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Hello, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I am Mike Matthews, a congested, Mike Matthews. Hence the nasally tone because I have a bit of a head cold, but that’s not gonna stop me from recording Today’s episode, which is a q and a episode where I answer questions that people ask me over on Instagram. Usually on Wednesdays, I publish a story on my Instagram.
And I include a little sticker for people to ask me questions. I get a bunch of questions. I choose ones to answer there on Instagram, and then I bring everything over here to the podcast where I can answer the questions in more detail. And so if you want me to answer your questions again, follow me on Instagram at Muscle Life Fitness and look for.
For that story that I post every week, although I didn’t post last week because I’ve been sick now for like five days. It’s kinda a low-grade radiation poisoning of some kind that just won’t go away. But normally it’s every week and submit your questions, and if you ask me something new or interesting or topical, then there’s a chance that I will answer it.
I can’t answer most of course because I get a lot of questions submitted, but I do my best in this episode. I’m going to be. Answering questions about eating before bed. Does eating protein before bed, improve sleep? Specifically, how long until people forget about the liver king? How to minimize muscle breakdown for people who train first thing in the morning, whether you have to do four or four.
Five strength training workouts per week to maximize progress, or if you can achieve most of the same results on say, two or three workouts per week. Answer a question about creatine consumption. Do you have to take it every day to get its benefits and more? Noah Weiss asks, does eating a large portion of protein before bed say 30 plus grams impact sleep quality?
No. But research does show that about the same amount of carbs can improve sleep quality. Now, you don’t want to eat too much though. Because studies also show that a large meal within an hour or so before bed can disrupt sleep, but a smaller meal carbohydrate rich meal can improve sleep adventure. Fine.
Asks how long until people forget about. Liver king. I think the only way the liver king goes away is if he decides to go away. In fact, the scandal has probably helped his business simply because it has gotten him even more attention than he was already getting. And people have a short attention span and are easily distracted, and many people are very quick to justify or to accept other people’s transgressions and dysfunctions and perversions because of course they are thinking of themselves.
They don’t judge others, quote unquote, judge being judgey because they don’t want to be judged because of course, a part of them always knows what is right and what is wrong, what they should be doing, that they are not doing what they should not be doing, that they are doing. And it requires energy. It requires effort to smother that.
Consciousness, that element of our consciousness. And so when other people spotlight that element of our consciousness by saying the same things, by saying, Hey, people who are not doing these things should do these things. Or people who are. Doing these things should not do these things. It makes us uncomfortable because a part of us knows that they are right.
It seems to cut through all of our rationalizations and justifications, no matter how many layers we have built on top of this fundamental awareness of what is right and what is not, we experience cognitive. Dissonance and one way to try to escape that is to go on the attack is to criticize the other person for criticizing us, for being judgey.
Why don’t you just let people enjoy things Anyway, philosophizing a side and coming back to Liver King. My point is, I think over time many people simply won’t care anymore that he lied about using steroids because the. Thrill of being outraged or at least pretending to be outraged is exhausted, and they’ve moved on to being outraged about something else.
I will say though, that by my lights, his fake apology was even more scandalous than the revelation that he was using steroids. Like that was a surprise to anybody who understands body composition. And peds, that script that he was reading in his apology video was very poorly executed. Whoever wrote that script is very bad at lying.
Maybe it was him. All right. Alien Theory official asks how to minimize muscle breakdown for someone who does intermittent fasting, but can only work out in the. Am. Well, generally this is not going to be a problem if you eat some protein within an hour or so of finishing your workout. However, if you are fairly muscular and you are cutting and you really want to minimize muscle loss, I would recommend adding a supplement to your regimen, and that is hm.
B and the reasons I recommend Hm. B over leucine and BCAAs are one, Hm. B has no insulin response, whereas Leucine and BCAAs. Due. It is not a particularly large insulin response in the case of leucine and BCAs, but it does, quote unquote, break your fast at least for a period of time, maybe 15 to 30 minutes.
