"You don’t need supplements to do what you want to do; just so you know. Supplements are supplementary by definition. That is true of ours and anybody else’s; so, don’t believe that there is a magic pill, powder, or potion. It doesn’t exist."
Mike Matthews
EFR 460: Why You Don't Need Supplements with Mike Matthews
Mike Matthews is the Founder and CEO at Legion Athletics, Inc., a company which offers all-natural, science-based supplements, including pre-workout, post-workout, fat burners, protein powder, multivitamins, and more.
Mike is also the author of several bestselling health and fitness books, including Bigger Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body and Thinner Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Female Body.
Chase and Mike do a deep dive into supplementation and how to navigate an industry that has unfortunately grown to be filled with misleading claims, half-truths, and outright lies that leave the average fitness guy or gal at a disadvantage when it comes to getting informed on what the right products for them are.
Listen in as Mike lists foundational supplements that nearly everyone would benefit from adding to their daily regimen. He shares common shady marketing tactics and gimmicks that many supplement companies use to promote subpar products.
Finally, Mike explains the secret to becoming the number one all-natural sports nutrition brand in the world and what sets Legion Athletics’ product line apart from all others.
Follow Mike @muscleforlifefitness
Follow Chase @chase_chewning
Key Highlights
Since supplements are only supplementary to your nutrition, what should people really be focusing on to get the most ROI on their training when it comes to their nutrition?
What supplements should be top priority for someone who is already following a healthy diet?
How can you know for sure if you’re really getting what it says on the label?
What should you be looking for in a protein powder?
What does “naturally sweetened and flavored” actually mean?
Mike explains what makes his superfood supplement, Genesis, different from all the rest.
Powerful Quotes by Mike Matthews
You don’t need supplements to do what you want to do; just so you know. Supplements are supplementary by definition. That is true of ours and anybody else’s; so, don’t believe that there is a magic pill, powder, or potion. It doesn’t exist.
If a company is using proprietary blends in any of their products, just move on. Find another company. Why use a proprietary blend? It’s just for bullshit. It’s to add a little bit of marketing pizzazz in the names.
If a company is selling a greens supplement as a replacement for, say, “22 servings of vegetables”, bullshit. Stay away from that company. They’re either ignorant, or they’re malevolent—they’re just lying.
I believe in treating people the way I want to be treated. I think that should apply in business as well, so, I try to treat consumers the way I want to be treated as a consumer.
Episode resources:
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Interview transcript:
Chase
Yeah, so it's pulling up, like I said, some extra tabs to, to reference items and I wanted to make sure I got the episode number right from the last one you were on man. Exactly one year ago today, really? March 9th 2020. Well, it came out. It's when the episode went live. But I was back in I was back in Virginia, I think was like February, late January, February of 2020. And we caught up there at the old HQ in Vienna. And yeah, exactly one year ago today went live Episode 292 Back to Basics, man, here we are.
Mike
synchronicity. That's wild. And in fact, the talk now supplement basics.
Chase
Yeah, yeah, that's what I was talking to the team over there at Legion I was, you know, here's some great topics. And some things we want to kind of go over last time Mike and I really dove deep into the training fundamentals and training basics. Because it was right on the cusp of when this guy was coming out, you know, beyond bigger, leaner, stronger. And I was like, Yeah, let's go. Let's go the other route. You know, what are the what's the other big training principle when it comes to making any kind of change? And it's, it's the nutrition, it's the supplementation, so I guess, happy podcast anniversary, first of all, man.
Mike
Yeah, man. Thanks for having me back. Appreciate it. Looking forward to the reciprocation. You're going to come back on my show, too.
Chase
Yeah, that's right. You guys, I love your show. You guys dive into like the thick of it for anybody that wants to nerd out but just also very, very easily applicable ways to move the needle in your in your weight loss journey, your fitness journey, whatever you're doing.
Mike
Thanks, man. Yeah, I appreciate it. That's, that's what I'm going for. I like to get into the details. But I also like to stick with, like, try to make it as simple and practical as possible, because that's just the kind of information that I personally look for. So it's simple self-serving, but at least there are people out there who like it, too.
Chase
If you make it for yourself, there's got to be enough people out there like you as well.
Mike
Yeah. That's how a lot of these come about is things like I wonder about that. And then look into it, learn about it. And then sometimes I learned things I can incorporate into my own regimen. Sometimes I learned things that are not worth incorporating. But then I can just share that information. So there's some efficiency there, I guess
Chase
And speaking of not worth incorporating, that's kind of where I would really love to start, you know, this episode is going to really focus on supplementation, a lot of myths, half-truths, whole lies, you know, just ways for the consumer wave away for the fitness goer, to really look at something in their nutrition in their supplementation. So yes, I need this. No, I don't. What am I being sold? What am I not? What is actually in here? But before they even get to that point, supplements are made to supplement a diet of weight training of physical activity of exercise, and proper nutrition. So before we even talk about supplements, man, like, what should people really be focusing on to get the most ROI in their training when it comes to their nutrition?
Mike
Well, I mean, you said it right supplements are supplementary, by definition they are something that you can add to an existing training and, and diet program that's working. But if you don't have a training or diet program that are working, then supplements aren't going to do much for you. And if we were to envision the most important aspects of nutrition as a pyramid, supplementation would be probably toward the top. I mean, you could you could maybe say nutrient timing is a bit less important than the because like we're building a pyramid. Alright, we started with foundation, we start with energy balance, and then we talk about macronutrient balance and then we talk about food choices and making sure that you're eating enough nutritious foods. And those are the most important aspects of nutrition, whether we're talking body composition, or just health and wellbeing. And if you stopped there, and you didn't bother with supplementation, you didn't bother with nutrient timing, you didn't bother with playing around with meal composition, or trying to even really micromanage the fruits and vegetables that you're eating, which that would come into the food choices kind of straight on, which would be alright, let's make sure that you are getting your one to two servings of fruit per day, three to five servings of vegetables per day, probably one serving of whole grains is smart to throw in there as well and if you just want some bonus points, throw in some leafy greens, otherwise, just you know, whatever you feel like eating day to day so long as it's a fruit, it's a vegetable, it's a whole grain you're going to do well with that right? And so if you just stopped there, you're going to do very well. You will be able to achieve your fitness goals. You will be able to achieve your health goals, you will reduce the risk of disease and dysfunction. You don't need really anything higher up on that pyramid, which, which would include supplementation. That said, I would say that if you have the budget, and you have the inclination, I do think there are some supplements that are worth considering. Because they either add convenience, like in the case of a protein powder, primarily, it just adds convenience. I personally would rather when it comes 3pm, I would rather mix up a couple scoops of protein powder and just drink it down then like eat another chicken breast. But, but that's me, some people, they don't mind it, and they actually maybe they wouldn't want to eat the third chicken breast of the day, but they're happy to have some, that just gets old and even someone like me with the palate of a Rottweiler eventually, you know, eventually all I could do without the, the chicken tender, the chicken tenderloin again, so, so there's convenience, there is in some cases performance like creatine and beta alanine and citrulline malate, not major players, they're not going to make a huge difference in your results. But individually, they can make a small difference. And if you can add up enough small differences, it can be a, I would call it slightly significant difference. Again, I don't want to oversell any of this, because that's just the reality. And then we move over into the realm of health, in which case, I would actually say that's where I think the stronger argument for supplementation is, as opposed to body composition. Body composition sells a lot. You can sell a lot of pre workout, you can sell a lot of muscle build
Chase
They see the end result and they think this is actually what got them there.
