Training myths debunked & learning from weekends
Good morning, How are you doing? So, hopefully, you had a good weekend. However it went good, bad, doesn't matter. Today's a new day. We have to let it.
Speaker 1:Whatever happened, full stop. Whatever happens, full stop. Don't add to it. Some of you would have had an amazing weekend. Some of you would have had a mediocre.
Speaker 1:Some of you would have had a terrible weekend where you plan to do something and it went the opposite way. That's just how it is. What can we learn is the real question from weekends. Good, bad, mediocre. The more we learn about ourselves.
Speaker 1:I look at weekends as like little experiments into our own behavior. You know, they're very fascinating actually when you think about the social scenarios we could put into how we behave. Did we do something because someone said to do it? Did we do something because we didn't want to feel like a loser or like we didn't want to knock over the crowd, you know, like looking at these things, can we like spot things and go, wow, like, I'm acting like that because I didn't want to upset someone. And we learn all these things and if we don't have attention on these things we don't learn.
Speaker 1:And I think there's no need for, energy, there's no need for effort in attention. There's no effort in attention or awareness, whatever you wanna call it. I know someone's mentioned before like about you need a lot of self control and all the stuff. I don't think it's true. Self control means you you want to force something or self or self discipline means you want to you really want to do one thing but you're trying to force another thing.
Speaker 1:We're not trying to force anything on these weekends. We're just being attentive and aware and we're not judging ourselves and we see how we go and we learn from them and over time this awareness changes our thoughts, changes how we think about weekends and sometimes this happens immediately, sometimes it takes time. An example is like I just said, you might be aware now that you've only been drinking more because you don't want to feel upset people, you don't want to say that you don't want to drink more so you keep drinking and you spill later on in the day or you feel terrible and you get indigestion and you end up eating takeaways and the next day you feel terrible about it because you've realized at a specific moment there's some person you don't want to upset by saying you don't want any more drinks, you know. And then when you realize that completely, you start thinking, you know what, why don't I just be upfront next time and say, I'm not feeling after any more drinks, feel terrible and I feel terrible and just be like, look, I don't want to have any more drinks.
Speaker 1:Don't want to have any more drinks. And that's it on weekend, so that's it now we're done. Let's move on from the weekend. We've got today to get on with. Many of you now are into the final two weeks of the Octagon Challenge.
Speaker 1:Now this isn't a time to put your foot off the gas and I don't mean we're putting our foot on the gas to be going fast, I mean that when we see a finish line in sight, we tend to relax and go yes done and we relax and we basically revert back in some sense to the person we were before. Or we think we can stop being attentive to the days and we can just kind of chill. And not in a chilling as in good sense, but like, yeah, whatever. And this is what traps a lot of people or like counter attack. And basically people get knocked back and go, oh, why did I do it?
Speaker 1:And I'm telling you, is a very normal part of the process. You see the end inside. There is no end. Okay? The only end is when you die.
Speaker 1:There is no end. But you see this, you know, end we've made up and you go, oh, Liane's come in, I've done my work, I feel good. And then you just kind of slack. And I don't want you to start slacking because the only time we have is now. We slack when we think of the past or the future because we think, that's to come, we've done all that.
Speaker 1:And then the present moment is squandered to you just thinking about what you've done versus what's coming up and then as those days go on you've lost momentum and you've lost the now, the here and now and then you start building negative momentum. This happens all time. I've seen it happen so many times. I've done it myself, everyone's done it. There's a book on it called The War of Art and it talks about it's called resistance.
Speaker 1:He calls it resistance. And I think it's important to learn that that does happen all of us. So don't feel like there's ever a finish line because there's only today. Honestly, don't know this philosophy works. Okay, this philosophy works.
Speaker 1:So we're bringing it down to today, the Monday. So what have you got planned today? Are you going to track your macros today? Are you going to do a workout today? The research is clear on workouts.
Speaker 1:If you write down what workout you're gonna do, the time you're gonna do it and where, you actually write it on pen and paper or you know, then you get into your calendar, you're three times more likely to actually do that work out. So instead of just saying I'm going work out tomorrow you say I'm going to work out tomorrow at 4PM here you know there I'm going to do this and you're very specific and you time it in because you know work is scheduled in for us anyway automatically by whoever our employers So you've got the nine to five work done or whatever it is and then before that and after it that's up to us to schedule and some of you might have kids so the kids essentially auto schedule in. There's going to be pockets of time it's like a lot of people who are on our membership who are mothers who've got young kids say the morning is essential. It's the only time they can get to do that workout when they wake up earlier. Know that's coming from awareness and attention and understanding their needs.