Not a big deal. But if you are, let’s say, taking BCAs and something like Yohimbe to try to speed up fat loss and stubborn fat loss in particular. Right before your workout, and that is going to now elevate your insulin levels significantly. Not as significantly as a meal, obviously, but significantly for let’s say up to 30 minutes.
That might be half or even two thirds of your workout. And in the case of Yohimbe, when insulin levels are. Elevated its fat loss properties, so to speak, are negated. Yohimbe will still work as a stimulant, but it is no longer going to enhance fat loss and the loss of quote unquote stubborn fat, in particular when insulin levels are elevated.
And so H hm B again, is a better choice because you get. The anti catabolic effects, you actually get stronger anti catabolic effects with HM B compared to leucine, and you get no insulin response. So you maintain that fasted state and that’s why Hm. B is in a supplement of mine called. Forge, which also has Yohimbe.
So this is a pre-workout fat loss supplement specifically for use with fasted training. And again, it’s called Forge. If you want to check it out, you can find [email protected], b u i legion.com/forge. Okay, ca a a 1997 asks thoughts on the future of crypto. Well, this isn’t an area that I’m all that interested in, so I haven’t educated myself.
All that much in it. However, I would say that it’s very hard for me to wrap my mind around betting against the will of the Superclass, especially in matters of high finance. So I would think that there is. A good chance, maybe a very good chance that these people get exactly what they want, that they usurp and control digital currency.
There’s a lot of talk about central bank controlled digital currencies that will be programmable, trackable, revocable, and of course, it’s gonna be sold to us plebs as convenient and secure and efficient, but it’s gonna suck. For us, because ultimately what that means is the government is going to be able to dictate what we can and can’t do with our money.
For example, it could allow the government to deny your ability to buy a stake at the grocery store because your personal carbon footprint is too high for that month. You have run out of carbon. Credits, so to speak, and if that sounds like conspiracy theory to you. Oh no. That is being openly discussed in mainstream news sources.
If you’ve never heard of it, it’s probably because you either don’t pay attention to the news at all, which is. Not necessarily a bad decision or it’s because you only pay attention to your preferred source or two or three of legacy media outlets, so to speak. You only watch Fox News or cnn, or you only read the New York Times and Washington Post, or whatever the right wing equivalence of those publications are.
Anyway, bringing that back to crypto, if cryptocurrency as it currently exists, as it currently functions, is going to stand in the way of what I just mentioned, the central bank controlled digital currencies, I’d like to believe that the Davos crowd couldn’t figure out how to take control of the crypto.
Do currency sphere and just roll it into their plan, or maybe do away with it at least as we know it today. But given their track record and the length to which they are willing to go to accomplish their objectives, I think that they have a very good chance of succeeding. Shad Smith 86 asks, should I strength train four or five days a week for best results?
At least 80% of the potential gains that are available to you. And this applies really to anybody in terms of muscle and strength. Can be obtained with four workouts per week, so you don’t have to go five times per week. Don’t feel that you need to, and an exception to that would be an advanced weightlifter.
So this is somebody with many years of proper training. Behind them. They’ve gained a lot of muscle, they’ve gained a lot of strength, and they are really pushing for that final 20% of muscle and strength, and that requires a lot of time in the gym. It just does because it requires a lot of volume. It requires a lot of sets per major muscle group.
Per week to continue making progress on multiple fronts. And by that I mean multiple major muscle groups. If you are just trying to progress on one major muscle group, you can probably get in enough volume training three or four days per week, which is going to be 15 to 20 hard sets for that muscle group per week.
If you are an experienced weightlifter, that’s probably what it’s going to take. But if you do that, if you prioritize that one major muscle group and you’re training three to four times per week, you simply won’t have time or you won’t have the inclination to do enough volume for any other major muscle group to progress there as well.
So how you would set that up is, that’s a specialization routine, as it’s called, is you would build your routine around first hitting your volume target for your target major muscle group, and then you would. Add strategically enough volume for each other major muscle group to maintain your current level of muscle and strength.
