Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host, Lathan Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. It is time for that weekly episode. Before I get into that, just a quick reminder to leave reviews if you have not done so, continue to help get this show to more people, help people live better lives, live happier lives, look better, feel better, all those good things that we all want to get through health and fitness. I appreciate your help in making that happen.
Speaker: The topic for this week, we are building off of last week's underrated, overrated episode. I did one on fat loss last week, and I thought that I would follow that up with one on training. So what things should you be focusing on to build more muscle, get better results, get stronger, and ultimately just make sure that you're putting your time into the most important things.
Speaker: Most people only have a specific amount of time to allocate towards training or want to be in the gym for a few hours a week. And so knowing that Exactly where to put your time, effort and focus is important to get the best results. So throughout this episode, we'll cover some things. And by the end of this, you will know things like what things actually matter for better results, types of training that are underrated versus ones that are overrated, which nutrition tips and supplements are actually worth paying attention to.
Speaker: in order to boost your results. We'll get into some other things too, but those are just some of the basic things that we will cover today. And so let's get right into it. I think I have right around 22, maybe 23 of these topics that we'll run through, rate them overrated, underrated, or properly rated so that you have an idea of what you should be focusing on. Number one on the list, training intensity. When I say training intensity, I mean how hard you are training in the gym. I would say this is underrated. Training hard is a skill that you get better at as you start to train more. And once you start to really perfect this skill, you will see better results.
Speaker: The thing about it is when you first get into the gym, pretty much everything works. It doesn't take a whole lot of stimulus in order to facilitate some type of change to build muscle to get stronger those different things that we want to get more in the gym but as you start to spend more time in the gym it takes more so you need to train more intensely in other words just train really hard and you are going to see better results over time i would put training intensity and probably the top most important things so you need to show up consistently you need to train really hard or train intensely and then you need to focus on progressive overload if you do those three things you are going to continue to see really good results and you'll probably see a lot better results than most people actually get in the gym training intensity i would say is still underrated number two on this list training close to failure.
Speaker: If you have listened to any of my podcasts where I talk about training or building muscle or things of that sort, you have definitely heard me talk about training close to muscular failure. I would say this is properly rated. Most people know that they need to be training to or very close to muscular failure. And when I say close to muscular failure, a lot of the research will say even if you're getting within four or five reps shy of muscular failure, you're going to see some muscle benefits.
Speaker: I always say the general rule of thumb is to take most sets one to two reps shy of muscular failure. And the reason I say that is because I've been in gyms for many years, over a decade now, I've seen hundreds of different people train in a common theme is that most people don't train close to muscular failure. In other words, they stop before they get one, two reps shy of muscular failure.
Speaker: In the studies also back this up as well. When people are asked to go to muscular failure or get really close to their muscular failure, a lot of people will leave quite a few reps in the tank. So six, seven, eight more reps in the tank than what they originally thought they could do. And since I've seen this firsthand, one of the things that I always tell people to do is that you should occasionally take sets all the way to muscular failure. That way you have some sort of point that you can actually compare to. Because if I think that I'm getting close to muscular failure, but then I actually go to muscular failure and I get five, six, seven more reps, I know that I could probably be upping the weight and training a little bit more intensely. That way that I know that I'm going to get better results over time. And
Speaker: Most of your sets taking that close to muscular failure. So one to two reps shy. But again, you have to be really honest with yourself about this because it's very easy to tell yourself you're going really hard. And then you take a set to muscular failure and you see, okay, I haven't actually been pushing myself that much. and so for that reason something practical that you can do is every week take a couple sets on different exercises to muscular failure and there's ways that you can do this really safely if you're using machines these are typically pretty easy to take to failure in a safe way if you're using dumbbells these are also really easy to take to muscular failure because you don't have to worry about hurting yourself if you're using a barbell on certain exercises This is something that you probably don't want to take to muscular failure. There are certain exercises you can do this with. But overall, like if you're using machines, if you're using dumbbells, taking a few sets every single week in different exercises to muscular failure is probably a good idea so that you can actually see if you are training really hard. Because again, intensity training close to failure, that is what is super important if you do want to get the best results over time.
