Ep. #921: Q&A: Social Dinners While Cutting, Seated vs. Standing Presses, Time Management, and More

Hello there. I’m Mike Matthews. This is Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today for a Q& A episode where I am going to briefly answer a number of questions that people have asked me over and over. on Instagram and how I’ve been doing these episodes is on Instagram every Monday or Tuesday. I post a story asking people to ask me questions and then I answer a number of those questions on Instagram.

The ones that are interesting to me or that I haven’t already beaten to death in my writings and speakings or that are just topical things I’m getting asked a lot recently. And then I bring everything over here to the podcast as well. And so what am I going to be talking about in today’s episode? I’m going to be talking about TRT.

I’m going to be sharing my thoughts on a few things that I think are missing in the fitness industry. How to maintain a calorie deficit when social dinners are constantly in your schedule, how you should approach your training when you are cutting, what your goals should be, what your mindset should be.

And more. Before we begin, how would you like a free meal planning tool that figures out your calories, your macros, even your micros, and then allows you to create 100 percent custom meal plans for cutting, lean gaining, or maintaining in under five minutes? minutes. All you got to do is go to buylegion.

com slash meal plan b u y legion. com slash meal plan and download the tool. And if I may say this tool really is fantastic. My team and I spent over six months on this thing, working with an Excel wizard and inferior versions 60, even a hundred dollars. Or you have to download an app and pay every month or sign up for a weight loss service and pay every month, 10, even 60 dollars a month for what is essentially in this free tool.

So if you are struggling to improve your body composition, if you are struggling to lose fat or gain muscle, the right way Meal plan can change everything. Dieting can go from feeling like running in the sand in a sandstorm to riding a bike on a breezy day down a hill. So again, if you want my free meal planning tool, go to by legion.com/meal plan.

Be by legion.com/meal plan. Enter your email address and you will get instant access. Alrighty, the first question we have here comes from CAA1997, and they ask, any thoughts on tattoos? I think that some of the artwork is impressive, some of it is even stunning, but it does seem that many people get tattoos.

For external reasons, for admiration, for approval, for acceptance. And I think that is generally a bad reason to do just about anything. Generally speaking, we tend to make better decisions when our own applause is all we need. And so for me, I don’t appreciate the art Of tattoos and the idea of getting tattoos isn’t appealing enough to me just for my own sake to want to do it.

All right, moving on to the next question from comfy sweats. They ask, do you think that TRT is getting too trendy? Yes, absolutely. Many men are getting on TRT right now with perfectly normal T levels or even maybe. Slightly low, or let’s just say with T levels on the lower end of normal, but with no symptoms of low T and many of those guys are also taking way too much testosterone without understanding the risks.

I recently met a 20 something year old dude in the gym who said he was. On TRT, but when I started to ask him about it actually, he’s currently cruising at about 1200 nanograms per deciliter of blood NGDL after recently being as high as 2000 to 3000 NGDL. DL that my friends that is not TRT that is steroids.

1200 ngdl is going to be at the absolute top end of the range of what is attainable naturally might even be a bit higher. I’d have to look at some research that I haven’t looked at in a while somewhere around 1000 is about the highest you can ever expect naturally. 1200 certainly 2000 plus 2000 plus is supra natural.

Physiological testosterone levels that is steroid use and because we are on the topic, I also want to recommend that you give the side eye to any jacked fitness gurus or influencers who claim to be only on TRT that often means a lot of T and other anabolics and they are just trying to feel less guilty by at least admitting that they’re on T.

Next Faustbin asks, what is missing in the fitness industry? A few things. One is a general understanding and acknowledgement of what it really takes to get and stay jacked and shredded. Often it involves eating and body disorders and exercise addiction, and it negatively impairs health and performance in many ways.

For most people, it is simply not worth it. Another thing that I think is missing in the fitness industry is honest marketing. So many parasites, so many profiteers who are willing to do and say anything to make coin in this industry. And they’re pushing their pills, and they’re pushing their powders, and their programs.

It does get a bit tiresome. And the third thing that I think is missing is humility. There is just far too much grandstanding and one upmanship in this space for me. I like people with poise, not pose. Govind Deepak, he asks, do seated dumbbell slash barbell presses work the core as much as standing overhead barbell presses?

Presses or dumbbell, no, but the core is still very involved in a proper seated press, but the standing overhead press and barbell press in particular is one of the most difficult pressing exercises you can do. It’s almost a whole body exercise, not as much as a squat, of course, but it does involve a lot more muscle mass than a seated dumbbell press.

For example, and that also includes the core muscles. They are more highly activated in a standing barbell press than a seated dumbbell. Okay. Kate foreman yoga asks how to maintain calorie deficit when social dinners are constantly on your schedule. That’s a good question. And honestly, it’s difficult. It might make more sense actually to just take a diet break until you are eating out less.

But if that’s not really an option, because it’s part of your Work or just part of your lifestyle. A few tips that can help are one, save up calories for that meal by just eating less than you normally would before. So if it is a dinner, for example, you’re just going to eat less throughout the day, eat light throughout the day and save quote unquote, a lot of your daily calories for those dinners.

If you can get in, for example, most of your protein by dinner and a couple of servings of vegetables. And a little bit of whatever else that you like to eat, just so you’re not hungry. That’s the goal is get in your protein, get in some vegetables throughout the day and just stave off hunger. So then you can eat fairly liberally at dinner without blowing up your calories.

Blowing up your macros, that’s a workable approach. You can also check menus online beforehand to work out some options that fit your needs. So you can look at the calories and decide what you want to order. And that can be a lot better than trying to approximate calories when you are. looking at the menu in the restaurant, because of course, most restaurants, they don’t share that.

