Keeping fitness fun and becoming your own coach

Mike Matthews: [00:00:00] Hey, it’s Mike. And I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you’re going to like my books. Now I have several books, but the place to start is bigger, leaner, stronger. If you’re a guy and thinner, leaner, stronger.

If you’re a girl, these books, they’re basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle. lose fat and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live in the gym grinding through workouts that you hate.

Now you can find these books everywhere you can buy them online, Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you’re into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30 day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www. muscleforlife. com forward slash audio books.

And you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer. So as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven’t [00:01:00] already. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I think you’re going to really like what I’m doing with my supplement company Legion.

As you may know, I’m really not a fan of the supplement industry. I’ve wasted who knows how much money over the years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that’s why I finally decided to just make my own. Now a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they’re a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored.

Two, all ingredients are backed by peer reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we’ve chosen each ingredient and we cite all supporting studies on our website, which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness.

And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you’re buying. Meaning our formulations are a hundred percent transparent. So if that sounds interesting to [00:02:00] you, then head over to legionathletics. com. That’s L E G I O N athletics. com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission for the company.

Cause I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it’s long overdue. And ultimately, if you like what and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P O D C A S T.

And you’ll save 10 percent on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let’s get to the show.

Hey, this is Mike Matthews from musclefullife. com. And I have Roger Law on today’s podcast. And he is from Rog Law. Do you say Rog or Raj? 

Roger Law: Raj almost like Indian Raj. Yeah, when I first, 

Mike Matthews: yeah, when first someone first told me they [00:03:00] said Rog Law, I’m like, his name’s Roger. It’s probably Raj Law.

Who said 

Roger Law: that? Okay, you can’t out. It was actually a friend of mine. 

Mike Matthews: He was the guy that recommended that I contact him. 

Roger Law: Alright whoever that is, when you’re listening, come talk to me. We gotta talk about this . 

Mike Matthews: Raj Law, fitness yeah just just met him just recently. Very cool guy.

Knows Neil knows what he’s talking about. You spend most of your time training your online clients. You said Raj, and then you also, you do some writing for your website and do some writing on other websites and stuff, right? 

Roger Law: Yep. Yep, definitely. I, that, yeah, I actually just transitioned away from mainly in person training.

So I was doing that for the last, ooh, four years. 

Okay. 

Roger Law: So as of October of 2013 I stopped training in person. At least for the majority of my income, I still train people occasionally in person. Yeah. But it’s not something I go out of my way it’s, it must, if I do it, it’s for someone that, I just want to do it for the enjoyment of it versus the money I’m getting.

Sure. [00:04:00] Yeah. But. Yeah. I understand 

Mike Matthews: that. So just in case the listeners haven’t heard of you, aren’t familiar with you tell me a little bit of your story. So what motivated you to get fit? How did it start for you and what are like, what brought you to where you’re at now?

Roger Law: So back, let’s go way back in the day. So I was a completely non athletic kid growing up. It’s shockingly unathletic. You didn’t 

Mike Matthews: play any sports or anything? 

Roger Law: Loosely. So I played, does t ball count? Is it like, I don’t know that I played t ball. I played kickball, I played recess. And then once that ended, I didn’t do anything until.

High school for one, one season I did like track and field, but essentially I was my whole life. I was a video game kid. So I was sitting behind a desk just on the computer or in bed playing PlayStation for hours and pretty much doing a whole lot of nothing. 

Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: I [00:05:00] did. I did that. I was like when I was I think it’s between and I was like 14 the year of being 14 was just playing a lot of video games.

And then like 15, 16 years after I started, they were like, wait a minute, I like girls. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna go do that instead of video games. 

Roger Law: See, that was, that’s what saved you. I didn’t realize that. I knew I liked girls, but I didn’t think, I thought what I was doing would get them. I thought they loved, I thought they loved all You 

Mike Matthews: should have moved to Korea.

If you were in Korea, you would have been a superstar. 

Roger Law: I’d be the man. I’d be in those stadiums just making all those, all that money. But essentially I didn’t really start weight training until you’d be a giant. 

Mike Matthews: You’d be like a some kind of superhero. 

Roger Law: That would be the, now, all right, I’m quitting fitness.

I’m going this career. This podcast is done. Go Gamer. It’s funny how, back in the day you were you were just a nerd if you played games, but now you’re an athlete. Over. Yeah, I know a guy got his 

Mike Matthews: even over now eSports is growing over here. It’s obviously it’s not mainstream, but there are some of [00:06:00] these bigger video games, some of these big online games the productions are getting more and more professional in terms of these big tournaments where you have multimillion dollar prize purses and stuff.

Roger Law: Yeah. This guy actually, he avoided military service in Korea by applying to the United States, and he’s. He’s the first sponsored e athlete. So he’s over here playing for my, I’m like, man, where was that when I was playing games for free? But yeah, essentially I didn’t start training until 2007, like working out.

Yeah. Let’s say for more than a few weeks on end. Like 

Mike Matthews: I. Serious until. 

