Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: Squat Depth, Bitcoin, Microwaving Food, Liver King, and More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for another Q&A. By my notes, the 10th Q&A episode that I have released since I started doing these. And in this episode, I am going to relatively quickly answer, let's see, I have 18 questions here under five minutes each, faster than that, maybe even a minute in some cases. And these are questions that people have posed to me over on Instagram. If you want to follow me at Muscle for Life Fitness, every Monday or Tuesday, I put up

Starting point is 00:00:37 and ask me a question sticker in my stories and I get a bunch of questions and I pick ones that are interesting to me or topical or are questions that I'm getting asked a lot and that I haven't already answered in detail in an article or a podcast. And in this episode, I'm going to be talking about squat depth, Bitcoin, astagrass versus parallel squatting, microwaving food, liver king, how I would try to go about reducing obesity in the United States if I were president, and a lot more. But first, if you like new stuff, I have exciting news because I just released a new flavor of my pre-workout, Pulse Blood Orange. Now Now, what is pulse and why should you care? It is a 100% natural supplement that increases energy, improves mood and sharpens mental focus,

Starting point is 00:01:36 increases strength and endurance, and reduces fatigue. And the reason it's so effective is simple. Every ingredient in pulse is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research and is included at clinically effective levels. The exact amounts used in the studies that found benefits. flavored, and it contains no artificial food dyes or other chemical junk. And all that is why I've sold over 850,000 bottles of Pulse and why it has over 11,000 four and five star reviews on Amazon and on my website. So if you want some help getting fired up, zeroed in, and ready to crush your workouts, then you want to try Pulse today. Go to buylegion.com, B-U-I-L-E-G-I-O-N.com slash Pulse and use the coupon code MUSCLE at checkout and you will save 20% if it is your first order with us. And if it is not your first order, you will get double reward points. That is 10% cash back on that order. And know that if you don't absolutely love Pulse, just let us know and we will give you a full refund on the spot. No

Starting point is 00:02:54 forms, no return even is necessary. So you can't lose. Go to buylegion.com slash Pulse, order now, use the coupon code MUS code muscle, save 20%, try Pulse risk-free and see what you think. Okay, let's get started. And unfortunately, I don't have notes on who asked these questions for this episode. I normally do, but the person who helps with that wasn't able to get it ready in time for me to record it. And that's okay. I am just going to go with the questions and give you my answers. But if your question gets featured on a future episode, you will almost certainly get a shout out because I normally have the questions and who asked them.

Starting point is 00:03:38 But starting with, does microwaving have a negative effect on food? And some people are surprised to learn that no, it does not. And they're surprised that I say that because I sell all natural supplements, for example, and I do care about how I cook my food and what I eat. And I do generally try to stay away from highly processed foods and chemicals, at least artificial chemicals. And I'm not an alarmist with any of those things, but I think that's a generally smart strategy for longevity. But in the case of a microwave, although it certainly sounds questionable to nuke your food, research shows it has no negative effects on the nutritional quality of food, except in the case of nutrients

Starting point is 00:04:22 that can leach into surrounding liquid. And it's probably also worth mentioning that it is smart to not use plastic containers if you do a lot of microwaving. And if you want to learn more about that, if you want to get all of the details, head over to legionathletics.com and search for microwave, and you'll find an article I wrote with all of the studies linked as usual. Moving on to the next question. Am I worried about Omicron? Wait, are we not all dead yet? Jokes aside, no, I'm not worried about the moronic variant because I've already had COVID and there are at least, I don't know, 150 papers now on the robustness and the durability and the cross-species nature of natural immunity. And

Starting point is 00:05:08 the data is very clear at this point with Omicron that it is less virulent than Delta, for example. And it's looking a lot like the common cold for most people. So no, I do not think we should stop the world because grandma has a cold. Next question is, am I wrong for preferring my 90 degree, my parallel squats to Astrograss? No, you are not wrong for preferring parallel squats. I prefer parallel squats and I have good mobility. I can do proper full squats, Astrograss squats, but many people can't because they lack the ankle mobility. Many people also find that their hamstrings are too tight to allow them to ass to grass squat properly, and it's just unnecessary. And it's counterproductive if you don't have the proper

