Ep. #114: Eric Helms on the Simple Science of Making “Lean Gains”

Mike Matthews: [00:00:00] Hey, it’s Mike. And I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you’re going to like my books. Now I have several books, but the place to start is bigger, leaner, stronger. If you’re a guy.

And thinner leaner stronger. If you’re a girl, these books, they’re basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live in the gym, grinding through workouts that you hate.

Now you can find these books everywhere. You can buy them online. Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you’re into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30 day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www. muscleforlife. com forward slash audio books.

And you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer. So as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven’t [00:01:00] already. Now, also, if you like my work in general, then I think you’re going to really like what I’m doing with my supplement company Legion.

As you may know, I’m really not a fan of the supplement industry. I’ve wasted who knows how much money over the years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that’s why I finally decided to just make my own. Now a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they’re a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored.

Two, all ingredients are backed by peer reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we’ve chosen each ingredient and we cite all supporting studies on our website, which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness.

And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you’re buying. Meaning our formulations are a hundred percent transparent. So if that sounds interesting to [00:02:00] you, then head over to legionathletics. com. That’s L E G I O N athletics. com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission for the company.

Cause I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it’s long overdue. And ultimately, if you like what and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P O D C A S T.

And you’ll save 10 percent on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let’s get to the show.

Hello everybody. This is Mike and I’m back with yet another episode of my podcast. And in this episode, I have Mr. Eric Helms back on the show, as we promised. Quite some time ago, but hey, here we are and he [00:03:00] has returned to talk about how to quote unquote bulk. Properly. In other words, how to gain as much muscle and as little fat as possible.

Now, in case you don’t know, Eric, he is first and foremost, one of my favorite guys in the evidence based fitness space. But aside from that, he’s also a member of the 3dmj coaching team and is himself a professional natural bodybuilder. And an actual truly natural bodybuilder, I will add, and strength athlete, as well as an author and credentialed scientist with a number of peer reviewed papers under his belt.

In fact, he’s working on his PhD right now, so soon he will be Dr. Eric Helms. Now, I’ve referenced Eric’s work quite frequently in my own writing, so it’s always a pleasure to talk with him and pick his brain about the science of making gains. And to that point, as I said earlier, in this interview, we are going to talk about how to gain muscle quickly without just getting fat.

Now, as you probably know, some fat gain is inevitable [00:04:00] during a proper bulking season, but most people make a handful of common mistakes that not only sabotage their efforts to gain muscle, but also really just set them up for a long grueling post bulk cut that in many cases, more or less wipes out the progress that they made.

Now the good news, though, is when you know what you’re doing, you can actually gain significant amounts of muscle without gaining large amounts of body fat, and it’s really not as hard as many people think. As you would expect, Eric does a great job breaking it all down in this interview where he explains these big mistakes that many people make and then dives into the simple science of making quote unquote lean gains.

So if you want to know how to gain strength and size without packing on pounds of fat, then you definitely need to listen to this interview. So here it is. Eric, thanks for coming back on the show despite being a little bit under the weather. I appreciate it. 

Eric Helms: Hey man, got to get sick [00:05:00] sometimes apparently, but thanks for having me back on.

It’s a pleasure to be here. Absolutely. 

Mike Matthews: All so the first time around it was all about on season, particularly prepping for shows cutting and so forth. And this part two, which people have been asking for is we want to focus on off season. And so for those of you listening that aren’t competing, this would also apply to what you would think as bulking is like going to be the topic of discussion.

And so I was thinking, Eric, that we just dive right in with what are some of the common mistakes that people make when they go, okay, I want to, I don’t need to have a, I don’t need to be super shredded anymore. And I want to gain some, I want to, really focus on gaining. Muscle and strength.

And then where it goes, where does it go off the rails from that point? What have you seen in your experience? 

Eric Helms: Sure. It typically comes down to basically two different camps and they’re normally differentiated by who do they follow, like if, so if you’ve got people who came up reading muscle magazines, or the 2017 equivalent and they are basically [00:06:00] following bodybuilders.

Typically they overdo it. They’ll go on a C diet, a seafood diet where they’re eating everything. They’re gaining a lot of weight very quickly and they go on a basically a a go mad diet or something where they’re eating everything and they’re getting a lot of weight in a large part of it is body fat.

And very quickly they’re running out of room to continue bulking and they may be putting on effective muscle mass, but the timeframe that it can last before they start getting uncomfortable with their body. 

Mike Matthews: Short and can you talk a little bit more to that point of that timeframe?

Is it just about comfort? Because I’ve spoken with a lot of people that they don’t really care. They just think if that’s what it takes, like if I just have to be a little bit disgusted with myself for half the year, then I’ll do that. But is it just that the psychological or is there also a physiological element there?

Eric Helms: Oh, there’s definitely both. If you’re a drug free person with any kind of experience underneath your belt. The amount of muscle mass you can be able to put on and the rate that it can get put on is typically slower than what you might be told in the mainstream kind of bodybuilding information.

So [00:07:00] you’re going to have, the idea that you can put on a pound a week and have that be relatively clean weight. When reality might be more like a pound a month, that’s going to be clean. How would you say 

Mike Matthews: is 

Eric Helms: that 

Mike Matthews: for 

Eric Helms: beginners or your immediates or that number there?

Really I, the range I like to use is about 0. 5 to 1. 5 percent of your body weight per month. It’s a recent trend. It’s a decent rate to try to focus on gaining. And you’d say the higher is for the newer you are, the more you’re going to be on the higher end of that. Yeah. Basically it scales to your training age.

So the faster rate you gain, you should be lowering your training age because the closer you get to your genetic ceiling, the harder it’s going to be to put on a muscle at that rate. So definitely. Cool. Yeah that’s the one big issue is on that side of the fence. On the other side of the fence is people who came up following Martin Birkin or.

Basically anyone who’s talking about how to be lean all the time and how to get six pack abs. And their problem is that they often don’t have a base at all that they, if their first introduction to fitness was trying to get [00:08:00] leaner whether they were overweight or not, or just not as lean as they want it to be.

The physiques they saw the information that was emphasized to them was always, here’s how you can maintain leanness or get lean in the first place and do it with less effort. And they’ve never actually had a proper true period where they’re trying to gain muscle and they’re often not satisfied with the results when they cut because they’re.

They don’t really have a lot of muscle to show for 

Mike Matthews: it. And can you just speak quickly to why the, it’s, when you say the game lean gains, you always think of Burkham, but that is the concept, right? Is that you can keep your body fat at 10 percent and still gain muscle.

Why that doesn’t work as well as many people hope. 

Eric Helms: Yeah, certainly. I think the big problem is that a lot of people just want to have a certain level of leanness in their mind because they’ve been told it’s maintainable. So I mean I can’t tell you how many times I’ve skyped with someone for a consultation and they tell me hey This is my you know, my fourth time trying to cut down to 8 percent body fat and each time they think they get there But then they can’t stay there.

Yeah [00:09:00] 

Eric Helms: And they think it’s their approach that if they just use a different diet They reverse diet or if they what have you they’ll be able to maintain it But in reality, it’s just like dude, you’re set points like 15 percent and until you accept that you’re just gonna be You struggling and focused on food and then not making great gains and having relatively suppressed hormonal system and sleeping poorly.

And so it comes down to, they have to a accept that their walk around physique may be just not quite as lean as they’d hoped. Which can take years for some people. Not Insta worthy, right? Yeah. Not something people like to hear, but something they need to hear if they actually want to make progress.

