If You’re Not Building Muscle, Try These 5 Training Techniques

If You’re Not Building Muscle, Try These 5 Training Techniques

We can’t out exercise our diet.

HOWEVER, while many of us have heard that diet is more important, I’d actually argue they both matter equally especially in that both need to work together.

And so often we don’t place enough importance on proper training because we’ve only seen our workouts as a chance to burn more calories.

But our training shouldn’t be about the calorie burn.

It should be about building muscle.

When we focus on better movement and building strength and muscle in our training, we create true muscle growth.

Without proper stimulus, no matter how you eat, you won’t build muscle.

So while our diet is especially important to lose fat, and important to make sure we fuel our training sessions to gain…

Our workouts have to be designed strategically if we want to improve our body composition.

And this honestly means going against what most of us have always done to lose weight…

Instead of more cardio, we often need less.

And we need to stop turning our lifting sessions into simply cardio workouts – cutting out more rest and adding a ton of volume.

Now note…I’m not telling you that cardio isn’t important to your health and that you can’t do it if you enjoy it…

I do want to make it clear that to build muscle so we can lose fat faster, we can’t default back into this cardio, calories, do more training mindset.

That’s why I want to share 5 training techniques to help you build muscle, which in turn will boost your metabolic rate and help you look leaner faster…

Training Technique #1: Focus on double progression.

If it challenges you, it will change you.

But just because your workout feels hard doesn’t mean you’re creating a consistent progression so your muscles have to adapt and grow stronger week after week.

That’s why it’s key we not only progress the movement, adding weight, slowing down the tempo, doing a harder variation, but also adjust our exact reps to create that week over week progression.

Using these two forms of progression to complement we can ultimately move more loads over our training sessions, resulting in faster and better gains.

Often when we have a workout there will be 8-12 reps listed.

Let’s say right now you’re doing 12 reps of front lunges with 20lbs dumbbells and you manage that for all 4 sets you have assigned.

It feels hard.

Good.

But you’re at the top of the rep range so next week, GO UP in weight or progress the move in some way.

If you can still do 12 reps that first round, go up in weight for that next step until you can’t do 12 reps.

Let’s say on your 3rd round, you hit 8 reps with 35lbs dumbbells. Maybe you stick there for the final round.

The next week instead of going up in weight, you try to get out 9 or 10 reps. Once you can again do 12 reps, you again want to go up.

This double form of progression is the perfect way to max out the loads you can lift with volume and truly make sure you’re challenging yourself to create that muscle growth!

Training Technique #2: Train areas more frequently with the same but different.

Studies have shown that training an area 2-3 times a week can be optimal for muscle growth.

This doesn’t mean do 1000s of reps multiple times a week. It means definitely dropping volume a bit per session to increase the frequency and spread it out.

This allows for often more QUALITY volume as you may notice you are fresher for all the exercises and sets spread out over more days over doing that same volume in one.

This also allows you to use a diversity of movements and tools to work the same muscles.

And this can be key because changes in posture and position alone can impact even what aspects of a muscle are worked.

For instance a Romanian deadlift works the hamstrings through hinging at the hips. A seated leg curl works the hamstrings with knee flexion with flexed hips while a bridge and curl works the hamstrings with knee flexion with extended hips.

All three are different postures that address different aspects of that hamstring muscle group. And including three different moves over the 3 days can be key for optimal gains.

So don’t repeat just the same move 3 times a week. Consider different types of movements, ranges of motion and even different tools!

Training Technique #3: Combine rep ranges in a single workout.

If you want to gain muscle, you want to use a variety of rep ranges combined.

This can not only help you build strength and improve your strength and endurance and recovery, but even target stubborn muscles and push them past failure to see better results.

Some of you may have seen my 6-12-25 workout progressions in previous YouTube videos and podcasts, but this design is so fabulous because it does include maximal strength, hypertrophy and strength endurance rep ranges in a single series – moving from compound to more isolation exercises.

This helps you get in that quality of movement while isolating those more stubborn areas.

So don’t fear higher reps. Don’t fear lower reps.

Include a diversity in a single session even.

But be conscious of the types of moves you use with each.

Often in our workouts we want to go more compound to more isolated, with heavier lower rep work first and the higher rep, more isolated work later to work a muscle fully to fatigue.

However, like in the 6-12-25 and even compound burners, you can use 2 or even 3 rep ranges combined to lift heavy for lower reps then right after isolate that muscle that is already fatigued to recruit more muscle fibers with higher rep work.

And note, while you will go “lighter” with higher rep work, you aren’t going light.

Especially when you are working with higher reps, to push yourself, consider using a weight or variation you have to pause to get out 5 more and hit in the middle or top of the range.

That need to pause and do 5 more past failure is so key to those amazing gains!

Training Technique #4: Do more timed workouts.

Too often when we want to lose weight, our workouts get longer and longer as we add in more and more.

But this often just burns us out and leads to a lot of wasted volume.

By doing intervals or work or even timed sets, we can increase our training density without our workouts getting longer.

We can focus on that quality work and create that density by just trying to do MORE in the time set out.

I find that often when I use intervals over having do count a certain amount of reps, I eek out reps I wouldn’t have done had I been able to stop at 6. I end up doing 8 because I have the time and have to work through it…even if I have to pause for a second.

I also find I’m focused and more intentional over just rushing through because I can’t finish any faster.

And when it comes to timed sets or circuits, like Density Sets, you can lower the reps and increase the weight and keep moving the entire time to actually lift more quality loads without your workouts getting longer.

So consider timed intervals of work or timed sets to help yourself really push with each rep over simply doing MORE.

Especially since so many of us complain we don’t have enough time, why not plan for what you have and really be intentional and focus on quality with every rep!

Honestly the only reason our workouts should ever get longers is because we have the time and do more mobility work OR have increased rest periods to lift heavier with lower reps or to do more high intensity true sprint work.

Workouts become longer because of recovery not because we’re doing more work!

Training Technique #5: Vary intensity of workouts and type of drivers.

