Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Interview With Coach "Rog Law": Keeping Fitness Fun and Becoming Your Own Coach

Episode Date: December 22, 2014

In this podcast, I interview fitness coach Roger Law, and we talk about... PubMed warriors vs. the value of anecdotal evidence The value of keeping your training fun Why you need to stay patient (how long it takes to build a great body) Criteria for choosing a coach Why you ultimately need to become your own coach Why extremism in this game is counter-productive And more... 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/

Hey, it's Mike, and I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do like what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you're going to like my books. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger If You're a Guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger If You're a Girl. I mean, these books, they're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live

in the gym grinding through workouts that you hate. Now, you can find these books everywhere. You can buy them online, you know, Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audiobooks and you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer, so as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven't already. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I think you're going to really like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion. As you may know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted who knows how much money over the

years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that's why I finally decided to just make my own. Now, a few of the things that make my supplements unique are, one, they're 100% naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we've chosen each ingredient and we cite all supporting studies on our website,

which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you're buying. Our formulations are 100% transparent. So if that sounds interesting to you, then head over to legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission for the company, because I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it's long

overdue. And ultimately, if you like what you see and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T, and you'll save 10% on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get to the show. Hey, this is Mike Matthews from muscleforlife.com. And I have Muscle for Life Yeah, when someone first told me they said Roglaw, I'm like, his name's Rogers. Probably Roglaw. Who said that? Okay, you can't. It was actually a friend of mine. He was the guy that recommended that I contact.

All right, well, whoever that is, when you're listening, come talk to me. We've got to talk about this. So Roglaw Fitness. Yeah, just met him just recently. Very cool guy. Knows what he's talking about. You spend most of your time training your online clients, you said, Raj. And then you also do some writing for your website and do some writing on other websites and stuff, right? away from mainly in-person training. So I was doing that for the last four years. So as of October of 2013, I stopped training in-person, at least for the majority of my income.

I still train people occasionally in-person, but it's not something I go out of my way. If I do it, it's for someone that I just want to do it for the enjoyment of it versus the money I'm getting. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I understand that. So just in case the listeners haven't heard of you or aren't familiar with you, tell me a little bit of your story. So what motivated you to get fit?

How did it start for you? And, you know, what brought you to where you're at now? Ooh, so back, way back in the day. So I was a completely non-athletic kid growing up. I was shockingly unathletic. Did you play any sports or anything? Loosely. So I played just t-ball count this was like i don't know that i played i played t-ball i played kickball all right i played recess and then once that ended i didn't do anything until um high school

for one one season i did like track and field. But essentially, my whole life, I was a video game kid. So I was sitting behind a desk just on the computer or in bed playing PlayStation for hours and pretty much doing a whole lot of nothing. I did a bit of that. I think it was between when I was like 14. The year of being 14 was just playing a lot of video games. And then like 15, 16 years I started to be like, wait a minute, I like girls.

So I'm going to go do that instead of video games. See, that's what saved you. I didn't realize that. I mean, I knew I liked girls, but I didn't think, I thought what I was doing would get them. I mean, I thought they loved. You should have moved to Korea. If you're in Korea, you would have been a superstar. I'd be the man.

I'd be in those stadiums just making all that money. Essentially, I didn't really start weight training until... You'd be a giant. You'd be like some kind of superhero. That would be the... Now, all right, I'm quitting fitness. I'm going to Korea.

This podcast is done. Thank you. You're welcome. It's back in back in the day you were you you were just a nerd if you played games but now you're an athlete over yeah i know a guy got his um even over now esports is is growing over here it's like i mean obviously it's not mainstream but there are some some of these bigger video games some of these big online games, the productions are getting more and more professional in terms of these big tournaments where you have multi-million dollar prize purses and stuff. Yeah.

This guy, actually, he avoided military service in Korea by applying to the United States, and he's the first sponsored e-athlete. So he's over here playing for me. I'm like, man, where was that when I was playing games? Free. But, yeah, essentially I didn't start training until 2007, like working out. Yeah. Let's say for more than a few weeks on end.

Serious until. Yeah. Like my first encounter with weights was like like a 15 pound dumbbell i had in my basement i was just curling just just for like a red just reps and reps i was like clearly if i get if i do this i'll get a bicep and if i get one bicep i can get two and if i get two this girl will like me and it didn't work out that way but i don't know what i mean i'm sure I know where I got that from movies and TV. But yeah, yeah. But until 2007 was when I kind of started training.

And that was because I had a bit of a health scare at the time. So essentially all the years of just eating fast food and sitting around playing video games and not moving much caught up to me. And I wasn't overweight. I would say like 210, 211 pounds. But I went for physical. Yeah. So I was like, I'm tall, so I can get away with it. But I went to a – I got my physical.

