Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Strength Loss on a Cut, Training with Back Pain, Ideal Body Fat Percentage & More

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

In this episode, I discuss strength loss during cutting, how to train with lower back injuries, the ideal body fat percentage for health, nutrition strategies, and lots more. As always, these questions come directly from my Instagram followers, who take advantage of my weekly Q&As in my stories. If you have a question you're dying to have answered, make sure you follow me on Instagram (@muscleforlifefitness) and look out for the Q&A posts. Your question might just make it into a podcast episode! If you like this type of episode, let me know. Send me an email ([e-mail]) or direct message me on Instagram. And if you don’t like it, let me know that too or how you think it could be better. --- Timestamps: (05:41) Communism opinion (07:26) Regression during a cut (10:46) Lower back injury (13:22) Body fat percentage (14:49) Strength training age limit (19:50) Daily meal plan (25:58) Front squat form (27:03) Reverse dieting (29:15) Agility after 50 (30:08) Hack squat machine (31:24) Healthcare system (32:35) Winter appetite (33:23) Creatine supplement (35:19) Bicep injury update (36:05) EMFs from devices --- Mentioned on the Show: Creatine Monohydrate Bigger Leaner Stronger Plant+ Whey+

Hello, hello, I am Mike Matthews. This is most for life. Thank you for joining me today for a Q&A episode number 66 Where I answer questions that people have asked me over on Instagram So what I do is I put up a story every couple of weeks asking for questions get a bunch of questions go through the questions Find the ones that are most interesting to me Topical things I haven't answered a million times already Find the ones that are most interesting to me, topical things I haven't answered a million times already. Answer them briefly there on Instagram and then bring everything over here to the podcast

where I can answer the questions in more detail. So if you wanna ask me your questions, follow me on Instagram at Muscleful Life Fitness, watch my stories, laugh at the memes and then when you see me put up the ask me anything story, ask away and I do review every question. I can't answer ask away. And I do review every question. I can't answer every question, but I do review every question

and really try to find the best ones. And so in today's episode, the best ones that I could find are related to communism, my opinions, losing strength, losing performance during a cut. Is that a cause for concern? What should you do? Dealing with a lower back injury,

dealing with lower back problems, and working around that while still trying to train your lower body, while still trying to do a squat, do a deadlift. The healthiest ranges of body fat for men and women, how I'm eating these days, what does my diet look like, who should and shouldn't reverse diet when cutting and more. But first, there are very few supplements

that I would say everyone should be taking. Most supplements are very supplemental by definition. They're not essential. An exception, however, a supplement that I do think everyone should at least strongly consider taking is creatine. Now you probably know that creatine is the most studied molecule in all of sports nutrition. You probably know that hundreds of studies confirm that it can safely boost muscle and strength gains and improve muscular endurance. It can reduce muscle damage and soreness from exercise, helping you recover faster from your training.

It can help you preserve lean mass and strength while you are restricting your calories during a cut, so you can maximally improve your body composition when you're cutting, which is the goal. It's not weight loss per se, it's fat loss and muscle gain or at least muscle retention. However, what you might not know is that there is new research suggesting that creatine also supports various aspects of brain health and cognition.

And that's why experts are now starting to think of creatine as less of a fitness supplement for meatheads and more of a must-have supplement for everyone like vitamin D or vitamin K or omega-3 fatty acids, a few supplements that I also think everyone should strongly consider taking. And all that is why I just, and finally, I should have done this a long time ago. This was a mistake, but I just released a micronized creatine monohydrate supplement or my sports nutrition company, Legion, has just released a micronized creatine monohydrate supplement, which you can find over at

bylegion.com slash creatine. That's B-U-Y, Legion.com slash creatine. And in case you're wondering why creatine monohydrate versus another maybe more exotic form or at least exotic sounding form like creatine citrate or creatine malate, it's because creatine monohydrate is the most studied form. It is the gold standard in the scientific literature of creatine's effectiveness and contrary to what many marketers would have you believe, research has also shown that a number of these other more

quote unquote exotic forms of creatine actually perform worse than creatine monohydrate. And in case you are wondering about the micronized part, that simply means that the creatine molecules have been broken down into very small particles up to 20 times smaller than regular creatine monohydrate crystals. And the primary benefit is solubility. It mixes in water better and it also can be easier on your stomach. Some people can get an upset stomach from creatine and they often don't get an upset stomach from micronized creatine. There also are some claims about