And then the second part of that relevant to what we’re talking about is that they can learn that a 15 percent body fat physique in this example is going to look better over time if they actually put in the years. And actually spend some time not trying to cut, but actually building a good physique.

And someone with a lot of muscle mass at 15 percent body fat Looks pretty good. That’s the type of person that would definitely be comfortable taking their shirt off at the beach. So [00:10:00] yeah, these people have typically spent much more time cutting than they have actually gaining.

And normally I talk them into going we need to set like a minimum time ratio limit of time spent in a surplus versus time spent in a deficit. And I normally tell them, you like the minimum should be like four to one. So for every, Four months of time spent in a surplus is one month.

You’ve earned yourself in the deficit. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. I like that. We’re, I’m sure you get asked about mini cuts and mini bulks a lot. I know I do have I’ve spoken a bit about it, written a little bit about it, but actually probably be good to just have one single article I could send people to because I still get asked about that in my experience, it doesn’t, it just doesn’t work well.

And I don’t know actually if there’s, this is something you would probably be able to illuminate more than I would, but it seems like there’s something to momentum when you’re in a surplus. And after. Yeah. It takes a few weeks. It seems like for your body’s muscle building machinery, so to speak to really be firing on all cylinders.

It’s not just the first day that you’re in a surplus, all of a sudden you’re able to, you’re really feeling it in your workouts and you [00:11:00] just, it takes a few weeks, but if you’re always flipping between deficits and surpluses, it seems to screw that up.

Eric Helms: Yeah. I can’t think of any physiological reasons as to why the first few, the early part of a a lien gaining period wouldn’t be effective. But I know people, if they have unrealistic expectations of a, what are the shortcuts? Let’s say you take a, let’s say you take that approach, that four to one approach and you do four months of time spent in a gaining period and then a one month cut.

Not a whole lot’s going to happen in a month and if it does, it’s probably not a good thing. It probably wasn’t just, you’re talking about you can take off a 

Mike Matthews: few pounds like 

Eric Helms: yeah. Yeah. If you lost 10 pounds in a month, that probably wasn’t all fat. unless you just have amazing fat loss genetics.

And so I think the way I try to sell the these mini cuts, if you will, is that it’s to allow you to continue going in your surplus afterwards. So it’s controlling fat mass accrual in the process of an O longterm gain period versus, I bought for four months. Now I’m going to get shredded in a month.

Yeah. That’s often [00:12:00] the next pitfall that you run into from the people who come from that, I want to be lean all the time crowd is because that’s still part of their goal. Even if they’ve come to accept that maybe they need to try to be not so lean and they need to spend more time building their physique that, okay, I’ve done that now can I get back to what I want to do?

And that’s when you got to convince them look, if you want to do a photo shoot or if you want to do a competition or if you want to, get ready for something, if you want to give yourself kind of a goal, we can do that, but we need to have a longer cut to do that. And we need to get you built up.

So that when you do it, you’ll look good. And this little one month thing is just to control fat mass gains while you’re, building your base. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, totally. It’s it’s that work you have to do up front to I mean you could look at it in the perspective of if it’s a lifestyle thing or you use a financial metaphor or whatever metaphor you want to use, but it’s just that work yet that you have to put in and you just have to put in your time and yeah, things aren’t, the way you want them to be for, it could be, I don’t know, it could be a year, it could be two years depending what the person, how they [00:13:00] want to look.

But then the payoff is, okay you’ve done that. And now you’re in that position, right? Where you can, if you want to stay lean year round, then there’s of course a trade off, but you can do that. Yeah. Yeah. You’re not going to stay 6 percent year round, at least not naturally, but if you really want to have, the beach body or whatever you can do that.

But you 

Eric Helms: have to pay the price first. Yeah. And I don’t even think you’re gonna be staying six percent year round if you’re on gear. That’s not going to help you, there’s, Oh yeah. No, it’s not good for you, but 

Mike Matthews: you just go scroll around Instagram and you’ll see it. There are guys doing it.

Eric Helms: Yeah. There’s no reason that like just hopping on gear is going to help you be leaner. It’ll help you hold more muscle or anything like that. But I have talked to people who are like, they ended up going down a drug route just because. They can’t figure out how to do it and they think that’s magic and I think that typically does, more harm than good Anyway, this is not really my bag anyway, so I’m not gonna pretend I’m an expert there But but yeah, you’re 100 percent correct.

Is that we could make an entire podcast about people who are [00:14:00] Attempting to maintain alien or body weight then they probably should and then it’s realistic and that is probably more of a psychological issue Than it is anything else and certainly I think it’s important to Present it as a settling point, you know the body fat you can maintain and probably a settling point range That can change over time because a big part of that is not just physiological.

It’s also Psychological and sociological and as you get better at like you said incorporating new habits into your lifestyle you may find you can maintain a lower body fat percentage, but that’s something that does take time and it takes You Years of incorporating different habits when you go out to eat 

Yeah, 

Eric Helms: you know tracking and adopting quote unquote intuitive behaviors that are actually, heavily learned and integrated You’re not really that intuitive.

Yeah, 

Eric Helms: then maybe you know 15 percent moves down to 12 percent in a few years of you being in And that’s cool, I’ve actually ran into a few people who can maintain lower than this probably ideal for gaming a muscle mass and they have to become aware of that You know that they’re actually quite controlled and they manage their environment very well but [00:15:00] at the cost of maybe holding on to more muscle or being able to build more muscle So that’s always something i’m something to consider.

And by far I’d say those two kind of camps or where the two mistakes the two biggest mistakes are run into. And I’m either finding myself convincing the permabulkers to take a little more control and a little more patience and be a little more moderate in their approach to gaining, or I’m convincing the the six pack abs year round crew that maybe they need to have more realistic and individualized expectations for themselves.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Makes sense. So what about on the other side of the coin here on the training side, are there any common mistakes that you see? Yeah, I 

Eric Helms: think more often than not on the training side, people just think that that there needs to be a huge difference between what they’re doing when they’re cutting or bulking, and really that the principles remain the same.

It’s just that, you can probably handle a little more volume. You can deload just not quite as frequently. There’s some really old school thoughts out there that you need to be lifting, heavy when you’re bulking, like fives and sixes and eights. And [00:16:00] then you go light when you’re cutting, so you really bring out the striations and 

Mike Matthews: all that shit.

Eric Helms: Yeah, exactly. I don’t know how worthwhile it is busting that myth because I think that’s more like it, bro. Early 2000s 90s things. I just don’t run into a lot of people who still 

Mike Matthews: that’s like when I first got first picked up I first lived in a way. I think that was what that was like pretty commonly that was what you did.

You asked someone in the gym. That’s what you do. But that has 

Eric Helms: same. Yeah, that was for me That was like 13 years ago. Like the last time that was probably a rather popular belief. So there’s that but basically the principles of training remain the same in the deficit or surplus because It’s always doing the same thing, you are, creating a signal for muscle gain and that’s either supported by your nutrition or it’s not and it’ll be more or less effective because of that But it doesn’t really change it and then you just have to think about Okay Is my recovery gonna be hampered for my nutrition or will it be aided or at least not hampered and that should you know?

Dictate some of the decisions you make in terms of how you modify your training volume intensity, frequency, et [00:17:00] cetera. But yeah, I think have you 

Mike Matthews: seen like something I’ve seen is not working like not doing enough actually, while trying to follow a very minimalist program while bulking.

In some cases it’s bad where it’s like a program, it’s just upper, lower, that’s it two workouts a week and yeah, there are longer workouts, but and they’re in there rather intense workouts, sure, but it’s still just two workouts a week while bulking or maybe three max for Anyways, to that point of where, I’ve seen that, I don’t know if you’ve seen that, where it’s okay, if you really want to maximize, you have to, you’re gonna have to work a bit harder.

