Sore Joints From Lifting? Stretching, Tempo and Meal Timing

Nikkiey: What's up, you guys? I'm Nikkiey here with WarriorBabe, and in today's video we're going to do a Q&A. We're going to take four viewer questions that were asked earlier in the week on the live Q&A I do with my community at facebook.com/WarriorBabeNikkiey, and we are going to answer them here with you right now. Those guys were popping off earlier in the week. If you're just as excited and you're ready to rock and roll with this Q&A, then do me a favor and smash that like button. Also subscribe to this channel, because every single week we're going to be doing this viewer Q&A.

Alright, here we go. Question number one: "Having a hard time getting back on track after the holidays." That's more of a statement, but I can assume she's asking how she can get back on track after not feeling so motivated since the holidays ended. I have a couple of ways I can answer this question.

Number one: instead of focusing on the type of program you're going to follow to get a certain result with your body composition this year, I think the majority of people who struggle and rely on motivation need to start focusing on how to develop their discipline muscle. Motivation is an emotion that ebbs and flows, and it's not going to be there all the time, especially when you need to show up and do what is required of you to move forward toward the goals you want to accomplish.

So something a lot of people should work on is discipline, which is a skill set. It needs consistent practice on a daily basis to get better at. But understand that discipline is totally perishable. You need to consistently work on it to get better at it and to know what it feels like to have discipline. I feel like everybody needs to develop that muscle a little more rather than just focusing on end results. Because when you have discipline and you can tap into it, you're going to be able to do the task that needs to get done regardless of the emotion you have around it. If you don't want to do it, oh well, discipline taps in and you go get it done anyway.

So one thing I can recommend for all of you who may be feeling the same way and struggling to get back at it after the holidays is to work on discipline, which really just means taking small actions every single day that are in alignment with the goal you want to accomplish. If you know you need to start eating better, go clean out the cabinets in your kitchen. If you know you need to get better at having a plan for your day, plan the day before and write down all of the meals you're going to have the following day. Then prepare them and pack them. Planning is huge. Fail to plan, plan to fail.

The second part is, if you're not feeling so motivated and you've yet to develop this discipline, then your goals need to be bigger, and your why behind that goal needs to be bigger. If you're not sure why you're working toward a goal, you need to figure out what that is, and you need to make it so big that you want to go and do what is required of you to reach that goal.

For example, let's say your why is being a role model for your kids. Or your why is to have better health because your family line is known for certain diseases. Those are big reasons that would get my ass moving on a daily basis to show up, not only for myself, but also for the little ones who may be watching my every move, and to inspire them to say, "Oh, Mom's a rock star. I want to be like her when I grow up," because they are watching you. So figure out what your why is, and with that why, you're naturally going to build energy behind it. You'll be able to tap into that energy to go and accomplish what you need to accomplish for the results you want to achieve.

Something else I would tack onto that answer is to just start showing up 1% better on a daily basis. Start doing the small things that are required of you instead of looking at the overarching end goal you want to accomplish. If you do that, you're going to get entirely overwhelmed and think, "Oh my God, I need to do all of this yesterday." When all you need to do is start planning your meals, start tracking them wherever you're tracking them, follow through with eating healthy, and follow through with doing your weekly workouts. Then you're improving on a daily basis. It's all going to compound in the long run, and you're going to have that natural drive to keep showing up because you feel good doing it. You feel good accomplishing it.

Second question: "Into my weightlifting journey, I'm noticing my joints starting to hurt. Besides getting my mind-muscle connection right, should I start a joint support supplement?"

The way I can answer this question is that supplements are great, but they aren't the key to the solution for everything. For a quick example, people who need to get their protein in, because everyone lacks in hitting protein on a daily basis, all resort to protein shakes and have three protein shakes in a day. That's not what you want to do, okay?

So the key to supporting your joints and making them stronger, second to making sure your nutritional fats are in the right amount for you on a daily basis, the number one thing you should be doing is stretching, okay? It's really as simple as that. Instead of resorting to, "Oh, I need to get X, Y and Z because someone said it was really good for my joints," or "This magic pill works for joint support," when it's all said and done, the most important thing you can do for your joints is spend time stretching. I know you, myself and a lot of other people watching this video don't stretch enough. And that's really key to making sure that mobility, flexibility and everything with joint support is all in alignment.

