There's so much information that's put out there to help people advance their exercise
routines, or to help them get more out of their exercise routine, but there's very little
out there when it comes down to just beginning exercise information, like where do you start?
What should you be focusing on?
What's important nutritionally after you work out?
Basically, just the bare bones to get started.
I feel like everyone wants to put just this crazy good content out there, that's talking
about advanced techniques, but nobody's just breaking down the basics.
I'm Thomas DeLauer with Antler Farms, and I'm going to give you the breakdown on how
you might want to start out when you're getting started with resistance training, but also
incorporating cardio and lifestyle into the mix as well.
We'll touch on nutrition for a minute, too.
When it comes down to getting started in the gym, doing a little bit of resistance training,
things like that, you don't want to go into the gym initially and obliterate a single
body part.
Here's what I mean by this.
A lot of times you'll see people that set up periodizations, where they go to the gym,
and they work just their chest, or they go to the gym.
They work just their back.
You see, the thing is, this is a little bit more of an advanced technique, and requires
a little bit more in the way of neural adaptation before you can do that, so you'll probably
hear that training your full body is possibly the wrong way.
If you're looking at information on YouTube and you're watching videos online, you're
going to be convinced that you need to go in and hit one body part.
The reality is, I want you to go into the gym just three days per week.
You see, by going into the gym two to three days per week, but focusing on hitting your
entire body.
You're giving yourself a little bit more in the way of recovery, without having to completely
demolished one body part.
I encourage you to look at it like this.
You could go into the gym on Monday, and work just your chest, and you could do a lot of
volume of chest, right?
Then you can go to the gym on Tuesday, and work just your back.
Then you could go to the gym on maybe Thursday, and work just your legs, and then Friday your
shoulders, Saturday, your arms, okay.
Here's the thing.
By the time the end of the week has rolled around, you will have done just as much volume,
and just as much work on all of your muscles as you would have if you just went to the
gym and did full body three times per week.
We don't want to necessarily just look at how often you go to the gym.
You have to look at what is the overall metabolic load that you're placing on the muscle, so
I encourage you to look at this as well.
When you go to the gym, a lot of times people want you to just count reps., Hey, you should
do this number of reps for this number of sets, and we'll talk about that in just a
second.
But the reality is you should be focusing on how long the muscle is under some tension.
You see, rather than sitting there and counting reps, you should go until the muscle is fatigued,
or the muscle is tired.
Muscles don't really know how many reps you're doing.
They just know if they're under tension or not.
A lot of times they don't even know if something's heavy or not.
They just know that they're under tension, so rather than going to the gym and focusing
on keeping the muscle under a heavy load, focus on keeping it under tension, because
that's what's going to establish that strong stability that you really want with a muscle,
especially when you're getting started.
One thing that you do have to know is a simple periodization, and what a periodization is,
is basically the combinations of sets, rest, and recovery.
Reps are how many repetitions of an actual movement you do.
Okay.
Like if I go into the gym and I do 10 lifts, it's going to be 10 repetitions.
A set is the collection of those reps, okay?
One rep, or a set of 10 reps, right?
We want to know how many sets we should be doing, or how many reps we should be doing,
so what I'm explaining here with the time under tension method is, don't really focus
on the reps.
Focus on going to fatigue, going to failure, but you should still focus on the sets.
What I do recommend is you go into the gym and you do two to three sets for every body
part, okay?
That's it.
Two to three sets for every body part, with as many reps as you need to to stay under
tension.
You do this three times per week, and you're in perfect shape.
Then after your workout, this is where we want to sprinkle in the cardio.
After your workout, your body is in a little bit more of a glycogen depleted state.
This means that the stored carbohydrates, the carbohydrates that are stored in your
muscles, are used up a little bit more, which makes it easier for your body to tap into
fat stores, so that's the best time to do your cardio, because then your body's actually
going to recruit fat for energy, rather than just the carbs that are already front and
center.
You just do 15, 20, 30 minutes post workout, after your liftingm and you're in a really
great position.
Another thing that you need to focus on doing is two days per week, doing 30 minutes of
fasted cardio.
Right?
When you wake up, have some black coffee, or have something that gives you a little
bit of caffeine, and then go and do 20, 30 minutes of cardio.
When your body is in that fastest state, it makes it significantly easier for your body
to recruit fat as energy.
What I'm trying to do here is teach you the basics, so that you can not only get into
a lifting regime, but also burn the most fat for the buck.
I want you to be able to get results without having to put a lot of energy into it, at
least at first.
Then as you advance, you can evolve it a little bit more.
Nutritionally, there's some things that you really want to be paying attention to as well.
Right after a workout, your insulin sensitivity is very, very high.
What does that mean?
That simply means that at the end of a workout, you have a unique ability to absorb nutrients
in a very fast, powerful way, more so than normally, so this is a perfect time to be
consuming something like a whey protein or a pea protein.
When you look at Antler Farms, you see how their whey protein isolate is super high quality.
That's because it's actually from grass-fed cows, so you're not getting all the omega
six fats.
You're just not getting the bad stuff.
You're getting the pure protein isolate, so I do recommend that if you're looking for
a weigh, okay?
What that's going to do is that's going to actually get absorbed really fast when you
consume that after a workout.
It's really cool stuff, because your insulin sensitivity is so high.
It means that if you consume that, your body's going to absorb it, and it's going to stimulate
the recovery a little bit more.
We really want to focus on nailing our nutrition right after the workout.
That's the most pivotal time for you when it comes down to getting that recovery, at
least the beginning stage.
Again, as you advance a little bit more, there's different things that we throw into the mix,
and mess around with timing a little bit more.
But for all intents and purposes, being safe and being simple is going to be the best way
to get quick results when you're first starting out.
Lastly, you're going to want to make sure that you're taking care of your recovery.
Make sure that you're doing what you can to get adequate sleep, but also make sure you're
doing what you can to stay extremely hydrated.
The muscle recovery process takes a lot of water, and it's very easy to get dehydrated
and not even realize it, simply because your body's demanding more than an ordinarily does.
This should be more than enough to get you started and at least give you the motivation
to get in the gym and start something.
You don't have to slave away for hours.
You can be in and out in 20, 30, 40 minutes with some cardio, and remember, full body,
don't obliterate a single body part.
I'm Thomas DeLauer, and I'll see you soon.