Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Lunges vs. Leg Press, Large Meals Before Bed, Changing My Fitness Views, & More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, hey, I am Mike Matthews, and this is Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today for my 46th Q&A episode. I like these episodes. They're fun. What I do is every week, usually on Wednesdays, I post on my Instagram stories, asking for questions, you know, the little ask me a question sticker, get a bunch of questions, go through them, choose ones that are interesting or topical or ones that I haven't already answered a million times before, answer them there briefly on Instagram, and then bring everything over here to the podcast where I can answer them in more detail and share them with all of you who don't follow me on Instagram. Maybe you should follow me on Instagram, at Muscle for Life Fitness. And so in today's episode, I have quite a few questions I'm going to be answering. I'm going to be answering a question

Starting point is 00:00:41 about workout machines versus free weights. Are workout machines good enough? Amino acid supplements. Am I going to sell an amino acid supplement? If not, why? I answer a question about oatmeal. The question is, are they good? Are they bad? What's the deal? Lunges versus leg press, which is a better exercise or a more effective exercise. Joint supplements worth considering? When? Why? Evidence about eating large meals before bed? Is that good? Is that bad?

Starting point is 00:01:11 Fasted exercise? I have a question about that. Does it help you lose stubborn fat faster? And more. MD Shaw asks, is working out using machines enough? It depends what your goal is. If your goal is to get and stay fit in good shape, even great shape, absolutely. You can get there using just machines.

Starting point is 00:01:33 You don't need to do any free weight weightlifting whatsoever. But if you want to get as jacked and as strong as you possibly can, then no, you're going to want to work with some free weights. You're going to want to do some barbell training, ideally, and some dumbbell training. You might also use some machines, but the foundation of your programming will be weight lifting because research shows that particularly over time, lifting free weights against gravity in unrestricted ranges of motion is more effective for gaining muscle and strength than using machines. But again, you can get into great shape and stay in great shape using just machines.

Starting point is 00:02:15 One other benefit of free weights that just pops into my mind is they tend to be more fun. Those workouts tend to be more fun, I think, and most people probably would agree compared to machine training, especially when you are doing heavier compound weightlifting. It's fun to get strong on a deadlift or some sort of hip hinge and some sort of squat and some sort of bench press or chest press, some sort of overhead press. And when you are having more fun, when you are enjoying your workouts more and looking forward to them, you are almost certainly going

Starting point is 00:02:45 to get better results compared to workouts that are less fun, that you don't really enjoy, that you just get through because you are more focused and you are probably going to exert more effort and you are probably going to miss fewer workouts when you are enjoying them. The next question comes from Aspire Fitness Health. When is Legion going to offer an amino, like an amino supplement? I need one-stop shopping. I really wish I could offer an amino product because that is the number one most requested product from both our customers and our prospects. Why don't you have a BCAA? Why don't you have an EAA? We hear those questions all the time. Unfortunately, the weight of the scientific evidence, and I've really looked

Starting point is 00:03:30 into it because I would love to be able to sell one simply for the purposes of growing my business, but the overwhelming weight of the scientific evidence, I mean, it's very clear, is that those supplements are useless so long as you eat enough protein. And at this point, there is so much evidence for that position and good evidence that I really don't see it changing. So unfortunately, I don't think that Legion will ever offer such a supplement. Okay. Bad Mashan Kit asks, I caught cold on my deload week.

Starting point is 00:04:04 How long to rest before going back to the gym? First, I can empathize. That has happened to me a number of times over the years. The last time it also left me with a mild sinus infection. So I had to wait for that to go away. And that really is my best advice, unfortunately, is wait until you feel good and you feel symptom free for at least two or three days. Don't get back into the gym the first day that you feel good and you feel symptom free for at least two or three days. Don't get back into the gym the first day that you feel better and symptom free or mostly symptom free, because if you do that, you may not be fully better yet. You may not be infectious anymore, so you're not going to spread any illness, but you may fall back into a slump. You may regress if you get back into the gym and do an intense workout

