24: The Secret to Successful Strength Training

Dr. Rimer: Actually, this morning I woke up and did what I call a little "instant expert exercise." So I jumped on to Google Scholar and reviewed the health benefits of strength training just to make sure I brushed up on the topic a little bit. And yes, I have a list.

Scot: Wow.

Troy: Nice. I like this.

Scot: How did you prepare for the show, Troy?

Troy: I'm here. Present.

Scot: I found my car keys.

Troy: I found my car keys and had a protein drink on the way in.

Scot: Wow. Good.

There seems to be a misconception out there that men don't care about their health. However, we battle that misconception every single week on this very podcast. My name is Scot Singpiel, and I care about men's health.

Troy: And I'm Dr. Troy Madsen. I'm an emergency physician at the University of Utah and I care about men's health.

Dr. Rimer: And I am Dr. Ernie Rimer. I am the Director of Sports Science for the University of Utah Athletics Department, and I do care about men's health.

Scot: Troy, we brought in Ernie because we wanted to talk about strength training today, because there's a lot of health benefits to doing some sort of resistance training, whether that's with weights or bands or bodyweight exercises. However, I feel like we've brought in a bazooka to kill a mosquito here.

Troy: I think we have, but this is great. And I'm going to give you my first impression. This is the first time I've met Ernie. And when I knew we were meeting with Ernie, I was expecting a dude to walk in who was three times as big as me, just masses of muscle, but Ernie is a healthy guy. I mean, he looks like he's a toned guy. He's fit. He's not just some huge muscle-bound dude. That makes me feel a lot better about myself and about the whole goal of strength training, which I know we're going to get into and talk a lot more about.

Scot: That it doesn't have to be . . .

Troy: You don't have to just be some massive dude, weird veins popping out, and something like that.

Dr. Rimer: Well, that's because you asked the sports scientist to come in. The truth is I'm a recovering strength and conditioning coach and I'm now a sports scientist.

Troy: So you're saying you did look like that five years ago.

Dr. Rimer: I tried to look like that maybe more like 10 years ago and even earlier in my youth, but I definitely don't focus on that anymore.

Troy: Okay.

Scot: Interesting. Is there a reason why you've decided not to put so much focus on that part of it anymore?

Dr. Rimer: Well, yeah. I stopped caring about how I look when it comes to my fitness and I started caring more about what fitness does for me in my normal life.

Scot: I love that.

Troy: This is what we need.

Scot: I love that.

Troy: And again, as we talked about this initially, I thought, "There is no way I'm ever going to be some huge dude. But I want to be in good shape. I want to, you know, have good strength conditioning. It's something I need more of." So I like hearing that.

Scot: And, you know, I will say that's the same transition I went through too as well/ I was a skinny kid most of my life and I would get the muscle and fitness magazines and I'd dream of being big like those guys, because I thought it was going to bring me girls or respect or whatever.

And as I get older and older, for better or worse, my goals have really changed. And it's not so much now about my appearance, which I still do care about. It's more about "Do I have some functional strength and ability to do the things I want to do and to continue to do those later in my life?"

And I found that, actually, maybe the way I was strength training for size and for vanity was maybe hurting my body in a way. I would get done with workouts and two, three days later, I could barely squat my own body weight, you know, after those workouts, I'm like, "What am I doing to myself here?"

I also want to make the point that lifting super heavy weights can be dangerous if you're not doing it right and can really actually hurt you. So maybe we'll hit some of that stuff right now.

Normally, we ask our guest a question before we head into the topic. Today's question, you kind of already answered this. What does health mean to you?

Dr. Rimer: For me, it's about having the proper physical fitness and mind state to live an extraordinary life and career. It's really about, "Do I have the physical fitness to pursue the things I enjoy, and do I have the proper mind state to engage in a lot of fulfilling activities on a daily basis?"

Scot: That's an awesome definition. It really falls within our Core Four. Are you watching activity, what you eat, sleep, and taking care of your mental health, which you allude to in your answer right there.

So I did a little bit of research myself because I wanted to find out, you know, if we're going to contend that strength training is good, maybe we should have some statistics or some numbers to indicate why one might want to do this.

Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says adults should do moderate to intense strength workouts targeting all muscle groups two days a week. Currently, in the United States, though, only 30.2% of adults actually do those types of strength training. So that means 70% aren't getting their two times a week, whether that's body weight, or bands, or actual weights.

Some of the detriments of not strength training. After age 30, men start losing 3% to 5% lean muscle mass, which is not a good thing because that's the metabolic engine that helps you burn fat as well. Plus, also, muscle just helps you live the extraordinary life that you want to live.

There was a "Men's Health" article that talked about research published in the "American Journal of Epidemiology" that found that strength training is just as important, if not more, than aerobic training and can add years to your life. The study discovered that the risk of early death from any disease decreased by 23% and the risk of cancer-related death decreased by 31% with a strength-training program.

Troy: They're talking about just the two times a week, I assume.

Scot: The two times a week, just normal guy strength training, not Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Troy: Not an hour in the gym. Just, yeah, a couple times.

Dr. Rimer: And I agree with that. I was trying to brush up on these topics too, and it appears that a moderate resistance-training program can reduce all-cause mortality. And there may actually be a quadratic function there, meaning that when you do less, your all-cause mortality rates can increase and when you do a lot more and with very high intensity, it can also increase all-cause mortality. So maybe there's a sweet spot with moderate resistance exercise training that people should try to hit.

Troy: That's interesting. We've talked about sleep before, and sleep does that same thing. You sleep too little. You sleep too much. There's the sweet spot that sounds like with strength training, same sort of thing.

Scot: Some of the benefits of strength training. It improves your functional performance. That's what you do in your everyday life. It can help increase and maintain your bone density. Of course, muscle mass, which we've already talked about. It can help facilitate joint health as we age. It increases the metabolism, as I mentioned before. It can be part of type 2 diabetes effective glucose control. It releases endorphins for a better mood, so it's affecting that mental health. It can help you sleep better, and it can help with your balance as you age, which is increasingly important.

So a lot of great benefits beyond just looking good that strength training can give you. And again, we're coming back to this notion that it's not about being a huge guy that's checking out your macros all the time, and you've got to go to failure all the time.

So, Ernie, we want to talk to you about for a beginner, somebody that's interested in some beginning strength training. And I like how you've challenged yourself, because you work with University of Utah athletes. You work with very young elite athletes. So talking to beginners is probably a challenge for you and you probably had to brush up, so you probably have some good information. Or maybe it's not. I'm being presumptuous here. I'm sorry.

Dr. Rimer: Well, I can pull from my experience in trying to develop exercise training programs for my family and friends. They ask me all the time.

Scot: Sure.

Dr. Rimer: And earlier in my career when I was a strength conditioning coach, it was these crazy programs that they couldn't keep up with. In fact, one time Freddie Whittingham, our tight ends coach, asked me to provide him with a resistance training program so that he could kick Kyle's butt on the ski slopes, and I gave him something that was way over the top and there was no way he could keep up with it.

And what I've realized with me later in life, with my regimen, it has to be something that I can keep up with, to stay consistent with, and feel good about. So I don't want to go in and . . . I'm not looking to punish myself in the gym anymore like we do our athletes or like we used to do with ourselves, and I'm not looking for something that I have to keep up with where it becomes too much where I feel like it's taken away from the other things that I want to enjoy in life.

Troy: That's a huge point. Like you said, sustainability is key, I think, with anything, and it sounds like that's something you're seeing. It has to be sustainable and you're trying to develop things that the average person like us can sustain.

Dr. Rimer: That's right. And I don't necessarily recommend for someone to go in and try to crush it, especially if you're going from zero to something. Maybe it's about just taking a baby step and maybe one of your goals should be to just be more active two to three times a week.

And if we're talking about resistance training, maybe just finding a very small short routine and test the waters with being consistent with that and feeling comfortable about that before you try to take on greater challenges with your exercise regimen.

Scot: So, for somebody beginning, like a family or friend that comes to you, what do you tell them?

Dr. Rimer: I personally prefer multi-joint exercises, so exercises that will work multiple muscle groups that act upon different joints in the body, because you get more bang for your buck with those. And so that's what I like to go for first.

