Episode 212. What You Need to Know About Resistance Training with Zac

Welcome to another episode of the In-situ health and fitness podcast! This week on the show, we have a very special guest: Zac Caughey, Physiotherapist to North Melbourne Football Club and the Melbourne City Baths.

In this episode, we explore the world of resistance training. How does lifting impact your bone strength? Is it just for building muscle, or can it help with joint pain and overall well-being? We dive into these questions and more, breaking down myths and offering insights into the practical benefits of resistance training. Tune in to hear whether you really need to lift heavy weights and what everyone should know about weightlifting for long-term health.

Chapters

• 0:00 Resistance training encompasses various forms of movements with added load.
• 2:20 Resistance training is essential for overall health and has numerous benefits.
• 7:15 Resistance training for pain relief and improved function.
• 9:35 Resistance training for pain relief and improved function.
• 14:15 Resistance training for shoulder stability and injury prevention.
• 16:30 Structuring resistance training for clients.
• 20:15 rogressive overload is key for strength improvement in resistance training.
• 22:15 Resistance training involves progressively overloading to build endurance, strength, or power.
• 26:10 Resistance training strengthens the bone structure.
• 28:10 Importance of recovery and bone adaptation in resistance training.
• 32:20 Barefoot shoes can lead to stronger feet and improved muscle tightness.
• 34:20 Rest is crucial for effective resistance training.
• 38:20 Resistance training and hybrid training.
• 40:30 Balancing physical bulk and high cardio is a challenge in resistance training.
• 44:30 Resistance training is important for long-term health benefits
• 46:15 Improving sleep is the most important for health and wellness.
• 49:55 Improvements in sleep and nutrition can enhance the benefits of resistance training.
• 51:50 Being overly reliant on tracking devices for how one feels
• 55:45 Balance training is crucial to prevent injuries

Transcript

when I say the word resistance trainingwhat's the first thing that pops intoyour head I'm going to open this up toyou as wellMac okay what's the first thingload volume Push Pull I think uh yeahthere's um there's lots of lots ofaspects any anything you are pulling orpushing is resistance training whetherit's a band whether it's dumbbellswhether it's a a rack whatever you'rewhatever you're moving is is a form ofresistance training stairs runningstairs is is somewhat resistant so yeahanything where you're adding a load Ithink probably just gym then weights isthe first thing that came to my mindit's like being in a gym I feel like notthat that's necessarily the only placeyou can do resistance training butthat's automatically where my my brainwent like you have to go to a gym andyou have to liftweights I don'tknow what's do we even ask you becausethis is like the definition of you as aperson is it what is resistance trainingJack tell us Enlighten us I thinkthere's what I want it to be andwhat I I guess I get influenced likewhen I hear resistance training and whatmy clients hear resistance training it'sall about physique so you do resistancetraining to change your physique butlike I want the answer to be longevityHealth you know all the above what we'regoing to talk about um and I think yousaid Lo load I would have said somethinghard when I hear resistance training I Ijust think of something hard yeah soagain it doesn't necess have to be thegym weights all that sort of stuff is ithard and is it hard to move and it'sresistance mhm um so that's what I Iwant it to be but generally it comesdown to physique and I'd like thispodcast that change people's mind andgive them more info and why they shouldbe doing resistance training and I thinkthat was our first question wasn't it myfirst question is what should we bereferring to it as for the rest of theepisode resistance training strengthtraining or weightlifting or are theyinterchangeable uh I think weightliftingis its own sport its own kind of umconcept I I I definitely can appreciatepeople who weight lift and and thetechnique and the time and like it is anapprenticeship you've got to put timeinto learning how to lift weightsproperly um in terms of weight liftingum is probably what comes to my mind Iguess in the in the essence of liftingweight it's categorized as resistancetraining we would put it I think umparticularly in the Allied Health worldit would be um yeah it would come backto that load like and and so for youknow in in terms of exertion resistancetraining can be 5 kilos for someone 50kilos for someone else um and and so onso yeah I think resistance training is areally good kind of umbrella term forthis for this topic I think that' begood yeahcool why is resistance training soimportant forus uh where do we start and where do weend it's one of those questions I um youknow I had I've had a few conversationsabout this recently and everyone knowswhy it's good for you but no one canverbalize why it's good for you uh Ithink that's the tricky part I thinkwhen you think about the body anatomywise there are so many different systemswithin the body and all of them benefitfrom resistance training uh to a degreeso um you know we talk about musclestrength so we know that muscle strengthgets better when it's um appropriatelyoverloaded we know that you can improvecross sectional area of your muscle sizewhich directly correlates to um improvedstrength we know that bone mineraldensity improves with resistancetraining um we know that we releasechemicals happy chemicals dopamineserotonin when we uh when we train sofrom a mind happiness we increaseneurological Pathways um we decreaseinhibitions we reduce pain uh throughindoor fences so there's so many avenuesthat uh we could even look at to to uhpromote resistance training why do youthink that there there is so manybenefits out there so why do you thinkit is so hard for people to verbalize orunderstand why resistance training is soimportant I think I think that's that'sthe answer because there's so manydifferent things I I don't know manypeople who work out and go oh I didn'tlike that um sometimes it's not foreveryone like I'm I'm naturally a cardiouh runner um in my hobby or interest I Ienjoy that probably more than resistancetraining although I need to doresistance training to to be good atthat um and I but I still enjoy the gymso when I'm I'm there I can I can umappreciate the benefits that it'sproviding