For the best results, some workouts should feel easy. Not every workout should slaughter you.

Because if you don’t recover, you can’t train at a true 100% intensity.

Not to mention, if you’re tearing down muscles constantly, they can’t regrow stronger.

It’s a cut. If you’re constantly working and picking off the scab, it’s not going to heal back!

You’ve got to give it time to heal…although unlike a cut we do want to reopen the wound to make our muscle feel pushed to adapt more and more!

So over the course of your week, vary what areas you are working. Give muscles time to recover.

And vary the intensity of your workouts. This helps areas recover while still driving growth. And it also helps you MENTALLY stay focused and push hard when you need.

We can’t mentally make ourselves extremely uncomfortable every session or we will burn out. So having a workout or two each week that isn’t taxing, especially programmed on busy days, can actually help you get more quality work done overall for the week.

And those recovery sessions can help you move better in future workouts.

So vary intensity!

And this doesn’t just mean easy or hard workouts. It also means varying the types of movements and what driver of muscle growth you use as some create more muscle tissue damage and take longer to recover from.

For example, maybe one day you do a deadlift, another a hip thruster and the 3rd day you include only mini band work for your glutes.

These all use different drivers of muscle growth and allow you to train your glutes 3 times that week and go hard in each session without just constantly beating your body down!

So consider the types of movements you’re using and even the tools!

WARNING: Stop seeking to be sore.

I mean this because if you vary intensity and use different drivers or muscle growth, you won’t be sore all of the time.

GOOD!

Soreness is not an indicator you worked hard enough.

And while it can feel good and satisfying at times to know you pushed, not being sore doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard.

Honestly, you shouldn’t constantly be sore if you’re truly creating progression to build.

Over the weeks of your workout progression, you should feel like you can even do more, more easily without getting sore.

Because soreness is often just an indicator we did something new or different.

That we didn’t give ourselves enough recovery.

That we focused only on the eccentric and mechanical tension as a driver of muscle growth.

That we aren’t eating enough.

Or hydrating well.

Constant soreness actually means we’re probably not doing something we need to see results.

So focus on that clearly mapped out progression you repeat and track those numbers to see progress instead of just pushing to be sore!

How to Lose Fat AND Gain Muscle At The Same Time (Step By Step)

How to Lose Fat AND Gain Muscle At The Same Time (Step By Step)

What should I do first…I want to build muscle and lose fat?

The great thing is…

You CAN do both at the same time!

But how you do that may depend on where you are currently in your fitness and body composition journey.

While you can achieve both goals, you do need to set a primary focus as that will impact how you adjust your diet to start.

That’s why in this video I want to break down two different nutritional approaches to body recomp whether you want to lose fat as you retain and gain lean muscle or you want to gain muscle as you maintain your level of leanness while potentially getting even leaner!

And then I want to share a bonus workout tip to help you make sure your diet and workouts are working together.

Now if you’re thinking, “But I heard this wasn’t possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time.”

I’m going to let you in on a little secret…

It is possible.

It just takes embracing something that so many of us want to run from…

A habit so many of us have labeled boring and tedious and hard…

Tracking macros! 

Now before you just write this off and click back saying tracking macros isn’t for you, I want to explain why it is so key and a SIMPLIFIED approach that can yield amazing results…

So that person that has said to you…“You can’t lose fat and gain muscle at the same time?”

It’s probably because they’ve always dieted by just cutting their calories super low. 

They lost weight, but probably often have also lost muscle in the process.

They may have even gotten skinny without really looking more toned. 

So they decide they want to build muscle to get more defined, so they eat in a surplus. 

They end up, yes, putting on muscle. But also gaining fat. 

So they then go back in a calorie deficit, repeating the same rollercoaster over and over again. 

They may try a bigger deficit to lose faster or a bigger surplus to gain.

More is better right?

WRONG.

These bigger extremes may actually lead to their body composition becoming WORSE.

It is because while we can lose or gain weight simply by creating a calorie deficit or surplus, we aren’t controlling for what we are losing or gaining. 

We aren’t controlling for fat loss or muscle mass retention.

This is something we CAN control by adjusting our macros.

And one macro in particular – our protein intake. 

Increasing our protein intake is key.

High protein diets have been the only diets shown to not only help us retain lean muscle but even GAIN lean muscle mass while in a deficit. 

And increasing your protein intake while in a surplus, due to the thermic effect of this macro, can help you avoid gaining unwanted fat while making it easier to build muscle due to the extra energy consumption.

So if you’ve struggled to embrace tracking macros in the past but really want to see those defined abs and arms…

It’s time to start tracking…at least your protein intake!

While in a calorie surplus, you may get away with slightly lower protein intakes than in a deficit as long as you are consuming enough carbs as well as instant fuel, going even higher while in a deficit due to the fact that you’re not really consuming enough of anything is key. 

While you may consume about 30-35% of your calories from protein in a surplus, you will want to bump that to more like 40% of your calories from protein while in a deficit. 

Starting out don’t worry where your carbs or fat fall.

Just first only focus on that protein intake.

Doing this alone will lead to amazing results and you’ll be surprised by how much you see those inches being lost and the definition popping through in your progress photos.

But that high protein really is what yields that body recomp magic. 

So even if you’ve been resisting tracking macros, set that percentage to hit of your calories from protein and adjust the current foods you eat through small tweaks to see results.

Here’s a video that has 7 tips to help you easily bump protein!

But before you decide on exactly what protein percentage to use, you have to determine your calories.

Which should you be in – a calorie deficit or a surplus? 

And that depends on your main focus.

While the goal is to lose fat as you gain muscle or gain muscle as you lose fat, you have to have a primary target.

What is your main focus?

This will be based on your current leanness level. 

Are you currently basically as lean as you’d like and would like to add more muscle while just staying lean? 

Or do you have more weight to lose but really want that muscle definition especially to stay strong as you get older?

If you’re already lean, consider a calorie surplus to focus a bit more on gaining muscle without any fluff. 

