281: Scientifically Proven Ways To Build More Muscle with Nikkiey Stott

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 281. 

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PR's. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife and mom of four. Each week my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise, mindset, personal development and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in. Now, let's jump into today's episode.

Hey, hey, hey! Welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke. And today I have a very exciting guest for you today, and we are talking about a very exciting topic. So I have  Nikkiey Stott in the house today and we are going to be talking about building muscle, how to do it, how to maximize your muscle growth, the mistakes that we see so many make, women making both in the gym and also with their nutrition. And today's episode is packed full of all the muscle building goodness. So if you have been wanting to build muscle or you're even wondering, Amber, why should I build muscle? Why is it important? This episode is for you. Now, during the episode, Nikkiey talks a little bit about body types. She talks about Ectomorph and Endomorph and Mesomorph, and if those words are not familiar to you, I actually have a podcast episode all on body types and I go much more into detail on that episode. So if you go back to Episode 45, you'll learn all about the different body types and that may make a little bit more sense, but regardless of if you know what the body types are, I think it will make sense in the context of what we were talking about, hover again, you wanna dive deeper into that, I have a whole podcast episode, Episode 45. Alright, without further ado, let's dive into the interview with Nikkiey. 

Amber B 02:00 

Alright, I am super excited for our guests today and Nikkiey is in the house and we're going to talk about one of our favorite topics, both her and I love this topic, and I know a lot of you guys want to learn more about lifting and building muscle. And so we're going to get into the nitty gritty details today. So first of all, big, huge welcome to Nikkiey. Thanks for coming on the podcast. 

Nikkiey Stott 02:19 

Oh, thank you for having me here, Amber, I'm stoked. 

Amber B 02:21 

Yeah, we were just talking beforehand about how fun the topic this is and Nikkiey promised that she wasn't gonna hold back at all. So she's gonna, she's gonna be going deep with us today, so that's really fun, alright so Nikkiey, for people who don't know who you are, just do a little bit of an introduction to my audience. Who are you? What do you do? 

Nikkiey Stott 02:38 

Yeah, for sure. So background on Nursing like Amber has and CPT, all those things. Owner of WarriorBabe that started back in 2018. Online fitness company serving 10,000 plus women who are 45 years or older to become stronger, more confident versions of themselves through strength training and proper nutrition. And also the host of the Macro Hour Podcast. My love for fitness goes in stems throughout my entire life. It's my outlet. I've played a bunch of sports growing up like field hockey, basketball and track are my main ones. But like most people just had no idea the right way to eat, to feel my body properly, especially in the way to build muscle, right? Like can work out like sound like majority of the women, right? And people, you can work all the workouts, but how do you properly feel the body? And so post sports to my early 20s, I just yoyo back and forth at all of the things, you name it, tried it, but started on my true, true journey, doing all the right things back in like 2015. Did the whole bodybuilding competition thing, it's not my thing anymore. Went pro for a show, went undefeated for all three shows that I did. Took top women's natural physique athlete in the world in 2018 with the OCB Federation. But my main thing is like one from 140 pounds to 123 pounds to 155 pounds where I sit mainly now. And so that's a 15 pound different increase from where I started, yet I look completely different. And it's all thanks to building muscle and changing your body composition. So what I love to do, what I love to preach, what we're going to talk about today is all things muscles. It's just my favorite thing to jive on. I became obsessed with it when I finally found like, you know, the truth, right? And, and like, understanding how to fuel the body, understanding how our bodies work, what it needs to build a muscle and becoming obsessed with that. That's why I wanted to help so many women, so many people know that and just yeah, know the truth behind building muscle. So, muscle,  muscles are my jam. 

Amber B 04:42 

Muscles are my jam. Yeah, and I want to. I want to put a pin in what you said because you kind of slid it in there really quickly. But it's something that is a big deal to a lot of women. You said you went from 145 pounds to 123. And most people would say that's fantastic. That's amazing. But then and we talk about what that actually entailed, but then you went from 123 to 155, which is where you said today and that jump is freaking scary for a lot of women, so I want to. I want to acknowledge that for everybody who's listening and I want to put a pin in that and we can kind of circle back around to that a little bit later because I think one of the things as we start talking about building muscle, on what it takes and what's required like that is something you have to get over if you want to really go all in on this. And that is a big block for a lot of women. So I'm putting a pin in that, we're gonna circle back around to it. But let's start from the very beginning and you know , I think probably a lot of people listening to this already know that building muscle is important on some level. But let's really build a case like why does this matter? Why are we spending an hour talking about this?  Why do you teach this to your women like what? What is the benefit for somebody, who maybe is not convinced. Maybe we're we're hitting some cardio bunnies here still who don't don't like weightlifting. Don't really see why it's beneficial, think that they're too old, kind of help build a case for why is building muscle something that every single woman should be prioritizing? 

Nikkiey Stott 06:01 

For sure. Love that, and yes, especially that point that you just said. Women think they're too old. So to extrapolate on that and to to answer there, do you know Dr. Gabrielle Lyons?  

Amber B 06:15 

I don’t. 

