Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about the optimal amount of exercise...

One of the most common questions we get at the Exercise Coach is “Is exercising twice a week really often enough?” Listen in as Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson explore why whole effort exercise twice a week is not only enough, it’s the optimal amount you need to achieve the best fitness results for your body in the shortest amount of time possible.

• Exercising twice a week is more than enough. In fact, exercising more often can actually be counterproductive.
• The most important thing you can do as you age is addressing the health of your fast-twitch muscle fibres. To stimulate and improve the quality of your fast-twitch muscle fibres the exercise needs to be intense and brief.
• When we work our muscles in this way it forces adaptations, which are the end results that we are seeking from an exercise program. The flipside of this intense exercise is that you need to give your body enough time to fully recover and super-compensate, which takes at least 48 hours.
• All the results we want from exercise, like increased muscle mass, strength, neurological efficiency, and improved insulin sensitivity, are not actually caused directly by exercising. Our bodies produce the results we want once we’ve achieved adequate recovery.
• If you exercise more frequently than twice a week, all we are doing is interrupting and disrupting the body’s innate ability to produce the very results we want. Overtraining can cause people to stall out and even go backward in terms of their fitness improvements.
• We should be able to measure the results of any exercise program, which is why this idea is built into every program at the Exercise Coach.
• If you’re not seeing results from your exercise routine, question whether your exercise is intense enough and whether or not you are giving your body enough time and resources to recover properly.
• During a workout, you are depleting the stored energy in your muscles so that they will build themselves back up over time. Your recovery time is just as important as your workouts. The consumption of your muscle’s fuel is a major metabolic signal that triggers these kinds of transformations.
• The answer to getting the best possible results is almost never just exercising more. The key is combining whole effort exercise and whole food nutrition to get all the results we want.

Link:

exercisecoach.com

This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about muscle vs fat while on the road to improved health...

Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson break down the age-old question of whether muscle really weighs more than fat and why the number on the scale can be very misleading when you’re trying to improve your health and fitness.

• When many people start a strength training program, they look at their body composition and may wonder whether muscle is heavier than fat. The accurate answer is that muscle is more dense than fat.
• When people say that muscle weighs more than fat, what’s really being communicated is that muscle is more dense so it takes up less space within the body.
• Body fat is more voluminous. This is why you get a better change in body composition and physical health when you lose body fat as opposed to a combination of fat and muscle.
• The ideal approach to weight loss is to do what it takes to maximize fat loss, and the only way to do that is to combine whole food nutrition and whole effort exercise; science-based and intense strength training.
• If you don’t do strength training when combined with whole food nutrition, you will lose weight from both body fat and muscle mass. This can result in a slower metabolism and actually regaining the weight in the future.
• If you lose five pounds of body fat, you may not see a difference on the scale but still see a considerable improvement in body composition.
• You can lose more of your body mass overall even without losing a pound on the scale. The scale may not change over the course of the year but you will still feel stronger and have more energy and stamina.
• Get rid of the preconceived notions of what number on your scale means you’re healthy, and instead focus on adding strength, losing body fat, and feeling great.

Link:

exercisecoach.com

This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about the benefits of doing the right workout...

Amy Hudson and Brian Cygan reveal the truth behind the fitness industry and why you don’t need to spend hours at the gym every week in order to stay fit and healthy. Learn the science behind the 20-minute workout and how you can achieve optimal health benefits by doing the right workout, for the right length of time, just twice a week.

• Is 20 minutes long enough to have a great workout? Simply put, absolutely.
• The training at the Exercise Coach is targeting the root cause of usual aging which is the age-related loss of muscle mass, also known as sarcopenia.
• Research shows that sarcopenia is a function of the loss of and weakening of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Loss of fast-twitch muscle fibers directly correlates to a weakening metabolism, weaker bones, less energy, and worse health as we age.
• In order to reverse the usual aging process and restore muscle mass you need to do exercises that are focused on building fast-twitch muscle fibers. This means the exercise needs to be intense enough to recruit those muscle fibers.
• The ideal exercise to target those muscle fibers is science-based strength training.
• When we work our muscles in exactly the right manner to actually use our fast-twitch muscle fibers, it’s intense and therefore needs to be brief. That’s why the workout at The Exercise Coach is only 20 minutes.
• The 20-minute workout is not the bare minimum you can get away with, it’s actually the specific length of time you need to optimally recruit, stimulate, and fatigue the right muscle fibers.
• One researcher looked at a number of studies on exercise programs and concluded that all that was necessary to get the majority of the benefits that people want from a health and fitness standpoint was to perform a strength training workout for about 20 mins no more than twice per week.
• The best workout with the most health benefits is the one that is necessarily brief. The higher the intensity of the workout, the less time you need to spend doing that workout.
• No amount of exercise, in volume or minutes, can bring about the most important results from a fitness endeavor that people are after. The key is to work at the right intensity level and engage the fast-twitch muscle fibers to reverse the aging process and restore optimal health and fitness.

