Celebrity personal trainer Magnus Lygdbäck answers your questions about fitness and exercise from Twitter. How much should you rest between sets? Should you drink water before, during or after a workout? Answers to these questions and many more await—it's Workout Support.Get Magnus's Health Secrets of the Stars: https://www.magnusmethod.com/redcarpetWatch Magnus Method on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@magnus_methodFollow Magnus Method on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/magnuslygdback/Director: Lisandro Perez-ReyDirector of Photography: AJ YoungEditor: Christopher JonesExpert: Magnus LygdbackAssociate Producer: Paul Gulyas; Brandon WhiteCasting Producer: Nicholas SawyerCamera Operator: Matt KruegerSound Mixer: Justin FoxProduction Assistant: Spencer MathesenPost Production Supervisor: Christian OlguinPost Production Coordinator: Ian BryantSupervising Editor: Doug LarsenAdditional Editor: Paul TaelAssistant Editor: Justin Symonds
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00:00 I'm Magnus Ligback, I've trained many high profile celebrities over the years.
00:04 Now it's time to answer your questions from the internet. This is Workout Support.
00:08 @Madloons How much do I have to lift to build muscle?
00:16 If you work almost to failure, about 9 sets for your smaller muscles and up to 12 to 15
00:24 sets on your bigger muscles like your legs and the back, you're off to a very good start.
00:30 It releases more testosterone in our bodies when we go heavier. We also know that being strong is
00:37 actually really good for longevity. When you're lifting a weight, what happens is that you get a
00:43 little micro tear in your muscle fiber. And then after your body goes in to heal that micro tear
00:49 and that makes the muscle stronger and a little bit bigger. And that's how you build muscle.
00:54 @Rush4Joan wants to know what's the ideal amount of rest between sets?
00:58 I have a rule that I rest up to 2 minutes in between my heavier exercises. So if I'm doing a
01:04 squat or bench press, if I'm lifting heavy, I rest up to 2 minutes to recover. Towards the end of
01:10 every session when I do more lower weight, higher reps and work more intensely, I try to keep the
01:17 rest to 1 minute or below 1 minute. @TiffanyPanna wants to know, @GalGadot how do you stay fit?
01:24 I want to look like you. When I help Gal to prepare for Wonder Woman 84, your number one
01:30 objective is to make sure your actor or actress do not get hurt. If your actor gets injured on set,
01:36 that means you have to shut down production and I can guarantee you, whether it's my fault or not,
01:42 no one would want to hire me after that. If you look at Gal or Alicia Vikander of Tomb Raider,
01:47 their strength, agility, the speed, the power, you train all those things. When working on agility,
01:53 I'm a big fan of plyometrics, sprints, frog jumps, skaters. I'm an old hockey player,
01:59 so there's always going to be skaters in my programs. When training men and women,
02:03 the program is going to be 99% the same. There's this myth that women who are lifting heavy and
02:09 do a lot of strength training is going to get bulky and big, and that is simply not true. You
02:15 can lift heavy, you can train really hard and be really toned and athletic. @RonnieJules wants to
02:23 know, tips to lose belly fat? I don't want to lose weight anywhere else though. Is that even possible?
02:28 Well, I hate to break it to you, you cannot spot reduce fat. So if you want to lose belly fat,
02:33 you'll have to be okay with losing fat all over your body. @JohnnyV45385760, why did fit people
02:43 in the past have different physiques than what we consider fit today? I am looking at this
02:48 bodybuilder from the early 1900s and his chest is flat. First of all, ideals have changed. Early
02:55 bodybuilders were inspired by like old Greek and Roman statues. So you can see that the chest is a
03:01 little flatter here and that comes from those statues and the ideals back then. Nowadays,
03:06 when you look at modern bodybuilders, we're over training chest and biceps to look a certain way.