Mike
Yeah, yeah. And when I understand when you're wanting to gain muscle, when you're wanting to get stronger when you're wanting to lose fat those are very tangible goals. And you look in the mirror, and you can see whether you're making progress or not. And that is at least 50% of why any of us do any of this anyway. And I absolutely at least 50% of the reason I'm in the gym every day is to look a certain way. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. So you can sell a lot of that stuff. But if we if we get into I think more of the science of supplementation, I would say you can probably make a stronger argument for things that are great for your health that are difficult to get through your diet, or in some cases impossible, because you're just not going to eat the stuff. And we could start with something simple like, oh, an omega three fatty acid, like a fish oil supplement, unless you're eating several servings of fatty fish or a lot of ALA, which would be the plant based source of omega threes, and you have to eat a fair amount because of the absorption issues, you are probably not getting enough omega threes in your diet and if you bump those up, you can notice I mean it can benefit your physical and mental health and performance in different ways, it can impact muscle building, it can impact fat burning it can it can cause quite a few beneficial effects in the body.
Chase
So let's expand on that real quick before we kind of get into like the training supplement stuff. Supplements for first of all, great job we hit the head and hit the nail on the head on kind of just talking about why to supplement. Now that's keeping that kind of overall health and wellness person in mind of just I want to I want to feel good I want to just perform my best for daily living and you know, I'm generally active, certain things like a fish oil, certain things like focusing on micronutrients, focusing on your joint health, what things should someone be looking for and targeting first outside of their diet for that kind of general wellness blanket so to speak?
Mike
Yeah, so a fish oil. Certainly. Or you can go with a plant based omega three supplement, most people are fine with just taking a fish oil, I would say that is going to be the most efficient way to get the EPA and DHA molecules that we specifically want. And a multivitamin, I think it depends on the quality of the multivitamin and that can be all over the place, depending on the company and the formulation depending on how much money they're willing to spend on it. For example, Legions multivitamin is I actually have to we've been hammering our manufacturers to give us better prices, but I believe it's probably around $13 to $14 a bottle right now for us and then you have to add some extra expensive so it probably cost me $16 a bottle to send, to produce and get the multivitamin to a customer right. And to put that in perspective, a lot of the multivitamins that you see on the shelf at your local supplement store or on the virtual shelf over at Amazon they cost maybe about $6 a bottle on average. Half. And the reason is, is a lot of them, if you look at the formulations, they're just vitamins and minerals, and that it's either just that, or it's that plus of a couple of other cheap ingredients, maybe some amino acids and tiny amounts of a couple herbs and it's really just to pad the label and make it look like it's better than it is.
Chase
You say that, in some of these products, such as a multivitamin. More is not always better, more could just be more for the sake of more. And when you throw a lot of sciency words on a label that could be misleading to the consumer of Oh, this is clearly the better choice. Right?
Mike
Totally. And that that is a common ploy with many types of supplements is the kitchen sink approach, just make it make it a really long label list, and sometimes even includes some proprietary blends, which we can talk about that; more companies are moving away from that. So maybe they don't use the proprietary blend, and they have a transparent formulate? Well, I mean, it is I shouldn't put it in scare quotes. It's a transparent formulation. But the problem is, the ingredients either are just not good like there's no good scientific evidence that they do anything or the amounts are not good, the ingredients could be good, but maybe it has 1/5 or 1/10 of what you would need to actually get benefits. And so in the case of the multivitamin take Legions, one of the one of the ways that you can spot a potentially good multivitamin from one that is potentially not good it's just how many pills do you have to take per day? If you only have to take one a day? You can't fit that much stuff in one pill you like
Chase
I’ve heard that name before one a day.
Mike
The one pill a day approaches is convenient and maybe you can find some that are two a day and many consumers, I would say less informed consumers not stupid, just less informed. And I was once one of these less informed consumers myself. They like the convenience of that. And we do hear from customers who either asked, Why is triumph are Legion or multivitamin over at Legion why is it eight pills per day? And so what you do is you split it up four in the morning and then for dinner is actually the better way to do it. Just in general, even if we just look at the vitamins and minerals as opposed to taking the entire dose in one sitting, you'll get more absorption by splitting it up. But the reason why it's eight a day is because of all the extras I don't we just recently upgraded the formulation. So I'm going to say it's probably between 12 and 14 additional ingredients. I don't know off the top of my head because it used to be 14 I believe it we might have dropped one. I don't remember the exact number now but it's over 10 additional ingredients. And, and sure, I could go down to 6 a day or even 4 a day, but I'd have to start pulling stuff out. That's it that there's no other way to do it. And, and fortunately enough people, they understand what they're getting and they also are like, Yeah, I don't love taking the four pills twice a day. But I like what I'm getting for it.
Chase
Do you think the argument could be made? I mean, because look at the end of the day, you me the work that we're in the content that we create, we are in the business of helping people establish healthy habits, keep healthy habits, I guess, to play devil's advocate a little bit could the argument be made for someone who is ready, there at that readiness to change level of the one a day pill of taking one thing a day to seemingly make their lives better and maybe that could be a catalyst to put them on the path to making better changes, more changes, versus maybe taking four to eight pills or something else could be a barrier? Like how would you kind of go around that?
Mike
Yeah, I would say though, if we're talking about that's obviously the kind of the beginning stage of someone's journey or kind of the mini habit or the tiny habit phase? At that point, I would actually rather have that person focus that energy or that bandwidth, so to speak, on just eating a little bit better, or exercising a little bit more consistently. I would say let's just leave supplementation out. And, let's get so let's say you're at one serving of vegetables per day. Let's bump that up to two. And it might be in the beginning. Let's not even worry about calories or macros, right? Let's just let's just get some more nutritious food into your diet and let's improve your relationship with food a little bit. Let's get you used to enjoying these more nutritious food. And then maybe we'll start subtracting a little bit of, quote unquote junk food. Not that you can't have sugar and relatively non nutritious foods, of course you can Chase
The person probably wants less of it in their diet in their body.
Mike
Right. Right. So I would rather I would rather just hold off on supplementation and if somebody okay for at the point where we're going to incorporate supplements, and eight a day is just a no go, then I would find something that is decent than that is okay. What is four a day workable? Alright, I'm sure there's a four day out there that's, that's okay. I don't know exactly what it would be. But I'm sure I could find that. And, and to your point, then, okay, if they're going on the four a day, and then they're like, you know, what's another four? Who cares? Then it could be appropriate to upgrade them because they will get more out of mine than they're going to get out of the four day. But yeah, I mean, that's a perfectly valid point, I think. And back to your original question, then. So multivitamin, and I think a multivitamin is a good multivitamin is worth taking regardless of how well you eat.
Chase
I'm so glad you said that, because that was going to be a follow up question I had, and you just brought it up, you know, I think bar none, no matter what anyone is going through in their health, fitness, wellness journey, a multivitamin, I would recommend that to everybody, before I even maybe had like a console or sit down with them. Because no matter what we're eating these days, it just, you just don't know the true level of nutrition and potency in your foods unless you're growing them 100% yourself. I think
Mike
And again, micromanaging, I'll be talking about specific, it's hard to get vitamin K, for example, in forms k one and K two, and it's hard to get enough vitamin D unless you are conscientiously spending time in the sun. Really, that's you or you're eating a lot of fortified foods. But if you're eating well, chances are you're not eating a lot of fortified foods, because you're probably not drinking a ton of milk or eating breakfast cereals, we may be a little bit here and there but not enough to get, let's say a baseline of 2000 I use a day of vitamin D. Same thing goes for depending on dietary preferences, calcium, if somebody eats a lot of plant foods, for example, it can be it can be difficult to get enough calcium, zinc can be an issue and particularly with women who tend to eat less meat. Iron is also a common issue with women, you can benefit from a high dose if we're talking about comparing it to the RDI of vitamin B 12. And some people report more energy. Some people don't notice a difference, but some people respond well to a higher dose of B 12. But you're not going to get that through food. So yeah, there are I think it's just you can think of it maybe as almost like a little bit of an insurance policy. And a good multivitamin that you just add on top of a good diet, and I practice what I preach. I mean, I take of course I'm going to take my own, but I eat very well, by anyone's standards, I follow the advice I've shared so far. I also do kind of micromanage my food to make sure that I get in my dark leafy greens to make sure that I get in cruciferous vegetables. I mean, I'm traveling right now. So I'm actually staying with my parents, which is funny. I haven't slept in this house since I left 20 years, or 18 or whatever it's been. It's funny to me, like
Chase
wait, I don't have to sneak out at night now. I could just come and go as I please.
