The Mind Performance Health Podcast
MPH is a personal training studio located at Rouse Hill, Sydney NSW Australia that has been helping clients achieve transformations with their physique, health and fitness goals.
Our team has created this podcast to share insights on various topics that can influence your body, health and fitness transformations. These topics include:
Nutrition
Mindset
Workouts
Lifestyle
To learn more you can visit www.mindperformancehealth.com.au
The Mind Performance Health Podcast
Debunking Fitness Myths: The Science of Six-Pack Abs, Muscle Growth, and Effective Workouts
Uncover the truth behind those chiseled abs you've been dreaming of – spoiler alert, it's not all about crunches and planks. In our enlightening discussion, we tear down the fitness myth that targeted core exercises are the golden ticket to a six-pack, and instead, we focus on the crucial role of body fat percentage. With help from our coaches, Jordan and Sam, we're getting real about the genetic hand you've been dealt and why your core's strength matters for more than just looks. Get ready to align your fitness routine with the science of a toned midsection.
Ever hesitated to pick up a dumbbell, fearing you'll puff up like a bodybuilding bulking balloon? Let's put those fears to bed. In our chat with Jordan and Sam, we delve into the ins and outs of muscle density versus fat, dispelling the bulky muscle myth once and for all. Discover how to expertly craft your exercise strategy to shape your body to your liking without an ounce of unwanted bulk. It's all about understanding the true commitment behind a bodybuilder's mass and recognizing the diversity in body images and training goals.
Wrap up your workout woes as we cut through the confusion of exercise quantity versus quality. Longer bouts at the gym aren't always your ally; instead, we make a strong case for tailored workouts that prioritize recovery as much as they do reps. We discuss the fine line between beneficial training and the pitfalls of pushing too hard, and why hitting the hay is just as important as hitting the weights. Remember, the road to your fitness peak is a marathon, not a sprint, and we're here to cheer you on every step of the way.
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Hey guys, welcome to the my Performance Health podcast. My name is Michael Bridgette and I'm joined here today with Jordan and Sam, where we have a couple of topics that Sam has compiled here which we're going to run through. But firstly, how are you guys travelling? I know Sam has been smashing his CrossFit kippings eating.
Speaker 2:PBs front squats Big cardio session today, so big gas, but it was good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good mate now you smash it. Your volume is super high at the moment and your food's just as high. And Jordan, how are you being with everything?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've been good. I signed up to Virgin Acute recently. Just a change of environment, doing some laps in the pool, which has been good, traditionally a land animal. It's been a bit interesting getting into the pool, but yeah, good little change.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's good mate. Yeah, usually you do your sprinting with the athletic endeavours before, so it's Complete 180. Complete 180, to definitely jump into the pool. But today, sam, talk to me, we've got our notes here. What are the questions that we're going to run through? What we have?
Speaker 2:So today we're going to run through some common misconceptions. So, as coaches and we have a lot of clients today today who ask questions, who want to not just come into training but also get educated and gain more knowledge so that they can go and lead a healthy life too but within their questions often we find they have some quite common misconceptions. So we're going to start off today and debunk those myths. So I'd love to get your guys' thoughts on it as well. But the first one that we commonly see and commonly get asked is if I'm implementing core exercises in my routine, will that give me abs? Yeah, that's why that comes up.
Speaker 1:So I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts, all right, so yeah, so today we're going to bank on these ideas or misconceptions with working out exercise regimes and just get our thoughts and experience with it right. And the first one is if I do core, will I get abs? Well, firstly, let's see what you guys think that I'm going to mind. So let's start off with yourself, jordan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, look your abdominal muscles are muscles just like everyone else in the body. So doing core exercises is definitely going to strengthen them, but if you're, say, 23% body fat, you're not going to see them, regardless of how strong they are. So, yes, you'll definitely tone them up, but you actually need to burn that fat off to the core. Burn that fat off to be able to see them to clarify 23% for guys, 23% ladies, that's coming down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a bit of a different marker.
Speaker 3:Yeah, ladies, but no, just doing core exercises won't be enough to get you those visible abs of that shredded look you're after yes sweet Yep.
