PDF Summary:Bigger Leaner Stronger, by Michael Matthews

In Bigger Leaner Stronger, personal trainer Michael Matthews argues that you can get the physique you want without a trendy diet or a brutal workout. According to Matthews, all it takes is a simple and scientific approach to nutrition and exercise that uses two strategies: flexible dieting (a diet that allows you to lose fat, gain muscle, and eat the foods you love) and progressive tension overload (a workout approach that maximizes muscle growth). Matthews teaches you how to apply these techniques to your personal fitness goals and get strong and healthy fast.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to boost your motivation and willpower for your health and fitness journey, create a flexible dieting meal plan, and plan a workout program based on progressive overload. Throughout this guide, we’ll compare Matthews’s advice with that of other fitness and nutrition experts and share more practical tips for applying his techniques to your goals.

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Step 2: Calculate Your Daily Calorie Target

Once you know if you want to cut, maintain, or lean bulk and whether to add or subtract calories from your diet, you must figure out the right amount of calories to eat daily. Consider three factors when calculating your target calories: your body recomposition goal, how active you are, and your weight.

Matthews suggests different ranges of calories to target when cutting, maintaining, and gaining. You should aim for the higher or lower end of this range depending on how active you are. If you’re less active, aim for the lower end. If you’re very active, aim for the higher end.

• If you’re cutting: Consume eight to 12 calories per pound of body weight daily. For most, this creates the 20 to 25% calorie deficit necessary to lose weight.
• If you’re maintaining: Consume 12 to 16 calories per pound of body weight daily.
• If you’re lean bulking: Consume 16 to 18 calories per pound of body weight daily. This typically creates the 10% calorie surplus needed for building muscle without gaining too much fat.

Other Factors Can Affect Your Daily Calorie Target

Matthews gives you calorie ranges to aim for based on your activity level, but it’s likely you’ll still have to experiment with your target calories because other factors also affect your daily calorie requirements. These include your sex, height, age, hormones, and medications you’re taking. Men, active people, and younger people tend to need more calories than women, sedentary people, and people who are older. Let’s look at more advice on how much of a calorie surplus or deficit to aim for when cutting, maintaining, and lean bulking.

If you’re cutting weight, eating at a deficit of about 500 calories per day should help you cut a pound a week, according to many experts. However, they suggest you aim for a 200 to 300 calorie deficit if you’re more active. When starting your cut, note any symptoms such as fatigue, nausea, headaches, dehydration, constipation, or irritation, which may be a sign that the deficit you started with was too large and that you should adjust your target calorie intake.

If you’re maintaining your weight, you can use a simple calorie calculator to quickly determine the number of calories you must eat daily to maintain your current weight. This takes into account your age, height, weight, and sex.

If you’re lean bulking, eating a 350 to 500 calorie surplus can promote muscle growth while minimizing fat gain. This should result in a weight gain of around 0.25% to 0.50% of your body weight per week. Increase your target in increments of 100 to 200 calories if you’re not gaining any weight.

Step 3: Calculate Your Target Calories for Each Macronutrient

Once you know how many calories you should eat in a day, calculate how many calories you need to allot to each macronutrient (protein, carbs, and fat). The percentages that Matthews recommends are:

• Protein should make up around 30% to 40% of your daily calories. One gram of protein has about four calories.
• Carbs should make up around 30% to 50% of your daily calories. One gram of carbs has about four calories.
• Fats should make up around 20% to 30% of your daily calories. One gram of fat has about nine calories.

These percentages don’t need to add up to 100%—leave up to 20% free for treats (we’ll discuss how to add these to your diet later). To calculate your target calories for each macro, multiply your total daily target by the appropriate percentage in decimal form. For example, 2400 (total daily calorie target) x 0.3 (protein calorie target) is 720 calories of protein daily (or 180 grams).