And the doctor was like, all right all right well everything's good except for your cholesterol it was like 300 something so i was like oh that's not good i should probably do something and the the mistake i made was telling my mom because she immediately thought i was going to die yeah the next day heart attack in imminent yeah and that was and right after that she's like a heart attack imminent. Yeah, and right after that, it's like everything I eat, she's like, does that have cholesterol in it? Does that help? I'm like, ah, damn it. Okay. So I got to do something because it was high to the point where they wanted to put me on statins, which I didn't know anything about statins back then.

I was just a guy that wanted to be healthy. But in doing my research, I just found a lot of dubious stuff on it. So I'm glad I didn't go that route. So trying to avoid that is what led me to fitness. So have you heard of Precision Nutrition? It does sound familiar, but I don't know what they're... I feel like I've been on their website but I don't nothing no details are coming to mind oh man okay so it's essentially a online nutrition and training company just puts out info and content and stuff like that but back back in 2008 they launched their um what's called a lean eating program. So it was an online coaching program for six months. And what that was essentially is a group of people.

I think it started out about 50 or 100 guys, and they all come in, and they just get coached on habits and fitness, and they get workouts for that whole six months. And it's essentially a transformation program with habits built as the backbone of that. So I signed up for that, and, man, it was intense. Because before then, I was just dicking around in the gym. And I was just hopping around from program to program, not knowing what I was doing. And then I found some structure with that. the program not knowing what i was doing and then i i found some structure with that and what that gave me is just it was my it was my first formal introduction to weight training and nutrition and uh at the end of that six months i lost about 20 pounds and my cholesterol

dropped a bit it wasn't what i thought it would be but it was it was an it was a start it was my start that got me into training like consistently for the long term i was like this this is pretty good can we swear on here is this yeah i mean i yeah i mean i don't know i i guess i sometimes i do sometimes i don't i don't know what i don't even know i don't know what the rules are even on itunes or anything well the shit just felt great i was like oh okay you know you change, change your mindset, and everything starts to fall into place after that. So that was really how I got into training myself, and then I used that experience to help others. Based on that, I applied for an internship at Chrissy Performance in Hudson, Mass., and surprisingly, I got that. I still don't know how, but I did. And that just led down the road of training other people. I had the best first introduction to fitness that I could have even ever imagined. And then ever since then, I've just been trying to pay it forward in terms of experience I had and trying to give it to other people.

I had and trying to give it to other people. Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. In these last few years, what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced in terms of fitness and what's helped you overcome them? So in terms of my own personal struggle, would you say? Yeah. Okay. I'd say initially it was really just the internet.

was really just the internet. There was so much stuff on there that I hopped around and okay. So the first, have you heard of the anabolic diet? I'll start there. No. I mean, it sounds like, it sounds like every other scammy piece of shit, but I don't know what it is, but if it's called the anabolic diet, I probably won't like it. It hooked me. It hooked me so hard. So essentially it's like a low-carb during the week and – low-carb during the week and on the weekends you get to carb up. So it's just a carb cycling-esque thing. Yeah, but it's just a carb cycling esque thing yeah but it's like that but the way that I understood it it wasn't like

that at all it's like they made it seem like the mecca of diets yeah sure that was my first introduction I bought into it and it just you know during the week I eat low carb but I eat all the food blah blah

then weekends just cereal and cakes and this and that and it was just hopping around the secret getting shredded yeah it's it's like i felt like i was missing out on something and yeah it's kind of funny that that lowb is so trendy right now and high-fat is so trendy, and there's a lot of these diets all revolving around. It's mainly because testosterone as a subject right now is very hot and popular. Doctors

are prescribing TRT like crazy, everybody. You could be 22 years old and go to a doctor and be like, I think I have low T. He's like, I think so too. Here's your prescription. Like, thank you. Bye. So it's just because it's very, you know, trendy right now. And then you have, you have a little bit of research that shows like going from a low fat diet to a high fat diet can increase free T. But if you actually look at it, like, you know, you can expect maybe a 10 to 15% increase, which

is a hundred percent irrelevant when you're talking about natural. That's just a, you know, so what? You go from 500 or 600 NGDL to 600 or 700 NGDL. Does that matter? Not at all. That's not going to make you stronger. It's not going to help you build more muscle. The benefits in terms of fat loss if you're cutting is going to be negligible.

