As a trainer, I get to meet many different types of clients with many different goals. After training for a period of time, most people begin to get more specific with their goal setting but the three most common goals I hear when starting with a new client is to improve overall health and wellbeing, to lose weight, or to gain muscle mass. Here are some of the factors that I will consider training a client with one of these three common goals.

1. Improve overall health and wellbeing:

Any movement is beneficial for this goal. There are many studies that highlight the importance of movement in a healthy lifestyle. A 2016 study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise suggests that swapping any amount of sedentary time with any type of physical activity was associated with reduced mortality risk in older adults, highlighting the effect of movement on our health.

If you are looking to improve your overall health and wellbeing, my recommendation is to incorporate as much movement into your day as possible, whether it is through planned exercise or general activity like housework. If you do choose to incorporate specific exercise into your daily routine, pick something that you enjoy doing and are excited to do. This could be a certain type of exercise like running, weight-lifting, yoga, or Pilates, or it could be a sport that you enjoy. By picking something you enjoy, you will be more likely to make time to do it and to stick with it for a significant period of time. If you can, you are encouraged to participate in some cardiovascular exercise as well as some muscle-strengthening exercise for overall health and wellbeing.

The Australian Physical Activity and Exercise Guidelines recommend that adults participate in 2.5 to 5 hours of moderate intensity physical activity (e.g. a brisk walk, golf, mowing the lawn, or swimming), or 1.25 to 2.5 hours of vigorous intensity physical activity (e.g. jogging, aerobics, fast cycling, soccer, or netball), or an equivalent combination of moderate and vigorous activities. It also recommends that adults include muscle-strengthening activities at least two days per week (e.g. push-ups, pull-ups, squats or lunges, lifting weights, or household tasks that involve lifting, carrying or digging.)

2. Weight Loss:

When trying to lose weight, your main focus needs to be on staying within a calorie deficit; burning more calories than you are consuming. Much like the health and wellbeing goal, when trying to lose weight, any movement will be beneficial as it will increase the amount of energy your body uses each day as well as giving you additional health benefits like stronger bones and muscles, lower risk of developing lifestyle-related disease, improved cardiovascular heath, and mental and emotional wellbeing. It is therefore recommended that you choose any form of movement that you enjoy doing and will continue to do long-term.

While you can lose weight without exercise, simply by altering the amount of calories you consume, exercise may play an important role in how you lose the weight and the effect that weight loss has on your body. It is expected that weight loss may result in some muscle loss, however, a review published in the journal Advances in Nutrition, suggests that a focus on adequate protein intake and resistance based exercise can help maintain muscle mass and improve muscle strength during weight loss. Another review published in Sports Medicine also shows that we can lose around 1.4 per cent of our entire body fat through strength training alone, which is similar to how much we might lose through cardio or aerobics, proving that any type of exercise is beneficial for those trying to lose weight.

3. Muscle Gain:

When trying to gain significant amounts of muscle mass, your focus needs to be on staying in a calorie surplus (burning less calories than you are consuming), as well as participating in muscle-building exercise. A 2021 study published in the Biophysical Journal looked at how and why exercise builds muscle by focusing on how the proteins in muscle filaments change under force. Researchers found that the molecule that generates the chemical signal that affects muscle growth will be more likely to open if it is under more force, or when kept under the same force for longer. The study suggests that loads of 70% of maximal load is a more efficient method of stimulating muscle growth than loads that are lower. This supports our belief that training the muscles under heavy loads to the point of fatigue will result in the most muscle gain.

To increase muscle mass, we recommend focusing on participating in resistance-based exercise 3-5 times per week, while ensuring to train each muscle group at least once per week.

-Laura Witchard

When we exercise, whether it be weight lifting, high intensity training, cardio, or anything else, we are placing our muscles, bones and joints under stress. This stress causes microscopic tears to form in the muscles and connective tissue. During the recovery phase, a healing process occurs which rebuilds the muscle so that it is stronger to avoid this damage occurring again in the future. A similar repair process happens in our bones and joints. This is called ‘adaptation’.

Adaptation can only occur during the recovery phase. If we continuously place our body under stress without resting, our muscles, bones and joints don’t have a chance to repair themselves which means that they can never grow stronger or adapt to the training. The lack of adaptation places us at greater risk of injury and prevents us from achieving our strength, endurance or body composition goals.

Does this mean that you cannot do some form of exercise every day? Not necessarily! You need to ensure that the muscles you have trained have time to adapt. This may be done by undertaking a ‘split’ weight training program (e.g. targeting different muscle groups on each day), or by training different aspects of fitness each day (e.g. weight-training, cardio, stretching/yoga, Pilates, boxing, etc.). It is important that you allow 24-48hours for a muscle group to recover and repair itself. You may also add ‘active recovery’ days into your program. Active recovery allows you to continue being active but at a much lower intensity, for example, an active recovery day may include any combination of walking, yoga, stretching, rolling/massage, mobility exercises, etc. 1-2 days of complete rest is also beneficial. The best thing to do is to listen to your body, if you are feeling fatigued and/or sore, then rest, even if it is not scheduled in your program for that day! You should never feel guilty for allowing your body to repair and recover because this is how you get results!

Sleep, food and hydration are also integral aspects of recovery. For more information regarding healthy eating principles, visit the Australian Eat For Health website or book an appointment with an accredited dietician, we recommend EatSense.