Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Big Mistakes That Intermediate Lifters Make and Finding the Right "Work-Life Balance"

Episode Date: December 29, 2014

In this podcast I talk about the big mistakes I see intermediate lifters making that prevent them from making progress and my thoughts on what it means to find the right work-life balance (27:06). ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS PODCAST: Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger: http://muscleforlife.com/bbls/ How Much Muscle Can You Build Naturally? http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-much-muscle-can-you-build-naturally/ The Best Way to Gain Muscle Without Getting Fat: http://www.muscleforlife.com/the-best-way-to-gain-muscle-not-fat/ Why Rapid Weight Loss Is Superior to “Slow Cutting”: http://www.muscleforlife.com/rapid-weight-loss/ How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat…at the Same Time: http://www.muscleforlife.com/build-muscle-lose-fat/ The Definitive Guide to Effective Meal Planning: http://www.muscleforlife.com/healthy-meal-planning-tips/ The Definitive Guide to Pre-Workout Nutrition: http://www.muscleforlife.com/pre-workout-nutrition/ The Definitive Guide to Why Low-Carb Dieting Sucks: http://www.muscleforlife.com/low-carb-diet/ The Definitive Guide to Muscle Hypertrophy (Muscle Growth): http://www.muscleforlife.com/guide-to-muscle-hypertrophy-muscle-growth/ 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/

Hey, it's Mike, and this podcast is brought to you by my books. Seriously, though, it actually is. I make my living as a writer, so as long as I keep selling books, I can keep writing articles over at Muscle for Life and Legion and recording podcasts and videos like this and all that fun stuff. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger if you're a guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger if you're a girl. Now, these books, they basically teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build

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about my supplements at www.legionathletics.com. And if you like what you see and you want to buy something, use the coupon code podcast, P O D C A S T, and you'll save 10% on your order. All right. Thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get to the show. Hey, this is Mike Matthews with MuscleForLife.com and in this podcast I want to talk about how things change once your newbie gains are behind you. This is usually, I'd say, after you're somewhere between 6 and 8, maybe 10 months into your weightlifting,

how things change and the problems that people run into and the mistakes they make that ultimately severely hinder their gains and in many cases just lead to them quitting. And I also want to talk about a subject I just wrote an article on, which is kind of a, it's on the subject of work-life balance. And I want to talk about it on the podcast, even though I just wrote an article on it because I told somebody that I would talk about it on the podcast and I decided to write an article as well. All right. So first let's start with this subject of how things change when you become an intermediate weightlifter. And by that, I mean that your newbie gains are behind you. Newbie gains are actually a real thing. I can check my PubMed. I think I saved a study on this if not just know that they're real

meaning that for your first minimally for your first 3-6 months if you're following a program that is set up even just at all correctly you're going to make really good gains you're going to make the type of gains that you would see that you know

an experienced weightlifter would need, would need steroids to actually make gains. Uh, your first year of weightlifting, if you do it right, you can gain about 20 to 25 pounds of muscle. Um, and naturally of course, and I'll link an article down below that I wrote on this so you can get a bit more information on this and kind of how it goes. But then from there, so that's year one, 20, 25 pounds of muscle. That's on the high end. If you gain, I'd say anywhere between 15 and 20 is a very solid first year. And that's enough to change how your physique looks, of course. That's noticeable, but it's not, to take a normal guy and add 15, 20 pounds

of muscle on them, that's not normal guy to, you know, oh, whoa, that dude looks amazing. That probably takes closer to 30 or 40 pounds of muscle and low body fat percentage added to, you know, a normal frame. But in that first year, you're looking at, okay, 15 to 20. Your second year is about half that your third year is about half that. And from there on out, you're looking at maybe three to five pounds a year of lean mass. And depending on your genetics, it could be on the lower end of that. Um, like for me in the last year, I've gained somewhere between three and four pounds of muscle. And, um, that's, that's working hard at it. That's, you know, weightlifting five to six times per week.

