"If It Fits Your Macros", Is Clean Eating A Waste Of Time, Hex Bars, Can't-Miss Supplements & More With Mike Matthews.

Hey, you guys, what's up? You hear that? It's like a funny sounding bubbly noise. Well, that's because I am sucking hydrogenated air into my nose. See, I just flew back from Iceland. I was speaking at a longevity conference in Iceland. This is Ben Greenfield, by the way, if you don't know what podcast that you're tuning into. Anyway, so I flew back in. I landed this afternoon, and as I am prone to do, I like to experiment with all manner of little bio hacks to fix up my body. So what am I doing right now? Well, to fill you in, and these are not commercials, this is just interesting information for you. A I am breathing this hydrogenated air with a device called the nanov N A N O V I Kind of an expensive device, but it generates reactive oxygen species that repair DNA. If you want to check this thing out, I don't have a discount code for it, but I do have a special link for it where you can actually get it. It's called the N Eng3. The Eng3 made by a company called Nanov. That's a mouthful. The Eng3. You need to check this out. It's like one of the most cutting edge ways that you can repair DNA and get faster recovery and regenerate tissue. BenGreenfulFitness.com ENG3 I'm also blasting on either side of my body. I popped a bunch of niacin. Use this stuff called cardiolipin, which causes a full body flush. And so I'm sitting here jammed in between two giant near infrared panels while my far infrared sauna heats up. So that I'm done recording this for you, I'll go hop in the sauna. After I've preheated my body and my collagen levels with these things called a Joovv light. So you can check those out at Joovvlight. BenGreenfieldFitness.com Joovv J-O-O V V I am diffusing rosemary essential oil into my office. I'm smoking in my vaporizer a little bit of organic Norwegian shag tobacco with a couple drops of pine essential oil added to it. And all right, this is a little bit of a tmi, but also down on my crotch, I have a pump, a yes. Penis pump. And that's there because I just did a platelet rich plasma injection into my dick and they told me I needed to use this thing for 10 minutes a day for 30 days in a row. So yeah, I'm recording this for you with my pants jacked down and a giant pump attached to me. And I feel quite, quite odd right now. Okay, that all out of the way. Today's podcast is with another kind of interesting guys, if that was interesting enough for you, a guy named Mike Matthews. This dude talks about like macro dieting, hex bars, can't miss supplements. Is clean eating a waste of time? He's got a lot of interesting info. You'll like this cat. In this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness Show, Clean eating is kind of clean eating, quote unquote, is kind of sneered at because what it generally means is very restrictive dieting. So it doesn't mean just eating a lot of nutritious foods. It means not eating a lot of foods that are deemed unclean or unhealthy. After your newbie gains are behind you and you start getting into that, you know, now you're, now you're a beginner intermediate. And as you move from intermediate into advanced and the correlation between strength and size becomes much stronger and then really your whole body strength becomes the best predictor of your total lean mass. He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance.

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The Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield and my guest today is a best selling fitness author. He has books like Bigger, Leaner, Stronger and then also I assume this one is written a little bit more for the females out there. Thinner, leaner, stronger. He is the creator of an extremely popular blog which you can check out over@muscleforlife.com he has a supplement company called Legion Athletics and he's been helping literally thousands of people build muscle and lose fat for a very long time. And his work has been featured in a lot of popular outlets. Bodybuilding, Esquire, Men's Health, the list goes on and on. And he has some very interesting core beliefs. For example, some of the snippets that I have found on his website include, lifting lightweights for high reps is basically a waste of time. If your routine doesn't revolve around heavy lifting, you're doing it wrong. He also says getting lean and even super lean does not require hours upon Hours of grueling cardio or crash dieting that leaves you starving and miserable all day. He says if you know what you're doing, you can gain 20 to 30 pounds of lean mass in your first year of training, regardless of your genetics. He says pretty much every machine in the gym should be avoided and most exercises are horribly ineffective. He says the idea that you have to constantly change your workout routine, your body will adapt to and plateau is a lie. And he also says how much you eat determines the effectiveness of your diet, not what or when. So, a lot of controversial ideas this cat has. His name is Mike Matthews and he is, believe it or not, no, you probably guessed this. He's on the line with me right now. He's on the call, he's on the podcast. He's right here with us. And I just found out he's expecting a tiny baby. What, like, any day now, Mike?

Well, yeah, first. You're pretty good at that, man. I like it.

I practice.

So, yeah, the due date is the 17th, but based on my wife's experiences the first time around, she thinks that it's kind of imminent. So that's why she's. We're here in Florida. She wants to. She delivered our son here in Florida. We were living here at the time, and it went really well with a midwife, and she wanted to repeat that. So we now we live in Virginia, but we're headquartered in Florida right now. Waiting.

Are you going to do the whole home birth thing in a water tub with turtles at the bottom of it?

You got it. Not at home, but at a birthing center with a midwife. And she's going to do natural number two, natural birth. So she's a trooper.

That's the way to go. I actually just interviewed, probably, by the time this episode gets released, a gal named Genevieve, also known as the Natural Mama, on YouTube, and she gets, like, millions of views and she's big into these birthing centers is just like, the way to go. So, yeah, it's a cool thing. You know, about the same time that your wife then is popping out a human child, my goats are giving birth. I have two Nigerian dwarf goats who are large with child right now, or large with kid, as I suppose the term would go.

That's exciting.

Yeah, it is, honestly. Because when goats get knocked up and have little babies, they also produce copious amounts of milk. These tiny, little cute Nigerian dwarf goats produce a ton of milk, which my wife will make into cheeses and milks and dressings and yogurts and so we'll have plenty of goat milk to go around, so.

That's so selfish of you, Ben.

What?

Getting them knocked up so you can get their milk.

Well, you know, it's the cycle of life. I'm a human, I'm a human, they're a goat, so I win. But they do have a good life. They play in their little tires out in the yard and they eat lots of scraps of human food and they're very. Toffee and caramel are their names and they're quite well taken care of anyways, though, so let's talk all things fitness. Dude. I know that you work out a lot differently now than you used to and there's some photos of you and I'll link to your website, by the way. For those of you listening in, just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Mike Matthews if you see what, if you, if you want to see what Mike looks like, because he obviously practices what he preaches. He's a pretty jack dude. But your, your workout now, from what I understand is relatively different than the way that you used to train. Can you kind of walk me through the cycle of your training and what you've learned that you've taken away as the most important gems when it comes especially to training?

Absolutely. So I got into weightlifting as a teenager. I was like 17. I grew up playing sports and that was my thing for, you know, a long time. And then when I, when I was done with that and mainly because I was done with school and I wasn't, I didn't really plan on taking it beyond that, still wanted to do something with my body. So I was like weightlifting also. Girls like muscles. I like girls, so that also works too. And, but I just got into it, you know, doing magazine workouts and, and whatever kind of, you know, nonsense was popular at the time, which was mostly at these long, you know, you had like two hour arms days and stuff like where you're just, it's super high volume. One usually isolating one muscle group and then usually with machines and dumbbells, not too much barbell work, at least not a lot of emphasis on it. A lot of high rep stuff, fancy rep schemes, muscle confusion, blah, blah, blah. So on the whole, you know, the training was, was, it was kind of convoluted really, where the focus was maximizing volume and also then trying to use drop sets and supersets and giant sets and blah, blah, blah. And so that was then, and then my.

