Dr. Shannon Ritchey: Why You’re Not Seeing Results in The Gym (Do THIS 4-Part Strength Framework to Completely Transform your Body

Summary

Podcast Summary: On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Episode: Dr. Shannon Ritchey: Why You’re Not Seeing Results in The Gym (Do THIS 4-Part Strength Framework to Completely Transform Your Body)
Release Date: March 25, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Jay Shetty and co-host Jessie May sit down with Dr. Shannon Ritchey—physical therapist and founder of EVLO Fitness—to dissect the most persistent fitness myths, clarify how science-based muscle growth actually works, and introduce a four-part “REPS” framework for optimal strength, muscle-building, and holistic well-being. This lively, myth-busting, and accessible conversation is packed with practical tips, memorable analogies, and real talk about overcoming workout guilt, optimizing your training, and making fitness genuinely sustainable for life.

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Main Topics Covered

1. Dr. Shannon Ritchey's 4-Part REPS Framework

• REPS: The Four Core Pillars of Muscle Growth [02:04]
  • R: Repetitions – Train to failure or 1–3 reps shy of failure on every exercise.
  • E: Exercise Selection – Choose one muscle group per exercise and day.
  • P: Protein – Consume 0.75 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.
  • S: Structure – Work each muscle group about two times/week, on non-consecutive days.

“A lot of people can relate to this. I used to believe that if I wasn’t killing myself working out every day, it wasn’t going to do anything. But that actually slowed my progress.” — Dr. Ritchie [05:55]

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2. Busting Common Fitness Myths

Cardio as the Most Effective Weight Loss Tool [03:39]

• Cardio alone is not efficient for fat loss. Without nutritional changes, results are underwhelming.
• Cardio’s downsides: possible joint pain, hormone disruption, slowed metabolism due to body compensation.
• Strength training and nutrition should be prioritized for sustainable fat loss.

Quote:
“Exercise is just not a very efficient tool for fat loss. Studies show cardio—without nutrition changes—results in really underwhelming weight loss. Maybe just a few pounds over a year.” — Dr. Ritchie [04:10]

“No Pain, No Gain” [06:00]

• This myth pushes people to burnout without reliable physical changes.
• “Gentle consistency” is healthier and, paradoxically, more effective for results and sustainability.

Quote:
“Not only will you see better results...you’ll feel more consistent with exercise because it doesn’t physically drain you as much.” — Dr. Ritchie [06:51]

Running Ruins Your Knees [07:19]

• Only overuse causes joint problems; running “in the right amounts” won’t harm healthy knees.

You Must Work Out Every Day [08:07]

• Recovery is critical; results come from the balance of stimulus, adaptation, and rest.
• Active recovery encouraged; structured exercise should have rest days.

“Your body does not adapt when overstressed—it adapts when it gets the appropriate stress and enough time to recover.” — Dr. Ritchie [08:43]

Women Shouldn’t Lift Heavy (It Makes Them Bulky) [09:39]

• Bulking requires years of training and excess calories.
• Heavier weights are effective and do not inherently cause “bulkiness.”

“Abs Are Made in the Kitchen” [10:28]

• Visible abs depend on low enough body fat, but direct ab training is necessary for muscle development. Both matter.

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3. Realistic Transformation: Mindset & Patience

• Science-based training leads to better results, less guilt, and healthier relationships with exercise and body.
• The “yo-yo” cycle of overtraining and burnout prevents long-term progress.
• Consistency, recovery, and appropriate adaptation matter more than intensity or working out daily.

Quote:
“We have the rest of our lives to work out, which means we need to be smart about how we treat our bodies.” — Dr. Ritchie [12:54]

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4. The Science of Muscle Growth

Failure vs. Fatigue [15:14]

• Building muscle requires training near to true muscle failure, not just fatigue or “feeling the burn.”
• The “rest test”: After your last rep, rest 5 seconds. If you can do 3+ more, you haven't hit true failure. Adjust accordingly.

Quote:
“Fatigue does not reliably build muscle—failure does.” — Dr. Ritchie [16:56]

Planning Your Workouts [21:48]

• Hit each muscle group around twice weekly, with at least 48 hours in between for repair.
• Both too little and too much frequency can be detrimental; twice weekly is the “sweet spot” for maximal growth.

Soreness as an Indicator [27:18]

• “Light to no muscle soreness is ideal.” Soreness doesn’t equal effectiveness or guarantee muscle growth.
• Chronic soreness signals under-recovery or excessive intensity.

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5. Nutrition and Protein for Muscle Growth

• 0.75–1g protein per pound of body weight per day recommended for optimal muscle gain.
• Many people overestimate protein intake—tracking for a week can be enlightening.
• Gaining “bulk” when increasing protein is usually due to an unintended calorie surplus, not protein itself.

Quote:
“Training stimulus is the most important for muscle growth. Protein helps, but can be adapted to your needs and digestion.” — Dr. Ritchie [40:40]

Plant-Based and Personalized Approaches

• Plant-based diets make reaching high protein targets without calorie surplus more challenging but still possible.

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6. Exercise Selection & Enjoyment

• No single exercise (squats, RDLs, pushups) is mandatory—choose movements that feel good and allow you to push near failure reliably.
• Enjoyment increases adherence; discomfort leads to quitting prematurely.

Quote:
“If you hate Bulgarian split squats, just do hip thrusts instead for your glutes. You’ll get further.” — Dr. Ritchie [43:20]

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7. Volume, Intensity, and Bodyweight Training

• Minimum: 4 hard sets per muscle group per week (even one can drive “newbie gains”).
• Moderate: 6–8 sets/week is sustainable for most, with diminishing returns after 10 sets.
• Rep range from 4–30 works as long as sets are close to failure.
• Bodyweight can be effective if <30 reps brings you to failure; otherwise, add resistance.

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8. Fat Loss: Best Practices & Common Mistakes

• Nutrition is the main driver, not exercise. Gentle, sustained calorie deficits work better than large swings or “cheat” mentalities.
• Muscle preservation should be a primary focus for body recomposition.
• Cardio is for cardiovascular health and keeping energy expenditure up, not as the primary fat-burning tool.

Quote:
“We are over-glorifying exercise as a fat loss tool...cardio produces underwhelming fat loss.” — Dr. Ritchie [54:46]

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9. The Importance of Muscle for Longevity

• Stronger people live longer, even more so than those who are just active.
• It’s never too late to start building muscle, but starting in your 20s and 30s “banks” muscle for easier aging.
• Recovery demands increase with age; volume may need to be adjusted.

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10. Hidden Keys: Feet, Eyes, and Posture

Feet - The Foundation [66:50]

• Most neglect neuromuscular connection of feet due to tight shoes.
• Practice barefoot/socks training, toe mobility for better joint health & alignment.

Eyes and Nervous System [70:19]

• Eye health and mobility drills (looking at variable distances, moving eyes) can decrease tension, improve neck/posture, and calm the nervous system.

Posture [75:19]

• Environment and movement matter more than any single corrective exercise.
• Total body strength is crucial; regular movement and micro-breaks throughout the day trump “perfect” posture hacks.

Practical 3-Minute Movement Break [78:01]

• 1 min jumping jacks (get eyes/arms/legs moving).
• 1 min mobility (circling hips, feet, shoulders).
• 1 min diaphragmatic breathing (hug rib cage, deep breath, relax jaw).

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11. Customizing Fitness Across Life Stages

• The REPS framework applies regardless of age, gender, or perimenopausal status.
• Main changes with aging: more attention to recovery.

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12. Avoiding Social Media Misinformation

• Spot reduction is a myth—fat loss cannot be targeted to certain areas with specific movements.

Quote:
“Exercise cannot spot treat fat...It happens systemically across your body.” — Dr. Ritchie [83:51]

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13. Key Takeaways & Final Insights

• Gentle consistency beats intensity or perfection.
• Track steps and activity as a tool, not an obsession—7500 steps/day is correlated with health.
• Fitness and food data (especially tracking) can be a helpful temporary tool for awareness and habit correction.
• The “emotional” side of nutrition, guilt, and sustainable balance is as important as data or science.
• Building muscle takes 8–12 weeks to see clear results—patience is critical.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “You can forget everything else you know about fitness and just focus on these four things. REPS.” — Dr. Shannon Ritchey [02:04]
• “No pain, no gain is probably the worst advice I ever got.” — Dr. Shannon Ritchey [88:49]
• “The fitness industry loves to overcomplicate this...women in perimenopause can train the same way: close to failure, twice a week per muscle group, and recover.” — Dr. Shannon Ritchey [80:35]
• “We have the rest of our lives to work out, which means we need to be smart about how we're treating our bodies.” — Dr. Shannon Ritchey [12:54]
• “Take personal responsibility for any change you want to see in your life.” — Dr. Shannon Ritchey [88:17]

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Action Steps if You’re Just Starting Out

• Start slow—beginners see progress with minimal volume (“newbie gains”).
• Focus on 4–8 sets per muscle group/week, two sessions per muscle.
• Practice the “rest test” for failure vs. fatigue.
• Log food for a week and aim for the REPS protein target.
• Rest is not “failure,” but a necessary ingredient for progress.

“You’ll see amazing results without smashing yourself. Be gentle, be consistent, and give it at least 12 weeks.” — Dr. Shannon Ritchey [81:40]

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Dr. Shannon Ritchey’s Challenge

Listeners are invited to try EVLO for free (6 weeks) with code ONPURPOSE—an opportunity to implement the REPS framework with expert guidance.

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Closing Thoughts

This episode delivers an evidence-based, compassionate approach to working out: focus on powerful, smart effort, not blind intensity; enjoy what you do; and give your body—and mind—the respect and consistency needed for real transformation.

“There’s a way to get strong, get fit, see the aesthetic results you’re after, but also be nicer to yourself along the way.” — Dr. Shannon Ritchey [84:51]

Transcript

[Jay Shetty]

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[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

You can forget everything else you know about fitness and just focus on these four things. Reps R E P S. The R stands for repetitions, training to failure or one to three reps shy of failure in every exercise. Exercise selection is number two, choosing one muscle group to work at a time. P is protein eating 75 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day and S is structure, working each muscle group 2ish times per week on non consecutive days. If you follow these four things, I can guarantee you will see muscle growth.

[Jay Shetty]

Hey everyone.

