Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host Latham Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. It is time for another weekly episode before I hop into this episode.
Speaker: Quick reminder, if you can leave a review, continue to help get this show out to more people, I'd greatly appreciate that. At the time of this recording, this is episode number 181, which means I have been doing this podcast for about three and a half years now.
Speaker: And I think throughout that time span, I've only missed two weeks. So we've been going pretty strong, trying to stay consistent with this. And I really do appreciate you helping to grow this show. The best way that podcasts grow is by subscribing, but then also just sharing this with other people. If you think people are going to get value from it, if you think.
Speaker: It's a decent show and you get information and value from this, leaving a review, all those things help tremendously to help get this show out to more people because that is the ultimate goal with this show as it always has been since I started this. Help to make fitness more practical, make it simple, make it actionable and help people live better, look better, all those different things that every single one of us want. So I really do appreciate your part in helping that happen. The topic for this week's episode, we're going to talk a little bit about training, but specifically how to train better in your 30s so you can actually get better results than you did in your 20s.
Speaker: Backing up just a little bit, I think we all kind of feel as we get a little bit older that health in general and specifically your physical health starts to dwindle a little bit. And that's not something that has to happen. Of course, father time is going to get everybody. As you get older, it does get a little bit harder to build muscle, to recover, to hit those goals that you want. But that doesn't mean that you need to just all of a sudden hit 30 years old and then drop off a cliff and feel like crap and not be able to move and all those different things.
Speaker: Far too often, I hear people saying things like that, or they get into their 30s and they think they can't play sports anymore, they shouldn't lift heavy weights, or they can't do this, or they're limited by their physical capacities. And that's ridiculous, in my opinion.
Speaker: You're 30 years old, you're not 70 years old. So I wanted to make a podcast just jumping into a lot of the guiding principles that has helped me to build muscle to get fitter to most importantly allow me to get in better shape as i get older and also things that i use with clients and with working in gyms i personally put in over 3 000 workouts and i've trained thousands of people for thousands of hours in all different settings all different kinds of people and so there's things that i've started to just notice patterns that i've started to take notice of that really help to drive the best results and to end up being the most important and i'm also going to give you two free weeks of workouts if you want to try those i'll attach the pdf in the show notes
Speaker: in this as well. Just some workouts that I've actually been really loving lately. So 30 minute workouts, get in the gym, 30 minutes, get some solid workouts in a couple different styles of workouts mixed in there. And so I'm going to attach that as well. So you'll have that. You can check that out. Try those workouts if you would like. So you can also leave this podcast with some actual training things that you can try.
Speaker: The reason that I wanted to do this episode specifically is I'm a huge believer that your health in your 30s is a separating decade for a lot of people. And the reason that I say that is because in your 20s, you can really get away with a lot of stuff. You can eat a lot of different things, maybe not eat the healthiest diet. You can survive on three, four, five hours of sleep. You can drink alcohol, do all those things. And you can still, if you're going to the gym,
Speaker: a couple times a week consistently, you can still get stronger and make progress. That's just the beauty of being young and your body being super resilient. As you get into your 30s and beyond, you have to be much smarter about those things because you can no longer get away with those certain things. If you're not getting enough sleep, if you're drinking all the time, if your diet is crap, you are not going to feel really good. And then ultimately, you're going to end up just feeling like crap. You're going to feel drained. You're going to be battling injuries all the time. You're going be spinning your wheels, trying to make progress, but never really feeling like you're actually doing those things.
Speaker: And also with getting a little bit older, getting into your thirty s there's some things that you have to just start to take notice of. So after you hit the age of 30, your body is naturally trying to dwindle down the amount of muscle mass that you have. Muscle mass is an expensive tissue to keep on your body, which is just a fancy way of saying it takes more energy to keep muscle around. So your body starts to get rid of that as you start to get older, unless you give it a reason to keep that muscle around. You can build muscle well into your 60s, 70s and beyond, but only if you're strength training and sending that signal to your body. So you can directly combat this muscle loss thing by just focusing on a good training program and focusing on building muscle and strength training. So training becomes so much more important as you start to get older for that reason. Second reason, metabolism for a lot of people feels like it starts to slow down as we get older.
Speaker: In reality, we know based on studies that is not really the case. From the age of about 20 to 60 years old, your metabolism slows down very little. And then even after 60 years old, your metabolism does start to slow down, but it's not to the extent that people think.
Speaker: And so the reason that people feel like their metabolism is slowing down is because really your healthy habits are starting to slow down. When you think back to your Late teens, in your early 20s, when you're going to school, you're playing sports, you're active, you have a social life, you're hanging out with friends, you're doing all these different things, you are super active. So you're getting tons of steps in, tons of activity, tons of exercise in. And so you're not really having these troubles with putting on tons of weight or feeling like your metabolism is slow because you're just doing so much more.
