Ep. #102: Menno Henselman on how genetics influence muscle building

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What’s up, this is Mike Matthews from muscleforlife. com. And I am back with another episode of the podcast. In this episode, I interview Menno Henselmans from [00:03:00] BayesianBodybuilding. com and we talk about how genetics affects your muscle and strength gains and aesthetics. Now, I was excited to get Menno on the podcast because One, he has been requested many times by listeners and two, I thought he would be the perfect person to talk to about this because he is one of the leaders of the evidence based fitness movement and one of a handful of people really in this space whose work I regularly follow and recommend.

As you’ll see, he knows his shit. If you’ve been wondering about how your genetics influence things like the rate at which you can gain muscle and strength, how big and strong you can ultimately get how your muscles look as they develop and more, then I think you’re going to this interview.

So let’s get to it. Menno. Thanks for coming on the show. I missed you a few times and I’m excited to talk to you. You’re actually one of the guests. A lot of the people that listened to me have been requesting. So here we are. 

Menno Henselman: All [00:04:00] right. My pleasure, 

Mike Matthews: Mike. Great. Yeah. So the discussion is going to be about genetics and what role they play in gaining muscle and strength.

And what I was thinking is, I get asked about this fairly frequently. I’ve written a little bit about it. I’ve spoken a little bit about it, but I haven’t had a real in depth discussion on it. And so what I was thinking, we just run down a few of the More common questions that I get, and then I’m just going to pass the mic to you and, let you do your thing.

Sure. Cool. So let’s just start at the top here. So one of the questions that I get most frequently is how much do genetics affect how quickly you can gain weight? Muscle and strength and then the kind of follow up question is usually, okay. So then what are some realistic expectations for someone just getting into weightlifting in particular, I get that from a lot of guys that are new because, they’re on Instagram and they’re looking at all these different people and they don’t know, what’s drugs, what’s not drugs, and they don’t know what’s real and what’s not real in terms of timeframes and so forth.

So I think that’s a good place to start. 

Menno Henselman: Starting with your [00:05:00] first question, how much do genetics. How big is the role of genetics in how much muscle you can gain and how strong you can get? It’s big. To quantify how much, researchers for these kind of questions, they often express something as a hereditary coefficient, which is like the percent It’s roughly interpreted as the percentage that your genetics affect your results.

Okay. You can think of it as How much your genetics can predict relative to other factors like environmental factors, in this case being your training program, your nutrition, how well you’re sleeping, all of those things. And here we see that there is a very significant influence. We can start with that.

It’s. So big in fact that in research, at least we have people that are deemed non responders because on any given training program, they don’t grow any muscle at all, or they gain any strength. And [00:06:00] I’m actually not really in favor of the term non responder because in all my years of coaching experience and As a coach, you often get the hard gainers and the people that have tried everything.

I have a lot of people that, they’ve had five different coaches and they’re like, okay, this is basically the last attempt I’m going to make. And what I’ve seen is I’ve had one person that really probably couldn’t gain any more muscle. He could lose fat. He could get a six pack. He could get, he could build some strength at least.

But in terms of muscle growth, it was just, it was so little that. He was already like intermediate level. So definitely not. I was going to say, 

Mike Matthews: cause you just said any more, so I don’t, 

Menno Henselman: yeah. Yeah. So I don’t think, I’m not really convinced of the presence of there actually being complete non responders 

but 

Menno Henselman: at least we see them in research and that’s probably because they didn’t respond to.

Program 

Mike Matthews: Over, the time period and also how are the results [00:07:00] measured? They’re, 

Menno Henselman: yeah, exactly. So we know that different people react better to different programs. We can get into that as 

Mike Matthews: well. That’s actually, no, that’s a good point. We should talk about that. I didn’t put that on the list, but I also do.

You asked about that. 

Menno Henselman: So we have these people that at least do that given program, they don’t respond. And other people we have, we see rates. of increase in those kind of studies of, I think, two to three fold. So you have people gaining like 250 percent strength, which is huge. They’re more than doubling their strength level and other people they don’t really gain anything.

So we have this huge variance. That is a fact. But if we look at the hereditary coefficient, we see that it’s around 50%. And I think for obesity, the most recent estimates are actually closer to 40%. So your genes would explain 40% of. Who gets obese and who doesn’t and that’s actually less 40 percent at least than what we see in most other research because For people that [00:08:00] don’t know I actually came from a background of economics psychology and statistics and I made the career switch from business consultant to Working as an online coach and so i’m familiar with a lot of other research areas as well And I know that In most other areas, 50% is actually deemed normal.

So it’s actually just seen as a normal average. Okay. Which is almost seems too coincidental, right? Like you have environmental factors and you have genetic factors, and it seems that Yeah, just there’s a balance there. Couple things. Yeah. It’s about one to one. It’s about 50 50. So it seems too coincidental, but it’s true for a ton of things, including, for example, your personality.

So in, in that line, like you can get screwed over by your genetics more in terms of strength training that you can get through it over for your intelligence or your personality or your height, any other such factor. In that line, it’s not that bad but we do just see these huge variants.

And I think a lot of people may be a bit thinking about it too gloomy [00:09:00] because they look at the extreme outliers, right? They hear about these non responders and then they think of stories like. But most of them, I think that has actually been verified is Andy Bolton. I often use him as an example in my PT course, where as the example of the most extreme outlier, because I think he, he squatted, I think it was 500 pounds the first session he was in the gym or something like that.

Yeah. And then we have a debt 600 pound that left soon to follow. And that’s 

Mike Matthews: just, I know one person that is, he’s not that much of a freak, but his first deadlift ever was like four Oh five for the, and and now he’s pulling a year and a half later, he’s pulling 600 plus. What is that? And he did, he’s, you would look at him.

He just looks like a normal guy. Like now he looks a bit more muscular, but he’s not some, he’s not the short super stocky dude. He’s actually like six, four. And looks pretty muscular, fairly muscular, but you would never guess like he, he could, I told him he should go into [00:10:00] gyms, just make bets.

He could just make money that way. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah. That’s actually, that’s another interesting aspect of genetics is that how much can you predict based on what right? So for strength, we know that the variance is a lot bigger and it’s actually really straightforward as to why this is, why we see more variance for strength than for muscle growth.

And that is because everything that affects muscle growth basically also affects your strength, right? Because given any sort of neural level, I often use the analogy of your brain being the driver and your muscles being the race car. So given any level of neural development, a bigger muscle means more total force production.

