Why Weight Training Is Important For Results

Why Weight Training Is Important For Results

Listen:

Change Requires CHANGE

If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️

Change Requires CHANGE

If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️

Transcript:

Open Transcript:

Cori (00:00):
Welcome to the Redefining Strength Podcast. Everything you need to succeed on your health and fitness journey, even the stuff you don’t want to hear. You are strong. Now, act like it. Lee asked about doing this title for our talk today, and I’m super excited to be joined by her, but she asked about doing this title and I’m like, heck yes. Let’s talk about muscle strength training, all those different things because we are so much stronger often than we give ourselves credit for, and I want to talk about with her all the things that go into that. So Leigh, thank you so much for joining me. Joining me today, let’s dive into why it can be so hard as women sometimes to own our own strength and all the different things that being strong really entails.

Leigh (00:47):
So I’m super excited to do this topic with you. It’s something I’m super passionate about. So yeah, so it can be a real challenge for women to kind of jump into strength training. It’s just a little bit of changing norms around how society views a woman who lifts weight. For example, I am a product of the early two thousands, so that was when I was in high school, which is low rise jeans. Everybody was doing cardio. And I feel like my generation and older, it’s almost like that cardio culture has been sort of imposed on us as women. So it’s this idea that a woman should be eating the least amount of calories doing cardio bootcamp classes, anything possible to just decrease the amount of space that she takes up because the goal is to be as small and petite as possible. And so really recognizing why it is so difficult to maybe step off the treadmill and go into that male dominated gym, gym where it’s mostly guys there.

(01:57):
It can be really hard. The treadmill may be all we’ve ever really known, the treadmill’s safe, but honestly, weightlifting has really recently become a really widely socially acceptable thing for women to do. And so there’s a lot of popularity in social media, lots of popular sports. Women are becoming more active in sports, and there’s also a lot of traction in the research area around women and women’s health. So I think that that’s a big driver. So women are starting to really understand the importance of strength training and why they need to do it. And so when you know better, you do better. So yeah, it’s a big thing around getting away from cardio and the treadmill, but when we understand the importance of it, I think that’s why we’re starting to see that shift.

Cori (02:49):
And the more we start to value it, we start to push into this uncomfortable territory, the more we’re inspiring other generations to do it as well. I know for me, a big part of what really brought me into weights was I saw my mom growing up lifting weights at a time that wasn’t popular to do so. My mom played tennis, she was very active. She actually went to college and played field hockey. She played these sports at a time where it wasn’t really the popular thing to do, so there weren’t even fully sometimes full female teams for them. And so for me, really exploring this avenue and all that it means to be strong for us, there isn’t one definition of strength, but that empowerment that we can even feel from lifting heavy proving what our body can accomplish, it’s honestly why I called the company redefining strength because for me, I found so much empowerment through the gym, through lifting through feeling stronger because it is conquering something you couldn’t overcome before or thought you might not be able to overcome, even if it’s the discomfort of stepping into that weight room. I think you touch on something super key. We stay in our comfort zone, which is partly that the treadmill might make us feel like we won’t look silly doing those things. We feel comfortable with the form, right? There’s risk involved in lifting weights, but also we fear that judgment or we fear letting go of something we’ve done in the past to reach an aesthetic goal, not realizing that there might be something better. Can we talk a little bit about maybe how to embrace the discomfort of stepping into that weight room?

Leigh (04:21):
Yeah, definitely. And I love that you had such an amazing example from your mom, and I think that’s really important too, thinking what sort of example are we setting for the younger generation? There’s always going to be that next generation coming up, but yeah, so kind of just recognizing that inner strength that we already have. So again, when I first came up with this title for the discussion that we’re having, I was like, this might be a little bit harsh, but I don’t think so. I think it’s something that we really need to recognize that we are already strong, we just have to act like it. So as a female, I completely understand that it is a challenge and it is hard to break that routine, like you were saying, it’s something that we’ve always done. It’s hard to step away from something that maybe worked for us in the past when we were younger, but it’s that imposter syndrome or that feeling that we don’t actually be long and it’s just a matter of time before somebody is like they find us out.

(05:23):
And so really through my own personal and professional experience, I’ve been really fortunate to work with a lot of women. So as a physical therapist, I’ve gotten to work with a lot of strong females in a variety of just awful situations. I always say you’re probably not meeting your physical therapist on your best day, not always, but you’re usually not going to PT for the fun of it. And here at Redefining Strength, getting to work with women through so many of life’s challenges, big and small, and oftentimes here working with women as a personal trainer, I actually get to work with women for much longer. And really what that does is it kind of shines a light on all that women that we overcome day to day life is really hard and it can have some really, really hard moments, but I’ve seen time and time again that women are so resilient and so strong. There’s a lot that’s expected of us as a woman in society, physically and mentally. And I think sometimes we just don’t recognize how strong we are. We balance careers. We have kids, we’re caregivers, we go to school, we have relationships, we take care of a household, and we do the physically demanding jobs that our male counterparts also do.

(06:45):
If we’re a nurse, we’re lifting patients up, or if we have older parents, we’re taking care of this. So the list is literally endless. I could go on and on and on about all the hard things we do, but we’re also expected to do these things and we never expected to skip a beat, even though we may be on our periods where we’re literally growing a human in our bodies, we’re pregnant or our hormones are shifting and we’re still expected to just show up the same way time and time again. And we do that and that is incredibly strong of us, and we’re very critical too. We just don’t recognize our strength. So something that we can do is kind of just reflect on that and realize when we have that self-doubt or when we’re afraid to go and try a new workout plan or something, kind of recognize that you felt that way in the past.

(07:39):
You felt that self-doubt before, and then you did the hard thing, so you felt the feeling and the fear and you did it anyway. So recognizing that you’re entirely capable is very helpful and can be very empowering and just recognizing how strong you are, even physically and mentally, physically, you’re entirely capable because you’ve probably already done 16 hard things that day before you went to go do your workout, or you’ve probably picked up something that was way heavier than the dumbbells sitting there. So yeah, I think it’s a little bit of recognizing our own inner strength, like taking a look at taking a stock of our life and all the hard things we accomplish and how we felt fear, but we still did it. So it’s

Cori (08:32):
Truly that ownership, ownership of all that we are flaws, good parts, everything. And recognizing how we overcame the hard in the past because so often we don’t see that hard is hard. And yes, how you handle the heart of some other area of your life might be different than how you embrace the heart of going in and working out and lifting heavy. But that ability to overcome that ability to push yourself into this discomfort is something you’ve learned. And the more you reflect on those other hard situations, the more you can see the mindsets that went into it, how you shaped the environment, how you got yourself to embrace those things. So it is using that reflection on all the other hard things you’ve done to build the confidence, get in the mindset, and then go conquer. As you know, I love the phrase act as if. How does that really play a part in embracing who we are, taking ownership, stepping into that weight room and then making changes there?

