Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How to Boost Your Muscle Recovery in 5 Simple Steps

Episode Date: April 19, 2018

“Muscles don’t grow in the gym.”I’m sure you’ve heard that old bodybuilding adage before.Well, there’s truth in it.Weightlifting alone doesn’t make your muscles bigger and stronger. That’s what happens after the workouts.That’s why the work that your body does to repair the stress and damage caused by training is just as important as the work you do in the gym to stress and damage your muscles.The bottom line is if you’re not fully recovering from your workouts, you’re going to gain muscle and strength slower than you should.This goes beyond muscle soreness, too. The presence or absence of soreness is a factor to consider, but it’s not the acid test of post-workout recovery. Just because you’re not sore doesn’t mean your body is ready for another hard workout (and, on the flip side, just because a muscle group is sore doesn’t mean it can’t be trained again).You see, heavy weightlifting places a lot of stress on the body that goes beyond muscle damage. It impacts your joints, glycogen stores, and nervous and endocrine systems, and it leaves a residue of systemic fatigue and inflammation that accumulates over time.Your body does an excellent job of setting all this right, though, if you give it what it needs, which boils down these five steps:1. Eat enough calories2. Eat enough protein3. Eat enough carbohydrate4. Get ~8 hours of quality sleep every night5. Take the right supplements Let’s dive in and learn how to do each correctly. 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/

This episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my 100% natural post-workout supplement Recharge. Recharge helps you gain muscle and strength faster and recover better from your workouts. And it's also naturally sweetened and flavored and it contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. All that is why it has over 700 reviews on Amazon with a 4.5 star average and another 200 on my website, also with a four and a half star average. So if you want to be able to push harder in the gym, train more frequently, and get more out of your workouts, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Recharge today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code

podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here. Head over to www.lesionathletics.com now,

place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason, they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now, at least. Let's get to the show. Hey, this is Mike Matthews from Muscle Life and Legion Athletics. And in this video podcast, we're going to talk muscle recovery. And specifically, I'm going to share with you five simple ways to boost your muscle recovery. Now, we've all heard that muscles don't

grow in the gym, right? And yes, this is true. Weightlifting alone does not cause our muscles to get bigger and stronger. It's everything that happens after our workouts that causes that. And that's why everything that you do to help your body recover from the stress and repair the damage of your workouts is just as important as everything that you do in the gym to cause the stress and to cause the damage. And this goes beyond muscle soreness as well, because muscle soreness is not the acid test of post-workout recovery. Just because a muscle group is sore does not necessarily mean that you can't profitably train it again. And on the flip side, just because a muscle group is not sore doesn't mean that you can and should train it again. You see, when I'm talking about post-workout recovery, sure, I'm talking about the damage that's caused to the connective tissues

around muscles that result in the soreness that we feel, which by the way, is what we believe that muscle soreness is. It's not so much the muscles themselves. It's actually the connective tissues, the supporting tissues around muscles. You can click on a link up here if you want to read more about muscle soreness and what scientific research has taught us about it over the last couple decades. But I'm also talking about how weightlifting and how heavy compound weightlifting in particular impacts your joints, your glycogen stores, your nervous and endocrine systems, and how it also leaves a residue of systemic fatigue and inflammation that accumulates over time and that must be dissipated

through, you could say, intensive recovery, like a deload or simply even just taking a week off completely. So the five strategies that I want to share with you today relate particularly to muscle recovery, but also to all of these post-workout recovery factors that is mentioned, and they are eating enough calories, eating enough protein, eating enough carbs, getting around eight hours of quality sleep every night, and taking the right supplements. Okay, so let's talk about the first point, which is eating enough calories. Now, many people think that you only need to really watch your calories when you're cutting. If you are maintaining, you just kind of eat according to your appetite. And if you're bulking, you try

to eat according to your appetite plus a little. And that often doesn't work very well because what many people don't realize is that calories fuel every process in your body. And many of the processes related to muscle building are metabolically expensive. Now, what happens is if you're not eating enough calories, then your body simply can't do all of the many things that needs to do as efficiently, including everything related to recovering from your workouts. And unfortunately, your body has a sort of triage system that it works off of. And when energy supplies aren't abundant, certain processes in the body, certain physiological processes just get bumped for others. So for example, research shows that when you are in a calorie deficit, right, when you're eating

