AMA #32: Exercise, squats, deadlifts, BFR, and TRT

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
Hey, everyone, welcome to a sneak peek, Ask Me Anything or AMA episode of the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. At the end of this short episode, I'll explain how you can access the AMA episodes in full, along with a ton of other membership benefits we've created.
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So without further delay, here's today's sneak peek of the Ask Me Anything episode.
Hey everyone, welcome to Ask Me Anything episode number 32 I am joined today for the very first time on this podcast by Nick Stenson, who you'll get to know during this episode. But basically Nick has been working with me, well, off and on for 10 years, but he's been working with me specifically around the podcast since we decided to do this, which is, God, we're coming up on four years ago. It was in the spring of 2018, I think when we made that decision. And Nick is gonna be taking over for Bob on the AMA. It's a totally different vibe, but we had a field day. I felt this was probably a little bit more conversational. And the hope is that because Nick is quote unquote, a lay person and doesn't have the technical background that Bob does, that maybe he'll be interrupting me more and asking more questions. And maybe that will provide a more valuable experience. So in today's episode, we talk about a bunch of things. We started off by doing some follow-up questions on blood flow restriction, which we had some great questions following the podcast with Jeremy Linnecke.
I think we go from that then into talking about some of my favorite lifts. So squats, deadlifts, and hip thrusters, though not through the lens of blood flow restriction, but just more broadly talking about the importance of those lifts, how they fit into the overall ballpark of a centenary and Olympic training program.
And after a pretty deep dive on all things related to lifting, we get into testosterone replacement therapy, both for men and women. So we double click on some of the things we discussed in the previous AMA on testosterone replacement therapy, specifically around the risks of cardiovascular disease, but also we do a little bit more of a clinical discussion around how we actually replace testosterone, what our targets of therapy are, what are some of the do's and don'ts. And then we actually get into some questions about females and testosterone replacement therapy. This is an area for which we have far less data, so there's a little bit more speculation, but we also talk about that. If you are a subscriber and you want to watch the full video of this podcast, which again, I generally recommend you do, because we go through a number of figures here, you can find it on the show notes page. And if you're not a subscriber, well, I hope you become one, but you can certainly watch the sneak peek of this video on our YouTube channel. So without further delay, I hope you enjoy AMA number 32
All right, well, here we go, another AMA. Of course, I'm joined with a new co-host for this episode, Nick Stenson. And Nick, we'll save the intros till the end, but you ready to jump into this?

**Nick Stenson** (2:55)
Yeah, let's do it. We compiled some good questions here. I think it should be a fun one.

**Peter Attia** (2:59)
Yeah, you showed me the list that you were working on, and it's got me a little overwhelmed. If we can get through it, I'll be super impressed. But you've got a good group of questions, so just tell me where you wanna start.

**Nick Stenson** (3:09)
So we got a lot of good questions following the Jeremy Lenicky and some of the exercise podcasts. So I thought we'd kinda start there, and there's some blood flow restriction questions, but I thought it might be helpful for people before we get into some of those specifics. Just what is your current exercise routine look like each week?
I know it's always changing, but if you can give people a rough overview, I think that will be helpful as we get into some of these other questions.

**Peter Attia** (3:36)
Yeah, I mean, the actual macro structure of what I do has not changed much in the last year. The micro structure has changed a lot, meaning the exercises have changed a lot. But the macro structure is that on, let's see, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, are cardio days. So Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday are zone two.
Saturday is either a zone two followed by a zone five as kind of a separate workout. So each of those are 45 minute zone twos, and then kind of like a 30 minute zone five as a separate workout that's done almost immediately after. So basically getting out of bike clothes and putting on stair climbing clothes. Alternatively, I might just do a longer bike ride on Saturday and make it more of an anaerobic workout.