Episode 96. Get strength results in 10 minutes, why you should do difficult things, how to build muscle & more.

Episode 96. Get strength results in 10 minutes, why you should do difficult things, how to build muscle & more.

This week we discuss new technology that could allow you to get the desired results in 10 minutes!

We explain how the more often you do difficult or challenging things, the more confident you feel doing other difficult and challenging things.

Listener question #1: What sort of diet and workouts should I focus on if I want to gain muscle?

Listener question #2: how do I stop skipping gym sessions and eating the foods I know I shouldn’t

“The more often you do difficult or challenging things the more confident you feel doing other difficult and challenging things”

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What is up everybody? Welcome back to the number one health, fitness and entertainment podcast, Insitu Collective. My name is Jack Graham and I'm macaracas. On today's show, we are talking about your personal goals. We've had a lot of questions this week relating to building muscle, losing fats, gaining strength. So we're just going to cover all those topics, so make sure you listen to the end. Because we got we are entering a lot of different questions in this episode, and I'm sure you've got one of the same questions.

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Before we get into today's topics, I just want to say a big congratulations to our one and only in situ collective. Athlete. Kathy Gabriel. So a couple of weeks ago now, about a month ago now, yeah, we had Kathy on the podcast talking about her life journey and what has led her up to the Mongolian Derby. If you if you don't know what that is, please go to Facebook or Instagram. Top in Mongolian Derby, which is a horse race and they've just finished Kathy's come tenth out of about 50 competitors, which is amazing. Yeah, that's crazy considering last time she did this she. Didn't even finish. It's that hard of a race. So go and have a look at some of the photos. It's absolutely amazing landscape and the horses they ride. It's just unbelievable to see and it probably feels like to her she's been training for an eternity because it got postponed for two years as well, doesn't it? So usually COVID, yeah, as an athlete you only have to like you can see a small window of months that you have to train for, but she's been going for two plus years now. For it to happen, yeah. And definitely go back and listen to Kathy's episode. It was probably one of my favorite episodes, just the takeaways you could get from it. Like I said in that episode, it inspired me to sort of do some more. Challenging things in life. So I'd reckon that you'll get something out of it as well. So go back and have a listen to that episode. And make sure you head over to Kathy's socials. Yeah, for sure. I have a really good quote that links directly to Cathy's episode. OK yeah. So in Kathy's episode, she talked about how like the challenges that she's faced in life have essentially made her a better person and got her to do more challenging things. So the quote I have created by yours truly, the more often you do difficult or challenging things, the more. Confident you feel doing other difficult and

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challenging things. That. Yeah. Yeah. Comprehended. Yeah. That makes perfect sense for that episode. Yeah. So I think this came to me maybe at the end of last semester of uni. I think I said it to you when we were walking around narrow Wally one evening because say 12 months ago, I would never. Let's go. Two years ago I would never have thought that I would be able to do uni and business things as well as all the other things like exercise often, eat well, hydrate, sleep enough, look after two dogs. I don't know you know, just live as well as study and then have a business. But I said to Jack that the more you need, the more units it uni I do and the more highly I grade. I think the easier it seems for me to want to take on challenging things like three years ago when we started the business, I would never have thought of doing. Half the things that we do now, like this podcast for example, can be challenging and in the beginning was extremely challenging. But definitely the more things that I do that are hard for me at the time, the easier, harder things are later on. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. And I think that goes for the gym. Having a routine, eating well, like all of those things, if you don't do them, seem extremely hard, sometimes almost impossible. But just know that the more of them you do, the easier, the hardest things will be and the more consistently you do them as well. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, it just puts things in perspective, I guess when you do things that seem very out of your reach and then you achieve them and you're like, oh, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be going to the gym, but joining a fitness class, anything like that, and everybody listening could take the time now just to look back over your life and

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think of things that you now do. That you thought once were hard, everybody's going to have something. Yeah, you're doing something now in your life that you once thought was hard and you wouldn't be able to do, whether it's big or small, whatever it is, there's something there so you can do it. It's just a matter of time and effort. Even a workout like last night. I really, really hate training legs. Like, I hate it. I hate it so much. I always have, but I think now I hate it less and every time I train like I do. We started a new program this week and last night was just legs, which we don't normally do. Usually we do full body right, but it's just so rewarding. It's far more rewarding at the end of a leg workout for me than it is at the end of. Full body workout or an arm workout, because I'm fighting with myself for the whole hour to keep going and not change it. But every time I finish it, I feel so much more mental reward than I would for any other kind of workout. Which is just. I just keep thinking about that while I'm doing it as well because I just know that I'm going to feel a lot better about myself once I finish it because it's hard. Yeah, I think that's just something super important to keep in mind when. Anything with life, not even just health and fitness? Yeah, definitely.

