Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: BBLS 2.0, Bigger Biceps Peaks, and Reverse Dieting

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

I’ve churned through over 150,000 emails, social media comments and messages, and blog comments in the last 6 years. And that means I’ve fielded a ton of questions. As you can imagine, some questions pop up more often than others, and I thought it might be helpful to take a little time every month to choose a few and record and share my answers. So, in this round, I answer the following three questions: 1. When is the second edition of Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger going to come out and how is it different from the first edition?  2. How do you increase your biceps peak?  3. What is your current position on reverse dieting?  If you have a question you’d like me to answer, leave a comment below or if you want a faster response, send an email to [e-mail]. Recommended reading for this episode: https://legionathletics.com/how-to-get-bigger-stronger-biceps/ https://legionathletics.com/reverse-diet-steps/ --- Timestamps: 4:49 - When is the second edition of Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger going to come out and how is it different from the first edition? 29:30 - How do you increase your biceps peak? 34:43 - What is your current position on reverse dieting? --- Mentioned on The Show: Part 1 of this episode (Exactly How I'm Eating, Training, and Supplementing Right Now): https://open.spotify.com/episode/0VfvEWe9pfEDCkIZ2MRS14?si=cp7ElWRlT32dyaSPl6WOcA  July 4th Sale (Save up to 30%): https://legionathletics.com/products/supplements/ Books by Mike Matthews: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/ --- Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

Hi there, I'm Mike Matthews. It's time for another El Podcasto. Thank you for joining me today to listen to my latest round of ranting and rambling. No, just kidding. This is not going to be a rant or a ramble. It's going to be a highly educational and calm discussion where I'm going to answer three questions that people have asked me recently. Yes, this is a Q&A episode, and this is actually kind of a part two of the Q&A that I started. Oh, I don't know. I think we posted the episode several days ago now. What's the date today? Okay. It's July 1st. So we posted an episode several days ago where I was talking about how I am currently eating, training, and supplementing. And that actually started as a Q&A ago where I was talking about how I am currently eating, training, and supplementing. And that actually started as a Q&A episode. I was going to answer four questions in that one. And then that first bit took like an hour. So I decided to just make that its own episode and then do the Q&A with the remaining three questions, which is going to be today's episode. And what are those

three questions? Well, the first one is when is BBLS 2.0 coming out beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger 2.0, which is the sequel to Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. And it is intended for intermediate weightlifters and specifically male. Although a lot of the information applies equally to women, but I'll talk about that in a minute. So it's a two-part question. When is it coming out? And how does it differ from the current first edition that's out there? The second question I'm going to take up, I'm going to count that first one as a two-parter, but just one. The second question I'm going to take up is how do you increase your biceps peak? And the third and final is what's my current

position on reverse dieting? Now, if you want me to answer your questions directly just from me to you, and maybe to answer them publicly here on the podcast, depending on how often I get asked, whatever it is that you have to ask me, or just how much a question of yours may strike me as something that I should feature on the podcast. Usually I'm looking for things that I haven't already beaten to death, that I haven't already written or spoken extensively about, or things that are just topical and that I am getting asked about fairly frequently. So if you want to ask me your questions, I'd say the best way to do it is email. So just email me mike at muscle for life.com. And you can also reach out to me on Instagram via DMS. And I probably will get back to you,

but the system is a bit wonky and I don't spend much time on Instagram, but there's a good chance I'll be able to get back to you there. It's just less convenient for me. Email is better. If nothing else, I can type on a keyboard, which is faster for me. But anyway, Instagram is at MuscleForLifeFitness. Also, if you like what I am doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my sports nutrition company, Legion, which thanks to the support of many people like you is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. And we're on top because every ingredient and dose in every product is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research. Every formulation is 100% transparent. There are no proprietary blends, for example, And everything is naturally sweetened and flavored.