Speaker: Number three on this list is rep ranges. I would say these are overrated. Most people's goal, or at least part of their goal when they get into the weight room is they want to build some muscle. They want to look better. And so they know that they need to build some muscle. When it comes to building muscle, you can do this with low reps.
Speaker: You can do this with high reps. You can do this with moderate reps, really anything between five to 30 reps, as long as you're getting close to muscular failure, you can build muscle. I think you often hear certain rep ranges thrown around as the best rep ranges. Like you'll hear a lot of people say like anywhere between five to 15 reps or six to 12 reps or eight to 15 reps. You'll hear those things thrown around a lot. And I think from a practical standpoint, it makes a lot of sense because most people don't want to train 25 30 reps for a set of squats or a set of leg extensions or set of bench press and a lot of people also don't want to train super super low rep so they don't want to be training like three or four or even five reps sometimes people would much rather be closer in that more moderate range so that's six to twelve eight to fifteen is pretty good where you can get that good stimulus but you're not going crazy high reps you're also not going super low reps because
Speaker: when you start to get in those lower reps there's also a strength component a neuromuscular component there's a skill component with that so when you're in that middle range that's typically going to be a pretty good range to be in for most people i think from a practical sense mixing in different rep ranges especially depending on the certain exercises like certain exercises are better with lower reps versus higher reps just in how they feel and how easy they feel to actually complete those sets. And so mixing in some different rep ranges, I think is always a good idea, but predominantly just training in one that you like is going to be the most important because as as long as you're getting close to muscular failure, you're going to be in good shape. And if you're training in a rep range that you like, so if that's moderate, if that's low, if that's high and you enjoy doing that, and that's how you really like training, if you're training
Speaker: hard because you actually enjoy doing it, you're going to get better results. So my practical advice with the rep ranges is just to train in a range that you really like most of the time and then mix in some other things from time to time just to throw in some different variety.
Speaker: Next on the list is range of motion. So when I say range of motion, I mean going through a full range of motion with exercises. So think of doing like a full range of motion squat, getting those thighs close to parallel versus doing like a half squat or on a bicep curl where you're going all the way down. So you get a long stretch on those biceps and then coming all the way up, getting an eye squeeze versus doing like half reps. So full range of motion training, I would say is properly rated.
Speaker: Taking exercises through a full range of motion means you are going to get better gain. So you're going to build more muscle. Your body is probably going to feel better because you can't use extremely crazy weights when you're going through a full range of motion. In other words, you have to be able to control it versus doing something like ego lifting where you're loading up tons of weight on a machine or on a barbell and you're only going down a couple of inches on your squat or you're not going all the way to your chest with your bench press different things like that so when you use a full range of motion it forces you to use weights that you can actually control you're probably going to feel better over the long term have better mobility get better muscle gains and so i think that it is something that is properly rated
Speaker: there is a time and a place where maybe you do add a little bit of extra weight and that form starts to break down a little bit maybe you don't get quite as low on a squat or you don't go all the way down on a dumbbell press or something like that i think that's fine that's part of training but overall you want to be taking your exercises through a full range of motion because you're going to get better results that way and you're probably going to feel better over the long term Next on the list is exercise selection. I would say this is slightly overrated. And the reason I say this is slightly overrated is because if you get on social media, you will see people debating certain exercises, whether this one is better or this one is better, or you need to change the angle of your arm in order to get the most maximal muscle gains out of this. And I just think that stuff is just overkill for most people.
Speaker: If you're trying to be the next Mr. Olympia or you're trying to break a powerlifting record or you're just super, super into this stuff, then maybe that's something that you really like and you want to focus on. But for a majority of people, just getting in the gym consistently, training really hard, picking some solid exercises and doing those consistently for a long period of time, you're going to get a ton of really good benefit.