And if I were to give anyone in this room or someone off the street a basic exercise regimen, I would think something that is a little bit more athletic or acrobatic as your first exercise. Maybe that's a jumping onto a box, or jumping down from a short box, or maybe it's just running up a small flight of stairs. You can be creative with that.

So exercise one would be something athletic and acrobatic so that you can be a little bit more of an athlete than you are in your daily life.

And then, the next exercise would be a lower body strength exercise, so something like bodyweight squats or weighted squats or band squats, or lunges, or anything like that, step-ups. So just a lower body strength exercise.

The next exercise would be more of what we call posterior chain. That's street lingo for the complex between your back muscles, your glutes, and your hamstrings and your calves. They kind of all work synergistically. So we kind of want to work that posterior chain.

Then the next exercise . . .

Troy: Just to interrupt here because I'm thinking in specifics. I love what you're saying, because as I'm hearing this, I'm like, "Okay, these are all things I can easily do on a regular basis." Posterior chain, what would you do for that?

Dr. Rimer: Well, if you were in the weight room, there are a lot more options. But if you were just thinking about doing something with your body weight, it might be something as simple as learning how to hinge at the hip to create a stretch through your hamstrings, your glutes, and your back, and then standing up. We call that exercise a "good morning."

But the good morning exercise technique is also the same as something we call an RDL, often referred to as a Romanian deadlift. And it puts those hamstrings on tension and then you straighten out, and it actually creates some exercise for the posterior chain.

Scot: I want to jump in with the hip hinge thing. There are a lot of videos online where you can start to learn hip hinges, and it's kind of a core component to a lot of exercises, your deadlifts, your squats, stuff like that. And it really does stretch out those hamstrings.

And for somebody like me who sits a lot during my day, I think it really kind of reactivated a lot of those muscles in my body that have fallen asleep. It kind of woke them up and I can now notice I can flex some of them as a result of just doing a simple hip hinge with no weight really.

Dr. Rimer: And believe it or not, one of the benefits in that posterior chain training is to reduce the onset of low back pain. One of the common causes of low back pain is what you call hyperlordosis, or that "swayback," and that's often caused by tight hip flexors, tight low back muscles, weak hamstrings, weak abdominals. So when you start to train those glutes and those hamstrings, it can start to realign your pelvis and reduce some of that hyperlordotic posture.

Scot: I think that's awesome.

Troy: It sounds like we've gotten one through three.

Scot: Yeah, so we just left off on the posterior chains.

Troy: Posterior chain and . . .

Dr. Rimer: And then after that, it would be some kind of upper body pushing exercise, an exercise like push-ups, or bench press, or overhead press, anything where you're activating the anterior muscles, your chest muscles, your shoulder, your deltoids, your shoulders, your triceps. Now you're working a lot of muscle groups in one exercise.

And then the fifth exercise would be an upper-body pulling exercise. So you work the opposite muscles, the muscles in your upper back, in your lats, in your biceps, in your forearms to be able to grab and pull.

Scot: So was that five?

Troy: That's five.

Scot: Five exercises, twice a week.

Troy: And I'm listening to this and, again, I'm thinking, "Okay, I'm someone . . . I don't like to go to the gym, I don't like to invest that amount of time. I just don't go to the gym. It's not going to happen." But everything you've said is stuff I could easily do at home. I could easily do this stuff with a resistance band for some of that stuff. You said the pull. The push-ups are easy. It sounds like the hip flexor stuff would be pretty straightforward to do with a resistance band, or even just some free weights, some dumbbells, something like that.

Dr. Rimer: If we're truly just trying to dip our toes in the water here, we're not ready to pay for gym memberships and things like that, and we want to do some things at home, yes, it could be that simple.

Now, not all bodyweight-resistant exercises are created equal, because you can do something athletic if you have a staircase, you have a sturdy chair, or a couch, maybe your coffee table. I mean, my kids jump off the coffee table all the time, so why can't you? Just throwing that out there.

Troy: That's fair game.

Dr. Rimer: So that's pretty fair, and that's easy. But with lower body strength exercises, your muscles will be able to help you do a bodyweight squat with both legs easier than you can do a lunge.

