Dr. Jared Powell:
Dr. Jackson Fyfe, welcome to the show.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Thanks, Jared. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Jared Powell:
You're welcome. Jackson. Firstly, who are you mate, and what do you do?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, so I'm a senior lecturer at Deakin University. So in the exercise science area, and my research is mainly around exercise for improving muscle health across the lifespan, and really big focus on resistance training and not just working out what's effective, but looking at strategies to make resistance training a bit more, more practical and and feasible across the lifespan. We know we have, we've got big issues with getting people involved in exercise more generally, let alone strength training. So that's a real big, big focus area of mine as well.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Awesome. And so the setup of today's conversation will be mainly around resistance exercise, and that's, that's really important I think, for physios, which is my background. We give out resistance exercise every single day, but we probably don't really think about it from a general health perspective. We more think about it from a, a rehabilitative perspective. So I think your insights will be really important. Before we get into to the meat of the chat though, Jackson, what are you into, mate? What are some of your, your personal interests? Are you a sporting man? What do you like to do in your spare time?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, so definitely into sport. AFL's probably my, my go-to sport. I grew up playing soccer and tennis mostly. Didn't really play much. Yeah, footy, Australian footy growing up, but as a spectator, that's what I get into most these days. So yeah, definitely sport, love training, going to the gym, running mainly a little bit of cycling, but yeah, mainly lifting weights and, and and, and a bit of running. So yeah, just, just sport, sport and, and, and keeping active as as much as I can.
Dr. Jared Powell:
So you do you, do you do like a bit of cardio or aerobic exercise in addition to your resistance exercise?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, try to sort of sprinkle a little bit of that in. I've never been the, the, the fittest person in, in that sense. And I think I've definitely focused most of my time on, on the lifting aspect. But yeah, I've learned not to neglect my, my vo two max too much, so try and keep that, that as as high as I can as well.
Dr. Jared Powell:
I've been on a journey without, over the past 12 months. I'd sort of trained in the gym since I was 13 and I'm 38 now and I didn't do a ton of aerobic work for, I wanna say 20 years, which is sad to think about. I started running about a year ago and I've fallen, fallen in love with it again. And I've never been more injured though since I've started running again, but it's kind of, it was a rude awakening when I started that I could barely run a couple of kilometers at a really slow pace without my legs wanting to fall off, my calves cramping up, my lungs bursting, and this is like a seven minute pace, which was very sad, but it quickly improved. So I've been on a, a really fun journey with that. Have you sort of continued to train over into, into your thirties and twenties with cardio, or did you give it up for a while?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
I've probably been a little bit inconsistent with it, much better recently, but yeah, I, I'm the same. I've kind of, you have to kind of put your ego in check a little bit and forget about the paces that you used to run at and, and try and I've been trying to run a little bit more on, on feel and yeah, just kind of slow and steady rather than trying to, to go gung-ho all the time. 'cause Yeah, I'm finding more and more I'm getting those niggles and soreness in calves and, you know, my achilles that I'd sort of never had previously. So I think it's a real challenge to try and, yeah, keep at it and, and keep exercising often, but trying to not get injured at, at the same time.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yeah, I think I've been listening to a ton of like, or reading a lot of muscle physiology stuff on, on training, optimal training, and some of the key principles from the researchers that I've, I've read is, easy days should be super easy, right? It should be like, you could just keep doing this, but then your hard days should be hard and you don't, the mistake I made for the first six months was like, most of the days were like moderate days, you know, my easy days were getting harder 'cause I felt good, and then on my hard days I probably weren't as hard as I should have gone, so on and so forth. So it converged on this like moderate intensity. So now I'm like, easy days are easy, hard days are hard and it's, it's working.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, no, I think that's a, that's a really good approach. Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yeah. Cool. Alright. Today we're gonna talk about resistance exercise. First question that I have for you, Jackson, is who should be doing it? Should kids be doing it? Should it just be a 25-year-old male? Should it be males and females? Should it be even elderly or is it important across the lifespan? What are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Absolutely. I think when most people think about lifting weights, they tend to think about, you know, you, you 20 to 30 year olds, you know, lifting heavy weights in the gym, bodybuilder style. But yeah, I think more and more we're realizing the benefits of resistant training across the lifespan starting from, you know, youth all the way into very advanced age. And yeah, we're just learning more and more about the, the benefits outside of just building muscle and, and building strength. The general health benefits are, are quite wide ranging as well, and in most cases are quite comparable to aerobic exercise. We generally think about, you know, things like metabolic health, you know, cardiovascular health as being linked to aerobic exercise, but more and more we're learning that resistance exercise can provide pretty comparable benefits in that sense as well. So I think there's a really good case for, you know, with all forms of activity, trying to build good habits, habits early, that will hopefully translate into kind of adulthood and then older age. But the important thing as well is that, you know, we are, we're never really too late to benefit as well. So I'd argue that resistance training is something that everyone should be doing at, you know, really all stages of life.