enhanced absorption with micronized creatine monohydrate faster and more efficient uptake by muscle cells. But I think that is mostly speculation. So the bottom line is creatine is not going to help you pack on brain shrinking amounts of muscle in 30 days. It's not going to add another plate or two to the bar, but it is going to help you train harder. It's going to help you recover better. It's going to help you gain muscle and strength faster. And contrary to the supplement fake news, it's not bad for your kidneys. It doesn't cause men to lose their hair and it won't make you bloated. So if you wanna see for yourself, head over to bylegion.com slash creatine,

B-U-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N.com slash creatine, pick up a bottle, take five grams a day if you are mostly after the performance and body composition benefits and take 10 grams per day if you want to also maximally benefit your brain health and cognition because that is the amount that research is suggesting is optimal for both body composition, physical performance and mental health or brain health and cognition and see how it goes. Dental office asks, your opinion about communism?

I think that communism is one of the most pathetic and deranged and degenerate ideologies ever devised. Here's a quote from Henry Hazlitt that sums it up perfectly. Quote, the whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence. Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community.

Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects, his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity." That, my gentle listener, is the essence, is the spirit of communism, and is fundamentally why communism appeals very strongly to certain people and is very repugnant to other people. You know, for all his failings, Ted Kaczynski made a similar argument and made the argument well against leftism in general in his manifesto, which I would recommend

that you read. Kaczynski obviously had serious mental problems. Maybe that had something to do with his connection with the CIA mind control programs. I don't know. Maybe. But he was a very perceptive and analytical and eloquent person, which you'll see if you read his manifesto. DJ Hibbs asks, month four into cut, this week starting regressing on some of my lifts, is that normal? What to do? Yes, that's very normal. It's actually pretty cool that he was able to maintain his performance for that long. Four months into cutting and just starting to notice a decline in the gym is is a win really. And if that happens to you, you don't really have to do anything unless your performance dramatically decreases. And by that I mean that you are taking weight

off of most exercises and losing reps. So let's say you start a cut being able to squat 225 pounds for five reps, and you are a couple of months into the cut and now you are down to 185 pounds for three, four, five reps. That indicates that you might be using too large of a calorie deficit. So you might want to scale back your calorie restriction. You might not be eating enough carbs. So if you combine a severe deficit with a severe restriction of carbs, your performance can tank markedly.

So you might want to bring your carbs up and eat less dietary fat is really what it's going to require. You also might need to add some diet breaks into your cut especially if you're relatively lean looking to get really lean and so every couple of months or so it might help for you to raise your calories up to about maintenance level for about a week mostly by just increasing carbs and you can think of that as it's like deloading but for your diet. However if you follow my general advice for cutting, which is to use an aggressive but

not reckless calorie deficit, maybe something around 20%. So regularly eating anywhere from let's say 15 to 25% fewer calories than you burn every day eating plenty of protein, eating plenty of carbs, and so on. You shouldn't run into any major issues in the gym. Again, you may start to feel like you have less energy, you may feel a bit weaker, you may actually be a bit weaker after a couple of months of cutting. That's totally normal. Maybe you have to take five or ten pounds off of a few of your bigger lifts. Totally normal.

And the general philosophy with your training is to just keep training hard, fight to maintain everything that you have, all of your performance. I mean, really, you want to push for progress when you're cutting. That may not be possible, but that's the mindset. You're still going in there trying to beat last week's workout, trying to beat the last time you did that exercise. You're looking, OK, you did three or four sets, you got so many reps across those sets, you're trying to get one more rep across today's sets. That's how you make progress. So you still wanna train with that mindset,

you wanna push close to failure. You don't want to think that because you're cutting, you can't make progress anyway, you're just trying to maintain, maybe you are feeling a little bit lower energy, a little bit lower focus. So you're just gonna you're just gonna phone in the workouts, you're gonna kind of just go through the motions, you're not really gonna push that hard. That's the wrong way to cut if you want to gain muscle and strength while you're cutting if you can