Maybe you'll feel it a little bit. Maybe you'll be a little bit more energetic. Maybe your libido will be a little bit boosted, but it's all in all, it's just irrelevant. And when you, when you cut out carbs from your training, uh, you're missing out on a lot. You're missing out on the, on the performance benefit. You know, when you're, when you're, when your muscles are full of glycogen, you can push more weight, you can train harder and longer in the gym. And then there's also the insulin response that comes with carbs. Yeah, insulin is not anabolic, but it's anti-catabolic. And when we're looking at muscle growth, when you look at net protein turnover, you want protein synthesis and you want as little protein degradation as possible.

protein synthesis and you want as little protein degradation as possible. And the elevated insulin levels help keep the protein degradation in check, which is why, I mean, I talk about this in a couple of articles on my website. There are, I cite two or three different studies that just show definitively that higher carb diets help you build more muscle over time. It's just 100% proven and it's known. The people that know what they're doing, they know that. And when I speak to people that, it depends though on the drugs, of course. If somebody is on enough drugs, then it doesn't matter. They can get a little bit of the fat loss boost that may or may not come with carbs depends on your body and let the drugs make sure that they even build muscle it doesn't matter you know what i mean but but but when you're

natural carbs are your friend they're you know you eat enough fats for your basic to you that your body needs to just you know maintain hormone levels and maintain cellular integrity and whatever um but then you know high carb even when you're cutting, like, I don't know if you, if you still do low carb, but I never do. Like, even if I'm, even if I'm cutting, you know, like to get into a photo shoot where I'm, you know, maybe 6%, my carbs, I just did that recently. And my carbs were, I ended my cut at, I think it was like 170 grams a day. And I ended my weight at about 182. Yep.

It's so, yeah, it's, I think it's, there's so much dogma out. a day and I ended my weight at about 182. Yep. So, yeah, it's, I think it's, there's so much dogma out in the, in magazine, I think magazines are getting a bit better and I think everything is getting a bit better, actually. Yeah. But the fitness space is getting so crowded that people are trying to make a name for themselves by just saying absurd things they're like you yeah you know if you eat yeah yeah you know being contrarian it gets attention it's like the rap game it's like it's like when 50 stood first came out it's like that he just

started talking crap about everybody just to get a name and it worked yeah so there's something too but you know you have to think about those people that latch on to that misinformation not out of – it's just out of ignorance. And I don't say ignorance to talk down to someone, but they just don't know what they don't know. And they think – yeah. It's not stupidity. You're just not knowing. Yeah. And the card thing is one of the – one of my biggest, I guess, issues, because whenever I speak with someone that's not really into training or into working out, they just like, oh, I'm going to cut my cocks.

So that's what they'll do. And I'm like, OK, in that conversation, like when they say that to me, I have there's two ways I can go. That conversation, like when they say that to me, there's two ways I can go. There's that way where I can explain to them and try and talk and try and inject a new idea, a new belief, or a new option to consider into their mind. Or that left option where I just go, yep, yep, just cut the carbs, and then just run away. Because if someone believes something, odds are they're not going to change their belief unless they want to. And it's unfortunate because a lot of people end up making this whole fitness thing a lot harder than it needs to be just based off all the misinformation they have. They don't know there's misinformation. Yeah, definitely. You had mentioned before we got on the podcast that the whole fake guru thing is something you wanted to dive into.

Tell me what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, and it's, you know, I wouldn't even necessarily say fake guru. Well, okay, let's start there. I mean, they kind of are. Yeah, yeah. You know, the more I think about it, the more I'm like, that is a good term. But there are. I mean, let's start with how a lot of these people look themselves. If you can't walk the walk yourself, why would anyone – it's a question that has come up for me many times.

I'll see some of these guys. Why would anyone listen to this person, look at him? It looks like he's been lifting for six months. If you don't – if a person – there are only a handful of people that I would say that maybe they don't look the look so much, but they know their shit. Like Lyle McDonald. Like, yeah, Lyle McDonald doesn't have a physique, but he knows his shit. And his proof is in the results of his clients. And also, I mean, you read his work.

Like, he's just one of the smartest guys in this industry. But, you know, there is that out there, but for the most part, it's like, you know, if, if you're thinking about taking, I mean, it's okay if you're just skimming someone's article on how to get motivated for working out, okay, fine, whatever. But if you're seriously considering taking, you know, dietary or training advice, like if you're going to base your training or your, your nutrition on someone's advice, I mean, I would at first, like, does that, would you want to look like that person? Is that what you're going for? Are you impressed by that person's physique? If not, it doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about. That's not, but it's definitely

a red flag. Like, why is this person, why does he not, does he even do what he says? If he does, does it not work? You know what I mean? Yeah. I think that's where the internet meme, do you even lift, comes from. It's kind of like that. And there's definitely something to that because it's – you can really – and this goes to the thing I want to talk about with gurus is there is that when you're talking with someone that really knows or really walks the walk, there's a sense of wisdom to them versus just, oh, I got all these.