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What if I told you there was a machine that you could get all your strength and resistance training done in 10 minutes and get better results, better results than training for an hour? Say yeah. And you only have to do it. You have to do it half the time of what you normally do for. Traditional resistance training. I like when you said it, I was like, like that's what my initial reaction was because I like going through the motions of training for an hour. And I just don't know. It wouldn't. I just don't think it would be as rewarding. So yeah, I agree. And the reward and everything goes into it. And This is why I don't think it's gonna work. Look, technology is going to catch up. So for those listening, if you go into Google and type in like cable squat machine or belt squat machine, it's those big things where you sort of get into it. You put the belt around your hip and there's a cord going into the machine, like straight down. So you've got resistance on the way up and on the way down. So it's hard in both directions. This machine is very similar to that, but it's also incorporating artificial intelligence, so AI, into working out the perfect resistance for your body, so you have to do less reps. And you have to spend less time doing it because. It's the perfect amount and I'm using quotations here. Perfect amount of resistance on your body and your muscles to build strength. Now here's where. I think it's not going to really work. Too much else goes into it. Yeah. The It's just, if I said to you, here is a pill, you take this pill and you're going to get the body you want the next day. Yeah, you'll get the body you want, but. You're not going to be happy, you're not going to be fulfilled or anything like that because you haven't done the hard work. You know, you haven't built the resilience of going to the gym in the morning when you really don't want it,

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or it's cold and it's raining. Yeah, going for run, all that sort of stuff. So I believe all that is strength. Not just the muscles, if that makes sense. So you mean more like of the mental strength rather than just the physical strength? I think mental strength is a lot more. Plays a bigger part in it than just muscle strength. Yeah, I agree. And I also think if you have the pill or you have the machine to get the results and do half of the work, are you going to, I guess, respect the results in the same way? Exactly. You're not going to have the same confidence or be as proud or want to look after yourself in the same way that doing the hard yards does. I guess when you get to that point, yeah, that's what I mean. You have a. Stronger mind and a stronger mind to do the things you need to, to be a healthier person. Yeah. Where if you just jump on this machine for 10 minutes, yeah, you get your muscles are gonna get stronger. You're gonna get strong, like physically stronger, but the mental aspect isn't there. Yeah. And that is just one thing. That is, just get like a machine or a I can't replace. No. And I think. Yeah. I don't know. It's just, it just feels so silly to me. Like, why are we so obsessed with aesthetics? You know, like, why are we so obsessed with, like, people? Most people go to the gym because they want to look a certain way, you know? So that's what scientists and foundations and stuff fund because that's what people are going to buy. They're just missing the big picture. They're missing the whole point. Yeah. So this machine, they talk about it in Tony Robbins new book, The One about longevity. So this machine is like we know now, 100% without fail. Strength plays a big role in longevity. Yes. Like, no doubt

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about. Yeah. Like, you can catch yourself from falling when you're older. If you do fall, you don't break as easy because you've got strength surrounding your muscles, your ligaments, tendons, all that sort of stuff. So we know strength is vital for longevity and that's where this machine is sort of coming into it and. Oh, so it's more for longevity purposes. That's like their sales pitch or well, I haven't seen any sales around it, but that's where I've sort of heard about it and read about it for longevity. But obviously, yeah, you're gonna look better if you train and strength train anyway. In general, without the machine you mean. Whatever. Yeah. The stronger you are, the more muscle you got, the better you're going to look, yeah. But what does that have to do with longevity? The more muscle you have, the longer you live. I'm just saying they're sort of one of the same. Yeah, I was. I was reading a study the other day about also Alzheimer's disease and strength training and how if you exercise for an hour, say three to five days a week, I'm pretty sure the percentage was. 38% reduces your risk of Alzheimer's disease by 38%. If you exercise for an hour a day, five plus days a week, it reduces your risk of Alzheimer's disease by like 64%. So just having muscle and just being strong isn't going to have that same effect as like, exercise actual exercise is. I don't know. It just seems crazy to me that you would skip all of the other benefits that you get with it just for aesthetic purposes. Yeah, well. Obviously with that machine, you're replacing pretty much a whole workout with just a couple of exercises. So you know when you're going through a workout, you're thinking about your muscles contracting, the weight you're lifting, what's coming up next, how you're feeling during the movement, that mind, body connection, all

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that sort of stuff. And I feel like you just would lose it with that machine. Yeah, like maybe you'll be strong and that does have some benefits, but you feel like you're losing 50% benefits that exercise brings.

