Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / How to Build More Muscle Lifting 3 Days a Week After 40 (Martin Silva) | Ep 488

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How to Build More Muscle Lifting 3 Days a Week After 40 (Martin Silva) | Ep 488 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: You're getting a bit older, but you still want to build muscle, lose fat, and feel like yourself.
• 0:04
  Philip Pape: You know it's important to lift weights or at least work out in some way.
• 0:08
  Philip Pape: So you're in the gym five, six days a week.
• 0:10
  Philip Pape: Maybe push-pull legs, maybe an upper lower routine, some cardio added in, but the scale just isn't moving.
• 0:16
  Philip Pape: Your strength isn't going up.
• 0:17
  Philip Pape: Your joints aren't feeling it.
• 0:19
  Philip Pape: So you think maybe I'm not doing enough.
• 0:21
  Philip Pape: My guest today spent close to two decades preaching exactly that.
• 0:26
  Philip Pape: He's competed at the pro level.
• 0:28
  Philip Pape: He's built a coaching practice around training people hard and often, but then he started doing less and his results got better.
• 0:35
  Philip Pape: So today we are getting into why most lifters over 40 are training too much and often for the wrong reasons.
• 0:41
  Philip Pape: What's holding back your strength training results, and how a smaller number of higher quality sessions can do far more for you than five or six days of grinding it out.
• 0:51
  Philip Pape: If you're showing up to the gym week after week and the work isn't paying off, tune in to find out if less really is more.
• 0:57
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that puts a popular piece of fitness advice under the microscope, finds the hidden reason it doesn't work, and gives you the deceptively simple fix that does.
• 1:09
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, Philip Pape, and today we're gonna talk about how often you should be lifting weights to build muscle, to lose fat, to get lean, especially after 40.
• 1:19
  Philip Pape: Now, the popular advice tells you always that more is more.
• 1:22
  Philip Pape: More days in the gym, more volume in each session, more sets, more cardio on top of that.
• 1:28
  Philip Pape: And then the results don't come, and the assumption is, hey, I'm not doing enough.
• 1:32
  Philip Pape: My guest today is Martin Silva, a coach with close to two decades of experience, an ex-pro physique competitor, host of the Optimize Your Body podcast.
• 1:42
  Philip Pape: Go follow that right now because we've got a back-to-back on our shows.
• 1:45
  Philip Pape: Martin works with someone probably a lot like you, who is busy, a professional, maybe over 35.
• 1:51
  Philip Pape: You want to build muscle, lose fat, feel strong, feel like yourself again, without rebuilding your entire life around going to the gym.
• 1:58
  Philip Pape: Now, what I like about Martin is that he changed his mind and he did it in public.
• 2:02
  Philip Pape: He used to train a lot more.
• 2:04
  Philip Pape: He used to train five, six days a week, push every set to failure.
• 2:07
  Philip Pape: He used to recommend more volume is the answer to everything.
• 2:11
  Philip Pape: And then he started training less.
• 2:12
  Philip Pape: His results got better, as did those of his clients.
• 2:16
  Philip Pape: So today you're gonna learn why high frequency training may not be the best approach for you, what to do instead, and how to apply this, whether you've been lifting for many years or you're just getting started for the first time.
• 2:27
  Philip Pape: Martin, welcome to Wits and Weights.
• 2:30
  Martin Silva: Thank you very much for having me on, brother.
• 2:31
  Martin Silva: And thank you for that intro.
• 2:33
  Martin Silva: That was awesome.
• 2:34
  Philip Pape: Yeah, man.
• 2:34
  Philip Pape: So I've been I've been listening to your show.
• 2:35
  Philip Pape: I encourage listeners to do the same to follow you as well.
• 2:38
  Philip Pape: But I really love talking about frequency and volume because there's a lot of confusion over just the general principles of it, what works, what doesn't, as well as individual responsiveness.
• 2:47
  Philip Pape: And coincidentally, in my feed yesterday, I don't know if you follow Paul Carter, you know, love him or hate him.
• 2:52
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 2:52
  Philip Pape: He said building muscle is not a hard work endeavor.
• 2:55
  Philip Pape: You can literally max out your physique, hitting the gym twice a week, never doing more than five reps, never training to failure, not bulking.
• 3:01
  Philip Pape: If you're consistent and have a load progression scheme, you'll make all the gains you can make.
• 3:05
  Philip Pape: You agree or disagree?
• 3:07
  Martin Silva: Yeah, I do agree to an extent on that, but you hit the nail on the head, right?
• 3:10
  Martin Silva: The individual, whatever word you use, but individual variants 100% plays a big part.
• 3:14
  Martin Silva: Now, with that, obviously with the the not training to failure piece as well, which we can get into.
• 3:19
  Martin Silva: I think the key thing is here, Philip, and you'll know this with all the people you've coached, it's obviously the consistency piece, right?
• 3:24
  Martin Silva: It's like you could do the worst program in the world and get better results than the best program in the world done inconsistently, right?
• 3:31
  Martin Silva: So just we we got to put that one in there first before we get into the science.
• 3:34
  Martin Silva: If you're not consistent, forget about all the nuance, right?
• 3:37
  Martin Silva: Because people talk about, you know, should I be doing this, that, and the other?
• 3:40
  Martin Silva: And should I be doing like a single-leg squat and you know, balancing on one leg and all these bands?
• 3:44
  Martin Silva: And it's like, don't worry about that, just show up first.
• 3:47
  Martin Silva: But then there's a hell of a lot of nuance which we can get into.
• 3:51
  Martin Silva: So I do partly agree with what he said in terms of training twice a week.
• 3:55
  Martin Silva: So if you do it properly, and if you just think about again the consistency piece, I just want to hammer that home.
• 4:01
  Martin Silva: If you look over the space of you know one year, because you'll probably you probably heard this with people you coach or you know, people you have on that initial call.
• 4:08
  Martin Silva: And a lot of people haven't really trained for a year consistently for either a a long time or b ever.
• 4:15
  Martin Silva: So if the person who's doing two sessions per week, and we know the research shows you need to hit every body part at least twice per week.
