Latest / The Body Pod / Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced? How to Assess Your Strength Training Level with Dr. Tony Boutagy

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Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced? How to Assess Your Strength Training Level with Dr. Tony Boutagy · The Body Pod

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, This is Haley and I'm Lara and welcome
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: to the body Pod. Welcome everyone to the body Pod.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Today we have doctor Tony Bataji back and we are
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: talking about, uh, what the level for a female? What
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: level is appropriate for a female in the gym. So,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: if they're just coming in new to strength training, or
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: maybe they are advanced in another method not strength training,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: where would they fall in the beginner, intermediate, advanced categories.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I think this is a huge subject that a lot
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: of women are rushing in too fast, and so I
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: just thought it would be great to clarify and put
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: a few parameters around, some you know, must dos and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: do not.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: It's a great question because I think most females lifting
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: in the weights room they're usually new early to the
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: gym experience. In other words, they're coming from pilates, yoga,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: endurance training, spin, you name it, and then have heard
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: the importance of resistance training and therefore are adopting the
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: weight training after they've done everything else. So they may
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: well becoming extremely fit in other modes of exercise, but
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  Speaker 2: in the weights room would be classified as a beginner,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: even though they might have done yoga their entire life.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Or can run marathons and so forth. So understanding where
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: you are categorized beginner, intermediate, advanced in all disciplines is
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  Speaker 2: really important to understand. And I think there's both ends
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: of the spectrum, and this often, to be honest, is
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  Speaker 2: more of a male thing where you are new to
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  Speaker 2: something but you think you're much better than you are,
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  Speaker 2: so you try and follow programs of people that you
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  Speaker 2: aspire to, or you remember you're a teenager at college
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: and I could do that, so I'm going to do
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  Speaker 2: the same thing. That's why we see every male tearing
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: hamstrings and adductors because they go and take back up
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: sports they played as a kid, thinking they're just as
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: good as they were, and the same thing happens in
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  Speaker 2: the weights room. But it can also be on the
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  Speaker 2: other end that you might be have more experience than
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: you think that you do, and you're underpitching your training
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  Speaker 2: programs when you may well be intermediate, but you're still
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: doing beginner based programs because you just don't know how
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: to progress. So there actually is a good conversation to
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: have how do you know where to pitch a program?
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  Speaker 2: And I think broad statements really help here. If you've
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: been lifting under a year, you're a beginner. In the
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: weights room, you could have done all the different types
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: of exercises, running, swimming, cycling, politis, you name it. But
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: if you're in the weights room, it's a whole new language.
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  Speaker 2: Learning to use muscles in different ways, controlling, shortening and lengthening,
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  Speaker 2: stabilizing here, moving there. There's a lot to learn, and
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  Speaker 2: that doesn't take weeks. It doesn't even take months. It
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  Speaker 2: really is around a year, give or take one's coordination levels.
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  Speaker 2: So as a broad sweeping statement, we can start there.
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  Speaker 2: If you are under a year in the weight room,
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  Speaker 2: you are a.
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  Speaker 1: Beginner, okay, And so nobody, well, this is what I've
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: found and I obviously I've only worked with women for
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: twenty five years and pilates and then you know now
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  Speaker 1: in strength training, and nobody likes being a beginner, no one. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And so you know where you could get away. When
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I was teaching plates classes, somebody could come into a
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  Speaker 1: pilates two point zero, which is an advanced class, and
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  Speaker 1: you'd be like, okay, well then I'm not going to
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  Speaker 1: do standing on a chair balancing, but this person could
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: probably find their way through. It's very different than just
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: showing up and being like, well, you know, I can
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  Speaker 1: probably do a bar bell, how hard is it? Or
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: drop sets or things that they might not be used to. So,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: if we're taking a year in the gym, what movement
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  Speaker 1: patterns should they master before they get to move on
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  Speaker 1: to an intermediate even if they've if they're at their
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  Speaker 1: year mark but they're not quite ready or they don't.