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Talking about building muscle and building strength, I had two questions this week about that topic. One from a female and one from male. Well, that's good. Yeah. So not just both male, all males. It's not only males that are trying to build muscle. Yeah, it's also females because it is very important. So I thought we could just discuss these people. Basically asked me what diet plans or what diet should I follow and what workouts should I be doing to gain muscle? What's the question in general? So I thought we could discuss that a little. Yeah, sure. You want to go first? It's a very hard question to answer. In a broad sense. Yeah, like age, gender. How long have you been training for? You know, how much activity do you do during the day? It's all that sort of comes into play on how I would answer the question. It's not just a simple do this and you'll get this, yeah. But simply, I'd just say for diet. Let's start with the diet and then we'll go into the training. I'd say focus on protein intake. We always say that. A general. Amounts that you should be taking in is your height in centimetres? So I'm 182 so I aim for grams of protein per day. Yeah. And quality matters. Yeah, I feel like we bang on about quality all of the time. But obviously if you eat **** protein then your body doesn't absorb it or use it as well as it could if you eat like high quality protein. And we also talk about like the protein to fat ratio in food. So there is a lot of food like eggs for example, and cheese and milk that. Have protein and that can be considered as a protein source, but they are far higher in fat. And then same goes for other I guess plant based proteins like beans and legumes and things like that. They do have protein in them but they are far higher in carbohydrates. So just getting to know

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the foods that you're eating and I suppose their macronutrient value can make your life a lot easier when you're trying to build muscle because if you're trying to get X amount of protein in and you're just sort of. Eating foods that you know have protein in them, you could be undercutting yourself a lot. And I think it's also important to mention being in a calorie surplus. Yes, right. Which is very scary for women. I think if they, if they're wanting to build muscle, I think a lot of the time they tend to just train harder and eat the same and hope that muscle will appear and you will probably get like leaner and. Stronger. But you weren't actually, I guess, build the same muscle and at the same rate because your body doesn't have enough fuel. Simple as that. It muscle is very energy demanding. Hmm. And let's be real. When people say they want to build muscle, they wanna recomposition their body, so lose fat and build muscle. They wanna look better. They want to look lean. Yeah, quotation marks. So that's what generally when people say I want to build muscle, that's what most people image in their head. So tracking your calories is a great way to start doing that. Yeah, like back just said, like it matters. Like what? How many calories are going in and how many calories are going out? You want building muscle is so hard for your body you need that calorie surplus. So if you don't even know where you are or you think you're taking this many calories in, just track for a couple of days so you know how many calories are going in. Yeah. And you're not going to bulk up, like for women, it is extremely hard to put on muscle. So hard guys, obviously depending on your age and your training history and all that sort of stuff, it's easier. But it's still frigging hard. You've gotta dial a lot of stuff in and start by tracking your calories. Then I'd go to your macros,

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like Mac was saying, like your carbs, fats and proteins. Make sure they're all on points. And then we would get into training. So before we go there, last week we did a the listener question, I should say, in last week's episode was how to find your maintenance calories. So if you don't know yet what your maintenance calories are, go back and listen to the end or that whole episode. And then if you want to be in a surplus, just do the opposite of what we said for finding a deficit. So ideally, if you want to build muscle, you want to be in a surplus. If you want to lose fat, you want to be in a deficit, which I think can be very confusing a lot of the time because people. Go for the I want to build muscle and lose fat, when actually they just probably want to lose a little bit of fat and maintain their muscle. So. I think it's important to define what your actual goal is like. Learn the difference and then. Like I know, if you are holding a bit of body fat, maybe try a deficit first before you build muscle, right? Because then. Yeah, go on. I'd say just hang out at your maintenance for a while and see what happens. Yeah, if you're doing a good program, you're eating all the right food. You could probably hang out at maintenance and get some decent results, especially if you haven't counted calories before, because you'll be finding just finding consistency alone. We'll get some results. Yeah, OK, go ahead on your training. This is the biggest mistake I see is people training too much. I want to build muscles, so I need to train six days, seven days a week, and where it's probably actually the opposite. Again, depending on your training history, I'd say two to three days a week. Like a full body split type thing would be beneficial for most people to build muscle. That's what I've done over the last. Couple of months. And are put on. 3 kilos

