Should You Work Out Every Day? | Mind Pump 2965

The more you work out, the better the results, right? Wrong. We're going to talk about why you should not work out seven days a week. In fact, if that's what you do, you're not getting nearly the best results you can get. We're going to talk about it right now. Let's go. Do you think there's an example of where this does make sense, really? Good question. But I think what we need to do first, kind of set the context, is define the difference between a workout and activity because that's different. Yes. Because, uh, whenever, you know, I say something like this, like, you know, you only need to work out a couple of days a week or three days a week. People sometimes will send studies that show the benefits of, uh, frequent activity. Yeah. And, and, and, and there are tons of benefits. And so you'll see studies like this, like people who are active every day, live longer, have better health, um, better longevity markers, markers less chronic health issues like all the good stuff uh versus people who are who aren't active every single day and so people believe that to mean that they should work out every single day but there's a big difference so here's one of the main ways you can break this down a workout is aiming for a specific type of adaptation so when i'm doing a workout i'm either trying to get stronger or i'm trying to improve my stamina or my endurance or my mobility like i'm aiming towards some kind of a physical pursuit activity is just activity walking is activity so when you look at the studies on people that are active every single day what you're looking at are people who aren't sitting down all day long yeah people who are walking daily who are simply moving uh and that's very very different so what we're not saying here is don't be active every single day you should you should move every single day uh in fact if you sit down a lot even if you work out three days a week and the rest of the week you're just sitting down uh you would have lots of benefit from moving every single day that's totally different uh than a workout so i think that sets the context well and from that context where does it make sense or does it ever make sense for anybody really to train set workout seven days a week when you what you typically will see is with really really high level um athletes and and and we need to be crazy skill specific. Yeah, exactly. So you gotta be careful with that, right? First off, these are high level athletes, highly trained, great genetics. This is what they do. Micromanaged intensity. Yes. And all of their, their whole life is kind of geared towards this. This is what they do. Uh, so they're already in a different category than most people in terms of their ability or capacity to handle lots of workouts. Um, also they don't work out every single day uh what they manage intensity very carefully and a lot of it is just skill practice yeah so you'll often see like um figure skaters divers gymnasts gymnasts and really what they're doing every day is getting really good at their skill you have to practice the skill it's not just about being fit or being strong or having stamina it's really about maximizing and perfecting a particular skill so it'd be like um if you wanted to get really good at throwing a fastball what you would not do is throw hard fastball seven days a week i think i think i could say that i think a lot of people would identify with that enough people play baseball to know that's a terrible idea you'd hurt your arm you have a limited number of pitches even yes for your arm yeah but you could practice biomechanics and technique on a daily basis there's some days you would throw hard but most of the days you wouldn't okay well then let me reframe that for probably what 95 or 98 percent of all listeners that are listening uh then okay does it ever make sense for somebody who is working out for body composition change who is trying to lose body fat build muscle change their their physique in the the fastest most effective way does it ever make sense for that person to be working out seven days a week no uh no it doesn't not even um pro bodybuilders or high level bodybuilders who are on anabolic steroids, lift weights or really work out hard every single day. So those are both adaptations, right? Body fat isn't a fat loss and adaptation to being in a calorie deficit, building muscles is an adaptation to, to trying to build strength. Essentially it's the closest physical pursuit connected to it. And no, you can't because one of the main points is that workouts are a stress on the body. Like actual workouts are a stress on the body. And this is why the body adapts because your body's goal with a stress, with any stress, is as your body perceives a stress, it says, okay, that was not good. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to try to strengthen ourselves or bolster ourselves so the same insult is no longer a stress, right? So a good example is this, like, if I handle rough objects with my hands and my skin gets a little torn up a little bit, not too much, but enough to where my body perceives it as a stress my skin will eventually toughen and i'll develop calluses so that that no longer is a stress and the same thing is true with exercise and the thing is that we have a limited capacity for stress and by the way it is a stress like if you took i love this example because it's funny we know exercise is good for us but if we took uh you know if we took medical devices and we measured blood pressure inflammatory markers oh yeah we measured you know what was happening to the body you'd rush them to the hospital yeah and we didn't tell people you're working out yeah like nobody knew they would just saw all the markers they'd be like what's going on right now this is not good this person's undergoing a lot of stress well they're actually training really hard yeah uh it is a stress and you have a limited capacity for stress um and it's important to understand all the things that contribute to that we now individualize and customize MAPS program we've never done this before in the history of Mind Pump we've never been able to customize a maps program for everybody that buys one but we now have the software and we have the trainers so here's what you do go to my maps program.com and within one week you'll get on a call with a real person a real Mind Pump trainer who will deliver to you your own customized workout program go to mymapsprogram.com