Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Live Q&A: Third Party Lab Testing, New Digital Courses, Street Workouts, and More…

Starting point is 00:00:00 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

Starting point is 00:00:29 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

Starting point is 00:01:13 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

Starting point is 00:01:37 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

Starting point is 00:02:10 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- 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. Thanks for stopping by for the live Q&A. Sorry we haven't done one in a little bit.

Starting point is 00:02:51 We've just been super busy, and every week, every time, we're like, oh, let's do it this Wednesday. And then something happens where we can't do it and blah, blah, blah. But here we are. And as usual, you can just put your questions in the chat. And then Jeremy, he answers a lot of people's questions just because we get a lot of repeat questions. So Jeremy's kind of the moderator. So throw your questions in chat. And either he's going to give some to me, and he tries to pick questions that we haven't answered over and over. And then otherwise, he's going to be answering

Starting point is 00:03:20 some questions himself in chat. So between the two of us, there's a good chance we'll get an answer. So this is the first question. So the first question is on the, on the year one challenge, are the five day split workouts more effective in building more muscle than the three day splits? That's a good question. Um, something I get here and there in email. And, uh, just so you, the listener or viewer know what the person's talking about, talking about, um, bit my, either my bigger, leaner, stronger program, or my thinner, leaner, stronger brand, which one, um, I put together a year's worth of workouts that are in like the bonus report. And I just called it the year one challenge. Um, so basically the five day split is better than the three day split simply because the five day split lets you, uh, uh, achieve a higher volume, uh, which is basically the amount of reps you're doing every

Starting point is 00:04:04 week, uh, then, then the three day split you're doing every week than the three-day split. And when you kind of reduce a lot of the muscle building physiology, or you say the science of muscle building, when you kind of reduce it down to simple terms, higher volume equals more muscle growth. Now, the problem there, of course, is you only can do so much before you start running into overtraining issues and before it just becomes counterproductive. But the, you know, in the case of a three-day program, a kind of a push-pull legs, you know, you only can achieve so much volume because you just don't, you don't have, you know, two and a half hours to sit in the gym to achieve the same volume that you can achieve on a five-day

Starting point is 00:04:41 program. And there's also the benefit of increased frequency in a five-day program. So like my five-day program for guys has you doing your hitting your upper body, particularly your pressing twice a week, just because that scene that is just tends to be a very slow lagging area that, you know, it takes a long time for guys to get the chest they want to get the shoulders they want. And it doesn't take as long to get the legs or even the back that they want because they're bigger muscle groups that you can just overload more effectively. So yeah, the five day split. And then for women, it's, it's focusing more on the lower body. So for both men and women, my programs are the five day splits are better for, for building muscle. You could say as efficiently as possible. Next question. Hey, Mike, watching

Starting point is 00:05:22 this from Ireland. Cool. I supplement with HMB for fasted cardio and lifting. I checked some of your articles for dosage, but cannot find how much, how many grams would you recommend? Uh, two to three grams that that's what's in our pre-workout fat burner forge. And if you're just using straight HMB, two or three grams at 15, 20 minutes before 30 minutes max before you train and you're good to go. Next question. Are your products third-party tested? Are they manufactured in the USA? Good question. So we are getting third-party testing done with a big lab called Eurofins. We've actually done it. We've been doing it. We just haven't really talked about it. It's just something that I've done and Jeremy and

Starting point is 00:05:59 I, we just have done it because we want to know for sure that everything is the way that it's supposed to be. And yes, our products are manufactured in the USA. They're manufactured in Tennessee, although they're switching now to Utah is where they're moving. They, this company, very big company they've had, like for some reason they were running all their pills in Utah and they're running all their powders in Tennessee, kind of an inefficient type of setup because their Tennessee facility was massive. It was way bigger than they even needed, but that's just how they had it set up. So now they're consolidating everything into Utah, but they're leaving some of their management team in Tennessee,

Starting point is 00:06:32 again, kind of strange, but very big company and one of the biggest actually new suitables. And we actually, we pay a premium to be with them because they, manufacturers can screw, could screw people like me over by, I want to make a good product. I pay the manufacturer for what I think is a good product. And then the manufacturer just makes something else. That stuff happens, which is also why I've gotten third-party testing done on all my products with Eurofins, just because I, you know, we get CO of COAs obviously, um, which means that our manufacturer is testing to make sure that everything came out the way it's supposed to, but I just wanted the extra peace of mind basically. So, um, we're going to be putting

Starting point is 00:07:14 those COAs up on the website, by the way. Um, it's on the list. Uh, it's just our dev team is buried in some other stuff right now, but over the next couple of months or so, um, we're, it's going to be an actual, like when you go on a product page where you have product information, FAQ reviews, uh, COA is going to be on there. Um, so certificate of analysis is what that stands for. So, um, yeah, that's that. So next question, uh, can we use the calorie calculator that you have at your webpage also for women calculations will be the same. Uh, yes, they are. The only, I mean, you can select, I believe the calculator is, if it doesn't have a gender select, it's because it just doesn't matter. And I think it doesn't because it actually doesn't matter because what

Starting point is 00:07:54 does matter is your body composition. So, you know, muscle tissue burns a certain amount of calories, whether it's on a guy or a girl, the main difference, metabolically speaking, between men and women is that guys just have a lot more muscle. Girls have a lot less muscle and they just burn less energy. That's really the main difference. Even in muscle building, that's one of the main differences. Isn't so much that guys can gain muscle so much faster than women? I mean, they can gain muscle faster, but it's more that women start with so much less muscle than guys. It takes, uh, quite some time for a girl who has never done any sort of resistance training to catch up to even, uh, a guy who, uh, has never done resistance training. So a girl might have

Starting point is 00:08:37 to lift weights for six months, um, just to get up to a level of strength, maybe even a year of a guy who, you know who is just lifting weights for the first time because that guy just comes with more muscle naturally, which of course is related to hormones and other things. All right, next question. Hey, Mike, love your multivitamin Triumph, but I've noticed some recent studies coming out about the negative effects from too many vitamins. What's your take on this? I actually talk about this on the sales page for Triumph on the website. If you go check out the sales page, I talk specifically about this. Also actually talk about this on the sales page for Triumph on the website. If you go check out the sales page, I talk specifically about this. Also, if you look at the sales page for

Starting point is 00:09:10 Genesis, my green supplement, I also talk about this there. And the bottom line is it's absolutely true. Super dosing certain vitamins like vitamin E, for instance, and other actually various antioxidants is not healthy. Super dosing vitamin D, not healthy. What you want is you want optimal levels of, you know, there are many different vitamins and minerals and other nutrients that you need to be getting from your diet. You want optimal levels. Now there are some cases, like in the case of let's say vitamin B12, a water soluble vitamin, for example, that we're taking large, well, I mean, large is a relative term here. It's actually not a lot in, in absolute amounts, but, uh, much higher than the standard DRI, like the, uh, you

Starting point is 00:09:51 know, the standard recommended daily, uh, intake of something, um, from, from the government, uh, where if you take a lot more, there are no toxicity effects and you, and then there are actually benefits to it. Like in case of B12, there can be cognitive benefits and energy benefits in taking a lot of B12, a lot more than your body needs just to do its thing. So go check out the sales page for Triumph on the website. And then check out the sales page for Genesis, and you'll see a bit more. And I link to a bit of research on that and explain that point there of why – and then there are also just some multivitamins that have, for instance, like vitamin A, you have the synthetic form of retinol. If you take too much of that, that can be toxic to your body. Whereas the natural forms of vitamin A, which

Starting point is 00:10:39 your body converts to retinol, which you would get from food. If you were to eat a bunch of food, for instance, with the natural form, you wouldn't run into the same problems because your body would convert what it needs into retinol, and then it has other things it can do with the rest. So there are quite a few little... It's not accurate to say that all multivitamins are bad and all of them are bad for your health. I also just thought of, I believe I've done this. And if you go check out my podcast, I did one episode on multivitamins specifically. I think I did that one. Yeah, I did. So if you go look, it was maybe a month or so ago. So that's another good resource. All right, next question. So what's your opinion on using whey versus creatine post-workout? Maybe both together or just one, depending on your goals. Yeah, both together. I mean, meal timing, when we're talking about the whey protein is not super

Starting point is 00:11:30 important, but I would say the bulk, if you look at evidence on supporting the claim that having protein after you work out helps you build muscle faster over time versus evidence that shows that it does nothing, it's definitely weighted toward that it does probably do something over the long term. And that's something to keep in mind in creatine as well. I mean, it's effects, it's not a steroid, it's effects, it does work, it does help you build muscle and strength faster. But when you're natural, you are trying to accumulate, you're trying to get these little edges. So if having, you know, 30 or 40 grams of protein and whey protein is particularly good choice because it has a very good amino acid profile and it's digested quickly. Um, so if having some protein after you train

Starting point is 00:12:13 and having creatine, which you, uh, it is better taken post-workout. There are a couple of studies that show that. So taking them together, um, if over the course of several years, that helps you gain a few more, I don't know, several pounds more muscle over that time, then even if it's only a few, in my opinion, that's worth it because that's just one little strategy. And then there are other little things that you can do where, you know, when you put it all together, each individual thing that you've done by itself maybe didn't make so much of a difference, but the cumulative effect is actually quite noticeable. And especially when you start looking over the longer term,

Starting point is 00:12:51 where, you know, if you could have, if you can build 20, 25% more muscle over the long term by tweaking little things with your diet and supplementation and your training, how you train and your recovery and blah, blah, blah, then, you, then it's worth it if you care enough. And some people, they don't care enough. So they just kind of want to eat the way they want to eat. They don't want to mess with any supplements. They don't mind if that means it takes longer to get the type of body they want or if they build less muscle. They just want to keep it simple and keep it easy and that's fine. So it's really, you know, up to you. Our next question. Uh, when is the fish oil coming out? Simple question. Um, it's going to be coming out. What do you think, Jeremy? I think it's like,

