Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How to Get More Vascular in 4 (Mostly) Easy Steps

Episode Date: February 8, 2018

What would you rather have—a Rolex watch or more vascular arms, legs, and abs? If you chose the latter, I like you, and you’ve come to the right place. Because while I can’t help you get a shiny new Yachmaster, I’m going to show you exactly what you need to become the proud owner of some new skin-popping veins. And yes, you can get more vascular even if you’re genetically the “smoother” type, like me. If you’re worried that you’ll never get to admire the beauty of your vascular system, take heart. By the end of this episode, you’ll be on your way. Let’s get to it. 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 pre-workout fat burner supplement, Forge. Now, it was designed to be used specifically when exercising in a fasted state, and it helps you maximize fat burning while training on an empty stomach, minimize the amount of muscle that you lose while training in this state, and maintain intensity and focus in your workouts. All that is why Forge has over 400 reviews on Amazon with a four-star average

and another 220 on my website with a four and a half star average. So if you want to get leaner, faster, and especially in the quote-unquote hard to lose spots like the hips, thighs, and belly, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Forge today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you'll 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 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. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the show. Hey, this is Mike Matthews from Mostcle Life and Legion Athletics. And in this video slash podcast, we are going to talk vascularity, how to increase vascularity. And this is one of those

kind of strange bodybuilding things that non-bodybuilding people don't really get. Why do you want more veins? And I don't even think we really have a great answer, do we? It's just because vascularity looks cool. I mean, yeah, it can get to be too much, but some vascularity just looks neat. It makes you look more ripped, right? So how do you get there? And how do you get there if you are like me and you're not very naturally vascular, which I'm not, I have to be very lean to have, for example, just a bicep veins. And I don't really see ab vascularity until I get down to the six or 7% range.

And I have never seen chest vascularity. So my point is genetics do come into play. However, there are a few factors that all of us can positively influence to increase our vascularity, and we are going to talk about them here. First, let's quickly debunk some of the myths about vascularity. Some of the things that you've probably heard supposedly increase vascularity, but don't. So for example, some people say you have to do a lot of high rep training to really bring out muscle definition and bring out vascularity and they're wrong. You don't. Some people say that a low carb diet is the key because it results in less fat storage generally and less water retention

generally. And that's the key and not really. Other people say it's mostly about sodium and water intake. And if you optimize your sodium and water intake, you can increase your vascularity. Again, not really. All of those things can temporarily influence vascularity and how your muscles look. But if you want to be more vascular in just everyday life, walking around, not having to play with your diet or try to do anything funky, you have to focus on a few other things. Now, I mentioned earlier that genetics do play a role here. Some people are just naturally more vascular than others, but genetics aside, your general level of vascularity is determined by a few things and in this order

as well. So first is your body fat percentage, how lean you are. Second, how big and dilated your blood vessels are. Third, how big your muscles are. And fourth, how much water you are holding under your skin. Those are the four primary factors that determine your general level of vascularity and you can manipulate all of them. So then the bottom line is the leaner you are and the bigger and more dilated your blood vessels are and the bigger your muscles are, the more muscle you have and the less water that you are holding under your skin, the more vascular you are going to be. vascular you are going to be. 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

MuscleForLifeFitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness. So let's start at the top here with body fat percentage. Why does this one affect vascularity? Well, most of the fat in your body that you lose and gain through manipulating your diet and exercise and so forth is subcutaneous fat. So it's fat that is stored beneath your skin. And if you have too much of it, of course, it makes you look round and soft and it obscures the veins that you want to see. It reduces vascularity. And just to put this in perspective for guys, if you are at 15% body fat and above, you probably have little to no vascularity, even when you have a pump. If you naturally are a very vascular person and you do get a pump,

you might see some vascularity in your arms or in your shoulders, but you're certainly not going to be seeing any vascularity in your core at 15% body fat and up. And once you move down, now let's say you're in the 12% body fat range, some arm vascularity usually starts to appear. And especially when you have a pump and maybe you'll see some vascular in your shoulders as well and then when you move down to the 10 body fat range you're going to have clear arm vascularity especially when you have a pump and depending on your genetics you may actually have good arm vascularity with no pump as well most people that have a decent level of shoulder

and leg development also start to see some vascularity in those areas around 10% body fat. I though, for example, do not see leg vascularity until I get very lean. That's just the way that my body is. Like I need to be six or 7% body fat to even see any veins anywhere on my legs. And it's not because they're just grossly underdeveloped. I train my legs pretty hard. My calves do not tell the whole story. And then's not because they're just grossly underdeveloped. I train my legs pretty hard. My calves do not tell the whole story. And then as you move down to about 8% body fat, you usually see clear arm, shoulder, and leg vascularity with and without a pump. And you also tend to start seeing some ab vascularity, usually in the lower abs,

going down to the pubic area usually you won't see ab vascularity running up into the rectus abdominis until you get leaner until you get to let's say you know below eight percent so and every percent that you that you drop below let's say nine eight percent makes a pretty marked difference in how you look and especially in vascularity now as far as women go the story is the same but they look and especially in vascularity. Now, as far as women go, the story is the same, but they generally are just less vascular than men because they generally just have more body fat. And those numbers are also a bit higher again, because women just have more body fat than men, you know, boobs, butts, hips, thighs, and so forth. So, you know, we'd

