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Workouts not really working? In this episode, Coach Kristen and I go over some possible things you're missing in your training for results. This one is absolutely loaded with actionable information that could potentially be the missing link between you and your goals!
To try a free week of my signature Fit for Hiking program to get you fit from the trails (gym AND at-home options) start HERE.
To try a free week of my signature Fit for Hiking program to get you fit from the trails (gym AND at-home options) start HERE.
For next level fat loss strategies, hormone/gut health help, serious performance goals and unparalleled support, apply for Mountain Metabolic coaching. Learn more HERE.
For more free wellness resources, hiking/travel guides, and other blog posts, check out my website HERE.
What is Fit for Hiking?
Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional in Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure, hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active looking to level up your health, unlock your potential and become inspired to live your most vibrant life. You're in the right place. You're listening to the Fit for Hiking podcast. 1s Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Fit for Hiking podcast. Today we are talking with mountain metabolic coach and physical therapist Kristin. She is an amazing athlete on our team and just a wealth of knowledge. So we're going to be talking about the one thing that's often missing from the average female workout routine. And this one thing is often the missing piece, I would say, for seeing physique change and actually getting results from our workouts. So if you're someone who feels like you're working out, you're doing all the things, but you're kind of spinning your wheels and not necessarily seeing the results that you want, then definitely tune in today. This is going to be a good one. So Kristin, thanks so much for being here. If you could just kind of explain our topic today and what exactly it is. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. This is definitely a topic that I talk a lot about with clients because they have lots of questions. So yes, in the general sense, progressive overload is kind of exactly what it sounds like. So you're increasing a stress or a load on the body over time, progressively. So it's not like all or nothing all at once. It's over time, over weeks, months and years. You're increasing stress or load on the body. So aka you're just gradually increasing the difficulty of your workout in some way. Which seems like duh. Obviously we would do that in our workouts, but I would say that like a lot of the common workouts out there, like workout classes or just workout programs and protocols aren't actually really implementing this in a proper manner. Would you agree with that? Oh, yeah. Not at all. Because people will get these workout programs that mean whatever it is that's programmed, but then it doesn't go anywhere. You still do the exact same exercise for the exact same reps and sets for months and months and months, or changing what workout you're doing every single time you go in. So there is no difference in load that you're putting on the body over time. Yeah, exactly. 2s So, yes, and it's worth stating that obviously some form of movement and exercise is better than doing nothing. And like if it's something that you enjoy and it gets you to move your body, then that's like number one, you need to enjoy what you're doing in order to really adhere to anything long term. So that's super important. What we're talking about is if you feel like you're stagnant in your workouts and you're really wanting to progress and see further changes, then this is something that you really want to take into consideration, right? Yeah. If you're like, Oh, I want to get stronger or I want to build muscle and you've been doing this for X amount of time and you don't feel any stronger and you don't feel like you built any muscle. Yeah, this is definitely the point, along with nutrition, but definitely the point that you need to touch on is the progressive overload. Yes. So let's dive into some questions, common questions that we kind of address with our clients typically regarding progressive overload. So I guess my first question for you would be. Have you always practiced this in your workouts? And if not, how did things change for you as far as your physique and progress when you did? Definitely. When I first started in the gym and lifting, I didn't because I was just kind of like your average person of, Oh, I need to get in the gym and just work out and move and do something. And it's I always say like, you don't know what you don't know. So I was just going in and kind of doing whatever it was whenever I wanted. And it wasn't until way later when I kind of started to have the thoughts of like, Well, why am I not seeing any muscle? Why am I not getting any stronger? That it really came into play. Yeah. So when I really started to focus on progressive overload, learning what it was and then implementing it, then I can actually go back and realize like, Oh, I've squatted way more than I would have a couple months ago or this lift or this weight is getting so, so easy now. And then you look in the mirror and you realize you're getting those body composition changes that everyone wants to see where you lose fat, gain muscle, that kind of like toned, quote unquote, that people say that they want that When you start to see that because you're actually building muscle with the progress. Yeah. And I really don't think that a lot of women have ever spent any intentional time trying to gain muscle. Like, if anything, it's like I want to do fat burning workouts, whatever that actually means, right? And that's by the way, that's like not a real thing. So instead of just actually trying to put muscle on our bodies, which has so many benefits, but I think it's intimidating or it sounds like then you're just going to