• 4:23
  Martin Silva: So two or three times per week to get maximum results.
• 4:26
  Martin Silva: You want to send that muscle building signal.
• 4:28
  Martin Silva: So it's like every two or three days max, even four days.
• 4:32
  Martin Silva: Let's say you trained on a Monday, you know, by by Thursday or Friday, that muscle building signal you've sent to any given body part has kind of died off at that point.
• 4:41
  Martin Silva: So you want to hit it again.
• 4:42
  Martin Silva: That's part of the research behind that frequency piece, right?
• 4:45
  Martin Silva: So, yes, doing twice a week, you can get great results.
• 4:48
  Martin Silva: And actually, not training the failure, you know, stopping one to three reps shy of failure, you're gonna get the same muscle.
• 4:56
  Martin Silva: Well, you know, again, there's a little bit of variance there when it comes to training to failure, depending on the level you're at.
• 5:01
  Martin Silva: But most people, 90% of people, right, they're gonna get way better results stopping one to three reps shy of failure.
• 5:07
  Martin Silva: You're gonna get the same muscle building stimulus and growth without the fatigue, essentially.
• 5:13
  Martin Silva: So, what he's saying there is pretty much bang on for most people.
• 5:17
  Martin Silva: And and that's the tough part, I think people always want to do, which we can definitely get to today.
• 5:22
  Martin Silva: They always want to do more.
• 5:24
  Martin Silva: And I used to judge a good workout by how sore I was the next day, which you find a lot of people still do.
• 5:30
  Martin Silva: They'll say things like, you know, I was sore, but but in a good way.
• 5:33
  Martin Silva: And you're like, okay, let's let's unpack that a bit.
• 5:35
  Martin Silva: How long were you sore for?
• 5:36
  Martin Silva: You know what I mean?
• 5:36
  Martin Silva: And if you're more, if you're sore for longer than generally a day or two, really, you've already crossed the line with the intensity, actually.
• 5:44
  Martin Silva: So actually, you don't want you want you might feel like you've done something the next day, but actually you don't want to be oversore for the most part as well.
• 5:50
  Martin Silva: You want to recover, which is the key thing, right, Phil?
• 5:53
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I agree, man.
• 5:54
  Philip Pape: Recovery is number one.
• 5:55
  Philip Pape: Like you reverse engineer everything from that.
• 5:57
  Philip Pape: So you mentioned frequency.
• 5:58
  Philip Pape: So let's clarify frequency and volume for Volks.
• 6:01
  Philip Pape: Cause when you talk about hitting every body part two to three times a week, you're talking about the frequency of hitting that, getting that muscle stimulus across the week versus the number of sets within those sessions.
• 6:12
  Philip Pape: Because we're I I eventually want to get to talking and comparing, like, okay, how does six days compare to two, but if it's the same volume and things like that?
• 6:19
  Philip Pape: So one thing this brings up is a term I've seen lately, body maxing.
• 6:23
  Philip Pape: I've seen people talk about it where you might train two or three days a week and you know, maybe seven or eight or nine different exercises per session, but you're only doing two sets.
• 6:33
  Philip Pape: So you still save time, you still have a typical length, but you're now hitting different areas of the muscle, different muscle groups in different ways.
• 6:40
  Philip Pape: From that perspective, like what do you think of the effectiveness of that approach to get the frequency or to get the volume?
• 6:48
  Philip Pape: Or is there a more optimal approach than that?
• 6:50
  Martin Silva: So, yeah.
• 6:50
  Martin Silva: So when you look at, you know, it's weird, right?
• 6:52
  Martin Silva: Because it's not weird, because when you look at research, there's a lot of things it doesn't account for, right?
• 6:56
  Martin Silva: So what I'll say is, you know, maximum muscle growth and gains, 10 to 20 sets per week per body part, right?
• 7:03
  Philip Pape: With a minimum of five, maybe, you know, yeah.
• 7:05
  Martin Silva: Minimum of five, bare minimum.
• 7:07
  Martin Silva: But you know, if you do it properly, and look, if we look at a beginner, for example, someone who just gets started, they've got the the beautiful newbie gains, right?
• 7:16
  Martin Silva: Where they just they'll respond, and then obviously genetics plays a big part as well.
• 7:20
  Martin Silva: Well, they'll respond really well because it's the body thrives off novelty, right?
• 7:24
  Martin Silva: So it's a new stimulus, and they can start off by doing like anything, right?
• 7:28
  Martin Silva: Literally, they could do one set and they'll build muscle.
• 7:31
  Martin Silva: So if you're doing two exercises per body part and you're doing like seven to nine exercises each workout, 100%.
• 7:39
  Martin Silva: If you look at that, even if you did two or three sets per work, let's say you did only did like the minimum, let's say you did five or six sets, right?
• 7:45
  Martin Silva: If you're just doing those two workouts, let's just say you did five or six sets each body part and they were both full body workouts.
• 7:52
  Martin Silva: If you're doing it right and you're focusing on that mechanical tension piece, I think that's the piece that gets overlooked the most.
• 7:59
  Martin Silva: And we can get into that as well with like the uh, you know, just for what we mean by that is is really adding because the muscles only really know tension.
• 8:07
  Martin Silva: So they don't really know how much weight you're lifting, right?
• 8:10
  Martin Silva: Whether you're doing 20 pounds, 40 pounds, 100 pounds, all they know is how much tension you're applying to the muscles.
• 8:16
  Martin Silva: So that's why technique, you know, mind muscle connection, and this is where I think the variable of doing slow tempo reps is just is just so underrated.
• 8:26
  Martin Silva: You know, if you look at the optimal, I believe the optimal hypertrophy rep range, I'm pretty sure is a you can do a 3-1-1, but a 4-2-2.
• 8:34
  Martin Silva: So just for the audience, that's basically a four-second negative portion of the rep.
• 8:39
  Martin Silva: So on the lower portion of the rep, think about that.
• 8:42
  Martin Silva: Four seconds, and then a two-second pause, and two seconds when you're actually doing the concentric part, you know, on a curl when you're actually curling, for example.
