Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Live Q&A: My Upcoming Supplements, Recovering From Injuries, Strength vs Aesthetics, and More!

Episode Date: June 26, 2015

In this live Q&A I answer questions about my upcoming supplements, how to recover from workout injuries, the "choice" between being really strong and being really lean, and more! If you want to get in on the next one and ask me questions, sign up here: https://legionathletics.com/qa/ QUESTIONS FROM THIS Q&A: When cutting do you cycle or take a break from supplements eg. Forge and Phoenix? If so, when and for how long? Tell us more about GENESIS, your new green supplement. Can't wait for it! Deload VS. Week off? When will Stacked be released? Hey brother, been on your book for about a year. Best results ever... BUT, with shoulders, side raises, I feel I work my traps more than my shoulders, Tips? Read your book and you recommend taking 1.2g of protein/lb during cutting. I find it hard to stick to that? Any recommendation? I'm curious, which professional athlete do you admire most and why? Will fat gain during a bulk be more evenly redistributed? Or will stubborn areas gain fat first? Do you feel that muscle growth is compromised by a down regulated metabolism, meaning a post cut situation? What do you think about consuming caffeine/creatine at the same time post-workout? What’s your process for testing 1RM on the primary lifts – how often, as part of regular workouts or separately, basic methods, etc? Thoughts on incorporating Yoga in parallel with BLS bulking program? If so, what do you suggest? Any tips on growing a blog (I know you grew yours rapidly) and what are your favorite writing tools and tips? Are you going to get back to doing regular podcasts every week? I am starting the Bigger Leaner Stronger program VERY soon. My workout partner is my wife, and she has different goals than me while in the gym. She is trying to lose weight while I am trying to gain muscle. How can we still be workout buddies with different goals? Excited for the new Star Wars movie? Based on your Instagram I bet your son is! (43:10) What would you say is the best way to deal with weight variation? Considering the variations that can occur because of your scale, and all of the other factors that can vary weight, how can we make sure we're making progress? I struggle with finding a happy balance between my strength goals and physique goals. How do you find the balance? Are there any machines you would recommend to increase bench press? Are you going to start engaging your son in any type of exercise/sports? On improving a specific body part, what do you think on working this muscle 2 or 3 times a week together with other muscles? What do you think of the "gallon of milk a day" routine? I heard this helps with getting bigger. My shoulder hurts quite a bit from stretching so much when I try to get into the squat position you recommend. I haven't been to the gym for about a month now, I was sick with the flu. I'm planning to head back to the gym but don't know how to go about it. Should I go back to my old routine or just take things slow. I'm following your book and training program which are both really great! The problem I'm having is that I'm always tired, like out of energy. Is there anything I might be doing wrong? Whole wheat bagels: Good or bad bulking food? I've got an angry rotator cuff and it causes challenges for progression with heavy weight, any recommendations other than laying off? I'm having pain in my forearms when doing heavy barbell curls, to the point that I can't do the exercise anymore and they hurt for the rest of the week. Ever experienced something like that and any tips on what to do? I wont be able to work out at the gym for 2 weeks or more. Advice/stuff I can/should do at home to compensate until I can get back in the gym? Hey Mike, I'm 16 and starting your Bigger Leaner Stronger program. Is there any risks associated with my age or aspects of the workout I should be doing differently than suggested? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscl

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 audio books 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 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. All right. All right, cool. So let's get started. First question here. When cutting, do you cycle or take a break from supplements, e.g., for example, Forge or Phoenix?

If so, when and for how long? That's a good question. Yeah, I think it's a good idea to cycle any sort of stimulant. Like in the case of Phoenix, there's Senefrin, which is a mild stimulant, it's not really, I mean, it's not, it's not even anywhere close to caffeine. You don't really feel it that much, but it does, you know, it is increasing your, the amount of energy your body's burning. Um, and then in 4G of your hymbine, which is also a stimulant, um, depends on how you, I would say it's, it's also weaker than caffeine in that I don't even feel it really at all. I noticed a little bit in my workouts. Like I have more energy for my

workouts, but I don't feel amped up like caffeine. So with stimulants, including caffeine, personally, I won't go any longer than eight weeks without taking a week or so off. And it's not really for like health reasons. It's not that it's unhealthy to, to take it longer. It's just the longer you use those, uh, you know, supplements, those stimulants, the less effective they, they become. Um, so I would say, you know, anywhere from, if you want to like quote unquote, play it safe, do four to six weeks on, you know, taking the supplements and then do one week of just, uh, no. And I, in that week, you may want to cut out caffeine as well. So just do like a full stimulant reset and then get back at it. You know, one of the products that we were looking at,

I don't think we're going to be able to do it because we haven't been able to find, it was like a cool idea that maybe isn't going to pan out is like a supplement that you could take leading up to a cut that would kind of prime your body to be as receptive or as responsive to the stimulants like caffeine, synephrine, you know, and then there's like naringin, hesperidin also in Phoenix, but, and yohimbine, but sounds cool in theory, but I don't think we're going to be able to make it work looking at what we have available that would even make any sense and has good research behind it. But you can kind of do that, you know, semi by just going off for a week, every four to six weeks. Yeah, so Genesis, somebody's asking about Genesis. That's the name of our greens product, which of course you helped us choose with the surveying. So I, you know, obviously really appreciate that. I like that name as well. It's funny sometimes on how that goes,

where I think a certain name, like I like Evergreen more personally, but then it surveys and it doesn't survey very well. So it's a little like just important thing a lot of companies don't do is survey, be in touch with your customers and find out what do they like, what do they think. So I'm really excited for the greens product because we're able to put some stuff in here that I wanted to put into, we wanted to put into triumph, but, uh, triumph got to like, it's already eight pills a day and it's, it's expensive to make, as you can imagine a lot of different ingredients in it. So we've been able to move some of those over to Genesis as well as do some other cool things. So in terms of the formulation, um, there's going to be spirulina, there's going to be five grams

of spirulina per serving. There's going to be reishi mushroom, uh, which, I mean, if you're, if you're not familiar with these ingredients, I would recommend go look them up on examine, examine.com is a great resource for if you really want to dive into, uh, all different types. Really? I mean, they have, they have now pretty much any, any molecule that you'll find in a supplement or at least like 80% of them that are out there are going to be on examine, um, with varying amounts of, uh, information. Some, some of them have a ton of information, some of them not so much, but, uh, anyway, so reishi mushroom is gonna be two and a half grams per serving, which is obviously the clinically effective dosage. There's going to be a four gram blend of greens.

So it's going to be kale. I don't remember actually what we, cause we had an original, I believe it's kale, arugula and spinach or it's kale and spinach. I don't actually remember the final final because we were playing around with, you know, if we were to put some dandelion greens, we knew we wanted kale and spinach, but the question is, do we're going to do arugula and dandelion or are we just going to do more kale and spinach? I'd have to pull it up. I'm actually not sure. I don't remember what we, what we, what we settled on. So then there's going to be some schisandra chinensis, which again, it's one and a half grams of that. And there's going to be, how do you pronounce

this? I see it's astagalus membranesius. I actually don't even know how to pronounce it. Again, these are things that, uh, there's a lot of good research on them. I should probably look at how to pronounce them. I haven't got, here's my excuse. I haven't gotten to writing that sales page yet. So I'm familiar with the formulation in terms of the ingredients. I haven't some of them, the pronunciation, I'm going to be butchering the pronunciation. Um, anyway, so there's a clinically effective dosage of maca as well, which is maca was something, for instance, that we wanted to put into triumph, uh, but you need about one and a half grams. Uh, and as you can imagine, again, looking at how many pills triumph is, I mean, what are we going to do? Go up to 10 pills a day. It just gets ridiculous.

Um, and there's gonna be Moringa, uh, a gram of that. Uh, and finally there's going to be broccoli sprout for, uh, the, the sulforaphane. Um, it's going to be, I believe we want five milligrams of the, um, sulforaphane. So I think that's 500 milligrams of the broccoli sprout if I remember. So anyways, the point of, of the product though is going to be basically like that plus triumph is going to be, I mean, really, I there that that's all that's, that's a large percentage of, if not really, I mean, I guess there are a couple others, like for instance, in our fish oil is going to be sesamin. Sesamin is another molecule that we wanted to put in Triumph, but had to leave it out. So, but between Genesis and Triumph, I mean, that's really going to be like the ultimate just health and wellness stack.

And we're actually going to be with our new website that we're going to be rolling out. We're going to be offering stacks and bundles and stuff, and you're going to be able to save and get free shipping. And we're going to move more toward that model because that's really the way that it should be now that we have six products and we have a seventh, you know, Genesis coming out and we have a joint product coming out as well, which is called Fortify. And so that'll probably go in this health and wellness stack as well. So the idea is that like between Triumph, Genesis, and Fortify, possibly Lunar, which is going to be our sleep product, we're considering including that as well, but maybe not, doesn't, I don't know, we're kind of on the fence about that, but the joint product, so Fortify,

Triumph, Genesis is like, there's, you know, a ton of ingredients that are going to help with just overall health and longevity and wellbeing and mood. And so I'm, I'm personally excited. Again, these are like the products that I always kind of wish that I could buy and, and that other people would just make, but it just isn't, you know, like you could get, for instance, like reishi mushroom, you can go get it from life extension. It's just very expensive. So if you want to be, if you want to take a clinically effective dosage of just reishi mushroom, you can go get it from Life Extension. It's just very expensive. So if you want to take a clinically effective dosage of just reishi mushroom every day, just that will probably cost you $20 a month. Spirulina, same thing.