Which actually takes a lot of time and that, that approach Works because a lot of bodybuilders get freaking, you know, swole, if that's your goal, which I know that's really not a lot of people's goal nowadays, but it works. You have to spend copious amounts of time in the gym though, to work a muscle to exhaustion. That's what I found when I was a bodybuilder, definitely.

And I mean, if you're gonna talk bodybuilding though, and especially talking about super jacked bodybuilders, then drugs have to enter their discussion of course as well. And genetics, which really, which really changes the overall just how, how you know, one person could follow one type of routine and if they have top tier muscle building genetics and a lot of good drugs, they're going to respond far better than someone of middling genetics with no drugs. So there's also that to consider. But, but yeah, there's, there's that there's the time efficiency as well of why, why, why would you want to spend two hours just training your arms when if your routine was, was programmed better, you could spend the majority of your time kind of training all the big muscle groups with compound exercises and maybe throw in a little bit of, Maybe you're spending 30 minutes a week on your arms if you really want to. If you need to increase volume on, let's say, you know, in working with.

A lot of guys.

For example, biceps do seem to be a common stubborn muscle group that just requires a bit more volume to get them to where most guys want them. Is also probably at least partially just psychological because most guys just want big biceps.

Yeah, not if you rope climb though. Like once I started rope climbing my arms, I barely have to do anything aside from just rope climbing. Pull ups works like gangbusters.

Yeah. I mean, did you get there like that though? Or did you know what I mean?

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, because I, I was a bodybuilder and then I, I, I catabolized essentially all my muscle while competing in Iron man triathlon, or to it, to a great extent, a lot of my muscle. But what I'm convinced of is that when you're doing something like a rope climbing protocol, and then I also focus on this with my pull up protocol. You're lowering yourself a lot. So there's a ton of eccentric muscle damage that occurs and a pretty significant hypertrophy or growth response to rope climbing. So I find that makes sense. Pretty good for the arms. But now you're lifting, from what I understand, pretty infrequent or pretty, for low amounts of Time frequently. Is that correct?

Yeah. So I'm training right now it's five, it's been also I've been doing an accessory day. So it's a five to six days a week. And my workouts are a bit shorter. So they're usually 45 minutes to 60 minutes. And they are kind of built around the big compound movements, squat variations, deadlift variations, overhead press, bench press variations that could be dumbbell or barbell. Well, and, and then I have. So like my, my goal, my main goal is just to, I mean, I would say my main goal on the whole is to improve my strength on those big lifts over time. But as you know, you know, I've been at this type, I've been doing this type of training pretty consistently now for about seven years. So it's strength progression is hard to come by. And so there's also then of course just overreaching in terms of, of volume at higher intensity, you know, with more weight and kind of periodizing it in waves like that. So I'm going into, you know, my workouts are getting progressively harder in terms of heavy weight and adding volume and then backing off and kind of rinsing and repeating that while slowly adding weight to the bar over time. And you know, yeah, it is, it is slow at this point. Like I think I've added maybe if we're looking at working sets, I've maybe added 15 pounds, no, I'd say probably 10 pounds to my deadlift in the last year. Now to be fair, I'm not training specifically to increase my deadlift. That's just what has come with a kind of symmetrical whole body approach as opposed to like I'm going to pull three days a week and I'm going to work on, I'm going to make, you know, 80% of my training about maximize my deadlift. But so yes, my training has changed a lot in that regard and my workouts are a lot more enjoyable, which is something that not a very, not too many people speak about. It might be something I would be worth writing a little like article or something on. Is that how, you know, looking at my workouts previously the long just blitz one muscle group type of workouts with all different types of exercises and even rep ranges. Rarely, rarely doing very heavy stuff because if you're doing a lot of your work on, you know, like let's say a dumbbell fly, you can't go very heavy on a dumbbell flyer. You're going to hurt yourself as opposed to a, a bench press or dumbbell Press. If I compare the workouts then I wouldn't even have the time to do them now, but to, to my workouts now, my workouts now are also much more enjoyable, which just helps me get into the gym and do what I need to do. And I think there's something to be said for that. It's kind of like, you know, people say the best diet is the one you can stick to. In some ways, I think the best training programs are also the ones you can stick to. Even if in, let's say a given training program where scientifically speaking, maybe it wouldn't be optimal, maybe it could be optimized. But if, if that puts, if that gives you a workout program you don't enjoy doing, I would say I would rather have something. And I'm not really, this isn't really a commentary on what I'm doing now, it's just in general because I get people asking a lot about if, if trying to, trying to create the, what they perceive to be the scientifically most effective way to train. But if that means that you're sitting in the gym doing workouts you don't really like to do, I would argue that that's probably not the best way for you to train.

Yeah, I like to train like a video game. I mean like that, that's, that's my thing now is I'll either do like a park workout where I'm running from a bench to a tree, to a pull up bar to a dip bar to be a back to a bench over a wall, or else training at her on the obstacle course or laying out a whole bunch of different, you know, apparatuses in a row. Like, you know, this morning's workout, right? Like I had, I had a hex bar, I had a kettlebell, I had some monkey bars, elastic band and then my heavy bag, right? And I'll do circuits and I have a big smile on my face half the time just because I'm playing around with a whole bunch of different things and throwing a lot of variety at my body, which I actually want to talk to you about because I know you don't feel that's actually necessary or even efficacious to throw like all these metabolic curve balls at your body. But yeah, I mean, I enjoy it when I'm working out like that. And so I have all these little routines I do that I just enjoy. I enjoy doing intervals like, like instead of sitting on an indoor bicycle doing my intervals, which I'll do occasionally, especially in the winter, I like riding my Bike to the river, doing all my intervals, you know, jumping in the super cold Spokane river, swimming across it, swimming back, and then doing intervals on the way home. So it's like all my workouts are, are literally just like that, almost like video games. And in some cases, I do indeed have like a spear in my hand or I'm carrying a bow and I'm throwing in like, you know, a little accuracy tests along the way, stuff like that. So, yeah, I agree that life is too short. Toto have a frown on your face during your workout. Frowny face workouts aren't a huge addition to your level of enjoyment in life. In my opinion. You still get good workouts without a huge amount of mental torture. But I wanted to ask you one thing that you say that's kind of controversial. You probably know this, Mike, is this idea that you say if you're lifting lightweights, right, for high reps, it's basically a waste of time. But at the same time, there's a lot of research out there by guys like Brad Schoenfeld and Alan Argonne and Brett Contreras that have looked into the fact that it appears that time to fatigue or time under tension rather is a pretty important component of gaining muscle or of hypertrophy. Not granted to build strength or to build power, but in terms of getting a nice body, improving aesthetics, et cetera, it appears that that lightweight or body weight to failure can be just as good as heavyweight. What's your take on that and why do you say that heavyweights are so necessary?

