Ep. #104: Paul Revelia on how to keep making progress after your “newbie gains”

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boys and girls. Welcome. Welcome to another episode of the muscle for life podcast. This is your host, Mike Matthews. And in this episode, I interview Paul Ravella from pro physique. com. Now, I was introduced to Paul’s work, his YouTube channel in particular, actually by Corey who works with me in Legion. And I immediately liked him for several reasons.[00:04:00] 

First, he’s a lifelong athlete and experienced and accomplished natural bodybuilder. He also has a lot of hands on experience coaching men and women of all ages and circumstances, including quite a few competitors, which that’s trickier to coach than, just, everyday person that wants to get into good shape.

And he not only really knows his stuff, but he also touches on quite a few aspects of diet and exercise that most people don’t talk about, which you’ll get a sense of in this interview, actually. And speaking of the interview in it, I pick Paul’s brain about what changes as you transition from a newbie to an intermediate and ultimately an advanced weightlifter.

And specifically, What you need to know to make sure that you keep making progress and just as importantly, keep enjoying your diet and training. Now that last point is something that many people don’t consider, but it’s actually hugely important because even when you do everything right, progress is just [00:05:00] much harder to come by once your newbie gains are behind you.

And that means that the methods and mindset that got you through your beginner phase successfully won’t necessarily serve you well through your intermediate and advanced phases. So if you are currently an experienced weightlifter who wants to continue improving and enjoying the journey for the rest of your life, then I think you are going to really like this interview.

And if you’re still, Revealing in the glorious beginner gains, then carry on. But still listen to this interview because it’s going to help make sure that you don’t eventually lose steam or, fall off the wagon once the honeymoon ends, so to speak. So with that, let’s get to it. Paul, thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks 

Paul Revelia: for having me, Mike. 

Mike Matthews: It’s a, it’s my honor. Yeah, absolutely. I’m I’m excited to talk to you because this is a subject that I get asked about in various dimensions and various ways, and I’ve written about it a little bit here and there and spoken about it in piecemeal [00:06:00] bits, but I haven’t had a focused discussion on it.

And that is, What really changes from when you are new to weightlifting? So let’s say your first, if you’re a guy, your first 15 to 20 pounds of muscle, or if you’re a girl, maybe about half that are pretty straightforward. If you’re following any sort of halfway well designed program, barbell progressive overload type program.

And if you know anything about energy balance and macronutrient balance, you’re pretty much, you’re pretty good. And you can, you have a lot of wiggle room and you’re still going to be gaining strength and gaining reps and everything seems to be great. But then you get to this.

So that’s your first six to eight months. It’s like the honeymoon. And then things start to get tougher and then all of a sudden you’re not gaining reps anymore every week and your weight, if you’re trying to gain weight or gain muscle that has stalled. And so that’s the scenario.

And then, so I’ve received a lot of emails and, social media messages and people asking what’s going on? They don’t, is it that the program that they’re on has outlived its usefulness? And or is it like the calories and [00:07:00] macros and all that is not quite what it was made out to be.

And now they need something else. And a lot of people then find themselves running down these rabbit holes and thinking that they think they need to try all these fancy type of tricks. training routines or they need to get, try different types of these days it’s like these branded kind of fad diets, like bulletproof diet and shit like that or paleo or whatever.

I thought this would be, and this is your forte in your training. So I thought you’d be a great person to reach out to and I’d love to hear from your personal experience and also your experience coaching people how things change. So when you go from that you’re coming out of your newbie phase into the intermediate phase and then eventually into the advance.

How does that really look? How does that play out and what things do you really have to start paying attention to and what is going to determine your progress from that? Again, so you’ve gained your first 15 to 20 pounds of muscle and you want to gain if you’re a guy, if you’re a girl about half that and you want to double that though.

What got you to that first 15 is not going to get you to [00:08:00] doubling it. And how does that really look? 

Paul Revelia: Yeah. It’s a, it’s such a great topic because as a child of weightlifting and nutrition and from the nineties and learning all that I could from the muscle magazines you’re often taught things about overtraining and eating, twice your weight in protein per grams per day and eating 10 meals a day and so forth.

So I always felt like I was just missing out on progressing. because I wasn’t able to do some of those things. I wasn’t resting enough or I wasn’t eating enough protein. And so what I would often find is when I would get through a beginner phase where I would make a lot of great progress and feel great for six, eight months, I would reach that place where you go into the gym, the weights aren’t going up.

Sometimes they’re going backwards. You don’t feel as good. And I would just stop going to the gym for a couple of weeks at a time. Just to get that feeling back. Yeah. Just to regain that, If you’re not getting a positive response from something that you’re doing maybe I’ll just go out drinking with my friends instead of, spending all this time in the gym.

And then lo and behold, when you get back in the gym, you make some [00:09:00] progress again. And so there was actually a lesson there that I was not paying attention to. And that was, the lesson of tapering or deloading of undulating your intensity. And I think the most important thing when we talk about when you go from a beginner to an intermediate is paying attention to your training volume.

The best way to progress is to increase your training volume, but a lot of us, when we’re a beginner, we just try to increase our training volume over a single session. So if you’re training arms and you’re getting 6, 000 pounds of volume for arms let’s try 6, 500 pounds. There is a maximum recoverable volume that you can train in a single session.

And just so 

Mike Matthews: everybody listening knows volume, we’re referring to the number of reps basically. And so you have the reps and the weight that you’re moving there and there’s the volume. 

Paul Revelia: Yeah, volume is weights times reps times sets, right? You’re just multiplying 10 pounds times 10 sets times 10 reps, 

Mike Matthews: right?

Or you could just say total reps. You don’t multiply by total weight, but yeah it’s getting to that bottom of how much weight did you lift [00:10:00] in this workout in this week, 

Paul Revelia: month, per body part. And once you start training, paying attention to that, you can start saying if I’m doing 6, 000 pounds of volume per week, what if I split it up and did some different frequency?

So maybe twice a week you hit the same body part. And you hit 12 or 11, 000 pounds of volume, but split over two sessions, 

right? 

Paul Revelia: This is where things get really interesting. And this was what I like to call my second newbie phase. Because I was so afraid early on, after reading all the magazines, overtraining, and you only want to hit a body part once a week.

That hitting a body part twice a week was going to destroy me. The opposite was the case. When I found a program when the internet started to become more fashionable, I started looking online and doing research on what was actually the truth. I found that more training volume, more frequency was what I needed to make that next level of progression.

And so I find that when you take someone who’s been on a single body part per day split, [00:11:00] or just training a body part once a week, even if they’re pairing body parts and then put them where they’re training body part twice a week, but undulating intensities, right? So you’re not doing the same exact workout twice a week.

You’re doing maybe a higher intensity one day, meaning a heavier, harder workout intensity. What I’m referring to is percentage of your one rep max, right? So if you’re training at 80 percent of your one rep max, Or in the 80 to 90 range one day and then 50 to 60 another day, what we might consider a pump day or, high rep volume day.

