Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How to Get Stronger Than Ever in 3 Simple Steps

Episode Date: June 24, 2019

Biceps and abs are cool and all, but you know what really turns heads in the gym? Being strong. Really strong. You know, bench pressing a few plates, and squatting and deadlifting a few more. Getting really strong also inevitably builds you a great physique. In fact, as a natural weightlifter, your number one goal should be increasing whole-body strength, not getting big pumps or "feeling the burn." That's the big "secret" to gaining muscle quickly and effectively, because it's the best way to "progressively overload" your muscles. You see, by working to slowly and steadily add weight to your exercises over time, you progressively increase tension levels in your muscles. Mechanically speaking, this is the primary driver of muscle growth. That's why the biggest guys and gals in the gym are also generally the strongest. Another advantage to this approach to weightlifting is it's very simple and straightforward. There are just three steps: 1. Choose the right strength program for you. 2. Get your calories and macros right. 3. Make sure you're fully recovering from your workouts. That's it. If you just consistently do those three things, and keep showing up and putting in the work, then your strength will skyrocket and your body will transform. Let's take a look at each. 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 to sign up.

Hey, I'm Mike Matthews from Legion Athletics, and I want to talk to you about getting strong. I want to share with you three tips for getting stronger faster, because as neat as biceps and abs are, they don't quite give the same thrill as being able to bench, squat, and deadlift a bunch of weight. 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 100% natural whey protein powder whey plus. Now this is a naturally sweetened and flavored whey isolate protein powder made from exceptionally high quality milk from small dairy farms in Ireland. Whey Plus also contains

no GMOs, hormones, antibiotics, artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And if I may say so myself, it also tastes delicious and mixes great. And all that is why way plus has over 1400 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average and another 600 on my website with a five star average. So if you want a clean, all natural and great tasting way protein supplement, that's low in calories, carbs and fat, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Whey Plus 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. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the show. As a natural weightlifter, your number one goal should be to get as strong as possible over time. And if you do that,

And if you do that, you will gain plenty of muscle as well. And of course, the primary mechanical driver of strength is progressive overload. And you do that by adding weight to the bar over time, by increasing the amount of tension that your muscles produce over time through overload, through increasing the amount of weight that you are moving on your exercises. And that remains true regardless of the exercises that you're doing, regardless of the volume of your programming, regardless of the frequency of the rep ranges of everything else. A simple rule of thumb that you can take to the bank is if you cannot achieve progressive overload with your current training program, you are going to stall. And if you can, you are going to continue making progress over time.

And this, of course, is why the biggest people in the gym tend to be the strongest. There are exceptions, of course. The absolute strongest people in your gym may not be the absolute. There are exceptions, of course. The absolute strongest people in your gym may not be the absolute biggest, but the people who are in, let's say, the top 25% of size in your gym are also going to be almost always in the top 25% of strength. Okay, so let's get to the three tips that I have for getting stronger faster. They are choosing the right strength program for you, getting your calories and your macros right, and making sure that you are fully recovering from your workouts. If you just do those three things

well and you just keep showing up every day and putting in the work, you will be able to achieve the majority of your genetic potential for strength. Okay, so let's talk about the first one, choosing the right strength program. This is important because if you want to gain strength as quickly as possible, and if you want to get really strong, you're going to have to do a lot of strength training. A lot more strength training than any other type of training, than circuit training or bodybuilding or anything else. And strength training is pretty unique.

It differs from other styles of training in that one, it focuses on compound exercises, which are exercises that involve multiple joints and multiple major muscle groups, as opposed to single joints and single muscle groups, or at least emphasizing single muscle groups. So those are called isolation exercises. So for example, the squat, of course, is a compound exercise because it involves almost every major muscle group in your body to perform correctly. Whereas the biceps curl is an isolation exercise because it mostly just involves the biceps. Another key differentiator of strength training programs is they involve a lot of heavy weightlifting and some very heavy weightlifting as well. Now, what do I mean by that? Well,

