Muscle: Not just for meatheads
Why ample protein & resistance training are critical to healthy ageing
👋Hello, my friend. It’s been an insanely busy summer so far. We’ve played baseball in Cooperstown, NY. Watched baseball at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Had our kids in sleepaway camps and day camps and are gearing up for a trip to Jackson Hole, WY. Through all of that, I’m trying to keep making progress on my health and fitness (or at least not lose ground) and today I want to share some thoughts about muscle—something I think we ALL could use more focus on. Young, old, male, female… it doesn’t matter. The more I learn, the more I realize just how fundamental it is to EVERYONE. So let’s get going.
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you know that I’ve been focused on two main health goals this year: improving my VO2 max and enhancing my body composition. In my last newsletter, I shared the progress that I was able to achieve in the first half of the year — losing seven pounds of fat and gaining seven pounds of muscle. (I won’t mention the ice cream binge I’ve been on since then to celebrate because that’s OVER now! I swear.). But seriously, it’s been super motivating to see this progress and I owe a lot of it to what I’ve learned about the importance of muscle.
Traditionally… it’s been all about fat loss
Traditionally, the health and wellness community, has focused on fat loss - almost exclusively. More recently, attention has turned more heavily to heart health and VO2 max as key indicators of longevity. I’ve written extensively about these topics myself. VO2 max, in particular, remains one of the best indicators of long-term mortality risk. But here’s what’s becoming more clear to me: muscle might be just as important. And, of course, improving these things is not mutually exclusive.
In the past few months, I've started to go down the rabbit hole of understanding just how important muscle is. Many pieces of work have influenced my thinking here including Dr. Peter Attia’s Outlive, which I’ve written about before, and two recent podcast episodes: Dr. Andy Galpin’s muscle-focused episode on his new podcast, Perform, and Dr. Andrew Huberman’s interview with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon on the Huberman Lab podcast. These conversations, among others, have been eye-opening and have profoundly influenced my understanding of muscle’s role in our health.
Moving Beyond Fat Loss
For years, the predominant health narrative was all about minimizing body fat. We’ve all seen the craze around low-carb diets, and many of us, including myself, have dabbled in them. Chris Cornell, who was the first guest on my podcast a few years ago, shared his success with ultra-low-carb dieting, which helped him lose 80 pounds and keep it off. Hard to argue with that.
But while low-carb diets are effective for fat loss, the singular focus on fat reduction in the broader zeitgeist has often overshadowed the critical importance of muscle.
Some of the pieces of content that I mentioned above represent a shift that I’m observing from the leading minds in health and wellness away from fat loss on its own and much more toward the many benefits of having adequate skeletal muscle.
The benefits of being “adequately muscled”
You already know the obvious benefits of having strong, healthy muscles. They make daily life easier. Lifting a kid or a suitcase, or playing a sport, or even climbing or descending stairs are all infinitely easier when you are adequately muscled.
As we age, however, we naturally lose muscle—a condition known as sarcopenia. This muscle loss accelerates as we get older, making us more prone to injuries. Most experts agree that muscle begins to notably deteriorate around age 45 - so if you’re that age or older and you’re not actively trying to build muscle, you might want to reconsider that.
In fact, once you reach 40 (and certainly into your 70s, 80s and beyond), half the game, I would argue, is about injury prevention… so you can stay in the game — whatever that means to you. And preventing injuries relies heavily on the strength of your muscles.
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Despite the relatively “smooth” nature of the curve above, remember these are averages. Dr. Lyon makes a compelling point in her conversation with Huberman that health decline at the individual level isn’t typically a gradual, linear process. Instead, specific events—like an elderly person taking a fall and breaking a hip—can lead to rapid muscle and bone loss. A staggeringly high % (think ~50%+) of those suffering such acute injuries never fully recover. In fact, these are often the events that trigger a rapid decline in health, and, sorry to be morbid, death.
In this case, being adequately muscled — and therefore able to avoid losing one’s balance and taking devastating falls — quite literally becomes a matter of life or death. See what I mean now when I say muscle isn’t just for meatheads?