Speaker: one thing that i think about a lot is some sometimes you'll see like studies will say things like oh you build more muscle with this exercise or this technique but it never really states how much actual muscle you are building more than just doing the basic thing and when we're talking about these things especially with muscle it's not like you're slapping on extra pounds of muscle by using this exercise versus this other exercise like when we're talking about more muscle gain we're talking about I want this maybe. And so in order to look at these things more logically and make a better practical decision, i don't think picking the exact best exercise is all that important. As long as you're picking an exercise that you like, an exercise that's good, an exercise that you can progressively overload over time. It feels good on your body, those sorts of things. If you're doing those things, you're going to make really good progress. And for most people, there's a lot more important things that they could be focusing on rather than trying to pick the absolute best exercise or the absolute best program or finding the perfect angle with their squat or with this certain exercise. Like those things aren't really worth your time and focusing on because for the average people, you're
Speaker: There's probably something that you could be doing that's going to make a much bigger difference than picking the absolute best exercise like is your diet on point? Are you getting enough protein and fiber? Are you sleeping enough? Are you training hard and consistently week after week, rather than focusing on some of those other things like exercise selection, I think focusing more of your time on those other big rocks makes a lot more sense. And that's not to say that Exercise selection doesn't matter. Like there are definitely some stupid exercises out there if you have certain goals and you want to make sure that your exercises that you're picking align with the goals that you have.
Speaker: But there's so many good ones out there that you can pick that you don't need to stress over doing certain exercises versus other ones as long as they are solid exercises. Next on this list is muscle confusion.
Speaker: Very overrated. Being sore does not necessarily mean that you are making better progress. There's definitely times when you do want to feel some soreness that lets you know that you are training some of the muscles that you want be training, that sort of thing. And if you're lifting hard and lifting consistently, You're going to have some soreness, but I could give you a new workout every single day and you would be sore. The fact of the matter is if you're doing new exercises, if you're doing new things, your body is going to get sore. So just because you're sore, just because you're changing exercises or changing workouts every single day, that doesn't mean that that's a good thing.
Speaker: the muscle doesn't understand exercises it just understands tension and in order to grow muscle in order to get stronger in order to get fitter all those different things we need to just focus on putting lots of tension on the muscle through progressive overload using more weight more reps that sort of thing and when we do that we force our muscles to grow and so you don't need to mix in ton of different exercises every single workout every single week if you're doing that you're probably actually doing something that's counterproductive to building muscle, building strength, seeing results, because you want to focus on having similar exercises for multiple weeks so that you can actually see that you are getting stronger and you give yourself a chance to actually get good at those movements and start building muscle, building strength, all those different things.
Speaker: Next on the list, tempo. So when I say tempo, I just mean the tempo that you use when you are doing your reps. So like the amount of time that it takes to lower that bar as you're bench pressing or lowering that squat. Sometimes you'll see tempos posted in workouts, especially if you are an athlete, this was a common thing. Like you would see certain tempos that were posted in the athletes. And there is a time and a place for those things. But I think for the average person, people who are just trying to build some muscle, build some strength,
Speaker: get a good workout, get fit, those sorts of things. I think tempo is highly overrated because we know that when you compare fast tempos versus slower tempos, as long as you're taking those exercises close to muscular failure, there's similar results when it comes to building muscle. So Really, the practical takeaway with this is just to use a tempo where you can still use pretty heavy weights, but you can do so with control.
