Episode 430: Kris Gethin: Why Squats Are Overrated and How to Lose the Last 5 Pounds

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It's easy to lose a lot of weight when you're very overweight. It comes down to when, you know, when you have that like last five pounds, right, to lose.
What are some of the best strategies that you would suggest someone to do to lose that last five pounds? So it all depends on the individual, but I'd have to look at their program. So are they potentially overtraining? A lot of people think more activity is going to lead to less body fat.
It isn't always the case because especially with females, the thyroid can downregulate very, very quickly. So maybe what we do is throw in some refeed days, healthy foods.
Like a lot of people think a refeed day is a cheat meal that turns into a cheat day, but it'd be like higher glycemic foods. It could be breads.
It could be pastas. It could be sushi, for instance, just to really upregulate the thyroid, speed the, you know, speed the metabolism up a little bit, you know, through having extra calories and then bring it back down.
You're kind of shocking the system a little bit. I'll usually do that on a non-training day.
So there's no inflammation there. You do no cardio on that day.
It's very difficult for some people to think like that, but that generally works. When I've had a male and female, let's say their husband and wife, and they're both at the same sort of stage, I'd usually get a guy to do a refeed every 12 to 14 days.
A female could be every six to seven days. I just find the metabolism tends to slow down a lot quicker.
I also find that when you're doing too much cardio, you end up getting so much hungrier. So therefore you're eating more calories, right? Because you're like, when I'm doing when I run, I get ravenous afterwards.
And I end up eating double the amount of food that I would have had if I just didn't do any cardio at all. So that's like the delicate balance, right? Like strength training doesn't make me hungry.
It's the cardio that makes you hungry. And that's how when you're eating too much, the whole calories in like you're now consuming so many more because I did this intense cardio session.
You know, like, how do you delicately balance that so you don't end up eating like a monster, but still feel you get that like release of the cardio, like to get that mental, you know, endorphin rush and that all those dopamine, like the dopamine hit without like overeating basically. Yeah, for sure.
Good question. So one thing that I do suggest is what I suggested earlier is have an essential amino acids, have an essential amino acids that's going to feed you.
Of course, it's not going to be filling, but it will help feed you and stabilize your blood sugar levels from dropping too much.

And then when it does come to your food, then make sure that you're eating as much volume

as possible without having a density of the calories.

So it could be your vegetables, it could be your salad, you could throw some fruits in

there if you want, mix it up and make sure that you eat that first before you consume

anything else.

