TMGP Ep 03 with coach Morgan Agran

hi gains gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast episode three I am your host Rosco and today we are welcoming Morgan agran onto the show Morgan is an online fitness coach who is helping men and women between the ages of 30 to 50 who work a desk job take ownership of their health and fitness goals she has a College rugby player and an aid gym goer who has managed to amass an astonishing 30 lbs of muscle in 4 years while also losing fat and getting stronger she can deadlift 180 kg and knows how to tackle so she is not someone that you want to mess with given that brief glimpse into Morgan's background let's jump right into the QA Style Show please note that this recording has been sped up to 110% speed to ensure that as little content is cut and to keep a faster Pace hi Morgan hey how are you well thanks and yourself welcome to the muscle growth podcast great to have you here thank you for having me I really appreciate it only a pleasure only a pleasure would you like to give us a little introduction into yourself yeah of course so um I'm Morgan I run an online coaching business to help people lose fat and build muscle um I work with a variety of different clients and with people with different goals um from your average American who works a typical desk job get has a sedentary lifestyle and wants to lose some body fat and possibly reverse type 2 diabetes to some younger people who are looking to build some muscle and sort of get rid of that skinny fat type of look additionally I train myself for hypertrophy strength pretty much a good mix of both while playing competitive rumpy in college okay is that in New York yes okay are you from from New York originally uh no actually so this is actually a little bit of how I got into lifting and all um I'm originally from California so Los Ang uh Hollywood very much from that area I grew up playing ice hockey um and living in California there wasn't a whole lot of ice hockey there so when I first came out to um college recruitment camps because I had wanted to play colle college hockey um everybody had told me that I needed to get stronger um given that there was no um sport specific training for hockey in California I took matters into my own hands and started reading about exercise science and the things that I needed to do to get stronger um my very first program I wrote myself I was years old and um you know there is definitely a lot of room for improvement looking back at it but I will say that it is um Pro was probably better than a lot of just standard programs you'd get off the internet I had read strength and conditioning based books um books by um Mike Bole i' read triphasic training I'd read a bunch of those to create a bunch of ideas for myself my very first program was just all about sort of getting strong on the compounds which I think was a really good use of my time as a beginner um but a lot of excise excises that today I would no longer program for myself because um they may not be the best for hypertrophy however they were great in getting me started lifting and teaching me proper fundamentals um so from there that's how I got into strength and conditioning um after a couple years of that I realized my muscles were growing and I was like wow this is kind of cool um it made me feel a little more confident on the ice I'm only 5 foot to so I'm pretty I'm pretty short um so some of those bigger girls coming at me was something that used to scare me but is I built more muscle it didn't bother me as much um so I'd get more confident on the ice uh eventually I Got Strong Enough fast enough good enough that I was offered a spot at a preparatory school um on the East Coast so I played hockey at a preparatory school in New Hampshire which is pretty close to New York for those of you that aren't really familiar with uh United States geography um so I did that and I played a year of college hockey um that didn't end up working out for me because there was just a lot of overload with Co um a lot of people with an extra year because Sports shut down and whatnot so after the first year that didn't really work out for me I transferred to a different school um picked up runby and now that's what we're doing wow that's an awesome intro thank you so much you mentioned uh your your compound list that you started off training uh when you first started and I'm sure I saw you still do lots of compound lifts what are your your favorite compounds to do and what are your SBD numbers oh okay so yes my favorite compounds are definitely um deadlift bench I like the front Squad a lot I'm not doing it currently but I do like it a lot um my SBD numbers so I bench 185 pounds um I'm not entirely sure what that is in kilos I think around 82 uh sounds about right yeah I squat 280 um it's a little lacking um compared to everything else that's I'm not really sure what that is as well I think it's maybe around 130 kilos um just roughly and I deadlift 405 pounds and I think that's around aund 80 K 80 kilograms yeah more or less wow so you're a dead love specialist would you say yeah yeah I'd say probably a deadlift specialist um I maxed out a few days ago actually had a few extra calories from American Thanksgiving and decided to send it um that was the first time I'd pulled 405 but it felt like I could have done maybe 20 25 more so luckily I stop at that point um but I do look forward to maybe tapering down to a Max in around jish okay that's exciting best of luck for for getting up today those are really big deadlift numbers yeah um or do you go to a private facility um I go to the College gym when I'm here at school it's actually very nice for a College gym Lots there's a couple squat racks a couple deadlift platforms um there's a reverse V squat which um I think most college gyms don't have any sort of machine squat type things this is a Hammer Strength chest supported row um you know I'd love if it had a couple more things but it it gets the job done probably a lot better than most college gyms um and then when I'm at home I do go to a nicer private gym with a little more fancy equipment that's nice it's really cool that the college provides you with with good facilities yeah yeah absolutely um previous colleges and other colleges I've seen don't have quite as much like machine equipment so it's very nice to be able to have a healthy mix of barbell and machine stuff and especially since um recently the data has shown that there's not that much functional difference um or difference in hypertrophy between machine and free weight U movements I saw that that's quite new data that people used to believe that b balls and free weights were much Superior to um the machines but that's been disproven now which is quite quite interesting yeah I mean I actually used to believe that too I think my first the first program I wrote myself I only use barbells and dumbbells um I was doing like a front squat some sort of power clean some sort of barbell bent over row barbell overhead press I I think there was one of the days in my program where I did six different barbell exercises with the same barbell oh wow well at least then you earen hugging all the equipment or one thing like gu yep was just hogging one thing um lots of super sets lots of Tri sets in typical like strength and conditioning fashion which I think is you know not necessarily the worst thing but if you're doing that in a public gym sometimes people are going to get a little upset um having if you're using more than one piece of equipment if I was you know barbell squatting benching you know but definitely I definitely did think that the barbell was the only way to build muscle and that machines just weren't it recently I've changed my opinions about that a lot in the last couple years I think that there's really just good equipment for different goals um like some muscle groups I will definitely prefer machines a lot more and other muscle groups I think can't necessarily be hit fully without some sort of compound movement no absolutely I totally agree with you I I also um used to think that free weight was the only way to go and I think I was similar to you and I had uh ball