Monday Morsels: Booty Gains, Body Builders, & oBesity! Oh my.

Welcome back to the Daily Dumbbell, your one stop shop for everything you want to know about nutrition, working out, and the juicy goss of the fitness world.

We’re like your cool aunt who’s a Doctor but is always ready to talk about the latest season of Selling Sunset. “Can you believe she called her a C*nt?!”

Today we have last week’s most exciting research as well as some real motivation to get the week started.

Let’s dive in!

Research Roundup:

Build that booty! 

Hip Thrusts continue to mop up the competition.

Researchers split 30 women into two groups for a 3x/week 10 week program.

Group 1: did Stiff Legged Deadlifts & Leg Press
Group 2: did the same thing but added Barbell Hip Thrusts.

After 10 weeks, the barbell hip thrust group showed 50% more hypertrophy. 9.3% compared to 6% increases.

The Lesson? Don’t skip the hip thrusts.

Two Takeaways

1. You don’t need to spend hours in the gym: 2 sets of 10-15 reps with two exercises caused the glutes to grow by 6% over 10 weeks. That’s a very small amount of work.

2. They didn’t equate volume between the two groups: Is the hip thrust superior? Or is doing 18 sets per week better than doing 12?

Probably a little bit of both. 18 weekly sets per body part has been shown to be superior in studies in the past.

We wish they had equated the volume. But hopefully that’s next up!

Bodybuilders have no idea what they’re doing.

More accurately; amateur bodybuilders have no idea what they’re doing.

Researchers interviewed 29 amateur bodybuilders to assess 3 things:

1. The nutrition, training, supplement, and drug use.

2. The specific water, macro, and training strategies they used in the 3 days before competition.

3. The physiological response of these practices. i.e. how well it worked.

The results? Bro science is running rampant in these circles. Almost none of the competitors were following anything close to an evidence based approach. Some highlights:

• Eating 3g/kg of bw for protein (a 200lb male eating 275g of protein)

• The majority were performing high volume body split training AND fasted cardio. Both of which have fallen out of favor with scientists and professional bodybuilders alike.

• 71% were taking BCAAs & 54% were taking fat burners. Neither of which do anything. Especially if you’re eating 3g/kg of protein.

• 25% of respondents reported taking 10-16 (or more) supplements daily. We can’t even think of that many supplements!

• 48% were taking performance enhancing drugs. Most commonly Testosterone, SARMS, & Growth Hormone.

The takeaway? Be very careful who you listen to.

Many of the most jacked people you know are succeeding in spite of what they are doing. Not because of it.

A Trio of Obesity Studies

1. Gene Therapy to Treat Obesity? 

2. Obesity Increases Risk of Mental Disorders

3. Heavily Processed Foods May Impair Sleep Quality

Gene Therapy involves injecting stem cells that have been altered for increased enzyme activity. The specific enzyme being integral in the process of fat oxidation.

• It showed promise in treating rats with obesity and Type 2 Diabetes.

Researchers in Australia found that in nearly all mental health diagnoses (excluding schizophrenia) obesity was first diagnosed in a clinical setting.

• Which came first/which is causal has been hotly debated for years. This would seem to suggest obesity plays a causal role in mental health disorders.

We would push back on this slightly. In that, the same habits that lead to obesity:

• Poor nutrition

• Lack of exercise

• Trauma and/or chronic stress

• Poor sleep

Also lead to depression, anxiety, etc. Obesity is also very obvious whereas mental health can be more of a silent struggle.

Processed foods impacting our sleep feels unsurprising but disappointing.

Researchers took 15 people and kept them in a sleep lab for two weeks. One week the subjects ate a diet of only whole foods and another week they ate more processed foods higher in sugar and saturated fat.

We were relieved to see they equated calories for both interventions.

Total sleep time didn’t change. The only thing that did change?

The REM wave activity in our deep sleep stages. This is the stage most responsible for the well rested feeling we get (or are constantly chasing).

Monday Motivation:
Holy Shit Edition

This transformation video popped up on our Tik-Tok last night. The official Daily Dumbbell stance is that transformation pictures and videos are misleading and we’re not fans.

However, we are all for individuals celebrating their journey.

And this journey? When we tell you we GASPED at the reveal.

@eliserosestanier

Turned the I cant’s into I can, & made it my I did.⚡️SUMMER SHRED CHALLENGE sign ups open! Find on profile #weightloss ⚡️#weightlosscheck ... See more

The song is annoying so it’s a wonder we made it through but holy shit team. We’re not the only ones either as the video has been watched 63M times.

9M likes is insane. When you out-like cute cat videos, you know you’ve made it.

We couldn’t find a video where she talked about what all she did, but needless to say, she committed and made lasting change.

Has she used her newfound fame and influence to shill for supplement companies? Yes. Do we blame her? Absolutely not. Secure the bag queen.

We hope you enjoyed today’s newsletter. We tried to keep it short and snappy, just like your favorite coworker every Monday morning.

Make sure to stop back by tomorrow for our feature on