If you’re not yet at your weight loss goal, consider a calorie deficit to start to help you lose fat without losing muscle. 

Exactly how great a calorie surplus or deficit you create can also impact the results you get and be based on where you are in your fitness journey. 

If you have more weight to lose, 500 calories is the most extreme you want to go with a deficit below your maintenance. But this is really aggressive and best only done if you have more than 50lbs to lose and aren’t as active.

Otherwise to help focus on losing fat without also costing you muscle, consider a deficit of only 100-300 calories at max. Think closer to 300 if you have over 15 pounds to lose and more like 100-200 if you have less than 15 pounds are are super active!

If you are already basically as lean as you’d like or even as thin as you’d like although you wouldn’t mind more definition, you will want to consider a small surplus. 

Since you don’t really have energy stores to tap into, and you want to be able to push hard in your training to create that progression and stimulus for muscle growth, the extra calories will help you make sure you’re retaining that lean muscle. 

Think 100-200 calories above maintenance unless you’re truly as lean as you’d like and really increasing your activity level – then go 300-400 calories.

Especially if you are just coming out of a deficit, slowly increase those calories only 100 at a time! 

As essential as your diet is to losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time, the best results happen when our diet and workouts work together. 

And without that stimulus for muscle growth in our training, we won’t see our nutritional changes fully pay off. 

That’s why I wanted to share a bonus tip with you about what workouts are best to see body recomp.

Bonus Tip: 

Now you may be thinking, do I need workouts for fat loss or for gaining muscle.

And I had a client even email me recently, “How do I know if a workout is for fat loss or building muscle?”

My email back said, “A good fat loss workout should be focused on building muscle.”

Muscle is metabolism magic. 

Our training shouldn’t be about burning calories in our sessions and feeling destroyed.

It should be focused on building lean muscle. 

We need that training stimulus for growth if our diet is going to have an impact. 

And the more muscle we have, the more calories we will burn during the day, making it easier to lose fat.

Muscle stokes our metabolic fire and helps us avoid metabolic adaptations as we lean down. 

So your training should be focused on building lean muscle no matter your aesthetic goal focus.

Sure if you love endurance sports, you don’t have to ditch them. 

But even then strength training will only help you get stronger at what you love.

So focus on building strength in your training no matter what.

And for a great workout design to help you see those strength gains, check out my 6-12-25 protocol.

–> 6-12-25 Workout Technique 

This is an amazing way to build muscle and strength no matter you age!

Using these tips you can build muscle and lose fat…or lose fat as you gain muscle. 

You can see the body recomp you deserve but you need to TRACK.

What gets measured gets managed so we can adjust and see better results faster!

Ready to achieve amazing body recomp, losing that stubborn fat?

Join my Metabolic Shred!

7 Big LIES About Exercise and Aging

7 Big LIES About Exercise and Aging

The best way to feel and look old really quickly is to stop doing all the things that kept you healthy.

Too often we hit an age that we deem “old” and stop pushing ourselves the way we used to in our training.

Heck I even found an article on WebMD about exercises to avoid after 50 and it said…

“Lifting weights is a great way to build muscle strength, but when you’re over 50 there is no reason to push yourself too hard.”

I’m sorry….NO.

While we can’t change our age, at any time we can make changes to move and feel our best.

And the best way NOT to see results is NOT to challenge yourself.

Use it or lose it.

Getting older doesn’t mean you now should stop pushing yourself to conquer new challenges or step outside your comfort zone.

Getting older actually makes it even more important that you do so that you stay healthy and strong till your final day on this planet!

That’s why in this video I want to refute 7 reasons I often hear people use as excuses not to push themselves outside their comfort zones when it comes to their strength training once they hit whatever age they believe to be “old.”

Myth #1: I shouldn’t push myself too hard. 

I can’t even describe the spasms my face wants to go into stating that myth even for the 100th time.

No wonder we’re seeing more injuries, more cognitive decline…

No wonder we think aging just means gaining weight and getting out of shape?! 

We’re promoting attitudes that perpetuate that!

I don’t care if you’re 20 or 90, you need to CHALLENGE yourself with your training to keep pushing your body to adapt and grow stronger and MAINTAIN your strength. 

Sarcopenia, or muscle loss, is so prevalent because we’ve too easily adopted the belief that we don’t need to push ourselves with our training. That with age we deserve to be lazy.

But if you want to stay strong and fit and even mentally with it till your final day on this planet, you NEED to push yourself to feel worked in your workouts. 

This doesn’t mean every session should slaughter you. But it shouldn’t be that way at any age. 

But every single workout you do want to create that progressive overload and do something hard.

We build and retain lean muscle through pushing our bodies to do more than they could the previous session!

Myth #2: X Move Is Bad And Dangerous. 

You can get hurt training at any age.

And as someone who has learned a lot since their early meathead days, I would say we actually end up being smarter in our training as we get older as we often appreciate the value of just moving well over letting ego dictate what we do. 

BUT no matter our age we have to stop just demonizing exercises. Or blaming exercises for aches and pains.

Squats don’t hurt your knees.

Bad squats or recruitment patterns with loads you haven’t earned do. 

And unless you don’t ever plan to sit down to a toilet again, it would be in your best interest to learn to really control and retrain that squat movement pattern as much as you can!

If you want to be able to do a movement or maintain your mobility, you need to train that movement pattern in the gym!

Regress to progress.

Training only leads to injury when we haven’t earned a move or misuse a move. 

By doing a move that doesn’t match your needs and goals, you can get injured at ANY age. 

Often the fact that we even did moves with ego when we were younger, is what has now led to the aches and pains we even have.

But training isn’t dangerous.

We need to even see the gym as an opportunity to PRACTICE proper movements so that we are at less risk for injury in everyday life. 

The gym is a perfect place to learn to move well. 

Just don’t be afraid to regress to progress and focus on intentionality with your movement to earn those advancements! 

Because if you train smarter and not just harder, you put yourself at less risk for injury getting up and down of the ground or lifting that box!