and also enjoy it um but as Isaid not many people I think know whenthey go to the gym I'm doing thisbecause ofbecause it boosts my mood um becauseit's going to improve my bone mineraldensity because it's going to you know alot of people enjoy the the vanity sideof it which isn't actually a horriblething um that it changes physiques andum can improve strength and and and thelike so yeah to answer that question Ithink we don't really know probablybecause it takes a long time tosee uh visual changes but takes a veryshort time to feelum some of the physiologicalchanges yeah it's hard isn't it becauseit does take a while to see thoseresults and sometimes it's de like againI was saying before we started recordinghad a client today and we're talkingabout he was early 40s and we're talkingabout you've got to start now cuz he'sbeen having these conversation with hisdad who's 60 plus and he's struggling alot so it's like you're doing even ifyou're in your early late 20s you'redoing all these things now so whenyou're 60 70 like you're not in a worldof hurt or struggling to even live soyeah it's hard to sort of look that farin the future and care about itabsolutely and mortality is somethingthat you know is definitely the taboosubject of of a lot of things but it isexercise and resistance trainingespecially has been shown in so manycases to reduce mortality throughwhether it's cardiovascular uh systemsuh neurological brain health um and Isaid bone mineral density and jointhealth as well so there is a lot thatthat resistance training can do and thatthat is one of the one of the things butum I think there's that case in point isa really good example of someone that Iwould probably see a lot of um as a as aphysio is is people who are doingresistance training to either reducepain or improve function so it's not somuch that I'm going to the gym to getreally good muscle bulk for summer andchange my physique but it's going to thegym because I want to achieve um some ofmy hobbies and I have pain at the momentwhen I do them and and that could bejoint pain it could be um overuse painor Doms because we're not getting strongcould be bone stress all of these thingsthat a lot of the time happen because wewe aren't strong enough to do that taskso that's where I probably seeresistance training playing more of arole dayto day um in theclientele I had a a very specificquestion about joint pain andhow resistance training can actuallyhelp mitigate the pain aspect of it doyou think that you could maybe elaboratea little bit for on that yeah absolutelyum the pain pathways are such a complexuh system that we're still learningabout and we do know that joint surfacesand Joints themselves are innovated withnerves so when there's either a pressurethat's too high or a um contact of thejoint surfaces and and then essentiallydegeneration that can come with thatwhen those joints are loaded they canbecome quite sore so um people who havejoint injuries will know that you knowat rest with no weight bearing noexercise they're probably okay theirknee or their ankle or their hip orshoulder um Can can manage at rest quitequite comfortably but then when they goto load it they find that it can bequite sore and a lot of the time that'sbecause the themusculature or architecture of musclesaround that joint can't support the loadso a lot of the time that's you know wewe find really quick um treatments withpeople when we can fire up a muscle oror improve some motor control reallyquickly over over um over the course ofa few days or weeks we know thatprobably not changing muscle strength alot in that time but even just improvingsome of the activation patterns orgetting some firing um neural firinghappen happening around that jointaround those muscles can decrease painwhen loading so we know long term thoughthat if the muscles that support thejoint can withstand the force then theload doesn't go essentially through thatjoint and and the joint's able to totake moreforce that so it's just a shortterm thatwould you know you're going to feel thattraining pain but a little bit longertrain through it properly it's going tosort of your shoulders is going to bemore stable Stronger Yeah and I thinkthat's part of our job is to find waysthat we can load the joint withoutmaking it sore uh we don't like toplay uh in pain so that's that'sprobably where we you know we just gotto um work with with the client and andand or the athlete and and and find thethe best way we can load that joint andthose muscles without irritating TheJoint we give oursel a little bit of abudget but um I think often we will findyeah that we we want to strengthen in aposition that's that's comfortable andthen as that gets really strong we canthen push push a little bit further andwhether that's more weightbearingwhether that's you know harder anglesharder forces higher forces um Etc soslow progression of that integrationback into performance or back into thethe desired goal so but we on that motorcontrol conversation just for a secondwhat that essentially is isjust teaching those muscles to to work alittle bit how we would like them towork and how they can support the jointa bit more and and people can find umrelief quite quickly but we know overthe course of four or five days wehaven't really changed the musclestrength we just started to to load itmore and and um teach it that it's okaytoload and that's where the pain pathwaysare quite yeah comprehensive and anddeep so yeah very cool very interestinguh while we're still on this subjectlet's use me for an example so for thosethat don't know I crashed on a scooterprobably 12 months ago uh seen Zach soonafter got a little bit better but thenit was like 6 to eight months later wasstill niggling me and that's when I comeback to see you um do you want to justexplain the test that you did on my thatpressure test and then I got a followupquestion after that yeah yeah so lookingat your strength yeah yeah so um what Iwhat it's a fairly routine test forathletes to look at the strength of theshoulder in outer ranges and um matchesup with a lot of GM activities forpeople so um I see a lot of athletes whohave pain with overhead lifting um a lotof overhead activities tennis serving uhvolleyball swimming all those sportsthat involve shoulder range overhead andessentially the test we did with Jackwas to look at his strength at at at 90°135° and then 180° and we found thatJack's strength at 90 was was quitestrong um but then as soon as we got upto 135 and 180based off off body weight and and thereis a bit of research behind this that hestarted to fatigue or or or