Carl Lanore: Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Super Human Radio bringing you fresh news, stuff you don't hear anywhere else, it happens here. Thanks to the contribution of the audience. Couple of things, first of all, every Saturday—Well, I take it back. I am trying to decide a time and day for this.
This past Saturday I did my first Facebook Q&A. Come at me bro and I expect a lot of people turn out and very few people turned out. Several people said may be Saturday at noon is not a good idea. So I want start doing these Q&As. I’ll take questions too if you can’t do it live but I need to find out what the best time and day where most people can tune in. I’m thinking evenings during the week but we’ll see. If you can email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and give me your opinion. What day and time you most likely be able to tune-in live to a Q&A in Facebook Live? Number one.
Number two, don't forget about Patreon. Patreon is listener supported commercial free Super Human Radio. Every episode of Super Human Radio that we produced within an hour of its production is up on Patreon… no commercials. It is $5 a month. I mean really? Like a Starbucks coffee once a month and you get Super Human Radio in the way you want it without commercials. So patreon.com/superhumanradio. Check that out.
So, first hour we are going to be talking out peptide you have not heard about because the guy who is really popularizing it is the guy that we are going to be interviewing and that's my buddy, Dr. William Seeds. Then later in the show we are going to be joined by coach Charles Staley. There is a new way to do back extensions. These are not your granddad's back extension. We are going to talk about that later in the show, so stay tuned. Dr. Williams Seeds, how are you doing man?
William Seeds: I am doing good Carl. Thanks for having me.
Carl Lanore: So you know, you are an extraordinary orthopedic surgeon but you are also an athlete—a strength athlete. As a result you are always looking for ways to improve not only performance but to maintain health while performing well. So you read a lot of research and you started talking to me about this new peptide I had never heard about and as soon as you started talking to me about it I started searching for it. I’m like what he is talking about? There is nobody out there with this peptide.
So how did you-- first of all how did you come to learn about this peptide Thymosin Alpha-1 which is obviously one of the thymus gland produced peptide which is an immune system related. How did you even discover this?
William Seeds: We’ll we’ve been really interested in the research that has been focused not only on athletes but in the aging with the issues with these thymus and how we lose the thymus gland as we aged and the significance of the loss of the immune system as we aged and what happens to the immune system with over training in our professional athletes and even our weekend warriors.
And we’ve been focus not only on the side of how we improve the mitochondria and those things but also the immune system because it has a significant influence on recovery and continued training and so forth. The research shows of those aspects with the GHRH, as in GHRP, and the receptors on the T cells and the stem cells and so forth. Kind of took us down that pathway.
You just get exposed to more of the literature and more of the things that are being been done in them than the significantly immune deficient patients like HIV patients and we seen across the world how Thymosin Alpha-1 been a significant peptide in helping and insisting in influencing the immune system for HIV patients.
So from that data you've seen an explosion of work being done in looking at other—if it works for a severely—if it works in helping modulate or coadjuvant with other therapies in these patients in improving and decreasing the amount of virus in the body and improving the immune response, well think of the implications it can have in other aspects of immune deficiency.
So there has been over—gush well over I think I’ve reviewed at least 75 papers right now. Currently I know there is over 100 papers that about 20 that I have not reviewed concerning the aspects of Thymocin Alpha-1 and its influence in liver cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, cystic fibrosis, digeorge syndrome-- I mean there's always immunodeficient avenues that are just opening up, plethora of information and how this is another tool and a faith tool to use in conjunction with treatment as adjuvant therapy or monotherapy.
So taking that forward, we have – gush, you know, you see, you always have these issues in either your elderly or your young athletes who get into these issues with immune issues as they over train or older people who start getting—let us just say you come down with the flu. You're looking at ways that you can calm it down, slow down that process, things that you potentially could do to recover faster.
It is another avenue to look instead of you using Rifampin—I am sorry not Rifampin-- other antiviral drugs. Well, here is a peptide that you can use it that is efficient and safe. That's one of the nice things that—one of the beautiful things that we've come to realize with Thymosin Alpha-1 is its profile—its safety profile is excellent.
Carl Lanore: You know I want my audience to think about this discussion in a different term. We start talking about the immune system and people right away think about illness, disease states, treating those disease states but I want you to stop for a second.
Your immune system is the reason you can eat a piece of beef and it doesn't kill you while you extract all the nutrition out of it. Your immune system should not be thought of as this protective mechanism that jumps in when you're in trouble. You should be thinking of your immune system much in the same way you think of an operating system on your computer. The operating system creates the domain that everything else can function within.
And so when we talk about the immune system, a lot of people get turned off. They are like, “Oh, this is going to be about disease states.” No! If you’re a hard training athlete, if you're average person, you need to pay attention to your immune system because your immune system is the operating system of your body that all of the system depend on for them to be able to focus on doing their job. The immune system has to be operating properly.
And so don't think of the immune system as this rescue mechanism when the body gets out of whack, think of it as the thing that keeps the body from getting out of whack in the first place. And if you think of it that way then you'll see the value in this discussion as I do, as an aging athlete. This is not about “Oh, I don't get viruses.” That's not what this about and you are going to find out in a second.
So the reality is that you started paying attention to Thymosin Alpha-1, but there really was no Thymosin Alpha-1 out there to speak up right?
William Seeds: Yeah, well it's been available but its under different trade names. Different pharmaceutical companies have different names that have made the Thymosin Alpha-1 is in your-- is a synthetic that we make but it is made by the body.
Carl Lanore: So that kind of takes it out the realm of pharmaceutical companies pursuing it because they really can't patent it because it's naturally occurring in the body, right?
William Seeds: Right. Well they have-- there are patents on it. Yeah there are different patents on the Thymosin Alpha-1. I mean it’s a—yeah, it comes from a—
Carl Lanore: So is it -- I think you told me it is right now not classified. It's kind of an orphaned drug type of a thing?
William Seeds: It is an orphaned drug here in the US. Yes! It is on a fast-track basically. An orphaned drug is usually something that you get tax incentives and so forth to speed along the research and showing the efficacy of the drug to get it into the system faster.
Carl Lanore: So let's talk about how it's use. This is a protein peptide, how many amino acids is it?
William Seeds: It is a 28 amino acid sequence.
Carl Lanore: So fairly small for amino acids—I mean for peptide. Okay.
William Seeds: It's related to another—to a Prothymosin Alpha which is like 113 amino acid parent molecule and it is kind of where we took it from. So it's a 28 amino acid and it is a—has the effect on the immune system as far as the maturation and the differentiation of T cells and the T cells are water produced by the thymocytes and the T cells are-- What is so important in at least your initial response and chronic responses to infections whether they are viral, bacteria, or so forth.
It also has-- I mean besides that initial effect it can enhance and you are looking to-- you can upregulate receptors and it has many various influences within the immune system but then it also has-- it also does things like you know what you are talking about right there before about immune system. I think what should people should be interested in is that— You know I am kind of this guy. I am along that theory of aging performance. You know we think so much about antioxidants and free radicals that just the sole problem with the mechanism of breakdown and so does in aging.
Well, I don't think it's just that, I think it's got to do with all reactions and the immune system has its own-- they may not be enzymatic reactions but they have their own functions and reactions that create problems if things don't go well and if you don't have the right apoptosis, if cells are dying sooner then they are creating problems. I think there's that whole realm of you got to look at everything, you just can't look at the free radicals side, you’ve got to look at everything to keep the system on balance or homeostatic, right? And I think the immune system has such a big influence on that and bigger than we probably know.
