Welcome to Nacho Fitness Coach. This is Nacho Ordinary Fitness Podcast. I'm Sarah
and I'm Nacho typical fitness expert and I'm Kaylee and I'm Nacho average
fitness beginner. We're here to spice up your fitness journey with some humor a
little knowledge and a couple glasses of wine. We're here to prove that getting
fit doesn't have to suck. So whether you're a seasoned athlete or a couch
potato we've got some tips tricks and unconventional advice for you. Let's
redefine fitness together and learn to balance fitness and fun. So Kaylee, mm-hmm
what do you know about progressive overload? I know that it's a thing. I've
read about it. Heard about it. I've heard about it in my audiobooks. I think I get
the general gist of what it is. Okay what would you say? Like the definition is of
progressive overload. Where you lift an amount of weight until that amount of
weight is easy until you can bump up the amount of weight. Right. Okay. I'm gonna
ask you for your definition of it. That's what I gave you. I wasn't reading
Merriam-Webser's dictionary. Not yet anyways. Right. Yeah. Is that your definition? Yeah. I have a
pull-up on Wikipedia. Oh is that a good source? Do you think we should use that
source? Wikipedia. I don't know. See progressive overload is a method of
strength training and hypertrophy training that advocates for the gradual
increase of the stress placed upon the musculoskeletal
and nervous system. Words are hard. The principle of progressive overload
suggests that the continual increase in the workout in the total workload
during training sessions will stimulate muscle growth and strength gained by
muscle hypertrophy. The improvement in overall performance will in turn allow
the athlete to keep increasing the intensity of their training sessions.
Right. So I was pretty right. Yeah. I mean I paraphrased. You did pair is like a
Cliffs Notes version. Yeah the Kaylee version. Did you know the kids today
don't know what Cliffs Notes are? Do you know they call me Cliffs Notes Kaylee?
They do or they did. Is it still a thing? Is our street name?
Oh my little senior in high school he'd been interning with me for the last term
whatever they call him now and I was referring to something and I was like
you know kind of it's kind of like the Cliffs Notes and he was just looking at
me like I have no idea. Is it Cliffs Notes or Cliffs Notes? Because I have
been wondering. I've been hearing Cliffs Notes. Oh Cliffs Notes. Alan says it's
with an S. Cliffs Notes. They are Cliffs Notes. Okay. With an S. C-L-I-F-F-S-N-O-T-E-S.com.
Like they still even have a website but the first thing that popped up was
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. And it was like remember how it was like the big
yellow book with like the stripes? Like that was the cover to everything. Really?
Like you don't remember like oh yeah that's exactly what they were. You must
not have used Cliffs Notes as much as Alan and I did. Because every single cover
was exactly like that. There's actual Cliffs Notes. Like the book. There are books of
Cliffs Notes. Wow so somehow between my age and yours the Cliffs Notes were no
longer in use. Did you have the internet when you were in high school then? Because I
didn't have it until I was like a sophomore in high school. We kind of had
the internet. I was in high school from like 2000 to 2004. But let's be very
clear Sarah. I did not. You didn't go to the store and buy it. Like there was a whole
display. Like if you would go to the bookstore and I feel like you had to go
to actual bookstore. It wasn't just at like Walmart. Like you had to go to the
bookstore and there would be like a whole section that was Cliffs Notes. And I
just remember every time we got assigned a like novel to read I went straight
there just praying that whatever it was was gonna be available in Cliffs Notes
because I did not want to read that book. I did not only did I not read whatever was
assigned. You didn't even try to cheat your way through it. No I didn't. I was a
terrible student. But somehow you still managed to pass high school. Well it was public
school. Which is why I'm homeschooling now. Not very many people don't make it through
public school. Let's just be very clear. Listen even medical doctors there's still
somebody that graduated the last of their class. They're still an MD. It's a
real thing. What's this episode about? But really I'm just Cliffs Notes or another
thing. Let's just wrap this for now. I don't recall this being an event. You don't
remember this book? Like this book is entrenched. Like before I even pulled it
up I could have pictured the image of the front of this. Is Cliff a guy? Let's see. I
always just thought Cliffs Notes were I thought was Cliffs Notes first of all. And
I thought that just meant like kind of a basic summary. Oh my gosh this is even
better. Okay are you ready for this? Cliffs Notes is a series of student
study guides. They're in pamphlet form blah blah blah. So here's the history.