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  Speaker 2: Know, let me just cover that first point before we
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  Speaker 2: look at those progressions. It takes a really long time
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  Speaker 2: to condition the non muscular structures to regular loading. That's bone,
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  Speaker 2: that's tendon, that's ligament, that's the neuromuscular system. To know
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  Speaker 2: what to turn on and use and what to turn
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  Speaker 2: off or what to stabilize. Those adaptations take a really
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  Speaker 2: long time. That's not done in a few weeks. Muscular
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  Speaker 2: adaptations do after the first twelve or so weeks do
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  Speaker 2: run pretty quickly, so you do improve strength from a
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  Speaker 2: muscle neuromuscular patterning very quickly, but bone, tendon, ligament they
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  Speaker 2: take up a long time. But also correcting inbalances betwe
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: between limbs, between front and back of muscles, to bringing
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  Speaker 2: up stabilizers. Because most people are very good at using
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  Speaker 2: the prime joint movers rather than the small stabilizers that
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  Speaker 2: hold things in place for long periods. They all take
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  Speaker 2: a really long time. And that's also why even if
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  Speaker 2: you think you can do the Barbel, the drop set,
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  Speaker 2: the advanced methods, it might well be that your stabilizing
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  Speaker 2: systems or your left to right balance is not quite
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  Speaker 2: developed yet. And that's where our job is not to
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  Speaker 2: hold you back. Our job is to make sure you
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  Speaker 2: don't get injured. And I think that's part of the Well,
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  Speaker 2: you are a beginner and the reason why you're doing
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  Speaker 2: this kind of work is to lay down a foundation
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  Speaker 2: so you can do future work better and avoid the
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  Speaker 2: risk of injury. So that's why we have these classifications.
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  Speaker 2: We can make up whatever name we want, we can
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  Speaker 2: get them level one, two, three, ABC, whatever you want,
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  Speaker 2: but it really is your beginner, intermediate, advanced. Now, to
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  Speaker 2: answer your second question, what do we really want you're
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  Speaker 2: doing by the end of a year's training, Well, they're
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  Speaker 2: the primary patterns. And the primary patterns in the lower
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  Speaker 2: body would be a squat pattern bending at the ankle, knee,
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  Speaker 2: and hip while stabilizing the trunk, and it would be
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  Speaker 2: hip hinging like deadlifting that could be Romanians, conventional deadlift,
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  Speaker 2: kettlebell swings, good mornings to know how to move at
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  Speaker 2: the hip alone while stabilizing at the spine and stabilizing
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  Speaker 2: at the ankle and the need now in the lower body.
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  Speaker 2: That's what we'd want you to do with a barbell
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  Speaker 2: in the upper body. It's very simple push pull patterns,
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  Speaker 2: both in a horizontal plane but also a vertical plane.
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  Speaker 2: And you might think that's a whole lot easier, but
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  Speaker 2: we're not just looking at push pull patterns. We're looking
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  Speaker 2: at the coordination of the joints that create that movement.
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  Speaker 2: We're looking at how the shoulder blazer is scalpular, either
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  Speaker 2: pro tracks and retracts when you're pushing and pulling horizontally,
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  Speaker 2: or how they upwardly and downwardly rotate so that you're
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  Speaker 2: can stay properly allotted into the arm socket rather than
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  Speaker 2: popping out. And this is not to be understated. In
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  Speaker 2: almost every female that I see who is performing an
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  Speaker 2: overhead prespect gets pain. It's because the shod of blades
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  Speaker 2: do not coordinate arm pattern well. They lift, they tilt,
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  Speaker 2: they do anything, rather than upward and downward rotation. Because
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  Speaker 2: those patterns weren't solidified really early in their training career.
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  Speaker 2: So this is all part of laying down flawless technique
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  Speaker 2: so that in the future, when you are handling bars,
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  Speaker 2: you're doing multiple sets, you're doing it all under fatigue,
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  Speaker 2: you can do so safely.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So before we move on to an intermediate, two things.