Or specifically science would say that a larger cross sectional area, all else being equal, always increases total potential force output of that muscle tissue. And therefore we see that we have this variance in muscle growth, much [00:11:00] muscle gain, but the variance in strength is even bigger because not only we have we, these morphological factors as they’re called, so factors like muscle size that affect your strength.

We also have other morphological factors like biomechanical factors. For example, the angle at which a muscle inserts on the tendon, even a very minor difference in this angle or penation angle of the muscle, for example, these, which you cannot see at all visually looking at like degrees and all of this being internal.

in your body can make a huge difference because we are talking about these tiny angles that you can have a slight difference in angle that basically doubles the leverage the muscle has on a particular bone or joint and that basically means that it also can double the force output. So you can have these two people that have the exact same amount of muscle mass and they also have the exact same level of neural development.

One of them simply has these [00:12:00] insertion points. Of the muscles and the tendons on bones that make that person a lot more suitable for heavy lifting. So they’re actually producing the same amount of internal force and the muscles are doing the same kind of work, but it can be a twofold difference in external force output, meaning they can lift twice as much weight while they only have to do half the work.

Mike Matthews: And I guess a simple analogy could be like the lever and fulcrum type of, where you just. It, depending on where, how it’s set up, you can, the amount of force that goes in can be disproportionately larger in terms of what goes out. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, that’s exactly right. So you can also have that with cable pulleys in the gym.

For example, a lot of my clients are surprised, like they have a certain exercise and they’re using a certain cable pulley and then the next session they use a different cable pulley. Like I couldn’t lift nearly as much weight, but if you’re just changing the amount of pulleys. That can double the resistance.

That’s also why machine work a lot of people ask, what is an impressive lag [00:13:00] press? And my answer is there’s no such thing. Because the different lag press machines can have such incredibly different It’s very true. leverage 

and 

Menno Henselman: action rates that, on one machine you can barely press more than you can squat.

And on a different machine it’s just like several fold. You can just put obscene amounts of weight on there. And, look at Ronnie Coleman and then you have these guys, looking around and you have someone else step on the leg press and they do the quarter leg presses and they’re like, oh yeah, I leg press a thousand pounds.

And, they can barely squat three plates of that. Yeah, it’s biomechanics. It’s not really a strength. Makes sense. Yeah. And then the other factor that we have that also explains how strong you are is basically, you can group that together as neural factors. So it’s how advanced the driver is, how well the driver can control the car, meaning how well can the brain control your muscles?

Yeah. 

Menno Henselman: And also more peripheral factors like your neurons, like how fast can the [00:14:00] signal transduce through your neurons and reach your muscles, but it’s largely analogous to the driver in the car or you can think of it as hardware and software. How well can the software control the hardware? If you have For the computer people, I’m not even sure if this analogy is right, because I’m not that good with computers, but you can have, I know that certain pieces of hardware, you can overclock them, depending on how well the software functions, so you can have the same kind of graphics card, but like physical material, but if you have better software, it can make more use of that same card.

Yeah, it’s a good analogy. So with these three factors, you basically have the variance in strength and it includes muscles. So 

Mike Matthews: much bigger variance there. Yeah, just to summarize then, so you’re going to have people whose muscles are, who’s, who are just mechanically set up to be stronger.

And then you have people whose muscles can contract more forcefully where, like you were saying, the software, it just better uses what’s available. And then what about in terms of. Just potential [00:15:00] for hypertrophy potential for size. I think you had mentioned a little bit about that earlier, but that’s really where I get asked.

This is mainly guys asking because they’re concerned that they’re never going to be able to look like, so and and you had touched on it with non responders versus hyper responders, I guess you could say. So what are some realistic, if we just looked at in terms of pounds in, let’s say the first if it plays out over.

Let’s say five years. So for muscle growth for guys, and then also girls. I don’t get asked very frequently by girls, but there are women out there that are concerned with it. Based on your experience and research, what do you say are some realistic expectations? Assuming that, they’re following at least a well designed training program and they know what they’re doing with their nutrition and, they’re not under eating or eating too little protein or doing anything, obviously wrong.

Menno Henselman: Let me pull up the exact figures I have this for my PT course. So it’s rolling. All right. So first thing is that you should [00:16:00] generally think of this as percentage of body weight increase because if you think of it as bouncing, it can be useful. And you have the pretty common rule that novices like novice man, most men can gain about two pounds a month like purely lean tissue.

I’m talking about. When they start training. So novices but beyond that, it gets very tricky because, you have one guy that weighs 200 pounds, another guy that weighs on 60 pounds. And obviously, they’re going to have a very big difference in how many pounds of muscle they can add.

So I really like to express everything in terms of percentage increase in body weight gain. And the nice thing about that is then you also take the gender difference into account. Because contrary to popular belief. Men and women actually have the same muscular potential. Given the same starting muscle mass, same baseline muscle mass, they can actually grow the same amount.

And I have a very in depth article on that on my website, The Natural Muscular Potential of Women, I think it’s called. [00:17:00] And I read that article, 

Mike Matthews: I liked it. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, you can check that for all the references or listen on scan. But yeah, there’s a lot of research from protein synthesis from chronic training studies that actually looked at muscle growth and also from elite athletes that cross sectionally and it all points in the same direction that muscular potential is actually the same, although they do respond differently to different training programs.

So men and women should not generally train and eat exactly the same. But that’s a different topic to the actual figure and 

Mike Matthews: Just not leave people in the mystery. So then what’s the big difference there? It’s where women start, right? Is that they start with so little. So the big difference between men and women in terms of muscle is that women start with so much less, right?

Like the average one. 

Menno Henselman: Exactly. They just weigh a lot less and they have higher body fat percentage naturally because boobs and other factors as well, but hips and rear children, you, they start with a lot lower baseline level of [00:18:00] fat free mass, but given the same starting point of fat free mass in terms of pounds or kilograms, The muscular potential is the same.

And given the same starting weights, the potential is also very similar. So if you have one 70 pound male and a one 70 pound woman, there’s very little difference in what they’re going to be able to accomplish in terms of strength and muscle growth. Which is why. In most sports, men do dominate but it’s also a cultural differences there.

So right. That’d be anyway, I 

Mike Matthews: would like to have you on another time. Talk about that. That’d be interesting. Any anything that any of the episodes that are more specifically geared towards women do particularly well because a lot of the stuff tends to be more male oriented. So 

Menno Henselman: yeah, that’s true.

That’s also what I discussed in the article. There’s this. Yeah. Huge discrimination, but it’s not discrimination. It’s just a disproportionate amount of men in the industry and therefore disproportionate amount of male coaches and coaches receiving male clients, et [00:19:00] cetera. So 

Mike Matthews: it’s almost a supply and demand thing.