Link:

exercisecoach.com

This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about the truth to losing belly fat...

Six-pack abs are what most people think of when they think fitness goals, but how hard is it really to get that washboard stomach and lose the stubborn belly fat? Brian and Amy bust the most common myths around losing belly fat and talk about the incredible results that Exercise Coach clients can get, including reducing their belly fat, by joining the Metabolic Comeback Challenge.

• A common goal for many people is to lose weight, specifically belly fat. There are two motivations that drive this goal, the first is achieving an improvement to their figure and the second is that excess belly fat is an indication that their health is not improving.
• Belly fat, also known as central adiposity, is a health issue and a real risk factor. One study showed that each 10cm increase in belly fat in women increased their risk of death from any cause by 8%, for men it was 12%.
• We know that belly fat is linked to insulin resistance and systemic inflammation, and those things working together worsen overall health. Belly fat is both a sign and a symptom of those problems.
• Before we learn the best ways to lose belly fat, we need to learn what doesn’t work. For example, the myth of spot reduction where you exercise particular areas of the body to lose body fat in those areas, is not how it works.
• The truth is the first area that you put on fat will be the last area you lose it. For men, that’s often the abdomen, and for women, that’s usually the hips and thighs. Doing exercises to shrink your stomach is not going to change this reality.
• When people start to lose body fat, they will notice the results in reverse.
• In order to actually lose belly fat, you have to combine whole effort exercise with whole food nutrition. It has nothing to do with crunches or sit ups, or even cardio.
• Combining strength training with sensible whole food nutrition is the best approach to losing belly fat because it results in focused weight loss, where you are only losing body fat instead of both fat and muscle at the same time. This also translates into the best shape for your body as well.
• At the Exercise Coach, we see people losing significant amounts of body fat, typically 5%, from a focused program of 30 days of whole effort exercise and whole food nutrition.
• The first 5% of weight loss that people experience in an exercise program delivers the majority of the metabolic benefits. Within one or two months, nearly everyone can experience results that are life-changing from a health standpoint.
• Most people will see belly fat reduction within the first 30 days of the Metabolic Comeback Challenge. Seeing a flattening of the stomach will depend on the starting point of each individual but the important thing to keep in mind is the progress you’re making.
• You need to persevere in order to see those results. It may be that you just need to put in another 30 to 60 days to lose that belly fat and reach your body composition goals.
• It doesn’t take exercising everyday or joint-punishing cardio to transform your body and hormonal health. Smart strength training and whole food nutrition is all you need to fundamentally change your life.

Link:

exercisecoach.com

This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about preventing the ill effects of aging...

Is it safe for seniors to perform high intensity strength training? The question is actually “is it safe for them not to?” Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson discuss the science behind strength training and why high intensity, whole effort exercise is one of the best ways to prevent the ill effects of aging, even if you are afraid of your joint pain or heart issues holding you back.

