How To Balance Hard Training With Real Rest

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(Cont.) How To Balance Hard Training With Real Rest

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Welcome to There Is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell, and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's fitness programs, and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and most importantly why things work. Hence the name, There is a Method to the Madness. Before I get to today's show, I want to thank Jonathan and Lynn Gilding of the Gilding Group at Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. All right, everybody. Let's get on with the great podcast today. I was over in Deland the other day, and um I was taking part in kind of a health fair that they had over there. My friend Dia was putting this on at the county of Volutia. She's one of the wellness coordinators over there, and it was a uh a smoothie event with inviting your local fitness influencer, and that happened to be me. And I'm glad it was me. It was a lot of fun. And, you know, I kind of rag on influencers sometimes, but you know, there's always been influencers, and I think a lot of it comes down to how are you influencing and why you are influencing, and are you a real influencer? So I took that opportunity to try to be a real influencer over there, and basically um all I did was uh sit at my little station, and they were very nice to order a bunch of my books, and they put them out at my table, my newest book, and uh they gave out 10 books. So the first 10 people to come up and get one got one. So I really appreciate that. I think that's pretty cool. I signed the books and then uh, you know, went over some of my other books, two of my older books that I brought there. And, you know, it was a lot of fun. Like the time flew by. And I find that to be kind of interesting. Ellen went with me, and um, at the very end, when we got in the car, I said, you know, that two hours went really quick. And that was because I was engaged, and it's so important to be engaged. And I've often said that I really like questions, it makes me feel very useful, like specific questions. Most people that are professionals like specific questions. When somebody kind of asks non-specific questions, it becomes kind of a difficult thing. For example, let me just give you an example of the two, because I think you might find this interesting as well. And then I will get into the main point of today's podcast. But like, for example, if we're at one of these events, or if I'm at a gym, or if I'm at my gym and somebody gives me a very general question, like, how do I lose weight? Well, that's not a very specific question at all. That's just kind of like, well, I don't know what you've already tried. I, you know, do I give you the basics of what we know about calories in and calories out? Like it's such a vague question that almost feels like it's not really a question, but just kind of like somebody's making conversation or just want to hear the same thing they've heard over and over. So that would be a general one that, you know, sure, I try the field, and thankfully I didn't get any of those. And uh, you know, not as fun, but the specific ones are good. I didn't get a whole lot of specific questions regarding weight loss. But for example, I did get one that was specific, and the person said, What is the real research behind intermittent fasting? Oh, there you go. So now I can answer a specific question, and I love doing that because there is a method to the madness, meaning like there is evidence behind it as to why it works or why it doesn't work, everything that's true. So in this case, and again, I'm not, this isn't about intermittent fasting, but I'm just gonna give an example of an answer to that. I simply said, well, the evidence shows that people that are doing intermittent fasting, which by the way is only eating through a small window in the day, most of them do lose weight. That's what the research says. But the research also says it's not because of why they think they're doing it. So it works because essentially what we found is people eat less calories during the day when they eat it in a fine, narrow window, which completely makes sense to me because most people get in trouble calorically speaking at night. And so if they've made it a personal rule not to violate that they're only going to eat between the hours of, say, 10 and 2 or something like that, then they're not eating at night. So that's why they lose weight. She went, oh, so it doesn't change your metabolism. No, it doesn't change your metabolism. The only thing that changes your metabolism is increasing your muscle mass. So that's an example. So I love getting those specific questions. All right, now on Facebook the other day, I asked people what they were interested in learning about. Not everybody comments. I wish more people would, but as I've said before, a lot of times people don't ask questions because they're afraid that, you know, maybe it's too selfish to ask a personal question. It's not. But what I try to remind people is typically if you have that question, so do hundreds, if not thousands, of other people. When I was an instructor in college, I used to say the same thing. I'd say, hey, don't be afraid to ask that question that you got running through your head, because I guarantee you most of your classmates have the same question. So it's not selfish to ask. And, you know, if you're interested in health and fitness and you're listening to this right now and you follow me on social media, I really encourage you to go ahead and ask a question. So this person asked specifically about running. And as I said, I appreciate specific questions, but I'm going to turn it into a general answer because not everybody that listens to this podcast runs. So, but it's it's all good because it's all the same. And what he asked was, when you're running, I've heard in his words that you need to run more. So that's partly true. But then he went on, where do you find out how much recovery you need? And that's a good question. So I'm going to tackle that. All right. Now, what he is mentioning is the principle of recuperation. Now, there are seven different principles for health and fitness that we specifically go back to. We can kind of take most things and put it into one of the principles and talk about it. What he is specifically talking about is the principle of recuperation. And in short, what that means is that you have to