Ep 325 - Plant-Based Bodybuilding With a World Champ (ft. Maddie McConnell)
Iron Culture presented by MASS
The MASS Crew
4.8 • 874 Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2025
⏱️ 109 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of Iron Culture, hosts Eric Helms and Michael Zourdos reconnect and reflect on their experiences at the 2025 Sports Nutrition Association annual conference. Joined by guests Dr. Nick Washmuth and Kaylee Chism, they delve into the concept of daily 1RM training, discussing its origins, methodology, and findings from a recent study involving participants who maxed out daily. Insights from the participants reveal varied results and experiences, highlighting the mental and physical challenges of such a training protocol. The conversation also explores the importance of dosage, frequency, intensity, and the need for more empirical data to better understand the effectiveness of daily 1RM training. The episode covers various training protocols, particularly focusing on volume training and its effects on strength gains. The hosts and guests discuss personal experiences with different lifting protocols, the importance of balancing other lifts during intense training, and the recommendations for those interested in 1RM training. Additionally, they explore the intriguing concept of swearing as a performance enhancer, examining its psychological effects and potential benefits in athletic performance.
Reminder:Don't forget to check out our sister podcast, Front Page Fitness, hosted by Drs. Lauren Colenso-Semple and Eric Trexler!
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Time stamps:
00:00 Intro
04:00 Daily 1RM Training: Origins and Insights
12:00 Introducing the New Study on Daily One RM Training
33:30 Auto-Regulation in Training
39:30 "Dosage": Frequency, Intensity, and Proximity to Failure
44:26 Specificity vs. Generalization in Training
54:00 Volume Considerations
01:11:00 Recommendations for 1RM Training Protocols
01:16:30 Squat Mechanics and Individual Variability
01:22:30 Effects of Swearing in Performance
01:39:40 Wrapping up
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to another episode of Iron Culture presented by Mass. |
| 0:09.4 | I'm excited because we have one of the top natural physique athletes on the planet |
| 0:15.3 | joining myself and tracks in this studio today. |
| 0:18.5 | And that is one IFBB, WNBF, OCBP, Pro, and Multiple Federation |
| 0:27.4 | World Champion, Maddie MacConnell. Welcome to the podcast. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited |
| 0:33.2 | to be here. Now, it is our pleasure. Trex, I have, we've done, we've done similar interviews with some |
| 0:41.6 | other top level athletes. And what's cool is that right now in the Iron Game more broadly, |
| 0:47.3 | and I include powerlifting in this, there seems to be a higher level of participation, and we're |
| 0:53.0 | seeing a higher peak of terms of the performance levels and new standards being set every season in both powerlifting and bodybuilding. |
| 1:02.2 | And the new standard that's been set in the figure division, I would say, is sitting right here with us in the studio, which is absolutely three different places online, but nonetheless, |
| 1:15.3 | proverbially sitting with us in the studio in one Maddie McConnell. |
| 1:21.5 | I don't think, you know, honestly, it was just 2023, end of 2023 or early 2024, where we were talking about Becky Pateman and Natalie Hayes being like people |
| 1:27.0 | who had done historic things and no one else kind of had this resume in the female side of the sport. And the closest thing on the men's side of the sport were a couple folks who'd won the, you know, the world title twice in the WNBF or had been title unifiers like Brian Whitaker. But man, the whole sports leveling up, we got Bobakar, who came back and is the first person to win the men's bodybuilding title in the WBF three times. |
| 1:52.6 | And now we've got even more women who are just frigging it. |
| 1:58.2 | So I think it's, is there something in, |
| 2:01.0 | and the water is natural bodybuilding popular or what's going on, |
| 2:04.7 | trucks? |
| 2:05.4 | Explain to me. |
| 2:06.9 | I mean, you're coming to the wrong guy. |
| 2:09.9 | We could do some, we could try to do some testing on different water sources. |
| 2:15.0 | I'm sure there's something in there. |
| 2:19.8 | Yeah, not to get on a tangent over in my neck of the woods, we had stuff in the water, but not the kind of stuff that makes |
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