fewer calories than you're burning, your body's ability to synthesize muscle proteins is impaired, which of course impairs your body's ability to repair and grow muscle tissues and recover from your workouts. And this is why every intermediate to advanced and onward weightlifter can tell you that you really don't gain any muscle or strength to speak of when you're cutting. So that's why one of the best things you can do to maximize post-workout recovery and muscle recovery is making sure you are not in a calorie deficit. And the best way to do that is to eat slightly more calories than you are burning every day. Now, if you are not in a calorie deficit. And the best way to do that is to eat slightly more calories than you are burning every day. Now, if you're not sure how to do that, just click the

link up here and you'll be taken to an article that I wrote that breaks it all down for you. And also even has a calculator built in to make it simple. 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. Okay, so the second point is eat enough protein. And protein is the single most important

macronutrient for post-workout and muscle recovery. And the reason for this is simple. When you do any sort of resistance training, you are damaging your muscle tissue and your body requires protein to repair that damage and to adapt to it by making your muscles bigger and stronger so they can better deal with the next bout of training. This is why a number of studies have shown that people who do a lot of resistance training need a lot more protein than the average person. And to be specific, if you are around one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, you are going to be fine. You can go slightly lower if you want,

let's say more carbs or more fats in your diet or in your meal plan. You could go as low as 0.8 grams of protein per pound per body weight per day, but I would not recommend going beneath that. Now, if you are fairly muscular and you are cutting, so let's say you're going from being fairly muscular and lean-ish and you want to be very lean, then I would recommend going a bit higher than one gram per pound per day. I'd recommend going up to about 1.2 grams of protein per pound per day because research shows that it can help with muscle retention, which of course is the name of the game. You want to lose fat and not muscle. Oh, one last thing is if you are very overweight and you are

concerned with how much protein that would mean, let's say you want to cut, that would mean eating a lot of protein. Let's say for like a 275 pound man, for example, the good news is you don't have to eat that much. In that case, you can set your protein to about 40% of your total daily calories and you'll be fine. And just to be specific here, I'm talking about men at let's say 25% body fat and higher and women at 30% body fat and higher. Okay, so the next point here is eating enough carbs. Now, if you are familiar with me and I work, you know that I am no fan of low-carb dieting and especially for fitness folks. Sure, it can make sense for some people if you're very overweight and you are rather sedentary, then a low carb diet probably does make sense. But for us fitness people and us muscle people, us weightlifters, it really does

not make sense. You see, one of the substances that your body converts carbohydrate into is glycogen, which is stored in your muscles and in your liver and is the primary source of energy during intense exercise like weightlifting and high intensity interval training. Now, when you restrict your carbohydrate intake, your glycogen levels drop, including your muscle glycogen levels, of course. And this not only makes for worse workouts in terms of performance, it makes for worse post-workout recovery because research shows that low glycogen levels can inhibit certain genetic signaling related to muscle repair and muscle growth. Not only that, but studies also show that when you are exercising regularly and exercising intensely, restricting your carbs results in cortisol levels going up, which in

turn lowers your testosterone levels, which of course is the exact opposite that you want. If you want to gain muscle and strength, you want high testosterone, low cortisol, at least if we're talking about chronic, um, testosterone and cortisol levels go up and down throughout the day. And also in response to certain activities. So exercise spikes cortisol, for example. It can also spike growth hormone and testosterone levels as well. But generally speaking, if you want to have, let's just say, a hormonal environment in your body that is most conducive to muscle and strength gain, you want high testosterone, low cortisol. So how many carbs should you be eating every day?

Well, my general recommendation for most people is somewhere around one to two grams per pound of body weight per day. Now, whether you should be on the low or high end of that kind of depends on what you are doing. It depends on what you're doing with your calories. It depends on how much you're exercising, what kind of exercise you're doing, how your body responds to carbs. Some people's bodies just don't respond as well as others, regardless of conditioning. So if you want to learn more about determining exactly how many carbs you should be eating and what types of carbs you should be eating, click the link up here to check out an article I wrote on it. Okay, so the next point here is to get around eight hours of

