Training Q&A... Should we always be sore from training? Training to failure VS RIR?

Today we're doing part 1 of our Q&A from our IG followers, answering all of the training questions that came through 😍
Including...
🍑 Are DOMS a good way to judge training efficiency? 
🍒 Do I train to failure on every set, or have RIR?
👣 What my current steps & cardio look like, and why!
🏋🏽‍♀️ Do I have deload weeks during this phase?
👙 How I pursue a surplus while having aesthetic goals!

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DISCLAIMER
The Eat Like Ruby podcast is not a substitute for professional medical or dietary advice.
The advice given in this episode is general in nature and should not be used to treat any medical conditions, health conditions, illnesses, injuries and/or any nutrition related conditions, deficiencies or similar.
This podcast is not to be used as, or in place of, medical advice or dietary advice.
Please consult your health care professional before implementing any of the advice, information or protocols discussed in this episode.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello fam, welcome back to the pod. I am back today doing a QA episode. I put the QA box up on my Instagram story and said I'm gonna do a Q ⁇ A all about my muscle gain phase. If you heard that and thought, oh my god, I'm sick of hearing about Ruby's muscle gain phase, I'm gonna get out of here, just stay for one second because we got some really cool questions and we're pretty much just looking at nutrition and training as a whole here. I feel like a lot of the things we're gonna talk about, especially with training, are applicable regardless of whether you're doing muscle gain, fat loss, maintenance. If you're someone who's training in the gym and or you're interested in training, these questions are really juicy for that. We did get a fair few questions, so I think I'm gonna split this into two episodes. And I've gone through the questions just now and kind of removed any that were similar to other ones and just kind of condensed them like that. And pretty much I've broken it up into predominantly training questions, and then I think second episode will be nutrition questions. So everything was sent in in relation to my muscle gain phase, but really we're just going to be jumping into a bunch of questions about training in this episode, and then a bunch of questions about nutrition, and especially like higher nutrition, higher calories, eating more, fueling training, etc. in that second episode. So we got a lot of questions, we got a lot of cool questions. I'm excited to do this episode, and I think I'm just gonna jump straight into it. I've tried to put the questions in a good order that I think they're kind of gonna flow into each other, but I can already feel myself trying to like rein in my thoughts because I've got so many answers and I feel like they're kind of gonna overlap and I'm gonna go back and forth. So big chatty episode incoming, but let's get into it. The very first question says these questions are always funny because people put them in that QA box on Insta, and you can tell people have tried to condense it to fit into the box. So I'm gonna read it out. I think we can make sense of most of them. But this one says, working sets of big lifts, comma. Are you going to failure every set or have one to two RIR, then zero on the last set? So RIR is reps in reserve. So are you going to failure every set, or do you have one to two reps in reserve, then zero on the last set? This is a good question. This is pretty much just asking, like, are you training to failure on every set, or are you kind of building up and then training to failure eventually? I don't really think about my training like this, and this is probably an unpopular opinion in the industry. We definitely need to be training to failure at times and pushing hard at times. I'm not disagreeing with that at all, but I'm just more so talking about my own mentality with this. I don't go into a session and think, or like I don't even go into a set and think, oh, I want to have X amount of reps in reserve. No, I want to go to failure this time. I just go for the set and I just honestly talk to myself throughout a set and just go, is it hard? Can you do more? Could you do more weight on the next set? Even yesterday I was on the leg press and I got to eight and I wanted to stop and literally have like this two-second convo with myself where I go, Do you want to stop because it's hard or do you want to stop because you genuinely don't think you can do another one? If you don't think you can do another one, that's awesome because that's pretty much failure. If you just want to stop because it's hard, that's the friggin' point roops. Keep going. And so I know this doesn't fully answer the question, but another little thing that clocked in my mind when I read a lot of these questions yesterday as they were coming through is just kind of catching the fact that I think people overthink things a little bit. And I don't say that with any judgment or no shame or anything, because there's so much information out there in the world now, it makes sense that people are overthinking things because we get hit with so much info, and then you're trying to take it all on board and you're like, she said this, he said that, what the hell do I believe? And it literally is just info overload. So it makes sense that people are then overthinking things. But for myself, like I said, I don't sit there and think this set has to be this many reps in reserve, this set has to be to failure. I have spoken about this on the podcast before. I look at my training as a 10-week block, and for all of my girls, we look at training as 10-week blocks. In the initial couple of weeks, I tell people to aim for about an RPE six to seven. RPE is similar to reps in reserve, so RPE means rate of perceived exertion, and that's pretty much like how hard are you pushing. So in the initial weeks