#92 - Training hard or hardly training ?

Your training might feel “busy”, but is it actually effective? Larry and Daniel get straight into the stuff that quietly stalls progress for most lifters: switching programmes too often, chasing viral exercises, and doing piles of sets that look hardcore but deliver very little progressive overload.

We break down what an effective gym session really is, using simple, repeatable principles: pick movements you can perform well, train them hard enough to create a stimulus, then recover so you can repeat that effort again within a couple of days. We talk junk volume, why obsessing over perfect form and perfect rep ranges can backfire, and how minimum effective dose training often beats marathon sessions, especially for people with jobs, stress, travel, or newborn-level sleep.

Dieting changes the game too. We get honest about training in a calorie deficit, who can realistically build muscle while cutting, and why most experienced lifters should prioritise strength retention, sensible volume, and joint health rather than flogging themselves with extra sets. From protein intake and hydration to exercise selection that fits your structure, the goal is a programme you can stick to long enough for results to show up.

If you’re happy with your current training and it’s working, we give you permission to keep it. If it’s not working, we show you what to adjust without throwing everything out. Subscribe for more practical training advice, share this with a mate who keeps changing their plan, and leave a review if you want us to keep making episodes like this. What part of your training are you most tempted to change too quickly?

Got questions? simply email or dm us with those questions

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Transcript

Welcome To Genpop Podcast

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, you're listening to the Genpop Podcast with me, your host, Larry Doyle. Each week, I'm gonna bring in friends, guests, and experts to help enhance your health, fitness, and wellness journeys. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversations.

What Makes Training Effective

SPEAKER_01 0:22

We're this week co-host Daniel and I, we are going to be discussing effectiveness when it comes to training. There's never been so much information, misinformation, quantum fuck-ups when it comes to training right now at the moment, because everyone is putting out their two cents when it comes to it. But what actually is an effective session? Let's jump into that. Daniel, what are you seeing at the minute? What are people doing with their training? What shouldn't they be doing?

Program Hopping Kills Progress

SPEAKER_00 0:48

I think one of the most common things I see with people is they're chopping and changing their workouts too frequently. So like they're actually not giving you enough time to even be effective training. They're wondering why they're not getting results, or they're wondering why they're not seeing progressions because they're seeing, you know, exercises on TikTok, Instagram, whatever it is, and they think like obviously like everything that's on social media is going to be glamorized to a degree. Like if somebody has this hook saying, like, oh, this is the one glute builder exercise that you aren't doing, it's like I need to start doing that because I'm not doing that. That woman has a big ass, I want the big ass. Let's start doing it straight away. Um, and again, they're gonna after like what three sessions think, I'm not really feeling this, I don't really like this, so I'm just gonna chop it to something else. They haven't really given it a chance to actually even adapt to what they're doing, they haven't given a chance to actually learn how to do that exercise properly, and they're chopping it already.

Junk Volume And Recovery Limits

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Um and I think the other thing as well that I see is people just doing too much in general. Like people are doing like I think the most common thing for men is like they'll go and do flat bench press, they're doing incline bench press, then they're doing flies, then they're going to do a decline press. And it's like they could end up doing 20 sets of chests just for that session. And it's like if you've done a genuine hard 20 sets of set of chests, you probably wouldn't train chest again until next month. So you have to kind of be a bit more realistic with the the there's nothing magic about the number of sets, it's more kind of about the intensity of the sets and then like how well you perform the exercise and stuff, but then people kind of get caught up as well on the form, and that kind of takes away from the intensity because they're afraid that like their form isn't you know correct or that they're not at the right angle and this and that, and so I think the one I would say the hardest thing about training to a degree is the fact that you're not getting like immediate responses from it. Like you don't go into the gym, start you know doing a binge press, whatever, and then walk out the gym and be like, Yeah, I can visually see my chest has gotten bigger from that. You might get a pump, but you can't visually say that like right I've transformed completely. So you're gonna have to like commit to it to a degree long term and kind of say almost like okay, I'm just kind of placing a bit that in six months' time this is gonna pay off, but I have to kind of put in that work over the six months so that I actually will see that payoff. But like if you're thinking like after two weeks, it's like it's not really working. I'm gonna chop it up and I'm gonna change it to something else. Then three weeks later you're gonna change it to something else. You're not giving your body enough time to kind of adapt to that. So I think people kind of obsess over everything too much, they obsess over a perfect form, they obsess over like perfect rep ranges, obsess over number of sets, how many times per week they should be training. So it is simply about just doing enough over a long course of time. And what is enough, again, it's gonna be very individual, but I think I'd like to kind of summarize it in one sense of the word is like saying just do enough that you actually can recover in the next two days as you can kind of repeat it again. And I think if you just repeat that over and over again over a long period of time, I think you're gonna get more than uh more results than most people.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

