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Why You're Not Gaining Muscle Mass (Even Though You're Lifting Weights) · SOTA Personal Training Podcast

0:01
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the soda Personal Training
0:04
podcast. We help busy adults get strong
0:07
and fit and stay that way for a really long time.
0:09
I'm coach Sean here with coach Phil.
0:11
How are we doing, Phil? I'm.
0:12
Fantastico. Very good, very good.
0:14
All right, today we are going to tell you, dear listener, why you
0:17
are not gaining muscle mass even when you are lifting weights, K
0:22
And there's there's three main reasons and kind of also a lot
0:25
of little sub reasons. K But here's what we're going to
0:27
do. So we're going to talk about,
0:28
you know, First off, why hey, everybody, and I mean, everybody
0:32
wants to gain some muscle mass. Now it's a trend which we like,
0:36
right? Why it's good for you even if
0:37
you're trying to get lean burn body fat.
0:40
We're going to talk about some numbers which are probably not
0:42
even really that big of a deal, the exact muscle mass number on
0:46
the scale. But then we're going to go into
0:49
the reasons, the reasons why you're not gaining even when you
0:52
think you should be gaining some muscle mass and some strength.
0:55
OK. And then after that, we'll
0:57
probably ramble about some anecdotal stuff and some stupid
1:00
tangents that I'd like to get into.
1:01
So yeah, take it away, Phil. I mean, once again, this is a
1:05
trend. How did this become a trend?
1:07
All of a sudden, everybody wanted to gain muscle mass.
1:09
I don't know, but I love it. Yeah.
1:11
There's a lot of reasons we gotta pack on the muscle and why
1:13
it should be one of the main, main fundamental focuses of time
1:18
spent exercising. You'll learn through these
1:22
reasons as we talk through them why it's so impactful.
1:25
And so if you listen to this, you're doing the right stuff and
1:28
you're trying to optimize it. And again, part of this journey
1:31
is understanding what to expect because sometimes there's a
1:34
mismatch there. So I think I put together like 6
1:37
things. You put three.
1:38
There's a bunch of overlap, but stick through every single
1:41
reason on this one. Listen to the whole thing
1:42
because you're going to gain a lot of quite a few Nuggets of
1:46
information that'll really help you guys out.
1:49
And you're going to gain muscle mass, yeah.
1:51
Gain more lead muscle. Exactly.
1:53
And and so I think the reason like the nice thing now is in
1:56
the fitness phase as coaches and trainers is it used to be just
2:00
like people were like, OK, muscle mass.
2:02
Well, it's just an aesthetic thing.
2:04
It's just because people want to try to look a certain.
2:06
Way just bodybuilding. Right.
2:08
But now I think, you know, the word is out that having more
2:12
muscle mass and strength in general is very good for your
2:15
health and for your ability to live a long healthy life, right?
2:19
So that's why you should want it if you don't already.
2:22
And then, you know, again, as we've talked about numerous
2:24
times in this podcast, also, if you're just trying to get lean
2:26
and you're trying to have a lean toned defined look or whatever,
2:30
in general, building as much muscle as you can is going to
2:33
help you in that process because it's probably going to speed
2:35
your metabolism a little bit. It's also going to, you know, as
2:38
you gradually burn body fat, your muscle definition, the
2:41
muscle that you have is going to show up a little more.
2:43
You're just going to you're it's going to look better in general,
2:45
even if your goal is just to burn body fat.
2:48
But we've done countless episodes on that.
2:50
So no need to go deep into the details of that today.
2:54
In terms of skeletal muscle mass, you know, we have a lot of
2:56
clients who listen to this and a lot of clients who do in body
2:59
scans, right? The infamous in body machine
3:02
that we're sitting here in the room right next to right now.
3:04
That's right. I love that people have been
3:08
doing so many of these because we're, we're like out of wipes.
3:11
We, we have more on order, but we, we got to use those fancy
3:15
wipes that they force us to use. But like, I'd love it.
3:18
People are doing more of these and they're looking at that data
3:20
and, and staying more aware of, of what's going on.
3:22
So I love it. Great job.
3:24
Yes, really. Good job, everybody.
3:26
Clients have been getting after it, saying OK, what's my muscle
3:28
mass? Has my body got percentage down?
3:30
You know, like they want to know the numbers, they want to be
3:32
able to measure stuff. And then of course it's a good
3:35
and a bad thing for us because a lot of times as we know it's,
3:38
it's really tough to make those numbers move in the direction
3:41
you want. Speaking from personal
3:44
experience too, like it is so high, like if you want your
3:47
muscle mass to go up by like 3 lbs, you will like sweat, just
3:52
sweat, blood, tears, everything to try to get that muscle mass
3:56
to go up. And you might not do it but but,
3:59
but we're going to give you some tips on how to give yourself a
4:01
better chance of making it happen.
4:04
I want to, I want to jump in, but yeah, I just want to cover
4:06
that big misconception quickly as people are like, I'm going to
4:09
gain like 10 lbs of muscle in a month, right?
4:12
You know, that's that is I don't think anyone actually knows what
4:15
to expect. And so we're going to cover
4:17
that. But an important thing to
4:19
clarify is lifting weights doesn't equal building muscle
4:23
immediately, right? There's a lot more to it than
4:26
just I'm lifting weights, so I should see it go up, right?
4:28
So that's what we're going to help navigate.
4:30
But most people just focus on I'm getting in, so I should see
4:33
it working, right? And well, yes and no.
4:37
The answer is, as always, is it depends.
4:40
So we're going to tell you what it depends on right now.
4:44
Yeah, exactly. And like a lot of people who do,
4:46
you know, the in body scans, like let me just put some
4:48
numbers to this 'cause I know we have enough listeners who, who
4:51
do these, they kind of like know what they're the, the SMM, the
4:54
skeletal muscle mass number. Now this is just skeletal muscle
4:57
mass. It's like you have your, your
4:59
body weight, right? And then you, you know, let's
5:02
say taking a hypothetical example, man is £200, right?
5:05
You might, your body weight might be 200.
5:07
It might show your lean body mass is maybe 150 which means
5:12
then you have 50 lbs of body fat fat, so 25% body fat basically.
5:19
But it might show like your skeletal muscle mass.
