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Train Your Body (438)
The show for fitness buffs or beginners. Expert guest from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) discuss all areas of fitness, nutrition, athletics and sports medicine.
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Staying Well (382)
RadioMD’s “talking” Health A-Z hosted by senior health correspondent, Melanie Cole, MS. Melanie interviews experts in the world of health, wellness, fitness and medicine.
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Healthy Talk w/ Dr. Michael Smith (698)
Integrative physician, Michael A. Smith, MD is committed to providing listeners with the most current health information available.
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Naturally Savvy (899)
Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Andrea Donsky and health expert Lisa Davis discuss their passion for living a natural, healthy lifestyle.
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Eat Right Radio (48)
EatRight Radio, with experts from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, discusses food and nutrition topics, healthy weight, allergies and health conditions, healthy aging, food safety and so much more. Give us 10-minutes and we'll give you the important information and expert advice from registered dietitian nutritionists to help you eat right, feel better, and live a healthier life. Hosted by Melanie Cole, MS.
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Sharecare Radio (235)
Sharecare Radio, hosted by Sharecare’s own Dr. Darria Long Gillespie, SVP of Clinical Strategy at Sharecare, will appear live every Tuesday from 12 to 1 p.m. EST on RadioMD. Dr. Darria will break down the top health news of the week, pull in experts from around the country on a wide array of health topics and answer listeners’ live questions on all things health.
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Wellness for Life (455)
On Wellness For Life Radio you will learn practical, easy-to implement tips to improve your life and start feeling better — the natural way.
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The Wizard of Eyes (163)
Dr. Robert Abel Jr. talks about many of the important and unrecognized parts of our visual system which we so often take for granted. The show covers the usual common ocular disorders with an East/West approach to both prevention and therapy. The eye-brain connection is presented with information about memory retention, Alzheimer's, the myopia epidemic, and many more subjects. Dr. Abel discusses how the eye and vision are connected with remote parts of the body including your gut flora, musculoskeletal system, blood pressure, drugs and lifestyle. practical and simple health tips.
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Code Delicious with Dr. Mike (135)
Code Delicious with Dr. Mike breaks all the rules. Unabashedly confronting the questions, concerns and conundrums that continually confuse both public and experts alike; Dr. Mike takes us on a tasty trip of inquiry.
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CLEAN Food Network (98)
This show is a call to action for all the clean eating revolutionaries that care about their health and how and what they eat. Non-GMO, natural, organic . . . food the way nature intended. The clean food movement is huge and is growing exponentially. This companion program talks to experts in food preparation, healthcare, celebrities, and even those companies that care enough to provide the best, wholesome, organic foods and groceries.
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Talk Healthy Today (213)
Looking to create your best self? Whether it’s good-for-you lifestyle hacks, smarter ways to supplement, or tasty tips to fuel optimal health, Talk Healthy Today brings you the latest research, tools, and common sense tips you need to get and stay healthy... starting today!
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Be a Doer (17)
Be A Doer features master coach and TV personality John Abdo as he shares health and fitness tips aimed at getting you in shape – and keeping you there!
View items...The Power of Probiotics (3)
Probiotics is a major global industry. But like any industry, it had to have a beginning. Natasha Trenev is the daughter of an Eastern European family where the manufacturing of yogurt was a generational business. When Natasha emigrated to the US in the 1960’s, she brought with her 750 years of family experience with probiotics – and introduced the science (and the term itself) to her new country. Today, Natasha’s California-based Natren, Inc. is the recognized pioneer in probiotics and company founder Natasha Trenev has earned recognition as the Mother of Probiotics. Her more than 50 years of work in natural health is at the core of the unparalleled success of her company – and you will benefit from her depth of expertise in each and every episode of THE POWER OF PROBIOTICS.
Probiotics are live microrganisms that are commonly referred to as ‘friendly,’ ‘good’ or ‘healthy’ bacteria that function to help maintain the natural balance of organisms in the intestine. Throughout Natasha’s extensive work in the field of probiotics, she has always been amazed by how nature provides the very ‘good’ bacteria that can help overpower ‘bad’ bacteria to keep our digestive tracts functioning at peak performance. Properly cultivating friendly bacteria and ensuring their potency is at the core of the Natren Process. Natren is cited – by retailers, by the medical community and by consumers – as the best probiotic supplement available. Only Natren carefully chooses its probiotic cultures, formulates and manufactures its industry standard probiotics in its own plant and utilizes a specially-formulated oil matrix to protect probiotics bacteria to survive until they reach their destination in the upper small intestine. This is why only Natren is the most trusted probiotic supplement on the market. Truly, where other probiotic supplements promise – Natren Delivers.
To learn more about how probiotics can benefit your health, we are proud to introduce you to THE POWER OF PROBIOTICS with The Mother of Probiotics, Natasha Trenev.
Your Brain Health (24)
Noted Los Angeles-based neuroscientist and media personality Dr. Kristen Willeumier launches Your Brain Health with Dr. Kristen Willeumier, a podcast series that explores the latest news and information in the burgeoning science of brain health.
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What's that sweetened beverage doing to your brain?
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File wellness_for_life/wl315.mp3
- Featured Speaker David Foreman, RPh
- Guest Website Herbal Pharmacist
- Guest Facebook Account www.facebook.com/TheHerbalPharmacist
- Guest Twitter Account @herbalrph
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Guest Bio
David Foreman, RPh, is a pharmacist, author and media personality known to consumers nationwide as, "The Herbal Pharmacist.”
Well versed on the healing powers of herbs, vitamins and other natural supplements and how they interact with pharmaceutical drugs, Foreman’s career as a registered pharmacist gives him the foundation to now impart his expertise in physiology, pharmacology and integrative medicine to educate consumers on cutting edge approaches to natural health and healing. His shift from traditional pharmacist to herbal pharmacist was based on his belief that education is the key to understanding that natural health plays a vital role in mainstream medicine and he has dedicated his entire career to educating consumers about the benefits and power behind natural herbs, supplements and functional foods.
Foreman is a graduate of the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy, currently serves on Organic & Natural Health Association’s Scientific Advisory Board and is author of 4 Pillars of Health: Heart Disease. - Length (mins) 24:48
- Waiver Received Yes
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
Improve memory and brain health through nutrition.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File naturally_savvy/ns799.mp3
- Featured Speaker Kristen Willeumier, PhD
- Organization CogGevity
- Guest Website Dr. Willeumier
- Guest Facebook Account www.facebook.com/drwilleumier www.facebook.com/CogGevityAdvancedBrainNutrition
- Guest Twitter Account @drwilleumier @CogGevity
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Guest Bio
Kristen Willeumier, PhD, is a neuroscientist with knowledge on how the brain is affected by health, nutrition and the impact of concussions. Dr. Willeumier served as the Director of Research for the Amen Clinics from 2009-2016 to help advance the research mission of exploring how brain SPECT imaging can transform clinical practice. She has authored or co-authored 52 scientific manuscripts in peer reviewed journals. Areas of published research include traumatic brain injury, posttraumatic stress disorder, attention deficit disorder, autism, biomarkers of suicide, obesity, gender differences in brain function, clinical outcomes, and brain rehabilitation. Together with Dr. Amen and colleagues, she led a clinical research trial investigating the long-term effects of repetitive subconcussive impacts in NFL football players. Subsequent work focused on therapeutic approaches to rehabilitate brain function in athletes. The current emphasis of her work is in investigating biomarkers for treatment of psychiatric disorders using machine learning applications.
Dr. Willeumier conducted her graduate research in the laboratory of Neurophysiology at the University of California, Los Angeles and the laboratory of Neurogenetics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center using live cell imaging to investigate mechanisms of synaptic signaling in Parkinson’s disease. She received MS degrees in physiological science and neurobiology and a PhD degree in neurobiology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Neurology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where she continued her work in the field of neurodegenerative disease. She was the recipient of the prestigious NIH fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health to study the molecular mechanisms underlying Parkinson’s disease and has presented her work at national and international scientific meetings including the Society for Neuroscience, Gordon Conference and the World Brain Mapping Conference.
Dr. Willeumier is currently a Scientific Advisory Board member of Black Brain Health, LLC, the makers of CogGevity™ Advanced Brain Nutrition, founded by Dr. Keith Black, Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She is also the media spokesperson on behalf of CogGevity™ brand. Dr. Willeumier is a Scientific Advisory Board member of Tate Technology, LLC™, a sports safety and technology think tank and licensing firm. - Length (mins) 26:54
- Waiver Received No
Take control of your PCOS with changes in nutrition and lifestyle.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File naturally_savvy/ns798.mp3
- Featured Speaker Amy Medling, Health Coach
- Organization PCOS Diva
- Book Title Healing PCOS: A 21-Day Plan for Reclaiming Your Health and Life with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome
- Guest Website Healing PCOS: A 21-Day Plan for Reclaiming Your Health and Life with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome
- Guest Facebook Account www.facebook.com/PCOSDiva
- Guest Twitter Account @PCOSDiva
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Guest Bio
Amy Medling is a certified health coach who specializes in working with women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS.
She is the founder of PCOS Diva and has developed a proven protocol of diet and lifestyle programs that offer women tools to help gain control of their PCOS and regain their fertility, femininity, health, and happiness.
She lives in Nashua, New Hampshire, with her husband and three children. - Length (mins) 19:43
- Waiver Received No
Erin MacDonald shares how you can educate yourself to reach your health and fitness goals.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File talk_healthy/tt200.mp3
- Featured Speaker Erin Macdonald, RDN
- Organization Clean Eating Magazine
- Book Title No Excuses! 50 Healthy Ways to ROCK Lunch and Dinner!
- Guest Website U Rock Girl!
- Guest Twitter Account @urockgirl
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Guest Bio
Erin Macdonald, RDN, has been a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist for 23 years. She is the co-founder of U Rock Girl!, a health and wellness website for women, providing information, recipes, products, and services to nourish the mind, body, and spirit.
