Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Says You! Ideal Cardio Volume, Nothing Is "Scientifically Proven," and Deadlifts for Hypertrophy

Episode Date: January 8, 2021

I’ve written and recorded a lot of evidence-based content over the years on just about everything you can imagine related to building muscle, losing fat, and getting healthy. I’ve also worked with thousands of men and women of all ages and circumstances and helped them get into the best shape of their lives. That doesn’t mean you should blindly swallow everything I say, though, because let’s face it—nobody is always right about everything. And especially in fields like diet and exercise, which are constantly evolving thanks to the efforts of honest and hardworking researchers and thought leaders. This is why I’m always happy to hear from people who disagree with me, especially when they have good arguments and evidence to back up their assertions. Sometimes I can’t get on board with their positions, but sometimes I end up learning something, and either way, I always appreciate the discussion. That gave me the idea for this series of podcast episodes: publicly addressing things people disagree with me on and sharing my perspective. Think of it like a spicier version of a Q&A. So, here’s what I’m doing: Every couple of weeks, I’m asking my Instagram followers what they disagree with me on, and then picking a few of the more common or interesting contentions to address here on the podcast. And in this episode, I’ll be tackling the following . . . 4:42 - “I disagree on how much cardio you should do to improve your body composition. I believe “that no more than half of the amount of time lifting weights for cardio” is not enough for most people.” 22:33 - “The only thing that I’ve ever really disagreed with you on is your use of the phrase ‘scientifically proven’. Science doesn’t prove anything. That isn’t its goal or its point. And as a science guy myself, the phrase just peeves me, even when it is in fact an effective marketing gimmick.” 29:14 - “Conventional/sumo deadlifts in a hypertrophy program. I don’t think there’s much value for them being in such a program.” Mentioned on The Show: Books by Mike Matthews: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/ My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/muscleforlifefitness/ --- 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 your host, Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today. Now, I've written and recorded a lot of evidence-based stuff over the years on just about everything you can imagine relating to building muscle, losing fat, and getting healthy. I've also worked with thousands and thousands of men and women of all ages and circumstances and helped them get into the best shape of their life. But that does not mean you should just blindly swallow everything I say, because let's face it, nobody is always right about everything. And especially in fields like diet and exercise, which are always evolving thanks to the efforts of honest and hardworking researchers and thought leaders. And that's why I'm always happy to hear

from people who disagree with me, especially when they have good arguments and evidence to back up their assertions. Sometimes I can't quite get on board with their positions, but sometimes I end up learning something. And either way, I always appreciate the discussion. And that gave me the idea for this series of podcast episodes, which I call Says You, where I publicly address things that people disagree with me on, and I share my perspective. It's kind of like a spicier Q&A. So what I do is every couple of weeks, I ask people who follow me on Instagram, at Muscle for Life Fitness, please follow me, what they disagree with me on. And then I pick a few of the more common or interesting contentions to address here on the podcast. So if there's something that you disagree

with me on, and it could be related to diet, exercise, supplementation, business, lifestyle, I don't care, anything, go follow me on Instagram at MuscleForLifeFitness and look for my says you story that I put up every couple of weeks where I solicit content for these episodes, or just shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com. All right, so here is what I'll be tackling in today's episode. The first comes from Domen Preloznik from Instagram, and here she says, I disagree on how much cardio you should do to improve your body composition. I believe that, quote, no more than half of the amount of time lifting weights for cardio, end quote, which comes from me. That's my general recommendation is not enough for most people.

