Episode #360: The Rundown #3 (Bionic knees, Raycin beats the boys, feats of strength, and more!)

18:15Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Which seems weird to say to like a 26, 27-year-old. But if you're 30 and you're still racing, you are definitively an elder statesman. You're that class pretty much. but the best performers aren't like big hulking you know super strong they're strong because they're 24 year old dudes you know but yeah it's not like oh gaining 10 pounds of muscle mass is going to make you better on the bike it's mostly skill related and sure the cardi respiratory demands the vo2 max requirements are relatively high but it's mostly skill it's very similar to swimming in in that like a good swimmer like an elite level swimmer had been retired and their vo2 max is in the tank, it's still going to beat like the triathlete who's like not a good swimmer, but has a crazy high VO2 max.

18:58Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:So I do, I just wonder, I'm like, it's not a strength thing. I think the cardiorespiratory requirements can be developed by women. So I'm trying to think like, is this like, again, I go back to aggressiveness, visual tracking. I don't, I don't know. But it also, it seems to me right now, like the biggest driver, this has to just be opportunity and like in general interest. And so it's like, look, well, not that many girls do this. there's not going to be many girls doing this and so just the sample size is too low to get something like that that's why this is so dang historic good job racing yeah super super

19:30Dr. Austin Baraki:interesting uh kind of concept and then even to look at a different sport that has i would say developed and maybe even arguably peaked and gone into decline on a shorter time frame is crossfit so like you think about the level of performance that was being put up by all the athletes in general and certainly men versus women like at the first ever crossfit games and you contrast that to where where people are now where like uh lorraine my my wife still pays attention to their crossfit games uh just out of interest and they just happened this past week oh we're gonna talk about it and yeah and and tia claire wins and they're interviewing her and they're like talking to her about her training and she's like yeah i just do what the boys do and then aim for a little bit more and it's like well you have selected yourself uh into like an ultra elite category and that's why you keep winning year after year and no one else is even close to you.

20:17Dr. Austin Baraki:But the sport had to attract enough people to even get in before you can start to identify those folks who maybe have certain levels, you know, traits or talents or, you know, biological gifts, if you want to think of it that way, to let them to rise to the top. Otherwise, they'll, you know, never come to attention and no one will ever know any different.

20:34Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Yeah, I'll be very curious to see what happens with this particular athlete's career. Like, so now after she wins. Ooh, she has identified herself. yeah like how do you do next year because there's another class the next one age up is another displacement size up and like does she keep doing this well and if so like that would be remarkable and maybe that does pave the path i don't know be curious yep we'll see this podcast is brought to you by butcher box one thing i try to stay consistent with is keeping enough protein in the house so i don't end up ordering takeout a few times a week that sounds simple but between work and everything else the grocery store trip is usually the first thing that gets cut butcher Box fixed that for me.

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25:49Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:you can run the same program for another few weeks and measure your results. That's free, and you can definitely do that. But here's where it gets harder. Plenty of coaches can write a decent program. Plenty can spot an error on video or pull your training back around an injury. To me, that's table stakes. Now, this morning, I watched a deadlift where the guy's back rounded slightly off the floor. You could call that an error and cue it out of him, or at least try. But what's actually happening is he's buying a better start position and paying for it at lockout. And at his leverages right now, that's the correct trade-off because he's got a meet coming up.

26:17Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Now, Now, if he didn't, maybe that changes the calculus and maybe we change it to try to improve efficiency long term. Or maybe we don't change it at all. But that call, whether something's worth fixing now, later, or at all, is the part that takes a lot of reps and a fund of knowledge. And that's what you get with Barbell Medicine. I've been doing this for nearly 20 years and our team is made up of physicians, dietitians, physical therapists, and strength coaches that also have a lot of experience. So whether it's programming, nutrition, or working around a new injury, we can help you. We've worked with thousands of people at this point, but don't take my word for it.

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27:08Dr. Austin Baraki:talk to you about it and see if we're a good fit. All right, let's get back to the podcast.

27:11Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:All right, back here on the rundown third episode, we're going to talk about impressive feats of strength. Got three of them here. First off, we'll start with Thor's deadlift. You see this? I did. 505 kilogram deadlift. That's 1 ,113 pounds. You do not need to adjust your headset. That is 1 ,113 pounds, breaking his previous record of 1 ,104 pounds that he set five years ago back in 2020. Crazy. Now, just before we discuss this, the equipment that he used, This is important for the comparison I'm going to ask you about. He had a double-ply deadlift suit. Now, if you're not familiar with powerlifting, what a deadlift suit is, what is double-ply?

27:53Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:You're like toilet paper. It doesn't make any sense. I agree. Look, equipped powerlifting is where you get to use assisted equipment. So like a squat suit, for example, it stores mechanical energy as you descend. Knee wraps. Do the same thing. Store mechanical energy as you load the actual material and then as you go down in a squat, for example, and then on the way up, it helps you lift more weight. it's a completely different experience it's like almost a completely different sport except for you're still using a barbell but in any case the double ply deadlift suit is two layers of material that's why they call it double ply and i can't speak to how it works because i don't know and i don't know that anybody really knows it's more uh in the squat you tend to get more out of the suits than you do in the deadlifts but i assume there's some sort of assistance otherwise they wouldn't use it.

28:39Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:He's also using figure eight straps. So wrist straps, uh, listeners may be more familiar with a regular wrist strap that you use to wrap around a dumbbell or a barbell. Figure eight straps are usually a little bit longer, uh, more robust that tends to set the bar a little bit lower in your hand. So again, this is important for comparison purposes. He's using a Texas deadlift bar, which I appreciated that they used that and not the rogue elephant bar, which is like

29:05Dr. Austin Baraki:extra extra long and thin to make it bendier yeah the reason why the that type of barbell matters

29:11Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:one if it's a deadlift bar which you can generally identify by lack of a center knurling it also is a thinner diameter a regular power bar is 29 millimeters in diameter deadlift bars 27 millimeters in diameter um they also are a little bit longer and so it makes the bar deflect more or bend more before the plates leave the floor which for some individuals that makes them be able to lift more weight. I don't get a lot out of a deadlift bar, meaning that my regular deadlift with a stiff power bar is about the same as my deadlift bar deadlift, but some people get a lot out of them, especially with straps.