immediately look super bulky and masculine, which is very much not the case. So it's important to kind of break down that stigma of it. So, okay, if someone's listening to this and they're like, okay, what does that actually mean for my workouts? What are some practical ways that listeners could apply this in the workouts that they're currently doing? So there are five main ways that you can do progressive overload, and you don't have to do all of them at once by any means. So one of the five essentially one is that you can increase the weight that you're using to that you can increase the reps or the sets. Three, you can decrease your amount of rest. So two minute rest periods, 62nd rest period, 45 seconds, etcetera, fluctuate that you can increase or decrease but increase the frequency. So things like if you are really looking to grow your legs or your biceps, your triceps or whatever it is, increasing frequency instead of one time a week go to twice a week etcetera, and then intensity. So this is the one that's definitely the most. Nuanced people really tend to not know what to do or understand with. Those are things like performing eccentrics or holds and pauses. Increasing that time under tension, increasing range of motion during an exercise. So those are the five main ways that you can introduce progressive overload. Yeah, and I feel like with that last one, when people hear intensity, they often think about going faster, when in reality, oftentimes it's with lifting, it's slowing the movement down. Like one of the first things I asked, when clients say that their workout felt easy is I want to ask like, have you been increasing your weight? Is there room for you to increase? And also, like, how fast are you going? Because it's actually going to make the movement a lot more effective When you increase that time under tension and you slow the range of motion down significantly. And I think that that's something that a lot of like workout culture and like classes and things like that are just like all about speed, all about like go hard work out as fast as you can until you feel like you're going to puke. And then that's what intensity means. Yeah, Yeah. And it's definitely humbling when I do have clients start to slow things down or add in a hold or a pause or an eccentric for them. In almost. I feel like sometimes it discourages them because we're like, Well, I can't do the same weight now. Like, that's not like that's the thing, though. Like, it's okay, I want you to back down the weight, go slower, add this stuff in because that is just training the muscle in a whole different way. So it'll feel weird when you start to do that one especially, but you will see arguably more progress with that one specifically than like any of the other ones. So true. And will you explain what an eccentric is so that people who are hearing this and or maybe not super like exercise savvy know what the heck we're talking about? So eccentric refers to like the lowering or the lengthening portion of a movement. So the easiest example is always a bicep curl. So when you bend your elbow, you perform the bicep curl, you're shortening the bicep, so you're contracting the biceps. Well, when you lower the weight down, you still have to use your biceps muscle or the weight just falls out of your hand and your elbow just straightens out. So that's the eccentric part. So lowering the dumbbell down out of a bicep curl, lengthening that bicep, that's an eccentric. So things like lowering down into the squat, that's your eccentric standing up out of a squat, that's a concentric movement. That's where you're actually shortening the muscles. Yeah, I love using this with clients, but also just if I'm like short on time and I want to get like a quick bang for my buck type of workout instead of doing what I think a lot of people think is like an effective fast workout, which is like just doing hit or doing like really fast paced movements. I actually like to do eccentrics because I always feel like way more effective workout, even if I'm only doing 4 to 6 exercises, but really taking my time through that lowering phase. I always get more out of that than I do, just like trying to bust through a super fast paced workout. Personally. Yeah. Any tricks can get you saw as heck. So that's normal. 1s Yeah. Likely your first time like dabbling with that, that's for sure. Okay. So what are some signs that progressive overload isn't being utilized enough in somebody's workout program? Like what would be a red flag of like, okay, maybe I'm not doing this the right way. 1s Basically like kind of like you said, if someone keeps coming back and they're like, this is just easy. Like they're saying it's easy or they're getting bored sometimes. So again, if they're not progressing, if they're not seeing those changes and they're bored with their workouts, it again, it's probably because it's too easy. And if you're not seeing progress, you do generally get a little discouraged with what you're doing. Yeah, so it's like getting bored within a workout or if it feels super easy and then on like just the objective standpoint, if I'm looking at their training programs or they're telling me, you know, whatever they're lifting and I'm like, Well, you haven't changed your weight or anything this entire time. Yeah, that's a sign that we're not overloading much. Yes. Yeah. Especially when they come back and they're like, Well, don't feel any stronger. Like it kind of all feels the same. So if they're just generally not feeling stronger or they're getting bored or things are too easy. Yeah, yeah. Whenever someone's about to sign up for the mountain metabolic program, if they only have like a few weights at home, I always preface like, Hey, our goal is that you're not even using those weights anymore in like a few weeks or months. Because if you're consistently using the exact same weights time and time again and I've seen this so many times in working in fitness for a decade now, like, yes, there's going to be certain