Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - The Best of Muscle For Life: Time-Efficient Training, Best Workout Split, & Stockdale Paradox

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to the latest and greatest episode of Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews and thank you for joining me today. Now, I have recorded hundreds of episodes of Muscle for Life and I've talked about a huge variety of things related to health, fitness, lifestyle, mindset, ranging from the basics of diet and exercise like energy and macronutrient balance and progressive overload and training frequency and volume to fads like the ketogenic and carnivore diet and collagen protein to more unfamiliar territories like body weight set point and fasted cardio. And some episodes resonate with my crowd more than others, but all of them contain at least a few key takeaways that just about anyone can benefit from. At least that's what I tell myself. That's what helps me sit down in the

Starting point is 00:01:01 chair every day and do this. And as cool as that is, it poses a problem for you, my dear listener, especially if you are new here. And that is, ain't nobody got time for that. We're talking about probably a thousand plus hours of content at this point. And while some people actually do make the time to listen to most or even all of my podcasts. My whizbang analytics tell me that while many listeners tune in on a regular basis, they don't catch every installment of Muscle for Life, and thus they miss out on insights that could help them get even just a little bit better inside and outside the gym.

Starting point is 00:01:43 Because if you just get a little bit better inside and outside the gym. Because if you just get a little bit better consistently enough, that can add up to big results in the long run. And people have also been telling me that they would like me to do more shorter multi-topic episodes like my Q&As and Says You episodes. And so I got an idea. How about a best of series of podcasts that contains a few of the most practical and compelling ideas, tips and moments from my most popular episodes going all the way back to the beginning. This way, people who are new in particular can quickly determine if this is the droid they're looking for, if this podcast is for them or not. And then those who are regulars and enjoy what I'm doing, but just don't have the time or inclination to listen to all of my stuff. And I do understand that. I don't take it personally. You can also then benefit from the discussions and the episodes that you are not listening to in full. And you can also find new

Starting point is 00:02:46 episodes to listen to without having to give an hour of your time to determine whether it was worth it or not. So here we are with the best of Muscle for Life. So in this installment of the best of Muscle for Life, you will be hearing handpicked morsels from three episodes. One is an interview I did with Brad Schoenfeld on the science of time efficient training. I really liked that interview. I found it very practical, got a lot of good feedback on it. The next is a monologue I recorded on the best workout split for gaining muscle best is in scare quotes. And I explained why in the episode. And finally, another motivational monologue,

Starting point is 00:03:25 or at least I hope it's motivational, at least a little bit, maybe a little bit inspirational, called How the Stockdale Paradox Can Change Your Life. And we will be starting with the highlight reel from my interview with Brad Schoenfeld on the science of time-efficient training. But first, how many calories should you eat to reach your fitness goals faster? What about your macros? What types of food should you eat? And how many meals should you eat every day? Well, I created a free 60 second diet quiz that will answer those questions for you and others, including how much alcohol you should drink, whether you should eat more fatty fish to get enough omega-3 fatty acids, what supplements

Starting point is 00:04:11 are worth taking and why, and more. To take the quiz and get your free personalized diet plan, go to muscleforlife.show slash diet quiz, muscleforlife.show slash diet quiz muscle for life dot show slash diet quiz now answer the questions and learn what you need to do in the kitchen to lose fat build muscle and get healthy the majority of people can optimize most of their genetic potential or much of it at least through fairly limited brief workouts and certainly maintaining gains requires much less training. So you can have a much more efficient training strategy if your goal is just maintenance. Now, if you want to be a bodybuilder and are looking to maximize your genetic potential, that certainly will require more, first of all, more time and also more manipulation but yeah it's uh i think something

Starting point is 00:05:05 that really is somewhat uh underappreciated that uh you can really make uh huge huge strides with fairly limited uh with a fairly limited time commitment i mean training several hours a week you know let's say two three hours a week uh three days a week two three days a week to three days a week, even two days a week, you can see a majority gains, but certainly like three days a week, half hour to 45 minute sessions. So again, these are just generalities and it's specific to the individual, but certainly I think one of the things that's even more well-established is that once you've gotten gains, well-established is that once you've gotten gains, that maintaining the gains can be achieved with substantially reduced volumes and time commitment. And that seems to be pretty much across the board. One of the most important take-homes here is that everyone has the ability

