What’s Really in an Effective Strength-Training Plan?

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Transcript: What’s Really in an Effective Strength-Training Plan?

Season 10, Episode 16  | May 13, 2025

[MUSIC]

 

Welcome back to another episode of Life Time Talks. I’m David Freeman.

 

And I’m Jamie Martin.

 

And today’s topic, we’re going to be talking about how to create an effective strength training program. As we all know, strength training is pivotal in anyone’s workout routine, and not just for building muscle, but also for many other factors, such as impacting their health. But the modality by itself can be intimidating for so many people out there, the newbies or the experienced individuals.

 

So we want to make sure that all the efforts that they’re putting forward are as effective as they can be. And we’ve got a special guest to help us get through that today.

 

Yes. We have Jeff Rosga with us. Jeff Rosga is a certified personal trainer, performance, corrective, and group exercise specialist, and a certified behavior change coach. He is currently the director of team member development and casting for the dynamic Personal Training Division at Life Time. He’s also on the strategic advisory board for the National Academy of Sports Medicine.

 

He spent more than 20 years at Life Time, serving in the areas of team member education and product development, with programs and products included being heart rate zone training, metabolic testing, and a variety of our signature small and large group training programming formats. He’s also founded the Life Time Academy. Hey, Jeff. Nice to see you.

 

Good to see both of you.

 

Well, that was a mouthful for an introduction. But I mean, well versed in this space. So when we talk about strength training, and knowing that you have so many years of experience in this space as well, why is it so important?

 

Well, if you followed any of the recent media, social media posts, anything that’s out there, strength training has really become in vogue. It’s the new fad. It’s the new thing that people, regardless of where they are in their health and fitness journey, is just critically important, whether it’s for longevity, whether it’s for the younger generation, just from a health perspective and weight management perspective, to just anyone in between. It’s just a critical piece to how we live a healthier way of life.

 

When you hear so often, we’ve heard from other guests on the show in recent episodes, about how soon we start losing our muscle, and really why it’s so important to start strength training from a young age. So I think that’s one thing, too. It’s, like, muscle. It’s not a given. We have to work for it. So that’s, I mean, it’s such a critical component of this.

 

You think of when you think of just mother nature in general. From, hey, we go through our early stages of development, we go through puberty, we go through our growth, just as an individual and as a human being. And then once we hit that peak, all of a sudden, if we don’t do things to curb that decline, muscle is one of the first things to go.

 

Right. OK. So let’s talk about how strength training is for everybody. Because we know that, you mentioned, it can be intimidating. For some people, it’s like, that’s not for me. I do cardio. I do that. But why is it so important that we break down some of the misconceptions about strength training?

Some people don’t want to get bulky, so to speak. Or why do we need to — how do we encourage more people to embrace strength training, I guess, is how I would frame it.

 

Well, I think, if you focus at it from a health perspective, and critical when you think of skeletal muscle. That term is something that’s being thrown around a lot in the media, or from just some of the gurus out in the space. It’s one of potentially the largest organs in the body.

 

And the importance of just having muscular development for your metabolism, having muscular development for performance, having muscular development for endurance. So it really doesn’t matter. And why it applies to all walks of life is even when you think of when you age, and it comes to just your postural integrity.

 

When it comes to things like just how your body is going to function. If all of a sudden, you’ve created rather than hypertrophy, which is the term when it comes to developing muscle, atrophy, that’s something we want to avoid. Especially as we age, it becomes even more critically important.

 

And the thing is, strength training has been around for so long. And I always like to talk, you’ve got the constants and you’ve got the variables. And with the variables, we can talk about all the different things we have more access to these days, or what’s the new thing that’s going on, the new machine or the new fad, whatever it may be.

 

But the constants are, when you think of all of our primary movements that we hit on. When you think of the lunges, the pushes, the pulls, the squats, those are the constants. I mean, squats are squats, push-ups are push-ups. But why is it so important that we train in all the different movement patterns in the space that we are talking about when it comes to strength training?

 

Think of balance. Balance across the body. So you just mentioned all those different movements, David, that are just primal to our existence. We get up. We climb up stairs. We get up from a chair. In my case now, we squat down to pick up our grandkid.