So that means no artificial sweeteners, no artificial food dyes, which may not be as dangerous as some people would have you believe, but there is good evidence to suggest that having many servings of artificial sweeteners in particular every day for long periods of time may not be the best for your health. every day for long periods of time may not be the best for your health. So while you don't need pills, powders, and potions to get into great shape, and frankly, most of them are virtually useless, there are natural ingredients that can help you lose fat, build muscle, and get healthy faster, and you will find the best of them in Legion's products. To check out everything we have to offer, including protein

powders and protein bars, pre-workout, post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more, head over to www.buylegion.com, B-U-Y Legion.com. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout, and you will save 20% on your entire first order. So again, if you appreciate my work, and if you want to see more of it, and if you also want all natural evidence-based supplements that work, please do consider supporting Legion so I can keep doing what I love, like producing more podcasts like this. Okay, let's get to the first question, which is when is BBLS 2.0 coming out and how is it different from 1.0? Well, it is coming out this month. It's going to be live everywhere you can

buy books online by the end of July. And that's actually a hard deadline I have to meet because that's part of the deal that I made with Simon & Schuster and they're publishing what's going to be my next book after BBLS 2.0 and a book that I co-authored with James Krieger called Fitness Science Explained. And I will talk more about that soon. That's going to be ready also by the end of this month, but that's a tangent I won't get into right now. And part of the deal with Simon & Schuster is I have to get these two books, BBLS 2.0 and Fitness Science Explained, I have to get them out by the end of this month because I'm also delivering the manuscript for the book I'm doing with Simon Schuster, which is specifically for,

it's a fitness book specifically for the 40 plus crowd, men and women. And I'm really liking how it has come together. And I think it's going to do very well. And it's going to meet its target market exactly where they're at and give them exactly what they need to be maximally successful in their health and fitness journeys. And so I'm going to be turning in that manuscript this month, this week, actually. And then Simon and Schuster, they need a year of me not publishing anything. And then they're going to publish that book, which is tentatively titled Muscle for Life. And so I have to get BBLS 2.0 and Fitness Science Explained out and done this month to live up to that agreement. And so that's what I'm doing. And so how it's likely

going to play out is BBLS 2.0 will be live by the end of this month. So I'll switch out, really what it is, is it's switching out the publication files. So the ebook will get updated. Well, I should say ebooks, right? Because there's Amazon and everywhere else you can buy ebooks. So all those files will get updated. The audio book will get updated. The paperback book, the file that's used to print those books will get updated because currently that book is a print on demand book through Amazon KDP. And I'll be looking after the launch at doing proper print runs for it because print on demand books are fine. They're actually pretty high quality, but you can get better quality for less money if you just do print runs. Of course, the downside with print runs is you have to front

the cash, but that's okay. That's what I do with Bigger Than You're Stronger, Thinner Than You're Stronger, Little Black Book, Shredded Chef, The Workout Journals. I'm already doing that with all these books and the finances work out if you sell enough books. And I really do think that BBLS 2.0 is going to do quite well and will sell enough books to warrant the print runs. And so by the end of this month, you'll be able to get the new book. And if you already have BBLS 1.0 in a digital form, so if you have an ebook or if you have an audio book, you're going to get 2.0 for free. You are just going to have to update the book. And sometimes Amazon, if you read in Amazon's ecosystem or listen in Amazon's ecosystem, Audible, right? Sometimes you get a notification

letting you know that a book has been updated and you can get the new material. Sometimes you get a notification letting you know that a book has been updated and you can get the new material. Sometimes you have to do it manually and you do it manually. I believe you just log into your Amazon account and you navigate to like my digital content or my Kindle content, and you'll be able to see all of your Kindle books. And then there's an option to either check for new content or update. And on the audio book side of things, I'm not sure off the top of my head actually, because I stopped listening to audiobooks some time ago because I found that my retention is better when I read. And the books that I tend to read, I read a lot of nonfiction and sometimes they're denser and sometimes I need to slow down and make sure I'm understanding whatever is being

talked about or even stop sometimes and think about something, work through some examples. And I just found that audiobooks are not great for that. They're good for easily digested content. And so what I do now is with the time that I used to listen to audiobooks, I just listen to interviews or lectures, which I'm not taking notes on. And I'm not concerned if let's say I'm preparing food and I miss 30 seconds of an interview, it's not a big deal. Whereas with an audio book, that would just bother me and I'd have to go back and continue listening. And anyway, so I'm not

sure how to update content with Audible, but I do know it can be done. And I'm sure if you just search how to update your Audible audio books, you'll find it. And the same goes for the other digital platforms out there like iTunes and Google and Kobo and Barnes & Noble. If you have already purchased Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger in the past, no matter how long ago, you are going to get the new second edition for free. Now, of course, if you've purchased a paperback, then you'll have to get the new one, but it'll be worth it, which is the segue into the second part of this question, which is what's the difference? How does it differ from 1.0? And the simple answer is similar to when I

