The Peter Attia Drive
#335 ‒ The science of resistance training, building muscle, and anabolic steroid use in bodybuilding | Mike Israetel, Ph.D.
Mon, 10 Feb 2025
View the Show Notes Page for This Episode Become a Member to Receive Exclusive Content Sign Up to Receive Peter’s Weekly Newsletter Mike Israetel is a sports physiologist, competitive bodybuilder, and co-founder of Renaissance Periodization, where he coaches athletes and professionals in diet and weight training. In this episode, Mike shares his journey from powerlifting to academia, breaking down the core principles of resistance training, including exercise selection, volume, intensity, and frequency. He debunks common misconceptions about strength training, explains how to structure an effective program for beginners and advanced lifters, and provides candid insights into his experience with anabolic steroids, discussing their effects on muscle growth, performance, and health risks. This conversation offers a deep dive into the science of building muscle, the realities of bodybuilding at the highest levels, and explores the potential of AI-driven breakthroughs to advance human performance and longevity. We discuss: Mike’s academic journey, and early experiences in powerlifting, personal training, and sports physiology [3:30]; Mike’s transition from powerlifting to bodybuilding, and his scientific and artistic approach to sculpting muscle and optimizing aesthetics [9:15]; The value of strength training, time efficiency, and how it differs from endurance training [14:45]; Neurological fatigue in strength training: balancing recovery and pushing the limits [26:15]; The relationship between training intensity and volume, why muscle growth is not linear, and how different approaches affect results [35:00]; Sustainable and effective approaches to maximizing muscle growth: training close to failure while minimizing fatigue [40:00]; An efficient and effective resistance training program for beginners with limited time [49:00]; Advice for finding a good trainer [1:06:30]; Troubleshooting training plateaus: optimizing exercise selection, intensity, and recovery for muscle growth [1:13:30]; The impact of genetics, age, and lifestyle on muscle growth [1:27:45]; The importance of nutrition, protein intake, and consistency in both training and diet for muscle growth [1:31:00]; The use of anabolic steroids to boost muscle growth: doses, drug combinations, and side effects [1:35:45]; Long-term impact of steroid use: muscle retention, genetics and individual variability, and impact after discontinuation [1:52:15]; Trade-offs of long-term usage of supraphysiologic doses of testosterone: health, performance, and Mike’s future plans [2:00:45]; The potential for AI-driven medical breakthroughs to reverse aging and disease [2:07:30]; The role of AI in accelerating drug development, advancing human longevity, and overcoming biological limitations [2:19:45]; The philosophical implications of simulated reality, the impact of robotics on human labor and economics, and the challenge of predicting the future [2:25:15]; Would having kids change Mike’s philosophy around anabolic steroid use? [2:32:15]; The role of GLP-1 agonists in bodybuilding and general weight management, and the moral and philosophical debates surrounding their use [2:35:45]; and More. Connect With Peter on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube
Chapter 1: What is the science behind resistance training?
Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Drive Podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. This podcast, my website, and my weekly newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health and wellness, and we've established a great team of analysts to make this happen.
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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 a subscription. If you want to learn more about the benefits of our premium membership, head over to peteratiamd.com forward slash subscribe. My guest this week is Dr. Mike Istratel.
Mike holds a PhD in sports physiology and is currently the head science consultant for Renaissance Periodization. He's a competitive bodybuilder and was formerly a professor of exercise and sports science at the School of Public Health at Temple University in Philadelphia.
As a co-founder of Renaissance Periodization, Mike has coached numerous athletes and busy professionals in both diet and weight training. Mike also has a very popular YouTube channel where he loves to do debunking videos that are both informative and endlessly amusing.
In today's conversation, Mike shares his personal journey from his early experiences in powerlifting and bodybuilding to his academic training in exercise science. We discuss the core principles of resistance training, including exercise selection, volume, intensity, and frequency. Mike debunks the common fear that strength training will make people overly muscular without intention.
He explains why this belief is unfounded and highlights the dedication required to build significant muscle mass. We outline what a resistance training routine could look like for someone new to the gym or transitioning from sports. For more experienced lifters, we explore how to optimize resistance training for muscle growth.
Mike shares his personal experience with anabolic steroids, outlining their impact on muscle growth, mental health, and performance. He discusses the pros and cons, including the significant physical changes and potential long-term health risks.
It's really worth pointing out here that Mike is one of the most candid individuals I've ever met when it comes to discussing his use of anabolic steroids, growth hormones, and things of that nature. What is remarkable to me, and you can see this in the podcast, is just how jaw-dropping the numbers are in terms of usage.
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Chapter 2: How can beginners effectively start resistance training?
I didn't want to say anything, Mike, but yeah, you're looking a little chubby. Looking pretty fat. Yeah. I'll cry about it later. I normally don't let people of your chubbiness in the studio, but- Yes. And you can't let us out without letting us know, like, hey, you're fat, by the way. Just want to let you know. No big deal. I mean, it's kind of a big deal. It's a really big deal.