Starting point is 00:04:47 on day one of feeling mostly better. And so be patient. It's annoying, I know, but my best advice is two or three days of feeling better and being symptom free. If you can wait that long and then get back into the gym, you should not backslide. Next question comes from Coastal Elite 2024. I'm trying to quit my work email addiction. Any tips? Read a book called A World Without Email by Cal Newport. That's my best tip. DukeDuke07 asks, thoughts on the recent study regarding cadmium, lead, cadmium and lead content in dark chocolate. So at the time, my answer was I had this on a list that I wanted to look further into. At first glance, it did look concerning and I did stop buying the brands until I looked into it. And then I looked into it and saw that as

Starting point is 00:05:37 usual, it was much ado about nothing. It was according to very unreasonable standards, those same standards that are used to claim that according to California law, this product may increase the risk of cancer and all these diseases because of cadmium, lead and other similar substances. And then you look into the details and you find that according to the standards that have been set, even vegetables fail, like basically everything fails. And there isn't good scientific evidence to show that such small trace amounts of these heavy metals are indeed going to increase the risk of disease. And so once I learned that about the dark chocolate, I stopped worrying about it and I went back to buying dark chocolate and eating it every day. I have probably 100, 150 calories of dark chocolate

Starting point is 00:06:31 every day in lieu of other types of dessert I guess I could have. I just like that. I have a few pieces every day and that's enough for me. That's enough sugar, added sugar at least. That's enough dessert for me every day. Aaron RN4 asks beyond TLS. So that's beyond thinner, leaner, stronger. And she's asking if I plan on writing that book. I have beyond bigger, leaner, stronger, which is the sequel to bigger, leaner, stronger, which is obviously geared toward men. And I have thinner, leaner, stronger, but I don't have beyond thinner, leaner, stronger yet. And I do want to do that. I do need to do that. I may not be able to start that manuscript this year because I still am wrapping up final details, final little

Starting point is 00:07:13 logistical points of releasing the new fourth editions of Bigger, Leaner, Stronger and Thinner, Stronger, as well as their workout journals. And so all of that to get those books fully complete and in people's hands, it'll probably take a couple more months realistically. And then I am also in the process of editing a manuscript of a wholly new book that I'm going to be releasing next year. I'll talk more about that later this year. And so I need to finish that manuscript. And then I have to, I guess, reassess my priorities because I have a long list of books I would like to write. I have to decide what's going to be next, but maybe Beyond Thinly or Stronger really should be next. I will consider that strongly when I'm done with this current manuscript. Okay. Green Dean Wood

Starting point is 00:08:03 asks, what's the deal with oats? Are they good for you or bad for you? Oats are great. They're cheap. They're nutritious. They're versatile. They are a great source of fiber, including beta-glucans. Just do yourself a favor and unfollow anyone who says that oats are bad for you. And if you want some oatmeal recipes, I particularly like overnight oat recipes. They're simple and I love the texture and the taste and the cold. Head over to legionathletics.com, search for oatmeal recipes, and you'll find a couple of articles that give different types of hot and cold overnight oat recipes. JackCon66 asks, lunges or leg press? I would choose the lunge unless I couldn't lunge

Starting point is 00:08:46 because it hurts or for some other reason, but generally I would choose the lunge over the leg press because it's a unilateral movement, so one limb at a time, and that can help fix and prevent muscle and strength imbalances. The lunge also has your hips doing exactly what they were designed to do,

Starting point is 00:09:03 so that's always good. And then the lunge also doesn't require huge loads to generate an effective training stimulus. So it's very joint friendly in that way. Not that the leg press is not joint friendly, but you do have to load it a lot heavier to get the same level of stimulus. All right. Car Lean Rag asks, joint supplements, when should one incorporate them? Well, if you have regular joint pain or joint stiffness, then I think it's worth trying a well-designed joint supplement. Or if you don't have joint issues, but you are very physically active.

