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Debunking the No-Pain-No-Gain Myth: Smarter Training Strategies · Your Strongest Body

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You are listening to your Strongest Body.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Betsy Foster, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and certified nutrition coach.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I've worked as a personal trainer for over a decade, helping people build strength, speed, muscles, as well as a deep appreciation for their bodies and confidence that helps them live their life to the fullest.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness, nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Hello, hello, welcome back to another episode of your Strongest Body.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being here.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I'm Betsy and I am very happy to chat with you today.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I have yet to create the title for this.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I start with the title and sometimes I don't.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I've yet to create the title, so as I talk about this, we'll decide what the title is, maybe together as this comes out.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Today, we're talking about the signs that we have come to establish as the signs of a good workout, right, the things that you may have associated in your mind with a good workout, and why those aren't really good indicators, and then how to assess quote unquote a good workout.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about that, and why do I think this is important.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I think that understanding that what we sort of usually attribute to a good workout is not always a great indicator, will help you have better workouts and will better help you understand what training is, because workouts are one-off experiences that do a few things in the moment they are acute.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Training is our bigger picture of what we are doing consistently, what we have sort of mapped out from a broader perspective, and it is all those workouts that are cumulative as part of our training that make the difference.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: And if we are so attached to some kind of value to each individual workout, we start to lose sight of that bigger picture and we might be making missteps in the workout because we need that sort of instant gratification.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: There is a lot about working out that we have societally know, societally attached to, like feeling accomplishment and feeling like you, you know really worked hard and all of that is great.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: But the individual workout has so much less meaning if it isn't part of the big picture.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: So I will sort of explain that as we go along.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about what you normally think of as a good workout, or commonly think of as a good workout.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Some of the things that I hear most often when people are describing their best workouts are that they sweat a lot.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I was like dripping in sweat.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: First, everybody's body is different.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Everybody's body is different, so some people sweat a lot and some people do not.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: There are probably a lot of physiological reasons for this, a lot of genetic reasons for this, but people sweat differently so it doesn't really tell us much.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of temperature reasons for these kinds of things, like depending on where you're working out, depending on the style of working out, and for sure there are kinds of workouts where, like, sweating a lot might directly correlate with the kind of work you're doing.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about, like kind of an intense running workout or something.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: But it also doesn't tell us a lot about the success of that workout, the amount of sweat.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I just think that it often feels like a little bit of a badge of honor.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: And, if you like to sweat, there's an element to me where when I do my cardio, I sweat more than I do my lifts and I like the sensation of sweating stuff out.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I just do, but that's really the only reason I like cardio is because, like, I like a little bit of sweat and I don't sweat my other workouts.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Sometimes some people do sweat a lot in their resistance training workouts.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: So it just doesn't indicate the quality of the workout.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Another thing that doesn't indicate the quality of the workout is how quickly you go.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: So going fast, going without breaks, going without rest does not indicate that that was a good workout.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: It indicates it was a kind of workout where speed and or aerobics was at the heart of the workout.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: If we're really trying to get stronger or change our muscle size and shape, then what we're trying to do is rest enough that each individual set in the strength or hypertrophy training is as fresh as possible.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: So that often requires us going slowly.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I was talking to my husband yesterday because he was speaking about his workouts taking a long time and I was like it's true, you can really do fast workouts.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: You can get a lot done.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: The general population can get a lot done in a short amount of time and those workouts are really valuable.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Sometimes if you're working on strength or hypertrophy, you either have to have a really long workout because of the amount of frequency you can train, or if you train very frequently, they can be shorter.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: But if you're getting a really good strength or resistance training, hypertrophy style workout, it is going to require a lot of rest.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: So the speed and the lack of rest is just one style of training.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: It is not indicative of a quote unquote good workout, another one, and this one is hard, and I don't know if any trainers listen to this at this point.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I used to do a podcast that was all for trainers and I think trainers could really resonate with this next statement the idea that feeling like you're going to die or throw up is not a great indicator of the workout, and that is what a lot of people associate with a good workout or associate with handing over money to pay a trainer because they're like I would never do this to myself, so let me pay a trainer.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: And so when you are a new trainer and you're trying to bring on clients, there is this tendency to want to create that for people.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Or there's a feeling like you have to help people understand that each workout is not going to feel like.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: You don't want to feel like you're going to pass out, you don't want to feel like you're going to throw up, and a lot of people who want to almost justify the money they're going to spend, they're craving that feeling.