Episode 439 – Q&A with Robb & Nicki #32

We’re back with more answers to your questions. It’s Episode 439, Q&A #32!

Submit your own questions for the podcast at: https://robbwolf.com/contact/submit-a-question-for-the-podcast/

Individual question videos are linked in each question title, but if you want to see the complete video for this podcast, be sure to check out our YouTube channel.

 

Show Notes:

1. Collagen Timing/Sauna? [@9:44]

Jesse says:

Hello you two. I’ve read or heard that when collagen is consumed prior to training the absorption rate is increased considerably. It was also stated that this timing also changes where/how the collagen is used; specifically it goes towards cartilage, tendons, ligaments as opposed to hair, skin, nails. If I’m not off base and you have heard of this phenomenon, then I am curious what happens when collagen is consumed before sauna? Since you’re body is being stressed in similar ways to exercise does the process work the same?

Thank you both for taking the time to put out quality information, most of which is easy to discern and put into practice for the layman i.e. me.

 

2. Fecal Transplant? [@12:35]

John says:

Hey Robb, I have a question for you about fecal transplants.  I have Asperger’s Syndrome, along with a persistent itching all over my body, and particularly on my anus, that I believe is from stuff I’m eating expressing through my skin.  Cutting gluten and dairy has helped some, but not eliminated. I haven’t been tested for gut bacteria yet, but going to do that next month. If, as I suspect, I turn out to be missing a lot of the usual gut flora, do you think a fecal transplant is a good option?  And if so, what’s the best way to go about getting one?

 

3. Partial Knee Replacement Work Out? [@17:19]

Liz says:

Hey Guys! I’m sure you guys have probably answered this by now, I’m almost caught up on the podcasts, but I haven’t heard this question asked so I figured I’d give it a go.

My boyfriend had part of his knee replaced due to an injury he sustained on his last deployment. He used to be extremely active (crossfit, triathlons, running) But, now, not so much. Basically the doctor told him he needed to avoid any high impact exercises, no running. No squats, clean and jerks, etc. Basically if he was going to be lifting any weight to make sure it doesn’t impact his leg. When I go search online for things he could do… it’s mostly old people stuff (he is in his mid 20s). So, my question- was his doctor wrong? Greg, do you have athletes with similar issues? Would you allow someone to come into your gym start a training program? Whenever we start to do some sort of a training program he get disheartened by what he can’t do, and I just want to give him some hope that he can do some of the things he used to love… what would you suggest? Any resources you can suggest that can get us going?

Thanks for all you guys do… which I know you guys don’t do much. I love the rants and the side comments. The podcasts get me through my days at work sitting behind a computer screen and encourage me to get my ass up and do stuff.

The video we mention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k0NTB2DTGs

 

4. Native Americans and Epigenetics? [@23:38]

Dan from Nashville says:

Hey,

I have heard on your podcast, as well as other Ancestral podcasts, the subject of racial epigenetics being brought up, but I never hear it mentioned in a broad aspect, and I was wondering if there was any evidence or even philosophy behind it that you have noticed.

I am mostly Native American, with some white mutt thrown in too. I notice that on most reservations, Natives are almost always obese, and I have begun to wonder if being carb sensitive is genetic. You don’t have to tell me that alcohol and substance abuse is rampant on reservations, but I sometimes wonder how much is environmental, and how much is based on the fact that most sugars and grains were brought over with white culture.

I know that Inuits are always an example of ketogenic diets and health, but I am Creek from the Georgia area of the US, and would assume that eating VLC may not have been part of a people group living in a more fertile area.

So I would love your opinion on this, as well as if you touched on other races based on region as well, even if its a mostly philosophical perspective. I also know the stereotype of Kenyans being great distance runners, or Jamaicans being better sprinters, but are there other athletic genetic tendencies for other people groups?

Lastly, is the reason we never heard of this because we are too racially sensitive, and everyone fears that they will be equated to Hitler talking Eugenics? Or is there just not enough evidence?

 

5. Bent Arm vs Straight Arm Strength? [@31:16]

Harvey says:

You’ve mentioned that an exercise program without straight arm strength results in inferior development of the connective tissue, in comparison to the muscular system.

