Join us for this replay from the archives to learn more about your energy systems and how effective strength training is in how they work...

Brian recently had a friend come into the Exercise Coach and he was shocked to find how quickly his heart rate went up after only 60 seconds of properly calibrated strength training exercise, despite being an avid runner. Discover how the three energy systems of the body work, and why high-intensity strength training is definitively the best way to renovate your muscles, heart, and lungs at the same time and combat type 2 diabetes and the most common age-related diseases people suffer from today.

• Brian had the opportunity to introduce a friend to the program at the Exercise Coach recently who was an avid runner, and he was quickly surprised at how effectively the program got his heart rate up despite his extensive cardiovascular training.
• Your heart and your lungs are pumps that respond to the demands being placed on your muscles at any given moment. Aerobic exercise is usually associated with a high heart rate, but that’s not the only time the aerobic energy system is engaged.
• In relative terms, the most aerobic thing you can do is sit and do nothing. There are three energy-producing systems in the body, and the aerobic oxidative system uses oxygen to produce energy. When we sit and do nothing, the aerobic oxidative system produces nearly 100% of the energy the body needs!
• When we start to do something more demanding, energy production shifts to become more anaerobic which is why strength training drives that sort of increased heart rate response.
• The more demand on the muscles, the greater the cardiovascular response.
• Many new clients have never experienced that kind of workout before getting started with the Exercise Coach.
• Strength training is the best kind of exercise you can do for diabetes. Out-of-control blood sugar leads to out-of-control inflammation, which is the root cause of all the major diseases associated with aging.
• As we age and lose muscle, our body becomes resistant to the effects of the hormone insulin. Insulin is a storage hormone that removes glucose from the bloodstream and insulin resistance becomes a real problem.
• Without being able to remove blood sugar from the bloodstream, due to our muscles diminishing over time, our insulin levels rise and that causes problems in addition to the issues caused by elevated blood sugar.
• The Strength Training at the Exercise Coach targets muscles that store sugar as glycogen. It renovates your body’s ability to store glycogen and reverses insulin resistance.
• This puts the body into a much better metabolic state and makes it easier to lose weight and transform your health. Stronger muscles equal stronger health.
• Type 2 muscle fibers are only used when they encounter demands that are greater than usual. Taking a walk or jogging won’t activate the type 2 muscle fibers in your body but strength training will.
• Your muscles get better at storing the glycogen they need to perform the demanding work required for strength training. That type of work needs the heart and lungs to increase their output to support what is happening metabolically.
• When you feel like you’re breathing hard after an intense exertion, that indicates that you’re doing the kind of work needed to renovate your type 2 muscle fibers.
• Strength training and whole food nutrition are the best things you can do to ward off the risks of type 2 diabetes and other age related diseases.
• Runners often find that there is missing muscle mass in their body when they go to the Exercise Coach and that the program allows them to perform at an even higher level.

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.

Join us for this replay from the archives to learn more about myths involving fitness...

Brian and Amy explore a couple of articles talking about the impacts of weight loss vs. exercise on longevity, and discuss the myths surrounding losing weight and achieving optimal physical health. Learn why focusing on losing weight is the wrong goal, and why a proper strength training program is the best way to maintain fitness as we age.

