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Best Exercise To Lose Weight With PCOS
One of the biggest factors I have found over the years in helping thousands of women with PCOS lose weight is that you need to reframe your thoughts on the role exercise plays in your life with regard to your condition.
Women shy away from getting in the Gym and lifting weights in a structured manner, for gruelling HIIT workouts and hours upon hours of cardio work because they believe this will burn the most amount of calories for them.
If you have PCOS and you are doing this, please see this Blog Post as a sign to stop.
One of the key aspects of your condition is raised testosterone and androgen levels. You should see this aspect of your physiology as an opportunity — an opportunity to stop focusing your exercise regimen on losing weight, but actually on getting stronger.
Due to your condition, you have this natural ability to build strength and muscle, which will make your whole weight loss journey a lot easier.
It will:
Improve your relationship with fitness
Build your self-confidence
Build your self-esteem
Improve your dietary behaviours
When you get these in place, your weight loss will come along as a consequence of your desire to get strong. Getting stronger will help you with dealing with your PCOS Belly Fat, weight loss with PCOS and getting a lot stronger in your mind, body and soul.
Building strength first and then achieving your weight loss goals, because no bad comes from getting stronger.
I have been working with women just like you, with PCOS for a long time, and this is the exact strategy I have used to help them achieve the changes in their life that they were after.
Just like my client Sarah who is on the Strong & Confident Program who lost two stone when getting stronger:
“The foundation of a leaner body is muscle mass, not the absence of fat. ”
My coaching program is called The Strong & Confident Program and yes, it does help people lose weight, but it also teaches you get stronger in your soul, body and mind.
If that sounds like something you might need help with either right now, or you think you might at some point in the future then it’s probably a good idea you send me a friend request. You can do that by just putting in your email address below, and we can stay in touch that way….
Thank you for becoming my friend.
Now let me show you the best way to exercise to lose weight with PCOS.
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Table of Contents
How This Workout Plan Works
The Best Workouts To Lose Weight With PCOS: Day 1 and Day 2
How To Lose Weight And Get Strong with PCOS
HOW THIS WORKOUT PLAN WORKS
How Many Workouts A Week Are You Going To Do?
This plan is two full-body workouts a week.
If you are new to working out, or even if you are just resetting yourself and getting back into it, the good news is you don’t need to be in the gym four to five times a week in order to get stronger and lose some fat.
You will make incredible progress if you can just get into the gym two times a week and work out with enough intensity for the next 3-4 months.
And this program is the start of that.
How Many Workouts Are In The Plan?
Two. Two Beginner Workouts.
I am aware that variety can be important when it comes to working out, but variety is also counterintuitive to your long-term motivation and your ability to be consistent.
I could very easily come up with 8 different workouts for you, but that would overwhelm you. Each week you would have to learn new movement patterns, you wouldn’t develop the skill to get the most out of the movements you are doing and thus you wouldn’t be working to enough intensity for progress.
So there are two workouts.
These two workouts are designed for you to grow within them. They are designed so that by the end of the month you can see that you have improved:
The weight you are lifting
The form with which you are lifting the weight with
The amount of confidence you have from executing the plan consistently.
If you want variety, gain it by adding more weight, improving your form, and by trying to push yourself a little harder each time you do another rep.
The variety comes from your skill and development to achieve.
If you manage that, you will indeed make progress you never thought possible.
Best Time To Exercise with PCOS
Don’t overthink this. In an ideal world, you would have a few days between each workout so that you can recover fully from your last workout, and manage to then put your most into the next workout you do - and the time of day you workout is totally irrelevant.
But we don’t live in an ideal world - we live in a world where you have to balance an awful lot of your life against your health and fitness - so in truth, you have to go back to back days, then do, it won’t hinder you anywhere as much as you think it might or that the internet would have you believe.
When coaching clients I am always telling them to remember to balance what is optimal with what is possible.
We don’t all have the privilege to be optimal all of the time.
How Much Weight Should You Lift?
I can’t answer this in the way that you would probably like me to. I can’t tell you how much you can Lat Pulldown or Goblet Squat - and any program you find on the internet that tells you how much weight to lift - you should find another plan. Like this one.
I have never seen you move. I have no idea how strong you are.
But luckily in the Fitness Industry, we have a way around this.
It is called the RPE Scale. RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion and is a subjective scale upon which you can judge how hard you are working across a set.
Across both of your workouts, you want to work to an RPE between 8-10.
In terms of the weight you lift, I would say this:
You are probably stronger than you give yourself credit for, you are probably more capable than you think, and that capability will grow very quickly if you remain consistent.
READ MY ARTICLE THAT HAS HELPED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE NAVIGATE THE GYM MORE SAFELY
Progressing Through The Workouts?
As the weeks roll on - you should be wanting to progress your workouts as much as possible.
This will mean one of three things - you either:
Increase the weight you are lifting
Change the weight you are using
Change aspects of the form to make the lifts harder
You will adapt to these workouts, and therefore I want you to feel empowered to make the changes you feel you need to in order to make sure they remain challenging.
With some exercises, an increase in weight will not be possible, and therefore I would recommend you change the exercise you do.
Here is a list of adaptations you can try:
DAY 1
Box Squat -> Barbell Back Squat
Lat Pulldown -> Assisted Pull Up Machine
Incline Push Up -> Push Up
Glute Bridge -> Single Leg Glute Bridge or Hip Thursts
DAY 2
Reverse Lunges -> Split Squats or Walking Lunges
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row -> Single-Arm Dumbbell Row with a 1-second pause at the top
You can also change from Kettlebells to Dumbbells or to Barbells to help change the intensity and the variety of the movements you might do.
Do I Have To Do HIIT Workouts with PCOS?
No.
Well, certainly not in the manner upon which you think you probably do.
I haven’t written any HIIT or Cardio in your workouts for you.
I personally am a huge fan of walking - and if your goal is to lose weight, you are probably underestimating the benefits that walking for 20mins a day can have, and overemphasising the effect that a workout can have on your ability to lose weight.
Put as simply, you don’t burn anywhere near as many calories working out as you think, and you burn a lot more calories walking than you think.
This is why at the heart of working out to lose weight, the conversation has to be changed from working out to burn calories and lose weight, to working out to get strong and once your strength is built, good things will happen from there.
If you want to do Cardio, of course, you can. It won’t hinder your progress, it will look after your heart which I am a huge fan of. It won’t burn away all of your muscles. I promise.
And here is another dose of good news - you don’t need to do hard 5kms or sit on the recumbent bike for an hour - that hardly will fit into your life, will it?
You need to do 20mins a day - walking - at a pace that makes you feel like you don’t need a jacket and do need a bottle of water if it is late Autumn or Early Springtime.
How Much Rest Should I Take?
Rest is quite a personal thing.
I personally like quite a lot of rest between heavy sets, usually at the start of my workout. Then I can put the most effort into what I am about to do.
Then as my workout progresses, I reduce my rest between each set.
See how you go. Work to the maximum rest you can take at 2mins and the minimum to 30secs.
In the workouts, I have put rest between each set or superset - but they are just guidelines.
What is a Superset?
I feature Supersets quite a bit in this 4-Week Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss. For, two reasons.
Firstly they save time - and long gone are the days where you should be spending hours on end in the gym working out.
Secondly, they are a great way to get variety into your workout - and help stop the feeling of boredom
It basically means that you do one exercise, then the next exercise with no rest between exercises.
You can also superset three exercises together as a little circuit.
Warm-Ups and Cool Downs
In the workouts, I have put “optional” warm-ups.
I strongly advise you do them, but if you are short on time, you will probably be ok if you skip them.
They aren’t “walk on the treadmill for 5 minutes” although if you are short on time, and you need to just get in and get out, that is an adequate warm-up.
The warm-ups focus on developing mobility and improving your ability to work out in a much better way that will improve your results over time, and thus actually end up costing you less time - as you will make more progress quickly.
The Best Workouts To Lose Weight With PCOS: Day 1 and Day 2
DAY 1 - FULL BODY
WARM UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Spiderman Rocks - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Split Stance Rock To Tall Split Kneel - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE
Bird Dogs - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Russian Twists - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Box Squat - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or your Bodyweight)
1.5 Dumbbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
SUPERSET 1:
Lat Pulldown - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Incline Push Up - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Squat Thruster - 3 Sets 12 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of all exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Plank Shoulder Taps - 3 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Overhead Press - 3 Sets, 12 Reps on each side
Glute Bridge - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of all three exercises
DAY 1: SUMMARY
Warm-Up:
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Spiderman Rocks - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Split Stance Rock To Tall Split Kneel - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Core Activation:
Bird Dogs - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Russian Twists - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Main Movements:
Box Squat - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or your Bodyweight)
1.5 Dumbbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
Superset 1:
Lat Pulldown - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Incline Push Up - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Squat Thruster - 3 Sets 12 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of all three exercises
Superset 2:
Plank Shoulder Taps - 3 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Overhead Press - 3 Sets, 12 Reps on each side
Glute Bridge - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of all three exercises
DAY 2 - FULL BODY
WARM UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Wide Stance Rock on Forearms - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Toes Touch to Squat - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE
Plank - 2 Sets, 30 seconds
Air Bikes - 2 Sets, 30 Reps
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Deadlift - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or Kettlebell)
Barbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
SUPERSET 1:
Reverse Lunges - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of both exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Romanian Deadlift - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Seated Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Hamstring Walkouts - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of both exercises
FINISHER: SUPERSET 3
Walkouts - 2 Sets, 5 Reps
Lunge Driver - 2 Sets, 5 Reps on each side
No rest between sets or exercises
DAY 2: SUMMARY
WARM-UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Wide Stance Rock on Forearms - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Toes Touch to Squat - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE ACTIVATION
Plank - 2 Sets, 30 seconds
Air Bikes - 2 Sets, 30 Reps
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Deadlift - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or Kettlebell)
Barbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets
SUPERSET 1:
Reverse Lunges - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of both exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Romanian Deadlift - 3 Sets, 12 Reps (use a Barbell,m Dumbbells or Kettlebell)
Seated Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Hamstring Walkouts - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of both exercises
FINISHER: SUPERSET 3
Walkouts - 2 Sets, 5 Reps
Lunge Driver - 2 Sets, 5 Reps on each side
No rest between sets or exercises
How To Lose Weight As Well As Get Strong with PCOS
Over the years I have been doing this job I have worked with people who solely wanted to lose weight.
I have also worked with people who solely wanted to get strong.
And I have found that those who work on getting stronger first, usually lose weight and maintain it at a much more successful rate than those who only focus on losing weight.
And those who have PCOS also realise a whole new world of movement and empowerment by focusing on getting stronger as well. They have learnt to work with their body as opposed to against it.
They also enjoy their movement a lot more.
I have written about this topic extensively and I have much more in-depth guide on losing weight with PCOS right here:
When you’re dragging yourself to the Gym as a means to lose weight it can often feel like you are doing it with a weight around your neck. It’s a chore, it’s something you “have to do”, and the results never seem to come quickly enough.
When you approach your movement as a way of improving your strength, and not just your physical strength…but your mental strength, your emotional strength and your overall resilience, movement takes on a whole other meaning.
You embrace the challenge, you embrace the gift of your body.
Which is pretty epic.
So if you want a workout plan to solely lose weight, I am very sorry that doesn’t exist.
Yes, you do burn calories in the Gym, but nowhere near as much as you would need to create a deficit appropriate for you to lose weight.
You control your weight loss by controlling your energy balance - also known as a Calorie Deficit. On this website, I have extensive resources educating you and empowering you on how to execute a Calorie Deficit.
Articles like:
Any one of those articles will give you a blueprint to losing weight - and the article you are now at the end of is the blueprint for getting strong.
What’s Next?
Well, I suppose you had better get to the Gym to start your journey of getting strong…
However, there’s also some other things I would love to draw your attention to.
The first is my Facebook Group - which you can now consider yourself personally invited to.
It is called Straightforward Fat Loss and I would adore you to join - you can ask me direct questions there, I go Live once a week and jam on a topic. It also has lots of resources to help you make your Fat Loss journey as straightforward as possible.
You can also let me know in the group how you are getting on with these workouts - which would be one of the greatest honours I would have as a coach - to see you sharing your work with me.
If you aren’t on Facebook, we can still become friends and you can get just as many resources from me for your Weight Loss Journey with PCOS as if you were on Facebook.
Just send me a friend request using the form below - and I will be in touch immediately with you.
Thank you so much for reading my work, and good luck with your new gym routine and your weight loss journey with PCOS
I cannot wait to see how you go!
Coach Adam
How To Stay Active in the Winter - 3 Pillars for Success
A more succinct version of this article was originally published in Cove Magazine’s July/August Issue- which was a true honour of mine - to actually be published as a Fitness Writer.
It still feels very odd to me, being English, and talking about Winter in Australia over the months of June, July and August.
Right now the Northern Hemisphere is on fire because of incredibly hot temperatures - and I’m looking at buying a dressing gown to match my slippers as I’m really rather cold in Australia at the moment.
Just one of those other things that get turned literally upside down when you move hemispheres.
And it’s one of those things that you don’t realise will affect you as much as it does - moving your entire seasons around is weirder than you would believe.
However, I digress…
Cove Magazine asked me to write about staying active in Winter for them in their July 2022 edition, and I thought it a great time to publish this article on my website as well as before the Northern Hemisphere knows it - the heat will have calmed down and the nights will be drawing in, and you will be back to seeing your breath more often than not.
Summer only lasts a matter of weeks in England.
So I figured this would be apt.
This article focuses on a series of “Pillars of Success” that you should work on in order to help you remain active throughout Winter. The role of this article is to increase the chances of you being able to be active in Winter - as opposed to giving you a “by write” plan of what to do - because let’s face it - “by write” plans seldom work when you have to deal with that thing called life as well.
My job is to make things possible for you.
Not to tell you what to do.
Because I have never lived a day in your shoes - your experience of life will be individual to you.
But these pillars are designed for you to work on building that pillar up in your life to make the likelihood of activity increasing during the winter months a lot more likely.
Many people experience lower activity levels in Winter. As this study [1] in the Journal of Sports and Health Science found that 43.9% of people are likely to delay exercise in Winter compared to Summer which was 51.8%. Individuals who listed “Rain” as the adverse weather condition were 3.49 times more likely to delay exercising compared to “Heat” as the adverse weather condition and those who listed Ice and Snow were more likely to delay exercise compared to those who were just concerned with the cold.
And then again in this study [2] you can see the varied activity levels per season in 5085 participants:
So let's get to work on fleshing out the three pillars designed to help you succeed in Winter. On their surface they seem quite obvious and straightforward - but understanding the nuance of what is behind that surface will really help you strengthen your resolve and resilience in this field.
Before we get into it, I want to thank you for being here and reading my work. I want to thank you so much - that I would love it if you sent me a friend request so we can stay in touch a little more - and I can offer much more help to you than just this Blog Post. I will send you a Calorie Calculator, my book, free workouts and much more (some of which will be appropriate - some of which might not). So if you like the cut of my jib I have two options for you to become my friend.
Firstly just put your email address in here:
Secondly, you can join my Free Facebook Group called “Straightforward Fat Loss” - just click on the button below…
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR:
How To Stay Active in the Winter - 3 Pillars For Success
PILLAR 1: Get your Sleep on Track
- The correlation between Sleep and your Activity Levels
- How to Improve Your Sleep Hygiene
PILLAR 2: Understanding your Exercise
PILLAR 3: Managing your Diet
PILLAR 1: Get your Sleep on track
When it’s dark outside we tend to hibernate a little bit more – and this can cause very different behaviour relating to your sleep. For example, you might stay up later watching Netflix because you don’t feel as tired from the day due to a drop in activity levels as it is in Winter. Or you end up eating later into the evening causing your sleep to be interrupted at night making you less likely to have the energy to work out the next day.
The second your sleep is negatively impacted, your desire to remain active will diminish greatly regardless of the season.
In anything to do with fitness - whether you want to run a marathon, lose 20lbs or get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods, you need to prioritise your sleep. Ask any Athlete - the only way they can maintain their high-performance levels is through having very well-regulated and well-structured sleep.
Now I know you aren’t an Athlete. But it’s all relative right?
The Correlation Between Sleep and Activity Levels
There is a strong correlation between physical activity and quality of sleep.
As this study [3] shows:
“Twelve weeks of exercise training increased sleep duration and variables of sleep quality in adolescents. These investigators found exercise training to decrease NREM stage N1 (very light sleep) while increasing REM sleep, sleep continuity, and sleep efficiency when using polysomnography:”
This study [4] also found that:
“Regardless of the time of day, engaging in resistance exercise did improve sleep quality”
Makes sense right?
The more you move, the more tired your body will be and the better quality of sleep you will have.
So when that reduces, even slightly, during the Winter, it will have an impact on how restful your sleep truly is by stopping you from getting into that deep REM or Slow Wave Sleep.
This knowledge puts you in a catch-22 situation though.
Activity helps me sleep….Sleep helps me stay active…Winter stops me from being more active…
The key here is to just start somewhere. Try and get the ball rolling in some way.
Remember your goal is to be as active as possible throughout Winter, and we can improve your sleep in many different ways…
Want to find out Why Your Sleep Affects Your Body Weight?
Read my Blog Post that has helped hundreds of people get better sleep…and improve their fitness journey
How To Improve Your Sleep Hygiene during Winter
The rules here are the same as every other month of the year.
In my Blog Post “Why Your Sleep Affects Your Body Weight?“ I identify these 8 ways to improve your sleep:
Plan to get 8 hours of sleep a night
Sleep with the Sun
Exercise regularly
Listen to a Sleep Story
Listen to a Sleep Meditation
Put your phone down 60mins before sleep
Reduce Caffeine intake
Reduce Alcohol consumption
All of these stand true no matter what time of the year it is. However, Winter can cause issues with your achievement of some of these more than others and there are some that exist because of Winter that isn’t on that list.
So let me address that.
In Winter;
You will be more likely to eat more Comfort Food
On a cold winter day give me a nice hot mug of cocoa, any time of the day. Give me refined carbohydrates, and foods full of fat so that I feel like I am getting a nice warm hug from my food.
Added to that - a nice bit of Scotch or a Rum Toddy.
And plenty of Tea. I am English after all.
Or my Mum’s Roast Potatoes. Every night of the week.
During Winter we eat heavier meals - that’s just what happens. It’s not right or wrong, it is what we need. We want that warming hearty broth by the fire or the big bowl of Shepherds Pie to warm us through.
And we naturally consume more calories as we believe we are more hungry in the Wintertime too.
As this study [5] found;
“Daily caloric intake was higher by 86 kcal/day during the fall compared to the spring. Percentage of calories from carbohydrate, fat and saturated fat showed slight seasonal variation, with a peak in the spring for carbohydrate and in the fall for total fat and saturated fat intake. The lowest physical activity level was observed in the winter and the highest in the spring. Body weight varied by about 1/2 kg throughout the year, with a peak in the winter”
The extra calories aren’t so much of a problem, in relation to your ability to sleep, however, they might interrupt your sleep and you will wake up more during your sleep.
Added to this we also perceive ourselves to be more hungry in the Wintertime as this study [6] concludes:
“The subjects rated themselves hungrier at the end of the meal in the fall even though the larger meals resulted in a greater estimated amount of food in the stomach. In the winter and spring there was a strong negative relationship between the amount eaten in the meal and self-rated hunger at the end of the meal.”
This all means you are more likely to eat closer to bedtimes - as you feel like you are still hungry - and that will in turn affect how restful your sleep is once again.
Knowledge is power - and being able to understand this will hopefully help you make more informed choices throughout the colder months.
So when it's close to bedtime - and you are lurching for that hot chocolate before bedtime just asks yourself a series of questions:
Am I actually hungry?
If I’m not actually hungry what am i?
Am I bored?
Am I in need of a hug?
Am I stressed?
Am I anxious?
Am I feeling lonely?
What emotion is driving my hunger?
Will I be able to sleep without having this hot chocolate…if so do I then truly need it?
As you work through those you will be surprised how much you will realise you actually don’t want the Hot Chocolate, it was indeed something else - and then you will have a much more restful sleep.
Alcohol and Caffeine both affect your sleep negatively. They both stop you from being able to experience deep REM restful sleep which will in turn mean that getting your exercise in the next day will be just that little bit harder.
