How to Build Muscle That Keeps You Young with TPT Founder Filipe Cotas

Opening on Muscle and Longevity 0:00

Every piece of evidence, statistical evidence, anything against chronic disease points out that muscle is longevity, muscle is medicine. Every single piece of information of every research study you'll read, it just keeps it plain and simple. You know, I'll look at, Jamie also mentioned, he likes to mention you can't flex bone. So, I mean, essentially your body can be, you know, bone, body fat, muscle, you know, obviously water. It's like, I think out of all those, water is obviously important, but having muscle mass is just right up there.

So you can't, you just simply can't beat that. Welcome to the Holistic Truth Podcast. I'm Jamie Dorley, CEO of Nutritional Frontiers. And I'm Christine Genovese, creator of The Soul Intelligence Method. We're here to help you break through chronic disease and dysfunction physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically.

Podcast Introduction and Guest Welcome 0:55

With real proven strategies, protocols, and tools you can use in your practice today. Welcome back to The Holistic Truth. I'm your host today, Jamie Dorley, the CEO of Nutritional Frontiers with my co-host, Christine Genovese. How are we doing today, Christine? Oh, we're doing great, Jayme. I'm really excited about today's podcast and our guest. So am I. This gentleman has been really a partner, a client, a friend of Nutritional Frontiers. And the coolest thing about it, you may not even realize, Christine, but he goes all the way back to the beginnings to our first speaker at Nutritional Frontiers, the guru, Dr.

Tom Bulella, who did his first workshop with us way back when in Red Bank, New Jersey. And the guru work with Joe DeFranco DeFranco training systems. That's how we connected to Philippe Cotas. So we're so excited to have him on there. The owner of true performance training, not only a trainer personal trainer, but a businessman. And I tell you what, this guy not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. He's in great shape all the time. He's a breath of excitement and enthusiasm. And I always love talking to him because he's so passionate about what he does.

He works not only with extreme athletes, but also the weekend warriors. Guys like me trying to keep it all together through all the stress of life. Welcome to the Holy Street Truth, Philippe. How are we doing today? I am doing well. Thank you for having me. I don't know if I can top that. Well, I appreciate very much Jamie and Christine. Well, awesome. Well, Philippe, why don't you give our audience a little bit about your background, like how you got to where you are today? Oh, that could probably take up the whole hour.

All right. Give us the 30,000 foot view, the bullet point. So to me, it all started. I was one of the guys that I would go grocery shopping with my mom and I ended up in the magazine section reading Flex Magazine and Muscle and Fitness. And meanwhile, my mom was going to all the different, you know, two or three stores or whatever she had to do. And I'd stay to put in one spot. Then eventually I would find her.

Philippe's Training Background 3:10

Got certified when I was 18 and I was always curious about training and curious about nutrition and curious about building bodies and just being always in top shape. Got certified at the age of 18. I started working for a couple of big corporate gyms. Didn't really like the vibe. It was very salesy. They were more worried about revenue per se than the actual the development of relationships with people and clients, which that was my primary concern and it was just building up that relationship, my goal with people.

Um, and helping out obviously with their health and fitness goals. So didn't necessarily drive with that. I started working for a small personal training studio owner had to eventually sell the business within a year. New guys came in, did not mingle with them at all. Um, within a couple of months took off when I told myself, you know what, you know what, how hard can it be? Let me just go off my own. personal way, you know, it's, it's a lot easier. So I kind of similar to Joe D store. I started out in the storage closet of a landlord is like, Oh yeah, I got the basement for you.

That'll be cheaper. And for I'm like, sure, why not? I outgrew that in about nine months with about 80 appointments a week. I decided to kind of venture out and go a little bit bigger. Uh, so I went from about 600 square feet to about 5,000 square feet very quickly, which I do not recommend. I was a little bit too quick, too soon, but we exploded. Ended up having about four other employees, five, including myself. And we grew that thing to about 350 members deep, providing small group training, large group training, and also personal training.

And yeah, that's how the whole fiasco started. Wow. Uh, I love it. You got me excited. Cause I heard magazines, you know, I get fired up because we've been around Christine before the internet. My daughter can hear in the other room saying, what do you mean before the internet? Right. Yeah. There was a time and place when those magazines, man, we would run to the grocery store and get them and read them from cover to cover. Right. I remember doing an arm workout that was Bob Ciccarello was doing on the magazine and I was just doing it.

