I want...
Weight LossHow I Went from ZERO Workouts to 6-days per week
January 25, 2025 By
Leanne Vogel
January 25, 2025
Transcript
Leanne Vogel
You might not be at the place where you’re like I want to do my first pull up. If you’re not consistent with your schedule, saying I want to do my first pull up is way too far ahead of the game.
Leanne Vogel
Hey, my name is Leanne and I’m fascinated with helping women navigate how to eat, move and care for their bodies. This has taken me on a journey from vegan keto high protein to everything in between. I’m a small town holistic nutritionist turned three time international bestselling author turned functional medicine for practitioner offering telemedicine services around the globe to women looking to better their health and stop second guessing themselves. I’m here to teach you how to wade through the wellness noise to get to the good stuff that’ll help you achieve your goals. Whether you’re seeking relief from chronic ailments, striving for peak performance, or simply eager to live a more vibrant life, this podcast is your go to resource for actionable advice and inspiration. Together we’ll uncover the interconnectedness of nutrition, movement, sleep, stress management and mindset, empowering you to make make informed choices that support your unique health journey. Think of it as quality time with your bestie mixed with a little med.
Leanne Vogel
School so you’re empowered.
Leanne Vogel
At your next doctor visit, get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn about your body and how to care for it healthfully. Join me as we embrace vitality, reclaim our innate potential, and discover what it truly means to pursue healthfulness.
Leanne Vogel
Hello, welcome. Today it’s just you and I. We get to hang out and we are going to go until I lose my voice. I am going to be performing an adrenal Dutch test later today, so I can’t drink a lot of water and so this probably wasn’t the best timing for doing a solo episode where I literally talk for an hour. But I’m here. This is the time that I’ve set aside to do it and so we’re just going to move forward with it. The last time we got to sit down just you and I was episode 479 where I went through the Diagnostic Solutions GI map, which is a stool test that I personally have used in my practice for the last five or six years. I love this test.
Leanne Vogel
It allows us to understand the dysbiotic pattern in the gut because if a practitioner says you have dysbiosis it’s like, well, yeah, like everybody does. We need more details than that. And so this tool allows us to really understand what’s going on with the gut because each GUT protocol is going to be very different depending on what dysbiotic pattern you have. So if you haven’t checked out that episode, I highly recommend it. I really, really, really enjoy sitting down with you and going through things. I’ve been trying to carve out a little bit more time for you and I to just do this. However, with the renaming of the show back in May, I’ve had a lot of interest of guests coming on the show, which has been so great that I can sit down and really understand the strategy behind the show, what guests I want to have on, what tools I want to provide you with. So if you have feedback on how that’s going or what you’re seeing, please reach out to me.
Leanne Vogel
You can do that by going to healthfulpursuit.com contact and that’ll go directly to. To my email box. Now, my husband Kevin is just such a sweetheart and he manages all the tickets and things for me, but he does forward me the emails when there is feedback just so I can know if I’m on the right track. So it’s really, really helpful. And if you don’t feel like sending me an email, that’s fine. If you’re on Instagram, you can also go to Leanne Vogel on Instagram and just send me a little DM and let me know how I’m doing. If you want to have certain guests on or you like the direction or don’t like the direction that I’m going, I am all ears, because I am here to provide a service to you and I take it very, very seriously because it’s a serious thing. I want to make sure that you have the tools that you need to live out your life from a balanced perspective.
Leanne Vogel
And today’s conversation, I think, folds really well into that. I’ve chatted a little bit in the past about my decision to start working out now. Had I known back in August of 2022 that I would fast forward two years and be working out six days a week, I would have thought you were nuts. There’s no way that I could have committed to that. Meanwhile, like even. Even going to the gym. No way. And so I wanted to kind of take you through what that progression has been like, how I program my workouts, because I do get a lot of questions about this, specifically what workouts I choose, why I chose them, how I kind of balance everything out.
Leanne Vogel
Now, my past has definitely helped me with this. When I was in my early 20s, I had this crazy idea of becoming a triathlete. And so I Hired a coach where she put together programming for me. And I believe it was five or six days a week. I would do a lot of working out. Now, I’ve always been curious, you know, because I was so young and I could have really gone far, I think, with it, had I been eating enough. But my big issue back then is that I was not fueling correctly. My goal was always like, let’s just try to eat as little as possible.
Leanne Vogel
And I remember doing many of my brick workouts where I would do, like, swimming and running or running and then cycling, where I wouldn’t eat in between, or I would do it completely fasted and I would bonk, meaning I would just run out of fuel. My legs just couldn’t move anymore. And so this conversation about workout programming from going from zero days a week to six days a week has to come with an understanding that you need to be eating enough. And so, to follow up this episode, once you’ve listened, I want you to mark in your Calendar next week, August 6th episode 485 with my friend Sarah Granitz. We’re talking all about reverse dieting, protein needs and changing our body. So that’s definitely one to consider. And if you’re just struggling with your macros, you’re not even sure, like, am I eating enough? Should I be eating more? Am I eating too much? I do have a program for that. You can find out more details by going to healthful pursuit.com macro.
