Welcome everyone to the Noble Just Bacon podcast.

I am your host, Dr.

Allen.

With me here today is Coach Beth to answer all of your burning questions for health and fitness from around the social media world.

This is a rapid fire episode and we have a ton of great topics today to cover.

So let's get rolling.

All right, First one, what are the best gym shoes?

Are flat shoes?

Are flat soled shoes necessary while squatting and dead lifting?

This is actually a really good topic to bring up, one we've covered before in the past, but one I think needs some reiteration.

And then a few little tips and tricks that go along with this.

Because I think that when we say, yeah, most people should have flat soled shoes, there are some caveats to this and some ways that you can maximize the benefits that you get from your footwear.

So the real most important thing here is if you are going to be lifting for extended periods of time, if you're really getting into lifting, if you're sold on the benefits of the gym, flat, hard sold shoes are a good investment.

Doesn't have to be a lot of money.

You can get something like Chuck Taylor's, you can get Vans.

You could drop a little bit more money, get the Nike Metcons, Reebok, Nanos, There are a variety of other ones that are out there on the market.

Even the the barefoot shoes seem to work just fine because they are minimal sold shoes.

The important thing is if you are getting into lifting, one of the reasons that people feel uncomfortable while they're lifting is probably because they're using running shoes.

Running shoes have a lot of cushioning.

They are very appropriate for running.

They absorb a lot of the shock, however under heavy loads they cause instability in the ankles, knees, hips and cause problems with lifting.

This is one of the reasons people feel unstable in things like squat and deadlift.

Particularly deadlift with the raised heel can be a problem.

So for general lifting purposes, an all-purpose flat hard soled shoe is something that I do consider a must and something something that I recommend to all of our clients.

And then beyond that, there are some certain instances in which other footwear makes sense.

Yes, you should have a pair of running shoes for your cardio days.

They make a lot of sense there.

You're not going to want to run in hard flat sole shoes.

It is very uncomfortable if you're running for any length of time.

The one time that Beth and I do recommend alternative shoes for lifting is when you have limited ankle mobility, long femurs, narrow hips.

The higher heeled, hard sold Olympic lifting or squat shoes are very appropriate for people that need them.

Not everybody needs them.

It depends on your anatomy, it depends on your squatting style, but they're very beneficial for those people.

And anybody that's doing Olympic weightlifting should definitely pick up a pair of those.

But you know, in the beginning when you're just getting started, you might think, OK, well this is a lot to invest in a in a shoe and that's perfectly fine.

I would simply buy the flat hard sole shoes and go from there.

The caveat to the heart the the Olympic lifting or squat shoes for the large majority of lifters.

Most people lift listening to this.

They can be extremely beneficial in quad related movements, lunging, squat variations of all kinds.

I would not use them for hinge pattern movements like deadlifts.

The problem with them is that because they do raise your heel, which allows your back to stay more vertical during the squatting movement, which is a good thing for most people, it dips you forward in a deadlift or a hinge type pattern.

And so for people that are doing this, it can be something that actually makes deadlifts feel less intuitive rather than more.

It feels like you're being pulled forward.

Now, you might see Olympic weight lifters using these shoes during their deadlifts, but they're doing deadlifts as a training for their Olympic lifts, in which case they'll be wearing those Olympic lifters at all times.

So it makes sense for them.

For other people, it's probably not the smartest move.

Beth, you have any insight there?

I do not no you, you covered everything.

OK, so when you're starting out and if you're thinking about making the gym a significant portion of your life, get 2 pairs of shoes, have a pair for cardio, have a pair for lifting.

The Olympic or or squat shoes are something that can hold off on, you can't hold off on.

And in the meantime, if you want to test out if they would be more appropriate for you, if you want to try what they feel like essentially in something like a squat, you can always put 2.5 or 5 LB plates under your heels.

And that mimics the effect that these shoes have.

Now.

No, it's not going to be quite as stable as these shoes, but it gives you the ability to feel what having an assisted range of motion for that ankle feels like.

Now, yes, stretching, particularly in people when they're starting out for ankle mobility, can help improve that ankle mobility.

At some point you may find that anatomy is limiting there, and that's where these shoes really can't shine.

And testing that out with the 2.5 LB plates underneath your heels can be a great way to see if it would be beneficial for you without having to shell out the 100 to $250 that these Olympic weight lifting shoes cost.

They're significantly more expensive than traditional shoes, but they are worth it because they tend to last many, many years.

Awesome.

In time, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, if you take care of them, they can last a very, very long time if you're looking for good ones.

Recommendations.

The Romaleos are good.

Skip the threes.

The twos and the fours are really good.

The Velasa that you have, Beth, what do you think of those?

I really like those they they do get some complaints because it's a wooden heel and not everybody really jives with the wooden heel.

And they also do tend to have some more breakage issues with that wooden heel.

I personally haven't had any issues with mine.

I have two pairs and I haven't had any, like the sole hasn't come off or anything like that but the the wooden heel.

It's definitely personal preference with those.

I personally love them and they are a higher raise than the Romaleo's which is why I like them, but it that's completely individual preference.

Yeah, the ADI powers are good ones too.

What is the Adidas power?

Lifts are the intro level ones and that's probably the one that I would recommend if don't, if you've never tried these before after trying the 2.5 LB plates under your heels, yeah, if you want an intro level squat or Olympic lifting shoe, the Adidas power lifts are probably my number one recommendation.

I don't know if you know of any others in that price range, but they're they're a lot cheaper than the higher level Roma, Leo's, Adidas.

That's usually what I do recommend to people who are just who like kind of want to dip their toe.

I I do recommend those the power lifts.

The other thing that you can do is they do actually make inserts that you can put into like a Med con or like your flat sole.

Flat sole shoes, yeah.

You can actually get heel inserts.

The issue with them is they're not that high.

They probably only give you like 1/4 of an inch at the most.

So they're not.

But again, that would like if somebody wants to kind of get the, that would be probably the equivalent of the power lift of the Adidas power lift.

So if you didn't want to shell out the money for the power lifts, but you want to sort of introduction to what that feels like, you can get those those heel inserts.

Yeah, those are pretty cheap.

