Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Bro Splits for Muscle Growth, Weightlifting Belts, How Long to Stay in a Calorie Deficit, and More!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my bestselling health and fitness books, including Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef, and my 100% practical and hands-on blueprint for personal transformation inside and outside of the gym, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever. And you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes & Noble stores. Again, that's Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, The Shredded Chef, and The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Oh, and I should also mention that you can get any of the audiobooks 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which is the perfect way to make those pockets of downtime,

Starting point is 00:01:18 like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning, more interesting, entertaining, and productive. meal prepping, and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on that offer, and if you want to get one of my audio books for free, go to www.legionathletics.com slash Audible. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics slash A-U-D-I-B-L-E, and sign up for your account. Hello friends. It is Q&A time. And that means it's time for me to answer questions that people have asked me mostly via email, mikeatmuscleforlife.com. Write me if you have questions and you will get an answer within seven to 10 days.

Starting point is 00:01:59 And I may choose your question for the next Q&A. And also I have gotten quite a few questions via Instagram mostly. I'm on the other social medias, but Instagram is the one that I'm most active on and I'm not that active on it. But if you want to reach out to me there at Muscle for Life Fitness, shoot me a DM, you will get an answer. Okay. This time around, I have three, maybe four questions I'm going to answer. It depends how long it takes me to answer the first three. But here they are. One, are bro splits optimal for muscle growth?

Starting point is 00:02:32 Two, should you use a weightlifting belt? Three, how long should you remain in a calorie deficit? And four, maybe, is intermittent fasting better for retaining muscle than traditional dieting when cutting? All right, let's start at the top. Bro splits and muscle gain. First, what is a bro split? Well, it is simply a workout split that has you focusing on one major muscle group per workout. Traditional bodybuilding workout, the kind of stuff that you find in a lot of bodybuilding magazines, you know, chest day, back day, arms day, shoulders day, legs day, and so forth. Now for a while, bro splits were the most popular way to lift weights. Most people in most gyms were doing one bro split or another. I myself did bro splits for like the first seven

Starting point is 00:03:22 years or so of my weightlifting because I was just doing workouts that I found in bodybuilding magazines. And that's at the time, most all of what you found in bodybuilding magazines. But then in the last decade or so, bro splits started to fall out of favor. They started to get a bad rap as a very inefficient or even just downright ineffective way to train. And we started to hear about different types of splits as being much superior, like a full body split or an upper lower split or a push pull legs split. And one of the big reasons bro splits started to get shit on so much is the low frequency nature of them. So in most bro splits, you are training each major muscle group once per week, and you are hitting it with a fair

Starting point is 00:04:13 amount of volume. It could be anywhere from 10 to 20 plus sets per session. Now, years ago, there was emerging evidence that suggested that that was far inferior to breaking up the volume into several sessions, to training a muscle group several times per week. It was theorized that instead of just training chest once per week, you'd be better off training chest two or three times per week. Even if you kept the volume the same, you kept the total amount of hard sets or working sets, that's one easy way to look at volume. If you kept that the same, you would theoretically gain muscle and strength a lot faster if you just split it up into two or three workouts over the week instead of doing it all in one. And I remember when I first got into the fitness space, this was taken to extremes. People were saying that if you were not training every major muscle group at least two to three times per week, you were doing it all wrong and

Starting point is 00:05:11 you were inevitably going to get stuck in a rut and you may make some newbie gains if you're new, but that's about it. Well, we now know that's not true. Frequency does not impact muscle and strength gain as much as people once thought. And we now know that progressive overload, increasing mechanical tension in the muscles over time and volume, which could be looked at in a number of ways, but one easy way to look at it is the number of hard working muscle building sets you're doing for a major muscle group per week. We know that those are the two primary mechanical drivers of muscle growth. Frequency then could be viewed more as a tool that lets you get in the

Starting point is 00:05:54 volume you need to keep growing. Now, if you are new to weightlifting, you don't need that much volume to maximize muscle and strength gain. 10 to maybe 12 hard sets per major muscle group per week is all you need. And you could do more than that, but you're not going to gain muscle and strength any faster. You're just going to be in the gym longer. That said, as you become a more advanced weightlifter, so once you have, let's say your first year, your honeymoon phase is behind you and now you're moving into your second year, or maybe you're into your second, moving into your third year, it's going to require more volume to keep gaining muscle and strength. It's going to require more volume to be able to keep progressively

Starting point is 00:06:35 overloading your muscles. That 10 to 12 hard sets per major muscle group per week is simply not going to be enough. And so let's say that the new number is 15 or maybe even as high as 18 hard sets per major muscle group per week. 18, I think would be a bit high for an intermediate. I would suggest somewhere around 15. Now, should you do all 15 sets in one workout, bro split style? Should you do a 15 hard set chest workout or does it make more sense or to be more effective to maybe do 10 of those sets in one workout then five in another or maybe seven and eight well that's a good question and it's something that is being investigated i don't think we have a definitive answer there but it is reasonable to say that there is only so much high quality work you can do with one major muscle group in