Cliffs Notes was started by Nebraska native Clifton Hillegas. It was a guy. In
1958 he was working at Nebraska Book Company of Lincoln. Maybe that's why it was
so popular in Nebraska. When he met Jack Cole the co-owner of Cole's a Toronto
book business. Cole published a series of Canadian study guides called Cole's
Notes and then sold Hillegas the US rights to the guides. Oh. That's some rich history.
Oh yeah because his name was Clifton. So that's why he said they were Cliffs Notes.
They're Cliffs Notes. They're Cliffs Notes. But they're not really
actually his because Jack Cole actually wrote them and published the series of
the Canadian study guides that he called Cole's Notes. So I feel like Cliffs is
an imposter. And not really. It sounds like he won the war. No. The note war. No
he just he sold the US rights to the guides. To be able to have them sell in
the US. Because there's a funny thing that goes on between Canada and the US.
You're getting real passionate about this and I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't care at all about any of
this. I mean but see look they started the business in their basement in Lincoln.
I don't think I've ever seen you so into something. I just think it's really
interesting that it's like out of all of this it's a Nebraska thing. Wow. You knew
that? Alan knew it. You knew? You were there. Well some what. He knew. Look at that. I don't know.
I just yeah I do think that's interesting. Wow. I don't at all. Okay well I would be
really interested to know if there's listeners from other parts of the United
States if Cliffs Notes were such a thing to your like 90s high school experience. Yeah let Sarah know.
Because I don't. As it was to ours. I mean we're only living you know 70
miles from Lincoln so that would make a little bit more sense of it end up being
regional but it's just really kind of thing. So anyways okay. Okay. What is it
that we're supposed to be talking about? Progressive overload. Oh yeah. The
gradual gaining of strength. I've never seen you geek out on something so hard. It's like
non-fitness related. That was some passion. Oh wow. Remembering I guess. That was wild.
That was really cool to witness. Wow. Okay so let's talk about progressive
overload. So you're right you're getting stronger over the course of time. Yeah.
Right you're continuing to try to lift more. Lift a certain amount. You can get stronger.
Lift that amount until you can lift the next amount. Right which is the the goal
to stimulate muscle growth. Yeah. Through strength gain. Through strength gain and
muscle hypertrophy. What is muscle hypertrophy? Muscle growth. Basically yeah.
Just making them bigger. Yeah. Okay so you kind of do this. Have you hit the point
yet where you feel like you've kind of hit like a wall at all in your training
or if you continue to grow up like in the amount of weight that you're lifting
each time so far? I've definitely been able to increase the amount I'm lifting
in some areas. Yeah. Yeah but I don't feel like I'm like super honed in on like
the way that I'm lifting is in a progressive overload. But you are
progressively overloading for yourself. I mean you're doing more every single
time right don't you think? Or has it been kind of hard to gauge it because
your workouts have been so different? That's why yeah and that's why I think
it would be easier for me to do a more consistent workout every week. Mm-hmm.