Yeah, they're not.

They're not too bad either.

Or if you've got a home gym, you can get one of those wedges the.

Wedges.

Yeah, and try that out.

The Wedge if if you're at a home gym, I would recommend the Wedge over the the heels.

I know that we're kind of covering a lot of ground with our recommendations here, but you can use that wedge later for other things.

Whereas if you try those heels, there's nothing wrong with Beth's recommendation.

I think it's a great one.

But I'm just saying if you got a home gym, I would probably get a wedge over those heels because if you try those heels and you're like, yeah, this feels really good.

I'm going to get those shoes.

You'll probably never use those heels again, but you could use.

They're like $10.

Yeah, they're not bad.

They're cheap, so.

All right, cool shoes covered.

Hope this makes people feel a little bit better, especially for those of you that have tried this out and have thought, man, squats and deadlifts feel really unstable or overhead pressing feels really unstable.

It's probably you're fucking running.

Yeah, there's it's, there's a reason that you're, you're, you're feeling like you're on like water, like a waterbed when you're, when you're under really heavy load because that shoe compresses quite a bit and it causes a lot of instability at the heels on these.

OK, what is the quickest, easiest way to warm up for a full body weight training session?

So my recommendation, I'm going to give a specific one at the end, but I, I want to give just a general rule for warmups.

I have a specific protocol, but for most people, the name of the game is just getting some blood flowing and getting a little bit limber.

You can do that through dynamic stretching if you wish.

You can do it through just going through 123 sets with lighter weights, progressively building up of the movement that you're going to start out with.

Most importantly, when you're doing this, say that you're doing a, a day where you're training, you know, half quad related leg movements and half shoulders or whatever it is.

You don't need to have a warm up for every quad related movement.

Once it's warm, it's warm.

The second, third exercise, whatever it is, if you're doing them consecutively or even if you're skipping, you know, alternating, it doesn't matter.

You're already warm.

So don't think that you need to do this before every exercise.

This is before the muscle has been used in that training session.

If I'm talking about a warm up for a full body weight lifting session and you're saying what's the quickest, easiest way to be ready for like everything, do some thrusters with, you know, building up in in load on the thrusters.

I know people are going to hate me for saying that, but thrusters tend to work if we're you're just looking for the quickest, easiest way to warm up.

It works more than anything else in one go.

So I would, I would look into something like that, but I, I typically don't give just a generic like that's how you warm up for like a full body day.

I would look at what you're doing and then identify some of the movers because maybe you're going to be doing some legs and the, the thrusters would make some sense.

Maybe you're also doing some back work.

And so maybe you do a little bit of warm up with thrusters, maybe do a little bit of warm up with pull ups or, you know, assisted pull up machine or lat pull downs or something like that.

It's going to be dependent on what you're doing in that day.

There's never going to be one single answer.

But if we're going to be talking about the the best single answer possible, I can't think of anything better than thrusters.

I know people hate that.

Sorry it's so bad.

It is burpees maybe I don't know, you know, you've got you got a lot of movement going on in both of those.

So that's probably something to look into.

All right, Why do you think that low carb diets show a drop in lean muscle but not in strength?

They don't.

They show drops in both.

So here's the thing, when we look at, you're going to have to take into account where a person is, First off, their experience level, their body composition.

Do they have a lot of body fat to lose?

You can gain both lean muscle and strength very easily.

If you're brand new to training, if you've got significant amounts of body fat, if you've been off of training for a long period of time, both of those will probably go up.

You will see as you get into a deficit, you will see a loss of hypertrophy much faster than you will see a loss of strength.

This can be confusing for people because when people are first starting out, many people can gain strength just fine, and it's like calorie deficit for a long period of time.

That does happen much more so readily than building lean muscle.

This is confusing for people because in the research we see a lot of tests where people will go into deeper cuts and they can still one Rep Max very close or at the same level as they did right before.

You'll see ketogenic research where people can do that.

The problem is these seem to be very short snapshots in time and even though switching to maybe low lower carbs or lower calories allows you to maintain one of those things, it can affect progress in strength and you know, ketogenic low carb, low calorie research.

There does appear to be an issue with aerobic performance.

Certainly anaerobic strength performance will likely suffer over time.

So it's it's less that you'll see massive decrements at one time unless you're losing a significant amount of body weight.

It's more that you are going to progress more slowly moving forward.

That's the biggest issue.

And so when people talk about, oh, well, you know, strength is maintained really well.

Yeah, it is maintained rather well even in in deficits.

Now, if you're losing a lot of weight, you're probably should expect that to go down a bit the more seasoned that you are.

But the progress moving forward seems to be blunted more than anything.

So are there negatives to being in a deficit?

Yes, certainly, particularly if you're more lean, particularly if you're more experienced.

Should you worry about this if losing body fat is going to be a very big net benefit for your overall health?

No, you should not, because particularly in those beginning stages, you're likely going to be gaining significant amounts of lean muscle and strength even while in that calorie deficit.

I mean, if you have to worry about this, you're probably not in a position where you're going to be cutting for an extremely long period of time anyways.

So this is kind of a self limiting thing.

But understand that when people say, oh, strength doesn't take a hit, it probably does, but it probably does more so in a progress standpoint moving forward than it does a distinct immediate massive drop in strength.

And that's different per individual.

Some people will feel like they lose strength a lot faster than others.

But you're right in the beginning of that question when you ask this with why is it at least more profound in lean muscle building?

It does appear to be.

So the basis of the question is right.

There's probably some nuance going on there as to what happens over time.

But figure out what you want to do long term.

Figure out what is best for health, figure out what is best for your goals, and then push forward.

And if you need a strength gaining phase in the future, you can always program for that.

And maybe what that looks like is being at maintenance level of calories.

Maybe it is a nice like calorie surplus.

But either way, when you stage it correctly based off of what your body needs, you can rest easy and understanding that this is an overall plan and you'll be able to account for that later.

All right?

Traits and habits you've seen in your most successful clients?

The when I look at successful clients and when I talk about this with people that are looking to get a coach, whether it's with us or whether it's with anybody else, there are three traits I feel are common to people that are very successful and highly coachable.