03:11 Nowadays, we have all these machines. We do more isolated training today with lower weights and a
03:18 lot of reps. And back in the days, they mostly used free weight, which means that you did more
03:23 big compound movements, working several muscles together at one time. When I look at this picture
03:28 here, this is someone who actually trained to be strong, even though this bodybuilder here doesn't
03:33 have the same low body fat or the amount of muscle mass. This is someone who I bet is stronger than
03:39 half of the bodybuilders out there today. @Nayara90 wants to know what are your top
03:44 five compound workouts? My favorite compound exercises is squats, deadlifts, bent over row,
03:52 lat pulldown and bench press. @Antlang66r wants to know how do I maintain muscle mass while
03:59 cutting? It's very common when you do a cut, when you're in calorie deficit, which means you eat
04:06 less calories in a day than what you're spending. You do that to shred fat. It is very common to
04:11 lose some muscle mass in the process. So I don't lower my protein when I'm in a cutting phase. I
04:17 lower my carbs and fat because carbs and fat are both fuel for the body and you want to eat less
04:23 fuel. You also want to make sure that you keep working out while cutting. Here's one from @Dualipafiji
04:30 Okay Google, how to look like Alexander Skarsgård in the Northmen. I was fortunate enough to work
04:36 with Alexander on the Northmen. He went through a really hard regimen for six months, lifting heavy
04:45 five days a week, working on shoulder mobility so he could swing that axe. In this particular movie,
04:51 we knew that Alex had a spirit of a wolf and a bear. So we wanted him to look like a bear but
04:56 move like a wolf. That's why we made him as intimidating as possible when building him up,
05:02 but at the same time we made sure to get that mobility work in. And the difference between Alex
05:08 in the Northmen and the Tarzan is quite obvious. In Tarzan it was more about growing up in the
05:13 jungle so we wanted a little slimmer look, wanted him to be a little more cut. He had to go on a
05:19 pretty strict diet two months before. On the Northmen, we didn't have to put him in calorie
05:24 deficit so he was able to eat quite a lot of food throughout the whole movie, which he loved. A lot
05:30 of time when you see a certain body part popping like Alex's traps, it's actually posture. You can
05:37 actually manipulate your body to make certain body parts stick out more. You can see that he's
05:43 coming forward with his shoulder that will automatically raise his traps up. Don't get
05:49 me wrong, we did work the traps but we didn't work them more or harder than any other part in the
05:56 body. @Dailyland is asking, "What's a good pre-workout routine that takes no more than five
06:01 to ten minutes?" The most important thing about a pre-workout workout, a warm-up, is that it gets
06:07 your heart rate going, makes you sweat a little, and that it warms up the muscles that you're about
06:13 to work. If I'm working my lower body, I might do an exercise like this, even use a little box that
06:20 you can do toe touches on. So it's really up to you but try to activate the body part that you're
06:25 working out after. @PortiaWhitmore is saying, "@MagnusLigback, your legs are stunningly hot.
06:32 How do you do that, Magnus?" I have a sign in my gym that says, "Friends, don't let friends skip
06:38 leg day." It is super important to have strong legs because they are going to carry you around
06:43 for the rest of your life. The different glute muscles, the hamstring, the quad on the front side,
06:48 calves, work your slow twitch and fast twitch fibers. Fast twitch are super important if you
06:54 want to be fast and explosive. So I do sprints, I do skaters, and I do a lot of plyometrics. And
07:01 a couple of my favorite exercises to build muscle mass and work my slow twitch is leg press, dead
07:07 lifts, and goblet squats. And we can throw in some lunges there as well. @WhoIsLexiAnyway is saying,
07:14 "Can someone please help me with counting my macros? I want to lose fat and gain muscles.
07:20 So what's my ratio?" When it comes to looking at macros, you should be eating about 30 to 40%
07:26 protein and the rest 60-70% fat and carbs because you don't want to overeat fat and carbs if you
07:32 want to lose weight. So if you want to gain muscle mass, it's crucial that you hit your targeted
07:37 protein. My recommendation is that you eat one gram of protein per body weight total in a day.