5:21
Cause like the lean body mass is like your muscle plus you know,
5:23
your water weight and all these other kind of weird things that
5:25
I don't even understand. But like Long story short, the
5:28
skeletal muscle mass number for a man for like a 510 male might
5:34
be like 80 on average, you know, So probably probably even
5:38
realistically a little bit lower than that, maybe in the 70s or
5:40
something, right? I'm just throwing up the numbers
5:42
that I see on average. OK, This is not like Internet
5:45
research. This is just me anecdotally
5:47
looking at the results from that scanner over and over again,
5:49
right? So average height male might be
5:52
7580 lbs of muscle, you know, without doing a ton of weight
5:55
training, right? Obviously you train, then the
5:57
number goes up, right? But and then women, you know,
5:59
you might say you take like a 5 foot five woman and the average
6:02
might be, I mean, realistically like low 50s, maybe 55.
6:06
If you get over 55, you're doing pretty good, right?
6:09
But anyway, this is the skeletal muscle mass number for anybody,
6:11
for anybody out there in the audience who's like looking at
6:13
their in body scan right now. What am I at?
6:17
But anyway, so like, you know, let's say for, let's say for a
6:20
man, let's just say 75, right? Like 75 is the number you start
6:23
at. You know, for the average woman,
6:24
it might be like 55 is the number you start at.
6:27
Like to make that number go from 75 to 80 or from 55 to 60 to put
6:34
on 5 lbs. It's gonna be a lot of work.
6:38
I'm, I'm not saying it's not possible.
6:40
And it can be doable in a relatively short time, you know,
6:43
a matter of maybe several months only if you do a lot of things
6:47
really, really well. But more realistically, it's
6:51
probably going to take a, you know, a number of years of
6:55
consistent just, you know, exercise and eating and sleeping
6:58
fairly decently. Not to give away reasons, you
7:01
know, all the reasons that I'm going to talk about.
7:02
But like. Yeah.
7:03
Exactly. Yeah.
7:04
Yeah. No, that's good to set that
7:06
expectation because if you tell yourself it's going to take
7:08
years and you're bought into that process, then if it happens
7:11
a little bit quicker, you're you're floored, you're excited.
7:14
If you expect it to happen in six weeks or two weeks or
7:18
whatever have you, you're almost always I'm gonna be
7:20
disappointed. Yep.
7:22
So I'm just thinking to myself too, cuz so like 2021 was when I
7:25
really went into bro phase, you know, cuz 20/20/21 to 23 was
7:30
when I really tried to get thick, you know, And I'm still
7:32
always kind of doing it, which I'll probably talk more
7:35
anecdotally about at the end to the audience's great annoyance.
7:38
But like from 2021 to 2023 was when I would like starting in
7:42
2021, I started going all out, right.
7:44
And so I'm like, all right, I've been hearing online that I can
7:47
put on 20 lbs of muscle in six months, you know, so like,
7:50
that's, that's, that's what I'm here for.
7:52
That's what. I'm going to do.
7:54
That's the metric and that's what we're doing. 20 lbs of
7:56
muscle in six points, six months, natty of course, no
7:59
steroids, right? But I can do it, right?
8:01
Train, eat, sleep, do it. 20 lbs of muscle in six months.
8:04
OK, Obviously I didn't put on 20 lbs of muscle in six months.
8:08
I did like, I will say that I probably over the last five
8:12
years since then, it might not be 20, but it's probably 15.
8:19
So probably like 12 to 15 lbs of muscle in five years.
8:23
Years, not months. And that's training what 3?
8:27
Like 3 to 6 * a week, you know what I mean?
8:30
Like depending on how body parts split in it.
8:32
But like, yeah, it's, you know, training hard a lot and eating
8:36
more protein than anyone on this podcast listening could possibly
8:38
imagine every day and getting pretty good sleep.
8:42
But OK. So the reason I share that part
8:44
of my anecdote is because building muscle is not easy.
8:47
Folks, let me say it two more times just to make sure we have
8:50
a clear Building muscle is not easy.
8:53
Building muscle is not easy. OK, so in in terms of, you know,
8:59
why most people struggle with it, I mean, should we go into
9:04
the the reasons of. Yeah, I think we've made them
9:06
wait long enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:08
OK. Well, so like the reason #1 big
9:10
reason is just the the training aspect of it.
9:13
It's the exercise aspect. So, you know, you're not
9:15
exercising properly. Now, this could be a couple
9:18
different things, right? Could be you're simply not
9:20
training hard enough. We've talked on this podcast
9:22
before about not pushing yourself close enough to failure
9:26
on your strength training sets. It could be that you're just
9:29
training either too inconsistently by, you know,
9:32
maybe one week you do 3 or 4 times, then you take two weeks
9:35
off or something like that. It could be you have a weird
9:38
schedule and like poor exercise programming.
9:40
So you go totally balls to the wall on Monday and Tuesday and
9:44
you get yourself so sore that you can't work out again for the
9:46
whole rest of the week. And then you try to come back
9:48
next Monday and it's just like poor exercise programming.
9:52
Like, there's a lot, there's a lot related to the training that
9:55
it could be. But for most of us, the
10:00
appropriate way to train would be to either do like a full body
10:04
workout, say, three days a week, whether that's Monday,
10:06
Wednesday, Friday, whatever. Solid hour of lifting key
10:10
compound exercises, right? With days of rest in between.
10:15
Or you know, you can split it up into like an upper body, lower
10:18
body, if you want to do more than three days a week.
10:21
You know, some form of a body part split.
10:23
But like the big overarching reason #1 is that something in
10:28
in your training is not good. Either it's not intense enough
10:32
or you're just all over the place and you don't have a good
10:34
enough plan that's well programmed, you know?
10:38
Yeah, sorry, I kind of just ran with that.
10:39
No, they. Of course, no, you hit it right
10:41
in the head. I, I think, and I agree, I think
10:43
a lot of people are leaving maybe like, man, they're leaving
10:46
like 3 to 5 reps in the tank that they could do before.
10:48
It's just slow down versus like one or two.
10:52
And maybe that again, it's fear of injury.
10:54
Like they're just not used to pushing themselves that hard.
10:57
But that's where all the magic happens because when you
11:00
strength train, you have to, you have to create a stimulus for
11:03
your body to adapt to. So if you can pick up, I don't
11:07
know, pick up a glass of water, right?
11:09
You're like, you don't feel that you don't notice it.