They are willing to learn, they're self motivated, and they take responsibility for their current situation.

This can sound very scary.

Most people will accept the first one and say that they're willing to learn.

I have only worked with a few people who have not been willing to learn in my entire career.

And it's funny because nobody ever considers themselves not willing to learn.

But you do occasionally run into some people like that.

So be be honest with yourself when you're looking into this, because if you aren't willing to change what you're doing, you're there's no reason to hire the coach to begin with.

You know, if this is one of those I know better than my coach situations, either you hired the wrong coach or you're not appropriate for a coach.

And so that's usually not a sticking point for most people.

I think I've probably only run into like two people over all the years that I've been doing this that have been like that.

And I mean, I can remember one of them who he warmed up for an hour and 15 minutes before every one of his workouts.

And then every one of his workouts was like over three hours.

And, and he was like, why are my workouts so long?

I'm like, they're not, you're making them.

That long self-imposed it's.

And so he refused.

He refused to change.

He, he was like, no, you know, you need to work, you need to warm up that long.

And I'm like you absolutely don't.

And just to go back a little bit to that warm up question.

If you're, if you are doing a standard physique or strength routine.

Now I'm not talking about highly specific technical lifting like Olympic weight lifting.

If you're doing a bodybuilding style routine, if you're doing a power builder, if you're doing powerlifting, unless there is injury in play, previous injury in play, where you are going to take some more time and that's understandable to work up to whatever that joint or that muscle needs, it should not take more than 15 minutes.

If you're taking more than 15 minutes to warm up, you're doing it wrong.

You're you're probably spending way too much time or you're digging around at the beginning of that warm up anyways.

So if you're spending more than 15 minutes, you're probably wasting significant amounts of time.

If you say, well, I need to work on my mobility, do that after.

That's not a warm up.

OK, so don't worry about improving mobility and flexibility prior.

You shouldn't be doing that anyways.

That's not part of the prescription.

But if you're going to be doing that, do that later.

But willingness to learn is the most accepted.

Then we talk about self motivation.

This can be a very scary one for people and one that is hard to accept.

Not as hard to accept as the last one, but we're certainly going up in the levels of OK, well this is giving me an oh shit moment.

A lot of people will sign up with a coach because they think that the coach will motivate them.

There are a lot of levels of, of motivation that go from being extrinsic motivation from the outside, and there are a variety of those.

There's like 4 or 5 levels of extrinsic motivation.

And then the highest level of motivation is intrinsic motivation.

That's the motivation that you, you do something because you literally just enjoy it because it's who you are.

It's, it's part of your being.

Ultimately, we want to get every client as close to intrinsic as possible.

Now, not everybody can get there and that's OK.

Maybe you're never going to love going to the gym, but you do it because that's who you are and you enjoy the benefits that it gives you.

That's still extrinsic motivation because of the benefits that it gives you and not because you enjoy the the process itself, but that's OK.

That can lead to lifelong change.

The one thing that you don't want to do is you do not want to get caught in the complete extrinsic form of motivation.

The far left of that left to right continuum of extrinsic to intrinsic pure extrinsic motivation is motivation from somebody else.

You have to be self motivated.

I as a coach, can't want this for you more than you want it.

It will never work.

So if you sign up with a coach and you say I'm signing up with a coach because they will motivate me, you're 1 Using them as a crutch, You're 2 putting pressure on them that they can never, they cannot meet those expectations.

Nobody can.

We can tell you when you're doing well.

We can praise you for things that you've earned and that's 100% great, but extrinsic motivation like that becomes less and less and less overtime because it doesn't mean anything to you.

So unless the process itself ends up meaning something to you in some way, it's never going to work.

So there is self motivation involved and yourself motivation has to be very high for it to last a long period of time.

Now that's not to discourage people from getting started.

That's to say, if you're going into it and you're expecting your coach to motivate you, you're going to fail.

If you're going into it and you're like, OK, well, I want to learn about motivation.

I want to get better with myself.

I want to start viewing myself as a healthy person, as an athlete.

You can be completely fine.

Realizing that your coach isn't your 100% guide is very important because after those feelings of, oh, it's great that my coach said that I'm doing great.

You know it, it was wonderful that he said that.

The more that they say that, the less that it means something.

And then what ends up happening is you only start doing this because you feel obligated to do it.

And then it becomes worse and worse because it's a negative thing.

Oh, if I don't do this, my coach will be mad.

Oh, if I don't do this, my coach won't praise me, and then I'll feel bad about myself.

Working from a negative does not work for the vast majority of people.

There's always some Jackass that every time I start talking about this, they're like, yeah, when my coach told me I was a piece of shit, it worked really well for me.

That's great.

You're not normal.

That's a that's a problem.

That's not the majority of people.

The majority of people being super negative towards them and guilt shaming them into exercise and eating right just doesn't work very well.

It can work super well for a short period of time, but it doesn't work well long term because the second that that force is not in your life, the second that that coach is not there, the second that that, you know, negative influence is not there, you're like, OK, well then I don't have to do this because you didn't build that up to be self-sufficient.

So an extrinsic form of motivation can be a good thing to get you started.

I want girls to like me better.

I want, you know, this, this, this outside influence.

I want to, you know, have people tell me that, that I look pretty, whatever it is, but that's not going to last.

And so you work on yourself, you monitor the things that are happening over this journey.

You, you know, people really want that before and after.

But it's that time in between that really matters, that before and after doesn't matter.

I know that the after is the only thing that matters to people.

But from a coach's perspective, the before and after doesn't matter to us at all.

What matters is the change that's made on the journey.

And if you are trying to ignore the journey or trying to circumvent the journey and just get to the after, you're never going to establish the habits and routines that are going to allow you to do this forever.

You're never going to establish the appreciation for not only the journey, but for yourself.

You're not going to change the way that you look at yourself.

You're not going to view yourself as an athlete, as a healthy person.

If you're given it or you know it, First off, it never happens.

You can't just get it all of a sudden accidentally.

But if it were the case that that could happen, recidivism rates and you going back to where you started would be massively high.

And this is one of those things that people don't think about this when they first start on a journey.

And this is not to discourage anybody, this is to say this is the way that this shit works.