• 8:50
  Martin Silva: So that's an eight-second rep, right?
• 8:52
  Martin Silva: That's a long workout.
• 8:54
  Martin Silva: So let's say people did that, or they even did, you know, because it takes forever, right?
• 8:58
  Martin Silva: Let's be honest.
• 8:58
  Martin Silva: If they do a three-one one, three-second negative, and they did what you said, they did the two sessions and they did it with intention, right?
• 9:06
  Martin Silva: And they really focused on the skill of each movement, and they weren't just, you know, go in there to sweat.
• 9:11
  Martin Silva: They were actually focused on the intention.
• 9:12
  Martin Silva: What am I doing with this movement?
• 9:14
  Martin Silva: You know, how can I improve it?
• 9:16
  Martin Silva: You know, sure, they're gonna get results, right?
• 9:18
  Martin Silva: So that's where the nuance comes in with, you know, don't throw that rep away because you never get that rep back, right?
• 9:24
  Philip Pape: Exactly.
• 9:24
  Philip Pape: I I so I love where you're going.
• 9:26
  Philip Pape: There's two concepts, two principles you mentioned specifically, and that was the mechanical tension and skill.
• 9:30
  Philip Pape: Like you use the word skill, I think is super, super important.
• 9:33
  Philip Pape: And I think, you know, it is true.
• 9:34
  Philip Pape: Mechanical tension, it really all comes down to that.
• 9:36
  Philip Pape: Even if we talk about progressive overload, you can only achieve that because you're hitting the enough mechanical tension to get the stimulus to grow to then go heavier night.
• 9:45
  Philip Pape: You know what I mean?
• 9:45
  Philip Pape: It's all like secondary to mechanical tension.
• 9:48
  Philip Pape: So the slow tempo, let me ask about that, right?
• 9:50
  Philip Pape: Because I think there's people conflate like time under tension versus I think what you're alluding to, which is the long, the lengthened and shortened positions and the eccentric and concentric having their own value, like eccentric, I know, is correlated with flexibility, you know, as well as the stretch reflex versus the pause, each having its own value.
• 10:09
  Philip Pape: I I love pause everything these days because of like joint issues, it's great.
• 10:13
  Philip Pape: So I love that.
• 10:14
  Philip Pape: Yep.
• 10:14
  Philip Pape: And then the concentric, like exploding out and using those muscle fibers.
• 10:18
  Philip Pape: There's a lot behind it.
• 10:20
  Philip Pape: And I don't think people have to understand it all, but like if you boiled it down to, you know, how to lift, like how would you describe that?
• 10:28
  Martin Silva: Yeah, definitely.
• 10:29
  Martin Silva: Yeah, because like when you when you go into the gym, right?
• 10:32
  Martin Silva: This is why I say the clients, it's showing up, like I said at the start, right?
• 10:36
  Martin Silva: If you don't show up, forget about all of this.
• 10:37
  Martin Silva: You've showed up, right?
• 10:38
  Martin Silva: You've done the hard part, you got to the gym.
• 10:40
  Martin Silva: I'd say that's the hardest part anyway, because the being there for the most part is the easy part when it comes to getting in shape.
• 10:45
  Martin Silva: That's the fun part.
• 10:46
  Martin Silva: So once you're there, then it's like, what's the intention of what I'm doing?
• 10:50
  Martin Silva: Right.
• 10:50
  Martin Silva: So I'll give you some examples now.
• 10:52
  Martin Silva: When I have clients, the intention now, you're doing, let's just say they're doing between four to six reps or between two to six reps.
• 10:59
  Martin Silva: The intention with this rep range now is for us to get stronger, physically stronger.
• 11:03
  Martin Silva: I've built them up to a point where they're focusing on lifting heavy, and that's the goal is to get stronger each workout.
• 11:10
  Martin Silva: Make sure you're having plenty of rest in between, and we're getting stronger each week.
• 11:15
  Martin Silva: We're adding weight to the bar, and then obviously the side effect of that is building muscle.
• 11:20
  Martin Silva: You know, you're gonna get some hypertrophy from that if you do it right.
• 11:22
  Martin Silva: Then you've got the hypertrophy, let's just say the the time and attention phase.
• 11:26
  Martin Silva: You get into the gym, think in your head to do it right.
• 11:29
  Martin Silva: Like, what is my intention?
• 11:31
  Martin Silva: What am I doing here?
• 11:32
  Martin Silva: Okay, well, I'm doing, I don't know, it could be anywhere between six to ten reps, and I'm gonna do slow tempo.
• 11:37
  Martin Silva: That's generally or eight to ten, even eight to twelve, but I I like to cap it off at 10 with the with the slower reps.
• 11:43
  Martin Silva: If you're doing like a three-second negative or four-second negative, then your goal then is just exactly what we said it's the slow negative portion of the rep.
• 11:52
  Martin Silva: And what you're trying to do is you're trying to just apply as much tension to the muscle, primarily on that lengthening portion that Phil talked about, when the when the muscle when the muscles lengthening out.
• 12:01
  Martin Silva: So, simple example is obviously when you're squatting down, you're going down nice and slowly.
• 12:06
  Martin Silva: And as you're as you're bending your leg, obviously your hamstrings are stretching out, and then when you drive up, you're flexing the quads when you stand up.
• 12:14
  Martin Silva: So on the way down though, as you're sitting into that squat, that's when you're getting a lot of the tension.
• 12:19
  Martin Silva: So, yeah, that and then and then you can do like a higher rep range then, which is basically like you know, it's basically similar to cardio when you do that, right?
• 12:26
  Martin Silva: If you're doing, you know, 15 to 20 squats, for example, you're not gonna go too, you you know, you're not doing slow reps for any more than if you're doing it properly, I'd say more than 10 reps.
• 12:35
  Martin Silva: And then you, you know, your goal then is I'm gonna get a good pump on, I'm getting the heart rate up, I'm still gonna stop two to three reps shy of failure, but I'm I'm going for a higher rep range.
• 12:45
  Martin Silva: So obviously, then I've got to take the weights down to accommodate that.