Yeah, so first I would say that I've probably, I wouldn't, I've, I've tempered that, I guess that position since, you know, even, even publishing bigger leaners, stronger. I still stand by that, especially for people that are new into working out, they're much better suited taking a strength training approach. But, you know, I'm also not one. I'm not big on just binary thinking. So I would say for somebody new. Yeah. Going in the gym and doing a bunch of high rep stuff is to say it's a waste of time is maybe a bit of a sensationalistic type of statement, but it's not a very. Let's say there are much better ways to use the time. And so to get to your question, yes, there's no question that you can make your muscles bigger. I mean, I know what research you're talking about. And under certain conditions, yes, you can definitely increase muscle size by just working in higher rep ranges and going more on the metabolic stress end. Of the spectrum as opposed to the progressive overload or muscle damage in terms of the three pathways of muscle growth, so to speak, and time under tension. I mean I wrote about that I think about a year ago and was reading up on it quite a bit at that time. And I would say that we have research, we know that super slow training isn't any more effective. For example, training that really emphasizes time under tension isn't more effective for hypertrophy than, than just standard rep tempo. And there were five or six studies that I, that I cited in that article which if anyone wants to read it's on my, it's on my website. Muscle for life. Just search for time and retention. And the kind of, the key takeaway there is that if you are doing everything else right in your training, time and retention kind of just takes care of itself. Now that said, there probably is, is something there for people that are more like what we were talking about earlier with bodybuilders that are trying to squeeze out every last ounce of money of muscle hypertrophy and everywhere in their body as opposed to the average person that isn't. They're just getting started. Like the average guy, you know, probably needs to gain 20 to 30 pounds of muscle to have the type of physique that he wants. If he wants to be a bit bigger. Like if he wants to be my size, okay, that's, that's a little bit, a little bit more Maybe, maybe it's £40. But they're not looking at, you know, trying to get on a stage and gaining the amount of muscle that requires. And, and it's also when you're talking about, you know, intermediate and advanced weightlifters trying to get as big as possible, there are, it requires, I mean you have to, you have to be increasing your volume and you have to be pushing your volume to very, very high levels. And you can't do that with just, you know, heavy, heavy weights because your body is not going to be able to take it as you know, I mean your nervous system is going to get, get trashed, your joints are going to get trashed. So a lot of what you see now is this kind of quote unquote power bodybuilding type approach where you have your heavy strength training but then using either lower weights and higher reps to increase volume without the systemic overload, without the systemic stress or even some rep stuff like rest pause sets are a good way as you know, to push. I mean, I like doing it myself. I do rest pause on with, with my shoulders in particular. Because it's a good way to get a little bit of additional stimulus for hypertrophy without the, the, the added stress that comes along with the heavier weights.

Rest pause being what for those, for people listening in who haven't done that style before.

Yeah, yeah, sure. So there are a couple different protocols. What I do is pretty simple. So I do, I do it every week right now with my side raises. Right. To get. Just because as a natural weightlifter, basically your shoulders are always too small. That's just life. So you do, you take a weight that you can do 10 to 12 reps with and more or less failure at 10 to 12 and then you put the weight down, you rest for the protocol I'm doing is 10 seconds. So you're just counting, you know, at about seven seconds I'm grabbing the weights again. And then you're doing a set of three to four, which is going to be close to failure if you, you know, you, if it plays out like with, with you, you know, Mr. Mrs. Listener, as it plays out with most people. And then you're resting again 10 seconds while your, your next set starts at 10 seconds. So you know, you rest six or seven seconds, grab the weight again and doing three to four additional sets to failure like that. So that's, it's called rest pause training. And I, I think it's, I wrote about it again, it's, there's some research on it and there's no question it's similar to like, you know, blood blood flow restriction training has a similar effect. It's just easier to do than, you know, wrapping bands around your arms or whatever. But you can't do it with squats or deadlifts because you'll die. Right. So, so, you know, use it. It's commonly used for, for, for the limbs. So some people like to do it on, you know, leg extensions or side raises or, or something for biceps or triceps or whatever. But another thing to consider is this is something that Greg Knuckles had spoken about and he's written about. He actually came in my podcast recently and broke it all down. Is that in the beginning? So you take somebody new. There isn't that much of a correlation between strength and muscle size in that people that are. Because, you know, our bodies are so hyper responsive to resistance training in the beginning. They can do high reps. They can, you can do kind of anything you could do. Yeah, you can just do, do a bunch of push ups every day and a bunch of punch pull ups and you are going to see your Body change, you are going to gain some muscle, you are going to gain some strength. Not as much strength as if you train differently, of course, but if you were to train differently, if you were to focus on strength, you will also gain size. Probably depending on what you're doing, it could be at the same rate. And so in that period you might look at it and be like, well, who cares? I mean you don't, you don't have to lift heavy weights, you can just lift lighter weights and gain more, more or less the same amount of muscle. But where that correlation really starts to come into play is after that honeymoon phase, after you've got, after your newbie gains are behind you and you start getting into that, you know, now you're, now you're a beginner, slash intermediate. And as you move from intermediate into advanced and whatever, the correlation between strength and size becomes much stronger and that then really your whole body strength becomes the best predictor of your whole body muscle, your total lean mass. So to that point, that's why I still think that, okay, so if you started out as a newbie lifter and you're doing a bunch of high rep stuff and maybe you're doing what I did, high rep stuff and kind of fancy rep schemes and a lot of burnout sets and a lot of time under tension and so forth, and you're seeing your body change, that's basically what I did in the beginning and I gained I would say 15 pounds of muscle in my first year, which is not, not, not great, but it's not bad. Also though I have decent muscle building genetics, I don't, I'm not very, I've never been naturally very strong. I had to work very hard to gain strength. But you know, I did like a DNA fit test and so I have a one particular genetic marker that's associated with, with just high levels of recovery. So they said they see that in a lot of elite athletes. And I have, and I have another genetic marker, I don't remember the names, but I have another genetic marker that's associated with high testosterone levels. So you combine those, but otherwise my body's kind of made for endurance. I'm not like, I would never be a good strength.

Yeah, that's the interesting one is the DNA analysis of power versus endurance responders and how that fits into this equation. You know, like the One is the ACTN3 gene that, you know, that sprint gene is what it's better known as. A lot of people who are like elite power athletes have that gene and respond Extremely well to power training. Thenthen there's thei think it's the ACE gene, the angiotensin converting enzyme gene. That's the one responsible for thethe slow twitch muscle fibers. And the better results, I believe, from endurance training. And I think, you know, I'm not sure if it's theactually it's the PPAR gene that's responsible for also response to endurance training. But what you mentioned, that whole recovery deal, that's an interesting one too, because certain people from a genetic standpoint produce higher levels of endogenous antioxidants. And so they, like you, might be that person that responds really well to what it appears you're doing now. Right. Which is, which is frequent. You're, you're lifting what, Monday through Friday now? Five days a week?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes there's a Saturday or a Sunday, depending on how I'm feeling. You know what I mean?

And I'm very similar. I've got, I recover very quickly, but I can't handle monster workouts that well. My body just falls apart the next day. I test my heart rate variability, it gets very low and I don't have the gene necessary to allow me to really bounce back as quickly from the extremely difficult workouts versus shorter, more frequent workouts. That's the way that I roll. But yeah, a big part of this is just getting your freaking genetics tested to figure out whether you're a power versus an endurance responder. And that helps advise you on both the frequency of your training and then also whether you are going to go with kind of like the, the high weight, low rep versus the high rep, low weight type of approach. So, yeah, yeah, it's interesting. There's a lot more to it than, than, you know, than, you know, what, what old school bodybuilders would perhaps profess to be the case.