Starting point is 00:05:56 mobility to do it. And again, ankles are a big limiter that many people are not aware of with the squat. They wonder why they can't maintain proper form, sometimes even in a parallel squat, and they think it's their hamstrings, for example, or they think that they are just anatomically not made to squat when it's actually their ankles. And if they worked on their ankle mobility, they would be able to squat properly. But for those of us who are in the gym to gain muscle, to gain strength, to enjoy our training, to stay injury-free, parallel squats get the job done. You don't need to squat any deeper than that. Next question is just Bitcoin? Well, I'm not an expert. I have read a number of book summaries on the blockchain because I just wanted to have a basic understanding of the technology. And I didn't care to read even one full book on it, which shows how much interest I have in

Starting point is 00:06:50 cryptocurrency on the whole. And I can see why many people are saying that blockchain is going to change many industries for the better. And I can see why many people are saying that cryptocurrencies are here to stay and that Bitcoin is here to stay. And I know see why many people are saying that cryptocurrencies are here to stay and that Bitcoin is here to stay. And I know a lot of smart people are predicting that sometime in the next three to five years, we're going to see a million dollars a coin. And of course, on the other hand, there are smart naysayers who are more skeptical. And the strongest counter argument that I've seen, now I haven't looked too much into this, but the strongest counter-argument that I've seen, now I haven't looked too much into this, but the strongest counter-argument I've seen revolves around government intervention,

Starting point is 00:07:31 government regulation. So let's say the Federal Reserve worked with the US Treasury to create a digital currency, a cryptocurrency, and then the US government banned the use of any other type of digital currency. And this, of course, is what happened here in the United States with paper currency. If you go look at the history of the different types of paper currencies that were considered legal tender, eventually it got consolidated into one uniform US currency that can be used to extinguish debts. And so the same thing could happen with digital currency as well. But for what it's worth, I do own some Bitcoin and I own some Ethereum and I own some Litecoin. I bought it back in 2017 on the recommendation of someone who works with me,

Starting point is 00:08:19 who knows a lot more about this stuff than I do and who has made a lot of money with it. And I just asked him, what should I buy? And I'm going to put an amount of money I don't care about. So don't feel bad if it all goes to zero. I don't care. I'm looking at it as gambling. So you just tell me. And he's like, all right, cool. Here, put 60% of it into Bitcoin, 20% into Ethereum, 20% into Litecoin. 20% into Ethereum, 20% into Litecoin. And there you go. And now it's up. I mean, it was up like six to seven times. And then I guess everything crashed recently. I don't pay too much attention, but I'm obviously still up. I think it's still up four or five times or something like that now. So that's cool. And I'm just going to hold onto it indefinitely unless I see an opportunity to reallocate it to

Starting point is 00:09:05 something that makes more sense, like real estate, for example. I might end up doing that, but for now I have some. Next question is, what do I think about activity trackers like Whoop, Apple Watch, and so forth? These devices, I have a Whoop. I have a 4.0 that they sent me for free, which is nice of them. And it has some great sleep and HRV tracking features. And I previously was using, I guess it's 3.0, one of the earlier Whoop models. And I like it for sleep tracking. I find it interesting to correlate how rested I feel with the number of disturbances in particular. And so what I've found is my normal disturbances are in the range of eight to 10. And apparently that's pretty normal. I'm not a great sleeper. I'm kind of a light sleeper. I was, I was a great sleeper 10 years ago, but then I had

Starting point is 00:09:57 two kids. And if I have fewer disturbances than that, if I have three, four, five disturbances, maybe I've never seen three actually, but if I have like three, four, five disturbances, maybe I've never seen three actually, but if I have like five, six, or even seven, I feel a little bit more rested than usual. I noticed that. And then if I have more disturbances than 10, if it's 12, if it's 15, I don't feel so good. Even if my wakings are more or less the same, I generally will wake up between three and probably five times a night would be the range. Well, maybe it's more like between two and five because three and four is pretty normal. Sometimes I get lucky and I only wake up twice and usually it's just a pee. And sometimes I get unlucky and I wake up five times. Rarely, it's more than that.

