Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Q&A: What to Eat Before Cardio, Improving Relationship with Food, and Joint Sleeves & Wraps

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

I’ve churned through over 150,000 emails, social media comments and messages, and blog comments in the last 6 years. And that means I’ve fielded a ton of questions. As you can imagine, some questions pop up more often than others, and I thought it might be helpful to take a little time every month to choose a few and record and share my answers. So, in this round, I answer the following three questions: What are some good foods for fueling before cardio? Any advice for bettering my relationship with food? How useful are knee and elbow sleeves and wraps? If you have a question you’d like me to answer, leave a comment below or if you want a faster response, send an email to [e-mail]. 4:26 - What are some good foods for fueling before cardio? 15:54 - Any advice for bettering my relationship with food? 26:21 - How useful are knee and elbow sleeves and wraps? Mentioned on The Show: Legion VIP One-on-One Coaching: https://buylegion.com/vip Whey+ & Plant+ https://legionathletics.com/products/protein/ Want free workout and meal plans? Download my science-based diet and training templates for men and women: https://legionathletics.com/text-sign-up/

Hello and welcome to Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for a Q&A where I answer questions that readers and followers ask me. If you want to ask me questions that I can answer for you and that may be chosen for future Q&A episodes, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife, just F-O-R-L-I-F-E dot com, and let me know what's on your mind. I get a lot of emails, so it may take me 7, 10, maybe even 14 days, or sometimes a little bit longer, to be honest, to get back with you, but you will hear back from me, and you will get an answer. And if it's a question that a lot of people are asking or have been asking for some time, or if it's something that just strikes my fancy and it's something

that I haven't already beaten to death on the podcast or the blog, then I may also choose it for an episode and answer it publicly. Another way to get questions to me is Instagram at muscle for life fitness. You can DM them to me, although that is harder for me to stay on top of. I do try, but the inbox is a little bit buggy and it just takes more time trying to do it, whether it's on my phone or the windows app, but there is a good chance you will still get a reply emails better. And I also do post, I think it's every few weeks or so, in my feed asking for people to give me questions, give me fodder for the next Q&A. So if you would rather do that, then just follow me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness and send me a message or just wait for one of my Q&A posts. So in this episode, I will answer three questions. The first one is what are

some good foods for fueling before cardio? And I don't have a note here as to who this came from. So anonymous question, but a good question. And the next one is also anonymous. And the question is any advice for bettering my relationship with food? And lastly, another anonymous question, but one that I get asked fairly often, and that is how useful are knee and elbow sleeves and wraps? Also, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my VIP one-on-one coaching service because my team and I have helped people of all ages and all circumstances lose fat, build muscle, and get into the best shape of their life

faster than they ever thought possible. And we can do the same for you. We make getting fitter, leaner, and stronger paint by numbers simple by carefully managing every aspect of your training and your diet for you. Basically, we take out all of the guesswork. So all you have to do is follow the plan and watch your body change day after day, week after week, and month after month. What's more, we've found that people are often missing just one or two crucial pieces of the puzzle. And I'd bet a shiny shekel it's the same with you. You're probably doing a lot of things right, but dollars to donuts, there's something you're not doing correctly or at all that's giving you the most grief. Maybe it's your calories or your macros. Maybe it's your exercise selection.

Maybe it's your food choices. Maybe you're not progressively overloading your muscles, or maybe it's something else. And whatever it is, here's what's important. Once you identify those one or two things you're missing, once you figure it out, that's when everything finally clicks. That's when you start making serious progress. And that's exactly what we do for our clients. To learn more, head over to www.buylegion.com that's B-U-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N.com slash VIP and schedule your free consultation call, which by the way, is not a high pressure sales call. It's really just a discovery call where we get to know you better and see if you're a good fit for the service. And if you're not, for any reason,

we will be able to share resources that'll point you in the right direction. So again, if you appreciate my work and if you want to see more of it, and if you also want to finally stop spinning your wheels and make more progress in the next few months than you did in the last few years, check out my VIP coaching service at www.buylegion.com slash VIP. Okay, so let's start with the first question, which is what are some good foods for fueling before cardio? Generally, you want to eat some protein and some carbs before you do cardio. And that's true of any exercise really. So the advice I'm going to share here applies to cardio as well as weightlifting or again, any other type of exercise.

