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127: ACSM says K.I.S.S.
6 Playsin 4 hours
In this episode, we break down the new 2026 American College of Sports Medicine position stand on resistance training—and why it’s not what the internet gurus were hoping for.
Instead of doubling down on rigid rules, this update does the opposite: it expands the evidence base, loosens the prescriptions, and makes one thing very clear—there is no single “best” way to train. Most resistance training works. What matters more is consistency, effort, and aligning your training with your actual goals.
We unpack what the ACSM looked at (including 137 systematic reviews and over 30,000 participants), what’s changed since 2009, and what the evidence actually says about strength, hypertrophy, power, endurance, and physical function. We also break down why “optimization” is often overhyped, why going from nothing to something is still the biggest win, and how power training may play a bigger role in real-life function than you think.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by conflicting fitness advice—or like you’re doing it “wrong”—this episode will simplify what actually matters and what you can safely ignore.
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Transcript
Introduction and Mission
00:00:00
Speaker
Do I sound weird suddenly? No. Or do you sound weird to myself? To me, you sound normal. Okay. Do I normally sound weird then? That's a good question. It is a good question.
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm Laurel Biebersdorf, strength and conditioning coach. And I'm Dr. Sarah Court, physical therapist. With over 30 years of combined experience in fitness, movement, and physical therapy, we believe in strong opinions loosely held. Which means we're not here to hype outdated movement concepts. or to gatekeep or fearmonger strength training for women. For too long, women have been sidelined in strength training. Oh, you mean handed pink dumbbells and told to sculpt? Whatever that means, we're here to change that with tools, evidence, and ideas that center women's needs and voices. Let's dive
Podcast Season Launch and Personal Stories
00:00:44
Speaker
in.
00:00:58
Speaker
Welcome to the Movement Logic Podcast. It is officially season eight. I'm Sarah Court, I'm a physical therapist. I'm here with my co-host, Laurel Beaversdorf. She is a strength and conditioning coach and a yoga teacher.
00:01:10
Speaker
And an about to be Boston marathoner in just a few weeks. That's right. Two weeks. How are you feeling about that? I'm feeling suspiciously fit. That's what I, that's what I would say. Because right around the time when I start to feel my fittest, something breaks. Okay. Well, let's, don't know. I don't know if you would hereby, but let's, let's knock on our brains. Nothing breaks before the marathon.
00:01:34
Speaker
Yeah. I will say unrelated, i knew a girl in college who took mushrooms the day before she ran, i think the Paris marathon. Oh my God. And then, she and she just fully ran it. Like, like it was no issue for her somehow.
00:01:49
Speaker
And the mushrooms made no difference. Well, I don't think mushrooms, I don't know if there's been any research on this, but i don't think mushrooms would possibly yeah i don't think so disturb your your performance. it might have been a like alcohol right right now It might have been a really good choice, actually, to just like chill the fuck out the day before and then go around the marathon. I do remember she was on
Season Themes: Strength, Power, and Longevity
00:02:09
Speaker
crutches for days afterwards, though.
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah. it's It's hard to tell if it was because of the mushrooms or the marathon in that case. That's true That's true. So we've got lots of really fun topics to talk about this season. I'm always really like excited at the beginning of a season before I'm exhausted by the amount of research that we end up doing for all these topics, but I'm always excited by what we're going to talk about. And one of the things we're going to get into sort of big picture this season, and that has to do with this episode a little bit as well, is the capacity of power.
00:02:40
Speaker
We've talked a ton about strength training, weight training, resistance training. We've talked some about cardio endurance, cardiovascular training. We've talked about power as well in some previous episodes, but we're going to get a little bit more into that kind of strength and power categories. It's kind of a continuum in some ways, a lot in the season, and especially in our concerns or our desires for power. our longevity, which is an overused word, I agree.
00:03:08
Speaker
um But when used correctly, there are certain things you can do that will for sure improve the health span of your life, possibly the lifespan of your life. There's also just a bunch of stuff that won't, but that people are saying will. So I think it is more important to take back that word and use it accurately.
00:03:28
Speaker
That's my thing. Yeah, there's there's even something called a strength span. Oh boy, that's exciting. The span of your life you spend being strong and how the longer you spend being strong, the more, I think, benefit, if I remember correctly, there is to these other spans. That would make sense. Like and longevity. Are we going to start using the words that the kids are using, like strength maxing, longevity maxing, ah sleep maxing?
00:03:54
Speaker
I mean, yeah, i'm i'm I'm a fan of adopting what the youth are saying. What the kids are up to? Yeah. All right. Well, before we get into today's episode, we just want to talk about a couple of things that you can get from us.
00:04:07
Speaker
The first is we have a 100% free to you barbell mini course that lots of people have gotten and used and loved.
00:04:17
Speaker
We do ask for your email address in return. We don't think that's too big of an ask. Some people respect their privacy in a very sort of tough, hard edged, boundary like way. And if that's you and you're like, I don't give my email to anybody, then you won't get this course.
00:04:33
Speaker
I will say we're not obnoxious emailers. We don't send out a bunch of like, like there's, I'm on a mailing list for some yoga studio that I literally just signed up to go to a sound bath for. That was it. And now I'm getting emails every single day from this fricking place. I don't even live anywhere near. So we're not like that. We do not do that. We actually send you educational content. We do tell you about upcoming courses where you get discounts that you wouldn't otherwise get if you're not on a mailing list. So in my
Resistance Training Guidelines and Myths
00:04:58
Speaker
opinion, it's definitely worth it.
00:05:00
Speaker
So today we are talking about the new 2026 ACSM, which is the American College of Sports Medicine, position stand on resistance training. The big story is not that everything has changed.
00:05:13
Speaker
It's that the evidence base that they looked at got much bigger than the one they looked at in 2009. The methods of study got more rigorous. And so now some of those old hard rules are ah looking a lot less rigid than people were originally taught or thought. So If you were hoping that this episode or this position stand was going to finally tell you the one correct way to lift, you're going to be disappointed. Because what this paper actually says is far less prescriptive, and it's actually a lot more useful, which is most forms of resistance training work.
00:05:46
Speaker
And a lot of the things that people argue about online for healthy individuals don't matter as much as we think they do. So in this episode, we're going to look at who the ACSM is, how the researchers looked at the available data to come up with this new position stand, what they are saying about strength, power, endurance, hypertrophy, and physical function, and what your takeaways should be, whether you are seasoned lifter or a total novice who wants to start resistance training.
00:06:17
Speaker
All right. So let's talk about who the ACSM is. So ACSM stands for American College of Sports Medicine. This is not a government agency like the CDC.
00:06:29
Speaker
This is a large professional organization that sits at the intersection of exercise science, medicine, coaching, and clinical practice.
00:06:41
Speaker
which makes it situated in a somewhat important way so that these different fields of knowledge and these areas of expertise actually communicate with each other. They develop and publish things like position stands that offer guidance. They publish in journals. They offer certifications and advocacy materials. So the mission really is to educate and empower professionals within those fields that I mentioned to advance the science and to practice in a way that's evidence-based.
00:07:14
Speaker
It says that it has nearly 50,000 members and it is a certification entity, so it certifies professionals worldwide. Their documents often shape what people like Sarah and right, trainers, physical therapists, strength coaches, possibly also medical doctors and researchers cite as evidence.
00:07:33
Speaker
But again, this is not the same thing as the CDC or the WHO. and shouldn't be confused with those government organizations. So how is it different? So the WHO the CDC guidelines are more epidemiologic in nature, right? It's concerned with like broader public health recommendations aimed at the general population. And what they offer is very general advice on the minimum target, for example.
00:08:01
Speaker
So what is the minimum target? that you should target for resistance training. Well, they say twice a week using major muscle groups. They do not go into any more detail than that.
00:08:12
Speaker
So they're really trying to cast a very, very, very broad, the broadest possible net to catch the most amount of fish and not be too specific in their advice. Conversely, the ACSM's position stand, for example,
00:08:27
Speaker
is more detailed, and it is a professional consensus document that takes all of the evidence, synthesizes it, and gives more detailed practice recommendations for specific outcomes of interest, which we're going to discuss, right? So what are we trying to do here? In this case, the ACSM is trying to answer questions about How do we build strength?
00:08:52
Speaker
How do we increase our hypertrophy or muscle size? How do we improve our power or force production with you know with speed? How do we improve our endurance, which I like to think of as repetition strength? but How do we improve our functional performance in daily life activities?
00:09:09
Speaker
And how does the manipulation of specific program variables affect these outcomes of interest? So if the CDC or the WHO is trying to answer the question, should adults do strengthening work?
00:09:23
Speaker
The ACSM is asking, what kind of work should they do to achieve these outcomes of interest? How often, how hard should it be? How much? What type? and And how do all of these pertain to benefiting or not benefiting a specific outcome of interest? So in the paper, the authors state that it is estimated that only 30% of american adults American adults, American adults. I love American adults. american adults What adult.
00:09:55
Speaker
Only 30% of American adults complete some muscle strengthening activities at least twice a week. So muscle strengthening, by the way, is not strength training, right? Muscle strengthening could be gardening, for example. And only 30% are completing some of this muscle strengthening activity twice a week and nearly 60% complete no muscle strengthening exercise at all.
00:10:19
Speaker
Right? So again, not even gardening, right? They go on to state that participation rates for older people are estimated to likely range from 10 to 15%. And this is participation in muscle strengthening, right? So this muscle strengthening can include so many things, right? Not even the more targeted, structured activity of strength training, but something as loosely defined as like moving boxes around in your house.
00:10:50
Speaker
So what we appreciate about this position stand from the ACSM is that it emphasizes how important it is to just do some kind of resistance training specifically. So it is actually getting more specific around resistance training.
00:11:09
Speaker
okay Instead of saying muscle strengthening, we're actually now zeroing in on resistance training. And it emphasizes how important it is to just do something that is resistance training. And that the biggest benefits are seen in people who go from having done no resistance training to starting resistance training.
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah. I think sometimes those of us who are already in the mix, and this is what I think this paper addresses really well, is that we often get bogged down in the weeds of the details. And I think some of that messaging ultimately is not so useful for people who aren't engaging at all.
00:11:49
Speaker
And so I think that can possibly lead to some like confusion or turnoff. And so what I love about this paper is it's literally like, just do something with resistance and you will see not only benefits, but you're going to see the biggest benefits rather than those of us who are now like tinkering with the details. Like we've already achieved some of those big, big health benefits just by engaging in it.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yes. and And I'll also say kind of on the other side of that point is that it is actually going into much, much more detail than the CDC or WHO does simply by isolating resistance training apart from just muscle strengthening activity in general. yeah
The Concept of Strength Span
00:12:29
Speaker
and And by doing so, right, they're actually giving us much more guidance around what resistance training is. In fact, they outline six factors that you can manipulate in any form of exercise, but specifically in this case, resistance training. And then the paper actually goes into some of the those specific outcomes of interest and how different factors can be manipulated to achieve those specific outcomes of interest. But despite all of that relative specificity compared to the CDC and WHO, it's still very broadly making the point that wide range of different resistance training programs and approaches
00:13:10
Speaker
work. There are many roads to roam. So it kind of hits right in the middle of so unspecific in general to almost not be helpful, which is where I think the CDC and the WHO kind of veer toward, to what we see a lot of gurus and influencers online pushing, which are these hyper-specific, very prescriptive black and white messaging around programs that will optimize and are best for this population, et cetera, et cetera.