You know what I mean? Especially because you’re not brand new to this. 

Eric Helms: Yeah. Again it seems to come down to where did they get their information from? Yeah. So like the kind of what goes hand in hand with some of the, I would say Martin Birkin inspired kind of approach is, and I don’t want to sound like I’m hammering Martin Birkin, but really there’s been a lot of offshoots from him.

There’s been a lot of people who basically copied what he’s done. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Actually almost copy pasted actually in some cases literally. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about Absolutely, and again their [00:18:00] approach is what he used which makes sense for what they’re doing you know, if I’m trying to maintain a low body fat and I’m always in there like a maintenance phase at best or a cut 

and 

Eric Helms: I probably do want to take a, a lower volume approach and maybe focus more on like tension stimulus, but that’s a fair argument.

And so you’ll see that you’ll see the, I train three times a week in alternating upper lower fashion and I use three sets of four to six per muscle group and that’s it, one exercise. And. That’s probably an adequate stimulus to maintain for an intermediate person, but for the average person with a couple of years under their belt, who’s looking to optimize muscle gains, it’s just not enough volume.

It might be decent for strength gain, I’d like to see someone getting at least 10 sets per muscle group per week spread across at least two sessions per week as a decent kind of starting point. And then from there if we’re progressing fantastic, Modify if it doesn’t change so that does happen.

It’s not again. It’s specific to that crowd on the other end of the spectrum you get the people who came up listening to ifbb pros and [00:19:00] depending on who they’re listening to they may have kind of this Not really focused on progressive overload mindset works volume. Yeah. A two hour 

Mike Matthews: arms day of 

Eric Helms: yeah.

Yeah. And it’s I’m not a weightlifter. I don’t care about how much weight I move or getting point A to point B. I want to feel the muscle work. And I’m like okay, so long as you can do that and have an objective system for progressive overload over time, I’m fine with that. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah.

Eric Helms: But it’s like 

Mike Matthews: however, you want to tell yourself that’s cool. But as long as we’re doing this over here, Oh yeah, 

Eric Helms: totally. Yeah. Cause it’s not like they don’t make any valid points. Certainly you want to make sure that you’re not just like throwing 10 around it and and just lifting as heavy as you can all the time.

It’s not a or B it’s finding okay, I do want the target muscle working. Sure. And progressive overload is the key critical component to progress. So how can we systematically ensure that it occurs? And that’s. That’s basically the two things you don’t see. It’s people doing too little, like you said, or just doing everything but without structure.

So I think just generating structure in general is typically very helpful to people who have been struggling with. [00:20:00] muscle. 

Mike Matthews: Okay. And anything regarding cardio, do you come across that doing too much or, 

Eric Helms: Often you’re female listeners. This is relevant to them for the most part in my experience.

And also again, I’m just hammering the lean gains crowd, the Martin Burkin people. I can see the headlines now. I can see the fake news now. But the funny thing is, this is nothing that, that Martin was really directly promoted. It’s more of The audience he attracts. 

Yeah, 

Eric Helms: and I think that’s something anyone who puts that information is going to be I would say a victim to some degree or I should be aware of that The information you put out will not always be received in the way you want it to be.

It will often sometimes be Used by people who already have that filter and bias and want to basically keep doing what they’re doing without changing anything until they really start to run themselves on the ground or see a lack of progress. But anyway, yeah, so I often run into, females who are a little intimidated by the prospect of putting on some body fat.

And are often doing a lot of [00:21:00] cardio probably more cardio than most of your average male fitness person would do during a cut. 

Yeah. I 

Eric Helms: just add at a, as a baseline. 

Yeah. 

Eric Helms: So cutting that down is really again, getting around kind of their psychological fear of if I don’t do this, what’s going to happen?

And same thing with the guys who are very focused on the kind of the six pack abs. So that, that is one mistake. And then sometimes in the modern age, you’ll run into people who are very sedentary. And just, they’re a student and they take online classes or they’re an office worker or really they just don’t have much energy expenditure.

And you actually do need a little bit of cardio in there just to have a consistency of energy intake or to just make it easier for them not to gain weight too fast. But but that’s actually something that is pretty specific to the individual as to far as, just what their baseline activity is, how sedentary they are.

It’s pretty relevant 

Mike Matthews: to a lot of people listening. I know a lot of people are in that position where most of us work at a desk, 

Eric Helms: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, and sometimes people create the scenario, like you said, if they’re only training twice a [00:22:00] week, they feel like they have to do cardio to, not just to be able to eat some food.

But if they were to go from, say, two hours of training a week to four hours of training a week all of a sudden, not that they should do that overnight, I would say to Give a little disclaimer to people who are listening to this and going, Oh, I’m not training enough is build up like 10 percent more volume, over time at one session.

If I did first, I’d take the two sessions, like you said, that may have a lot of time spent in them and just break those up into three. And then from there if you’re still not gaining it probably an appropriate rate, or if you’re still plateaued, then you could make a 10 percent increase in volume.

Yeah. So like people 

Mike Matthews: listen, let’s say if you’re doing an upper lower, maybe you could turn that into a push pull legs type of setup to break it up into three, for example. 

Eric Helms: Certainly. Yeah. And then, if you wanted to get that frequency up a little higher, you can go, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and then go push pull legs and then have a full body day on Saturday or Sunday or something like that with lower volume and little heavier weights and then get a little more volume on the other day.

So that way you’re hitting that kind of two times per week frequency strength and hypertrophy stimulus, all the good stuff. [00:23:00] 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Cool. Okay. Good. So I think those are those are the major mistakes and just misguided ideas that people have. So let’s circle back around and talk about how to do it right.

Do you want to just start on the diet and nutrition side of things? 

Eric Helms: Certainly. Yeah. So I think the big one is realizing that there’s a direct relationship between the calories you take in and the rate of weight that you gain. So if our goal is to gain, 0. 5 to 1. 5 percent of our body weight per month, then that’s really, less than 0.

5 percent of our body weight per week. So the average, let’s say 170 pound male that’s not a lot of body weight you’re trying to gain per week. And if you need roughly a 500 calorie surplus per day to get roughly a pound of tissue gain, that means you’re only going to want a 100 to 300 calorie surplus depending on how big you are to start, and what your training age is.

So if you’re a, if you’re five, six and you’re a intermediate, it’s going to be a small surplus. If you’re, six foot and a beginner. Sure. You might have a 400 calorie surplus to, to get you in the right position. And then the second question [00:24:00] becomes, okay if I’m only trying to gain a little bit of weight over time and it’s a small surplus, how do I even track that?

And the way to do that is looking at a longer time period. So I’ll often, Tell people to look at a 14 day body weight average and compare that to the next 14 day period. And, then you’re working with, let’s say you’re trying to gain, a pound a month. You can look at a 14 day average and see whether or not you’re up, half a pound or close to it, say 0.

3 to 0. 7 pounds. And if you’re in that range, then your thumbs up, you’re in the sweet spot. If it’s too low or too high, then you can make a small calorie bump by say like 50 or something like that. And just nudging it in the right direction. Because you’re not looking for too much. And just to that point, 

Mike Matthews: for people listening, the problem with this in particular with just trying to use the mirror is, you’re not really going to see that much of a difference a week to week.

not tracking your weight, like what you’re talking about, especially with working out an average like that and you’re just trying to go off of do I look bigger? That’s a, that’s not going to serve you very well. 

Eric Helms: Yeah. Honestly, the last time I was able to look in the mirror as a drug [00:25:00] free lifter.