Starting point is 00:13:36 yeah, I think, yeah, middle of next month. So, uh, it's wrapping up at our manufacturer at the end of this month. So a couple, weeks from there to get it to our fulfillment, which is we use Amazon for fulfillment. So to get to Amazon and do the whole thing. So next month for sure. Next question. So what is the best macro-friendly restaurant? My vote is Chick-fil-A. Kareem, you here? Oh, you left. Kareem. Yeah, Sam. Yeah. Chick-fil-A. No, I mean, there's obviously Chipotle. You know, this is unfortunately, Jeremy, do you have any good insight? I don't eat out very much. So like, I mean, Chipotle for sure, right? Yeah, Chipotle is not too bad because you can go on their website and you can check out the macros. And then, I mean, obviously it's not going to be,

Starting point is 00:14:23 it depends on what the person is doing. Yeah. But, but you guys at least gives you an idea of what you're eating. Um, and I think if you want to be really anal, you can, you know, get, cause it gives you the weight, doesn't it? Jeremy, the burrito. So you can like come home and weigh it and see where you're at. Yeah. Uh, there's a dude, he's just like some random online strong dude named Matt Ogis. Uh, if you check him out, he he had something on like he weighs his burrito because on the website, they're assuming that obviously a certain weight of burrito. And if, and if his is, you know, if it's over by X percent grams, then he can increase the calories or something like that. So Jeremy was saying he just counts them as carbs. So anyways, check that out, check out like Matt August Chipotle

Starting point is 00:15:01 macro counting or something. Jeremy said there's a YouTube video on it. So maybe that'll help you. And otherwise restaurants, I don't know. I personally, I would just stick with restaurants that, that, that post their information online. And then at least, at least you have an idea of what you're eating. All right. Next question. When are you coming out with your online meal plan course? Oh, this project. Um, it is as soon as possible. Now I've been, I've been working, I've been working hard on it. I'm pretty excited for it actually, because it's, it's pretty, it's gonna be very in-depth, very cool. And it's going to come with a very handy spreadsheet. That's going to be pretty fancy and helping you not just hit your macros and your calories, but hit your micros as well,

Starting point is 00:15:42 which is something that I think is very neglected. Not just first understand what are all these vitamins and minerals that you need to be getting and why, and then how do you actually go about doing it without just wanting to rip your hair out, you know, trying to micromanage so many things in your diet. So, but to answer the question, let's say, let's say that I have another week of work on it myself until I'm happy with, until I would send it to an editor and, um, let's shoot for end of next month. I think that gives me some time cause I don't know what it's called yet. I don't have any design. I don't have, you know, I'm assuming things are going to, things always take longer than they should and so forth and so forth.

Starting point is 00:16:29 So let's say end of next month, I would be happy if we had it out by then. And then I'm going to start right away on the next one, which I'm not sure what that's going to be yet. I have some ideas. I'll probably actually end up sending out a survey just to get all of your feedback on in what order would you like me to see these created or what would your level of interest be in these? Um, and that'll help me decide what to do next. Um, next question, how many calories, carbs, fat, and protein could I have without blowing my chances of remaining in a fasted state? Um, if you, I mean, I'd say maybe 30 calories and, uh, or less, like I probably wouldn't have any more than that. And obviously fat is like, if it's some, say you have coffee, right? And you put a little bit like 30, 30 calories of half and half or cream in your coffee, I would say that's probably fine. But when you start

Starting point is 00:17:14 getting up to the a hundred plus calories, especially if it's protein or carbs, then again, remember it's not, it's not an on off switch when we're talking about training faster or not. It's, it's degrees. So it's's just it's because as your insulin levels are you know if you eat a little bit of food your insulin levels it's very little won't change uh but as you start to eat food more more food your insulin levels rise higher and higher and i'm assuming that you know if you are training fasted you're probably using a supplement like yohimbine as well which i highly recommend that you do if you're going to train fasted because it works. And that's just as a quick little aside, fasted training just by itself, when you have done quite a bit of reading on it, and I think it's pretty clear that it can

Starting point is 00:17:57 help you burn a little bit more fat in your workouts. But I think the bigger benefit of it is when you start loading up with supplements like caffeine and sinephrine. I mean, I stick with sinephrine. Some people, they like ephedrine. I just do sinephrine, which is the natural. It's not as powerful as ephedrine, but it's natural. And then yohimbine and a few others that like just, I guess, to plug my own product. If you check out our fat burner, Phoenix, and you check our – we have two different fat burners.

Starting point is 00:18:23 We have Phoenix, which is just – it helps you – It basically just increases your metabolic rate. That's the main benefit. There are a couple other benefits. Um, but if you go on our website, you know, legionathletics.com and read about Phoenix is the name. So you'll check it out. And then we have forge, which is specifically for fasted training, which is kind of, again, it's a product that I myself always wanted because I always bought my yohimbine separately and then had to have leucine or BCAAs. So this is kind of a nice product that we used HMB instead of leucine or BCAAs and then yohimbine. And then there's one other ingredient that can help with focus. So I think that answers that question. All right, next question. Is it possible that after building or bulking for a while, what were once your surplus calories became your deficit calories? Like can your metabolism TDE change that much in say six months? Probably not. That would be, I've never seen anything like that.

Starting point is 00:19:23 I have the last time I bulked, which was quite some time ago, um, because I've just been maintaining for quite some time now. Uh, I started around 3,300 calories and I, and that was my, it was a slight surplus and I ended probably about 4,000 calories, but that was a bit excessive. I was not, I hadn't, uh, hit homeostasis at 4,000 calories. I was gaining weight still. It was kind of like, that was my last blowout week where I was just eating a lot of food. So I would say that what was once your maintenance could be the start of your cut. That's, I think, realistic. So I think that right now I maintain about 2,800, 2,900 calories a day. Maybe I'll push to 3,000 before. I'll eat a little bit more before my heavy squatting and

Starting point is 00:20:05 heavy pulling, but I'd say on average, I probably come out to about 2,800 a day. Um, if I were to just start increasing that I could probably get up to 3,500, um, and be maintaining my weight, I would be fatter. Um, uh, but I think, yeah, I think I've, I might even done that before. So that that's me personally. And then, and now speaking with people that I've, yeah, I think I've even done that before. So that's me personally. And then now speaking with people that I've worked with, I've never seen it to that degree, though, where like their surplus of, you know, a 10 or 15 percent surplus then turns into a 20, 25 percent deficit. You know, I don't know. I think it's a little bit of a stretch. All right.

Starting point is 00:20:41 Next question. I could never eat the amount of protein required. Any advice? For example, I'm in a calorie deficit, 25%, 148 pounds. Body fat is 27%. Total calories, about 1,500 or 1,450. Protein carbs, 145 and fat, 32. Okay. Well, I mean, I'm assuming this is a girl because I hear I've heard this more from girls than guys that have trouble eating protein because a lot of girls are not used to eating a high-protein diet. So it's something to get – just that they have to adjust to. So this depends on what type of protein, what type of sources of protein.

Starting point is 00:21:18 Where do you like to get your protein from? I mean because I hear that and it's hard sometimes where I'm like, I can eat 150 protein, 150 grams of protein in one meal. Easy. I mean, it wouldn't be particularly enjoyable, but you just do it. Um, so, but if you break that down, like we can just look at some simple strategies of, for instance, um, if you are not eating frequently, like if you're just trying to eat all that protein in three meals, that can be hard. Like I know my wife, for, she'll eat – when it comes to a meat or something, I think probably about 30 grams of protein is the point where she just doesn't want to eat it anymore, but she's kind of like that's satisfying. So then if she had to eat 50 grams of protein three times a day, yes, then she would run into that same problem. So if you can spread that out more, like if you're skipping breakfast know, if you're skipping breakfast right now, because you don't like it, have some protein at breakfast, or, you know, if you can just every three or four hours or so have a bit of protein,

Starting point is 00:22:12 then that's an easy way to do it. Remember you can have protein, you can have food all the way up until you go to bed. So that means that like, you know, before you go to bed, for instance, that my last meal these days, it's pretty big. It's like oatmeal and yogurt and stuff. But before I was doing that, I would just have about 30 grams or so of protein, usually low fat cottage cheese or 2% Greek yogurt. Tasty, simple, and you can eat. I mean, it doesn't matter. You can eat right before you go to bed. In fact, having a little bit of protein before you go to bed is generally actually a good idea. There's a bit of research that shows that it can help with muscle recovery, which makes sense because it gives your body amino acids to use throughout the night, as opposed to its last bit of protein coming at, let's say 7 PM, which

Starting point is 00:22:54 it has fully worked through by the time you go to bed. And then it's just kind of waiting for amino acids to, so it can continue repairing your body. And, you know, so that would be in the morning or if you skip breakfast, it'd be at lunch or whatever. So increasing meal frequency can help. Getting a bit more broadening your horizons in terms of food can help. So if you, you know, if you're trying to force yourself to eat types of protein that you don't like,

Starting point is 00:23:19 then find out what you do like. Do you like eggs? Do you like egg whites? Do you like any kind of meat? Do you like poultry? Do you like dairy products? Do you like there? I mean, even the protein that you get from, from plant foods, it counts. Of course it counts. Um, in some cases it's not as, uh, it's not absorbed as well as animal protein is. And the amino acid profiles aren't as conducive to muscle building, which if you want to learn more about this, go on muscle

Starting point is 00:23:45 for life and search for vegan. And you'll see an article I wrote on vegan bodybuilding, where I talk about this and how to, how to, if you want to get a lot or all of your protein from plant sources, how to actually do that. So yeah, I mean, I don't, Jeremy, is there anything else you can think on that? I mean, I just kind of eat more frequently and make sure and then eat foods. You eat the proteins that yeah, of course the protein powder, yeah. Drink protein. Um, and again, so if like, if you don't like whey protein, you should try ours. And if you don't like our whey protein, you do not like whey protein. There's not a whey protein, uh, on the planet that you're ever going to like. So if you don't like whey, or if don't like casein, you can get a vegan protein. I would recommend staying away from soy. And I talk about this.