It would be comparing like let's say you have two lecturers and there's one guy. He's got a bunch of papers in his hand, and he's talking. He's flipping through all of them because he has all this information, but he hasn't lived it. He hasn't really done anything with it. He hasn't trained or done anything with that information versus someone else who's just off the cuff and the information they're conveying, they've done it themselves. They have experience teaching it or taking others through it, and they have this sense of ease. They're just more chill. They're not as high, strong, or feeling out that they have something to prove. It's more just like, hey, I'm not here to tell you what to believe.

I'm just conveying my experience to you. I'm not trying to convert you to my religion. Right, yeah. conveying i'm not trying i'm not trying to convert you to my religion right yeah i'm just uh and that makes me think of these pubmed warriors right so like i'm actually very interested in the scientific side of what we do and i read a lot of papers and i link to a ton of science in my articles it's just one of the things i like to do um just because it uh i think helps just establish it helps show that i don't just take, I don't just, I'm not just trolling the internet, like, you know, collecting tips and throwing it into an article, you know what I mean? And myself, like, if someone doesn't have that scientific slant, for the most part, I just, I'm not going to listen to what they have to say.

Because in a lot of cases, they're just not going to know what they're talking about. Or maybe they'll know in certain things like, yeah, through experience, they may have learned some things. But, you know, just because something works to some degree doesn't mean it's the optimal way to do things. And we can kind of look to science for that. But on the flip side, you have a lot of people that are like, you know, you can call like PubMed warriors or PubMed trolls where they, they themselves don't even lift or they've never, you know, they weigh 130 pounds, uh, but they spend all this time reading through papers and trying to, to collate and correlate. And they'll, they'll argue, it's just pure

theoretical argument. And like, there are things like, for instance, um, the whole idea that the 10 to 12 rep range is the key to hyperfutry, and that's where you should be training if you want to build bigger muscles. And if you train anything less than probably like the 6 to 8 rep range, you're not going to get bigger. You're only going to get stronger. You can make that argument. I could write that article and cite quite a bit of science that would make that argument. And if somebody were reading it, it would be persuasive. But it's completely false.

And when you actually dig into that, you begin to wonder where did this, how did this myth even find its way into literature? And, you know, a fair amount of these studies are also, it's like, just because somebody did a bunch of elbow extensions or, you know, one leg extensions, like 50 reps with 33% of their one rep max, that doesn't, you can't extrapolate the results of that study into a long-term, like, training routine. Like, you give me anyone, and you put them on that, on those machines, and have them work with 30% of their one rep max, and then I'm going to take someone and I'm going to put them and he's going to squat heavy, he's going to deadlift heavy, bench military, press heavy, and let's see where those guys are at in six months. Let's see who's built more muscle and who's bigger and who's stronger.

My guy will destroy the other guy, but it's a bit harder to find scientific evidence of that. And you have to really dig and you have to, it's not easy. And I have an article on my website where I kind of do go into it. But that's just an example of where you'll have, I mean, I'll have people write me where they're not even trying to be argumentative. They just haven't done it. They've never really built any muscle or strength, but they have all these studies, and this study says that you should be training 10 to 12 rep, and this study says that compound lifting isn't that important, and this study says that if you want to lose fat, you should be training in a higher rep range, but then when you actually put these things into practical

use, it doesn't play out. It doesn't work. Yep. Oh,'s it's so true and it's a lot of people can get lost in this this world of theory and science and and then they end up living there and they don't end up doing any actual training or or exploring any of the ideas they just quote as truth and that's a lot that's the dangerous part of the the science, I guess, or just the people that are only focused on that. Yeah. Some, you know, like the best in the business, like someone I really look up to is Brad Schoenfield. He takes that science and then he goes to apply it and see how it works. And he's open to the results.

He's like if the science is one thing but his results say something else, he's open to that. But some people, they just look at the science and they go, well, it's true. That's it. And they haven't even tested it out themselves. It's like 2 a.m. on Google. They're in their underwear and they sit and go, all right, science says it's true. It is true. I saw it on the internet.

There's this great Steve Martin quote, and it refers back to this whole thing. He says talking about music is like dancing about architecture. It's like you can talk about all the studies you want, but you have to apply – you have to do something. And that's why I really like training. It's just a great analogy for life. If you want life, you have to do something. If you want to change your physique or something, you have to put in action. You can't just be all theory and the secret. You can't get the secret your way into the body you want.