[Jessie May]

Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guest is someone that I've wanted to talk to for quite some time now because she's going to help us do exactly that. Dr. Shannon Ritchie is a physical therapist and the founder of Evolo Fitness, a rapidly growing science backed fitness platform, helping thousands of people rethink everything they've been taught about exercise. If you feel like you're doing everything right in the gym but still not seeing results, this conversation will change the way you think about fitness. Please welcome to On Purpose, Shannon Ritchie. Shannon, it's great to have you here.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.

[Jessie May]

A lot of us are trying to

[Jay Shetty]

apply all this advice we hear on

[Jessie May]

social media and on the Internet and everywhere else, but we're not seeing the change in our body. And you've spent years now helping people do exactly this. So the first thing I want to do with you is actually start by busting some myths. I want to dive right in.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Oh, yay. Okay.

[Jessie May]

Because I feel like we should just get right in.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Let's do it. Yes.

[Jessie May]

The first one is you'll only lose weight if you're doing tons of cardio.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

This is such a pervasive one. And I think that the reason it's so damaging is because A, it doesn't really work and I'll explain why in a moment. And B, it makes us believe that our workouts need to smash us in order to be effective. And what people do is they add endless amounts of exercise and they don't see results. So they either give up and burn out and they become less active overall, which we know is not good, or they double down and they work even harder and this burns them out more. And as a physical therapist, I saw this all the time. Then you're in my office with joint pain and disrupted hormones and you feel horrible. You have a horrible mindset around exercise. So I think that when you learn the science, it really helps you focus on the right things. And more than that, it helps you redefine what an effective workout looks like and your mindset around exercise improves. So all that to say, here's why. Exercise is just not a very efficient tool for fat loss. So studies consistently find that adding cardio without nutritional changes results in really underwhelming weight loss. Maybe just a few pounds over a year. And that's a long time. Be working out really hard and only have like a few pounds of a difference. And the reason for this is because our body compensates. So our body doesn't like large energy deficits. So as we add more exercise, your body adapts to burn fewer calories in other places. Throughout your body so that you stay within this narrow window of calorie expenditure. So overall, we're burning far fewer calories than we think when we add exercise. And at the same time, people typically can easily eat to replace those calories or sometimes even overeat because they've overestimated how much they've burned. And this can make them either not see very great results or sometimes even gain weight when they're adding exercise, feeling like they're working really hard and not seeing results. So that's why I just like to recommend separating exercise and fat loss. If fat loss is your goal, you're so much better off focusing on nutrition and strength training, which hopefully we can get into a lot. But strength training so that you are at least maintaining or maybe even building muscle so that any weight loss is coming from fat, not muscle.

[Jessie May]

The next one is no pain, no gain, which I think kind of speaks to what you just spoke about, like this idea of just destroying yourself in the gym. But what's your take on no pain, no gain?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I think that this comes from decades of marketing and messaging that especially in American culture, that we need to hustle and we need to work harder, and then if it doesn't hurt and it's not brutal, it's not going to change your body. And like I just discussed, we see that that type of workout doesn't necessarily result in a lot of weight loss or body composition changes, which is typically why people do those types of workouts. So you feel like you're working out really, really hard, but you're not actually seeing results. So I like to teach people, okay, what is the stimulus that does change your body composition? And you'll find that when you apply the right things, you no longer feel like you have to smash yourself. You no longer, longer feel like no pain, no gain is the only way. And when you start to do this, not only will you see better results, but you'll feel more consistent with exercise because it doesn't physically drain you as much and it doesn't mentally drain you as much. It's easier to show up for. It's what we call gentle consistency. So, yeah, I'm not a believer in no pain.

[Jessie May]

Okay, okay. Very, very clear. Again, this one. Running ruins your knees.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Running does not ruin your knees if it's in the right amounts. If you overdo any forms of exercise, your joints will pay for it. And again, we saw that. I saw this as a physical therapist all the time. You get tendonitis from overuse or joint wear and tear. So adding running doesn't inherently wreck your knees. It's that it has to be in the right amounts and you have to progress up to it appropriately. The problem is many people start running again to lose weight and they overdo it and they don't see the weight loss. So they either add more, burn themselves out, and their body hurts because it's just too much for their body to handle. Their body hasn't adapted to that stress yet.

[Jessie May]

Got it. Wow. I feel like, I feel like I'm learning so much already. And, and I feel like these are, these are things that we hear everywhere. Right. Like these are things that your parents said to you, your friends are saying to you, and they kind of get stuck in our minds and then we never even question them.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Right.

[Jessie May]

And so. Okay, got a couple more of these before we dive into some deeper subjects here. You must work out every day.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I do not believe that you should work out every day. At least not intense exercise every day. Your body needs recovery. If we look at, I like to think about exerc exercise as this stimulus, recovery, adaptation, loop, and you need all three of those things. So the stimulus is the workout. And what you do in your workout matters. There is high quality stimulus and low quality stimulus. We can get into all of this. But you need a high quality stimulus. And then you need to give your body time to adapt and repair. And that repair process is the magic. And that's what people want to skip right past and just go right up to the adaptation of the results because they, they're impatient and they just want to see results faster. But your body does not adap when it is overstressed, it adapts. When it gets the appropriate stress, it has time to recover. And then that's when you build muscle, improve endurance, improve whatever you're. You're setting out to do. So recovery is a big piece of that. And so I do believe that taking days off, active recovery days, it's not like you're just sitting on the couch all day long. We still want to be active overall, but taking days off structured exercise is very important.

[Jessie May]

Yeah. Thank you for allowing me to have my two days off that.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

You're welcome. You take two, which is exactly what I would recommend. Take those days you still want to do things but not smashing your body because your body needs time to repair.

[Jessie May]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Otherwise you'll just spin in chronic low grade inflammation. So. Yes, I. That's perfect.

[Jay Shetty]

Okay.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

You're doing just the right thing. Yeah.

[Jessie May]

Okay. A couple more of these women shouldn't lift heavy Weights because it will make them bulky.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

This is not true. If we look at this bulky appearance that typically involves a lot of muscle mass, and muscle mass takes at least three months to build substantial amounts of it. And beyond that, it takes years to develop these physiques that most women would consider bulky. So lifting heavy does not inherently create that bulky appearance. What creates that bulky appearance is usually years of training, usually training at high volumes and potentially also having fat on top of your body so that you just have more mass in general. Um, so yes, that is a myth that lifting heavy weights immediately makes you bulky.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, absolutely. I think that that one's lasted far too long.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Too long.

[Jessie May]

Okay, this one, let's do. Abs are made in the kitchen.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

This is kind of true. Kind of not. So you can build your abdominal muscles through focused abdominal work, but in order to see the muscle underneath, and this goes for any muscle, not just your abdominals, you have to have less body fat on top to see the muscle. And this goes for your shoulder muscles, your leg muscles, all of the muscles. But we think of the abs as different than the rest of our body for some reason. But yes. So in order to see the. The muscle underneath, you have to have a low enough body fat percentage. So diet is important for that. But also you can build your abdominal muscles through exercise. So it's. It's a little bit of both.

[Jessie May]

Okay, brilliant. Great. Great start. This is very useful already to kind of get us out of these kind of limiting beliefs that we have, these structures that have kind of been set up over time. And I feel like so much of working out and so much of getting fit and healthy, if someone listened to all your advice today and they practically applied it, they followed your program, what would change in their life?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

The first thing is just seeing better physical results. I think that that is important for people, not only esthetically, but your health. Having more muscle and having a more fit body is important for our health. But beyond that, smashing your body less and having a better relationship with your body and exercise and not feeling guilty for taking days off, not feeling guilty when you take a week off for vacation, knowing that not everything is going to fall apart if you back off a little bit or if you're sick. So helping people understand the science of how our body adapts and changes really is this holistic approach. You see better results. You have a better mindset around your body and exercise, and your body feels better physically. You don't feel so worn down and depleted and exhausted because you're not smashing yourself every Single day.

[Jessie May]

Yeah. It feels like there's such a mindset piece there as well.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

Because what you're saying is we are trying to accelerate those results. We want to see the asap, and because of that, we'll push ourselves to our limits. Those limits mean we give up sooner, we can't stick to a schedule, and then all of a sudden, in two months, if you're lucky, you're giving up. If not in two weeks because you're just so exhausted and depleted.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes. And I see that cycle over and over and over and over. And it's one of the reasons why people are not seeing results. Because we have the rest of our lives to work out, which means we need to be smart about how we're treating our bodies. We can't put our bodies through the ringer and expect to that to be sustainable. And so the sooner you can learn the stimulus that changes your body. Because I'm not saying that your workout should be easy. I'm not saying that. But I am saying having the correct effort and placing your body under correct load in the right amounts, adding in cardio, having your rest days, having this balanced approach will get you so much further than this kind of start stop, yo yo mentality that so many of us kind of end up doing. And I even have my own experience with this because I've been in the fitness and treat for like 15 years. And so I've taken all of the certifications, done all the things. And five, 10 years ago, I was smashing my body with exercise. I was doing all of the things that women are taught to do to get fit. Light weights, high rep, no recovery days, trying to burn as many calories as possible, trying to get really sweaty. And all this did for my body was leave me with so, so fitness results. Like, it kind of got me a little bit of the way there, but I was like, oh, I'm just not working hard enough. I need to go work harder. And my body had chronic pain all over. So at the age of 24, I felt like I was 90. My body was completely falling apart. My wrists were always hurting. I had chronic back pain, hip pain. But this is what so many of us are taught. And this as a physical therapist, when I was practicing, I saw so many of my patients dealing with the same things. They thought that they weren't seeing results because they just weren't working hard enough. And but their body hurt all over because of their workout. So I do think that when you can shift to what works, because when I shifted, I got in the best shape of my life, I built eight pounds of muscle and lost five pounds of fat over one year. And over that time, I worked out for far less than I ever had. I used to work out for like 60 minutes and then started working out for like 35 minutes. Rarely did I burn very many calories or break a sweat. My body didn't hurt. I had a better mindset around exercise. And, yes, I also saw the best physical results that I had ever seen. So, yeah, it comes from first understanding and learning the science and then applying it over and over and over and giving your body long enough.

