How to Train for 3 Common Fitness Goals With Danny King

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Transcript: How to Train for 3 Common Fitness Goals With Danny King

Season 12, Episode 14  | March 3, 2026

Jamie Martin

Welcome to Life Time Talks, I’m Jamie Martin.

 

David Freeman

And I’m David Freeman.

 

Jamie Martin

And in this episode, we are talking about some training approaches for three common fitness goals. We know that many people work out with a goal or certain desired outcome in mind, but the thing that makes the biggest success for people most times is often having a plan that gets them there. So we’re going to be talking through those goals and a plan with one of our go-to guests today.

 

David Freeman

Yeah, we got Danny King back. I always talk about down with the King. He is a master trainer and director of performance and recovery at Life Time. Welcome back, Danny. How you feeling?

 

Danny King

I feel great with that intro. I am very excited to chat with you guys now.

 

Jamie Martin

David just brings the energy right off the bat. Like, let’s just do this thing. So, all right. So we need to have energy to have goals and to set goals. you know, why is setting a goal, Danny? Like, let’s just get into it. Why is that helpful when you’re having a fitness routine or you want to start a fitness routine? And for those who might struggle with that, like, how do you coach them to figure out what that right goal is for them?

 

Danny King

Yeah, I think it’s so important really for two reasons. The first one is pure clarity. While all exercise is good, I always believe that if you’re exercising, you’re healthier than not exercising in pretty much every scenario, by clarifying what your goal is, there are things that we would tweak and change to optimally get there. And that’s obviously what we’re gonna talk about all the way today, but it allows us to set the plan correctly.

 

And then it just keeps us anchored in why we’re doing it and keeps us motivated, right? So if we have that set goal, it’s something to come back to to understand are we making progress or maybe remind us of why we’re training for it moving towards it. So creates clarity and then it just helps us keep us connected and focused on that outcome that we’re trying to get to to keep us motivated.

 

Jamie Martin

How about for those people who struggle, Like, how do you help them pinpoint, like, what is their goal? I mean, I know David, you talk about this all the time. What’s your why? Like, how does that influence, like, the thing we go at?

 

Danny King

Yeah, I think really thinking about why it matters is really powerful. I mean, and I know David talks about this a ton and is phenomenal about kind of coaching people here, but no one does really harden things in life, know, for like to just feel a little better. You know, the example is, know, if you got to start getting up really early in the morning to exercise, right? We’re not going to do that for, to just maybe feel a little bit better or to think about shredding a couple of pounds. No, we do it because, we’ll, we’ll do those uncomfortable things, get up in the morning, train harder than we want to, push harder than we want to, because of the real emotional motivator for us, right? Maybe it’s being there for our kids, it’s maybe about how we feel, look, perform in our bodies. These things matter, right?

 

So there is this element of maybe talking to somebody, could be a fitness professional, could be a friend or family member that you trust, to help have them ask some questions around uncovering that why. And then even on a more surface level, is trying to translate some of those emotional whys and those goals into something that can be measurable in an outcome. So we can have great emotions, but then trying to pinpoint around, what’s my primary focus, which is gonna allow me to, again, change my style of exercise, meaning, okay, my why is emotional around how I act, look, and feel in who I am, right? And it’s a self-confidence thing. Well, if I start to then translate that, might be body composition oriented. for me when I was younger, it muscle gain, right? Became the thing, right? So we take that why and then try to translate it across to something that I can meaningfully set targets or set parameters with my specific exercise to train correctly for.

 

Jamie Martin

Great, thanks.

 

David Freeman

Yeah, I get excited about this this topic. Obviously, we talk about speaking to the why and I think everybody on here is familiar with James Clear as far as atomic habits, right? And one thing that I remember him saying, whether it was on a podcast or in his book, he asked these three questions. Are you interested? Are you engaged? Are you having fun? So then you just kind of said goal equals the outcome, right? The system is the process of getting to the outcome. So when you when you think of the word system, I use it as an acronym: Save Yourself Time Energy Money and Stress. A system’s put in place when you actually break that out. Why is having a plan, a system so valuable when you’re going after a goal?

 

Danny King

The ultimate reason is once you have a plan, once you have a system, think a part of it is just now I can just run the plan and run the system. There’s going to be days that you’re high motivation, days that you’re low motivation. And if I know what I’m doing, it just gets easier. You know, I think the simplified kind of example, but you know, there’s days that you don’t necessarily want to wake up and go to work, but you do because it’s the plan and you know what you’re doing, right? That’s your routine. I get up, I do my thing, I go. And once you have your plan, sometimes you can treat — you know, again, your exercise and fitness routine the same way. You’re gonna get up, you’re gonna do your thing, you’re gonna go to it.

