Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Eric Helms on the Simple Science of Making “Lean Gains”

Episode Date: June 26, 2017

In this episode I have Mr. Eric Helms back on the show, as promised a bit ago, to talk about how to “bulk” properly. In other words, how to gain as much muscle and as little fat as possible.   In case you don’t know Eric, he’s a member of the 3DMJ coaching team and is himself a professional natural bodybuilder and strength athlete, as well as an author and credentialed scientist with a number of peer-reviewed papers under his belt. 

I’ve referenced his work quite frequently in my own writing, so it’s a pleasure to interview him and pick his brain about the science of making gains. This time we’re talking about how to gain muscle quickly without just getting fat.   As you probably know, some fat gain is inevitable during a proper bulk, but most people make a handful of common mistakes that not only sabotage their efforts to gain muscle but set them up for a long, grueling post-bulk cut that, in many cases, more or less wipes out the progress they made.   The good news, though, is when you know what you’re doing, you can gain significant amounts of muscle without gaining large amounts of body fat, and it’s not as hard as many people think.   Eric breaks it all down in this interview, where he explains the big mistakes that many people make and then the simple science of making “lean gains.”   So if you want to know how to gain strength and size without packing on pounds of fat, you definitely need to listen to the interview. Here it is... 5:34 - What are some of the common mistakes people do when trying to gain muscle and strength? 8:57 - Can you keep your body fat at a specific percentage and still gain muscle? 11:13 - What is your advice on mini bulk cycles? 17:05 - What are the common training mistakes when bulking? 25:40 - What is the proper diet and nutrition when bulking? 39:50 - What are the common diet mistakes when eating at restaurants? 46:00 - How do things change on the training side when bulking? 50:50 - Are there any differences in exercise selection when programming a cut verses a bulk? 1:00:46 - What supplements do you recommend for strength and muscle mass? 1:09:29 - How can people connect with you and find your work? 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 I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do like what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you're going to like my books. 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. I mean, these books, they're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live

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to the World here we are. And he has returned to talk about how to quote unquote bulk properly. In other words, how to gain as much muscle and as little fat as possible. Now, in case you don't know Eric, he is first and foremost, one of my favorite guys in the evidence-based fitness space. But aside from that, he's also a member of the 3DMJ coaching team and is himself a professional natural bodybuilder and an actual truly natural bodybuilder, I will add, and strength athlete as well as an author and credentialed scientist with a number of peer-reviewed papers under his belt. In fact, he's working on his PhD right now, so soon he will be Dr. Eric Helms. Now, I've referenced Eric's work quite frequently in my own writing,

so it's always a pleasure to talk with him and pick his brain about the science of making gains. And to that point, as I said earlier, in this interview, we are going to talk about how to gain muscle quickly without just getting fat. Now, as you probably know, some fat gain is inevitable during a proper bulking season, but most people make a handful of common mistakes that not only sabotage their efforts to gain muscle, but also really just set them up for a long, grueling post-bulk cut that in many cases more or less wipes out the progress that they made.

Now the good news though is when you know what you're doing, you can actually gain significant amounts of muscle without gaining large amounts of body fat. And it's really not as hard as many people think. As you would expect, Eric does a great job breaking it all down in this interview where he explains these big mistakes that many people make, and then dives into the simple science of making quote unquote lean gains. So if you want to know how to gain strength and size without packing on pounds of fat, then you definitely need to listen to this interview. So here it is. Eric, thanks for coming back on the show despite being a little bit under the weather. I appreciate

it. Hey man, got to get sick sometimes apparently, But thanks for having me back on. It's a pleasure to be here. Absolutely. All right. So the first time around, it was all about on-season, particularly prepping for shows, cutting and so forth. And this part two, which people have been asking for, is we want to focus on off-season. And so for those of you listening that aren't competing, this would also apply, you know, what you would think as bulking is this kind of like going to be the, the, the topic of discussion. And, um, you know, so I was thinking, Eric, that we just dive right in with what are some of the common mistakes that people make when they go, okay, I want to, I don't, I don't

need to have a, I don't need to be super shredded anymore. And I want to gain some, I want to, you know, really focus on gaining muscle and strength. Um, and then where it goes, where does it kind of go off the rails from, from that point? You know, what have you seen in your experience? Sure. It typically comes down to basically two different camps and they're normally differentiated by who do they follow? You know if you said if you've got people who came up reading muscle magazines or the or the 2017 equivalent and they are basically following bodybuilders typically they overdo it they'll kind of go on a a C diet you know seafood diet where they're eating everything they're gaining a lot of weight very quickly and they go on a

basically a go mad diet or something where they're eating everything, and they're gaining a lot of weight, and a large part of it is body fat. Very quickly, they're running out of room to continue bulking. They may be putting on effective muscle mass, but the time frame that it can last before they start getting uncomfortable with their body is short. Can you talk a little bit more to that point of that time frame? Is it just about comfort? Because I've spoken with a lot of people that they don't really care. They just think if that's what it takes, like if I just have to kind of be a little bit disgusted with myself for half the year,

then I'll do that. But is it just that, the psychological, or is there also a physiological element there? Oh, there's definitely both. Um, you know, if you're, if you're a drug free person with any kind of experience underneath your belt, uh, the amount of muscle mass you can be able to put on and the rate that it can get put on is typically slower than what you might be told in the mainstream kind of bodybuilding information. So you're going to have, you know, the idea that you can put on a pound a week and have that be a relatively clean weight, when in reality it might be more like a pound a month that's going to be clean.

How would you say, like, is that for beginners or your intermediates or that number there? You know, really the range I like to use is about 0.5 to 1.5% of your body weight per month is a decent rate to% to 1.5% of your body weight per month. It's a decent rate to try to focus on gaining. You'd say the higher you are, the more you're going to be on the higher end of that? Yeah, basically it scales to your training age. The faster rate you gain, you should be lowering your training age because the closer you get to your intradentic ceiling, the harder it's going to be to put on, uh, muscle at that rate. So definitely. Cool. Yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's the one big issue is on, on that side of the fence. On the other side of the fence is people who kind of came up following

like, you know, Martin Birkin or, um, you know, basically anyone who's talking about how to be lean all the time and how to get six pack abs. And their problem is that they often don't have a base at all. Um, that they, they, their first introduction to, uh, fitness was trying to get leaner, um, whether, whether they were overweight or not, or just not as lean as they want it to be. Um, the physiques they saw, uh, the information that was emphasized to them was always, here's how you, how you can maintain leanness or get lean in the first place and do it with less effort. Um, and they've never actually had a proper true period where they're trying to gain muscle and they're often not satisfied with the results when they cut because they're, um, you know, they don't really have a lot of muscle to

show for it. And can you, can you just speak quickly to why the, I mean, it's, when you say lean gains, you always think of Burkham, but that is kind of the concept, right? Is that like you can keep your body fat at 10% and still gain muscle. Why that doesn't work as well as many people hope. Yeah, certainly. Well, I think the big problem is that a lot of people just want to have a certain level of leanness in their mind because they've been told it's maintainable. So, I mean, I can't tell you how many times i've skyped with someone for a consultation and they tell me hey this is my you know my fourth time trying to cut down to eight percent body fat and each time they they get there but then they can't stay there yeah um and they think it's their approach that if they

just use a different diet if they reverse diet or if they what have you they'll be able to maintain it but in reality it's just like dude your set point's like 15 and until you accept that you're just going to be you know struggling and focused on food and not making great gains and having relatively suppressed hormonal system and sleeping poorly um and you know so so it comes down to they have to a accept that their walk around physique may be just not quite as lean as they'd hoped, which can take years for some people. Not Insta-worthy, right? Right, yeah. So not something people like to hear, but something they need to hear if they actually want to make progress.

