Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Ben Pakulski on What It’s Really Like to Be a Professional Bodybuilder

Episode Date: January 4, 2019

Bodybuilding is a strange sport that requires a special type of masochism. If you want to make it in the big leagues, you not only need great genetics but you also have to micromanage your nutrition, beat the shit out of your body with absurd amounts of training, and do enough drugs to make Jordan Belfort blush. It also makes for a rather isolated and lonely life spent mostly in the gym grinding away to add that next pound of muscle, and even when you make it to the professional level, it doesn’t pay all that well. And so I’ve often wondered why people choose to become bodybuilders and what it’s really like to dedicate your life to the sport. Well, a couple months ago, I was invited to attend a podcasting event put on by my buddies at Mind Pump and interview the ex-pro bodybuilder Ben Pakulski. In case you’re not familiar with Ben, he was an Olympia-level competitor who used to step on stage at 280 pounds and walk around in the low 300s during the offseason, and in this interview, I got to ask him about what that experience and lifestyle was really like and how the transition out of the sport has been for him, both physically and psychologically. Ben also shares some great training advice, including his favorite exercises for developing different muscle groups, observations on the relationship between volume and intensity and muscle growth, how stress affects your ability to gain muscle, and what to do about it, and more. Enjoy! 5:55 - How much do you weigh? 6:27 - Why did you stop your pursuit for Mr. Olympia? 10:34 - How much do drugs play a role in professional bodybuilding? 14:20 - If you didn’t eat a meal for an extended amount of time, did you lose weight? 14:55 - Why did you want to become a professional bodybuilder? 18:55 - What exercises work well? 23:00 - What is an example of a an exercise that gives good mechanical advantage? 25:25 - What’s the best exercise for the chest? 27:17 - Do you believe in high or low volume? 27:58 - What are the best exercises for you? 30:42 - How should your foot be functioning during a squat? 33:59 - What are the best exercises for you? 37:12 - What are your go-to chest and back exercises? 42:47 - How does stress affect muscle building? 44:29 - What is the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system? 49:28 - What is your pre-sleep routine? 54:31 - What is your new identity after leaving body building? 58:12 - What are your new goals? 1:07:15 - Do you feel a burden as a leader? 1:112:04 - Where can people find you? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

If my objective is to build muscle, lose fat, my objective in training then should be to create the greatest amount of muscular stimulus with the least amount of systemic stress. So I don't want to have to do tons of volume. I don't have to do tons of work. I want to do the smallest amount to elicit this muscular building response. Hey, Mike Matthews here from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics, and welcome to another episode of the Muscle for Life podcast. This time, we are going to be talking about bodybuilding, the sport of bodybuilding, which is a rather strange one that requires a special level and a special type of masochism. If you want to make it to the big leagues in bodybuilding, you not only need great genetics, but you also have to micromanage your nutrition. You have to beat the shit out of your body

with absurd amounts of training. And of course you have to do enough drugs to make Jordan Belfort blush. And it's also a rather lonely sport. It makes for a rather isolated and lonely life spent mostly in the gym grinding away to add that next pound of muscle. And even when you make it to the professional level, it really doesn't pay all that well. And so I've often wondered why people do it. Why do they choose to become bodybuilders? And what is it really like to dedicate yourself and dedicate your life

to the sport? And a couple of months ago, I was invited to attend a podcasting event put on by my buddies over at Mind Pump Media. Shout out, shout out. Thank you guys. And there I interviewed the ex-pro bodybuilder Ben Pekulski. Now, in case you are not familiar with Ben, he was an Olympia level bodybuilder and he used to step on stage at like 280 pounds and walk around in the low 300s during the offseason. And in this interview that I did with him, I got to ask him about what that was like, what that experience and that lifestyle was really like, and how the transition out of the sport has been for him, both physically and psychologically. And as you are going to hear, Ben also just shares some great training advice too,

including his favorite exercises for developing different muscle groups, observations on the relationship between volume and intensity and muscle growth, how stress affects your ability to gain muscle and what to do about it and more. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my fitness book for men, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 350,000 copies in the last several years and helped thousands and thousands of guys build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 3,100 reviews on Amazon

with a four and a half star average. So if you wanna know the biggest lies and myths that are keeping you from achieving the lean, muscular, strong, and healthy body that you truly desire, and if you wanna learn the simple science of building the ultimate male body, then you want to read Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, which you can find on all major online retailers like Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play.

Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audiobooks. I love them myself because they let me make the time that I spend doing stuff like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth so much more valuable and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, then simply go to www.bitly.com slash free BLS. And that will take you to audible. And then you just click the sign up today and save button, create your account and voila, you get to listen to bigger, leaner, stronger for free. Alrighty. That is enough shameless plugging for now. At least

let's get to the show. Yeah. I want to hear about your book. So you were telling me. Yeah. So, you know, for 20 years, I was 100% focused, like single-mindedly laser focused on becoming the best bodybuilder in the world. You know, effectively the biggest human being on the planet was kind of the framing in my mind. Along the way, you run into a lot of roadblocks. You learn a lot of things that do not work, but most importantly, you learn what does work. And I really think there's, there's value in people to understand, like, even though you don't want to look like that and, you know, I don't even want to look like that anymore. The people who learn the most are the people who are always pushing the envelope. Like, I think I had a credible opportunity because I was literally pushing

the boundaries of human performance. You know, I was pushing harder than anybody and I knew where the line was. I knew where it was going to, where I could tow the line. I knew where if I went a little further, it was going to break. And I pushed frequency and volume. I pushed volume of training. I pushed every aspect of like, how hard can I push this thing a little bit further to see, you know, how far can we push that line? How far can we push that line? You know, at one point I was 318 pounds and lean, you know, full eight pack. Like I wasn't fat by any stretch. And, you know, to get that big, you know, not that I advocate that, but at the time it wasn't even a thought. How much do you weigh right now? 265, 260. But I mean, so down almost 50 pounds, but still on my way down, I'm still big, but like this is two years of literally trying to get all this tissue off that I've accumulated for the last 20 years.

You know, eating much less, training much less, doing more cardio, doing more, you know, parasympathetic activities, meditation, yoga. So it's a completely different thing. And I'm very blessed that I had a shift in my life that allowed me to leave bodybuilding because I was so single-mindedly focused on that that I think I probably would have accomplished my goal of being Mr. Olympia and probably had a lot of negative side effects to deal with after the fact because I didn't build muscle easily. Why did you decide to stop? Children. I had kids. My son was a nudge and my daughter was a punch in the nose. Okay.

Yeah, both within 18 months of each other. I'm'm so blessed for them, man. Like I couldn't be more grateful, but you know, I had one kid and I was like, Oh, you know, I can still keep going. And then my daughter came and I was like, no, I can't, I can't be, you can't be a selfish person. Like bodybuilding is selfish. Any, any athlete, anyone who wants to be the best in the world, you have to be selfish. Like you can't be balanced. Balance doesn't exist. Like you have to have single-minded focused. And if anyone gets in your way, you squash them. They're not all the way around your life. That's it. Yeah. I'm very blessed that I was so blessed by God or whatever to, to allow me to have that awakening because it was literally that I was asleep for 15 years with these blinders on to try to become the biggest

human being on the planet. And as I say, I didn't have genetics for building tremendous amount of muscle. I didn't have genetics to be lean. I was a good athlete as a kid, but I was never very muscular. It was actually funny. I was talking about this yesterday. I have journals from when I was 15 years old. I was religious with my journals all through my teenage years and twenties. That must be interesting to look back. Well, it's interesting when you see me at 154 pounds and 13 and a half inch arms and people are like, what? I'm like, yeah, that's where I started, 15 years old, 155, 13 and a half inch arms. I think when I started, I was like 18, I was 155, 160 pounds.

Yeah, I was a vegetarian. I'm not a big guy now, I'm only 195 pounds, but I started skinny. Yeah, and looking back at all that stuff, it's very interesting to see. And looking at all your trials and tribulations throughout the journey is, at the time, you're like, gosh, I wish I built muscle as easily as those guys. And that's always a subjective thing because I perceived myself to be working really hard, to be really diligent with my sleep, to be really diligent with my nutrition. Everything I was as perfect as I knew how.

And the guys I was competing against, at least externally, weren't working as hard, weren't paying as much attention to nutrition. It's like those NFL players that show up with Big Macs. Yeah, and it still held true. Wasn't there one? I don't really follow football. There was one in the office there talking about some guy, like that's all he ate.

And he was like some super freak. I know professional. All he ate was McDonald's. Literally, that's all he ate. Well, yeah. You talk about the fighter from Brazil who literally lived on McDonald's. I don't know.

The most famous fighter. Silva? Yes, Anderson Silva. Okay. Lived on McDonald's like two to three times a day. He's like, I'm skinny. It's okay. Well, no, that's why your bones break because you have no density, right?

Yeah. But yeah, even toward the end of my career, I had the amazing opportunity to travel with the best bodybuilders in the world. And even that, I was the guy who had to pack my meals out there. I had to measure my meals and these guys are eating whatever they want, burger and fries, pizzas and stuff. And they look better than I do. And I'm working twice as hard. That's okay. And looking back on it, I think it was my greatest gift because it forced me to search for what dietarily allows me to, where can I kind of push it a little bit and still maintain this lean muscular physique? And where can I not get away with these things? And obviously that was very personal to me, but I've also been able to apply those principles to thousands of other people since. There's so many things along the line there that you identify as this is extremely important in your progress.