back to the show all right real quick if you love us like we love you why not show it by rocking one of our shirts hats mugs or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com i'm talking right now hit pause head on over to mindpumpstore.com that's it enjoy the rest of the show so well there's a you have a limited capacity of stress and then you also have a limited capacity at which will elicit the change that you want and desire from it because there's there's a there's a a limit to what you can um handle and then there's an appropriate or optimal amount too right those are also different yeah 100 which we'll get to so to use the skin example if I try to, if I'm trying to build a callus on the top of my hand, what would happen if I rub the skin too hard? I would just keep tearing. I would just tear my hand up. I would just bleed. Uh, and if I kept doing that, that's all that would happen. I would never give my body the, the, um, the, the chance, um, to adapt. And we do have a limited capacity. By the way, here's the things that contribute to this. Okay. So exercise is a stress. It's a physical stress in the body. Arguments with people is a stress. Stress at work is a stress. Lack of sleep is a stress. A poor diet is a stress. Inactivity can be a stress. Too much activity is a lot of stress. Lots of things can contribute to this. And so this is why it's real important to understand what you're working with. Because if you're a 22-year-old kid and you don't have a job, all you do is go to school. It's kind of easy. You can sleep as long as you want. Your mom makes your meals for you you don't got to really pay any bills that's very different and you're young it's very different than you're 42 years old you got bills you got a job you got kids yeah you got bad sleep because you know little timmy woke up last night twice or whatever um and your diet sometimes isn't as good plus you're 42 years old it's very very different very very different we also need to understand the difference between recovery and adaptation so two different things although there's a lot of overlap so you hear a lot of talk about you need to recover how the results you get are in the recovery kind of time, uh, where you're resting, but recovery is healing. Adaptation is above and beyond healing. Okay. So people, uh, this is important to understand because although there's overlap, I can get to a place where, um, I'm giving my body time to recover, but I don't give it enough time to adapt. And what that can look like is in the example of exercise is I get sore, I recover, I go to the gym, I get sore, I recover, but with no, no real improvements i'm using the same 30 pound dumbbells uh you know today as i used six months ago everything looks the same when i go to the gym no there's no improvements well what's what but i'm recovering but i'm really not adapting well this is a this is a classic example what i was alluding to right this is that you have you have the ability to tolerate this workout but it's not optimal for building muscle or burning body fat so what happens is because you can tolerate it and you're able to keep going and doing it monday tuesday wednesday and you're like i'm fine i'm I'm able to work out and do the things in my life. You assume that it must be okay or better, but the reality is you're stuck in this hard plateau and your body isn't changing, yet you're putting all this work in every single day. And that's because it's not the optimal amount. You're not allowing the body to adapt. Yeah, it's really crazy too. We would see this in gyms where, you know, managing gyms over the years, I would see these members in my gym that would get on like cardio machines and just work their butts off. Like they'd come in and they'd sweat and they were really trying hard or they'd come and do the group classes group x classes and intense and they work out they go real hard and you know i'd manage these gyms for years and so i got really familiar with my regular members and you would see these people come in and out and the same person showing up you know four days a week there he is you know four days a week there she is doing her thing and nothing ever changed nothing ever changed they look the same now they were able to tolerate the workout they were able to do it but they weren't getting any leaner their bodies weren't changing they were really frustrated uh that they weren't changing and they would come talk to me and even as a young trainer i'd get perplexed like oh what's going on why is this not working for this person yeah it's different when you start looking at the exercise more as the stimulus it's it's the one that's like presenting uh this environment that you're trying to overcome and and then you know you're actually building uh in the rest periods and you're you're building you know when you're recovering when you're eating when you're sleeping and uh and this is what's actually going to move you forward so that's why i like playing with intensity matters so much it's like where does that threshold lie where can i fully recover and maximize and then get past that healing phase where i can actually adapt well and because of all the other stresses you're talking about with sleep and it's it's so easy to tip the other way that's right because it's kind of a moving target it's not like this fixed like oh this is the right amount for me i can do this many days per week at this intensity this many this much volume it's like maybe that week and then you know like use your time example and fight with the spouse and you know demotion at work all back-to-back weeks and it's just like that now changed and so you know this is why and i mean obviously we're discussing why seven days a week is uh not a good idea but i mean this is why i think going the other direction so much further you're better off doing almost too little than doing too much and building on that then you are thinking like oh do more get better results earlier you talked about the perfect dose versus the max tolerable dose i think a good way to illustrate this would be like um you know what's the perfect dose for you to have energy from caffeine and then what's the most you could possibly tolerate before you know you got to go to the hospital what does that feel like one of them gives you energy the other one makes you feel horrible and you're shaky and you're like Right. And so when it comes to exercise stress, the perfect dose gets you the fastest results. This