Starting point is 00:24:31 If you go on Legion or Muscle Life and search for soy, you'll find articles I've written on this subject. So something like a rice or pea protein, ideally a blend, which is actually, we're working on a vegan protein. Just sent a formulation over to the manufacturer today and going back and forth on it. So sometime later this year, we will have our own vegan protein. I'm pretty excited about it because it's just better than any of the other stuff I've seen on the market. However, yeah, drinking protein is smart too. You can easily, I mean, like if you just had two scoops of our way, that's almost 50 grams of protein a day right there. And it's's super tasty it's easy it almost it just tastes like you're drinking

Starting point is 00:25:08 a milkshake almost so all right next question so would you recommend doing hit cardio while bulking to minimize fat gain um yeah you can do that i wouldn't do too much though when you're bulking the idea is you keep your cardio to a minimum personally i would never do more than probably 45 minutes never more than 60 minutes a week but I'd probably keep it closer to 40, 45 minutes a week. And if you're going to do it, in my opinion, you do it fasted and use your hem bean and do what I was talking about because get the most fat burning out of it that you can. Next question. Okay, I've been lifting for five years now and I've always had pretty large quads due to hockey. What should I do for leg day to minimize quad, but to grow the rest of the leg muscles, uh, look for that lean ripped look that doesn't make thighs look too tight in the

Starting point is 00:25:53 pants anymore. Yeah. I mean, you're going to run into that because I mean, there are a couple exercises you could do to isolate the hamstrings or obviously a couple of type of hamstring curls you could do. Um, and there are more hamstring dominant exercises. If you go on Legion and search for hamstring, uh, you'll see an article I wrote on hamstring workouts in particular, but of course it's not going to only just train your hamstrings. There are a couple exercises in there that are more hamstrings than quads, but they involve the quads. So that said though, that article actually would be really good for you because it sounds like you would, you would want to kind of make your workouts hamstring dominant, but you're not going to want to completely eliminate quads from them altogether. I mean, you could only really do that by just doing a small handful of exercises, but I wouldn't recommend that.

Starting point is 00:26:39 So I would recommend, though, if you did a few heavy sets of exercises that were more hamstring than quads, but did involve the quads. So at least your quads are getting trained and they're not just going to detrain. And then you move to more hamstring exercises that just isolate the hamstrings. Um, then that's probably how I would go about it. Okay. So next question, I've cut down to about 6% body fat. All thanks to you, Mike. That's that's yeah, that's shredded. He said, I'm shredded. That's right. You're shredded, shredded for summer. And, uh, now I want to maintain what are your thoughts about straight maintenance calories versus calorie cycling? I've read your article on calorie cycling. It seems to make a lot of sense in regards to gains

Starting point is 00:27:13 while staying lean. Um, that's a good question. I myself found it hard to maintain that level of leanness. Um, because I found that I wasn't able to eat enough food to like feel good. That's just my body. I can sit at 8% and be totally fine and eat plenty of food and have good workouts and really not notice anything negative. It was tough for me though because at 6% I found that like my calories are about 2,500 a day, maybe 2,600, and it just wasn't enough. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:27:44 My body just didn't feel right at that level. But if you are able to reverse diet, um, back up to something around TDE or at least up to a point where you feel good and you don't notice any detrimental effects, then you're good to go. Um, so to your question, I don't, I think you're totally fine either way. I mean, straight maintenance that the thing about, I would say, so you have a straight maintenance where you're just calculating your average TDE and just eating that every day. And it all works out on a weekly basis. Um, and then there's calorie cycling, which you've read about. And if you're listening and you're not sure what they're talking about, go on muscle for life and search for calorie cycling. And then there's also one other thing

Starting point is 00:28:20 that you could do, which is, um, your intake would be set based on your activity level for that day, which you can determine. I'm actually, there's going to be an article going up on muscle for life in the next four weeks or so. That's going to be all about calculating how much calories, how many calories you're actually burning while you're exercising. There's going to be a calculator in there. Hopefully, hopefully I'll be able to steal my dev for that. If not, at least all the information will be in there and maybe we can add the calculator later. But you can find this information online. Some of it can be accurate.

Starting point is 00:28:51 Some of it not. That's why I want to write this article. But the concept is by sticking to your true or something around your true TDE every day, that's probably what I personally would go for if you're trying to stay that lean. day. Um, that's probably what I personally would go for if you're trying to stay that lean. Um, just because you want to avoid being in a surplus and you want to avoid being in a deficit because you are so lean. Um, I just feel like if you were taking your average TDE, which means that some days you're going to be in a slight surplus and some days you're going to be in a slight deficit. And again, it just kind of balances out on a week to week basis. Uh, normally that, that just

Starting point is 00:29:24 doesn't really, that those small fluctuations, uh, they don't really get in the way. Um, when you're very lean, it may. So I guess first just try straight TDE, just your, your, your normal maintenance and just see how your body responds. Let's just keep it simple. And if you're totally fine and you stay lean and you feel good and you have good workouts, then just do that. Um, and then I would say from there, you have the daily TDE, like where it's actually you're trying to be a bit more accurate on what you're burning every day. So on the days that you're doing your lifting, you're going to be eating more than the days that you're not and so forth. And then if you want to, calorie cycling is great for if you want to stay very lean, but continue to gain muscle and

Starting point is 00:30:04 strength. Now, of course, it's slower than just straight bulking. Um, but that's where calorie cycling comes in. So it kind of depends if you're trying to still build your physique or if you're just trying to maintain. Um, and ultimately remember that, uh, people's bodies are different and they respond differently. I mean, obviously we're all wired the same way, but what works well for me, um, when we're talking about stuff like this, uh, you know, where for instance, me staying at 6%, I've tried it several times and I just don't feel good. Whereas I've emailed with quite a few people that are legit 6%, 6, 7%, and they're able to just stay

Starting point is 00:30:35 there and they feel totally fine. And I don't think it's, I don't think drugs are involved. They don't look that way at least. So, you know, sometimes there are certain things you just have to learn your body. So next question. My friend stopped cutting and gained 24 pounds in a couple of days. That's impressive. What happened? Is it water retention? How can I help him get rid of it?

Starting point is 00:30:54 Well, I mean, you hear this usually like post-competition where it's just straight binge mode for, you know, a week straight of boxes of donuts and ice cream, cartons of ice cream and so forth. So your friend must have been real hard. Some people do hold a lot more water than others. For instance, I tend to not, but Jeremy, what's your greatest weight gain of all time? So Jeremy has gained 13 pounds in two and a half days. You're in New York, right? Yeah. So eating everything. And then how long until you were back to your normal weight until it was undone. So in a week, he was back to normal. So that's, that can, that can show you now, of course he gained some fat, but he came back and he just went into a deficit. And so the fat that he had gained, um, was undone

Starting point is 00:31:38 in a week. So he didn't really gain that much fat as you know, or as you can see, because he went back to his normal weight in a week. So that it can be that crazy. Whereas for me, I probably could, if I were to do exactly what Jeremy did, I probably would have gained half that just because my body, I just don't tend to hold as much water as he does. Um, so it sounds like your friend holds a lot of water and, um, and you know, you can't gain, you gotta think about it, um, mechanistically and physiologically, how much fat can you really gain? Cause your body has to synthesize, has to create it and You can't gain – you got to think about it mechanistically and physiologically. How much fat can you really gain? Because your body has to synthesize.

Starting point is 00:32:10 It has to create it and store it. There's a process here. It can't just – there's only so much it can do in one day regardless of how many calories you eat. And there's a point where you'll start just basically shitting out calories that weren't processed. Like your body wasn't able to process the food fast enough before it made it through you. So, um, in terms of how you can get rid of it, just get, get, go back into a deficit and get his, get his food under control and, um, get his sodium potassium under control. Uh, at least a one-to-one ratio of sodium potassium. Like you don't, you don't want to be having, you know, 15 grams of sodium and a gram of potassium a day. Um, so that's what I would say. Just kind of normalize his diet,

Starting point is 00:32:48 go back in a deficit and let's see in a week if he can just be back to normal. Okay. Jeremy says I have to go faster. So I'm going to go into speed mode. What are your thoughts on Olympic lifting cleans and snatches included into a bulking routine with the focus on shoulders? Um, I think that, I think it's fine if you know what you're doing, if you understand the, there's a higher risk for injury with those, with those exercises, even when you do know what you're doing. And if you don't know what you're doing, there's a much higher risk for injury. So that's why I don't recommend them in my, any of my programs, because most people it's not necessary. They don't need to be doing, you know, more, more intricate movements because their goal

Starting point is 00:33:23 is to build muscle and strength and look good and be healthy. And why put yourself in an increased risk of injury just for what just so, but if you like them and you're good at them and you know what you're doing, then, um, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I mean, there's the benefit of, uh, the explosiveness. There's that element. So you do get that, uh, in those lists, which you wouldn't get in, in just more traditional, you know, bodybuilding exercises. All right. Next question. So I've said, Mike, you've recommended opt-in nutrition before as a quality brand of protein. Have you seen the recent report making the rounds on Facebook where a bunch of popular brands were tested for BCAA content on included, and it was found that most of them had less than half of what

Starting point is 00:34:00 was claimed. Any thoughts on this? Uh, you know, I actually did somebody, somebody just shot that over to me on Facebook and I have it in my like list of things to look more into because I went and looked and I was like, oh, that sucks. But I don't have much to say on it yet because I haven't looked at it in detail yet. But it is on my list. I am curious. And I'm going to, I also, I want to send that to the guy that I'm in. He's really the CEO of the manufacturing company, or he's one of their top executives. Because it's kind of weird they have him split up in two states. He's the CEO of their Tennessee operations. Super cool guy and really has taken good care of me and Jeremy since the beginning. I'm curious as to his thoughts on that too.

