Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Plant vs. Whey Protein, My Favorite Split, Tips For Young Lifters, and More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi there, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for another Q&A episode where I am answering 10 or so questions here that people have asked me over on Instagram. You can find me at Muscle for Life Fitness every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. On one of those days, I will post a story asking for people to ask me questions, and then I get a bunch of questions, and I go through them, and I pick ones that are interesting or topical or just not beaten to death, and share short answers there on Instagram, and then bring everything over here to the podcast and expand on the answers and give more context and resources if you want to learn even more. And so in this episode, I will be answering questions about plant protein versus whey protein, workout splits, my favorite workout split, and why,

Starting point is 00:00:53 if I'm going to be doing a toddler or kids multivitamin, when to start using a weightlifting belt, if at all, whether weight maintenance phases are worthwhile or whether you should just always be cutting or bulking until you have the body you want and then finally maintain and more. Also, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me do more of it, please do check out my sports nutrition company, Legion, because while you don't need supplements to build muscle, lose fat, and get healthy, the right ones can help. And that's why over 350,000 discerning fitness folk have chosen Legion and have left us over 35,000 five-star reviews. Well, that and our 100%

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Starting point is 00:02:45 for anything in our store. So skedaddle on over to buylegion.com, that's B-U-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N.com right now and save big before we run out of stock of at least a thing or two, which happens every year during our Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale. No matter how much forecasting we try to do, no matter how fancy our software is, there are always a handful of SKUs that just sell two or three times what we expect and run out of stock. So again, head over to buylegion.com, place your order, save up to 50% and have a happy holiday. All right. The first question comes from Anonymous. Unfortunately, I don't have any information

Starting point is 00:03:28 on who asked these questions because Instagram was glitching out, but I have the questions. So the first one is, is Plant Plus just as effective as Whey Plus? So they're asking about my protein powders. Plant Plus, of course, is a plant-based protein powder. It is a mixture of pea protein and rice protein because those sources in particular have complementary amino acid

Starting point is 00:03:54 profiles. When you combine them, they look a lot like whey protein, which is why that combination is often referred to as the vegan's whey. So is that product as effective as my whey protein isolate? And the answer is maybe. When I answered this on Instagram, I said yes, but after answering this on Instagram, I actually found some research that shows that whey protein might be superior for muscle building after all. So let me explain. There are a number of studies that show that you can gain plenty of muscle and strength with plant-based protein, plant-derived protein. There are studies specifically on pea protein, on rice protein. These are high quality sources of plant protein. And again, when you combine them, they are even better than when you eat them separately.

Starting point is 00:04:48 But one study that I recently came across showed that whey resulted in 30 to 40% higher levels of amino acid in people's blood compared to several blends of plant protein powders. So they were using pea protein, pumpkin protein, sunflower protein, and coconut protein. So there wasn't a pea rice blend like my plant plus, but there was pea plus one of the others that I mentioned and then other combinations as well. And again, what the researchers found is that even when they matched the amount of essential amino acids in the amount of whey protein and plant protein, which required more plant protein, I believe the serving of whey protein was 24 grams in this study. And that provided, I don't remember the number off the top of my head, but it provided probably around 10 to

Starting point is 00:05:44 12 grams of essential amino acids, something like that, and maybe around three grams of leucine. And so what they did is they combined these different plant proteins in different ways, always matching the amount of essential amino acids, which required, again, if I'm remembering correctly, about 30 to 34 grams of total protein to achieve the same amount of essential amino acids and leucine in particular as the whey protein. And that was a smart design decision because the essential amino acids in particular are what are most important for the purposes of muscle building. So just to repeat the results, what the researchers found is that whey was far more effective at raising amino acid levels in