Leigh (09:28):
So just acting as if just by gaining that reflection and that understanding of like, oh, okay, I’ve done this hard thing before. It can really translate to taking up space in the gym. You do belong there. You can lift weights. You’ve done many, many hard things before in the past, mentally and physically. And so it’s a direct translation because how you carry yourself and how you approach the gym is the same thing as approaching a difficult situation with your family or your friends or with your job. So even though it is a workout and exercise, it really can translate very easily from just your day-to-day strength and just how you’ve recognized that

Cori (10:21):
With all this. Someone might be like, okay, I think I’m strong enough. I could step into the weight room, but I’m not sure I want to. I love my runs. Cardio’s always worked for me to maintain my weight, even though maybe now with menopause or different hormonal shifts, I’m seeing some weight gain around my middle. Why should I care about stepping into the weight room building muscle building strength? I don’t want to get bulky. We have these discussions often. So I’d love to really touch on how you answer those questions and address the importance of lifting weights or strength training in general, which sometimes means using different equipment or even progressing body weight.

Leigh (11:00):
Yeah, so the fear of getting bulky is a huge thing for women, but it’s definitely not the norm to get that bulky. And I think starting to really pay attention to the benefits that go beyond the aesthetics with weightlifting and with building muscle, especially as we shift into perimenopause and menopause, it becomes super important. So when we start thinking about what happens to our bodies as we age, it just really shines a light on the importance of building muscle. So starting in our thirties, we begin to lose lean body mass at a rate of about 1% a year. So that’s just normal aging. We just start to lose some muscle mass. So as that muscle mass decreases strength and power, so you suddenly realize like, oh man, I can’t jump up onto that curve like I did. I might’ve done in the past. Your balance decreases, so you’re not quite as confident in doing single leg stance, standing on one leg, putting on your pants.

(12:09):
You’re like, oh man, my balance isn’t great. So less muscle mass also means you’re going to expend less energy. So the body requires just less calories to function. And as we all know, life changes across our lifespan. So in our thirties, forties and fifties, life does not look the same as when it did when we were in our teens and twenties, when we were in our twenties. We could work all the time because we didn’t have jobs and we didn’t have families. So that takes away time from our ability to go and exercise. And so all of this kind of compounds and we also have some pretty significant metabolic changes, especially in women that occur in midlife, and that’s intensified by our hormone decline. And that really leads to that unfavorable body composition where you have less muscle mass and you have excessive visceral fat.

(13:02):
So that leads to a myriad of health problems. So you have increased inflammation, which is going to increase your cardiometabolic disease. So things like stroke, heart disease, diabetes, all that risk increases. And even if you step on the scale and you don’t see the scale weight changing, there are still body composition changes happening. So you’re losing muscle and you’re gaining more fat. So these are just those normal things that happen as we age. And if we start to think about the importance of strength training and how can we counteract that, I think it’s actually very encouraging to think of the power that just strength training and building muscle can have on our entire wellbeing. So if we want to get into it, I can kind of break down a little bit of just sort of the basics of the physiology behind lifting weights. I think having that knowledge is very helpful.

(14:07):
So the key with weightlifting is really selecting a weight that is going to be challenging enough to your muscles. So that’s key. And so when you lift heavy weights, this action is going to put microscopic tears in your muscle fibers. And these micro injuries trigger a biological process that initiates repair of those micro tears. And so this creates newer, stronger muscle fibers that replace those damaged ones, and that results in muscle growth over time. So that’s muscle hypertrophy. You’re getting bigger fibers. And so the backbone of strength training is this principle called stress and adaptation. So really what that means is when you lift weights, you’re subjecting your muscles to a form of stress and your body naturally will react to that stress and heal the damage. So that’s going to fortify your muscles, make them stronger and more resistant to the same level of stress.

(15:13):
And this is going to lead to muscle growth and increased strength. So same thing is when you just do mentally hard things, you become more resilient. When you put your muscles and you make them do really hard things, they get stronger and more resilient. So it’s a direct correlation there. And so I don’t know if you can think back to when you first started lifting weights very early on, you get a significant gain in your strength when you just first start lifting weights, and that’s something called neuromuscular adaptation. So really what that is is your nervous system becomes more efficient. It activates motor units. A motor unit is a muscle fiber, and the motor unit just controls all the muscle fiber. So your nervous system gets more efficient at activating motor units. So you kind of notice, oh, I can lift heavier, I can lift more weights pretty early on. And that’s important because that helps you build the strength as you go along. So lifting heavy, it does all that physiological stuff. It also triggers a hormone response where your body releases testosterone and hormone growth, human growth hormone, and that is a key for muscle repair.

(16:30):
So that’s kind of like the science behind building muscle. And so you can kind of see if I put my body under the appropriate stress or I challenge my muscles, I’m challenging myself too by going into the bro gym, I become more resilient and I become stronger over time.

Cori (16:50):
And off of that really hitting on how to build muscles, circling even back to getting bulky. A lot of this is about fueling as well, because if we’re not giving our body adequate fuel to repair and rebuild, we’re not going to build back muscles. So unless you’re giving yourself a ton of extra fuel, it’s very hard as a female to get bulky. It’s not that we can’t, but you have to be very strategic in how you build. And you also have to have specific builds and then work muscles to specific extent. So there’s a lot of strategy that goes into building muscle. And the longer you’ve be training, the harder it actually gets. So if you’re like, gosh, I’ve been training for a really long time and I’m struggling to build muscle, yes, it gets harder. You’ve adapted to more, but you have to focus on that fueling.

(17:28):
And I bring this up too because a lot of times due to the way we’ve dieted in the past, our cardio trends and cardio reliance, I’ll say we’ve created metabolic adaptations, which when we then start to fuel properly dialing in our macros, even though we might have weight we want to lose, we can often see ourselves gaining muscle first because we’re finally fueling to create that progression and allow our muscles to build back. So you can see the scale increase even when you want to lose weight before it then goes down because you’re building that lean muscle because your body is finally able to, which will ultimately help your metabolism. But if you’ve wondered like, Hey, I’m going for weight loss and I’m eating more and I’m trying to trust the process and I feel like I’m building muscle, but I haven’t lost the fat yet, so now I feel like I have a little fluff over my muscle.

(18:11):
That’s partly why. But then recognizing too, when we’re talking about creating that progression in the gym, that means repeating things. And I bring this up because I think I’ve seen, and I want to get your take on this too, Lee, but I’ve seen a big trend in the industry to completely no progression. So I’m not the strict, you have to do something for 12 weeks. I think that there could be a lot of ways to create progression, but if we don’t ever repeat the same workout, if we’re constantly randomly stringing things together, we can never really drive muscle growth because we never have that clear progression of did I do a harder variation? Did I add one more rep? Did I progress the movement by becoming more efficient at doing it with a better mind body connection? So can you talk a little bit about how you design your workouts, both picking weights, but also in terms of progression and repeating workouts and your take on that?

