5 Minute Facts- Body weight vs.weight training

This is episode 169, the empowered team podcast.

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The zenith is coming. The most incredible life changing retreat in Sayulita, Mexico. That's right, the zenith is coming. To learn more, head to www.theempowered.ca zenith. Learn more. It is life Chang. Welcome to the Empowered Team podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. All right, welcome to Performance Power. Five minute facts. Today our topic is body weight versus weight training. The differences, the benefits. So let's start with our five minute facts. Fact number one, if we want to distinguish some body weight things, these are things like push ups, pull ups, curl ups, squats, lunges, calisthenics, those are the body weight things. We're distinguishing between that and weight training. With dumbbells, barbells could be anything, resistance bands, all sorts of other resistance or especially weight or gravity based training. So number one, fact number one, to increase strength, muscle mass, bone density, weight training or body weight can do those things. They can both do all of those things. However, weight training tends to win because of a few factors. So number one, weight training wins when it comes to increasing strength, muscle mass, bone density. Weight training is the winner on that one. Number two, bodyweight exercises can be perfect to prolong the loss of strength. If you've stopped exercise. So for instance, say you went to the gym day in and day out, or maybe you went to the gym twice a week, whatever it was, but then you stopped because of COVID maybe the gyms were closed, who knows what, or maybe you just moved, whatever it was, you stopped by doing body weight exercises that can prolong the loss of strength or the loss of muscle mass or the loss of bone density that would come from stopping that resistance training. Bodyweight exercises also increase mobility. They have that opportunity and they cause activation, meaning firing of the muscles, neural activation and firing of the muscles. So that's fact number two. Number three of our five minute facts. I want to point to that thing I alluded to earlier, which is bone density. With a study that looks at age and sex when it comes to weight training. So here it is. 2000 grouped participants were studied. There were two groups. A group of 20 to 30 year olds, men and women, and a group of 65 to 75 year olds, men and women. They were all given the same exercise routine for a long period of time and then a period of inactivity for six months, a six month break. Here's what was really Cool is that there was really no difference in men and women overall. But the older group, the 65 to 75 year olds, the older group lost strength almost twice as fast as the younger group. Now I want to point to this because this is hormone related and that's going to influence the choice of whether you're going to pick body weight exercises or weighted exercises. That's why I'm pointing to this study. So that's hormone related. And secondly, there's bone density issues that come with hormone issues that come for women. So the last part of this study looks like this. There was no difference in loss within the age groups except for the women in the older group in the six months they returned to baseline. Whereas none of the others, the men and women, the men in the older group and the men and women in the younger group, didn't return all the way back to baseline in six months, but the older women did. Not only did the older men and women lose strength twice as fast, the women went all the way back down to where they started at the beginning of the study. Now, the reason I'm putting this out to you is so that we can emphasize not just whether body weight training or, sorry, yeah, body weight exercise or weighted exercise, which is better, which is worse, but it's so specific to the population. Make sure you're understanding where you fall within this and what the population would look like. That is number three, differentiating between age and sex and also looking at hormone responses and bone density responses. All right, so number four, body weight or weight training, either of them can burn more calories. Some studies will show that one burns more calories and others will show that another burns more calories. But it really depends on what is done. So for instance, if somebody does push ups and push ups, they're already quite strong for push ups. It's not going to burn a lot of calories for them. Or if someone's doing body weight exercises plus some calisthenics, some aerobic type exercises, that may burn more calories than a slow bicep curl that's weighted. However, if you take a multi jointed movement with weights, that's going to burn four more calories than the other. So it really depends. Either can burn more calories, it depends on what is done. However, weight training is easier to progress incrementally and I'm going to use the chin up as an example because it's the holy grail of upper body strength for many people. If someone can't do a chin up, they could improve 20%, 30%, 40% and never see their first chin up still because it's such a hard movement. However, with weighted exercises you can incrementally increase by £5 or £2 or £4 as you go up and up and up. And so it allows this incremental progression. Whereas some body weight exercises simply are too big of a jump for the level that an individual might be at, they either can burn more calories depending on how it's done and what is done. However, weight train is easier to progress along the way because of the breakdown of weights that can be accommodated to each individual. Then number five for best metabolism, bone and joint health as well as mobility, both are key. Bodyweight movements plus strength weight based movements are both key. The ideal scenario would be if you have a gym and you have some equipment. A combination of of body weight exercises plus weighted exercises is the best. If you go for long periods without a gym, then body weight exercises is a must, especially for women and bone density. I want to make one more note on bone density there. Shifting hormones within the body and adding bone density is a long process. If somebody's looking to add one percentage of bone density, it might take six months, it might take a year to see something like a 1 to 3% increase in bone density. And it is so worth it because that is the long term function that you can get from that. So that is where I want to wrap up on the body weight and weight training. Is there anyone who has specific questions on this topic before we open it up to other questions? If you do, please