Starting point is 00:06:33 the participant's blood, which of course ultimately is what matters. If we're talking about bio availability, the availability of the protein for our body to use it, that is what we need to see. We need to eat the protein, see the amino acid levels of our blood rise, so then our body can use those amino acids to repair muscle tissue, build muscle tissue, and so forth. Now, this was one study, and again, they didn't have a pea and rice protein condition, but it does suggest that whey protein may indeed be superior for building muscle than plant protein. And I personally use my Plant Plus product. I use one scoop per day. I mix it with some whey because I like how they taste together. So these days I mix one scoop of my salted caramel whey plus with one scoop of my vanilla plant plus, and that is one protein

Starting point is 00:07:34 shake. And then I will have one other scoop of whey protein at some point in the day. And then I get the rest of my protein from food. And so with only 25 to 30 grams of protein coming from plant protein and the rest of my protein every day coming from whey protein and food, I'm not concerned. However, if I were a vegetarian or if I were a vegan and I were getting, let's say, half of my daily protein from powder from my Plant Plus product and the other half from plant foods, I might be a little bit concerned if I were trying to maximize muscle growth. Because in that case, let's say that I had heard that 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day is plenty for maximizing muscle building. And I don't particularly like eating a lot of protein. So I decided to go with

Starting point is 00:08:33 0.8 grams. There is good evidence for that, but we have to remember that that is assuming the protein is of the highest quality and the highest bioavailability, which means animal-derived, not plant-derived. So if I were to eat, let's say, 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day, half of that came from my own supplement, pea protein, rice protein. The other half came from other plant foods. That probably would not be enough to keep my body's muscle building machinery running at full tilt, so to speak. I probably would need to eat more and I would guess a fair amount more, probably even more than one gram per pound of body weight per day. If it were me on that diet, I would go somewhere between probably

Starting point is 00:09:25 1.2 to maybe even 1.4 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day if I were getting all of that from vegan supplements and vegan foods. But as I am an omnivore and I'm only getting 25 to maybe 30 grams of protein per day from my plant protein. And I'm not even trying to maximize muscle growth at this point. I'm mostly just maintaining what I have and staying lean. I'm not concerned about it. And a final takeaway for you is if you are still in the muscle building phase of your journey, if you are still really trying to put on some size or put on some strength, then I would recommend that you get the majority, let's just say at least 80% of your protein from the highest quality sources that fit your diet.

Starting point is 00:10:20 So if you are omnivorous, I would not recommend getting, let's say, half of your daily protein from even my plant plus protein supplement. I would recommend getting as much of it as you can from food. And again, animal foods do provide the most bioavailable and they do provide the highest quality protein, especially when you look at it calorie for calorie. And if you are going to supplement, I would recommend first considering whey or casein before going the plant route. But if you don't like whey or casein, or if they don't sit well with your stomach and you want to go with a plant-based protein, I would recommend probably no more than 20% of your daily protein from that supplement. And lastly, if you are interested in checking out any

Starting point is 00:11:15 of my protein powders, my whey powder, casein, plant, you can find them over at buylegion.com, B-U-I-L-E-G-I-O-N.com. Okay, next question is favorite workout split and current workout split. Well, they are one in the same because I've always enjoyed a push-pull legs or push-legs-pull base because I like to squat and deadlift on different days. I like to put at least one, if not two days in between those. And then I like to supplement on top of those base workouts with some additional upper body work or maybe lower body work, depending on what I'm trying to do with my physique or supplementing with body part specific work. work. So push, pull legs or push legs, pull as a base. And then maybe an arms day, if I'm really trying to directly train my arms more than I can in a push or pull workout or upper body workout or full body workout. But my favorite workout split does depend on what I am trying to do. If I'm trying to progress more or less equally, I like what I

Starting point is 00:12:27 just laid out. Push, pull legs or push, legs, pull with an upper body day and maybe another lower body or another upper body day so I can get in enough volume in all of the major muscle groups to make progress more or less across the board. But if I wanted to focus on just one or two major muscle groups, and if it's one, it's going to be a big one, like let's say my lower body. And you could say, well, you have a few major muscle groups there. You have your quads, hamstrings, glutes. Okay, fine. Let's say we want to focus on those major muscle groups. I would not focus on anything else because that's very difficult. So if we are going to really try to work on our lower body, for me, given my training status, that means a fair amount of volume. That means probably 20