There's another. I get mine from Now Foods currently. And I take five grams a day right now. And so it's five pills, 60. So it's a 60-day serving. And I don't know what I pay for it. But let's just say it's another $15 a month alone for, for the spirulina. Um, you know, the maca for, there's another probably $10 a month. So these things really add up and it's also,

it becomes impractical to try to, I mean, how many pills and powders do you really want to take every day? So, um, what we're trying to do is gather up all these, these, these good molecules that are out there and these good ingredients that are out there and how, and we're trying to do is gather up all these good molecules that are out there and these good ingredients that are out there. And we're trying to figure out how can we combine them into fewer products essentially. And so you can get the most health and performance bang for not just your buck but for the inconvenience of having to take pills and powders. So yeah, I guess that's kind of a long story short on Genesis. The sales page will be going up in the next month or so month or two, because it's still a few months out. It just, you know, supplements take time from production on, on any, on any new product period is about three months. And then you don't get to sell it from, for about another three to four weeks after

it finishes production. So it's about a four month cycle to, uh, you know, life cycle or production cycle from that, you know, getting your formulation complete. So that alone can be a couple of months. So you're really, I mean, it takes time. Um, so next question here, a deload week versus a week off. Uh, I actually just wrote an article on this on muscle for life. If you, if you would check out muscle for life, um, it was last, uh, it was Monday's article. Um, anyways, I, I personally like deloading because I find that when I take a week off, I feel like it's more rest than my body needs. And, uh, so I feel like, so I'll go for eight ish weeks. Cause I'm doing a lot of heavy weightlifting these days, like, you know, three-rep stuff, one-rep stuff. And so I find that after about six to eight weeks of that,

I just need a break where my joints get achy, and I just feel kind of fatigued, and my sleep gets a little messed up, and my workouts aren't so great. They feel very heavy. My energy levels are lower. And I find, though, so I take off. My days off start, so Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I get that five day break and then I feel totally good to go. And so I do like a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, where I just do my deload workouts.

Or sometimes I actually feel fine by Wednesday. So Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, no weightlifting whatsoever, no intense physical activity. I do a little bit of cardio, maybe one, maybe 20 minutes of hit in those days. And I just do some walking. Um, and then by Wednesday or Thursday, I feel fine again. And then I do my deload workouts, uh, which I talk about in this article. If you go on multiple life, you can see exactly what I do. And then I get back to my heavy fun stuff, you know, the, the, the following Monday. Um, so some people do well with the, like taking a week off. And again, I think this is kind of like something you have to kind of learn with your

body. Uh, and you have to try both, um, you know, a few times where you're doing a deload and then doing a week off. How do you feel during that week in, you know, under both of these, the doing the deload or taking a week off. And then how do you do coming back? One thing I don't like if I take a full week off. So it really is like a seven day break. If I take a seven day break, I come back a little bit weaker. I usually have lost a rep or so on my lifts. And then it takes me a week to get that back. Um, whereas other people that I've emailed with and just spoken with, they come back stronger when they take a week off. So again, I think it's just, um, that's probably just a variety of factors of, you know, genetics and training experience and whatever. But I would say that you can't really go wrong either way.

You just need to try both. All right, so next one. When will Stacked be released? Stacked, yeah. So the beta is going to be this summer for sure. I would say realistically it's probably about a month away from being worthy of using. Um, and it's kind of funny. I, I, so I got into that. I've already learned a couple of lessons, which I could have probably just read in a book,

to be honest, in terms of, uh, in terms of app development. So if you want to, if you want to develop an app, I have a little tip for you. Start small and simple and get something out that proves the core concept as soon as possible. Get people using it. The problem that I have run into is, as you know if you've been following development, it's going to take probably three or four months longer to get out to beta than it should have. And that's because my designer just trolled me basically and was lazy and didn't work. Uh, but that stuff can happen. So what I probably should have done is I should have taken the core of the app, like the exercises section. So you can put all your exercises in there and the workout section. Uh, and so you can do your workouts, build your workouts. And cause that's, that's really like that. And what's going to be called

the journal, which is going to be where you're going to be able to review your workouts. And cause that's, that's really like that. And what's going to be called the journal, which is going to be where you're going to be able to review your progress and it's going to be very customizable and you're gonna be able to, it's actually gonna be useful in terms of analyzing your process or your progress instead of just having some lame fixed linear charts. Those are the two core things that are really going to differentiate it. The, the, the experience when you're working out, it's gonna be very smooth, very intuitive, uh, very easy to use. Um, and then, and then when you want to analyze your progress and see how you're doing, it's going to help you actually do that. I should have just gotten exercises and workouts done and then released it for beta. Like I wouldn't charge any money for it. Just get a hundred people using it, get a bunch of

feedback on that and make sure I really have that perfect. And then probably move from there to the journal section. Get that done. Push it to the app so everybody gets the updated. Get people using that. And then finish the kind of extraneous stuff like the body section where you're going to be setting your body goals and tracking your body progress. And the knowledge section, which is going to allow you to like, you know, read MFL articles and you'll be able to link to books and stuff in there. So, um, because anyway, so that, that, that's a little bit of a lesson there is, uh, when it comes to web stuff and software and any of that, that whole world, assume the worst, assume it's going to be take way too long and it's going to cost way too much money. Don't be optimistic. Cause I was optimistic in terms of like, I had this spec sheet. It wasn't that crazy of an app in terms of functionality. I'm not building some, you know, $300,000 app trying to come out of the gate with it. Um, and the original timeline was like, this thing was supposed to be fully wrapped by April. It was supposed to start in like January and be fully wrapped by March, April. And so I was like, yeah, that's cool. A few months.

I mean, I'm not in a super rush that, that, but here we are in June, end of June. And I still don't, the app is like half, not half, it's like 70% done in terms of the whole thing, maybe 60% done. But it's going to get done. And anyways, the beta will start in the summer and it's going to be the whole workout section, the body section is done. The exercises section is done. So it's gonna be everything but the, uh, but the journal and the analysis side of things, which what I'm going to do is once workouts is done, I'm going to push, I'm going to get it out there, get people using it, get feedback while they're working on the journal section. So I'm basically kind of like doing what I should have done in the first place. I'm just a couple of months late on it. And that just means that it's lost. I don't know,

whatever. It's annoying for people to wait and I wait and it's lost revenue in the long run, but it's a lesson that is learned, I guess. Can you take your shirt off? I want to see how lean you are. No, no, thanks. Go, go on my Instagram. If you want to see shirtless pictures or you can just go look there. Can you get whip your dick out, please? Um, all right. So the next question. So, um, this guy says he's been on, been on the book for about a year. Uh, it says best results ever, but shoulders side raises feels like it works as traps more than his shoulders tips. Side raises can be a pain in the ass because, um, side raises and rear raises, you have to start with lightweights and you've been, you've been on it for a year. So you've probably built up some strength. But I remember when I first started doing side raises, which I

never, I didn't really do regularly when I didn't know what I was doing. I, I started doing them consistently and really actually trying to progress on them like, uh, five, four or five years ago. And I started with like, I think 15, maybe 20 pounds. And, uh, and I had been weight lifting for like six or seven years at that point. So that was pretty pathetic. Um, but now, uh, basically what I did is I got up to about 40, 45 pounds using two, two hands. And then going up from there became unwieldy because of the amount of weight. It was hard for me to keep my body still when I'm like trying to, so now what I do is I do hanging one arm.

So I'm like hanging on the squat, uh, on the power rack on, on hanging to holding onto a post and raising my, so i'm kind of leaning like like this and i'm raising him and you can you can see i think i posted a video recently on instagram and there's a little bit of body motion but i really try to keep my body as still as possible and make sure that i'm really feeling it in my shoulders so a couple tips are one you want to make sure that you're not using too much weight if you're doing this kind of stuff then and if you're if you're going if you're if you're turning into a shrug, a lot of people do that, so they start down.

Jeremy, is this, can you see all, is this enough? I can see like that, most of your head. Okay, well, let me just watch the upper body here. So if you're going like this, if it's like a shrug raising of the elbows, like this, a lot of people do this, that's not the movement. That's a shrug with an upright row. That's not what we're trying to do.

So really what we're trying to do is we're trying to get to the top at about here. So the arms, they don't have to be stick straight like this. You can have a little bit of bend. And you want to be turning the dumbbells as if you were pouring water out of a pitcher. And you kind of rotate up and you're turning at the top. And you can even do this with no weight. If you do it right now and you really get into that position and really turn and tighten everything, you'll feel it in your shoulders just doing that alone. So you can imagine you start adding weight to that and it works and it gets harder and harder. So that's the thing. You want to make sure you're not doing this with your body

or anything. Same thing with curls. You don't want to be doing any of this. Your body isn't going, as you get heavier and you're training heavier, you're not going to be a hundred percent, you're not going to be, you know, like this, but there's a, there's, there can be a little bit like usually if I'm doing two arm, I'd start down here and I might, there might be a little bit of a, like this, like a, like I'm standing tall, putting my chest out, but, um, that's it. You don't, you don't want to be moving all over the place. And as you get stronger, you will get to that point where, see what will happen is what happened to me is. So with two arm, I got to a point where let's say I could do like with forties, 45s, I could do sets of 10 or whatever it was. And then I would try, but I start, I start getting

like, it's hard for me to keep my body still. So sets of 10, I still want to be doing some heavy, heavy lifting on these, on these raises because that side dealt muscle is just a pain in the ass. Like it takes a lot of work to get that thing to grow at all. And you need that though for shoulders. If you just do a bunch of front pressing, you're never going to have great shoulders. You won't because you have very strong developed anterior deltoids, but without the side and without the rear, it just looks blah from the side. You don't get that cap. So you still want to be doing some heavy lifting on it, but when you try that though, it becomes you're all over the place. So that's why I switched to the hanging one arm. So

yeah, I hope that helps. Next question here is, uh, somebody read the book and recommended taking 1.2 grams of protein per pound during cutting. He finds it hard to stick to any recommendation. Um, yeah, it depends on see that 1.2 grams per pound, um, is I would say most relevant to people that are leaner wanting to get very lean. Um, It's not that it's wrong for somebody that's maybe like, let's say a guy at 15% or a girl at 25% could do fine with a gram per pound. Not that 1.2 is bad. It's not too much protein. It's not going to cause any problems and protein has a good satiety effect. And, you know, the thermic effect is high. It's just good. A high protein diet is just the way to go. And I would rather have people err on the side

of maybe a little bit too much protein as opposed to too little. But if you're having trouble getting there, you could bring it down to a gram per pound. When you're cutting, I wouldn't recommend going under that. If you were bulking, you could go as low as 0.8 grams per pound.