And your body fat right now, if you had to guess, would be what? 8%?
maybe nine-ish. I still have some striations in my glutes. I have like one of the least aesthetic physiques imaginable, but thank you genetics for that one. And I did some things earlier in my career. I gained a ton of weight. It was muscle and fat, stretched my skin out, gave me massive love handles. When you lose that weight, the skin still sticking around.
So I'm actually planning on some extensive cosmetic surgery in about a few months here to address that issue finally. So yeah, I've gained a lot of muscle over the years. For me, the whole journey fundamentally is a personal journey of wanting to occupy a body that is two things. One, that I aesthetically enjoy being in. And two, one, that I had a large hand in creating or curating.
And the curation is almost as fun as the creation. Like you see an artist draw something on a canvas and a huge amount of Joy comes from creating the main arc of everything you're doing, the main shapes, main lines, main coloring. But you know when artists have something almost complete and they do a little pencil in pencil there?
Once you have something that looks amazing and you're optimizing, oh, there's something super beautiful about that. It's like watching someone take a very finely tuned F1 car and just wrench a couple of the screws in and polish it off. It's just, oh, this is so beautiful. Not that my body is attractive, it's not grotesque, but less grotesque is what I'm aiming for.
And I don't know if it's working or not. My hairiness kind of precludes any of that.
Well, whenever I think of an artist mucking around with a canvas, of course, I only think of Bob Ross because I don't have much experience watching an artist create something. You know, usually I'm seeing the finished product, but I still, like most people who grew up in the 70s and the 80s, recall watching Bob Ross on Saturday mornings with great fondness. He makes it look so easy. Oh, my God.
He not only makes it look so easy, he's communicating that.
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Chapter 3: What role do anabolic steroids play in bodybuilding?
Chapter 4: How can one troubleshoot training plateaus?
Chapter 5: What is the relationship between training volume and muscle growth?
2020 is when we started. Okay. Peak COVID. Sorry if I get your podcast canceled by mentioning that term. Honestly, when we record YouTube videos at our at-home studio, which is where most of them happen, if I drop the C word, Scott, the video guy's like, different take. We one take almost everything and that we roll back.
The algorithm will flag it and I'll put all COVID morning and it does have some- Do I have to cut this out? Unlikely. All right. Well, it's a medical podcast. If you can't talk about COVID, I have no idea where we are anymore. Okay.
I wish I knew more about how the algorithm worked. I clearly don't. The ever mysterious algorithm. And then just kind of going back to your personal evolution, as you're going through this journey of master's, PhD, industry, are you still focusing on powerlifting personally?
So I was focusing on powerlifting up until I got into my master's program. And actually towards the end of undergrad, I did this thing where like I was in a grocery store and I picked up a magazine. It was a muscle magazine. It was the Flex magazine issue that had summarized the prior 2002 Mr. Olympia contest with all the pictures of the bodybuilders.
Ronnie won again, though he- That was his fourth? Yeah, fifth or something like that. And he didn't look his best. Not enough people showed up to really take him down. Everyone had suspected Jay Cutler could have beat him if he showed up that year. Jay Cutler almost beat Ronnie in 2001. That's right. He sat out 2002. And so I just remember reading the magazine and looking at the pictures.
Also, real quick, how adult does the humor on here go? Or are we trying to keep it semi-professional? Yeah. I'm gonna defer to you on that. That's a bad idea, Peter. Okay, so I'll just keep it semi-pro. It was enlightening because I realized that I had an eye for aesthetics. And by an eye for aesthetics, it doesn't mean I knew anything about what looks good or what looks not great on a human body.
But I did have a very distinct aesthetic preference. Some people will see muscular physiques and they kind of all look the same, like giant, veiny, overcooked hot dogs, which is not wrong. I looked at the physiques and I was really taken aback, especially by some of them. What probably normal people get when they look at very good art, that, whoa, I'm looking at something very special.
I'm looking at something that's emotive. And I started to pursue my own hypertrophy training, muscle growth training.
What were you looking like at the time?
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Chapter 6: How does age affect muscle growth and training results?
But yeah, any much more than that gets to be like, oh wow, I'm sore and tired a lot more. And Mike, do you think this is simply a consequence of the fact that endurance training relies more on type one muscle fibers and strength and hypertrophy training are more dependent on the actions of type two fibers? Is that why?
I don't know why philosophically, I just think this is such an interesting contrast to make of how optimization of one is a totally different philosophy than optimization of the other. And the only reason I'm harping on it is I just know that when you take people who are very used to doing endurance training and It's a hard switch for them to adopt what you just said in the gym sometimes.
It's not the way they're wired, but is the best way to explain to that person the why that's the difference between a type one and a type two fiber? That is probably the core difference.
I would say there are two other things that can be put into that equation. One is the physical forces are just much higher in magnitude. You're going to be putting a lot of tension through your connective tissues and through your muscles when you're resistance training than you are when you're doing bicycle work, for example.
And so with high absolute forces, the proximate damage and disruption to the body is graded exponentially and not linearly. It's like if a wiffle ball flies past you, you might not even hear it. If a 50 caliber bullet flies past you, it's going to tear parts of you off and it's never even touched you. Very, very different amount of damage from much, much higher forces.