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  Speaker 1: Number One, I had this client that I started with
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  Speaker 1: and she's older, she's in her sixties, but she's strong,
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  Speaker 1: like she's just naturally strong, and you know, so we
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  Speaker 1: started moving so weight and it's it was so funny
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  Speaker 1: to me because every time she would get on like
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  Speaker 1: the hack squad, she'd be like, where am I supposed
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  Speaker 1: to be feeling this? And I'm like, when you're under load,
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  Speaker 1: you're automatically going to be filling it in the right places,
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  Speaker 1: like you don't have to. And she was so used
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  Speaker 1: to the pilates mindset of you know, engage here and
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  Speaker 1: don't engage here, and I'm like, well, you're moving, you know,
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  Speaker 1: one hundred pounds. Yeah, you don't have to turn on
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  Speaker 1: and off like right, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And there's two extremes, not extremes. There's two ways of
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  Speaker 2: viewing this. If you have come from physical therapy, pilates
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  Speaker 2: very muscle focus precise, and then there's bodybuilding, which wants
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: to isolate a muscle group and work it thoroughly through
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  Speaker 2: its range of motion. Whether it's for a guy arm
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  Speaker 2: curls or for female glutes and shot, whatever that is,
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  Speaker 2: it's very muscle centric. When we talk about strength training,
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  Speaker 2: if you were to speak to a weightlifter who's squatting,
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  Speaker 2: they might be doing ten sets of two reps, but
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  Speaker 2: they're just focusing on getting stronger. If you say to them,
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  Speaker 2: where do you feel this? Or what you mean, where
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  Speaker 2: do I feel it? I'm just doing a pattern. And
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  Speaker 2: resistance training is performing a pattern that when underload, you
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  Speaker 2: will feel it in multiple spots. And that isn't a
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  Speaker 2: right or wrong. It just means how your brain coordinates
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  Speaker 2: muscle fibers. If you're a little bit weaker, you tend
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  Speaker 2: to feel it there. If you stabilize are a bit weak,
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  Speaker 2: you might feel the prime movers acting as stabilizers. But
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  Speaker 2: if it's multi joints, you will feel it in multiple areas.
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  Speaker 2: But don't get fixated on pushing with the chest or
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  Speaker 2: squeezing the glutes.
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  Speaker 3: In a squad.
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  Speaker 2: They will come to play by performing the perfect movement pattern,
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  Speaker 2: so we perfect movement and the correct muscles will follow.
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  Speaker 4: That actually gives me a peace of mind because sometimes
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  Speaker 4: when I am doing certain squats or whatever exercise, I
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  Speaker 4: do think that, and maybe it is my plate's background.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's easy. It's easy to kind of get.
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  Speaker 3: Get analysis by analysis.
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  Speaker 2: You're too If you are too inwardly focused on clenching
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  Speaker 2: glute or bracing core or feeling the chest or the deltoid,
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  Speaker 2: you will not produce maximum force. So no one sprinting, jumping,
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  Speaker 2: lifting weights at a high level is thinking a muscle group.
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  Speaker 2: They're thinking moving as fast as possible or performing it
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  Speaker 2: well or giving it the best effort, and not use
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  Speaker 2: the quads, use the glue. It's a it's a faulty
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  Speaker 2: way of looking at multi joints.
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  Speaker 3: Now, if it's a single joint and.
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  Speaker 2: You are focusing on something by your means, clench the
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  Speaker 2: glute by your means, feel the burn in the deltoids.
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  Speaker 2: But for multi we were talking about squats at deadlifts,
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  Speaker 2: you're not thinking a muscle group when you're doing it.
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  Speaker 4: Now, I'm wondering if I need to go back and
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  Speaker 4: do a beginner program to ensure that my body is
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  Speaker 4: moving properly.
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  Speaker 2: It would all be about the limiting factors, and if
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  Speaker 2: you haven't been training as much as you would like,
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  Speaker 2: there's going to be a bit of detraining on that.
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  Speaker 2: In terms of strength, even two sessions a week you
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  Speaker 2: still make gains, and it's just because you need recovery
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  Speaker 2: from resistance training. It's not like say jogging or cycling,
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  Speaker 2: where you're using a lot of slow, rich muscle fibers
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  Speaker 2: and you can accumulate lots of volume and you can
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  Speaker 2: do that. Daily weight training is not that. It is
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  Speaker 2: tapping into your fastest or fast rich muscle fibers, and
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  Speaker 2: that demands multi day recovery. We often get confused because
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: we see we're bombarded with information on social media, which
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: is optimizing performance at the highest end, not about where
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: you get most of the gains, and then it slowly
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  Speaker 2: plateaus off. Social media is all about that slow plattering
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  Speaker 2: off and trying to squeeze the most out of the
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  Speaker 2: muscle to get the optimal games. But the truth be told,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: most of the games are made in that two days
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  Speaker 2: per week, in that three to four sets, and then
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  Speaker 2: after that you get marginal games, marginal gains. Nevertheless, but
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: they're marginal, so two days a week is just fine.