Adjust Your Macro Targets Based on Your Body Type

If you’re still undecided about what macro ratios work for you, you can factor in your body type to determine them. Some experts argue that different body types benefit from having higher percentages of carbohydrates than others. Determine which of the three main body types fits you the most: ectomorph, mesomorph, or endomorph.

People with ectomorph body types tend to be slender and have faster metabolisms. They find it easier to stay lean but harder to gain weight and muscle mass. Nutritionist Sarah Wilkins recommends that ectomorphs eat a higher-carb diet ranging from 30% to 60% of their total calorie intake, depending on their fitness goals. If ectomorphs are trying to gain muscle and weight, they should aim for the higher end of this range and consume at least 25% protein.

Mesomorphs are naturally athletic and muscular. They tend to gain muscle and lose fat easily, but gain fat more easily than ectomorphs. Wilkins recommends that people with this body type eat between 20% and 50% of their total calories in carbs. Mesomorphs who are trying to lose fat should eat more fat and protein and fewer carbohydrates.

Endomorphs tend to be stockier and have slower metabolisms. They build muscle and fat easily. According to Wilkins, endomorphs should eat no more than 30% to 40% of their total calories in carbs. Endomorphs should aim to eat 25% to 50% protein and 15% to 40% fat.

Step 4: Plan Your Meal Schedule and What Foods to Eat

Once you’ve calculated your target calories, you can start planning your meals accordingly. While flexible dieting gives you freedom to choose foods that you like, Matthews suggests you eat several portions of vegetables and fruits and get most of your calories from vegetables, fruits, whole grains, healthy fats, legumes, and tubers. When selecting proteins, Matthews recommends proteins from animal rather than plant sources because animal proteins tend to be better for building muscle.

Create Your Food List With the Traffic Light System

Another way to choose foods that are both enjoyable and nutritious is to consult physician Michael Greger’s traffic light system.

In this system, green light foods are unprocessed plant foods, which you can eat in unlimited amounts (such as vegetables, fruits, and beans). Yellow light foods include processed plant foods and unprocessed animal foods (such as bread or chicken). If possible, Greger suggests you replace these with green light foods. Lastly, red light foods include heavily processed plant foods and processed animal foods (such as cupcakes or sausages), which Greger suggests you avoid.

You’d likely want the majority of your proteins, carbs, and fats to be green and yellow foods and to reserve red foods as treats.

First, decide how many meals to eat each day and when so you can plan out portions that meet your daily targets. For the most part, this should depend on your appetite, schedule, and overall preference. Matthews writes that most people eat four to six meals a day (including snacks) and suggests you eat at least two to improve your body’s ability to build muscle.

(Shortform note: There’s ongoing debate among researchers about whether meal frequency matters when it comes to health and weight loss. Some argue that eating frequent small meals is more beneficial than eating fewer large meals. They cite studies showing that eating frequent meals lowers the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease and enhances athletes’ physical performance and overall body composition. However, eating frequent small meals may increase hunger and make it more difficult to stick to diet plans. If you struggle with controlling meal portions or are too busy to prepare many nutritious meals, you may benefit more from sticking with three large meals a day.)

Next, create a list of your favorite proteins, carbohydrates, and fats (that are, ideally, nutritious and minimally processed) and write down some of your favorite treats. Include any drinks that contain calories. Matthews recommends you get no more than 10% of your daily calories from these drinks because they’re typically less nutritious and filling than foods.

(Shortform note: What does it mean for a food to be nutritious? Nutritious foods are nutrient-dense, which means they give you more vitamins and minerals per calorie than foods with empty calories—foods that give you few to no nutrients for the calories they contain. Nutrient-dense foods can help reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease, and certain cancers.)

Step 5: Create Your Meals

Now, you can use your daily calorie target, your macro calorie targets, and the list of foods you like to create your meal plan. To calculate how many calories a certain food or meal has, Matthews suggests you use online resources and find simple recipes that provide sufficient nutritional information for you to make your calculations.