So those are the kind of things that become very exciting because then you’re start to progress linearly again, just like you did when you started. You start to see increases in muscle fiber, you start to see increases in performance Lo and behold, the more you train, the faster you recover from your training.

So although you’ll initially see some more doms, depending on what kind of training you’re doing, you’re going to start to notice you recover quicker. And so when you go from beginner to intermediate, that’s probably the most important factor. If we’re, if our nutrition, if we’re aware that we’re [00:12:00] getting enough protein and we’re taking in more calories and we’re burning on a daily basis, I find that training is the most important variable when it comes to building muscle.

You can eat a perfect diet your whole life and never lift a weight. You’re not going to have a great physique, unless but there’s guys that have terrible diets that have amazing physiques because they just continue to push iron for years. Look at people in prisons. Those guys aren’t getting five square meals like, ideal proteins and supplements, but they’re probably hitting the weights very consistently because there’s not all else to do.

So yeah, I think the most important thing is that’s when you got to look at, Yeah. Your training variables, your training intensity. 

Mike Matthews: And can you get into the specifics a little bit on that? I know this is, again, I know this is a deeper subject than can even be discussed in 45 or 60 minutes, but just so people can get an idea, because obviously like for example, you can’t just increase your volume indefinitely on all body parts or or even if you have the time and even if you have the genetics and the drugs, you still, there’s a point where you can’t do it anymore. So yeah, if you could just give people an idea of how that might be. How does [00:13:00] that play out? You know what I mean? 

Paul Revelia: So what I like to do, I like to use a training program where I set people up where they train in the five to eight rep range one day a week, right?

So they’re going to go in and let’s say it’s a leg day. We’re going to really lift some heavy squats, some heavy deadlifts even the things that we do like leg extensions and leg curls, I’m going to stay under the 12 rep range, right? The next day they go to train that week. Everything’s going to be in the 10 to 20 rep range now with lower body.

I’m a big fan of like higher rep work. I’m not going to have anyone do a 30 rep curl set, but I will have people do 30 reps sets for lower body, for the big muscles. So what it might look like would be you do a set of squats for say, let’s say five by five, five sets of five with squats. At a weight that you can do, you’re gonna, you’re going to be fatigued, but I don’t want you going to failure.

You stand a rep or two shy of failure for those five sets of five. The next time you go to train, you might be doing three sets of 10 on squats, right? So 

Mike Matthews: similar number of reps, but we’re talking about just volume. 

Paul Revelia: Volume might actually be very similar as well, but [00:14:00] what’s different is the intensity.

And so what’s really cool is there’s a lot of great research going on right now as we speak. my friend, Dr. Mike Zortos at Florida International University is studying undulating periodization and its impact and it’s already had a huge impact on the powerlifting world. Yep. A lot of the top powerlifters are training now at a higher frequency.

And if we look at powerlifters from the 70s, Boris Shaiko was doing this stuff in Russia, where they were doing daily max squat training and then basing their training off of their strength that day. So auto regulating. So these principles have been around for years. They’ve been around with sprinters and other sports.

But we’re just now applying them to the bodybuilding world. Yeah. And it’s becoming more qualified. Whereas 

Mike Matthews: previously it was like mad geniuses that just had figured this shit out intuitively and you needed, yeah. If you’re not Boris Shiko, then, you don’t know what he’s doing. 

Paul Revelia: And I think a lot of training in the gym comes back to the, back when I started lifting the biggest, most jacked guy in the gym was where you got your advice.

Yeah. [00:15:00] So Johnny Big Traps is doing a hundred sets of barbell shrugs. That’s what you did to get big traps back then. Yeah. Little did we know that Johnny Traps was, taking a cycle and whatever it may be, had big traps. amazing high trap insertion. So that’s why he had big traps.

Or just a genetic high 

Mike Matthews: responder as well. Some people respond tremendously well to weightlifting and some people just don’t, regardless of what they do. They still can get there, but they’re gonna have to work a lot harder for it. 

Paul Revelia: Yeah. And that’s and that’s more of a philosophical direction.

We can just talk about enjoying the journey and enjoying the process and how much you actually love what you’re doing, but finding that next momentum or goal. It’s really the key. So if we reach that beginner phase and we’ve made all the progress we want to make, and we’re happy with where we look, that’s you’re going to lose momentum, you’re not making progress.

So that’s where it’s important to start setting more tangible goals. I feel like either the strength goals, body composition goals I love physique sports. If you’re into CrossFit, CrossFitting, like that’s one of the great things about that [00:16:00] sport is that when you get involved, you’re always looking at other people’s accomplishments and you’re going to reach that.

You want to reach regionals. You want to reach, the CrossFit games, same thing with powerlifting. If you start a powerlifting program, the tangible goal is, okay, last month I squatted 300 this next cycle. I should squat three 20, and you should progress like that. And same with bodybuilding.

It’s a little more aesthetic, but your goal is to have more body mass every time that you compete and you get up on stage and you shut off the body fat and you look great. So there needs to be. In my opinion, a tangible goal that you’re setting for yourself, because without that, it’s going to be very difficult to maintain that level of progression.

Mike Matthews: Totally. And just to comment on this point of increasing volume. And because again just from my perspective. experience just discussing those people. I think because people will ask me cause I my programs are more geared toward beginners. I wouldn’t say beginners. I would say people that are new to proper heavier, progressive overload barbell training.

They’re a bit more [00:17:00] symmetrical. You’re doing like your dead lifting and squatting are separated. So you have your lower body is it’s really getting trained twice a week for that. From, even from that alone and your upper body training, you’re essentially training. You’re pressing twice a week and you’re doing some arms and so forth.

And my thinking on that is when you’re new to weightlifting, if you’re a guy your lower body, if you’re like most guys, is gonna get to where you want it to be a lot sooner. Then your upper body is. So cause I’ve had quite a few guys come to me that started out with just strength programs where they’re squatting three times a week and they get tremendously strong.

After a year they’re looking at their body and they’re like, dude, I’m just too fucking bottom heavy. Big legs, big butt, but when they try to, when they compare it to their upper body, just cause the lower body volume tends to be higher in strength training for obvious reasons because your squat and deadlift is two of the lifts.

And so they’re just looking at the body like, what should I do? Whereas a lot of guys, if they’re not trying to compete as a strength athlete, they want it the other way around. Like they’ll take the, they’ll take the bigger, fuller upper body and just like a solid lower body. And so I’ll have guys that will then, You know, [00:18:00] ask me after doing a year, maybe a year and a half of my program and go, okay, cool.

So I know I should be doing what you’re talking about. I should be increasing volume and I should be, I need to be working my body more, but do I just do that for my entire body? Do I just do a, I do upper, lower split, like upper, lower rest, upper, lower. Yeah. So do you like to do that or do you like to get more specific in terms of let’s look at your physique.