Alright, third question: "When bulking, is it better to do slow tempo to build muscle mass? Just curious. I'm on your program but want to build more muscle mass. I've got some gains but want even more." Nice, I love it.

For those of you watching this video who don't know what programs we offer, be sure to check out the links below this video, where we talk about our WarriorBabe Blueprint program and our WarriorBabe VIP program, and also the general link to warriorbabe.com, where you can get tons of free resources, see all of our reviews and dive deeper into what our program is all about.

Alright, let's talk about slow tempo to build more muscle. 100%? Absolutely. You can totally do that. Now, where and why do you incorporate it into your programming? Slow tempo, tempo reps, negatives, deloads, all of those more advanced terms come in at a more advanced stage, with somebody who's been lifting for many years. So you may not hear me say that to somebody who is just starting out lifting, because first of all, they're going to be like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what does this even mean?" When really all they need to be focusing on is putting a barbell on their back or lifting some dumbbells to create more resistance than they have ever used before. That's really all beginners need to be doing.

As you get more advanced, you have more muscle, and you've been through all these different phases for your body and different training styles, slow tempo is a great way to build muscle mass by putting more time under tension on the specific muscle you're working. That puts more stress on the muscle, which breaks it down, and then your job after the workout is to recover it with nutrition in the post-workout period.

And then the last one, question number four for today, and be sure to check in next week for our next round of viewer questions. This fourth one is: "Does the timing of your meals matter, including workouts?"

Over the years, I have really changed my belief around "you need to eat exactly two hours after your last meal" or "you need to eat exactly 3.5 hours after your last meal." Unless you're a competitor, unless you're somebody in the bodybuilding world, you don't have to worry so much about "I need to eat 2.5 hours after my last meal."

What you do want to pay attention to across the entire span of your day is making sure your protein is separated pretty evenly across your meals. Let's say you eat five meals a day. This is just an example for quick math, because I'm not good at quick math; I need a calculator. If you have 100 grams of protein you need to hit in the day and you're having five meals, that would be 20 grams of protein, or roughly around that target, at each of your meals. Protein is so key for feeling satiated, feeling full for longer and not having tons of cravings. So it's really key to have your protein pretty level across all of your meals.

Now, when it comes to timing, the only thing that truly matters most is your pre- and post-workout. Everything else can fall into what works best for you and your schedule, along with the protein comment I just made. Pre-workout, it depends on the carbs you're eating pre- and post-workout. I can talk about this more in a different video, but simple carbs or complex carbs, it depends on which one you're having. Roughly, you're going to be eating them an hour to 30 minutes before your workout. That matters because it depends on the way your body digests those carbs, which then gives you the type of energy you need to accomplish the lifting part of your workout.

Post-workout, it is pretty important to get your meal in within a certain amount of time. The anabolic window doesn't 100% matter, but you still want to have something pretty close to finishing your workout, even though the 24 to 48 hours afterward greatly matter for your post-workout time frame and the recovery of your muscles. That's the thing: you're breaking down your muscles when you work out, and the whole point of post-workout nutrition is to start the recovery process, to really start rebuilding from the breakdown you just did in your workout. So timing doesn't matter so much around the other meals of the day, but it does matter for your pre- and post-workout.

So awesome, you guys. Those were our four viewer questions, brought to me on the live Q&A I do every single Tuesday at 6 p.m. Eastern. I go live on the Facebook page, facebook.com/WarriorBabeNikkiey, and we spend about half an hour going through tons and tons of questions that viewers bring to the table. It's so much fun spending time with you there. If you're able to make it, I highly recommend it, because you're going to come out with tons of value, tons of insight and more clarity on things you maybe didn't know and can learn to incorporate into your fitness journey.

Alright, everybody, I'll see you next time. Thanks so much for tuning in. Make sure to smash the like button and subscribe to this channel, and I look forward to seeing you in the next video.