[Jessie May]

What's something that science has taught you about our bodies that you think we're unaware of or ignore?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I think one of the biggest mistakes I see, like we talked about, is using exercise as a tool to burn fat or lose fat or using it as your primary tool. But then what people do is they're like, okay, I'm going to use my workouts to build muscle. Great, love that. But they still end up doing the wrong workouts that don't build muscle. And one kind of really helpful reframe that helped me is differentiating between muscle fatigue and muscle failure. So the science shows that to build muscle, you need to train close to failure in every single exercise, every single set. You don't have to train all the way to failure. You can, or you can stop one to three reps shy. So failure means that you are physically unable to do another rep. So let's say you're doing bicep curls. You cannot physically do another rep. Despite your best efforts. You can do anywhere from 4ish reps all the way up to 30 reps or anywhere in between. You can just choose what you prefer, but your last rep needs to be really challenging. But I think often what people do is they confuse fatigue with failure. I used to do this all the time. I would go to a group fitness class and be holding like a lunge position for like three, five minutes straight. And that feels really hard and really fatiguing and lots of burn, lots of shake, but it's not. Fatigue does not reliably build muscle. Failure does. So one really helpful tool that I like to give people that's changed the game for me and for our membership and many people that I talk to is called the rest test. So this will help you differentiate between fatigue and muscle failure.

[Jessie May]

I wanna know this. Yeah.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes. So you'll have to try this too in your next workout. So what you do is do your final rep. And if you think you are at failure or near failure. Set the weight down, break for like five seconds, shake out, take a tiny little break, just a few seconds, pick up the weights and try to do more reps. If you could do three or more reps, you were just fatigued, you were not close to true muscular failure. And so that just means go up and wait next time or do more reps so that you get closer to that true muscular failure point. Because that will be the potent stimulus that changes your body so much more than fatigue will.

[Jessie May]

That's huge. I mean, that's such a big one, I feel like. And, and it's something that my body naturally makes me want to do.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

Like, I noticed that, like If I've done 10 reps of something and we're trying to get to 15 at 10, my body's like, all right, I need to take a little three second break. I need to put the white weights down. Shake it off. Yes, Pick them back up. And then like, oh, I could do another 10 now. And you're saying I have to. That's what you're saying is that I should do another 10 if I can. But rather than just hit the 15.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Well, what I'm saying is when it starts to get hard around that 10 rep range, those are the most stimulating reps. So the reps where you are closest to failure are the most important ones.

[Jessie May]

Right.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

So let's say you're trying to go to 15 and at 10, that's when you're starting to struggle.

[Jessie May]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

That is the time to push through and continue trying to get to 15. Even if you don't get to 15, it's not about the number, it's about proximity to failure. So on that 10th rep, you're really, really struggling. Try to do a couple more reps, try not to break, because that means you're reach a big percentage of the muscle. Overall. You're reaching what's called your type 2 muscle fibers. They're the ones that kick in when you have a powerful stimulus, when there's a lot of mechanical tension. So those last few reps are the most important.

[Jay Shetty]

Got it.

[Jessie May]

So actually I shouldn't pause at 10, shouldn't I should push myself to maybe 12 or whatever's realistic, then shake it off. And then what should I do after that?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Then shake it off. If you find you could pick your weights up and do three or more reps, that means the weight wasn't heavy enough. So that means go heavier and try to get to whatever rep range you can do any. I Like to not count reps. And this is like kind of controversial.

[Jessie May]

Okay, go on.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Because I think when you put 15 in your head, you grab a weight that you feel like you could do for 15, but really you could probably do 20, 30 with that, with that weight. Whereas if you just grab a weight that feels challenging and you're like, I don't know how many reps I could do. Maybe somewhere between like 8 and 15. Anywhere in, in there is great. Cuz all of that will work for muscle growth. And you just do as many as you possibly can. You often surprise yourself at how strong you are and how many reps you can do. And like I said, getting close to that muscular failure point is the most important part. But it's that piece that so many people are missing because they're stopping when they're tired.

[Jessie May]

I fully agree with you. I know for a fact that when I'm telling my brain I've only got to do 10 of these.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

I've just programmed my upper limit and there are times when I'll do 10. And I know I could have done 13.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

But I'm only trying to hit 10 anyway.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

You're like, I did 10. I did, I did what I was supposed to do.

[Jay Shetty]

I did the thing.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah, totally. But you're not, you might, that set might not be very stimulating. If you apply this one tool, it can change your results.

[Jessie May]

I couldn't agree more. I, I feel like I've been, I've been sometimes doing it right, but I can tell I'm doing it wrong too. Like, what's the, what is the cost of stopping at 10 and then just doing another set? Like, what is the cost of not listening to your advice?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Growing muscle. We see that if you want to build muscle, those are the most important reps. This isn't to say that doing 10 reps is. And you could do this 15. That's not to say that those 10 reps are useless. You're still building strength, you're building neuromuscular connection, you are improving your stability. All of those things are important adaptations that come along with strength training. But when it comes to building muscle. Yeah. Those last few reps just can't be cheated.

[Jessie May]

Let, let's stick on this building muscle. Seeing as we're on it already, I assume that that's one of the top three things people come to you with.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes, yes.

[Jessie May]

So, so we're talking about this rep range. We're talking about the ability to push past, know the difference between fatigue and failure. What else Are we getting wrong about building muscle? Because that's something that. I think you've clarified that for me in a way that I haven't heard before. And that's huge for me. And I know I can take that into my next workout, which is tomorrow, thankfully. No way. Tomorrow's Wednesday. Yes, Tomorrow. Yes. Tomorrow's not Thursday, so yes, Tomorrow I can take that into my workout.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Let me know how that goes.

[Jessie May]

I love that because it's. I'm going to be thinking about that the whole time. So when I start a set and my trainer who I have my PT is going to say to me, we're going to do four rounds of this. And we're usually doing four rounds of roughly three activities.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Great. Love it.

[Jessie May]

Right. And then we're doing another four rounds of another three activities.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Great.

[Jessie May]

And then maybe doing another three rounds of another two or three activities in one workout.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I think structure is very important. So which muscle groups you're working on which day?

[Jessie May]

Yes.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

We talked about the importance of recovery. I recommend working each muscle group 2ish times on non consecutive days. In one week, you can split your strength training workouts into 3 to 5 strength training workouts. Taking those two recovery days and making sure that you have about 48 hours of recovery in between your muscle groups. So let's say you work glutes on Monday. You probably don't wanna work your glutes again until Wednesday at the earliest. Your body needs that recovery time. It's so crucial. But I think what a lot of people do is they want change their glutes or change their abs or change their arms and so they'll work that muscle group every single day. But the problem is when you do that, you're not giving your body enough recovery and the recovery is when you repair and adapt. So that's really crucial. So that's one mistake that I think people make. It sounds like you are already doing this in your training routine, which is great.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, so. So that's good. So for muscle building, we've got knowing the difference between failure and fatigue. Yes, it's huge. And then the second one is making sure that the repair time is at least 48 hours before hitting that muscle group again. Y just overworking that muscle isn't going to win. I think I do have that right. I think I did find for a long time that I was underworking a muscle group too. So like you just said, I should try. If I have five workouts and I'm doing say back and buys or chest and tries, I need to get two days of each if you can. Ideally in a week. Yes, because I think for a long time I was doing one of each and I wasn't seeing the benefit either because I was doing the muscle group too little now.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes and and we see there was a recent meta analysis about this that found that twice a week is is the sweet spot for muscle growth and that frequency matters. Hitting that muscle group again. And this is just yet another reason why you can't smash yourself in your workout. Because you know you have to turn around and work that muscle group again in a few days in order to keep compounding those results.

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[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

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[Jessie May]

How sore should you feel if I'm working a muscle group? So like you gave the example, you worked your glutes on a Monday, you're going to work them again on a Wednesday. Like how sore do you want to feel on a Monday and the Tuesday before you get back to on Wednesday?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Such a good question. I think this is something that holds a lot of people back. Light to no muscle soreness is ideal and I think that we over index on soreness because it's proof that we worked that muscle. It feels satisfying, it feels good. Studies consistently show that it's a poor indication of muscle growth. Soreness typically happens when you do a new movement pattern or if you add significant load or challenge to the muscle that you're not used to. And soreness typically happens when there is damage to the muscle or connective tissue like fascia and that causes an inflammation cycle which causes the tissues to be sensitive. So that's what soreness is. But we just consistently see that it's not a very good way to measure if your workout worked. And so again, because we want to hit those muscle groups again in a few days, we want light to no muscle soreness so that you can show up to your next workout and put in a really high quality stimulus for those muscles. And that's what again keeps compounding those results.

[Jessie May]

And are people do you think a big part of that is also bad sleep?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

In terms of the soreness piece, or is it really to do with just pushing yourself so hard?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

That's so interesting. I wonder if there is literature that says you get more sore if you are underslept. I'm not sure, but just based on what I understand about the body, it does make sense.

[Jessie May]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

It means that you are under recovered. So if you are chronically sore, yeah, you're under recovering, which is not beneficial. People think like, oh, I'm so, so sore all the time. That means I'm seeing results. But the results, again are happening when you're. When you are allowing your body time to recover. So, yeah, I think that if you're so sore all the time and you're still applying all these principles that we're talking about, maybe it means that you need to dial back volume or frequency slightly so that you can work within your own recovery capacity. Because it's easy to say, like, sleep. More like, everyone knows sleep is so important. But if you're like me, I have a baby and I'm like, well, that's just. It is what it is. I can't get as much sleep as I would like to. In a perfect world, I would love to get nine hours, but that's just not practical for me right now. So I might kind of dial back my intensity or my volume a little bit so that I'm staying within my own recovery window.