That's not really the magic answer that everyone was looking for. Like they they just have to show up and continually do the work. That's that's bollocks. Like you actually have to do it. Like I thought that based off the TikTok I seen with these are the two exercises that revolutionized revolutionized my arms and doubled their size. Like, stop falling for that shit. It's like they've been just doing curls and extensions of some format to increase their arm size with enough progressive overload over enough time, and they haven't doubled the size of their arms at all. Because again, you've either like one, you've guys with really big arms who are like genetically advantaged or also enhanced, or you have guys with fucking zero muscle who's like, This is the one exercise that gave me a load of muscle. It's like, no, no, you haven't, pal. Uh, you're training a year. Um, jump volume, I think, is the biggest thing, right? And it's actually looking at doing too much, and particularly people are guilty of this when they're in like a deficit, because you're not going to be growing that much muscle tissue unless you're brand new or unless you've been having a long layoff or unless you're using some gear. There's kind of like three categories of people who can grow while in a deficit. Uh, you know, and it's like your bodybuilders are growing into the show. It's like, no, you just ramped up your gear and like you're fucking now uh getting an anabolic response from that as well, too. Um, but now you've got people who are maybe haven't trained for a long time with a lot of volume or any frequency at all, or you've got people who are brand new to it. They can absolutely grow muscle while being at maintenance or been in a deficit. That's cool. But for your person who's been training for five to ten years, or even three to four to five years, whatever, you go into a deficit, you're gone past that new beginning stage. You're not gonna be gaining muscle tissue. So let's cut back the volume to actually make it that you're able to get some progressive overload. You still should be able to gain strength when you're in a deficit. But let's not flog a dead horse because again, you're gonna have that inability to recover from such high volume, you're gonna have uh fatigue that's potentially there, you're gonna have whatever. Enough is enough. Like doing, like you said, those like 25 sets on chest. By the time you get past the like 12th set, it's gone to shit and there's no progressive overload happening whatsoever. And again, you're just trying to chase in a pump that's gone after like 20 seconds after the set is completely ineffective. So it's like, how little can we actually get away with when it comes to our training and volume? Cool if you want to get a bit of a pump, add some biceps on, it makes you feel cool when you're walking out by the receptionist that you fancy and thinks that she's gonna admire your big arms, whatever, just not just doesn't give a shit. But at the same point, it's like if you want to add in a little bit of dessert after the meat and veg, do it, have at it. But don't just like do tons of it for the sake of doing tons of it. Again, I'll get guys and like, oh, I want to like improve my arms now by the time I go on my holidays. It's like, well, we're in a decent deficit and we're gonna be there for a long point. Adding more volume to your arms, you might get stronger. We're not actually gonna build all that muscle. So let's look at retaining the muscle. Let's look at retaining strength, let's look at actually setting up the training logically that we can perform better down the line, then as well, too. That we're not just giving ourselves a load of shitty injuries or a load of shitty issues or imbalances because we've done so much chest that you're actually ended up on all this internal rotation that you're ending up in, you know, that there's more shoulder dysfunction, that there's whatever going on because we've again created an imbalanced approach to our training and that we can actually get some return from it. So again, enough is enough when it comes to volume. You look