Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How Legion Coaching Helped Wade Lose 14 Pounds & 6% Body Fat In Just 90 Days

Episode Date: April 4, 2018

In this episode I interview Wade, who recently completed my 90-day coaching service, to hear his story. He shares how he found his way to me and my work, including what he had tried previously, how things changed after he started implementing the advice in my books and articles, and how my 90-day coaching service helped him take his body to a whole new level. As with everything, nothing ever goes exactly as planned, and learning to adjust and adapt to conditions is an important part of the fitness game, which is something Wade has experienced firsthand. He has run into a number of stumbling blocks along the way that most of us can relate to, including exercise and meal scheduling troubles and hunger, cravings, and dietary temptations to stray, and in our chat, Wade shares what has helped him navigate these barriers skillfully and prevent them from getting in his way. So, if you like hearing motivational stories about how people have changed their bodies and lives, and if you want to pick up a few tips that may help you along in your personal journey, then this episode is for you. 5:34 - What’s your fitness story before you found my work? 9:10 - How did it go when you started the Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program? 13:21 - What was your daily workout routine? 13:34 - Why do you like working out early in the morning? 15:16 - Why do you like to eat fewer meals every day? 21:15 - What was your experience with our coaching service? 24:10 - What were the problems in your diet? 25:00 - How did you overcome your diet problems? 32:00 - What were your results after our coaching program? 35:22 - What are your fitness goals after our coaching program? 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/

Thank you. Hey there, welcome to another episode of the Muscle for Life podcast. This is your host, Michael Matthews, and in this episode, I interview Wade, who recently completed my 90-day coaching service, to hear his story. And in this interview, he shares how he found his way to me and my work, including what he had tried previously, how things changed after he started implementing the advice in my books and articles, and then how my 90-day coaching service helped him take his body to a whole new level. and how my 90-day coaching service helped him take his body to a whole new level. Now, as with everything in life, nothing ever goes exactly as planned, and learning to adjust and adapt to conditions is an important part of the fitness game, which is something that

Wade has now experienced firsthand. Along the way, he has run into a number of stumbling blocks that most of us can relate to, including exercise and meal scheduling troubles and hunger cravings and dietary temptations to stray, especially weekend temptations to stray. And in our chat, Wade shares what specifically has helped him navigate these barriers skillfully and prevent them from getting in his way. So if you like to listen to motivational stories about how people have changed their bodies and lives, and if you want to maybe pick up a few tips that might help you along in your own personal journey, then this episode's for you.

This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my fitness book for women, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 150,000 copies in the last several years,

and it has helped thousands of women build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 1,200 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that keep women from ever achieving the lean, sexy, strong, and healthy bodies they truly desire. And if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate female body, then you want to read Thinner, Leaner, Stronger today, which you can find on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can actually get the audio book 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audio books.

I myself love them because they let me make the time that I spend doing things like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog and so forth into more valuable and productive activities. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, simply go to www.bitly.com slash free TLS book. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just have to click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for free. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now, at least. Let's get to the show. Hey, Wade, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate you taking the time.

Thanks, Mike. Glad to be here. Yeah. So as these episodes go, this is going to be about you and your story. And for people listening, I kind of break it down a little bit in the intro, but a lot of people skip intro. So just so you know, I like to once a month interview, I guess everybody now has been people that have gone through my coaching service, my 90-day transformation coaching service, just because they've been very accessible and open to doing it. But I also will probably branch out in the future and speak to people that have just read my books and just kind of used my advice in general. But the idea is to just talk to real

people out there and get their stories. And not only to, I mean, obviously it has marketing value, right? But that's not really my primary reason for doing it. One of the primary reasons I want to do this is everybody is, it's fine to start with like take one of my books or take any book or any program out there, anything you can learn on the internet. It's great to have a starting point, but rarely does a one size fits all diet or exercise program or, you know, even supplementation regimen work exactly the way that you want it to for everybody. Inevitably along the way, there are usually modifications that need to be made to fit a person's preferences and goals and lifestyles and so forth. So I thought that by interviewing

people like Wade, people that have used either gone through my coaching services or just kind of followed my programs and advices and find out how did it go specifically for them? What were the obstacles that they ran into that weren't necessarily addressed in my writings or speakings or anything and how did they overcome them and what are some of the lessons that they learned along the way. So yeah, so that's why we're here, Wade. Again, thanks for taking the time. So let's start with the beginning for you. And for that, let's say, how did you find your way to me and my work? What were you doing previously? Where had that gotten you, both the

