I'm Magnus Lygdback.

I've trained many high profile celebrities over the years.

Now it's time to answer your questions from the internet.

This is Workout Support

[upbeat music]

@Madloons, How much do I have to lift to build muscle?

If you work almost to failure about nine sets

for your smaller muscles

and up to 12

to 15 sets on your bigger muscles like your legs

and the back, you're off to a very good start.

It releases more testosterone in our bodies

when we go heavier.

We also know that being strong

is actually the really good for longevity.

When you're lifting your weights, what happens

is that you get a little micro tear in your muscle fiber

and then after your body goes in to heal that micro tear

and that makes the muscle stronger and a little bit bigger,

and that's how you build muscle.

@Rushford_joe, wants to know what's the ideal amount

of rest between sets?

I have a rule that I rest up to two minutes

in between my heavier exercises.

So if I'm doing a squat

or bench press, if I'm lifting heavy, I rest up

to two minutes to recover towards the end of every session.

When I do more lower weight, higher reps

and work more intensely, I try to keep the rest

to one minute or below one minute.

@Tiffanypana wants to know, At GalGadot,

how do you stay fit?

I want to look like you.

When I help gal to prepare for Wonder Woman 84.

Your number one objective is to make sure your actor

or actress do not get hurt.

If your actor gets injured on set, that means you have

to shut down production

and I can guarantee you whether it's my fault

or not, no one would wanna hire me after that.

If you look at Gal

or Alicia Vikander for Tomb Raider,

their strength, agility,

the speed, the power, you train, all those things.

When working on agility, I'm a big fan of plyometrics,

sprints, frog jumps, skaters.

I'm an old hockey player,

so there's always gonna be skaters in my programs.

When training men and women,

the program is gonna be 99% the same.

There's this myth that women who are lifting heavy

and do a lot of strength training is gonna get bulky

and big, and that is simply not true.

You can lift heavy, you can train really hard

and be really toned and athletic.

@RaniJuelz wants to know tips to lose belly fat.

I don't wanna lose weight anywhere else though.

It's that even possible?

Well, I hate to break it too.

You cannot spot reduce fat.

So if you want to lose belly fat, you'll have to be okay

with losing fat all over your body.

@JohnnyV45385760.

Why did fit people

in the past have different physiques than

what we consider fit today?

I am looking at this body builder from the early 1900s

and its chest is flat.

First of all, ideals have changed.

Early body builders were inspired by like old Greek

and Roman statues.

So you can see that the chest is a little flatter here

and that comes from those statues and the ideals back then.

Nowadays, when you look at modern body builders,

we're over training chest and biceps to look a certain way.

Nowadays we have all these machines.

We do more isolated training today with lower weights

and a lot of reps.

And back in the days they mostly used free weight,

which means that you did more big compound movements,

working several muscles together at one time.

When I look at this picture here, this is someone

who actually trained to be strong.

Even though this body builder here doesn't have the same low

body fat or the amount of muscle mass, this is someone

who I bet is stronger than half

of the builders out there today.

@Nyata_90 wants

to know, What are your top five compound workouts?

My favorite compound exercises is squats, dead lifts,

bent over row, lap pull down, and bench press.

@AntLang66r wants to know,

How do I maintain muscle mass while cutting?

It's very common when you do a cut,

when you're in calorie deficits,

which means you eat less calories in a day

than what you're spending.

You do that to shred fat.

It is very common to lose some muscle mass in that process.

So I don't lower my protein when I'm in a cutting phase.

I lower my carbs and fat

'cause carbs and fat are both fuel for the body

and you wanna eat less fuel.

You also wanna make sure

that you keep working out while cutting.

Here's one from at do @Dualipafiji.

Okay, Google, how

to look like Alexander Skarsgard in The Northman.

I was fortunate enough to work

with Alexander on The Northman.

He went through a really hard regimen

for six months, lifting heavy five days a week,

working on shoulder mobility so he could swing that ax.

In this particular movie, we knew that Alec had a spirit

of a wolf and a bear, so we wanted him to look like a bear

but move like a wolf.

That's why we made him as intimidating

as possible when building him up,

but at the same time, we made sure to get

that mobility work in.

And the difference between Alex in The Northman

and The Tarson is quite obvious.

In Tarson, it was more about growing up in the jungle,

so we wanted a little slimmer look,

wanted him to be a little more cut

and he had to go on a pretty strict diet two months before.

On the Northman, we didn't have

to put him in calorie deficit,

so he was able to eat quite a lot

of food throughout the whole movie, which he loved.

A lot of time when you see a certain body part popping

like Alex's traps, it's actually posture.

You can actually manipulate your body

to make certain body parts stick out more.

You can see that his coming forward with his shoulder,

that will automatically raise his traps up.

Don't get me wrong, we did work the traps,

but we didn't work them more

or harder than any other part in the body.

@Daleyland is asking, What's a good pre-workout routine

that takes no more than five to 10 minutes?

