15 Basic Resistance Training Principles You Need to Know Part 2
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If you are interested in jumping into Resistance Training this year, you might want to check this 15 Basic Resistance Training Principles to make sure you are doing it correctly, and to get the results that you want.
This is the second part of the Basic Resistance Training Principles series of Embrace Your Real podcast to point you in the right direction and achieve the results that you desire.
What I discuss:
8. You need to breath….and breath correctly.
9. Take breaks - but be strategic about your rests.
10. Compound exercises vs. Isolation exercises – why you should be utilizing both
11. Volume - there are benefits to changing up your volume
12. Consistency - you need to be consistent because it can take a year to change your body composition.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Episode 303: 15 Basic Resistance Training Principles You Need to Know Part 1
If you want more from me, be sure to check out...
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Transcript:
Hey. Hey, beautiful human. Can I steal 5 minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get it. Let's go.
Hello and welcome back to the Embrace Your podcast. We are in part two of the 15 basic resistance training principles that you need to know. And I initially thought that this would be a two part series, but I'm going to be adding a third part because I just want to make sure that I'm doing each principal justice by kind of sharing all the information that you need to know. And so I'm going to continue adding to this series. I've been loving your feedback, so thank you so much for sharing your feedback and my direct messages, my movement would. Julie Community If you're not already following me on Instagram, I love you ladies so much and I'm just grateful for your feedback and thank you for tuning in to the podcast. If you haven't listened to part one yet, that's totally okay. These are really not in a particular order, but I do recommend that you go back and listen to that after this episode. I will be sure to link it in the show notes I just mentioned that, you know, at the beginning of this year, so many women had the goal of either coming back to resistance training or starting resistance training for the very first time. And I just think that it's important that you come into this with the best understanding that you have of just really knowing kind of the basic principles of resistance training, which is why I'm doing this, you know, series on kind of the principles that I wish I would have learned when I first started. Before we dive in, let me quickly recap just those seven principles that I outlined in part one. So, number one, choosing the right weight. Number two, using proper form. Number three, being sure that you're warming up before you lift number four, don't rush through your reps. So really taking your time there, slow and controlled movements. Number five, utilizing your full ROM from range of motion. As I mentioned in last week's episode, Number six gradually increasing your weight and number seven mixing up your workouts if that interests you, and if you haven't already tuned in to part one. Like I mentioned, I will link it in the show notes that you can easily go listen after this episode. And one more thing I wanted to share is a review that came in five star review from Hale Crais. She said, Love this. This podcast is amazing. It is just what I'm looking for. So informative and very encouraging. I love how open and real Julie is. Definitely recommend. Thank you so much for this review. I appreciate every single one of you guys just leaving a radio interview. I know it takes time out of your day, but I genuinely appreciate just hearing feedback on how this podcast is helping you, whether it's, you know, the podcast in general or a very specific episode. I would love to hear it. The team loves to hear it. So you can scootch over to Apple Podcasts and type in, embrace your real first, make sure you subscribe, which is that plus sign in the top right corner and then you can leave a rating and review if you scroll all the way down. Okay, so let's dive into some more kind of basic principles of resistance training that you need to know. Number eight, you need to breathe and breathe correctly. So what do I mean by that? Well, let me kind of explain. Generally, you're going to want to inhale during the eccentric phase of the exercise, which means the part of the left where you're lowering. Right, the part of the lift that isn't as difficult and you're going to want to exhale during kind of the concentric phase. This is the part of the lift where you're actually lifting and you want to kind of gather all of your strengths to execute. So, for example, when you're doing a squat, you want to think about inhaling while you're descending to that 90 degree angle at that knee bend and then exhaling when you're rising back up. Kind of another example of this is the chest press you're going to want to inhale as you lower the weights down to your chest and then exhale as you press the weight back up. With that being said, at no point do you want to hold your breath. This is something that especially if you're first starting out, I know that the breathing techniques can be kind of confusing and it's our kind of instinct to want to hold our breath, especially if we're trying to focus, you know, really hard on our form or it's something brand new. I've noticed. I remember when I first started out, I