released Bigger Leaner Stronger 3.0 and Thinner Leaner Stronger 3.0. BBLast 2.0 is a full rewrite from scratch. It took quite a bit of time actually. I went into it thinking that it would be an edit, mostly an editorial process. And then I realized as I got into it, like, no, I just need to rewrite this entire book actually. So it took about a year to get this manuscript done because I only had a certain amount of time I could give to it because I also was working on, I've been working on Muscle for Life for, I don't know, since February. And I've had to give that a lot of time because that book has a lot of original content completely written from scratch, meaning

that I wasn't able to pull from a lot of my other work. And of course I would customize everything and make it read as well as I could. But Muscle for Life was a lot of new stuff for me because I haven't produced that much content specifically for the 40 plus crowd. And so that book, Muscle for Life, I mean, really I had to make that the priority and give that more time. And then when I had made sure that I got enough done on Muscle a Life every day, then I'd be able to put time into BBLS 2.0. So it's been about a year writing this second edition and it is completely new. There's actually nothing in 1.0 that's also in 2.0. And that's for the better. I would say it's a marked improvement. I'm happy with 1.0 and I really did my best at the time to make it as good as possible. But that was,

I don't know, four or five years ago. I'm a better writer now. I know a lot more both because of ongoing research and learning and working with people and hearing from people, especially people who had done BLS and BBLS 1.0. And I've gained more experience in my own training with just my own body. And so I've been able to leverage all of that to create what I think is really an outstanding book. I think BLS and TLS, I don't really know what else I could do to better serve someone who is new to proper resistance training, proper weightlifting or strength training primarily. And I've already got some ideas how I'm going to improve those books again, but it's mostly just refining. Like I can do another editorial pass and I can clean up some

of the wording. And a lot of it's probably just going to be removing words and just making things extra clear and extra sharp. And I can rerecord the audio books because a lot of people don't like that I sounded robotic when I recorded them. And I understand, I don't know how I missed that the first time around, but the core content of BLS and TLS 3.0 is really, really solid. I think, again, it's like the best individual book for someone new to the fitness game. And for many people, it gives them really everything they need to get the body they want. If you've read Biggieliner Stronger or Thinoliner Stronger, especially the third edition, you

know what I'm talking about. You don't really need to know much more to get, let's say, about 80% of the muscle and strength that's available to you genetically. That's it. You just need BLS or TLS. However, if you want to go further than that, there is a point where BLS and TLS will no longer work. There is a point where those programs become maintenance routines. And I talk about this in BBLS 2.0. And if you really want to stretch and reach for that final, let's say 20% of your potential physique, or if you're

maybe more interested in performance, so you just want to see how strong you can get given your anatomy and given your musculature, then you're going to need more than BLS or TLS. If you're a woman, you're going to need to know a bit more on the diet and training side of things and your programming is going to have to change. And really what that comes down to is your workouts are just going to have to get harder. That's the main difference between the BLS 3.0 and BBLS 2.0 workouts is you're just going to start working harder. You're going to be lifting both lighter and heavier weights. So there's periodization worked into the program. Well, linear periodization, there is basic periodization in BLS and TLS, but it is more explicit and deliberate in BBLS 2.0. And you're going to be doing more volume. So more hard sets per major

muscle group per week. And as far as how some other, I guess, specific ways that BBLS 2.0 differs from 1.0 is let's talk about periodization. So 1.0 used a DUP style of periodization, which I talk about in the book. If you're not familiar with daily undulating periodization, I talk about it in BBLS 2.0, which is a workable system, but I'm not using it in BBLS 2.0. And again, I explain why in the book, so I don't want to get off on a long tangent here, but basically the style of linear periodization that I used in BBLS 2.0, I think is best suited to that style of training, which is very similar. BBLS 2.0 is going to feel very familiar if you're currently doing BLS first, second, or third edition, really, or even TLS. So it's a lot of the same exercises. It's heavy weightlifting, but you're going to be changing rep ranges week to week. And as you move through what's called a macro cycle, which you