Speaker 1:So where is it for you guys? Are you like, start thinking about are you tricking yourself thinking, hey, I'm going to work out in the evenings and then it comes to the evenings, you go no energy, you're tired, never do it. Because if that is you, and you keep falling into that loop, we need to start thinking of a different way. We need to go, do you know what, I only need to work out three times a week strength training if I wanna, you know, improve my strength, gain muscle. Three times out of seven.
Speaker 1:You know, you can skip. You can have a workout and not even you can say you're gonna work out today, not do it, and then do the next day. You can do that three times and you can still be within the seven day period. Does that make sense? So start thinking about what this week looks like but more importantly what this day looks like and just follow through with it.
Speaker 1:Don't resist it. Know like when you wake up in the morning and you go, I don't want to wake up. As soon as you let that thought creep in and have that fight with should I wake up now, should I snooze, should I wake up now, you are in a pickle. You are in a right pickle. And usually snooze, snooze, snooze, and then you wake up a bit late and you wake up too late and you're annoyed and you're going to show you pissed off yourself and you start your day off wrong.
Speaker 1:So we can't let this our mind start bringing in these like, oh should I do it now, should I do it now. We need to be say we're going to do it and follow through with it and then there's no fighting. Right? There's no fighting. Once we schedule and we do it, there's no fighting, it gets done.
Speaker 1:Okay? But today as well, I want to cover a few training myths because we're going into the people in the Octagon Challenge have gone through some of strength seminars, people who've joined our macros app recently who have had access to a new training program, you know, might be thinking of training for the first time, a scheduled way of training, not just jumping about in the, in the old living room or doing, you know, body pumping all that stuff. And there's a lot of myths around training. So let me cover some now and, hopefully you find this useful. So training myths.
Speaker 1:One of the first myths is training fasted burns more fat. So training fasted, you know, empty stomach, people say, train empty stomach burns more fat. A 2017 systematic review, so this is a review that looks at all reviews. Right? So it's a big review that looks at every single review and you know will basically say these are good ones, these are bad ones, let's have a look at these good ones.
Speaker 1:Concluded that fasted compared to fed exercise does not increase the amount of weight and fat mass lost. So it doesn't matter guys. You prefer to have something small to eat before working out happy days. If you prefer to eat on an empty stomach, happy days, prefer to train an empty stomach. Personally, I actually prefer training on an empty stomach in the morning.
Speaker 1:I don't know why. I just do prefer it and I find I like digesting something. It may be it's because I try and eat too much before I work out but I prefer it but I don't claim or think it's gonna burn more fat. Right? That's not true.
Speaker 1:Another myth is lifting heavy weights makes women bulky. This is just definitely not true, guys. I mean, build muscles hard. Really, really, really hard. You might see some women who are like power lifters who've got, like, godly genetics who have big muscle bellies and I mean you know big full muscles and they do gain muscle but you're not going to gain muscle easily or fast so don't worry you're not going to wake up tomorrow going wow, Scott I'm looking massive and like nah it's not happening.
Speaker 1:Okay. So these two myths easy. Like, you know, the biggest and strongest people in the gym give reliable advice. That's a myth, guys. A lot of people like that.
Speaker 1:And also if you've got abs, doesn't mean you know what you're doing. Abs isn't an indicator of knowledge. That's an important point. Abs means you've been in a deficit for a while and been able to maintain it and show abs. Some people show abs easier than others as well.
Speaker 1:So, you know, just because someone's got abs doesn't mean we know what they're on about. Here's another myth. You must keep changing your workout plan to confuse your muscle. Can't confuse muscle. Your tissue lacks cognitive abilities.
Speaker 1:Your muscle is just a mechanical thing. Changing exercises frequently reduces muscle growth because you're not giving your muscles a chance to adapt. And you pull load to the muscle it goes, the muscle doesn't actually go, the muscle is like breaks down, struggles with it. It breaks down, it gets stronger to handle that load and you keep gradually increasing the weight of the reps, the total volume and it'll gradually get stronger and bigger with it. Know if you keep changing the exercises you're doing, you're not going to give your body the chance to adapt to the stimulus.