 

So I think that there’s that and then again, there’s just clarity. If I have to start, if I don’t just have to get myself into the place to get the workout in, Whether it’s my basement, whether it’s lifetime, whether it’s wherever I’m going, I have to think of what I’m gonna do when I’m there and hold myself, that’s way too much. But if I just simply know, all right, I gotta get there and then here’s what’s on the piece of paper and I’m gonna complete that thing, I’m gonna do it, I’m in. It’s just gonna make it so much simpler and smoother to get it done.

 

David Freeman

And let’s go right off of that. just said it. You use work as an example. It’s the master of showing up, mastering the art of showing up. And it was another thing that I remember from James Clear. So I use the example of a class if I’m coaching at five a.m. or six a.m. in the morning and let’s just say it happens to be raining or snowing in your case, maybe up in Minnesota. Now, individuals will probably use that as, you know, I’m probably not going to go because of the weather.

 

And he said something along the lines as far as those who are able to navigate through inconvenience will always have the edge in this space. So I want us to unpack that because the master, the art of showing up is so, so beneficial because now when you’re in their environment, you’re in that space, it’s probably a little bit easier to get it done versus if you don’t show up.

 

Danny King

Absolutely. Another, a mentor I had earlier in the career kind of used this idea of like, most of your workouts are just going to be punch the clock workouts. They’re not great, they’re not amazing, but you just getting them done and you just got to kind of think of it that way. I’m going to come in, I’m going to put the work in, I’m going to do it. And the more that we can get tied to that, that it’s just something that I’m going to do. And again, if we have that specific plan and that specific goal and that clarity to why we’re there, it is just so much easier to do those things and to get them done.

 

Jamie Martin

Well, right. And your plan is really a form of accountability, right? And we also talk about like having accountability matters when it comes to following through. And another form of accountability is having support, a community. We talk about that all the time in the portents, like lifetime is a community and you can find support there. But let’s just talk about like why, why having that community or support is important, whether it’s a trainer, a friend, a class that you go to, like, how, why does that matter so much? And is there evidence behind that? Like that shows that it actually makes a difference in how people follow through on programs and plans.

 

Danny King

Yeah, I think, I mean, there’s a lot of ways that you could take that. One is, know, most of us have probably heard similar phrasing, actually might be in Atomic Habits, might be wrong on that one, but it’s in one of the very popular books is, you you are often like the people around you. So part of it is surrounding yourself in the community of people who are also doing similar things, training for similar goals. It partially just becomes normalized. You know, we go to lifetime, that’s what we do. And those things happen.

 

And then for a lot of individuals, they are more willing, it gets easy to prioritize others over ourselves and those things. And if we make a deal with ourselves, the only person who maybe knows that we are breaking that deal is ourselves. And that can just be, we run a loose ship and let ourselves off the hook. But if I tell somebody else about it, if David knows that I’ve committed to it, if Jamie knows that I’ve committed to it, now I’ve got to tell them that I didn’t commit to it and I’ve got to almost worry about disappointing others.

 

And so the more people you can stack in your corner that are not gonna make fun of you or yell at you or tear you down, but are there to support and hold you accountable and kind of in that bargain and are working towards that same thing just the more likely you are to be successful and to get these things done.

 

Jamie Martin

Yeah, it’s interesting because like, I was just gonna add like, I’m kind of a person who I like to work out on my own more frequently. But but I do follow programs. What I find that is most helpful for me is that if I just like make sure my husband or one or two other people know what I’m doing, and they are like checking in with me just like, Hey, how did that workout today go? They may not be doing it with me. But they know that I’ve set that as like, I’m working toward x, y, z. So it’s like, each of us is different. For some people, it is a class for some people, it’s being one on one, but just telling someone.

 

So I think it’s like just knowing yourself and recognizing kind of what works for you matters within all of this.

 

Danny King

Absolutely.

 

David Freeman

You know, we talk about it all the time. If you write something down, you’re two times more likely to do it. If you share it with someone, you’re three times more likely to do it. That awareness, that awareness piece is so key. The power of human connection I want to go into since we were speaking about community. If I’m the coach at the class, guess what? If I now go and connect somebody that’s from the class to recovery, right?

 

At the concierge. If I now go down to the cafe and connect them to somebody within the cafe or somebody to the spa, these points of connection now build again that community and they’re more likely to come more often because of those connections. When you are isolated, let’s say you are more of an introvert, if you will, and maybe you don’t want to be in groups, but if you still have human connection touch points, that matters. And I know I feel like we do a great job at that at lifetime. So let’s unpack a little bit more of that human connection. I know it’s still, you need to get up. You still need to show up, but something about that community and human connection. Let’s talk about that.

