Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Dead Hangs, Greens Vs. Veggies, Saunas, Genetic Testing, and More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, and welcome to another episode of Muscle for Life. I am your host, Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for a Q&A where I'm answering, oh, I don't know, maybe 10 or 15 questions that people have asked me over on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness every week or two. I put up on Monday or Tuesday, I put up and ask me a question story and then gather up a bunch of questions, answer them on Instagram, and then come over here and answer them again on the podcast. And I'm always looking for questions that I have not answered many times before, you know, that I haven't written about or spoken about repeatedly, or questions that I'm just getting asked a lot about and that I haven't also beaten to death already. And sometimes I take some questions that just amuse me and give

Starting point is 00:00:54 me a chance to at least laugh at my own jokes. And so if you want me to answer your questions, just follow me over on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness and look for the ask me a question story that goes up every week or two and ask me some questions and maybe I'll pick one of yours. rep ranges you should work in, how many sets you should do per workout or per week? Well, I created a free 60-second training quiz that will answer those questions for you and others, including how frequently you should train each major muscle group, which exercises you should do, what supplements you should consider, which ones are at least worth taking and more. To take this quiz and to get your free personalized training plan, go to muscleforlife.show, muscleforlife.show slash training quiz, answer the questions and learn exactly what to do in the gym to gain more muscle and strength. So this is an interesting one. This one comes from a loyal Legion customer who recently tested positive for COVID and lost their taste. But Legion's

Starting point is 00:02:13 casein plus, I guess, is one of the few foods that they can taste. Quote, casein plus is literally saving me from becoming insane. Why is it? And that's the question. Why can I taste your casein protein, but I can't taste anything else? Well, I'm not sure, but maybe I've found the cure. Maybe I am the science now. No, seriously, though, I have no idea why that might be. I have not heard that from anybody else, but I am happy to hear that my casein protein powder is helping somebody get through the COVID doldrums. Okay. Brenta Villa asks, do you recommend genetic testing for health purposes? No, I wish I could get behind it because I could offer it. It is something that I could sell if I believed that

Starting point is 00:03:06 there was enough good science behind it to make it worthwhile. Unfortunately, this whole industry of diet and supplement personalization based on testing, even genetic testing, blood testing, is mostly hype and bullshit. A lot more research is going to be needed to make it actually useful for everyday people. Maybe you could come up with a couple of fringe cases where some of these tests might be helpful. Elite athletes, maybe. And even then, I probably would say it's not worth it, but maybe. And people with certain types of health conditions, maybe. But unfortunately, though, for most of us, none of these services can live up to their marketing claims. You are not going to be able to take a test of any kind and then make very specific and

Starting point is 00:04:00 non-obvious changes to your diet or exercise or recovery routine and notice significant benefits. And I say non-obvious changes because there are certain things that everybody should just do that you could take a test to confirm, but you don't need to. Like, for example, if you are not currently eating a lot of relatively unprocessed, nutritious food, and you were to take even just a simple blood test, it might show that you are maybe not deficient, but you're in the insufficient range in certain key nutrients. And therefore, you should eat more nutritious food. You should eat more fruits and vegetables and seeds and legumes and whole grains and so forth. But you don't need to take a fancy test to know that. Just know if you are not doing that right now, you should do that. And the same could be said

Starting point is 00:04:55 for eating enough protein, for example, and doing a lot of proper strength training and doing some cardiovascular exercise as well and getting enough sleep and so on and so forth. Okay, Bubba Zigged TV asks, is vegan protein a source of vegetables? No, definitely not. And neither are greens supplements, even ones that claim to provide many servings of vegetables in just a scoop or two of green powder. That is not the same as eating those foods. That's what you need to do if you want to maximize your health and longevity and performance. You need to eat fruits and vegetables every day. A couple of servings of fruit a day is a good target to shoot for, four to six servings of vegetables per day. That's another good target

Starting point is 00:05:42 to shoot for. And I think it's also smart to include one to two servings of whole grains every day as well. And if you are not doing that, you cannot just take a greens supplement and think that you have your bases covered. And some people, they try to get fancy and they take a greens supplement and a fiber supplement because they recognize that the fruits and vegetables that have been turned into the powder have obviously lost fiber. And so they try to replace that fiber with supplementation. And I suppose that's better than not eating much fiber at all. But that is still not the same as eating the foods because there are many other different types of molecules and nutrients that are in whole foods that are not in powdered versions of those foods that are lost in the processing

Starting point is 00:06:31 that have many beneficial effects in the body. And so in a best case scenario, your average greens supplement, which is just powdered vegetables and fruits mostly, is a poorly formulated multivitamin, basically. It can have nutrition, of course. It can have various vitamins and minerals and phytonutrients, but I've never seen one that is formulated in such a way to provide the right amounts of the 20-something vitamins and minerals that should be in a high quality multivitamin. Instead, greens supplements have a bit of this, a bit of that, too much of this, too little of that. And there usually isn't much thought given to the actual nutritional profile because that's

