Starting Strength Training? Don’t Make These 5 Mistakes

Discover the five crucial fitness mistakes Damien and Sophie made starting their journeys, covering carbs, supplements, training myths, and more.

Join Damien and Sophie on Episode 11 of the Strength Block podcast as they share the top five mistakes they made when beginning their health and fitness journeys. From tackling common carb myths and nutrition pitfalls to breaking down the inefficiencies of bodybuilding splits, this episode is packed with insights for anyone looking to learn from their experience.

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Transcript

0:08

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) And welcome to the Strength Block podcast. I'm the first host Damien and I'm Sophie, the wife. And yeah, we thought that we would just have a little discussion today. If you're listening to this podcast and you have any topics that you would like to be discussed, please feel free to send them in. We want this to be a community discussion, right? So if there's anything we can use our years of experience to help you understand better or give our insights into, don't ever hesitate to ask. There's no stupid questions, which kind of leads us into a segue of what today's podcast is about, which is the five mistakes we both made when we first started training, when we first started on our health and fitness journey, I guess. Health and fitness journey. Um, firstly, how did you, how did you find writing this list? Was it? Um, I feel like I didn't spend much time in the early days without that much guidance. Like I've been pretty onto it. Well, so I met Damien like eight years ago. Um, prior to that, I hadn't really spent much time training or worrying too much about nutrition. There was a few fans here and there. Um, but yeah, I didn't feel like I was ever lost that much. So I feel like mine were harder to come up with because I didn't spend much time in that unknown area. And then I would be on like the other end of the spectrum because I was like, when I got into fitness, I got like hyper-focused into it. And I'm that combination of like being hyper-focused and being really arrogant where I don't ask for help. So I'm determined to figure out everything by myself. Uh, even though I am a personal trainer, I've never hired a personal trainer. I've never hired a coach. Uh, so I made lots of mistakes, um, when I first started up, but like, it is kind of one of those things where it's like, what is a mistake if it didn't have any like major detriment to anything, but you learned from it, right? Like it's a, it's a learning experience if you're willing to take the setback, if that makes sense. Um, just a waste of time or just a waste of time, but it's good to know what is a waste of time. Right. Yeah. Uh, did you want to start with your first one? What did, what did you have written down? Okay. So mine, mostly I feel like mine would have come from the nutrition side of things. Um, because that was more prevalent for me than exercise. I kind of did sport, like I did gymnastics and ballet and that kind of thing. Um, so I was never in the gym trying to figure things out for too long, but nutrition wise, uh, there were some things. So my first one would be no carbs after 6.00 PM or kind of cutting carbs right down low carb, no carb lettuce burgers, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. The carb, like the demonization of carbs is such a funny one, because it may be one of the things that I have seen be the most persistent, right? Like what, what, what is like in the zeitgeist of health and fitness at the time, what is like popular changes constantly, but people thinking that cutting carbs as being like something they should be doing is it has real staining power, right? Like, isn't it like the first thing people will be, will like take on their own accord is cutting carbs for some reason. Yeah. As if your body also knows what time of day it is from 5.30 carbs are fine. 6.00 PM you ruined it. You know, like it doesn't make sense logically, if you think about it too much. And I used to also, um, not eat carbs after six. So that was something I fell into a trap with as well. Yeah. I think there's some, like, obviously having carbs, like really late at night, heavy carb meals, um, your body, you know, is trying to digest. And if you have it too kind of close to sleeping, then that is where it can interrupt your sleep. And you might not have as good of sleep going on a little bit of a roller coaster as your body's trying to break it down. But back then that wasn't even a thought. It was literally like, if I eat carbs after six, that's where the fat happens. The interesting thing about like the, cause I'm more in agreeance to you with that, but there is like this counterpoint that, um, I think has been made quite popular from like the vertical diet, right? Which is like Stan Efferdean's diet. And he actually recommends like having quite a substantial amount of carbs before bed to help like ride that insulin wave, that dip into sleep. So it's like, and it's like, I don't, I don't know which one's right, but it it's probably one of those things as most things are with diet where it's preference, right? Like if you metabolize carbs well, and you get a burst of energy from it, maybe don't eat them before bed. Yeah. But don't be eating such a huge meal that you're feeling full. Like you're, you know, you're overly full, but then your body is struggling. It might be fine to eat the carbs and it may help, but then not until the point of where you're like uncomfortable and trying to sleep. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting for me though, cause it's like with, uh, my ADHD meds, I struggle to eat during the day. So I almost have no option, but to carb load at the end of the day in preparation for the next day. And if I don't, if I don't eat enough carbs at dinner, I feel like it affects me the next day. Cause I know I'm not going to have that appetite to get more into me, but I think I'm the outlier in that case. I'm the, the freak. And I think, I think just thinking about it as from purely a fat gain, fat loss situation. It doesn't matter when you're having them. It's just the total amount during the day through the day, through the week. It's your calories, isn't it? You can get lost in the nuances of like, have some simple carbs before a workout to help you train better, have some even simpler carbs intra workout to say, stay fulfilled. But that's really like a majoring in the minors where it's like, it doesn't matter. Like you can make things better and optimal, but it's all about how much effort are you willing to put in it? But what we can assure you of is nothing magical happens by not eating carbs after six. You're not a werewolf or I don't know, werewolf vampire, something that transforms at night. You you'll be perfectly fine. If you're eating carbs, um, carbs are the best source of energy our body has. Um, yes, you can run off fats through ketosis and all that kind of stuff, but we are actually designed to run off carbs. It's why we're so good at consuming them as well. Cause it's like our body loves carbohydrates. Um, don't be scared of them. They're not a demon. All right. So that's your first point. Interesting. It's cool that we had a bit of crossover on that one. Um, so my first one, I had like the classic like bodybuilding splits, like having an arm day, a leg day, a shoulders day, the five day bodybuilder split. And I don't, especially for beginners. I don't think that that is, um, that's the most optimal way to train. I do think if it's a way you enjoy training, you can do it. I feel like a lot of people still train that way. Oh, yeah. A lot of people do. Um, so what I, what I would think it would actually break down to is actually most beginners shouldn't be doing as much isolation work, you know, like focusing on just your biceps, focusing on just your quads, focusing on just like these individual muscles, mainly because like, as a newbie, you're going to, you're going to grow, right? Like, uh, you are going, compound movements are going to be better bang for your buck. They're going to get you neurologically stronger and you're going to be building up muscle in all of those places that you can probably later isolate. Yeah. But it's not that important to, in the beginning. As well as training that many days anyway, like you were beginning, you'd be better off yet training your like major compound lifts, but training like three days a week instead of going five to six days a week. You're about to take away my final thought on this, but yes, yes, I completely agree. Um, and I just want to make it clear that the bodybuilding split does work and it is, it is about training preference, right? But the bodybuilding split, as we know it, the traditional one, the one that you see the golden era of bodybuilders doing is, um, it is based off like drug use, like steroid use, because when you, when you're using anabolic steroids, you're basically increasing your, um, protein synthesis window, which is the amount of time your body can build muscle after, uh, after it's been stimulated, right? So for a normal person, if you stimulate your bicep, do some curls, you've got about for men, I think it's might be different for women. You've got like 48 hours of that muscle recovering and rebuilding. And then it's, it stops growing. You're not going to grow. So when you start doing, um, like these, these specific days, if you're training on a Monday to do arms, and then you're training the following Monday to do arms, your arms are only growing from Monday, Tuesday, maybe a little bit of Wednesday. And then you've got the rest of the week for this to, to like re-stimulate that muscle. If you are a person that's taking androgynous hormones, that window increases and you can actually push it all the way out to a week so that one stimulus can last you an entire week. And that's why it works so well for bodybuilders that are enhanced. So you keep reaping more benefits throughout the week. Yeah. It's like, you only have to, you can, you can grow on less volume, less frequency because of that like longer window. You recover quicker, right? So you can hit the muscle more often. What, um, uh, if you're enhanced? Yeah. Compared to if you weren't. Uh, I would say it's almost like the opposite way round. Like, yes, you recover faster on drugs, but you don't need to have the higher frequency when you're enhanced. Right. Because you have that longer window, like your arms are, you stimulate your arms once, they grow for seven days. Whereas a natural athlete's going to stimulate their arms once and then they got to grow. And that's