And admitting it and being open about it and being understanding of it from the start will make you much more successful than if we didn't bring these things up.

So understanding the self motivation is really important.

How do you do that?

Like I said, extrinsic motivators can be a great way to get started.

And don't be, don't be sad that that is a way that you want to get started.

Say like, I want to look better in a bathing suit, That's cool.

That doesn't have to be the only reason.

So figure out why you want to do it and then continually along the journey, I like to tell people, fake it until you become it.

Always say, what would a healthy person do in my situation?

What would an athlete do in my situation?

Ask yourself this question every time you come to a fork in the road that has you choosing between two things.

When you do that, it cuts the decision making out of the process, but it also gets you to start thinking like that athlete, like that healthy person.

The more that you say that, the more that you start to view it that way, the more that you put this on autopilot.

So self motivation starts to kick in because you start to view yourself as a healthy person, as an athlete, as somebody who goes to the gym.

You're not forced to go to the gym.

It's what you do.

Now, hopefully we can get you to the point where you say I love going to the gym.

It's not necessary.

And I always point out Muhammad Ali when we talk about this type of stuff.

Muhammad Ali had a quote.

I'm going to butcher it but you can get the meaning from it where he said he hated every second of training but he loved winning.

He never made it to intrinsic.

He made it to the step right before intrinsic.

He viewed himself as an athlete, He viewed himself as a healthy person.

He viewed his training as non negotiable because he fucking loved winning and that can sustain you for the rest of your life.

He didn't keep it off on all full extrinsic motivation.

He didn't do it because he wanted to please somebody else.

He did it because he loved winning.

And that works.

So we work towards this intrinsic motivation, but we don't have to get there.

And so for people that say I'm never going to love lifting weights, that's OK.

That's cool.

You can still be a weight lifter.

There's a lot of people that do weightlifting that don't necessarily love lifting weights.

I mean, sometimes I want to sit on the couch too.

That's OK.

But that's what you do.

And so when you start to think about it this way, it becomes a really, really beneficial thing in your life.

Last one, the hardest one, the one I've actually had when I've talked about this with my clients before and I actually had a client quit when I told him these three things.

And it's because of this third one, People who succeed and are highly coachable take responsibility for their current situation.

There is nothing shameful about that.

You are probably 99% of the reason you are where you are now.

It might not be something intrinsic within you.

Maybe this.

Maybe you weren't taught coping mechanisms to deal with emotional stress when you were growing up and you you reach for food for comfort.

Maybe it was poor education with regards to nutrition.

Maybe that's why you get a coach because they can help you learn these types of things.

But accepting responsibility for where you are is a great thing because that's where you actually put to use that first one, the willingness to learn.

You need to accept that you don't know everything.

You need to accept that at least a significant part of where you are is because of what you do.

Once you do that, you're in a position to learn.

Because when you accept, OK, some of the things that I'm doing are wrong, that doesn't make me a bad person.

That doesn't say anything about my worth as a human being.

But maybe it's why I'm obese.

Maybe it's why I have frail bones.

Maybe it's why I can't pick up my kid.

Because I've never weight trained.

I've never eaten a fruit or vegetable.

I don't go for walks, I don't go for a run.

I always say I'm too tired.

This is not to say people don't have challenges.

This is not to say that obese people don't have more challenges than people that are naturally thin.

Maybe that naturally thin person had a parent who understood these types of things and taught them the right way growing up, and so they didn't have to go through 50 years of doing it wrong and then having to unlearn it.

It's always easier to learn something than to unlearn and relearn.

Maybe they don't have the hunger cues that an obese person has that are very significantly altered by genetics.

There are challenges that people face, but our habits and routines, even when we look at studies in twins with exact same genetics, seem to be mostly built off of learned life experiences.

That's a good thing because if it's not genetic, then you're not doomed to stay in the spot that you're in.

You're able to move on to something else.

You're able to learn.

And so accepting responsibility is cool because when you accept responsibility, yeah, it can feel like shit at first.

It's very uncomfortable, but it also means that when you succeed, you can take credit for it.

You have to accept culpability for challenges and when you screw up, but you also get to say, hey, I did this.

When you succeed, the most productive way that you can look at this is realizing that along this journey, as you're trying to change things that you have done for decades, you're going to fuck up and you're going to do it a lot.

Screwing up doesn't mean that you failed.

You can only fail if you quit.

When you look at these things as challenges and as learning experiences, that's how it works.

Because when you screw up, when what you would call a traditional screw up, when you look at it as a learning experience and you write it down, you write down what you were feeling and what was happening in the few hours leading up to it.

Over time, you'll start to see patterns.

You'll start to be able to evaluate these patterns.

You'll start to be able to evaluate the way that you react to things.

And then you can change how you react and you can learn new things and you can put other things into practice.

And so this is a cool topic and one that I've spoken about at conferences, which is why this topic has gone on for so long Because like I, this is, this is fascinating to me.

And I know that people hate hearing the stuff, but this is probably the most valuable thing that you can learn.

And it's funny because people are like, well, how do I lift, right?

And it's like, there are so many different ways to lift correctly.

And you can go out there and literally just start hammering away at bicep curls and you'll, you'll progress pretty well.

But if you don't get this mindset stuff down, it's never going to work.

This is, this is the base, this is the groundwork that is necessary to be successful.

And these three key traits are the foundation.

And people fucking hate talking about it, and they hate the introspection.

It is very difficult to look at yourself and say, man, you know what?

I'm the problem.

Yeah.

I mean, it's it's super.

It's super difficult.

Yeah, and it doesn't make you a bad person.

Like I feel like when people really start to confront this with themselves, they, they feel like it means that they're stupid or that they're bad or, and I think that's, that's what prevents a lot of people from actually being really introspective and, and really taking accountability for their current position is because it makes them feel like there's some, there's like a fatal flaw with them as a person.

And that's not, that's not at all the case.

That's not at all the case.

And I think once people sort of remove that emotion front in that negative, like, I'm a bad person, I'm dumb, I'm stupid, like This is why I'm failing.

That's what has to be put aside in order for you to actually finally take that responsibility for your current position and then be able to do something about that.