I would say that heavy weightlifting starts probably around 70% of one rep max or somewhere in the rep range, let's say 10 to 12, maybe 15 reps, but most people are probably going to be one or two reps shy of failure around rep 12 with about 70% of one rep max. Now, strength training programs have you working a lot with about 80 to 85% of your one rep max, which is somewhere between, let's say, four to eight reps. So with 85% of your one rep max, you're probably going to be within a rep or two shy of technical failure around rep five or six and with 80%, seven or eight. And then depending on the program, you may be working with even higher loads. It might call for some sets with 90% of one rep max or 95% of one rep max, or even a true 100% of one rep max, one rep set. Now, the reason for this, the reason why

strength training programs mostly involve a lot of heavy and very heavy weightlifting is that's simply the best way to get strong. There is no question about it. Many studies have been done on this and we have many, many, many years of anecdotal evidence as well. And we know that if you want to get really strong, you need to be doing a lot of heavy and very heavy weightlifting. Now, that isn't to say that higher rep ranges and lighter weights can't help you get stronger because they can, but not in the same direct way that heavier weights and lower reps does. You see, when you work in higher rep ranges and you work effectively in those rep ranges, meaning that you gain muscle

in those rep ranges, it won't necessarily impact your one rep max on, let's say, the big three until you take that new muscle that you've gained and calibrate it, so to speak, with lower rep heavier weightlifting. So in this way, working in higher rep ranges can increase your potential for strength by adding muscle to your frame, muscle that you can then condition to lift heavier and heavier weights. But you have to do the heavy lifting to achieve that effect. So what that means is you could, let's say, bench press in the 8 to 10 or 10 to 12 rep range for several months and do a good job, make some progress, add some weight to the bar and gain a little muscle, and then go straight from that to a one rep max test and not

see as much of a difference as you might expect. But if you were to work in a higher rep range, do a good job, gain some muscle, and then in your next training block work in a lower rep range, you would find that by the end of that training block, your one rep max would be significantly better. And this is one of the reasons why working in multiple rep ranges is optimal for intermediate and advanced weightlifters. For newbies, for people with, let's say, less than one year of heavy weightlifting under their belts, they don't need to worry about periodization. And really in the scheme of things, periodization doesn't make a huge difference. Periodization is the technical term for working in multiple rep ranges. It doesn't make a huge difference in terms of results, but it is slightly better than just working in the same rep range for all exercises forever.

And so what you'll often see in well-designed programs for intermediate and advanced weight lifters is training blocks will start with higher rep ranges, lower weights, more volume with the emphasis on gaining muscle because of course volume is a major factor in muscle gain. Progressive overload is number one as far as the mechanical drivers go and volume is number two. So that's how the training blocks will start and the emphasis is gaining muscle and then at the end of the blocks or toward the end of the blocks, the weights will get heavier, the rep ranges will come down, the volume will come down with the idea of taking that new muscle that you've gained in the beginning of the training block and translating it into anew. Higher rep ranges, lower weights, higher volumes, trying to just beat your body up and force it to gain some muscle, and then lower rep ranges, higher weights, lower volumes to turn that new muscle into more strength. Now, if you're wondering why my programs

for men and women, bigger than you're stronger and thinner leaner, stronger, have you working mostly in the four to six and eight to 10 rep ranges respectively. It's because those programs are meant mostly for beginners, people who are new to weightlifting or resistance training or new to heavy proper weightlifting. And you see when that's the case, you don't need to get fancy with your programming. You don't need to periodize your training. You can keep it simple and straightforward and just work in the four to six rep range. Mostly if you're a guy and spend most of your time on the compound exercises or the eight to 10 rep range, if you're a woman and mostly on the compound exercises and you will gain more or less all the muscle that you can possibly gain in your first year, up to a year and a half, maybe two years of training if you just do that.

But eventually you will need to change things if you want to approach your genetic potential for muscle and strength gain. Those programs alone will not be enough. And that's why I have an advanced program for men called Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, which I'm actually overhauling. So it's a book, Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, and I'm working on a second edition, a new edition, which like the new third editions of Bigger, Leaner, Stronger and Thinner, Leaner, Stronger, I'm really just reorganizing and rewriting the book from scratch. And I'm going to be making some changes to the programming. and rewriting the book from scratch. And I'm going to be making some changes to the programming.

I'm pretty excited about it actually. So my own training is soon going to reflect what is going to be in this new Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. Because for the last many months or so, I've been doing what is more or less the new third edition of Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, just because I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of experience with it myself. And I was happy with the year one challenge that comes with it and so forth. And then yes, I will be doing a beyond thinner than you're stronger as well. The reason why I didn't do it previously as I wasn't quite sure what it should be. I hadn't worked with enough women yet to know, okay, so once they have achieved the type of physique that most women would kill for, what comes next? What do they want to do next? What do they enjoy? What do they not enjoy? But I feel like I have enough of