And then I have the following from Z underscore William Z from Instagram. And he says, the only thing I've ever really disagreed with you on is your use of the phrase scientifically proven. Science doesn't prove anything. That isn't its goal or its point. And as a science guy myself, the phrase just peeves me even when it is in fact an effective marketing gimmick. And then I have from Max Mazzetti over on Instagram, conventional slash sumo deadlifts in a hypertrophy program. I don't think there's much value for them being in such a program. Also, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out

my health and fitness books, including the number one bestselling weightlifting books for men and women in the world, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, and Thinner, Leaner, Stronger, as well as the leading flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best body ever. And you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes & Noble stores. And I should also mention that you can get any of the audiobooks 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account. And this is a great way to make those pockets of downtime, like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning, more interesting, entertaining, and productive. And so if you want

to take Audible up on this offer, and if you want to get one of my audio books for free, just go to www.buylegion.com and sign up for your account. So again, if you appreciate my work and if you want to see more of it, and if you want to learn time-proven and evidence-based strategies for losing fat, building muscle, and getting healthy, and strategies that work for anyone and everyone, regardless of age or circumstances, please do consider picking up one of my best-selling books, Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, and The Shredded Chef for my favorite fitness-friendly recipes. Okay, so let's get to it, starting with the first point on cardio. How much cardio should you be doing? My general recommendation is no more

than half of the amount of time you spend training your muscles. If you want to maximize your body composition, if you are trying to gain muscle and strength as quickly as possible, possibly lose fat as well, then that's my general recommendation for cardio. And Domen Prilaznik disagrees with that. And he or she says here that as long as recovery and nutrition is under control, cardio at low to moderate intensity does not interfere with weight training in particular, even when done in larger amounts, 10 plus hours of weekly cycling, hiking, et cetera. Okay. So let's start with, I disagree with Domen Prolosnik's assertion that doing 10 plus hours of weekly cycling or hiking or other moderate intensity cardio is not going to interfere with your weightlifting whatsoever. 10 plus hours of maybe low intensity walking per week probably won't, but 10 plus hours of cycling or higher intensity, not high intensity, but higher,

at least when he says moderate, I think of probably the range of like four to six out of 10 in terms of effort. Or if we want to look at it differently, moderate intensity cardio is where you could have a conversation, but not a very fluent one. You couldn't record a podcast like this. You would have to stop and catch your breath every several lines or so. Now, why do I disagree that for most people doing 10 plus hours of that level of intensity of cardio per week is not going to be an issue at all in terms of muscle and strength gain. Well, if somebody wants to improve their body composition more than anything else, if that is their primary goal, then that means that they are going to have to either increase the amount of muscle that they have or decrease the amount of fat that they have or both, right?

And the best way to achieve the look that these people are after, to achieve the physique that they're after, because of course that is the end goal, is to look a certain way, to have a certain type of body. And depending on how muscular you want to be, whether you are a guy or a girl, and depending on how lean you want to be, there is a sweet spot in terms of muscle you have to gain and body fat level you have to achieve. You could say as a body fat percentage. I've said this many times, but in case you haven't heard me say it many times, I'll just repeat it that most of the people I have worked with over the years and heard from over the years want to gain about 30 pounds or so in the case of men. So to go from starting to 30 pounds of muscle gained and to get their body fat percentage down to about 10,

11, 12%, something around there. That's for most guys. And the look that most women are after, I would say is probably 15-ish pounds of muscle gained in the right places. Most women are more concerned with or they are more interested in their lower body development than their upper body development. Or another way to look at that is it takes women longer, most women, it takes them longer to get the lower body that they want. That takes more work than the upper body, but it generally comes down to 15 to maybe 20 pounds of muscle gained in the right places and a body fat level of about 20% or so, maybe a little bit higher, maybe a little bit lower, depending on how lean and athletic and defined they want to be. probably you, that is again, most people who have found their way into my orbit. Most of the men fall into the bucket I just described and most of the women fall into the other bucket. And for those people, they need to focus on their strength training, on their resistance training, on their

