Time to talk about training splits 🌈 Outlifting Ep 18

Hello and welcome to episode

18 of The Outlifting Lounge.

This is the show all about

pride, fitness, and everything in between.

In today's show we are going to

be talking about Alan's shiny new toy.

Careful now.

We'll be covering a couple of LGBT news stories from

the past week, and in the fitness section of the

show, we will be talking about training splits.

So if you've ever wondered what a training

split is, what the best training split is,

we've got the answers for you.

Let's go.

I already know the answer to this question,

but how has your week been, Alan?

My week's been pretty good.

Why has your week been pretty good?

'Cause I got a new water bottle!

For those listening to the audio version, Alan

is holding up his water bottle as if

he is a TikTok maw, who's trying to

punt stuff on TikTok shop right now.

I was actually going to say QVC, but

yeah, let's go TikTok for the kids.

I just hit your laptop there, sorry.

Yeah, that costs considerably more,

so let's not do that.

Do you know what?

It's the simple pleasures in life.

I am so excited.

How many times have I told

you that my water's still cold?

It's an insulated bottle, okay, I get it.

I'm very happy for you.

Twelve hours of insulation?

Little amuses the innocent, and you have been

very amused by your new water bottle.

I'm telling you, it's just simple pleasures in life

from now on, and I am very happy.

And you are simple, and you're a pleasure, so

I guess that makes you my simple pleasure.

There's an advertising slogo.

Slogo?

Slogo, new word!

It's like when they make up

words in Drag Race, like, eloguent.

And what was it?

Lazéda?

Flazéda!

Yeah.

So yeah, what's that?

Slogo?

Slogo.

Oh, and speaking of Drag Race, my week's been

good because another Drag Race has been announced.

Is there a week where we

never speak about Drag Race?

No.

I thought this was going to be the

week until Canada All Stars was announced.

So let me ask something.

Is there ever a week that Drag Race isn't on?

No! Exactly! That's my point!

I'm going to keep talking about it

while RuPaul still is sucking the life

out of everybody around her.

No. I'm going to keep talking about

it because I love it.

And you love it as well.

You just pretend not to.

I enjoy it.

So Drag Race Canada All Stars.

I had to think there.

That's a lot.

There's just so many different

franchises with different names.

I know!

So Drag Race Canada All Stars has

been announced for later this year.

I'm happy about that.

And what makes it even better is, Brooke

is the host, but we have got Jimbo

and Priyanka as the judges for the season.

And we love Jimbo.

We went to see them in Glasgow when they performed

and it was one of the best drag shows ever.

So obviously Jimbo does that number that they

did in UK vs the World where they

throw the bologna out to the judges.

Baloney!

Baloney!

But they do that in the, like when they tour.

So we went to see them in Glasgow, full

kit, the big white outfit, weird as anything, and

asked, did anybody not want bologna thrown at them?

And we were just about to put up our

hands because we didn't want, I was about to

say, we didn't want meat thrown at us.

And that's unusual for us.

We do in some context.

Not meat meat though.

So we were about to say no and

we were a bit timid about it.

And this girl in front of us, her hands shot up.

And she said, "I'm vegan" and I

brought, she produced it from her bag.

She had Quorn slices.

So she specifically asked for Jimbo

to throw those at her.

It was very good.

Yeah, that was a good night.

Yeah, it was good.

So yeah, very excited about that.

So I'll tell you what, I'll make you a deal.

What about we don't talk anymore about Drag

Race just now and we head straight into

the news section of the show.

Hallelujah.

Let's do it.

So we picked out a few items of news.

And the first one we just want to touch on.

It was something we talked about last week.

And this is a bit of a follow on.

It's infuriating.

The German referee that we spoke about last

week, who proposed to his partner at the

football match, was attacked at his home.

And unfortunately, it has happened again.

And the most infuriating thing about it is

that actually the police were watching his house.

He was under police protection.

And it took them 30 minutes to

get there after the second attack.

So obviously, they messed up quite

significantly on the first attack.

He phoned them.

They said nothing to worry about.

And 20 minutes later, guys beat

him up in his own garden.

And then this happens when the police were meant

to have a fast response marker on his property.

And it's just the rise of the far right in

Germany is coming out in these types of incidents.