Erin is the co-author of No Excuses! 50 Healthy Ways to ROCK Breakfast! This is the first published cookbook for U Rock Girl, featuring nutritious and delicious breakfast recipes that will prevent the excuse, "I can't eat breakfast because..."
She has been in private practice (Complete Wellness, NOW!) for 15 years, specializing in Adult and Pediatric Weight Management, Sports, Cardiovascular, Wellness, Gut Health, Food Sensitivities, and recipe development.
Erin sits on the Health Advisory Board of Clean Eating Magazine and co-writes a regular column, called “Ask the Dietitians.” In addition she writes for Oxygen Magazine and ACE Fitness. She has also been quoted in numerous magazines and online articles.
Erin has appeared on radio, television, and DVDs discussing various hot topics regarding nutrition, weight, and wellness. She has presented many lectures focusing on weight management, heart-healthy cooking, sports nutrition, blood sugar health, and pediatric nutrition, and writes a blog on health, nutrition, fitness, wellness, and motivation on www.URockGirl.com.
Passionate about cooking and recipe development, Erin teaches monthly cooking classes featuring original clean eating recipes. Cooking class information available at www.ErinMacdonaldRD.com.
Currently, Erin is a founding member of the Weight Management Dietetic Practice Group, as well as a member of the Academy for Nutrition and Dietetics (AND), Sports, Cardiovascular and Wellness Nutrition (SCAN), Dietitians in Integrative and Functional Medicine (DIFM), and Nutrition Entrepreneurs (NE). She has extensive experience in wellness coaching, fitness training, and cooking.
Erin completed her post-baccalaureate in nutrition sciences from California State University, Los Angeles, and received a BA in psychology from UCLA.
Away from work, this native Los Angelino enjoys spending time with her husband and four sons, running, hiking, boxing, teaching cooking classes, and having fun. - Length (mins) 22:54
- Waiver Received Yes
- Host Lisa Davis
What's it like to participate in the Ironman challenge?
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File talk_fitness/tft031.mp3
- Featured Speaker Ted Spiker, Ironman Competitor
- Guest Website Ted Spiker
- Guest Facebook Account www.facebook.com/ted.spiker
- Guest Twitter Account @ProfSpiker
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Guest Bio
Ted Spiker is the chair of the department of journalism at UF. He teaches Advanced Magazine Writing and Sports Media & Society, as well as other magazine and writing courses.
Spiker, who was an editor at Men’s Health before coming to UF, has had hundreds of stories published (primarily about health and fitness) in TIME.com; Esquire.com; Outside; O, The Oprah Magazine; Women's Health; Runner's World; Fortune; and many other magazines and digital platforms.
Spiker writes the Big Guy Blog for RunnersWorld.com and he is the co-author of about 20 books and the sole author of one book. He was once named by Greatist.com as one of the 100 most influential people in health and fitness, and he was named the 2016-17 Teacher of the Year for the University of Florida. - Length (mins) 26:02
- Waiver Received No
- Host Lisa Davis, MPH
Get your vitamin D, destress and declutter with these great spring tips.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File lifes_too_short/ts66.mp3
- Featured Speaker Ken Redcross, MD
- Guest Website Dr. Redcross
- Guest Facebook Account : www.facebook.com/KenRedcrossMD
- Guest Twitter Account @DrRedcross
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Guest Bio
Dr. Ken Redcross, MD, is founder of Redcross Concierge, a personalized medical practice designed to enhance the patient-doctor relationship while providing convenient access to a full spectrum of healthcare services and holistic and wellness counseling.
As one of the first full-service concierge, personalized medical practices in the United States, Redcross’s patient portfolio includes executives, athletes and entertainers, as well as individuals from all walks and stages of life. His focus on developing the patient-doctor bond is a unique characteristic of his concierge services that allows for a more strategic and customized approach to each patient’s healthcare plan.
Redcross earned his medical degree from Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, specializing in internal medicine. He has extensive on-camera experience with major national television shows including The Doctors, HLN’s Nancy Grace, The Insider and E! Entertainment Television. - Length (mins) 16:49
- Waiver Received Yes
- Host Melanie Cole, MS
Chefs can help you seek out the best restaurants across the country.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File talk_healthy/tt198.mp3
- Featured Speaker Joshua David Stein, Author
- Book Title Where Chefs Eat: A Guide to Chefs' Favorite Restaurants
- Guest Website Where Chefs Eat: A Guide to Chefs' Favorite Restaurants
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Guest Bio
Joshua David Stein, U.S. Editor of Where Chefs Eat (he is NOT a chef, he is Editor).
Joshua David Stein contributes to New York Magazine, New York Times and the Sunday Times and is a restaurant critic at the New York Observer. - Length (mins) 23:46
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes no social media
- Host Lisa Davis, MPH
Need help sticking to a fitness regimen?
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File talk_fitness/tft025.mp3
- Featured Speaker Beth Frates, MD
- Book Title Life After Stroke: The Guide to Recovering Your Health and Preventing Another Stroke
- Guest Website Wellness Synergy
- Guest Twitter Account @BethFratesMD
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Guest Bio
Beth Frates, MD, is trained as a physiatrist and a health and wellness coach. Her expertise is in lifestyle medicine, and she works to empower patients to reach their optimal level of wellness by adopting healthy habits. Elected to the Board of Directors of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Dr. Frates is helping to shape the scope of this new specialty. She is an award-winning teacher at Harvard Medical School and developed and taught a college lifestyle medicine curriculum at the Harvard Extension School, which is one of the most popular courses offered at the school. As the Director of Wellness Programming at the Stroke Institute for Research and Recovery at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Dr. Frates has created and implemented a twelve-month wellness program for stroke survivors and their caregivers. This program is being replicated at Stanford and other academic teaching hospitals.
Dr. Frates is the co-author of the book, Life After Stroke: The Guide to Recovering Your Health and Preventing Another Stroke and co-author of three chapters on behavior change in different medical textbooks, as well as multiple journal articles on lifestyle medicine topics including exercise prescription, connection prescription, lifestyle medicine case series, and walking meeting for sustained weight loss. Her next book titled, Handbook of Lifestyle Medicine is due out in October 2017.
Dr. Frates is passionate about developing programs focused on lifestyle medicine and wellness. -
Transcription
This episode of Talk Fitness is in partnership with The Vitamin Shoppe, where knowledgeable health enthusiasts are standing by to help you thrive every day.
Lisa Davis (Host): So many of us are determined to work out, to get fit, to feel good, even if we are just trying to be functional, right into our older years. it’s very important to move our bodies, but it can be hard to stick with habits, sticking with your fitness goals. So, here to join us once again is the fantastic Beth Frates MD. She is a trained physiatrist. And you are also a health and wellness coach, you’re an expert in lifestyle medicine. You do all kinds of great things. you are an award-winning teacher at Harvard Medical School. I mean you’re just incredible and I need to learn how to pronounce things. Dr. Frates, welcome back to Talk Fitness Today.
Beth Frates, MD (Guest): Thank you so much Lisa. It’s a pleasure to be here. I do enjoy being on your show for so many reasons. Your sense of humor is one of them. So, yes, I am a physiatrist and that is a specialist in trauma to the central nervous system or musculoskeletal system. So, working with exercise and using it as medication has been part of my training and practice since I began my career in medicine. But today, we are going to focus in mostly on how we as individuals, can continue with our healthy habits. Perhaps we started in January and we had our New Years resolution to exercise regularly and now we are here on Valentine’s Day or we are in February and we’re wondering what happened, if we are no longer pursuing this goal and we’re also wondering what can we do differently this time. So, I would love to talk about that.
Lisa: Yes. Jump right in. I would love you to shed some light and help us out.
Dr. Frates: Okay. Great, so, I have over the years created something that resonates with my clients and that’s tricks, T-R-I-C-K-S. Focusing on tricks to make habits stick. So, I’ll share with you what this pneumonic means. T for the beginning of tricks is for triggers, R is for rewards, the I is for incentives, the C is for calendar, the K is for kindness and then the last letter S is for support. So, I would love to go through these different steps and strategies for sticking with your exercise program.
Lisa: Yes, I would love you to do that. That’s a really fun acronym I guess you would say.
Dr. Frates: Yes, yes, thank you, I thought you would like it yourself. I know that you have shared so willingly, openly over Twitter about your own exercise routine and how you got back into yoga and got back into routine practice with exercise and I would love to pull some of your own experience in there and I can share several of mine too. I shared on the sanity snack on Twitter as well, my own story of struggling to keep exercising through my career with kids and medicine and writing a book etc. So, lets start with triggers.
The first thing is, it’s great to set ourselves up for success. So, it’s great to have a little alarm or a reminder that exercise is going to be part or your day. So, for my clients, what we often talk about is putting on the sneakers and the exercise outfit right away when we wake up, if we are able to do that and we don’t have work that day or we can workout before going to work. If we just have them at the foot of the bed and put them on right away, that’s the trigger that says I’m going to exercise either now or definitely later today. I have some clients that don’t work, they are stay-at-home moms and they put their exercise outfits on in the morning and they basically use that as their incentive, their reminder to get going for their exercise routine through the day, because they are not going to change into regular clothes until that’s done. And if they have an event later in the day, or they are going to go to their child’s school or something else, they are going to want to change into their regular clothes, so they use that as their trigger. Have you ever done that Lisa?
Lisa: Well you know it’s funny, because all I wear is exercise clothes. So, for me I think I need to put like a regular outfit on to be like okay, when you’re done, change out of it because otherwise, and actually this is perfect timing because this last month, I have completely fallen off my yoga. Like I haven’t done it once. And one of the reasons is, is because so from September to at the end of December, I was driving my daughter to a school an hour away. Sometimes four hours a day, a lot of days I was just spending the whole day there because it was too much, and it was killing me. So, I did a yoga class up there a couple of days a week while I was up there. Well since I have been back, it’s been so nice being home and cooking more and getting more time with my dogs and walking my dogs and reading more. I’m like you know what, I’m just going to take a break. I’m still walking 45 minutes a day with the dogs, but I haven’t done any Pilates, any yoga, any weights and I’m like okay I’m getting soft. I need to get back to it. But it was kind of nice taking that break, but I’m at the point where I’m like okay, break’s over let’s get this stuff done.