And it assessed whether or not I was bigger. It was like the first year of my training. 

Yeah, 

Eric Helms: and then you know after that I really can’t I have a moment of like Reflection where I go. Wait, I’m 215 last time. I was 215. I couldn’t see my apps, and I’m like, okay Yeah, so that’s the kind of thing Where it that’s like years apart or before I notice, gains or the other Scenarios are when I actually diet down for a bodybuilding show.

There’s no body fat to obscure My physique at all and I can look for it from 2009 to 2007 or 2011 to 2009 and see what progress I’ve made Yeah, obviously that’s not a way to assess, you know for the general pop like it was you’re getting very successful just die it down until you’re shredded And you’ll see just take six months after you’re done bulking and get nice, that’s probably not a useful, like kind of tool to put in your tool belt.

Yeah, assessing progress, primarily what you want to focus on is the ingredients that will result in gaining muscle mass rather than just am I getting muscle? Are you in a surplus so you’re gaining [00:26:00] tissue? Do you have an appropriate amount of, volume and frequency and intensity in your training program?

And is progressive overload occurring? And if those three things are happening, then you can probably be sure that the most percentage of that weight you’re gaining that can be lean muscle is. And if you’re not satisfied with it, and you’re doing everything right, then it’s just a matter of, coming to terms with the fact that you’re not a beginner anymore, which is tough.

I remember when I thought I was doing something wrong for many times when I would move from the beginner to the intermediate. Phase and often I was because I was still Relative beginner and didn’t know what I was doing But many times I was changing things just because I was still expecting to gain like a newbie Yeah and you know falling in love with kind of the training approach I had at the start because that was the rate of gain that I was now accustomed to and expected being frustrated by anything less than that and that is quite the mental hurdle for people moving from the kind of the honeymoon phase.

This is just something to think about for people who are been lifting for maybe more than six months seriously and they’re just starting to notice that the progress is [00:27:00] not the same that it once was. So yeah, so on the nutrition side, the first piece is really making sure that your surplus is appropriate and probably not as much as you think.

And then how do you track that is by looking at say 14 day averages or even monthly averages and making small changes over time to push you in the right direction. Or pull you back if you’re gaining too quickly. And then, I don’t know that you really need to track your protein carbs and fat.

Like I would probably recommend for anyone doing a serious cut. But I would say you want to make sure that you’re getting in at least enough protein, during this period and also eating a relatively healthy diet. So I tend to focus more on, Okay, am I getting in at least roughly say 0. 8 grams per pound of protein or more is fine 

Yeah, 

Eric Helms: and then am I getting in you know a serving of fruit and vegetables each for every thousand calories I’m consuming as a minimum and certainly, More than that, extra credit is fine.

And 

Mike Matthews: do you even go a little bit further and choose your fruits and vegetables specifically? Or are you just looking for ah, [00:28:00] just make sure I get some leafy greens and a variety of fruits? Or, 

Eric Helms: I’m a big fan of just varieties of spice of life and and to ensure you’re, you’re covering your bases nutritionally.

Yeah. Yeah. I’m I’m not one to tell people like you have to get. It’s just a matter of varieties good, probably want to have kind of that decent 80 20 rule to where 80 percent of your foods are, single item ingredients quote unquote clean, if you will, but stuff that you don’t have to produce, it isn’t, it doesn’t come in a package.

Exactly. Exactly. And then the other 20 percent is, you Whatever you want really so long as you’re still meeting the meeting those requirements of getting in your micronutrients getting in enough protein and gaining weight Which is basically your surrogate for an energy surplus, right? And you know going back to the issues people have sometimes They’ll come to me and they’re eating too clean and they’re eating too high of protein and a high water, high fiber, high protein diet is one of the most satiating diets you can [00:29:00] have.

And satiation is useful to a point, but when you’re actually trying to gain weight, that can actually become a barrier. So sometimes I will tell people, alright, I want you to eat no more than 0. 8 grams per pound of protein. We’ll put you at the lower ends. And let’s go from like an 80 20 to like a 70 30 and get some more, chipotle in there, or whatever we need to do, burrito gains.

What do we need to put down so you can gain weight more easily? More palatable food, essentially. Some of the opposite rules to what you’d probably want to do while trying to avoid excess fat gain or actually trying to cut. That’s one of the things that’s been lost in the kind of new age of it.

If it fits your macros, is that sure, you can fit anything into your diet. But do you want an entire diet of highly palatable foods that actually makes you hungrier or less satiated? Cause that makes it actually harder to follow your diet. And 

Mike Matthews: starves your body of vital nutrients that keep you diseased and dysfunction free, if that matters.

Eric Helms: Yeah, it should. And then, it definitely should matter. And some people will find crazy ways to I get my fruits and my vegetables. I take a green [00:30:00] supplement and a multivitamin. 

Yeah. 

Eric Helms: And then I have ice cream for, 30 to 40 percent of my calories. That’s actually common. So if you want to 

Mike Matthews: speak to that quickly that all over special social, especially social media, but that’s like what, that’s what they tell themselves.

They’re like, I don’t, or even, that’s even going a little bit further. Honestly, I, what I see more of is Chipotle over and over an ice cream, but multivitamin, 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Eric Helms: And that’s, if there was a time to do that, it probably would be during a gaining phase for someone who struggles to gain weight.

That’s, that’d be like a decent remedy to that. Because now this is just like daily life. This is not because of that. Now daily life, I would advise that yeah. If you truly can find a way to get all the phytonutrients, your fiber, And have decent nutrients spread to ensure that all the zoo and phytonutrients are in there and micronutrients are covered and you’re getting blood work done to confirm it and you feel good.

Fine, go for it. But I just, I have a tough time believing 

Mike Matthews: that. Yeah, that means that you have to eat certain kinds of foods, right? Especially if we’re talking salt, soluble fiber, fruits and vegetables, like where else are you going to get [00:31:00] it? 

Eric Helms: Correct. Yeah. So yeah, so anyway, yeah. Food quality is important, but don’t forget satiety.

That’s the wrap up to that little rant we both had you know just I want to say one more 

Mike Matthews: thing on that I think it’s also I think it’s also funny that It’s in a lot of cases people are It’s almost like they’re gloating about how they can eat this or eat that or it’s become like the cool thing Especially on social media to eat like shit But at least stay relatively lean or, have some sort of a physique and then other people will celebrate it and, yeah, we need more of this or they tell themselves, I’m just not gonna feel guilty about food anymore I’m just gonna eat the fucking hamburger every day.

And you know now I don’t have any Psychological associations one way or another just macros and shit I think that it’s I would challenge like that to eat, to do almost do like a whole 30. Like you have to eat super clean for 30 days. That is actually takes more. I think that’s more, [00:32:00] that should be some more celebrated because what are we?

So you learned a bit, you learned, dieting one on one and now you just eat a bunch of shit food because you can. I don’t understand what’s cool, but it doesn’t require anything that doesn’t require any willpower. It doesn’t require any it’s just stupid. It actually requires like ignorance really of how the body works and why nutrition is important.

So I, I almost want to create a more flexible kind of not retarded whole 30. And make that a thing and here’s a challenge. How about you eat really well for 30 days and then you might actually be surprised at how much better you feel. You know what I mean? 

Eric Helms: Yeah. I look at that a lot of the times and I probably sound like a parent with a teenager and I go, Oh look, they’re in that phase.

That’s what I think when I see those posts, because. I remember going through the same thing when I first started where I had certain misconceptions about what I had to do nutritionally and what my primary variables I should focus on. And when I really realized, oh man, a [00:33:00] huge part of this does come down to calories in, calories out, and having a good macro spread and being consistent with that and realizing that I didn’t have to eat just a list of six foods.