 

So there’s things that we just do in daily life that just requires our bodies to have a certain element of strength and a certain element of function. So it becomes critically important that we’re training all, not only just modalities, but areas of the body, just because we’re meant to move in 3D.

 

We’re not meant to move in just one plane of motion. We move in 3D. We play in 3D. We do a whole host of things in multiple planes. Well, if we don’t train the body in that direction, all of a sudden, we start to create compensations.

 

And those compensations, obviously — I don’t want to say obviously. But if you’re not training in 3D, then it can lead or put your body at risk for injury.

 

Absolutely.

 

Alright. So we’ve got the primary movement patterns. Let’s just go through them quick. Squat, lunge, hinge, push-pull, rotation, carry. But there are some other things that we want to focus on that enhance our strength training efforts. So we’re going to go back and forth with you here. We’re going to play a quick word game, so to speak. Because we really want to be balanced in our development.

So the first one is balanced muscle development. What does that mean when it comes to strength training? You kind of went through it already. A little sneak peek.

 

Well, think push-pull. Think of a push-up or a pull-up as easy examples. One is focused on muscles on the front half of the body, if I really simplify the term. You think of the chest, triceps, the arms, the biceps. Then you get into a pull exercise, and now you’re talking about the back, the lats, and some of those muscles that focus on the rear of the body.

 

So when you think, hey, just in our daily life, right now, we’re sitting at a podcast, or we’re in front of a computer, or we’re on our phones, or we’re on a mobile device. Everything starts to collapse into that forward motion and forward fall.

 

So if we’re not doing anything to open up the body, and create muscular strength to what I referred to earlier as posture, things start to compensate, pain starts to arise, and then potentially injury when we go out and play or are involved in an active lifestyle.

 

Did you see how we all stood up?

 

Yeah, when he said that, I was like —

 

OK, I need to sit a little taller. OK, here we go.

 

I mean, the next one, when we talk about proper form and technique, we can go down a rabbit hole here. And I never like to speak in absolutes. But when you think of proper form and technique, it can be so relative. When you look at powerlifting versus relative strength.

 

So I’m going to level it up a little bit. So we can talk about proper form and technique, but let’s incorporate maybe tempo, and the value of that when doing a lot of the strength training.

 

So an easy way to think about it is, we can compensate when we move slow, and we don’t push load. We can protect, and our bodies can protect themselves. When we start to add velocity and/or load and speed, that’s when compensation starts to come in.

 

So if we’re not focused on the foundational techniques of movement, thus really understanding, hey, how does my body move in space, then when I load it, all of a sudden, I’ve added this load, compensation can quickly come in, especially if I’m lacking strength in certain areas of the body.

 

You were an athlete, David. Think of speed. And when you had to move quickly, and be able to cut and move through space as fast as velocity would allow you to move. If you weren’t strong and stable, injury could happen because it moves to that weakest link in the chain.

 

So that’s where things start to become critically important as it relates to just how we focus on our movement pattern, and then we start to add onto it, especially when it comes to a strength training program.

 

Are there some of those movement patterns where we see people jump in too quickly? What’s an example where you’re like, oh, we got to get the proper form first, but people often skip that and go right to it? Is it the squat? Is it deadlift? What might it be?

 

Jamie, you must be a trainer yourself.

 

[LAUGHTER]

 

Just all these years in the gym, in the clubs.

 

If you think of matter patterns, like a lunge. You see someone lunge for the first time. And just their ability even to be stable when they lunge. And then all of a sudden, they add weight, and it’s kind of all over the place.

 

Same thing with a squat, a deadlift, anything when you think of compound movements, or some of the Olympic lifts that David referenced earlier, you’ll see people where they start to do, hey, it could be a power clean. It could even be a kettlebell swing.

 

Something that, hey, has become mainstream, but if someone’s not been taught some of the basics around that, they can quickly get injured.