remember being in the gym lifting with at the time my boyfriend. Now he's my husband. And I remember just like holding my breath to the point where I was so red. And I remember specifically one time I was doing hammer curls and I was like really trying to focus on the form of my hammer curls because at this point when I was in the gym and I was kind of really weightlifting for the first time, I was focused so much on making sure that I was executing proper form and everything was so new that like I would forget to breathe. And I remember Josh looking at me. A He obviously can't hear right? He's deaf. So he saw me and he's like, Are you okay or are you breathing? And I realized in that moment I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm not breathing. So you just want to make sure that you're breathing smoothly throughout the entire lift. And this is for two main reasons why I believe it's so important. Number one, safety and number two, strength. So for safety, kind of holding your breath can cause this rapid increase in blood. Pressure, which can make you feel super lightheaded, super dizzy. And this also makes it really difficult to maintain proper form. Right. And you can it will also lead to decreasing your ability to lift the weight that you're actually trying to lift safely. And then on the flip side, for strength, when you hold your breath, it can reduce the amount of oxygen available to your muscles. Right. And this can really decrease your muscles ability to produce energy, which can lead to fatigue more quickly. So if you want to be stronger in your lifts, if you want to be more present and you want to make sure you're not lightheaded or dizzy, you've got to breathe correctly. Number nine, take breaks, but be strategic with them in your rest, period. So you'll see me strategically program rest into my July workouts. And this is for many different reasons. But for example, I program a lot of 30 seconds, 45 seconds, one minute kind of rest breaks in my workouts, but there are totally different benefits. For example, if you see like a rest, which in my particular style of workouts, because it's not solely focused on like a strength program, you know, sometimes if you're doing like a strength program where you're doing deadlifts and you're doing squats and you're really only doing like two or three lifts per day, you'll likely see like 3 to 7 minute rest periods programed in. And there's a reason behind that, right? So a 32nd kind of break between sets is relatively short. It's a relatively short recovery period, but it can also help to kind of lead to increasing the intensity of the workout, which can promote more muscle fatigue because you're doing more volume in a lesser period of time. So you're likely going to burn out your muscles faster and your heart rate's going to remain elevated. It's focused on kind of more muscle endurance than muscle growth. In muscle strength, you can definitely still, you know, build lean muscle. But if you're solely focused on strength, like I mentioned, you're going to have those longer rest periods. Whereas with these, you know, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, you're going to be able to lift, you know, semi heavy weights, but you're going to be likely more fatigued. This is super beneficial for people who are limited on time. And you kind of want to get through your workout more quickly. It's time effective, efficient. And like I mentioned, you're going to see this a lot of times in my movement. Julie Workouts simply because these workouts are very, you know, time effective, I want you to ensure that you're resting for an adequate amount of time, you know, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, sometimes a minute to ensure that you're not completely just fatiguing your muscles, where you're going to compromise your form, but you're having just enough to where it's still time effective. Now, like I mentioned earlier, on the other hand, sometimes you'll see programs that have, you know, anywhere from 2 to 3 or even, you know, I was doing a strength program years ago, I think it was back in 2014, 2015. And my program had literally seven minute rest periods in between doing heavy, heavy deadlifts. And, you know, this is at a point in my lifting kind of journey where I was like breaking PR's. And and so I needed that complete total amount of rest period in between sets. And, you know, this is helpful if you're really wanting to build muscle because it allows more time for your muscles to recover between sets. And this can also help to reduce that muscle burn rate so that you're able to pick those heavier weights back up and really push your triggering those muscle fibers to be activated. And when those muscle fibers are activated, the muscle that you're targeting is obviously going to be building over time. And like I mentioned, these programs, you know, strength is the main focus and rest is critical to ensure that you're able to keep pushing every single set, every single rep, and you're mastering that. I truly believe that there's a time and place for both. I personally, you know, for the last, especially since I've been doing demo workouts at home, it's more of a I don't want to say it's a complete endurance style training. It's more of a functional style training, resistance training that I do, and then I program inside my app. But depending on your goals, the rest period and how much rest and the strategy behind the rest is important. Number ten compound exercises versus isolation exercises. So a compound lift is the type