Dr. Jared Powell:
So it's okay for, for kids to be engaging in exercise when I say kids, preteen kids and doesn't stunt their growth, which is the old adage that we all brought up on.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah. So look, there's a lot of myth and misconceptions around resistance training in general, but I think particularly when it comes to youth resistance training, and really what the research suggests is, you know, to your point there's really no, to my knowledge, no scientific evidence that doing resistance training in youth does stunt growth. And you know, when it's done appropriately, so in an age appropriate way, when it's well supervised, importantly, when the kids themselves are mature enough to follow instructions and sort of behave appropriately in a resistant training environment it can actually be quite safe when it's, again, tailored in, in an age appropriate way. So youth resistance training can look different to adult resistance training in the sense that starting young with resistance training could involve just simple body weight movements. So we are not talking about getting kids straight into, you know, dead lifts or squats or Olympic lifts or, or things like that.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
But introducing those foundational movements in, in a age appropriate way. And that can have numerous benefits from improving their coordination, motor control, you know, building strength even their confidence and, and self-esteem as well. And we know that stronger kids tend to become stronger adults and stronger adults. That's really our chance to maximize our peak levels of muscle and strength that we then carry, carry forward into older age as well. So I think in general, the evidence is that resistant training in kids can be safe, and a lot of the governing bodies, Australian Strength Conditioning Association et cetera, do endorse resistant training for kids as young as seven or eight, providing they do have the, the maturity to follow instruction and undergo resistant training in, in that safe environment.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yep. That makes sense. I think it's a, i I already see, I've got a 5-year-old and he's already show, he sees me out in the gym doing a bit and he is showing a bit of an interest in it, and it's fun to see, but you, you hit the nail on the head there, I think when you said they've gotta be old enough to follow instructions and to be able to like kind of do it in a safe way because she tries to replicate some of the movements that I'm doing and it's pretty it's pretty chaotic the, the movements that he ends up doing. So yeah, I think that there's a sweet spot between age appropriateness, being able to follow instructions, being able to do it safe and not just, you know, getting stuck into dead lifts when they're five years old.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Absolutely. Yep.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Good. Okay. And then you made another really good point there. I think stronger kids tend to become strong, stronger adults. I think I'm paraphrasing you there, but that's broadly true. That's something, not something that I've really thought of of specifically. So there is data saying that stronger or healthier physically active kids tend to be, tend to maintain those habits into adulthood.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, so there's some longitudinal studies. I believe they adjust on strength levels, so not necessarily those who have continued resistance training, you would assume, you know, across the population, people who obviously engage in resistance training tend to be stronger, but there is evidence that strength levels in youth kind of as are associated with strength levels into adulthood, which suggests indirectly that if we can maximize strength early or at least build strength or improve it early on, those individuals have a better chance of being stronger adults as well. And I think it makes sense that, yeah, if we can build those good habits early, we're more likely to continue them on later in life. You know, when things get a little bit more complicated and and busy. I think if we can solidify those habits early on, that will hold us in good stead later on as well.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Totally, yeah. I, I fully agree. Good. Okay. So we can refute the claim that kids teens should not be doing resistance exercise because it will stunt their growth. I think that's categoric, can we say that?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, I think so. With that
Dr. Jared Powell:
According to the current evidence, yep.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, absolutely. Based, based on current evidence, you know, it can be safe, but it, it absolutely needs to be done, you know, in an age appropriate way and and tailored to the individual's level of maturity as well,
Dr. Jared Powell:
Overseen by an adult or professional as well.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yes, of course. Absolutely.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Good. Okay. So let's go to the, the broad health benefits of resistance exercise beyond just getting strong and looking a certain way. So you, you touched on the metabolic effects of resistance exercise before and how they may be comparable to aerobic exercise. Like what, what are some of these positive effects of resistance exercise, what's actually happening underneath the skin apart from just, you know, getting strong that is beneficial for us as as we age and sort of all, as we go through our life at all stages?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, so I think if we, you know, think about those fundamental benefits of resistant training in terms of, you know, muscle growth, strength, improving power, that kind of thing you know, they're beneficial in themselves, but we know, you know, from a metabolic perspective, that muscle is the largest reservoir of the glucose in, in the body. So the largest storage site in the form of, of glycogen it's very metabolically active, so it's, you know, constantly drawing in nutrients from the c circulation. So basically the more of it we have the, the better, we often fare from a metabolic health perspective. Things like, you know, blood sugar regulation, blood lipid levels, that, that kind of thing as well. So having more muscle is absolutely a good thing. And we also know that muscle can act as an endocrine organ as well in that the contraction of muscle releases myokines, so hormonal messengers that travel outside of the muscle into the circulation to other tissues where it can exert beneficial effects in the brain, for example.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
So a lot of the benefits of, you know, building muscle are beyond the muscle itself because muscle can actually communicate with other tissues, including the brain bone, you know, liver even our body fat as well, our fat cells. So you know, and that really shows when we look at the data around the association between muscle mass and strength and risk of chronic conditions. So we know that engaging in resistant training is associated with a reduced risk of all cause mortality, so reduced risk of, of death from all causes by about 20%, and is also associated with reduced risk of those chronic conditions from the cardiometabolic conditions, cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes all the way through to neurocognitive declines or reduced risk of, you know, dementia, Alzheimer's, those kind of conditions as well. So I think a lot of those benefits are really unexpected for, for many people, they don't really think lifting weights will do anything for your risk of type two diabetes, for example, or your risk of heart disease or your brain health. So we tend to think of aerobic exercises as exerting those effects, but we know it's, it's, it's much broader than that.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yeah, that's, it's, it's good to hear and I mean, there's just so much to touch on here. So mortality good, good. We tend to live longer and we probably live longer in better health, right? So that's the difference between health span and lifespan. So we're not just living longer, but we're living longer. Well, mm-hmm . Metabolic effects, as you said the, the, the, the point about the muscle being an endocrine organ as well is really, is fascinating and it's quite overlooked. And is, is there any data that suggests that, you know, the more muscle mass that you have, the healthier you tend to be? Or is it more like, oh, I, there's an association between engaging in strength exercise and resistance exercise and being healthier? Like have they sort of nutted down at a granular level, like, this person has this amount of muscle mass and seems to be associated with living longer or being healthier from whatever metric you're measuring that from?