Can doing less *really* lead to more results?

@faithfulsteward7 Yes! It is absurd. I do best on 3 full body workouts a week. I’ve done 5 or even 6 day splits and I don’t get anywhere near the results I get from three hard 1.5 hour full body days. And I don’t kill myself with cardio on the off days. I walk or rest. Or sometimes do some cardio if I’m in the mood for it.
 
@myfatherismighty I think I’m sold on full body 2-3 times a week, fitting it in when I can. I was struggling to peice lifting together with running because my legs would be sore, or I’d be exhausted.

This seems way easier to fit into the week WITH dedicated rest days as well
 
@myfatherismighty Same, full body split 2-3 days a week depending on my week. And it has built muscle so much more quickly than when I’ve killed myself at the gym 4-5 times a week.

I also have deload weeks every three months or so and I come back from them PB-ing every lift.

If I don’t feel shakey/exhausted/almost like I’m going to throw up after a session I know I didn’t do that well. I go to failure every single time for those two sessions a week and that’s the secret sauce. I also have a chronic illness and this level of intensity is not a problem for me. I see a lot of women who seem to go to the gym 5-6 times a week but never look like they are actually pushing, and then they seem confused as to why muscle isn’t happening.
 
@0st Absolutely, for me.

Good rest means better workouts, imo. If I’m still recovering from an intense workout, it means I can’t then push myself.

If I dial it back a little, and schedule rest and recovery, it means I have the energy and strength to meet my goals.

Have I had to reassess my goals? Yes but that’s a whole other thread and topic for me lol.
 
Also I wanted to come back to say - I know it’s only a small sentence in your post, but improving sleep habits is really understated. It is SO hard to do (saying this as a fellow insulin resistant sister on metformin - mine is for PCOS).

My mum tells me that I need to sleep better. I tell her that it would be easier to hike up My Everest tomorrow in a bikini. It’s easy to say, hard to do. My body fights sleep. Add in perimenopause and it’s shit. Some people close their eyes when it’s dark and their body sleeps. Mine doesn’t do that.

I had planned to go to the gym this morning, but after yet another bad night I’m reassessing. I’m currently back in bed snuggling with my sleeping dogs, thinking I might sauna instead. And perhaps a walk later, if the weather improves. It’s cold, wet and miserable outside (middle of winter - grey, gloomy and awful). Sauna on a day like this can be excellent for recovery (I’m still a bit sore from my lifts two days ago). Both mentally and physically.

Sometimes those mental mountains are the biggest challenge. It’s important to rest and recover from them too. Sleep is my big mountain, the biggest hurdle for me.

Hopefully a little bit of this novel is relevant for you haha. If not, it’s good for me to process out loud. I wrote my first reply before I got out of bed. Things are feeling different for me now that I’ve been up and moving. On one hand, I will never regret hauling my arse out of bed and doing a workout. I love the gym. But is it what’s best for me? What is the best choice so that I’m working towards my goal of being as strong, fit and healthy as possible in mind, body and spirit?
 
@bab I’m trying to remind myself that sleep and rest itself is a “workout”. As in, it needs to be scheduled and prioritized and it’s not “taking off.” I worked so hard to build discipline that I think I’ve become scared that taking days off will snowball into losing that discipline
 
@bab Man, even if OP didn’t find this relevant (which I doubt, lol), I sure as hell did. Thanks for putting your experience out there! I’ve been navigating new diagnoses and just trying to learn what my baseline is while also trying to improve habits and figure out what my new baseline should be…and it’s a lot. It’s nice to hear someone name that our bodies just do what they do sometimes.
 
@doubter88 It’s SO relevant. I know my sleep is terrible and it’s causing mental and physical issues. Probably contributing to my insulin resistance, depression, high cortisol. All of it.

