Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - The Ultimate Guide to Female Muscle Growth

Episode Date: October 18, 2017

If you’re like most women, you want a very specific type of body. You want to look toned but not “bulky.” You want to be lean but not scrawny. You want the right lines and curves in all of the right places, like your legs, abs, and butt. Well, you can have all of these things–the whole package–no matter your current condition, genetics, or exercise history. You don’t have to live in the gym or eat like a bird, either. It’s pretty simple, really. All you have to do is… Add enough muscle to the right parts of your body. Reduce your body fat percentage to ~20%. That’s it. Do that, and you’ll have the body of your dreams. I guarantee it. And in this episode, we’re going to focus on number one: gaining muscle. Specifically, we’re going to explore the subject of female muscle growth and dispel myths (like the idea that women simply can’t gain muscle effectively, or shouldn’t), establish scientific facts about building a female physique, and lay out simple, practical guidelines that you can implement immediately. So, if you want to know how fast women can gain muscle and how to put it in the “right” spots to get the look that you want, then you want to listen to today’s episode. 3:10 - Why can't women build muscle as effectively as men? 5:10 - Why are women rarely as big as guys? 5:34 - Does lifting weights make women bulky? 8:18 - Should women tone instead of gaining muscle? 10:13 - How can women gain muscle? 23:25 - What are the best workout routines for women to gain muscle? 26:52 - Will taking supplements help build a great physique? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

If you're like most women, then you want a very specific type of body. You probably want to look toned but not bulky. You want to be lean but not scrawny. You want the right lines and the right curves in all the right places, like your legs, abs, and butt. And the reality is you can have all of these things. You can have the whole package, no matter what your current condition is, no matter how good or bad you might think your genetics are, or your exercise history.

And you don't have to live in the gym or eat like a bird to get there either. It's actually pretty simple. All you have to do is first, you have to add enough muscle to the right parts of your body. And second, you have to reduce your body fat percentage to about 20%. That's it. It's really that simple. If you do that, if you do those two things, then you are going to have the body of your dreams. I guarantee it. And in this podcast, we are going to focus on the first one, which is gaining muscle. Specifically, what we're going to do is we're going to explore the subject of female

muscle growth and dispel some myths like the idea that women simply can't gain muscle effectively or shouldn't. We're going to establish some scientific facts about building a female physique, and we're going to lay out some simple practical guidelines that you can implement immediately. So if you want to know how fast women can gain muscle and how to put it in the right spots to get the look that you want, then this podcast is for you. Now, before we dive into this episode, I have to shill for something to pay the bills, right? No, I'm just kidding. I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and really believe in. So instead, I am going to just

quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my 100% natural greens supplement Genesis. Now, Genesis is a very unique combination of greens, superfoods, adaptogens, herbs, and other phytonutrients that have been proven to increase immunity, heart and circulatory health, energy levels, libido, mood, and more. Genesis is also naturally sweetened in flavors and contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And all that is why it has over 200 reviews on Amazon with a four-star average and another 150 plus on my website, also with a four-star average. So if you want to be healthier, feel better, train harder, and increase your immunity and longevity, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Genesis today.

And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order. So let's start this episode with dispelling some myths. And here's the first one. Women can't build muscle as effectively as men. You've probably heard this many times and it's simply not true. Now it seems reasonable at first glance, though, because it's well known and immediately obvious that women do produce a lot less testosterone than men, and about 15 to 20 times less to be exact. As you know, testosterone is the primary hormonal driver of muscle growth, so of course it's fair to assume that a body with very little testosterone won't be able to build much muscle. Now, what most people don't know, though, is that testosterone isn't the only hormone involved in muscle gain. Another

major player is estrogen, which women produce much more of than men, of course. And research shows that estrogen confers a variety of muscle building benefits, including stimulating growth hormone production, which significantly aids in post-workout recovery, helping prevent muscle breakdown, which helps you gain muscle faster because in the end, muscle growth is just the difference between muscle synthesis and muscle breakdown. So you can get more muscle by increasing synthesis or reducing breakdown or both, of course. And finally, estrogen also increases your metabolism. Most people also don't know that women produce more growth hormone throughout the day than men, which of course then further helps them gain muscle faster, mainly by increasing muscle recovery. So while women's low testosterone levels