Starting point is 00:09:36 So let's say you're doing at least a few hours of strength training and a couple of hours of cardio per week, or maybe five plus hours of strength training per week and very little cardio or the other way around five, six plus hours of cardio per week, and maybe not much strength training. And if you have the budget and you have the inclination, then I think it's worth considering a well-designed joint supplement because if it is well-designed, it should help keep your joints healthy and functional. It should help you avoid joint pain, joint stiffness, and other issues. And if you want to check out my joint supplement, head over to bylegion.com slash fortify. It's called fortify. So that's bylegion.com slash fortify.

Starting point is 00:10:17 Okay. Killer Roman or caller Roman asks, any evidence that eating large meals before bed is bad? Chrono nutrition? Question mark. Yes. Studies show that eating a large meals before bed is bad? Yes, studies show that eating a large meal before bed anywhere, let's say an hour or two before bed can disrupt sleep. It also may negatively influence your total daily energy expenditure and your appetite compared to eating more calories earlier in the day. That research isn't as clear cut as the research showing that it can disrupt sleep, but it is interesting. And it's just another reason to not eat large meals soon before bed. You can have some food. For example, I eat overnight oats. I eat what is basically a cup of oats dry, and then they're prepared in an overnight oats recipe. But what I'm eating is

Starting point is 00:11:03 a cup of oats. If you were to measure it, it would be dry. And then of course it's mixed with some milk. And so that would be a cup of milk with the cup of oats. And there's also some protein powder. Right now I'm using Legion Whey Plus, of course, and I'm using the salted caramel flavor because I love it. And so I mix a scoop and a half. So here's my overnight oats recipe actually, just to make it simple. So I have a little container and I put two cups of dry oats in the container. I put a small handful of walnuts in the container, two cups of milk, and I put what is probably a teaspoon or so of vanilla extract. And I put some salt and I put a scoop and a half of whey plus salted caramel. I mix it up and I let it sit overnight. And then I eat one half of that at night, usually around 8 p.m. And I'm going to bed usually around 10 p.m., between 10 and 10

Starting point is 00:11:54 30. And so I eat one half of it one night, one half of it the next night. And so that is my last meal of the day. And I am eating that just because I don't want to go to bed hungry. I'm eating dinner usually around 6, 6.30. And it's usually some vegetables, a little bit of rice, some meats. It's a simple dinner. And if I don't eat anything after that, then I might be a little bit hungry when I go to bed. And that makes it hard to sleep. And so also there's research that shows that eating some carbs, now you don't want to eat a huge meal containing carbs,

Starting point is 00:12:29 but eating a portion, let's say 30 to 50 grams of carbs an hour or so, an hour or two before bed can actually improve sleep quality. So if I am benefiting from that, great. If not, well, whatever. I still just enjoy having my overnight oats at night. How would you like a free meal planning tool that figures out your calories, your macros, even your micros, and then allows you to create 100% custom meal plans for cutting, lean gaining, or maintaining in under five minutes? Well, all you got to do is go to buylegion.com slash meal plan, B-U-Y legion.com slash meal plan and download the tool. And if I may say this tool really is fantastic. My team and I spent over six months on this thing, working with an Excel wizard

Starting point is 00:13:18 and inferior versions of this are often sold for 50, 60, even a hundred dollars, or you have to download an app and pay every month or sign up for a weight loss service and pay every month, 10, 20, 40, 50, even $60 a month for what is essentially in this free tool. So if you are struggling to improve your body composition, if you are struggling to lose fat or gain muscle, the right meal plan can change everything. Dieting can go from feeling like running in the sand in a sandstorm to riding a bike on a breezy day down a hill. So again, if you want my free meal planning tool, go to buylegion.com slash meal plan, buylegion.com slash meal plan, enter your email address and you will get instant access.

