Episodi

  • Lifting and Your Mood

    Lifting and Your Mood
    Nov 5 2026
    Nothing about your life changes during a workout. Same job, same inbox. And yet the person who walks out of the gym is frequently not the person who walked in. The easy explanation is relief: you're just glad it's over. The research points somewhere more interesting.A 2018 analysis of 33 randomized trials found that resistance training produced a moderate reduction in depressive symptoms. That part isn't shocking. What's strange is what didn't matter. People who got stronger didn't do better than people who didn't. Total training volume made no difference. Neither did whether participants were healthy or living with a diagnosed condition. Whatever lifting does for mood, it appears to run on a separate track from the muscle.Then there's the 2024 study that put exercise types head to head in more than 14,000 people with depression. Lifting did not win. Walking and jogging took the top spot, which is hard news for anyone who finds running unbearable. But strength training had its own finding worth hearing, and it has to do with who was still showing up at the end.This episode covers what those studies measured and what they didn't, the limits of the "endorphins" story, why a hard session seems to land differently than an easy one, how much of the effect might be the people in the room rather than the weight on the bar, and the case for a heavy set of squats as self-care. There's also a story about a teenager in a hoodie, and a Christmas gift from her mother that wasn't about the money.Lifting is something you add alongside treatment, not something you swap for it. If you're in crisis in the US, call or text 988.Links & NotesAssociation of Efficacy of Resistance Exercise Training With Depressive Symptoms: Meta-analysis and Meta-regression Analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials(Gordon et al., JAMA Psychiatry, 2018). The 2018 study Srdjan cites. 33 randomized trials, 1,877 participants. Resistance training reduced depressive symptoms with a moderate effect size (0.66). Strength improvement, total prescribed volume, and health status did not change the result. Trials with blinding showed smaller effects. The authors call it a possible "alternative and/or adjuvant therapy."Effect of exercise for depression: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials(Noetel et al., BMJ, 2024). The 2024 study Pete cites. 218 studies, 14,170 participants with depression. Walking or jogging had the largest effect, then yoga, then strength training. Strength training and yoga had the lowest dropout. Vigorous activity showed a larger effect than light activity, with wide, overlapping intervals. The authors rate confidence in the evidence as low and suggest exercise "could be considered alongside psychotherapy and antidepressants."The Effects of Resistance Exercise Training on Anxiety: A Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials(Gordon et al., Sports Medicine, 2017). Same research group, one year earlier, on anxiety. 16 studies, 922 people. Resistance training reduced anxiety symptoms, and the effect was larger in healthy participants than in those with an illness. Sex, age, frequency, intensity, program length, and strength improvement didn't change the result.Exercise-induced euphoria and anxiolysis do not depend on endogenous opioids in humans (Siebers et al., Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2021). The asterisk on "endorphins." 63 participants ran for 45 minutes after taking either naltrexone, which blocks opioid receptors, or a placebo. The blocker didn't prevent the euphoria or the drop in anxiety. Endocannabinoid levels rose either way.Physical activity and depression: Towards understanding the antidepressant mechanisms of physical activity(Kandola et al., Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2019). The menu of candidate mechanisms: neuroplasticity, inflammation, oxidative stress, and the endocrine system on the biological side; self-esteem, social support, and self-efficacy on the psychosocial side. The authors state plainly that none are yet established.988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988 in the US, 24/7.Episode 41: Lifting for Your Brain: What Resistance Training Does Above the Neck. The hardware episode. This one is about how you feel.Episode 39: Stress, Cortisol, and Your Gains. Stress regulation is one of the candidate pathways.Episode 42: Sleep Is the Workout. Sleep is probably part of the mood pathway too, and nobody has cleanly separated it out.Episode 30: Throw the Scale Away. The scale lies. This week: the bar might too.Episode 13: Why Strength Sticks When Goals Don't. The self-efficacy loop, from the habit side.Rest is Not One Thing. Rest is defined by how you recharge, not by pace.Work with Srdjan and the team at ELEV8 Fitness.Submit your questions to the show! Listener questions episode is coming up. Get them in.
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    25 min
  • The Scale Lies the Morning After Thanksgiving