Speaker: When you're thinking about doing a rep, you want to control that negative portion of the rep. So if I'm bench pressing, that negative portion or that eccentric portion would be the lowering to my chest. If I'm doing a squat, it would be lowering in that squat. It's typically the harder part of the movement. Like you want to make sure that you are controlling that part. And then when you go into the concentric part of the movement, this is where you're exploding. So this would be like the pulling or the pushing part of the exercise. So when I'm coming up out of that squat, that would be the concentric part. When I'm pushing that weight off my chest, that would be the concentric part. And in this part, you just want to do this as quickly and explosively and as forcefully as possible, because that's going to help to put more attention on that muscle, recruit more muscle fibers, and get better gains over time so control that negative part and then explode on that concentric part that is going to be what's most important versus focusing should i be doing a three second tempo or a five second tempo or an eight second tempo those things really don't matter all that much and that's a variable that you can play around with if you want to i think in general two to three seconds on a rep is a pretty good place to be so something that you don't really have to overthink
Speaker: Training frequency. So when I say training frequency, what I mean is how often you are training a muscle over the course of a week. So I would say this is overrated. You can get better muscle gains if you are training two times per week versus one time per week. But I think it's one of those things that you don't need to stress over too much. Most people are going to be getting in the gym two, three times a week on average, maybe four. And so for that reason, it makes a little bit more difficult to hit every single muscle group twice per week.
Speaker: It's not one of those things that you need to stress over. If you're only hitting a muscle group once per week and you're doing that consistently week after week, month after month, year after year, you're still going to get really good results. But if you have the ability to train a muscle twice in a week, then you can do that in order to get a little bit more out of each set, get a little bit more out of each muscle group and you probably will see slightly better gains over time but again it's not one of those things that i think is worth stressing over and so for that reason i think it's overrated Protein intake. I would say this is probably rated. If you have been following this podcast, if you follow any kind of people on social media, you have heard of eating a high protein diet. Of course, I think you need to understand that strength training has to be paired with this if you want to really get some of those results. Because if you eat a high protein diet, but you're not strength training, you're not getting those benefits that we want to get from a muscle building perspective when it comes to a high protein diet.
Speaker: And I think the thing that people really miss out on too or really don't think about is like, even if you're not getting the most optimal amount of protein, if you are strength training and you're doing that consistently and you're training hard, you're still going to build muscle even if you're not getting the most optimal level of proteins. and so There's been times where like I've seen on social media where people like, oh, if you're not eating enough protein, you're just wasting your workouts. And that couldn't be further from the truth. You can still make gains even if you aren't eating a high protein diet.
Speaker: But with that being said, it's going to help. So it makes sense if you're putting in all that effort in the gym. why not just focus on getting a good high protein diet, getting at least 0.7 grams per pound of body weight in order to maximize those gains that you're getting from the gym. You want to make sure that you're giving your body those building blocks in order to build that muscle, feel good, look good, all those different things.
Speaker: A calorie surplus for building muscle. I would say this is actually overrated. And so in order to build muscle, we've always been told that you need to eat in a calorie surplus. So when it comes to losing weight, you want to eat in a calorie deficit. When it comes to maintaining your weight, you just want to eat the right amount of calories.
Speaker: People have thought for a really, really long time that in order to build lots of muscle, you need to eat lots of extra food. If you're somebody who's trying to gain a lot of mass or gain a lot of weight, like let's say you're an athlete or you just wanna put on a lot of weight, 15, 20, 25 pounds, something like that, then it might make sense to eat a lot more food. like I remember when I was doing my internship with the Iowa football program and the amount of calories that those guys are eating is just absolutely insane. But those are a lot of times guys who are trying to put on 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds of mass.
Speaker: And that's not the average person. Like the average person is probably trying to just build a little bit of extra muscle, maybe gain a little bit of weight, but they're not trying to put on tons of extra weight. And they're definitely not trying to put on tons of extra fat. And what happens when you're eating, a ton of extra food when you're doing that kind of dirty bulk or just extreme bulking as a lot of people have done in the past and something that was really popular years ago you're also going to be putting on a lot of extra fat mass which is not what most of us want so If you do want to gain some extra muscle, then eating in a slight surplus, so just 100 extra calories a day, or even eating around your maintenance is perfectly fine. It's not that 500 calories a day that a lot of us used to think, or that we were told you don't have to eat tons of extra food in order to build muscle.
