After studying the research, Dr. Dr. John Jaquish was inspired to create an exercise tool that stimulates maximum muscle growth while protecting the joints. Using resistance bands, a ground plate to prevent injuries from slipping bands, and an olympic bar, the X3 system is the go-to for anyone looking to prevent injury but still build muscle three times faster than you could at the gym. Variable resistance uses the principle that humans are seven times more powerful in the strong range of motion versus the weak range. With high quality resistance bands you can increase the weight as you move which results in lifting more than you would normally be able to, quickly depleting the muscles of glycogen and triggering growth. Remember that the muscles and liver are your glycogen battery pack!

Full Transcript

Matt Blackburn: Welcome to episode 32 of Divine Superconductor Radio. I’m your host, Matt Blackburn, and today, I’m speaking with Doctor Dr. John Jaquish. He’s an inventor. He’s created a lot of really cool things. Something called OsteoStrong, which we go into a little bit in the interview. His latest invention is called the [X3 Bar](/x3 bar/). This is a revolutionary new way of building strength. I used to go to Gold’s Gym with my friend, and workout, and drink the whey protein shakes, and I didn’t see results, even going consistently for quite a long time. When I started to focus more on high-quality protein sources, and I was deadlifting, I was gaining strength, but at the expense of stressing my body, and I had a lot of back pain. What’s cool about X3 is it’s very safe. You’re actually working out with resistance bands. But instead of just using the resistance bands by themself, he sells a kit where there’s actually a bar, and then a plate. So he goes into that a little bit in the interview. But it basically is a system that you can travel with. You only need to use it for 10 minutes a day. Sometimes my workouts are even less than that. Sometimes seven minutes, around there. It’s very safe for the joints. I’m focused on longevity. If I have a choice between being and being an athlete and living longer, I’m going to personally choose living longer, because I value my time with my family and friends. This is a very safe way to gain muscle, which is not just for vanity, although that’s a side benefit, it’s also for blood sugar regulation. Glycogen’s not only stored in the liver, it’s also stored in the muscle. So it basically gives you a bigger battery back. You’ll notice, obviously, we have some dietary differences. He’s not a fan of carbohydrates. I am a fan of carbohydrates. But what I think is important to emphasize is that everybody needs animals products. Even if it’s a vegan, be B-gan, have some B products, because animals products, and the amino acids and the structure of those aminos, and the ratios and the strength, is so specific to animal foods. You can’t find the same level of nutrition in plant foods. So I think that’s a place where we can all agree. When you combine high-quality protein with variable resistance, which is what he’ll go into in this interview, you’ll get massive gains very quickly. So enjoy. All right, I’m here with Dr. John Jaquish. Welcome to the show.

Dr. John Jaquish: Jaquish.

Matt Blackburn: Jaquish. Shoot, I should’ve asked you before we started.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, you see it written all the time, you probably just don’t think about how it’s pronounced.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, for … is that French?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, the background is. It used to be Dejaques, D-E-J-A-Q-Y-E-S. But when my family emigrated to the United States, it was before the country was a country, and they changed it to make it sound more American. They did do a very good job with that.

Matt Blackburn: Got it. Yeah. I have a pretty English name, Blackburn. Okay, cool. So yeah, we’re just going to chat about the X3 and the things that you’ve invented. I was checking out your website, and you have a couple cool other things, like the Fracture Proof. Is that a little app that you designed?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yep.

Matt Blackburn: And you have the OsteoStrong.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right.

Matt Blackburn: Super cool. I think I found out about your work at the Bulletproof Conference many years ago, and I used that OsteoStrong thing, and I was like, “Dang, this is a weird feeling of soreness.”

Dr. John Jaquish: Where do you use OsteoStrong? Which location?

Matt Blackburn: I actually haven’t been to a facility yet, I’m planing to.

Dr. John Jaquish: Oh, okay. Okay.

Matt Blackburn: I’ve only used it at health conferences. But you designed that for improving bone density, right? Inspired by your mother?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. My mother had low bone density, and I wanted to figure out how to fix that problem. She read the data for the pharmaceuticals, and didn’t want to take those. So I said, “Maybe I can find another way,” and that’s how I got started.

Matt Blackburn: That’s super cool. It’s my understanding it’s creating microfractures deep in the bone, and so that stimulates-

Dr. John Jaquish: No, not at all.

Matt Blackburn: No?

Dr. John Jaquish: No, no.

Matt Blackburn: How does it work?

Dr. John Jaquish: No, a lot of people think that though. So it’s deformation of bone. So everything in your central nervous system decides to change, whether it be a muscle, tendon, ligament, bone, has to do with something that becomes irritated. You can see it on your hands when you build a callus, right? Your hand becomes slightly irritated in a specific way through pressure, and then you develop thicker skin in area. What happens to the bone, there’s no fractures going on, but the bone, especially the inner matrix, the trabecular bone, the middle, becomes deformed. In that deformation, that’s actually … it’s called spongy bone, because it doesn’t actually fracture at all, it bends. That bending, the central nervous system says, “Okay, we don’t like that. We don’t want that bending to happen.” So to keep from bending, minerals get absorbed into the bone mass, the bone matrix becomes more powerful.

Matt Blackburn: Oh, that makes sense. Okay. There’s different exercises you do at the facility, right? Because I think I just did bench-style one, but there’s all different ones?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, there’s four movements that all emulate high-impact forces. So when I first treated my mother, it was just in the lab, it was me, her and my father was the only ones that were using it. But I reversed her osteoporosis in 18 months. She had the bones of a 30 year old, after 18 months.

Matt Blackburn: That’s incredible. Wow.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Yeah, and she was compromised. She had osteopetrosis. So now, she has bones of a much younger person than she is. She’s in her 80s.

Matt Blackburn: That’s incredible. Yeah. I’m a fan of your Facebook’s groups great. If I’m correct, you’re a fan of the carnivore diet. I think nutrition plays a big role. I was vegetarian/vegan for many year unfortunately, over a decade. Now eating a ton of red meat, and a ton of animal products. Raw milk. It’s just all of those good minerals and protein. That’s a huge piece.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. So when I developed X3, bone density came first, but then those observations that I made through the research with bone density medical device, it became very apparent to me, that when we lift weights, lifting weights doesn’t really make sense, because we’re overloading joints and underloading, so the limiting … You stop when you lift because of joint pain. I don’t care how tough somebody thinks they are, how many sideways hats they have. You know what I’m talking about. You stop because your joints are feeling the fatigue. Muscle could go a lot further. So that ends up … what’s happening, and then ultimately, people over time, is they get a lot of cumulative joint damage that becomes permanent. Then they quit lifting after a certain amount of years. So these guys lifting heavy, year after year, then eventually, it hurts to get out of a chair. So they just quit. So once realizing that humans are seven times more capable in the impact-ready range of motion, which is what I really studied, and what the basis of the medical device was, once realizing that, I thought, “Okay, we could do way better than weight lifting. We just need to change the weight.” Now, the good news is I found a bunch of research on variable resistance. This is one of these conversations that’s just very circular, and happens all the time on the users' group that you’ve seen. There’s seven studies that’ve been done on variable resistance, and all seven of them showed that you can grow muscle faster, gain strength faster with variable resistance over regular weight training. So when I ask a person … okay, we have two groups of people. One group of people is lifting weights. The other group of people has weights, and they have variance. That second group grew three times the amount of muscle or strength. So one is weights, the other one is weights and variance. So what’s the important factor there?

Matt Blackburn: Variance.

Dr. John Jaquish: Variance. Right. Right.

Matt Blackburn: It’s wild.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right, though people … when I ask that question, they’ll be like, “Well, it’s obviously weights.” It’s like “Wow. Who ties your shoes for you in the morning?” I thought launching a medical device, and having to convince medical doctors of the ethicacy of the device was going to be the hard thing, and then doing something in fitness. It’s like, oh, okay, clinical trials aren’t a thing in fitness. The level of scrutiny would be less so. What I didn’t understand was that the fitness industry … I shouldn’t say as an industry, but the fans of fitness aren’t necessarily connoisseurs of research. Sometimes you can show them a study, and it’s like, “Well, why isn’t Mr. Olympia doing this?” “Okay, he’s a genetic outlier who admits to taking performance enhancing drugs, so who cares? Does that apply to you?”

