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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Leo Alves podcast.
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And in today's podcast episode, I'm going to discuss with you whether or not you can build muscle after your 30s because
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I feel like uh there's two reasons why I really wanted to speak about this today.
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Introduction: Building Muscle After 30 Explained
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And uh the first being I turned 30 last year
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I'm going to be 31 in a few months.
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So I I thought, you know what?
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I I I can speak to this a bit more now.
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Maybe you know, I'm in my first year of my thirties but and I've still got like a a long way to go until I'm on the opposite side of it.
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Uh but
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You know, I'm here now, I can at least talk about it.
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You know, coupled with my exp extensive experience of uh training many one-to-one online fitness members in person and online um who are were in their 30s as well or
currently are
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Um, and as well as the fact that I've just never really spoken about it before and I thought, you know what, it's time.
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I've I've actually never really covered this subject in regard to, you know, can you actually build muscle after you hit the age of 30, uh in your thirties
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And um and otherwise with that said let's just get stuck straight in.
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Can You Actually Build Muscle After 30?
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So the first question, can you actually build muscle after 30?
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And the answer is yeah, yeah, you can.
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You can build muscle at any age.
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I was gonna say your tens, your teens, your twenties, your thirties, your forties, your fifties, sixties, seventies, like
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you know until near the end because ultimately you know building muscle it's going to come come down to um uh like the ability to progressively overload are you
progressively overloading over time
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Um if you're if you're able to do that, which you can do at any age, it doesn't matter if you're using 20 kg or 2 kg as long as that goes up gradually over time, muscle is going
to be built
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And um and that's like one thing like that the you know, a question I sometimes hear by folks like who are like in their fifties, sixties, uh seventies, like, is it too
late?
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And I'm always just
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They're like, no, it's never going to be too late.
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It's not too late.
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Like the best time to start is literally.
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Well, the best time was yesterday.
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Now the second best time is today.
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Um so it it's never too late and yes you can definitely build muscle in your 30s.
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There are millions of people over the world, all over the world who are living and breathing examples of that every single day.
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So yeah, it it can absolutely be done.
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Is Building Muscle After 30 Slower Than In Your 20s?
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Question number two, is building muscle after 30 slower than in your twenties?
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There's a few things I actually want to say about this because I think this is quite interesting and I think
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I think there's a common misconception that yeah it's just flat out harder.
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That's it.
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It's going to be so much harder than your 20s and we just have to accept that now.
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And you know, there are some things that are true to that, like, you know, your joints tolerate a little bit less than in your 30s compared to like your late teens, your
early 20s
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Um, you know, recovery is less forgiving.
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Like in your twenties, in your early 20s and late teens, you can definitely get away with a little bit more.
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Um in your 30s, not as much.
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But I think where a lot of people get misled with this is that they don't realize that a lot of the challenges that comes with building muscle in your 30s compared to say
your 20s and what makes it look like
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Oh, it's harder, it's slower.
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Um it's not i it's less because it's like specifically age related per se.
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And it's more just things that come with typically being in your 30s that make building muscle slower.
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It's not it's like, okay, so it's not
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Automatically because you're 34.
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It's just because your typical 34-year-old has more stress.
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They have more responsibility.
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They have more bills to pay
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Chances are you might have kids, you might have two jobs.
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I don't know, but all these things, these are reasons that stack up and make building muscle more challenging
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And uh because of course if you've got all of those factors now, yeah, it's going to make uh m muscle building more challenging compared to um someone who doesn't have to
do all those things.
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So you could take like two 34-year-olds and
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Ya you know what, and this could actually go the other way.
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Like if you have a 20-year-old who's doing all those things, like they have a kid, young father.
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Um
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They have I don't know two jobs, lots of stress, maybe a maybe much more bills to pay compared to someone who let is let's say 33 or 34, and they don't really have any of
those things
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Like, chances are the 20-year-old is going to have a little bit of a tougher time building muscle compared to the 34-year-old who has more time on their hands, who has
less stress in their daily life.
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So again, it's not that
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It's automatically slower um slower and harder now you've hit 30.
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What Mistakes Make People Feel “Old” Physically?
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It's just what typically comes with being in your 30s that makes it more challenging
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I hope I broke it down for you well there.
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Okay, question number three.
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What mistakes make people feel old physically?
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I would say a pretty common one is like poor form.
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When you like try and progressively overload poor form, you're not very mindful as to what you're doing.
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If you ego lift a lot and then you start injuring your and then maybe like let's say you injure yourself due to this ego lifting coupled with this poor form and like it's
been chronically happening.
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And now you're injured
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Someone might put that down just to age.
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Oh, it's you know, it's because I'm old.
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Whereas in reality it was perfectly avoidable, it's just because, you know, you were just being um
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You're being sloppy in the gym, you weren't really listen um really willing to listen to anyone and uh and that's in reality that's why you know what what happened
happened uh whereas
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It's not actually because uh you you're actually old.