The most important thing about a pre-workout workout

a warmup is that it gets your heart rate going,

makes you sweat a little,

and that it warms up the muscles that you're about to work.

If I'm working my lower body,

I might do an exercise like this, even use a little box

that you can do toe touches on,

so it's really up to you, but try to activate the body part

that you're working out after.

@Porsha_whitmore is saying, @MagnusLygdback,

Your legs are stunningly hot.

How do you do that, Magnus?

I have a sign in my gym that says, friends,

don't let friends skip leg day.

It is super important to have strong legs

because they are gonna carry you around

for the rest of your life.

The different glute muscles, the hamstring,

the quad on the front side, calfs, work, your slow twitch

and fast twitch fibers.

Fast twitch are super important if you want

to be fast and explosive.

So I do sprints, I do skaters,

and I do a lot of plyometrics

and a couple of my favorite exercises

to build muscle mass and work my slow twitch is leg press,

dead lifts and gobble squats

and we can throw in some lunges there as well.

@wholslexianyway is saying, Can someone please help me

with counting my macros?

I want to lose fat and gain muscles.

So what's my ratio?

When it comes to looking at macros,

you should be eating about 30 to 40% protein

and the rest 60, 70% fat and carbs.

'Cause you don't wanna overeat fat and carbs

if you want to lose weight.

So if you want to gain muscle mass, it's crucial

that you hit your targeted protein.

My recommendation is that you eat one gram

of protein per body weight total in a day.

So a person who's 180 pounds should aim for about 180 grams

of protein total in a day.

@Jade_Nicole5 wants to know,

Counting macros versus counting calories, help a girl out.

Well, here's the answer, both there's a relationship

between calories and macros.

I want you to imagine that you

and I are on the same 1500 calorie diets,

but I choose to eat 1500 calories of ice cream every day

and you eat chicken, rice, and broccoli.

Who do you think is gonna keep their muscle mass

or even gain muscle mass?

Who's going to stay healthy and live a long life?

It's not gonna be me, but will both lose weights.

You can dial in your macros but overeat calories

and you won't lose weight.

If you want to lose weight,

you need to be in calorie deficit.

You need to eat less calories in a day

than what you're spending.

@Kunaikun wants to know.

Bodybuilding friends:

when training for mass,

would going into failure on every set be ideal

or would training to failure only on the final set

of the particular exercise be better to prevent exhaustion?

You don't need to train to failure every single set.

That would be mentally really, really hard

and it would also increase the risk of getting injured.

What matters really is the training volume, the weight

that you're picking up, how heavy is it?

How many reps are you doing?

How many sets are you doing?

And time under tension, for how long are you doing it?

I would say the sweet spots are about two reps from failure.

Go as heavy as you can without compromising on good form.

@FemmeFitaleLLC asks, Protein powder:

what are the different types

of protein powder and is it beneficial?

Yes, it is beneficial

and there's many different types of protein powder.

The most bioavailable protein powder out there

is whey protein alongside with egg protein

and we talk about bioavailability on your body's ability

to take it up and absorb it.

Vegan protein sources are a little lower

when it comes to bioavailability, so you might have

to a little more of it.

If you're vegan,

you also wanna make sure that you get a mix

of different protein types

because most vegan protein sources don't contain

all the amino acids,

and it's important that you get a full amino acid profile

for your body to take it up and use it.

If your weight's 200, you want to eat up towards 200 grams

of protein per day.

The average size egg contains six grams of protein.

So that will give you an idea how hard it is

to actually eat enough protein in a day.

So that's why a protein powder can assist and help you.

@ElliotCrush asks, What's the difference

between a celebrity personal trainer

and a regular personal trainer?

Do celebrities have different bodies?

No, they don't, Elliot, I work with hundreds

of pop artists over the years on tour, off tour.

When I'm traveling with an artist

and it's show day for me, it matters what time we get up,

what type of breakfast we have.

I handle nutrition.

I handle mental and physical warmups and cool downs.

Something that I always do with my artists

before they go on stage is to work the postural muscles,

the spine muscle erector spinae to open up airways

and to relax the throat muscle.

Then I also make sure that they sweat a little bit

so they're warmed up when they get up on stage.

I think though that we need

to look at high performing celebrities, artists

or actors like top athletes.

@Charlestonion wants to know,

How many rest days are needed after a good gym session.

I'm currently on rest day 731

and I'm not sure if my muscles are ready to go back yet.

Try to work out about five days a week in the gym.

No more than six, but at least three times.

Another rule of mine

is that you don't work the same muscle group two days

in a row.

Allow the muscle group that you've been working on to rest

and recover for at least 48 hours.

@Hanseldeharo wants to know, Should you be drinking

water during a workout?

Not necessarily.

I'm a big fan of drinking water

before it's actually in your body while working out.

It is extremely popular

to drink all these electrolyte drinks.

You don't really need that

unless you're doing something that makes you sweat

for several hours.

