BILL CAMPBELL DISCUSSES BODYFAT

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Welcome and Guest Introduction

1:07Welcome back, everybody. Today, we have a special guest, Dr. Bill Campbell. He's at the University of South Florida. He's a professor of exercise science and the director of performance and physique enhancement laboratory. You can find him over at Instagram, and I highly recommend you go check him out. Bill Campbell, PhD is his handle on Instagram, Bill Campbell, PhD. He gives some great, great stuff on his posts. I'm not kidding you. For instance, one of them, maybe we'll get you the answer later on, is during the first set of a bench press, you can do a maximum of 10 reps. You rest one minute between sets.

1:37I'm going to tell you how Dr. Campbell actually helped me a lot in my workouts. How many reps can you do on your fifth set? Then he gives you A, B, C, D, two reps, four reps, six reps, eight reps. We'll give you the answer later on in the show. This is just a small touch of what he's actually got on his Instagram. Really awesome stuff, so go check it out. Before we get started, folks, make sure to share, subscribe, hit that like button. You know we'll like it.

Dr Campbell's Background

1:55It's not wasting any more time. Welcome to the show, Dr. Campbell. Welcome, sir. Thank you very much for the invitation. Thank you very much for being here. Again, this is really fascinating, and you have helped me a lot. I've changed my workouts now. It was funny because I was watching a video two months ago, and somebody was interviewing Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arnie was saying, they asked him how much time did you rest between sets, and he said, I really did, and I just, you know, we did one set that Franco came in, Franco Colombo did another set, then I came back in, so it was probably like a minute, I guess, between sets with that, and he said I never needed to,

2:28and then I saw your post on Instagram about the studies of about two minutes or more, and I said, you know what, I'll be damned. I've been doing 45 seconds to a minute for years. I'll go ahead and try it for two minutes to three minutes, and, man, it was unbelievable, unbelievable how much difference I could lift, and I'll be damned if I wasn't growing already. Yeah. I'm not selling anything here for Dr. Campbell, folks. It's true. It was really amazing to me. All these years, I guess that's another point. You asked me earlier before the show, what have I seen change in the last 15,

3:0120 years, but that was another one. We were trained to do a minute or two tops. Anything more than two, you're already going the opposite way you're supposed to be going in regards to growth, and it really wasn't true at all.

Rest Periods and Muscle Growth

3:13That was fascinating stuff. Let me ask you. We'll start off with that. Go ahead. Yeah, and like you, years ago, I used to kind of have a stopwatch and a minute between sets, and it was miserable.

3:26I'm out of breath. My lactic acid's shooting up. It was more like a war of attrition, and it's when you – at least when I realized, oh, the science doesn't support this for hypertrophy, it's – so my workouts became much more enjoyable and just like, you know, because that's the name of the game, especially like in my case, I'm in my mid-40s now. I have to be – I have to kind of enjoy everything if I'm going to do it.

3:56So that was one of the big changes, just not feeling sick by having such short rest periods.

4:04And again, I don't know how many people even know that yet. I mean, I think that probably – that false premise probably still is fairly prevalent in the fitness space. Oh, I definitely agree. You know, it was interesting. I had a conversation with Ron Harris. I think it was. I can't remember if it was Ron Harris or Dr. Mike Isretel. We were talking about how sometimes people look at those bodybuilding magazines that we grew up on. I'm 50, so we're similar ages. And we grew up with those magazines, you know, whatever it was, Iron Man, whatever it was out there at the time.

4:34But I guess my question to you is, those guys were doing minute breaks. But it's different when you're on PEDs. It's a whole different ballgame. Your recuperation capacity is totally different than somebody who's not on steroids, right? Oh, definitely a recovery ability. Now, I don't know. Ron Harris would know.

4:55I've been told that what you read in those magazines about what the pros do is not what the pros do in reality. So, I've been told that by many people in that space, on the writing space, the magazine writing space. Again, Ron Harris would be, he would know for sure because that's his area. So, I would even question a minute rest period. If you're doing anything multi-joint, you're torched with a minute, especially like if you're

5:26a large male. Now, the cardiovascular strain is immense. So, I just find that hard to believe. Yeah, for those guys. Yeah, I agree with you. I'm tapped out. What about the days that used to say, hey, you do your bench press and then you go over and do your back. Then you can take a minute break or you take a minute break between those because there's opposing muscle groups. So, if you do back and chest day, does that make a difference?

Training Frequency and Muscle Growth

5:51I don't think it makes a difference for muscle growth. Now, I actually do that. So, using your example, I'll do a chest exercise and I'm not in a hurry to do my second chest exercise, but I am kind of in a hurry to get out of the gym. Like, I don't want to be there for a long time. So, I like to think of it just as being efficient. So, I'll do a chest exercise, then I'll take my time, do a back exercise, and then by the time I go back to my chest, my chest is completely recovered and now I can go do my second chest.

6:24So, I think it's smart from just an efficiency standpoint, but there's nothing magical about that sequence in terms of muscle growth. And the way that I approach hypertrophy training, it's very simple. So, it's a muscle group perspective. If I stimulate my chest, my chest should grow. If I stimulate my back, my back will grow. It doesn't matter if I do it before or after X, Y, or Z. Now, it probably makes sense to target the muscle group that you want to grow earlier in

6:59your workout when you can be a little more intense, when you have more energy. So, I think there's some logic to that, but you're probably aware too, there's a lot of people overly complicating the training process because their program, which is $49.99, is patented and special. But yeah, I think there's a lot of that in the space. Just a lot of overcomplication, overcomplicating things. Yeah, that's one thing that's changed a lot in the last 20, 30 years, 25 years ago.

