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!
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.