Roger Law: Yeah. Like my first encounter with weights was like. Like a 15 pound dumbbell I had in my basement and I was just curling just for just reps and reps. I was like, clearly if I get, if I do this, I’ll get a bicep and if I get one bicep I can get two, and if I get two, this girl will like me.

And it didn’t work out that way. But and biceps exactly. I’m like, I don’t know where I’m, I sure I know where I [00:07:00] got that from. Just movies and tv, but Yeah. Yeah. But until, yeah, 2007 is when I started training and that was because. I had a bit of a health scare at the time, so essentially all the years of just eating fast food and sitting around playing video games and not moving much caught up to me and I wasn’t overweight, I would say like 210.

Yes, 11 pounds, but I went for physical. Yeah. So I was like, I’m tall so I can get away with it. But I went to a, I got my physical and the doctor was like, all right everything’s good except for your cholesterol. It was like 300 something. So I was like, Oh, that’s not good. I should probably do something.

And the mistake I made was telling my mom. Because she immediately thought I was going to die. Yeah, she’s like a 

Mike Matthews: heart attack imminent. 

Roger Law: Yeah, and that was, and right after that, it’s like everything I eat, she’s Oh, does that have cholesterol in it? Is that, does that help? I’m like, [00:08:00] ah, damn it. Okay. So I got to do something.

Because it was high to the point where they wanted to put me on statins. Which, I didn’t know anything about statins back then. I was just a guy that wanted to be healthy. But in doing my research, I’ve just found a lot of dubious stuff on it, so I’m glad I didn’t go that route. Trying to avoid that is what led me to fitness.

Have you heard of precision nutrition? 

Mike Matthews: It does sound familiar, but I don’t. I don’t know what their, I feel like I’ve been on their website, but I don’t, nothing, no details are coming to mind. 

Roger Law: Oh man. Okay. So it’s essentially a online nutrition and training company just puts out info and content and stuff like that.

But back then, back in 2008 they launched their what’s called a lean eating program. So it was an online coaching program for six months. And what that was essentially, it’s a group of people, I think it started out about 50 or a hundred guys and they all come in [00:09:00] and they just get coached on habits and fitness and they get workouts for that whole six months and it’s essentially a transformation program with habits built on the, as the backbone of that.

So I signed up for that and man, it was intense because before then I was just dicking around in the gym. And I was just hopping around from program to program not knowing what I was doing. And then I found some structure with that. And what that gave me was just, it was my first formal introduction to weight training and nutrition.

And at the end of that six months, I lost about 20 pounds and my cholesterol dropped a bit. It wasn’t what I thought it would be, but. It was a start, it was my start that got me into training consistently for the long term. I was like, oh this is pretty good, can we swear on here?

Mike Matthews: Yeah. I, yeah, I don’t know. I guess I sometimes I don’t know what, I don’t even know. I don’t know what the rules are even on iTunes. 

Roger Law: The shit just felt great. I was like, Oh, okay. You change your body, change your mindset [00:10:00] and everything starts to fall into place after that.

So that was really how I got into training myself. And then I use that experience to, to help others. Based on that, I applied for internship at Cressy performance and Hudson mass. And surprisingly, I got that. I still don’t know how, but I did, and that just led down the road of training other people.

I had the best first introduction to fitness that I could have even ever imagined. And then, ever since then, I’ve just been trying to pay it forward in terms of the experience I had and trying to give it to other people. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s great. In these last few years, what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced in in terms of fitness and what’s helped you overcome them?

Roger Law: Oh, so in terms of like my own personal struggle? Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Okay. 

Roger Law: I’d say initially it was really just the internet. There was so much stuff on there. That I hopped [00:11:00] around and okay. So the first have you heard of the anabolic diet? I’ll start there 

Mike Matthews: No, I mean it sounds every other scammy piece of shit 

Roger Law: Oh, I don’t know what it is.

Mike Matthews: But if it’s called the anabolic diet, I probably won’t like it. 

Roger Law: It hooked me so hard. So essentially it’s like a low carb during the week and Low carb during the week and on the weekends you get to carve up 

Mike Matthews: And Okay, so it’s just a car carb cycling esque thing. 

Roger Law: Yeah, but , it’s like that, but the way that I understood it, it wasn’t like that at all.

It’s like they didn’t, they made it seem like the mecca of diets. 

Yeah, sure. That’s, yeah. 

Roger Law: Yeah. And I bought and I, that was my first introduction I bought into it and 

yeah, 

Roger Law: It just, during the week I’d eat low carb, but I eat all the fat I could, blah, blah, blah. Then weekends, just cereal and cakes and this and that.

And it was just hopping around from stuff [00:12:00] like that. The secret to getting shredded. Yeah, it’s I felt like I was missing out on something. Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: it’s funny that low carb is so trendy right now and high fat is so trendy and there’s a lot of these diets all revolving around. It’s mainly because testosterone as a subject right now is very hot and popular.

Doctors are prescribing TRT crazy, everybody. You could be 22 years old and go to a doctor and be like, I think I have low T. He’s I think so too. Here’s your prescription. I think you buy. 