And so with this, with the Thymosin 1, it also has--we found that it has some significant influence on cell repair on angiogenesis, on cell migration specifically of monocytes and endothelial cells. So in injury and you know it would be just the same as training breakdown recovery. I mean Thymosin Alpha-1, the immune system has a significant influence on training. So when people don’t-- if they don't understand that, they need to understand that initial inflammatory response and in the response that follows are all significant factors in recovery and how that activity—how it has influence your body, right?
Carl Lanore: Well and so here’s a proof of that, right? So we always talk about like Olympic athletes are always on the verge of getting sick and that's because the immune system only has so much resources and when it has to divide its attention between recovery from strenuous workouts or fighting off the onset of some illness, it has to share its resources across.
And so you hear about athletes who are on the verge of being sick, we’ve heard this all along. A hard training athlete, they can catch cold like that and it's because the immune system has to divide its attention between recovering you from your workout and protecting you against illness and that's evidence of what we’re talking about here.
William Seeds: Well sure and Carl when you're training, if we think about when people are training or let's say they are highly stressed individual exact or whatever and they had stress events in their life, what happened with across-the-board with the athletes in the executive-- it is a a glucocorticoid type of induced-- their increased cortisol. What do we know about cortisol and cortisol stimulation?
Cortisol affects the thymocytes of the thymus, it creates apoptosis—early apoptosis. So you are killing thymocytes, you are killing cells that produce T cells. I am simplifying it significantly but there is an absolute correlation with that and if we can do things to antagonize the activation of these things, well my gush, we’re making some big strides there if we can affect that initially.
Carl Lanore: Okay, so here is what I want to do, I want to take our first commercial break and when we come back, I want to get right into it. I want to talk about dosing, I want to talk about protocol, I want to talk about an approach to a prophylactic use of it, I want to talk about stacking. We will get all into this all in just a second. So stay tuned, you are listening to Super Human Radio. We will be right back.
Carl Lanore: Welcome back to Super Human Radio. You’ve never heard of Thymosin Alpha-1 before. Hell I didn’t hear of it until Dr. William Seeds taught me about it and he is going to teach you too. Keep in mind that Dr. Seeds travels around the country lecturing doctors on peptides. This kind of stuff you are getting here, this isn’t bro science here, okay?
Okay so Dr. Seeds, where do we start with Thymosin Alpha-1? What do we need to know about dosing, protocol, stacking and all that sort of stuff? And is it something that you should be taking regularly with your growth hormone secreted gouges? Is it something that you cycle on or off? How does it work?
William Seeds: Well, it isn’t, it can be a monotherapy. I mean it is a-- it can be used acutely in an instances of where you're trying to slower delay borrower application and say flu like type of problems or let's say there is a-- the issues you see sometimes with athletes or elderly with chronic viral recurrences of say like herpes zoster.
Carl Lanore: Right. I was just going to ask you about that because shingles is all rage nowadays you know?
William Seeds: Right, right. Shingles or the herpetic lesions that you get cold sores and things like that. There is no cure for those things but this is a monotherapy that can be used to absolutely-- can slow down the viral replication and keep it in tow where before potentially these things could slow you, could keep you out of competition or could keep you out of the office or-- These are more manageable in delaying let us say treatment span of 4 to 6 weeks, could be as short as two weeks.
And that's a real—those are applications where you'll see more evidence with those type of studies that will be turning up here soon I believe that will show some real implications of how you can get away from some of this antiviral type of drugs and you've got something that has a much safer—
Carl Lanore: User profile.
William Seeds: Absolutely!
Carl Lanore: Because is no real side effects from it at all.
William Seeds: Not really. I mean it's been at least in over—it has been used in over 3,000 patients or more and there had been no serious side effects that have been documented. It's quick, you know it's-- the peptide I believe I’m going to say within two hours it’s active and it does its job in sending its signals and it is a peptide as we know are all signaling agents.
This particular one is the real-- The focus of interest in this peptide is actually that it's a very-- it's something that you don't have to dose every day. In most of the studies you will read about whether it is cancer or immune issues, viral issues-- the treatment protocols are pretty similar in where it is usually between 1 mg to 1.5 mg every three days.
So you're basically dosing it twice a week and the dosing protocols are based on what you're trying to achieve but the fact is it's a-- you have to use it up. Usually it will come in like a 3 mg vial is typically what you try to look for.
Carl Lanore: So that is a one week dose right there. That’s it, you take it Monday and Thursday and you’re done.
William Seeds: Yes and you’ve got to use it because the peptide is highly degradable and you have to use it within that three-day kind of span. So it can be used treating symptomatically for like what we said with the cold sores and the hepatic lesions and the shingles and so forth. It can used for two week course or one-week course. Now you have-- there are some people talking about prophylactically—
Carl Lanore: That was my next question. What if I am not getting sick but I want to leverage the beauty of this peptide?
William Seeds: Right! So that is a great question and those are the kind of--- those are the interesting conversations that are being brought up right now about. Okay, well gush, that is something that you can influence the CD4 or the CD8 kind of influence of T cells, which are really just glycoproteins that are separate T cells as far as helper versus suppressed. Or so the helper cells are the CD4 that go out and find the problem and then they turn on the suppressor cells and businesses are taking care of.
So if you can keep that ratio high, you got a better chance or we feel if you keep it in a maintained good level you’ve got a better chance of dealing with these insults. So there are series of cycling this type of process 3 to 4 times a year with people attracted just doing 2 weeks up to 4 to 6 weeks of cycling this in and out of their normal protocols and training or just an elderly patients who—
Another avenue that is being studied right now—and I am not a big advocate of vaccinations but in the elderly people who are being vaccinated, they are using this as an adjuvant vaccinations because really—I think your audience is well-educated and understands it, why don't these vaccines work in order people? Well because their immune systems are not responding. Well their finding that this-- the Thymosin Alpha-1 can turn on the immune system to add to the efficacy of the vaccine—
Carl Lanore: Yeah because what you are really talking about here is immune system entrainment but you can’t entrain the immune system if it doesn't engage.
William Seeds: Correct.
Carl Lanore: Yeah, it is brilliant.
William Seeds: That is exactly right. You—Carl, you just went through the whole talk with one sentence.
Carl Lanore: No but listen, so here is my question about that. Is Thymosin Alpha-1 in its primary state where the magic is or are there metabolites? You know like we know about growth hormone and IGF-1 and mechano growth factor and all these other metabolites that it spins off. Does Thymosin Alpha-1 spin off any metabolites that are part of the reason it works so well?
William Seeds: Well it is pleiotropic and it has-- we don't know the answer. We know-- I mean there's some literature that says that it has a direct effect itself and then as far as metabolites… no, but it's all about the reaction and it it's really gets down to-- what it comes down to is Thymosin Alpha-1 what it does to receptors and what it does to activate gene transcription.
So it's really the downstream effects of either going through the P38 MAPK pathway or there is this TLR9 pathway, there is a TRA6 pathway. All of these pathways to influence the nucleus of the cell in its activation or transcription. So really what they are gene manipulators and that’s-- but then it also has this amazing affect directly on cellular effects on like cell migration of endothelial cells and myocytes as far as promoting angiogenesis.