Leigh (18:59):
Yeah, so I mean it does take time and doing the same thing. I mean, if we think about how our body moves, we do kind of like we can squat, we can hinge, we can push, we can press, and that’s just like our muscles moving our bones and we’re putting weight and we’re stressing our muscles. And so having that repeatability and that progression, because we just talked about neuromuscular adaptation in the beginning, you’re actually not building a ton of strength and muscle. You’re just training your nervous system. So you have to train your nervous system, you have to get used to those movements, and then you can progressively add weight. So it is important to train muscle fibers in a similar way for a period of time so that you can slowly add that weight so that you do more micro tears, more repair, and then you can change your workouts a little bit where you’re doing a press in a slightly different variation to hit slightly different muscle fibers, but then you stay there for a little bit of time and you progress the weights because really, I mean there’s no way around it.

(20:10):
The physiology of how to build muscles is these micro tears and repair over time, progressively getting stronger, getting more resilient. It’s not doing chaotic workouts all the time, but it can be boring in the beginning and it can feel repetitive. And I think once you start to see the results and you start to see, oh, putting on I’m adding more weights, you have all these little micro goals that happen in your workouts of like, oh, well my back squat, I did this. Let see if I can do that. So starts to become fun in itself, but really what I like to do for programming workouts is get those main important lifts, those compound movements, the back squat, the deadlift, things like that. And then you can change up the accessory movements so that you start to hit those muscle fibers in different ways, but you’re still doing that. Let’s stay here for a little while. Let’s push the weights over time. Let’s learn the movement and get better over time. So it’s really that adaptation, stress and adaptation is the key for building muscle.

Cori (21:25):
And let’s talk about light versus heavy weights too, because pushing that progression means going heavier, so to speak. And I sort of use the air quotes around that because there’s always the question, do I do higher reps, lighter weights or lower reps, heavier weights? And I never like to think of the higher reps as lighter weights because if it challenges you, it changes you. But why is it so important that we go heavier? And I know you really touched on this, but I just want to highlight it again because it’s not that the weight won’t match the rep range and it will by nature be lighter if you’re doing more reps. And that can be good still in pushing progression. But it’s key that you have that challenge for specific reasons, right? Just going light won’t do anything if you’re really comfortable with it.

Leigh (22:08):
Yes. So this is a question I get asked a lot and I feel like it’s a reasonable question to ask, especially when you’re new to working out is you just don’t know what weights to pick up. And so to dress like the lightweight high rep, so there is a time and a place for doing high repetition lighter weights, but it’s not necessarily going to get you stronger, bigger muscles. It’s not necessarily going to be the only thing that works. And so the lightweight high rep has essentially been debunked by current research as how to do a lot of strength building and muscle hypertrophy because choosing very lightweights something that’s not challenging to your muscles, it fails to create the metabolic and hormonal environment that’s needed to build muscle. So if you pick up super lightweights, you are just simply not putting enough mechanical tension for bone density.

(23:07):
So when you lift weights, you put stress on your muscles, but you inadvertently also strengthen your bones, which is super important, especially for females as we age to reduce our risk of getting osteopenia, osteoporosis, and fractures. So if you pick up lightweights, you’re really not driving that pathway. And then you also minimally will recruit type two muscle fibers, and that is really important for strength maintenance. You also don’t stimulate that release of testosterone or growth hormone. So those hormones are really essential for repair. You just are not creating that environment and then by picking up lightweights, you really have a significantly less impact on your insulin sensitivity. So just touching back on all the benefits of muscle, the more muscle mass you have, the more insulin sensitive you are. So basically your muscle mass becomes like a metabolic buffer, so to speak. So your muscle is much better at taking up blood glucose, which stabilizes blood sugar levels, reduces your risk of type two diabetes.

(24:18):
So if you’re not lifting heavy, you’re not reaping that benefit and you just really don’t never really build the muscle. So you never really see that shift in that metabolic rate improvement. So the more muscle mass you have, the more calories your body needs. So that’s why you start to see like, oh my gosh, I’m eating so much more food than I ever ate before, but my body’s changing. How is that possible? Well, you’re building muscle, you’re fueling that muscle. Your body doesn’t really create muscle from recycling other things in your body just doesn’t work the way you have to eat the food to make the muscle happen. So yeah, that’s just kind of shines a light on why picking up that two pound dumbbell again and again and again, you’re not getting those results well because of all those things. It’s just not happening.

Cori (25:11):
I love that you hit on again and again and again because a weight might be light compared to the rest of the Dumbo rack, but challenge us for the reps, the move, the whatever, and we have to meet ourselves where we’re at. But if you can do that weight and you have your rep range of eight to 12 reps, if you can do that weight for 12 reps, one, two or all four sets, let’s just say that you have that next week, you got to go up. I even like to have clients if they’re experienced with lifts, if they’ve done it for the first set and the rep range is eight to 12, hey, go up for the next one, go up until you hit eight or even air the more advanced you are on hitting six reps having to pause for a second to complete the eight, then stay there.

(25:52):
That’s called double progression where we’re increasing the reps we’re doing with weights and also increasing the weight with reps. So you want to think that you have those two things to play with. If you can do the top end of the rep range, you don’t want to just stay there because it feels kind of hard. You want to be like, okay, how can I work down to the bottom of that rep range and then earn more reps with that weight before I then progress again? Because if we’re not pushing ourselves something, feeling hard doesn’t mean it actually is driving us forward. And I can tell you the more I focus on a muscle building phase, the more uncomfortable sometimes I am and the more I’m like, I got to do this today. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that, but that’s definitely my response because it has to challenge you to create that change. And I think that’s the key thing we don’t often hit on and using that diversity of rep range even to our advantage. Correct?

Leigh (26:43):
Yeah. So it is hard. It should feel hard if it’s always feeling easy, it’s not creating that stimulus. And so yeah, the rep ranges and the prescribed reps are there for a reason. One thing that I do really like to implement and talk about is the use of the rate of perceived exertion or reps in reserve. I find that that really helps, especially people who are just sort of starting out and really questioning what’s hard, what do you meet? What’s hard? Finding that use of RPE rate of perceived exertion helps you be more subjective and take some ownership over your weight selection. So subjective, meaning it’s arising from oneself. And so thinking about using RPE as a subjective scale to measure intensity of exercise or effort, so you can really gauge how you feel during a lift or a workout by using RPE, it takes into account factors like breathing, heart rate, muscle fatigue, RPE.