So if you haven't eaten protein in, let's say the two or three hours preceding the workout, then I would recommend having a serving of protein. So 20 to 40 grams, depending on your body weight. If you are a light person, you can do 20 to maybe 30. If you are a heavier person, so let's say you're a dude who's in pretty good shape and you weigh 200 pounds, then closer to 40 grams is probably better. And the reason for this is it will help blunt the catabolic response to exercise. Exercise results in muscle breakdown. The muscle synthesis, the muscle building happens after the gym. Many people don't know that. They think that when they're in their banging weights, they are ramping up the creation of muscle proteins. They are ramping up muscle protein synthesis rates

when actually the opposite happens. As you work out, and this applies to weightlifting as well, muscle protein breakdown rates rise. And especially after a workout, in the hour or so following a workout, if you have not eaten protein in the couple of hours preceding the workout, and if you don't eat

protein within an hour or so of finishing a workout, muscle breakdown rates go even higher. So an easy way to mitigate that, and this is not a major factor in terms of muscle and strength gain, but it is one of those little things that can matter to some degree over time and particularly for intermediate and advanced weightlifters. So to mitigate that, you can have some protein before you work out again, particularly if you haven't eaten protein in the last couple of hours preceding the workout. If you had a good serving of protein, a good amount of protein, maybe an hour before training, you probably don't need to eat more before you train. But if it's been three plus hours,

you can have some protein before your workout, and then you're going to be in the gym for probably about an hour. And I'm assuming you have to drive to the gym and you have to drive home. So then if you planned on eating another serving of protein within an hour or so of finishing your workout, you don't have to worry too much about the quote-unquote anabolic window, but if that was your plan to have protein within maybe 30 to 60 minutes before the workout, and then you do the workout, and then you have another serving of protein within an hour or so after the workout, that's good pre- and post-workout nutrition advice. That's a best practice, so to speak. Now, as far as carbs go, you should also have some carbs before you train in particular, if you want to have as good of a

workout as you can, because research shows that if you have, let's say 30 to 60 grams of carbs before you train, and again, this would apply to cardio as well as resistance training, as well as anything else that you might be doing exercise-wise, you are going to have a better workout than you would otherwise. You're going to perform slightly better in that workout. So in the case of cardio, you might be able to maintain a better pace, might be able to go a bit further in terms of distance. And if it's weightlifting, you may get a couple of more reps on your big lifts than you would if you hadn't eaten carbs. And as far as what to eat, there is not much controversy around the protein that you eat before a workout. Just make sure it is a good source of protein. A lot of people, of course, just use protein powder because it's convenient. My go-to,

for example, is just whey protein, legion whey protein, of course. But if you don't do whey, you can eat whatever you eat normally when you want to get in some good protein. But as far as pre-workout carbs go, there are many opinions on what is best, what is optimal. many opinions on what is best, what is optimal. There are many supplements, carb supplements that are sold as better than any form of whole food carbohydrate. And most of that is nonsense or just marketing puffery. For example, there's good evidence that fresh and dried fruit like bananas, pears, apples, oranges, blueberries, grapes, raisins, and on and on and on are excellent sources of carbs for eating before a workout. And if you're doing a longer workout, you can have some during a workout too to maintain your energy and maintain your

performance. Now that's mostly applicable to cardio workouts, to endurance workouts. You don't need to eat carbs during a weightlifting workout. If you have some before, if you have enough before, and I don't think I gave the timing, I would say within 30 minutes or so. That's when I have carbs before I train. I eat them and then basically drive to the gym and get going. So it's about 30 minutes before I get into my hard sets. You don't need to continue having carbs throughout your weightlifting workout. It's not going to make a difference. Now, something to consider when eating before a cardio workout in particular is how your stomach is going to feel. You don't want to have stomach discomfort while you're running or biking or

swimming or doing whatever you're going to do. So this is really just a matter of knowing your body. or doing whatever you're going to do. So this is really just a matter of knowing your body. If, for example, having the serving of protein and the carbs, let's say 30 minutes before you go for your run or whatever you're going to do, doesn't sit well with you. And that then of course gets in the way of not only your performance, but also your enjoyment of the workout. Then just eat the food earlier, eat it 45 minutes before the workout or 60 or even 90 minutes before the workout. And I wouldn't go too far beyond that because then you're going to lose the benefits. But 90 minutes before is, I think, a good cutoff for pre-workout nutrition and particularly for endurance workouts. And one other thing is it's a good idea to eat at least 30 to 60 grams of carbs per hour