So that is a very strong-- you know that's another-- that brings in a whole another mechanism of-- well okay let us say you've got an injury, you’ve been working on this person, we areh trying to influence their healing potential with your BPC-157, your Thymosin Beta-4, you know the influence amount of actin within muscle and then you've got these angiogenic and nitric oxide pathways with the BPC-157 and then you got this Thymosin Alpha-1 that can potentially help-- you are talking about stagging but mitigate and improve that healing process.
You know there's endless way where research is looking at these influences of peptides. And that's the beauty of peptides working together, I mean there's no downside of peptides working together that create issues, it is always a positive.
Carl Lanore: I want to take a break but before I am going to the break, I’m just curious; thymus gland seems to be really evolving in medicine to be this magic thing that we really didn't pay attention to. You think we’ll ever see the way we see a B complex injection? Do you think we’ll ever see an injection of a variety of thymus based peptide some that we don't even know yet that we’ll going to learn about in the years to come where it's like all of these different TB-1, TB Alpha-2 and everything where we just take that twice a week and keep our immune system healthy?
William Seeds: I think in some ways it's already being done… not directly in that fashion but yeah I believe so. I believe that you are going to see that with a lot—I think that is where peptides are headed. I absolutely believe that's where all of this going for... again homeostasis of all the reactions of the body.
Carl Lanore: Yeah, it makes sense to me too. I want to take a break and when we come back, I want to go into the stacking discussion since you kind of open up that door to all of these other magical peptides working together. Let's see if we can address some logical things that stack well for different goals. Stay tuned, we’ll be right back with more Super Human Radio. We are talking with Dr. William Seeds, we will tell you how to reach him too when we come back from the break.
Carl Lanore: Welcome back. You want to learn more about Dr. William Seeds? Go to doctorseeds.com. If you're in Ohio, he has got a few locations there up in Cleveland, also Mentor, OH, and Painesville, OH. If you have any need for orthopedic work, you need to reach out to him because there is not a finer orthopedic surgeon in the world and I say that with all sincerity because I know the kind of people Dr. Seeds works with. He is also associated with the Aspire Olympic training facility there. And you were just nominated into the NFL Hall of Fame, weren’t you?
William Seeds: No, I’m not nominated.
Carl Lanore: Well, wrong word. Not nominated… inducted as a physician, right?
William Seeds: Yeah, I’m a part of a-- working with Dr. Jim Lovell. We've been—we’re in a position to help direct the next step of their phase of the NFL. Looking at introducing more of a prevention medicine… a nutritional metabolic type of restorative medicine that they are absolutely being very aggressive in looking at. Hey and we got these guys that are beat up, we've got these guys that have gone through this process, what can we do to help our guys?
And it's a very proactive process and it's the Johnson Controls Hall of Fame Village that is going to be built over the next two years and within that we've been designated to start up their restorative medicine side of this process. It is a big initiative, we are excited to be part of it and the implications are going to be just tremendous of what we can do. That's what we do, we take people that are injured and we changed their lives because we look at-- as you know and as everybody here in the audience knows that it's just not one thing; it's nutrition, it’s exercise, it's all of these things together that make this magic pill.
And so we have a platform now where you've got some real-- you got people very interested in no longer sick medicine but healthy medicine and where can we go with that? And so, we’re going to be churning a lot of research from that side and it is going to be beneficial to everyone and I think—I mean just with that—with the NFL starting this whole process, boy they’ve really-- I think they turned the channels all over the country here as far as other professionals; with the NHL is heavy now looking at this process, the NBA, the National Baseball League. I mean everybody now is getting more interested because they see the results of what we produced. It is all about what you produced, it is all about these athletes coming back and so thank you for that input.
Yes, we’re really excited about it and I can't say enough about being able to work with somebody like Jim Lovell. Obviously he is the best in the world with nutrition and so when I can team up with somebody like that, we’re a pretty formidable match of people I think to tackle these things.
Carl Lanore: I got three messages on Facebook all within the past 15 minutes saying where can they find—I tell you where I found Thymosin Alpha-1, there is a website called peptidesciences.com and I happen to know that these are the best peptide you can buy in the world if you are concerned about what you're using. So they are the only website that I’ve found Thymosin Alpha-1 at and it comes in 3 mg and a 50 mg vial but the 3 mg vial is all you really need to look at. So if you will going to stack Thymosin Alpha-1 for let's say-- let's address a couple things. Recovering from injury, what will you stuck it with?
William Seeds: Theoretically, so if you're recovering from injury, it all depends on that person and I guess on what type of injury. I like it from the fact of using a potentially let’s say in a research protocol you may have BPC-157 that you're utilizing to assist in injury healing because of the things we talked about before. It's vascular, it takes care of the influencing angiogenesis and increasing the vascular network and it activates stem cells and it activates those satellite cells and has all these other things were also decreases inflammatory processes, right? We talk about this before and with interleukin and so forth but--
So you got something like that that's working and you can add in something like the Thymosin Alpha-1 because of those angiogenic properties but also from the inflammatory side. So you've got a pretty formidable-- you’re helping the immune system help this inflammatory process. So you're hitting it from two sides and not just specific to what the BPC-157 is doing on the cellular level but you are also working from the immune side and then you're also working on the cellular side with the—
Carl Lanore: Alpha-1, so they are complementary but they're using different pathways. What about—
William Seeds: I think there are so many different pathways we don't know and that's where you're going to start seeing the research moving forward. Is not just like these scenarios that you're discussing it’s how do you get these things heal faster? How do you get that athlete back on the field faster? How do you get this problem resolved? Not just where they’re-- the whole issue with healing right is we don’t want scar tissue. We want tissue that mimics what was there before and that's the beauty of BPC-157 and say adding TB4 to decrease scar tissue, to decrease that type of process in the healing mechanisms.
Carl Lanore: Fibrotic… fibrotic…a lot of people don’t realize this but Thymosin Beta-4 is a powerful anti-fibrotic and it can actually stimulate the body's ability to actually re-absorb existing fibrotic tissue. So if you have women who have fibrotic issues in their—what I am trying to say—not just their ovaries but—why can’t I think of it—
William Seeds: Fibrocystic disease?
Carl Lanore: Well no but into uterine fibrosis. A lot of women as they get old they will end up with fibrotic tissue in their uterus, it causes painfully. You know Thymosin Beta-4 if you use it long enough can actually break that fibrotic tissue down and make it reabsorbed and especially when used in conjunction with adequate amounts of iodine, it is another thing that influences but I know a lot of people don’t realized that Thymosin Beta-4 has been shown to reduce fibrotic tissue in kidneys and people who have chronic kidney disease—it is very, very powerful and it is amazing that more physicians don't work with it but you know it is what it is.
William Seeds: Well again these are things that are investigational and there is ongoing research on all the—you are going to see a plethora of information in the next 10 to 15 years that I think are just going to change the whole landscape of how we can actively get involved in early tissue repair and influence that repair because just like you said it is all about scar tissue and it is all about the appropriate healing of a tendon or a muscle and what you can do to influence that early enough.
And the nice thing about the-- actually what the TB4-- the Thymosin Beta-4 which is kind of known as TB5 actually but is that it can be used chronically too. You can have chronic injuries that respond to TB4 that will work again in unison with—
The nice thing about the BPC-157 is it also decreases those chronic inflammatory reactants-- you know the inflammatory responses and it'll decreases thromboxane, B2’s in the leukotriene, B4’s in the myeloperoxidase and turn off some of those chronic mechanisms to let the TB4 take its effect and then you’ve got this Thymosin Alpha-1 that can come into play and restart the process. So you've got-- it's like a chess game, you’ve got to know what you're working against.