To move on.

You have to eliminate that emotion and that emotional response to it.

I mean, there's a lot of reasons that people feel poorly after hearing this kind of stuff and doing that introspection.

People don't like to feel like they're doing things wrong.

Incompetence, feeling incompetent is one of the hardest things.

And I want to bring this up because this is another thing that that's kind of adjacent to this conversation.

When we're talking about improving motivation, we're talking about becoming more intrinsic with the way that we look at motivation.

Essentially, if you guys want to look into this more, it's something called self determination theory.

We have to realize that feeling competent is very important along this journey because that's where you get that level of confidence.

And when you first start looking at this and taking responsibility, you're going to feel really incompetent, especially if you were starting to look into things and starting to realize what you were screwing up on.

And you're like, man, it's so obvious when I start seeing some of these things because it can be very simple.

It's not easy, but it can be simple.

And when you start looking at it, you're like, there's no way that like I'm counting my calories wrong or I'm getting 1000 more calories than what I thought.

Even though we look at studies in obese individuals and they're averaging 1000 more calories than what they thought a day.

And they're like, there's no way 100% there's a way.

That's what the research shows that it's, it can be that off.

Now, it may not be for you, but it's probably off a bit, particularly if you have obesity in play or you are not muscular and you want to be muscular.

You're doing something or not doing something that would help move you in the right direction.

And so we figure out what that is.

And as you practice this, yes, you're going to screw up along the way, but the more that you do it, the better that you're going to get, the more, the more knowledgeable that you're going to get.

So the willingness to learn kicks in.

Then you're going to feel better about it.

You're going to start doing it on your own.

You're going to feel more confident, competent in it, which builds confidence, which makes the process more fun.

Building competence makes the process more enjoyable.

And so when people first go into a gym, they'll say I don't want to go into the weight room.

That's really intimidating.

I don't want people to judge me.

It's really scary.

I think that people are less concerned about people judging them as they're more scared that they don't know what to do and they're more scared that they are, Oh, I don't, I, I don't really know, like, I feel how to lift this weight the right way.

And it's less the people are going to judge you and it's more I, it's really uncomfortable to do things that you don't feel like is on autopilot.

But the only way to get there is to actually do it.

And so Marcus Aurelius had a really funny quote where he said the obstacle is the way.

And I think about this all the time while I'm coaching because people will say that's hard.

And I'm like, right.

And they're like, but I've never done that before.

I'm like, right.

They're like, I don't want to do Bulgarian split squats.

Like I feel a little bit unstable.

I'm like, do you have an injury that prevents, you know, these, these single leg movements?

They're like, no, I'm like, OK, right.

You're telling me that you're a little bit unstable.

We can, you know, progress you up.

But if you ever want to get stable, the obstacle is the way.

You have to.

You have to do the work.

Like if you're unstable doing Bulgarian split squats, like you shouldn't be a person who is healthy and active and has muscle on them should not be like should not be wobbling all over the place when they're doing single leg movements.

Like you should have good enough proprioception that you should not be wobbling all around.

And if you, if you can't, that's probably because you've been avoiding the exercise for so long and never do it that now you're wobbly and the only way to fix that is to do the exercise.

Yeah, there's not.

There's magically resolve itself overnight if you don't do the exercise.

Right and there's no reason to feel ashamed about that because we all have to start somewhere.

But if you say Oh well, I don't want to do this Bulgarian split squad that like my coach programmed tell them, but then the answer is not OK well I'm going to go get on a leg extension.

No, no, no, no, no, no back up.

You're telling me that you have no balance.

Let's do something that will improve this so when you're, you know, in your 70s, you don't take that step with one leg and fall over and break your hip.

That's always the message that I like to give.

Like if you're, if you are unstable doing a lunge or doing a Bulgarian split squat in the gym, what do you think is going to happen to you as you age and you you continue to lose muscle mass?

What do you think is going to happen to you that's going to get worse?

And so you're going to end up in a situation where you can't live on your own anymore because your balance is so bad.

Like, those are your choices.

You either work on it now, or you get to a point where you can no longer live independently.

And this doesn't mean that you have to do Bulgarian split squats if you're extra bad at it, maybe what you do is you go back to a standard split squat with you when you're standing next to like a an upright rack, a stable rack.

And so you hold you, you just hover your hand around the rack.

You have your legs as like a standard alternating split squat and just go up and down on that leg with that that rack there as a backup because you're going to you're going to touch it every once in a while to stay stable, but you're not going to use any extra weight.

You're not going to have your leg in the back up like you would in a Bulgarian split squat.

Cool.

Then we're going to progress you to weight.

Then we're eventually going to go to the Bulgarian split squad without any weight and then we're going to move the Bulgarian split squad with weight or another form of that progression.

Right.

But you need to do something.

So be very vocal with your coach about these types of things because that's the only way that it's going to be fixed and being like, well, I need something that's, you know, bilateral is not the answer.

Now, if you're injured and you cannot do it or if you're so I do have some clients that are that are, that are suffering from severe obesity.

And so we don't do the single leg movements for sure when we begin and then we do once we start to improve upon it and it becomes something that you're capable of learning.

Well, you can introduce people to stuff like that too with stuff like B stance.

Like B stance is such a great introduction to single leg movements because you still have, you know, like a peg leg that you're essentially using to sort of balancers.

Like there's ways to do it and just avoiding it all together is not the answer.

Yeah.

For people that don't know what B stance is, B stance is essentially a A stance where you're you're, you're technically in A, in a unilateral movement, but the feet are kind of very close together.

You're essentially using the back leg as A like a kickstand.

Kickstand.

Yeah.

And so it, it works really well.

I actually like really like B stand stuff.

But yeah, I mean, this is the whole thing, you know, highly coachable people willing to learn, self motivated, responsible, they take responsibility for their current situation.

You can't get around any of these.

If you actually want to be highly coachable, you can't get around any of those.

There's there's no, there's no margin for error in any of these.

And like I said, I actually had one client who who asked me this question and I brought up the last one.

You take responsibility for their current situation.

And he was a guy that was like 430 lbs.

And I've worked with many people that have lost over 100 lbs and, and been very successful.

