Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 98: Seasons in your fitness journey
Transcript
- Cameron: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversations podcast. And in today's episode, I want to talk about the idea of seasonality in training. So it's kind of fitting because the sun is very much shining today, although I think everyone down south is getting a crazy heat wave and this might be a little bit different for them because it's probably too hot to take into account some of the things I'm away to say. But something I think is really important is that I have trained for a very, very long time. And one of the things I stress to clients is there is nothing wrong with having phases where you focus on certain things a little bit more than others. I'm gonna give an example of this. I have quite a few clients right now who are doing a bit more running, a bit more hill walking, a bit more cycling, these kind of things, a bit more tennis as well actually, than they would normally do in the winter months for obvious reasons because it's cold and bloody miserable. And that's absolutely fine. And I was speaking to a client who, sort of asking is like, it okay to drop that, is it okay to drop down a session? Because they're doing three a week normally, and that's what they've done all through the winter months, all through the spring, but now they're quite fancying playing tennis extra time a week and going for an extra run a week, and they're refining it quite a lot to juggle. And this is a really, really good conversation to have. The first thing would say is, you don't want to stop, right? The amount of training you need to do to maintain your strength, your muscle mass, isn't all that much. There's some really cool research that would suggest that one hard set, and it is a hard set, but one hard set per muscle group per week would be enough to maintain muscle mass. I'm gonna give an example of that. So let's say I did leg extensions once a week. That would suggest if I did it hard, if I really pushed it to failure, right up to that kind of point, or like one rep from failure, that that would be sufficient stimulus to maintain the muscle mass that I have in my quads, right? So in theory you could do something like one set of really hard quad extensions, one set of really hard hamstring curls, maybe one set of really hard calf raises or something like that and that would be your lower body all sorted. Now it's a little bit more complicated than that, can include your glutes and things like that too, but the point is is that you don't need all that much training to maintain. The reason that matters is if someone wants to spend a little bit more time running through the summer or they want to play a bit more tennis, or they want to go hill walk and they want to do other things, that is absolutely fine. The real trick is just not losing your strength and not losing the muscle mass you have. So for example, I have, and I'm not doing it this summer because actually I'm probably training more in the gym ironically right now, just because it kind of suits me and the goals I have at the moment, that's kind of what I'm prioritizing. But I've gone through probably about three summers where I've trained twice a week. Now for context, I on average train about four times a week, that's kind of my norm. and I've gone through probably, yeah, probably about three, maybe more summers, where I have gone three to four months where I've just trained twice a week. And during that time, I have still made progress. Have I made as much progress as I would have as training four times? No, definitely not. But have I still made progress? Yeah, absolutely. Have I gone backwards? Definitely not. And that's a really good thing to know because it's okay to have a bit of seasonality in training. Now, if you're quite new to training, this probably isn't that important to you. But I've been training since I was 13 at different levels of intensity. And I was obviously, mean, I really was just training in the background with some dumbbells right back then. But I've been training for a very long time. I'm 31, 31 and a half. The first six months of this year have flown by. So I'm 31 and a half. I've been training for a very, very long time and I've always enjoyed my training. However, I've also dabbled with other things. I've wanted to go and do some longer distance running, not crazy long distances, but some longer distance running. I've also got into some longer distance cycling. I've also started playing basketball in the last couple years again. So there's been different phases and different priorities for me at different times and that is absolutely okay. It doesn't have to be the case that I give up one thing for another. That's not the case, right? I find a balance. I always make sure I drop back to sort of two sessions a week because that works for me. For a lot of people even dropping back to one session if they were very intentional about pushing themselves hard. And this is where you can't get away with training like an absolute wet blanket if you bimble through some press ups and think, ⁓ probably do four more, but I'll stop there. That's not gonna swing. The whole point of the research that we saw here is you have to train with some intensity to do that one set. And if you're doing two sets or three sets, then obviously you could get away with slightly less intensity, but it's advisable that you train fairly hard. And what's really useful about this is it does allow you that scope to do other stuff. So I have clients that are doing half marathon buildups, marathon buildups, clients who want to play tennis. twice a week now because the