So it’s just because it’s very, trendy right now. And then you have a little bit of research that shows like going from a low fat diet to a high fat diet can increase free tea.

But if you actually look at it you can expect maybe a 10 to 15 percent increase, which is 100 percent irrelevant when you’re talking about natural. That’s just a, so what? You go from 500 to NGDL. Does that matter? Not at all. You’re not, that’s not going to make you stronger. It’s not going to help you build more muscle.

The [00:13:00] benefits in terms of fat loss, if you’re cutting is going to be negligible. Maybe you’ll feel it a little bit. Maybe you’ll be a little bit more energetic. Maybe your libido will be a little bit boosted, but it’s all in all, it’s just irrelevant. And when you cut out carbs from your training you’re missing out on a lot.

You’re missing out on the performance benefit. When you’re, when your muscles are full of glycogen, you can push more weight, you can train harder and longer in the gym. And then there’s also. They’re the insulin response that comes with carbs. Yeah, insulin is not anabolic, but it’s anti catabolic.

And when we’re looking at muscle growth, when you look at net proteins, like turnover, you want protein synthesis and you want as little protein degradation as possible. And the elevated insulin levels help keep the protein degradation in check, which is why, I talk about this in a couple of articles on my website.

There are, I cite. Two or three different studies that just showed definitively that higher carb diets help you build more muscle over time. It’s just 100 percent proven and it’s known the people that know what they’re doing. [00:14:00] They know that and I, when I speak to to, to people that it depends though on, on the drugs, of course, if somebody is on enough drugs, then it doesn’t matter.

Like they, they can, get a little bit of the fat loss boost that may or may not come with carbs. Depends on your body and let the drugs make sure that they even build muscle. It doesn’t matter. You know what I mean? Yeah. But when you’re natural, carbs are your friend, they’re, you eat enough fats for your basic to, to, that your body needs to just, maintain hormone levels and maintain cellular integrity and whatever but then, high carb, even when you’re cutting I don’t know if you still do low carb, but I never do even if I’m, even if I’m cutting, to get into a photo shoot where I’m, maybe six percent my carbs.

I just did that recently and my carbs were, I ended my cut at, I think it was like 170 grams a day and I ended my weight at about 182. 

Roger Law: So yeah, it’s, I think it’s, there’s so much dogma in the I think [00:15:00] magazines are getting a bit better, and I think everything is getting a bit better, actually. Yeah. But the fitness space is getting so crowded that people are trying to make a name for themselves by just saying absurd things, they’re like if you eat carbs, you’re gonna die.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Being contrarian, it gets attention. 

Roger Law: It’s like the rap game. It’s like when 50 Cent first came out, it’s like that, he just started talking crap about everybody just to get a name. And it worked. There’s something to it. But, you have to think about those people that latch on to that misinformation, not out of, it’s just out of ignorance, and I don’t say ignorance to talk down to someone, but they just don’t know what they don’t know, and they think, oh, 

Mike Matthews: yeah.

And it’s not stupidity, it’s just not knowing. 

Roger Law: Yeah. And, it’s the card thing is one of the, one of my biggest, issues, because whenever I speak with someone that’s not really, into training or into working out, they just Oh, I’m going to cut my cogs. So that’s what they’ll do it.

I’m like, Ooh, 

[00:16:00] okay. 

Roger Law: I, in that conversation, like when they say that to me, I have, there’s two ways I can go. There’s that way where I can explain to them and try and talk and try and inject a new idea, a new belief or a new option to consider into the mind or that left option where I just go. Yep.

Yep. Yeah. Just cut the carbs and then just run away. Cause some, if someone believes something. Odds are they’re not going to change their belief unless they want to and it’s unfortunate because a lot of people end up making this whole fitness thing a lot harder than it needs to be. Just based off all the misinformation they have, they don’t know that it’s misinformation, 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. You had mentioned, before we got on the podcast that this, the whole fake guru thing is something you wanted to dive into. So tell me what are your thoughts on that? 

Roger Law: Yeah, and it’s you know, I wouldn’t even necessarily say fake guru. Yeah.

Okay, let’s start there I mean they are yeah. Yeah, you know the more I think about it the more I’m like that is a good term But there are, let’s start 

Mike Matthews: with, let’s start with how a lot of these people look [00:17:00] themselves. If you can’t walk the walk yourself, why would anyone it’s a question that has come up for me many times.

I’ll see some of these guys, like, why would anyone listen to this person? Look at him. It looks like he’s been lifting for six months. If you don’t, if a person, there are only a handful of people that I would say that maybe they don’t look the look so much, but they know their shit, like Lyle McDonald yeah, Lyle McDonald doesn’t have a, he doesn’t have a physique, but he knows his shit and his proof is in the results that of his clients and also, you read his work, like he’s just one of the smartest guys in this industry.

There are, there is that out there, but for the most part, It’s if you’re thinking about taking, it’s okay if you’re just skimming someone’s article on how to get motivated for working out, okay, fine, whatever. But if you’re seriously considering taking, dietary or training advice, like if you’re going to base your training or your nutrition on someone’s advice, I would at first does that, would you want to look like that person?