00:13:39
Speaker
This ACSM paper kind of finds that middle ground yeah in a way that I think is going to probably be most beneficial. Yeah, agreed. OK. So what they looked at to create this position stand is they did an overview of reviews. They basically did like an umbrella review of a whole bunch of systematic reviews.
00:14:02
Speaker
And the goal was to update the 2009 ACSM stand with much more rigorous evidence synthesis methods, meaning there is a lot more evidence for them to draw from than there was in 2009. And so they got to be especially picky about the quality of the evidence. And so they're really only looking at ah systematic reviews and and their meta-analyses. And the systematic reviews themselves had to be of randomized controlled trials. So we're talking about like the cream of the cream of the crop of the evidence that's out there. And here's the thing.
00:14:37
Speaker
That meant because there is so much more evidence, they were able to include 137 systematic reviews that covered more than 30,000 participants. That's what I would call a metric shit ton of people. So it's really the best of the best is what they looked at.
00:14:53
Speaker
They specifically picked healthy adults age 18 and over, either novice or trained. The interventions had to include resistance training that lasted at least six weeks with a minimum of 12 exposures, all of the papers had to have a comparison of either no exercise, a sham control, like stretching, or a distinctly different resistance training prescription.
00:15:20
Speaker
And then they look at the outcomes, which Laurel mentioned already, changes in strength, power, endurance, contraction, velocity, physical function, and hypertrophy.
00:15:31
Speaker
Now, An important thing to note is that they specifically excluded disease-specific populations and a lot of that kind of real-world clinical complexity because the scope was healthy adults. So they drew from a huge evidence base, but it's still evidence about generally healthy people. And from what I've read and listened to about the process that they went through, the consensus was that special populations will always require more individualization So they decided to omit them for that reason.
00:16:00
Speaker
And that's not a bad thing because data from a special population could potentially be a confounder in a situation like this. where We're trying to get a big picture on what matters and what doesn't in resistance training for the majority of people. So we actually don't want to include outlier data that then might throw off the rest of the data.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah, cool. i think it's also worth emphasizing that the study subjects were mostly minimally to untrained people. So it did include some that were more well-trained, but for the most part, these are people who haven't done much resistance training. okay And it also made a point to emphasize that they included age ranges below and above 55. So we can say that this paper actually looked at all ages.
00:16:48
Speaker
And then another thing too, is if you haven't heard the term contraction velocity before, contraction velocity is looking just purely at the speed of muscle contraction. So you would see like maximized contraction velocity in an activity like a sprint, whereas power would be something you would see against some kind of additional resistance. All right. So this paper looked at both the speed of contraction as well as the ability to produce force against some resistance with speed. Okay.
00:17:17
Speaker
All right. So let's talk broad brushstrokes here. What did this position stand find? So the big picture is, and this is really important, compared with doing nothing,
00:17:30
Speaker
Resistance training improves strength, hypertrophy, power, muscular endurance, contraction, velocity. and several physical function outcomes that can be measured using tests that evaluate gait speed, balance, ah your ability to stand up from a chair, and your ability to do that quickly. So different from what the WHO and CDC are saying, which is that broadly muscle strengthening activity is something you should do. The ACSM is saying broadly, when you engage in resistance training,
00:18:02
Speaker
which is more specifically defined from muscle strengthening activity, you will improve in these specific factors, specifically through the manipulation of various factors that can go into a resistance training program.
00:18:18
Speaker
So we're going to dive into the details in a moment, but the big headline is that most forms of resistance training improve all of these outcomes. And that's also a big deal. The paper repeatedly lands on a pretty...
00:18:31
Speaker
Unexciting if you need to have the secret sauce special secret that no one else has ever heard of, but actually quite exciting if you're interested in egalitarian messaging that is accessible, includes all people.
00:18:45
Speaker
Right. Here's the important point. A lot of variables that you can manipulate do not consistently change these outcomes of interest as much as people online will claim they do.
00:18:56
Speaker
OK, so this paper actually weakens a lot of people's arguments that there is one elite special secret programming style that most people need or that people within a certain population need, a.k.a. menopausal women, for example.
00:19:11
Speaker
It directly contradicts what a lot of people online are trying to sell you and tell you, right, in order to sell you that there's a single magic bullet, a way of doing this, that you can't do it this way to get the benefit. You have to do it this way, that this is the best, the greatest, the newest.
00:19:28
Speaker
And I think this is possibly unexciting if You are always looking for the thing that nobody else knows, but I think it's actually quite exciting if you are interested in exercise being able to benefit pretty much everyone who resists training exercise, specifically anyone who just starts to engage in it.
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. it's It's a real bummer for somebody who's trying to like do a super grifty, here's my new magic exercise. You've just been doing it wrong. Here's the secret. That's that's that's a real bummer if you're trying to push that, but I have a feeling people are going to still take this paper and try to use it as evidence for their special training anyway.
00:20:11
Speaker
Now that we've sort of done our broad strokes, let's go into detail about some of these specific categories. So the first category that we're going to talk about is strength. Just as a reminder, the definition of strength is the ability of a muscle or muscle group to generate force against external resistance.
00:20:30
Speaker
So when the specific goal is improving strength, here's what they found worked the best. Heavier loads with a dose response trend, which this means as the load increases, your strength gains tend to increase as well. Now what this doesn't mean is that you must always lift maximum loads, which is what some people promote Stacey Sims.
00:20:56
Speaker
But it does mean it does mean over time That if maximal strength is your goal, right? If your specific
Training Specifics: Range, Sets, and Frequency
00:21:03
Speaker
skill that you're looking for is to lift heavy things, this underlines the specificity rule that has already always existed, which is you've got to train specifically for the thing you specifically want to do.
00:21:14
Speaker
Or as Laurel says, if you're going to take a test, you need to prepare for the test. So if maximal strength is the goal, you do want to give yourself exposure over time to heavier weights. In that specific lift, right? Yes, in that specific lift. The anecdote I came up with is like, if you want to be good at algebra, then you should study algebra. But if you want to pass the algebra test, you should know what's on the test and study for those particular problems, right? And same thing is, if you want to be maximally strong in the deadlift, you should do the deadlift.
00:21:44
Speaker
However, if all you do is squatting, and you don't do any other exercise, you will also be stronger in the deadlift compared to doing nothing at all. Right. Because strength benefits can be generally transferred to many different non-specific activities.
00:22:01
Speaker
But when it comes time to take the test, which would be a one rep max test, which is how strength was measured in these studies, if we're going to do a one rep max test of the deadlift, you're going to score highest on that test if you specifically worked on lifting heavy in the deadlift. And why do you need to lift heavy in the deadlift? Because your technique will need to change as the load increases. The way you coordinate and perform the lift will adjust the according to how close to the maximum yeah of your capacity that load actually is. So basically you can be strong lifting light and moderate weights, but if you're given a test where you have to lift one weight one time, that's super heavy, you're going to do way better on that test if you practice lifting heavy in that particular lift. Right. It's the difference between I want to be generally strong and I want to be maximally strong in a specific activity. Exactly.
00:23:00
Speaker
So then another element that they found was important was training through a larger range of motion. And that appears to produce greater strength gains. It makes sense, right? If you think about it, because it it challenges the muscle across more of its length and it improves strength in more joint positions.
00:23:19
Speaker
Partial reps, which is a training modality that people engage in sometimes, which is where you just do short versions of the, you could do full range, but you're not going full range in the movement. They could still have a place, but they don't seem to replace full range of motion for overall strength development.
00:23:36
Speaker
The next element is engaging in multiple sets, especially two to three sets. What they found is that doing more than one set leads to greater strength gains than just doing one set of a particular exercise. And that two to three sets consistently shows benefits in the evidence. Beyond two to three sets, additional sets may help, but the biggest jump in the measurable benefits is going from doing one set to doing multiple sets. So what that means is for each exercise that you're doing,
00:24:05
Speaker
you want to hit at least two to three sets if you can, right? And this is also the guidelines for like maximizing and optimizing kind of thing. It's not to say that if you show up, do one set and leave, that was a waste of time. It's highlighting if you want to get the most bang for your buck out of the exercise and you can engage in more than one set and in particular two to three sets. Yeah. And this has to do with the way in which fatigue interferes with performance. And so When we perform a strength exercise, we send our body a signal. But when we accumulate fatigue from performing that strength exercise, that signal is muted. It's dulled. We cannot be as strong. Therefore, we cannot send as big of a signal.
00:24:45
Speaker
I would say you probably have the most to gain from going from zero sets to one. Absolutely. next most to gain from going from one to two. And then after that, two to three is going to give you a little bit more. We start to see diminishing returns because of the accumulation of fatigue and the way that fatigue interferes with performance and performance detriment means smaller signal. Just a question to you, is that fatigue interference something they say in the paper is that something you are positioning based on your general knowledge?
00:25:13
Speaker
There is research looking at what's called the, I believe the fatigue curve. There's a ah paper that looked at how RepMax tests were used to take people six sets to failure, which just sounds absolutely awful. Horrible. It sounds horrible. Yeah. And and they found that the ability to perform reps dropped significantly between set three and four.
00:25:36
Speaker
oh interesting. And it dropped actually significantly between set two and three as well. So this this is established and it and it it kind of makes common sense, right? So as you accumulate fatigue, performance suffers.
00:25:49
Speaker
right So another element is putting the strength work earlier in the session. And this goes to Laurel's point. Exercises performed earlier in a workout tend to benefit from having lower fatigue. It allows for higher force production and better performance. So if strength is the priority, those lifts that you are trying to maximally gain strength in, for example, probably your your deadlift or your back squat, things like that, they should come before the less demanding or the accessory type of work. so
00:26:22
Speaker
And again, that makes sense from a sort of like understanding of how fatigue might work perspective. They also found that training at least two days a week it gave more consistent strength gains.
00:26:35
Speaker
Which again, makes sense, right? Due to more frequent stimulus and a better distribution of the training volume. So it's not to say that if you're like, you know what, I have one day a week, I can carve out an hour and get it all done then versus i can carve out two half hour sessions. in a week. It's not to say that that one session is like a total waste of time and useless. They just saying, again, if we're trying to find the best possible ways to do it, then at least two sessions a week is the most useful, right? So this position stand is about what's the absolute optimal way to resistance train.
00:27:12
Speaker
The evidence still stands that for total beginners, engaging even once a week in resistance training will create changes. But once you're no longer a novice, it won't be as effective. And you need to engage in two or more sessions a week in order to actually see some change happen.
00:27:31
Speaker
Yeah. Seven days goes by between one session a week. And in that time, you're losing strength, right? Atrophy occurs. Right. So if you do two times a week, there's less chance for atrophy to occur. Nice. Yeah.
00:27:41
Speaker
So the bottom line with strength is that if your goal is maximum strength in a specific exercise, load matters. And it matters more here for strength than it does for hypertrophy.
