X3 Your Health With Dr. John Jaquish

This episode is all about better physical health with Dr. John Jaquish, the inventor of the X3 Bar portable home gym. Dr. Jaquish is a research professor at Rushmore University, speaks at scientific conferences all over the world, has been featured on many of the top health podcasts, is an editor of multiple medical journals, and is a nominee of the National Medal of Science.

On this episode we discuss:

5:20 Combating osteoporosis w/strength training

7:40 How the wrong workouts can cause injuries

14:00 Debunking health and wellness influencers

24:00 X3 Bar resistance band training system techniques with cross training

26:00 Cardiovascular training for different body types

30:00 How nutrition is different for individual bone density

33:45 Women in osteoporosis clinical studies

37:00 How to build bone density

38:00 Dr.Jaquish’s muscle building diet

39:00 Fermented protein over whey

43:00 Different fasting approaches

44:00 Research facts over forums

53:00 Food industry secrets

Full Transcript

Kayla Osterhof: Welcome to the BioCurious Podcast, with your host Kayla Osterhof. As a health scientist, biohacker, and generally a curious person, I’m always looking for new ways to optimize and integrate mind, body, and spiritual health. I created this podcast to explore the magic in science of human biology and expand your consciousness through learning.

Kayla Osterhof: If you enjoy the episode that you’re about to hear, please leave a review and share it with someone who can benefit from the information. Now let’s get curious.

Kayla Osterhof:: Hello BioCurious community, this episode our guest is going to talk about fitness. Unlike the fat diets and quote unquote performance training guides you see on social media, our guest has a PhD in Biomedical Engineering Research along with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Business and Marketing. He is the inventor of the most efficient bone density building medial device, which has helped thousands of patients with their physical injuries.

Kayla Osterhof: The research indicates that this product built a muscle much faster than conventional lifting and does it in less training time, all with the lowest risk of joint injury. With this findings and hard work, he is now a nominee of the National Medal of Science. He’s the inventor of OsteoStrong devices and the X3 system. It’s our pleasure to introduce Dr. John Jaquish.

Kayla Osterhof: Welcome Dr. Jaquish to the BioCurious Podcast. I am so excited that you’re here, and thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge with us.

Dr. John Jaquish: Kayla, thanks for having me.

Kayla Osterhof: You are the scientist and the brains behind a fitness piece of equipment that I am very interested in, which is the X3 Bar variable resistance training system. I’m sure that many of my listeners are familiar with the X3 Bar exercise band bar system, so I’m so excited to talk about all of that. But before we do, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into this field of work?

Dr. John Jaquish: Sure, yeah. Well in the development of the medical devices to treat osteoporosis, which was all stimulated by the fact that my mother had osteoporosis. I wanted to see what I could do to address it and I did reserve her osteoporosis, and so people with concern should go and check out on OsteoStrong location. Through that process of that, that medical device invention, I realized that really what we’re doing with standard exercise, is completely lacking in by comparison to what I have observed really stupid.

Dr. John Jaquish: Like we have a seven full difference in our capacity to create force from strong range to weak range. Yet, we only use the weight that we can handle in the weakest part of the movement. Therefore, the strongest part of the movement muscles basically shut off. Also, in the weakest part of the movement, we’re exposing the joints to the greatest amount of cumulative damage. Really standard fitness does a great job at damaging joints and does a really lousy job at stimulating any growth at all. That’s why I wrote the book Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time and So Is Cardio.

Dr. John Jaquish: Now the problem with cardio is that, there’s research on this that stretches back 40 years, but the fitness industry’s never been smart enough to really understand this process. So you talk to a sports’ physiologists and they’re like, “Yeah, cardio is not really the answer for weight loss.” But you talk to somebody in the fitness industry and they give you the opposite, the opposite answer. It’s only because there’s just zero understanding and no interest in understanding scientific literature.

Dr. John Jaquish: When it came to strength training, which is I think where you want to go today, I realized we can fatigue the muscle in accordance with its actual output capability. We can stimulate a lot more growth than we’d ever get out of using a static weight, but we need to weight the changes as we move. You’ve tried band training before, right?

Kayla Osterhof: Yes, I have.

Dr. John Jaquish: Good.

Kayla Osterhof: I actually have not tried the X3 Bar fitness band bar system yet though.

Dr. John Jaquish: Okay.

Kayla Osterhof: As I told you before this, it’s been on my radar, so I do eventually want to try it, but I am a fan of resistance training with bands.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right, and bands are great at delivering higher forces where you’re stronger and lower forces where you’re weaker. But the problem is, if you’re using anything… Like bands are also great for rehabilitation, so you go into a physical therapist’s office, then you see bands hanging on the wall or in a bin in the corner of the room. They pull them out to do hour rotation of the shoulder or some smaller activation type movements. But nobody’s like doing chest presses and squats or bands, because the bands had traditionally been anywhere from like five to 15 pounds, which is not a strength relevant level of force.

Dr. John Jaquish: If you make the banding strong enough where it is relevant, and remember you’re seven times stronger in your stronger range than you are in your weaker range so this is far beyond what you’d actually handle in weight training, it’ll twist your wrists and your ankles to the point where they may actually break. You could break a wrist or an ankle by using inappropriate force with banding alone.