11:11
You're not going to your body's not signaled to change anything.
11:14
But if you picked up a, what were those giant like Culligan
11:18
bottles, right? If you curled that thing up 12
11:21
times and you're struggling at 8, your, your body's going to
11:24
say we got a, we got a build some muscle.
11:26
We had to rebuild. There's metabolic damage happen
11:29
in your muscles and they recover with good protein and sleep and
11:32
you adapt, but you need the stimulus.
11:34
And so it's the last two, one or two reps to failure that do
11:38
everything that we want muscle building to do.
11:41
That comes right back to that start of like, just cuz you
11:43
lifted a weight doesn't mean it's gonna mean I'm building the
11:47
muscle. Yeah, you have to get your
11:48
muscles out of their comfort zone.
11:51
Yeah. Yep, So most sets that you do in
11:55
the gym should be feeling like you could maybe do one or two
11:58
more reps Maybe you know, one or two, not necessarily quite to
12:01
failure, but like you're very close yes to I can't do anymore.
12:05
You're starting to get scared. Yeah, yeah, just dwell damn near
12:09
like a little bit, you know, like, yeah.
12:11
Don't go to failure in like a barbell back squat yeah, don't
12:14
play around with that one. You'd be like, ah, that feels
12:16
pretty tough. I got a couple left.
12:17
I feel pretty good about that. But everything else, especially
12:20
like pulling exercises, you can do those and be like, I can't
12:22
move my. That's failure the.
12:24
Cable pulling exercises, like I am grilling these people every
12:27
day. I'm like, cable pulls you, you,
12:30
you train to failure. You train the muscles to
12:33
failure. OK.
12:33
Like I am grilling my noon crew all the time.
12:35
We've not. I'm going to talk more about the
12:37
noon crew. We got some strong.
12:38
We got some strong folks in the noon crew these days.
12:40
I got to shout them out short. Yeah.
12:42
Yeah. Well, no, but like, you know,
12:43
we've done that freaking half kneeling cable arm, one arm pull
12:46
down and the cable pull over so many times that they're all sick
12:49
of it. But then I want to be look and
12:51
be like, hey, are we getting results?
12:53
Are we getting strong? I think we are.
12:55
Because like I said, those cable ones are great for you to be
12:58
able to very safely push your muscles to failure, Right.
13:01
There's virtually no risks. Like, OK, well, the, the cable
13:04
pulley just went back in and you didn't drop a weight on your
13:07
head. Like, it's totally fine, you
13:08
know? Exactly.
13:09
So, yeah, I love it. Yeah.
13:11
Coach Blake would agree if he was here.
13:13
All cable, all cable, lat exercises.
13:16
All right. He's the cable cable king.
13:17
Cable King, Sup. And yeah, you know the
13:20
inconsistent training piece it feeds in with that, right?
13:22
It's like, that's where the variety comes in.
13:24
I want to be different. I want to pull this way, this
13:26
way, use this and this and this. But yeah, the muscle needs like
13:31
those repeated signals. There's no such thing as muscle
13:33
confusion. Your muscles don't have a brain.
13:35
They're like, wow, this is different.
13:36
I'm going to like, I'm going to, I'm going to build more muscle
13:39
now. It's just you really need more
13:42
repetition than anything. But we won't go too deep because
13:45
we did an entire episode on Variety.
13:47
Yeah, it's fair. And I think I, I think I finally
13:49
beat it into people's heads enough, you know what I mean?
13:52
Like maybe 1/4 of the clients still kind of like, frown and
13:55
scoff at me. They're like, well, he doesn't
13:56
like variety, you know? But like, I think most of them
13:58
are like, you know what, I'm starting to get it.
14:00
I just need to get really strong at the most important exercises
14:03
over and over. You guys, we're doing this
14:05
because we want the best possible outcome.
14:07
It's not because you necessarily want us to you to like us.
14:10
We're doing it because we're trying to deliver results.
14:12
That's why you're here. I know you like coming in, but
14:14
like would you rather have results just like kind of have
14:16
fun? Uh huh.
14:17
Yeah, it's kind of. A harsh question.
14:19
It's not so binary. But you know, in the famous
14:22
words of Phil Shrub, I'm not your friend.
14:24
I'm your trainer. You said that.
14:27
I heard you said it was kind of a joke, just.
14:29
Come out of my mouth I must something else was.
14:32
I'm not your friend, I'm your trainer.
14:33
I'm here to get you results, which hey, I mean.
14:36
At the end of the day, that's that's that's what you guys are
14:38
investing in, someone who's going to tell you what you need
14:41
to do and not sugarcoat it so that you can get better results.
14:44
Yep, got to get your money's worth.
14:46
Yep. OK, so training number one,
14:49
you're not training right or you're not training hard enough.
14:52
OK #2 can anybody out there in the audience guess it?
14:57
Can anybody would you guess that it maybe has to do with with
15:01
food and or protein? And but it's more than it's more
15:05
than just the protein number, by the way, right.
15:09
Yeah. So we're talking about nutrition
15:10
here. Obviously you're not going to
15:12
build muscle eating nothing all day long, right?
15:15
You got, you got to fuel the muscle somehow, you know, and
15:17
we're not going to talk too much about like the timing of do you
15:20
need to eat pre workout or post workout or whatever.
15:22
But like you need enough throughout the day most days,
15:25
you know, especially the protein number.
15:27
We always harp on that, right. And you know what should that
15:30
number be? Well, OK, you know, the the
15:33
fitness nerds will tell you, you know, 1g of protein per pound of
15:35
body weight or target body weight.
15:36
Yeah, maybe kind of close to that.
15:38
I mean, it's a good number to shoot for.
15:40
Women, definitely over 100 grams protein a day.
15:42
Men, definitely close to 150, if not more.
15:46
You know, yes, eat your protein if you want to build muscle.
15:48
And especially as we start getting older, right?
15:50
Like, we're not a bunch of spring chickens, guys, OK?
15:52
Nobody under 25 is listening to this podcast.
15:55
Statistically speaking, maybe. But like all of us are getting
15:58
to the age where it's, you know, the further past 30 we get, OK,
16:02
it's harder to build muscle and maintain muscle.
16:05
And they say protein becomes even more important for that,
16:08
right? So we got to eat our protein,
16:10
OK, and we also need to get enough total calories, OK.
