Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Mentzer-Style Training, Protein on Rest Days, Feet Up On Bench Press, and More

Starting point is 00:00:00 One of the promises of my new book, Muscle for Life, which is available for pre-order right now at muscleforlifebook.com, is it can produce an outstanding level of fitness in all and sundry in just a few hours per week. And that's why it has three workout routines for both men and women, so that's six in total, that readers can choose from. There are beginner routines, intermediate routines, and advanced routines. So the beginner routines, what they do is they introduce you to proper strength training. They teach you the fundamentals of good technique, and they greatly enhance your strength balance and coordination. And then on the intermediate routines, they increase the difficulty of your

Starting point is 00:00:45 workouts by incorporating more challenging exercises, including more dumbbell exercises, which allow you to more effectively challenge your muscles. And then the advanced routines, they are the most difficult in the Muscle for Life program, and they introduce you to barbell exercises because those offer the biggest bang for your buck in terms of strength and muscle gain. Now, which of these routines would be best for you? Well, if you are new to strength training or if you haven't done it consistently in a while, I would say in at least a year, then the beginner routine or a beginner routine is going to be best for you because that is going to be demanding but also approachable. Now, if you dabble in strength training and you meet the

Starting point is 00:01:30 following strength standards, then intermediate routine is going to be right for you. So if you're a guy and you can do at least one set of 15 feet elevated pushups, one set of at least 15 body weight rows, and one set of at least 15 bodyweight squats, then intermediate might be the right place to start. You'll have to keep listening for the advanced strength standards. And if you are a woman and you can do at least one set of 10 pushups, one set of 10 bodyweight rows and one set of 15 bodyweight squats, then you would qualify for the intermediate routine. Now, if you are an experienced weightlifter and you meet or exceed the following strength standards, then an advanced routine would be the best place to start for you. If you can dumbbell bench press at least 25% of

Starting point is 00:02:20 your bodyweight for at least one set of five reps. If you can trap bar deadlift at least 75% of your body weight for at least one set of five reps. And if you can dumbbell goblet squat at least 25% of your body weight for at least one set of five reps, then you are strong enough to start on an advanced routine. So basically whether you are a middle-ager or even a golden-ager who has never lifted a weight in your life, or-order a copy now, you will be entered to win over $12,000 of awesome fitness swag that I'm giving away. And you can find all of the details of the giveaway over at MuscleForLifeBook.com. Hello there, and welcome to another episode of Muscle For Life. I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today. And if you haven't already, please do take a moment to subscribe to the show so you don't miss any of the new episodes. And it helps me because it boosts the ranking of the show

Starting point is 00:03:35 in the various charts. So this episode is the seventh, according to my notes, Q&A episode that I have published. And these episodes are doing quite well. I'm getting good feedback on them. So it looks like I'm going to be continuing this indefinitely, which is cool with me because they're also fun for me. So what I'm going to do here is give short, which is unusual for me, short to the point answers to various different questions that people have asked me on Instagram. And if you want to participate in the Instagram Q&A, follow me at Muscle for Life Fitness. And every Monday or Tuesday, I post one of those ask me anything sticker dealios in my stories. And then I leave it up for the 24 hours.

Starting point is 00:04:27 And then I go through everything and try to pick a good variety of questions. I try to start at the most recently asked and go all the way back to the beginning. So I'm not neglecting people who engage quickly. And I then take most of those questions and answers and then bring them over to the podcast for the people who would rather just listen to the Q&A session. So in this episode, I go all over the place as usual. I talk about my carbon footprint. I get asked about that. I get asked about no nut November. Is that actually beneficial? Am I going to be doing video tutorials? How much protein to be eating? How to know if you have reached your genetic potential for muscle building? If it's