And so for most advanced weightlifters, that’s only gonna be, it could be six, that that’s probably a good kind of middle of the curve. Number six, hard sets for each other. Major muscle group per week, and that can be direct volume. Think of a biceps curl to train the biceps or indirect volume. Kind of depends on the exercises, but think of a barbell row.
It also, of course, trains your biceps. You wouldn’t necessarily count one set of a barbell row as one set for your biceps. I would probably discount that to a half of a set for my biceps, whereas one set of a biceps curl is one full set for the biceps. But anyway, six hard sets per week for the major muscle groups that you are just trying to maintain.
Will be plenty to maintain all of your muscle, probably all of your strength, or at least 80% of your strength, especially if you keep those weights heavy, and you can then make that work with three to four workouts per week. However, if you want to try to progress in multiple major muscle groups, so it’s not just your lower body now it’s your lower body and your back, and you then look at what it’s going to take to do 15 to 20 hard sets per week for your lower body.
And for your back, and then get in your maintenance volume for everything else, and then try to do that in just three or four workouts. Those workouts get impractical. They just get long and grueling. And that’s where five sessions or even. Six sessions per week can make more sense. Six is the most I would ever recommend.
I would not recommend that for all people. Not even necessarily all advanced weightlifters. That is a lot of training that you are going to have to be able to recover from. And a lot of recovery comes down to lifestyle. It’s how you are eating, it’s how you are sleeping. It’s your general stress levels.
If you have a stressful lifestyle and you add a bunch of training stress on top of it, it can. Create symptoms that are related to over-training or that can appear to be over-training, even if it is not technically over-training. It simply just won’t work. How would you like a free meal planning tool that figures out your calories, your macros, even your micros, and then allows you to create 100% custom meal plans for cutting, lean, gaining, or maintaining in under five minutes?
Well, all you gotta do. Is go to buy legion.com/meal plan b u y legion.com/meal plan and download the tool. And if I may say, this tool really is fantastic. My team and I spent over six months on this thing working with an Excel wizard, and inferior versions of this are often sold for 50, 60, even a hundred dollars.
Or you have to download an app and pay every month or sign up for a weight loss service and pay every month. 10, 20, 40, 50, even $60 a month for what is essentially in this free tool. So if you are struggling to improve your body composition, if you are struggling to lose fat or gain muscle, the right meal plan can change everything.
Dieting can go from feeling like running in the sand in a sandstorm to riding a bike on a breezy day down a hill. So again, if you want my free meal planning tool, go to buy legion.com/meal plan b u y legion.com/meal plan. Enter your email address and you will get instant access. All right. Next question comes from Dan.
Dan. Dan, the man, and he asks, is creatine consumption needed every day, even rest days for max benefit? No. You can take creatine every day, but you don’t have to. Research shows that three to five days per week on average is enough to keep creatine stores elevated and every day. Might be a little bit better, but to wheel out the tired analogy again of the 80 20 rule, three to five days per week is gonna give you at least 80% of the potential benefits of creatine.
Daz Maden asks, have your personal views had any negative impact on your business in this soft ass world? Now, this person is referring to some of my comments on social media about politics and society, and. Culture. And yes, I’m sure that some of that has had a negative impact on my business. On Legion has convinced some people to not buy my things or to stop buying my things, but not enough to matter.
And something to remember is the most obnoxious people are always the loudest, but they do not represent the majority of people who simply don’t care and don’t comment because they feel neutral. About it. And neutrality as an emotion doesn’t inspire us to action. Strong feeling does. And then of course there are people who do agree, who secretly agree with things that I say, but they just don’t want to publicly agree.
They don’t want to publicly share their opinion. Okay. Horror show. Bass or bass asks one day a week program for when life kicks you in the balls. Yes, this is a good idea because just one workout per week, this would be a full body workout, is enough to maintain everything that you have until you can do more training or until you want to do more training, and I just.
Talked about this a couple of minutes ago, if you can just get in say, three to six hard sets per major muscle group per week, direct and indirect volume. And you can do that with a full body workout that prioritizes compound exercises. You know that train multiple major muscle groups at once, one workout a week, 60 to 90 minutes.