or maintain more or less all the muscle and strength that you have while you are cutting. LLeon22 asks, best way to deal with lower back injury on five day routine alternates for deadlifts slash squats. Well if you need remedial exercises for your back, so if you have a back problem that you are unable to resolve with just rest and basic stretches and things you can find online, I recommend that you pick up a book called The Back Mechanic, which will help you specifically diagnose what is going on with your back. And then it will give you remedial exercises that you can do to help correct the problem. Now as for my favorite options for alternatives for the

deadlift and squat because of back issues would be the front squat, the safety bar squat, the Bulgarian split squat, and the rack pull, the Romanian deadlift, and the single leg Romanian deadlift. Or maybe you don't do any of those exercises if they are aggravating the injury. And I know it's a bummer to not squat and to not deadlift especially when you like to do it. But if it's causing pain let's say anywhere above a 2 or a 3 out of 10, unfortunately it's probably just going to prolong the injury and you want to stay away from that. So in that case, what you want to do is find exercises that simply allow you to train the

target muscle groups effectively and relatively pain free. So in this case, we're talking about machines, for example, for your lower body. So maybe you find that there's a squat like machine, like maybe it's a belt squat machine, or maybe it's a power squat, or a pendulum squat, or a hack squat, maybe it's a leg press, or a pivot press. Any of those exercises, if they feel good, not aggravating your back, then do that exercise rather than the squat you would normally do.

And of course, in this scenario, and I'm sure this person could also do leg extensions for some extra quad volume, could do some hamstring curls for hamstring volume. The lunge can often work well if your back is bothering you because it doesn't require large amounts of weight to produce a good training stimulus because you have your body weight as well. And so you just have to stick with that until you are healthy. And that may also mean skipping hip hinging altogether. If there is no deadlift alternative,

if there is no hip hinge that feels good, then you just need to stop doing any sort of hip hinging and just work on the problem until it's resolved. Jay Campbell too asks, is there a body fat percentage that has been proven to be the healthiest in men? Yeah, it's gonna be around 10%, give or take a point or two. That's probably optimal for male health

because generally speaking, more muscle and less fat means better health for both men and women. That's generally true. Now, can you take that too far? Yes, you can. Especially with anabolic drugs and especially with severe extreme dieting. Again, a guy getting down to five, six, maybe 7%. It looks pretty cool, but is it healthy? No, it's not. However, it's very difficult to do even with drugs, but certainly without drugs. It's very difficult to do. And it's not. However, it's very difficult to do even with drugs, but certainly without drugs.

It's very difficult to do. And it's even more difficult to maintain for any period of time. And so practically speaking, more muscle, less fat equals better health. And so again, around 10% is probably the Goldilocks zone for men. Now it is not usually optimal for physical performance. So if you're talking about a male athlete, especially a high performing male athlete, around 15% is generally better for performance than around 10%. And if you're wondering for women,

the numbers are something around 20%, give or take a little bit for health and 25% for performance. J.H. Jamison01 asks, is there an age where you should consider not squatting and deadlifting due to risk? Well, the risks associated with these exercises, they don't actually come from the movements per se, the movement patterns. They are not intrinsic to the exercises, but from the load and the volume. And what's true, as we get older, we simply can't recover from abuse as easily as when we were younger and we have to adjust accordingly. And that means that we often have to bring the volume down. Sometimes you have to bring the load down.

We can't train with as heavy weights as often as we could when we were younger. And if you didn't know this, higher load is harder on the joints, but it's actually easier in terms of systemic stress. So lighter weights, higher reps, more volume, that's more systemically stressful. And anyone who has done hard sets of say eight to 10 reps

of a squat or a deadlift knows that already intuitively. That set, even though the load is lighter than the hard set of four to six reps, that higher rep set is significantly harder. Your perception of the difficulty, it's significantly higher and that perception is accurate. Now as for how you make these adjustments as you get older, there's really no pat formula for it because it really depends on your circumstances, your body and how well it's doing. So it is mostly just a matter of listening to your body as much as I hate

to say those words that is accurate in this case, and simply reducing load. So reducing the amount of weight that you're putting on the bar when your joints are hurting, reducing volume when you are feeling under recovered. So that would mean doing fewer hard sets usually is the most effective way to reduce volume. So if you are normally doing let's say three to four hard sets of the deadlift and the squat, any type of deadlift or squat per week, and it's just starting to run you down and you don't need to deload because you did recently deload you're not cutting you just are feeling a little bit beat up then you might drop to two

