Building strength and muscle mass: how to optimize training, nutrition, and more for longevity (AMA #71 rebroadcast)

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. This podcast, my website and my weekly newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone.
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Welcome to a special episode of The Drive. This week, we are re-broadcasting AMA 71, which was on the topic of building strength and muscle mass. This is a topic that is obviously central to both lifespan and health span, and is probably one of the topics I'm most frequently asked about.
This episode was released last year to our subscribers, but we think it's important enough, and we do this occasionally with AMAs that we re-release them to everyone. It's also a great chance for those of you who are not subscribers to hear and experience what the monthly AMAs are all about. While we've covered many aspects of this topic in the past on different podcasts with multiple guests across many years, we find that AMAs like this that are designed to bring all of that knowledge into one streamlined discussion are really helpful, especially as you want to start to operationalize some of these things in your life. So consider this a long TLDR compared to what it would be like to gather all this information everywhere. In this episode, we're going to talk about why muscle matters for longevity, metabolic health and injury prevention from a data standpoint. The difference between muscle mass and strength, because they're not the same of course, although they travel together and which one matters more. Talk about things like why would grip strength predict mortality. We discuss how to build muscle and strength effectively, including the important concepts of progressive overload, rep ranges, training intensity, and safe ways to maximize results. Talk about why power training and explosive movements become especially important with age and how to add them into your routine. Talk about the nutrition needed to support muscle growth, including protein intake, timing, and supplements such as creatine. Talk about training stages for different people from beginners and older adults to younger athletes and people focused on maintenance and including people like seasoned lifters. We talk about how to balance recovery and injury prevention by managing fatigue training consistency and making progress slowly over time. Without further delay, I hope you enjoy this special re-broadcast of building strength and muscle mass as an AMA.

**Nick** (3:12)
Peter. Welcome to another Ask Me Anything episode with Dr. Peter Attia, Stanford educated physician.
How are you doing?

**Peter Attia** (3:25)
Thank you for that incredible introduction. I'm doing well and I appreciate you having me back.

**Nick** (3:29)
I just want to make sure you knew it was your show. So I thought more of an introduction would make it feel more like home.
Before we start today's topic, how's your day going? Learn anything new today? Have you been educated in any way?

**Peter Attia** (3:44)
Well, you're always learning, Nick. That's the thing. At least I think we should all try to be learning at all times. Today, I had a particularly fun day. I went to my son's school to take him lunch. This is something that I like to do once in a while is take lunch and eat with my kids. He wasn't really in the mood to have lunch with me today, which happens from time to time with seven-year-olds. I ended up just in the cafeteria sitting at a table all by myself eating lunch, which in and of itself was pretty funny because I really got a kick out of watching all the kids doing their thing. But eventually, a bunch of kids in his class, I think, felt bad for me and they came up and just sat around me. They started asking me a bunch of questions, which of course turned into me asking them more questions, what are they doing in PE, what are they learning in science, that kind of stuff. But the kids sitting right across from me noticed I was drinking a diet soda and truthfully, I don't really drink that many. I'm mostly a Topo Chico Waterloo guy, but this was the first thing I grabbed. He said, I noticed you're drinking whatever it was I was drinking, a Fresca actually. You know that that has a sweetener in it that is 500 times sweeter than sugar?