Try to drink water in the afternoons and evenings, or herbal teas. That will help greatly - although I do understand the need for a warm cuppa in the middle of winter.
In Winter;
You will get less daylight
Daylight is crucial to our body’s ability to release melatonin - the hormone that makes us sleepy and drowsy.
Your body needs a clear distinction between night and day. This distinction is critical in your ability to release melatonin appropriately to allow you to sleep well. This is known as a circadian rhythm - and it is mightily important we try to stick to it as best we can.
The key here is to make sure you still get daylight. Not necessarily sunlight.
I know the sun shines all of about 2 weeks in the UK - but unlike parts of Scandanavia you do still get Daylight - and that is critical.
Melatonin time and time again proves that it does indeed improve a person’s sleep, as this Meta-Analysis study [6] concludes:
“Our meta-analysis demonstrates that melatonin significantly improves sleep in subjects with primary sleep disorders compared to placebo. Melatonin reduces sleep-onset latency, increases total sleep time and improves overall sleep quality compared to placebo to a statistically significant degree.”
Therefore you want to do everything you can to make sure your melatonin is firing well for you - and this can be achieved without supplementation. To help with this make sure you are getting out and about in the Wintertime as best you can - exposing yourself to daylight at every opportunity. Get out for lunch, go for small walks, or even sit by a window despite how grey it might be just to get that extra dose of daylight to help improve your sleep.
The other aspect of this is regulating your sleep times. Avoiding daytime naps and making sure that your bed is a place for only sleep and sex will really help here. Even though it can suck to wake up at 5:30 am on a cold winters day (and trust me - I know it does I’m a Personal Trainer with clients all over the world managing many different time zones) making sure you went to bed at the same time each day - and you woke up at the same time will help your hormones, not just your melatonin, but all of your hormones regulate and function in a much better way - which is going to do one thing - help you have enough energy to exercise the next day.
In Winter;
You may be more stressed
The evidence here is quite inconclusive. I have seen a couple of studies that back up the notion of “Seasonal Depression Disorder” admitting there can be a slight increase in low mood through Winter, and there are other studies that say the difference is negligible to other seasons.
There is also one study [7] from Iran that concluded:
“Common depression was more prevalent in the parts of the country where cold and rainy weather was more abundant”
I also think colloquially we all seem a little more dreary in the Wintertime.
If nothing else it explains the English disposition.
And it makes a lot of sense to me - increasing energy prices in Winter, less socialising, anxiety around affording Christmas, and of course the lack of sunshine and the ability to enjoy the outdoors as much with shorter days will all play into the narrative of feeling lower during this time.
That within itself is just natural human behaviour; being denied these things will have an effect.
And the more stressed you are…the less you sleep.
For a whole multitude of reasons but this is physiological as well. In our brains, we have an emotional control centre called the “Amygdala” - and the more stressed you are the more active your amygdala is and when your amygdala is active your sleep is negatively affected.
I can’t very well tell you to just stop worrying about things that drive the low mood in the Wintertime. But I can very well tell you that a key to helping those feelings feel so prevalent in your day-to-day is to make sure you improve your sleep.
And to do that we need to process this stress properly.
And again here we end up in the catch-22 - as exercise is a great way to process stress - but as its winter - we know the likelihood of that happening is reduced.
So how else do you process your stress? There are many things you can do here - but that could be a whole Blog within itself…in fact, it is:
But here are some helpful bullet point tips from that Blog Post:
Understand you are not alone in feeling this way
Remove expectations from your life
Start with small things and build up from there
Acknowledge your wins
Get a plan
Another great tool here to process your stress and therefore allow you to stay more active in winter is to give yourself moments of stillness. Meditation can be a great tool in your toolbox when you need it and I know that when I am ever so stressed taking moments to breathe and just focus on that can really help me calm myself down and get ready to tackle the next task.
I have a series of Meditations called The Daily Stillness which you can get. by signing up right here
If you improve your sleep, even just a little bit, it will help kickstart the wheel to looking after your fitness during these darker months, and your motivation will return.
Pillar 2: Understanding Your Exercise
Within your fitness regime, it’s always very important to change your expectations based on the changing circumstances you’re facing.
To expect the same output from yourself in terms of energy for working out might be doing more harm than good for you over winter.
If you’re the type of person who gets energy from the bright sunshine it might be a good idea to have some self-empathy over the winter months and reduce the frequency with which you are working out, or the intensity, or both.
During the winter your ability to keep working out to the same intensity will likely be very reduced, for a number of reasons but mainly, you are cold, wet and miserable. That’s not good energy to be working out with and it will likely have an effect on how heavy you are able to lift.
Personally, when it comes to Winter, I would reduce the frequency with which you workout.
As this study [8] found:
“It appears that Reduced Strength Training frequency does not affect the maintenance of muscle mass and strength”
Reduced training is the key statement here. The study took 33 beginners to exercise and tested three groups. The three groups were divided into one session a week, two sessions a week and no sessions at all. Across the strength tests performed for the two groups that remained to train over a 16-week period, they lost no significant strength. In fact, even those who stopped entirely they lost 5% of muscle mass and 22% of strength.
Studies like this one [9] that showed when someone is completely immobilized they can lose 5-10% of muscle mass in just 10 - 21 days.
To combat this you don’t need to work out, you just need to keep moving. You still build muscle without working out. Moving builds muscle. That can be walking, it can be playing a sport, it can be working in the garden.
So if you can’t keep up the frequency of your normal regime throughout Winter then all you have to do is reduce the frequency, and try to keep mobile elsewhere in your life.
That will keep you ticking over nicely.
The issue with keeping active in the winter comes down to people taking a small break, and that break lasting for the best part of the year, as opposed to a few weeks with reduced frequency.
It is similar to going on holiday. No one is expecting you to work out on holiday, you should enjoy yourself when on holiday. But the reason many people think that holidays ruin their progress is because of their inability to get back into the gym when they get back.
They don’t realise 9 months have passed since their holiday - they just remember their holiday being the reason they stopped going.
Winter is three months long.
If you can keep going to the gym once a week for three months - you will lose no progress.
Then when the three months are over just back on track.
PILLAR 3: Managing Your Diet
It wouldn’t be a fitness article without the proverbial ‘eat a balanced diet’ would it?
But there is a reason a cliché is a cliche, because there’s always an element of truth to it.
Fundamentally calories give you energy to do things.
When trying to lose weight you restrict your calorie intake which causes a reaction in the body to move less. This is known as Metabolic Adaptation.
Simply put, the more weight you lose, the more your body will fight against you in your goals to lose weight. This happens through a number of processes but one that impacts us the most is that it makes you move less.
As this study [9] done in pre-meonpausal women found:
“Metabolic adaptation after a 16% weight loss increases the length of time necessary to achieve weight loss goals”
Your body loves being where it is at. This is known as homeostasis, and is one reason that weight loss requires a lot of effort, and combined with metabolic adaptation shows why it so many people don’t succeed at losing weight.
If you’re struggling with your energy levels in winter, and you’re trying to lose weight by reducing calories, then you’re compounding two problems.
I know we have spoken about trying to protect your energy through improving your sleep, but most people in the world don’t have as much energy in the Winter as they do in the Summer. That is simply human.
Therefore in Winter if you are chasing physique goals as well - as in trying to lose weight - you might be trying to bite off more than you can chew.
Lower Calories to lose weight results in less energy. Winter results in less energy, Then there will be less likelihood of you feeling like moving.
To combat this I strongly suggest, nay, I recommend exclusively that you increase your calories to maintenance. Give yourself a scheduled “diet break” enjoy eating a few more calories and all of the benefits that will bring you.
Read my article that has helped 100s of people understand maintenance calories a lot better:
The quickest and simplest way to find your maintenance level would be to take your Goal Bodyweight in LBS and multiply it by 14.
The other method is to keep adding 200kcals into your diet until the scale represents between 1-5lbs above where you started. This method requires much more adherence to tracking your scale weight, and trusting the rollercoaster that is tracking your weight regularly.
And yes. By increasing your weight to maintenance, the scale will go up for the period of time you do that.
But…if the aim is to do this as you try and continue to keep your workouts up, as you will have more energy with which you can workout with, then you will likely not notice an increase in body fat, as much as you think you will.
Scale Weight might well increase.
Body Fat likely will not.
Especially if you only do this over the period of Winter.
As you are increasing your intake, sadly I wouldn’t advise this all comes from alcohol and take outs. Rememebr the goal here is to help you maintain positive energy. Therefore please try and fill these extra calories up with lots of fruits and vegetables and other nutrient dense foods.
How To Stay Active in the Winter - 3 Pillars For Success
And that’s it…
Remember the goal throughout Winter is to keep your energy levels up by managing your sleep, exercise and diet a lot better. Which will in turn make your winter feel more of a success to you.
Increase your sleep and your diet as best you can, and allow that extra energy to keep driving you to being active.
Winter will make you want to move a little less, and being aware of that is one of the key aspects in helping you understand how to manage other aspects of your health through Winter.
Knowledge is power.
You know that Winter will decrease the likelihood of you being able to remain active, therefore you need to keep putting yourself in the best position possible each day to stay on track in the best way possible.
And above all, prioritise your sleep, that will make everything else more likely to happen .
And as always if you have any questions you only have to ask me.
To be able to do that don’t forget to send me a Friend Request by filling out the form below
I hope you found this article useful and that you enjoy the Winter.
I cannot wait to see you again soon…
Coach Adam
References:
Abram L. Wagner, Florian Keusch, Ting Yan, Philippa J. Clarke, The impact of weather on summer and winter exercise behaviors, Journal of Sport and Health Science, Volume 8, Issue 1, 2019, Pages 39-45, ISSN 2095-2546, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jshs.2016.07.007.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095254616300576)
Pivarnik, James M., Mathew J. Reeves, and Ann P. Rafferty. "Seasonal variation in adult leisure-time physical activity." Medicine and science in sports and exercise 35.6 (2003): 1004-1008.
Mendelson M, Borowik A, Michallet AS, Perrin C, Monneret D, Faure P, Levy P, Pépin JL, Wuyam B, Flore P. Sleep quality, sleep duration and physical activity in obese adolescents: effects of exercise training. Pediatr Obes. 2016 Feb;11(1):26-32. doi: 10.1111/ijpo.12015. Epub 2015 Mar 2. PMID: 25727885.
Alley J. R., Mazzochi J. W., Smith C. J., Morris D. M., Collier S. R. Effects of resistance exercise timing on sleep architecture and nocturnal blood pressure. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2015;29(5):1378–1385. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000750.
Ma, Y., Olendzki, B., Li, W. et al. Seasonal variation in food intake, physical activity, and body weight in a predominantly overweight population. Eur J Clin Nutr 60, 519–528 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602346
Ferracioli-Oda E, Qawasmi A, Bloch MH. Meta-analysis: melatonin for the treatment of primary sleep disorders. PLoS One. 2013 May 17;8(5):e63773. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0063773. PMID: 23691095; PMCID: PMC3656905.
Mirzakhani L, Poursafa P. The Association between Depression and Climatic Conditions in the Iran Way to Preventive of Depression. Int J Prev Med. 2014 Aug;5(8):947-51. PMID: 25489441; PMCID: PMC4258674.
Brad Jon Schoenfeld, Jozo Grgic, James Krieger. (2019) How many times per week should a muscle be trained to maximize muscle hypertrophy? A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies examining the effects of resistance training frequency. Journal of Sports Sciences 37:11, pages 1286-1295.
The Best Barbell Exercises and Workout For Beginners
The Barbell.
It can feel bloody intimidating if you are new to the Gym.
In many Gyms you will see scary looking men lifting scary looking weights, and that alone is enough to put someone off ever grabbing a Barbell for their own fitness journey.
You may well have seen stupid people doing stupid things with them on the Internet and it has put you off for life.
Or you may have seen this fella in your village and you thought…well
And that is a grave shame.
The Barbell can be one of the most empowering tools in the Gym.
There is something more magical about getting a Barbell off the floor or above your head compared to a Dumbbell or an Exercise Machine.
There is an aura about it, a feeling in the body that creates an equilibrium between strength and difficulty and you can feel your whole body just feel strong, empowered and confident when you achieve it.
And if you never explore that feeling in your fitness journey, then you are leaving one of the most important aspects of your workout behind.
This article will take you through a whole workout using a Barbell to help you learn how to use one safely, effectively and with confidence - but if you would like a lot more workouts from me, as well as becoming my friend - where I may send you things that make you smile, things that help you on your fitness journey and things that might be a little inappropriate - then please just send me a friend request via the form below:
Thank you for becoming my friend!
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The Anatomy of a Barbell
The value of using a Barbell
Different types of Barbells
The Best Barbell Exercises and Workout for Beginners
The Anatomy of a Barbell
When something is misunderstood in my life…I often find one of the most important things I can do is learn as much about it as is possible.
For knowledge is power - and the only way to empower yourself over something that gives you fear is to learn what to do with it.
Since moving to Australia I have adopted this policy on all things that might kill me - basically every animal in the country - however, I am yet to actually have to test my knowledge out when face to face with a snake - so let’s hope my theory holds up all the same.
The anatomy of a Barbell may seem a little “extra”. But when I learnt this I found it truly interesting - and it actually inspired me to go and work with a Barbell - something that up until that point I had actually tried to avoid.
Yup. Even as a Personal Trainer for the first year of my career I avoided using Barbells for myself and for my clients - simply because I didn’t know how they worked or saw the use of using one.
Even us Personal Trainers are working progress’s just like everybody else.
A conventional Barbell does not weigh 4lbs.
A conventional Barbell is also known as an Olympic Bar or “Olly Bar” if you are one of the cool kids - and they weigh 20kgs or 44lbs. They are 28mm in diameter and are usually around 7ft 2in in length.
Here is a breakdown of what it looks like:
Sleeves: These are where you put the plates on and load the bar.
Bearings and Bushings: These are designed to let the bar Spin which makes movements like the Clean and Press a lot easier to execute. If you have ever used a Barbell that isn’t an Olympic Bar you will notice it doesn’t rotate in your hands in the same way.
Collar: These stop the plates from moving in towards your hands.
Shaft: The main length of the bar that you grip.
Knurling: A rough hashed part of the Bar which is designed to help you grip the bar with your hands.
Knurling Marks: Two little smooth intersections in the knurling which help you judge whether your hands are evenly placed on the bar. They ar usually 36in apart.
Fastener: Holds the sleeves in place.
Endcap: A little bit of plastic which help hold the sleeves in place - also a good place to look to see what weight the bar is - as they can sometimes vary and it’s usually printed on this part of the bar.
There are two other elements to using a Barbell that I should mention:
Plates: The weight you add to a Bar. Can either be “bumper” plates or standard plates - for most Barbell work bumper plates are most common.
Cuffs: These keep the plates from sliding off the Barbell. They come in two forms “spring cuffs” or “clip cuffs”
Spring cuffs were one of the other reasons I didn’t use Barbells in front of clients because I struggled so much to put them on the bar and take them off the bar and I didn’t want my clients thinking I was too weak to do it (body dysmorphia alert!)
…until I learnt there is a technique behind it and it has nothing to do with strength at all.
And now - let me share that technique with you:
And thats all there is to what makes a Barbell a Barbell.
Pretty straightforward right? Now you know exactly what your equipment is made up of let me show you why they are such crucial pieces of the puzzle to your fitness journey…
STRAIGHTFORWARD FAT LOSS
My Facebook Group for anyone who needs a little extra support with their journey…
The Value Of Using A Barbell
There are studies galore that compare the use of a Dumbbell to a Barbell for building more strength - from what I can see the balance of the evidence would suggest that a Barbell can lead to you being able to lift heavier - but a Dumbbell is far greater at targeting a single muscle in more movement patterns.
Most people can lift about 20% more with a Barbell compared to a Dumbbell - as a Dumbbell stresses more stabilising muscles and thus takes away from your power in your lifts.
As this study [1] in the Journal of Trainology, which compared the velocity of a Barbell Bench Press to a Dumbbell Bench Press and concluded:
“Peak power output was significantly higher for Barbell than dumbbells at 50% and 70% loads.”
and
“Peak power output was reached at 70% of body mass with barbell and 50% with dumbbells”
There is also this study [2] published in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine compared a Barbell Bench Press and a Dumbbell Chest Flye for muscular activation in the chest.
The results were overwhelmingly in favour of the Barbell compared to the Dumbbell.
The study concluded:
“If the primary aim of the training is maximal mechanical stress (i.e., loading) and muscle activity of the prime movers, the authors recommend the use of barbell bench press and not dumbbell flyes”
To be clear I am not saying that Dumbbells are useless - and all well thought out Training Programs will provide a balance between all three modes of weight lifting - Barbell, Dumbbells and Machines - but what I am saying is that if you want to get strong and confident and feel empowered and lift heavier weights to expedite your progress in the Gym then you do need to start using Barbells in your training.
And they will help you gain muscle and strength faster than anything else.
This happens because:
As I said previously you can lift 20% more with a Barbell. You can Push, Pull and Squat more weight with a Barbell than you will ever manage to with a Dumbell. With my Online Clients I seldom get them to do a Goblet Squat heavier than 20kgs - because at that point it’s just too uncomfortable to hold - and when they move onto a Barbell Squat they can usually hit 30kgs really comfortably.
With Barbells you have the ability to use both hands for stability and the weight is evenly distributed over your body - thus meaning you can put more effort into the actual movement you are executing rather than losing energy trying to remain balanced.
You can incrementally increase a Barbell far easier than with Dumbbells. Most Dumbbells jump up in 5kgs increments across the body whereas with a Barbell you can increase in 2.5kg increments - this is important because to get stronger you need a Progressive Overload.
You can also get into position to lift a Barbell far easier than you can with Dumbbells. With a Barbell you can start with it racked in a position that will be the start of your movement - whereas with Dumbbells you have to nudge, flick, lift and knee them into position.
All of this aside, making your workouts both effective and fun is important for you ability to adhere to your training program - a huge part of that is variety - and by engaging with a Barbell you will make your workouts just that little bit less boring.
Moreover, when I lift a heavy barbell I get a greater sense of “HELL YEAH” than I ever have with a Dumbell.
I don’t know why.
But I do.
And that keeps me training.
Different Types of Barbells
There are many many different types of Barbells - which can confuse things a little bit.
They all have their uses and their drawbacks - but it’s probably a good idea to talk you through them just so you know what is what.
The Olympic Bar
Or the Olly Bar - if you’re a cool kid - I keep cracking that joke hoping that one day I will be a cool kid.
I went into this Barbell in the Anatomy of a Barbell section - a fair bit.
It typically weighs 20kgs and is best used for explosive movements like a Clean and Press, a Deadlift and or a Snatch. They are equally as effective for Bench Pressing, Rowing, Overhead Pressing or Squatting.
The Fixed Barbell
These are usually found on the Barbell Rack- and normally go up by 2.5kgs. They are a great alternative if you can’t lift an Olympic Bar to begin with because 20kgs is too heavy for you.
These are “fixed” as you cannot change the weight on the Bar without getting a whole new bar. Which makes them a less desirable option if you are building a home gym set-up. They are however awesome for beginners and for movements like Walking Lunges, as they are far less cumbersome than an Olympic Bar and are much smaller in length - so if you are moving and working out - then you are less likely to knock someone out.
Oftentimes Gyms will have these Barbells from 10kgs all the way up to 35kgs.
You can use them for any Barbell movement you wish to - just bear in mind they won’t fit on the racks for Bench Pressing or squatting as they aren’t long enough.
The Trap or Hex Barbell
Personally, I hate the Hex Bar. For one very specific reason: Every time I get one out I hurt myself. If the Olympic Bar is cumbersome - then the Hex Bar is like trying to get a double-decker bus through the quiet village of Castle Combe.
That being said - they are awesome pieces of equipment for beginners and anyone who wants to Deadlift but has lumbar spine worries or issues.
The Hex Bar distributes the weight of the Deadlift evenly around the body, putting less stress on your format loading which in turn creates less stress on your lower back as this study [3] concludes:
“the hexagonal barbell may be the better choice for barbell selection because of its ability to evenly distribute the load among all joints and reduce the moment at the lumbar spine.”
The Hex Bar also requires far less technical skill to be able to execute without you losing much effect on the body in terms of gaining muscle and developing strength.