Dr. John Jaquish: When I looked at developing a product, I said, “Okay, well bands by themselves are worthless from a strength training perspective.” What we really need is actually something from the fitness industry that actually works, a barbell. We need a barbell that has rotation to keep our wrist neutral at all times, and then we need a second ground to stand on so that the banding can flex and move underneath.

Dr. John Jaquish: Also, you need to look at specific quality of banding. Most bands are made out of petroleum like oil, and I wanted to use a higher level of a quality that would provide a stronger level of force and wouldn’t wear out nearly like petroleum would. That was tree latex from rubber trees, so then I developed the world’s strongest bands. The bands are 50, 100 times stronger than the type of bands you would see at like Walmart. Of course, it comes with the bar and the plate, so that you can deliver these incredible forces into musculature where you can handle them and trigger an extreme amount of growth.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, so I was curious in looking at the product a little bit more before our talk today. I actually used to work in physical therapy for several years back when I was getting an undergrad and in my master’s. We did a lot of work with bands as you mentioned, and part of the reason for that was to utilize the eccentric movement to build muscle, whereas, a regular weight lifting routine would only use the concentric movement to build muscle. Is that part of why the X3 exercise bar with bands is so much more effective?

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, you get loading in both directions, so you get both eccentric and-

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, right.

Dr. John Jaquish: … and concentric, and you get it at a magnitude that you’ll never be able to get with a weight. When I do a chest press movement, I hold 540 pounds at the top. But then when I lower the bar in eccentric manner, I’m holding 300 pounds in the middle. Then I continue to lower it and I’m holding 100 pounds at the bottom. The bottom is where you’re injured, and so then as I go through the movements, I can do however many repetitions I can do with 540 pounds until I can’t get there anymore.

Dr. John Jaquish: Then I’m exhausted but I can still do half repetitions with 300 pounds, and then I can’t do those anymore and my last one or two repetitions are with 100 pounds in the weakest range of motion. I did train the weakest range of motion to absolute fatigue, but the more powerful range of motion came ahead of that.

Kayla Osterhof: Okay, yeah. That makes a lot more sense, and would be really pertinent for injury prevention for sure. Tell us a little bit more about why this is so much more effective and what kinds of results you get as far as muscle building, because I should mention you wrote the book, Weight Lifting is a Waste of Time. I think a lot of people, especially weight lifters would be triggered by that statement.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Kayla Osterhof: Explain a little bit what you mean by that.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, it’s funny. I did take a title that was a little attention grabbing, and I think it’s really funny when people are offended by a collection of scientific findings that I’ve put together, because how could science to make you mad unless you’re…

Kayla Osterhof: Oh science makes everybody mad.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well right, but no, it only makes fools mad.

Kayla Osterhof: Well that’s…

Dr. John Jaquish: Intelligent people look at science…

Kayla Osterhof: Well okay, yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, intelligent people look at science and say, “Well that’s a scientific finding.”

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, at times it’s like the scientific finding may be limited. Like I remember the meat causes colorectal cancer study, and then you look into it and the people…

Kayla Osterhof: Got to look at who funded it, who conducted it.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, they found 1,000 people who for 40 straight years ate nitrate meat, as in like an Oscar Mayer hotdog, every day for 40 years. Now, if you eat an Oscar Mayer hotdog every day for 40 years, did you do it for health?

Kayla Osterhof: If you did, then I am scared about who’s your health teacher.

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, right. They didn’t do it for health and are these people more likely to be smokers and drinkers and intervening with drugs users? Probably, so yeah and they had a 2% increase rate to colorectal cancer. They probably had a 10% increase rate of all mortality death, like you could die of anything because these are clearly people who don’t care about their health.

Kayla Osterhof: Of course. Of course.

Dr. John Jaquish: It was a stupid study, a stupid study.

Kayla Osterhof: Well as a researcher myself, I know that there are a lot of studies out there that I think you would qualify and so would I as stupid.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Kayla Osterhof: But it’s unfortunate because there’s a lot of influencers out there who are trying to educate folks on scientific topics, and they have no background in science and so they actually don’t understand how to read the research and analyze it.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, crosstalk.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, you have to really understand how to analyze research and how it’s done, and make sure the methods are done well and ethical. Also, who funded the research, who conducted the research, all of that is really important and a lot of people ignore all of it.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Most nutrition research like vegans are big fans of, it’s funded by NABISCO. It’s whatever, nonprofits that are supposed to be serving humanity by providing research in health and nutrition. Really they’re trying to sell more cookies and crackers because NABISCO knows vegans don’t eat vegetables most of the time. Most of the time they eat cookies and crackers and other sugary product.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, it’s unfortunate.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, it is unfortunate because a lot of people don’t have the knowledge like you and I do, or the skillset to decipher quality research from poor quality research.

Dr. John Jaquish: True.

