Speaker 1: Good a team. I hope you bloody terrific. Well, welcome
Speaker 1: to another installment of the You Project. It's me so
Speaker 1: full disclosure. This has been a really interesting episode to
Speaker 1: put together and something that I probably know the most about,
Speaker 1: which is strength training, which is gym work, which is
Speaker 1: you know, the stuff that I spent the vast majority
Speaker 1: of my life doing, but also teaching and coaching you know,
Speaker 1: how to get strong, how to weight train, or how
Speaker 1: to strength train. More broadly, not all strength training has
Speaker 1: to involve weights or dumb bells or gettle bells or
Speaker 1: bar bells, of course, But and I'm going to say
Speaker 1: I have started and stopped this episode more times than
Speaker 1: I want to tell you. I don't know why. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. I think I think part of it
Speaker 1: is because I just I don't know how the fuctor
Speaker 1: fits forty five years of training and training others and
Speaker 1: education and working in gyms and owning gyms, and you know,
Speaker 1: being a fitness industry person and trying to trying to
Speaker 1: get clear about what it is that I want to
Speaker 1: tell you. You know, it's like it's almost like you've
Speaker 1: been on a five year trip and you've got to
Speaker 1: give somebody a five minute debrief on your five year trip,
Speaker 1: and you think, fuck, where do I start. I've been
Speaker 1: away five years and I've only got fight, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of for me. It's like forty five years in
Speaker 1: forty five minutes, give or take. So maybe I'll do
Speaker 1: another one. This is, by no means absolutely comprehensive. This
Speaker 1: is not the start and finish, and I guess, I
Speaker 1: guess it's really aimed more for people who don't know
Speaker 1: a lot about strength training, maybe people who know nothing
Speaker 1: or next to nothing. Maybe people who have got a
Speaker 1: bit of experience, or maybe some people who've been training
Speaker 1: for a while and you just want to hear my
Speaker 1: thoughts and ideas. This will not be advanced, but I
Speaker 1: will talk about some advanced I guess, or more complicated
Speaker 1: ideas and science, but I'll explain it in a way
Speaker 1: which is completely understandable. So the last few times I
Speaker 1: tried to do this, I just started banging on about
Speaker 1: you know, sets and reps and volume and frequency and
Speaker 1: workload and intensity, and then you know, when you talk,
Speaker 1: and you think I'm talking a lot, but I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm saying much. I felt like I was doing
Speaker 1: that and I felt like I was probably maybe talking
Speaker 1: over people's heads. So what I did was which I
Speaker 1: don't normally do. But I've just written a bunch of
Speaker 1: what I think of relevant questions in front of me,
Speaker 1: and so I'm going to Obviously I haven't written the answers,
Speaker 1: but I just I've written the things that I think
Speaker 1: I need to address, which might be the most valuable
Speaker 1: to you. And so question one on my list is
Speaker 1: why this topic. Well, despite what a lot of people think,
Speaker 1: strength training is probably more important for the people who
Speaker 1: typically don't go to the gym. I mean typically, and
Speaker 1: by that I mean people who are not particularly athletic
Speaker 1: or sporting, or young, or people who might not be
Speaker 1: in Inverted Comma's gym people. And so for me, the
Speaker 1: idea of getting people involved in lifting weights is really
Speaker 1: about health and wellness and function and the way that
Speaker 1: they age their health span, which we've spoken about many times.
Speaker 1: That is how well you can live and for how long.
Speaker 1: And of course some people will lift weights more because
Speaker 1: they want to change the way they look. It's an
Speaker 1: aesthetic thing, and there's nothing wrong with wanting fucking wide
Speaker 1: shoulders and a little waist or big arms or less
Speaker 1: body fat more, there's nothing. Of course, if I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: of course I don't want to look terrible. I don't
Speaker 1: think I look amazing, But I think for my age,
Speaker 1: I'm in okay shape. Do I want to be in
Speaker 1: okay shape or good shape because I've got an ego?
Speaker 1: If I'm being honest, yes I do. But is that
Speaker 1: my primary driver? No? My primary driver these days is
Speaker 1: that I'm okay operationally, I'm okay functionally. Can I get
Speaker 1: out of bed? Can I lift things? Can I? Can
Speaker 1: I go for a run around the block? Do I
Speaker 1: have that strength and my lower body and my lower
Speaker 1: back and my glutes and my quads, and you know,
Speaker 1: can I I pick things up in and out of
Speaker 1: the boot of the car, And can I do all
Speaker 1: that stuff? And more importantly, even can I train in
Speaker 1: the gym and left relatively heavyweights, which then extrapolates into
Speaker 1: all the benefits and advantages into my day to day life.
Speaker 1: So there's a thing that I've spoken about many times
Speaker 1: on this show many, I say many, maybe ten over
Speaker 1: nearly seventeen hundred episodes. And that's a thing called cycopenia.
