Ep. #826: Chanel Collette on Moving Past Body Image and Toward Health

Mike: Oh, hello and welcome to Muscle for Life. I’m your host, Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today. And if you haven’t already, please do take a moment to subscribe to the show in whatever app you are listening to me in so you don’t miss any new episodes. And it helps me because it boosts the rankings of the show.

Now, this episode is an interview I did with Chanel Colette about her experience transitioning from a longtime physique competitor to embracing other reasons, to train other motivations, and particularly going from being very focused on body image to being less focused on body image because there’s nothing wrong with caring about how you look, and there’s nothing wrong with that being a major part of the motivation to continue going to the gym.

Anybody who. Trains regularly and who looks good, who says that they don’t care at all about how they look, and they only do it for the health benefits and the psychological benefits and so forth, and they’re lying and maybe they’re even lying to themselves. Maybe they just don’t want to admit that vanity is a major driving factor in the fitness game, and that’s okay so long as you are aware of it, and so long as you don’t allow it to become your entire I.

So that is what today’s interview is going to be about. And Chanel and I also talk about staying motivated to keep training once. There are no major changes to see in your physique anymore once you have your forever physique basically. And for most people, that is probably five to seven years of consistent training.

They’re going to gain more or less all of the muscle that is genetically available to them in their first five to seven years if they do the most important things. Mostly right. Most of the time, as I like to say. And then of course there’s just body fat levels and guys can comfortably hover probably around 10%, maybe a little bit leaner until they start to.

Bad and women can stay around 20% until they start to notice lowered energy levels and worse mood and period disruptions usually and so on. And so for many people who reach that point, it can be demotivating to realize that there isn’t much progress left to make on any front. So how do you stay motivated?

How do you continue? Going into the gym and training hard and enjoying it because if you really don’t enjoy it, it is going to be hard to stick to. So Chanel and I talk about that as well. And in case you are not familiar with her, she is a former physique and wellness competitor who competed in various bikini shows and one Miss Bikini Universe in 2014, and overall champion at Fitness Universe in 2016.

And Chanel’s also a strength and conditioning coach, currently serving as the CEO and head coach of Audacious athletes. And her team. They have helped thousands of people and women in particular, they specialize in helping women get fitter and stronger, and Chanel is one of the first. Sponsored athletes who ever signed on with my sports nutrition company Legion, which is pretty cool, and I really appreciate her support over the years and her belief in Legion and our mission to not just create great supplements, but help people get into great shape and great health.

Also, if you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one best selling weightlifting books for men and women in the world. Bigger, leaner, stronger, and thinner. Leaner, Stronger, as well as the leading Flexible Diet cookbook, the Shredded Chef.

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Hey, Chanel, happy Friday as people say. 

Chanel: Yeah. Happy Friday to you too, Mike. Nice. Nice to be here. Nice to finish off my afternoon. Friday afternoon, work week with you. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mike: Same. Thanks for taking the time to, to come on the podcast, so what? I’m excited. Absolutely. Yeah. So what I wanted to talk to you about is something that you have a lot of experience with in having worked with many people over the years, and particularly having worked with many women.

And this is a discussion that I think will be very valuable to many women listening, but also to men. And that is I guess, where we can start. And I’ll let you start your discussion and your explanation, wherever you want. Probably your background as a competitor will be relevant to this.

But I wanted to open with your thoughts on training. In a way that is very focused on how you look. And as a competitor, that is obviously the primary focus, at least with all the people I’ve talked with who now strength competitors aside, but bodybuilders, physique competitors, they often will say, Yeah I don’t care how strong I am, I don’t care what I need to do in the gym per se.

I just care about looking a certain way because that’s the game that of course that’s how you’re judged. And so I understand that. And and a lot of people getting into fitness, that is the primary motivation initially, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that is either they want to.

Lose fat, or maybe they’re starting out very small and they want to gain muscle, they wanna look a certain way. But then eventually and I can relate to this in my own training you gain a fair amount of muscle, you gain a fair amount of strength, and you then realize that if you’re gonna remain a natural weightlifter, not much more is going to change.

I’m happy with my physique now, but this is it. This is what I’ve got. It’s, it doesn’t, like 10 more years of weightlifting is not gonna make very much of a difference. That before and after image is not gonna be very impressive. It’s gonna be, Oh yeah, you looked pretty good. And I guess you still look pretty good.

And that’s it. That’s what 10 years of training. Got you. And and then this is something I’ve written and spoken about in that you, if you want to still enjoy your training, still look forward to it, still maintain, it’s not just maybe motivation but find it fun. And actually want to keep going.

I think you have to move away from the body image, solely body image focused motivation to you at least have to incorporate other motivations. And these are some of the things that I know again, you have a lot of experience helping people make that transition. And I think it’s enough of my rambling preamble.

and , and I’ll just give the floor to you. 

Chanel: So I started physique competitions solely out of the. Point at which I was in an audience and I was like, I can do that. Really not having any clue how I would do that or that I even could, but I just, it like, just immediately came to me that I could, as a former endurance athlete, I had just started to tap into progressive training or quote, physique progressive training, meaning I was working with some o other fellow bodybuilders and physique athletes and it seemed like my physique was already starting to shift from, pain in my knee from my running.

And I was like, Wow, I can actually run now, intermittently and not have knee pain, but I’m also getting a lot stronger. I was just seeing so many positive benefits to strength training and with strength training now being transitioned over to from a physique standpoint, I was like, Wow I can really do this.

So for me, it didn’t actually start I want to look a certain way. It was like, Oh, I can just do this. So my initial impression with physi competing wasn’t I think how normal people or how normally people get into it, but it was more of I can do this kind of mentality. But then as I got further into it, that psyche of watching the scale go down, having the scale go down, being a necessity for my, quote improvement or my success rate was determined based on that scale going down.

So over the years, I chased that. I chased that so hard, and that’s when, I dealt with hormonal issues because I constantly chased a lower number. And my physique, like you had mentioned, there was a point at which it just stopped progressing honestly, because I was just chasing that one number.