Sure, sure. No, I agree. And I would say, I would add though, just as a, just for everybody listening, listening, because I've been asked this fairly frequently after I did that test and I had somebody from DNA Fit on the podcast just to talk about because they, there were some things that were interesting. Like I had an incredibly high sensitivity to carbs in a good way, meaning that my body can deal with them very well and also a very high sensitivity of fat. And so the guy's name was Andrew. He just thought it was interesting. It was an unusual type of. I guess I have unusual genetics in a few different ways. And so he was breaking some stuff down, which is interesting. But for people Listening. I would say that if your goal is to, let's say, maximize your, your potential in terms of athletic performance of one kind or another. Yeah, it might make sense to really, I mean, you have to do more than just get your DNA tested, but you'll want to really educate yourself deeply. Either that or you'll need to work with somebody who's deeply educated who can take that information and turn it into like practically practical programming as opposed to just like, okay, so it says here that I, you know, because I also don't think it's as black and white as like, oh, well, based on these genetic markers, which in some cases we understand more about some of them than others, obviously you probably would respond better to higher rep. I've, and I'm speaking from experience here working with actually thousands of people that I don't really see that as, that hasn't played out in terms of like, I've just seen many much more, I've seen a lot more guys and girls that, that can just kind of stick to the bas of what we know. For example, we know that training, like with, let's say doing a lot of work in the 80 to 85% of your one rep max range, when those, when that's your training, your working set range, when you're doing a lot of work, a lot of barbell work, you get stronger, period. Regardless of your genetics, even if you're a low responder. And yes, we know that some people do not respond. I don't care what type of weightlifting they do. And I'm sure there are people listening like that. And Ben, you've come across a lot of people like that. Some people are high responders to weightlift, period. And some people, doesn't matter what, you know, any type of weightlifting. And some people are just low responders. Doesn't mean they can't get to where they want to be. It just means that they're going to have to work harder. And in some cases they may have to, you know, it might take twice as much work. Regardless of how you want to define that work, just work in the gym for person A to gain as much muscle as person B simply because of genetics. And of course then there's also biomechanics. Some people's bodies are just, they're able to, they're built to lift weights and they're able to then get real strong real fast just because they have mechanical advantages, which is something I don't have. That's why I wouldn't be a good strength athlete like My, my, my legs are too long, my femurs are too long, my humeruses are too long.

I, I have a little bit of.

An advantage on deadlift, but my long legs negate it a little bit as well. And pressing, I have to press it for a mile. It doesn't like pressing. You know what I mean?

Yep. Now by the way, speaking of deadlift, I'm not sure what your opinion is on this, but one of my favorite, favorite kind of new tools I've added to my home arsenal is a hex bar. Based on this research that it was a journal of strength conditioning, I think where they compared the hex bar to a whole bunch of other forms of deadlift and found greater peak force and better peak velocity and better peak power. And there's even a correlation between hex bar and, I think it's three times your body weight on a hex bar is extremely correlated to things like sprint speed and running efficiency. And it's just like a super cheap bar you can buy off friggin Amazon. But what's your opinion on the use of something like a hex bar?

Yeah, you know, funny, I actually just posted about that on my Instagram because I was doing hex bar and I alternate.

Oh, nice. Great minds think alike, baby.

Absolutely. I'm a big fan of the hex bar also. I like it because it's easier on the back, it's easier on the hips, but without losing like you're talking about, you don't lose the effectiveness of the exercise. And it's not easier to activate the.

Glutes too, in my opinion.

Yep. Yeah, that's true. And you know, a lot of people, they, they look at it kind of like a weird squat, but it's really not. I mean it's a hip hinge movement, it's a, it's, it's, it's a deadlift. It's a legit deadlift. I do still like traditional, I like conventional pulling as well. So I will alternate. I'll usually do, I'm deadlifting on average, I'm deadlifting every week. Although some, my sleep has been a bit funky in the last couple months. So some, some weeks if I'm just not feeling like, if I'm feeling a little bit under recovered, I'll, on my pull days I'll drop the deadlift and I'll, you know, so I've missed a few weeks. But I like to alternate, go, you know, two or three sessions with a barbell and then two or three sessions with a hex bar. And also like that with the hex, you know, it's a bit more quad dominant, obviously, which. Yeah, it's just, It's. It's. And it's something I recommend frequently for if people are having trouble with. Requires less mobility, of course. So if people are having trouble with the. With the conventional deadlift, whether it's, you know, standard just. Or Sumo, which I don't like Sumo. I much prefer the hex over Sumo. Another thing that we should mention is it's. It's easier on your grip.

Yeah, that's. That's true. Although if you really want to work your grip, you can just wrap like a little hand towel around the bar and turn it into a fat grip. If you want to. If you want to enhance your grip, which is important for all those obstacle course racers listening in, of course, that's one thing that you need is grip strength, along with good efficiency and lactic acid buffering capacity. Like, those are the three keys to being a good obstacle course racers. You got to be able to have a gorilla grip. You got to be able to start running very soon after you've already conquered an obstacle, and then you got to be able to run with efficiency. Those are the three keys that I tell people. Ever want to go check off a spartan race. Just a random. Random factoid there for you. You mentioned sleep is funky, by the way, Mike, where you. What are you referring to? Just the fact that you have a baby on the way, or.

No, it's been. Let's see. So I was. I was fine. I was waking up in the middle of the night for no good reason for like a couple weeks. And, you know, I don't. It might just be. It's probably. I mean, to be fair. So this is. I. I don't necessarily have planned deloads in my routine. Like, I don't. I don't go. I'm deloading every six weeks. I kind of just go until I feel like it's time to deload. And that's usually the first thing that I notice is. And it's, of course, just because the body's getting overstressed. And so that's. That's kind of the first place I usually notice it. And so I. I was starting to notice my sleep getting a little bit funky. So I took a few days off and it felt fine. And then now I'm back and going again. But I'm taking a couple days off this week, too, because I was like, all right, as much as I kind of don't like deloading, I prefer, I like working out, but I know the importance of it. So that seems to be it. Otherwise I sleep fine and I usually sleep six and a half hours. And that's it. I mean, I wake up, that's my body's thing. And if, if I fall behind, then I need to catch up, but that's my normal routine.

That's a little bit low. I mean, babe, I mean, for, for me personally, you know, especially after interviewing this guy named Dr. Nick Littlehale's on the show and talking about the number of sleep cycles that most athletes do best with for performance and immune system strength and also their, their nervous system resilience. Right. Like your, your heart rate variability, which I measure every day, it's about somewhere between like 31 and 35 sleep cycles each week, meaning that by the end of the week you should have amassed that many 60 to 90 minute sleep cycles. And you can track the number of sleep cycles that you go through using a sleep tracking device like I use, which I have this ring to track my sleep. And for me, what I'll do is about seven hours of sleep per night and then I throw in a nap to fill in the gap. And I was talking, my personal physician, he's one of these eastern medicine practitioners. He's a big into like Chinese clock, circadian rhythm, acupuncture, meridians, all this jazz. And I asked him, I'm like, is that, do I have, do I have problems with some kind of like qi flow or my spleen or my stomach or my blood or something like that, that I just have this urge to fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon? He's like, nope. He's like, I'm the same way. He's like that. It's that just extra sleep cycle that you can give your body. And we see that in cultures across thousands of years. They just take that mid afternoon siesta pro, push the reboot button, split the day into two and dude, that works very, very well for me is to do that in addition to the seven hours of sleep per night. I swear by it and I feel so much better towards the end of the day. Do you at this point still adhere to this idea that you say that clean eating isn't the key to weight loss or muscle gain? And if so, I'm curious what you mean by that.