Speaker: As you start to get older, you start to take on more responsibilities. You start to get a little bit more bit more sedentary. Maybe you get a desk job. You're just not moving around a whole lot. You start to add other things on top of that, like kids, like other responsibilities, like less social outings and different things like that where you're just not out and doing as much. And you've couple that with eating a little bit more over time. So maybe the diet starts to slip. Maybe you start to rely more on convenience foods, fast foods, because your life is just busy. And those are the things that are easy to turn to.
Speaker: so you are eating more, moving less, which we all know is the opposite of the general advice of losing weight. So then you start to gain weight. And then you look up five years, 10 years down the line, and you're in your 30s now, and you're 30 pounds heavier than you were when you were 20s and you think that it's your metabolism. In reality, your metabolism did not slow down. Your healthy habits and your lifestyle slowed down. And so a good training program that you actually enjoy, that you do consistently, that gets you active and excited about being physically active is, again, another way to fight directly against that, to keep your metabolism high. Because the two
Speaker: Most critical things that you can do to help keep that metabolism high and feel like it's running efficiently is to increase your activity and to build muscle. If you do those two things, you're going to give yourself a much better shot at keeping that metabolism running in the way that we want it to be running so you're not adding on a bunch of extra weight as you start to get older.
Speaker: Another thing with this is just to, as you get older, getting more fit and just getting in shape, it starts to get a little bit harder. So I always like to think of fitness and think of health as an investment.
Speaker: The earlier that you start investing those deposits into that health bank account, the better off you're gonna be in the same way that it's more, advantageous to invest earlier with money because we know that compounding effect over time starts to build that money up. Same thing with your health. If you start to build really healthy habits, if you start to build a considerable amount of muscle, if you start to lift heavy weights so you can increase your bone density and really just set yourself up in your 20s and in your 30s with good healthy habits and just a good health and solid body, you're going to be better off in your 50s and beyond. So start to think of your health as an investment because it's never too late to start to work on your health and get in shape. But it is harder as you get older. There's no denying that. So why not start earlier, help yourself out, use that compounding effect so that as you get older, it doesn't feel so difficult to change these things.
Speaker: And then the last thing that I wanted to just throw in here before we hop into the bulk of this episode is Something that I hear all the time with people who are in their 30s, a lot of the people that I work with are in their 30s and early 40s, they have kids at this time. And one of the things that I hear time and time again is that people want to get healthier because they want to be better for their children.
Speaker: So if you have kids or you plan on having kids, I don't currently have children, but I think that using your kids and using your family as a motivator to get healthy and to really start to take care of your health in your thirty s can be a really strong motivator to get you going. Because obviously, you want to do these things because you want to feel better. But I think sometimes we forget that our health doesn't just affect us. It's always your choice on what you want to do with your health. But you can't deny the fact that your health affects the people around you, and especially the people who are closest to you. So your spouse, your kids, those different people that are around you directly, they are getting better.
Speaker: your habits, they are getting how much energy you have to give to them, they are getting your best or your worst self, depending on how you're feeling. If your health is crappy, you're probably not showing up as your best self, you're probably not able to do the things that you want to do Maybe you're not able to play with your kids or do different things like that, you're stressed, you're not able to handle different things that are thrown at you. Versus if you are super healthy and taking care of yourself, you're just able to show up as a better version of yourself and give those people that mean the most to you.
Speaker: a little bit better version of yourself. And on top of that, if you do have kids, one thing that we know is if you are showing them the right example, kids are much better at watching than they are at listening. I was a teacher for quite a while. I've been an uncle since I was five years old. I have spent quite a few years around kids. I don't have my own kids, but I've spent a lot of time around kids. And one thing that I know is they are very good at watching and repeating things that you do. They don't always listen to what you have to say, but I promise those kids are always watching. And so if you're providing them with a good example, if you're showing them what healthy habits can be, you're setting them up with an environment to be healthy. I think that is one of the biggest gifts that you can give to kids. Because as they start to get older, if those things just seem natural to them, they're going to be so much further ahead than so many other people. And so you can use that as a motivator if that's something that you have or something that you plan on having in the future with having a family, having kids, those sorts of things. I think that's a really strong thing to start to think about as you're in your thirty so
Speaker: What drew me into all this is in my 20s, the reason that I got into fitness super heavy was obviously losing weight. I've talked about that many of times on different podcasts, so I won't jump into that too much with a lot of detail, but Basically, I wanted to lose as much weight as possible and I wanted to get as jacked as possible. i also wanted to be confident, get strong, be healthier, all that different stuff. But if I'm being honest, like it was about losing weight and I wanted to just get jacked. I wanted to have muscles and I wanted to lose fat.