could think of it just as like a training block or a training phase that lasts for four months in the case of BBLS 2.0. So we have a 16 week macro cycle. And as you move through the macro cycle, your weights are going to get progressively heavier and your volume is going to stay the same in terms of number of hard sets per major muscle group per week, but your volume is going to stay the same in terms of number of hard sets per major muscle group per week, but your intensity is going to go up. You're going to be lifting more weights and your reps are going to go down, of course. And whereas in BBLS 2.0, you're not changing rep ranges week to week, you're changing them in workouts. So it's kind of like an RPT or reverse pyramid training system where you might start a squat

workout with a warmup and then some very heavy squats. So like some doubles or maybe some triples, and then you'll do some sixes and then you'll move on to some isolation or accessory exercises and do some eights or some tens. And again, that's a very workable way of training. When I was creating BBLS 1.0, I was doing the program myself, of course, and I did it for quite some time. It's been years, but I want to say six to eight months. And I hit PRs across the board on that program. And those are numbers that I have not gotten back to because what happened is I did that with BBLS 2.0 and I was on a lean bulk for many months and tweaking the program and experiencing for myself, just making sure that I

liked what I was putting in the book, even though it made sense theoretically, I really want to make sure I go through it myself and then recruit some other people to go through it. And then after that, I cut to get pretty lean for a photo shoot. And if you've seen any pictures from the beach photo shoot years ago, that's the photo shoot I'm talking about. So that photo shoot was me cutting after BBLS 1.0. And then I went into a very long maintenance phase, really. And that's still kind of where I'm at. If you have been following me on Instagram, you know that, that I stay pretty lean year round.

And I'd say my body fat has been anywhere from, let's say, 11 to maybe 8% over the course of the last four or five years since I did that beach photo shoot. And my style of training was really just BLS style of training. It was, you know, moderate volume, some heavy weights. style of training. It was, you know, moderate volume, some heavy weights. And I knew that without lean bulking again, for example, there's not much muscle and strength that I'm not going to gain muscle and strength. And I also knew that given how much muscle and strength I had already gained, there was very little left for me to gain anyway, just genetically. And so I was happy to do difficult workouts and workouts. I enjoyed BLS style workouts, knowing that it really was just maintenance. And it was more work than I needed to do to maintain my physique because you can maintain your physique on, I would say at

least one third of the volume that it takes to gain muscle and strength. And some research suggests that you might even be able to maintain on one fifth or even one sixth, maybe one seventh of the volume that it takes to gain muscle. So I was doing more work than I needed to, to just stay fit. But I like that. You know, I like my workouts to be in about an hour long, for example, I'm willing to do a bit more, but after an hour and a half or so, I feel like I'm kind of just wasting time. I like being in the gym, but 60 minutes or so is a sweet spot for me. And so that comes down to doing, you know, 13 to maybe 16 hard sets in the workout. If you include the warmups and sometimes needing to rest a little bit more for talking about heavy squatting or heavy deadlifting and then working, I like to lift weights five days a week and include

cardio in my routine as well. So that worked for me for a while. Now with BBLS 2.0, I also followed that program for about eight months while writing the book and tweaking the programming. And this leads right up to when the Rona hit and gyms shut down. I was getting back to those BBLS 1.0 PR numbers. I was close. back to those BBLS 1.0 PR numbers. I was close. Like for example, on my squat, my squat 1RM was probably back up to, I'd have to look at my training sheet, but mid 300s, maybe 340 to 360, somewhere in that range. And that's not great. However, my previous best was 365 for two. And

so I was getting back to it. And squatting has always been very difficult for me, primarily because I have long legs and long femurs. So the sticking point, like I have a pretty long range of motion I have to move through and a longer than average sticking point. And it makes it difficult that exercise and the bench press because of my long arms, I have long monkey arms, go on Instagram and look at some pictures where you can see my arms and the length of them. You'll quickly see like, oh, wow, this guy has really long arms. And that is good for deadlifting, but bad for bench pressing because again, longer range of motion, longer sticking point. And so again, for me, a squat 1RM of ultimately, let's say low fours or so is probably the best that I can hope for naturally, which is a good accomplishment. I've said this before, but a good strength