Speaker: If you're somebody who's very active, if you have a really active job or you do a bunch of extra cardio, you lift more than the average person, then you probably need to account for that in your total calories and eat a little bit more if you're really trying to maximize your muscle. But still, you don't need to be eating 500 extra calories per day. You just need to know how many calories your body needs and then realize if you're trying to add a little bit of extra muscle, just eat 100, maybe 150, 200 extra calories to help facilitate those goals Protein timing, overrated. For a long time, people would really stress that you need to be eating your protein at certain times. But what we know now is that if you are hitting your total daily protein goal, this is the most important thing by far. So if your goal is to hit 150 grams of protein, 125 grams of protein, 100 grams of protein, and you are getting that total throughout your day, you are getting a majority of the benefits. Now, if you split those up into two, three, four times throughout the day, like split those evenly, you're going to get a little bit more benefit. But as long as you're hitting that total number, it's not something that I really focus on too much outside of that, because that is the thing that is going to matter the absolute most above anything else is just hitting that total number. And when it comes to all this fitness stuff, it's like, i think the simplest approach is usually the best approach because it's the most easy thing to adhere to once you start throwing in all these extra things all these extra rules all these extra little details that you need to be focused on i just know that from a practical standpoint i've worked with enough people and been around enough people to understand that when you start adding a ton of extra stuff that you don't need to really worry about it's less likely that people are going to be doing those things so i always tell clients
Speaker: and people who ask me about this, focus on hitting that total number. Anything else that you do on top of that is just going to be a bonus. So if you can split those up evenly over three or four meals throughout the day, you're gonna get a tiny little bit of extra benefit, but nothing to worry about too much.
Speaker: Right along with that, post-workout nutrition. So when I say post-workout nutrition, what I mean is people thought for a really long time that if you can get protein and maybe some carbs after your a workout, you are missing this big anabolic window and you weren't going to be getting as many gains as possible. In the same way that we thought protein timing was super important, post-workout nutrition is not that important. So I would say this is something that is overrated. Unless you're somebody who is training multiple times per day, you train ton like you're an athlete or you're training for some really heavy sports event like a triathlon, like an Ironman, like a marathon, something like that, and you're doing multiple sessions in a day, then this becomes more important or you're like you're an athlete, something like that. than getting your carbs, getting some protein as soon as you can after a workout makes more sense. But for the average person who's just trying to get in the weight room three, four times a week, maybe do some cardio, look better, feel better. That's not something that you really need to worry about too much. So focus on getting your protein throughout the day focus on getting your training sessions and focus on just those basics and you're going to be in good shape if you're missing that protein or that post-workout anabolic window that we all have been told was so important it's not really that big of a deal
Speaker: Next on the list is creatine, underrated. I think this is just a no-brainer as a supplement. As far as supplements go, lots of supplements promise all these crazy benefits. Very few of them actually have good, hard, proven evidence to work. Creatine is one of those that has been tested for a really long time. There's really no downsides to it. Some people get like some stomach pain. upsetness with it but not really much of a big deal it's very safe it's been tested more than any other supplement it helps with building muscle helps with recovery and now we're even learning some cognitive benefits that might be happening with creatine so for me and for anybody who asked me this is one of the few supplements that i would recommend to pretty much everybody so getting some creatine monohydrate daily is something that i think is underrated
Speaker: Using perfect form. I think this is actually overrated. I've changed my mind a little bit on this because when I first got into fitness, like being an athlete, and then also just as a personal trainer,
Speaker: Everybody always stresses that you need to focus on form, focus on form, focus on form. And while that's true, you don't want to be doing anything that's going to hurt you or anything that's going to be super dangerous. There's a lot of really good ways that you can train really hard and you can do it quicker than trying to perfect the absolute perfect back squat or perfect the absolute perfect routine, especially for the average person who their time is limited and they don't have tons of time to spend in the gym. You can find ways to load up an exercise very safely, like with machines or with bodyweight exercises, with some basic exercises and get a lot of good benefit out of those versus trying to get the absolute best squat before I ever go and load you up. Like trying to teach you a back squat. There's a lot of different things that go into that. and there may be some limitations and some things that you have to work on for a while before you can actually get good at that.