good and the bad? I've always been a skinny guy, very athletic and, you know, lots of stamina and always been happy with my appearance and my physique. You know, as a younger guy in my 40s, early 40s now, I was never inhibited in anything I wanted to do. I was very active. in anything I wanted to do. I was very active. However, I've never really worked out as far as lifting weight, strength training or anything like that. It just never was something that I got into or was interested in that much, to be honest. However, when I was in my mid-30s, things started happening. I noticed these rolls when I sat down that I'd never had before in my gut area, which I didn't like. But, you know, it still wasn't enough to make me want to work out or do something about it. Probably in my later 30s, 37 or so, 36, I had a health checkup.

37 or so, 36. I had a health checkup and my goodness, my triglycerides were out the roof above 500. My cholesterol was above 350. My blood pressure was high. I was not in the shape that I've been used to being in most of my life. The kicker for me was I've actually took my left hand and wrapped it around my bicep. And God honest truth, I could almost touch my fingers. That was embarrassing to me just for myself. You had kind of like a do I even lift moment. Exactly. It was terrible. You know, I had gotten more sedentary later on.

You know, obviously age and non-activity was catching up with me. My older brother had been asking me to work out with him for years, and I was not ever interested. So at that moment, you know, I got in contact with him and started working out with his routine. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know what to do. I was just doing what I was told to do. So it was basically a three day a week routine. We did two sets. The first set was a 15 reps and the second set would be heavier weight at six reps. You know, it worked OK. It worked OK for a few months.

I never was really interested in getting serious about it until one day he just stopped working out. And so I didn't have a partner anymore. And I didn't really like his routine too much. So I guess, Mike, that's where I found you somehow or another, you know, looking up different routines and different workout regimens. And I still wasn't very knowledgeable about anything. I ran into your site in 2013, your information and your books soaked up as much as I could. Started with the Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program, ordered the book immediately. That's where it began. And within just a few weeks, I was seeing results that I hadn't seen before. But that's how I ran into you, basically, in a moment where my health was declining, my physique was terrible.

And, you know, I was the ultimate skinny fat guy. It was horrifying as far as, you know, what I'd been used to most of my life and the direction I was going. And how did it go in the beginning? So you get on the program, you're starting to see results. How did that go? Still didn't know what I was doing, really, to be honest with you. So I just, I did as much as I could, followed instructions and form as best I could. And one of the most impressive things, I guess, for me was some questions I had,

not just I just emailed you, like a couple weeks after starting the routine. And you email me back quickly. That was pretty impressive. That really got me definitely more interested. And so when I first started the program, I guess I was doing okay, but I still hadn't had any thought of changing my diet, which was terrible. And the more I read your book and the more I realized that that was probably one of the more significant things that I needed to do as far as getting things, my physique, the way I wanted to. I mean, it's a good, I think exercise is a good place to start for a lot of people that I've even told people that if they feel a bit overwhelmed in the beginning, not that that was necessarily you, but I've emailed with a lot of people that have felt overwhelmed

in the beginning. And I tell them, all right, let's just start simple. Why don't you start with here three days a week. Let's have a push day. Let's have a pull day. Let's have a legs day. You know, I even have a, I have an article here on my website. Just follow this simple three day routine and then come back to me in like a month.

Don't even worry about your diet. The furthest I'd recommend is try to make, quote unquote, maybe some healthier decisions here and there. But let's start with the exercise and then let's circle back around to the diet. And that's exactly the route I took. So getting the gym time in and doing it correctly, feeling like I was accomplishing something there was definitely the first step. And it made a difference as far as my strength and, you know, my appearance pretty quickly without even changing my diet. Exactly. And that's motivating, right? I mean, that's how I've... Absolutely. So then you feel more motivated to... Because changing

the diet, you know, adding exercise at first may seem difficult or unpleasant if you are not currently exercising. But once you get going, it actually becomes something that you enjoy, especially if you enjoy your workouts, which I think most people enjoy strength training more than traditional bodybuilding workouts or circuit training workouts or high-intensity workouts and so forth. You get into it. You start doing your workouts. You're like, oh, I actually kind of like these workouts. I feel good after. And it becomes a positive thing. But when it comes time to change your diet, it usually means kind of removing a lot of tasty foods that just give you nice hits of instant gratification. So that's just inherently less pleasant. It's inherently less pleasant to eat less sugar and more vegetables, for example, at least in the beginning. Whereas