And so you tend to extreme go to the other way. And then you may even feel like resentful towards the fitness industry that told you had to eat. Broccoli, chicken, rice, oats, and tilapia, yeah. And cottage cheese, but only after 8 PM kind of thing. And and so you go on this look what I can do kind of thing.

It’s very much akin to yeah, it’s akin to when you know, you’re freshman year of college And you start to read about U. s foreign policy and you become basically like a revolutionary for at least a semester before You know you get that out of your system. So I see it. It’s the same way and and sure that’s fair enough.

And I think there was a time when it was valuable, you know my colleague and close friends and a business partner alberto nunez was the guy who Popularized the pop tart in the fitness industry by just taking pictures of me eating on a regular basis and in 2007 2008 [00:34:00] 2009 that really was challenging the idea that you could never have anything that wasn’t on the approved list Yeah, and I think he saw value in going right?

I’m leaner than the leanest everybody And there was this message of, yeah, you can get lean with fidget macros, but you won’t ever get to like top tier pro level. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. And there was this kind of internal fight. And I know that some of the people on the side of trying to share the meals they had when they were eating dirtier or just going and just trying to create a little challenge, some of the preconceptions people had.

And I think there was value in that, but I don’t know that anyone really, anyone informed really. Still thinks that you can’t get lean, unless you’re eating really clean food. So I don’t know if there’s value in it today. I think. Moderation should be emphasized more rather than bouncing between the two ends.

So I largely agree with you. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. No I remember when that a lot of that stuff was going around actually from alberta When it was he must have been, you know prepping for a competition or he was [00:35:00] because yeah He was like skeleton lean. It was ridiculous 

Eric Helms: Yeah, man, 

Mike Matthews: jack holocaust victim

Hey, quickly before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say, Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life fitness, Twitter at muscle for life and Facebook at muscle for life fitness. All right, cool. So that’s the calories, that’s the macros, but on the nutrition side, one other thing that might be worth touching on quickly is just cause, I’ve come across a lot.

I’m sure you have as [00:36:00] well, where people, if you’re going to go and eat out and they don’t quite understand how Many calories are in a lot of restaurant foods and because they’re bulking and they don’t, they feel like they don’t really have to watch things as closely. They fuck up in that way and they don’t realize that yeah, that dinner was good.

That was like 6, 000 calories with fucking 300 grams of fat. You know what I mean? 

Eric Helms: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The that’s the easiest way for shit to sneak up on you is that, palatable food and restaurants. Typically has just the average person. I’ve talked to twice as much calories and twice as much fat typically because you can sneak in oils and butters And portion sizes, we don’t like people will eat what’s on their plate for the most part.

Yeah, regardless of the plate size You know, we don’t really we don’t really eat just purely by what makes me satiated unless we’re very aware of that They’re training ourselves to do that which you know, hey obesity epidemic even those of us in the fitness industry who probably won’t ever become obese are still affected by that to [00:37:00] some degree.

And so yeah, you looking up a meal at Applebee’s on MyFitnessPal may be right, but it’s not like the cook, the line cook in the back is going, he’s oh, he’s making your pasta dish and then he goes, hold on, let me check MyFitnessPal. Yeah. Oh, that’s right. This should only be 1200 calories.

This one’s actually 2, 000. I need to remake it. No, you’re gonna get a 2, 000 calorie meal. Next time, you might get 1, 800. Next time after that, it might be 2, 100 calories. The people at restaurants are not busting out the food scale for you. Yeah, their job 

Mike Matthews: is to make the food taste as good as possible.

And that means oil, butter, cream as a base. Whenever you can work those into things, they get tastier. 

Eric Helms: That’s right. So and not that you should be bringing a food scale to the restaurant It’s just that you need to have some system of accounting for that, right? Now if you’re tracking your body weight over time, you will very quickly realize your mistake because it will go up faster You don’t want to be the guy or gal who is finding that out after the fact or not [00:38:00] knowing Where that’s happening if you’re consistently thinking, I’m doing a good job when I go out to eat You know, I’m tracking it.

Maybe I need to modify my nutrition outside of the the restaurant, you’re basically, aiming at a secondary culprit to the problem. And, if you’re eating, let’s say 5, 000 calories on that day, like you said, and only 1500 of it’s outside of the restaurant, trying to reduce 1500 slightly, it’s going to have a, Much smaller impact than trying to reduce 3, 500.

Yeah. 

Eric Helms: So yeah, I would say there’s nothing wrong with eating out. You just need to have a realistic idea of what is actually in what you’re ordering and probably still like order from the healthier, smarter options on the moat for the most part. Just so that you can be a little more confident that your tracking is accurate because really it’s the mixed dishes with a lot of fat, butter or oil, cream and and and or certain meats, obviously sausages and, 

Bacon 

Mike Matthews: and yeah, ground 

Eric Helms: beef and very high in fat.

Exactly. And that’s where it gets snuck in. It’s easy to [00:39:00] estimate the, , the protein and carbohydrate content of a meal out, it’s difficult to estimate how much fat’s in there. 

Yeah. 

Eric Helms: And that’s typically where you’re gonna be surprised when you see the macros. You’re like, whoa, that’s twice as much fat as I thought.

Yeah. So yeah. That’s basically desserts taken care of can be, yeah. Really a lot more than you think, right? Yeah, for the most part. Someone who is careful about their food intake and very conscious of trying to gain muscle and. Keep their body fat levels under control.

Appetizers and desserts should be a rare thing, not the common thing. Because it’ll just help you meet your nutrition targets. Unless you’re someone who just has a, a ridiculous energy expenditure level, and that it’s really, it might be a matter of even of the hell you want and then make sure you’re eating enough, but that’s not everybody.

And it certainly is probably the exception rather 

Mike Matthews: than the rule. One of the thing that’s just probably worth throwing out there that I’d like to do is I do all of what you’re talking about, but then also sometimes like I’ll be thinking with the restaurant we’re going to and. What would I what do I think I want to, what do I think I want to eat?

And so sometimes I will just eat my [00:40:00] protein and, eat some vegetables, maybe a piece of fruit, just keep my, like I’m coming into the dinner with my protein more or less handled. Maybe I’m a little bit short. So I, cause I usually like to eat some protein anyway but I’ve saved a lot of my carbs or fat and I will do that.

It’s not something I would do regularly, but if it was like one day and I’m like, Oh, I would like to go maybe, 2, 500 calories. And from this whether it’s regardless of how I get there, that’s also something that you can do. I wouldn’t say it’s something you want to do frequently in terms of multiple times a week, but sometimes I’ll do that.

Eric Helms: No that’s a very useful tool. If you’re going to go out to eat for dinner and it’s probably going to be thousands of calories that, you can have like protein and oats for breakfast. And then, a, I would do a salad with chicken. Yeah, exactly. The salad with chicken is exactly what I was going to say with not too much, salad dressing or light salad dressing.

And then, then you have a lot more flexibility when it, when dinner time comes and yeah, pre and post workout, you just do like a shake of way earlier in the day, if that’s between lunch and [00:41:00] dinner and then you’re set and you can. You have a lot more flexibility when you go to the restaurant or at least a lot more room for error.

Yeah, but those are great practical tools for how to incorporate eating out when you’re trying not to gain too quickly. Cool. 

Mike Matthews: Okay, great. So I think that probably pretty much covers the, at least the big bold head, headings of nutrition, right? I would say so. Cool. So now let’s flip to the training side of things.