ball dumball for pretty much everything and I do still believe that you can get the basics done with literally just that if you're stuck uh in a pinch at a home gym for example you can still put on some really good size as long as the weight gets heavy enough um I was wondering I saw that you specialize in in um male and female coaching between the age of 30 and 50 mostly people that are doing desk jobs what made you choose that uh that Niche I guess so there's a few things really um with my college major I worked with sort of athletes and strength and conditioning and something I've discovered is I really do not enjoy working with athletes um really not at all I do not why is that athletes because I don't enjoy the sport specific type of training I don't I just a lot of what I see with athletes is they'll come in um the focus is sort of lackluster um of of course this isn't all athletes I'm at a division three school not a division one my experience could be different um but you know things are a little bit lackluster people aren't really logging their weights in their sheet I don't know what weight to use I don't know what to do and um I just don't love the whole structure at least for myself because this isn't how I like to train I don't like the structure of doing like a compound and then a plyometric and then doing a third Super set I just find that a little bit boring because um at least for me I'm not going to build a ton of muscle doing that so I don't enjoy helping others with that I guess um so I noticed that that age group is definitely the ones that are a little bit past the athletic age um and additionally you know if you're running a coaching business you also have to be aware that you have to make ends meet somewhere and ultimately not a lot of 20 to 29 year olds have the money for private coaching okay no that makes perfect sense there's a lot of logic that went into into that decision I'm very impressed actually that you you thought really hard and about all of that um and you know um another aspect of my client base is that I relate to the desk job thing a lot um when I was growing up I was taking like a lot of hard classes my school district had really encourage people to take more advanced classes so I was actually having to spend a lot of my day sitting and doing homework and research and things like that so I think I I definitely resonate with having to sit for so long and then not really wanting to be active afterward not knowing how to get your activity in during the day and just being sort of strapped to your desk all day long no I to feel you there I'm stuck at a or not stuck I'm fortunate enough to be at a 9 to5 at a desk but I would I'm really gunning for a standing desk or at least one that has the option of moving up and down um because I get pretty stuff sitting around all day I do try and get up as much as possible but I do understand and that's really cool that you've seen that as something that you as some way that you can help people with that specific problem yeah um in terms of the fundamentals of hypertrophy what is your definition of it and how would you say that that hypertrophy training differs from maybe ragby or hockey training so my definition of hypertrophy is just the probably the most simple as possible which would be muscle growth um there's lots more Nuance to it but when I think about it I just think of how am I going to build muscle and with that definition there's a lot of ways to skin the cat there's you know if you take an untrained person and they have okay form and Progressive overload over time they're going to build muscle but maybe if train in this different way they will build more muscle or build muscle faster and that's sort of what I'm looking for at this point um strict hypertrophy training I'd say would be a lot a little more nuanced and controlled than strength and conditioning um what I would look for in hypertrophy training would be rep quality Tempo form um proper good exercise selection for the goals and just execution rest time everything sort of being on point whereas when you're training for a sport or something like that there's a little bit less there's a lot more that you can get away with um Sports specific training tends to favor a lot of compound exercises which I still think are fantastic for hypertrophy but you know um if I'm like bench pressing I want to bench a little more explosively to bench for rugby whereas for hypertrophy I'd want to be a little more controlled the way that I manage this in my own trading is that um I will typically program a top set and a back down at least for any compounds that I see helping myself with rugby so that top said is going to be a little bit more explosive a little bit more like hey someone's coming at me I'm going to push them off that's a little bit more the thought process while still you know maintaining proper form keeping the elbows tucked touching the bar to the chest not blocking my hips off just all the standardized things but Tempo may be a little bit more or I guess less structured and a little bit more explosive but the back down set is going to be you know strict hypertrophy focused just controlling the weight quick pause at the bottom driving up that kind of thing I think you made a excellent distinction between the two different types of U hypertrophy training one more specific for sport and one more specific for purely muscle growth which is the name of the podcast so that was really cool that you brought that in there um can you explain the science or the aspects behind and the mechanisms behind muscles getting bigger yeah yeah so essentially um there's a lot of nuance to it but at the basic level you go to the gym and you're going to break down your muscles and then as you recover and fuel your body properly in sleep most importantly sleep your muscles are going to rebuild themselves back bigger so that they can withstand more next week now what does that mean by more I mean more mechanical tension there's lots of ways you can drive mechanical tension VI it free weight machines um any other type of implementation really but when we're looking for more attenion we're looking for Progressive overload which would be adding a little bit of weight adding some reps to the movement or at a sets um or even maybe doing the same weight and Reps with just better form better Teo better intention um and those are really the ways that we can drve hypertrophy and in the gym and outside brilliant thank you what what role does nutrition play in that hypertrophy process I think it plays a really big role but I also think that it's dependent on the person so we know that there are some people that have really good genetics that are going to be able to essentially go to the gym train however they want um Progressive overload a little bit and then eat whatever they want and are going to grow hle but I think for the rest of us there has to be a little bit more attention to nutrition and as you get more advanced there's going to be some of those more micro optimizations that you're going to need to make to continue to grow muscle past I guess your newb gains period no absolutely um I saw that you have one of the most epic um threads on Twitter with over 21,000 views which is your kind of explanation on training principles and how you gained I think it was a ridiculous 30 pounds of muscle is that is that correct yeah so over over around four years yep um now here's the so a few important details with that um I gained 30 pounds of muscle but not 30 pounds of weight necessarily my body weight only gained around 10 pounds but I went from around like 27 is% body fat to around 21 20% body fat in that fouryear process so it's not like I put on 30 PBS to what I already had a lot of that was um in the terms of a body Recon but by dexa I had gained 30 pounds in that year of muscle mass while also you know losing fat mass and gaining mass at the same time incredible well um so the four years that I had done that that was as I was starting to get into training a little bit so I did have the advantage of um being a newbie I think that I've read a few studies that have said newbies can gain around 10 pounds