Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How Strong Can You Really Get Naturally?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, Mike Matthews here, and welcome to another episode of Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today. And what do I have in store for you? Well, this episode is one of the chapters of the new second edition of my best-selling book for experienced weightlifters, Beyond Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, which is live right now over at www.bblsbook.com. Now in this book, you will learn science-based and time-proven formulas for eating and training that will help you shatter muscle and strength plateaus, set new personal records, and build your best body ever. And better yet, you will do those things without following restrictive or exotic diets, without putting long hours in at the gym, and without having to do crushing workouts

Starting point is 00:00:53 that leave you aching from tip to tail. Also, to celebrate this momentous occasion, I'm giving away over $6,000 of glorious goodies, including a 30-minute Zoom call with yours unruly. That's priceless, of course. A Vitamix blender, a Whoop fitness tracker, a $200 Lululemon gift card, one month of Legion VIP coaching, and more. Now, all you have to do for a chance to win all those cool things is head over to www.bblsbook.com and buy a copy of BBLS 2.0, any format, ebook, paperback, audiobook, whichever one you want, and then forward the receipt email to launch at legionsupplements.com, L-E-G-I-O-N supplements.com, and voila, you are entered in the giveaway. You have to act fast though, because the book launch bonanza ends and the winners will

Starting point is 00:01:53 be chosen on October 16th. Now you can also increase your chances of winning by buying extra copies of the book. Again, any formats, and specifically if you buy three copies of the book. Again, any formats. And specifically, if you buy three copies of the book instead of one, you will get five giveaway entries. So that is a plus 400% chance to win. If you buy five copies, you'll get eight giveaway entries. That is a plus 700% chance to win. And if you buy 10 copies, you are going to get 15 giveaway entries, which is a plus 1400% chance to win. And if you buy 10 copies, you are going to get an autographed copy of the book as well. That you don't have to win. You're just going to get it. So for instance, if you buy the paperback, ebook, and audio book, that's three copies, you'll get five entries to win. And then if you buy

Starting point is 00:02:45 three paperbacks, as well as the ebook and audiobook, that is five copies and you'll get eight entries and so forth. And what are you going to do with extra books, you're wondering? Well, you could give them to your workout buddies. You could donate them to your local library. You could hurl them at unpleasant children. I don't know. There are many options when you think about it. Anyway, to learn more about the giveaway and to get your copy or copies of Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger 2.0, head over to www.bblsbook.com. Chapter 12. How much strength can you really gain naturally? Real self-respect comes from dominion over self, from true independence. Stephen R. Covey. For many weightlifters,

Starting point is 00:03:34 the bench press is the ultimate benchmark of strength. If you have a big bench, you're strong, and if you don't, you're not. This is short-sighted. The bench press is a good measure of pushing strength, but what about the back and legs, which contain some of the largest muscles in the body? Would you say that someone with a strong bench press but weak deadlift and squat is truly strong? Thus, if you want to gauge your strength, you want to evaluate your whole body strength. to gauge your strength, you want to evaluate your whole body strength. And an effective way to do that is by appraising your performance on the following movements. Push, pull, squat. There are many pushing, pulling, and squatting exercises you could use to test your strength, but leading experts and strength coaches have settled on three. One, barbell squat. Two, barbell bench press.

Starting point is 00:04:27 Three, barbell deadlift. The barbell squat proves your lower body and back strength, the bench press, your chest, shoulder, and arm strength, and the deadlift, your back, hamstring, and glute strength. Thus, if you add your squat, bench press, and deadlift one rep maxes, you'll have an accurate and practical estimate of your whole body strength. That said, while the sum of these lifts, referred to as your total, gives you a quantitative view of your strength in terms of absolute numbers, it doesn't give you a qualitative one in terms of how those lifts relate to your size and stature. In other words, if all you're looking at is the weight on the bar, a squat of 600 pounds is far stronger than 400 pounds. But what if the guy squatting 600 pounds is 6'2 and weighs 300 pounds, while the other is 5'8

Starting point is 00:05:20 and weighs 200 pounds? Which lift should we consider more impressive? This is where relative strength enters the picture, which also accounts for body weight and therefore allows us to compare the strength of people of different sizes. In this way, someone who's 5'5 and 130 pounds can see how their numbers stack up against someone who's 7'2 and 400 pounds and determine who's getting the most out of what they've got. You can't just divide totals by body weights, though. Because of quirks of physics and biology, the mass weight of the human body increases faster than its strength. For example, if I magically doubled my body weight, I wouldn't be twice as strong. And likewise, if I shrunk to half my current size, I wouldn't be half as strong.