    The Scale Lies the Morning After Thanksgiving
    Oct 29 2026
    The holiday weight warning arrives on schedule every year. Five pounds, maybe ten, somewhere between the first slice of pie and the last New Year's cocktail. The burpee math for a dinner roll. The ring-light guy prescribing fasted cardio on Thanksgiving morning.Researchers at the National Institutes of Health tested that belief by weighing 195 adults from fall through early March. The average gain between Thanksgiving and New Year's was under a pound. Fewer than one in ten people gained five or more. And people guessed they had gained about three pounds more than they actually had. The catch is in the follow-up: a year later, that small gain hadn't gone anywhere.So where does the panic come from? Mostly from the scale, the morning after. The number on it includes water, glycogen, sodium, and the physical weight of the food still moving through you. A pound of actual body fat, by the standard rough estimate, takes about 3,500 calories above what your body needs. Run the math on a real Thanksgiving and you may be surprised how far short one big day falls. Three pounds of fat, or five, takes a level of sustained eating that very few people do by accident.This episode walks through what a jump on the scale actually means, why the day after a big meal might be one of your better workouts, what would truly be required to gain fat over the season, and why the real risk between Thanksgiving and January isn't the dinner. It's the six weeks of "well, it's the holidays" that can follow it, and the habits that quietly go missing in the process.Also: what Srdjan serves at his Halloween party. Hint: he doesn't make any of it.Links & NotesHoliday Weight Gain Slight, But May Last a Lifetime (NICHD news release on Yanovski et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2000). 195 adults weighed from fall through early March: about 1.05 lb gained over the whole stretch, 0.8 lb of it between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Fewer than 10% gained 5 lb or more. Participants overestimated their own gain by a little over 3 lb. The 165 people weighed a year later were 1.4 lb heavier than when they started. Only hunger and activity level predicted who gained; stress, parties, and smoking changes didn't.Holiday weight gain is a worldwide phenomenon, study suggests (Harvard Health, on a 2016 NEJM study). 2,924 adults in the US, Germany, and Japan weighing themselves daily were about 0.5% heavier ten days after Christmas than ten days before, in all three countries. People held on to about half of the gain.Relationship between muscle water and glycogen recovery after prolonged exercise in the heat in humans(Fernández-Elías et al., European Journal of Applied Physiology, 2015). Muscle stores each gram of glycogen with at least 3 grams of water. That's the mechanism behind the morning-after scale jump.Is the 3,500-calorie rule holding your health back? (Northside Hospital). The rule dates to Max Wishnofsky's 1958 paper. It's a fair rough sense of scale and a poor predictor of actual weight change, because energy expenditure adapts as intake changes.Traditional Thanksgiving Meal Is 4,500 Calories (Complex, 2013). The famous figure, from the Calorie Control Council: about 3,000 calories for the dinner itself and 1,500 for drinks before and after.How many calories the average American will consume at Thanksgiving (AOL). A survey by Levity, a weight-loss prescription service, of more than 1,000 people who planned to eat about 2,092 calories at dinner. Self-reported intentions, not measured intake.Episode 44: Nobody Bulks Up by Accident. Last week, on how hard it actually is to gain muscle. Fat has its own version of that math.Episode 43: Did Social Media Make Fitness Harder?. Where "earn your stuffing" comes from.Episode 30: Throw the Scale Away. The long version of "don't weigh yourself the morning after."Episode 35: Training on Vacation: Improvising in a Strange Gym. For holiday travel.Episode 29: The Four Engines of Your Metabolism. Why the body isn't a calculator.Work with Srdjan and the team at ELEV8 Fitness in Portland, Oregon.Submit your questions to the show!
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    25 min
  • Nobody Bulks Up by Accident

    Nobody Bulks Up by Accident
    Oct 22 2026

    Fitness was marketed in two languages for a very long time. Men got strength, muscle, and heavy weights. Women got weight loss, toning, aerobics classes, and the little pink dumbbells. None of those activities are bad. The message underneath them was the problem: this is how women are supposed to exercise.