I think it's inherently more enjoyable to go from not exercising to exercising. At least it becomes more enjoyable, I think, faster when you have workouts that you enjoy and you see results within the first couple of weeks. You're feeling stronger, you're feeling better, and you're like, oh, that's pretty cool. Absolutely. So once you get to that point, or at least for me, once I got to the point where physically I could feel and see the improvement and the results that were coming, you know, of course it was motivating and I wanted to learn more and do more to keep going. So that was definitely, you know, the first couple of weeks were tough, or maybe even the first three weeks, you know, because it's hard to see anything. But

once you actually start seeing the result, there was no stopping me at that point. You know, that was, I was all in and, you know, I wanted to learn as much as I could diet wise, not only that, but just keep continuing to learn more about the exercises and the form and, you know, the best way to kind of incorporate the meals that I needed to eat and the exercise program into my day, which has changed a lot based on, you know, my life at the moment. But one thing that I've always done is try to incorporate my gym time and my eating habits into my day, the best way that it helps me to be successful at it. It's not the same. I'm sure the way I go about it is the same, the way that a lot of people would go about it. How do you go about it? It's worked for me. I like to work out early, early, early in the mornings. And when I say early, I'm up at four and lifting weights by 420. Why do you like it that way? Number one, it fits into my day better because I'm very busy during the day. I run a construction business with 15 employees and it's an all day thing and it's nonstop.

So if I don't do it early in the morning, I have a hard time finding the time to get it done later on. Plus, there's family issues that, you know, we all we all have to deal with coming home and, you know, taking care of the kids and making sure everybody's, you know, doing good. And, you know, secondary to that would be lifting weights. So early in the morning works best schedule wise, but I'm by far at my feel the best. I'm in a better mood in the morning. I'm stronger in the morning. I have more energy in the morning. So I enjoy it. I'm stronger in the morning. I have more energy in the morning.

That's interesting. So I enjoy it. I enjoy it for all the same reasons, but I find I'm stronger later. If I were really trying to optimize my life for, I guess, my performance in the gym, I would be working out probably sometime around now, actually, 4 or 5 p.m., before dinner. I got you. That's why I say everybody's a little different. before dinner. I got you. That's why I say everybody's a little different. And I think that I'm definitely not in the same category as most people as far as, you know, when I like to work out. Now, not to say that I won't work out later in the day or at night sometimes if I have to, but my preference is to get up early in the morning and to go work out. And, you know, other

than my vitamins and my pulse, you know, I don't eat my first meal usually until at least 12, usually around one o'clock. Uh, so, and I feel good. Why do you do that? Do you just, you just like to eat fewer, larger meals? It's more satisfying. I do. I am much more satisfying to me. And I feel like if I eat earlier than that, And I feel like if I eat earlier than that, for some reason, my body just wants to eat the rest of the day. You know, otherwise I can I don't even think about food until it's oh, it's you know, I need to get some some protein and some carbs in me, you know. So my workout and my diet, I guess, would be considered, you know, intermediate fasting. But it's not really what I knew that that was until later. But I knew that that's the way that worked for me. And I got the best results from that. And

I still do. That's the way I still prefer to go about my day as far as my workout and my diet. Yeah. I mean, the great thing with that is once you understand the fundamentals, you understand the things that aren't negotiable. Like if we're talking diet, it's obviously energy balance and macronutrient balance. And you could say nutritional balance, I guess, or micronutritional balance. Once you understand there are hard boundaries, everything else is flexible. Meal timing is flexible. Meal frequency is flexible. It's pretty clear at this point, research-wise, that having intermittent fasting is not ideal for maximizing muscle growth. Ideally, you'd probably be eating, let's say, five-ish servings of protein per day,

separated by a few hours. But we're talking about, again, optimization. That's not – so long as you're eating enough calories and you're doing what you need to do in the gym and you're eating enough protein, you're still going to be able to gain muscle and strength. But if you were trying to be a natural bodybuilder where you live and die by every pound of lean mass on your body, yeah, then you might want to consider changing that. But again, it's just knowing what are you trying to do and how does this fit into your life on the whole. That's great that you've found something that works for you, even though it's unconventional, working out that early and then not eating for that long.