Yeah, absolutely. So by that I just mean if we're just talking body composition and especially body weight, what you eat isn't nearly as important as how much and by how much we're talking calories, we're talking energy in, energy out. And if you want to, if you want to go one level deeper, we could say macronutrients. But even when you start getting into macronutrients, meaning, okay, where are those calories coming from in terms of protein, carbs and fat, that then takes us more into the territory of body composition. Whereas, like where, you know, for example, we know of course that high protein dieting is better for, for gaining muscle and retaining muscle than low protein dieting. But if we're talking strictly body weight, if all, someone, let's just say the first step they wanted to get to is I want to get to a certain body weight, a healthy body weight, and I want to stay there. All they need to know is calories at that point. Now that isn't to say that food choices don't matter at all because of course the food, our body needs nutrients in addition to calories and macros. So on the, on the flip side of that, I would say that like I, I'm not a rabid Iafymer.

That is, if it fits your macros, no matter what the quality of the food is, if you're eating the correct carbohydrate fat and protein percentages, then it doesn't matter. You could eat like Twinkies and cheese or you could eat like kale and, and grass fed beef.

Yeah. And then you can just look at the mirror and be like, ooh, I have abs. That's kind of the, and there, there people, I think you see a lot of that on social media and people go through phases, I guess, and that's kind of like the adolescent phase of dieting, right? Of when you learn that, oh, you can eat and still look good. Some people feel liberated. So they're going to say, okay, tonight I'm going to eat a thousand calories of ice cream and cocoa puffs or something. And it kind of blows their mind that they can do that and then not get fatter essentially. But of course the bigger picture is that that's not, that's not a, that diet. A lot of, a lot of people that, that are, they kind of play those macro gymnastics games. Their diets on the whole are actually really bad and they have, they either have nutritional deficiencies or are developing nutritional fish deficiencies that are going to cause major problems at some point. It's just when you're 21, you're invincible and you can do anything, you know what I mean? So, you know, but the first thing people need to learn Absolutely. Is energy balance and the importance and the preeminence of energy balance. Because if you don't get that right, you will probably always struggle. If you're struggling with your weight now and you don't understand how the laws of thermodynamics play out in the body, how the metabolism really works, and if you're not in some weird situation where, you know, you're morbidly obese and you have metabolic syndrome and, or you have some rare disease or whatever, if you're just a normal person that isn't happy with your weight, the first thing you need to understand and really experience is just this. What I'm talking about is energy, energy in versus energy out and how that affects body weight.

So what about the, the components that go above and beyond body weight when it comes to things such as inflammations, you know, inflammation, you know, hormonal status, micronutrient deficiencies or excesses as the case may be. I mean, do you think that with this whole approach of clean eating not necessarily being the key to weight loss and maybe it is just restriction of calories that you run into an issue with things like, you know, for example, like elevated hr, CRP or high amount of oxidized cholesterol particles, because you don't care if your fat comes from, let's say, like an extra virgin olive oil versus a canola oil, etc.

Yep, yep, absolutely. And it's something I wrote about recently and posted on social media recently. Funny enough of that, just to that point that actually in the grand scheme of things, I would rather be. Because in the fitness, especially in the resistance, the weightlifting space, the body composite, I wouldn't say bodybuilding because you have a lot of people that wouldn't consider themselves bodybuilders, but more they're just concerned with their body composition. Clean eating is kind of. Clean eating, quote unquote, is kind of sneered at because what, what it generally means is very restrictive dieting. So it doesn't mean just eating a lot of nutritious foods. It means not eating a lot of foods that are deemed unclean or unhealthy or whatever. And even, and even with the foods that you're, quote, unquote, allowed to eat versus not allowed to, can include things that don't make sense either. Like take the paleo approach where you're, if you're strict or whatever, you're not supposed to eat a potato. How does that make any sense? Potatoes are one of the most nutritious, nutrient dense foods you can eat, or a Sweet potato or whatever because somebody says that Mr. Caveman didn't eat it. Even though now we know scientifically a lot of that's just basically mythology. And I'm cool. I like that the paleo approach is high protein. I like that it encourages. You eat a lot of vegetables, plant based foods, obviously. I mean, I'm sure you saw the. Just the recent review from the AHA on saturated fat, where again, they're just saying, hello, everybody, this is not a good idea. You should not be getting 40% of your daily calories from saturated fat. Just FYI. And especially, you know, certain people are more genetically predisposed to heart disease than others. And if you're one of them, you are increasing your risk of, of serious health problems at some point. But, so yes, I'm, I'm. I, what I really actually kind of what I, what I, what I espouse is I would say you could, you could say it's, you know, flexible. It's flexible dieting, but it really looks a lot more like clean eating than your average kind of, if it fits your macros type of, you know, look at all the shitty food I can eat, but I still have abs. That's, that's very much not my thing personally and not what I promote. What I promote is getting the majority of your calories, I would say at least 80% of your calories from nutritious foods. And that means relatively unprocessed stuff. Like what? You know, like, yes, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, good sources of protein, good sources of fats, you know, saturated fats. Fine. But keeping it, let's say, 10% of your daily calories or less and going more for monounsaturated fats. Staying away from, I mean, it's not hard to stay away from the vegetable oils if you are doing that because a lot of the, obviously the vegetable oils that we consume, that most people consume, are just in prepackaged junk, kind of crappy foods. So if you are shopping around the periphery and that type of approach and cooking your own food. Yeah, your intake of vegetable oils is probably pretty low. And even, even on sugar. Like, yeah, we know that if you're eating more than, let's say 20 to 25 grams of table sugar per day, it's bad. There's no question. And then I personally, I recommend that.

Although. Although, granted, I mean, so, so is, you know, excess fructose from, you know, I, I never like it when I hear fruits lumped in with vegetables. You know, like fruits and vegetables, when in fact, you know, Fruit is nature's dessert. Like, I have fruit maybe once every two days or so. And seeing the piles and piles of it on the perimeter of the grocery store in those big boxes is far different than what we, in, you know, more ancestral format might have had access to. And then the thing with the whole grains, I mean, same thing. I'm like, whole grains? Yeah, but whole grains that have been soaked or sprouted or fermented or treated in such a way that they're not a fricking Snickers bar for your blood sugar and a gut bomb in terms of, you know, lectins and gluten and all these components that should have been deactivated but weren't. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, totally. And honestly, that's even that that youyou've gone even a bit deeper than I have in. In that regard. When I say whole grains, I mean, personally, I'm not. I might have some Ezekiel bread. I like oatmeal. I like. I like rice. I mean, it's pretty simple in that. In that regard. And honestly, it's pa. It's very possible that my diet could. Could even be further optimized with things like what you're talking about. And it's something that, I guess with the people that I'm speaking to, a lot of my crowd are people that the don't even know. Again, if we go back to energy balance, they're starting at complete ignorance. So it's a bit of a process to work them from that to understanding the kind of fundamentals of the human metabolism. And then let's. Let's get their diet into a place where, let's say that they've gotten. They've gotten the 80. They've gotten the 80% out of it. And yes, it could be further optimized, but whereas before, their diet was maybe running at like 15% in terms of really providing the body what's needed to support, I mean, not just health, but performance. And now we've boosted it way up, and that's kind of like, I guess, the sweet spot for me in terms of education. And of course, I've heard things about gluten is something I have studied a bit about. But in terms of eating, sprouted foods, even fermented foods, of course I've heard things. I just haven't myself, done enough research to feel that I have a strong position one way or another, other than I know that, yes, it's healthy. How necessary is it or how much of a difference is it going to make? In the context of doing more or less everything else. Right. I don't know. But you know, that would be. That'd be a different discussion that you could probably fill me in on more than I could provide anything to that conversation. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Gluten's totally natural. I mean, it's a protein you're gonna find in a lot of grains and seeds and nuts. And the fact is it's only really in concentrated amounts that I have an issue with it. You know, where you've, you've whatever, you've bred a crop for high yield and it's concentrated the gluten or you're eating something like wheat by essentially doing what is the equivalent of picking it in the field and stuffing it in your mouth, which is a great way to create a crap ton of gut distress versus doing what my wife does. Right. She buys non genetically modified wheat here locally, red wheat from the Palouse that hasn't been sprayed with a bunch of crap. And then sheshe ferments it, right. She just like ferments it overnight. She makes a nice sourdough. The fermentation pre digests the gluten, so there's not a lot of gluten in it. It lowers the glycemic response. It's a very ancestral way to make a bread. And we have sourdough bread like once every couple days. We have these huge big warm loaves of gluten infused sourdough bread.