Nikkiey Stott 06:16

OK. This message that she shares through like all of her platforms, just resonate so freaking hard with me and they sum up that answer. But I'm also going to elaborate too, is muscle is the organ of longevity. And so muscle is active tissue in our body and there's a saying like you either use it or you lose it and like a stat from the National Institute of Health is at your muscle mass decreases approximately 3 to 8% each decade after the age of 30. And since like I personally like, I personally speak to the women that are like 45 years old and plus, but like to your audience too as well. Those people probably lose it because they don't eat right and they don't incorporate strength training into their exercise. And it's typically because, like you said, we're doing tons of cardio and those women are doing the cardio plus, they're not eating enough so to paint a little bit more of a picture to here mentally. I like then this is where the nursing back is going to come into play a little bit, but think about like your body is 70 years old, right? Like just picture your body at 70 and what you do right now, right, you're 30-35-40-45 plus matters for that body at age 70, so let's use two different cases here. Let's say you don't strength train and you don't eat enough or eat the right types of foods, right? Well, for, you know, many of the patients that you know, I used to some like I used to work in a nursing home, right? So that's where I spent my majority of my teenage and early 20s, and then I transferred over into an Emergency room and most of the patients that you used to see in the hospital, this usually on a daily basis, right? And would care for on a daily basis, the reason why they would come in there would be the results in either weaker bones and a higher probability of fracturing the bones. That's the main reason we hearing, like a lot of women going into their later years of life falling down and breaking a hip is a perfect example, right and so. And there was a staff in the CDC, Centers for Disease Control that states at 95% of hip fractures are from falling and reason being women fall more than men because women are more often susceptible to osteoporosis, which is a disease that weakens the bones. And makes them more likely to break right? So if you don't strength train. And you don't do weights and you don't eat right to feel your body, to make it strong, right? Because if you're not, the reason why your bones are breaking is because the weak and then also the muscle around the bones, that's not there. And So what I explained right is the possibility of the future. If if you're not doing those things and when your body is at 70, is also to nail at home a little bit more is like you may be operating from like a wheelchair. You may be operating from like a walker at that age if you're not doing all those things right now like, I just want to drill at home, right. And I love like a lot of women that I speak to is like I want to. I want to be able to be around my grandkids and run around with them and have fun and it's like, well, if you're not doing these things or why like, muscle is so super beneficial is because the way your body will be when you're 70 years old, so if you're not doing those things are more susceptible to those things. And that's the outcome of where your future could go. If you're not focusing on building more muscle on your body. And then there's the opposite you do strength train, you do eat right? You have the right types of foods that you're consuming on a daily basis, and the opposite of what I just explained is going to happen, so if you. If you do fall, you're more likely to have bones strong enough to withstand that fall, right? But more to the osteoporosis, because, which is a condition, obviously that gets worse following menopause is that your bone density decreases and your bones become weaker. Like I said, well a way to help that is a nutrient dense diet, but also mainly having and like getting rid of the cardio right and focusing more on weight bearing exercises, strength training exercises to prevent, you know, future bone loss and rebuilding the bones and removes importantly building the muscle around those bones to make your body even stronger. So to wrap up the answer why I think I feel like I did a long winded answer there, but why I think it's so beneficial is literally because it is the organ of longevity. It is the key to living longer. If you have more muscle on your body, you have a lower risk of everything that I just said, but also lower risk of developing chronic diseases, right. And like, you know, going down, not going to go down, but those those are some of the details. Like things to think about you do right now matters when you are 70 years old and the more muscle that you have on your body. It's the key to living longer and like the Gabriel Ryan says, is the muscle to muscle is the organ of longevity.

Amber B 10:54 

So good. So I think sometimes understanding and I love that muscle is the organ of longevity. And I think sometimes when we start talking about being 70 years old, it can be hard for people to care, right, today, right, when it's like when I don't want to go to the gym today, it can be hard to have that long term perspective and so there I know that there are benefits like people are going to feel immediately and can you speak to those a little bit as well, so we can have both the long benefits as well as the short term benefits now and hopefully between those two, you guys can feel inspired and excited about the prospect of, of strength training. 

Nikkiey Stott 11:30 

Yeah, for sure. I mean the benefits right now. So think about like your normal average state human, right, high stress, the world that we're living in, maybe not eating right, doing tons of cardio, adding more stress to the body. And let's say. You pull back on doing the car, you start you right and you do a starting training, training, training and just even focusing on that alone. You will have such a natural increase in the way that you feel energetically like going in and crushing a hard workout, even if it's not hard to start out. At least it's challenging your body in a way that it's never been challenged before. And it you're. With, you know, prolonged feeling of like a week or two weeks or three weeks of doing this. Not going to say it's going to be one workout and you're going to be like you know, the instant gratification stuff. But like putting time and commitment to it, and following through, you're going to notice that your energy is higher. You're sleeping better. Stress is probably going to be reduced. And that you're going to be in a way better mood for the people that are around you, right? So those are some immediate benefits that you could feel in like the first couple of weeks of doing strength training. Long term, what I had just spoke to, right, it's like, OK long term, you're doing all of these consistently 45-50-55 years old, 60 years old, and you're in the gym, you're working out. You're having a consistent routine, you've been doing for years. The outcome at that age is not only longevity, but being able to run around with your kids having the body that's strong, being able to run with your grandkids, having energy to keep up with them like all of the things to make you, you know, to make you feel good and also look good. You know, people start their journey to look good. But I feel like this is so important to speak to that. It's not just about, it's looking at the first, but like it's also the long term aspects of your overall health. 

Amber B 13:16 

Totally. Yeah. I think a lot of people start health and fitness journey for aesthetics, and I think the people who end up sticking with it are the ones who reap the benefits and understand the benefits of the feeling better. The, I love, I mean one of things I love about weightlifting, is it forces you to do something that’s hard and to overcome your natural barriers of what you think is possible for you and prove yourself wrong time and time again. I can't tell you how many times I've gone up to a bar and been like, I don't know if I can lift this and then I prove myself wrong because you're stronger than you really think that you are both physically, mentally, spiritually. I think across the board we are stronger than we think we are, and that can really play out in a 3D context inside of the gym of that strength, 

Nikkiey Stott 13:57 

Exactly. 