00:27:53
Speaker
And I've also engaged with some people commenting online where the it's a very confusing difference between strength and hypertrophy. they're They're like, how do I know which one I'm working on? Am I working on one more than the other? There is a lot of overlap, but if we're just trying to focus on strength, then engaging in higher loads matters more if you're trying to get maximal strength. It's not the universal answer to everything that your body needs, right? Lift heavy is not the singular message.
00:28:25
Speaker
So I think a lot of people confuse this idea of what builds maximum strength best with what every person needs most. And the other thing it's not saying is it's not saying take a total novice to weightlifting and start them with heavy lifting with no on ramp. Like that's not the message at all.
00:28:44
Speaker
Cool. Oh, that fatigue paper paper was a 2024 review by Nozo. By the way, there is a Nozo paper in the ACSM position stand, but it's a different paper by Nozo. Apparently he's a busy researcher. Yeah. Busy guy. Busy guy. All right. Okay, cool. So yeah, I think it's an interesting philosophical question. Like what is the difference between strength and hypertrophy? And I think one of the best ways I've heard that explained is that strength is the outcome of many changes that we can make to the body, one of which is hypertrophy. When you make a muscle bigger, you're stronger because there's more contractile proteins now, right? The fibers have gotten bigger. The muscle itself has gotten bigger. You've added contractile proteins. You've added the most stripped down element that creates tension and creates force, which is contractile proteins.
00:29:24
Speaker
Is this another Venn diagram like we used to do? Yeah, it is. Right, right. So so like another lesser known change that we make to our ah body's capacity that leads to increase in strength is coordination.
00:29:37
Speaker
Just getting better at the exercise means that you can perform strength in that exercise to a higher level. And that's one of the main reasons why lifting heavy makes you better at lifting heavy is because there's a specific type of coordination involved in lifting heavy.
00:29:51
Speaker
And when you practice it, you get better at it, right? yeah So yeah, hypertrophy. As a reminder, hypertrophy is the increase in size, density, and cross-sectional area. of a muscle.
00:30:03
Speaker
So it results from an increase in the size of the existing muscle fibers. It does not result in the creation of new muscle fibers. And this position stand found that muscle hypertrophy was enhanced by, okay, that's an important word. yeah Higher weekly volume, especially 10 plus sets per muscle group per week. That's not 10 sets of the same exercise. It's 10 sets of exercises that target this muscle group.
00:30:31
Speaker
And that eccentric only or eccentric overload style work is especially useful for hypertrophy, probably because of how it increases both passive and active muscle tension through the lengthening phase of the muscle. We do eccentric only training in lift for longevity when we just do the lowering phase of the pushup.
00:30:55
Speaker
Some trainees work up to just doing the lowering phase of the pullup. And it's especially good for hypertrophy. Yeah. I want to jump in and say this idea of 10 plus sets per muscle group per week, what I immediately picture is like a big gym bro.
00:31:11
Speaker
I go to the gym in Los Angeles. There are some gigantic fucking humans in there. I'm not even kidding. I'm like, I don't, how did you, what? Your arm is the size of my head. like So like, and the sort of joke around like the gym bros who are like, what are you doing today? Arms.
00:31:26
Speaker
you know back when we think of right? They're not just doing the same exercise for 10 sets. They're trying to build bigger physique, muscle size. So these 10 plus sets, if they're doing back workouts today, it's a bunch of different exercises aimed at the same muscle group.
00:31:41
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Oh, the other thing is they specify between eccentric only or eccentric overload style work. So eccentric only would be just challenging your body in the lowering phase and not at all in the lifting phase, which is what we do highlight in the lowering phase of the push-up and the lowering phase of the pull-up. Eccentric overload style work means that you challenge yourself a little bit in the concentric phase, but then you challenge it a lot in the lowering phase. And I use this technique for my knee extensions for training for the Boston Marathon because it's a downhill course. And so what I'll do is I'll sit in that knee extension machine and I'll go up with two and then lower with one. Nice. And then up with two and then I'll lower with the other one. And what's key with eccentric only and eccentric overload style work is that you should be lowering a weight
00:32:29
Speaker
for a number of reps that you would never be able to lift that weight for that same number of reps for. So when I do concentric, like regular knee extensions, I put the pin at like maybe 80 pounds for two legs, right at the same time. When I do eccentric overload style work, I put the pin at 70 pounds for one leg.
00:32:52
Speaker
So then my job is to lower the weight for five seconds or longer. And by the time I get to like seven or eight reps on any given leg, I'm i'm cooked. yeah Whereas if I were doing two legs with 70 pounds, I'd be able to lift it probably 15 plus times, right? so So just an interesting strength training technique that not a lot of people new to strength training have heard of. yeah I have personal training clients who think it's the easy version of the exercise. And they're can I just do the full version? I'm like, I don't think you understand what we're doing here.
00:33:23
Speaker
So let's talk about it. This is not the easy version of the exercise. Not all. This is a different technique that we're applying to get certain outcomes in this particular exercise. Yeah, I would maybe classify it even as a a mean technique. mean, it can create quite a bit of muscle soreness. Yeah, yeah. Mean but effective. Yeah. So so here's the thing.
00:33:44
Speaker
Hypertrophy was enhanced by 10 plus sets per muscle group per week. So volume seems to drive hypertrophy and also eccentric overload style work. But here's what really didn't seem to matter as much for hypertrophy, which I found very interesting actually, which is frequency. Okay. So whereas frequency actually matters for strength, it doesn't matter as much for hypertrophy.
00:34:04
Speaker
When volume is equated, and that's something I think that's really important, it's a problem with exercise science research looking at strength training, which is that oftentimes they'll be comparing programs of different frequencies and trying to make determinations about what frequency is optimal, but they haven't actually equated volume. So you're not really having a conversation about anything actually. Right. They're like, how are apples and oranges the same? And you're like, they're not. We have to make sure that we're targeting the muscle groups of interest with the same number of working and sets per week, right?
00:34:36
Speaker
before we can then go, well, if we slice up this pie in three versus four versus five slices, what are the difference? So when volume is equated though, same number of sets per muscle group, frequency, how you divvy it up actually doesn't matter. So you could do three sets twice per week and achieve very similar results to six sets once per week, as long as total work is equal, which I i find counterintuitive, but you know when it comes to hypertrophy, I think the biggest driver is tension. Right. So if you're experiencing tension for the same amount of time, can happen multiple times a week or all at once, and it's still going to drive those those hypertrophic changes. And then another thing that didn't seem to matter was load. OK.
00:35:19
Speaker
You don't need to lift heavy to build muscle, contrary to what Stacey Sims says. yeah You can build muscle with light loads. Right. So muscle growth can occur with lighter to moderate to heavier loads, provided that sets are taking sufficiently close to failure.
00:35:35
Speaker
And so hypertrophy is more about the total stimulus and how it stacks up and effort at the end of the set rather than a particular load intensity.
00:35:47
Speaker
And so
Periodization vs. Programming
00:35:48
Speaker
that means that a resistance band, if you use a resistance band in an exercise, you take that exercise close enough to failure, and you'll still see hypertrophy changes similar to if you lift a barbell, right? So training to failure. Okay, let's talk about that because you might hear some gym bros talk about how important it is to train to failure to build muscle. Well, not so fast because going all the way to failure does not consistently produce greater hypertrophic changes compared to stopping a few reps short. So you can get similar muscle group without the added fatigue cost. of pushing every set to absolute exhaustion. I think this is important to recognize, which is that whenever we're trying to increase some type of fitness in our body, we're also going to be increasing fatigue. And it's really about our ability to train enough to continue to drive changes to fitness has to do with the training, but it also has to do with the fatigue, right? And so when you are generating a lot of fatigue that may not be further, you know, improving your fitness, what you're doing is you're just creating obstacles to training, right? Because now you have all this fatigue.
00:36:48
Speaker
So yes, and then time under tension, which you might see written as like TUT, time under tension. There used to be, and I think still is, this idea that we have to move the weight slowly to increase time under tension, but actually no. Slowing down reps to increase time under tension, to increase how long the rep takes, right? To expose your muscle to tension for a longer amount of time does not reliably lead to greater muscle growth. compared to normal lifting tempos. The muscle appears to respond more to total work and effort, work meaning your ability to move a load over a certain distance. So in other words, more reps, right? Then an effort taking it close enough to failure, which is about recruitment, right? How many muscles are actually involved than it is to artificially slowing the rep down, right?
00:37:37
Speaker
Okay, and then periodization, which is a fancy way of saying how we organize or structure our training. also does not consistently produce greater hypertrophy compared to non-periodized approaches when total volume is similar. So periodization is something that I think is especially useful for people who compete and have a certain date on the calendar where they need to be ready for a competition. Because what periodization does is it organizes training in a way kind of like cooking a meal with many courses, right? You want to time it out so that everything is ready to go when it's time to eat, right? If you've still got something in the oven 30 minutes after you're done with these three dishes, the meal is not going to be as good because you're not going to have all your dishes on the table and they're not all going be hot, right? Right.
00:38:23
Speaker
Periodization is like a well-timed multi-course meal where everything kind of comes out at its best performance ready moment in time for in time for this competition. So if you're an athlete who competes in the fall, you're probably not going to be doing your highest intensity work in the winter, okay? Because you just finished your competitive season. So now in the winter, you're probably doing stuff that is least specific to your competitive goals. And then slowly as the year progresses, your training style gets more specific to creating the types of athletic qualities that you want
00:39:04
Speaker
for your sport. Because really, if you want to train specifically or for a sport, you engage in the sport. But if you want to, for example, maximize your ability to jump high, you'd probably be doing those fast dynamic plyometrics closer to your performance season, your game season, or within the game season.
00:39:24
Speaker
What about the idea of periodization just as a way for people to organize training blocks to avoid things like getting bored or you know, fatigue in certain exercises or overtraining one area versus another? Like, is there is there a place for periodization for people who are not competing?
00:39:44
Speaker
It's a good question. And I think the paper highlights the fact that often programming and periodization are conflated. So people think they're talking about periodization when they're really just talking about programming.
00:39:55
Speaker
I think that when you're trying to work on multiple fitness qualities at the same time that are actually quite distinct, So that would be cardiorespiratory endurance is quite distinct from strength, which is also in many ways quite distinct from power and speed. Okay.
00:40:12
Speaker
If you are trying to maximize all of those qualities at the same time for a specific date, I think a periodized program is a good idea.
00:40:23
Speaker
Or if you're even trying to maximize a couple of those different qualities at the same time by a specific date or even one of those qualities. right So right now, I'm trying to maximize respiratory endurance for Boston Marathon. Do you think I'm spending as much time strength training these days as I usually am? No, I'm not. As soon as the Boston Marathon's over, I'm looking forward to being in the gym lifting weights a lot more than I currently am. Right now, I'm just trying to keep my tendons working good because they got to make it through this marathon. Right. ok I think maybe what I said earlier was a little bit confusing. When you're trying to keep everything at a pretty good level all the time, I think that's programming.
00:41:03
Speaker
Gotcha. When you're trying to pull out certain qualities and highlight them more than others at specific times, I think that's periodization. So if you're a Hirox athlete, Hirox is a kind of the new CrossFit. Yeah.
