Iron Culture presented by MASS

The MASScast Iron Culture episodes are back! Today Dr. Eric Trexler joins us to answer the murky question: "What is an evidence-based guideline for a minimum dietary fat intake?" It's easy to find guidelines and minimums for various circumstances and goals for protein, and while there is some debate, the same could be said for carbohydrate. However, a minimum intake for fat has been elusive. Fortu...

Dr. Andy Galpin, world leading muscle fiber researcher, is back on Iron Culture! Dr. Galpin is not only a researcher, but a sports scientist and coach working with some of the most prominent elite athletes in the world, and an excellent science communicator. So, it was a privilege to have him on to talk Muscle fiber typing; because everyone talks about it, but very few people get it right when the...

Laurin Conlin is back on Iron Culture after a long hiatus! For those who missed her first appearance, Laurin Conlin, MS is a coach and high-level competitor, having competed as an IFBB Pro Bikini athlete from 2014-2018. She recently visited Eric before they flew to Melbourne to present at the annual Ultimate Evidence Based Conference at JPS Health & Fitness. In her and Eric's conversations in and...

Last week we dropped the bombshell that we were going to have the opportunity to interview icon and 8x Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman, this week, we recap how it went. This episode was recorded while we were still in Texas, after returning to Austin following our road trip to the original Metroflex in Arlington. We not only got to interview Ronnie while there but also Brian Dobson, the founder of Metr...

Yup, it's confirmed. We're going to interview living legend, 8-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman at the one and only Metroflex in Arlington Texas, in person, along with its founder Brian Dobson, and long-time training partner of The King, Big J. This is huge news and a big part of our Iron Culture documentary filming in Texas. Eric, Omar, and Conor recorded this episode just days before heading to M...

With both hosts traveling to Texas, this is one of the rare weeks in which you get only Eric. Even more tragic (or perhaps a relief), you only get him for 10 minutes. But, it's an exciting 10 minutes as you'll learn exactly why the duo is headed to Texas: to from the holy hunk trinity by meeting up with Dr. Conor Heffernan for the second filming location of the Iron Culture Documentary. We'll be t...

In this MASScast episode Dr. Helms shares his recent experience cutting down to and competing in the 83kg category - a weight class lower than his typical - in the midst of his bodybuilding contest prep, and how he maintained the vast majority of strength from the start to the finish of this process. Then, he does a deep dive on the topic of muscle fiber-type specific hypertrophy, with a focus on...

We are joined by Panagiotis "Pana" Tarinidis, the now two-time 66kg IPF unequipped World Champion fresh off his win at the 2023 world championships in Malta. His story is one of redemption, as despite winning Worlds in 2021, he placed 5th at Worlds last year, and bombed out of the European Championship in November. But more importantly, we learn what fuels Pana, his connection with his father, wha...

In this MASScast episode, we're joined not only by MASScast fellow host Dr. Mike Zourdos but also Ph. D. candidate Zac Robinson of Data Driven Strength, both of whom are co-authors on a pre-print that is making a lot of waves in the evidence-based community. Their series of meta-regressions has shown that perhaps the impact of failure is more substantial than previously believed, at least for hype...

With Eric freshly back from coaching and commentating (how dare he) at IPF Classic Worlds 2023 - the largest, most competitive worlds to date - it only makes sense for a recap and discussion regarding the state of powerlifting. How have things changed after the recent Sheffield? Are the champions of today different than the champions of the past? How are things like judging changing with the adven...

Let's face it, going to school isn't cheap. Moreso, you can learn almost anything online that you can learn in school. So is it worth it? How about for personal trainers? If it is worth it, for who and when? We're joined on MASScast 3 by Lauren Colenso-Semple who is nearly finished with her PhD. Not only does she share her valuable perspective, but she also reviews some interesting new research on...

Patroklos Androulakis-Korakakis, AKA "Dr. Pak", is back! In this episode we caught up with Dr. Pak while he was visiting Omar's home turf in Toronto! There they trained together, and after a crappy training session where they failed PR attempts, they decided to have a completely unrelated episode on why strength is overrated. No, but seriously folks, this is a great discussion of specificity and t...

