Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - In Which I Give a Training Update . . .

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

I’m often asked what I’m doing in the gym and what my latest one-rep maxes on my lifts are, so I wanted to give a little training update in this podcast. I’ve been following the program in Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger for over 2 years now, and I just wrapped up one of my most productive macrocycles yet. How much strength did I gain on my lifts? What caused this sudden flourish of progress? I’ll give all the details in this podcast! Timestamps: 1​​0:44 - Strength standards for women 11:57 - What explains my sudden burst of progress? Mentioned on the Show: Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger:  https://legionathletics.com/products/books/beyond-bigger-leaner-stronger/ Books by Mike Matthews: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/

Hello and welcome to another episode of Muscle for Life. I'm your host, Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today to hear a training update. Let's talk about how my training has been going and how that can help you make your training go better. So I've been following my Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger 2.0 program for over two years now. I was tinkering with the programming for about a year before I released the second edition of the book, Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. And of course, the book has all of the information about what I am doing exactly in the gym, if you want to check it out. And I just finished another macro cycle of Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. That's four months. And I finished with a flourish at the end of this

macro cycle. So at the end of four months of training, the program calls for rep max testing on several primary exercises, several of the big compound exercises. You load them with a lot of weight. Of course, there is a systematic way of loading the bar. It's not just put a lot of weight on it. You're putting 95% of one rep max calculated at the beginning of the macro cycle. So what was 95% of your one rep max four months ago, hopefully is not anymore. Hopefully you have gotten a bit stronger, but it's still pretty heavy. And so you put 95% of one rep max at the beginning, calculate at the beginning of the macro cycle

on the bar, on the big compound exercises, and you see how many reps you can get. That is a rep max test. And you don't push to muscular failure because that would be unnecessarily dangerous, especially on something like a deadlift or a squat, maybe less so on the bench press if you have a squatter and on the overhead, a squatter, if you have a spotter, and less so on the overhead press if you have a spotter or if you have bars in place. And so what I recommend is that you end those rep max tests with one good rep left. So that means you're getting into the set, it's getting hard, and you're asking yourself,

how many more could I do if I really had to? You go until you feel like you could only get one more rep. That's pretty hard, right? That means the rep that you just completed was a bit of a grinder. And the next one is going to be a big grinder. And then you probably can't get another, right? So it's pretty hard. And so I did that on my flat bench, my deadlift, my seated military press, which is the overhead press variation that I've been doing for four months now. I'm going to be going back to now a standing press. I like to alternate

between a standing and a seated press every four months. And I did it on the safety bar squat. So that was my squat variation. And in case you've never safety bar squatted before, you can search online to see what a safety bar looks like. And it performs like a front squat. Basically it is easier on your back than the back squat. And it is harder to lift a lot of weight than the back squat. And so anyway, I did my rep max test on the safety bar and on the incline bench press. And here's how it went. I got 265 for three on the flat bench. So that gives me an estimated one rep max of 280 pounds. And that's not bad. That's up 10 pounds in this macro cycle. I started the macro cycle with an estimated one rep max of 270 pounds. And so I'm

up 10 pounds in four months. Pretty good. Deadlift, I got 420 for five for an estimated one rep max of 470 pounds. And I started the macro cycle at an estimated one rep max of 450 pounds. Pretty good progress there. Seated military press, 165 for five. That's what I got for an estimated one rep max of 180 pounds. And I started the macro cycle at an estimated one rep max of 180 pounds. And I started the macro cycle at an estimated one rep max of 175 pounds, a little bit of progress there, very hard exercise to progress on for what it's worth. Safety bar squat, I got 260 for eight, which I was very happy with. I was

thinking maybe I would get five. So that gives me an estimated one rep max of 320 pounds on the safety bar squat, which again, if you're scoffing at that, Mike, you have chicken legs. Remember that's essentially a front squat. That's a pretty strong front squat. And I started the macro cycle at an estimated one rep max of 280 pounds on the safety bar squat. And one of the reasons why I made such good progress there is that is actually the first time I have safety bar squatted. I've never worked out in a gym in the past that had a safety bar. So you'd expect me to be a bit weaker than I should have been to start out with because the technique is a little bit different. It does feel a little bit awkward if you're used to just back squatting and front

squatting. So I had to get used to it. And that definitely helped me quickly gain strength on it because I was getting better at the exercise, but still a 40 pound jump in four months as an advanced weightlifter who has a pretty strong lower body. Given my body weight, I only weigh 193 to 195 pounds and my body is not made to be very strong. It's just not like I'm made to be an endurance guy. Um, so anyways, I was happy with that on the incline bench press two 30 for three for an estimated one rep max of 240 pounds. And I started the macro cycle at that, at an estimated one rep max of 240 pounds. Obviously a little bit disappointing there, but that was Friday. So that was the fifth and final workout for the week. Obviously I already

