Ep. #1158: Q&A: Minicuts, Squat & Deadlift Alternatives, Overcoming Fear of Rejection, & More

Hello and welcome to Muscle for Life. I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for a Q& A episode where I answer a bunch of questions that people asked me over on Instagram. If you want to ask me questions, follow me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness. Watch my stories. Every couple of weeks, I put up a story asking for questions and I get a bunch of questions.

I go through them and I choose ones that are interesting or topical or ones that I just haven’t already answered a hundred times before and I answer them briefly there on Instagram. And then I bring everything over to here, where I can answer them in more detail. And in today’s episode, I am answering questions regarding mini cutting and mini bulking, what my current training program is, what are my workouts right now, my favorite training shoes, at least right now, how to get over the fear of rejection and disappointment, what I do on days when I really don’t want to work out, and more.

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This can work well. Mini cuts alternated with mini bulks can work. Here’s how to do it correctly. So first, you want to get pretty lean before you start with this strategy. I would recommend that men get down to probably 10 to 12 percent body fat, women maybe somewhere between 20 and 24%. And then you want to start with a mini bulk.

And you do that by maintaining a moderate calorie surplus of let’s say 10 to 15%. So you want to get an idea of how many calories you’re burning every day. It’s not going to be perfect, of course, but it’s going to be relatively accurate if you know what you’re doing. And if you want to learn about that, head over to legionathletics.

com search for total daily energy expenditure and check out. The article and calculator. I think there are a couple options actually in the search results there, but you can find what you need over at legionathletics. com to understand how to calculate total daily energy expenditure relatively accurately.

And then you can just use a calculator. You figure out your approximate TDEE, and then you eat 10 to maybe 15 percent more than that. I would personally err toward 10%. If you get too low in your surplus, if you go for a 5 percent surplus, what can happen is, unless you are meticulous about tracking, slash, Measuring your calories.

You may end up not being in a 5 percent or even a surplus at all. It can happen even several days per week because you accidentally undershoot your calorie target. And that happens to many people, especially people who don’t have large appetites naturally. Some people tend to go in the other direction, of course, they tend to overeat and maybe that person could benefit from trying to calculate a smaller surplus.

But for most people just go with about 10%, give or take a little bit. And make your meal plan around that and then stick to that meal plan. You don’t have to be perfect, but you have to be pretty good. You have to get to at least 80%. And so you do that and do that for 12 to 16 weeks. And during that period, your body weight should rise by about 0.

25 to 1 percent per week. So you can work that out. And if you are an experienced weightlifter and you are not going to be gaining much muscle to speak of, certainly you can gain muscle, but it’s not going to be a large amount. Then it’s going to be closer to 0. 25. If you are relatively new to strength training and you still have the wind of newbie gains at your back, then it’s probably going to be closer to 1 percent per week.

And so that’s the result you should be looking for. And if you find that you are gaining weight too quickly, you are eating too much food. So you have to correct that if you are not gaining weight quickly enough, you are eating too little food. So if you are relatively new to strength training, I guess another scenario could be maybe you’re not relatively new.

Maybe you actually have a lot of Experience. But a lot of your experience in the past hasn’t been very productive. You haven’t actually gained a large amount of muscle. And so when compared to your genetic potential, you still have a lot of potential muscle to gain. In that case, again, you should be looking for results closer to 1 percent of your body weight per week rather than 0.

25. And if you are only seeing 0. 25 on average, you are probably not eating enough food. And you’d eat more. So you correct that. And so you do that for a few months, three to four months of your lean bulking. And then you do a mini cut by maintaining a moderate calorie deficit of 20 to 25%. So eating 20 to 25 percent fewer calories than you burn every day for about four to eight weeks.

That’s your mini cut. Now, during that period, your body weight should fall by about 0. 5 to 1 percent per week. And again, people who are further from their genetic Limit of muscularity should aim for the higher end of that range and people who are closer to their limit because they’ve already gotten pretty jacked.

They should use the lower end, the 0. 5 percent per week, and if you are losing weight too quickly, you are not eating enough, you’re eating too little. If you’re not losing quickly enough, you are eating too much, and that’s it. You can just rinse and repeat that process. Very effectively. That’s a great way to make steady progress while never allowing yourself to get too fat.