Starting point is 00:13:19 hard sets per week for each of those major muscle groups. That takes time. That takes a lot of effort. That is much harder to recover from than let's say doing 20 hard sets for biceps and triceps. And so what I'll have to do is dial back the volume, probably with everything else, even with deadlifting in particular, I might go down to one set per week because of the three lower body workouts that I'm doing and how difficult they are. And so if that were the case, then my favorite workout split would look more like a body part split. I would have probably three leg days, I guess you could say lower body days. And I might have a chest day, a back day, and kind of like an arms and shoulders day.

Starting point is 00:14:05 And on those days, I probably wouldn't be doing more than nine to 12 hard sets for those major muscle groups. And that's it. And again, I would not be doing more than probably one set of deadlifting of any kind. So that would be a traditional, you know, conventional deadlift or a Romanian deadlift or any other type of variation, just one set per week, just to maintain that exercise and enough volume in those other major muscle groups that I'm not specializing in, again, just to maintain what I've got while I

Starting point is 00:14:38 give the majority of my resources, my bandwidth over to improving my lower body. Now, let's say I wanted to work on my arms, my biceps and my triceps. If I were doing a specialization routine, that probably would entail three arms days per week. But because the arms are smaller muscles, they can take more abuse, they can recover a lot faster than the quads, for example, I probably would throw something else into that specialization. So I probably would throw in my shoulders, for example. Okay, for a couple of months, I'm going to be doing a lot of volume for my arms and shoulders, and I'm going to be doing more like maintenance volume for the rest of my major muscle groups. Again, this could look very much like a bro split with higher

Starting point is 00:15:25 frequency on the body parts that I'm working on specifically. So a few arms workouts per week, a few shoulder workouts per week. You might combine those into something that looks a little bit more like an upper body, but not really because it's more just like an arms and shoulders workout. Do a few of those per week, do a legs day or a lower body day and a pull day. And I would still continue doing a few sets of squats, some sort of squat per week. I might be able to get away with a few sets of deadlifting per week again, because the amount of wear and tear when you are specializing in, let's say, your arms and your shoulders, it's just much lower than lower body or even back. That's a big major muscle group. And if

Starting point is 00:16:14 you're going to do three difficult back workouts per week, you are probably not going to have the capacity to also work really hard on your lower body in particular. So that would be an example of kind of specializing in back for a couple of months, a couple of back workouts per week, a lower body or leg workout, a press workout, and an arms slash shoulders workout. So that would be a scenario where a body part split would be my preferred split. If I were wanting to simply maintain a full body split would work just fine. And that has benefits. One of the major benefits of the full body split is you don't get very sore. And a counter argument to that is if you are an experienced weightlifter and you are not doing

Starting point is 00:17:06 an inappropriate amount of volume for any major muscle group in any workout, you're not going to get very sore anyway. However, with a full body split, you can increase frequency to three, four, five, six, even seven days per week. I would not recommend six or seven unless you really know what you're doing and your weekly volume isn't too high, blah, blah, blah. But it allows you to train a body part every day if you want to, because you are only doing a couple, three, probably four sets per day. And you could do that three, four, five days per week, for example, with a full body split. but it would be hard to do that with multiple major muscle groups with any other type of split. And otherwise, I don't think there's anything special about the full body split. I know it's kind of trendy these days and it can