Nice.

And it's far less bathroom decommissioning than, you know, regular loaf of wonder bread or any other source of gluten. So, yeah, just kinda, it kind of depends. Right? There's kinda like thisthis law of over. Unless you have freaking celiac disease. It's kind of this law of minimizing your exposure and ensuring you get natural amounts.

Yeah, I mean, we know that gluten sensitivity also is. There is something there. You have celiac, of course. But then there seems to be something else going on. I mean, I haven't, I wouldn't say it's not an area that I specialize in. I've just kept up a little bit on the research. And you know, it's something that what I generally tell people is. So if you're eating something, whatever it is, if you're eating a gl. A glutenous food, a food that contains gluten and you don't feel good after your. Your stomach gets upset or something's off, you should stop eating that food. That's a place.

Well, you should stop eating it, at least temporarily. But there's actually a really good book about this called Eat Wheat and it goes into the fact that in most cases it is pretty poor lymph fluid drainage and poor movement of your lymphatic system. And also leaky gut, increased gut permeability as being the two underlying factors that cause someone to have gluten sensitivity. So you heal up the lining of the gut with things like colostrum and L glutamine and bone broth and less stress, more sleep. And then you, in combination with that, enhance the strength of your immune system by using things like I mentioned acupuncture and working on certain meridians that enhance lymph flow and then also exercise. A lot of people, yeah, this guy who wrote the book, John Douillard, he talks about G force based exercising or like rebounding, trampolines, deadlifting vibration platforms. He talks about sauna. He has these special teas with nutrients like marshmallow root and licorice. And what's another one that he has in there? I'll put a link to the book itself in the show notes. But yeah, it's a really good book that basically goes on the fact that yeah, gluten sensitivity is a thing, but it's not like it's like you're stuck with it for life. Right. You treat your body naturally, you get your lymph fluid fixed, you get your gut permeability fixed, and then, yeah, you can get away with a lot of these foods. Hey, I have a few other few other questions for you, Mike. The first is a lot of the, the more fit, better informed people that I have on this show have some kind of a morning routine, whether that be writing in a diary or whether it be some form of special stretching or sun exposure or some kind of like a can't miss smoothie or shake or coffee recipe. Do you have any kind of morning routine or parts of your morning routine that you would say are unique or that you just can't miss?

Yeah, I mean, not nothing too unique. I'm kind of like a pretty basic in that regard. So I wake up early, you know, I'm waking up, my alarm's at 6:15. I usually wake up though, before it. So maybe I'm up at 5, 35, 45, 6. Kind of depends on when I went to bed and when I just naturally wake up. And then I've been doing cold showers for about six months now and just kind of just took it up on a whim. I didn't look all that much, pun intended, didn't look all that much into, I mean I looked at a little bit of research. I know circulation, which may help with recovery related things. It might improve immune function. But the things I've noticed is one, it wakes me up and I've come to enjoy it actually. And my skin has gotten softer so I've noticed that. But it's also again it's something that I've just come to enjoy mainly because it just wakes me up and gets me going and I feel good and energized after and I've tried like journaling and I just don't really feel like I kind of got anything out of it. I didn't, it didn't make me feel any better or any worse and I generally feel pretty good. So maybe I'm coming from, I don't know. For whatever reason journaling just wasn't for me. I tried different things, like more free flow type stuff. I've tried like what is it, the five minute journal and one other. So that, that kind of got dropped out. So really I guess it's for me it's getting up early, cold shower and then I like to work out first thing in the morning. So that's really the thing for me that I just don't want to miss. And I, yeah, you know, my performance would be a bit better later in the day for sure and I've tried that, you know, for having the reasons of having food in you and you're, you know, later in the day your hormones are a bit, you know, your testosterone is a bit higher, cortisol is a bit lower. There are, there are advantages to working out later but I prefer working out first thing because for several reasons. One, I just find it's a great way to start the day. It gives me some momentum. So and it, it, I start the day feeling physically and mentally energized and like I've already accomplished something. As for even just doing a workout, for what it's worth, it just puts me in a good state of mind and obviously there's just the chemical benefits of you just feel good after a workout and then it's done and nothing else can get in the way. Whereas if I'm going to try to work out later, it depends on what's going on at work, at home or whatever I might have to miss. So my morning routine is nothing really to write home about in that regard. But I am a big believer of routine and of habits. So I very much kind of do the same Stuff every. Every day, at least during the week. And then there's some variability on the weekends. But I've found that being very disciplined, I guess you could say, or just be being very systematic with how I've spent my time has helped me tremendously in terms of just overall output for the amount of time worked, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And for your morning nutrient intake, do you have like a standard breakfast every single morning?

Yeah. So I'll have like some fruits, I'll have a banana and usually some. I have a vegan protein powder that I like. It's primarily pea protein, but it has some other vitamins and minerals and other nutrients added to it and some other. Some other proteins as well. So I'll have a protein shake with a banana before I work out mainly just obviously for energy available ability and spare a little bit of glycogen performance out of my workouts. And then I'll go to the office and usually have whey protein is kind of my post workout with some fruit again. And on the fructose point. And I wrote about this a while ago and at the time I had read a bit on it and had come to the conclusion that given the difference of how, you know, high fructose corn syrup is very different, of course, chemically than the fructose you find in fruits. And even if it's just for nothing else than the fiber that fruits provide. And so I eat probably 2 servings of fruit a day. I'll eat like a banana, I'll eat an apple and maybe some blueberries is like my normal day daily intake. And to cause problems at least my conclusion at the time was you'd have to eat a load of fruit to really cause any sort of metabolic issues of what we see in people that are, you know, eating a lot of tables, a lot of sucrose and high fructose corn syrup, it's of course easy. I mean, it's. You can hit 100 grams of fructose a day real fast if you're drinking sodas and eating sugary delights. But that's fairly hard to do with fruit. I mean, you can do it, but you have to try. You know what I mean?