29:47Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:But he did use calibrated plates, which I also appreciated compared to Benny Magnuson, 1 ,008 or 1 ,003 or whatever it was, which was no straps, no deadlift suit, but not calibrated plates. In any case, let's compare Thor's recent world record, 1 ,113 pound deadlift with straps, with a deadlift suit, with a deadlift bar to Georgian powerlifters teamer Semkarzadeh. I definitely messed that up. I'm so sorry. Respect the effort. Respect the effort. But at the age of 24, he deadlifted 906 pounds in the IPF, the International Powerlifting Federation. So it's drug tested, no straps, stiff powerlifting bars, 29 millimeters in diameter, two hour weigh-in drug tested, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

30:30Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Oh, and by the way, that same day, he squatted 859 pounds and bench pressed 534 pounds for a 2 ,300-pound total. His total at 2 ,300 pounds was about 100 pounds less than Thor's total that he also did, and he weighed about 100 pounds less than Thor. So who's more impressive, Dr. Brocky, Thor or Teamer?

30:56Dr. Austin Baraki:uh the two of us opining on the relative impressiveness of these feats is kind of amusing to me but i think you make the point there at the end that teamers total was about 100 pounds less weighing 100 pounds less under much stricter conditions and so i think that that's kind of where i might lean it's interesting to i don't know it's not even like a thought experiment it's just like imagining or wondering if you put thor under those same competitive conditions circumstances um would he be able to put up those same numbers i'm not sure i don't i don't know how much he can currently squat i feel like all i've ever seen him do is uh in the in the powerlifting realm i've i've seen lots of his deadlifts i haven't i don't know off the top of my head like what his raw squat performance might be unassisted unequipped um in that in that type of a setting i don't know if you have a sense of that yeah he squatted i believe it was 906 uh

31:50Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:uh, in knee, uh, knee wraps, but in a regular singlet when he did his, his total, which, but you know, no way in. Right. Sure. Yeah. With a squat bar, you know, it's different.

32:01Dr. Austin Baraki:It's just a different set of. Right. That's why I'm trying to like, you know, come at it of like, if you put each of these guys in the other person's circumstance, how close could they get to that type of performance? And, you know, they'd probably be kind of close. I think team are though, weighing a hundred pounds less to do it. He's probably also quite a bit different in height. I don't know what his height is off the top of my head either. But yeah, I currently lean towards the IPF competitive conditions as the thing that's more impressive to put up that total. But then again, all these things are just absolute wild feats of human strength.

32:33Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Yeah, all these numbers don't make sense. I know if you were listening to this and you're like, the numbers don't make sense because they're too heavy. I agree. These people are far too strong and it hurts my feelings personally. But with your thought experiment, it's like a bench racing kind of thing. Like, what if?

32:47Dr. Austin Baraki:Yeah.

32:47Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:I think if you put Thor in the IPF setting, he totals far less than his best total. Drug testing aside, let's just leave that elephant in the room. We just won't talk about it. And then if you put Teamer under the same circumstances as Thor's, I don't know that he totals that much more. You know what I'm saying?

33:04Dr. Austin Baraki:Not being well-trained in that, you know, the technical things that change under equipped lifting and various other things that make it almost, you know, people sometimes describe them as different sports. And it might sound silly to say when it's like you're doing the same lifts, but there are significant technical differences between equipped and unequipped lifting and under these different types of competitive kind of rules and circumstances that do make them a little bit more difficult to compare directly than it might initially seem. Yeah, I'll just say this.

33:33Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Obviously, both individuals, super strong, and I'm super impressed with all of these attempts. Yeah. Full props, no hate comms, full props. However, if instead of Thor breaking his own record, which was previously 501 kilos under, you know, wearing a deadlift suit with straps, whatever, if he instead said, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to use a stiff bar. I'm going to not use straps and I'm going to do it raw. And he was able to deadlift 910 pounds. That way I'd be like, dude, you're the king.

34:05Dr. Austin Baraki:Yeah.

34:06Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Easy. Yeah. And this is just a throwback. A lot of our listeners probably are unfamiliar with Konstantinov because he passed away a number of years ago. But he previously is on record saying that, look, under IPF settings, stiff bar, calibrated plates, two-hour weigh-in, the whole thing, drug testing aside, people can only deadlift 400 kilos. That's it, 880. And so we have an example, two couple examples because Jesus also deadlifted more than that. I think it was 901. Again, these numbers don't make sense. You're just like, Jordan, what are you talking about? There's a lot of weight. I agree.

34:40Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:So I'm, I'm super impressed, but I would have been more impressed with, uh, just what would be more relatable as a deadlift. Like, yeah, take the straps off, take the suit off. If you want to use a deadlift bar, fine, I guess, but I would prefer you on a stiff bar. Just see, I'd be curious.

34:56Dr. Austin Baraki:Yeah, it makes these kinds of comparisons easier. That's, that's kind of the thing in sport in general. You know, if somebody set a new like swimming world record, but they were swimming in like a pool of different length, and they weren't swimming in water, but some like substance that had different like fluid properties. And I'm like, I don't know what that means. That's part of why, you know, like in, in swimming, my background, as opposed to your motocross, you know, the whole like super suit era was such a thing where all this like rapid technological advancement. happened, you know, in the early 2000s, early to mid 2000s, and people started wearing higher and higher tech suits.