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Mm, I think there's a bit of both out there. And sometimes the devil is in the detail with, with the research in that some studies will look at you know, associations between engaging in resistance training and a lot of these health outcomes. Others will look at measures of muscle mass or, or lean body mass as a bit of a surrogate and how that relates to chronic disease risk as well. A lot of the data is association based rather than from direct randomized controlled trials and intervention studies necessarily. So there's certainly a lot more to do to study the more direct long-term benefits, but the research that show that in general, if you engage in resistant training or if you have, you know, reasonably high levels of muscle mass and or muscle strength that you tend to fare better from a chronic disease standpoint.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yep. Cool. That makes sense. What about cardiovascular health and bone health?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, absolutely. So bone health is probably one of the more, I guess, obvious benefits of resistant training that people would associate with, with lifting weights. So certainly evidence that engaging in resistant training reduces the risk of osteoporosis. And also the risk of things like falls and fractures. So a lot of those adverse outcomes that can result from having low bone density. As well, there's evidence of links between strength levels and bone health as well. So again, if we can be stronger, if we can engage in resistant training, we're, we're more than likely you know, going to have positive effects on our, our bone health as well. There's a little bit of contradictory data as to what types of resistant training are effective for improving bone health specifically. You know, and there's a lot of debate around whether load is important or kind of impacts and rates of at which, you know, forces are applied during resistant training or you know, different sort of jumping base movements, what has the most kind of bone growth promoting effects. So I think there's a little bit of variability out there, but in general, you know, if we are lifting reasonably heavy loads if we are kind of attempting to move loads relatively quickly, we're exerting force on bone and that's, you know, probably going to translate to some positive effects there as well.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Good. And cardiovascular, so we, cardio, cardio exercise gets all the, gets all the, the media hype when it comes to cardiovascular benefits, obviously resistance exercise, I assume that gets your heart rate up, I assume that gets your blood pressure up. I assume that has an effect on your cardiovascular system as well.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, absolutely. So the American Heart Association put out a, an updated position statement on this, I think last year, where they basically summarized all the evidence for the beneficial effects of resistant training on various risk factors for cardiovascular disease. So things like, yeah, glucose, blood pressure, blood lipids, you know, all these sorts of things and basically found quite beneficial effects across the board. So I think there's definitely, yeah, good evidence there that both resistance exercise and aerobic exercise can, can positively impact those sort of mark sorts of markers. Which is interesting because a lot of people tend to think that, you know, if you have high blood pressure or hypertension, that, you know, resistance exercise is something that you should avoid because of that sort of short term increase in, in, in blood pressure. But in the long term we find that it can actually be quite beneficial for lowering blood pressure as well. And again, those benefits are really underappreciated compared to traditional aerobic exercise. So I think, yeah, evidence is really mounting that the benefits of of lifting weights do really go beyond just those, you know, what everyone thinks about, which is the, you know, the muscle mass and the, and the strength gain.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Good. Which is, which is also important. And you, you also touched on I think briefly cognitive and mental health. What, how can, what does resistance exercise do for those things seemingly, you know, sort of higher order health benefits? We, we, I think it makes sense, it's rational, it's logical to assume that resistance exercise is gonna influence cardiovascular system, our bone health strength, obviously, but cognitive and mental health maybe it's a little bit harder for us to understand. Can you talk us through that?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, so I mean, there is evidence that, again, engaging in resistance training or having high levels of muscle or strength tends to be associated with better cognitive outcomes. So you know, in older adults even things like sort of executive function and, and memory there can be some positive effects there. Some associations between resistance exercise and reductions in rates of depression and anxiety. So some of those mental health benefits as well. In terms of the mechanisms behind that, I think that's a little bit less clear, but certainly again, we know that contracting muscle does release certain kins things like BDNF that can possibly travel to the brain and have an impact on things like neuro neurogenesis those, those sorts of things as well. Which might sort of explain some of those more, more cognitive benefits. I think there's still a lot more to unpack and understand about how it's actually having that, that benefit. But again there is that at least that association effect between, you know, working our muscles and sort of tissues that are that are sort of distinct from, from muscle itself.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yeah, makes sense. I think that's good. So it seems to be so, so far it's a, it's a poly pill. It seems to benefit every, every system in our body in a positive way. I, I guess we should touch on perhaps some negatives of resistance exercise, you know, with any exercise there are, there are cons or short term issues as well. There, there, there is a, a safety question, but I have seen a lot of data that suggests that resistance exercise is one of the, the safest activities you can act, actually engage in versus other sports. And I can speak to that personally, I've had far less injuries in the gym versus running or playing footy. And I think that actually stacks up from an epidemiological perspective as well. Are there any other negatives or, or risks that we, that you think is worth discussing when it comes to resistance exercise or it's all gave you, we should just all just do it no matter what?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
No, I, I think look there with any form of activity there, there are always gonna be risks. So I think it's very important for anyone considering engaging in any form of physical activity, you know, or, or resistance training to you know, make sure you are working with an appropriate health professional who can screen your level of risk and, and tailor a program and approach appropriate to your circumstances. So, you know, booking in a consult with an accredited exercise physiologist or, or physiotherapist can be you know, a, a, a really good start. Because yeah, there, there obviously can be be risks. If you are, you know, you have a chronic health condition there are injury risks as well as you mentioned. I definitely agree that the risk of injury with something like resistance training is a lot less than other forms of physical activity. And the data definitely does support that. But again, every individual needs to be aware of their, their own level of risk and make sure that they are being screened and advised appropriately on that
Dr. Jared Powell:
Very diplomatic answer there, Jackson done like a true pro. Okay, let's get down into dosage and strength. All the good stuff. This is the sexy stuff that people, who cares about, how it's gonna make you generally healthy. We wanna be strong and we wanna look good. So like dosage first, you know, do you remember the old, I'm sure you do the old strength hypertrophy continuum where you had intensity and reps at one end being low for strength and all the way up to hypertrophy at the other end. Let's have a discussion about the nuance of that and some new evidence which really challenges that, that whole continuum. And perhaps it's true to a point. Let's, let's talk about it, let's talk about it all. So what's the optimal dose, intensity rep profile to get strong and then hypertrophy?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, I think gone are the days where we think we have to train within that magical eight to 15 rep range to grow muscle. And if we do seven reps or 16 reps, we we're not gonna pack on anything. So yeah, the, the research has definitely moved beyond that now. And there are, you know, a lot of different factors to consider. So we could kind of unpack one at a time and, you know, I guess whenever we think about rep range, we need to immediately think about load, given that they're inversely related. Clearly the, the lower the rep range the heavier the load we can lift. And as we do more and more reps, we need to reduce the load accordingly. So with regards to load, I think it's pretty clear now that load does matter for strength gain in that heavier loads are better for improving strength, particularly when it comes to dynamic strength.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
And this is another nuance of the literature is we can't just talk about strength full stop. There are many different ways to measure strength, and strength is quite tough specific as well. So you know, when we're talking about the importance of load, what the research shows is that lifting heavier loads, so kind of 80% of one RM and above does lead to better strength gains than lower loads. If strength is measured using a dynamic strength test, something like a one rm, you know, squat or bench press, something like that, when studies compare heavier and lighter loads and the strength outcome is something like an isometric strength test suddenly the advantage of high load training disappears almost, almost completely. And that makes sense because if you think about strength as a skill if you are training closer to your one RM or your three rm and that's the way you're measuring strength, well, you know, that makes sense that that's gonna have more of a beneficial effect from a specificity standpoint.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
But as soon as you then introduce a strength test that is not specific to what you've been doing, then suddenly the, the advantages of load probably aren't as as evident. So certainly for strength, low dynamic strength load seems to be quite important. When it comes to muscle hypertrophy, the story's different in that there's evidence that if you train, you know, anywhere from kind of 30% of one RM to 90 plus percent of one rm all of those loads can be effective in promoting hypertrophy to a similar degree. So there doesn't seem to really be an advantage of lifting relatively heavy or relatively light with the caveat that you need to be applying high levels of effort and probably training reasonably close to failure with your sets, especially if you're lifting lighter loads. So in other words, lighter loads can be quite effective for improving muscle growth, but you probably have to push those sets closer to failure to, to fully activate the you know, the muscle fibers and, and and stimulate growth that way as well. So in short, yep, load is important, much more important for, for strength, particularly dynamic strength, less so for muscle hypertrophy, which means that for muscle hypertrophy, rep range matters, you know, far less than that traditional continuum because you can train at a whole different spectrum of, of rep ranges depending on the load.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yeah. As long as you're sort of going close to failure. Do you have a, a reps in reserve that you like to recommend? Is it a couple? Is it until you can't do anymore? Where do you go to? Yeah,
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Well, I mean, proximity to failure is an interesting one in the sense that there, there's still a debate as to whether it is essential to train to the point of momentary muscular failure or whether you can stop short of that point and still get similar benefits, say from a muscle growth standpoint. And a lot of people do believe that you need to take sets to failure to kind of get a maximal benefit. So we, we've actually done a bit of research on this. A former PhD student of mine, Martin Raffaello did his whole PhD on this, on this topic. And what we found digging into the literature is that a major problem with interpreting anything from that literature is that not many studies actually control proximity to failure very well. And even studies that say they take their participants to momentary muscular failure it's not really clear whether they've actually achieved that.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
So by definition, try taking a set all the way to momentary muscular failure means that an individual finishes their final repetition, attempts another one, but can't complete it. So actually verifying that they could not complete another rep. And in a lot of studies it's not really clear whether they applied that definition or not. And there's a lot of variability in kind of how people define or how short a failure did another group or condition stop when they're trying to compare, you know, effects on hypertrophy and that and that kind of thing. So but at least in our hands, we did a couple of studies around this. One was an intervention study looking at, in resistant training individuals doing a training study where they had one limb take their sets to failure, to momentary muscular failure where they could not, they, they attempted to but could not complete the final repetition and they had their other limb.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
This was just in leg press and leg extension. The other leg stopped short either one or two repetitions in, in reserve. And we actually found quite similar improvements in muscle hypertrophy over eight weeks, I believe the intervention was. So yeah, so I think there's not a lot of evidence that not a lot of good evidence that taking sets all the way to failure is any better than stopping one to two repetition short of failure. But I think it's worth pointing out that even one to two repetition, short of momentary muscular failure, that is still very, very high effort and very demanding way of training. What a lot of people, particularly if they train on their own, probably aren't used to pushing that hard anyway. They might think they're one or two reps short of failure, but maybe they're kind of, you know, 3, 4, 5 of, of true short of true momentary muscular failure. So yeah. So I'd I'd say it's definitely not based on the evidence at the moment, not essential to maximize muscle growth.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Cool. But we, you probably should work as hard as you can each set, whether or not that means you actually have to attempt that last one and fail it, fail it, or stopping one or two. Like if you stop one rep short of failure, that is an intense set and you know about it, right? Yeah. So it's not like you're just like, I've got a, I've got four or five left in me here, let's, let's pull it up. It's getting pretty close to failure, I think. Was there a paper from James Steele a while ago, decade ago saying that because we're pretty bad at estimating failure, you should just go as close to failure as you possibly think that you can or something like that?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, I, I mean, I would agree with the point that we are pretty bad in gauging proximity to failure. You know, and often we need to be taken to that point of momentary muscular failure to have that anchor point to know how far away we are. And just most people don't, don't push that far. And I, I, I think that's the approach that a lot of studies have used in, in this area that, you know, the only true way to kind of I guess what's the word I'm looking for, to, to make the stimulus equal between two different groups is to have everyone just trained to, to momentary muscular failure because of those issues of not knowing how real, you know, close people might be if they do stop short of failure. So a lot of studies have, have done that.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