at any of the literature, it's gonna say between 10 and 20 sets per body part per week, that that's gonna be like optimal, but that's like mostly for muscle growth that you're looking at that. So again, when we're in a deficit, I prefer to like go down to that minimum volume, get in, touch some weights, make sure we're retaining strength, uh, get out and get it done. Unless again, we're in that category of people who are brand new to the gym, unless again, and if you're brand new to the gym, I'm not gonna give you 20 sets per body part per week because you're gonna be completely fucked. If you're returning uh from a long layoff, again, your capacity to um train that much and recover from that much volume is gonna be low. So, again, you're gonna be starting on the low side. If you're on gear cool, you're probably gonna get some higher sets, you're gonna have some more volume there, and that's fair enough with that as well, too. But again, let's get the minimum effective dose and scale it up from there. So I think that's a big thing. Uh, particularly guys are well, girls are gonna be guilty of it as well, just absolutely smashing their lower body into the ground, which is again gonna create more global fatigue because there's more muscle tissue, there's bigger muscle groups, there's heavier loading that's gonna be involved with more hip thrusts, with more hinging, with more squats, with more deadlifting. And if we're doing all these big, big, big movements with a lot of volume spread over the week, you're gonna be fucked. So let's just have enough volume there that we can actually get a favorable response, ensuring that we're getting some progressive overload across the whole week, and uh that we can again, like you said, get back into the gym within a couple of days and be able to repeat the level of intensity that we trained from previously. And again, the majority of people are dealing with, they're not full-time athletes, so they're gonna have other shit that's gonna be there in terms of uh variables, they're gonna have some travel, they're gonna have, you know, newborn kids, they're not gonna have as good a sleep, they're not gonna have as good a recovery protocol maybe in place than they could have or once had before. So let's be mindful of that, that your cover your current recovery status is gonna dictate how much volume you can actually handle within your sessions. And again, I'm not one of those who level say you need to earn your carbs, but you need to earn your volume, right? So you don't earn your food, you earn your volume. And again, that's gonna be down to are we sleeping well, are we recovering well? Is our nutrition dialed in? Are we having sufficient hydration? Do we have adequate protein over the week? And if you've got someone that's on like 80 grams of protein a day and they're really struggling to get enough calories in, they can't handle that volume. So don't fucking give it to them. So again, each person needs that individualized approach of where they currently are, rather than, well, the literature says 10 to 20 sets, so I'm just gonna give it a higher end and hope we respond and floggy to get a result. It's not gonna happen. So we can take that intelligent approach, set it up that yes, you maybe you want to prioritize in body parts. If we can get them stronger throughout a deficit, now you're gonna be in a way better position when we start to trickle food back up and we start to build a bit more muscle tissue and focus on a growth phase, that's cool. So you're gonna be starting from a better uh position. If you're starting your next phase and going into like grow some tissue or at maintenance, and you're coming from a point where now you need to do a lot of rehab and you undo all the shitty work that you've done because you've created some injuries or some issues, that's gonna be problematic and you're gonna be gaining less muscle tissue as well. So all the phases need to complement the next when it comes to that in terms of your setup with your training, with your approach that you're taking when it comes to your your overall volume throughout the

