0:00 [Music] Welcome back everybody. This is part two of our conversation with Dr. Mike and Jared about a PhD dissertation controversy that's recently been going on. >> When we're done with this conversation, Jared and I have a little bit of life history to share with you that I think was time we talked about and it's going to be pretty intense. So, let's let's uh I'd love any and all questions I would love to answer, but I think there's some we have to have some time for something Jared and I really want to talk about. >> I cannot wait. >> Yeah. >> Look how confused Bart look. >> I'm like, should we just talk about it now? >> No, no, no, no, no. Let's finish. Let's finish the dissertation. >> To be fair, Bart always looks confused. >> For real. I thought I looked smart. >> See? >> All right. >> I'm just going to kick it off. I think that cat is so bored to read your whole dissertation. I I'm bored hearing about it. >> I can't tell. Am I supposed to be like
0:50 complimented or something? >> I think he's a ████ I think he's uh a rag and a fatard. >> What the hell? I didn't even know that word. >> No, >> cuz like I don't like one of my favorite comments that I read was um oh this video made me have uh I'm going to go back and check my accountant's algebra homework. You know, it's like it's just like what's the point? And then yes, if you go through from a very meta YouTube content farming perspective, I get it. He leeches off of you, so it builds his ████ But then at the end of the day, that's your brand now. And if you ever venture off and want to go and create your own stuff, you're always going to be known as the guy that just does all this other stuff. And so I'm like, who are you really? And it just feels like a scumbag. >> Well, I I think there is a valid point to the conversation in the culture of
1:40 like this type of thing. Um, and and feel free to come back at me and I want to hear your perspective on this, but it's because the idea of it is sciencebacked and then once you go into sciencebacked versus like an opinion or like a generalized lifestyle of like working out or whatever like that, people end up take end up receiving it as a very black and white like this is either true or false. Yeah. >> So then once like a fellow person who is educated or likes the science element of it goes like wait that's not actually true >> then debate that. That's what I'm talking about. what I'm talking about. If he dropped a video today, debate the October video. Don't go, I found your preschool homework, homie. We got beef now. You know what I mean? Like, debate what they're talking about right then and there. >> Yeah. I mean, >> I totally agree. And I think the unfortunate part is that that's going to continue happening if it doesn't get like squashed or addressed in a certain way. And I think that Dr. Mike's doing
2:31 like the most amazing job. >> What's going to continue happening? the idea that let's say if uh the momentum continues to roll that this guy's like hey uh his dissertation was XYZ therefore his PhD should be revoked or now we need to put into question everything he's ever said in the science back research >> I I think that he his probability of doing that is nearly 100%. I think he needs to take a look at the rest of the papers I've published formally and uh take those down quote unquote he almost has to do it at this point u because >> well every video where you've ever said anything now or >> right the research and be like hey the research points to this and that's not an incorrect statement but everybody loves absolute polarizing content and fitness >> and like it is black or white >> there is a section of like I guess the world that thinks I'm pretty neat >> and there's a section very understandably and I do not disagree with that thinks I'm kind of a dick
3:22 >> sometimes. >> And when you're kind of a dick, people love to see you burn. And I've made fun of a s███████ of people on YouTube. I've made half a ████ career out of that ████ >> So, how mad can I possibly get that someone's giving me a taste of my own medicine? I can't get too mad about that. >> In your words, you said fair play. >> Super fair play. Levelheaded person. >> Like, uh, well, I mean, like, like, you're not going to survive being like relatively YouTube famous if you don't like clamp the ████ down in your head. Cuz like if I got really upset at the ████ I would have a real bad time a lot. Um and and yeah, so super fair play. He's almost certainly going to continue to try to excoriate me. And like all love and respect, man. Go to town. Uh you know, it's a it's it's not terrible for me in the algorithm either. >> It's true. >> Now you have to ask the question of uh did Solomon and I have some kind of arrangement where I was like critique my dissertation. >> Go. >> It's a dude. >> Is it though or isn't it? Never can
4:12 tell. >> I will say >> I'll ask the question. Did that happen? Listen, uh, >> cuz it's making you super relevant right now. >> I got a question back, uh, back for you. Where were you on that one night that everyone was on Epstein's Island? >> I was, uh, in Virginia. >> Oh, you're stuttering. >> I was in Virginia. >> You said, uh, >> I wish I was there. >> I know, right? >> Yo, I always talk about this, man. I'm so pissed that coward unalived himself because he I never Jared and I never got to go to the ████ island. >> It's a beautiful looking island. >> Oh. Mhm. >> Virginia, huh? >> Well, I'm talking about the drone drone footage. Drone footage. I saw it on drone footage. >> Same. Same, bro. I've only ever seen the drone footage. I was never there either. >> Looks sick though. >> My friend's friends with this cook. >> You're kidding. >> He's a famous barbecue guy. >> Oh, yeah. >> What did you get any like details?