16:14
And this is where it gets tricky, OK?
16:16
Because, and I have a lot of really like a lot of clients
16:20
that I really, really love that fall into this category, the
16:24
category of, OK, I want to build muscle, but I do not want to
16:28
gain one 100th of an ounce of body fat, OK.
16:32
And, and it's fair, it's valid, it's valid, OK.
16:35
And so then obviously from that, with that mentality, we're
16:38
thinking, OK, I cannot be in a caloric surplus at all.
16:42
You know, I have so many clients, great clients, I love
16:44
them all who are afraid, they are scared to death to go into a
16:48
1 calorie surplus for the day. Their maintenance is 1900.
16:52
They will not go to 1901, at least theoretically they won't,
16:56
right? They're afraid.
16:57
OK, now it's fine. It's all good.
17:00
And well, 'cause I'm not saying that you can't build muscle if
17:03
you're not in a caloric. Well, how much time do we have,
17:07
Phil? We could hash this one out for
17:08
like 4 hours. Like is a caloric surplus
17:11
required to build muscle? Cause it's kind of yes, on the
17:15
side, on the. Average, yes.
17:17
Yeah, kind of. You need to.
17:18
If you want to gain weight of any kind.
17:21
Tissue, Yeah, yeah. I think it's been well studied.
17:23
You can't. You can't eat 200 grams of
17:25
protein and nothing else. And then still, yeah, muscle.
17:27
Right, Yeah, 'cause you. Your body's still in a breakdown
17:30
state. It's catabolic, so it, yeah,
17:31
it's, it's like, no, we can't build that.
17:33
We ran out of supplies over here.
17:35
And yes, then there's gluconeogenesis, which is how
17:38
your body breaks down protein into carbohydrates when you need
17:40
it. It's we're going to drop it at
17:42
that, but essentially, yeah, you have to have both I think on the
17:46
seven day average for calories. But for sure protein all the
17:49
time. Those are the building blocks,
17:50
the amino acids, the protein breakdown into are the things
17:53
that repair your muscle cells after you damage them in here.
17:57
That's what's happening. It's not a strain or a sprain,
18:00
but that's that soreness. It's like, OK, I've I've caused
18:03
some, some microscopic damage and they get repaired and then
18:07
it's stronger. So you gotta do, you gotta do
18:11
both. I'd say they're almost equally
18:13
as important, but they need to be together.
18:16
Yeah, Well, you mean the training and the eating train?
18:18
The training and the fueling? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're
18:19
equally. Important.
18:20
Yeah. You can't just eat the circles
18:21
of calories and have low protein and build muscle.
18:23
I mean, you might be able to do a little bit, but again, you
18:27
wanna maximize it. You should always hit that
18:28
protein number. And I think when people talk
18:30
about dieting up or down from like their maintenance calories,
18:33
yeah, you really just kind of tweak your carbs and fats to hit
18:37
the total calorie number you need basically.
18:39
Goals. But protein pretty much stays
18:41
the. Same.
18:41
Yes, correct. Maybe a little bit more if.
18:43
You're dieting, but if you're trying to lose body fat, I guess
18:47
but. Correct.
18:49
Somebody's freaking calling me. Why do people call me on the
18:51
phone? So like city of Chaska, I know
18:53
why the city of Chaska's calling me anyway, but we'll get back to
18:57
city of Chaska later. OK, No, I have important things
19:01
happening in the city of Chaska, but OK, got to refocus now.
19:05
Don't you guys hate it when you get a call on your phone in the
19:07
middle of a podcast? OK, refocus.
19:10
All right, so we're on the topic of do you need to be in a
19:12
calorie surplus? Like can you it's it almost
19:15
comes back to the question of can you build muscle and burn
19:18
body that at the same time, the question that for centuries and
19:22
centuries since the ancient Egyptians, everybody has been
19:25
freaking asking Phil can. You like Can I get yoked without
19:29
putting? A yoked while build the.
19:31
Pyramids. The ancient Egyptians wrote it
19:32
in stone. Yes, yes.
19:34
The answer? The answer of Can you gain
19:37
muscle and burn body fat at the same time is yeah, technically,
19:42
yes, you're a beginner and practically no, Yeah, it's not
19:45
gonna happen basically. And it's great 'cause I have, I
19:48
have two clients that I'm thinking about right now, OK,
19:51
that are both in this and I'll, well, OK, one of them is 1 we've
19:54
talked about before, but there's a male and a female client that
19:56
are in this right now that are like, they're hardcore in this
19:59
zone. And they're both pretty advanced
20:00
clients, right? You know, and I've been working
20:03
pretty hard with both of them on like their calories.
20:04
And obviously they, they both train hard.
20:06
Like they both train really hard.
20:07
OK, see if you can know what I'm talking about here.
20:10
And you know, it's, it's both have been in a situation over
20:12
the last few months where it's like, OK, I want to see the
20:15
muscle mass number on the scale go up by 3-4, whatever, 5 lbs
20:19
even, right. But.
20:21
I don't want to gain a frickin ounce of body fat.
20:24
Of course not. OK, OK.
20:25
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're in this conundrum,
20:27
right? And they even know, like they
20:29
both even know I've talked through it with them and they're
20:31
well studied. They they know this this stuff.
20:33
They know that it's probably you almost have to pick one.
20:35
Are you trying to cut, meaning burn body fat and maintain
20:37
muscle, or are you trying to quote, UN quote bulk, meaning
20:40
you're trying to gain muscle and at least not gain much body fat,
20:43
Right? They both know that at their
20:46
level, it's almost not gonna happen.
20:49
It's it's virtually impossible to gain muscle and burn body fat
20:52
at the same time. OK, now, now there is a secret
20:57
formula that the Instagram influencer bodybuilders taught
21:03
me. It's not that secret.
21:05
OK, it's not that secret several years ago.
21:08
But I, I do believe it kind of works if you are freaking
21:12
dialled. OK, and here's what I mean by
21:14
freaking dialled, you know, 'cause this female clan I'm
21:16
talking about, like she's in that situation where she would
21:19
be doing a slight calorie deficit, high protein, you know,
21:21
like 140 grams protein per day. But then it's like just not that
21:25
many carbs. Very, very low carb, like a
21:27
little bit, you know, some fats in the diet, but like, you know,
21:30
pretty low calories, not very many carbs, you know, some, you
21:33
know, dietary fat, right? And I'm looking at it and I'm
21:37
just like, you're not going to build on that.