Starting point is 00:14:13 Miro Vichalon asks, do you still advocate working out fasted lifting and cardio, especially for stubborn fat? Not by themselves, no. And maybe I did many years ago when research was suggesting that fasted cardio in particular, or just fasted exercise was more effective for losing fat and particularly stubborn fat than fed exercise. However, for many years now, what I've recommended is fasted exercise if you are willing to take a supplement called yohimbine that has been shown to accelerate fat burning, especially stubborn fat burning. And I know that sounds kind of bro scientific, but stubborn fat is a real phenomenon. And there are a couple of supplements that can help you lose it faster when you are also restricting

Starting point is 00:15:01 calories properly. And yohimbine is the best one. If you want to learn more about that, head over to legionathletics.com, search for stubborn fat, check out the article that I wrote on it. There's probably a podcast as well. And so if you are willing to train fasted, so that means you haven't eaten any food for many hours, your insulin level is at a low baseline level. Practically speaking, it means training first thing in the morning before you eat. That's the most common method that people use to train fasted if you're willing to do that and you're willing to take yohimbine. And if you're going to take yohimbine, I think you might as well also take caffeine because it's going to make it even more effective. You could even consider sinephrine as well. That's a good natural fat loss fasted exercise stack, so to speak. And

Starting point is 00:15:46 finally, I would add something called HMB to that to minimize muscle breakdown rates, which can greatly accelerate when you're training in a fasted state. So if you want to take some supplements, then yes, you can get more fat loss and more stubborn fat loss out of your exercise by doing it in a fasted state. And as you might expect, I have a supplement specifically for that that I would use if I were cutting and doing fasted training. It's called Forge. You can find that over at bilegion.com slash forge. But if you don't want to take any supplements, then I don't see any reason to train in a fasted state unless you just like it. Some people do like to train first thing in the morning, empty stomach. They just like how it feels and how it feels afterward. I would

Starting point is 00:16:29 recommend eating a meal soon afterward, though. Don't wait many hours because, again, muscle breakdown rates are going to be quite high after that fasted workout. Okay. MFS Wellness asks, client wants to go into a surplus, won't go to a gym, heaviest dumbbells at home are eight pounds. What now? If it were my client, I would try to convince them to eat maintenance calories because they're not going to be able to push for progressive overload unless they are brand new to strength training. And if they are brand new to strength training, their body is going to be hyper responsive and they don't need to be in a surplus. It's not going to make much of a difference at all compared to maintenance calories. So if they are an

Starting point is 00:17:15 experienced trainee and they have some bands and they have some light dumbbells, maybe they can get enough of a training stimulus to at least maintain muscle and maintain some strength, but they're not going to be able to progressively overload their muscles sufficiently to gain much in the way of muscle and strength. Therefore, a calorie surplus is not necessary. It's just going to result in excessive fat gain with minimal muscle gain. And if they are able to progressively overload their muscles with a very bare bones setup, that probably means they're brand new. And again, maintenance calories, or even a deficit, if they need to lose fat is the way to go. I think when you first start out. All right.

Starting point is 00:17:56 Muscle Mommy 94 asks, espresso machine you use and recommend. So I have a machine from a company called ECM. I have their Classica with a K and then I have a Eureka Mignon, M-I-G-N-O-N grinder and that setup plus good beans. And I've tried roasters from all around the country. I've kept a spreadsheet rating all of the coffees that I've tried. And I found one called Espresso Vivace based out of Seattle, Washington. And their Dolce bean is the best I've tried out of like at least 50, probably 40 or 50 different roasters. So good that I really stopped trying other roasters because I found Espresso Vivace some time ago and I tried all of their beans and I found the Dolce one is my favorite and went through all of theirs. And then I went and tried other roasters again. And one for one, even the best

Starting point is 00:18:52 among the others that I was trying via the trade coffee website makes it easier. One for one, even the best of the other roasters were just not nearly as good as espresso vivace. So that's my standard. That's my go-to now. And that setup plus the espresso vivace beans beats just about any coffee shop I've been to anywhere since then. All right. Neo Ubi asks, what is one topic on fitness that you used to believe very hard in the past, but not anymore. I have four right off the top of my head. So one, I used to think that rep range matters more for hypertrophy than it actually does. Now we know that you can gain muscle effectively in many different rep ranges. Now I still do like lower or heavier. I like lower rep ranges anywhere. Probably my favorite

