Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Minicuts, Squat & Deadlift Alternatives, Overcoming Fear of Rejection, & More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for a Q&A episode where I answer a bunch of questions that people asked me over on Instagram. If you want to ask me questions, follow me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, watch my stories. Every couple of weeks, I put up a story asking for questions, and I get a bunch of questions. I go through them, and I choose ones that are interesting or topical or ones that I just haven't already answered a hundred times before. And I answer them briefly there on Instagram. And then I bring everything over to here where I can answer them in more detail. And so in today's episode, I am answering questions regarding mini cutting and mini bulking, what my current training program is,

Starting point is 00:00:42 what are my workouts right now, my favorite training shoes, at least right now, how to get over the fear of rejection and disappointment, what I do on days when I really don't want to work out, and more. But first, do you want to transform your body, but you just can't seem to break out of the rut? Have you read books and articles, watched videos, listened to podcasts, but you just can't seem to break out of the rut? Have you read books and articles, watched videos, listened to podcasts, but still just aren't sure exactly how to put all the pieces together for you? Or maybe you know what to do, but you're still struggling to stay motivated

Starting point is 00:01:19 and on track and do the things that you know you should do. Well, if you are nodding your head, I understand. Getting into great shape is pretty straightforward when you know what to do, but it's not easy. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes grit. And that's why I created my VIP one-on-one coaching service. We take people by the hand and we give them everything they need to build their best body ever. We give them a custom diet plan, training plan, supplementation plan. If they want supplements, you don't have to take supplements. We coach them on how to do every exercise correctly. We give them emotional encouragement and support, accountability,

Starting point is 00:02:03 and the rest of it. And we are pretty good at it too. We have worked with thousands of men and women of all ages and abilities and lifestyles and help them build a body they can be proud of. And guess what? We can probably do the same for you. Our service is not for everyone, but if you want to find out if it's for you, if there's a fit, head over to buylegion.com slash VIP. That's buylegion.com slash VIP and book your free consultation call now. BDDDDDD74 asks, thoughts on a five-week mini cut to make way for more bulking? This can work well. Mini cuts alternated with mini bulks can work. Here's how to do it correctly. So first, you want to get pretty lean before you start with this strategy. I would recommend that men

Starting point is 00:02:59 get down to probably 10% to 12% body fat, women maybe somewhere between 20% and 24%. probably 10% to 12% body fat. Women, maybe somewhere between 20% and 24%. And then you want to start with a mini bowl. And you do that by maintaining a moderate calorie surplus of, let's say, 10% to 15%. So you want to get an idea of how many calories you're burning every day. It's not going to be perfect, of course, but it's going to be relatively accurate if you know what you're doing. And if you want to learn about that, head over to legionathletics.com, search for total daily energy expenditure, and check out the article and calculator. I think there are a couple options actually in the search results there, but you can find what you need over at legionathletics.com to understand how to calculate total daily energy expenditure relatively accurately, and then you can just use a calculator. So you figure out your

Starting point is 00:03:45 approximate TDEE, and then you eat 10 to maybe 15% more than that. I would personally err toward 10%. If you get too low in your surplus, if you go for a 5% surplus, what can happen is unless you are meticulous about tracking slash measuring your calories, you may end up not being in a 5% or even a surplus at all. It can happen even several days per week because you accidentally undershoot your calorie target. And that happens to many people, especially people who don't have large appetites naturally. Some people tend to go in the other direction, of course, they tend to overeat and maybe that person could benefit from trying to calculate a smaller surplus. But for most people, just go with about 10%, give or take a little bit and make your meal plan around that and then stick to that meal

Starting point is 00:04:44 plan. You don't have to be perfect, but you have to be pretty good. You have to get to at least 80%. And so you do that and do that for 12 to 16 weeks. And during that period, your body weight should rise by about 0.25 to 1% per week. So you can work that out. And if you are an experienced weightlifter and you are not going to be gaining much muscle to speak of, certainly you can gain muscle, but it's not going to be a large amount. Then it's going to be closer to 0.25. If you are relatively new to strength training and you still have the wind of newbie gains at your back, then it's probably going to be closer to 1% per week.

