Strength Changes Everything

By: The Exercise Coach
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  • Summary

  • Let Exercise Coach co-founder Brian Cygan and franchisee Amy Hudson help you navigate your health and fitness with research-backed, easy-to-understand information to transform your body. See why just two 20-minute workouts a week is all it takes to rebuild your strength and keep you pain-free!
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Episodes
  • How Many Benefits To Strength Training Are There?

    How Many Benefits To Strength Training Are There?
    Sep 25 2024

    Join us for this replay from the archives to learn more about the benefits of strength training in a fun manner...

    In the midst of preparing for the upcoming National Exercise Coach Conference, Brian and Amy play a game of trying to name as many benefits of strength as they possibly can without repeating themselves. As you would expect of something as important to your long-term health and performance as strength training, the ensuing list is ridiculously long and comprehensive.

    • With the National Exercise Coach Conference approaching rapidly, Amy came up with a game to play on the podcast while Brian is busy getting preparations underway. The rules are simple: Take turns naming a specific benefit of strength training until someone gets stumped.
    • The first batch of short and long-term benefits to strength training include:
      • increased bone density,
      • improved metabolism,
      • decreased gastrointestinal transit time,
      • decreased systemic inflammation,
      • enhanced flexibility,
      • improved cognition and brain function,
      • increased level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor,
      • lower blood pressure,
      • increased longevity,
      • and decreased disease risk.
    • Diseases that have a reduced risk are:
      • Alzheimer’s and dementia,
      • stroke,
      • type 2 diabetes,
      • coronary artery disease,
      • and autoimmune diseases.
    • Further benefits of strength training include:
      • increased vertical jump,
      • an easier time getting off the floor and going up the stairs,
      • increased sarcomerogenesis,
      • increased energy,
      • mitochondrial biogenesis,
      • decreased joint pain,
      • improved body image and self-confidence,
      • improved spinal ability,
      • improved cardiovascular health and function,
      • enhanced joint mobility,
      • it helps facilitate and maintain fat loss,
      • it reduces serum insulin levels and improves insulin sensitivity,
      • improved postprandial blood sugar,
      • anti-aging effects,
      • improved circulation,
      • improved muscle density,
      • the release of healthy muscle derived hormones,
      • destressing,
      • a lower resting heart rate,
      • greater endurance,
      • improved mood,
      • better sleep,
      • increased HDL,
      • reversing sarcopenia,
      • overall improvements in general performance in all areas of life.
    • This gigantic list of health benefits is the reason there is the quote: “If there was a pill that contained all the benefits of exercise it would be the most widely prescribed pill in the world.”

    Link:

    exercisecoach.com

    This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.
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    18 mins
  • The Science of Strength: Brian Cygan Interviews James Fisher, PhD - Part 2

    The Science of Strength: Brian Cygan Interviews James Fisher, PhD - Part 2
    Sep 18 2024
    Join us for this replay from the archives to learn more about what is accepted versus what is truth... In part 2 of this interview, Brian Cygan and Dr. James Fisher discuss the science of strength and why the accepted wisdom of exercise may actually be causing more harm than good. Learn how many exercises you really need during a session, why “cardio” exercises aren’t necessary if you use the right level of effort, and how to keep yourself from getting injured by reducing the range of motion while still getting the fitness results you desire. Beyond the minimum exercise dose, you can add as many exercises as you see fit. There is a balance though. If you add too many exercises it can start to impact the frequency of which you can train.As you increase the number of exercises in one workout, you lengthen the time it takes to recover, so there’s a tradeoff. Recent studies have shown that volume is more important than frequency as well.There is an inverse relationship between someone’s ability to work hard and the length of a workout. Eight exercises seems like the optimal number for clients to be able to give their whole effort for as many exercises as they can.The accepted wisdom regarding the strength and endurance continuum is that to build strength you need a heavy load and fewer reps, and for endurance you use a lighter load and more repetitions. Studies have shown that it doesn’t particularly matter. If your strength increases your endurance also increases. As long as you use a high degree of effort you will get the optimal results.45 seconds of time under tension is usually enough time to achieve the majority of muscle fiber recruitment if you’re using a high level of effort. Some of this depends on the person and their preference because of the perceptual and comfort differences.Longer times under load are associated with higher degrees of discomfort and negative perceptual responses. Across a broad population, this is going to have a negative impact on motivation and compliance.In order to really optimize strength training, we need to start looking at the individual perceptual response and how that impacts the motivation to stick with a program and give a whole effort during exercise.A common mistake many trainers make is recommending older people use lighter weights and increasing the number of reps they do. This often results in the person feeling sore for days and with little motivation to return to the gym. Working with a moderate load to enhance strength and muscular endurance is better.Bone mineral density is a key variable, especially in females and older adults, and we know that it only improves with impact or heavier loads. With a light weight, we run the risk of not improving bone mineral density which can result in a higher risk of injury.A number of studies show that supervision enhances results and the better the supervision, the better the results.One of the key factors with proper supervision is that they promote and enforce good technique. This serves to keep the correct muscles under tension and prevent other muscles from getting injured.If someone is getting injured in the gym, something about the technique went wrong. Supervision can help you avoid those sorts of injuries.Research seems to indicate that we can actually limit the range of motions for many exercises and still see strength increases throughout the range. Injuries typically occur at the extremes of the range of motion of an exercise, so by eliminating those ranges, you reduce the risk of injury and you can still improve strength.With most exercises, it’s not an acute injury that causes problems, it’s the wear and tear over time that creates injuries. For an adult client, the extreme ranges of motion are not helpful, and they can get the fitness results they want with a safer range.If you’re not currently doing any exercise, the best thing you can do is strength training. By doing that you will see cardiovascular improvements at the same time.High intensity training has been shown to improve the cardio-respiratory system within a matter of weeks of starting resistance training.If someone is already a cardio athlete, adding strength training may not improve their performance drastically, but there still will be other health benefits.The idea that you need to do cardio to see cardiovascular benefits and strength training to improve strength is a bit outdated. Strength training with high levels of effort has been shown to stimulate both adaptations.Even cycling, when taken to the highest level of effort, can stimulate similar levels of adaptations to lifting weights. This is why modality doesn’t matter as much as the level of effort involved.Optimal results mean safe as possible, sustainable, with maximum results and minimum time required. This is why so many trainers have landed on strength training as the most effective option.As you get older, strength training becomes a weight loss method,...
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    32 mins
  • The Science of Strength: Brian Cygan Interviews James Fisher, PhD - Part 1