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, you probably heard of the documentary, the vegan propaganda Game Changers.

Dr. John Jaquish: Oh yeah.

Matt Blackburn: I think those guys are on roids.

Dr. John Jaquish: What a joke.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Doctor Baker has been poking holes in that thing. He’s just poking holes in that thing just from the trailer. Just like, we don’t even know what’s in the film yet. But yeah, just from some of the people, they omit … there was a guy who played with the Tennessee Titans who went vegan, and bragged about it. He got sponsored by … I mean, I don’t know, maybe Nabisco. Somebody who’s grinding up wheat grain and telling you “It’s healthy for you to eat.” Then of course, what the film doesn’t say is the guy’s career was ruined. He retired from football. His performance just took a nosedive. He got all kinds of injuries and joint inflammation. He quit. Yeah, they didn’t cover that part.

Matt Blackburn: All the inflammatory P protein, and grains and soy.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. Right. Yeah. Oxalates. How about the fact that the protein from vegetable sources is not very bioavailable? We’re talking 16% bioavailability.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah. I had Dr. Cass Ingram on my podcast. He’s the osteopath oregano guy. The herbalist. He was saying eggs and milk are the most absorbable foods, and that vegans say, “Oh, those are the worst. Mucus and acid forming.” But they’re 50% bioavailable, milk and eggs.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. Well, human breast milk is 50%.

Matt Blackburn: Or goat’s milk, I think. Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: That, I haven’t looked, but yeah. Yeah. 50% bioavailability is a big deal.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah. For sure. So yeah, just jumping back here. I used to go to Gold’s Gym with my friend. We’d go there five days a week. I think I was slamming whey protirelin shakes. I’m a hard gainer, and I was probably undernourished. Well, I definitely was. Wasn’t getting enough calories. Wasn’t getting enough protein. I saw zero results in about a year. Now that I’ve been on X3, for I think, a few months now, I’m getting messages from my friends, “Matt, you look bigger.” Yeah it works quick. It does.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. It’s totally going to change the world of, I don’t want to just say muscular performance, but how lean we can get, how muscular we can become, because it takes the joint inefficiencies out of it. That’s not part of the equation anymore. You truly are fatiguing the muscle. You’re fatiguing the joint too, because you do go to fatigue in a weaker range of motion, but you do so in diminishing range. That’s part of the protocol. So you’re fatiguing every part of the range of motion, it’s just doing it with a relevant weight, based on the capacity of that. What I was saying is that once I came into realization, I found seven studies that all said, “Variable resistance is more powerful.” So I thought, “Why hasn’t the world jumped on this?” Well, there’s two reasons. One is no one could quantify how much variance. Two, if you grab a band, a heavy one, and try to throw it around your back and try and do a pushup, you start twisting your wrists outwardly, and you could injure your wrist or even break it. So you can’t get any heavy loading by just grabbing a band. You need something to … our bodies do not interface well with round surfaces. We do great with flat ones, like the ground, for example. So if you can figure out a way to attach the bands to the ground, which is what I did with X3, there’s a second ground. You stand on a plate and the bands flex and move under the plate. Then you have an Olympic bar. We interface with bars very well. Our hands are designed to grab hold of us. That’s a perfect handle. The other thing is, a lot of people didn’t really understand this at first, but barbell movements … The strongest people in the world, do they use barbells or dumbbells?

Matt Blackburn: Barbells, right?

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. Yeah. They don’t hardly do anything with dumbbells, because your central nervous system knows it doesn’t matter how heavy you’re moving, you probably got to move one leg at a time, because we’re not kangaroos, right. But if you’re going to grab something heavy, would you do it with one hand?

Matt Blackburn: Both.

Dr. John Jaquish: No. Would you grab two heavy things at once? Why would you do that, if you needed to move two heavy things? So dumbbells are like trying to get a tan with candles. Now of course, we’re conflating this with the whole problem with static resistance versus variable resistance, and we’re talking about two variables at once. But that why all you really need is the bar, the single bar, because if you’re going to move something heavy, you’re going to use both arms.

Matt Blackburn: Right.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s it.

Matt Blackburn: Have you ever used the-

Dr. John Jaquish: Doesn’t need to me any more complicated.

Matt Blackburn: That’s a great explanation. Have you ever used the hex bar? Because that’s what I using last year, before I got into [X3](/x3 bar/). There was some days where my back was sore. I know deadlifts can just wreck your back. Deadlifts and [crosstalk 00:16:32].

Dr. John Jaquish: I don’t love the hex bar because the width of the body, you wouldn’t choose to grab that width. You grab the width of the bar. Whereas a straight bar, you grab at your shoulder width. At exactly your shoulder wide. You never see somebody deadlifting with their arms spread out, right? I mean it’d give you should damage before you even get off the ground. It’s lined up exactly where you need to be. Plus, we live in a sagittal world. We bend forward to do most things we do. We don’t bed backwards. So grabbing ahold of something in front of you is very natural. Now, some people get better loading with a hex bar, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the right thing to do. I call these things back paths to go down. I forget who the bodybuilder was in … there was some documentary I saw, where the guy was all about EMG. He thought if he can get more electrical activity in the muscle. He was training the best and he was going to win. Now of course, bodybuilding’s a beauty contest, so I don’t know why that would matter. I mean it’s just you’re judged based on how you look, so it’s like making a muscle grow, is that really the contest? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be. But not an expert on the subject, I also don’t care. But what was interesting was that I’m watching this thing, and I’m thinking, “EMG, that doesn’t even have anything to do with growth.” If you look at the EMG activity in your quadriceps during a squat reverses during a quad extension. Well a quad extension is through the roof, right? I mean when you do a quad extension, you could see the activation in your legs way bigger than a squat.

Matt Blackburn: What does EMG stand for again?

Dr. John Jaquish: Electron myography.

Matt Blackburn: Oh okay. Okay.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Electron myography.

Matt Blackburn: So it’s the electrical activity-

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s the electrical activity in the muscle.

Matt Blackburn: Got it.

Dr. John Jaquish: You see when somebody attaches leads to a muscle and then attaches to a meter-

Matt Blackburn: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: … to see how much electrical activity. So activity and triggering growth is not necessarily the same thing, is my point. So you get more activity with a quad extension, but you’ll never catch a guy in the NFL doing a quad extension, ever. I mean not in the last 30 years, because that’s trying to get a tan with candles also. It’s just not the way it works. You got to use the muscle in the format that is designed to fire in normal movement, like exploding off the ground or running or sprinting. Not just isolating the quadriceps and extending it, and putting incredible amounts of pressure through the patellar tendon, which is, if you go heavy enough, is almost assured you’ll cause damage.

Matt Blackburn: We’re not just talking about … growth hormone’s not the only thing, right, that we’re stimulating? There’s multiple other things.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Well, so mostly what drives testosterone up regulation, now, that’s both up regulation of testosterone and the receptors of testosterone, which is actually more important. Both of those things have to do with how heavy you go. This is why I like the people who train light, or who train with bands only. They can’t go heavy enough. I see people like, “Oh, I workout with just bands alone, without the [X3](/x3 bar/).” I’m like, “Hey, I invented that thing for a reason. You can’t go heavy enough.” So they’re doing 90-minute workouts, where they’re jumping up and down with the bands, and they’re doing crossovers for 10 sets or whatever. The load’s not high enough. I mean, sure it’s exercise, but if you’re going to do that, just do some pushups. Do air squats. You got body weight, just do that. But you’re not going to build any mass doing that. It all has to do with how heavy you go. So one of the driving things behind what I wanted to accomplish with X3, is I wanted to be able to do a chest press, where now, I always call it the 500 band, but I’m a six-foot tall person, so if you use the X3 app … do you use the app?

