How To Rebuild Weak Knees After Injury

Sled Push and Sled Pull together will always be the best, safest, and gentlest option to begin getting at least some blood flow to the surrounding area, even when the meniscus is very avascular itself. I think it's also reassuring to know that while some of the deeper connective tissues like ligaments and menisci are avascular - it doesn't mean they receive absolutely 0 blood. It just means they receive significantly less than muscles. Even if the deeper connective tissues aren't getting much blood, it's extremely beneficial for the surrounding knee muscles to get some blood.

The reason why sled work is the world’s best tool for a knee injury is that it's essentially doing 100s, if not 1000s, of small, short-range, knee extension reps. While deeper knee extension, and even the angle of knee extension needed to walk, maybe too much, sled work and especially reverse sled can often be the gentlest way to still get a kick-ass workout, without needing to bend your knee into deep angles. If there's no access to a reverse sled, Reverse Treadmill can arguably be even better since you won't ever need to turn around! The resistance profile won't be as good as a sled, but you can certainly get some great stimulus in after 5-20 minutes of gentle Reverse Treadmill. And if it feels good, it could be even longer.

This will ultimately be your bridge to be able to then do Patrick Step Ups, which are a deeper range of motion, then do assisted Split Squats/Squats, then do unassisted Split Squats/Squats, then do loaded Split Squats/Squats. Even with a knee injury, you may even be able to do pain-free high rep Patrick Step Ups now!

It’s also critical to be performing Hamstring Curls, as that can pump some blood into the hamstrings. While Reverse Treadmill, Patrick Step Ups, Split Squats, and Squats work knee extension, also working knee flexion in Hamstring Curls is literally half the equation. Hit your hamstrings hard, and hit your hamstrings often.

Lastly, it's beneficial to do Tib and Calf work as that's right below your knee, because we’re trying to get blood flow to as many muscles as possible around the knee.

Is Fasting Worth it For Your Health?

Fasten your seatbelts, folks! The topic of fasting has been on everyone's lips in the health and wellness world for some time now. At first, I was a bit skeptical, but now I see that fasting can be a useful tool in certain circumstances.

So, what is fasting? It's not about what you eat, but rather when you eat. Instead of snacking all day, you abstain from food for a while and then consume meals within a shorter window of time. One of the most popular fasting methods is the 8:16 rule, where you fast for 16 hours and eat for eight. You can eat between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. or 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

There are other ways to fast, like alternate-day fasting, where you fast every other day, eating up to 25% of your regular diet on fasting days, or whole-day fasts, where you fast for 24 hours, one or two days a week.

Now, the big question: Does fasting help with weight loss? While some folks swear by it, I don't recommend it for most people. Fasting can lead to unhealthy eating habits, and the long-term results can be hit or miss. Some people tend to overeat during their eating window, which can negate the calorie deficit.

If weight loss is your goal, I suggest focusing on resistance training and a balanced, nutritious diet first. Once those habits are in place, you can experiment with fasting to see if it helps with fat loss.

But wait! There are still good things about fasting! For example:

• Intermittent fasting has been linked to better cognitive function, including verbal memory, in adults.

• Heart health indicators, such as blood pressure and resting heart rate, may improve with intermittent fasting.

• Some studies suggest that athletes perform better following periods of fasting.

• Fasting can have positive effects on blood sugar and overall inflammation.

• Fasting can promote healthy gut bacteria and nutrient production.

So, before you hop on the fasting train, think about what you want to achieve. While it can have some health benefits, using it as a weight-loss tool may not be the most effective approach in the long run.

Are Personal Trainers Worth the Cost?

Depending on where you go and what you are looking for, a trainer's price range can vary. For some people money is not an issue, while for others it’s the biggest variable holding them back. If you care about your health, and are able to find a great, knowledgeable trainer, I can tell you right now they are absolutely worth the price. Investing into your health and wellness is one of the biggest treats you can give yourself so don’t see this as a luxury. It can be the difference of living a longer, much more high-quality life.

What Makes Trainer’s Worth It?

Having said that, let me explain why they are worth the cost. I will admit, the hardest part about working with trainers is finding good ones over bad ones.

For the sake of this article, I’d rather get into what value they bring in versus doing it on your own.

Accountability

If nothing else, they keep you consistent. If you know you are paying someone to see them 2-3 times a week, you are going to show up. If you have set goals with them, they are going to help make sure you get there. If you start slacking off, they will hold you accountable. I’ve found most people’s issue isn’t with finding the right program, or choosing the right diet. It’s being able to stick with it day in and day out consistently. A great trainer becomes a useful tool to keep you focused.

Injuries/Personalization

Unless you are SUPER knowledgeable on programming both for injured and non-injured populations, you will have no idea how to make an appropriate program for where you are at right now. A great trainer can do an assessment and see what imbalances you have, previous injuries, current obstacles with your schedule, and much more. They can take that info and optimize your program so that you are focusing on weaknesses, or areas that need improvement. If you are injured, they can make sure to create regressions in your current program so that you can still make progress or still have a goal to focus on and don’t fall off the wagon. This is the kind of stuff you don’t want to leave to chance, or assume you can google on your own. It can get very complex.

Education/Safety

Nothing is more important than your safety and making sure you are spending your time in the gym effectively. Investing in a trainer will allow you to make sure you are performing each exercise properly, and using each machine the way it is intended. Nothing is worse than wasting 6 months in the gym because you thought you could just hop on random machines with no progression and magically gain muscle. Hiring a trainer will provide that timeline and gameplan to hit your goals safely. They will teach you how to target each muscle appropriately.

Pushing Your Boundaries

I can’t tell you how many people I see in the gym wasting their time using weights that are too light or too heavy. Again, I’m going to guess most people who are thinking of hiring a trainer don’t want to spend more time in the gym than they have to. If that’s the case, invest in a good trainer! They will know when it’s time to push you in order to see progression, and when it’s time to back off because you’ve been pushing hard. None of us want to feel like we are wasting time or unsure if what we are doing works. Let them take the guesswork out of it!

If you are still unsure whether a trainer is worth it, ask your local gym about an intro session or a free assessment. This will allow you to see what working with a trainer is like at no cost. Make sure to ask them questions that address any of the topics above. Make sure they have a plan laid out for you, and have the capability to adapt to your schedule and needs.

Why do Most People Fail at Losing Weight?

Losing weight can seem elusive. For some, they feel the harder they try, the harder it is. How can it seem like you are doing everything right and still getting nowhere?

Underestimating What You Eat

Let’s just say 2,000 calories is your maintenance. If we want to lose weight, that means we need a 500 calorie deficit daily (so now we are at 1500 calories to start weight loss). On Monday-Friday you follow that. Saturday and Sunday you go out with friends and off the diet a little and you eat 2,500 calories both days because you overindulged. 2,500 calories is not hard to hit for any of us. What is the result at the end of the week? You spent 5 days in a nice deficit but then overate by 500 calories during the weekend. Instead of being in a weekly deficit of 3500 calories it has now come down to 1500. What this means is it’ll take twice as long for you to lose the weight as the deficit has come down significantly.

