Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Training With Little Sleep, Workout Order, Pulling Grip Positions, and More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, if you haven't ordered a copy of my new fitness book for men and women, Muscle for Life yet, over at muscleforlifebook.com, you really got to get your mise en place together, which is French for I need this stuff, because your chance to claim a bunch of bonus gifts and get entered to win over $13,000 in primo prizes, real stuff that has real value, not PDFs that I say are worth a hundred dollars each. Well, all of that is about to disappear faster than a fart in a fan factory. So don't make me make you okay. Just go over to muscle for life book.com. Now muscle for life book.com. Now order a copy of the book and get entered into the giveaway, which includes a $1,000 bike from Bowflex, a private consultation with me,

Starting point is 00:00:53 signed books, access to exclusive live Q and A's with me, bonus chapters that were not included in the book, adjustable dumbbells, which are really nice. I actually would like them myself. Kitchen appliances, including an air fryer and cookware and a lot more. Just go over to muscleforlifebook.com now and check it out. Hello and welcome to Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today. If you haven't already, please do take a moment right now to subscribe to the show in whatever app you're listening to me in so you don't miss new episodes. And it helps me by boosting the ranking of the show in the various charts. And in this episode, I'm going to be answering questions succinctly. I'm going to get through 21 questions in this episode, and I'm going to do it in,

Starting point is 00:01:46 I'm going to try to do it in under 30 minutes. That's my goal. And these are questions that I have fielded from Instagram at muscle for life fitness. Come check me out every Monday or Tuesday. I put up a story with the little, ask me anything or ask me a question sticker. And I choose various questions to answer there on Instagram. And then I also come and answer them here on the podcast. So if you want to participate, if you want me to answer your questions, follow me over at Atmos for Life Fitness and look every Monday or Tuesday for the ask me a question story post. So in this episode, I'm going to be answering questions about what to do when you are not getting enough sleep,

Starting point is 00:02:29 particularly with your training, how the order of your workouts every week can affect your progress, whether you should use supersets to get through your workouts faster, the three best exercises you can do when you don't have access to a gym, why I use different hand positions, different grip positions with my pulling, and a lot more.

Starting point is 00:02:52 Okay, so this first question comes from Wardy DJ or Warded J, and he or she says that they just had a baby and they are only getting three hours of sleep a day. And the question is, should they deload for a few weeks? And my recommendation is to take naps instead of even going to the gym to do deload workouts. So prioritize getting more sleep and then see if you can do one or two full body workouts per week on days where you feel rested. That is going to be far more effective and enjoyable than trying to slog through three, four, five deload workouts per week. And if you're not sure how to set up full body workouts or a full body workout routine, head over to legionathletics.com, search for full body, two separate words, and you'll find several articles specifically on

Starting point is 00:03:46 full body training. So anyway, the key takeaway here is do not try to train hard when you are consistently not getting enough sleep. Instead, try to get more sleep and then try to get in just enough training to at least maintain your current level of fitness and then stay patient. And once you are consistently getting enough sleep and getting better sleep, you can get back to your more rigorous routine. Okay, the next question comes from Jake Elion, and he asks if amending the order of your split majorly affects progress. So generally, your first few workouts of the week, they tend to be your best workouts because soreness and fatigue that builds up as you continue to train then, of course, spills over into your subsequent training sessions. But your first workouts of the week are usually when you

Starting point is 00:04:39 are freshest. Most of us train during the week and don't do any sort of resistance training, at least on the weekends. So we catch up a little bit in recovery. Muscle soreness goes away. Any systemic fatigue that we might have accumulated also tends to go away. So a good tip for ordering your workouts every week is to train the muscle groups you most want to improve in your first couple of workouts. If you're training five days per week, for example, you are probably going to have more to give to your first two or three workouts than your last two or three workouts. And that's not to say that the last couple workouts of the week are unproductive or that you should go in with the mentality of just walking through them. No. So long as you are following a well-designed workout program, five workouts per week is going