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  Speaker 2: Now to answer your questions specifically, you don't want to
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  Speaker 2: go backwards. So if you have a level of training
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  Speaker 2: and you think, well, I should maybe go and do X,
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  Speaker 2: Y and Z, it's important to not detrain what you
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: have been training. Include exercises for those. But this is
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  Speaker 2: where and the fun starts of going and plugging in
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  Speaker 2: all the weak links or the energy links that have
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: been omitted from training. And the purpose of doing these
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  Speaker 2: is when you do move on to higher volume, more frequent,
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: longer training sessions. You can tolerate that because most people's
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: plateaus and the gym are purely because they do too
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  Speaker 2: much and the body is never fully recovering before the
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: next session, and therefore you're in a constant state of breakdown.
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  Speaker 2: Right then, stimulate rest. Stimulate rest because we're trying to
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: emulate what we see on social media.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's such a good point.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So an article just came out, a study in
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the New York Times about body weight and body weight
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  Speaker 1: being effective to just as effective as weights. Now I
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: haven't I haven't really sought out the study, but a
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: lot of people have reached out to me about it,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: and it's on the questions for tomorrow for you know,
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  Speaker 1: with body weight and bands, and so they were like wait,
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  Speaker 1: I thought, we like, where does progressive overload come in?
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And this is the thing that we can get the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: same you know from weights. Can you go into that?
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: The big picture message to take home from this type
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  Speaker 2: of research which really became very popular around COVID and
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: then with the aging population who wouldn't get to the
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: gym and are looking at housebound training, so very very
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: very practical, useful research. It highlights what has added to
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: the growing understanding about muscle adaptation to exercise and that
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: iss not so much about the repetition range. It matters
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: about the effort that you apply. And this has overturned
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: a big thinking and exercise physiology that your loading and
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: your reps were really the drivers of creating change in muscle.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: And then stew Phillips, who is the driver behind this
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: change from Canada, has said, well, when you work with
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: effort and you approach failure at any rep range ten
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: fifteen thirty at that last few reps, because the effort
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: is high, your body recruits fastwitch fibers. You don't have
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: to do them at ten reps, which was what everyone
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: thought up until his work. This is really good news
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: because at home you can do body weight, you can
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: do single leg, you can do bandwork. And if it
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: takes thirty reps to get to the point where you
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: think that hurts, I want to stop. Now you create
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: change in muscle. Now, That to me is the big message.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Full stop. Now we can nitpick and say, well do
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I need to even go to the gym, And the
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: answer is you get benefit from exposure to variety, from
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: different ways of progressively overloading. Because at home you have
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: to do more reps, you have to maybe add more
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: sets because we're limited in variety.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: But that's great.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: You can still train at home and get benefit. But
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: that shouldn't take away from progressive overload. Other ways of
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: progressively overloading that you can do in the gym. Going
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: up a pound on a dumb beelp very useful. It's
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: just a good message for those people who don't like
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: or don't want to go h okay.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: So moving on from the beginner now and going to
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the intermedia. So we're assuming this person can hip hinge,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: they can squat, they can move a little bit of
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: load with Dumbell's goalblet squad, whatever, and we're assuming that
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: they probably have around a year in the gym. So
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: then what do we look for in an intermediate program?
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: And then how long does that take before someone's like, well,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I did an intermediate program, so now I'm advanced.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: It has to do with where you have been and
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: where you want to go after the first year, which
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: we call foundational training. In historical literature, it's called general preparation.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: That's where we are trying to raise general capacities that
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: you need to train successfully for your goal. We want
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: you to have left to right strength and flexibility, balance
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: front and back, quad to hamstring, ches to rhomboids, shoulders
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: to lats, abs to low back. We want that to
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: be in balance, and we want you stabilizers to come up.