Starting point is 00:05:30 And so that's the result you should be looking for. And if you find that you are gaining weight too quickly, you are eating too much food. So you have to correct that. If you are not gaining weight quickly enough, you are eating too little food. So if you are relatively new to strength training, I guess another scenario could be maybe you're not relatively new. Maybe you actually have a lot of experience, but a lot of your experience in the past hasn't been very productive. You haven't actually gained a large amount of muscle. And so when compared to your genetic potential, you still have a for results closer to 1% of your body weight per week rather than 0.25. And if you are only seeing 0.25 on average, you are probably not eating enough food and you need to eat more. So you correct that. And so you do that for a few months, three to four months of your lean bulking. And then you do a mini cut by maintaining a moderate calorie deficit of 20 to 25%.

Starting point is 00:06:23 So eating 20 to 25 percent fewer calories than you burn every day for about four to eight weeks. That's your mini cut. Now, during that period, your body weight should fall by about 0.5 to 1 percent per week. And again, people who are further from their genetic limit of muscularity should aim for the higher end of that range. And people who are closer to their limit, because they've already gotten pretty jacked, they should use the lower end, the 0.5% per week. And if you are losing weight too quickly, you are not eating enough. You're eating too little. If you're not losing quickly enough, you are eating too much. And that's it. You can just rinse and repeat that process

Starting point is 00:07:06 very effectively. That's a great way to make steady progress while never allowing yourself to get too fat. All right, Bobby, I'm not going to even try to pronounce that last name. Start with a P. Pereira Preciado, there's my attempt, asks which workouts to replace deadlift and barbell squats because of two cervical hernias. So a few options to explore here, and I didn't want to prescribe these specifically to him because I would need to know more information about his circumstances. So these are some options to consider for anybody who is looking to replace the deadlift and a barbell squat for whatever reason, really. So for the deadlift, you can look at the trap bar deadlift. You can look at the single leg RDL. You can look at the barbell RDL. You can look at the

Starting point is 00:08:02 weighted hyperextension, even if you have to, if the hip hinge is the problem, you have to get away from that. As far as the squats go, if you are barbell back squatting, you can try front squatting, depending on what's going on. That can be, for example, if you're having some lower back issues, maybe some knee issues, the front squat is generally friendlier to the lower back and knees. If that's not an option, you can also check out the Bulgarian split squat. That's a great lateral exercise where you train one limb at a time. The belt squat is fantastic. Most gyms unfortunately don't have a belt squat machine, but some do. And if your gym does and you haven't tried it, you should give it a go. Even if you are enjoying your barbell

Starting point is 00:08:45 squatting, work in some belt squatting, maybe even after your barbell squatting. So maybe cut your barbell squat volume in half. So let's say you usually do four sets of a barbell squat, do two, and then head over to the belt squat and check it out. As you'll see, it's a great option for the squat movement with no pressure on your back. And two other tips here for people dealing with cervical issues. When you're lifting, this applies to deadlifting, squatting, really any exercise, you want to generally keep your neck in a neutral position. You don't want to be looking up. You don't want to be looking down. You want to be looking at a spot, maybe six to 10 feet in front of you on the floor,

Starting point is 00:09:25 which is about a neutral position for most people. And you also can look into neck strengthening exercises because they can help. Now, of course, again, your individual circumstances matter here. So if you have any doubts about whether that would be good for you. Check with your doctor, but it can help some people. All right. CostTask7 asks, what is your current training program? Currently, I'm just following a modified, slightly modified version of the three-day Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program that you find in my book, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, because it's a great program for an advanced trainee who wants to maintain muscle and strength with just a few hours of strength training per week. And if you are a beginner, three hours per

Starting point is 00:10:14 week, three workouts per week is plenty to make great progress. And even if you're an intermediate lifter and you are willing to work hard and you're diligent about tracking your workouts and tracking your reps in reserve. So how many good reps left you have in each set? And you really have the mentality of pushing for progress. Every workout you're trying to beat the previous week's workout, even if it's just by one rep, that's progress. And as you make more progress, as you get bigger and stronger, that is how you will progress. It is going to be one rep at a time. So for example, let's say you are doing your push workout for the week.