of a program, I say to my girls and to myself, we want to hit that RPE of about six to seven. So we want it to be kind of moderate, starting to get a little bit heavy. But we're not going 10 out of 10. We're bringing the weight back a little bit so we can refine technique, we can get familiar with any new lifts. We use these initial couple of weeks to just lay our foundation, get a feel for the movements, get a feel for the program, make sure technique is good, control is good, tempo is good, everything's good. And then as we start to come into the third week, fourth week, and beyond, really we've laid that foundation in those first few weeks, and then we're just getting after it. And so I then don't really think about reps in reserve, failure, RPE, etc. I just think, okay, cool, I've nailed all those things. I want to keep my technique good. I want to keep my control good, but then I want to push as hard as I can. And that's really how I think about it. Like I said, I don't come back to a lot of this technical terminology. And I think it's definitely cool to understand that terminology to be able to use it at times. We use this at times, like I said, in those initial weeks, you might have someone who needs to spend a bit longer on the technique of a particular movement. So you do want to talk to them about a lower RPE or having more reps in reserve. So that's why I think it's cool for people to understand that. But I think people can get a little bit too caught up in that when really it's like if I've got a good foundation, if I've got all of those things ticked off and I'm doing them really well with the technique, the control, everything I just rattled off, just send it. Just send it. And like I said, I'm literally sitting there in every exercise, just going, my thought process in every exercise is in that first set, like, is technique good? Am I feeling it where I want to feel it? Do I have control? Am I not bouncing? I spoke about that a lot in the last few episodes. I'm very mindful of the bounce that people get in and out of reps. Can I control myself right down? Can I control myself right up? There's no momentum, there's no bounce. I'm feeling it where I want to feel it. I'm going through all of that in the first few reps in the first set, and especially in the first few weeks of the program. Then when I have made sure all of that's good, then I'm just like, okay, cool. How hard can I push this? i.e., how heavy can I go and or how many reps can I get with that heavy weight while keeping all of those things good? So when we look at quotes, training till failure, failure to me is when those things are gone. Like if I'm doing a rep and it's like, yeah, technically you're still going, but you're not feeling it where you want to feel it, you're not maintaining the technique that you want to maintain, you're not maintaining the control that you want to maintain, that means you've failed to me because you're not doing it the way you want to do it anymore, and you're not doing it in the most beneficial way anymore. So I'm always just looking for that sweet spot of where can I keep all of that in check and then have the heaviest weight possible and fall roughly into the rep range that I want to fall into. So I don't know if that maybe makes it even more confusing for people, but that is my answer. I didn't want to sit here and start just spitting shit about reps in reserve, etc., when I'm not really thinking about that stuff. I'm thinking how I just said. And then the next question says, isn't DOMS an unreliable source of to judge a training session? That is what it says. Isn't DOMS an unreliable source of to judge a training session? So I think what we're getting at here is, should we be using DOMS, aka muscle soreness, to determine whether the session was like good or not good enough, etc. And I reckon this question has come straight off the back of the episode I did probably not last week, probably the week before, where I spoke about the fact that my leg DOMS had just been so gnarly. And then I was saying in that episode that if I go in and train, train my legs hard and well and they're sore for the next few days, and I was saying in that episode, the soreness has been going for days on end, then I'm not going back and training again because I'm letting my legs go through that soreness and then the recovery process. And then this question came in the day that episode came out. So that's why I'm assuming the questions come off the back of that combo, which it's a great question. And it's probably again like a little bit of a not a confusing answer, but again, this person's pretty much asking, like, should we be using DOMs to judge whether a session is good or not? I don't think DOMS are the deciding factor of whether a session is good or not, because we can absolutely have a good session and not have too many DOMs or any DOMs at all. So, DOMS, if people don't know, is delayed onset muscle soreness. So, really, we're just looking at having soreness in the muscles in the days after training them. And like I was saying there, we can absolutely have good sessions and not feel those DOMs. If we think about the point of training that we've spoken about so many times on the podcast before, the point of training is to push the body hard to the point of adaptation. So we need to push it to its edge. This kind of comes back to that first question. This is why I put them in this order. So in my sessions, I'm really just thinking about like, where is my edge here? How can I push my body to the edge so it has to go through a bit of that adaptation process? Adaptation is change. I want my body to change, so I want to push it to the point of change. I'm not thinking so much about reps and reserves, failure, etc. I'm thinking about pushing to where I feel like my edge is that's gonna make that adaptation process kick in for me. So then coming back to the Dom's question, when we do push the body to the point of adaptation, and