Amber B 13:58 

And it's so, it's so powerful. So, so good. So let's talk about some of the mistakes, because I think once people understand and know, OK, hey, strengthening is important, Nikki said it's important, she says it's going to make me look better. It's going to make me live longer. I get it, it's important. A lot of people try to dive in and make a lot of mistakes along the way, and so for somebody who's listening, I want to prevent as many of those mistakes as possible, so we can have, we can have the quickest route to being able to get the results that they want. So what are some of the top mistakes that you see when women start incorporating weight training into their, their journey? 

Nikkiey Stott 14:29 

Yeah, yeah I love this. So I would say one of the made ones. And it's like you're trying to teach an old dog new tricks. And this is like, to the women, it's not to women's fault here. Right. Because growing up for them especially, I'm speaking to like 40, 45 year olds, even the younger ones, who maybe they watch their parents do these things, all of those things. Growing up for them was all about like, be skinny, look skinny, like, eat this way, do this to be this skinny, do eat less, do more cardio weight, Watchers, Jenny Craig. All of the marketing was engineered and ingrained in those 45 women's or even, you know younger brains. And it's sad because that's all they know, and they think that eating less is the answer. And it's slowly becoming more apparent, obviously, how that's not the take on things anymore and how food is fuel and strong bodies and you need food to build muscle, et cetera. And so a mistake that I see women is just getting stuck. One of the mistakes, this is the main one because you got to get the mental game right for you and in agreeance with your journey. And if you can't get past this one, which I feel like is the hardest one to get past because like I said, this is something that's been gray in their brains for a while. And so getting past one of the big, the one of the, that's the big mistake that I see mentally, right? Because they have to break that type of thought process and getting past that old mentality of eat less, do more cardio to lose weight and to create that mental shift to get women to trust that eating 2000 calories is okay. And it's needed when you want to build muscle. So that's a big mistake that I see and it's not to women's fault because this is like all of the things that they grew up with. But eating less and doing more cardio is not the way to build more muscle. And so that's one mistake.  

The other mistake that I see is that is to the cardio machine mentality, right? Like too much cardio works totally against you trying to build more muscle. Especially if you aren't eating enough. Which is majority of people, right? The number one thing that I hear is like I'm not eating enough, I know I'm not eating enough or I'm eating healthy. I'm like what does healthy mean to you? And it's like breakfast, lunch and dinner and it's probably like less than 100 grams of protein a day. And so they're doing all this cardio, they're not eating enough. And so that's another mistake that I see because you're not going to be able to build the type of muscle that you want or build muscle. It doesn't even need to be like a shit ton of muscle. It's just like in order to build more muscle to your body, you can't be doing endless amounts of cardio. And so to avoid this, you can still incorporate cardio, right? You can still do I'm not saying don't do cardio. Like guys, your heart is a muscle that still needs benefit in exercise. But you just want to make sure that you're doing more strength training than you are cardio finding that balance and also eating enough to feel both of those types of activities. And when you're doing both of those types of activities, you need fuel to fuel them. 

Amber B 17:33 

Totally.  

Nikkiey Stott 17:34 

So that's number two that I see. And then the last one that I see is this common myth that women are going to get bulky if you lift weights. You've heard that too, right? Yeah, I'll be blunt, I thought that same thing when I first started out. But you got to eliminate this false statement from your mind. So that's another mistake because people just like, again, mental, a lot of this is more mental, most of the journey is a mental game than it is a physical one. Guys. It's like you got to break down these stories or these barriers or the things that are not in alignment with the necessary actions that are going to get you to where you want to be. And so one of the other ones is breaking this down, eliminating that false statement from your mind because muscle on a female body is so freaking sexy. And the only way that you're going to get bulky is if you're taking PEDs. And that's for people that don't know those performance enhancement drugs and understand that men and women that you see that do take PEDs, they have higher testosterone levels than in their bodies than just you and me and normal folks have. So that's how they build more muscle and do it faster and look like. 

Amber B 18:43 

And stay super lean while they do it. 

Nikkiey Stott 18:44 

Exactly and like just gonna have to train for like 30 minutes and then like all done and said and done like and it's like an easy workout, they'll actually have to put like insane physical stress. But anyway, OK, so I don't have to tear away from that. But yeah, unless you're taking the PED's or like doing things that are not natural, then yes, you will get bulky, but like you won't get bulky naturally, you know by just lifting weights and like going in and doing strength training exercises. So those are the three main mistakes you got to eat, right? You got to feel the body, right? You got to break down mental barriers of like Jenny Craig, weight watchers and this is the way to do it and be skinny. It's like, no, we're here to be strong and we’re here to build strong bodies and how do you do that? You got to eat right, you got to eat enough to feel those processes to happen internally, and then you got to cut down on cardio. It's like that is not the answer to getting the body that you want in terms of building more muscle, right, so doing too much cardio works against you, even if you got to find the balance between the two. I'm not saying don't cut it out completely. I'm saying find the balance and then fuel your body for both of those activities which is eating food and more food than you probably you think and then yeah, eliminate this like, I'm going to be too bulky if I lift weights. 