Matt Blackburn: I haven’t checked it out. No.

Dr. John Jaquish: Okay. Yeah, it’s great. You enter your height, and it’ll tell you what is the peak for in each movement. So for me, I think it’s 540 pounds, at the top of a chest press. So I can get the benefit of that 540 pounds at the top, but it’s only 300-something in the middle, and 100 pounds at the bottom. So I first fatigue, and you do it too, first fatigue in the stronger range, and then in the mid range, and then in the week range. Then when you’re done with that set, you can’t do another set. You’re wiped out. You’ve stimulated more weight than you ever could with a regular weight, because you can’t fatigue the impact-ready range of motion with a weight. You can’t. You cannot fatigue the mid-range either, because to get it there, you got to go through the weaker range. So once you cram all of this into one set, and especially when you do it exactly how I describe, you have a hypoxic effect within the muscle. You’re not letting any blood in or out. So that’s why I tell people to keep constant tension. Did you read any of the stuff I wrote about hypoxia?

Matt Blackburn: I haven’t yet. I just remember in your 12-week program, every video, you’re like, “Constant tension.” You really hammer that in.

Dr. John Jaquish: Constant tension. Yeah. Don’t lock out at the top, and do not rest at the bottom. It’s great, because I think a lot of people do watch those videos. I’d say about 80% of people are getting it perfect. Another 10% are so-so. Then 10% are screwing it up completely. But it’s okay. They’ll figure it out at some point. Somebody will tell them, “No, no, no, no, no. Don’t rest at the bottom.” So ultimately, when you keep constant tension, you’re not letting any blood in or out, so you’re truly exhausting ATP glycogen and creatine phosphate, the fuels within the muscle. The first driver of growth is the myofibrillar fatigue. By the way, I did not ask how much your audience likes science, so I don’t know if I’m going way too deep, or-

Matt Blackburn: They love it. No, keep going. Yeah, it’s great.

Dr. John Jaquish: Okay, cool. I can just deep, and you’re sitting there, going, “Wow, no one’s going to like this at all.”

Matt Blackburn: I’m loving it. It’s great.

Dr. John Jaquish: So first, you fatigue from the muscular structure standpoint. That’s myofibrillar fatigue. This is the thing that happens to gymnasts when they slam into the ground, then they get 10 times their body weight through their lower extremities. So that is a major driver of power to weight ratio. So that is strength more so than mass, but also mass. Then, as you fatigue with diminishing range, then you’re really burring into the fuel stores into the muscle, and the quicker you can exhaust those, that’s a signal for the central nervous system to say, “Okay, we got to store more ATG glycogen and creatine phosphate within the cells.” That’s the primary driver for size, right?

Matt Blackburn: Awesome. I love it.

Dr. John Jaquish: So you’re getting the most powerful … it’s stimulus for power and the stimulus for size, as well as longterm potentiation. So that’s the central nervous system change. That’s training the body to fire more tissue all together. By loading the impact radial range of motion, that’s the number one driver of that. So it’s accruement. It’s the sort of power density of muscle stimulus, and then the size, all at the same time.

Matt Blackburn: Awesome. I think you said in one video, it’s a myth that you have to eat right after the gym. I’m like, “Oh, I have to get a burrito,” back in the day. It’s a body builder thing.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes. Yeah. There is no such thing as the anabolic window. When somebody does a workout and they’re like, “Oh, I need to have my protein shake.” “No you don’t.” Most of the muscle protein synthesis that happens to you, happens when you sleep. So you could have your nutrition anytime in a 24-hour period, and you’re going to have the same result. No difference at all.

Matt Blackburn: Okay. That’s the same thing with growth hormone, right? I think it’s after two hours of sleep, we get a burst of human growth hormone.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah, and every two hours, you get another burst. Yeah, growth hormone pulses. It doesn’t have a … it almost looks like a heartbeat. It jumps way up and then drops off, and then jumps way up again. Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: Awesome. Jumping back, you mentioned we move in sagittal way. I’m sure you’re familiar with the biomechanics crowd, and down-talking yoga. I have friends that are in functional movements, biomechanics and that whole thing. A lot of people say, “Strength training is not functional,” because gaining muscle just makes us tense and not flexible.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, that’s false.

Matt Blackburn: What are your thoughts on it? Because I look at it from a longevity perspective. It helps with our blood sugar regulation and so much, right, to have muscle.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, flexibility’s flexibility. I don’t care how big and muscular you are. I know guys who are 240-pound, muscular guys, who can do the splits and whatever. Not that the spits are a standard of what people should be doing. The flexibility argument is just a separate thing. Weight lifting doesn’t make you tight. That’s not been seen in any academic literature. I see some yoga movements as very functional. Also, the word functional is so abused. I mean, ultimately, the function of a muscle is to shorten. So anything where you move is functional. So I mean, I mean I could shed some light down right there, just not stop talking. Now, like I said, the central nervous system is going to be more helpful in building musculature, if you move in a pattern that is more associated with what you might actually do. That’s why multi-joint movements are always better than single-joints movements. Doesn’t mean you don’t want to do single-joint movements, but they’re better. Like biceps. Bicep growth happens more, you get more of a bicep stimulus for growth with the bent row, than you do with the bicep curl, even though you’re isolating the bicep with the bicep curl. It’s because when you’re moving two joints, when you’re moving your elbow and your shoulder joint, puling in towards your body, that is something the central nervous system sees as, “Oh yeah, we do this. Okay, we understand. This is exhausting, so we’re going to change how we attenuate that.”

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, I was laughing at one of your exercises, in the video, you were saying, “Yeah, supinated versus … " I forget the other way. You’re like, “Most people just want big biceps, so you can do it this way, with the bent over row. Or if you want to work … or the back shoulder, you can do this way.” So I like how variable X3 is, because you can just switch your hands on certain exercise.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s a preferred way to do it. I always do supinated, because that way I get the full bicep involved. Also, I think in a rowing type movement, I think a lot of people … some of the tendons don’t really like that. Being supinated is much better, but yeah. Also, I don’t want people to think that the way I’m using X3, and the way I instruct people to do it is the only way. This was one of the things I didn’t really expect. I didn’t realize the ways people were going to invent to use it, and how poorly thought out those ways would be. So in the beginning, I was like, “Oh, that’s a tool. You’ll go ahead and apply it,” but I just didn’t see it coming, wow, the things that people would do, that just … where they think, “I’m going to get extra growth if I do it this way,” or, “If I add in this other movement.” I’m like, “Nah, that’s an injury. That’s what that is. That’s not extra growth.”

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, I have a lot of friends like that. They’re always in the improvement mindset, which I think is good sometimes, but sometimes you just have to follow the program, and then see how you do. Then there’s so many people that are like, “Oh, I can make it better.” It’s like, “How about we just start with how it is, to start?”

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: It’s funny.

Dr. John Jaquish: There’s something about exercise where people … nutrition too. I gave an example in one of my nutrition videos, where somebody will say, “Well, I’m going to be ketogenic, except I also read the Mediterranean diet, where they advocate a lot of bread. So since I got to eat a lot of fat for ketogenic, I’m going to do both. So I’m just going to eat cheese pizza, and I’m going to be in great shape because I’m doing both of these great diets.” No. You just canceled the benefits of both out, and you’re going to become obese. That’s what’s going to happen. So yeah.

Matt Blackburn: That’s funny.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a shame, because I say that and people immediately know what I’m talking about. They laugh, yet I see that parallel. I’m trying to be as nice as I can, and some of these people go … because they’re coming to the [X3 Bar](/x3 bar/) users' group for advice, but then some of them give each other advice, and I think, “Should I ruin this guy’s day? I really don’t want to tell him his advice he’s giving is just awful.”