And that's, well, not so much. identify as this is extremely important in your progress. And this, well, not so much, even though like we talked about just before the conversation, there's some things that people put a lot of weight on and they're useless and it'll come out in, you know, years that like, oh, that doesn't do anything. But then there's things that I've identified because I was pushing the volume and pushing the, you know, the envelope so much that I've identified like, well, people are going to realize how important that is. Um, you know, and is. And I've been able to help a lot of people since retiring, even before retiring, build a tremendous amount of muscle in a really short amount of time because there's some very, very basic principles.

It's not complicated. People complicate exercise because they don't know anything about it. And I think it has to be this tremendous convoluted number of reps. Or it's like guruism, right? My way is the way. Yeah. It's the thing that I teach. And I can't even explain it in a way that you can really understand it, but trust me, I used a lot of big words. Yeah, exactly. Just do what I say because it works.

Yeah. Okay, dude. You know what I teach is quick question before you get into that. Cause it just, it's in my mind and I hope you don't mind me asking, but how did drugs play a role in that? And the reason why I'm asking is I'm actually genuinely curious because I have, you know, being in the fitness space, I myself have never used any drugs. I didn't, it never really made sense for where I want to be with my body. And even at this point, even if I wanted to do it, I couldn't hide it, so to speak. You know what I mean? I've had the same physique more or less for years now, but I've heard that professional bodybuilding is more or less a, it's who can take the most drugs. Yeah, man. Is that true? Listen, but I've heard that professional bodybuilding is more or less a, it's who can take the most drugs. Yeah, man. Is that true? Listen, we can go down that route as

long as you want. And I'll be as transparent as I can. Because you had mentioned, you mentioned like, okay, so you had to be so diligent with nutrition, diligent with everything to make sure that you can stay lean, continue gaining muscle. Right. I know that a lot of people would naively think, well, if you can take enough drugs, doesn't it allow you to just eat the Big Macs and not pay that much attention to things? Sure. Bodybuilding in the 70s, 80s, and 90s was a training-centric culture.

Currently, it's a drug-centric culture. And the only variance is people think that they can take a tremendous amount of drugs and get to where I got. And the answer is absolutely not. You realize the guys at the top of the world are actually taking so much less than the guys trying to get there because the guys at the top of the world are the ones that respond best to the lowest amount. So if you go into your doctor right now and you go, doc, it'll feel so good. I have low testosterone. Your doc's going to give you this reasonable amount of testosterone hormone replacement. And most pro

bodybuilders, they're taking more than that. There's no question. I took more than that. Right. But it's not as obscene as the internet would have you believe. Yes, we're augmenting hormones. No question. But the guys at the top of the sport, most of them, and I can't speak for everybody, most of the ones that I know get away using so much less. And that's why look healthy they look great at least the ones at the top of the sport now there's guys that did they have to use a lot to get there and then they were able to taper no okay no it was always just that biology it's the guys who respond best to the lowest amount so they're mainly able to maintain their health they're able to maintain the function of their body their

muscles look healthy and then you have these other guys who you see on social media and at the gym, and you're like, oh, that guy doesn't look very good. But yeah, that's because his body's toxic. He's taking all these ridiculous number of things. He doesn't know what they do, but he heard somewhere on some bodybuilding forum that this was the thing you need to be taking. These guys are not using as much as you think. And the thing that I thought was the most unique identifying factor to all these top guys is they don't lose muscle.

So, you know, if you and I stop training for three months, chances are you're not going to look the same. Chances are I'm not going to look the same. I'm going to lose muscle. I'm going to get a bunch of fat. I find with these guys, man, some of them take two to three months off training. Don't eat one to two meals a day. Don't lose any muscle. And there's something to be said there for the idea of protein breakdown.

There's some genetic anomaly there that says, you're just going to maintain all this muscle that you've gained. So that when they get back into training, all of a sudden their body's just fresh and responsive and they grow. And that is the unique identifying factor that I saw in a lot of top guys that people just disregard. Like, yes, they gain muscle faster, but they can also go weeks without training or eating and still not lose any muscle. That's not everybody, but these are the top guys, right? Yeah. So I was very blessed to have great relationships

with a lot of guys and I got to interact with them. I got to literally spend weeks with them on the road or whatever. You see exactly what they're doing. Yeah. You're like, man, you haven't trained in weeks? No. It takes time off.

Like, oh yeah, if I do that. Yeah, I'm the guy like waking up every morning and doing 200 pushups because like, I got to make sure yeah, if I do that. Yeah, I'm the guy waking up every morning and doing 200 push-ups because I've got to make sure I'm getting my stimulus in. Yeah, it's such an advantage because they can travel around, they can do whatever, and it's like they can just hit pause. Yeah, throughout my career, I had five, six miles a day. Otherwise, I was losing weight fast.

Granted, I was very heavy. I was very big. Yeah, I've heard about that. So you'd have to bring your food. Let's say if you were going to be in the plane for nine hours, you're flying to Europe. If you didn't eat, would you land lighter? If let's say you didn't eat on the flight?

I don't know that I was that. Okay. I heard stories of stuff like that. Yeah, but I think that's pretty ridiculous. But I know that if I did it for any extended period of time, my training would suffer. Everything would suffer. So I was very aware of that. But getting back to it, I think drugs is certainly

a part of the culture. Like, unfortunately it's a part of a lot of professional sports and, you know, looking back on it now, knowing what I know now, I would have never done it. But at the time, you know, I was 18 years old and I just decided like, Hey, I want to be a professional bodybuilder. Why? Why did you choose that? I didn't start at 18 years old, but I had this, this awareness, like, this is what I want to be a professional bodybuilder. Why? Why did you choose that? I didn't start at 18 years old, but I had this,

this awareness, like this is what I want to do. I think it was because, um, I was a very good athlete growing up, but I was terrible at team sports because I was, this wasn't a good team player. Like I'd be like,

guys, sit down, I'll do it myself. Like everybody's get out of the way and let me do my thing. Yeah. And, uh, you know,

bodybuilding was this thing was all in me and, uh, you know, no one else was responsible for my outcome. And I love that because me and, uh, you know, no one else was responsible for my outcome. And I love that because it was, uh, something I could internalize. It was very independent kid, you know, from the time I was seven years old, I kind of did my own thing and, and, um, just bodybuilding seemed to fit. I was a very fearful kid. I was very lonely. So bodybuilding was this thing where, um, the muscle allowed me to overcome the fear

because I'm going to build this big, strong armor and you're going to fear me rather than me having to fear things around me. And it just allowed me to do it by myself. So there's deeper levels of emotional baggage that are there. And I think most bodybuilders, to be honest, have some emotional baggage because why else would anyone want to be that big? Looking back on it now, it's like I needed bodybuilding, man, to be honest. I needed it.

I needed it to build my confidence I needed to build this armor that would protect me from the world that what I thought the world was this big scary place from some things that happened when I was a child now it's like oh I realize I don't need it anymore and important message for the listeners is all those things that I thought would change me meaning develop more self-confidence overcome fear you know make me more attractive the the opposite sex. None of it was true. Maybe from an external perspective, like,

oh, this guy's got all these things together for himself. Yeah, but you didn't change so much in terms of- I said this before, like I was 293 pounds three or four days out from a contest one time. I was absolutely shredded at 293 pounds and I was the most insecure I ever was because I knew I was being judged and it was a very, very empty place to be.

It was a very lonely place to be because you alienate so many people along the way because you're so single-mindedly focused on ascending this proverbial mountain that you look back and you go, shit, I'm by myself. I'm here at the top of the mountain. It doesn't get any better than that.

Yeah, but you're like, oh man, I neglected all those people. I love the fact that I was blessed to have that awareness when I got there. I think it was my children that gave me that awareness. It's like, oh, man, I neglected all those people. And I love the fact that I was blessed to have that awareness when I got there. And I think it was my children that gave me that awareness. It's like, yeah, great, you can go accomplish this superficial goal, but it's not going to change the person you are. You have to look so much deeper and look at why you think you need bodybuilding.

And then as you start to find that, then you can actually start to become a better human being and treat people better. And I don't treat people badly, but I was just like, if you're not making me better, you're making me worse. Um, so yeah, man, I mean, to kind of sum that up, drugs are a thing, but it's not nearly to the extent that people think, and yes, there are people who are abusing these things, but they're not the people who are at the top of the sport. The people you see that the people who are trying to get there speculating that, Oh, these guys, the top of the sport using this much. Cause that's how they look the way they do. It's not true. Um, the guys at the top of the sport are the people you see, the people who are trying to get there, speculating that, oh, these guys at the top of the sport are using this much because that's the way they look,

the way they do. In reality, this is not true. The guys at the top of the sport are the guys who are, you know, training hard, eating well, and are superior genetically. And, you know, I didn't believe myself to be superior genetically. Although, I mean, many people would argue like you got to 318 pounds, you're superior genetically. But I had a lot harder time building muscle than most people did. And like I said, it was a blessing. Interesting. All right. So let's go back to then what, what I took us off on a tangent just cause I wanted to get you, I want to get your, you get your thoughts on that, but you were, you were saying earlier that there are some things that you've learned along the way. Um, like I'd be curious as to what do you think

in 10 years from now, what are people going to be talking about as this is, this is definitely a thing, things that you, what are some things that you know work that maybe you couldn't point to scientific research or maybe, maybe it's a, you know what I mean? There's like, there's some side streets. I'm going to pull one step before that and answer that question as well. But I think exercise is convoluted and confused. So people look at exercise and they think that exercise is the goal. And exercise is not the goal. The goal is stimulating your body. The goal is using this external stimulus

being the exercise to create an internal response. And if you start to frame it that way, you start to realize that what happens outside of your body is not necessarily the objective. It's to use this thing outside of you to now create that internal response you want. So whether that's an internal response of muscle building or fat loss or whatever it is, um, well, I want this or a strength adaptation. Well, I want this thing to happen. So the mechanism outside of me is much less relevant. The internal response is what I'm

after. So people get attached to the mechanism of, of achieving this response, right? They're like, Oh, you know, CrossFit's the best way to get lean or you got to squat to build big legs or you got to do bench press to build a big chest and all these axioms are ignorant. I mean, binary thinking is almost always, it should be suspect, I think, in anything. Right.