Starting point is 00:10:45 And when I wake up that frequently, it is usually one of two things. One, I'm sleeping in a new place and I'm uncomfortable, either physically, like the bed is too hard or the room is too hot, or I'm just, I don't know, emotionally uncomfortable, I guess, for whatever reason. I don't know, emotionally uncomfortable, I guess, for whatever reason. And that will make me sleep even lighter than usual. Or if I do too much the night before up until the point of going to bed. So if I work a bit too late and then I'm kind of rushing to get ready for bed. And if I don't have time to relax, if I don't have any time to turn the lights down and just kind of shut my brain off, I will almost always sleep worse. Even though I will fall asleep quickly, that's not the

Starting point is 00:11:34 problem. I will wake up more frequently if I don't let myself relax and get kind of sleepy before I go to bed. So if you are having the same problem, if you are having trouble staying asleep, try my little pre-sleep routine, which revolves around low light, no stimulating activities, no stimulating conversations. I don't watch TV at night. I stopped doing that some time ago because it would reliably interfere with my sleep. And I don't play around on my phone. If I'm on my phone, I'm reading and I use the Kindle app and I have the colors inverted. So the page is black and the text is white. And then I turn my screen brightness all the way down and I have the color temperature shield thing, whatever they call it on Android that

Starting point is 00:12:25 removes the blue. It changes the hue to a warmer light. And so I also will usually listen to some sort of music that is calming for me. That's classical music usually. And it sounds kind of silly. I know, but for me, that makes a difference. 30 or 45 minutes of that helps me calm down. It helps me get a little bit sleepy, get into sleep mode and then sleep better. So maybe it will help you too. But anyway, coming back to the question, which I'm not doing a good job keeping this answer brief. I'll have to make up for it in the future questions. Back to the activity trackers. Most people who ask me about these things want to use them for estimating calorie expenditure and studies show that they

Starting point is 00:13:11 are not good at that. Now, I haven't seen research on Whoop in particular, but I've looked at papers on similar devices and they can be way off, like 40, 50% off. And that of course can screw you up because now you think you are burning 3000 calories per day when you are actually burning, let's say 2,500 per day. And then you are wondering why you are not losing weight despite being in a calorie deficit, you think. And so for that reason, I would not recommend any devices. It's not necessary either. It's easier to just start with a good calorie calculator tool like you can find over at legionathletics.com. In the learn section of the menu, you'll find a bunch of tools. Actually, we have quite a few different calculators. And so it's much easier to use a good tool that

Starting point is 00:14:02 estimates your approximate energy expenditure, your approximate daily energy expenditure, and then to create a meal plan with that, working with that number. And then you just see how your body responds. And if you are losing weight or losing fat at the right rate, if you're cutting, there you go. And if you are gaining weight at the right rate, that's a tongue twister. If you are lean bulking, there you go. And if you're not, you simply adjust calories up or down until you are. And in that way, then you learn your body's calorie needs. You learn your range of cutting calories, which for most people is about eight to 10

Starting point is 00:14:41 calories per pound of body weight per day. And then so I'd be at like the low end of calories. And then you go to the high end lean gaining is 14 to 16, maybe up to 18 calories per pound of body weight per day for most people. And then maintenance is somewhere in the middle. Okay. Thoughts on liver King, clever marketing. I understand why a lot of people goggle at him and his antics, but keep in mind he's juiced to the gills, which is fine per se. It's not for me, but sure, some people, they understand the risks associated with that and they do it anyway. Okay, fine. But if he attributes any of his juiciness to the organ meats or any of the other antics, any of the other capers that he uses to