Starting point is 00:05:13 normal to lose some strength after a deload? If microgreens are magic or overrated? And quite a few more. Okay, so the first question comes from Cherry Jane BB, and she asks, can you do a video tutorial of all the exercises in your books? And yes, actually, I already have the videos recorded. At least I have all of the videos recorded for Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger because I am getting ready to release new fourth editions of those books. And the new fourth editions are going to include pictures of me doing all of the exercises. And the bonus material is going to include links to videos of me doing all of the exercises. And so those videos will end up on my YouTube channel, which I'm not sure what the URL is off the top of my head. But if you search for Mike

Starting point is 00:06:05 Matthews Fitness on YouTube, you will find it. And again, later this month, or let's say sometime next month, sometime in January of next year, the fourth editions should be going up and I'll then be updating the bonus material for both of the books. BLS will go up first. And in that bonus material, there will be links to video demonstrations of all of the exercises. Okay. The next question comes from Taff4e. Yeah. And he asks, does No Nut November really have benefits? no nut November really have benefits? Well, if you are obsessed with arm cardio, and especially if you are obsessed with porn, then yeah, doing less of it will probably make you feel better. You are probably going to have some weird dreamgasms though, so get ready for that. Next question comes from Jesse Schnee, and he or she, I'm not sure, asks what my

Starting point is 00:07:09 favorite cereal is. And I have to answer honestly and say that I haven't eaten cereal in years. And I posted a little poll with that asking people if I were probably an axe murderer or a reptilian shapeshifter after learning that fact. And 62% said reptilian shapeshifter, which is cool. That is definitely cooler than an axe murderer. Next question comes from JBO Graham, and they ask, Yohimbine went over 10% body fat. Yeah, sure. I mean, it can speed up fat loss at any point although it i would say the effects are most noticeable when you are lean working to get really lean because then you are mostly trying to work away the last bits of stubborn fat and yohim bean is particularly beneficial for that and if you want

Starting point is 00:08:01 to learn more about yohim bean and how it works, head over to legionathletics.com and search for yohimbine and you will find an article. You'll find a podcast as well that I have written and recorded on yohimbine and the evidence for its efficacy. And I also talk about that stubborn fat point as well. And if you want to dive into that specifically, then search for stubborn fat. And while we're on the topic, you might as well search for fasted cardio too, because that is relevant to your him being. And, um, yeah. So next question is from all the JFM and they ask how CrossFit builds great physiques on high volume, but seemingly with no progressive overload. Well, remember there are multiple ways to achieve progressive overload, not just adding weight to

Starting point is 00:08:53 the bar. So you can do that. You can move more weight. You can do more reps. You can do more sets, more hard sets. However, the most effective approach over the long term to progressively overloading your muscles is to emphasize more weight, adding weight to the exercises. And then you use your reps and your sets to create enough muscle and strength gain to add more weight. But the end point is more weight on the bar, not more sets or more reps, mostly because you can only take that so far. You can only do so many reps and so many hard sets per major muscle group per week before problems begin, before the risk of injury starts to go way up. And for most people, especially natural weightlifters, that's going to be around 20 hard sets per major muscle group per week, regardless of the rep range. Now,

Starting point is 00:09:52 if you were doing 20 hard sets of let's say 10s, 12s, or 15s, that is going to be more fatiguing. That is going to be, it's going to feel a lot more difficult than let's say 20 hard sets of fours or fives or sixes. However, the fours and fives and sixes are going to be very hard in your joints. That would be very hard to do for any major muscle group. So when you are doing that many hard sets per week, you almost always want to be periodizing your training, training in different rep ranges. And if you want to learn more about that, just check out my book beyond bigger, leaner, stronger. It has a whole chapter on periodization and explains why it is good for intermediates and advanced weightlifters and talks about a few different ways of doing it and talks about my,

Starting point is 00:10:38 my currently preferred way of going about it. And so coming back to the answer to this question, if you can only do, let's say, I mean, realistically, 20 is a lot. If you break out your Excel spreadsheet and you start programming for 20 hard sets for every major muscle group per week, let's do direct and indirect volume. So when you're squatting, that's some direct volume for your quads, indirect volume for your hamstrings, for example, you quickly learn that it's grueling. I mean, that's going to be probably an hour and a half to two hours of training per day, five days per week. You might even have to do a sixth session per week. It's just not very feasible. So practically 15 or so, 15 to 16 hard sets per major muscle group per week is the practical

