Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews

If you listen to this podcast, you probably have some idea what macronutrients are, as well as micronutrients, like vitamin C or B12. What you may not know is plant foods contain even smaller organic compounds called phytonutrients. What are phytonutrients and why do they matter? Can you still thrive without eating them? What are the benefits of including more of them in your diet and which ones s...

This episode is part of a series that I have dubbed “Motivation Monday.” (Yes, I know, very creative of me. What can I say, I’m a genius…) Seriously though, the idea here is simple: Post a short and punchy episode that I hope gets you fired up to tackle the workouts, work, and everything else that you have planned for the week ahead. As we all know, it’s one thing to know what you want to do, but...

This podcast is a Q&A, but it’s a bit different from the kind you’ll typically find here on Muscle For Life. In my usual Q&A episodes, I take a question from email or Instagram and then fully answer it in an episode of the podcast every week. However, over on Instagram , I’ve started doing weekly Q&As in the stories, and it occurred to me that many podcast listeners might enjoy hearing...

If you’ve ever wondered if you're making the most of your workouts, this podcast is for you. That’s because I’m chatting with Chris Barakat all about training quality versus quantity. There’s been a lot of discussion in the fitness space over the past few years about the relationship between volume and muscle growth. The more volume you do, the better your results, many people claim. Is that compl...

This episode is about the speed of your metabolism. Many people have reached out to me over the years who were struggling to lose weight and who thought this was due to a “slow” metabolism. Often the solutions offered involve taking special pills, following very restrictive diets, and pushing through punishing workouts. And when those strategies don’t work, these same people start believing it’s i...

Some people—my favorite people—listen to most or even all of my podcasts, but my wizbang analytics tell me that while many listeners tune in on a regular basis, they don’t catch every installment of Muscle for Life and thus miss out on insights that could help them do at least a little better inside and outside the gym. That’s why I do “best of” episodes that contain a few of the most practical an...

If you’ve paid any attention to what’s trending in the fitness space these days, you may have come across organ meats. Eating liver, kidneys, and heart seems to be on the uptrend in general, and is all the rage in certain corners of the internet. Claims about organ meats can vary wildly. Some people say organ meats are reservoirs of toxins and shouldn’t be consumed at all, while others claim you c...

In this episode, I’m talking about calf training and answering a question I often get about calf genetics. How much can genetics get in the way of calf development? This matters to me because I’ve always had small calves, and it’s a trait I seem to have inherited from my dad. Does that mean that no amount of calf raises will save my spindly lower legs, though? More and more research is coming out...

This podcast is a Q&A, but it’s a bit different from the kind you’ll typically find here on Muscle For Life. In my usual Q&A episodes, I take a question from email or Instagram and then fully answer it in an episode of the podcast every week. However, over on Instagram , I’ve started doing weekly Q&As in the stories, and it occurred to me that many podcast listeners might enjoy hearing...

This episode of the podcast is a bit different. That's because in this podcast, I chat with Alex Banayan about his book The Third Door , the journey he went on in the process of writing it, and what he learned along the way. We’ll get into the details in the interview, but Alex went on a seven-year quest to interview some of the world’s brightest, most successful people in order to learn how they...

This podcast was inspired by a question from one of my followers on Instagram: “does the nutritional value of food change based on how it’s cooked?” For example, you may have heard that boiled or steamed vegetables leak nutrients out into the water. Or you may have heard that roasting food can actually boost nutrient absorption. So, do you need to consider cooking methods when meal prepping? How c...

In this podcast, I’m sharing an excerpt from the audiobook version of my new book, Muscle For Life , which is releasing January 11th. Muscle For Life is currently on pre-order, and if you go to www.muscleforlifebook.com , you can learn about the big book launch bonanza that’s underway, where you can enter to win over $13,000 of awesome stuff. In this episode, I’m sharing chapter 10, which is all a...

In this podcast, I’m sharing an excerpt from the audiobook version of my new book, Muscle For Life , which is releasing January 11th. Muscle For Life is currently on pre-order, and if you go to www.muscleforlifebook.com , you can learn about the big book launch bonanza that’s underway, where you can enter to win over $13,000 of awesome stuff. In this episode, I’m sharing chapter 7, which is the ul...