Speaker 1: And cycopenia s A R COO pe Nia is just
Speaker 1: a fancy terminology for the physiological and inevitability of people
Speaker 1: losing muscle generally as they age. When we're talking about sycopenia,
Speaker 1: we're generally talking about older people. And yes, of course
Speaker 1: there is an inevitability and an unavoidability. I guess that
Speaker 1: you and I will lose muscle, But how much muscle
Speaker 1: we maintain as we are age is manipulatable. Even if
Speaker 1: you are listening to this and you are in your forties, fifties,
Speaker 1: sixties and beyond, and you don't lift weights, or you
Speaker 1: don't do something or some things to stay strong, then
Speaker 1: unless there's some medical reason, then more than likely you
Speaker 1: can build muscle strength and function. I've worked with many
Speaker 1: people into their eighties who have increased their functional strength,
Speaker 1: their lean muscle mass, and their ability to do life significantly,
Speaker 1: even starting in their really kind of ladder years. So
Speaker 1: bodies are very adaptable, and of course how adaptable they
Speaker 1: are and what our physiological potential is declines with age.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean that you at forty or fifty,
Speaker 1: or sixty or seventy need to be typical or generally
Speaker 1: representative of what most people are look, feel, function, health
Speaker 1: performance at that age, And so why do we need
Speaker 1: to lift weights? Primarily because it keeps us healthy and strong,
Speaker 1: you know, bone density, muscle mass function. And over the
Speaker 1: last decade or so, we've really come to understanding research
Speaker 1: and science that there are sociological, psychological, and cognitive benefits.
Speaker 1: So we know that lifting weights, lifting weights consistently improves
Speaker 1: cognitive function for a period of time. After that, we
Speaker 1: know that for most people, lifting weights produces a dopamine response.
Speaker 1: It makes us happy, It puts us potentially in a
Speaker 1: better place emotionally. Now I will. Of course, the asterisk
Speaker 1: next to this is that not everybody responds the exact
Speaker 1: same way, of course, just like everybody doesn't expot respond
Speaker 1: the exact same way to the same food or the
Speaker 1: same five k run, or the same job or the
Speaker 1: same environment. So there's a lot of variability around this,
Speaker 1: but generally speaking, lifting weights is a good thing, of course.
Speaker 1: So next question is what is bioage. Bioage is basically
Speaker 1: how old your body is from a functional point of view.
Speaker 1: Bioage is a little bit of a bro science term,
Speaker 1: but really what it means is, irrespective of your chronological age,
Speaker 1: how functional is your body and how does your level
Speaker 1: of function compare across the lifespan to somebody typically in
Speaker 1: a different age group. So, for example me, I just
Speaker 1: turned sixty one, and so if we did some testing
Speaker 1: on me, which is possible where we do a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff strength and flexibility, range of movement, muscular endurance,
Speaker 1: aerobic endurance, and depends on the test, but we test
Speaker 1: a whole lot of physical stuff. We get some data,
Speaker 1: and then we put all of my data, all of
Speaker 1: my results, we compare them to a whole lot of
Speaker 1: other data. Tens hundreds, maybe thousands of results depend on
Speaker 1: which protocol we use, but we compare my results to
Speaker 1: lots and lots and lots of other results, which we call,
Speaker 1: like I said, normative data. And we find out that
Speaker 1: Kraig at sixty one has got the functional strength or
Speaker 1: the bioage of somebody who is fifteen years younger than him,
Speaker 1: or twenty years younger than him, or it might be.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we do a bioage test and fifty year old's
Speaker 1: got the biological age of a sixty five year old.
Speaker 1: You've probably seen these TV shows, but we could scrap
Speaker 1: the term biological age and just put how old old
Speaker 1: or young compared to your actual age? Is your body
Speaker 1: in terms of physical performance? And then the next question
Speaker 1: is which I mentioned the term, what is functional strength?
Speaker 1: So for me, that is what it is all about.
Speaker 1: Like how much you can bench press or deadlift or squat,
Speaker 1: they are indicators of strength, of course, of absolute strength.
Speaker 1: But what I'm most interested in, and I suggest most
Speaker 1: of you would be most interested in, is how functional
Speaker 1: or practical or useful is the strength that you have
Speaker 1: or the strength that you are building in day to
Speaker 1: day life. Hopefully the answer is really functional. So for example,
Speaker 1: let's say, for example, I can leg press eight hundred
Speaker 1: pounds for twenty reps, which I can't, but let's say
Speaker 1: it could. We might say, wow, Craig's got really really
Speaker 1: strong legs. That's amazing, and at leg pressing eight hundred
Speaker 1: pounds for twenty reps, Craig is really good. And then
Speaker 1: we go, now, how does that functional or how does
Speaker 1: that strength in the leg press translate to something like
Speaker 1: running fast or jumping high? And the answer, depending on
Speaker 1: the individual and the way that those reps are done,
Speaker 1: and a few other variables, the answer might be not
Speaker 1: very well at all. It doesn't translate. So strength in
Speaker 1: the gym is good, and there is generally a correlation
Speaker 1: between strength in the gym and functional strength. But when
Speaker 1: I am designing a program for somebody, I will design it,
Speaker 1: which is very rare these days. Please don't send me
Speaker 1: an email, but you know I've designed thousands of programs
Speaker 1: for thousands of people. But generally I am looking at
Speaker 1: what is the kind of strength that this person needs
Speaker 1: to be able to function close to optimally based on
Speaker 1: their potential in the real world. Or it might be
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be functional strength for life. It
Speaker 1: could also for those of you who are a bit
Speaker 1: more advanced, it could also be functional strength for a
Speaker 1: specific role or task. Let's say somebody's going on climbing
Speaker 1: a mountain, we might say, and they don't have strong legs.