benchmark to shoot for as a natural weightlifter, as a guy is 3, 4, 5, 3 plates on the bench. So 315, 4 plates on the squat, so 405 and 5 plates plates on the deadlift, 495. And I got close to that with BBLS 1.0 on the squat. And on my bench press, it was 295 for two or three. And my 1RM with BBLS 2.0 was getting back up into the 270 to 80 range. And on the deadlift, my previous best was, I believe it was like 435 for two. And on BBLS 2.0, my 1RM was right around 435. So I was getting back. I was getting back and it was fun. And I also had cut during that eight months on BBLS 2.0. So a couple of months were in a deficit because I wanted to see how the program played out when you're in a deficit. I just want to make sure that it wasn't

too much if you're in a deficit. And I'm 35 now, so I'm not invincible like I was when I was 25, but I really do take good care of my body and I recover well from training. And I can't say that I noticed that big of a difference between my mid-20s and now my mid-30s, maybe a little bit slower recovery from higher volumes. But my figuring was that if BBLS 2.0 was too much for me when cutting, it's going to probably be too much for a lot of other people. And I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was not. It was actually totally fine. And I had remained in a deficit for at least two months. I wanted it to be like a proper cut and really see how it impacted me. And so that's how BBLS 2.0 was going for me. And as far as other differences go, well, the book is separated into

several sections and I'm really just mirroring BLS. I go over some inner game stuff and currently in BBLS 1.0, it has some inner game stuff, but I feel like it's kind of just generalized. It's not specifically addressing the obstacles, the inner game obstacles that us intermediate and advanced weightlifters face. Whereas BBLS 2.0 does a better job of that and really talks about a few of the things that can get in the way as we transition from being a new weightlifter, a novice to an intermediate, or from intermediate to advanced, or at an advanced level, really trying to just get to the absolute genetic ceiling in terms of physique and performance. And so after that, there is a diet section. And again, there's some similar stuff in BBLS 2.0 to BBLS 1.0, like calorie

cycling, for example, is still a great tool. And I talk about calorie cycling in BBLS 2.0 and explain when to use it and how to use it and how I use it. But I also give some additional tools in BBLS 2.0 like mini cuts. That's not talked about in BBLS 1.0 and it is a good strategy. It has its uses and I talk about what those are and how to do it in 2.0. And I also talk about intermittent fasting in 2.0, which I also talk about in 1.0. And there's some stuff in 1.0 that I removed because I just didn't think it was necessary to really talk about. Like for example, 1.0 talked about the paleo diet and why I'm not a fan, wasn't a fan, and still I'm not a fan of the mythology and pseudoscience used to sell it. As a diet, like a primal style of eating is not bad actually,

if you're just mostly eating relatively unprocessed stuff. And if you watch your saturated fat intake and you're not eating like, you know, a hundred grams of saturated fat a day, it's a totally fine way to eat, but it is not the panacea that it is often sold as. And that was more relevant though, when I published BBLS 1.0, because at that time, paleo was huge and I was getting asked about it all the time. Now, not so much. It's still big and it'll probably be with us now for a long time because of how much popularity it has achieved, but it's not what it once was. And so I don't need to talk about that in 2.0. I also talk about in 2.0 about, I really don't like the term superfoods and I talk about why because it's

kind of just marketing nonsense. So I think a better term is functional foods. And these are foods that are not just nutritious, but have special properties. And these are great for including in your diet if you want to really maximize the health and performance and well-being benefits that you can obtain from eating food. Like for example, I talk about here, here are some of these functional foods, fish, garlic, blueberry, cranberry, oats, cruciferous vegetables, dark chocolate, and black seed. And you don't have to eat these foods of course. And I talk about that, but again, the theme of BBLS 2.0 is the road to go from being stuck as now, let's say an intermediate, like a new intermediate weight lifter. So as a guy, you've gained your first 20 pounds of muscle or so, or as a woman, you've gained maybe your first 10 or 15 pounds, and now you're just kind of stuck. Not much is changing anymore. To go from that to gaining muscle and strength again, a meaningful amount, put it that way. And this is the theme of the book is you just have to double down on the fundamentals. You have

to pay even more attention to your calories and macros. You have to consider adding additional foods to your meal plans that can help you with performance a little bit and help you with recovery a little bit and maybe help enhance your health a little bit so you don't get sick. Instead of getting sick three times in the year, you only get sick one time and you don't miss the training and the progress that you would normally miss with those other two sicknesses. And in your training, it's very similar. You still have to focus on progressive overload. You still have to make sure that you're lifting heavy enough weights.