And unfortunately, it's happening.

The far right rise, unfortunately,

is happening all over Europe.

So yeah, obviously, we're coming up

to Pride season as well.

And what I would just hammer home to anybody that's

tuning into the show is, remember what Pride is.

Pride is becoming more and more important

in the current climate and the current

context, wherever we are in the world.

So make sure you keep that in mind.

Go out, be visible, be seen, be loud,

and make your voice heard at Pride.

If you want a little reminder of what

Pride is about, watch the film Pride.

That's all I'm going to say.

This is a very good film.

You'll shed a tear.

Yes.

So on a better note, the second news

story that we wanted to touch on comes

from the European Parliament this week.

So I'm going to get this right.

I'm going to read it out.

The resolution was regarding the EU's priorities

ahead of the 70th session of the

UN Commission on the Status of Women.

So the really good thing about this resolution

is, and there were lots of parts of

this, but there was a line in that

that basically reaffirms that trans women are women

and for the full recognition of trans

women, and notes that their inclusion is

essential for the effectiveness of any gender

equality and anti-violence policy that's passed.

So really, really super positive, and

again, Europe leading the way here.

Yeah, it's amazing news for the trans community when there's

so much going on in the world, and it's so

good to get some positive news about it.

Yeah, and I mean, this resolution, like

there was lots of stuff covered.

The headlines predictably just focused on the

fact that trans women are included

as they should be.

But, I mean, the resolution, really,

really lengthy, but it covers so

many important things like gender-based violence

and femicide, gender stereotypes, misogyny and

sexism, sexual and reproductive health and

rights, sexual violence and gender equality.

I mean, there's so, so, so much to this.

But the fact that the resolution is inclusive

is just so important, it really is.

And that, I mean, there's just been

a lot of bad news recently.

So that was a little, again,

from Europe, more good news.

Yes, we love that.

And there was an item in the

resolution which really stood out for us,

which said, it “commits the EU to

a foreign development and security policy which

is inclusive and intersectional prioritising the needs

of women and LGBTQIA+ human rights defenders."

Yeah.

High five that.

High five that indeed.

Because especially, we see what's happening in the USA,

we see what's happening in the direction of travel

in the UK, especially with some of the stuff

that Reform have been saying this week.

So, yeah, the EU is once

again a big shining beacon.

And obviously, political winds can change, but

for the moment, we're very, very fortunate

to have the European Parliament, the EU,

the Commission, all of that, you know,

supporting us and defending human rights.

Yeah.

So, are we done with the news section then?

Yeah, let's move on to the fitness section.

Welcome to the fitness section of the show.

The topic this week is one

that Alan's quite passionate about.

He wanted to include this and we do get

quite a lot of questions in about this.

So, it's all about training splits and that is

essentially how you schedule your workouts and what order

you do them and how often you do them.

A lot of people, especially if people are

new, they get a bit confused by this

because it's just yet more terminology.

So, we're going to cover some of the

common training splits, what the advantages, disadvantages are,

and why you might want to do them.

So, Alan, do you want to kick us

off with just a bit about training splits?

Yes.

So, we get asked this question quite a lot and

it is what is the best training split for me?

What is the best workout schedule for me?

And the answer will always be it depends.

It depends on what you can do, what

your schedule is, what you can stick to.

So, with a lot of things in

fitness, I think the best answer is

it depends because everybody is individual.

So, we are going to go over

the main ones that most people do.

So, we are going to start off with full body.

So, this one is a pretty good one to

start off with because I think full body is

quite good for beginners, actually, who maybe don't want

to have to think too much about the terminology

of training splits or think about those while they

are learning about all the other stuff.

Yeah, exactly.

And the reason we're going to speak about these

certain splits is it means that you're going to

be hitting the muscle groups multiple times a week,

which is ideally what you want to do.

And last week's episode, we touched on the bro

split a little bit in the fitness section where

you're working one muscle group each day.

But these splits that we're going to talk about

are going to be more beneficial if you're a

beginner, intermediate or advanced because you're going to

hit the muscle groups multiple times a week.

So full body does exactly what it says on the tin.

You're going to hit multiple muscle groups throughout the week.

So think in one session you're going

to do legs, you're going to do

chest, back, biceps, triceps, shoulders.