Starting point is 00:15:27 grow his following, then he's a crook. And if the liver king guy, if he claims that all you need to eat to optimize your health and wellbeing is organ meats, then he's ignorant or he's a crook. But if his message is just that organ meats are weird and they are nutritious sources of protein. And in some cases, they have some nutrients that are hard to get otherwise, then I guess I approve. The next question is, why was I at this time, why was I doing the dumbbell bench press before the incline barbell bench press? And the reason why is because that was helping me progress on the dumbbell bench press. We generally are going to perform best on whatever exercise we do first in our workouts. And then if you can progress on your dumbbell bench press, that can actually help with progressing on your barbell

Starting point is 00:16:17 bench press. And that's particularly useful if you get stuck on the barbell bench press, if you are not making progress on the bench press, despite good programming, despite good nutrition, despite good recovery, sometimes just making a change like that and doing some dumbbell bench pressing as the first exercise in a press workout, and then barbell bench pressing after that. If you do that for a couple of months and you get stronger on that dumbbell exercise, you can then go back to the barbell bench press and do better than when it was in the first position in your workouts months ago. The next question is, how do you handle losing friends because of different vaccine views? Well, I haven't lost any friends over that because I suppose I don't have many friends. I don't have many close friends. And the reason for that is it just takes time to have a close relationship if we are going to use

Starting point is 00:17:14 a suitable definition of the word close. An intimate relationship takes time to cultivate and to maintain, and I don't have that much time to give to friendships. So I have a handful of, I would say, intimate, close relationships. And then I have a lot of acquaintances. I have a lot of people I know who I like to chit chat with when I see them, but who I am not going to invite into my inner circle, so to speak. And then I guess I have a lot of pen pals because I mean, I have over 200,000 emails sent and received now. I guess there's a bit of spam in there, but at least two thirds of that is actual human interaction. And I still get emails from people who originally wrote to me six, seven, eight years ago, all the way back in the beginning, which is pretty cool. And so anyway, if I did have a friend who had such

Starting point is 00:18:05 a problem with my views about COVID-19 injections that they were going to walk away from the friendship, I would say that person's doing me a favor because any quote unquote friend who would leave over my disinterest in getting a non-sterilizing vaccine for a virus that poses no risk to me, remember I've already had COVID, natural immunity, and poses little to no risk to many people, but just talking about me, I would consider that person a moronic ditto head, unworthy of my friendship. I am all for letting the little Covidians enjoy their little Coviet union by themselves. Next question. If you had one piece of advice for a husband and wife about to start BLS and TLS, what

Starting point is 00:18:52 would it be? Give each other at least one compliment every day that is somehow related to your fitness journeys. You know, great new PR. Wow, you're strong. Way to get your workout in. I can already see changes. You're hot. You know, stuff like that. It'll help. Next question. You're named president. First task, reduce obesity

Starting point is 00:19:11 to 10% of US population. How would you do it? I mean, this is easy, especially now. Calorie and exercise mandates, of course, because calorie and exercise deniers are selfish criminals who are imposing massive burden on our healthcare system and on society in general. And they must be held accountable for their destructive decisions. And there will be cheaters, there will be holdouts. And what I would do with those people is I would temporarily, of course, I would resettle them into calorie and exercise camps, where then they would learn about energy balance and they would learn about their shared responsibility to control their calories and exercise. Why don't you build a massive home gym? Well, I'm not rich enough. That's it. That's the answer. I also have to build a new house and my wife would like

Starting point is 00:20:06 a new barn for her horses. And we're actually starting on the construction of the house in the next month or two. So that's exciting, but it's also expensive. So please just give all of your money and all of the money you can borrow to Legion. How to schedule training due to sleep deprivation because of toddler. Well, the first thing is try to stay active in any way that you can, even if it's just going for a daily walk or doing some body weight training at home. It doesn't even have to be a 45 minute workout or a 60 minute workout. You could do 10 minutes. You could do a couple rounds of 10 minutes. So do 10 or 15 minutes of body weight training, maybe in the morning, and then do another 10 or 15 minutes