Exercise Choice Must Fit You

SPEAKER_01 10:11

week. Um, what else do we see when it comes to okay, program hopping, junk volume? What are some other things that we're guilty of?

SPEAKER_00 10:20

I think exercise selection is another one as well that people deem that there are certain exercises that they have to do. Like I think the stereotypical thing is squat bench deadlift. But I remember years ago when I was kind of fresh enough to the gym, probably. I remember um Jeff Nippard had like a series of videos where it was like the most scientific way to train like your chest, shoulders, quads, hamstrings, everything. And I literally built my entire training just around the exercise that was in that and like followed it to a T, like in terms of like the exercises, number of sets, the rep ranges and stuff. But like I was doing shit that I was like I just wasn't able to do correctly because of my biomechanics, or I didn't enjoy certain exercises or whatever. So it's like I wasn't gonna be giving everything to that because number one, it didn't suit my structure, or I didn't enjoy it, um, or maybe it just wasn't uh there wasn't enough volume in there for me in particular exercises or particular body parts. Um so like you can look at all the the research papers, you can look at all the the evidence behind certain things, but like you are an individual at the end of the day, like you're not going to be able to like do the same things as everybody else, you're not gonna be able to like look at these, you know, um the different uh different studies are done on different body parts, the optimal sets, optimal rep ranges, everything like that, and kind of adapt to that and grow from that. You have to kind of look at your structure, look at what you enjoy. And more often than not, I say to clients, like, and that's why like we have such an in-depth questionnaire is like if they say, I like these number of exercises, and if I look at that and say, like, that's not the most optimal exercise, quote unquote, like, but they enjoy it, that's gonna feature in their workouts because if they have stuff in there that they're gonna enjoy, they're more likely going to do it long term, and ultimately they're gonna get more results from that. Whereas if I was to say, No, we're not gonna do that because I don't think that is the best exercise that you should be doing to grow your glutes or to grow your shoulders or grow your arms, based off of this uh evidence here. We can see in this fucking paper, they're gonna be like, I don't give a shit, I don't like that exercise, I'm not gonna go to the gym anymore. So at the end of the day, if you can sustain something for a long period of time, no matter what it is, you're going to adapt to it. So you just need to make sure that you're doing something long enough and putting a meaningful amount of effort into it. That doesn't mean you need to kind of go full door innates and have uh you know every set to failure and just do one set and that's it, one all-out set, because again, there's only very few people that likely can and have have the capacity to actually do that. Um, but you just need to do enough that's just gonna like tick that box and just do it repeatedly over a long period of time, and you're guaranteed you're gonna get results from that. What results you're gonna get again is gonna be determined by the level of input you're putting into it, but like if you're constantly changing things, you're constantly giving up, you're taking weeks off here and there because you can't be asked, you're not really gonna get returns from that. No, minimal.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

I've made a few notes and definitely a couple of good points there with

One Set To Failure Reality

SPEAKER_01 13:15

that. Like the the one all-out set to failure very popularized between it's it's kind of a UK bodybuilding scene kind of thing, right? Maybe some of those in the States uh as well, too. But what they'll not really realize is that if they see an athlete X doing one all-out set of six to ten reps with 350 kilos on their deadlift, he has probably done eight warmups to get up to that. Putting a plate on every time. Standard bodybuilder thing, put 20 kilos on, 20 kilos on, 20 kilos on, 20 kilos on, or 40 kilos on each time, and they work up in plates. That is like if you're deadlifting 60 kilos and you're doing one set of you know, six to ten reps, admirable, cool, but you need four sets because the overall total volume that you've accumulated is nowhere near what that bodybuilder will have accumulated. Yes, they've done one set, yes, you've done one set, but in their eight warmups that has taken them to get there, with their last warm-up probably being 300 kilos prior to doing 350 kilos, they are getting an effect from those warm-up sets. And this is where I have a bit of a thing about that with those and the to kind of you know one set all-out failure kind of thing. They have done a boatload of warm-ups, particularly on the bigger compounds, because they need to be warm enough, they need to have their central nervous system fired up to get up to that kind of loading, uh, particularly for those individuals. They have done a shitload. They have literally done thousands of kilos in their warm-up that is going to be 50 times more than what you've got in your total single set to all-out failure. I admire it. Yes, you've done one set to all-out failure, but if you're in the early phases, you probably need a little bit more volume than just the one set per body part per week. So again, or one set in those uh specific movements. Um, the other part, kind of looking at it now, and those that fall into the same bracket as me of being old and creaky, where they're kind of doing the optimal thing and they're going in and they're trying to do the warm-up and they're trying to do the activation and they're trying to do the build-up and the ramp up