Starting point is 00:17:59 work just fine. It can work great for people who are new because they don't need that much training stimulus to maximize muscle and strength gain. So they could just do like three full body workouts per week, for example. But that same routine would not work for an intermediate or advanced weightlifter who's trying to progress. 3 full body workouts per week is simply not going to provide enough volume for each major muscle group to continue gaining muscle and strength. So frequency is going to have to go up. And if you are going to work out 4 or 5 days per week, 4 or 5 full body workouts might not be the most effective way to achieve your goals. For example, if you're a dude and your upper body is way behind where you want it to be compared to your lower body, especially if you've been lifting weights for a little bit and your lower body has responded well, and that is often the case for a lot of guys, those are big muscles. Our lower body muscles are big. They respond well to heavy training. They tend to grow quickly, whereas our pecs tend to be stubborn. Our biceps tend to be stubborn. Our shoulders tend to be stubborn. So if that's you, four or five full

Starting point is 00:19:19 body workouts per week might not work nearly as well as an upper lower split or the push-pull legs base with a couple of upper body days, which might look more like body part days with a shoulder day where you get in an extra, let's say 10 to 12 hard sets directly for your shoulders. And then maybe an arms day where you are getting in an extra 10 to 12 sets directly for your biceps and your triceps. And if you want to learn more about workout splits, head over to legionathletics.com, search for workout split and look for an article called how to find the best workout split for you. And it is a longer form article, but it discusses each of the types of workout splits that I've mentioned in detail, the body part, the upper, lower, the push pull legs,

Starting point is 00:20:13 the full body. And it helps you understand which split is going to be best for you, given your current circumstances and goals. Hey there, if you are hearing this, you are still listening, which is awesome, thank you. And if you are enjoying this podcast or if you just like my podcast in general and you are getting at least something out of it, would you mind sharing it with a friend or a loved one or a not so loved one even who might want to learn something new,

Starting point is 00:20:48 word of mouth helps really bigly in growing the show. So if you think of someone who might like this episode or another one, please do tell them about it. All right, let's move on to the next question, which is simply, when does it get better? When does what get better? Everything. When do things get better? Well, I think that when people, when enough people have finally had enough, things will start to get better. Next question, toddler slash kids multivitamin soon? Next question, toddler slash kids multivitamin soon? I really want to do one. I am already exploring the possibilities because gummies are possible. Gummies are great, but the constraint is the amount of active ingredients that you can fit into them. I believe it's only two to three grams per gummy. So for some products, like a pre-workout, which is going to have 20, 25, 30 grams of active ingredients, it doesn't work. But other products like a kid's multivitamin, that very much could work because you are not going to put as much into a kid's multivitamin as you'd put into an adult multivitamin, for example. So I'm looking

Starting point is 00:22:08 into it. I would like to do it selfishly because I would like to give it to my kids, but then also unselfishly because I'd like to have it available for you to give to your kids too, if you want to do that. Next question, when to start to use a lifting belt when your weights are one and a half your body weight? Well, first, let me just quickly explain why you might want to use a weightlifting belt, at least on exercises that require bracing your core, like any sort of squat, deadlift and overhead press. The reason is not so much safety. Many people think that the belt prevents injury. It actually does not prevent injury per se. What it does more so is improve performance because what it allows you to do is increase the intra-abdominal pressure,

Starting point is 00:22:57 the amount of pressure in your torso that you generate when you hold your breath and you tense your stomach, like you're about to get punched in the stomach, which is what you want to do when you are lifting heavy weights, when you're squatting heavy weights, deadlifting, overhead pressing heavy weights. And it's inevitable. You really can't do those things without doing that, but you do want to consciously do that. You want to take a deep breath into your stomach and again, tense like you're about to get punched in the stomach. You don't simply take a deep breath into your stomach and push your stomach out. That is not necessarily going to increase the intra-abdominal pressure, but if you get ready to take a punch, you'll be doing it right. And the belt, what it does is when you use it correctly, when you have it positioned