Right. And then the second part of that relevant to what we're talking about is that they can learn that a 15% body fat physique in this example is going to look better over time if they actually put in the years and actually spend some time not trying to cut but actually building a good physique. And, you know, someone with a lot of muscle mass at 15% body fat looks pretty good. You know, that's the type of person that, you know, would definitely be comfortable taking their shirt off at the beach. So, so yeah, these people have typically spent much more time cutting than they have actually gaining. And, uh, normally I, I talk them into going, right, we need to set like a minimum time ratio limit of, uh, you know, time spent in a surplus versus time spent in a deficit. And I normally tell them the minimum should be like four to one. So for every four months of time spent in a surplus, it's one month you've earned yourself in a deficit. Yeah, I like that.

I'm sure you get asked about mini cuts and mini bulks a lot. I know I do. I've spoken a bit about it, written a little bit about it. It would actually probably be good to just have one single article I could send people to, because I still get asked about that. In my experience, it doesn't, it just doesn't work well. And I don't know, actually, if there's, this is something you would, you probably be able to, to illuminate more than I would, but it seems like there's something to momentum when you're in a surplus. And after it takes a few weeks, it seems like for your body, your body's muscle building machinery, so to speak, to really, um, be firing on all cylinders. It's not just like, you know,

the first day that you're in a surplus, all of a sudden you're, you're, you're able to, you're really feeling it in your workouts and you just, you know what I mean? It takes a few weeks, but if you're always flipping between deficits and, uh, surpluses, it seems to screw that up. Yeah. I mean, uh, I can't think of any physiological reasons as to why the first few, you know, the early part of a, a lean gaining period wouldn't be effective. Um, but I know people, if they have unrealistic expectations of a, one of these shortcuts, let's say you take a, let's say you take that approach, that four to one approach, and you know, you do four months of time spent in a gaining period and then a one month cut,

and you do four months of time spent in a gaining period and then a one-month cut, not a whole lot is going to happen in a month. And if it does, it's probably not a good thing. It probably wasn't just – You're talking about you can take off a few pounds. Yeah, yeah. If you lost 10 pounds in a month, that probably wasn't all fat unless you just have amazing fat loss genetics. So I think the way I try to sell these mini-cuts, if you know, unless you just have amazing fat loss genetics. And so I think the way I try to sell

these mini cuts, if you will, is that it's to allow you to continue going in your surplus afterwards. So it's controlling, you know, fat mass accrual in the process of a long-term gain period versus, right, I bulk for four months, now I'm going to get shredded in a month. gain period versus right i bulk for four months now i'm gonna get shredded in a month yeah like that that's then that's often the the the next pitfall that you run into from the people who kind of come from that i want to be lean all the time crowd is because they're that's still part of their goal uh you even if they've come to accept that maybe they need to try to be not so lean and they need to spend more time building their physique that okay i've done that now now can i get back to what i want to do? Um, and that, that's when you kind of got to convince

them like, look, you know, if you want to do a photo shoot or if you want to do a competition or if you want to, you know, get ready for something, if you want to give yourself kind of a goal, we can do that, but we need to have a longer cut to do that. And we need to get you built up so that when you do it, you'll look good. And this little one month thing is just to control fat mass gains while you're building your base. Yeah, yeah, totally. It's that work you have to do up front to kind of, I mean, you can look at it in the perspective of if it's a lifestyle thing or you use a financial metaphor or whatever metaphor

you want to use, but it's just that work that you have to put in and you you just have to put in your time and yeah, things aren't, you know, the way you want them to be, uh, for, it could be, I mean, I don't know, it could be a year, it could be two years, depending on what the person, how they want to look, but then the payoff is, okay, you've, you've done that and now you're in that position, right? Where you can, if you want to stay lean year round, then there's of course a trade-off, uh, but you can, if you want to stay lean year-round, then there's, of course, a tradeoff, but you can do that. Yeah, you're not going to stay 6% year-round, at least not naturally, but if you really want to have the beach body or whatever, but you have to pay the price first. Yeah, and I don't even think you're going to be staying 6% year-round if you're on gear. I mean, that's not going to help you.

Oh, yeah, that's not good for you you go just go scroll around instagram and you'll see it there are guys doing it yeah well i mean there's there's no reason that that like just just hopping on gear is going to help you be leaner oh sure you know it'll help you hold hold the more muscle or anything like that but i i have talked to people who are like you know they end up going down the drug route just because they can't figure out how to do it. And they think that's magic. And I think that typically does, you know, more harm than good. Anyway, that's just not really my bag anyway.

So I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert there. But yeah, yeah, you're 100% correct is that we could make an entire podcast about people who are attempting to maintain a leaner body weight than they probably should. And that is realistic. And that is probably more of a psychological issue than it is anything else. And certainly, I think it's important to present it as a settling point, you know, the body fat you can maintain and probably a settling point range that can change over time because a big part of that is not just physiological it's also

psychological and sociological and as you get better at like you said incorporating new habits into your lifestyle you may find you can maintain a lower body fat percentage but that's something that that does take time and it takes years of of kind of you know incorporating different habits when you go out to eat yeah you know tracking and and adopting quote-un unquote intuitive behaviors that are actually heavily learned and integrated, they're not really that intuitive, then maybe 15% moves down to 12% in a few years of you being in. That's cool. I've actually ran into a few people who can maintain lower than is probably ideal for gaining muscle mass and they have to become aware of that, you know,

that they're actually quite controlled and they manage their environment very well, but at the cost of, you know, maybe holding on to more muscle or being able to build more muscle. So that's always something to consider. And by far, I'd say those two kind of camps are where the two mistakes, the two biggest mistakes are run into. And I'm either finding myself convincing the permanent bulkers to take a little more control

and a little more patience and be a little more moderate in their approach to gaining, or I'm convincing the six-pack abs year-round crew that maybe they need to have more realistic and individualized expectations for themselves. Yeah, makes sense. So what about on the other side of the coin here on the training side? Are there any common mistakes that you see, um, there? Yeah, I think more often than not, um, on the training side, people just think that, um, that there needs to be a huge difference between what they're doing when they're cutting or bulking. Really, the principles remain the same.