Amber B 19:53 

Yeah. It's really good. I think one thing that I wanna make really clear for women is like I get this idea of like I don't want to be bulky and I totally agree it's like, it's really hard. Like, I've been trying to get bulky and it's really hard to get bulky, so like you're probably not going to accidentally wake up one day and be bulky. But I do think it's important for women to understand that your body shape will change, and that's not a bad thing. But it will likely change. I remember I had a woman who, you know was, was in like size 2 jeans and started weightlifting and started adding muscle and was freaking out because her pants stopped fitting and I helped her to realize that like your body shape, you don't have any muscle on your body or very little muscle on your body. And to add muscle, it will change the shape of your body. It will look better in the long run like you will look healthier. You will have shape to your body. It's not bad shape, but you're going to be adding shape. The problem isn't that your pants don't fit. The problem is that you just need new pants like, so let's go get you some new pants that fit your athletic body. The pants is not the problem, the like the shape that you're building, the muscle that you're building is not the problem. So I think acknowledging that and especially for women who have very little muscle mass on their body, your body shape will change but it will change for the better, look better, you'll feel better. And yeah, a lot of, most women nowadays want a more athletic physique with less, thank goodness in the, like skinny twig.  

Nikkiey Stott 21:18 

No, no. 

Amber B 21:20 

We're, we're less than that. I think that's, that's so important. OK, so you kind of hit on this. Well, I actually want to circle back around because I said I would put a pin in this and this seems like a really good time to talk about it, is that the concept of like, maybe the scale will have to go up if you want to build muscle. And that's the experience that you had, right? It's like you're, you're heavier now than you were when you started it. And muscle weighs something, and likely the scale will go up. And that can freak a lot of women out so will you kind of speak to some of the mindset work that maybe you have to do or you have to help your clients do in order to make peace with the fact that I want muscle and that may mean that I may weigh more in the long run. How do you help people do that? 

Nikkiey Stott 22:04 

Yeah. A couple of ways, but then from #1 way is like if I notice that this person has a really bad relationship with that number on the scale and it literally fluctuates the mood that they're in like you step on the scale and it goes down like your immediate emotional state is happy and you step on the scale and then it goes up and your immediate emotional state shifts to being negative. It's like, OK. We have a deeper correlation that we need to break here so, 

Amber B 22:28 

So work to do first. 

Nikkiey Stott 22:29 

We have some work to do so, what I would recommend that person to do is like let's not measure or step on the scale every single day, or even on a weekly basis. Like maybe it's like yo, let's take some pictures. First of all, hands down. You gotta take the pictures. I would recommend that over anything and like, how many of you like, I don't want to take the pictures, I hate the way like, well, that's the reason why you're getting started, right, so take the pictures. Because you're going to notice a drastic difference from pictures and you are with any type of measurement. I mean like, like pictures don't lie. Numbers can be faulty, even human error. So if that's the case with the individual, I'm like, definitely start taking pictures, but let's hold off on the scale right?  

The second step that I would go with them if somebody's like, they understand how the scale works and they aren't, you know, emotionally attached to it and they like it as a data point. OK, this is a different stage of the scale process, right? We want to use it as a data point. It is solely just a data point. The scale does not know how much muscle mass you have in your body. It doesn't know how much sugar you ate yesterday. It has no idea, you know, it’s just a number. It's like you versus gravity here at this point. It's just more number on the scale and it's just, it doesn't know how much sodium you had. All of this stuff doesn't not matter if you eat carbs late at night and then you wake up in the morning, it doesn't know that, so it's solely just a number. But if let's say people like it as a data point, I'm like cool. I love that. Let's do it on a weekly basis. But here's something that could really trigger someone’s brain is that if they step on the scale and you know one week they weighed here, like let's say just 130 and then the next week they weighed in at 132. And then they start freaking out. So then I'm like, OK, pump the brakes. You just probably weighed in at a higher fluctuation point in your week, but your average is probably very similar in like that. It's just a high average point, right? But if you measure maybe seven days of the week and I'll get to that in a second, then you'll have a bigger scope of what's going on with your body. And so I'll work with people on that stage too as well.  

Third step is they fully grasp, they're emotionally detached from this scale. They fully grasp just a data point and they want to know deeper the average right, so they want to be able to see because the most important thing is, is that, you know, either your weight will come down with fat loss a little bit. But the most important thing, it's not linear. Your fat loss is more linear. And there's a difference between loss and fat loss.  

Amber B 25:00 

Yeah. 

Nikkiey Stott 25:01 

But let's say that you're seeing the averages go down that will help your brain a little bit more understand, but again, solely it's just data point. So there's a little bit of mental things like in stages that I would take women along the way. And like getting a grass first, just where am I at that I have to help this woman understand that it is just a data plan. It is just a number. But yes, to your to. That's how we handle mentally, but also just knowing how much I jumped that if you are in your journey of building muscle and you want more muscle on your body, you have to understand that it is going to add more weight. Muscle is way more dense than fat is. They weigh the same. But muscle, it is more dense and it takes up less space than fat does. So you could weigh 130lbs and I could weigh 130 lbs, but because I have more muscle in my body and we look drastically different than you weigh 130 lbs, and have different muscle mass and maybe more body fat. You know what I mean? That that's, you know, it just. If you're in the ballpark and wanting to build muscle it's like, yeah that at some point, at some point I don't, I don't even weigh. I don't even measure. I don't even weigh myself anymore. I'm like, let me look at the mirror and, like, let me see if I'm a little bit more lean here in spots. I could see this definition before. I can't see it now. What do I need to change or I need to cut back a little bit. Oh, I'm OK. Like all that stuff at this point in my journey, eight years later, I'm like, dude, why is the scale even here? Like it doesn't even. It doesn't even serve a purpose for me at this point. 