There’s a bias there that just has naturally developed. It’s just. 

Menno Henselman: Differences in the market population, 

right? 

Menno Henselman: But as a reference, by the way, my audience is about two to one male to female. And that’s pretty consistent across my coaching applications. The clients I work with Facebook, I haven’t checked my website data in a year, but I think it was the same there as well.

Mike Matthews: I’m like 60 percent men, 40 percent women. So there, there are enough women that it would be a productive conversation. 

Menno Henselman: So the actual rates that I think are realistic based on. The research, my experience That I have in my PT course, novice individuals can expect to gain about 1 percent of body weight per week.

And that basically that’s basically cut in half as soon as you’re at the intermediate level. And intermediate here means like seriously trained. 

Mike Matthews: Now, 1 percent per [00:20:00] week? No, per month. Yeah, per week. So that’s that’d be like, so if somebody is 200 pounds, then you’re talking about 2 pounds. Cause that, that, then that scale, that scales down then in time, right?

Menno Henselman: Yeah. It scales down very well. 

Mike Matthews: Okay, good. Yes. I wanna make sure everybody, cause the guy’s gonna be like, what I can gain, I can gain for my first year. I can gain, if I’m starting at, 150 pounds, I can gain. All, whatever, 50 pounds in the first year. 

Menno Henselman: That’s the other thing.

Remind me like in a second, what the timeframes, but yeah, so for a novice, which basically means like starting with untrained, okay. Completely. 1%. So yeah, that’s aggressive and that’s. I think realistic, but achievable for the average individual. Okay. How long 

Mike Matthews: do you see that playing out?

Menno Henselman: Not long. Like you’re talking about six months or so probably at best. But yeah, I can, I think in your first year you can see very significant growth rates. Like I gained, I started at 65 kilos myself [00:21:00] and then I actually unintentionally dropped down to 60 kilos. I was, that’s really low weight because I was.

Already six foot at that point close to six foot one even. And then within a year I bulk up to about 80 kilos still with apps. So I then spent about 10 more years basically re comping to get to that same weight, but in contact shape. And then now in the last five years or so, I managed to get to six more kilos.

Yeah, it scales down really fast, but the thing is how many people start off on an optimized program? Almost nobody does. So everyone, they have to trial and error. They need to figure things out. So it’s even among my clients because it’s still rare that you have a novice. Start off training completely optimally doing everything right because either the adherence just isn’t there yet or they have other goals or they’re, they’re only willing to train twice a week, [00:22:00] even if, the they have the coaching often, it’s still not going to be, they’re actually maxing out on their potential, right?

Yeah, but yeah, everything being right, 1 percent per week of body weight can be gained like lean tissue. Okay. Maybe like a little fat. 

Mike Matthews: And would you say that’s right down? That’s for a person with average genetics or you say that’s for a person that responds better than average or just the average person?

Okay. Yeah. 

Menno Henselman: And this basically cut in half as soon as someone reaches the intermediate stage so that you’ll be like 0. 5%. And then it’s cut in half again once they reach the advanced stage and you’re looking at 0. 25%. All per week of body weight. So that’s, it’s very little. That’s what a lot of people, they don’t recognize on the skill unless they’re meticulously tracking everything.

Mike Matthews: Yep, yep. And then also, your diet has to be pretty consistent in terms of even macronutrients there, because if your carbs are going up and down, it’s hard to see exactly what’s really happening with your weight. [00:23:00] 

Menno Henselman: Yeah. If you drink alcohol, you wake up, you’re, it has diuretic effects or you’re dehydrated.

If you have a bowel movement one day, but the other day, these things can have variations in body weight that are a lot larger than what you will gain on a weekly basis as an advanced individual. 

Mike Matthews: And that’s probably why, you’re probably looking at your average weight over time in that scenario, right?

Yeah. 

Menno Henselman: And as a reference. What I did, which is now in a year or two years, maybe I did everything I could for a year. And I would consider myself like an elite level trainee, not because I’m like world class in absolute terms, but in terms of my genetic potential, I think I’m pretty much there.

Fortunately, but I did everything in my power to gain as much muscle as possible. Which I usually do, but that year I made sure I was meticulous with everything. And I made very sure to record for two weeks straight under the most stable conditions I could achieve. With set carbohydrate intakes, set water intake, [00:24:00] everything record caliper measurements, circumferences.

And I basically concluded from that, that I gained one pound of lean tissue. And I was really happy with that because I expected zero. So I was still likely making progress, which was very good news to me. Cause that’s what, basically what I wanted to find out. But yeah, when you’re at the elite level as a natural trainee, you’re looking at yearly progress.

So yeah, you’re looking at the very sharply diminishing returns to your training time. And that’s what I was referring to earlier, like the time frames we attached to this. Yeah. Now I’m going to make a very controversial statement, but I think based on what I’ve seen in terms of people that train optimally and also some.

Historical data of individuals like Steve Reeves and people that trained really hard in the classic era. I think you can very, come very close to approximating your genetic potential within three years of optimal progress. Now, [00:25:00] distinction here being very crucial that optimal progress. It’s not total training time.

You can easily, and I’ve done so myself, waste three years of training time. I 

Mike Matthews: probably wasted at least three or four years before I really got my act together. 

Menno Henselman: Exactly. It’s common even. So this is absolutely not total training time. Like you have these people like, Oh, I’ve been training for three years.

I’m there. No, absolutely not. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: You’ve been 

Menno Henselman: exercising 

Mike Matthews: for three years. There’s a different there. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah. So I’m talking about three years of doing everything right and making the best progress you can make. So theoretically, if we have a certain individual, say, a completely robotic individual, then I would be confident that a very good coach could make that person achieve his or her goal.

Generic potential or come very close to it within three years and probably 80 percent of that something like that 80 is actually a figure that [00:26:00] comes from a lot of data the 80 20 rule. It’s based on actual empirical data because most Functions in life have a power law if they’re not normally distributed So 80 is probably a good estimate for the first year something like that but again, stressing that this is the period of time doing everything right.

So I think people in general, in the industry, they underestimate what you can achieve, but they overestimate how long it takes. So it doesn’t require, like you see people, it will easily take 20 years to reach your genetic potential. I don’t think so. I think there, the body simply does not have that kind of adaptation because.