pop it in the chat on this topic, the body weight versus weight training, and then we'll open it up to the other questions. What do you got for me? Anyone? Anyone? I've got one last thing on this here. There's someone that I knew who had recently taken a fall and this person is a very active, healthy, probably 60 something year old woman. But very light and very small. Being very light and very small without weight training is a recipe for brittle bones and losing bone density because on today's call there's not as many men as women. I want to point to that necessity for strength training or weight training for women because it's such a powerful way to keep the mobility, keep the bone density and mitigate that strength loss that comes with that thing called added years. Bring in your other questions. Can be nutrition, it can be anything you want. Bring it in, pop it in the chat. What do you got for me? Okay, while we're waiting for that question, there's A question that came from a client this week and this client has increased their training significantly. In increasing their training, they did what I see a lot of clients do, which is that, oh, okay, I'm training, but I'm going to start to eat healthy too, all at the same time. Then inevitably there's these pitfalls because they're so hungry. You're going to see this with people who are adding more exercise. Doesn't matter whether they're a young athlete or what age, they are adding more exercise on the regular basis. Then suddenly they find they're a lot hungrier and more susceptible to the old habits of maybe snacking or less healthy choices that they might have made before. He's looking at this going like, what do I do? How do I eat? The scenario is such that for many people who start to initiate more of an exercise routine, they'll start to feel hungry at times they didn't normally feel hungry. Then they find that they're eating things that they wouldn't normally want to eat to support that new or that increased exercise habit. The first suggestion I always make is having them do a food record or a food journal. Now a food journal is retrospective, it's looking back, it's reflective. But that allows the person who's going through it and me to learn from the patterns, to learn from when they're eating, why they're eating, when they're eating, how much they're eating, what their choice is at that time without making any of it wrong. Just out of complete curiosity to understand where the choices are because it's such a knee jerk reaction to want to help another person, especially when you coach. But the problem that comes in is that there's really not enough information. We don't know anything about what they're eating, how they're eating, what their caloric intake is with all the new training. This person happened to be an athlete and so that is a shortcoming in terms of trying to make a decision. Whereas that person would have just said, well, give me an eating plan, give me an eating plan, give me an eating plan. And that's the worst thing that I could do in that situation because it's going to be more of the same. They'll dive onto the eating plan. It will be something so different than what they've ever done because I don't know how they normally eat. And then they'll fall off that wagon again. So that's a scenario and a question that came up this week. And what else do you have here? Pop it in. The chat. What do you have that's specific to you? Or I know there's a coach on here. There's a couple coaches on here to you or your clients or your athletes that I can help out with on this and that will help our group because they'll listen to this as well. What do you got? You can also unmute, too, if you don't want to type. And I'll tap into some other questions here, too. What do you got? Can be injury related, nutrition related, training related, sleep related, whatever all the things are. I also had another. I'm just thinking of all the questions that have come up from some of my clients this week. I had another question that came up. This person had. This person was training fairly regularly and fairly fit, but had, in their words, pulled a hammy. Pulled a hammy. They've had injuries in the past. They're not immune to being able to handle the inflammation or the pain. But when I actually asked them about what was going on, they were concerned about their knee. I said, well, where was the original injury? And the original injury is in the muscle belly, in the middle of the hamstring, the middle of the thigh. But they had all this swelling and bruising in the knee. And they're telling me about how. They're telling me about some of the mechanism. From what I can gather, it sounded like the injury or the pull was right in the middle of the belly of the hamstring, right in the middle of the back of the thigh, back of the leg. The concern, though, was about all this swelling and this bruising that was happening in the knee, in the back of the knee, especially because that knee had had some past injuries. But what's happening there, and I want this to. This will probably relate to some other injuries that some people have had. Is that that swelling from the original tear, that bleeding from the tear in the thigh, it sinks simply because of gravity, just physics. Gravity pulls any of that swelling, that bruising, and it often, especially with something in the thigh, will settle into the knee and the knee capsule, usually that extra capsuler. And then the person's experiencing some knee pain. They're like, but I'm sure I hurt my hamstring, but now I've got knee pain. Well, the knee starts to feel some of the pain because if there's any extra swelling, it creates extra friction on the patellar tendon. So sometimes just in some of the movement that you're going to have, even some of the ligaments on either side might feel a little tender when they're moving because there's extra swelling in there. Now, all of that was from just a hamstring pull. There's nothing wrong with the knee, but the knee is showing symptoms of what happened with the hamstring pull. I'm sure you've experienced something like that before where you did something to your calf and then your whole foot is swollen, or you did something to your shoulder and you're noticing your elbow or your hand is having a problem. Just make note of that. With some of the injuries that you might see or some of the things that might show up, it's sometimes not what it appears to be. Sometimes the symptoms are showing one thing, but the cause is coming from a different spot. What else do we have here? Questions. Otherwise, I keep coming up with other people's questions that they've submitted. I am not familiar with Duprentins. Tell me more.