That's the same so that I can track that a little bit more. Mm-hmm. I think what
always ends up being like the biggest debate when people bring up the topic of
progressive overloading is at what point in time if people feel like you need
like a deload week or if you need something where you're kind of like
backing off a little bit or if it's this very constant you know upward
mm-hmm line like if your trajectory is just always supposed to be up and doing
more. I've seen videos of people where they do progressive overload they reach
a certain point they do a deload week and then will come back and then be able
to go heavier after that as we're like before the deload week they're stuck
where they're at. Yeah but what do you think makes most logical sense that if
you just kind of keep increasing it and then see how your body responds and then
if you hit that point where you kind of hit like a little plateau just listening
to your body and being like okay maybe this is the time to take us a week off
yeah and see how it goes. Yeah. I do know that there are people are people that
feel like they can report really like they feel that if they take too much of
a deload period that they'll lose a lot of their strength. Yeah which kind of
sounds silly to me. I mean I don't really know I think every person is really
super different with regards to how your muscles yeah maybe I don't want to say
hang on to strength but for lack of better terms I guess I don't know but
some people do feel like if they take a deload week or if they take too long of
one that they'll feel like they come back weaker instead of right at least
like lateral or whatever but I don't know I mean let's um let's talk about
this a little bit more okay just some some general workout plans increasing
strength increasing weight how long and get to those details are after this
quick break okay. Be sure to check out our website at nachofitnesscoach.com
where you can purchase merch and listen to all previous episodes. Okay so let's
talk about the specifics of this progressive overload concept. Okay yeah
that's what I want to talk about because you're not my fitness coach but your app
is yeah your AI. You're my friend. You really actually don't follow because you
just modify it. I'm doing the best I can okay okay so if we take a progressive
load training plan depends on your goal right oh as always as always I mean
that's just kind of like and of course consult with a physician or medical
professional if you have any questions about your own ability to be able to lift
your strength. We are not professionals. I'm not your professional. Make sure you talk to
your your qualified health care professional team. You're not a qualified health care health care professional. I am.
Oh I mean it depends. I didn't know you were in medical school. Is that the definition of a health care professional?
Well I will tell you what I'm a fitness certified professional I guess.
Does that count? That's not health care professional. You didn't go to
medical school? Health team. Here's what I do struggle with though is how many
reports that I will hear of medical doctors telling people not to lift
weights. That really irks me because unless you've got like screws or
something in your spine and even then even if you've had surgeries that you
need to be aware of like you're fixing injuries or surgeries over there's
still always a way. Maybe they learned something in medical school that you
didn't learn in business school you know what I mean? They didn't learn anything
about weight training. Maybe not. It's not part of the curriculum. Maybe not. Not much
about nutrition either. No I agree. Which is a kind of struggle but I do agree. I
would just say and I'm this is a bold statement but I would go as far to say
that if you have talked with a medical provider that is telling you that you
should never lift weights you need to go talk to somebody else. Okay well let's be
careful with. I'm just saying. Get a second opinion before you just go
writing it off altogether. Okay so all right so you're you're training a
progressive training plan progressive overload training plan can definitely
vary on your goals so but the overall goal of the plan is to try to get
stronger. Yeah. You're trying to lift more weights you're trying or like lift
more for each weight. Yeah. Put on heavier plates. See so I've run into this wall
where I'm doing I pretty much do dumbbell bench presses almost every time
I'm at the gym because I like doing them for some reason probably because that's
besides like squats or whatever that's like the heaviest weight I can do so I
like to do them. I'm at 25 pounds per arm. That's awesome. You should switch to
the barbell. I will someday but the next thing I want to do is go up to 30 pounds.
