Ep. #845: Easy Fitness Wins You Can Score This Week

First, have you pre-ordered your copy of my new book, muscle for Life yet and entered my giveaway of over $12,500 of Splendid Fitness? What, why the devil not? Do you hate fun? Look, if it pleases your grace, go to Muscle for Life book.com, muscle f o r life book.com now, and preorder a copy of the book and enter the giveaway.

Let’s remedy this scandalous state of affairs, and I would counsel haste as well because my big book Launch Bonanza ends in a couple of weeks and then the winners will be chosen. So anyways, let’s shift gears quickly and talk about tracking body weight, which is. More fiddly than people realize because one of the easiest ways to drive yourself to distraction in your fitness journey is to obsess over daily shifts in your weight, which often have nothing to do with gaining or losing fat or muscle.

So for example, even slight swings in fluid retention, glycogen levels, that’s a form of carbohydrates stored in your muscles, primarily in your liver as well. And bowel movements can produce pretty noticeable ups and downs in your body weight. And so a much better way to measure and to track body weight is to look at longer range.

Averages. Those are less erratic, and those better register the stuff that we actually care about, which is fat and muscle. Now, if over the course of weeks and months the averages are moving down, then you are clearly losing weight. If they’re moving up, you are clearly gaining weight. And so here’s a simple procedure.

Weigh yourself every one to three days, first thing in the morning, naked after the bathroom, and before eating or drinking anything. And then record those numbers. Some are accessible like an Excel file or a Google Sheet or a Notepad app in your phone. And if you wanna take it even further, some people like to graph the numbers in a spreadsheet, and then every couple of weeks, every 10 to 14 days, add your weigh ins together and then divide the sum by the number of weigh ins to get your average daily.

For that period, and then record that as well. And so here’s how this might look for somebody who’s cutting. Let’s say on Monday they weigh 163 pounds on Thursday, 164 on Sunday, 1 62 on Wednesday, 1 61 on Saturday, 1 61 on Tuesday, one 60. So the average daily weight is 162 pounds. We add up all of those weigh-ins, 808 pounds.

We divide by six, the number of weigh-ins for 1 62, and then repeat that process. And let’s say the average is 1 61, great. If they’re cutting, that is a good sign. If it is 1 63, That is not necessarily a bad sign. It depends what is happening in the mirror, what is happening with their body composition. But if after several rounds of six weigh-ins, the weight is going up and the waist is getting bigger, for example, body composition is not getting leaner in the mirror, then that just means they have to make some adjustments.

So that’s a simple process, it’s a clean process. And if you want more of my wisdom on how to measure and how to improve your body composition, pick up a copy of my new book Muscle for Life Today. Go over to Muscle for Life book.com and pre-order your copy. It comes out on January 11th, and then enter the giveaway instructions are on the page and you can win all kinds of glorious fitness goodies.

Again, I’m giving away over $12,500 of stuff, so go check it out, muscle for life book.com. Hey, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today. And if you haven’t already, please do take a moment to subscribe to the show into whatever app you are listening to me in so you don’t miss any new episodes.

And it helps me because it boosts the ranking of the show in the various chart. Now, this episode is me going on Pat Flynn’s podcast and not the smart Passive income Pat Flynn, but the Chronicles of Strength and Pat Flynn show. Pat Flynn, the fitness Pat Flynn. And he and I and his co-host, James Madden talked about Easy Fitness wins.

And it was a lot of me talking because I was the guest on the show. And so I thought it would be worthwhile to share this discussion here on my podcast because I think that you, dear listener will like it. Now, what are Easy Fitness wins? They are. Easy things you can do right away to improve your fitness in some capacity.

Sometimes it’s directly improving your physical fitness, and sometimes it’s more about the inner game. It’s more about improving your motivation, improving your habits, or just maintaining your habits. We are coming into the holiday season and for a lot of us that means schedule disruptions, diet disruptions.

We are probably not going to be getting in all of our normal workouts. We are probably not going to be following our normal meal plans, and that is totally fine. That is part of enjoying the holidays and I do that myself, so I recommend that to everyone. Don’t let rigid adherence to your normal routine get in the way of enjoying time with your friends and family.

You can have your cake and eat it too. Literally. You can stay active. Go after some of these easy wins that we are going to share with you in this podcast and minimize the damage. Minimize the fat gain really is what most of us are concerned about, right? We don’t want to gain too much fat. We don’t wanna lose too much muscle, and so it’s fairly easy to minimize fat gain and to at least maintain muscle and strength over the holidays.

In the new year, we can get back to what we normally do and quickly, and by quickly, I mean within a couple of weeks, lose any fat that we might have gained and quickly get right back to our normal training regimen, our normal weights, our normal volume, and so forth. And lastly, but not leastly. This episode will also be helpful for people who are just starting out in their fitness journeys because depending on where you’re at, it might not make sense for you to try to go all in on my bigger, leaner, stronger, or thinner, leaner, stronger program right away.

For example, it might make sense for you to ease into that level of meal planning and. Weightlifting. And that, by the way, is why I wrote a new book, specifically for people who are new to all of this, and specifically for people who are new to all of this and in the 40 Plus Crowd. And that book is called Muscle for Life.

It is available for preorder right now at Muscle for lifeor life book.com. And so if you are just starting out, muscle for Life will help you as well as the information in this podcast because as you will learn, there are very simple things you can start doing right away to start improving your fitness, to start improving your body composition and to start building the most important habits that are going to allow you to get and stay fit for the long.

Rock and roll. Welcome back to the podcast everybody. I am joined by my now regular co-host, Dr. Jim Madden, and we have the great pleasure indeed, the honor to be joined once again by the master himself, Mike Matthews from Legion and Muscle for Life. It’s been a while. Mike, welcome back to the show, my friend.

Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to our, I think I saw on my calendar in the next week or two, we’re gonna be having some fun again, pat on my show. Yeah let’s talk about that for a minute. We’re gonna talk about some easy fitness wins in this episode, so I think this will be really appropriate for just the holiday season coming up and just help people build momentum and stuff like that.

Yeah. We’re also gonna talk about a new book you have coming out, but your podcast has been a lot of fun because I think it started, we, you wanted to just have me on the tall kettlebells. And it went so delightfully off the rails. I think we started talking about politics and philosophy and religion, and we enjoyed it so much that we’ve made it a semi-regular series.

And Jim joined us for one of ’em on philosophy of mine. So I don’t know if we have a topic for the next one, but if anybody wants something that is on a fitness part, we don’t actually, we, I think we maybe for once. We’ll actually put a little bit of forethought into it. Yeah I think it’s best when we don’t.

And the one thing I just, and then we’ll hit the topic at hand that I really appreciate about those conversations, Mike, is that, and Jim and I have talked about this a lot, is, we agree on a number of things, we have different positions on a lot of other things. And you we just had a really productive conversation.

