Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews

This episode is one of the chapters of the new second edition of my bestselling book for experienced weightlifters, Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger , which is live now at www.bblsbook.com. In this book, you’ll learn science-based and time-proven formulas for eating and training that’ll help you shatter muscle and strength plateaus, set new personal records, and build your best body ever. And better...

In this book, you’ll learn science-based and time-proven formulas for eating and training that’ll help you shatter muscle and strength plateaus, set new personal records, and build your best body ever. And better yet, you’ll do it without following restrictive or exotic diets, putting in long hours at the gym, or doing crushing workouts that leave you aching from tip to tail. Also, to celebrate th...

I’ve recorded hundreds of episodes of Muscle for Life on a huge variety of things related to health, fitness, and lifestyle, ranging from the basics of diet and exercise like energy and macronutrient balance and progressive overload and training frequency and volume to fads like the ketogenic and carnivore diet and collagen protein to more unfamiliar territories like body weight set point and fast...

In this episode, I interview Brannen, who used Bigger Leaner Stronger to cut from 186 pounds down to 171 all while building his inner strength to beat depression, anxiety, and even an alcohol habit. Before finding Bigger Leaner Stronger, Brannen was experiencing marital problems. A move cross-country as part of his enlistment in the Air Force and a toxic relationship left him emotionally exhausted...

Building muscle when you’re new to weightlifting is mostly a game of patience and persistence. As long as you show up, finish your workouts, and follow a sensible diet plan, you’ll gain muscle and strength like clockwork. After your “newbie gains” dry up, though, progress comes in fits and starts. And it’s at this stage that many people cast their gaze about for more “advanced” training techniques...

What’s the best way to get big and strong? Some people say that the only way to get big is to get strong, and the best way to get strong is to stick to the big lifts. Do a lot of heavy compound weightlifting, and you’ll naturally get bigger as you gain strength. In other words, anything that’s not the squat, bench press, overhead press, and deadlift is a more or less a waste of time and effort. On...

This episode is a bit of a curveball. While not a health or fitness topic per se, the subject of this episode is tangentially related. Specifically, the topic is privilege and the idea that it’s wrong for some people to enjoy advantages that others don’t get to enjoy, and that equal outcome should be our goal. In other words, inequality should be corrected through government policies and societal...

Have you ever thought to yourself . . . “Do I really have to do this now?” “I can just do this tomorrow.” Or like me “Let me clean the entire kitchen first, before I record this podcast.” Procrastination is extremely common, and it’s likely impossible to find someone who never procrastinates. Even when it involves things we truly enjoy doing we still find ourselves procrastinating.  (I love writin...

Google “how fast should I lose weight,” and you’ll get the same answer pretty much everywhere: One pound per week. And that’s not bad advice. You’ve probably heard that a pound of fat contains 3,500 calories. To lose a pound of fat per week, then, you just need to eat 500 fewer calories per day than you burn (500 x 7 = 3,500). Simple, easy to remember, and doable for most people. There’s just one...

Meat has become more and more controversial of late. Some say its damaging effects are on par with smoking, and others even claim we should apply a special “health tax” on meat eaters. The contrarians say meat has a number of positive health benefits, very few downsides, and most of the research showing otherwise is on low-quality processed meats. And others take a middle-of-the-road outlook and s...

What does it take to make good supplements? How do you decide what types of products to make, what goes into them, and how much of each ingredient to include? While many supplement companies haphazardly pixie dust their products with minuscule amounts of mediocre ingredients and pad their ingredient lists with fancy herbs and compounds, there is a flip side of that coin. That is, if you want to be...

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...

If you’ve read any books on weightlifting, endurance sports, or training in general, you’ve probably come across the term energy system before. Unfortunately, the more you read about energy systems, the more confused you’re likely to become. Most explanations of energy systems quickly devolve into a complex firehose of scientific jargon like Krebs cycle , mitochondrial respiration , anaerobic glyc...

If you’re not familiar with my story , the truth is I didn’t always want to have a career in the fitness industry. But after I decided to write a book to help people learn from my own mistakes in the gym, things started snowballing. Not only have I sold nearly 2 million books, but I started my own sports nutrition company, Legion, which has since become an 8 figure business with over 250,000 custo...

Do you want to know how to use science to optimize your health, fitness, and lifestyle? Do you want to know how to protect yourself against misguided, misleading, and even menacing advice supposedly supported by research? And do you want to get up to speed quickly, regardless of your educational background? If so, then my new book Fitness Science Explained is for you. It’s a crash course in readin...

Do you want to know how to use science to optimize your health, fitness, and lifestyle? Do you want to know how to protect yourself against misguided, misleading, and even menacing advice supposedly supported by research? And do you want to get up to speed quickly, regardless of your educational background? If so, then my new book Fitness Science Explained is for you. It’s a crash course in readin...

Do you want to know how to use science to optimize your health, fitness, and lifestyle? Do you want to know how to protect yourself against misguided, misleading, and even menacing advice supposedly supported by research? And do you want to get up to speed quickly, regardless of your educational background? If so, then my new book Fitness Science Explained is for you. It’s a crash course in readin...

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 three ques...

In this episode, I interview Brian, who used Bigger Leaner Stronger to bulk up from an atrophied 150 pounds to a jacked 220 pounds. Like many guys, Brian learned everything he knew about fitness from magazines. He was following bro splits and celebrity workouts, taking every supplement under the sun, and hardly paid attention to his diet. And thanks to the majestic power of newbie gains, he still...

When you first start working out, one of the most confusing questions you’ll face is what workout split to follow. A workout split refers to how you’ll organize your training throughout the week. The reason it’s called a split is because most workout plans split up your training in a way that has you train different muscle groups or exercises on different days of the week. Sounds simple enough: so...

This episode of the podcast isn’t your standard health and fitness fare. Instead, it’s about living well beyond fitness, and more specifically, a concept Pat Flynn refers to as “flourishing.” Pat Flynn is a repeat guest not only because I enjoy our conversations, but I’ve gotten great feedback from listeners who like hearing about these deeper, philosophical topics we dive into. In case you’re not...

I’ve recorded hundreds of episodes of Muscle for Life on a huge variety of things related to health, fitness, and lifestyle, ranging from the basics of diet and exercise like energy and macronutrient balance and progressive overload and training frequency and volume to fads like the ketogenic and carnivore diet and collagen protein to more unfamiliar territories like body weight set point and fast...

Most people know that exercise is good for them. And most also know that not exercising is bad for them. Despite that, most people fail to meet even the bare minimum recommendations for physical activity (2.5 hours of moderate exercise or a little over an hour of intense exercise). Just 22.9 percent of Americans hit minimum activity guidelines, not even half (46 percent) of Europeans exercise or p...

When you look at a celebrity on T.V., a rising star in the office, or an impressively fit person at the gym, it’s easy to attribute their success to in-born talent, circumstance, and luck. This is especially true when it comes to fitness, because your results are inextricably tied to your genetics. That is, you can work just as hard as someone else or even harder, and they still might get better r...

“Can you recommend a book for…?” “What are you reading right now?” “What are your favorite books?” I get asked those types of questions a lot and, as an avid reader and all-around bibliophile, I’m always happy to oblige. I also like to encourage people to read as much as possible because knowledge benefits you much like compound interest. The more you learn, the more you know; the more you know, t...