5:04 >> His name might have a new He has a new chapter now. He has a new chapter now. >> People seriously do come after him and he goes, "Bro, I was just hired to cook there. I don't know s███." >> But people are seriously treating him like he's the devil. Yeah. Yeah. >> That's like going after the guy doing landscaping. Dude, >> he makes amazing barbecue. >> Yeah. >> Literally like how come the pilot doesn't get any of this? >> Like he was flying the Lolita Express all day every day. He saw everybody. >> How about the maids? >> It wasn't called Right. Well, who knows what they were doing. >> Clean up. Clean up crew. >> Was it really called the Lolita Express? >> Yeah, it was called the Lolita Express >> on the side of the airplane. >> Oh, no. >> Cuz airplanes all have names. >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. Maybe. >> Cuz then you can blame the pilot a little bit. >> Yeah. like, "What's the Leo Express?" He's like, "Honestly, I I just didn't name it." >> I think one of the pilots were actually the whistleblowers. >> Oh, >> yeah. So, that's probably why. But anyways, um so so so is it common in
5:56 your like in your side of the fitness world where everyone's like critiquing each other and then like trying to take each other down or saying like this is fake news, this is real. >> I wish there were critiques. I wish that's all there was. >> So what is it? Just ████ talking? >> Yeah, man. And there's so much of that right now >> cuz I've seen, you know, some of your videos and then there was that one feud you had with that one guy. He's like a older cat that's like >> Greg. Yeah. Yeah. >> Is that the Greg Ducet guy or whatever? >> Yeah. >> Him and I have sort of a love affair. >> But it seemed like a >> like a battle game like not like seriously like that's why I just thought that that was like the thing that you guys did in in in your world. So, the way Greg thinks about it is he says it's all WWE. >> Yeah. >> Um, what Greg fails to explain is that WWE is both prescripted and consensual.
6:47 And when he goes after people's like girlfriends for gaining weight, it's neither prescripted nor consensual. >> But Greg cares exclusively about virality and money, as he willingly admits anytime you ask him. So, Greg is actually not even hypocritical. He's just a ████ dog, my man. Get that ████ So, that's the thing with Greg. I think Solomon is at least uh kind of getting some good critiques in there along with stuff that's probably inaccurate and very personal and he's quite upset. >> With Greg, there is no facade. It's just talking that ████ >> It's not like substantive critiques. It's just TMZ. And some people really like that sort of thing. The The unfortunate >> 100%. The unfortunate thing is like I think some people who are a little young just can't tell and then so they're like oh Greg is a person that makes substantive critiques. You're like that's not that's not what he's doing. He's just entertainment. And Greg I
7:39 don't think would ever deny that just entertainment. But you know folks get confused. You know again this is all superpower for the course. The real question is like as a content creator do you want to be more on the negativity side or on the positivity side? >> Um at RPY YouTube we used to do some negativity. Now, we were trying to make sure that it was informational. I think it always was, but we were talking that ████ Um, >> but it was done in like a entertaining, light-hearted sense. >> Sure. For sure. But also like >> doesn't feel real, you know? Like when you critique Mark Wahlberg, it doesn't feel real. >> But man, you know, if I was his trainer, I would feel ████ real about it. I said some nasty ████ about people's trainers, bro. And I I own that ████ 100%. It was ████ lame. And so, we basically for like for the last year have been like almost entirely positive on the channel and it's felt so much better. Uh, and so at some point like the negativity stuff when you do it a lot, it it eats away at you. It's like
8:30 um firing a bullet out of a gun. The bullet hits other people the negativity and it hurts them. But uh every gun barrel has a lifespan and it hurts you to produce negativity. And at some point I was feeling like uh about all of it. And so we could very well respond to Mr. Solomon Nelson with an excoriating critique of a variety of anything of his. It's rife for the picking. But uh man, ████ that. I mean, I just don't have that in me. This episode is brought to you by the RP Hypertrophy app. Want to build muscle but don't know where to start? Get jacked with the RP Hypertrophy app built by Dr. Mike Israel, who have you seen on this show. This app features over 45 pre-made training plans to help you get the results you want. Everything here is backed by science and the very latest in research, so you know it's going to work. And the very best part, it's super