Starting point is 00:07:27 one workout, unless you're going to be sitting in the gym for four hours, essentially doing two separate workouts. But for all of us, normal people who have, let's say an hour or so to spend the gym every day, it's not feasible to try to cram in 15 hard sets for one major muscle group in an hour. And therefore, just for logistical reasons, if nothing else, it makes sense to split that volume up. And that's where frequency comes in. And that is the main benefit of increasing frequency. It doesn't have a huge inherent muscle building benefit in and of itself, but it does let us get in the volume that we need to get in effectively. So then coming back to the bro split point of is a bro split good or the best way to gain muscle? Well, I don't think there's any single best way to gain muscle for everyone

Starting point is 00:08:19 because people have different goals. They have different levels of training experience. They have different schedules and lifestyles. But bro splits are particularly useful for intermediate or advanced weightlifters who have to hit smaller muscle groups with a lot of volume for them to grow. For example, bro splits work quite well if you want to focus on bringing up your arms and shoulders because you can give them dedicated sessions where you can really blast them with a lot of direct volume. Whereas with other splits, they might be getting mostly indirect volume with very little direct work. Now that isn't to say that you can't also make gains and make progress on bigger muscle groups like your legs or your back or your chest with a bro split. You absolutely can and many

Starting point is 00:09:15 people do including intermediate and advanced weightlifters where they find they can get in enough volume for the bigger muscle groups in their individual workouts to continue progressing there as well. And so there is a subjective element to this. There is an element of what do you enjoy doing and what seems to work best for you. So there's nothing wrong with giving a well-designed, well-programmed bro split a go and seeing how it works. And also one other quick thing to note here is if you are following a well-designed weightlifting program, you're probably doing a lot of compound lifting. And let's not forget that compound lifts have, sure, they have primary muscle groups. They have primary movers, but they also involve many other muscles that get indirect volume. So take the case

Starting point is 00:10:03 of shoulders, right? You bench press, you'd think primarily for your chest, of course, but it also does train your shoulders and your triceps. And so oftentimes a well-designed bro split is more like a push-pull legs or even an upper-lower split, depending on how it's put together. Like you could, you could swap the terms out instead of calling it chest day, you could call it push day. And all of a sudden people who rail against bro splits would think it's a great workout program. All right. Next question. Should you use a weightlifting belt? Maybe. I know it's an annoying answer, but it's true because when you use a weightlifting belt properly, at least it works kind of like the Valsalva maneuver, which is a breathing technique used

Starting point is 00:10:50 to increase intra abdominal pressure, pressure on the inside of your abdomen. And that then increases the stability of your spine. Now, research shows that increasing intra-abdominal pressure, whether it's through the Valsalva maneuver or through a weightlifting belt, which is essentially the Valsalva maneuver with a belt, you're pushing out your belly against the belt, which increases the pressure even more than if you're doing it without the belt. Research shows that that can increase your weightlifting performance on exercises like the squat and deadlift. And so a weightlifting belt then is certainly useful if you want to lift as much

Starting point is 00:11:29 weight as possible on your squat and deadlift and overhead press as well. It makes a difference there. Some people wear belts on the bench press. I'm not sure of any research indicating that it can increase strength or power on the bench press, but it might. I've personally never tried it. I've only used belts on squatting and deadlifting, and it definitely makes a difference, no question. However, weightlifting belts do not do what most people think they do or think they are for, and that is reduce the risk of injury. That's right. It provides no additional safety. It just helps you lift more weight. And therefore with many people, unfortunately, a belt actually increases the risk of injury because they don't know that. And they think that it somehow helps prevent injury,

Starting point is 00:12:19 even when they're lifting with improper form. And so now you have a combination of more weight usually, unless they don't even know how to use it correctly, which is putting it in the right spot, kind of over your belly button and pressing your abs out against it. But if they do know that now they're going to be lifting with heavier weights, but worse form because they think that the belt will protect them against getting hurt. And it doesn't. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode

Starting point is 00:13:06 and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for lifeLifeFitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness. Okay, moving on to the next question. And this is something that I actually want to write an article on just dedicated to this question, probably record a podcast just on it, because it is something I get asked very often. That is, how long should you remain in a calorie deficit for? And the simple answer is you should remain in a deficit for as long as it takes to reach your goal. Now, that doesn't mean that you won't need to take some diet breaks, which you can learn

Starting point is 00:13:54 about if you're not sure what a diet break is or how to do it properly. Just search for Legion Athletics diet break and you'll find an article that I'm actually not sure if I wrote it or somebody on my team wrote it, but there is an article that I'm actually not sure if I wrote it or somebody on my team wrote it, but there is an article up at Legion that breaks it all down. And I should record a podcast on that too. Mental note. But anyway, you also might need to take some refeeds, which you can learn about at Legion as well. And my point is that when I say remain in a deficit for as long as it takes to reach your goal, it doesn't mean you have to be in a deficit every single day until you reach your goal because that may take many months and that's not going to be fun. And at some point it also just becomes unhealthy and problematic.