Muscle: More Than Just Strength
Beyond making us physically stronger, muscle contributes to our metabolic health, aids in injury recovery, and even influences our mental health. We are still uncovering the full spectrum of these benefits, but the evidence so far is compelling.
Dr. Lyon calls skeletal muscle “the organ of longevity.” In fact, skeletal muscle is an endocrine organ responsible for, among other things, ~80% of glucose disposal.
Many of the most common metabolic diseases - diabetes, obesity and heart disease have their roots in skeletal muscle issues.
We know that muscle is our body armor but Dr. Lyon notes that it plays a massive role in how we age and the health we can maintain.
In addition to some of the more obvious effects, healthy skeletal muscle has been shown to:
bolster the immune system
lower overall inflammation
improve blood lipid panels (mostly directly impacting triglycerides)
improve hormone regulation
improve brain function (with notable ties to improved neural circuitry, critical for staving off diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s)
According to Dr. Lyon, the medical world has spent decades trying to treat obesity, when it fact, they should have been focused on skeletal muscle.
“The higher the amount of skeletal muscle mass, the greater your survivability of nearly any type of disease,” she says, noting for example, that cancer cachexia, the wasting the comes with cancer is responsible for ~20% of cancer deaths.
The Cultural Shift Towards Resistance Training
So, let’s assume you agree with me that muscle is important. Now, let’s talk about how you can actually build strong, healthy muscles.
There’s an outdated belief that only athletes or gym enthusiasts need to focus on building muscle. This notion is rapidly changing. Resistance training—often involving weight lifting—is quickly becoming recognized as essential for everyone, regardless of age. Seriously, we’re legitimately talking about ages 9 through 90. If you are in that age bracket and not resistance training, you are allowing your muscle mass to deteriorate MUCH more quickly than it needs to. And you are inviting injury and (again, sorry to be morbid) premature death.
Weightlifting as a culturally acceptable activity appears to be following a similar path to the one running took. Pre-1970s, you’d get some weird looks if you went outside and just… went running. Today, go to any major city or suburb and you’ll see runners everywhere. Weightlifting used to be the realm of football players, wrestlers and bodybuilders, alone, now I’m pretty sure my nieces can deadlift more than I can. Why? Because the culture has changed and just about every sport, male or female, (starting at the youth level) has embraced the power of resistance training. You should, too.
Implementing Resistance Training
For those who have never lifted weights before, it can be intimidating to start. So here’s what I’d recommend: Get some help.
Book a few sessions at the local YMCA or gym with a personal trainer and ask them to design a weekly routine for you. Realistically, to see the benefits, you’ll need to be there at least 3x / week. The really cool thing about being new to resistance training is that the improvement you can see in strength and body composition can be massive even in just 8 weeks.
If you’d rather do it at home, you can do a surprising amount with bodyweight exercises (think: push-ups, squats, lunges) and even more if you have access to some dumbbells.
I referenced earlier the gains I’ve made thus far in 2024. All of my strength training is done at home. I use the Peloton app and their off-the-bike strength training workouts. I have a set of PowerBlocks (adjustable dumbbells that can be set between 15 - 50 lbs) that I use for my workouts.
Here’s roughly what a week looks like for me. The strength days here are Day 1, Day 3 and Day 5:
The cool thing about Peloton is that they have an endless library of content. So every week, when I go to do my 60-minute Total Strength workout, for instance, there is always a new one that I haven’t done before. You definitely always hit key exercises like deadlifts, squats, chest press, etc. but the routine is different, the music is different, etc., so it never gets boring or monotonous.
Three things are of critical importance when it comes to resistance or strength training:
Consistency - You’ll likely need to hit each major muscle group 2-3x / week, every week
Progressive overload - Your body will adapt (which is great) so to see progress, you need to consistently go higher in weight and/or reps. Lifting the same weight every week will do very little for you. You need to keep challenging your body.
Injury prevention - This is where getting some help may be the way to go. It would suck to do all of this work just to get injured and be “out of the game” again. When in doubt, be conservative and focus on form.
The Crucial Role of Dietary Protein
Now, let's talk about nutrition, specifically dietary protein. Because resistance training is only half of the equation when it comes to building and maintaining muscle. You HAVE to be getting adequate protein to grow muscle and if it’s something you’re not already focused on, the chances are very high that you are undershooting here.