It's just that you can probably handle a little more volume. You can deload just not quite as frequently. There's some really old school thoughts out there that you need to be lifting heavy when you're bulking, like fives and sixes and eights. Then you go light when you're cutting, so you really bring out the strut machines and all that shit. Yeah, exactly. I don't know how worthwhile it is busting that myth because I think that's

more like early 2000s, 90s things. I just don't run into a lot of people who still think that. That's like when I first picked up – when I first lifted a weight, I think that was pretty commonly – that was what you did. You ask someone in the gym, that's what you do but that has same yeah that was for me that was like 13 years ago like the last time that was probably a rather rather popular belief so there's that um but but basically the principles of of training remain the same in a deficit or a surplus because it's always doing the same thing you know you, you are, you know, creating a signal for, for muscle

gain and, uh, you know, that's either supported by your nutrition or it's not, and it'll be more or less effective because of that, but it doesn't really change it. And then you just have to think about, okay, is my recovery going to be hampered for my nutrition or will it be aided or at least not hampered? And that should, you know, dictate some of the decisions you make in terms of how you modify your training volume uh intensity frequency etc but um yeah i think um have you seen like something i've seen is uh not working like not doing enough actually well like trying to follow a very minimalist program while bulking i mean in some cases it's bad where it's like a program it's just upper lower that's it upper, lower, that's it. Two workouts a week. And yeah, they're longer workouts, but, um, and, and they're in, they're rather intense workouts. Sure. But it's still just two workouts a week

while bulking or maybe three max four. Um, anyway, to that point of where, I mean, I've seen that, I don't know if you've seen that where it's like, okay, if you really want to maximize, you have to, you're gonna have to work a bit harder. You know what I mean? Especially because you're not brand new to this. Yeah, again, it seems to come down to where did they get their information from. So kind of what goes hand in hand with some of the, I would say, Martin Birkin-inspired kind of approaches. I don't want to sound like I'm hammering Martin Birkin, but really there's been a lot of offshoots from him. There's been a lot of people who basically copied what he's done. Actually, almost copy-pasted, actually, in some cases literally yeah you know what i'm talking about absolutely and and again their their approach is is what he used which makes sense

for what they're doing you know like if i'm trying to maintain a low body fat and i'm always in there like kind of a a maintenance phase at best or a, then I probably do want to take a lower volume approach and maybe focus more on like the tension stimulus. That's a fair argument. And so you'll see that. You'll see I train three times a week in alternating upper-lower fashion, and I use three sets of four to six per muscle group, and that's it, one exercise. And, you know, that's probably an adequate stimulus to maintain

for an intermediate person. But for the average person with a couple years under their belt who's looking to optimize muscle gains, it's just not enough volume, you know. It might be decent for strength gain, but, you know, I'd like to see someone getting at least 10 sets per muscle group per week, spread across at least two sessions per week as a decent kind of starting point. And then from there, if we're progressing, fantastic. Modify if it doesn't change.

So that does happen. Again, it's kind of specific to that crowd. On the other end of the spectrum, you get the people who came up listening to IFBB pros, and depending on who they're listening to, they may have kind of this not really focused on progressive overload mindset. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, I'm not a weight lifter. I don't care about how much weight I, weight I move or getting to point A to point B. I want to feel the muscle work. And I'm like, well, okay. So long as you can do that and have an objective system for progressive overload over time, I'm fine with that. I mean, it's kind of like whatever you want to tell yourself, that's cool.

But as long as we're doing this over here, it's whatever you want to do. Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. Because, I mean, it's not like they don't make any valid points. Certainly, you want to make sure that you're not just like throwing tin around it and just lifting as heavy as you can all the time. I mean, it's not A or B. It's finding like, okay, I do want the target muscle working, sure, and progressive overload is the key critical component to progress.

So how can we systematically ensure that it occurs? And that's basically the two things you don't see. It's people doing too little, like you said, or just doing everything but without structure. So I think just generating structure in general is typically very helpful to people who have been struggling with actually building muscle. Okay. And anything regarding cardio? Do you come across that doing too much or, you know? Well, often your female listeners, this is relevant to them for the most part in my experience.

And also, again, I'm just hammering the lean gains crowd, know martin burke and people um i can see the headlines now i can see the fake news now um but the funny thing is this is nothing that martin has really directly promoted it's it's more of um the audience he attracts yeah um and i think that's something anyone who puts that information is going to be i would say a victim to to some degree or or just be aware of that the information you put out will not always be received in the way you want it to be. It will often sometimes be used by people who kind of already have that filter and bias and want to basically keep doing what they're doing without changing anything until they really start to run themselves on the ground or see a lack of progress. But anyway, yeah, so I often run into, you know, females who are a little intimidated by the prospect of putting on some body fat and are often doing a lot of cardio, probably more cardio than most of your average male fitness person would do during a cut. Yeah.

Just kind of as a baseline. Yeah. male fitness person would do during a cut yeah i just kind of at a as a baseline yeah so so cutting that down um is really again getting around kind of their psychological fear of well if i don't do this what's going to happen um and same thing with the with the guys who are very focused on the kind of the six-pack abs so that that is that is one mistake um and then sometimes in the modern age you'll run into people who are very sedentary, uh, and just, you know, they're, they're a student and they take online classes or they're an office worker, or really they just don't have much energy expenditure.

And you actually do need a little bit of cardio in there just to kind of have a consistency of, of, of energy intake or to just make it easier for them not to gain weight too fast. But that's actually something that is pretty specific to the individual as far as, you know, just what their baseline activity is, you know, and how sedentary they are. It's pretty relevant to a lot of people listening. I know a lot of people are in that position where most of us work at a desk, you know. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, and sometimes people create the scenario like you said if they're only training twice a week they feel like they have to do cardio to

you know not just just to be able to eat some food right but if they were to go from say two hours of training a week to four hours training a week all of a sudden not that they should do that overnight i would say to kind of give a little disclaimer to people who are listening to this and going, oh, I'm not training enough, is build up 10% more volume over time. Add one session. First, I'd take the two sessions, like you said, that may have a lot of time spent in them and just break those up into three. Then from there, if you're still not gaining it, probably an appropriate rate, or if you're still plateaued, then you could make a 10% increase in volume. Yeah. People listen. Let's say if you're doing an upper lower, maybe you could turn that into a push pull legs type of setup to break it up into three, for example.

Certainly. Yeah. And then, you know, if you wanted to get that frequency up a little higher, you can go, you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and then go push pull legs and then have like a full body day on Saturday or Sunday or something like that with lower volume and a little heavier weights and then get a little more volume on the other day. So that way you're hitting that kind of two times per week frequency, uh, you know, strength and hypertrophy stimulus, all the good stuff. Yeah. Cool. Okay, good. So I think those are, uh, those are the major, uh, mistakes and, uh, just kind of misguided ideas that people have. So let's circle back around and talk about how to do it right. Do you want to just start on the diet and nutrition side of things? Certainly. Yeah. So I think the big one is realizing that there's a direct relationship between the calories you take in and the rate of weight that you gain. So if our goal is to gain 0.5 to 1.5% of our body weight per month, that's really less than 0.5% of our body weight per week. So

the average, let's say 170 pound male, that's not a lot of body weight you're trying to gain per week. And if you need roughly a 500 calorie surplus per day to get roughly a pound of tissue gain, that means you're only going to want like a 100 to 300 calorie surplus, depending on how big you are to start and what your training age is. So if you're 5'6 and you're an intermediate, it's going to be a small surplus. If you're, you know, 6 foot and a beginner, sure, you might have like a 400 calorie surplus to get you in the right position. And then the second question becomes, okay, well, if I'm only trying to gain a little bit of weight over time and it's a small surplus, how do I even track that?