Speaker: So I basically just cared about how I looked when I was in my twentys There's nothing wrong with that. And as I'm into my 30s now, like I still care about how I look. And I think that's just human nature with all of us. We want to look better. We want to feel confident. We want to look in the mirror and actually like what we're seeing. And there's nothing wrong with it. I think if you polled 100 people, something about aesthetics like looking better, losing weight, losing fat, building muscle would be very high, if not number one, on a majority of the people that you asked.
Speaker: So I don't think there's anything wrong with getting into health and fitness to want to look better. But I also think as you start to get older, you do have to take note of those other things that are also important. So your long term health, your longevity, being able to do all the things that you want to do, having energy, all those different things start to become a little bit more important as you start to get older.
Speaker: I think at 22, my main goal was just to do as much as possible. I found one of my old training notebooks recently back when I was in college and like really starting to get into this stuff after my senior football season. And the workouts that I was doing were absolutely nuts. I was just doing tons and tons of volume, tons of sets, tons of reps, lifting all the weight. And I just thought that more was better. Like if I'm lifting weights and if two sets or three sets is good, then five must be better. So the amount of work that I was doing in my workouts was was insane. And they're not things that I would probably replicate now at this time, because as you start to get older, you start to realize that more is not always better. Better is better. You want to train really hard at times. You want to do a little bit more at times, maybe add a few sets, few reps, maybe even add a few extra workouts in. But if you're just constantly doing that,
Speaker: It's very likely that you're going to lead to some injuries. You're probably not going to feel all that great. It's just not the smartest way to train. And so you want to start to actually think about how can I train better for the goals that I have as I start to get in my 30s and beyond.
Speaker: At 22, things like cardio, things like mobility or moving better, stretching, things like rest days, they were kind of just an afterthought. I didn't really do any of that kind of stuff. And I don't think most people in their 20s really focus on any of that stuff because you can just bounce back so quickly and get away with so much more. But as you start to get into your 30s, those things start to matter a lot more if you do really want to feel your best, if you want to have your best health, if you want to keep living life on your own terms. And I think Again, for most people, looking better in their 20s is a huge focus. But as you get into your 30s, you really do have to start to think about there's nothing wrong with wanting to look better. But now we want to start to live better. So with that being said,
Speaker: Number one thing you have to understand with training, progressive overload. If nothing else, if you don't learn anything else from this entire episode, just understand this one single principle. And then you can start to work out or start to train in a way that you're always going to see results. Because at the basics of all this, you need to progressively overload, just meaning you need to send a signal to your body that it needs to adapt and change and get better. Otherwise, you're just going stay stuck. And if we have goals around losing weight, around building muscle, around getting fitter, around having better cardio, around having more flexibility or more mobility, you have to slowly overload your body in a way where it is forced to adapt and get better. And if you don't do that, if you're always just going through the motions or you're not really pushing yourself, or you're not being consistent, you're never really going to see those type of changes that you want to see.
Speaker: So in basic strength training terms, progressive overload is just lifting more weight for more reps with better technique over time. But you can also apply this to every other kind of goal that you have. So this could be with lifting weights. This could be with cardio.
Speaker: This could be with really any other kind of fitness endeavor that you have. So when you think about it from a strength perspective, like more volume, more weight, more reps, those are all easy ways to think about this. But when you think about this from, let's say, like cardio, if I'm running further distances, if I'm running faster paces, if I'm increasing the miles that I'm running in a week.
Speaker: i'm slowly progressing that over time then i'm using that progressive overload to get better there's also some non-traditional ways that you can start to think about these things too because i think sometimes people get so pigeonholed and thinking about i just need to add more weight to the bar when i'm strength training or with cardio i need to run faster but there's so many different other ways too that you can also improve and those aren't the only singular things that matter for progressive overload so when we think about something like strength training If your range of motion is increasing, so maybe you can't get all the way down to your chest with the barbell or you can't get very low in your squats.
Speaker: If those things are increasing over time and you're able to take those things through a complete range of motion with good control, that means that you are getting better. You're progressively overloading. You're going to see better results, feel better, all those different things. So that's not anything that you should be ignoring because those things matter too.
Speaker: if you have the ability to do more work in less time. So let's say, for example, you're trying to get some cardio in and your goal is to go out and run 30 minutes. And the first time you go out and you run 30 minutes, you get two and a half miles. And then slowly over time, you continue to run that 30 minutes. And then at a certain point, maybe you get to three miles and then three and a half miles. So you're running faster paces in that time. be able to do more work in less time that means that you are getting more fit you are using that progressive overload to get better if your movement quality is improving like your form your technique your control you're able to move weights faster and with more body control those things are all signs that you are progressively overloading and getting better if you're able to rest less so maybe you're doing like a HIIT workout and the first time that you go in there you just feel like you're out of breath the entire time you're having to rest longer But as you go back in and you start to do more of that, you need less rest time and you're able to perform better because you're getting fitter over time.