 

I mean, no pun intended. You said jump right into it. I think of any plyometric, when you think of, like, box jumps and things of that nature. It looks cool. It’s great for the gram. But is your body ready for it? And making sure you can move your body in space with no load before you start to incorporate that body in space on top of a box, or if it is some lateral movement. So I think a lot of the ballistic movements as well.

Well, and that’s where speed. We talked about that earlier. If the body hasn’t — you can compensate, and you can get through things at no load, slow speed. But as soon as you start to add those variables in, that’s when, if you aren’t balanced, if you’re not strong, if you’re not stable, that’s when injury or compensations really start to show up.

 

All right. So from there, there’s the idea of progressive overload. What do we mean by that? So progressive overload, when you think of from a strength training perspective or programming, it’s about increasing some of the acute variables. David hit on those earlier.

 

So when you think of whether it’s tempo creating, is it, load, which, that’s an easy one. Adding weight. But then you get into, hey, what’s rep count? What phase of training? Are you working on endurance? Are you working on hypertrophy? Are you working on maximal strength or power?

 

All those acute variables start to come into play as it relates to you. And so when you think of progressive overload, it’s about how do I create adaptation in the body by continuing to change those variables?

I love what he just said. And I wish and I hope all of our coaches that are listening right now heard it too. Because the next piece that we’ll talk about, variety and periodization, everybody wants to go into. It’s boring. Give me some more variety.

 

And when you think of progressive overload, those variety pieces, those acute variables that he just said, that is a variety. It is different. But it’s the same movement, and people get bored. Didn’t we just do this last week?

 

So we get a lot of pushback within our linear yet progressive overload programming, but we know the results that come from it. This is years and years of facts and history of people getting results.

So when we now go into variety and periodization, that’s also valuable. But can you speak a little bit about how you get a lot of that variety and periodization within what you just talked about with progressive overload?

 

Well, it’s trying to help people understand the analogy of everyone’s an athlete inside. And if you position it as, does an athlete train the same all year long? From simplicity, everyone would answer no. They may even be in the sport, or their season that their sport is in. Their training is different. It probably has more of a maintenance phase versus their offseason training, which they’re trying to maximize their potential to be ready for the season ahead.

 

So when you start to help people understand that a push-up, as an example, is an amazing upper body, even core movement. There’s many variations that you can add to that. But people look at variety, they think of, hey, what’s the newest, greatest, some additional movement, rather than focusing on, hey, where am I at in my journey? And what are my goals?

 

If my goal was to do the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race. Well, a couple of days of strength training makes sense. If I’m looking for performance, it may be three to five days. If I’m just looking for general fitness, it may be two to three days.

 

So there’s all kinds of things that come into play. And it’s sometimes hard for people. They think about the movement, rather than the outcome.

 

And when you think about it, to all of us sitting at the table, athlete in some which way or form while growing up. So also knowing how to turn that switch off. Who I was at 18 or 20 is different from who I’m at 40.

 

So, knowing the difference. And I think now transitioning that we might be doing squats and push-ups and pulls over and over. But you said it earlier, the functionality of making sure we have longevity and vitality in our later years in life. You said picking up your new grandchild. Being able to do those things matter.

And I would call it almost being the sport of life. Making sure once you’re past the optimal performance part of life, now it is about longevity and holistic approach to making sure that you can healthy age, and do all the things that you want to do at a later age in life. So I think it’s important to speak to that too.

There’s a term called training age, which has to do with your experience relative to training. And oftentimes, someone that’s new, it’s, hey, how do we start to build that training age? And that training age starts to come with just understanding movement pattern.

 

But now someone that maybe was an athlete their whole life, and now they’re in their later stages, and they’re looking at longevity, they may have experience from a training age perspective, but how do they create adaptation to create longevity and vitality?

 

I can’t necessarily lift as much as I once did. I maybe can’t move as much load, but can I still hit on some of those principles? Meaning, can I still create progressive overload? Absolutely.

 

Someone might have been able to squat 400, 500, 600 pounds at one time. Well, if my body’s response is the same at 225 pounds, well, I’m still creating that adaptation within my body to respond.

That makes total sense. It’s just acknowledging where you are, but knowing can bring similar results for you.

