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3 Things People Are Getting Wrong About Building Muscle · Your Strongest Body

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You are listening to your Strongest Body.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Betsy Foster, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and certified nutrition coach.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I've worked as a personal trainer for over a decade, helping people build strength, speed, muscles as well as a deep appreciation for their bodies and confidence that helps them live their life to the fullest.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness, nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Hello, hello, welcome back to your Strongest Body.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: So happy that you are here.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I am happy to be here.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: It has been a while since I recorded a podcast.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: The last few weeks have been busy.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Today we are doing an episode about three things that people are getting wrong about building muscle, but I thought before I get into it, I would update you on me as we sit here as friends.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I wish I could get the updates on you, but the last few weeks have been busy Launched the Built Bodies program and the day that this episode comes out will actually be the first day of the program for everybody.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: So the last few weeks have been onboarding, getting everybody their intake so that they can take their initial measurements.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: They can take their initial strength assessments.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: They can give me a little bit more information about them learning how to log into their TrueCoach app, which is where the workouts go, kind of getting all of their pieces in line.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: There are videos on nutrition, on their cardiovascular exercise, kind of all the supplemental pieces.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: So it's been busy but so exciting because the program is getting started.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: As you're listening to this, it will be getting started and I'm so excited to see this progress.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: At the same time, we've had spring break and busy school activities and things like that over the last few weeks.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: So it has been a busy start to spring.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Not warm enough for me here in Florida.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I have to admit that, as a person who lives in Florida, one of the real advantages, in my opinion, is the weather, and it has been lacking.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I am like a heat and humidity girl, so that's been lacking.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I'm going to start my when this comes out on April 8th.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I'm going to start a new program.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do a 12-week program as well that I created for myself, kind of running alongside the Built Bodies program.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: So I'm doing a little bit different for my particular goals, as I'm able to sort of tailor my program to my specific goals and pick up where, at the difficulty level.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: That's appropriate for me, but I'm going to do a few things simultaneously with the Built Bodies program so I can kind of walk them through what to expect in terms of results over a certain amount of time, and I have some goals to take me to the start of the summer, so I'm looking forward to that.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Anytime I start a new program for myself and I write these programs for myself, I get like the butterflies of oh, how are these exercises going to feel?
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: And I, as a person who really loves training, it's such an exciting thing for me.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: So that's what's going on in my neck of the woods.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: So let's get into the episode then.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Three things people are getting wrong about building muscle.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest pieces that I feel like it's my job to do as a trainer, with my particular belief system, is to re-educate people on the concepts of building muscle, because when we talk about resistance training and the role that building muscle has in both how we change our physique, how we change our strength, but also how it improves overall health markers, I feel like there's so much misinformation out there that it's important for me to highlight the things that we might have misconceptions about, compared to other industries and the popularization of fitness as a mainstay, particularly resistance training and strength training, particularly for women, is really new in popularity, is really new in adoption as an integral part of your health and wellness.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: So there is still a lot of lingering misconceptions out there and that is where I feel like I need to step in.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: So these are the most common things.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Number one there is a belief that building muscle is inherent in any kind of workout.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Any kind of workout you do builds muscle, and this is incorrect.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: This is incorrect.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Now, if you have never trained before, it is likely that any kind of movement or challenging exercise you do has the potential for building muscle.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: But building muscle is something that comes as a byproduct of resistance training and a particular kind of resistance training that is hypertrophy training.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: So hypertrophy is the definition, is muscle building, building muscle in size, in shape.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: When we do strength training, that is to get us stronger.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: For many people, that is going to help them build muscle.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: If anybody lifts any kind of weight that they haven't done before, they may build muscle.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: But this distinction about hypertrophy training and building muscle is important because there are lots of different kinds of workouts advertised now that are really useful.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: But if the goal is to build muscle, you might be doing the wrong thing.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: For example, there are a lot of HIIT style high intensity interval training style workouts or sort of like cardio meets weights in the.