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of muscle? Yeah, it doesn't sound like much, but it is quite a lot. lot. 3 kilos of muscle is. Quite a lot for me. And I know 100 like. Quite a lot of other people that have done it as well. So three days a week, full body and you want to maximize the results for three days like so people will start training three days a week and then go ohh I want to get more results. I'll add in another day. Instead of adding in more training, just dial in your sleep, your nutrition, your hydration, recovery, recovery, all that sort of stuff before you add that extra day. Because adding that extra day isn't necessarily going to get you better results. You're just going to start over training and you can you might actually see negative results. So maximize your results of three days a week. Like I said, sleep nutrition. Hydration, stress recovery, recovery before you add in more? And what about neat? Yeah, yeah. So neat would be at the point where you want to. So if you follow one of our programs, workout programs, there's. Trigger sessions or flow sessions, the sessions on the days where you're not working out to get your increase your need, but also stimulate muscle growth on those days without training as such. Like there are things that you can do at home within 15 minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're just to stimulate the muscle growth. So on the days off, you're not actually doing nothing. You still want to be doing something and a lot of people. What does that mean? And that's why I built these into all my programs. So you get an idea. Of what that means, yeah, but increasing your need is just going to help change your body composition. Had a really great point that I was going to bring up and now I've just forgotten it. Ohh yeah. So like how I said before how building muscle is very highly energy demanding hence why Jack mentioned it's so hard because

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your body isn't going to do it unless you are continuously giving it a muscle building signal. It's not going to put energy there unless you everyday you are giving it a muscle burning scene like we have to build muscle at that point. That's when your body is going to be like OK, let's spend some energy on building muscle. Because if you are just training 3 days and doing nothing, like I mean no exercise on the off days or the non gym days, then your body will just recover and it won't necessarily add muscle or add strength. That will just take you back to where you were. Hence why the trigger sessions that are in Jack's program are very important right? That's just a way to speed up the process, so. The shortest program I've got is 12 weeks, and you can build a lot of muscle in those twelve weeks by doing the trigger sessions in between. The foundation workouts, yeah. So yeah, like matches said, it just it's so important if building strength to just keep stimulating those muscles. Yeah. And it's not like because the trigger sessions are on your off days, it's not like you're training seven days a week. They're literally 15 minutes. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know. I feel like people, there's this weird stigma about, oh, we can't exercise seven days a week because it's too much and you want to have a good relationship with exercise. But why is it OK to sit at a desk for 8 hours, seven days a week? You know, yeah, we've said in the past, your body gets good at whatever you do the most of. So just don't freak out about doing an hour of exercise every day. Doesn't have to be in the gym. Yeah. And again, these are the trigger sessions on the days that you aren't in the gym. Yes, we call them workouts, but they're very low intensity. You shouldn't be sweating while you're doing them. You're just sort of stimulating the muscles. Just getting a pump on. Yeah, and a lot of. People don't know how or why or even where to start with that. So that's again, why I've got it in the programs.

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Yeah. All right, next question. OK, the next question is how do I stop skipping gym sessions and eating the foods that I know I shouldn't?

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You wanna start? You want me to stop you guys? OK, I think how do I stop skipping gym sessions? We'll start with I was talking to Taran, a guy that is owns a gym we go to the other day about how missing once you miss two to three sessions. You can miss a week and it's fine. Like it feels easy, you know, because he was saying how he's missed two weeks of training and he feels awful. And I said, Oh yeah, I was sick last week and I missed four days. And for me, if I missed three days in a row, it doesn't feel like a big deal for me to get back into the gym. Whereas I'm if I miss one day or two days, I'm like, oh man, I can't wait to go back, you know, I feel a little bit. Clunky and stiff and stuff, but once you get past the third day of missing the gym, I think it just feels a lot easier to not go back. So I would say don't miss more than two days in a row. That would be my first thing. Like just no matter what, do not miss more than two days in a row. Yeah, I was going to say exactly that. Yeah, 100% yeah. And then I would also say try and make your environment support your ability to go to the gym as much as you can. Make it so easy for you to go to the gym. Have if you have to, on Sunday pick out three or four outfits for the gym for the week and have them somewhere set up ready to go so you don't have to think about what you're wearing. You don't have to pack your bag, your bags already packed, pre booking classes if you go to classes or pre organise your sessions with a friend or a PT so someone has you accountable and you're already like locked into something and have a program I would say also if I go to the gym and I don't. Have a program to follow. Like one, I'm mostly just go because I just