You still have to make sure you're doing enough volume. The major thing that changes is you just got to work harder now for less. And so with this functional foods point, these are foods that are worth, again, considering. I mean, I do it myself. I micromanage my diet down to the individual foods that I eat because it doesn't take any extra time to do that, really. And there are significant benefits, especially if you did was start eating oatmeal every day, maybe you'll have better poops and there might be some positive effects in your cholesterol levels, but you're probably not going to notice much. However, if you include five or six of these quote unquote functional foods, the collective or the accumulative effect might be enough to really make a difference. And even if it's just in a slight way, because remember as a natural weightlifter, we are just looking for those slight but tangible edges that we can gain that together add up to something notable. And the next section in the book is about muscle building. It's the fourth part and it's called a masterclass in muscle building. And I talk about how much muscle we can gain naturally, how much strength we can gain naturally. There's a chapter called the more for less method of maximum muscle gain. And I thought that was kind of a cutesy title because again, that summarizes the training

ideology of BBLS 2.0, more for less. You're going to have to work really hard and you're not going to gain nearly as much muscle and strength as you used to, but that's okay. That's just part of the game. That's nothing to be discouraged by. BBLS 2.0 also has information that was in BBLS 1.0 about how to build the mathematically ideal male physique. It's just a newly edited and improved version of what was in 1.0. And then the final part of the book is the program itself. So we've gone through all the theory and now we get into the practical, right? So now I show you how to turn everything you learned in the diet section into actual diet plans and meal plans. And then we talk about the exercises you're going to be doing in the program, the new exercises in particular that you're going to be doing in addition to the exercises that are in BLS. And then I give you training plans and break down how the programming works. So you can program your own workouts,

or you can just follow my programming. And like with BLS 3.0, I'm going to give you a year's worth of BBLS 2.0 workouts, along with a bunch of other neat stuff in the bonus content. And there will be a workout journal as well, if you just prefer pen and paper. And then finally, there's a supplementation plan, just talking about how to use the additional supplements that I talk about, which I hadn't mentioned, but that's also one chapter in the diet section is basically how to upgrade your supplementation and what to avoid. And there are a few extra supplements that I do recommend considering if you are an intermediate or advanced weightlifter, in addition to the basics that I recommend in BLS and TLS. And then there's the final section,

which is kind of like the farewell for now and some frequently asked questions and giving again, a link to the bonus material. And that's it. That's like a general overview of the book. And again, it's very different than 1.0. There are a few bits and pieces from 1.0 that have made it into 2.0, but for the most part, it's just brand new stuff. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my sports nutrition company, Legion, which thanks to the support of many people like you, is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. Let's move on now to the next one. How do you increase your biceps

peak? Well, the only real way to do this, the only reliable way to do this is to just grow your biceps because the shape of your biceps, including the peak, is mostly going to be determined by your genetics. You see the biceps, it's a two-headed muscle that flexes the elbow, right? And you have the short head, which is closer to your chest, and that's visible from the front of a flexed arm. And then the long head is what creates the peak that is above it. And when you view it from the back, that's what you're seeing. That long head creates the peak and you're not seeing the short head. And there's another muscle called the biceps brachialis, and that is directly beneath the biceps. And it's not as prominent visually as the biceps are, but it actually does play an important role in the overall appearance of your arms. A lot of people

don't consider it at all because it is small, but when you flex your biceps, it pushes the biceps up and that can give you a better peak when you're flexing. Another aspect of your biceps that affects your peak is just the size of the muscle belly. And if you're not familiar with that term, a muscle is composed of two parts. So you have the belly, which is the part that contracts and the part that you want to grow. And then you have the tendon, which connects that part of the belly to your skeleton. And as muscles can't grow longer, they can only grow wider. The longer your muscle bellies are naturally and the shorter your tendons are, right? So if the longer bellies, you're going to have shorter tendons, the more muscle mass

you'll be able to gain. And so for the purposes of having big arms, big muscle bellies is good. However, as far as the peak goes, the opposite is true. Shorter muscle bellies produce higher peaks. And the reason for that is the longer a muscle belly is, the more length it has available to expand outward, right? Expand its width. And so when you have longer muscle bellies in your biceps, your arms will appear full, kind of like a football as you continue to build them. However, if you have shorter muscle bellies in your biceps, there isn't as much room as far as the length goes for that expansion. What'll happen is a lot of that growth becomes more vertical, which then turns into better peaks