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Um but ultimately I do think there's a lot of ways to answer that question.
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What myth what mistakes make people feel old physically?
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And that was just like the first one that came to mind.
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I'm sure there's a few others that just not really common to mind now, but I definitely think that's a common one.
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Should Training Change After 30?
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Question number four, should training change after 30?
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Again, I think it's going to be quite a similar answer here as to question number two that I answered, where it's not like, okay, now you're 30, you need to train in X, Y,
and Z mana.
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I think what's going to happen here is that
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Okay, now you have to adjust your training more so around typical life stresses that happen in your 30s.
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Do you have maybe one or two kids?
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Do you have maybe
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I don't know, two jobs that you're trying to balance.
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Do you have a lot more bills to pay?
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Do you have responsibilities in your daily life?
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Where you have to be in X location by Z time.
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Um I think
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That's what's going to more so dictate a lot of your training after 30 rather than the fact that you're just, you know, in your 30s
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instead and I I think that's how you're going to have to think about adjusting your training.
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I think a lot of people who start to, you know, train like their
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um wrapped in cotton um like that they're wrapped they have to wrap themselves in cotton wool.
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They can't do anything like they could maybe five years ago when they were in their twenties
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XYZ like that becomes like a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy and then you do start to see results that slow down.
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Um whereas in reality it's like I said, it's just you know you have to more so cater your training
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um to your typical life stressors in your thirty, which let's face it, um your average your your average person in your thirties is going to typically have
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a little bit more than your average person in your twenties.
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That's not always going to be the case, but on average I would say so and that's what you more so have to bear in mind.
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Um
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Question number what am I?
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Is Recovery More Important As You Get Older?
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Question is it number five, two, three, four, five.
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Is recovery more important as you get older?
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Um
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Yeah, I would say it is.
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I wouldn't say like hugely, like from let's say like comparing it from like your 60s to your twenties as I would your 30s to your twenties, but I would I'm gonna say it does
get m
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It like it's always important, let's face it.
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But like I said earlier, okay, someone who's a teenager or in their tw early twenties, like they can get away with more.
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I remember as a teenager like going out partying, drinking, getting drunk, and still being in the gym the next morning.
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I think back at that now and I don't know how I did that because now if I drink and I don't drink much nowadays at all but um
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And it's just because of like it funnily enough, it's because of how it was making me the feel the next day.
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Um where it's just like, you know what, it's not even worth it.
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Uh and I just don't know how I did that.
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So
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I w I do want to say like is it m it's always important, okay?
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But I kinda see like it it probably will have to be prioritized a little bit more in your 30s than it would in your twenties because
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Like I said, like in your 30s, there is going to be a natural decline in your recovery capability.
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Yeah, it's going to vary genetically.
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Um some people might have a little bit less of a decline, some people might not have any at all because I think ultimately it is going to be like
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more of a genetic factor.
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But like as long as you're like maximizing you know things in your favor like high protein, good sleep, um steps, exercise, like you're you're gonna be good.
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It's always going and it is always going to be important, but yeah, as you do get a bit older, you do want to bear it in mind a little bit more
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Question number six, can busy adults I'm flying through these questions.
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Can Busy Adults Still Build An Impressive Physique?
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I think this is going to be a short podcast episode today.
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Question number six, can busy adults still build an impressive physique?
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Yeah
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Yeah, uh a hundred percent.
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Um like I said in the near the beginning of this podcast episode, there are many people around the world um who are living and who are living examples of this.
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Um
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Most adults in the gym are busy.
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Like that's just going to be a fact.
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Like once once you're an adult, like life just gets busy.
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Um and and that's the way it is.
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And you're going to see still a lot of people in the gym who are busy adults.
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And you know what?
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Let's even just take out the equation like maybe those who are like fitness trainers will have their life
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centered around their health and fitness, maybe their fitness trainers or fitness models, where that's still like the lower percentage of the population.
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Like even those who have full-time jobs
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have kids, you know, have um maybe various things that are going on in their life.
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Like there are still many examples of those types of people who have
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Very impressive physique.
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So yeah, it can absolutely be done.
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Again, it's just you're just going to have to be more mindful of where you are right now in your life and adjust your training and nutrition around that
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Um so it's probably just going to take a bit more um I'm trying to think what the word of like like you're just going to have to give it more thought.
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But that's okay.
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Do You Need To Train Less Hard After 30?
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Uh question number seven.
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Do you need to train less hard after 30?
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Nah, no, you don't need to train less hard after 30.
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I think
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You know, just train as hard, like you'll be fine.
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I think when you start this is like what it was like what I was saying earlier, like when you start thinking, oh I can't do this now, I can't do that, now I need to be mindful
of this, I need to be careful of that.
