your plants gets you to eat more plants. Anyway,

Dr. Eric Helms: 55:34

one recommendation for everyone is go to Omar ECFC YouTube channel, and I want you to watch any video you want. And then just scroll to the last 30 seconds and take that message to heart. That's all I have to say. Okay. He says, Eat your vegetables, eat your vegetables, eat your vegetables, the end of every single video.

Philip Pape: 55:50

That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Omar is great. Yeah, if I have you on again, we have to dig into iron culture stuff, because I got so many questions there. I'm trying to get him on the show. And I don't know, maybe you can give them a little nudge.

Dr. Eric Helms: 56:03

Good luck, Omar in podcaster. There's one podcast, he does

Philip Pape: 56:08

worry a shirt from his company, you know, send him a video. But yeah. So yeah, what was it? Oh, and then the confounders. That's another thing you mentioned. Because the like when you look at diet soda studies, or seed oil studies, you have that similar thing where if you separate out people have overall healthy dietary patterns, even though they consume those things, they tend to be just fine. And you kind of have to separate that. All right, I know you have to go. I have one second. The last question before, before I go. And that is, what one question Did you wish I had asked you? And what is your answer?

Dr. Eric Helms: 56:40

Oh, man, that's a tough one. I think you did a really good job. And you asked me a lot of good questions. Honestly, there, you did a good job. And like we kept it high level, like you mentioned off camera. You touched on self determination theory, people who are coached and not coached, which I think was great. You asked me what I would have done different. And when we talked about vegetarian stuff, we got to both sides of the coin. So honestly, I'm gonna be that that like shitty hosts who are guests, who doesn't tell the host anything useful for that question. I think you did a really good job.

Philip Pape: 57:11

No, that's, that's, that's a compliment. So I appreciate it. That's fine. So where can listeners learn more about you?

Dr. Eric Helms: 57:18

Yeah. So first off, thank you for having me on, Philip. It's been great. This was a lovely discussion. If people want to learn more about what I do. The good one stop shop is 3d muscle journey.com. That is the number three, the letter deed and muscle journey. From there, you can find links to a lot of the things you talked about in the intro, my books, the muscle and strength pyramids, my monthly Research Review for people who want to not just nerd out once in my books, but stay up to date with the monthly nerding. That's myself, Lauren cleanses, simple Dr. microdose, as well as Dr. Eric Trexler. And we review research that comes out on a monthly basis relevant to building your your strength, or you know, manipulating your physique. We really enjoy that. And then the only other things that aren't linked through the various things, you can click on a 3d muscle journey.com is iron culture, which you you know, have talked about so generously which, which I appreciate. And if you want to find all the appearances I do off of my own platforms, like this lovely podcast, follow me at helm's 3d MJ On Instagram where I share all the stuff that I do like that. And on that note, Philip, when you've got any media related to this share with me, I'd be more than happy to post

Philip Pape: 58:21

we'll do is I'll put all those links in there. If people want to know whether they should chill their hands before they lift. That's one of the questions that are answering the latest mass review. And, man, it's been a pleasure having you on. Thanks for having this conversation. And I know the listeners will get a ton of value from this, Eric. Thank you.

Dr. Eric Helms: 58:37

It's a pleasure. Thank you.

Philip Pape: 58:40

If you've been inspired by today's interview, and are ready to take action and build momentum on your health and fitness journey, just schedule a free 30 minute nutrition momentum call with me using the link in my show notes. I promise not to sell or pitch you on anything, but I will help you gain some perspective and guidance so we can get you on the right track toward looking and feeling your best