Matt Blackburn: I try to merge. I just think everyone should come together to get some type of animal food in the diet, because I have a ton of vegan followers, a ton of vegetarian followers. It’s an ethical thing. It’s for the animals. I think we could all agree that just getting in animal products in the diet, that’s needed for human health.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Yeah. It is unfortunate. I don’t want to hurt anything, but I know my biochemistry. We eat animals.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah. I’m type O blood type. Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Animals eat each other too. We’re not going to stop that. Well, also, I mean, do your vegan and vegetarian friends know that 7 billion animals are destroyed every year in the United States, for the sake of vegetable farming? Ultimately, here’s how I want anybody to see that … By the way, I love how were jumping all over the place. This is fun.

Matt Blackburn: It’s great.

Dr. John Jaquish: I want people to realize that any expanding species is going to take away resources from another species. So I don’t care what we do. If we’re farming vegetables, we’re ruining the habitat of what used to be there. Anything that comes in to that area, farmers are going to poison it, shoot it, get it caught in a trap, grind it up in one of these combines. I mean, if you look at prairie dogs that just get thrown into a grinder. We’re talking millions. Just chopped up. You can see the blood behind some of these combines. Okay. Ultimately, we’re an expanding species. We’re taking away resources from something else. There’s no way we’re going to stop that. As long as we’re here, our existence is going to negatively impact the … whatever, something else. Some years there’s a lot of rainfall in northern California, and there’s a population explosion of mice, because there’s a lot of seeds for them to eat. Then what do we get a population explosion of next year? Rattlesnakes. All types of snakes, but particularly rattlesnakes. So my parents had 40 acres in Napa Valley. It amazed me. We saw mice one year. It was like, “All right, here come the snakes.” Because of all of a sudden, they got so much to eat, so now there’s snakes everywhere. There’s and ebb and flow of that whole thing. So when we build a vegetable farm, it’s not different. We’re just destroying habitats and killing any animal that comes onto that habitat, because the farmers have to. They can’t allow millions of birds to land in the fields that grow whatever, the berries of everybody’s smoothies. So what do they do? They poison a few million birds. That’s it.

Matt Blackburn: It’s crazy. I feel-

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. That’s life. We need those resources.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah. I don’t know if you looked into cashews. When I was raw vegan, I was doing cashew salad dressings. It’s usually slave labor, same as the chocolate industry. Quinoa, that’s a whole thing. But yeah, I’m a big fan of homesteading. I have chickens here. I have bees. I just installed a couple bat houses to take care of the mosquitoes.

Dr. John Jaquish: I’ve been thinking about buying stear.

Matt Blackburn: That’s awesome.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. Right. I’m not happy that the stear had to die for my food, but that’ll last me for a year.

Matt Blackburn: Give them a good life. Yeah. Give it a good life before.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right.

Matt Blackburn: I’m looking into carbon dioxide euthanasia. I’m a fan of Joel Salatin, and advancing agriculture. I think there’s better ways to do it. CO 2 just puts the animals to sleep. There’s actually stories of people working in tomato fields. The carbon dioxide concentration’s so high, they would just fall asleep and die. Farmers back then. It’s interesting.

Dr. John Jaquish: Greenhouses. It’s in greenhouses where that happened.

Matt Blackburn: That’s it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Oh, but wait, I thought that was causing global warming. Don’t tell anybody.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, there’s so much to unravel. My big thing is experience. I tried all the diets, all the lifestyles. I did the fruitarian thing for a few years. I just tell people, “Try it.” Include some grass-fed red meat. Elk, bison, deer, beef, and you feel better. Then get some strength training, and you’re like, “Holy crap. I’m actually stronger.”

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. Right. Well, and I like people to focus on … there’s the narcissistic side of body composition. Most people, when they start workout, they don’t start to workout for their health. It’s because they want to feel like they’re better than everybody, right? That’s the narcissism. But if that delivers health, that’s great. Now, when you sort of look at the bigger picture of health, every organ functions to supply musculature with what it needs. Also, musculature’s really the thing we can affect. We can get a greater cardiovascular output, but the degree to which you can affect your musculature, you can affect it a lot more than cardiovascular performance. I mean, just, we’re talking standard deviations. So that’s, seems to me, the number one thing to be the number one thing we aught to focus on. Ultimately, the two biggest drivers of long life, found in maybe hundreds of thousands of different papers, are being lean and being strong. Two things that have just never been contested as the drivers of long life. So if you’re positively impacting musculature, you’re building size you’re building muscle, you’re leaner, because more of your body weight is made of muscle. You’re also getting stronger, because nobody puts on muscle without getting stronger. So that’s the biggest driver of life. We also know we need protein for that.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah. It’s so funny. When I was back, very programed vegan, I was so scrawny. Just very deflated. I was like, “Oh, I’m just going to calorie restrict.” Just all these ideas of how to extend my life, but I was not really living. It was interesting.

Dr. John Jaquish: How was the conversion back to eating meat?

Matt Blackburn: It was amazing.

Dr. John Jaquish: Easy?

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, I broke it with a bison burger, and my brain switched on. I went back-and-forth five times because of ethics, but now that I see, I don’t know if you know Tristan Haggard, I’m going to interview him, see the whole vegan agenda, and the beyond meat, and the impossible burger, and the 3D printing. I think there’s an agenda to emasculate the male, and it’s feminization thing. I look into all that. It’s profit-driven, when you see a soy [crosstalk 00:39:19].

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, I mean ultimately, weaker people are easier to control. I mean, I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I mean look, if I were going to control a population, I’d want them weaker. If I were going to be an oppressor. But ultimately, boy we’re going deep, yeah, if you think of the 1984 nature of a lot of things, you can … Making carbohydrate products, your source materials are very cheap. I mean, as cheap as dirt, depending on what the source material is. If it’s wheat grain, literally cheaper than dirt. Then you can turn that into something that keeps people perpetually hungry, so they’re going to buy more of it, and it makes them more docile. More susceptible to marketing. I don’t believe in a concerted effort to manipulate the population. Sometimes it’s like you go on carnivore tribe, and there are some people there that really are convinced that there’s this big conspiracy to destroy free will, by poisoning everybody with carbohydrates. I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t know. That seems like a stretch.” However, if people are more susceptible to suggestion, have poor cognitive performance, they are a better subject to market to, especially in food products. Here’s another thing about vegetarianism and veganism. You can’t really get to your basal metabolic rate, plus activity caloric needs, by eating raw vegetables. So you’re going to need to add in some processed vegetables. There’s a processed vegetable that I see people eating way more than vegetables, and that’s candy bars. So right, there are vegans and vegetarians who, because they’re just … when they’re eating vegetables, they’re still hungry, so they can have pastries and candy bars. They’re like, “Yeah, but I’m still healthy because I’m vegan.” You’re like, “Oh, no. These are the drivers of type 2 diabetes. What are you doing?”

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, when I was a teacher, I had Vegetarian Bodybuilding, that book. I see the guy’s girlfriend now, and she looks like a man, but anyway. He’s promoting Cliff Bars in that book. I was eating Cliff Bars, like, “Man, I feel like crap eating these.” It was just all these nut butters. I’ve been studying the whole vegetable oil thing. I think that’s worse than sugar, the unsaturated fats. Canola, sunflower.

Dr. John Jaquish: Oh yeah. These oils that … Well, when you have to denature something to an extreme degree, let’s take wheat grain for example. If you were to a swallow a fistful of wheat grain, it would go right through you, like you swallowed a handful of gravel. Just go right through you. So to make it digestible, we have to grind it up and bleach. So is that food? I’d say, clearly no. Not for people. Now a bird can swallow a seed and digest it just fine, but they’re biochemistry’s totally different than ours.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, and I think that’s a big gorilla or cow argument. A cow, it’s a ruminant. It has four stomachs. We have one stomach, right.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. Right. Also, comparing something to us just in general, look at the cognitive performance of a human. Look at the cognitive performance of a deer or a gorilla. Why are we having that conversation? We know that our brains work better with a high-fat low-carbohydrate diet. What defines us from the animals that are getting eaten?

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, you just landed for our [crosstalk 00:43:48].