I know if you’re training a physique athlete, that’s a, it’s a rhetorical question, but if it’s a lot of people listening, most people listening are not physique athletes and don’t want to be, but they do care to, they, like you were saying, they want to have goals.

They want to keep progressing. They don’t want to just go to the, you Jim and exercise. They want to train, so it needs to be something they’re going toward. Do you just go, cool, I’m just gonna train everything in my body twice a week, or would you advise where you look and go, what do I really need?

What do I need to increase volume on? And then, okay, so do I need to decrease volume elsewhere? For the purpose of recovery, for example I don’t know for me at least training lower, like really doing heavy lower or doing heavy and [00:19:00] then like heavy lower body work twice a week.

I feel that like it takes a bit out of me. I don’t know if I could do lane Norton’s fat program, for example, I think it would actually beat the shit out of me. And I’ve talked to, I’ve only come across a handful of guys that, we’re definitely natural that could run it.

A lot of other people found it was just too much because they were just trying. They just knew that okay, more is better. So I’m just going to do more on everything, 

Paul Revelia: right? No, there is a a need to responsibly progressive volume. You can’t progress on your entire body at the same rate all the time.

So there are definitely ways to prioritize your volume based on what your goals are. I’ll be honest, when I first started lifting weights, leg day for me was basketball. All I cared about was the Arnold chest and arms. That’s what I wanted. Yeah. I think I benched was my leg day.

I was like leg day. Oh, it’s basketball. I’m using my legs, right? That counts. I jump a couple of times. So yeah. I had the opposite problem. I had developed a good, amount of upper body muscle. But when I decided that I was going to compete, I spent a full year training legs twice a week.

Makes sense. [00:20:00] That was exciting for me because it was like, Oh, I’ve never done this before. Every time I went in the gym, I did lift one up. Every time I did a squat, I went up. So I had that pure enjoyment. So if you have athletes or clients that are working with you that are looking at like, how can we increase our upper body mass?

Yeah. If you. Take away some of the CNS fatigue and the need for recovery from the lower body and you apply it to the upper body. The back alone has more muscle groups than anything, and there’s nothing that looks better, in my opinion, than a well developed back. 

Yeah. 

Paul Revelia: When you, especially when you go to a physique competition, everyone’s got a chest and arms.

Yeah. Because everyone’s like that. Everyone starts off, you turn people around, and when you see like dense lats and thick traps, and low lat insertions that are like filled out, there’s just nothing that can replace that. And yeah, I’d really like to prioritize the larger muscle groups.

I like to make people get a big back and set of traps, nice big rounded delts, thick pecs. These are the things that the guys typically are looking for. And especially since I tend to work with a lot of [00:21:00] physique competitors these are the things we focus on. Most guys have chest and triceps and biceps, but developing a big back, That is usually a priority because it is a game changer especially just the way you look and feel, like that’s probably my favorite body part to train at this point.

Yeah. Same. And yeah, you get some benefits in the back from the deadlift, heavy rowing pulling down there’s some awesome just hammer strength equipment nowadays, but you can just really build a nice back. And so I think speaking with the person what’s your goal, sometimes I’ll have them send me a picture and they’ll send me a picture of Steve cook and I’ll be like, Oh yeah, Steve cook looks great.

He’s got. Fantastic muscle insertions. I can’t help you get Like that. Yeah. Yeah, I can’t give you that. I can’t give you Kalem Von Moger’s, Peck insertions that touches nipple or touches belly button, like I have those huge chest insertions like Arnold had. Those are things that are, I don’t think a lot of people consider genetics is the most important thing when it comes to what you’re going to look like.

Yeah. You can take a poodle and put them on a pit bull [00:22:00] strength program. They’re never going to look like a pit bull. It’s just the way our bodies are, but yeah, I talked 

Mike Matthews: with Alberto Nunez about that recently with 3dmj. Oh yeah. No, sorry. Sorry. It was Menno. It was Menno Henselman actually.

It was Menno. We talked about that and he went into that in depth and really just broke it down for people on how big of a difference it’s not just how much muscle can you gain. It’s how does that muscle look on your frame and like you’re saying, muscle insertions and stuff. So that was a good discussion.

Paul Revelia: Yeah. And it’s not something a lot of people talk about because for what we do, it’s not sexy to tell someone, Hey, you want to look like Arnold? You can’t. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Or even the guy on Instagram, who knows the random dude who just looks fantastic. It, and. Yeah. That’s just I, you’ve accepted it.

You, we all have gone through it. We all have our moment of acceptance of this is what I’ve got. So I’m going to make it as good as what, as good as I can. 

Paul Revelia: And I’ll tell you what, I’m 41 now and struggling with that through my twenties and early thirties that I wanted to look.

Like those guys [00:23:00] and it just wasn’t happening and oh, it’s the drugs and oh, it’s the things I’m not doing. It’s not the drugs. If you take the drugs away, those guys are still going to be the most genetically elite people on the planet. You do have these delusions of grandeur.

But when you go through that phase of going, you know what? I look pretty damn good. I might never look like Arnold, but for me, this has been the most enjoyable period of my life in training. I love going to the gym. I love seeing the way my body changes. And even if it’s a minor, just seeing a little bit thickness in my lat, a little bit more width in my shoulders, like whatever it may be that I’m able to accomplish after being over in gym for 20 years.

It’s getting, you have to go through these like rites of passage almost, right? You have to get the newbie games. You have to get stuck. You have to go through these mental barriers, but I feel like I’ve reached such a good place that I know I’m going to look better when I’m 50 than I did when I was 40 than I did when I was 30, and that’s fine.

Yeah, it’s such a linear progression like and it’s one of the great things about this sport is you walk around with it all day you carry it with you everywhere you go And if you just continue [00:24:00] to get better and better, everyone’s gonna assume. Oh, what’s what’s your trick?

What’s your secret? It’s just longevity. It’s just consistency, you know being happy with the process makes me enjoy it much more now whereas, I used to get upset if I’ve been stuck at three 15 on the bench forever. When am I gonna be on the bench? 365? Understanding that a lot of that strength has to do with muscle insertions segments of your body.

Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Biomechanics. And also train training specificity. Do you really want to, if you really want to, maybe you’re gonna have to bench, you have to go do a Bulgarian bench type program, but do you wanna do that? Do you really, do you wanna be benching five days a week for the next year just to get the 365?

Do you really care? 

Paul Revelia: Yeah. My buddy Lane just. He competed a couple of years ago with the World Championships for powerlifting, the IPF, and the training volume he had to go through to compete at that level, he was squatting three to four days a week, benching four to five days a week, and deadlifting three days a week.

He was literally in the 

gym. 

Paul Revelia: Four to five hours a day, five to six days a week. And yeah, he got there. He set a world record in the squat. He won the silver medal for his weight [00:25:00] class. He did himself very proud, he hasn’t been able to lift for two years since then on a competitive platform.

And it’s just been, what you have to put yourself through to be an elite level athlete. Would you do it? Lane? He would do it every time. That’s what he loves to do. He wants to do that. For me, when I started getting injured with a higher frequency and I still wasn’t at an elite level of powerlifting, I had to like reassess and go, what am I doing here?