Speaker 1:So like just to reinstate that. So definitely strengthening. It's going to be determined as my take away with that on the body fat levels, yeah, and how high body fat percentage for you to visibly see them Correct, absolutely. What about yourself, sam? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So to break it down, within your core, you have four main muscles, so you have your rectus abdominis, your transversus abdominis and your external and internal obliques. Generally with exercise it is hard to isolate these. They kind of work in conjunction and their muscles in your core which improving them in strength can also translate into improved posture, balance and stability. So it is important to have quite a strong core because it can translate through many different exercises where you are required to use your core, but it's not necessarily the primary muscle working. For example, a squat, you want to have an upright torso, use your core to stay stable. So it is important to have a strong core. However, strengthening that core won't, just as Jordan said, won't necessarily show. If you do have significant body fat, they may be covered through that and we know that there are percentages which you aim for to hit. It's definitely relative and different for everyone, but in order to see those abs, what kind of percentage would we like to be at?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's, I'll get into that as well. We'll cover percentages to see visible abs. So what you're saying, sam, is like we got the divisions of the abdominal wall. It's important, especially when we talk about exercise functionality, have strength support. So it's definitely something we need to respect with a fitness regime. But once again, we're coming back to the whole thing of if our goal is to see them visibly. We got to talk about the body fat percentage and body fat percentage for that individual coming down, and also I would touch on genetics. And what I mean by genetics is some people, even if we get them at 10, say it's a guy 10% body fat that'll look different to someone else who's at 10% body fat as a guy. Or for girls, if they're around 20%, that'll look different for another lady that's 20%. So there is also a genetic play out it as well. But look, 100%. Agree with you both with my thoughts on this and we'll cover the body fat Is that abdominal work is great.
Speaker 1:You do them, you feel them. No matter what percentage of body fat you're at, you can feel them cramping. Sometimes I get cramped around the floor for like 15 minutes because they're cramping up when I do my ab work, but really to see them, we're going to have to melt away that body fat on that physique. And when we talk about you know, the real question is then what are the body fat percentages that we should be looking at to see abdominal war? Look for guys, average 13 to 15% body fat is kind of a healthy average to shoot for. When we go sub that around 10%, we should start to see a lot more abdominal definition. And for ladies, usually the average 23 to 25% mid-20s. When we go sub that, we start to notice even more abdominal definition as well, and we've seen that right with the clients that we have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and I think, just touching on genetics, there as well, I've had clients personally who, at about 15%, they do have abs and I've had other clients who need to get down to 10% lower. So that does definitely play, genetics plays a part. And also, I think the funny thing is it's just because you can't see something sometimes it does mean it's not there. Like a lot of people say, how can I get abs? Yeah, you have abs. How can I make my abs visible is a better way to kind of phase that question, because they are definitely there and you'll feel them with a few sit-ups.
Speaker 1:Yeah, correct, and then it's getting specific on the markers we want to look for. It's not look. Ab exercises are great and even as you get even leaner than your abdominal work, I find through experience, can make them look more prominent as you're at a leaner body fat level. But it's really the question is hey, if I want to see my abs, what do I need to do to get my body fat down to so I can actually visibly see them and get rid of the layers that are hiding them? Essentially Right. So I think that's a fantastic summary and that is one that commonly comes up and I saw like as a summary here with I think it's fantastic to do abdominal work. I think there's a lot of benefits strength wise, core wise that can come out of it. But when we talk about, you know, getting the low levels of body fat and even some of our competitors don't do any direct ab work but they're shredded at the end, you know. So there's, there's proof in the trenches with that. So any followups with that, sam, or any final thoughts?
Speaker 2:No, the only other thing I had was excess abdominal fat. Having that excess belly fat can also show as a sign of higher insulin resistance and being a greater risk of that, which can further be place at risk of type two diabetes and heart disease.
Speaker 2:So I think if you are putting on weight around that area the weight where places where you put weight on the easiest was also be the hardest to get off. So, if you are there still possible to get off but I wouldn't necessarily be focusing on core exercises straight away yeah, I'd be incorporating a calorie deficit within your diet, Yep, and a sufficient training regime.