7:32You didn't have that many options. Now, you've got so many schools of thought, and they're opposing, and everybody's whipping out research, supposedly. But some people obviously aren't reading the research properly, which is another big issue in today's world. Let me ask you this. Back to, I guess, staying on that topic, I've seen people do multi-jointed exercises. So, they're going to do bench press, try to develop their chest. And like you said, you want to hit the areas that you want to grow the most in that particular time. So, let's say you want to grow your chest, you're going to hit the bench press. Do you finish off, let's say you do a flat bench, you do an incline, then you head over

8:06and you wrap up with a flies, with the flies, or something like that for inner chest, more specific target. Is that something that's still viable today, or is that loss too? I think the context of that. So, you just mentioned three exercises for the chest, bench press, incline press, and then a cable fly or dumbbell fly. So, that would be three exercises. That strategy for training was born out of having a chest day on Monday, a back day on

8:39Tuesday, then quads and maybe quads and calves on Wednesday. So, that came out of a period which was bodybuilding centric, where you train one muscle group one day per week. And what we now know, and this is based on limited evidence, but the limited evidence all points in the same direction, you want to try to stimulate your muscle groups at least twice per week. So, just hitting chest once per week is not ideal.

9:10And again, there's not a lot of studies that supports this, but the evidence that I read leads me to that conclusion. So, in that case, if that's what I'm doing for the week, let's say I'm doing four sets of each of those, four bench press, four incline press, four cable flies, instead of doing all 12 on one day, I'll do six in one workout, and then two or three days later, I'll do the other six. And intuitively, that kind of makes sense, because during those six sets, we're stimulating

9:42muscle protein synthesis in the chest, that will stimulate growth, and then why wait six days for another growth stimulus, let's do it again two or three days later. Now, I and everybody else likes to go to extremes, well then heck, let's just train it seven days per week, like, why would we ever have a day? Well, I would say there's something for a rest day, and the other evidence that exists, it really suggests that three is no better than two, six is no better than three, four is no

10:15better than two, as long as the volume is the same. So again, we're talking 12, 12 sets per week for chest, in theory, we know that you want to do more than one, but whether you do two days of six, or three days of four, or even four days of three, the limited amount of research says it doesn't matter, as long as it's at least twice per week. And the population of that research was those are athletes, I'm hoping? Generally, non-resistance trained males, or in some cases, resistance trained males.

10:52And we're talking, you know, at most 10 studies that kind of come to that same conclusion, that would be the upper number. So, and that's not a few studies, I mean, that's fairly good, but I can confidently say I don't think there's any in females in that particular area of the research. And that, I, that's like the, that's the science of training frequency. I guess I think this is the other question I've seen some debate online about, there's a lot of debates online, but this one here is how many sets per week?

Sets Per Week and Muscle Growth

11:20I mean, some have argued 20, some say 30, some say anywhere between, what do you say? Well, one, I want to give context. When we approach it with that terminology, sets per week, I think it's very important that we say that, that we have the, the, the prism of body part. So 20, let's just use 20 for a moment. We're talking 20 sets per week for the biceps, 20 sets per week for the quads, 20 sets per week for the glutes, whatever the, it's a muscle group perspective. And personally, I think that's the best, again, for bodybuilding purposes, that's the best

11:53way to look at this. You're trying to build your body by muscle groups. If I'm an athlete, I don't think that's a wise approach at all. Athletes should be focused on movement patterns. So like kinetic chain or transverse plane. So totally different perspective for an athlete. But if you're building your body, body part, body part focus training makes sense. And I'll just give the, and I would say there's a consensus on this, at least amongst the evidence based professionals up to 10 sets per week per muscle group is considered low volume, uh,

12:2810 to 20, 11 to 20 is considered moderate volume. And that's where most people will find themselves. And then 20 plus is considered high volume. And I think the way to answer this is, and we're actually working on a paper on this, is to look at not just to say, let's just say 15 is best, or we're just going to say, hey, 15 works. Everybody do 15. Well, what if somebody is currently doing 10, that's a 50% increase in volume from Friday

13:00to Monday or whatever they're going to make the change. If somebody was doing 20 sets and now they're saying 15, well, now they just decreased it by 25%. So one, I like the approach sets per week per muscle group, but I think you go in and make changes based on what you are currently doing. And there are some people that are doing, let's say 25, 30 sets, which is high, but the sets are not very good quality. They're probably just going through the motion. So there is something to be training with a certain amount of intensity and effort.

13:34And if they're not currently doing that, they could easily reduce their current training volume, but increase the intensity. And in my opinion, would get a better body building outcome. I guess that's a great point. Let me ask you this, and I like the title you have, exercise physique coach. And I'd like that because I don't know if today's society is still the same. You would say bodybuilder 20 years ago, immediately Schwarzenegger, Dorian Yates, Lee Haney kind of thing going.

14:05Today, what would, would that still be the same mentality that people would have? And what would you classify some, I don't even know. There's a lot of guys now on Instagram. I'm just talking males right here, folks, but a lot of guys on Instagram, but you'll see complete six packs. And they have like, I would call them almost like a model physique, right? They have the six pack. They have really good symmetry, have good muscle tone. They may be 5'10", 5'11", 180, 190 pounds. Which one are you referring to mostly there?

14:35What category would they fall into, you think? And when you say they, just like who I'm referring to as them? Yeah, because you mentioned, we talked about bodybuilders and then athletes. We contrasted those two. But what about contrasting a bodybuilder, which is something very different? Because those guys are huge and they're trying to be huge compared to somebody who wants to look symmetrical, kind of like a superhero used to look like many years ago. What's the difference there? Is there a difference? Yeah, I love that question because that's, that has defined my professional career.