of exercise if you're going for a long run or a long swim or biking session, let's say longer than 90 minutes. If you're going to be exerting yourself continually for more than an hour and a half, try to get in 30 to 60 grams of carbs per hour. And then after your workout, I already mentioned that having a serving of protein within an hour or so is a good idea. And that applies to both cardio and resistance training workouts and eating carbs after a workout depends on what you're doing. So if you are doing multiple workouts in a day, so let's say you are starting with either in the morning, let's say you're doing your cardio session or your weightlifting session. And then later you're going to do the other. So if you did cardio first thing in the morning, and let's say in the

afternoon, you're going to be lifting or vice versa, then it's a good idea to have some carbs after to replenish your body's glycogen stores. And glycogen is just a form of carbohydrate that's stored in the liver and in the muscles and you need it for high intensity exercise. So particularly in the case of doing your cardio and especially if it involves some high intensity, like maybe some sprints, and then let's say later you're gonna lift, well then you wanna make sure

that you're replenishing the glycogen that you're burning in the cardio session so you have it for when you lift. And to do that, 30 to 50 grams or so of carbs within, again, about an hour, give or take some time. So it could be 30 minutes after your workout. It could be 90 minutes after your workout. So let's just say within an hour or so. Now, if you're doing just one workout per day, or if let's say you're doing some cardio in the morning, but it is low intensity, let's say you're just going for a walk or maybe you are going for a rock. Maybe you are walking with some weight or maybe it's a light jog or a very light bike ride. Then it's not going to much impact your glycogen stores if at all. So you don't have to eat carbs after a workout like

that. However, if you are starting with weightlifting and then you're doing, let's say, at least moderate intensity cardio later, and certainly if you're doing some high intensity cardio, then it would be a good idea to have some carbs within an hour of the workout. And you could flip those around too. If you're starting with some higher intensity cardio that will burn glycogen, then it's probably a good idea to replenish to try to top off your glycogen stores for that second workout later. And as for what specifically you should eat, I mentioned fruit earlier. I mentioned whey protein as well as any other source of protein that you like. But as this question was on cardio specifically, some popular options for people who are into endurance training, who don't want to have a lot of food in

their stomach are high protein yogurts like Greek yogurt or my favorite skier. I prefer Icelandic skier over Greek yogurt because the macros are the same or better and it just tastes better to me. And it has better mouthfeel. It's less bitter. It's creamier. So anyways, that's an option. Cottage cheese is popular. Beef jerky or any type of jerky really is popular among endurance athletes. And then protein powders, of course, any type of protein powder. And as for carbs, oatmeal is popular. Milk substitutes with carbs like rice milk is popular, which you can mix with protein powder and it tastes nice. Quinoa, rice, white rice, brown rice, eat whichever you prefer.

Sweet potatoes or regular old potatoes and legumes. Now, you don't have to eat any of those, of course. Just find what works for you. Find the high quality source of protein that you prefer. Maybe it's a plant-based protein powder, like Legion's Plant Plus, for example, which has rice protein and pea protein. Or maybe it's a chicken breast, or maybe it's eggs, or maybe it's even highly filtered, high protein milk. And as for carbs, just eat what you like. You really can't go wrong here. Studies show that any form of carbohydrate is going to work just about as well as any other if we're talking about pre-workout and post-workout nutrition.

And the supposed benefits of some of these very fancy sounding and expensive carbohydrate supplements that claim to do things in the body that a banana could never do are bogus. Don't waste your money on those supplements. Just eat food. Unless I suppose you want to use one of those supplements during a very long session of endurance training, simply because it's easy to drink carbs and you'd rather do that than eat some food along the way. Then I suppose you could use one of those supplements for that. But again, you may find that dried fruit works just as well, that it's easy to just pop a handful of raisins, for example, and it's a lot cheaper.