Starting point is 00:11:26 limit for most of us. And even that tends to be a bit much. So a couple of major muscle groups might get 12 ish hard sets per week. And so if you can't really go beyond that, then how are you supposed to continually, progressively overload your muscles if you're not adding weight to the exercises? If you're just trying to increase reps and sets, well, you can only take that so far. And so that's why all effective strength training, all effective resistance training programs involve adding weight to the exercises. There are different progression models, but that is what you are

Starting point is 00:12:07 ultimately going for. Adding weight to the exercise, and that's going to drop down your reps. Usually it can change the number of sets you're doing depending on the programming, but minimally it's going to bring your reps down. And then you're going to work those reps back up with that newer, heavier weight until you hit your progression target, add weight, rinse and repeat. Okay. Let's move on to the next question from a friend of mine, Josh Gonzalez, NYL. And he asks, which would you rather contract a cough or Bell's palsy? Hmm. Well, you know, if I think about it, I think I'm going to have to go with the Bell's palsy because who knows what that cough might do to me.

Starting point is 00:12:50 I mean, don't look into it, but there's probably maybe at least a 0.00001% chance that it kills me and everyone I know. And even if I get lucky and I survive the cough, it probably maybe will become long cough. And I don't know what will happen if I get the long cough. So why take that risk? Why not just go with the devil that I know? Paul Irvine or Irvine 72. He asks opinion on Menser style of training. Is it more effective for time constraints? Well, I do like the emphasis on the heavy weights, but I don't like the emphasis on training to failure every set with those heavy weights and then doing forced reps, negatives, or rest pause reps. That is an easy way to get hurt. And that's a mistake that

Starting point is 00:13:47 I made years ago in my training. I would train too close to failure too often on the wrong exercises on bench press, on overhead press, on squat, on deadlift. And I was able to recover from it because my volume was in the range of 12 to 15 hard sets per major muscle group per week. And I was in my late 20s. So I was basically on natural steroids. I was as physically invincible as I will ever be in my life. But I did eventually develop nagging aches and pains.

Starting point is 00:14:21 I developed some biceps tendonitis that came from the bench pressing, heavy bench pressing. I remember the heaviest was 275 for two or three on incline. My neck would get very tight after an incline bench pressing session. I remember my right knee was starting to bother me from the squats. My left SI joint was starting to bother me from the deadlifts. And now 10, 11 years, no, what am I? 37, 10 years later, I am almost as strong. Now, if you look at it in terms of relative to body weight, I am as strong or stronger because I weighed about 10 pounds to maybe 13 pounds more then than I do now. So now I'm in the low one nineties. At that time I was in the low two hundreds. I am as strong or stronger relative to body weight now and have

Starting point is 00:15:14 none of those issues. And one of the big changes I made was I stopped training close to failure or to failure. I would not intentionally fail on a squat, for example, but I would go for reps that I shouldn't have gone for and I didn't get, and I'd have to sit the weight down. And that can be fun. You can feel tough and alpha, but it puts a lot of strain on the body to train right up to failure on a squat with 360 pounds on your back, for example. Same thing with a deadlift with 400 and whatever pounds in the bar or a bench press with maybe 295, I think was the highest that I got on the flat bench press.