Starting point is 00:20:49 in the afternoon, and then maybe a final 10 or 15 minutes sometime in the evening. And those things can help you just maintain the habit of staying physically active. Then try to do one to three proper strength training workouts per week and try to do them on days when you are more rested. Do not go into the gym for a weightlifting session when you are running on fumes because it is not going to be productive. And don't try to schedule them either. Don't try to commit to Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Just do them when you feel good and just try to schedule them either. Don't try to commit to Monday, Wednesday, Friday, just do them when you feel good and just try to get them done. One to three per week, full body workouts work well for that, just so you can make sure that you are hitting everything. You're giving all the major

Starting point is 00:21:37 muscle groups in your body, at least a little bit of volume every week. Whereas if you were to say, all right, I'm going to do a push, pull, and squat workout every week, and then you get your push and your pull done, and then your squat workout can't get done because of sleep issues. Well, then unfortunately your legs might not get any training that week if you are not deadlifting in the pull workout, for example. And so anyway, full body workouts, a few times per week, one, three times a week. Well for that. And then finally, try to take naps whenever you can sneak away for 30 or 45 minutes. And that can be a big help. Sleeping poorly and taking a nap is not the same as sleeping well and sleeping enough, but it is certainly better than sleeping poorly and not taking naps. Next question,

Starting point is 00:22:21 any concerns with low testosterone during a cut phase? No, because that only becomes an issue in men who are dieting for months, usually many months to get very lean. And I'm talking about photo shoot, maybe even stage lean, 7% body fat, 7 or 8 is probably photo shoot lean and then stage lean is 3, four, 5%. Now for the rest of us who are not cutting to, let's say below probably 10 or 9%, yeah, our testosterone can go down a little bit, but it is not going to have any meaningful impact on our physiology. And it's not going to have any major impact on our psychology. Maybe we will notice a little bit less energy. Maybe we will notice a little bit less energy.

Starting point is 00:23:09 Maybe we will notice a little bit less sex drive if we have been cutting for a few months and now we are pretty lean and we're still going. And once we stop cutting, it will quickly reverse. We will quickly feel normal again. And by the way, although women are not concerned with what happens with their testosterone when they're cutting, the same is generally true of the hormonal disruptions that can occur in women when they're cutting. They are usually minor and they quickly reverse once you are no longer cutting. What do you think about Smolov training? It's complete overkill for most people and many accomplished weightlifters would say that it is unnecessarily complicated and it is simply suboptimal programming. Glutamine is better pre

Starting point is 00:23:51 or post-workout or both, or not at all, because L-glutamine is a worthless supplement. If it were not worthless, I would sell it. I get asked to sell it, just like branched chain amino acids. A lot of people ask why I don't sell BCAAs, why I don't sell L-glutamine, why I don't sell a hydration supplement, why I don't sell collagen protein. I have a long list of supplements that people would like me to sell, but I don't sell because I don't see any good reason to other than taking people's money. And L-glutamine is one of those. other than taking people's money. And L-glutamine is one of those. Now, L-alanol, L-glutamine,

Starting point is 00:24:33 might be able to slightly reduce fatigue in long endurance workouts, but carbs are better for that. So even for that, I would tell people to just eat some food. You don't have to take the fancy, expensive form of glutamine for that. All right, the most underrated exercises. Well, a few off the top of my head that many people don't do are a weighted carry, a chest supported row, and the Bulgarian split squat. Would you ever run for political office? Maybe if we end up returning to a Roman-like system where a magistrate could raise an army, kill all of his political enemies, declare himself emperor, and then usher in a new era of peace and prosperity that would last 200 plus years. All hail Caesar Augustus. 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

Starting point is 00:25:35 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 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: Squat Depth, Bitcoin, Microwaving Food, Liver King, and More

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