Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Muscle burns more
than fat.
Glute muscles, quadriceps,hamstrings are the largest
muscle groups in the human body.
Opportunity to get the mostbang for our buck in terms of
metabolic supercharging for ourtime.
Hi, ladies, rising stars,welcome those of you who are in
(00:25):
the new member community, thesix-week program, those of you
who are in the rising starsmembership and anyone who is
listening later via the replayso glad to have you here.
Today we're going to chat awomen's fitness hack how to
(00:45):
supercharge your metabolism withleg day.
You've probably seen thehashtags, the Pinterest pins,
the Instagram posts hashtagdon't skip leg day.
But what you may not know iswhy and then how to actually
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leverage your leg day workout to, in fact, supercharge your
metabolism.
So today we're going to talkabout how leg day can boost your
metabolism and accelerate yourfitness goals, to supercharge
that workout, to help you burnfuel more efficiently and
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actually boost your metabolism,prevent disease and help you
live strong and prevent injuryas well.
So the first thing that we needto understand is when people
say don't skip leg day, whenposts that you read talk about
the importance of leg day, whenwe are talking about muscle
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strength training and theimportance of it, one of the key
concepts to understand as itrelates to our metabolism is
that at rest, muscle burns morethan fat.
There's multiple differentnumbers into how much more that
it burns, but suffice it to sayit is a better, more efficient
use of the fuel that you putinto your body than fat.
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Add to that the fact thatreplacing external fat which is
not the only thing that we'retalking about here when we talk
about replacing disease-inducingfat tissue with lean, mean
calorie-burning muscle tissuewhat we are also talking about
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is the fat within our bodies.
This is where we talk aboutvascular health.
This is never talked about asmuch, and so we always
externalize it.
But the reason that we want tostrength train, as it concerns
our metabolism and boosting itand becoming better, more
efficient burners of thecalories that we consume, is
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because it is also changing thecomposition inside our bodies,
specifically our vasculature,which is the primary leading
cause of stroke and heartdisease, some of the most
prominent killers, especiallyhere in the United States.
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Number one muscle burns morethan fat, especially here in the
United States.
Number one muscle burns morethan fat.
Number two the reason that wewant to in fact increase our
muscle mass and boost ourmetabolism is to improve not
just the external bodycomposition but our internal
body composition, which involvesvascular health.
So where does leg day come intothis?
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Well, the important thing tounderstand about the physiology
of the muscle in our body isthat the lower body that's from
the belly button down, so we'retalking glute muscles,
quadriceps, hamstrings are thelargest muscle groups in the
human body.
So not only if we neglect thesemuscles can we lead to
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imbalances, weakness, but we arealso missing an opportunity to
get the most bang for our buckin terms of metabolic
supercharging for our time.
This is why there's been amassive shift in the industry
from just cardio to strengthtraining, especially a day
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dedicated to legs, because fromthe belly button down, it
compromises a significantportion of our muscle mass.
So you get the most bang foryour buck strictly as it
concerns metabolic improvementdue to muscle hypertrophy.
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Here's the interesting thing Perstats, 60% of adults do not
engage in regular lower bodystrength training 60%.
So we know that those of youwomen that are here, you are, if
you are at least doing theworkouts.
In the early morning habitprogram.
We have leg day on Friday.
This is true of a lot ofworkout programs.
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If you are in a workout program, hopefully they have a day
dedicated to leg strength, butif not, then you definitely want
to either be doing our workoutsor finding one that is
dedicating workouts to your legs.
There was a research publishedin the Journal of Strength and
Conditioning that suggested thathigh volume, lower body
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workouts can actually increaseupper body strength by 10 to 15%
.
And actually increase upperbody strength by 10 to 15%, and
this increase is linked toelevated levels of muscle
building hormones.
Because you're building such amassive amount of muscles when
you prioritize legs, so thoseintense leg exercises, the
suggestion is that it's actuallystimulating growth hormone
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testosterone because of thesurge in building the leg muscle
and so, um, you're actuallybuilding other musculature in
your body, sort of by default.
Prioritizing leg day is goingto help prevent injury and
improve functional movement.
Right, this is the functional.
So we talked a little bit aboutboosting metabolic health, but
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we also want to talk about justfunctionality.
Why do I exercise?
It's because, frankly, I wantto be able to still go out and
shoot hoops with my son in 10years.
I want to be able to keep upwith my grandkids one day.
Right, I want to be able tofunction.
So strong leg muscles are goingto be vital for maintaining
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proper form, bearing functionalmovements.
For those of you that strugglewith feeling burnout from
fitness, I have talked to many,many women that are just burnt
out from exercise.
There's a lot of reasons forthis.