Amids disagreement, right? And. How lacking that is in today’s world. So I always just remember those conversations we have as dang, if only all conversations could model this. Yeah. When people disagree. Cause it’s frustrating where we are in today’s world. But anyway, I personally like being challenged.

, I like those types of discussions, even where the tables are turned. Obviously if I’m interviewing you, I’ll mostly just listening and I’m trying to just shut up because that’s what most people want in an interview. But the, there, and this is something I’ve said many times. I actually wish, if I look back over the course of maybe even my, just my business career, but also in my personal life, I would’ve valued I have a couple of these people in my life now, particularly in business, who will challenge my thinking, who I can go to and I can say, Hey, this is what I’m thinking about strategically.

I have A, B, or C, which of these doors I think a makes sense and , one of my good friends, he is. He’s a very nice guy, but he is very straightforward. He’d be like, nah, that doesn’t make sense. Hey, let me explain to you why if I were you, I would take door B and I really value those discussions.

Like I am not a very defensive person. Certainly not, I don’t quickly retreat into that bunker mentality. And I have maybe a couple contacts in my personal life who, who would do the same, but it’s interesting that. I’ve had to cultivate that kind of relationship with a few people where I’ve had to show them that I’m not going to just argue for the sake of arguing.

And initially when they would give me that kind of advice, they would, there would be a lot of preamble, you know what I mean? To try to soften it and, oh yeah, I totally understand what you’re thinking about there. And you could totally do that, but you might want consider. And then I would be like, you don’t have just you, you don’t have to soften it.

Yeah. If you think it’s, I’m a man stupid. Yeah. Just tell me it’s stupid. I just want a better idea. I don’t care if it’s my idea, your idea. I don’t give a shit. I just want be more. And if you can give me that shortcut, just give it to me. And if I disagree and I can actually articulate why I will, but I also will be inclined to listen to what you have to say.

Cuz in the case of business when I’m thinking about it, this is somebody who is net worth, I don’t know, is at least five, $600 million. Like I, you tell me. You know what I mean? You’ve already done more than Yeah. might ever do in my life. I might even want to do in my life in terms of There’s a reason why you asked him.

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And and I just I don’t, I can’t say that I know very many people who actively seek out not just advice , but criticism. Criticism. Yeah. Or, if we wanted to be maybe. Less inflammatory, because criticism, again is one of those terms that immediately triggers that reaction in people at least just seek out counterpoints.

, but, that’s why we keep Jim around. Cause he doesn’t let me get away with any bullshit. That’s true. That’s true. That’s true. He doesn’t, he’s the bullshit detector. He’s, I’m the bullshit detector. He’s the shockproof bullshit detector. That’s right. Yeah. I like it. And pat knows I’m very open to changing my mind about things too.

I’m right. , I think I actually frustrated a lot of my colleagues that way, but like one of the the keys to failure is to surround yourself by sick of fans, right? , like we can go through, historically, like that’s one of the great downfalls is when, as soon as people get powerful enough to hire people who agree with them, right?

This is the end, right? Cause they’re gonna enter their own fantasy world. And I would rather not live in a fantasy world. I wanna live in the real, and for practical reasons and even for theoretical reasons, right? Yeah. I am happy to be disagreed with. Yeah. Yeah. And we need to, not to get too sidetracked right away on the conversation, but this is a good point.

It’s like we just need to get over this really wimpy mentality. I was fortunate enough to have some coaches early on, especially a guitar coach where he emphasized, look, I’m gonna criticize you, pat, and it might seem like I’m overly critical, but it’s because I care that I’m criticizing you, and my job is to make you better.

So I’m not gonna tell you how handsome you are. You’re not handsome, but I’m not gonna tell you it anyways. But I am gonna tell you where you suck at the guitar, and you need to improve. And that’s what we’re gonna focus on. Because if you’re good at something, I don’t need to tell you about that, you’re already fine, right?

You already know you’re good at it. Just hug yourself every day. You’re fine. Yeah. Yeah. And I had to have a pretty hard conversation with my son the other day. He’s in the, he’s in second grade, but I gave him a ninth grade level book to read. Actually. I gave him how to read a book by Mor Adler.

I’ve given him science cause he’s a smart kid and he can do it. And so I wrote up in a little exam for him on this, appropriate but challenging. And and he failed and he, there was gonna be a reward if he passed. And he gave it to me and I had to look, I said, Ron, and he is, he’s a really smart kid.

I’m like, you just didn’t pass bud. You just didn’t pass. And that was hard for him. But then, you know what he did after he, he sobbed a little bit. He went back on his own accord, did. Rose to the challenge and then passed right now, I could have been, and it’s hard for a parent to criticize their kid.

What I want to do is just be like, oh you did good enough, son, let’s go play some video games. But that isn’t, that actually isn’t caring, right? It’s this kid’s development that I care about because I love my son and that means that I had an obligation to be direct with him in that situation.

So I am constantly trying to set up occasions for my kids to fail, right? Yeah. I kinda am too, man. It’s kinda right. And hoping they’ll win, but, if you protect them from failure, this is a familiar story now, right? , I’m gonna sound really cruel here, right?

. But anytime any one of my kids has ever done, in a sporting. , they’ve come off the mat or they’ve come off the field and said I lost but I still had fun. And I’m like, I’m always like no. It would’ve been more fun if you won. Let’s not lie about that.

Okay. And let, and and if you didn’t come here to win this, we don’t need to pay money for recess. Okay. We’re trying to win ’em Every time one of my kids comes off field or mat or anything like that, the first thing I do is I give them a hug and a kiss and I tell them I love ’em.

Okay. So I’m not saying like victory is like a condition of my love for you, but to act like there wasn’t a real possibility of failure and it happened is to miss the point of the entire endeavor. Spot on. Yeah. And and yeah, go ahead. I was just gonna say, so this is really ironic because the topic today is easy Fitness wins

Yeah. There are no easy fitness win, but that’s a really important point. So however we tie that in, we will tie it in. I guess the general point is look, if you’re looking to improve yourself, don’t surround yourself with syncope. Look look for people who are willing to criticize because they care.

I think that’s the point. Mike. Yeah. Any other further thoughts on that? And then we’ll turn to your. I think we can segue actually in that I agree with everything you guys were saying. However, if we look now at fitness and particularly if we look to people who are just getting started, who are trying to overcome inertia, who are trying to reach that critical mass, where the amount of forward progress you’ve made is motivating you to wanna keep going.

Failures early on can be I mean if we just look at the practical reality of it, if we look at things as they are, maybe rather than as we wish they were with people, and this is in my experience and I’m sure Pat, you’ve had the same experience working with a lot of just normal everyday people who are not fitness freaks.

They’re not trying to compete. They just wanna lose some weight, build some muscle, get healthy, feel good, look good, that. First three to six months is crucial, and that you build momentum in that first three to six months. And if you experience too many failures in the beginning some people of course will rise to the occasion.