exercises that's harder to progress. So for instance, certain muscle groups like your shoulders, triceps, biceps, you're going to probably progress more slowly because they're smaller muscle groups. Then your hamstrings, quads, glutes, chest and back. But you still want to really look for small incremental changes in the ways that you're using over time. Yeah. Yep. And that's when you can like I said, it's like one of those five things that you can change. That's when it becomes a little bit more important to is what you're changing for. Your squat might be different than what you need to change for your lateral raises, for, you know, for your delts because you're not going to be able to progress. Smaller movements, like you said, like you can a squat or a deadlift just because you're using so many more muscles in those movements. So being able to understand like which which things you can do for progressive overload and how to interchange them is super important. Absolutely. Yeah. So a term that often goes hand in hand with progressive overload is periodization of workouts. So people might have heard that term as well. What does period periodization mean and how do you do this for yourself or for your clients? Periodization is typically how you're changing the volume and intensity of your workouts, essentially. So we kind of all know you have different rep ranges for specific goals. So if you have a smaller rep range that typically is into a strength goal, if you have kind of that mid-range rep range 8 to 12, that's like your hypertrophy, you're actually trying to grow the muscle, um, higher volume and lower volume, getting into more sets or less sets. So that's a periodization is just a way for you to build in progressive overload. So say for 4 to 6 weeks you're in a strength based period. So meaning your rep ranges are probably anywhere between 1 to 5 at most and you're really just working on strength. Well, you can't just keep doing that forever and ever and ever. When you need a little bit of variety in that you need, again, that strength base. If you want to grow muscle, you're not going to essentially grow muscle in that phase. You'll get stronger. So you just need to move into a different phase. So then over the next 4 to 6 weeks after that, you build in a different type of program where you increase your rep ranges, increase your sets or volume, and then again, maybe you need like a load. So then you go down and you need a load and you decrease your volume and that helps explain what a load is real quick. Die load is essentially decreasing intensity of your workout. It helps the body reset a little bit. So if you're really if you've really been pushing the weight or you're in a cut, especially something like that in your body needs a little bit of a break or like a little bit of a reset to be able to get back to doing what it has been doing. A load just helps decrease the volume of what you're doing to help kind of reset the body. So a lot of times you can either reduce how many days a week you're working out. You can reduce the amount of sets or reps that you're doing to like 50% of what you were doing before, or even just decreasing the weight that you were using by kind of like a 50% range. That can vary a little bit. But yeah, that's building in going through those phases just automatically builds in progressive overload for you. So now when you did your strength phase, then you moved to have a trophy phase and you move to like a load and then you go back to a strength phase, you're going to notice you are much stronger in that phase once you return back to it. Yeah. And it kind of naturally adds in both variety, you know, it's like a cyclical format, but you're also getting that structure, which I think is what a lot of people lack. It's just like they're either really good at the random workouts where it's just like every day is different. Maybe they're on Classpass or like just doing these like random YouTube videos or whatever. Or they do the same thing every single time. It's like usually one or the other, like out of familiarity or just out of like, Oh, I get bored easily, so I'm just going to do something random. So this is kind of like the best approach to actually get results, have the structure, but still mix in some variety so that you're not just working in the exact same rep range for the rest of your life and the same weights and all of that. Yeah, yeah. Because you can still improve, like you can still improve your sport strength by adding in different exercises. You don't literally just have to squat to increase your squat. So that's important too, is it's like structure, variety. It's exactly what it is and it can lead to improvements. Yeah. Which is exactly why having a qualified coach is so helpful because this stuff can be kind of overwhelming. Like it's a lot to try to piece it together. If this isn't your forte, if this isn't what you studied, and if you have a life that's mentally demanding in other ways, taking out that guesswork of like, are my workouts even doing anything? Like there's nothing more frustrating than going to the gym or doing your workouts and wondering, are they actually doing anything for you or not really seeing results over time because you feel like you're just wasting your time, essentially. So having something that does take the guesswork out for you and you can just show up and do the things is really nice. Yeah, yeah. And I build this in exactly for my client. So I will tell them, you know, whenever they're getting a new program, like, Hey, you're going to notice I decreased your reps this month, I decreased your sets this month. This is because we're going into a strength phase or you're going to notice your rest periods are much shorter. This month, we're moving into a different phase. So like, well, you know, I do all that for them and their programming and tell them you're going to notice this is different because we're working on this now. Yeah, that was kind of aware and soreness and things like