Muscle for Life

What’s the easiest way to make your life better in every way? Exercise regularly. You’ll have more energy and mental focus, you’ll sleep better and get sick less frequently, and, of course, let’s not forget the fat loss and muscle and strength gains, either. Most people know they should be more active, but don’t know exactly what to do and how to go about it and often choose to do nothing instead. Unfortunately, the professionals who are in the best position to offer a helping hand here—doctors—are often just as clueless as their patients when it comes to effective exercise and nutrition. Why is that? And what can be done about it? Those are two of the questions I explore with Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum in this episode. If you’re not familiar with Jordan, he’s an elite powerlifter, strength coach, medical doctor, and the founder of Barbell Medicine, so he has a unique perspective on the failings of medical school in preparing doctors to offer pragmatic exercise advice to patients. In our conversation, we discuss:

Blood flow restriction training is making waves of late. It sounds new. It sounds scientific. And some are saying it’s revolutionary. Well, it also smacks of artifice. Like it was contrived by marketers to sell the latest round of magazines, pills, and powders. And so if you’ve been skeptical, good. You should be. You see, the more time you spend educating yourself in the ways of muscle building, the more you become certain of one thing: If something sounds too good to be true — too easy, too effective, too innovative — it almost always is. Eventually, you learn that there really is no shortcut to building a strong, muscular, lean body. There are right and wrong ways of going about it, of course, but at least 80% of your long-term results will come from diligent application of the fundamentals: - An emphasis on heavy compound lifting. - Sensible workout programming. - Ensuring you recover adequately. - Proper diet and nutrition. Everything that falls outside of those boundaries should be viewed with a gimlet

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 four questions: How important is time under tension (TUT)? How important is periodization? What are the best weight loss foods? Is lifting lighter weight explosively better for gaining muscle and strength than lifting heavier weight more slowly? If you have a question you’d like me to answer, leave a comment below or if you want a faster response, send an email to mike@muscleforlife.com. Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

In this interview, I talk with Jake, who used my Bigger Leaner Stronger program to transform his physique and, in many ways, his life. When he first found Bigger Leaner Stronger, he was about 16% body fat with middling strength, and now, he’s about 9% body fat and about 275 pounds stronger on all of his major lifts. Furthermore, and more importantly, really, other areas of his life have been impacted in tremendously positive ways as well, including his mood, energy levels, self-esteem, productivity, and more. In other words, Jake used my work to go from “fit” to “superfit” with quite a few cherries on top, and in this interview, he shares his story—he talks about how he was training and eating before finding me and my work, and how things started to change after implementing what he was learning in my books and articles. Two major parts of Jake’s journey were dispelling common misconceptions about diet and training he had bought into over the years and overcoming various hurdles ranging from focusing too much

Some people say you absolutely need to eat protein before your workouts to maximize muscle and strength gains. Others say eating before you train doesn’t matter, but eating after is vital. Others still say neither of these “feeding windows” matter, and that you just need to make sure you’re eating enough protein on the whole. Science isn’t exactly clear on this matter, either, because each of these people have studies that purportedly bolster their arguments. And so you’re left wondering who’s right and what to do. Should you “play it safe” and just eat protein before and after every workout? Or should you just ignore everyone and just eat on a schedule that you like most? Well, in this podcast, we’re going to get to the bottom of all of it, and it starts with this: As far as eating protein goes, eating enough every day is what matters most for gaining muscle and strength as quickly as possible. Everything else related to protein intake--when you eat it, how many servings you eat per day, how large each servi

In many ways, building the body of your dreams is just like building anything else worthwhile. The more you put into it, the more you get out of it . . . to a point. You’ll have to train hard to get the body you want, but you can’t only rely on your afterburners. Punish your body with intense workouts week in, week out, without taking breaks or deloads, and your journey will be marred by . . . - Regular plateaus - Overuse injuries - Lack of motivation - Lackluster workouts This is why top level athletes of all stripes—from hockey players to cyclists to powerlifters—include planned periods of rest and recovery in their training. In fact, the highest level athletes place tremendous importance on this because the consequences of overlooking it are so severe (chronic underperformance, career-ending injuries, and so on). When it comes to gaining muscle and strength, one of the best recovery tools at your disposal is the deload. If you’re reading this, you’ve likely heard of deloads before, but you probably are