lack thecontrol and the strength around hisshoulder compared to the other side andum and compared to to body weight ratiosthat we useso that was probably where we had toaddress some of those those strengthdeficits um and train Jack in thosepositions so rather than doing a lot ofof work down with elbows by side it wasstarting to bring Jack into thosevulnerable positions with low load lowresistance um and then increase that umas we could so I think that was probablythat is really good test and and peopleimprove um quite quickly with that withthe right right loads and then theybecome more comfortable overhead soagain the resistance as you as youworked out I think was you know reallylow 2 one2 3 kilos that we were workingbut it's quite a an OU of range positionso you you're puty a lot of stress onthat axis and um and asking a lot of themuscles so I think that's what you'rereferring to y y beautiful um so whenyou so basically Zach had me laying onthe ground face down and I was pushinginto like a little ball and thatmeasured yeah a little um dynamometeryep um and then yeah that weak positionso cuz I was weak in thatposition in regards to resistancetraining what what do you sort of thinkabout trying to I guess me to make thatstrong yeah so for shoulders and and Iguess people would present with paindoing an incline incline bench press uma shoulder press anything overhead umand a lot of the time it's pushing sowhatwe're um expecting there is that the theshoulder joint isn't absorbing load verywell and it's becoming compressed andbecoming sore and um so trying to loadyou in that position is designed tostrength strengthen a lot of your cuffand your small stability muscles aroundyour shoulder and that will then umincrease your ability to take thoseloads when you go back to to to pushingoverhead so we used I think yeah I saidone to two kilos to start with in thosepositions really trying to load you andbuild your time under tension so we wereholding for 20 seconds um to really toload that up and as said I think that'sthe resistance training part of it thatdoesn't seem like a lot in the gym I Ifind a lot of athletes sitting thereI've got 1 kilo and this is reallyreally difficult um but that's okay thatis okay eventually they get to 4 kilosand that is a really hard exercise withfour kilos so it's not so much thenumber it doesn't change their physiquetoo much but it really improves thecontrol around their shoulder um to tonavigate other exercises to safely uhplay through tackling and and overheadstresses without injuring themselves soyeah so a lot of the time like even Macsort of says like I'll be watching myclient or somebody do something I'm justlike tweak this little bit go a littlebit lighter and it's harder like againit comes back to my first example ofwhat is resistance training is it hardand if you can make it hard with onekilo you know it's benefiting like itdoesn't really matter about the load assuch like how much you lifting it'sabout how hard it is absolutely do youplay with a uh an RP so a rate ofperceived exertion with your clients doyou aim for finish the set and maybe dothree like could do three more do you goto fatigue how do you structuregenerally push to fatigue y um againmost my clients are general public ythey don't know what RP is and if I saidleave two in reserve they're going tolook at me and it's going to take me youknow couple sessions to you know figureout and that's not a bad thing but thenagainlike you know it's not that importantfor them yeah like this might be one ofthe questions like and this has come upa lot in social media over the last fewdays I don't know if you've beenwatching the Jeff nippard and that noanyway one influencer assaulted anotherone and one was like the old bro likejust lift heavy weights and push harduntil the end and one's a science brolike perfect form following SS all thatsort of stuff and they actually had afight in the gym all right so it's likeit's and it's sort of like this has beena big thing at the moment but it's justlike it doesn't like for me it doesn'tmatter like my clients if they get tothe gym and move that's all that mattersto win yeah but doesn't really matter ifthey you know if they finish a set andthey could have done 10 more doesn'tagain not really doesn't really matterif they push to fatigue and likeabsolutely push to limit that's good aswell and I think I think all a lot ofthose benefits we spoke about beforeare and there's so much information outthere you're right but a lot of thosebenefits that we spoke about before aregoing to be achieved whether we go tofatigue whether we finish with three inthe bank whether we you know do half anhour whether we do two hours I thinkwe're going to get some stimulation of alot of those Pathways we're going toload our bones we're going to load ourjoints and muscles um you know there's alot of good guidelines out there um thatpeople can read obviously from um nicereviewed sources uh pleasebut yeah this podcast um but I thinkyeah I think you're going to get somebenefits irrespectively by just doing soyeah um and like I asked a question andexplain what like my shoulder becauseagain like it was sort of humbling cuz Iwas trying to push through that pain andgo heavier harder like I've got to buildmuscle around and that shoulder and themore I build it's going to get betterand then it wasn't until like it wasKill like I couldn't sleep on myshoulder and that's when I seen you andyou're like just lift light weights inthese positions and you're back to thoseweights now yeah yeah yeah which isgreat um and the thing is like withouteven worrying about physique and allthat sort of stuff and honestly that'snot where why I train I just love thetrain like now that I've I went back tozero in those positions my shoulderslook way better like my my physiquelooks better and it's like it's I guessthat's a good lesson to learn for me aswell like you know I had to be in painand sort of go to you and and get thattest done to see you know I was so weakin these positions to build thosepositions back up and made a hugedifference but also a difference in myphysique yeah which comes as saidsecondary to being able to do themovement right so um you would havefound that doing that super heavymovement would have been sore becausethe control around your joint justwasn't there so which again comes backto a lot of the um the resistancetraining that we use mostly As physioswould be to get people out of pain andthen to make their exercise safe and uhprevent reinjury for sure will preventany injury so um that that's a that's agreat goal yeah hold