Starting point is 00:06:03 to substantially improve their physique. And we're not even talking about health markers and other factors that go along with it. There's just so many benefits to resistance training. But purely from a muscular standpoint, we're talking muscle development, so hypertrophy, if you will, muscle growth, and strength. Really, it's with very, again, somewhat of a relative term, but I would say very little time commitment. You can make very nice gains. There was one study that had subjects train and then put them on a routine

Starting point is 00:06:37 that was one ninth of the volume that they did to gain the muscle. And they largely maintained what they had. Now, these were young subjects. So interestingly, it does seem there is somewhat of an age factor here that as people get older, they need somewhat of a larger dose to maintain. But the dose at that point would be like, I think a third, cutting it down to one third of what they were doing was enough to maintain a majority in older people. But in younger people, one ninth. I'd also say this, this is another, I think, important factor, not that you'd ever want to completely take off. And this is somewhat of a side topic. But if you do, when you become well trained, your muscle has, quote unquote, a muscle memory memory whereby getting back the muscle comes very

Starting point is 00:07:27 quickly even if you stop completely from doing it for you know fairly long period of time for for months what are some kind of rules of thumb or just general guidelines that you would give people for putting together a program that allows them to get the best results within these time constraints? So, I mean, some generalities. It's more efficient to use multi-joint exercises compared to single joint because you're working more muscle. So if you're going to do a lot of single joint exercises, if you're going to do lateral raises and rear delt raises and pec flies and leg extensions. You're just going to have to do more, a variety of more exercises to work all the major muscles completely. Whereas if you're doing a squat for your legs, I mean, the squat works basically the entire lower body. And

Starting point is 00:08:20 certainly it works the quads and the glutes highly effectively, but you also get ancillary work in the hamstrings. A row is going to work multiple muscles or even it will work your sternal pecs. Not only does it work the back musculature, the lats and the rhomboids, trapezius, but also it's going to work your, your sternal pecs. It's going to work your biceps, break your radialis. So anyway, if you're looking to optimize time, focusing on these multi-joint, large muscle multi-joint exercises just makes sense. I personally think also using a total body routine would be more effective in these types of lower volume workouts, just because it allows you to hit your muscle more frequently over the course of the week with lower volume. And this is somewhat debatable through research too. So

Starting point is 00:09:10 I will say that it's an equivocal, this is more personal opinion, just based on the anecdote that I've experienced. But I do think that total body routines here can be more of an effective measure. that total body routines here can be more of an effective measure. I mean, generally, from some of the limited research we have, is that the benefit to split routines are that they allow you to utilize higher volumes with allowing for greater rest in between your workouts. Whereas if that's not the issue, then it just, at least to me, makes more sense to use more of a total body approach to training. I would say generally, you know, one or two sets per exercise would be sufficient.

Starting point is 00:09:54 Using strategies like supersets, especially like agonist antagonist supersets can be very effective in this regard as well. Supersets can be very effective in this regard as well. And even drop sets can allow you to get in a little more volume within the context of a shorter workout. In terms of maybe working sets or hard sets per major muscle group, at least the big ones throughout the week, should there be kind of a minimum number people should be shooting for? Yeah, probably three to four sets per week per muscle group. There's some good evidence that that's sufficient. I would say if you're below, if you're only getting like one set per muscle per week, it's probably not going to, yeah, you'll still get some gains. You know, certainly it's not doing something is better than nothing. And especially

Starting point is 00:10:46 at the, I'm talking newbie stages, you can make some gains. The vast majority of the population doesn't lift. And many of them cite, I don't have time as a reason why they won't lift. And by the way, these types of workouts can be accomplished with fairly minimal equipment in the home even. So, I mean, you can certainly I was homebound from COVID and it wasn't a great bodybuilding routine, but I was able to get good workouts where I may certainly think I maintain the vast majority of my muscle. uh and collaborations that i've done have demonstrated on numerous occasions that even resistance trained subjects can make gains in their biceps and triceps without doing quote unquote direct biceps work i see it all the time really every one of my studies where i have not done direct biceps and triceps work we've pushed the subjects hard and they have gotten uh gains and they're these are trained subjects. Now, they're not