I can't just attract a great physique. Man, I've been trying. I've been sitting in my room for like two days. I'm like, if I just visualize it when I wake up in the morning, oh, you don't even know how ripped I'm going to be. And it didn't work, but I think I just got to think positive thoughts about it more. And just going about guruism, you have those people, but I think just the term guru is just – it's a dirty title. It's like I don't I don't I personally don't want to be seen as a guru and yeah it's like

I've had some people call me that it was just weird I feel like I should be wearing robes and I should have a I should work we're not these days now it's like that we've lost the Hindu as now it's like you should be trying to sell them you know a thousand a thousand different products and you should be the one saying that you've unlocked the secrets of anabolic dieting. Yep. And that's dangerous, man. And the thing about guruism is just it's all posturing. It's who can appear to be that.

And then once you appear to be that, anyone that sees you that doesn't know better, they're like, oh, that guy's a shit. He knows what he's talking about. Why do I know that? He's got a nice website. He's got all of this and that. And then they cling on to that. with that for like the average trainee or people that are just getting into like training is they don't they don't have any experience on their own so they rely on this one person like they'll cling on like this is my dude i don't even read anything else but by this guy and they cling on to that and

then they kind of disengage themselves from their own experience like when i first started i barely read anything by anyone that when I was first starting out, it's like, okay, well, I got me to one point, but then I started taking the next steps on my own. And that led me away from that,

where that original source material from when I first started, because the thing about is if you don't get away from that, like depending on someone or thinking someone has a secret for you is that you don't learn to trust yourselves and you don't – you're just always dependent on someone else's input or guidance for your own development, which is scary. It's like a slippery slope. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I mean, I try in my work, one thing I really try to do is teach people the underlying physiology of how everything works. So then it's not my secret proprietary system. I mean, it's like, you know, my weightlifting advice is this is the weightlifting advice that goes back to Arnold's days. Like you have to focus on heavy compound lifting. You have to know what you're doing with your diet. It's all just numbers. You know, micronutrients do matter. Like healthy foods do matter,

but it's not in terms of body composition. You can eat the healthiest foods in the world and be fat and have no idea what's wrong just because you're eating too many calories every day. And then there's also the, I mean, that's the physical side. And like you said, it is very simple. And then there's, you know, then there's the internal stuff of being patient, even when you're doing everything right. You know, don't, don't get sucked into speaking of gurus, don't get sucked into the ridiculous transformations that you see on the internet, which like, yeah, if you are going

to take 10 grams of drugs a week like that, dude, sure. You can go from nothing to shredded in a year, like huge, like lean. Yeah. Whatever. But when, when you're natural, you know, setting, setting, uh, realistic expectations, like if you're new to weightlifting, uh, you should be able to, if you're a guy, you know, if you do, if you put on 20 to 25 pounds of muscle in your first year, that is, that's amazing. That's about like, that's the best you're going to do really. Uh, and if, if, even if that's 15, that's still actually a pretty good first year. Um, and, but you know, in terms of how that looks like that, that's a, that's a dramatic

difference, but that's not that when people, a lot of guys, when they're getting into weightlifting, usually the look that – like in my experience, the look that they want requires that they gain probably 30 to 35 pounds of muscle, maybe 25 to 35, and be about maybe 8 to 9% body fat seems to be the general look that guys that like when they start, that's really what they're going for. Uh, and, and, and guys need to realize that takes, you know, it takes a couple of years to do that. It takes no less than two years to do that with the best, like it doesn't matter what training program you're following, like with an optimal training program and in really sticking to your diet, you know, more or less the entire time, which means that you're, you're, you're eating the right amounts of foods and you're not dragging your cuts out for too long. And you're not like destroying yourself on your bulks. Like you're doing it right. Um, it takes time. So you have that, you know, that patience

factor and then not getting all OCD and body dysmorphic about it as well. And which is another thing that you had said you wanted to kind of mention or going to go over is kind of like keeping it fun, which definitely is an important point for just maintaining, you know, not just compliance, but like mental, uh, balance,

I guess you could say. Yeah, definitely. Because it's, it goes back to what you were just saying is that, um, you have to, it's a my, and this goes back to what you were just saying is that, um, you have to, it's a long haul. Yep. And if you don't, the reward is big though. Like people should realize that like you do that, you work hard for that two, maybe three years and you,

and, uh, you can enjoy yourself along the way. It's not like you're going to hate the journey, but if you come into that, knowing that is the journey, that's what it's going to take. But then you come out the other end with the physique that you want. Like you now look, you know, the way that you want to look for whatever reason that is. And along the way, I mean, if a lot of a lot of us started out, I mean, I started working out to impress girls. Like that was, you know, a simple, stupid reason to start. And now I like to do it just because I like to lift. I just like it. It's just an enjoyable activity.