Kayla Osterhof: They just kind of end up believing whatever’s out there, but that’s why you’re here on this podcast specifically. Tell us about the research that you based this book on about weight lifting and also that led to the X3 Bar variable resistance training system.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes, so first was, when I did the first big clinical data assessment of the medical device, that’s how I discovered the seven full difference. From I call it, impact to ready range, as in if you trip and fall, how do you protect yourself, those are our strongest positions of our body. We go from impact ready range to weaker range and in doing that, just looking at that data I thought, “God, weight lifting is terrible loading the body, because we have so much more capability that we’re not using.”

Dr. John Jaquish: No, I’m not taking anything away from the sport of weight lifting, that’s still a thing. If you want to participate in the sport of weight lifting, you have to lift the weights. But if your goal is to be as strong and as lean as possible, you do not have to lift weights. If you don’t, you will do better because of this new method that I describe in the book.

Dr. John Jaquish: That was the first point that I came across was my own research and I thought, “Wow, I’ve got this information that nobody else does.” I think I’m going to have to build a product here and file for some patents. Then go look if I can find any other existing literature that supports this, so I found 16 different studies that showed that variable resistance, including higher level of variance because some of the variable resistance studies were done with like weights plus bands. But I mean obviously, we know what weights do, and then if you add a tiny bit of variance, you get a dramatic increase in muscle growth.

Dr. John Jaquish: There’s still people that are like, “Well, that we don’t know if it’s weights or it’s variances.” It’s like yeah we do, because we’ve been testing weights for years, so we have that baseline. Then other research came later on to show that level of variance, more specifically a higher level of variability triggered much more growth.

Dr. John Jaquish: I wanted to stay within the perimeters of the seven full difference, but had to be lower because we definitely don’t want like a one rep maximum type situation, which you want kind of higher reputations. We have a sarcoplasmic effect as well as a myofibril effect within the muscles. Meaning, we’re going to work on the structure of the muscle as well as storing fuel for contraction within the cells, because those are really the two different ways that a muscle grows. Not as triggered to fire, because there are some neurological aspects to that, but just pure growth. We want the maximum of both and we want experience, and by having a high level of variance, I knew that would happen.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s how the product was designed, and those 16 studies they’re all laid out in the book and described very well. And so, the 32 pages of the book is really about how and why I designed the X3. Then the rest of it is just sort of all other mistakes that have been made in the fitness industry, in nutrition and how we could fix them very easily. There’s a lot of actionable information in there, but ultimately, we’re looking at why would you lift weights if you know the stimulus is awful and inefficient?

Dr. John Jaquish: Here another example. Why do we do multiple sets? Like when you go to get a suntan, you don’t do multiple sets in the sun to stimulate the skin. It’s one exposure, so why do you do multiple sets with weights? Well because the stimulus is terrible, that’s why, so you have to stimulate over and over and over again to get any effect. With what we’re doing with the method described in the book, you just fatigue the body one time, one muscle group at one time. You’ll see more growth from that than an hour or like 10 sets of squats or whatever somebody may be doing.

Dr. John Jaquish: I won’t say it’s easier because you do go to a deeper level of exhaustion, but you get a much greater stimulus. There’s people who complain about everything, but there’s a lot of complaints, “Well if I can’t do five sets, then I don’t want to do it.” Okay, your objective is not doing more exercise. Your objective is developing your body as quickly as possible.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, and I would like to do that with doing less exercise personally.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, absolutely.

Kayla Osterhof: Tell me, walk me through what it looks like, for instance, what is your routine with the X3 Bar resistance band training system and how do you make sure to work every muscle group? Or is it possible to work every muscle group with this tool?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes.

Kayla Osterhof: Okay.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes, every muscle in the body. There’s eight movements, eight basically barbell movements and there’s a different set up. You need the bar and the second ground, which is what we call the ground plate. The banding can stretch underneath, so the channels of the bands run through that you’re standing on top of.

Dr. John Jaquish: The workout takes 10 minutes. We split the body two ways, so it’s like pushing muscles one day, pulling muscles the next day. You start off doing four days a week and then you graduate to doing it six days a week, so you stimulate every muscle group three times in a week. You definitely notice the growth, people can see muscle growth in the mirror within a week.

Kayla Osterhof: Very cool, so personally, I do athlete, so I run and I compete. I actually made Team USA this year and then all the races got canceled unfortunately.

Dr. John Jaquish: Oh I’m sorry.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, but weight lifting is or not really weight lifting, strength training is what I call it because I mostly just do body weight stuff personally, and because I hate the gym and the people in there.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, me too.

Kayla Osterhof: I mostly do body weight training just because I’m not a big fan of free weights. I worked in physical therapy for enough years to see a ton of injuries. People not properly lifting weights and people not having core strength to be able to properly lift weights. I see this as a benefit of what you’ve developed as well as avoiding injury, because you’re going to be building the muscles that you need that are more stabilization muscles in order to lift heavier weight or use a heavier band.

Kayla Osterhof: But even for me as a mostly endurance athlete, which is 99% cardio, I do need to keep a certain level of muscle building and a certain level of strength, which does require strength training. For somebody like me, what would you recommend as far as utilizing the X3 Bar exercise band bar system for that cross-training purpose with cardio?

Dr. John Jaquish: Cardio is, like I said at the beginning of the show, cardio is a lousy way to go about being lean.