puts them at a hormonal disadvantage for improving their body composition, they more or less make up for it with the increased estrogen and growth hormone production. And that's why studies show that women can gain muscle more or less as effectively as men and why many elite female athletes have about 85% as much muscle as their male counterparts of equal heights. Now that begs a question though, if that's true, why then do you rarely see women in gyms that are anywhere near as big as the guys? And the answer here is actually very simple. Women start out with about half of the muscle that men start out with when they get into working out. And also they can't gain as much whole body muscle as men can do mainly to the differences in both their anatomy,

smaller bones is a big thing, and hormones. So here's the next myth that lifting weights makes women bulky. Now, if you're like most women, this is the one that has probably made you a little leery of weightlifting. I'm sure you've seen all the evidence on the internet, you know, like elite CrossFit athletes, big, hulking, powerful women that have the types of physiques that most guys wish they had. And if you've seen stuff like that, and if it has been enough to make you swear on your children to never, ever do a heavy squat, dead deadlift or overhead press for as long as you live. I understand. But what you should know is that it is exponentially harder to look like that than most women know. That takes elite muscle building genetics. It takes years of concerted

effort in the gym and in the kitchen. And in most cases, it takes steroids as well. That said, there still are plenty of women in gyms all over the place that hit the weights regularly and look rather bulky, at least enough to give you pause. And that's why you need to know that what really gives women that bulky look is simply being too fat. I know that sounds harsh, but let me explain. If you took a very fit woman, you know, a woman with sleek lines, core definition, muscle tone all over her body, and added just 15 pounds of fat, she would go from the type of look that most women aspire to, to something that looks decidedly bulky. And the reason for this is pretty simple. It's that when you gain fat, the majority of it accumulates inside and on top of your muscles. So the more you have of both,

the larger and more formless your body tends to look. That's why a general rule of thumb for women that want to be lean, toned, and defined is the more muscle that you have, the leaner you have to be to avoid looking bulky. And if you replace the word bulky for fat, the same thing holds true for us guys. So for example, a woman with very little muscle might feel raw boned at 18% body fat and very comfortable with how she looks at 25% body fat. Whereas a woman with significant amounts of muscle in the right places will probably love how she looks at 18% body fat, but feel downright uncomfortable at 25%. And that's why most of the women that I've worked with, and I've worked with thousands at this point, have been happiest when they gain about 10 to 15 pounds of muscle, and again, in the right places, and then drop their body fat percentage to about 18 to 20%. That's the sweet spot.

Myth number three, women need to quote unquote tone instead of gain muscle. instead of gain muscle. So if you read just about any fitness magazine out there for women, you're going to find a lot of great advice about how to get toned. You're going to hear a lot of things like you should starve yourself on a thousand calories per day. You should do hours and hours of cardio every week. You should lift really light weights for many, many, many reps. And that's all great advice. If you want to be tired and hungry all the time, if you want to hate your workouts, if you want to spend half of your days salivating over just the thought of eating carbs, and if you want the ultimate payoff to be looking skinny fat. On the other hand, if you want to go in a different direction with your physique and with

your lifestyle, then you have to go in a very different direction in terms of your diet and exercise. And again, to reiterate the point here, the direction you want to go in is gaining muscle in the right places and reducing your body fat percentage to the optimal level. The reason this is important is because muscle is what gives you curves. That's what gives you shape and gives you tone when you're lean. If you don't have enough muscle, then really the best you can hope for is just thin. So the question isn't if you should gain muscle, it's just how much and where. And again, after working with thousands of women, I've found that most need to gain about 10 to 20 pounds of muscle

and reduce their body fat percentage to that 18 to 20 range to have the look that they really want. That's the look where you are both feminine and fit, and it's a look that can be maintained year round. And that really matters because if you can't enjoy your diet, if you can't enjoy your workouts, if you can't enjoy your life, it really doesn't matter how good you look. You're not going to be able to sustain it. So now that we have dispelled some myths and located true north here, let's go to the next question, which is how do you actually get there? And like most things related to fitness, it really isn't as complicated as it's made to seem by many mainstream gurus.