15:06So the way that I approach this is I study bodybuilders. Bodybuilders are the experts in fat loss. Bodybuilders are the experts in building muscle, but they're also not normal. They are generally a little too self-absorbed. And what I would, my approach has been, I'm, my research focuses on serving people who want to look like they could step on a bodybuilding stage.

15:37And I'm not quite that severe. So like I'm, I have a research review coming out where we summarize all of the latest and, and historically the best physique research. And the tagline on this is helping people optimize their physiques within a maintainable lifestyle. 102 miles ago, the oil light came on. 100 miles ago, you noticed. Now it's time to head to take five. This oil change, fall in love with your car all over again. In just 10 minutes, your dream technician will check your tire pressure, top off fluids,

16:11change your oil, and verify with Carfax exactly what your car really needs. All while keeping you in the driver's seat. Take five to stay in your car, 10 minute oil change. Save up to 30% on your next oil change to take five. $15 value, valid to participating locations, terms and conditions apply. Every bite! The Rita's taste you love, now with a sour bite. Try Rita's limited time trolley Sour Blue Pucker. Find your closest Rita's and order on the app. Plus get a free small ice after downloading and signing up. Rita's, be cool, eat a Rita's. So it's probably people like you, like me, like my wife, who want to look like we train,

16:46who take our nutrition seriously, but we're not going to not go out to eat with our families like a bodybuilder probably would in many cases. So it's, what do bodybuilders do? Where are the areas where we can dial that back a few notches, where we still get 90% of the results with maybe 70% of the effort? So that's the population that I think I serve the best. Serious fitness enthusiasts, but not quite competitive bodybuilders. And everything we've just talked about so far applies to both.

17:21There is no differentiation on any of the training variables we discussed so far. The difference would be the bodybuilder will not miss a workout or leave before every set is done. Everyone, the people that I'm talking to, if their kid is sick, they might miss that workout. That's another great question. And I love the way you define that too. So that's good clarity for the audience out there as well. So they kind of get the idea because it's hard, right? Because there's so many goals. Do you just want to lose weight? Do you want to look great?

17:51But what does look great mean? So that makes it complicated too. By the way, folks, you can look, you can learn more about Dr. Bill Campbell, a Bill Campbell PhD on Instagram, Bill Campbell PhD on Instagram. Go check it out. That leads me to another question because I have seen this debate too.

Periodization and Training

18:05I've seen a lot of debates. The other one was, hey, you're training hard. You're hitting it for six, seven weeks. Take a week off. Come back. Hit it hard for six, seven weeks. What do you think about that? Is that necessary? Do we need that whole week off to regroup? Yeah, so there is research, again, one study. And it's funny you mentioned that. That's in my upcoming research review. I think it's going to be in the third issue. We actually look at a 24-week study where they were one group trained for all 24 weeks.

18:37These were males. The other group trained six weeks, then in two weeks off, six weeks, two weeks off, six weeks, two weeks off, so same 24 weeks. They just kept doing, I think it was two-week breaks throughout the entire 24-week study. And at the end of the 24 weeks, no difference in muscle hypertrophy. So they both gained the same amount of muscle mass. And the really interesting thing was the group that trained 24 weeks, at every eight weeks,

19:08the first eight weeks, the biggest growth. Then it was not as great. Then it was even less in the final. That the group that kept taking the two-week breaks with no training, their rate of gain was still steep, even in that third. For them, it was the third six-week training period. Now, they did drop off for two weeks because they were doing nothing. But it did seem like, in this one study, that taking breaks seemed to keep things trending

19:40in a better direction for longer-term muscle gain. That's another great one, too. A lot of people don't really, it takes a lot of discipline, depending on what your goal is, right? It takes a lot of discipline, and you have to be patient. You really do. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the whole fitness game is take your time. I mean, that's the biggest crime that Instagram and social media gives us, the impression that things happen quickly. And you mentioned earlier the males who look like models.

20:12A lot of these people, especially if it's pictures, they'll get lean, get all their pictures, and then they'll post them for eight months while they're not that lean. Then they'll go on a diet again. And it's very disingenuous to some extent. Again, I also appreciate the, you know, staying lean or getting lean. I mean, that's kind of like my life's study is, I study body fat and muscle gain. So it's not that I'm, I don't want to disparage them. But the message that I think people get is, oh, I can look like this all the time.

20:42No, nobody does. Well, you know, there's outliers that do. Very few people do. So unfortunately, those people are not posting those pictures or being as active on social media when they're not that lean. So that the impression is one of not of reality. That's a great point. That's the thing. You know, it's interesting because you see a lot of exercises sometimes. That's my next question to you. I don't want to stray too far off, but calisthenics and how they work in here. And I know I was watching one gentleman. I'm not going to name him, but he was really, did some really good videos.

21:13And I was watching him do some stuff like the flag where you hold on to the pole and you lift your legs up and you're vertical, you're horizontal. Yes. Yeah. And I'm looking at that going, holy capoli. So he does it within what, three or four minutes. He shows you the different steps. So you try to do it and you're like, okay, it's going to take like a year to be, get to get to this point. And I'm thinking, but it fools you because it used to fool me when I was cooking and I was watching the recipe things. And I'm looking at these things and they're doing everything in seven minutes. And it takes me like 30.