Speaker: or i could just give you a couple dumbbells and have you do a split lunge and teach you how to do that in literally two minutes and now you can load that up you can get better benefits you can get a ton more out of that exercise versus trying to perfect this other exercise and use perfect form on this or like say for example if you're really struggling to learn a front squat and you just can't do it very well what if i just throw you on a leg press and now we can load that up i can teach you that really quickly you can get a lot of good benefits out of that And even if your form isn't exactly perfect, you're using a machine, you're using an exercise where as long as you're doing it relatively well, it doesn't have to be perfect in order to get really good benefits out of that. And secondly, to this point, I think our bodies are really resilient. They're made to move. They're made to bend. They're made to lift. They're made to carry, run, jump, all those different things. And that's going to look a little bit different from person to person. There's not really a perfect form on different things. There's definitely certain things that you can do where you're like, okay, you probably shouldn't be doing it that way. Like you look at somebody doing something, you're like, I know that just can't be good. Like you're deadlifting with a completely round back and you're like, okay, it's only a matter of time before that person blows out their back. But there's a lot of things that you can do where you don't need the absolute perfect form. And for most people who want to just see better results, who want to get a little bit more fit, You want to get all the benefits of exercise, focusing on just getting some good work in and doing it in a safe manner is a lot more time efficient and better use of your time than trying to use perfect form.
Speaker: Next on this list is rest times. I think this is properly rated. I think it's good to know how much you should be resting for your certain goals. Like they're good benchmarks to know. So if you're trying to train for strength, like you're really trying to get strong, you want to rest around two to three minutes, sometimes even more. Like if you're really trying to up your strength, you're focusing on lifting one, two, three,
Speaker: maybe even up to five reps, like you're really focusing on maximal strength, then resting longer between those sets makes a lot of sense. So you can allow your body and your muscles to recoup so that you can actually get the most out of each one of those sets. Then when you move on to hypertrophy, like you're really focusing on building more muscle, you can cut that rest time down a little bit. So anywhere between like 60 to 90 seconds, sometimes a little bit more, sometimes a little bit less, depending on the exercise and the context of it. is a good thing to know. But from a practical real world perspective, sometimes you're just limited and you have to cut down on those rest times. Sometimes you have a little bit more time and you can be a little bit longer with those rest times. But I don't think it's one of those things like, well, if I don't wait exactly 60 seconds, I'm
Speaker: screwing up all my muscle building benefits. It doesn't really work like that. Just knowing these benchmarks and then being able to adapt those things in certain situations, I think is the best use of actually utilizing proper rest time. So don't stress over it too much. Like if you can't get the exact rest time, you're still going to get some good benefits from those things. But if you have certain goals around strength or around building muscle, knowing those things can be super helpful.
Speaker: A couple more left on this list. We have bro splits. I would say these are kind of overrated and I actually have used these quite a bit throughout just lifting. I've been lifting for 17 years and there's definitely different times where I've used bro splits and they can be a perfectly good option. for people, but I think for the average person, again, just getting in the gym two or three times a week on average is what most people are going to be doing. So there's probably some better splits that you wanna focus on versus like having a complete day dedicated to only hitting your arms. Like if you're only getting in the gym twice a week and you have a whole day dedicated to arms,
Speaker: probably not the best use of your training. If you're getting in the gym four or five days consistently, then absolutely go ahead and just do a body part split if you really enjoy doing that kind of split. But I think for most people, it's not probably the best way to train. There's a lot of better options, whether that be like upper or lower or a push pull legs or a full body style of training. Those are probably going be a little bit better use of your time.