Is that what you’re going for? Are you impressed by that person’s physique? If not, it doesn’t mean they don’t [00:18:00] know what they’re talking about. It’s not. But. It’s definitely a red flag. Like, why is this person why does he not, does he even do what he says? Even if he does it not work?

You know what I mean? 

Roger Law: Yep. I think that’s where the internet meme do you even lift comes from. It’s like that. And, there’s definitely something to that because it’s, you can really, and this goes to, the thing I want to talk about with gurus is there is that, when you’re talking with someone that really knows or really walks the walk.

Yeah. 

Roger Law: There’s a sense of like wisdom to them versus just, Oh, I got all these. It’s it’s, it would be comparing like, let’s say you have two lecturers and there’s one guy. He’s got a bunch of papers in his hand and he’s talking, he’s flipping through all of them because he has all this information, but he hasn’t lived it.

He hasn’t really done anything with it. He hasn’t trained or done anything with that information. Versus someone else who’s just off the cuff and the information they’re conveying, they’ve done it themselves They have experience [00:19:00] teaching it or taking others through it and they have this sense of ease and they’re just more chill They’re not as high strung or feeling out that they have something to prove.

It’s more just like Hey, I’m not gonna, I’m not sure I’m not here to tell you how to or what to believe. I’m just conveying. I’m not trying to, I’m not trying to 

Mike Matthews: convert you to my religion, right? Yeah, I’m just and that makes me think of these PubMed warriors, right? So I’m actually very interested in the scientific side of what we do.

And I read a lot of papers and I linked to a ton of science in my articles. It’s just one of the things I like to do. Just because it yeah. I think helps just establish, it helps show that I don’t just take, I don’t just, I’m not just trolling the internet collecting tips and throwing it into an article, and me, and myself if someone doesn’t have that scientific slant, For the most part, I just, I’m not going to listen to what they have to say because in a lot of cases, they’re just not going to know what they’re talking about or they’re there. Maybe they’ll know in certain things like, yeah, through experience, they may have learned some things, but just because [00:20:00] something works to some degree doesn’t mean it’s the optimal way to do things.

And we can look to science for that. But on the flip side, you have a lot of people that are like you can call it like PubMed warriors or PubMed trolls where they themselves don’t even lift or they’ve never, they weigh 130 pounds. Yeah. But they spend all this time reading through papers and trying to collate and correlate.

And they’ll argue, it’s just pure theoretical argument. And there are things, like for instance There’s a whole idea that the 10 to 12 rep range is the key to hypertrophy and that’s where you should be training if you want to build bigger muscles and if you train anything less than probably like the 6 to 8 rep range, you’re not going to get bigger, you’re only going to get stronger.

That you can make that argument. I could go, I could write that article and cite quite a bit of science that would make that argument and if somebody were reading it, it would be persuasive. But it’s completely false and when you actually dig into that you begin to wonder where did this, how did this myth even find its way into [00:21:00] literature and a fair amount of these studies are also, it’s like just because somebody did a bunch of elbow extensions or one leg extensions, like 50 reps with 30, 30 percent of their one rep max, that doesn’t, you can’t extrapolate the results of that study into a long term like training routine.

You give me anyone and you put them on that, on those machines and have them work with 30 percent of their one rep max. And then I’m going to take someone and I’m going to put him and he’s going to squat heavy, he’s going to deadlift heavy, bench, military, press heavy. And let’s see where those guys are at in six months.

And let’s see who’s built more muscle and who’s bigger, and who’s stronger. The, my guy will destroy the other guy, but it’s a bit harder to find scientific evidence of that and you have to really dig and you have to it’s not it’s not easy and I have an article on my website where I do go into it, but that’s just an example of where you’ll have, I’ll have people write me where they don’t even try to be argumentative.

They just haven’t done it. They’ve never really built any muscle or strength. And but they have all [00:22:00] these studies, and this study says that you should be training 10 to 12 rep, and this study says that, compound lifting isn’t that important, and this study says that if you want to, if you want to lose fat, you should be training in a higher rep range, but then when you actually put these things into practical use, it doesn’t play out, it doesn’t work.

Roger Law: Oh man, it’s, that’s, it’s so true, and it’s, a lot of people can get lost in this world of theory and science and then they end up living there and they don’t end up doing any actual training or exploring any of the ideas they just quote as truth. And that’s a lot, that’s the dangerous part of the science, science route, or just the people that are only focused on that.

They, some, like the best in the business like someone I really look up to is Brad Schoenfeld. He takes that science and then he goes to apply it and see how it works. And he’s open to. He’s if the science says one thing, but his results say something else, he’s open to that. But some people, they just look at the science and they go it’s true.

That’s it. And then they, and they [00:23:00] haven’t even tested it out themselves. Or they just, it’s 2 a. m. on Google, they’re in their underwear and they see it and go, ah, all right. Science says it’s true. It is true. I saw it on the internet. And it goes, it’s just this great Steve Martin quote. And it refers back to this whole thing.

