Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews

You’ve probably heard that stretching is one of the pillars of an effective fitness plan, right up there with strength training and cardio. This same message is shared by personal trainers, group fitness instructors, and coaches around the world: You need to stay flexible to avoid injury, properly perform various exercises, and stay healthy into old age, and stretching is the best way to do this....

“One of the most popular ways of telling if you're a healthy weight is bogus “BMI Is A Terrible Measure Of Health” “5 BMI Myths You Need To Stop Believing” These are the titles of several articles on BMI and BMI charts published in recent years. If you take their message at face value, then you’ll come to one conclusion: BMI is outdated, overrated, and inaccurate, and it’s time we retired it for g...

Well friends, it seems Quarantimes™ may finally be coming to an end. Gyms here in Virginia are starting to re-open and other parts of the country are either already open or not far off from beginning the process. Unless there’s a seismic shift in new cases of the virus, we’re on an upward trajectory towards some form of normalcy.  The real question now is how will the fitness industry adapt to our...

So, here we are, hopefully closing in on the end of These Perilous Quarantimes. Restaurants are opening, stonks are rising, and . . . at long last . . . gyms are unlocking their doors. And that means a few things to us fitness folk: 1) If you’ve been slogging through bodyweight workouts, and the idea of doing another set of pushups instead of bench press makes you want to huff paint and chew someo...

As of right now, I’ve produced over 500 episodes of Muscle for Life, totaling over 700 hours of content. I’ve talked about 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...

Over the past few weeks, you’ve been bombarded with contradictory, confusing, and complex facts and figures about COVID-19. At this point, the story most often repeated in the media goes like this: Aside from social distancing, washing your hands, and (maybe) wearing a face mask, there’s nothing you can do to avoid getting COVID-19. If you do get COVID-19, there’s nothing you can do to hasten your...

This was a fun episode for me, because my guest is a fitness “godfather” of sorts who has greatly influenced my own work and career, as well as probably the most-requested guest from listeners. I’m talking about the inimitable Alan Aragon, who has been at the forefront of the evidence-based fitness movement for over a decade now and has helped countless fitness enthusiasts, professional athletes,...

Golly gee willikers, 2020, you’re proving a rather harsh mistress, and nobody seems to know your safe word.⁣ Tamagotchi?⁣ Nickelback?⁣ Antidisestablishmentarianism?⁣⁣ *sigh*⁣ Okay so I’m going to be indelicate here:⁣ This fucking sucks.⁣ The Current Situation is yet more evidence of the degradation and injustice of our times, where viciousness and villainy appear victorious at every turn and chari...

My podcasts with Pat Flynn often delve into philosophical tangents and fortunately, have become especially popular. The concepts we cover don’t just apply to fitness either. They can affect your whole mindset and offer life-changing benefits. So, why not embrace the asides and dive even deeper? In this episode, Pat and I talk about … - What relativism is and whether or not truth is objective - The...

Supplementation can be overwhelming. No matter what your goal is--build muscle, lose fat, improve health--there are hundreds of supplements to choose from. And good luck trying to sort the wheat from the chaff. If you're to believe the hype, many of these pills and powders have downright magical properties and are capable of performing downright miracles. Just one bottle of this, you're told, will...

Women face quite a few unique challenges that have downstream effects in their fitness journeys. You know, things like intimidation and peer pressure to stay near the cardio equipment at the gym and away from the weight section. And then there’s the whole pregnancy and having kids thing. To speak to these challenges, I invited Maria Blacutt onto the podcast. Maria is a personal trainer and mother...

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’re having trouble losing weight and keeping it off… If you’re battling hunger and cravings… If you want to “reset” your system after a period of poor health habits… Or if you generally just feel like crap… You might find yourself seriously considering some sort of “detox diet.” The yoga girl swears by a 3-day water cleanse. The smiley doctor guy says a juice diet can give you a shiny new li...

Poke around online for weight loss tips, and you’ll invariably come across the idea that you shouldn’t eat at night. Why? Proponents of this idea usually claim that your metabolism doesn’t work as well at night, and thus any calories you eat are more likely to be stored as fat instead of being burned for energy. Sounds ... kind of scien-y-ish ... but is it true? Does your metabolism really slow do...

“My Life-Changing 30-Day Digital Detox” “10 Signs You’re a Smartphone Zombie” These are headlines you might see if you search the interwebz for digital “addiction.” It’s no secret that people use their smartphones, social media, and various apps more than ever before. The benefits of this technology are obvious, but there’s also a downside. We end up distracted, spending too much time on things th...

This episode is part of a weekly 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: Every Monday morning, I’m going to 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 o...

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...

You’re about to start a weight loss diet. You know you need to eat fewer calories than you burn. You know roughly how much you need to eat every day to lose weight. Maybe you even have a meal plan mapped out. But there’s still one question you haven’t been able to answer: how long should you stay in a calorie deficit? If you poke around online you’ll see different theories about the “ideal” length...

Humans are social creatures. We like having our “tribe”—people we can rely on when times get rough or who we can celebrate with when times are good. That said, most of us have experienced negative Nancys who just bring us down. Maybe they’re always complaining, or they’re a business partner not pulling their own weight, or they only share bad news, these people make your life worse when you intera...

As of right now, I’ve produced over 500 episodes of Muscle for Life, totaling over 700 hours of content. I’ve talked about 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...

If you’ve read anything about bodybuilding, you’ve probably heard about something called “the pump.” In a nutshell, this refers to the temporary increase in muscle size that occurs when you lift weights. Bodybuilders have been strangely obsessed with this phenomenon since people started lifting weights, and according to many, it’s the cheat code for unlocking rapid muscle growth. George Butler and...

“How many sets should I do?” “When should I add more volume and how?” These are questions I get all the time, and especially lately. That’s because some recent studies have shown that basically, the more you do in the gym, the more you grow. Some studies suggest that doing as many as 40 sets per muscle group per week results in more growth than doing 20 sets. Is that really true though? And if so,...

“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...

In this episode, I interview Chris, who used my work to help turn his life around and even escape depression. When he first started working out, he didn’t know what he was doing with his training or diet. But thanks to newbie gains, he made progress anyway and learned to enjoy lifting weights. Along the way, though, things started to turn sour outside the gym. Financial troubles mounted, his relat...

Well, here we are, quarantined because of this VIRAL BOOGALOO blitzing around the world like it’s 1941, ravaging the defenseless lungs of tens of thousands of men, women, and children. Gyms are shuttered, Charmin Ultra Soft is now worth its weight in gold ammo, and protein bars have become a prized delicacy. The worst part for us fitness folk? HOME. WORKOUTS. Because for most of us, that means ins...