 

And it’s not always easy.

 

At a given stage. Yes. Oh, I know. It’s like, I’ve always been like, oh, I did that when I was 20. Why can’t I do that today? I’m accepting that now.

 

All right. How about recovery and rest? I love this one. Because I feel like, when you go into our club, sometimes you’ll see the same people on the floor doing the same thing every day. It feels like, do you ever take a rest day? And we want to encourage that, because recovering rest is so important.

 

Think of the 80-20 rule. And there’s almost the saying too, that 80% of the time you’re probably going to be at 80% of your intensity, and then maybe 10% at 90%, 5% at 95%, and 5% at 100%. Meaning, you’re ready to go, and your body can respond. And then as we age, sometimes that may even vary slightly.

So recovery in that process, especially as we age, that’s the one piece, it’s very hard to get back. Recovery and realizing the importance of it. And recovery not just in, hey, I’m taking a day off. But what are the things that put me in a position to come back the next day, or my next training day from a strength perspective, and be able to maximize where I’m at that day?

 

So, mobility. Encompassing things like, you think of from a recovery standpoint. Mobility, flexibility, your nutrition, your sleep. All these things that have really encompassed the world of wellness in today’s society.

 

I think we should unpack recovery a little bit more.

 

I think so.

 

So you mentioned a few just now. You said a little bit of nutrition. You said a little bit of mobility. When we think of all the different offerings that we have within Life Time, whether it is Normatec boots, whether it is cold plunges and saunas. The value of taking advantage of that portion of recovery. Because everybody, they like the feeling of working out. Lay it out on the floor, sweating. How many calories did I burn?

That’s that instant gratification. And nobody wants to do those little things that you just mentioned to allow you to come back and perform at an optimal level that next day or two. So can you go a little bit deeper into that recovery piece?

 

Absolutely. You alluded to what’s available at Life Time. You talked about cold plunge, sauna. And it doesn’t have to be hours. Three minutes in a cold plunge, for example. 9 to 12 minutes in the sauna.

Consistency is the key. Utilizing the Normatec boots, 15, 20 minutes. Those are all things that add. Incorporating yoga is another amazing offering that’s certainly available at Life Time. And you can certainly get even from YouTube. But it’s taking the time to do, and carving out within that workout time, opportunity for that. Your body will thank you later.

 

1. So next one I want to dive into. You got weights, free weights, and you got selectorized equipment. And you also have body weight. So I never want to say one is better than the other. If it’s a newbie, we’ll talk about the newbie first.

 

If somebody is coming into the space for the first time, and I know you can answer with it depends, based off their goals. But what’s the benefit as far as knowing how to move your body in space without load before introducing load?

 

So I think this comes back to that concept of training age. So if someone’s new, brand new to strength training, I would incorporate body weight, as well as selectorized. Why selectorized? Selectorized now gives me an opportunity to control their movement through space, help train their neurological pathways to move load in a particular plane of motion, and put them in a place where they can be safe, versus just focusing on body weight and/or functional training, as that’s become now, once again, another space that people try and move just dumbbells and free weight and body weight all the time.

 

It’s good. And it has its place. But if someone’s new, incorporating selectorized, primarily from a load perspective, because now you can put on some weight, and put someone in a safe position, like a seated chest press, or a lat pull-down, or even a leg press machine. Because if they can’t move it, it won’t move. But they’re not in any way, shape, or form in a position where they could truly get injured, especially under the guidance of coach.

 

Now, as someone starts to progress, now starting to incorporate body weight with free weight, and being able to move. Once your body understands those patterning, that’s where incorporating that into your program becomes very beneficial. And maybe you don’t need to go back to the selectorized, unless it’s specific to a goal.

 

Meaning, you’re in the space of, hey, I want to get as big and as strong as possible, then utilizing plate-loaded or selectorized equipment may come into play. But if it’s for general living, health, strength, being able to function through your daily life, once you have those patterns down, now you can focus on that dumbbell and free weight area more consistently.

 

1. Did you say selectorized?

 

Selectorized.

 

As somebody who’s not familiar with that term, what does that mean? This is the first time I hear it. I’m like, wait, what was that?