And in his case, he was like, well, I don't think that it's my fault.

And I'm like, why?

Like let's talk this out.

And he said because the grocery stores have food that's too, that tastes too good.

And I'm like, right.

But like, are they forcing you to eat that food?

And he's like, no.

And I'm like, OK, so there is some responsibility in in that case.

And he's like, no, I, I won't, I won't accept that.

I'm like, OK, I'm like, we can continue moving forward.

But like, I'm telling you that this is going to be a very difficult thing.

And he's like, well, I don't want to be coached.

And I still see him every once in a while online.

And he, he never ended up moving forward like to lose weight with anybody.

And and that's, that's a problem because, you know, just like Beth said, and to reiterate, because it is so important, this is not your fault for being in that situation, but taking responsibility that you're there because of some of your actions.

It's, it's the challenges that you face are very unique.

And so face them head on and you can overcome them.

And if you're willing to learn and you're self motivated, you realize that you're doing this for yourself and you get all the benefits, you're going to be just fine.

And so for people to take this in a good manner, I think that you're going to be very successful.

But ask yourself these these questions and then be honest with yourself because I think that these can be very telling things on whether or not you would work well with a coach.

And if you're going to say no to all of these, it's probably a waste of your money.

Again, not to discourage anybody to put out proper expectations.

And you can think about this and and likely be very successful if you take it to heart.

All right, next question.

Right age to get kids into lifting.

6 years old.

Kids can start lifting weights at about 6 years old when they have proper oversight.

Get somebody that knows how to teach them proper movements.

These kids are going to be bendy as hell.

They have the flexibility of a baby weeping Willow tree.

They're going to be able to bend at all the different contortions.

It is probably not appropriate to be doing one Rep maxes with young children.

I would wait until we're, you know, getting your puberty, that kind of thing.

People worry and they ask this question a lot because there was that old wives tale that it would stunt your growth.

That has never been shown in any research.

And and so it is an old wives tale.

It was never shown anywhere.

It was just, I think it kind of came about because in the past, if you were tall, you were probably playing a lot of sports and if you weren't tall, maybe you did not have the right body shape to be good at basketball or soccer or what have you.

And so those guys went into wrestling and weightlifting and, you know, being shorter can be a very beneficial thing in weightlifting sports.

And so it was more that the people that were better at weightlifting were short than weightlifting made them short.

And so it is something that is a concern for most people.

The only thing that would really make a difference there is damage to the growth plates.

But resistance training is much, much safer than even running.

Team sports and running have super high injury rates comparative to resistance training.

So saying, Oh well, they could get injured lifting the weights.

I mean, well then you they can't play soccer, they can't play basketball, they can't play any sport really.

They may as well just sit at home and play darts, you know.

So don't worry about that.

They're going to be completely fine as long as you are paying attention to the way that they're lifting and teaching them the right way from the start.

But most importantly, when you're working with kids, make sure that you have them choose what they want to do.

Introduce them to the gym and say, what kind of things do you find interesting?

Like what would be fun?

And then do that.

Don't put them into like the routine that you're on.

Figure out what they like and go from there.

I think that that's the absolute best way that you can work with kids and it keeps the environment fun and and welcoming.

OK, what is the minimum time to rest between sets?

I don't have hours to spend at the gym, minimum time.

Do we want minimum time or do we want optimal time?

Because there are certain time periods that you should probably wait based on the research to get the best results possible.

For the majority of lifting, we're going to be within one to 5 minutes.

For most of the hypertrophy Rep

range, we're going to be at 2:00 to 3:00 minutes.

For most of really heavy, I mean one to five reps and particularly in compound lifts, you're probably going to be at 3 to 5 minutes, A minute and a half to two minutes is what I would recommend for most people for most applications.

There is a little bit of nuance there, but if you're, you know, new to the gym or intermediate to the gym and you're just looking for a, a quick Rd.

answer, 1 1/2 to about two minutes.

We have a little bit of a guesswork based on the research.

Because a lot of times what the research does is it'll test one minute and three minutes, or they'll test 2 minutes and 3 minutes and they kind of like miss that 1 1/2 minute mark.

But somewhere between 1 1/2 and two minutes seems to be appropriate for moderate Rep ranges, like anywhere from like 5 or 6 and 15 or so.

2 to 3 minutes seems to work really well.

1 1/2 to 2 minutes, I mean, seems to work really well.

You can go up to 3 minutes if you would like, but I think that about two minutes is kind of that rough average, you know?

And so if you're talking about not having a lot of time because they don't have hours to spend at the gym, I would not adjust your intercept rest period so much as I would adjust the way that you're programming your exercises themselves.

This is where I would start to throw in things like time saving, advanced training techniques that can work really well and cut down a lot of the time that you're, you're working Myo reps, rest, pause, super sets, drop sets, giant sets, cluster sets, all of these things that can add density to your training schedule.

And density is more work and less time.

And so if you're going to be setting up super sets, just as an added aside, I almost exclusively in most cases, especially if it's like limbs, I would do an antagonistic super set buys, tries, quads, hams.

I mean, I've done some things in the past quite often where I would do like quads, shoulders or something like that.

But you know, the, the antagonistic supersets like bias try seem to work extremely well.

And particularly if you're short on time, but you're like, yeah, man, I need some arm work and play.

That's the how I would do that.

Beth, any thoughts there?

No, I agree with everything.

All right, a trick to losing weight besides eating clean and lifting heavy shit.

So if you if you want to lose weight, we're assuming lose body fat because that's that's the main goal here and you want to do it besides eating clean and lifting heavy shit.

The answer is up your non exercise activity thermogenesis.

People will think that we'll typically say something like cardio, and sure, you can consider walking cardio if you wish, but I would up your activity levels throughout the day.

It's probably the number one thing that you have control over beyond the food that you put in your mouth that is going to affect fat loss.

We've talked about NEAT before, but it can account for anywhere between 500 and maybe 2000 extra calories per day in calorie burn.

Significant.

Yeah, it's huge and I wish.

People knew how significant it was.

Truly.

Yeah.

And, and so if you're looking like people will ask me this all the time, they'll say, oh, Alan, I want to lose weight a little bit faster.