It's like it's become just a staple of my life. And I'm married. It's nothing to do with girls anymore. But, you know, you learn to enjoy the journey. But then when you come out of it, maintaining a great physique is so much easier than building one, you know? Yeah, definitely. And that's the thing. It's like the first couple years in fitness, if people approach it with the mindset that,

all right, I'm just, you know, shit's not going to go perfectly this first couple years, but I'm going to learn a ton, and I'll use that experience to go forward once I get to that point. And just have, it's like for the first couple of years almost, as long as you stick to the basics, it all essentially works. So have some fun with it. Yeah.

I don't know. Honestly, I think because your newbie gains are going to last about six months, give or take. That seems to be the general. After that though, if you don't know what you're doing, you're going to plateau. You're going to spin your wheels, yeah. Yeah. If you don't know what you're doing, you're going to plateau. You can spin your wheels, yeah. Yeah, if you don't know what you're doing with your diet, if you're training, if you're following magazine routines that just have you doing a bunch of drop sets and super sets and high rep isolation work, you're going to plateau.

You're not going to see anywhere near the progress that you saw in the first three to six months. So I think that there is something to say for that. Like proper programming. Yeah. Yeah. And, and like, like you were saying, it's,

it's all, I kind of treat it like a video game is that, you know, at the beginning, you're just learning all these, you're like in a, a newbie zone. So you're learning the fundamentals and that takes time.

You can't, you can't rush. And that's what a lot of people want to do. They want results in eight weeks, 12 weeks. You can't rush the adaptations that need to happen. You can't rush how fast your body is going to lose. You can cut your calories all you want, but it might hurt you in the long run because you can't sustain it, and you bounce back because you diet hard for hard for three days and then you bend for four

because that three days are so hard versus a moderate deficit for weeks can yeah it's you know and it goes to back to the extremism that you know is often promoted in fitness it's like extreme is this extreme is sexy to people so they're like all right it's extreme it must work and yeah and they quickly forget that like it's like nothing really like a few things in life are extreme all the time it's like you're extreme for brief periods if at all it's like you don't you don't extremely build a house because that's how the shit falls apart it's like oh you build this house in a day i don't want to live in that house and and people don't want to hear that they're like nope nope i heard this dude on the internet he got results he was ripped in eight weeks and these pictures and these before and afters

it's like they want that and i'm like it's not so just you know if you come into it with that approach that's going to take a while but there's lots of wiggle room and room for you to enjoy it. Like I enjoy one of the, one of my favorite styles of training, just even for me, that's been, even though I've been training for years now, it's something I go back to every now and then just to, you know, for a new phase or just to have some fun. It's like escalating density training. For a new phase, it's just absolute fun. It's like escalating density training. So if I don't feel like doing six or seven exercises, I'll go in for, let's say, I pick two exercises, alternate back and forth between those two for 15 minutes,

and then I rest and then do another two exercises. And they'll still be the compound lifts, but now I don't have to think much about it all. Like I have a certain rep range I'm aiming for with these two exercises. Let's say I'm doing like chin-ups and then I'm doing rows. I'm like, okay, I do chin-ups and then rows. Let's say I start off trying to get six to eight reps each, and then I just keep going back and forth and back and forth for that whole time. So if I have energy, I go faster. If I'm a little tired that day, I go slower. But it's fun to me just that aspect of racing the clock and knowing that the end is in sight.

I'm like, oh, thank you, Lord Jesus. The workout's almost over. It adds a novelty into it while still adhering to principles. And that's really what, when I say bring fun back into it, it's more along the lines of adhering to the principles that work. But by doing so, you have a lot of methods that you can play around with. It's like Batman and his utility belt. It's not like he's going around just throwing the bat.

What is it? The batarang? Batarang, I think. Yeah, he's not just doing it. That's not his only tool. If it was, he would be a shitty hero. He'd be like, well, this is over. My Batarang failed. I can't climb the building with my Batarang.

I'm going home. Game over. Obviously, there are many different ways to get results in training. It depends what you want to do with your body. I wouldn't say that everything can work, obviously. There are certain things that just don't work very well. The goals do matter a lot, though. It depends. If you're new, your goal is to basically build muscle and strength as quickly as possible

is really what you want to do when you're new. Once you've reached the point where you're happy with your size, uh, and, and, and, you know, by then you're going to be pretty strong. Then you have a lot more wiggle room, as you said, where you can do different things and you can maintain your physique and have more fun with it. I think somebody new, it depends on what they want to do. If having fun for them is more important than, you know, I totally understand that. But if somebody comes in and they're like, I just want to get big and strong as quickly as possible, then that narrows down their options, you know? Right. Yeah. The more restricted or the more precise the goal, the less. Yeah.