This is what leads many people to feel like they’re constantly undereating, but never getting anywhere. You are trapping yourself in a vicious cycle where you aren’t dieting enough to lose weight consistently, but just enough to experience all the worse aspects of it. If you are going to diet, you have to commit to the process so that you aren’t spinning your wheels. Stick to that 500-calorie deficit, and try not to slip up during the weekend only to offset all your hard work during the week.

Not Eating Protein

Eating enough protein is another huge component to getting to the body you want. Muscle is calorically expensive to maintain, especially in a diet. If the body has a choice, it would rather burn through muscle than eat up fat when dieting. For this reason, we need to make sure we are providing more than enough excuses to hold onto that precious muscle. This involves following a proper workout regimen that will keep the muscle-building signal elevated. This also involves eating enough protein to fuel the building blocks to build or keep the muscle we already have.

If we don’t do this, we risk our body eating away at our muscle and keeping the fat. The result is a smaller, flabbier version of yourself. You will see the scale move down, but you will not look any different in the mirror. So make sure to keep your protein high! Aim for 1g/lb of your goal bodyweight. This will provide more than enough protein to get you that tone look.

Burning Less Calories Than You Think

One final issue I’d like to bring up is most people burn less calories than they think. Particularly when we diet down, over time, we burn less and less calories. When less food is coming in, our metabolism will start to tamper down to make up for the lack of calories coming in to preserve energy. We also tend to just not burn as many calories as we take in.

During lockdowns, I was still working out 5 days a week but eating my same 2300-2500 calories. I found myself slowly gaining body fat and couldn’t figure out why. If I’m still training 5 days a week and eating the same way, how could I be gaining fat? It turned out, my NEAT had gone down. NEAT is all the moving you do outside of working out in your day to day. Before lockdowns, at my job I was on my feet all day getting 13,000 steps. Being stuck at home that was all gone. I was averaging 4,000-6,000 steps a day. The lesson learned here was how important being intentional about your movement throughout the day is. You don’t have to go crazy and be doing excess cardio and movement 24/7. Cardio is not the key to a successful weight loss journey, however, for overall health, we should still be intentionally pursuing daily movement. For simplicity sake this can be 10,000 steps a day. Don’t be rigid on that number, but use it as a guide to make sure you aren’t spending most of your day being sedentary. This will help kickstart any fat loss plateau you may be having.

5 Tips to Get Rid of the Unwanted Belly Fat

When we all venture on a diet, the ultimate goal for most is to get rid of that stubborn belly fat. Before getting into these tips I would like to preface this by saying fat doesn’t eliminate on your body evenly. What I mean by this is that we all have individual areas our body pulls body fat from quicker than others.

For example, for me, my face will look very sucked in when I diet before my stomach gets completely flat. I am talking to the point where it almost makes me look older. My arms will show way more leanness first as well. The point of me saying this is that when you feel like your body is being stubborn about losing fat in the stomach, it’s completely normal. We all tend to hold the most fat there to begin with. Your body will prioritize wanting to pull fat from everywhere first before it’ll get to that last bit. So the ultimate goal then, you need to diet long enough where your body will finally start pulling the fat from the stomach.

This may take more than one diet cycle. But that’s okay. It didn’t take you one year of eating to get you where you are, so we can’t expect it to all go away in one diet cycle. Having said that, you can still get to a point your abs are showing better than they ever have before. The multiple cycles are more for those trying to get sub 10% body fat for guys, and sub 17% for women.

Eat More Protein

We need to maintain what muscle we currently have. In order to do so, we need to be sending the right signal in the gym to maintain that muscle, but we also need to be eating enough protein to fuel that muscle growth. The exact research says .82g/lb of bodyweight. I generally tell clients to just eat their ideal weight in grams of protein expecting them to most likely end up falling closer to that range regardless. On the flipside I have seen a lot of people dieting down eating LOW protein, who were not happy with their results because while on a restriction of calories, the body pulled away muscle more than it did fat. Muscle takes a lot of energy to hold onto, so we need to give it a damn good reason to stay.

Avoid Processed Food

We can talk about counting calories, adhering to specific diets, or intermittent fasting. They are all tools, and they all have their merits towards helping individuals lose weight. We can actually simplify this even more. When people struggle to lose weight, the most common cause ends up being because they are eating too many processed foods. Research studies have been done showing people underestimate how much they’re eating by 500 calories. When I start clients on a diet, we usually take 500 calories away each day to get us on track to lose 1-2lbs per week. Given all this information that means, at best people have unintentionally removed themselves from being in a proper deficit causing them no change in weight loss.

This is huge news because it would explain why we don’t see the scale move. The other issue is processed food is calorically dense, not filling, and easy to overeat. This all equates to a disaster waiting to happen. A full family size bag of chips contains about 4-5 whole potatoes in there. If I told you to eat that whole bag you could probably do it easily. If I told you to eat 4-5 whole potatoes you’d be full after the second one. This is what I mean by easy to overeat. Here we have the same exact foods, but the processed one is easily making you eat over TWICE as much. If we can focus on mostly whole foods, it will provide a higher volume of food, and be more satiating. It’ll create a natural limit to how much food we want to eat each day whereas processed food will just make you eat more. When I have most clients stick to this one rule, they find their weight loss skyrockets.

Create Barriers Between You and Trigger Foods

Similar to the second point, but to hopefully help us a little more would be to create barriers. I know for example that I LOVE potato chips (seeing as this is now my second reference to eating chips in one article). If it is around, I WILL eat it. There is just no debating that. So when I diet, what I will do is either make sure to never buy it during my diet period, or make the rule that I have to get up and go drive to the store the day that I want it. What this does is create a barrier. It makes it more difficult for me to succumb to the temptation. If you have kids, or a family that already has snacks around, the next best thing you can do is switch to those individual bag servings. While this doesn’t completely eliminate processed goods, it will shine a big light on your serving. You are no longer picking at a big bag mindlessly, and now given a direct portion that once you are done, you are done. This method is also good for those who feel like they shouldn’t have to completely eliminate a food, and can handle moderation.

Change Your Training Stimulus

If you’ve been doing the same workout program for months on end, it might be time to just change things up. The novelty and challenge of mastering a new exercise may have worn off. You may be only making very small increments in weight and/or reps. If that is the case, try changing up your routine. This may look as simple as changing the rep range from 5-10 to 10-15. Maybe you switch from a bodybuilding routine to a more performance-based routine. Or maybe you decide to try powerlifting. Either way, you are looking to shake things up because you have found yourself stalling. Don’t just constantly change the workout for the sake of “confusing the muscle” as this does not exist. Again, we are finding tools to elicit small changes to continue forward motion.

Drink a Gallon of Water a Day

You hear this all the time, and it seems too simple to be effective, but it works. We are mostly drinking this to stay well hydrated. A lot of times what we think is hunger is really just dehydration and needing more water. By having the simple goal of hitting a gallon, you are just creating an easy goal to hit. The other added bonus is by focusing on drinking water, we are removing the sugary beverages, and filling up our stomach with liquid instead of excess food or sugar. I don’t want this to be the mainstay point, but just as an aside note. Our cells need water to thrive, and if we aren’t drinking enough water we aren’t keeping our body at 100%.

https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/blog/5-tips-to-get-rid-of-the-unwanted-belly-fat

Why Prioritizing Form Over Weight is so Important

If you've been lifting for some time, you've probably heard people discussing form at nausea. You'll have your form warriors who overly criticize everyone. No matter how pristine someone performs a movement, they call out the tiniest thing and scream that your form stinks. These folks like to lurk in the comment section of Instagram posts.