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of and not to disparage any brand, the brands are great I'm just talking about the purpose of the workouts, something like F45 or Orange Theory.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Those kinds of workouts, while you may build muscle as a byproduct if you've never done anything like that before they aren't necessarily designed to help you build muscle in the most efficient way, in the way that is going to be most effective for hypertrophy training, because the goal and the focus is on that elevated heart rate, that number of repetitions, that high intensity.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: And when we look at physiologically how to build muscle, there is a different style of training.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: So you might, by default, build some muscle there, but it's not going to be forever and it is not going to be the first choice I would make to build muscle Now to complement your cardiovascular training, to complement your anaerobic work or something like that.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: There might be a real use for these kinds of exercise.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Same thing If you do cardio great, that's really important for you, for your heart health, for a lot of different elements of overall health.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: But cardio does not build muscle, and so we have to.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: If we want to reach specific goals, we have to train with specificity.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: So, just so you know, if you are trying to build muscle, you're going to want a specific style of training, which typically is a hypertrophy style training.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: This is done with progressive overload.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: This is done with resistance at the appropriate volume and it is specific to the act of building muscle.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: So people build muscle in lots of ways, but for long, sustainable muscle building development.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: That is the style of training that is specific.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: And if you're just willy-nilly doing any kind of workout, hoping that it creates that, that's where we are disappointed, where we miss the mark.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: We've got to get specific, and following a program is going to help you do that, a program that is specifically designed for that program that is specifically designed for that.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Number two things that people are getting wrong about building muscle People believe that they can build muscle without thinking about nutrition.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Now, let me make a side note here.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: If you know me, you know that when I talk about thinking about nutrition, I'm not talking about obsessive diets, I'm not talking about restriction, I'm not talking about any kind of disordered eating patterns.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not promoting the idea that nutrition, in terms of how it supports your training, becomes something that is merely cold and scientific and doesn't relate to your real life and takes out pleasure and things like that.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking about obsession.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about conscious and mindful nutrition as it relates to your fitness goal.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: So the idea that you can go in and do a lot of muscle building workouts without ever putting thought into your nutrition is where people go off the rails, and that's either with like they combine this muscle building sort of program with a highly restrictive diet or something where it's very low calorie.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: You're going to not see muscle building in that and you may see degradation and or a greater increased risk for injury because you don't have the nutrients and the support you need to reach those goals.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: You don't have the nutrients and the support you need to reach those goals or you simply are not thinking about some of the bigger nutrient needs you have when you're building muscle and so you don't see results quickly because, for example, you are lacking in the amount of protein you need to support muscle protein synthesis and the repair and growth of your muscles.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: So if we don't think about nutrition at all.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: We may, you know, if we're not highly restrictive and we're not really, you know, trying to manipulate our food to the point where we're hungry all the time, we might not be risking injury.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: That's where we would be sort of putting certain kinds of foods because of the way that the training is making us feel right.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: So if you're training hard, you're breaking down, you're having these micro tears in muscle.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: You are attempting to sort of repair that and rebuild, and then you are eating foods that don't aid in that.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: You may be hungry more often, you might be hungrier faster, and you could be eating a surplus of foods that aren't supporting you as well as are then adding to your overall surplus, which is either not getting you results or moving the needle in the opposite direction.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Because if the goal for you in particular and this could depend on what your particular goal is if the goal for you is a physique change that includes some fat loss at the same time that you're building muscle and you aren't paying attention to what's going in, you could just be putting on body fat, or you could be putting on muscle and fat and you can't tell because you're not using the macronutrients that would support muscle growth in the way that is most effective.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Now, everyone has different goals, so I don't want to assume that that's your goal, but for many people, they believe they can build muscle and they're focusing on that in their workouts.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: They're forgetting the nutrition part and then they are disappointed with the result.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: So if you want to build muscle effectively, with a low risk for injury or discomfort and with the intention of possibly changing your physique in the future, then you have to put a little thought into nutrition Again, not restrictive, but merely optimizing what you are putting in and making conscious effort to support your training.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Lastly, number three, and probably the biggest one, and one that feels like it's just going to be a broken record for me, but I'm happy to have this conversation over and over again.