Leanne Vogel
And that program will outline a personalized macro approach for you where I go through what you’ve submitted and come up with a plan for you that generally spans a couple of months. I really just prepare a document with everything you could do, the adjustments you could be making step by step by step to take you to your goal. But a big, big, big thing. A big thing. If you want to build muscle, I really want you to hear this. If you want to build muscle, you have to eat enough. Simply put, that’s like, that’s what it’s got to be. You cannot build muscle in a steep deficit.
Leanne Vogel
And most of the women that I work with, I would wager most of you listening are probably not eating enough. And I am preaching this to myself. Even as a holistic nutritionist, even having been in this space 20 years, I still. I still go days where I’m like, I could, like, skip lunch. I’ll just lower my calories a little bit. You know, I overate yesterday. And no, if we want to build muscle, if we want to get stronger, we at least need to be in maintenance and ideally, like ideally at a 50 calorie to 100 calorie surplus so it can go directly to building that muscle. So the conversation around going from zero workouts to six days a week would not be complete without just chatting about food and making sure that you are eating enough, eating enough.
Leanne Vogel
So we want protein, ideally carbs and fats. Now the conversation. Because I come from a history of ketogenic dieting, keto changed my life. I still coach on the ketogenic diet. Many of my clients and macro programs are focused on the ketogenic diet if that’s the route we decide to take. I do think that keto has a space, especially when it comes to an individual experiencing metabolic issues. I think that keto needs to be a stop that we take on our path to reset things. And that was very much the case for me.
Leanne Vogel
Now I feel like once you’ve experienced that ketogenic reset, it’s very unlikely, unless you already have diabetes or unless we’re really working through an obesity plan or we’re experiencing cancer or we’ve experienced, experienced dementia and been diagnosed with those sorts of things. Cardiovascular issues, generally speaking, having a pretty good balance between protein, carbs and fats I found to be the most beneficial for most women because they’re slow oxidizers. Most of Us are about 90% of the hair tissue mineral analysis that I pull for clients. Women are slow oxidizers and so they’re going to respond better to less fat and more carbohydrates. What I oftentimes see when it comes to individuals even working to eating enough, their carbs and fat are super high. Generally what I see is that women are eating around 100, 125 grams of carbs per day and around 150 grams of fat per day. Those two being even like that when it comes to body recomposition is going to be more challenging. And so that balance is very unique to you, what you’ve been doing in the past and what your goals are.
Leanne Vogel
So if you need help with that, you can go to healthful pursuit.com macro and I’d be more than happy to take you through what I think could be best. So when it comes to nutrition before, during, after workouts, generally speaking, we see that women over the age of 30, 35 generally don’t do best in a fasted workout. Meaning it’s good to have something in your body before you go to the gym. Now myself, personally, my digestive system, especially on leg day, Oof. I cannot eat before it has to be at least two hours before and so usually my flow of things is that I will have breakfast around 7:30am and I’ll be working out at the gym or starting my warm up around 9 o’clock and starting to hit pretty heavy weights come 9:30. Now that process works really well for me where it takes me about two hours to start feeling pretty good post workout or pre post meal I should say. So that flow is going to be different for you. But oftentimes many of the influencers and people that are creating content online, many.
Leanne Vogel
Of these women are in their 20s.
Leanne Vogel
And working out fasted. And I found once a woman reaches that 3035 age range, working out fasted is no longer super beneficial. Now working out fasted can increase growth hormone, but many of the issues that come from a fasted workout, specifically adrenal issues, will just rise cortisol further up, affect our glucose and then affect our ability to build muscle. And so when it comes to this workout conversation, again food needs to take somewhat of a conversational piece before we get into the programming and how I did this and how I choose to work out at the gym and kind of what the flows are. You got to make sure that you’re eating enough. You got to make sure that your macros are right, especially if you’re wanting to change the way that your body is functioning. We got to make sure that if you are over that 30, 35 age range, it’s probably beneficial to eat something before now on days that are really really heavy. I have played around with a little bit of carbs before the workout.
Leanne Vogel
I used to be really good at this in my twenties I could handle eating directly before a workout. There’s no way that I can do that now. I’ve played around with like a couple of jelly beans before the workout. I don’t find that that makes a big difference. For me. What really has helped the most is using essential aminos and we’ve chatted about essential aminos on the podcast before. If you want to find out more details about my favorite essential aminos, you can go to get kion.comketo I generally do one scoop of the aminos first when I wake up and then I have one in my bottle. One scoop in my bottle for my actual workout.