On the other side, there's the crowd who preaches form is overrated. These lifters throw all reasoning out the window and will do everything in their power to complete a repetition. They may have to contort their body in ridiculous ways, but as long as they get the rep, that's all that matters.

Meeting somewhere between these two extremist crowds is your best bet.

Yes, good form is essential when lifting weights. But for the form warriors, we must also realize that perfect form is impossible. Lifting is a skill, and reaching absolute mastery is something even the greats can improve at. Some better words to describe good form would be safe, efficient, and excellent. But perfect simply isn't attainable.

That said, we should strive to get as close to perfect as possible with the exercises we perform.

Think of it like this...

If you can lift a lighter weight with near-perfect form but at a heavier weight, the rep looks completely different... it just means you are not strong enough to handle the heavier weight yet. Plus, you aren't actually attacking the muscles you want to grow.

A common exercise where you see this at play is the bench press. Lifters perform this movement for a bigger chest, but if you look at the form, they are not targeting their chest. Their ego gets in the way. If you have to lift your hips up to the ceiling in a bench press motion, are you really focusing on your chest development?

No, you are just throwing the weight up to pat your ego... which to be honest, nobody cares how much weight you can do. And you are also asking for a major injury. If it has yet to happen, it's only a matter of time.

Bottom line...

Lift as heavy as possible, but be smart about it. Once your form breaks down, rack the weight. If you did 6 clean reps on the bench press with 135 pounds this week, try to get 7 reps the following week. Once you know you have to lift your hips up to get another rep, rack the weight. From there, slowly attempt to beat the number of times you can perform 135 pounds. 

Remember, we want to target the muscles we are trying to work on. Do not perform ego lifts.

To wrap this article up...

Working on your form in specific movements is of utmost importance when you start your lifting journey. Throughout your lifting career, the goal should be to reach mastery and get as close to perfect as possible.

On top of this, the key is slowly adding weight to the movements. There is no rush. Lifting is a long man's game. Do the movement for your targeted reps. Once you notice you have to change the form on a rep to complete it by using excessive body English, it's time to call the dogs off on the set.

This will ensure you stay injury-free and constantly progress. You'll get stronger, see the changes in your body you're after, and enjoy all the powerful benefits of resistance training.

Are there Benefits to Doing Weekly Cardio?

I know cardio gets demonized a lot for not having many benefits compared to other forms of exercise such as strength training. While that may be true, there are still benefits to incorporating cardio into your weekly routine. Like most things in life, the damage is really in the dosage.

The Benefits of Weekly Cardio

Unless you genuinely love running everyday, you do NOT need to run every single day, especially if you are strength training 2-3 times a week. I’d rather you prioritize strength training as it will help you put on muscle which helps prevent injury.

So what can you expect from consistent cardio 1-2x a week? Cardio will be good at improving your overall aerobic capacity. It strengthens your heart, which will help lower blood pressure. It will improve your overall lung capacity as your endurance improves over time. Keeping a consistent cardio routine will send an endorphin rush that will help alleviate anxiety and keep your mental health in check. Your immune system will improve as you are making your body more efficient at delivering blood flow and thus more white blood cells to the places that need it.

What Else Can You Do?

You don’t have to just think of cardio as going for 30-45 minute runs every day and sweating your butt off. Spread that workload out to 3 ten minute walks after your meals. It’ll not only let you improve your digestion by facilitating movement, but you will still receive the cardio benefits of staying active.

I always advise my clients who aren’t huge cardio fans to try and get 1-2 days of cardio for general health and then achieve the rest of their cardiovascular movement through step count and strength training sessions. Aim for 10,000 steps a day if you aren’t already. This will get you actively moving throughout the day while helping make it a more sustainable habit. It is significantly easier to find ways throughout your busy day to keep walking and moving than it is to try and find a dedicated 1 hour to go to the gym and run on the treadmill. You can go for walks with your family, or play sports.

Importance of Strength Training

I will also always advise working out 2-3 times a week over everything else. Strength training will give you similar heart health benefits with the addition of packing on muscle to your frame. Even if your goal isn’t to be a bodybuilder, we can all benefit from adding a little bit of muscle to prevent injury. It will also keep our bones dense and strong. Bone breaks become a huge concern the older you get because they become fraile. Any slip or fall can lead to a serious break. By incorporating weight training, you will keep yourself resilient and more durable.

They can be full body sessions, which allow you to hit the full body 3 times a week. The benefit of this is that if you miss a session it still allows you to stay consistent whereas a body part split can throw off the entire schedule. We want to focus on compound movements that'll stimulate multiple muscles at a time. This will create the biggest signal for growth, and maximize your time in the gym so you aren’t spending more time than you have to.

How to Weight Train if You Only Have Time for 2 Days a Week

Life can be hectic. We all have issues we are dealing with. Whether it's jobs, family issues, or breakups, sometimes life slaps you. It can be easy to push your fitness to the side.

The good news is that you can still put together an effective program only lifting twice weekly. I'll provide a sample plan in a second but first, let's talk about the 2 things to absolutely not do.

Endless cardio and body part splits.

If you do a bicep day and then a tricep day during the week and finish it off with a 1-hour jog, I can assure you that it probably will get you looking and feeling like crap.

Since we only have 2 days, we need to be smart with our chosen exercises. This means focusing on compound movements and targeting the whole body.

Going the full-body route will give us the best hormonal response and burn the most calories. Squats, deadlifts, presses, rows, and loaded carries will be the foundation of our program. Since we are short on time, we'll use a tri-set approach to move faster through the session, which you'll see laid out in a second.

To get some cardio, we'll toss in a HIIT session at the end of each weight training session that'll take 5 to 10 minutes.

Without further ado, here's the 2-day routine:

DAY 1

1A) Bulgarian Split Squat 4 sets of 5 on each side

1B) One Arm Dumbbell Press 4 sets of 8 on each side

1C) One Arm Dumbbell Row 4 sets of 10 on each side

Rest 45 seconds to 1 minute between each exercise and 1:30 between rounds. Complete 4 total rounds.

2A) Romanian Deadlift 3 sets of 10

2B) Hanging Leg Raises 3 sets max reps

2C) Push Ups 3 sets max reps

Rest 45 seconds to 1 minute between each exercise and 1:30 between rounds. Complete 3 total rounds.

3A) Lateral Raises 3 sets of 8-12 reps

3B) Hammer Curls 3 sets of 10-12 reps

No rest between sets and rounds.

Finisher: Incline Treadmill sprints for 10 minutes

-Sprint for 10 seconds and rest for 50 seconds for 10 rounds.

DAY 2

1A) Deadlift Variation (Conventional, Sumo, Trap Bar) 4 sets of 5-8 reps

1B) Lat Pulldowns 4 sets of 8-12 reps

1C) Incline Bench Press 4 sets of 6-8 reps

Rest 45 seconds to 1 minute between each exercise and 1:30 between rounds. Complete 4 total rounds.

2A) Goblet Squats 3 sets of 10 reps

2B) Face Pulls 3 sets of 15-20 reps

2C) Ab wheel rollouts 3 sets of 8-12 reps

Rest 45 seconds to 1 minute between each exercise and 1:30 between rounds. Complete 3 total rounds.