Carl Lanore: Right!
William Seeds: And when you know what-- when you know what the factors are and where you need to utilize these, it's all about timing and they can be tremendous in making the difference of someone who does not-- who can't perform or you know who has a chronic nagging problem.
Carl Lanore: I want to take our last break and when we come back I want to talk specifically about the elderly and physicians out there who work with the elderly on this particular peptide. Stay tuned, we’ll be right back.
Carl Lanore: Welcome back, later in the show we are going to be joined by Coach Charles Staley. He keeps pushing the envelope, he’s got a new angle on the back extension, I’ve been trying it. I got to tell you something. It deserves your attention. We’ll talk about that a little bit.
Right now we are talking with Dr. William Seeds and we are talking about Thymosin Alpha-1, a peptide you've never heard about. Heck I didn’t hear about it until Dr. Seeds told me about it and I predict that this show will probably go be benchmarked as the first discussion about this peptide.
So Dr. Seeds, let us talk about the elderly for a second, we know that the people who get the herpes zoster or shingles vaccine still get shingles quite a few of them. You pointed out a second ago that probably the reason why the vaccine isn’t working is because it's not-- the immune system is ignoring it, it's not engaging. And so that this could be used to help create the push-pull that the vaccine is lacking in some of these non responders.
William Seeds: Absolutely.
Carl Lanore: So could they—a physician-- because this is kind of an orphan drug-- could physician say, “I am going to get a 3 mg vial of this. I got Mary Jo, she's the one who-- the very shingles keeps coming back. God bless her soul. We gave her the vaccine, I feel terrible about it. Can you get her in there after the vaccine has already been administered and do a one week or even a four week—you know 3 mg a week route of it and see some results do you think?”
William Seeds: Well as far as doing it from that side it has to be part of one of the protocol studies. You have to be in one of the-- in some of these efficacy studies that are being done specifically for that. I don't know of one that's being done right now, I haven't seen one that's been done inclusive to herpes zoster. There are some that-- there are definitely ones that were been done and are presently being done right now for influenza virus.
I mean there's-- you know you're touching on something, there are so many applications here Carl of where you can influence-- it was all about influencing the-- either improving the act that the use of the vaccine or as a monotherapy as we discussed you know improving your own T cells and especially with the elderly were their T cells are definitely and declined. The immune function declined as we aged and that's all about what we talked about the thymus.
There are monotherapy studies looking right now at influenza itself and just using the thymosin as a seasonal thing. Let's say instead of a vaccination you undergo treatment for-- and I don't know if they have set protocols yet for that but let’s say to 6 weeks of treatment preseason of the Thymosin Alpha-1. All you are doing is upregulating your thymus, your T cell responses to activate, to be prepared, right? To deal with the influx of a possible viral infection. So instead of saying a vaccination, you're doing something that's you know-- because what does the vaccines do? The vaccines are your—it is a guess work to see if it works.
Carl Lanore: Right! So the reality is the vaccine is a hormetin that's designed to stimulate the immune system, to fight this particular threat but this is not a hormetin, this is actually activating the immune system and making it stronger on a broader scale.
William Seeds: Correct! And it's not like using these interferons and so forth that have some serious side effects.
Carl Lanore: Right! Can a doctor use this right now to the patient or is this something that they really just can’t even do anyway?
William Seeds: Yes, they can't right now it's not, it's not FDA approved.
Carl Lanore: But wait a minute… but wait a minute… you and I talked about this when we’re in Las Vegas at the A Forum Convention, right? There was a guy—there was quite a few compounding pharmacies that were promoting the use of CJC-1295 and all these other exotic peptides and I look at you and you looked at me and you said, “How can these guys be talking about this and selling it from their pharmacy because this stuff is still in the gray area but their—
William Seeds: Well it has to do with the monogram—the USP monogram. So there are many peptides that are off label use in the US right now. I don't believe though that the Thymosin Alpha-1 is one of those monogram accepted peptides. I have to look, I don't believe it is yet but I know it's being sought after right now. I mean there's a lot of peptides that are trying to add to this monogram that will enable the potential of off label use, but in other countries, absolutely there are many countries that have a significant portion of these-- 20 to 30 peptides that are actively prescribed for all these things we have been discussing.
But in the US, the GHRH, the GHRP… we can definitely use them with that USP monogram and off label use. We made tremendous strides here in the US in helping and assisting us to actively use some of these safer type of mechanisms and in treating people in different specifics of tissue healing and so forth.
Carl Lanore: So if you have a guess, do you feel that in a very short time the monogram will change and will be able to use?
William Seeds: Yes.
Carl Lanore: Ok. You are going all around the country talking about this right now as part of your peptide series. When doctors come up to you after you lecture about this, do they say, “Hey, when we will be able to start using it? Is that part of the grassroots that needs to happen in order for the monogram to change?”
William Seeds: Yes and being part of these we’re doing these so we’re involved in setting up some of these studies and so what I like-- what my job in educating physicians is to let them know what’s there and what’s being used outside of the country but what potentially could be available and to also potentially get them involved in our research projects where they can enlist their patients and then thereby be part of an FDA approved study that they can partake in if they follow the protocols that we will institute.
So that’s we’re in the process of doing and making it so it's responsible to the patient and it's responsible to the physician and we've got good data to-- it's going to take this type of a process to get peptides to the forefront of really changing healthcare. It's got to happen. You know why it’s going to happen? Because it's already happening and it's making a difference.
Carl Lanore: Right, right.
William Seeds: And that's the crazy part that. When you talk to some of these physicians that have been able to either you know-- I actually work and collaborate with a lot of physicians that are outside of the US and when you hear their stories and they talked to you about their patient populations and what they're able to do with their patients, it's undeniable in what they've been able to accomplished and why people come to see them because they're getting results.
I mean, hey that's what it is all about, right? It’s about the patient and their benefit. What they are trying to achieved without getting sicker? And it's incredible when you hear these stories and I am really privileged I guess to be able to be part of that, to hear what's happening and the paradigm I see the shift right now of what’s happening with what we’re going to be able to provide.
And I think our biggest hurdle is big pharma, you know with all of this to and that's with everything but big pharma is coming aboard too. They are certainly working on some peptides that are really interesting and so I think you going to see a convergence of a lot of these processes working together, but Carl just like your show-- you know what you aspired to and in getting the message of-- this is just one part of the nutrition and one part of the exercise part that when they all work together, you really get some amazing result.
Carl Lanore: Yeah, you stay young and you stay healthy and that's-- unfortunately most people don’t want to work hard on staying young and staying healthy. Listen Dr. Seeds, we’d come to the end of the interview and I know that you reschedule your date to be on the air with me because you are seeing patients today so I want to thank you so very much for being here and teaching us about something that no one else has been talking about and that is Thymosin Alpha-1.
William Seeds: My pleasure Carl.
Carl Lanore: Talk to you soon brother.
William Seeds: Okay, bye.
Carl Lanore: Alright, so we are going to take one quick commercial break and when we come back we are going to be joined by Charles Staley and we are going to talk about a new type of back extension that you're not doing but you should be. Stay tuned, we will be right back.