Leanne Vogel
And I find generally speaking that breakfast at 7:30, warming up around 9am and starting my heavy lifting around 9:30 while I’m drinking my aminos works really well for me that by 11:30 or so I’m having my second meal and that flow has worked really well. Whereas on days where I work out in the afternoons, oh man. I have not figured out the best way to approach this. Though I do feel better working out in the afternoons. I’ve had the whole day to eat and I find like at least three hours before my last or after my last meal is when I can work out. So let’s say I ate at 1 o’clock. I would say that my workout starting around 4ish, is going to be the best, but I’m going to need to eat directly after and so you’re just going to need to trial it. There’s no absolutes.
Leanne Vogel
I think the only absolutes that I would encourage you in as we have this conversation about working out and food has to do with making sure that you’re eating enough, especially if your goal is muscle gain and making sure that if you’re over that 30, 35 age range, you’re probably going to do better on some form of fuel before your workout, whether that’s 30 minutes before, an hour before, or in my case, sometimes two hours before. Generally speaking, a really great rule that I like to follow is that my meals are never five hours or more apart. And that just allows me to be more fluid with when my workouts are. And so if I ate my first meal at 7:00, my next meal would have to be at noon. Okay, so that gives me five hours basically. So if I work out directly after my breakfast, I know I have a little bit of ways to go before I have my lunch and vice versa. If I work out pretty close to my lunch, I know the minute I finish my workout, I gotta get some food in. Okay? So if you want to build muscle, which is a thing that everyone’s talking about right now, we got to make sure that we’re eating enough.
Leanne Vogel
Struggling with hair growth. You are not alone. My hair was thinning, breaking, frizzing, no matter what I tried. I turned to collagen supplements hoping to find a miracle, but they did nothing for me. No rapid hair growth, no epic nail health, no skin or joint changes. Now, most collagen supplements on the market are derived from the entire animal carcass.
Leanne Vogel
Like cow, pig, marine, and are usually.
Leanne Vogel
More than than 90% protein. They’re labeled as collagen peptides, hydrolyzed collagen, collagen, hydrolysate, collagen type 1 or 3 or gelatin. While these are protein supplements, their incomplete structure means that they often fail to make noticeable differences in hair, joint or skin health. A year ago, I tried BioCell Collagen as a last ditch effort. BioCell Collagen is a unique collagen matrix made of hydrolyzed collagen, hyaluronic acid and conjoin sulfate. It’s not just a blend of these ingredients, but is extracted from pure dietary chicken sternal cartilage. It’s free of allergens, hormones and antibiotics. Two months into using BioCell collagen, I started receiving messages on Instagram.
Leanne Vogel
What are you doing to your hair?
Leanne Vogel
It looks crazy good.
Leanne Vogel
That was over a year ago and my hair has been growing 1 1/2 to 2 inches a month ever since. It’s now so long and thick that it gets caught in my pants. The wispy broken hairs have grown to shoulder length. I have new growth and a healthier scalp and no more flakes or psoriasis. The difference is night and day. Since sharing my struggles and successes, many ladies have reached out sharing their own hair health issues and I want to help you too. Try BioCell and get $25 off your first purchase. Plus once you make an order we connect over text so I can provide personalized support for your hair and Collagen needs.
Leanne Vogel
Visit mygrowinghair.com for all the details on what I used, how much and when. Again, that’s mygrowinghair.com to learn more and start your journey to healthier hair today. And remember, when you make a purchase, we connect over text so I can help you anytime with your hair and collagen needs.
Leanne Vogel
Okay, so let’s talk about the importance of workout programming and really like why you would want to have a plan. So when I first started working out, my plan was legit consistency and maybe yours needs to be that as well where I said I don’t care what I’m doing, I just need to be consistent with what I’m doing. And so I used the Nourish Move Love program. She’s on YouTube. You can find out more by going to YouTube and checking her out. I believe it’s Nourish Move Love. I hope that’s right. And she has a bunch of different workouts on her YouTube channel and I just did one a week and I started there and when I was consistent with one a week I went to two a week, then three a week, then four a week, then five a week and then I was consistent with that five a week while I worked on my steps and got that to 10,000 and then I decided to go to the gym and I started with two a Week, then three a week, then four a week, then five, then six, then dropped down to five and I was at five for about a year.
Leanne Vogel
Yeah, about a year and a bit. And then I just recently moved up to six. And so what I do with the six split is I usually do four on one off, four on one off, maybe five on one off. So it’s kind of all over the place. I kind of just decide when I feel like my body is ready for rest and that takes time. My aura ring has been really helpful when it comes to that. But the benefit of workout programming, whether it’s workout programming because you want to be consistent where you have a goal of I want to work out once a week and that’s your programming, or if it’s a matter of I want to work on my first pull up or I want to work on, I don’t know, a hundred pound squat. So then you have to gauge your workout programming with the goal that you have.