Starting point is 00:34:41 I would be surprised if Optin Nutrition were spiking their protein. I really would because why? They're so vertically integrated. They own all the farms. I mean, they have a monopoly on whey. You think you'd be in their best interest to not do anything like that that could tarnish their reputation. Now, these other brands, sure, yeah, why not? Who cares? Lie. And then, you know, they're going to get caught and a small minority of people are going to get up in arms about it and are going to boycott them. But, you know, it's not going to affect their sales really, unfortunately. You know, if more and more things, I mean, it just, this kind of stuff takes time to build up to real change. I mean, think of it like politics

Starting point is 00:35:19 or just, it might take 10 more years of abuses before we see any sort of real regulations or even consumer backlash to a point where it matters. But I'm glad you brought that up, and I'm curious. I'm going to look more into it. I haven't looked at it enough to say, oh, yeah, these companies – I just don't know exactly what's going on. Question, is taking your fat burner counterproductive by bulking? Yeah, I would say. Forge is not – if you're gonna do faster training, like the, the guy that, or the girl, I don't know if the person that was going to do, um, the hit cardio while bulking, in my opinion, I would do

Starting point is 00:35:53 that cardio fasted with forge just because you're going to burn a little bit more fat while you do it. And that's kind of the purpose. Um, but I wouldn't take Phoenix while bulking because why? I mean, the purpose is being in a calorie surplus. And if Phoenix is increasing your caloric expenditure, which is that's one of the things it does, it just means you're gonna have to eat more food. So in the end, you're just basically paying to take something that means you have to pay more to eat more food. So it's, I don't really see the purpose. Next question.

Starting point is 00:36:21 Question from Oz. I've been following your program for a couple of years and I've really enjoyed the gains. I've started watching a lot of YouTube videos about street workouts, calisthenics, and while I know you've recently written about how this isn't the best way to build muscle, I wonder about your thoughts on mixing it in with your strength program, learning muscle-ups, planches, I think that's how you pronounce it, planche, yeah, it must be, levers, et cetera. rounds at planche, I must be leveraged, et cetera. Yeah, I think there's nothing wrong with that. Actually, I've written, I've emailed back and forth with quite a few people that where we work something like that out. What has worked well is a three-day weightlifting program and then two or three days of body weight training per week and then one day of rest. A lot of people have done well with that. So you could take a three-day program, whether it be bigger than you're stronger or thinner than you're stronger, and then how you build your body weight program really depends on where you're at in terms of strength and what you're going for.

Starting point is 00:37:11 But if you just thought with that as a template, like if you're Monday, Wednesday, Friday, that's your push-pull legs. Let's just say you're keeping it simple. And then you're working in your body weight training on those off days. And then you take one day off per week. I think you will do very well. All right, next question. Jeremy's curious about this too. How come I don't feel sore anymore after

Starting point is 00:37:27 a workout? Oh, actually what's that? Yeah. Your body just adapts to it. Like it's, it actually go on Legion and search for soreness. And you'll see a whole article I wrote on that just semi recently. And the good news is just because you're not getting sore from a workout, doesn't mean you're not, you're not progressing. What matters is progressing in the workout. What matters is if you're, you know, if that, if you're gaining reps and if you're gaining, putting weight on the ball over time, and if you're seeing your, obviously then your strength going up and you're seeing your body weight going up, if you're bulking or whatever, that's what matters, not soreness. I really don't get much sore at all, uh, anymore. Um, even though, and that's been the case for many years

Starting point is 00:38:05 now for multiple, multiple years, really, I don't get much sore, but if you look at how my physique has changed over the last three or four years, you'll see it has changed quite a bit. Um, but for that entire time, I really, I mean, I get a little bit sore. I get a massage once a week and some areas of my body are a little bit sore when she's massaging, but she's massaging pretty hard. So go on Legion and search for soreness, and you'll see an article that I wrote on that. And I explain what DOMS is and why it's not really a reliable indicator of anything. So, yeah. Well, at least anything related to muscle growth.

Starting point is 00:38:41 Next question. it's a muscle growth. Next question. Uh, so Hey Mike, brand new to weightlifting and wondering what your thoughts are on starting to be less program in the eight, 12 rep range with lower weights until I get my form nailed down and get the hang of everything. Any suggestions in general, beginning this way. Thanks for all you do, uh, with, uh, from the great white North, uh, the, our, our, our Northern neighbors. Um, yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. I actually, I, I thought I, I might, I thought I mentioned that like mentioned that like in the FAQ in the back of the book. Maybe I didn't though, and I'm just thinking I did. Anyways, so yeah, there's nothing wrong with that.

Starting point is 00:39:10 If you want to take the first few weeks and just work in a higher rep range and get your form down and then transition into – you can go straight into the heavier stuff or you can go like – let's say you did two or three weeks at 10 to 12 reps and then you did a bit in whatever, two weeks at 8 to 10 and then moved into the heavy stuff. That's totally fine. Nothing wrong with that. And I would just go by how you feel in your comfort. Once you feel comfortable with the motions and with the movements and controlling your body and not having basic motor failures, then you're good to go. All right, next question. My friend just got the new version of BLS U1 Challenge was telling me about the strength weeks, which my version does not have. What was some of the feedback you received rationale that led to these strength weeks being implemented into the program? Good question. Basically, just to increase the amount

Starting point is 00:40:00 of pressing and pulling and squatting that you're doing over the longer period because those really are the core exercises that are going to provide the majority of your physique, at least in how my program is laid out. And really, it's hard to replicate without doing, without, if you're not bench pressing, overhead pressing, squatting, or deadlifting, you're going to have a very hard time building the physique that those exercises build. You're going to have a very hard time achieving that with just isolation-type exercises, machines and dumbbells and stuff. So I put that in, and definitely I'm listening to feedback from people. And so far, everything has been good just because there's quite a bit of dead lifting in it as well. And so not that I think there's anything

Starting point is 00:40:50 wrong with it. I've just, I want to, I don't want to make, I was a little bit hesitant to put it in because I don't want any of my stuff to get too complicated to where people are turned off. Like that's one of the big benefits of Bigger, Leaner, Stronger or Thinner, Leaner, Stronger is, which actually Thinner, Leaner, Stronger doesn't have, it's just Bigger, Leaner, Stronger thing, like that's one of the, the, the big benefits of bigger than you're stronger or thinner than you're stronger is, uh, which actually thinner than you're stronger doesn't have, it's just bigger than you're stronger thing, um, is that it is very simple. It's easy to understand and easy to do. So, um, that's that I put it in, but I'm, I'm definitely listening to feedback. And if it were a problem for any, if it were really a problem, if I was getting quite a bit of negative feedback for one reason or another. I actually would probably just pull it out because it doesn't have to be there. I just feel like it is over the long term, especially over the first year or two, that even that increase in

Starting point is 00:41:36 volume on those big exercises is going to translate into something at least significant. It doesn't make or break the program. for instance, if you didn't like it or, um, you know, if it just didn't work for you, uh, then you could, you could leave it out and be totally fine. But I just felt like it was an improvement worth adding next question. So, uh, can you talk about all the zero calorie energy drinks and when is your energy coming out? Um, I, you know, the only, I guess I've had, what have I had? I've Um, I, you know, the only, I guess I've had, what have I had? I've had, I've had monster before and, and Red Bull. It's all I've had. And monster, I mean, is fine. I mean, I don't know. Red Bull actually can give me an upset

Starting point is 00:42:13 stomach and make me feel kind of weird. I don't know. I don't know why. Um, so I haven't really, I don't even know what's in it, to be honest. I haven't looked at them cause I don't drink them. I've had it like randomly. I can't remember the last time. Um, but, uh, and then, and then monster same, I can't, I maybe had one months and months ago and it's, it was fine, but I think, uh, I wouldn't be drinking a lot of those because again, I mean, they're, they're high in caffeine and your caffeine intake. If you want to, if you really care about your longterm health, you really should be limiting your caffeine to, uh, caffeine to no more than 400 milligrams per day. And if you go on Muscle Life and you search for caffeine, you'll see an

Starting point is 00:42:49 article I wrote on this, that you can have some caffeine every day. And a little bit is actually associated with health benefits. But if you go too high, it can increase the risk of heart disease and other problems. And it kind of depends on your body. Some people genetically, like in researching for that article, I was reading just some papers and there are case studies of people that were having over a gram of caffeine per day for a long time and with no adverse effects. They couldn't see anything wrong with anything negative caused by that, which is pretty absurd because most people, I mean, their adrenals would probably fall out of their bodies if they tried that. So I'm not a big fan of the energy drinks, but I mean, personally, I have two scoops of pulse a

Starting point is 00:43:34 day. That's what I do. That's my caffeine. And I was trying to do three scoops a day for a little bit because I got a DNA test quite some time ago. And one of the things that was kind of interesting is that my body processes toxins well and quickly. So the guy was like, you could have a lot of caffeine. Like with this type of genetic makeup, you could have a lot of caffeine and it probably would do nothing in terms of negative effects. So I was like, I mean, I like not so much caffeine, but the caffeine-theanine combination and pulse, I really like. It just elevates my mood. It just feels good. So I was doing three scoops a day, and I felt like it was kind of messing with my sleep. So I just went back to two scoops, 350 milligrams a day, and that's it.