on um next questionI think logically we'll do this questiondo you think that you have to lift heavyto benefit from resistance training I dofeel like you've kind of answeredthat but also what is heavy obviouslyit's subjective as well you know what Imean yeah I think the the we touched onit earlier I think it's just Progressiveoverload you've got to overload toimprove strength you've probably got tooverload to um improve bone mineraldensity improve Pathways your body isalways adapting like your body is livingand a lot it's funny a lot of people youknow when they think about theirskeleton they're like oh it's just adead skeleton inside no it is living itis adapting muscles are adapting yournervous system your bloodum arterial systems always adapting youknow heart as a muscle's adapting brainso your body will adapt to what youchallenge it with it's how yeah thebenefit comes from The Challenge yeahabsolutely yeah the the the benefit willcome in terms of progressing a lot ofthose things from yeah from challengingthose systems it's how Runners getfaster it's how um it's how athletes getstronger it's how all of all ofimprovements with in a physiologicalsystem will come from being challengedso um if you went to the gym did 5 kilobicep curls for the rest of your lifeyour biceps won't change in size they'llprobably get smaller they get moreefficient they need to be challenged toto become stronger and um and improvecross-sectional area improve bulk andimprove all the other systems we spokeabout so does that answer the questionthat is the question um another similarquestion that we had though was isstrength training only about buildingmus musle do you have to build musclefor it to be considered strengthtraining or resistance training um Ithink resistance training as theumbrella term is as we touched onloading your loading a movement umgravity can be a movement to some degreewith body weight body weight squatswould be classified as resistancetraining um so unless you're in a vacuumand moving around you're probably doingsome form of resistance training TR butin the way we're looking at it with youknow with loads and weights and Etc um Ithink yeah you you want to beprogressively overloading to classify itas resistance training um and whetherthat's getting to fatigue whether that'sbuilding endurance strength or power sothat that in itself is another umanother discussion obviously your repsand and sets dosage will change um theweights will change um the rest to towork ratio will change as well sothere's a lot of elements to that thatare dependent on your goals and whatyou're trying to get out of yourtraining but it's all resistancetraining yeah yeah and you can totallystill like build muscle and not getbulky right because I know a lot ofwomen that I speak to are hesitant to doresistance training because in theirmind resistance training means they'llget they'll build muscle and they'lllook big yep you know what I mean butit's you have to have like a lot ofprogressive overload over a long periodof time for that to happen necessarilyAB absolutely and diet as well is amassive thing with that so I seeathletes all the time who you knowthere's some players um that I work withthat look at weights and put on muscleum and then there's some other playersthat are in the gym for an hour anddon't naturally improve their frametheir met their metabolism sorry mightbe too too quick for them at this stageof their young athletic life um they maynot be eating properly or or to to tryand put on the size post exerciseobviously the window that we can youknow try and ingest that food in isreally quick after after working out sothere's a lot of factors that come withputting on bulk and know I think when wewhen we stick to strength guidelines ofyou know aiming for two to three times aweek to to improve two to maintain umthat we you know don't need to exercisethat strength um or resistance trainingfor that muscle group every single dayand so I I think that fear can benegated quite easily with just with someeducation around that um but I canunderstand that it is yeah absolutely umnot everyone's cup of tea to improve orchange their physique yeah but theystill want the benefits from resistancefrom resistance training which I thinkwe can achieve as as I said yeah withthe right dosage the the rightsupplementation and um the right restcool um can you pleasetouch on why and how resistance trainingis beneficial for bone strength ybecause I feel like I get this qu I feellike I often people come at me and saywhy would weightlifting help my bones atall I'm like what do you mean to me it'scommon not like it feels like it shouldbe common sense that it helps so I wasjust hoping that maybe you could likeclarify a little on why at all so Ithink the structure of the bone is issomething I touched on before is that itis living so I like to refer to Bones assandunes a lot of the time when I umwhen I discuss them with with patientswho either have bone stress injuries orum are worried about worried about thator or population a bit older withosteoporosis and and osteopenia so weknow that resistance training loads thebones um and again the dosage is reallyimportant here we we don't want to loadweak fragile bones with with heavyweights and high speeds but with goodfast and is is actually a really keyimportant of of bone health so reallysharp hard loading um can improve thatbone structure um when we when we thinkabout the the spongy bone that's insideso that tracular um can really harden upand and become quite strong with goodloading followed by good rest um andthat's a really important part of the ofbone health so um they're you reallywellrich in in blood flow um so they'regetting lots of adaptations constantlyand the sand Junes is essentially thethe notion that if you took a photo inthe desert of sand Junes from the samelocation 10 years apart they wouldprobably look different right becausethe wind is is always moving that sandsimilar to Bone so the bone will laydown and absorb reabsorb bone where itneeds to lay down bone that's crazy I'venever thought about it like that beforeyeah so similar to a muscle reallyabsolutely absolutely so um Osteo blastwhich will build up bone and thenosteoclast which will kind of tear downbone where it's not needed anymore orwhere there's too much bone a lot of thetime um will you know will change thestructure of your bone and that isliving that is every day every exerciseall the time um it's why stressfractures develop because we're notputting down as much bone as we need towith the load that's coming up um youknow and again that's