
Strength Changes Everything
The Exercise Coach presents: The Strength Changes Everything Podcast. Learn from Exercise Coach Co-Founder Brian Cygan, Franchisee Amy Hudson, and Dr. James Fisher, Chief Science Officer of The Exercise Coach about how to enjoy a strong, healthy lifestyle. The Exercise Coach’s unique two 20-minute workouts a week is how thousands across the United States get and stay in great shape. This podcast gives you the facts, from the experts, in easy-to-understand lessons so you can take control of your life.
Latest episodes

Apr 21, 2021 • 7min
Is There an Extra Benefit to Doing Pre-Exhaustion Sequences?
Amy and Brian explore the question “Should you pre-exhaust your muscles with isolation exercises before taking on compound movements?” Find out why the idea of the pre-exhaustion sequence is actually hurting your fitness progress and why putting compound exercises at the very beginning of your exercise program is the key to getting the most results in the shortest amount of time. Pre-exhaustion is the idea that performing an isolation exercise prior to a compound exercise is more effective in training that particular muscle. This is mainly due to the experience and burn involved. Research out of the UK looked at pre-exhaustion to see if it had a positive effect on the fitness results of a group of athletes and they found that there was no significant difference. Pre-exhaustion training provides no greater benefit when compared with other exercise programs that involve more rest between sets or by a program that prioritises compound movements over isolation movements. This supports the approach of the Exercise Coach where you perform big movements first. Doing movements that involve a lot of muscle mass generates a greater hormonal result for the body which leads to better systemic results. By starting off with the larger, more difficult movements first you get the additional hormonal benefit which will make the following isolation movements a bit easier. Compound movements being performed early in the workout without isolation movements in front of them also allows the Exercise Coach to get better fitness data on their clients. You tend to get better results on exercises that you prioritize earlier in a workout. Link: exercisecoach.com This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Apr 14, 2021 • 11min
Multi-Joint vs. Single-Joint Strength Movements - Is One Better Than the Other?
Discover the secret to amplifying your total-body fitness results while also spending less time at the gym. Find out why multi-joint movements can have a serious positive impact on your strength and physical fitness while taking less time to perform, as well as which exercise is the most effective movement in The Exercise Coach program. The aim of The Exercise Coach is to design workouts that are total body focused, safe, and effective while also maximizing workout motivation and consistent adherence. All exercise can be broken down into two kinds of human movements. These are multi-joint movements, also known as compound movements, and single-joint movements, also known as isolation movements. Chin-ups are the classic example of a compound movement whereas a bicep curl is an isolation movement. No matter how you move, it will always fall into one of those two categories. The Exercise Coach prioritizes compound movements due to their effectiveness and efficiency. They give you more of the results you want from an exercise program in the shortest amount of time possible. Researchers studied the effects of compound movements and found significant differences when compared to isolation movements because of their hormonal effects on the body. The leg press is perhaps the most important exercise within The Exercise Coach fitness program because of the way it delivers a total-body systemic effect. The Exercise Coach allows you to maximize results and minimize time, while providing safe and comfortable exercises to perform, which is why so many clients are able to stick to the program for the long term. Adding in compound movements to your exercise program releases a hormonal effect that will amplify the results you are looking for in other areas of the body. Link: exercisecoach.com This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Apr 7, 2021 • 43min
The Optimal Exercise Program For Maximal Results in Minimal Time
We are replaying one of our most popular episodes for you this week! Brian and Amy break down some of the most common misconceptions around exercise and reveal how Exercise Coach clients are getting maximal results from only a couple 20-minute workouts each week. Learn the three most important aspects of exercise and why you need to think about exercise completely differently if you want to achieve the health and fitness results you want. The manner in which we exercise really matters because what’s at stake is significant. Exercise is a strategy that people can use to improve their quality of life, so how you go about doing it matters. Many people avoid the gym because they are worried about getting hurt. This makes sticking with an exercise program especially challenging, which is where the Exercise Coach comes in. Effective personal strength training fundamentally changes what’s required to get the results people want from exercise. It changes every system of the body for the better. There are a lot of different ways to exercise, but at the Exercise Coach they’ve found that the evidence shows the superior method to be strength training. Exercise is a means to an end, not an end in itself. We need to think about what results we are trying to achieve and tailor the exercise to bring about those changes. You can exercise for health, fitness, or sports performance and they each have some overlap but are different ways to get the results