when you do start having that recovery, um, thing where it's like, it's better to like stimulate your arms with a minimal dose of volume so that you can hit them later again in the week rather than hitting them so hard that you can't train for a week because they messed up, but they actually weren't growing that entire time. They were just sore. So yeah, I think compound lifts bigger bang for your buck. Um, and it's what most beginners should be focusing on. And I definitely wasted multiple years, not building up my squat, not building up my deadlift, not building all that stuff up that we kind of cry over spilt milk. What is your one? All right. I'm looking at mine and mine are actually all, I feel like all nutrition. Girl stuff, right? Um, so my second one is supplements that are pushed on the internet and it's actually funny because I was talking to one of my friends today. So one of my friends, um, whenever she's thinking about, whenever she's kind of like influenced by a health supplement or something like that that promotes weight loss or whatever, she'll send me it and she'll be like, what are your thoughts on this? And then I'll be like, no. So, but then now thinking about back to when I was first into health and fitness, one of the big supplements around that I bought from a really terrible ad on the internet was Garcinia Cambogia. Oh, I haven't even heard this one. What is this one? If you remember Garcinia Cambogia, it's like some Amazonian fruit plant. It's always an Amazonian. I feel like there's obviously going to be some health benefits to it. But at the time this is going to melt your fat cells away. And I mean, I'm terrible at taking vitamins and pills and supplements as it is. So I can't say that I even really finished the container, but yeah, pop up ad on whatever at the time, maybe Facebook in the very early days. And I bought Garcinia Cambogia through the internet. And that was, they love those, like, uh, the appeal to like nature appeal to like mysticism where it's like, for some reason it's better because it's like in a rain forest that the supplement comes from. The more remote the places, the more, for some reason has a symbiotic relationship with humans where it helps us out. This whole time, if I'd known that plant existed, my life would be so different. It was just in a misty mountain in the Amazon this whole time. You have to go on like a monk's journey to go pick this flower. Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. So that was one. And I mean, it's still prevalent today. The spam on the internet or the latest quick fixes to lose fat, whatever, you know, like it's, it's, you have to really weed through the bullshit. Yeah. Green tea extract, uh, black pepper extract. And it's like, they'll take like the smallest study that shows minor changes and then just like create an entire narrative of how that's all going to change. Yeah. Um, which is interesting. My, my second, um, my second point that I wrote was getting lost in the supplement world. Right. Because I think we haven't shared our, um, lists here. Yeah. Which is interesting that they, yeah, they do cross over so much. Um, because we want it to be kind of just off the bat. Yeah. Because like, I think, and I think this is, uh, a slightly different thing. Cause like males, we get targeted for like building muscle, um, increasing your testosterone, which just for the record, there is not a legal sub, there is not a legal supplement on the face of this planet that is going to increase your testosterone in any kind of manageable way. Like it just doesn't happen. Um, but the, the thing I feel like I got lost in was I took a bunch of supplements cause I thought you had to do it. But then the problem is like, I was a beginner. So I did start putting on muscle. I did start seeing changes. You think it's from the supplements? Yeah. You're like eight supplements deep and you don't know what you can take out and potentially lose your gains. You're like scared. It's the fear. You're on the fear cycle now. You attribute what, what food and, um, food and training has given you to supplements, right? Yeah. So for a reference point, if you're wanting to take supplements, some of them do help like little bits and pieces, but protein powder only important. If you're not eating enough protein, it's not magic. You can just get that from food, but some people struggle to get it from food and get a good protein powder creatine. That's a non-negotiable. I think the more we hear about creatine, not even from a performance point of view, it just seems to fix like cognitive studies are coming out on creatine being super good, especially for women, uh, cognitively, uh, postmenopausal. Yeah. It's really, really good until the guys out there. Creatine does not make you lose your hair. There is no evidence. Did you know that's the thing I've heard that. Yeah. It's like, I've been taking creatine for over a decade. Look how much hair I have. Uh, I think it is. It's one of those funny things where it's like, I think people start training and taking things like creatine when natural male pattern baldness kicks in. And they, again, they, they confuse those two things thinking it is one of the interesting things I want to talk with supplements is, and I know we've had this discussion is because I'm like a dinosaur in this industry. I've been around