3A) Tricep Pushdowns 3 sets of 15 reps

3B) Reverse Fly 3 sets of 12 reps

Finisher: Tabata Jump Rope (20 seconds of rope skip, 10 seconds of rest for 8 rounds)

Do 1-2 total sets of this Tabata.

That's it. Nothing fancy. But it will get the job done. Each workout should take you 45 minutes to an hour. Don't use your lack of time as an excuse.

You can find time to squeeze in 2 days of 45 minutes, especially with how much better it will aid your quality of life.

Also, try to get as much low-intensity movement as possible throughout the day. Now enjoy and get to work!

Best Weightlifting Exercises for a Young Athlete

A resistance training program when it comes to an athlete works a little differently than the average folk. Their needs are way different, and their lifestyle is way different. Most people think athletes are probably doing the most optimal programs in the world. The truth is they are doing the most optimal programs for THAT individual at THAT given moment. It changes throughout their season from offseason programming, to in season programming, to taking breaks.

Having a proper weightlifting program can do wonders for making an athlete more explosive but it all comes down to know the sport.

Sport Specific

First and foremost, their sport takes priority over everything else. Getting bigger in the gym isn’t always a good thing for an athlete. Actually, in most cases that might actually be a bad thing. An athlete needs to be light on their feet and explosive. Adding too much muscle will weigh them down. For every pound they add, that's a new weight they have to get used to moving their body with.

So the idea when it comes to lifting for sport, is getting you stronger with the frame you already have. Sure, you might want/need to add some muscle, but the main focus is on adding exercises that make your current physique more explosive and quicker.

Injury Prevention

I once heard a very popular strength and conditioning coach Mike Boyle say a great athlete’s program isn’t about how strong you got them, but by how many injuries occurred that season. In other words, his focus was on injury prevention even more so than strength gain.

A lot of athletic injuries that happen in sport come from either lack of mobility, or lack of strength in a given area. A proper program should also include plenty of mobility and activation drills that help wake up dormant muscles, and strengthen weaker ones. Once again, this means knowing really well what the needs are of any given sport, and what injuries are common, and what weaknesses need to be addressed. For example, a lot of basketball players roll their ankles, so strengthening that area is important. Hamstring tears are more common in sprinters, so making sure their legs are strong enough to handle the power, but mobile enough to take on the extra force is key.

Exercises That Help Athletes

I can’t really give specific recommendations on exercises, but what I can say is one way to start thinking about how to program for one is to think of movement patterns rather than body part exercises. These guys aren’t bodybuilding so there is no need to do curls and side raises.

Most sports likely need some sort of hip dominant and knee dominant exercise. This can be anything such as deadlifts, squats, or power cleans. Which one you choose again depends on your sport. Some sports like football may require additional upper body work like shoulder presses, and bench presses. More endurance type sports like cross country don’t need to spend nearly as much time lifting as any other sport because it would hinder their endurance. Their time may be better focused on injury prevention and may be a little focus on explosion.

The last thing to remember is if you are playing a sport, chances are you don’t need more than 2-3 days of resistance training. Most days should be spent practicing your sport, so the more you are doing that, the less room that leaves for resistance training. Recovery is the overall biggest thing an athlete can prioritize to make sure they are at peak performance. Some may have more volume during the offseason and drop to one or no sessions when their mid season playing many games.

How Often Should I Weight Train if I Want to Pack on Muscle?

How often you should weight train ultimately comes down to your goals, and your adherence. I can lay out the ideal workout program but if it’s a frequency you can’t realistically sustain, then it’s pointless.

Generally speaking, if you are new to weightlifting I recommend starting at 2-3 days a week. Believe it or not, even as little as two days a week is more than enough stimulation to trigger muscle growth. Think of it this way. When you start drinking, you don’t need 15 shots to get you tipsy. The novelty is so new that you only need the minimum effective dose to elicit the most amount of change. Two full body workouts will hit the entire body, and produce the starting muscle growth you need. If anything, doing more than this may actually risk you overtraining and delaying the maximum amount of muscle you can grow. Remember, more isn’t better. You want enough stimulation to break down the muscle, ALONG with the downtime to allow for recovery and muscle growth to actually occur.

As you progress more and more into your lifting career, you may start to find that your progression in the gym stalls, or that you aren’t putting on as much size. Only then, should you consider adding more days or more sets to help elicit more growth. Going back to the alcohol analogy, the version of you who's been drinking for 5 years will need more shots to get even a little buzz compared to the version of you who just started. It is not about adding volume for the sake of volume. When you see these pro-level bodybuilders doing tons of sets it is because they have accrued so much muscle and spent so many years training, that they actually need at MINIMUM that many sets per muscle, just to elicit even the slightest bit of growth.

To give some guidelines:

Novice - 8-10 weekly sets per muscle

Intermediate- 10-15

Advanced - 15+ sets

So again, only add more sets to your workout when you find the current volume is holding you BACK!

This brings us back to frequency. How many days you should workout comes down to how many sets per muscle you need based on your experience level. An advanced lifter will need more days to spread those 15+ sets versus the novice only doing 8 sets. So the next question you have must be “how do I know how many days to split it up over?”

The research shows we can maximize the muscle growth stimulus from anywhere between 2-10 sets per muscle in a given workout. So yes, if you are a novice trainer you could do a body part split. However, I still prefer recommending a full body split because doing all your sets for one muscle gets pretty exhausting by the third exercise. Instead of squeezing as much as you can in one day, why not split those 10 sets over 2-3 days? It’ll also allow you to come at those later exercises more fresh which in turn, allows you to push heavier weight than if you just tagged it on at the end of a chest day. Research also shows the muscle-building signal after exercise goes back down to baseline after 48-72 hours, so you also get the benefit of re-elevating that signal rather than waiting 7 days to hit it again.

My final point comes down to accountability and sustainability. This again, is why I like full body splits. Life gets in the way. If you miss your first workout that is totally fine because you’ll still hit the entire body two more times later in the week. If you do body part splits, and you missed your chest day, now you have to wait a whole week before you can hit it again. It’ll risk totally throwing off your entire routine. So, I’m not against different types of splits. I just highly suggest choosing whatever split you know will produce the most results based on adherence. If you know you have a busy schedule then try a full body split. If you know you can stick to your routine and really want to try a body part split or an upper lower split then do that. The difference in gains here is minimal when all else is equal.

How to Pack on Muscle Mass Without Gaining Fat

There is an old-school thinking that still lingers when it comes to putting on muscle mass. “Dirty Bulking” refers to eating a huge surplus of calories in order to ensure muscular gains are achieved throughout a massing phase of a diet. Bodybuilders used to take pride in seeing how far they can push their weight in the offseason swearing it’s all muscle. What ends up happening instead is they’ll have pushed their body fat percentage from 11-12% to 20-25% with little muscle to show for it.

There is a better way to go about gaining muscle. Our bodies can only put on so much lean body mass in a given time regardless of what you feed it. Just because you eat more, doesn’t mean you earn MORE muscle. We all have a limit. So instead of gaining say 5lbs of muscle and 20lbs of fat, why not gain 5lbs of muscle and 10lbs of fat?