I feel like I do pretty well fasting, but I don't even know. I don't think I would feel good if I, if I did that, it wouldn't work for me. Yeah. Well, for some reason doing any other way does not work for me as far as, you know, if I eat in the morning, I'm just not as energetic for some reason. And I don't know if it's a psychological thing, the way my body responds. It just't matter. Who cares? The thing is, you just know that's how it is. So you just go with it. Right, right. And I didn't figure that out like in the first month, you know, I guess, you know, following your program for the first year or so, measuring and weighing my food and counting every calorie. I mean, I was very meticulous about that for a couple of years to the point now that I don't really actually have to count every calorie

or every macro. Because now you know so much about what you eat, right? So you have such a good intuitive sense of the foods that you eat that maybe if you were cutting and wanting to get super lean, yeah, there's a point where you kind of have to be pretty anal about every gram of food you're putting in your body. But I'm the same way. When I'm in maintenance mode, I don't track or measure everything I eat. I do tend to follow a meal plan and I'm eating foods that I know and that I like, but I just know by portions at this point, I know what my meals should look like approximately.

And that's one of the nice things though, of putting in that, you know, the more difficult, the grindy work on the, on the dietary side of things is that is really getting down to tracking calories and measuring food. And by going through that process, you learn things that you can't really learn otherwise. Like, I don't know there's any other way unless you wanted to be really academic about it and like put together flashcards of food sizes. You know what I mean? It would be nonsense.

You really need to just go through that phase so you really also see how your body responds to energy balance and macronutrient balance. And then you gain the confidence of, okay, I can take off the training wheels now and I'm not just going to fall on my face. Right. And I don't care what anybody says. You don't realize how many calories you're getting and how many grams of protein and fat and carbs, unless you've counted your calories before and went through that process. It is ridiculous how many calories you can eat in a day without really even realizing it. Definitely an eye opener for me, realizing there is an amount

of fat that you can eat in a day that is going to definitely show up the next day, you know, two trips to fast food places and you're done, you know, and that's what counting your calories also does for you. It kind of gives you a little bit of guilt, you know, because you see exactly what you've eaten that day. If you've done, if you've strayed off a little bit, you know, the more I can know about every little detail, for some reason, I'm happier and can do better. So that definitely helped me. You know, I couldn't really reach my goals as far as getting as lean as I wanted to without going through that process.

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and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. So what, here, I'm going to have some numbers in front of me, but I'll let you kind of walk through how you found your way then to the coaching service, where you were at when you started, how did that go? How did it compare to when you were flying solo? Like I said, I'd been following your program since 2013. A few years later, three or four years later, I'd stopped working out. i'd stopped even caring about what i was eating and again i got to a point where gosh i look terrible you know although i wasn't as bad as i i was before you know life i guess you know it ended up being to the point where i was missing a day a week and then

next thing you know i'm missing two three days a week then i'm missing a day a week. And then next thing you know, I'm missing two, three days a week. And then I'm missing a week. And then it got to the point where I just didn't go back. And then after you haven't went back to the gym and you stop following your meal plan. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you get to a point. Yeah.

And it's like, I'm so far behind now. It'll take forever, you know, to catch back up. But I knew going to the gym really wasn't a big problem for me. Getting the gym time in is I always was able to find a way to do that. But I knew that if I was going to get back in it, I had to have some help with my meal plan because I need accountability for sure. help with my meal plan because I need accountability for sure. I'd never gotten as lean as I really wanted to get by myself. Never had a personal trainer, a dietician or anyone helping me. Everything I've done has been on my own. And with your help, going by the information I've read and learned, but there was a point I would get about 13, 14 percent. And then I could never get any leaner than that. I was getting stronger, building muscle, but that's really not the look I was looking for. I never wanted to be a big, muscular guy.

I just don't think that look is, you know, bodybuilding type guy. I'm 5'7", you know, and I never wanted to be a big, short, muscular guy. I just wanted to have a nice athletic look. And to get that look, I needed to be lean. And so when I decided I was going to get back to working out, I knew that if I was going to get to where I wanted to be, I needed some help. And I've been reading about the coaching program that you had been promoting. And it was fairly new at the time, but I knew that that was a program I wanted to try and see if I could reach the goals that I never was able to reach on my own. Although I did very well comparatively, speaking to 2013 to now, but I knew that I really needed some help to get to where I really wanted to be. So that's how I found your program.

Sure, that makes sense. And just because I'm curious, what was the underlying reason on the dietary side of things with why you get stuck? I mean, I'm assuming it was a diet thing, right? Absolutely, it was a diet thing. I guess the best way to put it is I was not able to resist having fun, going out with friends, turning away the drinks and the food when I really needed to, especially on the weekends. That is why I never could really reach my goals. Because if I did go a week or so, I would usually trash it that weekend. But I had no one to be accountable to.