weightlifting. They need to make sure that they make progress in their strength training to get to that goal because it takes a lot more work and a lot more attention on your strength training to get to that goal, because it takes a lot more work and a lot more attention on your strength training to gain all that muscle than it does to get your body fat down to where it needs to be. Because of course, that is very straightforward. That is just calories and macros, and it's really just protein, right? Because carbs and fat don't really matter all that much. So long as you hit your calories and you hit your protein, and it doesn't have to be perfect every day, of course, but so long as you are on point more often than you are not, let's say 70 or 80% of the time, you are within 5 or 10% of your calorie target and your protein target. And if you can just do that for a long enough period of time,

you can get lean. That's really all it takes. Now, gaining 30 pounds of muscle if you're a guy or 15 or 20 pounds of muscle if you're a woman is straightforward, but it is more complex. There are more moving parts. There are more things you have to get right. You can't just go in the gym and mess around for a few hours per week doing whatever you see on YouTube or in magazines or something and just ride your newbie gains for six to eight months and be done. That unfortunately

doesn't work. I know that firsthand because that's what I did for my first year or even two years of weightlifting. And then the following four to five years were a little bit more organized and effective, but nothing like what my training is now. And so then as strength training really is the key that unlocks the transformation that people are after and is the prime mover, so to speak, I want people to focus on it. And I know that the average person has maybe three to five hours a week to give to their training, and I want to make sure that they give most of that time to strength training. I also will often say that if you are someone who has three to five hours per week to exercise,

then I would recommend you spend 80% of that time on your strength training, training your muscles, and the remaining 20% on cardio. And if you have to miss a workout for whatever reason, try to miss your cardio workout, not your strength training. Now, some people have more time on their hands and the inclination to do more exercise. And so to those people, I recommend four to six hours of strength training per week. And again, no more than half of the amount of time that they spend on their strength training doing cardio. So if they're doing six hours of strength training per week, try to do no more than about three hours of cardio. And when I say cardio, I'm really referring to at

least a three or four out of 10 in terms of exertion, something that has you breathing a bit, something that would not allow you to just sit on the phone and chat away with your buddy like you're sitting on the couch. Again, you might be able to have a conversation, but it's going to be a little bit labored. So therefore, an intensity level, let's say one or two, which would just be going out for a walk where you don't feel an increase in your heart rate or your breathing rate. You're really just going for a stroll. I wouldn't count that time toward my cardio recommendation, just to make that clear, because that level of cardiovascular exertion has basically no negative effects on the body in terms of recovery or anything else. But if you're doing cardio of a higher intensity,

again, if we're now moving into the moderate range, and then certainly if we're moving into the high intensity range, and when you get up into that range, you can't speak in more than maybe several words at a time. And then of course, at the top of the scale of one to 10, you can't speak at all and your lungs are on fire and you feel like you are suffocating and you can't get enough oxygen in. Now, how does that work? How

does cardio get in the way of muscle building? Well, there are two primary ways it does this. One is it can cut significantly into your calorie surplus. And if you don't realize how many calories you're burning in those cardio workouts, and if you don't naturally have a big appetite, quote unquote, hard gainers run into this problem often, then what can happen is you can think you're in a calorie surplus, but you're actually not. You might be in a slight calorie deficit more often than a surplus, but you think you're lean gaining or you think you are lean bulking. And so that's one way. And then the other way is cardio can directly interfere with physiological processes related to muscle building. Now I've written and spoken quite a bit about this already, so I won't go into all of the details again here, but if you want to crack this nut a lot wider,

head over to legionathletics.com and just search for cardio and you'll find several articles and podcasts that I've recorded on the topic and the titles should guide you to whatever information you want to learn. That said, for the purpose of this discussion, I will just quickly summarize the key points for the two ways that cardio can get in the way of muscle building. So this first point of reducing your calorie surplus doesn't have to be a problem because normal cardio sessions don't burn that many calories. You're probably looking at three to 600 calories per session, and that's pretty easy to correct for if you understand that you need to do that,