If I can’t, if I can’t train lower body for three months, what good is this program doing me? It’s, again, it’s just part of the the process of like discovery and going through and seeing what works and no matter how scientifically or evidence based your program is. It still has to be safe and it still has to be done properly and 

Mike Matthews: you have to enjoy it.

Like you’re saying earlier, I think it’s just that, people say the best diet is when you can follow. I think that also applies to training to a degree, obviously, but if a program like you’re saying it could be. Scientifically, let’s just say it is laid out as good as it can possibly be given the current level of research and scientific [00:26:00] research anecdotal no, like this is, it can’t get any better than this, but if you don’t enjoy it, it’s not the program for you in my opinion, because how long are you really going to be able to do it and is your heart really going to be in it?

Or are you just going to be like, Watching the clock so you can get into your next set in and get the fuck out of the gym. I personally would rather have a less optimal, less optimized program that I truly enjoyed. And obviously the idea that you find something that’s like.

It’s a solid program. And it’s put together well and you also enjoy it, but that looks different for different people. At least that’s how I’ve found. That’s what I’ve found. Just communicating with tens of thousands of people at this point that, so 

Paul Revelia: I think it even looks different for the same person as we progress like you get some people get excited about putting weight on the bar, so they want to do a small off squat program, and then some people get excited about.

Doing a 30 set Doug Miller arm day. And they, they want to put a half inch on their arms this month. I think the benefit of having done every basic program I’ve ever heard of, I’ve tried them all 

is 

Paul Revelia: that I can when I. feel myself [00:27:00] shifting modes. I can rely on a program.

I always go back to basics and I’ll start going, okay, let me go back to this program. I really enjoyed it. And it gets me excited. And then maybe next month I’m like, I want to get my deadlift back into this 500 range. Let me put in a deadlift program within this bodybuilder centric program.

So I’m able to mix and match. And I think that’s, When you get into that intermediate to advanced phase, that’s what’s necessary is that you’re able to rely on multiple programs to continue to progress to continue to be consistent. Because That’s the key. Consistency. 

Mike Matthews: Yep. And that, that, that’s a good another point.

So the first point is more technical with volume and so forth. And now you’re talking about and I totally agree when you move into the intermediate and especially into the advanced phase is making sure that you’re still enjoying your training and it’s still serving your goals and serving.

What are you’re not just in the gym, Guys like us, we don’t go to just burn some calories and flex in the mirror. There’s, and girls listening as well that are serious about it. We, there’s more to the experience that we’re looking for more, in the experience.

How have [00:28:00] you I would say then exposing yourself to like trying a lot of different programs being willing to do that. Cause it’s funny. I’ll get people that will write me and both guys and girls and they’ll, after, cause I’ve been in, I’ve been doing this for a few years now and I’ve been in touch with them the entire time, which is actually pretty cool.

And sometimes people almost feel like guilty that they’re, that they have to confess to me that they, They’re not, they know where you’re going. You know what I mean? They’re not using my program anymore. And I’m like no, that’s good. Like you, I never intended you to just do. This isn’t a zero sum game.

I’m I like that my program is introducing a lot of people that haven’t done proper barbell training. It shows them the ropes, but I totally expect them to go and try other things and find what do they enjoy. And get to the point where then you can build your own. Are there any like general tips that you can just key lessons that you’ve learned that has gotten you to now where you can go, okay, I think I’m going to change this.

And, where you can now program your own workouts to really meet Your psychological, emotional, and physical needs. 

Paul Revelia: The biggest [00:29:00] thing for me is that, I’ve gone through different phases where I’ve competed as a physique athlete, I’ve competed as a strength athlete. I have aspirations of doing more competitions of wanting to look good for photo shoots of.

Just wanting to represent what I do, my sport, my lifestyle. I want to walk around and people to go, that guy is clearly doing something with fitness. Like nothing makes me happier than checking out at the grocery store. And the clerk says, are these things good for building? Yeah.

Yeah. Like I’m like, why would they add that to people 

Mike Matthews: actually at the grocery store ask for advice? You know what I mean? Yo so what kind of. Wait, what do we, what kind of program do you use? Whatever, whatever 

Paul Revelia: food you have on there, some kind of magic that they don’t know about Oh, are those chips good?

Oh, is that protein bar good? Yeah, I think the most important thing is just the internet is just so amazing, I get to attend seminars and be a, because I was associated with Lane, he’s dragged me around the world to be a part of these, I know more people with doctor in front of the, in front of their name than I can even name right now.

I already mentioned Dr. Mike Zordos, but there, there is a whole slew of [00:30:00] people that are now doing research beyond what people do in the gym. They’re actually creating studies just for this purpose to look at how we should be progressing. How do you build more muscle? Is going to failure going to help you build more muscle?

Or is it total volume that’s going to build more muscle? Like, where is the answer? And the great part is. There probably is no answer, but we’re just getting little pieces of what works and what works better for this person and that person and constantly 

Mike Matthews: challenging yourself. I see it as a puzzle that’s being built from the inside out.

You know what I mean? We don’t know where it really ends, but at least we’re getting, it gives us more of a picture comes in. Oh, okay. That’s interesting. We never really saw it like that. And it’ll probably be like that until we die and it’ll probably never be done. But, 

Paul Revelia: Mike Zortos had a great quote. He was, he’s been studying daily undulating periodization.

And basically you’re doing three different models, power, strength, and speed. And so he basically did a study with them all in the same order. The power strength and hypertrophy day, and then he switched the order and he basically said, so what I found was [00:31:00] this program is better than the other program.

Does that mean it’s the best program? No, it means it’s only the second worst. So like we’re not eliminating. I think the unicorn is going to be what is optimal. Everyone wants to know what’s optimal. You hit the nail on the head. What’s optimal is what gets you most jacked up to get in the gym and do something.

If that’s orange theory. If that’s Power Yoga, if that’s CrossFit, if that’s the Frank Cepi Fitness Disc, I don’t care what it is, whatever gets you jacked up to go do something, that’s going to give you much better results than a program that you look at and go this is the perfect program, I guess I should do it.

You’re just not going to get the same results. That’s why I like competing. That’s why I like doing physique competitions or power lifting meets or, whatever it is. If someone challenged me to do a CrossFit competition, who knows it, that, that might get me excited to do something new.

So there’s I’m open to all of it. And like you said when clients reach out to me and go, Hey coach what if I do CrossFit one day a week? Is that bad? ? 

Yeah. 

Paul Revelia: Yeah. Oh no. Are you excited? Do you go there and have fun and talk to people and push yourself, past your [00:32:00] perceived limitations, then it’s gonna be good for you.

Yeah, I’m all for, blending the evidence based optimization of your training with the psychology of it, because the psychology of the athlete, I’ve said this before, is the most important thing. So that’s one thing as a coach, I pay attention with emails. If I start to get a sense that their interest is weighing and they’ve been on a powerlifting platform for a few months.