There really are just three steps. You have to eat the right number of calories. You have to eat the right amount of protein, carbs, and fat, and you have to do effective muscle building workouts. So let's take a closer look at each of these steps, starting with the first, which is eating the right number of calories. Now, the single biggest mistake that keeps women from building muscle is simply eating too little food, eating too few calories every day. And the reason for this is if you consistently eat fewer calories than you burn, then you significantly hinder your body's ability to build muscle. physiology in play here is pretty complex, but the long story short is that restricting your energy intake shifts your body into a, you could say an energy conservation mode. And when it's in that mode, certain bodily functions are just given more priority. Building muscle tissue isn't vital

for survival, and it also requires quite a bit of energy. and that's fairly low on the list when your energy is restricted. Restricting your calories also reduces anabolic and increases catabolic hormone levels. Anabolic hormones are the hormones that build tissues up and catabolic hormones are the hormones that break them down. And when that happens, it causes a systemic shift away from muscle gain and toward muscle breakdown. Now on the flip side, if you regularly eat at least slightly more calories than you burn, you produce the opposite effects in your body. You produce effects that aid in muscle growth, like raising anabolic hormone production, enhancing your body's muscle building machinery, and improving your performance in the gym and your ability to

recover from your workouts. Now that comes with a small price, of course, which is fat gain. You might be thinking that, I mean, if you overeat, aren't you going to gain fat too? And the answer is yes, you will. That's just part of the game. It's simply impossible to gain muscle quickly and efficiently without also gaining some fat. Now, you don't have to gain large amounts of fat. In fact, you don't want to gain large amounts of fat, but there's going to be some fat gain. And if you're like most people, you can expect to gain muscle and fat at about an equal rate. So for every pound of muscle that you gain, you'll probably also gain about a pound of fat. Fortunately, you can carefully control your fat gain though, and you can also just easily eliminate unwanted

body fat when the time comes. So you can kind of just settle in and enjoy the ride and not worry too much about the fat that you're gaining. Now, here's how you do that. First, you maintain a moderate calorie surplus of about five to 10%. And if you do that, you should gain anywhere from, let's say a quarter to a half a pound per week. And if you're not sure how to determine your calorie intake, if you're not sure how to figure out how many calories you should be eating, head over to legionathletics.com and search for calorie. And you will see an in-depth article that I wrote that breaks it all down.

And it also has a calculator to make it easy for you. The second step here is you can't screw it all up with massive cheat meals or cheat days. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make while eating to gain muscle is just egregious overeating. All it takes is a couple gorgings per week when you're eating like this, and you can double or even triple the rate at which you gain fat. So don't do this. Instead, what you should do is learn how to cheat intelligently. And if you're not sure what I'm talking about, head over to muscle for life and search for cheat meal. And you'll see an article I wrote on this. So the third step here is if you are over 25% body fat, then you should first diet down to about 20% before focusing on muscle building. And the reason I recommend this is first, it helps you preserve

insulin sensitivity and hormonal balance. And those are very key to maximizing muscle gain and minimizing fat gain when you are in a caloric surplus. It also allows you to maintain your surplus for many months before having to flip into a deficit to reduce body fat levels. You see, when you are eating like this, when you're in a caloric surplus, I mean, it's generally just referred to as bulking. Although that's probably not how you think of it. You probably don't wake up and say, I just really need to start bulking, but that's just the bodybuilding term. So when you are bulking, the name of the game is to go for as long as possible because that way you will gain as much muscle as possible. If you can only go for a month or two before having to start losing fat again, you're just not going to gain nearly as much muscle as

if you could go for, let's say, six months before having to cut your calories and get rid of body fat. Which brings me to the final advantage of not allowing yourself to ever get too fat is it saves you from long grueling cuts. So if you were to allow your body fat percentage to go up to 30% or higher when you're bulking, you might be able to gain a bit of muscle, but when it comes time to cut, that's going to be long and tough and likely to burn up some muscle as well. So that's why I recommend that you bulk until you have reached the 25 to 27% body fat range. And at that point you stop eating in a surplus, and then you go into a