Mike
I do not have to sneak my girlfriend. And so it's funny, but so here I eat what my mom cooks but yeah, she'll cook whatever kind of vegetables and it's not it's not how I normally go about it because I'm just kind of over the top normally again, I'm eating garlic every day and it's raw for example for the allicin and I and my wife doesn't particularly like that. I buy her horses so you know it balances out. And so despite that I still take I still take my multivitamin because of the there are some again some vitamins and minerals that I want to make sure I'm getting enough of and then there are the extras that I'm just not going to be getting. And so multivitamin important. I would say vitamin D I touched on that. It depends. You know, if you're if you were taking my multivitamin that has 2000 I use in it, that's a good baseline. You may need to take more but you probably need to get blood tested to really confirm that to check your d3 levels. Right. And then you could you could work with a doctor who could tell you like, Oh yeah, 2000s not enough for you so we need to bump that up to five that would be the case for some people. But 2000 IUs is that's generally accepted as like the baseline you want to be getting 2000 IUs for adults at least. And after that, I would say it's probably worth getting a couple of body comp things if you're into fitness right like a protein powder and probably creatine, if you are training your muscles just because it's inexpensive, and most people respond to it, it's natural. Some people just don't. It just doesn't help them.
Chase
the most clinically studied.
Mike
Yeah, it's just why not right? You take five grams a day or you or you take a good post workout that has five grams in it.
Chase
I mean, it's just, I mean, look at the research, it's going back for decades and decades. .
Mike
Right, right. So yeah, I'd say that's, that's, that's a good, good place to start. And you had mentioned joints and, I mean, now we I do feel like we're getting a little bit into the peripheral, if we're talking joints, and then yeah, sure, there are other things that you can take as well. Again, more for health than then performance. But I would say, in my opinion, a joint supplement is probably on par with a pre workout supplement like do you need it? No. But if it's well formulated, it'll probably make a difference in your joints acutely and chronically. Like in the case of Legions, that's one of the reasons that I just really liked that product is it's not it's not just for people who have joint problems. It's also for people who have healthy joints and want to keep them healthy. And a good pre workout probably will make at least a slight difference in your training help you train a little bit harder, and over time, that can mean better progress.
Chase
absolutely, man. And one last thing I'll say on the multivitamin thing before we shift gears when you brought up you know, I forget the exact word you just said but you're talking about the ingredients in the profile panel, when you kind of get into like what that really means. I before coming over to Legion I was taking the same multivitamin every day for about 14-15 years they changed the formula I think like twice over that times timespan, but I love the company I love the research they put into it and I could absolutely feel the difference over the years. Not every year. But you know, every couple years I would I would do kind of like a 30 day off cycle just like really test myself and absolutely was noticeable and just general vitality, general energy. I could see it in you know, in my urine I would even sometimes I remember one year I did a test right before a blood panel. I was going for going in for physical and like the years leading up to that it was you know, vitamin D looked great. All these things look great. I went off entirely in their life. Some things dropped here. And then so I would go back and cycle which I think is a very good point to make for somebody, you know, be an n equals one, you know, know your body, get some basic labs. But then you know, like know how know what your baseline is, basically, and then go in and test it out. But you know, try if that was the first thing in like 14-15 years, man to sway me over. So um, you guys definitely the proof is in the pudding there.
Mike
And you have curiosity have you noticed any differences that in your blood work? Have you gotten blood work yet and then and then just subjectively.
Chase
So I haven't gotten blood work yet. I'm a being a bad patient this year, actually was supposed to. Last week, I was supposed to have multiple doctor's appointments and ended up just having to reschedule everything. So I am very excited to see because at this point now it will be I think four months, okay, three months, three solid months on with triumph there. And, and again, it was right around the same time period where I was phasing out of that, that one bringing in you know, Legion, and it's just you know, wow, I'm back. Just honestly, when you know how good you feel at a baseline and that goes away. And then it comes back. You're like no, no, no, no, I don't need to cycle this off again. Like I like feeling good for damn sure.
Mike
Yeah, yeah. No, I totally agree with that. I think of how important sleep is in that regard. I've that's something I've come to appreciate more as I've gotten older and I'm, you know, I'm no longer invincible. And yeah, well
Chase
welcome to your 30s. Well, I think this is a perfect time to transition into a big area where we can add some value for the listener here in the consumer, the person out there looking to do the work in the gym, their physical activity, their nutrition, and they're ready to make that decision. Like I want to add in some supplements, but what are these ingredients? What's effective? What's ineffective? What are these proprietary blends we’re talking about, like, how can I actually look at a label, whether it's Legion or anybody else and know like, I'm actually getting what it says a good dose that's going to do me, you know, do my body right?
Mike
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's a bit tricky, to be honest, because some of it comes down to trusting the company. And so that means there's some due diligence there, as we're starting to look into who's behind it. Is there anybody even behind it or is it just a faceless kind of Amazon brand for example, there is one brand in particular, just for example, it's quite big on Amazon, that they, the people behind it are just marketers like they're not fitness people. They're completely out of shape. And so they're some of their products are okay.
Chase
Beware the rise of the Amazon drop shipper. I mean, it's no, they don’t own a small businessman but you know yeah to your point the person behind the person running that that wouldn't be the person that I would want, you know to have
Mike
Unless they have like, Oh, well hold on, let me explain why you should take my supplements, you know what I mean? But in the case of this brand, I'm thinking of No, it's just, it's just marketing. That's all it is. Right. But I think what we can first start with is proprietary blends, I would say if a company is using proprietary blends in any of their products, just move on. That really that is that is my best advice. Just find another company. There are many, many supplement companies out there. And the reason I say that is we should probably first explain a proprietary blend is a blend of ingredients that when you look on the label, it's given a name. So it'd be like the muscle pump max, you know, and then it'll have a weight. So it'll say, you know, 1200 milligrams next to the blend, name. And then it'll list everything that's in the blend, but it won't tell you how much of each thing is in the blend. It'll just give a list and labeling standards. And this is not to say that, that all companies follow them because they don't but technically, they're supposed to list it with the first ingredient would be the greatest or the largest amount listed in weight and then the second would be the second most, but let's say it's a 1200 milligram blend and the first ingredient is maltodextrin, which is a cheap carb for example. And then the next ingredient is creatine, good ingredient. And as a consumer, you might look at that and go I don't really know what maltodextrin is. Oh, but creatine is good, right? What you don't know though, is the amounts it could be 1100 milligrams of molto and, you know, 100 milligrams of creatine and that's it. Let's just say this blend had two ingredients, right?
Chase
It's a very cost effective blend.
Mike
Exactly. It's a tasty it's a tasty blend, because molto is just sweet, right? And 100 milligrams of creatine though, and this gets to this point of clinically effective doses, meaning a dose that was proven effective in clinical research, that's about five grams, you take about 5000 milligrams of creatine per day on like that, that's just your standard dose to really reap the benefits that the marketers are probably going to be referring to in their, in the, in their marketing, right, the studies that show that creatine works. And so why so, to, to that point, then why use a proprietary blend, it's just for bullshit. That's really the reason to use it. It's, it's to add a little bit of marketing pizzazz in the names, the names are often, you know, kind of sensational over the top bodybuilding type, you know, get super swole super shredded type stuff, right?
Chase
Drink minotaur
Mike
And then to hide the doses of the individual ingredients. Because if you the consumer, let's say often these blends have a lot of ingredients because it looks impressive, right? It has like 10 ingredients. And as a consumer, it's easy to assume Oh, well, I mean, shit has 10 ingredients, at least one or two of those have to be good, right?
Chase
Getting my money, you know?