They’ll just keep going and they won’t give up. But many people do give up. And I do have some empathy for them because I remember if I rewind to when I started, I didn’t know what I was doing. And I’m a, when it comes, I’m not in. I probably am like not a quitter to a fault. Like I don’t even like to stop reading books that I don’t like.

I’ll go 30 pages without a highlight and I’m like, I really should stop reading this book and I still want to keep going. That’s just, I always finish it, man. Always finish it. I know that’s my personality and that’s fine. That’s fine. But many people many people are not like that. Maybe even a little bit more, maybe balanced, balanced in that regard.

And. If you look again through the eyes of that type of person, especially somebody who has tried many things in the past and they have failed and they’ve really tried, they put in that effort and 30, 60, 90 days and it sucked. And they couldn’t eat anything they liked and they were doing workouts they hated and maybe they lost a little bit of weight.

And then finally when they tried to go back to some sort of normal living, it all just came back on and , you experienced that again and again. And a small failure in the beginning carries a lot of emotional weight. Because of the past experiences. So that’s where I think. Trying to intentionally go for some of these easy wins in the beginning can make sense.

Yeah. Yeah. You have to learn to win. There has to be an occasion to actually win, so there has to be a possibility of loss. But if you get over your head, you’re learning to be a loser. , right? This is that’s why we need like belt rings, right? , like if everybody had to compete against a black belt everyone would quit after their first tournament cause it would just be impossible.

, right? Yep. We, we need to scale this, right? So there have to be real legit possibilities of victory. So you learn to think of yourself as a winner, right? I think, yeah. Anybody who has played sports or learned an instrument or really pursued any sort of technical skill, knows that the sweet spot for learning is if we were to even assign some numbers to it, it’s probably okay, if you’re gonna try to do something 10 times and you can’t even get it right.

Two or three times. It’s just too hard, right? If you can get it right, let’s say 7, 8, 9 times, it’s probably a bit too easy. , you should make it a little bit harder. But if you start off at too high of a, you’re trying, a learning curve and you’re just trying to leap to the top of it or three quarters of the way up.

That doesn’t work for most people. It just doesn’t. Yeah. Yeah. Spot on. And there’s a sort of cliche that big doors swing on little hinges, and Jim, I think both of us have a fitness story that, that reflects this, right? Is like each of us in our sort of own unique way seem to just make a few simple changes that quickly led to some very inspiring results, right?

And you’re, you’ve talked about this before, like these sort of just simple rules whatever they are, maybe getting a protein target, maybe getting a calorie swing. Maybe you just start swinging ket bes, right? Whatever they are realistic, simple rules where you do see, and by quick means, we don’t mean like I wanna.

Be careful with the language here. Cause this isn’t like the secrets they don’t tell you about crap we’re talking. It’s just no, like one weird trick. One weird trick. There’s like a picture of a banana or whatever the heck the ad is. just no, it has to be like a banana with worms coming out of it or something.

hat flynns, secret biohack. Don’t change your life. We’re talking really about yeah, like simple tweaks that make a big difference. That can build momentum. Doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easy, but it is gonna be simple. So let’s dive into this a little bit. Mike, what did you have in mind here?

And what are some, and I think this is really good cuz look, new Year’s is coming up. People are gonna look for some wins that they can score early on to build that momentum. So let’s dive in. . So a simple one, a simple example of kind of a tiny habits approach, right? Is just start going for a walk every.

This would obviously be for somebody who’s not doing that currently, who’s rather sedentary. Instead of going from that to, oh, I’m gonna do Mike’s bigger, leaner, stronger program five days a week, an hour a day in the gym. I’ve never even touched a weight for, but I’m gonna do it. Many people do that.

That’s fine. And those people, I think they know who they are because the prospect of doing that excites them. It doesn’t trigger that resistance and friction that excites them. Fine, but in a lot of, That is not the place to start. Why don’t we just start real simple. Can you go for a 30 minute walk every day and or 15 minutes even?

And if you want some bonus points, can you do it in nature like a, where you have some pretty green around you, right? Cause that can, is that the thing that’s on the other side of my front door? Is that what that it’s not, yeah. It’s in the, it’s outside of the metaverse, so it doesn’t That’s right.

Yeah. Zuckerberg says we shouldn’t care about it. So there, there’s a beautiful kind of a river walk path in, in our downtown where I live. And I walk on there every morning or I catch the sunrise down there. And whenever I’m walking home I always, I have to walk past the local Y M C A and I always see the people on the treadmills walking, I’m like, what are you doing? What are you doing? It’s not even cold out . Yeah. Sidewalk. Yeah. To, I guess though to argue on their behalf. If somebody, if they just know that getting in the gym, just, it’s part of their routine and they’re a little bit more likely to stick to it.

And maybe let’s say after they get off the treadmill, now they’re inclined to go do some kettlebell swings or they’re inclined to do a short resistance training work out of some kind. Then to that person, I would say let’s just keep it like that. If that’s working, and it’s a social thing to you cuz it’s the same people day they’re talking.

But that binds them to the practice. True. That there’s a community around. Yeah. Yeah. And also to, to to, to play up the benefits of walking a little bit more. A lot of people don’t realize that you burn a fair amount of calories walking a few hundred calories per hour, which is not nothing.

And you actually, you can increase that if you want by walking a little bit faster. You could throw on a backpack with some books in it, just add some weight. That won’t make much of a difference for your experience of the walk. But it can further increase the calorie burn. So for people who want to, let’s say they’re starting out and they wanna lose weight and they’ve just learned about the importance of energy balance and maintaining a calorie deficit, then there is value also there in walking many people.

Particularly when they first start out, they think that walking, they think that to to really move the needle with cardio, it has to be very intense, even high intensity interval or nothing. Yeah. And that’s not true. In fact I wouldn’t recommend probably more than maybe an hour of high intensity interval training per week.

And you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. But if you are gonna do it, I still would recommend taking the total time that you have to exercise, giving most of it to training your muscles and then putting less time into your cardio. And if you’re gonna do high intensity, keep it moderate because it does put a lot of strain on the body.

Here’s just, I, a practical question here. This is really for both of you cuz we know walking’s good, right? But it’s something, either by just being familiar with the research or having just done it and experienced it, right? But the problem is the people are in this mindset that you’ve identified, Mike, where it’s just it just seems like walking is so unsexy.

You know what I mean? Yeah. It’s if I’m not doing the CrossFit seven times a week, then why even bother type of thing. How do you help people get over that hurdle of doing the unsexy, but simple things that actually work, and this is yeah, it’s a good question and particularly with, again, if we’re speaking to people who are.

New, or people, let’s say, who are not necessarily new, but they fall, they come in and out of a fitness habit. And now we’re going into the holidays, which is really usually fall out of it. And then they try to get back into it, right? Is I think the easiest way to do that is to find something you enjoy, like something that you actually like.