(Shortform note: The USDA National Nutrient Database can be a helpful resource for determining the calories in foods and planning meals that meet your macronutrient targets. To use the database, enter the food item you’re interested in. Then, if applicable, select the brand to receive detailed nutritional information about the food. If you want to calculate the calories in a recipe, you can look up the calorie and macro information for each ingredient and enter it into a spreadsheet.)

Focus on one macronutrient at a time to make calculations easier. Each time you add a food to your daily meal plan, subtract its calories from your daily macro target. Add foods until you meet about 80% of each macronutrient target. Many foods overlap in carbs, fats, and proteins, which will make up for the rest of the calories needed for each target.

(Shortform note: If you don’t want to do macro calculations manually, you can use a macro tracking app that allows you to log your foods, set target calories, and plan meals that fit your macronutrient needs.)

Matthews recommends you build your meal plan in this order:

1. Add your proteins. Try to eat protein three times a day because it helps build muscle and manage hunger. Matthews suggests you eat at most 30 to 40 grams of protein per meal because there’s a limit on how much muscle your body can build from protein consumed in a single serving.

(Shortform note: There’s some research that supports Matthews’s suggestion to eat protein multiple times a day. Most people eat the majority of their daily protein for dinner. However, according to one study, people who ate protein-rich breakfasts had increased 24-hour muscle protein synthesis (which leads to greater muscle gains during strength training) compared with people who ate most of their protein in the evening.)

2. Add your carbohydrates. To ensure you get your nutrients in, Matthews suggests you add at least three portions of vegetables and then move on to other nutritious carbs like fruits and whole grains.

(Shortform note: Whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes are considered the healthiest sources of carbohydrates, allowing you to get the proper minerals, vitamins, fiber, and phytonutrients. If you find it hard to eat more vegetables and fruits, try buying a wide variety from the store, finding recipes that include them, and making them more readily accessible when you’re hungry—by keeping pre-cut fruit in your fridge, for example.)

3. Add your fats. Matthews suggests you focus on foods containing mostly unsaturated fats, such as nuts, dairy, meats, and eggs.

(Shortform note: There’s considerable debate around the healthiness of different types of dietary fats. However, unsaturated fats are generally considered healthy, as they typically elevate “good” HDL cholesterol while lowering “bad” LDL cholesterol. High saturated fat and “bad” cholesterol levels, on the other hand, may be linked to heart disease and Alzheimer’s.)

4. Add your treats. These can be anything from your favorite sweets to drinks, including alcohol. Treats should make up the remaining calories after you subtract proteins, carbs, and fats from your total target calories. Matthews writes that you can allot up to 20% of your daily calories to treats.

According to Matthews, it’s occasionally acceptable to stray from your meal plan and have “cheat meals” or “cheat days” where you don’t worry about calories or macros. However, be sure to limit these to no more than two a week. Also, he advises you to avoid eating out at restaurants more than once a week when cutting and more than twice a week when maintaining or lean bulking. It’s often harder to estimate the calories and macros in meals you don’t prepare.

Cheat Meals and Treats: Do They Help or Hurt?

While some fitness experts and nutritionists recommend avoiding cheat meals altogether, others argue that cheat meals are not only acceptable but necessary for healthy eating. Let’s compare their opinions with Matthews’s advice and explore some factors to consider when figuring out how to fit cheats and treats into your diet.

Instead of cheat meals, some nutritionists say that a better approach is to simply eat dessert every day. By leaving some room in your daily diet for treats, as Matthews suggests, you’ll avoid the temptation to binge eat and blow your diet. To stay healthy while eating treats every day, avoid eating foods with added sugars that you don’t count as treats.

If you do decide to incorporate cheat meals or days into your diet, experts recommend you plan them in advance.

All in all, most experts agree that having some flexibility to your diet—whether you allow yourself the daily treat, occasional “cheat meal,” or both—helps you stick with your diet longer and sustain a healthy eating lifestyle.

