Losing muscle isn't going to be super easy, because muscle and strength are actually very resilient.
Coach Kevin responds to this week’s emails from listeners, including a question Kevin has never heard before: “How do I lose muscle bulk on purpose?”
Get-Fit Guy is hosted by Kevin Don. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Welcome back to Get-Fit Guy. This week I thought I would dedicate a whole episode to replying to listener emails. I really value the email questions that I receive and I can’t always get to responding in a timely manner. So this week I will answer a few in one go! If you want to ask me a question, email me at getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com or post on the Get-Fit Guy Facebook page. I would just request emails aren’t challenging Greek epics for word count and you just ask me one question per email (And don’t try to circumvent the system by sending me separate emails. I admire the workaround, but I know all the tricks).
Okay so, kicking things off, we have Rahul in Hong Kong who writes:
“I am in my 40s, I drop my son to school every morning, then have a 25 min walk to work in the heat of Hong Kong summer, therefore I decide to shower at the gym near my office before reaching work. I usually reach the gym at 8:30 but have to be in my office at 9. I would have 10 minutes to do any form of exercise every morning before I get ready. Is there any point in doing any weight training for 10 minutes a day and if so, what can you recommend?”
Rahul, I am very familiar with the heat of Hong Kong, which is really more the humidity of Hong Kong. It feels much hotter than it is because the moisture content in the air impedes sweat evaporation from the skin surface. In a drier heat, such as Arizona, this sweat evaporation cools one down.
Do I think that there is anything you could do weight training-wise in ten minutes? No, I don’t. And before anyone says that surely ten minutes is better than no minutes, I would remind you that's a straw man fallacy and a totally different argument.
You can't do anything meaningful in ten minutes because very very quickly, you would have adapted to the stimulus and need a greater stimulus. This would either be more volume, which you can't fit into ten minutes, or more load, which you can't warm up to in ten minutes.
I am going to make my own separate recommendation that perhaps you go to the gym in your lunch break if it's near your office.
Next up, we have an email from Benjamin from parts unknown. Ben writes:
“My habit at the gym is to start out for about five minutes walking brusquely on the treadmill and then do various stretches before lifting weights since I often go in the morning when my body is not as active already.
Traditionally, I've gone to my known weight per machine or dumbbells to see how my body has improved over the last trip based on reps before noteworthy tiredness, but the last time I was at the gym, I remembered something I heard somewhere recently (maybe from you) about starting lifts with a lower weight for a set and then increasing to normal. I'd always thought that was about long-term increases, but I found I was able to push to higher weights by the end of my reps that day.
Is it likely coincidence that my body responded well to my previous trip and rest in between or is this likely due to my momentary reduction in resistance as an additional warmup and something I should do every time I go to the gym?”
A few things to unpack in Ben’s email. Firstly, I’m not really an advocate of stretching before lifting. The reasons for this are that stretching induces a parasympathetic state (relaxation) and weightlifting is reliant on a sympathetic state of readiness. It's a tall order to stretch and relax the muscles and then ask them to perform sudden, shortening contractions. Although the sample size is small, I do know several people who have badly injured themselves this way. The worst was a friend who had a sports massage and then went to the gym and tore his pectoral muscle clean off during a bench press.
I would think more about muscle activation than muscle relaxation, something more specific to the pattern and demands that will follow. Push-ups are a great warm-up for benching and air squats are a great warm-up for barbell squats.
With regards to reps and sets and loading, I would always advocate for multiple warm-ups. You can try doing the largest rep schemes at the lowest weights and decreasing as you get closer to the working weight. Sometimes it's even useful to perform a set at a load above working weight because then working sets feel lighter.
I would also think about a long-term training plan because, generally speaking, seeing how much you’ve improved every session isn’t training, it's testing. This isn’t sustainable.
Next up is Doyle, also from parts unknown. Just a reminder that if you DO send me an email, let me know where you are from! I love looking places up on the map or finding, like with my emailer last week from Nevada, that it's a place I’ve had the pleasure of visiting.
Doyle writes:
“I have been listening to you on the podcast for a while now and really enjoy your whole body expertise.
I am a completely blind man typing this email right now.
I lost my vision suddenly at the age of 49, I am 56 now. I have been working out since I was around 22 religiously. I took a quick break for a couple of months while recovering from losing my vision.
I work out in a gym that I have been in for many years. I am five foot eleven and 205 pounds. I’m guessing that I could lose about twenty pounds to be in ‘great shape.’
Obviously, I need to focus on my diet but would like your advice on how I lose weight, lose some muscle bulk, and get fit. How do I lean out my muscles? My wife always tells me that I am ‘bulky.’ How do I get that ‘lean’ look and lose that football player look? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.”
Thanks for writing in, Doyle. I have to say that losing muscle is a request I haven’t ever had before. At 205, you are in the perfect zone for a compliment from a Texan coach I greatly admire, Mark Rippetoe, who says that a fully grown adult male human weighs at least 200 lbs!
Losing muscle isn't going to be super easy, because muscle and strength are actually very resilient. In fact, the protocols you would implement to do this would be all the things I don’t recommend for health, such as reducing resistant training both in volume and load and reducing caloric intake to under maintenance levels. Not getting enough fuel, coupled with decreased signaling to your body that muscle is essential for its survival, will, over time, cause a reduction in muscle mass. You could also significantly increase your long steady state aerobic work.
But, as I said, I would not advocate for these outcomes. Your BMI is probably very slightly on the high side, so a slight reduction in overall body weight wouldn’t be bad for health outcomes, but I would be careful about where to draw the line and also intrinsic vs extrinsic motivations. I’m sure your wife loves your body, even if you are bulky!
And finally, I have an email from Roger in Santa Monica. Another place I have been! And I loved it, of course. Such a great beach, an amazing, eclectic mix of people, and my good friend lives in nearby Topanga, so I have frequented this area often!
Roger writes:
“Hello Kevin,
I really like your show. Keep up the good work.
As an alternative to Farmer’s Carry, I get in position to do a back squat with a light weight on the bar across my back, move backwards away from the squat rack, move to a clear and safe area, and walk. I try to keep a good posture, avoid other folks who might cross my path, pay attention to breathing, go for about 90 seconds, return to the squat rack, and unload.
I rest and repeat about 5 times. I am trying to progressively increase the load.
I have the feeling that I am using a lot of muscles, developing balance, improving posture, and causing my heart to pump blood throughout my body.
I do this to start my leg days 2-3 times per week.
What do you think?”
So, Roger, I think we would call that a modified yoke walk, or maybe a back rack walk. I don’t think it's an alternative to the farmer’s carry in the same way that I don't think a Beyond Burger is an alternative to a quarter pounder. It's just different. The farmer’s carry has the load in the hands and with the load hanging closer to the hip—it's a very different stimulus. Usually, farmer’s carry is not limited by load but by grip strength and grip endurance. By racking the load on your back, you are eliminating both of these. Given that grip strength is a sign of healthy aging, I would still try and get some farmer’s carries in.
If you REALLY wanted to work more muscles and crank up the whole body outcome, you could do overhead carries. The further the load is from the ground, the more you’ll have to work to stabilize it. So, there is arguably more stabilizing going on in a yoke walk than a farmer’s carry because the land is further from the floor.