I'm basically always 100% on my diet, meaning that I'm always, I'm never just being random with my diet. I'm either in a slight surplus or I'm in a deficit if I'm gonna be losing fat or I'm juggling a surplus and a deficit, which I talk a bit about in my new book, which just came out called Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, which is written for advanced weightlifters and

is really a sequel to Bigger, Leaner, Stronger and goes over basically what's next. You know, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger gives you the foundation, gives you all the basic principles that you need to have to know how to diet and train correctly. But, and this is kind of also relevant to this podcast. Um, once you've gained your first 20, 25 pounds of muscle, things get harder and there are new training, uh, methodologies that you need to know about and new training techniques that you may want to incorporate in your routine, such as periodization, which I talk about in the book. And then also with your diet, your diet, uh, dieting doesn't

change that much. Um, in terms of, of course you still use a surplus to build muscle and still use a deficit to lose fat, but there comes a point where you kind of get generally happy with your body composition and staying lean becomes more important to you. So how do you then stay lean? How do you stay, you know, 10% body fat or under and still make gains in the gym? Cause normally that means, you know, to make good gains in the gym where you feel like you're progressing, that generally requires a calorie surplus, which also puts on body fat. So those are some of the things that talk about in the book. And there's a lot, a lot, a lot of other things. Um, it's a, it's a real sequel to bigger than you're stronger. It's not

rehashed or it's not a second edition of Bigger Than You're Stronger, which I'm almost done with actually. That's going to be next. That'll be releasing by the end of the year. So anyways, getting back on topic here. So mistakes. Let's talk about what I see. I've seen it in friends. I've seen it just in people in the gym, a lot of people that I email with and talk with. So that first year is behind you. Even if let's say you're following a good program, like, like my bigger than your stronger program, or maybe starting strengths or strong lists or whatever, something that has you doing a lot of, you know, heavy compound weightlifting, you build a good amount of strength, you build a good amount of muscle in that first year. And,

uh, then the newbie gains are finally gone. And this is where it actually gets tricky. Because in the beginning, it all feels so easy. You're just eating food. You're lifting weights. You're enjoying yourself. Every week, it seems like your reps or weight is going up. You know, you might start squatting 135 or less. And by the end of your first year, you're squatting 280, 290 for reps.

And you're thinking like, this is magic. And then all of a sudden, you're not gaining., 290 for reps. And you're thinking like, this is, you know, this is magic. And then all of a sudden you're not gaining, you're not adding reps anymore. You're not adding weight anymore. Your body is not visually changing. Your weight is sticking. Why? So one of the big, you know, problems that people run into, one of the big mistakes they make is they start getting really, they start sucking on their diet. And the most common mistakes that people make is, see, when you're new to weightlifting, if you at least understand the basic principles of energy balance and have some sort of awareness of macronutrient balancing in terms of high protein, moderate to high carb, moderate to low fat, and you just kind of stick to that, but you're not exact in your numbers. And some days are high and some days are

low. The fact that you're new to weightlifting still just allows you to make gains. Um, you know, it's, it's, that's, that's just, that's just the way it is. But as you become an intermediate weightlifter and you, in the newbie gains are behind you, getting tight on your diet becomes very, very important. All right, I just moved the microphone here to put it, I think what's going to be in a better position because I just remembered a few people had said that the volume was a bit low for them, so it should be better. Anyways, so what you do with your diet becomes very, very important once the newbie gains are behind you. And the most common mistake that people make is they bulk incorrectly by eating way too much food,

gaining fat way too quickly, not allowing themselves much time to actually build muscle. Like maybe their bulk lasts two months or three months max, and they've put on so much body fat that now they have to cut. Because once you start getting over 15%, 16% body fat, you're going to find it harder to build muscle just because of insulin sensitivity reasons that one of the main reasons is that your insulin sensitivity just gets worse and worse as you get fatter and that gets in the way of muscle growth. So really the ideal range that you're looking to fluctuate in when you're building

your body is, you know, if you're a guy is about 10 to 15% body fat. If you're a girl, probably about 20 to 25%. So, um, you know, those are, those numbers is about 10 to 15% body fat. If you're a girl, probably about 20 to 25%. So, um, you know, those are, those numbers can be fudged up or down a couple of percent, but that's the range that you're looking at. So the most common mistake is bulk, you know, by eating obscene amounts of food and cheat meals, you know, massive cheat meals, gain fat way too quickly, um, and then have to cut. And then the next mistake is then cutting for too long by not being aggressive enough with your calorie deficit and cheating too much on your diet and making what should be a two-month cut or even a shorter into double that, turning it into a

four-month cut or five-month cut. I'm going to link an article below that I wrote recently on why I think rapid weight loss is better than slow cutting, if you do it correctly, so as to not lose muscle or lose very little muscle and maintain your strength in the gym. which when you're in a calorie surplus, that's when your body's primed to build muscle, but you only keep it in a surplus for a couple months because you're in a massive surplus, gain too much fat. Then now you flip to a calorie deficit, which impairs muscle growth. And you can build muscle and lose fat simultaneously, but you can only really do it if you're new. If you're not new to weightlifting or proper weightlifting, and you're not on drugs, you're not going to be building muscle and losing fat. If you're new to weightlifting or if you are new to correct weightlifting and for a natural weightlifter, that means emphasizing heavy compound weightlifting. If you've been doing, let's say, shitty isolation, bodybuilding type routines for a long time,