It can be hard and you’re not gonna every workout, every minute of every workout, but generally speaking, you look forward to it more than you tread it. And that that’s true for any type of training. Even if we’re talking about hard, somebody who’s saying, alright, I want to get jacked.

That’s what I wanna do. I would much rather put together a program for them that maybe is not scientifically optimal in terms of the exercises or some other component of the program, but. They like it, and if I were to give them the most scientifically optimal program for getting jacked and they really don’t like it, then what I know is compliance is gonna suffer.

And even if they are the grittier type and they’re like, I don’t care if I hate it, I’ll go do it every day. What will always happen is, They are not going to be as engaged in those workouts and that is going to impair their performance. , you have better workouts when you are enjoying them.

That, that’s just an unfortunate fact of being a human. And so this is also an easy an easy win is when people are first starting out. Find something that you like, talk about, the social aspect. That’s one of the reasons why many people like fitness classes.

 they have their little, they, it’s like a little community. They meet people, they like, they’re all in it together. Is a fitness class the most scientifically optimal way to transform your body composition? No, it’s not. But if you like it a lot more than the stuff I do, which is very unsexy and nobody falls.

Me Instagram sees, I post my workouts almost every day and they are, it’s the same type of training. I practice what I preach. It is. Sexy. I enjoy it, but it’s, picking heavy things up and putting them down mostly. Yeah, that’s a good point though. What’s sexy about, I just wanna drive this.

Cause I think it’s important to people to, if you get this conceptually, then maybe this will help clear the barrier for you and the stuff that is actually effective is typically not like sex to watch as you’re practicing it. There’s an inverted relationship, right? I’ve got my guitar right to higher the sex value.

The lower the efficacy. Yeah. I’ve got my guitar right here. I’m a pretty good player I think. But like most of what I do in guitar is just really boring exercises. It’s not sexy playing. It’s you’re drilling. It’s drilling. Same thing with jujitsu, right? Jim? What do we do?

It’s like when we’re just watching the practice, it’s pretty boring, right? But it works towards a sexy outcome. Same thing with good training is like at any particular point, it might not seem that sexy, right? Because we’re not competing, we’re just practicing something. But you’re working towards something that is itself good, productive, exciting.

So yeah, I would even say, find something you enjoy and even better find something you want to get good at. , because I think that will hold you to it in a way. And just to segue quickly on from that to let’s talk about strength training in particular.

Something that has helped in with me with, helped me with that is, so I’ve been lifting weights now for 20 years. First eight years or so, I didn’t know what I was doing. This point, there’s not much muscle or strength left for me to gain, especially not at this body weight. If I wanna stay fairly lean, if I were willing to put on 15 pounds, it wouldn’t, most of it would not be actual muscle tissue.

Sure I could get my numbers up a bit, but still I’m basically at the end of my genetic rope for how big and strong I can get. And so people will ask me, what’s my motivation? Why do I keep doing it? And something that is fun. Something that is a skill component is every, so I have four month training blocks basically, and at the end of each training block, I do a round of AM reps.

So as many reps as I can do with 95% of one RM from the beginning of that training block. Oh. If things have gone that is no, that’s no longer actually 95% of my one room at that point. And so a lot of my four months is cold. Oh man. That shows some progress. Yeah, that shows some progress.

Exactly. And so in the last training block for example I was safety bar squatting and I wrapped up with 2 65 for eight is what I got. And so that’s like a one RM of three 20. I started that training block. Now I hadn’t safety bar squatted in a while. So there is a skill component just getting better at the activity.

Yeah. And but that was a pretty significant jump. Probably 30 or 40 pounds in one rm. Which again, it’s partly because I hadn’t safety bar squatted in a long time. But still that’s fun. And on my bench press I was up 10 pounds and that, that’s pretty significant at my, where I’m at. For four months.

And so that’s something with weightlifting in particular that makes it more fun as an experienced weightlifter. That’s sort what happened with me, with I, I haven’t, even though, I believe in barbells and I wrote a book about barbells. I haven’t touched a barbell in years. Cause it just, I got to where in my forties, I pulled a 300% body weight deadlift and I’m like okay.

There’s nothing. Left for me to do in any attempt at progress is getting really damn dangerous. , and I have to admit, I just got bored to tears by it all. And I think you do have to find challenges, goals, new skills to hold yourself to it. Yeah. Cause at a certain point, like just looking good might not be enough.

Yeah. And this is like weight lifting for that reason. Or attract more skill to it than or tie in something that, like a martial art, something outside of the weight room activity where you can now, rather than, oh, my deadlift is stronger. Oh, this movement pattern, is clearly transferring to me being a more durable or stronger in this, in jujitsu or something like that, right?

, the kind of a general point I think is in the background of all this is, I have found, with people that I’m either working with and helping coach or just, teammates of mine or something like that, I’ll have people, I really wanna get in shape and then and, they’ll Use what I’m doing as a model, and they’re I’m gonna do two a day workouts and I’m gonna, I’m gonna eat ketogenic diet and I’m gonna have a 20 hour fast every day and not eat one day a week and do all this stuff.

And because they think it’s gotta be really hard, it’s gotta be really hard. Isn’t that hard? 70, 75 hard or something? Isn’t that a thing? I just saw somebody post that thing. I looked at it, I’m like, just beat the shit outta yourself for Yeah. It’s 2, 2 45 minute intense workouts day, and then a whole bunch of other stuff.

Who’s gonna, who on earth ? My my 50 year old wife did it. Yeah. Good. Hey, job bless her, man. But she’s not a beginner. But she’s a terminator from what I She’s a Terminator. Yeah. I mean she’s, yeah. She’s a terminator. But anyway I couldn’t do it, honestly. But also I don’t, cause there’s nothing attached to that I would care enough about to do it.

You know what I mean? Exactly. , especially if you know that you could do it. It’s not a matter of do you have the discipline or can you gut it out if Sure. I could, but for what? Just to prove what I already know. Why, yeah. The funny thing with the heart 75 is when I looked at it, I’m like, this is just, this is like a normal day for me, actually.

Kind of a light day. it, I’m sure. I’m like, but, so I always tell people, look, when they say, oh, I’m gonna do all this stuff. gonna go keto and I’m gonna fast. I’m gonna have two day workouts and I’m gonna do all this stuff, I’m gonna meditate. I’m like, great. Cool. But you know what it took me literally like 30 years of training to get to that point.

To where I can just going back to the belts. Yeah, exactly. We gotta go white belt. And I tell people like, look, your workout, just using the. Leaving di side your workout doesn’t have to be great. It doesn’t have to be hard. It has to be. It has to exist. It has to come into being first and foremost.

And I think what people think that you, they go to the gym and it’s gotta be this like, magical moment of a PR or a near puking CrossFit kind of workout or something like that. When really just getting in there. And I think people a lot of times feel like I can’t go in there and perform really awesome today.