You Only Need A Small Surplus

The name of the game is applying the smallest change to elicit the most results. We only need a surplus of 200-300 calories a day to put ourselves in an anabolic state where we can ensure we are building muscle. Any more than that (unless you are a hardgainer) is most likely more than you need and will just result in more fat gain.

If you are worried this isn’t enough then just experiment. Start with a 200-300 calorie surplus for a week or two and see if the scale moves. If it does, keep your intake the same. If it doesn’t, go ahead and add 200 more calories. This realistically, is the best way to go about your bulk. It’s the reverse method you’d use for dieting. You wouldn’t jump to the LEAST amount of calories you could eat during a diet. You’d slowly lower your calories only as needed to get the scale moving

Mini Cuts

If you are going on a longer bulk cycle, feel free to implement mini-cuts to minimize fat gain. This would involve periods of 4-6 weeks eating at that 200-300 surplus followed by 1-2 weeks at maintenance or slightly below. The goal isn’t to shred back down your body fat but to help curb some of that excess fat gain you may accumulate during the 4-6 weeks.

Send The Right Signal to Grow

Along with being in a surplus of calories, we want to be sending your body the right signal to grow. This involves implementing a workout program with enough intensity and volume to provide progressive overload. Progessive overload is choosing a weight in a given rep range, and trying to do one more rep, or 5lbs more than the week before. It may not happen every week, but you should see consistent improvement throughout your entire bulking cycle.

If you do find you’ve been plateauing for awhile, try either changing the rep range, or program. For those that have been lifting for a while, we may not realize we spend a lot of time using the same exercises for the same reps. It doesn’t hurt to change that exercise out but keep the reps the same, or change the reps. This will not only shake up your program without drastically altering it overall, but it will provide a fresh new stimulus your body may not have experienced in a while, which will require your muscles to work in a new way. I’ve found if I’ve been doing a bodybuilding focused program and then switch to a more powerlifting, or performance-based workout, I get this newfound strength and make greater progress week to week.

Increase Your Protein Intake

Just because you are in a calorie surplus doesn’t mean the muscle will take care of itself. What we eat matters too. If one version of me ate 3,000 calories of super high carb, and very low protein diet, and the other ate a higher protein, moderate carb approach, I’d bet you the latter would end up with a better physique. That is because he is providing himself with the building blocks necessary to facilitate the signal you are sending in the gym. We don’t grow in the gym, we break down muscle. We are in a catabolic state and need fuel to replenish and build back stronger. Aiming for .8-1g/lb bodyweight puts you in an anabolic state and making sure you are getting enough protein to maximize the muscle protein synthesis signal and optimize growth.

Focus On Food Quality

If minimizing fat gain is your goal, then we want to minimize processed food consumption. The main reason isn’t to demonize processed foods but the simple fact that it’s very easy to overeat them. Try eating a bag of chips versus 3 baked potatoes. I guarantee you’ll get fuller and stay fuller longer off 3 potatoes than a bag of chips. Yet they’re the same amount of food.

On the flip side, if you are someone who struggles to put on weight, then processed food can become a tool to help you get more calories in without having to force it down.

Don’t Add Weight Too Fast

The final note I want to point out is don’t worry about putting on weight too fast. Guys particularly love to brag about putting on 5-10lbs a month, or seeing how quickly they can get their weight up. Again, this is very old-school thinking, and you can only build so much muscle in a given month. Instead, shoot for 1-2lbs a month depending on how aggressive you want to go, and reassess by looking in the mirror and seeing if you like the way your body is progressing. This will allow you to keep things in check without getting carried away.

Why Can't I Seem to Lose More Weight?

Hit a wall in your weight loss efforts? Don't fret; we've all been there. Here are some potential reasons it's happening to you, along with simple tips to break through your plateau and get the ball rolling again. Let's get started…

You are stressed out of your mind  

The effect of chronic stress causes the preservation of body fat. This can be from different causes. Not sleeping, having a stressful job, overconsuming caffeine, constantly wired and drinking too much alcohol. In simpler terms, when stressed, the fat-loss process is much more challenging.

Solution- Make it a priority to do stuff in life you enjoy. Everyday. Don't make life all about work; don't take things too seriously. Get outside and play a sport, move. Try meditating. Start with 5 minutes a day and work your way up. Maybe do a little caffeine detox if you need 6 cups of coffee to get through the day.

Above all, laugh every day. Do not go a day without laughing. Even if it's a couple of minutes to watch Seinfeld, a stand-up comedian you like, or some stupid YouTube videos, do it!

You are not moving as much as you think

A lot of Americans are sedentary most of the day. Even those who go to the gym or find an hour to get a cardio workout may not move as much as they think. Once that hour is done, what's happening the rest of the day?

Time to look at how you spend all those other hours. Are you sitting at a desk for 10 hours a day? If so, you must add more low-intensity movement into your life. When in doubt, move. Walk more! Walk before work, during work, on break, and after work. Get those steps in. Make it more enjoyable by listening to some music or a podcast you enjoy.  

If you don't like the idea of walking, how else can you get more activity? Pick up a sport, take a dance class, try yoga, or go rollerblading. The choices are endless; the important thing is you move!

Not tracking your food

I'm not telling you to become obsessive over this and wreck your social life. However, I suggest tracking what you eat for a week or two. You may find out you are eating much more calories than you initially thought. Most people tend to underestimate how much they eat.

A cool little trick is to eat some protein before you sit down to eat a meal. For example, whip up a protein shake or whack down a few pieces of turkey, then wait 10 minutes to eat your main meal. You'll find yourself with fewer cravings and eating smaller portions.

So there you have it. There could be many reasons your weight loss has stalled, but those are what I see as some of the most common roadblocks people hit on their fat loss journey. Take a hard look at where you might struggle in these areas and address them. You may find that just one of them makes all the difference and helps you to shave off some extra pounds. Hope this helps!

When is Cardio a Good Tool for Fat Loss?

Dieting enters a weird headspace in most people. The last thing anyone says they want to do is eat less and do cardio. Yet, the FIRST thing everyone does when they start a diet is eat as little as possible and do as much cardio as they can cram in. This is not only an unsustainable approach, it isn’t even optimal. Most people can hit their fat loss goals doing half as much cardio as they think, while keeping the calories higher than they think.

When is Cardio A Good Tool for Fat Loss?

Build Up Your Metabolism

Step one. Build up your metabolism. As I mentioned before, people lower their calories way too much. If you have a lot more weight to lose, it will take some time, and an appreciable amount of calories to eventually get to where you want. If we know this going into it, then before we start ANYTHING, our priority should be to get our metabolism revved up, by pushing how many calories you can eat while maintaining your current weight. This will give us way more of a toolbox to work with as we progress in your fat loss journey.

There are going to be ebbs and flows. You’ll have weeks where you are consistently losing and then you may plateau. Throughout your diet you may have several instances where you need to lower your calories by 200-300 to get out of the plateau so it behooves us to give us a longer runway. For instance, if you are starting your diet at 2,000 calories as a male, then where can we lower you to after you hit your plateau? Men I don’t generally advise getting below 1,800 and women 1,500 calories. If you have to go lower than that for an extended period of time it means you either didn’t build up your calorie bank, and at that low of calories, start risking hormonal issues, and a very slow metabolism in which your body will start eating away at hard earned muscle. Muscle is calorically expensive to maintain. If we don’t have enough calories coming in, you will start to lose it along with your fat.