We pull back a lot of layers inearly morning habit.
As to why some of that occurs,why we're burnt out, why we're
so exhausted as women, sufficeit to say.
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A lot of it is because too muchof exercise has been
externalized instead of madefunctional.
But this is something toencourage you when we talk about
leg day and helping to motivateyou that we're not just doing
squats to have a rounder bootyin your workout shorts, to have
a rounder booty in your workoutshorts.
Some of you might be going forthat aesthetic and that is fine,
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but don't miss the fact that ifyou continually do squats and
have really good form, you areless likely to injure your back
when you pick up a kid off thefloor or lunges.
Lifting, pulling, working allof these muscles are also going
to help prevent injury andpromote a higher quality of life
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.
So functionality is essentialand, in fact, strength in
strengthening lower body canactually decrease injury risk by
30 to 50% percent.
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That's huge.
Another study showed that lowerlimb exercise significantly
enhanced running capability.
I mean, that's not a shocker.
Knee extension, strength,running gait.
Those of you that are runnersif you have not been around here
for a long time, you have heardme talk about this.
Runners should not just berunning.
You need to be lifting weights,you need to be strengthening,
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you need to be cross-training.
You want to be a better runner.
You might actually need to runless.
So, especially if you havelower chronic back pain and
you're a runner, there is a lotof research to suggest that you
should be prioritizing lowerbody weight training.
Don't skip leg day.
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Even if you're a runner, youmight actually find that you run
better.
So boosting metabolism andburning calories incorporating
these leg exercises into yourroutine we talked about it can
greatly increase caloricexpenditure, not just at rest,
as we replace um fat tissue withmuscle tissue or we just build
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muscle tissue right, wehypertrophy those muscles is
going to help increase yourmetabolic performance at rest,
but it also, because of theamount of muscle mass of your
lower body, will actually helpyou burn more during your
exercise.
Research um indicated thatlarger muscle groups burn more
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calories.
This is specifically I'mquoting it from an article from
I can't even pronounce thisright by Chester gym, but it
suggested up to three times morefor a heavy leg day workout
during and after exercise, dueto the higher oxygen and fuel
demands for these larger musclegroups.
And then, additionally,compound exercises like squats
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and deadlifts can also elevateyour metabolic rate for up to 48
hours post the workout, thesuggestion being you're going to
continue to burn a higher levelof calories even for two days
after you've left the gym, oryour home gym, in my case, for
most of us.
So what are tips?
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If you are going to prioritize aleg day, what are tips to
maximize that workout?
Well, number one don't skip legday.
So I think, okay, ana, we'vegot that memo, okay.
But here's the difference a lotof workouts will have leg
exercises in them, and there's alot of people confusing that
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for leg day.
Well, I do lift my legs.
No, you're doing a combinedfull body workout that includes
leg exercises.
That's not the same as adedicated leg day.
For example, for those of us inthe early morning habit
community, for the new member ofus in the early morning habit
community, for the new member,the six week program members.
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You guys are having four weeksof no weights and that's a whole
nother training.
We'll talk about the importanceof resetting, but eventually
the goal is to incorporateweight.
So I also want to encouragethose of you who are new members
and you're like well, wait asecond for four weeks in your
program we're not doing weights.
There's a lot of good reasonsfor that.
I talk about that in the app,why that is essential to do and
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to reset.
But the long-term goal is toincorporate weights.
But what you've already seen isthat we have a full body
strength day and then we have adedicated upper body and a
dedicated lower body.
There are three different days.
The point that I am making hereis that when you cram a full
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body strength workout into a 30minute block, you are getting a
fraction of the leg muscleworkout, as you do for a
dedicated leg day workout.
A pushback that I have gottenbefore from clients when I used
to coach in fitness andnutrition specifically would say
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I don't want to get bulkyreally quick.
Let me address this First ofall.
Muscle is, by definition, lean.
There is no such thing as bulkymuscle or lean muscle.
Muscle tissue, by definition,is lean period.
It takes so much work to bulkmuscle to the degree that a lot
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of women are concerned aboutbulking.
You're not going to bulk bylooking at a weight, okay.
Sometimes I think women are soscared if they start lifting
weights that they're going toget bulky, and they don't want
that bulky look.
Muscle tissue is lean In orderto get bulky.
It takes a ton of work.
So the key here is understandingwhy we're, why we're strength
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training, that muscle tissue bydefinition is lean and if you
end up bulking in a way that youdon't like, some of that is
just genetic.
Some of the way that people puton muscle tissue is different.
It is why there are some peoplewho don't ever lift and look
muscular.
It's genetics.
On the flip side, there arepeople who lift regularly and
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don't have the same muscledefinition, even if their body
composition is the same assomeone else's.