And the way to do that is looking at longer time periods. So I'll often tell people to look at like a 14-day body weight average and compare that to the next 14-day period. And then you're working with, let's say you're trying to gain a pound a month, you can look at a 14-day average and see whether or not you're up, you know, half a pound or close to it, say 0.4 to 0.6 or 0.3 to 0.7 pounds. And if you're in that range, then your thumbs up, you're in the sweet spot. If it's too low or too high, then you can make a small calorie bump by say like 50 or something like that. And just kind of nudging it in the right direction, um, because you're not looking for, for too much. Um, and just to that point for people listening, the problem with this in particular with, with just trying to use the mirror is you're not really going to see that much of a difference week to week.

If you're not tracking your weight, like what you're talking about, especially with working out an average like that, and you're just trying to go off of like, do I look bigger? That's not going to serve you very well. Yeah, I mean, honestly, the last time I was able to look in the mirror as a drug-free lifter and and assess whether or not i was bigger it wasn't like the first year of my training yeah and then you know after that i really can't i kind of have a moment of like a reflection where i go wait a minute i'm i'm 215 last time i was 215 i couldn't see my abs. I'm like, oh, okay. That's the kind of thing where that's years apart where before I noticed gains. The other scenarios are when I actually diet down for a bodybuilding show.

There's no body fat to obscure my physique at all. I can look from 2009 to 2007 or 2011 to 2009 and see what progress I've made. and I can look from 2009 to 2007 or 2011 to 2009 and see what progress I've made. But, you know, obviously that's not a way to assess, you know, for the general pop. Like, was your gaining phase successful? Well, just diet down until you're shredded and then you'll see. And then you'll see. Just take six months after you're done bulking and get diced, you know. That's probably not a useful, you know, like kind of tool to put in your tool belt so yeah assessing progress primarily what you want to focus on is the ingredients that will result in gaining muscle

mass rather than just am i getting muscle so are you in a surplus so you're gaining tissue do you have an appropriate amount of you know volume and frequency and intensity in your training program and is progressive overload occurring and if those three things are happening then then you can probably be sure that that uh the most percentage of that weight you're gaining that can be lean muscle is uh and if you're not satisfied with it and you're doing everything right then it's just a matter of you know coming to terms with the fact that you're not a beginner anymore which is tough you know i remember when i i i thought i would do something wrong for many times when i would move from the beginner to the intermediate phase. And often I was because I was still a relative beginner and didn't know what I was doing.

But many times I was changing things just because I was still expecting to gain like a newbie. Falling in love with kind of the training approach I had at the start because that was the rate of gain that I was now accustomed to and expected. Being frustrated by anything less than that. And that is quite the mental hurdle for people moving from, you know, the kind of the honeymoon phase. So this is just something to think about for people who have been lifting for maybe more than six months seriously, and they're just starting to notice that the progress is not the same that it once was.

So yeah, so on the nutrition side, the first piece is not the same that it once was. So, yeah. So on the nutrition side, the first piece is really making sure that your surplus is appropriate and probably not as much as you think. And then how do you track that is by looking at, say, 14-day averages or even monthly averages and making small changes over time to push you in the right direction or pull you back if you're gaining too quickly. And then, you know, I don't know that you really need to track your protein, carbs, and fat. Like, I would probably recommend for anyone doing a serious cut. But I would say you want to make sure that you're getting in at least enough protein, you know, during this period.

And also eating a relatively healthy diet. So I tend to focus more on, okay, am I getting getting at least roughly, say, 0.8 grams per pound of protein or more is fine. Then am I getting in a serving of fruit and vegetables each per every thousand calories I'm consuming as a minimum. Certainly more than that, extra credit is fine. Yeah. And, you know... Do you even go a little bit further and choose your fruits and vegetables specifically, or are you just looking for like, ah, just make sure I get some leafy greens and a variety

of fruits, or... I'm a big fan of just varieties, the spice of life, and to ensure you're covering your bases nutritionally. So, yeah, I'm not one to tell people, like, you have to get an apple, a banana, berries, and et cetera because, you know, these phytonutrients. More so, it's just a matter of variety is good. You know, probably want to have kind of that decent 80-20 rule where 80% of your foods are, you know, single item ingredients, quote unquote, clean, if you will. Yeah. Stuff that you have to produce, it doesn't come in a package. Exactly. Exactly. And then the other 20% is whatever you want, really, so long as you're

still meeting those requirements of getting in your micronutrients, getting in enough protein and gaining weight, which is basically your surrogate for an energy surplus. Going back to the issues people have, sometimes they'll come to me and they're eating too clean and they're eating too high of protein. A high water, high fiber, high protein diet is one of the most satiating diets you can have. Satiation is useful to a point, but when you're actually trying to gain weight, that can actually become a barrier. So sometimes I will tell people, all right,

I want you to eat no more than 0.8 grams a pound of protein. We'll put you at kind of the lower ends. And let's go from like an 80-20 to like a 70-30 and get some more, you know, Chipotle in there or whatever we need to do, you know, burrito gains so um what do we need to put down so you can gain weight more easily more palatable food essentially yeah so some of the opposite rules to what you'd probably want to do while trying to avoid excess fat gain or actually trying to cut um so that's one of the things that's kind of been lost in the the kind of new age if it fits your macros is that sure you can fit anything into your diet but do you want an entire diet of highly palatable foods that actually makes you hungrier or less

satiated because that makes it actually harder to follow your diet and starves your body of vital nutrients that keep you disease and dysfunction free if that matters yeah it should and then it definitely should matter. And some people will find crazy ways to like, you know, I get my fruits and my vegetables. I take a green supplement and the multivitamin. Yeah. And then I have ice cream for, you know, 30 to 40% of my calories. That's actually common. So if you want to speak to that quickly, like, I mean, you see that all over special, special social media, but that's like what, that's what they tell themselves. They're like, I don't, or even, I mean, that's even going a little bit further. Honestly,

what I see more of is Chipotle over and over and over and ice cream, but multivitamin. You know what I mean? Yeah. If there was a time to do that, it probably would be during a gaining phase for someone who struggles to gain weight. That'd be a decent remedy to that. Now, this is just daily life. This is not because of that. Now, daily life, I would advise that. If you truly can find a way to get all the phytonutrients in your fiber and have decent nutrient spread to ensure that all the zoo and phytonutrients are in there and micronutrients are covered and you're getting blood work done to confirm it and you feel good fine go for it but i just i have a tough time believing that that yeah i mean that means that you have to eat certain kinds of foods right especially if we're talking salt soluble

fiber fruits and vegetables like where else are you going to get it correct yeah yeah um so yeah so anyway yeah food quality is important but don't forget satiety that's kind of the the wrap up to that little rant we both had. You know, I want to say one more thing on that. So I think it's also funny that in a lot of cases, people are – it's almost like they're gloating about how they can eat this or eat that. Or it's become like the cool thing, especially on social media, to kind eat like shit, but at least stay relatively lean or, you know, have some sort of a physique. Um, and then other people will celebrate it and, you know, well, yeah, we need more of this or they tell themselves, you know, I'm just not

going to feel guilty about food anymore. I'm just gonna eat the fucking hamburger every day. And, you know, now I don't have any psychological associations one way or another, just macros and shit. Um, I think that it's, I, I, I would challenge someone like that to eat, to do almost do like a whole 30. Like you have to eat super clean for 30 days. That is actually takes more. I think that's more, that should be more celebrated because what are we, so, so you learned a bit, you learned, you know, dieting one-on-one and now you just eat a bunch of shit food because you can, I don't understand what's cool, but it doesn't require anything. It doesn't require any willpower. It doesn't require any, uh, I mean, it's just stupid. It actually requires

like ignorance really of how the body works and why nutrition is, is, is important. Um, so I almost like want to create a more flexible kind of not retarded whole 30 and make that a thing. And here's, here's a challenge. How about you eat really, really well for 30 days and then you might actually be surprised at how much better you feel. You know what I mean? Yeah. I, I look at that a lot of the times. And I probably sound like a parent with a teenager. And I go, oh, look, they're in that phase. That's what I think when I see those posts.