Drop From Calories Before Adding Cardio

If instead, you spent some time building your metabolism up to 2,900-3,000 calories as a male or 2,500 calories as a female, you can now begin your fat loss journey from a higher caloric intake making the journey both more tolerable, and maintain the physique you’ve worked so hard to achieve. So this should be your number one focus above cardio and anything else.

We generally like to start a diet from a deficit of 500 calories a day below maintenance. I find most people do well taking most of this from their food intake, because then it doesn’t require as many physical day to day changes to their normal life. You are going about your day the same way, except just being more aware to eat less.

Hit Your Step Count

An alternative approach for those who don’t want to take that big a hit on their caloric intake can be to instead of directly adding a cardio session, to just shoot for a target step count. I find 10,000 steps is a good starting point as I’ve found most of my clients only averaging 6-8,000 steps.

What I like about this approach versus just hopping on the treadmill is it changes your approach to this new lifestyle. After all, in order to achieve and more importantly maintain the body you want, you are going to have to implement habits you can keep up with. By setting a goal of 10,000 steps, your focus now becomes behavior based. Find moments throughout your day to get up and move and be active. The beauty of this is that this is something we should be doing for overall health anyways, not just diet. We should WANT to find moments to get up and move and not just be sitting. It also isn’t a healthy mindset to look at caloric expenditure solely as a means to lose weight. This is how people become body dysmorphic, and obsess over getting their 45 minutes on the treadmill.

What usually inevitably happens for the majority of the people is some hybrid of the two. They’ll shoot for 10,000 steps while dropping maybe 200-300 calories to create that 500 caloric deficit each day. This is ideal for those who prefer to “take a little bit from each” approach versus all or nothing. Ultimately you need to find what works best for you. Again, depending on your weight loss goal, whether its steps or calories, you may find yourself hitting a plateau, in which case you may need to lower calories by 200-300, or add 3,000 more steps.

Use Additional Cardio as a Tool

At some point, your step count may get so high that you find you struggle to hit it by sprinkling it throughout your day. NOW is when it is a good time to add in direct cardio. Think of it as a supplement. We take vitamins when we find we aren’t able to achieve the recommended dosage by whole food alone. If you’ve built yourself up to 15,000+ steps, some direct cardio may be needed to hit the goal and that’s totally fine. I suggest finding forms of cardio you enjoy; it doesn't just have to be at the gym. You can play a sport, or play with your kids.

---

https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/blog/when-is-cardio-a-good-tool-for-fat-loss

Is Weight Loss Harder for Women?

I'll come straight out and say it, yes, it's a little harder for women to lose weight than men. But women, don't worry it’s nothing major. You are more than capable of looking and feeling exactly how you want. There’s just some things to look out for. But first, in science terms, here's why it's a little more difficult for women.

Women's fat cells release less fat into the bloodstream during exercise, which affects resting fuel (fat) oxidation to a greater degree in men than in women. On top of this, men naturally have more muscle mass, making them more efficient at burning calories even at rest.

No need to get any more sciency but long story short, while it may be harder for women, a little effort will overpower anything the science has to say.

Before we go further, let's talk about What Not To Do as a woman for weight loss.

It's no secret that women are drawn to aerobic exercise to look good. To make matters worse, they combine that with severe caloric restriction. This combination is a recipe for disaster. Once you start cutting out entire food groups off the jump... and substantially reduce your calorie intake for quicker weight loss, you are playing with fire. This approach leads to yo-yo dieting, the term for people who lose weight and then gain it back — often even more than before because of an unsustainable system. And even when they do get smaller for that short period, it doesn't look good. Any muscle they had is gone.

Now that we got that out of the way, here's what women should do for fat loss.

Incorporate 3 full body weight training sessions a week, daily low-intensity movement and slightly reducing calories. This is the quickest, simplest way for women to build a body that makes them feel as good as they look.

Women, just like men, should make big compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, and presses the cornerstone of their training program. The goal is to get strong in these movements while maintaining pristine form. Cut out the long duration 2-hour runs and spin classes 5 times a week. Instead, make it a priority to achieve as much low-intensity movement as possible. I sound like a broken record in my articles, but I can't vouch for enough for walking. The physical benefits are fantastic, but maybe the mental ones are more pronounced. Throw on some good tunes or a podcast you love, and walk.

For the food part, try reducing your calorie intake by only a few hundred. You might need to track your calories for a few weeks and slowly cut some out. As said earlier, doing too much too fast is the worst thing you can do. Extreme dieting usually leads to "Screw this," The next thing you know, you're devouring double bacon cheeseburgers that night.

Remember, tiny lifestyle changes always lead to better results. Major changes and trying a thousand things at once never work. We want to build a healthy lifestyle we can maintain for the long haul and not rely on quick fixes that have us bouncing around everywhere.

Final wrap up

Alright, ladies, losing weight may be a bit more difficult for certain factors. That said, this doesn't mean you can't get your dream body so you can walk around confident and feeling sexy. The above advice may sound too simple, but there is no need to overcomplicate things.

Hit the weights with a full body approach 3x per week and get stronger in compound movements. Slightly reduce calories. Plus, tons of low-intensity daily movement. Nothing drastic and over the top. Building a healthy body is about small changes until it becomes second nature. Start with the above, and you'll be pleased with the results.

---

Source: https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/blog/is-weight-loss-more-difficult-for-women

3 Reasons Why You Need to Incorporate Mobility Into Your Workouts

It should seem obvious that the number one focus any of us should have whether we want to gain muscle, lose weight, or maintain it is to have full control of our range of motion. Ironically, so few of us actually do. In fact, quite the opposite. Rarely do most of us fully OWN our full range of motion when put under a load. This puts us at major risk for injury and leaves gains on the table.

Today I’d like to discuss 3 reasons why you need to incorporate mobility into your workouts.

Range of Motion

You will always make more gains and progress on an exercise working it through a full range of motion versus a partial range of motion. Think of a squat for example. A person doing a full range squat, will be able to fire the glutes, hamstrings, and quads a lot better than the person doing ¼ squats with heavier weight. They will have mostly left the hamstrings and glutes out of the movement comparatively speaking.

Exercise Selection

Using the same squat example above also shines light on the benefits of a compound exercise vs more isolated exercises. The squat is a somewhat complex movement to do with correct technique. It involves the ability to move your entire body from standing to a full squat without compensation in the low back, knees caving in, shoulders rolling forward, etc. Without a full range of motion, most people will not be able to perform this exercise correctly and thus miss out on a very beneficial compound exercise.

The bottom line is, by having access to a fuller range of motion, you have access to more exercises.

Activating Weaker Muscles

Along with wanting a fuller range of motion, we want to prevent injury, and have a well balanced body. When low back, or knee issues pop up, it is usually due to other muscles not doing their job properly. For example, if you are squatting, and your knees start to cave in, it may be due to your inability to fire your glute medius, and keeping the knees pushed out. If your low back starts to flex, it may be due to an inability to keep your upper back and core tight in an upright position.