35:30Dr. Austin Baraki:And they started to get concerned about like, well, how much buoyancy is this providing? And like, you know, all these records were getting smashed. And so then they got for the most part banned. And now we're like under a much more strict set of circumstances, almost IPF like, you know, circumstances and rules around what you can wear to race. And sure enough, humans continue to rise to the occasion. And just about all if not all of the world records from that time. I think Rome 2009 was the last time that they were really allowed in competition. Most of those records are gone because people have just kept getting better and better and ended up breaking them all anyway, even under the stricter circumstances.

36:03Dr. Austin Baraki:So that's kind of an interesting way to come at it is these circumstances set the bounds for kind of comparison and competition. And then within those bounds, you just let the best rise to the top. And over time, people seem to keep finding ways to get better and better across all sorts of different sports, which is awesome to watch.

36:22Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Yeah. A lot of technological advancements across many different sports have been the principal or at least even a minority contribution to people breaking records. I don't know that these are all technological advancements here for Thor and such, but we're just comparing two different efforts and it's challenging to do.

36:40Dr. Austin Baraki:And so I prefer just make it the same, but yeah, probably not in our lifetime. Yeah.

36:46Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:All right. The second impressive feat of strength is by Russ Orhy. You sent this to me, I was made aware of it. It's just crazy. So Russ Orhe just broke the 93-kilo world record for the raw powerlifting total and also the squat. So 93-kilo class is my weight class, our weight class. Well, your old weight class when you were still an adult man. 205 pounds, that's the max you can weigh. And while competing in the 2025 North American Powerlifting Federation Pan Am Championships, Russ, he competed in the 93-kilo class. This is in Grand Cayman. he squatted 783 pounds he bench pressed 457 pounds and he deadlifted 781 pounds again these numbers don't make sense because they're too high i agree they're too high his total was 2019 pounds while weighing 201 pounds body weight so he has 10x body weight total which is like that's power lifting like legendhood like you you've now achieved legendary status you're one of the best that's incredible is also 25 kilos better than the previous record holder jonathan keiko that record was set in 2023 at the world championships so my question to you is not just how impressive russ is he is impressive but previously he was an 83 kilo lifter and his best total despite competing for a number of years was 100 pounds less so is this just like mass moves mass he moved up a weight class or uh what what happened here yeah i mean i think that mass moves mass is

38:14Dr. Austin Baraki:like a it's an arguably an oversimplification of an important concept i think the dude if anybody's seen russell i mean you said his weight class at 205 but failed to mention his height i believe he is like 5 '7 maybe or something like that so he is a muscle ball he's a nugget he's a muscle nugget

38:31Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:i met this i met him at uh barbell brigade in la in 2016 now at the time he had not competed in powerlifting but i see this dude with 585 on a bar squatting and he's doing like sets of six and i'm like at that point i'm still fully into powerlifting and i'm competing we would be in the same weight class approximately at that time i'm like oh my god yeah what a monster guys literally built different as they say yeah and i'm built differently too but incorrectly comparatively and i was like this if this dude ever competes we're we're in trouble yeah like we're collectively in trouble it's like when a jesse norris signed up for raw nationals we're like we're i'm in danger right

39:08Dr. Austin Baraki:right and so we've talked about this before when it comes to strength performance there's the like neuromuscular skill coordination aspect, the ability to coordinate your body, muscles, contractions, bones, joints, everything in the right order and sequence to move the load or accomplish the task in as efficient of a way as possible. And then the other side is how much force production capacity do your muscles physically have and what leverages do they have on your joints? So things like your muscle attachment points and tendon lengths and all sorts of other things that, you know, we are more or less modifiable in order to improve our performance.

39:44Dr. Austin Baraki:And we know, you know, this has been researched a decent amount that, you know, when if you just look at straight up the amount of muscle that someone carries, it's like a decent proxy for what their, you know, force production performance is likely to look like. But the more and more trained someone gets, the tighter and tighter, meaning the closer that relationship holds, where greater muscle cross-sectional areas, bigger and bigger muscles tend to predict better and better performances more and more accurately, the more well-trained you are because that element of like skill and coordination and stuff like that, that no longer becomes a significant differentiating variable between competitors.

40:20Dr. Austin Baraki:Like at that high level, people know how to squat super efficiently, super repeatedly. Like you and I, we don't even have to think about, you know, squatting or a cue or it just kind of happens. And so then it's just like, okay, well, how much force can you put out during this effort? And that at that very high, highly trained level, is to some extent just proportional to how much overall cross-sectional area do you have, and then moderated or mediated or augmented by some of those other variables that you don't get to choose. How far from your joints do your tendons attach and various other like little interesting, you know, biochemical minutiae like that.

40:50Dr. Austin Baraki:And so he was already quite gifted and highly trained and then jumped up, you know, 25 pounds in body weight and remains quite lean. so a large amount of that was muscle mass and muscle cross-sectional area on top of a highly trained already kind of genetically gifted uh you know athlete and so yeah his total is going to jump up a lot and i think that's a sufficient explanation for an improvement in performance at this level uh when you're highly trained and you pat and you move up a weight class more so than just like mass uh because that you know it's not to say that if he had gained you know uh 25 pounds of body fat that his that his performance would have gone up i think that that's fairly obvious to anyone here.

41:31Dr. Austin Baraki:But yeah.

41:32Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Let me play devil's advocate here a little bit. Let's say in this world, and this is speculation. So let's say that Russ moved up this weight class. It actually did not represent a significant increase in muscle mass, but instead he no longer has to cut to make the lower weight class. Previously, he was in 83 kilos. And so it's not so much that he has any more active contractile muscle tissue, but rather he does not have to go through the stress of reducing calories, losing body water. We know that hypohydration, for example, as little as 2 % can significantly compromise performance. Is this just like, oh, you don't have to cut anymore?

42:12Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Or cut as much? It's maybe just like, oh yeah, I have a protein shake for your dinner the night before rather than like, bro, I got a few weeks, I got to lose this weight, I got to sauna, whatever. Does that seem reasonable to you?

