Forum Replies Created
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Pedro – Hey Matt, which its your actual intra and preworkout shake?
A: Hey Pedro I listed that out for you on page 1 buddy
Lucas – Hey matt i love your training log , good job ! And i was curious of why do you have fat and carbs in the same meal ? Thanks
A: Just to generate some educated discussion here why are you asking about carbs and fats in the same meal? Are you assuming that is a bad thing? Just trying to understand where your question is coming from.
Eric – Hey Matt quick question on your leg press movements.. I see with your stance the depth changes slightly but what do you recommend as far as how low to lower it? Is it different for everyone? Any tips/pointers here? Thanks so much Matt.
A: Hey Eric it will be different for everyone but what I would suggest is the deeper that you are able to get without your lower back rounding off the bench the more you are going to be able to fully access and load all the tissue in your leg thus more growth throughout. So try to get as low as you can which for something like a leg press you are going to need to position your knees in a way to get past your trunk.
Hey Matt I have a few questions regarding your weekly cheat/refeed meal that you usually post on IG.
1. I see that this meal is usually sushi. Why sushi in particular? Is it because it’s low in fat? You just really like sushi? Also, for someone who’s never tried sushi (like me) and is hesitant to try it, how would you go about choosing WHAT to eat for this cheat/refeed meal?
Hey Caidin – Honestly buddy in my current environment there is no purpose to this meal for me other than calories. What I mean here is that my daily intake is so high there is not an additional purpose to the meal IE I am not not trying to get a greater increase in calories rather its just an easier way for me on a specific day to get the calories in. Now in a true refeed setting I do like using something like sushi because its easy to control what goes into the meal IE fish and rice and you can remove the other things like fried rolls / mayo based sauces ect if you are really trying to be in control of the meal. Its also a dining experience that we cannot replicate in a normal home setting so I find people enjoy it for this reason as well as its both physically and mentally satisfying. Sushi is the one thing I enjoy that I am not getting through my base diet so that is why if and when I eat it its just to get a bit of a different taste.
In terms of it being lower in fat it can be but again just be educated about the different cuts of fish, avoid things like salmon or eel, avoid avocado ect. When I do implement a refeed I am not opposed to an increase in fat though I am just mentioning things that can increase fats within the meal.
2. What leads you to make the decision to eat a cheat/refeed meal? Do you eat them on days prior to an intense session like legs? Do you eat them on days you feel particularly flat? On days you wake up and your weight has dropped a few pounds out of nowhere? Looking for a little more insight on WHEN to throw a meal like this in.
Not sure if you saw the video I did on this but I base things more so off of where my body is in that current state and less around what I am training. I am not one to add in a refeed on a leg day because you are basically going to negate the calorie increase on that day due to the excess energy expenditure. Now if due to how your weight and look is responding it just so happens to fall on a leg day then that is a different story. I would base things mainly off of your pictures knowing the areas that you tend to show more flatness in and how those areas are responding. Also if you are truly needing a refeed for a reason like a large drop in weight or significant flatness I would argue it is a great reason to increase calories and also rest from training rather than continuing to increase the deficit through training on that day. Just something to consider as a prep is not always more more more.
Travis – Yeah i understand just something is not right with my digestion right now, not eliminating as much as i should be. i was eating 1 cup brown rice 4x daily so maybe i was getting to much fiber>? i ended up switching to foods that digest easily for me to see if i can fix my digestion. White rice and 1-2 bananas a day and chicken/turkey for protein. hopefully that helps cause im not gaining any weight and already have to up the food.
my current macros are 264 p/ 270c/ 56f how do you go about adjusting macros when bulking. not sure if i should continue to up carbs by 70 grams or up fat?
A: Hey Travis – I think you are on the right track here man with aiming to find sources of carbs that digest better for you and I do feel you will do better with white rice and bananas. Since this is a predominantly carb based diet I would aim to make jumps of 200-300kcal at a time and with those jumps make it say 5g fat and the remaining amount carbs. OR if your digestion is now fine tuned and you are feeling better than try just adding carbs in within that same calorie range.
G Valenga – Matt what do you do if you’re not feeling motivated in the gym or to even make it to the gym ? Lately i kind of feel like i’m just going through the motions in the gym, i’m still eating like usual and everything but just feels like the drive isn’t there.
A: Honestly man this is something we all go through. I typically just end up always going and I feel much better once I am in the gym and getting to work. If you are really feeling bogged down just by the thought of going then just take a few days off from the gym and see if you start to feel better and want to go.