It's like, all right, I got to do five sets of this, five sets of that. So I remember like it was yesterday. It was funny. Yeah. Mr. USA, Bob Ciccarello. He's still the speaker and the master of ceremonies at the Mr. Olympian. You know, Philippe comes from New England, which is really, wow, you think about all the names from Chris Aceto to Jay Cutler, the original guru, Bob Grushkin, Ted Arcidi, you know, Gold's Gym up there in Boston and Brockport. So there's been so many legends in the field of wellness and fitness.

So excited to have you on here. And, you know, the cool thing in the old days, as we say, or back in the day was, We had those magazines, we'd read them cover to cover, we'd share them with friends. You know, there was something to that, you know, however, you'd have to wait a few months for them to come out, right? So we all be excited. Nowadays, everything's at the touch of your fingers, right? And, you know, they've become so many experts out there, which is a little concerning, of course, because they may not have your background or my background.

I started a similar spot at Bally's Health Club, you know, Jacqueline, Scandinavians, European health spas, those types of things. It was very corporate, you know, and then I remember I said, well, I want to train people. And the general manager just says, you don't get it. I said, what don't I get? He says, we want to sell 40,000 memberships and have less than a thousand people show up per day. This is nothing about getting in shape. This is about money. So your background, you know, I really want to start, Philippe is, what are some of the biggest misunderstandings that, you know, start with somebody that's a beginner, right?

That's coming into a gym, could be a young person or an adult that really is not really sure what to do.

Beginner Training Mistakes and Fundamentals 7:10

And then we can, you know, evolve over the conversation to more of the elite athletes and stuff like that. So what are some of the biggest misconceptions for people coming in? in regarding from a training perspective? Yeah, you know, somebody, when I was interviewing, say, I always could call middle-aged, but a woman that was coming to see me as a trainer in the early 90s, one of the first things they would say is, I don't want to look like you. You know, I said, don't worry about it. Putting on muscle is not very easy.

I think there's this big misconception. It's very easy to get muscle and leanness. You know, the other thing they would say to me is, I don't want to get big. I want to get toned. So you can't prune a twig. You got to let the bush or tree grow a little bit. So one of the other misconceptions was that they would think they can eat less food to get lean, where I would say you got to eat more food. So what are some of the things you encounter? Well, I think historically, if it's a newbie, I think. You know, they're, I mean, they're at a pretty good prime part of their training career because anything, any type of adaptation is going to get them results.

It really doesn't matter. I won't worry necessarily too much about sets, rep schemes. I'm more worried about just being able to. provide the appropriate execution of whatever exercises you're doing. And like I said, reps and sets, you want to make sure you're doing them correctly. But then over time and also developing that mindset of being able to improve and being able to progress in every single time that you do it. I would suggest full body workouts to start out with. Chances are they'll be doing They'll be working out anywhere between usually two to three times a week.

It could be a good opportunity to develop your proper motor patterns, being able to squat, a lunge, any type of single-legged movement, a push, a pull, a core. But also most importantly is fundamentally being aware of your positions that you are in. So if you're executing a push-up, you know, is the lower back sagging? Are you leading with your neck forward and putting unnecessary tension on your neck? So I would say, I mean, everybody has their phones with a camera. How far is your butt supposed to stick out on a squat?

Exactly. So like all these different things become pretty important to kind of look at. And obviously I'm looking at it from a coach's eye, but you know, philosophy wise, you know, I think it's important to everybody try out everything and just see exactly what they enjoy to do the most. I know for me, I'm a very boring, but basic kind of guy. You know, if I could keep it to eight to 10 lists for the rest of my life, I'll be completely content with that. You know, I'm, I'm perfectly fine because for me it's like, I like to work on more the proper execution of it.

For somebody that's necessarily not as focused on that, then they need a little more variety. Well, you got to be careful with that because then that means you're end up going to be good at nothing in comparison or being mediocre at a bunch of different things. But most importantly, when it comes up to that progressive overload is important and just realizing that You know, developing that mind muscle connection is important too, but just realizing that as long as you're improving from day in, day out, or try to, you're going to definitely get some results from that.

Well, Philippe, recently I went to my chiropractor, right, just to keep myself straight. You know, I'm big on the biomechanical adjustment as much as I am my bio energetic adjustments and soul intelligence. And he says to me, he goes, well, what are you doing for strength training? I said, well, tennis. He's like, no, what are you doing for strength training for tennis? And I went, oh, probably talking to Jamie. One of the things that I talked to Jamie about was he said, look, for you, it's not necessarily about the weight.