9:21 easy to use. Our subscribers, that's you guys, get a discount by visiting rpstrength.com/rpmuscle. That's rpstrength.com/rpmuscle. RP mu sso. Link in the description below. >> How do you guys How do you talk ████ about a personal trainer? Are you guys just like, "He's not even that big, dude." >> Uh, I'm bigger, bro. He's not using enough steroids. No, like Exactly. Yeah. Basically, like some of the Hollywood trainers um are charging exorbitant amounts of money for what would otherwise be caricatured as like pretend like they don't actually know things. Uh and they're doing stuff that that's just like the AI slop equivalent of training. Like a this is an exercise that looks kind of cool and they never went to school for it. They don't they're not evidence-based. They're not even results based. And they're just like people that
10:12 knew people that knew people and now they're training famous people. >> You know what the parallel would be? It'd be like, so he has like a deep improv background. Imagine like >> improv master. You would say >> a guy that taught himself comedy on YouTube and then is now parading around that he was like from Groundlings, UCB or whatever and he's teaching that. And then the people that are really in the trenches of comedy doing it, going up every night are like, "What the ████ is this guy doing?" It's like that. >> Which is why I never saw your guys' content as talking ████ I saw it as like exposing uh Charlton and then like roasting them and I thought that was funny, but I didn't think it was like talking ████ Maybe >> that's what he thinks he's doing as well. I guess >> he thinks Solomon thinks he's doing that and he might be he might be like his intention I think is is entirely valid. I think I I don't believe I'm a charlatan, but uh have I said some
11:02 things that were inaccurate? Yeah, ████ yeah. We all do that. >> So, what's the actual thing he's trying to expose? is that your PhD isn't legitimate or like >> I I think it's one of those like it's a hit piece, right? So there's not an actual thing you're trying to expose. It's asking a lot of questions like >> is he legitimate? Yeah. >> And so there's not like cuz if like let's say I would have like a facetoface debate with him on the merits of my dissertation. I mean I don't think that would go very far because Yeah. >> is >> because you're credited. It's like how are you gonna debate that? just like on a on a on a logical like validity scale of what does a dissertation actually show? He never really gave it a fair shake. So, for example, this is oddly technical, but one of the I believe one of the criticisms was something like, okay, so like his dissertation shows that like bigger athletes are stronger and that uh stronger athletes like run faster. Like, isn't that obvious? Well,
11:54 at the time that we were doing our dissertation, it was not obvious on two fronts. One, there was a line of research and scholarship by a gentleman named Jeremy Leni, who was a PhD, very credentialed, very smart, very astute, who noticed that there were at the time roughly zero studies showing that you could actually draw a positive relationship between gaining muscle and gaining strength. Because in no study up to that point could people say, see, the people that gain the most muscle in this study actually gain the most strength because most early strength gains are neural in nature, the nervous system. And so he said, "Look, like it's it could be all the nervous system with strength and getting big to get stronger is actually not evidence-based." And everybody got pissed and they look back at the research notes and they're like, "We can't actually debate that on the technicalities." So more evidence that there's a very tight correlation between size and strength in high level athletes in large sample sizes, which was my
12:45 dissertation, is a good way to beginning of a retort to that to be like actually no, we have this idea. Here's another thing. We found in in the body of work that my dissertation was about that even at the division one level where everyone because these are D1 athletes. Very rare sample size. You almost never get to test these people. Almost all studies are just on recreationally trained undergrads like some dude that's been lifting weights for a year in the rec center and you go test them. These >> D1 are elite athletes. >> Yeah. Like just sub elite, right? Like just under that that threshold of like >> just under the Olympics. >> Just under that threshold. Yeah. So in these folks it was uh illustrated that lower body fat percentages led people to sprint faster and jump higher. Now an immediate implication of that to coaches would be like how are your athletes diets and >> yeah let's get them leaner.