of muscle in their first year or two of training um especially if things are done right the way that I was able to accomplish this is that ultimately I was very consistent um a lot of people what will happen is they will train pretty hard for six months or even a year and then after that they will um pay a little less attention to it and then I find that it's a lot harder for people to make that type of progress continuing after the first couple years once they fall off so the biggest thing in that thread I think was my consistency and my tracking of the non-negotiables so I was the biggest things was I was showing up to the gym on average three to four times a week those entire four years and I was also logging every workout in either a journal or Google spreadsheet but I always went into every workout knowing what I did last week and what my goals were to do this week so that I'd be able to Progressive overload properly no and that I think you obviously showed that that's what you need to do you need to be consistent you need to have a plan that was your first um comment on the thread is that you have to have a structured plan you can't just be guessing every single time and I think a lot of people go and they kind of see okay what's open what do I feel like doing today oh chest what do I feel do like doing the next day chest and then they do chest four times a week and then it's leg day but then if it's a bit cold or they're not feeling like doing legs and then the next day they go back and they they do chest again or or that's obviously an example that hopefully most people don't do but it's a bit of a a meme at the moment that everyone just wants to CH train chest because it feels good it looks good and um yeah it's it's it's quite a I found chest is an easy one to to train because there's so many different ways to to train it and yeah it's really awesome to to get the pump in in the chest I guess and you mentioned that you don't no ego lifting um technique is important those kind of things let's just go through that thread because it's such an awesome thread you already like nailed this um yeah so just hop in if you want to add anything uh so used to mention about increasing uh Progressive overload adding reps or improving your form is also a way to uh to progressively overload doesn't necessarily have to be weight or and you can also change the tempo just keeping the good form otherwise you're cheating yourself uh Focus mostly on your compound exercise you list some exercise I do basically all of these in my own programming uh the bench press the dips the variations uh Squat and variations deadlift RDL stuff leg deadlift I recently started incorporating the St stuff leg dead for the first time also a deficit I think it adds to the stretch um pull-ups and P pull Downs awesome as well um Ro and chest P Rose and then jol de press I think you pretty much nail most the major muscle groups groups there um maybe something for cars as well got a have cars but I guess that wouldn't be compound as much it would probably be more maybe more specific there trading with intensity obviously people miss that one a lot I think yeah um yeah I I I I am bad with that because I think I've wasted a lot of years in the gym by going I never trained what I would say easy and I always thought I was training intensity but I never used to go to failure ever because I thought that that would lead to injury and I was scared to hurt myself and I think I lost out on a lot of gains because I read the literature and it said you can go a few um reps shy like like you mentioned or to two R reps and Reserve um but I realized that my so-called n to2 rson Reserve was actually maybe n to20 um literally like if someone had a gun to my head I could probably have gone quite a lot more on a lot of on a lot of those um so we got the night creatures here I see um I see you mentioned about J volume where you're just doing way too much I think I also did that um and then you you give an example of a much better workout where it's a lot less fewer exercise how many exercise do you have in your current training program per day would you say right now it's about six um six maybe seven uh recently what I've been doing is something really different I'm doing an anterior posterior split um this is not something I've seen a lot what I like to think of it is is Push Pull legs but dividing the leg day across two different days um I have seen a lot of research that you know you don't necessarily have to hit every body part two times a week to grow I've seen some research where one time a week is even better however I do currently like trading things twice a week um as I'm getting stronger I'm starting to realize that I am going to need to pull back a little bit on some body parts uh it was a little eye opening actually to deadlift 405 because you know I'm looking at the numbers and I'm like well I'm deadlifting 405 I'm not squatting 315 yet maybe I need to pull back my deadlift a little bit um just for the sake of balance so that I don't get hurt um I actually was doing I was training on Tuesday night and I felt a little something in my little back everything's fine um it's not anything serious but I was like well you know what I'm able to RDL 315 for reps and maybe it's time to think about only hip hinging once a week so that that has a longer time to recover so that is you know I think as you get more advanced there's a little bit more space for nuance and maybe some movement patterns are a little bit better pulled back on and not done quite as often however um I think most beginners should really be hitting things twice a week for at least at the very best you know movement patterns improving form improving technique and just improving confidence with the movements so the anterior poster split that I've had has pretty much allowed me to hit every muscle group twice a week while playing rugby and managing my fatigue a little bit so what it is around like probably that has made me able to pretty much narrow my exercises down to six or seven different things per session that sounds like a good amount of volume to me how many sets per exercise are you doing between two and three um and that's working sets excludes working sets um excludes like warm-ups so my working sets are um zero to two reps in Reverse um I do Implement training to failure um actually a little bit more often especially on certain movements anything that's machine based I think I most anything that's machine based in upper body I'm going to go to failure because I think that's just really the best way to know um anything that's free weight sometimes I'll I'll Implement some week that will be to failure just to make sure that I'm really being accurate with knowing when I'm stopping um and you know I do try and really make those sets as intense as possible I do more sets for things like upper back um hamstrings uh leg curls upper back those will get usually three sets um and then mostly everything else is going to get probably two per per that makes a lot of sense and it's good that you test what your failure is so that you don't have to be guessing like like I used to um and but also another point is if you're going to test that failure and it's a free weight exercise you should have a spotter or or safety pins or something to something to fail it yes yes exactly or learn how to fail correctly that's also important yes and then the last part of the thread is things to do outside of the gym that I think people often get wrong they go they have amazing gym sessions but then they don't get their one gram of protein uh per pound of body weight at least they don't sleep 7 to 9 hours per night they don't hydrate they don't get their steps in and they eat junk food and you summarize that very well in the end of your thread there so that was an awesome thread and I see people absolutely loved it so well done well done for that pleasure what uh with some Advanced training techniques you mentioned that after the Newbie begins uh you can start looking at more specific things what would be some Advanced training techniques that can help you break through a plateau some of there's there's a lot of