You might even want to throw in a little

bit of core, like ab work there as well.

Yeah, totally.

I mean, that's what quite drew me to Bodypump

classes when I first started going to the gym.

I like going in and getting a full body workout.

There's just something about that.

There's a sense of accomplishment as well to it.

Moving on in time, you probably don't want

to stick to just doing full body workouts

every time you go to the gym.

You do want to like narrow in a

little bit and do some of the other

kind of training that we're talking about.

But for a beginner, super to do

because it just keeps it quite simple.

And also as well, if you don't have a lot of

time in the sense of you can't make it to the

gym, four, five, six times a week, and you can only

maybe commit to two to three sessions, a full body is

quite good for that because you can go in and do

two or three a week and that's it, essentially.

Exactly, it's great for that.

And we might actually programme this for

some clients who have a few busy

weeks coming up in their schedule.

They might be doing a different split, but what

we do is pivot to three full bodies.

I know what you're just

about to say...

Pivot! Pivot.

We might pivot to three full bodies because that's

all they can do for maybe two or three

weeks, but it means that they're still getting that

full approach to their training over that time.

Yeah.

Beginners normally know when it is time to

move on from the full body when it

is maybe just getting a bit too much.

Maybe there's other stuff that

they want to start doing.

They maybe want to start

working on specific parts.

Maybe they feel that their calves aren't developed enough,

so they need to start putting that in.

And before you know it, they can maybe spend two

hours in the gym, which is a big time commitment

and also can be quite draining on energy levels.

So that's perhaps time to know when to move on.

Yeah.

So the next one we would recommend going

to is an upper lower split.

And we would do that obviously over four days.

You'd maybe do upper, lower,

have a rest day, upper, lower.

And then obviously the rest of the week

are either cardio days or rest days.

And again, what it says on the tin.

So upper body, lower body.

Now, a common misconception is that people think that

they need to do the same upper twice a

week and the same lower workout twice a week.

But that's not the case.

What you can do is slightly different exercises

in each to perhaps target slightly different parts

of the muscle in a muscle group.

So, again, this is where being a bit

smarter about your training split can be advantageous.

Yeah, it's good to hit different parts of the

muscle, but obviously to keep interest there as well.

If you're going in and doing the

same workout essentially twice a week, you're

probably going to get bored with it.

So, it's really good to have a bit of

variety in there to keep your interest, but also

to make sure that you're progressing and hitting the

muscles the way you want to.

So again, it's quite good if you don't really want

to be in the gym six days a week.

This is quite good because it's a

four-day commitment, which I think for most

people is pretty reasonable, eh?

Yeah, I would say so.

And the good thing is, as well, if you're

hitting two lower sessions over the week, you can

prioritise maybe you want to work on your glutes

a little bit more, so you can maybe make

one of those a little bit glute heavy.

Yeah, and let's face it, a thing that

a lot of gay guys want to work

on, everybody wants that dump truck ass.

Cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake.

Everybody wants the cake, and yeah.

So once you get a little bit more

confident in the gym, you can move on.

And it's not just the upper lower

split where you can do that as well.

Some of the other splits that we're going to talk

about are quite good and allow you to maybe focus

on certain areas that you want to work on.

Yeah, I will say though, if you're someone who

doesn't enjoy a leg/lower day, maybe having two of

those a week is a bit like, "Ugh!"

Because I hate doing legs.

And the only reason I hate doing them is

because I don't feel I'm that strong in them.

You know, it's the path of least resistance as

humans, we don't enjoy doing something we don't like.

So again, having that two day split, although

you might not enjoy legs, you can put

a bit of variety into it then.

And I would always recommend to do some

ab work during a lower day as well.

If you're looking for a split that is maybe

a little less leg heavy, you could go for

a PPL, which stands for push/pull lower.

Yes, really, really good split.

I would say that this

is more of an intermediate/advanced

level for this kind of training.

So push would be chest, shoulders, triceps.

Pull would generally be back and bis.

And then lower is exactly it.

Lower/legs sometimes it's called as well.

So you could do this maybe three times a week.

Push/pull/legs.

Or you could go into push/pull/legs, upper/lower.

You could actually add those two in if you're

going to do more of a five day split.