is what, this is the challenge that people have is they think that, well, if I get this many results at this dose, then if I double the dose or triple the dose, I'll get faster results. But that's actually false. Uh, it looks like a bell curve of results more than what is perfect. Uh, now requires more recovery and allows for less adaptation yeah okay so doing more than what is ideal for your body i'll say that again doing more than is ideal for your body requires more recovery and allows for less adaptation and what tends to happen with us is we push ourselves because we think the more we do the better you try to find that line and we find that line and we end up doing the max tolerable dose which is what we can recover from right but there's no adaptations that are happening and so we're kind of feeling burnt we're working hard we're in between why am i not progressing how many times have you guys had a client where you cut their the workouts down and they got better results yeah i mean how often does that happen it's strange but we know that to be the case with a lot of people that have that kind of mentality and i think the two biggest metrics with that it's the strength and the energy and so like you know is your strength like similar or moving forward you know that's always something i'm paying attention to. If I don't feel like I have it some days, I might be over doing it. I might be overwhelming myself a bit. I might not be recovering, you know, to the fullest degree, but then also, you know, am I charged after my workouts? People don't really consider that ever. They want to crush the energy. They want to really, you know, put it all and exert full, full born into their workouts. When in fact, a lot of times like, you know, maintaining it. So you actually charge yourself up and have energy is the way to go. Well, I mean, using your bell curve analogy, this is why I mean you're better off erring on the not enough or a little less side than you are on the other side of the bell. Let's say, based off my stress and levels, whatever, and stuff that two days a week worth of volume and intensity of workouts and training is on the lighter side for me. Three, it's perfect and optimal. Four, I'm on the other side of the bell curve. i would argue i'm better being under at two than going at four you got margin right yeah which is so it's like so think about it that way like that's if it looks like that where it's this bell curve and three is like the but just the right amount that's the right amount my body will get the most results and i then my body can tolerate to use or to reap the max benefits and i'm better erring on the side of two that i am going i'm gonna do even more at four yeah because they'll get even set you back yes so it's like i'm doing twice as much work to get less less results than i would airing on the more cost side which is hard for people to wrap their brain around it is but here's there's two reasons for that right one is uh the two days a week gives you some margin for stress so do do things happen in life yeah that you can't uh plan for necessarily account for that you can't predict that cause stress yes everybody listening right now knows is that like you have your week you know what's going to happen stuff pops up uh-oh extra stress uh that i got to deal with or the bad night of sleep or uh whatever so number one it gives you more margin number two when you overdo it you got to give your body time to heal so you can go back in that perfect place when i underdo it uh i can push a little harder if i need to so you're absolutely right there's also the other argument that you can make is that you you're not that you definitely aren't going to go backwards because that's right you're still progressing exactly because that's, that's still enough volume to maintain whatever you have accomplished in the previous building. So it's not, it's not like you're regressing. You know, we talk about the studies that show that, you know, you need one seventh, the amount of volume to maintain what you've already built. So a week where I'm erring on the cautious side of like, ah, you know, bad sleep a couple of nights in a row. It's been a rough week. It was like this, ah, this is, this is the week where maybe I'll, I just, I mean, I just went through this and let me tell you, it is hard when you're in a, when you're in a rhythm and you're, you're on, you're on your game i'm dieting good i'm training good like i'm actually i told you the other day like i'm like i'm back to like thinking about my workouts before i go to bed like i love that feeling it's a good it's a good place to be but also a lot of discipline to go man we just play two and a half hours of pickleball i trained early in that morning i've had multiple days where i'm burning 500 to a thousand more calories than what i'm used to burning i'm just i was super active way more than usual and i can feel how taxed my body i can feel it is taxed but man but oh man tomorrow is that day. I was going to hit this and I'm going to do that. It's perfect because I don't have to go to work and I can, to not train is hard. It is. And so these are the factors that you need to consider with your workouts that you can manipulate to help you achieve the right dose, right? So, and I'm going to list them in order of impact. Meaning if I'm trying to reduce stress on my body, I'm going to name three things and I'm going to list them in order by which one of them has the biggest impact on my body's ability to handle stress. So here they are. Intensity, duration, otherwise known as volume, and frequency. Okay, so intensity is how hard you train. That has the biggest impact on stress on your body. To the point where you could train seven days a week if you really knew how to modify this intensity. Oh, then it turns into just activity, for example. Or I could take someone off the street, and in 10 minutes, I could send them to the hospital if I train them hard enough, right? So intensity has the biggest impact on your body's ability to recover and adapt. Next is duration or volume, the length of time, the sets that you're doing, all the exercises that you're doing in your workout. And the last one is frequency, the amount of days that you work out. You can play with those. So to your example, Adam, you're like, oh, I got two nights of bad sleep. Boy, I'm really in the rhythm. I want to go work out. Can you go work out and dramatically reduce the intensity? Probably can. Could. And