07:43 So a person who's 180 pounds should aim for about 180 grams of protein total in a day. @JadeNicol5
07:52 wants to know, "Counting macros versus counting calories. Help a girl out." Well, here's the
07:58 answer. Both. There's a relationship between calories and macros. I want you to imagine that
08:05 you and I are on the same 1,500 calorie diet, but I choose to eat 1,500 calories of ice cream every
08:13 day. And you eat chicken, rice, and broccoli. Who do you think is going to keep their muscle mass or
08:18 even gain muscle mass? Who's going to stay healthy and live a long life? It's not going to be me,
08:23 but we'll both lose weight. You can dial in your macros, but overeat calories and you won't lose
08:29 weight. If you want to lose weight, you need to be in calorie deficit. You need to eat less
08:33 calories in a day than what you're spending. @Kunaicun wants to know, "Bodybuilding friends,
08:39 when training for mass, would going to failure on every set be ideal or would training to failure
08:45 only on the final set of the particular exercise be better to prevent exhaustion?" You don't need
08:51 to train to failure every single set. That would be mentally really, really hard, and it would also
08:57 increase the risk of getting injured. What matters really is the training volume, the weight that
09:02 you're picking up, how heavy is it, how many reps are you doing, how many sets are you doing, and
09:08 time under tension. For how long are you doing it? I would say the sweet spots are about two reps
09:14 from failure. Go as heavy as you can without compromising on good form. @FemFitaliLLC asks,
09:20 "Protein powder. What are the different types of protein powder and is it beneficial?" Yes,
09:25 it is beneficial and there's many different types of protein powder. The most bioavailable protein
09:30 powder out there is whey protein alongside with egg protein, and we talk about bioavailability
09:37 on your body's ability to take it up and absorb it. Vegan protein sources are a little lower when
09:43 it comes to bioavailability, so you might have to eat a little more of it. If you're vegan, you also
09:47 want to make sure that you get a mix of different protein types because most vegan protein sources
09:54 don't contain all the amino acids, and it's important that you get a full amino acid profile
10:00 for your body to take it up and use it. If your weight's 200, you want to eat up towards 200 grams
10:06 of protein per day. The average size egg contains 6 grams of protein, so that will give you an idea
10:13 how hard it is to actually eat enough protein in a day. So that's why a protein powder can
10:18 assist and help you. @ElliottCrush asks, "What's the difference between a celebrity personal
10:23 trainer and a regular personal trainer? Do celebrities have different bodies?" No, they
10:28 don't, Elliott. I worked with hundreds of pop artists over the years, on tour, off tour. When
10:33 I'm traveling with an artist and it's show day, for me it matters what time we get up, what type
10:38 of breakfast we have. I handle nutrition. I handle mental and physical warm-ups and cool-downs.
10:44 Something that I always do with my artists before they go on stage is to work the postural muscles,
10:49 the spine muscle, the rectus spina, to open up airways and to relax the throat muscle. Then I
10:56 also make sure that they sweat a little bit so they're warmed up when they get up on stage. I
11:01 think, though, that we need to look at high-performing celebrities, artists, or actors like
11:06 top athletes. @CharlesTOnion wants to know, "How many rest days are needed after a good gym session?"
11:13 I'm currently on rest day 731 and I'm not sure if my muscles are ready to go back yet. Try to
11:20 work out about five days a week in the gym, no more than six, but at least three times. Another
11:26 rule of mine is that you don't work the same muscle group two days in a row. Allow the muscle
11:31 group that you've been working on to rest and recover for at least 48 hours. @HanselDeHaro
11:36 wants to know, "Should you be drinking water during your workout?" Not necessarily. I'm a big
11:40 fan of drinking water before. It's actually in your body while working out. It is extremely popular
11:47 to drink all these electrolyte drinks. You don't really need that unless you're doing something
11:52 that makes you sweat for several hours. So there's no benefit of chugging Gatorade for a 60-minute
11:59 workout. @DietNutrition wants to know, "Plateaus. What is a plateau and how do I know if I hit it?"
12:05 Well, a plateau is when you feel like you are not seeing a progress. I normally eat around
12:12 2,200 calories to maintain my body weight, but I decide to drop down to 2,000 calories a day.
12:19 I will lose weight, but after a while, as my body weight drops, 2,000 calories is exactly what I
12:25 need just to maintain. So that means I'm going to hit that plateau. Let's say I'm 220 pounds and my
12:32 goal weight is 200 pounds. Take your goal weight, multiply that with 12. 200 times 12 is 2,400. So
12:41 I should be eating 2,400 calories every day to get to 200. That's how it works. @MarisolArt wants to
12:47 know, "What would be best for fat loss? Faster workout or watching TV with my fat, warm, fluffy
12:53 cat?" I got good news for you, Marisol. You can watch TV with your cat and lose fat because it
12:58 all comes down to nutrition. You need to be in calorie deficit to lose fat. There's no proof that
13:04 a fasted workout would be better than a non-fasted workout. You could actually argue quite the
13:10 opposite, that you don't have enough energy to really make the most of that workout. @LangleyDonovan
13:15 wants to know, "@MagnusLieback, "Hi Magnus, do you have a fat body percentage that you try to
13:20 maintain or aim for year-round?" I don't feel like I need to walk around with 10% body fat. Once you
13:26 hit 12%, you're going to be able to see a six-pack. And below 12%, you have to work pretty darn hard
13:32 on your diet. I would say 15% is about average for us men. A professional bodybuilder you see on
13:38 stage, they care about 3-4% of body fat. When you're looking at an actor in a superhero movie,
13:44 their body fat can drop as low as 5-6%. But that's not really sustainable. It's also not good for
13:50 your hormones and your longevity to keep your body fat too low for too long. @SultryKatsudon,
13:56 "Fitness question. I've always been curious about this, but how exactly do people measure what
14:02 percentage body fat they have?" The best method is what we call a DEXA scan, which looks like a big
14:08 MRI machine. And there you get exactly the amount of muscle mass you have. If you're not going to
14:14 doctor to do an expensive DEXA scan, you have several options that you can buy online. So here
14:22 we have a digital body fat analyzer. It will send out the signal from one hand to the other. What I
14:29 don't love is that it won't give you an accurate reading. You see, it's only reading your upper
14:34 body, not your lower body. You can use it for progression, but you have to take that number
14:40 with a grain of salt. This is probably my favorite tool to measure body fat. It's a caliper. And the
14:48 way you use this is that you pinch thigh, your belly, and your back or chest. But here's the
14:55 thing. Whatever that caliper is going to show you is just a number. Ask yourself, "How do I feel?"