deficit and start reducing your body fat levels. And specifically, I recommend that you reduce them down to about the 20% range before you start going on a muscle gain program. Again, I don't recommend that you slow cut either. I would say do everything you can to safely and healthily lose fat as quickly as possible so you can get back to gaining muscle. Then all you do is you juggle your gaining and cutting phases until you're happy with your physique. And if you're like most people, you will reach a point where you're happy with your overall muscle development, with your muscle tone. And then the name of the game becomes just staying lean while enjoying your workouts, progressing in your lifts, maybe addressing weak points in your physique,

whatever you find most appealing. So that's everything there is to say on calories. Let's talk about macros. Let's talk about macronutrients. So this second step here is you have to eat the right amount of protein, carbs, and fat. Now, if your only concern were body weight, then calories are king. You wouldn't even need any more information than what I just gave you. However, if you want to improve your body composition, then you have to pay attention to where those calories are coming from in terms of protein, carbs, and fat, because in this context, a calorie is not a calorie. So here's what I recommend that you do. First, eat around one gram of protein per pound of body

weight per day. This is enough to reap all the benefits of high protein dieting, which includes faster muscle growth. Now, if you are going to be starting with a cutting phase, so if your body fat percentage is currently over 25%, then you can reduce that to about 40% of your calories. So you work out your calories and then get about 40% of those calories from protein and protein contains about four calories per gram, and you'll be good to go. The second step here is eat about 0.3 grams of fat per pound of body weight per day. Research shows that this is enough to maintain your health and performance, and it also helps keep your meal plans interesting because fat is delicious. And if you want bonus points here, then give special emphasis to monounsaturated fats, which are rich in foods like nuts,

olive and peanut oil, and avocado. And those are my three personal favorite choices. The third step here is get the rest of your daily calories from carbs. And yes, that means that you are allowed to eat a lot of carbs. Many people restrict their carb intake because they think it will prevent fat gain, but it won't. If you want to learn more about this, head over to legionathletics.com and search for carb and you'll see an article I wrote on the pros and cons of low carb dieting. What you need to know for this discussion though is simply that research shows that

a moderate slash high carb diet can help you gain muscle and strength faster in several ways. And again, if you want to dive into the details, head over to that low carb article and I talk about it there. This also comes with a nutritional benefit because relatively unprocessed carbs like fruit, veggies, and whole grains, which you should be eating a lot of, are also great sources of micronutrients and fiber. And all that is why I recommend a high carb diet for maximizing muscle gain. Now, you're probably wondering how you actually go about figuring out what your carb intake should be. How do you get the rest of your daily calories from carbs? And it's pretty simple. I mentioned earlier that a gram of protein has about four calories.

Well, a gram of carbohydrate also contains about four calories and a gram of protein has about four calories. Well, a gram of carbohydrate also contains about four calories and a gram of fat contains about nine. So to figure out how many carbs you should be eating, what you do is you multiply your target protein intake by four, you multiply your target fat intake by nine, you add those numbers together, and then you subtract the sum from your total daily calories, giving you the number of calories that you have remaining for your carbs. Then to turn those calories into carbs, you simply divide that remaining number by four and voila, you have the number of grams of carbs that you should be eating every day. So here's an example. I weigh about 190 pounds.

I burn about 2,700 calories per day. And that's what I intend to eat because I am currently just looking to maintain my body composition. So that means that I need to eat 190 grams of protein per day and about 60 grams of fat. So here's how I figure out my carbs. 190 times four is 760. 60 times nine is 540. 760 plus 540 equals 1,300. And then I subtract that from my daily intake of 2,700, which gives me 1,400 calories remaining for my carbs. 1,400 divided by four is 350. So I get to eat 350 grams of carbs per day, putting my macros at 190 grams of protein per day, 60 grams of fat and 350 grams of carbs. All right. So now it's your turn. Pause, calculate, and we'll carry on. The next big step here is you need to do effective muscle building workouts.

big step here is you need to do effective muscle building workouts. And you can be the absolute embodiment of elegance and grace outside the gym. But if you want a killer body, then you need to get down and dirty in your workouts. If you want statuesque legs, if you want a butt that melts the internet, if you want chiseled arms and abs, then you need to get off the BOSU balls. You need to stop doing the side bends and the yoga poses and the planks and Swiss ball crunches because that wimpy training will only make you a waif. What you need to do instead is you need to squat, you need to deadlift, you need to hip thrust, bench press, overhead press. These are the exercises that are going to be your new best friends because these are the exercises that will give you that goddess type of body. You also want to go to the gym, not with the goal of simply sweating or burning calories.