21:39
You're not going to build even with that protein number, with
21:41
that amount of carbs, you're not going to build with 70 grams of
21:44
carbs per day. Get out of here.
21:45
Like you need to feel muscles need glycogen, whatever.
21:48
You're not going to recover, OK, your protein's high.
21:49
You're not going to build with no carbs whatsoever.
21:51
It's a pipe dream. Especially, especially at her
21:53
level. She's been doing this for a long
21:54
time, right? So I'm like, all right, here's
21:58
your formula, here's what may work 'cause it has worked a
22:02
little bit for me in the past and it's the secret formula that
22:05
the Instagram bodybuilders use. I wanna hear it is you obviously
22:08
still go high protein. So OK, let's say, let's say that
22:12
you're, you know, 1900 or 2000 is your maintenance calories,
22:17
right? You obviously still go pretty
22:18
high protein. You go 160 or 170 grams protein
22:22
per day. This is maybe for like a 58 to
22:24
5:10, you know, person could be male or female, right?
22:26
One 6170 grams protein per day you up the carbs a little bit
22:31
right so you're relatively high carb even though you're still
22:34
going to stay in a deficit you go maybe 180 to 200 grams carbs
22:38
per day and then you take your fats down to as low as like 40
22:42
to 50 grams of fat per day, which is like barely above the
22:46
you can maintain good hormonal health with this standards.
22:48
You know what I mean? So This is why I like never
22:50
recommend this to anybody, like almost never because it's like,
22:54
OK, First off, most people get to like 40 grams of fat in their
22:58
diet without even trying. Like you have like a freaking
23:01
chicken sandwich from somewhere and they put like some
23:03
mayonnaise and it's over. You know, like you will get like
23:06
a slab of peanut butter done. Like you will get 40 grams of
23:09
fat in your diet without even trying.
23:10
So it's not even worth it for most people.
23:12
OK, but like if you're really, really serious and you're like,
23:16
I want to build muscle, burn body fat at the same time, you
23:19
can go a mini mini, mini calorie deficit, maybe 1 or 200 calories
23:24
deficit per day, high protein, a decent amount of carbs still for
23:28
being in a deficit and pretty low fat, but just enough fat to
23:31
meet your dietary needs, right? And if you run that playbook
23:36
like seven days a week for like 2-3 months, you'll gain like 1
23:41
LB of muscle and burn like 1 LB of body fat face or, or like 2,
23:46
you know, so like, and you got to be dialed with it and you got
23:49
to do point #3 here. So it's, so it's almost like not
23:52
even worth it, right? You know.
23:53
Well, that's right up there with like, you know, carb cycling,
23:56
which is like a popular one that is completely unsustainable for
24:00
everybody because I've mapped it out and have people do it.
24:02
They carb cycle both on like a a small scale.
24:05
They eat more carbs in the days they train for recovery.
24:08
They flip it on rest days and like that can work but like all
24:12
of this is probably like a higher level like this is
24:15
majoring in the minors for most of our clients cuz it's just
24:17
like what I have to like now change the macros I'm gonna have
24:21
a hard time sticking to the targets as it is yes but I think
24:24
it's important to understand what it does take to go to that
24:26
next level so you guys have a barometer for what what's
24:30
required versus what you're doing yes because yeah that's
24:35
that's reality like in a bid here I'm going to I'm going to
24:37
share what is actually possible you know brass tacks what how
24:42
much can you build a month in muscle we're just talking about
24:44
muscle and, and why it does change after really the age of
24:48
30 definitely after 40 but. Well, yeah, I'm, I'm curious to
24:52
hear your numbers and then also just to finish off on this
24:55
point, cause like what I just did is probably unfortunately, I
24:58
just went to like people who are on like level 9 and 10 of this
25:02
game. You know what I mean?
25:03
For for most people listening to this, like what, what I'm the
25:05
point I'm trying to make is the reason you're not building
25:09
gaining muscle mass often times is either because you're not
25:11
eating enough protein or you're just not eating enough total
25:14
calories. You're not eating enough food.
25:16
Like you're trying too hard to lose weight at the same time.
25:19
And you're not going to see the muscle mass number go up if
25:22
you're eating very low calories or like no carbs as well, right?
25:26
So. Yeah, most adults, they're,
25:28
they're in a, they're in a cutting phase during the week
25:31
and then they're in a bulking phase on the.
25:32
Week Boom. Yeah.
25:34
But yeah. But that's just their
25:36
environment. Containing that that's not Yeah.
25:38
That's not their. No, it's 1500 calories a day
25:41
during the week and it's 3000 during the weekend.
25:43
Yeah. And it's an average or or more,
25:45
Yeah. Brunch.
25:46
Yeah, brunch. You do that, you get 3000
25:49
calories. At Chipotle, yeah.
25:52
You can do it a lot of places, especially if you're drinking.
25:54
Yes, bottomless mimosas and whatever stuff they put in the
25:58
brunch with the pancake. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:00
And then the little the little French fries with all that
26:02
special seasoning. It's delicious.
26:04
You can't stop. Brunch.
26:06
One brunch will destroy five years of fitness progress.
26:09
Five years, Maybe not quite that bad, but I'm going to say. 5
26:12
days. One no one.
26:14
Brunch will destroy everything. It will ruin you.
26:16
No, go to brunch and just don't drink alcohol and eat some eggs
26:20
with. Just think about just.
26:21
Eat eggs first, eggs first, mimosas later.
26:24
Yeah, that's right. That's the yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:26
Plus, you got stuff to do on Sunday.
26:27
You can't be drinking mimosa. You're gonna need a nap.
26:29
Yeah, I don't know if you have kids or whatever.
26:31
You're probably not even thinking about that.
26:33
You might not go to brunch anymore.
26:34
Don't go to brunch, people, just listen to the podcast and don't
26:37
go to just. Stay in your house and listen to
26:39
us ramble. Exactly.
26:41
So much better for you. Exactly.
26:42
Do you want to do your little? What would you?
26:44
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead and do your.
26:45
Thing so let's jump into this. So they studied this quite a bit
26:47
as far as the rate of muscle gain, because maybe this is what
26:50
people want to hear from the start, right?