you'll be fine. Yeah. It would look more like a mobility or 50% of the load I would normally take in. And that's what it looks like. Something like that, right? That's right. And so those are the things you manipulate in order. In other words, when I need to cut something down, let me cut the intensity down first. And then after that, all right, let me cut the length of my workout down next. And then, okay, let me skip a whole workout and get rid of that frequency. But it's in that order. and those all three of those impact your body's ability to recover and adapt but it's intensity intensity is the one and this is the one that people hammer the most yeah people actually they're they're they're much more apt when they're really dedicated like really like man i'm i really want to get in shape like i'm gonna go beat the crap out of myself well this is misconception that intensity is really the only thing that's gonna like build you know your muscle like it's gonna break down your muscles and when in fact yeah like all these other factors matter and the The amount of volume matters. The amount of frequency matters. All that stuff is going to contribute to building muscle. This is another reason why I think the three-day-a-week full-body routine hits so well for most people is it really kind of controls a lot of this really well. It's hard to do a full-body workout and go really intense on all the muscle groups like that. You know what I'm saying? And you're obviously keeping the frequency down to three like that. And then your only total volume is a 50-minute to an hour type of workout. So it controls a lot of those. I think that's why. Generally speaking, it's why it does so well. well because it's there is an art to training seven days a week like that's why when you gave the first example was like super high level athletes and guess what they're not programming that ---- they've got and most of those super high level have got HRVs hooked up to them they got multiple coaches that are tracking the whole year's already planned yes they are like they are meticulous about how much they are pulling those pushing and pulling those levers the average person to try and gauge that. And like I told you guys, even myself, I had a couple of these days where my sleep score, I got good sleep, but my readiness score was still really low. And it was because I had just overtaxed my body multiple days in a row. And so even myself, my gauge would be like, oh, I got a good night's rest. I should be good to go again. Let me get after it. Real hard to gauge that and be on a day-to-day basis enough to where you could actually go to the gym. And we're saying seven right now, but I'm going to make the case five to seven, like five to seven days a week in the gym of workouts, hard, not necessary. And it's counterproductive for most people, especially if you're doing it for more than just a few weeks, especially hard, hard to know how to do that appropriately. Now, when it comes to fitness, these are the adaptations that you're going to chase, uh, with your workouts. Okay. So we, we talked earlier about a high level athlete, you know, when you're playing a sport technique plays a huge role, right? You can't just be fit. Like you can take a fit gym guy, put them on the basketball court. He's not gonna play basketball nearly as well as somebody who has a skill, right? So aside from skill, forget that we're talking about fitness. You're looking at strength and there's, there's a range of strength, right? There's maximal strength, there's strength, you know, strength, endurance, there's, you know, isometric strength but we're talking about strength then there's stamina this is endurance and there's different kinds of endurance right there's the steady state endurance uh which is like i'm running long distance there's the endurance that you get or you need to repeatedly exert yourself uh something like you would see at a soccer uh soccer game or even football you know requires a level of stamina because i gotta go hard and then break and they're harder than break type of deal and then you have something called mobility which is your ability uh to move stabilize your joints not hurt yourself essentially how you move in space those are the three kind of adaptations that you chase with your workout so when you're thinking to yourself work out not just activity activity just moving but when you're thinking yourself work out think to yourself what am i going after now if you think to yourself build muscle well strength is going to be the main thing if you're thinking fat loss that's mostly dietary although i'll make the argument all day long that chasing strength with a calorie deficit or diet for fat loss preserves the most muscle. But when it comes to the adaptations, strength, stamina, and mobility. And here's what we're going to do. For the first time ever, we've never done this before, you can get your own customized MAPS workout program. So we have many, many different MAPS workout programs, but all of them we wrote ourselves for a specific avatar, whether you're a bodybuilder, whether you want mobility, you want stamina, you want to work out at home, whatever. We have all these different programs that we created. We've never individualized a MAPS program until now. So now what you can do is you can go to mymapsprogram.com. You fill out a questionnaire, then we're going to put together an individualized MAPS program for you that a trainer is going to overview and talk with you about. So in seven days, you have your own individualized MAPS workout program. So John, if you're watching it's MAPS John, Susan it's MAPS Susan, it is a program designed specifically for you we've never done this before this is the first time ever we finally have the software and the trainers to be able to put this together so if you're interested in an individualized MAPS program a program designed specifically for you your goals your lifestyle the exercise equipment you have access to go to mymapsprogram.com we'll see you there all right i know you liked that episode if you did check this one out stop doing three sets of 12 to build muscle and do this instead you guys want to guess stop doing the three sets of 12 and do this instead uh with that intro my guess is you're going to tell people to change the rep range up to yeah five by five or low rep range you guys remember when you're going yeah so um oftentimes we get stuck in like a set count and a rep count or a range that's.