00:41:19
Speaker
people are engaging in resistance training competitions mixed with cardio, respiratory, like running competitions, and you're trying to perform maximally in high-race competitions, I think that periodizing is probably a good idea so that you can really focus on the running aspect and then focus on the strength aspect, probably always at the same time, but one a little bit more than another. Mm-hmm.
00:41:43
Speaker
um Certainly for any type of athlete, right, who uses resistance training to support their athletic qualities and capacities,
00:41:54
Speaker
Definitely periodization is relevant. I'm not sure how relevant it is to a person who's really just engaging in resistance training for the purpose of health and longevity and function. yeah I think that when we're getting bored and we need to change things up or when we change our goal and we want to work on this instead of this, I think that's programming. okay But I think it's up for debate.
00:42:16
Speaker
yeah I think it's up for debate. Well, that's, i mean, it's one of those things where I think probably people can get into some potentially very nerdy, nitty gritty details out it about it. But for the general population, it's just helpful to think about programming as the dials you might change based more on Things like wanting to do something slightly different or or a potential slight difference in your focus from one block of training to another. Absolutely. Versus something like periodization where it's like, I got to be able to lift this much weight by this date, or I have to be able to run this distance by this date.
00:42:54
Speaker
Also, if we're talking about like non-competitive, even people who don't even necessarily identify as athletes, but have certain seasons of life where they're getting ready to do things like take a big vacation, or I'm going to be out hiking a lot, or this is my season where I go on these long bike rides, we could absolutely periodize resistance training around those types of goals as well. but notice how they are actually...
00:43:17
Speaker
temporal in nature. It's a certain point in time where I want to be most ready for this type of activity. yeah And also where other types of activities might even need to take a back seat in order to reduce fatigue so that I can be more ready for this particular type of activity, i.e. my example of not strength training as high a volume as I normally would in the off season where not like right before I'm about to run a marathon. Yeah, it makes me think of somebody I worked with in rehab where he was working on strengthening his knees that had historically been problematic because one of the things he was going to do was this like really long backpacking hike. And so we did a lot of stuff where like he brought his heavy rucksack to the clinic and we just had him working on going downstairs yeah with the backpack on, you know, that that kind of thing. Yeah. Same idea where like he's not an athlete or a competitor in a sport, but he's getting ready for this specific event that was going to be taking place in his life.
00:44:14
Speaker
Yeah. And in our Lift for Longevity program, you could argue that we have a linear periodization to the way that the program is organized, not so that our students are ready to like compete in a powerlifting competition by the end, but we are systematically increasing load intensity in some lifts while reducing volume. And that is a style of periodization called linear periodization. I don't know that I could honestly say I think it's a periodized program, though, because I think I could easily also say that this is just a programming choice that we've made in order to teach a skill, which is how lift heavy.
00:44:51
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Cool. Exercise order. Sorry, it's still late. We went down a long really little rabbit hole with that, but it was a good one. It was a good one. Yeah. So the sequence of exercises within a workout does not appear to meaningfully impact hypertrophy outcomes. Another interesting finding from the paper, in my opinion. So you can train muscles later in a session, still grow them effectively.
00:45:11
Speaker
even though you've accumulated fatigue, right? As long as sufficient volume and effort are are achieved. For muscle growth, the body doesn't seem to care as much about what your favorite internet muscle building guru says.
00:45:24
Speaker
it seems to care a lot more about whether or not you did enough work over time or you exposed it to enough tension, right? So some of these points we've known about for a while, which is that you can achieve hypertrophy with light, moderate, and heavy loads, but To refine our perspective here, I think it's helpful to note that this paper suggests that we want to get 10 plus sets per week of a particular muscle group to optimize hypertrophy, I think is the right word, and that you have to go close enough to failure, but it doesn't have to go all the way to failure, which is good news.
00:46:01
Speaker
And this means that if you're lifting a light load, right, something that you could lift probably around 15 or more times, that there's going to be a lot more reps that you're going to need to perform in those sets to get close enough to that failure point. And if you're lifting a moderate load, you'll only have to perform maybe 8 to 12 reps, heavy load fewer than 8, right? so or even six. So that's something to consider depending on your personality, depending on your attention span, depending on your time constraints even, or also your preference for like what strength training training feels like. I think with lightweights, we just, we have to kind of endure the discomfort of muscle burning sensation a little bit longer than we do with moderate and heavy loads. So the good news is that it seems like we have choice here and we can base a lot of our training decisions on individualized preferences instead of success and failure. Do it this way and you'll succeed.
00:46:54
Speaker
Do it this other way and you'll fail. It doesn't appear to be so strict. Yeah. I, for one, really, really aggressively dislike that burning feeling when you're lifting lightweights for multiple reps. So for me, that's a good enough reason to pick a load that is not going to emphasize so much of that.
00:47:13
Speaker
Yeah. All right,
Power Training and Aging
00:47:15
Speaker
so now we're going to get into power. So power is defined as the ability to exert maximum muscular force in as short a time as possible, which is often described as force times velocity.
00:47:27
Speaker
So power is different from maximal strength. Maximal strength is about the force that you can generate to overcome the greatest load without worrying about the speed at which you do it.
00:47:39
Speaker
Power brings in this time component. So as a result, the maximum amount of strength you can produce when you're also trying to do it as fast as you can will automatically be lower than if you're just going for maximal strength. And this is because these fast contractions result in a high muscle force, but low muscle tension.
00:48:01
Speaker
So when we have high force and high tension, we can produce the most amount of force against resistance. But when we're moving faster, we do not have that high muscle tension as well.
00:48:12
Speaker
Yeah, because muscles need time to generate that tension. That's right. So maximal power is the maximum amount of force you can generate as quickly as possible. So the position stand found that power was enhanced by the following.
00:48:26
Speaker
And the first is moderate loads around 30 to 70% of a one rep max. They found that this load range allowed you to move the weight quickly while still producing meaningful force, which is also key for power development. It's not just speed.
00:48:42
Speaker
It's not contraction velocity. Right. It's not just how fast you're doing it, it's how fast you can do it with all while still producing force, right? Heavier loads will slow movement down.
00:48:54
Speaker
Very light loads may not generate enough force to actually maximize that power output. Something to note, because if you're here thinking, well, 30% of a one rep max, from what I understand, is not a moderate load, that's if you're thinking about strength specifically.
00:49:11
Speaker
but the paper reports is that power improves most consistently in this roughly 30 to 70% range, which is moderate in the context of moving weight quickly. So it's not the same criteria as with regular resistance training definition of moderate in terms of a 1RM percentage, right? We're not on that same scale because now we're on a separate scale that also includes speed.
00:49:35
Speaker
Okay. So they also found that lower to moderate total reps per set under roughly 24 repetitions in each set is the most effective. And it sounds like a lot of reps, but it also depends on something called intent of effort, right? If I'm max efforting each one, I'm probably not going to get to 24 repetitions.
00:49:58
Speaker
If I'm sort of moderately efforting, I'm going to be able to do more reps than if I'm maximally efforting. And if I'm newer to training power, that's where I would start. and And if I'm also really, really new to training power, I'm probably going to start at a much lower rep range than 24, just because I'm trying to build this skill in the same way that people new to weightlifting don't start with just heavy lifting. They build up to that skill.
00:50:23
Speaker
Yeah. the The takeaway here, I think, is that volume does not drive power as much as speed of movement against resistance. Yeah. More is not always better in terms of power. Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. And that power output drops off as your fatigue builds. So yeah to Laurel's point, keeping your total reps relatively low is going to help you preserve both your movement speed and the movement quality. yeah Because the goal is high quality, fast reps, not just accumulating fatigue the way you would in something like an endurance or hypertrophy focused exercise. Yeah.
00:50:57
Speaker
They also found that Olympic style lifting was helpful. So these are movements like cleans, snatches, and so on. These variations naturally train power because they not only require rapid movement, but it's rapid force production, as well as really coordinated and explosive movement.
00:51:15
Speaker
They're built around the concept of moving moderate loads as quickly as possible. And you see a lot of that in CrossFit. more than you might see it in like power lifting focused type of exercise.
00:51:29
Speaker
The other thing that they found that is useful, and i I think this is super interesting, is what they call a fast concentric phase. And what this refers to is intentionally moving as fast as possible during the lifting phase of an exercise.
00:51:44
Speaker
But that doesn't mean that the weight itself moves quickly. So for example, if you were doing like a clean, which is where you're taking the weight from the ground to your shoulder, you're working on lifting it as fast as you can.
00:51:59
Speaker
Now that might mean, especially if it's for you, a relatively heavy lift, it's not actually moving quote unquote quickly. It may not look like you're actually moving it that fast, but you are trying to move it as fast as you can.
00:52:14
Speaker
So the intention of moving fast is what drives the power adaptation. not just the actual speed of the bar. So I think that's really kind of interesting. We do a little bit of this in Lift for Longevity where we encourage participants where possible to, for their deadlift, for example, do ah a faster tempo as they stand up with the bar and then a slower tempo as they return back down. And so that's then working on that power component, right? Whether or not somebody from the outside looking at it would say, it looks like they're moving what I think of as quickly. the intention to do it quickly drives power.
00:52:51
Speaker
Yep. It's kind of cool, right? Yeah. Well, the faster you move, the more motor units are recruited. Yeah. Right. But in order to move a heavy weight, the muscle has to contract relatively slowly.
00:53:04
Speaker
So when you attempt to move it quickly, motor unit recruitment could be higher. Mm-hmm. allowing you access to more of your muscle, total muscle mass, but the weight is not going to move quickly. Because if you're going to lift the weight, it's going to take your contractile protein some time. Those chemical reactions take time, folks. You know, we can't just cook up but lifting a heavy weight in seconds, just like you can't cook up Thanksgiving dinner in seconds. That's right.
00:53:33
Speaker
Now, this goes sort of in parentheses. It's a little bit niche. Something called flywheel. or eccentric devices in some comparisons were found to be more effective. Now a flywheel device is a sort of specialized training equipment that itself creates something called rotational inertia.
00:53:51
Speaker
So it's generated by this heavy disc that is spinning that then gives you variable resistance. So it's not the same as like a gravity-based weight where you pick something up and put it down and gravity is providing the resistance.
00:54:06
Speaker
the The equipment has a wheel that spins and then the resistance comes from how hard you pull it and how fast it spins. You might see it in your gym. It's like used for the squat and you can stand on a platform and then I think you put like a belt around your waist. Uh-huh.
00:54:21
Speaker
and you squat down and the chain goes like underneath the platform and then you have to stand up and then you squat down. And as you're squatting down, it's applying more resistance to the lowering phase. So when you're using a flywheel device, you have to actively slow the wheel down, which is then going to increase the amount of force that your muscles produce. So that creates a stronger eccentric stimulus that might enhance power adaptation. So it's not necessary to train power, but it can be another way to increase force production in certain contexts.
00:54:54
Speaker
One note that I want to come back to is that they found that power-oriented resistance training also improved some physical function outcomes arguably better than just standard resistance training.