I had no one but myself to sit here and say, well, you messed that up, but oh well. How did you overcome that? How did coaching help? Was it, I mean, yes, there's accountability, but I'm sure there was also a little bit more to it because that's something that, you know, I've gotten emailed about many, many times is whether it's from the angle of peer pressure or just the angle of, you know, I like to enjoy myself. And obviously, like we're social animals.

We like to be around other people. myself. And obviously, like we're social animals, we like to be around other people. And for me, that usually means being at restaurants or being around food, being around alcohol, even if it's just being over at somebody's house. How did you deal with that differently when you were going through the coaching program? Well, to me, how my coach Harry was able to help me in that with my diet was the key to the success for me. We started with a meal plan, of course, you know, what I like to eat and, you know, what would satisfy me as far as, you know, eating during the day. And so that was pretty easy to do. However, as we got into it, a good three or four weeks and every day I had to pretty much let him know what my calories were, my macros. And if I didn't come in at my calorie goal, he didn't have a problem asking me

why, what's going on. And pretty much I had to tell him what was going on. And my biggest hurdle was the weekends. I want to go out Friday or Saturday, wherever it was, like you said, a friend's house, go out to eat, the lake, whatever, you know, I really didn't have a lot of self-control. Now, what Harry did for me was introduce the idea that, of course, more cardio work to burn the calories during the week. But not only that, things like taking hikes over the weekend and saving my calories during the day for the meals during the weekend, doing things extra that would help me burn those calories. And not only that, you know, giving me ideas about food choices that I could still enjoy myself on the weekends, but maybe try something a little different. Even with the drinks, you know, Harry was very knowledgeable about, you know,

the kinds of drinks that I enjoyed, whether it be a mixed drink or a beer. He made suggestions on other choices I could, you know, use instead. He made suggestions on other choices I could use instead. And what ended up happening was I started doing the hike on the weekend, which became something I really enjoyed and was doing more and more of. And I also upped my cardio during the week after my workouts. So I was burning more calories. I was doing more physical exercise on the weekend. And I changed my eating habits a little bit during the weekend, but not a whole lot. But the extra time I put in the cardio area and the hikes on the weekends allowed me to still not go crazy

on the weekends, but still enjoy myself and still reach my, my goals. Yeah, that's great. And those are, those are simple things that everybody can do. I mean, your workout habits and your, and your dietary habits during the week are unusual or uncommon. The, the weekend problem of course is super common. Yeah. Those are, those are very good tips for anybody to take away. Be physically active if you can over the weekend. And I myself, because I'm usually pushing myself pretty hard in the gym, I try to make sure that I have at least one day per week of no vigorous physical activity. Hiking is a great option because it's not that taxing on the body unless,

I don't know, unless you're like into some crazy hardcore style of hiking. But otherwise, it's just kind of like a bit more difficult walking. And also, like for me, it's too cold right now. But golf is another good example of something that I'll do that's physically active. You move around, you burn some energy, but you're not really cutting into your recovery and then saving calories. So, you know, if you know that you're going to be going out to dinner, just eating your protein throughout the day and saving all your carbs and fats for the dinner and then adding cardio through the week. So yeah, bumping up your total weekly energy expenditure, because you can look at your

energy expenditure however you want. Really, you could look at it in a day to day and you could also look at it on a week to week basis where depending on your goals, really what we're doing with the daily is creating the weekly. So you can also look at it though, from that zoomed out perspective and be like, okay, I know that my weekend, you can even say like on the weekend, I'm going to assume that I'm going to be actually in a slight surplus at least one of these days. And so, you know, how can I account for that? Or how can I mitigate the, I wouldn't say damage, but depending on it, like if you're cutting and you're trying to

get there as quickly as possible, you go, what can I do here? All right. I could bump up my, my expenditure a few days a week by adding, you know, even if it's just 20 minutes of cardio, two or three days a week. And then that buys me that room on the weekend to enjoy myself. And I still get to make the progress that I want to make. And that is exactly the route I took with, you know, the suggestions that my coach gave me, but I can't reiterate enough though, you know, how actually knowing when I'm eating or drinking something more than I should thinking in the back of my head. And even my girlfriend and my friends would, would laugh at me and say, you know, Oh, what's Harry going to say? You know, because I have to be accountable to him. And if I'm going, if I was going to,