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s our brains. It’s out cognitive abilities, so we should really look at that. Hey, what do you know? When you choose a nutrition program that is optimized for your cognitive performance, muscular performance improves too. It’s almost like we’re meant for that.

Matt Blackburn: How much meat do you eat, by the way? Because I’m up to one pound, and I’m trying to increase, but it’s-

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, how do you do it? Do you do one meal a day, or do you do-

Matt Blackburn: I eat multiple times a day, but I do local, grass-fed … I like ground beef. I don’t know, it’s just easy for me. I like how it … just east to eat. [crosstalk 00:44:24]. It’s affordable. Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Totally. Totally. It depends. I travel a lot for business. I’m on the road more than half the time. Sometimes, I got to look at, if I have a dinner meeting or something like that, who I’m having it with. Unless it’s somebody I really want to discuss nutrition with, if it’s for the medical divide side, for OsteoStrong, I don’t want to take somebody out to a restaurant, and then order three pounds of steak, because I’ll put down the steak. Because then the whole meal will be about “You’re what? You’re not really going to eat that, are you? Are you bringing some home?” “No. That’s just what I eat for dinner.” Then that dominates the conversation. So what I do is I go, “Okay.” I’ll go and I’ll take care of, maybe two thirds of my nutrition earlier in the day, so when I show up for dinner, I can just have a normal-size entree, and that doesn’t become the subject of the meeting. Especially when I meet with physicians. Because I meet with physicians all the time, who refer their patients to OsteoStrong locations, for bone density. Then I order three pounds of meat. I’ll get the tomahawk for two, and then a New York steak on top of that. I only had to make that mistake like three or four times. They’re like, “What? Okay, OsteoStrong’s great and all, but what are you doing?”

Matt Blackburn: They’re going to get a heart attack.

Dr. John Jaquish: I explain to them … it just becomes a total distraction.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, “What about your arteries?”

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. Right. Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, that’s so funny. Speaking of arteries, just circling back, cardiovascular exercise, I love that shirt you have, “No weights. No cardio. Just [X3](/x3 bar/).” I have a bike. I hike in the woods. It’s my understanding that short burst of high intensity is better for longevity.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: Cardiovascular shrinks the organs and glands, right? You heard that?

Dr. John Jaquish: So steady-state cardio will increase cortisol and decrease growth hormone. You have to look at the central nervous system like it’s an engineering team. It’s constantly working to optimize your body. So you can’t look in the mirror at yourself and say, “I can stand to lose 10 pounds,” and have your central nervous system say, “Oh, okay. We’ll help with that.” That’s not how you communicate with your central nervous system. You need to give it a clear signal based on mechanisms of the human body. This is, just what I said right there, a lot of exercise completely ignores physiology. Just so much nonsense stuff out there. But when you want to be as lean as possible, which I think just about everybody wants to. You don’t meet many people that would say, “I really want to get fatter. I’m really looking to put on some fat rolls on my back.” Nobody says that. So since we all want to be leaner, you have to look at where the central nervous system is going to optimize for that. So when you do steady state cardio, your central nervous system say, “Oh, we need to move long distances, and use less energy moving those distances. So we’re going to decrease growth hormone, which will dismantle muscle tissue. We’re going to increase cortisol, which will force more storage of body fat.” There’s 40 years of research on the subject, so that’s why … That right there, that one thing, stimulated me to start that YouTube show I have, Falsehoods of Fitness. Now, it doesn’t come out on a regular basis. Sometimes I do two in a week, and sometimes I wait two months to do one. But whenever someone brings up something where I’m like, “Wow, people still think that? Unbelievable.” So the cardio thing. I meet so many people, especially women, who think cardio’s the answer to all their problems. I’m like, “No, you’re making the problem worse. You’re fighting with your endocrine system.” That’s one of the most powerful systems in the body, and you’re doing the opposite. Then on top of that, then you get guys who strength train, who when they strength train, they’re doing stabilization movements, and they’re up regulating growth hormone and down regulating cortisol. Then when they go and do cardio, they do the opposite. So what’s going to happen to their physiology?

Matt Blackburn: It’s going to shrink.

Dr. John Jaquish: Probably nothing.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, because they’re giving themselves opposing stimuli. It’s one or the other. Also, there’s a great article, if you Google it. It relies heavily on a meta analysis. But there’s basically about 100 studies that are referenced in this article. The article is called There’s No Such Thing as Cardio. It’s great because it shows that strength training, not necessarily high-intensity interval, which has become a buzz word, and also misused, strength training will give you cardiovascular health, which is slightly different than cardiovascular performance.
So if you want to run a marathon, strength training is not your answer. You’ve got to run marathons. But I would argue, that might not be the healthiest practice. What I would say is, “Go for cardiac health via strength training.” The point of this article, There’s No Such Thing as Cardio, is that cardio is just a really lousy approach to strength training, because you’re contracting muscle, but you’re using a load that’s so light, that it’s not going to stimulate any growth. You’re beating up on your joints, especially repetitive movements are very damaging to joints, especially over hours per week. That doesn’t make any sense. Then that’s all to affect the cardiovascular system, but then after a couple years, you may lose some biomechanics, because of the repetitive joint issues. Now you can’t run at all. Then how about cycling? Lose bone density, because there’s no impact.

Matt Blackburn: Wow.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Every time there’s a muscular contraction, every time an axon and a dendrite communicate, you’re losing calcium. Well, the body doesn’t replace, because it actually … you’re showing the central nervous system that you should be lighter, right? Bone density’s heavy, so why should you be carrying all that density around? You’re not going through high-impact. Of course, when you do go through high-impact, you get a fracture. Now if you look at the strength athlete, that engineering team/central nervous system is like, “Okay, we’re going to be a Formula One car. We’re going to have a powerful engine, which is muscle. We’re going to have chassis.” You ever look at the chassis of a Formula One car? The whole car basically is a chassis. There’s not much else. Then do you have a huge fuel tank in a Formula One car? No. You have just enough fuel to finish the race. That’s it. That’s in essence, body fat, whereas you’re doing cardio, you’re going to be more like an economy car. Little tires. Light-weight frame. Big gas tank, so you’re storing a lot of body fat. So I see these guys who are really, really excited about cardio, they’re skinny fat. They have very little musculature. Yeah, they may be thin, they may weigh less than I do, but they’re weak.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, that makes total sense. So bike riders need to go to OsteoStrong facilities and balance it out.

Dr. John Jaquish: For sure. Oh, ever cyclist should absolutely go to OsteoStrong. I understand enjoying riding a bicycle. Bicycle’s probably the most efficient machine that’s ever been created, if you look at how much work can be done. You can take a 150, 200-pound person and move them 100 miles with a significant effort, but you can go 100 miles on that machine, and all you need is your body weight and the energy to push those pedals. That’s amazing. Awesome. Love the bicycle. Very efficient, not from an exercise perspective, but from a practicality perspective. It’s awesome. So yeah, I mean, I would say, “If you’re a cyclist, you got to do all this stuff. You got to strength train. You got to do something for your bone density.” I would definitely tell them to go to OsteoStrong, because cyclists have lower bone mass than runners do, for that reason.

Matt Blackburn: Wow. I’ve also heard the seat can give prostate problems, because it’s rubbing on that area. I don’t know.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, you’re basically just sitting on your prostate gland. Yeah, and it’s a funny thing because there’s been so much effort to try and make the seat lighter weight, so you end up just sitting on this pipe that gets wide at one, and it’s just pushing on your prostate gland. Yeah. It’s sort of like, have you ever known somebody who’s a hypochondriac, and they keep poking at one of their lymph nodes? Then they’re like, “I think my lymph node is swollen. I think I have lymphedema or something like that.” I’m like, “Yeah, you keep poking at it. That’s probably why it’s inflamed. Stop doing that.” Seriously. This is a problem with people who think they have diseases. Sometimes it’s they look for a symptom, and then they do something to trigger that symptom, and they go, “See. I’m dying.”

Matt Blackburn: I’m so glad you said that. I get messages on Instagram all the time. All these complicated heavy questions. I’m like, “You’re overthinking it. Just lower your stress. It’ll take time.” I’m like, “Just calm down.”

