In this instructional video, the presenter outlines a complete workout strategy for people who want to lose body fat while building muscle. He begins by debunking the myth of “toning” and explains that visible muscle definition requires both a calorie‑deficit diet and genuine muscle growth. For muscle growth he recommends lifting heavy weights in the 5‑10 rep range, performing 2‑3 challenging working sets per exercise after 1‑2 warm‑up sets, and ensuring the last 1‑3 reps are difficult. Rest periods should be at least 90 seconds and can extend up to 2‑5 minutes, as longer rests enable heavier lifts and ultimately burn more calories than short rests. The video then critiques high‑intensity cardio, noting it depletes muscle glycogen, spikes hunger, raises cortisol, and hampers recovery, and instead advocates low‑intensity “zone 2” cardio (≈60‑70% of max heart rate) performed after strength sessions or on rest days. Finally, he proposes a more efficient weekly training split—upper/lower or full‑body routines performed 2‑4 times per week—so each muscle group is trained twice weekly, contrasting this with the less effective “bro split” that hits each muscle only once. Throughout, he emphasizes that nutrition (calorie deficit, adequate protein) drives fat loss, while the described training variables drive muscle growth. He also mentions a free workout program and a paid coaching app (Clubhouse) for further guidance.
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If you're trying to lose fat and build muscle at the same time, then I'm going to give you an exact workout plan you're going to follow. So by the end of the video, you will know exactly what you need to do to make the most progress. First, let's cover how many sets and reps you should be doing in your workouts. Some people will tell you you should be doing lightweight for high reps if you're trying to lose fat and build muscle. Allow me to tell you why this is not what you should be doing. People used to think this would do something called tone the muscle. The issue is there's no such thing as toning a muscle. You just build muscle. The word toning really just means you want to see your muscle definition. And the way you would do that would be number one, to have a low enough body fat to see your muscle definition. This is primarily done through your nutrition, eating in a calorie deficit. And number 2, you have to have the muscle built up to be able to show, because even if you lost body fat, if you don't have enough muscle built, you'll never get the toned look you're going for. Therefore, you do not tone a muscle, you just build muscle. And the way you build muscle is by lifting heavier weight for less reps. And usually this is around the 5 to 10 rep range. Most of your sets should be within this rep range. And if you're doing this, you will need about 2 to 3 working sets per exercise. And when I say working sets, these are 2 to 3 challenging heavy sets in the 5 to 10 rep range. This doesn't include warm-up sets, which you You should be doing a warmup set or 2 just to kind of get used to the exercise and work your way up to lifting heavier weight. But per exercise, 2 to 3 working sets of 5 to 10 reps. And how do you know if you're lifting heavy enough? The last 1 to 3 reps of your sets should be challenging reps. If they are not, You need to lift heavier. And yes, this goes for every one of these sets. Now that we have that, let's talk about your rest time in between your sets. Again, you might have heard you should be taking short rest in between your sets to keep your heart rate high and burn more calories. Allow me to tell you why this is not what you should be doing. The reason people tell you to do this is because it burns more calories, but this is faulty thinking for 2 reasons. Number one, your daily exercise only takes up about 5 to 10% of your daily calorie burn. So if you burn a couple of extra calories because you keep your rest time lower, it's really not that big of a deal. What did we say about the last point? Your workouts should be focused on building muscle, not burning calories. Your fat loss comes from your nutrition. So in order to build muscle, if you take a longer rest in between your sets, that will allow you to lift heavier weight, which is going to not only help you build muscle, but if you're lifting heavier weight and pushing yourself harder in your workouts, in turn, that probably end up burning more calories anyway than what you were trying to do up here with shorter rest So you should be resting at least 90 seconds, if not up to 2 to 5 minutes in between your sets. And if you think that's too long and you don't need at least 90 seconds, that is another sign that you need to lift heavier weight in your workouts. So we have your sets and reps, we have how long you should rest. I'm also going to talk about how to set up your week's worth of workouts. But before we do that, I want to talk about cardio. Probably heard before, high-intensity cardio is better for fat loss. Again, this theory comes from burning more calories during your workout, which I will give people, it's actually true. If you do high-intensity cardio, you'll burn more