Speaker: It's a really simple concept. And once you actually understand it, you can start to weed through some of the crappy programs out there because not all programs are built on progressive overload. Sometimes people just put programs together with no real rhyme or reason or just throw a bunch of random stuff together just to move. And I'm all for movement. i'm all for movement. Any kind of movement, in my opinion, is good. But if you want to see results, if you want to get better over time, your plan that you're following has to have some sort of rhyme or reason and progressive overload should be that underlying principle. So you place that stressor on the body, you give it some time to recover, it adapts, you get stronger, you get fitter, you get faster, whatever kind of quality that you're training. And over time, you do that for weeks, four months, and you stack those things and you start to get all those results. You get stronger, you build muscle, you get fitter, you get faster, all those different things. So if you go through a period of time where you're not really seeing the changes that you want to see, you just have to go back to this principle. Ask yourself, am I putting the right stresses? Am I putting enough stress on my body to force it to change? This is the foundation of all training. And so once you understand that, and apply that. There's no more doing stupid programs. There's no more wasting a bunch of time. There's no more wondering if what you're doing is actually going to get you the result, because if you follow this principle, you will see results over time.
Speaker: The training guidelines, getting into the bulk of this episode. So I came up with 10 different guidelines for training. So after 3000 plus of my own workouts, after i don't even know how many workouts I've put in or how many sessions I've coached through personal training, through strength and conditioning, through small group training through being a pe teacher through different internships like probably at this point well over 10 000 hours that i've coached or been a part of different training sessions but these are just some things that i have noticed to be really important if you do want to see results and especially to see results and be able to do this for a long period of time number one is
Speaker: Something is always better than nothing. If you can't get the full workout in, you can't get the full cardio session in, you can't get your 10,000 steps for the day, just get what you can for that day. Something that I think is super underrated is just the ability to keep the momentum going. So a lot of people when it comes to fitness, when it comes to dieting, when it comes to a lot of things around health, they feel like they need to be perfect. And if they can't do things perfectly, like if they can't get the full workout in or if they can't eat, perfect for that day. They just do nothing. And it's the stupidest thing ever. You don't take that approach in other areas of your life. And so I don't know why people feel the need to apply that to fitness.
Speaker: But you should not do that. I'm a huge advocate for just doing what you can. There's going to be certain days where life gets busy, or you're stressed, or for whatever reason, you just can't get the full thing in. And that is perfectly fine. But get whatever you can get in. Keep that momentum going and then show up the next day and do it again.
Speaker: Anything that you can get in that is above zero is compounding over time. So even if I can't get the hour long workout in, if I get a 20 minute workout in, that's still compounding over time. But if I do nothing, that's not adding anything. So try to always do something. And especially from that psychological, from that mental standpoint, if you can keep stacking those days and keep that momentum going, it makes this process feel so much better.
Speaker: Number two, practical over perfection. If something isn't practical, it's not really optimal. And the reason that I'm bringing this up is because too often I see people trying to look for the perfect training plan or they just keep hopping from plan to plan because they think this plan is going to be better than this one or this plan promises all these things and does this thing. And Too many people just hop from different things trying to look for the perfect option or the perfect training plan or the perfect diet and they never really settle on anything. They don't really do anything long enough to actually see decent results. And so when you can just find a good plan, it doesn't have to be the perfect plan and do it consistently with a good intent. That's going to be way better than doing some perfect plan or from hopping from this plan to this plan or finding this plan that you think is perfect, but you're doing it inconsistently because you don't really like it or you just don't really even understand it, but you're just trying to follow it blindly.
Speaker: you're much better off just finding some average basic plan doing that consistently and then adding some intensity on top of that over time you're going to see better results that way than looking for this perfect plan or that most optimal plan because especially if you hop on social media there's just so much of that and it just it's overwhelming for a lot of people so find a decent plan stick to that plan for a while if you're seeing results continue sticking to that plan and then once results maybe start to slow down or maybe halt then you can start to add some new things or change a few different things but hopping from program to program or just never starting because you're looking for this perfect plan is a mistake that you definitely want to avoid.