Added to that this study [4] looked into a Hex Bar Deadlift vs a Barbell Deadlift and found some really interesting results.
It found that powerlifters could produce a great one rep max compared to the standard Barbell Deadlift and the Hex Bar caused greater peak force, peak power and peak velocity.
So a cumbersome choice, but a very effective one all round.
EZ Barbell
Anyone who has used one of these effectively will tell you - they aren’t easy at all.
Also known as a “Curl” Bar the bar is wavy which makes exercises like Bicep Curls and Tricep Extensions a lot more comfortable on your wrists and elbows.
I personally don’t do a lot of Bicep and Tricep Work but whenever I do with a Barbell I will always look for the EZ Bar as opposed to a straight or fixed bar as my elbows specifically prefer being slightly internally rotated when working the Biceps.
They are also useful as you can load any weights you wish onto them - just remember to clip the plates in place!
There are other variants of Barbells you can get - like Log Bars and Cambered bars, but they are seldom found in Gyms and unless you are getting very specific about certain aspects of your training you won’t need them.
The Best Barbell Exercises and Workout for Beginners
Now I will take you through a workout using only your Barbell.
It is a Full Body Workout which will hit every major muscle group in your body.
The workout is written thus:
A1,
B1,
C1, C2, C3
D1, D2, D3.
If exercises have the same letter in front of them eg: C1, C2 then you need to do them as a Superset - with no rest in between - and then rest once you have done each round.
For all other exercises please rest for up to 2mins between them.
In terms of the weights you should be lifting, you want to be working to a feeling of exertion to a level of around 8/10.
You should probably warm yourself up first…
Here is your Warm-Up. This was originally designed as a monthly challenge for my clients on the Strong & Confident Program - but teaching you to warm up is terribly important to me - and I, therefore, thought it would be a good idea to share it with you publicly too.
Warm Up Routine:
A1: Deadlift or Hex Bar Deadlift - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for up to 2mins between sets
I love a Deadlift. I think being empowered right at the start of your workout is terribly important - and it is a fundamental exercise to do for human movement.
If you prefer you can also do a Sumo Deadlift (video below).
This exercise works nearly every sinew in your body, and when you safely get the bar from the floor to your hips, it is incredibly gratifying.
B1: Overhead Press - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for up to 2mins between sets
I love working my shoulders. When you get that very heavy Barbell above your head, and you get yourself into a full lockout at the top - there are few greater feelings in the Gym.
Other than hometime.
Added to that, if you get this right, it works the Full Body as well, make sure you squeeze the Glutes the whole time to protect the lower back and use the upper back and chest to help you move that Barbell up and down…
C1: Barbell Bent Over Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
The Barbell Bent Over Row is a very challenging exercise for your hip hinge movement and your Core strength. It is great to build upper and lower back strength, and I use it very often in my programming for clients.
C2: Front Squat - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
I do love a Front Squat. The way in which it challenges your Core is fantastic as well as working your Legs and Glutes in a challenging way.
C3: Barbell Bench Press - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for up to 60secs before you go back to C1.
Again, a fantastic compound movement that will help you get strong through the upper body and in your chest. Make sure your feet are nice and stable on the floor, and you line your hands up using the Knurling Rings on the bar.
D1: EZ Bar Bicep Curl - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
The EZ Bar Bicep Curl is a great exercise for working those guns. Just like Dwight does…
It is also a fantastic exercise to protect your elbow from injuries such as Tennis Elbow and some shoulder injuries in relation to your rotator cuff.
I used to seldom program them for clients due to the fact that the Biceps Brachii are a very small muscle and therefore if your goal was Fat Loss I saw it as not being the most time-efficient exercise for your goals - especially when you consider the Bicep gets worked on in many other movements as well. However, I was wrong. Aside from Injury Protection the Bicep Curl should be in your workout programming somewhere at least - so that it can help you with all the other lifts you have to do as well. Remember even if your goal is. to lose weight, you should always focus on being as strong as possible as well.
D2: Barbell Romanian Deadlift - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
The RDL is a crucial exercise for your posterior chain and therefore your posture. This exercise will help you run, lift, stand and walk. The posterior chain goes from your hamstrings all the way up to your upper back - so I am sure you can see the benefit to the exercise.
Added to that if you want to work and develop the Glutes then this exercise has to be in your regime.
D3: EZ Bar Skull Crusher or Lying French Press
Rest for 30secs before you go back to D1.
I have no idea why this is called the French Press and I could take a guess - but I don’t really want to fall into stereotypes about French people - as it is a gorgeous country with lovely people.
But I’m thinking of something to do with baguettes…
This is a great exercise to work your Triceps and again requires great elbow control - just like the Bicep Curl. Having strong Triceps will very much help you with your Push-Ups, Bench Pressing and other pushing movements.
I Hope You Found This Useful…
And that’s it.
That is everything you need to know as a Beginner about a Barbell.
As I said before, I get it. I used to avoid using Barbells because I didn’t understand them - and I was a Personal Trainer at the time. But my goodness are they now a really important aspect of my training and what I ask of my clients on The Strong & Confident Program.
Please don’t be scared. You can adapt everything to suit your ability, and the benefits are worth it tenfold.
And as always if you have any questions you only have to ask me.
To be able to do that don’t forget to send me a Friend Request by filling out the form below:
Or you can join my Facebook Group where we talk all things Fitness and is for anyone who needs a little extra support with their journey…
I hope you found this article useful and that you enjoy the workout.
I cannot wait to see you again soon…
Coach Adam
References:
Jared D. Littlefield, Kellie K. Schramm, Jerry L. Mayhew, Comparison of lift velocity and power output between barbell and dumbbell bench presses, Journal of Trainology, 2021, Volume 10, Issue 1, Pages 5-9, Released on J-STAGE May 26, 2021, Online ISSN 2186-5264, https://doi.org/10.17338/trainology.10.1_5,
Solstad TE, Andersen V, Shaw M, Hoel EM, Vonheim A, Saeterbakken AH. A Comparison of Muscle Activation between Barbell Bench Press and Dumbbell Flyes in Resistance-Trained Males. J Sports Sci Med. 2020 Nov 19;19(4):645-651. PMID: 33239937; PMCID: PMC7675616.
Camara, Kevin D.; Coburn, Jared W.; Dunnick, Dustin D.; Brown, Lee E.; Galpin, Andrew J.; Costa, Pablo B. An Examination of Muscle Activation and Power Characteristics While Performing the Deadlift Exercise With Straight and Hexagonal Barbells, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: May 2016 - Volume 30 - Issue 5 - p 1183-1188
doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000001352
Swinton PA, Stewart A, Agouris I, Keogh JW, Lloyd R. A biomechanical analysis of straight and hexagonal barbell deadlifts using submaximal loads. J Strength Cond Res. 2011 Jul;25(7):2000-9. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e73f87. PMID: 21659894.
4 Week Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss: A Video Guide
I want to take a hot second to talk about the title of this post.
Whenever I engage in writing like this I always do some research on what title I want to go for exactly. I have an idea in my head, and then take to Google and start looking at things.
My first idea for this post was:
“Full Body Workout Plan”
Then I realized I am known as The Gym Starter and thought I better add the word beginner:
“Full Body Workout Plan for Beginners”
Which sent me into a wormhole of things like:
“Strength Training Routine for Beginners”
“4 Day Gym Plan for Beginners”
“Weight Lifting for Weight Loss Female Plan”
And then the title of this article popped out at me:
“Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss”
The reason this one popped out at me is that it combines my two loves when it comes to fitness.
And it puts those two loves in the order upon which I try to get all of my clients to focus.
Building strength first and then helping people achieve their weight loss goals.
This is why today I am sharing with you a four-week beginner strength training routine - with a video guide to help you feel comfortable and at ease when you go to the gym to do it.
I firmly believe in seeing you get stronger, and then allowing that strength to allow the weight loss to happen.
The foundation of a leaner body is muscle mass, not the absence of fat.
My coaching program is called The Strong & Confident Program and yes, it does help people lose weight, but it also teaches you to move better, learn to fit fitness into your life, and help you build a better relationship with food, exercise and yourself.
If that sounds like something you might need help with either right now, or you think you might at some point in the future then it’s probably a good idea you send me a friend request. You can do that by just putting in your email address below, and we can stay in touch that way….
Thank you for becoming my friend.
Now here are the workouts you are after…
4 Week Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss: A Video Guide
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR:
4 Week Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss: A Video Guide:
How This Workout Plan Works
The Workouts: Day 1 and Day 2
How To Lose Weight As Well As Get Strong
HOW THIS WORKOUT PLAN WORKS
How Many Workouts A Week Are You Going To Do?
This plan is two full-body workouts a week.
If you are new to working out, or even if you are just resetting yourself and getting back into it, the good news is you don’t need to be in the gym four to five times a week in order to get stronger and lose some fat.
You will make incredible progress if you can just get into the gym two times a week and work out with enough intensity for the next 3-4 months.
And this program is the start of that.
How Many Workouts Are In The Plan?
Two.
I am aware that variety can be important when it comes to working out, but variety is also counterintuitive to your long-term motivation and your ability to be consistent.
I could very easily come up with 8 different workouts for you, but that would overwhelm you. Each week you would have to learn new movement patterns, you wouldn’t develop the skill to get the most out of the movements you are doing and thus you wouldn’t be working to enough intensity for progress.
So there are two workouts.
These two workouts are designed for you to grow within them. They are designed so that by the end of the month you can see that you have improved:
The weight you are lifting
The form with which you are lifting the weight with
The amount of confidence you have from executing the plan consistently.
If you want variety, gain it by adding more weight, improving your form, and by trying to push yourself a little harder each time you do another rep.
The variety comes from your skill and development to achieve.
If you manage that, you will indeed make progress you never thought possible.
What Days Should I Work Out?
Don’t overthink this. In an ideal world you would have a few days between each workout so that you can recover fully from your last workout, and manage to then put your most into the next workout you do. But we don’t live in an ideal world - we live in a world where you have to balance an awful lot of your life against your health and fitness - so in truth, you have to go back to back days, then do, it won’t hinder you anywhere as much as you think it might or that the internet would have you believe.
When coaching clients I am always telling them to remember to balance what is optimal with what is possible.
We don’t all have the privilege to be optimal all of the time.
How Much Weight Should I Lift?
I can’t answer this in the way that you would probably like me to. I can’t tell you how much you can Lat Pulldown or Goblet Squat - and any program you find on the internet that tells you how much weight to lift - you should find another plan. Like this one.
I have never seen you move. I have no idea how strong you are.
But luckily in the Fitness Industry, we have a way around this.
It is called the RPE Scale. RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion and is a subjective scale upon which you can judge how hard you are working across a set.
Across both of your workouts, you want to work to an RPE between 8-10.
In terms of the weight you lift, I would say this:
You are probably stronger than you give yourself credit for, you are probably more capable than you think, and that capability will grow very quickly if you remain consistent.
READ MY ARTICLE THAT HAS HELPED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE NAVIGATE THE GYM MORE SAFELY
Progressing Through The Workouts?
As the weeks roll on - you should be wanting to progress your workouts as much as possible.
This will mean one of three things - you either:
Increase the weight you are lifting
Change the weight you are using
Change aspects of the form to make the lifts harder
You will adapt to these workouts, and therefore I want you to feel empowered to make the changes you feel you need to in order to make sure they remain challenging.
With some exercises, an increase in weight will not be possible, and therefore I would recommend you change the exercise you do.
Here is a list of adaptations you can try:
DAY 1
Box Squat -> Barbell Back Squat
Lat Pulldown -> Assisted Pull Up Machine
Incline Push Up -> Push Up
Glute Bridge -> Single Leg Glute Bridge or Hip Thursts
DAY 2
Reverse Lunges -> Split Squats or Walking Lunges
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row -> Single-Arm Dumbbell Row with a 1-second pause at the top
You can also change from Kettlebells to Dumbbells or to Barbells to help change the intensity and the variety of the movements you might do.
Do I Have To Do Cardio?
No.
Well, certainly not in the manner upon which you think you probably do.
I haven’t written any Cardio in your workouts for you.
I personally am a huge fan of walking - and if your goal is to lose weight, you are probably underestimating the benefits that walking for 20mins a day can have, and overemphasising the effect that a workout can have on your ability to lose weight.
Put as simply, you don’t burn anywhere near as many calories working out as you think, and you burn a lot more calories walking than you think.
This is why at the heart of working out to lose weight, the conversation has to be changed from working out to burn calories and lose weight, to working out to get strong and once your strength is built, good things will happen from there.
If you want to do Cardio, of course, you can. It won’t hinder your progress, it will look after your heart which I am a huge fan of. It won’t burn away all of your muscle. I promise.
And here is another dose of good news - you don’t need to do hard 5kms or sit on the recumbent bike for an hour - that hardly will fit into your life, will it?
You need to do 20mins a day - walking - at a pace that makes you feel like you don’t need a jacket and do need a bottle of water if it is late Autumn or Early Springtime.
How Much Rest Should I Take?
Rest is quite a personal thing.
I personally like quite a lot of rest between heavy sets, usually at the start of my workout. Then I can put the most effort into what I am about to do.
Then as my workout progresses, I reduce my rest between each set.
See how you go. Work to the maximum rest you can take at 2mins and the minimum to 30secs.
In the workouts, I have put rest between each set or superset - but they are just guidelines.
What is a Superset?
I feature Supersets quite a bit in this 4-Week Beginner Strength Training Routine for Weight Loss. For, two reasons.
Firstly they save time - and long gone are the days where you should be spending hours on end in the gym working out.
Secondly, they are a great way to get variety into your workout - and help stop the feeling of boredom
It basically means that you do one exercise, then the next exercise with no rest between exercises.
You can also superset three exercises together as a little circuit.
Warm-Ups and Cool Downs
In the workouts, I have put “optional” warm-ups.
I strongly advise you do them, but if you are short on time, you will probably be ok if you skip them.
They aren’t “walk on the treadmill for 5 minutes” although if you are short on time, and you need to just get in and get out, that is an adequate warm-up.
The warm-ups focus on developing mobility and improving your ability to work out in a much better way that will improve your results over time, and thus actually end up costing you less time - as you will make more progress quickly.
THE WORKOUTS
DAY 1 - FULL BODY
WARM UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Spiderman Rocks - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Split Stance Rock To Tall Split Kneel - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE
Bird Dogs - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Russian Twists - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Box Squat - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or your Bodyweight)
1.5 Dumbbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
SUPERSET 1:
Lat Pulldown - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Incline Push Up - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Squat Thruster - 3 Sets 12 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of all exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Plank Shoulder Taps - 3 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Overhead Press - 3 Sets, 12 Reps on each side
Glute Bridge - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of all three exercises
DAY 1: SUMMARY
Warm-Up:
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Spiderman Rocks - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Split Stance Rock To Tall Split Kneel - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Core Activation:
Bird Dogs - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Russian Twists - 2 Sets, 10 on each side
Main Movements:
Box Squat - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or your Bodyweight)
1.5 Dumbbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
Superset 1:
Lat Pulldown - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Incline Push Up - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Squat Thruster - 3 Sets 12 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of all three exercises
Superset 2:
Plank Shoulder Taps - 3 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Overhead Press - 3 Sets, 12 Reps on each side
Glute Bridge - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of all three exercises
DAY 2 - FULL BODY
WARM UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Wide Stance Rock on Forearms - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Toes Touch to Squat - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE
Plank - 2 Sets, 30 seconds
Air Bikes - 2 Sets, 30 Reps
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Deadlift - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or Kettlebell)
Barbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets.
SUPERSET 1:
Reverse Lunges - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of both exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Romanian Deadlift - 3 Sets, 12 Reps
Seated Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Hamstring Walkouts - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of both exercises
FINISHER: SUPERSET 3
Walkouts - 2 Sets, 5 Reps
Lunge Driver - 2 Sets, 5 Reps on each side
No rest between sets or exercises
DAY 2: SUMMARY
WARM-UP
The Worlds Greatest Stretch - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Wide Stance Rock on Forearms - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
Toes Touch to Squat - 2 Sets, 10 Reps on each side
CORE ACTIVATION
Plank - 2 Sets, 30 seconds
Air Bikes - 2 Sets, 30 Reps
MAIN MOVEMENTS
Deadlift - 4 Sets, 8 Reps - (use a Barbell, a Dumbbell or Kettlebell)
Barbell Bench Press - 4 Sets, 8 Reps
Rest for 2 minutes between all sets
SUPERSET 1:
Reverse Lunges - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Single-Arm Dumbbell Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 1 minute after completing one set of both exercises
SUPERSET 2:
Romanian Deadlift - 3 Sets, 12 Reps (use a Barbell,m Dumbbells or Kettlebell)
Seated Row - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Hamstring Walkouts - 3 Sets, 10 Reps
Rest for 30 seconds after completing one set of both exercises
FINISHER: SUPERSET 3
Walkouts - 2 Sets, 5 Reps
Lunge Driver - 2 Sets, 5 Reps on each side
No rest between sets or exercises
How To Lose Weight As Well As Get Strong
Over the years I have been doing this job I have worked with people who solely wanted to lose weight.
I have also worked with people who solely wanted to get strong.
And I have found that those who work on getting stronger first, usually lose weight and maintain it at a much more successful rate than those who only focus on losing weight.
They also enjoy their movement a lot more.
When you’re dragging yourself to the Gym as a means to lose weight it can often feel like you are doing it with a weight around your neck. It’s a chore, it’s something you “have to do”, and the results never seem to come quick enough.
When you approach your movement as a way of improving your strength, and not just your physical strength…but your mental strength, your emotional strength and your overall resilience, movement takes on a whole other meaning.
You embrace the challenge, you embrace the gift of your body.
Which is pretty epic.
So if you want a workout plan to solely lose weight, I am very sorry that doesn’t exist.
Yes, you do burn calories in the Gym, but nowhere near as much as you would need to create a deficit appropriate for you to lose weight.
You control your weight loss by controlling your energy balance - also known as a Calorie Deficit. On this website, I have extensive resources educating you and empowering you on how to execute a Calorie Deficit.
Articles like:
Any one of those articles will give you a blueprint to losing weight - and the article you are now at the end of is the blueprint for getting strong.
What’s Next?
Well, I suppose you had better get to the Gym to start your journey of getting strong…
However, there’s also some other things I would love to draw your attention to.
The first is my Facebook Group - which you can now consider yourself personally invited to.
It is called Straightforward Fat Loss and I would adore you to join - you can ask me direct questions there, I go Live once a week and jam on a topic. It also has lots of resources to help you make your Fat Loss journey as straightforward as possible.
You can also let me know in the group how you are getting on with these workouts - which would be one of the greatest honours I would have as a coach - to see you sharing your work with me.
If you aren’t on Facebook, we can still become friends and you can get just as many resources from me for your Fat Loss Journey as if you were on Facebook.
Just send me a friend request using the form below - and I will be in touch immediately with you.
Thank you so much for reading my work, and good luck with your new gym routine.
I cannot wait to see how you go!
Coach Adam
Diet vs Exercise To Lose Weight: What Is More Important?
Sometimes I like to think I have a secret.
A secret that no one else in the world will ever know.
A secret so important for the well-being of mankind that I’m scared to share it because it will just blow the minds of everyone and create a new world order.
This secret might be bigger than Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
It might change the world more than when Sir Isaac Newton discovered Gravity.
Heck, it might just change your life.
This is actually far more important to me than changing the world - which is the premise of this Blog Post. I can’t change the world at once - but I certainly can change the mind of one person at a time through words like these, and slowly over time that might help make a change in the world.
But if it doesn’t - at least we had this moment. You and I. And that means an awful lot to me - so much in fact that I would love to have a few more moments with you.
Without sounding too creepy - I just wanted to ask you to be my friend.
As your friend, I will send you some very important things, like educational material, inspirational material and maybe just some stories from my life which you can enjoy reading with a coffee, beer or glass of wine.
See - I told you we could be friends.
If you would like to send me a friend request then please just fill out the form below and I will be in touch once you have finished this article.
Table of Contents for:
What's more important Diet vs Exercise vs THIS to lose weight?
How does Diet help you lose weight?
How does exercise help you lose weight?
My secret: How does Imperfect Action help you lose weight?