If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my VIP one-on-one coaching service, because my team and I have helped people of all ages and circumstances lose fat, build muscle, and get into the best shape of their life faster than they ever thought possible. And we can do the same for you. Okay, so let's move on to the next question, which is any advice for bettering my relationship with food? Sure, I have some advice for bettering your relationship with food. So one thing have some advice for bettering your relationship with food. So one thing is don't look at your workouts, don't look at exercise as a way to quote unquote earn your food or calories. Not only is exercise usually ineffective for trying to lose weight or

even maintain weight because you just don't burn that many calories when you work out, even if it's an intense workout. You might burn, let's say, 600 calories, give or take some. Now, that might sound like a lot of calories, but if you are well acquainted with the caloric content of a lot of different foods, especially the delicious foods, you know that it is very easy to put down an extra 600 calories. I mean, if you ate like a cookie with a glass of milk, that might be enough to do it. So you don't want to fall into the trap of using exercise to try to keep pace with your eating, because that can set you up for exercise addiction, over-exercising because you are trying again to offset all of the eating that

you're doing and it can lead to eating disorders. It can lead to overuse injuries. Instead, look at your training, look at your exercise as a way to boost your health and boost your fitness and boost your body composition in particular. That's of course why I recommend that people spend most of their time training their muscles. Hopefully your training is also a source of pleasure. Hopefully you enjoy your workouts. Maybe not every workout, but most of the time you should be having a good time. And if nothing else, you should always leave the gym feeling better than when you arrived. If your workouts are too grueling, for example, if they just beat the absolute shit out of you, that's not ideal

because that's not sustainable. You can get results that way in the short term, but can you train that way over the long term? No. So those are some of the bigger outer game things that you want to accomplish with your training. And then there's the inner game stuff. There is discipline, right? Developing discipline, developing toughness and grit and resilience. Now, as far as your diet goes, you want to view that as simply a way to support your training. So to support your post-workout recovery, for example, muscle building, support your body composition goals or reach your body composition goals, particularly control your body fat levels.

You do that with your diet, not with your training. You can look at your training as contributing to that, but primarily the big lever that you are going to pull is going to be your diet. When you want to lose fat, when you want to gain muscle or maximize muscle growth, right? Lean bulk, lean gain, or just maintain your body composition. And you also want to look at your diet as a way to support your lifestyle and your longevity, as a way to provide your body with all of the key nutrients it needs to stay healthy and stay vital and to stave off disease and dysfunction. Another tip for building and maintaining a good relationship with food is don't engage in any extreme dieting. Don't starve

yourself to try to lose fat as quickly as possible. And to put a number to that specifically, what I'm talking about is not exceeding a 25% calorie deficit. If you start to eat fewer calories than that, so if you start to eat 70% of the calories that you're burning, that'd be a 30% deficit or 65%, 35% or even 60% and so forth, then you're going to lose fat faster. But the negative side effects associated with dieting are really going to come into play. You're going to risk muscle loss. You are going to be hungry. You are going to be dealing with cravings. Your energy levels are going to drop. Your mood is going to drop. And your chances of success are going to drop because you can only

suffer for so long before you quit, right? And in many cases, the chances of not just quitting, but flaming out go way up. The chances of following the period of starvation with a period of binging, of dramatic overeating, go way up. And that is not only bad for your body composition, it's bad for your morale. It's disappointing, it's discouraging, and it makes you less likely to want to try again. Now on the flip side, extreme overeating is also a problem. Dirty bulking, as people call it. Eating a ton of calories to try to gain muscle and strength as quickly as possible. Studies show that, unfortunately, a relatively small calorie surplus, let's say 10% or so, so let's say eating about 110%

of the average amount of energy that you burn every day, is just as effective for boosting muscle and strength gain as much larger deficits. So you can't eat 130% of your total daily energy expenditure and hope to gain any more muscle and strength than if you were eating 110%. What you will gain a lot more of though with the larger surplus is body fat. And while that may not bother your aesthetic sensibilities, you may not be concerned about looking fatter, you probably are not going to enjoy the long cutting periods that will be required to get back to a normal body fat level because eventually you need to stop lean bulking.