Mike
Yeah, yeah, reasonable assumption, right? In many things in life more is just better, right? Not always, but sometimes it is. And so what consumers don't realize though, is of course, it's the amounts that matter, not just the ingredients themselves. But if they were to see amounts, then they might be a little bit suspicious here to see three milligrams of reishi mushroom or one of these other mushrooms that are popular, you might wonder like three milligrams, milligrams, that's all that's a very small amount. I'm not sure I'm not sure that's going to do much of anything, right. So you use the proprietary blend to hide that. So any company that is using a proprietary blend, there may be the I can't say they're all full of shit, but most of them are full of shit. And again, as a consumer, I don't think it's worth trying to go any further figuring out Wait, wait, is this one actually full of shit or not?
Chase
Sorry, man. I got this random image in my head. Did you ever watch the show on History Channel Ancient Aliens I've seen some of it. Giorgio. Yeah, the hair guy. He's like, I'm not saying it's aliens, but it's alias. So basically, like you're saying that all proprietary blends are aliens.
Mike
Correct. Correct. We are originally formulated by ancient astronauts. Yes, correct. So yeah, yeah, the first proprietary blend goes back to sumur 1000 BC, it was there at Stonehenge,
Chase
actually, this proprietary blend is the magic dust that enabled Stonehenge to assimilate you know, on its own.
Mike
Correct, correct this, this is the legendary Starfire nectar of the gods that they that they drank to live forever. Legionathletics.com use my use my coupon code.
Chase
The thing is that there would be some guy or girl out there that would like, find that appealing. And they would want to just like grab ahold of the most secret of ancient sauces and blends and like, I don't need to know, I don't want to know, but just, you know, if it's attached to this, this, I want to believe I want to believe. That's a whole other concept of you know, how, as on the consumer and someone who's on a realistic health and fitness journey, like you have to kind of detach yourself from other people's and results, just because you got you know, Mr. Olympia on this cover label of a proprietary blend of a supplement. I mean, that's, I mean, it's sells, and maybe he does use it, but is that what he took when he was at your point in the journey? Maybe, maybe not. You know, this is the whole point of do your do your again do your due diligence.
Mike
Especially if we're talking about muscle building anything? Like, how much of that intro workout you know, cellular swelling supplement has to do with his 21 inch guns. Is it that or is it the 10 the 10 grams of dedication that he's on.
Chase
But to your point, building muscle. Another thing I love about Legion I love about your you know, your work and you know, kind of just unfolding a lot of the half-truths and whole lies in the supplements industry is when it comes to protein powder I think that is one of the most tried and true if, if people are thinking supplements in the fitness industry, they're probably thinking protein powder. And what I love about you guys, now I've been kind of on more of a plant based kick the last almost year. And so for personal reasons. And also, I just noticed a subtle difference in my digestion, bloating a little bit, you know, when I switched to a vegan protein powder, and you guys have both, but I noticed a big difference as well. Like the same benefits the same basically the things that I didn't feel when I was on the vegan protein powder with your whey plus protein powder. And when I was diving more into it, I was really amazed that you know, you guys have gone through a lot in terms of the protein isolate the grass fed aspect, even down to like a single source from where all this this whey comes from. So when it comes to protein powder when it comes to these proprietary blends and stuff, can you kind of walk us through like someone's looking at a protein blend, like what is actually good for them? What should we be looking for and supplementing our diet for protein and or looking for you know, muscle hypertrophy here?
Mike
Yeah, yeah. So, a couple of important things with a protein powder is you’re going to want it's okay if there's a protein blend, that's not necessarily bad, like our, our vegan protein is it's a blend of rice protein and pea protein. And we combine those two intentionally because they have complimentary amino acid profiles. One is strong or the other is weak and when you combine them together, their amino acid profile looks similar to whey like that combination is often referred to as the vegans whey. And so we created that that blend now it's not a proprietary blend, we don't give it a fancy name it is just blended protein. It's just half. And that's, I believe it's half. It was some time ago and we put that together and we haven't changed it because that's just the way to go with it. But regardless of protein blend is not quite the same necessarily as a proprietary blend, but the first ingredient should be a higher quality protein. So let's say if they're trying if the marketing is leading you to believe that it is a whey isolate. So if it's straight up claiming it's a whey isolate or calling out whey isolate in some way, and whereas whey isolate is not the first ingredient, let's say it's a concentrate, whey concentrate is the first ingredient, then one red flag because it's just misleading. Like when if you are in emphasizing the whey isolate, then you're trying to get people usually what they're what the marketers doing, they're trying to get people to believe that it is a 100% whey isolate, when it may not be right. So if you're looking at the label, and the first ingredient is whey isolate, then that's a good sign. Now, if it's a blend, and it also has whey concentrate, or maybe a milk protein, source of milk protein, like it could be, it could be milk isolate or milk concentrate. Again, that's not necessarily a red flag, it depends how it's being presented. So if it's just being presented as a whey protein, then that's okay. I would say any one of those three as the first ingredient is, is acceptable, whey isolate would be the highest quality, it's at least 80% protein by weight, the lactose has been removed, you're going to most people, especially those who have, I wouldn't even say so sensitive stomachs but who are who have had stomach issues with whey proteins in the past are going to do better with an isolate simply because first and foremost, the lactose is removed. And then there also are some just other elements of the protein fractions themselves and the milk that the whey protein came from. And in the case of you abroad, you had mentioned this in the case of Legion, we are currently working with all of our of our protein comes from small dairy farms in Ireland. And we're actually vetting it's a very similar setup, but they are in the Netherlands. And it's, I would say it's the both of them are like top tier, basically whey isolates. And we're checking out this this Netherland product, because it may allow us to bring the prices down a little bit and not lose anything in the way of quality. And because there are there are some we're getting the Irish protein through Glanbia and because of like import export, there are a couple things that have nothing to do with the whey protein itself. It's just several dollars more expensive
Chase
Other things that just get passed on to you
Mike
Exactly and so we're checking, we're checking out something that is very comparable, but it's all the all the farms are in the Netherlands. But the point is the reason why I originally chose that Irish protein at the time, I was reading something from the US from Ireland and from New Zealand, I think were the those were like the three best way eye slits available basically at the time. And the Irish wound and what is currently what we're currently selling, it just really stood out to me the mouthfeel is very crisp, very creamy, despite having like no fat, you know, zero or maybe one gram per serving. And it tasted just noticeably better. And it wasn't it was the same flavor lab so that wasn't it, it just had a better taste. And it was just the clear winner to me. And since you know, we've been selling that
Chase
that's the same thing with like, with meat when I eat grass fed steak versus anything else, which these days, I really make a conscious decision to only buy grass fed meat. It's so noticeable. I mean, I think that just speaks to the quality of life that the source is having the quality of light, the quality of activity, the quality of ingredients, and how they're just they are going about their natural lives and like the more natural everything along that journey can be I mean, any result any end result along that path, I think is going to be quality.
Mike
And what's great about it is it doesn't really matter why all that matters is you notice a difference, really at the end. So why in the end, why? It's hard to say actually, nutritionally, like you know, there's some research that has looked into the nutritional differences. And there are some differences, I think it's fair to say the grass fed beef is a bit more nutritious, on average, but that wouldn't exactly explain why you just feel better. And is it is it subjective? Is there a psychological component? Maybe, but in again, it just, it doesn't really matter? Because you notice a difference. So that's it, you know what I mean.
Chase
That's a good point. I mean, that goes kind of goes into the whole aspect of, you know, placebo effect, I think, would agree. If I'm taking something that I maybe know nothing about how it was sourced how it was made. It could be a phenomenal product over here. But you know, product B is one that I know the company, I know somebody that works there, I know the land on which you know, it's grown or harvested and I just have some kind of association. I can tether myself to that more. I have It's almost like you develop more empathy for what you're putting into your body. And if you feel some kind of way, a positive way about just starting off with something, then you know, that definitely has to feed into the psychosomatic aspect of the results that is going to give you I mean, you can literally be given the same products as B, but if you just have a better association to B, then I think that could definitely play a role.