Carl Lanore: Welcome back. You know it is amazing, the attention to the posterior chain today is just amazing and I’ve got to be honest with you, there seems to be some magic in the Phoenix area because there are two guys that seem to be able to get people’s posterior chain strengthened very quickly and one of them is coach Charles Staley. How are you doing Charles?
Charles Staley: Carl, I am doing great and really happy to be back on.
Carl Lanore: Yes, so it is interesting. I saw an article that you had written, I think for T Nation, right?
Charles Staley: Yeah.
Carl Lanore: Okay and so I read through the article and I thought, “Wow! You know what? Maybe I will give this a try.” And you wrote an article about something that probably really a taboo on most people’s minds, right? So a lot of people do back extensions and if anything they do them with body weight or maybe… maybe they will use a 25, 35, or even dangerously 45 pound plate, but whatever they do this you get relegated to the—“Oh that guy is going to get hurt himself categorically. Oh you are going to hurt yourself if you are going to do that.” And here you are saying, “Hey, grab a 150 pound dumbbell and do back extensions.” I have to believe that a lot of people said, “Oh, that will just hurt my back, right?”
Charles Staley: Yes and of course— Well, I might mention in the article that recently one time I was doing this and I had an older fat guy next to me doing weighted set-up telling me that I was going to screw up my back. Meanwhile, two days after I did that, I actually did a 455 deadlift with absolutely no warm up and no belt and I am 58 years old and I felt-- my back felt is absolutely fine in the next morning.
So yes, now that doesn’t guarantee that it is a safe exercise but I think people have a little bit too much caution about it. I really don’t know why people don’t think to load this exercise, but by the way I just want to give credit where credit is due. You mentioned two coaches in the Phoenix area who get people posterior change strong. I think I pick up this idea originally from Bret Contreras.
Carl Lanore: Yeah, he is the guy. Bret has a horrible life. Fitness women send him pictures of their butts all they long because Bret Contreras is known as the “Glute Guy”.
Charles Staley: It is a source of great stress for him. I talked with Bret a lot and it is a burden that I guess he just feels the responsibility--
Carl Lanore: And here is the irony of all this, right? I knew of Bret Contreras before I actually knew Bret Contreras. And it's a funny story because you know I was living in Phoenix when I started to go through my divorce back in 2007. My niece Kelly Siegel was working for a very, very large ad agency in Scottsdale called Martz Agency, which was then purchased by Bob Parsons, who started GoDaddy and today it's called the Parsons Agency.
But anyway Carrie Martz, who was the owner and president and CEO of the ad agency-- because she knew that I did my show. She said, “Would you come down to the ad agency today? I want to talk to you about this product that I am thinking about representing. I am actually thinking about getting involved with it and not just an ad agency but as an investor.
And I went down there and it was called the Burn Machine or The Razor, but it was basically a glute machine where you suspended yourself. It was the predecessor to really what the Hip Trust then that had been coming. And she told this guy Bret Contreras created it, we have the whole warehouse full of them. I thought this is ingenious, I tried it and I said, “Man, I can really—it was the Burn Machine I think-- I feel this in my glutes. It is amazing.
Charles Staley: You know what? I was trying to come up with it. I think it was called The Scorcher.
Carl Lanore: The Skorcher. That was it! It was The Skorcher. It was a red—and it looked like something you would do with triceps on if it didn't have the plate for your feet to go on where you stood on the platform and you pushed up. And so I was like, “Wow! This is really a cool machine.” Lo and behold, ten years later Bret is on the show and he is all popular now but yes, he is the Glute Guy.
And so—but I’ve got to tell you something about this movement. I am like you, I got the average white guy nobody and so I work really hard over the years to build a strong butt. I’ve sprint and I did hip thrusts very—I’ve done 500 pounds hip thrust. I’ve got to tell you something, nothing, nothing activated my glutes like this movement and I’m going to tell you.
I’ve done very heavy hip thrust, they’ve been on Facebook, people have seen them. I think the hip thrusts-- I think your hips quite frankly really do a lot more work than you think they do in the hip thrusts but in this movement here—this movement here is different, this is glutes. Even the hamstring while they get hit, this is all glutes for me.
Charles Staley: Yes and I think what I like about the back extension-- and people please don’t call it hyper extension because hyper by definition means too much and you shouldn’t do it too much. So I just hate that term. But for some reason the hamstrings and glutes and spinal erectors are all involved and I think whatever is the weakest link in that chain is where you are going to feel it. So I really-- I just figured it is one of those things that is just kind of underappreciated for reasons that escape me and it is worth—You know what? It also is safer, it really doesn’t require hardly anything in the way that you want of. In fact, I just go straight to 150. I don’t even need a warm up. So yes, it is just one of those little trick that is worth trying for sure.
Carl Lanore: No doubt. So my first attempt of it was after an arduous leg routine. I have already smashed my legs and then I thought you know I haven't done anything specifically for my glutes and unfortunately my gym-- the dumbbells only go up to 140. And so and I grabbed the 120 because I had never done this before.
Charles Staley: Yeah, you don’t know what you are in for.
Carl Lanore: Yeah and I did 5 sets of 10. I’ve got to tell you something. First of all the entire glute complex got hit. I mean even the parts where if I had done abductor work, you know the outer push, like the side of my glutes, my gluteus minimus muscle was sore that evening but also my glutes hurt all the way up to the top where they disappear into my lower back.
Charles Staley: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carl Lanore: I mean this is the glute movement I’m telling you. I love hip thrusts because I can go really heavy and it is so impressive to see me humping a bar but this is the movement man, this will make your glutes grow. There is no doubt on my mind about it.
Charles Staley: It will make some people’s glutes grow. I can’t guarantee everyone listening will have that same experience but you might and so I have this little thing like when you lose your keys, there are always where you haven’t look. So the solution for you-- for anything is some place you haven’t look and you haven’t done this and you haven’t started to do this, it is really worth giving a shot to. And we should probably talk about the difference between the horizontal and 45 degree unit also?
Carl Lanore: Okay, that’s a yes because the horizontal is even harder, that’s the one that they used on the crossfit area. I have not attempted that so let us talk about that now.
Charles Staley: Well I mean I just think it is going to be different for everyone so definitely explore both of them, don’t expect to have equal strength level on both, you are going to be different. But I tend to like the 45 degree unit better myself just because you got more range of motion. So play around with both of those.
I tend to do probably 2 or 3 months on the 45 degree and then just to kind of counter adaptive resistance, I’ll go flat for a month or two after that and I kind of rotate them. And I actually could do this actually right after deadlift and my rational for that is I want to keep them as far away from the next deadlift session as I can, so probably not the greatest idea to do this like a day before your deadlift.
Carl Lanore: So you’ve stated that this has made your deadlift strong, right?
Charles Staley: Yes, I mean it is only speculation on my part but there is for me at least a trend. As I’ve mentioned on the T Nation article, whenever my deadlift is kind of plateau or kind have been in the toilet, I look back and sure enough I am not doing back extension. So at least for me—and you know training is highly individual so you have to experiment, there is a lot of trial and error, but for me at least it makes a huge difference.
Carl Lanore: So Kirkland Worley just posted on Facebook. He said, “I saw article on T Nation and I have started to incorporate this movement into my routine. I’ve started out with 45 pound dumbbell for eight reps and I will slowly progress through this. Hopefully my dead will go up after period of doing this as well.” I can imagine that this would not only help your deadlift but also your coming out of the hole in the squat because—
Charles Staley: In the squat.