 

Danny King

Yeah, I mean, there’s all sorts of ways that come in, obviously, right? You have your background in group, which is a hugely powerful thing. I spent my life as a personal trainer. I’m going to make a call out to that, is there can be something to have someone just unselfishly on your side, right? They are focused on getting you to the place, on checking in with you, on high-fiving you for that success and that desire. And they’ve, again, been hired to be on board for it. I’m not calling out spouses or significant others here, but you know, every once in a while it might be going to work out versus time with that person. And so it could, you know, change the relationship slightly in those things, but have someone who’s fully in your corner just around exercise or getting those healthy habits done and being that, you know, kind of positive move that direction can be really impactful for people because they, you know, that’s what they need, right? Or again, as we mentioned, it’s just that person to see, maybe you don’t see your, you know, maybe you don’t see your trainer every single time you come in, you only see them once or twice, but they are checking that you’ve completed your workouts within the app or something like that and hit you with that message or that follow-up or that follow-through at time can just be really, really, really powerful.

 

Jamie Martin

All right, so let’s talk a little bit about some of those common goals. We alluded to this at the top of the episode. So the three of them that we kind of have lined up, it’s like, we want to build strength, right? We hear this a lot at life, we want to build strength. For a lot of people, it’s, want to lose some weight. And for some, it’s they want to recompose their body. They want to tone up and do that kind of thing. So let’s start with starting to build strength. Like for those who are new to strength training, you know, how would you recommend approaching a strength training program for someone who’s in this space?

 

Danny King

Yeah, so if I take all three of those goals, they’re all good news. There’s a lot of, if you just zoomed out and looked, you could be in a very similar plan for all of those goals. But there are a few things that I am gonna tweak or change, again, as we’ve said, when I clarify that thing. And when you say build strength to me, really the first thing that comes to mind that I think of as being ⁓ really important is consistency. And when I say consistency, I mean that in two ways.

 

Obviously completing all the workouts, you know, each thing, but also consistency of what I’m doing on a session by session basis. If I want to build strength, the way that I ultimately do that is through a process called progressive overload. I’m overloading the system with more than I did the time before. So I used a hundred pounds this week, I need to use 105 the next week, or I did 10 reps, I can do 12. That’s how we do it. And one that means showing up consistently every week so that I can do that. But even more importantly is I stay with the same things long enough that I can create that change.

 

When we consistently switch our exercises too much, the is the first few times we are exposed to an exercise, really the gains that we’re seeing are almost more neurological in nature, just our body kind of understanding how it’s actively recruiting all of the muscle fibers to create that movement. So I see those initial gains, but it’s not really strength oriented.

 

Then I get past that and I start to do it. getting really comfortable, kind of as we all talk about, getting really comfortable with the process, not trying to seek new and novel and things and just staying really consistent, almost erring on the side of boring with some of it. And there’s ways we can make it more fun and energizing, but that’s the ultimate path to building strength and winning. And the example I’ll use going along here, this is the extreme example, but if you look at, there’s a sport of Olympic weightlifting, snatch and clean and jerk.

 

If you look at these people, the elite in this sport are using those two movements six days a week, twice a day to get good, know, cause it’s, it’s rehearsing it, it’s understanding it, it’s overloading it. It’s the consistency of those things that’s creating that thing. Now, most of us don’t need to go that aggressive, luckily, but having a little more consistency will make a huge difference.

 

David Freeman

You got Stephen Goby right there, keep it a main thing, the main thing, right? It’s simple within that space. I like how you said that linear progressive overload and then what comes off as boring for whatever reason, we want to create variants out of to appease the individual so they see or something different to keep them engaged and excited. The reality is what you just said, if you went from 100 to 105 the following week, that’s progression.

 

And then understanding how you’re getting stronger within that actual lift or movement, whatever it may be. always, our listeners, having you have a professional that’s coaching you and training you, they’re in that space for a reason. So leaning into them, and I always say, you want to go to the mechanic and say, nope, you don’t want to change the oil that way, or the dentist, nope, you don’t want to use that tool. So we don’t necessarily want to end up dictating what the subject matter expert is doing. Get feedback 100%.

 

Keeping the main thing the main thing and understanding the bigger picture of what it is that you’re trying to accomplish. The question was based off of what Jamie just said, I want to get stronger. I want to build strength. So with that, this is going to be the process. So I love that.

 

Jamie Martin

I want to ask one more thing with that because I do think it’s important for people to understand how quickly to progress because I know there’s some guidance like never add more weight than 10% of additional weight or things like that. Is there any guidance for people to just understand within that? Is that all change? I don’t know.

 

Danny King

Yeah, I hesitate with some of these because you know kind of depends on where you start and where you’re going I think the the terrible answer I’m gonna give here or on the start is zoom out in the future and how is your body feeling and progressing matters quite a bit Where we want to be though most of the time that we’re strength training and I’m gonna call if you’re brand new if you’re walking in I have not done anything give yourself four to six weeks of

 

I’m just kind of easing and introducing all this kind of loading on your body and those things to get comfortable with it. But as we get going, we want to stay around two to three reps from failure often called reps and reserve. And so I don’t need to go to absolute failure and be straining and struggling and I can’t complete something anymore.