My way of thinking with this is we can't just think about, I, I don't think, I don't think we can just think about what is optimal from an adaptation standpoint because, you know, we need to think about all these studies are being done in controlled research settings where everything is tight in the control, people are supervised so we don't have to worry about, you know, motivation levels or, you know, keeping people showing up, that kind of thing. So at least in my own thinking, being paying a lot more attention to how do we make resistant training more sustainable? And I think the caveat of train to failure is that obviously it feels bad and it's uncomfortable and a lot of people, most people don't like that, don't like discomfort, don't like really high levels of exertion. So I think we just need to be careful with a message around, you know, we need to train to failure. Maybe that's something that we work towards, but I think it's a danger of people are introducing those things too early, it can become a deterrent as well. And so that's kind of the way I think about these things as well. It's not just how do we optimize prescription for adaptation, but how do we optimize it for experience? 'cause I think that in the short term, that's what keeps people coming back.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yeah, I like that. It's not necessary, is it? You can, you can get as, as sufficient stimulus by training, well, short of failure, whether it's, you know, the best possible stimulus is, is another question. Yeah. And also like if, if you go to failure or close to you really sore the next day, right? Mm-Hmm . And that may affect your ability to back up and keep stacking weeks on weeks on weeks. So there's lots of things to consider. There's also a safety consideration as well. I train by myself in my gym in my shed and I'm not gonna go to failure on a bench press 'cause there's nobody spotting me or a shoulder press or any other lift, right? So I, I tend to be pretty conservative and I think there's nuance in context to consider there as well.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yep, absolutely agree. You know, there are certain contexts and, and exercises where it's more appropriate and perhaps safer to, to train to failure. So I think we can't just yeah. Have that broad brush approach and say that everyone, you know, should be trained to failure or shouldn't. There, there is a lot of context and nuance in there as well.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Bicep curls are always trained to fat though,
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
. Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
It's funny, it's funny, it is funny how we I remember this, you know, even back from my undergrad days a lot of my strength anding lectures, we would sort of laugh at the fact that there's certain muscle groups and movements that we, we tend to think that we need to prescribe things differently for like, you know, do a whole lot of reps for, you know, calf raises or Yeah. Biceps mm-hmm . And that kind of thing. So we kind of treat them as, as, as as different things. And yeah, I think that's a good example of where people yeah. Tend to go to failure and, and do a lot more repetitions with their, their isolation work.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Totally. The calf stuff, excuse me, is is, is really interesting as a physio we're the worst because we're just like, go do a hundred single leg calf raises, right? Like it's just, it's madness when you think about it. All the work coming out recently, you know, looking at bone stress injuries, calf Achilles issues, it's like you've gotta load the calf Mm. The gastros heavy, you know, there's a lot of forces going through our legs when we take, when we run, you know, nine times body weight or more. Yeah. And then we're doing these dicky little exercises and thinking we're gonna get a sufficient stimulus. It's, it's.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, that's right. And like, yeah, the, the, the gym is a chance to get adaptations and stimuli that you can't really get anywhere else. And, you know, we spend all day contracting our calves how many times, you know, walking around. So yeah, it totally makes sense to tailor the prescription to the adaptation that we're, we are looking for. You know, not, not so much just treating it differently because it's a, you know, a particular muscle.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yeah. Good. Okay. We're on the same page there. That's good. So we can say that strength, if, if your desired outcome is getting stronger load intensity matters. Yes.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah. Good.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Absolutely. Hypertrophy anything can sort of work low loads, high loads as long as you're taking that you, you're putting in maximum effort effectively.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, I, I think a wide spectrum of loads can, can work. As long as you take those sets to a reasonably, you know, reasonably close to failure. I don't think we can say that you have to go to failure. But you know, we we're not gonna sit here and say that lifting lighter loads is gonna simulate hypertrophy. If you are, you know, stopping 10 reps short of, short of failure for that particular set, it's probably not gonna be sufficient. So I think load is not super important for growth. But yeah, I think the effort in terms of proximity failure probably matters more than it does for strength
Dr. Jared Powell:
Is the best bang for your buck. Then just doing higher load stuff, lower reps, 'cause you're gonna get both a strength stimulus and a hypertrophy stimulus.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
I do think that there is a bit in that for, for multiple reasons. You know, providing someone is experienced enough that they can safely lift those heavy loads. I think that's an important point is that, you know, load is important but people need to be progressing to those higher relative intensities appropriately. But I think there is evidence that even heavier training, yes it is going to be more effective for improving dynamic strength and we know that it can be sufficient to stimulate muscle growth depending on the total volume and sort of number of sets per muscle group across the week as well. That's another important point is that volume is more important for, for muscle hypertrophy. But I, again, I think about this from an adherence standpoint in the sense that if you're lifting heavier loads, your sets are shorter, yes, you will have to rest more between sets if you wanna maintain your intensity across, across sets.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
But sets are shorter, you are less likely to experience things like discomfort that come with lifting lighter loads, more reps, longer sets, you know, particularly if they're closer to failure. We do know lighter loads lifted closer to failure are perceived as more uncomfortable than heavier loads lifted close to failure. So I just think it's a good opportunity to, yeah, get those varied adaptations like you mentioned, bit of strength, bit of muscle growth. Sets are shorter, you don't have to tolerate as much discomfort. So I think all in all it's probably a little bit more of an efficient way to train for most people. Do you get, yeah,
Dr. Jared Powell:
Just spit balling here. Do you get more of a, like cardiovascular benefit out of lifting heavier? 'cause You get that huge influx of you know, your heart rate can go really high. Like if you do a max deadlift, your heart rate is up at like 180 beats fairly quick. Yeah, right. Do you get more of a stimulus cardiovascularly with lifting heavy versus, you know, more in those moderate intensities, do you reckon?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
It's a good question. I'm not a hundred percent sure of the answer and it probably depends on how you look at it. So whether it's just like a heart rate effect or if it's a, you know, blood pressure effect you know, from a blood pressure standpoint you know, a lot of people think that the blood pressure response will be sort of proportional to load and that heavier loads will increase blood pressure more than lifting lighter loads. My recollection of the evidence around that is actually that the blood pressure response is more dependent on the length of a set so that if, even if you're lifting lighter loads, if that set as that set progresses longer and longer over multiple repetitions, blood pressure is increasing even more heart rate response, I would tend to think heart rate would kind of correspond with that. But I'm not a hundred percent across across the literature on that. But you're absolutely right that, yeah, even lifting something really heavy for a very short set with few repetitions can absolutely get the heart rate up, no doubt. Yeah.