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follow Jack there. But when I get to the gym, I don't really do anything. So then I feel like I wasted my time. So then next time, if I don't have a program planned, I'm like, yeah, I won't go because I didn't do much last time anyway. Yep. Do you have anything to add on that? Yeah, it's surprising how people will organize their life around, say, work or certain things. That aren't that important to him. Or you know they have to do and they have no choice where Jim, you can do the same. So like you said, just organise your life so it is something that you do. Whether you put it in your calendar book, in it is one hour where you have to be doing that workout and again 2-3 days a week, that's all you need to do. But make sure you've booked it in as something that has to be done. It's not like an option. It's not a luxury as such, it's just it's important for your health. I hate how gym memberships going to the gym, group fitness, anything like that is considered a luxury. It's not a luxury. It should just be like you should. I think you should be given an hour extra or whatever at work to go to the gym. Like you should be able to finish work an hour earlier or start an hour later so you can go to the gym like. It's so important, yeah. And never miss two days in a row. Yeah. OK. The next half of the question. How do I stop eating the foods I know I shouldn't? Why are they foods that you shouldn't eat? I think is the first question you should ask yourself, like. I don't know what this person's diet is like, but when you say how do I stop eating the foods I know I shouldn't. Is it like a Tim Tam after dinner or is it like Macy's for lunch and dinner? You know? So I think. Defining why you think you shouldn't be eating those foods first is super important, and then second. I

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would probably say from personal experience. If you feel like you shouldn't eat those foods they probably don't make you feel good. So cut them out like go cold Turkey as hard as you can because I find if we everyone's different of course but I find if we have a little bit of quote UN quote junk then it just opens the floodgates and it's like we'll have this now and we'll have this and this isn't that bad for us and. You know, so it's sort of like a snowball effect. So try cutting it out completely. Like all the things that make you feel bad or bloated or uncomfortable or whatever it is, cut it out completely and just eat. Fruit, vegetables, meat. I don't know the things that make you feel good, because the better you feel, the less likely you are to want to eat foods that make you feel bad. If you feel bad, you want more foods to make the quote UN quote going to comfort you.

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100%. And there's just some foods that I just won't buy because if it's a, you know, let's say your food, a packet of chocolate covered pretzels. Yeah, I'm gonna finish the whole packet there. And then, yeah, I can't. Like, I just love them so much so we don't even buy them. And I won't even buy them. And don't go substitute and go, oh, I won't buy those, but I'll buy these because they're a little bit better. Yeah, you just end up going down a track of buying more **** than you need. And I'll just say, be prepared. Like most of the time when you crave **** food, it's because you haven't been eating properly. Yeah. So if you need to do all the food prep, do all that sort of stuff. And like, again, most of the time it's afternoon. Packing that happens. So if that's the case, just food prep all your lunches, don't worry about the other meals, just food prep your lunches so you know you're not gonna be snacking on those other foods during the afternoon. Yeah, definitely. One of my family members asked me one time, I think it was over Christmas. How can you not eat dessert like? They they literally couldn't understand how we donate dessert. Like my family, I think some of them are big. Eat dinner, eat, like have dessert every night, you know what I mean? Whereas we are, we only have dessert if we say go to a friends place for dinner. Like we're talking to you. But if you eat enough food at dinner, you shouldn't, like desperately need dessert. If you're eating enough protein in particular, you should be very satisfied with your meals and you shouldn't need to eat any of the foods that you know are dessert. Like, we have one square of dark chocolate and that is fully enough because we eat like dinner is such a good balanced meal. So I think, yeah, balance is obviously very important also. Cool. Any more questions? No, that's all. Wait, one more thing before we go, I wanted to say about this food question is

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also. Don't be afraid of literally just forcing yourself to not eat it. Yeah, I think that like at this stage, like at this point in society, everyone's like eat the damn cake or whatever, but also don't. Yeah, you don't have to. Just because you're craving cake doesn't mean you should treat yourself every time you're craving cake. Every time you feel like something that you think you shouldn't eat and you don't eat it, you are building strength. Mentally, you're building so much strength. I was gonna say how that goes back to the first thing you said like. Not giving in the cravings isn't a bad thing, no like. Just. Donate the food. Like fight those cravings for as long as possible. They might go away, and even if they don't, you know that you fought them and put a lot of effort into fighting it. Yeah, and you probably once you start doing that, you do build that resilience against your body, say, and just have a packet of salt salted chocolate pretzels. But even not just food, just anything in life you know that you feel like you shouldn't or you don't want to do, I think. Yeah, it's just it builds character all over. And I just hate how now everyone's like a treat yourself, you know? If treating yourself isn't in your goals, then you can say no to things and have to fight with yourself. That's fine. Why can't you treat yourself with the nice balanced meal? Yeah, right. Why does it have to be junk food? That is a treat. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, OK, awesome. Thanks again for tuning in. Obviously you've got something out of this for listening all the way through, so make sure you. Share it on socials. Let us know what you think about the episodes or if there's any topics you want us to cover, and we'll talk to you all in the next episode. Bye.