Some of it is genetics.
So also give yourselfpermission again.
Try to like, deconstruct theexternal element as best you can
, but don't be scared of thebulking.
It actually is very difficultto do, and we're also going to
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give you another tip how to bestfuel muscle properly and
healthily.
But number one don't skip legday.
You need to have a dedicated 30minute workout to the lower
body.
Number two tip number two tomaximize leg day is to maintain
proper form.
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This seems really simple, buthere's what I mean by this.
With tip number two, I meant toadd we want to increase weight,
so I did this backwards so youcould put tip number two is to
increase your, your weight thatyou're using, or maintain proper
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form.
Either one they're, they're asandwich together, and here's
what I mean by this.
What you need to be careful ofis when people say, increase
your weight.
If you are increasing theweight on a foundation of
improper form, you are settingyourself for setting yourself up
for injury.
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The other thing that I have seenpeople do in the spirit of
efficiency is create too manycompound moves with leg workouts
, meaning you're trying to getmore bang for your buck.
So when you do a lunge, youalso do a bicep curl, right?
Like we've all seen theseconcepts or these compound moves
, you do a lunge while you do abicep curl, or you do a squat
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while you do a side raise.
There's two issues with thisone for myself personally and
for most of us the weight that Irequire to hypertrophy, um, my
shoulders with side raises issignificantly less than the
weight that I require tohypertrophy my leg muscle.
So the problem with these movesis that you're not actually
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maximizing your time for yourmuscle.
So if you are in a workoutprogram and even you know we use
the mad fit library, she doesthis sometimes too.
A lot of people do it and Iunderstand the reason behind it.
We're trying to like worksmarter, not harder, and I
understand that.
But sometimes it can actuallybe a detriment to separate them.
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That means, instead of doingthe lunge with the bicep curl,
you do the bicep curls and thenyou switch weights and you do
the lunges, pull them apart.
Maybe you do less reps becauseyou still want to maintain the
same time you increase yourweight.
Does that make sense what I'msaying?
So if you do 15 lunges withbicep curls let's say that's the
move the fitness instructor isgiving you then you pull them
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apart and maybe you're doinglet's say you're doing two
rounds of them, then the oneround you do a full weighted.
Maybe you actually stressyourself and you do 15 pounds
instead of 10 for the bicepcurls and you go heavy on bicep
curls because you're only goingto get 15 of them in.
And then the second time you dothat set, you just do the
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lunges and you go up a weight inthe lunge weight.
Maybe you normally do 20, thistime do 25 because you're doing
less reps.
But this way you can focus onform and function and still
maximize your time for muscle.
That being said, on leg day ingeneral, you just want to
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constantly think can I increasemy weight?
I am guilty of this, especiallywhen we talk about early
morning habit and we're tryingto get our workout done first
thing.
For some of us, that's beforeour kids get up, right Like my
brain is still barely awake.
So sometimes I just go onautopilot and I grab weights and
it's like, oh, these areactually too light.
But I don't feel like walkingthe extra five steps to actually
change the weights Right, so Ijust do the workout, try to
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pause and be mindful Am Iactually dressing the muscle
here?
Do I feel this burn?
If not, you might need to go upin weight.
So challenge yourself with yourweights, but make sure you never
sacrifice your form.
That's tip number two increaseyour weight, do not sacrifice
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your form.
If your form is not good, youare ultimately setting yourself
up for injury.
Lastly, tip number three is youhave to fuel this muscle
hypertrophy.
What you are doing when youincrease your weight this Friday
, when you have leg day and youremember what we talked about
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here and you think, okay, right,I need to increase my weight a
little bit, I'm going tomaintain proper form, I'm going
to pull apart compound moves sothat I'm really, really
stressing those leg muscles toget the bang for my buck time
for muscle.
How then do I fuel that musclegrowth optimally?
That is where protein comes in.
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Now we're going to do a lotmore trainings on protein.
There's a lot to talk aboutwith protein.
There's a lot to talk aboutwith nutritional profiles and
helping fuel your workout.
Well, because we want to movesmarter, not harder.
But when it comes tospecifically on leg day and
fueling this massive amount ofmuscle, you want lean protein.
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What does lean mean and whocares?
Well, again, we just talkedabout one of the points of
building muscle is to boostmetabolism, prevent disease by
promoting vascular health.
When we talk about transformingthe inside body composition as
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well, we want to consider ourvasculature, which directly
relates to our cholesterolpanels, the cholesterol profiles
within our blood that isconstantly streaming through our
vasculature, primarily ourarteries.
Lean protein, generallyspeaking.
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The lean is talking about thesaturated fat and many of you
can picture it lean beef versusfull fat beef when you cook it
and you strain it.