But again, I mean, in the future, really don't like protein, I guess. I've always just low as 0.8 grams per pound. Um, but again, I mean, in the future, really don't like protein, I guess. I've always just kind of stuck about one gram per pound when I was bulking or eating out of maintenance, which is what I'm doing right now. Um, so that comes to how do you eat enough protein? And I actually, it's something that I get asked fairly often. It might even make for an article really, or at least at least a part of an article. Um, but is basically, so you have, if you break down your meals, one, you just got to look at, okay, so you eat five meals a day, you need to get 150 grams protein. Obviously then you need 30 grams protein per meal. 30

grams protein is very easy. I mean, it's just like a few ounces of chicken. I think one ounce of chicken is like six grams of protein. Um, so you have a, you know, a handful of ounces of chicken. Uh, remember also protein from all sources counts protein from grains, from, from vegetables counts. You don't, it doesn't have to just be protein from like yogurt and eggs and, and, and chicken. But that's also why I like to have a protein powder. I actually have, I usually have about two or three scoops protein powder a day because it's convenient. I don't really feel, you know, when I come to the office here, I definitely don't want to be making breakfast. I don't want to take time to do that. I just want to have my shake and

get to work. In the middle of the afternoon, again, I mean, I could have food pre-prepared, but I prefer to just mix some powder and water and tasty chocolate water and just drink it and move on. So if you don't like that though, you can load up protein in meals. I mean, you can absorb a lot more protein than 30 grams per meal like what is commonly said out there um you could you know you could depends on your body size how much muscle you have and but i would say a baseline safe number for for women would probably be like yeah i have anywhere from 50 60 70 80 grams of protein in one meal is totally fine as a a guy, you could go as

high as 100 or maybe even a little bit higher and be totally fine. So some people like to do that. Some people, they just, they do a big dinner, like a big protein dinner, a lot of meat in that dinner. Or sometimes it's like meat plus another form of protein. Like sometimes people will do, let's say, a cup of cottage cheese, which is, I believe, about 30 grams of protein. And they'll do like maybe some meat. That's another 30 grams, so that's 60. And, you know, maybe some eggs or whatever. The point is you just need to sit down and work out a meal plan and think about it.

What foods do you like to eat? What do you not mind eating? You know, you don't have to eat chicken every meal. You can mix your proteins up. mind eating. You know, you don't have to eat chicken every meal. You can mix your proteins up. And if you're not using a protein powder, you might want to, you might want to consider it because it's going to help you. Here's another one that Jeremy wants to know an answer to.

Which professional athlete do you, do you admire most and why?'s funny that yeah Jeremy wants to know why because I'm so not the sports person like I don't really watch sports ironically like well I'll watch big sporting events like I watch some of the US Open over the you know to watch Dustin Johnson choke that was bizarre and I'll watch like Super Bowl and stuff professional athletes do I admire I don't know man I don't follow any sports, really. I only know a handful of golfers now because I've been golfing for a little bit. And a couple of them seem like cool guys. Ricky Fowler seems like he's cool.

Rory seems kind of like a prick. Dustin Johnson seems cool. I don't know. I don't have a good answer for that. I mean, I could say the legends, but that's so cliche. I don't know. I don't have a good answer for that. I mean, I could say like the legends, but that's so cliche. I'd be like, I don't know. Michael Jordan was like really good, but he was also really scummy, which makes him extra funny. So sorry, I don't have a good answer for that. So question, will fat gain during a bulk be more evenly redistributed or stubborn areas gain fast first? That first good question. Um, that depends on

your genetics. You know, for instance, my brother-in-law, uh, Mario, who he went up on a, we put up as a success story recently. Um, he, he's lucky really in genetically, he holds his fat in his chest, arms, and shoulders primarily. Like that's what actually fluctuates the most with him. Bizarrely enough, like when in his before picture, if you saw that, he still has abs, but his body fat was maybe about 12 or 13% there. It's just his – what is normally like the lower ab area, that is the area for us guys. That is the stubborn fat area. For whatever reason, he just – his fat, his stubborn fat area is like his chest and shoulders and, uh, in arms, which is bullshit. Cause it just makes them look bigger. And nobody looks at that anyway,

when you have abs, right? So, um, it depends on your body, but if you're like most people like me, yes. The first place that I will see it. I mean, I find that my body tends to gain and lose fat fairly evenly, but the first place that I'm going to see a difference is going to be in my, like, you know, I, I stay fairly to see a difference is going to be in my, like, you know, I, I stay fairly lean at least for the last eight months or so, somewhere around 8%. And, um, if that's going to change up or down, I'll see it very quickly in my core. So if I'm going down a little bit, I'll quickly get, like, I get these veins that kind of run up my side and I get this ab vein and stuff. So I'll see that. And then if I'm gaining a little bit of fat,

that will go away. That's really, but I won't see much of a difference in my arm, vascularity, my shoulders. Um, and so it really kind of depends on your body, but you could assume that you're probably going to have the same experience just based on like talking with a lot of people. They seem to a lot of guys and girls. I mean, girls, it's the, it's the hips, it's the thighs, the butt. I mean, that's where they see it first. And that's also, you know, unfortunately it kind of tends to be like that, where those are the areas that are last to get lean and the first to get fat, unfortunately. So you have to really like, you have to work hard and stick at it to get rid of that fat and finally get to the, you know, the overall look

that you want. And you have to then make sure that you're not, you know, going from that cut into eating too much food because you're going to put it back in those areas fairly quickly. And if you want to read a little bit more about that, go on muscle for life and search for set point. And you'll see an article I wrote on, on the body weight set point. And, um, it's, it's, it's more for kind of like talks about how to get lean and then, um, stay that way while, while bringing your food intake up to a level that is enjoyable and, um, and kind of reconditioning your body to make that new lean, whatever it is that you, let's say you got down to, there is a limit. Like I've tried to maintain really lean, like 6 it is that you, let's say you got down to, there is a limit.

Like I've tried to maintain really lean, like 6% and doesn't, it just didn't go well. Like my calories, I basically had to stick at about 2,500 calories a day, which is not much. Like I weigh about 190 pounds. I spent, I exercise four to six hours a week. I I'm maybe naturally a little bit higher on the metabolic side anyway. And so that's just not a lot of food. And I found that my training kind of sucked when I only could eat that much food. And eventually after about a month, four to six weeks, I just didn't feel very good. Like normally I have a lot of energy and I don't have any, my attention isn't on my body at all.

Like I, cause I don't have anything that bothers me. So I noticed that, uh, it was just not so when I tried to maintain 6%. So anyways, check out that body weight set point article. And I think you'll see, I think you'll get some, you'll like it. You'll get some good advice on, uh, cause that really is the ideal. Like what are we really going for? It's, we want to get the body we want, which is the amount of muscle and the amount of leanness, whatever that is for you. You want to get there and you want to be able to maintain it and, uh, in for forever, basically. So body weight set point plays a, an important role in that. And, um, anyways, check the article out. I think you'll like it. Next question here. Do you feel that muscle growth

is compromised by a down regulated metabolism, meaning a post cut situation? Yeah, probably. It's a good question. And I can't say that I've, the papers, the studies that I've looked at that in reference to reverse dieting, I can't remember if there's anything specifically on muscle growth. So, but now speaking anecdotally, yeah, I think there's definitely something to be said for that. And the reason why I say that is because I've worked with a lot of guys and girls that have done that. So they've cut. They had to reduce their calories over time.

They did a good job of it, maintained their muscle, lost a lot of fat, and then spent four to six weeks reverse dieting calories. Like I just spoke – just one guy I was emailing with just recently. It was exactly this. He ended his cut at about 2,000 calories. He got lean, did a great job, and then he worked his calories back up to 2,800 and he gained maybe a pound or so in the process, nothing much, which wasn't fat. It's just water and glycogen. Um, but he was, he was finding that he wasn't gaining weight. So like he now was up to TDE, uh, but he still wasn't gaining weight and he had to keep on working those calories up. And he started gaining weight, like, which of course entails gaining muscle and fat. You gain a little bit of both when you go into calorie surplus, but he had to work all the way back up to around where his TDE, you know, is of course these are approximations.

We can't measure it down to the calorie. And then he had to go above that to finally start gaining weight again. So in muscle. So yeah, I think that, um, the, the, your priority should be when you, when you've finished your dieting, your priority should be to get your calorie intake back to about where TDE, where it should be. Again, the, all the formulations that are out there are not really formulations, but formulas that are out there are, you're going to be around there. You might be a hundred calories over, you might be a hundred calories, uh, under, you might be a couple hundred over a couple under you. This is also part of the, part of the game is learning your body and kind of learning your calorie ranges. Um, and if they don't totally jive with what catch McCardle or any other, uh, you know, formula says that, that,

that's fine. That's just the way it is. I mean, you gotta learn your body, but, uh, yeah, so that, that's, if you, if you want to be continue gaining strength and muscle, you definitely want to be working those calories back up. You don't want to cut, like, let's say you start your cut at 3000 calories a day. You cut to like, or, well, you started there and then so you, you actually start your cut at like 2,500 a day. You work it down to 2000 doing all the same exercise. You don't want to then like maybe go up to 2,300 and doing all the same exercise, you don't want to then maybe go up to 2,300 and just stay there. That's definitely not ideal. You want to be working your calories back up until you're gaining weight and gaining strength and gaining muscle again. Next question, what do you think about consuming caffeine and creatine at the same time post-workout? I work

out in the morning, like to throw some creatine in my protein shake and have a cup of coffee when I get to the office. Basically, caffeine may interfere with some of the effects of creatine. There are one or two studies that showed this. The mechanism isn't really like explained. It's just in a, it's, there's a, it's possible basically. I wrote about this. If you go to legionathletics.com, go on the blog. I wrote an article just recently on creatine where I talked about this. And right now, we kind of don't know. It's possible. So to be safe, quote unquote, then have your caffeine separate from your creatine.