Carl Lanore: Yes because this so thoroughly activated my quads. That you know when I used to squat a lot before my lumbar spine issue-- which I will be squatting again, things are getting better-- when I used to squat a lot, I had those two little sulcuses on the sides of the cheeks of my ass.
Charles Staley: Definitely I know what you are talking about.
Carl Lanore: Yeah and then they went away because I just wasn't squatting much, my butt kind of got flatter. And after just doing those 120s for five sets, I have that sulcus on the side of the cheeks in my ass again just that one session.
I mean I had to have you on because whenever something like this impactful like, “Oh my god, I did this once, I am going to do this again and again because I want to go heavier and heavier. We have to talk about this because more people need to experiment with a this and you are right, I tend to be a little bit of a zealot, you tend to be a little bit more balance(?), may not work for everybody.
And there are people out there with lower back problems probably shouldn't even endeavor this but for those of you who don't have lower back problems, you've got to try heavy back extensions and start out with the 45° because it's definitely a little easier in my humble opinion and I haven't tried it yet but I have to believe that it is a little bit easier than going parallel—I mean going horizontal with this. Am I right about that?
Charles Staley: Well not for me but like for some people it may be, so you know you’ve got to try them both but for me 45 is [unintelligible].
Carl Lanore: Do you ever go to the gym and just do one movement really, really heavy and that's it and get out of there?
Charles Staley: Rarely but when I do, that is a little unusual for clients who work with me will be able to tell you this. I do tend to use smaller exercise menus than most coaches. I think that I would rather take 4 exercises in the work out and just hammer the shit out of them than to take 6 or 7 or whatever and do that work and I could explore that with you a little bit more if you are interested but--
Carl Lanore: Let us do that. I want to explore that and in fact stay right there. I want to take our first commercial break and when we come back-- because you are the guy who came up with Escalating Density Training… the book, and which had a profound effect on my training back in 2004/2005. So I mean I’d like to get into your head a little bit. Let us do that. Let us take a quick commercial break, will be right back with more of Coach Charles Staley.
Carl Lanore: Welcome back. Talking with Coach Charles Staley. Hey Charles, how can people find you nowadays?
Charles Staley: I appreciate that. So my website is staleystrategy.com but I am also very easy to find on Instagram and Facebook and I am quite active on both of those platforms. I also got a lot of stuff, a lot of articles over at testosterone.net and targetfocusfitness.com. So I am kind of all over the place.
Carl Lanore: Good. Okay so that is where people will be able to find you. So I too have started to scale back the menu of movements but started doing more work in those movements. I mean I don’t do anything less than 5 sets and quite often if I’m not like—right now I am not doing giant sets. I’ve been doing giant sets for so long that I thought it was time to take off and I am so startled of how strong I am when I trained like most people do where I just do five sets of a movement and rest in between each movement, but I too have started to scale back and focus more on the work.
And I remember back in the day when I was powerlifting, I would go in and just squat. I would do maybe 10,12 sets, 13, 14 sets of squats and nothing else but walk out of there completely crushed. Do we even need all of these fancy movements that we see people doing today?
Charles Staley: Oh boy, that is another whole ball acts(?) and I am working on an article right now for testosterone.net and Instagram workout, but that could be another episode for sure. I think you need—I do believe in a wide variety of exercises but they don’t have to be done simultaneously, you can do them sequentially.
So I have been doing this for a long time but I kind of understand the rational better today than I used to maybe few years ago. But if you think about it, imagine you set up a new training program for yourself and you are going to start on Monday and so you are going to do a certain amount of exercises on Monday and other things on Tuesday and then more exercises on Thursday and Friday and so forth.
And so once you do Week 1 of this new exercise menu if you are like most people, you won’t be that strong because you haven’t done those exercises in a while presumably, and you’ll get sore and everything is feeling great. And then on Week 2 you add weight, which is good, it means you are getting stronger and you are a little less sore so that is okay. And on Week 3 you continue to add weight but it is a little harder to do that but you are still getting stronger so that is good but you are not really sore hardly at all. And on Week 4 you can barely manage to add anymore weight and you are just not sore at all.
So to me what that means is you haven’t encountered the term that I first learned from Dr. Mike Israetel from Renaissance Periodization—that is called “adaptive resistance”. What that means is that over a certain period of time, your body just figures out how to cope with that stress and now you are just kind of not really getting anything out of it anymore and so now is the time to come up with a new stress.
It does not have to be radically different. I am not saying that for the first month you do squats and the second month you do leg extensions but it might mean that maybe in Month 2 you do front squats or hack squats or something maybe similar but a little different. And so—but in addition to week by week by week, you are getting less and less and less, you are also your potential for overused injury tends to rise. So the longer you do an exercise menu the upsides dwindle and the downsides escalate so it is time for new exercises.
So now here is the rational for a smaller exercise menu, if you are like most people—if I think to myself how many good chest exercises are there for me that works really well? The answer is I don’t know, 4 or 6 something like that, something along those lines. Now most people were training chest at least twice a week so that means maybe 2 or 3 chest exercises in one day, 2 or 3 the other… there is your set.
So the point of this is if you use a lot of exercises and on your first training cycle you are basically using all your back exercise. So that means on your next training cycle when you are not getting anything out of this, you have to change exercises. What are you going to change too because you already use them all?
So that is kind of the rational and also just allows you to do more work per exercise. The thing that people don’t sort of appreciate is sure there is great benefit to using a variety of exercises but use them in sequence. You don’t have to accomplish all things all the same time.
Carl Lanore: Right! And you know the truth is when I think about it, those sessions where I just went in and deadlifted or just went in and squatted, I hit everything I needed to hit and the reality was I did it in a much more efficient manner because I kept doing the same movement.
Charles Staley: Sure, you are getting more practice.
Carl Lanore: Yeah because it is like you become more proficient at it the more you train at it and the more proficient you are, the better you activate the target muscles you are trying to activate. I kind of feel like muscular activation is this thing that you must go deep into. The muscles that kind of do all the work and they tire out first and if you are just doing 3 sets or something and moving on, you haven't gone deep enough into that movement to activate the muscles that have been sitting back and going you guys do all the work, you don't need us yet.
Charles Staley: Yeah and I am okay with 3 sets maybe for first week on your training cycle but then 4 sets in the next week, then 5 sets for the next week and so forth and so on. So that is another component of training that kind of escapes people. You need to kind of get a running start like you don’t want to be maxing out on everything on Week 1.
Carl Lanore: No, you’ve got nowhere to go. You’ve got nowhere to go there, right?
Charles Staley: Yeah, you’ve got to nowhere to go. Like if you have a heavy door that you have to bust through, you are not going to stand up against the door and lean against it, you are going to step back and take a running start. So I think of that is kind of how I like people to work through their training cycle.
Carl Lanore: So getting back to the back extension, there are a couple of things that people need to be cautious of in my humble opinion and please I’m not a coach, I’m actually asking you this more than professing it to the audience.
Charles Staley: Sure.
Carl Lanore: If you're not careful it is really easy to hyperextend your knees in this movement especially when you are going heavy. So you really need to understand where to put the pelvic pad so that you have a slight break in the knees but that break in the knees becomes harder and harder to maintain as you become more fatigue. So I would say that people need to pay special attention to make sure that they don't hyperextend the knee in muscling his way up. What do you think about that?