Starting point is 00:06:13 So how much do increases or decreases in body weight impact strength? To find the answer, we can use a technique known as allometric scaling, which is a method that helps scientists understand how different characteristics change in an organism as size changes. For instance, thanks to this line of research, we know that for most animal species, as the body size increases, the metabolic rate per unit of mass decreases. Good news for elephants who still need to eat 200 to 600 pounds of food every day. Powerlifter, researcher, and writer Greg Knuckles gets all the credit here, as he's the one who figured out how to make allometric scaling work for predicting strength in humans. With a formula he created, you can calculate a number that represents your relative strength

Starting point is 00:07:06 and then compare it to the figures of others to see where you stand. The only problem is it looks like double Dutch to most of us. So instead of wading through the math, you can find a calculator that'll do the heavy lifting for you at www.bbsbook.com slash strength. There are other formulas out there for calculating relative strength, such as the Wilkes, Glossbrenner, and Schwartz-Malone coefficients, but they're less accurate than Knuckles' method. For example, it's well known the Wilkes coefficient misestimates the relative strength of people who weigh between 150 and 200 pounds. The Schwartz- Malone coefficient often overestimates the relative strength of people who weigh less than 150 pounds.

Starting point is 00:07:53 The Gloss-Brenner coefficient more or less just averages the results from the Wilkes and Schwartz- Malone coefficients, but this doesn't overcome their flaws. As Knuckles explains in his extensive article on the topic, allometric scaling may not be perfect, but it's a better scientifically validated system for computing relative strength than the other popular methods. How strong can you get naturally? Your ability to gain strength depends on a few factors, with the chief ones being your skill and attitude, bone length, muscle structure, muscle size. Let's take a closer look at each. Skill and attitude. Strength is a skill. Lifting large amounts of weight with proper technique requires outstanding balance, coordination, and timing, and that's why your first squat, bench press, and deadlift

Starting point is 00:08:46 sessions felt awkward, uncoordinated, and weak. Accordingly, your strength is limited by not only your musculature, but also your movement patterns, which are flawed and inefficient in the beginning. After a month or two of regular practice, though, your technique can rapidly improve along with your strength. In fact, research shows that most of the strength people gain in their first month of lifting weights is the result of improvements in coordination and technique, not muscle growth. These technique gains taper off quickly, though, and after a year of regular lifting, your ability to perform key exercises is about as good as it'll ever be. You can still improve your skill as time goes on, but the process will be slow and subtle. Your attitude in the gym matters too, because approaching your genetic limit for strength requires a bit of piss and vinegar. To get there, you'll need to do a lot of heavy weightlifting, which means getting comfortable being uncomfortable, pushing yourself to add weight to the

Starting point is 00:09:50 bar, and staying focused through weeks, months, and years of strenuous training. In short, showing up and going through the motions isn't enough. You have to strive to make every rep, set, and workout count. Bone length. Every exercise involves moving a weight a certain way for a certain distance. For example, a squat follows a simple sequence. 1. Standing position with the leg straight. 2. Sitting position with your thighs more or less parallel with the floor. Three, standing position with the legs straight. While small differences in individual anatomy don't change this basic pattern, they can alter how easy or difficult the exercise is by changing how far the weight needs to move to perform each rep. For example, if your femurs are longer than average, you'll find the squat and

Starting point is 00:10:43 deadlift more difficult because the bar will have to travel a few inches farther every rep. For the same reason, if your arms are longer than average, you'll find the bench and military press more difficult, but the deadlift will be easier because the bar won't have to move as far to lock out. Being 6'2 with long legs and arms, I've experienced this firsthand. The squat, bench press, and military press have always been the hardest to progress on and my current personal bests are respectable but nothing to write home about. A 365-pound squat 165 pound squat for two or three reps, 295 pound bench for two reps, and 225 pound seated military press for two or three reps. Deadlifting, however, has been somewhere in the middle for me as my long legs make it harder, but long arms make it easier. My personal best is still just middling 435 pounds for two reps, but was easier to achieve than the other

Starting point is 00:11:47 lifts. I can't blame my anatomy too much though, because structural differences don't have as big of an impact on strength gain as many people claim. First, every inch of height only increases the distance the bar needs to move by a small amount, and second, even having to move the bar an inch or two more doesn't always significantly increase the difficulty of the exercise. To understand why, you must understand that every exercise has a sticking point. This is a point in the movement where the exercise becomes more difficult, and it typically makes up about three to six inches of the total distance the weight needs to travel. It would be more accurate to describe this as a sticking range since it's a few inches, but I'll stick with the more common term for the sake of familiarity.