Leanne Vogel
And so if you’re just willy nilly going into the gym and doing like whatever tickles your fancy that day, you’re not going to see progression. You’re probably going to experience injuries because you’re going to be doing the same movements over and over and over again because they’re the ones that you like and you’re likely going to lack motivation because you’re not going to see the changes that you want. So having somewhat of a goal and structuring it and that I know that the program that I’m on right now is going to go for the next 16 weeks. So that’s what I’m doing for 16 weeks until we change it. And so there’s the consistency in that gives you more confidence to facilitate what needs to get done and you know that that’s just what you’re doing and you do that thing and you have faith in the process. So again, you might not be at the place where you’re like, I want to do my first pull up. If you’re not consistent with your schedule, saying I want to do my first pull up is way too far ahead of the game. First you need to get consistent doing movements that you love doing things that you enjoy doing.
Leanne Vogel
So in my case, I really love the Nourish Move Love program. Was it going to get me to do my first pull up? No way.
Leanne Vogel
Nope.
Leanne Vogel
But it allowed me to get comfortable with movements at home, to feel a little bit more confidence in the gym and using weights. So that when I got into the gym I felt like, okay, like I Have a little bit of strength. I have a lot of ways to go, but I feel comfortable here. So I think that’s the first thing is like the benefit to programming is so that you see progress, you avoid injury, and you boost up your motivation. Now another part of this is your individual goals like the pull up. And so about a year ago, I decided that I wanted to achieve my first pull up. It literally took me, I think it was like 15 months to achieve one pull up. Then I injured my shoulder.
Leanne Vogel
Now I can’t do a pull up, but I did achieve the one pull up. And so all of my upper programming when I got into the gym, all the programming that I was doing was tailored around that goal. I wasn’t walking into the gym, like, yeah, I feel like shoulder press today. I think I’m gonna maybe do some deadlifts and finish up with some squats and I don’t know, maybe like a chest press or two. No, it was, I have three upper days. All of the movements are so that I get stronger so that I can do a pull up. So maybe your goals are strength based. Maybe you want to do, like I said, 100 pound squat, or maybe it’s muscle gain where you’re doing body scans every three to six months and kind of seeing your progress there.
Leanne Vogel
Maybe it’s fat loss, maybe it’s overall fitness. Maybe it’s a goal like mine, a pull up. I think oftentimes and a mistake that I’ve made with workout programming and expectations is like, if I expect or I build the program based on how I want to look, I will be disappointed. But if I make it on a strength goal like my goal this year continues to be, I would really like to be able to do three strict, beautiful pull ups by the end of the year. Is that going to happen? I don’t know. I really think that some, some structural thing is impeding my ability to do pull ups well, because I do have the strength for it. But just something, something’s happening there. And another goal that I have is muscle gain.
Leanne Vogel
And so that’s allowed me to kind of distance myself from jumping on the scale and wanting to see the number the same or lower to the point where I’m actually almost at my starting weight. I’m four pounds away from my starting weight that I started when I went into the gym, but my muscle is way higher. And so whatever that goal is for you, having a goal, whether that be a strength goal, a muscle gain goal, what we talked about is going to be really important for Developing a program. Like if you want to do a pull up and you have four days in the gym, two or three of those better be upper body focused. If two or three of those are lower body focused, you’re not going to hit your goals. So just like basic, basic things. Another conversation piece that’s important to focus on is how many days should you be going to the gym? And I want to reframe that question to how many days can I work out? How many days can I work out now? Ideally, a good level to shoot for is definitely three days a week. That’s like minimum to start seeing some changes is what I’ve seen myself personally, I think going from these six days down to three, I would feel like really, I think it would be really easy for me to just stop going.
Leanne Vogel
I feel like the consistency at this point, like today is my rest day and I took it just because I had a lot of stuff going on physically. I knew that I probably could have done my workout today, but I was like, no, I got a lot of stuff going on. I’m just going to shift my days a little bit. And I am so excited to go back to the gym tomorrow, which is crazy. If I would have heard myself saying that a bunch of years ago, I would have thought I was nuts. But I actually do enjoy spending time there. And so you need to find a realistic schedule, okay? Realistic schedule that allows you to be consistent. Like if you say, I’m going to go to the gym five days a week, but because of that goal you only go two days a week, then you’re really only going two days a week and maybe your goal should be three.
Leanne Vogel
So let’s stop pretending, let’s stop lying to ourselves that we’re going to like get things done and then we don’t. We need to set realistic expectations and then plan our life around those. So if you only have an hour to work out and your program takes you an hour and a half, how often do you think you’re going to do that program?
Leanne Vogel
When you have the time, which you’re.
Leanne Vogel
Not going to have the time.
Leanne Vogel
So maybe you’re doing it once a.