You want to show up every day with one goal in mind, and that is to get stronger. Because if you simply get stronger on those key exercises, you are going to gain muscle and you're going to gain that muscle in the right places. So that means that you're going to have to start moving some heavy weights and you're going to have to give every rep and every set, every workout, everything you've got. It's tough. You're going to make some funny faces when you're grinding out those last few reps. You may even have to let out a grunt or two. Your hair is going to get messed up. You're going to probably want to invest in some good moisture wicking clothing, but all that is good because you're not there just to look cute. You're there to make progress and you have to realize that that comes one ugly, shaky, sweaty, facial contortion at a time.

Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Now, the best type of workout routines for women that want lean, athletic, sexy bodies meet the following criteria. One, they focus on heavy weightlifting. Two, they emphasize compound movements. Three, they emphasize the lower body more than the upper body and four they keep cardio to a minimum

now that approach doesn't meet everyone's needs of course but this is really how the majority of women should be working out based on ultimately how they want to look now you can learn more about this style of training in my book thinner leaner stronger but i want to give you a simple workout here that you can do for the next eight weeks and see how my advice is working for you. Now, I could explain it all here in the podcast, but I don't think that's going to be very helpful because you're going to have to take notes. So instead, head over to muscleforlife.com and search for female muscle growth. And you will find an article that I wrote on this subject that I am

talking about here. And if you scroll down, you will see not just the workout, but also videos on how to do all the exercises. Now let's take a minute to talk about cardio because for decades, we've all been taught that we should be running and stepping and jazzercising our way to fitness. And this combined with low-fat dieting was the mission statement of the 90s, really. Any foods that had any amounts of fat really were sinful and anything less than an hour per day on the treadmill was just plain laziness. And unfortunately, things didn't work out so well. Obesity rates have just continued to soar and people are more confused now than ever before on what it really takes to quote unquote shift fat and get ripped. Now, I do have good

news though. Thanks mainly to the scientific advances and the efforts of the evidence-based fitness community to disseminate that research, we now know better. We know, for example, that eating fat doesn't necessarily make us fat. and we know that grinding our joints into dust doesn't necessarily make us lean and healthy. In fact, doing grueling amounts of cardio can actually harm us more than it can help. For example, research shows that endurance athletes are at a higher risk of heart dysfunction than the general non-running public. than the general non-running public. Moreover, the older these endurance athletes get and the more miles that they log, the worse this problem gets. Studies also show that marathoners develop more arterial plaque than sedentary non-runners, which of course increases the risk of stroke and dementia. Also, if you just spend a bit of time with some dyed in the wool endurance athletes you will

quickly notice how many problems they have with their joints and tendons and bones and i wouldn't go as far as saying that doing too much cardio can kill you but it's not wholly inaccurate either so the reality here is if your goal is to look and feel great, then doing more cardio and just more exercise in general isn't always better. And that's why my position on cardio has always been that you should do as much cardio as it takes to achieve your goals and no more. And it really shouldn't be so much that it impairs your strength training, your recovery, or your health. And if you want to learn more about cardio, if you want to learn how much cardio you should be doing based on your goals and what types of cardio will be best for you, head over to legionathletics.com, search for cardio, and you will find an article on that. Now, as we are

talking muscle growth, we should also quickly talk supplements because many people wonder if they should take supplements, shouldn't take supplements, which supplements help you build muscle faster, which ones don't. And I save this for last because quite frankly, it's far less important than proper diet and training. Supplements do not build great physiques, only dedication to proper training nutrition does. And unfortunately, the workout supplement industry is plagued by pseudoscience and ridiculous hype, misleading advertising and endorsements. Products are full of junk ingredients. They're underdosed, pixie dusted and whatever. The list just goes on and on. That said, there are safe natural substances out there that have been scientifically proven to deliver benefits such as increased strength, muscle endurance, and muscle