All right, Bobby. I’m not going to even try to pronounce that last name. Start with a P, Pereira Preciado. There’s my attempt. Asks, which workouts to replace deadlift and barbell squats because of two cervical hernias. So a few options to explore here and I didn’t want to prescribe these specifically to him because I would need to know more information about his circumstances.

These are some options to consider for anybody who is looking to replace the deadlift and a barbell squat for whatever reason, really. For the deadlift, you can look at the trap bar deadlift, you can look at the single leg deadlift. RDL, you can look at the barbell RDL. You can look at the weighted hyperextension.

Even if you have to, if the hip hinge is the problem, you have to get away from that. As far as the squats go, if you are barbell back squatting, You can try front squatting, depending on what’s going on, that can be, for example, if you’re having some lower back issues, maybe some knee issues, the front squat is generally friendlier to the lower back and knees.

If that’s not an option, you can also check out the Bulgarian split squat, that’s a great option. unilateral exercise where you train one limb at a time. The belt squat is fantastic. Most gyms unfortunately don’t have a belt squat machine, but some do. And if your gym does and you haven’t tried it, you should give it a go.

Even if you are enjoying your barbell squatting, work in some belt squatting, maybe even after your barbell squatting. So maybe cut your barbell squat volume in half. So let’s say you usually do four sets of a barbell squat, do two, and then head over to the belt squat and check it out. As you’ll see, it’s a great option for the squat movement with no pressure on your back.

And two other tips here for people dealing with cervical issues. When you’re lifting, this applies to deadlifting, squatting, really any exercise, you want to generally keep your neck in a neutral position. You don’t want to be looking. up. You don’t want to be looking down. You want to be looking at a spot, maybe six to 10 feet in front of you on the floor, which is about a neutral position for most people.

And you also can look into neck strengthening exercises because they can help. Now, of course, again, your individual circumstances matter here. So if you have any doubts about whether that would be good for you, check with your doctor, but it can help some people. All right. Cost task seven asks, what is your current training program?

Currently, I’m just following a modified, slightly modified version of the three day bigger, leaner, stronger program that you find in my book, bigger, leaner, stronger, because it’s a great program for an advanced trainee who wants to maintain muscle and strength with just a few hours of strength training per week.

And if you are a beginner. Three hours per week, three workouts per week is plenty to make great progress. And even if you’re an intermediate lifter and you are willing to work hard and you’re diligent about tracking your workouts and tracking your reps in reserve, so how many good reps left you have in each set, and you really are have the mentality of pushing for progress every workout, you’re trying to beat the previous week’s workout.

Even if it’s just by one rep, that’s progress. And as you make more progress, as you get bigger and stronger, that is how you will progress. It is going to be one rep at a time. So for example, let’s say you are doing your push workout for the week. You have 225 on the bar. Last week, you did three sets of four.

Let’s say you 12 reps. This week on your first set, you get five and then you go for four. That’s progress. That’s beating the last week’s workout. One rep. Very good. And from there, what you’ll find usually is as you gain strength, you’re going to get five. And then another set of five and then maybe four on that last set.

And then maybe you’re going to get fives across all three sets. And then you’re going to have enough strength to get six on that first set. And if you are following Bigger Than You’re Stronger, at that point, you’re going to add weight to the bar, five pounds total, and you are going to repeat the process.

And so anyway, if you want to learn more about such things, my Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program, just pick up the book, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. And if you are a woman, you probably don’t want to get bigger per se. The leaner and stronger sounds great, but bigger, not so much. That’s why I have a female version of the book called Thinner, Leaner, Stronger.

Okay, danyevb7 asks, what fact about the human body still blows your mind every day? One cell contains about 750 megabytes of data in its DNA, so that means that when a man ejaculates that is between 30, 000 and 900, 000 terabytes of information in their cum. That’s a lot to swallow, huh? Do you sometimes lack the energy and the motivation to get into the gym?

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My question for anyone who is stumping for Trump is, if you believe that the last election was stolen. Which you likely do, or you at least suspect what exactly has changed since 2020 in the key metropolitan areas implicated that makes you think it won’t just happen again, especially. With the establishment having now four years of preparation.

And so if you don’t have a good answer to that, I don’t quite understand what you are so excited about. How is Trump supposed to win? And separately, in my opinion, The only hope for Western civilization at this point that I would be willing to hang my hat on is probably that a small number of once, not in a generation, but like once in a century, great men of history somehow usurp enough political power to override and overthrow the machinations of the superclass.