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So a lot of that is re-education with people about.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Like when we look at the picture of training.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I want you to have worked hard, but I want you to be able to come back and train tomorrow or train two days from now, and so it's just a funny way that people think about exercise, and the truth is is there is so much more value in having workouts where you feel fatigue but not exhaustion, effort but not depleted.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: You want to actually have maybe a little surge of energy post-workout.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're tired, maybe you're like I need to sit down, but there is some element that the rest of your day, or whenever you're going forward, is going to have a little bit more energy because of the workout.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: We don't want to feel like we just got, you know, bulldozed and then you have to go do the rest of your day and every workout.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: If you're just feeling like it's beating you down, down, down down, we got to do something about your training.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: That is not the goal.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: That is not the goal.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: And so when someone's feeling that way, they're chasing it because it's so momentary.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: One workout like that, sure, but you can't train like that.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: We need to train in almost and this is a term that sometimes is used in training and maybe not used in the exact same way, but we kind of have to undulate.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: We need to have some harder days, we need to have some more moderate days, we need to have some recovery days.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: That's really, really important.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I'm headed out of town soon and I was talking to my client and I said you know, I'm going to set you up with kind of a rest week while I'm gone, and usually I'll send you a lot of workouts and you'll do them on your own.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: But I actually want you to rest this week because we have been training to a point where we've progressed and we're kind of at a peak place right now.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: I want you to take the next week to recover.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Then we're going to come in, come back at a little less intensity and work back up.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: We have to have those ebbs and flows in order for us to make progress.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Because if you think about it, if you think about just like I don't have a great analogy for it but you're just like banging on a wall over and over and over again and nothing is happening and you can't go through the wall.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: But if you step back and you look around and you can go around that wall, great.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: That is sometimes what happens with training.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: We get to the point where we're just like banging in something that's not going to change.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: We might need to rest and recover.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: We might need to try a different approach.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Training is about the long term.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: A workout is a one-off, a training is a whole picture, and you will never reach your goals with a series of strewn workouts.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: You won't make progressive goals.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: That's the truth of it.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: You will maybe feel better, you will maybe be happy that you worked out, but you're never going to make progressive gains.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: You're not going to see progressive results if you aren't training.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: And so how do we then switch our mindset around this?
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Because you're not wrong if you have felt this way before, if you're a person who feels like, oh, if I'm not really soreness is another one, I'm not really sore the next day.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: I understand we sort of associate that with success.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Right, we're like, oh, I was sore, so I worked hard enough to create the soreness.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Now I usually and I've done an episode about this before, but I'll say it real quickly here Soreness does not indicate a good workout.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: It can sometimes tell us if we're hitting the places that we intend to hit, and I think that can be useful.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: So we want maybe a little bit of it, especially if we know we've like, let's say, we don't really feel sore.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Normally we start a new program.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: The program is focused on building our hamstring and glutes.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I put a bunch of hamstring and glute stuff in.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I think that if I haven't been doing that a lot, I should feel it at least a little in the beginning.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Then, if it starts to become not as present for me, it is likely because my body has become accustomed to it and then we're training at a difficulty level where I'm training hard but I'm not debilitatingly sore the next day.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: You have to sort of take it with a grain of salt in terms of some days you're going to be sorer than others, but the goal to be constantly sore as a measure of a successful workout is not what we're trying to accomplish.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: So right, if you have been around exercise culture or just you know like wellness culture in general, you might have in your mind that I really want to sweat a ton, I want it to be so hard, I feel like I'm going to throw up and I want to be super sore the next day.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: We got to unlearn these things because those results and those, I guess.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Outcomes of a workout are unsustainable.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: You will never train four to five times per week for six months.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: If you feel like that every time Absolutely not One you won't be able to maintain it.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: You won't be sleeping well, no-transcript.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: The people who are most successful, both in the immediate and the long term, are the people who can train most consistently and with most frequency, and I know I've talked about those two things as separate things.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Consistency does not equal frequency, but once we create a consistent habit aiming to increase, our frequency is going to make a big difference.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: So if we train in a way that we can recover and train harder the next time, we want to do that.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: So how do we get around these things?
