Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Should You Train Abs While Cutting? Is It Bad If You Don’t Sweat Much While Training? And More!

Episode Date: May 24, 2019

I’ve churned through over 150,000 emails, social media comments and messages, and blog comments in the last 6 years. And that means I’ve fielded a ton of questions. As you can imagine, some questions pop up more often than others, and I thought it might be helpful to take a little time every month to choose a few and record and share my answers. So, in this round, I answer the following four questions: 1. Is it bad if I don’t sweat while I work out? 2. What should I do if I struggle to maintain good form on accessory exercises? 3. Any recommendations for staying in shape during pregnancy? 4. Do you have to train abs on a cut? If you have a question you’d like me to answer, leave a comment below or if you want a faster response, send an email to [e-mail]. Recommended reading for this episode: https://www.muscleforlife.com/tdee-calculator/ https://www.muscleforlife.com/pregnancy-exercises/ https://www.muscleforlife.com/weight-gain-during-pregnancy/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hello, hello. I am Mike Matthews from Legion Athletics, and this is going to be a Q&A. And that means that I have grabbed random questions that people have asked me via social media, email, blog comments, and so forth. And I'm going to answer them publicly because I think there are many other people out there who have the same questions. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my fitness book for men, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 350,000 copies in the last several years

and helped thousands and thousands of guys build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 3,100 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that are keeping you from achieving the lean, muscular, strong, and healthy body that you truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate male body, then you want to read Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, which you can find on all major online retailers like Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can get the audio book 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audio books. I love them myself

because they let me make the time that I spend doing stuff like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth, so much more valuable and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, then simply go to www.bitly.com slash free BLS. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just click the sign up today and save button, create your account and voila, you get to listen to Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for free. Alrighty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the show. So let's just start at the top. The first question is, is it bad if I don't sweat while I work out? And the answer is no, not necessarily, because sweating a lot during a workout doesn't necessarily mean that you're burning a lot more calories than if you sweat less or gaining more

muscle and strength than if you sweat less. All it means is your core body temperature is not staying elevated enough, long enough to make you sweat a lot. And I often get asked this from people who are following my programs for men and women, Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, respectively, because those programs are primarily strength training programs. They are strength training with a bit of bodybuilding work added onto it or strength training plus accessory work. And so what that means is for most of the workouts, you are resting two, three, even four minutes if you need to, but generally let's say around three minutes in between your hard sets and especially on your compound movements. Now those longer rest periods are actually an important part of the programs

because in order to progress on the programs, you have to get stronger over time. And a number of studies have shown that longer than usual or longer rest periods than what people are used to, some are around three minutes, are superior for strength gain over time than shorter rest periods. For example, if you rested one minute in between each hard set on squats, you are going to progress slower than if you rested three minutes. And that's not surprising, of course, because if you do a hard set of, let's say, squats, regardless of the rep range, really, whether it's four to six reps or eight to 10 or 10 to 12 reps or anywhere in between, and then rest one minute, chances are after that minute,

your heart rate is still going to be elevated. You're still going to feel a bit winded, a bit gassed. You're not going to feel fully ready for that next set. Now, of course, you can just go do the next set after a minute of rest, but your performance on that next set is not going to be as good as it would be if you had rested another couple minutes, at least two minutes, but probably better would be closer to three minutes on heavy squats. So coming back to sweating, when you are resting two, three, maybe even four minutes sometimes in between the hard sets of your workouts and if that type of training comprises most of your workouts, don't be surprised if you don't sweat all that much during your workouts. Like I would say I am a moderate

sweater. I don't get super sweaty regardless of whatever I do, but I don't sweat very little either. Like I will sweat a fair amount during cardio, for example, especially high intensity interval training. And I don't sweat very much during any of my workouts. And that's always been the case. Even in the past, when I was training even a bit harder than I'm training now, both in terms of volume and intensity, I would get fairly sweaty on my squat and pull days. Not grossly sweaty, but those were definitely my sweatiest workouts. However, I wouldn't sweat all that much on any of my upper body days. Something else to keep in mind regarding sweating and exercise is you will tend to sweat less as you get deeper into a cut and as your metabolism adapts more and more as you experience more and

more metabolic adaptation, not damage, but just adaptation where your body is trying to erase the calorie deficit. It's fighting back against your weight loss efforts. And one of the ways that it does that is it gets stingy with energy burning. So it is common for people who have been cutting for a bit and especially people who are getting very lean. And so they're at a point where they're pretty lean, but they have quite a bit and especially people who are getting very lean. And so they're at a point where they're pretty lean, but they have quite a bit more to go. Like for example, somebody preparing for a naturally preparing for a bodybuilding show. It's common that when they get deeper into their cuts and they already have a quite low body fat percentage, but they still

