I Wish I Knew This Before Lifting Weights

At the time of this video, I've been lifting weights for over 12 years and have coached over 17,000 clients with their weightlifting as well. If I went back in time knowing the lessons I know now, here's what I would do differently. Lesson 1, work out less to make more progress. And I know this sounds like the opposite of what you may think, but when I first started lifting weights, I thought more was better. I was working out 6, 7 days a week, sometimes twice a day, one in the morning, one at night, thinking that the more I worked out, the faster I would see progress. But it didn't quite work out that way. I was tired all the time. I was getting injured all the time, and I just wasn't getting stronger or building any muscle. Then in 2020, the COVID pandemic happened and I couldn't work out 6 to 7 days a week anymore because the gyms shut down. Luckily, I was able to work out at one of my clients' gyms. That she built in her basement, but I only worked out 4 times a week, and during that time I made the most muscle building and strength progress I had ever made during my fitness journey. So I realized I was training too much and under-recovering. So aim to work out 3 to 4 times a week with very high quality workouts where you lift heavy and push yourself. We're going to talk about how heavy to lift later in this video. And give your muscles the time they need to recover, build muscle, and actually change the way your body looks. Lesson 2: Don't waste time doing a bro split. I used to follow the classic bro split, which is chest on Monday, back on Tuesday, arms on Wednesday, legs on Thursday, where you work out one body part for each day. I saw bodybuilders doing this, and so I thought it was the right thing. But again, I realized my progress was slow, and I was only working out a muscle group one time per week. After I started educating myself and becoming a trainer, I I realized that might not be the best approach, and I wanted to hit my muscle groups 2 times per week. So instead, I switched to a lower body, upper body workout split, and I did 4 days a week. So lower body, upper body, lower body, upper body, working out my muscle groups 2 times a week. The results? Well, once again, I saw faster strength gains, I saw more muscle gains, and I was using my time more efficiently in the gym. So if you want to do the same, I would recommend either working out 3 times a week— lower body, upper body, full body— or 4 times a week— lower body, upper body, lower body, upper body. And by the way, I have a totally free workout program with a lower-upper body split. It'll be in the description of the video below. Lesson number 3: don't only lift lightweight for high reps. I thought that lifting lighter weight for higher reps was going to build more muscle, so that's all that I did. I didn't do any set under But after months of training like that, I realized I wasn't looking any different, nor was I getting any stronger. I finally learned that muscle growth comes from progressive overload, which just means you're trying to lift heavier weight or do more reps over a weekly basis with your workouts. So I started to incorporate some lower rep work in about the 4 to 8 rep range earlier in the beginning of my workouts. And what were my results? Because I put in lower reps to lift heavier weight, I was getting stronger automatically. But then also when I went to go do 12 reps, 15 reps of an exercise, because I was getting stronger with the lower reps, I was able to also lift more weight with the higher reps. So instead of always just doing high reps, make sure in the beginning of your workout you include lower rep sets with your exercises. Lesson number 4, you don't need to stretch before your workout. Before every workout, I would spend 15 to 30 minutes stretching and warming up because I thought it was going to prevent injury and give me a better workout. But when I went into my workouts, I still felt stiff and I wasn't getting any better range of motion from the stretching. It wasn't until I learned that doing proper warm-up sets for my exercises was enough To warm up. And what a warm-up set is— let's say you're doing 3 sets of an exercise. To warm up, you would do 1 to 3 sets of that exercise with a much lighter weight for, let's say, 3 to 5 reps, purely just to get the form down, to make sure nothing hurts, and to make sure going into your 3 sets you are properly warmed up. This might take you 1 to 2 minutes as opposed to spending 20 minutes before your workout stretching. That's not even going to work anyway. Plus, as long as you're doing your strength training properly, you're not going to injure yourself, and that's where you actually get a bigger range of motion through taking your muscles through their full range of motion. So skip the stretching, do your warm-up sets, and just follow a good weightlifting program with good form and range of motion. Lesson number 5: Taking a week off actually helped my progress. Now let me explain what I mean here. There is something in weightlifting called a deload week. This is where you intentionally do not lift as heavy for that week, and you do not push yourself as close to failure. And you might be thinking, Eric, how is that going to help me see more progress? Well, I never took a break from heavy lifting. When my program called for the deload week, I thought to myself, ah, I don't need that. That's for wussies. And I And I just kept lifting heavy. But what eventually happened was I was getting injured, I was getting burnt out, and I wasn't increasing my strength. So when I started to implement these deload weeks, after the week of recovery, essentially, I would go back into lifting heavy, noticing I was lifting heavier than what I was before the deload week. I also had less nagging injuries and I had more motivation to work out. So the lesson here is every 4 to 8 weeks, take an intentional deload week where you do not lift as heavy as you can. Let your body recover from the heavier weights, and you will come back stronger and see your strength skyrocket as opposed to getting injured or burnt out. Lesson 6: Less sets equals more progress. I used to think the more sets that I did, the more muscle I would build. So I was doing 4 to 6 sets per exercise. But all that started to happen was I felt drained, sore all of the time, and I wasn't seeing progress. It wasn't until I came across some of the research by James Krieger that showed 10 to 20 sets per muscle group over