Because I remember going through the same thing when I first started where I had certain misconceptions about what I had to do nutritionally and what my primary variables I should focus on. And when I really realized, oh man, a huge part of this does come down to calories and calories out and having a good macro spread and being consistent with that and realizing that I didn't have to eat just a list of six foods. And so you tend to extreme, go to the other way. And then you may even feel like resentful towards the fitness industry that told you you had to eat you know broccoli chicken rice oats and tilapia you know

yeah and cottage cheese but only after 8 p.m kind of thing and um and so you go on this like look what i can do kind of thing and uh it's very much akin to yeah it's akin to when you when you know you're your freshman year of college and you start to read about U.S. foreign policy, and you become basically like a revolutionary for at least a semester before you get that out of your system. So I see it as kind of the same way. And sure, that's fair enough. And I think there was a time when it was valuable. You know, my colleague and close friend and business partner, Alberto Nunez, was the guy who popularized the Pop-Tart in the fitness industry by just taking pictures of him eating it on a regular basis.

And in 2007, 2008, 2009, that really was challenging the idea that you could never have anything that wasn't on the approved list. And I think he saw value in going, right, I'm leaner than a leanest, everybody. And there was kind of this message of, yeah, you can get lean with your macros, but you won't ever get to, like, top tier pro level conditioning. I remember that, yeah. Yeah, and there was kind of this kind of internal fight. And I know that some of the people on the side of trying to share the meals they had

when they were eating dirtier were just kind of going, you know, and just trying to create a little challenge some of the preconceptions people had. And I think there was value in that. But I don't know that anyone really – anyone informed really still thinks that you can't get lean, you know, unless you're eating really, really clean food. So I don't know if there's value in it today. I think moderation should be emphasized more rather than kind of bouncing between the two ends. So I largely agree with you. Yeah.

Yeah, I know. I remember when a lot of that stuff was going around, actually, from Alberta. He must have been, you know, prepping for a competition or he was because he was like skeleton lean. It was ridiculous. Yeah, man. Jack, Jack Holocaust victim. 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. All right, cool. So that's the calories, that's the macros, a bit on the nutrition side. One other thing that might be worth touching on quickly is, just because I've come across a lot, I'm sure you have as well where people, you know, if you're going to go and eat out and they don't quite understand how many calories are in a lot of restaurant foods and because they're bulking and they don't,

they feel like they don't really have to watch things as closely. They fuck up in that way. And they don't realize that like, yeah, that dinner was good that was like 6 000 calories with fucking 300 grams of fat you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah the um that's the easiest way for shit to sneak up on you is that you know palatable food and restaurants typically has just the average person i've talked to twice as much calories and twice as much fat typically because you can sneak in oils and butters yeah and portion sizes you know we don't like people will eat what's on their plate for the most part yeah regardless of the plate size um you know we don't really we don't really eat just purely by what

makes me satiated unless we're very aware of that and are training ourselves to do that which you know hey obesity epidemic so um even those of us in the fitness industry who probably won't ever become obese are still affected by that to some degree. You looking up a meal at Applebee's on MyFitnessPal may be right, but it's not like the cook in the back is going, he's making your pasta dish and then he goes, hold on, let me check MyFitnessPal. Oh, that's right, oh, he's making your pasta dish. And then he goes, hold on. Let me check my fitness, pal. Oh, that's right.

This should only be 1,200 calories. This one's actually 2,000. I need to remake it. No, you're going to get a 2,000-calorie meal. The next time you might get 1,800. The next time after that, it might be 2,100 calories. So the people at restaurants are not busting up the food scale for you. Yeah, I mean their job is to make the food taste as good as possible.

And that means oil, butter, cream as a base. Whenever you can work those into things, they get tastier. That's right. And not that you should be bringing a food scale to the restaurant. It's just that you need to have some system of accounting for that. Now, if you're tracking your body weight over time, you will very quickly realize your mistake because it will go up faster. But, you know, you don't want to be the guy or gal who is finding that out after the fact

or not knowing where that's happening. Like if you're consistently thinking, you know, I'm doing a good job when I go out to eat and, you know, I'm tracking it. Maybe I need to modify my nutrition outside of, you know, I'm tracking it. Uh, maybe I need to modify my nutrition outside of, you know, the, uh, the restaurant you're basically, you know, aiming at a secondary culprit to the problem. And, you know, if you're eating, let's say 5,000 calories on that day, like you said, and only 1500 of it's outside of the restaurant, you know, trying to reduce 1500 slightly, it's going to have a much smaller impact than trying to reduce 3500. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I would say there's nothing wrong with eating out. You just need to have a

realistic idea of what is actually in what you're ordering and probably still like order from like the healthier, smarter options on the, for the most part. Um, just so that you can be a little more confident that your, your tracking is accurate because really it's the mixed dishes with a lot of fat, butter, or oil, cream, and butter and sausage. Or certain meats, obviously, sausages and bacon and ground beef. Very high in fat, exactly. And that's where it gets snuck in. It's easy to estimate the protein and carbohydrate content of a meal meal out it's difficult to estimate how much fat's in there yeah and that's that's

typically where you're going to be surprised when you see the macros you're like whoa that's twice as much fat as i thought yeah so so yeah that's that's basically um dessert can be yeah really a lot more than you think right For the most part, someone who is careful about their food intake and very conscious of trying to gain muscle and keep their body fat levels under control, appetizers and desserts should be a rare thing, not the common thing. It'll just help you meet your nutrition targets, unless you're someone who just has a ridiculous energy expenditure level.

It might be a matter of eat whatever the hell you want and then make sure you're eating enough, but that's not everybody, and it certainly is probably the exception rather than the rule. One other thing that's just probably worth throwing out there that I like to do is I do all of what you're talking about, but then also sometimes I'll be thinking with the restaurant we're going to and what do I, uh, what do I think I want to, what do I think I want to eat? And so sometimes I will kind of just eat my protein and, you know, eat some vegetables, make a piece of fruit, just keep my, like I'm coming into the dinner with my protein more or less handled. Maybe I'm a little bit short.

So I, cause I usually like to eat some protein anyway. Um, but I've, I've saved a lot of my carbs or fat and I will do that. It's not something I would do regularly, but if it was like one day and I'm like, oh, I would like to go maybe, you know, 2,500 calories. And from this, you know, whether it's regardless of how I get there, that's also something that you can do. I wouldn't say it's something you want to do frequently in terms of multiple times a week, but sometimes I'll do that. No, that's a very useful tool. If you know you're going to go out to eat for dinner and it's probably going to be thousands of calories, then you could have protein and oats for breakfast.