 

But if I could, and we should test ourselves here every once in a while, if I’m looking to do eight of something and if I could really do it and I stop at eight, and I could do more than, especially we’d say 12 there, which is four, but 10, 11, I can do more than that, we’re leaving a ton of progress on the table. So I’m gonna try to consistently make those gains in terms of pushing those rep ranges up a little bit or pushing that strength up a little bit as much as I can while staying within that kind of sphere. to give you a really concrete or simple, like if someone’s not working with a professional, just kind of looking to do this and trying to guide themselves through it.

 

I use an alternating progression. So instead of being, really concerned about adding load and working too hard or something like that is I use the eight to 12 rep range and it’s a nice place to start and I’m gonna find a load. I’m gonna start with eight. I’m gonna use it until I can do 12 and then I’m gonna increase the load, start at eight, use it until I can do 12.

 

Now I can worry about, I’m always trying to challenge myself but I’m not necessarily jumping load every single time and I can use these in-betweens to be there that to go from really, yeah, monitor your six months here, try this, stay here, eight to 12 and just bounce between that and you’ll probably be pretty safe.

 

Jamie Martin

Yeah. Okay. And I have one more quick follow up for those kind of wanting to build that strength. mentioned like the, people get bored, right? So there’s a version of like, let’s say we’re talking squats here. We want to have that squat movement pattern. How do you, like, can I alternate in different types of squats to mix it up and keep me more engaged within that program?

 

Danny King

You definitely could. I’ll give two guidelines is I try to stay really similar at the exercise for at least four weeks, ideally more like eight to maybe 12, and then change it up. And then it’s a great time to do so. And the other thing that you can do if you are a person, and honestly, I’m a variety person, I like it. I get bored pretty quickly. And I actually sometimes do things that air on the side of less effective because of that. And I just kind of know it and lean in.

 

But here’s what I would encourage you to do is pick a few movements that are your key indicator movements that we’re gonna stay more consistent to. To me, traditionally, there’s two to three of these per workout. There are larger exercises. So maybe let’s use a back squat as an example. Common things, maybe I’m gonna squat. It’s some sort of pull-up. It’s some sort of press. You know, I’ve got these things that really matter. And those are gonna stay consistent in my workout. And then I can create a little more variety through some of my accessory. So if I’m doing some arm work and isolated kind of shoulder stuff at the end of the workout.

 

Throw a ton of variety in there, play with those things so that the workout feels and looks a little bit different, but we’re staying consistent at least with chunks of the movements.

 

Jamie Martin

Yeah, those are like my like, okay, what what how would I have been at the very beginning of this and what questions that I had? All right, David, let’s move on to that second one.

 

David Freeman

Yeah, you so we tackle strength building how you do that. I think the next two actually when we actually worry we got weight loss but then you also have this physique change and then the recomposition. Usually when individual I don’t want to take this away from you Danny usually when individual comes to us for weight loss kind of just reframe the way they think because you can actually lose weight and that could be muscle too. So more focus around the body fat understanding the health risks that are associated with that and making that a focal point. So when we look at that physique change or the recomposition body fat, if you will, and then weight loss. How do you have that conversation? How do you direct them in that space?

 

Danny King

Absolutely, and there’s a ton of similarity there. And I guess I think when I’m helping someone decide on goals to start here, I guess where I’ll often come to is just what’s the primary. So if I’m thinking weight loss and that becomes larger focus, and we’ll correct, I think more fat loss oriented, but if a person is coming in with a more substantial amount to lose here, we’re talking about maybe, depending on the human, I hate to label exactly this way, but 20 plus pounds to lose where it’s like this is the more negative impact to health of maybe they’re obese or getting close to that area or something like that. Then I’m really gonna hone in on like, fat loss is our number one driver here. And then as we’re getting a little bit closer, as we have a little bit less to lose, as we get there where something like recomposition or muscle gain becomes more important.

 

So I think that’s my initial distinction. And when I move into that sort of weight loss category, this is counterintuitive with what I’m gonna say a lot, or the biggest difference to me is the primary benefit to exercise for this group is muscle retention. And we could call it gain, but the fact is if we’re trying to drop substantial amounts of body fat, we’re often eating in such a way that it’s gonna be difficult to gain muscle or build and more exercise in this group isn’t necessarily better. And so when I think muscle retention, I’m thinking strength training is my primary focus, but often it’s a little lower volume than people are used to because I don’t have the recovery capacity, I’m eating a little bit less. And so I’m just heavily focused on doing enough to hold onto the muscle I have and sure I don’t lose any in that process. If I gain some, great, that’s fantastic. But that’s the focus. And my main why, and I apologize for just rolling here, but a lot of the styles of exercise that are higher intensity that we think of as awesome at calorie burn, which they might be, right? We come and want to burn a ton of calories, we want to do all these great things. They also are pretty highly stressful. And when we’re in, as we’re doing something like creating fat loss, we’re in a deficit that’s already a little stressful in the body. So adding more stress could be problematic. And really to me, most importantly is a lot of these styles of exercise spike appetite.

