Iron Culture presented by MASS

In this episode, Eric and Omar are joined by one of the most celebrated, revered, and respected pro natural bodybuilders, Brian Whitacre. Brian is a legendary figure, historically being the first to win both the WNBF Worlds and Yorton Cup Overalls the same year in 2015. The hosts discuss natural bodybuilding, economics, and what it takes to be a champion. Listen up, you might be surprised.

Brian Minor, MS, pro natural bodybuilder and national level USAPL raw powerlifter, is not only an impressive dual-sport strength and physique athlete, but he’s also top of the bodybuilding and Powerlifting coaching game. As a thought leader in the evidence-based strength and physique community, he does an excellent job putting context and application to theory to help move practice forward. Join us in this episode as we get into the nitty-gritty of what progressive overload really means with Brian, and how it’s often misunderstood.

At the edges of scientific understanding, pseudoscience is bred and born. When a topic is studied, but not yet understood, marketers plant the seeds of hype to suck you in. “This one weird trick”, “doctors hate him”, “the herb the FDA doesn’t want you to have”. The emerging field of gut health is an arena rife with such quackery. Fortunately, we have Dr. Gabrielle Fundaro as a guiding light. She has a Ph.D. in human nutrition, is a competitive strength and physique athlete, and was a professor at Georgia Gwinnett College before joining Renaissance Periodization as a coach and science communicator. As a gut health researcher and professional, she joins Omar and Eric to uncover the myths and truths, and to discuss how pseudoscience forms.

In this episode of Iron Culture, Omar leads a discussion looking inward to the academic journey of Eric Helms through his Ph.D. As we explore the science, history, and culture of lifting, it’s important to not only consume the outcome of scientific research but to consider it in the context of the human experience of the researchers who dedicate years of their lives to sometimes uncovering ludicrously simple answers through intense and complicated study. Like lifting itself, exercise and nutrition research is a marathon not a sprint, and a labor of love. In this episode learn not only about autoregulation, the topic of Eric’s Ph.D. but also about the experience of the academic pursuit of knowledge.

Iron Culture hosts a Roundtable discussion on strength development and the relationship between hypertrophy and it’s relationship to a one-repetition maximum. We’re joined by researcher Andrew Vigotsky who is currently pursuing his Ph.D., and also we bring back the ever jolly Greg Nuckols of Stronger by Science. Between them, they have not only personal experience with the iron, but more importantly, they’ve published academic peer-reviewed papers specifically on the multi-component factors that go into strength expression, from neuromuscular, to biomechanical, to technical and morphological contributing factors, including hypertrophy. Tune in to this episode for a deep dive on strength.

Dr. Jake Linardon is a researcher at Deakin University in Melbourne Australia where he is leading the charge with a flurry of new research on the causes of, contributors to, associations with and the effectiveness of treatments for eating disorders. Additionally, he’s one of the few researchers exploring surprising similarities between rigid and flexible dieting approaches. In this episode, we explore how eating disorders manifest, especially in lifters and physique athletes, what might be at their root, what we know, what we don’t know, and discuss exploratory steps towards solutions.

Modern social media has an abundance of choices. Look up any particular topic and you’ll find a plethora of options. An abundance of choice does not mean an abundance of quality, however. In this episode, Eric & Omar explore the role of the evidence-based practitioner, contrasting it with the rise of the “guru”. In this podcast, you might not find easy answers but you will find deeper meaning.

“Evidence-based” is said without questioning its meaning. While science popularisation in the iron game is a net win, we must learn the difference between #science and evidence-based practice. To understand what differentiates the two and why the distinction is critical, we‘re joined by two researchers, science communicator, practitioners, Drs. Andy Galpin and Brad Dieter. Andy is a former competitive weightlifter, consults with athletes, and is a professor studying muscle fiber responses to training at Cal State Fullerton. Brad researches exercise and nutrition to improve health and human performance and is an author at Science-Driven Nutrition and the Chief Scientific Officer at Eat to Perform. Join them as we strive to understand the role of evidence-based practice in lifting.

At Iron Culture we ask important questions, for example: “what meaning do you make in life?” But in this episode, we are joined by Drs. Brad Schoenfeld, Brandon Roberts, and Juha Hulmi to ask THE most important question: “why and how do muscles grow?” Each guest in this episode is such an avid devotee to the iron that not only are they a dedicated lifter, but dedicated to the scientific study of muscle. Brad is one of the foremost experts on the mechanisms and applied training variables of muscle hypertrophy, Juha is renowned for his work on muscle wasting and anabolic genetic signaling, and Brandon is an expert in molecular signaling of hypertrophy. If you’ve ever wanted to learn the complexities of muscle growth, then join us this episode for a deep dive into the science of size.

In 2019 technology is not only a part of life, but a part of fitness. Whether you wear a heart rate monitor, track your steps, scan the barcodes of foods to track their calories, or watch videos of your lifts to assess form, you’ve experienced this intersection first hand. We take these things for granted, but we miss the behind he scenes hard work, success, failures, struggles, ingenuity, creativity, setbacks and triumphs of the fitness-tech developers who make the augmented fitness world we live in possible. In this episode Iron Culture welcomes the founders of three lifter-specific apps, Obi Anachebe of FitGenie, Eric Wagner of Gravitus and Nidhi Kulkarni of Spitfire and Gravitus to give us a peak behind the curtain.