26:53
If you're a beginner, so in your first year of training, your
26:55
first 12 months or so and you're training two to three days a
26:57
week doing what we're talking about like total body workouts,
27:01
multi joint exercises like push ups, rows, not like a bunch of
27:05
little tricep extensions, stuff like that.
27:07
Makes me pissed. Well, I'll take it up with him.
27:11
You can gain in best case scenario, probably 1 to 2 lbs
27:14
per month for a while. That is what kind of the
27:17
research says. And that's if you're getting
27:19
after it. You know, it's probably three
27:20
days a week, maybe more, right? But you should expect probably a
27:24
little bit less. If you're in your, you know, one
27:27
to three years, you're kind of more intermediate.
27:29
It's going to drop down to .5 to 1 LB per month probably on
27:33
average again at the most. And then after three years, you
27:37
are just scraping it on. You're just, you're just doing
27:41
everything you can. Like Sean's raising his hand.
27:43
Literally, I'm scraping. I'm digging at the bottom of the
27:46
bucket for any extra pound of muscle that I can find right
27:49
now. That's what I'm trying to do.
27:50
Like all these like pro bodybuilders, if you have some
27:53
like they are actually, they can gain the least amount of muscle
27:55
because they've been doing it for so long.
27:57
Now, granted, they probably have some some help hormonally, but
28:02
still, they have to work out five days a week for two hours
28:05
to scrape another couple pounds of muscle for next year's show.
28:08
And that's like a year. So the reality is 3 to 5 lbs of
28:13
muscle in a year is incredible progress.
28:15
God, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's incredible progress.
28:19
Even 2:00 to 3:00, because if you're over 40, really if you're
28:23
over 30, because that's when this starts to happen, is you
28:26
will be losing probably about one, maybe to 3% of your, your
28:31
muscle mass every year anyway without you doing anything.
28:35
So when people maintain muscle, it's really like gaining.
28:38
Yes, it's a win. Because it had you not done
28:41
anything and I was trying to remind people that they're like,
28:43
oh, it didn't change, but it would have changed negatively
28:46
had you not been doing this. So that's really important to
28:49
hit home is you're not just going to pack it on by accident,
28:53
but you can maintain it. And that's what will happen
28:56
from, you know, 2 workouts a week, you know, maybe takes 3
29:00
and then move the needle. That might mean more specific
29:04
intensity, more volume, more frequency, things like that.
29:09
Yeah. So and that again, that starts
29:11
at starts at 30, OK. And it accelerates over time.
29:15
So by the time you're 50 or 60, if you've not built really any
29:18
muscle, it gets even harder to put any on.
29:21
I think they've done some studies.
29:23
They're like the ceiling is like if you try to strength train
29:25
after 70 or 80, you're probably not going to be able to gain
29:28
muscle. You're just not able to do it.
29:30
Your body doesn't have the satellite cells for recovery.
29:32
It doesn't have the, you know, there's hormone shifts.
29:35
There's all sorts of things that work against you.
29:36
So doing it between 30 and 50 is probably the wisest thing you
29:41
can do for your health long term is build muscle in that period
29:44
of time. Yeah, Yeah.
29:46
No, I love it. Yeah.
29:47
Yeah. Reason #3 a lot of you knew it
29:51
would be this too. Poor sleep.
29:54
OK. Yeah.
29:57
I mean, you OK? No one's gonna be perfect,
29:59
right? I've been sleeping kind of like
30:01
shit this week, a little bit like accidentally waking up in
30:03
the middle of the night, you know?
30:03
But like, it's, it's kind of like, OK.
30:06
In an optimal and a perfect world, we would sleep 7 to 9
30:09
hours uninterrupted 7, seven nights per week.
30:12
And like, it would be going to bed and waking up at the same
30:15
time all seven days of the week, all year round.
30:18
Like that's an optimal, perfect world.
30:19
Now, some of us sleep poorly by choice and lifestyle because you
30:23
decided to go out to the club and then, you know, we got you
30:25
didn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:27
I just said our listeners are not under 25.
30:28
And now I'm like, you guys all go out to the club, right?
30:31
They're like, he knows me so well.
30:32
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no.
30:33
But you guys just hang out at your neighbor's house and drink
30:36
until 1:00 in the morning. That's the club.
30:38
That's the new. Club, but I stayed home.
30:40
I stayed home and I went to. Sandy's house.
30:42
Yes, we had. You had.
30:43
Drinks. And we had two drinks at Sandy's
30:45
house. It was not the seven I would
30:47
have had at the club. And my muscle mass didn't go up.
30:49
Sean. All right, let's see.
30:51
Suzie. Suzie, 52.
30:53
Suzie. OK, Started strength.
30:55
I'm going to Rand here. We started strength training at
30:57
50, OK? Hadn't done exercise before.
31:00
We're 52, K. We're not going to bed at 9:30
31:03
every night like I suggested. We're going to bed at 1:00 PM on
31:06
the weekends, and we're only having 2 drinks instead of 0
31:08
drinks, K, We're not getting enough sleep.
31:10
We're low on our protein every day.
31:12
Why do we think we're not building muscles?
31:14
Susie, Are there no factors against us here?
31:17
All right. Susie, you want to get serious?
31:18
Are we getting serious? What are we doing here?
31:20
Get to bed at 9:30, Susie. Have a salad.
31:22
Go ahead, in the words of Doctor Mike is Ratzell, have a fucking
31:27
protein shake and go the to sleep.
31:29
Alright, trying to leave out the F bombs.
31:31
That was that was good, but it was one of favorite lines he
31:33
said in the podcast. I loved it it it.
31:35
It's really that. Sound.
31:36
I mean, yeah, just go to sleep. Go to bed, be boring.
31:39
Yeah, but guess what? You're gonna wake up.
31:41
You can go on a nice morning walk at 6:30, and you beat
31:43
everyone up and everyone else is hungover and you're like, I feel
31:46
great. This is this feels so much
31:47
better than having whatever fun I thought I was gonna have last
31:50
night. Exactly.
31:51
And that's just my personal opinion, but anyway.
31:55
Yeah. Well, and, and, and then like,
31:57
you know, so a lot of it is sleeping poor by choice and by
32:00
lifestyle. And then other times it's things
32:02
that are like kind of out of your control or you just for
32:04
whatever reason aren't sleeping well, whether it's stress or
32:06
whatever, like. Children.