Yup. Yeah. And the ratio of fructose to glucose is much higher in high fructose corn syrup than in fruit. I personally. Because your muscles actually lack the enzyme necessary for taking fructose from fruit and converting it into muscle glycogen. So I'll typically target my fruit intake when I know my liver's glycogen stores are empty, which means the two times of day when fruit or fructose would do the least metabolic damage from a conversion into triglyceride standpoint would be a waking up in a fasted state in the morning or working out in a fasted state and then having fruit afterwards or like in the afternoon. This is when I'll have like red wine. Right. Which is my main source of fructose during the day is it'll be post afternoon slash evening workout because usually I'm working out after having not eaten for three or four hours and my liver glycogen stores have been tapped into. So that's generally what do I'll raw do. Although I should throw in there that, you know, for example, I've got some heat for this because I just developed an energy bar, for example, that that's sweetened with organic honey. And the reason I chose that is it's, it's a non insulinogenic sweetener, meaning that it's not going to spike insulin levels, it's not going to cause issues with insulin sensitivity. And so when you're, when you're consuming fructose, another time that it could be acceptable is when you actually don't want to spike insulin. Because one time that I'll have something like an energy bar might be if I'm on a long plane ride. Right. I'm sedentary. I don't necessarily want a huge spike in insulin. But as long as you're in a hypocaloric state or you're not eating calories, something like honey is actually a pretty good energy source because it's not going to spike insulin. So it does kind of depend, you know, it's a 400, 500 calorie energy bar sweetened with a fructose source is probably not a good idea because you are gonna get a lot of triglyceride conversion regardless of the insulin response. Whereas you know, a lower calorie type of bar sweetened with insulin isis not as big of a deal. And I also wanted to ask you, Mike, speaking of bars and supplements and stuff like that, is your own supplement protocol? I mean, I know you have a supplement company. I know that guys who own supplement companies are pretty well informed when it comes to some of the supplements that.

Not so much, not as much as you might think.

Oh, you know, yeah, yeah, it depends on, on who, who owns it. You know, if it's, if it's a kid with the neck beard in his mom's basement sourcing stuff from China and Selling it for, for very high margins on the Internet versus guys who actually research this stuff. I realize there's a, there's a difference.

But I mean there's a lot of them, especially on the, especially on Amazon. A lot of the, There are quite a few big brands on Amazon that I know. Like I know of the people, I don't know them personally but like I know that, oh, you know, two Indian brothers who have never lifted a weight in their lives and I guess not that it matters that they're Indian, I'm just thinking of a brand in particular and that's who owns it. It's too big brand on Amazon. You know, probably I would say, I would say a million to a million and a half a month in sales. But it's just a marketing play. Like the guys that own it have they, they're not into fitness at all. They don't care about anything related to health or fitness. They just know they can make money and of course accordingly, their products are, are the formulations are bad and it's just a money play. But there's a lot of that out in the supplement space because if you're a good marketer, you know, and you, I mean now I would say you have to be a very good marketer, but they got into it at the right time and whatever.

So one of my friends, actually several of my friends do very, very well on Amazon selling everything from kitchen gloves to marijuana grinders. And that's how you make money on Amazon is you find stuff for as inexpensively as you can on Amazon Alibaba or you find some other Chinese source, you order it. And really the game on Amazon is you have catchy titles and good descriptions and you have mechanisms set up to solicit reviews which ranks you very high on Amazon. Once you've done all that, the quality of the product is not really considered much at all by Amazon. And so yeah, on Amazon they're top ranked because of the reviews and because of the title and because of the search engine optimization and the description friendliness.

Nothing to do. There's, there's also, there's behind the scenes shenanigans. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say like collusion with Amazon. Not that, but there are, there's a lot of black hat stuff that people do that allow them to launch products into the stratosphere very quickly and hold, I mean like really high rankings. I mean we just through, just through my travels have, I've met some people that do well for themselves, but they're Part of like these Amazon Mastermind groups. Private of course. It's not like you don't know, you just don't wear. I mean there are people that are pushing upwards of $100 million a year on Amazon selling random stuff. So there's a whole nother level of gaming Amazon basically that I will say that I avoid all the black hat stuff because I just, you know, Amazon, they don't like it and they slowly but surely figure out what people are doing and people do end up getting banned and if you get banned for the wrong thing, you're gone, you're not coming back. So you could, you know, and I know stories from people that overnight went from like seven and even eight figure business businesses to gone. And in one case in particular, it wasn't even fair. It was, it was because he was soliciting reviews. But he cleared it with Amazon like the system, the SAS that he was using. He actually reached out to Amazon and even showed them his email and said, hey, I just want to make sure that this is cool that I'm doing this. You can see like I'm only, you know, I'm not, I'm not incentivizing the reviews. This is just a point of customer service as well. And he was told absolutely no problem, he does it. And then, you know, I don't remember the exact, the, the different, the interim, how long that, that you know, he was told. But now last thing I heard, I mean I don't know him that well, I kind of know him through people. But the last thing I heard is yeah, his, his account was shut down and he was like trying to fight to get it back. And that was a multimillion dollar a year business.

Yep. Yeah. And even if you're not on Amazon, the same thing can be said for, you know, I have other friends who are in the testosterone business for example and the testosterone enhancing supplement business is huge. And for them, them again they source things as inexpensively as they can from China and then they, they draw corollaries between those herbs and research that you might find on say, you know, reputable website like, like examine.com for example, they'll say hey, got all this in there so it must work. When in fact it's you know, crappy metal laden herbs that have been sitting in big bins in China getting sprayed with ethylene oxide for years and they get shipped over and you know, then they throw a bunch of you know, like FDA and see blue food coloring and all sorts of other fillers in there and Encapsulate them and send them out to your house and promise exploding erections and yeah, it's a very lucrative business.

Biggest, big biceps.

You know this. Yeah, very lucrative business, but fraught with some really crappy products that are hurting a lot of people or wasting a lot of people's money or creating expensive urine. But in your case, when it comes to supplements, are there any supplements that you say that you would just take year round or that would be kind of similar like your morning routine, Right. Like can't miss things that you would make sure that you get into your body each day?

Yeah. So I mean, I would say on the whole, no, and this is ironic, as someone that sells supplements, one of the things, the first things that people can find all over our website is just educating people that you don't need supplements, supplements at all. You don't need any. You through just exercise and training.

That depends though on your definition of supplements. Right? Because like I was just about to.

Say, like you have to understand though, a lot of the people that are coming to finding their way to my work for the first time are really thinking with body composition, right. So their biggest problem right now is not like how can they optimize every physiological process for maximum health and longevity and whatever. Like they're, they're overweight, they don't feel good, they, you know, all they want to do right now is they want to get their body into better shape so they can look and feel better. So in that context you don't need supplements, you don't need whey protein powder, you don't need creatine, you don't really need anything. You just need to eat, eat, know how to eat right and you know how to, how to exercise right and you can get there. Now that said, supplements being by nature supplementary, they can add to the forward motion. There are certain supplements that can help you get there faster. So you know, for example, whey protein is, it's convenient and if you know you're going to have to eat, I would say if you're, unless you're very, very overweight, you're going to have to eat somewhere around 0.8 and 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. Sure, you can get there with whole foods, but it is nice especially if you are busy like a lot of people are to, if you're at work, it's nice to be able to just put a scoop or two of whey protein into a mixer and drink it. I particularly like it for, for post workout supplementation. Just because it's, you know, chemically speaking, it's particularly suited for that. Otherwise I prefer a more slower burning. Like if I'm going to just have a random, you know, scoop of protein just because I need to, to get it in, I would prefer actually my pea protein, my vegan protein. But that's just me being. Whatever. It's not that big a deal. Creatine is another example of. We know it's the most researched molecule in all sports nutrition. It works on the whole. Some people, of course, don't respond to it, but that's the case with any supplement. It helps you gain muscle and strength faster, it helps with recovery. I don't see any reason why anybody shouldn't if they're, if they're resistance training and they care about gaining muscle and strength. Five grams of creatine a day, it's cheap. You know, there's just, I don't think, I just don't see any reason why, why you wouldn't want to add that in. You could also say something maybe if we're talking about gaining muscle particularly, you could say something for beta alanine. You know, there is some evidence, it's, it hasn't been reproduced and we don't quite understand the mechanisms yet, but there is some evidence that it can, can directly increase muscle gain. Similar to, in terms of effects, creatine is more so, but similar. There's some evidence that citrulline can, can help increase, help your body deal with higher workloads, like larger workloads, larger amounts of workout volume. So that can help you get more out of your training. But, you know, so I would say me personally, though, the, the, what I care most about is I have the whey protein because it's convenient, creatine because there's no reason not to. And I still am trying to make at least minor improvements in my physique and in my performance over time. Nothing stays the same, right. So it's either getting better or getting worse. So I try to try to keep it getting at least a little bit better. And creatine helps to some degree with that. And then I also, I'm personally more concerned, I wouldn't say concerned. I'm personally more interested in supplements that improve health and improve longevity and improve, you know, the various physiological processes that enable us to not just work out in the gym hard, but also work, you know, do our deep focus, work better and just perform better in general in life. So, you know, I have a multivitamin that has, it's not just I mean, you know, it's not just vitamins and minerals, but it's also, you know, there are 14 other substances you could say that are in there, many of which that people will buy separately, like Coq10, Ashwagandha, Rhodiola, Bacopa Manieri, even aged garlic extract stuff that. And all at clinically effective doses, too, which a lot of people say that. But a big part of how I sell supplements, supplements is educating. It's very much. It's not just trying to hype people up and over promise, but really breaking down every ingredient and every dose and citing research that people. And I have a lot of people that follow me that are very educated and that's one of the things they very much appreciate. And these are people, in some cases they have. They're in academia or they have one foot in academia and one foot, you know, just in, in the private sector. And so they have access to journals and they, they check this stuff out and they really appreciate the amount of thought and attention that has gone into my products. And it's not just me that came up with these formulations. I mean, I've worked with, and I continue to work with some very smart people that know a lot more about this stuff than I do, honestly.

