EP003 - Advice I would give to myself if I had to start over weight lifting

In this podcast episode, the speaker discusses the importance of weightlifting and offers tips for beginners. They emphasize the concept of progressive overload, which involves increasing stress on the muscles over time. They also discuss the importance of rest between sets, working out each muscle group at least twice a week, tracking progress in a journal, and calculating protein intake based on body weight. The speaker suggests using websites like calculator.net and EXRX for more precise information. They conclude by encouraging listeners to leave reviews and spread the word about the podcast. What's going on guys? Welcome back to the pod. If this is your first time listening, I hope you find value in this podcast and want to stick around for future episodes. Let's not waste any time and hop straight into it. In today's podcast, I'm going to talk about the importance of weightlifting and how to get into it if you're overwhelmed and want to know where to start. I promise after listening to this episode, you will come out with at least a couple of things that you can apply to your life right now. But first, quote of the day. Quote of the day today is the difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will. Basically, what this is saying is just because someone's successful doesn't make them smarter than you. It doesn't mean they're stronger than you. Even just that smart isn't knowing. It rather means that they are more willing to take more risk. They are willing to put in the work and really do what's required to become successful. And that is what makes a person. Because there's so many people, I'll just be straight up, there's so many people that are stupid and they make millions of dollars a year. But it's not, it has nothing to do with intelligence. It has to do with them finding out what works and applying it for being consistent with it for years. But now that we got that out of the way, let's not waste any more time and hop right into what you came here for. So a little bit of context about my lifting background. I have been lifting for about two years now consistently every week. And in those two years, I've managed to eat healthy for the most part. And I've been able to stay consistent due to the fact that it's just something I made necessary. Like I had to go do it. But, yeah, I'll speak a little bit more on it. But I want to just hop into my tips I would give for beginner lifters. First thing, I'm going to kind of go down like a checklist and then go back and hit each point and expand on it. First thing, progressive overloading, knowing how to do it properly. Second thing, taking however long you need to rest in between each set. Third point, how often you should work out each muscle group. Next point, how to calculate your macros based on your body weight and your height. And finally, what your workout week should look like if you want optimal muscle gains. The simplest way I would explain progressive overload is adding more stress to your muscle every time you work out. And this can be in two forms. The first form could be every week you add on pound. Not a pound. You can add on weight. You can't. You basically don't want to do the same weight every week. Like let's say week one you do bench press for 115. The next week you would do 120. And we got that. You do 125. And then for the second form, it would be increasing the amount of reps. So let's say, same thing, 115, you do for 10 reps. Next week you do for 11 reps and so on and so on. And then you just kind of monitor that. And then if you feel like you can do more, try to do more. But that's just a thing you can kind of decide for yourself. According to thepeopleworkout.com, people consistently gain strength for the first year of a strength training program. For the first six months, the gains are around the six to eight months is when your strength training program, people start gaining strength at a slower rate. And these strength gains plateau between years one and two, and that progress is scattered after that point. This is where the term newbie gains or beginner gains comes from, basically saying that you need to prioritize really maximizing your gains in that first year. Because after that first year, it starts to slowly fall off. You gain muscle more slowly. And it's just you have to work harder. But, like, that's when you should really try and get things right. People tell you to work on your form and all that, make sure you get your diet right. Because it's just a lot easier to get those gains and then keep them in the long run. So you do it in that first year. Another thing overlooked as a beginner is taking rests. The importance of taking rests in between each set is that you need to, the heavier you lift, the more you need to rest. So, for example, if I'm lifting my 90% of my PR for a bench, I should probably, after I do that one set, I should rest for at least a good, like, three to five minutes instead of waiting, like, only 30 seconds or a minute. Because the point of resting between sets, especially when you're lifting heavy, is that you need to feel that you have enough strength to do the next set. So you want your sets, each set should be as close to 100% as possible. And you can't do that if you're not giving yourself adequate time to rest in between sets. Workout intensity is also another thing that's overlooked when first starting out at the gym. Workout intensity basically means how hard are you going at the gym, and are you doing the right amount of exercises per muscle group. So basically, it's recommended by a lot of people, especially someone like, I get a lot of my information from Jeff Knippert. He does a lot of science, he reads articles and things like that upon these subjects. And Jeff, from all the studies he's done, has said it's recommended to do 8 to 12 sets per muscle group. So wherever that fits, I want to split it across two to three days. The most optimal way is to have two days for each group. So you can have one day for triceps and chest, and then two days later you do triceps and chest again. And that's your eight groups done in that two days. And a little bonus tip I want to add in there is to make sure that you journal how much weight you're doing. You want to journal your sets and how much weight you're doing. The reason you want to do this is because this allows you to accurately, progressively overload. You're not guessing how much you're doing, you know for sure how you're doing. And if you do this, you also calculate how much you're hitting each muscle group. If you have a day where you miss a muscle group, then you can add on an extra day. Go to the gym on a day you normally go off on, and then on that day you do accessories. Let's say accessories would be like the muscles that you didn't really hit that week. You might miss two sets on arms. On that extra day, you would make sure that you do arms for that day. The latest research says that you only need 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight. And anything beyond this will not yield any additional gains. For example, 170 pounds or 80 kilograms will be 130 grams of protein daily. For everything else, I would recommend a site like EXRX or calculator.net to get exact answers on your goals. Now before I go, I'm going to give a little recap since I threw a lot of information at you. First off, make sure to progressively overload properly. Take however long you feel necessary to recover between sets. Hit each muscle group at least twice a week. Use a journal to take guessing out of it. And lastly, set fitness goals and get macros using sites such as calculator.net and EXRX. If you made it to the end of the podcast, I really appreciate your time and hope to have you back. From this point forward, you can expect the podcast to be a lot higher quality and a more pleasant listening experience. You can also expect as I get better at recording and more comfortable, I will start to get more in-depth with the information I deliver. On a final note, to wrap things up, make sure to leave a review and let others know so I can reach more people and help out as many people as possible. Thank you for listening.