32:09
Yeah. What?
32:11
They don't. They don't.
32:12
Want you to sleep? Well, they don't.
32:13
Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure.
32:16
But so like, the point is you just kind of have to do as well
32:19
as you can to get as much consistent sleep as you can.
32:23
OK. And it's just, it's a big
32:25
spectrum, you know, like there's a big difference between, say
32:28
you got one or two not so great nights of sleep because your
32:30
kids woke you up and, you know, you only got maybe 5-6 hours
32:34
here and then you got 7 or 8 hours all the other nights,
32:36
versus you literally only get 3 hours of sleep and you live on
32:40
Monster Energy drinks all the time.
32:42
Like, the former is much better than the latter, you know, So
32:44
like, just do your best with it. And over time, the relatively
32:49
consistent sleep, if you can do it, will help a lot, a lot.
32:53
It might be the most important of all these factors.
32:56
And I want to drive home like sleep.
32:58
It's not just about recovering muscle mass, right?
33:01
You're, you're training, you're like, oh, I need to rebuild.
33:03
That's when the, you know, trucks in the shop, it's
33:05
rebuilding muscle. But so it's really what happens
33:08
to our behaviour the next day. And this is like this psych
33:11
piece of it that's really worth mentioning is when you're under
33:13
slept, right, you're a little more stressed, you're tired.
33:16
Instead of making breakfast, you're like, I'm just going to
33:19
go to Starbucks and I'll get the 400, you know, milligram
33:23
caffeine drink with the sugar and then, oh, a little cake pop.
33:26
Might as well. I need a little treat.
33:29
And then right, your lunch. I didn't make anything because I
33:31
was out all day at brunch on Sunday.
33:34
And then like you just order food there and that's, you know,
33:37
Cindy's birthdays. You're like, I got to get a
33:39
piece of cake. So like if you have sleep, it
33:42
kind of puts like a, an armor over here how your disciplined,
33:47
right? It just gives you that like, no,
33:49
like I'm on a plan. Like you just think more clearly
33:52
about those things. But that helps affect everything
33:56
else because if you're sleepy, are you going to come to your
33:58
workout the next day? Like you might skip it.
34:00
You might say I forgot I had a hair appointment.
34:03
And once again, as we said in the last podcast, we know you're
34:06
lying. Yeah.
34:07
You can just be honest. We, we weren't, we're not going
34:10
to beat you up. We're going to we're going to
34:11
give you a little eyeball emojis.
34:13
But. But like, we get it because if
34:16
you got, it's like that's the fifth hair appointment this
34:18
month. What's going on here?
34:20
Like the hair looks the same. That's like me saying I got a
34:22
haircut. Right, like.
34:24
Might as well just just come clean.
34:26
That's so funny. So, you know, it's that piece of
34:30
it like we know. So.
34:33
So yeah. But mostly comes out of like
34:35
your, you know, your food, right?
34:37
So you're going to do more convenient things because you're
34:39
like, I got a, my hangovers now are three days long somehow.
34:43
And that affects the behavior of those three days.
34:45
And that's too many days of the week to be off track if you want
34:48
to get the needle moving. What's so funny?
34:51
Fuck Susie. Oh God, Susie and Cindy.
34:55
Oh, Yep. Three day hangovers.
34:56
No, I don't know. Everything's funny right now.
34:59
I love it. So so yes, you got to get your
35:02
sleep. As much as I hate using
35:04
technology for this, like set a timer on your phone, the bedtime
35:07
thing, it's like time to wind down and you're just scrolling.
35:09
You're like, oh, I do have to go to bed.
35:11
Like I better start now because I have an hour of things I
35:14
actually end up doing. It's not just go to bed.
35:17
It happens to me all the time. Like I start going to bed at 10
35:20
and then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, whoops, I, you know,
35:24
forgot about all the other stuff I have to do somehow.
35:29
It's, it's funny, it's a totally anecdotal story, but in our, in
35:32
our apartment now they have like a, a hot tub closure and they
35:38
usually have a staff tube, but they have residents because they
35:40
don't have a staff on site. And so Katie like found out that
35:43
the person was quitting. So basically you just have to go
35:46
down and turn the key and, and close the hot tub cover at 10:00
35:50
every night. And at first we're like, we're
35:52
up that time anyway. Like our kids are up.
35:54
We're probably, you know, we're trying to get them to bed.
35:56
We're up, we're wired, but now we've been able to get to bed a
35:59
little bit earlier and we're like, I don't wanna do it.
36:02
It only takes like 5 minutes, but we still don't wanna do it
36:05
because we do wanna go to bed before 10.
36:07
And strangely enough, Ben now in a position to do that more often
36:10
than not, even though we took this gig, but they take a lot of
36:15
money off our rent, so we're like.
36:16
I gotta do this, OK? So we gotta stick with it.
36:19
But anyway. See guys, And then society even
36:20
incentivizes you financially to stay up later and not worry
36:23
about your fitness and muscle mass goals.
36:25
See, Phil and Katie are selling their souls to the devil like
36:28
they're taking money to have less muscle mass.
36:30
Did you guys hear that? That's what I got from that
36:31
story. So I didn't mention we're doing
36:33
50 push ups on the way. Though oh do you think that is
36:36
50 push ups or 30 more minutes of sleep more beneficial to you,
36:39
to your gains? Phil, that is a tough one.
36:42
Yep. Well, I think I do.
36:44
You think so? You like it's you're the David
36:46
Goggins mentality. Like stay up till 3:00 in the
36:48
morning doing push ups, going to carry the boat.
36:51
Yeah, who's going to carry the boat?
36:53
I can't do a kid impression. You got to do all this.
36:58
That's that's the really hard part, right, Is linking all
37:00
these things together into one lifestyle that keeps you happy,
37:04
healthy, fulfilled, never unhappy doesn't always work that
37:09
way. So again, we're the we're trying
37:12
to be that guiding beacon here for for beacon, what happens
37:15
outside of the gym because under our watch, you guys do great.
37:19
Yeah. On your own it you know it gets
37:21
sometimes it gets a little flaky from time to time.
37:23
It gets a little flaky. I could have been much more
37:24
harsh than that. These people need 100%
37:27
supervision at all times, no? The number of times clients have
37:30
said. Can you just?