So what I teach is, you know, it is scientific. I teach physics. I teach the physics of exercise and I don't teach it as physics, but I'm like, hey man, this is biomechanics. This is the way your body moves. Now, how do we subject your body to forces to make it to adapt? Because ultimately that's all your body's responding to, right? Exercise is a means of subjecting your body to external forces to create internal responses. So how do we like really narrow this down and simplify the thought process to subject my body to the appropriate amount of force to create this muscular adaptation without exceeding the amount of force,

because that's either going to do, cause negative things as far as injury, or it's going to cause negative amounts of excessive stress. Cause we know stress with the look of it, like this kill switch for muscle building over fat loss, right? So I need to create the absolute perfect storm of muscular stimulus without exceeding my body's capacity to contract or tolerate the stress that I'm subjecting it to. And that sounds abstract, but it's really, really simple. It's like, Hey, what does that muscle do? And how do I challenge it? It's really that simple. You know, it's like this muscle has two ends. Every muscle in the body has two ends. One end is stable as the other one moves closer to it. That's it.

And if we could simplify that and minimize all the other things that are happening and forget about what you think is the best way to train that muscle and just literally think and go, how do I challenge this thing? If I'm trying to challenge my pec, I'm trying to challenge my bicep or my quad, I have to objectively go, okay, what does that muscle do? And now how do I put resistance against that? And how do I make it as hard as I possibly can at every inch or every millimeter of that set rep, rather than objectively attaching to, well, I got to do a bench press if I want to get a big chest. Who cares? Bench press is not the goal.

It's like getting back more to our first principles. Like, let's just start with. And everybody misses that, right? Everybody goes, how many sets and reps do I need? How many exercises should I do? And so the answer is it doesn't matter. Like, it does matter, but not yet. So until I can standardize this basic principle of like

one repetition needs to be the same it needs to be standardized and then and only then can actually start to quantify the stimulus right so then i can actually learn that manipulating sets reps volume and load matters because i know every rep i've done is exactly the same and so many people are caught up in periodization and like oh oh, should I do more volume, less volume, strength? Like the answer is when you're training the way most people train with this swinging and momentum and so much extraneous movement, it's impossible to know what to do next. Because you can't definitively say how much work is being put into that muscle. Because it's all over the place. This thing gets harder. I use more momentum.

I swing things. I use more muscles. So how much actually went into the muscle you're trying to train? I have no idea. So how am I supposed to know if you need more, less, you know, more frequency? Who knows? So let's start with this foundational thing of like, okay, can I definitively say that the muscle I'm trying to train is actually the thing training at every inch of that rep? It's not just every rep. It's like, I want to know what every inch and if, and everyone's gone through this and you know what I'm talking about, you're doing lightweights and you're warming up

for something. You feel it in the muscle you're trying to train. You start progressing up. You can still feel it. You go a little heavier. Now I don't feel it anymore. Well, you can assume that your body has adapted its position to distribute load to all of the prime movers that are possible, that can possibly move this load. So, well, is that what I want? Do I want to move load or do I want to challenge a muscle? Because that could be a completely dichotomous objective. Like if my goal is to move load, that's a different thing. If my goal is to challenge a muscle, well, how do I put this muscle in the greatest position to actually receive the challenge? And that's what I teach,

man. It's like this basic principle of learn how to set up, like learn how to set up to advantage the muscle you're trying to train. Give it the greatest mechanical advantage. What's a good example of that? Bench press. You want to do a bench press. And there's a few things that go into a setup, but the first and most important thing is keeping your shoulders back. So as soon as your shoulders come forward, even a millimeter, you're going to lose pec contraction. So mechanically, if your shoulders are rolled forward in any amount, your pecs can do less work. Speaking specific to a press, your pecs can do less work. And I still have a hundred pounds in my hand. So here's a thought. I have a hundred pound dumbbell in my hand and my shoulders are retracted as much as I possibly

can. My objective should be, well, I want my pec to do a hundred percent of the work. It's not possible, but we're trying to get as close as we can to that. We have other muscles that can assist. So we have, let's say front delt, tricep, bicep, lat. We have five muscles that can assist. Objectively, I want the pec to do a hundred percent of that. It can't happen, but I should try to get as close to that as I can. So how do I set up to make that the reality? And if my shoulders are retracted, I know that my pecs are going to do a greater percentage of load than if they're rolled forward. And as soon as my pecs start to roll forward, even a little bit, the pec's going to do less work. Therefore, the delt has to do more work. The tricep has to do more work just because it's still this hundred pounds in my hand.

So I still have to move that amount of load. So now you're asking more of the other muscles. That may be okay. But if that's your objective, train that objective. You know, like if I want to train my triceps, I'm going to do a tricep exercise. I'm not going to do a tricep exercise. And there are better, safer ways to train your shoulders than to roll them forward and do a bench press. Yeah, exactly, man. So that's the basic premise is like find the easiest mechanical way. I mean, grip width plays into that too then, right? So like, sure it does. The closer you go, the more it's triceps.

Yeah, and there's so, exactly. And there's one other level that people don't ever consider, and that's sternal angle. So like the size and orientation of your rib cage plays a big, big role in actually what part of your pec and how much of your pec is going to be challenged. So, you know, someone who has a more, you know, if I'm standing something closer to a horizontal sternal angle, and that's not obviously possible to have a horizontal sternal angle, but you have some people who have a very, very vertical sternal

angle. So someone has a really small rib cage, their pecs will be very, very vertical. They're going to have a lot harder time recruiting their pecs on a bench press or a flat bench or even an incline than someone who has a more kind of horizontal oriented, it wouldn't be horizontal, but more closer to the area on the side of horizontal. So that's probably the biggest factor. Those two things is that sternal angle, the angle of my rib cage and the retraction and protraction relative position are the biggest considerations. And nobody thinks about that stuff, right? So one of the things you get a lot,

you get this question all the time too. Like what's the best exercise for chest? How many exercises do I need? The answer is one. Like find the one that actually works well for you. Find the setup that allows you to challenge the pecs to the maximum extent possible in that one exercise. You don't need six exercises yet.

So let's master this one. And because I know if I can find one that gets the greatest amount of challenge, the greatest amount of stimulus to the pec, I'm going to get a lot of response. So I want to spend the most amount of time learning the skill of exercise. And I think this is what people miss is they're missing the skill. So if I want to learn to play basketball, I got to learn how to dribble. I can't go and play a game if I don't know how to dribble. I can learn how to dribble with one hand, then the other hand, then maybe I'll learn how to go between my legs. But it's this constant progression that starts with this foundational principle. I got to learn how to dribble. So hand than the other hand. Then maybe I'll learn how to go between my legs, but it's this, this constant progression that starts with this foundational principle. I got to learn how to dribble. So in training, you got to learn how to challenge the muscle.

I don't care what exercise you choose. I'm not attached to any, you know, squatting is better than leg presses. It's not. Which one allows me to take this muscle through its full range, allow me to challenge the muscle maximally through its full range. That's it. That's my objective. So if people can learn that and, you know, think about it like this, if you have a, you know, this kind of circle of comfort, like I want to stay in this little circle where all the exercises that are in that circle are the ones that I'm really, really good at. Like I've picked one exercise or two exercises per body part and I master those. And then slowly we start to introduce exercises that are outside of the

circle and bring them in and expand my circle, right? So we may start with one to two exercise per body part and master those things. And it may take you four weeks, it may take you four months, but master those first. Because then I know definitively I have something that I can use to challenge my muscles as I slowly then expand my skillset and allow myself to diversify my ability to challenge this muscle. That is the foundation of muscle building. And that's the big piece that everybody's missing. As you know, everybody's looking for the miraculous workout program, the sets and rep scheme that's going to change my life. How many, I need tons of volume. I need high volume, low volume.

The answer is you don't have no idea which one's going to work for you. And it could change based on your ability to execute, right? People say, man, what do you believe in, high or low volume? And the answer is for who, right? If someone's really good at contracting muscle, they're going to obviously need substantially less volume. Yeah. because they're actually subjecting their body to more work. If someone is very poor at contracting muscle, they may need greater volume and greater frequency to elicit the same minimal response. So, I mean, there's so many levels, but that's the foundational

principle that everybody misses, you know? So before all those listeners out there dive into the next program of thinking about how many sets, reps, exercises, volume, load, all these things, well, stop. And like, can you tell yourself definitively at every inch of every rep that the muscle I'm trying to train is actually doing the work? Because I guarantee you can't. And what are, oh, because I mean, you've had so much experience. What are some examples of the best exercises for you? Exercises that you found are like, I really like this for this. I really like this for this.

