#349 - AMA #71: Building strength and muscle mass: how to optimize training, nutrition, and more for longevity
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Hey everyone, welcome to a sneak peek Ask Me Anything or AMA episode of The Drive Podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. At the end of this short episode, I'll explain how you can access the AMA episodes in full along with a ton of other membership benefits we've created. Or you can learn more now by going to peterattiamd.com forward slash subscribe. So without further delay, here's today's sneak peek of the Ask Me Anything episode. ♪

Welcome to Ask Me Anything AMA episode 71. For today's AMA, we're focusing on a topic that is central to both lifespan and healthspan, which is muscle mass and muscle strength.

This is one of the most frequently asked about topics I encounter. And while we've covered aspects of it in the past on episodes with guests like Lane Norton, Andy Galpin, Mike Isratel, this AMA is designed to bring all of that knowledge into one streamlined discussion. Again, we've got tens of hours on this topic.

probably in the ballpark of 30 hours. And we realized that for somebody who kind of needs the TLDR, it would be helpful to have it all in one spot and also updated by the most recent insights and information. So in this AMA, we discuss why muscle mass and strength matter, specifically exploring their role in longevity, metabolic health and injury prevention. Talk about the differences between muscle mass and strength, which one is actually more critical for longevity and how they each relate to overall health.

We look at various metrics, such as grip strength, to predict mortality and why they might be predictive. We talk about how someone can build muscle mass and strength effectively, covering progressive overload, rep ranges, training intensity, with a focus on maximizing results safely. We speak about the importance of power training, why explosive movements matter, especially as we age, and how to integrate them into a routine. We talk about the nutrition that's necessary to support muscle growth, breaking down protein intake, timing, the

the role of supplements like creatine. We talk about different training strategies for various individuals, whether you're new to lifting, someone who's older, younger, looking to maintain strength, seasoned lifter, et cetera. We end the discussion talking about balancing recovery and avoiding injury, how to train effectively while minimizing risk, managing fatigue, and ensuring long-term consistency. If you're a subscriber and you want to watch the full video of this podcast, you can find it on the show notes page.

And if you're not a subscriber, you can watch a sneak peek of this video on our YouTube page. So without further delay, I hope you enjoy AMA 71. Peter, welcome to another Ask Me Anything episode with Dr. Peter Attia, Stanford educated physician. How are you doing? Thank you for that incredible introduction. I'm doing well and I appreciate you having me back.

I just wanted to make sure you knew it was your show, so I thought more of an introduction would make it feel more like home. Before we start today's topic, how's your day going? Learn anything new today? Have you been educated in any way?

Well, you're always learning, Nick. That's the thing. At least I think we should all try to be learning at all times. Today, I had a particularly fun day. I went to my son's school to take him lunch. This is something that I like to do once in a while is take lunch and eat with my kids. He wasn't really in the mood to have lunch with me today, which happens from time to time with seven-year-olds. So I ended up just in the cafeteria sitting at a table all by myself and

Eating lunch which in and of itself was pretty funny because I really got a kick out of watching all the kids Doing their thing but eventually a bunch of kids in his class I think felt bad for me and they came up and just sat around me and they started asking me a bunch of questions Which of course turned into me asking them more questions like what are they doing in PE? What are they learning in science that kind of stuff? But the kids sitting right across from me noticed I was drinking a diet soda and I

Truthfully, I don't really drink that many. I'm mostly a Topo Chico Waterloo guy, but this was the first thing I grabbed. And he said, huh, I noticed you're drinking whatever it was I was drinking, a Fresca actually. You know that that has a sweetener in it that is 500 times sweeter than sugar? And I said, oh yeah, I think that's how they get away with making it have no calories. He goes, you know that causes cancer, right?

I just decided at that moment, probably not a good time to argue the abundance of the human literature and the animal literature and all that. I let that one go, but I appreciated the conviction and his concern for my health. He also pointed out afterwards that it wasn't going to kill you quickly because you were only ingesting so little of it, which I thought was a very astute comment for a seven-year-old.

But anyway, needless to say, I had a lot of fun doing second grade lunch today and I would be interested in going back. I do love it, especially because you've openly talked about how when you go to parties and events where there are adults there, you usually don't explain what you do because you don't want to have those conversations. And I love the fact you went to the local elementary school and they roped you into that. We were talking briefly before this and I think

Jessica and our team had a good idea and people in the audience can let us know if they think this is good, which is maybe we do get a panel of these seven-year-olds together and do a round table on what elementary kids think about health, nutrition, exercise, protein, microplastics, seed oils, you name it. Sounds like your local elementary school has a lot of insights on these topics.

Honestly, if our audience wants to hear the seven-year-old roundtable, I am totally game to get a group of three or four seven-year-olds around the table and really go deep on the health issues that mean most to them. It's probably quite insightful. Yeah, it is. Let us know if we should do it.

and we will make it happen. But for today's AMA, we are not talking about that. We're actually going to talk about one topic, and that is all things related to muscle mass and muscle strength.

So it's something that we've talked about on a lot of different podcasts. You openly talk about the importance of it, and we've gathered a lot of questions that have come in. And these questions are going to deal with why is muscle mass and strength important? The difference between muscle mass and strength, which one matters more? How can you start to increase your muscle mass and strength, whether you're old, young, male, female, the role of nutrition and protein, one of your favorite topics in this.

And then we'll end with some different programming options for different types of people if they want to start applying this to their life or if they want to start going further than their current exercise programming. So with all that said, some people may say you have a lot of information on this already in episodes with Lane Norton, Andy Galpin, Mike Isretel, and many more.

So what would you say to someone who asks, why are we now dedicating an AMA to this? It's a fair question and one that we internally kicked around. And I think two things put us in the situation we're in. So one is we continue to get asked more questions about this than almost anything. I would say it's among the three most asked about topics. But I think the second thing is because we have so much content out there, if you want to get the TLDR on this,

You're going to be spending hours and hours and hours, 20 hours worth of digging. And so what we thought we could do was organize the content in a way that would make it much easier for

for a person in what will undoubtedly be a much smaller aliquot of time to get everything that they need to get out of this at the zeroth order and maybe first order level. And then really through the show notes and supplemental material, go as deep as they want if they need more content. I think we're going to deliver on this one. We've put a lot of work into it.

Thank you for listening to today's sneak peek AMA episode of The Drive. If you're interested in hearing the complete version of this AMA, you'll want to become a premium member.

It's extremely important to me to provide all of this content without relying on paid ads. To do this, our work is made entirely possible by our members. And in return, we offer exclusive member-only content and benefits above and beyond what is available for free. So if you want to take your knowledge of this space to the next level, it's our goal to ensure members get back much more than the price of the subscription.

Premium membership includes several benefits. First, comprehensive podcast show notes that detail every topic, paper, person, and thing that we discuss in each episode. And the word on the street is nobody's show notes rival ours.

Second, monthly Ask Me Anything or AMA episodes. These episodes are comprised of detailed responses to subscriber questions, typically focused on a single topic and are designed to offer a great deal of clarity and detail on topics of special interest to our members. You'll also get access to the show notes for these episodes, of course.

Third, delivery of our premium newsletter, which is put together by our dedicated team of research analysts. This newsletter covers a wide range of topics related to longevity and provides much more detail than our free weekly newsletter. Fourth, access to our private podcast feed that provides you with access to every episode, including AMA's sans the spiel you're listening to now and in your regular podcast feed.

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