It's more important the form. Right. And how you're doing what you're doing so that you affect the muscle in the right way. And I don't think I ever focused on that. Right. I have to be honest. I am the odd person out in this call because I have not traditionally been a gym focused individual. I've been more of a sports person. But even all of the best trained athletes always have strength training. So I'm starting to come around, you know, Tracy, Dr. Tracy has been and Nikki fit. Raymond have been pumping in my head muscles medicine.

You need muscle that, you know, the older you get. And I'm like, oh gosh, we're pushing on the age thing. Now I need more muscle. What is that about? Yeah, really interesting point, Philippe. I want you to elaborate on this because you said something that was profound and I've been, when I learned this, it changed my whole thing from lifting weights to training muscle, right? And you said the mind muscle connection, right? So even in the office, Melinda was, you know, asking me a question. I said, look, you got to feel the tricep push down.

You got to lock the elbows in and extend and then squeeze the muscle at the bottom. You got to really create that connection. Can you expand on that? Cause I think it would save people years. You know, I always saw people, no one quits working out because they're in too good a shape. They generally will quit because they're not getting results. And I think that is the foundation of where people shift from going to lift weights to another training. So can you expand on that whole concept of mind muscle connection?

Cause it's fascinating. Yeah, I mean, I think you emphasize that you hit it about the tricep press down. I do think there are certain exercises that you're going to be able to feel it a little bit better than others. For example, if you're doing a flat dumbbell bench press, you should be able to feel the squeeze as you're going up compared to necessarily going down. But then all of a sudden, if you're doing the leg press, that's going to be a little bit harder to feel the legs contract a little bit compared to a leg extension.

And I know I'm getting a little bit more cerebral when it comes down to this. But at the end of the day, I think what happens, are you trying to just go through it, or are you trying to get something from it? And is it just a check mark for people, or is it just like, no, they really want to emphasize I'm working muscle-wise, or they just want to go through it? So in another aspect of it too, You know, a lot of folks, for example, have this feeling is like, Oh, I can't go too heavy. I'm going to get hurt.

I was like, well, if you do it correctly, you feel the appropriate muscles, you feel everything work turning on at the time that is supposed to turn on. It, it's going to be really hard to get, to get hurt at piloting competitions. You see people lifting 95% and above of their one rep max. I have never witnessed anybody getting hurt live after seven years of doing it. I see a lot of people go bend over and tie their shoes and throw out their backs because it's just a mindless, you know, connection for the body, not being able to necessarily, you know, or either that or shoveling, right?

They're just kind of, it's continuous motion. So I think at that point, you know, it's developing a little bit of that mentality of like, all right, what exercise am I going to perform today? What exercises? What muscles am I working today? And just truly just taking time on it.

Mind-Muscle Connection and Exercise Form 14:20

Have a white belt mentality. That's something a lot of people have heard plenty over the years. And just focus on the execution of it and just understand that You're not going to be Arnold or Lou Ferrigno every single day, every time you work out. Some days you're going to feel a lot better than others, through a bunch of other things I'm pretty sure we're going to touch base on soon. But at the same time, if you can just develop a better connection with the exercises and your muscles and just being able to work whatever needs to be worked appropriately, for example, like a face pull or a dumbbell row, what am I working on?

Are you using your bicep or are you using your back? You can be like, oh, I'm using a little bit of both. I'm like, that's great. You're going to work your biceps no matter what for a dumbbell row, but at the same time, I want you to focus on the contraction. So let's use a different tempo scheme. Let's use a little bit of a pause once we bring the elbow back towards the backside and just be able to pause in it and just really feel muscles. So there's a lot of different tangibles in which you can do to making sure that you're working everything appropriately.

Yeah, I love it. And I always tell people, look, what works for me may not work for you. If we're not feeling the exercise for whatever reason, we may want to change the form or change the bar or the angles, or we may want to just scrap it. Right. Some people do really well on pull downs. Others do well on chin ups, you know, I was more into the dumbbells because I feel like their range of motion. And the planes and stuff and angles were better for my body, but you got to figure out what works best for you.

So what about someone like Christine, who's an avid tennis player. So we have people on here listening to workout, play sports. You know, what are some good concepts as far as, you know, people always ask me, well, do I do more reps to, you know, be lean and lower reps for, I said, no, no, it's, that's more the diet part. So you can separate those two concepts of, you know, the higher reps for leanness. Cause to me that never worked. It was more about the form and then the dieting and the cardio would get the body fat off.

I'm going to look at experience and I'm going to look at the trainees experience and also their, you know, quote unquote, their intensity level when it comes down to a specific exercise. So people that are essentially just start out in, in their, you know, getting themselves involved into that strength and conditioning program. Like I said, they're going to do pretty well with like total body, um, about anywhere from two to three times a week. And they're gonna get pretty good results, but I would say about two, three sets per exercise.