Starting point is 00:44:11 So in terms of our energy drink, that's going to be a next year thing. We do have a formulation, but we're just – as much as I would like to just – we'd like to have everything done tomorrow. It's just you have to learn patience in, in, in business and product launches take quite some time. Um, but we are going to do it. We're actually excited for it. It's just, uh, I'm, we're, we're, we're really lining up. Like we're trying to line up basically even our entire next year's worth of products and get all the research done now. So then it's just more of a, you know, working with our manufacturer and we're gonna have to find a new manufacturer in the case of an energy drink. But, um, yeah, that's it. That's, I think that's that. All right. Next question. Is it easier for someone that used to be fat, but got

Starting point is 00:44:52 lean to get fat more rapidly than someone who has been relatively lean their whole life? Uh, yeah, yeah. And that's good. That's a good question actually. And it's something I I've read about it like peripherally. I was actually just reading about this for I believe it was the article I wrote on if you want to multiply if you search for healthy body fat percentage, there's an article I wrote on that. And there was some of the research I was reading was touching on that. answer from everything I've read, and I can't say I'm 100% accurate on this. I wouldn't say I'm 100% certain, but that yes, there definitely are things in play that even if it's just appetite related or someone that was quite overweight, there are effects, residual effects of someone's overweight, they lose a lot of the weight, that there are effects that can linger, I guess you could say, even in some cases for their entire lives, where that person is going to have a harder time staying lean for their entire lives or that for his or her entire life

Starting point is 00:45:55 than someone who has always naturally been lean. So there is something to that. Yes. And if you want to learn a bit about that, go on Muscle for life and search for body weight set point. I wrote an article that touches touches on that. It's not specifically on that, but I think it will give you a bit of insight. Um, all right, next question. So how's the workout out coming along? It's coming along well, uh, actually. So, uh, we're looking at again, probably about an, probably an August release. Um, I shit, I, every, every Tuesday I'm on like a three hour phone call with, um, with the lead developer, uh, going over all kinds of stuff and they're doing a good job though. Um, there again, it's a, it's, it's a good company and they've built a lot of apps. They know what they're doing. It's just, um, there's, uh, just

Starting point is 00:46:42 a lot of thought is going into it, which is good, which means it's going to be better for you in the end, but it just takes more time. And sometime breaks my brain where I don't know how to explain. It's most frustrating when I'm trying to explain like what I see in my mind and I'm trying to just communicate that. And if they're not getting it and then I, then I get frustrated, but we always get it. We always get it sorted out. Um, so I would say we're going to have the whole workout section. I would say actually it's the whole training section of the app, which includes workouts, workout routines, exercises, and workout goals. That's going to be done probably within the next three weeks, which is when beta real actual beta testing can begin, because that's really the heart of the app. That's what is really going to set it apart from everything else.

Starting point is 00:47:27 The journal section is actually going to be pretty cool too, and it's going to have some stuff that you just have not seen in any kind of workout app. So I'd say if I could start the beta testing in four weeks, I'd be happy. But it's rolling, it's rolling, and I'm excited. I mean, I think everyone's going to really like it. It's rolling. And I'm excited. I mean, I think everyone's going to really like it. It's very unique.

Starting point is 00:47:47 So hopefully when it comes out, everybody likes it as much as I like it so far. Next question. So I've been on Bigger Than You're Stronger for about a year. I've seen great progress with all my muscle groups, back, triceps, and shoulders in particular. I've been having trouble with my biceps, however. I eat enough calories and protein, try to overload my biceps, but haven't seen any strength size gaining around two months. Any thoughts? Yeah. Biceps can be a real bitch. Um, if you are, when you say eat enough calories and protein, are you bulking? Which the reason why I asked that is because just in, in speaking with a lot of people, um, that there are, there

Starting point is 00:48:21 seems to be there, everyone seems to have a muscle group or two or whatever that don't really, it doesn't really progress unless they're in a calorie, unless they're bulking, unless they're at least in a slight surplus and really pushing it and really training hard. So I would say first, if you're just kind of eating around maintenance and maybe some days you're in a deficit, that could be one element of the problem. Of course, as I mentioned earlier in this Q&A, volume is basically equated, more volume equals more growth. So you only can do so much. So you have to kind of take that into account. But if you are doing my program exactly

Starting point is 00:48:57 as it's laid out, I wouldn't say that you need more volume for your biceps. I mean, maybe you could increase it by, you could do another three sets, um, than what you're doing right now. And you could do them on a day, a few days later than your, after your arms day. So you have your heavy pulling and you have your heavy, uh, arms day, and you have a little bit of additional. And I would say also then work in different rep ranges. Um, some muscle groups, especially the smaller muscle groups, like, like calves and are in biceps, um, can really benefit from some higher rep stuff. You definitely want to keep your lower rep in, but like if you're doing six sets, say you do your heavy pulls and you do six sets of heavy biceps work and then three sets of higher rep,

Starting point is 00:49:38 you could try, you know, I would say at least 10 rep, but maybe even up to 15 or 20 rep, which going to failure though, going to most like when you're doing your high rep stuff, going to absolute failure. And you're heavy, heavy, you're not always going to absolute failure. But with your high rep, you're going to failure. That could help. Those would be the things that I would try right away. And then also keep in mind that progress isn't always linear. in mind that progress isn't always linear. Like sometimes you just kind of get stuck for a bit for no good reason and you try different things and then nothing seems to really work. And then out of nowhere, you know, every, the, the planets align and all of a sudden you, you know, are

Starting point is 00:50:17 gaining strength and gaining size for a few months and then you hit another plateau. So that's especially the case. I don't know. Let's see if, yeah. So you've been training for about a year. You're going to find that more where in the beginning it's real linear and it's almost vertical. It's just every week you're like, I'm stronger, I'm bigger, I'm stronger, I'm bigger. And then all of a sudden you're like, what happened? I'm not getting anywhere. Um, so as you, as you, as you, as you train for longer and longer, you will find that, uh that progress isn't always linear. So hopefully that helps. All right, next question. I'm working out following your year one training book. I have a

Starting point is 00:50:50 power rack, barbell, and dumbbell, but I don't have any machines to do the calf workouts. What do you recommend as a calf workout with what I have? I need them to grow. I know how that is. You're going to be limited. Let's see. you can use your barbell to do a calf raises as any, any, so that, so that's always something you can do. Um, there are kind of goofy, like almost like plie type squats, like ballet squats that, but I would, I mean, you can, you can see it. Can you, can you get enough? Uh, yeah, I mean, they are actually pretty hard. That's something to look at. Um, you could have someone hop on your back and you can do donkey calf raises. And yeah, that's what I would do.

Starting point is 00:51:35 Also, I should just throw it out there that, you know, what might help also is sprinting. Something where you have to pump your calves really hard, um, is, and can definitely help. Uh, like I've been, I've been getting back into ice hockey, um, for, I don't know, a couple of months now I've been skating once or twice a week, usually just once a week, but sometimes twice a week. And I've noticed that my calves have grown a bit just from that, just because, uh, you know, if anyone played hockey, you know what it is. It's just, it's sprinting on the ice over and over and over. So that's something to be said for that too. All right. Next question. Uh, thoughts about an expert, wait a question on thoughts about expectations while doing ultra endurance work. I'm a big fan and believer through experience of your workouts, but I've recently undertaken a goal to compete in

Starting point is 00:52:18 an Ironman. I've already lost muscle, but any thoughts and expectations of realistic size mass, as well as how to alter the training to fit with endurance work, if I would at all. Good question. So I haven't worked with anyone that has done an Ironman, but I have worked with people that have run marathons. And basically we have to taper down the weightlifting as the cardio tapers up. And in most cases, we're down to two weightlifting sessions per week and upper and lower. And we stick with heavy lifting and stick to our compounds, but you know, it just recovery becomes so important. You do not want to be in a calorie deficit, which is hard because of how much it's hard to know even how much energy you're burning. Um, so, but you, you want to err on the side of eating too much. In my opinion,

Starting point is 00:52:57 if you're in a, if you're in a calorie deficit while you're doing all that exercise, it's really going to cut into your recovery and it's going to, it's really going to cause problems. So you want to make sure you're eating enough food, make sure you're eating a lot of carbs. You do not want to be trying, do not do it on a low carb diet. You, you're going to feel terrible. So make sure you're eating enough carbs. Of course, eat enough protein, enough fats too, as well. Of course, um, anything you can do to help with your muscle recovery, I would look into, um, creatine is good. Um, uh, L-carnitine, L-tartrate is good. Those are both in, in our pre-workout, in our post-workout recharge. Um, if you go on Muscle for Life, I'm actually, I'm putting together an article for Legion on it, but if you go on Muscle for Life and search for muscle recovery, you'll see an article on that.

Starting point is 00:53:37 You're probably already doing those things, but it's worth mentioning. And, um, you know, I don't know how crazy your cardio actually i i'm only like vaguely familiar with what you do in the iron man i know it's a lot of swimming biking running so i'm assuming it's like cardio super cardio intensive so you may need to taper down to no weight lifting at it when when your cardio is at its max you have to kind of play it by ear with your body um you might want to get it look into getting something to look at your heart rate, heart rate variability and determining on based on that, whether you should be adding weightlifting, uh, or not. Um, and if you, I actually don't have an article on that. That's an article that I would like to write though. Um, but if you look up heart rate

Starting point is 00:54:19 variability on Google, you'll see, I mean, it's very simple in terms of what you're looking for. variability on Google, you'll see, I mean, it's very simple in terms of what you're looking for. It's, it's, it's changes in your heartbeat and in, it's, it correlates with how over stressed your body is basically. So look into that and you know, you can always shoot me an email too if you're really running into issues. Cause again, I've worked with people that have run marathons and we've made it work. I mean, they lose a little bit of muscle. Most of them did, but it's nothing crazy. They weren't, you know, they weren't disappointed. They were glad they did it because you have muscle memory on your side. Remember, whatever you lose, you're going to gain back very quickly. So you don't have to stress out. Um, it only would really become stressful if you were losing, you know, if you

Starting point is 00:55:01 lost like a year's worth of muscle gain, then yeah, that in, in, in a month or something that you pretty, that'd be, uh, pretty, uh, discouraging, but, um, it shouldn't, it shouldn't be anything extreme. And then what you do lose, you can gain back fairly easily. Once you can just get back to your normal routine. What's my golf handicap. I actually haven't, I haven't, I haven't golfed in a couple of months because here's the thing. So, so yeah, yeah, very quickly. Uh, Jeremy's laughing should have been a quick one. Um, yeah. So, so, so I was, I put in about 500 hours, maybe 600 hours on the range on camera, building a swing did very well. And that I liked doing alone because it's kind of like working out. I don't

Starting point is 00:55:41 want to talk. I don't want to, I want to, I'm working on a swing. I'm doing something. And then I started playing more and more and I was like, this isn't as fun just playing by myself. Like it's cool, but you know, I hit good shots and do things, but I'm just by myself out there wandering around. And so I tried playing with some people at the country club and I don't know, didn't really enjoy their company to be honest. Um, and I don't have any friends that play golf. So I'm in a limbo right now where I'm not like, I actually want to play, but I only take a few hours on Sunday afternoon to do something like that. And I've been enjoying hockey more. So I don't want to golf and hockey because I have to work on Sunday. So I've been choosing hockey. Um, but my handicap, I didn't play enough to have a handicap. My best round was in, I shot in 83. That was my best round,

Starting point is 00:56:27 um, playing from the blacks on like a 7,000 yard course. Um, and that was with two triples and a double actually. So that really could have been a 79 or 78. I don't remember which would, I mean, it could have been right, right in there if I would there if I would have just not exploded on those holes. But yeah, I don't know. If I had someone to play with, I would be playing. All right, so next question. Thoughts on the Grayskull LP program for new lifters? I just know it by name.