So if I were you, you got to choose what do you want. You could take your creatine later. It's fine. If you really like your caffeine, it's not that like, yes, there's research that shows that post-workout creatine supplementation is better than pre-workout. Um, so there is that to be said, but you know, I understand if like, if you, if that morning caffeine is very important to you, which I understand, I like my caffeine in the morning as well. Um, then have your creatine later. And it's not like it's going to be a big problem. If you don't care really, then have your creatine and have your caffeine later. So up to you.

Next question. What's your process for testing one RM and the primary lifts? How often is a part of regular workouts separately or basic methods, et cetera, um, or regular workouts or separate basic methods, et cetera. So these days I'm actually doing one RMs. Now you can use calculators online, which I'm sure you've looked at, and they're pretty accurate. But I actually do do some one rep on my big lifts. I one rep deadlift. I one rep squat, bench press, military press. And I do it about once every four to five weeks or so. Basically, I'm just kind of following my Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program, which is in the book Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. And it's meant for advanced weightlifters that like heavy lifting.

It's a periodized program, meaning that your workouts have you doing some very heavy work, some medium rep work, and some higher rep work. And the frequency, it's a similar split to Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. So you're directly training everything once a week, but there's overlap. So for instance, when you're doing heavy deadlifts, your legs are involved. It's not that your legs are not getting trained. And then when you're doing heavy squats several days later, they're getting directly trained. But of course, heavy squatting also trains other muscles. So when you're doing a lot of compound lifting, there obviously is overlap. And the more important point is that the program is, uh, one that you're weak,

you're weekly total weekly reps, uh, and, and intensity are balanced properly. So you're not trying to do like 200 heavy reps of bench press a week. For instance, nobody can do that naturally and get anywhere with it. Um, and, and, and that you're getting, you're, you're, you're also giving your body enough rest, which kind of plays into that. Um, so that's how I do it. Um, I mean, and sometimes I don't get my lifts, you know what I mean? It happens where I'll try to go for a big deadlift or a big squat and I squat in the

squat rack. So I don't care if I get stuck, I just set it down. I sit it down and that's kind of it. Um, on a deadlift, if I feel my form is really kind of going out, then I just put the weight down. Um, so down and that's kind of it. On a deadlift, if I feel my form is really kind of going out, then I just put the weight down. So that's what I do. Next question. Thoughts on incorporating yoga in parallel with BLS bulking program? If so, what do you suggest? I think yoga is great. I actually used to do it several times, two times a week, once or twice a week. My wife used to go somewhere and I would go with her and do like hot yoga. And I actually

liked it a lot. Like not only did it help with flexibility, although I don't really have any issues with that. I'm, I am pretty flexible. So I don't have really any like mobility issues, but also I do work on that stuff. But I found that it helped the flexibility and I just felt really good. I don't know. I think there's a, and I know there's like actually quite a bit of research out there on yoga. I just don't know. I haven't written an article about it. I haven't really looked into it that much, so I don't know, but I felt like it even was helpful with recovery because I wasn't doing like, I don't even know if there's such thing as intense yoga, but, uh, it was more, it wasn't like a lot of power poses and stuff like that. It was like,

yeah, there was some, but given like, if you have any strength, it's not like it's hard. It was more just, uh, you know, a lot of stretching and a lot of weird positions that stretched all kinds of weird things in weird ways, but I felt really good after I felt like it helped with recovery, but that might've just been placebo. I don't know. Um, but I definitely felt better. Like just, I don't know, physically, I just felt rejuvenated from it. Any tips on growing a blog? I know you grew yours rapidly. And what are your favorite writing tools and tips?

It's funny. I mean, I'm getting more and more of these questions these days. And it's hard for me to kind of distill everything that we do down into like a quick and simple answer. Because there's a lot of work. It's not just me. I mean, there's six of us and you know, there's, we all do a lot of work and there's a lot of money that gets spent to keep the websites and keep everything going. And so, but I can, I actually have a good resource.

So if you're not sure where to even start with growing a blog, head over to two websites, quicksprout, quicksprout, just the two words together,.com. What's that, Jeremy? What's that? Oh, okay, so it froze. I'll just reset it. So head over to quicksprout, quick, the word quick, the word sprout,.com, and neilpatel, neil, P-A-T-E-L.com.

And those are, Quicksprout is Neil's website. And if you go to his university, for instance, he has a ton of content. Go to his blog, ton of free content. Jeremy and I know Neil personally. He helps us even though, I mean, he's a big internet marketing guy. He's very big in this world. He doesn't have to help us, but he likes what we're doing, so he's cool and just helps us. But he puts out a ton of content similar to what I've tried to do with MFL and now over at the Legion blog.

It's just like try to write a lot of really high-quality content, be helpful and just don't be annoying trying to, you know, trick people into buying things and just be, you know, focus on generating, on creating relationships with people and being genuinely helpful. And then, oh, by the way, I also have this book if you're interested. I also have, even at Legion, it's like the purpose of the blog is not just to push products. It's to do exactly what we do right here. Answer your questions. Uh, you know what I do with MFL, like what are people searching for? What kind of questions do I get? What are people searching for? And, you know, pick the ones that I feel I can valuably answer and give something more than what you would get on the front page of, on the first page of Google, basically. So looking at what's there and going, can I do this better?

If I feel like I can, I write the article. If I feel like I can't, if the articles, let's say, let's say I try to, I'm looking to write an article on something and the first page of Google is like stacked with long, really, really good, well-written articles. Uh, then I might not write it because I'm just like, well, I don't, I, if you're not going to be, if you're not on page one, you're invisible. And really, if you're not in the top three, you're missing out on, what would you say, Jeremy, 70% of the traffic probably or more. Yeah. So, or more 70 to 80% of the traffic, probably if you're not in the top three positions. Yeah. Number one gets 50% of the clicks alone. So that's what I'm looking for

is opportunities. Those are opportunities where I feel like I can, I can do better than what these than the current offering. And, uh, so I, you know, I put a lot of time in these articles. That's maybe also a little tip is, uh, on average, these articles that I write take me four to eight hours to write. And I, and, and I'm a fast writer. I never have problems with writer's block. Uh, I, you know, I, I just go and, um, the time that time really is like research time and real just writing time, not trying to find words or anything like that. Um, and then, and then I guess one other tip just for writing is you have to approach it like a professional in that it is not – it's a learned skill. When I first found writing, it was because I liked reading.

I figured like, hey, maybe I like writing. I'll try it. And I go back and I read stuff that I wrote back then and it's like cringeworthy. You know what I mean? that I wrote back then and it's like cringeworthy. You know what I mean? Where now and today, if I'm playing editor, I'm like bad, bad, bad, delete, delete, delete, delete, rewrite, different word. So that's just because I've written a lot, a lot of content now between all the writing that I've done in this work. And then in previous work, it's a couple million words and books and stuff like that. And I've also read a lot. I don't know. I can't even know how many books I've read. I'm writing now maybe 40 or 50 or something like that. And I've also read a lot. I don't know. I can't even know how many books I'm

writing now, maybe 40 or 50 or something like that. And I continue to read on the subject. So there's that point of just like, if you want to know how a place to start with writing, I would say start with on writing. Well, start with elements of style. With elements of style. And I read a book called Bird by Bird. Semi-recently. A few months ago. I liked it a lot.

Stephen King's book on writing was good. What comes to mind is a lot of fiction books. Because I'm working on a fiction project. So I've read probably 30 books on fiction. That was a lot of my most recent writing. If I have more writing books. I'll have to think about it. I need to, I need to put together some book posts one of these damn days, more stuff to do. So, so yeah, go check out quick sprout, check out Neil Patel stuff on, on, on how to build the SEO side of things and how to build a, you know,

a real valuable blog that you're not just going to write things and no one's ever going to come and read it. Basically that's more the marketing and marketing business side of it. And then the skill side of it is you got to read books, you got to write a lot. And, uh, so yeah, I mean, those are my tips. Um, so you're gonna get back to doing regular podcasts every week. Uh, love those. Yeah, totally. Um, in fact, like actually what we're going to do is like these live Q and&As for the weeks that I do, these we'll probably put it up as a podcast because people like that. But yeah, sometimes with the things that I have to do, sometimes the podcast gets bumped on the list every once in a while because I have to record it here at the office at home.

It doesn't really have a good space to do it, and my son Lennox is always running around making noise. And then if he's not running around making noise, it's because he's asleep. And then I can't do it because it might wake him up. So anyways, yes. And I want to get more guests. It's actually a bit trickier to get guests than I thought. I thought I could just email people or tweet them and be like, hey, so I have this podcast. I like your work. Podcast is pretty popular. It gets about 10 or 15,000 downloads a day and it's growing. Website is, you know, over a million visits a month. Would you be interested? No response.