that you need to make sure you are eating enough to be in a calorie surplus when you have accounted for all of the calories that you're burning. Now, of course, I'm assuming here that you are lean gaining, which you should be if you're trying to maximize muscle and strength gain, because trying to eat at maintenance, which is always a moving target, right? What maintenance really is, is alternating between a slight calorie surplus and a slight calorie deficit, usually in a random fashion, like a roulette table, right? So let's look at it in terms of just a seven-day week. You might go surplus, surplus, deficit, surplus, deficit, deficit, surplus, deficit, for example. you're not going to nail your total daily energy expenditure

to the calorie, maybe ever. And as I mentioned earlier, this really only tends to be a problem, at least in my experience, with hard gainer types, people who are naturally skinny and who struggle to put on weight. That is often because they just don't have a big appetite naturally, and they struggle to eat enough calories to maintain a calorie surplus. Many quote-unquote hard gainers I've worked with over the years thought that they were eating 3, 4,000 plus calories per day, but then realized after I asked them to track their food intake for a week that they were eating something closer to probably 2,000, maybe 2,500 calories per day. And that was simply not enough to ensure that they could consistently gain muscle and strength. And one for one, the solution was to

figure out how to get them to be able to comfortably eat enough food. Again, many of these people naturally don't desire to eat all that much. They just don't have a very large appetite. And so sometimes we had to get creative. Sometimes that involved drinking calories, for example, having a couple of glasses of milk every day can help. Sometimes it meant limiting their fruit and vegetable intake, which sounds bad, but is not. It is a good strategy for people struggling to eat enough calories to consistently gain weight. Because what you do is you make sure that you're eating enough fruits and vegetables for your basic health needs. You make sure that you're eating a couple of servings of fruit every day and several servings of vegetables every day, but then you consciously do not eat more than that. Because one of the

great things about vegetables, especially if you're cutting, is they're very filling for very few calories. Not so great when you are lean gaining and struggling to eat enough. So by adding some liquid calories and by scaling back the fruits and vegetables a little bit and replacing them with just more calorie dense foods, not necessarily highly processed junk, just more calorific foods, we were able to get them to a place where they could consistently gain weight. Now, as far as their training went, we also did limit cardio. I can remember quite a few cases where there were people who were working in warehouses, for example, and so they were burning a lot of calories just through their work and they were racking up a lot of steps and using their upper body. I remember one person, he was working in a warehouse and he also liked to cycle. And so

he had his job plus his six to eight hours of cycling per week, plus his three to five hours of weightlifting per week. And as you can imagine, that meant his total daily energy expenditure was out the roof and there were a lot of demands being placed on his body and he was struggling to recover from all of it. And his performance in his job and on his bike and in his weightlifting workouts was impaired. And so I got him to cut back on the cardio. I believe I got him, if I remember correctly, to basically cut it out for four to six weeks. Let's just get rid of the cycling altogether and see what happens. Magically, everything changed. He had more energy. He was in a better mood. He was able to start

making progress in his weightlifting workouts, start gaining strength. He didn't have to try to figure out how to put down 5, five, 6,000 plus calories on some days when he had his work plus his cycling, plus his weightlifting and his hard gainer problem was cracked. So that's it for this first point of cardio cutting into your calorie surplus. It's really not a problem if you have the appetite to make up for it, but if you do struggle to eat enough or you do struggle to just put on muscle and gain strength, then less cardio is generally going to be better when you are lean gaining. Now let's talk about how cardio can directly interfere with muscle building. And

this mostly comes down to intensity and volume. Again, if you want to really get into the details, head over to legionathletics.com, search for cardio, and check out some of the articles and podcasts I've written and recorded specifically on this. But the long story short is the more cardio you do, so that'd be the volume, and the more intense it is, that's the intensity aspect, the more it can interfere with your muscle gain and your strength gain. And if you're cutting, the more of a risk you run for losing muscle. And there are several physiological reasons for this. One is very simple and straightforward and just has to do with recovery. And this is particularly the case with higher impact forms of cardio like jogging or sprinting. And the reason for this is the more impact that's involved in a cardio