sun's shining as well and it's social and their friends are playing it, that's absolutely fine. And we've potentially dropped the amount of training they're doing. In one client we've sort of reduced the session duration so it gives her a bit more time. In another client we've dropped the session down a week because that allows them to do a bit more running. That is absolutely valid and you can go through seasons with your training. You may want to spend three, four months of the summer months thinking, actually I'm go to the gym twice a week rather than three times and I'm gonna prioritize my running. Cool, absolutely fine to do that. As long as we make sure the quality of the sessions we are doing is good and as long as we're consistent, because what you can't do is say you're gonna do two and then miss half of them, right? That doesn't work. You need to still be consistent. But I do think that's really important is that people think, ⁓ if I drop from three sessions, or in my case, four to two, you would think, well, Cameron's doing half the training he's doing. He's gonna make no progress or indeed he's gonna go backwards. But the thing is is actually probably 20 to 30 % of the training you normally do if you train hard over that time, it's sufficient to maintain muscle mass and maintain a lot of your strength as well. So it's good to know that because that's what allows a lot of clients who maybe do a marathon, for example, to maintain their strength over that period of time. And then when they get back after it, they need a couple of weeks maybe to recover and they're able to kind of pick things up and focus on the gym a little bit more. Whereas if they kind of build up to their marathon, they're probably losing a little bit of the frequency that they were trained with in the gym because they've got all that time on the bloody road. So it's important to know. So I think that's quite a nice thing to think about. The other thing too that's cool about that is it also allows you to start to see your fitness as very long-term thing. The way I view it, if next year I have the inclination to start doing lots of long-distance cycling again, let's say for whatever reason I decide to pick it up, and I start to focus on that, and I'm spending less time in the gym, that's fine. I know I can do that for 16 weeks, let's say, or 18 weeks probably, that I will focus on the cycling more, I'll enjoy it, I'll have a lot of fun with it, get out in the sun, do all that good stuff, still train twice a week, make good progress, and I'll be quite content. Like, that's absolutely fine. And then when I come back after that, I'll pick up a third or indeed a fourth session, and then prioritise that again, maybe for four, five, six months. And what's happening at minimum is a maintaining, then I go through a season of pushing and progressing. then at minimum and maintaining and so on and so forth. The problem a lot of people have is that when they do kind of prioritize one thing over another, they become all or nothing. They're like, ⁓ I'm gonna run, I'm not gonna go to the gym. That's probably a pretty rubbish strategy because the amount of training it would take to maintain, even if they said, I'm gonna go train once a week, cool. Well, if you train once a week and you're like, well, if I'm going once a week, I'm gonna push myself hard, I'm gonna make sure that I really, really push. Well, they would end up maintaining pretty much all of their strength, which is pretty bloody cool when you think about it. That's quite a nice lens to look through these kind of things in terms of these rotations or differing focuses because what a lot of people won't tell you, and I think this is important because I'm coach and I've also trained at a personal level for a long time, is you will go through different focal points. I have clients that been with me for two years and have absolutely smashed the training and say, actually, you know what, I'd quite like to focus on running for three, four months, and that's what we do, and there's nothing wrong with it. And then they'll kind of have that period of time. Their focus is kind of elsewhere, but they keep training consistently, keep making steady, but maybe slightly slower progress, and then they come back to the training, which means they always maintain a really good physique. They always feel really good about their strength training, but it's just a different level of priority. So something I wanted to just talk about, because I don't think it's talked about enough, if you train, hopefully, with weights for the next 30 years of your life, it may not be your number one exercise priority that entire time. You should always keep it in there, but there might be phases where you smash it for six months, eight months, nine months. and then you might focus on something else for a little bit, but you still keep enough in there to keep you maintaining your strength. So hopefully that was helpful with some slightly different thoughts on kind of seasonality around training, and I think it's quite a sort of realistic approach to people's journeys because people do like to dabble and try new things over time. So hopefully that was helpful. If you are interested in coaching, if you are struggling with your weight loss at the moment, struggling with training, exercise, and consistency, or just generally feeling absolutely bloody overwhelmed with everything you see on Instagram and everywhere else, then you can jump into the show notes. There is a link to my WhatsApp and you can pop me a message there to ask about coaching or to suggest any topics for future episodes. And otherwise, have a great day and I'll speak to you soon.