Being Optimal is a privilege
To Conclude…
How does Diet help you lose weight?
I have failed to see a scientific study that doesn’t look at the topic of weight loss and explains that in order to create weight loss a Calorie Deficit must be achieved.
And I have read a lot of these studies:
“Health professionals recommend that individuals with overweight and obesity lose weight by reducing energy intake while maintaining a healthful diet” [1]
“Individuals interested in losing weight should continue to be advised to regularly self-monitor energy intake and expenditure as well as to create a consistent daily energy deficit” [2]
“Individuals can lose body weight and improve health status on a wide range of energy (calorie)-restricted dietary interventions” [3]
“With the increasing obesity epidemic comes the search for effective dietary approaches for calorie restriction and weight loss.” [4]
“Overall, for significant safe weight loss, an energy deficit was required, which was commonly achieved by reduced fat intake” [5]
“An energy deficit is the most important factor in weight loss” [6]
*She* sadly I don’t get to make sure GIFS are balanced…so please don’t get offended if you are a female reading this.
But I think you get my point when it relates to just how important a Calorie Deficit or Energy Deficit is for losing weight.
Being in Energy Balance you will maintain your weight.
Learn how to maintain your Calorie Maintenance Level in my blog post that has helped thousands of people so far
To create a Calorie Deficit you will need to do one of three things:
Adjust the energy in (what you consume through diet).
Adjust the energy out (what you burn).
A combination of both.
When I set a client up, who has a weight loss goal, I will always work on their dietary intake to create the calorie deficit first.
It is incredibly easy to overeat due to a number of factors.
Emotional Overeating:
It is not uncommon for us to use food to soothe our emotional state and thus compulsively overeat without realising it to meet unmet needs from our childhood [7].
Food is Addictive:
This sums me up pretty well, sat here, in a coffee shop, writing this post.
A study called "Food Addiction: Implications for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Overeating” concluded that:
“There is evidence to suggest that, for some individuals, food can induce addictive-type behaviours similar to those seen with other addictive substances” [8]
With this pretty awesome graphic attached:
This graphic also gives us great insight into other reasons we can easily overeat:
Stress
Social Difficulty
Cravings
Vulnerability
Impulsivity
Other emotional responses both positive and negative
You can see the complex web of why, when looking at weight loss as a goal for someone, we must always address Energy Intake.
There are also many studies that advocate for all different types of dietary control to aid weight loss.
Whether that is:
The Keto Diet (please do not do this and find out why here)
Intermittent Fasting
Low Fat, High Carb
Low Carb, High Fat
High Protein
Slimming World and Weight Watchers
Paleo Diet
Vegan Diet
Carnivore Diet
Vegetarian Diet
Celery Juicing
Essentially it doesn't matter what diet you do from a purely physiological point of view - if it gets you into a Calorie Deficit it will work.
This does not mean I am advocating for all of those dietary behaviours - I am simply informing you that they are all designed to create a calorie deficit. In fact, of that list, I would probably advocate for only one or two of them in general terms.
cough - I am a vegetarian - cough
But in terms of being able to adhere to it for long enough, to protect your relationship with food, or at the very least rebuild it, many of the diets I have listed will be absolutely damaging to you regardless if you achieve your goal or not.
And this is why diet is so very important in the discussion of weight loss.
You will eat every day, and relatively speaking it is easier for you to manage your food intake throughout the day to create an energy deficit than it would be to exercise.
Let us say you are working on a 500kcal deficit diet each day.
All else remaining equal, that is simply not having the Venti Iced Mocha with Whipped Cream at Starbucks each day which comes in at ~450kcals.
That’s an easier thing to adhere to than getting into the gym each day to try and burn 500kcals.
Its easier to learn an element of portion control and increasing lower calorie foods in your diet than it is to show up to the gym for 75 mins a day to burn calories.
It is better for your overall well-being to increase your vegetable and fruit intake to help create a calorie deficit each day than it is to panic about getting to the Spin Class at 5 am when you have a family at home - or a stressful job to go to.
How does exercise help you lose weight?
I’m not sitting here, denying science.
Exercise does burn calories.
But it doesn’t burn enough calories for you to get into a deficit each day irrespective of your food intake.
It is also incredibly hard to know how many calories you are burning in a workout. Believe it or not having a watch on, made by a computer company, isn’t that scientifically accurate, in fact, this study [9] found them to be up to 60% inaccurate.
The other issue I have with using the Gym to burn calories is that it creates a hamster wheel scenario.
When you get into the habit of burning calories in the gym, you also get into the habit of demonising food - and you end up on this perpetual path of trying to undo the calories you ate, which destroys your relationship with food and exercise.
In an average strength session, you will be lucky to burn 300kcals.
On a Cardio Machine you will burn more in the moment, but less over time - and the more you eat the more time you have to spend burning calories.
Which only damages how you feel both on the inside and the outside.
This is why it is incredibly important to separate the two.
Allow your diet to dictate your Caloric Deficit and make sure you exercise to get strong.
Not just in the body, but in your heart, in your mind, in your soul.
When working out, ask yourself:
Does this exercise make me feel stronger?
Do I feel accomplished for completing it?
Do I want to get that feeling again?
And if the answer is yes, regardless of calories burned, then you are exercising in a way that will make you feel good.
And that is what is most important in this scenario.
Exercise can help you lose weight in other ways too...but these take time.
Preservation of Muscle Mass
By lifting weights, you will preserve or potentially increase your muscle mass. Which over time will increase your metabolism because muscle is more efficient at burning calories than adipose tissue (fat).
When you only diet and eat fewer calories to lose weight, without exercise you will lower your metabolism by up to 20% [10].
As you lower your calories to lose weight, you need to work against this as a lower metabolism will not help you in the long run - and the best way to prevent this lowering from occurring is by lifting weights.
Regulation of Hunger Hormones
Our two friends: Leptin and Grehlin.
Grehlin is like a little gremlin that sits in your stomach and whinges at you telling you that you’re hungry - even when you aren’t.
Grehlin = Gremlin.
And in people with higher-weight bodies, their ability to control the production of grehlin is reduced - and their sensitivity to listening to it is increased.
This study called: “Acute Exercise and Appetite-Regulating Hormones in Overweight and Obese Individuals: A Meta-Analysis” [11] concluded:
“An evidence synthesis of the six studies on overweight/obese individuals indicated that a moderate reduction in acylated ghrelin occurs after acute exercise”
By exercising, the effects of grehlin are reduced and therefore over time will help you achieve a calorie deficit.
Now onto Leptin.
Leptin is the hormone that tells you you're full.
And its tricky. The more Adipose Tissue we have, the higher levels of Leptin in the body - but when levels are increased for so long, we develop a resistance to it.
Creating a “Leptin Resistance”.
This resistance is more prevalent in Obese Individuals and inherently runs through families [12].
And as you can expect…Exercise might be one of the best ways to combat Leptin Resistance as this study from the University of Oslo confirms [13]:
“Long-term changes in lifestyle consisting of decreased intake of dietary fat and increased physical activity reduced plasma leptin concentrations in humans beyond the reduction expected as a result of changes in fat mass.”
Which is a conclusion I love for two main reasons.
“Long Term Changes in lifestyle” is something I am on board with. There’s little point, to try and change things quickly for a short period of time hoping those changes will last a lifetime.
Engaging in long-term physical activity and reducing your dietary fat in the long term has better results for your Leptin Resistance, and probably your overall health (a fair inference) than just losing weight.
How I Like To View Exercise For Weight Loss
Use it as your guiding light, as a signal for you to stay on track with your diet.
I used to play badminton with my best friend - and after every session, he would want to go for a beer - which made no sense to me.
Yes. I enjoy Beer like the best of them.
But, I used to think to myself what was the point of slogging it out on a court for 90 minutes to then harm all of your recovery efforts with a couple of Beers.
I used the movement as a way of improving my willpower and my desire to keep my diet in better place.
And if you can do that over time - you will then see the effects and benefits of weight loss as a result of your movement.
Because it will lead to better dietary choices.
It will reduce stress which will lead to better dietary choices.
It will help your Mental Health which will lead to better dietary choices.
But either way, you are looking to use exercise to improve your dietary choices and create a better balance in your life in favour of your goals.
My secret: How does Imperfect Action help you lose weight?
This secret is the greatest superpower you will need in this whole “weight loss thing”
It is understanding the concept of imperfect action.
I think, it is fair to conclude that to lose weight you need to combine both Diet and Exercise to help you.
But knowing this doesn’t necessarily help.
Because as you can see, the complex hormonal balance in your body just from Leptin and Grehlin is a hard thing to control, combined with the fact that not everyone finds the ability to, or the enjoyment out of exercising in a manner that might be “optimal”.
I was on a call with one of my online Clients on the Strong & Confident Program the other day and I was explaining this concept to him.
He is a very high Politician in the UK - and as you can imagine he, therefore, has a very crazy life. He also sits on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee - and at the time of writing this - Europe is at War.
Nonetheless, he has big goals and wonderful aspirations and it is my pleasure to help him.
And at the moment, helping him the most is putting the brakes on him.
Telling him not to work out, rather than do more.
He wants to try and aim for four workouts a week - and I am having to tell him not to. I am a fan of four workouts a week, truly I am, but not when it means that you will only be able to do it for a few weeks, and missing workouts will have a bigger negative effect on your feelings of accomplishment and strength than only doing three workouts a week.
But no one needs perfection. You need consistency and setting up a system that
will inspire consistency over perfection is imperfect action at work.
I know one thing to be true for him, if he gives up, nothing will change - and therefore making sure that he is set up in a way that will not make him feel like he can’t stay on top of everything will lower the likelihood of him giving up.
There is a point of diminishing returns in all things we do.
When doing more, is actually counterproductive.
MRV stand for Maximal Recoverable Volume.
You want to get the best bang for your buck - especially if you struggle with adherence over time. Therefore staying where the curve is steepest is best.
Doing more isn’t worth it - and what determines what is recoverable is dominated by one thing: Stress. The more stressed you are, the lower the amount of maximal recoverable volume you will be able to take on.
And how much exercise do we know to be too much?
That’s determined by time - not necessarily the amount of workouts.
Previously I stated that I like clients to do 4 workouts a week - Upper, Lower, Upper, Lower.
However when I program this, I don’t program four hours of workouts.
I try to keep my workouts to 30mins of working to intensity for my clients. This would be the time outside of a warm-up and a cool-down, but from the load, they will really need to recover.
You need to keep between two and three hours a week.
That’s all you need to do.
Examples of Imperfect Action
Can’t get to the gym for an hour? Go for 30 minutes.
Can’t get to the gym for 30 minutes? Go for 20 minutes.
Want to have pizza for dinner? Order a massive salad with it too.
Have a night out? Maybe substitute Pints for halves. Mixers for Soda Water. Large Glasses of wine for Smaller ones.
When I was at Drama School we had to write our own film - and they bought in two professional writers to help us learn how to do it.
The very first thing, and most useful thing that these two writers told us was:
“Don’t get it right, get it written”
And that is the best way I can sum up Imperfect Action.
Nothing needs to be perfect or exact. Nothing needs to be optimal.
It just needs to be done.
If getting it done means it might not be perfect….then get it done anyway.
Do you know how many of these blogs I have written with spelling errors in them?
A fair few.
Because if I fretted over getting everything right all the time, I just wouldn’t get as much work done as I need to and I comprehend that the quality of what I write and how I help people is more important than the odd spelling error.
Over time, all of these imperfect actions add up. They compound within you, inspiring more action, more results and more motivation.
You see, no one gains weight from missing one workout, no one gains weight from eating one McDonald’s.
It is the build-up of these behaviours over very long periods of time that creates weight gain.
And therefore the reverse is true.
It is the opposite of the all-or-nothing mindset you need to approach this with, because all-or-nothing mindsets always lead to nothing - if that wasn’t true - you wouldn’t be sitting here reading this.
Tick off and sweat the small stuff more.
Being Optimal Is A Privilege
Privilege is a word that is banded around a lot these days. I do feel that sometimes it’s on the verge of being overused.
However, this concept is very important to understand when it comes to imperfect action.
In fact, privilege is important to understand full stop. I remember when I first grappled with this idea during the Black Lives Matter protests and it took a lot of interesting and eye-opening conversations to understand the concepts set behind my privilege.
I also remember my birthday in 2021 was almost ruined by being attacked online for “not understanding my privilege” when I commented on a post about how progressive overload works.
I was described as an “SIS White Man, who has a genetic advantage over the rest of the world and has never had to worry about his health and therefore has no right to comment or to help those who have had struggles I would never understand”.
I have a 7-inch scar down my chest, which I have had my entire life because I have to worry about my health each and every day. In fact, I was born with a condition that means I will have had to have gone through open-heart surgery twice in my lifetime - and at the moment, I am just waiting for the day I am told “let’s go in again”.
Never judge a book by its cover.
When you are on the Socials seeing people “succeed” you have no idea what privilege is afforded to them that isn’t afforded to you:
Genetic
Societal
Family
Occupational
Health - Mental and Physical
Financial
I used to struggle with this.
I honestly used to believe that if Chris Pratt could change his body the way he did, then I should be able to too.
But what that doesn’t take into account is the fact that I have a very different life to him.
He has chefs who manage his food each and every day.
He has Personal Trainers paid for by Hollywood Studios in order to make sure he changes the way he needs to.
He also has the allure of being able to put in the work because at the end of it is a $3m bonus, on top of actually being contractually paid to workout and change his body.
I do not.
He has a significantly greater privilege than me to help him manage his change.
And that’s not his fault, that’s not my fault.
Its just fact.
You may not have the ability to execute what is optimal - and understanding the concept of Imperfect Action is a release from the pressure of making sure you are “doing everything right”.
You need to do what you enjoy.
And setting yourself up for an optimal diet, an optimal workout plan and an optimal weight loss journey is more than likely setting you up for failure.
Because you simply do not have the privilege that is required for an optimal environment.
To Conclude…
To lose weight your diet is the driving force.
To help make that process easier. and more maintainable exercise is the driving force.
To make the journey as easy as possible with self-compassion and taking pressure off of your shoulders…
To allow you to coach yourself through the journey and to talk to yourself with self-love…
To keep your mindset in the place that will help you most…
Imperfect Action is the driving force for long-term sustainable habits that will build up over time and make it easier as you go.
The National Weight Loss Registry [14] is a database of over 10,000 members that have lost over 30 pounds and maintained that for one year or more.
They conclude:
98% of Registry participants report that they modified their food intake in some way to lose weight.
94% increased their physical activity, with the most frequently reported form of activity being walking.
There is variety in how NWCR members keep the weight off. Most report continuing to maintain a low-calorie, low-fat diet and doing high levels of activity.
78% eat breakfast every day.
75% weigh themselves at least once a week.
62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week.
90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day.
If you want to lose weight, I urge you to not look at the picture of one vs the other.
Diet vs Exercises.
This isn’t a competition.
It’s a blend of behaviours that create a bigger picture over time.
Balance everything always.
What’s Next?
I hope you found this article useful, and that you feel a lot better about your struggles at the moment.
If you would like to join my free Facebook group: Straightforward Fat Loss then click below:
Added to all of that, if you would like a Free Calorie and Macro Calculator then just put your email here:
References:
Tatiana Andreyeva, Michael W. Long, Kathryn E. Henderson, Gabrielle M. Grode, Trying to Lose Weight: Diet Strategies among Americans with Overweight or Obesity in 1996 and 2003, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Volume 110, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 535-542, ISSN 0002-8223,
Robert A. Carels, Kathleen M. Young, Carissa Coit, Anna Marie Clayton, Alexis Spencer, Marissa Hobbs, Can following the caloric restriction recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans help individuals lose weight?, Eating Behaviors, Volume 9, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 328-335, ISSN 1471-0153, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2007.12.003.
Thom G, Lean M. Is There an Optimal Diet for Weight Management and Metabolic Health? Gastroenterology. 2017 May;152(7):1739-1751. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2017.01.056. Epub 2017 Feb 15. PMID: 28214525.
Johnstone A. Fasting for weight loss: an effective strategy or latest dieting trend? Int J Obes (Lond). 2015 May;39(5):727-33. doi: 10.1038/ijo.2014.214. Epub 2014 Dec 26. PMID: 25540982.
Ramage S, Farmer A, Eccles KA, McCargar L. Healthy strategies for successful weight loss and weight maintenance: a systematic review. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2014 Jan;39(1):1-20. doi: 10.1139/apnm-2013-0026. Epub 2013 Nov 4. PMID: 24383502.
Kim JY. Optimal Diet Strategies for Weight Loss and Weight Loss Maintenance. J Obes Metab Syndr. 2021 Mar 30;30(1):20-31. doi: 10.7570/jomes20065. PMID: 33107442; PMCID: PMC8017325.
Miller KD. Compulsive overeating. Nurs Clin North Am. 1991 Sep;26(3):699-705. PMID: 1891402.
Adams RC, Sedgmond J, Maizey L, Chambers CD, Lawrence NS. Food Addiction: Implications for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Overeating. Nutrients. 2019 Sep 4;11(9):2086. doi: 10.3390/nu11092086. PMID: 31487791; PMCID: PMC6770567.
News.iastate.edu. 2020. Activity Trackers Not As Accurate For Some Activities, ISU Study Finds • News Service • Iowa State University. [online] Available at: <https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2015/08/19/activitytrackers> [Accessed 22 June 2020].
Fat facts. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2022, from http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/fatfacts.html
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“National Weight Control Registry.” Nwcr.ws, nwcr.ws/default.html
How To Love Exercise Again
One of the greatest DMs I ever got happened about 6 years ago when I was working in London as a Personal Trainer.
This wonderful human messaged me asking for details about my Personal Training…and I asked her why she wanted to work with me?
Her response was:
“All of your clients look like they are having fun”
Amy became a client for two years. Her partner and now fiancee…soon to be husband, and I can’t wait to see them get married...became a client for 3 years.
I miss Amy and Howard every day and when I got that message, it lit me up.
It got me in the feels.
Many many many of the friends I work with usually come to me because they believe that I have the key to helping them love exercise again.
They see my balanced approach, my forgiving tone, and my ability to program to their needs, and I think I make them feel safe and special.
As a Personal Trainer, my job is to make you feel two inches taller when you walk out of the gym than when you walked into it - sadly, just tracking your weight loss doesn't do that.
But rebuilding your relationship with exercise so that you can learn to love moving again is one of the most important things I can do for anyone who comes across me - and I want to help you improve your relationship with exercise.
And as you are here…I want to show you exactly how to do that here in this article. Show you precisley how to love exercise again.
But first, let's be friends. The fact you are here means so much to me. And if we become friends I’ll email you things. Sometimes they will be educational, sometimes they will be inappropriate, and sometimes I might just want to know how you are; either way…it would be delightful to connect with you.
Just send me a friend request by filling out the form below…
Oh, and I will also send you some free fitness goodies to help start our new friendship off on the best foot possible.
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR “HOW TO LOVE EXERCISE AGAIN”
Terminology Matters
Why are you exercising?
Releasing expectation: The All or Nothing Mindset
Ask Yourself How and What?
The Success Loop
Terminology Matters
I have to start here.
Not because I don’t think you need to learn how to talk.
But you probably do need to learn how to talk about exercise…
The words we chose, and the verbiage we work with each and every day is very very important. View the way you talk about movement in your life as micro messages for your relationship with it.
Words carry great meaning in our lives and if you are trying to rebuild a relationship - or even begin a relationship with movement then the words you use will frame the way in which you think about what it is you are doing.
And there are some key things you need to change here.
The fitness industry thrives from talking about extremes because extremes sell. They create a void between you and the outcome and therefore you will spend money on making that void smaller.
What the fitness industry sucks at in terms of its verbiage is balance - and the more you use words and terms that promote balance in your thoughts, the better your relationship with movement will become.
Say: “Movement” not Exercise
A paper called “Move Your DNA: The Difference Between Exercise and Movement” [1] which was published by the Journal of Evolution and Health in 2017 it outlines a very interesting concept between the two words of Movement and Exercise.
It states that: “Caspersen et al. (1985) define “physical activity” as “any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that result in energy expenditure” (i.e., calories utilized) and “exercise” as “physical activity that is planned, structured, repetitive, and purposive in the sense that improvement or maintenance of one or more components of physical fitness is an objective.”