Dr. Jared Powell:
There's a reason you're feeling dizzy afterwards, you know, it's because there's there's a blood shooting to your muscles. Yeah. Okay, cool. So let's go to volume because this is, this is what a lot of people wanna know sets per week, how often frequency, how often should that be training? I think, you know, the World Health Organization is a couple of times per week, but that's for general health. If we're trying to optimize strength, you know, is it eight sets a week? I think I've seen, was there a recent systematic review? BJSM? Was it courier perhaps was the lead author? Maybe it was m yeah, can't remember. Maybe. But actually I think both of those have authored a systematic review. Yeah, I think it's like the minimum effective dose. Was it four sets or eight sets? You tell me Jackson, you're the expert.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah. Yeah. So I, I'm really interested in this concept of, of minimal effective dose. You know, some people don't don't like it because they kind of think, well, why, why should we be promoting, you know, what the minimum is? And, and asking people to shoot for that. And, and what I would say to that is, well, when most people do nothing, I think we need to help them get started. And absolutely, and that is the starting point, like, yeah, sure we can do things better later once people get going and build a habit. So yeah, I really like this concept. There were a couple of recent studies done in this space outta Mike zoo's lab in the, in the us. So they did a couple of fancy meta aggression studies, basically compiling all the, the known data on resistant training dose and strength and, and, and muscle hypertrophy.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
So allowed them to get insight into the impact of dose or volume on strength and hypertrophy. And they also had some insights around frequency and per session volume as well as across the week. So yeah, so there was a lot of gold in in those studies, but basically they found that across the week, if we consider volume as the number of sets per week, which is obviously a pretty crude measure, but it is what a lot of the research tends the, the way we tend to look at volume, and it's sort of a simple way to look at it, but actually found that the minimum effective dose for strength was as little as one set per exercise per week. So in other words, if someone is untrained, if they just do one set of squats in that week, you know, over a number of weeks, they'll get stronger.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Which probably comes back to that idea of, you know, dynamic strength. It, it is, there's a large skill component on my learning component. So, you know, we would expect that very low amounts, at least initially could, could get someone stronger for muscle mass. That volume across the week, the minimum effective dose was a little bit higher, but it was only, I think four sets per muscle group per week. So if you're doing four sets of, you know, exercise for the pushing pressing muscles, chest or the back or, you know, quads, whatever it might be, four sets across the week was enough to get a measurable improvement in muscle size in those, in those trained areas. So they kind of defined what was that minimum dose and they also looked at the dose response. So if you increase the weekly volume, at what point did you kind of get more and more strength and more and more muscle growth?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
They actually found that, you know, with both of those is diminishing returns in that more is better, but the extra benefit you get from doing more becomes less and less. And actually for strength, they found the diminishing returns happened quite quickly. So I believe that one set per exercise was the minimum effective dose for improving strength and they found that 90% of the maximum strength gain happened within the first three or four sets. So if you did three or four sets across the week of an exercise, you got about 90% of sort of maximum strength gain. Whereas with muscle hypertrophy there was much more room to move. So four sets per muscle group per week was the minimum to get a, a measurable improvement in muscle size, but the benefits kept increasing up to about 30 or 40 sets per muscle group per week, again, with, with diminishing returns. So very, very low volumes of strength. So resistant training can be, can be effective for, for improving strength. Again, muscle growth is a bit more volume dependent, so the more that we're doing across the week, the, the more benefit we generally get with, with diminishing returns.
Dr. Jared Powell:
That's music to my ears. Jackson, given I'm mainly doing one strength session per week at the moment. Yeah, four sets is very attainable. That's once per week for me. So that's, yeah, that's really nice to hear. And that should be positive news for everybody, right? You don't have to be at the gym five days a week to get an effect.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
No, absolutely. I think, yeah, particularly from a strength perspective, I think things get a little bit more challenging from a muscle hypertrophy perspective. So again, it depends on the goals that we're we're shooting for. But definitely volume is more important for muscle growth, which probably brings in the next question around well for that given volume, does it matter how often you train? Mm-Hmm. So and actually some of their other research from the same group actually showed that from a strength perspective, frequency did seem to matter in that for a given volume, if you spread that over multiple sessions, they did find a greater effect on strength, which again, I think makes sense in that if you want to get stronger in a back squat, for example, if you are doing four sets and you did them in one session versus spreading them across two, I guess if you're seeing that as a, a practice opportunity, the more often you're practicing that skill, probably the, the stronger, you know, you, you, you might get the more improvement that you might see.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
So they found that frequency did seem to impact on, on strength gain, but the impact of frequency on muscle growth wasn't really there. So it didn't really matter so much if you did your number of weekly sets, you know, across one or two sessions versus, versus three or four. So frequency was less important for, for muscle growth. Having said that, because volume is important for muscle hypertrophy training more often can be just a means to accumulate more volume across the week. So it doesn't mean that practically frequency is important, it just means that, you know, if it works better for you to do all of your sets for that muscle group in one session versus across two or three or whatever, then that's fine. It's probably not gonna have an impact. But if you can only a achieve a relatively small volume in a given session for that muscle, then perhaps training it again, you know, later in the week or even, you know, another two times if you're doing a full body workout could be a way to accumulate more volume.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Interesting. And was this just in untrained individuals? Again,
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
I'll have to double check. I, I believe that they did include individuals from a wide range of, of, of resistant training backgrounds. I don't believe it was just in untrained individuals. But yeah, of course we need to look at, you know, the limitations in terms of the length of those studies and the population groups included as well. So I think the average intervention duration in those studies was about 10 weeks long. And the average age of the participants was quite young as well, about 25 I believe. So clearly when talking about those guidelines we had, can you know, they mainly apply to situations that you know, most closely kind of mimic the, the characteristics of the studies that were included.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Can I ask you about d training? So as, I'll use myself as an example here. So I'm, I'm trained in as far as resistance training goes for nearly three decades now. I feel like, so over the last year I've, I've barely done more than one resistance exercise session per week and I, I feel like I haven't gotten any weaker on the specific exercises that I'm doing. I don't feel like I've changed in appearance or muscle mass either. Has all of those runs that I've got on the board over the preceding three decades of my life, is that, am I just maintaining that by the once weekly stimulus that I'm sort of putting in at the moment and I'm sort of keeping it at a, at a level or is it subtly coming down and I'm just not really aware of it yet? Like is there, is there some sort of effect or protective effect on training for a long period of time and then maintaining it with a really low, minimal effective dose?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