Starting point is 00:14:35 But the important point is that you should know there is no set amount of time that you should remain in a deficit for. There is no threshold that you should not go beyond. Some people say, oh, just don't be in a deficit for more than two months period before reverse dieting and then staying at maintenance for some extended period of time. No, that's nonsense. It really matters where you're at right now in terms of your body composition, where you want to be, how quickly you're losing fat due to your dietary compliance and due to your exercise schedule and so forth. So for example, if I were to start cutting for, let's say a photo shoot, I would probably want to lose about 10 pounds of fat, seven to 10 pounds of fat. And that would take me probably

Starting point is 00:15:27 two to three months. And I probably would just go straight through. I don't think I would need to take a diet break. I would start implementing refeeds probably halfway through though. And then I'd be done. Let's say though someone, let's say it's a guy and he's at 30% body fat, which just for comparison's sake, I'm around 10% body fat right now. So let's say you have somebody who has a lot more fat to lose and they want to get to where I'm at now. They want to get to 10%. They want to lose 20% body fat. That's going to take a while. That might take three quarters of a year even, or even a year, depending on how it goes. Now for that person, I wouldn't recommend they just try to go for the entire year or go for the nine months straight remaining in a deficit. For that person, I would recommend that

Starting point is 00:16:17 they take a diet break probably at least every six to eight weeks or so. And then once they're getting closer to that 10% number, once they're in the teens, they may also want to have a refeed every week or maybe even two refeeds a week, depending on how they're doing. And not because there are huge physiological advantages to refeeds. There are physiological advantages to diet breaks, but refeeds don't last long enough. We're talking about a day. However, there are psychological benefits. It does feel good when you're in a deficit and you've been in a deficit for a while and you're lean, looking to get leaner. It's nice to just eat a bunch of carbs, even if it's just once a week. All right. I'm not sure how long I've been babbling for, but I'm going to go for the final question here. And that is, is intermittent fasting superior to traditional dieting when

Starting point is 00:17:10 you're cutting for retaining muscle? And the answer is no. Regardless of the protocol, whether it is an alternate day fasting, the 5-2 diet, lean gains, and so forth, none of them are going to help you better retain muscle mass than traditional dieting. I know there are gurus all over the interwebs who say that intermittent fasting is the magic bullet, that it's going to fix your hormones. It's going to jack up your anabolic hormones in particular. It's going to detox your body, add years to your life, and make sure that you lose no muscle when cutting. But it's simply not true. You see, ironically, fasting is a catabolic activity because your body's not getting any food, so it has to break tissues down to get energy. Now, of course, it's going to preferentially break down body fat to do that. That is the

Starting point is 00:18:05 primary reason we have body fat is to serve as an energy store when we don't have food and we need energy to stay alive. And yes, your body certainly does want to preserve muscle. It does not want to burn up muscle unless it has to. But if you go for too long without eating, you do start to lose muscle and you'll see a spike in muscle loss, which then if you keep going, muscle loss will drop off. And again, because the body does not want to lose muscle unless it has to. But when you go too long without eating, you have to, it just happens. And that's why if you want to incorporate some fasting into your routine, I do recommend an intermittent fasting protocol as opposed to an alternate day or multi-day water fast or like a snake diet fast. Something I just learned about recently and I think I'm going to write about because it's hilarious.

Starting point is 00:19:02 I mean, the guy is hilarious. He's trying to be hilarious, but I guess it's also a real thing. Check it out. The snake diet. Anyway, the reason why I recommend intermittent fasting is the most popular protocol in the body composition space is the lean gains protocol where you fast for 16 hours every day. So no food, no calories for 16 hours per day. And then you have eight hour eating windows where you eat all of your calories. And for most people, what this really boils down to is skipping breakfast and stopping eating at dinner. And there's more and more research being done on intermittent fasting

Starting point is 00:19:37 in the context of bodybuilding and of this lean gains protocol in particular, in the context of bodybuilding, including a study that I'm helping fund that's being run by Andy Galpin and Menno Henselmans, by the way. And these studies are showing, the sun is like becoming blinding. I'm going over here. There we go. These studies are showing that this lean gains 18-6 style of intermittent fasting does not cause any more muscle loss than traditional dieting, so long as you match the calories, so long as the calorie deficits are matched. I should also mention, though, that the research is showing that it also doesn't, that this IF, this lean gains IF style dieting does not increase fat loss either. And one of the studies that was