    That message is still showing up in gym consultations. Women walk in with a goal and a fear in the same sentence. They want to be stronger and they do not want to get big. So this episode starts with how hard it actually is to add a significant amount of muscle, for anyone, and why "toned" describes a result rather than a type of training. It also gets into what a treadmill readout can't tell you. A 45-minute run flashes a calorie number. A 45-minute lifting session doesn't. If calories burned is the whole definition of a workout, cardio wins the scoreboard and loses the long game.

    Then the part that doesn't get marketed to anyone: menopause. Estrogen does a lot of jobs in the body, and bone is one of them. In the years after menopause, bone loss speeds up. One client arrived at ELEV8 before that transition specifically because she understood what was coming. Most people arrive after.

    There's also a short, unsparing ruling on pickleball.

    Links & Notes

    • QuickStats: Percentage of Adults Aged ≥18 Years Who Met the Federal Guidelines for Muscle-Strengthening Physical Activity, by Age Group and Sex(MMWR, May 2022, from the 2020 National Health Interview Survey). 35.2% of men and 26.9% of women met the guideline.
    • Sex Differences in Adaptations in Muscle Strength and Size Following Resistance Training in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis(Jones, Wewege, Hackett, Keogh & Hagstrom, Sports Medicine, 2020). Thirty studies, 1,400+ adults aged 50 to 90: no sex difference in relative muscle size gains, and women showed the largest increases in relative lower-body strength. Summary from UNSW Sydney.
    • Strength and Hypertrophy Adaptations Between Low- vs. High-Load Resistance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis(Schoenfeld, Grgic, Ogborn & Krieger, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2017). With sets taken to failure, low loads (≤60% 1RM) and high loads produced similar muscle growth. High loads built more strength.
    • Comparative Efficacy of Different Resistance Training Protocols on Bone Mineral Density in Postmenopausal Women: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis(Wang et al., Frontiers in Physiology, 2023). Bone loss accelerates with the loss of estrogen after menopause, at 1.5% to 2.5% per year in the first decade. Moderate-intensity resistance training three days a week improved lumbar spine and femoral neck density.
    • Episode 43: Did Social Media Make Fitness Harder?. Last week's episode, and where "get fit for summer" comes from.
    • Episode 32: GLP-1, Cortisol, and Cycle Syncing: A Women's Strength Training Reality Check with Brooke Passey and Kaila Gallion. The earlier conversation this one follows up on.
    • Episode 31: Your Bones Are Alive. More on why loading bone matters.
    • Episode 25: Aging Is Inevitable. Weakness Isn't.. Muscle loss with age, and what to do about it.
    • Episode 17: Flexibility vs. Mobility. For the yoga-and-Pilates crowd, and the guys who should join them.
    • Work with Srdjan and the team at ELEV8 Fitness in Portland, Oregon.
    • Submit your questions to the show!
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    24 min
  • Did Social Media Make Fitness Harder?

    Did Social Media Make Fitness Harder?
    Oct 8 2026

    More free fitness instruction exists right now than at any point in history. You can watch a qualified coach teach a squat at 2 a.m. for nothing. And the share of American adults who strength train twice a week has barely moved. In 1997, about one in five met the guideline. By 2018, it was about 27%.

    So where did all that content go? This episode follows the incentives. A creator has to post something new every day to stay in the feed. A body getting stronger needs roughly the same few things, week after week, for months. When those two clocks run side by side, the advice changes faster than anyone can follow it. One Australian study of 300 healthy-lifestyle videos found most of the information misleading, and the creators with no relevant qualifications got it right less than one time in twenty. A study of news on Twitter turned up something less comfortable. When researchers took the bots out, false stories still spread faster than true ones. People did that part.