Starting point is 00:23:45 correctly, and when you tighten it enough, it allows you to do that and press your ab muscles out against the belt, which then allows you to generate even more pressure in your torso, which can help you maintain proper form, but it also improves performance. And so that's why if you follow me on Instagram and you watch the workouts that I post, that's why I use the belt when I squat, deadlift and overhead press. The increase in strength is noticeable. I probably am on the squat, I would say at least 10, maybe even 20 pounds stronger. Like my one RM goes up by probably 10 to 20 pounds just by putting on that belt. And I also do like the extra stability that the proper use of it provides. So that's why you might want to use a belt. Now, as for when I

Starting point is 00:24:43 wouldn't recommend using it right away, I'd recommend learning how to do all those exercises beltless initially. And then after probably your first year. So now you're into year two of proper and consistent weightlifting. You are now a lot stronger than you were when you started. You have good technique across the board. I think that is the appropriate time to add a belt if you want. Now, if you want to learn more about belts, some of the theory that I just explained, as well as how to find a belt that is going to be good for you, head over to legionathletics.com, search for belt and look for the article, how to find the best weightlifting belt for you. Then you'll be on your way. All right, next question. Do you

Starting point is 00:25:31 believe in maintenance phases when you're cutting 60 to 80 pounds? Yes, I do think it's smart to probably plan a break of let's say at least seven, maybe even 14 days of maintenance calories, probably every 20 pounds or so. I was just reviewing a study today that used intermittent calorie restriction. The protocol was two weeks on basically two weeks restricting calories. I believe on average participants were eating about 67% of their total daily energy expenditure. So a pretty aggressive calorie deficit for two weeks, high protein, of course, and then two weeks of maintenance calories. And that worked quite well.

Starting point is 00:26:14 In my experience, though, working with a lot of people over the years, I bet you if you need to lose a lot of weight, you can probably be a little bit more aggressive in the duration of the calorie restriction phase. So I wouldn't be surprised if you could easily go four to six, maybe even eight weeks. You don't necessarily have to go with a 33% calorie deficit. Although if you have a lot of weight to lose, you probably will be able to do that fairly easily, actually. So let's just assume you can do that 30 to 35% calorie deficit. And you're doing that for minimally four, if not six to eight weeks. And then you start to feel it. Some of the negative

Starting point is 00:26:56 side effects associated with dieting start to catch up with you. You're hungrier, you're crankier, your energy levels are lower. You notice you're moving around less, your workouts are getting harder. Then you take a break anywhere from seven to 14 days, just eat maintenance calories. Make sure to calculate your maintenance calories at that current body weight, because that maintenance number is going to go down as you lose weight, heavier bodies cost more energy to move around. So many people, they make that mistake. They calculate their calories at the beginning of a weight loss journey. And let's say their maintenance calories, let's say it's 3000 calories per day. This is a guy, he's very heavy and he burns about 3000 calories per day. And that would be including exercise, of course. And he loses quite a bit of weight. He wants to take a little break. He doesn't

Starting point is 00:27:46 recalculate his new maintenance calories, which let's say are 27 or 2,800 per day because he's lost a lot of weight. And maybe he's a little bit less active also than he was in the beginning, just making up a situation. He starts eating 3,000 calories per day, which some days is like 3,100, 3,200. He does that for two weeks and he gains, let's say a pound or two of fat over that period. And he doesn't understand why. So just make sure that you are calculating those maintenance calories right before you are starting that maintenance phase. And the last comment I'll make on this is you don't have to take diet breaks as they're called. If you don't want to, if you are feeling totally fine, let's say it's been

Starting point is 00:28:30 eight weeks and you've lost quite a bit of weight in that time and you feel great, energy levels are good, you're sleeping fine, your workouts are fine. You don't have to take a break, just keep going. But just know that if at any point you want to, even if it's just psychological, even if you're just sick of dieting, let's say it's been three months now and you would just like to eat a bit more food. Maybe it's not even about eating junk food or eating foods that you've been restricting or that you really haven't been able to enjoy because you don't have enough calories to really enjoy them the way that you like to. Maybe you just wanna eat more of the stuff

