How often should you train a muscle group? It's a question that leads into the most important aspect of program design.
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Thanks for listening. When you're ready, here are three ways I can help you:
1. You can DM me on IG. Here's the link.
2. Get free access to my Training Program Secrets Mini Course.
3. Work with me 1-on-1. Fill out this questionnaire to see if we're a good fit.
I'm back
In today’s world, we have more accumulated knowledge available to us as individuals than entire generations did not so long ago. It’s great to have the world of knowledge at your fingertips but knowing how to make best use f it is another thing entirely.
Here are 10 guidelines/rules to help you read and understand fitness science.
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Website: luketulloch.com
How does your brain choose which muscle to use during an exercise?
The nervous system ‘matches’ the areas of the muscle with the best leverage to the task. But there are also individual differences, even when using the same exercises.
We don’t always recruit the same muscle or even the same muscle regions with an exercise.
This has been shown in studies. Different parts of the same muscle can grow asymmetrically depending on the exercise used.
The holy grail. Lose fat, build muscle at the same time.
Recomping is hard, but possible. The biological processes that grow muscle and burn fat compete with each other. The fastest way to lose fat is via a calorie deficit. Building muscle is fastest in a surplus. But it is possible to hit maintenance calories and do both. It's much easier under some circumstances.
Exercise selection is a rabbit hole. And once you've found your 'perfect' program - how and when do you change it? It's all about finding balance between personal preference, making progress, and optimising for performance over time.
Thanks for listening. Here are other ways I can help you:
Sign up for my Free Training Program Secrets Mini Course.
Follow me on Instagram (I lost my old account, by the way. The new one is @coachluketulloch).
I have a new instagram account: @coachluketulloch
I've been answering questions on my stories and thought I'd do a podcast to go a little more in depth on some of them. Enjoy!
Forget everything else for a second. This is the one thing you MUST do if you want long term muscle growth.
Progressive overload simply means training must stay challenging over time. It makes sure your training stays effective as you get bigger and stronger.
Why? Because it maintains the number of stimulating reps in each set as your progress.
The reps closer to failure are the most stimulating to muscle growth.
As you approach failure on a set, your brain recruits more and more muscle fibres to keep lifting the weight. The largest groups of fibres are saved until last - meaning the last few reps are stimulating the most muscle fibres and making them grow.
But unless you add reps or load over time, you'll start dropping these reps.
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As we approach muscular failure, muscle fibre recruitment goes up. This stimulates the motor units that contain the majority of the large, highly-responsive fibres to grow. So in simple terms, the idea is that the last 5ish reps before failure are “stimulatory reps” because they involve both full motor unit recruitment and a high level of tension.
But recent research indicates training to failure is not necessary. So should you train to failure? Are 'effective reps' a crock of shit?
Listen in and I'll give you my take.
One of my biggest frustrations with the fitness industry is confusing terms. Often there is a mix-up with technical definitions and colloquial use of terms - words like progressive overload, protein synthesis, fatigue, lean mass, intensity, failure/training to failure, hypertrophy, water, bloating, and so on.
In this episode I try to clear up what we mean by these terms, because it has implications for understanding messages in research and social media.
I challenge some conventional wisdom around injuries and touch on the biopsychosocial model of pain. There's a lot we can do to manage pain that doesn't involve training, posture, stretching and so on. I also give some practical ideas for using movement and exercise to recover from an injury.
Most of this information is inspired by and summarized really well in Greg Lehman's Pain Science Workbook.
Answering more questions in this episode.
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Training volume: why 10-20 sets per week isn't a perfect individual recommendation.
Circadian rhythm: how exposure to light, exercise, and food affects your daily physiology.
Coaching styles and self-efficacy: how hands on should you be as a coach?
Signals for muscle growth: there are several signals that converge to turn on muscle growth.
Matching training + nutrition: how calories and carbs should match your training
Programming similar movements: when do you need to think about resistance curves and why?
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My website: www.luketulloch.com
My Instagram: www.instagram.com/_luketulloch
In this episode I talk about:
3 critical aspects of a habit
Willpower and self-efficacy
Benefits and drawbacks of habits
Types of goals, breaking down goals and chunking
Intrinsic and extrinsic goals, and how to reinterpret an extrinsic goal
Welcome to another listener Q&A. You can submit your questions at the Google form here.
If someone prefers to eat more carbohydrates in his/her diet after setting up protein , what should be the fat sources for completing a minimum requirements?
I was just wondering if it’s important to have both a pre and post workout meal and what the timing windows are? I train at 6am and sometimes struggle later in the day as I use so many calories up before mid morning! Is this necessary and which of the two meals is a non negotiable ?
When building is it better to gradually increase calories (vs faster) to minimise fat gain?
Podcast: How much do you need to eat to grow?
How do you recommend sugar fits into macros? Just minimise it?
My question is - please can you talk me through how to brace your core for lifts? When i tense my abs for certain exercises it feels like my lower back is hurting and I find the lift harder.
Melbourne strength culture video on bracing
If going highly over on calories in a building phase for a couple of days and body feeling terrible, what would you do? Cut back a little for a few days?
Ask your question at the link below and I'll record an episode answering them this week.
Most people have no clue what actually causes training fatigue.
But it's important. It's a huge part of the training equation. If we can better understand where fatigue comes from, then we can better manage it - and that means faster progress.
For example, CNS fatigue is NOT caused by lifting heavy. In fact, higher rep training is much more likely to reduce the output from brain to muscle.
I explain this and much more in this episode. Enjoy!
Austin's back and he's got a new book coming out! We talk about the process of writing the book - how it forced Austin to delay gratification, to challenge himself, and to turn up every day. We also spent a lot of time discussing how to communicate online, how to ask better questions, and how challenging your own authority in the world can give huge insight.
There's a bit of us catching up at the start, so feel free to skip the first 10 mins or so if you want to get into the meat of the conversation.
Science of Strength Training by Austin Current teaches you the science behind strength training and how to properly perform exercise at the gym or at home.
Austin's links: Instagram - Linktree - Book's instagram
4 things I've changed my mind on! Join me as I talk through what changed my mind about these and how.
Here's what I used to think:
Nothing beats free weights for growing muscle and getting stronger...
Intuitive eating just meant guessing the macro content of your food instead of weighing it...
You have to eat hundreds of grams of protein per day to maximize muscle...
You can accurately give a specific target number of sets per week to do per muscle to maximize growth.