[Jessie May]

And what you're saying is that even in the case that you have two beautiful babies under two.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

That hasn't necessarily negatively affected muscle building for you. If your sleep recovery is not as strong, why have you felt the difference?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

You know, I don't think I have. I think I have continued to see results even with two under two. And I think that I knew the power of all of this, like, before having this. But now I'm in the most chaotic season of my life ever. Like, running a business with two under two is just wild. Um, and yet I'm still getting stronger than I've ever been. And it just goes to show the power of all of this. Like, if you are giving your body the right signals over and over and over and over, you are not going to feel under recovered. You just won't. If we're going to the extremes of this and you're only getting like four hours of sleep and all of those things, like, yes, you do need to back things off from what we're recommending. But for the most part, most average Americans can do exactly what we're saying and see great results and recover from

[Jessie May]

this is such helpful advice. Everything you're saying feels practical and doable. And it's also reassuring to me because I feel that light to moderate soreness. And I've been questioning whether I'm not pushing hard enough because I'm like, oh, maybe I'm not working out hard enough and maybe I need to increase the intensity of my workout. And hearing that from you is so helpful because I actually walk into my morning workout feeling pretty refreshed.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

And really excited to work out because my body feels like it can take on more rather than walking into it going, oh, my gosh, I'm still really sore from yesterday. The only time I ever feel that is after leg day.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

There's something about legs that, like, only feel worse 24 hours and 48 hours in. Is that normal?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, they're just bigger muscle groups. And quads specifically. I don't know if you find quads anecdotally. And again, I've looked this up and I'm not sure what the reason is, but quads and glutes tend to get more sore, and that could be because. And again, this is, like, up for debate, but there's an interesting theory that soreness actually is from more fascia damage, fascial damage, rather than muscle tissue damage. Fascia is richly innervated, which means that it's very sensitive. So when you are working bigger muscles that just have more fascia surrounding the muscles, there's more. There's a higher ceiling for more damage in the fascia. So that's what creates more soreness. So I just like to say, like, just don't worry too much about soreness. If you're constantly sore, it probably means you're doing too much or you could afford to take an extra recovery day or something like that. But I just don't recommend chasing soreness because it's just not a very reliable indicator.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, don't chase soreness. Okay, got it. And in terms of. As we're still focusing on building muscle, the way we're currently talking about is we're splitting up groups.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

So I was saying back and bias triceps. You're talking chest and tries. You're talking. Is that the way you think about. About building muscle, or is there another way to think about it? Am I getting it wrong?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes, absolutely. You. There are so many different ways you could split up your muscle work. I will say exercise selection is very important. So you Want to bias one muscle group at a time? Don't choose an exercise that works your upper body and lower body at the same time, because as we talked about, training to failure is really important. And when you're working upper body and lower body in the same exercise, it's difficult to know are my arms limiting factor, Are my legs a limiting factor, or am I just stopping because I hit 10 reps and that's what the trainer told me to do. So separating. Doing arm workouts separate from your leg workout, core workout separate from your leg workout, and keeping each muscle group separate tends to be more effective and productive. But you can split that work into whatever makes sense for you in your life. I like to do. I do five strength training workouts that are 35 minutes, so they're not very long. It's just the eflow 5 time per week. Track Monday's upper body. So we're working four, three to four muscle groups in the upper body. Tuesday's lower body, and then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday are a mix of full body. So we are making sure to separate each muscle group so that you're not working the same muscle group on consecutive days. But that's not necessarily the only way you can split it up. You can do it as you were talking about. You can do back and by one day or chest and try and then legs or however makes sense for you. There's so many different ways to kind of slice and dice it.

[Jessie May]

Okay, good to know. I'm. I'm. I'm not making sure that my workout makes sense.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I got you.

[Jessie May]

It does.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

It's checking all the boxes.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, I'm checking it out for you. That.

[Jay Shetty]

That makes sense.

[Jessie May]

Sense. Is there something I could be doing to build muscle faster?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes, you can build muscle faster when you increase what's called volume. So sets taken close to failure. So studies show. I'd like to kind of back this up and talk about the minimum effective dose, because I think this is really important for people to understand. What's the minimum that I need to be doing to see results? And then we can play and work. Work on that and build upon that and talk about kind of the maximum as well. Well, so the minimum effective dose for muscle growth is around four sets per muscle group per week. So four sets of glutes, four sets of quads, four sets of chest, four sets of shoulders spread across your week. That's kind of the minimum amount that we see will reliably build muscle. Some studies find even one hard set per muscle group per week. But I Like to recommend four. From there, you can build upon that. So. So we do moderate volume and evlo. Just because it's really easy to recover from, it is effective. And your workouts don't take a long time, so it's really easy to show up for, but it's very effective. So our volume tends to be around six to eight sets per muscle group per week. But you can do more than that and continue to see gains. You're just seeing diminished returns as you add more than like 10 sets per muscle group per week. Um, but yes, you can do higher volume work and see faster muscle growth. Just make sure that you're recovering, because if you're not recovering, then you're not growing.

[Jessie May]

Yeah. Is there anything that I missed about building muscle?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

We didn't talk about protein, did we?

[Jessie May]

No.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes. So protein is. And I am not formally trained in nutrition, so I like to keep this really high level and leave that to the RDs like your wife. But protein is essential, and how you're fueling to rebuild your muscle tissue is essential. So the RDs that we work with typically recommend 0.75 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. Day. Anecdotally, I have found that when I stay on the higher end of that, I do see better results. Yeah. So I used to not track my food, and I didn't. I wasn't building muscle. And when I started tracking, I noticed that I was eating about half the amount that I should to build muscle. And I was like, okay, no wonder I'm not seeing muscle growth. So I upped my protein and that really did help me. So that's, I guess, another way to. To make sure that you're building muscle fat faster.

[Jessie May]

So when I was doing that, what I found is that I was getting bigger overall. So I was building more muscle for sure, but my body was just getting bigger. And so I've literally got like, end of last year. No, it was end of the year before last. Sorry. So it was like two years ago where I really started following that protein goal. Yeah. And if I showed you a picture of me now versus a picture of me then, I couldn't fit into my suits. I couldn't. Like, my pants were all growing in size. Like, and that was me not. It wasn't like, it was protein. It wasn't sugars and fats or, you know, it was.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Right.

[Jessie May]

I was eating higher. I was eating that dose of protein. I didn't like what was happening. And I don't know if it's I wasn't doing enough cardio.

[Jay Shetty]

I never really figured it out.

[Jessie May]

I just realized I didn't like that much bulk. And so I cut down on my protein, but that's also slowed down my muscle build.

[Jay Shetty]

So talk to me about what was

[Jessie May]

happening then two years ago when I was eating the recommended dose of protein, but I just looked, felt and was bigger.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

And like I said, I couldn't fit into my clothes. Everything was tighter. I definitely, you know, I just felt like I was putting on weight more than building muscle.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I'm so glad you're bringing this up because I think this is a very common goal for people. They want what's called body recomposition. So they want more muscle, but they don't want more fat or they want less fat. And this is a process that involves proper nutrition. So like we said, enough protein, but also potentially a slight calorie deficit or even in your eating, in your calorie maintenance and then proper strength training. So. And you do need to do cardio. Cardio is important for keeping your overall energy expenditure high. But you don't need to overdo the cardio or rely on cardio to lose fat because then you're just gonna overdo it. Um, so when you have those principles, you're eating in a slight calorie deficit or at your maintenance. And that might involve tracking. And I know tracking isn't for everyone, but if you do have that goal, it be illuminating to take a week and just kind of track your food and see where you're landing on your overall calories, see where you're landing on your overall protein. Because my guess is maybe you were unintentionally trying to get more protein and eating in a calorie surplus.

[Jessie May]

100%.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I didn't realize that yes, you might have been gaining fat and muscle at the same time. And that's typically going back to that bulky conversation that can happen to women. When they're gaining lean mass, they're gaining muscle mass, but they're also gaining fat mass at the same time. Cause they're unintentionally eating in a calorie surplus. Plus. So the reason I like body recomposition, it's kind of that quote unquote toned look that a lot of people are searching for. But the reason I like body recomposition is because it makes you focus on your muscle mass, which is crucial for women. As we ate all people, we are under muscled as a society and so when we focus on our muscle, everything else kind of falls into place. You can't under fuel or you won't build muscle. You can't over train or you won't build muscle. So applying all of the nutrition and strength training things together will maybe be a slower process, but so much more sustainable and you'll end up being a lot happier with the aesthetic outcome of that.

[Jessie May]

I think you're spot on. I was, I think without knowing I was eating around 3,000 calories a day. And like my, you know, I need to be at 2500 or. And if I'm in a deficit like at a 2000 or 2200or whatever it is.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah.

[Jessie May]

And so for me it was, I was definitely doing that. And not only was I not happy about just like not being able to fit into my normal clothes or whatever it was, it was also not leading to the results that I was looking for.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah.

[Jessie May]

And so what I've had to do, and I wanted to get your sense on this. So now I do about 80 to 100 grams of protein, which is significantly less than what I was doing. So before I was doing like 150 or something like that. Now I'm at like 80 to 100 grams of protein a day. Is that just slowing down how long it takes to build muscle for me even. But that is also more aligned with my goals because I'm able to do that with a calorie deficit. Whereas if I was to 150 grams, I'd probably been a calorie surplus. Obviously I'm plant based, so that applies to it. But also because honestly I was struggling with like my gut was not enjoying eating 150 grams of protein. My gut just couldn't take that. Do you hear that at all from people where they just can't digest that amount of protein?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes. Especially if they're using lots of like powders and stuff. I, I hear that a lot. Training stimulus is the most important for muscle growth. You do need protein and protein. Eating at a higher amount of protein might make your workout more effective. So but it doesn't mean that you won't build muscle at all. The training stimulus is the most important part. So I love what you're saying because I think there is kind of of guardrails around these things. Like these are the recommendations of what you can do. But you can tinker within this and find what works best in your own lifestyle and what you can stay consistent with. Because the truth is you're probably building muscle. It just might be slower than if you were eating 150 grams per day.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, yeah. Got it. Yeah. I need to find a way to. I'm. I'm testing different protein sources as well. Love being plant based. Like, really feeling like the powders and the bars and stuff are just not great. And trying to find them naturally, but without adding the calorie surplus.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

It's so hard.

[Jessie May]

Which is, like, a really interesting dynamic.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes. It's so hard because, like, if you're eating tofu and beans and things, to get that amount of protein without being in overall calorie surplus is difficult. Yeah, it is. It is hard. What does your wife think about all this? That.

[Jay Shetty]

No, she.

[Jessie May]

She agrees. We.

[Jay Shetty]

We're both.

[Jessie May]

We're both tinkering with this stuff all the time.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah.

[Jessie May]

And. And I think the reason why I wanted to have this very open and honest conversation with you here on the show is because I think this is the kind of stuff people are really dealing with and struggling too.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Totally.

[Jessie May]

Where they're just like, well, what about this?

[Jay Shetty]

And what about this?

[Jessie May]

And. And, you know, it's. It's good to hear from you that, hey, you can be personalized about it and it is going to look different for everyone and.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Totally.

[Jessie May]

But being real about what that means and what your results look like and then not having these, you know, crazy expectations.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Totally. And it's just going to take time for you to learn what you can fit into your life. I talk about this all the time with, like, exercise selection. We've been taught that we have to do squats and overhead presses and deadlifts. But what we see from the literature is there is a wide variety of exercises that will be effective to build muscle. So you just choose the ones that feel good in your body that you enjoy, that you can take close to true muscular failure. I think a lot of people can relate to this. Like, let's say you're doing an exercise that you hate. I used to hate Bulgarian split squats.