Starting point is 00:19:44 rep range is probably between four and eight reps. And there are various reasons for that. But I do think that that still works best with most exercises for most people. Whereas training mostly, let's say in the rep range of 12 to 15, while that can work, certainly practically speaking, that does not work as well in practice when you ask people to do that over an extended period of time, especially if you are doing compound exercises, which you probably should be. Just do a couple of sets of squats in your next lower body workout. Do a couple of sets, three or four sets of 12 to 15 reps per set, ending those sets close to muscular failure, maybe with, let's say, two good reps left, one or two good reps left. And so you can determine that by asking yourself,

Starting point is 00:20:33 once the set is getting harder, how many more good reps left do you think you have? How many more reps can you do? And once that bar starts to slow down noticeably, then you really are paying attention. What do you think? Can you get one more? Can you get two more? And when you're squatting, once the bar has significantly slowed down and a rep has turned into not like a seven second grinder, but maybe like a three second grinder, you probably can do one or two more good reps and then you would just fail.

Starting point is 00:21:05 You would not be able to do another rep. And that is an appropriate training intensity for most exercises. And so again, try doing a few sets of 12 to 15 reps on the squat with that training intensity and you will understand why I do not like training that way. And most people do not like training that way. They would much rather do sets of five. And if you are a natural bodybuilder, you are an advanced weightlifter, and you are trying to gain every last ounce of muscle and strength that you possibly can, then I think you can make a good argument for doing that at least now and then. But if you are not that person, if you are just an everyday person, a lifestyle bodybuilder trying to get and stay into great shape, you don't need to subject yourself to training like that. If you don't want to,

Starting point is 00:21:55 you can just do sets of four, five, six, seven, eight, maybe up to 10 reps. If you're doing something like my Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program and do quite well. But anyway, coming back to answering the question, I did used to think though that rep range in particular and that four to eight rep range is what I settled on as probably the ideal rep range for hypertrophy specifically. But theoretically speaking, that's not necessarily true. Although practically, I think there is some truth there for the reason, well, one of the reasons I just gave, but I won't go on any more tangents. I will go to the next thing that I used to believe, but not anymore. And that is that overtraining is easier to experience than it actually is. That if you don't deload on a regular schedule, you probably are going to run into overtraining. And that's partly because it's

Starting point is 00:22:47 the wrong term. True overtraining syndrome is not really what I was thinking of when I used to think this or say this. More technically, it should be called overreaching. And that involves symptoms that maybe you could say are related to overtraining or that precede overtraining, but to achieve true overtraining where you really run your body into the ground and you develop a huge recovery deficit, it is much more difficult than I once believed. It requires many, many hours of intense exercise every week. You're almost certainly not going to get there with strength training because you probably would just get hurt before, like you would hurt a joint or pull a muscle or you'd have some sort of acute injury that would prevent you from doing enough strength

Starting point is 00:23:34 training to get there. It would almost certainly require a lot of cardio as well and a lot of high intensity cardio. And it does happen. But if you look into the scientific literature, true overtraining, it really only happens from the research I've seen, it only consistently happens with high-level athletes who train many hours per week, very intense, often some very intense cardio workouts or circuit training type workouts. Something else that I used to believe that I no longer believe is that cardio can significantly interfere with muscle building, or at least I used to believe that it interferes with muscle building more than it actually does. That's why in the first edition of Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, I was recommending just short high intensity interval training workouts so you could minimize the amount of cardio that you're doing, the amount of time you're spending doing cardio while maximizing the benefits of that time. And HIIT is still great for that. But now

Starting point is 00:24:25 that I understand the interference effect, as it's referred to, is not as significant as I once thought and as some people would have you believe. And there's actually research that shows that doing a couple hours or so of moderate intensity cardio per week can actually improve muscle growth in several different ways, especially in the muscles that you're using for the cardio workouts. And I would exclude running from that. I would not recommend several hours of running per week if you're trying to maximize muscle growth in your lower body, but biking could be great. Rowing would be more for the upper body. Swimming can be great, kind of a whole body workout. And so finally, the fourth thing that