21:44It's like, what the hell? And now I'm looking at the exercise going, this is the same thing. It probably took him four weeks to get to the little step. Then you go to the next step. Yes. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Let me ask you about that. If you can incorporate rings, for instance, I really, I see a lot of the bodies for gymnasts and they have some great physiques, great bicep development, shoulder development, trap. How would you incorporate calisthenics? For instance, if you use rings, if you use planches and things of that nature with your

22:18workout, how would you incorporate that in regards to rest periods? Do they count the same as weightlifting? What do you think about that? Yeah, I agree with you. The male gymnast upper body anyway is pretty impressive. So, and I don't have a background in that, so I can't speak of specific exercises, but clearly there's a, a, a stimulus for growth with that. And I, especially now as I'm older, I have so much appreciation for how functional that

22:48stuff is, where I think there is a limitation is once you get to a certain point, you can no longer put an additional load or stimulus on the, the muscles because your body weight is your body weight. So that's where, you know, barbell dumbbells or external load is going to be more advantageous for the, for the longer term stimulus and adaptations that you would need to continue to build more muscle mass over time. But from a functional standpoint, shoulder, you know, I assume they have healthy shoulders.

23:23I know swimmers do not, but I'm assuming gymnasts just have that the so strong functionally really nice, nice to, like you said, shoulders, lats. It's not doing it myself. I appreciate that that form of training is not only growth stimulating, but it's functional, but I think it has its limitations at a certain point. And it is, it's really amazing when you see them, I agree with you at my age, I'm looking at it going, Jesus, how do they do this stuff? You try to do it, you know, you fall face, face, face around the ground.

23:56Let me ask you this on the, um, could, would you incorporate it with the workout?

Incorporating Calisthenics

24:00In other words, would you do flat bench and then dumbbells and then go for the rings? Would that actually cause you, you think it was going to cause a problem or does it matter? I think you would, if, if I were doing that and again, never done it, I don't think I could hold myself up on range. I could do dips maybe, but I think you would do that first because you're having to employ so many stabilizer muscles that you don't have to with dumbbells or barbells. And you would need that energy to do that first. I think if you were to, to do rings or something that functional, that core stabilizer dominant

24:37after you already fatigued your primary muscles, I don't think, I think you would be, you would be making it much more difficult to be able to execute. So I would put that first in a workout. Now, if I was working on it, now you're making me want to want to get some rings and do some of this stuff. It's a research done on it too. We got a little wire in your office. Every time I hear you're doing something, I'll contact you for a podcast. No, no, I'm just kidding. I think it's my chair. I'll try to be more still. Oh, no, no.

25:08I mean, I've had a little wire listening into your future studies, so I know what you're going to do. Oh, yes, yes. You said a couple of times, that's what we're studying right now. Yeah. Kind of listening. So I'll listen in and see if you have anything on this ring stuff. It's really fascinating to me. I see the CrossFitters and they've incorporated a little bit of it. And some of those CrossFitters are like really thick and dense. They have a different look than those fitness models that we were talking about. And even a different look than some of the bodybuilders that I've seen, it's interesting to compare these physiques. Yeah, I agree. They seem to be a little more dense, like it's a more quality muscle almost.

25:42Yeah, it's really bizarre. I don't know what it is there. I want to start shifting. I was looking at your books again, folks, Bill Campbell, PhD on Instagram. But if you click, there's a little link there to get his guide. It's a book, exercise guidebook, great stuff. But you also mentioned something really of interest. You showed pictures of you and how you lost body fat. I think, actually, you're not showing pictures. I think you just gave numbers. And you saw like 14% or 15%. You talked about the abs, where they're at. And this has always been a challenge, I think, for a lot of, I'm, again, focusing on males at this particular time.

26:12But when a male's trying to get to see their abs, they're trying to figure out, what is that? Is that 8%? Is that 9%? Where am I going with this to be able to see my abs? I guess it's a two-part question. What do you recommend for body fat testing? And is there such a thing as a number? Hey, if you're a 9, you're going to look like you're shredded. What's going on? Yeah, one thing I've learned, and I've done probably over 10,000 body composition assessments in my career.

26:43Again, I guess at my core, I'm a fat loss researcher. I also just, I also like building muscle. So that's, hence the word physique in what I do. One thing I've learned is 15% body fat on one person does not look like 15% body fat on another. So it's very hard to say at 15%, you're going to have this look or that look. It's very individualized. And again, shocking to me how somebody, they just look really lean, but their body fat is not low and somebody else, they don't look very lean and man, their body fat is low.

27:18In terms of the best test, the best thing you can do, if I can convince somebody to get away from body fat percentage numbers, which everybody loves 10% body fat, 20%, but they love numbers. 102 miles ago, the oil light came on. 100 miles ago, you noticed. Now, it's time to head to Take 5. This oil change, fall in love with your car all over again. In just 10 minutes, your dream technician will check your tire pressure, top off fluids, change

27:51your oil, and verify with Carfax exactly what your car really needs, all while keeping you in the driver's seat. Take 5, the stay in your car 10-minute oil change. Save up to 30% on your next oil change to Take 5. $15 value, valid at participating locations, terms and conditions apply. 102 miles ago, the oil light came on. 100 miles ago, you noticed. Now, it's time to head to Take 5. This oil change, fall in love with your car all over again. In just 10 minutes, your dream technician will check your tire pressure, top off fluids, change your oil, and verify with Carfax exactly what your car really needs, all while keeping

28:26you in the driver's seat. Take 5, the stay in your car 10-minute oil change. Save up to 30% on your next oil change to Take 5. $15 value, valid at participating locations, terms and conditions apply. I love numbers too. No, actually not numbers. Percentage. The thing about body fat percentage is there's a lot of other variables that come into that equation, such as your body weight is hugely impacting that. The amount of body water you have will impact that number. So, the best thing, in my opinion, is to use some skin folds.