He says, Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. It’s what do you, it’s like you can talk about all the studies you want, but you gotta, you have to apply some, you have to do something. And that’s why I really like training is, it’s just, it’s a great, analogy for life is you, if you want life, you have to do something.

If you want to change your physique or something you have to put in action, you can’t just be all theory and. The secret, you can’t get, you can’t, the secret your way into the body you want, I can’t, 

Mike Matthews: I can’t just attract a great physique. 

Roger Law: Man, I’ve been trying, I’ve been sitting in my room for two days and if I just visualize it, when I wake up in the morning, you don’t even know how ripped I’m gonna be.

And it didn’t work, but, I think I just gotta think positive thoughts about it more, but and just going about [00:24:00] guruism. And you have those people, but I think just the term guru is just it’s a dirty title. It’s I don’t, I personally don’t want to be seen as a guru. And it’s I’ve had some people call me that and it was just weird.

I felt like I should be wearing robes and. I should have a, I should work. No, 

Mike Matthews: these days now it’s like that we’ve lost the Hindu as now it’s like you should be trying to sell them, a thousand different products. And you should be the one saying that you’ve unlocked the secrets of anabolic dieting.

And, 

Roger Law: yep. And that’s dangerous, man. Cause it, and the thing about guruism is just, it’s all posturing. It’s, who can appear to be that, and then once you appear to be that, anyone that sees you that doesn’t know better, they’re like, Oh, that guy’s a shit. He knows what he’s talking about.

Why do I know that? I don’t. He got a nice website. He’s got all of this and that, and then they cling on to that. And I think the danger with that for the average trainee or people that are just getting into like [00:25:00] training. Is they don’t have any experience on their own. So they rely on this one person, like they’ll cling on this is my dude.

I don’t even read anything else, but by this guy and they cling on to that. And then they disengage themselves from their own experience. Like when I first started, I barely read anything by anyone that when I was first starting out, it’s oh, okay, I got me to one point, but then I started taking the next steps on my own.

And that led me away from that, where, that original source material from when I first started. Because, the thing about it is if you don’t get away from that depending on someone or thinking someone has a secret for you is that you don’t learn to trust yourselves and you don’t, You just always depended on someone else’s input or guidance for your own development, which is scary.

It’s like a slippery slope. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I try in my work, one thing I really try to do is teach people the underlying physiology [00:26:00] of how everything works. So then it’s not my secret proprietary system. It’s my weight lifting advice is, this is the weight lifting advice that goes back to Arnold’s days, like you have to focus on heavy compound lifting, you have to know what you’re doing with your diet, it’s all just numbers micronutrients do matter, like healthy foods do matter, but it’s not in terms of body composition, you can eat the healthiest foods in the world and be fat and have no idea what’s wrong just because you’re eating too many calories every day.

And and then there’s also the, I mean that, that’s the physical side, and like you said, it is very simple, and then there’s, then there’s the internal stuff of being patient, even when you’re doing everything right, don’t get sucked into, speaking of gurus, don’t get sucked into the ridiculous transformations that you see on the internet, which Yeah, if you are going to take 10 grams of drugs a week like that dude, sure you can go from nothing to shredded in a year, like huge, like lean, yeah whatever, but when you’re natural, setting [00:27:00] realistic expectations, like if you’re new to weightlifting, you should be able to, if you’re a guy, if you do, if you put on 20 to 25 pounds of muscle in your first year, that is That’s amazing.

That’s about that’s the best you’re gonna do, really. And if, even if that’s 15, that’s still actually a pretty good first year. And, but, in terms of how that looks like that’s a dramatic difference, but that’s not that when people, a lot of guys, when they’re getting into weightlifting, usually the look that, like in my experience, the look that they want requires that they gain probably 30 to 35 pounds of muscle maybe 25 to 35.

And be about maybe eight to nine percent body fat seems to be the general look that guys that like when they start that’s really what they’re going for. And guys need to realize that takes, it takes a couple years to do that. It takes no less than two years to do that. Yeah. With the best, like it doesn’t matter what training program you’re following, like with [00:28:00] an optimal training program and in really sticking to your diet, more or less the entire time, which means that you’re eating the right amounts of foods and you’re not dragging your cuts out for too long and you’re not like destroying yourself on your bulks.

Like you’re doing it right. It takes time. So you have that, that patient’s factor and then not getting all OCD and body dysmorphic about it as well. And Which is another thing that you had said you wanted to mention, or wanted to go over, is like keeping it fun, which definitely is an important point for just maintaining, not just compliance, but mental balance, I guess you could say.

Roger Law: Yeah, definitely, because it’s, it might, and this goes back to what you were just saying, is that you have to, it’s a long haul. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, 

Roger Law: and it’s if 

Mike Matthews: the reward is big though like people should realize that like you do that You work hard for that to maybe three years and you can enjoy yourself along the way It’s not like you’re gonna hate the journey, right?