Speaker 1: And let's say they're going to go to you know,
Speaker 1: they're going to do base camp, Everest or something, and
Speaker 1: they've got to do a whole lot of climbing or
Speaker 1: maybe go one above base camp, right, so they've got
Speaker 1: to well, they don't need massive quads, and they don't
Speaker 1: need to be able to squat a million pounds or
Speaker 1: leg press a million pounds, but they do need strong
Speaker 1: ass legs, so glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves. So what we
Speaker 1: might do in the gym with them is we might
Speaker 1: do squats and deadlifts and hack squads and leg press
Speaker 1: and all of these kind of knee extension type movements,
Speaker 1: but we do lots of reps. So we do a
Speaker 1: light ish to moderate ish weight and we do lots
Speaker 1: of reps. So we're building some strength, but more importantly
Speaker 1: and more appropriately for that task of base camp, we're
Speaker 1: building functional strength. We're building muscular endurance. Right, So the
Speaker 1: right kind of program for the right kind of need
Speaker 1: or goal or individual or individual I guess requirement. That's
Speaker 1: what functional strength is. And you know, if you're getting
Speaker 1: a program designed by somebody, we need to make sure
Speaker 1: that that strength that you are gaining, all strength gained
Speaker 1: generally is good generally, but we want to make sure
Speaker 1: that that works for us in life. And also, I
Speaker 1: guess I'm going to chuck in here, making sure that
Speaker 1: we are building total body strength, total body strength. Right. So,
Speaker 1: for example, what we see is a lot of people
Speaker 1: in gyms, and not just gyms, but a lot of
Speaker 1: training environments where they are training their upper back. You've
Speaker 1: seen dudes and girls with really big strong backs. Upper
Speaker 1: backs lats we call them lats rhomboids, and you know
Speaker 1: that kind of V shape, and some of them never
Speaker 1: train their lower back. Some of them rarely train their
Speaker 1: lower back. And so what we do is we have
Speaker 1: an upper back that this is bro science what I'm
Speaker 1: about to share. But their upper back is are nine
Speaker 1: out of ten in terms of strength, but they're lower
Speaker 1: back that rarely gets trained. That is the kind of
Speaker 1: the gap or the conduit between you know, the glutes,
Speaker 1: the lower body and the upper back traps rhomboids region
Speaker 1: doesn't get trained. So now we might have the lower
Speaker 1: back that's three out of ten strength, the upper back
Speaker 1: that's nine out of ten ten strength. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit of bro science here, but you'll understand it. And
Speaker 1: so not only are we not training the lower back,
Speaker 1: but now we're creating a real potential problem, and that
Speaker 1: is we've got this upper back that's disproportionately stronger than
Speaker 1: the lower back. So guess what we're going to fuck,
Speaker 1: Guess what we're going to get injured? Well, the lower back.
Speaker 1: So we need all of our body to be trained
Speaker 1: in a sensible way so that we're building total strength,
Speaker 1: so that where we don't have muscular imbalances. And there
Speaker 1: are so many people who train in a way which
Speaker 1: is actually over time, almost guaranteed to injure them because
Speaker 1: they neglect certain muscle groups and lower body one percent
Speaker 1: absolutely and lower back are the most neglected areas in
Speaker 1: the gym because some people are primarily, if not only,
Speaker 1: concerned with esthetics, so all round workout. My next question
Speaker 1: is do I need a gym? No, you don't need
Speaker 1: a gym. I like gyms because not because I'm an
Speaker 1: ex gym owner, but I like gyms because, especially these days.
Speaker 1: Now before you tell yourself I'm not a gym person,
Speaker 1: just hit the pores. But on that, you don't have
Speaker 1: to be a gym person. You don't need to be
Speaker 1: a gym junkie. You don't need to love going to
Speaker 1: the gym. But so, for example, the little gym that
Speaker 1: I go to, I'll give them a shout out Snap Fitness.
Speaker 1: I'm not affiliated professionally with them. I pay for my
Speaker 1: gym membership like everybody else. But what I like about
Speaker 1: having And interestingly, the gym I train at used to
Speaker 1: be one of my gyms. It used to be a Harper's.
Speaker 1: How interesting is that it's now a SNAP and I
Speaker 1: pay to go there, which I happily do. But what
Speaker 1: I like about that is one, if I'm a member,
Speaker 1: a full member, I can go to any Snap gym
Speaker 1: in Australia or around the world. They're in different countries.
Speaker 1: They're also in the States and the UK, I think Canada,
Speaker 1: not sure all but which countries, but they're in a
Speaker 1: bunch of other countries, and there's hundreds and hundreds, maybe
Speaker 1: more than a thousand around the world. The bottom line
Speaker 1: is I can use my same card at any Snap gym.