Getting injured sucks. It’s not just the pain of the injury itself that’s annoying, either. You also have to alter your diet and training or even take time off altogether. Under-recovering sucks too. Push yourself too far and your training becomes a slog. You’re sore all the time, your lifts stagnate (or worse, regress), and you increase the risk of hurting yourself. Such are the reasons why it’s smart to make sure you’re playing good “defense” in your fitness journey by ensuring you’re not just pushing hard in the gym (“offense”) but also taking steps to prevent injuries and optimize recovery. As you probably know, the basics get you most of the way here, like proper sleep hygiene, a nutritious diet, and a well-designed training plan. There’s more you can do, however, and that’s why I invited Dan John on the show—to dive a bit deeper into this side of training and share some non-obvious tips on how to not only decrease the risk of injury and improve recovery but also better deal with nagging issues that we a

This episode is one of the 37 chapters of the new third edition of my bestselling fitness books Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, which is now live everywhere you can buy books online. I’m thrilled to release this new edition of the books because it has been in the making for about four years now, and has been reorganized and rewritten from scratch to make it as clear, practical, and effective as possible. Even more exciting, however, is the eBooks are currently on sale on Amazon for just 99 cents and when you forward your purchase receipt to launch@muscleforlife.com, you’ll be entered to win over $6,000 in free prizes, including . . . An all-expenses-paid trip to meet me and my team in Washington DC. Apple Watch Series 4 Vyper 2.0 High-Intensity Vibrating Fitness Roller Bose Soundsport Headphones NoBull training shoes And more... To get in on this deal, search your local Amazon site for Bigger Leaner Stronger or Thinner Leaner Stronger and navigate to the Kindle book or simply go to www.

This episode is one of the 37 chapters of the new third edition of my bestselling fitness books Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, which is now live everywhere you can buy books online. I’m thrilled to release this new edition of the books because it has been in the making for about four years now, and has been reorganized and rewritten from scratch to make it as clear, practical, and effective as possible. Even more exciting, however, is the eBooks are currently on sale on Amazon for just 99 cents and when you forward your purchase receipt to launch@muscleforlife.com, you’ll be entered to win over $6,000 in free prizes, including . . . - An all-expenses-paid trip to meet me and my team in Washington DC. - Apple Watch Series 4 - Vyper 2.0 High-Intensity Vibrating Fitness Roller - Bose Soundsport Headphones - NoBull training shoes - And more... To get in on this deal, search your local Amazon site for Bigger Leaner Stronger or Thinner Leaner Stronger and navigate to the Kindle book or simply g

This episode is one of the 37 chapters of the new third edition of my bestselling fitness books Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, which is now live everywhere you can buy books online. I’m thrilled to release this new edition of the books because it has been in the making for about four years now, and has been reorganized and rewritten from scratch to make it as clear, practical, and effective as possible. Even more exciting, however, is the eBooks are currently on sale on Amazon for just 99 cents and when you forward your purchase receipt to launch@muscleforlife.com, you’ll be entered to win over $6,000 in free prizes, including . . . - An all-expenses-paid trip to meet me and my team in Washington DC. - Apple Watch Series 4 - Vyper 2.0 High-Intensity Vibrating Fitness Roller - Bose Soundsport Headphones - NoBull training shoes - And more... To get in on this deal, search your local Amazon site for Bigger Leaner Stronger or Thinner Leaner Stronger and navigate to the Kindle book or simply g

