#94 Dr. Layne Norton on Building Muscle – Insights on Diet, Training, and Supplements

Posted on August 27th 2024 (6 months)

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Dr. Layne Norton is a Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences, a professional bodybuilder, and a champion powerlifter.

In this episode, we discuss why most people aren’t training too hard, when to go to failure, whether seed oils are “the” central cause of chronic disease, why having a slow metabolism isn’t a credible reason for being overweight (for most), and the sustaining power of good habits. We also get into controversies around the carnivore diet, diet sodas, artificial sweeteners, intermittent fasting, and much more.

Some highlights from this episode:

  • Why to start tracking calories (for at least 3 days)
  • How the antidepressant effects of exercise compare to SSRIs
  • How one year of resistance training has lasting benefits 3 years later
  • Why everyone should train until failure at least once
  • Why hard training and consistency trump exercise selection
  • How lifting weights can actually decrease low-back pain
  • Why proper form isn't that important for injury prevention
  • How exposure therapy can help you train through an injury
  • Why you should "auto-regulate" your training after a poor night of sleep
  • Why it's never too late to start lifting weights
  • Are seed oils the predominant cause of chronic disease — or is it just obesity?
  • Is the carnivore diet an LDL cholesterol catastrophe?
  • Why high heat or repeated heating makes seed oils more damaging
  • Why diet soda helps many people lose weight (and what are the microbiome risks?)
  • Does aspartame from diet soda increase cancer risk?
  • Does time-restricted eating have benefits independent of calories?
  • Why everyone should supplement with creatine
  • Why Layne is "very bullish" on ashwagandha

These show notes dive deep into topics covered in our conversation, including a discussion of several studies mentioned throughout the episode. Enjoy!

“The magic you’re looking for is in the work you keep attempting to avoid.” - Layne Norton, Ph.D. Click To Tweet

You're wasting energy on details that don’t matter, while ignoring the essentials that do. The real difference-makers—sleep, nutrition, and exercise—are within your grasp, yet often overlooked. Don’t let the pursuit of perfection paralyze you; it's the small, consistent actions that lead to big results.

Dr. Layne Norton’s coaching philosophy can be boiled down into one statement: it’s the mass action that makes the difference. The habits we execute on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis are the things that really move the needle and will help us reach our fitness goals, not the fine-grained details of what we had for breakfast or how many minutes we slept last Tuesday. As such, the strategies he provides for everyone are rooted in simplicity while still being backed by rigorous scientific principles, whether it be calorie counting, muscle building, reducing injury risk, or deciding whether artificial sweeteners are a worthwhile tradeoff for health.

“The most important thing is calorie intake…energy intake versus what you are expending. But how you get there is what is really important. People conflate a physical law of thermodynamics with tracking calories. Those are not the same thing.” - Layne Norton, Ph.D. Click To Tweet

Calorie Counting and Weight Loss

Calories don’t care whether you count them—they still dictate your weight. Just like budgeting doesn’t guarantee savings, tracking calories isn’t essential to lose weight, but it sure helps. The truth is, energy balance rules, and understanding your intake versus expenditure is the key to real progress.

The sad truth is that most people underestimate their self-reported energy intake by about 600 calories per day and overestimate their physical activity levels by nearly 50%! This might be one reason why—despite thinking they’re eating less and moving more—many people fail to lose weight.


Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects. N Engl J Med. 1992

Are people liars? Not at all, says Dr. Layne Norton. We just look at ourselves (and our habits) with rose-colored glasses. But by monitoring our behaviors, we can gain an insight into what’s really going on and take control.

If you want to lose weight, maintain weight, or improve your body composition, Dr. Layne Norton recommends asking yourself the following questions:

  • How much energy are you expending per day? This can be difficult to assess — especially since most activity trackers don’t provide an accurate measurement of daily caloric burn. But you can get a reasonable idea by entering your activities into an online calculator that will also factor in your basal metabolic rate based on your age, weight, and sex. You can also use an activity tracker to get an estimate of how many calories you’re burning each day.
  • What are you eating right now and what is your body weight doing? If you’re gaining weight with your current level of energy intake, it’s likely too high for what you’re burning. If you’re losing weight, then you’re eating less energy than you’re expending. If weight is plateauing, then your current diet is providing you with your maintenance calories.

Layne advocates that everyone track their calories at least once in their life for a few weeks to a month. For most people, this will provide valuable insight into how many calories they’re really eating, what a serving of food looks like, and the keys to portion control that will translate into positive eating habits for life.

"For people out there who are struggling with it…whether it is CrossFit, powerlifting, bodybuilding, just going to the gym, doing machines, I do not care. Any of those are going to get you massive benefits relative to not doing anything."- Layne Norton, Ph.D. Click To Tweet

Making Exercise a Habit

Exercise shouldn’t be a “maybe” in your day — it needs to be a non-negotiable. Stop waiting for the perfect moment or the right motivation; make it a daily priority, whether it feels good or not. Consistency is what turns movement into a lasting habit.

In fact, Layne Norton emphasizes that one of the biggest hurdles of getting people to exercise is the mindset that it has to feel good. If we only exercised when we felt good, we’d rarely do it! Sometimes we have to embrace discomfort.

What else holds people back is thinking that they have to engage in a lot of exercise to achieve the benefits. In reality, the amount of exercise needed for health is very low!


Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity and Cancer Incidence Among Nonexercising Adults: The UK Biobank Accelerometry Study. JAMA Oncol. 2023

“When it comes to resistance training, intensity is the medicine and the volume is the dosage.” - Layne Norton, Ph.D. Click To Tweet

Training for Muscle Strength and Muscle Mass

Having more muscle mass usually makes you stronger, but strength is much more than just size—it’s a skill. Building muscle requires mechanical tension, with a focus on hard sets near failure. While you don’t always need to push to absolute failure during training, doing so occasionally can help you understand your limits.

Dr. Layne Norton thinks that everyone should train to failure at least once to know what true muscular failure really feels like. In his experience, most people stop about 5–6 repetitions short of their maximum number of repetitions for an exercise. To really test our limits, we first have to know where they lie.

One of the most important factors in training for muscle growth is mechanical tension—this is the force that muscles experience during concentric (muscle-shortening) and eccentric (muscle-lengthening) contractions. Performing more exercise sets close to failure maximizes muscle tension, but the research doesn’t seem to indicate that exercising to failure produces more hypertrophy than exercising close to failure.

In fact, training to failure all the time might be counterproductive for building strength as it increases fatigue and could impair training quality and strength development. At least that’s what the research shows—training just short of failure appears to maximize muscle strength. What is clear is that it’s better to perform multiple sets of exercise rather than one.

For muscle hypertrophy: Layne cites research showing that performing 2–3 sets and 4–6 sets per exercise leads to about 40% greater hypertrophy compared to performing a single set of an exercise.


Single vs. multiple sets of resistance exercise for muscle hypertrophy: a meta-analysis. J Strength Cond Res. 2010

For muscle strength: Performing 2–3 sets per exercise leads to 46% greater gains in strength than a single set of exercise, but there might be no further benefit to performing 4–6 sets per exercise.


Single versus multiple sets of resistance exercise: a meta-regression. J Strength Cond Res. 2009

“Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good.” - Layne Norton, Ph.D. Click To Tweet

Selecting Exercises

The details of your workout plan matter less than your ability to do it consistently. Whether you use machines or free weights, what’s crucial is finding exercises that excite you and cause no pain, allowing for consistent execution. While variety can keep you motivated, avoid overcomplicating your routine. Don’t let the pursuit of perfection hinder your progress—good enough is plenty.

According to Layne, the important things when crafting a training plan are:

  • What gets you excited to train?
  • What exercises do you enjoy and don’t cause pain?
  • What exercise plan will you execute consistently?

These three components, combined with mechanical tension, the number of hard sets you complete, and training muscles at a long length are the key factors in determining training success. Everything else is just minor details.

Because people enjoy variety, Layne thinks that training periodization — “mixing up” exercises every now and then—can be a strategy to keep training interesting and novel. But he cautions against switching things up too often, as this can prevent you from adequately training individual muscles or muscle groups.

Machines or weights? Layne emphasizes that it doesn’t really matter — you can build muscle mass and strength regardless of how you like to train because resistance training with machines or using free weights produces similar gains in muscle strength and muscle hypertrophy.


Effect of free-weight vs. machine-based strength training on maximal strength, hypertrophy and jump performance - a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil. 2023

"Sometimes [pain] is your body trying to send you a signal saying,"hey, we are not recovered enough, back off."I have learned to kind of take pain as it comes and not put so much judgment behind it. And it has made such an enormous difference in my training.” - Layne Norton, Ph.D. Click To Tweet

Pain and Injury Risk

Nobody likes to get hurt training or be sidelined with an injury. Preventing injury is more about smart loading and mindset than perfect form. Gradually increasing your workout intensity reduces injury risk, while regular exercise makes you less sensitive to pain and less prone to injury. Your beliefs about pain and resilience, along with good sleep and stress management, play a significant role in recovery and injury prevention. Don’t avoid activity when injured—modify it, listen to your body, and keep moving.

According to Layne, the worst thing that we can do for our joints, bones, and tissues is not to load them, because this actually increases pain sensitivity rather than decreases it. If you lift weights, you’ll be stronger and less pain sensitive than someone who doesn’t. In fact, both aerobic exercise and resistance exercise (strength training) reduce chronic low back pain severity.

In some way, all pain is physical, but mindset and psychology play an important role in pain — Layne thinks that we underestimate the power of mindset. He loves the biopsychosocial model as an explanation for pain. This model explains pain as a complex and multidimensional experience influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors. Unlike traditional models that focus solely on the physical or biological aspects of pain, the biopsychosocial approach recognizes that pain is not just a result of tissue damage or injury but is also shaped by an individual's mental state, emotions, and social environment.


Multispecialty Opioid Risk Reduction Program Targeting Chronic Pain and Addiction Management in Veterans. Fed Pract. 2019

How does this apply to training?

  • People who believe that they need to lift with perfect form to prevent injury actually increase their injury risk.
  • People who believe they are more resilient recover from injury faster.
  • Psychological stress is a risk factor for injury — managing this aspect of life can reduce injury and improve performance.

If you are injured or coming back from injury, Layne recommends a variation of “exposure therapy” — find a variation of an exercise that you can perform that doesn’t make pain worse but still mimics the activity you want to do. Just because we experience some pain during a movement doesn’t mean we should completely stop. We just need to adjust.

“I think everyone should auto regulate their training regardless of whatever happens.” - Layne Norton, Ph.D. Click To Tweet

Sleep and Injury Risk

Chronic sleep deprivation isn’t just about feeling tired; it’s about your body being more prone to injury. If you’re not at your best after poor sleep, listen to your body and adjust your training accordingly.

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