00:55:07
Speaker
So this supports the argument that if you only train slowly and just grind through your movements forever, you may be leaving some function on the table. And this becomes especially relevant for people who are aging because our power in other studies have been found to drop off earlier and faster than our strength.
00:55:26
Speaker
And by physical function outcomes, we mean validated tests. Yes. Right. Which are the things that we can actually measure in research. Right. Like timed up and go, like all of these tests that we use as measures of various capacities. So according to my research in this area, i was unable to determine if power training produced better outcomes for fall prevention than strength training, because I don't think there's enough research out there that has looked at power training when compared against resistance training for that particular outcome. However, for papers that use performance unvalidated tests for the outcome of interest, power training consistently produces better results for stuff like the chair stand and this timed up and go test, as well as a couple of other validated tests, which have been used pretty successfully to predict fall risk.
00:56:19
Speaker
The best way to know if something works for preventing falls is to measure falls, right? But when you can't measure falls, which is difficult to do, right? Then what you do is you you measure someone's performance in these tests, which can be used to predict whether or not someone will fall. And power training produces better test results. Right. yeah Because these are exercises that have a time component. Right. And they're ultimately measuring power. Right.
00:56:42
Speaker
They say they're measuring mobility, which is very confusing, but they're actually measuring power. when I think we talked about it as well. It's a sort of clinical definition of mobility sometimes is different than like what we think of as mobility. Like I'm going to do is a certain kind of mobility workout. Whereas sometimes in the more clinical or rehab space, mobility means just how well do you get around in your life?
00:57:04
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Okay, cool. All right, muscular endurance is another outcome of interest that was looked at. Muscular endurance is the ability of a muscle, a group of muscles, to continuously exert force against submaximal resistance over an extended period of time. I like to call it repetition strength.
00:57:19
Speaker
It is a way of being fatigue resistant, right? So that's the superpower there. It allows muscles to perform repeated contractions or to maintain a static position, isometric contraction, without tiring.
00:57:32
Speaker
right? So you have longer until you're fatigued. And because we are measuring it over time, the amount of resistance, of course, has to be lower than where we are just looking at your ability to lift like a really heavy weight one time, okay? So the position stand is that resistance training improves muscular endurance compared with control.
00:57:50
Speaker
So just lifting weights in pretty much a wide range of ways will improve your muscular endurance, And so this includes standard resistance training, home-based resistance training. But there was insufficient data to say that through the manipulation of load, volume, power, using unstable surfaces, using special set structures that were able to clearly change the outcome of interest, in this case, muscular endurance. In other words, we don't know which specific levers we would pull to maximally improve muscular endurance because there's, I guess, not enough evidence that like looked at these you know in comparison. So in contrast to the other categories we've talked about, this is one place where this newer paper states they couldn't give advice on how many sets should you do? How many reps should you do? What should the load be? How much should you do over the week? Volume, right? There's just not enough information to go on.
00:58:47
Speaker
Endurance improves when you train it. All fitness outcomes are specific, right? you get out what you put in. If you want to train for higher levels of muscular endurance, it's very likely that you're best off challenging your muscles in that specific way. But the evidence here was was much less specific about how exactly to optimize that.
00:59:11
Speaker
And so We're going to get into the differences between the older paper and the newer one, but but before we do, let's let's look at our final category first, which is physical function. We were just talking about it when we were discussing mobility and these validated tests that are used basically predict, in many circumstances, like how long someone's going to be able to live independently. a lot of the time or what their risk of falls are.
00:59:35
Speaker
It refers to performance on these standardized tests that reflect a person's ability to basically just carry out basic real world physical tasks. Physical function in this paper isn't a single definition, right? It's a category of outcomes. Things like gait speed, how fast you walk, balance, different ways to challenge balance and see how someone does. The timed up and go test, chair stands. So how well you can perform these stripped down movement tasks that embed themselves in your life in various different ways, this is linked to independence.
01:00:10
Speaker
But it's important to remember that these are still vastly simplified tests and they don't really fully capture. how chaotic real life movement actually is, or they're not ecologically, what is the word? i don't know, but I got fascinated when you said ecologically. Ecologic validity, right? So ecological validity is when we look at a human in the wild, right? Which is like moving around their regular environment that they navigate. We notice that these sort of general tasks show up, right? Like standing up and sitting up from a chair, gate speed, climbing stairs, things like that. Different balance challenges, right? And then what we do is we try to isolate them out and put them in a lab where they can be studied
01:00:55
Speaker
in a way that reduces the confounding factors. Well, the confounding factors are actually really important for the outcomes, right? Like how messy is the floor this person is walking around? What's the lighting like, right? right does Does the home actually have stairs that are, you know,
01:01:12
Speaker
built to code where every stair is the same height, right? With a railing or not, right? All of this stuff completely matters, but it's impossible to study it in a controlled environment in a lab. So then we have to like vastly oversimplify it. And that's why these validated tests are used to predict someone's ability to live independently, but they're not a hundred percent accurate. Yeah. Right. And that's it's also a limitation of just research in general. Yeah. Because there's no way to replicate real life. So it's sort of like we're doing our best.
01:01:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yes, exactly. So what they found was that resistance training improved multiple measures of physical function compared to doing nothing. It improved gait speed. It improved balance.
01:01:57
Speaker
It improved the timed up and go and chair stand performance, which are these are all tests are designed around these particular physical function tasks. This is not surprising. Okay. So based on what we've seen about studies around resistance training for all ages and stages of life, this is not surprising, but here's where it gets interesting. Okay. And we already have kind of touched on this power focus, resistance training, improved outcomes in these tests more so than standard resistance training, because not all of these tests, but many of these tests have a time
01:02:29
Speaker
component to them. In other words, you do better on the test if you do more repetitions in a given amount of time, aka you move faster. So if you train moving quickly, you get better at moving quickly.
01:02:42
Speaker
Combined resistance training plus aerobic or mixed modalities also showed benefits in some comparisons. That's because aerobic activity often includes moving quickly, right? And this refers to programs that include resistance training. So these mixed modalities are programs that include resistance training alongside aerobic work, things like walking, cycling, interval training, mixed modalities.
01:03:08
Speaker
And in some comparisons, these combined approaches improved physical function outcomes similarly to, or in certain cases, more than resistance training alone. So the combination looks like it's the best.
01:03:22
Speaker
it's the It's the best. For a general physical function. Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. yeah So what's important is that the benefit doesn't seem to come from replacing resistance training, but by adding complementary forms of training, like cardiovascular-type training, power-type training, that This combination probably is better because it reflects the demands of real life, right? Where tasks require both strength and endurance and the ability to move quickly.
01:03:51
Speaker
So physical function improves with resistance training broadly, but how you train can influence how much carryover you get to real world tasks. And when start training these these other qualities, in addition to your ability to produce force, you see probably um additional benefit.
01:04:09
Speaker
So this is where the paper supports something that we've been sort of talking more about lately here at Movement Logic, which is yes, strength matters, of course. But as we get older, power may matter a little bit more.
01:04:22
Speaker
And this is because of like what Laura was talking about. A lot of functional tasks are time dependent, right? If I trip, I don't got a lot of time before I have to put my other foot out in front of me. that is ah That is a time dependent task. They are reactive. Getting my foot out fast is important. They are not performed at these very slow kind of grinding speeds. So even something like getting up from a chair,
01:04:46
Speaker
There's a woman that I work with, actually go work with her today, who is pretty deconditioned. We're working on getting her back. But one of the things we work on is her ability to get out of a chair. And she likes to sit in these chairs that she has had forever that are very low to the ground. So she's not helping herself in that case. And I've made the case to change the chair, but that's not going anywhere. So we work on getting out of those chairs. And the hardest part of it for her is that moment where you have to give like a little extra quicker push to to get the momentum of standing up going, right? So even just getting up out of a chair, which you might not intuitively think of as a power-based activity, actually involves power, as does catching yourself when you trip or hauling a heavy suitcase from the ground up into the trunk of your car, quickly stepping, changing directions. These are these are power problems. They're not just strength problems.
01:05:39
Speaker
Can i ask you a question? Sure. Do you ever look at her low chairs and go, oh, it's good that you have those because the longer you have to sit stand up from a low chair, the longer you'll be able to stand up from a low chair? I mean, sort of, but I would think that more if she could do more than like three in a row without getting totally gassed. You're basically concerned about her safety. i mean it's What happens when one day you can't? Yeah. and And at the moment, standing up from a chair for her is kind of a one rep max activity. like it's not She doesn't have a lot of tolerance for it, but that is a good point.
01:06:09
Speaker
So if we're moving away from the question, how do I achieve maximal strength towards the question, how do I achieve maximal capacity for my day-to-day needs? yeah Now, training power, not just strength, becomes important.
01:06:25
Speaker
Yeah. However, the paper did find that resistance training alone can improve power. Absolutely. Absolutely. Right. But we come down to a distinction the paper makes where they talk about the difference between creating significant changes versus optimization.
01:06:40
Speaker
Right. So resistance training can create significant changes to power. But if we want to optimize power, if we want to really focus on improving power, we should engage in power exercise. Right.
01:06:52
Speaker
But even going from nothing to resistance training is going to improve your ability to produce force with with speed. Right. And so to that point, the paper's not saying that slow strength training does not help physical function at all. There's tons of research to suggest that it does. But the paper is suggesting that adding speed, intent, or power-focused work may give you extra benefit for real-world performance. Yeah. And to me, it just makes total sense that that would be the case. Right.
01:07:22
Speaker
So it strengthens the case for including things like jumps, throws, faster concentric activity, or intention to move quickly, not as a replacement for strength training, but as a complement yeah that targets a different adaptation.
01:07:35
Speaker
I also thought it was interesting in the paper where they they recommended not including jumps as a power exercise. Oh. Did you see that part? No. Why?
01:07:45
Speaker
Because jumps are more about contraction velocity. It's more about speed of movement. Right. Whereas power is about producing force against some amount of resistance between 30 to 70 percent of a one rep max.
01:08:01
Speaker
So I guess it comes down to what body weight is. Right. And what constitutes 30 to 70% effort for the individual. Yeah, because body weight is a source of resistance. right And so, for example, if you're doing single leg versus two-legged jumps, right body weight is now twice as right much resistance. But I thought that was, it was interesting because many people think the quintessential, a quintessential power exercise is the box jump.
01:08:28
Speaker
And this paper was like, hmm, we don't think so. Right, right. That makes sense. But I do think that contraction velocity is a huge part of not falling, right? Absolutely. Because when you trip, you're also not necessarily having to overcome a ton of resistance. You just got to get your foot out in front of you. You got to get there faster. Yeah. yeah exactly Exactly. All right. So if we summarize where we are so far, this is what we have.
01:08:54
Speaker
When we're looking at strength, It can improve across a range of loads, especially if you're training with enough effort. But if you're looking to generate maximal strength on something like a one rep max test, you need to lift heavier loads.
01:09:10
Speaker
The paper also shows a dose response relationship, right? So as the load increases, the strength gains tend to increase as well, which makes sense. For muscle hypertrophy, the strongest signal in the paper is total weekly volume.