42:23Dr. Austin Baraki:It just kind of depends on how much did he have to cut before and how much did he have to cut now? I mean, if he had said, I'm going to move up and I'm going to weigh 100 kilos, and instead of weighing 90 and cut to 83, now I'm going to go up to 100 and cut to 93 or something like that, then it may end up kind of coming out on the wash a little bit at that point. I mean, also depending on the rules of where you're competing, places you and I have competed in before that allowed 24-hour weigh-ins, some other places that we even went further at 48-hour weigh-ins. I remember hearing about Dan Green doing like just some absolute gnarly cuts from, you know, 250 pounds down, like losing 30 plus pounds or something like that in his 48 hour cut, which is risky and very unpleasant, I can imagine.

43:08Dr. Austin Baraki:So under these stricter conditions, you can't afford to try to be that aggressive, but maybe a small part of it.

43:12Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:So in January of 2025 of this year at the Sheffield Powerlifting Championships, Russ weighed in at 182.6 pounds and he totaled 19.19, right? And so now July of 2025, he weighed in at 202.3 pounds and totaled 2 ,023 pounds. So I'm thinking I'm like the odds of him gaining, let's call it 10 pounds of lean body mass in this amount of time, that's actual like muscle tissue.

43:41Dr. Austin Baraki:Yep, yep.

43:41Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Highly unlikely. Agree. more likely is that he was already walking around at like 205, 210. I don't know this to be the case. I know that there's probably some internet fans that are more tied in that are like, oh, I can speak to this. You know, it seems more likely that he just didn't cut as much, just given the timing here. That's just my two cents.

44:03Dr. Austin Baraki:Yeah, that timing variable adds some important context, although I don't think he was probably cutting over 20 pounds for a two-hour weigh-in. Let's hope not. Competition. That seems insane.

44:12Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:here's here's the yeah the wildest thing about his performance and we'll move on to the third feat of strength is that so he opened his squat at 711 which is uh at that point i believe was uh like 30 or 40 pounds under his best which was like 749 so all right decent opener he misses his second attempt at 756 okay which would have been a competition pr and then instead of being like oh you got to repeat it which is normally what most powerlifting coaches would advise whatever what i would probably favor in this high stakes situation and ipf championships nah screw it i'm going 783 what dude that's incredible those decisions are uh stressful

44:51Dr. Austin Baraki:on on meet day but it also kind of depends on the reason for the you know the missed lift if you missed that second one because you know you started to go up and it was just far too heavy then yeah it's a fool's errand to try to jump up even higher but if it's a minor technical fault for example, like this isn't what happened to him. He got called on depth, I believe by the side judges, but you know, I remember doing a, doing a meet where I think I, uh, you know, re-racked the weight, like a split second too quickly or something, these kinds of silly rules that are not actually directly related to your performance of the lift, but rather kind of just other, other aspects of the competition.

45:25Dr. Austin Baraki:Then you might say, okay, like I'll just fix that. And I know I have the strength and technical ability to actually execute the next lift up. So those are kind of game day or real-time decisions that can get made by a confident, well-trained, experienced athlete and their coach who understand the reason for missing a lift. But sometimes you'll see people who absolutely struggle to grind out a weight and still call for a load increase. And it's like, well, that's not going to happen. So yeah, yeah, unfortunate.

45:49Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:All right. Third impressive feat of strength. This happened at the CrossFit Games that took place in Albany, New York this past week. Now, for the fourth time in CrossFit Games history, there was a one rep max back squat event, although this is the first time it was a standalone event. Previously, there were three CrossFit totals. That's where you do a one rep max on the squat, a one rep max on the overhead press, and a one rep max on the deadlift. Those were done in 2007, 2018, and 2020. Well, this time, they had a one rep max back squat only event. The winner of the men's division was Colton Mertens.

46:22Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:He squatted 570 pounds to win the men's division. So of the 30 men's competitors who made to the CrossFit Games finals, six of them squatted greater than 500. For comparison purposes, in 2020, when they held the CrossFit total that year, nobody squatted more than 500. 86 % of the field this year squatted 450 pounds or more, but only 30 % squatted 450 or more in 2018. Let's also talk about the women. Mirjam Von Roan won the women's division at 360 pounds for her rep max back squat. 70 % of the women's field this year squatted more than 300 pounds, or only 50 % squatted over 300 pounds in 2018. Why are CrossFit Games athletes getting so much stronger?

47:08Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:How is this happening? The CrossFit Games has been around for almost 20 years. And does this change how you would train somebody interested in competitive CrossFit?

47:16Dr. Austin Baraki:Yeah, this I watched part of this competitive event just out of interest. It was kind of cool to watch. They had, you know, each heat had, I forget how many athletes and they would just go around and they all worked, worked up in their attempts. Interestingly, I actually think that they also allowed people to go down in weight, which kind of surprised me a little bit because one athlete missed their first and went down. And I was like, hold up, you're not supposed to be allowed to do that.

47:41Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Powerlifting rules.

47:42Dr. Austin Baraki:I guess you can do whatever you want in this, in these events. But yeah, 570, 360, just incredibly impressive for athletes who can also do all the other things that they're expected to do. I don't think if you went to almost any competitive powerlifting meet, found somebody who squatted 570 or 360 and then asked them to do 150 foot handstand walk or something like that. I don't think that would go very well in the powerlifting meet hall. But at CrossFit Games, it's just like baseline expectation that you can do that, that you can run, swim, bike, do all these other things. So, yeah, they're extremely impressive athletes.

48:14Dr. Austin Baraki:I will add a similar caveat to Colton Mertens here in this one as I did to Russ Orhi in the last one. So he squatted 570. He weighs 190 pounds. He's also 5 '4". Oh, boy. So he is quite short, yes. And so I suspect that that affords him certain advantages, for example, in events like this, and puts him, I imagine, at a pretty significant disadvantage in other events. I can imagine, for example, in like the rope climbs, maybe he might not do quite as hot compared with some of his lankier compatriots in the CrossFit Games. But nonetheless, I mean, very impressive performance here, and obviously impressive to be able to qualify for the games at all.