Starting point is 00:15:58 And now on big lifts, I am ending all sets with at least one or two good reps left, at least one. And my first set, I'm doing four sets of big lifts in a workout right now. My first set is always two good reps left, meaning that I am asking myself, how many good reps could I do if I had to do more? And as I'm getting deeper into a set, it's getting harder. I'm getting closer to my rep target. So let's say I'm doing sets of fours. In that first set of four, I am confident that I could get two or three more. I am confident that I could get six or seven. And if I really went for it, I probably could get maybe even one more than that. And so then by the fourth set, I am confident by my fourth rep, the end of the set

Starting point is 00:16:45 that I could do at least one more, probably two more and that plus more frequent deloading. Now I deload every fourth week. And this is all in my beyond bigger, leaner, stronger book and program, by the way, I'm just practicing what I preach, but now I deload every fourth week. Whereas in the past I would deload every maybe 10 to 12 weeks. Those two changes have helped me recover better from my training, have prevented even minor injuries, you know, repetitive stress injuries. It has really made a difference. And so coming back to Mensa's heavy duty training, if you are training to failure often with heavy weights on challenging exercises, it's going to catch up with you.

Starting point is 00:17:29 And one other critique of the heavy duty program is the volume is quite low. And that is necessary, of course, because the intensity of the training is so high. But we know that that is suboptimal for experienced weightlifters. We know that a better way to train is literally the opposite, where the volume is higher and the intensity is a bit lower. It's still high. Like my Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program is still tough. I mean, you're doing a lot of tough exercises.

Starting point is 00:17:55 You're doing a fair amount of volume. You're training close to failure. It's not easy, but it's not as hard and as abusive as the heavy duty program. Next, we have a question from Jonathan Murfin, and he asks, thoughts on Olympic weightlifting to build muscle? Well, there's no question you can build muscle with Olympic weightlifting, of course, and especially if it's programmed well. But it is not the most efficient way to get bigger and stronger because there is a major skill

Starting point is 00:18:27 component, much more so than with powerlifting. For example, it is much harder to get good at Olympic lifts. And especially when the weights get heavy than it is to get good at a deadlift or a squat or a bench press or an overhead press. So if you just want to get bigger and stronger and you don't find Olympic weightlifting particularly interesting or fun, then I would say just stick with a power building approach, which is any of my programs really. You have a strength training base, you're doing your squats, you're doing your deadlifts, you're doing your bench presses, your overhead presses, you're lifting heavy weights. And then you're also doing some bodybuilding work in addition to that. Andrew Kokesh asks if I would ever consider steering the Legion brand into politics. And I just want to know, Andrew, which of my competitors do you work for? Because that's a

Starting point is 00:19:21 great bit of backhanded advice. I'm joking. of course, he doesn't work for a competitor, but that's my snarky response. Okay, next question is from, I don't even know how to pronounce this, M-O-E-I-N, Moin Esmail. And here she asks, should I eat the same amount of protein in days I don't train?

Starting point is 00:19:43 Yeah, it's just easy to do it that way. Just keep it steady. It's going to help with recovery. It's going to help with hunger. It's going to help with other aspects of your health and well-being. All the benefits of high protein diet apply on rest days just as much as training days. Okay, next we have DS and Y 13. And they ask, how do you know if you have reached your genetic potential as a natural? Well, for men, let's just keep it simple. Once you've gained, let's say 35 to 45 pounds of muscle from your, from your starting point, assuming you are not very underweight, that's about it. You have about reached your genetic ceiling. And for women, it's about half of that.

Starting point is 00:20:27 So once you've gained, call it 20 to 25 pounds, probably, that is about it. You are not going to gain much more muscle beyond that, regardless of what you do and for how long you do it for. You can continue to gain small amounts of muscle. And guys who have gained 35 to 45 pounds of muscle can continue to gain small amounts of muscle and guys who have gained 35 to 45 pounds of muscle can continue to gain small amounts but it is very small and if you want to learn why head over to legionathletics.com and search for naturally and check out an article i wrote on how much muscle you can build naturally i go into the science there and you can also check out a calculator