workout, the more muscle damage is involved. And that of course has to be repaired. And you are also causing a fair amount of muscle damage in your strength training and your body can only recover from so much. But even if you are doing a lower impact form of cardio, like biking, for example, which is one of my favorites, or maybe swimming or rowing or the elliptical, but you're doing high intensity interval training, well, you may not be causing the muscle damage that you'd be causing if you were running. But if you are doing high intensity interval training properly, your sprints are basically all out efforts. You need to be reaching that eight or

nine out of 10, not necessarily 10 out of 10, where again, you feel like you're actually suffocating. You don't have to go that far, but when you are sprinting, you should be reaching the point where you are gasping for breath. And so if you're doing that repeatedly, there is a place for that and there are great uses for that, but it is harder on your body. It does produce more stress and more strain and your body does have to recover from that. And so that's one physiological reason why cardio cuts into muscle and strength gain. And then there are a few others that have to do with signals that are sent to your muscles. Fundamentally, strength training and, send different messages to muscle cells and how your muscles should adapt to the training.

And those are essentially at odds with each other. The strength training message is grow bigger and stronger. And the cardio message is improve endurance, but not grow bigger and stronger. And there are a few other points that I discuss elsewhere, but I think I've spent enough time on this first challenge and outlined my position and why that is my position. And I'm happy to change that position in the light of new evidence and new research. But currently I would say the weight of the evidence is that you should limit your cardio if you want to gain muscle and strength as quickly as possible. And I think a reasonable limit is about half of the time that you spend training your muscles. Do no more than that in cardio and you will win. You will gain muscle. You will gain strength. You will reap all of the health-related benefits that cardio has to offer, including ones that you won't necessarily get from strength

training. So I do recommend you do some cardio in addition to your strength training. You will burn more calories, and you may even enhance your weightlifting performance by improving how quickly your body can recover in between your sets. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one best-selling weightlifting books for men and women in the world, Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, as well as the leading flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef. Okay, let's move on to the next challenge, which comes from Z underscore William Z on Instagram. And he says that he disagrees with my use of the phrase scientifically proven because science

doesn't prove anything that is not its goal or point. So I understand where William is coming from, but I think that it is mostly pedantry. I don't agree that using the phrase scientifically proven is fundamentally misleading or unethical. And to explain why, let's talk about what science is. It's really just a way to think about a problem or a set of observations. We see something in the world and we think, oh, that's kind of interesting. I wonder why that happens. And then we come up with some ideas as to why it happens. And then we test those ideas. And if our ideas fail the tests, then we come up with new ideas and we test those until something passes a test, until it shows promise, at which point we can confidently say that the idea that passed the test may explain

our original observations. So the scientific process then goes like this. We have the problem or we have the observations that need an explanation, and then we come up with a hypothesis, which is a proposed explanation for the problem or what we're seeing. We then test that hypothesis using experiments and collecting data. And then if the data does not support the hypothesis, we change it. We come up with a new one and we test the new one. And if the data supports that new hypothesis, then we continue to test it using a variety of different experiments and observations, and we gather more data. And then if a set of related hypotheses is consistently and repeatedly upheld over a variety of observations and experiments, we call it a theory. Now, much of science revolves around the

process of hypothesis testing. Scientific studies are the primary ways in which scientists engage in this, in which they test hypotheses. And these studies, contrary to popular belief, do not aim to prove whether something is true, but simply most likely to be true. So yes, you can rarely prove something with science to be absolutely and universally true, but you can engage in a process of narrowing down what is most likely to be true by showing what is not true. And that really is science's primary goal. Now, how does that relate to scientifically proven, which is something you will find over on Legion's website. For example, you'll find it in connection to our ingredients that we use in our products and our formulations or combinations of ingredients. And you'll find it