all affected bynot only resistance training but sleepdiet um hormonal changes as well so alot of those things can affect bonehealth but in terms of resistancetraining we know that that compactstructure um the compaction of thatstructure will improve the the densityof that bone which is only good for forbone health and and reducing fracturerisk and and soon so for your example you said hard andfast so I guess jumping would be yeah sowhen someone's so when say we theexample I use probably best with that issomeone returning from a stress fractureinjury or a bony injury and that's toload them you know with kind of somehigh speed high rep stuff in terms ofskipping hopping running over over dayand and you know some of the literaturesays it doesn't matter almost how muchthey do on that day if the next day isis very low so your bone will adapt tookay oh that was a lot you threw a lotat us give us some good time to recovergive us some good time to lay down umsome of that bone tissue that we needand maybe the next and then go again goreally hard really high then drop off sothat we use that strategy when we'rerehabbing um bony injuries and just totry and make sure that Bone's reallystrong really hard really fast if you doa lot on a day and then you do a lot onthe next day and then you do a lot onthat that you know the following day andso on then your bone becomes exhaustedand and that's where you start todevelop risk of micr fractures becomingstress fractures and then and thensubsequently fractures so in a verysmall nutshell that is a a little bit ofthe education I use with people and howI like to structure a few of thesessions yeahso say let's take the leg still if I didgot somebody to do a gobble squat orback squat any sort of loaded squat butsuper slow and under a lot of tensiongood control making it hard is thatgoing to be the same load as jumping andall that sort of stuff uh it depends forwhat structure so slow the speed in exuh in resistance training is reallyimportant too so um you'll still getgood bone effects I think that you'llstill find that the bone will you knowbe under that load it's got to absorbthat load got to withstand it and adaptadapt it may adapt a little bitdifferently to if you gave someonereally hard fast um exercise if youfinish the session with some hoppingskipping and power movements would thatbe more beneficial for their goalpossibly um so it depends what they'reafter the speed of the exercise willaffect tendon Health um so tendons liketo be loaded really slow and reallyheavy when they're injured um but whenthey're almost at performance or whenthey're really healthy they love sharphard elastic recoil exercises um so thatthey become nice and stiff so there's ayeah the Continuum of where they are onthat is from from ready to go to youknow what you're trying to gain dependson their goals but and where they're aton that um on their injury or rehab orum or Journey but yeah the differentspeeds of resistance training can affectdifferent structuresyeah um this is more personal questionbut barefoot shoesthen I haveno um I have no bias if that works foryou it works for you Ithink there's a plus for Barefootthere's a plus for Orthotics there's umyeah there's there's I think just beingstrong in your feet is actually veryunderrated and a lot of people aren'tand that causes a lot of lower limb umrisk injury risk and and injuries um sobut I am not uh sponsored by anyBarefoot shoe company to promote so um II see a lot of people who wear them andif it works for them some people say oreven just really flat shoes they' foundthat they've been the best thingsthey've worn in 10 years whereas otherpeople need hokers with really greatsupport and that's okay so um there's noone siiz fits all there and I'm probablya little bit lacking in the the researchbehind it from but from a biomechanicalpoint of view I think if you're strongthrough your feet you'll you'll doreally well um and you know just justsome of the the prop receptive naturethat our feet can provide us big toeobviously as well um yeah it can changea lot so I've recently swapped toBarefoot and how are you finding themI'm real the best thing really yeah Iwish I don't sooner right why what doyou noticed if you don't mind me askingso get I was leading to the questionabout like striking all that sort ofstuff for bone health because my heelstrikes a lot more y um so like againI've seen that research like heelstriking sends like those shock signalsup your legs that help strengthen yourbones that that compaction for I'mobviously getting a lot more of that butI was always prone to tight carves andtight feet and even my hip flexors myquads would get sort of effective aswell since wearing them mymy cars my feet really good flexorsquads are a lot better still tightthrough there but a lot better but yeahmy cares like have never been so neverfelt so good that's that's good um I Iwonder my brain starts to go straightaway why but um I wonder if that's cuzyour feet are getting a bit strongerbecause you have to to do a bit more umrather than you know being in insoles orbeing in supported shoes where you kindof the work's done for you a bitpossibly um some peopleuh need that support as well so yeahagain each their own but that's goodthat's a good result yeah nice nextquestion okay I have one more listenerquestion and it is if you could tell onething to the general public aboutresistance training what would you wantit to be just one if you would wantevery single person on the planet toknow this onethingjeezum oh adequate rest I think is good Ithink it's underrated I think knowingparticularly rest during sets rest umpostgy don't run after gym run before gy uhthat's probably the number one uh peoplego to gym and then go for a run and thenbreak and they fatigue so um run beforeresistance training um but probably yeahrest in in terms of everything likeknowing okay when am I ready to gowhat'sif I'm sore should I still rest should Igo you know should I still go um I thinkrest is is a really yeah and and thatcomes with practice like knowing um thepractice of of of continually resistancetraining going I was still too sore Ineeded two days three days to recoverobviously when you start resistancetraining you saw R for longer earlier umwhereas obviously once you wereand your body becomes a bit used to theload you you're able to go morefrequently um so the rest gets shorterbut yeah I think that would be probablythe biggest thing a lot of people go wayhard way early um and you would see thatfor sure and they break and they go thisisn't for me and they quit forever rightyeah exactly