28:58And I would suggest getting a good pair, $200 or $300, and get somebody who's extremely well-trained, very, very good technician, and have them pinch your body in the seven traditional sites like chest, scapula. I mean, when you were training, I'm sure you probably did a lot of these. And Jackson Pollock, I think, is what we use. We use the Jackson Pollock, the three-sever. Yeah, there's a three, there's a four, and there's a seven Jackson Pollock. So, you have these seven sites.

29:29And I like seven because it's just more data points. And then you just simply, you add up those numbers. And let's just say it comes to 100. Well, the nice thing about that number is it doesn't matter what your body weight is. It doesn't matter what you had for dinner. It doesn't matter if you lost weight, you gained weight. That's just simply 100 millimeters because we measure each pinch in millimeter. So, you're adding all of them up. And then you come back in, let's say, two months, and you do the pinch test again, the seven sites, and just look at the number. That is the best, simplest, and you're eliminating a lot of sources of error when you do that.

30:06Now, again, nobody wants to do that because they want a number. They want to be able to, you know, I'm less than 15% or whatever. But that is the best approach because you're taking, and here's something else. When you use Jackson Pollock and you get a body fat percentage, there's assumptions on white cadavers from the 1920s that that formula was based on. So, again, when I talk about a lot of assumptions, there's a lot of assumptions.

30:39Now, they do have different prediction equations for different populations, ethnicities. But when you do skin fold testing with skin folds, you're literally measuring body fat, like you're pinching body fat. DEXA doesn't measure body fat.

30:56Ultrasound, or not ultrasound, but bod pod, underwater weighing, all of those other tests, BIA, sometimes you hold those handheld things, none of them are actually directly measuring body fat. They're measuring something else and then inferring how much body fat you're at. But when you pinch the fat on somebody's body, you're measuring fat. So I like it's direct, it's simple, and it eliminates most of the error. I guess I also found it's nice to be able to see if you're going in the right direction

31:26and you're not losing too much muscle mass or something, because sometimes you can drop weight. You know how weight is. It's crazy. One week you're 200 pounds, the next week you're 195, the next week you're back at 203. Like, what the heck happened? Even though you stay consistent somewhat throughout those two or three weeks, and you're trying to see, okay, am I actually losing fat or did I actually lose muscle? What the hell did I lose here? So you recommend two months or maybe a little less than that? I would say never more frequently than a month, because, yeah, like you just said, there's so many changes that can happen in a month.

31:58And it's only as good as your machine that you're using and the skill of your technician. So I always give the example, if I measure your heart rate now, and it's 50 beats per minute, and then, you know, you're still sitting down, nothing changed. And I changed, I tested again, and you're 56. Well, like, what does that mean? Does that mean you've been running a mile? No, it's just natural variability. Well, all of these machines we used are not perfect. Our testers aren't perfect. So there's always variability.

32:29And when you do it too quickly, you're more likely to fall within this natural variability. And it can give you a false impression of what the trends are, as you said. So if you wait a little bit longer, like a month, you get a more true picture of what's actually happening. Now, we've done research, we've done rapid fat loss studies, where we've done it every two weeks. And I was very hesitant, I just had a lot of anxiety, like I said, are we going to be able to detect these changes? And we did. But that's with, you know, trained technicians, we also backed it up with some, we used ultrasound,

33:04we used skin folds, we used bioelectrical impedance. So we had multiple different devices that all came to the same conclusion, which made me feel very good about that. But again, that's in a research lab, research conditions, trained technicians, et cetera. So for most people, I would say a month, every month would be the minimal amount of time. Excellent. I know we're about a little bit past halfway point. So hopefully folks are enjoying this. Again, Bill Campbell, PhD, Bill Campbell, PhD on his Instagram site. I'm going to start shifting gears.

Nutrition and Fiber

33:34We're going to head over to food, nutrition a little bit, and then we'll head over to wrap it up on a comment you made earlier that I wanted to see if we could explore if we get time, which was the disingenuousness that we see on Instagram. Because I think it does put a lot of pressure and false ideas in people's heads sometimes when they see certain physiques. And so I'm going to give you, hopefully we can get to that too in a minute. I guess my first question, when it comes to nutrition, this has been one, I know you just did another podcast. Who did you do with Muscle for Life Fitness? You can follow them on Instagram too, folks, Muscle for Life Fitness.

34:07You checked out that podcast. I think you mentioned something about fiber. And this is something I've been seeing a lot. And there seems to be two groups now, all of a sudden they're competing, I guess, whether fiber is good or not. I guess I'll ask a two-part question. Is it necessary to have fiber? And you used to say fiber was really important for fat loss in regards to blood sugar control, insulin, and all that stuff. What's your take? Yeah, short of saying fiber is essential because it's not designated as an essential nutrient like amino acids and like fatty acids, but it's just whatever the category would be after

34:45essential. Like it should be taken. And I think for males, it's, I don't remember, 37 grams per day, something, or females, it's 25 grams per day. Most people under consume fiber. The one thing we know, we don't know, at least I don't know much about the gut microbiome, but we do know that fiber has a positive effect on the gut microbiome, on the digestive process in general. So yes, I think it's important. The one thing that I like about a focus on fiber is I kind of live in this flexible dieting

35:22landscape. I really like flexible dieting. I think it teaches people about macronutrients and teaches them about food quality. And not that it has its shortcomings, it does, um, just, you know, overly focused on macros, but if you can set fiber goals for somebody, you're kind of forcing them to eat healthy foods. And you're, I mean, kind of like sneaking it in the back door, like instead of saying, make sure you eat asparagus, broccoli, and cauliflower, which some people, uh, including myself, uh, would say, I don't know.