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. Yep.

Matt Blackburn: So what would you say for someone to lose weight? Because I have friends, I see them snapping videos of them running first thing in the morning, and they’re weight loss, and they’re sweating. You just explained the whole process of decreasing growth hormone and increasing cortisol, which stores fat. So if someone doesn’t have the [X3 Bar](/x3 bar/) yet, what’s just some quick advice you would give someone to start to lose weight?

Dr. John Jaquish: I would just cut carbohydrates out of your life. Interesting you asked that question, because I used to think carnivore nutrition was extreme, and sort of the general ketogenic nutrition was more the mainstream way to go, and it should be the recommendation. I now feel the opposite. Standard ketogenic nutrition, you still have a lot of vegetables in your diet. If you read The Bulletproof Diet, and it’s 200 pages about how great meat is, and then in the last 10 pages, it’s like, “You still should be getting seven or eight servings of vegetables a day,” and you’re like, “Wait a minute. There’s not enough room in the intestines for all that.” I asked Dave that question. Dave’s a friend of mine. My first podcast was Dave’s podcast. His attitude is, “Well I didn’t want to argue with all the great research for some of the vegetable nutrition, but … " I accepted that answer, and I think it was a good one at the time, but since then, I’ve been trafficking and grabbing ahold of a lot of research about vitamin. What vitamins do we actually need? I want you to answer a question for me. If you were just to eat whole foods, so just meats, fruits, vegetables, stuff you could off tree, no supplements, no powders, no processed foods, how many calories, on average, would you need to get to the recommended daily intakes ascribed by the American Medical Association? Take a guess.

Matt Blackburn: 5000.

Dr. John Jaquish: 27000 per day.

Matt Blackburn: Wow.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. So that tell you these recommendations of what vitamins you need are just nonsense.

Matt Blackburn: Interesting.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah. I do carnivore plus raw goat milk and honey. That’s how I do it. I do a lot of bone broth. I just study the glycogen in the liver and how that 90% of T4 to T3 conversion happens there, to fuel ever cell in the body. There’s an argument over thyroid health and thyroid hormone. I’m just trying to look at it holistically. I feel better when I include honey and milk in, so [crosstalk 00:57:50].

Dr. John Jaquish: Okay. How many grams of carbohydrate? Because both honey and milk have-

Matt Blackburn: Quite a bit.

Dr. John Jaquish: How many grams a day, do you think?

Matt Blackburn: Probably 100, 150 at least. Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Oh wow.

Matt Blackburn: But yeah, I’ve been gaining size on it. I couldn’t before. It might be just X3, I don’t know, but that’s great.

Dr. John Jaquish: Of course it’s [X3](/x3 bar/). Superior training. I constantly get in this place, especially talking to people online, where they’re asking, “Well, you don’t lift?” “No, I don’t. I’m a very muscular person. Very lean person.” So they say, “So is weightlifting stupid?” I don’t really want to answer that question, because there’re a lot of people who really like weightlifting. The way I answer it is, “I will never lift a weight again because it is not a good use of my time, and the risk-to-reward ratio is not worth it, now that I know what I can achieve with [X3](/x3 bar/).” It’s not just because I invented it. It really is a massive driver of being lean and being muscular and being strong as possible. But I often don’t know how far to go when I say that, just because I don’t want someone to just think, “That’s just crazy.” But I can demonstrate it, like, “Those seven studies, oh here’s another one. Well, this might work for beginners, but it certainly wouldn’t work for advanced people.” “Why?” “Because an advanced athlete has a different type of muscle than a beginner.” There’s never been research that showed that, ever. Nevermind the fact that two of the studies of the seven … three of the studies of the seven were done with Division 1 collegian athletes, who are highly trained. Like I said earlier, if you have weights, and then weights plus variance, what’s the important factor? Variance. The only other thing that I think I’d add, what your listeners might be interested in, is the amount of variance was a big question, I think, to everyone. Someone who’s holding X amount of weight at the bottom of a chest press, and 1.2 X at the top, that’s variance, and they were getting better results after that. Well, what I did with my bone density research is I showed that when you have X at the bottom, you actually can hold 7 X at the top. Yeah. So okay, now I know what the difference in variance is. All I had to do, at that point, was study force curves. So I used some of equipment that I had, the testing equipment that I have, and I developed a force curve for different movements, and looked at the force curves, and said, “Okay.” The force curve’s like an S curve in movement except for the bent row, which is more like sine wave. So like a bell, as opposed to an S moving up, and then coming down at the end. By the way, all muscles turn off at the end of the movement, which is why we keep constant tension, right, because if you had muscular power in your fully contracted position, you could break your own joints, so they shut off for a reason. When looking at the bone density research I did, on top of the existing body of literature on variable resistance, I just put those things together, and looked at the force curves, and said, “Okay, so we don’t need 7 X at the top, because otherwise, we would get stuck somewhere in the middle,” because the variable resistance nature of latex is not linear, it’s an S curve, just like our muscle. But it’s not the same S curve. So you got to get that S curve beneath the capacity, the human capacity, S curve is. So that’s why I designed the movements the way they are. It’s doubled over in the chest press, singled in the overhead press. You go for a lighter band in the overhead press. So there was couple of different ratios I had to get just right, before launching S3, but that ultimately ended up … The eureka moment was when I was looking at that data, from de-conditioned, elderly females, out of the University if East London, when they were doing the study, and I’m looking at the data, and I compared it to what the American College of Sports Medicine keeps for average loading data of average gym goers. It was a seven-fold difference, because my device was using the impact-ready range, and they’re using full range/weak range, because if you’re doing full, you got the week in there, and that’s the limiting factor. So when I look at the differences between those two things, wow. We are leaving so much muscular tissue not stimulated when we lift weights, and there is a better way. Also, probably the best about X3, besides the time, you only need 10 minutes a day, it’s so simple and elegant. When you’re done with it, you can drop it in a drawer. I know people who have whole rooms in their house just filled with weights and different machines, and it’s like, “Oh, I need all of this to stay in shape.” I think about these guys who … even some of the people on the forum, [Makel 01:03:39] and Brandon, they have weight rooms that they just got rid of, because they have X3 now. They’re getting better results than they had, versus a room full of weights.

Matt Blackburn: I have friends and I see their Instagram stories, they have trainers and working with trainers in the gym. I’m sure you’ve studied artificial light. Indoors, under artificial light, it’s just … A lot of your videos are outside, I’ve seen most of them [crosstalk 01:04:05]

Dr. John Jaquish: I do that for a reason, because I want people to say, “God, I’d love to lift outside. That looks great.” It is great. I do it every day. I never do it inside.

Matt Blackburn: I love it. Jumping. You have the GH Accelerator. I heard about whole body vibration by Dave Asprey, and I bought his plate. Can you X3 on that? Because I think that’s 30 cycles per second, or something. 30 vibrations.

Dr. John Jaquish: 30 is the optimal. Yeah. Don’t get one that doesn’t do 30 hertz. Don’t need to necessarily get mine, but don’t get one that doesn’t do 30 hertz.

Matt Blackburn: It’s like cheap ones with the handle bar on Amazon and stuff like that.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. You get what you pay for with the whole body vibration. So I did a meta analysis. I already mentioned meta analysis earlier, but that’s when you take all the research in one subject, and condense it all with statistics to get to a more definitive answer. For the listeners that don’t know what this is. Those meta analysis took all that date. I found 23 different data sets that showed that stabilization firing, especially in rapid succession, was associated with the up regulation of growth hormone. The only variable beyond that, that changed the level of growth hormone, triggered in its pulses, we talked about pulses in this, was load. Meaning, if you’re holding a larger load and you have stabilization firing, that engages the body in more stabilization firing, right? I can stand on one leg, and there’s a little bit of tonic contraction that I go through. But if I pick up my girlfriend, and I stand on one leg, well, there’s a whole lot more stabilization firing that has to go on, to keep me upright, and to keep me from dropping her, which she always appreciates. When you look at the research, I knew that we have stabilization firing with X3 on its own, because you’re holding a load higher than you could normally ever hold, but only in that stronger range of motion, which makes it safe to use. The chances of injury are very low. Because of that extra stabilization firing, you’re going to have a greater growth hormone event. Now, if we could the X3 on a slightly unstable surface, like a vibration platform, then we get an even better effect of growth hormone.