Speaker: A lot of times training, especially as you get older and into your 30s, it just has to be good enough. You don't need to force yourself to do these perfect exercises or if your gym is doesn't have some certain machine or the gym is really busy, like you can always swap different exercises out. It doesn't have to be perfect. You don't always have to do everything completely by the book either. Like if you're trying to increase your maximal strength, a lot of times it's a good idea to rest at least two minutes, three minutes, sometimes even five minutes. If you're really trying to maximize your strength, that's not practical for a lot of people. So if you can only rest 60 seconds between your exercises to get your workout in, I'd much rather have you do something like that. Just get the work in and then let's make some progress over time, even if it isn't perfect and trying to
Speaker: do everything by the book and rest for three minutes between every single set. It's just not real life. So you have to be practical about these things rather than trying to be perfect about these things. Show up, you get some decent work in and then you do it again the next day. Think of your training like a practice. So you're not going in there every single day to just completely blow it out of the water. If you think about it like sports, like you don't show up on day one of the new season and put in the entire playbook. You put in a couple plays, you practice those plays, and then the next day you show up and you do that again. And then over time, you have this vast playbook that you can use in your games and do better with, but you don't just show up on day one and try to do everything. Training is the exact same way. You don't show up on day one and try to train every single different quality, get stronger, build endurance, get really good at the squat, do max bench, like add all these different things. You're not trying to do that. You show up, you get a little bit better at a couple of things. And then you do that day after day for several weeks, several months, several years. And now you're in a really good spot. So Don't overthink this stuff. It doesn't need to be as complicated as people make it out. Just find a decent plan and do it consistently and add intensity over time. You'll be in really good shape.
Speaker: next on the list strength is king strength is the foundation of pretty much all fitness so you always want to have strength as part of your goal strength is really good for your health and on top of that it's really good for building muscle if you're focusing on strength training strength training is the best way to build muscle mass and we know for a lot of different reasons muscle is really important it's important for longevity it's important for looking good it's important for your metabolism It's important for your quality of life and the things that you're able to do. So getting strong is always going to be a really good idea. when we're talking about getting strong i think one of the best ways to talk about strength is just being able to handle your body weight so being able to do things like push-ups like pull-ups like dips like lunges like single leg squats so those are all really good things to do if you can do those things you're probably going to be in pretty good shape a lot of times you'll hear people throw around these arbitrary numbers around like you need to squat this much or deadlift this much or bench as much And I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with those things. But I think for from a much practical, much more practical perspective, just being able to handle your body weight makes more sense. Because if I have someone who can squat 1000 pounds, but they can't bend over and touch their toes, I don't know how healthy that person is. Or if I have somebody who can bench 500 pounds, but they can't do a single pull up.
Speaker: Again, I don't know how healthy that person is. There's nothing wrong with getting strong. And I think using squats and deadlifts and benches and being able to hit your body weight or double your body weight on those exercises in certain instances is a great thing to shoot for, is a great goal. But you can't miss the force for the trees here with just trying to build up your strength so much, but then leaving these other qualities in. and not being able to handle your body weight or have decent mobility or have some sort of cardio. So strength is always going to be the foundation and super important, but you don't want to focus so much on strength that you forget all these other important parts of training and these important parts of just being health in general.
Speaker: Number, I think this number five, build a big engine. So this is a compliment to strength. When I talk about building a big engine, what I mean is just increasing your capacity to do more. So for example, if you are coming from straight off the couch, you haven't been training, you haven't maybe really been doing anything, you're not really in great shape. It does not take that much to get you really sore and tired. You could go to the gym and do a couple sets of a couple different exercises. You're probably going wake up pretty sore. And we probably all had that situation where we haven't done something in a while. And then maybe you go play basketball or you go do some sort of sport or you go work in the yard for like four hours or do something really strenuous that you haven't done for a while and you wake up the next day and your body just feels like crap. Like you just feel like you can barely move, you're stiff, you're sore. And so when you increase your capacity over time, you're able to just do more in general. And this translates really well to your overall life. Because if you're not sore all the time, if you have more energy, if you have the ability to just do a lot of different things, that's super practical with just living a better life and being able to do all the things that you want to do. And so this is something that you can do both inside the gym and outside of the gym, um which is why I'm such an advocate for so many different types of exercise. I think lifting weights is great. As I just said, strength is the foundation of
Speaker: all of this fitness, but also just doing other things. So playing sports, hiking, doing some cardio, all those different activities that you do is really helpful in helping to develop this big engine. There's a term that's thrown around a lot in sports where you'll hear people say like, oh, that dude is farm boy strong. And this is again, being able to increase your capacity outside the gym. So it's, of course, we want to get in the gym, all that kind of stuff is important. But being active outside of your gym can be just as effective when it comes to increasing your health.
Speaker: And the term far more strong comes from just farmers or farm kids who would just spend a ton of time just doing all the things that you do on a farm. So moving around, lifting up hay bales,
Speaker: doing different things that just cause them to use their body and to just challenge themselves and just work for long hours and different things like that. And they could never step in the weight room and then they step on the football field. And being from Iowa, I've definitely had or gone against or played with guys like this who just, they never really got in the weight room, but because they were so physically active outside of that, like working on a farm and doing different stuff like that. They were extremely strong. So understand that, of course, the the gym is good and we want to use the gym and utilize the gym. But there's so many things that you can do outside of the gym to help build your capacity, to help build that bigger engine so that, again, you're able to do all those things that you want to do, because if you're able to wake up and Go play a basketball game or go on a hike or go play with your kids or go work out or go help somebody move. And then the next day you wake up and you don't feel like trash and you can do it all over again and do whatever life throws at you and do all the activities that you want to do. I think that is a super good goal to shoot for because that's what we all want.