you know, put the effort in that I needed to, you know, I had to let, be honest about what I ate that day. And he was very good at letting me know, you know, it's okay. It's a step backwards, but we can move forward this way. He was constantly in contact with me. He sent me articles all the time on the situations that I was dealing with, you know, as far as dietary plus other things. I had a little bit of a neck injury, pain in my neck that I was dealing with for about three weeks there and he sent me different types of exercises to use and to do during that time until it healed up you know so it was a constant communication between myself and my coach which made

things a lot easier because like I said, the accountability factor and just to know that my coach is there looking out for me and making sure that I'm staying on the right track and keeping me in line. And for me, that was key. That was key. And that, and I knew that when I signed up for the coaching service, that that would be what would either make or break me as far as my success. And like I said, I was 100% satisfied with how it went and the accountability that I did have in that 90-day program. That's great. And just because we haven't shared the exact results here. So you started at 157 pounds, right around 15, 16% body fat. And then 90 days later, you weighed about 145 pounds. You reverse dieted for the last few weeks. So your lowest weight was 143 at about nine to 10% body fat. And what's also kind of cool is with your measurements. So you drop three inches from your waist, but your shoulder measurements stayed the same, which is good, which means you probably gained a little bit of muscle because it depends on how much fat. I mean, we all tend to store our

fat differently. Like there are places that we all, we have stubborn, all of us guys at least have stubborn fat in that lower abdomen region. We just all do, but fat distribution can vary quite a bit from person to person. Like some people just tend to store a lot less fat in their abdomen region and more in their chest and shoulders, which is bullshit. But that's basically what happens is you'll have guys, I mean, my brother-in-law is like this. He could be 12 or 13% body fat, but he has the abs that you'd expect at maybe 9 or or 10%, and he just looks bigger up top because he just tends to preferentially store fat in his shoulders and chest. Of course,

he keeps on going and it goes everywhere. Anyways, it's good to see that something like a shoulder measurement, for example, didn't go down. Your arm measurements went up by a half inch to three quarters of an inch respectively. Your chest measurement was about a, what is this? Yeah, half of an inch down, which again, you expect, you really honestly, when you're cutting, you usually expect measurements to go down a little bit, especially like a chest measurement. And then your upper leg measurement went up by an inch and a half. So by all accounts, I guess what I don't have here is I'm just curious if you remember, how were your lifts? Were you gaining strength throughout the cut?

Oh, my goodness. Yes. Yes, absolutely. I was getting stronger every week. And now towards the end of the program, you know, and after I'd lost quite a bit of fat and weight, I started to plateau a little bit on some exercises. But my lifts steadily went up. Uh, I don't have them in front of me either, but some impressive gains, especially my deadlift, you know, my, my overhead press, those, especially, you know, at that time I was

benching almost as much as I've ever benched before. I've done more since then, but not without more body fat on me. Sure. So yes, every week my lifts were going up. It was incredible as far as the way my physique was changing from week to week. As the body fat percentage went down, the strength went up. I may have lost an inch or a half inch on my chest. I actually misspoke.

I was just going to let you know. It was five-tenths of an inch. I looked at it wrong. Yeah, so essentially it was the same measurement. I can do math. I'm smart. But, but yeah, I know it was, it was a 38.5 and 38.75. I'd looked at it wrong as I was scrolling through, but so essentially it's the same measurement. But the look was from, from the beginning of the 90 day to the end was incredible difference. Yeah. I mean, that's just the nature of every muscle just looks better when you're leaner, right?

Absolutely, it does. That is exactly the look that I was looking to achieve when I signed up for your program, your coaching service. And by God, that's exactly what I got out of it. That's great. And where have you gone from there? I'm just curious. What's happened since then is for the next eight months, I was steadily continuing on the program myself.

Got as strong as I ever gotten. About seven months after that, I was probably back around 13% body fat, but had gotten really, really strong as far from my size of weight. And then I had an accident at work. I was picking up some 90 pound sacks of concrete and twisting and handed them to another person. About eight or nine, my back just went out on me. So I herniated a disc is what I ended up doing at work. And so that set me back a good bit. I actually had surgery done, a discectomy about six months ago. Thankfully that helped and got me back to where I wasn't just living in pain every day. So I've been back on the program and not as strong as I was and not as lean as I was, but I look pretty damn good as far as I'm concerned. And plus, you have experience on your

side. You also have muscle memory on your side. You know now how it works. And even if that means that you're going to have to stay away from certain exercises or take it easier on certain exercises, you know that you can work around that too. There's just nothing that is in the way of you getting back to where you want to be, even if you can't do it in the exact same way that you did before. I believe that wholeheartedly. Yeah. I'm not going to be dead lifting and I'm not going to be barbell squatting. I want to, you know, those were my favorite exercises of all time. I love no better feeling than to be able to pick up some heavy, heavy, heavy ass weights in the gym. You know, when you're half the size of some of the bigger guys in there. But, you know, I'm not going to risk my back to a deadlift, maybe do some light stuff.