• A number of people are curious whether strength training is an appropriate exercise for them, especially as they get older. But the real question we should be asking is whether it’s safe for seniors to avoid strength training.
• The science indicates that there are a number of mortality benefits associated with strength training, and individuals who don’t engage in strength training over the long term are at a higher risk of premature death.
• For people in their 60’s, strength training has cognitive benefits, blood pressure and blood sugar benefits, and even bone density benefits.
• There are two levels of safety at the Exercise Coach, orthopedic safety and cardiovascular safety. Researchers have concluded that high intensity strength training, when done correctly, is safe for people into their 90’s. The benefits of performing strength training outweigh the risks of not doing so.
• Even older people with osteoporosis can benefit from strength training.
• High intensity strength training is safe and addresses directly the most important markers of healthy aging. From a cardiovascular standpoint, high intensity strength training has a positive influence on resting blood pressure. It’s common for Exercise Coach clients with high blood pressure to see their blood pressure normalize.
• Another study compared the impact of strength training versus traditional cardio in cardiovascular rehab. A large proportion of the people performing the cardio exercise as part of their rehabilitation experienced some kind of angina or chest pain, whereas the people in the strength training didn’t experience any.
• The slow and controlled nature of the exercises performed at the Exercise Coach is the key to making them safe for anyone to do. It’s possible to increase the intensity of the exercise without increasing undue stress on your joints or your bones with this method.
• The environment of the Exercise Coach is about as good as it gets from a Covid-19 perspective since it offers private sessions in a studio with a small number of people.
• Sarcopenia is the age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass and is really the root of a number of issues related to aging. It’s similar to the effects of muscle atrophy after an injury, and is linked to a number of the diseases of aging that we are most concerned about.
• The most effective way to combat sarcopenia is to engage in a meaningful strength training program. The data shows that whole effort exercise can reverse decades of muscle loss in a matter of 10 to 12 weeks.
• The more deconditioned somebody is when they start, the more profound the results they will see in a short period of time.

Link:

exercisecoach.com

This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about getting toned and lean, rather than bulky...

Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson break down the science of strength training and discuss why you don’t have to worry about getting bulky from exercise, and why strength training is the most effective way to get that toned, lean body you always wanted.

• Will two 20-minute workouts a week help someone get toned? According to the scientific definition, toneness refers to the level of tension in a muscle at rest, but most people refer to being toned as being lean. In that regard, strength training will absolutely help you get leaner and build firm muscles.
• One misconception about toning is around spot reduction. Often, when people talk about toning their body they are talking about making a particular area of their body leaner by targeting it with exercise, but that isn’t how the process works. Effective strength training is about getting whole body results that impact your metabolism and decrease body fat throughout the whole body.
• Toning is the result of lean muscle tissue being added in the body with a decrease in the amount of body fat that may be hiding. To get the toning results you want, the best way is to combine good whole food nutrition and whole effort exercise.
• Will strength training at the Exercise Coach result in big, bulky muscles? People want better muscles, not necessarily bigger muscles and lucky for them, the majority of people won’t build large muscles even if they try. Genes and the expression of myostatin limits the amount of muscle mass that will grow.
• The longer a muscle is, the bigger and thicker that it will grow. Most bodybuilders that you see have muscles that are naturally predisposed to growing larger. This means that most people, especially women, don’t have to worry about getting too bulky.
• Strength training is the most important thing you can do for health, longevity, quality of life, and reducing body fat. Whole effort strength training is the best way to achieve the best body leanness, definition, or tone that you can.
• “Biologically speaking, to be able to survive an encounter with a lion that wants to eat you, you need a body that is lean enough to be fast and strong enough that it has the endurance to run away. This describes the state that our bodies want to be in.
• There isn’t any evolutionary benefit to growing large muscles because it takes a lot of energy and resources to maintain them. Our bodies are better off with building stronger and better muscles, while not necessarily getting bigger in the process.
• Amy reads a testimonial from a 73 year old woman sharing how she has seen improved muscle definition and tone from her time and sessions at the Exercise Coach.
• Today, more than ever, we need to maintain our physical and mental health for our overall well-being. The workouts at the Exercise Coach change everything for the clients that enjoy them.

Link:

exercisecoach.com

This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about exercise for athletes vs the average person...

Is strength training enough for longevity and quality of life? That’s the question Brian and Dr. James Fisher explore in the final episode of the What About Cardio? series. Learn about the difference between how athletes and the average person train and why achieving high levels of sports performance and everyday fitness are not accomplished the same way.