Dr. Frates: Right. Okay so, maybe we can work on the first step, and perhaps the other steps using you as an example if that will be useful to you.
Lisa: Yes, of course. I need help.
Dr. Frates: Putting the clothes on is not going to help because, that’s what you wear, but I would ask you this. Do you wear yoga clothes or just workout clothes?
Lisa: Yeah kind of yoga, I can do yoga, Pilates, walk my dogs, all in the same – I love, I’ll just give a little hint. Go to eBay or go to an upscale consignment store. I get all my stuff second hand and a lot of times, it’s new and I don’t know the people buy it, they don’t wear it, and I look great and I didn’t spend nearly as much. So, that’s a little help for your pocket book.
Dr. Frates: Okay good. So, you are giving all sorts of tips and tricks. So, let’s move away from the clothes then and I don’t think that will necessarily work for you. So, here are some other thing we do with clients. We actually set an alarm either on their phone or their computer, whatever works best for them given their routine and their daily schedule and that alarm at say 5 p.m. says time to go to yoga, time to work out. If that would work for you, great. If that’s not enough then you get a friend to meet you at that time or to take a class with you at that time, so the trigger is the time and it’s also the friend. So, the friend calling you heh I’m going to meet you in ten minutes at the class or you’re realizing you have to meet your friend, you don’t want to let your friend down. So, the trigger would be meeting your friend at the class or for a walk or for the exercise that you determined is best for you. Would that work for you?
Lisa: Yes. And one thing I did do, there is a yoga studio in town, like literally four minutes from my house that my husband goes to. He is so disciplined, it’s unbelievable. He also does it on his own every day, but then he takes a class that he comes home drenched, like wicked hard. Anyway, so I did sign up and then I realized the class I signed up for was too advanced, so I didn’t go and instead I should have just signed up another one, but I did sign up for one on Friday and I think once I go and I get out of the house and I get to the place, it will encourage me to just sign up for a month and I have already paid and I think once you do that, you’re more committed. Like I used to do Pilates because I signed up. Something is going wrong and they haven’t been able to fix the signup and I don’t know why and so I just like oh well. But no, I should like figure it out and get going. But yes, I will get back.
Dr. Frates: You make a great point though and you started this – you started on this route with the clothing which is money. Money is important to most of us. And so, when we put money down on something, that’s another trigger that we can use which is – I use this too by the way with yoga classes. I will purposely pay up front for the month knowing if I do that, rather than pay per class, if I do that, I will be religious about going there that month. So, I think you just figured out your best trigger for now which is putting the money down on that yoga class. Finding the class, you like and then putting the money down and that by putting the money down, you are going to do it so that’s your trigger in other words, you have your money in the class already.
Lisa: Yes.
Dr. Frates: So, how likely are you on a scale of zero to ten to sign up and put the money down today, tomorrow, the class is Friday, right so when will you put the money down on it? When do you think you will do that?
Lisa: Oh, I already have. I have already paid, and I have already, I’m going. I’m signed up. Yup, I’m going and then after that, when I’m done, if I like the class. If I don’t like the class, then at least I’m at the studio, I’ll ask the teacher well I’m a beginner, what is a better fit and then she’ll tell me and then for next week, I will sign up for that or today I mean on Friday and then take it from there. And I think what happened is I’m not a big fan of yoga to be honest. I found it very challenging, but I know it’s so good for me, but there was a teacher when I was far away taking my daughter to school that I just fell in love with and so that was part of it too. Like oh well she’s gone, so that’s why it’s so important to find a class that’s a good fit because if you don’t like the exercise in the first place, they usually say do something you like, but I think sometimes you can do something that you don’t love if you are still feeling like you see results in your body and you feel better, you can kind of warm up to it. And that’s kind of where I am now.
Dr. Frates: Okay so that makes great sense. And so, in terms of you, you are going to go this Friday. We will check in with you by the way, also because I think we have a follow up you and I for another show, so perhaps we will check in with you. And accountability is a big part of this process too. So, we have your trigger in place and for those of you that would use the clothes great, if you are going to use the alarm, great or if you are going to use money. There could be other triggers that you’re thinking of for yourself that fit for you.
Then the other thing is we’ll get to rewards and Lisa you are already tapped into this which is for you the reward of feeling great and seeing results keeps you going. So, the things is, we need to determine what are the rewards we are looking for? You’re pretty specific with this with yoga; not everybody is as specific but using your example. You know that you want to see changes in perhaps your shape, your body composition, you are looking for results strength wise. And that is great that you already have that. A lot of people don’t have this and so many people start with extrinsic rewards, meaning an outside reward. Not a feeling the you get intrinsically but an extrinsic one. So, many of my clients come and they want to lose weight basically, that’s probably the number one reason people come to me and they set up systems. Some clients again, money is important, so if they do their routine exercise five days of the week, like they had planned; they will put $5 in a jar. And they will continue to do that and at the end of the month, they’ll have $20 and they will use that either for a movie or something not food related, something for themselves. In fact, I had one client, who is a middle-aged mom and I asked her what would be a great reward for her if she did her routine exercise five days a week as she had planned, what would be a nice reward. And she said, if she does thirty days in a row, of some exercise, this is what she set up for herself, this is not going to be appropriate for everyone, but if she does at least 10 minutes of exercise each day, for thirty days, hoping to get to a half hour was her goal, but some days only ten minutes. Then for her, she would actually go and get herself a new pair of underwear. Now, she is a middle-aged woman with kids and explained to me that she had grandma underwear. We don’t need to go into the details of this, but I didn’t ask any. I didn’t ask any questions, but this was her – this is the thing, if you don’t ask people questions, if you don’t say what would work for you; and if I just said to her put $5 in the jar, she probably would have used the $20 for the underwear, but meanwhile, we had a great time talking about it and laughing about it throughout the month, realizing that she, by the way, did meet that goal and so she did make her purchases and then guess what happened? Her husband got very excited about this process and started encouraging her and she met her goal again and went again and basically this is what kept her moving and then the fun and excitement of it with her partner, with her husband, kept it going.
So, the reward can be extrinsic to begin with, but what happened with her and what happens with most of my clients is it’s a monetary reward or it’s the movies, something, but then you eventually start to feel those intrinsic rewards after routine exercise meaning you start to feel more energetic. You start to feel more focused after exercise. You start to notice that your stress levels are down, because you have been exercising routinely for three weeks. You might even notice a change in your mood. Because research shows us that routine exercise for four weeks, five days in a row, about a half hour, five days in a week, doesn’t have to be in a row, excuse me, five days in a week for about a half hour, total of a 150 minutes over the course of four weeks compared to an antidepressant; you are going to actually get similar results in terms of decreasing depressive symptoms and also increasing serotonin levels. So, starting to appreciate those intrinsic rewards, meaning the things that are happening internally in our body that keep us going.
For me, I get a real runners-high. Now I know some of my clients don’t relate to this. They don’t get the endorphin rush, they just don’t feel it. But those of us that do feel it, this in itself is a huge reward. I would joke with my kids and well friends and colleagues all the time; I never had to try drugs because I started running when I was 15 or so and I can get a really great high and feeling from running, so for me, that intrinsic reward is what really propels me each day.
Lisa: Oh yeah.
Dr. Frates: Again, we have to ask the client, ask the person, you have to ask yourself well how do I feel after I exercise? What is a benefit that I’m getting? And you start with the extrinsic, if you need to and move to the intrinsic when you can. Usually, you start to notice things after three or four weeks that you can notice the internal changes. You could even look at cholesterol levels, blood pressure if you are working with your physician.
The next thing in our tricks is the I. which is incentives. I like to use that word. You can also say motive, your motivation. So, why do you want to do this, to start with? What’s propelling you to go to yoga? What is propelling me to go running or to go to yoga? And that’s something that you really have – it’s – that’s probably one of the most important questions to ask yourself and those around you. So, I will actually ask you what is your motivation to get back into your routine? Why do this and why do it now?
Lisa: Well, part of it is aesthetic, am I saying, that right? My arms are changing as I’m getting older and I’m not thrilled. I’m like what is going on and I still have good muscle tone, but there’s definitely some chub there and I’m not. I mean I’m shapely, I don’t think we all need to be thin. I’m just being honest. It’s like even my daughter, the other day was squeezing my arm and she was like mom, you feel mushy and I’m like thank you. Okay. Alright, I got to get back to yoga. So, I want those, I’m not going to have those super lean yoga arms I don’t think because it’s not my body type and I’m not – I mean I eat clean but I’m not willing to like to eat that clean where I’m constantly. Because I have had obsessive issues with food and other things and it’s not healthy for me. So, I have to find my balance, right. So, what I want to do is do more cardio, which I haven’t been doing as much and I need to and do more yoga and weight training, which I used to do. So, my arms were not quite so mushy as my daughter, she’s very honest. She also tells me I’m extraordinarily smelly, so what are you going to do.
Dr. Frates: That is funny. So, now I do know a bit about you, so I can ask this and another question a little bit deeper which is I understand that the feeling of changes in our body especially as we age can propel us and that can certainly be a motivator and then someone noticing it especially children and they are often so honest and so curious that they ask questions about these changes, which I see happening with you in the story you shared. I’m also noticing that you have a book coming out shortly and will probably be going on a book tour. So, I know you mentioned aesthetics and I’m wondering about
Lisa: Well, that’s part of it too.
Dr. Frates: The timing, that’s what I was wondering if the timing is such that there’s a little bit of pressure at this point. There’s a little bit more motivation because you love probably to feel great on your book tour and to feel confident and perhaps for you, that might include feeling that you’re in good shape. Because that’s how you have been, right for your – the majority of your life and that is what you represent. So, you want to be authentic with your presentation. Is that part of the motivation? Am I ready into that correctly?