Starting point is 00:05:32 to be more effective than three, for example. But again, those first couple of workouts are when you are just going to be able to perform at your best. So if you want to see progress most in, perform at your best. So if you want to see progress most in, let's say, your push muscles, then it would make sense to do a push workout first thing in the week. Make that your first workout. And if it's your pull muscles, then pull on day one. If it's your lower body, then do a lower body session on day one. And if everything is your priority, if you just want everything to be more developed, then you could decide based on which workouts you like to do the most and whether you like to start your week with your favorite workouts or end your week with your favorite workouts. Most people fall into one of

Starting point is 00:06:19 those camps. There is the occasional person who likes to do their favorite workouts in the middle of the week, but I've found that most people either like to start their week with their favorite workout because they're coming off of a couple day break and they like the jolt of motivation to get back in the gym. And other people, though, they like to end their weeks with their favorite workout because it's something to look forward to and it puts them in a good mood as they go into the weekend. The next question comes from Jordy Canedo and he or she asks if I own NFTs and what my take is on them. And I don't own any NFTs. It's just a bit too iffy for me. It does seem like a pretty good way to launder ill-gotten crypto though. So if I ever start plumping for NFTs, chances are I have found a very illegal way to make very large amounts of money. The next question comes from James Jordan Real Estate, and he asks if I drink alcohol or smoke weed. No, I do not. I have had a couple of drinks in my life, like a couple of shots I can remember.

Starting point is 00:07:27 One shot at a wedding. Well, I remember that one. I do think I've had more than one shot of alcohol, but that's the only one that's coming to mind. And I've never finished a beer because I have never liked the taste of beer. And I never got into drinking when I was younger, basically. And as I got older, I figured it's not a habit worth taking up. And I've never tried weed. I've never tried any drug, actually. I was just never interested in drugs. And that's not going to change at this point. I have too good of a streak going to even want to consider breaking it. The next question comes from Akarazo12. And here she asks if I spend much time on mobility outside of weight training, and I do a little bit of stretching every I, or yoga poses, I guess you would say, that I do every day. It takes no more than 10 minutes, probably seven or eight minutes,

Starting point is 00:08:31 and it has been helpful. And I explain why in that article, I talk about the issues I was running into before I started doing it and how it has helped resolve those issues. Moving on to a question from Anonymous. I guess I didn't catch the username here, but the question is how to get huge thick boy veins because, assuming this is a guy, his veins look like angel hair pasta. Well, fortunately, vascularity is pretty simple. The first step is get big muscles. The second step is get lean. The third step is question marks. And the fourth step is of course, profit. Next is a question from Anna Is with three S's. What's my favorite pulse flavor? And these days it's sour candy, but strawberry kiwi is also super good. Oh, and in case you don't know what Pulse is, it is my pre-workout supplement. You

Starting point is 00:09:25 can check it out at buylegion.com, B-U-I-L-E-G-I-O-N.com slash Pulse. All right, next we have a question from Clara or Clara Guadard. Sorry if I'm not getting your last name right, but she asks, is it effective to alternate push-pull exercises and supersets to save recovery and total workout time. And supersetting is most effective. It does work best when you pair opposite muscle groups, like a push muscle. Maybe that could be a chest exercise and a pull muscle, like a biceps exercise or a back exercise. But it also works best when you're not pairing two difficult, two compound exercises, like let's say a bench press and a barbell row, but a bench press and a seated cable row, that is probably fine. You're going to have to see for yourself though, because some people find that even pairing those two exercises together

Starting point is 00:10:20 will impair performance on both. And ideally when you are supersetting, you are pairing two muscle groups in a way that allows you to perform more or less the same on both of those exercises, perform more or less as well as when you are not supersetting. And if you want to learn more about all of that and how to do that correctly, go over to legionathletics.com, search for superset, and check out the article that I wrote on it. Next, we have a question from Mullen Tech and they ask how I de-stress after a rough day besides working out. And for me, being by myself and having quiet time helps. So I will sit outside, I will read, I will listen to classical music. That also helps, particularly