35:55But if you say, Hey, try to get 30 grams of fiber, I think it just, Oh, okay. And you're going to find foods that are probably vegetables or, you know, beans or something. So no harm in getting adequate fiber, probably harm. If you don't get enough. Okay. Excellent. You had another article on, on your, um, or a study you quoted, I think on Instagram by casein protein and that comparing to whey, it almost sounded like there wasn't a whole

36:25lot of difference between those two and effectiveness. And I guess my other question would be, I don't know if you've heard anything about casein and some possible connections with immune responses and inflammatory issues. I'll let you go from there. Yeah. So, um, when you drink dairy milk or even human milk, you're getting casein and whey protein, um, in, in, in dairy milk, it's about 75% casein and 25% whey in terms of the composition.

36:55And there's a, most people would suggest that whey protein is better than casein for muscle protein synthesis. And I think that's because most of the research usually looks at muscle protein synthesis for about two to three hours after ingestion and whey protein is fast digesting casein is slow. So it does give the, it paints the picture that way is better than casein, but in the, in the one study where they actually extended the muscle protein synthesis assessment period, they realized, well, they're equal over six hours.

37:28Now, whey protein does have higher amount of leucine. So that makes it probably a little more anabolic, which would might mean you might need a little bit less of it and it increases insulin, which is really good post-workout because insulin will suppress muscle protein breakdown. So I generally like to say, if you prefer one or the other, there's probably not a practical difference. Personally, I think it makes sense to prioritize whey protein post-workout and casein going into bed. Um, I like it in my first meal of the day cause it makes me feel fuller longer.

38:01And I don't like to eat, um, in the early part of the day, but at the end of the day, they're both, um, both high quality proteins. And then you said, you made a comment about, so there's some concern about casein and inflammation. I don't have a lot of knowledge on that. Um, I, I, I know every time I do a dairy post, I get, you know, one or two people that are calling me Satan and how could I, how could I drink milk? I'm just like, well, I do, I guess don't follow me because I drink milk.

38:35My kids drink milk. It's, it's got a lot of nutrients in it, but if you don't want to drink milk, don't drink milk. It doesn't matter to me. I don't make money from the dairy industry. It's not, it's not easy, uh, to get away, not being called Satan on Instagram or social media. Uh, somebody is going to label you that. Yeah, but I'm very benign. Like I'm so neutral on everything. So I feel like when I get called a bad person, I'm like, wow. 102 miles ago, the oil light came on 100 miles ago.

39:06You noticed now it's time to head to take five. This oil change, fall in love with your car all over again. In just 10 minutes, your dream technician will check your tire pressure, top off fluids, change your oil, and verify with Carfax exactly what your car really needs. All while keeping you in the driver's seat. Take five, the stay in your car 10 minute oil change. Save up to 30% on your next oil change to take five. $15 value, valid to participating locations, terms and conditions apply. 102 miles ago, the oil light came on. 100 miles ago, you noticed.

39:38Now it's time to head to take five. This oil change, fall in love with your car all over again. In just 10 minutes, your dream technician will check your tire pressure, top off fluids, change your oil, and verify with Carfax exactly what your car really needs. All while keeping you in the driver's seat. Take five, the stay in your car 10 minute oil change. Save up to 30% on your next oil change to take five. $15 value, valid to participating locations, terms and conditions apply. How is it that, I mean, I can appreciate other people who are more controversial. Like I'm a pretty boring scientist.

40:09That's the interesting thing too, because I'm looking at some of those comments sometimes people make and I'm thinking, well, where are you getting your information from? Okay, so you got it from this person over here. Now, what makes that person more qualified than the other person? Just because they agree with your original belief. So you've got confirmation bias. So that's it. Yeah. Because if not, it's like, I don't know about you, but me personally, I go to a car mechanic in today's world. I could change my oil 20 years ago. I can't change anything anymore in that dang thing. So I'm looking at it going, you can tell me one mechanic tells me one thing.

40:41The other mechanic tells me another thing. And I'm looking at it going, I really have no clue what you guys are saying. Go ahead. You know, the cheapest one I'm going with. And I see the same battles between some of the times people looking at Dr. Bill Campbell and this over here, Dr. whoever. And I'm curious to see how they determining who's right or who's wrong. It's fascinating to watch that. And I will always have a commitment to the simplest explanation and the simplest process. I love simplicity. So, and I tend to think that the more complicated people like to make things, not that physiology

41:17isn't complicated. It is. And there's so much we don't understand. But if you can't answer people's questions in a way that they can understand, you probably don't know it yourself. So that's, and then one other thing that I like to always ask people is always look to see if the person that's making a claim on X, Y, or Z, do they have a financial, do they sell a product? Do they sell a book about inflammation?

41:48Now, I have a guidebook. You mentioned it earlier. So I'm selling you knowledge. What else? I guess that's it, right? Usually supplements, usually is the biggest thing, right? Supplements are going to be the biggest thing. Supplements and diets. People are very, very tribal, like ketogenic diets, vegetarian diets, gluten-free diets. People have a very strong attachment to diet X, diet Y, diet Z. I just, as long as there's buffalo wings in it, I'm usually think that's a good one. You know, I have multiple podcasts and this is obviously going to be on muscle and fitness

42:22podcasts and other podcasts, but there's one I do. Usually we have all kinds of conversations on there, but not everybody's interested in everything. That's why I kind of made this a separate podcast. But I've noticed in a lot of different scientific disciplines, it seems like the science world has really shifted over the last decade or two. I don't know. Maybe it's even longer, but at least from what I've seen, instead of saying one thing, one thing, one thing, everything used to be one thing, right? It was just way. It was just how K-sion did, how this did, how creatine worked.