We're back with MASScast episode 2 and we're joined by Dr. Mike Zourdos to discuss several things which can impact your strength performance right now. In this episode we discuss the effect of mental stress on lifting performance, the effect of social media use on lifting performance, and post-activation potentiation, which is a tool where you can potentiate your back off sets' performance with a...

Here at Iron Culture we're overjoyed any time the legends of the game are remembered in the current age, and Mike Mentzer, one of the best-built proponents of HIT (High Intensity Training) - low volume, low frequency training to failure - is making a modern resurgence. Is it because he had a top tier golden age physique? Is it the appeal to hard work and masochism that we bodybuilders are always r...

We have an exciting announcement at Iron Culture, we are combining forces with MASS, Monthly Applications in Strength Sport to bring you regular "MASScast" episodes where we will be joined by one or more of the expert MASS reviewers to talk science. In this inaugural MASScast episode we're joined by Dr. Eric Trexler to discuss surprising recent data that suggests basal metabolic rates have been de...

In this episode, we discuss two topics, when and how to address fringe topics in the fitness space and the growing data in support of long muscle length partials for hypertrophy. In the former discussion, we discuss how science communicators are often in a difficult position when addressing such fringe ideas. When these beliefs are believed by small segments of the population - especially if they...

In this episode, we're joined by Mitchell Hooper fresh off his 2023 World's Strongest Man (WSM) win. In addition to winning the 2023 WSM, he also won the 2023 Arnold Strongman Classic. He is among only four competitors to have won these two titles in the same year, and he is the youngest ever to do so, now sitting among living legends Brian Shaw, Žydrūnas Savickas, and Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. In...

You've probably heard of the famous, ancient lifting stones in Iceland and Scotland, some of which are even replicated and used in strongman competitions. But did you know that over 20 stones (and still counting) have been uncovered just in the last few years in Ireland, many of them heavier than the stones in Iceland and Scotland, by primarily one man? That man, Kettlebell Sport World Champion an...

Coaches in the evidence-based community are often up to date with the latest in periodization and sports nutrition, but many are not even aware that there is a tremendous amount of research on coaching itself. What makes a good coach? Hint: it's not simply being up to date with science, as that would mean that every coach prior to the modern era is a bad coach. So, what is it to be a good coach? A...

We recently visited Dr. James Steele, Dr. "Pak", and Milo Wolf at Solent University to film some of their research methods and interview them about the innovative, high-quality approaches they take. These guys aren't just any group of muscle nerds though, they are actively working to improve how sports science is conducted, using and promoting the tools of open science. What is open science you as...

Dr. Conor Heffernan is back to discuss our recent trip to Ireland where he introduced us to Ireland's reigning strongest woman Ayshea Ullah, David Keohan a kettlebell sport world champion dubbed "Indiana Stones", and the many members of Europe's oldest continually open gym Hercules Club, in Dublin. On our trip we learned about the only recently uncovered history of Irish stone lifting that goes ba...

Last week was the first time in our history that we left you without an episode, but don't worry this painful experience was for good reason. Omar and Eric were in fact, both together in person, with Dr. Conor Heffernan at the SBD Sheffield. Eric was on stage coaching Jessica Buettner, and Conor and Omar were in the audience filming with the help of the newest member of the fellowship, Jonathan Ak...

Look no further than the comment section of this post/video and you'll find knee-jerk answers to the question posed in this title driven by emotional reactions, that are justified after the fact by a poorly thought-out argument that is logically inconsistent. In the philosophy of sport, however, you go the opposite direction. You put forth a logically consistent case, based on established informat...

Matt Gary is back on Iron Culture after being on way back in episode 16! This time he discusses nuances most people don't know about game day powerlifting coaching, including even most powerlifters! With the explosion of participants in the sport, there are some weight classes where as many as five individuals could be a world champion depending on how their cards are played. Truly, it's no longer...

Cult, we've been working on this one for weeks. We've got Desmond Butler on this episode, the lead journalist who wrote the recent Washington Post series on the corruption, exploitation, and health and safety controversies in the NPC/IFBB pro league. We previously discussed this article series both in a duo episode as well as with Dr. Guillermo Escalante, and now, we're privileged to sit down and...