And so it’s I have this before and then I have this after I. And nothing was really looking that much different, and it was so hard to maintain that after I could not sustain it. And so then I had to retrace my steps. I had to come back to the foundation of, overall training progression again, and understanding that the aspect of nutrition was gonna be so important for me and spending enough ample time away from dieting.

had this time. Time in about 2017 where I about lost my marbles when it came to physique competing. And I didn’t really know if I actually was gonna be able to go forward with it. So then I spent most of 2000 18 in increasing my calories, doing the things I needed to do gaining the appropriate amount of mass and areas, and I was still able to compete at Bikini.

At that point, my, my physique was still within that division criteria, so I competed at the very end of 2018 in Bikini. And then I knew I had learned from my mistakes and I knew I needed to take a whole year off of training. And I, like you said, fell further in love with progressive training. I fell further in love with.

Wow. I can actually eat more in a very sustainable way. I can go out to eat and I can see scale stability. I know a lot of women struggle with dining out or social instances where they’re, they do one thing off their quote plan and they gain five pounds overnight and they just, it, it becomes such a mental game at that point.

And so I had finally gotten to a point in 2019 where my body didn’t face those fluctuations anymore. And so along with that came even more muscle tissue though. And so I pushed myself outside of the bikini division not even realizing I did it. We got into my 20, 20 20 season and if anybody, fellow competitors who are listening to this, who competed in 2020, my heart goes out to you.

It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It was the hardest thing to plan. But in general, I just wasn’t seeing the scale drop. And as a big key competitor, I was so used to seeing that happen. So I had this like kind of freak out moment that. I’m never gonna do this again. But it was just, my body was never going to look like the bikini criteria again, and my scale weight was not going to ever be that small again.

So I had pushed myself into a division that I chose to compete in wellness. So that was the last point at which I stepped on stage was as a wellness competitor. And I see where that division is going. And so like you had mentioned, it’s like I had to decide if I wanted to push my physique to that criteria and fit in that box.

Or if I wanted to just sustain the physique that I had earned myself in 2019 of okay, I can do all of these life things. I can go on a vacation, I can go in the gym and have fun. I can maybe not just only focus on my glutes all the time in my training. and I can actually have a very well-rounded and balanced training program because I couldn’t have those well-rounded programs when I was literally vying tooth and nail to gain, an extra pound of muscle in one specific area of my body.

And that’s just so challenging to do and it takes away a little bit of that fire that you have for training when you are putting some, painstakingly efforts. And I had some hip issues to begin with too, and I think a lot of those hip issues have to do with. Some of the very glute focused work I would be doing when I wasn’t doing a balance training program in a lowered caloric deficit.

All of those things go hand in hand to set you up for not the most fun training sessions. And like what you said, I just had to embrace being able to accept that I wasn’t going to fit in a specific box if I wanted to live a training life and a lifestyle that I wanted to have, for the future of myself, essentially.

Not saying that, I’m still a huge lover of body building. I love the sport, I love all the athletes still. Like I just had to decide what was best for me ultimately. 

Mike: And has it been hard for you to transition from. The physique that you had then to the physique you have now. And I don’t say that as a backhanded comment.

What I mean by that is, and I’ve experienced this to some degree, I’ve never competed, but for example, what I’ve experienced is once you’ve been very lean, Now I haven’t been stage lean, but I’ve been pretty lean for photo shoots, call it six or 7%. When you have ab veins you’re pretty lean and Yeah. So once you get, I’d say, so once you get pretty lean anything fatter than that kind of just feels fat and Yeah. And so have you had to deal with any of those kinds of issues? 

Chanel: Yeah. For sure. I think anybody who’s ever been stage lean your mind and your psyche is not gonna be perfect after that.

You just, you’re gonna struggle with that. Where a lot of competitors will understand this, and maybe this will be a new, new concept to your listeners, when you diet down that lean and your organs are not essentially protected by body fat, that’s sometimes where you’re actually going to regain body fat.

The quickest is in your abdomen area. And that was always an area, especially for women, 

Mike: because that there’s just, there’s biological programming, biological thing. Yeah. Yeah. For the purpose of protecting a baby, so women are going to tend to store more fatter 

Chanel: on them.

Exactly. And so being genetically. Disadvantaged in that area to begin with. From my, my history, I’m Native American and Italian. I wasn’t raised without carbohydrates as a very big part of my life. Or corn for that matter. It just, my dietary intake was just pretty much carbs as a child.

I don’t remember a large focus on proteins, but the were there. But, so yes, that was a huge Hard thing for me to deal with because I would gain, and I have leaner limbs as a former endurance athlete, I think I changed some of my, genetic makeup there. I have leaner limbs and then I’d be like just gaining midsection body fat.

And that’s also the more dangerous body fat to have as well, in terms of your overall bio biological markers. So yes, like I mentally would be like, wow, unless I’m stage lean, I’m just never going to have veins in my ab I’m never going to even have visible veins or visible apps for that matter.

Yeah. I mean it, and they’re so fleeting. That physique is so fleeting. It lasts. Maybe, was able to hold onto it, quote, not that I was trying to, but I was able to withhold it the longest point after this past season. I just think my body was in a better place, but in previous seasons, yeah.

That physique was gone in two weeks and even if I was following my reverse diet protocols and I’m very diligent with that. And, I’d have a couple meals here and there, and that’d be about it after show I’m not, food isn’t been like a big, driver of my lack of adherence to 

Mike: my post.

No. Dwayne Johnson cheat meals after . 

Chanel: No, I’m just, that’s never, like I said, been up, 

Mike: up. Yeah I haven’t huge driver for a while either, simply because I find, I actually don’t really enjoy it. I enjoy eating off plan. Here and there is fine, but for when I was younger, I used to. Used to have kind of blowout meals just for fun, basically.

Yeah. But then too many times afterward I’m like lying on the couch in pain, sweating. I’m like why did I do this ? So now I’m older and wiser. 

Chanel: Digestion’s a huge thing for me. And it’s always been a challenge for me to get solid and good quality digestion. So it’s now over the past, four to five years, I’ve really had good digestions.

So it’s if it’s not going to help me in any way, and it’s gonna only make things harder for the next day or two, I’m like it’s not 

Mike: worth it. . Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. Yeah. So how, what, what has helped you deal with some of these body image? Wrinkles that you mentioned transitioning from being very focused on low body weight, low body fat to what is now more of a focus on performance.