If someone only did straight arm exercises, would their muscular system’s development be inferior to their connective tissue’s?

 

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Submit questions for the podcast: https://robbwolf.com/contact/submit-a-question-for-the-podcast/

 

Transcript:

Download a copy of the transcript here (PDF)

Robb: And-

Nicki: Are we recording?

Robb: … we are recording, in theory. You never really know till the body image positive lady has sung. So, yes.

Nicki: Okay.

Robb: Yes, so we are back.

Nicki: We’re back. It’s been awhile.

Robb: Probably the last show that we will ever do, that anybody will ever watch.

Nicki: Sorry, it’s been awhile. We moved, 1,700 miles away from Reno, to the town of New Braunfels, Texas.

Robb: Which is a lovely town, we’re really enjoying it. Still need to get the complete lay of the land. The kids were swimming a lot. We actually have a tan, which is a rare thing. Do you want to talk about my gut a little bit, before we launch in on this, or we just want this thing to be super streamlined?

Nicki: We can. No, let’s talk about your gut a little bit, because when you first moved here you were just feeling amazing.

Robb: Yeah, and I talked about this on the gram a little bit. We’ve noticed that if we go somewhere like Mexico, or Nicaragua, or something like that, my digestion gets way better and my carb tolerance gets way better. Sorry if it’s TMI, you guys can fast forward through dudes. Really, just fast forward through the whole show. I don’t know that any of this is worth listening to at all.

Robb: But I’ve always for … Since I had the ulcerative colitis in my twenties, and kind of resolved that to the best of my ability with a low carb paleo eating, I’ve always been on the loose side, and vegetable matter tends to make things worse. Yes, I have tinkered with carnivore. It made me crazy. I just wanted to murder somebody for a sprig of asparagus, or an avocado or something. I’ve tried it three times, and I personally didn’t notice a big performance bump, and I think that’s because I’m already eating a high protein keto diet. So, I think I’ve kind of found a good spot on that.

Robb: But anyway, when we’ve gone away in the past, my digestion and carb tolerance has improved dramatically. I had a sense that it was kind of a latitude deal-

Nicki: It’s not just sunlight, because we have a lot of sun in Reno.

Robb: It’s not just sunlight. Put a pin in that, because everybody gets all Jack Cruz on me, so we need to shut that the fuck down really quickly. It’s not just sunlight because Reno is the third sunniest place in the United States.

Nicki: Sixth.

Robb: Sixth. Fuck yeah.

Nicki: It’s in the top ten. I like to split hairs.

Robb: I love how you always remind me you fucking split hairs when I’m out in front of everybody and it’s like just chuck me under the bus.

Nicki: It’s what wives do.

Robb: It’s great for credibility.

Robb: It’s super fucking sunny. New Braunfels is something like the 40th sunniest place. You want to correct me on that one?

Nicki: No.

Robb: Okay.

Nicki: It’s in that …

Robb: It’s much, much, much, much lower, like a hundred days a year, less sun, all that type of stuff. So it’s …

Nicki: Which we were a little bit concerned about, because we like sun.

Robb: We do, but I think it’s the heat. Also some stuff that I’ve been looking at pertains to photo period and there seems to be in some people as you get closer to the poles you get more of a day, night shift in total duration. So if you’re really close to the equator, there’s not that much difference between day and night throughout the seasons. If you’re in Alaska than in the summer, the days effectively never really end depending on where you are. And the nights are either very short or largely non-existent. And the flip side happens in the winter where there effectively is no daytime or very, very little daytime.

Robb: And again, this is dependent on latitude, but I think the heat, I think that maybe something with the circadian biology is different. And again, people have gone all Jack Cruz on me, I’ve been talking about this stuff since 2000, 2001 the book Lights Out, Sleep, Sugar and Survival. It talks about all of this stuff in detail. It’s an outstanding book and God bless, Jackie does a lot of good work. But if you have to apply quantum mechanics to explain basic human physiology, you’re selling people a line of bullshit. So just fuck that. I don’t need any of it. So anyway, so I was motoring along really well, felt great performance was solid, sleep was good. Then something just like cratered. I think I got a gut bug, I don’t know if it was eating out, I don’t know if it was swimming in a creek or a lake or what.