Charles Staley: Yeah and also what that makes me think of is some equipment is better than others. If the pad is too long—because you need to keep the pads below your hip joint so that you can do pure hip hinge otherwise you are going to end up rounding from the back.
Sometimes the pads are so long that in order to have them below your hips, they are almost hitting your knees and then it is very difficult to keep your knees a little bit flat. So you just have to play around with the equipment you have but that is a great point that you want to kind of maintain a little bit of knee flexion and actually just doing that engages the hamstring so it actually not only keep you safer but it makes the exercise more effective.
Carl Lanore: So and that is where the next statement comes from… if your glutes are stronger than your hamstrings, you are going to be much more at risk of hyperextending the knee. Back off of the weight, as soon as you feel like you can't keep your knees slightly broken, that means that your hamstrings are not able to create that static hold while your hips and your back are moving through space. Don't go heavier yet, just stay with that weight because once-- you know people didn’t realized this about the knee, right? Some people just let the knee completely locked out and actually the knee will actually start to reverse a little bit, right? And the result to that, you can end up with a bucket handle tear because the front of the knee will bite right into the meniscus.
Charles Staley: Yeah that is really a great point and gets some feedback, have a training partner watch or take videos of yourself, that is critical especially when you are doing something heavy.
Carl Lanore: The horizontal ones that they use in the crossfit area, do they actually have a pad that goes behind the knee that presses against the popliteal?
Charles Staley: Sometimes yes, sometimes no, it depends on the equipment. I’ve seen it both ways.
Carl Lanore: Do you think it is a safer alternative for somebody who is going to go all-out heavy and doesn't want to risk hyper extending the knee?
Charles Staley: Good question. I don’t have one of those available to me and I don’t have a lot experience with that specific type of equipment so I have to reserve judgment on that a little bit but possibly.
Carl Lanore: Okay. The next question I have about the movement is placement of the weight. So I kept the weight up against my chest because I feel like this is going to apply the greatest gravitational force on my upper body but some people like to let the weight hang and it kind of moves like a pendulum as they go up and down. Do either of these work or should you keep it against your chest?
Charles Staley: Yeah, I think they can both work. I mean I have trained bikini competitors who like 120 lbs are doing back extensions with like an 80/85 lb dumbbell. So the posterior chain is strong enough to lift the weight but the upper body they just have a difficult time in terms of upper back strength hang on to that. So they will probably—the dumbbell would not be quite as close proximity to the chest as it might be for a guy. I think it is okay.
The only downside to not having the dumbbell close to your chest is that it might limit the eccentric portion of the movement because the dumbbell hits the floor before you are really fully flat. So you just want to do what you can to kind of maintain a high range of motion.
And there is a little trick too for the guys who were using really big dumbbells. Carl, I don’t know if you notice this one, you were doing this recently but if you hold the dumbbell to chest it tends to hit the upright of the machine on the way down a little sooner than you would like. So what I do is I actually—as I approach the upright towards the bottom, I actually twist the dumbbell to like a 45 degree angle, I don’t know if people [unintelligible], but then you can get a little bit closer.
Carl Lanore: I could see what you are saying so the top head of the dumbbell which is closest to your chin, you actually let it get further away from your body so the bottom kind of moves in towards your body and it doesn’t [unintelligible] upright.
Charles Staley: I just turned it, I just literally rotate it a little bit towards the horizontal just at the bottom. This is just one of those little [unintelligible] but when you do this forever you just figured these things out. By the way you strap, this is not a grip exercise so—Now when you are using a big dumbbell you can typically only really get one hand on the dumbbell and then the other hand kind of covers over the other hand-- the first hand. So on that first hand, use lifting strap and just make things as easy as you can.
Carl Lanore: Yeah because you don’t want to focus on losing your grip when you are repping out with this and clearly not because—
Charles Staley: No, I don’t see the point.
Carl Lanore: I want to take a commercial break real quick and when we come back I want to talk about actually getting heavier with this. There are some limitations based on equipment but you have some great ideas about this so let us do that. Stay tuned, we’ll be right back with more on Coach Charles Staley.
Carl Lanore: Welcome back we are talking with Coach Charles Staley about using very, very heavy weight and doing back extension. I got a feeling that as people start to experiment with this they are going to find out their squat and their deadlift get stronger but also—I will tell you something, I didn't expect but the acute affect on my lumbar spine posture was noticeable and pronounced and I predict that as I do these from week to week that is going to become even up to a greater degree more pronounced.
So those of you out there listening to this show who were like me—idiots—are already thinking about, “How do you overload?” “Oh you know… 150. Nah, I’ve got to do 200. I wanted to do—“ And you know dumbbells only go so far and Coach Staley had some really great ideas like wearing a weighted vest and then using a dumbbell, right?
Charles Staley: Yeah and well the funny thing is whenever things get too heavy for dumbbells, just always remind yourself that is why they invented barbell. There is a place. That is why barbells were invented. But yes, there are different choices you can do. And the reason that—well first of all—yes, you can use a weight vest. By the way, I think the weight vest is the most underutilized, underappreciated tool going I just think—and myself included. I am not saying I have any [unintelligible].
Carl Lanore: I saw you do it, I saw you do pushups I think this morning on video. You were doing push up with the weighted vests.
Charles Staley: So push up is superior to the bench press in every respect except that it is hard to load. Then just wear a weight vests can be solved with that problem and now it’s the best exercise there is. Yes, you can use the weight vest; you can attach elastic tubing to the bottom of the machine and kind hook around your neck. I am not in love with that myself but I know people like it.
Carl Lanore: No, not around the neck, that cervical spine is a—that is challenging. Maybe loop it around the dumbbell and pull the weight with the dumbbell.
Charles Staley: Maybe that is an idea, I also know there are people who will put drape chains around their neck, that is an option, but the reason—you can just use a bar except for the fact that most back extension units have a handle extending forward from each side of the pad and that is why using a bar is hard because you’ll hit those handles(?) on the way up. That is why the dumbbell is kind of the go to—
Carl Lanore: Well, the problem I have with the idea of the bar was this, first of all now you are turning it into a balancing act, right? Because if you don’t grip on the right place right it will cock right or it will cock left. But more importantly you are going to hold that bar up close to your chest to do this right and now you're basically you're doing a bent over rows so to speak while you’re doing this. I just kind of feel like I think you had a really great idea. More gyms should have these but back in the day, old-time lifters, they had dumbbells that where plate loaded, right? Just like Olympic bar.
Charles Staley: Yeah, so it is like and a lot gyms do have this but it is a basically like a mini Olympic bar so you can put standard Olympic plates on it and it is maybe— Oh don’t know…18 inches long? But the advantage of it is that the actual length of the handle part is typically longer than the typical dumbbell so that kind of allows you to get both hands on the handle better than you could with the standard dumbbell and so you can kind of load that sucker up. That is a great way to do this if you have that type of equipment.
Carl Lanore: Yeah and then obviously I like the idea with the weight vest because you can—there are some weight vest that you can get it over a hundred pounds in them. If you have 100 lbs in a weight vest and you grab a 120 lb dumbbell and now you are doing 220. And obviously when you start to go up in weight with these movements, you should observe-- I guess I’m asking—Should you observe the same type of tenants that we do with very, very heavy movements like squats? You don't want to be repping out with this kind of weight. Maybe you wanted do a double triple very, very well-controlled drop at rest and do it again.
