Luca Balestra PT

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🚀 Hybrid Coaching Launch Offer 🚀 For a limited time, I’m offering £160 (normally £200) for 4-week blocks of Hybrid Coaching 💪 What’s included: ✅ 4 in-person PT sessions at Workout Harbourside (Mondays & Fridays) ✅ Personalised programming on FitPros for 4–8 solo sessions (to complete on your own) ✅ Video feedback on every solo session ✅ WhatsApp support between sessions ✅ Nutritional guidance as needed This rate is available to the first 5 sign-ups only- you'll lock in this rate for up to six blocks (roughly six months) as a thank-you for being among my first clients at Workout Harbourside. 👉 DM HYBRID to find out more and claim your spot!

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Another post in this series on the latest research on training variables for strength and muscle growth, hope you find it useful :)

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Swipe until the end for caveats and takeaways! The dose-response differences between volume and frequency when it comes to strength and muscle growth was my main takeaway from the recent meta-regression by Pelland et al (2024). Note that set volume here is counted in "fractional" sets, where indirect work (e.g. sets of pressing as tricep work, or sets of back as bicep work) are counted as 0.5 sets.

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The subject of diet tracking comes up often with clients (I typically ask that people track a few days of intake when we start working together to get an idea of their baseline) so I thought I'd put together a quick post citing some recent evidence and providing the apps I recommend along with a few practical tips. One important point to note is that while diet tracking does not appear to be causative of disordered eating/eating disorders, folks with a history of eating disorders should consider tracking under the supervision of a registered dietitian. Feel free to ask further questions in the comments below!

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This post is based on a review of the literature by Phillips et al. (2018), cited in the comments.   When at maintenance or in a surplus, at the lower end of the 1.6-2.2 range is likely sufficient for most people, with room for further adjustment within that range based on dietary preferences (do you enjoy foods that are rich in protein?).   Recommendations for dieting lifters should be around the lower end of the range (2.3-3.1 g/kg) for overweight individuals, and around the high end for individuals who are already lean (e.g. physique athletes).   It should be noted that recommendations on meal frequency are based on observation of acute (short-term) spikes in muscle protein synthesis, and it is not altogether clear that this necessarily leads to greater accretion of lean body mass over time. Total daily protein intake remains the most important factor when looking to maintain or increase muscle mass.

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This post is based on a review of the literature by Phillips et al. (2018), cited in the comments.   When at maintenance or in a surplus, at the lower end of the 1.6-2.2 range is likely sufficient for most people, with room for further adjustment within that range based on dietary preferences (do you enjoy foods that are rich in protein?).   Recommendations for dieting lifters should be around the lower end of the range (2.3-3.1 g/kg) for overweight individuals, and around the high end for individuals who are already lean (e.g. physique athletes).   It should be noted that recommendations on meal frequency are based on observation of acute (short-term) spikes in muscle protein synthesis, and it is not altogether clear that this necessarily leads to greater accretion of lean body mass over time. Total daily protein intake remains the most important factor when looking to maintain or increase muscle mass.

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Here are a few ways I like to adjust my own training when I am under-recovered/stressed out/not feeling my best. None of these involves RPE! Of course the RPE scale is an important tool for autoregulation, but it is not the be-all-end-all and may not be the most effective way to reduce training stress depending on lifter psychology, so it's useful to have other tools in your toolbox as well.

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* Image on slide 7 is from Beaulieu et al 2018. Intuitively, it is most people’s experience that exercise can increase appetite, but we also have good evidence that it can enhance post-meal satiety through enhanced hormonal satiety signalling, leading to better overall balance. The way in which physical activity interacts with psychological (non-homeostatic) factors (hedonic thoughts, etc.) is less clear, but lack of exercise is thought to influence these indirectly through changes in body composition (increased body fat) in turn affecting hedonic signalling. It should be noted that, all else being equal, a high-energy, high-fat diet has been linked to passive overconsumption.