Speaker 1: Walk in the door. Now, when I go to the gym,
Speaker 1: what the main thing for me is that I have
Speaker 1: got I would think in most gyms, the one I
Speaker 1: go to anyway, and it's not over the top, it's
Speaker 1: a regular gym, but there's probably about a million bucks
Speaker 1: worth of equipment. So I walk in the door and
Speaker 1: for whatever it is, ten, twelve, fifteen bucks a week,
Speaker 1: whatever you're going to pay for your twenty four hour
Speaker 1: gym membership, you've now got access to a million dollars
Speaker 1: of equipment. You don't need to buy more equipment, you
Speaker 1: don't need to maintain the equipment, you don't need to
Speaker 1: clean it. You don't need to unpack it and pack.
Speaker 1: You just need to walk in the door, do your
Speaker 1: shit and fuck off. Right. What I love also is
Speaker 1: now this depends a little bit, but you know, for me,
Speaker 1: it's a more motivating environment. I literally have a gym
Speaker 1: at my house outside. I have an undercover but it's
Speaker 1: in my front yard like a little area. I used
Speaker 1: to call it the Zenden when it was a Zenden.
Speaker 1: It's now the zen gym, and I use it maybe
Speaker 1: once a week, maybe no times a week. It's got
Speaker 1: everything in it that I need, and I will often
Speaker 1: train there, but at least ninety five percent of the
Speaker 1: time I do my training at the gym. And the
Speaker 1: reason that I do that is one I meet my
Speaker 1: training partner there at some for me more motivating environment
Speaker 1: and so on. Now, some of you will be listening
Speaker 1: to this a few and I understand this, and you'll
Speaker 1: be thinking, I'm not a gym person. Fuck gym's. I
Speaker 1: don't want to go to a gym. So I want
Speaker 1: to say a few things about that. One, you don't
Speaker 1: have to go to a gym. You don't need to.
Speaker 1: You can buy dumbells kettlebells, bar bells, balls, bands, whatever
Speaker 1: you want, put dinn your garage, put ding your spare room.
Speaker 1: You can train at home. You can do that. The
Speaker 1: next thing I want to say about that is most
Speaker 1: people don't do that. Most people who intend to train
Speaker 1: well at home and really transform their body and be
Speaker 1: consistent and train progressively and get great results. In my experience,
Speaker 1: most people don't do it. They don't do it despite
Speaker 1: the fact that they want to and they have the intention.
Speaker 1: The reality of the experience is that pretty soon this
Speaker 1: ain't fun, this is boring, and I've got other shit
Speaker 1: on and then they look up and it's been six
Speaker 1: months since they've done one of those workouts at home.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm saying for
Speaker 1: many people it's not a great strategy. For some it
Speaker 1: probably is, but for many it's not. And I think
Speaker 1: with these things, we just need to be really, really
Speaker 1: practical and honest with ourselves about about, you know, looking
Speaker 1: reflecting upon our history with food and exercise and health
Speaker 1: behaviors and changing habits and this again, as I always say,
Speaker 1: it's not self loathing, it's just self awareness, like do
Speaker 1: you truly, truly in your heart of hearts, think that
Speaker 1: if you go and spend five hundred bucks or a
Speaker 1: thousand bucks on some gym equipment, that that's going to
Speaker 1: be you for the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty years,
Speaker 1: that you are going to train consistently and progressively, that
Speaker 1: you are going to do something something remotely like optimize
Speaker 1: your genetic potential training in the spare room of the
Speaker 1: garage or the back brand or whatever it is. And
Speaker 1: I think for most of us, not all, And again
Speaker 1: I'm just generalizing here because for me, I understand the
Speaker 1: nuance and the variability and the multitude of different issues psychological, emotional, physiological,
Speaker 1: practical surrounding this stuff. We think it's just a physical
Speaker 1: process lifting weights or building strength. It's not. It's almost
Speaker 1: like the physical part is just the easy bit. The
Speaker 1: hardest part of all physical transformation is getting our mind
Speaker 1: in the right place for us to make the right
Speaker 1: decisions and consistently do the right things and build new
Speaker 1: habits and behaviors and operating systems that align with our
Speaker 1: physical goals, and to keep doing that over period of time,
Speaker 1: a long period of time, so this now becomes your
Speaker 1: new normal operating system. Everyone starts nearly everybody that I know,
Speaker 1: not everyone, but nearly everyone that I know has started
Speaker 1: something and then given up, including me at various times
Speaker 1: in my life. And so we need to be really
Speaker 1: self aware, vulnerable, humble, honest and say, if I do,
Speaker 1: if I go and buy myself a bunch of shit
Speaker 1: and I put it in the spare room or wherever
Speaker 1: it is, am I really genuinely likely to change my body,
Speaker 1: build muscle, build strength and maintain that over the long term.
Speaker 1: Now you might be the unicorn that does that. If
Speaker 1: that's you, giddy up, well done. But if that's not you,
Speaker 1: then I really suggest that you find it doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be a commercial gym. It could be that you
Speaker 1: train with a friend and you do something together three
Speaker 1: times a week. It could be at the yacht club.
Speaker 1: It could be at the footy, but could be some
Speaker 1: other training, could be at the dojo, it could be
Speaker 1: some other training environment where you're doing your strength stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think that you know, all of this advice
Speaker 1: about how to lift weights, how often, how much, and
Speaker 1: program design, all of that, all of the technical and
Speaker 1: scientific and physiological advice is redundant if we just fucking
Speaker 1: give up. And so that's why you know, start something
Speaker 1: that you will keep doing. And for me, I think
Speaker 1: gyms are perfect for that. Not because I per se
Speaker 1: love gyms, but I just I know that people mucht
Speaker 1: typically get much better results. My next question is what
Speaker 1: should my focus be in the first four to eight weeks. Now, well,
Speaker 1: that depends on your starting point. That depends where you're at.