13:35 >> But here's the thing even within the sample of D1 athletes that was true and they're all pretty lean and pretty jacked. Obviously, you don't need a study to say like Jim Bob, who weighs 300 ████ lb, is slower than Jamal. I don't know why I picked those names, but >> Jamal sounds correct. >> Uh, yeah. Who's super lean and he's fat? >> I think we know Jim Bob, >> right? Yeah, we definitely Yeah. So, yes, Jim Bob isn't your guys' uncle. And so, you're like, okay, 300 lb of extra fat, no ████ But what about if you take a look at a baseball team, uh, D1 baseball team, and some of the guys are just a little like thicker than the others, would you really go so far as to say like, oh yeah, like if those guys lost body fat, they would almost certainly get faster. And if you would say that, how come the degree of nutritional intervention in baseball athletes and volleyball athletes and soccer players to get them leaner isn't at the time was not very solid? It was
14:25 like just cuz you talk to most sport nutritionists at the time, they're better now. And just be like, just eat healthy, eat well, support your body, don't worry too much about body composition. You're like, but it's it's cutting ████ fractions of a second off of my 40 times. I want to be as lean as I can while sustaining performance at the highest level and as muscular as I can at the same time. If you look at that data set in our study of 88 division one athletes, you start to be like, "Oh, holy ████ Even for these people, working on your nutrition and working on your weight training matters. And guys, here's the thing, and this something we talked about on the channel a bunch at RP Strength over the years. The way even pro athletes approach their nutrition and weight training is often times really, really lacking. Like they just kind of eat ████ all whatever because they have good genetics. >> It's like Dwight Howard, he eats Big Macs all the time. >> Right. Right. And you'd be like, well, what would he bet if he's Dwight Howard? Well, well, we have a data set in
15:15 division one athletes that shows that even on the margins, it makes sense to get a little bit leaner, a little bit more muscular. And so that is instant insight from the dissertation that's actually valuable, but it's nuanced. And Mr. Solomon Nelson's coming at it, all due respect, in bad faith, um, he wants to take me down. So, he's not interested in taking an impartial objective view. He's interested in taking a lawyer-like attitude of scalpel-like incision, which is good because everything needs criticism. But is it at the same time the fairest thing in the world and the most rational approach? No, absolutely not. But it wasn't intended to be that. >> Yeah. And things that are maybe considered like obvious today 12 years ago wasn't always the case. That that's the whole point of like taking time to learn and understand certain things. >> Listen, even if at face value you think something is obvious, that doesn't necessarily mean it is. It's obvious for the time. >> Well, so here's the thing. Uh there was a couple of very interesting comment
16:05 replies to some of the critiques uh where some people would say like, "Oh, he showed that more muscular athletes are stronger like or more muscular athletes run faster or whatever." Uh and one I remember one guy replied he's like, "You know, you would think that that is obvious, but I had coaches my whole career telling me not to lift weights because it's going to make me muscle bound and slow." Yep. >> I've heard that too, right? And so that is like coaches coaches. So like sport coaches and they would say the same ████ to us who were supposed to be teaching the athletes to get bigger and stronger. >> The folks that follow Solomon's channel are in evidence-based fitness and so their prerequisite understanding of physiology and anatomy is very high. Like Solomon's a smart guy and his his followers are real smart. And so they're like duh. But the dissertation this is a this is sports not fitness. It's sports.
16:55 and all love and respect, but there is a spectrum of sport coaches understanding of anatomy and physiology. And that spectrum runs really high with ████ elite people really know things and really really low to where you're like, you have your athletes, they should be on a really good diet to get leaner and train with weights like crazy to get more jacked and they're like, whoa, now hold on a second. I don't want bodybuilders out here. and you're like, "But but but" and then if you have something like the papers off of my dissertation to give them and explain to them in very plain language, the evidence-based people would correctly say it is obvious. And they're not wrong. And the coaches would read that and be like, "Oh, holy s███." Because if you're evidence-based and you tell coaches like, "Well, it's obvious that getting jacked and lean makes you better at sports and makes you better at all the jumping and running." And they're like, "How do you know that?" And if they're a smart coach, just not educated in it, they'd be like, "Data." You'd be
17:45 like, "Well, here's a bunch of studies." is they're like, "All of these aren't recreationally trained undergraduates." You're like, "But who cares?" Like, "I train D1 athletes. It's different at this level." You guys ever hear that? Like, "Well, it's different with pro athletes." Like, some pro alete will come in, like some soccer player, and he does like half of a squat and he leaves and you're like, "Why doesn't he like train with the rest of the team? Like, he's ████ he's on that level, bro. He doesn't need to." Which is ████ by the way. >> LeBron and his trainer seem like to do >> Have you seen like, no offense, LeBron? LeBron is the goat, right? And his trainer is doing his best. >> No, he's not. No, he's not. >> I I say he's doing his best. There are a couple goats in the herd. It's okay. >> Oh, we going to talk that ████ >> We can for a whole other video. Absolutely. >> Jordan's our goat. >> Oh, yeah. Let's Okay. Jordan is beyond reproach. Yeah. Jordan's like a ram, you know, like a mountain ram. >> Not that LeBron ████ >> Jordan and and the Bulls got their ████ pushed in by the Pistons cuz the Pistons were physical and mean and strong and
18:36 they said, "F███ that." And what did they do? They did regular resistance training. They got got bigger and they jumped higher, got faster, got more injury resilient, pushed people around and won an infinity number of championships. But that story was only later told in the most recent documentary about the Bulls. It came out in like 2023. Many, many people are under the illusion that at elite levels of athletics, at high levels, getting jacked doesn't pay dividends. It'll slow you down. Getting leaner, we're not trying to step on stage. Who cares how they look? There is wisdom in that as well. because at the extremes all that stuff breaks down. But what is evident in the dissertation that I wrote at the time is even at those high levels, it matters how lean you are and how jacked you are. And it helps every measurable quality of sport performance. >> I just can't believe we're finally talking about like NBA and cool ████ and the video has to end.
19:26 >> Good catch.
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