Gay Men’s Guide to Smarter Training

Welcome to The

Outlifting Lounge, the show

all about pride,

fitness, and everything in between.

I'm Derec.

And I'm Alan.

In today's episode,

we're going to have a quick catch up

about our week,

discuss the Drag Race UK finale.

There will be spoilers.

And we'll also have a chat

about the five most common

workout mistakes that we see all the time.

And we'll tell you how to fix them

so you don't sabotage

your results in the gym.

Let's go.

Alright, let's have a wee quick

catch up about our week.

It’s been busy.

It's been very busy.

Anybody that follows us on

social media will know that

we have been running a Black Friday

sale, quite a big one.

And we've had a huge response to that.

So we have been kept on our toes,

shall I say.

Yeah, it's been brilliant.

We've been so busy.

Loads of people messaging us

about booking in for calls.

We've had loads of calls and we've had loads

of people signing up as well.

So it's been nonstop.

Pretty exhausting.

Not had time for much.

I'm not complaining

because it is good to be kept busy.

It's good that the business is doing

well, but at the same time,

I'm going to be

looking forward to having

a little rest

at the end of the Black Friday promo.

We can maybe even go to the beach

one day.

Well,

thing is all those people that have signed up

are going to need to get onboarded

and their programmes done,

but that's my job.

So maybe you'll be going

to the beach on your own.

We preach to people

that downtime is important, rest is important.

So we need to listen

to our own advice.

Yeah.

We've not really had a day off in about

a couple of weeks now,

have we?

No.

We need to,

yeah, definitely beach day

priority.

Yeah.

I think anybody that runs their own

business knows that this can be what

it's like sometimes, that you do

sacrifice some time off occasionally

when the needs of the business

dictate it.

And we're not moaning.

We're very privileged

to be able to do what we do.

So we're just

stating fact.

We did manage to find some time

to catch up with

Darren this week.

Yeah, that was good.

Yeah.

Darren used to be a client of ours

and he's also

the author of Death at the Yumbo Centre.

He's actually

researching for, spoiler,

Death at the Yumbo Centre 2.

He'd put some things on his story

asking people for ideas

and he was telling us about some of them,

but won't be giving

any of those spoilers away.

Absolutely not.

You want to be kept in the dark.

You don't want any spoilers.

Was that a hint?

Kept in the dark room.

That's a spoiler for book one.

Who can say, yeah,

who can say what's going to be in book two?

I want Sparkles to feature

and to be called Sprinkles.

I think that would be perfect.

And then I said the other day why don't

we just call it hundreds and thousands.

This is why you're not writing the book.

Anybody out of the UK probably doesn't know

what hundreds and thousands are.

Anyway, we digress.

I think the only other thing

that we've had time to do

this week is tune in for the

Drag Race UK finale episode.

I wasn't as excited to watch the final

as I usually am for other franchises

and I think that's because

Bonnie Ann Clyde was out,

you know, and like the four drag queens

that were left in it were really, really good.

I think Elle Vosque was

one of our favourites

and Catrin Feelings

was another one of mine.

It was an okay episode.

I think the problem is

we watch too much Drag Race.

There's too much Drag Race.

I'm putting it out there.

I'm saying it.

There's too much Drag Race.

I don't agree.

I think there can never be too much Drag Race,

but there was a comment

made in one of the episodes that portrayed

Bonnie Ann Clyde as the older

queen this season.

And I mean, for God's sake,

if Bonnie Ann Clyde is

being put into that category,

then they clearly didn't

have enough older

or more experienced queens in there

because Bonnie's young.

And it just,

I think that was part of the problem.

When you look at the previous season,

La Voix,

it was about the balance

and that friendship

that La Voix and Kyran Thrax

built up was just,

it was really beautiful.

And it made the, especially

the finale quite special.

And the season before that we had

Michael Marouli and Ginger

and they were really

experienced seasoned

queens knew that they were doing.

That's maybe what this season

lacked a little bit.

Can you tell that Derec

is a superfan of Drag Race?

Going into the finale,

I was rooting for Elle.