Lisa: No, not at all. You’re right and it’s funny because they pushed the book to January 2019, which I understand because they want it to be ready for Valentine’s Day and it wouldn’t be ready this year, so I’m actually excited now because it gives me more time to take care of my mush. Or I could just wear sleeves. I mean I had a big interview recently and I just wore sleeves. So, I mean it’s not that bad. I don’t think other people would be like oh my God look at your arms. I think we are all so critical, but it just I wasn’t feeling my best. And four months of driving didn’t help.
Dr. Frates: Exactly. But as I say, I felt there was something a little deeper than the aesthetics for you. The aesthetics are there, but it was really I think it is more coming to yourself, to Lisa and being fit and feeling your authentic self as you go and promote the book. I feel like that’s underlying a lot of this effort. And by the way, aesthetics comes up probably the majority of the time for the motive or people that come to me and they do want to get healthy and it starts with the aesthetics. They do mention. I had a 74-year-old client who wanted to get into a bathing suit for a vacation she was having in Florida with a friend in six months. And so, her original motivation was just that. I want to be able to fit into a bathing suit.
And with some people may be listening and saying oh this is so superficial, this is people shouldn’t be worried about how they look. And I guess I hear that, but I think we are all human and to be honest, is the only way to stick with your routine and to get to a feeling of accomplishment, to be honest with yourself and those around you. So, if that’s your first and initial motivation, or that’s what you feel, then you go with it. But just like we said with the reward, there is usually something deeper that you and I just determined even with you. There is something deeper there. It’s not just about the mushy arm, it’s actually about being Lisa and feeling like you are being true to yourself and your beliefs and your values and your priorities which you have been true to and things get in the way and then we fall off, but we want to get back. So, just being honest with your incentives and I really appreciate. I knew you would be honest, that’s why I knew we could go through this together, our tricks and use you as an example. Because I knew you would do that. And with this 74-year-old,
Lisa: A little too honest.
Dr. Frates: No, you’re – it’s wonderful.
Lisa: I just wanted to get across. I’m not extraordinarily smelling. My daughter and people listening she is like a – no her smell is like a super hero. Like she notices everything. So, I just wanted to put that out there. Okay, sorry, Dr. Frates, go on.
Dr. Frates: No, no, so that’s good for the listeners. I just as you know, just went right over that because I completely understand what you’re talking about with the olfactory system. So, the idea that we will be honest with ourselves and we will really ask what is our true motivation. And then we might want to get deeper once we identify a motivator. But then, let’s go to the fourth trick which is the C. And that’s the calendar. And this also involves logging. So, I would ask you to look at the calendar. If you have one. Do you use a paper calendar, or do you use your phone or a computer? What do you use?
Lisa: I use both. I like my paper calendar better, but I tend to lose things. So, my husband is like you got to back that up or the dogs have chewed up books and other things in the house. So, now I’m really good about keeping it in the same place, high up where they can’t reach it. But yes, this is a good reminder that I am overdue to add stuff to my calendar. Because if they do eat my paper, I’m in trouble. My paper, binder, notebook, I’m in trouble.
Dr. Frates: Right, well so for everyone in terms of the calendar, the idea is this. We know Lisa is going to yoga on Friday. So, on her calendar, the paper one high up or whatever Lisa chooses to use moving forward, there will be a spot there that says yoga. And then perhaps a box. And if you make this calendar public, which I like to do, I have teenaged boys, and they are competitive and when I say I’m going to commit to exercising this month five days a week and I’m going to put it on the calendar, they get very interested too. It makes it public. They then see oh mom, you didn’t exercise on Wednesday, so which day are you going to makeup? And they’re not even my coach. They’re just interested because we have made this now public, right, it’s on a calendar. So. You may not have kids. You may not live with anyone, so posting a calendar may not encourage others to ask you about it but guess what. If you post the calendar someplace where you can see it, it may be high up in your case due to your dogs Lisa, but where you can see it, it’s a constant reminder. To have it up on your calendar, it also encourages logging, meaning you’ll either check it off if you do it or it will remain – the box will remain unchecked and you will realize you need to do a makeup.
It also serves for reflection. So, when you finish the month, you can go back to the calendar and look. And say, wow, how many days did I go to yoga? How many days did I follow through with my exercise routine out of thirty? How many did I do? We know that when people log and keep track, it helps to literally stay on track when you keep track of things. What gets measured gets monitored. We put attention to those things that we’re measuring. So, it’s similar to what we appreciate appreciates. If you are going to focus in on kindness, you are going to notice more kindness. If you are going to focus in on tracking your exercise, you are going to take it seriously. So, putting it on the calendar and tracking or logging is really critical.
The second one, sorry actually the next thing I want to talk about which is actually the fifth step is kindness. Treating yourself with kindness throughout this process. So, this is self-compassion. We aren’t always going to meet our five out of five or like my client with the underwear, she did meet the thirty days for thirty days for a long time and was successful and remember she changed her goal to just at least be ten minutes where she could be marching in place for ten minutes and that would reach her goal. But there will be sometimes when you may not make that yoga class this Friday for some reason. Now we don’t beat ourselves up. The problem is most of us have this tendency to participate in negative self-talk. Meaning we will beat ourselves up for not going to that yoga class and we will beat ourselves up so badly, that we actually won’t even want to try again. We’ll kind of throw our hands up and say, see, I can’t do it. That’s why I have these arms. That’s why these arms are not going to get better because I don’t have time, things always get in the way, and I’m not going to do it, I can’t do it.
Instead of, let’s learn and grow from this. Treat ourselves with some self-compassion. Look at what happened that day, say wow, I understand what happened. And emergency popped up, I had to drive my daughter to this or my dog got sick or something happened, and I wasn’t able to get to it. That’s okay. Now, I’m going to make contingency plans. I’m going to go instead tomorrow on Saturday or I’ll do an online, maybe this is my cue to try an online class. There are tons of yoga classes online. Maybe that’s what I need to do to make it up. So, really giving yourself a dose of kindness throughout this process. We’re not going to be perfect. And often perfect is the enemy of progress. So, we are just looking for progress and we’re looking to learn and grow. So, if we can have that attitude, then we are much more likely to stick with any routine.
The last part of our trick is support. The S, tricks, support. So, that’s enlisting somebody else. It could be an online support network if that works best for you. It would be great if you had a person, even if it’s a friend in California and you live in New York, that you can call and check in with to keep you accountable or in your case, Lisa, you have got your husband who is going routinely and perhaps you start going when he goes or you find another friend or if you can use your support system to help you stick with your exercise routine, it will be really useful for the long haul. So those are the tricks. Triggers, rewards, incentives, the calendar, kindness, and support. If you can put those in place, you are much more likely to stick with your exercise routine.
Lisa: You are so wonderful Dr. Frates. I always love having you on the program. The time went by so quickly. So, tell us all the ways we can find you on social media.
Dr. Frates: Okay, terrific. So, I’m most engaged at this time with Twitter and that’s @bethfratesmd. B-E-T-H-F-R-A-T-E-S-M-D. I also have a website which I’m upgrading very soon but currently it’s www.wellness-synergy.com and I’d love to connect. I do enjoy Twitter. I do follow Lisa and it is a lot of fun and I’m often posting about sticking with exercise, about kindness, about nutrition, about sleep, about many different lifestyle medicine topics. And I would love to come back as we have talked about earlier and discuss the It’s Fun Exercise Prescription perhaps.
Lisa: Oh, you definitely will, and everyone definitely follow Dr. Frates. She’s wonderful. I want to thank everyone for listening to Talk Fitness Today. You can follow me @healthmediagal1. You can also follow Talk Fitness Today @talkfitness2day. I want to thank everyone for listening and stay well.
This episode of Talk Fitness was produced by The Vitamin Shoppe where trusted health enthusiasts help you thrive every day. Visit one of 800 stores across the country or head to Vitamin Shoppe.com for all your wellness needs. - Length (mins) 31:16
- Waiver Received Yes
- Host Lisa Davis, MPH
Mike Matthews returns to discuss male fitness.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File talk_fitness/tft027.mp3
- Featured Speaker Michael Matthews, Founder of Muscle for Life
- Book Title Bigger, Leaner, Stronger & Thinner, Leaner Stronger
- Guest Website Muscle for Life
- Guest Facebook Account https://www.facebook.com/muscleforlifefitness
- Guest Twitter Account @muscleforlife
-
Guest Bio
Mike Matthews is a bestselling fitness author and entrepreneur, and the creator of MuscleForLife.com and Legion Athletics.
His simple and science-based approach to building muscle, losing fat, and getting healthy has sold over a million books and helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever, and his work has been featured in many popular outlets including Esquire, Men’s Health, Elle, Women’s Health, Muscle & Strength, Elle, and more, as well as on FOX and ABC. -
Transcription
Male Fitness with Michael Matthews
This episode of Talk Fitness is in partnership with The Vitamin Shoppe, where knowledgeable health enthusiasts are standing by to help you thrive every day.
Lisa Davis (Host): Hi, I’m Lisa Davis. So, glad you’re listening to Talk Fitness Today. I recently had the wonderful Michael Matthews on the program. We talked about Thinner, Leaner, Stronger, The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Female Body and today guys, it’s your turn. Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body, Michael Matthews is back. Heh, Michael.
Michael Matthews (Guest): Heh, thanks for having back on the show.
Lisa: Oh, it’s great to have you back. So, just like in the other book, you start with some wonderful before and after pictures. Those are so motivating. You have your own before and after picture which is great and if people missed our interview that we did on Thinner, Leaner, Stronger, The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Female Body; you did share about your experience and how you got into the field. If you could just tell us briefly now again, for people who missed it.
Michael: Yeah sure, so I got into weight lifting as a teenager. I was 17 turning 18 and I grew up playing sports, played a lot of hockey and then wanted to keep doing something with my body and got into weightlifting and in the beginning, I really didn’t know what I was doing. Like most people, I picked up some body building magazines and looked around the internet and found a couple of work out routines and just started going with it. and in the beginning, your body is hyper responsive to resistance training, so you are going to see results with just about anything that you do. However, that lasts for let’s say six months or so, that’s on the high end. For some people it’s the honeymoon phase, the newby game phase. Right. Let’s just say it’s four to six months for most people and then things start to slow down and then if you want to keep progressing, you are going to have to really learn what you are doing.