Incorporating mobility into your workouts in this case would mean finding what specific issue you have and choosing a handful of priming exercises to do as a warm up for that day's workout. You could do 3 sets of a glute firing exercise like a hip bridge, in conjunction with some banded rows to cue keeping the shoulders blades pulled back. Now, when you go into your squat you’ve already spent time making the mind muscle connection to those areas allowing you to fire them during the squat itself.

Practice Makes Perfect

The key to all of this is not rushing and practicing being PERFECT. It isn’t like regular resistance training. In normal training, we try to add weight, and do more reps. We don’t want the focus to be adding weight on these exercises. We want to see how many reps we can perform perfectly. The session itself shouldn’t last more than 10-15 minutes. Find what areas needs focus, and choose bodyweight mobility drills that you can do 3 sets of 10-15 perfect reps on.

Check out the 6 Week Newbie Programs by R&G to get off on the right foot. There are options customized to meet the unique needs of new moms while still offering excellent results.

https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/blog/3-reasons-why-you-need-to-incorporate-mobility-into-your-workouts

Getting Back into Your Fitness Routine After Having a Baby

To say that life changes after having a baby is quite an understatement. In fact, for many new parents, it is difficult to fully grasp what life was like before your bundle of joy arrived on the scene. Many of the changes are welcomed and wonderful. However, most new moms want to leave behind the physical changes from pregnancy as quickly as possible. If you are ready to get back to your pre-pregnancy physique, it is important to jump back into your fitness routine. Getting in your workouts after having a baby can be a challenge but you can make it happen with the right mindset and a little bit of help.

Remember that you will have to be more flexible with timing

The most important thing to remember as you get back into your fitness routine after having a baby is that you will have to be more flexible with timing than you were before. Your new baby is likely dictating much of your schedule at this point. Over time, you will establish a routine that is fairly predictable. In the beginning, however, you will need to be flexible when it comes to getting in your workouts. If your baby has a difficult night and barely sleeps, you may not be up for a 5 am workout. Some moms decide to schedule workouts around nap time. There is no one size fits all solution to finding time for your workouts but every new mom will need to be flexible in order to find time for fitness after baby.

Recruit the help of a friend or loved one

You may need to rely on others a little more after having a baby if you want to get back into your fitness routine. This may mean recruiting and family member or friend to help with the baby while you get in a workout. Fortunately, there are often loved ones who are eager to help when it involves snuggling with a baby.

Listen to your body

An important tip to remember as you get back into your fitness routine after having a baby is to listen to your body. Your body may still be going through some changes after pregnancy. Take your time ramping back up to your pre-pregnancy routine. Listen to your body! The last thing you need is to get injured during a workout while having a newborn to care for. You will get back to where you were before. Give yourself enough time to adjust to any changes that may impact your physical ability in the gym.

Choose a workout program that will provide proven results

It is important to choose a workout program that will provide proven results. There are few things more frustrating than being committed to a workout routine that does not provide results. Look at programs that use resistance training as the foundation of the program. Resistance training will help you get your pre-pregnancy body back and make it much easier to maintain your results.

It may take a little time to get back into the swing of working out after you have a baby. With the right attitude, a little help, and a quality workout program you will be able to make progress. Check out the 6 Week Newbie Programs by R&G to get off on the right foot. There are options customized to meet the unique needs of new moms while still offering excellent results.

https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/blog/getting-back-into-your-fitness-routine-after-having-a-baby

How Often Should Women Lift Weights?

The idea that lifting weights is something exclusively for men is an old notion. The science behind resistance training makes it clear that working out with weights can be beneficial for everyone – women and men. Many women shy away from lifting weights because they do not understand how it can benefit them, they get caught up in common misconceptions, and simply do not know how often to incorporate weight lifting.

Why lifting weights is important for women

Lifting weights is important for women for a number of reasons. Weight lifting is the process that will provide you with the physique you want. Muscle looks good. Muscle provides shape to your body and can make you look healthy and athletic. Lifting weights can also help you reach and maintain your weight loss goals. Building muscle increases your metabolism which, in turn, makes you burn more calories throughout the day – even during rest. Lifting weights can also help protect against bone loss which is an important benefit for women who are more prone to bone loss in the first place.

Common misconceptions about lifting weights

The most common misconception about lifting weights that women face is that it will make them bulky. If you are concerned about getting bulky from weight lifting, it is time to stop worrying. Women who have large muscles and extreme physiques put a lot of work into getting there. Building muscle like that typically requires years of focused training and often involves taking anabolic steroids. If you follow a well-designed resistance training program and stay away from the steroids then you do not need to worry about getting bulky from lifting weights.

How often women should be lifting weights

Now that you know the benefits of lifting weights and have let go of your misconceptions it is time to get started with resistance training. A quality weight lifting program will have you lifting between three and four times per week. You do not need to be in the gym lifting heavy seven days a week! The key to maintaining progress is to prevent your body from growing accustomed to the work you do. If you keep your body guessing, you will be able to avoid plateaus without allowing your time in the gym to take over your entire life.

As a woman, you should make lifting weights a regular part of your workout regimen. Weight lifting can help you lose weight, build muscle, and get the physique you’ve been dreaming about. If you want to give weight lifting a try but do not know where to start, check out the resources from MAPS Fitness. You can explore expert-designed weight lifting programs that will help you with every step of the process. Take a look at our 6 Week Newbie Program if you are at the beginning of your weight lifting journey.

Source: https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/blog/how-often-should-women-lift-weights

Resistance Training for the Goal of Weight Loss

Cardio seems to be the default go to when people think of weight loss. Rarely, if ever does anyone incorporate weight lifting as their first method to drop the pounds.

While cardio is a great tool for losing weight, in the long run, resistance training will do more for losing weight than cardio can ever do.

Why Cardio Isn’t A Great As You Think

When studies compared aerobic exercise and dieting compared to resistance training and a diet, they found the resistance training group lost more body fat mass while increasing lean muscle mass. Cardio is great in the short term. It’ll burn more calories in a given session than weightlifting because you are constantly moving at a moderate to high pace. But that’s where the calorie expenditure stops.

Cardio also isn’t a stimulus for building muscle. You need progressively heavier and heavier weight in order to send a signal to your body to grow or maintain muscle. Cardio does the opposite. It will burn both muscle AND fat.

Why Resistance Training IS Great For Weight Loss

Muscle is calorically expensive to maintain. When you workout, you are telling your body to prioritize keeping muscle, and burning body fat as fuel instead.

It also increases your metabolism for the same reason. The more muscle we have, the more calories we burn just existing. So we aren’t just burning calories during our session, we are continually putting our bodies in a state of extra calorie burn throughout our day.

Progressive overload (in other words, increasing the amount of weight for a certain amount of reps) over time is the absolute best thing you can do to lose weight. It is the difference between burning mostly fat, versus muscle and fat. Your body is constantly forced to adapt (build muscle) towards this response. When we do cardio your body focuses on expending LESS energy each time for the sake of efficiency.  

Compound Exercises

If you want to maximize building lean muscle mass, while expending the most amount of energy, focus on the biggest bang for your buck movements. Squats, deadlifts, rows, and overhead presses will hit multiple muscles at once, and allow for the largest loading of weight. These are the exercises we want to focus on if stimulating the most caloric burn and biggest muscle gain is the goal. You can throw more isolated exercises like curls and skullcrushers, but just note they will not burn nearly as many calories.  