had accumulated a bit of fatigue from the earlier workouts, the heavy squats, the heavy deadlifts. And that's not all you do in those workouts. Of course, you're doing some heavy, heavy squats, heavy, heavy deadlifts, and then some heavy-ish squats and deadlifts to follow it up. And then you move on to your other exercises. So they're pretty hard workouts. That's a difficult week of training. And so the fifth and final workout, I'm not surprised that I just didn't feel all that strong when I was getting on the incline bench and I hadn't slept well the night before. It wasn't terrible, but I'm guessing I got maybe six and a half hours of sleep, even though I was in bed as long as I should have been.

I just woke up a couple of times. One time my arm, I was laying on it weirdly as I should have been. I just woke up a couple of times. One time my arm, I was laying on it weirdly and it was completely dead. So I had to like bring it back to life and then go back to sleep. And it was just one of those obnoxious nights. And so that also doesn't have to affect performance. Research shows that you can sleep pretty poorly for one night and still perform well in your workout. So long as you're willing to push yourself, you may feel that the workout it's requiring more effort, but the performance is there. Um, however, there is individual variation. Some people,

and I'm unfortunately one of these people, if you don't sleep well, it, there's a good chance it's going to hurt your performance at least a little bit, especially when you're going for a rep max test, you're putting heavy weight on the bar, you're really trying to concentrate. It's this one set and you're giving it everything you've got. So that's how it went. And surprisingly, after a couple of years now of BBLS 2.0, this was actually one of my most productive macro cycles yet. It yielded an absolute PR in terms of pure poundage on the deadlift. That estimated one rep max of 470 on the deadlift. That's the strongest I've ever been on the deadlift. The second strongest I've ever been was, I remember putting 420 on the bar and getting three or four years ago, probably close to 10

years ago now. And I hurt my SI joint. It was kind of just an unlucky accident at the top of the third or fourth rep. I just let too much tension out in my core. Don't make that mistake. And I felt my hip kind of shift and knew that something was wrong. Fortunately, it wasn't a major injury. It just hurt for a couple of weeks and kind of went away. But from there, I started cutting because I had been lean bulking for four or five or six months at that point. And I was already up to two Oh five ish. And I just had had enough. I had, I'd had enough eating 4,000 calories of food every day and being kind of fat, at least by my standards. And so I was like, whatever, I hurt my SI joint. It's going to take a bit to work back. I'll just start cutting. I hurt my SI joint. It's going to take a bit to work back. I'll just start cutting. And, um,

and since then, since then I've, I've never gotten back to that low fours for three, four, five reps. I've gotten close in the past, but, um, that, so that, that, that to me was, that was pretty, pretty cool. Again, considering I'm 10 years older now, I'm 37 now, and I'm about 10 to 12 pounds lighter. I'm one 93 to one 95. So that's pretty cool. Again, considering I'm 10 years older now, I'm 37 now, and I'm about 10 to 12 pounds lighter. I'm 193 to 195. So that's pretty cool. And then on the safety bar squat, that's also an absolute PR, but again, I just started safety bar squatting. So of course it is. That said, it's a respectable number, which is pretty cool. And on the flat bench press, I'm getting closer to a relative PR. So relative to my body weight, my strength is close to where it was at its best, which was 295 for five for a one rep max of low 300s.

But I weighed 10 to 12 pounds more at that time. That was 10 years ago. 10 to 12 pounds more at that time. That was 10 years ago. And so I'm now within striking distance of that three, four, five kind of gold strength standard for natural weightlifters, three plates on the bench, four on the squat, five on the deadlift, one rep maxes, obviously that's a good milestone for guys to work toward who are natural. And most natural weightlifters are not going to be able to get much stronger than that. Similar to how most natural weightlifters, men, are not going to be able to gain more than 40 to 45 pounds of muscle, period, in the entirety of their fitness journey. And in women, it's about half of that. And as far as strength standards for women, it's not as clean and simple as three, four, five,