Speaker 1:Another myth is you must do cardio to lose weight. This is not true. I'd actually say the people that tend to do loads of cardio to lose weight tend to have terrible results because they are so focused on calories burned with the cardio, they hate the cardio, it's something they do to torture themselves in a sense. Know it's like I'm gonna burn these calories. Diet will handle your deficit, your training is for performance.
Speaker 1:Aerobic exercise is not an effective weight loss strategy that was also said by the American Journal of Medicine in a meta analysis. So it's all about nutrition and adding strength training first versus cardio. So they looked at it. Is it better for fat loss to get into a deficit and do strength training or a deficit and do cardio? What they found was a deficit with strength training was actually better in terms of fat loss and muscle retention than deficit and cardio.
Speaker 1:Now cardio is important for heart health. I'm not saying don't do cardio, just saying do not use it as a way to lose weight. You will hate it, you'll hate yourself, you'll hate running, you'd hate everything to do with cardio. Don't do it, Just enjoy your cardio when you're feeling to do it, know, do a few runs a week if you want to, if you want to do a 10 ks or a five ks or a marathon, whatever, that's fine. But don't use it as a way to lose weight because it's not very effective.
Speaker 1:You need to be sore for your worker to be effective. So muscle damage, the cause of that sore feeling does not correlate with muscle growth. In fact excessive levels of muscle damage may even impair growth. So to start with you're going to get what's called DOMS, delayed onset of muscle soreness usually kicks in day two day three after a big workout. And yeah, when you get a lot of muscle damage you get a lot of soreness and it doesn't actually mean you're going get muscle growth but it's normal to have DOMS and it's normal for it to go away over time and sometimes you may even get to a position where you never have DOMS after you train.
Speaker 1:Know sometimes you will and you change it up a bit but most time you don't but that doesn't mean you're not making results it's important so make sure you remember that. Next myth, you can shape a muscle. So you can shape a muscle, your genetics determine the shape of a muscle. So you know unless you go on surgery wherever, you can't change the shape of your muscle. That's why a lot of people have amazing looking bodies when they're lean for a bodybuilder now and then there's other bodybuilders who get just as lean and they look very different.
Speaker 1:You know and it just got different genetics, different muscle shapes and nothing you can do about it. So there's no point comparing at all. Now the myth is you can tone a muscle. I don't like the word tone because it's just a weird word, know it's come from but your muscle can only shrink or grow in size guys. And if you want it to look more lean in terms of that's what you mean by tone I believe you want to look tone so you want more definition.
Speaker 1:To get more definition you essentially have to lose body fat. I mean you can gain muscle and keep the same body fat and then your body fat percentage would be different. However, I think it's very difficult to look leaner unless you drop body fat percentage. So when you mean I want to tone a muscle, what you really want to be looking on saying is I want to do strength training to maintain muscle mass or gain a bit of muscle but I also want to be in a deficit with a high protein diet to ensure I don't lose muscle, lose body fat and therefore I'll get a lower body fat percentage and I will look leaner. And, that's what we mean by tone I believe.
Speaker 1:Another myth is the more sets you do the better. Each of us has an optimal training volume. Okay? We've got to find out what that is. But typically, say now we're looking at 12 to 12 24 sets per muscle group per week is is is said to be the Goldilocks zone essentially.
Speaker 1:So what does that mean? So if you did three sets on your legs and your quads and you did four you did three sets and four exercises, that's 12 sets on the quads and you do it once a week, days. You can go up to Dublin there, you can do legs again in another part of the week, but you don't have to do too much. Right? And what's important as well is actually the best rest period, the longer the rest period the better if you're looking for strength and muscle growth.
Speaker 1:And now there kind of is an argument where some power lifters and strength, people do strength training as a real focus, they will rest three to five minutes between the big sets and that's fine but we've got time schedules to get to a deer. Is it a deer or a deer? A deer or two. And you know one to two minutes is fine but don't be worried if you need to take more than a minute rest between each sets. Okay, you know don't feel forced to your arm already you know sometimes it's better to recover, get that two minute rest in so you can hit that set better.