 

And if I’m trying to drop weight and I’m trying to control food and then I’m styles of exercise that are making me hungry, the extra couple hundred calories I burn, nothing compared to what I’m gonna eat in response, right? The best example in the world of that one is a lot of running volume. You see people train for a marathon and in the process, gosh, I actually, I added, I gained weight and it’s yeah, because you did burn a ton of calories, but your body was really hungry and you were constantly snacking and craving and you ate a lot more than you realized because of it. So long answer, maintain muscle.

 

Jamie Martin

Yep. Where does zone training fit into that? Because I know we often hear about like that zone two, that’s where you’re burning the most fat, but then we’re hearing about that importance of spiking into those other areas with HIIT training and that type of thing. How about for this, like in this space?

 

Danny King

Yeah, so I think both have a great spot. One of the things that zone training works great for, my primary thing, really, know, fat loss goal, significant amounts of fat to lose, strength training’s gonna be my primary focus with this group because of that muscle maintenance need. The next thing I’m gonna layer in is gonna be some zone two cardio. And the reason for it, the primary reason, again, is it’s gonna come back to appetite more than anything else is when I back down and I’m in a place of utilizing more fat for fuel, the simplified explanation that people like to hear is, I’m burning fat during this, therefore I’m burning fat off my body and that’s gonna be the best thing for fat loss. That’s not exactly how it works. There is this sort of net calorie balance that matters.

 

The reason that’s so impactful is when I’m in more of those zones, I’m not spiking cortisol, I’m not spiking appetite. So I can finish that workout, you know, calm down, get off the tread and actually kind of go back to normal. And I don’t necessarily want to eat more. I’m not starving. I have it when we’re in higher zones, we’re burning sugar predominantly as glycogen in the body and we deplete glycogen stores from our body. Our body’s concerned. We have that glycogen as available fuel source and we don’t have it, we’re nervous because if we’re in a high stress environment, we need it. So our body starts to crave sugar.

 

And a lot of people come in and again, in an attempt to lose fat, burn a whole bunch of sugar, feel very accomplished about it, walk out, and then their brain is screaming at them to replenish that sugar. And that’s just not a place you wanna be if that fat loss goal isn’t there. Strength training, zone two cardio, intervals can work really, really, really well here. It’s very similar to strength training. that’s why I’m considering it my kind of third most important in that group. But all I’m gonna do is just a fairly low volume. It’s great for boosting metabolism. It’s great for the after effect. It’s great for health for a huge variety of reasons.

 

I’m just gonna really, really control volume. Couple short high intensity intervals often to finish a strength training day and then get out for a couple.

 

Jamie Martin

Got it. And I think what’s important, I went kind of just revisiting that zone too. I remember when I learned, this was years ago when I got into zone training, it was like, it felt counterintuitive because it felt like I wasn’t working hard enough. And so I would often want to push myself harder. And I think that’s the thing that’s really important is like, if you understand what your zones are, and again, metabolic testing and all that, you can look at that. But I think it’s learning how to work in those zones and then knowing that those zones are going to change as your body changes, as you change. So I think it’s counterintuitive. It’s like you feel like I have to go hard. It’s different.

 

Danny King

Yes, and that it’s really, really, it just, feels like emotionally says the harder I work, the better the fat loss is gonna go. The harder I work, the more of this burn I get. But when you do things like look at the actual, not on your wearable, not on what the treadmill’s telling you, but if you were to do something like a metabolic test and look at your actual caloric burn rates, they’re not as different as you’d think. And it’s kind of disappointing, right? Like the extra that you’re getting.

 

Truly, actually getting from a fast walk to a slow run is not that different, where that slowing down a little bit can often be better and again, cannot be as stressful on the body and cannot do these things, right? And that’s so much of this plan is really based around how do we get the body moving more? How do we get you in a place where my 24 hour net in terms of caloric balance between what I’m eating and what I’m burning and using evens out the best and frequently it’s slowing down.

 

Again, to just use an example, you go work really hard. What most people are gonna do is say, wow, that really tired me out. I wanna kind of be a little more slothful the rest of day. I’m gonna lay around a little bit, you know? And again, then maybe I burned an extra 100 calories in the workout and by sitting a little bit more through the rest of the day, I lost another 100 calories right there in terms of my overall net burn. Thus, it didn’t really do it. So it’s very counterintuitive. It’s really, really difficult, but we gotta pay more attention to my 24 hour net here and what are all the things factoring together. Not just what does that 30 minutes of feel good burn kind of do.