So I think if we have managed to build up muscle and strength early in, in life and, and kind of, you know, I guess maximize or, or start from a, a higher peak, you know, once we do start experiencing age related or inactivity with aging related losses of, of muscle mass and muscle strength we're probably in a better position to, to kind of offset those losses that would otherwise occur. So, and look, there is evidence that once we have gone through a period of adaptation and improve something like strength and muscle mass, then the volume needed to maintain those adaptations for a longer period of time is a lot less. I'm not across a lot of the specifics off the top of my head, but I would suggest that yeah, once per week of, you know, lifting weights for most people is if they've managed to build, you know, early, early or build muscle and strength earlier in life that doing quite a low volume of infrequent training, you know, is is, is at least enough to to to, to offset and maintain most of those gains.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
You know, and that might not be enough for, you know, decades to come, but it will certainly do something to attenuate losses that would would otherwise occur. But yeah, we, we definitely know that the volumes needed to maintain fitness gains seemed to be less than, you know, what we, what we needed to improve them in the first place.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yeah, good. So it's, it's obviously not optimal and yeah, once my time frees up, I'll, I'll start to do a little bit more again, but it, it's been interesting to sort of, to sort of track that over the past 12 months where I'm like, oh man, I'm just gonna lose so much strength here, but I just don't have time to run and, and do and cycle and, and, and go to the gym as well and you know, be a husband and a father. Yeah. So something's gotta give, but it's been quite nice to not have that dramatic falling off in strength. I assume it it's going to happen though over the coming years, but maybe my time will change, but I, I just think that's been a really nice thing for people who maybe have a bit of a bit of stress and anxiety about, you know, they've built up and now they've, they've they want to change sport or they wanna change it up a little bit, but they're worried about, you know, their strength going down rapidly. Maybe that doesn't happen if they keep it up with a, a bit of a maintenance program.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah. And I think that kind of again, plays into that idea of kind of minimum effective dose and, and, and, and something is better than nothing because just keeping that habit however small, you know, you are holding onto a bit of muscle bit of strength, but yeah, you're also kind of keeping that momentum going as well so that, you know, when, as you say, when time frees up, when you can build up again, you are, you are not building from that low baseline, you've kind of managed to maintain that a little bit as well. And probably the other interesting point around that as well is that even if people do, you know, go through a period of training where they make some gains, then they're not able to train for a decent period of time once people resume training. There is growing evidence now that the, the whole idea of muscle memory is, is a thing. And actually epigenetically that period of training is, is making changes that once we resume training actually mean that improvements happen quicker than they otherwise would if we didn't have that training background as well. So I think that's good for people to know is that, you know, even if you are only able to stick to a, a training program for a period of time, that's still likely to pay dividends down the track even if you stop training and and and then resume again later.
Dr. Jared Powell:
That was my next question and I, I've really noticed this, so I didn't, I didn't bench press for, and I'm sorry to talk about me, but I think it's, this is important 'cause I've got an n equals one experience here. Yeah. I didn't bench press for 10, 15 years 'cause I just, I just didn't do it. Yeah. And, but I had done it for 10 to 15 years prior and then yeah, I was doing some form of chess, but I wasn't really doing even dumbbell press. I was maybe doing like a abduction machine or something like that. And my bench came back to like what I was 10 to 15 years ago within three months. Mm. It was crazy. So I was doing like 60 kilos to start with and I'm like, oh my God, I can't, I can barely even do two twenties on the barbell here.
Dr. Jared Powell:
I'm, this is what's going on. Yeah. Crazy how quickly it progressed until I was like up to a hundred and, and a and a and this is me as a, you know, I'm in my late thirties now and it strength still came back pretty quickly, so that was really fascinating. Hmm. Yeah, can you just speak more about that sort of is muscle memory the right term? I know it's a little bit of a it can be a bit of a trite term and it's used in pop culture and, and pop physiology, but is it epigenetics? What's, what are the mechanisms of that, that quick gain and strength again?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, it's a great question. Look, there's probably multiple things going on. I'm sure from a strength perspective it's a little bit more around the neural circuitry, the motor learning and those patterns that were kind of developed and somehow sort of reigniting those later, later down the track. I would say that would probably have more to do with the strength gain component. It probably doesn't explain kind of more rapid improvements in muscle mass in previously trained muscle than, than untrained muscle. That's probably more down to yeah, what's going on from a cellular level. A lot of those sort of epigenetic changes for example. So it's a bit beyond my pay grade to talk about a lot of the, the mechanisms in, in, in great detail. But but yeah, I mean either way there, there's, there's changes that are occurring with training that even in the face of d training just make it easier to kind of rebound for most people when, when we resume. And yeah, I I'd agree that we probably need to think about a better term than, than than muscle memory. I'll probably have to put a bit of thought into that, but but yeah, it, it is something that, you know, a lot of people start to think is, is a bit of a myth, but, but more and more the, the evidence is actually backing it up that it's a, it's a thing.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yeah. I've seen it firsthand and I think it makes sense. Like you look at runners who are out for a year, for example, I've seen many, many elite runners who have had six months off with no running completely, and they come back running at an elite level within eight to 12 weeks and you're like, surely there's a lot of de training. How the hell can they get back to a world level standard within that amount of time? You know, you see, like, you see golfers who played as juniors, they stop playing and they come back and play in their forties and all of a sudden they're a scratch golfer in a year. And I'm like, mate, how this is not fair. Yeah, there's some sort of innate learning and motor skill stuff happening there.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, and I think that's another reason why just engaging people in these physical activity behaviors early in life is so critical because, you know, if we are able to kind of get those improvements, even if they're not sustained all the time, like we are not, you know, we have a break from playing sport or training, whatever it might be, if we resume them later on, we, we can still kind of reap those, those benefits. So I think it's super important.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Good. I got one more question for you, Jackson. Combining cardio with resistance exercise or aerobic exercise with resistance exercise, I, I think when I started studying exercise science in the early two thousands, I remember there was an interference effect where perhaps doing both on the same day affected strength gains. Where are we at now with the literature? Is there any more nuance that we need to consider?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, so actually my PhD on this particular topic, beautiful a few years ago now, but yeah, look it, it, it has been known since the 1980s that engaging in both resistance training and aerobic or endurance training within the same training program seems to have a negative impact on certain aspects of resistance training, adaptations, things like muscle growth, strength or power development relative to doing the same resistance training program on its own. So in other words, if you do eight weeks of resistance training on its own, if you did that same program with aerobic exercise sprinkled somewhere in there, not necessarily kind of in the same session just anywhere across the week there is some evidence that that will blunt some of the gains associated with resistance training. Now there is a lot of nuance here in that some studies show no interference effect at all.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Some studies will show that there's an interference to strength and power, but not muscle mass. And there's a lot of different variables at play. So part of my PhD was trying to unpack whether the intensity of the aerobic training mattered, and there was a lot of kind of focus on high intensity interval training at that time, which, you know, there still is now. But I was interested in that question, if you kind of incorporate hit or kind of conti versus continuous training in your program as the endurance modality, did that impact on some of the resistant training responses? In our work, we actually found that it, it didn't. But again, there's a lot of nuance. You know, we kind of work and volume match the program, so maybe volume was a little bit more important. We also use cycling as the endurance training modality not running.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