And again, that just means that you're going to

get the muscle groups worked multiple times a week.

Very good advice.

Thank you very much.

So what I would recommend is if you're doing

a push/pull/legs/upper/lower, you could maybe do push/pull/legs

as three days, and then have a rest

day, and then do the other two.

Ideally for any of these splits, you

don't want to be working the same

muscle groups on consecutive days.

So think about that when you're planning

it into your schedule as well.

And I mean it is good.

Doing this is maybe just three days a week isn't

going to be enough, because you're really only going to

hit each muscle group once in the week.

So I think a lot of people who would

do PPL would do it six days a week.

And it's good because if you're doing push, you're not

going to do it again for another three days, and

then you get one rest day a week.

Big commitment though, six days a week in the gym,

which not everybody can do, so it makes it a

little bit more of an advanced split to do if

you're doing it six days a week.

You could also do it as four days over

the week as well, and it rolls over, so

you could do push, pull, legs, push, then into

the next week, legs, push, pull, legs.

So it could work on a four day split as

well, but it depends on what your goal is, and

obviously how long you can work out for, how many

days you can work out for, but it is an

option, but just know that if you are doing that,

it might just take a bit longer for you to

see the results that you want to see.

Yeah.

And again, I mean, this is quite a lot

of information being thrown at people, but hopefully this

exemplifies the fact that there are no hard and

fast rules you can play about with things.

What I would say as well is you could do

a push-pull split with no leg day, and then you

incorporate the legs into the push and the pull workouts.

So for instance, you could do squats on your push

day, you could do deadlifts on your pull day.

Yeah, that's a really good way of doing it.

Just a caveat to that is that the workouts

will probably be a little bit longer, which is

fine if you've got time for it, but an

advantage of it is that you don't have that

dreaded leg slash lower day that's coming up.

So yeah, that's a really good point.

Yeah, and then you can do four

days a week in the gym.

So slightly longer sessions, but you're only

there for a four-day commitment, for instance,

and if that suits your schedule, brilliant.

Yeah, I was doing push-pull there for a

little while when I was waiting on my

knee recovering, and I've just started to introduce

legs a wee bit, unfortunately.

But yeah, no, it's nice to

get back into that split again.

Any other splits that you

want to talk about today?

So obviously we talked about the bro split

last week, and essentially it's working, say, chest

on a Monday, back on a Tuesday, legs

on a Wednesday, shoulders on a Thursday, so

it's a muscle group per day.

I am not the biggest fan of it.

I think it's very old school.

A lot of people like doing it, but again,

if you're new to training, you might think that's

the best way to do it, because you're giving

a really good workout to one muscle group, but

it's really, really taxing to do that.

And also, disadvantages, if you miss a day for

whatever reason, you might not be doing that day

again until the next week, so you're already getting

a lot of time in between those sessions.

I personally think the only way the bro split

works is if you do more than one muscle

group per session, and then that means you're hitting

each muscle group twice a week at least.

So, I think people who want to get

results will maybe do two to three muscle

groups per session, and then they choose which

ones they want to do, based on what

their preference is and what works well together.

So yeah, the bro split of just

doing one muscle group once each week,

yeah, you're absolutely right, it's not great.

Yeah.

And I will say as well, there's a

huge caveat to all of this, in terms of

these are really good splits to do,

depending on your circumstance and your schedule.

But remember, depending on what your goal is,

fat loss, muscle building, even maintaining, that will

then dictate how the workout is actually structured,

in terms of sets that you're doing, reps

that you're doing, rest time.

And remember, nutrition is a huge,

huge part of it, as well.

So again, depending on what your goal is,

you need to make sure that your nutrition

is set up well with your training.

So that's just something to think of.

There's no one split that's going to

be the best one for your goal.

Absolutely.

There was one, there's one I actually

want to talk about, because it was

quite a trendy one last year.

I think it got quite a lot of circulation on

the likes of TikTok, and that's the 3-2-1 split.

So it's three days of muscle training, two

days of Pilates, and one day of cardio.

I haven't heard of this.

Yeah, so I think it was more popular with women

in particular, but I think there's a lot to be

said for that, because that holistic approach to training, making

sure that you're getting good core work in there as

well, and you're focusing on that.