Another tip is to have a high protein snack before you go to dinner. That is going to just help you be less hungry, and it’s going to make you less likely to overeat. And lastly, I would recommend skipping dessert, at least as the rule, you can make exceptions, but generally you want to skip dessert when you are.

Eating out if you are eating out regularly, because restaurant desserts often have a lot more calories than you might think, or then you might be used to if you make similar things at home, because of course, restaurants are in the business of making food as delicious as possible. And in the case of desserts, that almost always means a lot of butter and a lot of sugar, and therefore a lot of calories.

Okay, so the next question comes from my lovely German wife and. She asks, how much do you love listening to me talk about horses? I would rather just buy her more horses than have to hear about them all the time. And that’s why we have four horses currently. And she hasn’t lobbied me for another, at least recently.

But that’s where we’re at right now. Kong leeway asks workout goal slash mindset during a cut. I feel I’ve been lifting the same weights, every workout. That’s a good question. When cutting the goal is to maintain muscle and strength, not gain it. Unless you are brand new to strength training, then you can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

But if you are an experienced lifter, you cannot recomp as it is known. And so your goal then is to maintain. Muscle and strength. So really you should consider a workout where you do exactly the same thing as the last one. Maybe that workout in the previous week, if you’ve done exactly the same thing, same weights, same reps, no progress.

That’s actually a win when you’re cutting. And if you lose a rep or two here and there, which will happen if you are cutting for long enough, and if you are getting lean enough, that is not necessarily a cause for concern. Because again, it’s going to happen, especially if you have been cutting. Probably about six weeks.

That’s when most people start to see declines in performance and the declines can be more market. If you are going from lean to really lean, if you are going from maybe a little bit overweight to fairly lean. You are going to notice less of a decline in performance than if you are going from mean to really lean.

The next question comes from anonymous and they ask, how do you manage having to do all that you do while raising two kids? A few things. One, I married a woman who was willing to do everything she can to support my work and she continues to do that. And so that’s a huge part of it too. I have. No hobbies, really.

I have no social life outside of seeing a few people in the gym five days a week going to the golf course every now and then. Although I haven’t been inclined to do that at all in the last couple of months because I’ve mostly just been working. I also read and work about 10 hours or so. Call it 9 to 11 hours.

per day, Monday through Friday, and then several hours per day on most Saturdays and Sundays. And lastly, I don’t spend as much time with my kids and with my wife as I would like to. And the reason why I continue to do what I’m doing when I say that I would like to do something else. Is mostly that I have an opportunity right now with how things are going on all fronts my business fronts, legion, my sports nutrition company and my book publishing as well.

Those are the two major things I have an opportunity over the course of the next 1 to 3 years to achieve what I would say is true financial independence, and by that, having enough money to not have to quote unquote work for money ever again, not that I’m looking to retire or do anything majorly different than I’m doing right now, but there is a lot of peace of mind that comes with having enough money that earns you enough money to more than cover your Lifestyle, and I’m putting a particularly large premium on that right now, given how much uncertainty there is in the world.

And given the state of the economy here in America and really everywhere, and I’m not sure that this opportunity will always be there. I think it would be naive to think that it will always be there. And so I’m trying to. Take advantage of it while I have it. And so that’s why my number one priority is my work and my family comes as a close second.

But if I look at it in terms of time, I give a lot more time to my work than I give to my family. However, in the next one to three years, if my plan pans out and so far it is going Then I definitely plan on taking some time away from work, just working a bit less. I still want to work hard, but working a bit less so I can spend more time with my family.

Okay. The next question also comes from anonymous. And they ask, what is the recommendation on warmup weight versus first set weight? What I like to do is I like to use about 50 percent of my working weight for one or two sets of eight to 10 reps. Those are easy sets, of course. And then I like to go up to about 80 percent of my working weight and do one set of four or five reps.

Again, that’s pretty easy. And what I’m feeling As I do these warm up sets is I’m feeling a little bit of a pump. I’m feeling the muscles warming up. I’m feeling some blood flow. And that, by the way, is what I would do for a bigger exercise, like a squat or a deadlift. And for an easier exercise, like the bench press, I’m usually fine with just one or two warm up sets with 50%.

So I’ll skip the 80%. Or four to five reps usually, but sometimes I will do that third warmup set on the bench press, for example, or the overhead press. It just depends how that 50 percent set or how those sets feel. If I don’t feel ready to load the bar yet, then I will do the heavier warmup set. But If I feel fine, I’ll skip it and just get right into my working sets.

And with most isolation exercises, I don’t need do any warm up sets because the muscle groups I’m training are already pumped and trained a little bit and warmed up from the exercises. I start my workouts with because my workouts always start with my heavy compound weightlifting and then move into my isolation work.

So for example, my current Pull workout starts with deadlifts and then moves into chest supported rows. And I, of course, do my warmups on the deadlift and almost always do those three warmup sets. Actually, yeah, always. I can’t think of a time where I Skipped that heavier warm up set. I like to be fully warmed up on the deadlift as well as the squat But after I’m done with the deadlifting and I go over to the chest supported row I don’t need to do warm up sets there because my biceps are already warmed up My back is already warmed up from the deadlifting.

Okay, the final question Comes again from anonymous and they ask thoughts on keto in terms of hormonal optimization and muscle preservation. Keto is not ideal in this regard because research shows that low carb dieting plus intense exercise leads to generally higher cortisol levels, which in turn can lower your testosterone levels and impair muscle.

repair and growth. Workout performance is also impaired on a low carb diet. And that of course further hurts body composition because the less you progress in your training, the less jacked you look, generally speaking. 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.