I feel like crap. It’s not gonna be magic, so they don’t go right. Just show up. Just show up. Just showing up is the key for this. And find something you can scale to where you’re at, so it’s easy for you to show up. And, 30 years down the road, you might be like a psychopath. But yeah. And just a point to add to that, something that has been useful for me is if for example I really didn’t sleep well, not, I’m not. Too good. I wasn’t able to take a nap and I’m supposed to go do a heavy lower body workout. Supposed to do some heavy squats and other things. I might swap that for the following day’s workout, which is an upper body, not as difficult session in hopes of sleeping better that night.

Yeah. And then do the heavy hard stuff the following day. And I recommend that to people, be a little bit flexible with your programming and it is better for people who are more experienced. Cuz you understand, you have enough experience to know I’m not just making excuses here.

I’m really gonna have a more productive session if I ha have slept more than five hours. . Yeah. Yeah. And I, that’s a great point, Mike. I think if you’re gonna do really set piece programming, you have to have a concession to a bad day built. Yep. There’s no guarantee next Thursday I can go 90%.

Exactly. Just, okay. Just, there’s no guarantee. That’s a great point. That’s, you have to be able to afford a bad day. Cause cuz you’re gonna have a bad, I’ve struggled with this, especially when it’s power lifting. Where I would have these 16 week programs pre-meet, and in week eight I gotta hit, 90% for three doubles.

Yeah. But what if I suck that day and now the program is shot. So what do I do? I think you’ve gotta have bad days built into it. Yeah. Yep. So let’s So this is great cause I think, I hope this will be really both helpful and inspiring to people. Again, whether you’re just starting out or you’re just trying to like course correct.

Before the new year or even before the new year, there’s no need to wait till the new year to, to do any of this stuff, right? I do it now. Do it now. Why? At least you can start getting into the habit now. For people take the walks or maybe it’s daily kettlebell swings or daily, any sort of exercise activity that they can do and stick with understanding that, yeah, diet is gonna be.

A bit wonky for the next couple of weeks. And it may or may not but for somebody who knows, they have these holiday parties coming up and they do wanna enjoy themselves. They don’t have to necessarily be egregious about it, but they also don’t want to be feeling guilty because they ate a muffin or something.

You don’t have to maximize the damage though, yes. Yeah. Just don’t for me, it’s take Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner or whatever. I’m gonna enjoy myself, but I don’t eat to the point of what did Louis Lucy can say where I hate myself. Where to where.

And I’ve done that in the past, just for fun. And then I was like, , it’s no longer fun, just on the pouch for 45 minutes. Sweating just can’t even move. No longer fun. Yeah, but also let’s get a sense of perspective and proportion here.

Look, even if you hate it, even if you ate to hate yourself, right? On Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. But all the other days are like on target. Like it’s not gonna make any difference right now. It makes no difference. Now you shouldn’t do that. What’s the probably most, what’s the most fat you can gain in an entire day?

I’ve written about this, I’ve looked at some of the research. Let’s find out. Yeah. Maybe it’s a pound or so. Yeah. But you really have to go for that, that’s gonna be many thousands of calories. The prob Yeah. Probably some alcohol as well to really maximize fat storage. Okay. Yeah. You get up early to eat extra

So it’s just, it’s the sense of perspective Yeah. Like really helps. The problem is when people turn Thanksgiving into all of November and Christmas into all December. Yeah. And no reasonable reason to do that. That’s not a good mindset. We don’t have to.

The holidays, diabetes season, right? , like you just have a couple good days in there. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Now you said daily kettle swings. I like this cuz that was Jim. That’s your story, right? It was like just simple kettle workouts, right? You lost simple kettle workouts, simple nutrition.

You lost over a hundred pounds, right? Yep. Which is phenomenal. And obviously you’ve gone not just to sustain that, but to build significantly upon it. I’ve always liked the idea and Mike and Jim, I’ll be curious to get your thoughts on this of and I guess this is in line with the idea of having bad days built in.

Not that you want a bad day, but just realistic understanding that some, sometimes the kids are gonna be up all night, you’re not gonna get a good night’s sleep and whatever. Yeah. They will come of having floor and ceilings. So I got the, I got my ideal ceiling. Here’s what I would love to hit workout wise.

Mike’s bigger, leaner, stronger. Do all the sets, all the reps get to the gym, feel great. Kids were up all night, don’t feel good. So at the very least, look, I can do a kettle swing and pushup ladder. At the very, it’ll take 10, 15 minutes. It’s an easy win. I’m gonna feel good after that.

I’ll get my calorie burned. I’ll build some strengths and muscle. It wasn’t the ideal. Yep. But it was doing. It, it was always something rather than all or nothing but it was, but it was, it came into existence. . Yeah. Yeah. It was distinguished from nothing. It had an active existence.

Yes. And that’s a that’s all that matters. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that, Mike and Jim? , it’s perfection is not necessary in any of this. And that, that is, I think also a mistake and I made it in the beginning is thinking that you have to be basically perfect with take that.

When I first, I remember when I learned about energy, balance and macros and I was surprised, wait, it’s this simple to, to lose fat. All I have to do is eat like 2200 calories a day and get enough protein, and that’s it. I don’t, it doesn’t matter how many carbs, it doesn’t even matter what I’m eating.

I couldn’t believe it really at first. This is again, before I even understood the principles, this was introduced to me by he was a bodybuilder power lifter. You didn’t explain why. He was shredded. He was getting prepped for a contest and I, and he was working at a, at a, what was it?

It’s kinda like a Whole Foods, it’s like a grocery store. And I simply asked him, I was like how do you, how did you, how do you do this? And he is oh how much do you weigh? Yeah, whatever. Just 20. You go online, figure this out. 2200 calories, 200 grams protein a day. I don’t care about carbs and fat.

And so I did that and then I got pretty lean for the first time. , but I remember I would text him saying, Hey, his name is Steven. Hey Steven. I’m gonna go for my cheat meal this week. Which I’ve changed my outlook on cheat meals a little bit as well. But I’m gonna go get sushi.

Is it okay if I get two spicy tuna rolls and maybe dude, first I love maybe Emoji. No I always love that sushi is like the default cheat meal. It’s kind like meal too, Jim. It too isn’t, it’s like sushi is it’s just, it’s cause it’s, it’s tasty. It’s high protein.

Yeah. It’s still broadly like healthy depending on it’s, you’ve gotten to a fitness place when sushi is your cheat meal. That’s the, that is the black belt level, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And but my point is I didn’t understand again that how much wiggle room you have.

, the fitness elite, none of them are perfect. They are just the ones who are good enough most of the time in the ways that matter the most. They just miss the fewest workouts and they screw up maybe the fewest meals or go way off plan the fewest or the least often really. And so that, I think that mentality.