Starting point is 00:21:01 over at legion in the tools section of learn on the menu. And you can put in some measurements and it'll spit out some relatively accurate estimates of how much muscle you can gain naturally. And even it'll give estimates of how that will break down for each major muscle group. Okay, let's move on to the next question here, which comes from MFS Wellness. And they ask, is 1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean mass too much, or is that more effective for muscle gain in a calorie surplus? That is probably a bit more than is necessary because if you are lean bulking, you are probably starting out fairly lean, which means that that is going to put you over one gram per pound of body weight per day. That's 0.8 to one gram per pound of body weight per day of protein is a good target if you're maintaining or lean bulking. I wish we could speed up our gains by just eating more protein. That would be really easy. But a couple of studies have looked at that

Starting point is 00:22:10 and it's not looking very promising. Okay, moving on to a question from Addy Ray. They ask micro greens magic or overrated? Well, you might think you know what my answer is going to be, but did you know that studies show that microgreens are literally magical? And if you head over to legionathletics.com right now, and you use my code quantum detox at checkout, I will give you three free samples of my wild harvested poop tea as well. Luke RN 81 asks, is a temporary decrease in strength following a deload normal? That shouldn't happen if you are deloading properly and you are resting and eating enough and not doing way too much cardio during your deload week. And if you want to learn more about that, how to deload effectively

Starting point is 00:23:05 and some of the mistakes that you don't want to make, head over to leachandathletics.com, search for deload. Okay. Pistol Pete 917 says heavy pressing four to six rep range, crushing shoulder joint health. What to do? Pretty simple. Let's just lighten the load and let's continue training close to failure. If possible, you can use the guidelines I shared earlier in this podcast on the big exercises, always having at least one or two good reps left on the easier exercises, the isolation exercises, zero to one good reps left. So in the case of zero, that would be the next rep would be failure. In the case of one, you feel like you could rep would be failure. In the case of one,

Starting point is 00:23:46 you feel like you could get one more rep of those curls, for example. So in your case, Pete, instead of training in the four to six rep range, try eight to 10. Again, training close-ish to failure and see how that feels. If that doesn't feel good, what about 12 to 15? When you're running into joint issues, lightening the load usually helps. When you're running into systemic fatigue issues, lowering the amount of reps that you're doing, lowering the amount of volume when viewed that way usually helps. You can even lower the amount of hard sets that you're doing if you really need to cut your volume. Teddy Van Fossen asks for some remedies for feeling burnt out and losing motivation to eat when in a calorie surplus.

Starting point is 00:24:32 And you can take a diet break just as you would when you are cutting. Reduce your calories in this case to maintenance for a week or so just to give yourself a break. And I do understand, I've been there. I've been at the end of a lean bulk eating 4,000 plus calories per day, force feeding myself my final meal, my final 800 calorie second dinner of the day, not fun. And the diet break again of cutting your calories quite a bit. If you have to eat quite a bit, you might be able to cut your calories by 1,000, 1,500 or so to get to maintenance, give yourself a break, and then get back to it. Mexican Nitrum asks if I've been in modeling, and if not, have ever seen a model that looks like you. No, I have not been in modeling,

Starting point is 00:25:20 and no, I can't say that I've seen a model who looks like me, and modeling would not be for me. That's not something I would enjoy because I really don't like being the center of attention. For me, no celebrity, please. Just rich and anonymous. That would be totally fine with me. Xander Webb asks my thoughts on the effectiveness of MCT oil supplementation. And unfortunately, it is mostly useless for most of us. It's just another form of fat. It is a bit unique in how it is processed, but for most of us, it is just another fat. And the calories are mostly just the calories. There's nothing special enough about them to make any difference in terms of planning your calories or your macros. And if you want more details on MCT oil and why I don't sell it and why I don't recommend it, head over to legionathletics.com, search for MCT oil, and you'll find an article and probably a podcast on it as well.