We're going to have. Yeah. Like if someone's like, I just want to work out and have fun. There's so many ways to work out and have fun. If that's what you're trying to get out of it, you know, I'm like, people love that, you know. That's a big draw of it. People will have fun. There's the whole group thing, and, you know, you're doing different workouts every day, and there's definitely – it has that going for it. Yep. And, you know, here's a question for you just cause I'm curious,

like after, let's say you've, you've been working with someone for a while at, um, and is there any point that you kind of cut them loose and to kind of go off on their own? Um, yeah, I mean, I actually, I actually don't do any one-on-one. I don't have time for it. Yep. Uh, I, I, instead I put all my time into, into writing and just creating content where then, so people, I mean, I want people to be self sufficient right from the beginning. Um, and that's, that's, that's my goal with like my books and my website and stuff is that people that, you know, I, I've, I've kind of debated even offering custom workout plans, not even a coaching service. So just giving people a workout plan, um, because in a lot of cases, like, you know, bigger, leaner, stronger is a,

it's a simple but effective program. If it focuses on heavy compound lifting, um, it's great for somebody that's new or new to that style of lifting. If somebody has already put in a couple years of heavy compound lifting, uh, then they, the, the, the next book that I'm releasing, it's going to be really for more advanced weightlifters, people that have built their first 20 to 30 pounds of muscle and have acquired the strength that comes with it. And that program is a periodized program. It focuses still on the four to six rep range, but it also includes some power lifting and hypertrophy stuff. So between those two books and their respective programs, I really am trying to give people everything that they need to build a great physique, to be strong, to be healthy and maintain it without ever having to exercise more than like four to six hours a week.

That's kind of like my thing. Yeah. And what you just said, it goes back to I think what we talked about earlier, which is about gurus and that, you know, I think the job of a good coach or just someone that's really putting out quality content is that they're a teacher. And at some point, you you just really you're guiding people along in a way that you know lets them learn about the process as well for those like those people that really want to get into like the reason why and that they can get into it

and there's also something to be said for hey here's this workout you don't need to know why it'll work but for you you came to me at this point looking for this rule this will work for you do it and that alone like guys you know yeah yeah totally and those guys will usually be the ones that will get very fancy with things because they want to try to impress you you know then that's where you're going to do the anabolic diet of carb cycling and you know you're going to go uh you know if on this day and then you're going to carb backload the next day. And then so then you're, so you feel like, wow, this is, this guy really must know his shit.

I'm doing all this weird shit. It must mean something. When, when ironically you would, you know, probably just do better with like a standard traditional diet that has you eating, you know, whatever, every few hours you eat a little bit of food and your numbers add up at the end of the day. Yep. Yeah. few hours you eat a little bit of food and your numbers add up at the end of the day yep yeah there's so many different ways to go about it and it's good to have people that it's good to have teachers and that's something that i lacked in the beginning so now that i'm in a position to

help people you know you really have to have a responsibility like all right you know let me not put out shit. Let me not try to misguide people because there's tons of people making a living off of misinformation, which is unfortunate. Oh, yeah. So to be – Millions. Millions. It becomes – yeah, exactly.

I mean it becomes like the more money – there's so much money being spent in this industry. It's a ridiculously huge industry, and it's obviously such a big pain point for for people and people are very, they want to believe a lot of things too. You know, it's just like that, that suggestibility that comes along with it. So, and if, if you are unethical, it is, if you're an unethical, intelligent marketer, you can, and I know people, I wouldn't say personally, but I just know through my little travels, I've met various people that are, you know, destroying, I mean, that have made, uh, seven, eight figures, uh, in this space over the last few years, uh, and selling garbage. I mean, like there's, you know, the joke is like pills in a bottle, like literally this, what they don't

give a shit and fake information products. And where it's like, you know, like literally this what, they don't give a shit, and fake information products, and where it's like, you know, the whole, the face of it is just a fake, totally made up thing, and so, you know, when there's that much money, it's going to draw bad people, and that's where, and then we have varying degrees of that, you know, I'm talking about like outright scammers, then the the fake gurus kind of fall somewhere there and in in the middle i guess yep and that and that and that goes back to like something that i want to talk about in in the vein of gurus is i want people you know after a certain time you you got to become your own guru in a sense in that you know after you've been doing this for years.