Obviously you wanna look good, We all wanna look good. That, that is, yeah. At least half of the reason why we still do this stuff. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. No 

Chanel: there’s no, there’s nothing wrong with that. I think there should be a level of aesthetic desire within your goals.

Otherwise, what? What’s what’s the purpose almost? Yeah. 

Mike: Anybody who says anybody who’s in the gym, let’s call it three to five days a week at least. Yeah. You’re there to look somewhat good, Correct? Yeah. Correct. No matter what they 

Chanel: say. Yeah. No matter what you say you have some desire, whether it be for, overall health or at both combination of aesthetics, but Yeah.

And did, so did you 

Mike: Yeah. Your idea though of what. Is a good physique or what you like to see in the mirror? Has that changed? , 

Chanel: a little bit. I would love to have one day seen, really carved out glutes cuz as a bikini competitor, but just as a lover of body building in general.

That’s such like a marker. Of yeah, the str 

Mike: glutes, that’s the, 

Chanel: yeah, I mean it’s such 

Mike: a good achievement. The alpha and omega. That’s it. 

Chanel: Yeah, it’s, it. Obviously I’ve always still wanted to improve that area. Do I hyperfocus and change my training so much to the point at which I’m overusing using that area?

No. I just, If it grows. If it doesn’t, yeah I’m still happy. But I, at first, and and part of the reason why, I think fu e competitors have a hard time is cuz the general population who might see us thinks that we’re gonna stay that way. That, that we achieve that and we’re gonna stay that way.

I remember going home after my very first competition and my mom was like, So this is where you’re gonna stay now. This is what you’re gonna look like. And I’m. No. And even all the way into, so this is when you 

Mike: take all of the pictures is saying, and then you trickle them out. , it’s the Instagram trick, which you probably don’t do, some of the people just for people listening keep that in mind when some people this should be more probably men than women.

Yeah. Some dudes do stay very big, lean and strong all year round. And often that involves peds almost always. If you just look too good for too long, especially in men, right? But regardless, sometimes what people will do is they’ll get in great shape and then they’ll take a lot of pictures over the course of maybe a week or two different settings and then they will drip those out over the course of months to give the impression that they always look that.

Chanel: And funny you mentioned that because I learned that less in the hard way. As I started to get more competitive in competing, obviously the body fat got leaner, the determination to win became more present, and I no longer could have the capacity when it came down to that point to do all these photo shoots.

Like mentally I wasn’t there. Who knows what my face would’ve looked like. I’ve been like half asleep. Also, I found out as I got older, my face needed body fat to look like more. Yeah. 

Mike: I don’t mean that’s I think one of the just elements of aging that makes you look more age right, and men and women is that you just lose 

Chanel: roundness.

I need some collagen in my face. I need some roundness, some fullness in my cheeks. Yeah. And otherwise I’m smiling and it’s just I don’t know. I called, so I looked like Michael Jackson at some point. , like the concave, I already have really high cheek bones, so like the concave, lower facial structure.

I was like, No, these photos are not good. So I knew that I was stressing my body out and I was stressing myself out with the time that I would need to devote to the photo shoots and the energy. I would do it. And I remember that my coach at the time saying Do you wanna be a badass physique competitor or do you wanna be a fitness model?

And I was like, Okay, I didn’t really have success as a fitness model, so I wanna be a badass physique competitor. So I like learned, like he was great at putting me in the right head space that I needed to be at for, really what my ultimate goal was. Not to necessarily look really good in hundreds of pictures, but to actually win at what I wanted to do.

Yeah. So yeah, but I now face a little bit there are some little trolls within the YouTube and internet space that their mainstream people, they don’t know that physique competitors are not going to stay that way at all times. And the big one on my YouTube channel that I laugh about is somebody goes in there and says, My muscle melted away.

And I’m like, No, that’s not quite how it works, . I just have more body fat over top of my muscle now. Nothing melted away. I still know, like metabolically what kind of amount of tissue that I do carry. And I think 

Mike: that’s cool for your performance in the gym too. Yeah. I’m stronger now than I was then.

So usually when you lose muscle, you don’t get stronger. Stronger, No. Yeah, but it melts a lot. Yeah. According, I get comments like that every now and then. If I, I’ll go on an interview sometimes wearing a shirt and then it’s all, Does this guy even lift? Because I’m not that big. I’m 1 93, 1 95 6 2.

Lean, pretty lean. Not staging of course, but fairly lean, leaned. But it’s that with, particularly with guys you’ll get that sometimes where if you are not that big, you’ll wear baggy clothes and then people are like, So do you still, are you still working out? Or and then, if it’s a tight shirt, it’s the dude you look, you’re huge.

Yeah, I know. It’s, 

Chanel: Yeah. That’s a common thing for sure. Yep. Just I think people who don’t understand the sport and don’t understand what fizzy competitors have to go through, it seems it’s the it to them. It just seems so foreign. 

Mike: And understandably yeah. It really is. If you look at it through such a small pop part of the population Yeah.

You look at it through the eyes of your average gym goer. 

Chanel: Yeah. And even in the niche of like fitness now I think at first when Instagram came about, it was a kind of playground for physique competitors. But now, like we’re even a smaller niche within the fitness space of like social media.

Mike: Totally. What are some of the aspects of training that you can and really anybody listening again, who is not brand new? Cause if you’re brand new, if you do things halfway correctly, you’re making progress you’re adding weight to the bar every week and you’re seeing changes in your body every couple of weeks, and it’s a lot of fun, eventually that slows down.

And so what are some of the elements of your training that motivate you and that you pay attention to? As opposed to only maybe paying attention to how your muscles look or how your glutes are developing, and not that you necessarily did that exclusively previously. , but I think that.

Talking about that could be valuable because it’s, again, it’s it’s relevant in my own training. And I had to move away from measurements and progress pictures because again, so little was changing, It just didn’t even, It wasn’t even worth measuring or taking pictures anymore.

And so I had to find other things that I could track and care about to I’m a very routine oriented person, so I was gonna do my training regardless. But if I can take simple measures to make it more enjoyable and to increase, I guess motivation, I think it’s worth. 

Chanel: So one of the things I do, I dove deeper into was, PT work for my hip injury that I was dealing with and working through, mobility work and proper technique for, specific lifts that I was having issues with.