The one thing that I found has been very, very helpful for me is there's a book called The Slow Down Diet. Phenomenal book.
There's a lot of science that is associated when you're eating the meal that you are in contact with your senses, your smell, your taste, the sight, the feel, the texture, being grateful for the food of where it came from to get in front of your plate. Because a lot of people look at a meal and go, God, boring, bland chicken and rice again.
I'm bored of it. Well, you have to be very thankful because there's a lot of people in this world that don't even have that opportunity to choose what they can eat.
But make sure that you're putting a fork down between bites. You're not distracted.
You're not scrolling on your phone. You're not in that sympathetic state.
You know, you're in your parasympathetic rest and digest. And the chances are people get more fulfilled than they would if they were distracted or just wolfing down that food and without the fiber first.
The other thing I was going to add is having carbonated water, had some electrolytes in a carbonated water that is filling. You know, usually when I go to bed, I'm i'm like god how am i going to sleep i'll usually have like a carbonated drink you know that could be carbonated water with electrolytes you know i'm not associated with this company i've got an update here you probably know about this company through sean wells you know i don't like taking in artificial sugars anything that has some soda some carbonation, it could be a Zevia, really, really helps the cause as well.
That's so true. I found that to be a really good hack.
Like when I'm really hungry, like having like some type of like sugar-free soda, like takes the edge off, I guess. Yeah.
Yeah. It's that carbonation.
It just keeps you fulfilled. And to a certain extent, it keeps you distracted as well.
So I was watching a TV show last night. I was like, God, I feel like chewing on something.
I just went and got myself an apple. Would that be fulfilling or attracted to a lot of people? No.
But that distraction can help. You go, okay, I've even forgotten about it now.
That's a lot of the things that we require, it's just distraction. I totally agree with you.
I think we eat out of boredom a lot of times, or out of thirst. If we're thirsty, we think it's hunger, so then we end up eating.
Yeah. I have that typical meathead jug with me right now.
I got to keep up appearances. you know? Yeah, of course you do, Chris.
I see that. I see that.
What would you say is the most overrated exercise and the most underrated exercise? Overrated, I'd say squat, you know, because, you know, typical for men, they'll say you've got to do your bread and butter lifts, your bench press, your deadlift. And of course, the squats come in there.
You know, am I saying it's bad? No, it's not bad, but it is overrated. Everybody says you must get squat to get big legs.
It's not the case. When you are squatting, you are using a lot of stability muscles.
Of course, you're going to be exerting a lot of energy just to hold it with stability because you're using your core, you're using pretty much or your upper body as well, where you could potentially get a lot more out of those leg workouts, those glute workouts, etc. Just doing a leg press, like a 45 degree leg press.
There are obviously a lot of other exercises, but I'd say that is the one that is probably most overrated. A lot of people don't have the structure for it.
Maybe you've got narrow hips or maybe you've got really, really tight Achilles tendons. So you tend to bend forward when you get to the bottom, when your hamstrings are parallel.
Well, that's obviously not going to be good for you. You know, I've got very tight Achilles tendons, so it's not good for me.
I'll stick to leg press. And, you know, my legs are probably my largest muscle group, you know.
I'd say that that's probably one. Did you have something that you was going to say? Yeah, I was going to say? It's really funny.
And I'm glad that you said that, right? Because you know, what's really interesting. Nobody will, nobody usually says that.
And you know, this is why I don't love working out with trainers, because if I'm working out with trainers and they give you a specific exercise, they'll say like, do this front squat, right? Say, but my body mechanics won't allow me to go as low as they want me to go. Or it's because my hips are not, are, are uneven or whatever that my body mechanics, my anatomy is, is why I can't do it.
It has nothing to do with the strength I have or whatever it is. And like, people don't take that as an okay, efficient, like, like a sufficient answer, right? They're like, no, no, no, you must go much lower you must but like sometimes the truth is like your body structure does not do that particular exercise well that could be that's okay like i don't feel we have to kill ourselves just to prove just to prove a point yeah exactly you know you've got people like down in la a good friend of mine, Michael Hearn, he is phenomenal at squatting.
And you can see he's built Freud. He'll go ass to the grass, as it were, and with an extreme amount of weight.
But then he'll have other people like six times Mr. Olympia, Dorian Yates, never squatted because it just didn't suit his structure.
So of course, like we all have different personalities, different characteristics. Some people may respond better to keto, other people carnivore, other people just a plain balanced diet.
You have to kind of figure out specifically what works for you, or at least your trainer should. Right.
You know, it's like also, what do you think of a hip thrust? Hip thrust? Yeah. Okay.
You know, I understand there's a lot of females doing it because it's trendy to get a bigger butt and more developed glutes these days. It works.