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Like all of this starts to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, like
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Again, you're not going to be as like feel superhuman on some days when you're in your late teens and early 20s, but
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You can still do a lot, like you can still train hard, you can still take sets close to failure.
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And remember all of these things they're still relative to you
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Like the important thing is that you're still just pushing yourself.
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You're still training hard.
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Like, why would you have to train this hard once you hit your 30s?
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I can see the thought process, but I also can see like that just to me is like I said, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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Like where, no, it's not necessarily true.
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You don't have to worry about that.
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Like just train hard, push yourself, you're going to see results
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Question number seven.
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What’s More Important After 30: Training, Nutrition, or Recovery?
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What's more important after recovery?
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Training, nutritional recovery.
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Uh
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More important after 30, training, nutritional recovery, I'm going to say they all are, like they all play their roles.
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I can't really think pick one.
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Like they all complement each other
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So I just don't feel like there's much I can say to this one.
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Um they're all going to complement each other, they're all important.
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Training, nutrition and recovery because you know you can if you if you're missing one in the equation you're going to have a tough time
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uh making the progress that let's face it me and you both know that you really want.
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And they're all part of the equation.
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And you know there are going to be periods in life where
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Maybe one gets put on the back foot a little bit more.
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Maybe if you're, I don't know, a new f uh a new father.
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Um and maybe recovery's taking a hit because you're not sleeping as well.
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Or let's say
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You're, I don't know, going somewhere for a week, a nutrition nutrition might take it here.
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Like there's things like that.
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Maybe training, you've got an injury like I've had
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I've been nursing my tennis elbow for the past month and it's actually feeling much better now.
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Um I don't want to say 100% yet where I'm like ready to go back to Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but maybe in like two more weeks I can be back.
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Um it's definitely much better than it was like five weeks ago
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Yeah, and and in that scenario training is going to take a hit just because you can't train in the same way as you usually would.
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So I think life naturally has ways of where you're going to be in a position where you're going to maybe have to prioritize one less than the other two, but they're all
important
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So if you can focus on all three, do focus on all three.
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Is It Too Late To Get In Shape If You’ve Restarted Multiple Times?
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Question number eight, is it too late to get in shape if you've restarted multiple times?
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No, this is kind of like what I was saying in the beginning.
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Like it's never too late.
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The best time to start was yesterday.
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The second best time is today.
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Just get started.
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That's the most important thing.
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Why would it ever be too late?
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Like too late compared to what?
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Because the thing is, five years from now you'll be asking yourself the question, but had you started five years ago, you would have already had five years under your
belt.
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Five years is a long time
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Like you could be you could have been in a very different place had you started five years ago and weren't telling yourself, Ah, it's potentially too late to get started.
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Like it's not too late.
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Um even and that and that goes for for any age, and I literally mean any age.
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Um question number 10.
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What Would You Tell Your Younger Self About Building Muscle?
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Final question today.
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What would you tell your younger self about building muscle?
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I would tell my younger self, so I'm gonna say like 17 years old when I was like just starting out at the gym.
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Um there were I I didn't know anything and I think I did waste a lot of time in my initial years just because back t back then
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Like what when I was seventeen it was about two f I was born in nineteen ninety-five for full transparency.
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Um sorry I I was about tw it was about twenty twelve.
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Like the internet was already like
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Good.
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But it wasn't where it is right now with like short form content absolutely booming.
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Um and I think
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readily available fitness very good health and fitness advice was as easily as available like the thing is don't get me wrong it was all there like it was all there I just
had to search for it
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The thing is, I didn't know what I didn't know and I didn't know exactly what to search for.
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Um so it was a very slow pro process of me finding it all out.
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Whereas I think nowadays if you're starting out, the algorithm now knows you're starting out at the gym.
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And it's gonna throw a bunch of content at your face, a lot of which you've never heard before, and I think you're going to find things out like a pro what progressive
overload is much sooner, what a a a good workout plan is much sooner
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um and all of these things like the importance of logging your workouts, how to have like the correct form in a deadlift or a squat.
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Whereas back then like I said it was always there but more like longer form style of content like long YouTube videos
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or long articles and don't get me wrong, like I said, I was reading and looking into all these things, but I didn't know exactly what I did I didn't know what I didn't know.
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So I wouldn't go out and seek like
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like just these things like I would maybe type in like how to build muscle but I I just didn't really know what I was reading and when there's so much to go through you know
like
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Don't get me wrong, I was looking at this stuff, but I think a lot of it also was just kind of going over my head because I just didn't really get the lingo
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Um so I I would mostly emphasize like the importance of progressively overloading, like why you want to follow a a structured workout program, the importance of that,
the importance of logging your workouts
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And I think if I had just those three things in place, I probably would have saved like a good two or three years of time wasting.