that definitely vary between what you're doing, so they'll come back and be like, Oh my gosh, what did you do to me during that work? Oh yeah. 1s Like that's a normal it's a new novel movement, something you probably have not done and some phase that your body is probably never been in before. Yeah. New stimulus for the body. Yeah. So how would you say all of this applies to someone who maybe has more of a fat loss goal or like Body Recomposition versus having a strength and performance goal? To be honest, it doesn't have to vary that much. Um, you you don't really have to change your training all that much during a fat loss goal as compared to a strength or performance goal. Now, if you specifically are like, I want to get stronger. And that is my only goal. Then, yes, we're probably going to keep you in some actual strength phases, a little bit more that might look a little bit different, but I would never take you out of a strength or hypertrophy hypertrophy phase or anything because you are going to lose fat in that phase. Yeah. Training truly doesn't have to change. You still want to focus on building muscle and building strength through every single phase because really that's where that body recomposition comes in. Yeah. If your nutrition is on point and whether you know you're in a deficit or maintenance or surplus, that's where things are really going to matter in terms of what what your body is looking at, like fat loss wise. So if you're in a deficit, you're going to lose the fat. But if you're still focused on strength training and growing that muscle, you're going to notice body composition changes for that reason. Yeah, this is like one of I think the biggest misconceptions with exercise is like people think that you need to do specifically like fat loss workouts and that they should be like sweatier faster, more cardio based, all these things when in reality, like you could do the exact same workout program as someone and you could gain weight while they lose weight depending on how you're eating, like if you're eating accidentally in a surplus. Or just not consistently in a deficit like your calories are just all over the place and you're really sedentary outside of your workouts. But they have been dialed in with a consistent deficit and like have really good non exercise activity thermogenesis throughout each day. Then they're going to have totally different results than you And like, yes, you might have the same performance results, but the body composition is going to largely depend on muscle mass, that you have steps that you're taking in the day and nutrition. And I think that this is something I just want to shout from the rooftops because it's just understood. So like an easy way to look at it is that your your workouts are going to more so determine the shape of your body, like how much muscle you have versus fat and how you're feeling and your strength. Whereas your nutrition is going to more so affect the size of your body, right? If you're eating small amounts versus large amounts, that's what's going to dictate how your body is going to either grow or shrink size wise. So I think we give way too much credit to exercise for fat loss. And and as a personal trainer, like that's just the facts Like a lot of people don't successfully lose weight despite working out for years. Yeah, yeah. That's what clients when they are ready for a cut and they're asking me because they're like, okay, well what does this look like? What changes? And I'm like, Literally nothing changes to your workouts. Yeah, exactly. Anything different? Like, you know, we'll slowly decrease some calories, will increase some steps. We're going to start there. You work out, stay exactly the same. Like nothing changes. Yeah. And like, reason being, we don't burn nearly as many calories during our workouts as we think we do. Like, those calorie calculators are so off and think how easy. I mean, even if you did magically burn like 6 to 700 calories, like you went on a super long run or whatever, I think how easy it is to drive up your appetite because you did that and now you can very easily with like one meal, eat back all of those calories. And we often have that mentality after we do a super long, sweaty calorie burn type of workout that, well, I earned it. And most people end up completely like negating that exchange. So it's just not an effective form of weight loss. And it will leave you kind of spinning your wheels and feeling like, what the heck, I'm putting so much effort in and I'm not getting the results that I want versus if all we manipulate is the calorie range that we're working with and the steps that we're working with, it's such an easier approach that will actually yield results without you being in this cycle of like working so hard and then eating it all back because you're freaking hungry because you worked so hard, right? We're spending like you're ever and ever in the gym and. Yeah, exactly. And with the workouts, what we want to focus on during a cut is maintaining as much muscle mass as possible because you don't want to be losing equal parts, muscle and fat in a cut. Your muscle is your metabolic tissue. It's so important to hang on to that so that we're minimizing the metabolic adaptations that happen during a cut. So that's something that we focus on big time in our strategy with mountain metabolic coaching, for sure. Okay. So what kind of success have you seen implementing progressive overload with your clients in Mountain Metabolic? Yeah, honestly, my clients respond very, very well to it. Like I said, I try to keep them pretty informed with like every phase we're going into, like telling them we're moving into this phase and this is why and mean I consistently, probably every week with check ins, at least a couple clients are like, I feel so much stronger, I feel so much stronger. I can lift so much more. I can notice this lift is getting easier and better. That's more than what I was doing before. Like they went back and checked with weight