different things um I actually wanted to talk I saw your post about lengthened partials earlier so I wanted to actually talk about that I think those are becoming a little bit more popular with um Sam suck and his popularity so yes and yeah what were you saying and Dr M wolf yeah Dr M wolf we just released his podcast today so he's actually the guy who who did the study on length and partials he did The Meta analysis that was his Doctorate dissertation so that was really interesting to hear him talk about length and partials on the previous episode to this oh wow um yeah I'm definitely going to be checking that out so I think a length and partial is a great way to break a plateau with um either strengths or muscle groups um when you're building strength but particularly with muscle groups but here's the way that I see it so let's say the lap pull down I think we've all seen the Sam suck clip of his um neutral grip lap pull Downs with the length and partials um the way that he does that is very much biasing his lats um and I think that in that sense it makes a lot of sense to do those partials because he's primarily training his lats with that movement however when a lot of people are doing a lat pull down or at least when I do my lat pull Downs I like to try and use my whole back where um you know I'm locking the arms out bringing them down retracting the scapula so I'm using a bit of the traps romboid teres and the lats in order to do my lat pull downs and where I think about the difference between doing regular reps that are not length and partials and then length and partials for me at least an entire set of lengthen partials would hit the lats a lot more than everything else in my in my back and with my training style and trying to be pretty efficient with my volume I don't know that it would make sense to only do an exercise to mostly hit the lats when I could just add some lengthen partials after failure because my lats are able to handle that when the rest of my muscles give out so I do prefer to do full range of motion regular reps and then add the partials on the back end of it rather than just trying to do a set of only lengthened partials and another point to that that I kind of see is that length and partials are great however what happens if you're lifting a weight that is going to force you into end ranges of motion that you've never trained and have never handled before so I do liked the idea of making sure that this is a weight that I can handle through a full range of motion in case I accidentally slip into more of an end range than the length and partials that I'm training that makes perfect sense and did you watch the Jeff nippet video about that where he mentions exactly what you do where he still recommends a full range of motion and then at the end as an intensity technique adding in some length and partials just to get that extra um stimulus on a specific muscle yes and then even with that um with I did see that video and then something I've started doing with the length and partials in my training is that I'm logging those two um a few of my favorite follows on Twitter like um Jonathan he bear and um Dean D DNT training they've talked about this as well and a lot of the reason that they may not always recommend these typ of intensity and dropset type sorry intensity techniques is that they're hard to track so for me if I'm going to do things like length and partials in my little spreadsheet where I track everything I'm going to highlight that that Row in my set add plus length and partials so if I'm doing lat pull Downs um to failure and then lengthen partials what I'll do is like okay laat pull down log the weight how many reps did I get regular I'll do 10 then maybe let's say I did two high quality length and partials which I film everything so I know if things are high quality or so then that'd be I'd log that as 10 plus 2 so I'm logging that length in partial every week so it's not any guesswork of okay this week I did one partial this week I did five this week I did two so that I'm really trying to overload both as first priority I'm trying to overload the regular movement and then second priority the adding reps on the length and partials that's very interesting that you're so meticulous about um about tracking uh even the length and partials that's very interesting um in terms of nutrition and diet what are the key nut elements that support muscle growth so I think for muscle growth the key stuff is going to be pretty much protein and eating foods that are going to work for you um I'll see a lot of people that are going to see tweets on protein and then just start slamming way protein all the time and then their stomach hurts well that's not necessarily the best thing for everybody um or I'll have people who will maybe drink like four or five protein shakes a day to hit their protein goal and then eat everything else and I've gotten lots of question questions about that and you know when that happens at this point I'm just like well actually maybe we should get our protein through food and then use a shake when needed um and I think that making sure that your nutritional approach is going to work for your body and isn't making you sick is really important um but beyond that the phics of hitting that one gram of protein per pound of body weight filling the rest with good sources of carbs and fats is really going to um pretty much be sufficient for most people no absolutely and I think that leads into the next question about macronutrients and micronutrients because you'd miss a lot of those micronutrients just slamming down for protein four way protein shakes and you also mentioned something quite interesting about how the set one something that works for one person might not work for everyone and you need to find something that works for you and what your stomach can handle what your body type can handle and something that you can stick to as well yeah absolutely um in terms of micros I'm a very big fan of eating animal proteins beef um chicken pork Seafood anything like that because it's more bioavailable than plant protein um additionally with protein supplements I do tend to prefer whey because that's also going to be a lot more bioavailable than plant protein so I do suggest being animal based within your protein um and then for most people don't ignore vegetables and fruit either I see a lot of people that are just going to eat chicken and rice and just completely ignore vegetables ignore fruit fruits ignore other things that are chicken broccoli rice right there oh there's the broccoli in there you got finished it I Ed it first see a lot of people are going to just skip the broccoli and just chicken and rice all the time but I think there's some important micros in vegetables and again fruit as well that is important to sort of get into your diet um and I do think that actually helps muscle growth I find that I look feel and perform best when I am including the fruits am including the vegetables and the animal protein and obviously getting my Mac is correct I totally agree and I think it's important to have a variety of sources that are you're getting your nutrition from it's interesting that you mention about uh fruits because a lot of people stay away from it because it's got high sugar but they don't understand the difference between fruit sugar from fruit and artificial sugar and they're completely different um and also what you mentioned about meat and animal based being better than plant that's now being shown uh in most of the literature I've read and significantly better um so if you are vegan or um vegetarian you do need to be supplementing that actually takes us nicely on to the next question what is um or can you provide any insight into your meal timing and then after that uh supplementation strategies yeah absolutely so for me um my biggest sort of when I'm structuring my day I can be a little bit busy I'd love to have a routine where I'm a lot more consistent and think through at the same time but I like to sort of work backward from my workout so if I'm going to work out at 4:00 I'm going to make make sure I'm getting in a pre-workout meal at 3 3:30 um that