Josue –
So what do you think about keeping in a tape of calories cycling for bulk up, just to keep more in control the fat and preserve the appetite medium/high with a good insulin sensitive?
Or you can suggest it’s better to keep a straight until you get your goal and cycling a bit when you start gaining more fat ? Just to keep always the process and don’t do any mini diet ?
A: I honestly do not cycle calories much at all in the off season I think you just need to be able to find a baseline for you to continue to make steady progress on and not gain excess bodyfat. As far as insulin sensitivity being that your carbs are going to be high I would recommend you using a GDA. Matador from Project AD is great which you basically want to take 1 cap per 40g of carbs.
Florian – Hey Matt, would like to have your opinion on Berberine! If you use it, if you do why and if you don’t why, ect.
A: Hey man yes berberine is great I use it with a combination of other ingredients which is all within Project AD matador. I use 2 caps of matador with each of my carb meals even though my carbs surpass the amount that only 2 caps covers I do find this keep my fasting blood glucose in a good spot. I do think things like berberine or combination GDA’s are needed for most as you are excessively pushing the food in the off season. Its very important to keep track of your fasting blood glucose and make sure it is within range.
Christopher – what is is your favorite workout movements for back and what would you say are the best to create a lot of dense muscle for your back?
A: Hey Chris I am a big believer in heavy compound rowing movements with strict form. Find the movements that you really connect with that are compound lifts. For example in the latest back video I uploaded I am using a supra camber bar rather than a straight barbell for my first rowing movement. I personally find I am able to get a better contraction with this bar. In order to really get dense you need to make sure your back is doing the work though, far to often I see people using way to much momentum / leg drive / hip drive and their back is truly not doing the work. Focus on really getting bent over and parallel to the ground and then using elbow drive to move the load with your upper body staying as fixed as possible.
Barbell Rows – plate loaded machine rows – DB rows – Deadlifts
Cody – In regards to exercise selection for all muscle groups, how do you go about picking the most efficient movements? I had saw where Dallas sort of had a template for most of his workouts and would pick the exercises to fit them as he wanted but I feel like I often times repeat a movement in some of my workouts. For example, going from an incline DB press to an incline hammer strength press back to back seems a bit redundant to me
A: Hey Cody you really just answered your own question here I actually did a video on this as well but if you are constantly crossing over the same movement patters you really are not getting the most out of any so be mindful of that. Just make notice of the planes of motion and angles of where your elbows and knees are starting and finishing movements and that will give you a good idea on most exercises. For Chest for example as I lay out in my own training I do a Flat Bench – Slight incline Plate loaded press – Incline DB fly – Slight Decline Cable Fly and thats my chest work so each movement is getting worked to the max and then I do not revisit that same movement pattern within the same workout.
Josue – I know you describe your approach in the nutrition terms, but when you are building a diet you calculate de BMI, activity level,and calculate everything about macro breakdown using % or how do you approach this stuffs ? Thanks
A: I have been working as a coach for a long time I used to use those approaches but now I mainly base my decisions off of what I am visually seeing and the athletes feedback.
Devin – is arching your back when shoulder pressing a bad thing or is it okay?
A: Devin it is proper form to make sure that you have an arch on basically every movement in the gym, now what you do not want happening on pressing movements is your but scooting way forward and it turning into more of an incline press. I am assuming this is what you are meaning? You want your scapula and your lower back pressed against the seat with an arch in between holding proper body position.
Samuel – Hey, Matt hope all is well, my question is what is your thought process on selecting food sources and where to put them through the day, like pre and post and other times.
A: Hey Samuel with something like this how about you give me the examples you are thinking about considering within your own context and I will help you from there because I basically just rotate between three carb sources right now so I do not think my answer would really help where you are coming from.
Travis – We are going to have to get softer to an extent in order to really grow, if you are not as hungry yet are still able to get all of the food down that is okay. You did not note that your body comp was changing for the worse, this is just all part of the growth process. I honestly do not remember the last time I was hungry but yet I am still eating 6-7x a day we just have to get it done!
Hey Billy
Honestly man I sea salt or Pink salt all meals religiously to me it a vital aspect of performance and nutrient transport. I honestly think the greater issue is not the sodium but the processed foods that contain sodium causing the issue. If you are a healthy individual eating nutrient dense food its not the sodium that is throwing your health markers out of whack. Your body should be flushing the sodium in excess much like it flushes water.