Starting point is 00:56:58 I honestly don't know enough about it. If you go on Legion and you search for strength training, you'll see an article, a pretty in-depth article I wrote on strength training. Grayskull is not in there, but there are quite a few other programs in there. So you might find that article helpful. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about that program and I haven't done it myself. So I don't really have any good insights on it. All right, next question. So in your fasted cardio article, you mentioned you take two servings of Forge. What is considered two servings? For example, per the instructions, I'm supposed to take one pill per 25 pounds, six pills. Would two servings mean I should take 12 pills while fasted weightlifting in the morning and 12 pills for fasted cardio in the evening?

Starting point is 00:57:35 In addition to the Phoenix, good question, no. So when I'm cutting, I take two servings per day because well, not every day I take, I do all, I do all my exercise fastly when I'm cutting, just because I want to, I want to just get as lean. I want to get lean as fast as possible. So then I can get out of a deficit. So I take one serving. I always do my lifting first thing in the morning. So I take one serving of forge before I train in the morning. And then if I'm doing cardio, it's always after work five 30 or so. And then, um, I have only had, I'll have like one scoop of protein, about three. So I'm, you know, by the time 536 rolls around, my insulin is going to be at a baseline level. It's

Starting point is 00:58:11 only, you know, 20, 20, 22 or 23 grams of whey protein. So I'd have one serving with caffeine as well. And, and, you know, before the, before the cardio, so two servings per day, but not two servings twice a day, that would be too much. And the reason I do that is because my body just does well with stimulants. So it doesn't bother me like, you know, him being, it gets me a little bit, you know, maybe get a little bit jittery and sometimes I get a little bit nauseous if I don't eat, if I like take it and I exercise and then I don't eat right away. And then an hour plus has gone by, I'll maybe feel a little bit off, but it doesn't really bother me. So that's why I do it. But if it does, I mean, if it makes you jittery to the point where you're uncomfortable or whatever, then I wouldn't

Starting point is 00:58:55 recommend doing two servings a day. In some cases, people just back down to a half a serving a day, just because it is going to help. A full serving is best, but a half a serving is going to help. And then when I'm cutting, I usually take one serving, maybe two servings of Phoenix a day. Again, just because there's nothing, you know, sinephrine is a very mild stimulant. So that's very well tolerated. Rarely ever do we hear from anyone that has any sort of negative reaction. So that's what I do. Also with caffeine, of course. So next question, for shrugs, should we do four to six reps? Yeah, I would say do them heavy. There's no reason not to, unless you just don't like it, then you can use a higher rep range.

Starting point is 00:59:37 And if you're going to do eight to 10, then just get to that point where you're going to muscle failure or one rep short or so. So watching from Australia, another one. I'm 17 and I want to do a strength program. Would you recommend Wendler 531? Yeah, 531 is a good program. Again, go in Legion, search for strength training and read that article. I think you'll really like it if you're interested in strength training. I talk about a lot in there. And Wendler, that's a great beginner's program for sure. And yeah, so go check out that article. All right. Next question. If I take the bulking road and I want to build muscle, does that mean as long as the compound lifts are going up, I'm building muscle? Does everything have to go up? Like every exercise do that day? Good question.

Starting point is 01:00:13 Um, what you'll find in this is I'm speaking from personal experience and also just experience working for a lot of people is because of how taxing it, the, the big compound lifts are, especially when you're, when you're progressing on them, cause you really are giving all, all out effort. As you know, it's not those reps, those extra reps and that extra weight on the bar doesn't come easily. You have to fight for it. So you'll find that, uh, you can, if you, if you, you can move up on your big, your first big exercises. And, and if you really have it in you, your second exercise as well, you'll see progress. Um, for me personally, it's kind of hit and miss where like, even when I was bulking and everything was progressing steadily, I was steadily progressing on my big lifts. And then my second

Starting point is 01:00:55 exercises were hit and miss. Sometimes I would gain a little bit, like usually the second exercise I would progress, but not as quicker. And the third exercise I would not progress. It would be, I would just really just be stuck at the same weight, same reps, because I was just pretty, pretty tired, especially on the bigger, like on back on my, on my pulling after like heavy deadlifting and then heavy rowing. By the time I would come around to my pull-ups, for instance, I was pretty shot. So I was kind of happy just to maintain on that. But that's also why I've in the, in the program, why I have you rotate exercises in and out. Like you're always starting with your big compounds because of the most important, but that secondary slot, which where you,

Starting point is 01:01:33 you still have enough energy in you to, to, to get somewhere where we're, we're moving different exercises into that position. Um, so yeah, I think that's a simple answer for that one. All right. Next question. Greeting from Germany. I like it. I was just in Germany, uh, for, for Christmas last year. My wife's from Germany. When are we going to have an EU warehouse? Really pumped about it.

Starting point is 01:01:54 Yeah. Um, good question. So international is, is going to be a big thing for us. We're definitely, definitely going to be doing it. Um, it's just, we won't be able to, it's going to require a lot of money, and it's going to require a bit of research. We're really going to have to do our due diligence to make sure we set it up correctly, of course. I don't know. We may even need to have stuff manufactured in Europe ultimately.

Starting point is 01:02:18 Sorry, I just don't know yet. But we are going to be looking into it later this year because then we'll have the money that we can set aside to really do it right. Um, and you know, I was talking with Jeremy, probably what we're going to do is we're going to start with just one product. Um, just because the more you try to do, like if we tried to just roll out our entire line in Europe, there's a lot of things that could go wrong and then we could lose a lot of money. So we were probably gonna start conservative and start with start conservative and start with one or maybe two or three max of our products and just get everything grooved in with those products and make sure that everything is working the way that

Starting point is 01:02:54 it should and then roll everything else out. So we're going to be looking at that again later this year. And I would say that having it online and really rolling next year should be doable. At least the initial phase of it should be doable. So, yeah, and that would include the UK too as well. And we also want to look at Canada and Australia. So those are our primary, not necessarily in that order, but Canada, UK, EU, and Australia. Okay, so next question. So you seem to really advocate in your book about isolation exercises but also compound. Would you recommend one more than the other?

Starting point is 01:03:29 Good question. Go on Muscle for Life and search for compound exercise. You'll see an article I wrote on, I think it's called, are compound exercises actually better than isolation or something like that? And check that out. I would say that, yes, I recommend compound exercises more than isolation exercises. If you only could do one, you're going to want to do your squatting, bench pressing, overhead pressing, and deadlifting much more than you want to do your barbell curls and skull crushers and front raises and side raises and stuff. But I think optimal if your goal is to build a physique, not just get maximally strong, but to build a physique and have everything in proportion, then you do both. And I talk about that a bit in that article. So check that out. He said, somebody asked how much testosterone can you take without ruining his nuts? Yeah, I think none is going to be the answer there.

Starting point is 01:04:19 All right. So do you consider dietary fiber when tracking calories? I see that a lot of product subtract fiber calories from the total amount of carbs. Good question. Um, go on most for life and search for net carbs. You know, see an article I wrote on this. I don't because soluble fiber has a bit of calories insoluble. Doesn't it's just, it's an unnecessary, it's your, it gets into micromanaging something that doesn't need to micromanage. You know, if you're, if you're like most people, you're eating maybe 30 grams of fiber a day, a mixture of soluble and insoluble. So if you really wanted to micromanage it, maybe you're, you're, you're getting yourself an extra bite of apple or something like who cares? It's just, it's such a negligible amount of anything

Starting point is 01:04:56 that it's not worth. Now, what is worth micromanaging though, and this kind of goes back to this, um, first digital course that I'm putting together, which I'm just calling it around the office here, Meal Plan Mastery. I don't know why that just came to me, but it did. That's probably not going to be the name. I'm going to end up surveying it. But that course is going to talk about – that's one of the things is making sure that you hit your fiber intake. That's one of the nutrients. It's obviously not a vitamin and mineral, but it's a nutrient that – it's important that you get enough, and it's particularly important to get enough soluble fiber. It's something that if we were talking about maximally optimizing your diet

Starting point is 01:05:29 and getting the absolute most you can out of your diet, then you are going to want to pay attention to your fiber intake and make sure that you're getting enough. And if you don't know what is enough, go on Muscle for Life and search for fiber and you'll see an article I wrote on it and it breaks it down. All right, next question. Having trouble going up in my military pressing. Is there something that may be wrong? No, not necessarily. If you go on Muscle for Life and you search for plateau, P-L-A-T-E-A-U, and you'll see an article I wrote on weightlifting plateaus, check that out and see if there's anything in there that can help you. There is a point, I mean, shoulders are a small muscle, you know, they're small muscles. And kind of like what I was talking about biceps earlier, where I can relate