If you've never done it, Iencourage you to do it.
It's very enlightening.
What is ultimately congealingthat saturated.
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That's that and, believe it ornot, that is precisely what it
looks like in the blood as well.
I had a patient one time inemergency medicine.
She had a genetic dyslipidemiathat's a fancy word for saying
she had a genetically messed upcholesterol panel.
You would have never known bylooking at her.
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Her cholesterol was so high.
This has happened one time in a10 year career.
I'd never seen it before sinceit was so high that when I threw
blood from her and the nursecame out and showed me her blood
in the tube from her and thenurse came out and showed me her
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blood in the tube, the fat,just like would come off of meat
, had actually filtered its wayup to the top of the tube and
separated itself from her bloodbecause it was so high.
So there was like the red bloodcells at the bottom, like
normal blood and then it lookedjust like you would see in a
cool whip container that yourgrandma used to drain her beef
fat into and keep in the fridge.
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I could never figure out why mygrandma did that and that was
sitting at the top of her blood.
So this is what is beingstreamed through the bloodstream
now.
For some people, that's a biggerdeal than others.
This is why you've got to knowyour risk factors and understand
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fat.
So there's also then salmon.
There's eggs, also very high infat.
The difference is it is theomega fatty acids and this is
the fat that fuels our goodcholesterol, which is called HDL
.
That saturated fat is what isgoing to elevate our bad
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cholesterol, which is called LDL.
Now we're not even talkingcarbs here.
We're not even touching thatright now.
To be very clear, there's beena large misconception about
carbs over the years.
Thank goodness, we're gettingmore clarity on that.
Carbs also contribute to fat.
I'm not saying fat alone.
That is a misnomer that many ofus grew up with.
Right, I grew up on skim milk,terrible, horrible white water.
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Um, we understand now.
Fat is not the only thingcontributing to our body.
Fat and carbs play a large rolein it.
But right now I'm just talkingabout that, I'm sorry protein.
So the bottom line is, when wetalk about most ideally fueling
our bodies, we are talking aboutlower saturated fat content.
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Protein.
This would include sorry, myhusband's calling me, I'm going
to mute this for a second therewe go.
This would include stuff likelean beef.
If you're going to go for redmeat, try to eat it sparingly.
Go for lean beef.
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Pork chops Be careful with pork.
Depends on what part of the pigyou're getting.
But pork tenderloin I'm sorry,not pork chops, pork tenderloin.
It would include chicken.
Turkey Eggs are acceptable.
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It would include venison.
It would include um, what wasthe one I just blanked on?
I had another one.
I'm blanking on it.
Um, be careful of lamb.
Lamb is higher in saturated fat.
Many of the fishes, cod yeah,blanking on the rest of them.
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But those are all examples oflean protein.
I'm like distracted by the callthat I just got.
Sorry, guys, this can be editedlater, except for those of you
watching via replay tomorrow.
So lean protein, lean protein iswhat we want to fuel that
muscle tissue.
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Protein is literally thefoundation of all the tissue in
our body.
We'll talk more about protein,but for the sake of leg day.
You want to make sure thatFriday night, for example, you
really want to take this to thenext level, that you are even
more honed in on that simplylean supper right, that simply
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lean supper.
That we're talking about thosehigher protein meals.
It is for this reason we arehelping to fuel this muscle
build for lunch right after yourFriday workout.
If you eat breakfast, keep ithigher in protein on those days.
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I would love to hear yourthoughts, questions about leg
day, questions about fuelingwith protein, anything that I
just said, or insights.
I would love to hear yourthoughts.
Let me pray us out, pray overour legs, our bodies, backs no
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joke, no joke.
Let me pray, lord, thank you somuch for the women here.
I thank you for these women whoare doing the hard work of
investing in their health,because it is hard, frankly.
It is hard.
It is hard to prioritize ourwellbeing, but I thank you for
the women that are doing it.
I pray perseverance for them asthey invest in their health and
also pray that you would givethem peace as they do it, that
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there's freedom in it and thereason that we work out is not
for tomorrow, it's for today.
Tomorrow's not guaranteed.
So I just thank you for thewomen that are striving to live
well so that they can investtoday, and I thank you for the
way that they serve within theirhomes, within their communities
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.
I do pray for protection.
Back injuries are no joke, andwhen we talk about leg day, they
are so intricately connected.
So I just pray, if anyone issuffering from injury right now,
that you would help heal themand protect those of us that are
doing hard things and liftingheavier weights, and I just pray
that you would protect us andgive people healing.
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Lord, we love you in Jesus name.
Amen.
Have an amazing week, ladies.
Let's rise.