End. Trump for me has proven that he is not such a personality. I think he has played an important role in exposing just how bad things actually are, how dysfunctional our government actually is. And how many ways that it is screwing we, the American people, and that applies to all of us, regardless of our political orientation.

But I don’t think that Trump has what it takes to fix things, and no individual probably could fix things, certainly not in one term, probably not even two terms. If things are going to get fixed, it’s probably going to take decades, but it has to start, and it has to start in the right way, and it has to gain a lot of momentum, and it has to move in the right direction.

And I’m not very confident that Trump can even accomplish that based on what I saw in his first term. Now, of course, Biden’s people, and it’s not Biden himself makes no decisions. We all know that the dude can barely even speak. So the people who are actually running that administration, I don’t think they have what it takes to fix things either.

In fact, they are in many ways actively making things worse and worse. And so we’ll probably just get more of that if Biden gets a second term. And so maybe the best outcome we can hope for currently is that we can get into a political holding pattern of sorts, a gridlocked situation where things can’t get much better, but they also can’t get much worse.

It’s just going to be more of the same. More of the status quo until the right person appears and gains prominence and gains power and gains support among not just the people, but also the people with power, the people in the superclass in the establishment. Who you need on your side to accomplish political initiatives.

As we saw with Trump, if you don’t have enough of the right allies, you have no chance. The swamp is going to swallow you like it did Trump. And the only way for it not to swallow you is for you to have swamp creatures on your side who know how to survive in the swamp and you’re going to rely on them.

To understand where to go and where to not go and what to do and what not to do and who to trust and who not to trust and so forth. Okay, Jessica Williams B asks best shoes for weight training. A few options I like are the Adidas Adipower weightlifting shoes. The company tier or tire T Y R. Also has a good weightlifting shoe.

Nike, the Romellos, good weightlifting shoe. The Adidas Powerlift 2 is a good weightlifting shoe. It’s a bit cheaper than the few I just mentioned. The Reebok Nano 4 is a nice lightweight training shoe. The New Balance Minimus, same thing, lightweight, just all around cross training shoe. And the Zero with an X E R O, H F S 2 is also a great lightweight training shoe.

That’s currently what I’m wearing. Linden sep asks how to get over the fear of rejection and disappointment. I can only comment on this personally, but for me, a few things. So rejection for me, just building enough self confidence and self esteem to be able to shrug off rejection by others and prevent it from, evoking repressed feelings of inadequacy and ability and so forth.

And as for doing that, as for building self confidence, building self esteem Enough to armor you against rejection for me. Nothing works better than just building and demonstrating competence, getting good at hard things. And as far as disappointment goes for me, just working as hard as I can on goals that matter to me.

And taking particular care to identify and do the things that most people who fail don’t want to do. And that way, the chances of failure, they go down a lot. And even if I do fail, it won’t be because I didn’t think about it enough and come up with a plan that made any sense. Or I didn’t put in enough effort.

And I think those are the most pathetic reasons to fail. Just not enough thought. And not enough effort. And those things also greatly undermine self definition and thus self confidence and self esteem. And yeah, let’s go to the next question. McGregor 96 Ronin. Have you ever had days where you weren’t in the mood to train?

Oh, absolutely. Many days. And here’s how it always goes. I don’t want to work out. But then I forced myself to do it anyway, and then I am happy. And that’s it. The end. Nikki L. Michelle asks, Is there any reason to barbell box squat if you can already do astrographs full range of motion barbell back squats?

Yeah, the box squat is not just for teaching depth. It is useful for that, but it also forces you to pause at the bottom and that removes the momentum that’s provided by the stretch reflex that can help you perform better in the squat. It’s not that the stretch reflex is a bad thing, but. By box squatting, you can remove that element from it and that can then improve your strength when trained consistently.

So if you improve your strength by removing that stretch reflex, then when you get back to normal squatting, you’re going to benefit even more. And the box squat also helps ingrain proper form. It helps you sit back into your hips properly. And so it can be great for people who are learning how to squat properly because it’s very intuitive.