you are trying to achieve. It’s important to understand what you are trying to do during a workout. Counting reps or total time moving aren’t very helpful. The real point of exercise is actually to stimulate the body’s natural ability to adapt to stress. When we exercise, there is an exercise effect that takes place which is often confused for the results of training. The results that we actually seek from exercise are adaptations produced by our bodies in response to the challenge of exercise. If we don’t exercise the way that’s appropriate for our goal, we may put in a lot of work and still not get the results that we want. The optimal exercise approach focuses on safety, effectiveness, and efficiency. This is the best way to compare the different approaches and figure out what’s appropriate for you. Exercise is nothing more than a stressor and only serves as a stimulus if it is sufficiently intense. We become stronger and fitter if the stressor is enough to force an adaptation. The stressor doesn’t produce the result, the body does when you give it the rest and nutrition it needs to accomplish that. The average amount of time it takes for your body to recover and become stronger is a couple of days which is why the Exercise Coach employs intense periods of exercise a couple of times a week. The frequency that we need to perform high intensity exercise is less when the intensity itself is higher. Muscle is the window to the rest of the body. Growing stronger makes the rest of your body more effective as well. The Exercise Coach approach is to get the maximal results in the shortest length of time. There is an inverse relationship between intensity and duration of exercise. The level of intensity required to create adaptations is high but doesn’t require much time. Studies have shown that a single set of exercises at the right level of intensity is more effective than multiple sets. Exercising intensely for 20 minutes is sufficient to achieve results. The conventional wisdom of needing to exercise more doesn’t bear out. Why not spend as little time as possible to get the best results you are looking for? Optimizing exercise allows you to enjoy more of the good things in life. Safety is essential for exercise. Many exercises can be fun but if the focus is on results, it’s better to avoid the risk. The biggest key to making exercise safe is being in control of the forces that are applied to the body. The key to reducing force in strength training is using slow controlled movements instead of explosive movements. There is research that shows high intensity strength training is safe even for people with elevated blood pressure or other cardiovascular issues, and it even has beneficial health effects. Strength Training at the Exercise Coach is a great way to engage in exercise and improve your health even if you have orthopedic or cardiovascular concerns. Amy describes the story of an Exercise Coach client that lost 62 lbs in six months and achieved excellent health improvements in all areas of their life. The Exercise Coach can help you no matter where your current fitness level is. The coaches are very good at meeting people where they are and tailoring the program to the person’s situation. Link: exercisecoach.com This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Mar 31, 2021 • 22min
The Origin Story of the Exercise Coach and Why Strength Changes Everything
We are replaying one of our most popular episodes for you this week! Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson reveal the origin story of the Exercise Coach and the one book that completely changed the trajectory of Brian’s life by transforming his understanding of what strength training can do in your life and how quickly you can see results. Find out how the Exercise Coach is changing lives 20 minutes at a time. The goal of the Strength Changes Everything podcast is to inspire and empower people to live life at their full physical potential. Simply put: strength changes everything. Effective personal strength training fundamentally changes everything about your body for the better. It also changes the requirements to get all of the health and fitness results that matter most to you. If you want to look better and feel better then this podcast is for you, especially if you’re over 40 and started experiencing the effects of the aging process, even if you’re not excited or interested in going to the gym. Brian is also going to discuss the Exercise Coach which is the application of the principles that flow out of the Strength Changes Everything philosophy. Brian has been in the fitness industry for the past 20 years and in the process has become pretty passionate about a few things, mainly the science and business of fitness and getting the value of fitness knowledge into the world. As a former athlete, Brian became very interested in the science of strength training which led to him going to school for kinesiology. The classical science aspects of his degree made sense to Brian, but his education left him with a lot of questions on the application of strength training. On the last day of his schooling, a classmate gave Brian a book to read called A Rational Approach to Strength Training, and just by reading the first few chapters, it transformed Brian’s understanding of exercise. Brian learned an approach to exercise that was very different from the approach that he had been exposed to in school or as an athlete. The new approach can be summed up in three things: the science says that exercise should be brief, intense, and infrequent. Brian tells the story of how he worked with a basketball player and helped him put on over 20 pounds of muscle over the course of 12 weeks while only exercising once a week for 20 minutes to get those results. Brian’s newfound approach caused a