(27:57):
So it typically ranges from zero to 10. So zero is rest and 10 is your max effort. I like to use RPE too with individuals because they can understand their intensity of their workouts and they can also adapt their training intensity based on how the individual is feeling that day. So it takes into account like recovery or stress, things like that. So it helps with autoregulation so that you’re able to be adaptable, reduces risk of injury too, so you’re not just pushing to failure all the time. And so then think about RPE and then you also layer in that reps in reserve. So that is a method used in strength training to kind of gauge intensity based off of how many reps you could leave. So thinking that reps in how many reps left in the tank before your form breaks down. So always key is good form with a lift.

(28:58):
And so if you think about that zero to 10 scale, if something were written like 10 reps at RPE of eight, you would think, okay, well I am going to give pretty heavy effort when I get to that 10 reps, I have two reps left in the tank. That’s a pretty heavy effort. That should feel pretty hard when you get to that eight rep, but you could still do two more repetitions. So you’re formed didn’t quite break down. Then once you start training a little bit more down, you’re talking about further down in that rep range to the six, it starts to get pretty spicy doing six reps at rp, that’s hard effort, but changes based off that rep range. So you would pick lighter weights for 10 repetitions at RPE eight as opposed to six repetitions at RPE eight because you obviously are doing less reps, so you can do heavier weights and have it meet that RPE. So I really like RPE reps and reserve to help people figure out what’s hard, what’s challenging, and that changes over time too. So the longer you train that RPE eight, RPE becomes a different weight for you as you get stronger.

Cori (30:18):
And as you even mentioned, it can be different things on different days. And I want to highlight that because we don’t often give ourselves credit that not every workout is going to be pushing progression by adding weight, going and doing another rep because we might not have slept well. There might be other hormonal factors like if you are in a little bit of a calorie deficit, your expectations have to potentially shift or if you’ve even changed progression and changed the order of moves, which I do want to touch on. And then I have one other final question for you too, but if you change the order, and this is why having that weekly schedule you repeat for a while is so key, especially if you are working to track those numbers. But if you do your back squat on Monday and all of a sudden in the next workout progression it’s on Thursday, you might find you aren’t able to keep the same numbers whether you’ve changed rep ranges or just because of the other moves before it.

(31:05):
And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just always remembering too that what is Max’s effort, what is really pushing that movement can depend too on all the other things around it. Now, off of this one final question for you, Lee, and I have to bring this up because I know it’s a topic that comes up often and I have my opinions on it and I want to hear yours, but soreness. So anytime we’re talking about building muscle, people expect to feel sore. If they don’t feel sore, I didn’t work hard enough. Can you talk about soreness in your opinion and what it really means and all that jazz?

Leigh (31:39):
Yeah, so soreness. So delayed onset muscle soreness, DOMS oftentimes will happen when you do something for the first time. When you’re very early on with working out and you are doing all kinds of new movements, new lifts, you’re probably going to be pretty sore When you change your workouts up and you just do a movement that you haven’t done, you’ll also feel sore. It’ll probably be to a less degree than when you first started working out. However, you do not have to be sore in order to know you had a good workout. In fact, the longer you train and the more muscle you have, the less often you’re going to feel that soreness. So you shouldn’t always be chasing soreness. That’s not the goal of a workout. It’s not always the goal to just beat yourself down with a workout and get the most sort the next day.

(32:37):
It’s inevitable to happen every now and then. It happens less frequently the more trained you are, but anytime you change something, you change the order, you change the rep ranges, especially working at a lot of higher rep ranges. If fueling is off, if you are not properly fueling or if you’re in a cut, something like that, you’ll have more muscle soreness. However, I am a big proponent of we’re not chasing soreness the next day. That’s not always the goal. And so oftentimes people feel like, well, I’m not sore at all. I didn’t get a good workout in. That’s not true. You have to kind of consider all the other factors around the workout to qualify that as a good training session.

Cori (33:20):
Couldn’t agree more. And I come from the no pain, no gain background attitude, and I like being sore as much as the next person. There’s something oddly satisfying at times about it, but if you’re constantly getting sore, it means you’re probably mixing things up too much. It means you’re probably jumping potentially weights or reps too quickly. It means you’re not fueling correctly, recovering correctly. If you’re doing that prehab process that should help with that. So soreness is often actually an indicator that something else is off. It can also be an indicator that we’re potentially doing too much volume or frequency for a muscle loading it really a ton under stretch, which can then lead to more muscle tissue damage and potentially some of that muscle soreness as well. So it’s really assessing is the soreness just, Hey, I switched things up and I pushed really hard this one time and then I’m adapting to it, or is something else off? Now off of that, any closing thoughts for someone being like, okay, I’m sold. I’m going to go build muscle, I’m going to embrace strength training. I’m going to act as if any thoughts for them, Lee?

Leigh (34:17):
Yeah. Yeah. So this is something I get super hyped about is helping a woman understand the importance of strength training and why you can’t just do cardio forever. It’s also really exciting because I kind of can see the future and I’m like, okay, I know you’re going to make some really awesome gains here soon. But honestly, just to kind of wrap things up, I think it’s just taking that moment to reflect on your life as a woman and just thinking about all of the incredibly hard things that you do mentally, physically, how you felt afraid. Probably during those times you felt the fear, but you did it anyway. That’s the same thing, this shrink training, it is not beyond your capabilities, it’s just something new and you just haven’t jumped in and done it. So realizing all the health benefits, health, realizing how this can improve your life, make things easier for you in terms of eating food and fueling and having these body changes, sleeping better, having perimenopause and menopause symptoms reduce. There’s so many benefits. So yeah, it’s my favorite thing to help women realize like, wait a minute, I’m strong. I can go pick up a really heavy weight and I can lift it.

Cori (35:33):
Health benefits, aesthetic benefits, mental benefits. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen so much confidence built through what I’ve been able to overcome in the gym and picking up that heavier weight. So can’t say enough about it. Couldn’t agree more. Leigh, thank you so much for joining me today. Guys, have a great rest of your week.

 

*Note: This transcript is autogenerated there may be some unintended errors.

“I Don’t Have Time To Workout”

“I Don’t Have Time To Workout”

“I don’t have enough time.”

Sorry I’m calling BS on this one.

And before your storm off clicking back, hear me out…

What we value, we prioritize.

And what we prioritize, we MAKE time for.

We FIND the time.

Yes, there are finite hours in the day, but we give up some of our endless Instagram scrolling.

Or we find a way to still do SOMETHING.

We stop focusing on an ideal and instead focus on what is truly possible where we are at RIGHT NOW.

Because something is better than nothing and 5 minutes pays off.

That’s why I want to share not only 3 tips to help you get that workout momentum building, MAKING the time, but also 3 tips to help you truly design for the time you have.