That mentality helps. And it’s probably worth mentioning an easy diet win that can work toward that black belt level. Would be just taking where you’re at right now and can we just make some slight modifications? So maybe instead of the fried chicken for dinner, can we do baked chicken or maybe air fried chicken, which you can get like the same kind of result for fewer calories.

Maybe just get rid of the Pop Tart. Just, yeah. Or can we replace the Pop Tart with a protein bar and maybe a Tasty Protein bar so you still get a little bit of enjoyment out of it? Yeah. The Pop Tart, I forgot those things existed and that, that was, that’s that. Remember how popular Poptart dude, a band like that with l i Fym when that was the rage, like people were.

They were doing it just because you could to go to show how parts a day, and I can still have abs to go to show how bad like school lunch programs sometimes are. I remember literally in high school, like you could get, like two of my friends would always get two of the s’mores. It was for whatever, it was always the s’mores Pop Tart.

That was the It was the one, yeah. And then they could go and get a cookie afterwards. Yeah. It was. Yeah. It was nuts. Is that nutrition pyramid approved? Probably. Exactly. I guess so, man. I guess so. But it’s man, that was, and usually like they would have my lunch table. We were all a bunch of degenerate, some people ate healthier than we did, but the fact that, like you could even get away with this was pretty ridiculous.

You go get a fried spicy chicken sandwich the s’mores pop tar and then giant cookie. And with a chocolate milk. Yeah. And then you’re gonna go get medicated for having adhd. Cause you’re like wash it down with a caffeinated drink too. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. Which they would sell in the school store.

They’d sell like Red Bulls and stuff like this. It’s oh yeah, these kids are out control. We need to me , we need to pump a full of meds, right? Yes. That’s what they. Did you know that right now I am in the middle of a big book Launch Bonanza for my new fitness book for men and women of all ages and Abilities, muscle for Life, which is releasing on January 11th and is currently available for pre-order over at Muscle for Life book.com.

Muscle f o r life book.com. And why should you pre. To invoke an electrochemical response in your brain and stimulate something, approximating joy, I am celebrating the release of this new book by giving away over $12,000 of glorious fitness goodies, including a Boflex C6 bike that’s a thousand bucks.

A hyper volt go. That’s 200 bucks an Instant Pot duo, crisp Air Fryer, another 200 bucks, a Vitamix, E three 10 blender, 350 bucks, a 30 minute zoom call with yours unruly. And that is priceless, of course, and much, much more. Now, there are several ways to enter to win too. You can buy books, you can spread the word, you can follow me on social media and more.

So again, to get all of the giveaway sauce, go over to Muscle for Life book.com. Muscle f o r life book.com. Something I’ve used to help people out on the making small changes of diet thing is is a food journal. Okay. Yeah. And what I’ll say is look, and I did this once at a point where I had to fallen back a little bit and I didn’t realize that I need to make some changes.

So I did a food journal two weeks and tried to really be honest about it and I had realized I was still, I wasn’t eating very much garbage at all, but I was eating a metric ton of food. I was eating way more than I had to. Okay. And what I tell people to do is do that journal to be as honest about as you possibly can.

I’m not gonna have to do it forever. Just give yourself like a week or two. Okay. And then look at that journal and just what is the stuff. That you see in there that is clearly part of a death wish, right? What is the, just the obvious, grown human being should not be eating this, right?

Yeah. And just cut that out, right? And go for a couple weeks without that and see if the scale moves. The scale doesn’t move. Go look, go back and look at, okay, what else is on that list that really just should not be in a human diet? Cut that out. And as soon as you get the scale or makeup, make a replace.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Always make replace. Take the frappuccino ridiculous. 800 calorie. I don’t even know. They might even, might be a thousand plus calorie drink. Can we turn that into, doesn’t even have to be an Americano per se, but can we turn it into a cappuccino maybe? Six to eight ounces of milk with some espresso.

It doesn’t even have to be Right. Get rid of your coffee. Maybe some Stevia instead of, something like Yeah. Or even, Hey, if you’re drinking, if you’re drinking sugar sweetened soda. Would we like to get you to just drinking water? Yes, absolutely. But if you’re not ready to make that jump just yet, because let’s say you are dieting and that’s something that is, is nice and then you enjoy the sweetness and it just, it’s something you look forward to, then can we switch to a diet soda?

And I, as far as artificial sweeteners go and the ongoing controversy over them my, my position, my understanding of the weight of the evidence is if you are, let’s say, having eight to 10 plus servings of artificial sweeteners per day every day, probably not the best thing for your health.

Probably not great for your gut health. That’s one of the reasons why when I started Legion, I wanted all natural products is I, myself, I don’t, I’m not interested in having 6, 8, 10 plus servings of sucralose a day and if I’m gonna use my own stuff, but could you have a diet soda, a can of diet soda every day and be fine.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s okay. And if that helps again, especially, and I just, I bring that up because having worked with a lot of, just, again, normal people who who sometimes will struggle with things when they’re dieting that I’ll speak to, that you would struggle and I was, I grew up on soda.

That diet soda means something to I did not drink water growing up. I grew up on and Sprite. I guess they’re same thing, right? I grew up on Pepsi and Sprite, so like this was another big issue. Like I had the worst nutritional offering. Really? Did beverages. Pepsi and Sprite. Yeah, no, like that.

That’s what it was, man. It was really bad. So when I decided to get my act together, actually diet soda. I don’t drink diet soda anymore, but I’ll tell you what, man. Having the Coke Zero or whatever, yep. That was a helpful sort of transition for me. Could I have done it without it? Yeah, maybe.

Probably. But it was there. Why make it harder than it needs to be? So again, particularly when we’re trying to help somebody gain enough momentum to really start to establish a lifestyle that they can stick with for the long term. Yeah. Yeah, I just wanna just point that out. Just even in my sort of process the little, just that little switch to the diet soda was something that, made it a little bit easier.

And then it’s been years and years since I’ve had a diet. So I’m not te you gimme a Coke Zero, I’ll drink it, but it’s, I just don’t crave, I just don’t crave it. I tasted Coke for the first time in years the other day and I was like, okay, but no, not really for me, but yeah. Yeah. So yeah, just good point.

Good point there. And then what about just like protein too, that’s an easy win, right? Just get your protein up. I remember Dr. Spencer gives. Recommendation a lot of his clients is if you’re coming from the standard American diet perspective, this isn’t a universal rule, but maybe a general enough one.

It’s just like double your protein, half your carbs, right? If you’re coming from like the fast food diet world, like just double your protein, half your carbs, right? Yeah. Or at least double your protein. And then that’ll probably, you can even, yeah, start there. If somebody is, and this is, I don’t think this is asking too much for them to understand how much protein is in a few of, if you were to ask them what are some higher protein foods that you like?

Do you like chicken? Do you like beef? Do you like high protein yogurt? All right. What do you like? All right, let’s quickly just familiarize ourselves with how much protein is in a serving of these foods. And we don’t have to get out the scales for that. We can just use our hands. We can say at a palm of chicken it’s about 40 grams of protein.