I mean, we really found that when we lived

in Glasgow, because we were teaching Les Mills Core

classes, we were teaching Bodybalance classes, there was

quite a lot of isolated core work that we

were doing, and it was quite holistic.

It targeted all of the core muscles in

the back body and the front body, and

I massively felt the benefit of doing that.

And I think we've spoken about that.

We're going to pick that up and try

to do more isolated core work now.

But, yeah, I think there's definitely something to be

said for that as well, because if you are

the kind of person that likes variety, there is

no point in forcing yourself to do a split

if it drains the life out of you.

If you feel that you're just doing it because

you need to do it, or you have to

do it, or that it's the right thing to do,

that's not sustainable long term.

So find something that works for you.

If that means you find a class in a gym

that you like to do one or two days a

week, you can work that around your split.

So it's all about finding what works for

you, what keeps you motivated, and what keeps

you wanting to go back to the gym.

Yeah, I was going to say that, obviously we

haven't really touched on cardio that much, so if

you're someone that likes to go out running, for

example, but you're thinking, "Oh, how am I going

to fit all this in?"

Pick the split that works for your schedule.

So if you're out running three days a

week, I would probably say three full bodies

is going to be perfect for you.

Don't think that you need to be

doing push/pull/legs/upper/lower, as

well as running three days a week.

You're going to be absolutely exhausted, and you're

probably going to end up injured as well.

So, yeah, pick the thing that's going to

work for you, introduce all the elements that

you enjoy, and then the chances are you're

going to stick to it even more.

What I will say is, trends...

The ticky-tock, whatever it is you're getting this

information from, don't think that that is,

inverted commas, the best thing to do.

The best thing to do is the thing that you're

going to enjoy and that you're going to stick to.

The best thing about social media as well,

whether it be TikTok or Instagram or whatever,

there's so much conflicting advice out there.

You know, if you want, and again,

it's the hooks, it's the hooks.

So if you want a big chest, if you

want this, this is what you need to do.

And I get it because these creators want to hook

you in, they want to get this, but they're just,

a lot of the time, they're just saying this stuff

to try to get clicks and views and likes.

Realistically, it depends from person to person.

What your preferences are, what your abilities are,

where you're at on your journey.

How much time you've got, there's a lot to it.

So if you are tuning into this and

you do feel confused by what you've seen

online and all of this conflicting information, and

you don't really know, feel free to get

in touch with us, as we always say.

I mean, you can drop

an email, podcast@outlift.ing

You can send us a message

on Instagram, that's @outlift.ing

and we will be more than happy

to give little pointers and advice.

And answer some of these

questions that you might have.

Absolutely.

Like I said at the start

of this section, it depends.

If you're not getting that answer from someone,

they're not giving you the true answer.

I've always, always believed that.

And I feel that we try and cut through

a lot of the BS that's out there in

terms of what's right and what's wrong.

Nothing is right and nothing is wrong

when it comes to this approach.

The answer is, it depends.

So if you're not getting that

answer, look for that answer.

And like you said, like drop a message.

We love speaking to people, hearing

about their journeys, where they are.

And, you know, it's not even about getting

in touch with us for a sales call.

It's about getting in touch with us so that we

can just help you and give you some information.

Absolutely.

We're here to help.

That's what we do.

Shall we wrap up the show?

I think we've talked about splits enough.

Let's do it.

Unless you want to do the splits.

Absolutely not.

Unless you want to take me to the hospital.

No. Let's wrap it up then.

As ever, thank you very much

for tuning into the show.

As Alan just said, you can get

in touch with us if you want.

It's not about getting you on

some sort of sales call.

However, as we always say, if you do

think that the Outlifting service that we provide

is something that might interest you, we can

get you booked in for a video chat

and it's no pressure, no obligation.

So if at any time you think you do

need a bit of extra support, we offer online

coaching services, nutrition, accountability, and much more.

We're helping lots of other

gay, bi, and trans guys.

who are part of team Outlifting.

If you think that you might want to join

and you can benefit, have a chat with us.

Book in for a free no obligation discovery call

by clicking the link in the show notes now.

We will be back next week with

another show and don't forget you can

find us on all streaming platforms.

Apple Music, YouTube, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

But that's us for this week.

Until next time, over and Outlifting.