The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

185. Moving Vs. Training: The Truth About Body Recomp and RPE

• Kristy Castillo

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Let’s talk about a question I hear a lot: “Am I training hard enough?”


The answer? Probably not…especially if you’re not seeing the results you’re working for (i.e. if your goal is body recomp)!


This isn’t about being extreme or living in the gym, BUT…if you’re just moving your body without a plan and calling it “training,” you’re definitely selling yourself short!


Your body adapts to what you consistently do. If you want change, you’ve GOTTA challenge it (I love using RPE as a tool to do just that). No more winging it, sticking with the same 10 lb. dumbbells for several months, or walking out of your workout with energy to spare!


This episode is your no-BS wake-up call to stop going through the motions and start showing TF UP with purpose. If you’re stuck in a plateau, questioning your workouts, or wondering why you’re not seeing changes, it’s time to do something different!!


In this episode, we cover:

  • The REAL difference between moving your body & training with purpose
  • Signs that you’re not training hard enough
  • Using RPE (rate of perceived exertion) to check in & push your limits
  • How you can progress your weightlifting over time


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Un-Fuck-Your-Fitness Podcast. I am your host, Christy Castillo, and I'm here to give you real talk and cut the BS so you can actually enjoy building a body you love. I'm a personal trainer obsessed with giving you simple action steps to take Sexy. Let's go.

Speaker 2:

Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to today's episode. We're going to be talking today about whether or not you are actually training hard enough and how to be able to tell, because I get asked a lot. You know, how do I know how many reps? How do I know when I'm training to failure, how do I know when to progressive overload? What does that look like? What weight should I be lifting? And I honestly, it's hard to know unless I'm in the room training with you watching you lift. For you know, workout after workout after workout, it's hard to know exactly what weight you should be lifting. Of course, that also depends on the day, on your cycle, on whether you slept enough or not, whether you ate enough or not, are you taking creatine? So you're getting the most out of your workouts?

Speaker 2:

There are so many different factors, but I do want to just chat about it, because it's a situation that a lot of us can fall into. And I say like fall into because, yeah, it's like it becomes repetitive and it's kind of boring and I don't really feel like working out. So I show up and maybe half-ass it and then, no, I'm not actually training hard enough if I'm half-assing it, right? Yes, you want to be consistent. Yes, you want to show up, and that's most important, but are you going to see results? Are you going to gain muscle? Are you going to see body recomp if you're not training hard enough? No, so I think this is definitely something that it's something we can fall into. Like I said, it's also something that like with the Beachbody mindset, with the program mindset, with, I think, the working out exercise classes, certain things. I know I fell into that trap and I don't even know if I fell into it. It was just kind of like this is what you do. You do Beachbody workouts, you show up, you push play on the workout and I don't even know that I knew how to lift heavy or that I should lift heavy. I didn't know right. And so I love that we're having this conversation about body recomp and really opening up the floor for questions that I'm getting about each one of these episodes. So I think this can lead into a lot more episodes about this topic.

Speaker 2:

Don't overthink it. Okay, and I'm going to give you a. I'm going to definitely put some things on social media surrounding this episode the week this comes out, because, like the day this comes out, all of that I post on on fuck your fitness podcast, Instagram, usually some some graphics, and this will be one of them about. We're going to be talking about RPE, which is the rate of perceived exertion, but that's kind of a way that I think is really helpful to think about it, instead of just increase your weights every week or progressively overload and all those different things which we'll talk about. But I think RPE is something that you're going to hear online and you probably have no idea what it is, so I want to break that down a little bit too.