growth, fat loss, and more. And as a part of my work, it's been my job to know what these substances are and then to find products with them that I can use myself and recommend to others. That has been a struggle though over the years. And that's why I took matters into my own hands and decided to just create my own supplements to scratch my own itch, so to speak, and to make the products that I wish other people would have made. I'm not going to go into the whole spiel here though, for the purpose of this podcast, I just want to quickly review the supplements that are going to help you get the most out of your efforts to build muscle and lose fat. And the first one is creatine, which is not just for guys. Girls can benefit from it equally. And what it is, is it's a substance that is naturally found

in the body. It's also in foods like red meat, and it's probably the most researched molecule in the entire world of sports supplements. I mean, there are just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of studies on it. And the consensus is very clear. Creatine helps you build muscle. It improves strength. It boosts anaerobic endurance. It reduces muscle damage. It reduces muscle soreness. It's great.

And unlike what you might've heard, it's also not bad for your kidneys. These claims have been categorically and repeatedly disproven, yet they still linger. We know that in healthy subjects, creatine has no harmful side effects in both short and long-term usage. That said, people with kidney disease are not advised to supplement with it. So if you have healthy kidneys, then I highly recommend that you supplement with creatine because it's safe, it's relatively inexpensive, and it's effective. And in terms of specific products, I use my own, of course, which is called Recharge. If you want to check it out, you can head over to legionathletics.com slash recharge.

The next supplement that I recommend you consider is a protein powder because while you don't need protein supplements to gain muscle, considering how much protein you need to eat every day to maximize muscle growth, getting all of that from whole foods can be a little bit impractical. So a protein powder is just convenient. And that's why I sell a few. I sell a 100% whey isolate called Whey Plus. I sell a 100% vegan protein powder called Thrive. Plus I sell a 100% vegan protein powder called Thrive and I sell a meal replacement slash weight gainer that contains both whey isolate and casein called Atlas. And again, you can learn about these products over at legionathletics.com if you are interested. Another very popular supplement worth talking about is the pre-workout drink.

Now there's no question that one of these supplements can get you fired up to get to work in the gym, but unfortunately, many of these products are full of ineffective ingredients or minuscule dosages of otherwise good ingredients, making them little more than pixie-dusted products that contain some cheap and sometimes dangerous stimulants. And some pre-workouts don't even have the stimulants going for them and are just complete duds. My pre-workout is very different, of course. It doesn't contain harsh stimulants and instead it contains natural ingredients that have been scientifically proven to improve strength, to give you bigger pumps, to give you more muscle endurance without the jitters, without the nausea,

without the dreaded post-workout crash. And that's why it's number one on labdoor.com. That's why it has over 3,100 reviews from customers on Amazon with a four and a half star average. And then another 600 on my website also with a four and a half star average. And if you want to check it out, just head over to legionathletics.com slash pulse. So to wrap up here, the bottom line on all of this is that you and every other woman that might find her way to this podcast can have a defined athletic and toned. You don't need top shelf genetics. You don't need to spend hours every day in the gym. You don't need to starve yourself or obsess in the gym. You don't need to starve yourself or obsess over every little calorie that you eat. All you have to do is follow the advice

in this podcast and you will get there. If you just eat the right number of calories, if you eat the right amounts of protein, carbs, and fats, and if you focus on getting lean first and then adding muscle and then go back to getting lean. Once your body fat percentage has broken that 25% threshold. And if you follow an effective strength training plan and keep your cardio to a minimum, you will have it made. I promise you. So happy training. And please do let me know how it goes. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review

of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead,

I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine. Specifically, my 100% natural greens supplement, Genesis. Now, Genesis is a very unique combination of greens, superfoods, adaptogens, herbs, and other phytonutrients that have been proven to increase immunity, heart and circulatory health, energy levels, libido, mood, and more. Genesis is also naturally sweetened in flavors and contains no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk. And all that is why it has over 200 reviews on Amazon with a four star average and another 150 plus on my website, also with a four star average. So if you want to be healthier, feel better, train harder,

and increase your immunity and longevity, then you want to head over to www.legionathletics.com and pick up a bottle of Genesis today. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code podcast at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order.