You know, you're looking at six to eight. You can't compare somebody that just starting out compared to now a avid powerlifter or bodybuilder or whatever it is, because they can do two, three sets of a top end set, such as a back squat or a front squat, compared to somebody that just started with the goblet squat. I mean, you're comparing two completely different things due to, the term intensity. So, but usually for somebody that's kind of starting out, I'm a huge proponent of bodyweight training.

I think it's a, you know, you look at some of the most fittest people in the world to me are gymnast and they're just unbelievable at what they do. And, you know, they probably have the ideal physique that eventually even powerlifters, you know, powerlifters start when they're 20, 30, 40s, but eventually as they get a little bit older, they get a little bit more beat up. because unfortunately you will and you start transitioning over to more like I would say bodyweight training and just realizing it's like, wow, I can get really good results with a pair of gymnastic rings or TRX and some dumbbells.

I'm like, yeah, you can get fantastic results. So I think you know, people not necessarily stressing out too much about what they're doing, just focusing at the task at hand and just realizing and just mastering your basic fundamental movement patterns and just realizing that there's so many other variables you can do to be better at that specific point or a specific exercise that I would just worry about mastering your basic fundamentals, which when I meet somebody, I tell them like in order to execute an exercise, I'm going to give you three very, very basic tips.

All right. Number one, I got pen in hand. I'm ready to roll. And they're a little bit, two is three is going to, I mean, they're all going to, they're all a little different, but number one, you got to learn how to breathe and brace. Cause that's going to protect your spine. That's going to give you a bunch of air into your body. that you're going to be as, as solid as you can. So imagine Mike Tyson in his prime or even now, right, is going to about to punch a red in the gut. If you, if you focus with that and every single that you do, if you're doing a pushup or if you're doing a squat, you're going to execute that really, really well.

Number two, if you're performing a lower body movement, such as a squat, a split squat, an RDL, whatever it is, you want to be able to root your foot into the ground. That all of a sudden it's going to, it's going, you're going to be able to feel your hip get engaged or your hips get engaged. And now you're actually going to feel being able to feel the hamstring, be able to feel the glute, be able to feel all those appropriate muscles turning on. Cause what do people do every time that they squat or if they squat incorrectly, they're going to feel on their knees.

which at that point they're just having a lot of imbalances going on. But now the minute you kind of, I call it a tripod foot, you open up your foot, you spread your toes, you're going to feel your big toe, your pinky toe, and then your heel. You cement that down. You almost create like a little bit of an arch. Automatically, you should feel your knee kind of abduct a little bit. And then I had this image of like Frodo with like weird toes. You can go, you can go there. And then you'll be able to feel your hips.

That's number one. If people do that for, again, any of those type of lower body movements, and you can even apply that to a machine, even doing it to a leg press, right? You're going to be able to do that too. All right, and what's number three? It's doing the exact same thing for the upper body. And the perfect example was today that I had with a client. She came in and she had a little bit of pain coming down from her neck. And she's like, I don't know. Just like everywhere else, Monday is National Bench Press Day.

So she likes getting after the bench press. And she's like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to bench press. We're going to fix that. So I got a little bit of a trick. I'll attach the band in between the wrists. And I'll tell you, you got to pull that out. Pull it out. Then all of a sudden she gets to the bench. What does that is that you're activating your external rotators. You're going to activate your triceps. You're going to basically push everything out. You're going to open up the chest walls a little bit.

And then at that point, you're going to go down into more of like a 35, 40 degree angle. A lot of folks like to bench press with the elbows spread out wide. Just like in football, you got to keep everything pretty close, right? When you're pushing off. And then all of a sudden you're able, and that mimics also a push-up. So now you flip over, it's the exact same thing of a push-up. So it's just kind of thinking differently. I love the whole concept of connecting your brain to actually paying attention to what the muscles are doing.

Because I was one of those, check the box. Okay, I did five of these, 10 of those, get it done. As opposed to really listening and feeling into your body, which is kind of interesting because I'm very much into making that mind-body connection when I'm doing energy work. So why wouldn't I do it when I'm lifting weights for goodness sakes? If the viewers need a video, just let me know. I'll be more than happy to create a video.

Nutrition, Protein, and Seasonal Eating 22:00

Oh, sweet. Well, I understand the older we get, the more important it is to have muscle and that we might need a little help building that muscle. So what are some of the key things that you always recommend to clients that they do from foundational support to maybe even building muscle? What are some of your go-tos from a nutrition standpoint? Just eating a good amount of calories. I think it's okay. I call it seasons of nutrition. I think it's pretty cool in which just like any physique competitor or whatever, they're going to go through periods of the year in which they're going to eat a little bit more.