bit of conflict with the department he was working in and eventually, Brian decided to leave to find somewhere else he could apply those principles. He found a fitness studio that specialized in the application of those principles and after working there for a year found that he was extremely passionate about helping people of all ages and fitness levels. That was also around the time that Brian discovered his entrepreneurial spirit and when he and his wife co-founded a business called the Exercise Coach. Brian partnered up with another company called Exerbotics to launch the franchise. The technology they provided allowed them to standardize the approach and customize the plan more deeply for anyone that wanted to participate. Brian now has hundreds of locations of the Exercise Coach all over the country with plans to open more over the coming years. Amy’s story started off by being introduced to Brian many years ago in the Chicago area. She had recently given birth to her second child and was trying to get back to her pre-baby weight and found herself spending hours each week exercising in the only way that she knew which were long runs. Brian invited Amy and her husband to try out the Exercise Coach program and within six months, she noticed an incredible shift in her body composition. For the first time in her life, she felt athletic and capable. At the same time, they learned about the nutrition aspects of fitness and started making healthier choices. She got so excited about healthy eating that Amy started a blog on the topic. Once Amy started learning about the profound health and longevity benefits of strength training she realized that it’s truly a transformative thing and can change the trajectory of someone’s health for their lifetime. Right before the birth of her third daughter Amy and her husband moved to Minneapolis and decided to open their own Exercise Coach. The first five episodes of the podcast are meant to be the foundational overview of the Strength Changes Everything philosophy. We’re going to cover why not all exercise is the same, why people aren’t exercising and the obstacles people face in their fitness journey, the scientific paradigm that underlies the philosophy, the problem of people’s loss of health and fitness and they age, and what can be accomplished by a 20-minute workout once a week. Link: exercisecoach.com This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Mar 24, 2021 • 16min
Should I Stretch Before or After a Strength Training Session?
Before you jump into your next exercise session, learn why what you’ve been told about stretching is completely wrong and how it can actually increase the odds of you getting injured. Brian and Amy explore some common myths regarding stretching before and after exercise and discuss whether or not stretching is a necessary component of strength training. Do you need to stretch before you work out? There are a lot of prevailing myths around stretching and exercise and people are usually coming at this from one of two angles, either to prevent injury or to increase performance. In terms of preventing injuries, stretching has been shown in a number of studies to have no impact on the likelihood of injury. Even with uncontrolled environments like a sport, stretching doesn’t seem to have an effect on the odds of getting injured. There is a difference between stretching and a dynamic warm up, which is something that can be beneficial before physical activity. In strength training, the key to preventing injuries is to control the forces that the body is exposed to. Clients in the Exercise Coach undergo no intentional stretching before exercising. Static stretching before an activity does not reduce the odds of an injury, but it does have a negative impact on performance. Over a hundred studies showed that static stretching reduced the strength of the muscle by at least 5%. Stretching is like loading a muscle so it makes sense that it would reduce the muscular capacity. When it comes to stretching after a workout, there are a couple of things that people believe. The first is to reduce muscle soreness. The trouble is soreness is not a good indicator of whether or not you performed an effective workout and not everybody gets sore after strength training. Several studies showed that stretching, before or after exercise, has no impact on delayed muscle soreness. To actually prevent muscle soreness one of the best things you can do is get your body into motion sooner. It can take delayed muscle a couple days to set in, so getting in your next workout can prevent that. A common myth regarding strength training is that it will make your muscles tight or inflexible. It’s not the case that muscles lose flexibility as they get bigger, so the idea of stretching to prevent tightness is based on a false assumption. Resistance training has been shown to actually improve flexibility, not reduce it. It’s very common, especially people who have experienced the effects of aging, that when they start to engage in a safe and effective strength training program that they will start to move better too. The best way to gain flexibility is through the safe and controlled exercises available at the Exercise Coach. When we perform strength training, especially eccentric training, our bodies produce new proteins that contribute to making our muscles more flexible, which doesn’t happen with static stretching. The main takeaways regarding stretching is that you don’t need to do it to prevent injuries before exercise and it’s not necessary to prevent soreness or stiffness. It’s okay to stretch to relax, but it’s not a necessary component of a strength training program. Links: exercisecoach.com This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Mar 17, 2021 • 12min
Is It Safe to Wear a Mask While Exercising?