I would do a salad with chicken. Yeah, exactly. A salad with chicken is exactly what I was going to say with not too much salad dressing or light salad dressing. And then you have a lot more flexibility when dinner time comes. And yeah, pre- and post-workout, you just do like a shake of whey earlier in the day if that's between lunch and dinner. And then you're set and you have a lot more flexibility when you go to the restaurant or at least a lot more room for air. So yeah, those are great practical tools for how to incorporate eating out when you're trying not to gain too quickly. Cool. Okay, great.

So I think that probably pretty much covers at least the big, bold headings of nutrition, right? I would say so. Cool. So now let's flip to the training side of things sure yeah and you know training like i said is not going to be that different than what you would do deficit or surplus you know in the end this is this is the signal that that generates you know the the potential to to gain muscle okay and you're then support supporting with your nutrition so right so maybe if you wanted to just drill down, because people can listen to our previous interview and learn the basics, but

how do things change? Maybe you want to touch on that. How do things change on the training side of the equation looking at cutting versus bulking? It's really just a matter of being slightly with an emphasis on slightly more aggressive, you know, like when, when I'll diet someone for a show, there's typically a regular deload schedule. Like we're going to do it every fourth week or something like that, because I want to make sure you're recovered. Um, I'm going to see how much volume I can get away with doing, you know, in, in terms of, of, of not doing i can get away with doing you know in in terms of of not

doing too much rather uh you know basically taking the lower end of a volume to to ensure that i'm you know making sure you can recover uh while during a surplus i would probably be a little more loosey-goosey with it and start with kind of in the middle of a of a certain range that i thought might be appropriate um obviously nothing that they had never done before that was totally foreign to them and a huge step up in volume, but certainly you have more ability to recover from training. So like you said, you can definitely check the last episode, but there still should be regular deloads and tapers and just any kind of method to the madness to where you're pushing for a while and then you're taking a planned period

of recovery instead of just going, man, I'm weak now. I don't understand. Which is a good thing to bring up because I run into that. It's one of the things I'll commonly ask if somebody tells me that if they're feeling kind of run down but they're eating enough food and they're sleeping fine and whatever it's one of the first things I ask when's the last time you tried not beating the shit out of yourself and just you know gave your body a break and in a lot of cases they haven't deloaded once it's been or it's been like nine months or something of really pushing it yeah well there's your problem yeah yeah i typically do every every every fourth to eighth week in someone's off season they will take a period where it is an intended easy week you know where you're doing about you know two-thirds of the volume you'd

normally do and uh rpe so how far you are for failure is maybe one one rep further for failure than it would be in a normal training. So that might be just short of failure if you're someone who's always pushing it, which maybe you shouldn't be doing, or further. And I think that's a good way to look at it is that you're going to plateau regardless, but you can either plateau on your terms by choice and then plateau less frequently in your actual training, or you can plateau and then just try to – the problem is what people do once they plateau. Like they'll reach a natural point where their fatigue level is higher than their fitness.

And they're like, oh, I don't understand. I was – I did 10 reps last week and then 9 reps before that, 8 reps before that. This week I only did 7 with the same load and hit failure. Like what's up with that? I'm feeling wrecked. And so what do they do they do another set you know so they'll they'll try to find some way to still induce progressive overload um which you know don't get me wrong it's a great mentality the reason why you're probably making gains and why you're doing this in the first place is because you're always wanting to push farther than you had previously yeah but you know your body just told you man i'm pretty beat up i can't recover

and actually perform better than last week and what did you do you forced another set in there so you actually could progress uh and then that continues for a few weeks until they really go off the rails um and either get an injury or just they they contact you know you or me and they're going i've been plateaued for two months i don't know what to do um and that's typically when you go right well we need to figure out some way to a get you out of the hole which is is easiest doing a deload yeah and then b we need to figure out some kind of method of organizing your training better so that you're not running yourself into the ground so you know an easy way is having you know like a thing in your head of okay for three to six weeks i'm going to be pushing to get progressive overload like I normally would. And then at the end of that, I will take a week where I'm dropping my intensity a little

bit and my volume by about a third. That's just a rough guideline. And you could even focus that towards movements that tend to fatigue you more. Yeah, I was going to ask on that. What about exercises? Yeah, that's a great way to do it, especially if you're like a powerlifter or heavily focused on like the big three. You know, people tend to start feeling joint issues quickly when they're –

That's how I personally experience like when I get to that point where I know that I need to dial back a bit is I start to feel it in my joints. Yeah, exactly. So typically the culprits are your barbell pressing and then your squat and deadlift variance. And you can definitely deload those more. Just do one set at a low RPE, and that will really give you your ability to get some of that semi-soft tissue to recover, along with the systemic recovery that would come with the deload as a whole. So yeah, I think that's important.

It's probably more important than a lot of other things, because if you're inducing progressive overload and you've got a decent setup, like we talked about in our last podcast, then really the, uh, the emphasis should just be, okay, well, how do I manage fatigue from pushing? And is there anything in terms of exercise selection, uh, when you're programming, uh, you know, a cut versus a bulk or does that look more or less the same? It looks more or less the same, for sure. I think exercise selection for someone who's focused on hypertrophy really comes down to personal preference with some intelligence behind it. You definitely want to have a solid base of compound movements.

They do or don't have to be the big three or the barbell lifts or the big four, like the overhead press or all these things. But certainly you want to have like a horizontal push, horizontal pull, vertical push, vertical pull, squat pattern, and a hip hinge pattern. And those should be your bread and butter. And then around that, you can get your single joint movements in there. You can have a few different machines that you really like or you really feel target certain areas, you know. And that's going to be true of everybody based on your biomechanics, your body awareness, and your training experience. There's going to be certain muscle groups that you may have trouble feeling.

Typically, like for most people, it's going to be a muscle in their back or it's going to be maybe their, like, lateral or rear delt. I run into sometimes with, as I say pecs with bench pressing i'll run into guys especially guys that are new new to weightlifting they they feel like all they feel is you know triceps or anterior delt right yeah so i mean again unless you're unless you're a power lifter or unless you really want to be able to answer that question how much bench bench pro, then if you're not feeling your pecs, then, hey, emphasize horizontal adduction more and then do some dumbbell pressing. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Your pecs don't care. As long as they're stimulated, they will grow. So, yeah, I see nothing wrong with that. I personally have always gotten great pec growth out of bench press, but I've met tons of people who don't. So I think exercise selection, don't just do what you've heard is good or what you've seen your favorite athlete or model do, is really think about, okay, I need to train all my muscle groups to get them to grow, and so what compound movements do I feel all the targeted primary and synergist movers in, and then round it out with the accessories?

And that should be the accessories or secondary movements should probably be the minority of your total volume, in my opinion. Right. And probably on the lower end of intensity, right? Yeah, definitely. Like, I don't think there's really a purpose of doing like sets of five on my pull down, you know? Yeah. there's really a purpose of doing like sets of five on my pull down, you know? Um, so I mean, you could, but like for the most part, certain rep ranges sit well with certain exercises. For sure. Yeah. Um, even, even just even functionally there are certain exercises just doesn't lend itself well to heavy lifting because it gets too sloppy. And, uh, you, I mean, I've run into that where certain, right. I don't really feel the muscle that I want to train working properly with that amount

of weight. So, yeah. And it goes the other way too. Like, sure. Every person is serious about lifting weights has done, you know, widow makers on squats and done their 20 rep sets to failure. But what they don't tell you is that they weren't able to do anything else that workout. Yeah.