that information now and enough general knowledge to do a good job. Anyway, that was a long tangent, but I hope you found it informative. So let's get back on track here. So these strength training programs, they focus on compound exercises. They involve heavy weights. Their workouts also tend to be shorter than bodybuilding programs. Strength training workouts are by their very nature, very taxing. They're very tiring. And that's why most of those workouts are no more than 60 minutes. Most strength training programs involve just three or four workouts per week. That's also different than most bodybuilding programs, which have you in the gym five, six, even seven days per week. And the reason for that is really the same as why the workouts are shorter. They tend

to be very difficult and you can only do so much heavy squatting, deadlifting, bench pressing, and overhead pressing before your body starts to fall behind in recovery the workouts also involve a lot more resting than bodybuilding workouts so in strength training programs you're resting three four even five minutes in between sets to make sure that you are fully recovered and ready to give that next set your all remember the goal with strength training programs is to get stronger. It's not to burn a ton of calories or leave a ton of sweat on the floor. 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. All right, so which strength training program should you follow? Well, there are a number of them out there, including starting strength, strong lifts, Texas method, Bulgarian method, Westside barbell 5-3-1. And some of them can be fairly complex and require a bit of calculation, require some spreadsheets just to even figure out

what you're supposed to do in your workouts. And it doesn't mean those programs are bad, but those programs tend to be more suited to intermediate and advanced weightlifters. So if you are new to strength training, I recommend that you either follow starting strength, which is tried and true. It's been around for decades now. You can't go wrong with starting strength or Wendler's 5-3-1. That's also a program that is time proven. it's fun, and it delivers results. All right, so let's move on to my second tip for getting stronger faster, and that is getting your calories and macros right. Because if you don't know how to eat right, you will always struggle to gain strength. And what that means for strength is you need to be consistently eating more calories than you're burning. You need to be in a calorie surplus more often than not. And the primary reason for this is actually pretty simple. Your body's muscle building machinery, so to speak, works best when energy is abundant. The physiology is fairly complex, but that's really just what it comes down

to. Because if you are eating less calories or fewer calories, less energy than you're burning, your body needs to go into a sort of energy triage mode because it knows that if this condition persists, if it consistently is fed fewer calories than it's burning over time, eventually it'll die. And so the body takes different measures to try to reduce energy expenditure and increase energy intake or reduce calorie expenditure and increase calorie intake. And also it takes the energy that it's getting and it allocates it more carefully to different physiological processes. Of course, it prioritizes the stuff that just keeps us alive, the essential processes, and it deprioritizes the non-essential stuff. And as muscle building is non-essential,

it's low on the list of priorities. And this is why studies show that in experienced weightlifters, it is damn near impossible to gain muscle while you're cutting, to gain muscle while you are consistently under eating, consistently feeding your body fewer calories than it's burning. And so that's what you want to prevent when you are trying to optimize muscle and strength gain. And I say muscle and strength gain because they go together. Sure, when you're new, you're going to gain strength in the beginning, regardless of muscle gain, because you're going to be learning technique and your body's just going to be getting used to these activities. But once you have your technique down within the first few months or so, most of the strength that you're going to gain from that point on is going to

require muscle gain. And so what's the easiest way to ensure that you are not consistently underfeeding your body? It is to consistently overfeed your body. Now you don't want to just eat everything though. You don't want to get into the habit of dirty bulking because your body fat levels skyrocket and that alone can interfere with muscle gain, which then of course can interfere with strength gain and it can become unhealthy and it can make the post bulking cuts very long and very grueling. And so what I recommend is a very moderate calorie surplus of about 10%. So that means that you should be consistently eating about 10% more calories than you're burning and that you pay attention to your calories and macros, plan them, track them. You maybe can be

a little bit more loosey-goosey than when you're cutting, but don't try to bulk or lean bulk, because I like to call it intuitively, because you probably are going to eat more than you should. Now, as far as macros go, it should be no surprise that I'm going to say protein intake is very important. Somewhere around one gram per pound of body weight per day is where you want to be. If you really want to make some room for slightly more carbs, I guess you could go down to 0.8 grams per pound per day, but I personally just stick with one gram per pound. It's easy and it works. Now, as far as carbs and fats go, I recommend that you eat enough fat to maintain health and performance, but no more because fat is very calorie dense. It is not going to help your