I was rooting for you.

I was rooting for Elle.

I wanted Elle to take it

home to Belfast.

She's my Belfast queen.

I think she has had the strongest

track record

and fair play to Bones.

Bones has been a strong contender,

come up with some really strong looks

and performed quite well.

So she deserves the victory.

Will not take that away from her,

give her her flowers,

but I am a little bit disappointed that Elle

didn't win.

Elle definitely,

I think was amazing

for such a young queen as well.

So like she was head

and shoulders above the rest.

Can I also say as well

that when they had their sit down

talk with Ru and Michelle,

how much they all looked like

the parents that came in.

They were all the spitting image.

But yeah,

Drag Race UK done.

And we don't mean that in a bad way,

we just mean that now

we can focus on

catching up with Drag Race España and watching

Drag Race Canada before

Drag Race US starts.

And then we've got

all of the other seasons to look forward to.

And we've got Drag Race Down Under

All Stars.

Versus the World.

Sorry, Drag Race

Down Under Versus The World.

to look forward to in the new year.

We've also got

Drag Race Mexico Latina Royale.

I actually can't.

I can't.

Drag Race, Drag Race.

Drag Race, Drag Race.

t's too much.

But we will make a point of watching

Drag Race Down Under Versus

The World Super All Stars All Winners

or whatever the f*** it's called.

Because rumour is

that Michael Marouli is in it.

And obviously we will always champion Michael.

We love Michael.

He is our favourite to win.

We're backing him all the way if he's in it.

So I'll be invested in that one.

I'll just watch the other ones.

So from fluffy

gay pop culture,

shall we talk about something

more serious in the LGBT world?

Serious and positive, yes.

Serious and positive!

This is really good news.

Because there was a case

before the EU Court of Justice

and it has issued a very important ruling

that all EU

member states must respect

and recognise same-sex marriages

that have been carried out in other

EU member states,

regardless of what the law

is in that specific country.

Super positive news.

It's all on the back of a Polish couple

that lived in Germany

and they got married there

and then they moved back to Poland.

They wanted to register their marriage there

and unfortunately the government there

said it was a no-no.

Was that the

technical legal term

that they used?

That was, yeah.

It was a no-no.

Uh-oh!

Computer says no!

It's a whoopsie.

Yeah, so the court,

the Polish court then referred it

to the EU court,

which has issued this

historic ruling.

And this is just another example.

We see this time and time again

that our rights, LGBT

rights, have had to be progressed

by being taken to court

and fought hard for and won.

And it's a positive thing

coming out of the European Union as well

because they are the ones that are deciding

that all 27 member states

have to abide

by this.

The reason for this

is basically protection of human rights.

So every EU

citizen has the right to reside,

to work in other EU countries,

they've got the right to a private family life.

And what the judge found was that

by not recognising the marriage

that had been conducted in Germany,

Polish authorities

had essentially infringed

upon their human rights

in those regards.

There are certain EU member states

that are really regressive

on LGBT rights.

So we see Poland

in particular has been,

although we're seeing

progress start to happen

there, little shoots.

Hungary is probably

the most regressive and also Slovakia,

which has made some changes

to their laws recently as well.

Was there not something recently in Hungary,

the guy who organised

the pride parade

and he's had criminal charges

brought against him?

The Hungarian government

had passed a law back in March,

I think, banning

pride parades,

which is insane,

especially for an EU country

to be doing this.

And so he has now fallen

foul of this law and they are charging him,

well they have charged him

and they're going to try and,

you know, have a criminal prosecution

against him for organising

a pride parade.

Just something that is

basic fundamental

civil rights.

Yeah,

and it's something

that we take for granted

as well, coming from the UK

where pride parades happen

all over the country,

but also living here in Gran Canaria, again

it just makes us realise

how lucky and privileged

we are to be able to live here

and have the life that we have.

Yeah,

and I think this this should be

a wake-up call in particular

for maybe the generation below us.

They need to be hyper,

hyper, hyper aware

of a slide

backwards that's happening

right across the western world

because they really need to

now realise that

they can't rest on their laurels.