typically is going to include fruit um Greek yogurt and maybe you know if I haven't had that many carbs I may throw some oats in there um some honey as well sometimes even if I Haven if I haven't had enough food to eat that'll be a slice of bread with maybe a little bit of butter and some honey on there um just to sort of get some carbohydrates in as well as a little bit of protein I'm going for bioavailable protein before my workout so sources like Greek yogurt cottage cheese um and some leaner Meats tend to be my favorite to go for before a workout so I structure the first meal um not the first meal of the day but I do make sure that I've sort of planned out my pre-workout meal and my post-workout meal so after my workout usually I'll drink a protein shake um and then I'll make some dinner just again something else with protein carbohydrates vegetables and or fruit and making sure that I get that in within about 3 hours of the gym is the goal and I will have a protein shake maybe a protein shake and some yogurt if I know that I don't have time to eat within 3 hours of that workout being over um and then from there depending on what time I'm working out I structure the rest of my meals per day um the way that I approach nutrition I try and keep things as simple and flexible as possible so I'll set my protein at 150 grams per day typically um and if I want to go over that I will otherwise um I work backward from that protein goal and then I fill in carbs and fats as needed one of the biggest tricks and tips that I have for people is that I like to pair a lean meat with a fatty meat in my day so if I'm going to have say like something a little bit leaner like chicken for lunch I may pick something a little bit fattier for dinner like maybe a steak maybe a little bit of pork or something like that so that I'm either getting so I'm getting either enough calories and so that I'm feeling satiated full and getting enough of that healthy fat level in that's a really cool tip and I've never thought of doing that but that's that's really useful and that ures that you always get your lean meats as well as your your fats and I think a lot of people mistakenly stay away from fats I think I did that as well I'm not that fuss about it anymore but uh fats are actually quite essential in in your diet at least some amount of fat I think if you're just having carbs and protein and you've taken away an entire macronutrient um fact element that uh you're going to struggle a little bit yeah absolutely and then you'll also see people go the other direction where they will eat like you know riby for breakfast riby for lunch riby for dinner uh carnivore diet carnivore diet or they will um completely Meats um which you know there I will say carore and keto do work for a lot of people however you know I think that it's all about finding that good balance yeah sorry that's the power that's just gone gone out my side got the Torches still um how important is uh recovery in muscle hypertrophy and what what strategies can Aid recovery I think it's very important so as you mentioned earlier supplementation is something that can Aid recovery as well but for most people I think that you should focus on your food your sleep and your movement before you focus on anything else a few of the biggest things that for me um when I'm feeling a little bit beat up is I really am intentional about adding another couple hours of sleep to my night if I'm usually getting seven I'm going to try and push that up to nine um additionally my protein I'd push a little bit higher um I mentioned earlier my lower back felt a little funny so I'm upping my protein from like 150 a day to 170 right now um I was eating a little bit below maintenance just working on a little bit of a mini cut so for right now I'm just going to push calories back up to my maintenance so that I can heal faster so if you do get injured um best thing you can do is not really Panic um do what you can do and you know adjust your calories and protein as needed I do prefer for people to try and push the calories a little closer to maintenance even if you're dieting when you get injured I think that's the best way to really boost recovery um another strategy is really the sleep I can't tell you how many times how many people I work with how many friends I have that'll you know go balls to the wall in the gym and then scroll on the Tik Tok until four in the morning yeah yeah no I'm I'm sure lots of people Tik Tok is particularly terrible it's it's incredibly addictive um I've deleted it multiple times because it's really good at keeping you entertained it always knows what you want next it's it's the algorithm is absolutely ins saying um you me so you mentioned about sleep and the importance of sleep what would you say is the importance of Stress Management oh I think it's essential um obviously everybody's got a different situation with home life family work but Stress Management is really important and I think that a lot of people will see self-care and Stress Management type posts and say oh I'm going to take a week off the gym for self-care I'm going to eat um just pizza for self-care which again sometimes that is what we need for a little bit of time and I don't judge that I think that you know I've done that as well but also I think you also have to understand that sometimes the best source of self-care is going to be to move a little bit even if you wouldn't do your regular workout maybe that's a little walk outside get a dog take the dog for a walk I think that's a great Stress Management source is hang out with some dogs um you know maybe have the pizza but have some protein first so that your body can sort of get back into its regular routine um um but ultimately just trying to make sure that your self-care is actually caring for your body that's brilliant and that's great advice about even if you're going to have the pizza that's cool but make sure you still get your protein in yeah and if it's one or two days it's okay but don't maybe don't eat pizza every day for two weeks and then feel bad and then lose track guess yeah and you know I think that self-care is really important but we have to be intentional about what our self-care is going to be and I think that you know if we're really stressed out with you it's the holidays so people are getting stressed about their families so if people are starting to stress about their family way to sort of fix that isn't to you know knock back a bunch of alcoholic drinks and watch um reality TV with families yelling at each other yeah no that's not the optimal strategy I don't think um signs of overtraining how can individuals avoid it and what are the signs you know one of the biggest signs that I find with overtraining is that my grip sucks um my grip strength sucks that is one of the first ways to detect if I've been doing a little bit too much is if um you know I'm maybe I'm warning warming up for deadlifts or something and suddenly I have a hard time gripping 225 then I'm realizing you know what it might be time for a little bit of a D Lo um another side of overtraining is that if you're getting sick and not really able to rebound from it like a lot of head colds right in a row that's a good sign of overtraining um additionally if if you wear like a Fitbit or a health tracker maybe your resting heart rate is a little higher than usual um your sleep score are significantly lower and um heart rate variability things like that other me measurables that your Fitbit is going to track or Apple watch or whatever type of wearable you might have that can be a sign that you're overtraining a little bit and best course of action there could be to pull back a little bit take a little bit of a D Lo week how often do you D Lo do you plan your D loads or do you do it when you feel like your body needs a little de lo I do not plan my D loads anymore um when I was training a little bit more just for strength I did plan them a little bit which I actually find funny because I'm a lot stronger now and I don't plan my DS anymore typically I like to think of it is that my Del loads are planned for me by my schedule um being in College finals week is going