Robb: But dude, I had been laid up, I’m just crushed doing some work with Chris Kresser. I’m going to be doing this super jiggy PCR genetic sequencing of my gut contents, which will look both for pathogens and would hopefully my beneficial flora or the state of my flora. But I got to tell you, it’s a little depressing because I was feeling so good and just motoring along and crushing it. And I have to mention this, this is amidst some of the largest stress that we’ve experienced outside of maybe childbirth and a parent dying in memory, right, with the move.

Nicki: Moving is pretty fricking stressful.

Robb: I mean it was just a lot of moving parts.

Nicki: Especially when you’re moving with kids.

Robb: You’ve got kids, we had dogs to move, we had cats to move. The cat peed all over my car. It stank like cat piss for days on end. We had a lot of stress. But despite that stress, my digestion was great and was better than what it’s been historically when we’ve been anywhere else. So it’s just kind of interesting. It is a little bit of a kick to the Jimmy because I was like, “Oh man, maybe I figured something out.”

Nicki: And you have said on a number of occasions how much your digestion is tied to your mental state.

Robb: Right.

Nicki: And how you feel. So yeah, that’s rough.

Robb: So yeah, we’ll update on that. But yeah, it was a, I’m hoping that I can claw my way back to what I had when we first moved here and maybe have some discovery along the way, but it’s just something that I wanted to share with folks. I mean moving is a challenging endeavor. It’s not everybody can just pull up a move or pull up a move immediately, but if you’ve had long running GI problems and you notice that you do better in a tropical location or something that maybe you do some noodling on trying to affect that change.

Robb: But again there is the confounder that when you go on vacation there’s just generally less stress and less multitasking and all that jive. So yeah. Anything else that you want to update people on? Do you want to talk about the Google basically trying to bury us or have we done enough about that.

Nicki: No, I don’t want to talk about that.

Robb: So you guys may be able to find this. You may not be able to find it. We don’t really know right now. So we’ll talk more about that. But what I will mention is if you guys aren’t aware of this stuff, cruise over to my Instagram account at DasRobbWolf and checking out the last maybe four or five posts that we’ve done, you’ll get a sense of the … Google has been suppressing the search traffic, going to a number of ancestral health related websites and just really quickly some people were pretty blase about this.

Robb: They feel like some of the people in there, including me, I have been promoting quackery and so fuck those people and I would be appalled if this were happening to a group of raw vegans. I think that this is a terrible move and people pull up all this bullshit. They’re like, “Well they’re a private company and you’re libertarian. So,” and it’s like, “Yeah, they can do whatever they want. That doesn’t mean that it’s actually a good idea.” It doesn’t mean they … isn’t going to further fuel the fires of social discontent and moving us towards the abyss. Which I really honestly think that’s the case.

Robb: I’m sure some cynic will be like, “Well you, you’re just mentioning this for self-serving reasons because maybe it hurt your bottom line.” Yeah, there is certainly that without a doubt, but there’s also this reality that it seems like every step that we are collectively taking is driving wedges between us all and divisiveness and also we have one of the largest companies in the world that is in the arguably the monopoly on information on the planet that is now curating information and letting you find it in the way that they deem fit, not the way that you deem fit.

Robb: Now some alternatives like DuckDuckGo and some other entities are out there that are much more freedom of access oriented, at least for now. So we’ll see how that plays out. Even though you told me not to talk about it, I did talk about it. So I guess we’ll start getting into the Q and A here finally.

Nicki: All right. Are you sure you’re ready for a question?

Robb: Man, I don’t know. So we’ve got a new recording set up and …

Nicki: We’re hoping this is better I know our audio has been pretty bad historically, so we’ll see.

Robb: We’re hoping this works better. Yeah. We knew that we were going to move when were in Reno and so we were just kind of trying to cobble things together and we know that the audio sucked, the video was marginal. We’re getting the scene situated and we’re going to have some better options soon, but hopefully this is better for us.