What got you there is not necessarily going to get you where you want to be and so I learned that eventually. I kind of I would say more or less spun my wheels for many years doing more traditional body building style workouts that weren’t guided by any real basic understanding of the physiology of muscle growth and of strength gain and fat loss and again, I was more just following various tips and programs and things that I would find in magazines and on the internet. But fortunately, I knew that I didn’t really know anything about this. It was something I just enjoyed doing. I would do it with my friends. We weren’t taking it that seriously.
But about let’s see it was probably about five years ago now, it was about seven years into my personal fitness journey I guess, is when I really just decided to start educating myself because I wanted to just see what could I do with my body. What’s the – how lean could I get? How much muscle could I gain? If I was going to keep on working out, I might as well try to get the most out of it and so I really started to educate myself and went primarily to the scientific literature, that’s where I started. Because I was looking to first understand the first principles. I was looking to understand the laws and if we are talking about the dietary side of things; I wanted to understand how does the human metabolism actually work? And if we are talking about the training side of things; how does the physiology muscle growth work? How does the body’s muscle building machinery work? And from there, then I figured I could better vet what I was doing. I could better vet potential diets and potential training programs and maybe even just come up with my own kind of approach based on my understanding.
So, that was again that was about five years ago, and it went well and fortunately there’s just a lot of good information out there. It’s not like – I mean I don’t say that I have – there is nothing breakthrough about me or my work. I have just done a good job I would say finding good information and understanding it and figuring out how to explain it to other people in a way that they can understand it and apply it and get results with it. And so, when I went through that process of educating myself and then I changed how I was eating. I changed how I was training and over the course of the next few years; I was able to dramatically improve my physique, so I was able to get lean and stay lean and add quite a bit of muscle to my frame and I would say achieve the type of body that most guys want. So, not a body builder body per se, but I would say more like maybe an athletic kind of fitness modelish kind of body. And then from there, I was like well, I want to educate other people. I want to share what I have learned with other people, because ire member how annoying it was to not – to just be lost in all of the noise and to not know up from down and to be constantly chasing one method after another or working with one trainer after another and not really seeing clear results or clear progress.
And so, in 2012, I published Bigger, Leaner, Stronger and it was like a first edition. It was kind of a minimum viable product type of approach. I think it was maybe fifty thousand words or so, no more than seventy thousand words. I don’t remember exactly, but I just wanted to put something out there and it wasn’t about marketing or trying to sell the sizzle, it was really just straight to the point. Here’s the book I wish somebody would have given me when I first started working out. It would have saved me a lot of time. It would have saved me a lot of trouble and I would have gotten to where I am now a lot faster. And yeah, so that was 2012 and now I have gone through – that book has gone through several revisions based on further research and just good feedback from readers and bringing up good points and asking good questions and it has now sold close to 300,000 copies and continues to sell well and yeah, so that’s how Bigger, Leaner, Stronger came about.
Lisa: Oh, that’s fantastic. You know in chapter five, the seven biggest muscle building myths and mistakes you write nine out of ten people you see in the gym don’t train correctly. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but it’s true and soon you will see why. Alright, what’s going on in the gym? What’s everybody doing that they shouldn’t be doing and what are some of the myths that they think are true and are keeping them from attaining the body that they really want?
Michael: Yeah, and so this is more particular to guys. What you will see a lot of guys in the gym doing is you will see them do – they are usually doing very long workouts that are focused usually kind of just on one muscle group and they are doing a lot of reps , usually very high reps, not very much weight, kind of focusing on getting a big pump and really trying to kind of blast or just annihilate this muscle group and then let it recover for five to seven days because if you train – when you are training a muscle group when you are doing resistance training, you are causing damage like micro tears in not necessarily the muscle fibers it looks like it is actually more kind of the connective tissue around the muscle fibers, but there is damage that needs to be repaired and until it is; things are going to be too sore and too painful to really train again.
And what you want to be doing and this is again, this is one of the things that I really, really learned in my not just research, but then in my subsequent experience, and now my experience working with thousands of guys is you really want to be focusing one on increasing whole body strength. That really needs to be your over riding goal. If you’re a guy and you want to be gaining, you want to gain muscle as quickly as possible; then you want to gain strength as quickly as possible. Now that’s not necessarily – where this can kind of throw people off is in the beginning as I mentioned, your body is hyper responsive to weight lifting. You will get results no matter what you do in the beginning. You don’t necessarily have to get strong in the beginning to gain some muscle. However, things change after that newby gain phase. Once you are moving out of your beginner phase to your intermediate kind of phase, so once you have got your first year of weight lifting under your belt; then strength and size become much more correlated. Meaning that you are going to have to improve your strength if you want to continue getting bigger.
Okay so, if that’s true; then how do you best get stronger? Well there’s a lot of research. I mean there is just even recently a meta-analysis by Schoenfeld and there was who else, there was Brad Schoenfeld and one or two other people that worked on this paper and it’s very clear, there is no question at this point that lifting heavier weights for fewer reps is better for getting stronger. Furthermore, compound exercises which are exercises that involve multiple joints and multiple muscle groups; are better for increasing whole body strength. So, for example, doing heavy squats, so doing let’s say squats with about 80-85% of your one rep max for somewhere around let’s say four to six reps; that is better for gaining strength than doing let’s say leg extensions on the leg extension machine for who knows how many sets of 12-15-20 reps followed by maybe hamstring curls, another machine exercise – those are isolation exercises because they are using – they are really just using one joint and they are focusing on one major muscle group. In the case of leg extensions, the quads, in the case of the hamstring curls, the hamstrings.
So, that was one of the big changes for example my own workouts. I used to do workouts very much in that way. I would have like a chest day that would just be not too much bench pressing, more pushups and dumbbell flies and pec deck, really trying to isolate the pecs and then also doing a lot of sets and a lot of reps whereas now, yes I still have you could say a chest day; it’s more like a press day where I am doing – I’m working on my chest – my pecs, I’m working my triceps, I’m working on my shoulders; but the workouts now are quite different. I’m doing stuff like barbell bench press, dumbbell bench press, close grip bench press and for shoulders, it’s usually stuff like the overhead press, or the dumbbell press. And then also, usually some isolation exercises for in the case of the shoulders, like side raises and rear raises. So, it’s not that isolation exercises are bad; but you really need to be focusing most of your efforts on getting stronger and on preforming compound lifts. So, that’s just – that’s an example of something that if guys where to just to that; they would – and if they were stop doing what we see a lot of what’s going on in the gym and just start doing that; that alone would really – the results that they would get from that would be very surprising.
Lisa: You know one of the things too that struck me is myth and mistake number 5, lifting like an idiot. You basically talk about that most guys don’t have a clue about proper form on many exercises and this ignorance stunts their gains, causes unnecessary wear and tear on ligaments, tendons and joints and opens the door to debilitating injuries. That’s huge. Because if we are talking about lifting heavier weights and there’s also a bigger risk, right, if you are doing it incorrectly. So, how important is it to work with somebody else, especially if you are brand new. Maybe to have someone guide you at first, a trainer or someone who know what they are doing. Talk to us about this.
Michael: Yeah, and that’s a good point. There are – there have been a few studies that – I actually was just reading recently on the safety of weightlifting and fortunately; if it’s performed properly, weightlifting and even powerlifting is actually quite safe. But, if it’s performed correctly. If it’s performed incorrectly, then it’s yes, it is a dangerous activity. If you are for example, - let’s just take about some common form mistakes. So, for example, you will see when people are squatting a common mistake that we will see is as they are ascending the knees will start to cave in, right, so we have probably all seen that. Whereas proper form is when you are squatting your knees should be in line with your toes at all times. You actually a good cue when you are standing up in the squat is until you really have it grooved in; you almost want to get the feeling of pushing you knees out as if you are pushing them away from each other. What you don’t want is them to buckle in toward each other. On the dead lift which is for anyone not familiar with it; it’s an exercise, barbell on the floor, essentially you are just picking the barbell up. Sounds simple. It’s very difficult, probably the hardest exercise you can do.
But a common mistake that we see on the dead lift is rounding the lower back. In some kind of elite dead lifters like competitive weightlifters; you will see a little bit of rounding in the upper area of the back, that’s not so much an issue; it’s the lower back where you look kind of like a scared cat as they are picking the weight up. That is – you are just asking for a disk injury. Also, another common thing that we see on the dead lift is really yanking the weight up at the top and hyper extending your lower back at the top. Very bad idea, asking for a disk injury. On the bench press, this is an exercise that many people think just ruins your shoulders. Period. No, that’s not true if you do it wrong; it can ruin your shoulders. And one of the most common mistakes that people make on the bench press is they flare their elbows up, so when they are pressing – because it gives you a little bit more leverage and it helps you get the bar up; if you move your elbows away from your torso and up towards your shoulder up to the point maybe where it’s even like a 90 degree angle; that is bad for your shoulders and it’s bad for your rotator cuff muscles in particular which again, if you injure a rotator cuff muscle; it just is a very long annoying recovery. So, what you will see then is aa lot of people that and you know, you see it more with guys because will get competitive and also, they just kind of want to look cool and they want to put up as much weight as possible and what that usually means is form breaks down. Now not only does this increase the risk of injury; it also decreases the effectiveness of the exercise. So ironically, really all you’re getting out of it is an increased risk of injury and you’re getting less muscle gain and strength gain.