But if you come into that knowing that is the journey [00:29:00] That’s what it’s gonna take but then you come out the other end with the physique that you want like you now look You know, the way that you wanna look for whatever reason that is. And along the way, if a lot of us started out, I started working out to impress girls.

That was, a simple, stupid reason to start. And now I like to do it just because I like to lift. I just like it, it’s just an enjoyable activity. It’s has become just a staple of my life and I’m married and I, it has nothing to do with girls anymore. You learn to enjoy the journey.

But then when you come out of it, maintaining a great physique is so much easier than building one. 

Roger Law: Yep. Definitely. It’s and that’s the thing. It’s like the first couple of years in fitness, if people approach it with the mindset that, all right, I’m just, shit’s not going to go perfectly this first couple of years, but I’m going to learn a ton and I’ll use that experience to go forward once I get to that point and just have, it’s like for the first couple of years, almost as long as you stick to the basics.

It all essentially works, so have some fun with it, don’t stress. I think, I 

Mike Matthews: don’t know. [00:30:00] Honestly, I think, because your newbie games are going to last about six months, give or take. That seems to be the general. After that, though, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to plateau.

You can spin your wheels, yeah. Yeah, if you don’t know what you’re doing with your diet, if you’re training, if you’re following, magazine routines that just have you doing a bunch of drop sets and super sets and high rep isolation work and you’re going to plateau. You’re not going to get any, you’re not going to see anywhere near the progress that you saw in the first three to six months.

So I think that, there is something to say for that. 

Roger Law: Like proper programming. Yeah. Yeah. And like you were saying, it’s. It’s all, I treat it like a video game is that, at the beginning, you’re just learning all these you like in a newbie zone. So you’re learning the fundamentals and that takes time.

You can’t rush. And that’s what a lot of people want to do. They want results in eight weeks, 12 weeks, like you can’t rush the adaptations that need to happen. You can’t rush how fast your body’s going to lose. Like you can cut your calories all you want, but it might hurt you in the long run [00:31:00] because you just, you can’t sustain it and you Bounce back because you die hard for three days and then you bend for four because that three days are so hard versus a moderate deficit for weeks can, yeah.

It. And and it goes to back to the extremism that, is often promoted in fitness. It’s like extremists is extremist sexy to people. So they’re like, woo, alright. If it’s extreme it must work. And yeah. And they quickly forget that it’s like nothing really, like few things in life. Are extreme all the time.

It’s like you’re extreme for brief periods, if at all. It’s like you don’t extremely build a house. ’cause that’s how the shit falls apart. It’s oh, you built this house in a day. I don’t wanna live in that house. . And people don’t want to hear that. They’re like, Nope, nope. I heard this dude on the internet.

He got results. He was ripped in eight weeks. And these pictures and these before and afters. And it’s they want that. And I’m like it’s not. So just, if you come into it with that approach, that’s going to take a [00:32:00] while, but there’s lots of wiggle room and room for you to enjoy it. I enjoyed one of the, one of my favorite styles of training.

Just even for me, that’s been, even though I’ve been training for years now, it’s something I go back to every now and then just to. For a new phase, just to have some fun, it’s like escalating density training. If I don’t feel like doing six or seven exercises, I’ll go in for, let’s say, I pick two exercises, alternate back and forth between those two for 15 minutes, and then I rest and then do another two exercises.

And they’ll still be the compound lifts. But now I don’t have to think much about it all. I have a certain rep range I’m aiming for with these two exercises. Let’s say I’m doing And then I’m doing rows. I’m like, okay, I do chin ups and then rows. Let’s say I start off trying to get six. Six to eight reps each and then I just keep going back and forth and back and forth for that whole time So if I have energy I go faster if I’m a little tired that day I go slower But it’s funny just that aspect of racing the clock [00:33:00] and knowing that the end is in sight.

I’m like, oh, thank you Lord Jesus, it’s you know, the workouts over, Novelty into it while still adhering to principles and that’s really what when I say bring fun back into it it’s more along the lines of, adherence to the principles that work. But, by doing so, you have a lot of methods that you can play around with.

It’s like it’s like Batman and his his utility belt. It’s not like he’s going around just throwing the bat What is it? The batarang? I don’t I think that’s Batarang, I think? Yeah, he’s not just doing That’s not his only tool. If it was, he would be a shitty hero. He’d be like this is over.

My batarang failed. I can’t climb the building with my batarang. I’m 

Mike Matthews: going home. 

Roger Law: Game over. Yeah. Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: obviously there are many different ways to to get, results and in training depends what you want to do with your body and there are obviously like I wouldn’t say that everything can work.

Obviously, there are certain things that just don’t work very well. But it the goals do matter a lot though. And it depends. If you’re new, your goal is to Basically build muscle and size, [00:34:00] build muscle and strength as quickly as possible is really what you want to do when you’re new.

And then, once you’ve reached the point where you’re happy with your size and, by then you’re going to be pretty strong. Then you have a lot more wiggle room, as you said, where you can do different things and you can maintain your physique and have more fun with it.