Starting point is 00:11:07 Beethoven for some reason. I also like to write to Beethoven and I've tried writing to many different types of music. I've ruled out all lyrical music because it's too distracting. Even if I've heard it a thousand times before, it's still too distracting, but I've found a lot of non-lyrical music can be distracting as well, especially if it's new. If it's non-lyrical and I've heard it a lot, then that can be at least neutral. But for whatever reason, I find that Beethoven helps me get into a state of flow faster. And I'm not going to say I've been overly scientific about it, but I have tried many different types of music and paid attention to how they have affected my work quality and my focus quality. And there's something about Beethoven for me. I don't like most conversation, especially conversation that requires thinking and emotional investment. If it's just light talk, if it's just chit chat, then it doesn't

Starting point is 00:12:14 help me relax, but it doesn't hurt either. I don't like noise. I have two kids. It's nice when they're asleep and there is no more noise. Again, if I'm trying to relax, I mostly just want to be left alone. Next, we have Patrick Labon who asks, the last video game that I've played slash enjoyed? And I haven't played a video game in years. I think the last was probably this shooting game called Overwatch, which I liked for a few days, and then I lost interest in it. And before that, I have to go back several years to League of Legends back when that first came out or early-ish when it came out, probably within the first year

Starting point is 00:12:59 or two. How old was I then? This might've been 10 years ago. And that was fun. I had a couple of friends to play with. I didn't put too much time into it, maybe a handful of hours per week, but it was fun. Next we have Mark and Co and he asks what the three best movements are if you are traveling and you don't have access to a gym or any equipment. And the first would be a pistol squat. And you can do that assisted if you haven't nailed the balance. It is a bit tricky. The second would be a banded feet elevated pushup. Okay, that does require, I guess you could say, the band is equipment, but it's easy to get. You can just throw it in your luggage. And the third would be a bodyweight row if you can find a table to hang from. And if you can't, you can take your band

Starting point is 00:13:45 and you can do a banded horizontal pull if you can find something stable to throw the band around. Tommy Sedal asks, why do I change between different types of pull-ups in my workouts? And the reason I change my hands, my grip position in my pulls, it's not actually just with pull-ups. It's with all vertical and horizontal pulls. Sometimes I'm wide with my palms facing away. Sometimes I'm wide with my palms facing. Sometimes I am at a medium width, about a shoulder width, palms away. Sometimes palm facing. Sometimes my hands are closer together and facing each other, palms facing each other. And the reason I do that, the reason I'm using different grips at different times is those

Starting point is 00:14:29 different setups, they train your muscles in slightly different ways. So generally speaking, it's a good idea to do wide and narrow grip pulling for your horizontal and your vertical pulls and sometimes having your palms away from you, sometimes your palms toward you, sometimes your palms toward each other. Now, you can't do all of that in one workout, of course, and you don't have to try to do all of that every week or even every two weeks. What I like to do is focus on a handful of different setups each training block, and my training blocks are four months long because I'm following my Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program, which you can learn about in my book, Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. And so what that means is with each of my pulling exercises, I'm not repeating the same

Starting point is 00:15:16 setup. So if I'm doing two different horizontal pulls, then one might be a wider grip, palms facing away, and the other might be a more narrow grip, palms facing each other. And the same thing with my horizontal pulls. And then in my next training block, I will switch it all up again. Now, as of recently, I have been avoiding palms away, period, because for some reason, it aggravates my left forearm. I can pull all day long with my palms facing each other or facing me, no problems. But right now, if I even do pull-ups with my palms facing away, my left forearm gets a little bit aggravated. And if I ignore it and just keep

