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.
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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