so but I think that's athat's a missed understanding of whatrest they should maybe have and um butit's hard to harness that excitementsometimes that people have and you'relike oh just just oh whoa whoa so umthat's probably the thing for me butthen again seek out the riot help you'vegot great great people in the in the umthelandscape you know there's so many goodcoaches out there that I've I've met andworked with that just yeah amazing umfind one that works for you there's lotsof different people out there so yeahthat that that that te teas and applybutum but I think rest for for me is ismaking sure you understand rest toolittle too much and then yeah the advicebetween sets do you have any on thatlike obviously if you're trying toimprove endurance you're probably goingharder reps sorry more reps less restkeep going with the Reps until youfatigue if you're going for power you'regoing kind of you know really hard bigForce production three reps Max goodfive minutes rest between sets um juston on energy systems that you kind oftargeting do you have any yeah it's sortof hard like I I sort of look at it astime in the gym like aie probably notgoing to rest that much but somebodythat's a little bit more advanced isjust going to rest more because they'relifting heavier and putting more loadthrough their body what's your answerwhoa I didn't know I was going to havetoanswerum I feellike I just want everyone to know moreabout like the Ben the long-termbenefits I don't know that I could pickone to be honest from a femaleperspective maybe just like thelong-term benefits for the like theskeleton right cuz like when you gothrough menopause and everything yourhormones change so much so I feel likeif I could just like tell every femaleand male I guess now like just just doresistance training like just do it Ifeel like that I don't know but that'sjust my experience with who I talk to aswell yeah I Absolut long-term healthbenefits are are huge and um we onlytouched on a few before but um in termsof chronic diseases resistance traininghelps dramaticallycardiovascular um diabetes blood sugarlevels like it's great um neurologicalbrain uh yeah super super helpful andlong-term benefits are there to see soyeah there's a lot lot in that space Ithink that's that's great yeah reallygood how do we pick one really how wecan't can't pick one there so many soget in the gym yeah just just go to thegym um well while we got a runner andwe're talking about resistance trainingmhm a big thing I get from a lot ofclients that are Runners they don't wantto lift because it's going to bulk themup and hinder their Running Y is thattrue no no you look it's it's hardto your body again adapting constantlyit's hard to and from experience put onsize when you're running you know umfairly consistently and um a lot of weeklike high frequency a week umit's it's just that your body will youknow it's almost the prehistoric in uswhere we're trying to go we're trying toadapt to what we're doing and we'rerunning so if we want to become reallyefficient at running we need to dropweight we need to probably get rid ofsome of excess bulk that we're not usingwe need to yeah or we don't need thatlet's let's get rid of that a little bitso we're becoming more efficient by youknow um in our running by dropping someof that upper body um not only visceralum adapost tissue but by by somesceletal muscle tissue too so um I thinkthat's yeahyou but you can find a balance I I I Iwork with a lot of athletes particularlyAFL football bers who have to be stronghave to be combative have to be physicalaround the contest then also have to run15 16 kilm a game yeah so and and someof the athletes I work with only gymthree times a week uh because they areworking they're playing football they'rethey're trying to um train as well soyou know their gym in season is um posttraining on a Tuesday Thursday and maybeon a Sunday night and that's not a verybig session soyou can you can definitely maintain sizeit is it is probably hard to bulk upwhile running at at those volumes of30ks a week um without again the rightguidance the right nutrition the rightdiet and um andtiming but I think it's yeah it comesdown to your goals yeah so I wouldn'tworry about Runners putting on a lot ofsize uh unless they're you got a veryvery healthy diet and they um and thentraining a lot and I guess like AFLplayers are a good example of that likeyou see AFL players they do they'reprobably one of the like they run a lotout of most of the sports they're one ofthe highest yep like kilometers up thereand some of them have still got a goodamount of size they look great likeespecially upper body physique all thatsort of stuff and I think it's badbecause people see that they know howmuch they run how much they do andthey're like well like if I LIF weitsI'm going to look likelike again general public if we got paidfull time to the train that'd be greatbut um you know don't take that awayfrom the players that the sport is socombative and I think that's what whatseparates it you know I I can run15ks um and my brother can probably liftthe amount that they do in the gym butputting that together is extremely hardand extremely difficult and then laying15 tackles a game and getting bumpedaround like that is jumping all of it isis is very combative sport so I don'ttake anything away from that but it isyeah it's quite a challenge to balanceboth physical bulk and high cardio it'sthey're they're two different systemsthat again are trying to you knowchallenge each other in theeffectiveness of it but the hybridathlete exists and takes a lot ofdiscipline but it it can it can exist umwhile we're there the hybrid athletethat is coming up a lot at the themoment in the gym especially among sortof late late 30s to early 40 males yeahhow in in the context of I want to be ahybrid athlete don't all yeah and Iguess can you touch on that cuz likeagain like I know what what it takeslikeyeah the Unfortunately they see theinfluences on social media doing thisand that is their job yeah and like allthey do is train and eat and they couldbe taken a little something on the sideyou don't know no idea yeah but like forus Mortals who have jobs lives all thatsort of stuff it is super hard it isincredibly hard and add families ontothat and and yeah kids for a lot of alot of these people like the the demandsof Life can get in the way and andthat's where I think if you you'reprobably looking to balance you knowthree to four gym sessions a week of youknow upper and lower body mix three tofour running sessions a week plus orminus one cardio off legs healthy