The paper then goes on to define the movement as:
“Movement” is a term used abundantly in discussions about evolutionary health, yet has not been clearly defined—especially as compared to related terms like “exercise” and “physical activity.” However, the effects and benefits of movement are not limited to caloric expenditure and physical fitness; movement facilitates operations in almost every human system (e.g. immune, digestive, nervous)”
And it concludes with the proposed definition of movement as: “any motion that creates a change in the shape of a body or parts of a body”
Which is a phrase I like. A lot.
Previously I stated that words carry great meaning - and the word Exercise is wrapped up in feelings of struggle, punishment, diet culture, expelling calories, and Physical Education classes you muddled through and hated doing…
Whereas Movement.
Well, we all move. All of the time.
We all have to move all of the time, and therefore all movement matters.
When you look at your Workout Plans and understand that they are a very small concept of your overall movement for the day you fall into line with the Science.
And when you are trying to lose weight, being aligned with the science as opposed to being at odds with it will help give you perspective and allow you to rebuild that relationship with exercise.
When you workout you are merely burning 5% of the Calories you will burn overall for that day.
It’s a small piece of the pie.
But when you look at Movement in total it’s 90% of the calories you burn every day divided thus:
70% is your Basal Metabolic Rate - your metabolic baseline
15% is your daily movement outside of prescribed exercise - we call this NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis).
5% is your prescribed movement session or a “workout” (Activity Thermogenesis)
And when you can see your movement in this way, you see that all movement matters, all movement is important…and missing a workout really isn’t that big a deal.
In fact missing a workout should be seen as an opportunity missed to get stronger, not a moment where you failed and gained weight. When you see it as a missed opportunity to get stronger, you can easily recuperate that moment by doing one thing…giving yourself the opportunity again.
To learn more about your Metabolism please read my article that has helped hundreds of people understand the science of burning calories and help them improve their relationship with exercise
Food is nourishing, not good or bad
We have grown up in a society where we divide foods into two groups.
Food that is good for you, and food that is bad for you.
However, neither is true.
Foods can be more nutrient-dense and less nutrient-dense. Foods can have higher calories or lower calories. Foods can make us feel more energised or less energised.
And that is it.
Of all my clients on the Strong and Confident Program I ask one thing of them when it comes to diet, and that is to use their guiding light as the word “nourishing”.
Because there are times in your life when a Pizza (especially when there is Pineapple on there) is going to nourish you, and there are times when a Pumpkin Salad will nourish you also.
Sometimes you need to nourish your cells with nutrient-dense foods. Sometimes you need to nourish your emotions with food that is like getting a warm hug.
Both are valid and neither take you away from your goals, so long as you are giving yourself absolute permission to enjoy the food you are eating and therefore can enjoy it without guilt attached.
A key metric in being able to do this is understanding how much weight the human actually gains from overeating.
A study [2] produced by the American Diabetes Association looked at just this. It took 29 men and made them eat at 40% above their Maintenance Calories for 8 weeks every single day. This varied between 1200kcal and 1500kcal ABOVE their maintenance calories. Every. Single. Day.
In two months of overeating in a controlled environment, they gained just 9lbs of body fat, or 0.16lbs of fat a day.
By having some food when you need to nourish your emotions, it isn’t going to make you gain a stone overnight. It’s not going to derail all of your progress. This doesn't mean don’t take actions that help you process your emotions and your stress levels, of course, I would always recommend that, but one very key aspect of managing those stress levels when you are working towards a goal in movement is to comprehend what really happens to your body when you indulge, as opposed to what you think is gong to happen.
Say: Stronger, not Slimmer
This will be the title of my next book.
And yes, if you’re a publisher reading this please drop me an email, because I REALLY WANT TO WRITE THAT BOOK (adam@thegymstarter.com)
You have been told your whole life that slimmer is better. Thinner is sexier. But it’s not true.
The truth here is that getting stronger is more accessible to everyone.
There is this phenomenon in life called “Set Point Theory”. The fact it is referred to as a theory has always cast doubt in my mind about its validity, however, the more I have looked into it, the more I understand where the “theory” comes from and the truth behind it.
In this study called: Is there evidence for a set point that regulates human body weight?
”Taken collectively, these data provide evidence for the idea that there is biological (active) control of body weight and also weight stability (and thus a set point at a healthy steady-state) in response to eating healthy chow diets. By contrast, this regulation is lost or camouflaged by Western diets, suggesting that the failure of biological control is due mainly to external factors”
The study proposes that there isn't so much a “set point” but a range described as a “settling point”: upon which adult bodies exist at.
Colloquially I have known this to be true as well. When I became a Personal Trainer I dreamed of the transformation pictures I was going to create for my clients where they looked like totally different humans, but what I have found to be true is that in those photos you see on Instagram, they nearly always are different humans, or at least the photos are incredibly heavily edited.
I learnt this lesson about two years in when it just dawned on me that for the majority of my clients, who could afford Personal Training, they had a very set environment - a stable job, a stable relationship, a stable home life, very regular habits, and they were for the most part very comfortable in their environment - which meant when it came to losing weight with them, we were discussing losing a few pounds, not a few stones.
And surprisingly the clients who were the most consistent, the most engaged and the most interested in their fitness journey’s were those who focussed on getting Stronger - not slimmer.
The study cited above concludes that your body does have biological settling points, but it is actually your environment that is masking over what these true setpoints are - and changing your environment is really hard to do - because as we grow older we build our responsibilities on our stability.
I would also argue that the word environment refers to both internal and external environments. The study cited above only look sta the physical environment. But your mental environment here is just as powerful and must be dealt with as much due care and attention. The way in which you view yourself, speak about yourself to yourself and others is as much a part of your environment as the physical world you live in.
This is why getting stronger is a much more accessible way to focus your movement compared to losing weight.
Stronger, not slimmer.
It’s also why I created the Strong & Confident Program, not the Slimmer Is Better Program.
Say: Energy, not Calories
Calories are a unit of measurement of energy in your food. However, Calories are often associated with over restriction and/or overeating.
They can be used as a method to count your food amounts and therefore control what it is you are eating. This isn’t true in all cases with all people, I personally am a proponent of being Calorie aware, but if you are someone who is trying to learn how to love exercise again, or even trying to learn how to love exercise period, then focussing on calories might not be useful for you.
Instead, look at your food with a wider angle lens.
Look at it as Energy - and when you are managing your nutrition throughout the day ask yourself what kind of Energy do I want from what it is I am eating.
Sometimes that energy will be of comfort. Sometimes that energy will be of absolute nourishment. Sometimes it will be that of community.
When you view your food as an energy source, as opposed to a calorie source, you will choose foods that relate far deeper to your needs of hunger and nourishment compared to if you just focussed on the calories and the macros involved with the food you are eating.
Say: Exploration, not Right/Wrong
I repeat this message daily to my clients on the Strong & Confident Program.
I have to repeat it daily because in some cases for 50+ years they have been told that what they are doing is wrong - and what they should be doing is right.
Undoing 30+ years of micro-messaging from diet companies, fitness magazines, lifestyle magazines and modern media is hard work.
But its work that I personally see as an honour to have to do.
If you are familiar with my work, and that of Kamala, you will know the phrase you are about to read. If you are new to my work, then this is the single most important thing I need you to understand when it comes to movement and nutrition.
Are you ready?
““There is no right or wrong, just exploration””
You can’t get a movement plan wrong. You can’t get your nutrition wrong. You can’t get anything on a fitness journey wrong.
A fitness journey means that it exists without judgement.
If you constantly think that what you are doing is right or wrong, then you are constantly living in a world with judgement. You aren’t on trial, you aren’t in front of a jury - and if you think you are…then you need to recover that relationship yourself.
Living through judgement is very stressful, both internal judgement and external judgement - and this work can be hard enough as it is, without that added stress being added.
Why are you exercising?
And if it is to “put the ab in fab” then you need to stop. RIGHT NOW.
I touched on this above but I wanted to go a little bit deeper into this particular theme.
I have trained many many people who wanted to lose weight - and the reasons for this are multi-faceted. It could be because they want to look good at a wedding, it could be because they feel uncomfortable in their skin, it could be because they think losing weight will improve their self-confidence.
I want you to take a moment and think about when you have engaged with movement before. What was the reason you did it for?
“Did you want to lose weight because of ‘X’?”
And if so…ask yourself why can X only happen in the context of weight loss.
Why do you need to lose weight in order to:
Look good at a wedding? Feel comfortable in your skin? or have self-confidence?
The truth is that you simply do not need to lose weight in order to achieve any of those things. You need to be able to give yourself permission outside of losing weight in order to explore those feelings.
There are two great ironies in terms of weight loss and exercise.
The first is as I outlined above in the sense that it is counterintuitive to your metabolism to engage with prescribed exercise for the sole reason to create weight loss.
The second is that dieting undermines your confidence. You are literally pulling the rug from under your feet every time you diet. You are making yourself constantly question your validity, question your choices and question your freedom around movement and exercise in the name of reducing your body size.
As opposed to giving yourself permission to enjoy what it is you are doing, what it is you are trying to achieve.
This is why changing the framing of why you are wanting to move is really important.
Changing it from “to lose weight because of X”
To:
“Get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods”
This will take away food guilt and frustration because suddenly foods that were off your imaginary fat loss table are now in play - because to get strong enough to fight a bear, my friend, you’re going to need the calories and you will feel the need to choose foods that nourish your goals, rather than withdraw you from them.
100% of my clients who only moved to reduce their body size have all struggled to be consistent with their movement schedules.
100% of my clients who move to get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods have a relationship with exercise that is based on discovery and investigation.
A relationship with exercise that excites them with the possibility and releases them from the guilt of diet culture.
Losing weight may well be a consequence of their actions, but when they have a framing of getting stronger they see their movement plans as opportunities of growth, opportunities of development and opportunities of discovery.
And if you miss an opportunity that’s ok.
But when you believe that your movement schedule is the key to losing weight, and you attach the all or nothing mindset to it, then you will attach far too much guilt to missing a movement session which will eventually lead to you giving up and feeling like a failure compared to having a more balanced perspective.
Move to get strong in your body, in your mind and in your soul.
That is a much more inspiring message to tell yourself than because you want to fit in a dress because society deems that more acceptable.
Releasing expectation: The all-or-nothing mindset
When you approach movement and nutrition with an all or nothing mindset you always end up with nothing.
Extremes lead to extremes.
You may well be able to give your movement a 100% attitude for a period of time, but when you have done that, and you can’t keep up with it, like the vast majority of people who are not professional athletes can’t, then when you grind to a halt because of stressors in your life like work, family and other things, you again end up feeling like a failure and giving up.
Some people can give movement their all for 6 months.
Some people can give movement their all for 6 weeks.
Some can do it for a week.
But they all end up stopping when they believe that the only way to success is by giving it all.
Those who incorporate a balanced approach to their movement success end up being more consistent over much longer periods of time and being able to adopt a balanced mindset is much easier said than done.
How to adopt a balanced mindset to movement and nutrition?
My best piece of advice for this is to adopt what I call a wide-angle lens.
Zoom out on your life.
Stop listening to diet culture that makes you think that you should be able to lose 10kgs in 12 weeks. Stop allowing yourself to feel like a failure when you have a Pizza with pineapple on it because you believe it has made you gain 3lbs of fat.
Stop calling yourself fat.
You have fat.
There is a difference between those two statements.
You must comprehend and understand and truly internalise what I outlined previously about the body’s settling points. Great change of your body requires a change in both your internal and external environments, and that is not something that is accessible to all people.
But getting stronger is.
You must realise that one movement session will not give you muscles like Arnie. That one can of Spinach will not make you look like Popeye.
And that missing one movement session will not undo all of your progress.
Or that eating one bag of chips will not make you gain 6lbs of body fat.
Nothing in life changes that quickly - and that is a good thing.
I would even argue you could miss a month from moving and the progress you “lose” is finite.
By comprehending this, you will find freedom in both your movement and your nutrition. You will be able to give yourself full freedom and permission to enjoy foods you want to eat, and you will be able to remove the guilt and stigma from your life that is associated with your actions.
You will be able to find peace from second-guessing everything that you do - because you can begin to realise that it just isn’t that big a deal.
I’m a personal trainer, I have a roster of clients that rely on me every day for my expertise in this field, and there are times that I don’t work out, there are times that I eat pizza three days in a row, and there are times I may have alcohol every night - erm 2021 and lockdown is calling.
The only reason I am able to do this is that when I look at myself over the years I know that I have been consistent with my movement and nutrition more than not.
And consistent means at a maximum 25 days out of 30 in a month.
Not 30 days out of 30 - that’s perfection.
You will always need to have respect for your work, your home life, other demands on your being like socialising and travelling - and by making sure you have a wide-angle lens on what it is you want to achieve you will always be able to make movement and nutrition fit in around these things. But when you have the all or nothing mindset…when bigger priorities like paying your mortgage kick in, you will feel like you are letting yourself down, when in fact you are just being a beautiful human being.
There will always be pressure from all angles of your life - and therefore the more we can work on releasing pressure from your movement, you will be able to build a much better relationship with it. Take Kevin for example, if we can take exercise out of his hot pot, he might not be so overwhelmed and might not drop everything on the floor….and that’s the goal.
To view the movement as something that stops your cup from overflowing - not adds to your overwhelm.
I found this when looking for GIFs about Balance.
And it brightened up my day - I hope it does yours too.
Ask Yourself How and What Questions
You have more than likely seen many a Personal Trainer talks about your “Why?”. Some dude in a room in a gym that knows nothing about you pretending to give a shit about why you want to “get fit” and that his methods of Heavy Barbell Back Squatting will magically answer all the problems associated with your marriage, relationship with children and take out the stress from work.
This dude who is 25 years old, lives with his parents and has no idea how hard you find moving and how nervous you were to ever step foot in the Gym because well let’s face it, he has the empathy of a Goldfish.
Finding out about clients’ “Why” is nothing other than a sales tactic, and unsurprisingly it sets you up for failure. It focuses you on all of your insecurities, and it focuses your mind on fixing those insecurities.
It turns your main focus into a results-based solution.
A “why?” question is what’s known as an extrinsic motivational question.
And the issue with extrinsic motivation is that it fades quite quickly. Especially when the lived experience is not what your expectation was at the start. When those results aren’t as forthcoming as quickly as you think they should be, or when your life takes over and you can’t show up as much as you hoped, you think everything is going wrong and that you will never be able to achieve what you hoped for.
You need to get down and dirty with intrinsic motivational questions.
This is why as your Coach I would ask you different questions. I would only ask you:
How are you going to achieve your objectives?
What are you going to do to achieve your objectives?
And your mind will be razor-focussed only on the next week or two.
This way you throw yourself into a process.
Carol Dweck in her book “Mindset” states:
“Becoming is better than being”
If you really want to learn how to love exercise again the greatest thing you can do is forget about the why - and enjoy the process.
Become who you want to become. Rather than try to live up to being who you want to be.
You have probably heard Personal Trainers all over the internet tell you to enjoy the process without you actually being told how that happens. I know I have experienced this.
I have been told it so many times, I almost feel guilty that I don’t enjoy the process because no one showed me how that part works - they just told me to enjoy it.
No one actually laid it out for you in a way you can actually comprehend. But I am going to do that for you…
To truly enjoy the process you must see your movement as an investigation.
And each time you do a movement session, you will give yourself one goal, one new thing to investigate. Lifting weights and building strength is a skill. Developing movements is a skill, and skill is developed in one way.
Through mindful repetition.
There is a very famous quote that states:
“Repetition is the mother of skill ”
I would also like to add the word persistence to that quote.
“Persistence through repetition is the mother of skill”
Especially in relation to building strength.
It’s not just enough to repeat something, without being present with it, and in order to bring your mind with you to your workout, you need to investigate what it is you want to achieve.
When I was on Stage, one of the very best Directors I ever worked with every night at the half-hour call would come on the tannoy and announce:
“Your theme for tonight’s performance is X”
And he would insert a theme that he knew was a feature of the story, and he would want us to see how that thought would enhance our ability to tell the story for that evening’s audience.
The themes he came up with would be both technical and emotional:
Love
Money
Sex
Hatred
Poetry
Positioning
Listening
Friendships
Loss
Danger
Super Objectives
And the list goes on. Each night, we would allow this one word to resonate through our performance and see how that might change the rhythm and the presence of our performance.
Performing a Play for a total of one hundred performances is going to get monotonous and stale. There is a trap that many ensembles fall into where they just phone in the performance because they know it that well, and they can run it on auto-pilot.
Ever felt like that in the Gym? Of course, you have.
But your movement session should not be phoned in. You should try your hardest to not make it seem like you’re just there doing the work for the sake of the work - this can’t be avoided every time of course - but investigating a theme when you workout it can reduce the chances of this happening to you.
Investigation cues I use with clients are:
Develop the range of motion
Explore the floor
Root the Glutes
Stack your joints
Tempo
The feeling of strength
What muscle are you trying to activate?
Intensity of Exertion
How does one movement pattern inform another movement pattern?
Some of these are more complex than others, and some of them require more context than I can get into here on the Blog - they are always ongoing and deep discussions with my clients on how they can get the most out of their movement and develop the skill.
The Success Loop
In my article, “How Do You Get Motivated To Lose Weight and Exercise?” I outline the idea of the success loop.
The success loop is something I have designed to help people understand the science behind motivation and how they can make sure that motivation is the last thing they rely on in order to love exercise again.
Many people think that beginning fitness starts with Motivation.
They see their journey thus:
Get Motivated -> Take Action -> Get Results
However, Motivation actually works this way:
You take action first, then you get results and those results are what keep you motivated.
Or as I say it:
DO -> TRACK -> REPEAT
The Success Loop takes this one step further, and looks like this:
Here you can see I have added in a very important aspect of what continues to perpetuate your motivation to investigate movement - and it is education.
Because educating yourself can keep you inspired to carry on.
As you look to rebuild your relationship with exercise, I want you to think about how much are you learning on this journey. Heck, you wouldn’t have a hobby and not learn how to do it. Many many people think exercise is something you justhave to show up for, tick the box and away you go…
But when you start investigating what and how you are going execute your movement, you start to look at educating yourself in the process - and the more you learn, the more awesome your movement will become.
So read Blogs, follow people who focus on educating you, not showing off in front of you, question the choices your personal trainer makes with them and ask them insightful questions about how you move and why things are they way they are in your sessions.
Education leads to empowerment.
And an empowered human is a Strong and Confident human.
And Finally…
Before you consider everything in this Blog Post the heartbeat of how you move, what you move in what way and how to truly love exercise again is that you have to enjoy it.
At the very front of the success loop, at the very front of what you chose to do, before you even think about about what to do and how to do it you must ask yourself - what do I enjoy doing the most?
This whole article has been about how to change your outlook on movement.
To promote a more balanced view of fitness in your mind, because being imbalanced is probably the reason you feel out of love with movement in the first place.
Every human I have ever worked with, who had the sole desire to move in order to lose weight, has had an awful relationship with exercise, and we have had to do some really hard work to refocus them onto the thought of getting stronger and more confident.
Because there is nothing inspiring about reducing the size of your body.
You should love yourself more than having a mentality of diminishing yourself.
You should love yourself so much that you do things you enjoy - and learn how to enjoy them more.
Have fun. You deserve to have fun, just like Amy wanted to all those years ago.
And, in my most personal of opinons, that is a far more insipiring thought than going to the Gym to just burn some calories.
Did You Find This Useful?
Firstly I want to say a huge thank you for reading my article, and I hope it has given you some food for thought in relation to rebuilding your relationship with movement.
Across this website, I have other Articles all about managing your relationship with exercise:
I would also love to invite you to grab some free fitness goodies from me, including a free month of coaching on The Strong and Confident Program
You also have a unique opportunity to grab a Free Month of Coaching from me as a thank you for being here.
Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.
References:
Anon, Move your DNA: Movement ecology and the ... - escholarship.org. Available at: https://escholarship.org/content/qt1k6948g0/qt1k6948g0.pdf?t=q3qtt8 [Accessed November 14, 2021].