Additional Nutrition Tips

Now that you know how to create a meal plan for flexible dieting, let’s consider some additional nutrition tips from Matthews for maximizing muscle gain and fat loss.

Eat Protein Before or After Your Workout

Matthews recommends you eat 30 to 40 grams of protein either within three to four hours before your workout or within an hour after. Eating protein before a workout provides your body with the necessary nutrients for muscle growth and helps start its muscle-building process. As your workout progresses, your body begins to break down muscle proteins at a higher rate. Eating protein after your workout ensures your body builds more muscle than it breaks down.

(Shortform note: Experts debate whether the timing of your protein intake matters. Some believe that you have only a short amount of time to eat protein after your workout to maximize muscle growth—a 30-minute period called the “anabolic window.” However, others say there’s evidence that simply eating enough protein daily is more important than timing.)

Supplements Help but Aren’t Necessary

According to Matthews, you don’t need to take supplements to achieve your ideal physique. However, there are four supplements that can make it easier to get the nutrients you need.

Protein Powder: Powdered forms of protein (such as whey or casein) can help you to meet your daily protein goal. However, limit protein powder to less than half of your daily protein, as too much can cause gastrointestinal problems and protein-rich foods tend to be more nutritious and filling.

(Shortform note: While protein powders can be a convenient way to meet your protein target, some experts suggest you choose your powder carefully. Protein powders aren’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, meaning it doesn’t verify that they’re safe for consumption. Indeed, one study found that many protein powders contained high levels of lead and BPA, as well as contaminants like mercury and arsenic. To choose quality protein powders, look for third-party-tested products and research brands carefully.)

Fish Oil: Omega-3 is an essential fatty acid found in fatty fish, flaxseed, and walnuts, with many health benefits such as reducing inflammation. Consuming sufficient amounts can be hard to do with food alone.

(Shortform note: In In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan argues that omega-3 is possibly the most essential of all nutrients. In addition to reducing inflammation, omega-3 has numerous other benefits: It helps your brain development, vision, and metabolism, and it can even alleviate psychological disorders such as depression. Some experts caution against getting your omega-3s through fish oil, however. In How Not to Die, Michael Greger suggests you get your omega-3s through algae oil or yeast products, arguing that fish oils contain PCBs, mercury, and pollutants, which can harm your cognitive performance.)

Creatine: A substance made of amino acids that your body naturally produces small amounts of. Creatine can improve muscle growth and recovery.

(Shortform note: Creatine benefits your brain health, too. There’s evidence, for example, that regularly taking creatine monohydrate can help prevent neurodegenerative conditions like Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases.)

Part 3: Use Progressive Overload to Maximize Strength Gains

Now that you know how to diet to lose fat, build muscle, and improve your nutrition, let’s look at ways to exercise effectively to get strong fast.

The Science Behind Effective Exercise: Progressive Tension Overload

To maximize strength and muscle gain, you must use a technique called progressive tension overload, which means you apply an increasing amount of stress to your body by incrementally using heavier weights. This method forces your body to adapt and bear heavier loads, which boosts your muscle gains, writes Matthews.

Progressive overload creates more mechanical tension, which is the most important driver of muscle growth. Mechanical tension is the force created when you increase the stress on your muscles (such as with weights) while they stretch or contract. The heavier the weight, the more stress you put on your muscles, which results in greater mechanical tension. Because of this, you build more muscle by lifting heavier weights for fewer repetitions than lifting lighter weights for more repetitions. We’ll look at how to apply progressive overload to your workouts in more detail in the following sections.