And this is, I'm not preaching at them,

but I am saying

nobody,

none of us can afford to rest on our laurels

because this is really serious.

Your rights

can be taken away

and in any country as well it can happen,

you know, a right-wing party

can sweep into power

and make these changes.

I mean just look at all

the rhetoric

that's coming out of Reform at the minute

about same-sex

marriage and same-sex couples,

so yeah,

it can be taken away from us

like overnight.

Look at what's happening in the States,

there was some polling the other day

that came out that support

for same-sex marriage

in the United States of America

has slipped from 70

something percent, I think it was maybe

like 74 percent,

down to 55 percent.

Constant propaganda

put out to the general population

that changes opinions.

There are really dark forces at work

that are trying to take these things away

and they're trying to get the public on side

with them to take these rights away.

Yeah,

and that's why this news from

the EU is so positive

because it's actually a step

in the right direction for us

rather than the other way.

Yeah,

definitely a win

worth celebrating.

Shall we move on to the fitness

section of the show?

Let's do it.

Many people can spend

hours in the gym but see little progress.

Why?

It's because they're making mistakes

that sabotage their results.

Today

we will cover the five most common

workout mistakes that we see

and we'll tell you how to fix them

so that every minute

that you train counts.

Alan,

do you want to start us off

with mistake number

one?

Skipping a warm-up

or doing it wrong.

Now this is something that we see

in the gym quite often.

Your warm-up is so, so important

and it should kind of reflect

what you're going to be doing

that day, obviously, so if you're doing lower

definitely do a warm-up

on your legs, you know,

and it doesn't have to take forever either.

Just maybe doing some bodyweight squats

if you are doing lower, for example,

some lunges

and then just some movements

that are going to emulate the movements

that you're going to be doing

in your actual workout as well.

Yeah, going into a workout

cold is never a good idea

because it does open

you up to a whole range of injuries

and then essentially you'll be out of action

for a while, you won't be able to train

so it sets you back

and it's just not a good idea.

So what you really want to do

is have a warm-up

that will raise your core internal body

temperature a little

and you also, as you

said, want to mimic some of the movements

you'll be doing and warm up the specific joints

because that will, for instance,

get the synovial fluid into the joints

to lubricate them

and get them ready for work.

Yeah, definitely

and the thing I hear quite often is

I can't be bothered doing a warm-up.

Okay, let me flip it,

reverse it for you then.

Can you be bothered being injured for weeks

and not being able to train?

Totally.

It literally just needs to be five minutes,

it doesn't need to be forever,

you know, before your actual workout.

We know that people are like short on time

and they just want to get in

and get the workout smashed out

but warming up is

so, so important.

It's really important for everybody

to warm up, no matter who they are

you need to warm up

but it's especially important

for people who maybe

have a sedentary lifestyle

or maybe an office job

where they're sitting about lots

because if you're just sitting about all day

your body's going to be quite stiff

and immobile

and if you suddenly shock your body

by going straight into a workout

without warming up properly,

that is a recipe for disaster.

A good analogy for it is,

imagine you get into your car

and try to hit 100 miles

an hour straight away,

it's just going to be like

what the hell is happening here?

It's the same thing with your body,

you know, you need to ease it in gently

but equally important

is that you don't

do the wrong kind of warm-up.

The prime example of that is

static stretching.

It's really good

to do static stretches

after a workout, brilliant

because they lengthen the muscles.

Typically a static stretch would be

where you stretch the muscle

and hold it for

maybe 30 seconds

but that's not what you want to do before.

So what in your opinion

would a good warm-up consist of

if not static stretching?

So dynamic stretching is going to be

the best way to warm up your body

before a workout.

So if we go back to that

lower workout example

I was talking about earlier,

so like leg swings for example, great way

to warm up your hips.

If you're going to do some bodyweight squats

and some lunges, that's really going to get

the synovial fluid moving

and get the blood pumping

and get you

nice and warm

so you're not going into the workout cold.

And don't forget warm-up

sets are also really,

really important as well.