Yeah that's a big jump though. It is a big jump and I'm like 20 I've been doing
25 pounds for weeks and I'm like they're still hard. I can do eight reps but it
sucks and it's really hard and so I've never got to the point where I'm like
wow that was easy ish I could probably kick it up. That's a big jump I mean
that's that's a basically for you to go up from the 25 pound dumbbells at 30
that's I think I could do it but I also haven't tried to maybe I could. I would
strongly encourage you to consider barbells a barbell because a barbell is
45 pounds so you're already basically doing 50 with the 25 and 25. See I've
never done the barbell because it's not labeled so I don't know. I'm telling you barbell is 45 pounds. All you gotta do is text. All you gotta do is just ask 45 pound barbell because then what you
could do is you could just put five pound five pound plate on both sides and
that's only gonna be 55 overall so it's only an extra five pounds for both of
your arms. That's a two and a half pound increase versus the full five right that
makes sense yeah so you have a little bit more control over the kind of those
micro yeah plate measurements in between if you just switch to the barbell okay
thank you not that I'm giving out health and wellness advice because I'm not a qualified
healthcare professional but you know just in case anyone does care about my opinion
if I was in your shoes that's what I would do. If anyone's telling me not to
lift weights I would run and I would go find somebody that tells me how I can
fair enough so the goal obviously then is to gradually place that additional
stress on the muscles because you're trying to like the overall goal of
strength training is that you're trying to break them down yeah so they will
rebuild and come stronger over time yeah that's literally the point what it is
what actually that doesn't get mentioned quite as much is it also does increase
bone density when you're strength training and putting that extra stress
on so a lot of times you know we just did the episode about perimenopause
menopause a common thing that gets talked about a lot in that stage of life
is osteoporosis and people are always worried about their bone density yeah if
they fall their broken bones all the things strength training is a fabulous
way to start kind of counteracting against that thing as well so it's not
just about muscles yeah it's about bone density and just strength in general so
you know your goal then will be over time to do more so then the real
question is well you can also increase duration so it doesn't just have to be
about increasing the weight your progressive overload can also include
increasing duration which I would say is probably more relative to like
cardiovascular training yeah right if you're if you're getting started and
you're walking ten minutes on the treadmill and then maybe try to like
jog ten minutes or even if you're doing kind of intervals but then slowly over
the time you know yeah I'm gonna do more right and so that's about it I don't
know what my next thought is on it I mean because that's that's basically what it is but I do
think okay I know another thing that I've asked you before was once you can
lift a certain weight for a certain amount of reps and I know how you
answered this for me but let's just go ahead and talk about it is do you
increase the weight first or do you increase your web your reps at the same
weight so I am a huge fan of the 8 to 12 rep window and I like three sets
through that exercise two sets minimum like if you're if you've got a short
window that you're getting your workout in today and you can only get through
two sets your exercises that's like bare minimum yeah I most ideal in my opinion
is three sets through yeah I also like that 8 to 12 rep range yeah so my
opinion is that if you pick a weight and you are not able to get to eight reps
yeah you should decrease the weight okay you want to at least get to eight reps if
you pick a weight and you get to 12 reps and you definitely feel still strong
enough that you could do more yeah then you should increase the weight okay if
you're consistently getting to that 12 then increase it but only increase it
enough that you can still then try to at least get to eight yeah and then work
your way back up to that 12 once you're hitting that 12 then increase the rate
and just go through it from there and so I guess this is where I'm gonna run into
a difficulty with how I prefer dumbbells to other in what way because there's not
short increments in dumbbells yeah in which to like where you have barbells
you have the you know two and a half pound weights right you know generally
dumbbells are gonna be five pound difference yeah in between there is there
is actually like it's it's been kind of like on my radar but there was an
Instagram ad once that popped up that there were like these little microwave
plates that pop on yep to the dumbbells and like oh would some of those like
maybe be nice because it does it does give you the option to kind of like do
more like incremental adjustments yeah because especially when you look at your
smaller upper body muscles that you're doing a five pound difference is big
yeah it can be really big and so having maybe just one or two pound increment
yep might be helpful in a way to break a plateau or kind of slowly get smaller
or slowly get stronger without having to just make the huge jump up so yeah I
don't know maybe at some point I'll add those into the gym I don't know but the
barbells are great alternative because you can put those plates on each side
right my helpful words of advice though with adding barbells into your mix is
make sure you put the same amount of weight on both sides okay I know you
look at me like that's common knowledge these are always common I will just tell
you like people put different weights on there I'm just saying make sure you load
it the same on both sides yeah which is logical but here's my other trick or tip
not trick but when you're taking it off if you get to the point where you're