You need to stop putting on fat and get back to a starting point for a new lean bulk. For guys, it's usually around 16, 17%. That's a good rule of thumb. And for women, 26, 27%. And the primary reason for that is not so much that getting fatter is going to get in the way of your ability to continue gaining muscle and strength. It's more just that you probably are not going to want to look like that forever. You probably are going to want to see your abs and you're probably going to want to get to a point where you can maintain a relatively lean physique. Now, if you get too fat though, in your bulking phases, it's going to take a long time to see those abs. It might take four months, six months. And with cutting in particular,

the longer you make it, at least for most people, the less likely you are to reach your goal. Even if you go about it correctly, even if you use a moderate calorie deficit of let's say aggressive, but not reckless, 20% or so, that's a good rule of thumb. So even if you're maintaining a 20% calorie deficit and you're eating enough protein and you're eating enough nutritious foods and you're getting enough sleep and drinking enough water, you're doing all of the cutting things correctly. Life always finds ways to test us, right? It's just easier to do an eight-week cut or a 10-week cut than a 15-week cut or a 20-week cut because there are fewer things that can go wrong with less time. things that can go wrong with less time. So if you follow my advice, if you're a guy and you don't lean bulk beyond 16 or 17% body fat, if you're a gal 26 or 27% body fat, what you'll find

is it doesn't take more than 8, 10, maybe 12 weeks, depending on how lean you want to get, to finish your cutting phases so you can get back to the next round of lean bulking if you want to continue gaining muscle or maybe maintenance if you are happy with your muscularity and you just want to now stay lean year round and look great. One other useful perspective that can improve your relationship with food is realizing that no individual foods are good or bad or healthy or unhealthy. Only your diet on the whole could be characterized as good or bad, which aren't very useful terms. We'd have to be more specific. What is good? What is bad? What does it mean to have a quote-unquote healthy diet or unhealthy diet?

But, and I'll get to that in a second, the individual instances of eating one food or another don't matter so much as the foods that you are eating most regularly as your diet on the whole. So for example, a good diet or a healthy diet has you eating the right number of calories for your goals. So maybe you're restricting calories because you want to lose body fat. Maybe you are eating a surplus of calories because you want to maximize muscle and strength gain, or maybe you're just trying to balance your calories with your energy output. So you can just maintain your body fat level. A healthy or good diet also has you eating plenty of protein, high protein dieting beats low protein dieting in every way. It also has you

eating enough carbs for fueling your workouts primarily. And if you're like most people, you're going to do better with more carbs, not less. And especially if you are doing a lot of resistance training or high intensity cardio, a good or healthy diet also has you eating enough fat to maintain health. That's the primary reason that we need to eat enough dietary fat. It doesn't much impact performance. And if we want to get specific there, it also would have you eating some saturated fat, but not too much. The rule of thumb is try not to exceed 10% of your daily calories with saturated fat and try to get most of your fat from unsaturated sources. My go-tos are olive oil, avocado, and nuts. All right, moving down the list here of good or

healthy dieting, another criterion is getting at least 80% of your calories from whole, relatively unprocessed, nutrient-dense foods. That's going to be fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, you know, stuff that your mom always wanted you to eat basically. And then allowing yourself to have treats if you want using a minority of your calories, using the calories left over, let's say no more than 20% or so on whatever you want, no matter how low nutrition the food is. So for example, my go-tos are dark chocolate, which actually does have nutritional value, but I don't eat it for its nutritional value. I just eat it because I like it. And ice cream. Those are the two things that I will go to

regularly. And I'll usually have one or the other every day. I'm just not having that much. Okay, let's move on now to the final question, which is how useful are knee and elbow sleeves and wraps? Now, many people don't know that sleeves and wraps are different. So sleeves are generally made from neoprene and you slide them over your knees or your elbows, whereas wraps are strips of stiff but still elastic material that you wrap around your knees and elbows several times and very tightly. Now, why do people use these things and do they actually do anything? Are they worth using? Well, let's talk about sleeves first. So, sleeves are worn to increase comfort and to increase joint stability. And particularly when you're doing heavy weightlifting, when you're doing heavy squats or heavy deadlifts or heavy bench presses. And research shows that

there are some objective benefits to knee sleeves in particular. And the studies looked at squatting. So for example, research shows that knee sleeves can improve your squat 1RM strength and possibly because they store and release elastic energy when the knees bend and the neoprene stretches. Studies show that knee sleeves can improve muscle coordination when you're squatting by improving your ability to perceive your position, your body's position in space, and to understand how your body is moving. And sleeves can also increase muscle and joint temperatures, which may improve some of the performance-related properties of the quads in particular. Now, I'm not aware of any similar research that have looked at the effects of elbow sleeves, but it's fair to assume that they could have similar effects on the bench press and possibly the overhead press for the same reasons. Now let's talk about wraps. Studies show that knee wraps do indeed help you squat more weight

