405: How Hard Do You Need To Train For Muscle Gain?, Keto Muscle Building, Protecting Yourself From Pesticides & Much More!

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Listener Q&A:

How To Protect Yourself From Pesticides…35:10

Noah asks: I'm 17 years old and I'm really interested in earthing and grounding. I love to walk barefoot on the grass, but a lot of my neighbors use pesticides for their lawns. I was wondering if I should be concerned about these pesticides getting into my skin or other negative effects on my health.

In my response, I recommend:

Why HRV Results Are Different Between Devices…42:50

Marcy asks: I take my HRV every morning, and I use two different apps to do so: Elite HRV, and SweetBeat HRV. Oftentimes, one of the apps will say that I should take a recovery day, while the other app will say that everything is fine and I can workout as normal. Either way, they're not at all synced with their results. Is there something I should be doing, like new baselines with both of the apps? Any insight would be appreciated.

In my response, I recommend:

The Best Sirtuin Activators…58:00

Jay asks: I have a bit of a misunderstanding I was hoping you could clear up for me. In your recent podcast with Angelo Keely, you discussed sirtuin-activating compounds. In the same podcast, you also mentioned the Plant Paradox diet and mentioned that sometimes you will put clients on this depending on what they have going on. It was my understanding that sirtuin-activating compounds actually come from natural plant mechanisms that you might be avoiding in the Plant Paradox diet. I was wondering what you might think about this conflict of ideas or perhaps I'm just misunderstanding something?

In my response, I recommend:


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14 thoughts on “405: How Hard Do You Need To Train For Muscle Gain?, Keto Muscle Building, Protecting Yourself From Pesticides & Much More!

  1. Chris Pittman says:

    Hey Ben, I am cgp1128 and I was wondering If the email given out at the end for the gear received my email? Thanks in advance!

    1. Did you receive a response?

  2. Albert Karaptian says:

    Ben/Jay,

    Thanks so much for the info on HRV. I’m in the market for a HRM monitoring device (hardware). I’ve noticed that you “mention” oura a few times in your podcasts/articles.

    Based on my research, it appears, for the everyday consumer, devices that take measurements from chest straps tend to be more accurate than the others.

    Do you feel that the Oura is the most accurate/consistent device?
    If so, why?
    If not, what 1 or 2 HRV devices would you recommend as the most accurate?

    I’m solely interested in this device to measure HRV (RR, Sleep, Body Temp, etc.) are secondary.

    I have done some deep dives into devices and start to get overwhelmed and out of my league technically (University tests, large lab research, etc.) and hoping you can help out a guy who really needs someone/something to tell him he’s overtraining.

    Thanks in advance for all of your help.

    PS: love the podcast/articles/products. been utilizing them for the last 3 years with success.

  3. Richard says:

    hi,
    I live on the 5th floor in the middle of a city.
    What is the difference between having my feet on a special grounding mat and barefoot feet on the floor of my apartment?
    Does walking barefoot indoor not in the basement count as grounding?
    thank you

  4. Faz says:

    Hi guys, I’m climbing Kilimanjaro in 6 weeks and I’ve read research around how ketosis helps free divers go without oxygen so I wondered whether being keto-adapted would help me with altitude sickness. Do you guys have any thoughts on this? Any other things that you think would be helpful? I’ve been LCHF for about 5 years now so hoping this will be helpful.

  5. Mike says:

    Hi Ben/Jay,

    I have a chronically low HRV. I’ve been tracking it for about 3 months with an Oura ring and my HRV is usually around 25, rarely exceeds 30. I do Crossfit style workouts a few times a week and a lot of Chi Kung/Tai Chi so I’m very surprised its this low all the time. My sleep is good and backed off on my training with no changes.

    Should I be concerned? Is this indicative of a health problem? Any thoughts/comments will be much appreciated.

    Male/44yr/155lb/67in

    1. Jay Wiles says:

      Hi Mike,

      Thanks for reaching out to us regarding this question. There are so many variables that we have to take into consideration when looking at HRV. HRV can be a measure of sports performance/recovery as well as chronic or systemic stress overload. This can be both physical and psychological stress. One of the things that I always tell many of my patients when they are finding that they have chronically low HRV scores and perform CrossFit style workouts multiple times per week is to try taking a few weeks off high intensity workouts. This is tough to do initially, as we are highly ingrained to want to do these things, as we should; however, this may be a good window or indicator into whether or not we are engaging in high-performance activity too often and not giving our bodies a chance to recover. It is kind of like the idea of hormesis versus burnout. Both are forms of stress, but one impacts the system for more significantly than the other. Should you test this out and find that HRV scores are not significantly change, then there are other potential reasons for this. Yes, there could be indicators of dysautonomia; however, these are more rare than people realize. It also could mean that you are experiencing significant amount of psychological stress and are having a hard time recovering. Again, I don’t know your case, but is something worth looking into. I hope that this helps, but please let me know if you have any more questions about it.

      -Jay

      1. Mike says:

        Thanks Jay! I’ll take your advice

  6. William Lim says:

    Hi Ben,

    Can autophagy interfere with anabolism? Was just wondering how taking the “autophagy tea” would affect the muscle building happening while sleeping.

    Thanks!

    Will

  7. zachary marchildon says:

    Hey, I was hoping to get some sort of device for sleep quantification and was hoping you could recommend which one you would say is best? I know you speak a lot about the oura ring and whoop.

  8. Jonathan Emery says:

    Despite the comprehensive answer re.HRV I feel you’ve still ducked the question. Assuming that all the variables you mentioned are standardised, one app should not say you are recovered and ready to train when the other says no. It really doesn’t matter what’s going on under the hood in terms of calculation protocols. These are consumer devices – the advice that the app spits out is the only thing that should count and they can’t both be right can they?

  9. Nick says:

    So, since you brought up quercetin, and I’m not joking here, could it turn your semen yellow (and I mean neon-ish yellow, like the colour of quercetin itself, and definitely noticeable enough for it to be concerning). That happens to me, every time I take them (Jarrow quercetin 500mg in my case, even just a cap per day is enough for it to happen), and goes away when I stop. What gives, do I metabolise it differently than most people?

  10. brandy barnett says:

    Little confused about this autophagy tea. The links on most of these don’t go to powders. Can you link to the exact product used? some of them go to search engines or capsules. Loved the podcast!

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