So I have dove deeper into filming myself, training, which I always have done in the past, but like now I film myself and I’m not necessarily filming for YouTube Yeah. Or filming for Instagram. I’m filming so I can see my motor pattern, I can see my alignment I can see, the time at which I’m spending in the ecentric and concentric portions of the movement.

I actually I feel like I’m like, like you said, like I have the time and the mental energy. To devote to like the small nuances of training now a little bit more for myself. And it also helps with obviously myself as a coach, with clients. Like I can break down and look at a movement better cause I’ve started to learn more and more about that.

But I also I pick the big lifts. Like I wanna get stronger in my squat again after dealing with this hip injury. I wanna get better at, hip thrust. I want to, increase the load there. So there’s still a couple of movements that are on, my, my to-do goals. But the, I still focus on like maybe being more of this overall focus athlete and doing a lot more unilateral things.

I used to avoid a little bit of unilateral things because typically the time that it took It adds up on your training. But now when I don’t feel like I’m at a crunch, it’s okay, I’ll add a unilateral and I’ll take out one, one extra movement. That’s fine for me at this point in my life and in my training, if that’s gonna help me feel better tomorrow.

And it’s gonna be more beneficial for me in the long run to add more unilateral, I’m gonna do 

Mike: it. What are some of your favorite unilateral exercises? Single 

Chanel: leg press for sure. For sure. I don’t know. 

Mike: I probably have done that, but it’s been a while. I haven’t been, the gym I used to go to in Virginia, it had a leg press that you could decouple.

The plat the platform was, That’s the, to have. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you could connect them, or you could un you could disconnect them. Yeah. 

Chanel: The coupling ones are the best, but you can get a little tricky with, where your feet placement is on the non-comp ones. Why do you like that so much?

My PT put me on it and made me do it. He was like, I want you to press as hard as you can with each leg and see what loads we can get till you can’t, till, like fatigue at that point. And that’s how we were able to see the large discrepancy in my ability to push in my hip drive.

And I, it was like a light bulb moment. I was like, That’s a huge difference. When it came down to also the endurance that I was able to withstand too, like my left legs just give, it gives out so fast and it wasn’t really brought to my attention until the PT took me into a gym setting. I wasn’t just in his office.

We did a couple techniques in his office and then he was like, Let’s get on the floor. Let’s see how this actually works. I love split squats. Hate them. Absolutely hate them. Hard actually. Curs, cury, split squats, those are great. Hate them as well. Almost everything unilateral. I hate dumbbell step ups.

I think alternating step up. I’m the most clumsy individual doing, but alternating step ups are great. I just lose count and I, trip up myself and I’m like, Oh, did I go up with that foot? Or not that foot? Yeah, so that’s a tough one. But most of the unilateral stuff I do is more for lower potty.

Mike: Yeah, makes sense. I, in terms of tracking your training, have you like something that I’ll just throw out there and I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on something that has, It’s a little thing, and I’ve mentioned on social media, I made a note actually that I really should explicitly address this.

If I update my book for intermediate and advanced weightlifters called Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, It’s obviously written more to men, and I do plan on doing a female version of that, but that is to start tracking my reps in reserve or for people listening the number of good reps that I have left in the end of a set.

Now I’ve talked about like knowing that when you’re training and okay, if you’re doing a compound exercise something. Probably around two good reps left is a good place to, to end most sets. Don’t push yourself to zero good reps left on every set of squats. It’s just not necessary. And on accessory exercises, it’s more appropriate to go closer to failure.

If doing biceps curls, sure go closer to failure. You don’t have to go too failure, maybe zero or maybe one good rep left. But what I started to do recently is track that. So I use a Google sheet. Planning and tracking my training. And have a column for that. And so why I like that is that’s where I first start to see progress in a training block.

And because progress is quite slow at this point. It’s nice to see though that, Okay. So I had what was, I was doing benching today, sets of six with maybe 1 95 or something. And it’s nice to see that, ah, I had two to three good reps left all the way through all four sets, even on the fourth.

But the last time I did that, my fourth set was like a zero to one. Good reps left. So that is, A little bit of progress that Yeah, you repeat that. And eventually that turns into sets of six with 200, with two or three good reps left. And so there, there have been other aspects of programming, paying attention to the details of programming that have, again, made my training just more interesting.

, that has helped. Are there any similar types of things that, that you’ve experienced in how you’re training now versus how you were previously? Yeah, 

Chanel: absolutely. For example, I’m probably not gonna get my shoulder PR. Shoulder press pr much higher than it is just mechanically.

My, my weight my, the way my body is set up. I don’t think I’ll, I don’t think I’ll, I don’t think I’ll put, the sixties over top of my head without a spot, like ever in my life. Yeah. And not to say that there’s something wrong with that in my progressions and training, it’s just not gonna really happen.

And like you said, it’s our, it’s a RPE rate of perceived exertion. Set, or it’s an r i r situation and people forget that there are prs within the r i r setting. Yep. And in fact I, to bring the conversation, a little back into like how a woman could focus on her training.

I talk a lot about r I r with my female clients who are in a, hormonal dysfunction setting and we have to leave reps in the reserve. We can’t train to failure in those types of settings. And so that is actually 100% a ga an appropriate gauge for how you are progressing without over stimulating or over straining your central nervous system as well.

So a lot of people forget that your R is almost a way to protect that, nervous system overload, so you can actually recover really well if you’re not tapping into that overload all the. 

Mike: Especially with the bigger exercises. Yeah. You’re using heavy weight and it’s involving a large amount of muscle mass.

There. There is a big difference in terms of stress in the body between a set of squats, call it six reps, eight reps, whatever, and a zero good reps left. Meaning for people listening. Think of like your last rep is a grinder. You probably almost didn’t get it. That’s a zero.

Good reps left and a two good reps left where the last rep is. D. But if you were to video it, you probably would see that the bar didn’t slow down much. Maybe a little bit. Yeah. It was more of a mental slowdown. Yeah, exactly. A little bit maybe in the sticking point, but it looked probably pretty smooth on camera.

. And that, that’s a lesson that I’ve had to learn as I’ve gotten older and just trained more is, has taken a little bit of discipline to end a lot of the hard sets on the bigger exercises. With two-ish, I’m okay again, if I have one left on my final set, I’m okay with that on a squad or a bench press, or even a dead lift.