Mike
Oh, for sure. I mean, there's a lot of research on of course, the placebo effect, but then step over into research, more related to marketing that shows that people's first impressions markedly influence how they end up liking the product or service. So when they land on a website, it actually starts right there. But it also could be when you receive something in the mail, how does it look, all of those things matter. And that's more, that'd be like getting off into a business discussion. But that's why it's smart to really pay attention to all the touch points that people have with your business and really work try to make all of them as good as possible, because the more you can create a good, especially first impression, the more likely they are in the case of supplements, the more likely they are to like my stuff. I mean, that's just that's just a fact. Like, if they hit my website, and they like it, and maybe they interact via our live chat with there's a little chat there that pops up and we have certified personal trainers that are live. Probably, I don't know if we've added the weekends yet, but certainly during the week, where people can just ask questions like you don't, it's not just a pitch, it's ask questions, and I'll help you out. And we have people that are personal trainer, certified trainers, not marketers like that, and they don't and, and I actually I don't, I don't have any financial incentive in place for them to sell things like I don't give them bonuses. And that's intentional, because I really just want them to be able to help not have that high pressure to like, okay, now you got to buy something. And we have on the website, we have probably over 2000 articles by now on all kinds of things. And I've recorded a lot of podcasts. So we have a lot of good resources too. Often people have questions, like if somebody hits the website, and they see the chat, and they're like, oh, how do I get rid of belly fat? What do I do? And instead of getting into a long chat discussion back and forth, in that case, what the trainer can do is shoot them a link right on our website
Chase
go to an article go to a podcast.
Mike
Here's an article on just that. And there's also a podcast, if you want to listen to me explain it. And you and then and then you can check that out, you know, and then often people will and then they'll have follow up questions and they're able to continue the discussion. So it's, it's pretty cool in that regard. But anyway, coming back to coming back to the protein powder,
Chase
we'll save the business conversation for March 9 2022. We'll just keep things rolling next year.
Mike
Yeah, man, maybe Rona will relented by then. And we'll have we'll have more people interested in that. But yeah, so So coming back coming back to protein, the blend or not or no blend is not necessarily a negative sign. However, in the case of whey, you do want to see as the first ingredient a form. If it says whey it should be a way it should be whey isolate whey concentrate, it should not be any sort of milk protein, not that milk protein is bad, per se, it's just the it's the cheapest form of protein powder really, you can buy and the quality can vary widely. So the quality can also vary widely in whey concentrate, for example, a low quality whey concentrate, which I get pitched on all the time from Chinese suppliers. It can be as low as probably 30 or 40% protein by weight, and the rest is just fat and carbs. And if I were really unscrupulous, I could get that stuff. And then I could amino spike it by I can throw in a cheap amino acid that's nitrogen rich. So it'll test out as having, you know, 20-25 grams of protein per serving because it will have the nitrogen that would be present in 20 to 25 grams of protein per serving, but it actually doesn't have it has maybe nine grams of rest. And the rest is glycine. Glycine is a good one for that because it's it tastes good. It's sweet, and it's nitrogen rich. And, and so whey concentrate can vary again, from 30 to 40%, up to 80%. If it goes above 80, then it's now a whey isolate. And so that's one of the nice things about a whey isolate for it to actually be a whey isolate it has to be at least 80% protein by weight. And so if you are choosing a whey isolate, then you are you're not necessarily again, I don't want to say like oh you're just getting a better protein and you're going to, you're going to build muscle faster with the whey isolate than the whey concentrate, or even the milk protein? No. But you can be a bit more confident that it is a high quality product. Whereas the concentrate, it really depends now, who are you getting it from? And do you trust that company? You can look around online to see if there have been any third party lab analyses. There are many that you can find like I've seen quite a few on Reddit over the years where people who work in labs just take it upon themselves to buy some proteins on the market and just run tests. And some companies just then just put the data out there and say, Hey, here's what we found. Just so you know, for example, I've seen Optimum Nutrition consistently test well, over the years that I've seen people do that and that's, that's no surprise. I mean, they are the 800 pound gorilla there, they probably do over a billion dollars a year. And even most of that is proteins. I mean Glanbia owns them, they're fully vertically integrated, it'd be really stupid for them to do what I just said to amino spike to get cheap protein and then try to cut corners and then get caught. That'd be really dumb. So I'm not surprised they don't do that. And then you should also look with a protein powder, you should look at the size of the serving. So let's say it's 28 grams, and you want you want the amount of protein to be, it's not going to be exactly 28 grams because even in the cleanest, simplest protein powder unless it has nothing but protein powder. And that's it no flavoring, no excipient like really nothing, then you know, then yeah, it could, it could more or less match. But if you want it to taste like chocolate, for example, even if it is completely natural ingredients, it's going to require ironically, even more sweetener in particular, and also flavoring but more so sweetener if you're using natural to get it to taste good. So you're if it's a 28 grams serving, for example, it only has 22 grams of protein per serving, or 23. That's not a red flag, you just want to know, Okay, what else is in there? And if you look at the other ingredients, you're like, Okay, so it has stevia, it has some natural cocoa, it has some salt, and it has a couple of other things. Cool, I get that. But if it were a 28 gram serving, supersize, and that's listed right in the nutrition facts label, and it only had 19 grams of protein per serving. What else is in there? And you might find like, oh, it has a bunch of carbs? Well, that's an that's a no, no, like adding a bunch of carbs to a protein powder is just inappropriate. It's just done. Again, it's usually something cheap, like dextrose maltodextrin. And it's done to make it taste good. And but it's at the expense of calories and macros that you're now wasting. We want to drink protein, we don't want to
Chase
Unless you're in like the meal replacement shake kind of then you're more on target.
Mike
Correct. And, and that's I mean, that's another issue that something I don't like about a lot of those products is how many of them are full of dextrose and multi, just really cheap ingredients. But yes, correct carbs, at least are they are appropriate in the case of a weight gain or a meal replacement, but not in the case of a protein supplement. And then you should also I would say take a look at the at the labels, the ingredients and if there are a lot of very multi syllabic fancy sounding words that you pronounce again, you might want to look elsewhere. I don't I don't want to say that, that all chemicals are bad, and you'd be afraid of chemicals. But it's just not a good sign. And I say that, you know, working in the industry and knowing what goes on behind the scenes and knowing that it's not necessary to have a bunch of chemical junk in your products. It's just not I also this is something that is it's not as it's not as important as some people would have you believe but I think it's important enough to make my line all natural, which costs me a lot of money. I mean, to give you an example, my pre workout Pulse, it costs on average, I want to say probably $3 to $4 just to flavor and sweeten it with natural ingredients. I could literally cut that down to 50 cents a bottle if I went away artificial. If I was sucralose it would cut down the amount of masking agents that we need. Sucralose is super sweet. It's super cheap sucralose is bullshit. It's just a what you can do with sucralose is
Chase
So I mean I see that on Legions products and yeah I see that on a lot of other products really defined for so what does it mean naturally sweetened and flavored? Is that just clever marketing? Or what do you all actually putting in there rather not putting in there to maintain the integrity of naturally sweetened and flavored ingredients?