Speaker 1: But let's I'm just going to assume that you are somewhere. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm going to give a couple of pieces
Speaker 1: of advice. First one is for someone who is close
Speaker 1: to beginner, novice, unfit, unstrong, it's not a word, but
Speaker 1: it is now so in the first four to eight weeks,
Speaker 1: if you are close to the complete beginner end of
Speaker 1: the scale, your focus should be, in my opinion, your honor.
Speaker 1: Your focus should be consistency, creating a practical operating system
Speaker 1: that you will keep doing. So training thirteen times in
Speaker 1: the first week ain't a great plan. Let's start on
Speaker 1: something that is realistic and maintainable and maybe over time
Speaker 1: we'll keep doing it, or we might even build on it.
Speaker 1: So we want to be practical and realistic. We want
Speaker 1: to start to understand the way that our body interacts
Speaker 1: with and responds to the different movements and exercises. We
Speaker 1: want to build what I call body awareness. What am
Speaker 1: I doing? What am I meant to be feeling? What
Speaker 1: does this work? How do I do it? Do I
Speaker 1: have my knees bent or straight? Do I stand? Do
Speaker 1: I sit? Do I have my elbows in by my side?
Speaker 1: Do I have my palms up supernated or my palms down?
Speaker 1: Do I do this overhand or underhand? What are all
Speaker 1: of the specific specifics of this movement? So we're trying
Speaker 1: to learn how to train. We're trying to learn how
Speaker 1: to be safe. We're trying to program and condition our
Speaker 1: body to this new stimulus that we're putting it in
Speaker 1: the middle of. We're not trying to see how strong
Speaker 1: we are. We are building a base. We are building
Speaker 1: a relationship with strength training. We are improving our understanding,
Speaker 1: we are improving our body awareness. We are trying new things.
Speaker 1: We are figuring out what is good and what is
Speaker 1: not good for our body. There are things that I
Speaker 1: can't do safely. I can't squat heavy safely, so I don't.
Speaker 1: I can leg press relatively heavy and safely, so I
Speaker 1: do so. Depending on where you're starting at you are
Speaker 1: spending the first four to eight weeks really just introducing
Speaker 1: your body to a new stimulus and building from there.
Speaker 1: If you are someone who is already underway, you already
Speaker 1: have a bit of strength, a bit of awareness, a
Speaker 1: bit of momentum. Then I would say, and after this
Speaker 1: you kind of want to kick yourself in the pants
Speaker 1: a little bit. You want to reignite the fire a
Speaker 1: little bit. I would think about maybe just changing what
Speaker 1: you do, or doing what you normally do, but in
Speaker 1: a different way. I mean, there are so many people
Speaker 1: that essentially do the same workout the same way in
Speaker 1: the same gym, on the same equipment time and time
Speaker 1: and time again, and then wonder why their body is
Speaker 1: not changing or adapting or progressing or improving. And remember
Speaker 1: the role, you know, apart from building strength and having
Speaker 1: fun and maybe meeting your friends at the gym and
Speaker 1: all of that, having a bit of socialization, which I
Speaker 1: think is great when you can make that happen. The
Speaker 1: other thing that we're trying to do in the gym
Speaker 1: is we're just trying to do something to our body
Speaker 1: which will cause our body to adapt to that something
Speaker 1: that we do. So lifting weights or doing strength training,
Speaker 1: doing a chin up, doing a push up, doing a
Speaker 1: dumbbell curl, doing a leg extension, doing a hack squad, whatever,
Speaker 1: all of those are forms of stress on the muscle.
Speaker 1: And when you build strength or when you grow muscle,
Speaker 1: we call that hypertrophy, or when you build muscular endurance,
Speaker 1: or you build speed or power, all of those things
Speaker 1: are adaptations to the thing that you did to your muscle.
Speaker 1: And so for those of you who have been training
Speaker 1: for a while, we can incorporate another question I've got here,
Speaker 1: which is what is maintenance and what is progressive training?
Speaker 1: This is that so maintenance training is essentially you do
Speaker 1: in a form of the same thing the same way
Speaker 1: and then kind of expecting things to change. How come
Speaker 1: I'm not getting stronger or faster, or leaner or fitter,
Speaker 1: or more muscular or aerobic endurance, or more speed or
Speaker 1: more flexibility or a quicker reaction time, or any of
Speaker 1: these what we would call fitness indicators or fitness variables.
Speaker 1: And the reason is for many people, the reason that
Speaker 1: they're not progressing is because they're not training in a
Speaker 1: way which will make their body or force their body
Speaker 1: to adapt and progress and improve performance. So if you are,
Speaker 1: for example, you are someone who's been training for a
Speaker 1: while and your goal is to get better. Whatever that
Speaker 1: means for you, what does what does that mean? Getting better? Well,
Speaker 1: that might be getting that might be running ten k's
Speaker 1: in a quicker time. It might be bench pressing more.