So if you wanted to start with a bodyweight squat, you could, but if you find that that's easy, because those large muscles, the quadriceps and the glutes, handle that easily, then do a lunge and that will challenge your muscles more. So not all bodyweight exercises are created equal.

But then, yeah, just like we talked about, we could do some posterior chain exercises, the good mornings. There are other bodyweight hamstring exercises you could do at home as well right next to your bedside.

Scot: Let me throw this in here too. So I've been intrigued and have been doing some bodyweight exercises and some new stuff like that. And you just have to do them a few times. You're probably not going to do them perfectly right the first few times, but if you're diligent . . . I go on the internet and I kind of reinforce what I'm doing. You will learn correct form as you go. So don't let the fact that it feels weird the first few times you do it stop you. Try to stick with it for a few weeks.

Dr. Rimer: True. And if it's easy enough for you to perform, you don't have as much risk of hurting yourself if you have bad form. You have greater risk of hurting yourself in the gym or lifting weights. If the weights are too heavy and you start to use bad technique, then you could start to wear that body out.

But you don't have to be as concerned about poor posture and some of those things that we worry about in an intense training environment. You don't have to be as concerned with those things with bodyweight type exercises.

Troy: I think you've already converted me to good mornings. I've never heard that before, but that's a nice stretch in the hamstring. I'm really needing that right now. And it felt good. I mean, it's easy enough to do and I'm a convert already.

Dr. Rimer: Awesome. Well, it's a great exercise, and there are a lot of other ones that you can do from your bedside. I mean, you could simply lay on the ground, put your feet up on a chair, and then just bridge your hips up into the air and then lower your hips back down to the ground, and that will dramatically tax your hamstrings.

Scot: I'm not putting it on the chair, but I'm doing bridges right now as part of my rehab for my hamstring tendinitis that I was told that I have.

Troy: And how high up are you going on that? Demonstrate, please. We've got to see Scot's bridges. I'm curious too. I can use all of this. I'm really looking for something more.

Ernie, by way of background, I run a lot. I run a lot of marathons, but strength training is . . . you know, I get a lot of lower extremity stuff, but I think I'm overworking certain muscle groups and not getting what I need elsewhere.

Scot: So we've got our five basic exercises, which we'll put in the summary of this article so there's a written version of that. How many times a week? How many sets for a beginner? Where should we start there?

Dr. Rimer: Honestly, I think a beginner should begin with something that they feel they could sustain and stick with for a prolonged period of time. So if we're just talking one set of each of those five exercises, even if it was just one time a week and that's a step forward for you, then maybe start there.

We want to get you further than that, but it's about implementing a strategy and a system for yourself that you can be happy with and feel good about maintaining.

So take a step forward. Eventually, we probably want to get to a point where you're doing two to three sets of each of those exercises two to three times a week.

Scot: Okay.

Troy: And this seems so practical. This is stuff you can do at home. You can do it when you're traveling. I mean, as we're talking about this, this is stuff you could do in 10 minutes at work on a break.

Scot: So I'm in a master's program right now, and I take a five-minute study break in between every hour. So, for my five minutes, I'll go do some of my bridges or some of my side planks. Just kind of gets the blood going again, and then go sit down. So it's super easy, and I'm getting my workout in.

Dr. Rimer: Oh, and there's this emerging idea called micro-dosing in sports performance practices. But in bone research, in connective tissue research, and in muscle research, there's this idea that if you do several short doses of resistance training as opposed to one longer session, it may actually be more beneficial for bone health, connective tissue health, and muscle development.

Scot: How do you stay motivated? Because sometimes you get started and you just kind of . . .

Dr. Rimer: Well, I think there are different ways to get motivated. Sometimes it's to share your goals with others. Let your friends know, people you trust, your significant others know what you're trying to do, and ask them to hold you accountable. Sometimes, if you have the ability, find a partner, find someone who's going to go through it with you. Those types of things can help you stay motivated if you don't have the intrinsic motivation within yourself to keep up with it.