Speaker: Really good way to start to increase this is just to start to add in more basic things. So basic bodyweight exercises, doing some cardio, implementing some of those different forms of exercise outside of the gym. All those things start to increase your capacity over time.
Speaker: A lot of strength and conditioning programs will call this GPP work, so general physical preparedness. And so when I did my internship with the Iowa football team, this is something that they would always have their freshmen do. It was basically just like circuits. They would have them do like farmers carries and sled pushes and different stuff like on the field where they're just trying to increase their ability to do more. And so there's lots of ways that you can do this. And I think if it's good enough for like the military to use, for a lot of strengthening conditioning programs to use, then it's something that we should also utilize too as just people who want to feel better, who want to look better, and who want to be able to do all the things that they want to do. so
Speaker: with that being said this leads me really well into the next one so get really good at the basics as i said before i think too many people over complicate training there is a time and a place like if you're really interested in this stuff and you want to learn more and you want to dial up the best program and you want to know the specific angle to have your elbows at to get the most out of your pecs or whatever like there's a time and a place for that and there's tons of information where you can find and do those things but for the average person that kind of stuff it just doesn't matter you don't need to have the perfect plan or have the perfect exercise or do these different things. You basically just need to train basic human movements. So you need to be able to push, you need to be able to pull, you need to be able to squat, you need to be able to hinge and you need to be able to carry those are basic human movements. And if you're increasing your ability in those areas, you're going to be in pretty good shape. Like you don't want to get in a place where you're focusing so much on one of those things where you're neglecting the other. So you're
Speaker: benching so much because you want to hit this bench goal and then you neglect all these other things so you can't hinge or you can't squat or you can't have a weak core like those things you want to be a well-rounded person i think that's good from a fitness perspective and i think that's good from a real world life perspective if you can do those basic human things you're going to be in pretty good shape so if you can lift up your carry-on bag that weighs 40 pounds and pull that up to your chest and then press that over your head and push it into the overhead bin, that's probably a good ability to be able to have. If you can squat down, pick up your kid without freaking throwing out your back. If you can hinge over and pick up some groceries or pick up a laundry bag and carry it up the stairs without hurting yourself or without being winded, like those are probably pretty good abilities to have.
Speaker: One of my absolute favorite workouts that I've always keep in my back pocket, especially like when I'm traveling or even if I'm like in between programs is a program that I got from a strength coach named Dan John.
Speaker: And it's based on these five human movements. So the push, the pull, the carry, the hinge, and the squat. And basically the workout is you're going to pick an exercise for each of those five human movements. going to do two sets, five to 10 reps is typically what I like to do. So for example, I might go in, I might do two sets of bench, two sets of pull-ups, two sets of front squats, two sets of RDLs, and then do like two sets of farmer's carries. And that would be my workout 10 sets, hitting all the basic human movements, getting some decent work. So think of on a scale ah of zero to 10, 10 being the hardest, zero being the easiest, you want to be somewhere around a seven with the weight that you're using. So like pretty moderate, somewhat heavy, but not like crazy crushing it. And you can do that workout three, four or five times a week and come back in. get some decent work in and it's a really really good simple framework to use and you can use that for a long time and get really strong and develop a lot of really good things by using that simple workout so train basic qualities is always going to be a good idea
Speaker: Next on this list, training hard solves a lot of problems. It's very easy to get lost in the details of training, getting the perfect split, using the perfect form, having the perfect diet, all those different things that come along with trying to get the best results. But a majority of what matters is first just being consistent. And then once you're consistent, adding intensity on top of that, AKA just training really hard, you're going to really good results. I think back to like just bodybuilders and all the things that we didn't know before we had all the studies and we had all the information, we had all the books. It's like those guys didn't necessarily know exactly why they were doing what they were doing. And they were huge and they got really good results and people got really fit and they built a lot of muscle and they got healthier and all those different things without knowing all these little intricacies and details. And again,
Speaker: I love learning about stuff. I love learning about nutrition. I love learning about training. I love learning new training modalities and different little tips and tricks that I can learn. But again, too many people just overcomplicate this. So especially when you're getting into these things, just train really hard.
Speaker: And then over time, if you want to add some of those things, maybe you want to tweak some certain things, you want to try some new routines or try to find exercise that are a little bit better, you can do those things because I think back to when I started this whole process when I was 22 years old.
Speaker: What I knew then versus what I know now was a fraction. But what I did know is I understood the principles. Like I understood these things that I'm explaining to you right now. I understood progressive overload. I understood that I needed to be consistent. I understood that something was always going to be better. I understood that I probably should get good at basic exercises, that I should be able to handle my body weight, that I should continue showing up even when I don't want to show up. I understood those basic things.