So at the beginning of your set,

so say you've got three

sets of whatever exercise,

going a bit lighter on your first set,

so making it four sets essentially,

just to get that movement of that particular

exercise is super important as well.

Yes, that is a top tip

because you need to make sure

specifically for that

movement pattern in that exercise

that you're doing a little warm-up

for that as well at the start.

Yes,

right, let's move on to mistake number two.

Okay, I'm gonna take this one.

Mistake number

two is poor form.

So for those who don't

know, form is essentially

how you hold your body

when you're setting up to do the exercise

and while you're doing the exercise.

So an example of bad form would be

if you are deadlifting,

so you're meant to hinge from your hip

and you don't want to round your back over.

So that would be a common mistake,

you would see people slump

the shoulders around the back

and that is just going to cause injury.

You want to lift your chest,

you want a nice straight back

and you want to brace your core strong,

hold your body strong

so that you can really put the effort

in that movement pattern

into working your hamstrings

in the back of your legs, into your glutes,

and into your lower back

and then you're not putting strain

on other parts of your body.

Absolutely,

another example of bad form

would be bicep curls for example,

where you're using

a lot of momentum

to get the weight up so you're swinging.

So instead of your elbows being nice and tight

and the movement coming from the elbow

and coming up and contracting the bicep,

a lot of the time

you might see as a lot of swing

and that means that you're

using a lot more muscles

than actually the bicep.

And that is, I think it's natural as well

because your body

wants to cheat essentially,

it wants to just use

whatever it can to get this up

but that's not the point,

the point is that you want to isolate

the muscle group that you're

meant to be working.

As humans

we like the path of least resistance

so that's why it happens.

That's it, that's it

and what it means

is that you need to be switched

on, you need to be very,

very present during your workout.

You can tend to zone out a little bit

because it is so much exertion,

you're tired, it's fatiguing you

but it really is crucial to

keep that presence

to be in the moment

and to think about what

you're doing at all times.

Yeah

if you can sort your technique

slash form

from the start

or from whenever you're going into the gym

it's going to have

major, major

positive results.

And it might seem a bit overwhelming at first

because if you're going into the gym

and you're doing several different exercises

and there's all of these little form cues

that you need to remember,

it can seem a bit overwhelming but really

the point is for it

to become second nature to you.

We've been doing this so long

it does just become second nature to work

from the ground up, you're thinking

okay feet positioned,

get that right, how are my knees?

You don't really even have to think

through the actual steps anymore.

Your body just, it becomes

part of your muscle memory after a while.

And not only will bad form

increase your chance of injury

it also is detrimental

to your results as well

and that kind of comes into

like ego lifting for example that we see

sometimes on the gym floor

and you've definitely had experience with that

teaching Bodypump as well.

Yeah so...

Not to be straight phobic

or anything but here we go.

Yeah every now and again

you would have got a new face, a new guy

coming into the class

who had been dragged there by their girlfriend

and at the start of the class

would say to these guys

have you done this class before

and when they say no

I would say to them look

please do not try to lift

overly heavy today.

These...

this is a guideline of what weights

you should use.

Please don't lift

the kind of weights that I'm lifting

because I've been doing this for years

so you won't be able to.

Go a little bit lighter,

take it easy, learn the moves

and then you can add

weight on subsequent classes.

Do you think those guys listened?

Absolutely not.

No because the ego took over.

They wanted to lift the same

or more than me

and every single time

without fail,

literally

by the end of the warm-up

you could see how those guys were struggling.

They couldn't let that ego go.

They wanted to load up the bar

with heavy weights and the struggle was real

you know and I saw that time

and time and time again

because you would never see those guys again.

They would never come back

for a second class.

Why?

Because they couldn't walk after it?

Exactly they must have hurt

for a week afterwards

because they wouldn't listen

to the advice

that I was giving them

because their ego was getting in the way.

Yeah

and having that

heavy weight on the bar is then preventing them

to do a full range of motion

so like a full squat for example

or a full chest press

and that's where you know

this ego lifting comes

in, getting your form right,

getting your technique right.