Speaker 2:

But the difference between moving and training I love the term training, I love the term lifting rather than workout. Yes, I say all of the above, but it's a different mindset and I've talked about this in episodes before. When you think about I'm going out to the gym to train or I'm going out to my garage to lift, it's different than I got to go work out. I've talked about that before and I really do believe that moving your body is great and that consistency is great. But I'm talking about something different here. When you can really get yourself into this position of I'm going to train legs, I'm going to train upper body, I'm going to lift, I'm going to build muscle. There's a definite end goal with that wording, rather than I'm going to go get my workout in right. So there is a difference between moving and training. Moving your body is fantastic and this all depends on your goals. But body recomp requires progressive overload and intensity Not every single day, not every single workout, but it does require it.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So you can't just go through the motions all the time. You can't just show up and work out. You can't just show up and wing it all the time and just kind of hope for the best. You have to show up with purpose and you can't. Yes, there are days, even yesterday, for example, for myself, I didn't feel good. So I went out to do my workout and I was like and I am just struggling this entire workout. There's going to be those days. But on days when you feel good and you can show up and really train, don't just go through the motions. Think about what muscle group am I working? Can I lift heavier? Is this challenging? Because all of that matters.

Speaker 2:

Let's quickly talk about the signs that you're not training enough, too. If you leave the gym or you finish your workout with gas in the tank every single time you're hardly winded, You're like was that hard enough workout? I don't know if this is working right. That's a sign you're not training hard enough. If you've lifted the same weight for months, that's a sign you're not training hard enough for body recomp, for physical changes, If you never feel challenged mentally or physically.

Speaker 2:

I do sometimes have clients that come in and do a fit club or do certain workouts and they're like there's only like six moves and I didn't feel like it was long enough. I didn't feel like it was a hard enough workout. That's because you didn't lift heavy. It's hard. If you lift heavy enough. You're not supposed to feel like, oh, I'm just kind of going through the motions here, Like did you lift freaking heavy? Were you out of breath? Like you have to be challenging yourself and yeah, our workout with six exercises. I used to think the same thing when I started body recomp workouts. I would look at my workout for the day and be like, oh God, that's like six movements. Like I don't understand. But then, as I'm doing it and I'm progressively overloading and I'm working really hard, really hard, I noticed, oh, that's why there's only six movements. Right, it doesn't need to be an hour long. It doesn't need to be six supersets.

Speaker 2:

We can work smarter, not harder, but you do have to challenge yourself physically and mentally and sometimes that's your job, not the workout's job. Yes, it's the workout's job to challenge you physically, but you have to pick up the right amount of weight to be challenged physically. You have to be in the headspace of your workout. Don't be thinking about work, Don't be thinking about your kids when you're at the gym. Think about your body, Think about the muscle groups and really challenge yourself mentally to get into this workout and give it your all and get that max benefit from it. And then, if you're just like checking off workouts, like, okay, check the box done and not progressing, that's a problem as well. You want to be thinking okay, what weight did I lift last week and can I lift heavier? This is how to fix that and this is what I was talking about a little bit ago.

Speaker 2:

Instead of saying you know progressive overload, instead of knowing exactly how much weight you need to increase because sometimes we don't know that and sometimes we can't always increase the weight this is a good way to check yourself and say am I lifting heavy enough? So, using something called RPE, that rate of perceived exertion. This is where you are in control, okay. So track your weights and track your reps, of course, and aim to beat them. So if you don't want to go up in reps, aim to beat them. So if you can't, if you don't want to go up in reps, pick a heavier weight. Okay, that's easy enough to think about.

Speaker 2:

Other ways to do this are to add tempo, Do it faster with less reps or more time under tension. So slow down the movement that way. Or hold it at the top of the movement and do a pause so that you have more time under tension for your muscles. Embrace the discomfort. I know it sucks and I know it's really hard, but that's where the progress lives. If you're like I can't lift this weight for six reps, lift it for four and then put that down and grab the other one and finish out your six reps. Or just lift the heavier weight, heavier dumbbells, for four and leave it at that, because you lifted heavier, and eventually you'll be able to lift that weight for six and then eight, and then you can increase your weight of the dumbbells and then do it for four again and then do it for six.