if we specifically look at like growing muscle and training in the gym, doing resistance training, we're looking at doing what we call micro tears in the muscle fibers. So we've spoken about this a little bit on the pod before, but that is the point of training. We're pushing the muscles to the point of those micro tears. Micro, obviously, meaning like mini, small. So we're doing like little tears in the muscle. The muscle then goes through the recovery and the adaptation process and grows back. That big, bigger, better, stronger, etc. That is the point of training. But if we think about the fact that they are micro tears, when we've been training for a long time, and I think a lot of gym girls will be able to relate to what I'm about to say, even if you don't understand all of this, I think you could pretty easily think of times where you're like, yeah, that happened to me. If you start training for the first time, you come back to training after having a long time off, or you bring in new exercises or new movements, or you just make a big change to your training and you go in and you do those sessions, and then the next few days you're like, Wow, like my DOMs are gnarly. And really that thing is like, whoa, my body wasn't conditioned to that session. So it was a shock to my system, right? Like it was hard, it was gnarly, and that's why I've got these DOMs. And again, I think a lot of gym girls can relate to that. Like I said, if you've had a break from training and you go back, or even when you get a new program and you've been on the same program for a while, haven't had too many DOMs, then you get a new program and you do those sessions for the first time, and you're like, oh wow, like I forgot what it's like to feel those muscles or to feel that soreness, sit down on the toilet, can't get up. Like we all would have felt it at different times. But then you run with that same program for a while, and that soreness reduces pretty quickly. So you might do that session in the first week and have those DOMs. You go back and do the same session in the second week, you might get a little bit of DOMs from that session, but not as much. By the fourth or fifth week, the DOMs are pretty much gone because we're conditioned to those movements now. It's not so much of a shock to the system. The body's like, oh yeah, I've been doing these for a while. So this wasn't like out of the blue gnarly sesh that's kicked my ass. I'm conditioned to this. And again, point of training is to get conditioned to things. When we're conditioned to something, that's where we then need to make sure we keep pushing it to its edge. So it's like, yes, my body's used to this movement and this session as a whole, this program as a whole, the session and the exercises, etc., are not a shock to my system. So I'm not getting that big ass-kicking dongs anymore, but I am pushing a little bit of progressive overload all the time. I'm always nudging that little bit more weight, that extra rep here and there, the occasional extra set. So overall, my training volume is going up. When that training volume is just gradually going up through that progressive overload, like I said, it's not a big ass-kicking change every week. It's just that progressive, gradual overload, and therefore it pushes the body to the point of those micro tears, but the micro tears aren't gonna cause crazy amounts of DOMS. So, coming back to the question, this person was saying, aren't DOMs like not really a reliable source to judge a training session? I think we can look at it in two ways. I think we don't want to assume the session wasn't good because we didn't have DOMs. I want to make that really clear. If you heard the episode that I did where I said, like, I'm getting these DOMs, it's awesome, this is such a good sign to me. I'll talk about that in a second. But if you heard that and thought, well, I'm not getting those, so does that mean I'm not training as hard or as well as Ruby is? Definitely not. Because if you're doing movements that you've been doing for a long time and you're really conditioned to this training, you can be really nicely just gradually implementing that progressive overload, getting those micro tears, pushing that little bit of adaptation, that bit of recovery, going back, doing it again, and you're in that real sweet spot of pushing hard enough and pushing to that edge, getting the adaptation and everything that we're talking about, but not in such a gnarly way because you're very conditioned to it. So it's a bit more moderate, it's a bit more gradual. Again, think about times where you've done something you weren't conditioned to and you felt it in that more intense way in the initial phases until you got conditioned to it. So I can't stress enough, don't think that if you're not getting DOMS, your training isn't good or your sessions aren't good enough. It's probably just that you're conditioned to that. First of all, I would actually just check like, are you training hard enough? If you're half-assing it, you're faffing around, you get into the end of your set, and you're like, eh, that was all right. Think again back to that first question. Like, for every set, I'm really just conversing with myself, going, if you can do more, do more, mate. If you can do more, do more. And if you can get to the end of the rep range that you want to hit and you got there pretty easily, you absolutely need to put more weight on this for the next set. So that's definitely the first thing you want to look at is like, am I actually just not training hard enough? If you think you're training hard, if you've got, for an example, a set that has a rep prescription of six to 12 reps and you're getting to like eight or nine reps, and you're like, there's no way I can get to 12. Like, I'm cooked. I cannot get up to 12, that's a really good sign that you are training close to failure, like we said in that first question. You're getting to that point where you're