Guess what? I was on a powerlifting platform. I got sick of going to the gym for three hours and doing 12 sets because I had to wait five minutes because I was training at 90 percent of my one rep max. So I remember those feelings. So I can say. I just had a client the other day on the phone and I said, Hey, Catherine, like I get the sense you’re not really having fun because she was hitting her limitations as far as strength.

Yep. So we switched gears. I immediately got an email from her husband, how excited he was that she’s back in the gym, like having fun and laughing and smiling because she told me she was just like, I have the workout. She was trying to survive it. I was like, I just hope I get through this workout. Yeah.

And that’s, I’ve been there 

Mike Matthews: myself. I know how that is a 

Paul Revelia: hundred percent. [00:33:00] And that’s the value. That’s why you’re a good coach. And that’s why, because you can understand that. I think yeah, as opposed to just being like, Oh, stop being a fucking whiner. Just go do it. Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure there’s some very smart people with PhDs that would say that some of the things I do and you do are not optimal, but they don’t have the practical application and you have to be able to blend that.

You have to be able to understand, okay, that’s great that’s perfect, but how do we apply that to this person that just wants to, Put a little less body fat on their belly, like a little leader. Have to be that bridge, that gap between what’s Scientifically, 100 percent evidence based proven and what’s actually applicable to this person, where do we use that?

Yeah 

Mike Matthews: What is going to actually get them to where they want to be in a timely and safe manner, I think is big. So that’s great. So I guess like just to summarize it’s when you’re moving into the intermediate and advanced become a bit more, I guess you could say it’s program agnostic in a sense and be willing, don’t be afraid to just drop what you’re doing if you’re not really feeling it.

And if you don’t see the results that you’re looking for and just try [00:34:00] something else. And, if you’re going, if it’s, if you’re going from anything, again, halfway sensible to something halfway sensible. There’s no doubt. You’re not going to lose anything. It’s not like you’re going to lose muscle.

What’s the worst 

Paul Revelia: case scenario? What’s the worst case scenario? You lose four weeks of progress. What’s the best case scenario? You find a program that gives you that progress that you haven’t had since you were a beginner. Exactly. Totally. 

Mike Matthews: Totally. Totally agree. That’s a great point. So is there anything else that any other big lessons that you’ve learned in, in the intermediate and advanced phase, anything with diet, anything even with psychologically, cause you’re in tune with that as well.

Paul Revelia: Yeah, I think so. If we want to go in the diet aspect, I think, once you start to get a little more advanced, that’s when nutrition, you can start to get a little more specific with your macronutrient ratios, early on, I’m just going to have somebody make sure they’re taking enough protein, make sure their fats are in the right range and then fill in the rest of their needs with carbohydrates.

Yeah. But, depending on, obviously, if you’re going to compete in a physique competition, that’s when macronutrient ratios and calories and all that is going to [00:35:00] get very specific. We are going to hit a very specific goal every day to get that body fat off. I’ve seen pictures of you. I know you’ve done it.

And we’re talking about powerlifting. Powerlifting has gotten to the point now where it’s so competitive that we have to do something very similar. If you want to be an elite powerlifter, you’re going to have to lift in a weight class that you’re going to be competitive in. And to do that, you’re going to have to pay attention to nutrition.

It’s no longer just stuff your face and go. So you know, the longer you’ve been training, when you get to that intermediate and advanced phase, I think it’s important to pay a little bit more close attention to what your goals are and try and eat specific to that. Yes. And then also I’m a big believer in not being too anal.

For too long of a period of time, don’t let tracking your macronutrients, don’t let that also become an eating disorder. I have some people that are like, Oh, coach, I hit my goals within every day. I hit it perfectly on. And I’m like, that’s bad. That’s very bad. You should not hit your goals every single day, like you’re four weeks out from a show.

You’re obviously enjoy, go over by, some calories. And [00:36:00] psychologically speaking. I just don’t want people to get burnout like you said this is 

my 

Paul Revelia: job as a coach is not to make you dependent on me for the rest of your life. My job is to give you tools so that we can make this lifestyle something that’s sustainable for you forever.

Because if that happens, I did my job and I’m very happy. And that’s what got me to transition into coaching because I enjoyed it. To that point, I’ve 

Mike Matthews: come across people that because they had gone so far down that road of being so OCD and I’ve come across, the people I’m thinking of were they were competing and they had.

Bad coaches essentially. But it left such a bad taste in their mouth with even like tracking calories or tracking macros that it had the analogy that it reminded me of is, if you’re, if you eat a food and it gives you food poisoning, you like can’t eat that food again for six months.

It’s just completely unappetizing. It just, you have no desire to eat it. And I’ve seen that with diet and training, but where if, again, like you’re saying, if you go to, if it becomes too much of a [00:37:00] psychological burden, but you just power through a power through it. And then though, you fall off the wagon after, and it’s really hard to just get back to even like normalcy, even keel, 

Paul Revelia: yeah, bad coaching is a, we could do a whole two hour segment on the, that whole process. Unfortunately it’s, sending the same meal plan and workout program to every single person, 200 clients is all it does is just separates the genetically elite from, I just so difficult for me to even talk about.

I just had a client tell me that her old team and they had a meeting, they called her fat when they met her. I’m like, she was 140 pounds, five foot, nine inch girl. Yeah. That’s not fat. Yeah. That’s not sound like, wow, man. And that’s still scars are three years later to this day. We’ve been through several phases of like fat loss and reverse dieting and she looks fantastic performing, fantastic, happiest she’s ever been, smallest she’s ever been.

And she still remembers that conversation like it was yesterday. And I’m like, Yeah. And these are girls. This was a coach of girls, like another girl. Yeah, those [00:38:00] kind of early setbacks, how many people do you know that do a competition in their early 20s and they never want to compete again because they did it the most difficult way possible, sticking to it.

Yeah. Four or five months of the same diet every single day, and that’s what they 

Mike Matthews: think fat loss is about. Hour of cardio a day, seven days a week, and then it turns into two hours in your last month, and all that shit. That’s bad 

Paul Revelia: coaching. They don’t know how to get people lean, so they just starve them.

Anybody can starve someone to get in shape one time. Once they’ve screwed their metabolism up and put their body fat back on, That’s when an actual coach has to step in. Unfortunately, that’s, those teams have a very big presence and they do some things very well. They do some networking. They have like team building activities.

So they do some things well, but the problem is that they treat people like cattle. They cater only to the elite. And so they are the scourge of the fitness industry at this time because they are not fitness. They are the opposite of fitness. The things that we expose, the things that you talk about on your [00:39:00] website, flexible dieting, responsible tracking, training.

These are things that we can use for a lifetime of success. And yes, just competing is a different level, but you don’t have to make it more difficult than it has to be. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s Yeah, that’s a topic that’s very near and dear to my heart because I do deal with a lot of people who have been put through the ringer by bad 

Mike Matthews: coaches.