Speaker: Full body training, i would say this is properly rated. So speaking of other routes of training, I think this is a really good thing that more people should consider using. I know for me, like in my first six, seven, eight years of actually getting in the weight room, this was the way that I trained. Being an athlete, You're almost always going to be training full body because you're getting in there two, three, sometimes four times a week in the way that you train as an athlete is you're using your full body. And so a lot of times you're going to be training with full body training, which makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: It's good from a practical sense because for the average person, like if you do have to miss a day, if you do only get two sessions in versus your normal four, you're not missing out on certain things. So typically what happens if people are doing like a body part split or they're doing something like in upper lower, when they can only get a certain amount of sessions in, they're going to do the things they like and they're going to skip out on the things they don't like, which typically means they're leaving some body parts out. So like If you don't like training legs and you can only get in the gym twice this week, you're probably not going to train legs in one of those sessions. Or if you're somebody who doesn't like doing upper body and you should probably be doing more upper body and you only have a chance to get in the gym twice this week, you're probably going to skip that thing that you should probably be doing a little bit more of. So when you do full body training, you don't really have that because you're training your entire body in each session. You're getting a lot good benefits out that. And this is something that I still utilize personally as well. Like if I'm on the road or if I'm in between programs, where I don't have any specific goal or I'm following a specific program, I will use a full body training style. So I'll pick five exercises to train my full body. So I'll do one pushing exercise. I'll do a pulling exercise. I'll do a hinge. I'll do a squat. And then I'll do some sort of core exercises. So I'm hitting those basic human movements and I'm training my entire body. It's super simple. It's easy to understand and it's effective. So full body training, definitely properly rated. And I think more people should actually consider using full body training.
Speaker: Body weight exercises. I would say this is underrated. I think that if you can handle your body weight well, you're probably going to be pretty strong. And I just feel like it translates really well to life. Like if you can do good set of pushups, if you can do a handful of pull-ups, if you can do single leg squats or lunges, if you can run, sprint, jump, then you're going to be able to do pretty much anything that life throws at you. Like if you can handle your own body weight, I think that is a really good standard of strength.
Speaker: to aim for because you're always going to have your body weight with you like from the time you're born until the day that you die you're always going to be carrying your body around so it makes sense to be strong enough to be able to handle your body in any situation so like if you can push your body weight up if you can pull your body weight up if you can sit down and stand up on one leg like those are all really good things to be able to do I really like it too, because it takes minimal equipment. It's less intimidating for a lot of people to get started. And again, it's just very practical. So I think keeping some body weight variations in your routine, some pushups, some pull-ups, rows, dips, single leg squats, jump sprints, those sorts of things is really helpful.
Speaker: Next on the list is cardio for lifters. I've said this before and I'll say it again. I think it's underrated. I was a cardio hater forever, but since adding cardio, I have just noticed how much more energy and just how much more capacity it has given me. And when I say capacity, all that I mean with that is just it has allowed me to be able to do more. Like I can do more work in a single day. i can do more work in a single week. I can do more work over the course of a month because i now have a bigger engine. Like I just have better abilities. I have better fitness and I recover better in between days, which is a big thing, not just for fitness, but just for life. Like if you're able to train, if you're able to go through a long day of work, if you have all these things going on, you have some extra stress and then you're able to recover better day after day, that not only is helpful in the gym, but it's just helpful in your normal everyday life.
Speaker: So adding in some low level cardio a couple of times a week is a really good place to start. And then just building that up over time in order to increase your capacity, your ability to do more. And from a health and longevity perspective, it's just a really good thing to do. People who live longer lives typically have better cardio. So for that reason, i would say cardio for lifters underrated.
