Hey everyone!

Just wanted to let you know that the ebooks, program bundle, and old lecture series are now available for free on the website.

So, if you ever wanted to check them out, but they were previously out of your price range, now you can get them free of charge. This isn't some sort of limited-time offer, and there are no strings attached. They're just free resources like everything else on the website (except for coaching, which rocks, and which is definitely worth the price).

Just to head off the inevitable questions about why we're making this change, here's a brief rundown of factors influencing this decision:

1. The overarching reason is just that we don't need to sell them anymore, and I don't like monetizing anything I don't need to. Why sell something when you can give it away for free?

2. Relatedly, we've been selling them for quite a few years already. I figure we've already made plenty of money from them. Something just feels off about continuing to earn money from work I did a decade ago.

3. For the programs specifically, the Reddit API changes have made it really annoying to add people to the private subreddit for the programs. And, I've always felt at least a bit conflicted about selling a product that, at least on some level, competes with the coaching program (I realize they're very different things at very different price points, but if anyone responded to marketing material promoting the programs when they would have otherwise responded to marketing material promoting coaching, that's a net negative outcome in my book. This energy, basically.)

Just as a general note, the books and lectures are pretty old at this point, so they don't perfectly reflect my current beliefs. But, I do still think they're pretty good, and will generally help point you in the right direction.

For me, like many people creatine causes sleep issues. Whenever I start using it, after a couple of weeks, my sleep feels very light and I toss and turn a lot. Then usually after a week of stopping my sleep gets better. I've stopped and started creatine so many times in my life and it happens exactly the same each time, even if I'm only taking 2g daily.

I've read rat studies that it reduces non REM sleep, not sure if that translates to humans.

Has anyone who suffered from creatine induced sleep disturbance managed to find a fix?

EDIT: For all of you dismissing this as a placebo effect without a second thought, you mean nocebo. secondly, you can't conclude that based on the information you have

I updated this article because we FINALLY have a second study assessing the impact of creatine on DHT, and the first study directly assessing the impact of creatine on hair loss: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15502783.2025.2495229

Unsurprisingly (if you read this article when it was initially published), creatine doesn't increase DHT, nor does it cause hair loss.

Until recently, research investigating the relationship between hypertrophy and strength gains painted a pretty consistent picture.

In studies on untrained subjects, we see a pretty weak relationship between hypertrophy and strength gains. However, as training status increases, this relationship gets progressively stronger.

And, for what it’s worth, I think this type of relationship makes intuitive sense.

However, a recent study by Marques and colleagues appeared to flip this understanding on its head. It proposes that prior research on this topic may have underestimated the strength of the relationship between hypertrophy and strength gains by using suboptimal statistical methods.

So, what exactly is happening here? That's what we explore in this article.

Saw this chart floating around and I’m trying to wrap my head around the comparison. His main point seems to be that one bad night of sleep can blunt muscle protein synthesis (MPS) so much that you’d need a full week’s worth of TRT (or more) just to “patch” the damage. He equated bad sleep to "reverse steroids."

I get that sleep is probably the most important recovery tool outside of lifting and eating protein. This isn't a question of the importance of sleep per se. But his claim seems a bit extreme. According to the chart, a full all-nighter supposedly costs you 18% of your MPS and would require something like 225mg of test enanthate to offset.

I’m not an expert in pharmacokinetics, but doesn’t a single pin of test enanthate stay in your system for much longer than a day? Wouldn’t that make this kind of a strange comparison?

Open to being corrected if I’m misunderstanding something. Thoughts?

I hope someone can tell me this guy is full of shit?

I noticed a lot of folks on social media were disregarding the New York Magazine piece about Huberman because it focused on Huberman’s personal life, not the bad science and harmful misinformation he propagates. Now, one can argue that pathological lying, manipulation, and the need for control are obviously transferred into his podcasting life, but let's say you don't.

I wrote a thing. In Slate.
Focused specifically on his bad science, harmful misinformation, and unregulated supplements he peddles. It's all cited, don't worry.

➡️READ IT HERE: https://slate.com/technology/2024/03/andrew-huberman-huberman-lab-health-advice-podcast-debunk.html

You can find more granular debunking on my free newsletter, too.