sets of each of those exercises or you might find that the deadlift is particularly taxing and so you might go to one set of the deadlift one hard set per week and keep your normal squat volume until you feel like your recovery has caught back up. Maybe for example, you notice that your sleep got a bit worse and so you reduce the training stress, your sleep gets a bit better, you're feeling a bit better and you can bring the deadlift volume back up. Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe you bring your squat volume down and you keep your deadlift volume up. It just depends again on your body,

your circumstances. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, then you will probably like my award-winning fitness books for men and women of all ages and abilities, which have sold over 2 million copies, have received over 15,000 4 and 5 star reviews on Amazon, and which have helped tens of thousands of people build their best body ever. Now, a caveat, my books and programs cannot give you a lean and toned Hollywood body in 30 days, and they are not full of dubious diet and exercise hacks and shortcuts for gaining lean muscle and melting belly fat faster than a sneeze in a cyclone.

But they will show you exactly how to eat and exercise to lose up to 35 pounds of fat or more if you need to lose more or want to lose more and gain eye catching amounts of muscle definition and strength. And even better, you will learn how to do those things without having to live in the gym, give up all of the foods or drinks that you love, or do long grueling workouts that you hate. And with my books and programs, you will do that.

You will transform your physique faster than you probably think is possible, or I will give you your money back. If you are unsatisfied with any of my books or programs, the results, anything for whatever reason just let me know and you will get a full refund on the spot. Now I do have several books and programs including Bigger Leaner Stronger, Thinner Leaner Stronger and Muscle for Life and to help you understand which one is right for you, it's pretty simple. If you are a guy aged 18 to let's say 40 to 45, Bigger Leaner Stronger is the book and program

for you. If you are a gal, same age range, Thinner Leaner Stronger is going to be for you. And if you are a guy or gal, 40 to maybe 45 plus muscle for life is for you. Jay Ludlow 86 asks, do you eat the same thing every day, seven days a week? Not seven days a week. No, but I do eat the same thing most days, certainly on weekdays when I'm busy and I don't really want to think about food. I don't want to dedicate any more time to food than I need to. And so what that looks like is if I want a calorie deficit, if I want to lose a little bit of fat, then around 730 or 8am, I will have a cappuccino. So that's about six ounces of whole milk. I'll eat an apple, I'll eat a hard boiled egg, that's kind of my breakfast.

And then around 12 to maybe 1230, I'll eat a big salad with chicken. And then around 330, I will have a piece of fruit. Maybe it's a banana, maybe it's some strawberries, maybe it's some mango, just depends on what we have. And also have one scoop of Legion's whey and I mix that with one scoop of Legion's Plant Plus. I just like how they taste together. I like the mouth feel. I specifically like the vanilla Plant Plus and I'll mix that with some flavor of whey plus that just mixes nicely with vanilla. So like cinnamon cereal or salted caramel, those are my two go-tos. And then for dinner around 6 or 6.30, I have my famous vegetable slop, which is just various vegetables and some sort of meat, lean ground beef, like 93.7 is what I've been using for a little bit now, some rice and just mix it all together, let it cook and add in some

seasoning. I will change the the seasoning profile every so often if I get sick of what I'm using. Currently I'm doing the Thanksgiving stuffing seasoning mix, some parsley, some oregano, some rosemary, some salt and pepper, and I throw in some sesame seeds as well. And then I'll have usually about 100 calories of dessert. So it might be a Yasso Greek yogurt bar, for example, or a few of the Yasso little poppable chocolate covered ice cream balls and that's about it. That would be my calorie deficit, my 2400, 2500 calorie day.

And if I'm not in a deficit, I basically do exactly that, but I also add in some oatmeal at night. And so these days I'm not in a deficit right now. So what I'm doing is it's basically overnight oats. So I put a couple of cups of dry, old fashioned oats in a little container. And then I put a couple of cups of almond milk just to bring the calories down a little. Whole milk tastes better, but 160, 170 calories per cup, whereas the almond milk, I think, is like 40 or 50 calories. And when I add in a piece of fruit, so I cut up a banana and put it in there.