[Jessie May]

Oh, I still hate Bulgarian split squats.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Something switched to me and now I love them. I don't know what happened, but we

[Jessie May]

can't be friends anymore.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah.

[Jessie May]

Right.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I know. I know. A lot of people hate them. A lot of. And it's understandable. They're very hard. But if you hate Bulgarian split squats, you're more likely to stop that exercise because of overall discomfort or boredom or you're just ready for it to be over.

[Jessie May]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Rather than taking that exercise close to true muscular failure. So instead of doing the Bulgarian split squat, which, you know you don't like, let's choose a different exercise that Targets the same muscle group. Maybe you're targeting glutes, maybe you love hip thrusts and you find I can reliably get close to failure Every single time in hip thrusts, I don't feel distracted. I feel locked in. Like, it feels very satisfying. Just do the hip thrusts and you're more likely to see better results because you're training closer to true muscular failure. You're not stopping because of discomfort or boredom or any of those things.

[Jessie May]

I'm telling my trainer that.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah. Does he make you do the hard things?

[Jay Shetty]

Yeah, of course. Yeah, all the hard things.

[Jessie May]

I'm going to tell him. I'm going to be like, look, like, I heard from Shannon that I don't need to do these Bulgarian split squats anymore.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Well, it's like. And I, I know a lot of people will fight me about that, but it, it's.

[Jay Shetty]

No, I get the point.

[Jessie May]

The point makes sense.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

The point is. And it makes you more consistent because if you know your workout will be filled with exercises that feel really good for your body. And this isn't to say that anything goes. I'm not saying that. I'm also not saying that your workout should be easy, but. But when you choose exercises that really work with your body, because exercise is physics. A lot of the reason why we don't like an exercise could be because of the physical length of our bones. For example, in squats, you might have longer legs, longer femurs, and so you have to bend forward more in a squat just to keep yourself from falling over. So squats might feel really low, backy for you. And therefore you might feel like, I don't feel comfortable in a squat. I feel like it's going to hurt my back. I don't like them. I don't feel like I can push close to failure. So a barbell squat might not be the best exercise for you, but that's your body proportions. There's nothing wrong with you. You can just choose a different exercise and carry on.

[Jessie May]

If you're pushing to failure. Is there a difference between heavy weight low reps or lightweight high reps?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

You can see the same strength and muscle growth whether you are lifting 4 reps, all the way up to 30 reps. As long as your final rep is to failure or near muscular failure, you can use anywhere in between. That might evolve based training status, based on the day, based on the exercise. Some exercises I love to go really heavy and do like four or six reps. And some exercises I prefer to go a little lighter and do like 8 to 12 reps you can do all the way up to 30. 30 is kind of, that's kind of brutal. 30 reps, you can do up to 30 reps. Science shows in one go. In one go. If you train close to failure. The problem with doing that high of rep is people typically stop because of fatigue. Like we talked about earlier, they don't stop because of true muscular failure. But knowing that you have the option of I could do four, I could do 30, I could do anywhere in between, then you can choose a weight that feels comfortable for you. Because I think that's a barrier for a lot of women especially is they're like, I don't wanna lift heavy. Muscle building isn't for me. Cause I don't wanna go lift heavy. Well, you can lift relatively light and go for 20 reps and see the same muscle growth as if you were to lift a heavy barbell for four reps. As long as you're training close to failure.

[Jessie May]

There's such a myth around just wanting to lift heavier and lift more and then feeling the pressure of I can't.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

Or whatever it may be. And. And again, going back to the failure point is far better of a marker than how heavy you're lifting now.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes. Yes.

[Jessie May]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Because some body weight exercises too can get you close to failure.

[Jessie May]

You literally just read my mind. I was about to ask that question next. I was going to ask you if someone goes, I don't have a gym, I don't have a gym membership, can't afford it, don't have access to one. I have very little time to work out right now. Maybe I have 20 minutes. I only have space to do body weight in my, on my bedroom floor or on my living room floor. What is the difference between body weight and then barbell weights or you know, any other type of weight?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

If you're training close to failure, it doesn't matter. You can do. I like to use pushups as an example. A lot of people can't do more than 30 pushups physically. Like they would fail before they got to 30 pushups. And so that is a, an effective stimulus for building muscle. If you could do more than 30 push ups, then your body weight is not challenging enough. Pull up. Same thing, you could do maybe just a few pull ups before getting close to failure. And that's a body weight exercise. However, there are some body weight exercises that are just difficult to load up enough. So like a lunge, for example, you might feel like you could do a hundred lunges or more just because they're stronger muscles. They do require external load in the form of a machine, a cable, a barbell, a kettlebell have. But this is why I say yes, some body weight exercises can absolutely be effective. But just go back to can I do more than 30 reps? And if I can, it's not heavy enough. And maybe it means involving or investing in a set of dumbbells or a kettlebell or two, or whatever you need to add that external load.

[Jay Shetty]

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[Jessie May]

If someone wanted to just get started tomorrow and they've almost not thought about their physical health for a long time, where should they start?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

What's really cool about beginners is that they will see results with far less stimulus than those that are trained. So if you have already been working out, the bar is higher. You do need to apply some of these things that we're talking about if you already have a consistent workout routine. If you don't, you can do far less than that and see results pretty quickly is what's called like newbie gains. So this is really exciting for someone that's new. It's really motivating to keep going because you're like, oh, I don't. I don't have to smash my body.

[Jessie May]

How many squats should the average person be able to do?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I don't think that there's a number that matters. I think what matters is overall muscle growth and strength. And there are a variety of exercises you can do to build muscle growth and strength. I will say I have not. Again, this is contentious, but I have not not done squats in like over five years. I just don't do that. Squats have never felt good on my back. I'm one of those people that has to lean far forward and I don't enjoy them and so I don't do them. And I think giving myself that freedom to not do exercises that I just hated was so freeing for me and allowed me to stay so much more consistent and my body didn't hurt. Like, I just really struggled with so much chronic pain. And that's because I was forcing myself to do exercises that. That we're making it worse.

[Jessie May]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Not to say that squats are automatically going to give you back pain. I'm not saying that.

[Jessie May]

You're just saying for you.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

For me. And I think that everyone can kind of find those things for themselves. Some people hate push ups. You don't have to do push ups. You can do chest presses. Works the exact same muscle group. What I will say is you don't want to ignore any muscle group, so work all of the muscle groups in your body. But just there's so many different exercises. We have so many different options. So you can choose what. What you like and what feels good.

[Jessie May]

You can work that muscle group in another way.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

So many different ways.

[Jessie May]

There's not just one way. And yeah, mine are RDls. I just, like, there's. It's the worst thing. Like, I'll be in pain.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jay Shetty]

The next few days. And.

[Jessie May]

And like, it's.

[Jay Shetty]

It's like I never get lower back

[Jessie May]

pain, but if I do rdls with a heavy enough weight, it's like, that's what I'm gonna have.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah.

[Jessie May]

And then it ruins my workout for the next three days. And there's plenty of other ways to work that muscle group.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

And ultimately the goal is to build strength and muscle in the hamstrings. And so maybe you can do hamstring curls instead, and that achieves the same goal. Unless I. I will say, say, like, maybe you want to compete in, like, high rocks or a CrossFit competition. You need to be doing those exercises in order to train your body to be good when you perform those exercises in that competition. But if you're just trying to get fit, trying to be strong, maybe you're trying to look more muscular, more defined, or quote, unquote, toned, whatever the word is. There's no one exercise that's required.

[Jessie May]

I wanted to shift over to losing weight.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

Because I'm assuming that's another top goal that everyone comes to you with. She's like, I want to build muscle. I want to lose weight. Weight, yes. What's the biggest thing we're getting wrong about losing weight right now?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

We are over glorifying exercise as a fat loss tool. It just doesn't move the needle as much as we Think when you do that, when you're focusing on cardio to lose fat, not only do we see from many studies that it produces underwhelming fat loss, but there's an opportunity cost. Maybe you're doing cardio or kind of going to these really hard workout classes or whatever it may be to lose fat, but you're not intentionally strengthening training. And the opportunity cost is that when you lose weight overall, let's say you're in a calorie deficit and you're losing weight, that weight can come from both fat and muscle unless you are intentionally strength training. So we see that 25% of weight loss can come from muscle if you're not properly strength training. So there's an opportunity cost. So I think that's the biggest thing that people do wrong is they over prioritize cardio and make strength training kind of the cornerstone of your routine. And, and that way any weight loss is coming from fat, not muscle.

[Jessie May]

So that's, that's a shift we can make.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I think so.

[Jessie May]

Yeah. I think that was a big one for me too. I think I was like playing so much sport.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

And I was just not losing the fat that I had left to lose. Like, it just, I was just. I wasn't. And because you're not building any muscle.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Totally, totally.

[Jessie May]

It was, it was. Yeah. It didn't make any difference, really.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

And you're very active, which is great.

[Jessie May]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

There was actually a recent paper that came out that I thought was really illuminating. They studied over 5,000 women aged, I think it was over 60, like 60 to 99 or something. And they followed them for eight years. And they found that the people that lived the longest were the strongest. And this was even up against other women that were very active. So being active is not enough. Having more muscle and strength gives you that extra layer of protection. And I know that people think about, like, oh, I'll worry about that when I'm older. It's like, no, what you're doing now is so important because this is all compounding on itself. You can't wait until you're older to build muscle because it does take years. And like, like you and I are even talking about, like, even if you're doing all the right things, you still have to tinker. You still have to figure out, like, how can this work within my lifestyle, within my goals, within how I want to eat with, what activities I want to do as my cardio? So there is a learning period. It's a skill that you have to develop. So I Don't think we should wait until we get to that age to develop our muscle and strength.

[Jessie May]

What's the cutoff point from which you can't build muscle as much as fast anymore?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

There is no cutoff point. You can build muscle at any age. I will say as you get older, and I don't know the cutoff age of like, when it gets harder, but as you get older, recovery demand gets higher, so you just typically don't recover as well when you're older. And so it does get harder to add a lot of volume of exercise because you're just not recovering from that. So using your 20s and your 30s to build a bank of muscle. Muscle, you will be so happy with yourself that you did that when you get into your 40s, 50s, beyond. But if you're listening and you're in your 40s, 50s beyond, it's never too late.