I think somebody new, it depends on what they want to do. If having fun for them is more important, then, I totally understand that. But if somebody comes in and they’re like, I just want to get big and strong as quickly as possible, then that narrows down their options, 

Roger Law: yeah. The more restricted or the more precise the goal, the less 

Mike Matthews: Yeah.

Roger Law: room they have. Yeah, if someone’s dude, I just want to work out and have fun. There’s so many ways to work out and have fun. If you just, if that’s what you’re trying to get out of, I’m like, people love that, and That’s the big 

Mike Matthews: draw of it. People will have fun. There’s the whole group thing and you’re not, you’re doing different workouts every day and there’s definitely, it has that going for it.

Roger Law: Yep. And here’s a question for you. It’s just cause I’m curious. After, let’s say you’ve been working with [00:35:00] someone for a while, at is there any point that you cut them loose? And to go off on their own Yeah, I 

Mike Matthews: actually, I actually don’t do any one on one.

I don’t have time for it. 

Roger Law: Yep. 

Mike Matthews: I instead I put all my time into writing and just creating content where then so people, I want people to be self sufficient right from the beginning. And that’s my goal with like my books and my website and stuff is that people that, I.

I’ve debated even offering custom workout plans, not even a coaching service. So just giving people a workout plan because in a lot of cases like, bigger, leaner, stronger is a very, it’s a simple but effective program. It focuses on heavy compound lifting. It’s great for somebody that’s new or new to that style of lifting.

If somebody. Has already put in a couple of years of heavy compound lifting then they the next book that I’m releasing is it’s going to be really for more advanced weightlifters, people that have built their first 20 to 30 pounds of muscle and have built, acquired the strength that comes with it.

And that program is a periodized [00:36:00] program. It focuses still on the four to six rep range, but it also includes some powerlifting and hypertrophy stuff. So between the, those two books and the, their, respective programs, I really am trying to give people everything that they need to build a great physique, to be strong, to be healthy and maintain it without ever having to exercise more than four to six hours a week.

That’s like my thing. 

Roger Law: And what you just said, if it goes back to, I think what we were talking about earlier, it’s just about gurus and that, I think the job of a good coach or just someone that’s really putting out quality content is that they’re a teacher. And at some point you just really, you’re guiding people along in a way that, lets them learn about the process as well for those, like those people that really want to get into the reason why and that they can get into it.

And there’s also something to be said for, hey, here’s this workout, you don’t need to know why it’ll work, but for you, [00:37:00] you came to me at this point, looking for this tool, this will work for you, do it, and that alone you’re teaching them. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, totally and those guys will usually be the ones that will get very fancy with things because they want to try to impress you Then that’s where you’re gonna do the anabolic diet of carb cycling and you’re gonna go You know if on this day and you’re gonna car backload the next day and then so then you’re so you feel wow This is this guy really must know his shit.

I’m doing all this weird shit. It must mean something. Yeah When ironically you would, probably just do better with a standard traditional diet that has eating, whatever, every few hours you eat a little bit of food and your numbers add up at the end of the day. Yep. 

Roger Law: Yeah.

There’s so many different ways to go about it and it’s good to have people that, it’s good to have teachers and that’s something that I lacked in the beginning. Now that I’m in a position to help people, you really have to have a responsibility. Like, all right, let me not put out shit, let me not try and misguide people, because there’s tons [00:38:00] of people making a living off of misinformation, which is unfortunate. Oh yeah. Are you kidding me? To be, I know, millions and 

Mike Matthews: millions. It becomes, yeah, exactly. It becomes like, the more money, there’s so much money being spent in this industry.

It’s a ridiculously huge industry, and it’s obviously such a big pain point for people. And people are very, they want to believe a lot of things too, that suggestibility that comes along with it. And if you are unethical, it is, if you’re an unethical, intelligent marketer, you can, and I know people, and I wouldn’t say personally, but I just know through my little travels, I’ve met various people that are, destroying, that have made seven, eight figures in this space over the last few years.

And selling garbage. Like there’s, the joke is like pills in a bottle, like literally this what the, they don’t give a shit and fake information products and where it’s the whole, the face of it is just a fake, totally made up thing. And when there’s that much money, it’s going to draw bad [00:39:00] people.

And. And that’s where I, it, and then we have varying degrees of that on, I’m talking about like outright scammers, but then the fake gurus fall somewhere there and in, in the middle, 

Roger Law: yep. And that goes back to something that I want to talk about in the vein of gurus is I want people, after a certain time.

You got to become your own guru in a sense in that, for you, after you’ve been doing this for a year, like if you’re, you’ve been working out for 10, 15 years and you still don’t know how to put together a program based off what works on you. I don’t know. It’s it’s almost, you haven’t learned anything from what you’ve gone through.

It’s you’ve always been dependent on someone else to, hold you by the hand and give you a program here or there, but after a certain point you have to take the reins and go, okay, what if. What have I learned from all of this? It would be the equivalent of going through school, from kindergarten to twelfth grade, graduating, and be like, Aw, shit, I don’t know anything.

It’s that 

Mike Matthews: actually happens a lot more often than people are comfortable with [00:40:00] admitting. 