So it's in my hand. It causes the shortening of the tendon in the hand and brings it down. But it's different than a trigger finger because, like, mine's perfectly straight still. But the pain is unbelievable.

How long have you had it?

It's been over a year. And I have a surgeon's appointment this week and their main thought is just, oh, they'll give me a cortisone shot, see how it goes, and maybe cut it open. Well, I don't really want it cut open.

So it started for over a year. Do you know what the. What? The cat.

It's hereditary, they say.

Okay. And does anyone in your family have it?

Found out this weekend. My uncle does.

Oh, okay. So you have a hereditary shortening of the tendon in your hand and your fingers. It's interesting because this usually happens, and I've seen this lots because of volleyball injuries, rugby injuries, hockey injuries, where that tendon shortens because of usually an avulsion. Usually the tendon pulls off the bone and it's not properly reattached. And then the tendon shortens. And so they have this kind of trigger finger look. That's how I'm familiar. A normal mechanism. Your mechanism is. Is a genetic thing. So it's some sort of genetic variant that's passed down. And now you've got this shortening of the tendon. Is it only in fingers?

Yeah, it shortens through to here on.

The palm, but not in Achilles or elbow or there's not other tendons. So typically just.

They do say you can get patellofemoral or not patella. Sorry, yeah. Oh, there was something else with it. But in the foot.

Oh, okay.

Plantar fasciitis with it.