Stop Wasting Time On Warm-Ups

SPEAKER_01 15:22

sets. If it's taken you 35 to 40 minutes to get sufficiently able to back squat or to bench press or to deadlift, I'm going to suggest you shouldn't back squat, bench, or deadlift. Because yes, if you enjoy it, have at it, but that's the only exercise you're probably going to do for that whole one-hour session. Because by the time you warm up and you keep yourself with enough rest time between sets, chances are that's your 45-50 minutes gone that you've got to spend in the gym. If we can do something like where it might be a little bit of structural backloading, I think that works incredibly well where you put your compounds towards the tail end of the workout. And that goes against a narrative that a lot of people might be used to. But if we do some isolation machine work, we're getting those joints primed up, we're getting them lubricated, we're getting a lot of blood into the muscle, we're getting a lot of blood around the joints, we're getting the central nervous system fired up very gradually, but we've accumulated enough volume that now by the time we get to those uh bigger deadlifts, like your squats or your bed, your hack squats, whatever the hell it might be, and we have them at the tail end of the workout. One, there's not as big a cost on your nervous system with the heavier load. You don't need really need as heavy load with that. You're still going to train it hard, you're still going to train it heavy, but in relative terms. But then you also have done your warm-ups with effective volume leading up towards that, as opposed to sitting around on a fucking glute ball or a foam roller or dicking around with some like activation drills. I've been down the activation route. You look at all my old programs, used to have tons of activation stuff on it, but it was ultimately wasting 20 minutes of time for people by that time they actually get those done to get into effective work. Because again, we're not dealing with people who have all day to spend in the gym. Nobody, even people who work in the gym, don't want to be in the gym all day. They want to get in, get out, and have it effective. So, how you spend your time, like be protective of that when you get into the gym into your session. If it's taking you forever to warm up, it's probably not the exercise you need to do. That needs to be some add-on mobility stuff or again, structurally backloaded where you're putting the big movements, let's go against the grain here, put them towards the tail end of the workout, you're actually going to find that they feel way better. Way, way, way better. It's less creaky, it's less load on the nervous system, it's less demands for recovery then as well, too. But you're still getting a bit of what you want and what you need with it. And now we're going to see far better return. So again, that's really, really key. Another aspect there I mentioned and touched on it, I'll just touch

Wants And Needs In Programming

SPEAKER_01 17:40

on it again. If you hate an exercise, I don't care how optimal it is, you're not going to do it. You're not going to put any effort into it. You're not going to put any, like, you're not going to be fired up to do a movement. And again, if you put on your questionnaire with us that like you hate Bulgarian split squats, and I'm like, yeah, I love them, so fuck you. And now I give you like 10 sets of Bulgarians every day just to like fill you full of spite, you're going to tell me to get fucked after a certain amount of time because you just hate them. You're not going to put any work into it. So let's get a bit of wants and needs. Okay, you want to grow your glutes cool. What do you actually like doing? How can we incorporate that in? Now, if you're telling me you want to grow a big chest but you don't want to do any pressing movements, tough shit, you're not going to grow chest. If you want to get a bigger uh booty shelf, if you want to do whatever, chances are you're going to have to get some hinging movements in there. So you better get to like to love them because that's going to be within the outcome that we want. If you avoid the work ultimately that's needed, we're not going to get the outcome, right? So let's reduce the friction, much like a diet. How can we set it up? If I keep giving you chicken and broccoli, you're not going to like that diet. No one likes chicken and broccoli all the time, right? So again, same with the training. Yes, there's optimal, but there's reality. How can we merge them both together to have wants and needs? You want to grow a bigger glute. We need to do some hinging. You don't like doing heavy RDLs because you've got a tight lower back. Okay, can we put in a 45-degree hip extension? Can we put in some hip thrust? Can we put in a glute drive machine? Can we put in some cable glute kickbacks step downs? Whatever it might be. There's a million and one variants there, and that's within our skill set as the coach to be able to pick from the right exercise choice, the right exercise selection for the right individual. Again, I always want to get the Daniel shape and it into the Daniel hold when it comes to the programming, or the Larry shape or the Mary shape or the Barry shape, whatever it might be. It's like make it individualise to that person with their wants, their needs, their goals, and how can we match those up to create the greatest level of adherence? Fucking crack on and rinse and repeat for many weeks and we'll get the result. And again, if you get to the point where you're saying, Larry, I used to love deadlifts. Now I fucking can't stand them and never want to see him again. Cool, let's pull them out. We don't have to deadlift. You don't have to do any one single exercise. Yes, again, if you want to build a bigger bench press, you're going to have to do some bench press. That's the reality of it. But again, if you don't love an exercise, if it's not feeling so good, don't feel that you're married to it and have to keep it in within that workout. Um, loads of cool stuff here within this. Hopefully, it's after opening up people's eyes that little bit more to programming, that there is a better and more intelligent way to do it that's going to be more individualized with the approach.