Speaker 1:You know if you do three sets for example, you did set one with 100 ks, set two, you add a minute rest, you did 80 ks, and then set three, you did a minute rest, you did 70 ks. Okay, because your rest period is only a minute. That total volume is less than if you give yourself two to three minutes and you hit 100 k three times for three sets. You know what saying? So sometimes you need to find those.
Speaker 1:Some some of you might feel one minute's plenty. I think that's fine. Some of you might break, you know, two minutes. High intensity interval training is superior to low intensity steady state cardio. Pretty much the same guys.
Speaker 1:That is the, afterburn as they call it from high intensity interval training was massively exaggerated and it was like less less than 100 calories difference. They said you'd burn you'd burn fat for twenty four hours after a workout and it's like that kind of effect was so small it didn't even it's not significantly the number is not worth mentioning basically so don't worry about high intensity, low intensity, just do what you like. Train for strength, train for performance whatever it is just do what you like. Another method is you need to stretch before you work out. When you're doing weight training this is not necessarily true you might want to do some like rotator cuff work if you do an upper body and you might want get your heart rate up and blood flow in but you know doing static stretching can actually hamper workout performance So you don't want to stretch too much before doing weights guys, right?
Speaker 1:So make sure you do that. I can't build muscle or lose weight because I've bad genetics. You know this is this is a myth guys genetics does not overpower NG in versus NG out and and all that stuff. Another myth is squats are bad for your back. Definitely not.
Speaker 1:If you're doing the right form and you're building up gradually over time, very safe. And squat is an amazing exercise. Squats are bad for your knees is another myth. When they're done correctly they actually help with knee injuries. They're a deterrent for knee injuries if you do them properly and do them with gradual increase in weight.
Speaker 1:High rep sets make you more toned you know there were some personal trainers will tell you to do like high reps for fat loss and then low reps and all that. It's just a myth guys you know. You want to be in the six to 12 rep range for strength training, and some people go three to three to three to eight for optimal strength training. But if you if you think six to 12, good form, you know, the tempo is good, happy days, you know, doing 20 to 25 reps isn't going to make you burn more fat or make the muscles more It's just a myth that PTs have been spreading for many, many years. Another myth, women should train differently to men.
Speaker 1:It's not true. It's not true, guys. No way. Train the same. This myth is funny.
Speaker 1:Once you stop training your muscle it turns into fat. You can't turn fat into muscle and muscle doesn't turn into fat guys, okay, so don't worry about it. There's a fat loss mode when doing cardio. All the machines say is you're in fat burning zone. There isn't.
Speaker 1:Okay, there isn't a specific fat burning zone. But you might use fat as energy certain stuff. Fat burning is got to look at then doing bicep curls and tricep extensions and stuff will help you burn more arm fat. One study had 104 people trained one arm for twelve weeks while the subjects lost fat the workers did not increase fat loss in the trained arm showing that you can't spot reduce arm fat through exercise. Oh is enough training, Mr.
Speaker 1:Yuka today guys? You know, hopefully, that's enough for you today. There's there is actually more. There's a lot more, but I thought I'd, give you that now as you're all trying to get into the training and stuff like that. But, yeah, get your one big thing done today.
Speaker 1:You know, make sure you know what your one big thing does. Forget about the weekend. I don't want there's no need there's no there's no need to complain about it. There's no need to be sad about it. It's happened.
Speaker 1:It's done. There's no need to attach things to him. I overate my macros, full stop. I had too much alcohol, full stop. It's that's it.
Speaker 1:Let's move on. So today, what's your one big thing? What's that thing you will do today? Just that one thing that will make it a success no matter if anything else happens. You know, remember, I'll say all the time, commit to less and you'll complete more.
Speaker 1:And you feel a lot better as well because you you're focusing on the things that matter. You could do a 20 thing to do list, and they're all small tasks that don't do anything. It's just in the form of procrastination. You know? Just get that one big thing done, one a day.
Speaker 1:That'll change your life. Change your life. So, guys, I'm gonna love you and leave you on this voice note. I hope you enjoyed the the good weather in the last weeks or two. I think it's turning again, but we have gone a a an hour forward, which means now we've got more light, which is happy, happy days for us in the evening.
Speaker 1:So we can go on more even scroll strolls? Strolls. But I'll see you on the radio, guys. Remember, live one day at a time. If we can do it today, we can do it tomorrow, but we won't even know.
Speaker 1:So enjoy yourself, and I'll speak to you all soon.