• 12:49
  Martin Silva: So that rep range, you know, plays a part in the rep tempo, of course, a big part.
• 12:54
  Martin Silva: And I would just say when you're going into the gym, you know, you and you also should be feeling, you know, some people, again, it's the punishment mentality, which I was stuck in before.
• 13:03
  Martin Silva: When they go in the gym, like I really want to get into this.
• 13:06
  Martin Silva: It's not for everyone, right?
• 13:08
  Martin Silva: Some people, less is not more, because some people need to go to the gym and push more.
• 13:12
  Martin Silva: But the majority of people, 100%, especially people we we coach as well, right?
• 13:16
  Martin Silva: Where if they're above 35, I know you generally work with people that are over 40, you know, in that age category, generally, you know, they've they've they've got the all or nothing mentality.
• 13:25
  Martin Silva: That's probably a lot of the times what's holding them back, held them back a bit from getting in shape.
• 13:29
  Martin Silva: Not with everyone, but with a lot of people.
• 13:31
  Martin Silva: So then that transfers into the gym and you're going all out, you're like pushing yourself, and that's good to obviously progressively overload, but you want to be keeping the few reps in the tank at the end of each set.
• 13:42
  Martin Silva: You don't want to be compromising technique, and you want to really be leaving the gym like with more energy.
• 13:48
  Martin Silva: You should be leaving energized.
• 13:50
  Martin Silva: You should never feel like you've got to lie down or like, oof, I'm tired.
• 13:54
  Martin Silva: I need to sit down and just gather myself.
• 13:56
  Martin Silva: You've crossed the line when that happens, and that's gonna slow down results because the body's gonna, it can only do you know these two things separately, right?
• 14:05
  Martin Silva: So you've got recovery, the body's recovering is the recovery process, regenerating, and ultimately repairing your muscles and everything else, and your nervous system's recovering.
• 14:14
  Martin Silva: Then you've got the adaptation when your body adapts to the stimulus.
• 14:17
  Martin Silva: So they happen at they don't happen at the same time.
• 14:19
  Martin Silva: So you want to recover as fast as you can so you can adapt quickly, and and when you adapt, the body adapts by you know building muscle or getting stronger.
• 14:28
  Martin Silva: You know, that's that's the plan.
• 14:29
  Philip Pape: Yeah, man, the recovery trap.
• 14:30
  Philip Pape: So that that's gonna tie to a question I'm gonna ask in a second about the days per week.
• 14:35
  Philip Pape: Because that's really what would what the reason I'm asking these questions is because I surmise that training less means you have to train more effective.
• 14:42
  Philip Pape: And conversely, if you're training effectively, you can train less.
• 14:45
  Philip Pape: So just hitting on that point a little more, first of all, some of the takeaways I got here for the listener, right, is that nobody wants to do 20 rep squats, but if you do, it's gonna affect the tempo, right?
• 14:54
  Philip Pape: Because you don't want to be miserable doing a five, five minute set of super, super slow 20 rep squats.
• 14:59
  Philip Pape: But it's gonna affect your tempo and your breathing.
• 15:01
  Philip Pape: And there's kind of these variables that interplay with each other.
• 15:03
  Philip Pape: You know, you've got the load, you've got the reps, you've got the breathing, you've got all these things.
• 15:07
  Philip Pape: And I also think there's an aspect to that with the tempo of the mind muscle connection and listening to your body and learning things, especially when a lift is new.
• 15:14
  Philip Pape: So then my question is how do you know you're near failure if you're trying to stay one to three reps shy and you've never really trained like this?
• 15:21
  Philip Pape: Is there a technique like AMRAP or testing yourself or something that you would do to kind of really hit what true failure feels like?
• 15:29
  Martin Silva: Yeah, this is this is a really good question because you know yourself, it just takes a long time to get intuitive with the body.
• 15:37
  Martin Silva: You know, after a while you get intuitive, but if someone is if someone is just starting out, I would actually start off with more in fact.
• 15:46
  Martin Silva: So I would go for more like two to three, two to three, leaving two to three reps in reserve at the end of each set.
• 15:52
  Martin Silva: Now, to gauge that, there's not really like I try and keep it as simple as possible with clients.
• 15:57
  Martin Silva: I don't I don't want to use like a formula or anything like that.
• 15:59
  Martin Silva: I actually did a video recently where I was just kind of like showing them what it looks like, literally, where it's it's not it's not you know stopping one or three reps shy, but losing technique along the way and just going, okay, I reckon I can get one or it's actually really focusing on like stopping short of losing form, really.
• 16:15
  Martin Silva: It's more a case of stopping short of losing one to two or even three reps of form.
• 16:20
  Martin Silva: So that's why, you know, the best way to do it is again, you have to get intuitive and gauge it as you as you go.
• 16:26
  Martin Silva: But I don't think it takes that long to get intuitive and like, okay, I'm gonna go for 10 reps.
• 16:31
  Martin Silva: That's my that's my target.
• 16:33
  Martin Silva: So let me pick a weight, let me just roughly gauge a weight that I reckon I could do 12, 13, maybe even 14 reps with, right?
• 16:39
  Martin Silva: Roughly to absolute failure.
• 16:42
  Martin Silva: I'm gonna pick that weight and then I'm gonna stop on around about 10 reps.
• 16:46
  Martin Silva: You know what I mean?
• 16:47
  Martin Silva: So it's kind of a tough one to explain.
• 16:49
  Martin Silva: So I don't I've tried using like different things in the past where it's been almost like like a formula with clients and stuff, or a little, and it's just like I find it's just more it's too complex, and they get they get better when they just get more intuitive with it.
• 17:00
  Martin Silva: You know what I mean?
• 17:01
  Martin Silva: It is at the same time, one more thing.
• 17:03
  Martin Silva: If yeah, you don't really know what it's like.
• 17:05
  Martin Silva: That's the other, the other flip side.
• 17:07
  Martin Silva: You don't know what it's like unless you've trained the failure as well, though, right?
• 17:10
  Martin Silva: Actually gone to failure, and you know what that Phil, there's with that, that's all in there, man.