Evolutionarily speaking, it makes no sense to have an adaptive system that is either capable of or requires 20 years of training to reach its full potential. What kind of evolutionary stimulus are we talking about that, requires 20 years of doing something before your body has. Mastered [00:27:00] it, it’s just doesn’t occur in nature. So I think in most things you would do looking at more years before your mastering skill. But yeah, I think that about sums it up. 

Mike Matthews: And then just on that point, that’s a good segue into the next question. Cause that is something also asked frequently about is how to predict.

And again, this is usually guys that are new to training. And they want to know, is it even possible for you to look like and what are your thoughts on the, it’s based on a bit of research, but there’s some core it’s just information out there correlating, basically your, the ceiling of your FFMI, what that can be naturally.

And then at what point, is it clearly drugs at what point is it in the gray? Do you think there’s any, do you think there’s any semi accurate way for somebody new to weightlifting to go realistically, I could probably get to somewhere in this range or is it something that, they just have to, it’s going to take years and then they can make a prediction.

Menno Henselman: Yeah, let me pull [00:28:00] this up because I’m my PT course. I have reference data on the FFMI. All right. Yeah, it’s here. All right. So the FFMI for people that don’t know is the fat free mass index. It’s like BMI, which is body mass index, but BMI is sucks for strength and ease because it’s just a part A relation between weight and height doesn’t say anything about your fat percentage, right?

Mike Matthews: It’s more for population analysis, right? 

Menno Henselman: Exactly. It’s for people that don’t lift because then you can assume a certain level of fat free mass based on their gender and height. Because if someone’s not training, then you know, their, and their protein intake is somewhat normal. You can. I’d be sure that they have a certain level.

Yeah 

Mike Matthews: and age, right? Because as they get older, they’re going to be using whatever. Yeah, 

Menno Henselman: exactly. Although, actually, it’s mostly disuse and not age itself, but that’s another topic. You have body mass index, useless, and that’s why we have the healthy mass index that researchers, Developed to [00:29:00] look at how muscular you are because it relates your fat free mass to your height and it completely ignores fat mass.

So it just says how much clean body mass, which is roughly a proxy for muscle mass you’re carrying. Now researchers have studied this and there is a very infamous or famous study. That basically concluded that a fat free mass of 25 is as good as it gets for a natural trainee. So there are a lot of very serious problems with this study and this consequently the idea that, a fat free mass index of 25 is about as good as it gets.

Just to 

Mike Matthews: put it in perspective, just so everybody knows, so if what’s, do you know what your FFMI is? So if people want to look at your physique and go, so what is this? What does 25 look like? Like I know I’m right around 24 and so people that know that I will look like, so like I’m a much more muscular than the average person type of guy.

So 25 is pretty big. Do you know yours? 

Menno Henselman: Actually, [00:30:00] 

Mike Matthews: I’ll fill it in right here. Just to give listeners a visual on what does that look like? 

Menno Henselman: So my normalized thought free mass index. Or in my last contact ship, it’s actually only 23. 6. So that’s to show that, 25 is this big.

Yeah. You’re a big dude at 25. Yeah. I, it depends like in person, it varies. So I think a lot of people, it goes both ways. Like some people are like, Oh, you look bigger in the pictures. And I think I do because, pictures are always great and you’re flexing and you’re pumped and everything. 

Mike Matthews: And the leaner you are, you get that effect where it just, you look bigger you look, your weight almost doesn’t make sense for how big you look.

Menno Henselman: Yeah. In general, like the leaner you are, the better you can look on photo, but the worse you look in a t shirt. 

Mike Matthews: Yep. 

Did you get when you would get really lean for shoots and stuff to get if you wear a long sleeve shirt where people Are like do you even what happened? Did you do you even go to the gym anymore?

Menno Henselman: Yeah, the live to redeeming factor [00:31:00] there because For one my forearms get crazily vascular. So if there’s some sleeve not covering my forearms It’s like there’s no mistake 

just because 

Menno Henselman: my forearms are so vascular And second thing is why a lot of people actually think I look bigger in person.

Mostly. I think it’s the difference between people that have seen a lot of very big dudes and they see me in person and I’m not that impressive, have a bigger impression from the photos, but on the other end, you have people that haven’t really seen a lot of truly big guys. And then when they see me, they’re like, Oh shit, six foot one, 200 pounds is actually, a big dude.

And 

Menno Henselman: I have my shoulders are genetically my best body parts. So I have quite wide shoulders. And combined with height is that especially here in Asia and like when I was touring in India, people are like, holy crap. Yeah, you’re 

Mike Matthews: like Godzilla over there. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, exactly. Because I’m like, literally a full head taller and very broad shoulder.

So that’s fine. It all depends on who you [00:32:00] ask. 

Sure. 

Menno Henselman: But anyway, thought free mass index. You have that study that concluded 25 is about as good as it gets. But all that study really did is they got together a bunch of. Like muscular guys, strong guys, like they had some truly high level people in there like international bodybuilders powerlifters that won set records and they basically concluded that.

In that sample, 25 was as good as it got. Thing is, it was just getting a bunch of people together. There’s no way to conclude from that, that just because in this sample, it didn’t occur that it’s not possible. And actually that same study concluded that it is possible because they analyze the records of pre steroid, like legitimately almost could not have been steroids physiques like Steve Reeves.

And like the thirties, early forties, where steroids simply were not in circulation labs or you’d be having, you were looking like a serious conspiracy theory level [00:33:00] stuff to think that these people were on steroids. And you 

Mike Matthews: think that with reefs? Because testosterone is pretty widely available at that time, right?

Menno Henselman: Reeves was actually a sort of a, in the transition period where I think Reeves was natural, but there are some indicate, some people, I think there was a letter of someone saying that it wasn’t. Yeah, I remember reading 

Mike Matthews: about it and I was like, huh, interesting. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, so it was like a bit in the mix era.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It went way before that as well Sure, and let me pull it up as well. So the reference 28. 0 is the largest natural trainee ever recorded. That’s big. So yeah, that’s you know, three points Above 25, and I’ll give the other reference data as well here. So Normalized fil Mouse Index 28 is the largest natural trainee ever scientifically documented.

Here’s the other thing, we have a case study of another world class natural pro bodybuilder that was followed with blood work for a very long time period. [00:34:00] During his, basically his whole contest prep and his felt free, my felt free mouse index was 25.4. Okay? So there again goes the idea of. It not being possible to get above that level, it’s just rare, right?

So that 25 level is where, the average person probably, it’s a pretty decent sample that they’re not going to get above 25 while they’re six pack lean. Distinction there, because, sumo wrestlers are actually among the largest, most muscular individuals on the planet. If you look at a cross sectional data and a lot of these guys, they don’t do strength training.