Because feeling fabulous and moving well doesn’t have to be a full time job!

So first…how can we make the time in our crazy, busy schedules?

And no, the answer isn’t just sleeping less or cutting out things you love to do even if you know they may be…well…time wasters…

Actually the first way to make time for your training is to combine your workouts with some of those mindless activities you love!

Yup.

Tip #1 is…Don’t sacrifice things you enjoy – CONNECT THEM!

Love scrolling Instagram or TikTok? Love bad reality TV shows? Use those as times to go get in a walk. Or do your mobility work. Listen to a podcast as you workout.

Use your workouts oddly as a time to multitask.

Because so often we feel like to fit in the things we know we “should” do, we need to give up things we just want to do to relax.

But we don’t have to.

By connecting these two things, you’re sacrificing something you want to do, but you’re also making potentially the training you don’t want to do something you want to do…and GET to do.

You may make yourself look forward even more to that time for YOU. And the more you value that time, the more you’ll prioritize the habit!

Tip #2: Use stolen moments. Take movement snack breaks.

Sure maybe a 30, 40 or even hour long session is “ideal.” But if that’s not possible and is mentally stopping you from starting anything, realize you don’t need it.

Use the moments you have.

5 minutes in between meetings, do a couple of stretches and a loop around your office.

Need to get up to get more water? Do 10 bodyweight squats.

Yes, we want progression to our workouts and a clear plan in place as much as possible for the fastest results, but even small actions beat a perfect plan…

Because so often we use not being able to do the ideal as an excuse to do nothing. And no action means no progress.

Not to mention, action creates more momentum and more action.

When you feel positive and good about the habits you are doing, you want to do more of them.

And even 5 minutes throughout the day can add up and add up fast.

Consider even accounting for those stolen moments to have a plan for different lengths so you can create some clear guidelines to help yourself build.

Start even setting an alarm or calendar event to get you in the habit of doing 5 minutes.

Because 5 minutes becomes 15 becomes 30 becomes forward momentum that makes you want to prioritize the habit more and more.

And suddenly, you find there is more time than you realized in your day because you’re not faced with the daunting task of setting aside an hour all at once!

Then Tip #3: Focus on frequency first.

We get good at what we consistently do. The more we have that set time daily that we workout at, the easier it is to get in the groove and habit.

This may sound counterintuitive BUT…

It may be better to do 10-15 minutes a day to start over trying to do an hour 3 times a week.

And it’s all because of the groove and habit it gets us into.

With the short daily sessions, you can have a clear pattern you create and a shift in your environment. The repetition daily for a few weeks can build that consistency to create that discipline.

From there, you can adjust maybe two or three sessions to be longer and even shift some of the shorter ones to just be recovery.

But more of less to start may be the key to helping that momentum snowball.

Now that you’ve made the time, you have to design for the time you have so your training sessions are as effective as possible.

Because often we feel like 5-10 minutes can’t pay off. But it can, if used strategically.

Here are 3 tips to maximize those minutes…

Tip #1: Set a timer.

When we don’t have clarity on how long something will take, we may skip it when we have a hard stop time or deadline. By creating timed routines, you know you’ll get everything in.

That clarity creates comfort.

If you have 5 minutes, set a timer for 5 minutes with 3 moves you cycle through during that time. Then you’re done.

If you have a minute, do a minute of foam rolling or stretching even. Heck a minute of burpees will destroy you.

If you have 15 minutes, create a circuit of 5 moves you do for 1 minute each and repeat the series 3 times.

So many ways to use that timer to help you be efficient.

And not only will you know you’ll be able to get in the workout you’ve designed, but having that set timeframe can help you strategically include moves and reps and sets to your advantage.

It can help you pick exercises that will really challenge you. It can help you decide which muscles to work to make the most of every second.

It gives you a focus for the session to optimize it.

Then Tip #2: Use compound moves.

Work more muscle groups in a shorter amount of time to build more muscle while burning more calories.

Compound moves are multi-joint movements that work multiple muscle groups at once. These are more efficient than isolation exercises that work only a single muscle at a time, making them better to help you work your entire body when time is an issue.

You can also move heavier loads with compound moves which can help you build strength and muscle more efficiently.

When designing your workouts focus on exercises like squats, deadlifts, lunges, push ups, pull ups, bench press, rows over bicep curls or leg extensions.

And then cycle the areas worked over your workouts to avoid having to rest so you can get the most work done in the shortest amount of time.

While rest is key to us being able to work at a higher intensity in our training, we can use active rest to our advantage when we’re short on time.

To allow one muscle to rest as another works, make your workouts more full body and alternate moves for different muscle groups.

In your circuit, think squat, push up and row as your 3 moves over squat, lunge, step up.

The second never gives your legs a chance to rest so you’ll see your intensity dip as you even have to modify or lighten loads whereas your legs get rest in the first during push ups and rows.

And Tip #3: Don’t work to failure.

While it is tempting to try to max out the reps on a move each round, this can cause you to actually have to slow down and rest more or modify moves to keep moving.

Instead stop a few reps short of having to rest and move on to the next exercise. This can lead to you being able to push harder for each rep you do and make the work you do more quality.

It can help you even do more reps over the 5 minutes you have over having to pause because you’re tired, slowing you down.

You can also often lift heavier by keeping the reps lower. Over the 5-10 minutes, 5 reps at a time can really add up to more weight lifted than if you went lighter to be able to do 10 reps!

The key is strategically designing for the time we have over focusing on an ideal.

And all of this starts with owning that we can’t change how many hours in the day we have, but we can find ways to shift our priorities to MAKE the time to see the results we want!

For workouts you can do anywhere, and that will fit your crazy busy schedule, check out my Dynamic Strength program:

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Are Bulgarian Split Squats Overrated?

Are Bulgarian Split Squats Overrated?

The Bulgarian Split Squat or Balance Lunge is a move you see all over social media. It’s even a staple in many standard gym training routines. Many say it is a “must-do” exercise or the “best” unilateral leg moves.

But honestly, it’s slightly overrated BECAUSE it is so often done INCORRECTLY.

It’s a move that’s far more advanced than we realize and many of us haven’t earned the variation we’re using.

So we don’t see the full benefit of the exercise. And even end up injured from it.

We wobble around and let our front knee cave in. We don’t lower down to the ground using the full range of motion. We rush through as we lose our balance.

Our training should feel hard with purpose. We want every move to truly pay off and yield the best results as fast as possible.

That’s why I wanted to share my favorite static lunge variation to start with and even variations of the Balance Lunge you may use instead.

But before I do I wanted to share 3 key form tips if you are using the Balance Lunge to make sure you’re getting the most out of the exercise!

#1: Set up at the BOTTOM of the lunge.