Again, it's the same sort of thing. Some people feel it.
Some people don't. So you have to kind of see what works.
There's a lot of exercises that, for instance, Sybil, who you just spoke to on here earlier, that she does for her glutes. If she does squats, she doesn't feel anything.
So that's an exercise she'll put to the shelf. You know, that's how I feel about hip thrusts.
I always feel like it's uncomfortable. It's awkward.
It takes a long time to get into the position. And then, you know, people are giving me shit because they're like, how are you not doing a hip thrust? I'm like, I don't like it.
I have other exercises that are giving me a way bigger bang for my buck. But there's all these like absolutes out there.
Like you absolutely have to do a hip thrust. You absolutely have to do a squat.
No, you don't. There's so many varieties that like if they fit you and suit you better, that you can do them.
But that's why when you said that, I loved it. Because most trainers are like, no, no, no, you must do this.
There's no way around it. I'm like, that's ridiculous.
It cannot be that way. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, you wouldn't catch me doing a hip thrust. I guess I'm a little bit too manly for something like that.
And it's an embarrassing looking exercise. So I couldn't do it.
I agree with you. I agree with you.
And it takes literally 10 minutes to get in and out of that position. I could have done 50 other things that would have been way more beneficial in that timeframe.
You know what I mean? Like it doesn't, and I never know how my neck should be. I'm always, I'm always hurting my neck and like my ankles are not positioned properly.
It's like, Oh God. So what do you think is the most underrated exercise that people are just not doing enough of? I'd say isolation movements.
A lot of people focus on compounds where they're using multi-joints, assisting movements, like your bench press, your shoulder press, leg press, things like that. But I think it's very important, especially as you are thinking long-term for your long-term health span, is doing isolation exercises first to pre-fatigue the muscle so you don't have to go as heavy on your compounds and place a lot of stress on your joints or your connective tissue, such as your tendons and ligaments.
So I think overall isolation. So as an example, if I'm going to train chest, I'm going to maybe do some cable crossovers.
I'm going to do some pec deck, and then maybe I will work on, go onto the dumbbell press. Cause now I don't have to train as hard.
Like I don't want to go really heavy on the dumbbell press. Cause that's going to put a lot of strain on my elbows and your tendons can be like an elastic band in the sun.
It kind of dries out over time and then it becomes very vulnerable. So, uh, you know, I'm always thinking forward because, you know, I'm 50 years old now.
I want to be doing this when I'm 70. I want to do this when I'm 80 because it is very therapeutic.
It isn't just for aesthetics. It's for emotional release.
It makes you feel good. So, you know, a lot of people, when they go through different ups and downs in life, maybe they've lost a loved one.
Maybe they've, you know, they've got gone through a business deal. They've got sued, whatever.
They will leave the gym because they're thinking too much about the aesthetics and they're thinking, well, I can get that back. It really helps your lifespan.
And obviously the health span of the brain, you know, you, you need, need to ensure that you're doing some sort of activity. And then of course there's the longevity aspects with it as well.
We know that grip strength and squatting strength, we'll call it that. It could be leg press is associated with longevity, but it helps with your bone density.
There's so many aspects of it that people are amiss. It helps with emotional stability.
I've gone to prisons before where we've done talks on the utilization of the weights area that they've got there to help them because they've got, you know, a lot of these people have anger issues and now they're confined and sometimes they just get worse. But that generally works out to be therapeutic and a release.
Wow. So how often would you say you should work a body part? I mean, because we talked about overtraining, right? More is not more.
What would you say to get the biggest bang for your buck? What should be the schedule that someone should do? So for the most part, let's say if you're training four or five times a week, it shouldn't last any more than 45 to 60 minutes, dependent on that body part. So if it's legs, for instance, and you require more oxygen to rest between the sets, then maybe it's 60 minutes, but 45 minutes is usually the sweet spot.
That could be four or five days a week. I generally, especially for the larger muscle groups, I generally only ask a client to train it once a week.
It's all about quality and breaking down the muscle tissue. So I'll challenge people, look, come and train legs with me.
See if you want to train legs again, four days later. You probably won't.
So you really want to break that muscle tissue down, no distraction, not on your phone, not conversing with other people when you're in the gym, and really focus as if it's your job on breaking that tissue down and do quality. Don't think about the quantity, do quality.
But now if we're talking about smaller muscle groups

or stubborn muscle groups, we could be talking about calves, we could be talking about arms,

then maybe we can do that twice a week. You know, you could do it on a Monday and a Thursday,

for instance, just to make sure that you're focusing more of your efforts there.

Maybe that's your higher calorie days to really force and push growth.