That’s all you need. And this speaks to really the only training periodization plan that most people need, and that is train hard when you’re feeling good, maybe train really hard if you’re feeling really good. But then, Ease up or even rest when you are exhausted or when you are sick. I have not been to the gym in a week.
I want to go. I could make excuses to go. I feel okay, but I know that if I do go, it’s just going to prolong this kind of low grade head cold that I’ve had for the last five to seven days. I really probably should just be lying in bed. I, I shouldn’t even be recording this podcast because it seems that even mental exertion, if I mentally exert myself when I’m sick by just working all day and doing my normal routine, leaving out the vigorous physical activity, it prolongs illness.
This has happened several times, and yet here I am recording a podcast. So I guess I have not learned the lesson yet, but anyway. So when you are exhausted, when you’re sick, ease up rest, and then try to do at least enough to not get smaller, weaker, and fatter when you are very busy or when you’re just unmotivated.
Always do. At least enough to maintain momentum, to maintain, uh, your muscle and strength. And again, that’s an hour to an hour and a half per week. Alright, Josh Gonzalez, m w s asks, is gluten allergy real or is it a fad? Well, Research suggests that about 1% of people here in the United States have celiac disease and can be markedly harmed by gluten.
That, of course, is real. If you have celiac disease, you need to stay away from gluten, and studies also show that probably about 6%, that’s based on the data that we currently have. 6% of people here in the US are gluten. Intolerant and they can experience gastrointestinal issues. When they eat gluten, it is not as harmful to their health.
It doesn’t screw up their small intestine the same way that celiac disease does. But when people who have a gluten intolerance eat gluten, They don’t feel good, which by the way is an easy way to know if you possibly have a gluten intolerance is when you eat gluten containing foods. If you don’t feel good, if your stomach hurts, if you get gassy, if you get indigestion, if you get lethargic, then you should stop eating those foods.
Now, it may not. The gluten because there is a lesser known condition that many people, uh, mistake gluten intolerance for. And that is called a FOD map, F O D M A P, sensitivity. And if you wanna learn more about that, head over to legion athletics.com and search for FOD map, F O D M A P. Especially if you are constantly dealing with GI issues, despite eating a nutritious diet that is replete with fruits and vegetables and whole grains.
You might have a FOD map in sensitivity and by cutting out very specific, in some cases, vegetables, fruits, and grains, you can eliminate the symptoms altogether. Carlene Rag asks, do you believe a high amount of carbs is required for muscle preservation during a deficit? No, it’s not required. High protein is required something around one gram per pound of body weight per day, or if you are overweight, one gram per centimeter and height per day is going to be enough, but, Carbohydrates do help improve workout performance, and that’s mostly by keeping muscle glycogen levels higher, and that is going to help you preserve muscle when you are cutting.
You want to try to preserve strength, that’s really, you want to keep pushing in your workouts, especially in the beginning of a cut. For the first four to six weeks, you should feel. Totally fine. You might not even really notice any negative side effects yet and try to make progress in your workouts.
Don’t think that you’re cutting now, so you don’t have to train as hard because you can’t really gain anything anyway. No, train hard. Maintain that intensity, maintain that strength. Try to. Keep that weight on the bar. Try to get your reps hit your rep targets. That is how you’re going to preserve muscle, and carbs can help with that by improving your workout performance.
And carbs can also help by keeping insulin levels generally higher, and insulin is not. Anabolic, but it is anti catabolic. And so some research suggests that a high carb diet can be better for preserving muscle because you just have generally higher levels of insulin when you are eating more carbs, especially when you’re eating carbs every few hours than when you are eating a low carb diet or eating carbs maybe only in the morning and then not later in the day.
Katie Parks seven asks, when doing a unilateral exercise, do you rest? Between each side or after you do both. So I like to rest between sides. If it’s something that’s quite hard, like a Bulgarian split squat. So if I’m doing a Bulgarian split squat, I’ll do one side and then I will rest 30 to no more than 60 seconds and then do the other leg.