Matt Blackburn: Wow. That’s awesome.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s where the GH Accelerator came in

Matt Blackburn: Would I just put a blanket over it? Because I can just imagine putting that plate on there. I’d probably slide off and break my neck.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, so the GH Accelerator is pressure triggered. You step on it and it turns on. You step off it and it turns off.

Matt Blackburn: That’s cool.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. I have the patent on that.

Matt Blackburn: That’s awesome.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. I have over 300 patents.

Matt Blackburn: Wow.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, in different … So the-

Matt Blackburn: Is that 30 cycles? Yours? Is that GH?

Dr. John Jaquish: No, no. You wouldn’t be able to patent a frequency. People have tried to do that, but the patent office is like, “That’s not an invention. The number 30 is not an invention.” But the pressure switch is. So that way, basically the ground plate drops right into the accelerator, and then when you step on it, then it switches on. When you step off it, it switches off. You don’t have to worry about turning your vibration platform on, and then it wanders around the room. You can grab ahold of it and put your X3 on top, and then quickly jump before the ground plate vibrates off it, which is what’s happening with yours.

Matt Blackburn: That’s cool. Wow. How much would you say that increases the efficiency of the X3? 30%?

Dr. John Jaquish: It’d be hard to say. I do know that … Okay, I can sort of answer that question, based on what we’ve seen in research. So one of the references I had in that meta analysis was comparing leg presses to squats. So you use more weight in the leg press, but then compared the growth hormone up regulation from one versus the other. What they saw was that regular free-weight squatting, even though you use half the weight that you would use in a leg press, it increased growth hormone by 600%. Whereas the leg press increased it by 0%. It didn’t do anything. This is like the trying to get a tan with candles. I say that all the time, because I just want to point out that there are certain stimuli that are communicating with the central nervous system. There are other stimuli that are not. The things that are not, we shouldn’t do any. So now, when I look at what happened with the greatest loading in vibration cohort, that was analyzed in this study, we saw that those individuals could increase growth hormone by 2600%. Regular X3 is going to give you more than just a regular free-weight squat, because you’re holding more in the stronger range. So your guess is as good as mine, whether it’s 800% or 1000% or 1500%, but then with the GH Accelerator, it’s going to be closer to that 2600%.

Matt Blackburn: That’s incredible. That’s super cool.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, it’s great.

Matt Blackburn: I wanted to talk about stress relief, because I think … for me, I recommend, if someone just got in a car accident, or broke up, or lost their job, something, just to take a little bit off. Take some time off. Maybe just go on light walks and stuff. Because we talked about, I think, heavy exercise can increase cortisol.

Dr. John Jaquish: Sure.

Matt Blackburn: But using X3, I’ve noticed a noticeable difference in my mood, and lower stress, because you’re affecting your neurochemistry on a pretty profound level, when you’re doing these loads, right? I don’t know if you’ve looked at dopamine increase or different things.

Dr. John Jaquish: So there’s a researcher that I’ve worked with in the past, who’s a clinical psychologist. He was actually the principle investigator on that University of London study. He took a lot of the psychological measures. It was funny, because he was … His name’s [Basal 01:11:01] Hunt. Brilliant guy. So he’s all interested in the psychological measures, well-being measures. Of course, I was completely thinking physiology. So he says this to me, and I’m thinking, “Who cares? Well-being. Would anyone want to know that? I guess.” Now, of course, it turns out that was almost more exciting than some of the other things, because we’re showing people they can control their health. Both my inventions, OsteoStrong, X3, people can clearly see they’re in control. They can actually affect something, whereas the regular person goes to the gym month after month, year after year, they see nothing. It’s very disheartening. That’s why they quit. So from that perspective, yes. From an OsteoStrong perspective, especially with the type two diabetes study, the metabolic disease study that was done, there’s a lot of depression that associated with metabolic dysfunction, because they feel like their health is just out of control. So every time they go to the doctor, they’re worse. They may be trying. They’re probably carbohydrate addicted, and they’re just constantly eating things that are telling them to constantly eat.

Matt Blackburn: Grains. Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Say that again.

Matt Blackburn: Grains, right? Wheat.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Yeah. Grains and sugars, or fruit or whatever. But like I said, it’s great to be in the carbohydrate business, because your customer’s always hungry. I also like to say, “People don’t get fat because they eat too much. They get fat because they’re hungry all the time.” The ketogenic is sort of sold as it’s a miracle at times. It’s just because you’re not hungry all the time. The reason people get fat isn’t because their accidentally just keeps putting food in their mouth, it’s because they’re hungry. Address that.

Matt Blackburn: I think it’s a lot of chemical-

Dr. John Jaquish: That research is just totally clear.

Matt Blackburn: It’s a lot of chemical addiction too, probably, right?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, completely.

Matt Blackburn: I mean I go to Costco here and there.

Dr. John Jaquish: A Twinkie is certainly more addictive than an apple, because the glycemic index is different, and it’s meant to hit the bloodstream faster, and then you’re hungrier faster.

Matt Blackburn: Whenever I go to Costco [crosstalk 01:13:32].

Dr. John Jaquish: How about if you look at the 1960s and ’70s, how much MSG they used to put in the food. Crazy.

Matt Blackburn: Crazy.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: Do you do any bone broth ever? Drink that?

Dr. John Jaquish: I have. I’ve experimented with it. I didn’t feel that I needed it. Also, looking at what fasted is, I’m less enchanted with the term fasted. I prefer to call it insulin restricted. You probably heard me say that in a couple other videos, because fasted meant nothing. It means you eat nothing. You drink nothing other than water. So somebody’ll say, “Oh, you drank coffee. You ruined your fast.” Well, okay, let’s not get wrapped up in definitions here. Most people’s objective is keeping an insulin event from happening, so that you’re burning your own body fat. Also, autophagy, which I think is actually undersold. I hear a lot of people in the fitness industry, rolling their eyes at that term. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who cares? That’s stupid. Nobody cares about cellular regeneration.” Well, yes, except it is a huge marker for health. Now, I don’t think it’s studied enough. We don’t have enough evidence … You know who Siim Land is, right?

Matt Blackburn: I haven’t heard of him. No.

Dr. John Jaquish: Oh, great. I was on his podcast a couple months ago. Siim Land. German guy. Believe he lives in Austria. He’s really rounded up all the relevant information on cellular regeneration. Basically, your old cells turn into fuel for growth of new cells. I’m actually running a small autophagy experiment on myself. I’m tracking markers, so it’s going to be very interesting when I come out with that. You’ll know about it. Everybody will know about it. But so those are the objectives. Whether it’s fasted with no calories or somebody had some bone broth, which might be 20 calories, but we know to create an insulin event you have to have 50. Don’t get wrapped up in the definitely. I was in favor of bone broth. I just didn’t see a particular need for it.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah. It was a pretty cool … glycine helps with glyphosate. Glyphosate, the herbicide is glycine analog, so it’s nice … Yeah, and I guess glyphosate’s in the rain, it’s in the spring water, so it’s a crazy situation. But yeah. The Elite Bar, I just wanted to talk about that for a second. I just ordered it. So that’s your strongest … just to tell people there’s four bands that come with it, a ground plate and a bar. But this Elite Band is your strongest band, right?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: Takes awhile to get up to that.