You know, like, like I literally remember going through a period where I was doing those and, you know, I would take like a five minute rest period after the first set. Yeah. The next set I would have to take like a 10 minute rest period. The third set would make me throw up literally. And then I would get some hamstring curls done and go home. Like that's a, that's a shitty workout. You know, let's be honest. Yeah.

Um, I remember my first 10 sets of 10 that was the worst shit ever actually yeah there you go that's another fantastic way of well at least there you're getting the volume in you know like yeah enough volume for uh for a week and a half yeah exactly for three leg sessions yeah so yeah the it so so like some things like a compound movement is valuable because you're training multiple, multiple groups at once. To then throw a ton of metabolic and cardiovascular fatigue on top of that, that's a problem. Because if you think about it, every repetition of a compound movement is going to be compounding the amount of fatigue that you have compared to an isolation movement per rep. So it probably makes sense to focus more on a low volume, low to moderate repetition, you know, tension stimulus and then get your your high rep work that's easier on your joints.

And that, like you said, lends yourself to more easier muscle activation when you're doing, you know, machine work and isolation work. So for the most part, if you're like I tend to keep, you know, bench 10 reps and under, I tend to keep, you know, my squats and my deadlifts, front squats and RDLs like eight reps and under, um, deadlifts probably actually more like six reps and under. And then, uh, then I'll, I'll be doing, you know, eight to 15 on everything else. Yeah. Makes sense. And, uh, just, just back to that point of, of not feeling a muscle activating fully or properly on a given exercise. I think it's worth just mentioning everybody listening that, cause I know what, just from people reaching out to me, what they, what they initially think is

that they're doing the exercise wrong. They think that their form is bad. And so sometimes people send me videos of form and no, it looks good. Like there's no, I mean, sure you might be able to nitpick little things, but that's not the problem. So it's just, I think worth just highlighting that for people listening that just because a bench press works great for, you know, for me and, and Eric and you, Eric, doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to work great for everybody. And you can have the perfect form spotless, you know what I mean? Yeah. And also the, um, you tend to get these polarizing views on, um, feeling the muscle work. So you'll get the people who will tell you, like, hey, if you're a bodybuilder,

you want to feel the target muscle work in all movements. And you'll get other people who may or may not be bodybuilders who will be like, well, just focus on form and just do it and don't worry about what it feels like. They're both right, but I think it's exercise specific. Like if I'm doing a squat, no, I'm not thinking about my vastus lateralis. I'm just squatting. That's taking 60% of the muscle groups in my body. Which muscle am I supposed to focus on?

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, and it's a dangerous movement. These are high relative deadlift movements. Obviously, it's more dangerous to be weak and not trained. But a deadlift, a squat, some of these heavy compound barbell movements, you know, heavy pressing like a standing overhead press and even a bench press if you can. If you're already feeling all the muscle groups, you don't need to focus and you probably shouldn't focus on any single muscle group. And if you're doing like a cable row or like a lat pulldown or a bicep curl or tricep pushdown, feel free. down or a bicep curl or tricep push down, feel free. You know, there's only a few target muscles you're actually trying to work. So you can definitely focus on one and get more of that

quote unquote, my muscle connection. There's no issue there, but when you're doing, you know, a complex athletic movement, you should be trying to develop movement skill, not feeling a specific muscle group. That's a good point. Actually. Um, it's a very good point. I guess that's more just how the complaints come is like, I don't feel my pecs on the bench press because – Yeah, sure, there's more involved in bench press. But at that moment, at that time, to them, bench press equals bigger chest. Why do I not feel my – why do I not feel my pecs? Yeah, yeah.

And it's a little easier on the upper body lifts. But, yeah, you really shouldn't be thinking about what muscle groups are working. You should be thinking about your form on a deadlift or a squat. Yeah, and just trusting and knowing that if you're performing a deadlift properly and you're using any amount of weight, your back is working. You don't really have to overthink it. That's about it. That's all you need to know. There's no way you're standing up without it.

Exactly. the way you're standing up without it exactly exactly um but yeah on something like a bench press um yeah that's like we said before you'd probably want to just try switching to a different compound lift with dumbbells and you know it may sort itself out yeah i mean i've i and you've probably seen this as well i've seen it where so so a person's in that situation guys in particular obviously with bench press and then either they just keep working and these are generally when i've come across as people that are new to weightlifting and uh sometimes very new and i have to explain to them they're also starting with not a lot of muscle or strength so i have to explain to them like this is pretty common looks like give me give me a couple months of solid work on it and then

let's see you know what i mean um so i've seen that where then as they as they actually gain some strength and put on a bit of muscle they didn't realize like everything that they wanted to happen was happening it just they didn't they weren't aware of it for a little bit um i've seen that and i've also seen where somebody has has transitioned okay let's let's do some dumbbell pressing for a bit and and then come back to the barbell or vice versa and now it uh it feels right you know what i mean yeah definitely i actually do like the bench press or at least barbell movements allow smaller increments and load to be used yeah so you know ideally um you know i'd like to see someone able to do them and feel everything and you're right when you're in the first i'd say the first six months of lifting and if your form is

actually correct and safe just keep training like i i don't think you should be trying to troubleshoot yet because you don't actually you're not a fully formed like you're still you're an amoeba in my yeah exactly you're a single cell organism you know but yeah just like it just takes time to to feel everything and to be aware i mean it's it's not even necessarily an issue of activation you just don't have the body awareness yet to do that yeah so um so don't stress it just keep training totally agreed um all right last thing supplementation anything that you want to say on on that because obviously hard yeah and then when you're cutting you have to eat cleanse

yeah right right no no on a very serious note um supplements are there's a there's a small And then when you're cutting, you have to eat cleanse. Yeah, right, right, right. No, no. On a very serious note, supplements are – there's a small handful of them that work beyond just spending your money. And there's fewer that are useful and effective in a bulking period because you're not dealing with the stressors of dieting. And fat loss is not a goal so um but be very aware that i mean even creatine the most researched and probably most useful supplement for putting on strength and muscle mass you may not be able to notice the difference of being on creatine or not if you were to do like a placebo controlled trial and you had to guess whether or not you were given creatine or not. And that's the most effective supplement.

So it's definitely supplementary. And it may be 1%. And some people just don't respond. That's true. That's very true. So, yeah. So let me run a few by you that I know people saw. BCAAs.

That's very common, right? You have to fucking drink the pink water all day. Yeah. BCAA, I i think are largely overrated um they're a really expensive way when you could really expensive way to get in protein when you could just be taking you know a scoop of way for for much cheaper yeah yeah um and all of these because obviously the pitch is like oh you're then your body's super anabolic all day all the time yeah you don't want that um because it it's not, there's what's called a

refractory period. You know, if you're trying to take protein in all the time, like I actually think it would probably be detrimental to have like a constant IV of BCA going into you because amino acids have to compete there. You actually wouldn't run into problems if you were to theoretically do that. Right. But anyway, the main selling points of BCAA, if you look at what studies that do blip as far as having a positive effect, what you don't realize is that you get the same effect from either taking more protein or having carbohydrates. So sure, yes, BCAAs are directly metabolized in the muscle. Yes, BCAAs elevate muscle protein synthesis. But guess what also is directly metabolized in the muscle?

