Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews

Bodybuilding is a strange sport that requires a special type of masochism. If you want to make it in the big leagues, you not only need great genetics but you also have to micromanage your nutrition, beat the shit out of your body with absurd amounts of training, and do enough drugs to make Jordan Belfort blush. It also makes for a rather isolated and lonely life spent mostly in the gym grinding a...

It’s hard to go anywhere nowadays without hearing about the benefits of cannabidiol (can-ab-id-EYE-all), aka CBD (and often CBD oil). It’s all over the Internet, celebrities are endorsing it left and right, and it’s made its way into everything from lattes to sports drinks to sex lube (seriously). Sales of CBD are already thought to be north of $350 million per year, and some analysts are predicti...

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...

As the founder and CEO of a successful supplement company, Legion Athletics, I get asked quite a few questions about the business and industry. Sometimes people are looking for help starting a supplement business of their own and other times they’re just curious what goes on behind the scenes. I don't talk much about the ins and outs of Legion here on my podcast, so I thought it might be worth sha...

According to an ever-growing number of popular doctors, researchers, and influencers and “gurus,” autophagy is the next big health breakthrough. By making simple changes to your diet and lifestyle, they say, you can harness the power of this mysterious physiological phenomenon and . . . “Cleanse” your body of harmful toxins Slow or even reverse aging Protect against various types of disease, inclu...

In this episode I interview Steve, who’s a 37 year old father of two young kids who read my book Bigger Leaner Stronger and used the program to completely transform his physique. We talk about how he found his way to me and my work, including what he had tried previously, how things changed after he started implementing the advice in my books, articles, and podcasts. As with everything, nothing ev...

"When's your next book coming out?" "What kind of supplements are you going to release next?" "What would you name your boat if you had one?" I'm asked questions like these all the time and so I thought I'd start doing monthly updates about what's new and exciting here at Legion and MFL HQ. So here’s a quick hosedown of what me and my jolly band of pirates and bums have been up to lately. Enjoy! W...

You’ve just stepped into the gym. Should you hit the weights or do your cardio first? Some people say that you should start with cardio because it’s a great whole-body warmup, and it’s easier and more enjoyable before an intense lifting session than after. Others say you should do your weightlifting first because you need all the energy you can muster for it if you want to gain muscle and strength...

“What are you up to?” “When are the new books coming out?” “When are we going to get a new flavor of Whey+?” I get asked these kinds of questions a lot. While I usually prefer to keep my nose to the grindstone and unveil the finished product when it’s ready, I also want to keep all of you apprised of the goings-on at Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics. I’ve been working on several long-term proj...

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...

There's a reason why the majority of people that work out regularly don't have much to show for it, and why so few people ever build truly impressive physiques. And, contrary to popular belief, it's not (the lack of) steroids--many drug users are just as flabby and weak as the next guy. The reason why so few people are able to build muscular, strong, lean, healthy bodies is they are doing too many...

If you’re like most women, you want a very specific type of body. You want to be lean but not too skinny (and most definitely not “skinny fat“). You want a toned upper body but don’t want to look like a “bulky” weightlifter. You want a flat, defined stomach. You want tight, shapely legs, and last but most definitely not least… You want that perfect, gravity-defying butt. Well, you–yes, lil’ ol’ yo...

In this interview, I talk with Luke who’s 28 years old and recently completed my 90-day transformation coaching service. He shares his personal fitness journey, including what he was up to before finding me and my work and how it was going, how things started to change after implementing some of the advice in my books and articles, and how he recently used my coaching service to really accelerate...

You don’t have to read much of the pain literature to discover that it’s a fairly mysterious thing. Some people experience regular and excruciating pain for no apparent reason while others experience very little pain despite having severe structural damage. And this is especially true of back pain, which is can be a truly baffling phenomenon that seems to follow no discernable patterns or rules as...

What if I told you that by eating nothing but meat and other animal products—no fruits, vegetables, or plant foods of any kind—you could . . . -Lose fat without counting calories -Bulletproof yourself against and even cure diabetes -Prevent blood sugar spikes and crashes -Increase your testosterone levels, build more muscle, and improve your athletic performance . . . BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! You m...

Simply put, if you’re in business either for yourself or working for someone else and want to become a better entrepreneur, businessperson, worker, boss, or even, I would argue, a better person, you want you read this book. In short, it provides a compelling and comprehensive answer to the question of why some companies excel and others don’t, and it’s the result of a tremendous amount of in-the-f...

I’ve churned through over 100,000 emails, social media comments and messages, and blog comments in the last 6 years. 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 questions: What’s the best weightlifting program for...

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...

Gut health has become something of a buzzword these days and, quite frankly, a bit of a red flag, like “detoxing” or “pH.” Whenever I hear someone talking about how to improve gut health, my Spidey sense starts to tingle because there’s a fair chance that shenanigans are afoot. That said, it’s not all quackery. Gut health is a very real thing and impacts your overall health and wellbeing in a numb...

Doing cardio on an empty stomach doesn’t necessarily help you lose fat faster. Doing fasted cardio can help you lose fat–and “stubborn” fat in particular–faster, though. (And it works especially well when combined with several other fat loss strategies, which we’ll talk more about in this podcast.) This sword cuts both ways, though. Do your fasted cardio wrong and you won’t lose fat faster. You’ll...

  In this episode, I interview my buddy Kurtis Frank, who’s the co-founder and former lead researcher and writer of Examine.com and the current Direct of Research for my supplement company Legion Athletics. This time around, Kurtis and I dive deep into the science and physiology of appetite, including the body’s primary levers for controlling it, how appetite is influenced by different types of fo...

When you first start lifting weights, getting stronger is simple. Show up, add weight to the bar, and hit your reps and sets, and go home. As you inch your way toward your natural muscular potential, however, progress slows. You’ll start missing or even losing reps, feeling burnt out and overtrained, adding little if any weight to your lifts for months. Where to go from here? There are a number of...

Charlie Engle has had a lot of ups and downs in his life: - He ran 300 miles straight, without a break. - He ran across the Sahara desert. - He almost died from a cocaine binge. - He was a producer of a top-rated T.V. show. - He served 16 months in federal prison for a crime he didn’t commit. And as you can imagine, he also has a lot of hard-won lessons and wisdom to share that we can all benefit...

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...

In this episode I interview Geoff, who’s 34 years old and used my Bigger Leaner Stronger program to completely transform his physique. In this interview we talk about how he found his way to me and my work, including what he had tried previously, how things changed after he started implementing the advice in my books, articles, and podcasts. As with everything, nothing ever goes exactly as planned...