But if if set one is a one to two good reps left, then I’m taking weight off the bar, whereas previously, Get, I’d push for another. Okay. That’s probably now a solid one. And then now on the third set, that’s like a zero to one, and then the fourth would be a true zero. , that plus more frequent deloading has helped me a lot.

It has prevented. I haven’t had any major acute injuries. I hurt my SI joint one time years ago, but what I would get though are the occasional RSIs, which can still happen. But I’ve noticed fewer repetitive stress injuries less sickness, which I can’t say is because of that. But I can say previously when I was training just inappropriately, intensely, so to speak, or, yeah, she’s doing too much and not deloading often enough, often a deload would come because.

Some sort of trip. It could be a work or a vacation where I’m just not gonna be able to do my normal thing. All right. Fine. Or some sort of illness. And it was maybe a couple illnesses a year maybe two on average. And it wasn’t anything severe, but that I, that’s why I would have to take a week off the gym cause I’d have a cold or whatever.

 And now I mean I’ve had covid a couple of times, but it was like mild congestion so I wouldn’t even really have known unless I got tested. And there were reasons in both instances where I got tested. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother getting tested cause I could care less really. But those are the only illnesses to speak of in a couple of years now.

And there probably are other factors that have contributed to that. But I do think managing my training stress better has helped a lot with 

Chanel: that. Yeah, I think training stress is something, I don’t think a lot of people necessarily take into consideration until it’s too late. Yeah. 

Mike: And it’s tricky because you can work your ass off in a workout and then feel pretty good an hour or two later, and you may not realize though the demands you’ve now placed on your body to recover from that.

At least that’s been my experience. Yeah. 

Chanel: One of the things I had to pay very close attention to was my recovery just because of where I had pushed my body to in the past. In order to sustain the contest prep and the body fat levels that I did have, I had to really protect my training volume a lot over the years.

So it was almost this kind of double edged sword. It’s in order to keep going, I had to, scale back my training. But scaling back my training probably did inhibit my growth in certain areas that may have needed to be more competitive. But overall I was able to, accomplish a goal.

I was still able to, essentially still train. I never found myself not being able to train on a consistent basis. But I have embraced deloading. I force my clients to deload. I’m like, Hey, I hear your feedback here and. We’re not technically on track to deload, but I’m deloading you this week.

There’s just, when you start to hear and know that your sleep is getting disturbed, your digestion is off. You are, having little sniffles here and there. Like as soon as you overtax your central nervous system, you’re gonna be immuno compromised. And, people forget that.

Yes, like most people in the gym are healthy, but the gym. A very pretty dirty place. Many gyms. Yeah. Yeah. And we’re all very healthy individuals that are there most of the time, taking care of ourselves, first and foremost. But, it is, there are some terms there. And so I always tell my clients it’s if you’re not feeling 100% don’t necessarily feel like you gotta go right to the gym.

Like you can go for a walk outside, you can let’s check what a walk would feel like first before going into lifting. And when one of ’em has like a long vacation and they’ve had a long flight, typically the first thing they wanna do, I gotta go in and hit legs cuz I’m gonna sweat, I’m gonna kill myself.

I’m gonna feel like I actually lost a little bit of what I gained on vacation. And I’m like no. We do not go from vacation right into the highest central nervous system taxing workout on your worksheet. That’s not what we’re doing here. I’m like, let’s start off with Delton arms.

And they’re like, Oh really? Delton arm day? And I’m like, Yep. Let’s just go in and do a little cardio and move your upper body. Let’s let the legs like cool out for a little bit. You just walked on your vacation, 22,000 steps as a tourist. So let’s let those legs rest for a minute. 

Mike: If you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one best selling weightlifting books for men and women in the world.

Bigger, leaner, stronger and thinner. Leaner, stronger, as well as the leading flexible dieting cookbook. The shredded chef. In your training, are you now doing things that you wouldn’t have done previously because you enjoy them, but they didn’t quite fit in with the more rigid goals that you were pursuing?

Oh, previously. So now basically, are you able to have more fun in your training, even if it’s not Even if it’s not maybe scientifically optimal in certain ways. You know what I mean? Yeah. Where you’re like, Yeah, oh yeah. I’m just gonna do this because I like it and I can afford that luxury now because Yeah.

I’m already at the end game. . Yeah. 

Chanel: I remember distinctively doing a workout while I was in point of art to Mexico. It was nothing but super sets back to back . It was total 

Mike: pot. 

Chanel: Yeah. Time. Time. It was total body. Yeah. Yeah. It was total body. And my husband was a vacation workout. Exactly right.

The vacation workout. Yeah. He was with me. And, I didn’t have any hard set goals or anything. I just was like, I wanna move today. So I just, put together. A super set of a back ch, a back and chest movement. And then I did leg extension and leg curls cuz they had the machines.

And I was like, I’m just gonna literally use everything that they have that’s a machine based movement and I’m just gonna figure out a super set and I’m gonna super set all, everything today. Okay. and honestly, I had a lot of fun and like we had a lot of fun doing it. Absolutely those hap those days happen.

I feel like I can quote play in the gym a little bit more if I’m visiting a new gym. I don’t stick hard and fast to my logbook, if that makes sense. If there’s a gym that has a cool machine that I’ve never done before, I’m gonna get on and try Whereas before I’d be like, it’s not in my program.

I, I might do a set on it or something just to see what it’s like, but I wouldn’t do I wouldn’t add it or do a full, full four or five sets on it. So I definitely have that. I definitely incorporate a lot more, quote, what they would call like functional movement, like a lot more of a rotational type things, like a rotational landmine press or, a wall ball slam, like a rotational wall ball slam.

Izzy athletes don’t do that kind of stuff. Let’s be honest. Yeah. But I, if I close out my workout and I rarely do I get to do this, but I look down on my watch and I’m like, Oh, I got a lot, I got a little bit of time. I’m gonna do like some. Weird shit at the end with vo volleyball cuz I went, I’m in a CrossFit style gym that’s got like a really great open space.

They have a turf, they’ve got a sled. There’s just a lot of things to play with. And so I, I actually just randomly started adding in. This is a viable physique movement, but the pendulum squat, but I’ve never been at a gym that had the pendulum 

Mike: squad. Yeah. My gym has that as well.