In this podcast, I’m sharing an excerpt from the audiobook version of my new book, Muscle For Life , which is releasing January 11th. Muscle For Life is currently on pre-order, and if you go to www.muscleforlifebook.com , you can learn about the big book launch bonanza that’s underway, where you can enter to win over $13,000 of awesome stuff. In this episode, I’m sharing chapter 5, which is all ab...

I’ve written and recorded a lot of evidence-based content over the years on just about everything you can imagine related to building muscle, losing fat, and getting healthy. I’ve also worked with thousands of men and women of all ages and circumstances and helped them get into the best shape of their lives. That doesn’t mean you should blindly swallow everything I say, though, because let’s face...

In this podcast, I chat with Menno Henselmans again in what’s meant as a part two to our last podcast on the science of self-control and willpower. This time, we’re specifically talking about willpower as it relates to diet. The episode is chock-full of practical tips for improving your diet adherence, which can help you lose fat faster and more easily. This is something Menno is an expert on beca...

This podcast is about hormones and aging, and specifically, how much hormones affect body composition as you get older. In it, I’ll go through the most important hormones as they relate to body composition, how they change as we get older, and what we can do to maintain optimal hormone profiles relevant to our age. There’s no question that we can’t maintain as optimal a hormone profile at 45 as we...

I hope this podcast finds you in a mesmerizing holiday haze of holly jolly hearth and home, because here’s the deal with the winter festivities: They were a tough row to hoe in the Before Times and are even more so in these Quacky Quarantimes. There’s shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking, decorating, entertaining, eating, imbibing, friends you never see, family you’ve never liked, and a gimlet-eyed...

In this podcast, I’m sharing my appearance on The Pat Flynn Show , in which I discussed easy fitness wins. These are simple changes you can make right now to start establishing a healthy lifestyle that you can stick to long-term. Many people try to jump straight into the deep end when they try to get fit and healthy. Grueling workouts with no days off, and extreme diets that deprive you of your fa...

In this podcast, I talk with Dr. Flint McGlaughlin about marketing, which is something he knows quite a bit about. In fact, I’ve known about Flint and followed his work for over a decade now, so this was a treat for me. In case you’re not familiar with him, Flint is an academic and business leader who served as the Director of Enterprise Research for Transforming Business at the University of Camb...

I’ve churned through over 150,000 emails, social media comments and messages, and blog comments in the last 6 years. And that means I’ve fielded a ton of questions. As you can imagine, some questions pop up more often than others, and I thought it might be helpful to take a little time every month to choose a few and record and share my answers. So, in this round, I answer the following question:...

This podcast is a Q&A, but it’s a bit different from the kind you’ll typically find here on Muscle For Life. In my usual Q&A episodes, I take a question from email or Instagram and then fully answer it in an episode of the podcast every week. However, over on Instagram , I’ve started doing weekly Q&As in the stories, and it occurred to me that many podcast listeners might enjoy hearing...

Are we too comfortable? Do we complain too much? Modern life is filled with modern conveniences that are engineered to make life easier and more enjoyable. But what if these contemporary comforts masquerading as a panacea of pleasure are really a double-edged sword? What have we lost in the process of gaining comfort? Is there value in choosing to be uncomfortable and adding discomfort to our live...

So much fitness advice is framed like this: FACT CHECK LOSER. IF YOU CAN’T WAKE UP AT 3 AM AND DEADLIFT DOUBLE YOUR BODY WEIGHT FOR DOUBLES IN YOUR DRIVEWAY IN THE DEAD OF WINTER, UNFOLLOW ME ALREADY BECAUSE YOU’LL ALWAYS BE WEAK, FAT, AND PATHETIC. LGBFJBLFG!!!!!! I’ve shared plenty of tough love myself. Make excuses or make it go, “secrets” never work unless you work for them, train hard even wh...

Some people—my favorite people—listen to most or even all of my podcasts, but my wizbang analytics tell me that while many listeners tune in on a regular basis, they don’t catch every installment of Muscle for Life and thus miss out on insights that could help them do at least a little better inside and outside the gym. That’s why I do “best of” episodes that contain a few of the most practical an...