[Jessie May]

What should we be doing for weight loss that we're not doing right now?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

So I will say again, I'm not formally trained in nutrition, but nutrition is really the primary piece for, for weight loss and fat loss. What I do, and I have body recompositioned three times now. So I did it once before my first baby and then I did it in between my pregnanc and then I'm doing it for the third time now after my second.

[Jessie May]

Explain to me how you define body recomposition.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Body recomposition is losing fat while building muscle. And those two processes I like to think of as individual processes, but they can happen at the same time. They can happen whether you are new to training or whether you're trained. Like someone like me can still body recomposition. Someone like you that's already trained, you can still body recomposition with the right ingredients. But I like to think about nutrition as your primary tool for fat loss. And, and what I have found the most success in is being in a very slight calorie deficit, not in a huge calorie deficit because that's really hard to sustain. And you kind of end up yo yoing. So a very slight. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, same. I used to like, eat nothing during the week and then I would just binge on the weekends. And it's just, it's like, that is

[Jessie May]

one thing right now I'm just making up for all. Like the binge is ruining the deficit of the entire five, six days.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes. I, I heard a metabolic scientist say hunger alone always wins. Like it's always going to win. So you have to work with your physiology. Our body does not like aggressive energy deficits because our body's always trying to keep us safe. And if it senses an energy deficit, hunger increases, cravings increase, and so it's our body kind of working against itself. But if the calorie is deficit is slight enough that your body doesn't feel like it's in an energy scarcity, you can sustain that and see better results. But it's not going to be an overnight thing. But, but it, it is something that you can sustain and again, compounds.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's helpful to hear because I find that I can do that sometimes where I can pretty much fast the whole day. And then at night you're just like totally just going crazy and then you're like, wait a minute, what was the point of that? Because sure, I made it till 6pm and you know, had done a extreme fast and now I'm just, you know, going crazy.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Right.

[Jessie May]

Or once a week. If someone is going to have a cheat meal, how does it have to work? Talk to me about, is that even worth it? Should it be or should it be a general balance throughout the week, week? What do you recommend when it comes to that?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

That's interesting. I've never really seen meals as like cheat meals or cheat days or anything like that. I just typically like to apply what we call gentle consistency into my nutrition. So for the most part, 80% of what I eat is highly nutritious within my calorie plan for. Based on my goals, within my protein goals. But 20% of the time I'm going out to eat with my husband and we always get dessert. I typically have a cocktail or two and I plan that in for my week and I do that, you know, a couple, couple times every week. But I don't necessarily see it. I think it's a mindset shift. Like I don't see it as the cheat meal. I just see it as like part of my lifestyle.

[Jessie May]

Yeah.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

And I think that that's what's so hard for so many of us. We're so black and white when it comes to nutrition. And I think I know it. Why is it so hard? It, it really is. And I think it just does take. This is also why tracking your food is. Takes a lot of time. It's annoying. Maybe there's an AI tool now that like makes it easier, I don't know. But it can be so helpful so that you can kind of understand like, oh, I can have my favorite food and it not derail me but. Or like I am like, I'M really under eating here, and no wonder I'm so starving and binging all the time. So getting some clarity around where you're sitting on your. On your calories can be really, really helpful.

[Jessie May]

I had a really good system where I'm pretty much eating really extremely healthy, probably like six and a half days a week. Yeah. And then I'm allowing one meal for me, myself to eat something that, like. I'm talking about like burger fries or something like that, right?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

But I'm. I'm not sure if some of that burger, fries, dessert that I'm having is so extreme from a calorie point of view and from a nutrition point of view that it's actually setting me back and I need to kind of make a shift there.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Probably not. I would. I would say probably my head. Yeah.

[Jessie May]

It's all in my head. Yeah.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah. I just had a burger and fries last night. Like, I. I truly think. I mean, I love a burger and fries. That is the best. Again, I would track it and see, like, you might find, like, oh, this isn't really setting me back as. As much as I think it is. But this is another reason, too, why. I think one of the reasons why I've found so much more balance with it over time is because, A, I've, like, tinkered with it for a long time. I think there is a learning phase. But B, I have more muscle mass. And when you have more muscle mass, your glucose metabolism improves. Muscle increases the storage sites for the sugars that we eat to be stored. And so when you have more muscle mass, you store more sugar in muscle rather than being stored as fat. And it can help you balance your cravings because insulin sensitivity also improves. So having more muscle can kind of act as that buffer.

[Jessie May]

I think that's what I'm feeling as well. That as I build more and as I get more consistent with that, I think that's gonna offset this.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

It does. I think you're in this critical, like, learning phase, and this is where a lot of people give up, like it's not working and keep going. Because as soon as you get to the other side of that, like, I've experienced this. As soon as you get to the other side of that, then it's a lifestyle and you crave your workouts. And I never thought I would say that. Even though I've been in the ministry,

[Jessie May]

I've got, yes, I've got to go with my workouts.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

I'm trying to figure out the rest of it.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

The food is Hard. And food is hard because. And this is why I always say I defer to the experts, because, man, there is so much with food because it's not just. Just like calories and it's also so mental. We have so much emotion, emotion and tradition and celebration wrapped up in food. So it's really, really difficult. There's. It's such an intertwined part of our life. So it's hard. It just is.

[Jessie May]

Or just being a recovering sugar addict like me.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Oh, my God, yes.

[Jessie May]

So I have the biggest sweet tooth in the world, so I could actually avoid everything else, but if it comes to like a good chocolate fudge cake with like, ice cream or that kind of thing.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Oh, same.

[Jessie May]

I'm like, forget it.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah, I get dessert every single time I go out to eat. And I'm just. That's just never going to change. I just love it.

[Jay Shetty]

But.

[Jessie May]

But I guess, yeah, you've become so confident and that's what it is. It's a, it's a, it's a confidence in your workout and having been there before and recognizing it where you don't over index or over amplify these things mentally and get caught up in your head about, oh, God, I did that. I shouldn't have been that. And that kind of guilt.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah.

[Jessie May]

That comes with, how long did it take you to kind of get rid of some of those emotional things, at least in your personal experience. I know it was. You're not a nutrition or a dietitian. We're not talking about that. But even for you personally, personally, was there ever a period where you went through where it was like, I still feel guilty or I shame myself because

[Jay Shetty]

I know that's what I hear from

[Jessie May]

our audience and community too, where it's like, you're doing well and then you have one bad day and then you guilt and shame yourself and now it's ruined your week. And now for the rest of the month, you don't work out or you've been good for 30 days and you had an off week and now you went on vacation. Now you're mad at yourself. Like, talk to me a bit about that.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Oh, yeah. I've been through all of the different chapters of my relationship with my food. And it started, started with kind of under eating during the week, eating as little as possible, and then binging on the weekends. And then once I shifted to more of like a balanced nutrition. So, like eating enough protein, fueling enough. That helped a little bit. And this was only, you know, several years ago, but I still kind of felt. You do feel that guilt. Like, that doesn't always go away where you're like, I shouldn't have this cocktail, or, I shouldn't have this dessert, or, I shouldn't have this pizza. Pizza. And that food noise, I just don't know that it ever fully goes away. It's gotten so much better. I will say, like, again, last night, I had a burger and fries at my hotel, and I was like, it's so weird. I was just reflecting. I was like, I don't feel guilty about this at all. Like, I'm enjoying this because I know that 80% of the time, like, I eat really well to fuel my body. And I have seen time after time that having some meals that I really enjoy sprinkled into my. My life just does not derail my progress. Now, if you're trying to, like, prepare for a bikini competition, like, all those things do matter, but most of us aren't trying to do that. We just want to feel confident in our bodies and feel like we have less noise around that food.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Wanted to hand you our little friend here.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Oh, my gosh. You had this hiding back there. I didn't even notice. Oh, that's so good.

[Jessie May]

And I wanted to ask you because

[Jay Shetty]

I think one of the things.

[Jessie May]

Things you speak. You're, like, such a proponent of this, and I've heard it today, which is like this. You don't have to crush yourself. You don't have to just think that you have to sweat. What parts of our body on a daily basis are we putting stress on that we don't even realize?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Feet first. I like to think people neglect feet. We shove our feet in socks and shoes that are too tight. Hi, I'm wearing pointy shoes right now.

[Jessie May]

They're wonderful, by the way.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Thank you. But, you know, it's not good for our feet. Feet and this compounds over decades to the point where we lose neuromuscular connection to our feet. And you should be able to articulate each of your toes. The listeners can try this right now. Can you leave all four toes down and just lift up your big toe?

[Jessie May]

Yes.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Okay. And then do the opposite. Big toe down, all four little toes lift up.

[Jessie May]

Yes.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Okay, great. You're already, like, 90% better than most people. Can you bring your big toe towards midline, so towards the inside of your shoe like this with your big toe?

[Jessie May]

Yes. If your shoe's big enough, you are.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah. If your shoe is big enough. Like, I'm not. I can't do any of that. Right now with these pointy shoes. But most people cannot do that, even though we have those muscles there to be able to do that. But we've lost the wiring, we've lost the connection because we've stuffed our feet in socks and shoes that are too tight. And so this is why I'm a proponent of working out barefoot or in socks. So that you can feel that the floor you can connect to your feet. If you're doing cardio or high intensity stuff where you're jumping, you might want a shoe on to help you absorb some of that force. But lifting weights, I like to lift weights barefoot. I think it is one way for us to improve the neuromuscular connection to our feet. We're also in eva, we're always doing mobility warmups. So we're always doing foot and ankle mobility warmups to rewire that connection from our brain to our feet. Because everything from the feet up your. Your foot is your platform. It will dictate the forces that go through your knee, the forces that go through your hip, the forces that go through your spine, all the way up the chain. So if this is rigid and isn't working how it should be, everything else up the chain isn't going to work properly.

[Jessie May]

Wow. Anyhow, that was great. I never thought of.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah, you didn't think I was gonna give you that, did you?

[Jessie May]

Yeah.

[Jay Shetty]

You don't even think about your feet like that. That's why I love that answer.

[Jessie May]

Is because your feet are. You just said your feet are your platform.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

And the feet are how we feel. Everything else.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Else.

[Jessie May]

Yes, but we just don't think about them. We just kind of take them for granted and just go, yeah, like, thanks for being there.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

100.