And I also put in two scoops of protein, one scoop of whey, one scoop of plant, of course, patented mixture, and some vanilla extract, some salt. When I mix all that up, the almond milk tastes good enough. It tastes good enough. So that's basically my maintenance diet, which adds a couple hundred calories, about 300 calories or so to bring me up to around 2,800 to 3,000 calories per day.

Now that's how I eat basically every weekday, at least if I'm at home, from traveling I have to figure it out. But from here, that's how I eat basically every weekday, at least if I'm at home from traveling, I have to figure it out. But from here, that's how I'm eating. And then on the weekends, it's similar. It starts usually with a coffee, cappuccino again, and then around 11 or so I'll have two scoops of a high protein yogurt like Greek or skier.

And I'll mix a scoop of Bijon Whey into it. I'll cut up a banana, add that or maybe throw in some blueberries. And so that'll get me, it's usually around I think about 70 to 80 grams of protein with some carbs, a little bit of fat. And then several hours later, I'll have the big salad with some chicken like I have normally. And then that usually brings me to dinner, which may be the vegetable slop if we're staying here at home or whatever I end up eating. If I go to a restaurant and if I go to a restaurant, I typically will not eat probably more than a thousand calories or so. I'll enjoy myself, but not gorge myself. So I may order an appetizer, but it's not going to be the highest calorie appetizer on the menu. And I'm going to pick an entree that I just want to eat.

But again, it's probably not the highest calorie entree. It may not be a lean protein entree because by this point I've eaten 120-ish grams of protein for the day, which is totally fine for at least one day. I wouldn't eat just 120 grams of protein every day forever. That wouldn't be optimal, but doing it here and there doesn't matter. And for context, I weigh about 193 pounds. And so I'm not going to force myself to get a filet if I don't want a filet, but maybe I do want a filet

or maybe I do want the pork tenderloin, which also just happens to be lean or some sort of chicken dish. But if I don't, if I want some pasta or something else, I order what I want. Again, just being cognizant of the calories and trying not to push myself into the 2000 plus range for the meal. And so that weekend template applies to most Saturdays and partly to Sundays. Sundays, I will do the yogurt.

Sometimes my wife makes pancakes for our kids and so I'll eat a couple of pancakes as well. And we almost always eat at home on Sunday evenings. So it's back to the vegetable slop for dinner for sure. And that's it. That's basically how I'm eating these days. Luke M81 asks, if you lean forward slightly in front squats, is it too heavy? No, if that's happening, that's just form. You just need to address your form. And the key, usually when that's happening,

is keeping those elbows high, because when the set gets hard, our elbows tend to dip down a little bit. And when that happens, then it's very hard to maintain proper positioning and you are going to lean forward slightly and that is going to force you to end the set earlier than you would have, at least you would have been able to if you would have kept those elbows high.

And what can help is when the set gets hard, feel like you're keeping your elbows way higher than you need to feel like you are exaggerating it like you're trying to point your elbows at the ceiling. And ironically, by trying to do that, you are going to keep them level. That's what's going to happen. Martin HS Hwang asks, Mind pump says to reverse diet until you can cut comfortably. Thoughts on this? I think it's fine to reverse diet if you've been cutting for a while and you need a break. Although going straight to maintenance calories can work as well. So long as that significant increase in food doesn't cause you to significantly

increase your food even more. And in some people it tends to do that, although in my experience, that's not generally the case. Most people seem to do fine with stopping the deficit in going straight to maintenance. However, I would not recommend reverse dieting if you are overweight and you're ready to start cutting, but you aren't burning enough calories to comfortably cut. Now Sal, Adam, Justin, they know what they're doing. So I doubt they recommend this, but I have seen this recommended all over social media.

Again, you're overweight, you want to lose fat, you are learning about energy balance, you calculate your calories, it's a low number, it's concerning. And the solution sometimes offered is, oh, well, we should reverse diet first, we're going to work those calories up by five, six, 700 slowly over the course of the next X number of months. And then when you are stabilized at that higher level of intake, then we'll start the deficit. I would not recommend that because the most likely outcome is you are just going to get fatter. And if you don't get fatter, it is not going to be because of some metabolic magic that

reverse dieting can produce. It's going to be because you not only increased your calories, but you also increased your physical activity, which is what I would recommend in the first place. So if you're overweight and you calculate your calories, it's not looking very good, don't reverse diet. Just figure out how you can insert more physical activity into your regimen. That will then bring your calories up to a higher and more sustainable level for your cut. Matt Madezi asks, Hi Mike, how do you stay agile after 50?