Yeah, I totally agree. 

Roger Law: Cool. Yeah, man it’s A mindset that I just want to share with people, not if you’re beginning, you need some guidance. You need someone to. Really guide through but after a while, you should have enough experience on your own to where you can start to trust yourself Which is really what it’s all about Yeah 

Mike Matthews: I think that the criteria that if I were if I went if I were going back and doing it again Knowing at least if I could just tell my old self because I started training for my first six or seven years It was a joke.

I had no idea what I was doing and I made terrible gains considering for how you know How much time I put into it? It would have been to If I could give myself, just the, this is how you find somebody to listen to. It would be, how do they look themselves. Also drugs come into that. If there’s, some people, if you, it can be hard to spot or it can be easy to spot.

There are tell tale signs, massive shoulders, massive traps, massive upper chest. Drugs all the time, and that’s just obvious. That very like three dimensional [00:41:00] kind of look where it looks like they weigh 210, but they weigh 170. It looks like a video game 

character. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, when they’re bulking, they’re never over 10 percent even though they’re eating 5, 000 calories a day insane vascularity, all these things just generally indicate drug use.

So that has to take into account, and the problem with drug use is just so you understand, or listeners understand is that. You, it changes everything. If you’re on enough drugs, you can basically just go in the gym and get a pump every day and you grow. So if that’s all that guy knows, if he’s been on drugs from the beginning, then he can’t really help you because he doesn’t, he’s just gonna, he’s gonna tell you to go do that.

But he’s not gonna tell you to do the drugs. He’s just gonna be like go in the gym and do 30 sets of 30 reps and you’ll be huge. You know what I mean? And in diet, it’s like 6, 000 calories a day. And I never go over 10%. I have good genetics. Oh, okay. Yeah. If that’s you gotta watch out for that.

But when you have somebody that’s natural and you’ll see it, there’s a lot more emphasis on food. They’re not eating obscene amounts of food every day. Their [00:42:00] training is a bit more my phone is freaking out. Their training is a bit more moderate, less, not super high volume.

They’re not going to be pounding 8 million reps of workout and stuff. So how do they look themselves? What kind of success stories do they have? Do their clients, they’re the people, readers, whatever are these real people or is it these ridiculous, two month transformations where a person went from 20 percent to 5%, don’t be inspired by those transformations. There’s a lot more going on than what they’re telling you. Yeah, exactly. And then, like I said having showing that they understand the scientific side matters a lot. At least it matters to me. It shows that they take it seriously enough to become a student of and you actually get really educated.

And I don’t know, am I forgetting anything? Would you like to add anything else on that and how you think people should. Decide whether they should listen to someone or not. 

Roger Law: Yeah I don’t, it’s if you’re applying for a job, you want some references. I would ask okay, so do you have any like testimonials?

Can I talk to some of your client, former client? Yeah. That’s really a good sign. Cause if one of my clients [00:43:00] wouldn’t recommend me and they got good results or they got shitty results. There’s a reason they didn’t recommend me. 

All, whatever I say, wouldn’t really help determine it would be better coming from, someone else that worked with me and had success and go, Hey, they can vouch for me.

They were in your position at once. And I took them, I helped take them from this point to that point. That’s that right there would be, and if they don’t want, if they don’t have any, or they don’t want to. Be willing to put you in contact with them or at least reach out to a former client or current client say, hey, yeah that’s a red flag.

It’s just like I Don’t know. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. No, I agree. I would actually if I was I would just move on that’s yeah, that pretty much says everything right there. 

Roger Law: Yeah, and it’s yeah And really it I would just take your time. Don’t rush into signing up with someone get a sense of since people are so vocal on social media and their blogs, you can really get a sense of someone and kind of their, what their angle is or if they [00:44:00] have your best interest in mind, if you take enough time to just read what they’re saying or read between the lines, so I would just say take your time and just, spend some time chatting with them.

They won’t be, we’re all busy, but if you’re genuinely, if they’re genuinely interested in helping you, they won’t mind answering questions that they should be able to answer from prospective clients. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. I totally agree. 

Roger Law: Word up. 

Mike Matthews: Cool. Cool. Yeah. It’s great. A lot of good stuff covered.

So what, so let’s just close with where can listeners find you at? Anything else you’d like to share with them? 

Roger Law: Yeah just check me out at roglawfitness. com and also And that’s 

Mike Matthews: R O G lawfitness. com 

Roger Law: Yep, R O G L A W fitness. com and then facebook. com slash R O G L A W Cool 

that 

Roger Law: if you like laughing, I put some fitness stuff up there too.

But it’s a lot of lifestyle and just jokes and just, yeah, people need to be happy. So feel free to follow me there too. Shoot me a [00:45:00] message, email. Always happy to chat or answer any questions. So do not be shy. I am a real person. I do respond to emails. . 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah, me too. I respond to everything myself and emails, messages.

It’s something I wouldn’t turn that over to an assistant just because I think it’s important. Yeah. Yeah, exactly 

Roger Law: Yeah, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. This is great