Leanne Vogel
Week, maybe once every three weeks because you just don’t have the time to do the program. So instead of trying to fit your program into your life, instead of trying to fit your life into the program, you really need to fit your program into your life. If you only have an hour to work out, then make a program that’s only an hour. That way you actually get it done. Okay? So for myself personally, I found that, you know, I wake up around 5:30, I take the dog for a walk, I work for the morning, I have my breakfast and I’m at the gym. I’ve already worked out a couple of, I’ve already worked rather a couple of hours. I work out, I go home, I have lunch, I keep working. And so that works for me.
Leanne Vogel
And I can spend a good amount of time at the gym because I work for myself and my husband is rarely here and especially when he’s not here, I have more time. And so I’m able to kind of structure my clients and my schedule around that. But you might not have that, and that’s okay. You might have a literal 45 minutes. 45 minutes is better than 0 minutes. And if you only have 45 minutes, stop thinking that you can do an hour, an hour and a half long program. You’re just not going to do it. And so it’s less about what should I be doing and more about what can I realistically do.
Leanne Vogel
When I started working out back in August 2022, there was no way that I would have stayed motivated, making a commitment to go to the gym, even three times a week to the gym. Like, I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn’t confident at all to walk in there and feel good about what I was doing. And to be honest, every day I walk into the gym, even now when I’m traveling and I’m going to various gyms and trying to get my workout in, I rarely like, oh yeah, I have it all together. Like I totally know what I’m doing. I don’t think any of us does. And we’re just kind of like there to move our bodies. Another part of the how many days can I work out is how many days can I rest? And so I kind of alluded to that when I was talking about my split.
Leanne Vogel
I find the split that feels, felt really good for me when I was getting started was two days on, one day off. So I’d work two days, then have a rest day, then work out two days and have a rest day. And I love that split. I love, love that when I’m traveling, I do that. I love it, I love it, I love it. Okay, so that could be a really good place once you get going with things. But your body builds muscle at rest. If you’re constantly pushing, you’re not going to be building.
Leanne Vogel
And so as I enter in this six day a week experience, there is a lot of rest in between those workouts. In the fact that I kind of have shifted my steps around. I’ve included a lot more restorative time throughout my day, and I foresee needing to change this periodically only because my body will kind of dictate when I need a rest day. So, like, for example, like I said today, I didn’t feel like my body was saying rest day, but my schedule, I just wanted some downtime. I needed to grocery shop. I needed to coordinate some tax stuff. And so I was like, I’m just going to take the day. And that was important to me.
Leanne Vogel
But oftentimes I’ll just go until my body says, no, today’s arrest. And so my program aligns with that. Where for a while there, I was doing a program that had three uppers, two lowers. Now I’ve switched to a program that has three uppers, three lowers, and I kind of just like do upper, lower, upper, lower, upper, lower, upper, lower. And so if I take a rest day in between there, it doesn’t like, throw everything off. Whereas previously it was with the three and two that sometimes it was just. It just didn’t work for me. And so that’s another thing is like knowing when things just aren’t working for you.
Leanne Vogel
For the example of if you are. If you have a program that’s three days a week, but you’re only doing it one day a week, let’s just be honest with ourselves. This program is not working, and you need to make changes. Another part of a workout program is that we need to know what kind of exercises to include. Now, I am by far no means specialized in this whatsoever, like, at all. I can tell you that I know when a program feels good in my body, and I know when a program does not feel good in my body. I find now the program that I’m doing now has isolated a little bit where I do shoulder, chest, and tries one day. And then I do glutes and hamstring, and then I do back lats and biceps.
Leanne Vogel
And then I do legs, like all legs, like hamstrings and quads and glutes, calves, all in one day. And then I do an upper body core. So that’s like all upper body. And then the last leg day is a hamstring or, sorry, a quad and glute day. And so that has worked really good for me. But when I first started, it was really just full body one day, a couple rest days, and then full body the next day. And I just repeated those. The most important thing when it comes to progression, though, is making sure that you’re doing the same movements over and over so you can get better at them.
Leanne Vogel
So there are different types of movements. Like for compound movements it would be stuff like squats and deadlifts and bench press. And then there’s more isolation exercises like for example a tricep push down or a pec fly.
Leanne Vogel
Paleo Valley’s Bone Broth Protein Powder is here to revolutionize your nutrition. Their bone broth powder is sourced from bones of 100 grass fed and finished cattle raised on American farms. Using regenerative farming practices, this ensures the highest quality protein while helping to restore local ecosystems.
Leanne Vogel
I especially love this option if you’re.
Leanne Vogel
Dairy free and whey is not an option for you. And unlike many other products on the market, their bone broth protein is made with only water and bones.
Leanne Vogel
That’s it.