• There is a ton of information regarding health and fitness out there, and sometimes the info conflicts, so discerning the truth can be challenging.
• A recent article published in the New York Times essentially claimed that exercise is more important than weight loss for longevity. The behavior of exercising matters more statistically than losing weight, but that could be narrowed down to having a higher fitness level is more important than weight loss.
• Activity has its limitations related to weight loss and increasing longevity. Intentional exercise is a means to an end. The goal of which is to change the systems of the body for the better.
• Muscle quality is one of the #1 predictors of mortality. The exercise and muscle mass itself doesn’t increase your longevity, but they are correlated to the physiological effects that are.
• Weight loss is hard. It has to be combined with nutritional changes, and if your goal is to be thinner, the optimal path is to combine exercise that maximizes muscle health and proper whole foods nutrition. However, when it comes to overall health, there are positive changes outside of weight loss.
• The research looked at overweight and obese individuals with health problems, and they found that poeple that exercised effectively saw great results, whether or not they lost any weight.
• Exercising and improving the related biomarkers leads to better longevity, even more than people that simply lose weight by dieting.
• Blood pressure, cholesterol, and insulin resistance are the measures that truly indicate someone’s health and overall longevity, far more than their weight.
• There are a number of ways to lose weight that are extremely unhealthy. Cutting calories without strength training is one of the worst ways you can lose weight.
• Another study involved 81 sedentary overweight women and putting them into a walking program. At the end of 12 weeks, a few women had lost some body fat, but 55 of them had actually gained weight. Just moving your body will not cause weight loss, nor will it improve the systems of the body.
• In terms of exercise for anyone over the age of 30, we need to target the optimization of muscle mass and strength through exercise. Sarcopenia is the root cause of the deterioration of fitness as we age.
• Compared against each other, exercise is considerably more beneficial than simple weight loss. In some studies, weight loss had no improvement on mortality risk at all.
• Activity and weight loss are not enough. Even if you’ve had trouble losing weight in the past, you can make a huge difference in your health by starting an effective strength training program.

Links:

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.

Join us for this replay from the archives to learn more about dose-response and what it means for your fitness...

Learn how a little-known principle in exercise determines whether you get the fitness results you are looking for, or you just spend some time moving weights up and down at the gym. Find out why the dose-response to exercise is what you should really be paying attention to, and how it can guide you to easier fitness gains in a shorter amount of time.

• More exercise is not necessarily better. The dose-response relationship applies not only to medication and stressors but also to exercise.
• It describes the magnitude of the response the body has in response to a stressor, in this case exercise and the response is the result that we are looking for.
• Your body is what produces the results and adaptations that you want, not the exercise. If the stress is of sufficient intensity or quality, you will get the response that you want. Just going through the motions of exercise won’t necessarily produce an adaptive response in the body.
• You also need to give the body enough time and resources to produce the response you are looking for. Exercising too often is actually preventing your body from adapting and growing. This is how athletes experience overtraining.
• The adaptations occur after the exercise session is complete, and only if the stimulus is of a high enough intensity and quality.
• Exercise is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Just putting in time exercising isn’t necessarily a good thing. A lot of what passes for exercise is just enjoyable activity, and it won’t trigger adaptations or reverse the effects of aging.
• Exercise impacts every system of the body. For every single exercise session, you should be able to measure the improvements in fitness level. This is a key component of the program at the Exercise Coach.
• When you don’t see improvements between sessions, it means one of two things. Either you need to increase the intensity of the exercise, or increase the amount of rest and recovery between sessions.
• Your dose-response is very individualized. The amount of stimulus you need to generate an adaptation will vary. At the Exercise Coach, client’s individual abilities are measured and programs are designed to be just the right fit for them.
• At the end of the day, the right intensity for one is different from the right intensity for another.

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.

Join us for this replay from the archives to learn more about how strength training should complement dieting for weight loss...

Dr. James Fisher answers the question “Why does muscle really matter for weight loss?” Find out why muscle mass should be a vital component of your weight loss strategy and why dieting without strength training is a recipe for long term disaster for your body.

• There is a direct connection between your body’s muscle mass and its metabolic effectiveness, the ability to lose fat and keep it off, and your overall health.
• Why does muscle matter for weight loss? Muscle is metabolic reactive and consumes calories just by existing. You will burn a larger number of calories on a daily basis by having more muscle mass than someone with less.
• Instead of thinking about weight loss, we should think of it as fat loss because we don’t want to lose just any kind of weight, we want to improve body composition.
• Focusing on weight loss can be discouraging when people lose less weight than they hoped without taking into account gains in muscle mass.
• Without strength training, any weight you lose with dieting or activity will not be as much fat as you could lose by incorporating strength training into your routine.
• Anyone who goes on a calorie reduction plan to lose weight will end up with about 50% of the weight loss occurring within their muscle mass, which is an absolute tragedy. We want to hang on to as much muscle mass as we can as we age.
• Diet and cardio without strength training exacerbate the loss of metabolically valuable muscle tissue.
• Protein is a great calorie to consume as it’s thermogenic and used to absorb some of the protein you take in. Government nutrition guidelines should be adjusted to account for this.
• Maintaining your muscle mass has the additional benefit of preventing and reducing injuries so you can continue enjoying aerobic activities as you age.
• Weight loss without strength training results in frailty. In the older population, people who are lean are generally weak and have poor mobility. The best thing to do is to focus on strength training to build muscle and improve quality of life along the way.
• If you increase the amount of muscle mass you have, you will burn more calories by default. Muscle also stores glucose, which will help you with insulin-related conditions like Diabetes.