Johannsen DL, Tchoukalova Y, Tam CS, et al. Effect of 8 weeks of overfeeding on ectopic fat deposition and insulin sensitivity: testing the "adipose tissue expandability" hypothesis. Diabetes Care. 2014;37(10):2789-2797. doi:10.2337/dc14-0761
Müller MJ, Bosy-Westphal A, Heymsfield SB. Is there evidence for a set point that regulates human body weight?. F1000 Med Rep. 2010;2:59. Published 2010 Aug 9. doi:10.3410/M2-59
When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym
The Gym can be a very intimidating place.
And there are few things more intimidating than increasing the weights you lift.
Whenever I rack on a few extra KGs I still hear my Mum’s Voice:
“You be careful Adam!”
And I respond like my 14-year-old self with a “Yes Mother” in my own head.
Ask most people who haven’t spent a long time in the Gym, or working out, and they will tell you that a Gym is a dangerous place and that if you lift too heavy…you will hurt yourself.
Interestingly the most common person to be injured in a Gym is a 27-year-old male,:
“Patients' mean age was 27.6 years (range, 6-100 years); 82.3% were male”
And most of the time…they are trying to get the Pectoral Muscles and shoulders of a Greek God:
“The upper trunk (25.3%) and lower trunk (19.7%) were the most commonly injured body parts” [1]
And women, I’m not sure what you have been doing but…
“Females had a larger proportion of foot injuries” [1]
Actually, I found some footage that might explain this:
From 1990 to 2007, 25 335 weight training injuries were seen in US emergency departments, correlating to an estimated 970 801 injuries nationwide
That is four injuries a day that went to an Emergency Department - in the whole of the United States.
“The most common diagnosis was sprain/strain (46.1%). The most common mechanism of injury was weights dropping on the person (65.5%)” [1]
The Gym is a relatively safe space to exert yourself physically.
It's far safer than contact sport participation.
Don’t get me wrong, Social Sport and participation in a Group Sports Activity are very very important…so much so that after years of retirement, I have rejuvenated my career as a Football Referee here in Australia.
Yes. This is in Australia. I was promised sun and sand…its all lies…
Social Sport is very important for many aspects of your wellbeing - but mainly:
Community
Humility
Sense of Achievement
Enjoyable Exercise
Eye Hand Co-ordination
And I recommend everyone finds a sport they enjoy to participate in but you do get more injures on the field of play than you do on the Gym Floor.
This is mainly due to the duration of exercise and fatigue setting in.
However, the stigma around the Gym being dangerous, especially for non-gym goers is very real and very true.
The fact that the most common diagnoses in the Gym were sprains/strains leads me to believe one main thing that too many people are “upping the weights” far too quickly, or misunderstand how, why, and when to increase the weights they are lifting.
Thus leading to the 46% rate of strains and sprains.
So here we are.
Let me take you through when to increase your weights in the Gym, so it remains effective for your goals, sensible for you ability and above all lets you be in charge of the decisions you need to make when it comes to putting on 5 more kgs!
Table of Contents for “When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym”:
What are Sets and Reps? A Practical History Lesson
What Sets And Reps Should I Chose?
How much weight should I actually choose? And at what Intensity?
Progressive Overload
When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym
Bottom Line
To be able to explain and empower you to make strong and informed decisions about your weight training, I will need to first explain to you why we have different numbers for Sets and Reps. I’m a firm believer in understanding the systems in place, and why, so that when you make decisions on those systems you are making a much more informed decision.
I can’t simply tell you when to increase your weights in the gym, without first telling you the context behind the decisions that will determine the weights you chose in the first place.
If you want to know the Golden Rule for When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym - it is written at the bottom of this article. But I would encourage you to get the education and context you need to help you make a better decision when the time comes to lift heavier.
So here is your context:
What are Sets and Reps? A Practical History Lesson
Simply put:
A Set is one group of repetitions of a particular exercise you will perform, typically with rest after the set is completed and before you commence a new set.
A Rep is the number of repetitions of a single exercise you will do within a set.
So if you did 10 push-ups, in three separate non-stop goes with a rest time in between each block of push-ups, you have achieved 3 Sets of 10 Reps of a Push-Up.
The History of a Set
When I write my programs I play around with Reps more than I do with Sets.
I ask my online clients to typically perform 3 sets of each exercise or 5 sets of each exercise. But very rarely fewer than that.
The reason behind this is steeped in lots of Science that is very much agreed upon in the Fitness Industry.
In May 2015, a study was done on 48 men with no experience in Resistance Training and it split them into three Groups: 1 SET, 3 SETS, and 5 SETS.
Over 6 months the men trained 3x a week and the study found:
“that multiple sets would result in greater changes in strength and local muscular endurance than single-set training and that there would be a dose-response for these same measures were supported.” [2]
Concluding that multiple sets are more beneficial than singular sets in un-trained populations.
And as I am called The Gym Starter I suppose that is what I should educate you about.
This 2015 study also found that any number of sets was effective for Body Composition:
“The percentage of body fat was reduced significantly and FFM (fat-free mass) significantly increased in all training groups, with no significant difference between groups”
The whole 3 sets of 10 are quite an interesting story….
A physician 1948 called Thomas L. DeLorme prescribed 3 Sets of 10 Reps of resistance training to his injured patients to help with their rehabilitation, and he recorded his results. Once they were published, that was it.
3 sets of 10 Reps became “permanently etched into the collective subconscious of the fitness community.” [3]
So that is our default starting point thanks to Dr Tom with Sets.
The History of a Rep
You can play around with Reps a little more in a workout - which is fun.
Because different Rep ranges elicit a different response in the Muscle.
The lower the number of Reps you are working in, the heavier the weight you should try to lift.
Here are the Guidelines:
1-5 Reps = Power
Think of this range as “very heavy, very intense” just want to get strong AF. Lots of concentrated effort and it will tax your Central Nervous System a lot more.
(Intense being a word we will come back to later)
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 2mins
5-8 Reps = Strength
Think of this as granite strength. Not explosive power, but solid and stable, useful for sports performance.
Not as intense as Power, but still aware you have worked hard.
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 90secs
8-12 Reps = Hypertrophy
Your “Popping” muscles. This is the range you want to be in to grow your muscles and make them show.
This range increases Sarcoplasm in your muscle, which is responsible for 30% of the total makeup of your muscle.
This is why it helps make them look bigger.
If only it was as easy as eating a can of Spinach!
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 60-90secs
12-20 Reps = Muscular Endurance
This would be where you want to be if you are an Endurance Athlete. Training and building your muscular ability to train for an extended period of time.
If you are working on this aspect of your training, then you will be typically be lifting lighter weights, but for a longer period of time.
If you’re a runner, triathlete, or cyclist this is where you will want to be, as you will not only create more ability in the muscle, but it will also help your injury prevention.
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 60secs
The Bottom Line on Sets and Reps
Think of Sets and Reps as an intricate web that interacts with itself.
Just because you are doing 12 Reps of an Exercise as opposed to 8 doesn’t mean you aren’t getting stronger.
Or just because you only do 6 Reps of an Exercise, it doesn’t mean that muscle isn’t gaining the long-term ability for that movement.
Each Rep Rage is a guideline. A guideline that supports all of the others at the same time.
What Sets and Reps Should I Choose?
Like with most things, I like to keep it simple when constructing a workout and this can be overthought, over-philosophized, and over-complicated very quickly.
So this is how my brain figures it all out…whenever I am programming for one of my clients on my Strong and Confident Coaching Program
The guiding principle of my structure is Intensity.
I have to consider their Goals, Ability, and above all enjoyment.
Intensity guides everything.
I want my clients to be working most intensely when they have the most energy.
Intensity can be established in three ways in a workout:
More Sets
More Reps
More Weight
I will show you these looks in a workout, in a little bit. But first I will need to talk you through how to judge your Intensity - as that will tell you how and when you should increase your weights in the Gym.
But if you want a very quick answer to What Sets and Reps should I choose?
My best advice is this:
Pick an Exercise.
Pick something. Anything within the Rep ranges I have outlined previously for your goals: 3 Sets of 10 Reps. 4 Sets of 12 Reps. 5 Sets of 5 Reps.
Pick a weight - any weight you feel comfortable with - but err on the side of caution, to begin with.
Then execute. See how it feels. And amend from there.
The next time you come to do that exercise, try and do a little more.
You can do this by either - increasing your Reps, increasing your Sets, or increasing your Weight.
If you want to stay in a particular Rep range, for a particular reason - muscle growth, endurance, etc, then when you find your ability is exceeding the weight you have chosen, you can either increase the weight or increase the Sets.
Most people chose to increase their weight - because it’s simply more time-efficient.
How much weight should I actually choose? And at What Intensity?
When you are in the Gym, on your own, without an expert…it is surprising how good you will be at judging what weight to use.
You won’t always get it right.
Sometimes it will be too light, sometimes it will be too heavy.
And that’s ok…because you need to remember:
““When it comes to Fitness there is no right or wrong; just exploration””
Yes. I quoted myself.
Let’s move on…
Personal Trainers don’t automatically know what weights to choose for each client, we simply have the best guess….and amend from there based on the performance we see.
You too can only try something. And amend from there.
Once you have your starting point there is a guideline to let you know whether or not you are working hard enough throughout a given Set of movements.
Or the more accurate term for this is “Intensity”.
When it comes to resistance training you must apply a certain level of stress on the body in order to achieve the desired outcome. As in, its pretty pointless lifting 2kg Dumbells on a Bench Press if you aren’t working to the correct intensity.
A systematic review called ”Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods” on literature between 1996 and September 2019 which was published in 2019, concluded the following:
“Effective hypertrophy-oriented training should comprise a combination of mechanical tension and metabolic stress. In summary, foundations for individuals seeking to maximize muscle growth should be hypertrophy-oriented RT consisting of multiple sets (3−6) of six to 12 repetitions with short rest intervals (60 s) and moderate-intensity of effort (60−80% 1RM) with subsequent increases in training volume (12–28 sets/muscle/week)”
Now finding your One Rep Max (1RM) isn’t necessary to see results - and this study backs that up, as you need to be working to 60-80% of your 1RM.
How To Establish 60-80% Intensity
The guide you need to use to find this Intensity is called the RPE or Rate of Perceived Exertion Scale.
This is a subjective sliding scale from 1 to 10 which will determine whether or not you are working with enough Intensity in a Set to get the desired outcome.
When I write plans for those I work with Online I don’t tell them what weight to lift, I tell them what RPE to aim for - and let them decide for themselves whether or not the weight they have chosen, is creating a big enough stimulus on their body.
This is how we establish the weights you need to lift, without having a Personal Trainer there with you on the Strong and Confident Program.
The RPE Scale looks like this:
Throughout a workout, you want to be working through the RPE Scale in this manner:
Warm Up = 1-2 RPE
Main Movement For The Day = 8-9 RPE
Rest Of Workout = 6-8 RPE
Optional Cardio-Metabolic Finisher = 8-9 RPE
In an actual Workout that I have written for my Client Tim it looks like this:
You will notice that as the workout progresses the Target RPE drops. This is to account for fatigue over a workout. If you can keep the Intensity high throughout then be my guest - but remember it’s always a balance between what is possible and what is optimal.
If what is optimal might hurt you - let’s not do that.
The Main Movement in a workout is the most important part of your workout as well - which is why it has the highest intensity attached to it. In workouts, I write this is always a multi-joint compound movement, and if all a client does in a workout is that one exercise, to the desired RPE, then that is still a successful workout.
And then the rest of the workout is there to support my client’s goals from their fitness.
When it comes to what Weight to actually choose…as you can see there is no one size fits all. Everybody is different, and everybody is different, which is why I would encourage you to use a subjective answer as opposed to an objective one.
When it comes to increasing your weights - and crucially when to increase your weights…we need to discuss one more principle before we bring it all together.
Progressive Overload
Now, we need to go back to Ancient Greece, to learn about a Wrestler called Milo or Croton. Milo was the most successful Wrestler of his day, having won the Ancient Olympic Games, 6 times over. Milo was a six-time wrestling champion at the Ancient Olympic Games in Greece. In 540 BC, he won the boys wrestling category and then proceeded to win the men's competition at the next five Olympic Games in a row. He also dominated the Pythian Games (7-time winner), Isthmian Games (10-time winner), and Nemean Games (9-time winner).
In the rare event that an athlete won not only the Olympic title but also all three other games in one cycle, they were awarded the title of Periodonikes, a grand slam winner. Milo won this grand slam five times. [5]
So how did Milo build such strength and athleticism? Well, it comes in the principle of Progressive Overload - the core and guiding principle of any method of self-development, including building strength.
As legend has it, a baby Calf was born near Milos's home when he was a boy.
Every single day Milo put the Calf on his back and walked him on his shoulders.
Milo did this every day for four years.
The calf grew into a four-year-old bull, and as the animal grew so did Milo of Croton.
This is the guiding principle of strength training - to create a Progressive Overload over time.
As you can imagine your body will adapt to the same stimulus quite quickly also known as a “plateau”, therefore you need to change the stimulus to encourage growth.
Progressive Overload can be created in a number of ways:
Increase the weights you lift in the Gym
Increase the number of Reps you do
Increase the number of Sets you do
Improve your Form through an exercise.
Slow down the Tempo of your Reps or increase “Time Under Tension”
Do more workouts (to a point)
A 2011 study decided to test Progressive Overload.
Researchers found progressive overload — gradually increasing the weight and number of repetitions of exercises — to be effective for increasing bicep strength and muscle growth in both men and women. [6]
Every time you address a bar or a dumbbell, you should give yourself a thought, a task, a mindful check-in, to try and work on one thing on the progressive overload list.
Increasing Weight is always the easiest one to go for, especially as a beginner, but it is quite common to get caught between weights. I.e: 10kgs is too light, and 12.5kgs is too heavy for your Rep Range.
And this is when awareness of Progressive Overload comes into its own - by focussing more on form or time under tension at the same weight one day you will be able to make that 12.5kgs move like a hot knife through butter.
Drawbacks of Progressive Overload
With everything in life, there is a point of diminishing returns.
This is evident in a form of training knowns as German Volume Training - upon which you are expected to do 10 Sets of 10 Reps of an Exercise.
This study in 2017, found that with such a High Load of Volume the actual gains being made after 5 Sets were non-existent. Participants were just wasting time in the Gym and working out for the sheer sake of working out.
The study also concluded, which backs up the study from before when I was discussing Sets and Reps, that:
“To maximize hypertrophic training effects, it is recommended that 4-6 sets per exercise be performed, as it seems gains will plateau beyond this set range and may even regress due to overtraining.” [7]
Ergo more is not always better in the Gym.
Therefore always try to work within the parameters of what we outlined above in terms of Sets and Reps.
With regards to trying to achieve the principle of Progressive Overload, if you go for too much…too quickly it could have negative repercussions, injury for example.
Do it slowly, steadily, and surely.
The only other thing to add here is that the stronger you get, the more slow progression will occur.
“For males, baseline strength capacity appears to be negatively associated with hypertrophy, and thus stronger males may be less likely to experience the same degree of hypertrophic adaptation over 12 weeks as compared to weaker males.” [7]
This is why being aware of all of the aspects that can create a progressive overload is important because when you find you are lifting the same weight week on week, it can get demoralizing. So having other ways and means to demonstrate and experience progress is a great way to keep motivated.
When To Actually Increase Your Weights In The Gym
Now that you know why we do what we do when it comes to the Gym floor, you should be able to establish when it is sensible and logical for you to increase your weights in the Gym.
There are a lot of myths around this as well.
One of the most common ones is that you should “confuse your muscles”.
This is in a word:
Firstly, your muscles don’t have brains - so how can you confuse them? Secondly, there is ZERO Science to back up the Muscle Confusion theory. Thirdly, it will move you away from consistency and our bodies need consistency to be able to adapt. The more you change the less likely you are to see results.
If you really want to confuse your muscles, do it by adding a greater stimulus in a movement that you have been working on - as in - increase the weights you are lifting.
The Golden Rule is coming up…as promised.
I will now tell you EXACTLY when to increase your weights in the Gym
The Golden Rule is:
Increase your weights when in a Set you are no longer hitting “Target RPE”
By working towards your Target RPE you will be in the best position to strike a balance between the intensity required for growth (60-80% of 1RM) and your own personal ability.
Thus protecting you from Injury and still allowing Progressive Overload over time. RPE will take into account all the Progressive Overload factors, such as when you decrease or increase the tempo when you increase or decrease weight when you increase or decrease Sets and Reps your RPE should respond accordingly.
The human body can be a fickle system - especially when it comes to energy levels. RPE also allows for this. If you go to the Gym having slept well, fuelled well, and it’s early in the morning and you are full of beans.
You are likely to be able to produce more effort.
If you are sleep-deprived, tired, and just have no energy, you are likely to produce less effort.
RPE allows for these changes in your system and is more than likely still going to drive you to your goals as you will still be working to between a 60-80% intensity.
The Bottom Line
The answer to this question of when to increase weights in the gym comes down to balance.
You will always be balancing three main factors:
Your own physical ability
Your energy levels
Your likelihood to cause injury
Just walking up to a Barbell with an arbitrary number of KGs on it with no context or frame of reference as to whether you can actually do it, will likely not end well.
And this brings me to my last and final point on the topic.
Tracking your workouts is the key to your success.
You must track your workouts.
Without recording what you are doing then you will have no idea if you are actually making progress, or whether or not you are able to life the weight you want to set yourself.
Track the following data as a minimum:
Weight
Sets
Reps
RPE
If you write nothing else down - those four are the key to your success.
Then from there, when you see the Weight, Sets, and Reps staying the same - and the RPE coming down - you can increase your weights.
Or if you see the Weight, Sets, and Reps staying the same - and the RPE is increasing or not coming down - maybe take some weight off, and try to acquire the progressive overload in another way.
Time Under Tension
Higher Rep Scheme
More Sets
Add a workout into your week
The amount of weight you lift is your prerogative.
All I would ask is that you keep working hard, be consistent, and always try your hardest.
That deosn’t always mean lift more weight or always push yourself beyond belief.
Sometimes working your hardest can be just showing up.
Just remember to make sure every workout is effective to work to the Target RPE and adjust accordingly.
If you do that as each workout passes, you will begin to feel more and more like this:
Because really.
Thats the goal isn’t it.
Become Strong and Confident.
Be the Bad-Ass you were born to be.
Because you deserve to be.
Did You Find This Useful?
Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.
If you are interested in working with me then please click on the button below to leanr more about getting a free momnth of coaching from me:
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References:
Kerr ZY, Collins CL, Comstock RD. Epidemiology of weight training-related injuries presenting to United States emergency departments, 1990 to 2007. Am J Sports Med. 2010 Apr;38(4):765-71. doi: 10.1177/0363546509351560. Epub 2010 Feb 5. PMID: 20139328.
Radaelli, Regis1; Fleck, Steven J.2; Leite, Thalita3; Leite, Richard D.4; Pinto, Ronei S.1; Fernandes, Liliam3; Simão, Roberto3 Dose-Response of 1, 3, and 5 Sets of Resistance Exercise on Strength, Local Muscular Endurance, and Hypertrophy, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: May 2015 - Volume 29 - Issue 5 - p 1349-1358 doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000758
https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2012/11000/Thomas_L__DeLorme_and_the_Science_of_Progressive.1.aspx
Krzysztofik, M., Wilk, M., Wojdała, G., & Gołaś, A. (2019). Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(24), 4897. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16244897
James Clear. 2021. How to Build Muscle: Strength Lessons from Milo of Croton. [online] Available at: <https://jamesclear.com/milo> [Accessed 27 June 2021].
Healthline. 2021. Progressive Overload: What It Is, Examples, and Tips. [online] Available at: <https://www.healthline.com/health/progressive-overload#benefits> [Accessed 28 June 2021].
Peterson, M. D., Pistilli, E., Haff, G. G., Hoffman, E. P., & Gordon, P. M. (2011). Progression of volume load and muscular adaptation during resistance exercise. European journal of applied physiology, 111(6), 1063–1071. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-010-1735-9
4 Gym Workouts For Beginners Both Female and Male
The Gym. That place. With the lights on and lots of people who “know” what they are doing.
And you just don’t?
Well right now, as you are very much at the beginning of this article, you might not know what to do, and that’s ok.
But by the end of this article. You will feel confident, knowledgeable, and empowered to feel comfortable on the Gym floor and start your journey like the legend you are.