Nicki: Slightly better.

Robb: Yeah.

Nicki: At least for the time being.

Robb: Yeah.

Nicki: All right. Question one. It’s from Jesse. Collagen timing in sauna. Jesse says, “Hello you two, I have read or heard that when collagen is consumed prior to training, the absorption rate is increased considerably. It was also stated that this timing also changes where how the collagen is used. Specifically it goes towards cartilage, tendons, ligaments as opposed to hair, skin and nails. If I’m not off base and you’ve heard of this phenomenon, then I am curious what happens when collagen is consumed before a sauna, since your body is being stressed in similar ways to exercise, does the process work the same? Thank you both for taking the time to put out quality information most of which is easy to discern and put into practice for the layman. Like me.”

Robb: Yeah, it’s so short answer on this is I really don’t know what the implications would be. I guess if we’re thinking about heat shock proteins and cellular stress adaptation mechanisms that maybe the collagen is going into addressing those issues. It’s interesting even on basic protein supplementation, more frequent feedings with protein decrease the total need for protein relative to somebody. If you’re eating four or five meals a day, in general, you will need a little bit less protein, possibly significantly less than somebody that’s eating one meal a day to get the same kind of anabolic signaling, in general.

Robb: So I don’t know. I think that stuff like this, I do remember reading and actually now that I think about it, some work on STEM Talk, they had a guy on there that was an expert on soft tissue injury recovery and like doing a- oh it was the SRM selective something modulator but it’s basically like fish oil, baby aspirin and this stuff taken prior to training actually enhancing the remodeling of soft tissue and injuries and stuff like that.

Robb: So there might be a little bit to this but I … versus just folks doing three meals a day, good quality food, outstanding sleep. Like I think that this is one of those things that you want to make sure that you’re training, you’re getting sun on your skin, your sleep is optimized and then you can get out into the weeds on this stuff.

Nicki: Into the weeds.

Robb: And also self admittedly I haven’t dug in- like I did a little bit of poking around and there wasn’t a lot really, there was nothing that, what are the implications of radio labeled collagen proteins as it relates to sauna. So it would be a cool study, but yeah, nothing, nothing like that currently.

Nicki: Okay. Our next question is from John on fecal transplants. John says, “Hey Robb, I have a question for you about fecal transplants. I have Asperger’s syndrome along with a persistent itching all over my body and particularly on my anus. That I believe is from stuff I’m eating, expressing through my skin, cutting gluten and dairy has helped some but not eliminated. I haven’t been tested for gut bacteria yet, but going to do that next month. If as I suspect I turn out to be missing a lot of the usual gut flora. Do you think a fecal transplant is a good option and if so, what’s the best way to go about getting one?”

Robb: Well, it’s funny with the introduction to the show, I mentioned some weird gut things that I’m experiencing and actually reached out to Chris Kresser and Dr. Ruscio, pinging them about why and when one might seek out a fecal transplant. One thing backing up a little bit on this, just the itchiness around the anus that is associated with pinworm infestation and general gut irritation can be associated with the pinworm infection. So in addition to the whatever gut testing you’re doing, I would definitely do an O and P and ova and parasite as comprehensive a gut screen as you can to see if maybe you have some sort of pinworm or other critter like that because those can be treated really easily and effectively and that that might be a big chunk of the problem.

Robb: Beyond that, the housewives and what’s its of fecal transplant. The challenge that we face today is that there are very few people in Western society that have what’s arguably a healthy gut. I think we have people who have healthier guts but really healthy is hard to track down. So there are some clinics like in Mexico where they get transplants from the Tara Mahara Indians. The results that some people report with this process are nothing short of miraculous. I think Karen Pendergrass who’s part of the Paleo Foundation has documented her experience going through a fecal transplant because it was a long period of time where we would see her one year and she was super skinny and we’d see her the next year and she was 50 pounds heavier and it just edemic and sick and miserable. She could only eat like 100% pasture finished meat.

Nicki: She was reactive if the beef had been fed any grain at all she felt it.