Speaker 1:Yep, mate, I love that because we just touched on things like insulin, blood sugar and that, and I'll throw another one in there cortisol, stress, dementia, digestion, bloating, things like that. If you have a goal to see your abdominal war as visibly as possible lean stomach you gotta respect all those things not just the body fat coming down, but also things like improving your hormone health, improving your cortisol levels, digestion. These all can help definitely fast track that, that visibly appealing abs that everyone's kinda shooting for. So that's fantastic.
Speaker 3:For a lot of cases, I think seeing the abnormal definition is a kind of reward of going on that health journey of all right, let's get the abs. But here are all the implications of having those abs or having less body fat around that belly area. That's all right. You know what I mean Less risk of diabetes. The hormones, you know are functioning as they should be. When you have to, say, a pop belly or you have a lot of body fat around that area, you've got other things to be worrying about. Yeah definitely.
Speaker 2:I don't think you need abs to be fit in a way. So if you don't have the greatest definition in the abs, it doesn't necessarily mean you have a weak core or they aren't fit enough. It's something we shoot for because we see people out there and we want to look like them. It looks nice. It does look nice, but it's not always what we're going to focus on. Health always comes first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not a pure sign of health just because you've got abs. No, that's why you've got to look at all the other metrics. And yeah, when you're trying to maximize your genetics, see what you look at at those healthy body fat ranges. Yeah, yeah, kind of upset.
Speaker 2:That was a good one. So next topic we have to hear from a lot of ladies coming in the gym is if I start lifting weights, will this get me bulky?
Speaker 1:Yes, all right, this is a long, long one going throughout the years, so let's Sam kick it off. What are your thoughts with this?
Speaker 2:So my thoughts are this is lifting weights? No, it won't get you bulky. I think it's a major myth and a lot of women sense them back from joining the gym. So a lot of women say that their goal is to get toned. They want to bring the body fat down. How is lifting weights going to do that for me?
Speaker 2:I think it's important to understand that muscle is more dense than fat.
Speaker 2:So if I have a kilo of muscle and a kilo of fat, the muscles are going to be more compact and dense, taking up less space.
Speaker 2:So building that muscle and changing your body composition won't necessarily take up more space on your body and make you look bulky. Yes, the hypertrophy will increase the size of your muscle by also reducing that fat and changing your body composition. So if anyone out there can get really bulky from lifting weights, as a woman I'd love to know the secret, because they've tried for a long time, but it's a hard thing to do so in order to get bulky and you see professional athletes who are women, who have quite broad shoulders and a lot of strength, they are eating quite a lot of food, have quite high protein in their diet and are training hours per day, six days a week. So if you do want to achieve that physique, it is possible, but it takes a lot of work to get there, just lifting weights and working specific to your goal. Knowing how to manipulate the weights and the rep ranges in order to lose body fat is not going to get you bulky.
Speaker 3:No, I agree, Jordan. No, I agree with what Sam said. And add on to that, I think, for the ladies who are wanting to give them the gym but are worried about that, you've got to realise that if you look at the extreme cases of those real bulky, bulky females, their goal is to be there. You don't get like that on accident or get like that by casual training. That's a lot of hours in the gym, it's a lot of bump up in calories over time. Where you find baseline, you go building, building, building and it is a long process to get there. You're not going to get bulky just by joining up a gym and doing a regular exercise program and just eating, say a lifestyle approach or just watching what you're eating. It is definitely something that takes time to get there. It's not something you stumble on by accident. And, as Sam said, fat's more dense than muscle mass.
Speaker 2:So if you say what a burn other way around.
Speaker 3:Sorry, but if you were to burn five kilos of fat and put on five kilos of muscle, you are still going to look leaner than what you did with that five kilos of fat, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So with that first, I always ask you with that question is what does bulky look like to you? Right, and they may go hey, looking thicker around the like, with the ladies around the arms, around the hips, the legs, thighs, etc. Now, we've got to remember that at the end of the day, if we are putting on body fat and building muscle, will we look more bulky? Yes, right. So if your goal is weight loss, fat loss specifically, and we are training, we're going to melt away that body fat, show more defined muscle, you know. So it's important to understand once again what we're really talking about here, too, is the look right. But if we're very simply putting on more muscle and putting on more body fat, yeah, we're going to get thicker, right, that's normal. So it's important to understand your goal and the specifics of that goal and what we're talking about here. If we're going to lose and the goal is to lose body fat and weight training, we can get nice, defined muscle. That's one thought order as well.