having you know a pretty good buildup of different plates on each side or like
you're squatting and you get to the point where you've got some big plates
on each side you go side other side side yeah alternate it because if you take
one side completely off it feels like common sense you know obviously you've
seen obviously you've seen some things captain obvious over here just saying oh
and if you ever go to move the barbell make sure you've got your clips on the
outside we've got a huge chunk they got taken out of our tile in the hallway at
the gym because someone was picking up the barbell with plates on it off of the
dumbbell like the per the bench for bench press yeah there didn't have the
clips on and when to go move it turned around in a plate went flying off the
side oh rolled and then plopped down on them so don't do that either secure your
weights people at the gym okay so okay wait that has nothing to do with
progressive overload just I also watched the dude the other day use one of the
flat benches and get up and leave didn't clean it yeah you know what I'm not the
right person to talk to about that situation oh no why I am NOT I am NOT a
germaphobe when it comes to the gym see I'm not a germaphobe either at all I
grew up though in the gym in the 90s where there was nothing that you wiped
down anything probably 30 years of sweat that was built up on the barbells that
we used in gym class growing up I mean I'm just saying there was not a
sanitizer I'm not a germaphobe either something about sweating all over a
bench and then just leaving it so now I'm you know there was sweat on the bench
because I saw the dude there was sweat well then just go for that you know that
did now I'm like well now I'm gonna clean it before I use it just do a pre
wipe I can't believe you're not more enraged about this I'm not that's gross
sorry and I don't find a lot of things gross to me as the gym yeah I also have
people that help like we clean the equipment like not that it was right
before I went to use it then I mean obviously I was using the bench I was
using and then he was using another bench and then before when I was
cleaning my bench I just went and cleaned his bench too I mean we have we
have helpers that we go through me clean the equipment you know between
whatever but not obviously for every person so wipe your benches that's
gross yes sure either before or after depending on your personal preference
definitely after for sure wipe your nasty sweat off that's gross okay so I think a big question
though when you talk about progressive overload though is if you should then
take breaks so right I mean like a D load yeah do you have a D load week do
you have it like you I don't point do you I mean I feel like everyone's
different with this question and I feel like you should just keep trying to get
stronger and if you have a week or a period of time where is you're just kind
of struggling then give yourself some grace to take a little bit of a break or
just go through a lighter lighter reps whatever else I mean I know in the in
the powerlifting world they are very very programmed and how they build up to
like competitions for example because they want to get their max lifts when
they go to compete so they have very rigid plans around their progressive
overload week yeah they're very progressive like overload because they
want to definitely maximize performance like at competition time and then
they'll probably back off for a little bit and then they'll have a plan for the
next one so there obviously depends on your goals right because they're they're
having goals that performance definitely matters but you know if you're just
lifting weights for general overall life I would say get stronger as much as you
possibly can right and then if you have a period time we're not feeling it or if
it's kind of plateauing you're kind of struggling just listen to your body and
back off a little bit and then get back at it yeah I'm still in a phase where
I'm really just trying to make going to the gym every day just a thing that I do
yeah and just so it's like taking a week off it's not a thing well and it's not
necessarily taking a week off but it's just taking like maybe instead of doing
a week where you're trying to actually add more weight in maybe you go through
and you do all your same exercises but you don't load them yeah you focus more
on form and just going through the body going through your emotions you still
are physically going you're still going through your workout yeah but you have
maybe a different plan with how much weight you're lifting or I just do it as
body weight that way you're still in that routine and that pattern of going
and you're I don't go for a week I'm not going back yeah yeah so you know a
deal of wheat doesn't mean lay on the couch then for like a whole week I mean
still get up a ghost don't move your body still go through the motions but
maybe you're not trying to push yourself to set world records yeah anything
Michael's own but yeah I mean I think that's overall so that answer your
questions about progressive yeah I think so I kind of get an idea yeah what a
plan could be yeah we've educated you on Cliff's notes and now you know you're
welcome the more you know that more you know it's great oh I think that I think
that's it for today I made the joke they call me Cliff's notes Kaylee that is all
you that's that will teach you to crack jokes on this podcast because you're
gonna send us down this rabbit hole I didn't know you're gonna never passionate
about I've never seen you so excited about something exciting oh wow all right
let's finish before this gets I just know I'm a big proponent of like let
people enjoy things I'm just gonna I love this for you I know what to get you
for Christmas now probably saw a box of them somewhere my house notes so you
know we'll find it if I've got them okay you're welcome all right that's all we
got for today we'll see you next time bye thanks for listening be sure to head
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