Starting point is 00:26:21 Moving on to a question from King Millie. Are the unvaccinated going to be the survivors of a new world or will we all die in jail? You know, I do think that there is a non-zero chance that someone like me who is not vaccinated, I've had COVID twice, mild congestion both times. The second time was so mild, I actually wouldn't have even known if it weren't for my parents. I got it from my parents and it got my mom pretty good along the lines of a flu. It got my dad even better. He had to go to the hospital for a few days, but he did kind of mess up because he waited for his SpO2, his oxygen saturation levels to be, I don't know, in the eighties

Starting point is 00:27:06 before he went to the hospital. And if you just do a simple Gulag search for when should I go to the hospital with COVID your oxygen saturation levels declining, that is a bad sign. And if they are now down in the range of 92, 93, 94 and down trending, just go to the hospital. Because if you go soon enough, then your chances of recovering are very high and the chances of it getting really bad are very low. But research shows that if you go to the hospital, and this has been shown particularly with older men, they were hypertensive in the study. If you go to the hospital with an SpO2 level below 90, there is a fair chance that you're going to die. And so that was a mistake.

Starting point is 00:27:54 Fortunately, my dad is okay. No lingering effects, but it freaked him out and he learned his lesson. So anyway, back to me, natural immunity is clearly good enough for me. I mean, I've looked at at least 15 papers on it now, and I've had firsthand experience with it. I don't see any reason to get vaccinated. So I do think there is a non-zero chance that people like me, not just because I'm unvaccinated, but because let's just say that I am unorthodox, that I'm going to wind up in a camp one day

Starting point is 00:28:28 for one sin or another, just like in Australia, right? If you didn't know, there are literal COVID camps where people are being forced to quarantine because they either got infected or were in contact with somebody who was infected. But if I do find myself in a FEMA camp one day, I will look forward to spending basically all of my time dunking on conservatives about how they are getting exactly what they deserve because conservatives conserve nothing. And don't take that as me endorsing the left either. This is me simply criticizing conservatives. And conservatives are very good at whining and losing. So I will just dunk on them all day that they are getting exactly what they deserve, but at least they're not

Starting point is 00:29:19 speaking German, you know? Okay. Next comes from Lewis Woodton, 92. And he asks, why do people bench with their legs on the bench? You know, because the bodybuilding magazines say to do it, but don't, don't do it. Just plant your feet solidly on the ground, drive your heels into the floor, keep tension in your core, keep tension really everywhere in your body as you're pressing, keep your butt tight, and that will help with force production. You'll notice a difference. You will be a little bit stronger on the bench press just doing that. So the next and pen ultimate question comes from Daniel Mufti one and he or she asks, Mufti one and he or she asks because it's spelled D-A-N-I-Y-A-L. Not sure if that is a guy or a gal, but they ask about BCAAs. They are still the number one recommended by PTs. Why is that?

Starting point is 00:30:16 And the answer is marketing mostly. These supplements have been around for a long time and a lot of money has been poured into advertising them to creating fraudulent research to support them. And so now they have brand recognition, so to speak. A lot of people who are into strength training, resistance training, bodybuilding, body composition generally have heard that BCAAs are good and that keeps them going. I would love to see them fall though. And you can help speed the demise of BCAAs and other useless pills and powders really by refusing to buy anything from companies that sell BCAAs and letting them know, send them a message that you are not going to buy anything from companies that sell BCAAs and letting them know, send them a message that you are not going to buy their BCAAs or anything else from them because the fact that they are selling BCAAs means they either don't know what they're doing or they do know and they just don't

Starting point is 00:31:18 care. They are unethical. So it's ignorance or it is unethical behavior and you don't want to support either of those things. All right. The last question comes from anonymous and they ask, what is your carbon footprint? You know, I'm not sure I haven't looked into it, but I am going to guess that it is at least a thousand times, maybe even 10,000 times smaller than Al Gore's. Which reminds me, didn't he say we would all be in scuba suits by now? Inconvenient mistake, I suppose. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful.

Starting point is 00:31:59 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 like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks

Starting point is 00:32:44 again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Mentzer-Style Training, Protein on Rest Days, Feet Up On Bench Press, and More

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