Yeah. So the ones I find honestly work best for me, typically work best for everybody, regardless of their mechanics. It's just a matter of manipulating the setup a little bit. Okay. So, you know, people with long femurs, long legs, I can't build my quads. Yeah. Well, yes, you can. You just need to learn how to set up for the squat to do it for you.

So just- That's me. So, I mean, I actually haven't, I would say my legs have responded decently, but I have long femurs. So squatting is always going to pain in the ass. So I'm curious. Literally pain in the ass, right? So it's like, I get a sore back, I get sore glutes, but my knees, man, my knees kind of

hurt. My, you know, yeah. So the simple answer is, man, and I'll speak at a high level because you'll understand this and most of your listeners will understand it while trying to make it as simple as possible. The way you squat has everything to do with the proportion between your upper leg and lower leg. Right. So if you're someone who has a really long femur, logically, as you descend into a squat, your glute has to go further back because if it didn't, you'd fall over. Right. So if I stand up straight and I'm standing, just standing normally, my center of mass is balanced through the middle of my foot. So

center of mass, you guys can envision if I'm standing straight is balanced through middle of my foot, my knee, my hip, my shoulder. Right. As I take any of those joints away from that center of mass, the further the joint goes away, the more of the muscles

that cross that joint have to work. So someone like yourself with long femurs, as you descend into a squat, that hip goes way back because of the length. Now I'm going to challenge

that muscle tremendously where the quad may not go or the knee may not go as far forward because of just mechanics. So your body has to be balanced. So you're inevitably going to build tremendous glutes and probably get lower back pain because you're going way outside of what your body can handle at your hip. So if we can manipulate the ratio of femur to lower leg length, well, now I can change the mechanics of the squat. Well, how do I do that? And it's

by as simple as adding something under heel. Like you may need to add as much as four inches under your heel to balance out the differential between those two lengths. But if I can add a heel elevation, now all of a sudden, gosh, I can squat with my torso being vertical and actually get a tremendous amount of challenge to my quad as well while not giving a tremendous amount of, so people go, what about my knees? People run into knee problems when they're doing that stuff with poor pelvic stability. So that's another thing we, you know, people should understand is typically knee problems are a result of either poor foot mechanics or poor hip stability mechanics. So most people, the knee is this hinge joint that

kind of exists between these two complex joints. So knee is relatively simple. The thing with the place where it runs into problems, if it's trying to perform the function of the hip or the foot, so the hinge should function like a hinge. And if we start to, if we limit the rotation of the hip or the foot, the knee needs to pick up some of that rotational component

that the hip is lacking or the foot is lacking. And that's where people run into knee problems. So if you have a stable pelvis. And what foot function, just so people listen, what are you referring to exactly there? Well, walking gait, right?

You should be landing with a heel strike, rolling the outside of your foot, and then have this natural pronation. So the pronation is also this rotation that happens in your knee joint. So it's just this natural function of, you know, some people are flat-footed. Thereby, if you're flat-footed,

you're going to lack pronation. You're going to be more in the slap-foot position. You're going to be internally rotated at the hip. So all these things, if you're internally rotated at theed, you're going to lack pronation. You're going to be more in the slap foot position. You're going to be internally rotated the hip. So all these things, if you're internally rotated the hip, you're going to lack hip external rotation, which is going to prevent you from going all the way down in a squat. You do go down in a squat, you're going to get back pain and knee pain. Like just that's the way the body works. So realizing that that doesn't mean you can't squat. That means you need to learn, okay, well, how can I compensate for these things that I lack or how can I improve them as I go? And I'm not attached to having to squat, but I'm attached to having to take this

muscle through its full range challenge. So you asked some of my favorite exercises, you know, specific to legs. And just to chime in real quick, so just out of personal experience. So what I've had, I wouldn't say knee problems, but achy knees here and there, but something that helped was squatting in shoes with an elevator. Squat shoes, proper shoes, which I've been doing for a while. But I found that out a long time ago. Like, this really makes a difference for me. There's no question.

Well, it allows you to get more vertical. That's it. And if you added something that was even bigger than that one inch that's allowed, or one and a quarter inch, whatever it is. Yeah. If you added a two or three inch, you'd feel even better. Interesting. Yeah.

I haven't tried going higher. I just, like, bought, you know, squat shoes a long time ago. And I was like, well, I'm never squatting without these again, you'd feel even better. Interesting. Yeah. I haven't tried going higher. I just like bought, you know, squat shoes a long time ago and was like, well, this is, I'm never squatting without these again. Cause this feels way better. Yeah. And then, um, I was lacking external rotation in my right, which is where I was, uh, my knee was, was bothering me. Sometimes I have like a little daily routine of, uh, 10 minutes or so of yoga stretches that I do focusing just on for me. So it was, I needed more internal rotation on my left, more external on my right. And so I was doing yoga classes for a couple of months and I just found the, okay, these are the stretches that work really well for me. And also for my SI joint on

the left that will act up. It's just, I don't know, I have imbalances in my body. Do you have a shoulder thing as well? On my right side, I've had it before. I've had some bicep tensile. Yeah. So those things are all correlated, right? So you have a tilt of your pelvis. So if one side is lacking internal and one side is lacking external, it tells you one hip is forward and the other one is back. And usually that'll manifest in the opposite shoulder. But I've been doing now for, I don't know, six or seven months at this point, a daily routine of 10 minutes or so of stretches. And it has made a big difference in my squatting in particular, because I have a lot more, I'd say probably 50% more external rotation in my right now. And it's, uh, it was

actually weird to, to feel like the squat felt different. I was feeling it in different muscles on my right side. That's just my experience. Exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. Um, and everyone's kind of balances, right? Like everyone's screwed up at something. It's just learning how to, how to fix it. It's learning how to like train around it, right? Or, you know, train around it while you improve the skill at the same time. So that segues perfectly into what I'm about to say. Like I think exercise can be framed in a really simple way. You have exercise that you're really good at that should be used for output.

Like I actually want to work really, really hard on this. I don't have to think about it. I have unconscious competence. I want to train hard with this exercise. You know, we all have those body parts like, gosh, this just feels really good. I don't have to think about it. I have unconscious competence. I want to train hard with this exercise. You know, we all have those body parts like, gosh, this just feels really good. I don't have to think about it. I don't know why. I just know that I can work hard on this. And we have the other ones I'm not so good at. So I call those skill acquisition. And I think there should be a good balance in everyone's workout day to day

between exercises that are output based and ones that are skill acquisition based. So you asked what exercise I thought are the best. Well, the answer is depends on who. For you, for you. For me, yeah. So I'm always trying to develop the skill of certain things. Like squatting is a shitty exercise for most people because they don't have the skill. You have to master the skill. And if you want to master the skill of anything, how often do you have to do it?

Often, right? You want to do it more than once a week. Probably three times a week, minimum. And you don't necessarily need to do it to max effort, but you got to do it. You got to practice that skill. So squatting can be a tremendous exercise for people, but I'm not attached to like, oh, that's the best exercise. So the way I frame this is skill acquisition exercises are often things that are internally stabilized. So squat requires me to stabilize my trunk,

my spine, my scapula, my pelvis, my feet, like all these things need to be stabilized by my muscles internally stabilized. And then I have these other exercises that are externally stabilized or artificially stabilized, meaning I can shove into a machine. So typically the output-based exercises are going to be the ones that are artificially stabilized. Like if I can do a bicep curl and I have a bench to push into with my arm, I can probably produce more output in the bicep because I don't have to worry about creating stability. But that doesn't mean I only want to do thosep because I don't have to worry about creating stability. Yeah.

But that doesn't mean I only want to do those exercises because I still want to do the quote unquote functional stuff that allows me to use my internal stabilization to actually control my body. So I like to have this nice balance of things that are skill acquisition and output based, which is internal, external stabilization. So hack squats, like if it's the legs, I would have a hard time with any- On the sled or are you talking about the barbell? Hack squat with a sled. Okay.

Yeah. So if someone's trying to build muscle, I would have a hard time with anyone giving me a, an argument against hack squats. Yeah. I've always liked hack squats. It's, I mean, it's so much better than a leg press because you can get more range of motion just because of your relative hip position. And it's so much better than the squat because you get more stability. I'd have a hard time for someone saying, Hey, you know,

I think squats, but it may be better for some people, but even that I would doubt, you know, the most tremendous amount of, of growth came from me when I was, you know, adamantly doing hack squats.

I was doing them for a while. When I was in Florida, the gym had a, I don't know if it's a rare piece of equipment, but that was the first gym I'd worked out in that, at least where I had, I guess, in the past. A long time ago, I didn't train legs for shit, so maybe I never noticed it. But that was the first gym since I actually started training properly that had it and I was doing it consistently.