of resistance exercise that's going to be working multiple muscle groups simultaneously. These exercises are typically considered like the big lifts. They're characterized by the ability to target, you know, many different muscle groups, recruiting more muscle fibers and generating overall more muscle activation than isolation exercises. Whereas those isolation exercises are the type of resistance exercise that targets a specific muscle group rather than multiple muscle groups simultaneously. So kind of let's dive into some examples to give you a better understanding of the two. So some examples of some compound lifts they include. Squats. So when you're doing a squat, you're working the quadriceps, the hamstrings, the glutes, the lower back muscles, deadlifts, you're working the glutes, the hamstrings, the lower back, some upper back muscles, the chest press that's going to be working your chest, triceps and shoulders pull ups, that's going to be working your lats, biceps and shoulders and shoulder press, which is working kind of your shoulders, your triceps and your upper back. Now, some examples of some isolation exercises would be more like bicep curls, which is specifically going to be targeting the bicep muscles. Tricep dips, that's going to be specifically targeting the tricep muscles. Leg extensions, which specifically targets the quad muscles. Lateral raises that targets the shoulder muscles and calf raises, which obviously targets the calf muscles. So isolation exercises are generally considered to be kind of less efficient than compound exercises as they only target a single muscle group. However, they can be super beneficial for targeting those specific muscle groups that may be lagging behind or kind of also being able to give that specific muscle group some extra love to help kind of correct some muscle imbalances or to improve muscle definition in that area. Now, if you compared kind of a workout plan that only used compound exercises versus a workout plan that only use isolation exercises, the compound exercise workout plan would overall give you better results. But I personally believe that you see the best results when you do a combination of both. I think that a well-rounded workout plan, you know, should include a combination of both compound and isolation exercises in order to target all muscle groups effectively and successfully to build the body that you want. Inside my movement, usually. AB You'll see that I do definitely program both of these. I program lots of different variations of squats and deadlifts and chest presses, shoulder different shoulder presses. But you'll also see me program, you know, tricep. You can do bench dips, we do bicep curls, hammer curls, we do hamstring curls, we do like a goblet squat, two catchphrases. We do lots of lateral raises and shoulder work on our shoulders include Stay so you'll see me program both of these. And like I mentioned, I believe to have kind of an optimal balance of both. You need to be carefully ensuring that your program has kind of a mix of compound exercises versus isolation exercises. Number 11 volume. So volume in resistance training kind of refers to the total amount of work performed in a training session. So this is the total amount of sets, reps and weight used. With that being said, a different volume range can kind of produce different results and have different benefits with resistance training. While some people may argue one thing is better than the other, I personally believe that they're all great and they just provide a slightly different outcome. So kind of let's dive into the different volume ranges and the different benefits of each. So sometimes you'll see like 4 to 6 reps per set. Now this is going to be great for building strength and power as it allows you to really use heavy weights and low reps, right? It's really beneficial for those who are limited on time and let's say they just want to like knock out like, you know, four or five sets of deadlifts that that are really heavy inside movement would usually you'll rarely see me program 4 to 6 reps. Sometimes I'll program, for example, at the time of recording this, I'm thinking about an exercise that we have coming up next week and that is a single leg deadlift reverse lunge. Now those are two, you know, compound exercises in one and I programed six reps on each leg and it's for three sets. And the reason being is because it's a longer exercise. It's going to take more effort and it's to, you know, compound exercises. And so that's pretty rare that I program 4 to 6 reps inside the weekly workouts. Now down the road, we do plan to have a strength program. We also plan to have a beginner program and some other things down the pipeline. And so you'll likely see once we have those different programs, you'll see different sets and reps. But like I mentioned, the inside the Movement. Julie app, the main program that we have right now is it's a functional style, you know, time efficient and effective workout program, which leads me to kind of 8 to 12 reps per set. So this is often used for kind of building lean muscle because it allows for good balance of heavy weights. But moderate reps, this also allows for more total volume and can lead to muscle hypertrophy, which is essentially just growth. And then the last kind of range is 15 to 20 reps per set. Now this high rep range is often used for building muscle endurance because it allows for a high volume of total reps and can be used to improve the ability of the muscle to perform kind of work for an extended period of