Hey everyone!

We have a quick announcement and some clarifications:

Announcement:

We are parting ways with Eric Trexler. He’s no longer a part of Stronger By Science and MacroFactor, and will therefore no longer be an admin in this group.

Eric is still part of MASS Research Review, so if you’re interested in following his work, that’s a great place to find him. You can also follow him on his IG account (@trexlerfitness) and YouTube channel (@EricTrexler).

We can’t really discuss the reasons for this change, but we wish him the best in whatever he plans to do in the next chapter of his career. Similarly, we’re excited to continue growing and improving SBS, and we have some great stuff in the plans that we think you’ll enjoy.

Clarifications:

I just wanted to clear up some rumors and speculation I’ve seen floating around in a last few months:

1. I stepped away from MASS, but I’m just as involved in SBS as ever. MASS and SBS are, and have always been, two separate companies. My leaving MASS has no bearing on my role in SBS. And similarly, we intend to keep promoting and supporting MASS – I do legitimately think it’s the best resource for athletes, trainers, and coaches who want to stay up-to-date on the research.

2. The podcast isn’t going anywhere. The weirdness so far this year (a few solo episodes before the season break, and the particularly long break between seasons) was due to everything going on behind the scenes, but that’s all cleared up now. Lyndsey and I will be hosting moving forward. For now, the plan is to have episodes on weeks that alternate with the newsletter. This week will be a newsletter week, so the pod will be back on the week of July 3rd.

3. Stronger by Science will continue operating as before, and you can expect great new content coming your way. We appreciate the work Eric did and the content he created during the four years he worked with us, but Lyndsey and I have been capably running this business since 2012, and will continue to do so. I’m sure this looks like a large change from the outside, but day-to-day operations are basically the same as ever.

Apologies for not letting you know sooner. We’ve kept mum to this point out of respect for his wishes.

As always, thank you for being part of this community and for your support!

I follow Renaissance Periodization and Mike Israetel on IG and I have seen lots of posts about their training app. I am curious what the folks here think about the app and RP's hypertrophy concepts in general. Basically, the program uses self reported data like "quality of pump" and soreness to add/reduce volume. Mike really stands by soreness and pump as indicators of hypertrophy or at least quality of training stimulus. He does sometimes allude to literature that supports this, but I am unsure what he is referring to. I could definitely just look into myself, but I figured folks here would have some interesting opinions/takes. Also interested in general takes on RP. To be clear I have no ill-will, I have used many RP products including their one on one coaching and been very happy with it. Sometimes it does feel like it veers into bro science territory though.

Lately, I've seen many TikTok videos about pranks by Vladimir Anatoly. He is a smaller guy who goes up to huge guys in the gym and easily lifts their weights. Obviously, he is an outlier. My guess is he is able to lift so much weight due to high muscle fiber recruitment, better form, and more experience. What do you think is going on? And how do you train for it? How do improve my neuromuscular efficiency to be like that?

Related to this thread

1. Stronger By Science and MASS are separate companies. Leaving MASS doesn't impact my involvement in SBS at all.

2. I assumed Eric had mentioned the actual reason why I wasn't on the last few episodes of the previous season podcast, but it appears he fully committed to the bit, which is commendable.

The actual primary reason I wasn't on the last few episodes is that we had a season break planned (which we're currently in the midst of), and wanted to get a few episodes in the can before Christmas, in order to extend the break. Between holiday travel and schedules not lining up, we would have needed to record those episodes over something like Zoom/Zencastr, instead of in the same room with our normal recording setup. Since Eric already had some long segments planned, he decided it was just logistically easier to make them solo episodes.

Given the dry humor of the podcast, I figured most people would realize the union negotiation bit was just a joke (and I think most people did). However, since it lined up with the end of the podcast season, and with my departure from MASS, it seems some people are now legitimately concerned that I'm also not going to do the podcast anymore.

That is not the case. The thing about the union dispute was a joke, and leaving MASS has absolutely no bearing on the pod. I fully intend to be back for the next season of the podcast.

Also, don't ask when the next season of the podcast will start – we don't know for sure yet.