 

David Freeman

I love this. I love this conversation around, since we are talking about like the zone and within the training, we mentioned the active metabolic assessment coming back in 2026. We’re excited within this year, right? And making it objective. think also we think what you just said, Jamie, zone two might come off as easy, subjective for some, right? My zone two is going to be different probably from your zone two, but you’re going to end up building that tolerance over time and getting that test done to make it objective, to understand how you’re burning those two. Energy substrates of carbs and fat are key. So let’s take it a step further. Let’s say you are in zone two, but you’re just a carb burner based off your nutrition intake. So that is a key piece too. You’ve been now doing zone two, but let’s say you’re 80, 20, 80 carbs, 20, you know, fat in your zone two. Now you’re aware of like, Ooh, I got to change up my nutrition to actually become more efficient at being a fat burner.

 

So Danny, when it comes to this test that you were just speaking about and getting those results, because right now some people can be doing zone two, based off of how their body is using those energy sources, they probably are still not burning enough fat for them to actually change that composition within their body. So can you break that down too?

 

Danny King

Yeah, I mean, again, when we talk about zones, when we talk about the things that are out there, they’re so individualized because of how people use these things. And when I talk all about this exercise for each of these goals, especially fat loss or the second one here, recomposition is, obviously putting a disclaimer, we’re talking about the exercise side of it more than the nutrition side, right? Which we’ve done an incredible amount of podcasts on. had people significantly smarter than me talking about these subjects that can dive into it.

Hhow you’re feeling coming into your workouts and how you’re feeling around them and all of those things should and can change for all of these different goals, right? If I’m looking for performance or something else and by understanding what’s going on in my body and how it works, we’re able to craft this sort of full, again, 360 approach or kind of that 24 net approach of how do I eat in such a way that it puts me in a place to be able to metabolize fat stores that I want to? How do I exercise in a way that allows me, you know, like they all kind of work together. The more I know about you, the better of a plan I can build there across all those categories.

 

Jamie Martin

Yep. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit like, okay, let’s say that the goal is physique changes, or as we’re hearing more, more of late recomposition goals, you you’re looking to, you know, gain muscle, right? What does that look like?

 

Danny King

Yeah, so the biggest, if I take the plan for something like more aggressive battle loss and I take the plan for recomposition, I think the biggest difference between those two is volume. It’s not, know, strength training is my primary focus, but now the difference is I have to put enough stress and stimulus into those muscles to give my body a reason to grow them. So obviously there’s a really large nutritional side to this as well when I’m looking for something to recomposition, ensuring that I have enough fuel on board, specifically things like protein and those micronutrients to build that muscle. But if I’m staying more, again, to my wheelhouse here, this exercise side of it, is I’m looking to try to drive more volume. So strength training, again, if I go back to the beginning, it’s strength goal. I can actually build strength on pretty low volume if I’m progressively overloading and pushing. And you see approaches that are traditionally more low rep, higher load, five by five, different things like that.

 

If I come all the way over here to this more physique gain is I’m looking to probably say, hey, I want to increase the volume I’m putting on these muscle groups, you know, be closer to 15 to 20 sets per body part per week. So I’m maybe trying to get, move from three days a week of strength training to four or five, move from more full body workouts into something that’s a little more split up or lower, push, pull. Maybe if, depending on how often you’re working out a little more body part kind of oriented split to get enough volume to stress those muscles to give them that reason to grow and build and as we move to it. So that’s really the biggest thing that’s changing between these goals.

 

David Freeman

So Danny, when we think about convenience and obviously completion as two big C words, when you’re breaking it down for an individual that’s listening that’s trying to achieve these goals and time is such a big issue for most people, would you say your splits, would you end up saying, hey, I’m gonna do upper one day, lower the next day? Or would you say, hey, this is a combination? I know this is all subjective, but for most individuals getting started, would you try to go more of a total body approach? Let us know your thoughts.

 

Danny King

Yeah, it depends on what they can give me. So the first thing that I’m to have anyone do, one of the first things I’m going do is somebody, whether I’m meeting with them or they’re doing this at home right now, is give an honest look as to when they’re going to be able to commit to exercising, especially as they’re showing up to Life Time, showing up to their particular gym, their home, whatever they have, wherever they’re going to do their strength training, and build around that. So if you have three days or less, I’m pretty much always going to stick with something that’s full body in nature.

 

The only exception to that would be if those days have to be back to back. So if you told me your days are Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, well, Monday, Tuesday, back to back, two full body probably doesn’t make sense. So I’m going to need a little more variety. So that might be an upper body day on Monday, lower body Tuesday. Actually, we probably flip back because the lower body usually needs a little more recovery. Lower body on Monday, upper on Tuesday, and then a full body on Thursday, right? Or a push day, of all my push muscles on Monday, pull on Tuesday, full body on Tuesday, right? So I have to do that.