So many people like, what's the secret? I don't know. Like what, what I, how do I get them to come on the podcast? So I gotta, I gotta, you know, we gotta figure that out. But, uh, in the meantime, I'll keep on doing my thing. Uh, next question. Hey, I'm starting the bigger, leaner, stronger program very soon. My workout partner is my wife and she has different goals than me while in the gym. She's trying to lose weight while I'm trying to gain muscle. How can we still be workout buddies with different goals? She should do the Thinner, Leaner, Stronger program. I know that's me just promoting my stuff, but the reason why I say that actually is because your workouts are similar. Your workouts are a bit more upper body centric. Obviously, you're doing some heavy deadlifting, heavy

squatting, like your legs are going to grow, but it's easier to build big legs than a build a big, big upper body. And also the fact of the matter is most guys are more concerned with having the right upper body and they don't want big bodybuilder legs for various reasons. I'm even one of them. Like my legs are not small, but I'm at a point now where like jeans are kind of a problem. I really actually don't, I'll take bigger calves, but I don't want my upper legs to get bigger. Like I'll take more definition. That'll be cool. But size wise, I wouldn't even, I've had to actually just throw, I mean, I think we actually ended up giving him to Lennox's, my son's babysitter, pairs of jeans and stuff that I can't wear them anymore. I can't even get them over my quads. So anyways, your wife could do the Thin Liner Stronger program, which is set up very similar

to the Big Liner Stronger. It's just instead of, you know, women are more concerned if they want that killer lower body, they want the, you know, great butt, great legs, and they just want a toned kind of like athletic looking upper body. So yeah, I mean, she could do, you'll be doing a lot of the same exercises. She'll just be doing higher rep stuff. And really that's, that's the main difference in some exercise changes, but you'll be able to go to the gym together, train the same body parts together for the most part, and do even a lot of the same exercises. Like you'll be squatting together and then you could do front squats together and then she might do some hip thrusts and you wouldn't necessarily do that.

You're going to do a little bit of extra shoulders, stuff like that. And so of course, on the diet side of things, quick little tip, a lot of couples, what they do is they prepare the food together. Like they're going to make a big batch of something for dinner. Like let's say one of the really popular recipes from my cookbook, the shred chef is the Mexican meatloaf. A lot of people really like that. So what they do is make a big batch of the meatloaf and then they portion it out for each other for dinner. So you might, you know, she in the end will probably, you would eat, let's say you do like the meatloaf plus a side, she ends up eating half of what you're eating, but it's easy for prep. So you're eating the same

foods. You both like the, it's both tastes great. You get to eat foods you like and makes, makes, you know, dinner prep nice and simple. Yep, so let's go to the next one here. So excited for the new Star Wars movie. Based on your Instagram, I bet your son is. Lennox is bizarrely into Star Wars, actually. He's hilarious. I forget what it was.

I was asking him something, what he wanted for his birthday or something. He's like, Star Wars like you want Star Wars for your birthday yep Star Wars okay he'll come to me randomly if I'm working on the computer and stuff he'll he'll say that he he loves Darth Vader's the Imperial March theme so he'll make me play that and I have to play like the 10 hour loop because he'll want it for like 10 minutes straight and he'll just sit there and just listen to it and try to, try to kind of sing along with it. Um, so, and he has his Star Wars toys and it's hilarious cause he's like, you know, two and a half turning three in a few months and he just, he just fucking loves Star Wars. I don't know. Um, so yeah, I'm super pumped for the movie. Uh, I, you know, I hate having high expectations

for movies because I feel like I always, that's the curse of, you set yourself up for disappointment, right? But I have faith, man. I think J.J. Abrams did, I think he did a good job with Star Trek. I think he's a good storyteller. I think Lost turned into a pile of shit, but I don't really blame him for that because he lost his writers. They had that first season of Lost was killer, some of the best TV storytelling I've ever seen. But they had two writers, one from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, wrote for seasons and seasons of that, really veteran writer.

And I think another from Alias, again, did like all the seasons of Alias, another great writer. They had these two people that wrote, and they had one or two other writers that did the pilot season. And, um, like I know that I know that one of the, one of the episodes of loss that won, it won some award and it was written by one of those, one of those two guys, they lost them. I don't know, you know, I don't really know how the politics of Hollywood works, but anyways, what happened is come see loss gets picked up season two, those guys are gone. They're not available anymore. And as you know, Lost was never the same again.

They just didn't have the quality of writing. But, so I don't really blame Abrams for that. So you go to Star Wars now. Abrams, I think it's a great, I think it's awesome that he wanted to do models and do as little CGI as possible, which is perfect. I mean, of course, that's what we want as fans. I think that it's awesome that he brought all the original actors back, obviously, and even the writing. So the script was started by the guy that wrote Toy Story 3. I didn't see Toy Story 3, but I know he's like a well-respected writer, and I'm sure he knows what he's doing.

But Abrams basically fired him, like took the script from what I read, and he just didn't like where – I forget the guy's name. Something Arndt Peter, maybe? He didn't like where, I forget the guy's name, something Arndt, Peter maybe, he didn't like where the story was going and so he had the balls, I guess, to just say, no, I don't like this, we're not doing this. And then he went and got Lawrence Kasdan who wrote Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark,

and then gave the project to Kasdan and then Kasdan either finished it or redid it. But Kasdan is now the guy that created the script. So, I mean, you have the writer from Empire Strikes Back, Turn of the Jedi, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I don't know what he's done since then. But unless – hopefully he hasn't coked himself out to the point of just losing everything he had. But – and then you have Abrams. So I'm excited for it. I think it's going to be, I mean, I think it's going to set all records, right? That's going to be the highest, biggest opening weekend. It's going to be the highest grossing and all that stuff. But yeah, I'm pretty pumped for it. I'm also pumped for what

they're doing. I mean, Disney. So now I'm not, I'm not a big fan of the Marvel movies that, but I think that's because I'm not I don't know they're just so they seem like kids movies to me the stories are very just about explosions and fights and there's not much emotional resonance for me in those movies I kind of just am like cool another 10,000

explosions I don't really care but I know that you know Disney they're going to do one Star Wars movie a year which is cool so they're going to do that Rogue One and then Boba Fett and Kenobi and shit. So I'm pumped for it. All right, enough of that. We'll get to the next one. So question, what do you say is the best way to deal with weight variation? Considering the variations that are going to occur because of your scale and all the other factors can vary weight, how can we make sure we're making progress? Weigh yourself every day and take an average every seven to 10 days.

That's the best way. And you see that average going up or down over time, you know that you're moving in the right direction. Also keep in mind if you're new to weightlifting, the scale can mess with you a little bit because if you are in a deficit in the beginning, you can build muscle and lose fat at the same time when you're new to weightlifting. So, and you know, I've spoken with people that have gone months actually where their waist is shrinking. They're getting visibly leaner in the mirror. Like there's no question. And they're gaining muscle. They're

getting bigger, but their weight has changed maybe a pound. So there is a point where of course that comes to an end, but don't be just fixated on weight. Um, of course you need to keep track of weight and you should do that using the averaging method I just talked about. But also if you really want to make sure that you're moving in the right direction, take a picture every week, you know, front backside would be good and good lighting, no pump, just do it first thing in the morning. Um, measure your waist at the navel. Um, and you can also take body measurements as well if you want to do that. And that would be smart. Um, you know, go on MFL, search for ideal and you'll, you'll see a body, uh, an article on, on how to build the ideal male body. And, um, the most measurements would apply to women as well, though, if you really want to keep

it, keep track of everything, that's the way to go. And then, you know, if you're making progress, cause then you could look at your weight and be like, Hmm, weight's not changing, but you've been in a calorie deficit. Your waist has shrunk, you know, two inches, uh, and your, uh, chest circumference has, you know, gone up by a half an inch. And so there are other things where then you can go, I don't care about the scale. And of course, you have the mirror. We have your pictures and you go,

I look, you know, I'm looking better. So I'm going to keep going. Next question, 25-year-old female here. She struggles with finding a happy balance between her strength goals and physique goals. How do you find the balance? It's a good question. Jeremy's picking good ones.

I feel your pain. I like training heavy. I like being strong. I'm not crazy strong. I weigh about, I weigh about 190 pounds. The most I've ever deadlifted is about four 50, four 40 for one or two reps. And that was a bit ago when I was a bit heavier. The most I've ever squatted is about three 55, three 65 for one or two reps. That was just recently. Um, most I've ever squatted is about 355 to 365 for one or two reps. That was just recently. Most I've ever benched is 290 for two. And that was several months ago when I was a bit heavier. I was probably about 10% body fat. I was about 198 pounds.

And most I've ever military pressed is 225 for two. And that's also back when I was a bit heavier. So the problem is, um, being lean and by lean for guys, I would, I would say 10% and below. And for women, I would say 20% below is not good for if you want to build muscle and strength, it's just not good. Like the guys that you see that in girls that you see that can stay very lean and make all these gains and gain all this muscle strength are on drugs. Every single one of them are on drugs. Um, especially the guys that are really lean, the guys that are like six, 7% ab veins just shredded, but they're, you know, strong as fuck and they're making gains. Uh, or even in the guys that are bulking quote unquote, but magically they never go above 10%

body fat when they're bulking. They still have like full abs at the end of their bulk and they, you know, gained 52 pounds on their deadlift in that. Yeah. Okay. So you know what that is? Yeah. That's just a, that's dedication right there. No, that's drugs. Um, so what I've found is, uh, there are, there are some exceptions here depending on genetics. Some people I do know, so I like, I know one guy in particular who's freakishly strong. There's an ongoing debate whether he's on drugs or not. We don't kind of don't know, but regardless, he's still freakishly strong and he stays lean. Um, and, but that's, I, out of all I've maybe out of the thousands of people I've spoken with, I've come across in emailing maybe one or two of these people. So this is just so rare. It's like top tier weightlifting genetics basically. But the

long story, what I'm getting at here, long story short is if you, if you're going to stay lean, you're, you're going to only go so far in terms of strength and size because you're only going to be able to eat so much food. If you really want to gain strength and size, you have to be in a slight calorie surplus. There's just no way around it. And if you're going to be in a slight calorie surplus and you're, you're going to gain fat and what you'll see like again, like again, I mean, if you were on a bunch of drugs, certain kinds of drugs would basically allow you to eat a ridiculous amount of food and gain, especially you would go very high carb, low fat, very high protein. And with certain drugs, you would just explode.