It’s much smarter to work with lower weights and proper form and that also then means you are going to progress in – you are going to progress in a way that your body is able to keep up with. Because remember, it’s not just muscles that are involved, it’s also tendons and ligaments. And your muscles – and you will see this actually with steroid users, right, where there is one of the reasons why a lot of steroid users get injuries to particularly to joints and the tendons and ligaments is their muscles get super strong, super-fast, but all the supporting structure, the infrastructure of the body can’t keep up with it and if they don’t know what they are doing in the gym and they just think like this feels light, I’m just going to keep going. I’m just going to keep going. Until eventually, a muscle tears or they have some other type of serious injury. And you see a similar effect when people use improper form to try to add weight. They are demanding more of their body and its sometime muscles, but it’s more often joints and tendons and ligaments than the body can give. So, again, proper form is crucial and if that means slower progress; that’s totally fine. That’s natural. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
Lisa: Oh yeah. I completely agree. You know another thing you have in the book under these seven biggest myths – excuse me building myths and mistakes, muscle building myths is you have to feel the burn to grow, that’s one and then another one is constantly changing up your routine. Talk to us about those.
Michael: Yeah so feeling the burn, right so again, I used to think that was super important and really what that is, is its lactic acid building up right, so as your muscles get more and more stressed, lactic acid levels rise and we experience that as a burning sensation. There is actually quite a bit of research that has been done on this. I wrote and article on it recently. How important is that? How important is getting a pump? Those things usually go hand in hand like feel the burn, get a pump. And a pump of course is just muscle, you know your muscles are engorged with blood. And the long story short is those are basically non-factors as far as muscle growth goes. The primary drivers of muscle growth have been pretty well taped. We are looking at progressive overload, which basically means adding weight to the bar over time, subjecting your muscles to more and more load over time which is again, that ties back into why I am saying as a natural weightlifter, our number one goal is to increase whole body strength over time. Yes, there are sub goals or other things we can do especially if we really want to perfect our physiques, so to speak; but we need to make whole body strength our primary objective and then you also have metabolic stress, you have muscle damage, those are two other factors. But muscle pump and muscle burn are really non-factors. They look cool, and they might feel good and people get into that and that’s fine if you really like that then you can actually save some of that stuff for the end of your workout.
So, if you are – you know whatever muscle you are training regardless, once you have done your heavy strength training; if you want to do some pump stuff just because you like how it feels; there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you don’t sit in there for like another 45 minutes doing a million sets. But if you want to end with a couple of 20 or 30 rep sets, just to end with a big pump; do it. Nothing wrong with that. But, if that’s the – if that’s like the majority of your workout is just 20 or 30 rep sets and just trying to get a pump; you are not going to get very far. So, that’s that point of why feeling the burn is really just not that important and sorry what was the second point?
Lisa: Oh, the other point was about that you have to change things up al the time.
Michael: Oh, right muscle confusion.
Lisa: Yeah, muscle confusion.
Michael: So yeah, that’s of course been, and I used to think that I read about that in magazines and I thought it was very important. Again, the basic theory seems to sound right and like oh well you are – you need to be like constantly stimulating your muscles with new types of movements and new types of well there is also I mean there is the exercise themselves, but it is also how it trains muscles. You have different planes of motion and so forth. And the long story short here is this is actually counterproductive because one, there is really no evidence to support that there is much of a novelty effect meaning that when you do a new exercise, your muscles don’t like go into this hyper responsive mode again like you were new to weightlifting. That’s just not how it works. You are hyper responsive in the beginning and then once that’s gone, that’s gone for good. There is something to be said for training muscles in different ways with different types of movements, yes, for sure. But, why muscle confusion, why constantly changing up your routine, I think is more counterproductive than anything else is it doesn’t allow you to get good at any particular exercise. And in terms of exercises, out of all the exercises you can do for all your major muscle groups; there’s really a you know you have a [inaudible][00:19:31] principle in play. You have twenty percent of those exercises are going to produce eighty percent of the results. And of those twenty percent; eighty percent of those exercises are going to be compound exercises.
So, for example, the best exercises to build a program around are the big compound lifts, the strength training lifts, the squat, the dead lift, the bench press, the overhead press. Now if you can’t do any of those exercises for any reason; that’s okay. You can work around that. But if you can, if you don’t have any injuries or dysfunctions that preclude you from doing them; those are the best place to start. And what happens is if you are constantly changing your routine; you are not given enough time to really learn proper form and learn proper techniques and improve your technique. A lot of people don’t realize that some of these exercises are kind of technical movement. I mean a squat is not a golf swing, but there are a number of elements to a proper squat and there are a lot of muscles and a lot of joints that have to work in pretty good harmony to produce a good squat. And as with anything; the more you squat, the better you get at squatting. That’s one of the ways to get stronger on the squat is to simply squat more frequently. That’s why many strength training programs have you squatting two or three days per week. There is some evidence to show that higher frequency is better for muscle growth. Period. But what we know for sure is that the higher frequency improves your skill faster and the more skilled you are at squatting, and we can quantify skill in terms of bar path, in terms of angles of your body and of your joints at different points in the squat. Like there is an objective- there are objective measures for good and bad squatting and the closer you get to the good squat; the better you are going be able to squat because what you are doing is you are basically gaining more leverage on the weight and you are also from an anatomical perspective; you are allowing your body to most efficiently move that weight and allowing your muscles to work together as efficiently as possible to produce as much power as possible.
So, what you want to do then is you want to have staple exercises which are your most productive exercises and you want to be doing those frequently. You want to be doing those every week and in some cases several times per week so you can get better at them and so you can continue to get better and better at them and you might – it really kind of depends on I guess your – how quickly you pick up on things and just some people are just naturally very good at duplicating physical motions like being able to just look at things and do them and they improve very quickly. But, you are going to see significant improvements in your technique probably for your first 100-300 hours of doing the exercise. It’s not just like you are going to squat five times and you are going to have it nailed. It might take a bit of time to really get in perfect technique and so that’s why if you change exercises every week, yeah you are giving your muscles some different stimuli and there’s probably some value to that; but you are never going to get really good at any individual exercise and you are not going to be getting good at the exercises that matter most.
And so, those are the main reasons why I’m just not really a fan of muscle confusion. I’d say the benefit of it is it helps keep things – it helps give variety and some people find that that makes the workouts more interesting, but I have worked with a lot of people that had that initially the had that consideration like if they were going to do this same kind of routine, if they are just going to squat every week and there is not that much variety, is it going to get boring and I would say I mean how I have kind of helped them with that is let’s reframe it really look at what our goal is here. Our goal is we are not going into the gym to just exercise. We are not going into the gym to just burn calories and move our bodies. That’s fine, it’s not that those are worthwhile things, but we are going into the gym to train and training has a specific goal.
What’s our objective? Our objective is increasing whole body strength. Why is that our objective? Because that’s what’s going to ultimately get us to the ultimate goal of looking the way you want to look and also feeling great and increasing our longevity and reducing our risk for disease and dysfunction and so when you look at it that way and you go okay I have a very – like I really want that goal. That is motivating to me and if that means that I have to do workouts that on the surface seem kind of boring; then I’m going to do that. And then when they get into the groove of doing it, they often find that they really enjoy the workouts because they are able to progress. And of course, that feeling of progression toward goals is what produces satisfaction. So, all of the sudden, now they don’t care that they are squatting again, or they are dead lifting again or bench pressing again because look at the progress they have made. In the last year, they’ve gained a hundred – they have put on 100 pounds on their big lifts and they are continuing to progress and they know that every time they gain a rep, every time that they are able to put more weight on the bar; they are a little bit closer to the long-term goal. And so, it’s just a – changing the perspective.
Lisa: Oh, completely. Well you know you have got to come back a lot because I think you are fantastic. One of the things that I want to get into when I have you back again is you talk about three different types of meal plans; one for cutting, one for bulking, one for maintaining. There is so much more in the book. we are also going to have you back to talk about your cookbook, the Shredded Chef and in the meantime, tell us all the ways we can find you Michael.
Michael: Yeah, absolutely. So, my central hub I guess you would say is my website muscle for life which is muscle F-O-R life.com and from there you can find my books and I also have a supplement company and you can find all of my things and you can also find me on the social medias although, I will say that I’m not very diligent with them. I don’t spend too much time on them because I’m kind of wrapped up in other things, but I am there. So, you can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter at either muscleforlifefitness or muscleforlife and yeah, I would say those are probably the easiest ways to find me and my stuff.
Lisa: Awesome. Well Michael, I can’t wait to have you back. This has been so incredibly enjoyable and informative. If you want to learn more about Talk Healthy Today, Talk Fitness Today you can go to www.itsyourhealthwithlisadavis.com , lots of great stuff there. You can check us out on social media on Twitter @talkfitness2day. Everyone have a great day and stay well.
This episode of Talk Fitness was produced by The Vitamin Shoppe where trusted health enthusiasts help you thrive every day. Visit one of 800 stores across the country or head to Vitamin Shoppe.com for all your wellness needs. - Length (mins) 26:10
- Waiver Received Yes
- Host Lisa Davis, MPH
Getting into awesome shape isn’t nearly as complicated as the fitness industry wants you to believe.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File talk_fitness/tft026.mp3
- Featured Speaker Michael Matthews, Founder of Muscle for Life
- Book Title Bigger, Leaner, Stronger & Thinner, Leaner Stronger
- Guest Website Muscle for Life
- Guest Facebook Account https://www.facebook.com/muscleforlifefitness
- Guest Twitter Account @muscleforlife
-
Guest Bio
Mike Matthews is a bestselling fitness author and entrepreneur, and the creator of MuscleForLife.com and Legion Athletics.
His simple and science-based approach to building muscle, losing fat, and getting healthy has sold over a million books and helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever, and his work has been featured in many popular outlets including Esquire, Men’s Health, Elle, Women’s Health, Muscle & Strength, Elle, and more, as well as on FOX and ABC. -
Transcription
Female Fitness with Michael Matthews
This episode of Talk Fitness is in partnership with The Vitamin Shoppe, where knowledgeable health enthusiasts are standing by to help you thrive every day.
Lisa Davis (Host): So glad you’re listening to Talk Fitness Today. If you are looking for a book, ladies out there, that is going to give you everything you need to build the ultimate female body; I have go the book for you. It is Thinner, Leaner, Stronger, the Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Female Body. It is by Michael Matthews who joins us now. Heh Michael.