Starting point is 00:07:18 not how the products are marketed. The products are usually marketed as an all-in-one nutritional shake, an all-in-one nutritional replacement shake, or just a direct replacement for fruits and vegetables, which of course is what many people want to hear, especially the vegetables. They don't want to eat vegetables. And so if they can just drink this glass of swamp juice every day instead of eating vegetables, they will gladly pay 50, 60, $70 a month. CAA 1997 asks thoughts on Will Smith versus Chris Rock. And I realize this question is a bit dated by the time this podcast comes out, but I'm going to answer it anyway. And I would guess if I had to bet money and then look into the crystal ball and get my answer, I would say it was probably staged. But more to the point, who cares? Screw Hollywood and all of

Starting point is 00:08:13 its sanctimonious celebrities and all of its degenerate propaganda. C Gob asks, what do you think the shoulder pain is the result of? So this is my shoulder pain that I was having a couple of months ago. And for me, it was the result of tight muscles. So on my right hand side, my lat was tight, my subscapularis was tight, my infraspinatus was tight. And eventually, if those muscles get tight enough and quote unquote sticky enough, at least that's how my massage therapist describes it, where the tissues are not moving as smoothly as they should or as smoothly as the other side of my lat, tight subscap, tight infraspinatus, just the tight rotator cuff muscles and a tight lat can cause shoulder pain. And it can be hard to prevent. It can be hard to resolve. But what did resolve it for me, I have mentioned this before on the podcast, but I'll mention it again in case you have not heard is dead hangs, just daily hangs from the pull-up bar. So I've been doing four sets five

Starting point is 00:09:32 days a week when I'm in the gym lifting, I just go and hang in between sets of my regular training. So I'm hanging there for about 45 seconds. I let everything stretch. I move around a little bit, move my head around a little bit. I kind of bring my shoulders forward, push them back, twist my body again, just really stretching and feeling that tension. And I do two of those sets in a just standard palms facing away, pull up grip. And then I do two sets palms facing each other like a like a chin up grip. And I find that gives me an even better stretch, particularly in my lats. And I feel also that subscapularis moving and stretching. And within three weeks or so of doing those, not even daily dead hangs, five times per week, my shoulder issues were completely resolved. And the massage therapist I see every week also immediately noticed a difference that those areas were now not feeling sticky anymore and were moving smoothly. So that resolved a couple of months ago and I've

Starting point is 00:10:47 continued now my normal training back to pressing heavy weights and still no problems whatsoever. So if you are having any shoulder issues, I recommend trying the dead hangs. I've already heard from people who have emailed me just to let me know that they heard about the dead hangs, probably here on the podcast previously, they started doing them. And it also really helped their shoulders and whatever issues they were having, which are not necessarily the same issues that I was having. It can help with all kinds of shoulder issues. And if you do not have shoulder issues, doing the regular dead hangs can help keep your shoulders healthy and prevent issues. And if you do not have shoulder issues, doing the regular dead hangs can help keep your shoulders healthy and prevent issues. So I recommend them for everybody. Again, I just do them when I'm resting in between sets of my normal training. So it doesn't even add any time to my

Starting point is 00:11:38 workouts. Okay. Angle02 asks, I'm following your muscle for life program, but I'm getting hungry on my calculated macros. Suggestions? Well, assuming that your macros are set up correctly, assuming that your calories are then set up correctly, assuming that you are in a moderate to maybe aggressive calorie deficit, but not reckless, nothing larger than maybe 20 to 25 percent, unless you are very overweight and have a lot of fat to lose, then you can get a bit more aggressive and do just fine. But for most people, something around 20% is a sweet spot. And if 20% does not work for whatever reason, if that's too big for you, you can go down to a 10% deficit, but I would not recommend trying to go smaller than that because you're simply not going to lose any fat or lose any weight is really what's going to happen practically. And even at 10%, you have to be very careful, very meticulous with your tracking or your planning, because obviously you don't have that much wiggle room. And also keep in mind that a 10% deficit is pretty slow fat loss. You are probably going to lose something around maybe a half a pound of fat per week, maybe even less than that. And so that might be appropriate if you are a jacked and shredded natural bodybuilder who's getting ready to step on stage. But if you are a dude at 25% body fat, or if you are a woman at 35% body fat, that is not going to be very

Starting point is 00:13:15 encouraging because you are not going to see much of anything in the mirror. It's going to take months until you really start to notice a difference. And you almost certainly can be more aggressive in your dieting and see faster results with basically no negative unwanted side effects. So assuming that calories and macros are set up properly, here are a few simple ways to make fat loss easier. Another way to look at it is you can calibrate your calories so you lose something around 0.5 to 1% of your body weight per week. If you try to lose fat faster than that, you are probably going to run into some problems again, unless you have a lot of fat to lose. So now my second tip is to eat a big salad every day and put cucumbers in that salad and put other vegetables, bell peppers, for instance, taste really good in salads.