time. Like I'm a. And I personally in the program that we have in July weekly workouts, it you'll typically see 8 to 12 reps per exercise. I sometimes go up to that 15 rep, sometimes 20 depending for doing alternating. But if you're doing it in alternating, that's typically, you know, ranging around the ten reps on each side per set. So it's totally up to you kind of depending on again, just kind of what the outcome is that you want. I personally think that having a range of these different mixes of 4 to 6, 8 to 12, 15 to 20 that can, you know, you can include those in a overall workout routine. And this is just going to help to increase the volume as well as just target different aspects of fitness, which will help to prevent your body from adapting to a particular volume, thus triggering a plateau. Number 12 Consistency. You need to be consistent long term to see real results from resistance training. And this wouldn't be an Embrace Roll podcast if I wouldn't tell you that. Right. Like I talk about this all the time, I talk about consistent, imperfect action over time is what leads to results, and it's going to take several weeks to a few months to start to see noticeable improvements in your muscle strength, your endurance. But honestly, it takes at least several months to a year of consistent training to see significant changes in your overall muscle size, your body composition, all of those things you know, most sources will agree that noticeable change kind of in your strength and your muscle definition could be as little as 6 to 8 weeks, but it typically takes at least bare minimum 6 to 12 months to actually start to see complete change in your body composition. So if you're looking to build the body that you want by kind of changing your body composition, you need to realize that you have to be consistent over time. And it could take up to at least, you know, six months to 12 months, at least a year of consistent work to make that happen. I believe that it's the best investment that you can make in yourself. And I believe that when you develop the habit and the discipline of consistently showing up for yourself, you're going to be better off not only, you know, being stronger and seeing noticeable changes in your body, but I also think that so much of life requires discipline and requires consistency. And if you can learn that in your workouts, I believe it bleeds into the rest of the many various different aspects that you, you know, operate in on a daily basis, whether you're a mom or your spouse or your business owner or you work for someone or you are leading in different capacities in your community. I just think that the work ethic that you have and you develop inside your workouts that actually bleeds into the rest of your life, which can benefit you so much in your day to day life. So I always encourage people, like if you're struggling in all different areas of your life to stay consistent, try just picking one of the area of your life being physical fitness and just kind of like honoring your body, which you guys always hear me talk about it because when you develop that and you develop that habit that will carry into the rest of your life and it will be a lot easier to start to develop other disciplines in other areas of your life. Okay, so let me recap those resistance training principles that I just shared about in this episode. Number eight you need to breathe and breathe correctly. Number nine, take breaks, but be strategic about your. Yes, number ten compound exercises versus isolation exercises and why I believe you should be utilizing both Number 11 volume. There's many benefits to kind of changing up your volume. And number 12 consistency. You have to be consistent. Take that consistent, imperfect action over time in order to start to see changes in your overall body composition. If you haven't already tuned into part one, be sure to do so. I will link that in the show notes that you can easily go listen, if you're wanting to start learning more and actually start training effectively and efficiently. I do have an app for that. It's called Movement with Julie. You can learn all about it by going to sale. That's Sally at home with Julie dot com. Inside this app you get five brand new workouts every single week. All you need is a small space, a few pair of dumbbells and your bodyweight if you have a bench. Amazing. I always give no bench alternates if you have resistance bands. Amazing. But I always give bodyweight or dumbbell alternates and so you genuinely don't need a lot to see massive results. So you can learn more by going to sale. That's Sally Julie dot com. I will also link that in the show notes below. That is all that I have for today's episode. I hope that you found this helpful. I hope that you're enjoying this series. If you have a friend or a coworker or someone in your life that you feel like would benefit from this specific app. Or this podcast in general, if you could just share it out with them, that would really bless me. That would bless our team. And I just appreciate you in advance for doing that. I love you so dang much. I mean it. And I'll talk to you in the next minute.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, Julie. A lot better. Yes, it's with an A in the middle for that Daily Post workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check.
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Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember, that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace the real because you're worth it.