Speaker 1:But I like to ask what does bulky mean to you? Now? You may have sometimes genetics, where, where and you get them sometimes with clients, not just ladies, but men as well is that their shoulders may respond more and they don't want bigger shoulders. Okay, so then as a coach, you can just put less volume on these areas that they don't want to build as much Makes sense. So it's important to find out once again what that label means to that person, understand the expectations of the goal and what you're shooting for. And look, genetics do play a role with it, but the program, the goal, does play a big role with it and what you execute with your training and nutrition regime play a role with it as well.
Speaker 1:But it is a big misconception that if you just lift weights, you get bulky. There's a lot more to it, especially with the nutrition and where you're at. That will dictate whether you lift weights and get nice and lean or you lift weights and put on more body fat, which makes you look bulky. So it's important to decipher and know the goal at the end of the day as well. But that's definitely what I look. We get once again ladies that get very slim with lifting weights and it's a great way weight training to work on your glutes, your shot things you want to sculpt the body with. You know to talk. So any final thoughts on that one or anywhere you want to go with that, sam Cool. Let's move on to number three.
Speaker 2:So number three is longer work out to more meaningful. The longer the better. If I'm working out seven times a week instead of three, is this going to be better for me? Am I going to get better results?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what we've got here is if you're placing stress on the body and you're working out and you haven't trained before and you're overstressing your body, you're not just stressing yourself physically, but your nervous system as well will shut down. You'll start to see an increase releasing cortisol. So cortisol is a hormone that we want to manage and if you're stressing the body out too much by over training and your body will actually respond into completely counterproductive weight, so you will shut down. You won't be able to get such of an effect post your workout without the recovery and it will actually have the opposite effect on what you're trying to achieve in losing that. So I think coming in doing your workout in an effective manner and having a program which you can follow which is individualized to you having weights, sets, reps instead of thinking the longer workout is going to benefit me more it's not going to work that way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's on a scale, so you can definitely do things in a shorter timeframe. A longer timeframe whether that's the stays in the gym, more days in the gym, say 45 minutes, or an hour into the gym to three hours in the gym there's definitely a place for everything, depending on what you're trying to achieve, where you're at, what you're doing. But no, you don't always need to be spending more time in the gym to get a better result. It's just about optimizing the time you are spending in the gym and having a plan around that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I agree. And to dive my thoughts with that one is yeah, first let's cut the goal. What's the goal? Is it an ultramarathon, where we need to be spending a hell of a lot of time working out with the volume, or is it body composition? So we've got to understand the goal first, because that has different demands. At the end of the day, we want to stress, recover and adapt, and the way I think of it with volume which volume, just simply, is the amount of work we do is that we'll have a minimum effective dose where we can recover, get the stimulus and adapt, and then you'll have a maximum dose where you can recover and adapt. Anything beyond that raises stress and impacts recovery. So there is a scale between minimum volume and maximum recoverable volume. So we've got to understand the goal. Now, if we talk about body composition, do we need to spend more and more time on the cardio machines and things like that, or do we need to pay attention to our nutrition a little bit more and maximize that? That's where you've got to get a little bit smarter with all the details that influence and have the power over towards your goal, so you don't have to spend six hours in the gym working out because you're eating habits crap, so you don't need to. It's important.
Speaker 1:The way I look at it is to understand the metrics you're trying to improve and this is why we do this at MPH. Like you guys know, we look at average scale weight each week. We look at measurements, we look at body fat, body tape. We make a plan. There's a set amount of volume. With that plan, our workouts might go for an hour in the gym and then we've got a nutrition plan. Did we see? And we set up some targets. Did we see progress that week, hitting our targets towards that goal? Fantastic. That allows us to make better decisions into the next week. You know whether we're changing food or the volume of the workout. So it's important to understand the metrics of the goal you're trying to achieve. I think, review those metrics and if you got improvement, fantastic. But also respect the other areas that can have influence over that goal. Like I said, some clients will see us and they're spending.