Myth #3: I shouldn’t lift too heavy.

First off, what is too heavy?

A weight you can’t lift?

Something you can’t lift with proper form?

If that’s the case, you shouldn’t EVER lift too heavy.

But if you don’t challenge your muscles, you won’t create that stimulus for muscle growth. 

And we want to do everything we can to promote that environment for growth as we will find it gets harder and harder to build muscle the older we get!

But especially as we get older we need to focus on maintaining maximal strength. 

That means NOT shying away from lower rep, heavy weight work in our training.

Maximal strength work means we are better able to prevent falls and fractures and are not only stronger, but have more lean muscle mass which keeps our bones healthy and helps us look leaner. 

So lift heavy for strong bones and a lean physique! 

Stop defaulting to only doing 15-20 rep work with lighter loads.

Push those heavy weights as you earn them and build up to keep yourself strong and your metabolic rate higher! 

Myth #4: I have (insert health concerns here). 

We always want to address injuries and health concerns with our training routines.

But this should be the case at any age.

However, too often, as we get older and more health concerns may pop up, we see this as a reason to stop pushing hard in our workouts or train at all. 

When often training will help us improve our health and can even combat many of our symptoms!

Strength work can help reduce chronic inflammation. It can reduce our risk for osteoporosis. It can improve our cognitive functioning.

It can help us sleep better to recover from illness faster.

It can help us maintain our bone health. 

It can even help us retrain movements and strengthen muscles to overcome injuries. 

It can help us move and feel a whole heck of a lot younger. 

Overall, strength training is linked with a 10%–17% lower risk of heart disease, total cancer, diabetes, lung cancer and death from any cause. (According to a review study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (2022; 56 [13])) 

Yet so often we let health concerns stop us instead of finding a way to strengthen around them. And THAT is what makes us feel older so much faster!

Find ways to regress moves and address what you need to focus on feeling the correct muscles work.

Design workouts around your schedule based on the intensity you need. And start back slow. 

But the key is to START and to focus on building, meeting yourself where you are at!

Myth #5: I shouldn’t do awkward moves. 

As we get older, we are less willing to make ourselves feel uncomfortable or awkward or even bad at something.

When we’re young, we embrace it more as we encounter new things on almost a daily basis even. 

But as we get older, we don’t like to push to do new things that feel awkward and uncomfortable. 

The thing is…we need to.

Those awkward moves improve our mental health.

They also keep our mind-body connection strong which allows us to react more quickly in everyday life. 

Many even improve our balance and core strength, especially if they are single sided moves! 

And these moves help us even build muscle, creating progression in different ways, changing the range of motion, stability and even tempos.

They challenge not only our body but even our mind to keep us younger and healthy!

And ladies, studies have shown even greater benefits from physical activity in terms of our thinking speed as we get older! 

Myth #6: I can’t build muscle. 

Yup. It does get harder to build and retain lean muscle as we get older.

But trying to use this as an excuse to not even try?

NOPE!

It is even more reason to push hard and lift heavier! 

It’s also a reason to cut back on the chronic cardio, which can not only cause more inflammation and joint issues, but lead to us struggling even more to build and retain lean muscle. 

Instead we need to do everything we can to combat the fact that we don’t have the optimal hormone levels for muscle growth Any exercise we once did and we don’t utilize protein as efficiently. 

We need to do everything we can to focus on lifting heavy, challenging ourselves and pushing hard in our training while including adequate recovery. 

This is the only way we can build muscle and at least make sure we maintain what we already have as the more we lose through inactivity, the more we will struggle to get it back the older we get!

Myth #7: I can’t recover as quickly so I shouldn’t do as much. 

We may find that our recovery does change as we get older, especially even during menopause when our sleep may be impacted more.

But this is all the more reason to train with purpose and design intentional workouts that we can be CONSISTENT with. 

Because the more inconsistent we are, the harder we make it on ourselves to recover.

We don’t often realize that, as we’ve gotten older, we actually are less consistent in having that set gym training routine.

And that inconsistency can make every workout feel new to our body, so we are constantly getting sore.

Make sure to set a schedule you can be consistent with. 

Then don’t randomly string together moves or workouts without a plan.

Create a set schedule you repeat for a few weeks so you can slowly progress and build each week.

This will help improve your recovery over always feeling beat down.

Plus, including mobility work and not feeling pressure to do wasted volume may not only help you recover faster but even build strength more efficiently from your training. 

Often less is more and too often, when we’re younger, we do more just because we can or because we’re trying to out exercise our diet.

So see this as an opportunity to make some changes that lead to even better gains!

Define aging on your own terms.

Stay strong till your final day on this planet by never stopping to push yourself and challenge yourself. 

Include those strength workouts that make you uncomfortable but that meet you where you are at to see fabulous muscle and strength gains at any and every age! 

For an amazing community of women building their leanest, strongest bodies at any and EVERY age, join my Free Facebook Group

How To Increase Metabolism At Any Age (7 Workout Tips)

How To Increase Metabolism At Any Age (7 Workout Tips)

The number one thing impacting your metabolic health isn’t your age…

It’s your muscle mass.

And so often as we get older, we DO lose muscle.

Not to mention previous dieting and workout practices for weight loss often cause us to lose muscle as we strive for faster results on the scale.

And this muscle loss is often why we see more metabolic decline and adaptations over time.

The great thing is…

We can REVERSE these things and improve our metabolic health at ANY age.

But boosting our metabolism isn’t just about our diet, it’s also about how we train.

We need to focus on training practices that create that stimulus for muscle growth while also helping us to burn more calories throughout the day.

More muscle requires more calories consumed to be maintained and more calories burned even at rest!

That’s why in this video I wanted to share 7 tips you can use to improve your training schedule and boost your metabolism

Tip #1: Work legs AND upper body in a workout.

Working two large muscle groups in a single session helps you burn more calories DURING the workout and build muscle faster.

This creates a greater calorie burn during the day for better fat loss results, but also raises your resting metabolic rate because of the added muscle.

