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In this special episode of The Drive, Peter hosts a strength and conditioning roundtable with three experts in the field—Gabrielle Lyon, Jeff Cavaliere, and Mike Boyle. Together they explore why maintaining muscle mass, strength, and power is essential for healthspan and longevity, and examine how resistance training supports metabolic resilience and injury prevention across the lifespan. The conversation covers practical strategies for getting started and staying consistent, the importance of a protein-centered diet tailored to age and activity level, and approaches to resistance training for peri- and post-menopausal women—including tendon care and optimal programming. They debate single-leg training versus heavy bilateral lifts, share knee-friendly lower-body options, and highlight exercises that belong in the “graveyard” due to poor risk-reward ratios. Finally, the group discusses youth sports specialization, emphasizing the long-term value of variety for developing lifelong athletes.

We discuss:

• Personal career journeys and philosophies of each guest that shaped their approaches to strength, conditioning, and lifelong health [3:30];
• Why so few people engage in resistance training despite its proven health benefits [8:30];
• Mike’s low-stress, high-consistency method for training beginners to resistance training [18:45];
• How resistance training enhances metabolic health and body composition even in lean, highly active endurance athletes [25:30];
• The dominant role of nutrition in shaping physique and achieving low body fat, the synergistic effect of resistance training, and the unrealistic expectations about muscle growth and fat loss [28:30];
• Why Jeff advocates for five meals a day, and why meal timing matters less than overall protein intake and caloric consistency [38:00];
• Optimizing protein for every stage of life: quality, quantity, and guidelines for diverse diets and body types [44:15];
• The advantages of unilateral lower-body training over heavy bilateral lifts: impact on strength, athleticism, recovery, and functional movement [51:45];
• Rethinking heavy squats and deadlifts: risk-reward, aging bodies, and the case for reverse lunges and other single-leg alternatives [1:01:15];
• Adapting with age: Gabrielle on injuries, hip dysplasia, and the shift to smarter training [1:10:15];
• Exercises that belong in the “iron graveyard”: unnecessarily risky exercises and their safer alternatives [1:19:15];
• The downside of early sports specialization in children and the long-term benefits of encouraging kids to play multiple sports [1:25:00];
• Advice for preventing an Achilles injury: calf strength, ankle mobility, and listening to pain signals [1:33:15];
• Shoulder pain: how to keep training the upper body when shoulder pain limits pressing movements [1:40:45];
• Effective strength training strategies for women before, during, and after the menopausal transition [1:43:15];
• Best practices for strength training and athletic development in children, and the pitfalls of early sports specialization [1:50:30];
• How to foster healthy habits and an interest in fitness beyond playing sports [2:00:00];
• Something each guest has changed their mind about in the last five years [2:04:00]; and
• More.

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View the Show Notes Page for This Episode

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Edward Chang is a neurosurgeon, scientist, and a pioneering leader in functional neurosurgery and brain-computer interface technology, whose work spans the operating room, the research lab, and the engineering bench to restore speech and movement for patients who have lost these capabilities. In this episode, Edward explains the evolution of modern neurosurgery and its dramatic reduction in collateral damage, the experience of awake brain surgery, real-time mapping to protect critical functions, and the split-second decisions surgeons make. He also discusses breakthroughs in brain-computer interfaces and functional electrical stimulation systems, strategies for improving outcomes in glioblastoma, and his vision for slimmer, safer implants that could turn devastating conditions like ALS, spinal cord injury, and aggressive brain tumors into more manageable chronic illnesses.

We discuss:

• The evolution of neurosurgery and the shift toward minimally invasive techniques [2:30];
• Glioblastomas: biology, current treatments, and emerging strategies to overcome its challenges [10:45];
• How brain mapping has advanced from preserving function during surgery to revealing how neurons encode language and cognition [16:30];
• How awake brain surgery is performed [22:00];
• How brain redundancy and plasticity allow some regions to be safely resected, the role of the corpus callosum in epilepsy surgery, and the clinical and philosophical implications of disconnecting the hemispheres [26:15];
• How neural engineering may restore lost functions in neurodegenerative disease, how thought mapping varies across individuals, and how sensory decline contributes to cognitive aging [39:15];
• Brain–computer interfaces explained: EEG vs. ECoG vs. single-cell electrodes and their trade-offs [48:30];
• Edward’s clinical trial using ECoG to restore speech to a stroke patient [1:01:00];
• How a stroke patient regained speech through brain–computer interfaces: training, AI decoding, and the path to scalable technology [1:10:45];
• Using brain-computer interfaces to restore breathing, movement, and broader function in ALS patients [1:28:15];
• The 2030 outlook for brain–computer interfaces [1:34:00];
• The potential of stem cell and cell-based therapies for regenerating lost brain function [1:38:00];
• Edward’s vision for how neurosurgery and treatments for glioblastoma, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease may evolve by 2040 [1:42:15];
• The rare but dangerous risk of vertebral artery dissections from chiropractic neck adjustments and high-velocity movements [1:44:45];
• How Harvey Cushing might view modern neurosurgery, and how the field has shifted from damage avoidance to unlocking the brain’s functions [1:46:15]; and
• More.

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