15:00 That should be an important thing. @janelgibsonbook is saying, "I'm rubbish at push-ups.
15:06 Need to build up my strength. Any suggestions?" Well, there's many different ways you can get
15:11 better at push-ups. You want to find an exercise that's lighter on your chest but gives you the
15:16 same type of movement. So doing a push-up on your knees is excellent. You can do push-ups
15:22 on this table with your feet down, and that's going to be much lighter for you. Work with a
15:28 less inclined until you can do a flat push-up. To do the perfect push-up, lower your shoulders,
15:34 hands under your chest, slow down, explosive on the way up. Chest is the only thing touching the
15:39 floor. @christinaina is saying, "Real question. How long of cardio do you actually do?" If it's
15:46 for longevity, research supports that it's much better for your heart to do high-intensity
15:52 interval training for anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes, at least three times per week. It can be
15:59 a row, it can be on a treadmill, anywhere from 20-30 seconds up to two minutes of maximum capacity.
16:06 Then we rest. If you do a two-minute sprint, we'll rest between one to two minutes,
16:11 then we'll do it again. Anywhere between three up to 10 times. @legendaryhnf is saying, "I love
16:20 resistance bands. Do you use resistance bands?" Yes, I do. I love resistance bands. This is what
16:27 we call the super band, a longer one. This is a mini band, which is great for working your lower
16:34 body. I always travel with these. This is what I use when I pump my actors up behind the camera,
16:39 in between scenes. I'll stand with these bands, and I'll pump an actor up to make sure that the
16:45 right muscle looks the way it should in front of the camera. When I travel, let's say I'm at a
16:51 hotel room, the hardest thing to do without any equipment is to work your shoulders and your back.
16:58 One of my favorite exercises is a row, when I attach this to something, and then I pull. Another
17:04 one is when you step on the band and you lift up to the sides, which is a lateral raise. Same thing
17:10 for a bicep curl. You can just step on the band and curl. Without the band, that becomes really
17:16 difficult. @siporasaki wants to know, "What's a good pre-workout routine and drink? Drop some for
17:23 me." My number one favorite pre-workout is coffee. It's 100% natural. It's going to help you with
17:29 your focus, and it's definitely going to wake you up. @maniccannibal wants to know, "How does
17:34 creatine work? Is it supposed to be a pre-workout or a post-workout?" You want to eat about five
17:39 grams of creatine per day, and you can take it at any time. Creatine has been around for a long
17:44 time, and it's actually one of the supplements that we know is beneficial for you. What creatine
17:49 does for you is that it puts energy into your muscle cell, which will give you that extra rep
17:55 or make you a little more explosive. So basically, it will give you more energy. @trainingtable wants
18:02 to know, "What can you do to get exercise in during a day when you sit at a desk?" I got a
18:07 great exercise that I like to do at a desk. And basically, you put your hands down, and you press
18:15 down with about 20-30% of your power. And then you suck in your belly button, and you engage the core.
18:22 You lean forward a little bit, and you feel that core engaging. And then you hold it for 30 to 60
18:29 seconds. And this is actually working your spine and your core. And this is what we call an
18:34 isometric exercise, which means it's static. @everyoneh8manny wants to know, "What's your
18:40 favorite post-workout routine for recovery?" My favorite post-workout routine for recovery is
18:46 laying on the couch and watch a movie. There's so much talk about optimal recovery, ice baths,
18:52 Theraguns, and they're all great. But you know what? If you work hard five days a week,
18:57 you deserve to lay on the couch and take it easy. So those are all the questions for today. Good
19:03 luck on your fitness journey. Be kind to yourself, work hard, and enjoy life. Thank you for watching
19:09 Workout Support.