Interview: Peter Bond

Geschatte leestijd: 6 minuten Peter Bond goes far in his quest for knowledge about physiology, especially sports physiology. He literally wrote the book on dietary supplements and published various scientific studies. We are therefore pleased to announce that he will also share his knowledge via Fitsociety.

‘Pure science’ (foreword)

I recently complained about ‘shake fakers’. Spreaders of misinformation about training and nutrition. I also mentioned some mitigating circumstances under which the need to receive enough feedback on your work for the time, money, and effort you invest. In a world where many people do not take the time to delve into pure science, many bloggers and vloggers compromise on content. Myself not excluded. I consider Peter Bond to be such a rare exception. Just when I thought I was going quite far in my quest for true knowledge about nutrition and training, I came across the work of Peter Bond. Where I ultimately aim to convey a correct message to a large audience, Peter focused mainly on correctness. This could mean that I found certain material in his books complicated and wondered to what extent the ‘average fitness enthusiast’ would understand this material. We also talked about that difficult task of explaining difficult material simply yet correctly. Peter has a great advantage here, a good understanding of the material itself. Where I often have to take four steps back to understand what I want to explain, Peter, with more knowledge of the underlying science, can make a better estimate of which material can be simplified without losing its correctness. I am therefore very happy with the fact that Peter will now also share his knowledge via Fitsociety and have every confidence that you don’t need a doctorate to understand it.

Peter Bond

Name: Peter Bond Age: 26 Residence: Zeist Specialty: Dietary supplements and molecular sports physiology When and how did your interest in fitness arise? That’s almost 10 years ago now. I was 17 years old and in my final year of high school. A good friend and classmate of mine dragged me into the gym. I was a tall, skinny guy who was pretty much fused with his desk chair and computer: I didn’t exercise back then. However, I was immediately ‘hooked’ and immediately took out a gym subscription. Since then, I have been fairly uninterrupted (except for a few months) with the fitness thing. Back then, I wasn’t interested in fitness yet, I just wanted to get more muscular. That was all. It wasn’t until more than a year later that I really started to be interested and started reading a lot about it. Do you have any other sporting background? Before that, I did taekwon-do and badminton for many years. I also played soccer for about a year and did kickboxing for a brief period. Although, to be honest, I was never really very enthusiastic. Oh, and yes, I have my shoelace tying diploma + all my swimming diplomas. ? Why does fitness play an important role in your life? It’s mainly the science and knowledge that comes with it that has become an important part for me. First of all, because I find it fun and interesting. In the beginning, I learned a lot from others in the gym and read a lot on various fitness websites about training, nutrition, and dietary supplements. Later, when I started to approach it all more critically, I found out that much of what I had learned was actually incorrect. There are indeed many misunderstandings, or actually misinformation, in the fitness and health industry. If you do not approach the information with a critical attitude or do not have sufficient knowledge to assess its value, you easily fall prey to that misinformation. This has led me to start my own blog in 2014 where I address many topics related to fitness based on science. I have also been active for years on a bodybuilding forum where I do my best to contribute to the spread of correct knowledge. And now also via this platform, where I hope to reach a very large audience. I try to summarize the knowledge from the scientific literature and make it digestible, with critical notes where necessary about what is written in the scientific literature. Because even that is not flawless. Especially when it comes to dietary supplements, figures are sometimes manipulated or certain methods are used to demonstrate a favorable result for a supplement. I have also written a book about dietary supplements that promote muscle growth or strength, in which I provide an overview of the science behind dietary supplements and consider eight of them individually. The entire book is provided with 507 inline references to the scientific literature. I also try to contribute a modest part to the scientific literature itself, which has now led to three publications. I have written two reviews about a molecular reaction pathway closely involved in muscle growth and the dietary supplement phosphatidic acid, and also a hypothesis about hepatotoxicity induced by oral anabolic androgenic steroids. What is your specialty and why did you choose it? My specialty mainly lies in molecular sports physiology, especially what causes your muscles to grow at the molecular level. I think it’s mainly the versatility of the ‘field’ that attracts me. Although you could say that about almost everything when I think about it… In addition to this, I am also interested in the functioning of dietary supplements. I ask myself many questions, such as: why do you get stronger or more muscular from creatine or proteins? And why does it not work for one person, a little for another, and very well for yet another? And how safe are all those different dietary supplements actually? Molecular sports physiology: why that passion? I think that mainly comes because it tries to describe certain things at the smallest level possible. In a sense, therefore, ‘very detailed’ (although that is of course not quite a correct description). It manages to better satisfy my curiosity in that way, because it -to a certain extent- gives a very exact answer to questions like: what actually happens in your muscles that makes them grow through strength training? And how does nutrition contribute to this? It takes away some of the ‘magic’ a bit ?. In addition, molecular sports physiology strongly relies on biochemistry, cell biology, and a few other disciplines. Especially cell biology has fascinated me a lot from the very beginning. One of the first scientific books I read was a book about cell biology (Essential Cell Biology by Alberts et al.). A large part of the research that is published also relies heavily on molecular research, so it is useful to have a good background in this to interpret this research properly. What is your mission in the fitness industry? Mission is perhaps a big word, but I would greatly appreciate it if I could inspire more people to approach things critically and to have more confidence in the scientific state of affairs. In addition, I hope that this will eventually put an end to the enormous stream of misinformation in this branch of sports, but I also realize that this is wishful thinking. But every little bit helps, of course. How do you intend to achieve that mission? By writing well-founded pieces, based on scientific literature with inline references, and with a critical attitude. In this way, I hope to distinguish myself positively from the abundance of misinformation on the internet. People can also check where I base my statements on. Because that’s where misinformation often goes wrong: many of the statements are simply not based on anything reliable. You can see that in many fields and you can see that trend nowadays also in journalism with ‘fake news’. Who is your target audience? The target audience for my own blog are mainly the professionals; people who already have a background in fitness and who are not averse to reading some studies from the scientific literature. Although with my last few articles I try to make it all a bit more understandable for people who have never really delved into the literature. On this website, I hope to address the ‘ordinary’ interested fitness enthusiast who values well-founded pieces. The idea is that you don’t need a dictionary next to you and you don’t have to consult Wikipedia every two lines. Fulfillment: getting more out of others or yourself? A bit of a cliché answer, but more from others of course. In my opinion, it’s a lot nicer to see others progress because of your actions than when it applies to yourself. When that applies to myself, it feels to me as if that happens ‘automatically’. Making difficult material understandable is sometimes impossible without leaving out certain things: do you find it more important that it is complete, or accessible to a large audience? That is indeed sometimes quite impossible and then you have to make concessions. I always try to find a good balance. Sometimes, by cutting a little in completeness/correctness, you can already make an article much more accessible to a much larger audience; in those cases, it is often worth it. You don’t really benefit much if you write a super correct article that is then only read and understood by a handful of people. If in such a case you have to give up a little on this with the result that a much larger audience benefits from it, then that is of course my preference. But often that dividing line is not so clear-cut and then I tend to lean towards completeness/correctness.