Mike
Yeah, that's a good question. And it actually, it brings me to another common sleight of hand that supplement sellers will use because the natural space, the natural supplement space, the natural food space, I mean, really even the natural beauty product space, natural is growing more people are more and more consumers are gravitating toward products that are more natural, containing fewer ingredients containing fewer chemicals. And that trend, I think, I don't think that that wave has even begun to crest yet I think that trend is going to continue to grow indefinitely, probably certainly into the foreseeable future. And so what some supplement marketers will do is they'll it'll say, naturally sweetened, or it'll say naturally flavored on the bottle right now and like Okay, that sounds good. If it's natural must be good, which is actually kind of a fallacy. That's how a lot of people think, right? Like, like, for example, ascorbic acid is not it's not natural, vitamin C, it's not right but in the body is just as good as the natural vitamin C, like, in that in that case, you know, the cofactors that come with eating an orange if we're talking about vitamin C, it has the same effects in the body as ascorbic acid. But anyways, so if you if you then look though, on the nutrition facts panel, if you look at the ingredients, what you may see is like wait a minute, yeah, this has stevia, and it has a resveratrol, which is a sugar, alcohol natural and, and even research even shows they can have health benefits. So that's cool. But then it also has aspartame or sucralose, you're like, wait, what? Because they didn't say that it is 100% naturally sweetened, they just said, naturally sweetened,
Chase
made with
Mike
Or they'll say naturally flavored, if they don't even have any natural sweetener in there. They just want to be able to put the word natural. And so again, as a consumer, when you see those things, I would I would implore you to not then just get into rationalizing there, lack of integrity for them, like oh, well, they probably didn't mean it. No, that's exactly what they meant. They meant for you to think that it is a natural product when it is not. And if they're willing to do that, what else are they willing to lie to you about? What else are they willing to try to fudge to make more money. And again, having been in the space now for seven years, in supplements, in particular, for seven years, I can say people are willing to do a lot of shady things for money. Unfortunately, that's kind of how the world works. And most of people's unethical behavior is just driven by greed. And it's unfortunate, but that's the human condition. I don't know what can I say?
Chase
And look at even more in detail, you know, the consumer here, look at you know, how much of that natural word or sentence was in big print or glossy film? And then how much of everything else was tiny, tiny small print,
Mike
Sometimes it's not even there's no, there is no tiny, it actually is just like, oh, naturally flavored or just naturally sweetened. And not the made with natural sweetness just straight up naturally sweet. So in the case of Legion stuff, it is truly 100% naturally sweetened and flavored. That means that there are no artificial sweeteners, there are no artificial food dyes, and no other artificial ingredients whatsoever. No chemical junk, except I would say, and this is this is, again, just me being very conscientious there is ascorbic acid in Triumph, for example. So that is you could say oh, well, that's not a that's not a 100% natural sport multivitamin and yeah, that's correct. But actually, that's why I actually don't say it is just and nobody would, it's me being like overly pedantic. It's not It's not even something that anybody would probably even bring up, right, because the vast majority of the ingredients, actually the natural sources are better. So we go with and in some cases, we choose very specific sources of ingredients that that have proven to be better absorbed. But there are a couple where it's like, there's just no reason to go ascorbic acid gets the job done. You're not gaining, you're not you're not getting anything, which you know, ironically, as I say that, I think that from a marketing perspective, it may be smarter actually, just to go with the flip the couple natural ones in there shortly because then it truly is like right now it's 97% or whatever. And actually, I'll make a mental note of that. But regardless. So why is this important? Why did I choose to go all natural is particularly with the natural sweeteners and you know, actually, I believe I actually just interjecting into my own mind here, I believe I believe I did actually pass that over to my CFO, like, why don't we just replace these couple with the natural so then, just from a marketing perspective, we can get a little bit of, of a boost from it. And then it's 100% honest, you know what I mean? But regardless why what why natural sweeteners, why natural flavoring and natural dyes as well that like come from fruits, for example, instead of chemical dyes? And I would say that none of those things are as bad as some of the alarmists would have you believe the what's the what was that girl? She's food, babe, like, Oh, she's probably still a thing and whatever, but like as the food babes of the world and have you believe? Yeah, the GMOs are not killing you. Just if you need to, if you can afford to get organic produce it, it may be worth it, you can get a bit more nutrition, maybe you'll get a bit less exposure to pesticides. Personally, I noticed a difference in taste. That's why I stick to organic produce, like it actually just tastes better to me.
Chase
Real fruits and vegetables, yes
Mike
It makes a difference. To me, at least I can taste the difference. You give me an organic banana versus a conventional and I could tell you which is which and organic strawberries
Chase
local farmers market Farmers Market organic stuff. It's just like, it's just next level think
Mike
yeah, you immediately bite into that strawberry and then you just get like a conventional strawberry Driscoll or whatever. And it makes the conventional almost tastes like nothing just like watered down sugar with a little bit of strawberry flavor palate and yeah
Chase
exactly your palate and then almost kind of differentiate the ingredients that make up this thing they are trying to sell you as a strawberry or whatever it is, versus all the other organic stuff. It's just like it's just like nectar of the gods that makes a difference.
Mike
So with these artificial ingredients, it's not that artificial sweetener is poison, or that the food dyes are poison, and that you can't have any amount of them under any circumstances. No, not true. But what is true. And there's more and more research that is proving this out is that if having too much of those chemicals every day is probably not good for your long term health, it's probably not good for your gut health in particular. And chances are, you'll notice a difference just how you notice when you have one whey protein versus another chances are, dear listener, you will notice a difference between eight to 10 servings of sucralose Ace k aspartame and what is the couple of the blue and red and yellow food dyes that you'll find commonly in particularly in sports nutrition products. versus not like I noticed a difference and I tend to have a steel trap stomach it takes a lot to upset my stomach for me to notice anything. And for me, it's probably about four or five servings. So I have four or five servings of any these things I just mentioned I feel a little bit off like my stomach just feels it just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel good. And in the case of sports, nutrition, people who are into this stuff they will have it can easily hit eight to 10 servings, depending on how sweet the product is. And so let's say let's start with it starts with the pre workout. And maybe they even you know, use one and a half servings. And again, it depends on how much is in a serving some pre workouts are sweeter than others. And then maybe they have a scoop of protein before they workout. a scoop of protein after they work out. They have a post workout supplement, maybe they have some BCAAs, which is a worthless supplement, but it's popular. Maybe they have some BCAAs or an intro workout, then they have some protein powder later. And then they maybe have the green supplement and you know it goes on then they are drinking more BCAAs and that's just that's just their sports nutrition. Maybe they also have an energy drink or two on top of that. So it can it can be pretty significant and doing that every day for weeks, months or years on end, is I do think it's fair to say that there is good scientific evidence that that is probably not ideal for your health. Now, if you were just to have a serving or two a day, for example, and maybe not even every day, I don't think it's fair to say that anything bad will likely happen you will almost certainly be totally fine. But again because of sports nutrition and because of how popular a lot of these products are and because of how into supplements a lot of gym goers are that's why I just thought that and this again is really was me scratching my own itch this was me creating the stuff that I wanted as well for myself but that's why I thought it was appropriate to go all natural and fortunately now again that trend is growing so we're able to legitimately claim that we are the number one biggest all natural sports nutrition brand in the world if you look at it just in terms of revenue really because there are companies that have natural like they'll do what I was talking about earlier they'll combine the yeah you know the natural with the unnatural but there aren't many brands out there that have fully committed to natural like we have.
Chase
Mike I love it man and getting kind of towards the end here I want to switch but
Mike
hold on one sec let me just shut this fucking window I thought it was a problem. I don't know what the fuck they're doing out there. Hold on one sec. All right. Sorry, fucking goddamn construction site out there. How are you guys running power machinery every day?
Chase
Yeah, dude, it reminds me living back in DC. It's just I felt like every single day from 7am until like 6pm was how do you always have something to jackhammer? Like, you can't need to like fuck up that amount of like asphalt every day. I don't get it. Jesus, I want to go back and talk before we wrap up. I want to go back to one thing that I wish he would have slid in right when we're kind of talking about the like multivitamin stuff, but it's all good. We're going to talk about the green superfood. Because that's one big thing that I think besides a multivitamin, no matter what the journey someone is on again, you can have all the best eating habits in the world to a certain degree, I also make the argument that most people could benefit from a increase in their attention on micronutrients coming from a super greens powder. Yours Genesis. Again, love what's in it and love what is not, all these things we've been talking about no proprietary blends backed by science third party tested 100% naturally sweetened. But you guys actually, you have a couple of things in there that not a lot of other green superfoods have in particularly mushroom, reishi mushroom and spirulina at the doses that I see; five grams of spirulina three grams of Reishi. Can you touch on the importance first of micronutrients? Why micronutrients in in the form of like a green superfood powder can most likely benefit the general public? But also like, why spirulina? Why Reishi? And those doses?