    Then the gym floor: what happens when someone follows a downloaded program through shoulder pain because the app says four sets, and what researchers saw when women looked at fitspiration images and then got on a treadmill. There's also a lightning round through the trends in a real feed this week: Hyrox, creatine, 75 Hard, cold plunges, and anything ending in "maxxing." Signal or noise?

    It ends with a number short enough to fit on an index card.

    Links & Notes

    • "Eat Like Me = Look Like Me": A Content Analysis of Healthy Lifestyle, Nutrition and Clean Eating Social Media Content(Porteous, Kemps, Powell & Prichard, Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science, 2026). The Australian study of 300 TikTok and Instagram videos: 68% of the information was misleading or deceptive.
    • The Spread of True and False News Online (Vosoughi, Roy & Aral, Science, 2018). The MIT study: false news was 70% more likely to be retweeted, and the gap held with bots removed.
    • The Effect of Instagram #Fitspiration Images on Young Women's Mood, Body Image, and Exercise Behaviour(Prichard et al., Body Image, 2020). The treadmill study.
    • Trends in Adherence to the Muscle-Strengthening Activity Guidelines in the US Over a 20-Year Span(Calatayud et al., General Hospital Psychiatry, 2023). 19.8% in 1997, 27.2% in 2018.
    • Trends in Muscle-Strengthening Exercise Among Nationally Representative Samples of United States Adults Between 2011 and 2017(Bennie et al., Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 2020). 29.1% to 30.3% over six years, in a sample of 1.7 million adults.
    • Episode 39: Stress, Cortisol, and Your Gains. For anyone eyeing a cortisol cocktail.
    • Episode 22: Stop Collecting Sore Joints and Start Making Progress: Programming 101. For when you're picking the one program you'll stick with.
    • Episode 7: Trainer Red Flags, Green Flags, and Real Talk. More on sorting out who knows what they're talking about.
    • Work with Srdjan and the team at ELEV8 Fitness in Portland, Oregon.
    • Submit your questions to the show!
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    30 min
  • Sleep Is the Workout

    Sleep Is the Workout
    Oct 1 2026

    You can do everything right in the gym and still undo it on the couch at midnight. Lifting doesn't build muscle while you're lifting. It damages muscle and sends a signal. The rebuilding comes later, mostly while you're asleep, and it depends on conditions that a short night takes away.

    This episode goes inside that night shift. Deep sleep brings a major pulse of growth hormone, but calling it "the muscle-building hormone" sells short what it's actually doing. Testosterone and the nervous system have their own overnight jobs, and strength turns out to be partly something your brain has to practice in its sleep.

    Then the harder question: what does a pattern of short nights cost someone who's training and dieting at the same time? One number from the research works out to roughly an extra meal a day, eaten without deciding to. From there it's on to whether the weekend catch-up most of us rely on actually balances the books, what a sleep tracker is good for when it's obviously wrong about last night, and a practical list for people who've slept badly for years.

    This episode is general information, not medical advice. If you have a diagnosed sleep disorder, work with a specialist.

    Links & Notes

    • The Effects of Partial Sleep Deprivation on Energy Balance (Al Khatib et al., European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2017). The meta-analysis behind the 385-calorie number: short sleep raised daily intake with no change in calories burned.
    • The Effect of Acute Sleep Deprivation on Skeletal Muscle Protein Synthesis and the Hormonal Environment(Lamon et al., Physiological Reports, 2021). One night without sleep lowered muscle protein synthesis by 18%.
    • Sleep Curtailment in Healthy Young Men Is Associated with Decreased Leptin Levels, Elevated Ghrelin Levels, and Increased Hunger and Appetite(Spiegel et al., Annals of Internal Medicine, 2004). The two hunger hormones from this episode.
    • Ad Libitum Weekend Recovery Sleep Fails to Prevent Metabolic Dysregulation (Depner et al., Current Biology, 2019). The study on weekend catch-up sleep.
    • Episode 40: Rest Is Not One Thing. The four kinds of recovery, plus more sleep research.
    • Episode 5: Recovery Is Not a Reward. Where this conversation started.
    • Work with Srdjan and the team at ELEV8 Fitness in Portland, Oregon.
    • Submit your questions to the show!
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    31 min
  • Lifting for Your Brain: What Resistance Training Does Above the Neck

