Strength Changes Everything

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.

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.

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 res...

Join us for this replay from the archives to learn more about the Exercise Coach's strong business model...

Amy and Jesse Hudson explore the reasons the Exercise Coach saw phenomenal growth over the past 18 months while other fitness brands struggled to stay open. Learn about the key differences in the business model that make the Exercise Coach a great franchise to open, and why the community of franchisees that support one another is the secret ingredient to franchise success.

• Jesse is the National Franchise Director for the Exercise Coach. His job is to work with franchise candidates and educating them on what it means to open an Exercise Coach location and recruiting quality business owners to help continue the company’s growth.
• The last year was notoriously difficult for the fitness industry. Jesse had the opportunity to write an article last year detailing the growth of the Exercise Coach during the Covid pandemic in a national franchise journal. The number one factor that Jesse identified of the Exercise Coach brand was the one-to-one service delivery.
• Coach-led exercise environments have shown that they deliver excellent results, and this operating model has proven to be very resilient over the last year and really set the Exercise Coach apart from the traditional gyms.
• Even during restrictions, the Exercise Coach was able to train and cater to the same number of clients. The fact that it’s a personal training brand that doesn’t need as many clients in a single room has kept the Exercise Coach as a very desirable option for franchisee candidates.
• One thing that franchise candidates notice when they go through the process is the strength of the culture of the company. Without a good relationship between the franchisee and the franchisor, the brand suffers but people saw that Exercise Coach was a brand that went above and beyond to support franchisees.
• In franchise evaluation, there is a process called validation where you independently verify the information you’re receiving. This was another major factor in the growth of the Exercise Coach as existing franchisees felt well taken care of.
• The third component of the Exercise Coach’s strong growth is the franchise owners themselves. For most franchise owners, it’s their first time in business and 2020 was a time where many people questioned their decisions.
• When you go through a crisis, you can’t be certain what’s going to happen but Exercise Coach franchisees really came together to help offer each other advice and support on how to deal with the challenges over the past year.
• As unfortunate as it is to go through something like the pandemic, in some ways, it does reveal the strength or the weakness in a brand, and we can definitely say that the pandemic revealed a lot of strength within the Exercise Coach.
• The Exercise Coach is positioned for even greater growth in 2021. There are currently over 120 locations operating right now, with an additional 100 territories coming in the US. The long-term development goal is to open 50-60 territories each year going forward.
• There is a wave coming. People want to get in shape and spend money on themselves and their families again. The Exercise Coach continues to be one of the strongest fitness franchises in the industry and many investors are recognizing that.
• The high-tech and completely personalized approach is the future of fitness, and more people and investors are realizing that and coming on board.
• It’s much easier to walk into a system already in place and run with it, opening a franchise is a great way to start. Jesse believes that the Exercise Coach is going to be the best in fitness over the next three to five years.

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 misconceptions about machines and if free weights or machines are better...

Amy and Brian settle the age-old debate of which one is better: free weights or machines? Learn about some common misconceptions about machines that prevent people from getting the fitness results they want in the timeframe they want, and why free weights can lead to reduced strength gains and a higher risk of injury.

• Spoiler alert: You’re not going to find any free weights at any of the Exercise Coach locations and for good reason.
• There is a significant strength training advantage to using machines over free weights and it has to do with the purpose of exercise.
• The results we want from exercise are muscle and neurological adaptations, and that happens when we expose the body to the right type of muscle loading for the right length of time. You can get those results from free weights, but they come with tradeoffs, whereas machines minimize what you need to learn so you can focus on what matters most.
• Your body doesn’t know or care if you’re lifting a dumbbell, or you’re working on a weight machine, or an isokinetic high tech strength machine, lifting a bag of dirt, or bodyweight exercises. It all has to do with muscle activation and fatigue.
• The Exercise Coach uses machines because it helps people focus and feel confident in what they are doing without having to worry about the risk of injury.
• Using a machine will position yourself specifically to do that exercise. You won’t have to worry about the variables and skills associated with using free weights.
• Machine weights create an on-ramp for anyone to begin exercising and democratize high-intensity strength training.
• Research shows that high intensity strength training is safe for anyone and targets what matters most, which is age-related skeletal muscle loss. When we effectively and optimally work our muscles, every system of the body gets better as well.
• Using biomechanically correct machines is the easiest way to introduce people to high-intensity strength training. Many of the conventional exercise methods don’t make it possible for the vast majority of people to safely and confidently engage with high level strength training.
• One of the objections that people will bring up against using machines has to do with stabilizer muscles, but it’s actually an argument against free weights. The requirement of balancing free weights prevents you from actually applying the optimal stimulus to your muscles.
• Every muscle in the body can act as a stabilizer muscle. Machines can help you target those muscles directly, instead of relying on free weight exercises to hit them as a side effect.
• There is no such thing as muscles specific to “real world” applications. There are just muscles, and research shows that strength gains generated from machines do transfer to other types of activities.
• At the College of New Jersey, researchers found that people using Exerbotics machines developed strength that transferred to free weight and calisthenic exercises as well. The reverse is not always true. There is a lot of skill involved in moving free weights around, that it doesn’t necessarily transfer to other areas of life.
• Strength Coach clients often report back that they have noticed that everyday activities like carrying the groceries or golfing get so much easier, which are great examples of how strength changes everything.
• People don’t want to spend a lot of time at the gym and they don’t have to. With a science-based approach to strength training, people can get the results that matter most to them in brief and safe training sessions.

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.