They're going to go through periods of the year in which they eat a little bit less. The metabolic adaptation. that the body will go through. It's actually very, very beneficial. They're not stagnant. There's a lot of great research that's coming out that a lot of people putting on muscle mass with different periods of like higher caloric intake. And then all of a sudden they're like fasting or very low calorie for like two or three days out of the week. So it's like four high calorie days, two, three low calorie days.

That's a little bit kind of, you know, that's almost the next step. But I would say keep it simple, making sure that you're first off tracking your food. You want to make sure obviously keep it as clean foods as possible with not too many artificial ingredients. So what is something as clean as protein sources? Because I find especially women when I was a trainer, full time that most females were really deficient in protein. So I got my favorites, of course. I'm just curious about what your favorites are.

clean proteins. Yeah, I mean, I'm a big red meat kind of guy. You can get a 96-4 ground beef from something like a Trader Joe's or a 95-5 from Whole Foods. I do fall in the old school mentality of keeping proteins fairly low in fat. And I like to kind of have that higher carbohydrate intake. So I like red meats. I mean, you can do chicken. In a joking manner, I always tell people chickens are a scared animal. So I don't know if I want to put that into my body since they're scared animals. I mean, anywhere from like red meats, yogurts, if people can go through, if people can go through their dairy.

And not have any issues is always great eggs are all the same thing. Some people may have some may have different reactions towards eggs. If you don't, that's obviously a great bioavailable protein. And obviously nowadays, there's so many different protein powders. You can do anything from the way, such as the best way for nutritional frontiers, which is a great tasting protein. You can also do the collagen protein now that you guys just came up with, which I'm pretty excited now for the new flavor coming out.

I know the clean collagen protein. We have the original chocolate and what's the new flavor coming out Christine? Ooh, we got something called rocket pop. As a matter of fact, I literally am doing clean chocolate, our clean chocolate collagen protein right here, right now. So cheers. That's literally what's in this cup. I'm doing my Reese's peanut butter cup. I brought out my peanut butter shake on the road with my chocolate greens, two scoops of both every morning to start my day. There you go.

Well, I already had my collagen protein alongside with my ultimate shake and the chocolate greens this morning. There we go. I love it. So protein sources, I'm hearing eggs, chicken, fish, beef, super shake, best way, clean collagen, ultimate shake all by nutritional frontiers. And I tell people, look, you need enough protein to rebuild your tissue, not just your muscle, but your skin, your brain, your eyes, everything in your body requires protein for not only rebuilding, but It's a catalyst for so many biochemical reactions in the body.

So protein really to rebuild and you need, I would always say one to two grams per pound of lean body mass. What's your philosophy on that? That's, that's interesting. I believe people should cycle through. Um, I think it, I think it really comes down to. quote unquote, back to that seasons of nutrition that they're doing. I think if people are in a little bit of a caloric surplus, I tend to favor more towards a little bit higher carbohydrate side of things so they can get their glycogen replenishment.

And then as the summer months come around, they want to get a little bit leaner. Then obviously through a bunch of great research, protein intake kind of going up a little bit, carbohydrates coming down a little bit more. That tends to be, you know, that kind of tends to be the more popular thing. I think overall, I mean, people should get about 0.7, 0.8 grams per pound of body weight every day pretty consistently. Nowadays, you know, we have so much great information out there. I think the most important thing is not necessarily focusing on what to eat, but it's also having a plan of when to eat it.

Right. And, and developing that consistency, developing that habits. I mean, more often than not, if you speak to anybody, they know kind of what to eat. It's just a matter of getting into that. Into that regimen and just kind of having that discipline of just being able to eat the meals consistently. Right. Quality, quantity and timing. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So people forget a lot of the younger athletes tell me, Oh, I eat a ton. What'd you eat today? Well, my first one was at noon. I'm like, you missed two meals.

Just remember, he always used to say is your heck in check. Three by three and five by nine. So that's meals, shakes or snacks each day. And, you know, your body, I was watching Jay Cutler video this morning when I was walking and, you know, he was just talking about, he would consume a lot of carbohydrates and he feels like most people nowadays are depleting too much in carbs. So you use the protein for the rebuilding and then you can do higher carbs or some people do higher fat. The higher fat didn't work as well for me, but for some people it does work well.