Starting point is 00:16:00 going, it gets more aggravated. So I'm working around that right now. And eventually it will go away and I'll go back to my normal routine. That's how these repetitive stress injuries usually work themselves out. Usually they come without warning and then you just have to avoid whatever pisses them off and they go away eventually. CRFAS asks what their RPE should be before they move up in weight, and they are referring to rate of perceived exertion, how hard the set is. And RPE actually comes from endurance exercise, but the concept applies to weightlifting as well. And the method I like to use is reps in reserve, RIR, or just good reps left. How many good reps do you have left toward the end of a set when it's getting hard? And so to answer the question directly with compound exercises,

Starting point is 00:16:53 I like to have one or two good reps left in my final set in the progression scheme. So for example, if I were following my bigger, leaner, stronger program and I were squatting and the goal was to do one set of six reps and then add weight to the bar and work with that new weight until I could do one set of six reps, I would want to have at least one or two good reps left in that set of six. If the sixth rep were a grinder, if that was a zero good reps left, if I felt like I had nothing left, if I felt like on my next rep, I would fail, I would have to just sit the weight down, then I would keep working with that weight until I could do six with at least one or two good reps left. And the same would go for a progression setup that required two,

Starting point is 00:17:45 three, or even four sets of let's say six or any number of reps. On each of those sets, I would want to make sure that I have at least one or two good reps left. And the reason for that is pretty simple. If you have to push right up to the point of failure to hit your rep target, what you are probably going to find is you then add weight to the bar and then you can't get your minimum number of acceptable reps. So let's go back to BLS, a set of six. The sixth rep is everything you've got. If you were to go for one more, you would fail, but you get your six. So you add weight to the bar and then you get three, for example, instead of four, because you're supposed to be working in the rep range of four to six on most exercises in BLS.

Starting point is 00:18:29 Or what you'll find is, okay, you get your four, but it required everything. That was a four with zero good reps left. And then you try to do another set with that same amount of weight, and that becomes a three. And so anyway, ultimately, this results in slower progress and also a higher risk of injury with the big compound exercises. In particular, if you train too close to failure too often, the chances of getting hurt, even if it's just a repetitive stress injury, like I mentioned with my left forearm, it goes up. Now, as for isolation slash secondary exercises, the same logic applies, but I'm willing to get a little bit closer to failure. I'm willing to go to zero or one good reps left because it doesn't place as much strain on the body and it doesn't interfere with progress. We're talking about biceps curls and shoulder raises and machine rows and so on. The Aquila's Ganga asks if pre and post workout

Starting point is 00:19:33 eating is necessary for cardio. And it's not necessary unless you're going to be doing longer, like 60 plus minute cardio workouts. And if that is the case, then what I would do is I would eat some protein and carbs before as if it were a weightlifting workout. If I hadn't eaten in the couple hours preceding the workout, and then I would have some protein after. Next question comes from Jake Jaderston, and he asks what my favorite soup is. Well, I don't eat much soup, but if I wanted to indulge, a really good French onion soup would probably be my go-to for daily eating. I really like tomato soup and I like split pea soup. And if you like either of those and you shop at Whole Foods, try their tomato and split pea soup. I forget what they call it, their Whole Foods

Starting point is 00:20:25 market soups or whatever, the stuff that they make there in the store. Here where I live, both of them are pretty damn good actually. Now, as for daily eating, if I were to have soup every day, I would do something with a lot of vegetables. And that's a great tip, by the way, for just getting in a lot of vegetables and for getting full on not many calories, vegetable laden soups. And if you want some recipes, go over to legionathletics.com and search for soup. Raud Auli asks, what keeps me disciplined to keep prioritizing my physical health? Well, there are the obvious reasons related to just general health, well-being.