have equal rest to work, no matter what it is. All right. Now bear with me here on some of this redneck speak right here. But what that means is that if you're going to work really hard, you need to rest really hard. If you're going to work really long, you need to rest very long. So, in other words, your rest is going to equal your effort. Now, for each person, it's a little bit different. And that's where it gets tough. But if we can fall back on this principle and completely understand the whys, we will do a better job with recovery. Now, regarding runners, they are notorious for violating this principle, which is why they're notorious for having overuse injuries, which is why they're notorious for having way shorter careers than they have to have. I mean, research has shown that running does not cause arthritis, does not cause knee replacements, does not cause any of these things. Matter of fact, there was a famous study done in New York City at one of the big hospitals, and I don't remember which one it was, but essentially they tracked runners from the time they were young until the time they were in their 90s. And then they looked at the same demographic, except they didn't run, but they stayed with the same age span. And what they found is the people that started in their 30s and ran up until their 90s had way less measurable arthritis than the people that started, or I should say, never ran in their 30s and made it to their 90s. So they just got a, you know, a blind sample size of people who had been sedentary. And what they found was the sedentary individuals had way more observable measures of arthritis. So that's pretty interesting. And you might say, but Rob, you just said like some runners run so much that they can't run anymore. That's true. But like if you think about the study, what's the key? They were running up to their 90s, meaning that they were obviously able to moderate their running to the point where they can keep running. I've had clients who were very, very old when they passed and they ran almost up until the last day. I mean, they're able to pull it off. I've had other clients who had to stop that type of activity 20, 30 years prior to getting older because they basically abused their body. So why do they abuse their body? I don't know. I mean, it's kind of like an addiction, or maybe they don't understand, or maybe they're, believe it or not, undisciplined because it takes discipline to take a day off. It doesn't take discipline to go for a five-mile run if it's an obsession or a compulsion, I should say. That's not discipline, that's acting out compulsively or addictively, and that's not showing any discipline. So the key is to find the right amount of rest that works for you. And then getting back to the runners, so I can give you a really good example. They are notorious when I've coached them in the past to you get really close to race time. You know, most of them will set a kind of a big goal, three to four months out from the goal. And it could be a marathon, running their first marathon. It could be trying to set a time in a marathon, it could be a half marathon, or it could be simply trying to get a really good time in a 5K or a personal record. Whatever it is, it's it's a big goal to them. And not all of them do this. The ones that are super disciplined follow the plan and then they, you know, do well, meet their goal. But it's always, it always amazes me how many people think that they can kind of like cheat and kind of like cram, so to say, you know, how you cram for a test, like the last few days. And they'll literally, instead of tapering, start doing more. Now, tapering means you cut your duration, mostly your duration and some maybe your intensity, but to about 50% about a week out. And then as you get closer, you cut it even more. So, like a couple days out from your run, you're doing 20% of your normal Thursday, so to say. That's a taper. Now, the reason why that that taper works is because it is following the principle of recuperation. You have put in the work, you have stressed your aerobic system, you have stressed your muscular system, you have stressed your endocrine system, you have stressed your central nervous system. All of those things are stressed when you're overloading and trying to get better. So you've already done that. The adaptations have hopefully occurred. Well, now you have to rest to allow your best to come out. There's nothing you can do in the last few days that is going to benefit your fitness. There is only things you can do to make it worse. And they do it notoriously, some of them. And they'll do a ridiculous workout like on a Thursday or a Friday, even, and then they'll go to race day and they'll wonder why they weren't their best, or they wonder why they got hurt. It's because they didn't trust the system. And I would argue they didn't trust themselves. So they had to do everything they could those last few days to get ready, and all they did was make it worse. There's a saying, can't make things better right now, but it absolutely can make it worse. And that's what they do. Instead of just being disciplined, saying, you know what, I've done what I need to do. Now it's time to follow the plan, recover for this last week. You know, again, it's a gradual taper going into race day, and I'll be ready. Now, one of the things that gets them into trouble, and unfortunately, this is more common with women than men, but it's still common with men too, is that they start feeling fat because they haven't been doing as much exercise. And so they compulsively, again, it's not discipline. They compulsively go out and run to burn off calories. And something in their mind says, well, if I mentally do that, I'll be better. The reality is the body really doesn't lie. Like when you're shot, you're shot. When you don't have the muscles to turn over, you're shot. When you don't have the rest in your central nervous system to fire those neurons like they need to be fired, you're shot. When your endocrine system is wiped out and your body's not producing the proper amount of norepinephrine or adrenaline, and instead it's producing a lot of cortisol, which is your stress hormone, you're shot. Like there's nothing you can do. So the idea of this reset is to get the cortisol levels lowered the last week, to get your norepinephrine and serotonin firing appropriately, to get your adrenaline firing, to get your endorphins ready to go, to let all of your soft tissue heal between your tendons and muscles, let those areas here heal