in connection with a lot of the diet and training and supplementation advice that I share on the blog and on this podcast. Why? Well, it's actually just a convenient way to say that the scientific community has provided an overwhelming amount of evidence to support something. An amount of evidence that makes any serious doubt about it not supported by research or even irrational or just completely unreasonable. So scientifically proven to do something is really shorthand to say a sufficient number of well-designed, well-executed, peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that this is likely to do this for most people under most circumstances. And any serious doubts about this currently are unfounded or unreasonable or

irrational. And we currently don't have any better theories to explain what we have observed in the research. And that's a lot of words that are not going to make sense to most people, which would be bad marketing. For most people, scientifically proven with the caveat that it may or may not work well for you, but here's a bunch of evidence to show that it works well in many other people, that'll suffice. And as far as the ethics of appealing to science goes, I think it really depends on the spirit in which you are doing it. Are you trying to accurately represent the research?

Are you taking the time to inform yourself? And are you passing along your understanding without bias or obfuscation? Or are you trying to use science to mislead? Are you trying to use it like a drunkard would use a lamppost for support rather than illumination? Are you cherry-picking research? Are you leaving out key details of studies? Maybe you're not mentioning that a study has a very small sample size, and so we shouldn't put too much faith in it, for example.

Or are you trying to mislead people about the effects seen in a study? Many people do this. There's something that is statistically significant. It passes the p-value test, but the effect size is insignificant, meaning that it's unlikely to make a difference in bottom line results in the real world. And there are many other shantigans I could talk about, and I actually do talk about them in my book, Fitness Science Explained, which I co-authored with James Krieger, a published exercise scientist. So if you want to learn more about how to understand scientific research, how to read it, how to draw conclusions from it, how to apply it, check that book out. You're going to like it. But coming back to my point, if someone says that something is evidence-based or

backed by science or scientifically proven, and they are challenged by somebody who is scientifically literate to explain what they mean, if they can produce a high quality body of evidence that shows that what they are saying is more likely to be true than not true and is our current best explanation for the data that we have, then I would say that passes the ethics test. If, on the other hand, they offer just one or two studies that are at odds with many other studies, or they offer a few studies that have serious design flaws or maybe funding biases or other red flags as the basis for their claims of evidence-based, backed by science, scientifically proven, that is unethical because it is fundamentally misleading and dishonest. And that's true even if they don't realize that they are making that mistake,

because that means that they are ignorant. That means that they are pretending like they know more than they do. They are pretending like they understand the science and are passing along an accurate representation of the body of evidence, of the weight of the evidence when they are not. Okay, let's move on to the final topic of discussion in this episode, which is deadlifting in a hypertrophy program. Again, this one comes from Max Mazzetti over on Instagram, and he says that he just doesn't think that there is much value in deadlifts in a hypertrophy program. Now, I understand this actually. Many people have questioned me over the years, whether the deadlift should be in bigger leaner stronger or thinner

leaner stronger, if the goal is to gain muscle as quickly as possible. Many people think that it just puts too much stress on your lower back and that it's too dangerous. It can lead to injury, which of course completely derails your progress. And as they are not a competitive strength athlete, they're not a power lifter, they just don't really see why they should bother with it. It seems like a lot of risk for little reward, at least reward that they are interested in. That said, studies show that the deadlift is actually a fantastic exercise for strengthening your entire back, including your lower back. And it doesn't force an unnatural range of motion,

and it doesn't put excess strain on your spine or your joints. What's more, research conducted by scientists at the University of Valencia shows the deadlift is quite effective at helping prevent injury. And the reason for that is the deadlift is one of the best exercises you can do, actually, for training your erector spinae muscles. And these are the muscles close to your spine. Some of them are very close. Some of them are a little bit further away, but they support your back.

Every time you lean from one side to the other, every time you arch your back, bend forward, twist, the erector spinae muscles are involved. And so as you can imagine, the stronger your erector spinae muscles are, the harder it is to hurt your back. And the harder it is to hurt your back, the less likely you are to hurt your back and miss out on a bunch of training. And that, of course, can indirectly then contribute to your muscle growth over time.