Kayla Osterhof: Yes, I agree with that.

Dr. John Jaquish: But if you need to do cardio, there’s no way around it. You have to do cardio.

Kayla Osterhof: Right, well the cardio…

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s not like you can use the X3 and be a better marathon runner.

Kayla Osterhof: No, well actually I disagree with that. I think that it could make you a better marathon runner, you just can’t replace running with it.

Dr. John Jaquish: Oh that’s what I mean.

Kayla Osterhof: But you can supplement it.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s what I meant.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: You can’t, right. Like X3 on its own can make you heavier and stronger and when you’re running marathons-

Kayla Osterhof: It’s going to be harder.

Dr. John Jaquish: … you want to be lighter and you actually want to be weaker, because in certain areas you want to diminish muscle mass because it’s just extra weight that you carry around.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, definitely.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right, the more advantageous power away ratio.

Kayla Osterhof: Right, and when you said, just to go back to something you said before, when you said cardio is a waste of time, I agree in what I think you’re trying to say. But I don’t agree in that statement wholly because for your cardiovascular health, like for your heart health and your lung health, it is very beneficial. For me, actually, I don’t run or bike necessarily for health and I actually don’t think running is a healthy thing to do physically. But it is excellent for my mental health, so I just wanted to provide that little caveat.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes. Now, if you look at cardio, so like to be a better marathon runner, you have to run marathons. You have to train your body to carry itself with the proper length of stride, which is very different than a sprint stride. There is a whole different thing that you’re doing, but there has been more than 100 studies. I’m looking for the meta analysis right now, which I’ll probably give you later and you can put in the show notes.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, that’d be awesome.

Dr. John Jaquish: There’s a meta analysis with more than 100 studies that show that, strength training will improve your cardiac health more or equal to than cardiovascular training, and there’s a few reasons for that. One is, the muscle that’s built is there all the time, putting a higher demand on the heart so it’s performing at a higher level at all times.

Dr. John Jaquish: The other one is that, well the other one’s really like defeating a myth. So the more muscular somebody is, the more out of breath they can get, but that doesn’t mean they have poor cardiovascular health. It just means they’re running a bigger engine and it’s pulling more blood.

Dr. John Jaquish: Like when I run up a flight of stairs and I weigh 240 pounds and another guy runs up the stairs and weighs 140 pounds, he won’t break a sweat but I will. Because my legs may be four or five times bigger than his, and it’s just drawing more blood and the heart has to work harder, but that has nothing to do with health.

Kayla Osterhof: Right. Yeah, so you’re moving more weight, it’s weight over distance.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right.

Kayla Osterhof: If you just go to that very simple algorithm, then it makes sense that if you have more weight, meaning more muscle and over the same period of distance of somebody who has less weight, less muscle, then your body is going to have to work more to achieve that goal.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, so kind of back to what I was wondering, your opinion, so for somebody like me who is more of a runner, biker type of athlete but I do really take my cross-training seriously. Would love to optimize it and take less time to cross-train if possible, what kind of a protocol would you recommend for somebody like me?

Dr. John Jaquish: I would give you the standard X3 protocol that’s going to make you leaner. Like most cardio athletes have diminished bone mass, so you have very high levels of cortisol chronically. Cortisol does really three things, I often say two because we’re not talking about bone but it diminishes bone density. It sacrifices muscle and it preserves body fat so you keep your body fat longer, because that’s the storage system.

Dr. John Jaquish: When you’ve got to go long distances, your body wants to maintain a bigger storage tank of energy and it wants a smaller engine so it’s getting rid of muscle. And a smaller frame to make you lighter, so it’s sacrificing bone density. What you’re doing when you’re doing X3 is you’re getting… Like cardio athletes have usually very low bone mass for their given health and age and everything like that. I mean they might not be osteoporotic, but they’re lower than they should be.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, and I actually think that that is a product, like for instance, my bone mass is excellent, but I also do cross-training. But it’s more about the fuel that they’re putting into their body.

Dr. John Jaquish: Of course.

Kayla Osterhof: A person who does a lot of cardio is typically putting in a different type of fuel than somebody who is more on the strength training side of things. I think that is what’s responsible for the bone density, because if you think about it, that impact on your bones should actually strengthen it. If you’re giving it the proper fuel, then it should make for stronger bones. I think it comes down to what the types of foods that these different athletes are eating.

Dr. John Jaquish: To stimulate any bone density growth at all, you need to exceed 4.2 multiples of body weight, so cardio gets nowhere near there, not even close. I’ve read one study that was 1.3 multiples body weight, another 1.7. Then of course with the cortisol going up, that diminishes bone density. There’s a lot of research that shows that sprinters will get a higher level of bone density, because that impact is higher. I mean this is what I did my PhD dissertation in.

Kayla Osterhof: Right. Yeah, so that’s what I’m talking about for runners specifically, bikers obviously that’s little to no impact but yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Sprinters, not distance, yeah.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah. Makes sense.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, and people tell me what they’re doing for their bone density, and it’s like do I really want to pop their ballon right now?

Kayla Osterhof: Yes, I think you should.