 

So selectorized are machines that you can either plate load, or they’ve got the plates that you can adjust the pins.

 

Gotcha. So they’re the ones that I can move around, depending on where I’m at any given moment.

Correct.

 

Why they’re called selectorized is because they’re specific to a body part, or somewhere, like I mentioned, a chest press, a lat pull-down, a leg press, a leg extension or a leg curl. So it focuses on a very particular muscle group of the body.

 

Flip it. I mean, that’s for the newbie that you just spoke on. Even the experienced person who now just lives in body — not body weight, but pretty much free weights, and some body weight stuff as well. Wouldn’t it be good, just from an adaptation standpoint, to throw that in there? Because the body’s probably adapting to all that it knows, and you’ve been doing it for so long, to now come back to some of the selectorized equipment as well? Or what’s your thoughts there?

 

It could, but I think it comes back to focusing on the acute variables. Am I adding progressive overload? Am I changing my phases of training? Are there things that, inherently, when I work with a trainer or coach, that if they’re programming me properly, they’re making those adjustments where it doesn’t necessarily mean it has to go back to selectorized, unless that aligns to your goal.

 

Got you.

 

Got it. OK. So let’s talk a little bit about total body workouts versus split workouts. First and foremost, let’s make sure we explain what those mean. And then are there certain times when one is more appropriate than the other? We hear often, it depends on the goal. But let’s talk a little bit about those two.

So general fitness is where you’re focused on total body, and you’re talking to three times per week. Split routines or split workouts start to come more into focus when you’re looking at something more advanced, or from a performance perspective.

 

And so the difference being total body, it’s not something you want to do every single day. And like I said, it’s usually having that recovery day in between, or mixing it up with some other modality in between.

When you’re talking about split routines, then you can potentially go back-to-back, because now you’re putting together, for example, a hinge press and a push-pull or squat. So you’re working on different compound movements, or different isolated movements, but you’re also focusing on different areas of the body.

 

Got it.

 

And you know I got to put the plug in here. I mean, we pride ourselves in the GTX and Alpha Program with having the splits five days out of the week, and then having the total two days out of the week. Just because, going back to the scientific mindset of we’ve seen what has worked for so long.

And then once again, changing those acute variables week over week. And if they’re coming consistently, which we’re about to get into now, frequency is going to be the next question. But if they’re coming consistently, then that’s where you start to yield those results.

 

See how I set that up, Jamie?

 

Yes! It’s just a perfect transition. Perfect transition.

 

Frequency. You said consistently earlier, consistency is key. Now, frequency, when you think of somebody getting into a routine, starting is key. But then as far as when you think of beginner, intermediate, advanced. What do you associate to frequency during the week? You got seven days in the week. Kick us off with the beginner. What should they be doing?

 

Beginner, two to three.

 

Two to three? OK.

 

Absolutely. I mean, strength training is so critically and foundationally important. And Jamie hit on some of the things people are concerned about. Oh, I’m going to get too bulky, or I don’t want to strength train, or all these things. Just for foundational elements of just healthy living, strength training is just critically important.

 

We were meant to move our bodies, and we were meant to lift with our bodies. It’s a foundational piece of who we are. Someone’s getting into more of that performance — and you alluded to some of the signature formats at Life Time, where they’re utilizing split routines. Because you’re going to look anywhere between three to five days a week when you get into that space. And then it could even get three to six when you’re talking about getting into really performance, or very specific types of training that you’re looking to do, as it relates to strength programming.

 

All right. So let’s recap it. Two to three beginner. And you said three to five intermediate. And then anything three to six plus is going to be advanced.

 

Yeah. I think, from an advanced perspective, you still have to have rest, Especially when you’re talking about strength training. Because believe it or not, muscle doesn’t build when you’re strength training.

Being broken down.

 

It’s when it’s being broken down. It occurs during recovery. And so giving your body that break.

We’ll speak to that. Let’s talk about active recovery. So sometimes rest can be like, all right, I’m just going to take the day off, versus before you came in here, you saw me walking outside. Different variations of active recovery, not putting a lot of stress on my body, but still getting movement in. So can you talk about active recovery?

