RPM Nutrition and Fitness

🚨IG LIVE🚨It’s been a while folks, but finally getting back to some of the “science talk” I miss having.
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✅ On WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 9 at 7:30pm EST, I will be doing a LIVE Q&A discussion with !
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✅Sam has his PhD and is an Assistant Professor of Exercise Science at the University of South Florida. He is also Director of the USF Muscle Lab.
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✅For all my muscle nerds, you might have noticed a hard division amongst “hypertrophy camps” lately. Sam and I hope to dive into some of the latest data, concepts, and hopefully answer some of your questions. Should be interesting, so please tune in!
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✅A Q&A box will be in my stories, so if there’s something you want to know, drop it in there!
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🚨GUEST LECTURE SERIES🚨I am very excited to be returning to the WEX (Wellness and Exercise Science) department this week to give a guest lecture in Prof. Julie Seda’s class .
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✅I will be covering how nutrition impacts training and exercise goals. Hopefully delving into some muscle physiology and perhaps clearing up some long standing fitness mantras that don’t hold up as you dive into the current data.
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✅I was fortunate enough to give 2 guest lectures back in 2019/2020 right before Covid hit, effectively cutting short doing anything more with the school. Since that time I have had the utmost pleasure to either do podcasts with or learn from some of the best in our industry like and . They have all played a role in opening up the idea of educating and speaking as a fitness professional. I am very grateful for the opportunity and for them.
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✅Thank you to Prof. Julie Seda for the opportunity to present to your students again. If any current BCC students follow me, hopefully I see you there.
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🚨ASPARTAME NEWS🚨This “news” is actually a few days (maybe a week) old? The IARC (International Agency on Research of Cancer) a part of the WHO announced it was labeling aspartame as a CLASS 2B carcinogen.
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But as always when discussing aspartame, all the fear mongering grubs come out of the woodwork to talk smack, yet have no real scientific basis for anything and aren’t applying any critical thinking to any data being presented.
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The above slides should provide some clarity and answer some of your questions. And one thing I forgot to mention in the slides, even the animal studies hold merit in so much as they can help give us mechanisms to research further, the dosages typically administered to them are far beyond what any human could actually, physiologically consume at any one time.
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Questions? Leave ‘em below 👇🏻
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🚨STATIC STRETCHING🚨This post builds off the heels of a recent post from looking at some recent evidence regarding static stretching and how it can impact hypertrophy.
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I work 1 on 1 with clients and see regular members in everyday, so I wanted to break this down a bit further for my audience so they can make adjustments if they like.
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⏩️Swipe through to read the information. For those interested, the study was originally published in the Journal of Exercise Physiology Volume 17 Number 6. Any questions leave em below! 👇🏻
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🚨FOOD SCORING👎🏻🚨Here’s a quick little breakdown on a recent article entitled “Ice Cream is Better For You Than Granola: Surprising Snack Study”. 😐
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✅Read the slides to see how this shakes down. It does not hold up to its title. The “study” wasn’t really a study, and the data presented isn’t really based on anything usual in real world conditions. It’s unfortunate because this type of info and title permeate SOLID, USEABLE information from real practitioners.
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🚨UPCOMING EPISODE🚨I am very excited to announce an episode of that has been in the works for a bit. Next week we will have the distinct pleasure of having Martin MacDonald on the show!
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If you follow me, it’s hopefully a 95% certainty you follow Martin as well. He’s been doing tremendous things for our industry ( and gobs of USEABLE FREE content on IG to name a few). All schedules and planets have finally aligned to get here and we’re thrilled. Going to be a great conversation spanning all our usual pod topics.
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🚨SLICK MARKETING🚨We’ve all seen the buzzwords…”Made with Cauliflower”, NON GMO water, Grass Fed Salmon…the list goes on and on…but are some of these companies doing the right thing? Or is their marketing and packaging team just a bunch of idiots dicking around in a room? Let’s take a look…
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✅CAULIFLOWER CRUST POT PIE: Here we have the infamous “cauliflower crust”. Immediately makes the product lower calorie, healthier, and all around aura enhancing right? GTFOH!!!
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✅NUTRITION: Turn that single serve pot pie around and we see it has a WHOPPING 810 calories, 40g of fat, 86g of carbs, and 26g of protein. That’s awfully hefty!! And what makes this make even less sense than a screen door on a submarine is a crust made with cauliflower AND wheat. Like WTF…if you happen to be gluten-free, normally cauliflower could be a decent option for you, but not here. This s**t is all fu**ed up.
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✅THE EQUALIZER: The Banquet pot pie gives this some context. You can have TWO OF THESE (to match the total serving size of the cauliflower one) and STILL be taking in less calories overall. Like what are we even doing here?
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✅COST: What’s annoying is when companies jump on a bandwagon to make money, giving zero f***s in regards to proper application. So at Target the cauliflower pie will cost you $2.99. At the same Target 2 regular pies will run you $1.98. A friggin $1 LESS expensive. Unless you have a VERY SPECIFIC need for specialty foods or ingredients, overpaying for nonsense doesn’t make a lot of sense.
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✅Try to be on the lookout for nonsense like this and bang out some critical thinking before jumping on the magic marketing.
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🚨REST PERIODS🚨To put it lightly…STOP JUMPING AROUND! 🛑 But seriously if this confuses you, read on.
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✅This information is for the context of hypertrophy BUT can help improve the performance of any workout really.