Amber B 26:26 

Right. Right. You get to a point where it's like you have all that data point, you know your body, you obviously know your body very well, you can, you can look at yourself and kind of know where you're at and make adjustments from there, and that's the place that women can get to and sometimes the scale can be a helpful data point to get to that point, but you don't have to use it for the rest of your life. Absolutely. 

Nikkiey Stott 26:48 

Yeah. Sometimes it's just saying throw in the trash bag and burn it. 

Amber B  26:51 

That's fun, it’s fun to burn things or smash it or whatever, yeah. Okay, awesome. So let's talk a little bit about some of the nitty gritty of, of somebody who's going and, and really wanting to optimize for muscle growth. And, and I think one thing, one point I want to make and you made this earlier and I just want to reiterate it, you said it really well that you know cardio is really it's, it works against building muscle and I think people don't understand that and, and they come from a cardio background and cardio. I'm not saying again. Like you said, you don't have to cut it out entirely, but just understanding the concept that cardio is catabolic. It breaks down muscle tissue. That is what it does. It's kind of like putting yeast in your bread, but not like activating that yeast. It's like I'm gonna put yeast into cold water and then wonder why the yeast isn't actually blooming or developing. I don't know, maybe cause you put it in cold water, you had a bunch of cardio, rather than putting it in an optimal environment. So you know, strength training is important, but we also need to make sure we're pairing it with, not overdoing it with, with cardio. So can you kind of speak to a little bit of some of the intricacies of if someone wants to maximize muscle growth, what should they think, be thinking about in terms of number of days of lifting, number of days of cardio, length of workouts, right? That's one thing that people get really in their head about of like how long should this work out, you know, be you know they really want to get into the nitty gritty. So can you kind of approach that and kind of give some, you know, general ideas about if someone thinking about starting strength training, how does that look and fit into their week? 

Nikkiey Stott 28:17 

Yeah, for sure. So it's very, I would say it depends on like, let's say you have a skinny, fat individual, right? Like, I mean it depends on my. 

Amber B 28:23 

Will you describe what that means for people who don’t know that concept? 

Nikkiey Stott 28:26 

Yes, skinny fat means you don't really have like that much muscle tone to your body, right? Like maybe, or maybe you just need to decrease a little bit of body fat and like you'll show a little bit more muscle tone, but like your goal should just be focusing on building more muscle. 

Amber B 28:39 

It's like a person who would walk down the street and you'd be like, yeah, that person's pretty skinny. But when you, like, do their body composition, they just have very little muscle. So that's why even the fat that they have on their body doesn't show that much because they just don't have very much muscle. 

Nikkiey Stott 28:50 

Exactly. And so you know, that individual, I would be like, OK, you're not going to do a lot of cardio. I mean, like your sole focus is just like let's build muscle and put muscle on your body and then you have more like somebody that maybe already has a little bit of more muscle, just like needs to decrease a little body fat to show that muscle mass like more of like, you know, if you want to talk about body types here, there's like ectomorph, mesomorph and endomorph. I'm talking more of like a mesomorph. Ectomorph is what I just talked about skinny fat, mesomorph is like, you know, they, the more muscle built and let's say they've been doing it for a while and they just want to cut back on some body fat mainly this is like, this is my body side, right? So like, I would just. I would maybe up a little bit more cardio. 10K steps, focusing every single day. Maybe do some StairMaster 2-3 times a week if that like 25, 20/25 minutes and then solely focusing on strength training on the other day is like four or five days a week and then, man and my, man has, my, just thinking about that, just trigger something. My brain is like dude, I used to train like six or seven, six days a week and like 7 days of cardio, and that was bodybuilding days. We won't go that far. But you don't need to do that drastic and a lot of people think you would spend 2, 3 hours inside the gym. It's like if you're doing it, you're, if you're doing it that way, it's completely wrong. If you're following anybody that says you need to do that, run for the hills and just block them, like, ignore them, like you don't need to be doing that. And then let's say if somebody who's like a little bit more overweight, right, and like, they're more of an endomorph and they have body fat underneath or they have muscle underneath of a, of an excessive amount of body fat. So, I would program something a little bit different for them like it would be probably a little bit more or be strength training for sure. Maybe a little bit more high super sets like that kind of stuff. And then, you know, maybe similar cardio to start, but this is the way I would do it as a mesomorph, I just said, but this is the way that I would do it like first of all, 3, 4, 5 times a week knocks for strength training and doing strength training exercises. And then like, and the ideal length of a workout should not exceed an hour, like 45 minutes to one hour is all that you need, and I would even argue just 45 minutes. Like if you're pushing an hour and a half to two hours where you're inside the gym. Like I said, whoever you're following, unfollow, block, run. I'm just kidding. But seriously, because you don't need that. You don't need that long of a, of a time in the gym for strength training exercises. And then I mean a little bit of different programming too as well would be to go in those different categories depending on the body composition is, it is very unique to the individual, but those to broadly speaking, that's the type of strength training that I would incorporate 3, 4, 5 days a week and then you know, depending on where you're at for cardio, max like 2 to 3 days doing elliptical StairMaster. And then walking, you guys, every single day you should be doing at least like 7500 to 10k steps a day. 