when you flex. Now, at this point, you're probably wondering about your biceps and wondering if you have longer than average or shorter than average muscle bellies. And there's a simple way to test this actually. So bend your arm right now to 90 degrees and flex your biceps and see how many fingers you can comfortably fit between your biceps and your forearm. So if you can fit three fingers, then your muscle bellies are shorter than average. If you can fit two, are shorter than average. If you can fit two, that's about average. If you can fit one, then you have longer than average muscle bellies. So what about training tips for increasing muscle peak? At this point, you understand that there is

no quick fix because if you have longer muscle bellies, for example, you are going to have trouble achieving the peak that you might see in someone who has shorter muscle bellies. And you can't isolate the long head of your biceps to create a larger peak. Some people have claimed that you can do that, but there's no good evidence that you can. And you can certainly train your biceps in different ways and vary the angles that you can. And you can certainly train your biceps in different ways and vary the angles that you train your biceps just to make sure that you fully stimulate the muscles. But again, you can't just train for a bigger peak. You can, however, help target the biceps brachialis in your training. And that can give you a little bit of a boost when you flex, a little bit of peak boost. And

an easy way to do that is just with a neutral or a pronated grip. So pronated would be palms down. Hammer curls are good for this. That's what I do. That's one of the reasons I've always included hammer curls in my biceps training. And a palms down grip, which is something I never particularly liked, is another viable option here. Alrighty, that's it for biceps peaking. Let's move on to the final question here, which is, what's your current position on reverse dieting? Well, it is that it's not necessary. And that's a new position because several years ago, I thought that there probably was some value to it. It's something I used to do myself and I used to recommend it and now I no longer do. Now, if you're not familiar with reverse dieting, you probably have heard this one before. You've probably heard that by slowly increasing your calorie intake after a cut, you

can repair your metabolism, you can mitigate fat gain, and maybe even supercharge your calorie burning and turn your new maintenance calories into something much higher than they were before the cut. And that approach of slowly increasing your calories, usually after a cut, but not always. Sometimes it's recommended to go from just a maintenance into a lean bulk this way, or to lean bulk that way indefinitely, where you start at maintenance and then on a regular schedule, you're just raising your calorie intake a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. And that is generally referred to as reverse dieting. And so what I used to do, for example,

is I used to finish my cuts by raising my daily calorie intake by about 100, maybe 150 calories every seven days or so, maybe five. and mostly by increasing my carbs a little bit, my fats, until I got back to my maintenance calories. And I wasn't alone. Many other thought leaders in the evidence-based fitness space recommended doing the same thing and for the same reason, which was that theoretically it may help you stay lean while reversing the metabolic adaptations, the negative adaptations that occurred while cutting. And now I would say that we in the evidence-based fitness space know better and many of my peers no longer bother with reverse dieting and I don't either. And I don't

recommend that you do it unless you just like it. And I'll talk about that in a second, but why, unless you just like it. And I'll talk about that in a second. But why? What changed? Well, as the evidence mounted, both anecdotal and scientific, it just became clear that reverse dieting doesn't really provide any real advantages over just raising your calories immediately back to maintenance when you're done cutting. And what's more, reverse dieting may even be counterproductive, at least with some people it is, because all you're really doing, right, is you're switching from fast cutting. So let's say you are using an aggressive but not reckless calorie deficit. That'd be the fast cut to slow cutting because you're not out of a deficit. You're still in a deficit. You're just

in a smaller deficit that gets smaller each successive week, right? And what that means is you are going to spend more time dealing with the downsides of being in a calorie deficit. Now that said, if you're the type of person who really struggles with overeating after a cut, then reverse dieting may actually be good for you. Not because it has any great benefits, inherent benefits, metabolic benefits, but it may just help you better control your calories as you kind of ease back into normalcy. So that would be the exception to the rule here where I still would recommend it if somebody knows that jumping right back to maintenance just for whatever reason does not work very well for them and they end up quickly in a