Eric Helms: Okay. Sure, yeah, and you know training like I said is not going to be that different than what you would do deficit or surplus You know in the end, this is the signal that generates, the potential to gain muscle Okay, I do them support supporting with your nutrition. So I So maybe if you wanted to just drill 

Mike Matthews: down in, cause people can then, they can listen to our previous interview and learn the basics, but how does, how do things change then maybe if you want to touch on that.

So how do things change on the training side of the equation, looking at cutting versus bulking. Yeah, 

Eric Helms: It’s really just a matter of being [00:42:00] slightly with an emphasis on slightly more aggressive, like when I’ll diet someone for a show, there’s typically a regular deload schedule, like we’re going to deal with every fourth week or something like that because I want to make sure you’re recovered.

I’m going to see how much volume I can get away with doing, in, in terms of not doing too much rather basically taking the lower end of a volume. To ensure that I’m, making sure you can recover while during a surplus, I would probably be a little more loosey goosey with it And start with kind of in the middle of a certain range that I thought might be appropriate obviously nothing that they had never done before that was totally foreign to them and you know a huge step up in volume, but Certainly you have more ability to recover from training.

Like you said you could definitely check the the last episode, but there still should be regular dealers, and tapers and just any kind of. Method to the madness to where you’re pushing for a while and then you’re taking a planned Period of recovery instead of just going man.

I just I’m weak now, I don’t understand I which is a [00:43:00] little thing 

Mike Matthews: to bring up because I get I mean I run into that fair like It’s one of the things I’ll commonly ask when if I if somebody tells me that you know If they’re feeling run down, but they’re eating enough food and they’re sleeping fine and whatever.

It’s one of the first things I asked when’s the last time you tried not being the shit out of yourself and just, gave your body a break. And then in a lot of cases they haven’t deloaded once it’s been, or it’s been like nine months or something of really pushing it. There’s your problem.

Eric Helms: Yeah. Yeah. I typically do every fourth to eighth week in someone’s offices and they will, Take a period where it is an intended easy week, where you’re doing about, two thirds of the volume you’d normally do and RPE so how far you are for failure is Maybe one one rep further for failure than there would be in a normal training Okay, so that might be just short of failure if you’re someone who’s always pushing it Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t be doing or further and I think that’s a good way to look at it Is that you’re gonna plateau regardless but you can either plateau on your terms by choice You and then plateau [00:44:00] less frequently in, in your actual training, or you can plateau and then just try to, the problem is what people do once they plateau, like they’ll reach a natural point where they’ve, their fatigue level is higher than their fitness and they’re like, Oh, I don’t understand.

I was, I did, 10 reps last week. And then nine reps before that eight reps before that this week I only did seven with the same load and hit failure like what’s up with that? I’m feeling wrecked 

Yeah, 

Eric Helms: and then so what do they do? They do another set, you know So they’ll try to find some way to still induce progressive overload.

Which you know, don’t get me wrong It’s a great mentality the reason Why you’re probably making gains and why you’re doing this in the first place is because you’re always wanting to push farther than you had Previously. Yeah, but you know your body just told you man. I’m pretty beat up I can’t recover and actually perform better than last week.

And what did you do you forced another set in there? So you actually could progress? And then that continues for a few weeks until they really go off the rails and either get an injury or just they contact, you or me and they’re going I’ve been plateaued for two months, I don’t know what to do.

And that’s typically when you go right we need to figure out some way to A, get you out of the hole, which is easiest doing a [00:45:00] deload. And then B, we need to figure out some kind of method of organizing your training better so that you’re not. running yourself into the ground. An easy way is having, like a thing in your head of, okay, for three to six weeks, I’m going to be pushing to get progressive overload like I normally would.

And then at the end of that I will take a week where I’m dropping my intensity a little bit and my volume by about a third. That’s just a rough guideline. And you could even focus that towards movements that tend to fatigue you more. So you could, yeah, I was going to ask on that. What about exercises?

Yeah, that’s a great way to do it. Especially if you’re like a power lifter or heavily focused on the big three, people tend to start feeling joint issues quickly when they’re, that’s how I 

Mike Matthews: personally experienced. Like when I get up to the point where I know that I need to dial back a bit as I start to feel it in my joints.

Eric Helms: Yeah, exactly. So typically the culprits are your barbell pressing, And then your squat and deadlift variance. And you can definitely deload those more, just do one set at a low RPE. And that’ll really give you your ability to get some of that semi soft tissue to recover [00:46:00] along with kind of the systemic recovery that would come with the deload as a whole.

So yeah, I, I think that’s important. It’s probably more important than a lot of other things because if you’re inducing progressive overload and you’ve got a decent setup, like We talked about in our last podcast and really the the emphasis should just be okay. How do I manage 

Mike Matthews: fatigue from pushing?

And is there anything in terms of exercise selection when you’re programming a cut versus a bulk, or does that look more or less the same? 

Eric Helms: It looks more or less the same for sure. I think exercise selection for someone who’s focused on hypertrophy really should be come, comes down to personal preference with some intelligence behind it.

You definitely want to have a solid base of compound movements. And they do or don’t have to be, like the big three or the barbell lifts or the big four, if the overhead press or all these things. But certainly you want to have a horizontal push, horizontal pull, vertical push, vertical pull, squat pattern, and a hip hinge pattern, and those should be your bread and butter.

And then around that, you can get your single joint movements in there. You can have a few different, machines that you really like, [00:47:00] or you really feel target certain areas. And, And that’s going to be true of everybody during, based on your biomechanics, your body awareness and your training experience.

There’s going to be certain muscle groups that you may have trouble feeling typically from like for most people it’s going to be a muscle in their back or it’s going to be maybe they’re like lateral or rear delt. 

Mike Matthews: I run into sometimes with, as I say, pecs with bench pressing, I’ll run into guys, especially guys that are new to weightlifting.

They feel like all they feel is, triceps. Or into your adult, 

Eric Helms: right? Yeah. Again, unless you’re a power lifter or unless you really want to be able to answer that question, how much bench pro then if you’re not feeling your packs, then emphasize horizontal adduction more and then do some dumbbell pressing, nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Your packs don’t care, as long as they’re stimulated, they will grow. So yeah, I think I see nothing wrong with that I personally have always gotten great pet growth out of bench press, but I’ve met tons of people who don’t you know so I think exercise selection don’t just do what you’ve heard is good or what you’ve seen Your favorite athlete or [00:48:00] model do is really think about okay I need to train all my muscle groups to get them to grow and so what compound movements do I feel all the you know targeted primary and synergist movers in it And then round it out with the accessories and that should be the accessories or secondary movements should probably be the minority of your total volume in my opinion, and probably on the lower 

Mike Matthews: end of intensity, right? 

Eric Helms: Yeah, definitely. I don’t think there’s really a purpose of doing Yeah. So I mean you could, but like for the most part, certain rep ranges sit well with certain exercises. For sure. Yeah. Even just 

Mike Matthews: even functionally there are certain exercises just doesn’t lend itself well to heavy lifting because it gets too sloppy and you, I mean I’ve run into that where a certain I don’t really feel the muscle that I want to train working properly with that amount of weight.

So 

Eric Helms: yeah. And it goes the other way too. Sure, every person who is serious about lifting weights has done, Widowmakers on squats and done their 20 rep sets to failure. [00:49:00] But what they don’t tell you is that they weren’t able to do anything else that workout. Yeah. Like I, I literally remember going through a period where I was doing those and I would take like a five minute rest period after the first set.

Yeah. The next set I would have to take like a 10 minute rest period. The third set would make me throw up literally. And then I would get some hamstring curls done and go home like that’s a shitty workout. Let’s be honest. 