Starting point is 00:11:45 advanced bodybuilders. I would certainly guess if they were, you're talking like a competitive bodybuilder, probably they would not have seen these gains or certainly to the extent that they did. But when you're asking to quantify, we actually wrote a paper on this about calculating set volume that I collaborated on with some of my colleagues. And it's hard to pin that down as a general type of rule. I would say, let's say for the biceps and triceps, perhaps counting it as a half a set. So let's say if you would want to, for every one set that you're doing, you'd need two sets to get gains, or you can, for every one set that you're doing, you'd need two sets to get gains, or you can, let's say,

Starting point is 00:12:33 if you're doing two sets of a back exercise, if you added in one set of biceps exercise, you probably would be at least getting sufficient, you know, volume for your biceps. What type of movements would you want people to think with? biceps. What type of movements would you want people to think with? Generally, one lower body hip hinge exercise that it's triple extension that involves the ankle, so like a squat, a triple extension, meaning that the ankle joint, knee joint, and the hip joint would all be involved in extension on the concentric action. That would be exercises like a leg press, a squat, a lunge would all fit into that category. And they would work pretty much the lower body. A chest exercise, so a push for the pecs, so that would be a horizontal press. A overhead press, some type of overhead press for the shoulders that would really target not only...

Starting point is 00:13:27 for the shoulders that would really target not only i can get into a little more context of this momentarily but uh you'll get at least some of the middle and uh posterior deltoids to a greater extent and a uh a pulling exercise that would be like a row or a chin uh where you're getting they obviously are somewhat different and if you're a bodybuilder that can be the difference between winning and losing a comp but your back muscles will get worked overall so this is again you'd have to give more context as to who you're talking about training now with the shoulder so then you have to start saying well what about the lateral delts the the middle delts uh they don't really get like in an overhead press. It's mostly a front delt exercise. So would it benefit if you really want to work

Starting point is 00:14:11 your middle delts? Yeah. Again, for a lot of the population, I don't think it's an issue really, like what they're going to get out of that. But if it is, I mean, aesthetically, that's where an individual has to make their own decisions about what else do they need to do. The calves. So a squat will work the calves, quote unquote, but are you going to get optimal calf development from it? Absolutely not, or not even optimal. That's a muscle again, like the hamstrings that just doesn't get a high degree of stimulation. So you'll get some calf development, but I would say both the hamstrings doing something like a stiff leg of deadlift would be beneficial there, which is a

Starting point is 00:14:51 technically a single joint exercise or hamstring curl if you want, and a calf raise. So perhaps just one set of each of those to really, if you want to talk about rounding it out, and that's where the nuances come in. So if you just want to get quick workouts, do four exercises, you're getting out of the gym in 20 minutes or less, one or two sets of each of those. But to get a more well-rounded workout, adding, let's say, a set of hamstring exercises,

Starting point is 00:15:18 set of calf raises, and perhaps a set of lateral raises would also be beneficial. You can get a majority of strength gains using six plus reps. So yeah, will you get better strength gains at least for the given exercise that you're doing with a lower rep range? Yeah. So doing singles or doubles or triples are going to get you overall better strength gains than doing, let's say, eight or 10 reps for the given exercise. So what I mean by that is if you're doing, let's say, squats, and you're squatting with one to three reps, you're going to get better strength gains than

Starting point is 00:15:54 if you're squatting with eight to 10 reps, eight to 12 reps. But how that strength transfers to functional tasks is much less established, certainly through research. And even if you might get some more strength, I'm not sure the practical relevance of it. So let's even say, all right, and there will be some practical transfer to strength. How does, for the average person who's lifting packages up, they're looking more at endurance-based strength. They're not looking at maximizing strength. So I would just say for the vast majority of people, again, 95 plus percent of the population using a rep range of let's say six to 15 reps is going to be more than sufficient for the transfer of strength gains to their lifestyle. And it's just more efficient from a volume load standpoint. I'd also say this,

Starting point is 00:16:51 which is another relevant point to that. If you're training, let's say with six or even eight, I can even bump that up to eight to 15 reps. You really don't need to do a warmup sets. Whether you need to do a general warmup depends upon if you're coming in for from freezing temperatures, et cetera. But I don't think for resistance training, that's really not been established. We actually did a study, I collaborated on a study, again, with colleagues in Brazil, where we looked at performance on moderate repetition exercise. So it was 8 to 12 reps, as I recall, and adding in a general warmup or and or a specific warmup did not enhance the performance on those sets. And I don't think, again, it's tough to look at injuries to try to study that, but I've