Starting point is 00:14:09 Any other vegetables that you like that can go into the salad, do that and add protein. Great way to get in vegetables, to get in protein and to get full. Another tip is to get enough sleep. This is a huge one because under sleeping increases appetite. And of course, hunger is the nemesis of dieting. If you do not get enough sleep, you're going to have a very hard time reaching your body composition goal. My next tip is to eat a big bowl of vegetable soup every day. And anything with a lot of zucchini seems to work particularly well, probably because of the volume that comes with it. It is very filling and research shows that our body, our appetite, I should be specific, responds more to the volume of the food that we eat than the calories.

Starting point is 00:14:58 So if you can fill your stomach with a lot of food that doesn't add up to a lot of calories, you are going to do better with your diet. My next tip is to drink plenty of water every day. And you should really just be drinking when you're thirsty. You don't have to try to drink a specific amount of water, but whenever you're thirsty, drink some water. And research shows that carbonated water in particular may further improve satiety. So if you like club soda or sparkling water, drink that. Final tip is to eat strawberries and watermelon every day because a cup of each, so 140 to 150 grams of each, is just 50 calories, give or take. And so if you look at what 100 calories, for example, of strawberries or 100 calories of watermelon is great snack, not a lot of calories, delicious and filling.

Starting point is 00:15:54 Moving on to great name. Well done. They ask, is there a ceiling slash max with progressive overload? It's a good question. Yeah, yeah, there definitely is. I mean, eventually you can't add reps, you can't add weight, you can't add sets without getting hurt, at least. And that really means the end of progressive overload, right? Because those are the only levers you can pull. You can do more reps, you can do more weight, or you can do more working sets. However, practically speaking, most people will never get there with any major muscle group because it takes at least five to seven years of tough training to gain most of the muscle and strength that is genetically available to you. Say 80 to 90 plus percent of the muscle and strength that is genetically available to you,

Starting point is 00:16:46 five to seven years of consistent, tough training and proper dieting. And if you do ever get to the point where you can't effectively progressively overload, let's say most of the major muscle groups in your body, you are probably not going to be too concerned about that because you are going to be jacked. All right. I Mega Beast asks advice for modeling healthy behavior for kids. Well, some of the things I think about with my kids is I want them to see me eating a lot of healthy food. I want them to see me exercising and being active. I want them to see me reading. I want them to see me having fun doing things just because they're fun, asking questions, working hard, making good financial decisions, loving my wife. And my wife and I are pretty good

Starting point is 00:17:41 on all of those points. Not perfect, of course, but you don't have to be perfect in anything to get great results. And it's working well. My kids eat well. They are willing to eat fruits and vegetables and whole grains. They don't have a big sweet tooth. We let them have these little ice cream bars. So we get them either these little fudge bars that are 100 calories or these little Yasso yogurt bars that are Greek yogurt based. And I think they're also about 100 calories.

Starting point is 00:18:11 We'll let them have one of those per day. And some days they want one, some days they don't. They are into playing sports and being active, playing with each other, not sitting around in front of a screen all day. We don't allow that. If we were to allow that, they would definitely do more of it. But we only allow a few hours of that on the weekend, not on the weekdays. And they have a interest in books, not overly interested. They like when I read to them. So that's something. They like when I read to them. So that's something. And they ask a lot of questions like most kids. Sometimes it is too many questions, but that's like most kids. Most fat burners are absolutely useless. That is very true. And that is probably never going to change, at least not anytime soon, because many, many people are willing to pay a lot of money for these products, regardless of what is in them. And of course, that is a great recipe for great margins and great margins is a great

Starting point is 00:19:27 incentive for unscrupulous people to lie for money. That said, though, I stand by legions, fat burners, Phoenix and Forge. Those are very different formulations. I stand by the marketing and the conservative claims that are made as far as efficacy. They are not wonder pills. They are not sold as wonder pills. They are sold as supplements, supplementary by definition, that can help you burn a little bit more calories, burn a little bit more fat, experience a bit less hunger, experience fewer cravings or less intense cravings, and on the whole, make your cut a little bit faster and more enjoyable. Kayla Delahant asks, biceps vein, key factors, hashtag goals. Well, some people are naturally more vascular than others. I myself am not a very vascular person. I have to be quite lean to have a lot of vascularity.