surplus and then they start regaining the fat that they lost and they get maybe discouraged and that might lead to more overeating and so forth. There is a counter argument even to that though, saying that, okay, well maybe reverse dieting does make sense in that case. The counter argument is that those people, if you're going to do that, if you're going to reverse diet, you are still going to be in a deficit for, I mean, depending on what you're doing, it might be three, four, five weeks. And if you're at the end of a cut, you probably, if it has been a substantial cut, you're probably dealing with some level of hunger and cravings and other unwanted side effects. And by remaining in a deficit, even if it's a smaller deficit, you're probably still going to feel the same way. And of course, that increases

the likelihood of overeating and may make it harder to stay on track even when you do get back to maintenance. So it really just depends on the individual here. You have to try it and see what works for you. And I would say most people don't need to bother though. Most people do just fine finishing a cut and raising their calories back up to their new maintenance. You don't want to make the mistake of going back to your old pre-cut maintenance. Sometimes people forget that when you lose, especially a fair amount of weight, your new maintenance is lower. You are burning fewer calories unless maybe you're brand new to weightlifting and you're losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time. So the weight that you're losing, that's going to reduce your daily calorie expenditure because of course it doesn't cost as

much energy to move a lighter body. But if you're putting on a fair amount of muscle, which is metabolically active, it's going to mitigate that to some degree, but probably not entirely. So make sure to calculate your new maintenance at your new body weight with your current workout schedule and your lifestyle and so forth. And then you can just kind of jump right back to that. Most people do well with that and they do well with it psychologically and physically. So it's nice to finally get out of the deficit, eat some more food, feel nourished. And then the physical benefits are, of course, their workouts get better and the hunger and cravings generally go away and sleep generally improves. And in many cases, people find they actually look their best, not right at the

end of a cut, but after they've been at maintenance for three or four weeks after the cut. What many people, especially women, will find is they'll retain less water, so they look even leaner, even though they're not in a deficit anymore. And so that's pretty cool. And one other little tip to share on maintenance calories, if you're not sure how to calculate your calories, I have a little rule of thumb here, and then I'll also recommend a resource if you want to dive into the details more. So a simple way to get there is to multiply your body weight by 14 to 16 calories per pound. And 14 would be if you're lightly active, maybe an hour or two of vigorous physical activity per week. And 16, if you're quite active, maybe five

to seven hours or so of vigorous activity per week. And as far as getting to those calories, you're at the end of the cut. You just found out that, okay, you need to be eating 2,500 calories a day or whatever it is. Maybe it's 3,000 if you're a guy. And I recommend increasing your carbs and your fat as you prefer. So if you follow my recommendations for cutting, you're going to be eating plenty of protein. You don't need to raise that. You're probably going to be eating a fair amount of carbs as well and a low-ish amount of fat, not super low, maybe 0.2 to 0.3 grams per pound of body weight per day. And if you're at the 0.2 level, I would say maybe get up to the 0.3 just for health reasons. If you're already there, again, you can just raise your carbs or your fat

to get to maintenance as you prefer. And I suppose you could raise your protein as well if you want to, but chances are you probably don't want to. You're probably looking forward to eating some carbs and fat. And if you want to learn more about how many calories you're burning and how many calories you really should be eating, head over to legionathletics.com, search for calorie calculator, and you'll find an article I wrote called how many calories you should eat with a calculator. And that will help you quickly calculate how many calories you should be eating. And then it also explains all the theory behind the calculator and how to calculate yourself, even how many calories you're burning and understand why the calculator built into the article says what it says.

All right, friends, that is it for this Q&A episode. I hope you found it helpful. And again, if you want to reach out to me with your questions, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, or hit me up on Instagram at muscleforlifefitness. And I hope to see you in the inbox or the DM inbox, I guess. And I hope that you will check out my next episode as well. All right. Well, that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and you don't mind doing me a favor, please do leave a quick review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to me from

in whichever app you're listening to me in because that not only convinces people that they should check out the show, it also increases search visibility and thus it helps more people find their way to me and learn how to get fitter, leaner, stronger, healthier, and happier as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to

the podcast and you won't miss out on any new stuff. And if you didn't like something about the show, please do shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com, just muscle, F-O-R, life.com, and share your thoughts on how I can do this better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, even if it is criticism. I'm open to it. And of course, you can email me if you have positive feedback as well, or if you have questions really relating to anything that you think I could help you with, definitely send me an email. That is the best way to get ahold of me, mikeatmuscleforlife.com. And that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode. And I hope to hear from you soon.