More muscle means more calories burned even at rest to build and maintain it. Your energy demands go up!

By not only working two large muscle groups in general but specifically pairing LEGS and UPPER body in a session, you can promote an even more optimal hormonal environment for growth.

By doing legs BEFORE upper body in a session, studies have shown you release more testosterone and growth hormone, which can lead to faster muscle gains.

So whether you do butt and hamstrings with back exercises or quads and chest, consider pairing lower body with upper body in a workout.

This can help you get in more quality work for muscle groups not only in a single workout but over the week.

This is also a great way to pack in more to shorter training sessions, which can also lead to a better hormonal environment for growth.

Too often we make our sessions longer, leading to not only wasted volume but a rise in cortisol levels which can fight against our gains.

So alternate areas worked in your sessions so that one muscle group gets to rest as you work the other. This will keep your sessions shorter!

And make sure you’re focusing on big heavy compound lifts for each area for the bulk of your workout!

Tip #2: Use cluster sets to lift more.

We need to lift more weight to build muscle.

The more you can progress and lift, the faster you can build.

But this isn’t just about what you can lift for a single rep.

It’s about the total loads lifted overall for an area in individual workouts and even over weeks and months.

The more weight you move overall, the more you’ll see that growth.

But this weight lifted needs to also be quality work.

This is where cluster sets, especially for a compound exercise to start your workout can be an amazing tool to increase your training density and actually lift more weight overall for an area.

With cluster sets, you are breaking up your traditional set of 8 reps, into fewer reps, say just 2 or 3 in a row, with just 10-30 seconds of rest between those mini sets, before you rest longer and do another round.

Because you are only performing 2 or 3 reps before the short rest, you will find you can use more weight for the full 8 reps than you would have been able to if you had tried to just do 8 in a row.

You may also find you avoid that last kind of half done rep because of fatigue for quality reps all the way through.

More weight lifted in a set amount of time for quality reps leads to faster muscle growth and ultimately helps boost that metabolism!

Tip #3: Design shorter and harder workouts.

So often we focus on doing more, making our workouts longer and harder to try to make ourselves more sore, thinking that will lead to better results faster.

Instead we need to focus less on time and volume and more on quality, intensity and intentionality with everything we do.

Less is more when what we do is done well.

While we may feel like we are giving 100% as our workout gets longer and we do more reps and sets, that 100% intensity isn’t a true 100%.

If instead we focus on giving that full true 100% effort for less, we will see that quality pay off.

Not to mention hormone levels start to fight against us the longer those sessions get, especially if we aren’t including enough rest but instead just trying to do more reps and exercises for the same muscle.

While we don’t want to just demonize a hormone like cortisol because it does help promote fat metabolism, exercising for too long can elevate levels of cortisol to catabolize muscle protein for fuel instead of conserving it to be used to repair damaged tissues.

So we want to be conscious that we are including everything in our sessions with purpose and not just making them longer and longer to feel harder thinking that will lead to better gains!

Focus on quality and what you truly feel working with each rep. Be present in your workouts to push the effort and maximize everything you include!

Tip #4: Use interval finishers.

Keeping our heart healthy is key and strength training can be metabolic and improve our conditioning and cardiovascular healthy.

But it can also be key to include some cardio to help us recover faster so we can lift more.

Not to mention interval training can lead to more calories being burned even at rest while, if done strategically, not leading to muscle catabolism or impaired recovery.

Interval training can increase our EPOC or excess post exercise oxygen consumption…often called the afterburn.

And while no magic pill, this increase in energy expenditure to help us recover, repair and rebuild can lead to better fat loss results and offset some of the metabolic changes we’ve experienced as we build lean muscle.

Consider including short interval sessions as the end of your workouts, varying work to rest intervals.

Don’t add 20 minutes on to your workout, but consider interval work for about 5 minutes – whether you include longer work than rest like 20 on, 10 off or longer rest to work 10 on 30 off!

That variety can help you work different energy systems and even improve your recovery time to be able to lift more in your strength workouts!

Tip #5: REST REST AND…oh yea…REST

This is the least sexy of all 7 tips but the most important.

Your muscles only grow if they have time to repair and rebuild.

This doesn’t mean you have to wait a whole week before working an area again or that you won’t see gains if you do work a muscle on back to back days at times, but you want to be conscious that areas have time to recover.

And the more frequently you work an area in a week, the more you need to lower the number of reps and sets and work you do per session.

Focusing on rest also doesn’t just mean recovery between sessions but DURING your workout.

If you rush through sets without allowing yourself enough rest, you’re going to see your work output and intensity drop quickly.

This can lead to you feeling tired and challenged while not actually challenging yourself to the fullest extent possible.

It may be why you aren’t building muscle as fast as you’d like or really creating that anabolic hormonal environment for growth.

So don’t skip on the recovery!

It is truly the part so often overlooked that can fight against our muscle gains and perpetuate those metabolic adaptations.

Tip #6: Don’t forget your power work!

Explosive power work is not only key if you want to stay functional stronger and better able to avoid injury as you get older, but it can also help build muscle.

It helps us improve our mind-body connection and recruit muscles faster in the correct order, which also results in us being able to lift more.

Yet often we avoid it because we only think of it as jumping.

And while we shouldn’t avoid jumping as we get older, I also understand that injuries may not allow us to do that jump training as part of our explosive work, which can lead to us not doing any at all.

Not to mention, too often we lump in explosive power work to interval work when it needs to be its own set thing.

When doing power work, short explosive max effort intervals with longer rest periods are essential. Otherwise you end up fatiguing and training slowness.

You want to move quickly, go at 100% intensity then rest fully.And you want to do this when you are fresh.

Consider including power work before your first heavy lift after your warm up routine.

Including things like sprints, even on a bike if you want to reduce impact, or weighted exercises like med ball work, kettlebell swings or even Olympic lifts if you’re experienced, can lead to amazing muscle gains.