Michael Matthews (Guest): Heh Lisa, how are you?
Lisa: I’m good, how are you doing?
Michael: I’m good. I’m good.
Lisa: Good. I have to say Michael, I’m super impressed. I get about four to six books a week and when I got your book, I though holy cow, you cover everything. It’s really impressive. You start out in the book, you have got these amazing before and after pictures, you have your own; I like this not very impressive, something had to change picture of you and too wow, you are stunningly handsome and ripped and strong and fit. Talk to us about your evolution and then I want to talk about the women out there and what we can do.
Michael: Yeah absolutely. So, I started lifting weights. If got into it when I was like 20, I think I was 17 turning 18, so I grew up playing sports. I played a lot of hockey and when I stopped playing hockey, I wanted to continue doing something with my body and honestly, I mean I was 17, and I was like hmm, I like girls and girls like muscles so I’m just going to start doing that. And so that’s how I got into it and in the beginning, I didn’t really know what I was doing, I just picked up some body building magazines and did whatever kind of workouts were in those magazines and it went on like that for years. Something I kind of stayed with my friends and honestly, I didn’t take it - I guess I could say I didn’t take it very seriously in that I wasn’t – I wasn’t very educated, but at least I knew I wasn’t very educated. And eventually, I decided to get a bit more serious about it and see what could I really do with my body just for the sake of why not. Let’s see. What’s the best shape that I can possibly get in and what does that require. Because I had picked up various things along the way. A lot of things that people still kind of -are still very commonly believed today like for example, if you want to get lean, you have to do a bunch of cardio or you have to eat a bunch of “clean” or healthy food and you can’t eat “unclean” or unhealthy foods and you should be training certain ways with weights like really high reps to really feel the burn if you want to bring out the striations and just a lot of things like that.
And when I really got down to educating myself and learning the kind of like I went to a – I wanted to go learn the first principles. I wanted to learn the – what are the laws of if we are talking about diet. How does the human metabolism really work? I didn’t want to just learn about random fad diets or diets that revolve around usually like restricting or emphasizing one particular food or one type of food over another. Again, I wanted to understand the machinery of the body and then from there, turn that into more practical kind of guidelines. And so, that was probably about six or seven years into my fitness journey I guess. And at that point, I looked okay and I had made decent progress simply because I was consistent, and its years and years of consistent work is going to produce something. But, it wasn’t exactly what you would expect for like 1500 plus hours of exercise and so, yeah from there I educated myself and went first and foremost to just the scientific literature and that was particularly fruitful on the dietary side of things because we have over a century of metabolic research now that is just easily accessible and because of the amount of not only clinical trials but the amount of reviews and metanalyses that are out there; you really don’t have to do that much reading to get a good general understanding of what matters most in terms of losing weight, maintaining weight, gaining weight and also you can break that down into losing fat and not muscle, gaining muscle and not fat and so forth.
On the training side of things, it’s a bit more complicated, the science which is a bit more contradictory and it’s more nuanced, but there are a handful of books that I started with that broke it down, in a pretty straightforward manner and made arguments that really spoke to me in terms of the importance of focusing on strength training over everything else as opposed to more traditional I say like “body-building” training. And so, from that point, again that was probably year sevenish, over the next three to four years of educating myself and then putting what I had learned into practice; I was able to dramatically transform my physique. I was able to lose a lot of body fat and get very lean and then subsequently actually stay very lean, but also put on a fair amount of muscle in the right places on my body that gave me the type of look I guess that most guys are going for. I don’t think I look like a body builder per se, I say maybe a little bit more like an athlete or fitness model kind of look. And so from there, that was kind of my personal transformation and then I decided to start educating other people and I had always been interested in writing so, I thought that would be a good place to start and that was 2012 when I wrote my first book and it’s been kind of a rocket ride I guess since.
Lisa: Well, I’m not surprised. Because you have so much great information in the book. you know one of the questions that I have has to do with a woman and her curves. So, I’m curvy. I like it. And my fear is if I do too much, I’m going to lose – because you end up, you can’t just lose weight and spot reducing, right, there is no such thing as spot reducing. So, if I want to get leaner overall, then there go the boobs, there goes the butt, it seems like. So, what do you say to that because I’m at this point where I’m definitely not as lean as I’d like to be; but I don’t want to lose weight right now. I just want to firm up, but I don’t want to get too lean, so like how do you access all that. Because I think there are other women out there especially now because curves are very popular, and I know it should just be because they are popular, but I like mine. So, what do you say?
Michael: Yeah, yeah and you know, to give just a hundred percent honest answer, is it kind of depends on your body. Genetics are going to play a big role in that. Especially if you are talking about boobs, that is very much a genetic thing. Some women will get very lean and yeah, they may lose a little bit of size, but not very much while other women will lose more than they want to. But as far as butt goes, that you can manipulate through training. So, you know like you can definitely – let’s just say that – I have worked with thousands and thousands of women over the years via the internet virtually right and I have stayed in touch with a lot of women over the course of really their like in some cases, it is multiple years now; and you can definitely like the look that most women seem to resonate best with most women is about let’ say eighteen to 20 percent body fat with anywhere from fifteen to probably twenty pounds of muscle in the right places and that’s for most women seems to be the sweet spot because at eighteen to twenty percent body fat, you are not super shredded. You don’t have things coming out everywhere but you have clear abs, and again depending on your genetics, it might be even as much as like a six pack, but you are going to have clear stomach definition, you are going to look tight, you are going to have muscle definition in your arms and you also though are going to have enough fat to have boobs and to have a butt and then again in the case of butt, you can also – you can kind of manipulate that through training.
So, in my program for women, it is more lower body centric than upper body whereas my program for men has more work on the upper body than the lower body. We are not neglecting the lower body, but the reality is for most women, you are going to have – you are going to be happy with your upper body fast than your lower body for most women. It’s going to take more work to get he lower body that you want than the upper body and for men it’s usually the other way around. Most guys are going to be happy with their lower body development sooner than their upper body, so you have to kind of program for that. But with the butt in particular, like in my program for women; you’re training it three days a week, two day are kind of more indirect – well I wouldn’t say indirect, but you are doing things like squatting and you are doing glut specific training and that’s about the most you can get away with as a natural weight lifter is taking a major muscle group and training it two to three times a week is a lot and you can do it as long as it’s set up correctly. More than that probably becomes a bit counterproductive.
So, in your case, the question would be – I would be curious to see like what you would think if you were at about twenty percent body fat and you had trained in a way that’s specific to the body that you want. Now, for example, if you are talking about your chest; training the chest muscles can help a little bit because the fat is on top of the muscles, so it can kind of move it up a little bit and perk it up a little bit. But that is harder to – you are not going to be able to influence that as significantly as you can influence your butt for example where you can be very, very lean and actually have a very round and noticeable butt simply because it’s muscle. So, yeah I mean again I would say you have to kind of see how does your body respond and the good thing about it also is the worst case scenario, is let’s say you were to do that and you were to get to twenty percent body fat which again if you are like most women, is probably where you would – as far as just pure body fat percentage goes, my guess is that you would be pretty happy with that. And then you have to access your body and you have to look and you have to be like, you know what, honestly, I don’t like that I don’t have enough boobs at twenty percent, so I’m going to go up a bit. I’m going to go up to twenty two percent and I’m going to see and so then over time, you eventually find your sweet spot and you go okay cool, this is where I am happiest with everything and then the game is of course, you can maintain it and then you look at how can you improve very specific things so at least you are keeping it interesting. You are not just kind of going through the motions everyday because that does get a bit boring.
Lisa: Yeah, that is true. Alright, well I want to jump into some of these. You have so much good information as I mentioned. Okay I love this; five biggest fat loss myths and mistakes. The first one is watching calorie intake is unnecessary. Talk to us about that.
Michael: Yeah, so I know this is pretty trending these days and I understand from a marketing perspective, yeah, it makes sense to kind of be one contrarian like contrarian positioning is always good marketing because it gets people’s attention. And this also plays into what people want to hear and what they want to believe because tracking calories is annoying. If you are going to even if you use an app like My Fitness Pal, it is still kind of annoying and in meal planning can be kind of annoying. It can also be a little bit confusing if you don’t know what you are doing with meal planning and it also generally means a little bit less variety in your diet. But, the long story short is there is something called energy balance. This is kind of a technical term, a scientific term and it refers to the relationship between the amount of energy that you are eating, and this energy is measured in calories or kilocalories, right that’s how we generally measure it versus the amount of energy that you are burning. And that relationship is called energy balance. So, your body, in its natural state assuming that there is nothing particularly wrong with your metabolism or hormones; it basically wants to maintain a neutral state of energy balance. It doesn’t really want to gain weight, it doesn’t really want to lose weight; it kind of just wants to stay the same. So, if you are eating unprocessed nutritious foods and you just kind of listen to your natural hunger and satiety cues to eat when you are hungry, and you eat until you are satisfied. You don’t stuff yourself. If you do that, and anybody that has done that over time, you probably notice that your weight doesn’t really change. It probably fluctuates let’s say anywhere from one to three pounds and that’s it. And that’s good. That’s how your body is meant to work.
Now, if you want to lose weight and of course when I say lose weight, really what I mean is if you want to lose fat and all body fat is, is it’s just energy stores for your body to tap into when it doesn’t have energy from food. You are going to have to restrict that energy intake. You are going to have to again, scientists refer to it as a state of negative energy balance which means that you are going to have to intentionally give your body a bit less energy than it’s burning. Now, if your body didn’t have a way to get the energy that it needs; so again, let’s put real numbers on it. Let’s say just for a simple number, let’s say you are burning about 2000 calories a day. That’s how much energy you are burning because it requires energy to just stay alive, every organ in your body of course requires energy to just operate, the brain requires a lot of energy. So, if you were just to lay in bed all day, you are still burning a fair amount of energy. Then of course you add on top of that physical activity, right so exercise, but not just exercise, every physical activity; walking around, even fidgeting, right? So, there’s research that shows that some people are just very high activity types and they are always kind of moving. They are always – if they are reading something, they are bobbing their leg, or they are playing with their hands and this expresses itself in many ways and that actually can add up to quite a significant amount of energy every day. Like in some studies, they have shown that that alone in some people is like three to five hundred calories a day of just kind of fidgeting and just moving around, right.