to get rid of all DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness, to get that to go away. So you're going into it completely fresh, to let your central nervous system relax, so you're getting good sleep that week. Like those, that's the goal. And I've always said that I would put my money on if I had two athletes that I was training, and one of them was basically not as talented as the other one, but they were close, but they weren't the talented one, but they were rested and disciplined. And the other one was more talented, but undisciplined and not rested. I would put my money on the rested one any day during the week in the same race, even if the one had more talent. There's no question about it, because you cannot lie to your body. When it is shot, it is shot. If you're not 100% going in, you will not race your best times. It's just not going to happen. All right. So those are like extreme examples of the difference of work and rest. So what for this individual that asked, and this goes for strength training, this goes for everything. So we have what is called catabolic response and anabolic response. A catabolic response is what we need to get an adaptation. So a catabolic means break down. We have to break down to build up. There is no growth without discomfort. It's absolutely true. So that's catabolism or tearing down. So let's shift over to muscles because we've been talking a lot about running. So let's talk about strength training. So when you do a set of strength exercise, doesn't matter what it is, dumbbell presses, goblet squats, leg extensions. The idea is to break the muscle fibers down. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to cause little partial tears in the muscle fibers. I mean, that's what it is all about. That's what DOMS is, delayed onset muscle soreness, is little microscopic tears in the muscle fibers. Then they can grow back as one individual fiber bigger, and we call that hypertrophy. Now that part is called an adaptation. The response happens immediately. We get a catabolic response. If we have a catabolic response, which if you're strength training properly, you're going to. If you're running appropriately, meaning you're overloading your system by going a little bit further or a little bit harder, whatever, you're going to get a catabolic response. That's what we want. Now, what we want is an anabolic adaptation. That's going to occur only if there is the rest. So catabolic means breakdown. We do that by hard workouts. Anabolic means growth. The anabolic or anabolism isn't going to occur unless there is proper rest in nutrition. That's where everybody is a little bit different on that. Now, here is the perfect scenario. And don't say Rob says take steroids because I'm not. I'm trying, I I really don't believe in them. Okay. But this is for your understanding purposes only. The perfect scenario is you're young, like in your early 20s, you're unemployed, you live at home and eat all of your parents' great food, and you're taking anabolic steroids. Okay. Then you are going to recover better than anybody, because that's what steroids do. Like they literally help the body recover. People say, oh, they make you big. Well, no, they don't. It's an and it's an indirect effect of what happens. People who take them can train longer, can train harder, and because they have the necessary recovery, and they can build up. Now, of course, it doesn't last forever. Every tree is going to fall. But that's why they work. So that's like the perfect scenario for somebody to recover. Now, the least perfect scenario is you're older, you have low levels of your natural hormones. Naturally, you're not taking anything, which I want to reiterate, I don't believe you should unless you absolutely need to from your doctor's standpoint. And you work pretty hard, you work full-time, and you have to prepare your own meals. All right. So that means you are not going to recover nearly as well as the person who is 60 years younger than you, lives at home and has all of those perks and doesn't work. So all of these things matter when it comes to recovery. Like professional athletes, pretty much in most sports, not all sports, but in most sports, that's their job. They don't have to work. So they don't have to deal with that stress because the Cell Yes stress adaptation syndrome, which we've studied in my industry and psychology and medicine, studies it as well, has found that a stress is a stress is a stress. So going for a run is a stress. So is going to work. So if you went for a run in the morning and then you went to an eight to five job, you're going to have more stress than the person who did the same run and went out for coffee. So a stress is a stress, is a stress. That is why it's almost impossible for me to tell one person unless I know them really, really well how much recovery they need to put into their training. I can give you clues, but it's really hard to say. So the first lesson is we have to understand the rules on that. The younger you are, the faster you recover. The older you are, the slower you recover. If you're 100% natural, not taking any hormones, the harder it is to recover. If you are taking something, the easier it is to recover. If your stresses in life are pretty low because you don't work, you live at home, whatever, you're going to recover easier because you have less stress. If you are the main provider or the main the person that takes care of most things in your house, you are going to have more stress. It's going to be harder to recover. If you have other stresses going on in your life, whatever they might be, it's going to be harder to recover. If you don't eat a very good diet, when I say very good diet, I mean a diet that is full and good, complex carbohydrates and lean proteins, and you eat a diet that's basically high in sugar and high in fat, you're going to have a harder time recovering. If you drink alcohol anywhere to the point of beyond moderation, you are going to have a harder time to recover. So you have to take all those things into consideration. Now, having said all that, if you're in a situation where it's really difficult for you, in that extreme situation where you are working full time, you're basically burning the candles at both ends, then what you need to do is you need to really Make your workout program pretty intense, but pretty short. Like you're not going to want to do marathon workouts in the gym. So you're going to want to make sure if you're in that situation where you don't get a lot of