Starting point is 00:12:38 Despite comprising a fraction of the total exercise movement, the sticking point more or less dictates how difficult a rep will be. If you can move through this spot quickly, you'll probably complete the rep without a hitch. And if you can't, you'll probably grind to a halt. For instance, most people's sticking point on the bench press is when the bar is three-6 inches off their chest and continues for another 3-6 inches. Once you get the bar through this span of the ascent, the rest feels easy. How does this relate to bone length and strength? I'll use myself as an example again. Compared to my 5'10 lifting partner, I have to move the bar about 2-3 inches farther to complete each rep of the bench press. Only an inch or two are added to my sticking point though,

Starting point is 00:13:30 while the rest of the additional distance isn't as difficult. And yes, that means my reps are harder than his and produce more fatigue as I get deeper into sets, but this isn't likely to put me more than a rep or two behind him on most sets. but this isn't likely to put me more than a rep or two behind him on most sets. Something else to consider is the fact that taller people can often gain more total muscle than shorter people, which can help mitigate anatomical disadvantages. Additionally, having long bones may be a disadvantage in one exercise, but an advantage in another. As I just mentioned, my long arms make bench pressing harder, but they also make deadlifting easier. My long femurs, on the other hand, make deadlifting and squatting harder and don't help my bench press.

Starting point is 00:14:14 So all things considered, if someone can lift more weight than you, chances are that variations in height and proportions aren't the driving factors. Instead, it likely has more to do with the other reasons we'll discuss in this chapter, particularly muscle size. If you are liking this episode, you should know that it is one of the chapters of the new second edition of my best-selling book for experienced weightlifters, Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, which is live right now at bblsbook.com. Also, you should know that to celebrate this momentous occasion, I am giving away over $6,000

Starting point is 00:14:57 of glorious goodies, including a 30-minute Zoom call with yours unruly, a Vitamix blender, a Whoop fitness tracker, a $200 Lululemon gift card, one month of Legion VIP coaching, an Inzer weightlifting belt, and much more. And all you have to do for a chance to win is head over to bblsbook.com, buy a copy of the book, any format, and forward the receipt email to launch at legionsupplements.com and voila, you are entered in the giveaway. You have to act fast though because the book launch bonanza ends and the winners will be chosen on October 16th. Muscle Structure While we all have the same muscles in our bodies and they're all in the same general regions, there are differences in

Starting point is 00:15:45 how they're attached to our skeletons. These discrepancies are usually small, only a centimeter or two, but they can translate into huge differences in natural strength. We don't need to get too technical for this discussion, but what it boils down to is mechanical advantage. but what it boils down to is mechanical advantage. Because muscles function as levers, where they attach to our bones impacts how much force they can produce and thus how much weight they can move. This is why studies have found that thanks to this type of anatomical variance, strength can vary by as much as 25% among people with identical amounts of muscle mass. If you're worried that you're in the disadvantaged camp, take heart, because this should only concern you if you're trying to become a competitive strength athlete. However, if you're here to build a strong, muscular, lean, healthy

Starting point is 00:16:38 body, you can achieve your goals with or without a genetic leg up. But do keep anatomy in mind when comparing yourself to other people of similar size. Some bodies are just built better for strength than others. Muscle size. Generally, the biggest guys in the gym are also the strongest. Sure, there are exceptions, but more often than not, the people moving big loads are pretty jacked. This is clear to anyone who has spent enough time with the iron, but it's also backed by scientific research. For instance, studies conducted by scientists at Indiana University and the University of San Martin found that muscle mass is strongly associated with strength among powerlifters. muscle mass is strongly associated with strength among powerlifters. This doesn't mean that every pound you add to the barbell makes you a little more muscular though, because strength and muscle gains aren't perfectly correlated. In other words, you can get stronger without getting bigger and

Starting point is 00:17:37 vice versa. For example, most of the strength you gain during the first few weeks of lifting comes from getting better at exercises. Those technique gains I mentioned earlier. Your muscles contract harder and at the right times, your balance improves, and your technique becomes respectable. You still gain some muscle during this beginning period, but that only accounts for about 2% of the rather large jump in strength. After you've worked out the bugs in your form, however, which happens in the first few months for most people, further increases in strength become largely dependent on gaining muscle. And after a couple of years of consistent training,

Starting point is 00:18:21 research shows about 65% of your strength gain will come from muscle gain. So, once your newbie gains are behind you, if you want to keep getting stronger, you'll have to keep getting bigger. And once you reach your genetic potential for muscle growth, you won't have much more strength available to you either. The best way to think of the relationship between muscle and strength is this. The amount of muscle you have represents your potential for strength. For instance, let's say you use lighter weights and higher reps during a lean bulk and gain five pounds of muscle. Since you weren't using heavy loads and lower reps and are a bit rusty at that type of training, when you attempt to set new one rep maxes, you fall short of your previous bests. This might leave you confused or even crestfallen.