01:09:23
Speaker
So you can build muscle with light, moderate, or heavy weights as long as you're doing enough work and getting close enough to failure. So it's less about the perfect rep range, which used to be the old idea, and more about accumulating enough stimulus over time.
01:09:39
Speaker
Power seems to respond best when you're using moderate loads, right, that rough 30 to 70% of your max, and moving them as fast as as possible. It's the combination of force and velocity that matters, not just lifting heavy or moving light weights quickly. And that's moderate in the context of power. Yes.
01:09:59
Speaker
Muscular endurance does improve with resistance training, but, and I really like that they are like, you know what, we just can't say for sure anything, so we're not going to. The paper doesn't show strong evidence that these specific variables like load, set structure, or unstable surfaces can consistently change the outcome. So it's less clear how to optimize it, and it's more clear that you just kind of need to do it.
01:10:21
Speaker
And then resistance training does improve physical function across the board, things like balance, gait speed, getting up from a chair. Power-focused training may have an edge. And that makes sense because real-life tasks are time-sensitive. It's not just about how strong you are, but how quickly you can use that strength.
01:10:38
Speaker
So what this paper really shows is that there isn't a single best way to train that works for every single goal or every single person. A lot of different approaches can be effective.
01:10:49
Speaker
And what matters more is matching your training to your goal, whether it's strength, muscle size, power, endurance, physical function, rather than trying to follow one rigid, quote unquote, optimal program.
01:11:03
Speaker
Yeah.
ACSM Paper: Flexibility in Training Guidelines
01:11:04
Speaker
Yeah. There are different levers that you can pull depending on the person and the outcome that they care about. And This is where this paper really diverges from the older ACSM guidelines. So let's do a little compare and contrast to the 2009 paper, which was 17 years ago yeah versus the 2026 paper. The last time the ACSM came out with a position stand was in 2009. So we were overdue.
01:11:33
Speaker
And the 2009 version reads more like a rule book. It's very specific prescriptions for how to train Whereas this 2026 version is more of an evidence summary that allows for a lot more flexibility.
01:11:50
Speaker
The 2026 stand was explicitly created because the evidence base has expanded so much since 2009 and because earlier position stands had been criticized for not using rigorous evidence synthesis methods to come to conclusions that they drew the else. So the sample sizes were much, much smaller. Yeah.
01:12:12
Speaker
So before we talk about the 2009 position stand, let's give our listeners some context about 2009. How long ago was that? Because don't know, if you're like me, the 2000s feel like, no, it was just like 10 years ago. Yeah. Everything that starts with 2000, it was 10 years ago in my brain. Yeah. 2009 was actually 17 years ago. And so major events from 2009. Barack Obama was sworn in as the first black president of the United States.
01:12:42
Speaker
The miracle on the Hudson occurred where Captain Sully Sullenberger's successful landing of his plane on the Hudson River. Amazing. you remember that? That was such a good deal. Yes. Incredible. Michael Jackson died and Sarah moved to Los Angeles. That was a major event for everybody. That was event. So the 2009 stand happened at that time and recommended relatively specific programming buckets. So novice lifters were recommended to do resistance training using moderate loads, so weights that you can lift between 8 12
01:13:19
Speaker
This was considered a general starting point. And the idea was that this range balances learning techniques with muscle development, with, you know, developing a base level of strength without the higher injury risk or technical demands of lifting heavy.
01:13:36
Speaker
I think it's logical. I mean, I think it's logical that if we're going to start lifting weights, we're not going to start with heavy weights. There is more, there's more skill required in lifting heavy weights. Yeah. I definitely think and that the technique is something that we maybe have to spend a little bit more time with.
01:13:50
Speaker
As trainees became more experienced, the position stand recommended expanding into broader ranges like heavy loads, one to five reps, I guess, heavy, heavier, moderate loads, six to 12 reps, as opposed to eight to 12. The key shift here is the inclusion of heavier lifting to continue driving strength adaptations since lighter loads alone or moderate loads alone become less effective for furthering strength gains at higher training levels. And I i don't, I don't think that this is necessarily true because again, strength is task specific, right? If you want to lift
01:14:23
Speaker
a heavy barbell in the deadlift, you should spend some time lifting heavy barbells in the deadlift, and you're going to improve your ability to lift heavier and heavier in the deadlift, provided that volume is sufficient.
01:14:35
Speaker
I think that you can become incredibly strong while only lifting light and moderate loads yeah generally. Right. so this this advice that's there yeah So this advice where they're saying after a certain amount of time, you must lift heavy to continue yeah to get strong generally isn't exactly right.
01:14:52
Speaker
Yeah. it's Well, it is if you're if you're measuring strength using a one repetition max test, which is the gold standard way of measuring strength. Okay. There are other ways like a hand dynamometer. But sorry, I'm talking more about the difference that we're seeing here in the 2026 paper where they're saying maximal strength needs heavy lifting versus just broadly trying to get stronger. Right. True. Yes. I see what you're saying. Yeah. The 2026 paper is saying what I'm saying, which is that if you want to be strong in a specific way, you need to be lifting heavy loads yeah in that specific way. as Because the ah the way that you evaluate whether or not you got stronger is using a one repetition max test. Right. So you're really just practicing for the test.
01:15:35
Speaker
But general strength, you're going to become generally stronger if you progressively overload bre your strength. And you can do that with light and moderate loads.
01:15:48
Speaker
Right. Right. Cool. Okay. So for muscle growth, the 2009 stand emphasized a fairly specific hypertrophy zone, right? What they believed was that moderate loads between six and 12 reps with moderate rest periods between 60 and 90 seconds, multiple sets per exercise. The assumption was that this combination optimized mechanical tension or the metabolic stress that the muscle needs to experience in order to to grow, right? To make itself bigger. Right.
01:16:20
Speaker
And this is not necessarily the case, right? So you can improve muscle size with light loads as well as heavy loads. I still believe that the moderate rep range slash intensity might might be your best bet just in balancing the amount of sets you can perform with the amount of rest you'll need to take.
01:16:46
Speaker
But if you have all the time in the world to train, you know, and you can rest those three to four minutes that you would need to between a truly heavy set and you can perform multiple sets of a heavy lift, then yes. But I think if we're trying to maximize our time, I still lean a little bit more toward light and moderate loads for hypertrophy.
01:17:08
Speaker
yeah And also they require less skill. ah You got to pick your battles. Yeah, definitely. But you can increase muscle size with light, moderate, and heavy loads is the takeaway, which is good, right? Yeah. Power training.
01:17:21
Speaker
Okay. In the 2009 stand, power training was defined as using lighter to moderate loads, often well below maximal strength levels, which is still the case. Moving them explosively, still the case. The goal here is to maximize the rate of force development and contraction speed, not just the total force, yeah.
01:17:39
Speaker
So speed of movement becomes the priority rather than grinding through heavy reps, which you have to move slowly to lift a heavy weight pretty much. Still true. yeah i think that's still true. For muscular endurance, the recommendation was to use lighter weights that can be lifted for higher repetitions, 15 or more, with shorter rest periods between sets.
01:17:58
Speaker
This approach was thought to improve the muscle's ability to sustain repeated contractions over time rather than produce muscle force. And this paper now that includes more studies and a much more robust amount of evidence says not so fast. yeah We actually still don't know if this is true.
01:18:18
Speaker
Which leads me to believe how did the 2009 position stand come to such a conclusive position? Well, this goes to the point yeah goes to the point that their methods of yeah choosing evidence were not as rigorous as the more current paper has had. Yes.
01:18:33
Speaker
Yep. Okay. And then the 2009 paper didn't actually have a separate category for physical function. Yeah. unlike this 2026 one, probably because there wasn't enough research, I'm guessing around it, or maybe they just weren't specifically looking at that.
01:18:46
Speaker
yeah It just focused more on strength, muscle power, and endurance as the outcomes of interest. Yeah. Okay. So what we see as having changed now in this 2026 position paper is that there is much more flexibility for that hypertrophy range, right? The new standards far less married to a specific repetition range, it suggests that hypertrophy can happen across a load spectrum.
01:19:12
Speaker
Overall volume matters more, right? Getting close enough to failure matters more than picking the like correct rep range. So that's good. There's less faith in periodization as inherently superior.
01:19:25
Speaker
And we've talked about this quite a bit already. So the 2009 position stand was pretty clearly pro periodization. it recommended systematic variation in load and volume as a way to keep progressing and to avoid plateaus, especially for more advanced lifters. The 2026 paper does not show that periodization is better for so general strength or general muscle growth, but that doesn't mean that it's useless. As we sort of discussed, it's probably most useful for people who are training towards a specific activity or event, less required if you're just trying to generally get
01:20:03
Speaker
better strength, better endurance, better power output. There's much less focus on special methods, right? So the 2009 paper didn't say that you needed certain special methods, like for example, a superset, which is where you combine two exercises back to back before you take a rest, which I often use as just like a time saver more than anything else. Yeah.
01:20:26
Speaker
or a drop set, which is a much meaner, again, mean technique, which is where let's say you're on the example that Laurel gave, the leg extension machine. Instead of just you get to that fatigue level and then you stop, instead you you just pull the pin out, make the weight lighter and keep going.
01:20:45
Speaker
It's like you're trying to squeeze the last drop of juice out of the orange, right? It's like, as much as I can possibly get out of this. Yeah. so The 2009 paper said that those techniques were useful, especially for more advanced lifters. The 2026 paper pulls back and shows that you know those methods aren't consistently better than just straightforward training, which is good, right? It's allowing us to not have to get so specific.
01:21:09
Speaker
There is a lot stronger evidence. There's probably just a lot more evidence for power-specific programming. There's a really clear evidence-based case for moderate load faster training and the way that it has this carryover to physical function, which again, the 2009 paper didn't even address.
01:21:28
Speaker
um Generally speaking, there's a lot more evidence. And as a result, there's a lot more kind of humility, right? The 2026 message is not, here is the one true program, right? It's not the Lord of the Rings.
01:21:40
Speaker
It is many forms of progressive resistance training work, and only a handful of variables consistently move the needle depending on the adaptation that you want.
01:21:51
Speaker
So while the 2009 paper reads more like a rule book, the 2026 paper reads more like train hard, match your program to your goal, and stop treating every variable like it's make or break.
01:22:04
Speaker
Can I share the the part of the paper that raised my eyebrows that I shared with you before we started recording about the 20 plus hours per week? Please. in the latter part of the paper, the 2026 position stand, they write, and I quote, notably, others have estimated that developing general muscular fitness, according to previous ACSM guidelines,
01:22:28
Speaker
So that earlier paper may in some cases require training for 20 hours or more per week. I read that sentence and I was like, wait, what? The previous position stand provided prescription that would require 20 hours or more per week?
01:22:49
Speaker
I mean, I think I exercise a lot, but I get nowhere close to 20 hours per week, even when you combine my running and my strength training. like I think the most it's ever been is like nine hours per week. mean, 20 hours per week is somebody who's getting ready for a bodybuilding competition or like a professional athlete. And even then- Probably not 20 hours. Well, 20, maybe 20 though. Yeah. But like, but seriously, that's like elite competitive athlete. Yeah. This is not for gen pop. So then I was like, wait, what? And so I went back a few paragraphs and here's where it says previous guidelines have recommended healthy adults use free weights and machines to complete two to three resistance training sessions per week. Okay. That seems reasonable with eight to 10 exercises involving major muscle groups. Now here's where you're like, well, is that eight to 10 spread out over three
01:23:38
Speaker
Sessions or is that eight to 10 per session? Right. Okay. If we have 10, let's take the higher end of all these numbers. Three sessions, 10 exercises per session. That's 30 exercises.