Glycogen. Guess what also raises muscle protein synthesis? Whole protein that you then break down. So then people go, what if you're in a fasted state or dieting? Well, it's like, why are you training completely fasted? Well, if you feel better with performance, okay. Is half a scoop away really going to be that much of a problem or even a full scoop? It's not like you're going to feel completely different um so yeah i i rarely run into a situation where i think um bca is warranted and i think i've seen a total of one study and it was on cardio that

were where it actually in a fasted state um compared to carbohydrate there's one study i've seen where a similar amount of BCAA produced better performance. But so all of the fasted track athletes who are listening to this podcast, maybe you want to consider it. But I think that's zero people. So, yeah. Great. What about like weight gainers? Yeah.

I mean, if you are the person who is really, really struggling to put on weight, maybe making it liquid and blending stuff together or getting a commercial weight gainer makes sense. It just seems like a waste of money to me to get basically low-quality whey protein and multidextrin with a multivitamin added. You could probably just get peanut butter, honey, oats, and whey protein and blend it together for a third of the price. But yes, going liquid is a very useful way of getting in calories if you're really struggling to gain weight. I've recommended juicing to people, and I don't mean taking steroids, but just getting more of your carbohydrate through fruit juices as a way of getting more calories down.

But don't put weight gainers on a pedestal. They're really cheap ingredients sold in big bags. Totally. That are, you could easily make yourself or similar. Yeah, I have one coming out that's not that, which is why I'm bringing that up. Fantastic. That's the pitch. The pitch is essentially like this is the problem with weight gainers.

So here's one that actually has nutritious, high-quality ingredients. And no, this doesn't automatically help you gain weight. This is what it does help you do. You know what I mean? Which a lot of people have asked for that because they want not – they think of it as a weight gainer or a meal replacement. You know what I mean? It's – So it's like bodybuilder's toilet.

Yeah, actually. That's awesome. That's what it's called. Fuck, how did you know uh yeah exactly but i like it yeah yes yeah that's that's that's the idea but um okay good so that's that's weight gainers um any other supplements that i mean there are oh there's testosterone boosters we can just say that they all do nothing don't even waste your time that's a decent i mean it's a decent decent way of doing it and even if they did boost your testosterone would it actually help your

muscle gain probably not with the normal physiological ranges and they probably aren't boosting your testosterone anyway exactly and if there's yeah i mean whatever there may be a couple instances like daa that maybe it maybe in some people for two weeks by a little bit or shit like that that's irrelevant, right? Yes. So that's that. Any other supplements that you get asked about that people associate with, you know, gaining muscle and strength that you want to talk about? Yeah, I mean, there's some ones that I recommend to a lot of people interested in muscle gain

is it's kind of like your baseline. That would be, you know, like a reasonably dosed multivitamin, fish oil, and vitamin D3 if you don't get a lot of sunlight. Just most of us, really. Yeah. I mean there was a study that came out that said I think roughly 80% of people in westernized countries – I forget which westernized country, but they tend to be pretty similar when I looked at surveys – are mildly deficient in vitamin D. So obviously we don't want a nutrient deficiency. are mildly deficient in vitamin D. So obviously we don't want a nutrient deficiency.

And most multivitamins don't have a high enough dose of D that would probably reverse that. I think it's like 40 to 80 IU per kilogram is a decent recommendation. Yeah, I think that's right. I may be getting that a little bit wrong. So get on examine.com if you're thinking about supplementing with D3. Ideally, you would actually want to get blood work done to make sure you aren't in the 20% that's supplementing unnecessarily. But that is something to consider. And then, you know, if you're kind of like a pure bodybuilder or a pure strength athlete, it would be, you know, your creatine and potentially citrulline malate, which is shown to more recently. This is something I wouldn't even have recommended like two years ago.

But in the last year, there's been multiple labs that have come out and shown that it seems to be helpful with accomplishing more training volume. And then one that I've become less enamored with, as I've seen more research come out, is actually beta-alanine, which I think is probably only relevant if you're doing continuous efforts longer than 30 seconds um or 60 seconds depending on which study or which meta-analysis you're looking at so maybe if you're like a crossfitter or if you're doing uh if you care just as much about your anaerobic training as you do your resistance training that would be something to do or if you're the guy who's like what are you guys talking about i love 20 rep sets of squats and i do them every leg day then certainly you might want to bust out one you're psychotic and two

and two enjoy beta alanine it might help you be slightly less less uh damaged so yeah great that's pretty much it man yeah yeah i mean hmb was going around for a bit uh there was that nonsense research on it but i think that I think people are generally over that now. rest and things like that and typically doesn't do well in um trained populations and the studies like you said that have come out where it has done well they've done really well the stats don't look right yeah and like better better than steroids well right yeah and and it comes from a group that um the studies they do on supplements always go well so i would i would want to see replication by another group before uh i ever committed to that so yeah i don't i don't i'll be honest i don't trust that research yeah yeah

that's the general consensus um okay great well i think that's everything uh i mean is there anything anything left that you think that we didn't touch on that you wanted to to share yeah just go hard or go home you know know? No, I'm just kidding. Train it, say it, or be the same. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, exactly. We could have just said that, actually, and I just saved an hour. We would have covered everything.

No, I thought about covers a minute. Okay, awesome. Well, let's wrap up with where people can find you, find your work, if there's anything that you're working on in particular right now that you want people to know about. Sure. It totally depends on what level of nerd you are. So if you really just want to like get some, some information, how to train and you're interested in some of the stuff I'm talking about, I would check out our YouTube channel at 3dmusclejourney.com. There's a link there to see it, where we have a lot of information for

bodybuilders and powerlifters. If you're really wanting to get into the nuts and bolts of training, I've got a couple of books based on the video series I did back in the day called the Muscle and Strength Pyramids, which basically cover all of the things you need to know about setting up your nutrition or training plan. That's at muscleandstrengthpyramids.com. Those are two e-books you can check out. I'll put links also. So anybody, if you're watching YouTube, just, you know, if you're on the website or whatever, you'll see down below. Awesome. And then for the, the nerdiest of the nerds who really want to follow the research that like the

muscle strength pyramids is built on and the ongoing research that's coming out, uh, you got to check out monthly applications, the strength sport or mass, which is our monthly research review targeted at strength and physique athletes or the, you know, the, the recreational people really interested in that and their coaches. Uh, and that's with myself, Dr. Mike Zerdos, and Greg Knuckles. You just want to go to strongerbyscience.com slash mass. Cool. Awesome. I highly

recommend that. It's something that I promoted. I rarely promote things. Rarely ever, actually. I highly endorse everything that Eric does. Thanks, brother. He's on the short list of people that I read all your stuff. I'm a fan as well. Awesome, man. I can get into the Mike Matthews VIP club.

That's what you're saying. I'll fly you over. The bouncer would let me in. All right, cool. That's everything, man. Again, thanks a lot for taking the time. I appreciate it. I know it's going to go over well. People have been asking for it, so we have delivered. Cool. 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 four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at musclecleForLife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.