Read this article….and:
Continuing on our theme of creating legends - there is a ton of free help in this article - but I also send a lot of help to my friends. And I love getting new friends - I hope you do too.
And lets face it, if you are on my website, reading my article, as far as I am concerned you are already a dear friend to me.
If you would like me to send you some more help, like workouts, calorie calculators and lots of other things - some appropriate, some that are inappropriate (but that’s what being friends is all about right?) then please send me a friend request by filling out the form below.
And once you are finished with this article, you will have a message from me. in your Inbox confirming our new found friendship.
You have made a stellar choice
Table of Contents for “4 Gym Workouts for Beginners Both Female and Male”:
4 Gym Workouts for Beginners Both Female and Male
Myth Busting Your Fears Of The Gym — Overcoming Gym Anxiety
Gym Anxiety is caused by four main factors: Feeling uncertain, comparing to others, feeling judged, and feeling like you don’t belong.
The good news is that if you have ever spoken to a Psychologist or Psychotherapist they will all tell you one thing about feelings: They are temporary and can be worked upon to be improved. I’m not saying there is always a quick fix for your feelings, but knowing that you can work upon them to overcome fears and anxiety is a wholly positive thing. Therefore let's look at the causes of Gym Anxiety and then we can input a couple of strategies to help you
Fear #1: I Don’t Know What To Do In The Gym (feeling uncertain): Once upon a time in the world, that feeling was true of every human on the planet. Gyms didn’t exist and so no one knew what to do. How humanity got educated on the subject is that they explored. They picked stuff up, they moved their arms and legs in different ways to slowly establish what is now known as “The Human Movement System”
In the Gym, when it comes to exercise you must remember this:
“There is no right or wrong, just exploration”
— Adam Berry, The Gym Starter
If you still feel a little uncertain remember that hardly anyone in the Gym really knows what they are doing, but they do one thing really well.
They do what they enjoy and just keep repeating that.
And if you keep that at the heart of what you do, you will be just fine.
Another thing you can do is go into the Gym with an Online Coach in your pocket…that way you know you already have your number one cheerleader behind you, you have a plan all laid out, one that you have spoken about, read and learned and now you are prepared. And preparation protects you from failure. This is why in The Fitness Collective all my clients can print all their manuals off, or access them really easily on their smartphone so they know they have the power of the group behind them as they workout.
You can learn more about The Fitness Collective right here: https://www.thegymstarter.com/the-fitness-collective-sign-up
Fear #2: I can’t do what everyone else is doing so what's the point? (comparison):
“Comparison is the thief of joy”
— Theodore Roosevelt
It’s best if you stop comparing yourself to others as soon as possible, although that is easily said, not so easily done. But something that has helped my clients is the following phrase:
“Stop comparing your Chapter 1 to someone else's Chapter 14”
— Jordan Syatt
The gym is full of people. And rightly so, you have as much right to be there as anyone else does. But you have never walked a day in their shoes. You have no idea how long they have been going to the gym, what they do for work or the journey they are on. So stop thinking they are better than you, and you will never be able to catch them up…you aren’t supposed to catch them up. You’re supposed to be working on you, and that will take as long as it takes…and that's okay.
Fear #3: Everyone is Judging Me (judgment): This is a perfectly reasonable feeling to have and the truth is we have all felt like that. What is important to remember here is that everyone in the Gym is self-obsessed. They aren’t looking at you, they are looking at themselves.
Think of it like this: how much are you thinking about yourself when you go to a Gym?
Lots right? Well so is everyone else. Everyone else is thinking about themselves 1000x more than they are you.
Fear #4: Feeling Like You Don’t Belong: Every new environment is scary. Every new country you go to takes time to adapt to, every new house you move into feels a bit weird to begin with, every new job you start feels awkward at first.
But you don’t stop at the first sign of difficulty with those things, do you? You keep exposing yourself to it. You know that exposure leads to a feeling of comfort because the more you spend time somewhere the more normal it feels. This might take longer at the Gym than at a new office because you are only there for 1–3 hours a week. So if it has been a month or two, and you still feel like you are getting used to it, that is perfectly normal. You’re doing just fine.
4 Gym Workouts for Beginners Both Female and Male
How To Make The Gym Stick And To Remain Consistent In What You Are Doing
Here are some tips and advice on making the Gym Habit stick:
Have A Schedule — you must make sure you know when you are going to work out and have it in your diary. One of the biggest reasons clients work with me one on one is because they knew they had a session booked, and they weren’t prepared to let me down. You need to stop letting yourself down, put your workouts in your diary, and plan your day around them.
Have A Plan Of Action — The most successful Gym goers are working out on a plan. So make sure you have one ready. Get one off of the internet, to begin with, or join The Fitness Collective and get plans galore for your workouts. Knowing what you are doing is going to make you feel more confident in the Gym when you get there.
Keep A Packed Bag In Your Car — I know it sounds daft. But I have had clients have to cancel on me because they have forgotten their Gym kit. I’m sure you have a busy family life, and I’m sure you have a crazy schedule. So take another barrier away and always be prepared.
Join A Gym That Is Not Out Of Your Way — This might sound daft. But believe me, the difference between having a gym that is on your way to work compared to in the other direction of your house is huge. My Gym attendance skyrockets when I have a Gym that fits into my commute compared to when I don’t.
Don’t Rely On Motivation — I’ve spoken about this before so I’ll just leave my YouTube Video on the subject right here for you:
6. Make What You Do Fun — If you enjoy what you do you are more likely to do it and stick to it. At the heart of everything, enjoyment leads to adherence and adherence leads to consistency.
4 Gym Workouts for Beginners Both Female and Male
Four Beginners Workouts For Both Females and Males
There is no reason…no reason at all to split workouts up into female and male unless the female is pregnant and then there needs to be some other considerations. But in terms of Skeletal Muscle, and especially in terms of beginning a workout routine, we don’t need to change the workouts you will be doing based on your sex. But all of the main movement patterns that you will need to work on apply to both sexes.
But aren’t men stronger? When I write programmes for people that I don’t know I ask them to judge their workout using the RPE Scale. Which is a Scale between 1–10 and looks like this:
This scale is subjective. What one person might find as an RPE of 8, another might find as an RPE of 6.
Remember, there is no right or wrong, just exploration.
If you need more information on The RPE Scale then read this article I have written all about Home Workout and how to create your own one! https://www.thegymstarter.com/blog/2020/8/20/how-to-plan-and-design-a-home-workout-the-ultimate-guide
How Many Days A Week Will You Workout For?
This is completely personal to you. The main factor in deciding this is as a beginner is to do whatever feels the best for you. Do whatever you are enjoying the most, and that is all you should expect from yourself.
I will make all four workouts for you Full Body so that you can get the most from the time you are spending at the Gym, especially if its all still new to you.
I would expect these workouts to take between 30–45mins. If they take longer…don't worry about it. That is perfectly fine. There is no right or wrong…just exploration. I’d also love to say at this point that there might be exercises in these workouts that you find hard, difficult, or just too hard.
That’s ok.
If you need to substitute things in that work for your body then you can.
That’s ok.
If you don’t know what some exercises are, then research them.
That’s ok.
There are target reps on each exercise…but if you can’t do 12 reps of the weights you have chosen.
That’s ok.
Let your RPE dictate what weights you will do as much as possible, and you will learn to balance the two against each other.
If you still feel lost in the jungle of the Gym Floor, most Gyms and Trainers are willing to give you an introduction. Call beforehand, book yourself in with a professional and just ask the trainer to talk you through your plan. They will be more than willing to do that.
There is nothing wrong with asking for help. At the end of the day that is the sole job of Gym Staff: to make sure you are safe, to make sure you want to continue coming to the Gym, and to help you as much as possible.
It also shouldn’t cost you. Gym Staff have a duty to help you figure out exercises safely and machines safely in order to make sure you don’t hurt yourself in their venue. If they do ask for money…then drop me a message on Instagram (www.instagram.com/thegymstarter) and we can arrange a call to chat through everything and what to do in the Gym for you.
The Workouts
KEY: DB = Dumbbell, KB = KettleBell, BB = Barbell, BW =Bodyweight, Band = Resistance Band
KEY: Super Set = Both exercises with no rest in between, Circuit = All exercises with rest as stated, Tri Set = All exercises with no rest in between
Workout 1 — FULL BODY STRENGTH WORKOUT
The Full Body Strength Workout requires some Dumbells, some Barbells, and some Machines. It takes you through all three main movement patterns of Legs, Push and Pull and has a great little circuit at the end for you to do. With this workout, you are looking to be quite tired at the end of each set, and make sure you take your rest because the rest will allow you to put more into the next set you are about to do. Grab a weight that you find challenging, that you think will make it tough whilst keeping form and adjust from there. It also uses three different arrangements of your Sets; the traditional 3x12, Super Sets, and a Circuit.
Workout 2 — FULL BODY MACHINE STRENGTH WORKOUT
The Full Body Machine Strength Workout is there for you if you don’t quite have the confidence to pick up some Dumbells and Barbells yet. Just like the Free Weight workout, it will take you through all movements of Push, Pull, Legs, and again, take your rest so you can put in as much effort as possible over a set. Again, set the weights to levels you will find challenging without losing form.
Workout 3 — FULL BODY BANDS, BALLS AND BELLS WORKOUT
The Full Body Bands, Balls and Bells workout uses Resistance Bands, Medicine Slam Balls, and Kettlebells. This is all free-standing work and you will need to have a certain element of confidence when it comes to the Squat and Catches. However, to make that easier you can bounce the ball into the wall or just do a Squat and Press (Squat Thruster) with the ball. Again, this workout follows Push, Pull, Legs and includes two circuit arrangements. You need a good playlist for this workout so join me on Spotify here: The Fitness Collective on Spotify
Workout 4 — FULL BODY HIIT WORKOUT
The Full Body Beginners HIIT Workout should take 20–30mins to complete. Unlike the other workouts, as this will require higher loads and slightly quicker tempo you should maybe get slightly lighter weights. But again, exploration is key until you get the balance you are looking for.
If you are unsure about any of the exercises in any of these workouts, then please head to my YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/thegymstarter) where a lot of them are explained. Or if I haven’t covered them someone on YouTube will have.
4 Gym Workouts for Beginners Both Female and Male
Do’s and Dont’s For The Gym
I do not want to scare you into not going to the gym by giving you a whole bunch of rules that you need to remember as well.
So this is a list about how you will get the most out of what it is you are doing.
The Gym is your space to explore, but it is a shared space…so just remember its nice to be nice. These aren’t rules about whether you should train topless or not…yes…I have been in Gyms where this happens. Just be nice and courteous and you will do just fine.
But in truth, there is nothing you can do that will cause the building to burn down…except start a fire.
Dos:
Learn to enjoy yourself: This is your top priority, at the Gym. If you can master this everything else will come very easily for you.
Leave your ego behind: A Gym is a place where you are reminded of your humanity. It’s a fantastic equalizer between humans because everyone is there for one thing…improvement. You are in an environment of self-development…not narcissism. Behave accordingly.
Lift Lighter, rather than heavier: I always encourage people to pick up a weight they can move with confidence, rather than one that is just too big and bulky they can’t even get it off the rack. Erring on the side of caution will give you cause in those moments to improve your form, do more reps and give you a great sense of accomplishment.
Track your numbers: Seeing small changes bit by bit is very hard. That is why tracking your numbers at the Gym is really important. Your Sets, your Reps, your weight lifted, and your RPE. Over three to six months when you look back…you will be amazed at how far you have actually come…even though it might not feel like it.
Take a “Work In Process Photo” when you start: Every client I have ever trained has said the same thing when their weight loss journey has been a success: “I wish I took a photo 9 months ago”. I understand it can be well out of your comfort zone, but you will be so gutted if you don’t do it, and you throw yourself into working out fully.
For more information on what a “Work In Process Photo” is and how to take one then read this article that is changing the Fitness Industry’s views on Before and After Pics: https://www.thegymstarter.com/blog/2020/7/1/how-do-you-track-weight-loss-with-progress-photos
Be open to the idea of a challenge: It is meant to be hard. It is meant to be a challenge and it is meant to work you over. Remember it is called a workout for a very good reason.
“If your workout feels breezy, it’s too easy” — Adam Berry, The Gym Starter
Trust your instinct and listen to yourself — is Cardio good for weight loss? Well…do you enjoy doing Cardio? If you do…then do that. If a Lunge hurts your knees, then find an alternative that doesn’t…like a Sumo Squat. You are not a slave to your workout. It is very important that you find freedom within the structure. That means if you fancy going a bit off-piste then DO IT! It will help you develop independence and autonomy…and that is really important for your confidence.
Dont’s:
Think it will only take 3 months — give yourself the time you deserve. If you are getting into this with the idea that all your problems will be over in just three months…please rethink your timeline
Restrict yourself with short term goals — although I understand the sentiment of “losing weight for your wedding” or “getting beach ready for Marbella 2021” personally, I don’t think it's very helpful. It can lead you into very narrow paths of focusing just on your aesthetic health, and that can be a very up and down path to tread throughout your process.
Be disheartened if your workout sucked — we all have a rough workout, where we feel low on energy, low on mood and we are just going through the motions. This is one reason I want you to make sure the weights you are lifting is challenging you…it needs to be the sole focus of what you are doing at that moment in time. This is how working out keeps you in the present…and not thinking about next week's shopping list. If your workout does suck, just chalk it off, give yourself a pat on the back for getting something done and try to understand what happened to make it a bit more rubbish:
Maybe you had a tough day at work, maybe you had a bad night's sleep last night, maybe you hadn’t eaten something close enough to your workout so you felt a bit low on energy.
Let your environment stop you from achieving — not all Gyms are created equal. They all have different equipment and different machines. But Google is a wonderful thing, and if there is an exercise you cannot do because the equipment isn’t there just type in “[Exercise name] alternative exercise” there will always be another way to solve the puzzle.
Use the mantra “No pain no gain” — if you are in pain, STOP what you are doing. You’re an adult. I am sure you know the difference between a muscle working, and pain in your body. If you are in pain, or something hurts, listen to yourself and find alternatives away from the pain.
4 Gym Workouts for Beginners Both Female and Male
Conclusion
At the start of this article, I asked you to let me help you become a legend.
If you follow this format, your fears and anxiety about going to the gym, not knowing what to do in the Gym should be under control.
The key message to remember is that the Gym is there for you to explore yourself in.
There is no right or wrong.
Just be yourself, focus on doing the work, and allow yourself the time to change.
Give it two months…and I am sure you will be walking into the Gym like this:
And sending me an email saying…
“Adam…I cannot believe what I was scared of in the first place. Thank you so much”
And you will have made my day. Nay my week.
Good luck, Happy lifting and I can’t wait to see your progress.
If you want some more guidance and coaching from just £20/month then you can join The Fitness Collective right now.
-Coach Adam
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How To Plan And Design A Home Workout — The Ultimate Guide
I know this article is coming a little late into the “Lockdown” Home Workout Game…but cut me some slack. I did still have a business to run and build, and The Fitness Collective is now allowing me to sit down and write really helpful content for you. Like this.
The Home Workout. It’s a funny beast.
From where I am sat, it is something you know you could do. But it just isn’t that easy to actually execute.
And it doesn’t matter how many times you intend to do one, finding the right energy for it just seems elusive.
And I’ll let you in on a little secret…
During Lockdown I was really struggling to do Home Workouts too.
But keep that between you and me, please.
I’ve been writing Home Workouts for The Fitness Collective for many years now. From 10min Bodyweight Workouts to full-blown Programmes, and with great results I might add. Putting this format of a workout alongside their nutritional adherence to a Calorie Deficit here are some results:
From doing a minimum of 70mins a week I have had one client lose 26lbs. Another client has lost 14lbs by following this programme which I have laid out here. And using this format on the Gym Floor lost another client of mine 24lbs.
I know it works, and I have been using formats very similar to this for years as a one on one Coach as well as an Online Coach. This isn’t a program I learned in a book or even a method that I found out on some secret trainer coaching call.
This is a format I have been intuitively using with all of my clients for the last 5 years.
It keeps training fun, it keeps training optimal and it allows clients to feel progress but not feel overworked. It’s not a quick fix or a fast solution. It’s sustainable, achievable and the results stick over a long period of time.
There are a lot of issues out there with the way that many trainers structure and write a Home Workout for you, so my plan right now is to give you a plug and play formula, one that will challenge you every time you workout and will never get boring or too easy for you.
One that you can change at any moment if you wish, one where you can switch up exercises when you get bored of them or feel like you need a different challenge, however
This is way more advanced than a 20min Booty Workout on YouTube.
But because it's advanced, it doesn’t mean you aren’t going to be able to do it. It means this Article is going to take you through:
Table of Conetents for: How To Plan And Design A Home Workout — The Ultimate Guide
So if you’re ready…
How To Plan And Design A Home Workout — The Ultimate Guide
GETTING INTO THE RIGHT MINDSET FOR A HOME WORKOUT
Knowing that you are going to the gym to do a workout is quite straightforward, and although you will have good days and bad days with that, you still seem to have the right energy for it when you are there.
But at Home that energy doesn’t exist.
And this is perfectly normal. Many, many, many people struggle to workout from home.
This relates to something called Environmental Productivity.
When everyone around you is working on the same thing you sense that energy and it keeps you accountable for what you want to do too. It helps keep you motivated. It's like going to study at a Library, despite having a perfectly good set up at home. The energy about the place matches your driven desire for your action.
So how can you create a Gym Environment at Home to help you get motivated to do the workouts?
Try Cranking Up The Music
Gyms have specific music on for specific reasons. The ideal Beats Per Minute for a Strength Training Workout is 130–140 for each song. Here Spotify has done the hard work for you and it groups Music by BPM: This Playlist is one example of that.
If you want a Playlist full of inspirational music for the Gym which we use in The Fitness Collective then all you have to do is click here: The Fitness Collective Spotify Playlist
Use Stock Footage Of Other People Working Out
You can head to YouTube and just get rolling footage of other people working out. Put it on your TV and away you go…it will be like you are working out next to other people who are doing the same thing as you.
One Example of that footage is right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfWaGAgU4ms
Give Yourself A Journey To Your Gym
Lay out everything you need for the Gym. Your Weights, your Mat, your Towel, your Water Bottle, put the stock footage on your TV, and start your music playing.
Then leave your house dressed and ready to workout.
Walk around the block knowing that when you re-enter it is not your Home. It’s your gym. Just make the walk 5 minutes and treat it as your workout.
That way when you enter your home, you will see it as a different space, and it will feel more like a fresh space for you.
Peter Hall, the very famous RSC Director said:
“The first act of creativity is sweeping the floor”
That is what you need to do. Clear the decks and set it up as your Home Workout space. Then clear your mind and your physical state by leaving the space and returning with a different intention.
How To Plan And Design A Home Workout — The Ultimate Guide
Are Home Workouts Effective to Lose Weight and/or Build Muscle?
Let’s look at this a little more objectively.
Are you able to get to a Gym? If so…then go to the gym to workout. You can increase the loads and perform much more optimal exercises for your body.
I highly doubt you have a Barbell at home…
Are you unable to go to a Gym? This could be for many reasons. Maybe you are scared of the Gym or it makes you feel uncomfortable. Maybe you have young children and can’t find the time. Maybe you can’t afford a Gym. All valid reasons and understandable reasons for your desire to workout at home, and this is why working out at home can be effective for you.
If you do get intimidated by a Gym environment then please read this article which has helped hundreds of people overcome their fear: https://www.thegymstarter.com/blog/how-to-stop-worrying-about-going-to-the-gym
If you fall into the “Unable To Go To The Gym” demographic then yes…home workouts can be effective for you. But they aren’t going to help you lose weight or build muscle unless you are a beginner and experience those “newbie” gains.
In order to Lose Weight, you must be in a Caloric Deficit
In order to Gain Weight and therefore Build Muscle, you must be in a Caloric Surplus.
So in truth, we need to be asking better questions of your Home Workouts (your Gym workouts too).
Your calories will always determine your ability to lose or gain weight. Your workouts will decide how you feel about yourself when doing either of these goals.
We need to be asking questions like:
Will this workout improve my ability to move? Will this workout help me improve how I feel about myself? Will this workout increase my mood? Will this workout boost my confidence? Will this workout give me a sense of accomplishment?
And the answer to every single one of those is Yes. A Home Workout will do that, provided you continue to follow some key principles laid out in the rest of this article.