Amber B 31:54 

Yeah. Good. Awesome. That's really awesome, to have some specifics for people to at least get started with. Again, there's not. It's not like gospel truth, it's not like this is the only way to do it, but it gives you a rough like a place to start with when it comes to how you, how you create your programming. OK, you kind of touched on this and I want to dive a little bit deeper into it. So let's talk more about why working out six to seven days a week is actually a really bad idea, why we don't need to do it and why like your body actually needs rest in order to build muscle. Can you kind of speak to that a little bit? 

Nikkiey Stott 32:28 

Of course. So, my, I always say this. I'm like your breakdown muscle inside of the gym. You create these little muscle tears in your fibers of the muscle, all that jazz, you break it down. People think like the muscle in the gym, you break your muscle down the gym. You build it in the 24, 48, 72 hours after the gym post workout with how well you eat, with how well you recover. So if you're training six to seven days a week and you're doing lifts, every single one of those days, you're not giving it, you're actually, it's kind of productive at that point. It's like you're not giving your body enough time to heal and recover, so it's always going to be in this, like healing phase and not actually like a building phase like I said, like where you're spending the time to rest and recover and you're eating right, you're sleeping hard. You're Netflix and chilling like you're doing all the things that are required of proper recovery in those 24, 48 hours and 72 hours after working out, and that is with how well you eat. Keeping up your protein intake like not going and hitting that same muscle group within at least two to three days so it can fully recover and more of those things. Sleeping well, that's where my brain was going, sleeping you, it, like you know, I feel like a lot of people don't sleep too, or don't speak to how important sleep is. And it's like, you know, people. It's like, Oh my God, so I could just, I, we could just have an, we have an entire podcast on this Amber. 

Amber B 34:10 

Yeah, on sleeping.  

Nikkiey Stott 34:12 

So, but just to keep it short, like a lot of people that sleep 5-6 hours a night and they're trying to build more muscle, it's, it's just going to be super hard to do it. You'll be able to do it. It's going to take you longer do it, but getting an optimal like 7-8 hours of sleep a night so that your body can go through all of the different stages of the sleep cycle and getting your body to the deep sleep is like the most important aspect of your sleep cycle for recovery and for replenishing your muscle stores. So, focusing on making sure quality sleep is happening too in those rest and recovery days too. 

Amber B 34:49 

Yeah, it's so good. You and I both know that lifting weights is important, but I know a lot of women and I, and the reason I know these women is because I was one of them, where I was like, Oh! as long as I'm lifting a dumbbell then, I'm building muscle. And I had no idea that you actually had to be intentional about, like, just picking up a dumbbell isn't going to actually do anything, just doing the same reps with the same weight over and over and over again isn't going to do anything, like I was there for a really long time I thought body pump. And I was like, why am I not building more muscle? Like I lift with a barbell even multiple times a week, but I had no concept or understanding of progressive overload, and I think this is one of the biggest mistakes I see a lot of women making, making the assumption that if there is a dumbbell in the workout plan that they are following, then that it's optimized for building muscle, which nothing could be further from the truth. So will you kind of speak to the concept of progressive overload and how we can make sure that the time we're spending in the gym is actually doing what we want it to do, because I see way too many women wasting time in the gym. I think that's what you're speaking to is like, if you're actually doing a well structured plan, you can get it done in 45 minutes to an hour. A lot of people will waste time because they're doing burpees in between their, their, you know, big lifts and you know, like just kind of being, counteracting what they're trying to do. right, like and I, and I, I like, I just, I just want more women to understand that because I think so many women just don't understand enough about weight lifting and they get duped by people where they're like, this has a dumbbell in it, I must be building a muscle and they don't understand that it's not structured to actually encourage the body to build muscles. So can you kind of talk a little bit about the importance of progressive overload and how that works? 

Nikkiey Stott 36:25 

Yeah, 100%. So first I'll say that. I've totally been there and I totally know what you're speaking to and I still have clients to this day that want to program in, like let me do planks or high knees in the middle of my sets. And I'm like dude, sets and rests are so important. 

Amber B 36:42 

I had somebody. Yes, I had someone yesterday in my program that was like, I'm following the workout program, can I, like decrease the rest in between the sets? And I've said, friend, if you want to decrease the rest, you're not lifting heavy enough. Like you should be so happy that you have that rest and you should want every moment of it, like you're obviously, you're not lifting heavy enough and I think. Again, yeah, it's that idea of, like more is better, no it's not actually. 

Nikkiey Stott 37:07 

Yeah, no. 

Amber B 37:08 

Strategic is better. 

Nikkiey Stott 37:08 

Strategic is way better, yes, so. So OK, so the importance of progressive overload, because like you said, you know, picking up the dumbbells and doing that, is not just the way it's going to, it's going to happen. So I want to say this first before I go on diving about progressive overload. Number 1, is that nutrition is king and exercise is queen. So like you know, you could pick up all the dumbbells and the barbells and all that stuff and when we talk about here in progressive overload in a second but, like if your nutrition is not down pat, right, like you're going to have a hard time building the muscle that you want. And, and expecting the results you want to see by you picking up a barbell on a dumbbell first but 2, progressive overload is very important. You can't just go into the gym and I've been there done that too as well, where you have this workout and then the next day you change it or the next week you change it. 

Amber B 37:59 

Yes. It is always changing because muscle needs to be confused or something crazy like that. 