Yeah 

Eric Helms: I remember my first 10 sets of 10. That was the worst shit ever, actually.

Yeah, there you go. That’s another fantastic way of at least there you’re getting the volume in, yeah, enough volume for For a week and a half. Yeah, exactly. For three leg sessions. Yeah, the so like some things like a compound movement is valuable because you’re training multiple muscle groups at once.

To then throw a ton of metabolic and cardiovascular fatigue on top of that. That’s a problem because if you think about it, every repetition of a compound movement is going to be compounding the amount of fatigue that you have compared to an isolation movement per rep. So it probably makes sense to focus more on a low volume, low to moderate repetition, tension [00:50:00] stimulus, and then get your high rep work that’s easier on your joints and that, like you said, lends yourself to more easier muscle activation when you’re doing, machine work and isolation work.

So for the most part, if you’re. I tend to keep, bench 10 reps and under, I tend to keep, my squats and my deadlifts, front squats and RDLs like eight reps and under deadlifts probably actually more like six reps and under. And then then I’ll be doing, eight to 15 on everything else.

Mike Matthews: Makes sense. And just back to that point of not feeling a muscle. activating fully or properly on a given exercise. I think it’s worth just mentioning everybody listening that because I know what just from people reaching out to me, what they initially think is that they’re doing the exercise wrong.

They think that their form is bad. And so sometimes people will send me videos of form and no, it looks good. There’s no, sure, you might be able to nitpick little things, but that’s not the problem. So it’s just, I think worth just highlighting that for people listening that just because a bench press works great for, for me and Eric and you, Eric doesn’t necessarily mean that [00:51:00] it’s going to work great for everybody.

And you’ve got to have the perfect form spotless, 

Eric Helms: yeah. And also the You tend to get these polarizing views on feeling the muscle work, so you’ll get the people who will tell you like, Hey, if you’re a bodybuilder, you want to feel the target muscle work in all movements.

And you’ll get other people who may or may not be bodybuilders. She’ll be like just focus on form and just do it and don’t worry about what it feels like. And they’re both right. But I think it’s exercise specific. If I’m doing a squat, no, I’m not thinking about my fastest lateralis.

I’m just squatting. 

Yeah. 

Eric Helms: That’s taking 60 percent of the muscle groups in my body which muscle am I supposed to focus on? Yeah, that’s a good one. And yeah, and it’s a dangerous movement, like these are high relative dead movements Obviously, it’s more dangerous to be weak and not trained.

Sure a deadlift a squat, you know some of these heavy compound barbell movements heavy pressing like a standing overhead press and even a bench press if you can if you’re already feeling all the muscle groups, you don’t need to focus and you probably shouldn’t focus on any single muscle group.

And if you’re doing like a cable row or like a lat pulldown or a bicep curl or [00:52:00] tricep pushdown, feel free. There’s only a few target muscles you’re actually trying to work, so you can definitely focus on one at a time. And get more of that, quote unquote, my muscle connection, there’s no issue there.

But when you’re doing, a complex athletic movement, you should be trying to develop movement skill, not feeling a specific muscle group. 

Mike Matthews: That’s a good point. Actually. It’s a very good point. I guess that’s more just how the complaints come is I don’t feel my pecs on the bench press because yeah, sure.

There’s more involved in bench press, but at that moment, at that time, then to them, bench press equals bigger chest. Why do I not feel my, why do I not know? Yeah. Yep. 

Eric Helms: Yeah. And it’s a little easier on, on the upper body lifts, but yeah, you really shouldn’t be thinking about what muscle groups are working.

You should be thinking about your form on a deadlift or a squat, yeah. And just trusting and 

Mike Matthews: knowing that if you’re performing a deadlift properly and you’re using any amount of weight, your back is working, like you might not, don’t, you don’t really have to overthink it.

That’s about it. That’s all you need to know. It’s no 

Eric Helms: way you’re standing up without it. Exactly. But yeah, on something like a bench press yeah, that’s like we said before, you’d probably want to just. [00:53:00] Try switching to a different compound lift with dumbbells and it may sort itself out. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. I’ve, I, you’ve probably seen this as well.

I’ve seen it where so a person’s in that situation, guys in particular, obviously with bench press, and then either they just keep working. And these are generally when I’ve come across as people that are new to weightlifting and sometimes very new. And I have to explain to him, they’re also starting with not a lot of muscle or strength.

So I have to explain to them this is pretty common, but it’s give me a couple months of solid work on it. And then let’s see, so I’ve seen that where then as they actually gained some strength and put on a bit of muscle, they didn’t realize like everything that they wanted to happen was happening.

It just, they didn’t, they weren’t aware of it for a little bit. I’ve seen that. And then I’ve also seen where somebody has Has transitioned, okay let’s do some dumbbell pressing for a bit and and then come back to the barbell or vice versa. And now it it feels right. You know what I mean?

Eric Helms: Yeah, definitely. I actually do the bench press or at least barbell movements allow smaller increments and load to be used. Ideally I’d like to see [00:54:00] someone able to do them and feel everything. And you’re right when you’re in the first, I’d say the first six months of lifting.

And if your form is actually correct and safe, just keep training. I don’t think you should be trying to troubleshoot yet because you don’t actually, you’re not a fully formed, like you’re still a single

celled organism. But yeah, just it just takes time to, to feel everything and to be aware. It’s not even necessarily an issue of activation. You just don’t have the body awareness yet to do that. Yeah, so So don’t stress it. Just keep training 

Mike Matthews: totally agreed Alright last thing supplementation anything that you want to say on that because obviously hard Yeah.

And then when you’re cutting, 

Eric Helms: you have to eat plenty. Yeah no. On a very serious note supplements are there, there’s a small handful of them that, that work beyond just, spending your money. And there’s fewer that, that are useful and effective in a bulking period because you’re not dealing with the stressors of [00:55:00] dieting and fat loss is not a goal.

But be very aware that, even creatine, the most researched and probably most useful supplement for putting on strength and muscle mass. You may not be able to notice the difference of being on creatine or not if you were to do like a placebo controlled trial and you had to guess whether or not you were given the creatine or not.

And that’s the most effective supplement. So it’s definitely supplementary and it may be, 1%, that’s true. That’s very true. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. Let me run a few by you that I have. BCAAs, that’s very common, right? You have to fucking drink the pink water all day. 

Eric Helms: Yeah. BCAA, I think, are largely overrated.

They’re a really expensive way when you, really expensive way to get in protein when you could just be taking, you know, a scoop of whey for much cheaper. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Eric Helms: And all of these, because obviously 

Mike Matthews: the pitch is like, Oh, you’re, then your body’s super anabolic all day, all the time. Yeah. You don’t 

Eric Helms: want that.

Because it’s not, there’s what’s called a refractory period. If you’re trying to take a protein and all the time, like I actually think would probably be detrimental to have a [00:56:00] constant IV of BCA going into you because amino acids have to compete there. You actually wouldn’t run at the problems if you were to theoretically do that.

But anyway, the the main selling points of BCAA, if you look at what studies that do blip as far as having a positive effect what you don’t realize is that you get the same effect from either taking more protein or having carbohydrates. Sure, yes, BCAAs are directly metabolized in the muscle.

Yes, BCAAs, elevate muscle protein synthesis, but guess what else is directly metabolized in the muscle? Glycogen. Guess what also raises muscle protein synthesis? Whole protein, that you didn’t break down. So then people go, what if you’re in a fasted state or dieting? It’s like you, why are you training completely fasted?