have more to more fat to lose. They will sweat very little during their workouts. Their body temperature will generally be lower. It's harder to get a pump during workouts. And while you or even I are not going to experience those things as severely as someone naturally prepping for a bodybuilding show, of course, because we're never going to get as lean as those people because it's just completely unnecessary and impractical and grueling. And why do it? Like as a guy, the only reason to suffer through what it takes to get to, let's say 5% body fat naturally is to try to win a bodybuilding show. It's not necessary for getting likes on Instagram or anything else. And it's definitely not worth the cost. So anyway, we're not going to get hit as hard with those types of metabolic adaptations

as natural bodybuilders, but I have experienced some of that in the past when I've gotten pretty lean for photo shoots. So somewhere to, let's say around 7%. And I remember at the end of those cuts, noticing that just noticing less sweat when I was working out and less of a pump and feeling a little bit colder throughout the day. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I

can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Okay, next question. What should I do if I struggle to maintain good form with heavier weights on accessory exercises? And this is a question I get asked fairly often because in my book for men bigger than you're stronger, I recommend doing some four to six rep work with some isolation slash accessory exercises. And the long story short here is you should be able to maintain good form working in the four to six rep range on isolation slash accessory exercises like side raises, rear raises,

and biceps curls. Yes, you do have to pay a bit more attention to your form. And especially as you get closer to technical failure in your hard sets, in your working sets. So if you have, let's say six reps, that's what you're going to be getting in this set. Once you hit the fourth rep, this is where form tends to break down. But if you just pay special attention to your form at that point, really focus on keeping your body in the position it needs to be in and moving the weights properly you should be able to maintain good form and if you can't if you find that your form really starts to fall apart on the second or third rep of let's say a four to six rep set the weight is too heavy you just need to go down in weight and if you do that and then really focus on proper form, you'll probably find that

those first few reps now are a lot smoother or a lot cleaner and that things start to get rough, let's say around rep five or so. Now that said, there's also nothing wrong with working in, let's say the six to eight rep range on accessory or isolation exercises, which is something that I recommend in Bigger Leaner Stronger and particularly in the which is something that I recommend in Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, and particularly in the new third edition that I've released. So for the accessory slash isolation exercises, ideally what I would like people to do is to do some of the work, some of the weekly work in the four to six rep range, and then some of the weekly work in the six to eight rep range. But if the four to six rep work

is really not going well for you, and if you really are struggling to maintain good form, then just work in the six to eight rep range exclusively on your isolation slash accessory exercises. Now, one exercise in particular that really tends to give people trouble is the dumbbell side raise. And I understand it's a pain in the ass. It's a pain in the ass to use any decent amount of weight. It's a pain in the ass, let's say, to work anywhere below 10 reps and maintain good form throughout each rep of each set. But it can be done. And this is an exercise that I've actually worked on my form a little bit recently because I didn't realize that I was getting a little bit too much hip motion on the way up, which gives you a little bit of a boost. And I didn't notice it until I was

reviewing some of my training on camera because I post my workouts on social media. reviewing some of my training on camera because I post my workouts on social media. And you have all the foreign police on Instagram. But I actually agreed. I was like, yeah, it's not terrible, but there's a little bit too much motion. And fortunately, my shoulders are pretty strong. It wasn't that I couldn't handle the weights. It's just that I guess I just wasn't paying enough attention. And so by simply forcing myself to keep my hips in place, preventing them from shifting forward, I was able to continue using the same weights and I lost maybe a rep on my hard sets. And a little tip on that exercise that has really helped me is instead of starting it standing tall with the weights at your sides, start with a slight bend. So you're slightly bent forward. Your hips are pushed a little bit back as if you were getting into a deadlift or squat, starting a

squat, right? So your hips are a little bit back, you're a little bit bent forward and the weights are right in front of you down in front of your crotch. And then you simply want to maintain that position throughout each rep. And as you start to ascend, as you start to raise the weights, don't shift your hips forward. Just keep them in that slightly back position. Stay slightly bent. Don't shift your hips forward and stand up straight to help boost the weights on the way up. That's what I was tending to do on some of my sets, at least the last few