that they were using before. So it takes the guesswork out from them, but they still notice it week to week to week that they are getting stronger and lifts are getting better and lifts are getting easier, which is exactly what you want. Yeah, that's the coolest. And I think just having that guidance is crucial because it's like I said, it's so frustrating to do the things but never really see that sort of progress. And I think even just having someone to tell you like, Hey, you don't have to do these like crazy intense workouts to see results is very validating because a lot of the clients that come in are like exhausted, they're burnt out. They've been doing like hit style workouts for years or even like things like CrossFit or classes that are just really on the intense side. But they don't feel good, like they feel rundown, exhausted, like they're always sore. And that's a good sign that, like, what you're doing might not be great for you in this season of life. Like it's time for a new stimulus. It's time to maybe slow things down a little bit and give your body something different. Yeah, it's always a good point to make, to which I have to tell clients as well. Like sometimes they'll come back in their check ins and say, You know, this lift is still really hard. I feel like it's not going anywhere. Like I don't feel strong or like this week I felt really weak. And, you know, I say like, that's okay. You're not going to progress in every lift every week. That's not the point. Yeah, that's another point to make. The point is not that literally every single week, every single lift, you were able to do more reps, more sets, more weight, more everything. Yeah, it is. Over time, you want to see the trend over and months. That you are, you know, lifting more, adding more reps, adding more sets, etcetera. So that's what sometimes again, I think it's it helps as the accountability as a coach when they come back and they're like, well, I felt so weak this week and I'm like, That's okay. Sometimes you move, sometimes some weeks you just can't you can't go up for a hundred reasons. But yeah, but again, being there to say like, okay, but look at how you were doing last month compared to this month, like that's a huge improvement. That's the trend that we want to see is that, yeah, you are trending up in all of these things, so every lift won't get better every single time. Yeah, if you think about it, like even a savings account or something like what you want to look for is like, you know, every few months, are we saving more than we're spending? And yes, there might be a week where you're having to spend more because something happened and you got to throw some money towards it or whatever. If you're only looking at like the day to day, week to week, it can feel defeating. And same goes with like fat loss progress or any goal that you're working towards. But if you look at even like quarterly progress, you want to see those trends exactly like you said. And I think that that's a helpful mindset shift so that you don't constantly feel defeated if every single week isn't your week because it's not going to be there's going to be times that you're exhausted. Maybe you have young kids and they're sick and you're just like not sleeping or you're on your period that week and energy's low or you're sick or whatever it might be. So you can't let those types of situations defeat you. We just want to look for that progress over time. Yeah, and sometimes when they get into that, that's also a cue for me to ask them about their form, because sometimes I feel like I can't progress this lift. I'm like, Well, maybe we need to look at your form because that's a whole that's a whole nother thing and that's a whole nother point to progressive overload too. Maybe you aren't going up and rep sets and weights, but maybe from week 1 to 4 your form improved significantly. That's progress in itself. Yeah. So that's a whole other thing to look at. If someone is starting to say, I feel like I'm not getting stronger, I feel like this lift isn't getting any better is to always check the form to or like range of motion. Like I have a client who. Has always hated Bulgarian split squads. If you've done them, you might. Like love, hate, relationship, mostly hate. And she was talking to me about how she's like, Well, I just feel like I've still barely progressed in my weight. But she was like, but I can like get my knee pretty much all the way to the ground now and before, like, I was nowhere, even close. And I was like, Well, that's huge progress. You're getting way more out of every single rep, even if you have no added weight. So those all of those little things really do add up. Yeah, they definitely do. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on today. If you guys are resonating with what we're talking about and you're interested in working with Kristin, she's such an amazing coach. All of her clients love her. So you can message the fit underscore for hiking Instagram page and just say strong in all caps and we will get on a call with you and link you with her as your coach. You can also check out the application in the show notes. If you want to just kind of start that process. Nothing's set in stone. You can always like talk with us and see if it's a good fit. But if this is something that you're feeling like you need some help with, then definitely fill out that application or send us a DM and we'll get you pointed in the right direction. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on, Kristin. It was so fun to talk with you about this. Yeah, thanks for having me. All right. Bye, guys. We'll see you in the next episode. 1s Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Fit for Hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands for more content like this. Be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail underscore on a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking and find more free resources at ponytail on a trail happy and healthy trails.