They can also promote optimal hormone levels, increasing growth hormone production, for our strength workouts!

Tip #7: Walk for recovery! 

Our body was meant to move. Moving more is key to our health and even our fat loss results.

But we don’t want to just include workouts that beat us down.

That’s why walking is so key to include.

The extra movement can help us burn more calories while not being catabolic to our muscle mass.

It can help increase our metabolic rate while being a great restorative activity.

And if you can get outside to even get Vitamin D, it is a win win for your health and body recomp!

So if you’re someone that struggles to take time off, or you’re working to lose weight and want to fight those metabolic adaptations, include more walking in your routine, especially on “rest days.”

You can even add in some bonus mobility work before your walk to help your body recover for your next training sessions so you can push hard!

Metabolic changes happen but there is so much we can do to reverse them and see better fat loss results no matter our age.

However, we need to make sure we’re focusing on doing everything we can in our workouts to build that lean muscle if we want to increase our metabolic rate.

Use these 7 tips to boost your metabolism and see your hard work in the gym pay off!

Ready to accelerate your results with metabolism boosting workouts?

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Build Muscle and Increase Strength With This Training Technique

Build Muscle and Increase Strength With This Training Technique

We all want something that helps us get better results faster.

It’s why, no matter how much we know, fad diets and extreme workout routines have an allure.

But often, it is really small 1% improvements and tweaks to what we are currently doing that make the difference.

That’s why I want to share this simple training technique that can accelerate your results.

And you can implement it today without really making any changes to your schedule or workout designs.

It’s adding in an Eccentric Focus to exercises!

In this video I’ll discuss what focusing on the eccentric means, how it can lead to better results faster and how you can include it in your current training routine to accelerate your strength and muscle gains!

And this technique can help you build muscle and strength whether you’re training in a full gym or using only bodyweight exercises!

So First…What Does Focusing On The Eccentric Mean?

Let’s get a little nerdy here…

The eccentric is one of 3 muscle contractions – concentric, isometric and eccentric.

Concentric is the shortening of the muscle-tendon complex. 

Isometric is where length remains constant with tension (or a hold). S

And eccentric is the lengthening of the muscle-tendon complex. 

To focus on the eccentric portion of the movement means to slow down the part of an exercise where the prime mover or main muscle group being worked is being lengthened.

This may mean slowing down the lower down on a bench press or balance lunge. Although it applies to when the muscle is being lengthened in ANY movement. 

Now How Does The Eccentric Lead To Strength And Muscle Gains? 

There are 3 big reasons that it’s believed focusing on and slowing down the eccentric can lead to better muscle hypertrophy and strength…

Reason #1: You spend more time under tension which can result in better gains. 

When you slow down the tempo of that lower down, your muscles spend more time in a working state. 

The longer work time, the more time under tension for the muscle.

And this can lead to more mechanical tension and muscle tissue damage, driving better muscle gains.

This time under tension results in more muscle protein synthesis and faster onset of this increased synthesis.

And while you can slow down any component of the lift, there is a specific benefit to emphasizing the eccentric. 

And part of this benefit comes from the fact that we are actually stronger in that eccentric phase!

Which is Reason #2: You’re spending time under tension during a portion of a movement where you’re the strongest. 

This can allow you to do a more challenging variation of a move, especially if you do an eccentric only variation. 

By doing a more challenging variation, you are creating more progressive overload. 

Sometimes we aren’t able to lift more weight for a full movement or progress an exercise yet to a harder variation.

This is where slowing down and focusing on that eccentric can help.

It can help us push to a new level to challenge our muscles and promote better growth and strength gains. 

It can help us do a harder movement for at least a portion of the exercise.

If you can’t yet do a full pull up, but want to progress this move to build strength and muscle, and even be able to rock a full one, you may do an assisted variation up to the top of the pull up, then do a slow lower back down taking on your full bodyweight. 

You’ll find you’re able to control that lower down slowly to challenge your muscles, even if you can’t yet pull up!

And Reason #3: While muscle tissue damage isn’t the only driver of muscle growth, a slow eccentric does lead to more muscle tissue damage, which does force the muscle to repair and rebuild stronger.

Loading muscle fibers when stretched creates a type of stress and muscle tissue damage that requires your body to build new muscle cells.

This leads to both strength and muscle gains.

Eccentric training is a great way to create greater stress and strain on the muscle compared to other muscle actions! 

And bonus, because we are stronger during this phase of the movement, not only can we lift more or do a harder variation of a move, we can often more easily do a higher volume of work which can also lead to faster gains!

Now a WARNING to using this technique before I go over more on how to include this in your workouts… 

Focusing on the eccentric portion of a lift can make you VERY VERY SORE.

Because of the muscle tissue damage and loading under stretch, slowing down the eccentric can cause delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS.

Be conscious of this fact to make sure you give the muscle group enough time between training sessions to rest and recover.

Also, don’t do a workout loaded down with eccentrics for every single move!

Use different tempos and rep ranges to your advantage. 

And be conscious of the types of moves you use for eccentric focused work.

Especially moves like deadlifts, it is harder to control the eccentric, so you may not want to focus on a slow lower down when you’re doing a 5 rep max, but instead use it during more accessory hip hinge work for 8-12 reps.

It’s also key you create a consistent schedule so you can slowly progress and repeat workouts so constantly doing something “new” doesn’t add to your soreness!

And then don’t ignore the importance of your fueling and recovery work!

So now that you’ve been warned…

How Can You Include Eccentrics In Your Training For Better Results?

Focus on using a slow eccentric for only a main exercise or two in your workouts. 

Even just a 3-5 count lengthening is an amazing slow tempo to use. 

Especially for stubborn areas you’re struggling to build.

You can both use slow eccentric reps at the start of your workout on a single compound lift with heavy weights, like the barbell squat, or even a bodyweight skill you want to progress, like the push up. 

You can also choose to use slow eccentrics for higher rep isolation exercises, like on the bicep curl, at the end of your workout to really target a muscle group and work it to failure.