high rep stuff, supersets, drop sets, a lot of isolation machines and whatever. And then you switch to a heavy compound type program that has you heavy squatting, heavy deadlifting, bench press, military press. You can make, I wouldn't say you're going to get full newbie gains, but you can experience a bit of the newbie gains and you can experience a bit of the recomp or you can build muscle and lose fat simultaneously. But if you're like me, I've been weightlifting correctly for about five years now, give or take. And at this point, there's just no way. There's no way that I can build muscle and lose fat simultaneously. When I'm losing fat, I'm just looking to maintain my strength and maintain my muscle, really.

So you have now these short bulks and these long cuts that just, you know, should, should be done much faster. And what that, what that really comes out to is like over a six month period, let's say you were in a surplus for, uh, two months during your bulk. And let's say you gained, um, four pounds of muscle, too much fat, but four pounds of muscle. And then you cut now for four or five months, slow cutting and gained really no muscle. Let's say you didn't lose any muscle, which many people do lose muscle when they cut cause they do it incorrectly. But let's say you just did it correctly. You didn't lose the muscle, but now, you know, over the course of, uh, that six, seven months, you've only gained four pounds of muscle, which is just not very good.

Like say that, let's say that's year two, you can gain upwards of double that if you're doing it right. So that's one of the big mistakes that people run into is they don't, they get laxer on their diet for some reason, as opposed to getting tighter with it. And maybe that's because, you know, for that first year, it is kind of like a wild ride where your body is changing every week and you think maybe you can get away with anything kind of thing. Another mistake that people make with diet is they kind of get lazy on their intake, meaning that they're not following a meal plan or they're not tracking their intake

on a daily basis and they don't realize that they're dramatically under eating or overeating or they get very like some days are very low calorie. Some days are very high calorie. Some days are somewhere in the middle and that can just mess with, uh, mess with your progress. I haven't seen any real research on this, but I've experienced it and seen it in others where when you, when you're bulking and you have things going correctly and you're in a slight surplus and you're, going crazy with cheat meals, yes, you get a little bit fatter over time. That is just the way it is. But you kind of get into a groove where every week you start gaining a rep on your big lifts. And then after a few weeks, you're able to add five pounds and move up and move up and move up.

And after a few weeks, you're able to add five pounds and move up and move up and move up. But to reach that, and again, this is just kind of anecdotal. I don't really have any specific evidence I've seen of this other than it's just I've experienced it with myself and a lot of people I've worked with. Is that you have to be consistent with your diet and you have to have your diet set up correctly and you have to hit your numbers consistently. This is especially true of people that have an ectomorphic type of body like my brother-in-law who what he used to do is he's very ecto. He would like gain a pound or so in a week when he'd be bulking. Then on the weekends, his diet would go to shit. He'd eat nothing. He'd eat no protein.

I don't even know why. He just didn't eat over the weekends. He would lose about a pound over the weekends and just rinse repeat. And he was doing that for months. And I was like, what are you doing, dudes? Eat food on the weekends. Your body needs it. You need to be eating a lot. So when he finally did, he started then actually gaining size and holding onto it. So, uh, I've seen that happen with other people where, yeah, that for him, it was the weekends, but for other people, it's just random days. One day intakes

way, way low. Another day intake is high and that just messes with you. Also, like if you're messing with your carbs too much, if your carbs, you know, are very low for a couple of days and then they, then they're moving back up to a normal range that affects your training immediately. I mean, one or two to two days of low carb, uh, is enough to drain your glycogen stores enough, especially if you're exercising and you're not replenishing that, to severely impact your training. I mean, you could carb up, you could eat an extra 100 grams of carbs today over your normal amount and probably gain 20 pounds on your lifts tomorrow. Like if you, you know, whatever that first big compound lift is that you're going to be doing, if you're squatting, deadlifting, whatever, if you eat enough carbs the day before that you can gain easily 10 pounds right away. I've had as much as a 30 pound gain