I really liked it. Unfortunately, the gym I go to now doesn't have one. I think it's basically a squat that adds more artificial pelvic stability. Because if you can't squat well, if you're having a hard time with feeling your knees, it's just stability. Like if you lack stability, you don't build muscle. So stability governs muscular contraction. If your brain senses instability,

it down-regulates muscular contraction. So for you to actually benefit from squatting, you have to be so good at the skill that you don't have to think about the skill anymore. I could just do this up and down. Now I have to focus all of my focus on stability.

That's a completely different thing for most people, right? Whereas if I go on a hack squat, I don't have to think about stability. I can just. That's a completely different thing for most people. Right. Whereas if I go into hack squat, I don't think about stability. I can just think about output. Yep. It just goes straight to similar to like press in that regard. But yeah.

Yeah. But just a different range of motion. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a great example. And like, so looking at exercises that way, like,

is this internally stabilized or externally stabilized? And do I need to learn the skill of internal stabilization? Cause that's a skill. Yeah. Both of which can benefit, but realizing that you want to challenge muscles in every workout. And if you can't stabilize a muscle internally because you lack the skill, well, then you've got to use the ones that are artificially stabilized.

Does that make sense? Yeah. What about, let's say, chest and back? What were your go-tos? Sure. Just got to know what people listening are going to be wondering for other muscle groups. I'm a very unique case because my rib cage is substantially bigger than most people.

As far as my angle of my sternal angle, it's funny. I see this in my kids too. My kids are five and six and they have this very steep, they're very small, but they have this very steep sternal angle. So it's not just a matter of my rib cage being big. It's just this particular genetic angle. So if I lay into a flat bench. Which for people to visualize, it's like pushing the chest out, right? Yeah, exactly. Plenty of shoulders, back chest goes up. So if I lay into a flat bench press. Which for people to visualize, it's like pushing the chest out, right? Yeah, exactly. Pointing shoulders, back chest goes up. So if I lay into a flat bench press, that position that my sternum is in is, as people can imagine, is almost to where my sternum now is kind of pointing toward the sky. Yeah. Almost like a decline for a person with a more flat. That's the exact comparison. So for someone to do the equivalent of what I'm doing on a flat,

Exact comparison. So for someone to do the equivalent of what I'm doing on a flat, they're going to have to do a 30 to 40 degree decline. So when someone writes in a program, do a flat bench press. Well, who's doing it? Because if I'm doing it, I'm going to get a big chest. If you're doing it, maybe not you, but person at home, you may just get sore shoulders and not get any pec development. Or this is a bit of a paradigm shift for most people.

A flat bench press for probably 90% of the people is the best upper chest exercise. Like people are like, oh, you want to train your upper chest, you got to do incline. The answer is no, you don't. For most people, if you have a flat rib cage and you're doing an incline chest,

you're training your shoulders and you probably get sore shoulders because of it. So I'd say for about 80 to 90% of my clients, their upper chest training is done on a flat bench, which sounds backwards. But if we get a chance to go to the gym this weekend, we'll show you. And it's just a little like watching where the load is being placed

and then watching how the muscle contracts. And if you just watch the insertion of the muscle, pull closer to the origin. Well, where does it go? Does it go closer to the upper chest? Does it go closer to the mid chest or closer to the lower chest? And if you just observe, you can go, oh, well, gosh, that is 100% upper chest.

There's no lower chest involved for most people. So if they want to train the lower chest, you've got to learn how to manipulate the angle. So for me, it was a flat bench press. Decline seldom. And incline still works for me, whereas incline for most people doesn't work. Yeah, sure.

So yeah, back exercises. I think a reverse grip pull-down with a relatively wide handle is, and this is subjective and personal, but I think it's the best. I haven't done a reverse grip in a long time. Yeah. So for the- I haven't even thought of it.

If we're talking lat, I think it's the best exercise because maybe not for rhomboid, I mean, not for trap, but like if we're talking lat, because what I've realized in my 20 years now of training, I think that people miss. So as I briefly said earlier,

if I'm trying to train my chest, I need to maintain a position of retraction to get maximum chest stimulation. Right. The same is true with the lat, except in the inverse. So I need to maintain a position of protraction, which is effectively reaching my shoulder forward

and away from me, not necessarily my arm that goes with it, but it's this shoulder, this position of shoulder protraction. And if I can maintain that protraction while I go through shoulder extension, which is, you know, for people sitting at home, if you're sitting up straight and you reach your arm out in front of you, you really try to reach, get your shoulders stretched out as possible, feel that stretch and then drive your elbow down, not back down, that shoulder extension.

So most people, when they train back, they think back. So they're pulling the weight toward them and you don't want to do that. If you're training a lat, objectively, you want to be training, you're trying to get your elbows far away from you as you can and create the biggest arc possible. Interesting. So it's, there's never a back movement. If you're training your lat, it ends up being back and around,

but it's not the thought process of being back. So as soon as I pull back, then it's being a rhomboid and trap exercise. So as soon as those scapulae move back. So for people listening, if they've ever done like lat push downs, you know, where you're like standing.

Like a straight arm. Yeah. It's the exact same movement. It should be the exact same movement. Yeah. So like a straight arm pull down with your arm. Yeah. So that's where people go wrong.

That's why a lot of people lack lats, including myself. For a lot of years, I was wrong with that. And I was like, well, if I want to get the lat as short as possible, because objectively, an exercise or objective should be to get the muscle as short as possible. As most contracted as possible. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I want to pull my shoulder back.

Well, the truth is, yes, you do need to pull it back to get it fully shortened. But by pulling it back too early, you completely lose the contraction of the lat. So you end up relying on the forearm flexors and the rhomboids and traps. I ran into that myself where I had a fairly strong back, but I was like, why are my lats just, they're just shit. Nobody knows how to do it.

I can pull, I mean, I could pull, especially given my body weight. I mean, I haven't, since having kids, my sleep has been funky. And so I haven't been pushing heavy weights as much now as i used to in the past but i was like i'm pretty strong on in all of my pulls you would think i would have more lats but it's a retraction yeah and then and then i when i started doing i mean i started doing a lot of standing uh lat pull down or push down and actually whichever those names is correct and that helped um and i started doing a few times a week. Yeah. And honestly, that's one of the greatest things for shoulder health too,

because so many people live in this kind of like constant shrugged state where the shoulders are up around their ears. That's a stress state. That's, but the opposite of that is pulling them down, which is the function of the lat. So if we learn to pull them down and kind of back, we can actually improve the shoulder integrity as well. So those are exercises. So reverse grip pull down was one of your favorites. Yeah. When done properly. Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say, thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life fitness, Twitter at muscle for life and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. You'd mentioned earlier about stress and how it affects muscle building. I think it'd be

interesting to hear your thoughts on that. An article actually just went up, I just saw it a few days ago over at Greg Knuckles' site, Stronger by Science. It was written by Greg, actually. I haven't read it yet. I saved it to my Instapaper because in typical Greg Knuckles fashion, it's very long, but I want to go through it. I wanted to hear your thoughts though on that because it's something that isn't spoken much about and I myself, it should be, I agree. And I have experienced it now firsthand over the last year and a half or so. I mentioned my sleep being, you know, I don't think when I would tell that to people and they'd be like, oh, oh, didn't you just have a, you know, a kid was, you know, your second kid. Yeah. But that's not why I think actually is more related to just stress mostly coming from stuff at work and which

is now coming to an end, internal stuff, whatever. And even though I wouldn't say that it's manifesting psychologically all that dramatically, like I don't have symptoms of anxiety or depression, or I seem to be pretty much like, you know, just doing my thing. If I don't have symptoms of anxiety or depression, or I seem to be pretty much like, you know, just doing my thing. If I only sleep three hours one night, yeah, I'm not having a great day the next day, but I still just do my thing. But it definitely impacted my training. There's no question I noticed. And now that I'm starting to sleep better, stress levels objectively have kind of come down the situation at things that were causing problems are now resolving. Magically, I start sleeping better. Mag better magically my workouts in the gym i start i'm feeling like myself again like i can

progress this week it doesn't feel every workout isn't it's so fucking heavy that i'm just struggling to maintain my numbers you know what i mean right so stress is a massive thing that i think everyone should be considering and it's you know we talked about writing a book and it's one of the six foundations of a lean and muscular physique, I believe, is learning how to manage stress and change your perspective of stress and learn some coping mechanisms, right? Stress can be viewed in a really, really simple way,

looking at the autonomic nervous system, right? So we've got a sympathetic and parasympathetic. Can you just define those quickly? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So sympathetic is going to be fight or flight. So we're going to be stress. Like anything that causes the smallest amount of stress is going to be a sympathetic stimulus. And then we've got the

parasympathetic branch, which is rest and digest calming us down. And ideally we want to have a balance between those two. And like, we're going to have stresses in our day. We're meant to be stressed, but we want to have things that balance that out. So a simple way for people to do it is create a chart. I do this with all my coaching clients is like, you know, I want you to write down all the things today that were sympathetic stimulus. So it could be, I don't know, you got a bill, you got to fight with your wife, you, I don't know, your boss yelled at you, you got cut off in the car. Like, I don't know, your workout is a sympathetic stress for most people. You look at anything and like, oh, make this list. And for most people, it's going to be long. And parasympathetic stimuli

are things that are going to balance that out. And I can talk about that in a minute. But so the more sympathetic stress you have and you go add a workout on top of that, your body's just living in this constant state of stress, overwhelm, anxiety, and adrenaline. And those things are literally the kill switch for muscle building. So if I don't... I don't want to go too far into the weeds, but why is that?