Dr. John Jaquish: Tell them like, “Yeah, I mean that’s not going to do anything,” but they’re excited and they want to tell me. It all depends on the context and the conversation inaudible should I really ruin this person’s day or not? But yeah, there’s a lot of unfortunate instruction in fitness.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, like the organ exercise for bone density, unless you’re going outrageously heavy and this is what OsteoStrong is for to a small degree X3. Like X3 won’t get you anywhere the bone stimulus of that OsteoStrong will, but you need to go far beyond the 4.2 multiples body weight to make a significant impact, and that’s not what any type of running is going to do.

Dr. John Jaquish: Like a gymnast will get 10 times their body weight from a dismount of the uneven bars, so they may be dropping 10 feet. Well you know most people, most post menopausal population are even over 50 males, some of them couldn’t jump off of a curb without hurting themselves, let alone drop 10 feet. What we need-

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, I think this is…

Dr. John Jaquish: … is the benefit of the dropping without the risk.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, right, without the low that could potentially break a bone.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, of course.

Kayla Osterhof: The impact I guess, so this is actually really pertinent especially for women and I’m a huge advocate for women’s health. As you probably know and have seen as a researcher, women, especially of childbearing age who experience the hormone cycle are largely left out of the clinical research. Because there are very lousy research subjects because of the fact that they are consistently changing biochemically their hormone levels and even their neurochemistry over the course of a month, which is why they are controlled out of a lot of these clinical studies.

Kayla Osterhof: That means that, for women specifically who osteoporosis impacts more often and bone density issues in general and also muscle wasting issues in general affect more women more often, all of these recommendations that are out there are based on research that are done majority if not all on men and post menopausal women. So that being said, those recommendations are not appropriate for women of childbearing age who actually need this information more than men do.

Kayla Osterhof: What should a woman do if they’re pre-menopausal? They’re still in their childbearing age where they’re experiencing hormonal cycle. Maybe they don’t have any bone density issues yet, but what are your recommendations for folks to maintain the bone density that they have or build their bone density before they get to the age where it becomes a problem?

Dr. John Jaquish: You said the most brilliant thing, it’s building it before you get to an age where you start losing it.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, that’s exactly the way to go, because when you build bone density you know how long it lasts in the body? You’re going to like this.

Kayla Osterhof: Mm-hmm (negative) actually no.

Dr. John Jaquish: It lasts 30 years.

Kayla Osterhof: Wow, I really love that. That’s great.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, and there’s a lot of research on it, so people with an athletic background in their 40s and 50s, not so much in their 20s because 30 years goes by and you’re really not old yet. You’re not elderly, you’re not frail, but if you’re active in your 40s and 50s, and you get a high level of impact or you do things like X3 and OsteoStrong and maybe jump type training, because there are people who remain conditioned so that they can receive a higher impact.

Dr. John Jaquish: Like I know a couple of former gymnast who just never really got injured, who I attach an accelerometer to and looked at how much force they could put through their bone mass, through their hip joint. They were six multiples of their body weight.

Kayla Osterhof: Wow.

Dr. John Jaquish: Just like jumping off of benches at the park.

Kayla Osterhof: That’s crazy.

Dr. John Jaquish: These were women who are in their 50s and 60s, but they were super athletic before. Now that we know what the triggers are and what the minimum dose response is, that helped us.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, so that’s the recommendation, is you have to have that stimulus and then what you do is going to serve you for 30 years.

Kayla Osterhof: Right.

Dr. John Jaquish: So most crosstalk.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, so if somebody is at a point where they don’t necessarily have issues, but they want to build their bone density, how long would it be or how long does it take to actually build that bone density that would last 30 years?

Dr. John Jaquish: From what I’ve seen, for the most part about two years. People can go to OsteoStrong for two years, get to a higher level of bone density and then they don’t need to do it again.

Kayla Osterhof: That’s awesome.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Kayla Osterhof: I know that the biohackers listening are like, “Oh okay,” the ears just perked up, because they’re looking for ways to optimize their routine so that these things can last longer and they can have greater longevity.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. Now, with musculature, there’s a different metabolic rate and so you develop a lot of muscle with X3, but you’ve got to keep doing X3.

Kayla Osterhof: Right, so in the building phase of muscle versus the maintaining phase of muscle with X3, are they different or is the protocol the same? Is it always three times a week doing your specific protocol or a routine that you have? Or do you do it more often when you’re building and then the maintenance phase can be less?

Dr. John Jaquish: Building versus maintenance really has more to do with your nutrition. If you want to build muscle, you have one gram per pound of body weight and you do X3 and muscles grow. If you want to just get leaner and maintain what you have, you cut that protein about in half. You have one half of a gram per pound of body weight. I weigh 240 pounds, I try and get just to round it off 250 grams of protein a day or equivalent.

Dr. John Jaquish: There’s a bacterial fermentation product I use that gives you certainly the equivalent of normal food 50 grams, but it’s actually only 10 grams. It’s all essential amino acids made with fermentation, with different fermentation cultures.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, so I use a fermented version of BCAAs personally for my recovery. Do you have a favorite type of protein, and can you explain for folks who maybe don’t understand the fermented protein versus other types, what the difference and why do you chose fermented?