to be a planned for me D Lo um so midterm week was also a D Lo week that was planned for me um Additionally you know Christmas week's coming up that's going to be a little bit of a D Lo time um so if you look within your schedule I think a lot of people are going to find that life's going to give you D loads however um if you're really going a long stretch without one like a lot of times in the summer there's a long stretch without them um you should listen to your body and when you start to see some of those signs as I mentioned then is the time to do a D Lo or even maybe even a week break from the gym that makes sense and I think listening to your body is a very important um aspect of training yeah that a lot of people neglect um but it's interesting about your grip strength um do you not use wraps or straps or anything for deadlift so only on the heaviest sets I do use um wraps and straps so I'm a very big proponent of them however I do like to warm up without them because I think that you know a little grip strength never hurt anybody um so if I'm warming up for 405 so what I'll do is um here's how I did it so I warmed up with the bar then 135 then 225 then 275 then after 275 um if I'm somewhere that allows chalk I'll use a little bit of chalk for 315 um if I'm somewhere that does not allow chalk then I will go ahead and put the straps on at that point um then after that I'll hit 315 then I'll throw the belt on for 365 and likely use the straps um and then ultimately I worked up to 405 then with both the belts and the straps I like to sort of use that same kind of progression I really do like to grab up until like grab it myself until like 275 315 um and if I'm training for any types of competitions obviously I'm not able to use the straps in those so at that point I would only be using straps for back down sets of higher reps and additionally another thing that I will just mention about straps is I really like to use them for all my back work um whether that's going to be rows pull Downs anything like that I'm a big fan of using the straps at that point because that makes sure that it's actually a back exercise and not a fore armer grip exercise and if I do want some grip work I'm going to do my Farmer W my carries and look like that absolutely I've literally just started I just boarded myself on the Black Friday their special some new grips for uh for back and some Hooks and things because I I've been feeling and I've only just recently come across cuff training and uh using those for my back exercises is just it's it's a whole another ball game because I I was fatiguing in my forarms for most rows and most back exercise and I'm I'm learning which is cool um what's the connection between muscle mass and overall health and especially as people age since you do ages 30 to 50 primarily yes so I think there that muscle mass is incredibly important and it's not something that people are thinking about enough I think a lot of people will see just like an average skinny fat person and think that they're healthy but that's not the case I think that it's very important to build as much muscle as you can when you're young because as you get older you start to lose your muscle mass which is detrimental to your bone mineral density detrimental to your ability to not fall over as an older person and is something that is going to really just make life a lot harder than it needs to be more chance of injuring yourself picking up a child picking up um something off the floor and I think that having that amount of muscle mass is an insurance policy additionally muscle mass is pretty much your best prevention of diabetes or at least type two diabetes type one is a whole other story but um muscle cells are a lot more insulin sensitive than fat cells so by training and having 10 20 pounds more muscle than the average person then you have a lot lower risk for diabetes because you have a lot more of those cells that are insulin sensitive and less chance of developing insulin resistance again you can still um out sugar your muscles I guess um but having that amount of muscle mass is just a great insurance policy to make sure you don't develop any of those metabolic conditions absolutely and yeah you make a good point about the insulin sensitivity in things and muscles and also how older people can literally hurt themselves just picking up a child or doing something that you wouldn't normally think about would like enough to still be young enough that those kind of things aren't problems for us yet but a lot of people especially as we get older will see pick up issues that should not be issues and that wouldn't be issues if they did resistance training into their older years I guess what are some common injuries associated with resistance training and how can they be prevented um you know a lot of common injuries that I see uh lower back pain um shoulder impingements injuries um elbow tendinitis a little bit of knee pain possibly um and sometimes hernias so a lot of the way to Best prevent this is to really just again make sure that you're following a program um even if the program isn't that specific you can know hey this is what I did last week and appropriately add weight for the next week um for example if the program says you know I did 200 pounds last week then this week you're going to maybe add the two and a halfs and not just try and add another meal onto the bar and I think that Roi progressions are probably the best way to mitigate injuries and obviously making sure that your form is okay um I think filming yourself is a great way to prevent injuries because it keeps you accountable to the camera and that way you're able to assess whether you're doing things safely or not um and the combination of those two things I think it goes a long way in preventing injuries it's obviously not fullprof um but it will make sure that nothing serious happens like for me I did tweaked my low back a couple days ago but I do know exactly why that is that's because um the weight that I actually wanted to use so so the gym plates at my gym are very wide um so the weight that I was supposed to use did not actually fit on the barbell um yeah I was supposed to use 310 um but it could not fit on the barbell so I just went up to 315 in hindsight I probably should have stuck with 305 and tried to add four or five reps to the set before having to make that jump when I realized that 310 would not fit but you know at the same point having that correct logging and and progressions would pretty much prevent your injuries from happening in the first place absolutely and I think a great point about fing yourself um it's not just for people trying to show off it's also for your own like to look at and watch your form and and then and critique yourself so that's also another good a good point how would you go about have you had any I'm sure youve you mentioned you just tweaked your back but any uh big injuries in your career that you had to overcome and how should athletes and leers approach the rehabilitation process um so I had a more major injury to my tfcc um which is a ligament in my wrist last year I did that doing a hang clean um so the way that I approached that was I actually stopped doing hang cleans after that because they didn't really align with my goals anymore that was more of an athletic exercise and I realized that there was lots of other ways I could develop power without doing any type of hang clean or Olympic movements so I skipped those and eliminated those from my program as for the rehabilitation of that um what I did was I reached out to some Twitter people um they suggested that instead of doing absolutely nothing um I moved when possible because that would facilitate recovery I was still hitting legs even though and my strong arm so I'd be doing single arm dumbbell bench single arm machine press single arm lat pull Downs um single arm of basically anything that I could do without pain um and still hitting legs uh using like the SSB safety squat bar some machines things like that to again just get blood flowing um and then when I could I started doing heavy carries and Farmers walks in order to train that ligament in an