48:54Dr. Austin Baraki:I do remember us having some conversations, I would say back closer to or during the peak days of the CrossFit Games. I think in general, anyone would recognize that the games are somewhat in decline these days compared with where they've been in prior years for a variety of decisions that we will leave aside for now. But talking about the strength standards, quote unquote, or what kind of strength levels are baseline expectations for athletes to be competitive at the games level. And I remember during those years when you were comparing, say, 2018, 2020, we were probably of the opinion of like, if you're able to squat, say, somewhere like in the mid fours, you're probably strong enough to hang with the top of the pack.

49:33Dr. Austin Baraki:And you should probably be building up a lot of your other kind of athletic traits and skills and abilities and things like that. And clearly now that is no longer the case that squatting in the mid fours. I mean, that was like the lowest end of the competitive heats when I was watching the guys. There were some other interesting just observations in terms of strategy and technique, and you could tell those who had a powerlifting background from those who didn't just in terms of their setup methods and some of the equipment that they were using. And some athletes were low-barring, and a lot of them were high-barring, and you could just kind of make some of these observations.

50:08Dr. Austin Baraki:But no doubt the overall loads have consistently and steadily increased. I suspect if you looked at a lot of other performance metrics at the games, for example, you know, maybe average, maybe their PR 5k time or their PR 2k row or their ability to swim or their, you know, longest handstand walk distance or, you know, max pull ups or something like that. Just I suspect that all of these traits are going up to some degree in parallel. I don't I don't necessarily think that, you know, they've unlocked. Oh, the secret was I just needed to get stronger compared to where I was before. So now the strength numbers are higher.

50:40Dr. Austin Baraki:I bet that the competition, not only the competition is driving these things up, but the selection of athletes is just pulling for freakier and freakier people who can do these things. So to your final point, does this change how you would train someone interested in competitive CrossFit? I'm sure that training methods have evolved over time, but I think it would be an oversimplification to say, oh, they figured out that you should just get strong. get strong. I don't think that the, these data points, for example, would say, Oh, I would really push my CrossFit athlete to build up a one rep max back squat.

51:13Dr. Austin Baraki:It's almost like these one rep max back squats are, uh, an emergent property of a freaky athlete training to do freaky things for really long periods of time, uh, with like reasonable training and programming methods, a high responder will end up being able to demonstrate this kind of thing with probably bit of practice and occasional exposure. I doubt that they're consistently and reliably training for their one rep max back squats. For example, this could have been many other different types of strength feats, um, or strength endurance feats or strength power feats. And we'd be seeing very impressive things as well.

51:45Dr. Austin Baraki:Um, even though not all of those are getting like primary attention in their training program, just because there's so many things to be good at, at this level. Yeah.

51:52Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Yeah. I agree. I don't think that there is much of a shift in how I would think about developing a CrossFit game, a person who's interested in competitive CrossFit, I agree that the people need to be strong. But I think that that is more of like a happy accident of the rest of their training, which yes, some of it is fully focused on getting stronger, predominantly in the Olympic lifts and the variations thereof, front squat, for example, push press, things of that nature. But as far as actually like a, what would look like a powerlifting training block for strength, I don't think that's what would be advised based on this information.

52:26Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:And further, just to throw a little wrinkle here, I look at the top three men competitors. Jason Hopper won overall. He squatted 500. Ricky Garrard, Garrard got second. He squatted 455. And James Sprague got third. He squatted 465 for the 1RM. And so I'm kind of of the opinion that these people are able to not only develop but also sustain a high level of absolute strength, relatively high level of absolute strength, despite a very high training volume that also allows them to have excellent gymnastic skills excellent olympic weight lift olympic weightlifting performance great endurance performance and running cycling whatever all that sort of stuff and yeah because they're due exposed to the barbell enough they're also able to develop and sustain a high level of strength but i don't i wouldn't be programming you know a lot of singles for example on the back squat i don't know that i would train the bench press very often at all i i do think some exposure is probably reasonable just for like upper body strength development but like not like a power lifter you know yeah i think that

53:29Dr. Austin Baraki:uh this is again not going to apply to most of the listening audience here because they're not freaks on this level um but it's almost like like you for that thank you yeah yeah but it's almost like the people these people who are placing at the games or who are just very highly competitive in this sport. It's almost like who is bestowed with the genetic gifts to A, tolerate the amount of training that needs to be done, and B, who has the most resistance to the interference effect. So when we talk to our general population listeners, we're like, hey, don't sweat this interference issue. You can do your strength and conditioning.

54:10Dr. Austin Baraki:You can do them on the same day. you and I both do a lot of like, you know, same day strength and conditioning, all that kind of stuff. I think that when you're training three plus times a day, doing all these different tasks, doing short stuff, fast stuff, heavy stuff, endurance effort, like there is a point where things undoubtedly interfere. And so it's almost like, uh, who is most, uh, resistant to the interference effect while also being able to tolerate the greatest training loads. And you wonder if that's sort of like, if you could distill that down into a metric, that would be like maybe predictive of somebody who is a very high performer in the crossfit games now you just

54:44Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:got to measure their fingers and see what the second to third digit ratio is that's how you know yeah it's a little inside joke all right moving on to the national football league i don't know if you heard about this but the nfl banned smelling salts kind of the nfl has banned teams from providing smelling salts to players due to safety concerns citing that they're unsafe and they're used to mask concussions. This comes from an FDA memo saying that, quote, adverse side effects of using unapproved ammonia inhalants, including shortness of breath, seizures, migraines, vomiting, diarrhea, and fainting from consumers after using these types of products, possibly purchased through various websites.