37:31
Walk around and slap my hand when I grab a yes a burger.
37:36
I'm like yes, like no, yes, I can't do that.
37:39
For you, correct. Correct.
37:40
And once again, I will. We'll do that for you for
37:42
$400.00 a day. If there's any client listening
37:44
right now who wants it, 16 waking hours a day.
37:47
It might be up to 500, but like 400 bucks a day.
37:51
Hell, I'll go seven days a week. We can go.
37:52
Yeah, let's do 500. Can I do this on the podcast?
37:55
Can I plug my services? 500 bucks a day.
37:58
I will follow you around 16 hours a day, seven days a week
38:02
for the full year. I'll make a lot of money doing
38:04
that. Like I will be with you 16 hours
38:06
a day if you pay me. Yeah, I think 500's a decent
38:09
number. It's been a while.
38:09
You got to bump it up. You think 600 to be there 16
38:12
hours, it's a tough job. Thousand 1000 bucks a day.
38:16
I mean you're making by that point you're making 365K at the
38:19
end of the year. At some point I will still be
38:21
like I. Don't want to do this anymore.
38:22
I know. All right.
38:23
Fine deal. 1000 bucks a day. I will.
38:25
No, no, no, no, no. She'd be fine.
38:26
The things we could buy with that, come on, if I had 365 K,
38:30
that's a pretty good deal. Like I know we got a few clients
38:32
who make more than that, but. Don't forget about taxes.
38:35
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, OK.
38:36
All right. So it's 200K after taxes or
38:38
something like that. You know, 220, I don't know
38:40
whatever, but like 1000 bucks a day.
38:42
Anybody out there who really needs that service, I'll do it.
38:44
I'll follow you around for 16 waking hours and I will put you
38:47
to sleep at 9:30 PM and wake you up at 5:30, OK?
38:51
Sean will take you in. Yeah.
38:53
Read your bedtime story and make you some tea.
38:55
Yes, 100% OK 16 hours a day, 365 days a year.
38:59
I'm in it. OK I'm in it if you can pay 1000
39:01
bucks a day. Offers on the.
39:02
Table offers on the table. OK, it's right there.
39:04
Yep, there you go sometimes. That's probably what it takes to
39:07
get a lot of people to to move forward.
39:09
Yeah. And there are coaches that that
39:12
do that. Not here, but there was there
39:15
was a client. Who used to call guys Coach Ben?
39:17
He doesn't. And this individual paid, I
39:18
think it was $5000 a month. And this person was on him like
39:23
a hawk, OK? They, they text and say, hey,
39:27
what are you, what are you gonna have for lunch going to
39:29
Maynards? And they're like, well.
39:30
Who don't you go to, Maynard? They're like, who decided that
39:33
like really like did not, did not, did not deliver it nicely.
39:37
They're like, what are you talking about Maynards?
39:39
Like what are you going to get there?
39:41
I don't know. What do you mean?
39:43
Like look on the menu, tell me what you're going to get.
39:45
And it worked. It worked for him because it was
39:49
so expensive. He's like, well, I can't waste
39:50
this money. But I think it was a little, I
39:53
mean, I don't know, degrading. And then it didn't.
39:55
It didn't last because you couldn't do that forever.
39:58
The five grand a month is an interesting price.
40:00
I'm just thinking through the economics of this because if
40:02
it's just a text message relationship.
40:05
Let's speculate. I mean, we're on air still, but
40:07
who cares? The clients like to listen to us
40:08
ramble about stuff like this. So OK, so like you're you're
40:11
thinking about this. Let's say you're going to be
40:13
personal trainer who has a text message relationship with their
40:17
clients where they say, hey, you need to do what that guy was
40:20
doing every day. Let's say you get, you know, I
40:22
don't know, 10 clients or something that you do that with
40:25
because it's 5 grand a month, right?
40:27
So yeah, be doing like can you get?
40:30
Me just every hour you send a little text or one hey.
40:32
Yeah, where you at, What you eating, what you drink are?
40:34
You doing? What are you doing right now?
40:36
Yeah, yeah. Tell me.
40:37
Send a picture. Send Yeah, yeah, video call
40:39
right now. Then you gotta show up at their
40:41
work, right? You gotta spring on them.
40:43
Yeah, the guy I used to work for would do that.
40:44
He'd show up at, at, he'd show up at their work.
40:47
He showed up at somebody's work one time and he, you know, he's
40:49
7 foot tall. Dude came in and he's like,
40:51
where's, where's the break room? And somehow this was OK.
40:55
And he goes like, what is this? This is what this is an only
40:57
meal plan again. It was hilarious.
41:00
But he can't do that to people. Yeah.
41:03
Yeah. But that's, yeah, that's what it
41:05
would take. Yeah, sometimes.
41:06
I mean, if it doesn't require that much in person Ness for
41:10
five grand a month, that's a pretty good deal for the trainer
41:12
just to text and call me like, hey, where you at?
41:14
What are you eating? Get that out of your hand.
41:16
Yeah, I mean, 'cause that's what people need, realistically.
41:20
That's what that's what people want.
41:21
Yes, but, but for those of you who chose to listen to all 41
41:25
1/2 minutes of this podcast, OK, you can do it on your own.
41:29
You don't need 1000 bucks a day hypothetical trainer there
41:33
telling you what to eat and what not to eat all day long.
41:36
You know what you need to choose OK.
41:38
Exactly. Yeah, line these things up,
41:40
manage expectations. That was my one of the reason
41:43
here, but we covered it was expectation mismatch.
41:46
So make sure that when you get on that, that, that in body or
41:49
you do a weigh in or whatever, you know what to expect in A to
41:53
a reasonable degree. So just ask us what to expect,
41:56
we'll tell you and we'll help deliver the right scope on that
42:01
when you when you do those things and look at those
42:03
metrics. But no, that is par for the
42:05
course, right? Muscle building is a long game,
42:08
right? We're building a, we're building
42:10
a, a long term home. This is equity in your domicile.
42:15
OK. So yeah, play the long game with
42:17
this. It's slow, but it's true if you
42:20
stay with it. Should we be done?
42:24
Yeah, I think probably, I think they had enough, yeah.
42:26
Yeah, Good stuff. All right.
42:28
Thanks, Phil. We'll see you guys on the next
42:30
one, guys.