Speaker 1:Before joining, our program sat down with one couple weeks ago. She was doing three hours of cardio a day, right, five, six, seven days a week, but her weight wasn't moving. The area wasn't to do more volume. It was nutrition, okay. So yeah, longer workouts don't necessarily equate to better or faster results. In fact, they could make it worse, like you touched on sand with stress and high cortisol levels. But we got to get fixated. What we're trying to improve, you know, and look at the whole holistic picture. But, like I said, you know, if we do an ultramarathon, volume's got to be high. There are times.
Speaker 3:There are times I think generally if we use a fat loss client, for example, the client who trains gym three times a week and is on point with nutrition is going to get those better, faster results than the client who trains seven days a week but is eating macros every day 100% and on average, like some of our client sees, twice a week.
Speaker 1:They want to lose the weight, the body fat, and that can be very beneficial because we're looking at nutrition and lifestyle steps as well. Some clients want to generate more muscle. They train four or five times a week. So it's important to look at that spectrum but assess the progress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think touching on recovery is important as well. Overtraining isn't always overtraining. Sometimes it's under recovery. So you've got to look at what they are doing. Things like sleep so underrated that's where your body will be. It's gaining its greatest recovery. So we want to aim for eight hours a night. Also, I look at recovery as pained rent. So if you're not pained your rent, eventually you're going to get caught out, kicked out.
Speaker 2:Yeah same thing with your recovery. If you're not recovering properly after your workouts, your body's going to catch up with you and you're not going to be able to continue Kicked out with rent.
Speaker 1:I like that. Yeah, thanks for reminding me.
Speaker 2:So doing your recovery things like sleeping well, eating well, taking your supplements, anything extra Some people do cold water saunas and heat massages. Anything you can do for your recovery is to pay that rent, so your body is then able, in the gym, to perform as best as you can 100%, totally agree.
Speaker 1:Sam that was good input. Treat your body well and it will never stop. Final thoughts on that one so definitely don't need to train more and more. Sometimes you've got to pay attention to the other things that are going to move the rock towards your goal.
Speaker 2:Next we have BMI. A lot of people come in and ask, tell us that their doctor has told them their BMI puts them in an obese category, or they've went themselves and looked up online about their BMI and they found this number, which is quite worrying to them. However, it's quite a conflict of interest with BMI. At times it can be beneficial in giving us an idea of where we are sitting in that in relation to the population, but a lot of the time it's quite inaccurate and misleading. So in order to calculate your BMI, it's your weight divided by your height squared. A healthy range is between 18.5 to 24.9.
Speaker 2:However, the problem with BMI is it's only taken into account your total weight and doesn't at all account for your body composition, having your body fat percentage and your lean mass percentage. So we do have a scanner upstairs here at MPH where we're able to better assess the breakdown of body composition with our clients, seeing where their body fat ranges is, their lean mass ranges, and in order to understand BMI further. It was created as a screening tool to identify potential weight problems across populations. So on a large scale of things, it is easier to compare using this number as a standardized protocol, but a lot of people don't use it because I know Mick, even myself, probably even Jordan, would be classified as obese, as it's only accounting for our weight divided by our height. It's not actually accounting for our muscle mass, which can be quite dense and weigh more than fat mass, correct?
Speaker 3:Jordan no, I completely agree. For that reason, I never personally really look at BMI with clients. Bmi is good, as I said, for larger populations to get that kind of gauge. But if you've got two people, for example, who are 100 kilos, but one person needs 10% body fat versus one person who might be 35% body fat, they're going to be both classed as obese, depending on what their height is. That's the thing. You can have someone who is purely mostly lean mass, very low body fat percentage, have someone who is obese and they'll be both classified as obese. So there's definitely a lot of cracks in the BMI kind of spectrum that allows for misinformation to be spread. So therefore I just prefer to use other markers, more accurate markers, individualized markers.