But that is not the only reason why the deadlift should be in a hypertrophy program, or at least should be a serious candidate for a hypertrophy program. You don't have to deadlift to get big and strong, just like you don't have to do any individual exercise, but the deadlift is a very effective exercise for getting big and strong. And the primary reason for that is it lends itself really well to progressive tension overload, which is forcing your muscles to generate higher and higher levels of tension over time. And that is the primary mechanical driver of muscle growth. And the most effective way to do it is to add weight to the bar, to the dumbbells over time. The most effective way to get bigger as a natural weightlifter is to get stronger. And the only way to consistently

get stronger is to lift heavier weights. And so exercises that allow you to lift a lot of weight and progress to heavier weights safely, and that involve large amounts of muscle mass, are going to be generally conducive to getting bigger and stronger. And the deadlift, like the squat and bench press and overhead press, is one of the best exercises for this, and particularly for blasting your posterior chain muscles, all the muscles on the backside of your body. That said, the deadlift trains just about every major muscle group in your body, including your lats, your traps, your erector spinae muscles, your glutes, hip flexors, calves, quads, hamstrings, even your forearms and your biceps to some degree. And not only that, but the deadlift is an exercise that can be loaded heavy and that you can progress

on for years. You can start relatively weak on the deadlift, maybe struggling to deadlift your body weight. And then several years later, you can be very strong. You can be relatively weak on the deadlift, maybe struggling to deadlift your body weight, and then several years later, you can be very strong. You can be deadlifting double your body weight or more for rep. And again, when you consider how much muscle mass is involved in the exercise, the only other exercise that can hold a candle to the deadlift in terms of total muscle activation and total loading capability is the squat. Now, again, you don't have to squat or deadlift to get jacked, but when you think about how effective those exercises are for training a bunch of muscle groups and allowing you to consistently add weight to the bar and

consistently force your muscles to generate more and more tension over time, you see that if you're going to take the deadlift out and replace it with other exercises, it can be done, but it is a bit difficult. It's going to require several exercises to replace. And in some cases, you may not be able to progress on them as effectively. And it's going to require more time in the gym, of course, because you're taking one exercise that you might do, let's say four sets of in a workout, the deadlift. And now you have to do three or four exercises and you have to do several sets of each. And so all of that is why the godfather of strength training and author of Starting Strength and friend of mine, Mark Ripito said that if you want to look strong, you have to get strong and strong you'll get from the deadlift. All right, beautiful people, we have come to the end of yet another

episode of Muscle for Life. Thank you again for joining me. I hope you liked it and I hope you like what I have coming for you next week, including a monologue on full body training. This is something I've spoken about in an interview or two over the last six months, but I wanted to just put all of my thoughts out there. So that's coming. And then I have an interview with Dr. Bill Campbell on the current state of body composition research, the current best evidence-based practices for gaining muscle and losing fat. And that's followed by another installment of Best of Muscle for Life, where you will hear hand-picked highlights from some of the most popular episodes I have released over the years. All right, well, that's it for

this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and you don't mind doing me a favor, please do leave a quick review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to me from in whichever app you're listening to me in, because that not only convinces people that they should check out the show. It also increases search visibility and thus it helps more people find their way to me and learn how to get fitter, leaner, stronger, healthier, and happier as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live,

then simply subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any new stuff. And if you didn't like something about the show, please do shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com, just muscle, F-O-R, life.com, and share your thoughts on how I can do this better. I read everything myself, and I'm always looking for constructive feedback,

even if it is criticism. I'm open to it. And of course, you can email me if you have positive feedback as well, or if you have questions really relating to anything that you think I could help you with, definitely send me an email. That is the best way to get ahold of me,

mikeatmusclefullife.com. And that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.