Speaker: And if you just understand these basic things that I'm going through here and you apply these consistently for a good long period of time, a couple of years, your results are going to be better than a majority of people. So just understanding that, like, of course, there's lots of different things that you can add into this, but don't get so wrapped up in just having the perfect plan or trying to make this super complex. You just need to be consistent. You need to train really hard.
Speaker: Couple left on here, train with good form most of the time. So 80% of the time, you wanna keep that form pretty locked in. You wanna make sure your body is feeling good. You don't wanna be practicing tons of bad movement patterns, avoiding unnecessary aches and pains is something that we always wanna to try to do. And so it makes sense to use pretty good form. If it feels really awkward on your body,
Speaker: That's probably a good sign. Not always because when you're doing new exercises, there is going to be some times where an exercise does feel kind of awkward. But if you're starting to get better with the movement and it's just painful or just feels really uncomfortable and you've tried it for a while, there's probably a good sign that you're either not using great form or maybe you should use a different exercise. like You don't have to be locked into one exercise. And if something is causing your body to not feel super great, then find a different exercise.
Speaker: And then with that being said, 80 to 90%, you're trying to use that good form. But there is a time and a place where you're just going push a little bit harder. So you don't want to do tons of bad reps, or you don't want to put yourself in a position where you're hurting yourself, like your back looks like a C and you're trying to deadlift 400 pounds. That's probably not a good idea. Or your form looks like crap as you're trying to do a squat. And it looks like your spine is going crumble, probably not a good idea. But if you're using a little momentum, if you're using a little bit of English to get the the rep up or if your last rep looks a little bit shaky or doesn't look the best form, I think that's fine. You're going have that a little bit when you start to train hard. Some people may disagree with this, but from my perspective, I think that just pushing the intensity and again, focusing on good form most of the time is a really good idea, but there's a time and a place where you push a little bit and it's all right to let that form slip just a little bit.
Speaker: Couple more left on this list. Do more things that you want to get better at. I know this seems crazy obvious, but you need to do more of the things that you actually want to improve. So if you wanna be a better runner, you should probably run more. If you wanna get better at pull-ups, then you should probably do more pull-ups. If you wanna get bigger shoulders, then you should do more shoulder exercises. If you wanna get better at squatting, then you should probably squat more.
Speaker: Too many people, again, complimate complicate this process a little bit too much. You need to follow what's called the law of specificity. If you want to get better at something, you just need to do more of that thing. When I got into fitness, I hated pull-ups, but I wanted to get better at pull-ups. So I started doing more pull-ups. I started with banded pull-ups and then eventually was able to do some body weight, worked my way up to weighted pull-ups and got pretty good at those things. If you want to get better at running,
Speaker: start with running a couple times a week and then slowly you're ramping that up maybe you're running three or four times a week or you're adding some time or distance it's super common for people to want to build certain muscle groups or maybe get really good at like a certain pattern like a squat or a bench or different things like that so make those things a priority do those things more often but also at the same time make them a priority so like If you want to get bigger calves, which is something that a lot of guys want to get, or if you want to get a bigger butt, it's just something that a lot of females want, then make those things a priority. You can't just do one or two sets of calves at the end of your leg day and expect your calves to grow, or you only do a couple sets of glutes at the end of each of your workouts. Like put those things near the beginning or towards the top of your workout, do them multiple times a week, prioritize those things. Because if you want to actually
Speaker: see things grow, especially if it's ah an area where you're struggling to see progress. You to make those things more of priority and just do them more specifically. I know it seems crazy simple, but so many times I'll hear people say like they want this certain result and then I ask them what they're doing and they're doing the opposite of that. So don't overlook something like that and something so simple and make that mistake.
Speaker: Next on this list, I think we got two more. Better recovery starts with a smart plan. This is something that I've realized more as I've gotten older. So when we think about this, earlier I said you want to treat your training as a practice. If you go out on a sports practice,
Speaker: and you practice balls to the wall every single day throughout the season, you're not going to feel very great. And you're probably not going to feel very good when it comes to time to perform in your games. Like if you're always sore, if you're always pushing it, if you're never taking some practice a little bit lighter, that's not going to be good overall. And the same thing is with your training. Like if you come in the weight room every single day, and you're trying to set a PR, you're going balls to the wall, you're training and to fill your every single training session. That's probably not to be very good for your long term progress. So you want to progress at a good rate. You don't want to be doing too much too soon, especially when you start getting into this stuff. It really doesn't take that much to see progress.