workouts much at all. And carbs, however, will. So the idea is let's eat enough fat to make sure that we're healthy, which is somewhere around 0.3 grams per pound of body weight per day. Let's say 0.3 to 0.4. That's the range. And then let's get the rest of our calories from carbs. And yes, that means that you will get to eat a lot of carbs. And yes, that means that you're going to have some great workouts your body is always going to be full of glycogen and you are always going to have a lot of energy in the gym and you're probably going to be able to eat a lot of foods that you like too and no the high carb lean bulk approach is not going to lead to faster fat accumulation than a high fat lean bulk. Ironically, going on a higher fat diet makes it easier to gain body fat simply because dietary fat is chemically similar to body fat and therefore

does not require much processing to turn into body fat, whereas carbohydrate is very chemically dissimilar and rarely gets turned directly into body fat at all. Research shows that carbohydrate intake needs to be absolutely sky high, and of course you also need to be in a calorie surplus, for it to directly contribute to fat mass through a process called de novo lipogenesis. And I'm talking like 6, 7, 800 grams of carbs per day. Several days in a row. That's what it takes for DNL to really start to ramp up. Now if you're concerned that maintaining a calorie surplus. Is going to cause your body fat levels to rise.

And cause your precious abs to fade away. Yes that is going to happen. And it needs to happen for you to consistently gain strength and to gain muscle. One of the biggest mistakes I see people making out there who are trying to gain muscle and gain strength or just gain muscle, maybe they don't even think about strength, they just want to get bigger, is they are not willing to allow their body weight and their body fat percentage to change much. They're chasing the lean gains. The idea that you can have the super six pack and just consistently add muscle and strength month over month and year over year, you can't. Unless you use a lot of

drugs, you just can't. Now, it doesn't mean you have to get sloppy fat when you're lean bulking, not at all. If you're a guy, I recommend that you start your lean bulk somewhere around 10% and end it somewhere around 16, 17%, which is really athletic by most people's standards. I understand it's kind of like fat by Instagram standards, but fuck Instagram. understand it's kind of like fat by Instagram standards, but fuck Instagram. By normal, real standards, a guy at 15 to 17% body fat with a lot of muscle looks good, looks athletic. And for women, those numbers change slightly. So I recommend that most women start their lean bulks around 20% body fat and end 26, 27%. And again, I understand 26 or 27% body fat by at least maybe certain subsets of the social media crowd is unacceptable, but fuck them. 26 to 27% body fat on a woman who has a good amount of muscle

and who looks healthy is great. Some women like to stay there. Some women don't. I've worked with many, many, many women, thousands over the years now, and I've found that most women do tend to prefer the leaner, more athletic, more defined look that is usually, you know, 18 to let's say 22% body fat. And that's totally fine. But even those women have learned to at least one of the ones, many of the ones I've worked with have learned to enjoy their lean bulks and learned to be okay with gaining body fat and getting up to a size that maybe is a little bit uncomfortable for them. But they know why they're doing it. They know that if they're tracking their numbers and they're doing everything correctly, that they're getting plenty out of it. And they know that it is not hard then to flip into a cut and just strip away the extra fat and then enjoy the new muscle that they gained.

Okay. So let's go to the third and final tip, which is making sure that you're recovering from your workouts. This is always important, but it is particularly important with strength training because the workouts are so demanding and because the programs often progress linearly, meaning that you're going to show up to a workout and you're going to have to add weight to the bar and it's going to be harder and you got to do it, at least you're supposed to, regardless of what you did in the prior workout of the prior week. And so the keys to recovery are protein, calories, and sleep. Got to make sure you're eating enough protein.

You got to make sure that you're eating enough calories. We already went over that. But sleep. Sleep is one of the most commonly neglected elements of recovery that I see out there. Many, many people are not sleeping enough and they don't realize how much that can impair their performance in the gym and their results. For example, research shows that even a single night of poor sleep can interfere through performance in the gym and a couple nights of poor sleep can absolutely ruin it. And multiple

studies have also shown that the athletes who get enough sleep or even more than what they thought was enough perform the best. I'm talking eight to 10 hours of sleep a night. Now that doesn't mean that you have to necessarily sleep eight to 10 hours a night, but seven to eight hours a night of good sleep should be the norm. And if you're not getting that now, I challenge you to review your priorities because most of the time, the people that I run into in my travels, in my work, who are not sleeping enough, are just doing other things than going to bed on time. They are playing around on their phones. They're watching YouTube videos. They're watching Netflix.