You'd gain so much strength, so much size and you'd stay lean. But when you're natural, you don't, you don't have that luxury. So, you know, it's really up to you. I'm at a point right now where I really like how my body looks. Um, and I mean, I don't even say that like, like I'm so vain or something. It's just, I don't really want to be much bigger. This is kind of the look that I want. And I'm pretty lean and I like my level of leanness right now. So I do have to sacrifice that in that if I stay where I'm at right now, I really don't know if I'll deadlift 500 pounds, for instance. Maybe if I could work up to a maybe, I might have to try to use a, like a strength

training program. I don't think I'll ever squat over four or five given this body weight and this body fat percentage. Um, and there are probably hormonal reasons for that as well. When you're, when you're the lower your body fat is the lower your, your anabolic hormone levels are not that being lean is unhealthy, but it's just, it's just not ideal. Like when I've, you know, I do podcasts with, um, I talk with Mark Ripito here and there, and he always jokes with me, like, dude, what are you doing? Just get, you know, you need to be two 20 and you need to be

like, you know, deadlifting five 50 and squatting four 50. And, uh, I don't know if I ever could, maybe I could hit those numbers. I really don't know. I don't know anybody natural that again, I may, I know one person that might be natural that is able to do stuff like that, but I don't know anybody else. I know people that do that, but they're not natural. So anyways, I know it's not a great answer, but it is just, you're going to have to decide, like, if you want to be lean, you're going to, there's a, you're only going to go so far with your strength and muscle growth. And if you want to then focus on that for a bit, you can do that, but you're not, you're going to have to gain some fat.

So it's up to you. Um, next question here. Are there any machines you recommend to increase bench press? I'm hesitant to go super heavy in that move. Cause I don't use a spotter. No, unfortunately. What's that Jeremy? Oh yeah. But not machines. Um, uh, yeah, Jeremy was saying dumbbells and that's, that's, that's what I was going to get at is machines. No, I'm not a fan of the Smith machine. I used to only do the Smith machine for my bench. So this is funny. So I got up to like when I, when I didn't know what I was doing, right. Maybe two, two 25, two 45, something like that for a couple reps on the Smith machine. And I weighed at that time, probably like 205, 210 pounds. So

it's a joke. I went to, when I finally got off the Smith machine and started properly bench pressing, I was struggling with 185. That's how big of a difference it was. It was like a 40 to 60 pound reduction. It was actually still hard. So don't, don't mess with the Smith machine, but you can do dumbbells. And I've actually in the past, just to see what was going to happen. I've, I only trained with dumbbells for about six to seven, eight, maybe eight months. Um, a lot of heavy incline pressing, a lot of heavy flat pressing. And not only did my chest like come in nicely, especially the upper, which is what I was trying to really work on at that time. My barbell strength didn't really change. I didn't lose barbell strength. I didn't gain

much barbell strength. I don't, I don't remember, like maybe I gained a little bit, but I definitely did not lose it. So you can go heavy on your, on your dumbbells. And then you could, if, you know, maybe at the end of your workout, you could save your, your barbell pressing for, uh, some higher rep stuff. Um, but also keep in mind that you don't have to go to failure every set. Um, in fact, that's probably not a good idea. You'll probably end up just putting more stress in your body than you need to. If you're going to failure a couple sets a workout, that's plenty. And I don't, I usually end almost all of my sets at the point where I know that my neck, like my, basically my form, I struggle to get that rep and my form is getting a little

bit shaky. And I know that my next rep is going to suck basically, and my form is getting a little bit shaky and I know that my next rep is going to suck basically. Like my form is going to suck or I'm just going to get be stuck. And that's because I've been weightlifting a while and I kind of know my body. I know when I reached that point where it's like, if I have a spotter, I could go for it, but it's probably going to be failure. So, um, yeah, I mean, dumbbells are really the only other option there. Next question. Are you going to start engaging your son in any type of exercise sports? Very interested in establishing that early with my future kids.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, it's cute. Lennox is really into sports. He likes any sport with a ball basically. So he likes, you know, I've been playing golf. So he's now like practicing his golf swing and stuff. And he'll go, he'll come up to me and says he wants to watch golf on TV. Um, and he likes soccer and stuff. So yeah, I, I loved, I, I've started playing sports

young. I mean, I don't know. My, my parents have pictures of me. Like I used to be out on the yard when I was Lennox's age, two, three, and I'd be like hitting the baseball off the, the T thing or whatever. And, um, I started playing baseball. It was my first sport that I played. I started young. I mean, I was maybe six or seven, I think. And then from there, I got into roller hockey. And then from there I got into ice hockey. And, uh, that was my teenage years. And, um, and from there I was weightlifting and I, and I missed that. That's why I got into golf. Cause I miss, I miss sports. I miss that competitive. Uh, I don't know. That's just kind of like, uh, I miss the physical physicality of it and the competitiveness of it. But definitely, I think, I think sports also is, it's just great for, for kids because it gives them a good, it's something

they have to really like, you have to focus on a goal. You have to work hard on it. You're, it doesn't matter what you feel you're entitled to, or it doesn't matter. You get out of it what you put into it. And sure, some kids have more talent than others, but I think it's just a good, teach them some discipline at the young age, teach them the value of hard work, teach them also to get along. If you're at a team and you have to learn how to get along with other people and you have to learn some emotional intelligence skills and some social skills which um i was okay at i was kind of a dickhead to be honest when i when i got good like in ice hockey i was kind of a dick uh not to everyone on my team but to some people and just in general um teenage you know whatever but yeah i definitely i'm gonna encourage

lennox to play sports because i think that there's a lot of, a lot of benefits, you know, outside of the physical activity or exercise. Next question on improving a specific body part. What do you think on working on this muscle two or three times a week together with other muscles? Like at the end of chest day, add squats and then a leg day at incline chest. I think it's a good idea. Um, actually like in bigger, leaner, stronger, for instance, you do train your upper body. Uh, like you do a little bit of extra chest work later in the week. You do a little bit of shoulders work later in the week because chest and shoulders for most guys are the two areas that bother them the most. Like they feel like their chest is not big enough and they feel like their shoulders aren't big

enough. Um, so you can do a little bit more on that, but you don't want to push it too far. Because again, as I was saying earlier in this Q and a, um, there's only so so you can do a little bit more on that, but you don't want to push it too far because again, as I was saying earlier in, in this Q and a, um, there's only so much you can do every week. If we take that as an arbitrary number of five, seven days, and especially when you're lifting heavyweights, you can't be doing, you know, 30 sets per workout. You just can't, it's too much. Um, uh, like a baseline place to start would be probably 70 to 80 heavy reps would be the upper end per seven days. It would be the place to start. And the, the longer you're, you're, you're weightlifting, the more you can get away with

doing, but you know, even me, I've been weightlifting now for 13 years, give or take. And, uh, I can only do so much. And I know that like, you know, there is a point where it just becomes an overtraining type of issue. So, um, I think you can do, if you want to do it that way, I don't think there's that much of a benefit. There may be a little bit of a benefit. The research is not totally clear. Um, and it may never be totally clear. So it's something you kind of have to try with your body. But if you do, uh, heavy work about, let's say 40 to 60 reps of heavy work on a muscle group, and then three to four

days later do maybe 20 ish reps of lighter work, eight to 10 rep, 10 to 12 rep. Um, I think that that's a, that there's, that's a safe workable way to go about it, basically. So like in Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, for instance, you're doing some heavy chest work on Monday and some lighter chest work on Thursday. You're doing some heavy shoulders work on Wednesday and some lighter work on Friday. And the reason why you can get away with that

is because the shoulders just recover quickly. And again, it's lighter shoulder work on Friday. So in the women's program, Thinner Leaner Stronger, for instance, you're doing legs and butt a couple of times in the week because that's more of what women are interested in. They're not, I don't know, very many women that would be interested in like bench pressing twice a week. So yeah, I think that's it on that. Next question. Hey Mike, I'm tall and skinny, but trying to work out. I want to be in the Navy more than anything, but I want to get much stronger. What do you think of the gallon of milk a day routine?

I heard this house is getting bigger. I'm actually glad Jeremy picked this one because tomorrow the article over on Legion is going to be on basically on gaining weight. And how to go about this. And, yeah, it's kind of like one of these definitive guides. It's going to be all about gaining weight and doing it effectively and efficiently. Um, I, I think a gallon of milk a day is stupid. I think, I mean, your stomach's going to explode first thing. There's no way all that lactose is going to sit well with you. Even if you're not, I'm not lactose intolerant, but a gallon of milk a day would explode me out my ass. It would be bad. Um, so, and I don't would explode me out my ass. It would be bad.

So, and I don't even know the calories on that. It'd be absurd. It's just not necessary. Like why? I don't care how many calories that is. You can eat that food and enjoy that as opposed to like gagging down a gallon of milk day. That said, caloric beverages are smart. And now this, I'll be talking about this in tomorrow's article. If you have trouble gaining weight, if you have trouble eating enough food to gain weight, then caloric beverages like milk, like fruit juice, can be helpful. So maybe you don't need to drink a gallon a day, but a few glasses a day can help you with your calories. Take fruit juice.

A glass of orange juice is about 100 calories, 25 carb. That's just a glass of orange juice is about a hundred calories, 25 carb. That's just a glass of liquid. Like that's easy to drink five of those a day. For instance, that's, that's another, you know, uh, give or take another 125 ish, whatever grams of carbs a day. So, um, go mad. I think it's kind of silly. It's just like a sledgehammer. Like why?

Like you don't need to do that. Just be a bit more precise with, with what you're doing. And then you can get those calories from foods you like. Next one. My shoulder hurts quite a bit from stretching so much when I try to get into the squat position. Can you recommend a squat position you recommend? Can I change my grip and be fine? Yeah. So like the squat, you know, position is, is, is the starting strength type, right? So you have your, you want your stuff, you want you want your shoulders kind of tucked and you want your shoulder blades tucked so you have that muscle shelf. I like to low bar squat.