Scot: For me, what keeps me motivated is this idea of improving. Doing even bodyweight squats, just being very aware of what's going on in my body, what muscles are feeling good, which ones aren't. Am I pushing my heels into the ground? It's almost like a form of meditation for me sometimes, and I enjoy that feeling of being connected with my body, whether I'm doing a push-up. Am I feeling my chest actually move me or is it more my arms and shoulders?

Troy: And in terms of motivation too, I like what you said, Scot, about how you're doing these exercises as study breaks. And so it's not just, "Okay, I'm exercising because I have to exercise." It's, "Hey, this is going to help me refocus and get me through the next hour of studying or work or whatever."

Scot: Yeah.

Dr. Rimer: And that may be another point we haven't touched on, is this idea that resistance training can acutely improve executive function and processing time. So it truly could actually make you more productive in your work.

Scot: Mitch, our producer, do you have any final thoughts? Anything you'd like to add?

Mitch: What would you suggest for someone who's trying to get into strength training, and they go online, and all they see are these big muscle bros? And they're telling you about supplements, and they're telling you about your macros, and they're telling you about, you know, hitting it hard and doing all these sets, and I'm not there. I've tried that. I've tried that, I feel miserable, I hurt, it feels like it's a goal I could never, ever achieve. I'm just not one of those guys.

Dr. Rimer: That's a major disconnect, right? Scot, earlier you mentioned that one of the things that motivates you is improving. Well, when you're improving, what's that going to lead to? That's going to lead to trying to lift heavier weights, trying to do more work.

For me, the exercise regimen is about maintaining that physical fitness that I need to live that extraordinary life. So it facilitates these other things that I'm motivated in, in life.

And perhaps you can just take what they're saying and not look at what you see physically. Take their advice to implement it within yourself, but know that this is benefiting things for you that may not be just the physical fitness. How does physical fitness facilitate the other things you want to do in your daily living?

Scot: I feel that the part of the disconnect too, Mitch, because I've struggled with this as well, is you don't have to lift those big, heavy weights. And if you're coming out of exercise and you feel absolutely terrible, then something is not right.

And that was what I was going through. I was going through doing the five-by-five routine where it's five exercises, five sets. And they're saying you're supposed to increase your weight all the time. And I was starting to . . . I'm convinced I was starting to hurt myself because I wasn't strengthening support muscles that needed to be strengthened as I was going along the way. I was constantly exhausted. I could barely move when I'd wake up in the morning. I'm like, "What am I doing to myself?"

And I feel so much better now that I do lighter weights, really concentrate on form, really concentrate on just functional strength. I just feel so much better and I'm actually getting stronger now. That's my take.

All right. It is time for the megaphone moment. That's where we hand our guest this megaphone as if they were on top of the mountain preaching to the masses. What would be the one thing that they'd want them to understand about what we just talked about? So everybody's listening, Ernie. Here's the megaphone.

Dr. Rimer: Great. Thank you. This is Dr. Ernie Rimer in the first-ever megaphone moment on The Scope. And today, I want to say that if you want to get started, then make it simple, sustainable, and make sure that it facilitates an extraordinary life.

Scot: Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Troy: That was awesome.

Scot: Ernie, thank you for being on the show, and thank you for caring about men's health.

Troy: And the only problem with that megaphone moment is I don't think anyone's ever going to be able to live up to it. He did things to that Bed and Beyond megaphone that no one will ever be able to do again.

Dr. Rimer: Well, thanks, guys. It's a pleasure being here.

Scot: Time for "Just Going to Leave This Here." That's our opportunity just to throw out whatever might happen to be on our mind. It might have something to do with health. It might have something to do not with health.

Dr. Troy Madsen, please start us off for "Just Going to Leave This Here."

Troy: I'm just going to leave this here. Scot, have you ever been to a dog trainer?

Dr. Rimer: Yes, actually.

Troy: You have?

Scot: I have.

Troy: With your dog?

Scot: And have had numerous training sessions and consider myself a bit of an expert.

Troy: Really?

Scot: Well, kind of an expert.

Troy: We should have hired you.

Scot: I know a few things. I don't know that I'm that much of an expert, but I know my way kind of around some of the principles and techniques. So you guys got a dog trainer?