And that was the first time I’d ever seen it actually. I 

Chanel: was like, That’s cool. Yeah. I’ve seen it on, Instagram and I’ve seen it in a couple gyms I’ve been traveling. That’s the first time I’ve 

Mike: seen it in person where I’m like, Oh shit, my gym, I’m gonna use it in my next training list.

Chanel: Yeah. Yeah. So I wrote out a training program for myself and I included the pendulum squad in it for, and I did it for a full eight weeks. And I was like, All right, I’m done with that for a little bit of time. . I also don’t feel like I have to keep something in there if it’s just like something I’m not necessarily looking forward to right anymore.

I obviously don’t. I tell my clients like, If you’re avoiding it, let’s figure out why you’re avoiding it. Is it something within the physique? Is it something that you’re lacking? This is one of those moments. Where maybe don’t practice as I preach. If you’re a client who listens to this or anybody who’s a prospective client, because you shouldn’t avoid lunches just cuz you hate them.

But I’m gonna pick and choose. I’m gonna cherry pick a little bit. At this point in my life, I’m 36 years old. I’ve been lifting since, I was. 22, I’m gonna cherry pick a little 

Mike: bit. And I think it’s appropriate to, to do that, even if somebody is brand new, so long as they understand that certain exercises are more effective than others.

And if they hate too many exercises, then that’s a problem. If they’re like, Okay, we’re gonna train your lower body. And then they say I hate every form of squat. I hate the leg pr. Basically all I like is I like, is kickbacks leg? Yeah. Yeah. I’ll do kickbacks and I’ll do a hamstring curl and a leg extension and that’s it.

Okay. We could start there, but just this is gonna be slow going. We could do a lot better if Yeah. You learn to not hate some of these things. But that, I’m sure for a lot of people listening, that’s not the case. And the exercises, I don’t know if I would say I hate any exercises.

Some exercises are just not comfortable for me. , it just, they don’t work well with my body. And so that’s why I don’t. Like doing them. And so of course that’s a good reason to not do them. But maybe if again, somebody is, I would say new or experienced and there’s an exercise that they, maybe they’re they’re just ambivalent about it.

It’s okay. Maybe there’s something they don’t like about it and on the other hand it’s okay. And then there’s another exercise that’s a viable alternative that they do , I think it’s totally appropriate to Yeah. To choose the exercise that you like. And again, it’s just coming back to this theme of when you’re not making enough progress anymore to make you excited to go to the gym every day.

And it happens to everybody. Yeah. Eventually what happens? You have to find other ways to get excited. And again, in my experience, it’s been a matter of a lot of these little things. cumulatively adding up to training that is just more fun to do than if I didn’t bother with any of them and I didn’t really think about it, and I just robotically went through the motions.

And in the end, I would say the results are gonna be better too with the more personalized approach because the more we’re enjoying our training, the more we’re going to exert ourselves. The performance is just going to be better. Yep. And there are, and this is something that I, I thought of when you were mentioning shoulder presses another element of progre.

It can feel like progression, or at least it can feel there’s a novelty to it. Is changing. Different exercises. So on my overhead pressing the strongest I’ve ever been. I remember I did 2 25 seated, This was seated, I don’t remember. My strongest standing overhead was maybe 1 95 or so, but 2 25 for two seated, and I don’t think I’ll ever I weighed 10 to 12 pounds more.

That was like 10 years ago. , My, my one RM is probably l I have to look at my spreadsheet. I would guess. 1 95 to 2 0 5 right now. So it’s never, I’m, I may be able to get back to that, but I’m never going to exceed that by much. And and the same thing applies to again, standing press dumbbell presses.

But something that I’ve found useful is to alternate between those because maybe. When I haven’t done a standing overhead press and depending on how I’m programming it, it might be four months. It may even be longer. If I’m doing Arnold presses right now for minimally, I’ll do it for two months.

I may do it for four. And then switch back to another another variation. It’s a little bit fun to do an exercise that I hadn’t done in a while. Yeah. And to groove the form back in. And I think there are also other benefits for example, avoiding repetitive stress injuries by not doing the exact same type of squat or press or deadlift for eight months on end, with heavy weight.

But is that something that, that you also do in your training is just intentionally make sure you’re including variety? Just because variety is the, what is it? Spice of life. Spice of life is the the cliche 

Chanel: I think this brings up a very valid point to training is changing the plane of motion sometimes is a completely, viable way to change the movement, change the exercise, change your tissue, your, your small ligaments and joints, and improve the health of your joint by, changing that plane of motion.

Like you said, a shoulder press. You have both the seated, you have the sanding, you have an anterior, you have a single arm shoulder press, whether that be seated in standing, you have the Arnold Press. And I think people forget about, Like the planes of motion within the body and how there’s so many viable movements on so many various different planes of motion.

And like you said, you’re, you are, if you’re not doing a complimentary option of that, you could also be finding yourself completely stagnant. People always ask me one of the biggest questions I answer on Instagram is why do you do a barbell glute bridge from the floor? Is it better than a barbell hip thrust?

And I’m like, Absolutely not. One exercise is not superior over the other. I’ve just been hip thrusting for eight weeks and I need to let my hip bones heal like they hurt at this point. Yeah. Yeah. And so I need something different. In order for me to be able to progress in a couple weeks on the hip thrust again, I need to change that modality.

And people forget that you get a different eccentric and concentric portion of the movement when you change the plane, plane the motion. And so understanding, Training and human anatomy training. Combining those two makes, makes for training program design like so much more fun when you realize there’s really all these exercises you can do.

There you’re really not very limited. You have so much spice that you can add to your life in the gym, 

Mike: including machines. Yeah, a lot of people will stay away from machines because they’ll hear and not that this is wrong, but they’ll hear that generally speaking, free weights are more effective than machines.

But then they’ll take that to mean, Oh I guess I should only do free weight exercises and not use machines. 

Chanel: Yeah, I mean if I see a client or if I myself am finding that I can’t progress, like I’m just at a standstill, I’m gonna say, is there a plate loaded or pin loaded machine available to you of this movement that we can somewhat do or even somewhat similar to this movement?