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: People get wrong about muscle building that you're going to get quote unquote bulky.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: This is something that is common among women and that is because, let's face it, the beauty standards for women are strong but slender, athletic but not too big hourglass figure.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: You name it.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: You name what perfect ideal standard women are expected to achieve and then you're told to train, but not train so hard that you get quote unquote bulky One.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you want to look like and for some people, being big and muscular is what they want, and they might not define it as bulky or they might say bulky is what they're going for.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: First of all, the ability to put on a lot of muscle, a lot of muscle that would give you the.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: You know, when someone says bulky, I just sort of think of that strongest man kind of image, and if that's what you're going for, that is going to take a lot of hard work.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: It's also going to take a lot of hard work for women because of the proportion of testosterone that we have.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: So that's going to be like a very hard thing to do.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: And if you really want to do that, which is an entirely valid goal I'm not saying one or the other, I'm simply saying that's actually probably going to take some support from things that aren't food and aren't exercise.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Next, if your goal is to have a toned look, that's something that we talk about, and toned, again, is something that is a made-up word, but all words technically are probably made up is a made-up word, but all words technically are probably made up, and we all have our own ideas of that right, because our views of beauty and our views of self and everything are very much individual and are based on our history and our culture and our society and our interactions with other people.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: So everyone's opinion of what they want to look like and or what they think beautiful people look like is different.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not here to tell you what is right or wrong, and there is no right or wrong.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: If you're right or wrong or your beliefs of beauty discriminate against people, that's where I would say we're going in the wrong direction and we shouldn't do.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: But for you personally, if what you want to do is look more toned, look more athletic, have visible muscle, have a lean figure, whatever that may look like for you, then hypertrophy, building muscle is going to be important and it is not going to inherently mean that you look a lot larger than you did before.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: But all of this is specific to how we train, how we eat, how we move around throughout the day and the idea that as soon as you pick up a heavy weight, you balloon in size to someone who has been working for years and years and years.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Their goal is to build muscle.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Their idea of achievement is building a huge body.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Their idea of beauty is building a huge body.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: You aren't going to do that if you don't make the effort to, and it may be far more impossible.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: It is likely far more possible for you to achieve a physique that you're really interested in with a combination of resistance training, hypertrophy training, something that is building muscle, and at the same time, you may be opting to lose some body fat.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: You might be opting to use hypertrophy bodybuilding style training to build elements of your physique that you want to be larger, and then, through fat loss, you're changing the shape of your body, but just 100%.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: That is a misconception about building muscle makes people bulky, and I also think that we just get it terribly wrong with continuing to promote that.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Or even sometimes I'm frustrated about having the conversation because I feel like in assuring you that that's not going to happen, I'm telling you something negative about that body style, and I want to be clear that that is not what I believe.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I want to be really clear that that is not what I believe.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: It's just not physically how that works.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: So both things can be true.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I just hit myself with this thing Both things can be true at the same time that there can be an array of styles of body that you can actually create with training, realizing that your genetics do play a huge part, and there are some things that we simply cannot override, but we can work with what we have to use training to build the most incredible physique that we want to have, and it doesn't necessarily happen overnight, and the kind of muscle building associated with getting bulky is an effort that you could hear that there are a lot of advantages and there are ways to understand what people are getting wrong and start doing the thing that is going to create the change that you want.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: As always, if you want to chat with me about this or anything, you can send me an email, betsy, at BeFosterStrongcom.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: You can send me an email, betsy, at BeFosterStrongcom.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: You can send me an Instagram DM at Foster underscore strength.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I am always looking forward to hearing from you.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: We are going to get rocking with this podcast again and I'm so excited about it, but if you haven't, if you're new here or you, like me, have had some busy weeks and you want to catch up on the old episodes, you can.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I have nothing to promote here at the moment, though I will say if the podcast is helpful to you and you want to share it, either on social media or simply share the episode with someone who you think could benefit from it.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: That's always great.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: The more people that I can share this message with, the better, and, as if you felt compelled to do that, that would mean the world, and thank you ahead of time.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you, as always, for listening T tune in for the next episode and until next time, go build your strongest body.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Bye.