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.

Join us for this replay from the archives to learn more about effective exercise for your lower back and what can surprisingly make lower back pain worse...

In part two of the interview with Dr. James Fisher, we explore what it takes to actually strengthen the lower back and why exercises like the deadlift are not effective in targeting your lower back muscles. Find out how some people can experience significant lower back strength gain in as little as ten weeks with only 15 total minutes of muscle tension (60 to 90 seconds per week!) and why stretching without strength training can actually make your lower back pain worse.

• The lower back is a notoriously difficult to train muscle group, which is why so many people are walking around with weak lower backs that are easy to injure and irritate.
• Fisher did some research with professional athletes to measure the effectiveness of certain exercises in strengthening the lower back and found that exercises that didn’t isolate the lower back didn’t make a major impact. However, lower back isolating exercises had a greater impact over more general exercises like the deadlift.
• The lower back needs an isolation exercise and preferably one that doesn’t also load the gluteal muscles. These exercises are best done with lower back specific pieces of equipment.
• In terms of overall strength, people who do lumbar exercises see significant increases in strength. Dr. Fisher has seen lumbar strength increases as high as 200% over the course of ten weeks, as well as improved lifestyle function, with a training frequency of once per week.
• Lower back exercises are typically just one set and roughly 90 seconds of muscle tension.
• The lumbar muscles are an example of how you can use your muscles and still lose them due to the deleterious effects of aging. You need to use specific muscle fibers in a specific manner in order to build the strength in your lower back.
• Stretching can be taken too far if you are not also strengthening the muscles involved. Making your spine and back more mobile without making it stronger can make things worse for you in the long run. Things like yoga should be supplemental to a proper strength training regime.
• Lower back pain often restricts range of motion, but there are still opportunities to train the muscle group without a full extension. You can start small and expand the range as you get stronger.
• People with lower back pain also tend to be cautious about moving their lower back, especially during exercise. This is why lower back machines that control the range of motion are effective. They maintain safety and stability while loading the muscles properly.
• In terms of age, lower back exercises are suited to pretty much everyone in society except for certain individuals; ex. If you’re pregnant, a small child, or have an injured spine. Once you’ve ruled out those conditions, you can safely and confidently strengthen the lower back.
• The more we know about our body, the more we know how to fix it. Helping identify the source of lower back pain, as well as what isn’t the issue, is all part of the journey of alleviating pain and improving quality of life.

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.

Join us for this replay from the archives to learn more about solving the problems causing lower back pain...

Brian Cygan and Dr. James Fisher discuss the origins of lower back pain and why the vast majority of Americans will experience some form of lower back pain in their lives. Learn about the root cause of lower back pain and why most treatments only deal with the symptoms and the pain instead of solving the problem, which often leads to even worse issues down the road.