    The Science of Strength: Brian Cygan Interviews James Fisher, PhD - Part 1
    Sep 11 2024

    Join us for this replay from the archives to learn more about the science of strength and how it may affect your fitness plans and goals...

    Brian Cygan and Dr. James Fisher break down the science of strength and discuss what the proper level of resistance during training is, the threshold for the effort that you need to achieve to see results, and why some exercises are best avoided if you want to see optimal fitness benefits.

    • Fisher is an exercise scientist in the UK and was a personal trainer for a number of years before becoming a researcher. His area of research was mainly lower back pain and lower back strength and has recently been looking into the perceptual responses to resistance training.
    • He advocates a framework of evidence-based resistance training. One of the first papers published was focused on guiding trainers and trainees on what the research supports and how to exercise the most effectively.
    • In total, Dr. Fisher, in collaboration with researchers from around the world, has published over 100 papers. The part he enjoys the most is the fact that once one paper is published, the research always raises new questions to explore.
    • There is a mountain of evidence that supports the health benefits of resistance training. Ultimately, all the benefits combine and stronger people have a reduced risk of all-cause mortality. In layman’s terms, the stronger you are, the harder you are to kill.
    • The goal of most people with resistance exercise is to have a biological age that is lower than your chronological age. We want to live longer and be able to function as if we were much younger.
    • Resistance training resets the biological clock, sometimes by decades. Studies on older males using resistance training showed they had similar cellular characteristics as men in their 20’s.
    • The first thing you need to understand is that the key is the tension of the muscle doing the work, not just moving an external load. The evidence supports the finding that effort is key, which is where most people go wrong as they fear the hard work. Whole effort is one of the guiding principles of the Exercise Coach.
    • The intensity of effort really matters to trigger the results we are looking for from exercise. There is also a threshold of a near maximal effort to trigger a response from the body.
    • If people are working at a lower intensity, the volume becomes a key factor. If we train to a higher level of effort, the volume becomes unnecessary.
    • For the average person, optimal results can be achieved with two 30 minute-or-less workouts per week. For bodybuilders, there are some questions around doing more training in order to maximize muscle growth, but for most people, they want the functionality of strength and not an increase in size.
    • To get a whole body benefit, the minimum dose of training performed is only three exercises: an upper body pressing exercise (bench press), an upper body pulling exercise (seated row), and a lower body pressing exercise (leg press). Those can be complemented with additional multi-joint movements for other areas of the body that need work.
    • Even under lockdown, people can see positive benefits from doing simple exercises like pushups and lunges.
    • Squats are a unique exercise because it has a high degree of coordination and skill. You can become “stronger” at the squat without really seeing results in other areas because you are just becoming better at moving the weight up and down. This is why the leg press is a more beneficial lower body pressing exercise.

    Link:

    exercisecoach.com

    This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.
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    24 mins
Exercise & Fitness Hygiene & Healthy Living
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