Leanne Vogel
No harsh chemicals, no low quality grain fed cattle. But what makes Paleo Valley’s bone broth protein truly exceptional. It’s packed with research backed benefits. It supports skin health, improves hydration, encourages recovery, supports bone health and may improve sleep quality. Plus it boosts digestion. Their bone broth protein also contains glycine, an amino acid often lacking in modern diets and is essential to methylation. It’s time to take your nutrition to the next level with Paleo Valley’s Bone Broth Protein powder. It’s available in three delicious unflavored vanilla and chocolate, their best seller.
Leanne Vogel
Simply add one to two scoops per day into water, milk or your favorite smoothies.
Leanne Vogel
It is especially good if you have.
Leanne Vogel
A creamy ice cream maker. My husband’s favorite recipe is one scoop.
Leanne Vogel
Of chocolate, one scoop of unflavored, one.
Leanne Vogel
Scoop of just regular cacao powder mixed with a dairy free milk, frozen and.
Leanne Vogel
Then used in our ice cream maker.
Leanne Vogel
Our creamy.
Leanne Vogel
Ooh, it is perfect.
Leanne Vogel
Head over to paleovalley.com leanne and use the code LEANNE to get 15% off your order. That’s paleovalley.com leanne with code LEANNE for 15% off. Experience the highest quality bone broth protein on the market and start reaping the benefits today.
Leanne Vogel
So how you develop your program if you are not an expertise on it? I would definitely say it’s worthwhile purchasing a program or working with a coach, which I have many, many many times to help me build a program that works best for me. I think where my program lacks right now is a form of cardio. I’m playing around with the idea of folding and sprinting. I tried it a couple of months ago and because of the six day split, I just felt like I wasn’t recovering well. So I’m going to give myself another couple of weeks on the six day and I might drop back down to a five day. So on my leg days I can do sprinting and kind of see how that goes. But I think the most important thing I can say when it comes to the types of exercise to include is to not do any more than 20 to 25 sets in any given workout. So what I mean by that is if each movement, let’s say, I don’t know, you’re doing seated leg curls.
Leanne Vogel
So maybe you do three sets of that, that’s three sets. Okay. And then you do cable squat and that’s another three sets. And then you do abductions, that’s another three sets. Okay, so what are we at now? 3, 6, 9, 12. We’re at 12 sets, so that’s four movements. At 12 sets, you can really only do another three to four movements and you’re maxed out. A lot of the programs that we’re used to from the past and many of the programs that you’ll find online have so many movements to them and it’s just unnecessary.
Leanne Vogel
And so try to aim for 20 to 25 sets per workout. And I think that that’s plenty to get you going. I think the sign of a bad program is one that involves just so many sets, like four sets of this movement and that movement. And there’s 15 to 20 movements in a workout. You shouldn’t need to annihilate that muscle more than once or twice in different movements throughout the workout to see growth. So you want to see variety, but you don’t want to see so much that it builds up the program to be this beast of a situation. Now I, I chatted about this just a moment ago on the benefits of a full body workout. If you are working out two days a week, I think the most beneficial thing could be to do two full body workouts where you’re combining both upper, lower, core into one.
Leanne Vogel
One whole day, whether that’s a 30 minute workout, all the way up to an hour and a half, it doesn’t matter. But you’re really focusing on full body. Whereas a split routine would have to do with like what I’m doing now where I’ve split it up, that I’m doing upper on one day, lower on the next. When I do upper, I usually involve core. At that point I had this crazy idea to do lower and core and that was just so stupid. And I’ll Never combine the two again. I hated it so much because I’m just wasted after a lower body day that, like, I just cannot even do core. And so you need to find those details out for yourself.
Leanne Vogel
And you might need to play around with that. But at two workouts a week, full body is probably going to make more sense. I don’t love the bro split where like one day you’re doing chest, and then the next day you’re doing quads, and then the next day you’re doing hamstrings. That means you’re only working out one section each week. And I haven’t found, at least for myself personally, that that helps with growth. But you can play around with that and see what works best for you. I find a combination of upper one day where you’re kind of hitting all the upper, lower one day where you’re hitting all the lower, and then targeting certain areas throughout the week, depending on your goals. Like for example, with my pull up, you’re going to notice that like all my program has movements that will like so many lat pulls, it’s not even funny.
Leanne Vogel
In different angles, so many rows at different angles to really engage my lats and build up my lats because that’s where I’m lacking the most. And so your goal will then dictate your routine. Another piece of this is progressive overload. You need to safely ensure that you are having continual progress. And this can look like adding more reps or adding more weight or changing the tempo of a lift. And so, for example, with squats, I have been stuck on back squats at 60 pounds plus a bar, so like 105 pounds for like two and a half months. And every time I try to add just like five or ten more pounds, my body’s like, nope, not today. This is not working.