reps. Another tip is your arms do not have to be stick straight throughout the exercise. You can do that, but if you do, you are never going to progress. You are never going to get strong on the side raise if you do it that way. So instead, what I recommend is a slight bend in your arms. I like to have my arms somewhere around 150 to 160 degrees while doing side raises and while doing rear raises as well. And if you're not sure what that looks like, just Google 150 degree line or 160 degree line, and you will see what I mean. Now, some people bend their arms a lot more. Some people have them in like a 90 degree position. And I don't recommend that. That is just going to make the exercise less effective. Okay. Next question. It is any recommendations for staying in shape during pregnancy? Yes,

absolutely. So the most important thing to get right during pregnancy is your calorie intake. And the reason I say that as far as the mom's health and the baby's health goes, one of the most important things the mom can do is gain a healthy amount of weight during the pregnancy, not too little and not too much. And of course, as weight is dictated by energy balance, whether you gain weight, lose weight, or maintain your weight is dictated by energy balance, whether you gain weight, lose weight, or maintain your weight is dictated by calories in versus calories out. Women who are pregnant want to pay attention to their calorie intake. Now, specifically, the goal throughout the pregnancy is to eat around your total daily energy expenditure, to eat around the amount

of calories that you're burning and to err a little bit on the high side, not the low side. And the reason for that is you want to ensure you are not in a calorie deficit when you're pregnant. Now, of course, if you are in a deficit one day here and there, that doesn't really matter, but I'm talking about generally speaking, you do not want to be restricting your calories while you're pregnant. It is not a time to start cutting or to try to lose weight. Because what happens when you restrict your calories and you create an energy deficit when you are eating fewer calories than you're burning over an extended period of time is, yes, your body fat levels do go down, but your physiology is negatively impacted in a number of ways. You can think of it like this.

Your body goes into a sort of energy triage mode when calories are restricted and certain non-essential processes in the body are just given lower priority. They are brushed aside to make sure that vital processes are kept running. And so that's why, for example, it is hard, if not impossible, to gain muscle while you're cutting if you are an intermediate or advanced weightlifter. Muscle building, the processes that have to occur to build muscle, are just not very high on the list of priorities when energy is scarce. And so your body is simply not willing to run its muscle building machinery as vigorously as it will when energy is abundant, when you are in a calorie surplus over time, for example. Now, when you are pregnant, there are a lot of new things going on in the body and new demands being placed on it. And of course,

as you get deeper into the pregnancy and the baby gets bigger, the energy cost of those processes and those demands goes up, up, up. And so if you are restricting your calories and not giving your body enough energy to meet its demands, it has things it can do to keep going. Of course, you can still make it through the pregnancy and have a healthy baby, but it is not optimal. It's not optimal for you, the mom, in terms of your health during and after the pregnancy, and it's not optimal for the baby and its health during and after the pregnancy. And so what's the easiest way to ensure that we are not in a calorie deficit? It is simply to intentionally overeat, to intentionally eat a bit more than our total daily energy expenditure, TDEE. Specifically, I recommend somewhere around

10%, which is the same recommendation for somebody lean bulking, for example. So if you calculate your TDEE at, let's just say it's 2000 calories per day to make it simple, you want to be eating, you want to create a meal plan or you want to be tracking, you want to know that you're eating around 2200 calories per day. Now, if you're not sure how to calculate your TDEE or what it even is or what it's comprised of, simply Google Legion Athletics TDEE and you will find an article there wrote on it with a calculator that makes it really easy. Now that's just the starting point because the standard medical recommendations for calorie intake for pregnant women are TDEE

for the first trimester. And again, I would modify that and say slightly more than TDEE. Maybe it doesn't have to be 10%. Maybe it's 5%. The only issue with that is your daily energy expenditure really is a moving target. And so if the margin is really tight, 5% is a pretty tight margin, you may actually end up in a deficit when you thought you're going to be in a surplus simply because you burnt a bit more energy that day, or you didn't eat as many calories as you thought. but let's just say anywhere from five to 10% above TDEE for the first trimester. Now for the second trimester, the standard recommendation is to increase daily calorie intake by 340 calories because energy

demands are going up as this baby is growing bigger and bigger. And then in the third trimester, you're supposed to add about another hundred calories to your daily intake. So somewhere around 450 calories above your TDEE. And again, if you want to overshoot those numbers by five or 10%, that is okay. Okay. So beyond the calories, we have the macros, which should be pretty standard, high protein, moderate, high carb, moderate fat, somewhere around 40, 40, 20. Play with those numbers. Let's say keep protein in the range of 30 to 40% of daily calories, and you can play with your carbs and fats as you like. And for food choices, it's really just the standard flexible, clean eating style of dieting where you're getting at least 80% of your daily calories from relatively unprocessed, highly nutritious foods. And if you want to allot up to 20% of your daily calories to quote unquote unhealthy stuff, you know, just sugary treats, stuff that is not very nutritious, that's totally fine. And especially when you're pregnant and you have weird cravings, using those 20% of your calories every day can help keep the temptation to binge at bay.