Speaker 2:

You don't always have to meet that rep scale that you have set for yourself or even that your trainer has set for you. So this RPE kind of what you want to think about is it's a scale that you have set for yourself or even that your trainer has set for you. So this RPE kind of what you want to think about is it's a scale that you can honestly write down in your notes or you can just kind of think how hard a set is or how hard a workout feels. At the end of a workout on my app it'll ask basically, how hard was this workout on a scale from 1 to 10.? You can also ask yourself this how hard was this movement on a scale from 1 to 10.?

Speaker 2:

10 being max effort can't do anymore and maybe you even went to failure and couldn't do the reps because you were lifting so heavy. 9 is near max. 8 is hard. You have like two reps left. That would be an eight. I love that place to be.

Speaker 2:

Actually, Usually, if you're RPE, if I'm like are you feeling like it's, you know, a level eight as far as difficulty and you have like two reps left, that's perfect. I don't. You don't always have to go to failure. You don't always have to give max effort, but living at that RPE of eight is perfect. Seven is moderate. You could do three more reps and then six is easy, it's like a light challenge. And then five below is like warm up or recovery zone. So like going for a walk, going for a little jog, that would be like a five below. That's kind of like a rest day. That's an active rest day.

Speaker 2:

But on a workout where I'm like you need to really freaking lift hard today, that needs to be a 10. That needs to be max effort. On a day where you've eaten well, you've slept well, you feel really great, you should be maxing out. You cannot do any more. You walk out of the gym freaking trashed, okay, Like you can hardly walk. So why this matters in body recomp is it promotes progression without overtraining. You don't have to do more movements, you don't have to do more lifts, you just have to work harder. So when you're encouraged to push yourself but you're still listening to your body, it also helps adjust for daily energy. Like I said, if you're like I didn't sleep well last night, I'm kind of running on little energy then maybe lift somewhere between a seven and an eight, a moderate to hard, Leave three, two reps left in the tank. That's okay. It keeps you being honest with yourself and not always having to lift as hard as you can, and then it also supports hypertrophy and strength gain, so you will get the most out of your workouts.

Speaker 2:

If you are really asking yourself, okay, what am I capable of today? Am I capable of a six? Because I, you know, I, whatever it is, I'm stressed, I didn't sleep well, had a really long day, but I'm here right. So I'm going to do like a level six today. I'm just going to kind of show up. I'm on my period, I'm feeling like shit, whatever it is. Or you're asking yourself, okay, what's my RPE going to do, going to be today? Maybe you think it's going to be a nine and you're like, oh, I am going to show up so freaking hard for myself, Like I'm feeling so good. Maybe you do that for one set of exercises, and then you're like, actually I'm not feeling so great. It's a way to check in with yourself. So this RPE is something that we're kind of going to be talking about here. A little bit more on the podcast I'm going to be throwing out to my ladies in Fit Club, my one-on-one clients, and when we're talking about especially this new programming that I'm doing inside of Fit Club for summer. So please join us if you're not in Fit Club already.

Speaker 2:

But this is a way to ask yourself how do I feel, how are the conditions of my day, my body, my mindset, what am I capable of? And then this sets the tone for my workout. I'm going to do a moderate workout today, number seven. I'm going to give it a number eight. I'm going to work really hard and I'm going to feel like at the end of my Christy has it set for six to eight reps today? At the end of my six to eight reps, I could maybe squeak out two more, but I'm not going to because I'm doing a number eight RPE today. That's how I want you to think about it.

Speaker 2:

Okay, an example of this would be you. For, let's say, dumbbell RDLs, you do 10 reps at 25 pounds. It feels like you could definitely do more, like six more. You're like, oh, I could easily keep going. This was me yesterday. Physically, I'm like I could keep going Mentally and my heart was pounding so fast that I couldn't have.

Speaker 2:

But that's like an RPE four or five, that's too light. If you want to recomp, if you want to grow muscle, that's too light. To be like, oh, that's so easy, I could do six more of those. We don't want to feel like that on a regular basis. So the next set you bump up to 35 pounds and you hit 10 reps. Now you're feeling like, okay, I just have like two reps left in the tank. Now you're at an RPE eight and that's where the muscle growth happens. So don't just wing it. Okay.