Because if I can get them in a very structured and safe, safer than a free weight machine, they’re more stable. We’re gonna be able to, like you said, push to lesser r i r. Yeah. We’re gonna be able to increase that, rate of perceived exertion to where it’s high enough to where they can then feel more confident trying to pick up a bigger load in the shoulder press.

Okay. Do we have a pin loaded shoulder press? Let’s see how far we can progress in a pin loaded shoulder press over a couple weeks 

Mike: instead. I’m doing cable sideways for the first time in a long time. It’s terrible. I forgot how hard they are. They’re terrible. It’s, that’s, it’s humbling. I’m at, that’s another one I’m at 15 pounds for eight.

That’s where I’m at. . 

Chanel: Yeah. That one is also the, so neurologically, Advantageous. Like you have to keep doing it in order to even remotely progress. And I tell this with women a lot of times they’re like, I can’t go up five pounds. And I’m like yeah, anatomically like you have smaller surface area of muscle tissue, it’s gonna take a lot longer for you to gain five pounds in a shoulder movement.

Yep. So the way that machines are designed, we are just not going to hit those next tiers for a long period of time. Correct. 

Mike: Especially with those smaller muscle groups where Yeah, you’re just. 

Chanel: If, I think I’ve been at the same bicep curl for 10 

Mike: years. Yeah, exactly.

Mine’s been in the same range, it’s been, Yeah. Right 

Chanel: now, on a good day, I can get the 20 fives. On a bad day it’s gonna be twenties. And I’m like, why is it twenties today? It doesn’t make sense. . 

Mike: Yeah. It’s some days you’re in the cosmic strike zone and some days you’re not.

And if you strike out. Yeah. That the, And on the sideways if the stack doesn’t have two and a half pounds, Yeah, it’s what I’m thinking is normally, so in my training I’m progressing from 10 to 12 sets of 10 to 12 on isolation accessory exercises to six to eight, or even four to six on those same exercises at the end of the training block.

And my primary exercises are programmed a little bit differently. It’s a linear percentage of one rep max goes from tens to like twos and am wraps. And I’m thinking what I’ll probably do is because the only way to progress with the stack is in five pound increments. So I can do I was I was in 10 to 12.

With 10 pounds, and I got my four sets of 12, which is my queue for adding weight. But then I add I go to 15, and now I only can do eight. All right, fine. Whatever. I’m just gonna roll with it and I’m just gonna do eights now and otherwise I suppose I could I could try to push for more reps with the 10 pounds are at a set, but ultimately I don’t think it’ll matter one way or another.

But for people listening the reason I say that is if you’re familiar with that exercise, you’ve probably run into this problem and you’ve probably run into this problem with any sort. Shoulder raise any, whether it’s dumbbell or, and then rear raises as well. They’re just very hard to progress on.

Chanel: Yeah. And then you can’t, I was gonna say, you can add drop sets, but you’re only up to 15 pounds , so you can’t 

Mike: It’s true. Yeah. Yeah. Or I guess I could do rest, pause and, whatever. Yeah. I’m just gonna keep it simple and I’ll go, now I’m in the, probably the six to eight range and I’ll stay there.

And if I can get four sets of of eight with at least maybe one or two good reps and reserve on the final set. , which is also something that I should just mention a little tip that has helped me, and particularly, again, this is gonna be very useful to an intermediate and advanced weightlifter.

I don’t progress unless I, I hit my so with my accessory, with my secondary, it’s double progression. Pretty straightforward. Currently I’m going for four sets at the top of my rep range. But I’m also thinking with reps in reserve. Whereas previously, if my final set was a zero R I r, if I hit my progression target, I would progress.

But what I found is that usually would be, or that sometimes, especially as I got stronger, and especially with the bigger exercises, that would be a one step forward and then a two. It’s backward type of scenario because okay, I hit my progression target, but I had to work really hard to do it. I added weight and then I couldn’t stay within my rep range for the subsequent sets.

. Whereas now what I’m doing is, again, like on an accessory exercise, I’m, I want to get four sets at the top of my rep range, and I wanna make sure that I have at least one good rep left in that final set. If the final set was a zero. I’ll probably stick with that one more round and the next time I may be able to make it outta one.

And that has been particularly helpful though, again, with the bigger exercises where I, you can you have more leeway with the accessory exercises, but with the squat for example, if I’m supposed to do sets of four with 85% of my estimated one rep max, if my final set is a zero, but I got four, I’m gonna, I’m gonna take some weight off of the bar.

Whereas previously I, I wouldn’t do that. I’d be like, Ah, whatever. I got my reps good enough, . 

Chanel: Yeah. One of so this could be a debate question I’m gonna ask you. What do you think about movement of your exercise patterns? Ah, that’s a good point. When you find a sticking point. Would you ever move, un accessory movement to the top of your workout if you find that you’re sticking in it?

Because you don’t wanna have it be pre fatigued from it being a secondary mover. I, That’s my question for 

Mike: you. I th I think that makes a lot of sense. It just, depends on What, how much you care, right? Yeah. The why. It’s a good point. It’s a good point. Yeah. That’s something that I would say is not maybe quote unquote optimized about my training in that regard.

However, you. My primary focus and what I enjoy also is I like to see progress in the big exercises because , that’s where I still have some progress left. Not so much in muscularity but in strength cuz I’m working back toward I previous PRS in terms of absolute numbers. But I’ve actually, I’ve hit a couple relative strength prs and I’m close to where I was previously cause I’m like 10 pounds lighter now and 10 pounds in body weight.

You know this, but a lot of people listening me, I know it makes quite a big difference. When you go, if I were to go from where I’m at right now, 1 93 or whatever, just the sheer amount of food that I would be able to eat every day, probably be 4,000 calories a day, that would allow me to slowly regain weight and get back up to that 10 pounds.

That, that’s gonna have a big effect in the gym, as well as just the added body weight and the added lean tissue. And That’s fun to me. Seeing that, in my last macro cycle, I’d have to fold my spreadsheet, but so I did the safety bar squat for the first time ever, so Oh, I love that.

Yeah, it’s great. I just, I’d never worked out in a gym with a safety bar and I was like, I’m gonna try that. Yeah. And so there, there was a bit of learning the exercise. And so my progress was probably at least half of the poundage that I gained in one rm was simply learning the exercise.