Using these questions is how I have managed to focus the minds of my clients which has allowed them to get such great results when they just workout at home. Clients who have worked for just 10mins a day, do it every day. Therefore over a week, they are getting in at least 70mins of exercise a week. This plan is based on doing more than that in terms of time, but less frequently in terms of days.
How To Plan And Design A Home Workout — The Ultimate Guide
What Exercises Should You Do In A Home Workout?
Exactly the same exercises you would do in the Gym.
Thanks, Ron.
Let me clarify.
When I build a workout for anybody I will focus it around three movement patterns groups:
Push / Pull / Squat or Legs
And your Home Workouts should be no different at all. The issue we have here is that access to your ability to Push and Pull will be hindered by the equipment you have available to you.
To accommodate for this, you can allow a bigger bias to your Leg Exercises, which will keep the workouts very challenging for you.
Exercise Selection will always be based around the Muscle Groups of Push/Pull/Squat or Legs and then you will choose exercises starting with the Compound Movements.
These are:
Primary: Squat, Deadlift, Pull Up, Bench Press, Overhead Press
Secondary: Incline Row, Barbell Row, Push Up
As you are working out at home, personally I believe you should be doing three Full Body Workouts a week. These should be between 40–60mins in duration. You can do more, you can do less. It is entirely up to you. What is most important for your training is that you put it into a format that you enjoy, and will, therefore, keep adherent too.
Consistency is and always will be the most important part of ANY training program.
The majority of your workouts at home will be Compound Work (Multiple Muscle Focus). However, you can sneak a few Isolated (Single Muscle Focus) Movements in there too if you so wish.
The following lists will have crossovers for your Muscles and may engage many other muscle groups as well…but that’s ok. Also, the following list is where I would start…that doesn’t mean that other exercises aren’t justified.
The numbers next to each exercise is a difficulty rating based on a beginner working out, 1=Easy, 5=Hard. The difficulty is always subjective and just because an exercise is rated as 5 doesn’t mean you need to avoid it. What you are willing to put into your plan is completely up to you and I would recommend you challenge yourself as much as possible, whilst feeling safe and having a sense of accomplishment from what you are doing.
We can also limit or increase the intensity of an exercise and that will be very important for you to manage as you write and develop through your program (more on this in the section “What Sets and Reps Should You Do In A Home Workout”)
An exercise with FB written next to them means you can use them as a Full Body Compound as well
Bodyweight Push Movements (Compound)
Push Up (4), Incline Push Up (1–3), Wall Push Up (1), Bear Crawl (3), Spider Climbers FB (5), Push Up Plank (3), Mountain Runners (2), Pike Push Up (4), Hindu Push Up (5), Long Plank (4), Full Plank (3), Cobra Stretch (1), Stop Press Push Up (3), Walkout FB (2), Burpee FB (5)
Bodyweight Pull Movements (Compound)
Bodyweight Deadlift FB (1), Good Mornings (1), Towel Row (3), Bird Dog (2), Supermans (1), Prone Back Extension (1), Renegade Row (3)
Bodyweight Pull Movements (Isolation)
I’s, Y’s and T’s (2), Prone T (2), Wall Angel (3), Cobra Wings (2).
Bodyweight Leg Movements (Compound)
Squat (2), Forward Lunge (4), Squat Jump (4), Split Squat (3), Sumo Squat (2), Bulgarian Split Squat (5), Split Squat Jumps (5), Squat Pulse (3), Split Squat Pulse (4), Sumo Squat Pulse (4), Reverse Lunge (2), Side Lunge (3), Walking Lunge (3)
Bodyweight Leg Movements (Isolation)
Single-Leg Glute Bridge (3), Glute Bridge (1), Frog Pump (3), Clamshells (1)
If you have one set of Dumbells or one Single Kettlebell at Home you can add in any of these exercises:
Please note these exercises are not rated for difficulty as it will depend on the weight you have at Home
Push Movements (Compound)
Floor Chest Press, Overhead Press, Floor Chest Flyes, Arnold Press, Seated Overhead Press, Floor Pullover, Squat and Press FB.
Push Movements (Isolation)
Lateral Raise, DB or Bodyweight Arm Circles, Front Raises.
Pull Movements (Compound)
Deadlift FB, Bent Over Row, Renegade Row, Seated Low Row, Single Arm Row, KB or DB Swing FB, KB Halo, KB Single Arm Deadlift FB, KB Single Leg Deadlift.
Push Movements (Isolation)
Reverse Flyes, Upright Row.
Leg Movements (Compound)
Goblet Squat, Squat and Press FB. You can also add weight to any of the Leg Movements detailed above.
Leg Movements (Isolation)
Romanian Deadlift. You can also add weight to any of the Leg Movements detailed above.
Own Preference Training
This refers to anything additional you want to work on. This could be an Ab Circuit, some additional Arm Work, some Mobility Focus, anything you want to work on that is additional to your Goals. For example, in The Fitness Collective, we run Exercise Challenges, and you could insert that here.
Putting These Exercises Into A Structured Workout
A good dynamic warm-up is important for working out if you went for a brisk walk beforehand that’s a great start, and then from there just go into some Squat Swings, Arm Swings and any form of light movement that gets the heart rate elevated and your limbs moving.
Then you are going to use this structure (please note RPE is explained in the next section):
Full Body or Leg Compound (RPE = 9)
Leg Compound (RPE = 9)
Push Compound (RPE = 9)
Pull Compound (RPE = 8)
Leg Compound (RPE = 8)
Push Compound or Isolation (RPE = 8)
Pull Compound or Isolation (RPE = 8)
Leg Isolation (RPE = 7)
Leg Isolation (RPE = 7)
Own Preference Training (RPE =7)
What About Rest Periods? Your rest period between each exercise will be determined by your RPE. Therefore if you found an exercise was an RPE of 9 you would need longer to rest as opposed to if it was just a 7. You can dictate your rest, as long as within each set you reach your desired RPE.
How To Plan And Design A Home Workout — The Ultimate Guide
What Sets and Reps Should You Do In A Home Workout?
This is where so many Home Workouts fail you.
The typical Home Workout will tell you to do one of these many things:
The HIIT Format
30secs of said exercise, 10 seconds rest, or 40secs of said exercise, 20secs rest, etc, etc.
The Strength Format
3 Sets of 12 Reps, 5 Sets of 5 Reps, etc, etc.
The Failure Format
Do every exercise to exhaustion
It is impossible for myself as your trainer, or for anyone else to know truly how many Sets and Reps you need to do to gain what you need to gain from a Home Workout. We have formats in the Gym Environment of what Rep Range you need to work for, for certain outcomes. However at home, as you more than likely won't have enough weight to challenge yourself to the desired outcome across a Set you will need to judge everything based on your RPE, not Reps.
Therefore you need to learn to develop how many sets and reps you are capable of doing whilst sticking to the desired RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) across the set.
What is RPE?
RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion. It’s a scale of 1–10 of how exhausted you feel once you have finished a set of exercises.
1 = you can do it all-day
10 = you need a 10-minute rest once you are finished
What RPE Should You Work For?
Across the whole workout, you want to walk away feeling like you worked at an RPE of 7–8.
One of the principles behind making workouts successful and effective is that of a Progressive Overload. This is the concept that every workout you try and do a little bit better than you did before. This could be: More Reps, More Sets, Longer Time Exercising, Better Form or Lifting More Weight.
When you judge a workout on your RPE your Progressive Overload is taken care of by itself as you adapt. Month One your 5kg Goblet Squat could be an RPE of 8 which is your target exertion level.
Then in Month Three, the exact same exercise, for the same amount of Reps might only make you feel like you worked at an RPE of 6.
When this happens you need to add in Progressive Overload. You can now improve your form, do more Reps, add in an extra set or add more weight to make sure you keep your Exercise at your target RPE of 8.
How To Structure Your Sets
You can structure your Sets however you want and in whatever format you desire.
You can stick to a traditional Strength Training Format which would be typically 3 Sets and as many Reps as you need to hit your RPE.
You can group the exercises into Circuits. The time for each exercise will be determined again by your RPE. If you find an exercise easier then do it for longer, or rest for a shorter time period. If you find the exercise harder then do it for less time, and rest for more time.
You can Super Set the exercises which is when you do two exercises back to back and give yourself no rest between each set.
To begin with, whilst you are figuring out how hard you are working over a Set to get your RPE then aim to work towards the traditional 3 Sets of 12 Reps format.
Or if you want to do a more HIIT Style of training use the 40 seconds on, 20 seconds rest structure.
How To Plan And Design A Home Workout — The Ultimate Guide
An Example Training Programme Based On This Structure
Here is a Training Programme you can take straight into your Training based on the structure I have outlined in this article.
How To Plan And Design A Home Workout — The Ultimate Guide
What Equipment Do You Need For A Home Workout?
Luckily, you don’t need a Golden Retriever to do your Reverse Crunches.
This Article has laid down a plan that should allow you to build some amazing workouts for yourself without any equipment at all.
I’m called The Gym Starter and part of that means I want to make Exercise as accessible as possible for you, hence giving you a plan that requires no investment other than your own body.
That being said, most people know someone or can get their hands on some equipment, and if that’s something you want to find out more then here is what I would personally recommend:
Dumbbells: They don’t have to be flashy but do need to be heavy and if you can get some they will certainly make your Home Workouts more interesting. I would recommend anything two 5kgs Dumbells or above.
5kg Dumbbells are heavy for many beginners especially when they are dong Isolation Exercises. But as you know by now, at Home we want to work as many Compound Movements into your workouts as possible, and 10kgs+ in those movement patterns is going to make them a lot more effective for your body.
Kettlebells: The exact same rules apply here as with Dumbells. A Kettlebell is a wonderful tool for your Home Workouts, but if you can only afford one KB, try getting a 10–12kg+ Kettlebell. This will make exercises like your Deadlift and Goblet Squat a lot more effective for you.
TRX/Suspension Trainer: If you can get a Suspension Trainer it will add another dimension to your workouts, especially your Back Exercises. They are super safe to use, hook over your door, and super fun too. An official TRX is quite expensive, but there are plenty of affordable Suspension Trainers on the Market, and I do recommend them to clients.
Yoga Mat: You will be doing a lot of floor work and making that feel more comfortable is important. If you are going to add in a lot of Ab Work in your Own Preference Training then maybe consider getting quite a thick Yoga Mat to just help with that.
Resistance Bands/Mini Bands: I do love a Resistance Bands as they are really cheap and can very much add a useful dimension to your workouts.
If you can add those three items to your arsenal of Workout Equipment then you will do very well. But you shouldn’t be spending 100s of Dollars on this stuff.
I always say to clients, lets see how you get on being consistent with just your Bodyweight first, then we can look at investing in some equipment. The last thing I want is for you to spend $200 on all of this stuff, and it just collects dust, making you feel like you aren’t achieving what you want, and therefore making you feel rubbish about yourself every time you come across it.
How To Plan And Design A Home Workout — The Ultimate Guide
Conclusion
Now it’s your turn. Go and be creative. Go and create your workouts and explore what your body can do.
You now have a format that you can adapt completely for your own individual circumstances and you can create a fantastic training programme for yourself at home.
Track your progress, write down your RPEs on every workout and when you get bored of a workout change either the exercises or the workout structure.
Here is a Blank Template you can download and use for your Home Workouts:
And that’s it.
Have fun.
And make sure you let me know how your progress goes.
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How To Do Your First Push Up For Beginners Both Female and Male
The Push-Up. The almighty exercise.
One of the most common questions I seem to be getting asked at the moment on Social Media is “How Do I Do My First Push Up?”
I think Lockdown has very much made people aware of just how effective this exercise can be for you but has also left many frustrated with not being able to achieve them…when they really are a staple of any Home Strength Training Programme.
In this article, my aim is to leave you with a plan of action to get you taking the necessary steps forward to be able to do one full push up on the floor.
But as you are here, I would love to expand our relationship and become friends with you by seeing you join my email list.
I’ll email you things. Sometimes they will be educational, sometimes they will be inappropriate, sometimes I might just want to know how you are; either way…it would be great to get to know you better.
So just fill in the form below and send me a friend request…
Oh, and I will also send you some free fitness goodies to help start our new friendship off on the best foot possible.
Now we are friends, I want to show you, my other friend who I worked with Online One to One:
This is Jess. A friend who I am incredibly proud of and who worked her socks off! We worked together for a number of years and as you can see she must have worked very hard for a very long period of time.
And she did. She is now a mother to a beautiful Daughter and has a gorgeous family to be proud of. When I was training Jess she used to get very impatient.
She wanted it now.
Like right now.
And she used to get so stressed at me on her coaching calls. We both used to laugh so much. We would talk things through and I would have to refocus her onto the process.
That’s the lesson here. Years of work went into her transformation. Years of her hard work and working on the process.
The Push Up is the same.
It requires practice. It requires patience and it requires moments of failure in order for you to be able to grow.
This isn’t a quick fix. This isn’t a solution to being able to do a Push Up in 30 days. It’s not possible for most people.
It is however a progressive plan to show your exactly how to achieve that push up…in however ling the process takes.
Your result will be amazing…but just like my friend Jess…you won’t get there if you don’t go through the process.
If you want to find out how to work wit me one to one, just like Jess, then just click here:
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: “How To Do Your First Push Up For Beginners Both Female and Male”
Just a moment before we begin…
Before we get into it, I have already written an article on Push-Ups; but that article relates a lot to the Psychology of a Push-Up and the physiology behind them. It took me 15 years to be able to do one Full Push Up and that was the focus of the article which you can read here: https://www.thegymstarter.com/blog/how-to-do-a-push-up
How To Do Your First Push Up For Beginners Both Female and Male
Why The Push Up Is A Very Hard Exercise
I know you are raring and chomping at the bit to get to push yourself off of the floor.
But we need to cover some basics first.
And no…it’s not Health and Safety stuff…
But it’s about what the Push Up is as an exercise.
Personally I have learned to fall in love with them, but it’s taken me 15 years to.
Many, many, many of those years are littered with failed attempts.
This was me in High School. The kid who just couldn’t “do it”. That stigma stayed with me for years.
You see, a Push Up gets harder as you do the exercise. In the Up Position, you are lifting 69% of your own Bodyweight.
As you descend the exercise gets harder…
And at the bottom of the Push-Up, you are lifting 75% of your Bodyweight.
Take a minute, and just calculate 75% of your body weight in Kgs.
It’s heavy right? Its more than you can Bench Press, Overhead Press, and might be the heaviest weight you have ever tried to lift.
This is important to know because it means two things:
It’s a very very heavy lift.
You’re going to have to work hard to get your first one!
But now that’s clear…let me show you how to do your first push up, whether you are a man or a woman…the rules are the same.
How To Do Your First Push Up For Beginners Both Female and Male
How Do You Get Your First Push Up?
Here is your Push Up Plan.
Firstly, you are going to need to commit to practicing Push-Ups at least three times a week.
If you aren’t willing to do that…then stop reading.
Secondly, you are going to have to realize it will take as long as it takes. I would love to say to you this will take you 30 days…but I can’t make a promise I cannot 100% keep. The process will take as long as it takes, but it will work.
You can now release yourself from the prison of time and just enjoy the process.
Muscles Required In The Push-Up
The Push Up works a whole host of your muscles:
On the above image, you can see that you are requiring a lot of whole-body strength for the movement…these are the muscles that take the most load:
Pectoralis Major = Big Chest Muscle
Triceps Brachii = Tricep
Anterior Deltoid = Back of the Shoulder
Upper Trapezius = Upper Back/Low Shoulder
Serratus Anterior = Under Your Armpit on your Rib Cage
Rectus Abdominis = Your Abs
This shows you how much strength all around your body you need, with the most strength coming from your chest, arms, and shoulders.
How To Do Your First Push Up For Beginners Both Female and Male
Step by Step Guide To Get Your First Push Up For Beginners
This is why in order to do a Push Up you want to make sure you are following a strength training program, that is based around your Compound Movements (Squat/Deadlift/Bench Press/Pull Up/Overhead Press) as that will help you build the strength in your whole body, something you will need.
This Program would look like this:
2 Day Split: Full Body/Full Body
3 Day Split: Legs/Push/Pull or Full Body/Full Body/Full Body
4 Day Split: Legs/Push/Pull/Full Body
5 Day Split: Full Body/Push/Pull/Legs/Full Body
Then once you have that in place, you are going to practice Push-Ups every single workout, at the start of your workout.
You will do Three Sets of the Variation progression below and then carry on with your workout as normal.
Every, single workout.
Once you hit 3 Sets of 6 or more reps on the variation, you are ready to progress to the next step.
You will keep repeating that until you do one full floor Push Up.
Step 1: The Incline Push Up
The Incline Push-Up Variation will be your best friend in helping you achieve your first Push-Up.
The reason you want to start with an Incline Push Up and not a 3/4 or Knees on the floor Push Up is because we know you need to engage your Core Muscles: Rectus Abdonimus, Internal and External Obliques, Transverse Abdominus, Erector Spinae and Psoas (the last two are back muscles but help a ton with your Core Stability)
The Incline Push Up will engage these muscles an awful lot more, and allow you to get used to keeping your body braced and working to make the Push Up easier for you.
How To Do An Incline Push Up
I often find the Smith Machine is best for this. As you can set it to a reasonably achievable height and lower it each time you are making progress. It’s easy to track and easy to use.
If you don’t have a Gym, however. Use your stairs, as again you can lower the incline steadily.
Here is my YouTube Video on how to do an Incline Push Up
Then once you have completed 3 sets of 6 reps without failing, you can lower the level and start again.
Once you are at the point of the next progression being the flat floor you can then progress onto:
Step 2: The Negative Push-Up
The Negative Push Up is a Floor Push Up without the “Push Up”.
You start in the High Plank Position and begin to lower yourself slowly. You want to take between 5–8secs before you hit the floor. Once you hit the floor, don’t worry about Pushing yourself back up. Just repeat the lowering section of the Push Up again.
Here is my video on How To Do A Negative Push Up for Beginners:
You want to aim for 3 sets of 6 reps of at least a 5sec Negative.
Once you have achieved that you are ready for the full push up off the floor.
How To Do Your First Push Up For Beginners Both Female and Male
Things To Remember When Doing The Push-Up
Mindset
The biggest limiting factor in someone's form that I see when doing a Push Up is their ability to believe they can do it. When you are confronted with an exercise that you have attempted and failed at previously so many times, you will understandably find that hard to achieve.
But knowing you have done all the work will really help you with this…and seeing your progress develop over time will really help you believe you can.
The Glutes
When we look at muscles used in this exercise I am really surprised the Gluteals aren’t in there, as for me they play a massive part in being able to do the Push-Up.
Have you ever tried to lift a dead weight? or roll a body over that has no tension in it at all?
I promise I haven’t been moving dead bodies in my spare time.
But it’s really hard.
Then have you tried to move a body with tension in it?
It’s a lot easier.
Well, that’s why you need to get used to squeezing your Glutes when you do a Push-Up. When you squeeze your butt, your Abs naturally contract as well.
Stop clenching now…
As we know your Abs are a big part of making a Push Up successful, so by squeezing the Glutes we will be engaging the Abs as well.
This will also help with any hip sagging or bending in the middle part of your body when you do this exercise.
Arm Position
The next part of your form I want to address is your Arm position. You need to start creating an arrow shape, not a T-Shape with your upper body when doing the Push-Up.
This will help you engage your Chest a lot more, as well as give you more pushing power with your shoulders and upper back.
All important muscles in completing the Push-Up.
That’s All Folks!
I hope you found this useful, and I really hope that you take what you have learned into the Gym and start nailing your Push-Ups.
Getting to the point of no longer dreading them in my oversized body really is a miracle, and if I can get there, you can too.
It’s taken me a lot of hard work, and I wish I had this article many years ago when I was being bullied in PE for not being able to do a Push-Up.
Good Luck, and I can’t wait to see how much progress you make!
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References:
Contreras, Bret & Schoenfeld, Brad & Mike, Jonathan & Tiryaki-Sonmez, Raziye & Cronin, John & Vaino, Elsbeth. (2012). The Biomechanics of the Push-up. Strength and Conditioning Journal. 34. 41–46. 10.1519/SSC.0b013e31826d877b.