Speaker: recovery tools, overrated. Most of these things don't help a ton outside of just making people feel better subjectively. So like from a physical standpoint, they don't really speed up your rate of recovery by using these certain recovery tools like massage guns or even some of the other things like sonical plunge. Like there is some benefits in some of these things. You'll find studies where It does say that it speeds up recovery, but a lot of the benefit is coming from just you feel better when you do these things. But I think a much better use of your time than focusing on a ton of these recovery tools that don't do a ton to speed up recovery is number one to just follow a good program. if you're following a good progressive program, you're not going to be super sore, super tired, super drained, exhausted, those sorts of things because you're progressively adding more, but your body is able to adapt in between those sessions. And so, of course, there's going be times where you're sore, where you're a little tired, different things like that. But if you feel like that all the time, your program is probably asking you to do too much or you have some other things going on in your life where you're just not really... Having those things dialed in, which brings me to my next point about this, things like sleep, like having your diet dialed like managing stress, like incorporating rest days. Those are just as important as following a good program.
Speaker: And both those things are way more important than any kind of recovery tool that you're going to add to your routine in order to speed up your recovery. So I'm not saying don't do recovery stuff, because if you like those things, you should do those things. But understanding what actually matters the most, I think, is important in helping you to get better results, to recover faster, all those good things that we want.
Speaker: Three more left on this list. Training with machines. I think this is properly rated. Great for building muscle, great for pushing the intensity, great for training to failure, very stable. And so I think using machines in your training, if you have access to those things, is a really positive thing to do. Properly rated. Use some machines in your training.
Speaker: Training with free weights. Again, I think this is properly rated great for building muscle, but also adds in some other components that you don't get with machines like some balance, like stability, like control. So when we think about building muscle in particular, machines are really good because they are stable. When we think about free weights, they can also be really, really good tools with building muscle, so but there's also that extra component of balancing, of stabilization, of being able to control those things. And so it is a little bit more taxing on you, but that's also good from just a general health perspective. And just from a life quality perspective, you want to be able to balance and stabilize and control your body and control your joints and different things like that. So overall, I think it's just best to mix in these different modalities. So using some machines, using some free weights, using some bodyweight exercises, like getting a good mix of those things
Speaker: is ultimately the best way to go about this. In my opinion, that's how I personally trained for a really long time. And that's also how I program for clients and different things like that, because I think mixing those things in, you just get the best of everything.
Speaker: And last on this list is training with other people. I think this is highly underrated. If you need more accountability, training with a coach, training with a lifting partner, training with a group of people is a great way to increase your accountability. Because if somebody is expecting you to show up, it's much easier to just skip out if it's just you and you're the only one who knows and is expecting you to get to the gym. It's just you. But if there's other people expecting you to get there, a coach, a group, a lifting partner, it's a lot harder to skip out on that. if you need to push yourself harder in other words just train close to failure or train with more intensity it's much easier to do that when you're doing that with others it's something that i hear all the time with working at a gym and coaching group fitness classes people always say it's so much easier to push myself with a group of people than it is to do it by myself so If you want to be able to push yourself harder, get better results, then train with other people and especially train with people who are maybe a little bit better than you, faster than you, a little bit stronger than you. Maybe they're a little bit fitter than you. That's only going to push you to work a little bit harder. And lastly, too, if you just want to make it more fun and more enjoyable, then train with people you actually like being around.
Speaker: And I think such an underrated part of fitness is finding ways to enjoy it. And not everybody loves fitness. Not everybody loves exercise. Sometimes you have to do things you don't always love to do. But when you can do it with people that you like being around, it makes this infinitely more enjoyable. And so for that reason, training with other people, highly underrated.
Speaker: That is the list. Underrated, overrated, training edition. Hopefully you were able to gather some good nuggets out of this, get a good idea of some things that are actually with your time, effort, and focus versus things that maybe aren't and maybe shifted your views on a few things or gave you a new perspective on a thing or two within this episode.
Speaker: As always, the coaching link for one-on-one coaching if you have some some specific goals is in the show notes. And I appreciate you listening as always, and we will see you next week