do some light stuff but uh i have found my way around those exercises through split squats and bulgarian squats and back extensions and other exercises i do a lot more uh of my exercises seated my overhead press with dumbbells uh you know just anything i can do to take compression off off my spine which has worked out really good. I've played around with a lot of different exercises and still own your program. I have bought the Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger book, but I think it just gets a little more complicated than I need to be. The program I started with, I got where I wanted to be with it. And I don't see why I should change it up other than just every now and then start with a different exercise or use a dumbbell instead of a barbell or something that way. Yeah, you can also do simple things like, I mean, you can be systematic about it if you want to be the Excel person. Or you can kind of more just go by feel where you are

occasionally increasing volume on certain muscle groups that you want to bring up by, you could take like your last three sets of an exercise or take your normal or of a workout and then take your normal workout and maybe add a few sets of some higher rep and it can be isolation type stuff. Like there are some easy things you can do. And really what it comes down to is so long as you are continuing to make progress, you don't really have a reason to change anything. Beyond BLS is meant for people that are no longer really progressing with, because what Bigger, Stronger really is, is I took like a kind of a basic push-pull legs strength program and then incorporated some bodybuilding stuff into it. And particularly to, to add volume

to certain muscle groups that us guys care about. And that also just take a lot of work. Like, you know, most guys, if you just do a few sets of squatting and deadlifting per week, maybe more than just a few, I'd say a few sets of deadlifting and a few plus sets of squatting per week, you're going to have the lower body. You're going to be happy with your lower body a lot faster than your upper body. If you just did the same thing, if you just did a few sets of bench pressing and a few plus sets of pulling, or even a few plus sets of bench pressing and pulling, because unfortunately the pecs, the shoulders, the biceps in particular, and certain muscles in the back, like the lats just tend to be stubborn

they just take time so you know that's why i i put together the program in that way where pure strength programs have a lot of lower body volume and that's cool if you want to be really strong in the big three and especially if you want to do competitions and put up big numbers yeah you need a really impressive you need a really strong squat and deadlift. But that also comes with a certain type of physique, a more bottom heavy physique, where you're going to have very big legs, you're going to have a very big butt, and your upper body is probably going to be disproportionately small unless you adjust for it because a traditional strength training program is going to have you put a lot more volume into your lower body. And that's kind of the opposite of what most guys want. If anything, if they're going to have

an imbalance in terms of size, they'd rather have it in the upper body, not the lower body. Of course, for me, I'd say, well, let's not have an imbalance at all. Let's have it be proportionate. But yeah, so for Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, it's meant more for a person that's like, okay, I've pretty much squeezed everything I can out of simple programming. And it's not that things need to get complex, but I need to add a couple more moving parts to continue progressing. And the bottom line is we have to make our bodies work even harder. And that's why, for example, research shows that volume, just total volume is very much correlated with muscle growth and even strength, meaning that like over time, our workouts just need to be getting more

difficult. And one way to make them more difficult, if we want to continue putting on size and strength, especially as a natural weightlifter, and one way to make your workouts more difficult is to just do more volume, just sit in the gym for longer and do more reps. And of course, progressive overload applies. And of course, progressive overload applies. And of course, you want to begin ending most of your sets, a couple reps, a rep or two shy of failure. These need to be hard sets, but that's one way to just force your body to continue to adapt and improve is more hard sets. There are other things you can do. You can also incorporate different rep ranges. You can lift some really heavy weights, which help you gain strength faster. Some moderately heavy weights, which are kind of

in the middle and some lighter weights, which are not so great necessarily for strength gain. I mean, they can be, but practically speaking, they're just not as good, but are all good for getting more volume and getting some more metabolic stress in your muscle cells and so forth. So the long story short is with Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger is it's not necessary. Again, if you're happy with how your body's responding, you can keep it simple and just stick with a simpler kind of strength bodybuilding hybrid type of programming. Yes. And I did read the whole book and I have incorporated little tidbits of Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger into my program over the last couple of years for the