This time under tension for volume can yield amazing results for those especially stubborn areas. 

And when you do a slow eccentric, you can either:

A. Do A Full Move With A Slow Eccentric Tempo

Or B 2: Do An Eccentric ONLY Variation. 

Any move you’re currently doing, you can make one little tweak to it today by just taking a 3-5 count to lengthen.

This would be a slow eccentric tempo.

But you can also do an eccentric only variation of a move you can’t yet fully perform.

While you can do this with weights by setting up at the top of a move, this technique is especially good to progress bodyweight skills like the push up or pull up. 

For the push up, you would set up at the top of the push up for a variation you can’t yet fully do and do a slow 3-5 count lower down. Then instead of losing form to push back up, you’d simply modify or release and reset at the top! 

Both can work and help you create that progression you need to see better results!

And which you may use may also depend on other limitations you have for progressing your workouts.

Eccentrics are a great way to create progression in your training regardless of their unique benefits. 

So while focusing on the eccentric portion has benefit even when you have other ways to advance exercises, like weights or equipment or harder variations, it can be a great way to progress moves if we DON’T have other tools available. 

It can be a great way to create progression to help you see better results if…

  • You Can’t add heavier weights yet to a move.
  • Can’t yet do another rep with the current weight.
  • Can’t progress to that next harder variation of the movement.
  • Or don’t have other tools to change range of motion or create progression. 

A slow eccentric tempo can be the way we make what we have on hand work for us to meet us where we are at. 

It can be a great way with even bodyweight training to see great muscle growth and strength gains! 

Bonus Tip:

And one last thing I wanted to touch on if you’re wondering if eccentric training is right for you as you rebuild muscle after injury…

YES…IT IS!

Focusing on a slow eccentric can really help you strengthen a muscle through a full range of motion and improve your mobility, flexibility and stability.

Using lighter loads and a focus on that slow controlled eccentric can even be a great way to start back to training to make sure you keep all of the mobility you built up during rehab. 

Just make sure you progress slowly and don’t do too much volume to make yourself so sore you can’t stay consistent with your training!

So if you’re looking to accelerate your strength and muscle gains, try using slow eccentrics with one of the exercises you’re already doing, especially one that targets a stubborn area you want to build! 

For amazing workouts to help you build strength and muscle, check out my Dynamic Strength program!

The Diet And Fitness Industry LIED To You (4 TRUTHS)

The Diet And Fitness Industry LIED To You (4 TRUTHS)

The diet and fitness industry has lied to you.

I’m not talking about the false magic pills and quick fixes when I’m saying you’ve been lied to when it comes to your diet and workouts.

Actually I see the problem as something else…

The disconnect between many trainers, coaches, dietitians and professionals and the people they want to help.

What keeps us stuck in this yo-yo dieting cycle is oddly the gap between what we “should” ideally be doing and what is realistic for our lifestyle.

Because food is not just truly fuel any longer.

It’s social. It’s celebration. It’s emotional. It’s enjoyment.

Yet instead of recognizing this and striking a balance, weighing the cost and rewards of everything for ourselves, we seek to be perfect and hit some arbitrary standards of clean eating only to create unsustainable habits which ultimately backfire.

These unsustainable habits keep us stuck losing the weight only to regain it and more as we fall back into old lifestyle patterns and try to do things we enjoy.

We never learn to create the healthiest version of our personal lifestyle.

That’s why I want to go over 4 common diet and exercise MYTHS I see pushed far too often in the health and wellness realm.

One size doesn’t fit all and we need to accept the opportunity in options to find our balance.

How we build our 80/20 balance will be unique!

Myth #1: X food is evil. 

Pick a food and you can probably find a video, blog, article…even study…about how it is bad for you.

According to a commenter on one of my videos even water is bad for you.

And honestly, almost every food DOES have a downside to even the upsides it may provide.

That doesn’t make a food evil. It doesn’t even mean the food may not be part of our lifestyle balance. 

But we just have to go in knowing how it will impact our health and overall wellbeing.

And sometimes the risk is worth the reward.

Sometimes something “unhealthy” we may choose to include because we ENJOY it.

It helps us relax. Enjoy social gatherings. 

Or even just serves as that treat on a stressful day while keeping us overall on track working toward our goals.

Because stress overall can have detrimental effects, it’s sometimes more important we include something that doesn’t add to our stress or even takes away from it over restricting a food because it isn’t as nutrient dense or beneficial as something else may be.

We have to remember that all stress goes in one bucket.

While we may see stressors in our lives as in separate categories…

Stress at work, stress to change habits, stress at home or stress on our body from lack of sleep….all impact our mind and body compounding together. 

So sometimes finding little ways to not add to our stress to overwhelm ourselves is key so we can actually make healthy changes to our lifestyle overall.

Sometimes it is that we need to pick the lesser of two evils to meet ourselves where we are at to make changes. 

So stop demonizing things and trying to force someone else’s standards of “healthy” and balance on yourself.

Because one size doesn’t fit all.

Even healthy foods can be unhealthy or not right for certain people.

For example, cruciferous vegetables (like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, cabbage..) have been linked with many health benefits, such as a reduced risk of cancer and heart disease. 

BUT…

These same nutritious vegetables we all believe to be AMAZING contain compounds called thiocyanates which can interfere with the body’s ability to absorb iodine. 

This may contribute to hypothyroidism and is why many with thyroid issues may be told not to eat too many of these supposedly super “healthy” food.

Same thing can be said for those with dairy intolerance, gluten intolerances, and issues with FODMAPs. 

Foods that may be healthy or right for one person may not work for someone else to address their health concerns.

But we don’t need to demonize something just because it isn’t right for someone else!

That may hold us back even from getting the nutrients or fuel WE need!

Stop seeing foods as just good or bad. Weigh the costs involved to find your balance!

Myth #2: Weight loss is just about calories in vs. calories out.

Yes. You need a calorie deficit to lose weight. I’m not saying calories don’t matter.