calories during the workout than if you did low intensity. But what they don't tell you is what happens After the workout. Not only are you increasing your calorie burn, but you're also increasing your hunger and your cravings. And here's why. High-intensity cardio depletes something called glycogen in your muscles. Just think of glycogen as energy for your muscles. When you deplete this glycogen, your body is going to have to replenish it as quickly possible. So this in turn leads you to crave more food, especially sugary foods or junk food, because those kind of foods are the quickest way to get glycogen and sugar back into your body. High-intensity cardio also increases your cortisol, which is your stress, which isn't inherently a bad thing, but too much of it is is a bad thing. This can also increase your hunger and cravings and lead to more water weight retention. So sure, you might burn a little bit more calories during the workout, but if it leads you to eat more calories, especially the sugary junk foods, and it increases your cortisol, it's not the best form of cardio for fat loss. And what you should do instead is low intensity cardio. And there's something called zone 2 cardio. This just means you're at about 60 to 70% of your max heart rate. If you don't know how to find your max heart rate, just take 220 minus your age. So for me, I would be about 192. That is my max heart rate. So I wanna get within 60 to 70% of 192, which I think if I'm not mistaken, my math might be a little bit wrong here. It's somewhere around here. I think it's 190. I think it's like 115 to 135. That is my heart rate, my beats per minute, right? That is my heart rate that I would be looking to stay around when I am doing my low-intensity cardio during a fat loss phase. And so you can calculate this if you'd like. If you wear a watch or if you hold on to the treadmill or the elliptical, it'll tell you. Or an easy way to know if you're in the right heart rate zone and you're doing the right low-intensity cardio is just Are you able to hold a conversation? Kind of like what we are right now, where maybe you would take a breath or two, but you're actually able to hold a conversation versus if you're doing high-intensity cardio, you'd be talking like this. This way you can get the benefits of burning more calories to help you with your fat loss without increasing your hunger cravings or cortisol. And something I didn't even mention that I will right now— high-intensity cardio also takes away from the recovery of your weightlifting, and it negatively impacts your muscle building as well. So even more of the reason why, if you're looking to lose fat and build muscle at the same time, low-intensity cardio is best. And this should be done either after your strength training or on rest days. And number 4, we can talk about how to set up a week's worth of workouts. Most people do something like this, which is what we call a bro split: a chest day, back day, shoulder day, arm day, leg day. Now don't get me wrong, this is not inherently bad. It's usually just not best for somebody who isn't a bodybuilder, and here's why. If you follow this, you're only working out your muscles one time per week. So you're only doing your legs on leg day, you're only your shoulder-on-shoulder day. Again, unless you're a bodybuilder, you don't need an entire day for your shoulders. Or you don't need an entire day for your chest. There are more efficient ways about going about this. What we do inside of my Clubhouse which is just my online coaching program, it has workouts, nutrition, coaching access, everything. There'll be a link below if you want to check out the Clubhouse app. Is instead follow something like a lower body, upper body or even potentially Full body split. And the reason being is if you do this, and let's say you're working out 2 to 4 times per week— by the way, you don't need to work out 5, 6, 7 days a week. If you did 3 days a week and this is the split that you followed— day 1, day 2, day 3— you would still hit your muscle groups 2 times per week, even just working out 3 days a week. Or if you say work out 4 times a week, This is currently what I personally do. You'd hit lower body, upper body, lower body, upper body. So now you're hitting your muscle groups once again, 2 times per week. So combined with everything else we've said in this video, you're making your time in the gym more efficient to be able to see the most progress for the time you put in, which is what I promised you at the beginning of this video. And if you'd like to see what this would look like in an actual workout, I actually have a free workout program below. There will be a link if you want to check it out. Or like I mentioned earlier, you can look into joining my Clubhouse app. With our app, you get a brand new workout program each month, as well as exact calories and macros, a calorie tracker and a barcode scanner, hundreds of low-calorie, high-protein recipes, access to my entire team of coaches for any questions, concerns you have, and more. That will also be in the link in the description of the video. But either way, try one of these 2 things out, and I hope this video helped.