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And like that sounds like a long time, but it genu like I o ultimately I don't even want to say it was like a complete waste of time because there's always like lessons that
were learnt with that.
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But I think I was only learning so many lessons by like year two or three that I hadn't already learnt in year one and I definitely could have just like gotten I don't want
to say gr
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get ahead because it sounds like it's a race.
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I'm not trying to race anyone but I could have just like I don't know just did what was right much earlier which would have you know made a difference uh
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uh for me at the time because at the time I do remember I was getting quite frustrated with how consistent w I was at the gym but I wasn't seeing progress and in my head it
just didn't make sense because I was showing up.
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Like I was looking at people who were just like
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How are they like getting results whereas they're just like not that consistent with me?
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I'm just going all the time.
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Like, is it a gen like I genuinely thought it was genetics at one point, not realizing I was just like making some huge mistakes that
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I then realized down the line when funnily enough I decided to um pay my first online coach and he basically guided me and told me exactly what it is I needed to do and what I
wasn't doing properly
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And uh lo and behold I started making fantastic progress because I actually started to know what to focus on.
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And that's why, you know, when you don't know what to do, like hiring an online coach or a personal trainer, you know, like
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uh shameless plug there like if you if you wanna start with me as a one-to-one online fitness member the show notes or to to sign up are in uh uh the link to sign up is in the
show notes of this uh podcast episode
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But um yeah, it just like it can save you so much time and give you a heads up.
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Like of course there's like AI now as well.
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But I think AI is only good I think it can be great for some people, but I think a lot of other people, I don't think it's going to be sufficient.
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And
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And I don't want it to sound like I'm just like trying to save my job here.
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Like, nah, I'm gonna be real because at the end of the day, I need to be real because if I if I live in this like self-denial, then
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Shit's gonna get you know shit's gonna hit me real fast.
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Like I need to be real and I think what's genuinely r the the situation, at least as of right now, like I don't know where our AI is going to be in like two years, it's it's
progressing fucking fast.
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Um
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But there is like the thought of like, okay, I do think it's going to for a lot of people who know what to do and just like need to robotically be told what to do, that could be
great for them.
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Where it's just like
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That's fine.
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And I think a lot of those people who would have probably reached out to someone before they probably don't need like an online coach or a personal trainer.
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And you know, don't take my words for gospel here.
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This is just me thinking out loud.
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Um
18:54
But I think for uh the majority of other people, I think they're gonna think oh AI can just do this job now, whereas that's not necessarily the case because AI
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You know, it it's the human connection, I think that at the end of the day makes a huge uh difference.
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A and B, like AI is uh is not it's not gonna keep you accountable
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Let's face it, like AI isn't going to keep you accountable.
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Like if you don't feel like doing something one week, you're just not gonna do it.
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And at the end of the day, you're just gonna tail tell
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uh chat GPT, oh I didn't do it, and it's gonna say, ah, that's okay.
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Um but in reality it's not like you're less likely to be like oh I just didn't do it again for the fourth time this week like to a human
19:34
to human you're going to be like shit I don't want to let him down also I'm paying for this like to chat GPT you might have the free version you might have the £20 a month
version
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But you're not gonna be fast if you miss it because again the accountability in reality it's not really there.
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And I I think this goes for outside fitness as well now, like I'm just generally speaking
19:53
Whereas every human like it has like it's there.
19:56
Like the accountability is there, it's in your corner.
19:59
You're going to want to do to show up
20:02
be more consistent, not let your human coach down.
20:05
So like this is just where my thoughts are with it right now.
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And again it I think it goes out for outside fitness.
20:10
Like that can kinda go for anything like learning a language, uh learning chess, whatever it is you're trying to learn.
20:16
Like
20:16
improving at your health and fitness like was the context that initially when I started this uh this tangent which actually ended up being the longest answer on this
podcast episode so um
20:27
I guess I went way off topic when I said what would you tell your younger self about building muscle?
20:32
But like I did go on a tangent, but yeah, I did answer the question earlier.
20:36
And like I said, like there are all of these things now that just didn't really exist for me at the time, which um would have saved me a lot more time, but yeah, anyway
20:44
Conclusion: The Truth About Building Muscle After 30
20:45
I hope you enjoyed today's podcast episode.
20:47
Again, if you're interested in becoming a one-to-one online fitness member and sign and signing up, there is the link for that in the show notes of today's podcast or of
this podcast episode, so you can just
20:56
Click that, check that out.
20:57
It's got all the information on there, basically how everything works as well, price points as well.
21:02
And uh any other questions, just uh you know fire them over, maybe via email or
21:07
you know, over to me on Instagram.
21:08
Uh my Instagram is also in the show notes of this podcast episode, leoalvespt Alves is spelled A-L-V-E-S.
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And otherwise take care, have a lovely day, and I'll see you in the next podcast episode.