So it would be the same with high bar squat. But if you can't get into that position, you can just move your hands out more. Although I would recommend you do some mobility work because you want to keep – your joints very healthy, uh, is, is, is it is important. Um, and mobility work helps a lot with that because it prevents bad movement patterns from causing issues basically in your training. Um, and that's why like one of the things I'm working on, uh, say it like I'm writing the copy for fortify our joint product and kind of going into this a bit where like people will rush to buy muscle building products and hormone boosters, which do nothing, but whatever, uh, and fat loss

products and stuff. But, but people are usually, they're not, you know, excited to get that multivitamin or get that greens product or get that joint product. Whereas like, you know, we have the Benjamin Franklin quote where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure right so the idea is not to wait for like joint problems like inflammation pain or even degradation or disease and then having to do something about it the idea and that goes also that is to you know why i personally triumph is one of my favorite products from legion because of how much good stuff is in there and how much cardio protective stuff's in there and how much disease protection is in there where like I, you know, I'm thinking more on longevity. So keeping your joints healthy is very important for longevity.

You know, not only does that affect your performance now, like if you're having joint issues now, you're not going to be able to do what you need to be doing or what you could be doing if you had healthy joints. But then in the future, it can become a real problem where, you know, you don't want to be getting joint replacements and stuff. So doing a mobility routine is a, it was a great idea for that reason. And, and, and supplements that can help, you know, improve and support joint health are smart. Like in, in our joint product in Fortify, there's going to be a type of collagen. There's good research that shows that in healthy people, it improves joint health, supports joint health. There's going to be curcumin, which is a great anti-inflammatory,

which actually protects against various types of disease. It's a Very cool molecule. There's going to be, I forget the pronunciation, Botswala Sarada, if I remember correctly. AKBA is what you want. You want a certain amount of AKBA. And anyway, some cool stuff that reduces inflammation in the joints and supports the actual structures themselves.

So yes, go on Muscle for life, search for mobility and go check out the shoulder mobility routine. I have like a definitive guide to mobility and then I have a shoulder mobility article. Check those out and, and try the shoulder mobility article as it is. And you can look at the other, other shoulder mobility exercises in the, uh, um, the definitive guide and you know, you want to put together a routine. So that is going to help you. Next question. Hey, Mike, I haven't been to the gym for about a month now. I was because I was sick with the flu. I'm heading back to the gym, but don't know how to go about it. Should I go back to my old routine or just take things slow? I'm hoping to one day see my abs. Thanks, Ken.

So you can go back and basically what you're going to find is after a month, your workouts, you're not going to be doing the same weights that you're going to be doing. You probably have lost a little bit of muscle and that's fine. It's going to come back quickly, very quickly, actually. So don't worry about that. But your workouts, personally, I would come back. I would do your normal workouts, but I would do lighter weights. I'd probably train in the eight to 10 rep range just to get back in the swing of things. I've taken time off in the past.

It's been a while, but I used to travel. Like, my wife's from Germany, and when we were dating, I would go over there. And, you know, sometimes I'd be over there for, like, a month. And I would do bodyweight stuff, but it's not the same. Like, it doesn't matter how many push-ups and pull-ups and, like, jumping jacks and burpees and shit. Like it's just not the same. So I'd come back and try to like really hit my workouts hard

and I would get super nauseous. It would just crush me. So I recommend that come back, do your normal workouts, do lighter weights. Don't push yourself, you know, to like the point where you're throwing up and just get back into the routine. And then after a week or two of that, go back to your heavy lifting. Your weights are going to be down. And just keep going. And within a few weeks of that, you should be back to pre-flu. And you carry on.

So really, it's like you lose the time that you had the flu. And then you lose four weeks or maybe to get back to where you were. And you just carry on. Hey, Mike, I'm following your book and training program, which are both really great. Thank you. The problem I'm having is I'm always tired. Like I energy sleeping isn't going great either. Waking up every hour or so. That sucks. I know how that is having a kid. I thought it would change after I moved from cutting to bulking, but it didn't. Is there anything I might be doing wrong? This is a tricky one to just answer because I would want to know a couple other things. I would say go on most of life and search for sleep. There's an article on this that goes over

some different things that can be impairing your sleep and how to improve it. But the first thing I would think of is, have you taken a deload or rest week in the last couple months, especially if you're in a calorie deficit, if you haven't, that's probably what it is. I mean, it's hard to say probably, I would say there's a, there's a, you know, uh, a significant chance that that's what it is. And it will, it would be handled if you just gave your body a break for a week and, um, you want to be reverse dieting as well, making sure that you're working those calories back up. You know, and like I was having just recently, like I sleep on average maybe about six hours a night. But I was like kind of pushing it where I wasn't even meaning to actually.

It was just my son Lennox was waking me up. So I was getting maybe four and a half or five hours for a couple weeks on average, still doing my workouts and stuff. And my body is strangely resilient, I guess, when it comes to sleep deprivation, because it didn't bother me that much. But after a few weeks, I was like, all right, I need to, this, this isn't working. Like, you know, I started to feel that where it's just lower energy. My workouts are getting harder. Um, and strangely, like I don't get tired just like how, if I haven't eaten food in a while, I don't get hungry. I just feel like I need food, like I have low energy. If I don't sleep much, I don't really get tired.

I just have a lower energy feeling, so I know how that is. For me, I took a deload week, which I was kind of due for anyway. I slept on the couch just to get sleep because Lennox, he just moves around so much when he sleeps. It's so troll. I'll wake up and his foot is on my face or something. And he'll just be moving around. Anyway, so try that. Try that.

Also check that MFL article on sleep. Next question. Whole wheat bagels, good or bad? Bulking food, high in carbs and some protein, but are they junk food? Yeah, I like this. So the, uh, go, go on MFL and search for clean, um, clean eating and, and see my article on that because clean eating as a ideology, I guess has its heart in the right place. You should be getting the majority of your calories from nutritious foods, but whole wheat foods are nutritious foods. Uh,

they, they have a lot of nutrients in them. They are good for you. And I would say, personally, I know there's a lot of controversy over wheat in general, and I've written about this as well. If you want to read about it, go on MFL and search for wheat. Definitely, there's a lot of exaggeration. There's no question there. Wheat is not the frank and you know, some of these doctors and authors would have you believe more. They're just selling an agenda and selling books and making millions of dollars. Um, but for instance, I do know my body, like I can only have so much wheat before it actually does upset my stomach. And that's really what you're kind of looking at where if you ate a whole wheat bagel and it upset your stomach, like I get a little

bit of indigestion. If I eat a lot of pasta, for instance, which I love, it doesn't sit so well with my stomach the next day. I can just feel my stomach's a little bit off. So I don't do that often. I do that once every once in a while, or I'll just eat less pasta. I can have wheat to a point. Same thing with dairy. I'm not lactose intolerant, but I can only have it to a point until it just gives me the shits. So holy bagels are totally fine. Nutritious food, as long as it doesn't bother your stomach, you know, work it into your meal plan, enjoy it. And the same thing goes for most foods that are not overly processed and stuffed full of sugar and not that sugar is so bad, but foods that are stuffed full of sugar are just usually shit foods, candy and pre-packaged

bakery goods and stuff that like you don't need to be eating. Uh, but most like minimally processed foods, which of course bagels are, are actually pretty, pretty processed. Um, but you know, are actually pretty, pretty processed. Um, but you know, it doesn't make them bad. So, uh, you know, dairy, totally fine. Um, wheat products, totally fine. I do like whole wheat products because they're more nutritious and they seem to sit better in my stomach. Um, you know, different types of grains, rice, whatever, totally fine. Seeds like quinoa, totally fine. White potatoes, great. Sweet potatoes, great. You can eat, I mean, there's just a, if you're preparing it yourself, there is, there are very few foods that I would not recommend you eat. Basically the stuff I'd not recommend you eat is like pop tarts and fast food and I don't know, frozen pizzas and shit. Like,

but you know, what's that Jeremy? Anything that you like buy, like like but you know what's that jeremy yeah anything you're buying frozen except for vegetables though i frozen vegetables are are fine like they're actually because what they do is they cook the vegetables and flash freeze them so it actually preserves the nutrients well but but yeah what what jeremy was saying like if it's something that is like you pop in the microwave and eat it's bad or like pop in the oven and it's ready. It's bad. Um, and if that's, I mean, if you have a strangely, if you just have a thing for those kinds of foods, then fine, make that your cheat meal, quote unquote, like have it maybe once a week where if you like some

weird microwave pizza, if that's what you like to do, but just don't make that a daily thing. Um, Next question. Hey, Mike, I've got an angry rotator cuff, and it causes challenges for progression with heavy weights. Any recommendations other than laying off? Yeah, so there's another question here. Jeremy said it's pretty much the same, so I'll just kind of do them together. Pain in the forearms when doing – okay, I'm going to take those separately, Jeremy,

because they're just a little bit different. On the shoulder issue, I've never had rotator cuff issues, knock on wood, but I've spoken with a lot of people that have, and I know what has helped is, one, you have to stop doing what is aggravating it. You can't keep on re-aggravating it. It's very important. So you either have to find an alternative exercise that doesn't aggravate it or go lighter weights. You just do not want to be pushing through pain. It's very important. You need to be giving whatever that is a rest that applies to any nagging issue. I've had nagging issues, not my shoulders per se, although that's not true. I've had not like rotator cuff. I never had major injuries,

but I've had little things where I had a muscle in my neck, um, the scalenes. And there was another one. I forget. It's like, it's an acronym, a big muscle in the neck that got pissed off doing heavy incline pressing. So I had to actually stop barbell pressing for several weeks, um, just to let it chill out. I had to just do lighter dumbbell pressing. Um, and, and, and then I get massaged every week. And the girl that works on me is, uh, she's good. She used to like massage Olympic rovers and stuff. So she's just familiar with like, I mean, they used to, she was telling me stories. They would beat the shit out of their bodies. I'm not anywhere in, you know, I'm, I'm good compared to them. But so then she had to like get in there and just work it out, work it out. And you know, it took, it took a little bit to,

to get it better. So you have to be patient. Don't continually aggravate it in terms of rotator cuff. Um, I really, I really do need to write an article. I need to start writing a series of articles on how to deal with shoulder pain and back pain and just joint pains in general. However, I don't have a rotator cuff routine that I can recommend to you right off the top of my head, although you can go and check this mobility article I put together on shoulders because I have spoken with a lot of people that have different nagging shoulder injuries, and it really improved with mobility work. But there are good rotator cuff routines out there. I know that the simple, I mean, obviously there's the simple stuff,

these types of movements with resistance here, resistance here, and then here and here. I know those are the basic rehab movements for rotator cuffs, so I could say that find a routine that kind of has you doing those. for rotator cuffs. So I could say that find a routine that kind of has you doing those. But again, I'm also, I don't like to recommend too many things when people are having issues like that, because it could be a tear in there. It could be an issue that is not going to get better with doing that. And I don't say that to scare you. I just say that just, you know, factually, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't want someone to tell me like, yeah, I just got to do a bunch of rotator cuff exercises when there's actually a bigger issue.