just overnight, just from eating carbs. That's the power of glycogen. So yes, that's the other mistake is just being too random with diet, not tracking intake properly. Moving on to the next mistake is something that Martin Burkhan from, you know, lean gains, he talked about called fuck around itis. And basically that is where people, they get, they start to get fancy when once the newbie gains are behind them and things start slowing down and they get almost like panicky, like, Oh, it's not so easy anymore. I don't want to work hard for this. So then the solution is start trying weird programs. I mean, there are a million weird programs out there that promise everything, you know, just go, go troll through ClickBank and

you could spend a thousand dollars on, on bizarre programs that are not really going to do much for you. Um, and that, that applies really to diet and exercise where people then will turn to, uh, stuff like, like intermittent fasting or carb cycling or carb backloading or whatever. And none of those, um those dietary methods are bad, but they're not the secret to making gains. They're not like, oh, that's what you now have to do to make gains. You could never get fancy with your training or dieting ever,

which I actually never have. Like I've done IF and carb backloading and carb cycling just to try them. And yes, like they're not bad. You're not gonna ruin your physique. You can still make gains. I've done IF and carb backloading and carb cycling just to try them. And yes, they're not bad. You're not going to ruin your physique. You can still make gains. But I don't like eating on those types of schedules.

I just don't like it. And there was no benefit to it. So why bother with it? I like eating every few hours. I like eating different types of foods. I like eating a high-carbohydrate diet. Low-carb dieting sucks. I'll link an article down below where I talk about why. That's just the way that I like to eat, and that's the way that the majority of people I speak with like to eat as well. Some people do prefer IF, where you're fasting for, let's say, 18 hours out of 24 hours, or sorry, 16 hours out of 24 hours is

fasting and eight hours eating. Some people like that. I'm not that big of a fan of it. I don't mind it on the weekends where, you know, in the mornings, like Saturday or Sunday morning, I'm usually doing something physical. I'm usually golfing or I'm out, like, playing with my son or walking or something like that. So a lot of times I'll wake up and just have some leucine and maybe some caffeine and then fast through the morning, do some exercise type stuff and start eating at lunch. I don't mind that, but I wouldn't like to do it every day. So that's on the dietary side of kind of getting fucked around.

I guess where people just get way too fancy with diet and they ignore the simple fundamentals of energy balance, macronutrient balance. That's really all it comes down to calories. How many calories are you eating versus how many calories are you burning? How are you manipulating your calories up or down depending on what you want to do with your body? Um, and how are you breaking those into macronutrients? You should always be on a high protein diet about, you know, depending on how many calories you're eating, the percentage is going to go anywhere from, it could be anywhere from 30 to 50%, depending on how many calories you're eating. But generally speaking, like if you're bulking, you're going to want to be around 0.8 to one

gram of protein per pound of body weight. And if you're cutting, I recommend a bit higher, one to 1.2 grams per pound. And then high carb dieting. I am a big proponent of it. Um, again, you'll find an article down below where I explain why, uh, but it is just better period. There's just no arguing unless there's something severely wrong with your body where it can't deal with carbohydrates. Well, if you're exercising regularly, and especially if you're weightlifting regularly, you're going to do better on a high carb diet. I guarantee it. And your body does not need nearly as much fat as some people say it does to, uh, to do everything it needs to do and to keep hormones in a healthy range. Um, so on the training side, fuck around it is, is program hopping, you know, trying, there are a million different programs out there, but jumping from program to program,

looking for that quick fix, looking for that newbie gain again, and it'll never come. It doesn't matter unless you get on steroids, which I don't recommend you do. You will never have newbie gains again. Just know that, that your second year, if you can gain 15 pounds of muscle in your second year, you've done really, really well. If you could gain 10, if you gain 10 pounds, that's decent. Um, based on the people that work with, and it's probably 12 to 15 pounds is probably a good year too. That seems to be a good range of people that don't mess around with their training. They stick to the plan. They stick to their diet. They do everything that they're supposed to do. 12 to 15 pounds of muscle in the second year is probably the average. And that's with any program, the best design program, that's

the best you're going to do. So any program that can deliver that is as good as any other, in my opinion. And that's where I think a lot of the, a better way to look at programs is more just on the results that they get with people. And if you see a program that's putting 15 to 20 pounds of muscle on guys, and I'm speaking for guys, girls, these numbers are cut them in half, and those are the numbers for girls. If you see that, a program that guys are consistently gaining, let's say 15 to 20 pounds of muscle year one,