(Shortform note: Gravity is the reason why muscle growth is most affected by mechanical tension. Gravity exerts a constant force on your body, and your muscles have to contract and stretch against this force for you to move and function in your daily life. To do this properly, your muscle cells sense how much force they’re under and build themselves up enough to operate under gravity. When you use progressive tension overload, your muscles must handle a load beyond that which gravity exerts on you. Your muscle cells detect this extra pressure and stimulate more muscle growth. This also explains why astronauts in space experience muscle atrophy, as their cells sense less pressure without gravity, which then results in muscle loss.)

How to Create Your Strength Training Workout Plan

Now that you understand the science behind weight loss and muscle gain, let’s look at some of Matthews’s tips for creating your strength training plan.

Step 1: Create Your Weekly Schedule

According to Matthews, you should strength train three to five times per week. This arrangement allows you to recover adequately and avoid overtraining. Your muscles grow stronger during rest, not during your workout.

(Shortform note: It can take months or years to recover from overtraining, so it's important to allow time for rest as Matthews suggests. To avoid overtraining, ask yourself a few questions before you start each workout: Did I sleep well the previous night, was my morning resting heart rate normal, and did I consume enough food and fluids today? If you answered "no" to any of these, consider toning down the intensity of your workout.)

Step 2: Choose Your Exercises

Once you’ve determined which days you plan to work out, you must decide what exercises to do. Matthews recommends you do exercises that target the muscles involved in pushing, pulling, and squatting, which ensures you train all of your major muscle groups.

(Shortform note: Matthews doesn't specify what the major muscle groups are, choosing to group exercises based on whether they exercise your pushing, pulling, or squatting muscles, but other fitness experts consider there to be six major muscle groups: chest, back, arms, shoulders, abdominals, and legs. There's no rule saying what muscle groups to exercise together, but you should exercise different muscle groups on different days so each muscle has time to rest.)

Matthews says there are two types of exercises you should use in your workouts: primary exercises and accessory exercises. Primary exercises train multiple muscle groups at a time and drive the majority of your muscle growth. However, since they don’t work all muscles adequately, you must also do accessory exercises, which are usually isolation exercises that focus on one specific muscle group. Some examples of primary exercises are pull-ups (pulling), dips (pushing), and barbell squats (squatting). Examples of accessory exercises include dumbbell curls (pulling), seated triceps presses (pushing), and dumbbell lunges (squatting).

(Shortform note: While primary exercises help you get the most strength and muscle gains out of your workout, most experts agree with Matthews that you should make time for accessory exercises. Many people have weaker muscles than others, not just from improper form, but also from how their bodies naturally move when carrying out normal daily activities. So, even if you feel confident in your workout technique, you’ll likely still have some muscles that are weaker than others. You’ll need to strengthen these with accessory exercises to achieve a balanced body and avoid injury and pain.)

Step 3: Use Double Progression for Effective Workouts

Now that you have your weekly schedule and exercises planned, how many reps and sets should you do during your workouts? A repetition (or “rep”) is a single movement (like one pull-up). A set is a group of reps you do in a succession (like 10 pull-ups).

According to Matthews, you need to do nine to 12 hard sets for each major muscle group per week for optimal gains. He recommends doing nine to 12 hard sets per session (with each session focusing on one muscle group) to achieve this. For example, you might do three sets of four different pushing exercises in one workout. He suggests this because there’s an upper limit to the number of sets you can do to maximize muscle growth per workout.

(Shortform note: If you do too many reps or sets, you’re likely doing junk volume—any rep or set you do that doesn’t benefit strength or muscle gain. Junk volume not only wastes time, but it can delay recovery and lead to overtraining. For most people, any set beyond 10 sets for a single muscle group (or 20 for all muscle groups) per workout will likely be junk volume.)

Determine what a “hard set” is for you by using a method called double progression, which is a way of applying progressive tension overload. Double progression requires you to do exercises within a range of reps to determine when to add more weight to your exercise. If you reach the upper limit of your repetition range, you add 10 pounds.

• For primary exercises, your range should be four to six reps.
• For accessory exercises, your range should be six to eight reps.