01:23:50
Speaker
One to four sets per exercise. So now i'm going to take the higher end of that. Four sets of 30 exercises. That's 120 sets with eight to 20 repetitions per set with two to three minutes rest. Okay, let's take the three minutes rest. You're going to live in the gym. And put them in between every single one of those sets. uhu
Practical Training Advice for All Levels
01:24:09
Speaker
I mean, i don't know if that equals 20 hours, but yeah that's a lot of feels like that's a lot of time I don't have to be lifting weights. But I guess like the the main takeaway here is that Being overly prescriptive and suggesting amounts of training that go way, way beyond what is necessary to create significant change or overly prescriptive training approaches that are much, much more specific than what is required, it reduces accessibility.
01:24:41
Speaker
It reduces perceived accessibility, which I think is probably most important because what people perceive determines what they do. And so if someone hears, I have to train that much.
01:24:56
Speaker
Or it, you know, or or am I think they think immediately people go to the higher number two and they're like, well, if it's not four sets, it didn't count. Or if it's not 10 exercises per session, it didn't count. Or if it's not three sessions per week, it didn't count.
01:25:10
Speaker
When in reality, going from nothing to even a little tiny bit. is where you're gonna see the most amount of benefit, right? So this is where it's harmful to present overly prescriptive, higher end prescriptions as being the minimal effective dose or the best, or even like not presenting it in a contextualized way and saying like, this is what everybody should be doing is is harmful because it increases the perceived barriers yeah that then result in people's behaviors
01:25:44
Speaker
continuing to be sedentary. okay So let's talk about the practical applications of this position stand for people who are already lifting and then for people who want to start. So if you are already lifting and want the biggest bang for your buck, what are the takeaways here?
01:26:04
Speaker
If you're already lifting, here is the highest return on your time. Train at least two times per week. Consistency matters always.
01:26:15
Speaker
I will say consistency is queen. Frequency matters more for strength and consistency and frequency put together, right? Are probably the bedrock of trying to make a change, right? Yeah. Yeah.
01:26:26
Speaker
yeah Use high enough effort, get close enough to failure for the work to count. You got to challenge yourself. Yeah. If you want to be strong in a specific task, as strong as possible, you need to challenge yourself with weights that require you to be able to lift heavier and heavier weights, right? That push your ability to lift heavy weights.
01:26:49
Speaker
Use full range of motion and do multiple sets. Accumulate enough weekly volume for a particular muscle group. If your goal especially is to increase muscle size,
01:27:03
Speaker
Total work across the week matters more than rep ranges, more than frequency, right? So you want to accumulate 10 plus sets per week for a particular muscle group.
01:27:15
Speaker
If you are interested in accentuating, further benefiting your functional capacity in day-to-day movements, consider adding power work to complement your strength training.
01:27:29
Speaker
This is going to be loads as light as 30% of your one repetition max, upwards of 70% of your one repetition max where you're looking to move them as quickly as possible.
01:27:42
Speaker
Match the method that you choose to the goal. So if you want to optimize strength versus optimize hypertrophy, yes, they are intimately related, versus optimize power.
01:27:54
Speaker
you're going to optimize each of these separate outcomes of interest by taking a slightly different approach. However, general resistance training appears to also significantly improve all three, right? But if you wanna especially grow some muscle,
01:28:08
Speaker
then the hypertrophy approach is going to allow you to be more successful, right? Which is more focused on volume, less focused on frequency. But if your goal is strength, well, then you're going to want to look at how much load you're lifting, how frequently you're lifting that load. And then power is going to come down to largely how quickly you're attempting to move the load, right?
01:28:28
Speaker
ah Stop majoring in the minors. Right? All the gurus and people selling you shit online would love for you to major in the minors because that's what they can sell. But you probably don't need to.
01:28:40
Speaker
You probably don't need... Fancy set structures, special tempos, going to failure on everything, and like any type of specific protocol, right? You you probably don't need it.
01:28:53
Speaker
You could probably just stick to the things that you like and that you will do and that you want to do because there's a lot of room for for individualized choice. And then don't over-worship novelty, which is hard for you know all of us. I think we get shiny object syndrome, but the highest return comes from doing...
01:29:12
Speaker
the same shit consistently right not constantly changing things up and jumping from this to that to the other thing but like sticking with something long enough to actually improve your skill your ability to do it as well as to make changes to your strength to make changes to the muscles involved in that in that movement so yeah repetition and consistency the highest return on investment is probably boring consistency Womp, womp. Repetition over time plus some strategic specificity that ah that aligns with your preferences and your goals.
01:29:53
Speaker
So that's for someone who's already resistance training. What about for someone who's not resistance training and who wants to start? The good news is that the entry barrier is so much lower than you think. yeah The paper supports that many forms of resistance training work, including home-based resistance training and resistance band resistance training for some outcomes.
01:30:18
Speaker
i I just want to go back to this but obstacle that I feel so many people what a obstacle The The bobstacle? The bobstacle, the obstacle that so many people face, yeah which is this all or nothing mindset of if it's not this one way, why do it at all? And
Beginners' Guide to Resistance Training
01:30:35
Speaker
I was like, what is a good analogy for that? And I think that being really, really hungry is.
01:30:40
Speaker
Like, if you don't resistance train, imagine that your body is just starving for strength. If you give it even just a little bit, It's going to help so much. Similar to if you haven't eaten all day and you're so hungry, literally any form of food looks amazing, doesn't it? Yeah. Of course, this is an imperfect analogy, but this is kind of what the state your body is in when you don't resistance train. Literally any amount will benefit you so much more than just continuing to let your body starve.
01:31:13
Speaker
I know that's maybe a little bit dark and extreme, but no, but I think that's a really good analogy. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're new to resistance training, here's what matters. Just start, just do some resistance training. You don't need a perfect program.
01:31:25
Speaker
You don't need a periodized program. You don't need specific equipment. You don't need to lift heavy. Train at least two days a week, but listen, even one day a week is good. Start, right? Train the major muscle groups. Focus on those compound, big, basic movements. If you don't have a lot of time, those cover a lot of musculature all in one movement, squats, deadlifts, presses, rows, things like that. Or if you don't want to do those exercises, try to include exercises that hit the posterior chain, the quads, the upper body pushing and pulling muscles. Those are the major kind of categories, the core.
01:32:06
Speaker
Use movements you can do safely and consistently, right? So the best exercise is the ones you can repeat and that you aren't anxious about. Make sure you take sets close enough to failure. The set should feel pretty hard at the end, right? You don't need to go all the way to failure, but you do need to push yourself. You do need to challenge yourself in the sets.
01:32:28
Speaker
And then progress over time. Now, I have something to say about this one. If you want to continue making progress, you will have to increase the challenge because your body will adapt and what was challenging to you will become easy to you.
01:32:42
Speaker
So if you want to continue to get stronger or more powerful or have better endurance, or if you want to have bigger muscles, you have to increase the training stimulus to match your current capacity. Now, here's, I found this fascinating in the paper.
01:32:58
Speaker
Everyone thinks that progressive overload is like the holy grail of strength training. And it is, but here's what this paper is saying, and this is the point that it's making. Quote, increasing the stimulus in some manner is likely a requirement only for those seeking continued longer term progress, unquote.
01:33:17
Speaker
It is not required if you are fine being on a plateau. Because here's the point. Being on a plateau that is higher than what your untrained baseline was is way better than being on that untrained baseline.
01:33:36
Speaker
So this paper is even saying it's like, it's, it's, what is it doing? What's the saying? It's like destroying all of our, It's killing our darlings? It's killing our darlings. That's one way of saying what I'm trying to say. It's killing our darlings. Basically, it's even suggesting that progressive overload is not the holy grail because if you are untrained, if you are largely sedentary and you start lifting 10-pound weights,
01:34:02
Speaker
in five different exercises twice a week for 10 reps each, you're going to probably achieve a higher baseline of strength than you had when you were sedentary.
01:34:15
Speaker
Now, if you continue doing that exact same workout twice a week for the rest of your life, you will not get any stronger than you are probably, right?
01:34:27
Speaker
But you will also not revert back to that initial low level of strength, that lowest level of strength. So that, hey, that's better, right? Than being at that lowest level of strength.
01:34:38
Speaker
Ultimately, this paper is just very, it's very optimistic. It's very like, literally just do something. Yeah. And I think this, just to add something, I think this is totally in line with this finding of the biggest, the greatest benefit is seen in people who go from nothing to something.
01:34:56
Speaker
Yeah. And then progressive overload, which is a good thing to to engage in if you are interested in continuing to get stronger than where you currently are, is is a little bit more in line with this idea of for people who are already lifting as ways to you know turn the dials based on what you're trying to make happen. And I'll also say that more is better. Like generally speaking, more exercise is better than less.
01:35:26
Speaker
Generally speaking, being stronger is better than being less strong. So this is not saying that progressive overload isn't a good idea. Right. It good idea. And I would as well. Yeah. And even like for your example of that, you know, let's say you picked that workout and you started doing it and you just kept it the same your whole life. Right. Yes. That is definitely better than not doing it. Yes. However, however, asterisk, if that doesn't, if we're talking about something like physical function, if that set of exercises does not
01:35:59
Speaker
cover, let's say, what you need for physical function. Like if you're still seeing reduced physical function. Right. that suggests that you don't really want to stop there. Absolutely. right Right. You're still under the line. yeah Yeah. And if the amount you're doing makes it so you still can't get up from your chair in your living room, then right you well, now we do need progressive overload to get you there. Yeah.
01:36:22
Speaker
Great point. Okay. And then finally build the habit first, refine it later. And I, I work with lots of personal training clients online and this is One of the things that I have to work pretty hard on getting through to a lot of them who are just starting, which is that they're kind of racing ahead to optimization before they've even established the habit.
01:36:44
Speaker
And they're asking about like ways of optimizing a workout that they're not engaging in regularly. right And that's where i've got to be we've got to actually pause for a second and back up and find ways actually where you're going to do this work.
01:36:59
Speaker
Not optimize. but right do it. You have to do it first. Because once you're consistent, then that's when it's appropriate to start getting more specific with the optimization piece. Until you are consistently engaging in resistance training, your first barrier, and by far the most important
Tailored Approaches for Special Conditions
01:37:25
Speaker
thing that you now need to overcome and that you should really exclusively focus on,
01:37:29
Speaker
is making it so that the resistance training is something that you actually do. And what can we do to make that happen? Like 90% of my energy goes in that direction with a lot of my clients.
01:37:40
Speaker
So if we compare the WHO and CDC message to this message that we've spent the episode talking about, the WHO and the CDC is providing up a public health minimum, right?