Just because I find that if I don’t do that, especially if I’m pushing myself pretty hard, I will get, let’s say six to eight reps on. My right leg with that weight with maybe, let’s say one to two good reps left, and then if I immediately go to my left leg, I might be able to get the same number of reps, but instead of having one to two good reps left, I might have to push like right up to the point of failure.
Maybe that’s zero, good reps left, but if I wait 30 to 60 seconds, just let my heart rate come down a little bit. Catch my breath. I can then hit my reps with my other leg and still have that one to two good reps left in reserve. So I’m training then both sides of my body with the same number of reps, so the same volume as well as the same intensity, the same proximity to muscular failure.
However, if it’s an exercise that trains a smaller muscle group that isn’t very systemically fatiguing, think of a cable. Curl like one arm at a time, right on a biceps curl. Or think of a single arm side raise, or any other single limb exercise that is either your arms or your legs, like in the case of a single leg hamstring curl.
Many gyms don’t have even an option for that, but my gym does. And so if I were doing a single leg, Hamstring curl that is not nearly as difficult as the Bulgarian split squat. And so I could rest 30 to 60 seconds in between sets, but I don’t, because in actual practice it doesn’t make any difference in my performance.
I can still get the same number of reps, I can keep the volume the same, and I can keep that intensity the same. Okay, king asks. Best exercises to correct chest asymmetry. Single arm presses are going to be it, and that’s of course a dumbbell press is the only way to do that. You’re not gonna be doing single arm barbell pressing.
You can do single arm chest pressing as well, but a single arm dumbbell press. Is a great exercise for this, and it’s actually not a bad inclusion generally because it helps prevent imbalances, and it’s also good core training. I wouldn’t make that my primary chest pressing exercise, but a single arm dumbbell press is a useful secondary pressing exercise.
Khan. Pat Lu asks, how long can I use Bigger, leaner, stronger? Simple answer is, and this applies to any program, actually use Bigger, leaner, stronger, and any other program, whether it’s mine or somebody else’s, as long as you are still enjoying it and you are making progress with it and progress, you can judge by your whole body’s strength, particularly with bigger, leaner, stronger.
Because it is a power building program, so to speak, it is kind of a hybrid between traditional strength training and body building on bigger, leaner, stronger, as well as. Thinner, leaner, stronger, beyond bigger, leaner, stronger muscle for life. All of my programs, if your one rep maxes are going up, and particularly on your big exercises, if you are getting stronger in your squat exercises and your hip hinge exercises and your vertical and horizontal press exercises and pull exercises, you are.
Making progress. It’s working. Keep going. As long as you are still enjoying your workouts, and if you are making progress, you probably are still enjoying your workouts because that is the most motivating factor for most people until they get well into their fitness journey, and it becomes very hard to continue making progress, and then motivations have to change.
But for most people in their first three to five years of proper training, so long as they. Keep making progress, they are probably going to be enjoying their program. And so in the case of Bigger, leaner, stronger, it’s been now, let’s see, 11 years since I published the first edition of that book. I have, uh, spoken with virtually, mostly via email, but also social media.
I’ve spoken with many, many people, thousands of people now who have run that program. And it seems like most people can continue making great progress with bigger, leaner, stronger and thin. Leaner, stronger as well for. Two to four years. And in that time, men for talking about bigger, leaner, stronger, should be able to gain anywhere from 20 to 30 pounds of muscle women.
About half of that, number 10 to 15, maybe 20 pounds in two to four years of thinner, leaner, stronger. And then after doing that, so it’s been two to four years. And if. You’re a guy, you’ve gone from normal to pretty jacked by normal people’s standards. 20 to 30 pounds of muscle is a lot of muscle. I mean, envision like a 16 ounce steak that’s a pound of muscle.
And then put 20 to 30 of those all over your body. And in the case of women, think of putting 10 to 15, 16 ounce steaks all over your body with an emphasis on the lower body. And I guess in the case of the men, it would be an emphasis on the upper body, but that’s a lot of muscle. If though that’s not enough and the trainee wants to keep going, wants to see if they can gain, in the case of men, maybe another 10 pounds of muscle, maybe 15, depending on their genetics.