I’m trying to make better sleep habits (books only in bed, less caffeine, naps on bad days) but it’s hard with 3 small kids. Hoping once we move past this stage (baby waking up all night and my toddlers fighting bedtime) I can really start to find my groove
 
@doubter88 Aw thank you! I’m so glad my thoughts have helped you a little. I’ve been working hard on listening to what I need to do in terms of what is best. It’s hard and sometimes I don’t listen 🤣
 
@0st 80/20 all the way. As an endurance athlete, I find I'm able to go further and faster by keeping 80% of my efforts in zone 2. Plus it's a lot more sustainable emotionally, and my body reflects my improvement.
 
@0st Yes. This might be all over the place as I do this on my rests. Not really for powerlifters or bodybuilders, but going 3 full body lifts a week (M,W,F) is a really good bang for its buck. Muscle recovery is basically dose dependent so this isn’t a do squats, lunges, rdl, hip thrust all in one day cause the dose is so high we won’t be able to recover in time nor do we really want to be that sore. For 3 days we can have a moderate amount of volume to where we can recover for a lift 48 hours later which will also help protein synthesis with loading the muscles every 48 hours. If the majority of our gains are from our main lifts we really don’t need to have an excessive amount of lifts. Something simple like 1- Squat/Lunge 2- upper press 3- hinge/distal hammy 4- upper pull 5/6 - lower/upper accessory. Throw on a simple progression and you can get a lot from it and it’s 3 days of should be less than an hour. If you want add cardio at the end or beginning. If you miss a day you still get 2 full body days which is still good.
 
@0st I've lost fat this past 12 months by doing less exercise.

By that, I mean my calorie restriction was enough to make me lethargic so that I can't lift the same way I did anymore.

I do want my muscle mass and strength back 😅 but I want to drop a bit more fat mass before I start eating again at maintenance/slightly above to build muscle. Most of what I do right now is cardio, mobility and small lifts for the main muscle groups, rather than heavy lifts. I'll get back to that when I'm eating more. Basically, we can't build muscle in a deficit. And we can't lose fat in a surplus. For an untrained body, recomp is HARD. So it's simpler to just do one thing at a time - build muscle OR lose weight.

After 30+ years of doing crazy things to attempt to manage my weight, this year I finally realised that it really is as simple as CICO and that exercise and diet are for different things.

The framework I've come to accept is that exercise is for mental health, building strength/power/speed, cardiovascular health, self efficacy and confidence, and neuronal development... Etc etc. Caloric restriction is for weight loss. Both are important. Both have their place. But I can't out-exercise too many calories, and I can't eat my way to fitness. If I'd internalised this decades ago, I would have saved myself a lot of energy.
 
@spireguy Thank you for sharing! I’m definitely burnt out and realizing I’m not 20 and can’t just do whatever and it works. My body is different, has issues, made three whole ass kids, and is tired. Clearly 3 heavy lifting days and 4 moderate distance runs every week was too much, especially with the bio stuff going on rn
 
@0st I'm not an expert by any means but I have my own experience. After I had kids I think the cortisol spike from intense exercise wound up being a bigger problem for me than it was when I was younger. I had a lot more success doing less intense stuff like pilates, because it made me feel refreshed and I could keep up with all the other activities I needed to do and still get some sleep sometimes.
 
@0st I think the cortisol spike is directly related to the intensity of exercise. After my third kid I was definitely more stressed out than I had been previously and intense exercise just made me feel almost wired and more tightly wound. I switched to pilates which still gives a good workout but it was more calming for me. I read some books about managing stress and figured out what helped me. Also the kids got older and things got easier. I've added back in other forms of exercise. Pilates gave me the best abs I ever had but kind of neglects the butt so I've been working on that area lately.
 
@0st For me it does. I tend to have an all or nothing mentality that can serve me well but not with exercise. In the past I would go super hard and be sore and miserable for days. I'm more consistent with a "good enough" mentality. I'm not leaving the gym totally gassed for the day and I'm going more often.
 
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