42:55Now I'm noticing different genetics, right? Now it's not just one aspect of genetics, it's the interaction between genetics and the environment. It's the interaction between this gene and that gene. Calcium doesn't work without vitamin D helping in it, but it used to be just take calcium. Then they figured out, wait a minute, you need vitamin D. Yes. And I'm sorry, is that the same thing now? Are you noticing that too? Because it seems like a lot of times people try to go pigeonhole one product, when in reality, yay, but it won't work without something else. Yeah. I think as we get in, as we have an appreciation for the, the, just the, the interconnectedness

43:29of physiology, that you, yes, you, you'd have more. Now I, I still would say in training, it doesn't have to be that complicated. Um, and somebody who says they know everything about nutrition, that's nutrition, especially when it comes to health. Now for, for losing body fat, it's really not complicated, but when you start getting into like inflammation, um, and the gut microbiome, good luck trying to figure that out.

44:01Like it's, and there's so many products that are proven era that, you know, proven to help the, the, the, uh, a healthier gut microbiome, but we don't even know what the healthy bacteria are or which ones aren't. Like it's every expert I talked to says, we know nothing about this, but yet it's funny. The guy in Austin with his new supplement knows everything about it.

44:23I'm going to start wrapping up with, with your, your, um, bread and butter, which is fat. Um, so we'll stay on body fat for a minute. Um, is it true as you get lower, I mean, I've experienced it, but maybe I'm just thinking I am, um, as you had 10 or 11, 10, 9%, boy, does it get hard. Um, you really have to start dialing in your, your diet at that point. Is that true? Is it in our head?

44:51Well, I'm, I would be basing this on the body, the competitive bodybuilding population. So the females who step on stage, the male bodybuilder stepping on stage. Yes. It's the, the, if you, the longer you have a, especially a sub 10% body fat, which for a female. 102 miles ago, the oil light came on 100 miles ago. You noticed now it's time to head to take five. This oil change, fall in love with your car all over again. In just 10 minutes, your dream technician will check your tire pressure, top off fluids,

45:26change your oil and verify with Carfax exactly what your car really needs. All while keeping you in the driver's seat. Take five to stay in your car. 10 minute oil change. Save up to 30% on your next oil change to take five. $15 value.

Body Fat and Deception on Instagram

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46:08Valid to participate in locations, terms and conditions apply. Is highly unnatural. For males, it's still low. But, you know, stepping on stage females, even the bikini division often get to around 10%. Males will be around 6%. No, it's every I'm not an I'm not a psychologist, but it seems to me that everything in the body is pushing you to eat food, eat food. It's pushing back against this low body fat level.

46:41So, and there's some really good articles like on the biology of hunger, the drive to eat. And we do have some, I think we have some good theories about what drives hunger, but it does seem like, well, even just looking at leptin, when you're very lean, leptin levels are very low and low leptin levels are associated with very high hunger levels. So, yeah, I don't, I don't think it's just in somebody's head. Now, I also think we can make it more in our head than what it is, but it's, it's, it's real.

47:11And it's very hard to maintain a, that, that lean of a physique for an extended period of time. I could have sworn I saw more commercials for fast food. When I got really low, I just could have sworn there was all of a sudden an increase in fast food. Yes, probably. How low is too low and for keeping a long time? And we see some of these guys, you mentioned this, I guess, Carney, going to our talk about deception a little bit in Instagram and stuff like that and other places too. But can you stay at 7% for a long time or does that depend on the individual?

47:44Yeah, it definitely depends on the individual, but most people are not, I mean, just looking at bodybuilders, when they step on stage, that is not a maintainable physique for people. I would challenge people to, to step on stage or look at somebody on stage and then look at them even seven days later, you're going to see a different body for many people. Now, if they've been doing it for a long time and they're like a professional, they've, they've learned how to manage that better. But people that just step on stage and here's something you, I mean, you, you've been away from the fitness industry as, as a profession for 10 or 15 years, the, the competitive bodybuilding physique, it is exploded.

48:28There's a lot of people that are just, I mean, it's created an entire segment of the fitness profession, which is online coaching. It's awesome. It's, I mean, I love it because I'm, it's kind of my research area. So I get to study this. So I, I love it, but man, that's, you talk about something that's changed in my professional career. That's, that's been a huge change. The people wanting to get lean and actually compete.

48:59That's true. Cause now you have access to guys like Robbie Robinson, uh, Charles, um, Charles glass individuals like that, that are on there that you can never get access to unless you paid 400 bucks and goals gym. Yes. Yeah. It's amazing stuff. Um, deception again, we talk, I talked to some individuals about lighting is a big player. So we see these, these guys, I'm just, again, talking about males, but even some of the females too, but some of the guys you'll see just shredded all the way down.

49:29You'll see angles that they'll use. You'll see lighting that they use. Sometimes they'll even go on a dehydration kind of mode for a day or whatever. What do you know about that area? And how can we help people get an understanding that this is not necessarily healthy and real? Yeah, I don't, I'm not a selfie. I, I, I mean, I may have done one or two selfies in my life. So I, I'm probably the last person to ask about lighting and, and that other than that, I know that it exists. And I also believe I'm pretty sure there's filters.

50:01And again, everybody younger than 40 is going to be laughing because of course there's filters, but I think you can literally make your body and your face look just completely different. But I think people could also use their, their common sense and it's available to them. It's available to the people who are presenting themselves in a certain way. I like some of the guys that I follow sometimes when I looked at their physiques and I'm looking at the guys that are just cooking. And if they have a six pack cooking, that's pretty good. Cause I'm now, I'm not in front of anything unless they have somehow arranged lighting in their kitchen, which is possible, I guess.