 

If you can give me more than three days and, especially as we move into something like recomposition, if you’re talking strength gain, fat loss, three’s awesome. Fat loss, probably three’s where I’m gonna hold most people. Strength, maybe I’d get you to four. You want recomposition, like you give me four or five, now we’re rolling, right? We’ll see a big difference. So if you can do that, now I’m gonna start to really think about splitting that up just a little bit more. so it’s, yes, you’re right. I’m gonna try to, you know, do it because what we’re really thinking about, it’s less about the volume I can put in any one given workout, because there’s only so much my body can recover from. So if I do a full chest day, by the third or fourth exercise there, I’m just making a bigger hole that I’m gonna struggle to come out of. It’s the volume over the week and it’s the recovery from that and the frequency across that. So I wanna hit that muscle group often two to three times a week. In order to do that, I gotta commit to a certain amount of volume to do that across all my particular movements.

 

Jamie Martin

Okay, so we’ve covered a lot of ground, but one thing we do want to talk about is these three goals that we’ve talked about, they’re actually things that we address in like the lifetime has the 60XT challenge. It’s something that we do a couple of times a year typically at lifetime. Tell us a little bit about that program and how that works with each of these goals.

 

Danny King

Yeah, so 60XT came out of this desire of people often not just want goals. And again, as we talked about at the beginning, there’s all sorts of things is even arbitrary start and finish lines can be really helpful for people. And it actually came out of talking to all of our phenomenal dynamic personal trainers across the company and their clients is just maybe if that client’s getting a little stale or needs something to go is giving them a start and finish.

 

Within that, refocusing on goals or setting new goals to focus on these areas, having something to train for, having again that idea of I’m gonna do an initial consultation at the beginning to just reaffirm that goal setting and figure out what my plan is gonna be. A close-ended window of around 60 days means that I can be really tight. When we get past that 90, 120, these really long, it’s like, I don’t know I can commit to something that long. If we get shorter than that and we do some shorter programs, if we get shorter than that, I don’t know that I’m gonna see major appreciable change in that.

 

So 60 days is a nice window where it’s like, I can commit to that, I can push stuff aside, I can be a little stricter than I normally would be, but it’s long enough that I can potentially see some really impressive change that keeps me going or keeps me running. So that’s how we came up with the program. And then truly we looked at and said, okay, most of our people are coming in with these particular goals, you know, gaining some sort of strength, losing fat, recomposition.

 

So let’s kind of create tracks for each of those people, depending on what they’re looking for, build a program for them to give them some guidance towards it, give them some nutrition and lifestyle advice that might help those categories to really bring them through and just see what a person can accomplish in 60 days, which is ultimately that thought, right? What can you transform? How hard can you work? What can you see happen?

 

David Freeman

And we’ve seen some incredible transformations. I mean, from that 60XT challenge, is any that stand out to you that you want to share?

 

Danny King

I mean, any one of the finalists are great. And I know there’s, again, we’ve written some articles, we’ve published some things with these people in there where you can go see these things and their stories and their accomplishments. And I don’t want to, by the way, it’s not because I don’t remember, we were just talking about this yesterday, I can name quite a few of these people off the top of my head. I actually just don’t wanna call somebody out because then I actually don’t really judge because I’m like, everybody’s a winner, these are all so amazing.

 

I don’t want to name any of them that world because they all have such unique stories. But the thing that I’ll say across the board is when you look at a bunch of these people, it’s wildly impressive what you can actually do in that timeframe. If you really make it the priority that a lot of people think or say that they want to make it.

 

David Freeman

Danny, you personally, if you went through it yourself, what about yourself as far as transformation wise? did you learn about yourself?

 

Danny King

Yeah, you know what, I did not, based on timing, I didn’t do our last round. So last one was March of last year. There was some, with travel with other things, it was actually at a fairly inconvenient time for me. So I was kind of sitting on the sidelines here and on as we go. I am excited though this year, if we look at travel schedule, if we look at some other stuff, I came off a pretty aggressive amount right now where I’m maybe not quite as healthy as I would like to be right now.

 

And I’m, I’m at a place where I’m like, all right, this year. So we’ll do our next one in March. We’ll kick off. And I think I’m going to commit to my own transformation on this one in kind of that. haven’t trained, honestly, for I’ve been sitting in the world that we’ve talked endurance, athletics, or different things like performance, like LT games. And I’m thinking of playing with a little bit of that recomposition. I haven’t really just trained for muscle gain and to drop a little bit of fat in quite a while. And it sounded a little more fun.

 

David Freeman

Love it. Awesome.

 

Jamie Martin

Well, and that’s kind of like, I’m thinking about that one too. I’m like, the recomposition one for me is that I have the base knowledge and strength. I’ve been doing this a long time and that’s kind of where I’m interested as well. The other thing I was just going to mention about some of those transformation stories that we get, we get, I mean, hundreds of them, if not thousands of them that come in as a result of this, is it’s not just the physical transformations that they’re seeing. It’s often like the emotional and psychological transformations that people share as a result of this shift in their lives, right? And so I think that’s also worth noting, because it’s so much, and sometimes the physical change may not be that great, but it’s changed things emotionally in a really transformative way.