 

You hit it, David. Active recovery, movement. Body was meant to move. The worst thing we can typically do is do nothing. The body is designed to move every day of the week, but it’s about that variability to intensity that’s critically important.

 

And so if I have a heavy or hard strength training day, that next day, it may incorporate that yoga, Normatec recovery, a walk. Something that’s of lower intensity. So then I can come back the next day, and attack with a level of intensity and performance.

 

Absolutely. I feel like we’ve kind of covered this already, but I do want to put all these pieces together. So let’s say for a good percentage of our audience or our listeners, that they’re seeking general fitness. They want to be able to do the things they want to do for as long as possible in their life. That longevity piece.

So what does maybe a weekly plan look like for them? A balance of strength, cardio, mobility. If we thought about that for probably the majority of our listeners and our members at Life Time. I might be generalizing a little bit.

 

I think it starts with the age-old question. Cardio before strength? Strength before cardio? And they’re always looking to, hey, how can I multitask in the time that I’m here?

 

So, one, it depends on what their goal is. So if their goal is — and I even then break it down to the goal per day, rather than their overall goal. So if my goal today is to have a better strength training day, meaning more focused and less fatigue, I should probably strength train before I do my cardiovascular training.

 

If it’s inverse for a day, then I reverse that. I pay more attention to my cardiovascular training that day, and then I move into maybe some more functional-based strength training, just as my body fatigues.

 

So now when you think of, hey, how do I put that program together? For me, people, their hardest or their biggest barrier to typically exercising or adhering to a program is time. So how do we maximize that time?

Well, rather than looking at things, like I mentioned, in segments, looking at them in goals, and looking at them, and hey, what’s my focus for the day? And then whether I break that cardio and strength session up between a Monday and Tuesday, or I combine it, the important piece is that, hey, what was my focus for that day? And then reversing that focus as I continue to move forward.

 

And then if I can hit on that three to five days a week consistently, now change starts to happen.

I talk to coaches all the time about it. My athletes, too. Time. My other acronym here. Things I must execute. And I love how you frame that up. What’s most important for today? And making sure that I adhere to that. So that’s beautifully — I like the way you set that up.

 

Let’s talk about social media. When we talk about social media, the gift and the curse behind it. There’s so much out there, so much out there that’s coming at everybody’s fingertips. What’s the — like I said it earlier — the fad of the day. And being in the industry for as long as you’ve had, it’s more of knowing how to filter a lot of the noise as well.

 

Taking your personal experiences, knowing what has worked. But more importantly, checking in with a subject matter expert to ensure you’re on that right path. So can you support our listeners? And social media is not going anywhere.

 

AI isn’t going anywhere. So just to make sure that they’re setting themselves up for success, and to fact check a lot of the things that they may be looking at, to help support them in that space.

So we have more access to information than ever before. And as you mentioned, social media, or influencers as part of the fabric of that space, will be, and isn’t going away.

 

So when you start to go and look at, OK, who am I going to follow, or who am I going to get some of my information from? I think it’s important to look, rather than total followership, and more about engagement. Who’s engaged in that?

 

Can I find that person off of social media, and in other avenues or search? Are there things that they’ve contributed to medical journals or published studies? Or have they been featured, like, in Life Time’s magazine? Because it’s fact checked.

 

Do they start to appear in different areas than just on Instagram, or just on Snapchat or TikTok? Do you start to see them in other places? I think it’s important to validate just in that regard. Because it’s really hard, in today’s environment, to understand, OK, what’s real, what’s science, what’s fad, what’s all those pieces, unless you’ve been in the space, and unless you have some of that formalized education.

 

Well, the general consumer doesn’t, but they can because of what I mentioned earlier, the access to information. They can start to see, does this person appear in different areas from other people that I know are experts in the space? Because if they do, then, and, in conclusion, as long as it’s someone that also meets you where you’re at, and is someone that you connect with based on your niche, or where you are in your health and wellness journey.