There's a bit of evidence that running is more interfering than cycling. But I think, yeah, a key point to make with this is that any interference effect is probably a lot smaller than most people would think. And for the every ar you know, everyday average person probably doesn't matter as much as, you know, an elite athlete who's, who's chasing those, those one percenters. So I think, yeah, there can be some small, you know, interference effects. They probably impact things like strength and power, more of those kind of neuromuscular adaptations than just muscle growth. So again, depending on the, the goals that we're, we're striving for but there are still I think some practical things people can do if they do want to minimize sort of the risk of the, the interference effects. So a lot of this comes back to like what's kind of causing a potential interference effect.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
And this is something that I've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole with in you know, over the years. But generally what is kind of considered by I think most people now is that if we're going to get less strong or powerful when we're trying to do aerobic training with our, with our strength training, it's probably got something to do with like a residual neuromuscular fatigue effect where doing a lot of aerobic training, basically we go into our strength training with a little bit of fatigue that influences our ability to, to produce force or produce force rapidly and over time that might blunt some of the adaptations. So from that perspective, you know, if you're going to combine aerobic training and strength training in the same session, you know, trying to do the strength training first when you're fresh or separating out strength and aerobic training by, you know, sort of six to eight hours at least do them on alternate days if you can, that kind of thing.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
But look, a lot of this depends on priorities, you know, for a lot of endurance athletes, clearly the, you know, or team sport athletes, the, the endurance component is, is the priority. Yes, strength training is important, but we also don't want strength training to compromise our, the quality of our endurance training sessions as well. And we do know that doing resistance training right before endurance training can influence things like economy and these kind of things as well. Interestingly long term we know that resistant training has a beneficial effect on endurance performance because of neuromuscular adaptations that improve economy in the long term. But in the short term, if you do a strength training session right before, you know, a key endurance training session, it's probably gonna have a negative negative impact. So a lot of nuance in, in, in, in this area, but yeah, it's, it's interesting, no doubt.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Yeah. Perfect. I, I've got nothing to add. You spoke, spoken like a man with a PhD in the area and I think I'll, I'll yield to you there. That's a really good explanation. So maybe for the everyday punter, you can do both, right? During the week. Yeah. It's not really gonna make much of a difference is your, if your singular aim is to get strong, perhaps it might make a difference, or if your singular aim is to improve your aerobic performance, perhaps it might make a difference. But for general health benefits, for you and me, do a bit of both in the week and you're gonna be sweet.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, absolutely. And, and again, I probably didn't make this point earlier, but from a chronic disease risk standpoint, we know that doing both aerobic training and resistant training leads to the greatest reductions in risk of various chronic diseases as well. Well, so definitely it is most optimal from a health standpoint to incorporate both. And yes, maybe if you are, you know, an elite athlete really looking to push the boundaries, you might wanna think about how you incorporate those to kind of get the biggest bang for your buck outta both. But for most people, just incorporating both where you can is, is gonna be beneficial.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Good. Okay. I've got four rapid fire questions that I'm gonna ask you that I ask all my guests. Favorite movie?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Oh, that's a really tough one. I tend to like sort of some of the old sort of mobster style movies. Like Goodfellas is one that I really, really, really enjoy. I've been getting into a lot of kids movies these days, with with, with, with having two young kids as well. So there's a few that I've sort of revisited from my childhood, but I'd have to say, yeah, something like Goodfellas is quite, quite a good watch.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Good, good. Beer or wine or none?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Oh, I would have to say beer, although I'm having it a lot less than I, I used to and, and tending to find the consequences a lot worse these days, . But yeah, I'd say beer.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Beer, okay. Go to coffee order. Being down in Melbourne, you should you should be all over the coffee orders. Yeah,
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Absolutely love my coffee. I generally would just go for, for a latte most of the time latte or at home, I, I will sort of make an espresso.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Good. Jackson, if you could be a pro athlete for one year, what sport are you choosing?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Ooh, that's a good one. For one year. Yeah, I, I could, could go multiple ways with this one. I think I would, I'd probably say something like tennis maybe. Maybe from the perspective of being able to, yeah, have the chance of, you know, being the best of the best, I guess being a, you know, a worldwide sport and also traveling around the world as well as part of that. So yeah, I think that would, would probably be something I'd go for.
Dr. Jared Powell:
That's a good choice. You'd be the French open one week in Paris, and then you're, you're in London then you're in New York? Yeah, all around the world. It, it looks like a it's a true international tour. I, I'd choose something similar, tennis, golf or even surfing or something where you get to travel around. Yeah.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah. Great choices.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Cool. All right, Jackson, where can people find you? I know you are active over on X. What's your username there?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, just at Jackson five on, on x. Also pretty active on, on LinkedIn. I'm really passionate about trying to translate science to sort of practice. So I try and do a lot of more, a lot more of that these days. So yeah, you can generally find me on, on XL LinkedIn.
Dr. Jared Powell:
Cool. I highly recommend everyone check out Jackson stuff. You, you got a newsletter as well, Jackson, is that right?
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Yeah, so I write a weekly newsletter called The Weekly Exerciser, which is also aimed at kind of distilling a lot of the science into what I hope are actionable insights for people to, to kind of be a bit more consistent and regular with their, with their exercise. So yeah, you can find a link to that through my socials as well if you, if you wanna sign up and get a an email each week on a Saturday just with some tips and tricks around around exercise. Awesome,
Dr. Jared Powell:
Jackson, thank you very much mate.
Dr. Jackson Fyfe:
Thanks Jared. It's been great. Cheers.