Yep. Yep. I’ve come across that, of course, a bunch of my, myself as well. You’ve probably seen a bit more because of just the nature of people. Like I, I don’t specialize. I don’t build myself as a physique or like a competitor. Coach, because I haven’t competed, I wouldn’t want to honestly coach someone in something that I haven’t done myself.

You haven’t. I 

Paul Revelia: saw that picture. You looked a little too tan for the normal. Oh, 

Mike Matthews: no, that was honestly just for photo shoots. That was just to look as good as I could for pictures. And yeah, I stay pretty lean year round. So every once in a while it’s fun just to whatever, like it’s one of those little mini goals, like, all right, let’s just look super good again for a bit and we can, get some more pictures and But but I haven’t competed honestly, because I feel like I don’t think I could do very [00:40:00] well just given the physique I’m, I don’t think I could gain all that much more muscle naturally, I think maybe if I really went for it.

I could put on maybe 10 more pounds to my frame and it would take some time. Not that I mind of doing the work. I just think that I couldn’t be all that great at it. And I don’t like doing things that I’m not very good at. And so that’s why I said, okay I’m going to, I chose the route that I chose more like I’m going to pour all my effort and energy or not all, but I’m going to really apply myself to it.

Just be building something that can help, a lot of people get into great shape and I’ll just stay in great shape myself. So that was just my thing. But to the point of with diet. So just to make it clear for people listening and I, and you tell me if you agree or what you’ve experienced.

And cause I’ve experienced it myself with my body and then just working with people and so forth is that again yeah. Like you were saying in the beginning, it can be pretty loose with your calories and pretty loose with your macros and you’ll see quickly that as long as you’re in the gym and putting in the work and working on a [00:41:00] decent program, everything just continues to go up.

So you’re like, Hey, I guess it doesn’t really matter. Like I, maybe I only ate a half a gram of protein per pound of body weight for the last two days. Yeah. I don’t see any difference. And okay, I’ll bring it back up. Yeah. But then when you get into that intermediate phase, it seems like fluctuating if you’re, if your calories and your macros, especially your protein and carbs in particular is what I’ve seen.

If they begin to fluctuate too much it negatively impacts training is like it gets in the way of, it’s hard to build that momentum, which I, Have anyone that has bolt in, in, in a proper, I say that, but anybody that has consistently maintained a caloric surplus and kept their macros relatively tight.

You get into that moment, like you build momentum and you feel good and you have energy in the gym and you continue to make progress. And I, what I’ve seen is that the people that have the most trouble getting into that groove are people whose nutrition is very volatile. Is [00:42:00] that something that you’ve noticed or?

Paul Revelia: Yeah, so you touched on a very important point, and that is what is going to optimize your progress, and that is your performance in the gym. And if your nutrition is not consistent, if you’re not eating enough carbs one day so that you’re not hydrated properly, your muscles are not filled out, you’re not able to perform and recover in a healthy way, and a manner in which it’s going to require you during that training session, that’s going to negatively impact you.

Yeah, that’s where we need to get into good habits, although I’m not someone that exposes that everyone needs to be on the same meal plan, I do believe in meal planning, planning ahead, cooking in bulk, putting things in the refrigerator that are easy to grab and go, whatever that means for you.

If that means you label 40 Tupperwares per week, fine. I tend to just cook a bunch of chicken, a bunch of potatoes, a bunch of vegetables, put them in the fridge, grab them, weigh them, and eat. So whatever that looks like for you, depending on your goals, consistency with nutrition, you’re just gonna feel better, you’re gonna notice more consistent weight, and the way you look and the way you feel if you’re consistently hitting your diet.

Yeah. I’m not [00:43:00] opposed to any one diet lifestyle as long as it doesn’t negatively impact your performance or recovery in the gym. 

Mike Matthews: Totally. Great. So then I think that pretty much probably covers it on that point. Is there anything else maybe psychologically or any, anything that we just haven’t touched on diet or training wise that you think the listeners should, just expect.

Paul Revelia: A secondary thing when you’re talking about psychology would definitely be, I’ve noticed a better time in the gym depending on my training partner or the gym atmosphere Or even something as minor what seem as the music you’re listening to So getting into the right mindset in the gym, I I don’t know if I should mention a better Name, but it comes from California and it’s called something fitness like I’m a member there But I rarely ever go there because when I walk in I just don’t feel like that motivation to lift Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: dude, I had the same thing I just moved from Florida to Virginia and I liked my gym and I liked the person I was working out with I had a Good setup and I actually didn’t realize how much it impacts my training until I [00:44:00] didn’t have it And I came here in Virginia.

I don’t have my lifting partner anymore. I’m working out by myself now, which is always just shittier in my opinion. But the gym in particular, it was weird. I was like, dude, I don’t know. Am I just is my fucking testosterone just like plummeting or something? What’s going on? I don’t want to be here.

I I got to that feeling where I was like, I just want to get my workout done and leave. Cause I don’t like this place. I don’t like the music. Even I have my, I don’t know. I just didn’t like the vibe. I, it was actually, I hadn’t experienced that before. 

Paul Revelia: Yeah, so I think the value, the one thing I’ve noticed over the years is even, I have a home gym, but I still prefer to go to the gym that’s for more like emergencies or video comment, video stuff, but what I’ve found is, it’s very fortunate is that I get to travel to a lot of these big fitness exposing conventions, and I get to train, Lane Norton is basically my most frequent training partner, and if you’ve never seen Lane train, he is a freaking animal, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I’m also sponsored by Core Nutritionals, shameless plug, that is owned by Doug Miller, who is arguably the strongest, biggest natural bodybuilder in the world. [00:45:00] I’ve trained with Doug. He destroys me. Those things motivate me even when they’re not around. So just being around people that train at a higher level than you, that are stronger than you.

Like I know I’m going to the Arnold in March and I’m going to train with Doug. Every day I go in the gym, the last couple of weeks, I’m like, Do some drop sets, lift heavier. Like you’re going to be training with so if you don’t necessarily have a great training part, mitigate the embarrassment, find a way to motivate yourself to do these things.

Because over the course of five, 10, 20, 30 years, your motivation is going to wane and it’s, I’m not a financial advisor, but I guarantee I’ve heard a thousand times. If you want to be better at finances, be around people that are good at financial stuff. 

Mike Matthews: Do the same thing with whipping.

You want to be better at anything in life, like whatever you want to have a better business. Go find people that are better than you at business. And just even through osmosis, there’s something that happens. I just think it’s because my opinion, it it’s probably because we tend to model ourselves on, what in our environment.

So I think that if we [00:46:00] change our environment, there’s a subconscious process there of We instinctively start to change and what are, what we look at as normal, just changes. I don’t know, something along 

Paul Revelia: those lines. I, I said it the other day, I’m very fortunate. The gym I train at was I think built in the late seventies, early eighties, and they haven’t changed a damn thing since then.

