Can You Build Muscle From Home? | E26

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Welcome back to Train Like a Girl. My name is Abby. I am your host and I am an online women's health and fitness coach. And today we're talking about a really popular topic, and this one has been inspired by many of the women that I work with because I work with a lot of women that work from home, women that have kids, women that can't get to the gym because they're time-strapped, you know, business women, um, stay-at-home mums, people that are notoriously find it difficult or impossible to get to a gym. And so the question is, and the topic of today's conversation is, can you build muscle from home? This is one of the questions I get asked all the time. And quite often people or women will ask me, can I actually build muscle from home? Do I need to be surrounded in a gym environment and have like barbells and machines for it to work? And that's what I want to talk about today. But before we get into that, I think there are actually two different people and two different camps of people that might be listening to this episode. The first camp of person thinks there's absolutely no way they can build muscle from home. They think that they need access to a commercial gym for it to count, for it to matter. They think they need all the machines and a huge range of weights to build muscle. So they think it's really hard to build muscle from home, right? They think you have to have a gym environment. The other person, the second person, is almost the complete opposite. This person thinks that, and you know, this is before I get into this, neither person, like both people have valid reasons behind the way, the way that they think, but that's why I want to do this episode to really help you streamline your thoughts around this and and uh help you decide whether to train from home. So the second person is the opposite, right? They think that muscle growth happens really easily, so much so that they're actually a little bit scared of lifting anything challenging because they they get scared of being quote unquote bulky. So this person might stick to body weight stuff or Pilates or maybe very lightweights, the workouts that maybe has wrongly been sold to them as toning workouts because they're afraid that if they train too hard, they'll suddenly build too much muscle. And honestly, if you're a woman listening to this podcast, I think that second group of people is really common. So I really want to clear something up before we get into this episode. Building muscle is actually really quite difficult. Very difficult. It's not impossible, but it is a skill and it is very difficult, and it can take years and years and years. And not only does it take years of training, it train it takes years of specific nutrition as well. That's not to say that we can't get results, but it's to say that we're definitely not gonna get bulky by accident. So if building noticeable amounts of muscle was easy, every woman who has ever picked up a pair of dumbbells would accidentally end up looking like a bodybuilder. And that's obviously not what happens. That simply is not the case. I wish it was. I want to be bulky, I want to look muscular, and it's bloody hard. There are women all over the world who are actively trying to build muscle, they're strength training consistently, they're pushing themselves to their limits, they're eating loads of protein, they're following structured programs, and they're doing it year after year after year. And even they will tell you that muscle growth is a very slow process. So just wanted to clear that up. Muscle isn't something that accidentally happens because you because you trained for a few weeks or or did the odd session. Muscle building is it's an adaptation that occurs when your body is repeatedly exposed to a stimulus that it can't currently handle. So it you're pushing it beyond what it can currently handle so that over time it adapts, i.e., the muscle builds. And that is it. And that's actually where both groups of people that we've just talked about get a little bit confused. The people who think they need a gym assume that their muscle growth is all about the equipment. Whereas the people that are scared of getting bulky assume that muscle muscle growth happens really easy. But in reality, neither of those is true. Your muscles don't know where you are in space. They don't know if you're stood in a commercial gym, they don't know where you are, right? They don't know if you're stood at home or not. In your spare room, in your garage, or in a park, or in a hotel room when you're on holiday. All they know, all your muscles know is whether they are being challenged enough to change. And that is the conversation I want to have today. And this is where I think a lot of people confuse exercise with training, which I've talked about a lot on this podcast. But just to nutshell it, exercise is movement. Exercise is getting your body moving, maybe burning some calories, improving your fitness a little bit, maybe, and maybe doing something that's good for your mental health. Basically just movement, right? It could be a dance class, it could be um a it could even be like a Les Mills class, it could be Pilates. Training, however, is so different to exercise. Training is has got a purpose, training is a skill, and it's like actively trying to improve something. And when we're talking about building muscle, training is what we need. And training means giving your muscles a reason to get stronger and bigger than they are today, essentially. So the problem is that many people spend months doing workouts that never really challenge them. And that that, you know, that's not to say that doing burpees and stuff in your living room doesn't feel challenging. It can feel challenging, but it's you're it might be that you're just working out and exercising, not training. Um what that looks like is potentially doing the same exercises with the same weight for six months. You finish every workout feeling like you maybe could have done a bit more, uh, even if it did feel hard, uh, nothing ever really gets harder, nothing ever really gets easier unless you're a bit tired or whatever. And but because of that, nothing ever really progresses. And then you wonder, why hasn't my body changed? But the your body is very clever, your body is very efficient. If you keep asking it to do the same thing over and over again, eventually it will get really good at that thing. Once it adapts beyond that first, you know, four weeks or whatever, there's no reason for it to continue changing if you're doing the same thing. So if you've got an 8 kg kettlebell and you do 10 squats every week with that for months and months and months, your body's not going to change because it's just it's it's familiar with that load, right? And this is why progressive overload matters. And please don't switch off because I know this sounds like a bit of a fitness buzzword, and it's but it's not. It all this