Yes absolutely if for nothing else its harder for blood to flow through an overly tight muscle which is part of my current issue right now in my leg, had a stretched every time like I should I probably would not be in the situation I am now where blood flow is pretty much cut off. You are also stretching the facia if that is overly tight its going to be harder for the muscle to expand.
Yes absolutely naps are crucial I think there is a direct correlation to the amount of rest you get and the amount you are you are able to grow. The biggest bodybuilders I know also sleep / slept like it was there job. I try to at least get an hour nap every day. I dont set my alarm to eat at night but if I get up I eat then go back to sleep. Good question man I think sleep is crucial.
In short yes I honestly do not like mini cuts because I really dont think you should reach that point in the first place but that is the only reason why I feel one should mini cut is to reset a bit then get back to growing. If you are mini cutting all throughout your off season you are missing the point.
WAYYYYY to much sugar 🙂
Overall Update and Hamstrings
Had a really great week of training this week being back from the Arnold. I do have a few trips that I need to make over the next few months but other than that I am just going to be aiming to stay home as much as I can as I work my way to the stage this year. I just cant replicate this environment on the road no matter how hard I try in terms of all factors. Equipments, training partners, sleep, hydration, food ect.
My weight is sitting a bit lower now still post Arnold around 250-253. I am still eating a lot but I would say the only change is that I am not force feeding the meals. I found when I was it was just equating to more water and heavier breathing during training.
That being said I am still hitting a minimum of 100g carbs per meal, during training I have actually added in peptopro not that I think its magic (EAA are just fine) but I simply added it in for the extra calories as well as 10g EAA, 140g of vitargo and a large banana on the way to the gym. I break the Shake into two drinks aiming to get a third of the full mix in pre training.
Hamstrings – With Matt York and Joe Binley
Lying Leg Curl
(we did this two different ways, with our machine as is you cannot get full hip extension so the first set we did as the machine lays and did out best to drive hips into the pad taking it to failure + 2 forced reps. Second set we set ourselves up on our hands pushing the upper body up away from the pad so that we could actually get full hip extension. This is going to shorten the range a bit but its full hamstring load and no supporting cast associated with it.)Fully Locked in Set
130 x 8 (1 forced)Hip Extension set
100 x 9 reps trying to drive each rep through the sticking point which you will find about mid way through the range due to the shortened range.Barbell RDL
455 x 6
405 x 8Inverse curl
(I really dont have a plan on this machine other than to get in as much work as I can. This machine is probably the only hamstring exercise other than a GHR where you can get a true load throughout the full eccentric and you just cannot mimic that on any other machine so its hard to correlate it to anything else. As long as you keep tension on your hamstrings you literally are getting double to triple the work you would be getting on a leg curl per rep.)
Set 1 – 180 lbs of load added
Set 2 – 135 lbs of load added
Set 3 – 180 lbs of load addedWith each set we take through a full range of motion emphasizing the eccentric until we hit failure and then do another eccentric rep and try to fire as many stretched partials out of the bottom until we need to be picked up.
Wide Stance Leg Press
Our natural tendency is to press with our quads, we were really trying to eccentric load the hamstrings all the way down and then keep the hams engaged through doing bottom half half reps until we felt like we were going to get stuck…then doing a full press resetting and going back into another slow eccentric load then full press until failure.
We followed this format and worked up to 8 plates per side
Walking Lunges
BW x 40 yards
50 lbs x 40 yards
90 lbs x 40 yardsI can really get my left vastis stretched doing these so i will be doing them twice a week moving forward on both quad and hamstrings day
Thank you guys for this feedback I will take all of this into account and start to do a more in depth overview of exercise selection and the reasoning why, there will be a leg video coming out this week but in all future videos I will do this as well!
I feel like our entire bodybuilding life we have been fed mostly all highlight real stuff and with me having control of this site I wanted it to be different in that aspect getting the full picture of the training block and not just 5 top working sets as a hype video, so I agree there just want to be giving you guys what you want.
Chest Training –
Something that you guys can learn from me when approaching heavy top end sets is DONT get overly excited. It never fails the first time I touch a new weight and I am in control of it I get overly excited in the middle of my set, lose my concentration and end up blowing a rep or two at the end. This happened again today I hit 435 for the first time and I honestly felt like I had 5 – 6 in me but the issue was instead of just focusing on that rep I was thinking ahead to how many I could have gotten and I lost focus.