But they do a very good job keeping up the equipment. It’s hot in there. It’s humid, but it keeps out the riff raff. The machines are too close together. The dumbbells are all mismatched, but I will never be the strongest. Yeah. If you’re the strongest guy in your gym, find a new damn gym. You need to move on.

I agree. It 

Mike Matthews: might be part of what I was running into also in here in Virginia. So I go, I would work out pretty early in the morning and yeah, I would complain to the people here at the office. I was like, there’s no one that even remotely, I don’t care about, Oh, cause I look good or whatever, but no.

I don’t care about you. It looks like there’s nobody that’s even trying to do anything. Like I look around and the guy next to me is. Fucking deadlifting with a scared cat. He’s going to [00:47:00] blow his back out. I look behind me and it’s literally a 70 year old dude doing, leg extensions. It’s not a point of like smugness or arrogance.

I call my, what are the, who are these peasants? It’s not that at all. It’s just I was like, dude, I just wish there was one dude that would come every morning and I could just look at him and be like, I’ll 

Paul Revelia: never forget I moved to Jacksonville a couple years ago for about a year when my wife got a job promotion.

And I was training in a gym in Jacksonville. I didn’t know a soul. It was when I was squatting three days a week. And I was, it was supposed to be a test day and I was warming up and I just felt like crap. And I’m like, I feel like crap. This is going to be the worst squat day ever. Literally some guy I’ve never met before came over, two squat racks over and started squatting.

And it was the best squat day I’ve ever had, because every time you would put on a plate, I’d be like, oh yeah? Before I knew it, I had hit a PR. And it was only because I had Given myself that motivation, I don’t think I probably didn’t even know I existed, but to me, he was, he might as well have been Michael Jordan playing me one on one, like I was going to, and yeah, there’s so much value in like [00:48:00] your mood and your mindset when you’re training.

And it’s not something that you can, you want to be able to make it repeatable, for me. I don’t have an everyday training partner just because my schedule is so jumbled. I’ll try to plan some days with people, but just training with someone that I know is going to push me with, a little bit of frequency here and there, just really makes sure that that I’m pushing myself and, with YouTube and with the internet, there’s no more like people typing in what they did.

You can actually watch them do it. And that motivates me. I still pull up Ronnie Coleman deadlift videos before I deadlift. Whatever. Wait, baby. I’ll put on pumping iron, watch. Talk some trash like that kind of stuff, really does motivate me and push me to just, push myself a little bit harder.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good point. Look at what athletes, anyone that plays any sport seriously does that. And they’re watching for the same reason they’re watching the greats do everything they did just for there’s motivation and there may also even be like, there’s research that just watching people do things better than you.

[00:49:00] Actually can have a psychological effect and help you, progress faster in your skills and so forth. But you 

Paul Revelia: start to, I think you start to put self limitations on, when you’ve been training for a while you’ll hit a 300 pound bench and be like, that’s pretty good. I, 

that’s 

Paul Revelia: about what I wanted to do.

And then, you come along, you see some guy who’s a little scrawnier than you, a little younger than you, bench 400. Yeah. I promise you, you’ll do, you’ll make a lot of progress quickly when you start to remove those expectations and ceilings that you have for yourself and start to expect more of what your physique can do.

When I see the lifts that Lane and Doug and some of these other guys I get to train with do, it just, It removes that self doubt like, okay, if they can do it, I can do it. 

It doesn’t 

Paul Revelia: mean you can’t do it, but I definitely get more out of myself because I’ve been around people like that. 

Mike Matthews: Totally.

That’s awesome. I think that’s a great point to conclude our discussion on, unless there’s anything else pressing that you think should be touched on, but those are all the major things, I think. 

Paul Revelia: No, I think I’m just gonna have to come up Virginia and just learn some business stuff from you, but.

Mike Matthews: Anytime. I’m in the DC area. [00:50:00] It’s a cool area. It’s fun. Like I said, that’s where Doug Miller lives. Crap, that’s a 

Paul Revelia: Yeah, he’s a Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: let me know if you’re in the area. 

Paul Revelia: I don’t know if you’re familiar with Arlington Nutrition Corner or the Nutrition Corners. That’s his supplement stores. 

Mike Matthews: Okay. So it’s in Arlington, obviously.

Paul Revelia: That’s where one of the things is. I don’t know where he lives. I’m not a DC person, but he’s 

Mike Matthews: an area. Yeah. I’m 10 minutes from Arlington. Oh, cool. Yeah. So let’s end with where can people find you and find your work and ask you questions and so forth. 

Paul Revelia: Yeah, so I’m very fortunate that my last name is the only Ravella there is I have a very limited number of family members if you want to find me, it’s very easy, you just type in Paul Ravella, R E V E L A, on any Google machine or any internet box, whatever you use My favorite way to reach people is through YouTube right now.

I love doing YouTube videos. I do them almost daily. Answering client questions. Just things that are not common video topics. I’ll talk about things like mini cuts or, Minor things that, that don’t like, that’s what I like about [00:51:00] 

Mike Matthews: your work. That’s why I came across Oh, this is cool.

This is not just the same shit that everyone’s talking about. You know what I mean? Like calories. Yeah, it’s fine. 

Paul Revelia: It’s good to know, basically my way of giving back to my clients because I know that they have a lot of questions and so my goal is to be as Personal with them as I can.

Yep. And so it allowed me to create a video where people that don’t have a coach can look it up, but my clients also feel like I’m talking directly to them. So I love doing that. I love Instagram. I’m a big long form content on Instagram. I post maybe once, twice a day at most. It’s backed off a little bit.

It’s, it’s fun to do social media until it gets in the way of 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. It can become like masturbation almost, 

yeah. 

Paul Revelia: Yeah. So I love, so those are the two I use. Of course, I’ve tried the Snapchat stories and the Twitter, but those are the two YouTube and Instagram. And then my website is prophysique.

com. That’s where you’re interested in coaching. I’m in the midst of renewing it, putting a lot more content in there, like some recipes, some macro calculators, things like that. So it’s actually going to be more of a resource instead of [00:52:00] just like a business card for me. Yep. So that’s what I’m working on right now.

But yeah, ProPhysique. com has a lot of like testimonials and stuff right now, but it’s going to become more of a location for, getting some good information and progressing. And I just wrote my first free training program. Awesome. So We’re a big leader. So training at ProPhysique. com all I’m asking is that you just email me and I’ll just send it back to you.

All I’m asking right now is just feedback. I just want to know, basically through my YouTube videos, people have asked me for some things and one of them was like a beginner’s guide to training. Literally this guide is like how to choose a gym, your first workout program. What should your nutrition look like?