So cortisol is going to promote fat storage and lower testosterone. So if my cortisol is always elevated... Also muscle breakdown, right? Cortisol is not bad. People hear breakdown, right? Right. Yeah. Cortisol is not bad. Like people hear it and they think it's bad. It's not bad.

It should be this natural rhythm, right? It should be high in the morning, low in the evening. And it's a useful thing. Yeah. To acute stressors you want. I mean, it kicks your energy systems in. Exactly. But the problem is we live with way too much stress.

And there's so many things that are stresses that you don't realize in your environment, in your life. So many things are happening. But so people are living with this massive amount of sympathetic stress and they go in the gym and their only solution to working hard is I'm going to work hard today. I'm going to hashtag crush it today. Yeah. With no specific. No days off. Yeah. With no specific objective of like, you should think about if my objective is to build muscle, lose fat. My objective in training then should be to create the greatest amount of muscular stimulus with the least amount of systemic stress.

So I don't want to have to do tons of volume. I don't have to do tons of work. I want to do the smallest amount to, to elicit this, this muscular building response. Minimum effective dose type of. Exactly. And,

and progressive because your body will respond to a novel stimulus. It has to be progressed, which is why it needs to be standardized and then, and hopefully documented. This is the big paradigm shift in, in exercises. Everyone just wants to go in and work hard. And I say, if, if your only solution to progress, which is why it needs to be standardized and hopefully documented. This is the big paradigm shift in exercises. Everyone just wants to go and work hard. And I say, if your only solution to progress is working hard, you're fucked. Because at some point you're going to work so hard that your stress is going to override the stimulus. No matter how good you are at exercise, your stress, the amount of work is going to override the stimulus. So you got to learn how to train

first and like standardize the stimulus. And then objectively, how, how little can I do to get this muscular response? And that's really the simplicity of it. And so if we want to start looking at these parasympathetic things to balance your body out, it's really the stuff that you would know. It's connecting with nature. It's getting outside and maybe grounding and looking at the sun and getting some sun on your body. And, uh, it's breathing, it's meditation, it's creating strong relationships like creating community

it's very simple stuff like that yeah um like love you know be grateful yeah those things are very calming to your nervous system they're stimulating to the parasympathetic branch and that's from my perspective the biggest mistake i made throughout my bodybuilding career because i was that guy who came from a family of lazy, overweight alcoholics. And I had a badge of honor around. I'm never going to be called lazy. I'm going to outwork everybody. If it means I die in the gym, like I'm going to, I'm going to crush you first. I'll never quit. And that was my badge of honor. And I didn't want to lose that. But at the same time, it was the dumbest thing I ever did, because if I have to outwork everybody, I like the idea of outworking everybody because at some point,

it's a competition. But the biggest mistake I made was doing too much and thinking, you know, as an athlete, you ever tell an athlete to do less, what's it going to tell you? Like, oh, yeah, right. I'm doing more, if anything. Yeah. That's almost as a challenge to do more. Yeah, exactly. What you're saying, I can't do more. That was my Achilles heel, man. That was like, I was always overstressed and under-recovered. And had somebody said, hey, man, like, take a day off. Because you realized, and after a contest, when you took a couple days off, you looked so much better. You spent some time in bed.

It's not just about spending time in bed. It's like, you know, I read into all my programs. And I read parasympathetic days. Meaning like, what are you doing today? Go get a massage. Go to the beach. Like, go for a walk outside. Get some sunshine.

Listen to some calming music. Like, no sympathetic arousal, right? Ideally. And I write that into everyone's program because like you have to schedule it because if you don't schedule it with people, they're not going to do it, especially type A personalities. Totally. So I usually write in an hour in the morning of parasympathetic or even 30 minutes. I usually try to do an hour before bed and we can talk about that too. The idea of like, I've built this framework on the night, how to do that. And then, you know, once one day a week, there's no sympathetic stress. Like you're not allowed to go for a run, you're not allowed to go for a walk. I can go for a walk and not have to train. Ideally, like no caffeine, no blue lights. I recommend something very similar in my books, just as a

standard. I mean, I try not to get too prescriptive about it, but the same concept is no vigorous physical activity. Yeah. no roller coasters, no horror movies. Just take it easy. Yeah, man, as much as it sounds silly, it makes a difference. I know.

So what's your pre-sleep routine? You mentioned owning the night. Yeah, two hours, eliminating all blue light. I think that has been the biggest... Which means no screens, no TV.

Yeah, that's been the biggest difference maker for me is minimum two hours and that's, yeah, television, cell phone. What do you do instead? Computer. Read or play with my children.

Like the idea of connecting with human beings, what a novel concept. Yeah. So I often try to bring my team over. I try to bring some people over once a week for my team. And we have dinner and we connect and we laugh and there's no cell phones.

That probably makes a big difference. Yeah. Just feeling a sense of community. It makes them feel better. It makes me feel better. Everybody has a positive attitude, bringing kids over to play with my kids. And if it's not them,

it's, you know, it's my wife or it's whoever, right. But like learn how to connect with people. And if you can't connect, read, like challenge your mind and you'll find

it's easier to fall asleep. Your sleep is better. Yep. It's all framed around that. So, you know, only the night includes, I guess I liked,

it also includes minimizing food intake two hours before bed. It includes, you know, the sleep environment. So obviously you understand getting rid of E includes, like I said, light. It also includes minimizing food intake two hours before bed. It includes, you know, the sleep environment. So obviously you understand getting rid of EMS, getting rid of the cold. Yeah. All those things, you know. So it's all this framing that I'm creating in the book. And the book is framed around six foundations of a lean and muscular physique.

And these things that I've kind of decided over the last 20 years are probably the most important. You know, it started off with a list of 12 or 15. It was like all these things that I thought were somewhat important. And I was able to narrow it down because obviously being able to focus on things is important. You know, it started off with a list of 12 or 15. It was like all these things that I thought were somewhat important. And I was able to narrow it down because obviously being able to focus on things is important. But sleep and stress are both on that list because if you don't change those, the likelihood of you, no matter how hard you work, you get it. Like you're not going to live the way you want. I've lived it. I've lived it the last year and a half. I've told guys that, you know, at the office, I was like, you know, in a sense, I feel like I was a little bit lucky that I had a stretch there of four years or so where I could

just, I could push myself hard in the gym and then work 12 to 14 hours, work right up to the point of going to bed. I would go to bed at 1145 and I would wake up at 630 every day before my alarm. My alarm was 645, wake up myself every day, just, and I was, I was a robot in that sense. And I was able to make really good progress. All of your, your sympathetic stimulus was probably minimized

outside of work and, and the gym, right? Because if that's all you got, that's pretty good. Like if there's not a whole bunch of other things like

lack of sleep and kids and even the kids screaming, you know, this is a dad, even if they're crying because they're hungry or because they poop their pants, that's still stress.

Totally. Like you're still getting a massive amount of sympathetic arousal. And if you living in there, that's the state all the time, you're not sleeping well, you're not recovering well, like your body can't grow.

And this is what people mistake, right? Everyone thinks the first thing you ask somebody, the first thing they respond when they say, Hey man, like, why don't you think you have the body you want? What's the first thing everybody says?

Nutrition. It's not nutrition. Nutrition is a big thing, but it's all these other things that are playing a role. Like I think everyone would agree. If you're sleeping really well and you're not stressed, your margin for error in your nutrition is way better. If you're training really well,

your margin for error in your nutrition is way greater, right? Like I can eat a little more freely if I'm training really well and I'm less stressed. But if I have high amounts of stress, now my nutrition matters way, way more because I have to make sure that I can't get any, I can't get five calories more than my macros. I'm getting fat. Yeah. Right. But if I'm sleeping well, if I'm not stressed, all these things, okay, well now I can eat a

little extra. My body's actually going to grow. It's going to build muscle rather than adding fat. Wow. What a concept. So I think that's the biggest mistake people make in their life is like, oh yeah, it's my nutrition. It's not your nutrition. It's this, you know, some of the parts. And I think training is the foundation of all of it yeah uh i've been very conscious of my nutrition not so much from a body composition standpoint but more just from a because again so it's been about a year year and a half with my sleep going you know good bad good bad and but i don't want to i was okay with skipping some workouts here and there like if it really wasn't a good night of sleep, I figured this is just not going to be productive. And so just not train as much as I enjoy it, but I skip a day. But also what I

wasn't willing to do is just let all my routines fall out. Like I still, so I wake up early at 536 or so late would be 630. And then I like to read. So I have an infrared sauna. So I go in there for 30 to 45, maybe 60 minutes, spending what time I woke up and I, and I read and, uh, and then I'm to the gym. So if I, even if I'm skipping the gym, if I'm starting a little bit later, I still want to do that. I don't want to, I want to do my work. I'm not willing to let everything go to shit. You know what I mean? And so I was very conscious of my nutrition just to support the training that I could do and support the other, like, I do want to be productive. I, even though my body might like me

to just sit around i know i'm not doing that right and so for me i know that that helped uh sure because by just by how i felt it may have been a stress yeah yeah because people don't realize that nutrition can be a stress too whether it's a psychological stress like oh shit i'm missing my meals i'm not eating really well but it can also be a physiological stress like i'm eating crappy foods yeah so nutrition is very important. Like I don't want to underplay it. Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, it's not the end all and be all that people believe it is because you could have a nutrition perfect and still get fat if you're stressed and you're not sleeping well. I don't care who talks about macros because macros is a big piece.