Leanne Vogel
So instead of getting frustrated and just continuing to do the 105 pound squat, I’ve been really focusing on depth. And so every week I record my squat and I compare it to the week before and I try to go a little bit deeper in my squat and I try to hold at the bottom for just a couple more like milliseconds. And so I’m working on tempo and range of movement as a way to progressively overload the lift. So yes, you can increase the reps. So let’s say in my squat I was doing eight reps at 105 pounds and I shoot for nine and then 10 and then 11. That’s a way to progressively overload. Or in the case of my Example with the squats, me holding the squat at the bottom a little bit longer or working on the depth is working on tempo. So let’s say for a squat on the way down, I’m maybe counting instead of two, counting down for two, maybe I’m counting down for three or maybe four or maybe five and really taking my time and then powering up.
Leanne Vogel
The same could be said with a bicep curl. Okay, I’m lowering down the barbell or dumbbell, whatever I’m using nice and slowly. Maybe I used to count down for two. Now I’m counting down for five, let’s say, and then I power up real quick. That could be how to work with tempo and weight, obviously, is a great way to progressive overload. You know, with the squats, I was at 105, then I go to 110. I’m saying this like I did it. I haven’t done it yet.
Leanne Vogel
It will happen when it’s supposed to. And we’re progressive overloading like that. Something I’ve been doing with my shoulder press. I was getting to dumbbell shoulder press of like £30, and I just found that my range of movement wasn’t as deep as I wanted it to be. And my. My elbows weren’t going as low as they should have. So I actually dropped the weight from that down to 20. And I worked on tempo, counting down for four seconds and then powering up and also going all the way down where my elbow really went down past my shoulder and then powered up.
Leanne Vogel
Same with my lap pulls. I got up to around £140. I was really happy with that progression, but I noticed as I progressed that way, the depth or the range of movement wasn’t as good. My tempo was awesome, but the range of movement wasn’t good. So I dropped down to 110. And I’ve been really focusing on bringing that elbow almost to my ribs and then back up and really focusing on that depth. So progressive overload doesn’t need to mean that you just put on more weight every time. You can play around with these different structures to challenge your body.
Leanne Vogel
Okay. To progressively overload your body with more than just the weight. Another piece to workout programming has to do with proper form. Now don’t look around the gym to learn how to have proper form. So I. I really like a couple of resources online. One of my favorites is Jeff Nepart. N I P P A R D.
Leanne Vogel
I believe he’s a fellow Canadian. I love hearing his accent. It’s so fun. It reminds me of Home. And he makes great workout videos where he talks about form. There are a lot of form focused individuals online, some of them good, some of them bad. But I really, really love Jeff and he goes through details that make sense that are scientifically backed. So I had watched a couple of videos on rowing and I was doing rowing at the gym and one of the gentlemen came up to me and said, no, no, no, no, like you really need to increase your range of movement here.
Leanne Vogel
So I started doing that and a couple weeks later I started dealing with sciatica and it took me months to determine that it was those rows and going too deep in the movement that was actually injuring me. And so it’s really, really, really important to gather information, try it, see how it’s working and adjust as you need. But it’s essential that you get proper form. And so if you’re brand new to the gym, you have no idea what you’re doing. Working with a trainer initially can be really helpful. Attending a class can be very helpful. But I would, there’s a, there’s an issue here, and I saw it at my last gym a lot, that the coaches weren’t correcting form at all, like at all. So you really need a coach or trainer that’s going to correct you on your form and that you might even see training other people where they’re correcting their clients on form before you even try to work with them.
Leanne Vogel
And like I said, there are resources online. Jeff being one of the better ones and lots of individuals on, on Instagram, though many of the ones that I found on Instagram are not good. I also really like Ryan Reed Thrive. He’s taught me a lot about my rdls. He focuses a lot on rdls. He uses a lot of swear words, which I find many of these individuals use swear words. I don’t know why, it doesn’t make any sense to me. But what I like about Jeff is that he doesn’t and he just focuses on the form.
Leanne Vogel
Imagine that another essential part to your programming is making sure that you have proper warm up and cool down. Okay. This is really going to help prevent injury. Work on flexibility, aiding in recovery. So dynamic warmups are where it’s at. Dynamic meaning you’re moving so you’re not going to hold stretches for a super long period of time. Okay. You’re moving from one stretch to the next.
Leanne Vogel
It’s like a flow. You’re constantly moving in those dynamic movements. You’re not like holding it, okay, cool down is when you’re holding it. So My warmup usually lasts anywhere between 5, like, 5ish minutes, I would say, where I’m moving through a dynamic flow of different movements. Squat university on YouTube has a ton of different ways to warm up the hips, hips, and shoulders. And I really, really, really like what they’ve put together. And just memorizing one of those can be really helpful for just focusing on your warmups and cool down is usually a matter of stretching. On leg day, I use the compression boots.