Starting point is 01:06:11 to that because my military pressing, so I switched from a seated press to a standing press just to do something new and challenging and made good progress on that. And then I found I was getting kind of stuck, but that also kind of goes to the territory because I stay pretty lean and I don't eat a large amount of food. So it definitely limits, like if I wanted to really start gaining strength, um, I would probably want to gain 15 pounds, probably. Um, I mean, not just by going ham on food, but that's really, I would weigh probably 15 pounds more optimally. Um, so check out that article though and see, like, it could be also that you just need to, like I'm doing a, I've added some front raises into my shoulder training, um, because for that purpose to see if I can, if it can translate over to help me progress back on my pressing. Um, but yeah,

Starting point is 01:06:58 check out that article. It might help you. Uh, what should I do, uh, to not get so weak in a, in a, when, when training training fasted I like I have for cutting but the faster workouts are really hard as the only time I have is in the morning yeah some people's uh don't do well with fast training they just don't and it might have to do with fat oxidation like how well they can get energy from from from fats as opposed to to blood sugar and from eating carbs um there isn't a there is a period of adaptation, though, that you're going to find in the beginning when you're used to training, especially if you're used to training in the afternoon where you've eaten a bunch of food and having something before you train,

Starting point is 01:07:35 and then you switch to first thing in the morning fasted workouts, you're going to feel pathetically weak. But if you stick with it, then you'll find that your body will adapt and you will gain at least a fair amount of your strength back. You may not ultimately be as strong, probably wouldn't be as strong ever as you're going to be training later in the day with a bunch of food in you. But at least you can get to a respectable, back to a respectable level of strength where you can make progress. But having caffeine before you train, that can help. Yohimbine actually can help too if you're cutting. I mean, you said you are,

Starting point is 01:08:10 so that could help. But ultimately, fasted training might just not work for you. If you're a girl, then that wouldn't surprise me because I've heard from quite a few girls that one, don't do so well with IF, with just fasting, and they particularly don well with, with fasted training. So you have to see. All right. Next question. Um, are there any benefits of taking ice baths after working out? You know, I'm not sure. I haven't looked into that. Um, it may help for recovery, but I, I'm not sure. I feel like I have run into some research on icing for injuries, um, which to reduce inflammation, and there's like controversy on whether you even want to do that. You know, I'm not sure if for the purpose of reducing inflammation, of course, then it could make sense. But I can tell you that taking an ice bath is not going

Starting point is 01:08:55 to help you build more muscle. I mean, I don't think it'll help you do anything that you really care about. So but I could be wrong. I haven't looked much into it. Um, what does a typical day look like for you? Um, well, I, I mean, just to, uh, just to run through it specifically, I guess. So I get up at six 15, six 30 and, uh, you know, just get ready to go to the gym. I'm at the gym seven 15 ish, seven between seven, seven 15, depending on, you know, how long it takes me to go to the bathroom and get ready in the morning and stuff and get my vitamins together and all that. I'll work out for about an hour and then I'm here at the office about 8.30, sometimes a little bit earlier, sometimes a little bit later, depends on traffic and workout and whatever. And then just work here until generally maybe 5.30

Starting point is 01:09:35 or so, late would be six, go home, spend an hour with my wife, eat food, spend an hour with my wife and kid, get back on the computer about 7, 7.30, and then work usually until 9.30 and then make some food and then get back on the computer maybe for a final 45 minutes or so and read and go to sleep. And that's pretty much it every day, at least during the week. Friday, I don't work at night usually. Saturday, I do a bit of work in the mornings and then I do some stuff with my family in the afternoon and at night. And Sundays, I work in the morning and then I go skating in the afternoon and then just kind of work back to work. So just a lot of work, not too exciting. That's it. Jerry said they were actually, all right, all right. I'm actually, I'm actually a robot. Yeah. Yeah. Short-circuiting here. All right. So what are my current numbers?

Starting point is 01:10:40 My numbers have been stuck in a range for quite some time. And again, I've accepted that one, because of how I train. I train how I like to train. Now there's always something, remember,'s always something to be said for enjoyment. If you like working out a certain way and you're able to get to your goals working out that way, then that's a reason to do it, even if it's maybe not the most optimal way to get there. you know, there's an argument to be made for the less optimal. So I like being strong, but I like how I train and I'm not necessarily just like, well, I just want to try to pull as much weight as possible. So like the most I've pulled, um, this was probably like, I want to say about two months ago, it was like four 25 for maybe three. Um, and I mean, it was heavy and whatever, and it's fine, but that's my, like my pulling, my deadlifting has been stuck in that range for quite some time now. Uh, and my squat, I've been doing a lot of front squatting because my back squat was stuck in the range of about 365 for two or so. And so my front squat, I was like, I'll start front squatting. I'll make that

Starting point is 01:11:38 my first exercise and really push hard at that. So I've worked up to a two 75 for one or two on the front squat, which isn't bad. And then my back squatting, I'm just doing lighter, but I'm doing like hold. So I do a lot, I do quite a bit of heavy front squatting. And then, and then I do some back squatting with like anywhere from two 75 to three 15 where I'm holding. So, you know, you squat deep and you hold it for a good three to five seconds and then, and then you're up. And, um, so that's what I've kind of put that back in and my, my overhead press, my seated, I've never been higher than two 25 for two. Um, and that was when I was bulking. So more recently it's been in the range of two Oh five for, I want

Starting point is 01:12:17 to say sets of three or four. And then when I went to standing OHP, um, I had to work up, I mean, it was even one 35. It was actually a little bit hard in the beginning just because it's just getting the stabilization. But then I've gotten up to 165 for two on my standing OHP, which is nothing special. But what I was actually running into is my side delt got kind of just pissed off with heavy incline pressing several, many months ago. I've mentioned this even in a previous Q&A. It was heavy incline. I got up to two 65 for two or three and my neck would get tight. And, and my, my side dealt just got like kind of pissed off in the, in the bicipital groove. If you're familiar with that is just Google it. There's a lot of stuff that ties in there.

Starting point is 01:12:59 And it was, it was getting in the, it was like, it wasn't an injury, but it was just kind of annoying and I would have to warm up extra. And so I backed off my heavy bench pressing and my heavy overhead pressing just because I – even my heavy dumbbell pressing because I was like, all right, well, I've been working with a physical therapist here, and he's been great. And it's actually just been good to work with him. You know, like my psoas muscle wasn't quite firing the way that it should, and it was messing with my squats. And so there's been some other benefits working with him, but I finally was just like, all right, fine. I have to stop being stubborn. And I have, so I'm not overhead pressing. I haven't for a couple of weeks and I'm probably not going to overhead press for a couple more weeks. So I'm just doing a bit of front raises and I'm doing

Starting point is 01:13:40 very high, just like 30 rep presses on my chest just to do something that doesn't piss off my shoulder because I just want it to, it's not like, I just want it to be back to normal so I can just go heavy, heavy and not have to worry about it. So, um, yeah, so yeah, those are, that's it. All right. So next question for the ice bath thing, I work in special operations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is cool. So this is, this is from someone in chat. So for the ice bath thing, I work in special operations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is cool. So this is, this is from someone in chat. So for the ice bath thing, I work in special operations. We have ice baths and hot tubs co-located, uh, following hard training, you transition from hot up to the ice bath for the recovery process has to do with lactic acid buildup and muscle tension, but nothing to do with muscle growth. Oh, cool. Yeah. See, I haven't really looked into it. I

Starting point is 01:14:21 know that it's a thing. I just don't know how much of it, I don't know exactly like, is there, is there much research on it? And it was something that is maybe not researched, but anecdotally we know it does do something or whatever. So, so there you go. Okay. So what are some good foods that are rich in macronutrients and are quick and easy to make? Currently I'm finding it difficult to get my daily calories in. Okay. Yeah. So calorie dense and to find time to cook and prepare my meals in the day, which is subsequently stunting my strength gains. Good question. I'm just going to recommend him to an article. I have to get the title. First, go on Muscle for Life and search for meal prep. That'll help you with the meal prep side of things and maybe save you some time and even save you some money. And then, hold on,

Starting point is 01:15:04 let me, I need to find an article. I just don't remember the title of it. That is going to help you with eating enough food, basically. Let me, okay, here we go. So then, uh, so search also on muscle for life for how much food you need to gain. So just search, search for gain weight, and then you'll see an article that, um, should help you fit some more, uh, calorically dense foods into your diet and hit your numbers without feeling like you're going to throw up every day. All right, next question. So when is the FB group going to happen? People will love that. Yeah, I know it's true. Well, just to answer that quickly. So we're we're bringing on someone um that is going to be

Starting point is 01:15:48 it's actually if if any of you are familiar with uh any of our sponsored athletes cory who um is is a legion sponsored athlete she's going to be managing our social media we just you've gotten to a point where i need someone full-time to really just take over it because it's kind of a football that gets passed around the office here and everyone does a little bit of something. So that's going to help because it's obviously going to be a social media thing. And so then that's something she'll definitely be able to help with. So we may be able to get it up sooner than later. And so off to sea, off to sea. Over the next month or so, we'll know.

Starting point is 01:16:27 And also, as we build up this coaching service, coaches can be involved in it. I mean, I can be involved in it as well, but my time is going to be limited. I just don't want to put up a Facebook group that then doesn't get the type of attention that it needs and just becomes stagnant because we don't have, we don't have the, the, the bandwidth to really manage it properly. Um, so the next part of this question is I just started BLS three weeks ago, short guy with tight hamstrings. How do I deadlift without crushing my boys? I've never heard that one before. Deadlift without crushing your nuts. I don't know. That's a, I, well, if you have tight hamstrings, if that's the problem, then you can do some things, search for

Starting point is 01:17:08 like a muscle for life and search for mobility and check out the article I wrote on how to increase a squat mobility. And you know, there are, there are, you can, you can, you can get your hamstrings loosened up with some foam rolling and some stretching. And then, you know, maybe you can save your nuts and your deadlifting until then maybe you need to deadlift sumo, dude. I don't know. That'll at least get them out of the way. Should I talk to girls in order to get to know them better or just woo them with my gains?