You need to get that from the start

to improve your results.

And that's why

ego lifting can be really difficult

and it will impact on form as well

because if you're lifting

too heavy,

more heavy than you should be, your technique

and your form is going to be the first thing

that goes out the window.

Exactly.

So a quick fix is don't be worried

about the weight that you're lifting.

If you have to regress that weight

it's absolutely fine.

If you're regressing the weight,

you know lowering the weight,

and you're getting the technique

and the form spot on,

perfect, do it.

And you know maybe you might need to stay there

maybe for a couple of weeks

before you can then increase the weight again

but if your form is spot on

you are definitely going

to be working the muscle

the way it should be worked.

Yes exactly.

Let's move on to

mistake number three.

Okay, no

progressive overload.

So what that basically means in simple terms

is that every week every couple of weeks

you are improving your workout in some way

so that would either be

adding more weight,

reducing your rest time, adding

more reps, adding

more sets,

or even changing

the tempo as well.

There's means and ways

of having progressive overload

that isn't just adding weight.

What we've heard time and time again

from people who come out and seek

our help is that

they have joined the gym,

they have gone

for their gym induction,

a member of the gym floor

staff has taken them, through showed them

the gym, and written out

a programme card for them

and then they have stuck

with that programme card

for every workout that they have done

for months sometimes

and they don't really understand

because it hasn't been explained to them

that they really shouldn't be doing that.

They should be progressing their workouts

over time.

Yeah that's spot on actually

because if you just lift

the same weights at the same reps

all the time

the chances are you're going to plateau,

you know.

You're not going to improve or get the results

that you want to get.

A common exercise

that clients speak to me about on check-ins

is lateral raises,

so side lateral raises

and it is a really,

really difficult exercise

to increase your weight on.

So other ways

to increase your intensity like I said

is just slowing down that tempo

as you're bringing the weight down

and you'll see that you'll be sweating

because you're

progressively overloading

even though it's not weight that you're adding,

you're making that exercise a lot

tougher week on week.

We've been playing with

some different training styles

in the gym recently

and I've really enjoyed some of that work.

It's been very varied, very different.

So one thing that you had us doing

was some dumbbell flyes,

but we were working in the bottom

range only.

So the dumbbells would come down

and we would only bring them up halfway

and then back down.

So instead of bringing them back up to the top

and taking the tension

out of the muscle,

we were keeping them low

while we performed the set and that's

another example of a way

that you can progress your workout

because it is more time

that the muscle spends under tension

so it's having to work harder

and work in a different way.

And today as well

we were doing those myo reps

with our bicep curls.

So we took our last set to failure

so we couldn't do any more,

we waited five seconds, we then did

another three reps,

we then rested

another five seconds.

Yeah and then we just kept doing that

until we couldn't do the three reps.

Yeah.

It was a new challenge.

Yeah.

It was something different and the burn in

my biceps was unreal.

Oh my god!

And it's funny because

it's the first time that we've done it

and before we went in to do that, I was like,

I reckon I'm going to get an extra

like maybe three, four,

five reps out of this

and it turned out there was like an extra 15.

I was like, okay

I'll take that, you know.

But yeah, the pump that we got

after that was was amazing.

Absolutely!

So, those are just some

ways of

showing that you can

try different workout

styles, you can add weights,

you can add volume

by doing more reps

and things like that, but

you absolutely need to do these things

in order to see progress.

And a quick fix to

that is making sure

that you're

actually tracking your workouts to see

where you're progressing,

where you're adding weight,

where you're reducing

your rest time for example.

So yeah, track your workouts

so that you can see

where the progressive overload

is coming from as well.

When you can see it in front of you

over time, how you've been doing,

you really get

a better understanding

of where your strengths are,

where you need to improve,

how you can do this.

Brilliant,

let's go into mistake

number four.

Okay,

mistake number four

is overdoing cardio

or neglecting it.

So cardio

exercise is a really,

really important part

of your routine.

Resistance training

is really important as well

and the two really do

go hand in hand.