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a lot of talk about whether or not wearing a mask during exercise is a safe thing to do. Amy and Brian breakdown the studies and science behind wearing a mask and oxygen intake, and reveal why The Exercise Coach program makes wearing a mask a minor detail in the pursuit of fitness results. Covid has made wearing a mask much more common but a lot of people are wondering if it’s okay to wear a mask while exercising. At the beginning of the pandemic the Exercise Coach committed to following the various guidelines, and that includes requiring masks. Generally speaking, wearing a mask is not going to hamper your workout. A good example would be how athletes have been using altitude training masks to increase physical performance for years. They don’t strictly simulate being at a higher elevation, but they do increase the effectiveness of your lungs and breathing capacity. At ground level, we get all the oxygen we need to perform optimally. When we feel wiped out and exhausted from exercise, it’s not due to a lack of oxygen. Even with a surgical mask, you have more than enough oxygen. Studies have been completed that show there isn’t an impact on physical performance when wearing a surgical mask. They looked at the effect on blood pressure, heart rate during exercise, oxygen saturation, and carbon dioxide levels. If you have a chronic lung disease talk to your healthcare provider before performing exercise while wearing a mask. For healthy people, wearing a mask during exercise is not harmful. The Exercise Coach has seen thousands of clients over the past year and they are still getting results despite the mask. Many of the clients are actually surprised at how little impact a mask actually has. The fact that the program is brief and the studios are kept cool and well ventilated makes the workout experience quite enjoyable, even with a mask on. The workouts are still intense and effective, and since they emphasize the lowering portion of the training they net better results than traditional strength training while reducing the requirement for your body’s cardiorespiratory output to increase. Eccentric training produces more force and gets you more benefits. An emphasis on the lowering portion is an advanced training technique, yet it’s more comfortable. Links: exercisecoach.com This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Mar 10, 2021 • 17min
Do Smart Scales Actually Work?
Brian and Amy discuss the pros and cons of a smart scale and how using one properly can help you stay motivated and on track to hit your fitness goals. You will also learn how to avoid one of the most common mistakes people make with a smart scale that can derail them in the first few weeks of their fitness journey. What is a smart scale and how are they different? The major difference is the measurement of body composition and the connectivity of the associated apps. These kinds of scales allow you to more accurately track your relevant fitness metrics, and what gets tracked gets improved. Smart scales use a technology that has been around for decades called bioelectrical impedance. When you step on the scale it sends a small current through your body and can use the speed of the result to measure various body composition metrics. Getting the measurement of body composition regularly is a great way to see progress. When pursuing a fitness program, it’s important to track more than just bodyweight because of the increase in muscle mass and reduction of body fat. One issue that occasionally comes up when someone first starts using a smart scale is that you might notice that your body fat is going up, even though you may be losing weight and gaining muscle. This is because the measurement is based on the hydration within your body and that’s one of the first things someone sheds when beginning an exercise program. If you’re starting a new fitness habit, the first couple of weeks of smart scale measurements may be a bit misleading. It’s important to realize that the results will be more consistent and reliable over time. Smart scales are intended to be used at the same time each day. Hydration levels fluctuate throughout the day so using them at the same time will give you more consistent measurements. It’s also important to get more data points and measure your weight more often. When you get into a rhythm of measuring with a smart scale you can get enough data to say something meaningful about the trend over time. The pattern tends to look like a sawtooth on the day-to-day scale but over time you will be able to see the overall trend. All physiological changes tend to follow the same pattern. When it comes to which scale to purchase the app that comes along with it is very important. Accuracy and reliability are what you should be looking for. Knowing how much lean mass you have in your body is powerful information to know and a good indicator that your fitness and health are moving in the right direction. Maintaining optimal health and fitness is a journey, and a smart scale is a great tool that tells us we are moving in the right direction. They can also be a tool to fuel your motivation and assure you that the investment you are making is actually propelling towards the health and fitness you’re after. Links: exercisecoach.com Six Tips to Make Your Scale a Super-Tool | Exercise Coach: exercisecoach.com/6-tips-to-make-your-scale-a-weight-loss-and-wellness-super-tool This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Mar 3, 2021 • 15min
What Kind of Weight Bearing Exercise is Best for Osteoporosis?
