#078 Resistance training for time efficiency, body composition, and maximum hypertrophy | Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D.

It really does not hurt to take in more protein. I mean, there's a lot of myths about kidney damage in healthy individuals—no good evidence that there's any negative effects on renal function, certainly on bone density. These are all unsupported from my reading of the literature.

Certainly, to take every set to failure... not only does it not show any benefit for hypertrophy, it actually showed a small detriment for strength. So, with strength, stopping a couple reps short of failure seems to have better effects on maximizing strength than training to failure.

As general guideline, to optimize hypertrophy, you want to be somewhere between 10 to 20 sets per muscle per week.

Resistance training has many of the same benefits as cardiovascular exercise, but it goes well beyond what you can get through aerobic training—and particularly dealing with muscle strength, obviously, and bone density and other things like posture.

It doesn't hurt to take in, like I said, a little extra protein ... Protein is very difficult to store as body fat, much more difficult than carbohydrates and fat ... If you're going to err on the side of caution, that's where you want to err on the side of... taking it a little more protein at the expense—if your goal is weight loss—at the expense of carbs and fat.

If your goal is just to build some muscle, gain some strength... training an hour a week—let's say, 2 days, 2 half-hour sessions a week—can give... most people very nice results, provided you're training hard.

At worst, if you have to do them in the same session, aways do your resistance training first, because if nothing else, the aerobic training can compromise your energy levels to do the strength training. It can compromise the performance.

It is, in my humble opinion, fundamental to combine resistance training, at the very least, with an energy deficit through nutritional restriction to promote weight loss ... If you do not lift weights, even if you just do cardio, you will lose muscle as you're losing body fat.

Conceivably, spacing out your protein would logically have benefits ... You get better utilization of protein if it's spread out at least over 3 meals, relatively spaced, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner—and perhaps even 4.

Resistance training itself is an active form of flexibility training. And there's been studies that show that, compared to static stretching, you get similar benefits doing resistance training protocols, provided that you're training through a full range of motion.

There's really compelling research now that resistance training in youth not only is not detrimental... I want to dispel the myth now that it stunts growth ... There's zero evidence.

Certainly... most forms of exercise are very beneficial ... If I were to pick one activity that is indispensable, it would be resistance training.

Exercise is not the best way to lose body fat ... You have to do a lot of exercise to meaningfully lose fat. Whereas, it's just much easier to do it through reducing the calories and nutrition, the energy intake.