If you feel better with performance, okay, is half a scoop away really going to be that much of a problem or even a full scoop? It’s not like that’s, you’re going to feel completely different. So yeah, I rarely run into a situation where I think BCA is warranted and I think I’ve seen a total of one study.

And it was on cardio that were where it actually in a [00:57:00] fasted state compared to carbohydrate. There’s one study i’ve seen where a similar amount of bca produced better performance But so so all of the fasted track athletes who are listening to this podcast Maybe you want to consider it, but I think that’s zero people.

So Yeah Great. What about like weight gainers? Yeah, I mean if you are the person who is really struggling to You to put on weight, maybe making it liquid and blending stuff together or getting a commercial weight gain or makes sense. It’s just seems like a waste of money to me to get, basically low quality whe protein and multi dextrin.

Yeah. 

Eric Helms: With a multivitamin added, you could probably just, get like peanut butter honey oats and whe protein will blend it together for a third of the price. But yes, going liquid is a very useful way of getting in calories if you’re really struggling to gain weight. I’ve recommended juicing to people and I don’t mean taking steroids, but just, getting more of your carbohydrate through fruit juices as a way of getting more calories down, so I think but don’t have any kind [00:58:00] of don’t put weight gainers on a pedestal. They’re really Yeah. You can easily make yourself or similar. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. I have one coming out that’s not that, which is why I’m bringing it up. That’s that’s the pitch. The pitch is essentially like this is the problem with weight gainers.

So here’s one that actually has nutritious high quality ingredients and no, this doesn’t automatically help you gain weight, but this is what it does help you do. You know what I mean? Which a lot of people have asked for that because they want not, they think of it as a weight gainer or a meal replacement.

You know what I mean? It’s. So it’s like bodybuilder toilets. Yeah, actually. That’s awesome. That’s what it’s called. Fuck. How did you know? Yeah, exactly. I like it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That’s the idea. But okay, good. So that’s weight gainers. Any other supplements that, there are the, oh, there’s testosterone boosters.

We can just say that they all do nothing. Don’t even waste your time. 

Eric Helms: That’s 

Mike Matthews: a decent, that’s a 

Eric Helms: Decent way of doing it. And even if they did boost your testosterone, would it actually help your muscle gain? Probably not with a normal physiological ranges and they probably aren’t missing your testosterone anyway.

Mike Matthews: [00:59:00] Exactly. And if there’s, yeah, whatever, there may be a couple instances like DAA that maybe it may be in some people for two weeks by a little bit or some shit like that. That’s irrelevant. Yes. So that’s that. Any other supplements that you get asked about that people associate with, gaining muscle and strength that you want to talk?

Yeah. 

Eric Helms: There’s some ones that, that I recommend to a lot of people interested in muscle gain as it’s like Your baseline that would be you know, like a reasonably dosed multivitamin fish oil and Vitamin d3 if you don’t get a lot of sunlight Yeah, there’s there was a study that came out that said I think roughly 80 percent of people in westernized countries I forget which westernized country but they tend to be pretty similar when I looked at surveys are mildly deficient indeed in vitamin D So obviously we don’t want a nutrient deficiency And most multivitamins don’t have a high enough dose of D that would probably reverse that.

I think it’s like 40 to 80 IU per kilogram is a decent recommendation. Yeah, I think that’s right. I [01:00:00] may be getting that a little bit wrong. So get on examine. com if you’re, if you think about supplementing with D3. Ideally, you would actually want to get blood work done to make sure you aren’t in the 20 percent that’s supplementing unnecessarily.

But. That, that is something to consider. And then, if you’re like a pure bodybuilder or a pure strength athlete, it would be, your creatine. And potentially citrulline malate, which has shown to more recently, this is something I wouldn’t even have recommended two years ago but in the last year, there’s been like multiple labs that have come out and shown that seems to be helpful with accomplishing more training volume.

And and then one that I’ve become less enamored with as I’ve seen more research come out is actually beta alanine which I think is probably Only relevant if you’re doing continuous efforts longer than 30 seconds or 60 seconds, depending on which study or which meta analysis you’re looking at.

Maybe if you’re like a CrossFitter or if you’re doing if you care just as much about your anaerobic training as you do your resistance training, that would be something to do. Or if you’re the guy who’s what are you guys talking about? I love 20 reps sets of squats and I do them every leg day.

Then certainly you might [01:01:00] want to bust out and get one. You’re psychotic and to enjoy beta alanine, it might help you be slightly less damaged. So 

Mike Matthews: great. That’s pretty much it, man. Yeah. HMB was going around for a bit. There was that nonsense research on it. But I think that I think people are generally over that now.

Eric Helms: Yeah, I, HMB has always been at best a theoretical benefit to when you’re in a catabolic state that has never been tested outside of dialysis and people at bedrest and things like that and typically doesn’t do well in trained populations. And the studies like you said that have come out where it has done well, They’ve done really well.

The stats don’t look right. Yeah, and like better than steroids. Right? Yeah, and it comes from a group that The studies they do on supplements always go up So I would want to see replication by another group before I ever committed to that So yeah, I don’t, I’ll be honest. I don’t trust that research.

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: That’s the general consensus. Okay, great. I [01:02:00] think that’s everything. Is there anything left that you think that we didn’t touch on that you wanted to share? Yeah, just go hard or go home, I’m just kidding. Train it, say it’ll be the same. I don’t know.

Yeah, exactly. We could have just said that actually and then just saved an hour. We would have covered everything. No, I thought about covers a minute. Okay. Awesome. Let’s wrap up with where people can find you, find your work, if there’s anything that you’re working on in particular right now that you want people to know about.

Sure. It totally depends 

Eric Helms: on what level of nerd you are. So if you really just want to get some information, how to train and you’re interested in some of the stuff I’m talking about, I would check out. Our YouTube channel at 3dmusclejourney. com, there’s a link there to see it where we have a lot of information for bodybuilders and powerlifters.

If you’re really wanting to get into the nuts and bolts of training, I’ve got a couple books based on the video series I did back in the day called the muscle and strength pyramids, which basically cover all of the things you need to know about setting up your nutrition or training plan. And that’s at Muscle and Strength pyramids.com.

Those are two eBooks you can check out. I’ll put Main also, so anybody if [01:03:00] you watch on YouTube, 

Mike Matthews: just, if you’re on the website or whatever, you’ll see down below. 

Eric Helms: Awesome. And then for the nerdiest of the nerds who really want to follow the research that, that, like the Muscle and Strength Pyramids is built on and the ongoing research that’s coming out you gotta check out monthly applications to the Strength Sport or Mass, which is our monthly research review targeted at.

Strength and physique athletes or the, the recreational people really interested in that and their coaches. And that’s with myself, Dr. Mike Zerdos and Greg Nichols. And you just want to go to stronger by science. com slash mass. 

Mike Matthews: Cool. Awesome. And I highly recommend that. It’s something that I promoted and I rarely promote things rarely ever actually.

And so I highly endorse everything that Eric does. Thanks brother. And then he’s on the short list of people that, I read all your stuff and I’m a fan as well. So awesome, man. I can get into the Mike Matthews VIP club. That’s what you’re saying. I’ll fly you over. The bouncer would let me in.

All right, cool. That’s everything, man. Again, thanks a lot for taking the time. I appreciate it. [01:04:00] I know it’s going to go over well. People have been asking for it, so we have delivered. Hey, it’s Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness.

Also head over to my website at www dot muscle for life. com where you’ll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you’ll also find a bunch of different articles that I’ve written. I release a new one almost every day. Actually I release four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I’m involved in over at muscleforlife.

com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.