and somewhere between, I don't know, I guess it depends on who you listen to, but somewhere between 10 and 20 pounds in year two, that program is a very good program. I mean, it's, you can't get more out of it unless you're going to get on drugs. You can't get more out of your training. Uh, so program hopping is, is bad because a lot of programs are bad. So you're going to have wasted time. Let's say you two months, some stupid program. That's a bunch of high rep stuff and not enough. It's just not programmed well and frequency is not programmed correctly, intensity, volume, blah, blah, blah. And you gain, you know, a pound of muscle or less than that in those two months. Then you go to the, okay, that was not

optimal. Then you go to the next program, go to the next program. So there's that. And then there's also that it's hard to really know if you're progressing because the key to it all is progressive overload. The key to everything when you're a natural weightlifter is that over time you're increasing the weight on the bar. You are putting your muscles under heavier and heavier loads over time. That's the key to building a big, strong physique. When it comes to maintaining it, you can get a bit fancier, but building it is the hard work, and you just can't get around it. So if you are jumping from program to program, you don't necessarily know, let's say in the programs are programmed very differently,

where you're squatting one way on one program, one rep range, and you're doing it a different way on another program, different rep range. Program one has you squatting once a week, program two has you squatting three times a week and so forth it's hard to really know where your squat is at unless you're just going to do one rep you know one rm calculations um but still it's much uh more it's much more helpful to be able to see over the last you know four months let's say four months ago you were squatting once a week or twice a week or whatever and you know whatever, and you were doing 250 for sets of four to five reps. Now you're doing sets of 275 for four to five reps on the same protocol.

That now you know. You can look at that and go, cool, I'm making progress. That's good. When you program hop, you just don't know because a lot of cases the programs, I mean, the big thing in this space, as you've probably seen, is to make things very fancy sounding and make things, you know, it's the latest science and it beats everything. And this is how all the Hollywood actors do it and all the bodybuilders. No, the Hollywood actors and bodybuilders just blast themselves full of drugs and pound weights. Yes, that you're just,

if you add all the drugs, then okay, fine. But if you don't have all the drugs, it's very different. Another big mistake I see is just not pushing hard in the gym. It probably does come down to realizing this is going to be hard. Once the newbie gains are behind you, if you really want to have the type of physique that impresses people, where you kind of look like a fitness model, you're looking at from day one, probably three to four years of hard work. And by hard work, I mean that every day, I mean, you don't have to be in the gym long, long periods of time. You could spend, I only work out five hours. I lift weights about five hours a week, and I do two to three cardio sessions at about 20 minutes long a week. That's it. And if I needed to

cut that down to three, you know, weightlifting three times a week, I could, and I still look the same. I just, I kind of like lifting. So I, and I'm still trying to, you know, improve my physique in small little ways. So I go five days a week. But it takes, you know, that type of hard work where you're five days a week, you're, you know, in there consistently to make small gains. It's a lot of effort you have to expend for what feels like relatively small gains and small changes. It really is. You know, you can bust your ass, let's say it's year three and you busted your ass for six months and you know, heavy weightlifting is tough. It takes, it takes a lot of effort. And let's say you've gained, I don't know, three or four pounds or so in six months. You don't see that very much on your body. I mean, you will see it, but it's not like a dramatic three or four,

you had three or four pounds, maybe five pounds of muscle in that time period. It's not like, Oh my God, look at that. But you know, how much did you have to work for that? And then on the dietary side, you know, how, uh, again, you, if you're familiar with my work, you know, that I'm all about flexible dieting, eating foods you like, and, you know, sticking to nutritious foods, but don't, don't get, uh, don't, don't fall too much into the traps of thinking that certain carbs are going to make you fat or, you know, that carbs in general are bad or that you should never have any sugar or anything like that. Hit your numbers, eat nutritious foods, and work in some stuff that you like and you'll be fine. But you still have to know what you're eating.

It's not the normal person out there just goes, I'm hungry. What am I going to eat? What do I feel like? Good. Let's do that. You can't do that. Really, I guess you can play with it a little bit if you kind of know foods inherently. Like I have a pretty good sense of food. So if I go to a restaurant, you know, it's hard unless the restaurant has some very simple, like if I go to a steakhouse, I can order a steak. That's pretty simple. I, you know,