55:26Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:The players are allowed to bring and use their own ammonia inhalants, however. Other sports have done this too. Hockey Quebec, a branch of Hockey Canada that overseas amateur hockey in the province. They banned smelling salts in February, citing concern about their use by youth players. Just a little background here before I get you to weigh in on this. Ammonia inhalants, or quote, smelling salts, are where any number of preparations containing ammonium carbonate are combined with liquid, and these are widely available on the internet. Smelling salts are typically combinations of this ammonium carbonate, alcohol, and water, and a more accurate term for this mixture is actually aromatic spirits of ammonia.

56:05Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:But nobody calls them that. They call them inhalants. That sounds lovely. Yes, right. Historically, smelling salts were used to prevent and sometimes treat fainting, dizziness, and lightheadedness. Some older medical texts dating back to the 19th century described using smelling salts to, quote, excite respiration to resuscitate a patient. They're said to work by this sort of inhalation reflex being an irritant to the nose and the lungs and thereby increasing blood flow to the brain, increasing heart rate. And together, this resulting physiology is said to increase alertness and potentially performance.

56:39Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Now, there have been a number of studies on this. I reviewed this in a previous podcast. Basically shows no effect on performance, perhaps worsening performance in some applications like golf. There was a whole thing where people would use these ammonia inhalants prior to a putt, and they were generally worse at putting that way. As far as safety goes, there have been at least two case reports of smelling salt-related complications. In one, a female powerlifter had an allergic reaction after using an ammonia inhalant, and she required swift medical attention, but ultimately all of her symptoms resolved.

57:09Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:In another instance, a 14-year-old boy collapsed during a running drill. He was administered an ammonia inhalant repeatedly before being transferred to a hospital where he subsequently passed away. It was later found out that the boy had sickle cell trait, which was thought to be exacerbated by repeated ammonia inhalant administration. So the question to you, Dr. Baraki, is this ban beneficial? Is it even necessary?

57:33Dr. Austin Baraki:Tough question. This is interesting that they have gone this far here. I'm curious, you know, they talk about concerns around the websites where athletes are getting these things from, but then allowing players to bring their own. So I found that to be a little bit of an odd wrinkle here. Like if you were primarily concerned about these supposed side effects, which I am retained some skepticism that all of them are causally related to the use of the ammonia inhalant. Um, why are they still letting athletes bring and use their own unless it's just like, we don't want to be involved or related to like any sort of risk here.

58:10Dr. Austin Baraki:We want to be kind of CYA. So like players, you can do your own thing and we're not responsible for what happens to you. Um, but I wonder, you know, in some of these situations, the idea that the ammonia inhalant is causing some of those symptoms, um, And it feels like a bit of a stretch for some of the things. It almost makes me wonder, like, what is the reason that they're using it for some apparent, like, resuscitative event to, like, you know, make somebody feel better or wake up or something like that? And then are these potential side effects, like, actually effects of whatever caused that thing in the first place rather than a result of the ammonia inhalant capsule itself?

58:46Dr. Austin Baraki:This is something that I will admittedly say that I've not spent a great deal of time investigating, like, what are the potential toxicities of these things? But again, my threshold of skepticism here is, I would say, relatively high in that these are things that are commonly used in the competitive powerlifting context. Both you and I have experience using these things. And it's interesting thinking back about the rationale around their use, what you described about exciting respiration or accelerating resuscitation or improving performance. And when you're using them, all of those things feel true.

59:21Dr. Austin Baraki:And I think that that's where a lot of that came from. It's just like a vibes-based justification for use. And then when it was studied a little bit more rigorously, it's like, oh, it turns out it doesn't really do any of those things, even though it feels like it wakes you up and makes you focused and things like that. But that doesn't seem to pan out with more rigorous study. So I would want to see more rigorous evidence in the same way that we wanted rigorous evidence of efficacy. We would want to see more rigorous evidence to support the idea that it can cause any of these adverse events. I don't necessarily have a problem with any sporting organization setting its own rules and saying, hey, we're not going to promote the use of these things.

59:58Dr. Austin Baraki:Certainly in the context of TBI or traumatic brain injuries and concussion in the NFL, that's a big issue for sure. And ammonia is not a treatment for concussion or traumatic brain injury. So I'm fine with that not being recommended for use in that context. But I don't want to blow things out of proportion and attribute negative effects or consequences to these things that aren't actually caused by them.

1:00:20Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Yeah, I have two kind of points here. Point number one is that I do favor your rationale that this is like a CYA type thing. Like, look, if the teams are purchasing these inhalants and distributing them, well, they're on some level responsible for verifying, hey, these are good inhalants compared to potentially harmful ones. And when I look at the FDA memo, they have a handful of like manufacturers listed like, hey, don't buy these ones. And it's unclear why other than people have reported adverse effects from using them. And it's like, well, were they using them, quote, incorrectly or like overzealously or like whatever?

1:00:58Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:I did have to laugh. One of the names of the labs is called Spirochete Research Labs. That's oddly specific and unrelated to ammonia inhalants. If you don't know what a Spirochete is, maybe Google that. You really want to get your treponema polypollidium knowledge base up. you want to learn about some some syphilis lyme disease leptospirosis different types of

1:01:24Dr. Austin Baraki:infections caused by these bacteria yeah not clearly related to this issue but yeah maybe

1:01:28Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:maybe just a good general rule of thumb is don't buy supplements or like these these you know things from people with weird potentially dumb names like insane labs or spirochete research maybe just don't also there's a company listed on here called nose slap and soul slap which yeah That's just a good rule of thumb, I think, generally speaking. But I'm unclear as to like did they identify a particular ingredient that was responsible because it can't just be ammonia. Given the fact that when looking for case reports on adverse effects in sport, I only was able to find two papers. And the last one was over 20 years ago.