but most women can get to benching probably one rep max in the range of 150 to 175. Most women can get their squat one rep max in the range of mid 200s or so. And most women can get their squat one rep max in the range of mid 200s or so and most women can get their deadlift one rep max up into the high 200s some women can get stronger than that and some men can get stronger than the 345 as well but if you are an average man or woman in terms of your genetic potential for muscle and strength. And most people are by definition average in that regard. I'm slightly above average, maybe, but I'm, I'm in the, still in the middle of the, of the bell curve. Maybe I'm, I'm skewed a little bit to the right, but I'm not an outlier as far as my ability to get big and strong goes. So if you are with me somewhere there in the

middle of the bell curve, then those are reasonable goals for you to strive for if you want to get as jacked as possible or as fit as possible, as strong as possible. So what explains this burst of progress though in this macro cycle? Again, I've been following BBLS 2.0 for a couple of years now, and I've been grinding away, making progress, but this was really a breakthrough macro cycle. Why? Well, of course it's my supplements. I mean, it's Legion's supplements. So please go to legionathletics.com right now and give us all of your money and all of the money you can borrow so I can honor and manifest my core gift of internet profiteering before eventually fleeing the country to lean into aligning my passions and balancing my energetics. Moving on, the prime factors that made this

macro cycle so productive are just consistency and patience. I know, I know, I'm sorry. I don't make the rules. I don't enforce reality. Them's just the brakes. The reason I did so well is I only missed a couple of workouts in the entire macro cycle. So that's four months and they were on a deload week. So it's not a big deal. You can just take those weeks off. I do prefer to deload. I find that I come back with better performance than if I just take the week off. But some people find no difference whatsoever and they just like the extra rest that comes with a week off. But anyway, so I missed a couple of deload workouts because by the way, I got ronin again. I got the dangerous Delta variant. Oh my God. It was mild congestion for like a couple of days, even milder than the first time,

because I actually only noticed it at night. So when I had Rona, it was probably the alpha variant. I was mildly congested throughout the day for like three or four days or something like that. And then the Delta variant, I was mildly congested at night for a couple of nights. And I stayed out of the gym. Of course, I waited for my symptoms to go away. I waited, I don't know, seven, eight, nine days after that first symptom appeared. And that was the end of that, but it did coincide with my deload week. So I was happy about that at least. Thanks universe. Anyway, so I didn't miss any other workouts. Uh, I ate 2,800 to 3000 calories and 180 to 200 grams of protein every single day, as well as oodles of nutritious

carbs and fats, uh, like fruits and vegetables and whole grains and nuts and the like. And I did that five to six days per week on the weekends. Usually one day I'll have a salad for lunch, like my normal salad, but I won't eat as many vegetables at dinner because I'm making some pasta for my kids, which actually is made from scratch. So ironically, there is some nutritional value to that. It is, um, onions and garlic. It's bolognese is what I'm making these days so i should post it to instagram actually i'm going to post it this week to instagram try to remember i've tried to remember this in the past and i for some reason can't remember to but i'm going to make a firm commitment

to try to remember to post the recipe follow me at most of life fitness on instagram sunday or saturday watch my stories but there's onion and garlic and celery and carrots. And let's see, pancetta goes in there. That's not a vegetable, obviously. But tomatoes, I go with canned tomatoes. They're not fresh, but they are certainly more nutritious than ragu pasta sauce. certainly more nutritious than ragu pasta sauce. And anyway, so I don't eat as many vegetables on that day. And I usually will have a pint of ice cream also either like on a Friday night or maybe a Sunday night. And that may mean fewer vegetables at dinner because I'm just kind of eating some protein and keeping it simple and eating the ice cream. But sometimes I also just have the vegetables. So my point is my micronutrients were very consistent. I was eating a lot of nutritious foods consistently and my sleep hygiene was good. I got seven and a half to eight hours

of sleep, probably at least 80% of the last 120 something nights. So an apt analogy for all of this is baking. So what happens if you're baking and you forget the leavener? What happens if you use too much sugar or maybe you don't use enough fat? Well, you're in a bad way because you need all of the right components in the right quantities to create the righteous batch of confections. Likewise, the recipe for gaining muscle and strength becomes more exacting as you approach your genetic limits. It goes from mom's banana bread to rainbow baked Alaska. And if you fail to account for the humidity or the age of your baking soda, you get a slushy puddle of half-rotten tree sap. You have to be meticulous to make the grade. So remember, the passport to gains is always found in refining the fundamentals, not ferreting around the fringes. Energy,

not ferreting around the fringes. Energy, macronutrient, and micronutrient balance, not intermittent fasting, keto, or supplements. Volume, intensity, progressive overload, not reverse pyramid sets, supersets, or super slow sets. Sleep hygiene, rest days, deloads, Rest days, deloads, not stimulants, piss and vinegar, and mulishness. increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.