I can even look that up on my phone. There's not going to be that much, uh, variants there or fish or the proteins, as long as they don't have sauces and things like that. But if I'm going to go like appetizer side, blah, blah, blah, eat some bread and stuff. It's just, there's a point where it's like, who knows? I ate a lot of calories. That's what I did. Um, so all in all, it just takes a lot of consistency and takes quite a bit of discipline to, uh, as, as you continue and you have to know that the gains, the progress slows down. So you may even feel like you're working harder and harder because you're lifting heavier and heavier weights. And as you, as you become a more advanced weightlifter, your workouts become even a little bit more intense than when. And as you become a more advanced weightlifter,

your workouts become even a little bit more intense than when you were a newbie. Like in the Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program, in my latest book, it's a periodized version of the Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program. The workouts are only one set more, but you're doing some really heavy weightlifting in it. And they're hard. They're just hard workouts. They're effective and they work very well, but it's tougher. Like the BBLS workouts are tougher than the BLS workouts. There's no question. Um, so, you know, you work harder, you get less. That's kind of like, it's, it has a, almost like it's an unfair, it's like a paradoxical in other areas of your life. If you work harder, you're generally going to get more.

That's not how working out is. You work harder, you get less, but you still get something. And that's the key. All right. Well, that's all I wanted to talk. That's really all I wanted to say on, on, you know, these points of the big mistakes that intermediate weightlifters make. If you can just consistently be, you know, be consistent with your diet, you know. Stick to your numbers. Don't get too crazy with things. Eat the way that you like to eat. If you can stick to a program that's good and you can make gains on it, if you can focus on your compound weightlifting and see that your strength goes up there,

and if you push yourself hard in your workouts and really try to get one more rep than last week, that's a successful workout. If you do that, you know, and stay patient, you will make good progress and you will make good gains and you will be able to reach your goal. You know, I'm at this point pretty happy with where my body's at. I feel like I've kind of reached my, this is genetically speaking, probably my peak really anyway. I don't know how much more muscle I can really add. Um, maybe I could put on another five pounds over the next few years, but I don't even care because I'm pretty happy with how I look. And I kind of just want to stay like this. It just took a while to get here. Um, in my case, I, it took way longer than it should have because for my first seven, almost seven years of weightlifting, I just didn't really

even know what I was doing and I made terrible gains. But looking back, if I would have started knowing what I know now, I probably would have been able to go from beginning to now in five or six years, probably no, no, no less than four. So let's say somewhere between four and six years, I would look more or less the way that I look now. And then we just kind of do what I'm doing now, which is I maintain, I get to eat, you know, plenty of food. I get to train heavy the way I like to and, and maintain the type of body that I like. So you can get there. You just, you know, it, it takes quite a bit more work than a lot of people think. All right. So now I just want to move on to this other subject, which is the work life balance thing. Cause I, um, am asked that fairly

often just with kind of all the things that I have going at Muscle for Life and with Legion and, you know, other various work things that I'm involved in that I don't really even talk about because they're not really related to those things. Like, how do I kind of keep all the plates spinning? And the answer, I mean, it's pretty simple. One is I have a great team of friends. We all work hard. You know, they do a lot to keep the show going, so it's not just me. But also, I mean, I work a lot of hours. There's just no way around it. My average weeks are probably 65 to 75 hours, and sometimes it can be 80 hours plus, depending on what's going on. And, you know, I, I follow, um, some blogs that I guess, I guess they're, they're kind of just intellectual blogs, I guess, kind of highbrow book reviews and,

um, quotes from famous people and, uh, things like that. And I've seen over the course of last year or so, it's been kind of trendy to, um, basically just kind of poo poo, what would be considered like workaholism and thatolism and that this idea that as a culture we're too work-obsessed and that work doesn't really matter. It's not that meaningful, et cetera, you, I mean, I'll, I'll take, I'll entertain them and kind of think, well, you know, try to look at myself and go, well, why, why do I work so much? Is, am I just addicted to this idea of being busy? Uh, because it just gives me something to do. Is it, you know, that I have some, you know, big problem in my life that I am avoiding

by just working a lot? Uh, does it make me kind of feel important? And for me, I mean, self-awareness can be tough. I mean, obviously how we perceive ourselves in many ways is not the objective reality and definitely how others perceive us. But I don't really think it's any of those things, at least like in an extreme sense with me. I don't like being busy just to feel like I'm busy. I never want to seek real praise or importance or whatever. I don't care.