Troy: We did. We took our dog, Charlotte, to a dog trainer. She's a sweet dog. She's young. She's maybe a year and a half, maybe max 2 years old. Loves to run. Absolutely loves to run. She'll do 20-mile runs with me once a week. But her behavior is not that great sometimes, so we work with the dog trainer.

But it's interesting, these principles. You know, they said, "Don't say no to the dog if they do something you don't want them to do." The issue we're having is my mother-in-law came over and she's jumping up on my mother-in-law and she's older and kind of weak and kind of pushing her over. So we've got to work on this.

They said, "You've got to ignore the bad stuff and really reinforce the good stuff." So the whole concept they said is, "The reward they get from you, and just the praise from you, or whatever else it is should be so much better than whatever reward they get from doing the stuff they shouldn't be doing." It's all about positive reinforcement. You know, I thought it was interesting. We're so much like dogs, I think, in . . .

Scot: We are?

Troy: Yeah, in trying to change our behavior. And I think it's an interesting principle to not beat ourselves up, not focus on the negative, or say, "No, don't do this. Don't do that." But really focus on the positive and reinforce that.

Taking dogs and applying it to training ourselves and health and fitness, we do talk a lot about that concept here. But in very simple terms, it was kind of fun to see that applied to Charlotte and how she's responded to that as we've tried to reinforce the positive, stop saying no, stop focusing on the negative, just kind of ignore it, and emphasize the good things she's doing.

Scot: Emphasize those and then that just brings more positive . . .

Troy: Exactly.

Scot: . . . in a dog's life and in a human's life.

Troy: In a dog's life and a human's life. We are not that different.

Scot: Self-talk can be so terrible sometimes, can't it?

Troy: It can.

Scot: Like, the things we do and say to ourselves, so it's good to become aware of that.

Troy: It is. And it's interesting. I find, too, that sometimes the way we treat ourselves . . . if we treat ourselves negatively, then sometimes that becomes something that is extended to those who are closest to us, who we consider almost an extension of ourselves, our spouses, our families, our close friends. You know, if we're being negative toward ourselves, I think sometimes we're negative toward them too.

It's an interesting concept and I think it makes life a whole lot nicer if we try and emphasize the positive and move on from the negative.

Scot: And I would contend that men tend to think about health in terms of activity and sport. But I mean, doing these types of practices facilitates mental health and relational health and all those sorts of things that I think contribute to a good life.

So just going to leave this here. I am in a graduate program for communication studies, and I'm taking a research class, and currently, I'm researching the notion that we talk about on this show because I wanted to see if I can get more in-depth of why this notion exists that men don't care about their health. Where does that even come from?

Troy: Is it true?

Scot: Yeah, and is it true?

Troy: Is it just a myth that . . .

Scot: Yeah, exactly. So I'm still very early in the research of this and don't know that I have all the words to express kind of what's going on. But turns out it's a very complicated, multi-faceted sort of thing that's happening, from identity issues to masculinity issues, fitting in with society.

There are some interesting paradigm shifts between men and women where men traditionally in society are held as being very decisive and able to make decisions and take control. But in the health realm, they're perceived and portrayed in the media as being helpless and not able to do those things.

So there's just a lot of fascinating stuff going on, which just reinforced the fact that it's complicated and it's tough.

And it makes me ultimately want to say, again, it's okay to care about your health. Nobody thinks less of you. It's good to care about those things. I know you don't like to go to the doctor necessarily, which is one of the reasons that they say that this thing exists. But I think that's even more complex, right?

Troy: It is.

Scot: So we're going to continue to sort through these things. My final message from that takeaway is, as I learn more, I understand less, but I think you just keep carrying and keep trying to work towards being the best person you can be, and that's a good direction to head.

All right. It's time to say the things that people say at the end of podcasts. Why don't you get us started on this, Troy?

Troy: So, if you like us, please subscribe. You can subscribe on Apple iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, any of a number of podcasting outlets.

Check out our website. We're at whocaresmenshealth.com. There's no "about" in that. Also, check us out on Facebook, facebook.com/whocaresmenshealth.

You can contact us, hello@thescoperadio.com.

And thanks for listening and thanks for caring about men's health.

Scot: You didn't leave any for me.

Troy: Sorry, Scot.

Scot: Next time, leave some for me.