To sit down on the box and to maintain your upper body tension, maintain your neutral spine, and to maintain tension in your legs as well. You’re not supposed to just sit on the box and then release all of the weight and sit down like you’re sitting in a chair. You’re supposed to get down. And touch your butt to the box and then hold it there for a second or two, maintaining the tension in your lower body.

And then you stand up. Okay. Philip with a difficult to pronounce last name asks most effective method of improving VO two max. The most effective method is high intensity cardio. So that could be interval training, hit, or it could just be continuous high intensity training. And to be specific, let’s say 20 to 30 minutes in one session, at least at 80 to 90 percent of your max heart rate.

Difficult. That’s the best way to improve via two max. Now, the thing about that is you can only do so much of that cardio before it really starts to take a toll on your body. Even if you have the grit to do, let’s say hours of hit per week. I wouldn’t recommend that. I would recommend limiting yourself to.

No more than probably an hour or so of high intensity cardio per week, assuming you’re also doing a few hours of strength training per week, which you should be doing. And then your additional cardio should be moderate intensity, or as they say, zone two intensity. And that combination of just racking up a lot of zone two over time and supplementing it with, let’s say about an hour or so, maybe up to two hours, if you’re very fit of high intensity cardio per week.

Is going to be the most effective practical way to improve your VO2 max. T fish asks, what are your plans for the mark of the beast? No, no particular plans, but I do have a vision. So it’s 10 years, maybe 20 years in the future. And I’m going outside of my house and on the way out. Put on a jacket and I find a mask in it and I chuckle to myself just thinking, God, what a weird time that was.

And then I grabbed my 3D printed assault rifle, brass check it before venturing out into the blasted ruins of Booger Hole, West Virginia to hunt mutated fire bears for their meat and hide, keeping to the shadows, of course, to avoid the roving gangs of cannibal raiders. Uncle fuzz four asks 41 powerlifting for 10 years time to lighten the loads for longevity still feels good though as a rule the risks of serious or competitive powerlifting increase greatly as you surpass certain levels of strength just because of the loads they get really heavy and as you get older and that is particularly true for our joints as we get older.

Unless you absolutely love it and are willing to pay the price of acute and probably chronic injuries if you go for long enough, I think it’s smarter to work toward reasonable strength milestones, like three plates on the bench. This is for men, four plates on the squat, five plates on the deadlift, at least for Let’s say a rep or three, and female standards would be like two ish, three ish, four ish, so maybe two ish plates on the bench for one to three reps, three ish plates on the squat, same reps, and four ish plates on the deadlift.

And then, once you’ve hit those standards, you either modify your powerlifting routine to simply maintain that strength rather than progress, because It is difficult to continue gaining strength when you’re already pretty strong. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of volume. It takes a lot of heavy weight lifting.

It takes a lot of pushing close to failure, taking that risk, going for that next rep when you’re not sure if you’re going to get it and so forth. And as we get older, such things get riskier. The chances of getting hurt go up. The consequences of getting hurt go up. Recovery can take a lot longer at 40 or 50 than at 25 or 30.

And so anyway, to finish my point, if you like powerlifting, if you like getting strong, get strong, get very strong by normal standards, maybe not by elite powerlifting standards, but gain 80 percent of the strength that is genetically available to you. Bye bye. And then at that point, either maintain that or switch to another style of training if maintaining that isn’t fun.

Do not, if you want to give your future self the best chances of having a body that doesn’t have any major dysfunctions, major limiting injuries, pains, and so forth, don’t try to go for that final 20 percent of strength that is genetically available to you because that is where Transcribed Most of the injuries occur.

It’s not in the first 80%, which you can gain in probably no more than five years of consistent and just well designed training. Most of the problems occur after that, when the weights are heavy and the margins for error are small. Have you ever wondered what strength training split you should follow?

What rep ranges you should work in, how many sets you should do per workout or per week? I created. A free 60 second training quiz that will answer those questions for you and others, including how frequently you should train each major muscle group, which exercises you should do, what supplements you should consider, which ones are at least worth taking, and more.

To take this quiz and to get your free personalized training plan, go to muscleforlife. show, muscleforlife. show slash training quiz. Answer the questions and learn exactly what to do in the gym to gain more muscle and strength. I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don’t miss new episodes.

And it also helps me. Because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn’t like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just.

Feedback to share, shoot me an email, Mike at muscle for life. com, muscle F O R life. com. And let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you’d like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I’m always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback.

So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.