But I like what you're saying about the seasonal because thinking back, I kind of do that without even realizing it. Spring and summer, I am going lower total food, you know, lower carbohydrates, a little more activity and get leaner. And now the fall, winter you eat a little bit more. So I like that philosophy because. As you had said earlier, the body's always changing, you know, and never quite stay the same. What about some other nutraceuticals that you feel are really important? Like I love the Super Shake and GI Complete with the Super Creatine.

What are some other nutrients you find are really important to give the fuel for the workouts, but maybe even more importantly, the recovery afterwards? Yeah, alongside with the creatine, I like the power fuel, right? It's from nutritional frontiers. It's going to give you all the different electrolytes. I like the branched-chain amino acids, right? The leucine, valine, and isoleucine, that's going to be important to give. uh, to making sure, uh, that, you know, that folks are going to have that amino acid pool.

Um, I also like, you know, all the different in anti-inflammatory stuff. So when do you take the power fuel brand change in Supercreate? And I always say anytime is good, but if we're trying to fine tune that program to maximize results, when do you recommend that your clients take these, um, powders? I like a little bit before, even during the workout. Well, I mean, you know, keep it, keep it simple. Yeah. And we got an athlete on here that likes the, um, power fuel and, uh, pro oranges. So, uh, she's playing in a hundred degree plus temperatures in Florida, uh, exhausting, uh, matches down there in the, in the heat of the, in the middle of the day, they start them at noon sometimes.

So what's your go to Christine? Yeah, for me, it's definitely the power fuel. And a lot of times I'll actually pair that with our pro oranges, because it's also got that mitochondrial support, right? Gives me extra energy besides all the great electrolytes and good stuff that's in our power fuel. And then I'll throw it with usually like our vanilla super shake, because then it tastes like an orange dreamsicle.

Workout Fuel and Recovery Supplements 30:20

And then I definitely have what I need to get through a third set, you know, when it's really tight. The other go-to for me, believe it or not, is our Ener CoQ10. That's 300 milligrams of DMG and 300 milligrams of CoQ10. We were passing that out like pez to our tennis players, like on the court. And that's actually, I think, gave us a little bit of an advantage to have that extra pep in our step to be able to go and win. And we actually won locally, so we're going to states again. So that's pretty fun.

So some of the other things you mentioned, anti-inflammatories, knock on wood. I did have a bicep tear years ago, but actually it wasn't from training. I think it was kind of worn out from training. I thought you were going to tell me you popped somebody. Well, you know. You said it wasn't from training. So I was like, Oh my gosh, did he hit somebody? Well, I did, but it was actually full contact flag football. I don't remember. I do not recommend playing that. It's like football without equipment.

That's what it is. I thought it was flag football. That's only to tackle the guy. Everything else was full contact. But I think from all the heavy deadlifts and stuff that I had some shoulder issue. What was interesting when I've done chiropractic as I've gotten older, more chiropractic, more muscle therapy, my shoulders are fine. And I'm lucky because I'm built a little more, you know, more compact. So I don't have some of the knee issues or back issues, God forbid, other people do. So you mentioned some anti-inflammatories.

Who do you recommend those for and what do you recommend? Anti-inflammatories. I think, I think nowadays it's probably going to be probably everybody. I mean, you got. You got stress now kind of in everybody's lives, you know, it's always going to get, you know, a little, it's always going to fatigue people. It's always going to take everything out, you know, beat them up a little bit and that it doesn't necessarily just have to be from training. So. You know, different ways to kind of beat that, to combat that.

I think eating enough calories are going to be super important. Then you're looking at different things like magnesium. So many people are magnesium deficient. That's going to be, that's probably one of your better pro hormones because As stress accumulates in the body, it starts depleting all the different magnesium stores. So something like the Mag, you know, complete and it's going to be beneficial. That's something I have consistently. I take that every night. And especially like I find like, yes, you have to stay so hydrated, right?

When you're playing in those intense temperatures that if I don't take it, I'll feel leg cramps. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm a big fan of, you know, all the different Obviously, you have your prototypical stuff, your Omega 3s, your SPMs, your X Flame. You have all these different products that are going to be really, really beneficial. But at the same time, like I told you guys before the podcast, You know, to me, that big equation is just energy, right? Energy taking in and energy kind of expelling out.

You always want to make sure that, you know, if you're wasting more energy than what you're taking in, it will come back and bring you down and take you down a little bit. You know, that could be lack of sleep, lack of nutrients, lack of calories, too much volume for, you know, for somebody that's more of an intermediate advanced lifter. Just being, you know, just being careful from that. it's going to be a little bit too much. And obviously from your weekend warrior, your stay, you know, your mom, your dad, your average mom and dad, like, you know, dealing stuff with the kids, that's always going to beat them up a little bit.