Nikkiey Stott 38:04 

Oh my God. Yes. OK. So first of all, progressive overload, what it does, it promotes muscle growth and it, it promotes adaptation to the muscle right? When the muscles are subjected to progressive overload, they undergo microscopic damage, right? I talked about that, you're breaking down fibers, all that jazz when you're inside the gym. This damage, those stimulates the body to repair and strengthen the muscle fibers, resulting in muscle growth and adaptation. So as you continue to increase stress placed on the muscle, it doesn't mean you're challenging muscle. You're placing more and I'm going to get to this in a second. Increasing your strength and increasing weight, but as you continue to increase stress by increasing weight, increasing size, increasing reps, playing around with drop sets and all these different techniques that you can incorporate in progressive overload, any places on the muscle, the body will continue to adapt, resulting in ongoing progress and resulting in the gains that you want to see. The strength that you want to see and more muscle mass, right? So promotes muscle growth and it promotes adaptation to the muscle in the way that I just explained. Now, the way that, another way that it does too as well is that it increases strength, so progresive overload, you do this by gradually increasing weight or resistance used in, like given exercises like a squat, a bench, a dead lift, those things and telling the muscle and forcing them to work harder. OK, it's not like you need to change up your program every single day because you're confusing the muscles and, and, and challenging the muscles you're just increasing. And this is what drives me nuts too. It's like I'm at my four-week program, when's the new one gonna come out? I'm like, yo, let's try for like 6 to 8 weeks. How about that? Let's, let's just change and exercise, or let's just change the rep scheme or the set scheme on it and maybe increase that you're doing a little bit more robustness time that you are playing with, you know the, the rest time in between but like, you're challenging yourself with the weight at the same time, and by doing this by challenging your body with more resistance and adding more stress to the bottle, your body your, your muscles adapt to the increased stress, they become stronger, which allows you to lift heavier weights and perform more challenging exercises, and this results again in you progressively overloading or, and, and adding more gains and strength to your programming through time, after like months of doing, maybe a 6 to 8-week block of training. And when I mentioned to you because I know that you're probably going to want a little tactical take away here is, I talked about squat, deadlift and bench, right. So you guys, the way to really tactically do this the right way is, you go and focus on those three main compound lifts and you take, you see how much you can truly challenge yourself to have a squat, or have somebody help you, or do this and have squat, squatter techniques around you where you have the bars and you drop it yadda. But you really want to max and how much you can max out at that one, one, rep max, right and PR, 1 RM or you know what I mean, in those three movements and that's how you tactically can program something that is like, the ideal workout for you, right? So because it's programmed for you, you are the one that can lift, say, 135 on a squat, right? Or, or squat 135. You're the only one that can. You individually can squat, or to deadlift with 225, you know, so that is, this is why it's, how it's super individual to you is then by taking that one max rep. And programming it weekly into your routine based off of a percentage. So you take the percentage of your Max Rep and then let's say Week 1, you do 65% of the Max Rep for 6 to 8 reps  of your squat. And then the next week you up to 70% and then following week you up to 75% and then the following week you up it's, see I'm not, I'm not changing my workout routine, you guys. I'm doing the same damn exercise. It's not anything like it's boring. Right. You're doing the same things over and over and over again. Same thing with diet, you eat the same thing over and over again. But let me tell you the thought process taken out of it is so beautiful and #2 is that you actually see way more of a physical result doing it this way than you will ever trying to change it up every single day or every single week and you'll notice that when you're doing it at this tactical way that I'm telling you, you will get stronger in those movements. And when you're getting stronger, that means you're building more muscle. And when you get stronger., and those then every other movement that you do as well around that because I say like you program squat, then bench and deadlift and you do all of the other isolated movements around that on that day. But you'll notice that if you're going, if you're increasing because then you go back and you'll retest for your Max Rep and you're going to increase, if you're doing it the right way, then I'm saying here progressive overloading and you go back to retest and it's like you've gained 5lbs or maybe 10lbs on your Max Rep that's a little aggressive, but that means that you've done all of the things that I just said in a progressive overload manner, the right way. 

Amber B 43:25 

Yeah. That’s right. I'm super curious. What is your favorite lift? 

Nikkiey Stott 43:29 

I love a deadlift. 

Amber B 43:30 

You love a deadlift. Yeah, I always like to ask people that question. And then second question and this is because I love to showcase what's possible for women listening. What is your strongest lift or what are, what, what PR are you like the most proud of? 

Nikkiey Stott 43:44 

I'm so proud of my, my deadlift. I have a PR of 310. 

Amber B 43:48 

Yes, Oh my gosh! I have a 303 deadlift. It's been a while, but now  

Nikkiey Stott 43:52 

Dang! Let's go Amber!  

Amber B 43: 55 

Above 300 was like a huge goal of mine. I did it in a power lifting competition and I'm nowhere near that now, but that's so fun. That's like about 300 mark is, like a big, was a big hurdle, so.. 

Nikkiey Stott 44:05 

Yeah, yeah.  

Amber B 44:06 

That's awesome. OK, so this is why I like to share it because I like sharing numbers that women can look at and be like, Oh my gosh, that's so inspiring. Like, you can get a 300 deadlift, like that's freaking awesome. OK. We have touched a little bit on nutrition. You've mentioned a couple times, but I want to do just kind of a last deep dive into, we talked about structure of workouts, length of workouts, number of workouts, but then you said you know nutrition is really king. So we want to make sure the analogy I like to use a lot is, like if you're trying to build a house and you have no wood, you can't build a house, no matter how, like many plans you have to build the house. How many people you have, even there to build the house if you have no wood to build the house, it's gonna be impossible. So, speak to the importance of nutrition and what do we need to make sure we are including in our diet, so that we are optimizing muscle growth. 