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, when you take a protein supplement that is not fermented, you’re not getting a lot of value out of it. Like whey protein is only usable by the body 18%, the rest of it is secreted in form of nitrogen. You can still have whey protein and then you urinate and your urine’s got a lot of form in it, bottom bubbles and all and that’s evidence of nitrogen. Why consume something that goes through you in form of waste for the most part?

Dr. John Jaquish: What I take is full disclosure, I manufacture this, but I manufactured it and developed it because all the products in the market were pretty bad and pretty useless. Fortagen gives me a high level of essential amino acids that are made with fermentation, which the body can use. See, we’re meant to eat rotting stuff. We’re meant to consume bacterial byproduct, but because of sanitation, we don’t and we’ve lost and that is the most sufficient protein out there. If we’re looking for quality protein, we’re only left with animal products.

Dr. John Jaquish: I tell vegan, if they want to continue to be vegan, I first try and talk them out of that, but that’s like trying to talk somebody out of a religion. It’s like, okay, this is not made of animals and this is not made of plants either, it’s made out of bacteria. Once a bacteria naturally dies, then you’re left with different essential amino acids that could be combined in the proper proportion so that you can grow all the lean tissue you need. You can repair and recover everything you need in the body with a very low caloric impact.

Dr. John Jaquish: Like I’ll have the equivalent 200 grams of protein and I get people trying to argue with me about this all the time, but it’s only four calories per serving and that’s four servings, so 16 calories in a day gives me almost all of my protein. You know how you can eat like a pound of meat, just because I don’t want to have nothing. No, I do fast for 72 hours a week, so crosstalk.

Kayla Osterhof: Okay, I was going to say so you can have that, you could still have that protein during a fast and not necessarily break your fast?

Dr. John Jaquish: Correct.

Kayla Osterhof: Okay. Cool.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. You need 50 calories to break a fast.

Kayla Osterhof: Right. Well that would be a great tool I think for a lot of the people who listen to this podcast who frequently fast and sometimes do very long periods of fasting. I am not a purist when it comes to fasting. I think that you can still have some calories like you said, I keep it under 50. Usually I keep it under 30 if I’m going to have anything, so I may have a little bit of bone broth. Or I may have a little bit of MCT oil, but not ever going past that caloric intake to get out of the fasting zone.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right. Yeah, fasting has become a little bit like veganism where somebody will say like, “Wait a minute, you had bone broth during your fast?”

Kayla Osterhof: Right, you’re not a real faster.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, or they even say meaner stuff like in some of the fitness forums like, “You should kill yourself.”

Kayla Osterhof: Oh my God.

Dr. John Jaquish: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. The fitness industry is yeah, they’re full of some… Those discussion forums are full of some very angry, jealousy driven people.

Kayla Osterhof: Well you hurt their feelings because you try to take away their gym days.

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s very strange. People are angry because the company is successful, they’re angry because I tell them they’re wasting time in the gym. My response is, “If you don’t like my advice, two things to keep in mind.” One is, you don’t have to take my advice, like there’s still flat authors out there. There’s still people who believe the world is flat and nobody is trying to take their club away from them. They have an organization, but also, all I’m presenting is science. Why would you be mad about that? It’s where we started the show, a scientific finding is a scientific finding.

Dr. John Jaquish: I put almost all of my energy into finding others who have come to scientific conclusions, I’m referencing papers. Weight lifting is a waste of time, there’s 250 academic references and there’s 250 academic references because I’m saying you don’t have to believe me. You don’t need to believe me. This is my opinion. This is my feeling. This is my summation. This is the words of other researchers who had no conflict of interest when they did this research. You can’t really argue with a scientific finding unless you have a different scientific finding that is in conflict.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, it’s a wacky world we live in these days. I think that whether you’re looking at valid research or whether you’re actually highlighting the evidence based on something, if it goes against somebody’s perspective or opinion or programming, it’s very triggering. I understand very deeply the psychology of how people behave, human behavior, why they choose those behaviors.

Dr. John Jaquish: Sure.

Kayla Osterhof: It’s more of, if somebody gets angry with you about the science that you’re presenting-

Dr. John Jaquish: True.

Kayla Osterhof: … it’s not about you, nor is it about the science. It’s about that person.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

Kayla Osterhof: Those reactions come from the person themselves and their experiences and what has led to them being the person that they are. I try to always remember that and it makes me have a lot more compassion, and then a lot more patience for folks who maybe don’t want to accept the science.

Dr. John Jaquish: Sure, yeah.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Here’s another one and I don’t want to take the show on a political direction but-

Kayla Osterhof: It happens sometimes.

Dr. John Jaquish: … like Alexandria Cortez wanted to make it illegal, I mean I think that was the word she used which is kind of silly in regards to how universities work. No one would be allowed to do research on climate change anymore because it’s settled. It’s like, what are you afraid of? Why would you say that if you’re so sure about your position? There’s a conflict there and there’s all kinds of problems with that, but they don’t want any skepticism anymore. It’s like, why would we stop wanting to learn and blindly follow?