Dr. John Jaquish: So the four latex bands that it comes with, most people will be able to leverage those, and get great use out of them. Grow muscular tissue, be leaner. Of course, only 10 minutes a day. Like I said, you throw the thing in a drawer when you’re done with it, so it doesn’t take up a room in your house, like a lot of strength training equipment that you have around. Or you can just take it outside and do it. But for the, let’s call it, top 5% strength-type people, there is the Elite Band. That one, for me, I think it’s 620 pounds in a deadlift, and it’s 540 in a chest press. So those are the two moves. Oh, I use it for squats too. I use it for single-leg squats. So that’s, I think, 263 pounds, if I remember correctly.

Matt Blackburn: I need to eat your meal before I try that. Your three steaks.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. yeah.

Matt Blackburn: It’s a good [crosstalk 01:17:50].

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, I don’t workout on a full stomach. I only work when I’m fasted, to be clear. But yeah. Yeah. That is for the people who really develop a considerable amount of strength. Also, people who might need that one are maybe a little shorter, because the stretch of the band is a key determinant of how much force is there. So somebody who’s with shorter legs and shorter arms is going to use a heaver band than … or conversely, the Miami Heat uses [X3](/x3 bar/). Their strength program really relates to … it’s all built around [X3](/x3 bar/).

Matt Blackburn: That’s cool.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, yeah. I get to go and train with them, and talk with the strength coaches. Awesome, awesome guys. What I notice is those guys hardly touched the black band, and they definitely did not need the Elite, because they’re so tall, right. So they’re getting greater amount of force, based on the stretch of the band, so they use the lighter bands, but it’s still very heavy for them, just because of their height.

Matt Blackburn: Interesting. Okay.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: Makes sense.

Dr. John Jaquish: Also, that’s a great example of why not to get too wrapped up in … Compare yourself to yourself. Don’t compare yourself to someone else. I see some of these guys on the discussion groups like, “Well, I can do the black band, 40 repetitions for whatever.” I really want to say, “Yeah, but you’re 5'5”, so stop trying to make other people jealous. That’s why you can do that.” But that’s not even the point. Just compare yourself to yourself. It’s not a contest with you and someone else. The objective of the product is to make you as strong and as lean as possible. Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: I like it. In your 12 weeks … you have a little awesome YouTube series, and you get progressively stronger bands that you use. I’m at the point where sometimes I just do 5 to 10 reps. Do you think I’m too heavy of a band? Is there a way to gauge?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, you really want 15 reps to be the minimum. You want to go 15 or over. For me, for calf raises, I’m up to 60 repetitions with the black band. It’s much better to go higher rep … You don’t want to compare it to regular weightlifting-type repetitions. You’d never go 60 repetitions with a weight. But with variable resistance, you’re delivering a huge load in that stronger range of motion. So that’s really where you … you don’t want to go beneath. If you are beneath 15 repetitions, you want to make sure that the second you do that same exercise, so two days later, 48 hours later, that you’re increasing your performance, and you will get over that 15. Because otherwise, you’re stuck behind that strength curve. The band S curve is not underneath your capacity S curve, it’s in front of. That becomes a problem. You’re not truly taking the stronger range of motion of fatigue.

Matt Blackburn: Okay. Perfect. Then to start, you have three rest days, and then you move to one rest day. Is one the minimum rest day you recommend?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: Okay. Cool.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. You still need a day off. Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah. Okay, cool. Then I had a friend ask, “What is the most beneficial exercise that should be done with it?” They’re all good, right?

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, for different parts of the body. Probably the deadlift. The X3 deadlift. That changes your posture. For women, it changes the way the back of their legs look. So a lot of women are … they don’t like the way the back of their legs look, even though they might not be overweight, they just don’t have even skin. But as soon as you grow that muscle there, as soon as you grow the hamstring, that skin flattens right out. So most of those women who complain, who are not overweight and don’t like the way the back of their legs look, it’s got nothing to do with their body fat. They just got to grow the hamstring a little bit. The only way, previous, to do that was deadlifts, which are dangerous on the back and on the neck. But X3 deadlifts offload the places where people get injured, so you can actually use a higher weight, with more repetitions, with far less injury risk, and you can really fix the body by doing that. So if there were one movement, it would be the deadlift.

Matt Blackburn: Awesome. Well cool, John. Anything that we missed that you wanted to mention before we wrap up?

Dr. John Jaquish: Maybe the website, x3bar.com.

Matt Blackburn: Yeah, yeah. I’ll put all the links below.

Dr. John Jaquish: Sure. Also, if you want to find me, it’s @ D-R-J-A-Q-U-I-S-H, on Instagram, or Dr. Dr. John Jaquish on Facebook.

Matt Blackburn: Awesome. Yeah, now I know how to pronounce your last name.

Dr. John Jaquish: There you go. Well hey, so many people read it, you don’t hear somebody say it aloud. Yeah.

Matt Blackburn: Well yeah, stick around and I’m going to close out the show. Thanks for coming on.

Dr. John Jaquish: Awesome.

Matt Blackburn: Well that wraps up today’s episode. Hope you guys enjoyed that. I definitely recommend going to his YouTube channel, if you’re interested in learning more, I’ll put the links below. He has a lot of really great videos. His 12-week program, although it might sound corny, is amazing. I remember growing up and seeing my mom watch the Gilad tapes, which you work out to what’s on the screen. What’s cool is after the 12 weeks, you’re not on your own. They have a Facebook group. There’s a great community of people to help. You can always improve, even if it’s just the breathing. They talk about different breathing techniques you can do. There’s a huge nutrition part to this. If you’re not getting enough protein and calories, it’s impossible to gain. I’m personally a hard gainer. I can eat and eat and eat, and it’s very difficult to gain weight, but gaining muscle with X3 has been working out for me, and people are noticing, so it’s pretty cool. You might wondering my favorite protein sources. It’s red meat, grass-fed beef. I get it locally. I also like elk, venison and bison, probably my favorite type of meat. Lately, I’ve just been eating a lot of ground meats. It’s very affordable. I buy it in bulk. If you’re interested in upgrading your protein source, I recommend getting chest freezer, and so you could store many, many pounds of meat, and it’s also food security. It’s really nice to have that much food stored up, and it lasts forever in the freezer. You just thaw it out. I aim to eat one pound of meat a day. I’m even working up from that, and it’s working out great. I feel the mental benefits, the mood benefits. I’m seeing myself, finally, putting on size. There’s so many nutrients in red meat, that are just incredible. Especially when you balance it out with bone broth, because bone broth contains the complimentary amino acids, glycine, proline, that actually make eating meat a neutral process, where normally, it’s slightly inflammatory to the body. So that’s pretty cool. I also include quite a bit of carbohydrates. I do a lot of raw goat’s milk. That’s another excellent protein source. I do royal jelly. That’s another excellent protein source. I blend in bee pollen, in my shake, with those two things. That’s an awesome protein shake. So there are a lot better options than whey, that I used to do. I think people should just get back to milk. Find a local farmer, and if it works for you, try some raw goats milk, and see how you feel on that. I’ll put a link below to purchase the [X3 Bar](/x3 bar/). It helps me out, and you also save a little bit on the purchase. It pretty much lasts forever. Its a really, really incredible invention. I’m obsessed with it. I don’t miss a day. I use it 6 days a week, 10 minutes or less. As always, if you want to support my work, you can go to matt-blackburn.com and find all of my recommended products there, which I constantly update. Also, my personal brand, which is mitolife.co. I have my enzyme products. I’m about to come out with another. Then I’m actually formulating another product. That’s really exciting me, because I love creating, and I love sharing and helping you guys out. As always, if you enjoyed the show, please share it with your friends, share it on social media, subscribe, and leave a nice review. That really helps me out. Today’s quote is by Dr. Ray Peat. “Exercise, like aging, obesity and diabetes, increases the levels of circulating free fatty acids and lactate. But ordinary activity of an integral sort activates the systems in an organized way, increasing carbon dioxide and circulation and efficiency. Different types of exercise have been identified as destructive or reparative to the mitochondria. Concentric muscular work is said to be restorative to the mitochondria.” As I understand it, this means contraction with a load, and relaxation without a load. The heart’s contraction follows this principle, and this could explain the observation that heart mitochondria don’t change in the course of ordinary aging.”