Starting point is 00:19:13 But here's the good news. If you were to train with heavyweights and low reps for four to six weeks, you'd likely beat your previous lifts. Why? Because those five additional pounds of muscle will allow you to generate more force than before. You just have to readapt your muscles to heavier loads and fewer reps. So how strong can you get naturally? I hate answering important questions like this with it depends, but that's the truth here. It's hard to determine how strong you'll be able to get because there are too many factors in play. Unlike the potential for muscularity, there isn't one individual variable that we can isolate and use as a guidepost for potential strength. That said, there is a way to estimate how strong you can get. It sounds simplistic, but it's also commonsensical. Look at the performance

Starting point is 00:20:07 of many other weightlifters similar to you in size. Chances are you'll fall somewhere in the middle. While there are no comprehensive studies on strength potential, Greg Knuckles has conducted an unofficial study of the matter that lends some insight. Knuckles collected survey responses from 1,800 experienced weightlifters of all sizes, used the allometric scaling method you learned about earlier to assess their relative strength levels, and then assigned their squat, bench press, and deadlift one rep maxes and total into six categories. One, beginner. Two, novice. Three, intermediate. Four, advanced. Five, elite. Six, world-class. He also created a calculator that allows you to discover what category you're currently in, which you can find at www.bblsbook. slash strength. For instance, when I plug in my height and weight, it says beginner

Starting point is 00:21:07 level lifts for my size are 319 pounds on the squat, 213 pounds on the bench, and 359 pounds on the deadlift. My all-time best one rep maxes are 375 pounds on the squat, 300 pounds on the bench, and 445 pounds on the deadlift, which puts me in the novice category. And that's not too shabby considering I've never trained to maximize my strength. If I focused on nothing but strength training for a while, the best I, and most others, including you probably, could hope for, regardless of how hard I tried, would be somewhere between intermediate and advanced. The middle of the curve.

Starting point is 00:21:52 With enough drugs, maybe I could reach the advanced tier, but no matter how much vitamin S I took, I'd never be able to put up elite or world-class numbers. It's not in my bones, literally. And I'm cool with that. This data is based on a bunch of hardcore powerlifters, so as a natural recreational bodybuilder, high-level novice strength is decent and intermediate would be impressive. Now, if this calculator's numbers seem unrealistically high to you, remember, it's using the averages of people who have been training for years and have likely achieved much or all of their genetic potential for muscle and strength. Moreover, this data was collected anonymously through the internet,

Starting point is 00:22:38 so it's very possible, all but guaranteed, that some people were on steroids or lied about their numbers. Still, despite the obvious limitations, Knuckles' calculator is one of the few of its kind that takes your personal anatomy into account, making it plenty useful. You now know how to estimate how strong you can get naturally, and no matter your numbers, remember that you don't need to get extremely strong to have a great physique. You just have to get much stronger than when you started. And anyone can do that. Even better, by the end of this book, you'll have everything you need to realize the bulk of your genetic potential for muscle and strength. It'll take time, but if you keep putting in the work, you will get there. To that end, in the next chapter, you'll learn the single most important advanced training technique there is, the one that'll dictate your progress more than any other. It's probably not what you think either, because it's simple, unsexy, and unforgiving, which is why it's also unpopular. Embrace it, however, and you'll be well on your way to more muscle and strength than ever before. Key takeaways. An effective way to

Starting point is 00:23:54 evaluate your whole body strength is appraising your performance of the following movements. Push, pull, squat. Relative strength also accounts for body weight and therefore allows us to compare the strength of people of different sizes. Go to www.bblsbook.com strength to find a calculator for determining how much strength you can gain naturally. Your ability to gain strength depends on a few factors, with the chief ones being your skill and attitude, bone length, muscle structure, and muscle size. Every exercise has a sticking point, which is a point in the movement where the exercise becomes more difficult, and it typically makes up about 3-6 inches of the total distance the weight needs to travel. Taller people can often gain more total muscle

Starting point is 00:24:46 than shorter people, which can help mitigate anatomical disadvantages. And having long bones may be a disadvantage in one exercise, but an advantage in another. Because muscles function as levers, where they attach to our bones impacts how much force they can produce and thus how much weight they can move. Studies have found that thanks to this type of anatomical variance, strength can vary by as much as 25% among people with identical amounts of muscle mass. Strength and muscle gains aren't perfectly correlated. You can get stronger without getting bigger and vice versa.

Starting point is 00:25:23 After a couple of years of consistent training, research shows that about 65% of your strength gain will come from muscle gain. Once your newbie gains are behind you, if you want to keep getting stronger, you'll have to keep getting bigger. And once you reach your genetic potential for muscle growth, you won't have much more strength available to you either. The amount of muscle you have represents your potential for strength. Go to www.bblsbook.com slash strength to find a calculator for determining how your strength compares to weightlifters of a similar size. Well, that's it for this episode i hope you found it helpful and in case you didn't listen to the intro i understand it's okay this was one of the bonus chapters of the new second edition of my

Starting point is 00:26:15 best-selling book for experienced weightlifters beyond bigger leaner stronger which is now live over at www.bblsbook.com.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How Strong Can You Really Get Naturally?

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