50:36But, you know, I'm looking at them walking around that makes it very complicated to try to control that with the lighting and everything else. And so that's kind of like one of the gauges it's kind of interesting. I don't know if you noticed, I'm seeing a lot of football guys now, either maybe wide receivers or whatnot that are thick, you know, they're really big guys, but now they're really lean and they're pushing fitness on to Instagram too, which is kind of interesting to see these athletes doing that too. Yeah. They, they, they, yeah, it's, it's smart business, right? Cause they have a large audience from their athletic success.

51:08So it's, it's, I think it makes sense. I guess my last couple of questions, how important is water for weight loss and how much should we drink? I've always heard mixed things about this one. Yeah. I don't think there's, I tried to look into that from a scientific perspective and I've, I've never been able to find like an actual eight glasses per day. I do know for males, I did a post on this. It's the only reason I remember for males, it came to like a gallon of water intake per day is what they need. Now we have to be careful. That doesn't mean drinking a gallon of water.

51:39Cause you get a lot of water from food as well, but overall males typically need about a gallon of water to stay you hydrated, normally hydrated. Females need a little, uh, somewhat less than that. Uh, but yeah, in terms of, um, does it make us leaner? I'm, I'm not, I don't know of any mechanism to, to that. I could, that would explain that it would cause fat loss. I know it helps some people feel fuller, um, that it, it, it, it makes sense. Um, high protein diets dehydrate you more than the same amount of carbs.

52:13So drinking more water when on a higher protein diet, which this whole physique lifestyle, bodybuilding lifestyle, it's a higher protein lifestyle. That's it's the evidence goes there. So I think it's a good habit as part of your lifestyle to, to consciously drink water, but I don't have a given amount that I could say, this is how much you should drink. And if you drink this much, you'll lose X amount of body fat. I don't, I don't think that evidence. There. I guess my last three quick questions. One, you did a post on steroids.

52:44That was interesting. You put something just recently about steroids, how I think they even had muscle growth. You were not doing anything. I'm correct. Am I off on that? Yeah. Yeah. So they had four groups. One group did, they got a fake shot of, you know, fake steroids, probably, I don't know, but whatever they put into them, water, um, no exercise. Another group, real steroids with no exercise, another group, um, exercise with no steroids. And then the fourth group exercise and steroids.

53:15And obviously the exercise and steroids group gained the most muscle mass, but the surprising thing was the group that did nothing but get real steroids. So no exercise, they gained more muscle mass than the group that did exercise with the placebo steroids. Now, rightfully so some people said, well, a lot of that was water weight and that's, they didn't measure water. So that is a limitation of that. But you, we know too much about steroids and how it increases muscle protein synthesis and increases contractile protein density.

53:52So it's not all water and not all glycogen. But it might not all have been what, what was reported in that study. And essentially that just tells us steroids work. If you, if you inject steroids, you'll, you'll gain muscle mass, even if you don't exercise. And that's not the only study that showed that that was just the one that I summarized. Are you guys looking into, are you folks over there looking into it all? There's a, you obviously have a big movement lately about TRT, HRT. Um, you and I are in that sweet spot for that age group all of a sudden, but, uh, have you noticed anything there?

54:27I have, no, I have, I have not done research in that area, but, um, as an, probably in the next few years, my, my attention will go there pretty intensely. As well as menopause, post-menopausal or perimenopausal females. It seems like that's a population, the, you know, the females going into menopause or in menopause or post-menopause that's completely ignored by the fitness industry. Now there's plenty of research on, on, in, in that, in terms of fitness and body composition, but I, I just don't see many people in our space.

55:06It's not a, um, it's not a focus. And it's funny to me just from a, um, like a, a financial perspective, people at that age, they have more disposable income. So to me, it would make sense that that, that's be an age group to, to focus on, but I get questions occasionally I'll do a, a, a, a menopausal, uh, post on my Instagram and I'll just get lots of questions from females. And it's, um, even my, my wife's at that age now and things that, you know, what, what used to work doesn't work.

55:38So there's a lot of things to unpack there. And I think, I, I don't think anybody's really owned that space. So that, that's something that intrigues me. That's great. There's a lot of things to look forward to in your research. Excellent. Bill Campbell, PhD folks, Bill Campbell, PhD on Instagram. I know we run out of time, so we'll leave questions for hopefully another time to bring it back as we get more information from you. Dr. Campbell, thank you so much for doing this. Yes. Thank you for the great conversation. It was a lot of fun. I learned a heck of a lot. I hope you did too, folks.

56:09Hey folks, you know what to do. Make sure to share, subscribe, hit that like button, go visit Bill Campbell, PhD on Instagram. One hundred and two miles ago, the oil light came on. One hundred miles ago, you noticed. Now, it's time to head to take five. This oil change, fall in love with your car all over again. In just ten minutes, your dream technician will check your tire pressure, top off fluids, change your oil, and verify with Carfax exactly what your car really needs. All while keeping you in the driver's seat.

56:39Take five, the stay-in-your-car 10-minute oil change. Save up to 30% on your next oil change to take five. Fifteen-dollar value, valid at participating locations, terms and conditions apply. One hundred and two miles ago, the oil light came on. One hundred miles ago, you noticed. Now, it's time to head to take five. This oil change, fall in love with your car all over again. In just ten minutes, your dream technician will check your tire pressure, top off fluids, change your oil, and verify with Carfax exactly what your car really needs. All while keeping you in the driver's seat.

57:09Take five, the stay-in-your-car 10-minute oil change. Save up to 30% on your next oil change to take five. Fifteen-dollar value, valid at participating locations, terms and conditions apply.