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✅I hear the question a lot, and more often than not, I hear and see the wrong answer. Some will say or do 30/60/90 second rests and “keep blasting”, thinking the burn is what we’re looking for. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
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✅Mechanical tension through loading is the stimulus we’re after when training to or in proximity to failure. The “burn” is not a stimulus, it’s a by-product of energy production.
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✅How do we get to failure? Maximum effort/output by the target tissue with an involuntary slowing of the rep contractions as the set progresses as your nervous system attempts to recruit more high threshold motor units to help complete the reps as fatigue sets in.
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✅As you train, your nervous system builds up fatigue. In between sets your muscles need rest, but so does your nervous system. If it is too fatigued you actually limit the amount of HMU’s that can be recruited. How do we do that? INCREASE IN BETWEEN SET REST!
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✅How much? In a 2016 paper [PMID: 26605807] amongst others compared 1 minute vs 3 minute rests periods. While both testing groups saw increases, the 3 minute group saw more, showing that longer rests promote greater strength and hypertrophy gains than shorter.
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✅In the above pic takes FULL advantage of his 3 minute rest periods at . You should too and watch your gains increase!
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🦃HAPPY THANKSGIVING🦃Wishing all friends, family, and co-workers a very happy and safe Thanksgiving today. I hope the past year has brought you many blessings to reflect on with gratitude.
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I have had many things manifest this year I am beyond grateful for.
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My guys from .fitness and .fit . Been more than I could have asked for and has exceeded my expectations.
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A twist of the arm of the universe brought into my creative sphere and we have been creating music faster than I ever have with .His talent is undeniable. Through him I have also been able to play live with . 💙 brochacho’s.
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A few select co workers/friends but mainly and . “Work” has never felt so fun.
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Who doesn’t love surprises? Especially when you least expect it. In I have found a smart, funny, loving soul who I can be ridiculous and vulnerable with all at once. My heart is full and happy❤️.
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Honorable mentions of awesomeness in my life for this past year (my awesome fam) . Anyone I left out…I have food coma brain.
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🚨HYPERTROPHY/FAILURE🚨So many on a regular basis always *think* that if they do more volume and hit body parts multiple times per week, they can increase their progress. This definitely is NOT the case. Read on to see if you are approaching your training properly.
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✅HYPERTROPHY-Slide 1 gives a quick overview on what it is and the 2 types. Generally we are after Myofibrillar (fiber size) and Sarcoplasmic is a bonus by product.
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✅TENSION/FAILURE/NOT VOLUME: Slide 2 discusses how mechanical tension drives hypertrophy and not volume. Think about breaking through a wall with a sledgehammer. If you swing and hit it a few times making a dent, but stopping before breaking through (failure) and come back another day to almost break through again…doesn’t it make more sense to just breakthrough the FIRST time, call it a day and rest? Doesn’t matter how frequently you train a muscle IF you are continually FAR from failure (say continually at a 4-5 RIR).
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✅RECOVERY: This is an often overlooked component of training and making progress. CNS fatigue DOES play a role, however it can be difficult for us to perceive it, so we ignore it. But multiple sessions per week on a single group, over time, your ability to produce optimal output decreases if you can’t recover session to session. Another reason high volume is overrated. Volume can be over the week via multiple sessions OR too many sets/reps per session far from failure.
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✅Frustrated with how you are doing your own programming? Come find me at .
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🚨GLUTE TRAINING🚨Glutes, big b***y’s, badonkadonk…call it what you will but this body part and training is EVERYWHERE. You can see it in every gym and every IG Influencer who can take a pic of their butt high in the air are shilling b***y builder programs, usually centered around stupid band exercises that they happen to sell bands for. Let’s break this down and get your b***y brain going…
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✅SLIDES 1-2: What you see here is a quick description of what the glute max is and what it does. The pic on Slide 2 shows you the orientation of the fibers and how they move. Fibers pull origin to insertion in direction. Plus keep in mind the glute has BOTH it’s attachments on the back of the body, meaning it does one thing really really awesome, pull your leg BACK in extension.
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✅SLIDE 3: Gives a small breakdown of how your piriformis takes over in many moves like “anything banded at the knees” and the abduction machine. The glute max is doing very little in these movements. The “burn” you feel is your little piriformis getting torched from asking it to do too much.
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✅SLIDE 4-5: Both of these slides give some insight on what you SHOULD be doing to build better glutes. This information comes from 2 different Systematic Reviews on glute work. Research details provided on slides.
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✅CONCLUSION: ditch the band and start figuring out how to work more “hinging” and basic hip extension movements in your programming, while setting up for your individual structure. Want help? Come see me at .
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🚨SUSTAINABLE EFFORT vs SUSTAINABLE METHODS🚨If you’re a coach, or even a client, chances are you’ve said or heard, “yeah but it’s not gonna be sustainable” when discussing goals. Usually in relation to a certain aesthetic or body weight you’re after. While this statement does hold water, as someone who tries to coach the BEST out of the clients I work with, I feel the distinction should be made when making this statement. Swipe through to see my thoughts and ultimate conclusion.
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🚨PODCAST🚨Today I had the pleasure of appearing on the podcast with my longtime friend at his beautiful PT clinic in East Hanover. We discussed all things nutrition, how you can find your “why” in regards to your dietary approach, and how to tackle your diet when injured/in PT. Once it’s live i will post where you can listen!
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To all my sneakerfam… !
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