So, um, but I know that those are, that is the basic approach. If you think it could be a real injury, then I would recommend seeing like, I would, I personally go see a good sports doctor or sports PT, uh, and have them check it out and see what's really going on just so I know what I can and can't do. But that's kind of what I always have to do when people say, Hey, I have this problem with this. How do I work around it? Or how do I work through it? Well, it's like, well, we got to find out what you can do

that doesn't cause problems and have you do that while we work on, you know, maybe doing some rehab work on what's bothering you and resting what's bothering you. And, you know, so that's kind of it on that. And that's why injuries suck because, you know, as you can see, it just prevents you from being able to push yourself the way you can in your training. Next question. Hey, Mike. Greetings from Germany.

Hello. My wife's from Germany. Dusseldorf. I'm going to be there at the end of the year. Not my favorite place. So having pain in his or her forearms when doing surprise him been doing heavy barbell curls to the point where I can't do the exercise anymore and they hurt for the rest of the week yes have ever experienced anything like that any tips what to do yeah I have it's probably right here right I've had that before and I hear from it it's random actually it's funny I'll hear from people that every once in a while and basically it's the same type of thing.

You actually just have to lay off of it. Just don't do it and let it, let it. It's not, you're not injured. It's, I don't actually know. It probably feels like it's on the bone, right? It's like a deep pain. I know how that is. Mine, what's that, Jeremy?

Yeah, I did have that. I just worked. Mine wasn't bad enough where I couldn't curl though. I just was like, eh, fuck it. And I just kept on curling and dealing with it. Cause it wasn't, it wasn't an injury. It just was sore. And it eventually went away. And I know from emailing with people, it's the same thing. Like they just kind of stop doing the heavy curls and they either go lighter weight or they do like hammer curls. Doesn't seems to not aggravate it. So they do that. And then when it's not sore, they go back to the heavy curls and they find that the soreness is much less. And usually one or two

cycles of that, uh, handles it. So that's kind of the, the simple, uh, the simple answer for that. Um, should we do like one or two more, Jeremy? All right, cool. All right. So I'll take this next one here. So won't be able to work out at the gym for two weeks or more advice stuff you can do at home to compensate until you can get back in the gym. Um, yeah, first know that taking two weeks off of weightlifting, you're not going to lose any muscle. Uh, I should write an article on this. What's that Jeremy? Yeah. Unless you just don't eat any food. Okay. Eat zero grams of protein and no carbs too. You don't want any insulin to help with anything. So just eat like drink olive oil every day for two weeks and you'll lose some muscle. Um, even then you probably won't lose that much. You'll like lose a little,

you'll probably like in the first week and then your body's going to protect it with, you know, anyway, so you can just keep your protein up around a gram a pound, give or take. Uh, and, and you actually won't lose anything. You'll lose some strength. I mean, you will come back a little bit weaker after two weeks. It won't be much. It'll be a little bit. You might lose a couple reps.

But if you want to do something, which I understand I would be the same way, you can do – let's see. You're going to be at home. I'm assuming that you have no weightlifting equipment at home. So you can do bodyweight stuff. I mean, if you go on MFL and search for, for travel, you'll see an article I wrote on like how to stay in shape when you're traveling. I give a simple bodyweight routine there that I've done myself of like air squats and burpees and mountain climbers and pushups and pull-ups. Like I would travel when I go, I'm going to be in Germany, right? So I'm going to be over there. I'm going

to bring a, I might just buy it there actually, but you know it there actually. But a pull-up bar that you can put up in the doorway so I can do pull-ups. So I'll probably end up being there for two weeks. And I don't – oh, no, actually, I just remembered. My wife's parents, they just moved into Dusseldorf. So now there's a gym down the road so I can just work out. Go me. Anyway, so yeah, you can just do some simple body weight stuff. I would do it every day. You're not going to overtrain doing a, you know, 20, 30 minutes of that body weight type

of activity, um, pistol squats, you know, you can, those are actually kind of tough. Um, so really it's just kind of like, keep getting, get a pump every day for 20 or 30 minutes to a bunch of pushups, a bunch of pull-ups, a bunch of squat variations, do some burpees and some mountain climbers for cardio and just kind of moving your entire body and you'll be fine. All right, so here, this will be the last one. I have to still have to finish writing tomorrow's article. So I'm going to get back to work. This is just, this is, this is my break. This is me having fun. All right, so Mike, I'm 16 and starting your Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program. That's a great age to start.

Are there any risks associated with the age or aspects of the workout that I should be doing differently than suggested? You hear a lot about minors working out and the dangers of it. Is there danger indeed? No, basically. Just don't be an ego lifter. Make sure that you're lifting with proper form. Don't try to show off to your friends and do stupid things and hurt yourself essentially. But 16, 17 is a great age. I think to get into heavy weightlifting, I started weightlifting when I was 17. I had no clue what I was doing. I wish I had bigger than you're stronger when I was 17. Um, but, uh, you're going to do great. It's not going to, it's not going to stunt your growth. That's a myth. Um, and make sure that you're eating enough food.

This is an important point. Don't worry about getting super shredded right now. Uh, don't run a calorie deficit for months at a time and trying to get to six or 7%, uh, because it can mess with your, your body's development because you're obviously your body's growing. A lot of stuff is changing and it's all driven by hormones. If you're going to be restricting your calories, it's going to mess with your hormones. It's going to, it reduces your body's ability to put, to synthesize proteins. It's just eat around your, what you're burning every day. So around your TDE, like a maintenance type of diet, if anything, you could even err on the side of being a little bit of a surplus and, um, and train hard and let your body naturally grow and fill out. It's going to be

changing. And when you get to 18, 19, then worry about getting shredded and all that. Um, and if you're naturally leaning, you stay that way, you know, Hey, that's, that's good. All right. So Jeremy says, last one I'm going to do. Do the old dudes blow dry their balls around you more since you wrote the gym etiquette article. There was this dude, I haven't seen him recently. He, he, yeah, he'd always be posted up, butt ass naked, right where the sinks are too. He'd have his leg up, like, and just, if anything, he'd be like, in the mirror, like, clipping his nose hair naked with his leg up. Like, what the fuck are you doing, dude? What is wrong with you? And I refused to even look at him on principle.

I would look around, dude. I'd be like, no way. I'm not looking. Obviously, the guy wants attention. Fuck that. I'm not even going to look at him. So no, there have been no blow dryers recently. But then again, like I said in the article,

I walk in and I'm looking at the ground. I turn. I wash my hands. And I walk straight out and And I don't even look. Because there are dicks everywhere. Regardless of blow dryers. There's fucking just dicks everywhere. It's so funny to me.

Like even playing sports. You know I got older. Like we you know have the showers and shit. It's just we never sat there. Just like butt ass naked in front of each other. Like so what's up? Like what are you gonna do? You know what I mean?

Like we have our towel on. I don't know. Maybe I'm just weird. Maybe I'm too American. Maybe we need to go, go to Europe or something and learn how to be okay with dicks everywhere. All right. Last question. How many reps and sets you recommend for Kegel exercises? Fucking Jeremy Kegels. I don't know yeah yeah I don't know I've never done Kegel exercises is there a point

for guys to do them is it so you can like hold your cum in longer or something well I think it's like helps with prostate issues

really I thought it's like isn't it for girls for like orgasm reasons or something also for like pregnancy and stuff

for strengthening all the muscles yeah oh shit there's a lot of health benefits to it oh well I'm, then I'm the Muppet. I have no credibility. According to Authority Nutrition. Yeah, I guess I'm the Muppet. The last question I almost gave you was, is my gut natural?

Yes. Yeah, so I'm sorry. Actually, I've never done Kegel exercises. They were asking you the joke. I told them to give you the joke question. Oh, was that? I've never done Kegel exercises oh what's that lifetime daddy he says right on his fucking hashtag what he's talking about yeah so sorry on the Kegel exercises oh the Kegel is a joke yeah you know

give it a try let me know how fucking shredded you can make your Kegels oh shit someone's saying that Kegels are good for dudes to hold their load. It says men's health. Yeah, I've, I've actually, you know, whatever. I've heard that. I just haven't done any training for it. Uh, you know, whatever. Maybe, maybe my wife would like me to, so I could be I could be the man of her dreams. Okay, so I got to go.

This is a lot of fun. I'd like to continue, but I do have to write. So, yeah, tomorrow's article is going to be on gaining weight. If you're interested in that, it's going to be at legionathletics.com. And not just gaining weight, but gaining muscle, obviously. And, you know, it's coming together nicely. I think it's going to be a good article. So, yeah, thanks again for taking the time. This is fun uh we'll be doing it again next month of

course a month from today basically is what we do and uh yeah so i hope you enjoyed it thanks again and see you next time