And I'll, I'll look down and I'll be like, well, this person is, you know, getting 3000 steps per day and their calories are pretty low.

And they're a small person.

You can only go so low in calorie intake before you're compromising a lot of the nutrients that you're taking in.

And it's not just macros.

You're compromising the amount of micronutrients that you're taking in.

You're compromising cofactors, phytonutrients, zoonutrients, a lot of nutrients that we don't know anything about.

Because the fact is, in nutrition research, we actually don't know as much as we think that we do.

And that's an unfortunate thing.

But there's a reason that we tell people to get most of their intake from Whole Foods, because Whole Foods provide things that we don't even know exist and we won't know exist for many years or decades.

So we want to have as much whole, minimally processed food as possible within a diet that allows us to progress to where we are and allows us to stay adherent.

Inconsistent over time.

Movement is a preferred way, in my opinion, to put us into a calorie deficit, even more so than nutrition.

And I say that because the higher that I can give you as far as calorie counts and nutrition go, the happier that I am.

I would rather you have more micronutrients than less.

Your body's going to run a lot better.

Now, obviously at some point this becomes limiting because you can only walk or move so much throughout the day.

But you know that that movement is the thing when you're saying, well, what else can I do?

The answer is not supplements.

The answer is not, you know, that that ice bath or whatever people are trying to sell you, it's movement.

You know, you need to be walking.

This is this is where you get a desk cycle or you get a walking pad for home.

And then you put that to work whenever you can.

And if you do that, you're going to see a lot of success.

But when you look at yourself and you have these 345000 steps per day step counts, that's your issue right there.

I mean, that's that's when we're talking about, yeah, we're talking about filling the basket with big rocks.

That's a big rock, and so figure out where you can do what you can do during the day to be able to add some movement in and you will likely give yourself the best chance to be able to lose fat in the easiest way possible and not want to pull your hair out.

How much water do you recommend per day?

This is a controversial topic that every time it gets brought up and you talk to a handful of coaches, every coach has a different answer.

So if a coach tells you to drink based on your your thirst levels, I'm not going to say they're wrong.

I don't I wouldn't say that I'm not going to say they're wrong.

There are some highly respected people that I respect really greatly that say that it's fine.

It's I'm never going to tell my clients that.

The problem with following your thirst is that a lot of people have discordant thirst cues, athletes in particular.

This is anecdotal.

Women seem to have it more than men.

Have you noticed that, Beth?

Well.

Yeah, I mean, look at me.

I don't, I I'm like cactus.

I don't drink water at all during the day.

Pretty much like I have to remind myself to drink water.

I do not get thirsty.

I, I found it most in my my female clients.

I don't know why specifically.

I don't know if it's actually a thing that has to do with that.

I my my thought is maybe like menstrual cycle throws off.

I have no idea but if I don't like I have to make myself every day and I barely get to 2 liters of water if I'm lucky and that's like I have to really think about it.

The only time that I actually get thirsty is at our gym because I the part of the gym that I work out in has no air conditioning and it's disgusting over there.

So I usually am chugging like a liter to 2 liters of water during my workout, but then when I get home I don't.

I might have like a diet soda at some point during the day but that's it.

Like I'm I, I'm not.

I do not get thirsty.

I just don't.

Yeah.

And so, and so the way that the way that we both, we, we've kind of talked this out both based off of how she, I drink enough water, but I just do it regularly.

And, and this is I, I kind of started training myself to do this back in high school.

So it was never really a big issue for me, but it was just something that I, I had learned for the majority of people, it is an issue.

And having seen how difficult it is for Beth, and then having seen how difficult it is to drink intuitively for our clients, we came to the conclusion that what we're going to tell people in this probably gives women a little bit more water than what they should.

Not much probably gives men a little bit less water than what they should have.

Not much.

We tell people as a general rule, just drink 100 ounces of water per day, spread throughout the day.

And if you're thirsty beyond that, drink more.

Certainly, I find that 100 ounces is very easy for literally everybody to hit.

And you're going to be counting things like diet sodas, coffee, tea, liquid protein shake.

They all count as liquid.

It's, it's like 99% water and then somebody will come to me and they'll be like, well, I don't want to count my pre workout or I don't want to count coffee because it's got caffeine in it.

Caffeine is a diuretic.

When it's by itself in the medium of coffee or a pre workout that is like 98% water.

The effect of caffeine is so small.

Yes, you pee more, but that is not a problem from a hydration standpoint.

They massively hydrate you still and they might hydrate you in many instances better than actual water because maybe there's some electrolytes in there that can help with the gradient to create a little bit more hydration.

So any of this like concern over, well, I don't want to count coffee because it's got caffeine in it and therefore it's going to be a diuretic.

In practicality, it's 100% not.

And if anybody has any questions about that, go to mauiathletics.com and type up in the blog Coffee and Dehydration.

And you're going to find my entire blog write up with all the studies that show it.

There's literally never been a study that's looked at this and has found that it's a diuretic in these in these instances.

If you're taking caffeine pills and you're swallowing the caffeine pills and not drinking any water, yeah, it's in that diuretic because you're not getting any water in with it.

You're just taking caffeine.

And so it is a minor diuretic under those circumstances, but it is a diuretic in any situation where you're drinking it with a liquid.

It is always a hydrant, so you never have to worry about that.

Just to cut that off because for some reason this has been a really contentious point with a lot of people even recently.

I think that that there was a big like back and forth argument over this in our Facebook group literally like a month ago.

And I just was like, stop and like drop like all the studies.

And I'm like, show me a single study where this is it's opposite this and there there isn't 1 because it doesn't work that way.

But it's really funny because people think people think that for some reason that since caffeine is that, that anything with caffeine is always, always gnat as a diuretic.

But it just isn't.

So nothing really to worry about there.

Get 100 ounces of water daily.

Drink more if you are thirsty, Try to spread it out as best you can.

Best way to do this, Get an algae, Get a hydro flask.

Get something that can hold water and keep it with you at all times.

Beth and I have hydro flasks.

You might not have a hydro flask, do you?

Well, yeah, she has a Hydro flask.