All right, cool. A fist of yogurt, eh, 20 grams of protein. And can we get you, can we get this person to anywhere from probably, depending on their size, whether it’s a guy or a girl, whatever, 150 to maybe 180 grams per day. Can we get there and just let’s, that’s your meal plan, so to speak, is just getting enough protein.

Let’s not worry about any of the other stuff you’re eating. Let’s you just continue ad lido basically. But we are going to just control your protein for a little bit. And what many people find is just by doing that, they, one, are less hungry throughout the day, so they automatically just start eating less because protein is very filling.

And two, then again, it builds momentum. They have the win of feeling. Less hungry than eating less junk. Even if that doesn’t make a noticeable change in their body comp, yet they can’t see it in the mirror. They know that it is good, that now they are less hungry. Generally, they know that eating more protein is good.

They know some of the health benefits of that I can speak for many women who have, in particular, who have noticed more muscle tone right away, which of course makes sense. , women who are going from, on average, no more than probably 50 grams of protein per day. I can think of cases where women, I had them to your point Jim okay, a simple food log.

What are you eating like 30 grams some days? No protein to a hundred and twenty, a hundred thirty, a hundred forty grams per day. And they were amazed at again, how much fuller they were how many fewer cravings they had because they just weren’t hungry. And how it, again, it didn’t of course, like magically start burning fat, but they did start noticing that their muscles just felt a little bit tighter.

They had a little bit higher energy levels. And those are easy wins that are just. Yeah, spot on. Hey, we’re gonna take a question or two at the end here. If you have any questions for Mike or Jim or myself, send them in. But before we get to that, Mike, I want to talk about this new book you have coming out because this will be a good tie in.

Now you are, you’re a book guy. You got a lot of books out already. They’re excellent. We’ve recommended them before, but you’ve got one coming up. So tell us about what this new project is and where people can preorder. Cause it is preorder right now. It isn’t correct. It isn’t out yet. Correct. Yeah. Give us a hint. With my friend. . So it’s called Muscle for Life, which is a, I figured that would make a good. Book title a while ago, consistent, and now finally got around to doing it right. It’s what is this? This is like the artist who then they release their self-titled album like years later, right?

. But it, it is very much actually just in line with the conversation that we’re having today. So this is the book for people who are, so I’d say it’s really, it’s for one, it’s for people who are middle aged and beyond, specifically for them. And the reason why I wanted to write a book specifically for them is I’ve heard from so many people, forties and beyond in particular, who will read bigger, leaner, stronger or thinner, leaner, stronger.

And then who will write me asking if they can just jump right into this, or do they need to make some changes? And in some cases they don’t need to make changes. But in many cases I would, I had copy and paste responses that I would modify as needed, but I would explain to them, Some of the modifications that I think are appropriate, take somebody who’s 55 years old, a guy or a gal they have a lot of weight to lose and they’ve never touched a barbell or a dumbbell.

They’ve never done any sort of resistance training. Are you gonna tell them to right now start heavy squatting, bench pressing deadlifting overhead press? No. If you’re training that person, you’re not gonna do that. You’re gonna, you’re gonna try to work them up to that. But that, that might take a year for them to get to that point where it makes sense for them to do that.

And also on the meal plan side of things, are you gonna tell them to Get out the scale and the measuring cups and go all in and on Excel. No. Some people are ready for that and they will do that. But for many other people, it’s just too much. It’s trying to ask them to be the brown belt when they really just need to start with the white belt.

And so that, that’s muscle for life. It is very user friendly, particularly very newbie friendly. And so for example, on the training side of things whereas Bigger, lean or Stronger has one program and they have a few options. You have a three, four, or five day option. But it is Power building, I guess would be the term, right?

, it is for people who are ready to grab heavy dumbbells and barbells and pick ’em up and put ’em down. And of course they’re starting where they’re starting. If they can only squat, meaning with many women, for example, maybe they can only squat the bar initially, but they’re ready to go squat a bar.

Or maybe with 20 fives or something like that. In, in Muscle for Life. There’s a beginner program for men and women, which is just body weight. It starts with building the basic movement patterns with building some muscle and strength. You can add some bands and I talk about that as well but it’s also, you don’t even need a gym for it, which is another hurdle that many people who are, again, and this would apply not just to middle aged people, but people who have a lot of weight to lose, who are very out of shape and understandably are intimidated by.

Gyms, and particularly the free weight section where you have the sweaty gorillas, groaning and grunting, who ironically, most of them are actually nice people and people learn that. But it is intimidating, right? The nicest, very sweet. Yeah. Often actually. And so it starts with body weight.

Some bands, it then moves into some dumbbell exercises and even before you, for a pole or a hip hinge, right? So starting with a trap bar, deadlift, not even a traditional deadlift. And then moving into the advanced program or programs, I would say Those are like light versions of bigger, leaner, stronger and thin, leaner, stronger.

So now we’re getting into some more traditional weightlifting, but it helps people work up to that on the meal plan side of things. So I talk about the importance of understanding how calories in and calories out it works and macronutrient works or and how these nutrients are, they affect your body in different ways.

But again, I’m not asking people to weigh and measure everything that they eat. I teach them a pretty intuitive and simple system of portioning foods. Again, just based on your hand, like for certain foods, for fattier stuff, you can use your thumb as a reference point for proteins. You can use your palm as a reference point for carbs and other high protein foods, your fist.

And the point of doing. Is to just quickly get to a point where you understand approximately how many calories you should be eating. And what that kind of looks like. Just when you plate the food, what does that look like with the foods that you like to eat? Awesome. I, Mike obviously I’m gonna link it into show notes so people can go pre-order a copy and hey get more than one for a awesome, I should mention holiday gift.

Yeah. I should also, I should mention that at Muscle for Life book.com. Muscle, f o r lifebook.com. , right now I’m doing a whole book launch giveaway where if people pre-order it’s gonna be a January 11th is when the book comes out, so I’ll end it. On the 10th or the 11th, but up until then, I’m giving away over $12,000 of stuff and we’re, I think we’re actually over 13 or 14 now.

We’re just continuing to contact companies and they’re giving us some pretty cool stuff, like a thousand dollars Boflex bike. An air fryer mentioned that a set of adjustable dumbbells from Smart Fit, which are actually pretty nice. Like this is real stuff. It’s not just PDFs and , right? Where I, nothing against PDFs.

Not if any huge PDF fans out there, but this is. This has real existence. The PDF that I see, ontologically thick stuff. I say the PDF is worth a hundred dollars, but it’s actually just a blog post that I . So anyway, at Muscle Life book.com right now, there are other ways to enter too.

Not just buying books, but that makes it funny. Awesome. The guys go preorder. It’s gonna be great. I recommend Mike’s books are so practical. In fact I recommend your stuff over my stuff sometimes. I had a guy who reached out, out to a while ago. He is pat, I’ve done the same thing with people are with Kettlebells, but just check out Pat.