Robb: She was reactive to … any grain at all. Yeah. Yeah. And because she’s in this, she has the paleo certification company, people would send her samples and she would try it and she’s like, “That’s bullshit. I know there’s gr-” and then they would actually come clean on it and they’re like, “Oh my God. How did you know that?” But so, and then she did a fecal transplant and is pretty robust now. She’s one of the people that I could think of that’s one of the better examples. I know some other- and she’s been very open about this so I feel comfortable telling her story because she’s blogged on it and written about it. And talked on podcast. So I would look, Karen Pendergrass fecal transplant and kind of see what her experience is.

Robb: I also know people that have done it and it didn’t really do much of anything and I, there’s a lot of different variables there. There is a reality that our cirrho type are parts of the innate immune response that we have, a handshake or crosstalk with the gut bacteria that take up residence in our digestive system. I don’t think … it’s similar to blood typing. I don’t think that they’re doing cirrho typing tissue typing with regards to who’s donating fecal transplants. So in addition to needing to find somebody who is healthy, comparatively, I think that they tend to work better if you have somebody that’s got an immune system that looks more close to your own.

Robb: If it’s quite different than yours than the type of bacteria that’s in there are less likely to be happy taking up residence with you and may cause some cross-reactivity. So it’s definitely the wild west. Like the FDA has only approved fecal transplants for longterm C. diff infections and one or two other issues. So oftentimes you have to go out of country or you do the Fleet enema get a cheap disposable blender and …

Nicki: The DIY version?

Robb: Yeah, the DIY version …

Nicki: The blender.

Robb: Well you want to mix that stuff up consistently and yeah. Yeah. Okay. Moving on.

Nicki: Okay. Our next question is from Liz on working out with a partial knee replacement. “Hey guys, I’m sure you have probably answered this by now. I’m almost caught up on the podcast, but I haven’t heard this question so I figured I’d give it a go. My boyfriend had part of his knee replaced due to an injury he sustained on his last deployment. He used to be extremely active, CrossFit, triathlons and running, but now not so much. Basically the doctor told him he needed to avoid any high impact exercises, no running, no squats, clean and jerks, etc. Basically if he was going to be lifting any weight, he needs to make sure it doesn’t impact his leg. When I search online for things he can do, it’s mostly old people stuff and he’s in his mid twenties so my question is, was his doctor wrong?” Greg, do you have athletes with similar issues? So you’re not almost caught up Liz, because Greg, it’s been a while.

Robb: It’s been a level since Greg’s been on. Greg would be a good one to ask about this stuff. Yeah.

Nicki: But Greg would be a good one. “Would you allow someone to come into your gym to start a training program and whenever we start to do some sort of training program, he gets disheartened by the things he can’t do and I just want to give him some hope that he can do some of the things he used to love. Do you have any suggestions or resources?”

Robb: Man, resources? I would, what do you think him reaching out to Hundred Fitness? I mean just to address and look at mobility concerns.

Nicki: So, not necessarily … that could be an option depending on where you live Liz, you could look online for an FRC practitioner, a functional range conditioning practitioner. They’re more and more are coming online all the time. Also looking for a kinstretch class, somebody who is offering kinstretch. Again, some major metropolitan areas you can find it, but it’s still new and growing, but it is one of the most amazing just mobility programs and I know it sounds like you’re …

Robb: My thought with the mobility is just to make sure that things are tracking properly, that we’re avoiding as much imbalance.

Nicki: Well and just strengthening the tissue.

Robb: In the …Yeah.

Nicki: And all of that. I think that would be a great first start, follow … you could certainly follow Hunter Cook on Instagram. It’s, I think it’s his Instagram handle is Hunter Fitness to see some of the stuff that he does. He’s one of the FRC certified coaches. So that’s a start.

Robb: So you might … that’s a start. And then my other thought, it’s tough not knowing. So you mentioned a partial knee replacement. There’s a lot of different ways that that can play out, whether we’re talking north of the tibia or south of the or the patella, what all went into that can really change the way that things play out. And as to whether or not his doctor was wrong. The doctors always take a pretty conservative stance on this because if they don’t, then they end up in trouble. And so you do need to read between the lines of that a little bit. There may be things like sled polling, sled dragging, which are much more amenable to loading his lower body and not causing problems because it’s a part of maybe a little bit more natural gate process of just walking.