for a while. The thing I didn't realize was going to be so prevalent was the recycling of compounds that have already come and gone. So for instance, when I started training HMB was a big thing, right? So HMB is a supplement that supposedly uses your carbs to like build and sustain muscle. So it's like a really good one for like holding onto muscle and building muscle and efficiently using energy could have that completely wrong. Something like that, whatever it is, um, the marketing's wrong in it. Anyway, it was the big thing. It kind of showed up. Everyone tried it, didn't do anything, disappeared out of the market. And like me as like a science C person that doesn't like, um, the peddling of bullshit. I was like, Oh cool. HMB is gone. They just wait like three years and then they relaunch it and say the same thing. And I watched the same thing happen because more and more people just keep entering into the gym world. So they can resell stuff. They aren't innovating. They're just bringing up stuff that's already failed again. And they can just cycle what's like the in supplement until it stops working. You watch, mark my words, uh, terkestrone that will disappear in the next year. And then you'll hear about it in the next five years again. And we'll go back, back to terkestrone sounding like testosterone and people all want to be taking it. Uh, yeah, I kind of went into my second point. So did you want to do your third point or you mean your third point? My third point. Had you been in, um, okay. Third point. So this is, uh, now that I've met Damien moving forward in my training and nutrition world, if it fits your macros, which I still do love counting calories by the way, just caveat. Um, but without any thought on micronutrient importance. So basically calories in calories out focusing on this heavily. So say you can eat 1800 calories a day, but making this up with like, like hitting the protein, but then maybe like just the rest is made up of things like, say like donuts, fries, burgers, whatever, as long as you like stay in that calorie window and yes, you can lose weight. And I have done that. Um, well eating that kind of food, but then compared to if you were counting calories as well as looking at the micronutrient side of the food, uh, the benefit, the vitamin, the minerals that the food contains. So eating more whole foods, um, you actually feel so much better. So I think if it fits your macros, uh, was, was a big thing, still is a big thing. Um, but how you do it actually does have some importance. The thing with like, if it fits your macros and a step that I feel like everyone glosses over that fixes a bunch of stuff of it is they're like your macros, your carbs, fat protein, right? It has a, it has a fiber requirement in there as well. And if you never really cared about that, if you ignore, you can definitely change your body composition, ignoring a fiber requirement, but that fixes a lot of the issues. If you're getting fiber from natural places, right? If you're just going to take, um, what's it like just taking 20 grams of psyllium husk to try get the fiber. But if you are getting it from places where you get fiber, like vegetables, that kind of stuff, you got to look after your micronutrients. But I'd never hear someone be like, you know, they'll be like, I'm on 180 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbs and 90 grams of fat. And they never followed that up with like, and 30 grams of fiber. No one's tracking fiber, even though I would argue maybe it's because we're getting old. Fiber is like maybe the most important macronutrient. You got to think about your gut health at the same time. If you're, you can count calories and still think about your gut health, your microbiome, diversifying it. And keeping your body running well, your body's going to run better if it's hitting those like vitamins and minerals and getting all those good things, um, like anti-inflammatory properties from food rather than hitting your macros, but running it off, right. Food or like, I don't know, deli meat, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. That is an interesting, cause I'm definitely, I mean, uh, I've been bad for it. And I think as a guy, you limit it down even more. You, you don't even be like, does it fit my macros? You're like, all you do is you chase your protein goal. You know, like once a week I eat one of those like family pizzas that I'm sure are absolutely awful for you, uh, the frozen Chicago ones. But in my head I'm like, this thing has 60 grams of protein in it. Like that's, I just, I don't care about anything other than 60 grams of protein. Um, but yeah, I think you are right. Like the, the micronutrient side of things is way more important and it's something we have to be more aware of as well because our soils are lacking like a lot of micronutrients and sometimes unfortunately you do have to supplement accordingly if you want to feel the best you can feel right. Um, yeah. Okay. So this kind of does lead into my third point. Mine was, um, and I think this is a big mistake. A lot of beginners make is focusing on being lean and having a six pack. Like I understand when guys join the gym, they want to look good. And for some reason, looking good is having, having, um, like visible abs, having a six pack. The first thing I want to say about having a six pack