01:37:53
Speaker
To stave off early death, do strength training twice a week. The ACSM nuance is... Okay, once you're doing that, right, you can now steer your programming toward these various outcomes of interest. And here's how you might do that. And here's what tends to matter more than what doesn't tend to matter as much. Okay. So let's go back to, now that we sort of summarized what the paper has said, let's go back to this special populations part, which is very specifically not included in the paper.
01:38:22
Speaker
So as we said before, this paper is about healthy adults. So its conclusions do not automatically transfer to people with major chronic diseases or people who are actively in cancer treatment. If you are in a physical disability population, if you have a neurologic condition,
01:38:41
Speaker
if you are early post-op rehab, right? Things like that. And again, it is appropriate that they did not include these special population needs because we're trying to create a sort of close to universal set of recommendations and findings. And the data from special populations is going to act as a confounding factor.
01:39:01
Speaker
So for example, something like fatigue might be a variable that matters way more in a clinical population than in a healthy adult population. While the paper does note that resistance training is safe for healthy adults of all ages, the bottom line is that if you're in a spopulation, if you're in a special population or a spopulation, you may need more individualized approaches that are not covered by the paper.
01:39:28
Speaker
With that said, this is a place where internet gurus tend to overreach, right? They turn a ah healthy adult programming paper into sort of universal medical advice.
01:39:39
Speaker
which is not what they're trying to say at all. And I will add just as a note, as someone who is in quote unquote, a special population myself, right? i'm I am living with cancer. I always will be. I have periods of active treatment and periods of less active treatment.
01:39:55
Speaker
I did a bunch of research around strength training specifically for for women who have had cancer treatment for breast cancer. either during or afterwards. And there is tons of evidence that suggests that it is a good thing to do.
01:40:10
Speaker
So it's not that this position paper is saying if you're in a special population, none of this applies to you. It's just saying you have particular needs based on which population you're in that we're not going to try to cover in this broad piece of device.
01:40:30
Speaker
All right.
Conclusion: Personalization and Enjoyment in Training
01:40:31
Speaker
woo So let's talk about our big takeaways. The number one biggest takeaway is that resistance training absolutely matters.
01:40:40
Speaker
It supports our strength, our muscle size, our power, our endurance, our function. It is a core health behavior. But at the same time, the paper undercuts a lot of these more rigid rules that people have about how you're supposed to train.
01:40:59
Speaker
It takes the air out of this idea that there's one perfect program. which is a great thing if we're trying to help people overcome barriers to resistance training. So in other words, consistency beats perfection and making the jump from nothing to something will help people see the greatest benefits to their health.
01:41:21
Speaker
So I saw a client recently who I see occasionally, this is sort of like a drop in person. And this person is a, she loves playing tennis. She plays tennis a lot and she might go to like a Pilates or a yoga class. And so I said, you know, what what might be a good inclusion in your general activity is to actually start to do some specific resistance training, right? Specifically that might help with a lot of how you play tennis.
01:41:48
Speaker
Now, this is not someone who would repeatedly come work with me on resistance training. I have people that I work with like that, but for various reasons, this person is not that person.
01:42:00
Speaker
This person lives in a building that has gym, like a commercial gym in the ground level floor of the building that I think if you live in the building, you get a discount or you get an automatic membership to, something like that.
01:42:12
Speaker
she's probably not going to hire a trainer either. So in lieu of all of those things, my advice to her, and it was based really on what we know now of that, like everything works. I said, go get on the machines.
01:42:24
Speaker
Because the machines at the gym are absolutely the sort of lowest hanging fruit in terms of accessibility, ease of use. The instructions are printed right on it.
01:42:38
Speaker
The stability that lot of machines create afford you ah a bigger sort of range of not tweaking yourself, for want of a better word. Like they're just a great entry point. And so as someone who wanted an entry point, but also had these other criteria that were sort of specific, I was like, then just go get on the machines.
01:42:58
Speaker
And that's the advice I would give probably anybody in the same boat as she was. Absolutely. The second takeaway is that a lot of different approaches can work.
01:43:09
Speaker
A caveat there is that they are not going to all do the same thing, though. Broadly, resistance training improves the outcomes of interest, but if we're looking to optimize one over the other, we're probably going to need to strategize that program in a particular direction.
01:43:27
Speaker
So key variables that matter, depending on your goal, load for strength, specifically in the movement you want to be strong in, volume for hypertrophy, 10 plus sets per week targeted toward a whatever muscle group you want to grow, speed of movement against resistance for power. And so then once you understand that, training gets clearer, right? You still have to actually do the work, but you don't have to obsess over every single tiny detail, knowing that broadly just engaging a resistance training is going to improve a lot of things all at once.
01:44:03
Speaker
But you also can still understand that it not everything does everything equally well, right? And so this is where it's helpful to hire somebody who understands how to manipulate these variables in specific directions for specific outcomes. But I think overall, the bigger takeaway is that a lot of different approaches can work. So don't get too hung up in the weeds. And yeah, this is another place where, what is it? Caveat Emter? Buyer beware.
01:44:30
Speaker
If somebody's selling you that there's one exact precise way to train and it's the best way, head for the hills. The third takeaway, and this is a really important one, is consistency.
01:44:41
Speaker
Dr. Stu Phillips, who is one of the authors of this paper and who we will be interviewing later this season. I'm so excited that we're going to get to talk to him. this is ah This is a quote from him. He says, the best resistance training program is the one you'll actually stick with. Yeah.
01:44:56
Speaker
Training all major muscle groups at least twice a week matters far more than chasing the idea of a perfect or complex training plan, whether it's barbells, bands, or body weight, consistency and effort drive results.
01:45:11
Speaker
Yeah. And I just want to make a point about consistency because I think this is another area where people get overwhelmed by it and then just like don't do it. I think people think consistency means you do a perfect number of training sessions perfectly every time. You're like 100% every time you go to the gym, you give max effort, you get max results.
01:45:31
Speaker
Not at all. Consistency is just that you keep showing up. And you're going to have days where you feel great and and you get through everything you want to. You're going to have days where you get halfway through your workout and you're like, you know what? For whatever reason, maybe it's I'm tired. Maybe I'm feeling weirdly nauseous. Maybe I'm stressed out about something and I'm distracted.
01:45:50
Speaker
I'm going to stop here. That still counts as consistency. yeah So it's the habit of showing up and just doing it again and again and again, regardless of what it actually looks like that matters more than what it actually looks like.
01:46:05
Speaker
Yes. Yes. You're going to have, on average, I feel like it's like 30% of your workouts are going to feel amazing. And 30% are going to feel like nothing special. 30% of them might feel kind of like, that was sort of ah not great. Right. like yeah I mean, I find this with running, especially where I've got for a run and I'm like, well, that didn't go that well. Or it was like, whatever, you know, or some days I go out and i'm like, damn, I'm f freaking, I'm an peak condition. Woohoo. So, you know, you got to take the good with the bad.
01:46:38
Speaker
That's what consistency is. That's what life is, right? Right. Do you have the best day of your life every day? No, you don't. Do you keep living your days? Yes, you do. Exactly. All right. The fourth takeaway is match your training to your goal. So this paper does make it pretty clear that different adaptations are driven by different variables, right? And so instead of trying to find one perfect program that does everything, you're probably better off asking, what are my goals?
01:47:04
Speaker
What do I actually want to get good at? What do I want to improve? And how can my training choices take me closer to those goals? Yeah. Yeah. And I would say as well, like for people who are new to resistance training, you may not have really specific goals.
01:47:19
Speaker
right Your goal may just be start resistance training. That is an excellent goal. And then as you get into it, you may find, and this was the case for me as well. Like I started lifting barbells.
01:47:31
Speaker
I didn't have a specific goal apart from lifting barbells. But once I started doing it, I was like, huh, I wonder what the heaviest deadlift I could ever produce might be. And so then I started targeting towards that, right? And so your goals can be very individualized and specific based on what you're interested in. And then that also is useful because if you're interested in it, you're going to keep doing it. Yeah. And I think likes and dislikes matter enormously. Like I'm very, very keyed into like what my personal training clients like and dislike.
01:47:58
Speaker
I wanna know. think they try to hide it from me sometimes and like, no, no, no, no. Do you hate this exercise? We don't have to do this exercise. There are literally a hundred other exercises that would take you toward your goal, right? Whatever that is. It does not have to be this one.
01:48:13
Speaker
Like someone like it's a pain in the ass at the gym to use this machine. Well, screw it. Let's find a different one. We don't need to use this machine. Exactly. And so and this is the biggest takeaway from this paper by far was kind of back to what Steve Phillips was saying, which is that strength training has an adherence problem. People don't stick with it for more than a couple of weeks and then they quit.
01:48:36
Speaker
And or people never start. This means that the single most important thing that we can do to increase the number of people participating in resistance training is to individualize the programming so that people feel like it's for them.
01:48:56
Speaker
And this involves basing programming choices off of things like preference. Not just what are my goals and what are the best ways to get there, but like, what do you want to do?
01:49:08
Speaker
What do you not want to do? Let's do more of what you like and want to do so that you do it. Right. Because that is where you have the most room to benefit is by going from not doing it to doing it.
01:49:23
Speaker
And so what time of day and how long do you want your workouts to be and what exact exercises do you like and dislike? And What are your goals and how can we get you there in a way that you actually find that you want to do, or at least you don't not want to do? I do think some people like resistance training just inherently more than others. yes I've got a client who's like a cardio person. She loves yoga. She loves cardio. She is having a hard time getting started with resistance training. So it's like,
01:49:53
Speaker
I am super focused with her. I'm just figuring out exactly what is getting in her way with the resistance training and just eliminate it. Like you don't like long workouts. They can be really short. You don't like these types of exercises. We're don't have to do them. It's just like, yeah figure out what you will do and then do it.
01:50:11
Speaker
Exactly. I keep coming back to, you know, that Nike slogan, just do it. yeah they were They were onto something. They were really onto something. No, really, they were, especially when it comes to exercise. Yeah, just do it do it. All right. I think that's probably a good place to finish up the episode yeah for today. Yeah. Thank you so much, everyone, for listening. Hopefully this gave you a level of detail that helped to clarify your understanding around resistance training, what matters and what doesn't.
01:50:44
Speaker
And we're going to be talking about a lot of these concepts in the season, especially power. If you want to get started with some strength training and you're like, I literally have no idea where to start and you want to get some really solid information for free, sign up for our barbell mini course and you'll start to learn how to use any type of weight as long as it's a barbell, a dumbbell or a kettlebell or just something heavy external to you to do deadlifts, squats and bench press.
01:51:14
Speaker
We're also going to be offering a course coming up very, very soon about power, which we're super excited about. So make sure you stay tuned with us to learn about that. We are also now on YouTube. So if you are someone who likes to listen to podcasts,
01:51:28
Speaker
and also likes YouTube, I've been putting a lot of our Instagram content up on YouTube. So if you're like vehemently opposed to Instagram because it's a meta based social media site, but you don't have any problems with YouTube, head on over to YouTube because you'll get a lot of our video content that we post on Instagram over there as well. Yeah. And our podcast is on YouTube.
01:51:51
Speaker
That's right. All right, folks. We'll see you in two weeks. Yeah. See you in two weeks.