isometric uh position which is what I'd suggest if people get hurt um once they're cleared to do activity and movement such as you know by a doctor physician or a um PT then start I guess doing some isometrics that are very low impact but um you can feel yourself working a little bit I think some of those isometrics are really great ways to get back to activity a little bit faster absolutely and I think you make a great point about movement being critical a lot of doctors that I've been to and that I've seen online as well uh and and just the what our I guess the other our parents generation was taught was that if you're injured you need to stop everything rice was the big thing rest ice um and the compression elevation which has since been proven not the best idea um and movement is a far better way about doing things you mentioned about single arm training I did a similar thing where I I also had a RIS injury I still trained my leg still trained my right side or whichever side wasn't injured and that's a good a good point to make about still trying to move it or or move your body at least even if you can't move the injury um and then also slowly getting back to with isometrics and maybe some maybe not doing heavy things but getting back into it slowly is also important yeah and then just sort of using appropriate loads as you get stronger um additionally if you're if you do get hurt um heat not ice um ice is pretty much something that has been disproven um so the heating pad is gonna be a lot better investment than an ice pack uh additionally I follow bow tide Cobra on here I don't know if you've heard of him um he's great for rehabilitation I've Heard lots of great things about him so I did want to shout him out real quick about injuries um just a lot of great info if you scroll his page you can find pretty much any common gem injury that you may have oh that's awesome I must definitely invite someone to the podcast um that sounds interesting both Cobra you say yeah okay um thank you thank you I'll look him up uh how does the mental aspect of training play into achieving hypertrophy goals I think you need to be very intentional to achieve hypertrophy goals you can't just go into the gym blackluster with no plan with no intention um even if you do have a plan there's still an element of self- responsibility when it comes to hypertrophy you have to be very intentional with things like your setup your execution and and you know everything obviously outside of the gym to really get those best results because there's going to be a point where you're enough years into your training Journey that you can no longer easily build muscle so at that point you know you have to have the same mindset going into every set that you're going to really pay attention to your reps you're going to control your negatives you're going to lift as you know controlled yet forcefully as possible on your concentrics and those types of things are not things that you can really forget about when you're training um for hypertrophy so I think that mentally you have to be very focused in the gym exactly what just on that Tempo that you mentioned what is your tempo for concentric Ecentric and isometric on a regular on like not necessarily all the time but in general so in general um things are going to be a little different based on the exercise certain exercises I do prefer to get more of a squeeze such as my leg extensions my leg curls and other exercises don't have as much of an emphasis on that squeezing like the chest press where I'm machine chest press where I'm locked out it's a little harder to emphasize that squeeze so exercises that you can sort of have that squeeze or isometric contraction I do like to make sure that I do that for a second um when I'm there additionally um my biggest rule for Tempo is that the negative can't be faster than the positive so um this is just a principle from I guess a strength and conditioning put kyed triphasic trading um I would prefer that when trading for hypertrophy you if you're not lowering faster then you're able to lift it so if it's something that you can't really lift explosively then you can't drop it on yourself either and I find that that's a little easier for me than counting because sometimes I'll be counting my reps and I'll go oh one two three negative wait what rep was I on and I I get a little I have a little bit of a harder time if I had um somebody coming with me to the gy sometimes I will go ahead with like the 3 second negative 1 second pause um concentric and fast yet control possible but as a general rule I want my negatives to be slower than my positives absolutely I think it's important I also used to just drop the I used to think I'm here to left I'm not here to to drop the left so I always used to just focus on the concentric and now I know better so it's another another thing that I've learned um what are some strategies for staying motivated and disciplined throughout a vigorous training training regimen you know I think motivation is really great to get you started but I think that for most people understanding that they're probably going to have low motivation at some point is really important to understanding that you know this is not something where every day I'm going to feel like going to the gym but ultimately the biggest tip that I have for people is that if you're scheduled to work out you go to the gym and warm up if you get there and you're like you know what I really don't feel like doing this today then that's great you've gotten a little movement in you've gotten a little bit of a warmup you've done your warm-up sets go home but ultimately once most people get there is they want to go work out and for me at least the days that I don't really want to work out end up being my best workouts yeah that that does it's funny how that happens sometimes you know I'd say for motivation and discipline have a couple of like hard fast rules for yourself such as you know if I don't want to work out I'm going to go to the gym and warm up anyway and having keeping that as a hard fast rule is a great way to stay disciplined um another hard fast rule that I have for myself is you know if I don't want to eat exactly what I've planned I'm going to get my R in and then do whatever I want um so having a couple of those sort of fail safe rules is just great for keeping discipline motivation and you know enjoyment high that those are some really good tips about having set plans so that even if you Dev slightly you still get the basics right you still go to gym and then like you said you often end up having the best workout or one of the best workouts every time which is really cool you you mentioned about your uh ligament in injury in your wrist um were there any other particularly challenging or inspiring experiences from your own training or coaching that listeners can learn from um you know I'd say I've had a few clients that have gotten injured a little bit or tweaked something um either through training or not through training um varieties where um again the best thing that you can learn from that is just do what you can so if something is tweaked you there there might be something else you can do um you might get to try a new exercise so like you know let's say that you've Maybe tweaked like one arm you might get to try like a different preach single arm preacher C variation or you might get to try something else that you wouldn't otherwise get to try on your regular program and I think that just trying to keep a positive mindset while still checking all the boxes is the best thing you can do um if you're injured or trying to get back to the gym while still you know still be intentional with things like protein um eating healthy food lot food with lots of antioxidants I also find to be really helpful if you're injured so a little bit more fruit a little bit more vegetables um just making sure to get that good food in while you're no there some some good points what uh what foods in particular have High um do you like for high antioxidants um for me I like to implement things like beets cherry juice cherries um grapes basically any type of berry fruit has pretty good