But if you introduce those other stressors in there, your ability to digest and absorb those foods changes based on hormonal profiles. So there's a lot of considerations there that people aren't making. And I think it's easier than they realize if you give them a framework around which to frame it. So these six foundations, like I say. I like it. You mentioned transitioning in, in terms of your identity, like because you were, you were a bodybuilder and that that was you for 20 plus years. And now how has that been stepping away from that? And then,

and then are you at a point where now you're feeling like you're, you're trying, you're finding a new identity or you're there or what's that like? So for 20 years, I was, you know, the better part of 20 years, I was single-mindedly focused on this goal. Like I said, that was who I was and that was everything I did. And maybe I shouldn't say that's who I was, but that's what I did. Yeah. Well, kind of by definition then, right? I think we probably are in many ways, what we spend our most of our time doing is a reflection of who we are, whether we, I think that's just reality. Sure. Yeah. And then when I decided to remove that, it's still, it's only been two years. It's still a struggle to find your exact, cause I'm a very goal oriented guy like yourself, man.

I got to have a very clear cut objective and I don't, I feel like I'm kind of meandering through life and I'm like doing a lot of shit, got my hands in a lot of things, got a lot of irons in the fire, but I want that one thing that like I can cut away everything else. I haven't found it yet. And so it's an interesting transition, man. But I tell you the beauty of it for me is it's been, it's so much less of an external journey and so much more of an internal journey. So I think at every point in everyone's me is it's been, it's so much less of an external journey and so much more of an internal journey.

So I think at every point in everyone's life is there's particularly men, I can't speak for women, but for men, most men have this innate desire to accumulate things, right? Whether it be money or in my case, muscle or whatever it is. And you're, cause you believe you're going to accumulate these things and it's going to

make you significant. It's going to make you feel better about yourself. You're going to transcend the proverbial mountain, but you get to the top of the mountain and whatever it is, and you realize it's empty and hollow and lonely. You were climbing the wrong mountain. Yeah. Or you get there and you're like, oh shit, it's not what I thought it was going to be. So you start looking around and you start climbing back down the mountain and you're less concerned with these material things. And for me, it was this muscle thing. And I started

realizing that, okay, well, what is it? And for most people growing up, and I think it's part of the journey of being a human, it's like, there's this need to accumulate external things, this external journey. And then when you transcend the external journey, and hopefully everybody does in their life, it becomes an internal journey. Like you realize that the real journey in life is finding yourself and finding, you know, kind of peeling away the layers of the onion of this person that you think you are, the person that you've become based on the scenarios you put yourself into and actually finding who you really are inside. And there's a lot of value in that, right? It's like, you know, thinking about the reality that the person that you are now, it's not necessarily who you are inside. It's the person you've become as a result of reacting and responding to the situations you've

been subjected to. So, you know, you wanted to receive love as a child. So you acted a certain way to receive more love. You didn't want to receive angry parents or, you know, some type of negative response. So you didn't do certain things because you knew your parents were going to react a certain way. And then you start asking yourself, well, is that me? And that's kind of the journey now is trying to identify the things that I really believe are my inner essence and remove the things that are contrived. It starts for me with forgiveness, forgiveness for the people that have maybe done things to me

that I believe to be negative or have framed my life in some way that's made it harder for me, quote-unquote harder, you know, the story you tell yourself. But this is a really cool journey, man, where you start just looking back and unraveling the layers of the onion and going, why am I the person I am? And why do these things set me off? And why am I angry about this? And why am I happy about that? And questioning everything you thought you know about who you are in your life. And that's really where I am. And, you know, I think once you find that inner essence, you can find what brings you joy, you can find who you are,

and you can truly be yourself with the people around you. And I would have never realized these things had I had not gone through what I did as a bodybuilder, had I not had my amazing children. And what does that, what does that mean for you in terms of goals now? Because being a very goal engine, I can relate to that. I mean, yeah, I'm just curious as to. I'll tell you one thing that's been the hardest thing for me. And I haven't been too transparent with this, but I think I should be after having left professional bodybuilding, where I was on the highest stage in the world competing in the Mr. Olympia contest.

That's a very blatant external goal. And it's very motivating to go, you know, I'm going to get the best guys in the world. I want to be the best. And then now transcending that and not having an external goal physically, it's very hard to train at the same level without having a specific goal. So my, my training has kind of been much less challenging, much less school.

It's there's nothing there. I can relate to that. I mean, I was never on your level, but even just previously where I was, I was just more numbers oriented, like, Hey, I would like to hit, you know, these benchmarks and works toward that. But then with the stress and things where I've now the last year, year and a half, my training been, I've been, I felt like I'm just trying to keep up. I'm just trying to not fall backward. And I can relate to that where it is a bit less enjoyable. I still do it and I still have good workouts,

but it's different. I don't even know if it's less enjoyable. I actually think I enjoy it more, but don't work as hard because I don't have an objective. Like previously when I was competing, every day needed to be the best workout of my life. Otherwise I was down on myself, right?

Like I failed. Now I actually get to do what I want to do. I have no attachment to the outcome. And I'm like, oh, I actually like doing this, but I'm not working as hard because I just like, well, I don't need to. Like I don't have any reason to. And I'm trying to find it, but maybe I don't need to. You know, maybe unconsciously I just need to let it go

and do what I want to do and have fun and look good and feel good. But it's challenging, man, especially to eat well all the time. I do eat well all the time, but like, it's not regimented, like you say, because I don't have a reason to goals wise. I love the idea. And you know, I relate on this man is leaving the world a better place. And I have this amazing platform where people follow me and listen to what I say, and I want to leave the world a better place. And I think I do that by leading by example and teaching people that it's okay

to be this big muscular human and still treat people with love and respect and kindness and lead this next generation of young males and females in the fitness industry by being a great parent, by being a great man, by being a person of integrity, by being a person of discipline. And show all these values that I have inside that some people are afraid, I think, to let show, right? Like it's okay to be a loving guy. It's okay to be a caring and thoughtful person and still have this big masculine persona. So I think for me, there's something in there. And again, I don't know exactly what it is, but the more people I can get to love their body, I had this conversation with somebody yesterday. Most people train their, frame their training around anger and fear and like running away from something, but why not turn it into love and running towards something like love your body, connect with your body, feel your body, get to know your body. And I want to try to create that message for people. Like,

it doesn't have to be about, I'm pissed off at somebody. Therefore I have to go work out harder. It was like, it doesn't have to be, I go to the gym because I have to, you don't have to do anything, right? Let's, we get to, so how do we learn to frame, create that framing of positive reinforcement? Then you're, you're literally, every time you contract muscle, you're bringing love into your body rather than bring hate into your body. And that's kind of an abstract thing for people to think about. But now if I'm, if I, every time I go to the gym, I'm framing it around, I hate this, I hate this person. I don't want to do this. Or maybe, or maybe even just, I mean, I know just, of course, I mean, you know,

this working with a lot of people where it's more of a self-criticism thing like maybe maybe it's not even about other people it's just like i look like shit or you know what i mean like that's why i'm doing this i want to stop hating what i see in the mirror that's exactly what i was saying it's like maybe they're taking that even deeper with their training because if i'm framing my exercise around i hate myself or i hate this exercise or i hate being here well now every time i look at my body, that unconscious thought of hate comes in. Like I didn't like that work.

Like I didn't do good enough today. How about flipping it around and doing like, man, I did well today. Like being grateful for that. Maybe that's an opportunity for you to anchor love and joy and achievement and accomplishment and do it more and more every time. Because, hey, I feel good about this. Hell yeah. Like let's celebrate that set.

We did great on that set. Yeah. That shit's important, man. As much as it sounds kind of woo-woo and convoluted. Like, no, man. So I do this with all my clients. I try to get them to remember a time where they had a sense of achievement or accomplishment. And every time they're having a bad day, I'm like, hey, remember that time when you had this happen?

Like, yeah. I'm like, go there in your mind for a second. And now let's go do our set. So we're anchoring our positive emotions rather than these negative angst, anger, and have to type emotions. And I think it's a big piece. And if we can start having people anchor happiness and joy in training and then thereby loving themselves, all of a sudden we made the world a better

place. Because if I love myself, how can I be mean to other people? Like it all starts there, you know? And I think that for me, that's the opportunity that I have in front of me is to be kind of the voice for that. Maybe the lighthouse in the storm of people going, stop anchoring anger in your training and start anchoring love for yourself so

that now we can love the people around us and love our neighbor and love our family and our spouse and our children. And there's so much to be learned in there, I think. And that's kind of where I'm trying to hash that out. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I can relate to that.

Even just being appreciative of my body and what I can do with it and how good it can feel sometimes. And that has just kind of struck me sometimes where I'm like, thank you, body. Dude, you're fucking awesome, right? Yeah. You're fucking awesome. You're in great shape. You're a successful business guy.