 

Looking for those individuals, and seeking those out, and then validating it that way. But I think the critical piece is, what’s the engagement from the audience, less about how many followers do they have.

I’m typing in right now, how can I lose 10 pounds in four weeks? AI. ChatGPT. Same deal. So now we have the influencer. Now can you elaborate a little bit on AI? Super smart search engine. I get it. But also to make sure that you do your homework and due diligence in that space as well.

 

Artificial intelligence, it’s amazing in what it is and what it’s become. So when you think of from a training perspective or trainer perspective, programming is a thing of the past. Being this amazing training program designer. I know we talked about strength training and a program today.

 

Well, anyone, if the right variables, you can input, and it can spit out a better program than I could ever create. Or David, you could.

 

100%.

 

The piece that AI, that gap is going to continue to shrink, and AI is going to get more and more intelligent. But it’s also understanding, what are the appropriate variables to put into that. So we talked about acute variables early on. Recognizing your goal, understanding phases of training. All those things are really important when it comes into what you’re going to give AI to then kick back a program.

 

The things that AI isn’t capable of is, one, the energy around this table. Social and personal interaction with people. And then real-time adjustments. So real-time adjustments, either whether it’s with a workout partner or a workout coach, or a group of people in a community. Those are the things that AI isn’t there yet. But from a programming perspective, if you know the right variables to put in, it can kick out an amazing program.

 

And the good news about that is we’re actually working on some of that at Life Time. There’s going to be more of that available over the next year in the Life Time app. We’re going to be seeing more of this. And also, we have really great experts, like the two of you, who are watching this and keeping an eye on it, to make sure it does meet the philosophy that we have.

 

I do think sometimes one of the issues with maybe general AI out in the world is that we don’t always know where it’s being pulled from. So then we still have to do our due diligence to understand what’s out there. Like you mentioned, fact checking. In some ways, we have to be fact checkers of all this stuff.

Where is this coming from? I have a colleague who, she always asks follow-up questions of ChatGPT, like, well, where did you get this information from? And sometimes it’ll send back some info that’s really just like, oh, that’s not the source I expected.

 

So I think there’s something we can all do to engage with it, but also train it better. I’d rather have you get this from here, if we want to go that route.

 

Absolutely. I mean, you hit it, Jaime. I think of what I’m so excited with the Life Time Digital Coach, is the reality of it’s going to have thousands of trainers that are contributing to it. So you also know where that source of knowledge is coming from.

 

And as that continues to grow, and it continues to machine learn, and continues to build that library of knowledge, it’ll be an amazing resource for any of the Life Time members. And that’s really within our own ecosystem. So it’s our internal expertise from across the country, which is awesome. How many trainers do we have right now?

 

Just south of 4,000 trainers.

 

Wow. So that’s a lot of inputs potentially, depending on how many of them engage. Interesting. Interesting. Alright.

 

I mean, we hit on a lot. Is there anything that you think we missed, that you want to make sure our listeners get a hold of?

 

I think, in summary, I think it’s really important that you start from a strength training perspective. Meet yourself where you’re at. So recognize, hey, what is my training age? How much experience do I have with strength training?

 

If I don’t have a lot, start simple, and then start to build. Focus on compound movements, but don’t get into movements that — you talked about plyometrics earlier on. You talked about the squat. You talked about these complex movements that, if you haven’t had any experience, don’t start there.

Start to just move your body, and then start to add load appropriately. And as you start to progress, now you can start to add complexity.

 

All right. Now, this mic drop moment might go into a whole other episode, but I’m excited to bring you the mic drop moment. Are you ready?

 

I don’t know, David.

 

Yeah, you are. Yeah, you are. So when you think about this. I mean, you’re almost, I would call, the godfather of heart rate training at Life Time. You go all the way back with LT Connect. And understanding the value of heart rate training.

 

So to have the opportunity to ask this mic drop moment. Can you speak to the value of heart rate training when it comes to strength training in comparison to cardio?

 

Great question. Obviously, the application of heart rate training to cardiovascular is much easily, or more easily understood. When it comes to strength training, however, you can uniquely apply it, especially when it comes to recovery.