• 17:15
  Martin Silva: There's so much in the tank.
• 17:16
  Martin Silva: Once you experience and you know the technique and stuff and the tension piece, there's so much in the tank, right?
• 17:22
  Martin Silva: Once you've got that piece.
• 17:23
  Philip Pape: And I'll say, just mysteriously, you tend to go l farther from failure on the exercises you don't like.
• 17:28
  Philip Pape: It's funny how that happens.
• 17:29
  Martin Silva: That's a really good point.
• 17:30
  Martin Silva: That's a really no, excuse me, that's a really good point.
• 17:33
  Martin Silva: I do the same thing as well, you know.
• 17:34
  Martin Silva: Like you say 15 to 20 squats, you probably got like 40 in the tank and you stop on 15.
• 17:39
  Philip Pape: You're like, this is just too much.
• 17:41
  Philip Pape: You know, it's funny, I ran Bull Mastiff last year.
• 17:43
  Philip Pape: This is an Alex Bromley program, and it was the first time I've been exposed to like Amrap sets.
• 17:48
  Philip Pape: It's the reason I ask it, but it does involve math a little bit in that you you tack on a last set and you go to Amrap and you realize how many sets you how many reps you really have in the tank.
• 17:58
  Philip Pape: You're like, whoa, I have like seven left in the tank, and I thought I had two, but it helps you gauge the progression for the subsequent weeks, like based on a formula, actually.
• 18:07
  Philip Pape: But it's interesting.
• 18:08
  Philip Pape: Yeah, you just have to figure this stuff out over time.
• 18:10
  Philip Pape: So then now let's talk about the frequency volume kind of interplay here, right?
• 18:15
  Philip Pape: When we talk about three days a week, what are we comparing that to?
• 18:18
  Philip Pape: Because I'm thinking a lot of people are trying to do like upper lower splits, typically four days, maybe some sort of power building, like a five day.
• 18:25
  Philip Pape: Some people are insane, they like to go to the gym every day, right?
• 18:27
  Philip Pape: And you mentioned recovery.
• 18:29
  Philip Pape: So I think, okay, part of this is a recovery factor of just literally having that day off, even if it's to do other stuff, like you've been doing some mobility stuff I saw on your IG, right?
• 18:39
  Philip Pape: Like that's still recovery.
• 18:40
  Philip Pape: Is it that because we don't get enough sleep?
• 18:42
  Philip Pape: So it's a couple extra days to sleep in, is it all the above?
• 18:45
  Philip Pape: And I'm asking that because some people say, you know what, I'd rather have six days of half the session length in my home than three days, and it's the same volume.
• 18:55
  Philip Pape: So are we talking two different things here?
• 18:57
  Martin Silva: Definitely.
• 18:57
  Martin Silva: And that's that's really interesting because personally I find it hard to get people to do like frequent workouts.
• 19:05
  Martin Silva: Now, they they will do it, and I do have some clients doing it, but doing something every day, for example, in an ideal world, 20 or 30 minutes, 30 minutes, it really depends on the level, right?
• 19:15
  Martin Silva: But let's just say 20 or 30 minutes every six days a week.
• 19:18
  Martin Silva: Maybe one day then they could just have an active day where they walk or maybe do some mobility.
• 19:21
  Martin Silva: Um, I would say for most people, especially when we look at age, and and it's not just you know what it's like, Phil.
• 19:26
  Martin Silva: I know how many kids have you got, by the way?
• 19:28
  Martin Silva: Two, two kids.
• 19:29
  Martin Silva: You got two kids, yeah.
• 19:30
  Martin Silva: I got a I got a kid on the way as well.
• 19:31
  Martin Silva: I got a boy on the way.
• 19:32
  Martin Silva: So uh yeah, man, I'll be joining you there.
• 19:34
  Martin Silva: But but when you look at that, right, the responsibilities people have just naturally we get as we get older, right?
• 19:38
  Martin Silva: So it's like you've got work stress, you've got kids, you've got this stress bucket filling up.
• 19:44
  Martin Silva: So actually, you know, it's it's a lot harder to cross the line when you're doing 20 to 30 minutes, like a purposeful workout each time, then you'll cross the line with intensity and then get stuck in that recovery trap we talked about when you're doing those short workouts, generally, if you get it right with a workout.
• 19:59
  Martin Silva: Then also you you you do you it's that frequency thing as well, right?
• 20:02
  Martin Silva: You're sending that signal, that muscle building, anabolic signal every single day and doing something.
• 20:07
  Martin Silva: And then you can split that, you know, you can split that into like a lower up, maybe uh, and then just like a light kind of accessory workout or full body or even mobility, or you can split that into like, you know, three full bodies, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then just do some light body weight stuff.
• 20:22
  Martin Silva: Literally, it could just be your own body weight, squats, you know, push-ups, sit-ups, or core stability stuff and some mobility on the on the Tuesday and Thursday, for example, right?
• 20:31
  Martin Silva: So there's there's different ways that you can split that.
• 20:33
  Martin Silva: But yeah, I would say really for most people, as long as as long as they're getting, you know, the it's the time they spend in the gym, right?
• 20:39
  Martin Silva: So if as long as they're if you're doing three workouts in a week and you're doing one hour per session, for example, it's totally fine, right?
• 20:46
  Martin Silva: Because some people they can do that, they find that more consistent.
• 20:49
  Martin Silva: I think a lot of people find it easier from my experience with being consistent with someone like that.
• 20:54
  Martin Silva: And then, but they normally want to do more than that three a week, right?
• 20:57
  Martin Silva: So generally, you know, again, the all or nothing, they want to do more, more, more.
• 21:00
  Martin Silva: So I do my best to start them off slow with that three a week.
• 21:03
  Martin Silva: And then if they want to do an extra gym session, let's just say, for example, on top of the three full bodies, then they could go, like you said, they could do some mobility, they could even go and do some light stuff on even machines, but like this is where it gets a bit more technical, then, right?
• 21:17
  Martin Silva: So it's like you've got to kind of like program them for that because then it's like you've got to take the intensity right down, and you're literally just gonna get like a light pump on on the eat into the next main training session.
