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 over to our Instagram at nacho fitness coach and let us know how you feel about the topic do you love it or hate it also don't forget to hit that subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening and if you like our podcast leave us a rating see you next time you've been listening to euphony innovative sonified