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This post is mostly based on Greg Nuckols' excellent article "The Belt Bible", which I would recommend checking out for a more in-depth look (https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-belt-bible/). In particular, I agree with his point that wearing a belt, in a nutshell, allows you to do more of the important things required to build muscle and strength (lift more weight for more volume), and there’s really not much of a downside! We don’t really have any evidence to suggest that wearing a belt is protective of injury. That said, training beltless may be a good option to obtain a similar training stimulus while using less weight when we are feeling fatigued (and fatigue load is an important factor in injury reduction). It should be noted that belt wearing should be avoided by people with rare and undiagnosed health conditions (e.g. undiagnosed cerebral aneurysm). See here for more information: https://barbellrehab.com/weightlifting-belts/

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Since I mention RPE a lot in my posts, I thought I would upload a simple explanation of what RPE is and why it's useful in strength training. It should be noted that although it’s good to try and start thinking about “how far away was that from failure” when training as a beginner, RPE is a tool that becomes increasingly useful when we become early intermediates and beyond. As a complete beginner, something much simpler like double progression (start from low end of rep target, reach high end, add weight, rinse and repeat) will serve you just fine. There are many different ways in which RPE can be incorporated into a program, and lots of subtleties that I can't quite go into in a simple post, but I hope this is useful if you're completely new to the concept! Let me know in the comments should you have any questions :)

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Seriously, it's about time we stopped setting arbirtrary and harmful barriers to exercise by demonizing specific movements. Resistance training at the gym is incredibly safe (happens in a controlled environment where no one is going to bump into you at speed like in team sports, for example), and most any movement you can do in the gym setting is safe provided that it is progressed gradually and appropriately. Your body has an amazing ability to adapt to moving and being loaded in a variety of ways. And yet we still have social media accounts, large and small, fearmongering based on outdated models that promote an idea of the body as a fragile machine that should only move in the "correct" way lest it should break ("like a paper clip??" IYKYK). To the contrary: - Back extensions are perfectly fine to do and you will not "regret it down the road" - Deadlifts are not a "high-risk movement" - Leg extensions will not "destroy your kneecaps" - Pelvic movement and the spine not being perfectly "neutral" are normal things that happen during squats and dealifts, and are not harmful - Sit-ups won't "give you lower back problems" - Upright rows are fine and effective movements for many people and are not "bad for your shoulders" The list goes on and on with claims that are not backed by any sort of good quality evidence. Sure, you may be sensitised to certain movements post-injury, or they may not be a good fit for you specifically. But that's a far cry from saying that any specific way of moving is inherently "bad". So I would encourage you to approach the sketchy claims made by PTs and physios out to get likes by the telling followers to "STOP doing x" with a healthy dose of skepticism. Let's find ways of moving we enjoy, load our bodies in a variety of ways, and become stronger, healthier, more resilient humans!

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See caption for additional notes and explanations! RPE (rating of perceived exertion) is, in the simplest term, a scale of 1 to 10 rating how hard a set was. In the context of lifting, it is usually thought of in relation to how many reps you leave “in the tank”. For example, a set of 5 at RPE 6 means you could have done 4 more reps, RPE 8 means you could have done 2 more, and RPE 10 is an all-out effort where you have nothing left in you. Force production is maximised via low-RPE, submaximal work because you can produce more force (move the bar faster) than if you were closer to failure. For example, if I do 4 sets of 8 at 75% of my max (1RM), the last few reps in the third and fourth sets may be very slow and grindy (I’m producing less force). By contrast, each rep would move much faster if I did 8 sets of 4 at the same percentage. This is a good thing because ultimately, strength is our ability to produce force, so it makes sense to ensure that we can produce close to as much force per rep as possible when we are training. You are also practicing better technique on each single rep! Most intermediate programs are pretty good with this, however sometimes they do not include enough volume of back-off sets at low-ish RPE on the main movements, which really should form the bulk of your work (*cough*5/3/1*cough) or emphasise the important of moving your backoffs with intent. Bar speed tracking apps are available and can provide additional motivation to move the weight as fast as possible during your volume (but not at the expense of technique!). Hope this the above is clear but let me know in the comments if you have any questions!💪