 

Danny King

Yeah, absolutely. even, know, again, health outcomes, those types of things. I’m sleeping better, I feel better, you I’m getting up with more energy and all these really cool things that happen that actually often make us stick with it longer. And that’s ultimately to throw out there, right? We struggle sometimes with the nebulous nature of how we talk about the winners of 60XT, right? Which, by the way, we have thousands and thousands, know, 40,000 people signed up for lessons, like tons of people.

 

Some people are really in this thing to win it. Some people are saying, hey, I don’t necessarily have any desire to try to win at that level. I don’t want to go, I just, want this 60 days, right? So you don’t have to think that you’re doing this thing to lose a hundred pounds, gain 50 pounds of muscle. know, like, like it’s anyone who wants a timeline is going to be great. But we do look at, at some of those people who are winning or, who are coming through this a little bit more.

 

We, we purposely didn’t want it to just be who drops the most weight, who has the most impressive before and after because at the same time, that can also encourage some people to just do something that’s kind of silly or scary or dangerous for 60 days. So we had to back it up a little bit and say, all right, we’re going to use some befores and afters. We’re going to use our essays. We’re going to use a variety of coaching criteria to, or judging criteria to decide on our winners because we want it to be representative of what we believe is a healthy way of life. They did go through some of that change. They did in a way that made sense. And we believe that likely they’re going to stick with it.

 

And that’s something that we’re actually looking forward to being able to do in the future as we do more of these is going back to people who had one in the past and see where they’re at now and talk about what that transformation feels to them and what’s changing their life a year into the future to help those that are going through it stay motivated and understand what impact this can have long-term. And we believe we’ll get there because we’re getting the right people in this.

 

David Freeman

Kind like the Where Are They Now series, I love it.

 

Danny King

Yeah, yeah, very excited about hopefully doing it.

 

David Freeman

Alright Danny, so we covered a good amount of things when it comes to putting together a game plan to be successful with. is there anything else you want to share with our listeners before we get into this mic drop moment?

 

Danny King

Yeah, you know, for this one, I don’t think so. I mean, I think we covered it. It’s just, you know, for people to get that clarity. And actually, I’ll say this. I said no. And then I was always come up with something is when you you decide on a goal, the great news, you don’t have to stick with it forever. And in fact, you know, if we if we think it when we zoom back out to these cool science principles of periodization or we call progressive overload and those things is you can bounce between all of these things over the course of the year. So if everything I said to you today sounded a little bit appealing. Awesome. That’s your new plan.

 

You’re doing eight weeks of strength building, you’re gonna transition your eight weeks of strength building into eight week physique transformation phase into eight weeks of more aggressive fat loss, right? Or change up that order however you want. So don’t think that when you pick one thing, you’re stuck with it forever and you could do this across the time and that’s how this stuff works. you can eventually, and then over the course of the year, your progress you’re gonna make there is so much better than trying to say, I’m gonna try to do all three of these things all at one time, right?

 

David Freeman

Love it, love it. All right, you ready for the mic drop moment?

 

Danny King

I don’t know that I am, but yeah, let’s say yes, I am.

 

David Freeman (41:05)

All right, finish this sentence. If you want results, start by . . .

 

Danny King

If you want results, start by . . . Man, the only thing that’s popping in my head, and this is so sad because the topic, it just feels like a real cop-out answer that I’m gonna give you, but if you want results, start by figuring out what your goal is, is how I’m gonna say it. And so it’s the whole topic of the podcast, but so many people, again, are sitting in this nebulous, how do you measure feeling better? I don’t care, I feel great.

 

I do stuff, I assure you, I just got off an airplane yesterday, I woke up today and I would not define myself as feeling great. And that could derail someone if they aren’t on a better plan with a more specific goal and a more focus. So anyway, you progress, if you want to do it, it’s decide on your goal.

 

Jamie Martin

Thank you as always for coming on the pod with us. If people want to hear more from you, you have lots of articles at Experience Life and you’ve not just written them, but you’ve also contributed as an expert to many of them. You also have your past episodes here. And then anywhere else, you’ve got lifetime.trainers on Instagram.

 

Danny King

Yeah, Life Time Trainers is probably the best place to hear from. Like I they do have some individual socials, as I always mentioned, but just not really overly public. They’re maybe in 2026 making zero promises there. Luckily, we have an absolutely phenomenal team on our side that helps us run that account, where I get an opportunity to help craft a lot of those posts. if you like what you’re hearing here, go there to get a lot more.

 

Jamie Martin

And we want to let listeners know that registration for the next 60XT challenge is open right now. You can register for that in the Life Time app or by talking to a trainer at your local Life Time. Danny, thanks for coming on again. Come back again soon.

 

David Freeman

Thank you Danny.

 

Danny King

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.