say that like most women are not going to see ab vascularity, for example, until they get down to about the 10% range, not the 6% range. Because if a woman tried to get down to a true 6% body fat, that would be like stage shredded, you know, for women's bodybuilding. Whereas 10 to 12% is very lean, but still looks athletic. Some women like that look. It's a bit too lean for most women. I've worked with thousands and thousands of women over the years, and the look that most women want, which is that athletic look, not much vascularity, maybe a little bit in the arms, but more just that lean, tight, athletic look where you still

have curves, is around 18% body fat. But if you're a woman listening and you really want to maximize vascularity, you're probably going to have to get below 18% body fat. You'll start seeing a significant amount of vascularity probably around 15% body fat. Okay, the next point here is blood vessel size. Now, this is pretty obvious because of course the more enlarged your blood vessels are, the more dilated they are, the bigger they are, and the more they can pop and the more they can push through your skin and be visible.

And that's vascularity, right? Now, of course, when you are working out vasodilation occurs, your blood vessels do expand because your body needs to pump blood more vigorously, needs to get oxygen around and remove waste faster. But that only lasts for, you know, whatever, an hour or two, and then things kind of settle back to normal. There are also certain supplements that have similar effects in the body, like theanine and citrulline, for example. Now, if you do this over and over, if you repetitively expand and widen your blood vessels, and really the only reliable and the best way to do this is through exercise, you can't do it just through supplementation. Sure, you can add supplements

on top of your exercise and get bigger pumps and get more vasodilation out of your exercise, but you couldn't really cause much in the way of vasodilation through supplementation alone. So you can't just get more vascular by just taking supplements. You got to exercise too. And of course, I'm talking about resistance training. You have to do things that pump your muscles up. But what happens is as you do this over and over, over time, your blood vessels start to remain in a more widened state when you're resting.

So this is why people that have been lifting weights for a while will just have more vascularity at rest than the average person. And studies show that this process can also result in the growth of new blood vessels. So again, this is why when you start working out, you might have, let's say, one vein that's visible on your bicep. And then over time, as you continue to train your biceps, you continue to train your arms, you now have more blood vessels that have become visible with no real change in your body fat percentage. That can happen. Okay. So let's move to the next point here, which is muscle size. How does muscle size affect vascularity? And this one's pretty simple because as the veins are situated around the muscles,

the bigger the muscles are, the more those veins are going to be pressed up against the skin. And especially if you get rid of enough body fat. Last but not least, we have water retention. How does water retention affect vascularity? Well, just as your body stores fat between your muscles and the surface of your skin, your body also stores water there. So the more water that you're holding on the hole, the softer and less vascular you're going to look and the less water you're holding, the harder and more vascular you're going to look because there's going to be less, let's say cushion or buffer between your veins, which again are kind of situated around the

muscles and your skin. And if you want to learn how to reduce water retention, head over to legionathletics.com and search for water retention and you'll see an article that I wrote on that. So that's it. Those are the four factors that you can influence to increase vascularity. Now, something that is not on the list that you may be wondering about is natural diuretics. You know, because some people say that eating certain types of foods will help flush water out of the body, make you look more vascular, and also drinking certain type of beverages like coffee, alcohol, celery, onion, eggplant, asparagus. And then you also have some herbs like parsley and certain even fruits like watermelon and so forth. And the reason why I am not

recommending that you really do anything with any of that is none of that is going to help. For example, studies show that while caffeine and alcohol are mild diuretics, the amount of liquid that you're drinking to get the caffeine and the alcohol more than offsets any of the water that might be stripped by them. They're just not powerful. They're not strong diuretics. And really the same thing goes for every other natural diuretic out there, like Hawthorne, for example, or I think even Dandelion is promoted as a natural diuretic. And studies show that some of these things, yeah, they do possess some diuretic properties, but they're too slight and too short-lived to really make a significant difference in your overall water retention. It's just not that simple.

You can't just pop some pills or eat certain special kind of foods and dramatically flush water out of your body. So that's it. That's really everything you need to know about vascularity and how to get more vascular. Don't waste your time with weird tricks. Don't waste your time with supplements or special types of foods or diets. Just focus on building muscle, repetitively training those muscles, getting lean, and then make sure that your water retention is under control, which again, if you go check out the article, you can learn all about that. Mostly comes down to some dietary factors and lifestyle factors, and you will get more vascular. Now, how vascular you can ultimately get will depend a lot on your genetics.

For example, I just do not have much potential for vascularity. You can look at pictures of me at my leanest when I even had a pump for photo shoots and I'm still not that vascular. That's just the way it is. And one other thing, if you want to temporarily increase vascularity, then you can of course get a pump. You can eat a bunch of carbs and a bunch of sodium that will temporarily make you look more vascular. And you can also take supplements like citrulline and theanine, which are in my pre-workout supplement, by the way, which is called Pulse. And if you want to learn about that, legionathletics.com slash pulse. 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 muscle for life.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 pre-workout fat burner supplement Forge. Now it was designed to be used specifically when exercising in a fasted state, and it helps you maximize fat burning while training on an empty stomach, minimize the amount of

muscle that you lose while training in this state and maintain intensity and focus in your workouts. All that is why Forge has over 400 reviews on Amazon with a four star average and another 220 on my website with a four and a half star average. So if you want to get leaner, faster, and especially in the quote unquote hard to lose spots like the hips, thighs, and belly, then you wanna head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Forge today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout

and you'll 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.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.