And the other one is some combination of neural and psychological drive. The kind of drive it requires to be good at endurance, at least the base building part, the aerobic base work that you do, is kind of being in a state of calm equanimity. You get your flow going, you get your music going, you get your breathing going, you look at the road ahead of you, and you can just crank.
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Chapter 7: What should one consider when choosing a personal trainer?
But in lifting, you have to turn up the juice to really feel the maximum situation. Another quick analogy offhand is if you are a trillionaire like I am, and you have a fleet of Cessna private aircraft at your beck and call. I never fly the same plane twice. I always crash the thing. You fly a Cessna, you can fly it for some time.
It requires a decent amount of maintenance, but decent amount of maintenance and it'll fly for a long time. It's just never getting up to velocities that are really crazy. You take an SR-71 Blackbird out for a spin at Mach 3, you have to do 10 times the number of maintenance hours per flight hour on that thing or something to that magnitude.
Because at Mach 3, what's happening to the plane is just running through subsequent brick walls. That's what the sound barrier is like. Three times faster than the sound barrier, you're just rattling that thing into dust. That's what you're trying to do to it.
When you're pushing your body really hard and the weights are slowing down and there's sets of 5 or sets of 8 or sets of 10, your body's very close to its limits. So both your faster twitch muscle fibers, which are required, they take way more damage. They're also not as well proliferated with blood supply and they heal slower.
and the amount of absolute force is higher and the amount of neural drive it takes, you can hop on a bike for an hour at zone two every day. And afterwards, people are like, are you tired? And you're like, a little bit. I kind of feel like also a little bit refreshed in a sense. You don't really feel refreshed after like grinding the leg press for five sets of 15.
You feel like someone beat the crap out of you and you don't owe anyone money. What the hell is going on? So that intensity, that absolute intensity of lifting and high relative intensity, that's what tends to make the big, big fatigue cost.
Can you say more about the neural part of this? I find this to be a very interesting piece. And of all the pieces you've described, and I agree with everything you've said, I know the least about that component yet. I've heard people talk about this, right? Which is you cannot discount the CNS fatigue literally that comes from doing this type of work.
And I remember as an example, watching sprinters train. And obviously people understand that sprinters, I shouldn't say obviously, but if you study the mechanics of sprinting, you realize it really comes down to force per unit mass. That's how hard they can hit the ground with their foot relative to their mass.
And so these are athletes who need to be almost comically strong without gaining any excess weight. So even though we look at sprinters and we think, gosh, they're very muscular, it's their strength to weight ratio that's really profound. And so they have to train in a way that minimizes hypertrophy and maximizes strength.
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Chapter 8: How can AI and technology advance fitness training?
And more importantly, like how much better could I have been if I didn't train that much? It wouldn't be uncommon for me to do six super hard rounds of sparring with three fresh opponents. One guy a weight class below me, one guy in my weight class, and then one guy for two rounds a weight class above me. In sequence? Yes. Six straight rounds.
You definitely did that backwards, but you probably know that now. Yes. And I would mix it up sometimes, but actually it was much harder and more dangerous to do it in that way. And I kind of liked that. The idea that the guy that could hit the hardest was my last guy. Yeah. When you were the most fatigued, your defenses are the less accurate. But I would be in the weight room six days a week.
Like it was just running hard. Anyway, it was kind of crazy, but I want to go back and just put a bow on something you said before, because I think it's so important and it's going to come up again and again. I want to make sure people understand the point. Your example was great, by the way.
the non-linearity of force is very counterintuitive it is not obvious why for example being on a bike even if you are riding at a very high level of power so remember on a bike your leg is going around at 90 times per minute so even if you did a one minute all out that's 90 reps or call it 45 reps That's nothing compared to when you're doing an all-out set for 10 reps in the gym.
It's such a difference in force. I love the example of the wiffle ball going by you versus a 50 cal. The 50 cal could kill you without hitting you. The wiffle ball you wouldn't notice. So I think this idea of The profound level of difference in tissue destruction is a very important one.
I was on Dorian Yates' podcast a few months ago, and poor Dorian, he wanted to interview me because it was his podcast, but I just wanted to interview him. I have nothing interesting to say. Let's just talk about you right now, right? Yes. It was very interesting to me to understand how little time he spent in the gym for a bodybuilder of that era.
It was very, I guess, progressive, even though he was really going back to Arthur Jones and Mike Menser and those guys. But he was really just sort of doing one set to failure per exercise, and he was doing each body part once a week. The question I sort of posed to him, but I'll pose it again to you is, are most people even capable of pushing that hard?
Because I want to bring it back to where we were a moment ago, which was, hey, for a person who just wants to train 30 minutes twice a day, they can get all the benefit in the world. But there's an asterisk there, which is that 30 minutes twice a week is going to be the most difficult 60 minutes total of your week.
So going back to Dorian for a second, what has to be true to be able to only train that much in terms of total hours, volume, however you want to measure it? How much work needs to be done in that window of time? For the, not the Dorian Yates example, for the- For the Dorian, let's start with Dorian. Why could he produce such a massive physique? And again, let's just normalize all the drugs.
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