1:02:06Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:And so I'm like if this was – if there were bodies or adverse effects that were happening in overwhelming amounts, I would expect more case reports. So this is kind of curious on that.

1:02:16Dr. Austin Baraki:Yeah, I mean, both you and I have been at powerlifting meets where by the end of the day, like the ground is just littered with the little pink capsules after they've been cracked and used before lifters attempts. Some people that we know from the past would even use them routinely in training, like before most of their work sets. It's like just statistically, this is going to take you out at some point if they were as risky as it might be suggested here. So I'm curious about contaminants or confounding by, you know, what's the reason you passed out and needed a felt like you needed a smelling salt afterwards rather than smelling salt causing it.

1:02:48Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:My only other feedback here has to do with maybe the impact of sports on society. So just imagine if there's just a plethora of NFL players using these things or just athletes, generally speaking, that are highly visible and then kids or otherwise highly influential, influenceable populations see this and then they go and buy this stuff and use them. Perhaps not as intended or whatever. And then, yeah, there's some unwanted effects there. That seems – it's kind of like chewing tobacco in baseball. It's like, yeah, OK, kids see this. And there's even like a gum, big league chew. And it's like, does this maybe we should think about this a little a little harder.

1:03:28Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:I don't want to be like a nanny about this sort of stuff. But, yeah, these effects, you know, potentially real.

1:03:33Dr. Austin Baraki:Yeah, I'm with you.

1:03:34Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:All right. Last topic here on the third episode of the rundown. Can't not talk about it. RFK Jr. in the news again. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the HHS, plans to cancel 500 million dollars in funding for mRNA vaccines being developed to counter viruses. that cause diseases such as the flu and COVID-19. This will impact at least 22 projects being led by major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and Moderna, for vaccines against bird flu and other viruses, in addition to vaccines for certain types of cancer. That's been an emerging area of research for mRNA-related vaccines.

1:04:10Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Longtime critic RFK Jr. said in a video he posted on X, formerly Twitter, this week, he said that mRNA vaccines do not adequately prevent upper respiratory infections such as COVID-19 and the flu. He also announced that he was pulling the funding over the claims that mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses. Children's Health Defense, this is an organization that RFK Jr. founded. Well, their president, Mary Holland, not a doctor, said that while we believe that mRNA vaccines should be taken off the market, the announcement is a positive move towards protecting public health.

1:04:49Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Oh, boy. Austin, any initial thoughts? to this?

1:04:54Dr. Austin Baraki:Yeah, I mean, I think that we've watched the discourse around this topic and many others play out for the past five years or so. And it's been a challenging discourse to follow, frustrating in many ways. I think that, you know, the conversation around them from the beginning has been flawed. The communication around these types of immunizations, as well as many others, to the general public has been flawed. And I think that even a lot of public health folks and healthcare professionals would recognize that that communication could have been improved. I don't think that either of us would be on board with the idea that these products or the technology, broadly speaking, poses more risk than benefit.

1:05:44Dr. Austin Baraki:I think that they are products that were rapidly developed on a background of research going back a few decades. They were tested on tens of thousands in randomized trial, placebo-controlled trial fashion early during the pandemic, allowing for pretty rapid deployment at about a year out. And in the aftermath, looking back retrospectively, we can see differential efficacy, meaning more or less effectiveness, both over time, which is common with many different sorts of vaccines and immunizations, as well as differences between patient groups. So for those who were at highest risk of severe disease and hospitalization and death, I think that the benefits of these products tended to outweigh the risks.

1:06:36Dr. Austin Baraki:And then for very, very low risk individuals, that calculus may have been different on an individual level for that person. And again, that's even a different conversation than like on a society level, big picture of the whole like herd immunity concept. And those are detailed conversations that I would say are a little beyond our scope here today. But basically, this is to say that I think he's probably painting with too broad of a brush in his comments that there are potential uses for this technology that deserve study. The next question, though, is whether or to what extent that research study development ought to be promoted by, funded by the federal government and taxpayer dollars.

1:07:19Dr. Austin Baraki:And so that is more of a policy decision than anything else. And that can be set by elected and appointed officials based on the results of our electoral system. And so I don't think that this technology is going to go away. I think that by removing this funding, Some people might say, well, say goodbye to your cure for cancer or something, not to say anything about the idea of curing cancer as a monolith is not a thing. But if there is a curable cancer by way of one of these mRNA vaccines, I don't think that pulling this funding is the thing that's going to completely eliminate that possibility.

1:08:00Dr. Austin Baraki:It may alter the timeline on which we might see something like that. It might have been otherwise sooner with federal support, and it might be more delayed. But I think that ultimately this research and development is just going to shift elsewhere. And that might mean even outside of our country. And it might be spearheaded and led by other countries, and they might end up enjoying the benefits of it. Or if it ends up being a failure for a particular condition or outcome, then they would suffer the failures of it. That's part of the reason why going back decades, the federal government has funded and supported all sorts of research in the country.

1:08:36Dr. Austin Baraki:It is research that may not be immediately commercially beneficial to incentivize a private company to go after it. And it kind of takes on some amount of that risk to kind of get the ball rolling. And of course, not all projects are going to work out or all research studies are going to lead to some breakthrough discovery. but to give a different example of like the federal government originally funding like a study on the saliva of gila monster venom from like decades ago right and you can see i can just imagine that getting posted like rage bait on twitter or social media saying can you believe the government is funding us studying the saliva of lizards or something it's like yeah well you know fast forward 20 years and that's what led to glp1 agonists that's how we discovered all of that which are like changing the world in all sorts of generally positive ways, I think that both you and I would say.

1:09:29Dr. Austin Baraki:So this is admittedly a bit of a meandering answer of a variety of my thoughts on this topic. I think that there is a role for federal funding of research. I think that as the elected and appointed group of folks, they are able to make these kind of policy decisions. I don't think that if their goal is to shut down this kind of research and development for good, that this is going to do that. It's just going to shift elsewhere, I think. And that might be to other people's benefit, potentially. And again, it'll just alter a lot of timelines for these things compared with the federal support that was previously planned and being given.