But if we just want to put a simple number on it, right, let’s just say it’s 2000 calories. Let’s say that’s what you are burning in a day and you ate 1500 calories, so your body was short 500 calories for the day. If it didn’t have a way to get that energy that it needed; you would just die. Because of course, our cells, they need a constant supply of energy. They can’t just sit around and wait like everything can’t just shut down and go well we don’t have any energy from food, we ate food like three hours ago and we are done processing that, so where’s the energy going to come from? Of course, the body’s primary source of energy is body fat. When it doesn’t have energy from food, it goes to body fat. So, when you underfeed your body by let’s say 500 calories in let’s say a 24 hours period; most of that energy is going to have been pulled from body fat.
So, essentially what has happened is, in that 24-hour period, you have a little bit less body fat because your body had to go to its body fat stores to obtain the let’s say 500 calories give or take that it didn’t get from food. And then when you rinse and repeat that day after day; that is of course what adds up to fat loss over time. And when you look at it day by day, it’s not that much. A pound of fat contains approximately 3500 calories and it actually requires quite a bit more – you have to burn quite a bit more than that to actually lose a pound of fat, but my point is these changes are pretty small, so you don’t see them day to day. And again, that is an undisputed fact of science. Every clinical trial that you can find on PubMed that demonstrated significant weight loss relied on the manipulation of energy balance. It requires an energy deficit. There is just no other way to do it. And some diets that are highly restrictive for example just force you to be in that caloric deficit. You know if you are not allowed to eat half of the foods that you actually like to eat, and if you have to eat foods that are relatively low in calories but relatively high in volume, so they are very filling; you are naturally going to eat quite a bit less and you are naturally going to be underfeeding your body.
So, that’s why we can never get around the fact that calories matter. Now, a calorie is not a calorie in the sense of when we look at it in terms of body composition; not all calories are the same, yes that’s true. But if we are going to gain control of our weight and if we are going to really know how to lose weight or maintain weight or gain weight as desired; we have to understand energy balance and how it affects the body and how we can use it as a tool as opposed to having it work against us or work mysteriously.
Lisa: Oh yeah. I completely agree. Now there’s some other mistakes in there. People have to get the book. you have got myth and mistake, chasing fad diets, doing tons of reps brings out muscle definition, trying to spot reduce fat which I mentioned earlier. Let’s jump into the thinner, leaner, stronger workout routine. Give us an idea of what we gals will be doing.
Michael: Yeah, so it is really what it is – it’s in the weightlifting lingo, it’s kind of like a push-pull-legs program, if people have heard of that type of programing where you are working your push muscles which is obviously like your upper body, it’s your pecs, it’s your triceps, it’s your shoulders, you are working your pull muscles, your biceps, your back and you’re working your lower body, your legs and it’s strength training type of program. It’s not a hard core strength training program in that I’m not asking women to lift tremendous amounts of weight, but it is a lot heavier than most women are used to lifting because many women that get into resistance training of any kind, usually are told that you are supposed to use very little weight and you are supposed to just do a lot of reps because if you do anything else, you are going to get bulky, right so that’s the – probably the primary concern at least in my experience of women who are getting into resistance training. Yes, they want to have muscle definition. They want to have muscle tone. They want to be lean. They want to have curves, but they don’t want to be bulky. And I understand. And the – I think it’s worth just talking on that just for a minute.
Because the key here is because bulkiness does not come from – well first let’s just say that strength training, the reason why I am focusing on strength training and why I want women to focus on strength training one of the reasons at least in terms of body composition is it’s the most effective way to gain muscle. It just is and there’s – that’s a whole other discussion if you wanted to get into the science of that, but if you want to and again this applies to men too: if you want to gain muscle as quickly as possible, then you want to be focusing the majority of your efforts on strength training and that involves exercises that are difficult.
Exercises that involve multiple joints, multiple major muscle groups, right called compound exercises so like for example the squat is a great exercise. Difficult exercise whether it’s a barbell on your back or a barbell in front of you, the barbell squat is a strength training exercise. The dead lift, where you are picking a barbell up off the ground, sounds simple. It’s hard. And it involves pretty much every major muscle group in your body. You have stuff like the bench press and the overhead press. Now again, many women they hear these things and they think well isn’t that more like what guys are supposed to be doing? Because guys want the big muscles and yes, that is true that is what guys should be doing if guys want big muscles. But it is also what women should be doing because women need to gain muscle as well.
And they need to gain muscle in the right places to have the look that they want and coming back to the bulkiness point now, gaining muscle is not what makes women bulky. What makes women bulky is having too high of a body fat percentage. So if your body fat levels are too high, and you start adding muscle, then yes you can start to get that kind of bulky just bigger look, because of course, muscle does have size and if you are adding – if you take a woman who maybe is – her body fat is already higher than she would like it to be, and you start adding muscle underneath the body fat; of course now she just looks bigger and that’s not the goal. I haven’t met very many women that say I just want to be bigger. However, if you add muscle in the right places and reduce body fat, now all of the sudden the whole landscape changes. Now you don’t get bulky, that’s how you get that kind of athletic, I wouldn’t say muscular, but it is more like a lean, toned. Because for a woman to truly look muscular, to be like low body fat, high amounts of muscle mass; it takes a tremendous amount of work. I mean it takes years – I would say three to five years of really deliberate dedicated hard work for a woman to truly look bulky if she also has a relatively low body fat percentage.
And again, I keep on coming back to this twenty percent level because that is generally the level where – like most high-level athletes for example are – I can’t say most, but many high-level athletes have a body fat percentage of let’s say sixteen to eighteen to maybe twenty percent. That’s that athletic look and when your body fat is relatively low and you add again coming back to that number; most women if you add fifteen to twenty pounds of muscle in the right places and a lot of that is in the lower body; so a lot of that is going to be in the legs, it’s going to be in the gluts and a fair amount is also going to be in the upper body in the arms, in the shoulders and the back and combine that with that lower level of body fat percentage, not – there is no woman that looks bulky with that combination.
Lisa: Yeah, and you can get there not to like the body building competition level where you have to spend like you said three to five years, but you don’t have to spend a ton of time because you are doing the higher reps. So, in the last few minutes, talk to us about the time commitment for this to get to the twenty percent and to get that extra muscle.
Michael: Absolutely, I would say for and this is again now I have worked with thousands of people. Let’s say that in my experience, most women can go from wherever they are and even women that start out very overweight or in some cases very underweight; can go from that to the type of body that they have always really wanted in let’s say their first year to two. And the reason – I know it’s a big range, but I would say if you are starting out in a normal place as a woman, you are not particularly overweight, you are not underweight you just look totally normal I would say a year of hard work is generally enough. It does again, depend on how well your body responds to the resistance training because there is variability there and that’s just genetic but if you respond fairly well; let’s say it’s a year of three to five hours per week. That’s it. You don’t need to be in the gym two hours a day six seven days a week. You don’t have to be doing tons of cardio. Cardio is good for you and I do recommend under certain circumstances, but I would much rather see people focus their efforts on strength training because strength training delivers a lot of the same cardiovascular benefits and metabolic benefits as cardio, but it also provides the body composition benefits and other benefits even related to like longevity that you don’t really get from cardio. So, three to five hours per week, let’s say a year. A year to a year and a half and most women are super happy with their body at that point and of course, being humans, we are never satisfied, regardless of what we have. We always now have to go to he next thing and that’s fine, but yeah that’s generally and for someone that wants to be like oh my God fit, that wants to be ready to go on a fitness – on the cover of a fitness magazine let’s say realistically probably three to five years.
Lisa: Alright. Wow. There is so much great stuff. We only just skimmed the surface. Again, the book is Thinner, Leaner, Stronger, The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Female Body. Michael Matthews. Michael tell us all the places we can find you and your great work on social media.
Michael: Yeah, so I guess my central hub is my website muscleforlife.com and that’s just muscleforlife.com. And then on social media you can find me on Instagram muscleforlifefitness and muscleforlife on Facebook and also muscleforlife on Twitter. Although I’m not too big on social media, honestly, but I’m there.
Lisa: And last question, do you work with people via Skype. Like I want to bring you into my home and have you help me, but I don’t know if that’s something you can do. Or how does that work?
Michael: I actually do a little bit of coaching. I have a coaching service, but I don’t coach people myself. I work with coaches. I Mean I would be happy to after we – if you have questions, I would be happy to help you out, but the reason why I don’t do it myself is while it would be fun to spend my time just talking with people and helping them through their various obstacles and whatever; it is just I have so many other things between – I am working on a new book projects , I also have – I have a supplement company as well and so it’s just I can’t – I just don’t have the time to do it myself and so that’s why I set up the service where I have trained coaches and we have worked now with hundreds and hundreds of people of all ages and circumstances and we have some really, really cool success stories actually because it’s not just about losing some fat and gaining some muscle and getting abs or something like that. But it really – when people get into really good shape it inevitably just changes their entire life for the better. So, it’s pretty cool.
Lisa: Oh, that is so true. Well I want to thank everyone for listening to Talk Fitness Today. You can find this show and Talk Healthy Today if you go to www.itsyourhealthwithlisadavis.com .Check us out on social media, TalkFitness2dayo on Twitter and Snap Chat. Thanks for listening and stay well.
This episode of Talk Fitness was produced by The Vitamin Shoppe where trusted health enthusiasts help you thrive every day. Visit one of 800 stores across the country or head to Vitamin Shoppe.com for all your wellness needs. - Length (mins) 26:56
- Waiver Received Yes
- Host Lisa Davis, MPH