So, okay, so here's. And this is, I'm going to speak in generalities just from an athletic therapy background and longtime background in sport. But. And obviously you know that this isn't to diagnose or tell you a specific treatment. However, what happens with cortisone is, will bring down inflammation, but you're injecting a steroid. Basically what I've seen happen with a number of people with chronic tenosynovitis or Achilles tendinitis or just issues that they've had some shortening of the tendon but for different reasons than yours, and they've ended up having a cortisone shot. I've seen some people where it doesn't make much of a difference. I've seen a lot of people where that cortisone shot was like the magic elixir. They're just like, finally I have relief. I've tried all these other things, massage, acupuncture, yada yada, yada, yada, all these other things. And finally I have relief. Here's the rule of thumb. Surgery is so much more invasive and has so many more risks and complications that the surgeon is always going to opt to the less risky option. Lower problematic. There's just not as many issues that are going to come. Cortisone is a viable option before surgery. Below cortisone though, it's massage, it's acupuncture, it's lengthening, it's physio exercises for the hand. It's all of these things that are very specific. And there are actually specialists. So physiotherapy specialists that are hand only specialists, or concussion only specialists, or shoulder only specialists in rehabilitation and physiotherapy. So you can see a specialist in physiotherapy when it comes to your hand overall to work that if that hasn't been done thoroughly first. But what will happen for most people who get a cortisone shot? Depending on, not even depending on where it is, but for most people who get a cortisone shot, they see some relief. It extends their time without pain and their function for quite a while. That could be even a year, it could be even two years. However, then often the thing comes back. Now again really general here because most times the thing can be prevented via significant eccentric, that's negative contraction work through lengthening that tendon, want that length that tendon to be strong and pliable. And that comes from eccentric work or negative contraction work. So you can imagine that with an Achilles with doing like weighted lowering calf raises, but lowering emphasis with slow, slow lowerings to activate more recruitment. As long as it's pain free and just build it, build it, build it until that tendon is longer and stronger. Because the body will adapt. The body will adapt. I've seen incredible, incredible physical adaptations. But most people don't do that and do it. They might do the physio and the block of physio might take them through a couple months. They've had their cortisone shot, they feel like they're free and clear, but then they step away from it because the pain isn't there. They might go back to whatever they normally did. And if that area isn't maintained, it typically will go back to whatever the original issue was, if it was. You know, for instance, I knew someone who, for work, they wore a lot of high heels, they shortened their Achilles, they were a distance runner, and then they had tendonitis in the Achilles and they went away from wearing high heels. But still there was just some shortness there and they weren't doing as much of the stretching and that kind of thing. And it eventually came back, but they found some other options which were very specific heel cushions, very specific exercises. Because after that first cortisone shot, it eventually came back about a year or two later. Some people it might be three months, some people it might be a year, some people it might be two years. The thing on the cortisone shot, what I say and what I used to say in a clinical environment would be that do and try all of the things for a good period of time. That might be for you, it might be three months, it might be six months. Really put that effort into the hand exercises, the stretches, the massage, somebody actually massaging, just all the different things and see what happens, but actually measure it. What's my pain out of 10 now? On the day in and day out, what's my pain out of 10? After four months, you might find that the pain goes down. But if you've gone from excruciating to still very strong pain, that might not be enough of a decrease for you, then I would say, okay, well, then you might want to try the cortisone shot because then that's your first step. What happens though, is once you've gone to three cortisone shots, you're putting your tendon at risk for tearing and it starts to affect the integrity of the soft tissue. You. Yes, cortisone shots can have a really great positive effect on pain and function. But too many of them then takes away the integrity of that tissue and it just doesn't. It's more susceptible for injury, tear and rupture than it would have been otherwise. The surgeon is giving you that option first so that you don't have the riskiest option, which is surgery. But what I would do if I were you, and this is one that I'm really not familiar with from that genetic standpoint. So I really don't know. I don't know what the surgical outcomes are. Because there are some surgeries that you're looking at great outcomes, fantastic outcomes, some like a knee scope, Fantastic outcomes. If somebody has been suggested to have a knee scope, I'd be like, yep, go for it. Your outcome is going to be amazing. You're going to love it. But other things, there's just not as back surgeries, even the spine surgeons are just like, we have to see a clear, clear benefit to this because it's just too risky to put somebody through that and then have a 50, 50 shot of whether they're even going to have pain relief. That's where I would hopefully have expanded your information there. Look to the outcomes of the surgeries before you get the appointment with a surgeon so that you're educated going in. And you'll probably be able to look that up on PubMed and to be able to find some outcomes. And you might have to search the specific procedure because most surgeries that are very specific like that, the procedure will have its own name. It might be named after some surgeon, and I don't know what the procedural name would be for that, because if you only look up the condition, you'll only find condition information versus the actual name of the procedure and what the outcomes are for that surgical procedure. I know this sounds a little bit, maybe a little ominous in some ways, but what this does is puts the power back to you. Instead of having us feel like the victim going to the surgeon looking for the help. Help me, help me, help me. They're there to help you. You should seek that help. That's exactly the direction you should be going. And at the same time, keep empowering yourself with the information so that you ask the questions that are the most relevant. Even a question like, how many surgeries like this have you done? The surgeon will tell you, because some of them have some obscure surgeries they may not have done. This person might be a hand specialist though, and they might have done thousands like this. And that's just fantastic for your confidence and they'll give you the goods. One more question before we go or any follow up questions on what I've said there. I know that was a long winded answer, but that's great information for anyone who's considering a cortisone shot for anything. Is those steps to follow or those things to consider before taking it? Any last questions? Okay, that is it for today then. That's a wrap. Amazing. I hope this served you well. Take those considerations for your body weight training versus your load training versus taking cortisone shots or not. Or what you want to do with a food journal. Perhaps with taking that reflective look before making any planning or future decisions going forward. Have a beautiful day everyone and I can't wait to see you soon.

Bye.

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