1:10:05Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Yeah, I think it's well said regarding the policy aspect of this. Like, if someone is of the opinion that research, as it's currently done, should be supported by the government, whether in our country or other countries, then it's like, Like, OK, well, this in effect would stymie and certainly slow down research related to mRNA-related therapeutics. If somebody is more of the opinion, well, this should be privatized. It should be done by the potential manufacturers commercially and so on and so forth. Well, then you're like, great. The government now just saved some money. I – where I fall on that is like I don't see that being a viable way to support research in our country as it currently is.

1:10:51Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:It's just too expensive. There's not enough privatized funding, and then, oh, by the way, when that research comes out, the first thing people say is like, oh, look who funded it. It's like, well, damned if you do, damned if you don't from that perspective. That's my first issue. They're like, look, it's a policy thing. People elected these folks. So I guess I understand, but I'm very curious as to what the reaction is going to be within the research world and how this – does this set us back? We'll only be able to tell some years from now. I suspect it's not a good move for the health trajectory of the community, but that's speculative.

1:11:24Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:So I'm being charitable here, but there you go. My bigger issue here is that we've granted this particular individual a large platform to speak from, right? The Department of Health and Human Services director. And then he says, well, mRNA technology, not just vaccines for COVID, but mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for respiratory viruses at large, like bird flu, influenza, COVID, et cetera. There's way more than just those three, right? Right. Sowing doubt and distrust in the public already was like probably feeling, man, the communication during COVID was not great. And there's a lot of stuff up in the air and, you know, the Internet being what it is.

1:12:04Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Yeah, that's challenging. And then also saying, hey, they didn't work, by the way. It's like, well, it'd be very challenging to support that with existing evidence. Did it work exactly as advertised or understood by many? Well, no, but that's a communication issue, not like an efficacy problem, broadly speaking. So I'll told him, like, look, if he would have said, look, we're cutting funding because we want to direct it towards this other thing that we think is more promising, we wouldn't be talking about it right now. But to come out and say we're cutting funding, we think these mRNA-based technology was generally bad and more risky than beneficial.

1:12:44Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:It's like if we have another pandemic that requires the use or benefit from the use of mRNA technology, we're kind of pickled. I was listening to an interview with one of the former directors and health advisors for like seven previous presidencies, right? And he's like, look, I've lived through a number of different vaccines or pandemics that have required some sort of vaccine development or whatever. And so with our existing technology unrelated to mRNA, the best we could do if we already had the technology, already had the genome, could do whatever with it, knew what we were fighting, we could maybe make enough vaccines for a quarter of the population in 15, 18 months.

1:13:24Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:With mRNA technology, we could develop a vaccine for a pandemic in 12 months for everyone. And he's like, so let's hope we don't have another pandemic. So, yeah, challenging. Challenging to understand the rationale here.

1:13:39Dr. Austin Baraki:Yeah, and as someone who was working in inpatient hospital units during the worst of those times and seeing a lot of folks, mostly, yes, mostly middle-aged and older folks getting very ill and many of them dying. also seeing the occasional unlucky young person who got very sick, potentially very ill, and a couple who even did die during that time. The idea that there are potential strategies that we have to shift that probability of risk, right, which is if we can communicate that more effectively, not that these things have the potential to abolish any chance that you will ever get an infection or that you will ever get sick again, which is where misconceptions came from, right?

1:14:22Dr. Austin Baraki:But instead, if you were somebody who would have otherwise died, maybe now you don't die. If you were someone who otherwise would have been hospitalized, maybe you don't get hospitalized. If you were otherwise going to get very ill, maybe now you only get mildly ill. And if you were going to get mildly ill, maybe you have an asymptomatic infection. Just like shifting that probability curve is what these types of tools can do for us. communicating that concept more effectively, I think can help people make a little bit more informed decisions based on their baseline risk profile, and, you know, their health and wellness goals and things like that moving forward.

1:14:55Dr. Austin Baraki:There were plenty of people who declined, you know, immunization for various reasons, personal, religious, whatever preferences, etc. And many of them, of course, did okay, especially if they were at low baseline risk. Some of them didn't do okay. And I sat face to face with some of those people in their literal dying moments when they said, well, I didn't want to take it because I was worried about the side effect. And I can't say that it would have saved their life, but it would have probably given them a better shot than they had otherwise. And so that's like the, I think it's useful to recognize the background of experience that I come at this question with is working and operating in that situation.

1:15:32Dr. Austin Baraki:And so as a potential tool to mitigate those types of bad things from happening, you know, pulling the funding is something that is just, I'm saying it's just likely to set it back, whether it's ultimately good or bad. I think it's, that's too reductive of a question, right? These tools are more useful for some than others. Maybe it shifts in a way and the timelines shift and, you know, 50 years from now, maybe it all ends up coming out in the wash somehow. It's just like the future, you know, is not something that any of us have any great deal of insight into on this matter, but that's kind of where we stand today.

1:16:06Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:Yeah. Yeah, agreed. All right. Well, that is a wrap here on the third episode of The Rundown here on the Barbell Medicine Podcast. Before we go, just a quick plug for our Barbell Medicine Plus subscription. If you want to listen to these podcasts ad-free, if you want discounts and early access to our new products and services, extended template samples, early access to articles, transcripts, consider signing up for Barbell Medicine Plus about the cost of a cup of coffee for us every month. The first month is free. You can check that out in the link in the description below. But before you guys go anywhere, please leave us a five-star rating and a review.

1:16:37Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum:It really helps drive traffic to our podcast so we can keep bringing you all the latest nuance in health and fitness. Special shout out to Dr. Austin Baraki for joining us on the podcast. We'll catch you next week and every week right here on the Barbell Medicine Podcast.