like, I actually can't do any more. That's awesome. If you feel like you're nowhere near that, that's what I would look at first. Are we actually pushing the body hard enough to promote the micro tears and therefore the adaptation, the change that we're wanting? And I think if you know, you know. I think if you're cruising through the gym, you know. And I think if you're sitting there going, Rubes, I'm not cruising, I'm dying in there, right? You know. So if you can relate to that, that second thing where you're like, it's not cruisy, I'm pushing hard. But then you're sitting there going, but I don't really get the DOMs that Rubes was talking about. Don't see that as a bad thing, because in my opinion, that just means you're quite conditioned to what you're doing. So you're in that sweet spot of gradually pushing progressive overload over time, but it's not so much of an ass kicking every session that it's leaving you cooked and really sore for days. If we then come back to me feeling like it isn't ass kicking every session and I'm cooked for days, I'm taking that as a good sign because that's not happening if I'm not training hard enough. So it's sort of like there's two sides of it where it's like we don't need that to be happening to confirm training is good. But if that is happening, it's a pretty good sign that training is good. Like for me, I'm not getting those DOMs from anything else besides the fact that I am training hard. And if we piece this together with everything that I just said, I've been building this particular program over the last few weeks. And I spoke in that episode about the fact that I'm training at a really good gym. I haven't been training there for that long, and their equipment is a little bit different. So what I'm getting at here is I've spent the last few weeks building that program, getting familiar with that equipment, finding where like the hard weights are for me, what's my limit on these exercises, etc. And then over the last few weeks, like probably throughout April, I would say, every time I did those sessions, it was giving me those DOMs, but I wasn't very conditioned to those sessions. I'd taken a lot of exercises out over the last few months, not to go completely off topic, but I did a few episodes last year where I was saying I was taking out some of my big lifts and working on my technique and my movement patterns. I did that, that was awesome. I've now bought back a lot of my big lifts, combining that with training at a new gym with slightly different equipment and just having these extra cows in my system and just sending it muscle gain style. The combo of all those things has left me in a position where the last few weeks I've been doing sessions that I haven't been very conditioned to. I'm getting conditioned to them now, so those DOMs are gonna ease off. But this is just like I was saying, when we give our gym girls a new program, it's common for them to be like, ooh, got some DOMs that I haven't had for a while because you're doing things that you haven't done for a while. So I really hope all that made sense. I think we can look at it from those two ways of like, yes, DOMS can be a really good sign. Because if you're getting them, like for me, I just think I'm getting them very evenly in both legs. I've got them right now in my glutes from training that glute session yesterday. So to me, that's such a good sign that I'm hitting the things that I want to hit and I'm hitting them hard, I'm hitting them well. If you can confidently say that you think you're hitting the muscles you want to hit and you're hitting them hard and you're hitting them well, but you're not really getting DOMS, I would just say that comes back to the fact that you're quite conditioned to this stuff and it's happening, it's definitely happening beneath the surface, but just not on such an extreme level that you're feeling it so intensely because you are conditioned to it. So DOMs can be a cool thing, but we don't need them to confirm that the session is good. I think you've got to go look yourself in the eye and go, am I really training hard? If I think I am awesome, go off, keep doing what I'm doing. If I think I'm kind of half-assing it, do I need to ramp it up a bit? And again, that comes back to my first point. Don't overthink things. Literally gun to your head right now, do you think you could be training harder? If you could, do it. If you don't think you could, don't worry about the DOMs then. Because if you think you're doing everything you can be doing, keep doing what you're doing. And then this does kind of flow into the next question that we had. And it said, How often are you getting PBs with the new intake? So I've been getting PBs most sessions, but again, come back to what I was just saying there. I've basically been going through those initial weeks of a program, like we said, and I'm aware that by the time this episode comes out, I'm gonna be coming towards the end of this program. But right now I'm sitting here in the sixth week of the program, and I'm sort of looking back over like the initial four weeks of that program. And so if we think about everything I just said, I was using those initial weeks to get a feel for the program, get a feel for the new equipment, bring in the big lifts or bring back the big lifts into my training. And so I was hitting PB's most sessions because, for example, I would get on the leg press, and the leg press at my new gym is very different to my old gym. So I think I literally started with like 40 kilos because I always think like, imagine if I get on it and it's actually way heavier than I thought, and I can't push it and I look like a twat. So I start so light, and then I'm like, okay, yeah, cool. 40 is definitely very light. Then I went to like 80, went to 100, did 100. Like this is probably the first time I was leg pressing in this gym, right? So I've done that. And then when I get back on that leg press the next week, I know I can