Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews

Rep ranges and muscle building is a controversial topic. Some people believe that you can maximize muscle building by training with high reps and light weights (<60% of your one-rep max), others believe you should train with low reps and heavier weights (80+% of your one-rep max), and others still believe you should to do both. Who’s right? That’s what James Krieger and several other researcher...

Many people think weightlifting is inherently dangerous, and I understand why. When you compare deadlifting, squatting, and bench pressing gargantuan amounts of weight to other forms of exercise, like jogging, cycling, or calisthenics, weightlifting looks more like a death wish than a discipline. Poke around on Internet forums and you’ll find plenty to feed your anxiety. Personal stories range fro...

Why are some people so motivated and others aren’t? Why do some people seem to have “it”—grit, willpower, conscientiousness, whatever you call it—and others don’t? Were they born with it? Did they develop it through training? Does it have to do with them finding and pursuing their “true calling”? Or is there some other explanation? Today’s guest, Jeff Haden, is going to address these questions and...

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...

Personal trainer, blogger, and soon-to-become Registered Dietitian Lacey Dunn was kind enough to have me on her podcast to talk about how I got started in the fitness industry, the story behind my books, how I came to start Legion Athletics, and more. This interview is different from my normal routine of drilling deep down into one topic, because Lacey wanted to cover a lot of different topics mor...

Supersets are a staple of classic bodybuilding workouts. You find them in almost every muscle building magazine, book, and blog, and Golden-era bodybuilders like Franco Columbu, Frank Zane, and Arnold swore by them. But how effective are supersets? And how do they compare to simpler muscle building techniques like increasing volume (reps), frequency, or intensity (load)? Well, the short story is t...

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...

Every so often, a sports supplement comes along that gets everyone excited. That's supposed to "change the game" and push the boundaries of what's naturally achievable. HMB is one of those supplements. It burst onto the scene in 1996 to much fanfare and hoopla, and many thought it was destined to dethrone creatine as the reigning king of natural muscle building molecules. Well, science has now had...

If you want to burn calories and lose fat faster without even breaking a sweat, then you've come to the right place. You're not going to need any special equipment, gadgets, or skills. You're not going to need to track your heart rate, time your intervals, or log your miles. All you're going to do is something that you've been doing every day since you were a toddler, and that you'll do for the re...

In this episode I interview Esther, who recently completed my 90-day coaching service and dropped 13 pounds and 12% body fat, while also gaining a ton of strength (when she started the program, she struggled to deadlift the bar, and now she’s approaching her body weight for reps). As with everything, nothing ever goes exactly as planned, and learning to adjust and adapt to conditions is an importa...

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...

God I hate being sick. Truly. I would smoke a handful of Bill Clinton’s cigars if it meant never getting sick again. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll ever get an invite to the DC spirit cooking parties, so I’ll have to accept the fact that getting sick is just part of my abject existence as a lowly human. That doesn’t mean I can’t do things to help prevent sickness and reduce the duration and sev...

Whey protein is commonly referred to as the king of protein supplements. Why? Why is whey seemingly the king here when there are numerous types of protein powders out there that all “work”? Do some work better than others and, if so, is it honestly a big enough of a difference to direct a purchasing decision? That’s what we’ll be discussing in this episode. Cataloging the best and worst protein po...

Optimal training frequency is a hotly debated subject. Some people believe that you must train your entire body 2 to 3 times per week or you’re simply doing it wrong, whereas others believe it doesn’t make that much of a difference. Recommendations run the gamut from extremely low workout frequencies (training each major muscle group once per week or less) to extremely high frequencies (training e...

Losing weight is hard. If you don’t agree with that now then spend some time in a gym and meet a few hundred people who do think that. Sometimes you diet and exercise and nothing happens. It gets frustrating at times, knowing that all the hard work you put into changing your body amounted to absolutely nothing. What if you don’t really need to lose weight to be healthy? More and more people are sa...

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...

If you’ve spent any time in the fitness space, you’ve heard more weight loss pitches than a TV-loving insomniac. You know, stuff like… “This powder is the ‘secret’ to losing 10, 20, even 30 pounds in just a month!” “This pill blocks the absorption of carbs and suppresses your appetite!” “A few of these per day and you can eat anything and still lose weight!” And if you’re like most people, you’ve...

If you’re looking to lose weight, chances are you’ve heard a lot about counting calories. Some people say it’s crucial for weight loss, others say it doesn’t work, and others still say it depends on your body and circumstances. Well, I want to start this episode with the following: Counting calories in and of itself accomplishes nothing, and is not vital to losing weight. Count all the calories yo...

Why can some people do things so much better than others? What makes one person good at something, another bad, and yet another so great that we can’t wrap our heads around it? Is it mostly just hard work? Talent? A bit of both? Some other X factor or factors? Today’s guest, Dr. Anders Ericsson, has spent most of his professional life researching these questions. In fact, it was his seminal resear...

The #1 weight loss problem that I help people with is, by far, sticking to their diet. This is especially the case with people that are new to a healthy weight loss regimen, which requires that you remain in a caloric deficit for many weeks, as opposed to a crash diet that you suffer through for a short period of time. The overall experience of being in a caloric deficit varies dramatically. For s...

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...

When it comes to protein powders, whey and casein rule the roost, racking up close to $5 billion in annual sales. They deserve the limelight, too. Research has shown time and again that they’re two of the best sources of high-quality protein that you can eat. What if you don’t want to supplement with either, though? What other options do you have? You can simply eat more whole foods, but that can...

Intermittent fasting is pretty simple. At bottom, you don’t eat for most of the day, then you cram all of your calories into an “eating window” that can last anywhere from a couple to 6 to 8 hours. If that sounds stupid, uncomfortable, or even unhealthy, I understand. I thought the same thing when I first heard about it years ago. It turns out, though, that it’s not like other fad diets. It’s not...

If you’re into weightlifting, you’ve become very acquainted with sore muscles. You’ve done many reps of the “half-squat-toilet-fall.” You’ve had the “is this just muscle soreness or am I actually dying?” thoughts. And maybe you’ve even gone full Stockholm syndrome and now crave the daily debilitation. Well, I’ve been there, I’ve learned some things, and now I’m going to pass on those lessons. You...

The Holy Grail of Fat Burning. A supplement that you can take once a day and will prevent you from getting fat despite allowing you to eat anything you want. That magic bullet to shoot away all your problems and, hopefully, not kill you at the same time. It doesn’t exist right now unfortunately, but that hasn’t stopped researchers from trying to discover it. And even if the researchers haven’t dis...