Training principles for mass and strength, changing views on nutrition, creatine supplementation, and more | Layne Norton, Ph.D.

A lot of people will get pretty bad GI irritation with loading creatine in terms of GI bloating, nausea, those sorts of things ... You're talking about getting the results you want in 1 week as opposed to 3 weeks. It's really not a big difference.

People ask me about timing of creatine, those sorts of things. There's some really small, really tenuous—I really want to emphasize that—evidence that perhaps after a workout might be better than before workout. But I tell people, just take it whenever you'll take it regularly.

If we were to talk about how much of a hazard ratio do these bring to you in terms of all-cause mortality ... Hypertension is about 20%. Type 2 diabetes is about a 30% increase in mortality. Smoking is a 50% increase. Being weak relative to being strong is about 250%. Having a very low VO2 max—in the bottom 25% of the population versus being in the top 2.5%— of the population is about 400%.

We know you don't have to train to failure to grow muscle. In fact, it may actually be a little bit counterproductive just in terms of the fatigue that it causes relative to the stimulus. We know that for most movements you get most of the hypertrophy and strength benefits going within a few reps of failure ... If you've never actually taken something to failure, like true failure, people are really bad at estimating it.

There's also been some people who have said, 'Well, creatine can cause hair loss, and you've got to be careful about that.' I don't think the data on that's very compelling at all. There was a single study that showed an increase in DHT from supplementing with creatine—one study, 2009, I've never seen it replicated, never seen any follow-up.

I think people kind of just equated supplements with steroids. 'Well, you're supposed to cycle steroids, so we should cycle supplements.' And creatine is not hormonal. It's not the same biofeedback loop. So, I would say there's probably no reason to cycle it.

There's some interesting data that suggests that you don't have to get as close to failure on compound lifts to still get the same stimulation compared to isolation exercises where you do seem to have to get much closer to failure to get those benefits.

One of the main benefits of testosterone is the increase in satellite cell number that you get, which is going to increase your potential for increasing muscle mass.

So, do we have a 10-year randomized, control trial of giving people enough fiber versus not enough fiber? ... No, and we'll never have that. But do I feel very comfortable saying that I think fiber helps reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer based on the data we have? Oh, yeah, I feel very comfortable saying that.

When I would get nervous playing baseball, I would try to calm myself down. Like, why can't I feel normal? Why don't I feel relaxed? And now when I feel those nerves start to kick in, I just tell myself, this is a good thing. This is a good thing. This is your body getting you ready? This is you being ready to go.

With the way pain works, the more pain you have, the more pain you're going to have—because you just end up getting fixated and ruminating on it. And the research actually shows that the more you ruminate on it, the more you think about it, and the more times you trigger it, the worse it's going to get.

When you break people down into quartiles or quintiles of fitness and strength... the biggest improvement in mortality always comes from being in the bottom quintile or quartile to the next one ... You're going to achieve the most benefit when you go from being in the lowest 20% of the population to the second 20th percentile of population.

What you should look for in an expert is the exact opposite of what you probably think you should look for. If somebody sounds really confident, they're probably not an expert. What you really want to look for is people who sound kind of doubtful.

If you modulate LDL, so even at high HDL or low HDL, in both stratifications, lower LDL is almost always better for cardiovascular disease and mortality.

Honestly, people are going to laugh and be judgmental. I love popcorn. So, popcorn actually, is pretty darn high fiber.

The best thing you can do for bone density is lift weight.