I play touch rugby and lots of explosive moves. So training specificity is really going to help here. So what you want to do to get agile and to stay agile, to get fast, to stay fast, relative to age, of course, is you want to train to be agile and you want to train to be fast. So this is athletics. And you don't do that by lifting weights, especially

heavy weights that you move slowly. Now that isn't to say that weightlifting harms agility and speed. Of course, it does not. It's going to help it in many ways. But it doesn't directly affect agility and speed as much as many people think. What does is specifically training agility and speed. Mike Thomas 74 SG asks thoughts on the hack squat machine. It's a good machine. It's certainly a viable machine. I prefer hack squat machines that have you more upright rather than closer to parallel to the ground because what I don't like about the hack squat

machines that have you more just lying on your back again closer to parallel rather than closer to upright is it can be hard to keep your lower back to keep your hips down and on the pad especially when you get deeper into a set and it gets hard and if your butt and your lower back, if they come off the pad and start moving upward, especially when you're using heavier weights and pushing hard, you can hurt yourself. And if you don't hurt yourself, it still can be painful. It can just feel wrong. It can be uncomfortable. And so when I'm using that hack squat, I'm always fighting with that. Now I have found that putting my feet lower

on the platform helps, but I still have to consciously pay attention to that and make sure that I'm keeping my lower back and keeping my butt and my hips down and solidly on the backrest, on the pad. Miss Dani Ryan asks, opinions on healthcare in this country? Well, obviously it's very dysfunctional in many different ways,

but it's also responding to very perverse market incentives in many different ways. Like, for example, tens of millions of people who don't actually care about their health and instead want to live like gluttonous slobs until they get so fat and so sick that they need healthcare just to survive. And any doctor who cares at all about their patients,

which is most doctors by the way, they will tell you this. They will tell you about the innumerable amount of times that they've tried to get their patients to eat a little bit better, to exercise, to care a little bit about their body composition. And unfortunately, on average, most people don't want to hear those things. In fact, many of them get upset at their doctors

for even saying those things. In fact, many of them get upset at their doctors for even saying those things. What they want? Well, they want the pills, they want the injections, they want the surgeries, they don't want lifestyle advice. Nico Michaels, 360, asks, does appetite increase in winter or is it just decreased activity levels increasing body weight? Interestingly, research shows that cold weather, but not short-term exposure to cold weather, just cold climate, can influence hormones related to hunger and cause appetite to increase

and that exercising in cold weather can produce a smaller reduction in appetite than warmer weather. So if you notice that you just naturally tend to eat more food in winter, if you live in a place with a real winter, not like me in Florida, then it's not your imagination. It could be your hormones.

Not that you have to give in to your hormones, but it helps to understand the biology in play. Ratro D. Landy asks, ever going to offer a creatine supplement? Yes, I finally released a micronized creatine monohydrate supplement, something I should have done a long time ago. I've had a creatine,

a micronized creatine monohydrate supplement for a long time, or Legion has, my sports nutrition company, called Recharge. But I should have offered Recharge, which has the creatine plus a couple of other ingredients. I should have offered that for the additional benefits of the ingredients that are included with the creatine and just a plain old micronized creatine monohydrate supplement simply because many people want just the creatine powder because they are going to put it in their post-workout shakes, for example.

And so Legion now does sell micronized creatine monohydrate at a very competitive price, I may add. So you can find that over at LegionAthletics.com and I am also releasing in the next couple of weeks, probably will be out by the time this goes up. So I'm recording this on September 2nd, I'm releasing creatine gummies as well. And although that sounds kind of gimmicky, creatine gummies, many people prefer gummies over powders and pills for a few reasons. One, there's no dosing, there's no mixing with gummies, there's no liquid, so there's nothing to clean up afterward. You just chew them and move on with your day.