• Can strength training and whole food nutrition be enough to transform someone’s fitness results? Where does cardio fit into fitness and sports performance?
• Fitness is about our body’s ability to perform a physical task, whether that’s moving a weight or speed or flexibility. Cardiovascular fitness is our body’s ability to move oxygen around the body efficiently, and one of the major benefits of cardio is an increased rate of recovery from exercise.
• Intensity is key. If you want to perform at a higher level in a sport, long duration and low intensity will not achieve the results you desire. Even with a long duration, low intensity sport, a greater intensity is required to increase performance.
• There was a study that was published in the late 90’s that showed that the best way to become better at a sport is to practice the sport. A lot of the exercise and training that athletes do to become better at their sport is actually superficial. Specificity of movement is vital.
• Fisher trains athletes for the positions they are going to play, and the best way to get better at a certain sport is to do exactly that. Resistance training can be a great supplement as a way to prevent injury, but it won’t do much to directly improve someone’s sport performance.
• The average person shouldn’t be looking to sports training to help prevent the aging process. There are a couple of things to remember: when you are looking at a high level athlete on television, they are genetically gifted. They probably achieved what they have relatively early on in life and with less training than the average person. The second thing to remember is that they are paid to do that and have a short career.
• The best athletes have a short shelf life. The average career in the NFL is less than 7 years. Are you willing to do all the training and exercise that they put themselves through to perform at that level?
• Brief, intense strength training can improve cardiovascular fitness. A study by a group of Spanish authors showed a 10% increase in cardiorespiratory fitness over 12 weeks with a program of strength training. If you’re already a Tour de France cyclist, adding resistance training isn’t going to do much to improve your performance. It all depends on who you are.
• Resistance training can definitely improve our health, improve our cardiovascular fitness, and improve our longevity and quality of life.

Link:

exercisecoach.com

This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about staying strong as you age...

In part 2 of this series with Dr. James Fisher, Brian and James discuss the downsides of cardio and why so many people can’t seem to resist binging after cardio exercise. Learn why cardio is important and useful when done right, and how it can lead to even worse health outcomes if not done properly.

• While improving heart health is great, it’s not everyone’s goal when exercising or doing cardio. Weight loss is another major focus and cardio can certainly help accomplish that.
• When doing cardio and exercising at a low enough intensity we are using our aerobic energy system, and that’s reliant on our fat stores as energy. So it’s easy to think that if you do cardio you will burn fat, but the reality is that anything that raises our energy expenditure and increases our metabolism is beneficial for fat loss.
• Building muscle is great for maintaining a higher metabolism and burning more fat.
• With a low-intensity exercise, we see an increase in our stress hormones, as well as a fluctuation in our leptin and ghrelin levels. These are the hormones responsible for hunger and they regulate how our body replenishes and restores calories. When we do higher resistance training we don’t get the same hunger response. The big problem is that going for a long run or bike ride may feel great, but the following hunger response may undo all the work you just did.
• More movement and more steps in a day is a good place to start, but if you go out and start running, cycling, or swimming you are going to swim against the tide and your body will start to resist your efforts.
• Increasing muscle mass is about increasing the quality of our body composition, and that itself is increasing our metabolism. If you look at the bigger picture, cardio alone doesn’t lay the foundation for long-term weight loss.
• Studies generally show that the weight loss that occurs from cardio and a caloric reduction is 50% muscle, which is probably the worst possible outcome, especially as we age. Whereas if we perform resistance training and pay attention to protein intake the weight loss is almost exclusively fat.
• When people say they want to lose weight, they mean they want to lose fat. We need to do something that allows us to hang on to the muscle we’ve got. Starting with resistance training, and then nutrition, with cardio as a tertiary thought is the best method to achieve fat loss and optimal long term health.
• If we do what it takes to protect our muscle with proper nutrition and strength training, the weight that we lose leads to a better body composition since fat takes up so much space on the body.
• Start with resistance training and nutrition, then add cardio if you feel like it.
• When we think of older adults we think of frailty, despite the fact that they are often lean. The reason they are frail is because they are not carrying a high proportion of muscle mass. If we do resistance training and focus on maintaining as much muscle mass as we can when we age, we are setting ourselves up to be lean and functional as we age instead of merely frail.
• An epoc is Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption, it’s also known as the afterburn effect. When performing high effort exercise our heart rate is elevated for a time after the exercise is complete but with low-intensity exercise, there is almost no after-effect. The energy expenditure from prolonged low effort exercise is about the same as interval training or resistance training a third of the duration. A 20-minute high-intensity workout has the same energy expenditure as a 1-hour run.

Link:

exercisecoach.com

This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.