And they basically just sit around to eat all day while they do a lot of yeah, they, they’re really fat. And it’s basically just a genetic fact that the more fat you have, the more muscle you can carry. Sure. It’s why they’re so incredibly muscular. Underneath the huge amount of fat. We also see this in many powerlifters, bodybuilders, and it’s the infamous story of people saying Oh, my heart rate mass index is this.

And I have these standards and my biceps is [00:35:00] this amount of inches. So all of these guys are all really small. Let’s talk again when you’re in contest. Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: Go. Let’s start at 10 percent body fat. Let’s start there and then let’s see how things are looking. And then let’s go, this 

Menno Henselman: being a true 10%, like full six pack apps level.

Yep. So no, not 10 percent like of guys. They think. I’m close to 10 percent because they almost have apps 

Mike Matthews: in the right lighting where like they’re twisting, 

Menno Henselman: like super selfie lighting, my space angle, like 

Mike Matthews: abs, no flexing type, 

Menno Henselman: yeah. And in reality, most muscular trainees have serious abdominal definition at about 5, 15 percent body fat.

For a muscular individual if you do not have any apps okay, the harsh bodybuilding frame of reference would be you are a fat ass. For bodybuilding terms, not having any abs at all, there is, there’s no reason for a natural bodybuilder to ever go at high in body fat percentage. I agree.

But again, this being body fat, bodybuilding standards, right? [00:36:00] Sure. 

Mike Matthews: So on that FFMI data. That’s also, I’ve written an article about and presented in that this is interesting information. I think it is valuable and it gives us insight, it doesn’t mean it’s a hard and fast rule.

Would you agree with that? 

Menno Henselman: Absolutely. So it’s what I did with the calculator in my PT course, I express it as a actually it is not yet in the PT course, but. We’re building a calculator, at least for cybernetic fitness, and it expresses the probability that this can be attained naturally. You could frame it like that, and then, 25 comes about the level that, There is a significant chance that this individual is on steroids, but it is very possible to attain naturally.

As always, people want the magic Andrew and it’s like when you’re, you’ve done a test at college and people ask, how did you do, they’re not really asking how you did. They’re asking how dated they want their selves to you. And that’s [00:37:00] the same when people ask, is that guy natural? They really don’t care if that guy’s natural.

They want to know, can I look like that? And it’s a nonsensical question because. You look different. You have different genetics. You’ll never know if that person was natural or not. It doesn’t change anything. All you can do is maximize your own muscular potential. Be the best B you can be as the cliche goes.

It’s a cliche because it’s absolutely true. 

Mike Matthews: When they moved away from that was a better slogan than whatever they changed. It was like, they changed it like army strong or something. Be all you can be is so much better. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, exactly. But yeah, that’s true. That’s all you can do. So yeah.

Look at all these guys and it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t have any practical information for your life. 

Mike Matthews: I agree. And to that point, it’s even where a lot of people, drugs are very prevalent in not just bodybuilding, but in weightlifting in general. And just because people would be surprised if they knew what people, and I’ve said [00:38:00] this many times in the gym are on drugs and are not on drugs because just because someone looks, by bodybuilding standards, pretty bad they’re overweight and they don’t really have much in the way of proportionate muscle development.

A lot of people that are on drugs, that’s the state that’s what It is, that’s what they’ve gotten out of it, and then on the con and on the other hand, you have people that look quite good that stay lean, that have done a good job building their body in an intelligent way.

And, they look great and they’re not on drugs. It. There are obvious cases and when people are scrolling around Instagram. Yeah, there are guys that there’s no question. Absolutely. No question Their shoulders are bigger than their heads and their FFMI would be you know, whatever 30 plus of course drugs But you know to that point it’s hard to really know because just because someone looks good doesn’t mean drugs Just because someone looks bad, but they’re just big and strong, that could absolutely be drugs 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, exactly.

No, that’s the other reference point I had here. It’s really interesting in that study. They also looked at steroid users to compare them with the natural trainees and the average steroid user had a fat free [00:39:00] muscle of 24. 8. So actually below the supposed natural limit. And let me see if I can pull this up somewhere as well.

I have also calculated the country mass indices of individuals that are clearly not. Natural. Okay. Yeah. I don’t know if there are FATFI mass indices here, but yeah, at least the percentage is that if you would do the math on the probability, the percentage that they are in fact natural you get that guys like Ronnie Coleman Jay Cutler during the eights.

It’s 0%. It’s just, there’s no rounding like statistically there was just, there’s no chance in hell. You’re going to look like that naturally, which aligns with common sense, right? 

Mike Matthews: Have you seen just that point? Have you seen the picture of a few pictures of Ronnie Coleman? Cause he said himself on, I was like some interview or something, but he started doing steroids at 23, I think he said.

And yeah, actually I’ll find it after this. I’ve written about it and I [00:40:00] even linked. To where he himself was talking about it. And, but if you see pictures, have you seen pictures of him, even like by his honor, I don’t know why he’d be lying. Then he was open about it saying, yeah, this is when I started doing it.

And pictures of him at around that, right in, before he got on drugs and he, to this point, I guarantee you, his FMI was quite high. He was fucking huge, like impressive. Bigger than he, he could have been one of these guys on Instagram, with a million plus followers, even before drugs.

Menno Henselman: Yeah. But I actually, I’m not sure of Ronnie Coleman’s history, like what age he attained what, but I had it on good account that he attained his pro cards before he started Cux. So I’m not sure if that matches up with that. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Again, and when we get, I’ll find it, I’ll email it to you. That may be, I, it was like over a year ago or something, I came across it where he was talking about, I believe that’s true.

I believe that was like the timeline because he got introduced to it by another professional bodybuilder. It was like, You need to try this shit because look, you’re ridiculous. You know what I mean? [00:41:00] He’s okay, 

Menno Henselman: yeah, that’s is no I absolutely believe that. I’ve heard that about Ronnie Coleman too.

And like some other guys that are just already obscenely big before they started using drugs. And that makes sense because at the top elite level, those are the individuals you’d expect to find, right? They have it all. Yeah. Like they have the genetics and the drugs and the dedication.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And it’s like that with any sport. You have the best football players are, or even just anyone that makes the NFL was a genetic freak their entire life. They were better, they were the best. They stepped on the field at whatever, six years old and we’re just better than anybody.

And that was basically the story of their life until they made it to the NFL. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah. That’s actually an an interesting thing. About the relation between genetic potential and dedication. In my experience, it is strongly negative being that the most talented individuals often do not have the dedication that especially intermediate level trainees have in my [00:42:00] experience.