Starting point is 00:10:54 You have 225 on the bar. Last week, you did three sets of four. Let's say you did a total of 12 reps. This week on your first set, you get five and then you go four, four. That's progress. That's beating the last week's workout. One rep. Very good. And from there, what you'll find usually is as you gain strength, you're going to get five and then another set of five and then maybe four on that last set. And then maybe you're going to get fives across all three sets. And then you're going to have enough strength to get six on that first set. And if you

Starting point is 00:11:30 are following Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, at that point, you're going to add weight to the bar, five pounds total, and you are going to repeat the process. And so anyway, if you want to learn more about such things, my Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program, just pick up the book, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. And if you are a woman, you probably don't want to get bigger per se. The leaner and stronger sounds great, but bigger, not so much. That's why I have a female version of the book called Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. Okay. Daniev B7 asks, what fact about the human body still blows your mind every day? One cell contains about 750 megabytes of data in its DNA. So that means that when a man ejaculates, that is between 30,000 and 900,000 terabytes of information in their cum. It's a lot to swallow, huh?

Starting point is 00:12:24 of information in their cum. It's a lot to swallow, huh? Do you sometimes lack the energy and the motivation to get into the gym? Do you sometimes want to hit the snooze button instead of the squat rack? And are you sometimes just not able to give 100% in your workouts? If so, my pre-workout pulse is for you. It is a 100% natural supplement that increases energy, improves mood and sharpens mental focus, increases strength and endurance, and reduces fatigue. And the reason it's so effective is simple. Every ingredient in Pulse is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research and is included at clinically effective levels. The exact amounts used in the studies that found benefits. Pulse is also naturally sweetened and flavored, and it contains no artificial food dyes or other chemical junk. dyes or other chemical junk. And all that is why I've sold over 850,000 bottles of Pulse and why it has over 11,000 four and five star reviews on Amazon and on my website. So if you want some help

Starting point is 00:13:36 getting fired up, zeroed in and ready to crush your workouts, then you want to try Pulse today. Go to buylegion.com, that is B-U-Y, legion.com slash pulse, and use the coupon code muscle at checkout, and you will save 20% on your entire order if it's your first order with us. And if it's not your first order, you will get double reward points on the entire order. And that is 6% cash back instead of the normal 3% cash back that you get from our reward program. And know that if you don't absolutely love Pulse, just let us know and we will give you a full refund on the spot. No forms, no return even is necessary. So you can't lose. Go to buylegion.com slash pulse, order now, use the coupon code muscle, save 20%, try pulse risk-free and see what you think.

Starting point is 00:14:36 FD 1993 asks Trump 2024. My question for anyone who is stumping for Trump is, if you believe that the last election was stolen, which you likely do, or you at least suspect, what exactly has changed since 2020 in the key metropolitan areas implicated that makes you think it won't just happen again, especially with the establishment having now four years of preparation. And so if you don't have a good answer to that, I don't quite understand what you are so excited about. How is Trump supposed to win? And separately, in my opinion, the only hope for Western civilization at this point that I would be willing to hang my hat on is probably that a small number of once, not in a generation, but like once in a century, great men of history somehow usurp enough political power to override and overthrow the machinations of the superclass. And Trump, for me, has proven that he is not such a personality. I think he has played an important role in exposing just how bad things actually are, how dysfunctional our government actually is, and how many ways that it is screwing we, the American people. And that applies to all of us, regardless of our political orientation. But I don't think that Trump has what it takes to

Starting point is 00:16:22 fix things. And no individual probably could fix things, certainly not in one term, probably not even two terms. If things are going to get fixed, it's probably going to take decades. But it has to start and it has to start in the right way and it has to gain a lot of momentum and it has to move in the right direction. And I'm not very confident that Trump can even accomplish that based on what I saw in his first term. Now, of course, Biden's people, and it's not Biden. Biden himself makes no decisions. We all know that. The dude can barely even speak. So the people who are actually running that administration, I don't think they have what it takes to fix things either. In fact, they are in many ways actively making things worse and worse. And so we'll probably just get more of that if Biden gets a second term. And so maybe the best outcome we can hope for currently is that we can get into a political holding pattern of sorts, a gridlocked situation where things can't get much better, but they also can't get much worse. It's just going to be more of the same, more of the status quo until the right