So just be mindful. I think just kind of being honest with themselves is going to be pretty imperative and just making sure that, you know, they're still eating enough. They're sustaining yourself with enough food and calories. Well, instead of reaching for that three o'clock coffee, I will go for the power field because that's going to help, you know, juice me back up, right? That's going to give me that wonderful afternoon burst that I'm looking for. And, you know, you mentioned several things.

My trifecta of goodness to help my muscles and joints is our SPMs, the Specialized Pro-Resolving Mediators, because they go into the body and they find any unresolved inflammation. I kind of think of them like Pac-Men that just go after it wherever it needs, right? And then I use our X flame you mentioned, because that helps cool the joint down. And then the HA Plus, which helps lubricate the joints. And because it has biocell collagen in it, I get that extra bonus of collagen to help with those fine lines and wrinkles as a lady.

So it's kind of good for me. But I am curious. And your emblem too. Inflamm is a good one too. Yeah. I love it. I love it. So I was going to ask, why is it so important as we age to build more muscle? Cause that seems counterintuitive to me. What is behind that? Every piece of evidence, statistical evidence, anything against chronic disease points out that muscle is longevity, muscle is medicine. Every single piece of information, every research study you'll read, it just keeps it plain and simple.

You know, I'll look at Jamie also mentioned, he likes to mention you can't, you can't, uh, flex bone. So, I mean, you're essentially your body can be, you know, bone, body fat, muscle, you know, obviously water. It's like, I think out of all, all those waters, obviously important, but having muscle mass is just right up there. So you can't, you just simply can't beat that. Yeah. And you think about, you know, friends of mine or myself, even when I went through, uh, uh, Health situation, you know, if you don't have a lot of muscle and you get sick, you know, your body will deplete muscle quickly.

That's all where you all your immune cells are in the muscle. Um, and, you know, somebody that doesn't have a lot of muscle to begin with and they go on the hospital. Sometimes they never fully recover. And that could be from a surgery, a car accident, an infection, you know, heart attack, stroke, whatever it may be. The people that seem to do the best are the ones that go in there in better shape to begin with. Right. And as we age, we'll naturally, you know, they call it sarcopenia, loss of flesh.

We will naturally lose a little bit of muscle as we age. And the ones that are able to preserve it. We'll do the best. And then the flip side is too, is, you know, that's why I downsize over the years is you don't see any 300 pounders at 80, right? Like, or even two 50. So they used to be, you'd see the football players, the wrestlers, the bodybuilders, the powerlifters after they retired. They would get heavier and heavier and heavier and usually would drop dead at some point. But now you're seeing like even the announcer, like Jeff Sada used to be the center for the Colts with Peyton Manning.

He's lean. You see these bodybuilders, like even like Dave Palumbo was over 300 pounds. He's like under 200 now. Because people understand, like even look at Joe DeFranco and Philippe, you know, these guys stay lean and healthy so that they don't have to worry about that extra weight. But at the same time, they are keeping the muscle, which is beneficial for so many things.

Why Muscle Matters With Age 37:40

Plus, you can function a lot better. You can stay active when your joints are healthy and you have the proper muscle. I think there's so many benefits you're right on of maintaining and continue to build. Years ago, they said, oh, you can't build muscle after 30, 40. Now, there's newer studies Dr. Bland presented that positive anabolic effect for a 92 year old in the hospital environment with an IV amino acid drip. It was like, you know, it was wild to see that. Right. So it's never too late. Um, we do lose some, you know, bone and muscle over time, but I think preserving that and giving the muscle challenge.

We were just talking about Jim Manion. He'd hate for me to say this, but he's gonna be 82. Right. He's built like Philippe, just a little less muscle now after all these years. He was Mr. Pittsburgh, 1971. But someone was talking about him recently on their podcast. And he says, man, his mind is so sharp. He knows everything about everybody in the entire fitness field. He's running three of the largest events and one of the biggest organizations in the world. And I asked him, yeah, what's your plans?

And he said, everyone wants me to retire. He says, retire from what? This is what keeps me young. It's being in the gym, being at the events, hanging out with the kids, training, you know, every time I call them, what are you going? I'm going to the gym or I'm going to the chiropractor. You know, so I look at examples of people that live longer and healthier and it's the people that keep the muscle on tone. You're absolutely right. And also too, I mean, think about still the big major killers, right?