I mean, it could, it could literally last you the rest of your life.

So buy one.

It's a good investment.

You can, we're selling a ton of shit, but we don't have any discount codes or anything like that, which is funny.

Get your get your Olympic weight lifting shoes, get your, you know, your flat soled shoes, get your hydro flasks.

But these are the things that will make your life easier.

And there's a reason that we say that if you have these things in play, you know, lifting is going to feel better, getting your water in is going to feel easier.

You know, when every time you walk into your living room and you see that Hydro Flask, take a drink, it's going to make things a lot easier, make your life easier.

I mean, there are ways to set this up for yourself.

And we want to give you the the tools and tips to be able to do that.

But I mean, even if you just want to repurpose an old water bottle, sure, do that.

Like a bottle of water, water bottle, sure, do that.

As long as you're refilling and using it, you're going to be doing just fine at similar intensity levels between treadmill, elliptical, cycling and rowing, which cardio is best doesn't matter.

Whatever you're willing to do, do what you're willing to do.

I know in the in the past people have kind of hated on the elliptical.

I actually don't really agree with that.

I think it's perfectly fine.

It's going to get you moving and if it gets the heart rate up, that's great.

You know, rowing is perfectly fine.

Cycling is fine, swimming, treadmill, ski, erg and bike, anything that you can do that will get some cardio into your life.

Because yeah, I mean, the reality is that people just don't move.

So, you know, arguing over what what form we use here is is probably majoring in the minor here.

So whatever you are willing to do, whatever feels the best, whatever is most appropriate for you for being able to do it for long periods of time.

Does eating the same things on routine mean our body becomes less efficient at burning calories?

No.

Your body will be just as efficient eating a hamburger or eating a chicken breast today as it will, you know, if you eat it every day for the next year, it's going to be just as efficient.

Your body composition could change and that could change your calorie needs and that could change the way that these things affect you.

The biggest thing as far as this goes is I would have a moderated variety of proteins, carbs, and fats in your daily diet.

Because if you have that moderated variety, I'm not saying like go nuts with a massive variety, But if you have, you know, 345 options for all of these different things, you're going to be getting very nutrients.

You're going to be able to change things up a bit, which will make it more sustainable.

You're going to be able to have some set meals when you don't have to make decisions on days that you're extra stressed or tired from lack of sleep.

It just makes your life easier.

So whether or not you're doing macros, a meal plan or what have you, having a set of base meals for you is probably a really smart thing.

And I, I would highly recommend that people do that because it gives you something to turn to when decision fatigue starts to kick in.

And again, we're talking about making things as easy as possible for you.

And when life gets difficult, figuring out how to cut through decision fatigue is probably one of the most important things possible.

All right, last one, and I will allow you to to weigh in on this one, Beth, because this is probably right up your alley.

Do sled pushes count as cardio?

Yeah.

Yeah, that makes you really.

It also is going to depend on like would I assign somebody sled pushes as like zone 2 training?

No, but if you are, it's great for interval based work.

I think because you you sort of have natural rest periods that you're going to want to, you're not just going to be like a Husky doing the Iditarod, just like dragging that thing to your death.

I really like, I really like this for interval type of situations where you're working hard for a short period of time and then you rest, work hard for a short period of time and time and then rest.

But it's going to elevate your heart rate.

So yes, I would count it as cardio.

Yeah, I mean, I agree in all practical senses.

I mean, the answer is going to be how you use it.

But The thing is, if you're using it in an appropriate manner, it will be cardio.

Yeah, because you could certainly use it in a way that it's not cardio.

You could load the sled as heavy as possible and push it for 10 feet and then rest for.

2 minutes leg workout.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you're trying to use it as as hypertrophy.

You could do that.

I've never seen people do that outside of.

Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that but that could be done.

But that's sub optimal way to me to work legs but.

That strikes me as something that would be like strong man or like football related.

Yeah, or like sumo wrestler related.

Yeah, that would that would seems more sport specific than somebody who's like trying to build their quads for a for physique purposes.

Yeah, I, I don't, I don't really see a whole lot of ways.

I mean, I guess I could see certain things like we're, we're kind of like spitballing here to give you an answer.

But I, I, if you're going to be using it in any way that really gets the heart rate up or how it's traditionally used, it's going to be cardio.

I could see things like sled drags being used as like, I mean, you could use it as a, as a quad builder, like reverse sled drags, you know, 20 feet, four or five sets, really heavy, heavy, a long rest in between, you know, 2-3 minute rest in between.

Sure.

It would not be cardio in that sense.

It it would be more hypertrophy training.

So it really depends on how you set it up.

But when Beth was like, yeah, it would be.

It's because the way that you will almost always program this outside of niche situations is going to be cardio.

It's.

Cardio, yeah.

Yeah.

So when in doubt, it probably is cardio.

If it's not then it's interesting like who put that in your program in that way?

I would be, I would be curious to see that because I don't think that typical coaches will put that in unless you have an extenuating circumstance like strongman or your alignment and your whole thing is like pushing somebody or, or you know, something like that where where it would make sense to program it in different than like a standard cardio type of situation.

So sports specific, sure, I can see it as it not being cardio, but but yeah, I mean, how are you programming this?

I can also see it used in like a rehab scenario for I actually used a reverse sled pulls.

As part of my patellar tendinopathy rehab because that's a phenomenal quad exercise that has very minimal like you're not it doesn't involve deep knee flexion so that that.

VMO.

Yeah, part of that patellar, it doesn't piss off the patellar tendon.

So I could see this being used also in some rehab type of scenarios to get leg work in without taxing knee flexion.

Yeah.

So keep in mind we're we're talking to our audience in the way that they would typically use it.

If you're talking to like a rehab coach, they might have a different answer for you.

If you're talking to, you know, a football coach, they might have a different answer to you for you.

But for the people that are listening to this, it's probably a cardio how it's programmed for you.

So that's a good one to end on for us.

Thank you for joining us again for another episode of Noble Just Bacon.

If you have any questions, please reach out to us Facebook, Instagram, YouTube in our Mighty Networks community.

And we will get to those questions in the coming weeks.

Thanks so much for joining us, guys.

We'll see you next time.