Gummies are portable, so they're great for on the go, they're great for traveling, and they are a deliciously different, and I'm going to have to roll my eyes as I say this next word. In fact, roll them so hard that my neck is going to snap off and tumble to the ground. Vibe. They're a deliciously different vibe. You know, creatine candies. So, yeah, creatine gummies. You should buy them. I think you'll like them. It's science. LegionAthletics.com. Rob929 asks, you mentioned a biceps injury last year. How's that feeling? Recommended treatment? Yeah, so I aggravated my brachialis from flat benching, which is just one of those things

that can happen. And it was annoying, but fortunately, it's easy to work around. Incline bench, for example, totally fine. A dumbbell benching, flat incline, totally fine. Various machines, totally fine. But flat benching flat incline totally fine. Various machines totally fine but flat benching was a no-no. So I just didn't flat bench for a bit and as for treatment it was mostly just a matter of not continually aggravating it but also some massage and stretching can help. KT tape also may be able to help particularly when you are dealing with biceps issues so that's

worth a try. The JBS family asks, should I be concerned with EMFs from AirPods slash phones? Well, I haven't reviewed this literature in detail, but I have read a bit and from what I have read, it looks like it's probably not great to have a phone to your head for like hours every day forever. That may increase the risk of certain types of cancers. Now as for AirPods that looks to be less of a concern probably don't have to worry about that. There are very few supplements that I would say everyone should be taking. Most supplements are very supplemental by definition. They're not essential. An exception, however, a supplement

that I do think everyone should at least strongly consider taking is creatine. Now you probably know that creatine is the most studied molecule in all of sports nutrition. You probably know that hundreds of studies confirm that it can safely boost muscle and strength gains and improve muscular endurance. It can reduce muscle damage and soreness from exercise, helping you recover faster from

your training. It can help you preserve lean mass and strength while you are restricting your calories during a cut. So you can maximally improve your body composition when you're cutting, which is the goal. It's not weight loss per se, it's fat loss and muscle gain or at least muscle retention. However, what you might not know is that there is new research suggesting that creatine also supports various aspects of brain health and cognition. And that's why experts are now starting to think of

creatine as less of a fitness supplement for meatheads and more of a must have supplement for everyone like vitamin D or vitamin K or omega-3 fatty acids, a few supplements that I also think everyone should strongly consider taking. And all that is why I just, and finally, I should have done this a long time ago. This was a mistake, but I just released

a micronized creatine monohydrate supplement or my sports nutrition company Legion has just released a micronized creatine monohydrate supplement, which you can find over at by Legion.com slash creatine. That's B, U, Y, Legion.com slash creatine. And in case you're wondering why creatine monohydrate versus another maybe more exotic form, or at least exotic sounding wondering why creatine monohydrate versus another maybe more exotic form, or at least exotic sounding form like creatine citrate or creatine malate, it's because creatine monohydrate is the most studied form. It is the gold standard in the scientific literature of creatine's effectiveness. And contrary to what many marketers would have you believe,

research has also shown that a number of these other more quote unquote exotic forms of creatine actually perform worse than creatine monohydrate. And in case you are wondering about the micronized part, that simply means that the creatine molecules have been broken down into very small particles, up to 20 times smaller than regular creatine monohydrate crystals. And the primary benefit is solubility.

It mixes in water better, and it also can be easier on your stomach. Some people can get an upset stomach from creatine, and they often don't get an upset stomach from micronized creatine. There also are some claims about enhanced absorption with micronized creatine. There also are some claims about enhanced absorption with micronized creatine, monohydrate, faster and more efficient uptake by muscle cells. But I think that is mostly speculation. So the bottom line is creatine is not going to help you

pack on brain shrinking amounts of muscle in 30 days. It's not going to add another plate or two to the bar, but it is going to help you train harder. It's going to add another plate or two to the bar. But it is going to help you train harder, it's going to help you recover better, it's going to help you gain muscle and strength faster. And contrary to the supplement fake news, it's not bad for your kidneys, it doesn't cause men to lose their hair and it won't make you bloat it. So if you want to see for yourself, head over to bylegion.com slash creatine, B-U-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N.com slash creatine, pick up a bottle, take five grams a day if you are mostly after the performance and body composition benefits and take 10 grams per

day if you want to also maximally benefit your brain health and cognition because that is the Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes and It also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit Which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you and If you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general or if you have 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, mite at muscleforlife.com, muscle for life.com and let me know what I can 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.