Starting point is 00:17:33 person appears and gains prominence and gains power and gains support among not just the people, but also the people with power, the people in the superclass, in the establishment who you need on your side to accomplish political initiatives. As we saw with Trump, if you don't have enough of the right allies, you have no chance. The swamp is going to swallow you like it did Trump. And the only way for it not to swallow you is for you to have swamp creatures on your side who know how to survive in the swamp. And you're going to rely on them to understand where to go and where to not go and what to do and what not to do and who to trust and who not to trust and so forth.

Starting point is 00:18:27 Okay. Jessica Williams B asks, best shoes for weight training? A few options I like are the Adidas Addi Power weightlifting shoes. The company Tire, T-Y-R, also has a good weightlifting shoe. Nike, the Romellos, good weightlifting shoe. The Adidas Powerlift 2 is a good weightlifting shoe. Nike, the Romellos, good weightlifting shoe. The Adidas Powerlift 2 is a good weightlifting shoe. It's a bit cheaper than the few I just mentioned. The Reebok Nano 4 is a nice lightweight training shoe. The New Balance Minimus, same thing, lightweight, just kind of all around cross training shoe. And the Zero with an X, X-E-R-O-H-F-S-2 is also a great lightweight training shoe. That's currently what I'm wearing. Lyndon Sepp asks, how to get over the fear of rejection and disappointment? Well, I can only comment on this personally, but for me,

Starting point is 00:19:18 a few things. So rejection. For me, just building enough self-confidence and self-esteem to be able to shrug off rejection by others and prevent it from evoking repressed feelings of inadequacy and ability and so forth. And as for doing that, as for building self-confidence, building self-esteem enough to armor you against rejection, for me, nothing works better than just building and demonstrating competence, getting good at hard things. And as far as disappointment goes, for me, just working as hard as I can on goals that matter to me and taking particular care to identify and do the things that most people who fail don't want to do. And that way, the chances of failure, they go down a lot. And even if I do fail, it won't be because I didn't think about it enough and come up with a plan that made any sense, or I didn't put in enough

Starting point is 00:20:21 effort. And I think those are the most pathetic reasons to fail. Just not enough thought and not enough effort. And those things also greatly undermine self-definition and thus self-confidence and self-esteem. And yeah, let's go to the next question. McGregor 96 Ronin, have you ever had days where you weren't in the mood to train? Oh, absolutely. Many days. And here's how it always goes. I don't want to work out, but then I forced myself to do it anyway. And then I am happy. And that's it. The end. Nikki L. Michelle asks, is there any reason to barbell box squat if you can already do Astrograss full range of motion barbell back squats? Yeah. The box squat is not just for

Starting point is 00:21:12 teaching depth. It is useful for that, but it also forces you to pause at the bottom, and that removes the momentum that's provided by the stretch reflex that can help you perform better in the squat. It's not that the stretch reflex is a bad thing, but by box squatting, you can remove that element from it, and that can then improve your strength when trained consistently. So if you improve your strength by removing that stretch reflex, then when you get back to normal squatting, you're going to benefit even more. And the box squat also helps ingrain proper form. It helps you sit back into your hips properly. And so it can be great for

Starting point is 00:21:51 people who are learning how to squat properly because it's very intuitive to sit down on the box and to maintain your upper body tension, maintain your neutral spine, and to maintain tension in your legs as well. You're not supposed to just sit on the box and then release all of the weight and sit down like you're sitting in a chair. You're supposed to get down and touch your butt to the box and then hold it there for a second or two, maintaining the tension in your lower body, and then you stand up. Okay. Philip with a difficult to pronounce last name asks, most effective method of improving VO2 max? The most effective method is high intensity cardio. So that could be interval training, you know, hit, or it could just be continuous high intensity training. And to be specific, let's say 20 to 30 minutes in one session, at least at