Charles Staley: Yeah, I think you can use it for either application but what always happen when you tried to add more weight is that there is always a tendency for your form to fall apart and especially if you are a guy. So guys tend to very focus—I am guilt y of this—of how much weight you are using so you can brag about this on Facebook and all that. So I totally got that. But that is fine as long as you don’t start falling apart.
And sometimes when you are midst of the effort of lifting these heavy weights, you are just not aware that you might be technically kind of falling apart which means that you might be kind of swinging more or moving from joints where you should not be moving or like cranking your neck or whatever. So it is always a battle between heavyweight and tight form.
Carl Lanore: Yeah and because this is a lower back dominated movement, you should always air on the side of caution because we are talking about a movement that theoretically should not be putting disc at risk if it's being done right but that's the critical term being done right. If you're not doing this movement right, if your foot placement is off, if you're rolling your spine forward, if you’re doing any number of things with this kind of weight, you actually could push your disc out of alignment. So you need to really be cognizant—
Charles Staley: I could certainly—yes. I think it is possible. A couple of cautions here to observe with this exercise; the first is that this should be a pure hip hinge. There should be no motion in the spine. So you are just purely—the hamstrings and glutes are working dynamically and the lumbar erectors are working statically to prevent your spine from moving. So that is the first thing.
Also if you never train your lower back—and this will not apply to most listeners—but I always caution newbies that when you feel your lower back getting kind of pump with blood for the very first time, it kind of feels like that thing like it reminds you of lower back pain. So I always caution people like hey you are going to feel something in your lower back, there is nothing wrong, it is just you never used that before.
And then the third caution I have is something that you might not think of just right off the cup but be careful about losing consciousness because your blood pressure drops quite a bit when you do this. So sometimes when you complete the set, you can feel kind of woozy, that is very common so just kind of hang there for a minute or two until you know that you are good.
Carl Lanore: The term is orthostatic hypotension and I happen to be—
Charles Staley: That is the term I was looking for.
Carl Lanore: Yeah. I happen to be an avid user—as the audience knows for that—I posted some of my videos of me hanging upside down but I happened to be an avid user of an inversion table and I hang upside down completely. When I first thought of doing that years and years ago, when I would write myself and step out of it, I had to catch myself double time because all of the sudden the blood—the hemodynamics change direction, the heart is trying to catch up as fast as it can but it can only do so much and your blood pressure just plummets.
I did notice that after my fifth and final set, I dropped the weight—it is actually the video that I have and I erected myself and I stepped out of it. As I stepped out of it, I felt that little wooziness and I thought wow. Because you know valsalva is an amazing thing, the body works to maintain pressure during the movement. As soon as the body is done working, it just lets go. It’s like, “Oh, okay, we are done with that.” And all of a sudden your blood pressure just drops.
Charles Staley: Yeah. So just be careful about that a little bit.
Carl Lanore: Good point.
Charles Staley: And just be ready for either admiring or critical comments from your gym buddies and you should be all set.
Carl Lanore: Everybody is going to make-- I have people say things to me like you can hurt your back like that. I don't even answer them. I go, “Oh, alright. Thank you. Wait till you see me next week when I grab the heaviest dumbbell on the rack and start doing it.” But I am going to tell you something, I am going to do this movement until it stops working which we just talked about at the beginning. I really think that this movement is really, really a good idea for most people especially those of us who sit at a desk for long periods of time. This activates muscles in your glutes complex, they forget to be activated day in and day out. This is a great movement and I applaud you for writing this article and reviving this. I really do.
Charles Staley: Well thanks. I always do these articles that attract all these attentions and I can never predict. I am always surprise that the things that I think are going to be a homerun just kind of a sleeper and sometimes I don’t have any special expectations for a piece and creates a lot of attention. So it is a lot of fun.
Carl Lanore: Well and see I am into push-ups right now. It is funny that I saw you doing the weighted push-ups with the vest.
Charles Staley: I am laughing because I have not done a push up in probably 20 years. I used to be a martial artist and we would do hundreds of them every day and I just was done. And so that was the first push-ups I have done in forever and it kicked my ass completely and I really liked them and I think they are just really good.
Carl Lanore: So I am on a mission. So a friend of this show, Bobby Cooper, recently was incarcerated and nothing heinous; like one of these BS thing that the local government likes to do to people. So while he was in there, he started doing push-ups because obviously he didn’t have—I am sure they have a gym there but it wasn’t like what he was used to train with. He got up to 800 push-ups a day. When he came out, he said his chest and shoulders were bigger than ever and so he inspired me to start doing push-ups.
So when I was on vacation in Michigan just recently, I started to just drop and do 20 push-ups. Bang! Like if I was waiting for Alisa, we get ready to leave and I had like 30 seconds, I drop and do 20 push-ups and jump up and go. By the end of the day, each of these days I was doing a few hundred push-ups and I can tell you that my shoulders and chest looked different after a week of doing that.
So I was inspired. I want to get him on the show because I want to talk about this. I really would like to see people do this. I want to start a campaign called Drop And Give Me Twenty. And those of you who were training like don't commit—Oh, I am going to do 100 a day, but just start to throw them in. I am standing here waiting for someone. I am going to drop and do 20. Oh, I’m waiting for this, there is a TV commercial—my favorite show—so instead of sitting in a chair, I am going to drop and do 20.
Start adding groups of 20 push-ups into your day, start tabulating at what you are doing. By the end of the week, you'll be doing maybe 600, 700, 800 push-ups which was Bobby was doing in the day granted but watch what happens to your physique and watch what happens to your strength in the gym.
Charles Staley: Yup, yup, yup, and yup. For sure, I think it is another super underrated movement.
Carl Lanore: And we hear people—like I am always jealous when I hear people who do 2 a day. Gush, I wish I have the lifestyle where I can go back to the gym later on the day. You know what? You can do two a day; just do bodyweight movements throughout the day.
Charles Staley: Yes, that is exactly right. That is exactly right.
Carl Lanore: Yeah, I have new found respect for the push up and I am going to buy a weight vest because I am going to use it with my back extensions and I’m going to start using it with my pushups too.
Charles Staley always pushes me to do new things. He doesn’t know this. Like you were doing dumbbell presses, I said to myself, “When was the last time I did dumbbell chest presses? I’ve got to start using the dumbbells again. You are bigger influence on people than you think you are, I think at least on me, you are.
Charles Staley: Oh, that is good to hear and I learned so much from everybody so I am more of a student than I have ever been. I am doing this stuff for like 35 years but I am just as excited as I’ve ever been and less confident about everything.
Carl Lanore: I know right? I know. Plug your websites again.
Charles Staley: Oh thanks. So staleystrategies.com. And that site is kind of oriented towards online coaching which I do a lot of but I’ve got a lot of articles up there as well and then you can find me all over social media.
Carl Lanore: Okay and then as to the first hour interview with Dr. Williams Seeds, I want to thank him for coming on and talk about Thymosin Alpha-1, this new peptide you've never heard of but plan on hearing much more about it. You just heard about it here first and the only place I could find it is a website called peptidesciences.com. They are 100% american-made peptides, 100%, nothing comes from china and they are the only website that I could find Thymosin Alpha-1 on plus a lot of other great about peptides as well. So check them out.
And that’s it for today. Thanks Charles Staley coming on. We’ll see here by tomorrow with more Super Human Radio and thank you for listening as always.