According to Dr. Lyon, and echoed by many other experts like Dr. Peter Attia, one gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight is the sweet spot for muscle growth and maintenance. So, if your ideal weight is 185 pounds, aim for 185 grams of protein daily. Newsflash: That’s a lot of protein to consume! Tracking your intake using an app like Carb Manager can help ensure you’re hitting your targets. I use this off and on and it’s great. If you’re tracking calories, a good place to start would be aiming for that protein to be equate to roughly ~40 of your total consumed calories - the remaining 60% would be split between carbs and fats depending on your personal preferences.
Dr. Lyon also stresses the importance of consuming protein early in the day. She recommends getting 30 to 50 grams of protein in your first meal to kickstart your metabolism and support muscle synthesis. High-quality protein sources, such as chicken, steak, eggs, greek yogurt, and whey protein supplements, are excellent options to consider. I use all of these.
Important: Don’t ignore nutrition! It would be a shame to do all of that resistance training and see no results because you’re not giving your body the protein it needs to build muscle.
Measuring progress
Like I’ve mentioned in other recent newsletters, I’ve started getting DEXA scans twice per year. While DEXA scans don’t explicitly measure muscle, they do measure body fat % and lean tissue % (basically muscle + water) which gives you a pretty damn good estimate of muscle mass. See my last newsletter for ideal ranges for body composition.
If you don’t care that much about precise measurements, you’ll likely be able to see your progress just from the eye test. And other people making comments… which always feels nice. By the way, it is 100% possible to lose weight or maintain weight while consuming a lot of protein. Weight gain or loss will be more a function of total calories consumed vs. total calories burned. Using me as an example, I wanted to maintain my weight in the first half this year but improve body composition and I achieved that with: Resistance training + higher protein + balanced calories in/out.
Looking Ahead
As we continue to learn more about the many benefits of muscle, I expect to see an increasing emphasis on resistance training and protein intake in the health and wellness community. This evolving understanding will reinforce the importance of muscle for everyone, regardless of age or fitness level.
For those who have yet to incorporate resistance training into their routines, I’d suggest that now is a great time to start. And I want to re-emphasize. This is possible at any age! Do not be intimidated! Whether you begin with bodyweight exercises or jump straight into weight lifting, building muscle will provide long-term health benefits, improve daily life, and help prevent injuries. Who doesn’t want all of that?
My Personal Commitment
I’m committed to continuing my journey of building muscle and improving my body composition. It’s been incredibly motivating to see the progress I’ve been able to achieve so far this year and I feel like I’m just getting started. I’d love for you to join me. Reply to this email, comment on the article, or share this to social media with your thoughts. I’m looking forward to learning more about muscle and I’ll share the best stuff I find along the way.
Thanks for reading - now go grab some dumbbells and a protein shake. And I’ll see you back here in two weeks.
Greg
Content Diet
Podcast: Dr. Gabrielle Lyon x Andrew Huberman - How to Exercise & Eat for Optimal Health & Longevity
I’ve referenced this conversation multiple times in this newsletter. If you take one action after reading this, I’d recommend going and listening to this episode. It is a great deep dive into why skeletal muscle is so important and full of practical strategies and tactics for improving the quality and quantity of muscle.
Podcast: Dr. Andy Galpin (Perform podcast): Why Muscle Matters & How to Build It
I’m including this because I think there is some solid, helpful information here. If I’m totally honest, I think Dr. Galpin is still finding his feet with this new podcast even though he’s been an excellent guest on others. I’ll keep listening though.
Podcast: Dr. Rhonda Patrick x Dr. Brad Schoenfed - Resistance training for time efficiency, body composition, and maximum hypertrophy
I like Dr. Rhonda Patrick’s podcast, Found My Fitness. She’s great and has a very approachable style. Super relevant for women, too, as she’s always getting a female perspective on everything. This episode does a great job covering all the basic questions about the why’s and how’s of building muscle and getting a resistance training program in place.
That’s it for today.
Thanks for reading!
Greg