If you've been working out for 10, 15 years and you still don't know how to put together a program based off what works on you, I don't know. It's almost like you haven't learned anything from what you've gone through. It's like you've always been dependent on someone else to hold you by the hand and give you a program here or there but after a certain point you have you have to take the reins and go okay what have what have i learned from all of this it would be the equivalent of like going through school you know from kindergarten to like 12th grade graduating like oh shit i don't know anything it's like well that that actually happens a lot more often than uh people are comfortable with uh admitting yeah yeah i totally agree it's like cool yeah man it's it's it's a mindset that i just want to share with people not like if you're beginning you need some guidance you need someone to

really guide you through but after a while you know you should have enough experience on your own to where you can start to trust yourself which which is really what it's all about. Yeah, I mean, I think that the criteria that if I were, if I went, if I were going back and doing it again, knowing at least if I could just tell my old self, because I started training for my first six or seven years, it was a joke. I had no idea what I was doing. And I made terrible gains considering for how, you know, how much time I put into it. It would have been to, if I could give myself just the, this is how you find somebody to listen to. It would be, how do they look themselves? Also drugs come into that. If there's, you know, some people, if you, it can be hard to spot or it can be easy to spot.

There are telltale signs, massive shoulders, massive traps, massive upper chest, drugs all the time. And that's just obvious. That very three-dimensional kind of look where it looks like they weigh 210, but they weigh 170. It looks like a video game character. Yeah, when they're bulking, they're never over 10%, even though they're eating 5,000 calories a day. Um, you know, insane vascularity, all these things just generally indicate drug use. Uh, so, so that has to take into account, but you know, uh, and, and the problem with drug use is just so that we understand or listeners understand is that you, it changes everything. Like if you're on enough drugs, you can basically just go in the gym and get a pump every day and you grow. So if that's all that guy knows, if he's been on drugs from the beginning, then he can't really help you because he's going to tell you to go do that.

But he's not going to tell you to do the drugs. He's just going to be like, go in the gym and do like 30 sets of 30 reps and you'll be huge. Right. You know what I mean? And in diet, it's like, uh, I don't know. I eat 6,000 calories a day and I never go over 10%. I have good genetics. Like, Oh, okay. Yeah. So, so, so, you know, if that's, uh, you gotta, you gotta watch out for that. But when you have somebody that's natural and you'll see it, there's a lot more emphasis on food. They're not eating obscene amounts of food every day. Their training is a bit more,

uh, um, my phone is freaking out. They're training. Their training is a bit more moderate, less, you know, not super high volume.

They're not going to be pounding 8 million reps of workout and stuff. Um, so how do they look themselves? What kind of success stories do they have? Do their clients, they're the people, you know, readers,

whatever, uh, are these, are these real people or They're the people, you know, readers, whatever. Are these real people or is it these ridiculous, you know, two-month transformations where a person went from like 20% to 5%? Don't be inspired by those transformations. There's a lot more going on than what they're telling you. Magic. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, like I said, showing that they understand the scientific side matters a lot. At least it matters to me. It shows that they take it seriously enough to become a student and actually get really educated. And I don't know, am I forgetting anything? Would you like to add anything else on that and how you think people should decide whether they should listen to someone or not? Yeah, it's like if you're applying for a job, you want some references. I would ask like, okay, so do you have any testimonials?

Can I talk to some of your former clients? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good one. That's a really good sign because if one of my clients wouldn't recommend me and they got good results or they got shitty results, there's a reason they didn't recommend me. So whatever I say wouldn't really help determine it would be better coming from someone else that worked with me and had success and go, hey, they can vouch for me. They were in your position at once, and I helped take them from this point to that point. That step right there would be, you know, and if they don't want, if they don't have any or they don't want to be willing to put you in contact

with them or at least reach out to their former client or current client and say, Hey, I have someone's interest. That's a, that's a red flag. It's just like, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I would actually, if I were, I would just move on. I mean, that's like, yeah, that pretty much says everything right there. Yeah. And it's, yeah. And the really, it, I would just take your time. Don't rush into signing up with someone, get a sense of, you know, since people are so vocal on social media and their blogs, you can really get a sense of someone and

kind of what their angle is or if they have your best interest in mind, if you take enough time to just read what they're saying or read between the lines. So I would just say take your time and just spend some time chatting with them. We're all busy, but if they're genuinely interested in helping you, they won't mind answering questions that they should be able to answer from prospective clients. Yeah, I totally agree. Word up. Cool, cool. Well, yeah, it's great. A lot of good stuff covered. So let's just close

with where can listeners find you at? Anything else you'd like to share with them? Yeah, just check me out at RajLawFitness.com. And that's R-O-G LawFitness.com. Yep, R-O-G LawFitness.com. And then Facebook.com slash R-O-G L-A-W fitness.com and then Facebook.com slash R-O-G L-A-W that if you like laughing I put some fitness stuff up there too

but it's a lot of lifestyle and just jokes and just you know people need to be happy so feel free to follow me there too shoot me a message email always happy to chat or answer any questions so do not be shy I am a real person I do respond to emails yeah yeah me

too i respond to everything myself and you know emails messages it's something i wouldn't turn that over to an assistant just because you know i think it's personal yeah yeah exactly yeah man yeah well thanks for having me man this is great.