• 21:28
  Philip Pape: Yep, yep.
• 21:29
  Martin Silva: There we go.
• 21:29
  Martin Silva: But we should touch on what you said the upper lower stuff, right?
• 21:32
  Martin Silva: You mentioned about like most people want to do that because I don't know, personally, I actually find that more enjoyable as well, doing like upper lower, you know, because you do a lot of things.
• 21:43
  Philip Pape: I gotta do legs every day.
• 21:45
  Martin Silva: Exactly.
• 21:45
  Martin Silva: That's it.
• 21:46
  Martin Silva: That's it, man.
• 21:46
  Martin Silva: Legs every day, we're full body, it's not not pleasant, or at least one or two exercises.
• 21:50
  Martin Silva: So, yeah, upper lower split four times per week, where you're doing, you know, let's say the whole of the upper body one day, and then maybe legs and abs the other, and then an upper lower again.
• 21:59
  Martin Silva: Can work well as also.
• 22:01
  Martin Silva: So yeah, I think the key thing is, you know, you're making sure that you're getting adequate recovery.
• 22:06
  Martin Silva: It goes back to that, right?
• 22:07
  Martin Silva: You get an adequate recovery.
• 22:08
  Martin Silva: So let's just let's just look at three different scenarios, right?
• 22:11
  Martin Silva: Because I'm thinking in my head, people that are coaching stuff.
• 22:13
  Martin Silva: So it's like three, four bodies a week, right?
• 22:16
  Martin Silva: The person who does that and they do that properly, a proper program, which is geared for their body.
• 22:20
  Martin Silva: You know, if you work with someone like you know, Phil, for example, right?
• 22:23
  Martin Silva: He's experienced and he's got the wisdom and he knows the nuance, and we're getting older now, mate.
• 22:28
  Martin Silva: You know what I'm saying?
• 22:28
  Martin Silva: So you know, you know the deal, right?
• 22:29
  Martin Silva: So it's like you can program something properly and you're gonna get more bang for your buck.
• 22:34
  Martin Silva: It makes a big, big difference, you know.
• 22:35
  Martin Silva: I think there's so much nuance to the training piece.
• 22:38
  Martin Silva: People always talk about nutrition, especially strength training.
• 22:40
  Martin Silva: I think it's not it's not spoken about enough.
• 22:43
  Martin Silva: So three per week, if someone did that consistently, right?
• 22:46
  Martin Silva: Full bodies for like a year, six months to a year, the results would be amazing, right?
• 22:51
  Martin Silva: But you know, I think for mental health and just for getting that boost and just for a habit to do something every day strength related is just a really, really good way to look at it, you know, because that actually it does it does a lot.
• 23:03
  Martin Silva: Because again, you're sending the signal every day and you are getting a little, don't forget about all the other impacts that you get from strength training, right?
• 23:10
  Martin Silva: Now, when you go into more than that, when you go into like the five and the six sessions per week, I just feel like at that level, you know, that's gonna be for more of an advanced person.
• 23:19
  Martin Silva: If you want to actually lift that many days a week, realistically, I'd want you to be at a really, really high level.
• 23:24
  Martin Silva: I do get some clients doing that.
• 23:26
  Martin Silva: I can think of literally one guy now where he does like six a week.
• 23:30
  Martin Silva: He's an absolute weapon, but he's been consistent for like three, four years.
• 23:34
  Martin Silva: And you know, he just he just loves it.
• 23:36
  Martin Silva: You know what I'm saying?
• 23:36
  Martin Silva: So it's like, you know what I mean?
• 23:38
  Martin Silva: It's it's a rarity, though.
• 23:39
  Martin Silva: If you if you want to do that consistently and consistently get results and build muscle, it's got to be very smart that programming so you you know you don't get stuck in that recovery trap.
• 23:46
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I think I think you hit on it, right?
• 23:48
  Philip Pape: Like it is about consistency and if you can make it work, because because I know even personally, and then working with clients, trying four, five, six days a week, you just get weeks where you feel like you can't make that work for whatever reason.
• 23:59
  Philip Pape: Business travel, you know, family events, holler, and you're like, am I gonna have that many weeks that are interrupted where this makes sense, or should I default to three and add in one or two?
• 24:08
  Philip Pape: And that's a little bit of a psychological twist on them on it, right?
• 24:12
  Philip Pape: So, or are you gonna do it for a short period, you know, leading up to a powerlifting meet or something, and then it makes sense.
• 24:17
  Philip Pape: So I like that.
• 24:18
  Martin Silva: Hey man, let me let me let me touch on that real quick because that's such an important point you make, is the behavioral aspect.
• 24:24
  Martin Silva: We can talk about the science and frequency and everything else, but that gets overlooked.
• 24:28
  Martin Silva: And it's like when you're traveling with work or when life, because life gets people don't never think about that, right?
• 24:34
  Martin Silva: And you you you have to you have to remind people, don't you as a coach to anticipate these challenges that are gonna come.
• 24:39
  Martin Silva: And if you're doing like an if you start skipping body parts, you know, you're doing like an upper lower split, you miss a leg day, right?
• 24:45
  Martin Silva: Which is probably gonna be the leg day, it gets more tricky.
• 24:47
  Martin Silva: You end up getting discrepancies, then mentally you kind of check out.
• 24:51
  Martin Silva: Whereas if you're doing full body, for example, like we said at the start, on a bad week, I say this to clients, right?
• 24:56
  Martin Silva: You're away, life's hectic.
• 24:58
  Martin Silva: Can we get those two in this week?
• 25:00
  Martin Silva: You know what I mean?
• 25:01
  Martin Silva: Two full bodies, and you're still hitting every body part twice.
• 25:03
  Martin Silva: And even if you don't do every single body part, if you just do the compound lifts, even if you just did like legs, shoulders, back chest, for example, right?
• 25:10
  Martin Silva: The the so you're doing the compound movements, you can stay on track much easier then.
• 25:14
  Martin Silva: So that's a good point.
• 25:15
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I mean, I think you hit on the basics.