I rarely ever even talk about my work unless people really ask about it. And I can enjoy time away from work, doing other things for a certain period of time. Vacations for me get pretty old at about 7 to 10 days or so is when I'm really just – it would have to be the most thrilling experience of my life to keep my attention at that point where I just want to get back to doing something work-related. So what it kind of comes down for me and the best way I can express it is I just like to, I just like to make stuff. I like to make stuff happen. I like to create things. I like to come up with ideas and see them working in my mind in a certain way, putting them into reality and having that work. Not because it confirms my, you know, value as a person or because it's somehow tied into my ego or something like that. It's just fun to me. Like that is a fun experience. Some people have fun playing video

games. Uh, some people have fun watching TV shows. I have fun doing that. I have fun coming up with ideas and then working on them until they are, them until they come to fruition and seeing them work. It's just fun. It could be, I mean, for me, that could be writing. I mean, shit, it could be inventing. I could see how that could be fun, being an inventor. You know what I mean? Just that concept is cool to me.

That's also why I really like marketing because marketing is a creative, it's a very creative field where you have to come up with ideas, and there's a lot of thought that goes into these ideas, and you have to really think things through and really kind of put yourself in someone else's shoes and then execute those ideas and then get them out there and see what happens. That whole process is fun to me, and for me, that's really what work is. really what work is. And I mean, even, even, uh, how, you know, I, I, I've been taking up golf recently and how I approach that is a very, you know, like a lot of people come up to me on the driving range and I'm videoing my swing and working on things. And, you know, they, they'll question how, how am I out there? I don't have that much time to do it. So these guys are there

probably all the time. So whatever. And they see me coming out on the weekends and I'm, I'm doing the same thing every weekend, working on these drills, improving things or whatever. And to them, you know, that's a grind. Like, how do you sit out here and just grind like that? And I'm like, that doesn't feel like a grind. Like I'm having fun. I am, I know exactly what I'm working toward and I know this is going to get me there. And that's fun. Like I have an idea in my mind of how I want my swing to be so I can be a good player. And I'm just doing what it takes to get there. And every week I get a little bit closer, a little bit closer. So how is that not fun?

Like what are you talking about? How is it fun for you to sit out here and just hit balls over and over and over for hours? I see these guys every week with terrible swings. They're never, ever going to be good. That's not fun. So that's why I like to work a lot. But what about this point of work life balance? You know, people ask like, how do I fit in time for, for social things? How do I, you know, hang out with friends and watch TV shows and, you know, my playtime and whatever. And the answer is obvious. I work a lot more than I do any of that stuff. And again, it comes back to because for me, work is a lot more enjoyable than watching

a TV show. A TV show has to be really, really good for me to want to watch it. The TV shows that I review and recommend and my cool stuff is I'll watch them during my cardio. That's like if I'm doing cardio, I'm usually watching a TV show or I'll watch them during my cardio. That's like, if I'm doing cardio, I'm usually watching a TV show or I'm reading a book or listening to an audio book. And sometimes if I'm watching a show that's particularly good, maybe I'll sneak in an episode here, an extra episode here or there, you know, maybe on the weekend or something like that.

But for the most part, TV shows are boring to me. And a lot of things is the experience is not as exciting as, you know, working on something else, working on this workout app that I'm, you know, working on. That's fun to me doing all the sketching and putting it all together. That, that, that's just a fun activity. Some people might have fun. Someone else might think that walking their dog is fun. Like I don't mind walking my dog, but I wouldn't say that that's particularly fun. So my work-life balance is just very different than other people's. I work a lot more than I play, and I don't need very much playtime to kind of recharge my batteries.

A lot of people talk about, well, then I get asked, how do I not burn out? If I'm averaging maybe 12 hours a day on the weekdays, sometimes a little bit more, and then I work on Sundays as well, I take Saturdays off. How am I not burned out by now? Because I've been doing that for years. And I've never come close to burnout. I don't even know what that would be like. what that would be like. And honestly, the people that I've known personally that would talk about balance and avoiding burnout and all that, we're just lazy. I mean, that's really, it was just an excuse to be lazy, really. You know, I think about like, and I've even said this to some of these people, like, could you imagine what would you do if we went back a couple hundred years and you had to you know work with

your hands 10 hours a day on the farm just to have food to feed yourself and i really think some of these people would probably just starve to death they would just go this is too much work it's not worth it or they would just become beggars or something and probably starve to death and yeah that might seem a bit harsh but i mean some people I don't know, I have a hard like 34 hours a week or something like that. So if you think doing more than that or more than 40 hours a week is just too much, then it's going to be too much. If you want kind of an excuse to underachieve, then just decide that you're exhausted. Every day by blah, you're exhausted.

And I understand there can be some physical aspect to that. If you don't take care of your body, you probably will be exhausted a bit more frequently. I mean I rarely ever do I feel exhausted. Maybe if I somehow – if my son keeps me up and I don't sleep more than three hours a night for four days in a row, maybe I'll be exhausted. Otherwise, I'm never exhausted. But if you have body issues, I understand. But the average person doesn't have severe enough body issues to cause exhaustion.