Starting point is 00:17:37 seen no evidence that when you're training with moderate to higher reps, that injury will be significantly moderated by the use of warm-up. Now, if you're doing singles, if you're squatting with 1RM, 2RM, 3RM, I think it's really important for warm-up sets to prime that activity. But again, from a time-efficient standpoint, you just don't, you can ditch the warm-up. And by don't, you can ditch the warmup. And by the way, you can ditch the warmup. You also certainly don't need to do stretching, assuming flexibility is in a goal. What are your thoughts about rest time in between sets with these types of workouts? Yeah. So they can be relatively short. Now, shorter rest does to some extent compromise

Starting point is 00:18:22 gains. But again, if you're doing fewer sets per exercise and then going to a different movement, it's not going to be as big an issue. Really, the issues tend to be when you're doing multiple sets for the same exercise and then keeping a very short rest. Let's say you're doing 30 seconds or one minute rest and you're doing five sets of chest presses. That's going to substantially reduce the amount of reps that you're doing five sets of chest presses, that's going to substantially reduce the amount of reps that you're able to get at a given load. However,

Starting point is 00:18:51 if you're moving, let's say from a squat to a bench press to a back exercise, there's some systemic fatigue that does happen, but it's not going to reduce that volume load nearly as much. Another important thing that I would point out too, is that you could split up, let's say you have a home gym, you could do like a short workout in the morning and it doesn't, nothing says you have to do it all in one session. You can come back and do, let's say a double split where you do a 10 or 15 minute workout in the morning and a 10 or 15-minute workout in the evening. By the way, one last point that I forgot to mention, that this is all predicated on training fairly close to failure. And I think it becomes a little more important, too, as you're reducing volume, that you should be within at least within one or

Starting point is 00:19:40 two reps of failure, if not hitting failure, at least on some of the sets, especially as you get more advanced. So that's something to keep in mind, that that doesn't mean that you still need to train hard. And if not, you maybe even have to train a little bit harder. Hey there, if you are hearing this, you are still listening, which is awesome. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:20:02 And if you are enjoying this podcast, or if you just like my podcast in general, and you are getting at least something out of it, would you mind sharing it with a friend or a loved one or a not so loved one even who might want to learn something new? Word of mouth helps really bigly in growing the show. So if you think of someone who might like this episode or another one, please do tell them about it. Okay, that's it for the chosen snippets from the interview with Brad on the science of time efficient training. And if you want to listen to the whole episode, it was originally published in September of 2021. So you can go back and find it and check it out. And now we'll be moving on to

Starting point is 00:20:46 the featured moments from the best workout split for gaining muscle. What is a workout split? Well, this just refers to how you organize your workouts in terms of which exercises you do and which muscle groups you train in each workout, in each training session. My problem with the position that there is a best workout split for everyone, one true workout split is our muscles don't care what workout split we are following. Our biceps don't care if they get trained in an arms day, a pole day, an upper body day, a full body day with an upper body focus. Our muscles will grow when we do the right amount of the right exercises with the right amount of weight and with enough post-workout rest and recovery.

Starting point is 00:21:40 Our workout split is just a tool that helps us accomplish those ends. And those are the key goals, the right exercises, the ones that stimulate the muscles correctly, that train the muscles correctly through a full range of motion, the right amount of volume. So doing the right amount of work with those exercises, the right amount of weight. So that's intensity. How hard do our muscles have to work in each rep and each set and particularly in each set? So how close to muscular failure are we

Starting point is 00:22:13 going and how much weight are we using in relation to how strong we are and also giving our muscles enough rest, making sure that we are not pushing, not to the point of overtraining because that's very hard to do, but overreaching, again, where our performance is stagnating or declining because we are not recovering enough. So let's talk about goals, right? So let's say your goal is to maximize the development of your upper body muscles. Let's say you're a guy and you are happy with your lower body, but you are not happy with your upper body muscles. Let's say you're a guy and you are happy with your lower body, but you are not happy with your upper body. And particularly, you are not happy with your chest and your biceps and your shoulders. And you want to focus on those muscle groups. Those are

Starting point is 00:22:58 the ones that you want to develop the most without, of course, falling behind in your lower body. Maybe you want to continue developing your lower body and you also do want to continue developing the rest of the major muscle groups in your body, but you are willing to sacrifice progress in those areas to maximize progress in your chest, biceps, and shoulders. Well, if that's the case then the best workout split for you is going to look very different than if you are let's say a woman who wants to maximize the development of her lower body you are looking for more muscle and more definition in your legs and your glutes and you are pretty happy with your upper body or you are at least willing to put your upper body muscles on the back burner so you can dedicate more of your time and your effort to your lower body. Now, if you're wondering