is like a lot of it is quite genetic based on just like where you hold your fat. Some guys for women and men. Yeah, both, both. Um, some people are going to have abs at higher, but like significantly higher body fat percentages than others. Others are going to have to lean down to the point that it's uncomfortable. And when, especially when you're new to the gym, the amount of weight most guys have to lose to have a visible six pack is going to be an unsustainable body fat percentage. And when I first leaned down like crazy, like single digit body fat. And I, I look at it now. I was like, I had, I didn't have like, I had some definition, but I wouldn't consider it having muscle. Um, the fact that it took so much effort to essentially starve myself into that position and then spending the next year and a half, probably trying to stay like that. I left, like, I left money on the table. I left the ability to make progress. I was just in the gym doing what I could making zero progress, but I was so worried about losing my abs, right? And unfortunate, like if you would have been in a deficit. Oh yeah. I was in a deficit for a while. So you're not going to be building if you're in a deficit, really? Yeah. It's going to be slow. And it's, it's deceiving because you will build in a deficit. Um, initially when you're new as, but then it's like that beginner phase ends real fast. If you're in a deficit the entire time and then it's like, you're just spinning your wheels. Right. Um, and so like, yeah, don't, I don't think most people, unless you're obese, I don't think when you start training, your main focus should be like a calorie deficit. This is kind of a personal take. Yeah. It's really hard. Cause yeah, a lot of people, when they, they finally kind of worked up the courage to go into a gym or like they're just starting out because it's being driven by aesthetics, they're unhappy with how they look. So that is the goal that gets them to go into the gym in the first place. People don't always enter the gym being like, I'm in here to get strong and work on my mental health. Like I want to look better. So it's hard to then be like, I don't want you to think about losing any weight. You know, I can see how it's like off putting for some people. And it's like, the thing is if you start training correctly and you're eating correctly, you are going to, your body is going to recompose. Like you are going to look different. You're going to look better. And I don't think it has to be so weight loss focused because you end up digging a hole. Cause even if you're, even if you're like obese, like you're really big, if you start cutting aggressively right in the beginning, you will run out of calories before you're thin, before you're lean, right? Like you will be miserable. You can just like, because to have a deficit, you got to keep pulling it down. So I personally think if you're, if you're not overly, if you're not overweight, I don't think you should be worrying about weight loss to begin. I know everyone wants to get shredded off the bat, but I think getting shredded is something you should maybe only look at, look at after like two years of like solid training, you build up that muscle mass, give your body the ability to get in shape. But I also know I'm talking like an old man who is willing to do this for like a long time. And it's not what most people want. But if I could tell, if I could give someone the optimal idea, I'd be like spend two years, just maintenance calories. I think starting out at maintenance is also a good idea. Even if you don't have to wait two years, like I feel like it's excessive, but, um, I think, yeah, going in and just sitting at maintenance with your calories for awhile and just working on your strength and the movement patterns and getting everything into a really good routine. It's a good place to start rather than going in on a deficit. Yeah. I definitely have, I've had the, the opposite, I've had the issue with multiple people I've trained online and in person, where it's like they have leaned down and then they come to the guy that helps people build strength rather than like bodybuilding. And I'm like, you're gonna have to eat more. Like I can't get you stronger if your body is constantly fighting. And it's like, they're worried that they're suddenly going to get fat and you like start pushing more carbs in them and they don't even get fat. They just perform better. And it just shows how deep of a deficit you're in when you're not like spilling over, when you, you've increased your carbs by a bunch. It's also like, you're not suddenly going to put someone in like an intense surplus, but where you are starting to put on fat, like maintenance or even a tiny surplus, like if it's small, you're going to have benefits from it. You're not going to just put on heaps of fat. I did toss this up because I had like, I wrote focusing on getting lean. Cause I've done both ends of the spectrum. I've also like dirty bulked up. Oh, that's my next point. You can't, you're around for that. All right. You bring, you talk about it. We can have a chat. So yeah. Dirty bulking. Cause just because it kind of carries on from what I was talking about previously, whereas counting calories and not focusing on the quality of the food, goes into dirty bulk as well. Like when I actually was going, trying to bulk.