Learn why strength training is the foundation to rebuilding bone strength and bone density and why osteoporosis isn’t a permanent sentence. Amy and Brian break down the research around bone density and strength training, what exercises you should do to strengthen the most vulnerable parts of your body, and what exercises you should avoid completely. Many people are recommended to engage in weight bearing exercise to help deal with the effects of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis and osteopenia affect millions of people of which 80% are women. Research indicates that as many as 1 in 4 women over the age of 65 have low mineral content in their spine or femur. Just moving around isn’t going to cut it in terms of reversing osteoporosis. People can be very active and still suffer from osteoporosis. You need to exercise in more meaningful ways to deal with osteoporosis and this means proper strength training. Strength training improves every system of the body for the better, and this includes the skeletal system. The goal of this kind of strength training isn’t to increase bone mineral density; the aim is to prevent future fractures. When you look at it that way, strength is the lead domino in that it improves strength, balance, and bone density. Sarcopenia also weakens the bones as well as the muscles as we age, so aiming for strength first will also address osteoporosis. Strength also acts as a shock absorber in the case where you experience a high impact force. There are two schools of thought on how strength training affects bone density. The first says that the results are sight specific and load dependent. The second says that it’s due to hormonal factors. Other research shows that your bones will not get stronger without sufficient loads. We need the bones attached to the muscles to be loaded in order for our bodies to send signals to the bones to get stronger. We need to perform exercise that directly loads the bones we want to strengthen, as well as perform exercise that creates the metabolic stimulus that elicits a full spectrum release of miocines. Building stronger bones takes time - up to multiple years to really turn around bone loss - which is often more time than it takes to see other health and fitness results. This is a path we have to travel in order to apply the level of muscle loading we need to grow stronger bones. Bone strength is a marathon, not a sprint. The very first step to improving bone strength is to begin a safe, effective strength training program. There are a few exercises that should be prioritized to strengthen bones, typically movements that address the hips, legs, and lower back. For anyone with osteoporosis, they should avoid overhead pressing movements and twisting movements. Link: exercisecoach.com This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Feb 24, 2021 • 10min
Is Twice Per Week Really Often Enough?
One of the most common questions we get at the Exercise Coach is “Is exercising twice a week really often enough?” Listen in as Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson explore why whole effort exercise twice a week is not only enough, it’s the optimal amount you need to achieve the best fitness results for your body in the shortest amount of time possible. Exercising twice a week is more than enough. In fact, exercising more often can actually be counterproductive. The most important thing you can do as you age is addressing the health of your fast-twitch muscle fibres. To stimulate and improve the quality of your fast-twitch muscle fibres the exercise needs to be intense and brief. When we work our muscles in this way it forces adaptations, which are the end results that we are seeking from an exercise program. The flipside of this intense exercise is that you need to give your body enough time to fully recover and super-compensate, which takes at least 48 hours. All the results we want from exercise, like increased muscle mass, strength, neurological efficiency, and improved insulin sensitivity, are not actually caused directly by exercising. Our bodies produce the results we want once we’ve achieved adequate recovery. If you exercise more frequently than twice a week, all we are doing is interrupting and disrupting the body’s innate ability to produce the very results we want. Overtraining can cause people to stall out and even go backward in terms of their fitness improvements. We should be able to measure the results of any exercise program, which is why this idea is built into every program at the Exercise Coach. If you’re not seeing results from your exercise routine, question whether your exercise is intense enough and whether or not you are giving your body enough time and resources to recover properly. During a workout, you are depleting the stored energy in your muscles so that they will build themselves back up over time. Your recovery time is just as important as your workouts. The consumption of your muscle’s fuel is a major metabolic signal that triggers these kinds of transformations. The answer to getting the best possible results is almost never just exercising more. The key is combining whole effort exercise and whole food nutrition to get all the results we want. Link: exercisecoach.com This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Feb 17, 2021 • 7min
Does Muscle Really Weigh More Than Fat?
Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson break down the age-old question of whether muscle really weighs more than fat and why the number on the scale can be very misleading when you’re trying to improve your health and fitness. When many people start a strength training program, they look at their body composition and may wonder whether muscle is heavier than fat. The accurate answer is that muscle is more dense than fat. When people say that muscle weighs more than fat, what’s really being communicated is that muscle is more dense so it takes up less space within the body. Body fat is more voluminous. This is why you get a better change in body composition and physical health when you lose body fat as opposed to a combination of fat and muscle. The ideal approach to weight loss is to do what it takes to maximize fat loss, and the only way to do that is to combine whole food nutrition and whole effort exercise; science-based and intense strength training. If you don’t do strength training when combined with whole food nutrition, you will lose weight from both body fat and muscle mass. This can result in a slower metabolism and actually regaining the weight in the future. If you lose five pounds of body fat, you may not see a difference on the scale but still see a considerable improvement in body composition. You can lose more of your body mass overall even without losing a pound on the scale. The scale may not change over the course of the year but you will still feel stronger and have more energy and stamina. Get rid of the preconceived notions of what number on your scale means you’re healthy, and instead focus on adding strength, losing body fat, and feeling great. Link: exercisecoach.com This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.