pretty much start at 100 and then sat there for a little bit and was like, yep, okay, cool, I can get to 110, 120. And that's the process I go through over those initial weeks is just getting a feel for the movement, getting a feel for the equipment, finding where my edge is. And then, like I said, by the time you get a few weeks into that program, you've found that thing, and then you're able to start gradually just pushing that edge over time. So I've been PBing in most sessions for that reason, and then also just due to the fact that I am in such a good headspace, such a good mindset, and really just looking at like any little place I can grab a PB so I can have that gradual progressive overload in place. Can we see how it all ties in together? But what I'm talking about there is literally perfect example. Yesterday I was doing seated hip abductions and last week I did 80 kilos for 15 reps on the first set, 12 reps on the second set, 10 reps on the third set. And then yesterday, when I went back and did those, did the 80 again, 15 on the first set, 14 on the second set, and then 12 on the third set. So I've done like an extra three reps total. But that is a PB, that is progressive overload. And this is the thing, we're not looking at like adding 20 kilos. I wasn't gonna do 80 kilos last week and then 100 this week because I've found my edge on that machine. So 80 is hard. I don't know where everyone else is at with their seated hip abductions, but 80 kilos, like I'm stoked with that. But that is the number that I've built up to over those initial weeks of the program. I think I started at like 45 and then I did my first set at 45. This is in week one of the program, and I'm like, yep, okay, cool, that was kind of crazy. Let's try 55, let's try 60. Okay, cool. That was still like starting to get challenging, but still very doable. Next week I'll probably start at 60, see how I go through the 60s up to 70. And then again, by the time I'm a few weeks into the program, I'm realizing, okay, around the 70s is my edge. So I sit there for a little bit and then I'm like, oh, could I push 75? And then I've just gotten to that point recently where I'm like, oh, could I push 80? And then I'm sitting at 80. Like I said, I'm not gonna go from 80 to 100 because 80 is feeling like my edge right now. But when I'm literally sitting there doing the reps, I'm like, okay, cool. On this second set, last week you got 12. Can you get 13 today? Can you get 14? I got 14. And I'm pushing these hard. Like on that 14th rep, I'm genuinely like, I don't think I've got a 15th one in me. I think it would be a half rep if I went for it, right? So that is that sweet spot that I'm looking for. Coming back to that first question, I am pretty much going to failure because in my mind, I'm going, I I do not have another good rep in me. So that's the position that I'm looking for. That's the sweet spot that I'm looking for, especially now that I'm through those initial weeks of the program. I've found my edge with all these things, and now I'm just Gradually pushing that edge. Again, it's all tying in together, guys. Come back to the PBs. That's where I'm picking up the little PBs. I picked them up in the initial weeks by going through that process of finding the edge. Now I feel like I'm really pushing to my edge and to my limit. I'm literally just going, can you get one extra rep rubs? Can you put a literally a 1.25 kilo plate on this? Like on my Smith Machine Bulgarians. I was doing the same weight for a few weeks. And then I was like, just literally put the 1.25s on each side. That's it. Even if it's for one set, that's a PB. Because let's say you're doing like three sets, 12 reps with 40 kilos, Smith Machine Bulgarians. And then you go in one week and you go, you know what? I'm just gonna do one set at 42.5. And then if I have to pull those off and do the next two sets at 40, that is still progressive overload. And that's what we're looking for over time with training, especially if you're feeling if we use that example, if I was to do the first set with that little tiny bit of extra weight and genuinely be like, I don't think I can do that for the second set. Again, that is such a great sign to me that I'm training close to failure. And if I maybe went for the second set at that weight and I couldn't get to the reps that I wanted, again, it's like, hell yes, like you genuinely couldn't be going harder. That's what I'm looking for. So I am getting the PBs for all those reasons, and obviously I've got that great intake coming in as well. I'm having a big pre-training meal. I think I've got that questions about that in the second episode, but I'm having a big pre-training meal, especially before I go into legs. And I just think the combo of that and having gone through the initial stages of this program and now being in a really good position with it, and just being in a really good mindset and just training really well at the moment, the combo of all of those things is just leaving me in a position where I'm pee being most of the time in those very little ways, but those little ways add up. That's exactly what I'm looking for. And if we just side note for one second, I said the other week that I'm obviously gonna come into a new training program in the coming weeks, but I'm not really gonna change it. Like this program is working so well for me. I'm basically just gonna run it again because I'm loving it, I'm feeling the benefits of it. It's just like literally, it ain't broke. I'm not gonna fix it. So that's a side note, but if we come back to the questions, next one says Are daily steps for how heart health slash cardio, or do you do any high intensity cardio after lifting? I personally do not do any cardio and I especially do not do any high intensity cardio because of my heart condition. So this answer is obviously a little bit different to an average person. But then coming back to the first bit, are my daily steps for heart health slash