You're still talking about your cardiovascular disease. You're still talking about your diabetes. You're still talking about hypertension, you know, all these different diseases. And I mean, it's not like nobody's necessarily exempt from it, but I mean, lo and behold, I mean, it's going to really beat up the people that aren't necessarily as active as somebody else that's as active. So, I mean, you know, a lot of it is kind of, kind of common sense in a way, right? You know, and like you said, you know, there's also people like, you know, for example, like the rock Dwayne Johnson recently, right?

You know, lost all that. So, I mean, you know, there's people saying it's for a movie role. Other people are saying for this, but, you know, I know, uh, He's had some like health issues before in the past and, and yeah, it's been, you know, it's been proven that you look at does not like, like Jamie says, you know, there's not a lot of 300 pound, 300 pounders living out there. I don't care necessarily how lean you are or, you know, how big you are with muscle wise, you know, At that point, it's still a stressor for the body, right?

Being able to do that at 250, 275, 300 pounds, you're still activating so many different systems and enzymes into the body that it's not as efficient as it could be. It's very, very different compared to a 180-pound individual, or even better yet, somebody that's squatting 500 pounds and somebody that's squatting 200 pounds, the effect that it takes on your nervous system is completely different. You know, that, that person that's squatting 500, I mean, they, they may take three to five days or if not a week to recover.

A week, yeah. Meanwhile, somebody that's squatting a hundred, 200 pounds, you know, they may just be fine after a couple of days. So it's, you know, that's where it becomes very, very different. All right, Philippe, you were kind enough to give us your top three tips. I can't believe our time is almost running out. From a training perspective. From a training perspective, yeah. So what are your top three nutrition tips or nutraceutical tips, like your favorite go-tos that you would recommend for pretty much everybody that comes to see you?

And then just tell us a little bit about TPT and where people can find you. Let's see, top three tips. Stop eating like a five-year-old. eat real food. Yeah, no mac and cheese and fruit. No mac and cheese. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Once in a blue moon, okay. Zach, are you listening? I was thinking about him and his chicken dinosaur nuggets and three sausage and I'm like, how old are you? So that'll probably be tip number one from a food perspective. Okay. What are your go-to nutraceuticals?

Everybody's got to do it. Have it. A very good multivitamin, a magnesium, a vitamin D, and some type of inflammatory supplement. So a woman's complete, man's complete, mag complete, vitamin D3 or omega 3D, and then inflammation or X flame. One thing I want to add onto your tip, and I know you were thinking is, folks, the secret to success is consistency. Absolutely. Number one, you have your great workouts, you have your medium workouts, and you have your workouts that aren't great, but you always feel better when you're done.

There'll be weeks when you perform better. You never expect it in other weeks where you're a little beat up, but consistency is the key to longevity and the continued results. So last thing is how can they get a hold of true performance training? And Philippe Cotas, an expert, this guy does training at his facility. He'll do online Zooms. He'll do whatever it takes to help you out. So how to get a hold of you. Very simple. You can just go on the website tpt.fit. I'm not a big person on the social media realm yet.

A lot of the stuff that I kind of do with is very much word of mouth. I have this mentality that before I go out there and conquer the online fitness world, I can conquer a bunch of people that are right next to me and see me in person. So I kind of keep that in the small radius, but, uh, TPT.fit is very, very simple to kind of get ahold of me. Uh, my email's on there and we have a bunch of different, you know, contact forms on the website.

Top Tips and How to Reach TPT 43:40

Very simple. And then, you know, this last few years has been kind of been changing over not only to personal training, but definitely doing, uh, I am also like a, uh, a health coach. So a lot of the folks that I work with we're doing, uh, blood work, we're doing blood work interpretation, we're doing GI health and also different working with people when it comes down to their hormones and nutritional tactics to make sure that they're able to offset all the negative side effects they may have with their health and being able to break that off with a good, sensible, nutritional, consistent habits.

Oh, I love it. Awesome evolving, you know, so many people for years, we used to be able to just eat and work out and that was enough. Nowadays, no more, right? No, the hormones, it's all important anti-inflammatories. So thanks so much, Philippe. Any parting shots, Christine? I just want to say we'll make sure that Philippe's information on how to get a hold of him will be in the show notes. And if you loved what you heard today, please like, comment, share, tell a friend. We would love to get more of the holistic truth out there.

It's too good to keep to ourselves. All right, Philippe, a little double bye for the fans before you go. Thanks for tuning in to the Holistic Truth Podcast. If this episode spoke to you, please follow the show and share it with someone ready to take charge of their wellbeing. And if you can, leave us a review. It helps others find our podcast. For more tools and practitioner support, visit NutritionalFrontiers.com.