Starting point is 00:23:50 why you can't have it all, why can't you just maximize the development of all the muscle groups in your body, maybe with like a full body workout split, for example? Well, there are some constraints. Take time. Do you have two to three hours per day, five days per week, maybe even six days per week to be in the gym? Can you do two a days? Because if you are an intermediate or an advanced weightlifter, that's what it would take to maximize training stimulus for all major muscle groups, because you're going to have to do probably 15 to 20 hard sets per major muscle group per week. Let's say you have the time and you have the inclination to spend your time like that. There is the effort. Are you willing to put in that much effort? Because that is hard.

Starting point is 00:24:40 And I've done it before in the past when I was younger and invincible, the old three hours of training per day. Some people don't want to work that hard, but let's say you do. You're like, yep, I will work that hard. Okay, now we have recovery. on one or two, maybe three muscle groups in a training block. And three would be smaller muscle groups like, okay, our shoulders, our biceps and our chest. That's a good example. You can probably get away with that, but you could not get away with, all right, I want to focus on my chest and my back and my legs. You're probably going to have to focus on just your legs, for example, and get in the 15 to 20 hard sets per week on your legs or your lower body. We could throw in the glutes as well. We could throw in calves if you want to train those directly. And then you are going to have to probably use a more of a maintenance level volume on the rest of your muscle groups, something around 10 to 12

Starting point is 00:25:46 hard sets per week, which is generally not enough to progress if you are an intermediate or an advanced weightlifter, but it's certainly enough to maintain everything you have. So then maybe in your next training block, you want to focus maybe on your pressing muscles. And so this is the mindset that you have to adopt as you become an intermediate and an advanced weightlifter. When you were a newbie, you could maximize the development of everything because it didn't require as much volume. So anyway, coming back to workout splits, just know that you don't have to follow one particular split, but you do have to follow a few non-negotiable training tenets. You have to

Starting point is 00:26:27 implement progressive overload in your program. You have to use the right amount of volume and intensity. You have to include the right amount of rest and recovery in your program. You have to do a lot of the right types of exercises. You're going to have to do a lot of compound exercises. You're going to have to do ones that are safe and effective. And isolation exercises are great as well. And some are better than others. And many workout splits can do the trick, but some do make all of that easier than others for some people. So for example, body part splits often make it difficult to train a muscle group more than once per week, which is a good idea if you're trying to maximize the growth of that muscle group, particularly if you are an intermediate or an advanced weightlifter who has to do 15 to 20 hard sets per week for that muscle group to maximize its development. It would be a mistake to do all of those sets in one session because research shows that beyond about 10 sets for an individual muscle group in an individual session, you are now in the realm of diminishing returns that the next five sets. So let's say you go from 10 to 15, those

Starting point is 00:27:39 additional five sets are going to be less effective as a training stimulus than ending that workout at 10 or doing something else, stopping at 10 and then doing those additional five on another day. Now, many full body workout splits suffer from the opposite issue. They tend to overdevelop some muscle groups and underdevelop others. and underdevelop others. Many full body splits that I've seen are very lower body centric, which is fine if that's what you want to do, or are very squat, bench, and deadlift centric, which is again fine if that's your goal. If your goal is to get as strong as possible on those exercises, that's great. But that may mean that some of the smaller muscle groups are not going to develop the way that you may want them to. Your shoulders may not develop the way that you want them to. Your triceps may not develop as quickly as you'd like.

Starting point is 00:28:34 Your back and your lats in particular may not develop as quickly as you'd like. So when you are contemplating your training programming and what split or splits you should or shouldn't be following, don't think in a rigid, mutually exclusive manner. To use the terms of Jim Collins, who wrote Good to Great and Built to Last and other business books, don't submit to the tyranny of the or. You can have this or that, but you can't have both. You can have an upper lower split or a push pull makes sense. Or maybe it's lower body because that makes sense for you. And if it fit your goals, you could throw in an arms day. So there is a little bro split action and then maybe a full body workout too, just to deliver a little bit more volume, a little bit more training stimulus to several muscle groups that you want to make sure are developing as