Starting point is 01:17:35 That's good. Let's end with some just like weird, like what kind of funny questions. Yeah, don't talk to girls. Girls are gross. No, just go on Omegle and just take your shirt off and do it. And you just see, see how many hand over mouth reactions you can get. Unfortunately, I don't think girls care nearly as much about muscles as us guys do. Like

Starting point is 01:18:00 we think it's awesome and they think it's fine. It's cool or whatever, but I think we're into it more than they are actually. All right, so I read an article that referenced, quote-unquote, scientific studies that suggested maximum hypertrophy is in the 8-10 rep range and 4-6 is largely strength-related. 4-6 works for me, but interested in your thoughts on their position. That's just wrong. To say that any individual rep range is the – that is for hypertrophy and then anything else is no hypertrophy is just wrong. You can gain muscle in any rep range. The point, a more accurate way of looking at it is you have to be pushing to maximum effort.

Starting point is 01:18:36 So you have to be getting to that point of muscle failure or very close to it. And there are some benefits, I think, to the heavier lifting and that you gain more strength. That is well-established. You are going to gain strength faster by lifting heavy weight as opposed to higher rep weight, in which case you will build more muscle endurance. So there's a benefit there of, you know, if you're training with about 80, 85% of your one rep max, which is that four to six rep range, five to seven rep range, you are, you can push yourself to muscle failure or right, right up to that point. And you're going to gain a fair amount of strength, which then translates into further increases of weight on the bar faster, which means you progressively overload your muscles more

Starting point is 01:19:21 effectively. And there's also something to be said for, it's easier to push to that point of muscle failure, I think. And it's definitely more enjoyable with heavier weight than it is with higher rep stuff where your muscles are just on fire and you don't, you can't quite tell, like, could you get another rep? Maybe you don't know because you just, all you want to do is stop moving. You're all you want to do is stop moving. All you want to do is stop the exercise because you're in pain. But again, it's not that high rep is bad. I mean, in my book for more advanced weight lifters, which is Beyond Bigger Than You're Stronger, I talk about periodizing your training where you're doing some very heavy stuff, some moderate stuff, and some higher rep stuff. But if you want to dive more into that, go on Legion and search for hypertrophy,

Starting point is 01:20:04 and you'll see an article that I wrote where I explain this. And another good resource for this, it's very dense. And if you are not familiar with a lot of the terminology of muscle building in terms of like the scientific side and the physiology, it's going to be hard to understand. But if you go to strengththeory.com, that's another good resource where the guy who writes there really knows his stuff. His name's Greg Knuckles. But very long articles and they can be hard to understand. So, you know, just warning you, but another good resource. All right, question. So what's the absolute fastest way to lose fat for an event like a wedding? Um, well, okay. So I would say, um, you're going to want to, you're going to want a large calorie deficit, high protein, large calorie deficit, probably like 25, 30% calorie deficit. You're

Starting point is 01:20:55 going to have to scale your exercise. You're not going to exercise so much that you run your body into the ground, but you're going to want to exercise as much as you can. Um, so you're going to take that into account though, with the larger calorie deficit. And then, um, I would say you're going to want to supplement like, you know, caffeine. Um, again, I would just say the, um, this is me plugging my stuff, but it's just because I don't know of anything else really to recommend it's in my stuff. So if you get, you have caffeine plus my fat burner Phoenix, plus my fasted training, fat burner forge. That's, that's everything that I, those are all the things that I've liked in the, in the two products basically. Um, and so then you're going to be training fast to do all your exercise fasted, no cheat meals, meaning no, like you stick to your meal plan every day or you stick to your calories and your macros every day. There's no like eating out and you don't, where you don't know what you're eating or you're, you know,

Starting point is 01:21:48 you can't, you can't break down and binge. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty much it. Unfortunately, there aren't very many, you know, fat loss hacks there. A lot of that stuff is just bullshit. It's just calorie deficit, high protein, um, lift weights, lift weights and do cardio. I should, that that's, that's worth saying. Um, and do high intensity cardio as well. I should, that that's also worth saying. Um, and yeah, so that's everything. All right. So what do you do to get your number, your shoulder numbers up on lifts like bent over rear delts? Five pounds is huge for that lift. Um, I actually don't really find that is that's always worked well for me. Um, and I've gotten up to 50 pounds now on my, on my bent over rears for sets of four to five.

Starting point is 01:22:26 But if you do find that and you will find that sometimes actually, I do understand like on side raises, I've run into that problem. So let's say you hit six or seven reps on your side raises and you try to go up and then you get like two or three work up to 10 reps with that, with that previous weight and then, and then, and then move up. Or if you're moving up, I like to move up when I hit my reps for one set, I like to move up. It's hard, but it works well. If you can also, if that doesn't work, you can work up to two sets for your reps and see if that works. So you, you know, you just basically get, get a little bit stronger with that weight, uh, before moving up and you should be fine. All right. So, uh, opinion on using de novo lipogenesis while bulking.

Starting point is 01:23:06 What is this? Uh, in order to minimize fat gain. Yeah, no, I get it reading. I didn't, I didn't, Jeremy was like, I didn't, I thought he was like, just fuck with me. All right. So, so by eating relatively low fat and super high carb, uh, I've been bulking at 5,200 to gain a half pound a week for almost a year. Um, no, no, it's actually, it's actually a good question because when, when, when, yeah, when, when you start learning a bit more about, I mean, just, just for people listening to novel epigenesis is the process whereby, uh, carbs like glucose is, is converted into body fat and it's not very efficient. It's not as efficient as, as, as dietary fat being converted into body fat. So there's also like when you really kind of dive into the technical aspects of it,

Starting point is 01:23:50 it's actually not so much that carbs themselves get converted into body fat easily. It's that they blunt fat oxidation because of the insulin levels. And then your body's able to store body fat more efficiently of the fat that you eat. So then people, it's a good actually, like, so you're saying that if I eat basically no dietary fat, which would be really bad for your health, but if I eat no dietary fat, then my body has no dietary fat to store and it can't really store carbs efficiently as body fat, then I can just pound food and not get fatter. And the answer is no, that there's a point where if you're essential fatty, if, I mean, again, you have to get a little bit of essential fatty acids in your diet or you'll eventually die, but your body

Starting point is 01:24:28 will start converting the carbs that you eat into fatty acids. If it has to, it can't, you can't handle all of them, but it will start converting just to maintain fat levels. So the question, the answer is no, you can't just hack your metabolism like that, which again, it'd be terrible because you'd be ruining your health. Um, regarding eating 5,200 calories to gain a half pound a week, I really question if you're eating that much. Are you really tracking everything that you're eating, measuring everything? Because if that's the case, then you must be very, very active. Like I don't even know eight hours a day of working construction or something. If that's the case, then I understand. And again, I would say if you really are eating that much and you're not gaining weight and you're training

Starting point is 01:25:11 properly, so you're at least on a decently designed program, a lot of heavy compound lifting and not over the top in terms of crazy weekly volume and so forth, then unfortunately you'd have to eat more. But I really would wonder if you're eating that much food, if you really log everything. Because I've heard from a lot of people that say that, like, hey, I'm eating 4,500 calories a day and I'm not gaining weight. And then, so he said, Jeremy was just saying, say, yes, he scales everything perfectly and he's eating vegan. So it sounds like he's on the high carb, uh, low fat thing. Um, yeah, I mean, that's that, I don't know. How are you, how are you eating?

Starting point is 01:25:51 What are you eating? Like a thousand grams of carbs a day? How, I mean, how are you not just wanting to throw up all over yourself? Yeah. I mean, if you're doing that, that is impressive. That's, that's you, you can eat a lot. Um, however, if you're eating, if you are a high carb and low protein, low fat, that's really not, that's, that's not, that's just bad. I mean, there's just a bad way to eat. Um, if you want to learn more about that, check out the article I wrote on vegan body building and check out, search for, um, how many grams of fat or just search for grams of fat on muscle for life. And you'll see an article I wrote on, you don't need to be eating a high fat diet, but you do need to be getting enough essential fatty acids and particularly omega-3s. It's very important, especially as a vegan, because it's

Starting point is 01:26:34 hard to actually get enough. And I talk about that in the vegan article and you need to be eating enough protein. So if I'm right in that assumption, if you're doing a high carb, low protein, low fat diet, and you really are eating that much, if you're doing a high-carb, low-protein, low-fat diet, and you really are eating that much, you're not gaining weight, I think it's a pretty clear sign it's not working, and we need to change something. So I'd be happy to help, though. If you shoot me an email, Mike at Muscle for Life, if you need help, check out those articles and let me know.

Starting point is 01:26:57 And then if you need to go, if you're not sure or that doesn't help you enough, email me because I would be curious. You're a unique case. I haven't come across very many people that are in that position. All right enough, email me. Cause I would be curious. Um, you're a, you're a unique case. I haven't come across very many people that are in that position. All right. So last question, this is the last one. What is it? Has everyone, do I need to, am I, do I actually read this first or am I just, I haven't read it yet. Okay. Has anyone really been far, even as decided, to use even go want to do look more like? Let me think about that. That's great.

Starting point is 01:27:37 All right, we're going to end on that note. Say thank you to your moderator, Mr. Jeremy. Adios. Who works hard to make it as good as possible. All right. So yeah, I know. Yeah. All right. So the next one, um, you know, we'll, we'll shoot for doing one in about a month that we want to keep. We want to, we actually want to improve it a bit. That's one of the reasons why we were like, we had it on our back burner, like, or in the back of our minds that we want to make this better. And we have some ideas that we hadn't gotten around to. So we were like, well, do we

Starting point is 01:28:02 want to still do it the way it is? Let's make it better. So, you know, we'll continue it. And then we are going to make it better, though. Maybe the next one we'll be able to make it better by then. If not, the one after that, probably. Yeah, soon. Yeah, exactly. So, all right.

Starting point is 01:28:17 Hopefully you found it helpful. And guten Abend.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Live Q&A: Third Party Lab Testing, New Digital Courses, Street Workouts, and More…

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