Shoot for 2-3 days of training using full body workouts. That is, doing one exercise per body part in each workout. Do the compound movements for reps of 5-10 and any smaller, more isolating exercises in the 10-15 rep range. Try this out for 4-6 weeks along with a proper caloric deficit to ensure weight loss.  

One Last Note

Resistance training is a GREAT tool for weight loss, but above all else it is worth noting that you need to be in a caloric deficit if you want to lose weight. Beginners and those coming back from an injury are the only ones who have the capability to put their body in a state where they can put on muscle and burn fat. For the rest of us, a deficit + a proper resistance program is needed in order to shed excess body fat and maintain lean muscle tissue.

Source: https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/blog/resistance-training-for-the-goal-of-weight-loss

Fat Loss for Women - Don't Make it Complicated

Lowered Stress

Having a spike in cortisol is fine in the short term. It keeps us alert, and mobilizes energy quickly. However, if it is spiked all day every day, it ends up doing the opposite to save you. It doesn’t want to burn through all your energy, so instead it conserves and will chew through muscle instead.

The best way to mitigate this is to prioritize sleep. You NEED to be getting 7-9 hours if you aren’t already. Also, isn’t sleep the best? Why aren’t we creating routines around the most relaxing thing in our lives to do? Make sure not to eat anything 1-2 hours before bed, minimizing your contact with artificial light (which keeps your body alert), and to do things that help you relax and wind down.

For those stuck in a permanent diet where they are doing cardio 5-6 days a week, and more than 30 minutes a day of cardio, and eating less than 1500 calories STOP! This is unnecessary stress. Keeping that up won’t maintain your physique, and in fact will slow the metabolism down, causing it to hold onto the fat to restore balance. Bring it down to 2-3 days of cardio, and slowly introduce calories back in to rev up your metabolism. 

Be More Aware Of Your Nutrition

We all know on some level that you need to be expending more calories than you are taking in to lose weight. However, that can still seem too broad. It’s easy to struggle with knowing what to eat, how much to eat, which foods are good, and which are bad.

I don’t expect you to track calories (although that’s totally fine and easier to quantify if you do). For most clients, I love to keep it simple. Try your best to eat less (not completely eliminate) processed foods, and include more whole foods. The reason I say it like that is because the moment you tell someone NOT to eat something (especially a food they love), it’s going to be all they think about. Also, we only have one life and those foods aren’t so bad they should be forever forbidden from your life.

Just try to reduce it because the studies show when people eat mostly processed foods, it causes them to eat 500 MORE calories than sticking to whole foods. It should be no surprise those foods are DESIGNED to be overconsumed whereas whole foods give us a true fullness signal. This can be a problem if you are trying to lose weight. The silver lining is 500 calories removed, is all you need to create a deficit to start a fat loss journey and you didn’t even have to track. Just focus on satiating whole foods like proteins (meats, chicken, fish), vegetables, and fibrous carbs that will keep you satiated (oatmeal, quinoa, beans, lentils).  

Veggies are super filling but do not have many calories so it would be extremely hard to overeat vegetables from a caloric standpoint, so load your plate up! Protein is a fat burning nutrient. It is the most filling macro you can eat, it’s necessary for the repairing of muscles and making them get bigger, and it has a high thermic effect (meaning it uses 30% of its calories just to break itself down!). All this in mind, if you keep your protein and veggies on the higher side, you’ll be losing weight in no time.

Don’t Be Afraid of Lifting Weights!

When you add resistance training, you send a signal to breakdown muscle tissue which then needs to be repaired. When you lift weights regularly, with progressive overload, you are sending a signal to your body to add muscle which NEEDS calories to grow. Cardio on the other hand, tells your body to use LESS calories to adapt.

Train to build muscle even if that isn’t your goal. By always trying to build muscle, you are helping increase your metabolism at rest. The more muscle you have on your frame, the more calories you expend just standing there! Build that fat burning machine! It doesn’t take much either. All you need to do is go to the gym 2-3 times a week and that is more than enough stimulus to prime you for growth. Again, make sure your program has progressive overload, good form, and control. Seeing your numbers go up week to week is the surest way to know what you are doing in the gym is working. If you are getting stronger, don’t change anything.

---

Source: https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/blog/fat-loss-for-women-dont-make-it-complicated

Best Ways to Fight Chronic Back Pain

We all want the quick fix for losing weight and adding muscle. Yet the thing most of us have in common more than anything is chronic back pain. Not only that, but we push mobility work and prehab work to prevent us from getting this nagging pain to the side. Which is ironic, because in order to maximize your muscle gain or fat loss, you’d need to be at 100% with no lingering injuries ideally. We should all be paying more focus to our nagging pain so that we don’t have to cope with it day in and day out.

Prioritize Mobility Work

Mobility is the ability to move through a range of motion with full control. Without this, you overcompensate by using muscles and areas of the body that aren’t meant to take on that extra load (i.e. when you lift something off the ground and tweak your lower back). It’s also a sign that your body is telling you something is not right.

Over time, because of these compensations we groove improper movement patterns (i.e. using your lower back to lift, or not being able to drop into a full squat) because we stop teaching our body how to fire all our muscles. It’s not just about stretching, but about taking your muscles through a full range with some load to create tension to keep the muscle activated.

By incorporating mobility drills, we groove a new, and PROPER movement pattern, teaching the muscle to fire the way it SHOULD be. Adding some light resistance will make sure it maintains that stability and control throughout the full range.

Diet’s Role on Inflammation

If your body is inflamed it might not be moving optimally. So it can only benefit us to stay away from foods that you find cause inflammation. I’ve had friends who notice after they eat specific foods, their joints act up the day after and it prevents them from doing the workouts they wanted. Focus on eating foods high in Omega 3’s (fish, olive oil, etc) to help bring the inflammation down. You can eliminate all culprits at once (gluten, vegetable oils, lactose, etc) or one by one if you want to see what exactly is causing it..

The Mobility Plan!

If you need help on the exact technique and form, be sure to youtube these exercises below. For this article, I’ll just be listing some good exercises that are great, at addressing all the issues mentioned above.

Bird Dog - I like the bird dog because its low impact and teaches you how to properly keep a strong ab tension through a dynamic range of motion

Quick Tips: Slow and steady! People always rush these exercises to get them done. The point is activation! You want to be feeling your hips engage the ENTIRE time. You want your core firing the ENTIRE time. If your body is twisting or turning in anyway that’s a sign the connection is off.

Dead Bugs - Also great at engaging the core and glutes. You’ll be lying on your back extending the opposite leg and arm while keeping your core tight, and low back nice and flat.

Quick Tips: Make sure to exhale as you extend and inhale as you come back. Keep a flat back and a tight core. This will help fire the core and relax the low back pain over time.

Floor Bridge - This exercises is good for activating the hamstrings, glutes, and core. Most people tend to hyperextend their low back, for the sake of getting more range of motion.  

Quick Tips: Do not lose your contraction in the abs for the sake of getting that extra range of motion. In fact, you might find you get less range doing this compared to normal. That’s okay. It is because more focus is being placed on pushing that low back and keeping the core engaged, and glutes contracted vs hyperextending the low back using not abdominal strength.

Source: https://www.mindpumpmedia.com/blog/best-ways-to-fight-chronic-back-pain