Leanne Vogel
I love those things. They’ve helped so much for my recovery. Like, my quads rarely hurt anymore post leg day, which is incredible. And roller, like, I. Okay, I hate the roller, but I use it about 15 to 20 minutes a day. And it has made such a difference in my progression. And actually, I’ve noticed that my glutes have grown more since incorporating rolling daily. I also have a lacrosse ball that I use.
Leanne Vogel
Like, while we’re watching tv, I’ll just go on the floor and stretch it out while we’re watching. And that’s helpful to work on breaking down those tissues. So when should we change our program? I think that we should be able to stay on a program for at least 12 weeks and kind of just like, consistently sit there for a while. I was on a program for way longer than that over the winter because my adrenals were getting a little bit high and I didn’t want to introduce any new stimulus. So I stayed on that program until I was so sick of it, I didn’t even want to go to the gym anymore. So that was. I was so thankful to change programs after that. But I think we should be able to stay on a program for about 12 weeks, no problem, and just kind of be consistent with that.
Leanne Vogel
It’s really nice as you get to know your program. I’m on week five of my newer program, and I’m finally getting in the groove where I’m like, yeah, I know what’s happening next. I’m getting in the groove and challenging myself. We don’t want to become complacent, though, where we’re just going through the movements. We want to be really intentional. You want to have that ugly face come the end of your set. It want. You want it to be hard and, like, you’re pushing for that last rep in there and you’re really giving it your all.
Leanne Vogel
But if you are absolutely stinking bored, change up your playlist, get a cute outfit, do your hair differently, but, like, keep on, keep on keeping on. So much of this. Oh, is like, faith in the process. It’s funny, I’ve been really challenged over these last couple of months. Right before I went to Italy in April, I was probably in the best physical shape. I had cut down, I had leaned out quite a lot. I was building muscle and I purposely, when I went to Italy, just like ate whatever that was fine. I came back, it was fine.
Leanne Vogel
But then I decided that I wanted to go through a bulk. And I’ve gained about 10 pounds, almost, well like 8 pounds consistently since then. And it’s been really hard mentally to like see myself being fluffier and trusting that underneath this fluff is muscle that’s being built. I’m not one of those individuals that works well in the body scans. I’ve done so many different body scans, I don’t have access to a dexa, so I’m unable to kind of see my progress from like a tool perspective. And so it does take a little bit of faith and knowing that if I’m eating enough, plus a little bit of a surplus and I’m pushing in my reps and I’m doing everything. I just have to trust that this will work. And come December, when I’m done with my bulk, I’ll start cutting down and kind of like see what happened.
Leanne Vogel
So there’s a lot of faith that’s required in this process. And if you know why you’re doing something and you’re shooting towards something, it’s a lot easier than just willy nilly going in and seeing what your heart desires that day. So I highly encourage you to build out a program that you feel good about or getting a coach or trainer to build one for you so that you can really achieve the goals that you have set out for yourself, whether it’s strength based or in my case, wanting to do a pull up. So my voice is getting to be quite tickly and because I’m doing this adrenal test here in the next couple of hours, I can’t drink much water. So we’re gonna call it a day today. This was such a blast. I hope you learned something. I hope something that I shared spark something in you to help you along the way.
Leanne Vogel
And I will see you back here for another episode. And don’t forget, it’s all about how to make sure that you’re eating enough. So that’ll be a good one. Okay, see you then. Bye.
Leanne Vogel
Thanks for listening to the helpful Pursuit podcast. Join us next Tuesday for another episode of the show. If you’re looking for free resources, there are a couple places you can go. The first to my blog, healthfulpursuit.com where.
Leanne Vogel
You’Re going to find loads of recipes.
Leanne Vogel
The second is a free parasite protocol.
Leanne Vogel
That I’ve put together for you that.
Leanne Vogel
Outlines symptoms, testing and resources to determine whether or not you have a parasite, plus a full protocol to follow to eradicate them from your life if you need to. That’s available at healthfulpursuit.com parasites and last but certainly not least, a full list of blood work markers to ask your.
Leanne Vogel
Doctor for so that you can get.
Leanne Vogel
A full picture of your health. You can grab that free resource by going to healthfulpursuit.com labs the helpful pursuit Podcast, including show notes and links, provides information in respect to healthy living recipes, nutrition and diet and is intended for informational purposes only. The information provided is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor is it to be construed as such. We cannot guarantee that the information provided on the Healthful Pursuit Podcast reflects the most up to date medical research. Information is provided without any representation or warranties of any kind. Please consult a qualified health practitioner with any questions you may have regarding your health and nutrition program.
Hi! I'm Leanne (RHN FBCS)
a Functional Medicine Practitioner, host of the Healthful Pursuit Podcast, and best-selling author of The Keto Diet & Keto for Women. I want to live in a world where every woman has access to knowledge to better her health.