the course of a week was more than enough to make progress. And anything beyond that, unless you were on steroids and you could recover from it better, you would actually start to see a dip and diminishing returns in your progress. So I cut back on the 4 to 6 sets per exercise, and I only did 2 to 3 working sets per exercise. Remember from earlier in the video, we talked about warm-up sets where you're not pushing yourself as heavy as you can. These 2 to 3 working sets are where I did push myself as heavy as I could with the weight, but that's all I did. And like magic, suddenly I was getting stronger, building more muscle, and seeing my body look more defined. So instead of doing a ton of sets on your exercises, do 2 to 3 hard sets where you're pushing yourself with heavy weight close to failure and prioritize getting stronger with lifting heavier weight or doing more reps over time. You'll make much more progress. Lesson number 7, your knees going over your toes in a squat is a good thing. And this is very near and dear to my heart, and you'll see why. I used to think my knees going over my toes was bad, and so I avoided it at all costs. But what ended up happening was I had the wrong form and ended up really hurting my hips and my lower back. In fact, I had to have a hip surgery because of this. It wasn't until I learned that your knees going over your toes is natural and is supposed to happen as long as your feet stay flat on the ground. I started to do this in my workouts along with doing some ankle mobility work to get a lower range of motion in my squat. My back pain disappeared, my squats look way better, and my legs were able to get stronger and more defined. So instead of avoiding your knees going over your toes, embrace it. Try to hit parallel with your squats, which just means your knees and your hips are in line with each other at the bottom of a squat. I'll put a picture up right here to kind of see what that looks like, and you too can see the same results I did. Now lesson number 8 isn't directly related to strength training in the gym, but you don't need a protein shake within 30 minutes of finishing your workout. When I first started lifting weights, I thought this had to happen, and I thought it had to be in boiling hot water. There was a lot of bad information out there when I first started working out. So what I would do is immediately after I got done working out, I would grab my protein shaker, I would head into the bathroom, fill up my protein shaker with boiling hot water, put my protein shake in there, and try to drink it the best I could. It was terrible. I do not recommend it. It wasn't until I learned that this was a myth and you don't need a protein shake within 30 minutes of your workout. What matters the most is if you're hitting your overall daily protein goal for that day. And if you'd like to know what your daily protein goal should be, there's going to be a link in the description of this video with my totally free calorie and protein calculator. Lesson number 9, soreness doesn't equal muscle growth. Myself and a lot of the clients I have coached used to think if you're not sore after a workout, that means you're not going to be building muscle and making progress. It wasn't until I got educated and learned what muscle soreness actually comes from, which is 3 main things. Number 1, when you work out, you tear down your muscle fibers. This is something called muscle damage. When this happens, your muscles are going to get sore. Number 2, along with the muscle damage, there is inflammation in your muscles. And just like if you were to injure your elbow or injure your ankle and there's inflammation, it's going to be a little bit sore. That's what happens with your muscles. And number 3, when you start a new exercise or a new workout program, because it's new, Your muscles are going to be sore. But the issue is none of those 3 things lead to muscle growth because the real key to muscle growth is pushing yourself close to failure and lifting heavier weight or more reps over time. So instead of chasing muscle soreness and thinking you didn't have a good workout if you're not sore, focus on pushing yourself with the weight that you lift and trying to either lift more weight or do more reps Over time. Lesson 10, you don't need barbell lifts to build muscle. I used to think if I wasn't doing a barbell back squat, a barbell deadlift, a barbell bench press, a barbell shoulder press, that it wasn't even a workout and I was wasting my time not seeing progress. It wasn't until I switched up my training and stopped incorporating so much barbell work and I started training my clients who couldn't do barbell work, but yet we were both still making great progress. The barbell isn't what makes you see progress. It's the fact that you're doing the exercises in a proper way and pushing yourself with them. So whether you use cables or dumbbells or machines, your strength gains and your muscle gains can still go up. So you don't need barbells. Whatever you have available to you, use that and push yourself with it. And don't get caught up thinking you have to work out a certain way. And lesson number 11 piggybacks right off of that, which is something is better than nothing. I used to think if I couldn't do my structured workout program in the perfect way it was set up, that I was going to ruin all of my progress. In fact, I ruined a family vacation one time. My family graciously took the time and money to go to Myrtle Beach, yet all I cared about was making sure I got my workouts in because I didn't want to ruin my progress. We showed up to a Planet Fitness, which nowadays I think has barbells, but at the time they didn't have any barbells. And I thought, what is going on here? I can't work out here. So we had to drive all over the place to find a gym that had barbells because Eric was afraid he was gonna ruin his progress. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but I know what you feel. It wasn't until the next family vacation that we took where I was not able to get a gym that allowed me to do my perfect routine, but yet I did dumbbells instead of barbells and still had a really good workout and saw that I didn't ruin all of my progress. So for you, if you can't be perfect or you can't work out for as long as you normally do, that's okay. A 20-minute workout is better than a 0-minute workout. Just do what you can and you will not ruin your progress, I promise. Lesson number 12: Social media lies. I followed fitness influencers who looked insane, thinking I'd look like them if I just followed the workouts they put online. But no matter how closely I followed the workouts, I wasn't looking like them. It wasn't until I realized that genetics and performance-enhancing drugs and the fact that videos and pictures can be edited played a massive role in how somebody looked. Most influencers aren't going to tell you or show you that, but I will. So instead of trying to follow their exact plan to look like them and then getting discouraged when you don't, focus on your progress and your improvements and follow science-based training and nutrition programs that are based in facts so you can work out and see the most efficient progress possible. And if you're interested in following a science-based program to help you build more muscle and get stronger in the most efficient way possible, check out the description below for some of our coaching options that you could join. Lesson number 13: don't combine cardio and weightlifting in the same workout. Before coaching with me, a lot of my clients would come with a HIIT cardio background, which is basically doing a lot of cardio and weightlifting mixed together. They thought this was the best way to burn fat and build muscle, but they just always ended up feeling exhausted and weak and not seeing their body change. So instead, with my coaching, I would teach them the benefits of separating cardio and weights, because if you combine them in the same workout, you get too fatigued, which means you're not going to be able to lift as heavy, which decreases how much muscle and strength you can build, and you increase your risk of injury because you're doing things so fast you're not able to have the proper form. So to get the best results and the quickest results, lift weights on Separate days from cardio, or do your cardio after you lift weights. And take proper rest time in between your sets, which is actually our next lesson. Lesson number 14, take the proper rest time in between your sets. When I first started coaching clients, they thought shorter rest means more fat burn and more muscle building, so they were only resting for 30 seconds in between their sets. But instead of burning fat and building muscle, they were stalled out with their progress, their workouts felt rushed, and they were getting chronically injured. So when I taught them the proper amount of time to be resting in between their sets, which is at least 90 seconds in between your sets, they were actually able to recover in between their sets, which led them to lift heavier weight in their next set. Which then allowed them to get stronger and build more muscle. So instead of rushing through your workout, make sure you're taking at least 90 seconds of rest, if not 2 to 3 minutes. And a hint, if you don't need 90 seconds of rest in between your sets, that is a sign you need to lift heavier weight. Lesson number 15, don't do combo exercises. A lot of my clients came to me from a group fitness background where they were doing exercises like a squat into a bicep curl, into a shoulder press, thinking it was more efficient and it was going to burn more calories in the hopes of losing body fat. I taught them that these combo moves limit the amount of weight you can lift. Think about how much heavier could you lift if you just did a squat versus if you had to do a squat plus a bicep curl plus a shoulder press. Your legs are way stronger than your biceps. So separating the movements allows you to lift heavier, focus better, and have better form, and build more strength and muscle over time. So avoid the combo exercises and instead focus on one move at a time, progressively overload with that move, and watch your strength and muscle increase. Now, lesson 16 we touched on a little bit earlier, but I need to make sure I say it because so many people make this mistake. And that is going to be do your cardio after your weightlifting, not before. A lot of clients used to come to me doing cardio before they lifted weights because they thought it would help them warm up and even potentially burn more fat. But by the time they got into their workout, they were tired, hungry, and starting to feel much weaker. This is because when you do cardio before your workout, You deplete your energy, the same energy you were going to use for lifting weights. So when I switched them to doing their weights first and their cardio after, or their cardio on rest days, they noticed an immediate increase in strength, muscle building, and their performance in their workouts. So if you are going to do weights and cardio on the same day, anything more than 10 minutes of cardio, do it after you lift weights. And I know some people might be like, Eric, I do cardio in the morning, weights at night. If you're going to do that, just try to make sure it's at least 4 hours apart. Now, this lesson may seem salesy because I'm a coach, but I really believe in this. Hire someone to teach you. When I started lifting weights, I was confused on what was right, what was wrong, and what was going to get me the most progress in the fastest way possible. Because that all of us care about. But I didn't know what that was, and I was feeling stalled with my progress, which maybe you can relate. There is nothing more demotivating than feeling like you're not making progress. So throughout my fitness journey, I've hired coaches and joined programs multiple times to get me to the next level, to help me learn what is the most efficient way possible. How should I be setting up my workouts? This allowed me to speed up the learning curve, follow an exact program, which in turn sped up the amount of progress that I saw. This allowed me to not waste more time trying to figure things out on my own, and I can be pretty stubborn in the head sometimes, so it takes a while, and get to my goals much faster. So if you're feeling stuck or overwhelmed on what to do to make progress, hire someone to teach you, take out the guesswork, and And speed up your results. I promise it will be an investment that pays off immediately. If you are interested in that, I do own an online coaching business where we help people build muscle, lose fat in the most efficient and fastest way possible. You can click the link in the description of this video below to learn more. Or now that you learned about weightlifting, you can watch this video to learn what I have learned coaching 17,000+ clients about how to lose fat in the fastest way possible.