Starting point is 00:25:05 I once believed that I no longer believe is that it takes more training to maintain size and strength than it does. It doesn't take nearly as much training to maintain as it does to gain. And I just didn't realize how much less you can do and stay in great shape. I mean, research shows that probably between three and six hard sets is enough per week for any individual muscle group to maintain its current size and most of its current strength. And strength, remember, also is going to depend on what exercises we're talking about. There is a skill component, or at least there's a neurological component to more technically demanding exercises, especially like Olympic lifts, but even to some degree, a squat,

Starting point is 00:25:50 and that's probably more so than a deadlift. So if you stop squatting, for example, and you just start doing other exercises for your lower body, three to six hard sets per week, you can maintain all of your muscle in your legs. So all of your potential strength is still there because muscle size is the primary driver of muscle strength. But if you come back to the squat after not doing it for some time, you might be surprised at how weak you are on it, how difficult it is simply because your nervous system is not used to coordinating all of the muscles in your body correctly to express all or most of your potential strength. I ran into that after COVID because I was training at home for six to eight months and all I had was some adjustable dumbbells and some bands. And so I was able to do like dumbbell front

Starting point is 00:26:37 squats, for example, with, I think those adjustable dumbbells went up to 80 pounds, which was a good training stimulus. That actually was quite difficult. I think I was doing no more than sets of 10, 12 reps, like close to muscular failure. And so I was also doing lunges and some other exercises that I could do with my basic setup. And so over the course of six to eight months, I certainly did not lose any muscle. Like if I look at pictures just over the course of that time of my legs, they actually look a little bit bigger by the end because I got leaner, because I started doing more cardio, but I did not lose any muscle visibly

Starting point is 00:27:10 and I did not lose any strength on the exercises I was doing. But when I got back into the gym and I started barbell squatting again, it was so hard. I remember, I think I had to start with 185 for sets of eight to 10. That's all I could do.

Starting point is 00:27:25 And it was, it felt very, it felt almost like I was squatting again for the first time all the way back many years ago. And it took several months for me to regain my squat strength, even though I had not lost muscle and I still was quite strong on the deadlift. I hadn't deadlifted in six to eight months. And I think if I remember correctly, I'd only lost maybe 30 or 40 pounds on my deadlift 1RM despite not doing it for many months. Now, I did continue to train all of the muscles that are involved in deadlift, but did not do any deadlifting. So anyway, just to come back to the question here, and if you're just looking to maintain muscle and strength, and if you want to minimize the amount of time that you are spending

Starting point is 00:28:09 in the gym, three to six hard sets per major muscle group per week, we'll get it done. Randall Vincent asks, how do you feel about the decline bench press? Well, the decline bench press, and this would be barbell or dumbbell or machine, it is a viable exercise and it's particularly useful if your shoulders are bothering you. So if your shoulders are not liking flat pressing or incline pressing, try the decline. There's a chance that it's not going to bother your shoulders, but otherwise there's really nothing special about it. It's not an exercise that I would prioritize if my shoulders felt good on incline and flat pressing. And we have a question here from Ryan Shannon 12. Why go wider in your

Starting point is 00:28:53 grip with the OHP than the traditional narrower grip? And the reason he's asking this is the background on Instagram. I don't know if it was a video or an image, was me doing an OHP when I was answering these questions. And so my answer was, you can't really tell from the angle of what you're seeing in the background, but I was using a standard grip on the OHP. And what is that? Well, in both the bench and the OHP, you want your forearms to be perpendicular to the ground at the bottom of each rep. That is standard width grip. And it looks a bit wide for me because I have abnormally long arms. And so you need to adjust according to your anatomy to make sure that your forearms are