most part. And especially the arms, that is something that I felt like I could work more as far as getting more work in on my arms every week. So, you know, doing the lighter sets and doing the heavy sets in the same workout, you know, seemed to work good. And I'll tell you something else that your program, I probably feel is, you know, get as much satisfaction and sense of accomplishment out of at the end of three days a week, you know, there's the ab circuit. And when I was able to finally, you know, go through all three exercises without stopping, of course, my abs would be on fire and dying but doing three sets of that circuit the satisfaction you get out of doing that for me was was really really you know motivating

because not only did it feel good to know that i that i could finally reach that point and keep adding weight and keep adding more time to whatever exercise I was doing, whether it be cable crunches or air bikes or leg raises, ab rollout. Not only did I feel a sense of accomplishment, but my goodness, what a way to get your core strong and physically make those abs and obliques pop out. That is, if I could recommend one thing for anyone who wants nice abs and a nice V-shaped look, of course, with the diet, but that ab circuit was something I would have never thought about really having to do, you know, because that's quite a bit of work on your core, which it takes that if you really want to reach, you know, a very muscular abs with that V-shaped look.

And when I started doing that is really when I started noticing a huge difference in my abs and midsection. Yeah, that's definitely, I mean, I talk about that in Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, That's definitely – I mean I talk about that in Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, and that's something that I too was surprised that just how much work it took to get the – you just don't realize, like you said, just how muscular your core has to be to have the look that most guys want. They wouldn't necessarily – they would think that – doesn't that just – you just get lean and then that's what you have, right? Like, no, it's very rare. It's rare for guys to even, even who do a lot of heavy compound weightlifting, which heavily involves the core to have, it's the, the abs, the rectus abdominis, the big blocky muscles in the front, most people think of as abs that in particular tends to just need a lot of work to be developed enough to look really good when you're lean.

If any people listening, if you've ever seen guys or girls who are lean but just seem to have very underdeveloped, underwhelming abs, it's often because they're the muscles, the core muscles. And it's not just the rectus abdominis. There are several others. But it's usually because the core muscles are just underdeveloped and they need to put in, you know, six months of hard work on their core muscles in addition to whatever they're already doing. And again, heavy compound weightlifting is not always enough. Sometimes, and I'd say probably most people really do need to put in a lot more work. But then the nice thing, and I don't know if you found this, but I found this is I still train my abs usually twice a week. And on the other days I'm doing calves. I refuse to give up on them, but I found that you don't need to do nearly as much work to maintain. Don't want more muscle development per se in my core at all. I don't want more obliques.

I don't really want larger, blockier abs, you know, the rectus abdominis. That's what happens. I mean, if you continue to blast it, it will continue to grow. Some people like that look. They think that's cool to have really big, blocky abs. Not quite the look that I like. So I'm kind of happy now with where my core development is at and it's very easy to maintain that. So, you know, I probably don't even need to do the ab training to maintain it. The heavy squatting and deadlifting and overhead pressing alone and

bench pressing would probably be enough. I just do it because it doesn't take very much time and I figure why not. But, you know, as with any, as with any muscle group, yes, it can be a pain in the ass to get it to where you want to be. But once you're there, you can really let off the gas and focus that time and effort on something else. Even if it's a workout thing, again, like calves, you know, I'll put more time and effort into that because those are not yet at the point where I just want to maintain them. Exactly. The other great benefit of the ab circuit is, I'm sure, the amount of calories it burns. Because, I mean, I'm just completely wasted at the end of it.

And another great way to help keep burning those calories and staying lean, not only are you building your ab muscles and your core, but you're also helping to burn the fat and show those muscles off. So it's definitely probably one of the things I do look forward to, you know, every time I go into the gym. Awesome. Well, that's everything I had on my list. I really appreciate you taking the time, Wade. Again, great job on everything you've done so far. I'm glad to hear that you got past the injury and now you're back at it. Yeah, just really appreciate it. Yep, same here, Mike. And I appreciate everything.

Over the last several years, I've gotten a lot of advice from you personally through email and through your books and website. And looking forward to continuing my journey. And if you, dear listener, want to learn more about my coaching service and how we might be able to help you reach your health and fitness goals faster, just head over to muscleforlife.com slash coaching, muscleforlife.com slash coaching. And you can learn all about it and schedule a

free consultation call where my director of coaching, Matthew, will get on the phone with you and talk about where you've been, where you want to go, and how we might be able to help you get there faster and more enjoyably, which counts for something. Again, muscleforlife.com slash coaching. Check it out. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show

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