Speaker 1: It might be it might be improving your dead hang,
Speaker 1: so hanging from a chinup bar, just hanging, just body
Speaker 1: weight hanging. It might be to improve your hangtime from
Speaker 1: ten seconds to thirty seconds. That's progression. It might be
Speaker 1: being able to do a one arm row with a
Speaker 1: ten kilo dumbbell or a twenty kilo dumbbell when you
Speaker 1: started on a five or a seven and a half.
Speaker 1: It might be that you now have a bit more
Speaker 1: muscle and a bit less fat. It might be that
Speaker 1: you now have a lower resting heart rate or lower
Speaker 1: blood pressure. It might be that you now have better
Speaker 1: posture because you've you've stretched and made the muscles on
Speaker 1: your front that's your peck muscles more flexible, and the
Speaker 1: muscles at the back, your homboids and traps and lats,
Speaker 1: you've made them stronger. So now you've got better naturally
Speaker 1: just walking around, better posture. That's progression, that's adaptation, that's growth,
Speaker 1: that's improvement. So if you are saying to me, I'm
Speaker 1: going to the gym, harps, and I'm going to improve, well,
Speaker 1: then you need to do things that are associated with improvement,
Speaker 1: that will facilitate, that will preempt, that will cause adaptation.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you right now, the vast majority of
Speaker 1: people in gyms anyway, and many other training environments by
Speaker 1: the way, but let's talk about gyms for the moment.
Speaker 1: Most people are not training in a way which is
Speaker 1: even close to optimizing their genetic potential. And it's not
Speaker 1: they're not training in a way which is forcing progression
Speaker 1: and improvement. They're essentially in a holding pattern like they're training,
Speaker 1: or they're exercising, or they're lifting, which is good, which
Speaker 1: is good, But what they're essentially doing is keeping what
Speaker 1: they've got. So let's say their flexibility is a five,
Speaker 1: their strength is a five, their aerobic fitness is a five,
Speaker 1: their muscular endurances are five, all the fitness markers are
Speaker 1: a five. And then any year they come back and
Speaker 1: everything's still a five. Well, that's not terrible, but it
Speaker 1: means they haven't improved, they haven't gone backwards. But they
Speaker 1: haven't improved. And if you said to those five out
Speaker 1: of ten people right now, and we took them five
Speaker 1: out of ten based on their potential, not compared to
Speaker 1: any standard or any other person, but just on that
Speaker 1: person's potential. If I could go into the gym now
Speaker 1: and interview twenty random strangers and they didn't know me,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know them, any gym in Melbourne or
Speaker 1: any gym in any city anywhere, and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: can I ask you a quick question, is your goal
Speaker 1: in the next year to kind of stay where you
Speaker 1: are physically or to improve? Probably twenty would say I
Speaker 1: want to improve. Very few people say I don't want
Speaker 1: to improve. Very few people say where I'm at right
Speaker 1: now is where I want to be. But nonetheless, most
Speaker 1: people train in a way which is going to keep
Speaker 1: them trapped in that groundhog Danus of physiology, So maintenance
Speaker 1: versus progression. You want to be training progressively unless you're
Speaker 1: already where you want to be. So that's the answer
Speaker 1: to the question, what is maintenance and what is maintenance training?
Speaker 1: And what is progressive training? My next question that I
Speaker 1: get asked, I'm realizing this ain't going to be forty
Speaker 1: five minutes, so I might break it into two bits.
Speaker 1: The next question I get asked is what do I
Speaker 1: do now? None of what I'm about to share with
Speaker 1: you is advice for you. It's just that people seem
Speaker 1: to be interested in what I do personally. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you a snapshot into my and I'll
Speaker 1: speak a bit more broadly than just strength, but all
Speaker 1: of it to give you an insight. Again, not a recommendation,
Speaker 1: not a prescription, but a lot of people my age
Speaker 1: are not in particularly good shape. A lot of people
Speaker 1: want to be in good shape, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people are curious about, well, what is possible, and what
Speaker 1: is possible is often a lot more than you think.
Speaker 1: All right, So my strength protocol is just that I
Speaker 1: go to the gym every day and I don't follow
Speaker 1: a set. Okay, Monday I do chest and back, Tuesday,
Speaker 1: I do you know, lower back and legs. Wednesday I
Speaker 1: do shoulders and arms. Thursday I have off and then
Speaker 1: I get then I repeat from day one through. I
Speaker 1: don't do that. I train somewhat instinctively, but also an
Speaker 1: exercise scientist, and so I understand training, and I've been
Speaker 1: training forever. I've pretty much always got some kind of
Speaker 1: limitation or injury. Right now, I've got a torn rotator cuff,
Speaker 1: which is some muscles around the shoulder where the humor
Speaker 1: is the head of the humorous the big armbone goes
Speaker 1: into the shoulder humoral joint. You don't need to know
Speaker 1: all that. Bottom line is, technically speaking, left shoulders a
Speaker 1: bit fucked. So what I do is if I get
Speaker 1: to science, he let me know. So what I do
Speaker 1: is I go into the gym and I go what
Speaker 1: can I do? What can I do? I'm doing specific
Speaker 1: rehab work at the moment to fix my shoulder, or
Speaker 1: to fix it as much as I can, but I
Speaker 1: train around it. So there's some things that in the
Speaker 1: gym that I would do that would make my shoulder worse.