I think the optimal lies about intermediate level, or even is just completely negative with the more hard gainer you are, the more you’re willing to do. In the Netherlands, for example, we have this gymnast, Durie van Gelder. There’s a great example. I thought about posting that during the Olympics, because there was this scandal that, on the day before his event, I’m not really sure of the particulars, but on the day before his competition or something, he was partying, using cocaine.

He had a history of cocaine use as well. You’re talking about someone performing in the Olympics, and they cannot muster enough energy. Dedication not to go drinking and using drugs the day before the event. Yeah. That’s, if you compare that to like amateur level bodybuilders that I’m coaching, if you would give that dedication to Yuri Gelder, we would have.

Yeah, we would have a specimen. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. So there’s a friend of mine. He was, he ran track in high school and he was like, one of the fastest [00:43:00] kids in Florida. He didn’t really didn’t take it very seriously, but he would go to, before a run, he would just go to McDonald’s and just eat a couple of hamburgers.

And show up and not really even warm up and then just run really fucking fast, faster than everybody and never, he just didn’t pay attention to anything. It was just something he did and talk about genetics. His dad had a, was briefly in the NFL as a running back. He just had it and he was just like, yeah, whatever.

And he didn’t care. So he didn’t go anywhere with it, if you would have, I’m sure he could have really gone far. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, that’s the thing. If you just have it. You don’t appreciate it. If you only have, if you have to work for it, you appreciate it. A 

Mike Matthews: hundred percent. Same thing with money.

If kids that come from rich families, if they just inherit money or just have always been around money, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just, who cares? It’s anyways. Yeah. So great. I think that’s a good encapsulation of FFA. My, and I think, you’re mentioning this PT course, which when we get to the end, you can tell everybody where they can find this information, where they can find your stuff.

Cause I know people are going to be wondering now, where’s this calculator. I want to see it. And and I think it’s good for just people to know, if you go look [00:44:00] at you can use Menno’s calculator. If it’s available, obviously it’s going to be, it’s part of a course, but also if you just look at FI calculators in general, you can get an idea of, I think it’s fair that.

I would say I don’t know if you agree with this, Menno, but 25 to 28 is probably the realistic upper limit for most people that are getting into weightlifting. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah. So I can give some more figures here cause I haven’t. Pull up anyway. Arnold Schwarzenegger would still be 0%. Like this, there’s no way.

Mike Matthews: And also just give his numbers real quick. So people know, like he was what? Six foot one is his height. Six, two, 

Menno Henselman: I think it was about my height. I think so. So six foot one and he was on stage. No, it was, I think it was like a hundred kilos stage, right? About 230, 

Mike Matthews: 235 pounds maybe. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah. So way beyond natural.

Potential 

Mike Matthews: and not in lean, but not necessarily as lean as what we’ve seen, in more recent decades, 

Menno Henselman: not modern bodybuilding lean, but [00:45:00] for any standard lean, very lean. Yes. Yeah. And then we have some so I also did these calculations, Martin Birkin and Alberto Nunez, both great physiques.

We’d be looking at. 86 percent probability that they’re natural now without making any claims about whether they’re natural or not for a lot of people, these are physiques that can be obtained naturally. Nathalia Mello, 98 percent probability of being naturally achievable. Not too surprising because she doesn’t compete in bodybuilding or anything.

Frank Zane insists you’re looking at the range of 21%. Probability of being natural. Interesting. And 

Mike Matthews: that makes sense with Zane, but what was Ziz’s numbers, what were what information are you putting in there? I’m curious. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, I’m not sure. I just have this, but yeah, it fluctuated a lot.

I probably had diseases top numbers. 

Mike Matthews: Cause he was very open as drug use. I feel like his physique earlier on when he was a bit smaller, but he was very lean. That look is, I think that’s [00:46:00] attainable. It’s going to take quite a bit of time to gain that enough muscle. And obviously you’re not going to be able to stay that lean all year round naturally, or at least not without ruining your without feeling like shit.

I would think that someone could naturally achieve that look and maintain it for a little bit. And if they want to do pictures and whatever. Yeah, I don’t have, I think Zyzz’s like body, his waist was smaller and I think aesthetically, he beats me in several ways, when I’m at my leanest and I’ve gotten to where I would be comparable, at least in terms of like size and leanness, I just don’t look, I didn’t, as good as he did at his leanness because his body is just better built for it.

Menno Henselman: Yeah, exactly. Just, yeah, these insane shoulder traps and chest insertion points that just make his muscles look so much fuller than mine as well. Whatever. Look. 

Mike Matthews: And then you have that small waist with then, exactly. 

Menno Henselman: And the last figure I have is Mark fit as well in evidence based circles, I think, but he’s 92 [00:47:00] percent achievable.

Naturally. He’s just. He’s really lean mostly, and his level of muscularity is, very respectable, but not something that you would accuse someone of steroid uses for. 

Mike Matthews: Awesome. So I think that’s great. And to just point out that you’re talking about achievable naturally. So people that are listening, it’s not that he’s saying these people are natural or natural, whatever, but it’s just, if that’s a good reference point of going, is it possible?

Yes. There’s a very good chance it’s possible. Or in the case of Frank Zane. No, not so much. 

Menno Henselman: Exactly. There might be the odd individual that can actually look like Zane naturally, it’s the odd individual. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Statistically speaking, unfortunately, anyone listening is probably not that person.

Menno Henselman: Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: exactly. 

Menno Henselman: And that’s the other thing, even if you attain that fast, we must index. You will not look exactly like that person because you have different insertion points, different muscle lengths, the best, generally best individuals often have very full muscle bellies, 

which 

Menno Henselman: creates just completely convex, concave [00:48:00] look that many humans find pleasing to the eye, find aesthetic whereas you don’t have these.

Some individuals have their short muscles, so if they get really large muscle, it looks like a natural, like these bolts they have, and it doesn’t flow as well as other individuals. Also, for example, your abdominal structure, some people just have this. Crazy textbook like six pack app and other people have an eight pack and other people they don’t have separation at all in Certain pieces of it or it has this huge gap in between.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, or like I mean me I have staggered abs and it’s like a four six something in between. It’s just you know Unfortunately, that’s just the way I came Which is this is a good segue into, I think one of the, this is the point that I get asked about a lot is this point of how, so what are genetics, what’s there, how much do they determine how your muscles are going to look or there’s I guess two parts that like how big can individual muscles get obviously with guys, it’s a lot of questions about chest and biceps and occasionally calves and girls don’t usually [00:49:00] ask about how big certain muscles can get, but these days it’s about, but I guess more than, you More than anything else.