They could go to bed at 10 and get up at 6 but instead they go to bed at 11 30 and they get up at 6 because from 10 to 11 30 they're kind of just dirtling around and I understand the need for relaxation and for winding down after a long and busy day but nobody needs an hour to an hour and a half of social media or internet browsing or Netflix. And those aren't even great ways to relax anyway. If you want to learn some better ways to relax, just search for Muscle for Life Relax and you'll find an article that I wrote on it. I think I also recorded a podcast on it too. So if you search my podcast feed or my YouTube channel, you may find a, I don't know if it was just audio or if it was video as well, but you may find

something on that. Okay. Lastly, for muscle recovery, it is worth considering a few supplements. Of course, supplements are the least important out of everything that we've discussed. You don't need any supplements to get strong, to get big, to get healthy, but the right ones can help. And so the first is creatine, of course, the most studied molecule in all sports nutrition because it works. Of course, it doesn't work in everybody. Some people don't really respond to it, but most people are going to find that when they take five grams of creatine monohydrate per day, which is what I recommend, that they are going to gain strength faster, they are going to gain muscle faster, and they are going to be less sore from their workouts. Another supplement that

I like for recovery is carnitine, which is a nutrient comprised of two different amino acids, lysine and methionine. And it plays a vital role in the production of cellular energy. And studies show that supplementing with the form L-carnitine, L-tartrate can help reduce muscle damage and reduce muscle soreness after workouts and also speed up muscle recovery. Protein powder is another supplement that should be mentioned because while it doesn't directly increase recovery, eating enough protein does and protein powder is very convenient. It makes it easy to eat enough protein. As far as individual powders go, I just use my own, of course, which is called Whey Plus

from my supplement company, Legion Athletics. It's a 100% whey isolate. It is naturally sweet, naturally flavored. It tastes good. It's very easy on the stomach, but whey concentrate would be fine as long as you trust the company because some can be high quality like Optin Nutrition's whey concentrate, high quality, and some can be very low quality. And by that, I mean high protein by weight. So Ons is probably somewhere around 75, 80% protein by weight, whereas a low quality, cheap, straight from China, junk powder could be 30% protein by weight. Another supplement that everyone should be taking for purposes of recovery, among other things, is fish oil because fish oil provides your body with two essential fatty acids, EPA and DHA, that impact your health and performance in many ways. Now, two benefits of

particular relevance here is studies show that fish oil can help reduce inflammation caused by exercise, so speeding up that process of recovery, and also positively influence the physiological processes that result in muscle growth. And speaking of reducing inflammation, there's one other supplement that I take and recommend, and it is a joint supplement. It's my own. It's called Fortify, again, made by my supplement company, Legion Athletics. And the reason why I take it and I made it really to scratch my own itch, it was the joint supplement that I personally wanted, is when you do a lot of weightlifting and especially a lot of heavy weightlifting, the muscles aren't the only tissues that take a beating. Your joints also get beat up. Now,

if you follow all the advice that I've been sharing here, your body will do a good job taking care of your joints, but there are some supplements or some ingredients in Fortify that you can take that will help. Your joints will do better with them than without them. And specifically, I'm talking about type two collagen and curcumin, which you will find in Fortify in clinically effective doses, of course. And there are others, there are a couple other ingredients as well, but those two are the foundation of the product. Those are the two main ingredients that I wanted to be taking every day. And so anyway, if you want to learn more about Fortify, just search Legion Athletics Fortify and you will find Legion's website and you can read about it. All right. Well, the bottom

line here is I used to think that strength training was just for powerlifters. It was just for guys and gals who wanted to be as strong as possible, regardless of how they looked and regardless of their health. And I was wrong. Strength training is for everyone. And that includes people who just want to be aesthetic. Ironically, strength training is the most effective way to build a not only strong, but also muscular and aesthetic physique. Now, if you want to achieve your genetic potential for muscle gain, you are going to have to do a bit more than just strength training. You can always include strength training in your programming, and I would say you always should, but you are also going to have to incorporate some bodybuilding training as well. That's the way that I've been training for many years now, and it has served me very well. And

that's what you'll find in my programs for men and women, which have been around for years now and which have served many thousands of men and women well. 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 wanna 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 mikeatmuscleforlife.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 whey protein powder whey plus. Now this is a naturally sweetened and flavored whey isolate protein powder made from exceptionally high quality milk from small dairy farms in ireland whey plus also contains no gmos hormones antibiotics artificial food dyes fillers or other unnecessary junk and if i may say so myself it also tastes delicious and mixes great.

And all that is why way plus has over 1,400 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average and another 600 on my website with a five star average. So if you want a clean, all natural and great tasting whey protein supplement that's low in calories, carbs and fat, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Whey Plus 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.