Speaker 2:

And this is harder to do, like in those beach body workouts when they're like next move, next move, don't rest, Don't stop, Keep going, Keep going. You can't increase your weight all the time because you're constantly out of breath. So you need to lift heavy, keep a couple of reps in the tank sometimes right, it's okay to do that have two, three reps left in the tank, rest two minutes and then do it again. That would be a real life example of what that feels like. So I hope this is really helpful. I want you to just be thinking about am I lifting hard enough? Are my workouts hard enough? Am I challenging myself? And then use this RPE now to check in with yourself and say, okay, how am I feeling? I don't need to progressively overload every single week. I don't need to push harder every single day, Every single time I do bicep curls. I don't need to increase it by five pounds. You literally can't Increase it by two reps curls. I don't need to increase it by five pounds, Like you literally can't increase it by two reps. Increase it by holding the movement at the top and squeezing your bicep and that time under tension.

Speaker 2:

There's different ways, but make sure you're asking yourself what you are capable of and be realistic about it. If you slept like shit, you didn't have a break at work, you forgot your lunch at home, you're drinking a you know energy drink, maybe on the way, but you're running on empty. Don't think that, oh, like hell. Yeah, I'm going to show up and give it a 10 effort today Maybe not right and use that scale, which, again, I will put out on Instagram so you can screenshot it Next time you go to the gym. You can look and say, okay, this is what I'm aiming for and experiment with this. This is what I'm aiming for. I'm gonna show up today. I feel pretty good. I'm gonna pick a weight where I have two reps left, Literally, if you are in Fit Club and you see that I have six to eight reps listed.

Speaker 2:

If you get to six reps with a certain movement maybe it's bicep curls like stop that six reps and say can I do two more? Yes, easily. Do six reps and say can I do two more? Yes, easily, Do that two more. And then stop again and say can I do two more? If the answer is yes, you need to go up in weight. So let's say you were doing that with 10 pound dumbbells in each hand. Put 12 pound dumbbells in each hand for the next set and do six reps and ask yourself again this is a good way. You could do this every single workout. Can I do two more? Yes, do two more. Can I do two more? Yes, Don't always do the two more, but you wanna check in with yourself and say yeah, and then that is a good sign.

Speaker 2:

That would let me know, Christy, we're not working hard enough, we are not lifting hard enough. This is me in real time saying I could lift two more reps. I did that. I lifted two more reps and I could still lift two more reps. And then I'm going to look at myself, dead ass in the mirror and say this is why your biceps aren't growing, this is why you don't look like you lift. You haven't eaten enough today to lift heavier. You don't sleep well, you don't manage your stress right, Whatever else there is. This is where that self-talk's gonna come into me, maybe a little harsh, and say this is why. Okay, and this is what I want it to do for you too.

Speaker 2:

If you are like I am doing everything right, I'm working out every day, I'm walking, I'm getting my water in, I'm tracking my macros, macros but I don't see any change physically, Are you lifting heavy enough? Are you working hard enough? Because if you don't have access to heavier dumbbells, maybe you work out at home and you're like I can't go up in weight, I don't have those weights. Do more reps, Do them faster, with less reps in between. You have to figure out a way to challenge yourself. Maybe it's time to invest some money into heavier dumbbells. Maybe it's time to invest some money into a Planet Fitness $10 a month gym membership.

Speaker 2:

We got to keep going. You've got to figure it out. If you want your body to change, we have to figure out how to access challenging ways to make our body change. So I hope this was really helpful. I hope the RPE little RPE chat I can dive into this and put more graphics out there and I will definitely talk about RPE more as we get into more body recomp, which I do definitely wanna talk about into summer, into fall and all of that as we move through maintenance and as we move through builds and all of those types of things in real time throughout these seasons. So I hope this was helpful. I'll talk to you in the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to today's show. Go ahead and leave a rating and a review and, of course, follow the podcast so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And I would love it so much if you came to connect with me over on Instagram at ChristyCastilloFit. I will see you next time. Bye.