This is just – it's mental, really. We're talking about what Napoleon – there's a quote from Napoleon where he said that sometimes death only comes from lack of energy. I mean really, some of these people, they have no challenge in their life. So of course they're not energetic about anything. There's no – of course they sleep 10 hours a night because they have no reason to wake up. Why? What's the point? Might as well sleep as much as possible, right?

On the other hand, if I think really just about anybody, if they decided that working 80 hours a week on projects that they actually wanted to work on. I can understand if you're in a job that you really don't like and you hate your work and whatever. You don't like doing it. That's one thing. But freely chosen. Things, any sort of activities that have some sort of purpose. You're going for something. If you decided that you could work 80 hours a week on that and be excited to do it, I think you could do it.

It's just, you know, people get ideas from a lot of different places and then they decide that that's how it is for them. And, you know, many people are concerned with what other people think and concerned about what other people say. And I have always been almost to a fault, I guess, very, I wouldn't say stubborn, but skeptical of other people's advice and skeptical of just other people, how they live their lives and really looking at, you know, if a person is going to give me any advice on anything, do I really, would I really listen to this person? Like, are they really living the type of life that I want to live? If not, and they're trying to advise me on something

that is related to that, then I'm just going to ignore them. And I've probably missed out on some good advice operating that way, but I've also missed out on a lot of bad advice or I've skipped over a lot of bad advice that would have definitely gotten in my way. So I think in the end,

the real thing about work-life balance is you have to find what works for you. You have to balance your ambitions with your actions. If you're like me and you just really like making stuff happen and doing cool things and you don't do enough of it, then your life is going to feel out of balance. Yeah, I think idleness does have a value, but it's definitely a matter of diminishing returns, at least for me personally. A little bit of idleness is nice every week to just kind of recharge and relax and not really have to think about anything or whatever. I understand that, but I think it's also like a medicine. Too much of it just kind of makes you more sick than when you started.

But on the other hand, if you're not really concerned with that and your ambition is kind of just relax and luxuriate, then I think you should do that. I don't think that you should feel compelled to be busy every moment or to tell everyone that you're always busy or have to pretend like you're busy. I don't think you have to feel guilty for not working all the time. I think everyone should provide for themselves and provide for their families. But beyond that, if you'd rather spend your time with loved ones or just kind of playing, doing whatever, then do that. I'd say be resolute in your idol list. Do it well.

But I do think that – I mean it's just kind of a last little note, just kind of random thought on the matter is that with some of these blogs that I follow, it's almost like, like I said, it's kind of trying are also the hardest workers. They also work the most. Um, and regardless of what anyone says in terms of, you know, how quote unquote wealthy they are with friends and, you know, family and stuff like that, uh, life with money is way better than life without money. Uh, I've, I've had, you've had a lot of debt in the past and not had any money to spend, and I've had now no debt with enough income to live the way I want to live, and I will take money over no money any day. So people see that, not with me, but just people see. Some people, they look to people that have made money and see maybe it's a jealousy thing or whatever, and they get mad about it and then criticize them.

Oh, well, that person is just a workaholic or their marriage is going to fall apart or whatever. So I would say don't become one of those people. Don't get overly cynical about it. But also, I don't think you have to feel bad, if you're not one of those kind of, you know, workaholic type people, if you're not like, if you don't view things the way that I do, uh, I don't think anybody, I don't think I'm even universally right in it. Um, that's just the way that I like to live my life. And that's just my life, my work life balance. I think you have to find the same. So that's all for this podcast. I know

it ran on a little bit longer. Sorry about that. I'll try to keep them, you know, to the, to the 30, 30, 40 minute range max. Um, hope you enjoyed it. And if you haven't checked out my new book yet, uh, if you head over to muscle for life.com, you'll see ads for it all over the place. I mean, not obnoxiously, but you'll see it like in the hello bar at the top and on the side and stuff. Um, I think that you will really like it if you are an intermediate weightlifter or an advanced weightlifter, or even if you're a new weightlifter, the program, you might not be ready for the program yet. Uh, and I explain who the program's for really in there and in different benchmarks that you should meet. But, uh, I think that you will get a lot out of it, especially all the diet stuff and there's a

lot of other stuff in there, mobility stuff and other things. All right, thanks again. See you next time. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did, go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day, actually. I release kind of like four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.