cardio, or do you do any high intensity cardio? So no, I do not do any high intensity cardio. I'm just doing my steps. My steps are averaging around like eight to nine thousand at the moment. And I just do those for like overall general health. I think it's just good for your movement, just for your body and your joints to get a good amount of movement in. Obviously, it is good for heart health. My heart's obviously a little bit different. I'm not gonna get into that today. But then also, I just think steps and more so walking outside can be really good for mental health. So for me, it's more just about general health. Overall, again, I don't overthink it. I don't really sit there and go, like, why am I doing this? I literally just go, getting a nice amount of steps is just good for you. It's just good for your roots. You know it. I know, I definitely feel better. I had some time towards the end of last year where I felt like I was literally just glued to my laptop and I wasn't even wearing my watch because I was like, I don't want to know what these steps are, but I genuinely reckon they would have been like four to five thousand a day. And I could just feel it in myself. And again, I think it's physically you just feel a bit sluggish and a bit sedentary, and then also mental health-wise, I'm like, wow, I've been staring at a screen all day. I'd love to go out and look at the world for half an hour or an hour. So for me, it's more just like it makes me feel good overall. So that's why I like to aim for that nice average, and there's nothing more to it, really. So then coming up to the next question, it said, Do you have D-Load weeks during this phase? Yes, I do. I think at the time of recording, I'm gonna have one next week. By the time the episode comes out, I probably would have had it last week. So it will be around week eight or nine of my training program. It'll be towards the end of my program. I do have a couple of little niggles in my body. I think every person that's trained for 10 plus years has niggles. I think it's a bit naive to assume that we're not gonna have any niggles with all the shit we asked our body to do. So I've got a couple of little niggles and I can just feel them niggling. Um, I'm gonna do a little bit of physio next week. I've got an awesome physio, and I pretty much just go to him and be like, I've got niggles, fix them before they become more than niggles. And I just try and line that up with my D load. So just that big reduction in training volume, just give my bod that nice break, and then I'll pretty much come into my new program from there and just go again for another 10-ish weeks until I feel like I need the D-load again. So I am a big fan of Deloading, and I think when we're training the way that I'm training, like I'm not training towards specific events, and therefore I'm not really training towards specific timelines. And what I mean by that is I don't have to deload at certain times. So if we use the example of someone who's training for an event like a marathon or similar, your deloads and your tapers are really structured because you kind of rotate through a program and then it's like, okay, we want to taper here, we want to go again, and then we want to line our taper up with coming into the actual event, etc. When we aren't working towards definite dates and things like that, I just like to implement the D load when we feel like we need it. And I think when you've been training for a while, you know, and when you understand all of this stuff, it's just cool to know when it's a good time for you to send it and then have that ability to go, oh, I think I need a D load. I'm just gonna intercept this, have the D load, really implement that well, give my body that rest that it needs, and then go again. So I'm definitely at that point, like I've been having these DOMs, I've been training hard mentally. I've been given a lot to training, physically, I've been given a lot to training. I'm feeling great, I'm feeling awesome, but I'm also just mindful that I do have those couple of little niggles. Again, they're very small, like nothing major, touch wood, and then also just mindful that I do want to keep sending it for a few more months. So I like to think of a D load as being proactive instead of reactive. I absolutely think we want to implement a D-load, exactly like I'm saying, where I'm just getting those little signs that's like, oh, Rubes, your body could use a little bit of a break. I cannot stress enough and the biggest advocate of acting on that, as opposed to pushing to the point where you're like, wow, I'm cooked. I need a D-load. Because I think when we push too hard for too long, that's where we do start to see injuries, that's where we start to see people get burnt out, they just want to have time off because they're really cooked. I think we want to intercept that feeling before we get that far and go, hey, I'm gonna have the delo to combat that feeling and avoid myself getting to that place. And then when I come back, I feel refreshed, I feel rejuvenated, I feel pumped, and I'm ready to go again. So I'm gonna do that in the next week or two, and then I'm just gonna rip into the second half of this muscle gain phase, which is so exciting. The last question that I have for this episode, I feel like this question is so funny. Like, I don't know, part of my mind goes, I don't think this person listens to the podcast. I don't think this person fully understands me. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I don't know. But the this person said, How can you do this while still having aesthetic goals? And the thing that I found the funniest was after that they wrote question mark, exclamation mark, question mark, exclamation mark, question mark, exclamation mark. So it's got a bit of frantic energy to it. Side note, my biggest pet peeve in life is people that put multiple question marks at the end of a question because it's frantic energy. I'm gonna answer your question when I answer it. Seeing four question marks doesn't make me answer it quicker. I don't see them until I've read the question. And when I've read the question, then I'm gonna answer it. So as soon as I see multiple question marks from a person, I just go, mate, you're a frantic person. And I'm not, we're not gonna get along. Lay off the question marks. One is sufficient, I'll answer it when I answer it. So this person had a little bit of frantic energy in my opinion, but I did just think this was funny. So the actual question was, how can you do this while still having aesthetic goals? I'm doing this because I have aesthetic goals, is the first thing that came to my mind. Like my overall goal here is very aesthetic focused. I have a very clear vision in my mind of what I want to look like at the end of this year. And absolutely nothing is getting in my way. Like, this is a whole nother topic, but it's just literally not even a question. It is not an option, it is non-negotiable. Like, I am achieving my goals. I am, I know it right now. This is just not even a question. I'm getting there. I've just got to carry out the process and I'll get there. So that's off topic. Come back to the question. How can you do this while you still have aesthetic goals? I'm doing this because I have aesthetic goals. My goal is very much to reach a certain aesthetic by the end of this year, and then I'll go from there and see if I want to go muscle gain again or where we go from there. But my overall goal is aesthetic. I guess if we pull this apart, I'm just gonna assume like I could interpret this really wrong, but I'm just gonna assume this person maybe means like, how are you comfortable sitting in this phase of it? If my overall goal is to be lean and jacked and show off all this muscle that I'm building, how do you sit in the discomfort of the gaining phase and the heavier weight and the excess weight, etc.? That's what I'm gonna assume this person means. To me, I feel like I have probably a bit of a unique approach to this and a little bit of a unique mindset, but I just don't care because I am so insanely clear on what I want to achieve and I know the way to achieve it. So to me, it's like I wouldn't even consider doing it another way. With the goal that I have to build my physique and to try and build it to a point that I've never seen it before, to have muscle mass and to have shape that I haven't had before, that is my number one goal. And I know that the best way to get there is to give everything that I have to a structured muscle gain phase. So I'm never thinking, oh, this is so uncomfortable, because my mindset is just 100% no, this is just the obvious thing to do for the goal that you have. So I I never ever question it. I never sit there and go, like, oh, do I really want to be doing this? Should I change my mind? Am I going too far? Have I put on too much weight? Like, obviously, I'm watching the data and making sure things are moving at the rate I want them to move. But I'm definitely sitting right now in the 68 kilo range. This is my heaviest weight. Like for my adult life, this is a heavy weight for me. So right now I'm sitting at my heaviest and I'm not questioning at all. Oh, should I ease this up? Should I stop this? Should I not push it further? I'm definitely gonna push the rest of this phase. I'm definitely gonna move into the 70 kilo range. So I'm gonna be the heaviest I've ever been in my life. But again, I want to build shape. I want to build muscle that I've never had before in my life. So I have to push myself in a way that I've never pushed myself before in my life. I can't expect to get a result that I've never had if I don't do shit that I've never done. And my mind is just so clear or that goal is just so clear. And then my mind is just so focused. And like I said, I just don't have any, I don't have any emotion, I don't have anything like that with it because I just know exactly what I want and I know how to get there and I know that I'm doing it so well. So it's hard to explain and it's definitely hard to teach. I don't know how we teach that to people because there's definitely a whole nother element to it. Like, for example, there's definitely outfits that I wouldn't wear right now that I would wear when I'm maybe eight kilos lighter. And I don't want to get into a whole thing about, you know, all sizes are beautiful and whatever. Like, that's not the point of the conversation. I think every female can relate to having times in their life where you're like, yeah, I do feel good in this. No, maybe I don't feel so good in this, right? So there's definitely things right now where I'm like, yeah, I don't feel so good in that. But my mindset is literally, yeah, I don't feel so good in that. That makes sense. I'm sitting at the heaviest weight I've ever sat at. I am so staunch right now, I am so strong right now, I am in the exact position I need to be in right now for the gold that I have. I'll wear something else and I will keep charging. That is literally, I'm not, I'm not trying to be funny, I'm not trying to be dramatic. That is the extent of my mindset. My mindset is 100% removed from needing to be lean, needing to be light, needing to wear certain outfits, anything like that, because it is just so obvious what the best plan is and what the best actions are for me for the long-term goal that I have. So if I was to move over or switch that focus and dabble in the energy of like, oh, but like I do want to feel a little bit more comfortable. I don't feel uncomfortable right now for this reason, because I look at myself and go, yeah, you're thicker than ever. And you know what? You had a goal to get thicker than ever. Let's effing go, right? But I'm not letting my mind go to that place of, oh, like maybe you would be a little bit comfortable if you dropped a few kilos or if you eased it off a little bit or anything like that. Because then it's like, well, yeah, what a big