You're a great husband and dad. Like, wake up and go, fuck yeah, I'm awesome, man. And it sounds like- I think that's okay as long as you're going, hey, other people can be awesome too and other people are awesome. It's not about holding yourself above people. If you can tell yourself you're awesome, maybe, and you actually mean it, not from an egocentric way, like, I actually love this body, man. Like, good for me. I'm actually stuck with what I said I was

going to do today. Yes, I had the discipline and the self-character or the self-confidence to fall through this stuff. Maybe then you could take that and give it to somebody else. Because it's hard, man. It's really hard to go to someone and go, dude, you're awesome and actually mean it. Because you're talking from a place of fear. And if you learn to love yourself, truly love yourself, it's so much easier to go up to someone and give them a truly loving hug or go like, Mike, you're awesome. I think that's a powerful place, man. And for so many years, I was very insecure in my body at 318 pounds.

So I wasn't comfortable enough going up to someone and going, man, I did actually. But way more so now. Like, gosh, I know what you're going through, man. I know what it took to get that body. You're awesome, dude. And people take it from me now and they're like, wow, like that guy was one of the best in the world. Wow, that means a lot.

So when I say it and I mean it, like it's special, you know? And I think that may be an opportunity for me to help, you know, lift the energy of the earth is just like telling people when I actually mean it, when they actually deserve it and they're actually falling through with things, like, dude, you're fucking awesome and meaning it. Maybe a cool thing to spread some joy and love, man. Yeah, that's awesome. I think you're awesome too, by the way. Thanks, man.

And that's something that actually resonates with me because I've been aware of, I don't give compliments to very many people. And it's not because I think poorly of them. I think sometimes some people will get that impression and I can understand them outside looking in, but it's not that at all. I don't know why. I just, and I never, I'm not, I don't go fishing for compliments either. So at least I can say that I'm not, I'm not a hypocrite. But I like that because it's, it's, I've had to remind myself, even like at the office with my guys, I've had to be aware of that. And I've even put it on like my list of things to keep in mind like give compliments man being a leader is a hard

thing it's probably the the hardest thing i'm going through right now in my oh yeah my transition yeah it's a hard thing man because as a bodybuilder i don't have to lead anybody i just be by myself and if i don't want to talk enough to talk but now you got to be like you have to be the guy that people want to follow totally you know and that's um different it's new like you have to be the guy that people want to follow. Totally. You know, and that's different. It's new. Like you have to be on your game all the time and that's mentally challenging, physically challenging, but I love it, man. I love the idea of having this amazing opportunity to lead a new generation of awesome humans. And that's my framing of my podcast, right? It's like, you know, this new generation of awesome humans and a new generation could be up to 65 year old men or women. Like if you're

trying to change your life, if you're trying to become the best version of yourself, well, this is what we're trying to do. We're trying to just like become the catalyst for creating an awesome version of you. Do you feel like you, I mean, I feel like this, it seems like you have a desire to just, to just do more, to have a bigger impact. And I mean, sometimes I myself feel like, what am I doing? Like, I'm almost like I'm wasting my time. I should be, I should be doing more. I should be, if I try to assess myself and say, I clearly have certain skills and I could do, I could do things with these skills. And am I really putting these to the highest and best use? You know what I mean? Am I really operating at the level that I could be or should be operating at in Jordan Petersonian

terms? Am I really bearing the appropriate amount of burden or am I just kind of cruising? at the level that I could be or should be operating at in Jordan Petersonian terms, am I really bearing the appropriate amount of burden or am I just kind of cruising? Because I can't say that my life is hard. I mean, I can't. I feel the same. And I think you're becoming a good leader and that's maybe where your growth lies, right? It's like, how do you become the best leader so that those people become followers of you, you know, not in a bad way, but follow you to spread your message. And that's how you create a greater impact, right? Because then you have thousands and hundreds of thousands of people

who are relying on you. You're bearing the burden because they're relying on you to be on your game all the time, to be this great inspirational leader. That's a huge burden, man. Does that feel like a burden for you? No, I mean, when we talk,

you're just using your term. Yeah, no, totally, 100%. I don't think it feels like a burden at all. Yeah. Because me neither. That's where I thrive, man. Yeah. I love that.

I'm all about responsibility. Yeah. I love the opportunity to help people. I love it, man. I don't take any stress out of that. Like, you know, I've got a gym and I've got a very small number of members, like a hundred members who have this exclusive facility. And I literally try to have my finger in everyone's life.

And I'm like, hey, man, how can I help you, man? How's your training? How's your stress? How's your sleep? What can I do to help you? And that's a pretty awesome place to be. And then that kind of transcends to this tribe of people online that look to me for some type of assistance in living their greatest life, living their awesomeness. I mean, dude, I love it.

I think it's great. And I think it's a beautiful thing that you don't think it's hard because perception is a big thing, right? If right now in your life you're like, oh, man, I'm so burdened. This is so much. Yeah, it's so stressful. There's no more. That's it.

And that's the same thing with training. It's like, how hard are you working? I'm working hard. No, you're not. No, you're not. Yeah. Trust me. You're not working hard.

Come spend an hour with me. We'll see if you're working hard. You're not fucking working hard. Nobody works hard're not. No, you're not. Trust me. You're not working hard. Come spend an hour with me. We'll see if you're working hard. You're not fucking working hard. Nobody works hard. Compare yourself to Navy SEALs. Compare yourself to, you're not working hard. You're doing a workout. So don't hashtag.

That was something that annoyed me about this sleep issue where I go, okay, so psychologically, I feel like I feel okay. But physiologically, what is this? This means that this is the amount of burden that my body, and this is where is where it taps out and it's just that that's how it manifests is in sleep. I mean, it's nice to see that it's resolving. And I guess a little lesson I've taken away from it is to not let problems fester. I'm not that person usually, you know, there's a situation in particular that I don't want to go into too much right now just because of the circumstances, but that was a festering problem that, and the reason why I allowed it to persist for so long is I actually truly wanted to help. It wasn't that I wanted to run away from it. Smiling because we were living a very parallel life. Okay. So,

so then you can relate to what I'm saying. Very much so. Right. And, but you get into that place, you know, I'm sure you've been there where you're like, okay, you don't know what to do anymore. And then come up with a new plan of, you know, you still want it to work. You still want it to, you still, you're still trying to be like positive about it and not let it bring you down. But that, that builds, uh, I mean, the stress of it builds, right. Because it becomes then a bigger problem, a bigger problem. And so eventually it was like, okay, now I'm done with this. And from that point forward, stress levels noticeably came down. And for me, the same thing, man.

But my problem, if it is a problem, is that I care about people. So rather than being, okay, I'm just going to chop this and let it go. Yeah, 100%. You're like, oh man, how can we make this better? 100%. I actually want you to, we won't get into details,

but if you care about people, it's very hard to, I always see the best in people, man. It's my blessing and my curse, right? It's like, no matter what you're doing right now i'm always going to but i know deep down in there there's somebody who's you know a great person they just need some love and some attention and some something right yeah yeah that's sometimes a blessing see i'm not naturally like that but i was like consciously being that way because i know that's the right way to be

well prior to my bodybuilding career i was never never like that. Yeah. But after this kind of awakening that I'm going through now, I think that I really try to see the world through other people's eyes. And if I can see the world through your eyes, I can be more empathetic. Sure. And historically, I'm not at all an empathetic person, probably the least.

Right. Like my- Highly disagreeable if you've ever taken a- My response is shut the fuck up and fix it. Yeah. Like don't complain about something. That's always been my response. Like don't feel sorry for yourself. is shut the fuck up and fix it. Like, don't complain about something. That's always been my response. Like, don't feel sorry for yourself.

Get off your fucking ass and do it. But now it's like, oh, well, maybe we can help them a little bit. And maybe I can be the guide. And maybe I can assist and help them get over this hump. And I don't know the answer. I don't know if that's right or wrong. But that's kind of the default now for now. I think really the results, right, are what works is what's right, in my opinion.

So in some people, that works. And some people, you can just say, stop complaining, fix it. You know what to do. And that's right for that. And some people, that does not work. Right. Bedros is someone who's here with us this weekend. And he's the guy you want to talk to about that because he's been my business coach.

And he frames everything in his business around never allowing for 1% divergence. So if there's someone who gets 1% out of line, you tap them back in line nice and firmly. And if they get it in line again, you chop them out. And I was like, oh, and I need that, right? It's like if you really want to run a successful business that actually makes a difference in this world, you can't allow for 1% divergence.

Because the idea is you diverge 1% now, six months from now, where are you? You're way over here in the tangent and then you've created a big turmoil which is probably what it sounds like you and I have both

allowed to happen yep and it did it's been so much bigger than need to be like it could have just been dealt with right away

and stupidity ignorance love what do you want to call it for me I was like I was trying to be caring and try to take care of people but it

ends up coming back and kicking in the ass yeah well this is a great talk thanks Mike yeah well where can people find you and where's your hub?

Yeah. Well, I'm building my hub right now. Okay. Since having retired from bodybuilding, I've kind of shifted my business quite a bit. So the hub will be muscleintelligence.com. Cool. They can also find me at MI40. If they look up MI40, MI40nation.com and BenPicolski.com.

And I've also got the podcast, which is currently muscleexpert.com or sorry, yeah, muscleexpert and muscleexpert.com, or we'll be changing very soon to something that's a little more all encompassing. Like I relate, this is not just about muscle. It's about some other things. Yeah. Evolving your brand. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Appreciate you, man. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks buddy. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show

out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for men,

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