Mike
Yeah, yeah, the greens supplement is one of my favorite of ours, because saying these gradients, the ingredients are unique. Your average greens supplement is just mostly a blend of cheap blend of fruit and vegetable powders, which is okay, but I didn't do that because I would rather people and this is in the sales page. Like I would rather people just eat enough fruits and vegetables and, and more importantly, you really can't replace fruits and vegetables with powdered fruits and vegetables, you're losing fiber and you're losing other cofactors other elements that are in the food that you lose if you are taking a supplement. And that is how a lot of green supplements are sold. And that for example is one of these other red flags. If a company is selling a greens supplement as a replacement for or saying this is like getting 22 servings of vegetables in one scoop again, the pitch is like don't worry about eating fruits and vegetables just take this powder, bullshit. Stay away from that company because they're either ignorant or they are malevolent. They're just lying. It's one of the either they just don't know what they're talking about. And they think that that they're just marketers right and they haven't really looked into it. Or they know that's not true, but yeah it is music to some people's ears.
Chase
Exactly. Their spiel is like, hey, never have to touch a vegetable again in your life like that's not happening.
Mike
Or maybe they're trying to be a little bit more coy about it. Okay, yeah, you should still eat some vegetables. But check this out. This has nine servings of blueberries. It has 22 servings of broccoli Like do you want the bucket of broccoli? Or do you want the little scooper? So ours is very different and the reason it's green for example is the spirulina actually. And spirulina will make anything green. So be careful with that
Chase
Including your clothes, your sheets, your hands.
Mike
Correct, correct. And it is an algae and it is very nutritious. And there's quite a bit of research on it. And funny enough this is this is probably Kurtis His name's Kurtis. He is the co-founder and former lead researcher and writer of examined.com so anybody who's been to Examined most of that technical stuff was researched and written by Kurtis. He is probably the single most knowledgeable person that I'll ever meet when it comes to just biology and supplementation. He heads up Legions Scientific Advisory Board. So he really he has been the brains behind the formulations from the beginning. And so I take essentially no credit for our formulation sometimes I have some input that is no but usually not honestly because not only that we have other people other thought leaders in the evidence based fitness space on the board, Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, Menno Henselmans, James Krieger, Eric Helms and others. So between all of them, I usually don't have much useful input honestly, sometimes I'll find some research that Kurtis just hasn't found yet. Like he probably would as he does his rounds, but I'll send something his way occasionally where he is like oh that's interesting. I hadn't I didn't see that. I'll look into that.
Chase
Mike's like I got one all right.
Mike
Yeah, I got it. I finally I finally contributed. But spirulina is Kurtis's one of his favorite molecules just because he loves he loves all the effects that it has. He loves how it works. He's just super into this stuff. Right? So he was super happy that you know, we have spirulina. And if you look at the research, in terms of benefits, it can improve cholesterol profile, it can increase strength, it can increase athletic performance. Another study came out on that just recently, which is something that I mean, we don't even really pitch that because the evidence wasn't good for it previously. But now another study came out, which is kind of cool. It can reduce muscle damage caused by exercise it can it can help mitigate or help lessen allergies. That's something that I appreciate, especially right now I'm in Florida and there's pollen everywhere. There's oak pollen in particular everywhere. And that stuff used to really mess me up when I was a teenager. I mean, my eyes would be I wouldn't even be able to do this interview right now. I'd be sneezing and my eyes would be just I just be itching my eyes and sneezing basically, that'd be the interview. And now it's now it's not anything like that. But I still will get a little bit of eye itching and a little bit of congestion from the oak pollen. But by taking spirulina every day, that brings it down to basically nothing and I actually just experienced it here because she said to walk out so I brought Yeah, I brought I brought my Genesis with me. And then I ran out of it because it wasn't I thought I had more in it than I did. And so I was without it for a few days. And I was starting to notice the oak pollen in my eyes a little bit. Not too bad. But just Yeah, a little a little like, you know, a shading of what it used to and then now I'm staying at my parents’ house visiting them. And they actually found some in their in their pantry and took some and immediately notice that that went away. So that's cool. I mean, spirulina can help lower blood pressure, it can help protect liver health improves insulin sensitivity, it does a lot of cool stuff in the body. And five grams a day. Yeah, that's, that's the clinically effective dose and that's what you'll find in Genesis. And so that's just one of those. I think, again, it's just a great ingredient. It's just a great molecule that can benefit your body in many different ways.
Chase
Back in the day, I used to take it before I got into greens powders I used to take it just on its own I would get like powder from whole foods or something I would put it in you know my water or protein smoothie kind of thing. You know, and then I would then I went down the rabbit hole of blue spirulina and all these other all these other items. It's powerful stuff. It's one of the oldest known living substances ever on earth and it's like honestly, I may be getting this confused with carella so for some reason always matches up but I think it is like gram for gram or like entity by entity. It's one of the most like protein nutrient dense molecules like living is we've ever experienced.
Mike
It's a very popular standalone ingredient. My wife takes it every day, she would take Genesis, but she doesn't do well with stevia, it actually like just, she can even get kind of nauseous from it, which is unfortunate. And that's just some people, they some people, for example, they get stomach aches with creatine, they just can't take any form, it doesn't matter, they just can't do it. So even natural ingredients, you know, some people just their bodies don't like them. But you can you can. You don't get much of that, like you can get more of that stuff, the more chemicals are in the products.
Chase
the other item there, the reishi mushroom, I mean, this stuff, I've been using Reishi for probably six, seven years on a daily basis at this point. And I love how you guys have it in a greens powder. Because again, my belief is that all of us could focus on enhanced attention on micronutrients and something like Reishi and adaptogen of functional mushroom. Like this is something that like creatine to your point, like we know, is effective. Reishi is the most clinically studied and time after time proven, beneficial functional mushroom we've ever encountered. But also just anecdotally, like humans, the Chinese, the east, they've been using this stuff for 1000s and 1000s of years.
Mike
Yep. Yep. And Western science has, has now discovered many of the reasons why like we know that Reishi can help with your sleep, it can help with your brain health, it can help with your cholesterol, it can help with your immune system, your kidney health, it is a multi-factorial winner, it's one of those ones that you just you just get a lot of bang for that buck. And that was also kind of the philosophy behind Genesis is, again, instead of making some cheap, lame fruit and vegetable powder product, let's just encourage people to eat fruits and vegetables and focus on things that they're not going to eat. They're just not going to get in their diet that can really provide benefits above and beyond the healthy dieting. And so that's why you have like maca for example. I mean, sure you can buy maca powder and you could put it in a smoothie if you want but still you're buying a supplement like you're not going to buy the root and cook it up and eat it. You are just not.
Chase
Maybe some people in LA or Venice maybe.
Mike
but yeah, so that's a product that again, I like a lot and it has a lot of for people who understand it and appreciate it. They really they really like it and make it one of their go twos.
Chase
Amazing, man. Well, Mike, I feel like I could keep picking your brain for forever, man. It's been so great having you back here on the show. I love how this conversation we've been really able to help the consumer, the listener, better understand nutrition better understand why they might want to consider supplements, what they should be looking for. You know, of course, I'm a raving fan and love, you know, using and working with partnering with Legion now here in 2021. It really was a lot of the stuff on the backside that that sold me the third party testing the scientific advisory board the level of ingredients that aren't in there a lot of times that's what I'm after. I'm after companies that want to just do the due diligence on their own because they care about their personal health and wellness. And they just happen to make a great product that helps me do the same thing.