This episode is one of the 37 chapters of the new third edition of my bestselling fitness books Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, which is now live everywhere you can buy books online. I’m thrilled to release this new edition of the books because it has been in the making for about four years now, and has been reorganized and rewritten from scratch to make it as clear, practical, and effective as possible. Even more exciting, however, is the eBooks are currently on sale on Amazon for just 99 cents and when you forward your purchase receipt to launch@muscleforlife.com, you’ll be entered to win over $6,000 in free prizes, including . . . - An all-expenses-paid trip to meet me and my team in Washington DC. - Apple Watch Series 4 - Vyper 2.0 High-Intensity Vibrating Fitness Roller - Bose Soundsport Headphones - NoBull training shoes - And more... To get in on this deal, search your local Amazon site for Bigger Leaner Stronger or Thinner Leaner Stronger and navigate to the Kindle book or simply g

This episode is one of the 37 chapters of the new third edition of my bestselling fitness books Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, which is now live everywhere you can buy books online. I’m thrilled to release this new edition of the books because it has been in the making for about four years now, and has been reorganized and rewritten from scratch to make it as clear, practical, and effective as possible. Even more exciting, however, is the eBooks are currently on sale on Amazon for just 99 cents and when you forward your purchase receipt to launch@muscleforlife.com, you’ll be entered to win over $6,000 in free prizes, including . . . - An all-expenses-paid trip to meet me and my team in Washington DC. - Apple Watch Series 4 - Vyper 2.0 High-Intensity Vibrating Fitness Roller - Bose Soundsport Headphones - NoBull training shoes - And more... To get in on this deal, search your local Amazon site for Bigger Leaner Stronger or Thinner Leaner Stronger and navigate to the Kindle book or simply g

This episode is one of the 37 chapters of the new third edition of my bestselling fitness book Thinner Leaner Stronger, which is now live everywhere you can buy books online. I’m thrilled to release this new edition of the book because it has been in the making for about four years now, and has been reorganized and rewritten from scratch to make it as clear, practical, and effective as possible. Even more exciting, however, is the eBook is currently on sale on Amazon for just 99 cents and when you forward your purchase receipt to launch@muscleforlife.com, you’ll be entered to win over $6,000 in free prizes, including . . . - An all-expenses-paid trip to meet me and my team in Washington DC. - Apple Watch Series 4 - Vyper 2.0 High-Intensity Vibrating Fitness Roller - Bose Soundsport Headphones - NoBull training shoes - And more... To get in on this deal, search your local Amazon site for Thinner Leaner Stronger and navigate to the Kindle book or simply go to www.thinnerleanerstronger.com and you’ll be automati

This episode is one of the 37 chapters of the new third edition of my bestselling fitness book Bigger Leaner Stronger, which is now live everywhere you can buy books online. I’m thrilled to release this new edition of the book because it has been in the making for about four years now, and has been reorganized and rewritten from scratch to make it as clear, practical, and effective as possible. Even more exciting, however, is the eBook is currently on sale on Amazon for just 99 cents and when you forward your purchase receipt to launch@muscleforlife.com, you’ll be entered to win over $6,000 in free prizes, including . . . - An all-expenses-paid trip to meet me and my team in Washington DC. - Apple Watch Series 4 - Vyper 2.0 High-Intensity Vibrating Fitness Roller - Bose Soundsport Headphones - NoBull training shoes - And more... To get in on this deal, search your local Amazon site for Bigger Leaner Stronger and navigate to the Kindle book or simply go to www.biggerleanerstronger.com and you’ll be automatical

Today is the day.  Today is the official launch day for my new fitness books, the third editions of Bigger Leaner Stronger (men) and Thinner Leaner Stronger (women).  Books that have helped thousands of men and women gain and lose tens of thousands of pounds of muscle and fat.  And even better, to celebrate this momentous occasion, the books (eBooks) are on sale for just 99 cents.  And no, there are no strings attached.  For the next few days, you can get exact, step-by-step blueprints for building muscle, losing fat, and getting healthy faster than you ever thought possible for less than a buck. To get in on this deal, search your local Amazon site for Bigger Leaner Stronger or Thinner Leaner Stronger and navigate to the Kindle book or simply go to www.biggerleanerstronger.com or www.thinnerleanerstronger.com and you’ll be automatically forwarded to it. (Protip: When you buy an eBook on Amazon, you can add the audiobook for just $7.49 and listen along.) It gets even better, too. I’m also giving away over $6,