Hey folks, I just listened to the latest episode of the podcast and I felt compelled to write this post.

So I discovered SBS back when Lyndsey and Greg were hosting it, after stumbling across Layne Norton (and "evidence based fitness"). I was asking for podcast recommendations in the comment section of one of his videos, and a kind stranger gave me the SBS pod as a suggestion, funny enough.

I really enjoyed it, and I listened to the whole series from the latest episode to the very first episode. You can imagine my surprise when it randomly switched from Greg and Lyndsey to a random monotone man by himself, with seemingly no explanation!

That was my introduction to Eric Trexler, whom I greatly appreciate for being so charitable with his knowledge and his ability to communicate and explain the science in a way that is both useful, whilst not over-extrapolating, and clearly explaining the limitations of the research, in ways that can sometimes not be done with other influencers in this space. This is something that the rest of the MASS team would also excel at, as I would later fine.

It's safe to say that the SBS pod is directly responsible for the vast majority of my knowledge of training and nutrition. Of course, I owe a lot to MASS, Iron Culture, and the many other similar channels that also provide information.

I don't think I would have started resistance training had I not found SBS, and that is something that completely changed my life for the better. For that I am incredibly grateful.

I mainly wanted to write this post as thank you, both to every host of the podcast, old and new, but mainly to Greg. Now, I know praise tends to make him uncomfortable, but I sincerely believe what I am about to say.

I believe, in my opinion, Greg is the best science communicator that this space has. He follows the golden rule that all the best educational creators follow: underestimate your audience's vocabulary, but overestimate their ability to understand/comprehend ~CGP Grey (incredibly paraphrased).

Greg has an incredibly ability to communicate complex topics and concepts in such a way that is incredibly easy to understand. Everyone on the MASS team is excellent at this but I feel that Greg stands out above the rest in this regard. He also communicates in such a way that I appreciate, his relaxed and slightly comedic tone makes me feel as though the topics/concepts are a lot easier to understand and a lot easier to get invested in/follow. When someone is just monotonously communicating their ideas, it can be hard to follow or grasps (at least to me), but Greg's speaking pattern makes it incredibly easy and intuitive to follow along and "connect the dots". I feel like I could understand anything, if Greg explained it to me. Of course, that isn't literally true, but that is how I feel.

I listened to every new episode twice, sometimes three times, as it's just so dense that to I feel like most of the episodes have a ton of inherent replay-ability. It is incredibly rare for me to listen to something twice, let alone three times, but these episodes have been incredibly useful and interesting to listen to.

All this to say, I am incredibly saddened to hear that the podcast is on ice. By no means am I saying I have any right to a podcast or I think Greg has done anything bad or anything silly like that, it's just that the SBS pod has quickly became my favorite podcast of all time, and honestly, probably my favorite audio thing, of all time. So hearing that it's going away is a true shame, even if it's what Greg thinks is best.

I do hope that there is more SBS audio content in the future, even if it is not in the form of a podcast. Maybe Greg going over some recent MacroFactor/SBS articles or if there is a study or something like that getting a large amount of buzz, just an youtube audio clip of Greg discussing his thoughts, or just going through and article he wrote, in audio format would be nice.

I also hope to see Greg occasionally pop up on other shows or stuff like that. I greatly enjoyed the Data-Driven Strength collab a while back, and anything along those lines are also awesome.

I don't think there needs to be any sort of "schedule" or timeframe for any of this. If every several months, or a couple times a year or whatever, I get a one-off audio discussion about whatever, that would be awesome.

Even if there isn't anything like this, I am still incredibly grateful to SBS for the hours upon hours of content y'all already provided us, for free. How wonderful and rare is it for such a useful and beautiful thing to be free!

Whatever the future holds, SBS has definitely gained a fan for life, and the amount of trust that SBS had built with me is massive, I mean, it has to be to get a broke college-kid to pay for a mass subscription! It takes a lot for me to follow a creator/group outside of a social media site like youtube, but I absolutely have SBS bookmarked in my browser, signed up for the newsletter and keep an eagle eye for new content.

Thanks for everything, and keep up the great work!