UNLOGIC AND BRO SCIENCE: THE CASE OF CLEAN EATING AND MUSCLE CONFUSION

In having a recent conversation with someone that, I can only hope, was arguing in bad faith, I found myself once again expressing the concept that it’s possible to arrive at correct conclusions despite using flawed logic.  That is to say that simply because one’s logic is flawed (and thus containing one of the dreaded and deadly fallacies of logic) does not necessarily mean that what they say is incorrect: simply that it is correct for the incorrect reasons.  This is where the discussion of “bro science” exists.  And before continuing, allow me to address this phrase, and it has, once again, become mutated.  “Bro science”, in its original inception, was about the things meatheads said in the gym that had the faintest of scientific inklings behind it, but was fundamentally just something based on experience.  Multiple meals a day to stoke the metabolic fires and keep them burning, high reps to lose fat and tone, no eating at 7:00pm, etc, these were all “bro science”.  The term has now been taken to mean any matter of science that an individual disagrees with that relates to physical fitness, and, in turn, the term has been muddied.  I have no intention of discussing the abstracts of studies performed on 20 college kids as it relates to operating within 80% of one’s 1rm on the leg extension: that’s stupid for entirely unrelated reasons.  No, today I wish to discuss two long-standing bits of bro science, and why the conclusions are correct despite the methods taken to arrive there: specifically the case of “clean eating” and “muscle confusion”.

Whereas some combine the two and confuse the f**k out of their eating

To begin, people already get stupid when they hear the term “clean eating” and will say stupid things like “what, you washed your food?”  Much like the case of pornography vs art where “I’ll know it when I see it”, those of us that aren’t children are typically able to discern a clean food when analyzing nutritional choices.  But as it relates to bro science, why are certain foods considered the “clean foods”?  The specific examples being chicken breasts, egg whites, rice, and olive oil.  New trainees look at these foods and wonder if they have some sort of magical bodybuilding qualities, while the “educated” on the internet mock the bros for eating the egg whites and throwing away the nutritious yokes, or eating the chicken breasts and now the fattier cuts of the bird, losing out on valuable hormone regulating dietary fats.  Oh these stupid bro.  All they have to show for this work is decades of success and achieving mind blowing physiques and incredible feats of strength.

 …wait, crap.  What’s the deal?  It’s not that there’s some sort of inherent “cleanness” in the food that results in superior results compared to less clean options (though, typically the super “dirty” foods come with excess baggage like excessive amounts of transfats and zero micronutrients), but moreso that these “clean” food sources are effectively a sole source of a single macronutrient.  Why egg whites instead of whole eggs?  Because if you’re the kinda dude calculating macros, it’s far easier to just factor in pure protein from egg whites than having to crunch the numbers on how much protein is in an egg vs how much fat and track and balance all of that.  White rice is pretty much entirely carbohydrates, so when calculating your daily values, it’s easier to just put some scoops of rice in a tupperwear than try to figure out the value in something more complex like a burrito, casserole, pizza, etc.  And yeah, sure, for those of you that are foodies, you can diligently weigh out all the bits and pieces and construct the macro perfect recipe, but when you’re eating like it’s your job, you quickly get sick of that s**t and just mass produce a bunch of chicken and rice so you can be over and done with.  And with that we unravel the mystery of “clean” foods: they work because they’re pure macro sources and make the calculation of nutrition far easier than trying to use more complex recipes.

And sometimes you get even simpler by eliminating an entire macronutrient

Speaking of greater complexity, let’s transition to muscle confusion.  The bro science on this one operates as follows: when the body gets used to training, it stops growing, so the way to ensure that your body keeps growing is to confuse the muscles by changing your program.  Rate of change prescriptions vary, with some folks adamant that they never perform the same workout twice while others recommend changes every 6, 8 or 12 weeks.  In either capacity, it’s not the notion that one needs to change that’s debated: simply the frequency.  One can change the reps, sets, exercises, exercise order, or completely overhaul the entire program, training with more or fewer days, 2 a days, etc etc.  The idea remains the same: one has to confuse or shock the muscles semiregularly to prevent stagnation and continue growth.

Folks: this is periodization, plain and simple.  People chide the bros over the stupidity of the idea of muscle confusion, but all this boils down to is a great idea expressed poorly.  And even then, one can argue that the bros did something that tends to be the truest demonstration of intellect: taking a complex, multi-faceted idea and reframing it in a manner that it can be understood by the most junior of trainees.  And yes: one can take a much more detailed and structured approach to periodization, making use of accumulation, intensification and peaking blocks, but for a non-athlete, whose simply interested in getting bigger and stronger, there’s really no need for all of that.  A very basic periodization approach is more than sufficient, and that’s what “muscle confusion” is: training in a certain way for a certain while, getting what you can out of it, and then chasing after a different goal with a different manner of training for a while.

I've used this in periodization, where I did it once in 2006, and then never again for the rest of my life

Ultimately, the lesson here is that sometimes the conclusions are worth listening to irrespective of the premises utilized to arrive there.  Exercise science is still a fledging field, with not nearly the degree of research, funding, or legitimization afforded to other scientific research communities such as those dedicated to eradicating cancer or STIs, primarily because the world will always consider these to be higher priorities than maximizing how jacked you can get.  Hell, I’d wager that the research on curing baldness is most likely more robust.  In light of this, often we lack the scientific explanation needed to explain regularly observed phenomena.  Some bros took it upon themselves to invent a science to explain it away, in much the same way primitive people created gods and religion to explain nature (and, in that regard, in much the same way many embrace science as their own religion in light of their own inability to explain the world), and though it may not make any sense, the outcome remains the same: it works.  Instead of deciding that a conclusion cannot be true because the premises are false, look at if it’s possible that a true conclusion has been realized and we simply need to find the premises that actually support it.