dietyou know probably lower alcohol takeintake um good recovery the time and thethe discipline that it takes is isincredible so um yeah we all would liketo be it but also at the same time kudosto the people that that achieve um youknow good muscular physique and can runsub 130 half marathons that's that'spretty well done to you it's impressivethat's for sure yeah so but I think it'sagain we just I would find that a lot ofpeople and and you'd be more inclined toanswer this in the gym when asked abouttheir goals of resistancetraining do you find a lot of people areuncertain of theirgoals I think people are too afraid toadmit that it's physique Vanity Vanity Isome of the best advice I ever got wasvanity Is Not a Bad Thing vanity we'reall a bit vain um if you can use it formotivation right make them most of ityeah but it does exactly if you canharness that vanity for the rightreasons not take shortcuts work hard andget there and be proud of yeah how yougot there I think that's a great thingyeah 100% um and I think people justmisunder understand like resistancetraining and again the health benefits Ialways say if you focus on the health ofyour body you're going to look betteryeah right and people just get thataround the wrong way absolutely butagain if you're chasing physique goalthat's awesome yeah because you got tofocus on your health to get you'reprobably going to get secondary healthchanges and benefits too yeah so I thinkthat I think that is a thing like andand that might be just human nature thatwe probably don't think long term youknow a lot of people it's like like thestock market just invest Dollar bydollar and over time the benefits willcome but the goal of it isn't isprobably as you said not right now thegoal isn't long-term Health it's whatcan I do in the next four to8 weeks tomake myself look better feel better umand that's where yeah that's thestruggle yeah and I think a lot ofpeople disregard I actually talk aboutthis with Xavier in the gym all the timepeopledisregard how much benefit there is innot regressing like just building to alevel staying there yeah like that is100% okay like as long as you're notregressing yeah I had one client anelderclient again going a little bit offtopic but he's gone on on oamic and Iwas we s i drummed into him we got tobump up the resistance training didn'treally want to and he's lost like threekilos of muscle mass and his balance isjust gone yeah and it's just like youknow that's that's you know that's whywe're doing it and that's and this isthat's a great example of why you needto do it like he's lost three kilos ofmuscle um a little bit of body fat butagain like now he can't really walkproperly cuz he's lost his muscle yeahand it's [ __ ] to see yeah yeah yeah umall right change that subject one moreI'm going to go around the around thetable I tried to find this in their F Ithought I asked you this question in ourfirst episode that you come on yeah Icouldn't find it I was trying to I wastrying to find it I don't know if Iasked you Mac I want to see if youranswer's changed okay what's moreimportant I'll reframe that somebodywants to improve their health andwellness they can do one thing what'smore important that they start onresistancetraining sleep or improvingfood can't be all three they have tostart with one are they all bad likethey they starting with nut so they'vejust been EA train they sleep they don'tknow about protein they don't need theydon't know about any macronutrients theydon't know about sleep they go to bedweird times they've never trained whatshould theydo what should they work on firstdo you remember what my I mean I'veanswered this three times and I feellike my answer changes every time youryour last answer was sleep but I can'tremember that was I'm pretty sure thatwas with ro uh I haven't answered thisbefore I think I think my answer wouldbe sleep I think sleep is the your sleeplast time yeah is it still sleep yeah Imean I just can't my reasoning last timefor it being sleep is if you improveyour sleep you feel better already soyou're going to more inclined to want toeat better and you're going to have moreenergy to want to do some sort ofactivity anyway so I feel like sleep hasthe biggest domino effect it's the bigpillar I think the biggest pillar yeahfor yeah that's your reasoning as wellyeah I think it it sets you up right soexactly like that if you're not sleepingwell the effects of training aren'tgoing to be the same cuz you're notgoing to recover so what's the what'sthe point you're not going to want to gonot going to want to go you motivationis going to be low um you know all yourdopamine serotonin will be low um umyour energy levels low nutritionprobably then next I think again becauseof you're not going to achieve much fromresistance training as much if yoursleep and nutrition aren't better andthen i' load so making sure that you'reready to load before you load so whatmight be the backwards way of what youwanted me to say what you say resistancetraining resistance training is the toptier but what if someone is sleepingpoorly all of the time and then they'recoming to resistance train and thenthey're getting injured or they're notrecovering from resistance training sothen they don't want to do resistancetraining anymore don't you think theadherence would be a lot lower I thinkthere are variables there like dosageand and whatnot and I think I can seeyour point of just think anything'sbetter thannothing but yeah it's a tricky one whywhat's your reason I yeah I see whatyou're saying I I I guess my experiencewith my client soif I was training my clients in personor even online I'd be saying like justtrain don't worry about everything elsebecause again I have control of theirvolume and their intensity and all thatsort of stuff I guess for somebodylistening who's just starting out againI would say just start doing somethingbut just take it easy um I think the thevanity is probably going to take overand once they start you know a guy getsa pump on it's going to disappear butthey go oh [ __ ] like like I've got apump on and they look better they feelbetter even if they've slept like [ __ ]they're eating like [ __ ] cuz I feel liketheir body's already adapted to those soadding that instant gratification isgoing to probably give them a little bitmore oomph to come back and want to doit again dopamine hit right like yeah umbecause again if you can get them totrain regularlyproperly without injuring themselves allthat sort of stuff they're going to wantto start improving the others whetherit's foodfirst or the improvements that they'regoing