Speaker 1:Yep, no, I totally agree and I summarise my thoughts with that is precision. Like here at MPH, we like to be precise and what we know when we're talking about this is trying to equate to body fat, really, like we're saying if we have too much body fat, there's a triage of health issues. That can happen Blood pressure, blood sugar issues, yes, short lack of confidence and all that as well but it does impact your longevity, vitality, etc. So we want to be precise. So I personally don't use BMI or look at it when I'm making programs. I always, if I ever, have a client or a consult and they say you know, I went to my doctor and they said you know, I need to lose weight to get a better BMI.
Speaker 1:So what I'm hearing is that you have a health value, you value getting to a healthy range, right. And then what we do from there at MPH is we get the healthy range targets of body fat on average 13 and 15% for men. For ladies that can be mid-20s, 23 to 25, could even be a little bit lower than that for some ladies as well. They're genetically a little bit different, but they're kind of about average markers that we shoot for, and around that point is where things are working better. Hormone health, potentially Hormone health. Obviously we're looking better as well, performing better functionally. So they're kind of the ranges that we look for. So if I ever hear someone say BMI, the first thing I am thinking is health. They value health, they want to get into a healthy range of body fat and their body composition. And then we kind of go a little bit more specific and precise with what that looks like.
Speaker 2:And what are the things that we do here in order to keep on top of that? What are the ways that we have to test?
Speaker 1:that? Yes, great question, sam. So, whenever clients start, we do what's called the onboarding session here at MPH and what that looks like. They come on in and we do movement screens, nutrition consult, lifestyle consult, but we also test their body fat endling mass. We have two ways we do that either with the scan the infrared scan we have up top or we use skin folds. Now, when it comes to talking about body fat, we're not looking for accuracy. What I mean by accuracy if, on our scan or our skin folds, it says you're 20%, it may say something different. If you go get a dexer, maybe it says 21. What we are looking for, though, is precision, okay, and what I mean by precision is that, each week we're losing, we're precisely measuring that it's losing. To get into the ranges. Every trend yeah, most body fat Machines and ways will may spit out a different number of where you're at. They may be 2% off, 3% off, but we want to get within those average targets and be precise with that measurement.
Speaker 1:Consistently and that's why I like using the same measurement Tool throughout the process. Yeah, so they're the two main ways. Obviously, we look at average scale, weight, body tape measurements and we combine everything to make better decisions with. But when we're talking specifically, looking at body fat, link mass levels and even problem areas, because they could be higher in body fat in certain parts of the body, the skin folds and the machine is what we use. Awesome, all right. So Now what we may do is are there any more questions, sam, one more. What we make, and it's just is this the final one? Yeah, what we'll do, we'll do this one, and then I was going to say, if there's any more, we'll wrap it up and go to another one. But don't worry about I was going to say, if it's one more, we'll smash this out instead of pairing it into two.
Speaker 2:So what we got for the last one is carbs are bad, so our carbs directly, directly causing fat gain.
Speaker 1:Okay, so Chris is going like this to me, so we've got to wrap it up because we'll have to put this into another one, I think, for the time with the camera, because we've gone over time. So what we'll do, we'll come back to this one, we'll make it into a separate one, maybe with some other other questions as well, so we can do a full episode on that. All right, sounds cool. So, as a summary, we've covered a few topics there and they're very common. So hopefully for you listening, you've got some insight and this is what we say from experience working with clients and not just experience working with Clients, but getting them results as well in the field. So I think it's important to sometimes question your beliefs on things, how you label things and what they look like to you, just so you can have the best chance of success towards whatever outcome you're going for. All right, so, guys, any final thoughts on this topic for today?
Speaker 3:No good discussion cool great discussion to any of the listeners. If you want to have a further conversation on this, or if something wasn't quite clear, shoot one of us a message. Yeah, we can talk further on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. So you can go to our website, wwwmyperformancealthcomau. Fill out a discovery core form if you're interested in coaching, just having a chat, see what we can do for your goals, and you can check out our other platforms on YouTube, and we have also, obviously, our podcast here with other episodes that may be beneficial to you. So thank you, guys for tuning in. I look forward to speaking to you in the next one.