Nikkiey Stott 44:52 

Oh yeah, I love that you can't have the wood by the house. I say you can't have foundation, like you need the foundation to put the curtains up and, like put the run down and build the wood and the, and all this other stuff, like put the you know, all you guys have the foundation, right? And nutrition is the foundation to building your body, it is so essential for building muscle. So, like I said, right, you create these tears that happen in your body when you're working out and to repair and to grow those your body needs the right nutrients to fuel the process of building it post workout. So the main thing, and I know a lot of women struggle, even me too, man. Now when I first started, I had to Google what foods consisted of protein? No joke, and that was a game changer to me. Just learning how to eat more protein in my everyday, everyday routine. The protein is like the macro nutrient King, but I like to say it provides the building blocks, it provides you amino acids that your body uses to repair and to grow muscle tissue. And so I personally recommend at least like 0.7 to 1 gram of protein per your actual body weight. So like, I weigh 185, I'm going to make sure that I have 155 grams of protein in my day. And so yeah, protein is Super King.  

Next one is because a lot of people love to eliminate this sucker and then they go and try and build muscle and they wonder why they're not seeing results in like 6 months, because they eliminate carbohydrates and I'm like, you can never eliminate carbohydrates if you're trying to build muscle, no matter what fat diet says to do XYZ. Please, if your ultimate goal is to build muscle, do not eliminate carbohydrates. They are important for you building muscle. Your body uses these carbohydrates as its primary source of energy during exercise and for all the other function, your brain uses carbohydrates to think and and have your thoughts and be able to get through your day too as well, but you got to have carbohydrates at least around your exercise and in your recovery period too as well, because it helps to fuel up your, your workouts before. And it also helps to recover your glycogen source you just depleted during your workout, post your workout and then healthy fats. So you have to have the protein, carbs and fats. You have to have all three of them, and you cannot eliminate one of them because somebody told you to do so. You need to have enough of the three of them that works for you, works for your body, works for where you're at in your journey. Healthy fats are extremely important for muscle growth and they help too with hormone production and having your body be able to absorb these nutrients so that it can do the job of filtering and where all the things need to go to help you build the muscle that you want, so we cannot eliminate any of them and you need all three of them. 

Amber B 47:46 

Right. Exactly. And I think that's an important reminder for people because we, we are in this, many women come from this idea of limiting or reducing or cutting out and when you really understand that each of the three micronutrients does different things, it's like they do different things in your body. So if you're eliminating one of them, now that job that it was supposed to do cannot be done in your body, and that's going to be a problem if you're trying to build muscle, live optimally, feel healthy, feel energetic, you know all of these things that we've, we've spoken to that's really. Really good. OK. I like to ask because again, I think it's really fun for women to be able to hear other women's success and then other women's goals. So what are you currently working on in your health and fitness journey, what are some of your goals or things that you're trying to achieve right now? 

Nikkiey Stott 48:33 

Oh, I love that. I mean, maintenance mode is like where I live majority of my time during the year, I love living in maintenance. I love eating enough and still having a relatively lean physique. So that is my main focus right now. A little bit of maintenance and then strength wise, I know like no questions asked, am I programming my workouts in a way that is based off of my one max reps so, each week it's either you know I'm hitting it at 65%. Being at it if it's deload at around 60% or 75% or 85%. And my main, my main thing is just getting stronger in the squat, deadlift, and bench press. 

Amber B 49:18 

So fun, that's really cool. Alright, if people wanted to connect with you, Nikkiey, where can they find you? 

Nikkiey Stott 49:24 

Yeah. So I love to hang out on Instagram. That's my main jam. You can find me on stories, we can have a party @nikkieystott, and then I'm also on TikTok @nikkieystott. All the things pretty much @nikkieystott. 

Amber B 49:37 

Awesome. Thanks for so much. This has been such a fun conversation. I love the jam muscle. I love the jam lifting, I love to showcase strong women. I think we need more strong women in the world and I think if you're listening to this, you can be a strong woman. And like I said before, I feel like when we physically challenge ourselves and realize the strength that lies within us physically, that translates over into our mental strength and our emotional strength and our spiritual strength, and all of those other areas. It, it just becomes this really beautiful physical context to, of which we can learn to tap into that inner strength, that is, that is inside of each of us. So I'm really appreciative, Nikkiey, for you coming on, for sharing your expertise, your excitement and helping women to really get excited about building muscle. Hope you're walking away, really excited to go into the gym and just slay it. Just, just kill it. Gosh, that ladies. So thanks for being on the podcast today, Nikki. 

Nikkiey Stott 50:27 

Thank you for having me. 

Amber B 50:29 

Man, such a good episode, so many aha moments. Hopefully for you, as you really start to think about how can I prioritize gaining muscle, how can I make that a priority in my, in my journey and how can I arrange my nutrition and my workouts so that I really am putting that first and I'm maximizing and optimizing the amount of muscle that my body can build. I will say one of the best things I ever did for my body, for my aesthetic, is putting on muscle, is getting stronger and, I said at the end of the episode. But I really feel like the strength that we tap into in the gym is just a metaphor for so many other areas of our life, and it's one of the things I love about lifting is I learn that I'm stronger than I think I am, and that I often have more reserves and more strength inside me than I, than I would have guessed. And that same concept applies to my mental strength, my spiritual strength, my emotional strength. And I love seeing those more, maybe ethereal concepts play out in a physical 3D realm like in the gym, and it's one of the things that I love most about lifting and being and looking strong. That wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm Amber, now go on and be strong because remember, my friend, you can do anything.  

Outro

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