Alexander Cortes: broscience, health science and fertility

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Nov 1, 2025

In this engaging conversation, fitness influencer Alexander Cortes shares insights from his journey in the fitness world and the significance of personalized health protocols. He demystifies 'broscience' and its surprising empirical roots, emphasizing the evolution of fitness advice over time. Cortes also delves into peptides, explaining their biological roles and the hype surrounding them. Additionally, he discusses the founding of Ferta, driven by his wife's fertility struggles, advocating for a proactive approach to reproductive health.

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ADVICE

Pick Experienced Trainers With A Clear Philosophy

Hire trainers with long practical experience, not just credentials.
Ask candidates for a clear training philosophy and look for track records of real client results.

INSIGHT

Environment Shapes Obesity Risk

Modern environments are obesogenic, making overeating the default.
City living and social norms around appearance often produce fitter populations than suburbs or rural areas.

ADVICE

Peptides: Small Chains, Big Effects

Think of peptides as chains of amino acids with diverse signaling roles.
Use peptide knowledge to understand hormonal, neural, and metabolic interventions clinically and practically.

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On this episode of Unsupervised Learning, Razib talks to Alexander Cortes. Cortes is a trainer, fitness influencer and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder, along with his wife, of Ferta, a company that aims to "optimize your reproductive health and conceive naturally." Born and raised in California, Cortes began his career in the fitness industry as a personal trainer in 2010. Over the next few years he expanded his efforts online, writing about fitness and nutrition from a science-informed perspective. Cortes developed a following by offering practical advice on strength training, muscle building, and the psychological aspects of fitness to the interested general public, translating the wisdom-of-the-gym for the person on the street.

In the first part of the podcast, Razib and Cortes talk about "broscience," and how it differs from "quantified self" and other movements geared toward self-optimization. They discuss how "bros" arrived on the importance and utility of peptides long before the ozempic revolution, and how the iterative and experimental methods of gym-addicted amateurs predated and anticipated what would later become conventional wisdom. Razib also explores how Cortes' particular style of broscience differs from that of others, with its stronger empirical basis and analytical orientation (and aversion to fads like "raw food"). They discuss the "peptide revolution" and how online fitness and health influencers discovered it earlier, the utility of the macromolecules in health and wellness, and what the online community discovered already that is likely to come down the clinical pipeline.

In the second part of the discussion, Cortes introduces his new company, Ferta, and its situates its position in the fertility space. He explains the origin of his firm as he and his wife began to attempt to conceive in their 30s, and how difficult or easy the process was conditional on the optimizations they engaged in. Cortes explains many people struggle because they do things wrong, and don't maximize their chances by being healthy and fertile.