recovery, that you are making sure you're not pushing the volume too much. Because typically it's the volume that gets people into trouble, not the intensity. In other words, a 60-minute moderate run is going to take more out of you than a 15-minute brisk run. It's just it's it's going to take more out of you. It's going to require more of a hormonal response, which is going to require more recovery. On the flip side of that, if you're in a low stress situation for whatever reason, you're younger, you don't work, you know, you don't work full-time, then you can get away with longer workouts. So the first thing is to determine what your natural lifestyle is. And if you have, if you're already burning the candle at both ends, you're going to want to make your workouts more intense, shorter, and less frequent. If you are in a very low stress situation, then you can make your workouts longer, more intense as well, and more frequent. So that's one rule to think about. The next rule is for every hard workout you do, make sure that you take the equal day off the next day or do an active rest day. We call it active recovery. It helps a lot. So if you're 24 years old living at home, eating your parents' food, and you know, basically don't have a care in the world, you can run seven days a week. You probably can run seven hard days a week, and you're probably going to get away with it. If you're 55, if you're 60 and you're trying to stay competitive as a runner, you're not going to be able to, I don't believe, run the five, six days a week and get away with it. You're going to have to be a lot smarter and run two to three times a week, and then in between do what we call active recovery, which means easy cycling, beach walking, easy walking. So if you follow that rule of for every hard day, put in an easy day the next day, and this really is geared towards the older folks, because really, when you're in your 20s, if somebody's going to say, you know, how do I recover? I'd say, it doesn't matter, man. Do whatever the hell you're you want to do. You're going to recover. I mean, you're just going to. It's going to be really hard for a kid to overtrain. But once we hit 30, it gets harder. Once we hit 40, it gets even harder, 50, even harder, and so on and so on. And that's not to discourage older athletes because I think it's the opposite. I think older athletes are some of the best athletes. We just have to be smarter. And one of the ways we're smarter is we realize, again, that shorter, intense workouts are more effective and we don't have to schedule them as frequently as the long workouts. The next rule is take an active recovery day for after every hard workout, whether it be strength or cardio. Like if it's hard, if you call it hard, if it feels hard, the next day should be easy. I don't believe in taking the full day off. I think that's silly. I don't think that's good for the mind. And studies show it's not good for recovery either. I mean, you really should be moving the next day. You just need to do a different kind of workout and make it less intense. And then the third rule is for my strength training people only. When you're doing workouts, just make sure that you're splitting your workouts up where you're going to get adequate recovery in the week. So, in other words, we have we've got it down to a science now. We've found basically that it's the amount of volume per week that you do for strength training with the intensity that's going to give you the results. So as long as you aren't over-training each muscle group each week, your muscles are going to recover. So, in other words, there's no reason to work your chest every day, which I don't think too many people do, but some people do. There's no reason to work your legs every day. So a really good rule of thumb so you don't over-train is basically just do if you want to strength train each day, that is, again, it just you don't have to, but if you want to, do different exercises on different days. It's another form of active recovery. So if you're doing an upper body push one day, you know, the next day you can work your legs. But you have to remember, you are still getting a lot of stimulation to your central nervous system. So just because your muscles might be getting anabolic growth, just because they're getting the recovery they need because they haven't been used in 48 hours or whatever, it doesn't mean your central nervous system or your endocrine system isn't getting taxed. So you got to be careful there. You got to pay attention to that. So if you have a hard day, take an easy day the next day, no matter what that is. Like I know like a lot of bodybuilders follow this here. So one day it might be they're gonna work their legs really hard, and then the next day they might do more of like an upper body pump workout, which means they're not going to failure. They're more or less doing a couple sets of range of motion, higher reps, not to exhaustion. They're still getting some stimulus, but they're not breaking the muscles down. So there are so many ways you can do it. But if you can remember, work hard, rest hard. If you can remember, the older you are, the more stress you have, the more recovery you're going to need. Those are two huge keys. And then finally, listen to your body. If your soreness doesn't go in a couple days, you need to take a day off. If you're not sleeping at night, you're probably in adrenal fatigue, which means your central nervous system is shot. If your morning pulse is higher than it normally is, that means you're probably over-training. And also weight loss. If you're struggling with the scale, like you're basically gaining weight, even though you're working harder, you're probably over-trained. So there are things you can look for that will really help you that way too. All right. So keep the questions coming. I think that was a great question. And until next time, make sure you stay max fit and stay max well. All right. Thank you everybody for listening to today's show. I really appreciate it. I want to remind you to please hit automatic download. It really helps me and it helps the show. And now I'd like to thank Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, the area's premiere garage door company. They have the best product and the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk, the owners. They are great. They're going to get you exactly what you need. So if you have any garage door needs, give them a shout at 386-222-3165. 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