quality sleep every night. And this one is very important because much of what your body does to recuperate and rebuild itself happens when you sleep. And that's why studies show that sleep deprivation can inhibit muscle gain and even cause muscle loss. Not only that, but research shows that just a single night of poor sleep can significantly reduce your performance in the gym. And a couple nights of poor sleep can completely ruin it. And multiple studies have also shown that athletes simply perform best when they are rested. So being regularly rested means that you're going to be able to regularly give everything you've got to your workouts and make progress faster. Now, in terms of how much sleep you need, it's going to be somewhere around seven to eight hours. That's what it is for most people. Some people can get by on a bit less. Some people feel they need a bit more, but seven to

eight hours is good for most people. Now, if you want to learn more about that and how to get more good sleep, click on the link up here to check out an article I wrote on it. Okay. So now we have supplements and I saved this for last because it is the least important. You do not need supplements to build a great physique. You do not need supplements to get strong. You do not need supplements to get healthy. However, there are certain natural supplements that can help with all of these things. And if you have the budget and the inclination that it does make sense to include them in your life. And so we'll just go through a few of my favorite supplements for post-workout recovery very quickly. The first one is protein powder, no surprise. Now you know that you need to eat a lot of protein every day. And while you can do that with just

food, protein powders are very convenient. And also if you get the right one, like my protein powder that I use myself comes from my supplement company, Legion, and the protein is called Whey Plus. It's 100% whey isolate, which means that it is basically 100% protein. That's nice. I don't like to waste carbs and fats on powders. I'd rather eat them. Another supplement that you should definitely be taking if you are into resistance training and you want to recover faster is, of course, course creatine which is a supplement at this point that everyone has heard about and the long story short is this is probably the most research molecule in all sports nutrition hundreds and hundreds of studies have been conducted on it

and the overwhelming weight of the evidence is it works it's safe everybody really should be taking it unless maybe you have kidney problems or kidney damage. I mean, there are some people out there who probably shouldn't be supplementing with creatine, but for the rest of us, five grams a day is going to help. In terms of which creatine to go with, just go with a monohydrate. You can get it in bulk if you want to get just the creatine powder, or if you want to get creatine with a couple other things that are going to boost your post-workout recovery, check out my post-workout supplement recharge. Okay, my third and final supplement that I want to tell you about

is fish oil. And fish oil is important because it provides your body with two essential fatty acids that are hard to get from diet alone. And these are EPA and DHA. And the bottom line here is unless you eat several servings of fatty fish every week, you are probably not getting enough of EPA and DHA. And it is negatively impacting your performance and your health, both mental and physical in more ways than you probably realize. Now, out of the many, many ways that fish oil can benefit your health and performance, I want to talk about two of them in particular because they are relevant to this discussion. And the first one is the fact that a number of studies have shown that providing your body with adequate EPA and DHA, which of

course that's what you're doing with fish oil, helps reduce systemic inflammation levels. Now, this of course is helpful for recovery because this is one of the things your body is trying to recover from is the accumulating inflammation that builds up through training and other life stressors. And the second point that I want to mention here is that studies show that fish oil can positively influence processes related to muscle growth, again, because of how many different ways EPA and DHA impact the body. Now, as far as products go, no surprise, I take my own fish oil, which is called Triton. But before you buy mine or buy anyone's, I actually would recommend that you do educate

yourself a little bit because not all fish oils are the same. Click the link up here to check out an article I wrote on this. And if I've run out of links, I don't remember how many I can put in a video, head over to legionathletics.com, L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com, search for fish oil and scroll down to the blog post results and check out the long form article that I wrote on fish oil. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their

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

use and believe in. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my 100% natural post-workout supplement Recharge. Recharge helps you gain muscle and strength faster and recover better from your workouts. And it's also naturally sweetened and flavored, and it contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. All that is why it has over 700 reviews in Amazon with a four and a half star average and another 200 on my website, also with a four and a half star average. So if you want to be able to push harder in the gym, train more frequently and get more out of your workouts, then you want to

head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of recharge today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. And lastly, you should also know that I have a very simple 100% money back guarantee that works like this. You either love my stuff or you get your money back, period. You don't have to return the products. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to jump through any other hoops or go through any other shenanigans. So you really can't lose here. Head over to www.legionathletics.com now, place your order and see for yourself why my supplements have thousands of rave reviews all over the internet. And if for whatever reason,

they're just not for you, contact us and we will give you a full refund on the spot.