Starting point is 00:20:34 But if you get big muscles, so big biceps in this case, and low body fat, you will have visible veins. And that also goes for any other muscle group. You have to have big muscles and low body fat. That's really it. That is the recipe for vascularity. Carrie A. Fellows asks, thoughts on cryotherapy, scam or legit? Well, the research that I've looked at, and I've looked at a bit because some time ago I wrote an article on cold showers. I was taking cold showers every day. And at that time I looked into a fair amount of the literature on cold therapy. So based on what I have seen in the past, cryotherapy doesn't do much of anything. Maybe you'll have a little bit less muscle soreness with cryotherapy after

Starting point is 00:21:26 particularly intense training. But if you wanted to have less muscle soreness or if you wanted to benefit from cold exposure in any other way, cold water immersion, that really is the best way to do it. And that, of course, is the most inconvenient and it's also the most uncomfortable. So most people don't want to do it because the protocol that you'll find in a lot of the studies that I've looked at is anywhere from five to seven minutes in very cold water, 50s, 60s degrees water, Fahrenheit, obviously, and fully immersed up to your neck. If you are willing to do that, then yes, you can bring down inflammation levels. You can reduce muscle soreness after intense training, but you will also blunt muscle building because remember,

Starting point is 00:22:17 inflammation is part of the process of muscle building. So I would not recommend doing a workout and then doing a cold water bath, an ice bath immediately after if your primary goal is to improve your body composition. But if you are an athlete who has to do a lot of really hard training and you are struggling to recover in between your workouts, or if you could benefit from just a little bit less muscle soreness in between your training sessions, then that might help. All right, Kev Sandoval asks, predictions for the year 2030. Well, there's a chance that we will all own things and the elite pedophiles are going to be very unhappy. Musa Lube asks, your most recommended history books to understand current landscape?

Starting point is 00:23:13 Well, one I would recommend is New World Order by Stone is the last name. I believe it's Sean Stone. And yeah, it sounds like a conspiracy theory book, but it's very well researched and well reasoned. And it throws a lot of light on current circumstances and trends and will help you understand the great reset crowd in particular, the people who are calling for a global transformation of, well, just about everything of life as we know it. And they, of course, say that their intentions are noble and they are working to create a utopia. But I am not so sure about that. Anyway, another book that I recommend for better understanding Clown World

Starting point is 00:24:01 is Propaganda by Bernays, whichays which is of course a classic book on well the power of propaganda and specifically the power of mass propaganda through mass media and mass entertainment and bernays was an influential guy by the way look up who he was before you read the book if you are curious a lot of powerful people listened to him. And a fun little fact is his great nephew is Mark Randolph, the co-founder of Netflix. And the last book I'm going to recommend here is Brave New World by Huxley. Not because it's a very good book. I actually didn't like it at all. Not well written per se. The plot was meandering. The characters were cardboard. But that story represents a world that some people think we should live in.

Starting point is 00:24:51 And if you read the book, you will immediately see many of the parallels in modern society. And remember that for the most part, things don't just happen. They are made to happen. Papa P59 asks sauna before or after a workout? Definitely after if you are going to be staying in long enough to work up a good sweat, which is the point. So after your workout, if you do it before, it is going to drain you of at least some of the energy that you might want for that workout. Next question comes from Philip Lefebvre, and he asks, if you could choose one Legion product, what is it? My brain says our Multi because on paper, that's one of my favorite products that we have. But my heart says our salted caramel whey protein because it's so good.

Starting point is 00:25:47 our salted caramel whey protein because it's so good. Ross 0705 asks pulse before all workouts, cardio and lifting or just lifting. What about deload weeks? Well, what I do is I take pulse, which is my pre-workout legions pre-workout. I take that before lifting, but not cardio. And I do take the stim free version of it, by the way, because I have my caffeine in the form of espresso first thing in the morning. And then that's it for me for the day for caffeine. And I also do take that stim free pre-workout pulse on my deload weeks. But I'm not sure if I would do that if I were paying for it, but I'm not paying for it. At least I'm not paying much for it. And so I do it. If I were a customer of legions though, I probably wouldn't bother on my deload weeks. I would just keep it for my hard training. And one reason to keep using it on your deload weeks is to just keep your beta

Starting point is 00:26:40 alanine intake consistent because for beta alanine to work, it needs to accumulate. It accumulates actually in the form of carnosin in your muscles, and that takes a little bit of time. So if you took a week off, your carnosin, your intramuscular carnosin levels are going to decline at least a little bit, but that's not a big deal. Again, I wouldn't bother with it when deloading if I were a Legion customer paying full price. All right. Final question comes from Shamunk7 and they ask, what do you love most about your wife? Well, a few things, her poise and her sanity and her loyalty. And those are things that I have come to appreciate a lot as I've gotten older and understood a little bit more about the ways of the world and how people are when their masks come off.

Starting point is 00:27:33 And, you know, those are things that I did not appreciate enough when I was younger. But fortunately for me, Sarah stuck with me long enough for me to get at least a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.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.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Dead Hangs, Greens Vs. Veggies, Saunas, Genetic Testing, and More

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