to get from training though willonly benefit increase so I guess like Icould say start training they're goingto see some results probably not greatresults cuz they're sleeping like [ __ ]and eating L [ __ ] but as soon as theyimprove one of those the results aregoing to get you know better and thenthey go to the next one and then and soI feel like starting with resistancetraining is going to keep them in thegame for longer cuz unfortunatelykeeping people in the game andinterested in resist distance trainingis the hardest part yeahyeah I feel like you could make anargument for either look to be honest Iwould like it to be sleep like if Icould get everybody to do one thing i'want them to sleep better yeah like it'smakes a huge difference yeah and looksleep itself is you know it has such agreat effect on on our life I think evenjust getting to bed and getting up atsimilar times even if you're in bed andyou can't sleep you you're still I thinkgetting routine your brain's working outwhat's going on your patterns become soso good you know I've treated a lot ofpeople who you're who that their bedtimes will change daily hours variableand that like you can't get into theRhythm with that so I think the effectsof sleep are poor then you're probablynot getting good recovery of sleep umand a lot of people will track theirsleep you know now like there througheither Garmin or apple and uh lots ofapps you know work to to give theminformation about their sleep so that'sa whole another you're going to needsomeone else for that that's not my my Iguess gamifying sleep could be the thingthat would sort of tip me over to sleepbecause if you can get somebody to tracksomething they going to improve it yeahyeah absolutely um are you a bit of afixator on tracking stuff Max there oh Fpointing um I I not really yeah like wewe went phase of wearing a whoop y umloved big love but I get too I got toocrazy with it like I I feel like Irelied on it too much to tell me how Iwas feeling y I probably had it on mefor 4 years I think um and I just lovelike I love the data that it gives youand I feel like now it's even betterbecause you can do a journal now and itwill give you monthly data on how thismany coffees and this much alcohol andthis much stress made your recovery yeahI love that but I also feel like I wasrelying on yeah it letting me tell mehow I feel rather than how I actuallyfeel does that make sense yeahabsolutely and the anxiety around umwhether it be sleep or training orrecovering from too much information isso real yeah um there's a lot of yeahthere's been a lot of that I think youknow they reported on sleep U sleepanxiety increasing with all these sleeptracking devices so I don't do itanymore for that reason I used to getcaught up in it and um now I justcontrol what I can control and um if myheart rate variability is one Higherthen that's that's okay I'm going to befine do you still track uh sleep oranything uh just heart rate just justkind of and I see very consistentpatterns with that and social life yeahtraining and social life is is yeahdefinitely the biggest impact but um njust heart rate activities I I I tracklike so so when you say you're trackingyour heart rate are you tracking it foractivity or just at rest or uh restingheart rate y uh daily and then um youractivity whether it be cardio orresistance training I'll look at heartrate uh variability for that so when Irecover what the recovery um drop is andand how quickly I recover um but thatkind of is that's about it once I'vedone that then it's just yeah on to thenext so yeah awesome anything else onresistance training from either of youyou um I think it's just everyone shouldget started in in some degree and as Isaid there's you know there's somereally good guidelines out there um thatlook at you know uh really a greatstarting point for resistance trainingyou know I think three days a week um isis a great start minimum of 24 hoursrest so that that's what we spoke aboutbefore it's it's about making sure thatyou get good adequate rest you're notbackto backing you know you're notworking out of fatigue muscles when youstart um your know program design shouldshould look at your major muscle groupsI think that you can do that to twoexercise on major muscle groups asession is is probably fine you you'dfind that um yeah I would I wouldn't goany any more than that and I think twotimes a week for those muscle groups isis is ample to start with so warmups andcool Downs I think have this have theirrole um have their own space so makingsure that you you have good range ofmotion before you start lifting um andresistance training making sure thatyou've got good recovery afterwards umwhether it be a stretch whether it be amassage ball the gun um I think they'rethey're all really good and then yeahjust slowly building that up uh is isgreat and make sure the vanity doesn'tovertake doing back muscles they areimportant um what do you mean you thinkthat people uh trying what they can seeoh it's possible yeah you see I feellike I train my back often because Iwant to if I have like a better if Ihave wider lats and it makes my waistlook smaller you know what I mean sosome Vanity Vanity is highyeah we wantwings um yeah so interesting so I thinkit's just a lot of the time and that'swhere we see a lot of injuries pop upwhen people are training essentially oneside of their body so yeah make surewhat we do to the front we do to theback yeah nice I learned a lot todayyeah and yeah exactly all the way aroundyeah sweet amazing that was good Zachthanks for coming back on the show umbut in saying that everybody listeningin our first episode Zach actually didsome exercise demos with us they are agood place to start if you've neverexercised before and you're not sure Istill send those to clients great allyeah they're good they're really goodexcises uh we went over lower body andupper body I did the lower body demosMac did the upper body I like again Istill send that so thanks for doing thatwe'll have to do that again sometimeyeah yeah absolutely um but yeah foreverybody listening go do those they'rereally good no matter what level you'reat I think they're still good I stilluse them so literally I literallywatched him use them this just beforethis recording in the gym that's goodyeah right um bulletproof shoulders Ilove that that's good uh if you'velasted this long obviously you'veenjoyed the episode so please copy theshow link send it to one friend orfamily member helps us grow helps ushelp more people and drop us a commenton YouTube helps us a lot thanks Zachfor coming on the show no problem