Nicki: Pushing a wheel barrel, a loaded wheel barrel.

Robb: Load a wheel barrel, carrying it. I mean it’s not going to be squats, it’s not necessarily deadlifts. Deadlifting, I find hard to imagine like a straight leg dead lift where you lifted out of a bar, that it’s a low rack you lift it out and you do some sort of straight leg dead lift and even a high clean pole or a high snatch pole. I really find that it’s so long as technique is great.

Nicki: Right. Right. Right.

Robb: So I’m assuming this is not like the what, “Just throw it on up there,” the old CrossFit videos that, “You just throw that thing on up there,” like not that. Not dog shit technique.

Nicki: What is that video, we need to find that video and link it in this, in the show notes.

Robb: Yeah. “Just throw it on up there.”

Nicki: Like, “Use those paper towels,” he was like using paper towels to do his grip. It was funny.

Robb: Yeah. So not that, but it’s really hard for me to imagine that you wouldn’t be able to Romanian deadlift, straight leg, dead lift, high pole. Both cleans and snatches, snatches or, yeah.

Nicki: Ring work. I know it’s not legs but.

Robb: Yeah. I mean I’m just focusing on legs and yeah, you could get real geeked out on things like ring work and rope climbs and some of the hand balancing and stuff like that. But we do just for good aging, we want to maintain as much strength and mobility in our lower body as we can. So I would think about sleds, wheel barrels, and then a little bit of posterior dominant type things like straight-leg deadlifts. And again, you can load it from the top. So you’re not even getting into a super flexed knee position. Again, without knowing what the limitations are, it’s kind of hard to know.

Robb: But I’m hard pressed to imagine that that wouldn’t be okay. Loaded hip bridges. Even a unilateral I think would be okay. But this is some stuff that you would have to tinker with and a really good coach would be able to walk through this stuff with you. And, “How does that feel?” “It feels great. I have the end range closing pain.” “Okay, well we’re not going to do that,” or “We’re going to figure out how to modify it,” for sure. But there should be things that can be done. And again, this isn’t like a, a binary was the doctor, right or wrong. The doctor was being conservative, which is what they’re supposed to do.

Robb: But that doesn’t 100% mean that that’s the end of the story. We’re going to have to play and map and figure some stuff out. And after I had my back injury from doing CrossFit years ago, I just couldn’t really do CrossFit after that. It just wasn’t something that was amenable to me. But I’ve kept tinkering with things and I’m able to modestly deadlift. For the first time in ages I was able to back squat the other day. And so yeah, you just have to keep tinkering with it.

Nicki: Okay. Let’s see. Your next question is from Dan from Nashville, and he said, and this is on the topic of Native Americans, epigenetics and run on sentences. Dan says, “Hey, I have heard on your podcast as well as other ancestral podcasts, the subject of racial epigenetics being brought up, but I never hear it mentioned in a broad aspect and I was wondering if there was any evidence or even philosophy behind it that you have noticed. I’m mostly Native American with some white mutt thrown in too, I noticed that on most reservations, natives are almost always obese and I began to wonder if being carb sensitive is genetic. You don’t have to tell me that alcohol and substance abuse is rampant on reservations, but I sometimes wonder how much is environmental and how much is based on the fact that most sugars and grains were brought over with white culture.”

Nicki: “I know any Inuits are always an example of ketogenic diets and health, but I am Creek from the Georgia area of the United States and would assume that eating very low carb may not have been part of a people group living a more fertile area. So I would love your opinion on this as well as if you touched on other races based on region as well. Even if it’s mostly a philosophical perspective. I also know the stereotype of Kenyans being great distance runners or Jamaicans being better sprinters, but are there other athletic genetic tendencies for other people groups? Lastly is the reason we never heard of this because we are too racially sensitive and everyone fears that they will be equated with Hitler talking eugenics or is there just not enough evidence?”