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  Speaker 2: All the time that we're raising your fitness levels, we're
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: doing more and more and more. The end of twelve months,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: you can now perform bar bell advanced complex movement patterns
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: squat hinge push pull really well, and intermediate takes that
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: and runs with it. It adds volume, it adds overload techniques,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: it adds more training frequency. So the capacities that we
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: developed by the end of twelve months, so you're now intermediate.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: We add more volume and overload techniques. Now overload techniques are,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: of course just a way of adding more volume. We
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: just use advancity term overload technique. But an overload technique
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: is applying volume to each exercise by adding more sets,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: changing the range of motion, putting a pause in there,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: adding another exercise straight afterwards for the same muscle, so
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: you do more, but volume is the keyword there. I
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: would say that for most people who are intermediates, by
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: another twelve months, you're going to be advanced. If you
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: have really taken what you learnt and developed in a
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: beginner twelve months program, by the end of two months,
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: you will be considered advanced, in other words, able to
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: do advanced movements with advanced techniques and recover well from it.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, So if somebody goes and there, they've finished the
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: intermediate and they're ready for the advanced. This is the
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: question that always gets asked to what now. I know
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: that this is not a I'm looking for a ballpark
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: of how much weight, like should I be able to
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: move a bar bell overhead?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: These norms have been around for at least forty to
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: fifty years. The reason why I don't like norms. In
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: other words, if you're a female and you can squat
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: one and a half times your body weight, then you're
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: considered X. And there are classifications from elite international Elite
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: to advanced to all the way down to novice. They
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: are well published and thrown around the issue with them.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: And it's not just in strength training. It's the same
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: for endurance training. If you can do x watts, then
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: your international league and so these come from well trained individuals,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: they're not the general public, and the general public, by
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: definition is typically not genetically gifted, otherwise we would have
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: been athletes growing up in stage. So I have reticence
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: with looking at those well accepted norms deadlift, bench press, squat,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: overhead press, chin up, and then applying that to the
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: general public for fitness, because you will most of the
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: time have inadequacy syndromes. You think, oh, well, I can't
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: do that, and that's just because you don't have the
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: genetic gifting that those tables are based on. I prefer
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: what can you tolerate, well, how long have you been training,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: or what can you tolerate in the weight room Okay,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: you might not squat double your body weight through full
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: range of motion, but you can do six sets of
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: squats eight repetitions, recover from it, and do it again
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: later in the week, like call that best.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's good to know, because you know, I've often
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: thought over the last year, especially to take off how
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: many pounds somebody lifts off of my app because people
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: will post it and then other women, like in the
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: same group, are like, well, but I'm not lifting anywhere
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: near that, Like should I be worried? And it really
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: is so individual, and it depends on whether they're working
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: out at home with limited equipment versus somebody that's on
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: a lake press. Of course they're going to move.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Right, and your range of motion and what else you've
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: done in that training session and what have you else
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: done in the week. There's too many variables when it
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: comes to load lifted. That's why I really like this
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: push that the New York Times was getting at. It's
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: about your effort. And yes, when I coach in the gym,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: I'm aware of what the weight my clients are doing,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: but I don't really care about it other than pitching
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: what their next session will be be because by the
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: time I see them in a week, a whole week
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: of life has happened. They've played golf, they've gone for
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: a run, they had a fight with their husband, their
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: kids are playing up with them. They turn up and
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: they actually lift less load, but their effort is just
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: as high, and muscle and bone and metabolism are all
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: challenged on a per effort basis, not compared to what
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: you lifted the previous week. So I do think we
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: need to not disregard completely how much are you lifting,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: but just remember it is an up and down, very
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: forgiving construct that we're not Olympians. It's not about how
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: much you can lift. It's about how much does it hurt? Essentially,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: how much effort are you putting in, and if that
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: effort is high, great, I'm happy.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, final question before we wrap this up. Do you
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: think though, that there's some individuals that have a lower
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: pain tolerance and they think they're at effort, but they
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: might not be at efforts.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: That is absolutely true, from the pain adversive syndromes to those.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: People who are psychopaths.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Right there's you know, there's sweat coming out the frothing
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: at the mouth that they're using everything to finish the
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: wrap and go No, no, I can still keep going.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: You should have stoped ten w reps ago. It is
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: very individual and I do think all things being equal,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: having a trainer take you to the point of where
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: form breaks down. That means by definition, you've reached failure
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: because you're trying to use something else to complete the reps.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: At that point, then we can do this concept called
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: reps in reserve. For most individuals training in the gym,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: there is no point in muscular failure unless it's an
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: isolated movement pattern. It's a calf, it's a forearm, it's
