☀️Exercising And Tanning
(2-minute read) Exercising and tanning share a lot of the same qualities.
Happy Spring!
A question I receive fairly often is:
Fran, how often should I train to see results?
The answer to that question largely depends on your desired results, your “training age,” and what you’re willing to do outside of the gym to supplement your health.
In past articles, I’ve discussed the importance of periodic heavy strength training and how to be honest about pushing yourself when training alone.
But even after reading what I've told you, it might be hard to know just what you can handle in the gym.
The hard truth is that you have to experiment, test your limits, and be safe at the same time.
Does that sound hard? Well, that’s because it is.
For today’s article (and in the pre-celebration of warmer days ahead), I want to draw a parallel between strength training in the weight room and tanning your skin.
I’m stealing this analogy from Dr. Mike Israetel, a modern meathead I’ve mentioned before who is objectively one of the most knowledgeable people in the game of building physique.
Even if he looks intimidatingly strong and scary, his books and writing are worth checking out if changing the look of your body is a priority for you.
Israetel likens resistance training exercise to skin tanning, citing that in both resistance exercise and tanning, two things have to be monitored closely: your stimulus (the weights and the sun, respectively) and your exposure.
With both activities, you need to be realistic.
Going shirtless all day in the Arctic Circle won’t necessarily get you tan, just like using a 10-pound dumbbell for every exercise won’t build a ton of muscle.
These are both examples of high exposure and low stimulus.
The same is true for overdoing it, too.
Ten minutes of unprotected sunlight in Medellin for a pale person can burn you like 10 repetitions of a 200-pound deadlift (or any weight you haven’t previously attempted) can.
Think of these as high-stimulus, low-exposure scenarios. Striking the balance between high-enough stimulus and long-enough exposure is a delicate process.
Finding the right amount of training stimulus starts with thinking about muscles like pale skin.
How Tan Are You?
If you were to tan on the first sunny and warm day of the year, you’d give yourself some decent exposure but not sit outside for more than 20 minutes (right?).
Every tanning day after that, assuming you’re staying in the same climate, you’d increase your exposure. To become more tan without burning, an extra 3-5 minutes a day should work well, depending on the fairness of your skin.
If you've never missed a tanning day and have not suffered any burns, you’ll be pretty happy with your skin tone by mid-summer.
For my fellow pale-skinned readers, a multi-month no-burn streak is highly unlikely. But for the sake of the argument, this is the formula we should apply and follow for muscle development.
Just as a few minutes of sun exposure with SPF-75 on won’t yield any color, so won’t a 30-minute dumbbell workout without venturing past the five-pounders not grow you any muscle?
Or, like a day, falling asleep in the sun or under-applying sunscreen can hinder your tan schedule for weeks, so can an overreach in the weight room that leads to pain or an injury mess up your muscle-building schedule indefinitely.
If you enjoy this analogy and want to take it a step further, ask yourself about your exercise expertise in tanning terms: How Tan Am I?
The great thing about exercise is that regardless of climate, you can be “tan” all year round and develop a great base for handling more and more resistance exercises without worrying about getting too “pale” (weak).
As I mentioned back in February, the gains made from strength training, even just semi-regularly, tend to stick around for up to four weeks, so you needn’t worry about losing progress with a short hiatus.
Before jumping right in the “tanning bed” (gym), however, you must have an understanding of how long you want to train, the type of equipment you want to use, and how frequently you wish to exercise.
Generally speaking, two to three resistance training sessions per week will definitely yield results, but pale folks (beginners) may want to start slower.
What About Tracking Progress?
Then comes the means of tracking what you’re doing.
Those of you not working with a professional like myself will need a way of knowing how to progress and what to progress that is foolproof.
This is where exercise progression and tanning progression differ immensely.
You can’t just look at your strength like you can look at your tan skin.
So here’s a formula to start you off.
Assuming you’re in the same climate (gym) every time you train, your stimulus has to increase over time — roughly every 2-3 weeks for most people.
This progression could take the shape of…
heavier dumbbell increments (+2-5 lbs every 2-3 weeks)
increased repetitions (+2-5 reps every 2-3 weeks, THEN add weight and subtract reps)
increased time-under-tension during your exercises (+1-3 seconds added to a motion)
Finally, your exposure to the gym should increase, too.
45-minute workouts will turn into 50-minute ones, 50 to an hour, and possibly further from there.
You’ll find that after a few 45-minute sessions, you’ll feel as if you haven’t done enough — you haven’t “gotten darker” — and will need more exposure.
A Few Notes On Your Fool-Proof Tanning Strategy
It’s possible that it will take weeks, or even months, to figure out the “sweet spot” for your strength training stimuli that yields consistent results.
Sometimes, 5-pound increases aren’t enough.
Sometimes, we may just be maintaining our current state instead of pushing past it. This is why quantifying results is important—it helps to know on a micro-level what’s working and what isn’t. Progress pictures don’t always tell the entire story of muscle growth.
Even though I’ve simplified the process of making real progress into a short newsletter, it will still take a time-based, analytical approach to training to have lasting progress.
Certain technologies, like the InBody Machine and DEXA Scan, can help with this, but they are expensive and available only at select gyms.
But for those of you who are numbers-oriented and appreciate data, they tell a larger story about progress.
They give measurements of bodily water and overall muscle mass, which can help keep us honest when we think we’ve been pushing hard.
To return to our tanning analogy, think of them as machines that tell you if you’re a shade darker than you were last tan session.
Once you’re at a place where you’re content with physique and strength, it becomes easier to maintain.
Just like the prospect of a sunburn becomes less intimidating after a tan, your ability to maintain strength is more effortless so long as you’re sticking with your frequency. If your exposure to the sun (or gym) starts to decrease, your tan (or muscles) likely won’t stay the same.
Everyone retains muscle differently, just like (you guessed it) everyone tans differently.
So, it would be irresponsible to tell you that one dose of sunscreen (or exercise) works for everyone.
However, one thing I can say with certainty is this: If you experiment and find your parameters, keeping this comparison in mind will help you remember how to push yourself when you hit a wall with your exercise.
I can’t coach or consult anyone who wants to get tan and build muscle simultaneously, though.
That is way too much data to keep track of.
See you on Wednesday.