So I think this is a good segue into that. 

Menno Henselman: You can predict, it’s actually hard to predict. You can predict it a bit because you cannot change your insertion points, the length of the muscle, at least not visually, you can actually change the muscle length, but it doesn’t make a lot of visual difference because it’s muscle fascicle length, but the muscle is actually going to change shape.

When you train it and it’s inevitable and you can change it to some extent, like for example the traps being an obvious part, you can emphasize the upper or lower traps to a lesser extent, you also have different heads of the hamstrings, for example, and a lesser extent still, you have the different heads of the two ads of the biceps, you can emphasize and get one bigger, so you have bigger peaks or you get the other bigger and it’s more flat and full.

But you cannot really predict that well, how it’s going to change. And to a large extent, especially for a natural bodybuilder, where the end goal is just maximum muscle growth in pretty much every muscle group, [00:50:00] then, to that extent, in a very long term perspective, it’s not really up to your control.

So there, your muscle size is going to shift. Shape is going to change as a result of the growth, but it’s a limited change and one you cannot really do much about. You have a certain way that you look and either relish it or go cry for the rest of your life because.

Mike Matthews: Yep. That’s the long and short of it. I talk about talking about biceps in particular, cause that’s also, then it’s a common thing is biceps peak. You’re saying that you can influence it a little bit. What does that really look like though? And what does that look like in terms of training?

So let’s say someone’s listening saying, I wish I had more bicep peak. Is there anything they can do specifically? 

Menno Henselman: You can a little, I’m going to refer people to my muscle specific hypertrophy article there. Cause I. It’s a bit dated article, but it still describes very well. Especially this, like what you can do to emphasize different ads.

Mike Matthews: I’ll link it down. I’ll link it in the like description and stuff. So you can go read it. All right. [00:51:00] That’s good. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah. And I think you asked one more question about genetics. Yeah. I missed. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. So just the last couple of points were the size of how big can, how much does genetics play a role in individual muscle groups?

Just as how individuals can be hyper responsive to weightlifting, is it also true that certain muscle groups can be hyper responsive? Cause people seem to have what is generally referred to as a genetic strength, that muscle group that for some reason, just exploded. other muscle groups.

Like for me, My experience has been my chest and my biceps have always just been high responders to where I’ve actually toned down the volume because I felt like it was getting a little bit. It forced me to like my shoulders always seem to be just very stubborn. And so the bigger my chest and biceps got, the more my shoulders looked bad.

So I had to like, but my calves, for example, have been a never ending source of frustration. 

Menno Henselman: I hereby dub that the Schwarzenegger genotype. Big biceps and chest and no gas. You [00:52:00] still had some gas, 

Mike Matthews: but yeah. Yeah, no, I’m talking about myself here. Although I have a little, I have something now. I work for it.

It’s just slow. Yeah. Same here. 

Menno Henselman: The nice thing is that. Based on the very limited research we have, we know that different muscle groups can have exceedingly different genetic potential. And again, based on the very limited research that we have, I’m not really convinced of this, but at least in animals, it’s suggested there is in fact, almost no relation between different muscle groups and their genetic potential.

Now, I’m pretty sure that there are certain genetic factors that can also some that we know of certain genes that you have systemic factors, like how much testosterone you have being very common, although. Actually overrated one and these determine muscle muscular potential for your whole body.

But in principle some core components like how many satellite cells you have, how much myonuclear addition can take place. These very internal components of the muscle tissue itself that you cannot see and a [00:53:00] very in each different muscle group. They are very influential for how much muscle can be built and they can vary a lot in different regions of your body.

You commonly see individuals that have strong points and weak points for some people. It’s quite pronounced. Other peoples are more like in between everywhere. And you know what you don’t really see. And this is actually a good example of that where I say, I think this is a limited research that we have.

Some people take it to extreme. Then they say there’s no relation because that’s what the research says. But how often do you see an individual, that has Truly, really impressive upper body or pecs and just no biceps, for example, it doesn’t have. There is a correlation there.

It’s just, it’s obvious, but yeah you definitely have strong points and weak points. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And there’s also muscle fiber types that can come into play too. I just, in my, I was really just curious on calves in particular. I came across some research that just indicated that some calves, some people’s calves are high [00:54:00] in fast, which, and some people’s calves are higher in slow twitch.

And that alone can explain a bit of why some people have. Good calves and rarely ever, if ever train them. And then other people like me will train them quite frequently. And, with higher rep ranges, lower rep ranges really work at it and get not very much out of it. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, that’s true.

And the thing with the calves actually has our specific article on that as well. I have three reasons your calves aren’t growing. And the thing with the calves is that actually the genetic potential doesn’t appear to be a lower. And what in almost all elite level competitors is that there is a nearly one to one ratio between the neck, the calves and the upper arms in terms of circumference.

But. The calves do have the potential to suffer or shine greatly depending on the attachment point of especially the gastrocnemius and the length of the 

tibia. 

Menno Henselman: So what you probably have and what I have too, is that you [00:55:00] have quite long lower legs and the muscle is attached quite high up. 

Mike Matthews: So it has to stretch a longer distance.

Menno Henselman: Yeah. And it’s just that one part. So you can get like a nice if you flex it, you get this nice bulge, but if you’re just standing, then it doesn’t appear very impressive because you have this long lower leg and indeed it’s stretched over a significant part. Whereas other people. The calves just flare out more.

It’s like an exaggerated version of quad sweep. Some people have a lot more of it than others. I also have very little quad sweep, just like Arnold Schwarzenegger, actually a very similar structure, not the size, unfortunately, of the quads of Arnold Schwarzenegger, whereas other people they just flare out way to the sides.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. 

Menno Henselman: So same with the calves. So for calves, you can have my calves, for example, they’re the same size as my neck and my arms, at least last time I checked. But it doesn’t appear that way, like depending on what clothing you wear, et cetera. So the [00:56:00] calves in particular are very very big difference in appearance, whereas the actual muscle growth potential can be 

Mike Matthews: quite good.

That’s a good point. Actually. Cause taking, looking at my calves flex, they look quite differently. They look quite different than unflex and, even measuring them with, There’s a guy that works with me who has visually more impressive calves and we’ve measured and we have I don’t know, he might have a little bit of size on me, but he has the muscle insertion point is just, for visuals, visual appearance, his is better.