Robb: Man, that’s a good one that may definitely get us peeled out of any social media platforms. I’m actually going to start at the end of that and it is interesting just there’s great evidence that certain groups like the Kenyans appear, folks from the areas like Kenya, Tanzania tend to be more slow twitch dominant and particularly good at it and appear to have some adaptations that are beneficial from an oxygen transport perspective.

Robb: There are genetic modifications within Himalayan populations that have afforded them better tolerance to altitude, which big surprise, like a lot of these people live at the levels 15,000 feet, 20 feet. That’s where they live most of their lives. So there’ve been selection pressures around that. There are other groups that definitely seem to have a tendency towards a more fast twitch phenotype. So we’re able to talk about that stuff a little bit.

Robb: But then it gets super murky because we start extrapolating things beyond that like IQ and all kinds of stuff. The big challenge is that I think that there are some really worthwhile things to discuss around that. I’m trying to think, there was a guy who was on Joe Rogan, I’m blanking on his name, I’ll try to remember what it was and get into the show notes, but he’s an evolutionary biologist and he’s talked about this stuff and this guy has just been railed upon because some people call him a eugenicist and racist and all the rest of this stuff. He’s doing some really solid research. And by all accounts, as far as I can tell, the dude is not racist. He just trying to do some good science and ask some questions, which are sometimes uncomfortable and make us look at ourselves and look at our society and look at the way that things function.

Robb: But the discomfort actually allows us, we can’t actually change anything. So this is one good thing out of Mark Manson book, which is if you are in a fucked up situation, either individually or societally, you must go through a process of discomfort to get to a spot where it is no longer fucked up. That’s just all there is to it. So if we create a society in which we cannot be uncomfortable because of all this fear attached to it, then we are pretty much …

Nicki: Never going to get through.

Robb: We are ossifying. We are casting our society in amber and guaranteeing that it never changes and never improves. So there’s that and I’m sure I’m a fucking racist for saying that stuff so mildly bitter about that stuff but. So I mean there are great population based studies that show that more first nations people, Native Americans are definitely at higher likelihood for the metabolic diseases of affluence.

Robb: There was just a report written up recently that Mexicans in general, which are a huge amount of variation within that, people who have more Mayan heritage versus more European heritage in all kinds of admixtures around that. But in general when you lump the totality of the Mexican population together, they’re like 400% more likely to develop type two diabetes than a European individual. So there’s definitely stuff to this. The work that we did with the Chickasaw nation they’re at 80 to 85% obesity bordering on diabesity within their population, which is much higher than the standard population. There’s lots of factors that go into that.

Robb: Socioeconomic issues, marginalization, issues like there’s all kinds of stuff, but there is, if we separate all that stuff out, I think that there is still a very viable case for, there’s some genetic predispositions around that stuff. There was a question related to would a very low carb diet be part of the ancestral experience for someone who is Creek from the Georgia area? The Chickasaw we’re originally from the kind of Mississippi Valley area and and were displaced from there and I wouldn’t say that … so there’ve been some great takedown pieces on the Inuit, the Inuit have been held up as a ketogenic society. The interesting thing is that they developed a snip, a single nucleotide polymorphism related to fat metabolism and the ability to produce ketone bodies, which makes them largely incapable of entering ketosis.

Robb: And there’s reasons behind that. We’ve talked about it on the podcast before, but I don’t think in general the protein, carb, fat ratios of our ancestors were consistently those of what we would see consistent with a ketogenic diet. But exercise, intermittent fasting.

Nicki: There would’ve been a lot of seasonal variability.

Robb: Tons of seasonal variability.

Nicki: Even in a really fertile region.

Robb: Yeah. So I see no problem with even as a reset kind of story shifting into a quite low carb period for someone. Then just playing with things. Then there’s also the reality that we are, although the ancestral model is very informative, at the end of the day you have to play to what the clinical outcomes are and if you just don’t do particularly well with carbs, then maybe you need to eat fewer carbs. In theory, I should do great with grains. I should do pretty well with wheat and oats and all that and I do terribly with all of them, so I’m 10% Native American and more, it’s largely out of Mexico so I’m more Mexican than Luis Villasenor is, but it’s really interesting. That’s where like some of the heritage stuff is interesting, but you almost have to hang that up and just cater to what the clinical outcomes are.