• Fisher is an academic and researcher in the UK. He’s published research on muscular strengthening as well as lower back pain.
• Lower back pain is a constant issue for a large swath of society. According to his study, somewhere between 70% and 90% of people will experience lower back pain in their lives.
• Lower back pain can be extremely debilitating to a person’s lifestyle and sleep patterns, and can have a major impact on their mental health as well. There is also an enormous cost to society in terms of productivity.
• At the Strength Coach, we’ve found that strengthening is an important strategy to improving the quality of life of someone experiencing lower back pain.
• Chronic lower back is when it occurs for longer than three months. At that point it’s important to seek medical guidance from a physiotherapist or general practitioner.
• About 10% to 15% of people experiencing chronic lower back pain have a specific reason for it like nerve issues or a slipped disc. The remaining 85% to 90% have what’s referred to as non-specific back pain which reduces the ability to mitigate the pain.
• For many of those people, the solution is often some form of painkiller or passive treatment like stretching and massage.
• The theories about the existence of non-specific lower back pain have to do with our evolution from quadrupeds in the past. The muscles around the lower back don’t tend to get much direct exercise and there seems to be a correlation between non-specific lower back pain and weak or atrophied lumbar muscles.
• The muscles that are more intrinsic to the spine over time, as we live a normal life, can atrophy as a result of not using them in a specific and demanding enough way.
• For most people, their gluteal muscles and hamstrings are very developed and do a lot of the work that the muscles in the lower back should do, and this can result in those lower back muscles becoming weaker, misfiring, and causing pain.
• With non-specific back pain, strengthening the muscles in the lower back should be the foundational approach to prevent future episodes of lower back pain.
• Specific lower back exercises are important for everyone in society to maintain their strength and muscle mass in that region and avoid the onset of lower back pain. Once something negative has happened, the road to recovery gets longer.
• Your lower back is central to everything you do. Without good control of your central muscles, you cannot throw or catch or jump or move well. From there it’s a downward spiral into the realm of disability.
• An imbalance between ab strength and lower back muscle strength can be part of the problem. We want all of the muscles surrounding the core of the body to be trained effectively, and it’s the lower back muscles that tend to be forgotten.
• The weak link is usually the lumbar muscles, and this can lead to a negative feedback process, where someone avoids exercising those muscles even more to avoid the pain resulting in greater muscle atrophy.
• We have other societal factors that are also contributing to the lower back pain that so many people experience as part of their lives.

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.

Join us for this replay from the archives to learn more about the importance of muscle burn...

Amy Hudson and Brian Cygan explain why that feeling of your muscles burning is exactly what you want to feel every time you go to the gym. Learn why muscle burn is one of the best indications that you’re exercising at the right intensity and without it, you won’t get the fitness results you’re looking for.

• The intensity of an exercise is crucial to achieving the fitness results you want, and the feeling of muscle burn is a positive indication of that intensity.
• Effective exercise is simply a stimulus, where you stress the body in order for it to change for the better. Effective strength training needs to be intense enough to serve as that stimulus. Labored breathing, muscle burning, and a little discomfort are necessary elements of that kind of exercise.
• If you’re not experiencing some level of discomfort when exercising you are just going through the motions and aren’t putting in enough effort to see any real results.
• The fast-twitch muscle fibers are the ones that burn during exercise and they are the main focus of high-intensity exercise. The reason they burn is because they utilize the anaerobic subsystem of metabolism.
• Fast-twitch muscle fibers store sugar in the form of glycogen, and that’s what is consumed when exercising at an adequate intensity level. Muscle burn is a sign that you’re really tapping into the stored energy of your muscles, which is a good thing and you need to do to get stronger.
• Some people have more fast-twitch muscles than others and some muscle groups have more fast-twitch muscle fibers than others.
• Our natural response to the sensation of muscle burn is to be worried, but it’s okay to keep pushing through. The burn sensation is different from pain.
• As muscles fatigue near the end of a set, that’s when coaching and encouragement are vital.
• The brain is a prediction machine, and we have to intentionally override the survival mechanisms that tell us to stop exercising and preserve some energy in order to achieve the greatest results.
• People often look to muscle soreness as an indication that the workout was effective, but it doesn’t actually correlate to results later on. Muscle burn doesn’t necessarily lead to muscle soreness afterward.
• Eccentric training doesn’t burn as much as basic strength training, but it does produce more soreness later on. Delayed onset muscle soreness occurs more at the beginning of a new program and tends to reduce over time.
• The Exerbotics equipment gives Strength Coach clients an important advantage but showing progress over time instead of relying on sensations like muscle soreness.
• If your exercise isn’t delivering any changes to your body, then it’s not intense enough.

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.