By setting up at the bottom of the lunge, you can make sure your feet are not only in the right position but also make sure you are truly able to work through a full range of motion.

Because the value in doing the Balance Lunges is in the range of motion. You’re increasing the range of motion to create more of a challenge and progress the exercise.

This increased range of motion puts muscles under greater stretch while loaded to help you see better muscle and strength gains.

It also helps you maintain a bigger range of hip motion. So if you’ve been doing that mobility work, you need to make sure you’re doing moves to fully strengthen through the range of motion you built.

Too often when we do Balance Lunges we aren’t actually going through the full range of motion completely defeating part of the purpose of using them in the first place!

We also aren’t stable in our set up because our feet are at odd widths. This set up at the bottom, allows you to focus on pushing the ground away and set up at a stance you can control.

You can choose to flex or relax your back foot based on your toe and ankle mobility. But make sure you’re creating that tension down into the bench or box either way to stabilize.

While more load will be on that front leg, you want tension through your back foot to balance as you focus on your front foot pushing down into the ground like a tripod with two points in the ball of your foot and one in your heel!

This helps you truly activate the muscles of your leg and even helps with knee alignment so that it isn’t caving in!

#2: Use torso and shin angle to your advantage.

We think of form as this very set binary thing – good or bad. But with so many moves, there are tweaks to form you can use to emphasize the muscles you want to work and even better suit your unique build.

With the Balance Lunge, you can change your shin angle and torso angle to help you emphasize more quad or more glute.

You can also use these two things based on ankle mobility and knee issues to work around aches and pains.

A more vertical shin angle will help you emphasize your glutes especially when combined with a slight more hip hinge or a slight lean to your torso.

Allowing your knee to move a bit more forward over the all of your foot while maintaining a more vertical torso position will emphasize your quads more.

Which you use will be based on your goals for the exercise. Everything should be included with purpose.

Also you may find that previous knee injuries or even ankle mobility issues impact the postures you use.

If you have issues with knee pain or ankle mobility, even due to previous ankle sprains, you may find you need to use a bit more of a vertical shin angle although you can play around with torso angle a bit.

#3: Adjust your depth!

The higher the bench or box you use, the harder this lunge is, creating more instability and a bigger range of motion. You need to be more mobile and stronger as you increase the range of motion you’re working through.
This makes changing the height of the box or bench a great way to progress this move potentially without adding weights. But it also means the height of the bench is something you need to EARN.

Yet so often we just think Balance Lunge and we just go to any bench around instead of finding one that fits our needs and fitness level.

Don’t be afraid to adjust the height based on your mobility and height. Also don’t be afraid to adjust the height to progress the movement without adding loads.

And if you do want to focus on lifting more, don’t be afraid to even go LOWER than you have in the past to progress and add instability while going heavier. There are so many ways to create progression through how we combine range of motion, stability and resistance!

The importance of the height of the box or bench we are using is too often not appreciated and recognized, which is why I feel so often this lunge is overrated and misused.

Because if you don’t work through the range of motion you’re creating, you’re better off doing a different lunge variation instead and really learning to control it with loads.

Results come from quality of movement.

That’s why I love to start with the Split Squat and even return to this move to focus more on progression through adding heavier and heavier loads while maintaining mobility.

Because lunges are a great mobility and stability exercise for our hips especially when included at the level and in the variation that matches our fitness level, needs and goals.

The split squat is the most basic static lunge variation. But instead of your back foot up on a bench or box, you’re doing this move fully off the ground.

If you can’t yet lower your back knee to touch the ground, or hover right above it, you haven’t earned increasing the range of motion further.

If you aren’t yet able to go to the ground, you can also reduce the range of motion you’re working through to build up.

You can place a block under your back knee and lower to that over going all of the way to the ground. This is a great way to slowly build up that range of motion and hip mobility and leg strength but in a way you can control.

With this split squat, I love to set up at the bottom and focus on maintaining that even pressure between both your foot and back foot, whether you’re doing it off the ground or from the block. This push down into the ground to help you drive up centered is key to helping you balance and really engage your legs.

And like the Balance Lunge, you can adjust torso and shin angle to impact what muscles you activate more.

You can add load to this move as you can control that full range of motion.

And this is where there is extra opportunity in the options and variations of the split squat that you can even use to tweak the balance lunge to fit your needs.

With adding resistance, it isn’t just about going directly heavier all of the time.

You can change where you hold the weights from down at your sides to allow yourself to focus on your legs and grip and go heavier to up at your chest in the goblet position to target your core more.

You can even unilaterally load the weight and hold it on one side to work on core stability. Even holding a weight in the opposite hand from your front leg can help you target your glute medius more especially with that torso lean and vertical shin angle.

You can even change how you’re applying resistance by using a mini band over dumbbells.

The key is understanding there are options to really make this move fit your needs and goals.

And with the Balance Lunge, we so often only increase range of motion by placing our back foot up.

However, you can also progress the basic split squat by raising your FRONT foot up as a deficit split squat.

Even if you love the Balance Lunge and can work through that full range of motion, you may include this to emphasize different muscles and even create progression through the same but different.

Just like you return to the split squat to go heavier while having the more limited range of motion.

With the Deficit Split Squat, some may find this easier to control while getting the benefits of working through a bigger range of motion.

And a very small elevation can have a huge impact. It may even feel better for some with longer femurs or upper legs.

The deficit split squat can keep that front leg in more of a working range of motion and put the glute under greater stretch in that front leg. And unlike the Balance Lunge, you won’t have more of your weight in that front leg, making it potentially easier to balance with full pressure between both legs and feet.

So as you build up and progress, see opportunity in the options. But don’t just include a move to use it because someone said it was the “best” or a “must-do.”

Make sure every move you use has purpose and that you can use it for quality reps!

Want amazing workouts to challenge you and help you build your leanest, strongest body ever?

Check out my Dynamic Strength Program!

Build Muscle and Lose Fat With Density Intervals

Build Muscle and Lose Fat With Density Intervals

Too often we only use one very specific rep and set range in our workouts because we’ve heard it’s ideal for strength or muscle hypertrophy or strength endurance…

And we stay within this SINGLE rep range because it is supposedly best for our goal.

But this narrow view of how we SHOULD train holds us back.

It even prevents us from truly pushing ourselves or that progression to create results.

It prevents us from building endurance which could enhance our recovery to see better muscle growth.

It prevents us from increasing our maximal strength to see better muscle gains.

And when we don’t use DIVERSITY IN DESIGN to our advantage, which is even more key the more experienced we are, we often see our results plateau.

We find we aren’t gaining muscle while still putting in hours at the gym. And even our fat loss results seem to go backward.

But by embracing other training techniques, not only can we improve our results, but we can be more efficient in our training, which is good if you’ve ever thought, “I don’t have enough time!”