[Jessie May]

And if. Yeah. We didn't want to take our socks off and see if we could do the foot thing.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Exactly.

[Jessie May]

No one wants to see our feet. But I hope everyone's doing that back at home and trying it out. I think that's such a great little test.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

It is.

[Jessie May]

How can people reconnect with that if they weren't able to do the three things you mentioned?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah.

[Jessie May]

What do we do about that? Practice it is that just so.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I used to give this to my patients all the time as physical therapists because a lot of things do come from the feet. Like, a lot of joint dysfunction can originate at the feet. So I would give them these exercises and they would start by being like, I can't even do one single rep. Like, I can't coordinate it. And then it's funny. Because they get it competitive with themselves and they try to do it like all day long. And they'll find they'll come back to me in like a few days and be like, I can do it now. And it's again, because the muscles are there. You just have to rewire that connection from your brain to your muscles. So just practice those even three exercises. You'll find that if you do it enough, like, you will be able to do them after maybe a of weeks, couple weeks. And also just warming up your feet before you exercise. Ankle circles, foot circles, spreading out your toes, feeling the floor underneath you. That will lead to such a more productive workout. Your body will get that cue of safety and stability from the ground up. Um, so, yeah, feet. Feet are so important. I don't get to talk about this that much, so I'm so glad you're asking. I love to, like, nerd out about this topic.

[Jessie May]

Is there any other area of the

[Jay Shetty]

body that you want to pick on for.

[Jessie May]

For the stress that we don't think about?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes. I'm going to give you maybe another unexpected one. The eyes.

[Jessie May]

Interesting.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

So eyes are very important, obviously for so many different reasons. Our five senses give us information about what's going on in the environment around us and tell our nervous system if there is a threat or if we're safe. And that can dictate muscle tone. So you're more relaxed if you don't feel like there's a threat. If your nervous system senses there's something around me that might not be safe, your muscles tense up. That can lead to joint dysfunction over time. It can lead to neck issues, headaches. But the eyes taken, I think it's about 10 billion bits per second of information, a ton of information at one given time. And so if you're giving your eyes good information, the rest of your body can follow suit. But a lot of times what we're doing is we're staring at screens that are this far away from us. We're not ever looking out into the distance. We put on glasses and we just get stronger and stronger and stronger prescriptions. But when you start to train your eyes, eyes, you might feel like your body moves better because you have better information. Your nervous system has better information. Headaches can go away. Neck pain can go away. So eye drills were something that I gave my patients a lot to when they would come to me with neck and shoulder stuff.

[Jessie May]

Well, which you don't even think about again.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

You don't think about it.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, yeah. Just kind of like looking around, not even thinking about your eye muscles.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Totally. You're not thinking about it at all. And it it can make us it can help with posture as well. Because if you're trying to look at something and you're cranking your head forward all day long, but if you have better, cleaner information through your eyes, it helps with posture as.

[Jay Shetty]

Life doesn't always go the way we plan. And for parents, some days can feel like a constant whirlwind deadlines, homework, errands and everything in between. That's why having a little relief in the chaos makes all the difference. Real life needs real relief. That's why doordash is there for whatever you need what whenever you need it. There are moments when everything hits at once and the pressure can feel heavy. But being able to hand off even one task, whether it's dinner, supplies or something small, that lifts the day, gives you back time, space and energy to focus on what truly matters. Being present and connected with your family. Because life is unpredictable and you don't have to carry it all yourself, sometimes letting a little help in is exactly what allows to you you to be fully present. Parents know all too well how crazy life can get. Doordash just helps bring a little order to it. It's time to take care of you. Who better to help you do that than the top voices in well being? On Audible, you can level up your parenting, career, finances, sleep, relationships or mindset. The Audible well Being collection has everything to inspect, inspire and support you every

[Jessie May]

step of the way.

[Jay Shetty]

Hear the latest from best selling authors Brene Brown, Master Nutrition with Chef Jamie Oliver, hear nature sleep sounds from the sleeping world or get on top of your finances with Rachel Rogers. Plus, you'll find all the best parenting guides like Raising Good Humans and you can also listen to my books. With this at your fingertips, you can imagine more for yourself and your family. Family membership is only $14.95 a month after 30 days and you can cancel anytime. Listening to the top voices in well being sounds like self care to us. Kickstart your well being journey with your first audiobook. Free. When you sign up for a free 30 day [e-mail] purpose audible there's more to imagine when you listen. One thing I've been reflecting on lately is how even the smallest choices can create a big impact over time. Whether it's choosing to spend a quiet night in to recharge or making a decision that brings you closer to a long term goal, those moments of intention really matter. And when it comes to the choices we make with our money. That same mindset applies. I've learned that saving for the things that truly matter, like your first home or a reliable, viable car, starts with small, thoughtful decisions. That's why I appreciate what State Farm is doing with their personal price plan. It gives you the power to personalize your plan and create an affordable price that works for your life. You can bundle your home and auto insurance in a way that supports your journey and your goals. Talk to Estate Farm Agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

[Jessie May]

You brought a Posture what can we do for better posture? Like I said, I believe the more I've been working out and building muscle, my posture has improved drastically.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

And I can't believe before when I used to pretend to have to stand like this.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

And now you're like, oh, your body's actually doing that for you naturally. Talk to me about the connection between posture, muscle and just what we can do to get better posture.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Posture. I would say posture is a function of your environment. So how you are posturing all day long will influence how your body holds holds itself. But strength training is one of the best things you can do for your posture and getting strong all over. It's not just your back muscles. All of your muscles need to be strong in order for your skeleton to be held in a good posture. Um, so strength training is the number one thing. But I always say posture is complicated, so if you are having issues, go see a provider. And I know that's not a very. Like, nobody wants to hear that. But, but it's so complex. Like we just talked about, it could be originating at your feet, it could be because of originating at your eyes, could be originating in a place that you don't even realize you're doing. And so just giving you shoulder blade squeezes and telling you that's going to improve your posture, I just don't think that that's very effective because it's so complex.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's been a game changer for me because I felt like we're all on our phones. So my posture was getting weaker just by the fact that I'm constantly holding my phone and looking down and start to feel neck pain and upper shoulder pain. And then working out has definitely just made it easier to have better posture. And at the same Time. Notice how easy it is to kind of to and fro.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

Between having good posture and not.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

Because of our phones and our devices. And even for everyone who's just sedentary all day.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

Like sitting, even like this. Even when we're doing the podcast, I'm always in my head thinking, gosh, that was sitting for so long. Yeah, totally. And it's great to have the comment and I love it. But at the time, same, the same time, I'm like, gosh, we need to move so much more throughout the day.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

We need to move, we need to like. And that's why I say, like, if you're sitting all day long, get up and try to move at least once an hour. Because that will be far more beneficial than taking 20 minutes a day to, like, squeeze your shoulder blades together. What you're doing throughout your day is so much more important. Yeah. Getting up, moving around, circling your hips, moving your feet, moving your ankles, maybe doing some eye drills, looking out into the distance. All of those things can make huge impact on your posture.

[Jessie May]

I was going to ask that, let's form it, formulate that for people. What's a great three minute workout you could do every hour or movement you could do every hour that people could do at work, at their desk, at home, wherever they are that would help them stay active the whole day?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Some jumping jacks. Simple. Gets your body moving, gets your eyes up, makes your arms move out to the side, your legs move out to the side. We're so forward and backwards. So doing some jumping jacks would be great. Circling your feet, circling your hips, circling your buckling your shoulders. Maybe you do that for about a minute. So a minute of jumping jacks, a minute of just like overall mobility around your whole body, starting with the feet moving all the way up and then maybe a minute of breath work. I think that a minute of breath work might be the most impactful thing that you could do for your whole day. So what I recommend for breathwork is hugging your rib cage so that you can feel your ribs move. Because we want our rib cage to inflate so the diaphragm moves nice downwards. And that allows the kind of canister of our abdominals to work properly and our breath mechanics to work properly, properly. And lungs expand. So breathe in through your nose and feel your ribs move out into your hands up towards your shoulders. And then just breathe out and don't contract anything. Just let it all go. And feel how it just passively recoils back to midline and your shoulders Relax and your jaw relaxes. And then maybe just take five deep breaths like that. Breathe in. Feel the rib cage expand. Not just side to side, but forward, backwards, and at the angles. And then. Then breathe out. And just doing that can immediately reset your nervous system. We include that in the beginning and end of every single one of our classes. And it immediately centers you. Like, even just doing that, I just felt like just this sense of calm.

[Jessie May]

It's like giving yourself a hug, too.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah, it is. I know.

[Jessie May]

It's nice. Oh, that's great. I'm going to use that. I've never heard that before.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Good. What's that technique called diaphragmatic breathing?

[Jessie May]

Oh, it's. Oh, that is just diaphragmatic breathing. You're just holding yourself, but the cue

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

of your hands helps. You know what should be moving so the rib cage moving and inflating. And because a lot of people breathe either with their shoulders or with their belly, we've been taught to breathe with our belly. It's actually the rib cage that should be expanding as you inhale.

[Jessie May]

Oh, got it. That's neat. Yeah, I like that. Practice. Yeah. Because I've held my palm on my stomach before.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yeah.

[Jessie May]

But. But really, when you do my diaphragm, you're saying you're going to feel that more through the rib cage.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes. And you will find that one side might not move the same way as the other side. And so, really trying to breathe into all sides, like, I can't. I struggle with the left side. So I really try to breathe into my left side. And I find when I focus on that, like, my nervous system completely calms. It is very, very powerful.

[Jessie May]

Wow. Gonna try that out. Love it.

[Jay Shetty]

What's the.