Starting point is 00:29:39 perpendicular to the ground straight up and down if you're trying to use a standard neutral grip. Okay, the next question comes from Toned Blue and they ask, the war on seed oil continues. Are you avoiding it? If so, what are you replacing it with? No, I don't go out of my way to avoid seed oil. So much of the controversy and of the scandal is contrived, but I don't eat much seed oil only because most forms of healthy eating, which means eating a lot of relatively unprocessed, highly nutritious food that doesn't contain a lot of seed oil because you find a lot of seed oil in a lot of highly processed foods. And if you're eating a lot of highly processed foods, that's not good for your health, but

Starting point is 00:30:27 not necessarily because of the seed oil per se. And so a lot of the alarmism about seed oil is overblown. What is more accurate is if you are eating a lot of seed oil, you should probably look at your diet because your diet probably sucks. And if you want to learn more sucks. And if you want to learn more about that, if you want to get into the details and learn about some research on the matter, head over to legionathletics.com, search for refined oil, and you will see an article, are refined oils unhealthy? Okay, the next and final question comes from Vermulin Cody,

Starting point is 00:31:07 question comes from Vermulin Cody, and they ask, how do you deal with accumulated fatigue from lifting? This is associated with my comments about overtraining and overreaching earlier. And just to be clear, systemic fatigue does accumulate when you are training intensely, especially if you are training five days a week, or if you're doing, let's say, anywhere from four to six hours of pretty intense strength training per week, relatively higher volume training. So you're an experienced weightlifter. You are doing, let's say, anywhere from 12 to 15 plus hard sets for most of your major muscle groups per week. You're using relatively large loads because you're strong and you need to use large loads to work in reasonable rep ranges. And so when you're doing that, fatigue does accumulate in your body. You have what's

Starting point is 00:31:53 called peripheral fatigue, which would be fatigue in your muscles and connective tissues, and your body's always working to recover that. But there is a systemic fatigue more associated with your nervous system that will accumulate over time. And the best way to deal with that is to just deload on a semi-regular schedule. I would say generally every four to 12 weeks, depending on how fit you are and how intensely you're training and how well you are recovering. And if you want to learn more about that, head over to legionathletics.com and search for deload and check out my article on that. And also just to comment quickly, if you look into what other people in the evidence-based fitness space, smart people who know a lot about this stuff, if you look into what they are saying about deloading, you will find some people who

Starting point is 00:32:33 are not anti-deloading, but who don't recommend deloading on any type of regular schedule and whose general position is you probably are not training hard enough to need to deload at least your whole body on any regular schedule. You probably can just kind of play it by ear, maybe just deload certain muscle groups when you are running into certain symptoms, like your joints are starting to hurt, your training weights are starting to feel very heavy. And I understand those arguments. I'm receptive to them. I don't disagree. But I also will say that practically speaking, if you are training fairly intensely, I do think there's some value in just deloading on a regular schedule and just making yourself

Starting point is 00:33:17 do it so long as it's not unnecessarily frequent. If you're deloading every fourth week, for example, you'd better be training really hard in those three weeks when you're deloading every fourth week, for example, you'd better be training really hard in those three weeks when you're training. Otherwise, you are actually losing a lot of training over time. But if you're deloading once every three months, let's say two or three months, and maybe it's not entirely necessary, maybe you only needed to deload, let's say, your lower body and you could have just kept training your upper body as you normally would, you're not missing out on much. We're talking about one week of training every couple of months. And in my experience, in my own training and in my experience working with

Starting point is 00:33:56 many people over the years, I have found that deloading consistently every couple of months or so is an effective way to ward off symptoms that you could say are related to overtraining or related to overreaching and that can get in the way of progress or even precipitate injury. Maybe not a major injury, but it could even just be a repetitive stress injury, which can be quite annoying depending on where it is and what's happening, because it might mean that now you have to significantly modify your training to work around that injury for several months just to let it go away. And so I still am a proponent of regular deloading, assuming that you are training

Starting point is 00:34:39 at least a few times per week and you are training intensely. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did subscribe to the show, because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd

Starting point is 00:35:23 like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Lunges vs. Leg Press, Large Meals Before Bed, Changing My Fitness Views, & More

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