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, and I think people forget that science is also a practice. Science ends up being called fact until like you said, another scientific finding comes out that it replaces that fact with a new fact. And so, if people look at it more in that way, then they maybe won’t have such a strong reaction to it. And if you believe very strongly against a scientific finding, well anyone has the ability to become a researcher themselves and try to uncover the evidence based for whatever your theory is.

Dr. John Jaquish: Sure.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Anyone, literally anyone can do it.

Kayla Osterhof: So it’s fun. Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, pure review journals do not care about your credentials.

Kayla Osterhof: That’s true. They care about quality science, quality research.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Did you use the right statistical test? I’m sure there’s people who are trying to submit stuff where they didn’t use any statistical test at all.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, that’s a problem.

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s just like, okay.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah don’t do that.

Dr. John Jaquish: crosstalk.

Kayla Osterhof: Oh yeah, it’s fun.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah.

Kayla Osterhof: Being a researcher is a fun career path I think, because you get to use science as a tool to uncover the truth about your own theories and the things that you’re interested in. I say truth lightly because of what we just talked about, but the truth for now I guess you could say.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right.

Kayla Osterhof: I’m a big fan and I think that everyone could benefit from learning at least at the very least, if you don’t want to do research yourself, at least understand what makes a quality research pure reviewed article versus one that there are bias involved.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right.

Kayla Osterhof: Kind of looking at how the research was done, if it’s high quality research and who was funding it, who conducted the research? The purpose for why it was done is really important to understanding if the findings are relevant and something you should believe honestly.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right, and that completely goes into the nutrition research like there’s not enough margin in the meat industry so that they can find any research, it’s a very low margin business. But carbohydrates derived from wheat and seed based products, seed based material, raw material, are literally cheaper than dirt. Like I think I read somewhere that Triscuit have a 600% margin.

Kayla Osterhof: Oh my gosh.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right.

Kayla Osterhof: That’s crazy, yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: You know the little cracker? Yeah, you put cheese on it or whatever, 600% margin.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, it’s crazy.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right, so there’s a huge business there and they’re paying and like I said, they want everybody to go vegan because they know vegans are not eating kale all day long. They’re eating cookies and crackers and health candy bars, which are really just candy bars. Really just candy bars without milk in them. Yeah, it’s travesty and everyone’s getting sicker and weaker.

Dr. John Jaquish: The two greatest drivers of long life that are irrefutable thus far, so there’s no conflicting research is what I mean when it comes at least two things is, high levels of strength and low levels of body fat are the two greatest drivers of living a long life. Do vegans have either of those? No.

Kayla Osterhof: Maybe some of those.

Dr. John Jaquish: The fruitarians have a low level of body fat, but they’re so devastated from a muscular strength standpoint, like I saw a guy who couldn’t do a push up. He’s actually recovering now, he realized he made a mistake with his nutrition and he almost died. Yeah, he’s recovering from that now.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, well it’s interesting because just like everybody knows, there’s Big Pharma. Big Pharma is running the medical industry and they don’t have the individual’s health in mind, they have money in mind. To that same note, Big Food is the other industry that runs the world, especially the United States specifically.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah, we’re the worst.

Kayla Osterhof: Big Food is another industry that does not have nutrition in mind as the goal, the goal is money, so they engineer foods to be addictive. They engineer foods to block nutrition to in a way to keep you sick. And so it is unfortunate that the biggest powers in the world don’t have our health and wellbeing in mind with their products.

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s quite the opposite. They’re the opposite of our health and wellbeing in mind.

Kayla Osterhof: Right, and that’s why we should be educated for ourselves and become our own health experts. I think that does require some level of scientific knowledge and understanding. I’m happy that we could highlight that in this discussion, and I know we went into the political side of it a little bit. But it’s fun for me to talk about because I don’t often get to talk about the minutiae of research with a fellow researcher.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yeah. Well, the only people who are going to change the world when it comes to these, you took like pharma and the food industry are really the people who are listening to this podcast. If you take the time, and I said the same thing to Ben Greenfield and Dave Asprey, the people who take the time to really learn how these things work, even if they understand one tenth of it and they realize what’s healthy and what’s not, and they question what they have been told, all of a sudden it all falls apart because the answers they’re really obvious once you become educated. There’s just so much money into misleading them.

Dr. John Jaquish: I still hear daily that when somebody says, “Oh yeah, you want to meet up for breakfast?” I say, “Yeah, let’s just do coffee. I don’t eat breakfast.” Then they say, “Well breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Yeah.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, I don’t think anybody listening to this podcast believes that, so I think we’re good there.

Dr. John Jaquish: Right, that’s been so debunked, but it’s only the listeners that are going to change the world.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, it’s true.

Dr. John Jaquish: It’s not you and me, it’s the people who are listening right now because we are an extreme minority, but the listeners are not. That can be a tidal wave of understanding that the food industry cannot get by. When people are like, “I know we’re being lied to, just don’t listen to that.” Yeah.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, I agree with you. I think that radical change begins with the individual and the collective of individuals. That is just everyday people living their lives and trying to be healthier and trying to educate themselves, and make the best choices for themselves and their family. I think you’re absolutely right and radical change does begin with every one of the listeners. I know that the listeners of this podcast, I’ve interacted with a lot of them and they are self-educated. They are taking control and ownership over their health, so it’s really, really nice to see that there is a large community of people out there.