But in four months I know that where I ended my am wrap and then I estimated one rep, Max was like three 20 on it, and I started, I want to say, I’d have to pull up my spreadsheet, but I wanna say I started two 70. So that’s fun. And by, But now, okay, I’m more familiar with the exercise.

I can’t expect results like that again. However if I can gain. 10 pounds on a lift in four months. That’s fun to me. So my training again is more focused on, alright, I’m gonna do the biggest and the hardest stuff first. And then I do view the accessory work as I do try to progress. And I don’t just phone it in and walk through the rest of my workout.

But I do understand that after I’ve done four sets of heavy deadlifts, close-ish to failure, two-ish good reps left, still pretty hard. My. Horizontal pull that comes next and then finally maybe I do some biceps at the end. Yeah. Those are compromised, so to speak. Yeah. Whereas if I were to do what you’re suggesting yes, that would make a lot of sense for maybe trying to break through a sticking point on those accessory exercises.

But then when I got to my deadlifts, my performance is gonna be compromised. So yeah, that’s how I’ve approached it is again what are you trying to achieve and what do you. 

Chanel: Yes. Normally the one that I move around, I guess most frequently is the, is a lunge variation or a split squat variation. Because they are, I find them challenging for myself.

Balance, once fatigue sets in balance for those two movements is skewed a lot. . So for myself, for my clients when I’m, when we’re hitting kind of a standstill or they’re complaining about doing a split squat or a dumbbell walking lunch or something like that, I will migrate it up to the top and, Some people would probably disagree with me doing that.

Like I would make people squat, leg prep, excuse me, split squat or lunge sometimes before a big lift. And I, and they’re like, every time I’m like, not gonna, like you said, and I’m not gonna be, it’s not gonna be my best dead lift or my best squat day. That’s not the point of that particular program design.

So inherently understanding the purpose of why you’re in the gym or what you’re trying to accomplish within a particular cycle is so important. But I do toggle with those like unilateral movements and sometimes bumping them above the more found functional or foundational squats and deadlifts, because I find that I can eventually progress in my squat more if I also improve in this unilateral way too.

And you don’t improve when it is at the bottom. Nearly as much. Yeah. So that’s my argument there. But a lot of people would think I’m maybe weird for doing that. And I do get some pushback, especially if I have a strength client coming to me for more physique type work or they’re trying to come, maybe not be so dependent on strengths progression and be more physique tailored.

I flip the script on ’em and they’re like, Wait, I’ve never done it this way. , 

Mike: another argument for doing that could be, and you’d mentioned this just regarding, so take the split squat and the balance component of it, if you’re always doing, which I agree it, the more fatigued your lower body is, the harder it is, especially when you’re trying to use heavy ish weights.

If you’re doing anything 10 reps or fewer on the split squad, it’s heavy ish and or maybe very heavy if you’re trying to do like fours and if you’re fatigued, you’re gonna have a harder time. With the balance. And so if you’re always doing that later in your workout you really only know how to do that exercise poorly.

If we’re talking about Oh yeah, that’s a good point. The movement patterns and , and that can get in the way of progression. Anybody who’s done a lot of split squats knows that when you’re wobbling around, you’re wasting energy. Like you’re not gonna get very far doing it that way.

So by moving it earlier in the workout, or even to, to your first exercise when you’re freshest you are going to do your, let’s just say you’re technically best, split squats with it earlier in the workout and doing that for. It probably would be appropriate to do it for at least three or four weeks if you wanted to hone your technique.

That can make a lot of sense in hopes of then let’s say you now move it back to later in your workout, but you put in, That’ll be better. Yeah. Hopefully you’ve attained, and of course this happens on a neurological level. You’re not gonna be particularly aware of it, but hopefully now with the muscle memory that you’ve gained by doing all these reps it’ll carry over to later in your workout.

I think that would make sense. Yep. Awesome. I’m sure we could keep going pinball around talk about all kinds of things, but in the in the spirit of, I usually try to go not too much longer than an hour. People are like, Oh, it’s too long. But but I really appreciate you taking the time to do this and let’s finish up with where people can find you and find your work.

And if there’s anything in particular that you want them to know about, anything maybe relevant to some of the stuff we’ve been talking about let’s let ’em know. 

Chanel: Yeah. So you can find me on Instagram at Chanel Colette and through YouTube at Chanel. Colette YouTube is a little bit of a lower hanging fruit right now, just for the sake of building my coaching b business and hire, I.

Expanded my team this year. So if you are looking and interested in coaching, you can check us [email protected]. It’s myself and four other women. They’re just like the backbone to like essentially me wanting to continue to do what I want, what we’re doing. Like having a team. I didn’t really realize how much that would fuel just my desire to continue to do what I do.

And mentorship through them as well. So I absolutely my, that’s my team, my bread, butter. Yeah, it makes it more fun for sure. It’s not just me. I’m not just a one woman show anymore, which is so great. But yeah, so that’s where we, people can find me at. We offer both nutrition programming and.

Training, programming. So we, do offer clients who don’t necessarily wanna be in tracking all the time. have countless of clients who don’t necessarily wanna spend their life determining what goes in their mouth by what. An app tells them to do or what I tell them to do. So I think there’s not enough coaches out there who just offer 

Mike: they don’t on a food scale, we can start there.

Yeah. And then they don’t wanna buy ’em . 

Chanel: Yeah. Or I just talked to somebody today, she’s I don’t own a scale, a weight scale. She, that’s a viable person who could really want just sound training, programming. And so that is something that we do offer and with, that we do cardio programming cuz your cardio should be supportive of your training goals too.

They’re both go hand in hand. So we offer all three components with us. I also offer training programs on my [email protected], some 4, 6 8 week programs and at home training program as well. And those are all viable, progressive overload based programs. 

Mike: Awesome. Awesome. Great.

Thanks again for taking the time to. 

Chanel: Yeah. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Nice to finally do this after I know many years of being with Legion. It’s 

Mike: been great. I know. It’s I’ll say that’s my fault. I should have made it happen sooner, but, oh, 

Chanel: no you’re cool.

I like being the og. I think I’m one 

Mike: of the OGs. That’s true. That’s very true. I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful, and if you did subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don’t miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you.

And if you didn’t like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike muscle for life.com, muscle f o r life.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you’d like to see me do in the future.

I read everything myself. I’m always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.