Very like I’m trying to get people out of their own way, out of that intimidation, out of that fear. Yep. Yeah. I don’t care if you just get going let’s go. Let’s get forward motion. It’s scary So I wrote this program basically like I was gonna give it to my parents or if one of my clients wanted to give it To their parents and there’s a lot of value in that, because we I’m not saying we but anybody who’s in shape And looks like they’ve done some work in the gym.[00:53:00] 

They become a reference for everyone around them. What are you doing? What are you eating? So I want them to be able to say, Oh, look at this free beginner’s guide. That’s 

Mike Matthews: why I wrote the first book I wrote. Exactly that. I kept on getting asked all the questions and I was like, I like to read, I like to write, I’m going to write a book so that I can just tell people like here, this is this is it.

This is what I do. And these are the basics. And this is like probably honestly the 20 percent of the knowledge out there, but it’s going to give you 80 percent of the results that you’re looking for. It’s not everything, it’s, okay. It’s at least something that is going to serve you well.

And it went well, so 

Paul Revelia: I won’t say never, writing a book is not in my near future, but I could see it potentially like evolving. Cause like I said earlier, I let things grow organically. So if this free training program is well received and people are like, Hey, could you do some video content and show me how to do a deadlift?

Okay, here’s how to do the deadlift. And then can you send the intermediate program now? So it might build its own momentum. Where I can actually start to, justify my time writing a book, an ebook, whatever it may be [00:54:00] because, that’s my goal at this point is just to I want to remain an elite level coach for physique athletes, but I also want to provide valuable resources for people that are just looking for the answers.

That’s great. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. So everybody listening, I really recommend you go check out Paul’s work. I as I’m honestly pretty picky with the people I bring on the show, just cause I, I want to bring people that I feel are going to be that I want my people to go follow. You know what I mean? This person is good.

They know what they’re talking about. And again, I don’t treat this as a zero sum game at all. And I want to be also a resource in that way. So as if you’re listening and you probably know that by now, definitely. This is my endorsement of Paul. He knows, it’s clear, he knows what he’s talking about.

He’s also super cool, dude. And I just recommend just go check out his stuff, support him anyway. If if you’re into what he has to say, then he’s, he is I think worth supporting. 

Paul Revelia: I really appreciate that. And hopefully I get to catch up with you at some fitness event in the near future.

I don’t know if you traveled to the big ones, but 

Mike Matthews: I haven’t yet, but that’s [00:55:00] going to be something that I will start doing. The only reason why I haven’t is because, honestly, I’ve kept myself buried in 

So when I look at I, but I am going to start doing that stuff.

It may not be this year, to be honest, we are going to do some stuff as a company, but I’m not going to be there. There’s one coming up, the Europa in Dallas, a couple of the guys that work with me, a guy and a girl, they’re gonna, they’re going to go and we’re going to see how it goes. And that’s more for the supplement side of things.

But I will start doing that for sure. I’m just Because I know that a lot of people have asked me like, Hey, are you going to be at the blog? You’re going to be at the blog. And I do need to do it. It’s, I’m just not there yet. 

Paul Revelia: Especially if you start doing the supplement thing, you can get people to the booth that just want to talk to you.

Then you can get them interested in the supplement. So yeah, that’s the real value that I get out of going to these things like the Arnold and the Olympia and the bigger shows is that. There’s so many people at these events that even though I have a very small following there’ll be a lot of people that follow me at the event and they’ll be asking me where can we meet and so it’s just a great chance to put a name to a face or [00:56:00] a username on YouTube I get to talk to these people because the fact that I have one person following me on any social media platform just makes me smile.

So when you get to actually meet them, shake their hand and have a discussion with them, yeah, I literally come home from those events with a buzz, like my whole body is just vibrating just from all the positivity and fun and I really love it for that reason. 

Mike Matthews: That’s cool. Yeah.

And I’ve, I mean my version of that is I’ve stayed in touch with, I mean I think my inbox now, I think I have probably close to 50, 000 emails. Like total received and sent. So I’ve been able to stay in touch with so many people that way. I could see it’s a different thing to be face to face and say, and thank someone.

Face to face as opposed to, via email. So I definitely am going to do it. It’s on, it’s now on the list of I would like to even start making it a thing of going around the country probably and doing some meetups. And I want to do it in a way though, that I don’t want it to be half assed, like I want to actually plan it out and make it cool.

Cool. And put some thought into it. You know what I mean? To make it a real thing as opposed to 

Paul Revelia: [00:57:00] And that’s why these events are nice because they can wrap it to trip up like, Oh, I get to go meet Mike and I’m going to go to the Arnold expo. Exactly. I actually have a team dinner on Friday night at the Arnold where like all my clients current past, even just people associated with me, I just invite them all to dinner and we just all get to go hang out and get to actually connect, a lot of people, you think social media and the internet is it’s a bad.

For, relationships. I think it’s the opposite. I think if it wasn’t for the internet, I wouldn’t be in touch with hardly anybody, I’m such like a, to myself introvert type person when I’m at home, these platforms are just like. Ways to keep all these relationships alive. And, 

Mike Matthews: No, I agree.

I actually saw some research on even with younger kids that there are Obviously problems with the amount with what is happening just with the amount of people, not a time that people are spending in front of screens, whether it be phones or iPads or TVs, but in social with social media in particular, there’s, of course, you’ve probably also seen research that People that spend the most time on [00:58:00] social media tend to be the least happy because they, you have, there’s a fakeness to a lot of people in terms of how they want to portray themselves on social media.

And it’s more about image crafting and virtue signaling than it is being authentic. You know what I mean? That’s the beauty of going to these events all down. So that’s the negative side of it. But then also though, I’ve seen research that indicate, just show that younger people actually now they, by their own.

Evaluation of their friend, like how many friends they have has gone up quite a bit because of social media, which is a positive thing where you have people that, maybe just because of personality, people are a bit more introverted or maybe a little bit socially awkward where they wouldn’t have the type of social interactions that they have.

Now through social media, which has even, which has brought out a bit more of their personality and helped them become a bit more sociable and just gregarious and so forth. So I think it was, I’m sure 

Paul Revelia: you’ve come across, somebody that’s very talkative on the social media and you meet them in person and they’re just they claim [00:59:00] up.

I’m the opposite. If you get me in person I’m as talkative, if not more. Yeah. I definitely think it probably helps those people that have that social awkwardness as like a filter between two people so they can actually come out of their shell a little bit and feel comfortable. Like I say, it feels 

Mike Matthews: safe.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So anyways. All right. So now we’re just rambling. But anyways, I appreciate the time, Paul. I think this is great. I think you’re going to, you’re going to be hearing from people that are listening that are going to be listening because they’re going to appreciate it.

So again, thank you for the time. I 

Paul Revelia: appreciate it and hopefully we can continue doing what we’re doing. I’m excited to stay in touch with you and see what the future holds for us both. Absolutely. I 

Mike Matthews: agree. 

Paul Revelia: All right. Thanks, man. 

Mike Matthews: Yep. Hey, it’s Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did go ahead and subscribe.

I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www dot muscle for life. com where you’ll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but [01:00:00] you’ll also find a bunch of different articles that I’ve written.

I release a new one almost every day. Actually, I release four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I’m involved in over at muscle for life. com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.