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: something small, no big deal. But on multi joint structural
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: movements there is, and the data on this it's really
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: abundantly clear that working close to failure is as good
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: as failure, but without causing a really long time course recovery,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: also increasing the risk of injury and your adversion to
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: exercising because it hurts so much. It's this whole idea
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: of you have to fail. The literature doesn't support that
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: at all, and I can't believe this isn't a more
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: publicly known message. When it starts to hurt, then it's
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: time stop now. For those clients who are pain adverse
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: and actually at six reps away from failure, and I
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: think that's good. That's where a trainer can say, let's
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: see if we can do a few more repetitions. Now
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: it's meant to hurt a little bit, but you're not
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: doing anything structurally, you're not You've got to disassociate I've
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: torn a muscle, that's bad, versus the metabolites that are
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: accumulating and the acidic changes and muscle that are going
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: on in those instances.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: That's good.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: We seek that and it only lasts a few seconds.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: So let's see if we can squeeze out a few
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: more reps. And I think working with a trainer who
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: can safely say that's failure, we're going to stop too
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: short of that is a really helpful thing to do.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: And do you feel like it's a skill as well
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: for someone like I noticed when somebody starts doing HIT,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: they have no idea the ability that they have to
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: push themselves, and so as soon as the burn starts
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: to come in, it's like this sucks.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: If you have never been a regular exerciser, then you
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: will associate pain, which is normal, desirable in the exercise room,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: whether it's interval training or weight training, with pain that
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: is pathological. I've hurt my back, I've got a muscle spasm,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: I'm cramping, whatever, and they associate the same because it
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: feels the same at least in that moment. And I
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: think education is very important to you. If you're exercise
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: naive and you've never trained, this is what you're going
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: to experience and it's okay, and we have a rest
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: and then we'll do it again.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: So for somebody starting out now we talked all about
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: strength training and just to finish up here really quick.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: If you had someone genpot that was just coming back
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: into this type, maybe again, maybe they were doing other
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: forms of movement, but they were new to like interval training.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: What is a rough time frame that you would not
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: even have them do hit intervals before, like you would
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: have them start in zone two, I would imagine, right.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: And this is a contentious area because a lot of
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: our understanding has been driven from athletic populations, where it's
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: abundantly clear, there's very little debate about this. The more volume,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: lower intensities you perform to build quote unquote a bay,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: the better you can perform intervals, recover between the intervals,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: and recover between training sessions. There's very little debate about this.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: The greater you can have a capacity for lack date clearance,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: more mitochondrial density, and the higher your aerobic base, you
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: can do intervals better. Now that paradigm has been taken
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: into the fitness industry as if you want best practice,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: then you should do based training and then sprinkling the intervals.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Health researchers, not performance researchers. Health researchers have said, we
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: don't worry about that. You can just start with interval
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: training and you'll see enormous benefit. Now that is true,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: but it's in true as the study went for eight
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: weeks and didn't view the big lifetime picture. So as
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: much as I read and appreciate health research, I think
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: it's nice. There's mechanisms. If you are time crunched, you
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: can just go straight to that. If you hate SETI
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: state whatever, you can do interval training. But for those
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: who are interested in a more long term progression, the
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: big picture, where do I go after I do that?
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Because most indeaval training, if you just start, you'll plateau
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: very quickly and then you'll just be stuck. And that's
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: why I think the athlete model is modified but still
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: the best model to follow. So it's a long way
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: of answering to say, if you have been out and
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: you come back, then yes, you should do a block
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: of training under that first ventil tree threshold, which we
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: call zone two, about seventy ish percent of your maximal
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: heart rate and build frequency, build duration, and then once
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: you are at the maximum number that you can do
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: in the session and within the week, that's when we
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: start revving the engine.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, so maybe I mean I'm thinking of like my mom.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I would never make her go out and be like, well,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: get on a bike and go as hard as you can.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I would start her and maybe work up to ninety
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: minutes or sixty to ninety minutes as small.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: So the health research really is very interesting and it
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: is doing good for those people who time crunch don't
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: like all of that, and there's no question there is benefit.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: I just think what it is missing is context. We
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: don't take an eight week study and just apply that
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: straight into the fitness industry.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: That is bad practice.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: We need to look at more of a context, and
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: it is there's no downside to spending six to eight
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: weeks building exercise tolerance and then starting that there's no
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: downside at all. So I think that should be our
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: default position, unless strongly argued against.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: I love it all. Right, Well, we are going to
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: wrap it up. Thank you Tony for another fabulous fast
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: session and we will see you on again really soon.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: Great. Thanks guys, thanks for listening.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: five star review and sharing the body Pod with your friends.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Until next time,