[Jessie May]

Is there a different recommendation that you have for people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s in terms of what their workouts should look like?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

No, I really don't. And I think that the fitness industry loves to overcomplicate this. And I think, specifically the group of people that are being told that they need to do something different. Different is people in Perry and postmenopause. And we just see that these women can train similarly. Again, you're training close to failure anywhere from four reps, all the way up to 30 reps. You are targeting muscles one to two times per week. 2ish times if you can. You're giving your body enough recovery. We see that even in Perry and postmenopausal women. That works so well. You can do that whether you are 20, 30, 40, and beyond. And it will Continue to be effective. Which is just so empowering because I just, I think when we overcomplicate things, we just don't say consistent.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, yeah. And, and everything else that you've said as well, which is like leaning into activities that you enjoy doing that work for you.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

Finding a schedule that works for you. I know you've answered this in different ways. I wanted to kind of find one place to have the answer. If you could help design someone's ideal workout schedule week, what would it look like?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

If you've followed these four things, I can pretty much guarantee you will see muscle growth. So reps, R, E, P, S. Each letter stands for a different principle of building muscle. You can forget everything else you know about fitness and just focus on these four things. The R stands for repetitions, like we said, training to failure, or one to three reps shy of failure in every set of every exercise. Rep ranges can be anywhere from 4 reps all the way up to 30 reps or anywhere in between. You can change it up based on your preference, based on the exercise, based on the day. Exercise selection is number two. That's the E. Two important things with exercise selection. I think about choosing one muscle group to work at a time, not trying to combine upper and lower body like we talked about. Number two, choosing exercises that feel good in your body and that you enjoy so that you can reliably take that muscle group close to failure. There's no one required exercise that everyone has to do. P is protein eating, 0.75 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, and S is structure. So working each muscle group 2ish times per week on non consecutive days, splitting those workouts into three to five workouts per week. So if you follow those things, you can kind of play within those guidelines to find what allows you to stay the most consistent. But you can pretty reliably, I can pretty reliably tell you that you will see results. I will say it takes time. People think that if they've been working out for a month, they should miraculously see their body change. Muscle growth takes about 8 to 12 weeks. So make sure that you're not giving up before you're seeing the results. So make sure that you're consistent for at least 12 weeks before you. You change things up.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, I think that patience part is so important and the clarity of just knowing. Because I think you watch everyone on social media and it was like, this is what I did in 30 days. And you're like, wait, why can't I do that in 30 days.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I know. And it's.

[Jay Shetty]

It.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

It's a shame because, yes, you can lose fat in a short amount of time, but, like, are you going to be able to sustain that? So many people do these fitness challenges and then they just, they burn out and then they end back up at square one. And they maybe even lost some muscle while they did it if they were in an aggressive calorie deficit or doing a lot of cardio. And not only are they back at squ, but they're worse than when they started. So, yeah, be in it for the long haul. We've got the rest of our lives to work out.

[Jessie May]

What's the biggest workout myth you've seen on social media?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

You would think that this would die because we have so much information that it's not true, but spot treating fat. So trying to do crunches or doing a workout with the intention that it will make you toned up or quote, unquote, snatched. That's the term the Internet loves right now in a certain area. So, like, for your bat wings, this exercise will help get rid of your bat wings. This exercise will help flatten your lower belly. Pooch. Those are all things that I see. And we just find that exercise cannot spot treat fat. You can't preferentially choose where you lose fat. Fat loss happens systemically across your whole body, and your body chooses where it mobilizes fat first. You can't really control that, unfortunately. So I think that this causes people to overwork certain muscle groups in their body and be frustrated when they're not seeing the results that they were promised.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, that's. That's good to know. I. I think that's the. Everyone knows that, but you're hoping someone's gonna. Totally.

[Jay Shetty]

You know, it's like.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Totally.

[Jay Shetty]

Yeah.

[Jessie May]

It's like a painful truth.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

I love it. Shannon, is there anything that I haven't asked you today that you wish I did ask you?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I don't think so. I. My hope is that I don't want anyone to listen to this and feel like they're doing it wrong or defensive. I just hope that people listen to this episode and take away that there's a way to get strong, get fit. Yes. See the aesthetic goals that you're after, but also be nicer to yourself along the way. I've been there. I know what it feels like to smash your body. And my hope is that this just gives people the empowerment and the education to do that. So I hope it helps people.

[Jessie May]

What was the hardest point in your personal health journey that you've experienced?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I think my chronic pain from overuse, thinking that it was my body that was the problem, when really it was my workout that was the problem. It was that I was doing at least an hour of exercise every day, hard exercise, not taking recovery days, feeling guilty for taking recovery days like my Saturday and Sunday. If I didn't work out, I'd be like, ah, I should have done that. I feel so bad being glued to my fitness watch. I remember if I didn't burn enough calories in my workout, I would literally do jumping jacks in my apartment at the end of the day to try to hit that calorie goal. And now I don't even track any of that and I see so much better results. And I just want to scream this from the rooftops because it truly is such a mental and physical transformation. But you just have to give it enough time and give your body the right stimulus.

[Jessie May]

And tell me about the platform EVLO that you've built because people can find these programs and plans on there, right?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes, yes. So EVLO is my fitness company platform it every class, all follow along classes. So if you like to follow a class, this is great because we are training with you, we are doing the workout with you. We're showing you what it looks like and feels like to get close to failure. We are giving you all the options you have for certain exercise. If you don't like an exercise, you can see all the options right there. We structure the week for you so you know you're getting enough volume and frequency. The workouts are only 35 minutes and each class is taught by a doctor of physical therapy. So we're really helping you understand your body cuz we believe education is, is so important so you can work out with us three, four or five times per week depending on your schedule. It's all effective, all works great. EFL fitness.com yeah, that's awesome.

[Jessie May]

It's great that there's a destination for people to actually find all of this. I think you've given so much insight today and so much education and busted so many myths for us. But I'm glad that people can actually go to the platform to find a plan and commit to a plan. And I'd love to see so many people, people who've been listening and watching today go and build a new 30 day habit and lock in and find a consistent schedule that they love there as well.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

So I hope so too. And could I give a code to your listeners? Okay. They can use on purpose for six weeks free.

[Jessie May]

I love that.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

So they can really, really get it. And then if you do those six weeks, you're halfway there to seeing visible muscle growth.

[Jessie May]

So, okay, use the code on purpose.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

On purpose for six weeks free@evol fitness.com six weeks free.

[Jessie May]

That's, that's awesome. Okay, thank you so much. That's so kind. That's, that's, that's incredible. Yeah, I hope everyone goes and use that. You got six weeks of free workouts.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

That's unbelievable. That's so much help and support. Thank you so much.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Of course, of course.

[Jessie May]

That's huge. Shannon. We end every episode of On Purpose with a final five. These questions have to be answered in one sentence maximum.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Oh, gosh, I'm going to struggle with that. I'll do my best.

[Jessie May]

I often break the rules because I'm so intrigued, but yeah, yeah, I'll do my best. So, Dr. Shannon Richie, these are your final five. The first question is what is the the best advice you've ever heard or received?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Take personal responsibility for any change that you want to see in your life.

[Jessie May]

That's a great answer. We haven't heard that before. I love it. Oh, good. Great answer. I couldn't agree with you more. I think personal accountability agency.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes.

[Jessie May]

It builds confidence, builds self esteem, like all of the self love, self belief stuff we talk about. It only comes when you take accountability. Change you want to see in your

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

life, it's up to you. Nobody else is going to come save you. It's up to you. It's so empowering.

[Jessie May]

Great answer. Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

No pain, no gain. Yeah, yeah. I think it comes back to fitness. I mean that just. Yeah, no pain, no gain was really so not effective for me in so many ways.

[Jessie May]

Question number three. What's a fitness habit or workout that you wish you started earlier?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I wish I would have built muscle at the age of 19, 19 or

[Jessie May]

20 because it would have been easier to hold on to. Is that how it works?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Yes. It compounds it. Yeah. Gets easier the more you do it. And the beauty about muscle is that if you were to ever lose it, it comes back quicker the second time you build it. So investing in it that first time is the hardest, but it will pay you back over and over and over.

[Jessie May]

Wow. Incredible. Question number four. Something that you used to value that you don't value anymore when it to comes it comes to your health.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

My fitness watch. I used to obsess about burning calories and I just don't do that anymore because I just know it's not very effective and reliable. And so I don't use that as a way to measure my workouts anymore.

[Jessie May]

Do you think it's important for a certain period of time? Is it valuable for people to do that or. And how should they use it if they are using data, what should we count? Actually, it's probably a broader question you can answer in more detail than one sentence, like, what should people count? What should people measure? When it comes to weight loss, fat loss, muscle gain, what should we be tracking?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I think food and strength training are obviously the number one things. We also want to stay overall active. We see from data that around 7,500 steps per day is associated with positive health outcomes. So I do have an aura ring and I, I will say sometimes I just like to track like different seasons of my life. I've had it for like three years. And I just like to look back and see like, oh, when I was in this super stressful time in my life, I wasn't very active. How can I maybe change something about my day to day to stay more active? Or what lifestyle habits can I adjust during a stressful period of my, of my life? So I like to use trackers to just kind of give you an overall activity, activity, a picture of your activity, rather than obsessing about hitting a certain number. Because what we see is, you know, if you're active overall, like doing a ton more isn't necessarily going to give you a ton more gain, if that makes sense.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, and that's just how we think about everything.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I know, I know. It's. You do see diminishing returns with, with exercise. And this is not me saying don't be as active as possible. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying a lot of people think that it has to be all or nothing and so they end up up doing nothing.

[Jessie May]

Amazing. Fifth and final question. We asked this to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Maybe this is me just being an optimist, but giving people the benefit of the doubt. Not fitness related at all. I just find that we're all trying to do our best and you don't know what somebody is going through. And so if you have a negative interaction trying to get people to benefit, benefit of the doubt, even if they had bad intentions, it feels better for you to give them the benefit of the doubt. Oh, maybe they're going through. Maybe they had a death in the family or maybe they're going through something that I don't, I can't see or know. So that's what I really do try to do. And it's hard. It's not that I'm perfect at it, but I wish that, I wish that more people did that too.

[Jessie May]

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Dr. Shannon Richie. I'm so grateful that we got to spend this time together. I feel like I learned so much. My workouts are never going to look the same. Good. I know that everyone in my audience will have gained such a wealth of insight. Whether it's about building muscle, weight loss, losing fat, or even learning about our precious feet and our precious eyes that we undervalue and underestimate. I hope that our audience will go and connect with you on the EVLO platform and find more workouts and schedules that they can live by and follow. And I hope we get to see you again here on the show.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

I would love to be back anytime.

[Jessie May]

Yeah. That was fantastic. Thank you so much.

[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

Thank you for having me me.

[Jay Shetty]

If you love this episode, you'll love my conversation with four time Grand Slam champion Arena Sabalenka where she reflects on her latest victory and the mental battles that almost broke her along the way. For me, success is the discipline that you put in. Be there every morning, every practice.

[Jessie May]

Doesn't matter how you feel, doesn't matter if you want it.

[Jay Shetty]

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[Dr. Shannon Ritchie]

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