cock block on the big goal that you do have. Anytime that you start to move in a different direction, you're moving away from the goal that you have, Rubs. And again, come back to the fact is like I could not want this goal anymore. I could not be more certain, I could not be more clear on this goal. So if I was to ever do something that conflicted with this goal, I'd catch that straight away and go, that's a massive conflict. And like I said, a massive cock block on the big thing that you want to achieve. It just wouldn't make sense and it would be so detrimental. If I was to have a phase right now, let's just say, for example, come back to the question, let me make sure I haven't gone too far. How can you do this while still having aesthetic goals? I'll say what I was about to say and then I'll try and answer the question a little bit better. But if I was to come up to this halfway point of the gaining phase and then go, oh, maybe I should do a little mini cut in the middle of it, it's like, why? Why would you waste three to four weeks dropping your calories when the goal that you have requires higher calories? So what? You could be two kilos lighter. Would any single other human being on the planet give a flying F? No. And if you don't give a flying F, do not waste weeks like that. To me, that would just be very dumb for the goal that I have and the position that I'm in. That just would not be a smart choice. So I'm never thinking about those things. I'm never thinking that, oh, that's an option. There is not a doubt in my mind that I will drop the body fat that I want to drop when the time comes to drop it. But I don't want to do that right now because that's not the best thing to do for my goal right now. So I guess that's probably the last little thing to look at here. And again, I know this is quite unique, but this is why I try and have these conversations to get more people to take this approach and learn this approach. I 100% believe that I can achieve any single thing that I want to achieve. And I don't say that to be cocky, I don't say that to be like woo-woo. I just genuinely, to my core, I'm like, if there's ever something I want to do in life, I will do what is required to do it. So if or when the time comes to drop body fat, I know how to do that and I know that I will do it very well. So then I just look and go, you can do that any time, ropes. So having so much certainty in that means that when I'm sitting here in a heavier body and carrying excess weight, etc., I'm not a victim to those things. I'm not carrying excess weight right now by accident. So I'm not a victim to weight gain. I'm not experiencing unwanted body fat gain. I'm not jumping on the scale, seeing it go up and wondering why. I'm seeing it go up and going, hell yes, let's go. So there's no element or there's no energy of me being like, uh, is it too far? Should I be doing this? Shit, I'm feeling a bit fluffy. It's like, no, I'm just doing what's required for my goal and it's working. That end. And I also do feel I've been thinking about doing an episode about like my muscle gain mindset, and I feel like we're really starting to get into it here, but I think I will do a whole nother episode because there's a lot of little things like this that come up with the muscle gain phase where you're just like, wow, this is such a cool mindset shift. But this is definitely one of them. I have a huge element of pride and more so like being proud of myself. I am so proud of the fact that I'm a 34-year-old woman who can get on the scale, see it increase, and call that success. I have done a shit ton of work on my physical body, on my mindset, on my beliefs, my conditioning, my mental health, all of these things. Nothing to do with my profession. Obviously, there's a big crossover with my profession, but no one taught me this when I was studying nutrition, right? I did this work myself. And that's why I say I am so proud to be a woman in this world full of skinny talk and all of the shit that we're exposed to. And my ability to step back and go, I have a bigger goal. I know what's required for this goal. What is required for this goal is pretty conflicting with what the world tells me a 34-year-old woman should aim for with her body image. And I don't give a flying f because I am so sure of myself and I am so sure of what I'm doing. I could not care less. I go to all of these events. I went to literally an event called Fittest in the City, right? And I know a lot of our listeners would have gone to that. It's literally called fittest in the city, and I'm there in my muscle gain phase and I'm watching all these people run around like the fittest people in the city, and then I go there, I help all my clients, and then I go home, I eat my high-carb meal, I go to the gym, I send it with my leg sash. I am so proud of my ability to go, most of the world are going left, I'm going right, and I am 100% fine with that and sure of that. So a little bit of a TED talk that nobody asked for, but coming back to that question, how can you do this while you still have aesthetic goals? I don't know if I answered the question, but I think seeing where my mindset is at will hopefully just show that like that question and that mentality just isn't really something that is applicable or something that's really come up for me because I'm just so sure of the way I am doing it. So I feel like I could talk about that so much more. Like I said, I might save that for its whole own episode. That was all about training questions. I'm gonna stop recording now and then I'm gonna go straight into recording part two, which is a bit more of a nutrition focused. Like there's some questions here about my macro ranges, what I'm eating before gym, what does my day on a plate look like, etc. So I'm going to go straight into answering those now, and that will drop in our very next episode. But as always, thank you guys so much for listening. I will be back with that one very soon.