• 25:17
  Philip Pape: This is what people need to understand and make make their plans flexible.
• 25:20
  Philip Pape: And it sounds like different splits can work as long as you're getting the frequency, as long as you're getting the volume, which is all well established in the the research, like you said.
• 25:28
  Philip Pape: And so I guess the last thing is in those in-between days, you know, you did touch on like something strength related, but I do know a lot of folks who would rather have the flexibility for just walks or, you know, playing some sports that they like or some sprinting or just not doing anything.
• 25:43
  Philip Pape: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 25:44
  Philip Pape: Other than some walking.
• 25:45
  Philip Pape: Like, what are your thoughts on, you know, working with clients?
• 25:48
  Philip Pape: Like, what are the big activities that you'd recommend to fill in those recovery days to keep them active, but not necessarily more strength movements, let's say.
• 25:56
  Martin Silva: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:56
  Martin Silva: Very simple, right?
• 25:57
  Martin Silva: And it's not rocket science, bit boring, but just walking, right?
• 26:00
  Martin Silva: Getting outside and moving as well, because a lot of people are like stuck indoors all the time.
• 26:04
  Martin Silva: Or better yet, it's just doing something fun that they enjoy, right?
• 26:08
  Martin Silva: Because as we get older, we forget to have fun.
• 26:10
  Martin Silva: So if they've got a hobby or something that requires moving, you know, and just keeping themselves active, 100%.
• 26:16
  Martin Silva: I would say just like literally, just the more you can move, the better.
• 26:19
  Martin Silva: Yeah, simple as that, really, because you know, and I probably you probably see this as well.
• 26:22
  Martin Silva: People you work with, you know, most people are just sat down most of the day.
• 26:25
  Martin Silva: So it's a good opportunity to get outside, move, and ideally get in nature as well.
• 26:30
  Martin Silva: The way I look at nature now is like a vitamin for me personally, you know, it's something I need.
• 26:35
  Martin Silva: It's it's not it's not like it's something that's negotiable anymore.
• 26:38
  Martin Silva: I need it to perform and to be able to deal with stress better, you know.
• 26:43
  Martin Silva: So I factor that into my week as well.
• 26:45
  Martin Silva: So that's what I I try to do with clients as well, is you know, get them to what are they doing for fun this week, for example, right?
• 26:51
  Martin Silva: What are you doing for fun on the weekend or something?
• 26:53
  Martin Silva: So I think it's a good good way to look at it for people is like, what am I doing for fun on the weekend?
• 26:57
  Martin Silva: Let's plan something ahead.
• 26:58
  Martin Silva: And it can be active stuff as well, right?
• 27:00
  Martin Silva: It can be outdoors or whatever.
• 27:01
  Philip Pape: I think it's really important what you hit on there.
• 27:03
  Philip Pape: I had a coach who was a business coach, and he he actually he wasn't he wasn't helping me with nutrition training, nothing like that.
• 27:09
  Philip Pape: And he's like, Philip, when's the last time you just took your laptop outside for half an hour?
• 27:13
  Philip Pape: Like you just enjoyed nature.
• 27:15
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I'm like, you make a good point.
• 27:16
  Philip Pape: You make a good point.
• 27:17
  Philip Pape: I'm a hustler, like I'm constantly, you know, we just get wrapped up in our our high stress world and and try to find that is important.
• 27:24
  Philip Pape: So last thing I want to ask you then is in your own journey, right?
• 27:27
  Philip Pape: Like, I'm sure you've changed your mind on things.
• 27:30
  Philip Pape: I alluded to an Instagram post about incorporating mobility in between and how you need coaches and you need accountability.
• 27:36
  Philip Pape: So, like, what's something that you've really evolved on over the past few years that you used to think this is how it is, and now maybe a little bit more flexible thinking on that.
• 27:45
  Martin Silva: Yeah, I'm glad you reminded me of the mobility piece, actually.
• 27:47
  Martin Silva: I got to bring that one in because you saw my post.
• 27:50
  Martin Silva: So now I'm I'm 39 in a few months' time, right?
• 27:52
  Martin Silva: So 38 now.
• 27:53
  Martin Silva: And you know, in my 20s, I only started doing mobility in like my late, I think it was my late 20s, I started doing mobility.
• 28:00
  Martin Silva: And I was just like, wow, this is awesome, especially lift before I lift.
• 28:03
  Martin Silva: Mainly, I was I was trying to get it in before I lifted and just working on those usual kind of tight areas, hips, you know, shoulders and thoracic mobility, and then you know, the trunk rotational movements.
• 28:13
  Martin Silva: And I because because back then I was more obsessed with kind of aesthetics, right?
• 28:17
  Martin Silva: From the bodybuilders stuff, and I noticed, wow, I actually can lift way heavier when I do this, you know.
• 28:21
  Martin Silva: So that was, and then it was like, okay, and I my body actually feels better, and I kept doing it.
• 28:25
  Martin Silva: And then over the last year, I just got slack with it.
• 28:28
  Martin Silva: I was just getting away because I was this is a trap that we all fall into as well, with loads of different things, right?
• 28:33
  Martin Silva: When you can get away with something or it doesn't cause problems initially, then you try and get away with it, right?
• 28:39
  Martin Silva: We try all of us try and cut corners, and you know, at times.
• 28:41
  Martin Silva: So, anyway, long story short, I noticed a twinge in my in my shoulder a couple of months ago, and I'm like, yeah, okay, you're taking the mick.
• 28:47
  Martin Silva: And I tried, and knowing everything I know as well, right?
• 28:50
  Martin Silva: So almost 20 years of coaching, knowing how well I know my body, I would just go, I would warm up, I'd feel a little bit of a twinge in it.
• 28:56
  Martin Silva: It's like a bit of an impingement, and then I would just go, I'm all right, I'll just I'll just train.
• 28:59
  Martin Silva: I'm fine now, I feel fine.
• 29:00
  Martin Silva: And me, I uh what happened?
• 29:02
  Martin Silva: I don't want to go on too much of a ramble here, but like last week, I randomly, right?