antioxidants in it pomegranate if I can get my hands on it um as well as choosing some very like nutrient-dense Meats um for example like beef shank very nutrient dense um can be a little bit more nutrient dense than just chicken breast so opting for some of those more nutrient-dense um nutrient filled foods are some of the best things that you can do when you're injured absolutely and can you tell me about any turning points or aha moments um in your in becoming a coach you know that's a that's a great question I think that a big turning point that I had was that was when I realized that it's not good to be one siiz fits-all and that people are ultimately going to do what they're going to do you just have to find a way to work with the individual cuz you know I do have preferences and things that I'd prefer for my clients to do but not everybody's going to do it some people don't want to walk and you know at that point if you're a coach you can decide okay well if you're not going to do what I ask I can't guarantee results or you can go another Direction and say okay so you're not going to walk but can you get a stationary bike and put it in front of the TV can you um do five push-ups every time you go to the bathroom is there something else we can do to I guess modify that um can you maybe Park a little further away even if you don't want to go for a walk um some of those things I guess finding some of those minor changes and you know as much as I do try to be somebody that motivates people to change it has to be change that's going to fit within their lifestyle because ultimately if people are done working with being and graduate through my program I want them to be healthy for the rest of their life rather than just for a few more months or a few more years I think that's a great approach to have especially as a coach to do things that aren't cookie cutter or general and to actually have things specific for each unique individual is very important yeah and then also if you are a coach and you do have more of a niche then you have to be okay with saying no to some people like for me I definitely I'm not a home workouts person um I don't think that home workouts are as effective as um gym workouts so well sorry home workouts without a gym body weight workouts so I would rather refer um people who insist on body weight workouts to someone else who that is their specialty rather than do it myself are you familiar with the gains guru's hypertrophy research blueprint have you seen it at all yes I have what are your what are your thoughts and any comments advice I think this is fantastic um I think that it's great to that we're compiling something that is science evidence-based and is going to be available for free and I think that for those people who are really go-getters who are going to want to focus on hypertrophy this is going to be a great resource for them um but obviously you know with a big blueprint like this there's going to be a level of work for people who are um interested in this so they are going to have to read some hard things they're going to have to make sense of some things maybe reach out to people on Twitter to help them make sense of things so there is going to be some work and I think that for those who are willing to put in that work it's going to be a fantastic resource that was a great summary it then thank you so much I'm glad that you like it and please if you ever have anything you want to add to it anything you think needs to be changed please do reach out to me and I'll get that done yeah absolutely I'm actually looking into um I'm actually looking into a few studies about um sort of rep Tempo rep quality and things like that that I could add in um to that I also do wonder if there would be any way to add some things that are anecdotal as well to the blueprint because I find that you know in a lab there are going to be certainties but in people's life there's going to be lots of change like for example the evidence shows that you know you can digest 30 grams of protein in an hour and that's the most optimal for muscle growth but you know as I mentioned I work with a lot of people who have desk jobs maybe they can't eat every four hours so what in so what in that case so I guess I'm wondering if there's any way that there's any section that we could have for anecdotal evidence for when you can't do what's optimal absolutely and I think I'm definitely going to add something like that I wanted to have kind of like a rating for how certain we were about specific facts for example if a meta analysis or a meta regression had be done then maybe the rating would be 10 like okay momentum regression done well sure this is fact whereas if it's anecdotal then it's maybe a two or three on the certainty scale that's something that I wanted to add but that would also require a lot more um thinking and it's also very um I guess sub subjective um so it's it's a bit more difficult but I am very keen to add in a purely anecdotal section and I would definitely be very keen to get your thoughts and opinions on on that yeah cuz I mean I think that you know science is the foundation of everything but I think that you know when you step outside the lab there's just so many other factors that we can't account for so I guess helping people figure out what the next best thing is so they don't have some of that decision fatigue when trying to go through this document absolutely and it's like it's a huge document because there's so much uh out there but I'm really trying to make it as all inclusive as possible um if you were traveling on a spaceship to Mars and wanted to maintain muscle size what 10 exercises would you choose to be able to do it can be any exercise or machine but you have limited space so I'd go with um I'd go with ardal um hack squats I'd go with a low incline bench press um laat pull down all grips um chest supported row allp grips uh shoulder press machine all grips um probably a bicep curl variation um a lateral raise variation and then for the last couple exercises I'd throw in um this is tough this is tough triceps cars yeah probably a dip variation and then um definitely some sort of CFR sort of variation okay no brilliant thank you so the closing thoughts what advice or parting words of wisdom do you have for our listeners and who are going looking to embark on their own journey of muscle growth and health I guess um this is pretty generic but find what works for you and have fun with it I think that the person that has fun training even if it's more optimal less optimal even if nutrition's perfect or not is going to get a lot further than the person who does not love training um so I guess you know obviously be safe that's important being safe in the gym um having a plan and things like that but don't hesitate to plan things that you enjoy um if you enjoy a free weight variation of something and you're more likely to look forward into your workouts because it includes a free weight exercise instead of a machine exercise or vice versa go ahead and do that and sort of I guess the furthest that you go is enjoying the process um person who enjoys the process is going to go a lot further than the one that is just enjoying the destination so I think that if this is something you're looking into find creators that you enjoy watching that're entertaining for you find accounts that you enjoy watching videos um reading tweets reading articles from and then sort of Base your training style around that feel free to sort of evolve your thoughts over time and just try and I guess balance maximal enjoyment with the level of results that you want to get absolutely that's an amazing um summary of everything and I think enjoying the journey is super important and a lot of people over look that and also you mentioned being able to um kind of change your way of thinking and not having a closed mindset is also important in anyone's um training Journey yeah absolutely so that wraps it up thank you so much for your time Morgan I really really appreciate it and um all the best yeah thank you for having me only a pleasure goodbye gains gurus thank you for listening and see you on the next episode of tmgp and