That’s why I want to share one of my favorite efficient training techniques so you can see better fat loss and muscle gains from your workouts.

And that training technique is Density Intervals!

When we hear INTERVALS, many of us instantly think about cardio workouts.

We think HIIT and our blood pumping and fat crying…

Not muscle being built.

But intervals are a great way to help ourselves increase our training density, or the amount of work or weight lifted in a set timeframe, to see better muscle and strength gains with shorter workout sessions.

That’s why I want to break down why interval strength workouts can be so amazing and how to use Density Intervals specifically to your advantage.

So first…why can intervals be better than just set rep ranges for building strength and muscle?

Using timed intervals in our strength workouts can help us push past the point we usually want to quit.

Think about your workouts…Have you ever just stopped at the top of a rep range because you hit the top number you “should” be doing?

Have you ever thought, “I could have done more but MEH it’s hard enough and I want to just get the workout done?”

Intervals can help us push past that point because we have to keep going until the timer beeps.

It can make us do an extra few reps we normally wouldn’t have and push a bit harder than we would have otherwise.

Even if we have to PAUSE during the interval to keep going, it helps us get more work done in a shorter amount of time.

And it can even help us lift a greater overall load for the session than we would have just counting reps.

Especially if we are a bit pressed for time, intervals stop us from losing mental focus and just rushing through.

We can’t just stop when it feels hard with reps, think “Good enough” and go on to the next thing.

We have to work the entire interval.

And often this keeps us more intentional and focused on the movement. We aren’t worried as much about counting reps.

We can’t be done faster.

So we stay focused on what we feel working.

And when you use the same intervals of work week over week, you can focus on progressing the moves you use or the weights you lifted or even try to get out an extra rep or two with the weight or variation you used the week before in that same time frame.

This can drive progression without increasing your workout time.

You can even time your workout exactly to fit your schedule because you know how long each set will take!

And if you’ve ever felt like you just can’t do another rep or add more weight to a move, this is also where intervals can help you out.

Often if we fail with a weight we just stop there and move on.

But with intervals, you may drop the weight to keep going. Or you may pause then pick back up to finish out the interval.

And Density Intervals even add another layer to this…

While you can use intervals in so many different ways, with Density Intervals you will want to do back to back intervals of work for the same muscle group but using two different forms of progression or movement variations.

Like if you’re working your legs, you may do an interval of front lunges then an interval of split squat pulses.

This helps you take a muscle closer to fatigue in a fast and efficient way.

It can also help you use all 3 drivers of muscle growth and create progression when you can’t do another rep or add more weight with your traditional workout designs.

With Density Intervals, you’ll set two intervals of work for the same area back to back.

In one, you may perform a hold or isometric to pre fatigue the muscle before you then go into reps.

Because you are already tired, you may find the same loads or movement variations you can usually do become exponentially harder. You max yourself out and push past failure with even lighter loads!

Or you may do Density Intervals, where you do that heavy compound lift first, followed by more of an isolation move after to fully fatigue the big muscle worked in your lift.

And you aren’t just limited to these change ups.

You can use two different tempos back to back.

Or even ranges of motion.

And the options go on on and on.

This is also why this workout design can be especially useful when training at home with only bodyweight or limited loads if you’re struggling to see the muscle strength and gains you want from your training.

All of this allows you to use diversity to your advantage while getting in more work for an area without your workouts getting longer and longer.

It helps you fatigue a muscle using different techniques combined. And this is what drives better results.

It can help you truly push yourself to challenge your body while staying focused and intentional.

Because too often we waste time in our workouts just going through the motions.

We want to be able to ask ourselves…

“Have I pushed myself forward and challenged myself today? Have I felt uncomfortable a bit in my training using the time I have to get in quality work?”

And have the answer be YES.

Because that is what leads to results and what Density Intervals can truly help us achieve.

So if you’ve felt like your results have plateaued and your training sessions just aren’t pushing you any more, consider mixing up your traditional reps and sets for timed intervals of strength work.

You’ll be surprised by how the same but different really drives you forward and challenges your body in new ways!

Want killer workouts you can do anywhere to help you build strength and muscle while losing fat?

Check out my Dynamic Strength Program!

 

How To Build Muscle Faster Without Weights

How To Build Muscle Faster Without Weights

You need weights to build muscle.

False.

You don’t.

While adding heavier loads can make it easy to create that progression and challenge your muscles to improve your muscle hypertrophy or muscle gains, you don’t need weights to build some killer functional strength and get lean and strong.

As long as you create that challenge in your workouts so your muscles have to adapt and grow to conquer what you’re asking them to do, you’re going to see results – whether that challenge involves adding weight or not.

I bring this up because I got a number of questions on my Weight Training For Fat Loss video about whether or not it was possible to see amazing results from your training using just bodyweight moves.

And the answer is yes!

You can see amazing results and build muscle using only your own bodyweight.

Whether you want to gain muscle just to gain muscle and strength or you want to gain muscle to help with the fat loss process, increasing your metabolic rate, you can adjust other training variables and strategically design your bodyweight workouts to create progression.

That’s why I wanted to share some amazing ways to design your bodyweight workouts and use bodyweight moves to help you build muscle efficiently whether you’re training at home, training while on the road traveling or even just looking for a way to stay on track with your workouts and goals during the holidays!

Just remember with all of these you want to design a clear progression you repeat for a few weeks in a row.

Randomly stringing things together won’t help you create that clear progression and build you need to see results.

While you may get sore from constantly doing new things, and I know that can make you FEEL like you’re getting results, you aren’t creating that challenge that builds upon previous weeks to truly create that muscle growth!

Soreness truly isn’t an indicator that we worked hard enough or that we are going to get better results faster.

Honestly seeking to constantly be sore may be holding you back from actually achieving the muscle gains you want…and may actually mean that something is off in your recovery and nutrition.

Once we start focusing instead on tracking our progress in our workout routines to see increases in our performance each session, we ultimately will see better muscle gains, be sore less and even see our body composition improve overall.

So if you are training with just bodyweight and want to gain more muscle, one great way to start improving your results is to increase your training density.

(Want a workout program designed for the tools you have and goals you want to hit? Check out my Dynamic Strength App!)

Using Density Training Workout Designs can help you get better results and actually spend less time training to fit your busy schedule.

#1: Use Density Training Workout Designs.

Now you may be thinking what is training density even?

Training density is the volume of work in a specific time frame.

You can change training density by adding in more volume (so more reps and sets of moves) or by adjusting the time frame for the work you have planned out.

Too often though, especially when we don’t have weights to challenge us, we simply do MORE. We add in more moves, more reps and sets.

But this can lead to wasted volume and very inefficient and long workouts.

Because it isn’t just the volume, but the quality of that volume that matters.