Try New Machines Without Chaos

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yes, you're going to have those out there that's sample some workouts and sample some things. I've got a client during the week. He's now joined one of the best gyms in the world. I've told him to go in for the next two weeks and play with all the machines because he there's 15 different chest variants. He doesn't know what fucking suits or feels good for him, but he can give me enough feedback that I'll say, okay, this is the one I want you on now going forward where possible. This is the type of leg press out of the 17 leg presses that are there that we're going to work because that works better and suits your mechanics. It suits our structure, it suits your setup. And now, if we can, we're going to keep to that one. But he needs to go play with those movements. And I'm okay with a couple of weeks because he's still going to be training. That's fine. It might be optimal, might be a little bit suboptimal, but if he's still putting in some hard work over all those movements, that's cool. But if he goes in every single day now forever and just randomly says, Oh, what body parts will we pick? Or oh, look at the new machine that's after coming in today. I'm just going to play with that. He's just going to be program hopping. There's nothing meaningful going to happen. We're not going to get any progressive overload. There's no meaningful repetition happening with it all as well, too. So by all means, if you're in a good gym, you're going to have lots of new equipment coming in and out, you're going to have lots of toys to play with, play with them. But you need to pick a horse and put your ass on it as well too, and stick with those movements for a certain amount of time to be able to progressively overload, to be able to get enough repetition. And if you are one of those people who is a bit of a magpie when it comes to the gym, you need to be okay then as well with not getting the best results possible because you're just jumping from one to the other or jumping to TikTok when you get in on the bike to warm up and see what you're going to do, be okay with that.

If It Works Keep Doing It

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Daniel, as a wrap-up, anything you want to cover over on this?

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yeah, I mean, I guess there's probably going to be a certain number of people that are going to be listening to this and probably thinking about maybe changing a few things, like you know, you said that instead of doing like your warm-ups that you could potentially have like, say, like your machine working to start and then like your compounds towards the end when you're going to be a bit more like looser and a bit more into the session and stuff. And by all means, like play around with these things, and the exact same as what you said there about your client going to the gym and testing everything to see like what suits them, what they enjoy. Like it's something I always recommend to people, like if they say they're going holidays, it's like if they're going to the gym, it's like just feel free to try things out. Like if I say like do a chest press and there's like four chest press inside there, try them all out and see which one you enjoy doing. Like if there's machines there you've never tried before, try them out. It's something that's novel, it's something you're going to enjoy. Someone might be curious about. But I think like if you can look at your training right now and say, like, do you know what? I'm actually happy with my training, don't change anything. No matter what, we just say it on this podcast. Like, if we said like do this and that, it's like if you're happy with what you're doing right now and you're kind of getting the results you want and you're you're enjoying it and you're consistent with it, don't change a thing. Because I think that's another thing that people do is like they will, you know, get to a certain point in their training, they'll enjoy it, but they'll see like these clickbaity things. It says like the one exercise you're not doing, the one thing that's guaranteed to grow your arms by six inches, five inches, whatever fucking promises they give you, you're gonna start implementing that, and that's gonna ruin your entire flow of what you were doing. So if you're happy with what you're doing right now, just keep doing it. Just keep doing it and keep doing it, keep doing it, and you will get the results you want. And if something fucking falls apart, if something you change gyms or whatever, that's when then you start to change things up. If you start to get bored, or if you pick up some injuries, if you move gyms, whatever it is, if the goals change, that's when you change things. But if you're constantly, as you said, program hopping and stuff, you're not going to really get results from that.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Yeah, that's huge. And again, like as that take home, just understand if it's working, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But if you need to fix it, give it enough time to allow the repetition to be there. Give it enough time to allow the frequency and volume and exposure to do its thing. It's gonna be absolutely key and critical again when it comes to that. Uh, that we're getting the absolute most from your programming and allowing yourself to actually recover and have some stimulus there and get the response we need. It takes time, and that's ultimately it. Daniel, it's been an absolutely awesome uh episode. Uh, really appreciate this one. A lot of people are going to get a lot of value from it as well. So, yeah, we'll keep rocking on. Again, stick to your goddamn programs, keep doing the thing if you're getting a result in that it's not address it, fix it, sort it, and go from there.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Talk to you guys soon.