means, and actually I've done a podcast on it, so you can go back and listen to that, but progressive overload is crucial if you want to build muscle. And what it means is is basically asking your body to do slightly more over time. Maybe that's another rep, maybe that's slowing down the movement, maybe it's making the exercise harder, maybe it's increasing the weight. But the specifics of that don't really matter as long as you are being challenged beyond a point that you've already adapted to. So as long as you're doing more than you did last week, basically, or you know, as you get really efficient, it might just be more than you did last month. Because as we get stronger, obviously it's harder again to build more muscle. Um and I actually I also really think I actually I know this because I've worked with so many women that fall into this trap. Lots of women massively, massively underestimate how hard muscle building training actually is supposed to feel. And when I say hard, it's not sweaty hard. It's not like lactic acid buildup in your legs hard. It's it's not based on how much you sweated or how many calories you burnt. It's not about that or about how exhausted or sore you are. It's it's about how much effort you're producing. And they are two very different things. So let's look at this. Let's look at an example. So you could finish a set of split squats and be barely out of breath, right? But your legs could be physically shaking, and you've maybe got one more rep left in the tank before you literally collapse on the floor. Your legs, your legs will not lift that weight up. You could do that and still not be sweating, but that is effective training. Pushing close to failure is effective training. You could finish a set of push-ups where you where you're genuinely close to failure and not have a drop of sweat on your forehead. Still very effective training. So your muscles don't really care how dramatic the workout looked, they care about how challenging it was. And this is where we get into I'm gonna answer the question about working out from home. There's a reason I went on this spiel. Because this is good news, because it means you don't need perfect circumstances to make progress. You don't need to wait until life settles down, you don't need to wait until you can access a big gym. You don't need every piece of equipment that you see an influencers using on Instagram or whatever. All you need is a plan, a solid plan, and you need consistency and you need enough effort that your body has a reason to adapt. Honestly, one of the biggest reasons people get better results when they start coaching isn't because they're suddenly doing different exercises or, you know, things they've never seen before. It's because they've got a plan and they've got somebody helping them train with purpose, not just exercise. So instead of guessing whether they're progressing, they then know because they they've they're following a structured, guided plan. Instead of doing kind of random workouts every week, they're they're following a plan that builds over time. So instead of constantly wondering what's whether something's working, is this the correct exercise? What how do I know if I'm pushing hard enough? All those kinds of things. What it comes back to is you're on a plan, you stick to it, you've got that consistency, but we're pushing better than we pushed last week. We're pushing more than we pushed last week. But as I alluded to earlier, that doesn't necessarily need a gym. So what this really comes back to is can we build muscle from home? Yes. The real question isn't whether, however, isn't whether home training works. The real question is whether you are actually training. Right? It's whether you're actually on a training plan or if you're just exercising. Because if you're progressively challenging your muscles, pushing yourself appropriately and following a structured plan, your body doesn't care where you're doing it. Muscle is built through challenge and consistency, not where you're stood in space. So, yes, you can build muscle from home, but of course, the the level of challenge can, you know, the level of challenge can be increased by adding in equipment. Of course it can. Can it look easier if you're training from a gym? Of course it can, because you can just sit on a machine and change the pin number of the um uh weight each week. That looks easier. That is uh easier to progress like on you know on paper, but that doesn't mean we can't do it from home. And I work with so many women that train from home because of all the aforementioned reasons, and they see incredible results because they aren't just exercising, they are training, and they're training with intent and purpose, and we can do that whether you've got weights at home or not. Yes, there might be a cap on how much muscle you can build without weights, but body weight is one of the most effective training tools. Push-ups. Just look at push-ups. Look how hard push-ups are. That's a bodyweight exercise, no weight required. Obviously, our legs are a little bit stronger, but that's where clever training protocols come in. That's where I take out the guesswork for you. That's where we add in tempo and pauses and supersets and um, you know, reduced um rest periods, uh, all those kinds of things. Training on fatigue, all of these kinds of things that we can implement to ensure that you are progressively overloading over time. And yes, sometimes I ask my clients, could you get a couple pairs of dumbbells? But it doesn't mean they need a whole bloody gym. It doesn't mean they need a squat rack and a bloody, you know, machine chest press or whatever. It you can have effective training from home, but the question isn't about the location, it's about are you training or are you working out? And if you want to train, and maybe you're somebody that can't get to a gym right now, but you would love to work out at home and you're not sure what to do, and you keep jumping from workout to workout on YouTube and not really seeing any change when you are working out from home, then I'm your gal. I can help you train with intent. So if you're interested in having the plan made for you around your life, with all things considered, time of day that you train, where you train, how long you train for, how many days a week, etc., what equipment you've got, all of that stuff is taken into account. Your level of experience, your goal, etc. Everything is covered. I do this with women on the daily. If you want in, I will pop some uh details in the show notes. And but that is everything from me. Please share this with someone that might be struggling with their training right now from home. I would so appreciate that because I really just want to work with more and more women and teach them that actually muscle building is hard, but it's a heck of a lot easier when you've got the right training protocols. So, yeah, anyway, that's everything from me. It was lovely to chat, and I will speak to you again next week.