Instead of doing more, we can adjust the timeframe we have to complete a certain amount of work, even trying to increase volume within those time limits so it doesn’t just get out of control.

That’s where Density Intervals and Density Sets can be great designs to use for bodyweight training.

Both of these have time limits where your goal is to increase volume within those boundaries, doing more reps and sets, while also using more challenging movements.

Density Intervals are work intervals under 1 minute that can be laid out as compound sets, so moves back to back for a single muscle group or area, trisets (3 moves done back to back before any rest) or circuits.

With Density intervals, especially when using bodyweight, you often want to work the same area in back to back intervals either adjusting tempos, types of movements or even ranges of motion, before moving on to a different muscle group.

You may do something like a bodyweight squat followed by squat pulses. Or a wall sit followed by bodyweight squats. Or bodyweight squats followed by front lunges.

But you are creating more training density by increasing the amount of work you’re doing for an area in a set amount of time while even using other training variables to create that challenge.

Density Sets also are about increasing the volume of work done in a set amount of time while progressing moves in other ways.

With this design, you may set a timeframe of work from 5-25 minutes and cycle through different moves in that time, either focusing in on one area of the body or even alternating upper and lower or anterior/posterior movements based on your progression and specific goals for the workout.

When using 5-15 minutes, often 1-3 moves works best per set. With 20+ timed sets, you can consider even 4-5 done back to back.

When you do moves that work the same area back to back, you will find that area will become more fatigued more quickly and cause you to have to modify as you go through over resting.

If you alternate areas worked, you will find that allows you to rest without actually resting. Pairing a push up with a single leg deadlift, allows your chest, shoulders and triceps to rest as your hamstring and glutes work.

With Density Sets, you want to think fewer reps per round but increasing the amount of work done by performing more rounds in the time.

The reason you want to think even just 5 reps per move before moving to the next exercise is so that you can use harder variations while making sure each rep is quality.

You can actually end up doing more reps with the harder variation during your workout this way than if you tried to do more reps in a row!

And that training volume with a harder variation means you’re challenging your muscles even more!

We have to remember that as much as increasing our training density can be a great way to create the challenge we need, and volume we need to build muscle, we want each rep to be quality to also get better results faster!

#2: Consider Other Training Variables.

Then whether you use a Density Training Design or even strategically use circuits or compound sets or any other workout design, you don’t want to ignore the importance of adjusting other training variables to make moves challenging.

Adding weights is such an easy training variable to adjust, which is so often why we default back to it.

But when you have your own bodyweight, you can be creative with how you design progression.

You can play with tempos of moves, slowing down moves, speeding them up or even performing isometrics or holds. You can even use more than one tempo with a single move.

You can slow down the lower down of a push up, add in a push up hold at the mid-point of a push up, speed up the movement making it explosive even leaving the ground. Or you could combine a slow lower down, hold and then quick press back up!

You can change your base of support or the stability of a move, trying a unilateral variation, or single sided variation, of a basic bilateral, or two-sided, move – like a single arm plank over a basic high plank.

You could even take this a step further and instead of staying on one side in the unilateral move, alternate sides. You could take that single arm plank hold and turn it into a plank with punch so you’re having to avoid rotation now with movement!

Even slight adjustments in that base of support can impact things, going from a basic bodyweight squat to a split squat.

And from there you can adjust the challenge by adding in even more movement going to that full front lunge.

You could even vary the range of motion on that, limiting the range of motion with pulses in that split squat position or placing that back foot up on a bench for a balance lunge. You can even change how you increase the range of motion by instead putting your front foot up on a step over raising the back leg.

And there are more training variables you can adjust on top of adjusting how you include these in your workouts.

Even going back to those density intervals, you could do an interval of split squats followed by split squat pulses.

Or do a fast split squat followed by a slow split squat with a hold.

The great part is all of these can change how you’re challenging your body to build that lean muscle!

Because progression can be even implementing the same but different at times!

To get those creative juices flowing so you get out of only thinking about challenging yourself by adding weight, it can be fun to play a game where you take one basic move, say a squat, and run through all of the options available.

You can then select the movement variation that matches your needs and goals for that workout and progression, saving the others to even use in your next workout series to keep creating a challenge for your body in new ways…

But you’ll be amazed by how many ways you can actually challenge yourself with those basic bodyweight exercises and even have fun and keep your training fresh while doing so!

And with playing this game with movements to see how you can manipulate training variables to create that progression, you not only want to consider compound and hybrid exercises you can include that work more muscle groups at once, but also how you can better use isolation exercises in your training routines.

#3: Use Isolation Moves Strategically.

Studies have shown that, especially for stubborn muscles, isolation exercises or exercises that really focus in on one specific muscle, can be so key.

With compound moves, you are only as strong as your weakest link, which may prevent you from fully working an area as much as needed.

With isolation moves, there is really only one link working so you can make sure it is working to the max.

But, especially when we don’t have loads to progress things, or target those muscles, it can be hard to find a way to use isolation moves that is also time efficient.

Yet also because we don’t have loads, isolation moves can be even more key to include.

They can help us fully fatigue areas, and create more time under tension even for those muscles during our training, to make sure we’re challenging our body in ways that our muscles are forced to adapt.

That is why pairing an isolation move right AFTER a compound exercise can be super helpful when training with only bodyweight.

While you’ve targeted those large muscle groups and more muscles with a more challenging compound move first, you can then hone in on any stubborn areas right after to fully fatigue the muscle with that more isolated exercise.

Try a get up lunge to work your legs then further target your quads and isolate them with a lean back.

Or do a regular push up followed by a Tricep Push Up or dip off a bench to then isolate and further fatigue those triceps.

You will even find doing this changes how you feel that more compound exercise in subsequent rounds of your workout!

But instead of just putting a burner at the end or some isolation work set out in your workout like you may do with weights, use those isolation moves as almost a way to post-exhaust an area.

Or potentially for a larger, stronger muscle like your glutes, even consider some pre-fatigue work, including isolation exercises before the compound move so you better feel that muscle engaging and fully working.

The more we feel a muscle activate and work, the more we are truly able to improve the muscle gains for that muscle!

These 3 tips are a great place to start adjusting your bodyweight training to see results. And while we need to challenge our muscles if we want to create adaptation and growth, we can’t ignore the importance of also adjusting our diet to match!

Don’t forget the importance of your nutrition!

Especially if we want to avoid gaining a ton of unwanted fat in the process of gaining muscle, we need to dial in our macros and calories to complement our training. Check out my video about building muscle and losing fat at the same time. I’ve included the link in the video description as a great next video to watch.

Because, while many of us have been told it isn’t possible, we can achieve amazing body recomp if we dial in our macros to match our workouts and embrace that results take time!

–> Gain Muscle Without Gaining Fat