Speaker 1: I don't do them. There's some things that I can
Speaker 1: do that hurt a little but don't make the actual
Speaker 1: injury worse. And there's some things that I can do
Speaker 1: that are next pain free other than just the pain
Speaker 1: that comes with doing the movement hard. And so I
Speaker 1: do waits every day. I do about an hour every day.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm in the gym for an hour and a quarter,
Speaker 1: sometimes an hour and a half. If I'm being fully transparent,
Speaker 1: quite a bit of that time is talking, helping other people,
Speaker 1: talking to my training partner, talking to his kids, training
Speaker 1: a few people that I kind of help out a
Speaker 1: bit here and there. Johnny who got blown up and
Speaker 1: was told he'd never walk. I work with him two
Speaker 1: three times a week. Love, he's guts, beautiful human being,
Speaker 1: and so in that, you know, i might be in
Speaker 1: the gym for an hour and a quarter, but I'm
Speaker 1: only actually lifting stuff for truly twenty to thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: Like when I'm actually lifting a weight might be twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty minutes. I would generally, now, if I go
Speaker 1: to the gym on my own, which is rare, I'm
Speaker 1: in and out in forty five minutes because I'm just
Speaker 1: doing my thing. Let's just go It's a normal day
Speaker 1: and it's just me, right, So yeah, I would go
Speaker 1: in and I generally do more compound movements. What is
Speaker 1: a compound movement? Let's ask that as a question. Compound
Speaker 1: movement is a movement that is using two or more joints,
Speaker 1: or two or more joints are involved, and then multiple
Speaker 1: muscle groups. So, for example, let's just do something that
Speaker 1: we all know a bise curl where you've got your
Speaker 1: palm up and you just bring a weight up towards
Speaker 1: your chin and then you lower the weight back down
Speaker 1: towards your hip. That's what we would call an isolation
Speaker 1: movement because it's just one joint involved, which is the
Speaker 1: elbow joint. And what we're doing is we're bending the elbow.
Speaker 1: That's called elbow flexion. And when we put a weight
Speaker 1: in the hand, whether that's a dumbbell, barber, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you know, a band, a cable, row, anything, and we're
Speaker 1: doing elbow flexion that is bringing the palm up to
Speaker 1: the chin region. We call that elbow flexion underload. All
Speaker 1: of those are various kinds of curls. So barbell curl,
Speaker 1: z bar curl, cable curl, dumbbell curl, hammer curl, preacher curl,
Speaker 1: all curls, and you've all I'm using this because everyone
Speaker 1: knows nearly everyone knows what a curl is, but all
Speaker 1: curls are essentially the exact same or very similar movement,
Speaker 1: which is elbow flexion underload. So that's a single joint movement. Now,
Speaker 1: let's do some thing like a bench press. Now, maybe
Speaker 1: you have never bench pressed, but I think most people
Speaker 1: know what it looks like. So a bench press is
Speaker 1: a multi joint exercise, So you're using shoulder joint and
Speaker 1: elbow joint, and you're also using other joints as stabilizers.
Speaker 1: But in terms of what's actually moving significantly through the movement,
Speaker 1: that is shoulders and elbow and also like for example,
Speaker 1: back just quickly to the curl, we're using primarily biceps,
Speaker 1: and we're also moving we're also using a muscle called brachialis,
Speaker 1: which is under the bicep, and then brachio radialis, which
Speaker 1: is kind of forum and crosses over the elbow joint.
Speaker 1: But you know, all of these are what we call
Speaker 1: elbow flexa muscles, right, But it's really very much an
Speaker 1: isolation movement. But then when we look at something like
Speaker 1: the bench press, we are working the whole chest, and
Speaker 1: we're working our shoulders, and we're working our triceps that's
Speaker 1: around the back from the biceps. And any time we're
Speaker 1: doing a pushing movement, we are doing we are using
Speaker 1: our triceps. Anytime we're doing a pushing movement, we're doing
Speaker 1: what's called elbow extension. Now, if you put your hand
Speaker 1: on your chest right now, you are in elbow flexion.
Speaker 1: If you put your palm on your chest right now,
Speaker 1: you're in elbow flexion. Now if you put your palm
Speaker 1: out straight in front of you with a straight arm,
Speaker 1: you've just done elbow extension. And what allowed you to
Speaker 1: do elbow extension is primarily your triceps, which sit on
Speaker 1: the back of the arm. So most of the work
Speaker 1: that I do is compound movements, so deadlifts, leg press,
Speaker 1: shoulder press, upright rows, push ups, chins, seated row and
Speaker 1: the like, you know, but I also do some isolation stuff.
Speaker 1: So my strength protocol is every day. It doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be every day, by the way, I just enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Some days are harder, some days are easier. If I
Speaker 1: go into the gym and I'm a little bit flat
Speaker 1: or tired, or my energy is not great and it's
Speaker 1: genuinely not great, it's not me just being a pussy,
Speaker 1: then I will back off. I will have a somewhat
Speaker 1: easier day. There are sometimes where I go to the
Speaker 1: gym and I realize I'm real sore or real tired,
Speaker 1: and I'll just train a few people and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to people and I'll go home. That's not very often.