• 29:06
  Martin Silva: I never haven't been this for ages, I was just upstairs on my rooftop, did a bit of a workout like body weight, and I just started throwing a jab to see how my shoulder was.
• 29:14
  Martin Silva: I literally couldn't even lift my arm up, and that was like a wake-up call.
• 29:17
  Martin Silva: I'm like, this is ridiculous now.
• 29:18
  Martin Silva: What are you doing?
• 29:19
  Martin Silva: Right.
• 29:19
  Martin Silva: And I was doing like I'm doing like heavy bench press and stuff as well.
• 29:22
  Martin Silva: I'm like, it's it's it's crazy.
• 29:23
  Martin Silva: Anyway, so started that last week, and that's something I've changed my mind on, really, is mobility is just a necessity.
• 29:29
  Martin Silva: And and you know, mobility is is it involves some flexibility, but it also involves strength when you're doing mobility, and that is not only is it gonna stop you getting injured, right?
• 29:38
  Martin Silva: That's the bare minimum requirement that you get from these things, but it really helps you get better results because it kind of amps up your nervous system if you do it before you lift, and then obviously if you're doing static stretches as well, that's really important.
• 29:50
  Martin Silva: I'm kind of slack on that, but I can get away with the more mobility dynamic ones, right?
• 29:54
  Martin Silva: So I should add in some static stuff, but the dynamic one takes care of most of it, and doing that before you lift, you get better results, and then obviously, you know, at a bare minimum reduces injury, but you feel so much better, man.
• 30:04
  Martin Silva: Another thing I've changed my mind on, I was thinking about this is nutrition.
• 30:07
  Martin Silva: Oh, sorry, the less is more thing.
• 30:09
  Martin Silva: Everything we just talked about, I've even over the last couple of years, I've still realized with clients in particular and myself, less is more, less is more, right?
• 30:17
  Martin Silva: It's like less, even less is more, right?
• 30:20
  Martin Silva: How can I just scale that back a bit more in terms of results with building muscle?
• 30:24
  Martin Silva: And how can I get them to change their relationship?
• 30:26
  Martin Silva: Not even not relationship, but change their outlook with training so I can sell them in to those kind of little short workouts or shorter workouts done more frequently for most people.
• 30:36
  Martin Silva: So, like 30 minutes, maybe 45 minutes, you know, whatever, just done like more frequently.
• 30:42
  Martin Silva: And even if it's body weight stuff or even the bands and stuff or mobility on the days in between, quick workouts, because they just get better results and they feel better.
• 30:51
  Martin Silva: And then they get it's the mindset shift they then get with just doing the stuff, doing the strength stuff without having to like push themselves.
• 30:59
  Martin Silva: It's the whole mindset shift.
• 31:01
  Martin Silva: So I feel like that is something I've really kept changing my mind on over the over the years.
• 31:05
  Martin Silva: It's like less is more.
• 31:06
  Philip Pape: Yeah, and that's what I love is that we should be open to changing our minds and realizing everybody's different.
• 31:11
  Philip Pape: So, man, this has been really cool.
• 31:12
  Philip Pape: I think we hit on, I think we hit on the main points.
• 31:14
  Philip Pape: I want to send folks to connect with you.
• 31:17
  Philip Pape: And also, if you if you happen to have a resource or a good episode related to what we talked about today, we can send them there.
• 31:22
  Philip Pape: Any any place you want to send them to?
• 31:24
  Martin Silva: Great, yeah, yeah.
• 31:24
  Martin Silva: So, in terms of an episode that we yeah, I've got some recent ones actually.
• 31:27
  Martin Silva: I think I just did a recent one on not the most recent trainer, one on my YouTube and on my podcast.
• 31:32
  Martin Silva: It's I think it was like eat less, what was something like I got bigger, eating less, or something like that.
• 31:36
  Martin Silva: Sorry, training less, not eating, train less and and built muscle.
• 31:39
  Martin Silva: I trained less and got bigger.
• 31:40
  Martin Silva: It's literally a few episodes ago.
• 31:41
  Martin Silva: It's everything we touched on, but a bit more depth in terms of uh you know the stuff we touched on.
• 31:46
  Martin Silva: So go check that out.
• 31:47
  Martin Silva: Yeah, and like you said, the podcast is optimize your body on all platforms, and yeah, it's just modern silver fitness on on YouTube.
• 31:54
  Martin Silva: Yeah, that's that's pretty much it.
• 31:56
  Martin Silva: And obviously, Instagram as well at Martin Silver Fitness.
• 31:59
  Martin Silva: So, in terms of my resources, you can find you know most stuff on uh on my Instagram on the link there.
• 32:03
  Martin Silva: And yeah, that's pretty much it, my man.
• 32:05
  Martin Silva: Yeah, man.
• 32:06
  Philip Pape: We'll throw the links into the podcast, obviously, Instagram, YouTube, that specific episode so people can find it.
• 32:11
  Philip Pape: And then, of course, we're doing a collaboration between our shows, so we'll have me on your show as well.
• 32:16
  Philip Pape: So follow both shows.
• 32:17
  Philip Pape: Uh, I think you're gonna love Martin.
• 32:19
  Philip Pape: I mean, I follow a lot of nutrition and fitness podcasts, but then I unfollow a lot of them because they get kind of monotonous.
• 32:25
  Philip Pape: And uh I try not to be that, and I I get the sense you're not that either.
• 32:29
  Philip Pape: You have very, you know, targeted problem-solving topics that are really good for the uh this audience.
• 32:33
  Philip Pape: So go check them out.
• 32:34
  Philip Pape: Martin, thank you so much, man, for coming on Wits and Weights.
• 32:37
  Philip Pape: It's a pleasure to know you and chat with you today.
• 32:39
  Martin Silva: Same, man.
• 32:40
  Martin Silva: Thanks for having me on, man.
• 32:40
  Martin Silva: I'm looking forward to interviewing you next.
• 32:42
  Martin Silva: Cheers, my man.
• 32:43
  Philip Pape: Looking forward to it.
• 32:44
  Philip Pape: Cheers.