 

So when you think of, especially when you get into compound movements, you can create response from a heart rate perspective. Your body has to react to the intensity and load that you’re placing on it. But then paying attention to how quickly those recovery moments happen before you get into the next set.

 

I always think of like, heart rate, as far as if you were to track it, it’s more like a wave. But when you strength train, it’s more like a mountain peak. And so recognizing, through those waves, how am I attacking those peaks? And how quickly can I get from the peak and come back down before I attack the next peak?

 

I love it.

 

That’s good.

 

I love it.

 

So back in the day, Jeff and I used to work in the same office. And I remember going to him, and we were talking heart rate training. And I was like, oh, you’re the one who created the O2 training program? It was one of the very first programs I did when I started at Life Time back in, like, 2005.

 

But that’s one of the programs that taught me so much about how to listen to my body, and how to tune in. And heart rate training has made such a huge difference, not just for endurance training, but for strength training. And so I think it’s so great that we’re having that incorporated more in our conversations, again.

 

But Jeff, that was — I was like, oh, you’re the guy? That was my favorite program for years.

Well, thanks, Jamie. But I think, for the listeners, we have access to technology like never before. I mean, whether it’s an Apple watch, a Garmin watch, a Samsung watch, but with optical heart rate, with all the data pieces. The important piece is not to get caught up in too much, and recognize, understand the fundamentals of it, and understand the basics of it, and how it applies.

 

Exactly.

 

Like you said, back in the days of O2 training.

 

And it’s funny how, even from then, I still, I understand my body more. And I recognize things in my body because of that. So it’s not like I have to wear the heart rate monitor all the time, but it became a baseline way for me to understand. And I can go back to it time and again. So, anyway.

 

I always say the value behind it is just — because you’re going to always get pushback. I understand mixed modality versus a singular modality. You’re going to have a little bit more accurate responding. But the beautiful part that I always go back to is the awareness. Like, how is your body responding?

 

And I said it earlier, I never really speak in absolutes when it comes to that. Because you have, once again, whether you’re holding on to something, or doing a burpee, going up and down. There’s so many variables there. But how your body’s responding, how it’s recovering, that’s why it’s key.

 

And as a coach, if I’m able to look up there, and say, hey, Jeff, you doing all right over there? And he can let me know. Or we’re in a warm-up, and I’m seeing Jamie, I’m like, why are you so hot? Did you sleep good last night? We have all these indicators.

 

But if we don’t champion that, I’m just saying it, it’s just another workout. But if you now create this experience behind bringing that element to life, bringing your recovery to life while you’re resting in between sets, talking about what you should do, post-Alpha or GTX, whatever it may be, that’s the art of coaching and giving them the aha moment. So, once again, appreciate you, like, birthing that and bringing it to life here.

 

Well, I think it’s where the objective meets the subjective. And how they intertwine. And so I can know what I’m feeling, but now the data feedback tells me how I’m responding.

 

We could just keep going. I know we’re supposed to be wrapping up here. But to your point, I think something you said earlier also resonated. It gives us permission to recognize when our body isn’t ready to show up for that day. So, like you said, should I do cardio before strength, or strength before cardio?

It gives us flexibility to adapt, based on how we’re feeling, or to decide. So I think that’s a really important takeaway, is we have to know ourselves, and also trust our own intuition within the training that we’re doing in this space.

 

That’s awesome. I love how you summed that one up.

 

All right. So, Jeff, where can people find you if they want to follow you on social media? Do you have a social media handle, or where do you want people to connect with you?

 

I have to self-admit. I am not a big social media guy, but I do have Instagram handle that you can find at @JRosga. But from a standpoint of there’s many higher recognized influencers, David being one of them, Jamie being another. But that would be the one space to potentially find me.

 

I’m pretty sure, if you want articles or something.

 

I feel like you’ve been an expert source in Experience Life. If you search Jeff Rosga at Experience Life, you’ll find some sort — you’ve done different workouts for us in the past as well.

 

Yes.

 

They’ll find you. Alright. Jeff, thank you so much for coming on.

 

Appreciate you.

 

Thanks.

 

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