Starting point is 00:29:46 quickly as possible, or you want to make sure are not backsliding. Okay, that's it for the highlights from the best workout split for gaining muscle. And if you want to listen to that episode, it was also published in September of 2021. So you can just go back and find it and check it out. And now, lastly, we have how the Stockdale Paradox can change your life. As the highest ranking officer in the Hanoi Hilton prisoner of war camp during the height of the Vietnam War, Jim Stockdale knew he was not getting out anytime soon. Instead, he was tortured regularly and he had no prisoner's

Starting point is 00:30:26 rights, he had no release date, or really any reason to believe that he would live long enough to see his family or his country again. Despite all this though, Stockdale refused to give in. He did everything he could to keep his fellow prisoners alive. And he also worked tirelessly to stymie his captors' attempts at using him and his comrades for propaganda, even going as far as disfiguring himself so he couldn't be held up as an example of a well-treated prisoner. Stockdale encoded intelligence messages into letters to his wife, risking brutal torture and death. He devised guidelines for dealing with torture that increased his fellow soldiers' odds of survival, as well as a Morse code-like system of communication using taps to ease the isolation anxiety among the men, just to name a few of the things that Stockdale did

Starting point is 00:31:18 while imprisoned. And when it was all said and done, Jim Stockdale spent eight years in captivity. And after his release, following the American withdrawal from the war, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Now, it's hard to imagine, even for a moment, what Stockdale's experience must have been like. How in the hell did he not just collapse into a completely catatonic state? How did he find the strength to stand up every day and continue to work against the enemy? What was the secret of his unbreakable will? Where did his hope come from? Well, as quoted from the fantastic book,

Starting point is 00:32:01 Good to Great, here is the answer in his own words. Quote, I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which in retrospect, I would not trade. This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. Now, Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, he called this mentality the Stockdale Paradox, the belief that you will prevail in the end, harmoniously coexisting with the willingness to face the darkest facets of your current circumstances. Now, when Stockdale was asked about the people who didn't make it,

Starting point is 00:32:53 his reply was very interesting. He said, quote, the optimists. That's right. He said that the optimists were the ones that didn't make it. He said that they were the ones who said, we're going to be out by Christmas and Christmas would come and Christmas would go. They then say, we're going to be out by Easter and Easter would come and Easter would go and then Thanksgiving and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart. Now, I think that this message is powerful because what it says is that hope is vital, but unbridled optimism, especially when it borders on delusion, can be very dangerous. Winston Churchill knew this as well, which is why he created the statistical office early in the war.

Starting point is 00:33:33 And he assigned it a very specific job. He wanted it to feed him unfiltered facts and data about the conflict, no matter how disturbing. Churchill said that he had no need for cheering dreams because facts are better than dreams. And he said this at a time when the Nazi blitzkrieg was stampeding through Europe, a dark time, a bleak time, especially for Britain. And Churchill ended up relying very heavily on this department throughout the entire war. And he could not have made the decisions he made without the willingness to face things as they were, not as he wished they were. Now, while it's doubtful that we'll ever have to face personal hardships like Stockdale's or

Starting point is 00:34:17 carry burdens as heavy as Churchill's, we can count on this. We are going to have to deal with shitty situations that we feel are unfair or maybe even unbearable. We're going to suffer setbacks. We're going to suffer disappointments and they may be completely without reason or even sometimes without anyone clear to blame. The bottom line is if we are going to go anywhere and if we're going to do anything meaningful in our lives, there are going to be obstacles, many, many obstacles and many, many large and intimidating obstacles. And how we deal with these inevitable difficulties is going to define who we really are as people. Are we going to be like the unfortunate optimists that succumbed in Hanoi, unwilling to see the forest for the trees? Or are we going to be like

Starting point is 00:35:11 the stoical Stockdale, never giving up, but also never giving into fantasies of imminent bliss? Are we going to sit in our hands with our heads in the sand, Or are we going to never stop working toward our goals while also maintaining full awareness of what really lies ahead, of how much work lies ahead, of where we are versus where we want to be? All right. Well, I hope you liked what I chose for you from the episode, How the Stockdale Paradox Can Change Your Life. And if you want to listen to that episode, it was published in April of 2018. So go back and find it. And I hope you like it. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other

Starting point is 00:36:10 people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - The Best of Muscle For Life: Time-Efficient Training, Best Workout Split, & Stockdale Paradox

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