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Here are the things we need to learn.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: We need to learn that we need adequate rest within the workout.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: We need to feel as if we're not like thrilled to start the next set, necessarily, but we're ready to start the next set.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Then we need to feel not like we're going to throw up in the workout, but we do need to feel like if I were to try for one or two more reps, I do not think I could get it Now.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: That's still working really hard.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I feel like people think that, unless I feel like I'm going to throw up, I'm not working hard enough.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, if you're at the edge of failure, if you're like I don't know if I can get the next two reps, you are working hard.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: And if you've experienced that, you know it.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: You know, when you've picked up a weight and you are moving it and you're like I don't know if I could do this, that is good.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Then, once you've done that, you're going to need the minutes to recover.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: You're going to need to recover and you're going to get enough quality like that within a workout that when you are finished at the end of that workout, it's going to feel like I don't think I could do much more, but I also don't have to run home and take a three-hour nap and I could probably work out tomorrow.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Those are the feelings we're trying to capture.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I know that I'm not giving you as concrete ways to do that, but I think you can piece that together.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: That's the sensation we're trying to get.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: We're also realizing that not every workout is going to have the same intensity, not every workout is going to make us feel the same way and not every workout is going to be perfect, meaning if you are training with enough frequency and consistency to do it very regularly, you are bound to have a day where it doesn't go well, or you're bound to have a day where you can't push as hard as you did before.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: But because you don't try to kill yourself in every workout and because you know you are going to come back, it doesn't matter.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: You've checked the box and you've probably moved the needle.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I think we sometimes think that we have to like we're one big battery pack and we got to drain the whole battery in one workout, where instead I'd like to think about it a little bit more.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Like we're a gas tank and we can run on that gas tank a little bit, but we got to fill it back up and we cannot be successful running on empty, and every workout we do is less of like we're using energy to get out of it, but it's also filling back up.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that was a perfect analogy.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: It kind of came to me as I'm sitting here.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: But yes, our workout should be less of how do I feel terrible at the end of this and more of how do I give the most effort possible at the greatest difficulty level I can and still come back recharged and ready to do it the next time and realizing that I don't have to achieve all my goals in one workout.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: I am achieving goals over a training period.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: So what matters in each workout is that I show up and I give the best effort that I can that day, and that's all that matters.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: When you start to feel that way, it is much, much easier to keep coming back.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: It really is Because there's so much less dread when the workout isn't going to feel like you're being thrown around.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: You will feel the ideas like oh, I do this so that my body can feel good, I do this so my body can feel good.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: That mental switch so helpful.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: So what I want you to do is I want you to check on yourself and say where are places where I fall into these traps of sort of old school exercises, punishment mindset or old school.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Only a hard workout is a good enough workout or only a workout where I feel terrible is worth it.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: You know where do I fall into that?
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: And then, where can I change my perspective to improve my training consistency, to improve my training frequency and to improve my training quality?
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Because we are training, we are not just working out.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: All right, I want you to go and have an amazing rest of your day.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I want you to let me know what you think about this, or if you have any questions, you can email me, betsy, at BeFosterStrongcom that's the letter B, fosterstrongcom.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: You can send me an Instagram DM at Foster underscore strength and you can always leave a rating and review on the podcast, always, always, always, appreciated.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, until next time.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: I want you to go build your strongest body and I'll talk to you later.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Bye.