    Lifting for Your Brain: What Resistance Training Does Above the Neck
    Sep 3 2026

    Most of us walk into the gym assuming the body is on duty and the brain has the hour off. It's the other way around. Every squat starts as an electrical signal. The awkward first weeks of a new movement aren't weak muscles, they're a nervous system learning a skill. Strength, it turns out, is partly something you know how to do.

    That's the door into a bigger question: what does lifting do for the organ running the show? This episode covers the research connecting resistance training to executive function and memory, why exercise reaches the brain through blood vessels and blood sugar as much as through muscle, and a trial in adults over 55 that pitted heavy lifting against computerized brain training.

    The brain training didn't win.

    Then the part that matters most as we age: balance, falls, and why the speed of a correction can matter as much as raw leg strength. What can be trained, what can't, and where a fall in your seventies fits in the dementia picture.

    Aging is inevitable. Weakness is not.

    Links & Notes

    • Visit ELEV8 Fitness PDX and Find Your Next Trainer!
    • Submit your questions to the show!
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    25 min
  • Stress, Cortisol, and Your Gains

    Stress, Cortisol, and Your Gains
    Aug 20 2026

    Cortisol gets described online as the thing standing between you and the body you want. It's actually the hormone that gets you out of bed. It runs on a daily curve, highest in the morning and lowest at night, and it regulates blood sugar, blood pressure, inflammation, and how much energy the body makes available when something demands it. Exercise raises it. That's the point of exercise.

    A hard session raises cortisol for a few hours, then it settles. Chronic stress never allows the settling. The body doesn't keep separate accounts for work, caregiving, money, bad sleep, and training. It adds them up, and when the total outruns the capacity to recover, strength stalls and motivation goes, and the natural conclusion is that the program isn't working.

    An acute training spike is a different condition than chronically elevated cortisol, and treating them as the same thing is how people end up buying a supplement to solve a sleep problem. "Cortisol belly" turns out to be a product category. Five hours a night turns out to have a price.

    Plus: the case for walking into the gym anyway on the worst days.


    Links & Notes

    On cortisol's normal daily rhythm

    • Cortisol Awakening Response: Regulation and Functional Significance — Endocrine Reviews
    • The circadian system modulates the cortisol awakening response in humans — Frontiers in Neuroscience

    On exercise, cortisol, and stress regulation

    • Effects of a 12-week endurance training program on the physiological response to psychosocial stress in men: a randomized controlled trial — Journal of Behavioral Medicine
    • The effects of exercise intensity on the cortisol response to a subsequent acute psychosocial stressor

    On "cortisol belly"

    • The 'cortisol belly' myth: when diet culture is rebranded as wellness — The Conversation
    • 9 Myths About the 'Stress Hormone' Cortisol — TIME
    • Routine Screening for Cushing's Syndrome Is Not Required in Patients Presenting with Obesity

    On sleep

    • Sleep loss lowers testosterone in healthy young men — UChicago Medicine (Leproult & Van Cauter, JAMA 2011 — the 10–15% finding)
    • Sleep loss boosts hunger and high-calorie food choices — University of Chicago
    • Impact of Five Nights of Sleep Restriction on Glucose Metabolism, Leptin and Testosterone in Young Adult Men — PLOS One

    On energy availability and reproductive hormones

    • Hypogonadism in Exercising Males: Dysfunction or Adaptive-Regulatory Adjustment?

    Show links

    • ELEV8 Fitness
    • Submit your questions to the show!
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    29 min