Starting point is 00:20:24 just published recently, actually, was done with resistance-trained women. And one of the studies that was just published recently, actually, was done with resistance-trained women. And that's important to note because up until then, most of the IF research had been done with overweight or obese non-lifters. And so there was a question exactly how it would work in resistance-trained people. And the IF study that I'm helping fund is also being done with resistance-trained people. And the IF study that I'm helping fund is also being done with resistance-trained people. So I'm looking forward to that. I don't know exactly when it's going to be done. I know it is well underway. So it's possible that it could go to publication next year, but if not next year, then the following year. So anyway, the bottom line here is time-restricted eating,

Starting point is 00:21:06 intermittent fasting is not going to help you lose fat faster unless it just improves dietary compliance, but it doesn't have any inherent metabolic advantages, but it's also not going to cause muscle loss, at least accelerated muscle loss. You may lose a little bit of muscle simply because you're in a calorie deficit and you are a very highly trained individual and a little bit of muscle loss is inevitable, but that's going to happen either way. And so what that means then is if you like intermittent fasting, do it. And if you don't like it, don't do it. You're not really gaining or missing out on anything all that important either way. Some people, for example, who like it, who have just come across

Starting point is 00:21:45 over the years, some people don't like to eat breakfast. They're just not hungry in the mornings and they prefer fewer larger meals per day than more smaller meals per day. For those people, IF is great. It can really make the overall experience of dieting more pleasurable and more enjoyable, and that is going to increase effectiveness over time. Other people though, like me, like to eat something in the morning. I work out first thing in the morning. I go to the office. I like to have a protein shake and an apple. I would prefer that over having some leucine or HMB or BCAAs to try to extend my fast and start eating at 12 or 1. I also prefer to eat more

Starting point is 00:22:27 smaller meals throughout the day than fewer larger meals. And actually, I like to eat light really all the way up until dinner. And then I'll have a larger dinner and sometimes have a bit of food after dinner, mostly because I'm working all day and I find that my energy levels stay highest and my focus levels stay highest eating that way, having smaller meals every couple hours. And so that's why I have a small meal after training, a piece of fruit and a couple of scoops of protein. And then a couple hours later, I have a salad with some chicken. And then a couple hours later, I'll usually have one of my protein bars, which are delicious by the way, you need to try the s'mores bar. It's so good.

Starting point is 00:23:07 S'mores bar, flip it upside down, put it on a plate, have the chocolate up so it doesn't get stuck on the plate. Microwave it for like 15 seconds, maybe 20 seconds. Eat it. It's like dessert. That's my 3 or 4 p.m. snack. And then at dinner, I'll have a bunch of vegetables. I'll have some chicken.

Starting point is 00:23:24 I'll have some carbs. Maybe it'll be pita bread. Maybe it'll be oatmeal. Maybe it'll be rice or potatoes, depending on what I feel like and where I want my calories and macros to be. And then after, I may have some more carbs as well. Usually about an hour or so before bed, I might have some more oatmeal is usually my go-to just because I like oatmeal. And that works nicely for me because I don't care if I'm kind of low energy Jeb after dinner, because I'm done working. By the time I get home, that's it between cooking myself food and then cooking my son food and getting him to bed while my wife gets our daughter to bed. And then I have to take a shower and then it, you know, it's nine, nine 30 by the time my chores are done. And, um, I'm, I'm an old man now. So I go to bed at like 10 and anyway, that's it. That's it for this Q and

Starting point is 00:24:11 A. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, please do give it a like and drop a comment down below, letting me know what you thought. And if you want to ask me a question again, email me Mike at most of life.com or hit me up on Instagram at Muscleful Life Fitness. You will get a reply. And if your question is something that I get asked about fairly often or something that I think would be beneficial to answer publicly, it might be featured in the next Q&A. Oh, yeah. And if you really liked this and if you want to know when my next video goes live, just subscribe to my channel, please click the red subscribe button over there. Click the bell.

Starting point is 00:24:50 YouTube will let you know when I upload the next video. Alrighty. I hope to see you then. Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my bestselling health and fitness books, including Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef, and my 100% practical and hands-on blueprint for personal transformation inside and outside of the gym, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever. And you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes,

Starting point is 00:25:47 Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes and Noble stores. Again, that's bigger, leaner, stronger for men, thinner, leaner, stronger for women, The Shredded Chef, and The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Oh, and I should also mention that you can get any of the audiobooks 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which is the perfect way to make those pockets of downtime like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on that offer, and if you want to get one of my audiobooks for free, go to www.legionathletics.com slash audible. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics slash A-U-D-I-B-L-E and sign up for your account.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Bro Splits for Muscle Growth, Weightlifting Belts, How Long to Stay in a Calorie Deficit, and More!

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