Nicki: Okay. Let’s see. Our final question this week is from Harvey on bent arm versus straight arm strength. Harvey says, “You have mentioned that an exercise program without straight arm strength results in inferior development of the connective tissue in comparison to the muscular system. If someone only did straight arm exercises, would their muscular systems development be inferior to their connective tissues?”

Robb: It’s an interesting question. I mean it’s super theoretical if people aren’t familiar with this. So a bent arm strength is just kind of standard pressing, pulling, pull ups, push ups, handstand pushups and then straight arm strength is more like levers, straight arm hand stands straight support.

Nicki: The ability to support yourself on rings.

Robb: So would their muscular systems development be inferior to their connective tissue? I guess so, because you just wouldn’t have …

Nicki: You need the joint integrity of it.

Robb: You need to actually move through a range of movement. You need both. This is really what the … the point is here and an interesting side note. The old school power lifting had a lot of roots in physical culture that had some gymnastics in it. So people would frequently both one arm and two arm, they would do, on a dumbbell bench press, take the dumbbell out of the rack and hold it at arms length and do static iso holds to the side.

Robb: They did all kinds of of flags and stuff like that. So in the olden days I think that people tended to do a mix of this stuff. And I do think it’s valuable for a lifetime, joint integrity and health. And I find the combination to be fine. Both of them have their own challenges to them, but I don’t know if that totally answers Harvey’s question. I guess the muscular system would be underdeveloped if you only did straight arm exercises, but it’s mainly because you’ve never really, you’re never loading the joint through a full range of movements. So, yeah. Yeah.

Nicki: Both.

Robb: So we want to do both.

Nicki: Yep.

Robb: Yeah. Yep.

Nicki: We just finished our first Texan podcast.

Robb: Well, we’ll see if it actually recorded. Anything else? Follow us @DasRobbWolf on Instagram.

Nicki: And you know what’s funny? New Braunfels is a town with a German heritage and so there’s lots of das stuff around, which is kind of funny that your Instagram handle now kind of actually …

Robb: Yeah like the big public recreation center is called Das Rec.

Nicki: Das Rec.

Robb: Yeah.

Nicki: Yeah.

Robb: And the possibly funny story behind me picking DasRobbWolf, this was still when there was a fair amount of the CrossFit pissing matches going on, but Dave Castro’s handle was The Dave Castro and I was like, “Well fuck, I’ll one up him, I’ll be Das Robb Wolf and nobody gets it.” And it only matters to….

Nicki: Nobody knows how to spell it. Nobody can find you on Instagram.

Robb: Nobody knows how to spell it. No one can find it. Yeah. It was a great, it was a great choice.

Nicki: Now somebody else has Robb Wolf regular.

Robb: No, somebody already had, Robb Wolf, that’s the reason why I didn’t do it.

Nicki: Oh they already, that’s why you didn’t.

Robb: Yeah. It was the poor sap that ended up on Twitter. That everybody would tag him instead of me. He’s this guy who’s like a musician and pretty much like a chain smoking drunk and he was like, “Fuck, would you guys just fucking leave me alone.”

Nicki: They’re asking him nutrition questions.

Robb: I private messaged him like, “I’m really sorry, is there anything I can do?” And he’s like, “No, I guess you’re not a dick.” But I mean this guy was besieged for a long time because people would tag him inadvertently. But @DasRobbWolf on Instagram.

Nicki: Submit your questions to RobbWolf.com, contact page and …

Robb: With all this other squirrely stuff with Google and whatnot, we’re working on some alternatives to that, that hopefully you guys can continue to find us. And to the degree you find that value in what we have to offer, we can hopefully get that to you. And until next we meet.

Nicki: Yup. Thanks guys.

Robb: Bye.

Nicki: Bye.

 

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Robb Wolf

Robb Wolf, author of The Paleo Solution and Wired to Eat, is a former research biochemist and one of the world’s leading experts in Paleolithic nutrition. Wolf has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of people around the world via his top ranked iTunes podcast and wildly popular seminar series.