Starting point is 00:22:47 80 to 90% of your max heart rate. Difficult. That's the best way to improve VO2 max. Now, the thing about that is you can only do so much of that cardio before it really starts to take a toll on your body. Even if you have the grit to do, let's say, hours of hit per week, I wouldn't recommend that. I would recommend limiting yourself to no more than probably an hour or so of high intensity cardio per week, assuming you're also doing a few hours of strength training per week, which you should be doing. And then your additional cardio should be moderate intensity, or as they say, zone two intensity. And that combination of just racking up a lot of zone two over time and supplementing it with, let's say, about an hour or so, maybe up to two hours if you're very fit of high intensity cardio per week is going to be the most effective practical way to improve your VO2 max.

Starting point is 00:23:47 Tfish asks, what are your plans for the Mark of the Beast? Well, no particular plans, but I do have a vision. So it's 10 years, maybe 20 years in the future. And I'm going outside of my house. And on the way out, I put on a jacket and I find a mask in it. And I kind of chuckle to myself just thinking, God, what a weird time that was. And then I grab my 3D printed assault rifle, brass check it before venturing out into the blasted ruins of Booger Hole, West Virginia to to hunt mutated firebears for their meat and hide,

Starting point is 00:24:27 keeping to the shadows, of course, to avoid the roving gangs of cannibal raiders. Uncle Fuzz4 asks, 41 powerlifting for 10 years, time to lighten the loads for longevity? Still feels good though. As a rule, the risks of serious or competitive powerlifting increase greatly as you surpass certain levels of strength just because of the loads. They get really heavy. And as you get older, and that is particularly true for our joints as we get older. So unless you absolutely love it and are willing to pay the price of acute and probably chronic injuries, if you go for long enough, I think it's smarter to work toward reasonable strength milestones, like three plates on the bench. This is for men, four plates on the squat, five plates on the deadlift, at least for, let's say a rep or three. And female standards would be like two-ish, three-ish, four-ish. So maybe two-ish plates on

Starting point is 00:25:31 the bench for one to three reps, three-ish plates on the squat, same reps and four-ish plates on the deadlift. And then once you've hit those standards, you either modify your powerlifting routine to simply maintain that strength rather than progress, because it is difficult to continue gaining strength when you're already pretty strong. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of volume. It takes a lot of heavy weightlifting. It takes a lot of pushing close to failure, taking that risk, going for that next rep when you're not sure if you're going to get it and so forth. And as we get older, such things get riskier. The chances of getting hurt go up. The consequences of getting hurt go up. Recovery can take a lot longer at 40 or 50 than at 25 or 30.

Starting point is 00:26:22 And so anyway, to finish my point, if you like powerlifting, if you like getting strong, get strong, get very strong by normal standards, maybe not by elite powerlifting standards, but gain 80% of the strength that is genetically available to you. And then at that point, either maintain that or switch to another style of training if maintaining that isn't fun. training if maintaining that isn't fun. Do not. If you want to give your future self the best chances of having a body that doesn't have any major dysfunctions, major limiting injuries, pains, and so forth, don't try to go for that final 20% of strength that is genetically available to you, because that is where most of the injuries occur. It's not in the first 80%, which you can gain in probably no more than five years of consistent and just well-designed training. Most of the problems

Starting point is 00:27:19 occur after that, when the weights are heavy and the margins for error are small. Have you ever wondered what strength training split you should follow? What rep ranges you should work in? How many sets you should do per workout or per week? Well, I created a free 60 second training quiz that will answer those questions for you and others, including how frequently you should train each major muscle group, which exercises you should do, what supplements you should consider, which ones are at least worth taking, and more. muscleforlife.show, muscleforlife.show slash training quiz. Answer the questions and learn exactly what to do in the gym to gain more muscle and strength. 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

Starting point is 00:28:30 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 again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Minicuts, Squat & Deadlift Alternatives, Overcoming Fear of Rejection, & More

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.