However if you do too much cardio

it can impact your results

in your resistance training.

So that can hamper your progress as well

and likewise

if you're not doing enough cardio

you really might not have the stamina

that you need to sustain in the gym

or you might not see

the body composition changes

that you're after.

Cardio is so important

for your cardiovascular health

and a lot of people think

that you need to be absolutely smashing out

loads of cardio but you don't.

I really saw the difference with this for me

because I used to really like

running, long distance running.

Ran a few marathons

in my life as well

and for me

I had to learn that balance between

what I was doing

in the gym

with my resistance training

and all of the cardio

training that I was doing.

Yeah for sure.

I guess it really depends on

what your goal is, you know,

we want to make sure that

whatever cardio you're introducing

to your training programme complements

what you're doing

with your resistance training as well.

So whatever your goal is

you just need to figure out

what is going to be best for you.

Some people might go to the gym

to help them out

with their cycling

or their running or their swimming

or whatever it is, so naturally

their training plan

will incorporate more cardio.

So it really is about the individual.

It's about what you need and working

that out.

Brilliant advice.

So do you want to finish this off

with mistake number five?

Yeah.

So mistake number five is not

resting enough and we mean

in between your

training days, you know.

It's not particularly in

between your your exercises

that you're doing within your routine.

Recovery is just as important as the training,

probably more important

than the training that you're doing in the gym

because if you don't rest afterwards

you don't give your body space

to recover and time to recover,

what's the point?

You're just putting your body

under stress unnecessarily then.

And that rest can also

be making sure that you don't train

the same muscle groups

on consecutive days as well

which is something quite often that

I need to speak to clients about

and making sure that they've got,

you know, rest days in

between

consecutive muscle groups

that they're working.

And you don't want

burnout either, you know.

You want to make sure that you're giving

yourself enough rest

to make sure that you're

just giving your body enough time

to recuperate, regenerate,

and then you can hit your workouts

even harder.

There is a tendency

especially when people hit

that high with their training

where they're feeling strong,

they're feeling energized,

and you get this rush.

It's almost like a high that you get from it

and you just want more, more, more.

You want to be doing it,

you want to be the fittest that you can

and people fall

into the trap of over training

which is a real problem

and that opens you up, again,

to injuries,

it'll stall your progress,

it'll hamper you,

it'll hold you back.

Taking it back a little bit,

giving your body rest,

feeding your body properly,

making sure that you're drinking enough water,

making sure that you're getting sufficient

sleep,

all of these

things are crucial

factors.

Sleep

I would say is just as important

as your training.

You need to make sure

that you're prioritising sleep

and having a really good bedtime

routine is super,

super important for that as well.

I would say that sleep

is probably my biggest struggle

because I've spoken before

about having ADHD

and one of the biggest features of my

ADHD is disordered sleep.

But I have a toolkit

that I can reach into

when my sleep does go out of whack.

So I know that, for instance,

having a shower

not long before bed,

we have got melatonin tablets there

and sometimes

if I know that my sleep

has been a bit disordered

I can take a melatonin tablet

maybe an hour before bed and that can help.

I don't want to ever rely on them

but if things get bad that helps.

And for me as well just reading.

So getting into

a good pattern with reading

because I know that

I can read a few pages of a book

and my eyes start to feel heavy

whereas if I am on my phone,

you're not giving your brain

that switch off.

So you need to do that.

You need to get off your digital devices,

the only one that really is

acceptable is a Kindle in my opinion.

Yeah absolutely.

That's why prioritising

sleep and making

sure that you're scheduling

rest days are going

have huge impacts on your results.

Yes, absolutely.

So that is all

five of the most common mistakes

that we see covered

if there are any mistakes that you have

maybe made in the past

that you have overcome

that we haven't covered today, please

feel free to get in touch with us

and likewise if any of the advice

that we have given today

has struck a chord

with you and helped you

please let us know.

You can get in touch

with us, give us feedback

by emailing

podcast@outlift.ing

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thoughts with your feedback.

We hope you

found that really useful

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