and they help you squat more explosively than without wraps. That said, they do not improve comfort. In fact, they will probably be very uncomfortable, but they can improve the subjective feelings of stability. So your joints, your knees, or elbows can feel more stable if you wrap them. That said, studies show that wraps do have at least one major downside, and that is although you can lift more weight when you wear them or when you use straps, your muscles actually do less work. There was one study that looked at squatting and knee wrapping in particular, and what the researchers found is that when the knees were wrapped, the quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves produced less force than when knees were unwrapped or sleeved, which highlights a major benefit of

sleeves over wraps. They improve comfort, they improve performance, but they don't reduce the amount of force produced by muscles, which could negatively affect muscle building over time. Now, as far as what types of sleeves you should get, go for neoprene over nylon. Research shows that the neoprene sleeves are more effective. And go for tight fitting, but not super tight fitting. Research shows that the extra tight sleeves are not going to help you any more than the more appropriately fitted. So just go with the size that feels comfortable. It should feel tight, but comfortable. If it is so tight that it is uncomfortable, or if it is impairing your ability to easily move through a full range of motion, for example, it's too tight. to the usefulness of knee sleeves personally. I've been using them for some time now when I squat

and when I deadlift. And I notice exactly what I mentioned in this podcast, that it feels good on my joints. It makes the exercises a little bit more comfortable. It keeps my joints warm. And I do seem to be able to squat in particular a little bit more weight or get a couple of more reps with sleeves than without sleeves. I don't use wraps. I use sleeves and I have not used elbow sleeves because I guess it never really occurred to me. And there are no studies on elbow sleeves. We don't know if it's going to make a difference in bench pressing or overhead pressing, but if you want to try it out, I think it's reasonable to assume that it may be able to help. And lastly, as far as brands go, the two companies that I can stand by, I'm not getting paid to,

of course, but I know they make good products, are SBD and Reband, or Reband, R-E-H, Band. I use Reband. That's what I have. And those are generally sold in singles, I think. So just keep that in mind when you're buying them so you don't receive one and then have to order another one and wait oh and a couple of tips for keeping your knee sleeves from getting super stinky which is just kind of gross one just use them on the exercises that you want to use them on for For me, it's on my lower body stuff, like I said, squatting, and I'll usually keep them on for whatever exercise I'm doing second, which is going to be difficult, but not as difficult as the squat. So for example, right now I'm starting with front squats and then I'm doing lunges. I'll keep the sleeves on for the front squats and the lunges where I notice benefits, and then I'll take them off for the hamstring exercise that I'm doing, which right now is a lying hamstring curl. In my previous cycle of

training, it was a good morning. I don't need the sleeves for that, so I'll just take them off. And the idea, of course, is just to minimize the amount of sweat that is going in them. And then my next tip is once I take the sleeves off, I immediately spray them with disinfectant, which is in every gym now. I think every gym I've been in over the last six months has offered bottles of disinfectant that you can carry around. And I do that. I spray equipment down. I wipe it down like a good little citizen, but I also will take the spray and again, shoot it inside the sleeves to kill bacteria. And I, Oh, one other thing I'll do is I'll put them on the dashboard of my car when I'm driving back so they can sit in the sun and get some UV rays

as well. Eventually though, they start to smell and then I just throw them in the washing machine. Okie dokie. Well, that's it for knee sleeves and elbow sleeves and knee wraps and elbow wraps. And that's it for this episode. Thanks again for joining me. I hope you liked it. And next week I'm going to be talking about DHEA, which is often sold as a testosterone booster, which isn't entirely untrue. And I have another installment of Best of Muscle for Life coming where you're going to hear handpicked morsels from some of the most popular episodes that I have released over the last couple of years. And then there's going to

be another round of Q and a, where I'm going to be talking about the lying versus the seated hamstring curl, which is better weight loss medications and isometric training. All right. Well, that's it for today's episode. I hope you found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and you don't mind doing me a favor, could you please leave a quick review for the podcast on iTunes or wherever you are listening from? Because those reviews not only convince people that they should check out the show, they also increase the search visibility and help more people find their way to me and to the podcast and learn how to build their best body ever as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and whatever app you're using to listen. And you will not miss out on any of the new stuff that I have coming.

And last, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts. Let me know how you think I could do this better. I read every email myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. All right. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.