Speaker 1: That's maybe three days a year, and there's probably another
Speaker 1: two or three days a year where I might not
Speaker 1: get to the gym because I'm flying somewhere. I'm traveling.
Speaker 1: It's like practically impossible to get to a gym. But
Speaker 1: I would say there are no more than ten days
Speaker 1: a year, probably no more than five that I do
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing in terms of strength stuff, even if that
Speaker 1: means that I do five sets of push ups in
Speaker 1: my hotel room. All right, So that's my kind of
Speaker 1: strength protocol. And just FYI, I run three days a
Speaker 1: week or four days a week. It's short, at sharp,
Speaker 1: and I run generally two to three k's. I run
Speaker 1: out the front door. I run like Phoebe Buffet from Friends.
Speaker 1: If you don't know who that is, just do a
Speaker 1: search on Phoebe Buffet running. You'll see a little bit
Speaker 1: more technique than that. And I do that because short, hard,
Speaker 1: sharp is all you need to be getting real cardiovascular benefits.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do long I can actually run
Speaker 1: quite well, but I don't want to do long, steady
Speaker 1: state runs. I don't want to be doing ten k runs.
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with them, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: be doing them, because as soon as I start to
Speaker 1: do twenty thirty forty fifty ks of running a week,
Speaker 1: I lose lots of muscle. So for me to get
Speaker 1: muscle and hold onto it is a work. So I
Speaker 1: don't want to undo that. So I do strength stuff
Speaker 1: as I described, and also cardio stuff which is not
Speaker 1: endurance based, short, hard, sharp, so I get the cardiovascular benefit,
Speaker 1: but I hold onto the muscle. All right, I've kind
Speaker 1: of answered the next question, but I'll quickly touch on it.
Speaker 1: So what are the benefits of strength training in no
Speaker 1: particular order of importance? Bone density, which is really important
Speaker 1: as we age people. If you get say two twin
Speaker 1: sisters that are sixty, and everything else is identical, you know, lifestyle, food, even,
Speaker 1: you know job, incidental activity, occupational activity, obviously genetics, DNA.
Speaker 1: But one of them lifts weights consistently and one doesn't,
Speaker 1: And then you'll find the sister who lifts weights has got
Speaker 1: a much higher bone density. If everything else is, all
Speaker 1: things being equal, generally you're going to see one with
Speaker 1: much higher bone density, which higher bone density and higher
Speaker 1: body strength equates too longer hell span and longer lifespan.
Speaker 1: And also if one of them perish the thought, but
Speaker 1: one of them falls over. One of them is way
Speaker 1: more likely to break a hip or break some kind
Speaker 1: of bone than the other, so bone deadseity. We're talking
Speaker 1: about the benefits of strength training lean mass, so we
Speaker 1: know when we have more muscle. Now we're not talking
Speaker 1: about being a body builder, a massive and jack, but
Speaker 1: when we have more muscle, muscle is metabolically active. What
Speaker 1: that means is that muscle uses more energy than fat,
Speaker 1: so body muscle muscle on the body. Lean mass uses
Speaker 1: more energy. So the bottom line is that the more
Speaker 1: muscle you have, within reason, it helps you stay lean.
Speaker 1: Because let's say we've got again, let's go back to
Speaker 1: these sisters. Let's say these six sisters weigh both of
Speaker 1: them weigh sixty kilos. One's got a lot of muscle
Speaker 1: for her age and weight, and the others got more
Speaker 1: fat and less muscle. Well, the sixty kilo twin that's
Speaker 1: got more muscle will actually be able to eat more
Speaker 1: food because having more muscle require more energy in brackets calories,
Speaker 1: and so she has the shares the pleasure of being
Speaker 1: able to eat more food than her sister who's got
Speaker 1: less mass. Without that game so being strong having muscle
Speaker 1: also has a metabolic advantage. So other benefits of strength
Speaker 1: training of course, balance sporting, performance, cognition, as I said before,
Speaker 1: quality of life in general, and just I guess on
Speaker 1: a really practical level, for older people like my mum
Speaker 1: and dad, being stronger allows them to more effectively do
Speaker 1: what we call activities of daily living ADLs and yeah,
Speaker 1: and who doesn't want to be able to be functional
Speaker 1: and operational when you're old? So activities of daily living,
Speaker 1: you know, getting in and out of air, in and
Speaker 1: out of the car, being able to step up onto
Speaker 1: a low step and get something out of a cupboard,
Speaker 1: being able to make beds, being able to carry things
Speaker 1: to the washing machine or maybe carrying something out to
Speaker 1: the car or doing housework. So just you know, being
Speaker 1: in your seventies and eighties and being comparatively or relatively
Speaker 1: strong for your chronological age sets you up well for
Speaker 1: your latter years. I get a team. I'm just going
Speaker 1: to interrupt myself. Look at me interrupting me. This went
Speaker 1: way longer than I thought it would, but not really
Speaker 1: surprising because it's me anyway. So ended up being somewhere
Speaker 1: around about now and a quarter of me, just bloody
Speaker 1: banging on in my office by myself the extended monologue version.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to call this the end of part
Speaker 1: one for now. I'll be back tomorrow to complete the conversation.
Speaker 1: See then,