And you mean like formulators?

Exactly. But, you know, there are a lot of formulators that are underwhelming that I've come across, and then there are some that are very, very good. And what. And one in particular, who. I can't say who it is. He's going to actually be joining my team officially next month, but as of right now, I can't say because he's under his current work obligation. He can't be. It's fine that he does work behind the scenes, but he can't be publicly connected with a supplement company. But that's going to be changing soon. So a lot of people, I'll tell you when we get off, you'll know who he is. A lot of people know who he is. So I've worked with, with him and then, and then several other people. And we've put a lot of time and thought into creating the best possible product. And then that's how we start, is like, what's the, with the multivitamin? What's the best. Forget price, who cares? What's the ultimate multivitamin? What's the multivitamin that you wish you always had, essentially? And, you know, in that case, I think what we produced initially, it was. It came back at $70 a bottle. My cost. And so, all right, so that doesn't work. Let's look at what's driving this. And then, okay, so we can cut this one ingredient because that's $20 a bottle. Like, for example, anthocyanins. I don't know if you ever looked into trying to put those in a supplement, but they're way too expensive if you don't want to just, you know, fairy dust it. If you want a good dose of anthocyanins, it's like $30 a bottle. So, okay, those got to go. I think it was. What else? There was sesame also. Sesame. We were trying to work that in. Super expensive. Okay, so then it's, then it's a matter of going of looking at, weighing the, the costs versus benefits of each ingredient. But then we work it down to a point where we're, we're very happy with the product and we can sell it at a, at a reasonable price and, you know, with a good margin. So like, my multivitamin cost me $14 a bottle to produce. Not very many supplement companies are willing to spend $14. Actually, none are because, like, that product will never be in gnc, for example. It can't. Because, I mean, you know how the game works. It's just the amount. The markups that are needed are not there. But I can sell to directly to consumers and make a good margin, run a business. And you know, even in the business, we're looking at a gross margin of 40 to 45% and a net of, you know, 10 to 12% right now. And that can, that's because we're like in a heavy growth mode. And over time those numbers will be, they will, they will move up. But, you know, I'm not, it's not, it's not the necessary, it's not the type of numbers that you necessarily see, especially on the gross, because most supplement companies, they need to keep their cost of goods very, very low because they have to spend anywhere from 30 to 50% of revenue on marketing. I spend 14% of revenue on marketing because I don't have to. I can, I can leverage my, my platform as an author and my websites and, and also we have very good customer service and really take care of our people and help them out. And I, we produce a bunch of content and do a lot of stuff that allows us to acquire customers a lot more inexpensively. You know what I mean? So that was the intention going in was like, let's build a better business and do a it right and make really good products. And kind of stake our, our, our chances on that as opposed to the more traditional, which is create a product and just, you know, spend a ton of money on marketing. It's a churn business you don't really care about, you know, you know that your average, your customer, your lifetime value, your customer lifetime value is low. But you're just like in full customer acquisition mode 24 7, basically. That's just a shitty business, in my opinion.

Yup. Yeah. Well, obviously you've got a ton of different supplements that you've worked on and I'll link to those in the show notes along with your pretty extensive library of books that you've written. Some of the other things we've talked about, like genetic testing for power versus endurance, that eat wheat book that I mentioned, the hex bar deadlift, a whole bunch of other resources from this episode. If you're listening in and you want to learn more about Mike or, or check out his website and his writings, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com mikemathews that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Mike Matthews and you can check out Mike and everything that he has over there. So, Mike, thanks for.

Oh, let me just interject, Ben. So on the supplements, and this is, I don't know, what are your thoughts on it? So I would say, I would say just to answer your initial question, I mean, I like a protein powder because it's convenient. I like a multivitamin to fill any holes that might be in my diet, even though it's good. And also provides stuff that you can't really get in your diet. And I would say probably a vitamin D. If I was just giving general recommendations, which I take myself because I know that my body needs a bit more than the 2000 IUs that's in my multivitamin. And then fish oil because I don't eat fatty fish. And, you know, it's just hard to get enough omega 3s. I think those are when people ask me, you know, because yes, I do have quite a few supplements. Like I have a greens supplement that's. I consider it a luxury. It's a great supplement. It has, you know, stuff like spirulina and reishi, mushroom and maca and things that you are kind of, you don't get in your diet unless you supplement with them. But as a core, especially people that are, you know, wanting to improve their body composition or just athletic performance, protein powder is convenient. Creatine, I don't see any reason why not. Multivitamin and fish oil and vitamin D are my general, my standard recommendations.

Yeah, for me it would be. And we can wrap up with this creatine fish oil if I haven't been eating much fish or taking in many omega threes or if my diet has been very high in omega 6 fatty acids.

Right.

And then a coverall multivitamin, something that is just basically a shotgun to cover your bases, that's well formulated and that has things like adequate amounts of vitamin D, methyl tetrahydrofolate instead of folic acid, adequate amounts of vitamin K to balance out the vitamin D. All those little things that a lot of multivitamins neglect. And if I had to throw one other in there, it would be some form of gut support to allow for things like enzymes, probiotics. You know, I like a little colostrum. So, yeah, it kind of depends from individual to individual, basically, and your blood work, your biomarkers, et cetera. But usually, you know, for me, it's a creatine, a fish oil, a multi, and then something to help out the gut a little bit.

So those would be the biggies.

So, folks, plenty more that Mike and I could get into, but we're out of time, so head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Mike Matthews to access the show notes to leave your questions and your comments and your feedback from Mike and I. We'll be sure to get back to you. And in the meantime, Mike, thanks for coming on the show, man.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. It's been a while. It was nice to chat again.

Yeah, word for sure. All right, folks, until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Mike Matthews signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week. You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting.

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