But this oversimplification is truly what so often keeps people stuck on this dieting roller coaster. 

They cut calories. Lose the weight. Can’t stay in a deficit forever…

So they go back to eating more and their old lifestyle habits only to regain the weight and even more. 

Before they again cut calories to try to lose.

However, it gets harder and harder each and every time due to this sole focus on calories in vs. calories out.

Why does it get harder?

Because often when we only focus on cutting calories, we slash them as low as possible to lose weight as fast as possible.

And in the process we throw our hormones out of whack, create cravings that lead to us overeating, leading to even extra weight gain and we’ve often also created metabolic adaptations in the process which means our body even runs more efficiently off of fewer calories than it did before. 

This is often due to us slashing our calories super low, or trying to train longer and harder to create the deficit because we’re only focused on calories in vs calories out. This extreme deficit to lose faster on the scale results in more muscle being lost over us controlling as much as possible to lose fat while maintaining our muscle.

So as much as yes, the simple answer is create a calorie deficit and you’ll lose, this oversimplification keeps us stuck and is why we often struggle more and more to lose weight as we get older, and especially once the hormonal changes of perimenopause hit.

If we want to set ourselves up for success, we need to embrace the learning process and focus on the macronutrients in our foods – the portions of proteins, carbs and fats that we are consuming. 

Because through adjusting these portions, we can help ourselves feel more fueled, retain lean muscle to keep our metabolic rate higher and we can help ourselves be prepared to transition to MAINTAINING our new results. 

You can’t do one thing to lose the weight then go back to what you were doing. And you can’t stay in a deficit forever.

Through a focus on tracking macros, you can help yourself retrain your body to return to a new maintenance level calorie intake so that all of your hard work to lose doesn’t go to waste!

Myth #3: HIIT is the best form of training for fat loss. 

HIIT or high intensity interval training is an efficient and intense form of training. It is definitely a great option when we are short on time.

And as the term is used these days, it can refer to a variety of different interval breakdowns and include a diversity of exercises. 

BUT as much as I even love HIIT personally and do use it with clients, I think it is key we recognize that there are downsides to every technique or tool.

The more we recognize both the good and the bad instead of just seeing things as either or, the more we can adjust our training and fueling to match our needs and goals as they even evolve over time.

Too often we also “fall in love” with a technique then start to see our results slow or issues pop up, yet we eliminate some other change we’ve made assuming causation when there was none. 

We can throw out something we should keep doing instead of adjusting something we’ve always done prior just because we like it or it FEELS like it is working.

And HIIT is often one of those things.

While definitely an option to consider when you’re short on time, too often we do MORE HIIT style training while also trying to increase our calorie deficit to lose fat. 

As a result, we not only can see our energy levels tank so we aren’t able to push as hard and get as much out of our training, but we can also start to see more muscle mass being lost and cravings increase.

By trying to do more intense training sessions while in a calorie deficit already, we can make it harder on ourselves to maintain the nutritional changes we are trying to make. 

So we always need to consider the systems and how they are working together.

We may need to change up a HIIT cardio session for a slower strength workout with longer rest periods. 

We may need to adjust the intervals of work to rest in the interval workout we are doing.

Or even knowing how depleting HIIT can be and the fact that for some it can make them FEEL even hungrier while increasing cravings for carbs, you can plan for those downsides in your fueling.

HIIT isn’t something you have to do to lose fat. It isn’t also something you shouldn’t do. The point is learning more about the techniques and workout designs we include so we can plan all of our systems to work together.

While it can feel satisfying to have sweated and worked hard in our workouts, we also want that hard work to be moving us forward instead of being wasted effort!

Myth #4: Workouts are about burning more calories. 

There isn’t anything wrong with tracking your calorie burn from your activity to watch your trends and hold yourself accountable. 

But too often we just seek to get that number higher over truly training with purpose and intention.

This often leads to us turning even our strength workouts into more cardio sessions.

Less rest, feeling more out of breath often leads to a higher heart rate on our trackers, which then results in more calories being burned.

And always focusing on doing more and making our training more intense can cause some to suffer increased cravings and a harder time sticking with the dietary changes they need. 

Not to mention, it can work against any muscle gaining efforts we may have.

It can also lead to us unknowingly eating in a surplus over a deficit. 

It’s key we realize that these trackers are NOT ACCURATE! The calorie burn is going to be off especially as we adapt to our training.

And while it may not seem like a big deal to only be 50-100 calories off in some cases, that can really lead to us eating over our deficit especially if we are trying to create a smaller one to help achieve better fat loss results!

Not to mention we make it harder to truly track what is and isn’t working if our intake is fluctuating all over based on what our trackers says day to day.

STOP seeing the purpose of your workouts as just a way to burn more calories. 

Remember, you can’t out exercise your diet.

Trying to create more of a calorie deficit through your training will lead you to either overtraining or ultimately overeating.

You will either keep having to do more as you adapt to burn the same amount calories you once did.

Or if you let your watch dictate how many calories you get, you’ll start overeating because often our watches won’t fully recognize we’ve become more efficient at the training routines. 

And our workouts should be about building lean muscle while training our body to move well. 

We want our workouts to help us stay strong for LIFE so we can remain independent and capable.

Not to mention, a focus on strength work helps us build that muscle mass which helps us burn more calories at rest since our metabolic rate and energy demands will be higher. 

So while you want to do forms of training you enjoy to stay consistent and active, you also want your workouts to have long-term benefits so you can tackle any challenge you want in every day life!

Too often we view things as solely good or bad instead of looking at the cost and benefit of each thing we include.

When we don’t view the opportunity in each option, we don’t allow ourselves to truly create something sustainable. 

And this, while good for the diet and fitness industry, is not helpful for us to see the results we want.

Seek to learn about what you need and be open to new perspectives so you can adjust your fueling and training to match your needs and goals even as they evolve over time!

Ready to dial in your workouts and your diet to acheive the best results as fast as possible?

Schedule a coaching consultation to learn more about how we can help you create the systems you need to succeed!

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