Kayla Osterhof: A lot in the biohacking community as well who are taking the reigns for themselves and not relying on these big businesses to make their health decisions for them. There is a positive shift happening and it also comes back to things like this conversation that I think really empower people. I’m very grateful that you’re able to share your knowledge with us today.

Kayla Osterhof: I have one question that I wanted to ask you that I ask all of my podcast guests, and it has to do with overall health and wellbeing. Maybe this is something you already talked about today with me or maybe it’s something completely different. But, if you had just one piece of tangible advice for the listeners that they could apply to their lives today, to have the overall greatest impact on their health and wellness, what would that be?

Dr. John Jaquish: It would be approaching things… It’s a simplified version of what we’ve been talking about, just approach it with an open mind.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: You can’t let yourself fall into a dogma or a dogmatic thought process, like breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Or meat causes cancer, or if you want to live a long time, you need to be a vegan. I do think as we learn more of it… In a way I’m glad that so many vegans have gone vegan so we’re really going to see what happens.

Dr. John Jaquish: We would never be able to ethically ask somebody to not eat meat in a study, but if they volunteered to do it and their health collapses and we observe it, I believe that veganism will be put on the list with bulimia and anorexia as eating disorders and psychological disorders in the future, but that’s of course my opinion. I can certainly provide a lot of scientific evidence that points in that direction, but I can’t say that definitively, it’s just what I’m saying. Why I’m I making that outrageous statement? Because it’s certainly an outrageous statement because I want people to have an open mind.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, well if nothing else, I think you are sparking some curiosity which is great. I’m a big fan of being curious and going and looking at the research for yourself. Doing self experimentations and like you said, whatever is best for your body will be evident once you start experimenting with yourself. I think it comes down to a matter of listening to your body and understanding what your body needs, and trying to really hone in on those cues.

Kayla Osterhof: Like for instance, if you have a ache, or if you have a headache or if you have a upset stomach or if you have diarrhea, these are not just normal parts of life. These are significant clues and cues that your body is giving you that something’s not working. I think if people started listening to their bodies a little bit more, to actually create their own evidence base of what works for them, then everybody would be a lot more healthy.

Dr. John Jaquish: That’s right.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah.

Dr. John Jaquish: Absolutely.

Kayla Osterhof: Well so what’s next for you and what’s next for X3 workout bar system? Where can the listeners connect with you if they’re interested in learning more about what you got going on?

Dr. John Jaquish: Well, I’m always working on different biomedical engineering projects. There are some things, not right around the corner, but coming out in the next year that will be huge advancements. Huge advancements in data collection understanding of what we’re doing, better monitoring of the body, showing people how they can really control their physiology. That’s very important. People being able to have better measures on the results to keep them motivated.

Dr. John Jaquish: I don’t like this trend where I see people online are looking at pictures of outrageously fit people and calling it motivation, that’s demotivating. You’re looking at pictures of some of the greatest outliers out there, like be the better you. Don’t try and look like… I don’t care how hard I try, I am not going to look like some of these newer fitness physique stars like Jeremy Buendia for example, four time Mr. Olympia. Guy’s got a 28 inch waist, he’s bones are in a different proportion than mine are, nothing I can do about that.

Dr. John Jaquish: I’m also not going to be in the NBA because I’m six feet tall. I’m too short, so you’ve got to keep that mind. Don’t motivate yourself by looking at pictures of other people. Motivate yourself by having discipline every day. Get through every day and stick to your principles. Discipline is way more important than motivation, and so that’s where the company is going, is helping people build discipline. We’ve got a number of tools for that and all kinds of other things right around the corner.

Dr. John Jaquish: Now people who want to find me, I’ve put a landing page so you can find whatever direction of me you want to go to. Facebook, Instagram, my YouTube channel and my various different websites. Just go to doctorj.com, D-O-C-T-O-R, the letter J.com.

Kayla Osterhof: Great. I think the listeners will be very interested to connect with you and learn more about what you’re doing and what you’re researching. I certainly I’m interested and definitely would love to keep in touch as a fellow researcher and working in the same field, to understand what the new innovations are that are coming out, especially in the areas of fitness and biohacking.

Dr. John Jaquish: Yes.

Kayla Osterhof: Awesome. Well thank you so much again for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us today.

Dr. John Jaquish: Kayla, this was great. Yeah.

Kayla Osterhof: Yeah, such a fun conversation. I appreciate you.

Dr. John Jaquish: Awesome, I appreciate you.

Kayla Osterhof: Thank you for tuning in to this week’s episode of the BioCurious Podcast. If you want to support the show, the best way to do so is to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen. And if you liked this episode and know somebody who could benefit from the information, please take a screenshot of the episode and send it to a friend.

Kayla Osterhof: You can also post a screenshot of the episode on Instagram or Facebook, and be sure to tag us so that we can repost your post and so we can reach out and thank you for being a listener. Have a great week.