For instance, if you can reach the upper limit of your primary exercise rep range (six), add 10 pounds. Then, continue doing sets in your rep range until you can hit the upper limit again using the heavier weight. If you can’t reach the minimum of the rep range (four) with the heavier weight, reduce the weight by five pounds and try again. If you still can’t reach the minimum, work with your original weight until you can complete the upper limit of reps for two to three sets.

(Shortform note: Double progression is effective because of how the body reacts to stress, a response called general adaptation syndrome (GAS). When you first start exercising (putting stress on your body), your body enters the alarm stage, in which it increases blood and oxygen levels, activates your muscles, and strengthens your joints. You’ll often experience soreness and fatigue after exercises during this stage. Gradually, you enter the resistance stage as your body adapts to the stress and becomes stronger through the incremental stress applied to it with double progression. If you don’t incorporate adequate rest, however, you risk entering the third stage of GAS—exhaustion—which can have negative effects like injury and fatigue.)

The Optimal Number of Sets and Reps Depends on Your Fitness Goal

You can consider using different set and rep ranges depending on your fitness goals. Let’s discuss how increasing or decreasing the number of sets and reps of an exercise can help you achieve different goals.

General Fitness: If you’re trying to tone instead of bulk and are seeking to improve your overall health and fitness, experts suggest you do more reps than Matthews recommends: one to three sets of 12 to 15 reps.

Endurance: If you want to improve your muscle endurance, you should increase the number of reps with lighter weights. Experts suggest you do three to four sets of at least 12 reps.

Muscle Mass: If you want to enhance muscle growth and size, you should do three to six sets of six to 12 reps with moderate to heavy weight.

Muscle Strength: To increase muscle strength, experts suggest you do four to six sets of fewer than six reps with heavy weight, which is similar to what Matthews recommends.

Step 4: Prevent Injury During Your Workouts

To prevent injury while optimizing strength gain, Matthews provides several tips:

Tip #1: Warm up by doing easier reps of the exercises you plan to do—for example, by using lighter weights. This prepares your muscles and helps you get into proper form.

(Shortform note: Working out without properly warming up your muscles can cause sprains, cramps, joint pain, and other overuse injuries because cold muscles don’t stretch easily. A good warm-up helps increase your body temperature, your heart rate, and the blood flow to your muscles.)

Tip #2: Finish most of your hard sets close to but not at muscle failure, the point at which you can’t physically complete another rep. Stop while you’re still able to do one to three good sets to prevent injury.

(Shortform note: Muscular failure occurs when your muscles use up all available energy before they can be supplied with more. Some studies show that exercising to muscle failure leads to slightly greater strength and muscle mass gain than stopping before failure. However, many experts agree with Matthews and suggest you avoid training to failure because this approach can lead to poor technique, overtraining, and reduced muscle growth in the long term.)

Tip #3: Rest for two to four minutes between sets. This gives your muscles enough time to recover and perform better during your workouts.

(Shortform note: This length of rest works best if you’re looking to increase strength and power. But if you’re looking to improve muscle growth or endurance, other rest lengths may be more beneficial. To increase muscle growth, rest for 30 to 90 seconds between sets. To increase muscle endurance, rest for 30 seconds or less.)

Step 5: Plan for a Deloading Phase

After eight weeks of training, Matthews suggests you take a deload—or reduce the volume or intensity of your workouts for a week—to give your body time to recover and grow stronger. It’s better to reduce volume (in other words, do fewer sets and reps) than reduce intensity (use lighter weights), Matthews argues. Deloading volume lessens joint, tendon, and ligament strain, lowers the risk of injury, and reduces psychological stress. It also maintains your fitness better for when you resume training.

(Shortform note: Sometimes, your body might need a deload week before you’ve finished eight weeks of training. You may need to do an early deload if you notice any of these signs: low energy, poor workout performance, increased discomfort during your workouts, bad sleep, low motivation, or reduced appetite.)