When you first got into fitness, everything you read and everyone you spoke to said consistency is king. The more you put into your workout routine, the more you get out of it. There are no shortcuts or free lunches. You learn, you hustle, and hustle, and hustle, until…finally…you get the body you want. Don’t have time? You just don’t want it enough. Don’t feel like going to the gym? Same thing--suck it up. Don’t want to lift heavy? Have fun staying small. And, no stranger to hard work, you meet the challenge every step of the way. You give 110% to your training. Every day…week…month…and year. So far, things have gone as you envisioned. You’re bigger, leaner, and stronger than you’ve been in a while, and you don’t want the party to end. But, what if it does have to end, at least for a little while? What happens if you have to take a few days, a week, or even a month away from the gym? You’ve always heard that, “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” and the second you stop lifting weights, your muscles enter a sl

Do you ever feel like you’re just spinning your wheels in the gym? Are you having trouble remembering the last time you added any real weight to the bar on any of your key lifts? Has your body weight and body fat percentage been hovering in the same range for what seems like forever? If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, I get it. I’ve been there myself and understand the frustration firsthand. You see, the hard lesson us weightlifters have to learn is once our “honeymoon phase” is over—the first six to eight months in most people—continuing to gain muscle and strength gets harder and harder, until eventually progress becomes so slow you can barely measure it. That’s not even the kicker, either. Not only is muscle and strength gain harder to come by the more you train, the more training you have to do just to continue eking out improvements. In other words, as time goes on, you have to do more and more intense work in the gym for less and less reward. This is one of the key reasons so many people g

If you've been lifting weights for any amount of time, you've undoubtedly heard about "advanced" training techniques like drop sets, supersets, forced reps, negatives, and the like. Years ago, I thought such methods were great ways to boost muscle and strength gain and so used to do quite a bit of them. These days, I do very little because I now know that straight hard sets are the bread and butter of getting big and strong. That said, that doesn't necessarily mean there's no place for "fancier" stuff, but only if you do it right. That’s what I invited Dr. Eric Helms back on the show to discuss--which of the common unconventional training methods are worthwhile and which aren't and how to use the good ones correctly and effectively. If you're not familiar with Eric, he's a natural bodybuilder and powerlifter, coach, researcher, writer, member of Legion’s Scientific Advisory Board, and all-around mensch, and in this interview, he discusses the evidence for and against "advanced" training techniques and explain

If you’re an experienced weightlifter, chances are good you experience the occasional aches, pains, and tightness that sometimes get in the way of your training. Maybe a shoulder is tight, which limits your benching, or your hips are stiff, which restricts your deadlifting, or your ankles aren’t flexible enough, which prevents you from achieving proper depth in your squatting. What can you do to overcome and prevent such issues? That’s what Justin Andrews of Mind Pump Media came on the show to talk about. Before he was a podcast star, Justin spent many years as a trainer and helped thousands of people identify and resolve various movement issues and thereby improve their training performance and results. In this podcast, Justin goes over common exercise movement mistakes, how one injury or mobility issue can lead to another in non-obvious ways, how to screen for movement limitations, simple stretches for improving mobility, and more. 6:32 - What do you mean by movement aesthetics and why is it good? 10:46 - W

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 four questions: 1. Why do I recommend women start lifting in the 8-to-10-rep range in Thinner Leaner Stronger but men start lifting in the 4-to-6-rep range in Bigger Leaner Stronger? 2. Should you just track macros when cutting or calories too? And what if your calories and macros don’t match? 3. How should you modify Bigger Leaner Stronger if you’re no longer a beginner? 4. How should you get back into working out after taking a long time off? If you have a question you’d like me to answer, leave a comment below or if you want a faster response, send an email to mike@muscleforlife.com. Want to get my best advice on how to gai