Yeah. Okay. So the last point, and this is something you did touch on is, so that’s in terms of size and genetics and how they play a role in response to weightlifting. What about looks? So you’ve been mentioning things like, and people hear this stuff like insertion points and muscle bellies and if you could just quickly explain to people what this means and how does it play out visually and how to do the genetics how do genetics, influence how we’re going to look like, you can have two people that just do a bunch of the same chest type of training for six months.

And why does [00:57:00] one of, Why does that one person have that square armor plate, perfect looking chest type of set up and the other person is maybe rounder and droopier or whatever. And the reason why I think it’s worth touching on is there’s a lot of there are a lot of people out there, trainers, coaches, trainers, coaches that will.

Claim that, getting that perfect looking chest that most, that most guys want is just a matter of training the right way that like, if you don’t have it, it means you’re just training incorrectly and you need to give them money and they’ll show you how to do it. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, the thing is the muscle insurgent and origin points, they are fixed.

You’re not going to do anything about that. That’s the part of the appearance that’s just, you can do nothing about. So this means that some people will have a bit longer muscles and they have a larger muscle belly relative to the bone than other people, which means that some people get this really full muscle muscular look and when they’re really muscular, it’s like muscle all over the body just flows into each other.

A great example of [00:58:00] that is Phil Heath. Everything just flows into each other, whereas other individuals, it’s more the joints and the bones, they’re a lot more pronounced because there is room there. There’s a larger tendon or longer tendon or the for example, the biceps. It’s just a good proxy that you can use for yourself.

You can, if you flex your bicep to 90 degrees and then you can see how many fingers you can squeeze in there. And if you can squeeze four fingers in there, for example, that is. Bad in terms of muscle length. And it means that even if you develop a huge biceps, you can get a great peak, but it’s just not covered the entire arm.

So you’re never going to get that. Yeah. Phil Heath, like flow. Yeah. It’s going to be 

Mike Matthews: more like the tennis ball. Look, as opposed to the football. 

Menno Henselman: Exactly. These factors and also for your chest and for your abs, like we, we discussed they, they’re fixed. So in that regard, the muscle shape is something you, you cannot do anything about.

And it’s also something you [00:59:00] therefore shouldn’t worry about. Yeah. If you cannot control it, don’t worry about it. Yeah. So just get 

Mike Matthews: the best abs you can get. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And I think almost everyone ends up being quite happy of what they’re at, because like we said, almost no one is screwed in every regard.

So you might not have, that armor plate looking chest and the full six pack apps, maybe you have a very aesthetic back or you do have the quad sweep or the calves, and all those other people. So you might look at my physique, for example, you’re like, Oh, look at those broad shoulders, but then, your quads or your calves might be a lot better.

Almost no one is screwed in every regard. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Okay, great. So yeah, I think that’s just a, that’s a good summary of it. And I would add to that for just people listening. Again, you’ll know this as you put a couple of years of training in and build your foundation of muscle. And then, and I would say also, I think body fat percentage is worth mentioning in that, you’re going to look quite different as a guy at 15% then 10 percent or even [01:00:00] as you get under 10%, I think like the chest in particular.

I know that with me with, the fatter I am, the more rounded my chest looks and the, it’s again, it’s, I just, it’s just not the look that I like, but then if I get lean and then get very lean, my chest does have a flatter look and has a better look. So there’s also that just for people listening that you, it’s hard to know really what your aesthetic potential is until you get into the lower body fat ranges.

I think. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s one of the more reasons that I think everyone. It’s one of the best experiences in your life to get down to a really seriously lean body fat percentage at one point will not just teach you all these aesthetic things, but you’ll learn so much in the process.

It’s really one of the things everyone should do, like the non BS bucket list. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. Would you say though, that, you have to be able to give it up though, too, without, cause there’s that, Now, where anything, if you get really lean, anything higher, [01:01:00] almost just as less satisfying.

And now you have this new standard that you’ve set for yourself. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah, that definitely, but that’s one of the nice things you learn that there’s always a trade off. And then you learn like a lot of people, they just think I want to be as lean as possible. Then once you’ve actually been that lean, like now for me, I was in contest shape for a really long period because during my last contest prep, I had to switch show.

And then I had to move about seven times or so. And I ended up being basically in contest shape for, I think in total, probably about nine months, which is it takes its toll. I’ve, I really generally don’t care. About being at lean anymore. I’m just got it out of your 

Mike Matthews: system. 

Menno Henselman: I’m in Asia now and all these different foods are used to try.

And I’m like, I can get that lean again in a few months. I have all of all the tools and it’s just a matter of putting my mind to it and that I’ll do it, but there’s no point in me [01:02:00] staying that lean long term right now. So that’s a nice thing. You get the control and you are aware of the trade offs.

Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: I agree. That’s a good point. All right. We could go on for quite some time talking about all kinds of things. So to wrap up here, where can people find you and find your work? And then also you were mentioning a PT course. I know people are going to want to hear about that. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah. I you can find basically all my stuff and my team stuff on Bayesian bodybuilding dot com.

And if you want to just 

Mike Matthews: spell it, spell that out. So people. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah. Beijing, just link it like Beijing. Oh yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Okay. I’ll put, yeah, I’ll put it. . 

Menno Henselman: Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: B-A-A-Y-E. 

Menno Henselman: Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. 

Menno Henselman: And we’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and looking into a few other things. But those are the big ones, and you can find them all as well.

You can, we have a newsletter, so you can just check it out, see if you’re in. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And just, I’ll throw in there that I don’t follow regularly too many [01:03:00] people in this space just because I find it, it’s not productive, but you’re one of the, one of the guys that I regularly read and, I, you’re, you obviously know you’re talking about, and so I recommend everybody listening, go follow Manuel, follow his work and you will learn things.

I hope so. Okay, cool. So is there any, are there any projects that you have that you’re working on now that are coming up that you want people to know about? 

Menno Henselman: Not particularly I’m knee deep in an English PT course and a Dutch PT course and just doing a lot of coaching at the moment. We’re expanding social media outreach, so we’re going to post a lot of infographics on cool new studies.

Mike Matthews: Nice. Awesome. Okay. Great. That’s, I think that’s a wrap. I really appreciate again, you taking the time. It’s been very informative. I know people are really gonna the interview because again, these are questions that get asked and that’s why it’s on my list. I’m like, I need to do a podcast. I need to find someone really good on this.

So I think you’ve delivered perfectly. So I, you’ll I think you’ll probably get some feedback from people. My pleasure. Awesome. Thank you. Hey, it’s Mike again. Hope you liked the [01:04:00] 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. muscleforlife. 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.