Speaker: As you start to get more comfortable and you start to get more consistent, it's going to take a little bit more and you can add more volume, more workouts, different things like that. But especially when you start, it really does not take all that much. You want to find yourself kind of like in this Goldilocks principle. So not too little to where you're not seeing any kind of progress, but not so much that every time you come in the weight room, you feel sore, you feel drained, you feel like you can't show up and perform very well. If you haven't ran a whole lot and you try to go out and run a marathon, that's probably not going to be a good idea. You might be able to complete it, but the amount of time that it takes you to recover from that is halting your progress versus if I go out and let's say today I run a mile and then Tomorrow I'm able to wake up and I don't feel super sore. I'm able to run a mile and a half. And I just start to progress slowly over time. I'm able to build up the volume, build up my body, build up the tolerance, build up the ability to recover from those things. And over a long span of time, you're able to actually make more progress. And this also helps with just how you feel in your recovery.
Speaker: i think sometimes people put a lot more emphasis on like these recovery tools and try to use those as a way to combat their soreness and do a ton in the gym and then try to use these recovery modalities like massage guns or different things like that when in reality those things can help a little bit but it really just comes down to like having good training eating in a good way sleeping in a good way those are the things that are going to help you to make the best progress And so it's again, it's not always about doing more, because if you're doing so much to where you're not recovering, and you're actually digging yourself in a deeper hole, and you're never allowing your body to actually adapt, you're not going to see the results that you want to see. So you have to be smarter with this stuff, especially as you start to get older, and just leave a little bit in the tank for some of your training sessions, you don't have to take every single session balls to the walls, you're going to see better long term progress. over time, because something like that, it may work for a while, like you can go and get away with it, like training super hard, doing more, more, more, but eventually you're going to drop off a cliff, you're not to be able to recover, going have an injury, something like that, going to big setback. And that's going to halt your progress a lot more versus if you just take more of a slower, methodical approach with this and try to be a little bit smarter with your training in general.
Speaker: And number 10, the last one that I have on this list, getting in shape once and staying in shape once is much easier than trying to do that over and over again. It is so much easier to stay in shape than it is to get in shape.
Speaker: We all probably know what it's like to be out of shape. And then when you go back to the gym or you get that first run in or you start doing the things that you haven't done on a while, it freaking sucks. You're out of breath. You feel like trash. Your body feels like trash. You have low energy. You're sore all the time. Different places that hurt that you didn't even know could hurt start to just feel like crap. And it just sucks. But when you can get to a place where you're in decent shape, and this doesn't mean like you can go run marathons and then on any given day or you need to go like be shredded all the time. But to get to a good solid level to be above average like health and fitness, it really does not take that much to maintain. A couple strength sessions a week, a little bit of cardio every week, and you can stay in relatively good shape.
Speaker: It takes a lot to increase your abilities over time to build that kind of stuff up. But once you get there, it's very easy to maintain. and so My advice for people is just to not get out of shape. And it doesn't take all that much, like a practical thing for most people. Like if you're getting two to three strength training sessions and you're getting one or two cardio sessions in, you can stay in pretty good shape. And I think knowing that and understanding that is important because a lot of people, they train really hard to get a certain result. But with training, the cool thing is it doesn't take nearly as much to maintain as it does to build it up. which is nice to know and really good to understand because if you're training four or five times a week and you have to train a bunch and do everything perfectly to build a lot of muscle, so it's actually easier to maintain that than it is to build that, which again is is nice and it is great that that is the way that it is. And so just understand that and put in the work. There's a time to go hard. There's a time to really put in some extra effort build up the muscle get healthier all that different stuff but then just continue to at least have some sort of minimum weekly target so that you can stay in shape so you're not feeling like you're having to start back on ground zero because it's just hard to do and it sucks
Speaker: With that being said, that is all 10 of them. I think just the conclusion, since that was just so much, just a couple of things to just kind of think about too in this episode. When in doubt, I think just remember the most important principle, progressive overload.
Speaker: If you want to see results, focus on progressive overload and you're going be in good shape. Training with some basic movements and some basic exercise styles and then mixing in some variety is a really good thing to do. And as long as you're doing those things consistently, and then you're adding some intensity on top of that, again, you're going to be in really good shape. And the last thing that I would say about this is Fitness is a forever thing. So you don't need to show up and try to build all this in one day or one month or even one year. Like hopefully you plan on doing this for the rest of your life. And if you're just getting some solid work in most days, doing that week after week, month after month, year after year, you're just building a little bit of muscle, getting a little bit healthier, focusing on using good form and different things like that. You're going to be in really good shape physically, mentally, have good health, have longevity, all those different things. So it doesn't have to be super complicated. And like I said, I'll leave that PDF in the show notes. So you have a couple weeks of training that you can try if you would like.
Speaker: Leave a review if you found this helpful. Share this with people. The coaching link if you do want some specific one-on-one coaching working with me. Get your workouts. Get your weight loss. Get all the nutrition stuff. That's what I do within the coaching program.
Speaker: If you're interested, you can always find that link. But I greatly appreciate you listening. And we will see you next