Starting point is 00:29:09 that you are eating every day because it's nice to eat more food when you've been restricting your food for a while. Do it. Do it for seven to 14 days. You probably will feel great after that little break and then you can get back to your cut. All right,

Starting point is 00:29:31 next question. What is a good pre-workout meal if you only have 30 to 45 minutes until you start? 30 to 60 grams of carbs of whatever you prefer. I like something light. I don't like the feeling of being full at all. I like to feel like I basically have an empty stomach when I train. So for me, it's just fruit. I'll eat a banana or two before I train. There was a time when I also would do a cup of rice milk and mix some protein in with it. And that provided an extra maybe 25 grams of carbs. And it was pretty tasty. These days I don't do that, not for any particular reason, but I do always eat some fruit and I have some pre-workout about 30 to 45 minutes before I train. And the reason I don't always have protein before I train is research shows that if you have eaten protein, let's say within the preceding two or three hours, you don't need to eat more. You are not going to

Starting point is 00:30:25 benefit from eating more. Just go to the gym, work out, and then have protein within an hour or so of finishing that workout. However, if it has been four plus hours since you've eaten protein before you work out, I would also recommend then having a serving of protein with the carbs. Oh, and a quick comment here. Don't buy into any of the marketing hype around these fancy carbohydrate supplements. They are mostly sold to endurance athletes, but they are also sold to weightlifters. And there are many claims about how those carbohydrate supplements are superior to any and all food forms of carbohydrate for enhancing performance. And sometimes it's a recovery thing. So they'll say, oh, mix this

Starting point is 00:31:14 fancy carbohydrate, this fancy starch with your post-workout shake, and you are going to recover X percent better than if you ate just some fruit or some oatmeal or potatoes or whatever you might eat for carbohydrate after a workout. All of that is nonsense. I wish it were true. If it were true, I would produce one of those products and I would use it myself and I would sell it, but it is not true. So eat your carbs and eat what you like. Research shows that for our purposes, it doesn't really matter. Now, if you were a triathlon athlete, a high level competitive triathlon athlete, we would talk a bit more about what types of carbs you are eating when, but that's probably not the case. So let's just keep it simple. Okay, next question. What is your best

Starting point is 00:32:13 tip for younger lifters? My best tip is take the time to learn the fundamentals. Learn the fundamentals of good eating. Learn the fundamentals of good training, learn to be patient, learn how to stick to the boring basics, regardless of what you see on social media, all of the interesting things that people do to get you to stop scrolling and engage. If you can just do that, learn the fundamentals, get good at them, be patient. You can get jacked by anybody's standards in three to five years. Okay, last question. How do you personally differentiate between training and exercise? Well, training is exercise, but it's exercise with specific and measurable goals. And it's exercise that you do according to a system that is meant to help

Starting point is 00:33:06 you reach those goals. Exercise unto itself is just vigorous physical activity. And you can do that for health. You can do that for fun. You can do that for body composition. You can do that for strength, for performance. But exercise doesn't have to be formal workouts. It doesn't have to be sports even. It's just vigorous physical activity. And there's nothing wrong with that. I treat my strength training as training, but I treat my cardio as exercise. I just hop on a bike five to seven days per week, an upright bike and pedal away at a moderate intensity for 30 minutes. And I'm usually doing that while I'm on a phone call, a work call, usually sometimes a personal call, which I have to do anyway. So I might as well

Starting point is 00:33:50 just do it on the bike or I read on my phone, which again, I'm going to put time into every day anyway. So I might as well just do it on the bike or doing vocabulary flashcards for my writing, which I'm gonna do anyway. So I might as well do them on the bike. 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.

Starting point is 00:34:19 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.

Starting point is 00:34:57 So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Plant vs. Whey Protein, My Favorite Split, Tips For Young Lifters, and More

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