So that is diet for pregnancy. And then of course there is exercise and this is very important as well. Research shows that just 30 minutes of exercise per day can significantly improve both the mom's and the baby's health. So I highly, highly recommend doing at least three to five workouts per week while pregnant, 30 to 60 minutes per workout. Now, as far as what to do in those workouts, I recommend that you spend about half of your weekly workout time doing cardio and about half of it doing resistance training. And as far as the cardio goes specifically, I don't recommend high intensity interval training while pregnant. You want to just do something that's at a moderate intensity, low impact, doesn't have you jerking around, you know, like maybe it could be vigorous incline walking on the treadmill, or it could be the elliptical or recumbent bike. Those are

all good options. Now, as far as the resistance training goes, you can do a lot more than you might think. You can squat while you're pregnant. You can deadlift while you're pregnant. You can do probably everything that you are currently doing in the gym. However, as you get deeper in your pregnancy, as you get deeper in like the second moving into the third trimester, you want to start avoiding exercises that have you moving up and down. You want to start doing more and more seated stuff. So I think that is a pretty good summary of how to stay in good shape while pregnant. But if you are pregnant now, or if you're going to be pregnant soon, one, I would like you to inform yourself a bit more. Don't just run with the simple things I've shared here.

There are a couple articles over at Muscle for Life that I think you should read. So if you search for Muscle for Life pregnancy, you'll find one that focuses more on the dietary side of things and one that focuses more on the exercise side of things. Definitely read those articles. And then of course, run everything that you want to do by your doctor to get his or her blessing. Now, I know that there aren't many doctors out there that are going to say, no, you shouldn't watch your calories and you shouldn't eat protein. You shouldn't eat nutritious foods. Oh, and you shouldn't exercise either, but the specifics do matter. So do run the specifics by your doctor and make sure that everything makes sense for you and your situation. Okay. One more question. Do you have to train abs on a cut? The answer is no, you don't.

Training abs on a cut is not going to make that cut more effective because unfortunately you can't spot reduce fat. You can't say, oh, I want to lose belly fat faster, so I'll just do more belly exercises. Research shows that fat burning does increase a slight amount in the areas that we're training when it comes to training muscles, but it is so negligible. It just doesn't make a difference. Practically speaking, it just doesn't matter. And so the only real reason to train abs or core muscles while you're cutting is in hopes of increasing the development of the muscles in your core during that period. And whether or not that will happen depends on your circumstances. If you are an intermediate or advanced weightlifter who has put a lot of time

into training their core over the years, it's not going to matter. You're not going to be getting a more defined core during that two or three months that you're cutting muscle development on the whole, muscle gain on the whole, pretty much just crawls to a standstill. And some people who are in that boat, myself included, think that, okay, so I know I'm not going to get a more muscular core while I'm cutting, but I don't want to lose muscle definition in my core. So maybe I should train abs for that reason. And to that, I say, eh, it's not really necessary. If you are also doing heavy squats, heavy deadlifts, heavy overhead presses, heavy compound exercises that really engage the core, those will be enough for maintaining your abs or maintaining, you know, all the muscle that you have down there while you're cutting. Now that said, I do tend to train my core muscles, train my abs while I'm cutting because I always

have some sort of core work in my programming and I just keep doing it for no great reason, basically. I'm just used to doing it, so I continue doing it. Now, if you are new to resistance training or to proper resistance training, maybe you've done stuff in the past, but you weren't squatting, you weren't deadlifting, you weren't pressing, maybe you're doing machines or bands or a lot of isolation accessory type exercises. Then you can benefit from training your abs and training your core muscles where you're cutting because you will gain muscle definition. You're not going to gain as much as you would have gained if you were not cutting, but you will gain muscle in your core while you're cutting just as you will gain muscle everywhere else in your body while you're cutting.

Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email

at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for men, bigger, leaner, stronger. Now this book has sold over 350,000 copies in the last several years and helped thousands and thousands of guys build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 3,100 reviews on Amazon with a

four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that are keeping you from achieving the lean, muscular, strong, and healthy body that you truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate male body, then you want to read Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, which you can find on all major online retailers like Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can get the audio book 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audio books. I love them myself because they let me make the time that I spend doing stuff like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog and so forth,

so much more valuable and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, then simply go to www.bitly.com slash free BLS. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for free.