Barbell Flat Bench
435 x 4 (help on the 5th)
405 x 6 (help on the 7th)Plate Loaded Press
4+25ps x 8 (help on the 9th)
3+25ps x 8 (fighting eccentric all the way down)DB Fly
90 x 8
110 x 6
90 x 8 (really hard last rep with a spot)Chest Supported Fly High to low
80 x max setChest Supported Fly High Elbow to High finishing position
6o x max setHey Billy – Yes we did film the back workout and it is uploading now.
WHICH BRINGS ME TO A POINT – WHAT TYPE OF TRAINING CONTENT ARE YOU GUYS WANTING TO SEE???? I FIGURED I WOULD SHOW YOU GUYS EVERYTHING FROM INITIAL WARM UPS TO PRE WORKING SETS AND ALL THE WAY THROUGH BUT YET AT THE SAME TIME I AM NOT WANTING TO MAKE YOU GUYS BOARD. I DO GET ASKED ALL THE TIME HOW I APPROACH MY SETS THOUGH SO I FIGURED BY SHOWING EVERYTHING IT WOULD HELP YOU GUYS SEE EXACTLY WHAT IS GOING ON. PLEASE LET ME KNOW THOUGH AND I WILL WORK IN THAT ORDER MOVING FORWARD!
Anthony T – I honestly usually take people from where they are not try to force them initially to where I want them to be. So if someone comes to me and they are utilizing a greater % of fats in their plan I am not just going to pull the fats out and place them on a greater % of carbs. Some people do simply respond to one nutrient source better than the other and things you can look for (this is all better in a lean state) but how their muscle looks full /watery, energy levels with that source, digestion ect. Another thing to keep in mind is that you are going to fill glycogen with carbohydrate and fill intramuscular triglycerides with fats BOTH of which aid in fullness.
Cody M – Definitely down to have people in to train man, we are actually planning to have some open camps as well.
Travis L – Are you noticing any drop off in your performance / pumps / look or is it just that you are not as hungry?
Parowa123 – Great question man I will address this in a Q/A this week!
josue cruz – Calorieking.com is a great place to go for food sources and macros for those specific foods.
I will for sure do a video on peak week this week as well as the flip side of how to enter into a prep.
Anthony T – I honestly use a variety of approaches but I try to keep macros as high as possible within the goal, I am very pro keeping carbs in the diet from a performance standpoint and I would prefer to not rock bottom out fats. That being said for some I use a greater percentage of fats than carbs and vice versa its all different!
Anthony C – That is a good question man and honestly one of my goals this year is to really control my mind in that instance and not do more volume. Its very hard to get into the mindset of more being better especially with big goals but at the same time the real goal should be to preserve tissue / possibly add tissue / and be as efficient as possible!
Back Training
Whenever I have people come into town I definitely use more of a freestyle approach – the atmosphere is great and I just like to feed off of each other and have a general direction. If the volume gets a bit high it is what it is as we are having fun!
Supra Bar
3pps x 8 (last touch set which was closer to max set)
3p+10ps x 9
3p+10ps x 10DB Row
(worked up to the 200’s then backed off)
200 x 7.5
160 x 11.5Low Row Machine – Keeping a fixed position with chest on pad and hips in
4pps x 6
5pps x 7
4pps x 8.5Incline Lever Row
90 lbs x 8
110 lbs x 12
90 lbs x 9Standing Pulldown
1 max set with holds at contraction at 160 lbsStanding pullover with loaded stretch holds at the end (basically holding a 30 count stretch on my last rep)
170 x 14Brian – That is our families vacation spot that we go to the week after Christmas buddy so we usually are out there every other year depending on which side of the family we spend the Holiday with!
Back to training from the Arnold…I was only able to get in one session while I was there but I was not there to train I was there to help the athletes I was there with. The weekend went very well the girls were both in the first callout and ended up 4th and 5th!
Bodyweight right now is around 250 – energy expenditure was way up this weekend but again that is okay, I still at the end of the day am a coach first so its part of it. I have felt really good training this week and feel like I am recovering a little better within the workouts between sets.
My good friend Turner Riddle is in town training with me this week so we got after it yesterday training back with Matt York as well. This workout will be up on the site this week!
G Valenga – Yes buddy absolutely, the thing with all GDA is to make sure you are actually monitoring your blood sugar. If you take things like this and monitor blood sugar prior to meal and after meal vs eating the same meal without taking a GDA you will for sure will have a different level of blood sugar.