Mike
Yeah, I love it. And I appreciate that. I appreciate your support. And what we're doing tends to resonate best with people like you we have a lot of a lot of our customers are, are very educated for example a lot of people with and we know this from Quantcast data, we have a lot of people with advanced college degrees and a lot of people who work actually in related fields, who really understand when they see these ingredients, they're often surprised like, oh, wow, yeah, they put that in there. And they put it in the correct amount, which is something that we touched on a little bit that clinically effective dose. And so that that from the beginning was also kind of a I was looking at that through the through the lens of marketing, and I did it that way one because I just think it's the right thing to do, honestly, like, I believe in trying to treat people the way I want to be treated. And I think that that should apply in business as well. So I try to treat consumers the way I'd want to be treated as a consumer. But then there's also, I think, a good business case to be made for by doing it that way I've attracted a lot of people like you who have their own spheres of influence. So yeah, when I win someone over like you, I've not just one over one customer, but I have now won over a lot more people because you want to tell people about it. And even if you weren't doing the type of work that you're doing, that that's going to be the case, you know, if you are just take it let's say you had a had a PhD in something and you teach in a university, for example, okay, you're not doing podcasts and online influencing stuff like that, but you are a quote unquote influencer still.
Chase
You know, before the show before this, you know, I day in day out, I would go and I would work with clients work with patients, I was a Clinical Health Coach. And we would we would talk about a lot of these things. And then because they're going to ask exactly many times, then it came down to Well, what do you take? What do you what do you use? What do you believe? And I would keep, you know, in my office for personal use, but also out there, I would say hey, here are the things that I use, here's what I take, and we would we would go down that rabbit hole of people. And yeah, sphere of influence is there especially you know, at that at that clinical level, so I was in the office years ago, and now it's just on a microphone and through the internet nowadays.
Mike
And it needs to be done right, though to really gain the wholehearted endorsement of someone like you, and people out there again, you have their own spheres of influence. And that was something else I wanted to like. That's why one of the reasons why we don't sell a BCAA supplement, we get asked for it all. Yeah, it's the number one requested supplement, and we don't sell BCAAs because they're useless. They're just useless.
Chase
I think it is just the water change up, you know, just something.
Mike
And I that's exactly what people even say like, well, just all I've, I've explained it to customers, in our in our customer experience, people, I've explained it that we don't make them because there are maybe a couple fringe cases you could find were like, okay, you're training seven hours a day, and you just can't eat enough protein. And maybe, but for the rest of us no, there's just no good use. That's why we don't do it. And ironically, many customers have acknowledged that like, Okay, well, that's cool. And it's good to know, that's why you're not selling but, but if you made them just to make my water taste better, I'm just telling you, I buy them from you. And I'm still going to keep buying them with you, but if I were selling a BCAA, or if I were selling a hormone, testosterone booster, right, which, unfortunately, there's just nothing natural that you can take to really make a difference. DHEA is an exception if you are a guy and you're probably in your 40s or beyond. And so you've started to really experience a natural decline there is there is research show the DHEA can help. In that case, also women as well, actually, but we're talking about testosterone booster like bigger boners, bigger biceps, you know, alpha male supplements been off line, it's
Chase
That is going to be my spinoff it will be boners and biceps for sure.
Mike
You will make some sales, it will not be a complete flop. We're talking about that. There is no natural supplement to accomplish that. That requires the dedication period. Right that that's it got to get on the vitamin, the vitamin T for that. And so and so if though we were to sell one of those products, then it kind of muddies the water. Now, when you're looking over something like you're like, Okay, I like that. I like that. I like that. I really don't like that. And so then now why is this here? And what does that mean? And then And then again, rightfully so you start asking questions, what else could they be doing that I don't know about and that I can't verify that I would have a problem with like, like, for example, okay, they say these ingredients are in their products but how do I really know? now in our case, we provide certificates of analyses third party lab tastes like people can actually go and verify on the sales page. We were updating our sales pages, we've always had them and we've provided them upon request, but now we are putting them like on the sales page so people can see from the last batch. Oh, cool. Here's the lab test. Good. And so, you know, that's also something that that I've just been cognizant of, is that I want people like you to be able to just go all in and say, you know, maybe you'd say I don't take every single one of Legion supplements because I just don't need to but I take all of these ones and I stand behind everything that they do. And I stand behind their educational material. And so if anything makes sense to you over at Legion, just know you're in good hands. And so you know that's the experience that I'm trying to create.
Chase
Absolutely, man. Well, it's the experience is there and being in good hands is what you know, the show is all about and you know, it's been a year since you asked the final question. But you know, all these conversations and in questions and inquiries we have in our health, fitness, wellness, nutrition mindset, it's so that we can keep moving forward in life man so that we can live a life ever forward. How do you do that? How does Legion help other people do that?
Mike
I'll say, well, in a few different ways. I mean, one of the things that I particularly like about the companies that we are education first, we really are, we put a lot of time, I still spend time on the blog, I, of course, spend time on my podcast, I'm always working on the next book and I have now a team of people who also write with me on the blog, they write under their names. So anything that is published by me was written by me, I have a couple of people who may help with some drafting and putting together some initial outlining and stuff just to save me some time. But I still do that work. And we are very open about everything that we've talked about, particularly in the beginning of the podcast, like you don't need supplements to do what you want to do. Just so you know, like, if you can get into great shape, you can look good, you can feel good. supplements are supplementary, by definition that is true of ours and anybody else's. So don't believe that there is a magic pill powder potion, it doesn't exist, however, and then we go into, you know, the lot of the education that we've that we've shared on this podcast is just baked into the DNA of the company. And that's also why we offer a coaching service, it's sure it makes money, but in the scheme of things, it doesn't make nearly as much money as the revenue is kind of irrelevant. It's more just a service that some people want. And I know we can do a really good job with it. And we've now worked with 1000s of people ages and circumstances. And it's just great to see those success stories. And it also does make good business sense. Because a lot of those people are now they're customers for the long haul. Because again, we didn't just give them a pill or powder and say, yeah, thanks for your money, we really helped them get their body into a better place
Chase
educated and empowered the individual.
Mike
Exactly, exactly. And so that's why I continue to spend a lot of my time and a lot of Legions resources on creating more content and getting our content that is created more out there into search engines. I mean, just even the investment into ongoing SEO is pretty significant. It just is if you I mean creating stuff is one thing but getting it getting it, getting it ranked in Google and getting it visible is another thing. And so that's, I would say that in a funny way, the supplements are maybe not second to the education. But I would say if we're putting them on both sides of a scale, it's pretty evenly balanced. It's certainly in terms of what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm not just trying to sell supplements and make money, even just sell good supplements that actually do help people. But I want to I want the whole 360 degree when you know I want them to have their supplementation, where it needs to be. But I also want to make sure that people know how to get their diet where it needs to be and their training where it needs to be in. And then I also venture off a little bit into lifestyle stuff. I focus mostly on just health and fitness. But talk a bit about maybe the inner game of not just getting fit but living a better life where you're always trying to strive for the next thing and improve yourself. And so, yeah, those are, those are the, my contributions to humanity as it stands right now.
Chase
The core values how they blend with us over here, man. So, Mike, again, I'm going to have all your information down in the show notes for everybody to check out the muscle for life, podcast, Legion athletics, I'm going to make sure to put down you know all of my go to Legion supplements and not only what I take, but why you know why I gravitated towards you guys why I gravitated towards this product and how I integrate it into my daily living my nutrition. There's a lot of lot of a lot more that goes on here than just you know, popping a few pills or scooping a few powders. Totally love it, man. Beautiful brother. Well, I'll wrap the interview there.
Mike
Hey, I'm Mike Matthews and I'm the CEO and founder of Legion, which is a sports nutrition company, we sell workout supplements and on this episode of Ever Forward Radio, I'm going to talk to you about why you don't need supplements. My supplements are anybody's supplements, why they are supplementary by definition. But if you have the budget and you have the inclination, why there are certain supplements you should consider adding to your regimen. And I'm going to explain which those are and why you should consider them and also I'm going to help you navigate the very turbulent seas of sports nutrition and find products that are likely to work and unfortunately many, many of them don't work. And if you don't know what to look for it can be very hard to know a good one from a bad one.