Yeah. Cause it’s it’s just a look, I’m fine. I’m thank, thank God I’m fine. And also just the guy reached out to me, he’s at a gym situation. He has goals. I’m like, and he’s pat, which are your kettle programs? I should, I’m like, Go by Mike’s book and just start with that.

And he did. And it basically go an awesome form. So it, I really do highly recommend your work. It’s awesome. And people should definitely go get and preorder this new book. Should we take a question or two gentlemen? Let’s do it. We got a couple minutes here. Let me just highlight this one real quick cuz it’s, I just enjoy it.

Shabby says the guy in middle looks like magnet. I would not want that actually. No, don’t, I would think like Wolverine if we’re going X-Men, I think Jim’s more like Wolverine. I don’t know about Magni. Jim, how do you, how do see yourself in X-Men universe? I don’t even know who Magni is.

The, he’s a, he wears the helmet and he can manipulate metal. That’s magnet. Okay. He’s a bad dude. It’s a compliment. Be sure that’s Oh, yeah. Enough. Yeah. See. I’m too busy actually trying to kill dudes to heroes and Let’s, right now appreciate, I appreciate the compliment.

It’s the young mag. Yeah. Oh, may maybe. I haven’t seen those movies in a long time, so maybe there is a closer resemblance that I’m familiar with. All right. Has a compliment though. Yeah. Yeah. Coral has a question. Hello from Finland. What do you guys think about this strategy? Heavy weights, greasing the groove style, for an easy win.

I’ll say a few things and I’ll let you guys give your thoughts. So when I think greasing the groove, and this is referencing PABs work, right? We’re. Generally, like it’s gonna be sub maximal frequent movement practice. So generally, or more often than not, probably not very heavy weights for greasing the groove.

You might have an occasionally heavy session, but the idea is you’re greasing the neurological groove trying to, make more efficient the mind muscle connection. So it’s almost always, but not always going to be like quite sub maximal. So I’m a fan of that in terms of like easy wins cuz it’s very practical, you take these movement sta snacks, but I think if you’re doing it frequently and heavy, you’re probably gonna be inviting trouble.

But I’ll let these gentlemen chime in. , agree a hundred percent on that. , right? Yeah, if it’s really taxing, it’s too heavy for that. Cuz, cuz the degrees in the group is only gonna work if you can come think of Pablo’s original power of the people guy had you deadlifting five days in a row.

Okay. So if you’re gonna do that, it’s gotta be pretty sub maximal. If you’re gonna come back and do it every day, you were gonna do, was it two sets of five, let’s say, and low volume, low volume. Yeah. It was never more than 10 reps and sometimes as few as even four. And he would have, you’d go every day.

Right Now that’s got a short shelf life. Eventually it’s gonna get heavy. You can’t do it. But I like the Gtg style. I still use that quite a bit, especially like on things like weighted pullups and all that. But you’ve gotta really just put yourself and check your ego to do it. Yeah. Would say thoughts, warmup sets.

That’s, I’ve talked about using warmup sets for that, right? I understand you, you could make an argument against warmup sets altogether unless you are really lifting heavy weights, and that’s fine. I’ve found in my own training and just having interacted with many people, that I find my performance probably a little bit better with two warmup sets before I load the bar, for example.

But I make those warmup sets a little bit more productive with this mindset of really paying attention to my technique lifting, lifting explosively in those warmup sets. Just getting the feeling of being strong and executing the lift correctly. And I think there’s some value in that, in improving technique when the weights are heavy.

But I will say there is a difference. I wouldn’t say I’m a golfer, but I put some time into it. I put enough, I put the amount of time that I’m willing to put into it, right? . And so there’s a difference. There’s a difference between if you like this to, to golf swinging it.

Let’s say 50 to 60% of of intensity, so to speak. And it is it’s much easier to swing with proper technique at that intensity than it is at 80, 90 or 100%. . And so similar to, to, to lifting. I think that those are different skills, like you, just because your technique looks real nice on the bench press or on any exercise when you’re warming up, doesn’t the, it doesn’t transfer, at least in my experience, as easily as you would like to when it’s heavy.

And so something that has helped me is to work on video, which I do for social media anyway. , but it’s helped me to review those videos and I’ll see that I’ve found that, there are. Technique inefficiencies that I wasn’t aware of because when I’m warming up, it looks real nice and then I load it.

And if I’m deadlifting, for example, a trap bar in particular, my knees will tend to move inward a little bit. Is it a big deal? No, it’s not enough to cause a problem, but that’s not optimal. Even squatting as well, when I’m getting deeper into a set, the weights are heavy. I have to still consciously keep my knees in the right position or a they’ll bow a little bit inward and sometimes my hips will move a little bit too fast.

I would not see those things though in my warmup sets it so is the guy who wants to check his for and he is deadlift 1 35 anybody can look pretty good. Delicate. One five. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And if that Exactly, yep. And that’s when he is looking in the mirror or maybe even.

Having his buddy check him out. Yeah. Looks real good. And then the buddy doesn’t really say anything though when there’s three 15 on the bar and he’s starting to go into the scaredy cat, but he got the reps, bro. Yeah. Which brings us back to the point, did he die? Yeah. , did he die? Yeah.

Mike, next time. Yeah. Awesome conversation. Before we wrap up here, Mike, aside from the new book, which again, I’ll link that in the in the show notes [email protected] along with some your other books as well. Where else can people keep up with you? Your website, your podcast?

Just give us an idea of where people can enter the world of Mike Matthews. . they dare I think of was it in Dante’s Inferno band and hope you enter here? No. So my podcast is called Muscle for Life which it has always been called that. So the book came after and that you can just find wherever you listen to podcasts and every, everything else of mine lives over at Legion’s website, which is my sports nutrition company, Legion athletics.com.

If you go to the blog, you’re gonna find millions of words now and at least a couple million from me. And then I have a couple of other people who write with me and they write under their own names, but we have articles on j I would say most things that, that people reach out to me about. I have an article I can just link them to.

That’s a good question here. It says It’s handy, isn’t it, Uhhuh? Yeah. I mean it has, it does come in handy. Just the benefit we, it weeds out again, people who are. Not serious at all. , who maybe have a question, but if they’re not willing, and these are not 10,000 word articles, I’ve done that before.

But I do try to keep them, I’m asking for 10 minutes of your time and it’s gonna give you a good answer to your question, a practical answer, and if that, if you’re not willing to do that, then you’re also not going to be willing to actually do what I would tell you to do. . Anyway, so there are a lot of articles over there and I, as you mentioned, I have other books and those you can find anywhere you like to buy books and yeah, fan.

Fantastic. I’m gonna link all that in the show notes. Mike. Jim, it’s been a blast, gentleman. Thank you so much. It’s good to talk to you, Mike. Yeah, you too. Thank. 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 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.