In the case of women, another five or maybe 10 pounds of muscle, then they are probably going to half to work a bit harder. The biggest change they’re gonna have to make to what you learn and do with bigger than or stronger, thin than, or stronger even Muscle for Life is more volume. They’re just gonna have to do more hard sets per major muscle group per week.
And if they wanna see how I. Have gone about that, they should check out my book Beyond Bigger, leaner, stronger. If that’s you, if you are an experienced weightlifter, you’re a dude who’s gained 20 to 30 pounds of muscle, or you’re a gal who’s gained about half that 10 to 15 pounds of muscle, maybe even upward of 20 pounds of muscle, and you really want to push for whatever you have left in your genes, check out beyond bigger, leaner, stronger.
And I do plan on creating a female version beyond thinner, leaner, stronger. But currently I only have beyond bigger, leaner, stronger. All of the principles apply equally to women as they do to men. But of course the examples in the book are male, and there is some kind of male specific stuff that I will take out when I do the female book, and then the programming will change a little bit.
Currently the programming, because it’s a a men’s book, it does emphasize the upper body over the lower body because most guys have to train their upper body a lot more to get it to where they ultimately want it to be versus their lower body. And with women, it’s usually the other way around. Most women I’ve worked with, I’ve spoken with over the years are very happy with their upper body development within the first year or two often, but they still.
Want to work on their lower body for at least another couple of years to have the exact look that they want. And so of course, in beyond thinner, lean or stronger, the programming will reflect that. Okay, middle American r. Asks, do you see yourself taking H R T on a therapeutic level after you hit 40 plus?
Sure. I’m totally open to it. I think it’s a smart decision if testosterone levels are clinically low, and that does not mean lower than they were at 18, that means low, uh, almost always below 300 nanograms of total testosterone per deciliter of blood. And that means symptoms associated with low testosterone, so poor sleep, low energy, low sex drive, poor workout performance, poor muscle growth, and so on.
And so if that is the case, and I have done everything that I can naturally to try to improve that. So that’s lifestyle primarily. Of course, diet, training, sleep, stress levels. I would also try natural supplements. That have any sort of evidence of efficacy, stuff that I wouldn’t sell because the evidence is not strong enough for me to get behind it and take people’s money for it.
Something like Tonka Ali, for example. But if there’s any chance that it might help, sure. I would just try it and see if I can get lucky. And so if I’ve done those things I’ve. Tried to modify my lifestyle to make it as pro testosterone as I can, and I’m taking as many supplements as I can and my testosterone levels are simply low, then yes, absolutely I would get on T R t because at that point it’s a matter of health, low testosterone levels, clinically low, that that is unhealthy.
It increases the risk of various types of disease and dysfunction, and it’s a matter of quality of life because having all of those symptoms every day would suck. And one final comment is I would make sure that it is an appropriate dose of testosterone. I’d make sure it is actually testosterone replacement therapy and not testosterone explosion therapy.
Like I see many guys in the gym talk about, they are really just on steroids, bodybuilder. Doses of testosterone, many hundreds of milligrams of testosterone per week. 1500 to 2000 plus nanograms of total testosterone per deciliter of blood. No, that is just steroids. And the risks of proper t r t are quite low.
What? They become significantly magnified when you start taking a lot of testosterone. When you turn it into, Steroid use and practically speaking, that means keeping your testosterone within the range of what is normal, what is naturally possible. It could be the higher end of the range, and some smart people argue that it really should be so long as your blood work looks good so long as certain biomarkers look.
Good, which is mostly a matter of how your body responds to drugs, testosterone. If it responds well, then your blood is gonna look good. Even at the absolute maximum of what is naturally possible, which is around a thousand N G D L, you could go maybe a little bit higher, 1200. But beyond that is when you enter the supra physiological range of testosterone.
The. Beyond what is naturally possible range, and when you get well beyond that, you are now in the bodybuilder steroid territory. 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. Uh, ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share. Shoot me an email, mike muscle for life.com, muscle f o r life.com and let me know what I could do better or just, uh, 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.
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