Fitness Questions And Answers
Find an answer to commonly asked fitness questions
Fat Loss
Aim to lose around 1% of your body weight per week. If you have more weight to lose, you can aim for 1.5-2% of your body weight per week. If you are leaner (12% body fat or less), it is a good idea to lose at a slower rate, around 0.5% of your body weight per week.
Weigh yourself every morning upon waking, after using the bathroom, and before eating. Use a 7-10 day average weight, comparing your weekly average weight with the previous week’s average weight to establish whether you are losing at the desired rate.
No, when calories are equated, fat loss seems to be similar regardless of the breakdown of the macronutrients we are consuming, as long as we are setting our fat-loss diet up at least somewhat sensibly, with adequate protein, and a balance of carbohydrates for performance and dietary fat for hormonal health.
Carbohydrates will still need to be reduced somewhat in a fat-loss phase to reduce calories and remain in a calorie deficit.
Intermittent fasting can be a useful tool for fat loss for some individuals, however, it is no more effective than following a traditional eating schedule. Intermittent fasting can even be detrimental in some situations and is not something we typically recommend.
Dietary fat will have to be somewhat low during a fat-loss phase to ensure calories are low and we can maintain a calorie deficit. We prefer a lower fat approach, as this allows carbohydrates to remain higher, which is important for gym performance and can also help keep stress hormones such as cortisol lower.
The sweet spot for the majority of people is 15-25% of total calories coming from dietary fat during a fat-loss phase. We do not recommend going lower than 50g of fat for the day.
Tracking calories or macronutrients is widely used in the fitness industry. We recommend that everyone track their macronutrient for at least some time to gain experience and learn about the different macronutrients/food groups.
You do not need to track calories or macronutrients to lose weight, however, the more advanced your goals are the more accuracy matters, and the more useful tracking becomes.
The more experience you have with tracking the better you will be able to estimate the amount of calories/macronutrients you are consuming, without tracking.
Walking can be great for fat loss and is something we recommend highly. Walking can assist in fat loss by helping us create a calorie deficit, however, our nutrition will still need to be addressed if our goal is fat loss.
10,000 steps per day is a great target to aim for to assist in fat loss and is also a great habit to build into a healthy lifestyle, even when you are not trying to lose body fat. In a fat loss phase, you can even aim for 12,000-15,000 steps per day, if you have time.
There is no ‘best’ macronutrient breakdown for a fat loss phase. A good starting point for most individuals is:
| Calories | -20% of estimated TDEE |
| Protein | 2.2g per kg(1g per lb) of goal bodyweight |
| Fat | 25% of total calories |
| Carbohydrates | Remaining Calories |
Building Muscle
There is no ‘best’ training split. Training splits are simply a way to arrange your training throughout the week to allow for sufficient recovery between different muscle groups.
The training split you follow will likely be dictated by the number of days you can train or want to train throughout the week. The training split you enjoy will also be an important factor. The one that keeps you motivated and consistent will likely be the best one for you. This will likely change over time.
In general full-body splits are great for beginners. As we move past the beginner stage the upper-lower body split can work great, and can even be used by more advanced lifters. The push pull legs split is also a great option for intermediate and advanced lifters.
Training to muscular failure is not required to build muscle, and going to failure on all of your sets, especially on certain exercises can even be detrimental. However, training hard, at the correct intensity, and working at a close proximity to muscular failure is required to build muscle.
The rate you should aim to gain will depend on your training age, and how much muscle you can realistically expect to gain each month. As building muscle is a much slower process than losing body fat, we should look at weight gain over a month.
| Training Age | Men | Women |
| Beginner | 1-1.5% | 0.5-1% |
| Intermidiate | 0.5-1% | 0.25-0.75% |
| Advanced | <0.5% | <0.25% |
1.6-2.2 grams per kg of body weight (0.7-1 gram per lb) of protein per day is recommended in a muscle-building phase. If you are carrying excess body fat you can base these numbers on target body weight to avoid consuming too much protein.
Technically there is no ‘best’ rep range for building muscle, although there are rep ranges that are more useful or practical for building muscle. We can build muscle through a wide range of rep ranges as long as we are working at a high enough intensity.
The medium rep range can be defined as anywhere between 6-15 reps and allows us to accumulate sufficient volume whilst also providing a heavy enough load to deliver good strength progression.
Performing the majority of our exercises in the medium rep ranges is recommended if our main goal is building muscle (hypertrophy). We can still perform some work below 6 reps for strength and some work above 15 reps, depending on the exercise we are performing. Different exercises are more appropriate for certain repetition ranges.
In general the higher the repetition range, the closer we need to work to muscular failure to provide a sufficient stimulus for muscle growth. Lower repetition ranges, using heavier weights can be performed with a higher RIR, working further away from muscular failure.
Effective volume for building muscle can be anywhere from 6 to 20+ sets per week. This will depend largely on your training age and level of advancement as well as the goals you are looking to achieve.
A great place to start for the majority of people is 8-12 sets per week for each muscle group, split over 2-3 training sessions. Focus on performing high-quality sets which are stimulative for hypertrophy before adding more sets. Think quality over quantity!
Some common reasons why people fail to build muscle or limit the amount of muscle they can build include:
- Not training hard enough with the correct intensity.
- Not performing enough weekly volume.
- Poor exercise selection.
- Undereating/nutritional deficiencies.
- Not consuming adequate protein.
- Program hopping.
- High stress levels.
- Poor quality sleep.
- Excessive amounts of fasting.
- Low testosterone