Starting point is 00:21:06 There's vanity, of course, wanting to look a certain way. But just as motivating to me, if not more so, is refusing to submit to the clown world propaganda that says we can be healthy and happy at any size, and that degenerate living is empowering and that any advantages that we enjoy, those are purely from privilege. Basically, when my enemies look at me, I want them to see five middle fingers on a big white hand. Joe D. Wessels. Joe asks if I have any good baked oatmeal recipes. Absaflagan Lutely. I used to do baked oatmeal every night for probably, I don't know, six, seven, eight months straight. I tried all kinds of recipes. It was very good. It was just

Starting point is 00:21:52 a lot of calories. And now I don't eat as... I eat oatmeal every day, but I just don't eat as much. Like at that time, I was taking, if I remember correctly, two cups dry and then adding a bunch of stuff to it and then baking it. Very good though. And you can actually find recipes over at legionathletics.com if you search for oatmeal. Invictus1980 asks if I have any insight as to why sumo deadlifts anger their lower back versus conventional. And it's probably just anatomy. Sumo deadlifts are more comfortable for some people and some people find they are stronger in the sumo position. They can just perform better, and it feels better than with

Starting point is 00:22:30 the conventional. And if you are one of those people, it's totally fine to stick with the sumo deadlift and never conventionally deadlift again. Me, though, I find them awkward, and they are not more comfortable. The conventional deadlift is more comfortable to me and I perform better with it. So I don't bother with the sumo. I alternate between the conventional and the trap bar instead. And then there are people who can do the sumo deadlift and feel fine, perform well. Conventional deadlift, feel fine, perform well. And for those people, they can switch then between those two if they would like to, or they can switch between all three. They could go sumo, conventional, trap bar, and repeat. It is up to them. All right, moving on to Daniel.Mufti1's question. By the time it's 5 p.m. and gym time on bad work days, I want chocolate in my blanket. What should I do? Well, why don't

Starting point is 00:23:22 you bring them both to the gym, dude? That's actually a good way to be left alone and to get immediate access to all of the equipment that you might want. Cut all of the lines. Okay, moving on to Guadon Mall. They ask, how to deal with rejection? Well, for me, my default has always been to reflect on why I was rejected and what I could have done better so I can avoid similar outcomes in the future, look for the lessons. And usually, the honest answer for me is I either deserved to lose, I could find a good reason why I was rejected, or I just got unlucky, which happens to everyone. It's part of the game.

Starting point is 00:24:08 It makes the game interesting, right? And with people in particular, keep in mind that some research has shown that up to 20% of people that you meet just in general in day-to-day life are not going to like you and they won't even know why. They just won't like you. So I try to keep that in mind and not take interpersonal rejections too personally, especially if I can't figure out why somebody didn't want to have anything to do with me. And I'm okay with just accepting that they don't like me for whatever reason. And I understand,

Starting point is 00:24:43 I am kind of an acquired taste. I'm okay with that. Okay, the last question of this episode comes from Rasa22. And they ask if specific muscles stop growing when they hit a certain size. Yes, there are genetic limits to muscle building in both total muscle and individual muscle groups. We all have a limit to how much total muscle we can gain, and we all have limits to how big we can grow specific muscle groups. And the latter, the specific muscle groups, that can be very variable. Some people can gain above average

Starting point is 00:25:20 amounts of muscle in certain muscle groups and below average amounts in others. And then other people, it can be the exact opposite. So for example, in my case, I was able to gain above average amounts of muscle in my pecs and probably my biceps, but below average amounts, far below in, let's say my calves, below average in my lats, and I'm around average in my quads and triceps. And if you want to get some insight into your genetic limits, both for total muscle gain and get some evidence-based estimates of how big you can grow each individual major muscle group, go over to leachandathletics.com. And on the menu, you will see learn and then go to tools

Starting point is 00:26:06 in the dropdown menu and go to the muscle gain potential calculator. 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 ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com,

Starting point is 00:26:46 muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Training With Little Sleep, Workout Order, Pulling Grip Positions, and More

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