So there's no benefit of chugging Gatorade

for a 60 minute workout.

@DietNNutrition wants to know, Plateaus:

What is a plateau and how do I know if I hit it?

Well, a plateau is

when you feel like you are not seeing a progress.

I normally eat around 2200 calories

to maintain my body weight,

but I decide to drop down to 2000 calories a day.

I will lose weight,

but after a while, as my body weight drops,

2000 calories is exactly what I need just to maintain.

So that means I'm gonna hit that plateau.

Let's say I am 220 pounds and my goal weight is 200 pounds.

Take your goal weight, multiply that with 12.

200 times 12 is 2,400,

so I should be eating 2,400 calories every day

to get to 200, that's how it works.

@MarisolArt wants to know, What would be best for fat loss,

faster workout, or watching TV

with my fat, warm, fluffy cat?

I got good news for you, Marisol.

You can watch TV with your cat and lose fat.

'Cause it all comes down to nutrition.

You need to be in calorie deficit to lose fat.

There's no proof that a fasted workout would be better

than a non fasted workout.

You could actually argue quite the opposite,

that you don't have enough energy to really make the most

of that workout.

@LangleyDonovan wants to know, @MagnusLygdback, hi Magnus.

Do you have a fat body percentage that you try to maintain

or aim for year round?

I don't feel like I need to walk around with 10% body fat.

Once you hit 12%, you're gonna be able to see a six pack

and below 12%, you have

to work pretty darn hard on your diet.

I would say 15 is about average for us men.

A professional bodybuilder you see on stage,

they care about three 4% of body fat.

When you're looking at an actor in a superhero movie,

their body fat can drop as low as five, 6%,

but that's not really sustainable.

It's also not good for your hormones

and your longevity to keep your body fat too low

for too long.

@Sultry_katsudon on fitness question,

I've always been curious about this,

but how exactly do people measure

what percentage body of fat they have?

And the best method is what we call a DEXA scan,

which looks like a big MRI machine.

And then you get exactly the amount of muscle mass you have.

If you're not going to doctor to do an expensive DEXA scan,

you have several options that you can buy online.

So here we have a digital body fat analyzer.

It will send out a signal from one hand to the other.

What I don't love

is that it won't give you an accurate reading.

You see, it's only reading your upper body,

not your lower body, can use it for progression,

but you have to take that number with a grain of salt.

This is probably my favorite tool to measure body fat.

It's a caliper, and the way you use this

is that you pinch thigh, your belly

and your back or chest.

But here's the thing, whatever

that caliber is gonna show you is just a number.

Ask yourself, how do I feel?

That should be an important thing.

@JaneLGibsonBook is saying,

I'm rubbish at pushups, need to build up my strength.

Any suggestions?

Well, there's many different ways you can

get better at pushups.

You wanna find an exercise that's lighter on your chest

but gives you the same type of movement.

So doing a pushup on your knees is excellent.

You can do pushups on this table with your feet down

and that's gonna be much lighter for you.

Work with a less incline until you can do a flat pushup.

To do the perfect pushup, lower your shoulders,

hands under your chest, slow down, explosive on the way up.

Chest is the only thing touching the floor.

@ChristinaEnaa is saying real question,

How long of cardio do you actually do?

If it's for longevity, research supports

that it's much better for your heart

to do high intensity interval training for anywhere

between 10 to 20 minutes, at least three times per week.

It can be a row, it can be on a treadmill,

anywhere from 20, 30 seconds up to two minutes

of maximum capacity.

Then we'll rest.

If you do two minute sprint, we'll rest between one

to two minutes, then we'll do it again.

Anywhere between three up to 10 types.

@Legendaryhnf is saying, I love resistant bands.

Do you use resistant bands?

Yes, I do, I love resistance bands.

This is what we call the super band, a longer one.

And this is a mini band, which is great

for working your lower body.

And I always travel with these.

This is what I use when I pump my actors

up behind the camera.

In between scenes, I'll stand with these bands

and I'll pump an actor up to make sure

that the right muscle looks

the way it should in front of the camera.

So when I travel, let's say I'm at a hotel room,

the hardest thing to do without any equipment

is to work your shoulders and your back.

So one of my favorite exercises is a rope when I attach this

to something and then I pull another one is when you step on

the band and you lift up to the sides,

which is a lateral race.

Same thing for a bicep curl.

You can just step on the band and curl.

Without the band,

that becomes really difficult.

@Zipporah_zaki wants to know,

What's a good pre-workout routine and drink?

Drop some for me.

My number one favorite pre-workout is coffee.

It's 100% natural.

It's gonna help you with your focus

and it's definitely gonna wake you up.

@ManicCannibal wants to know.

How does creatine work is?

Is it supposed to be a pre-workout or a post-workout?

You wanna eat about five grams of creatine per day,

and you can take it at any time.

Creatine has been around for a long time

and it's actually one of the supplements

that we know is beneficial for you.

What creatine does for you

is that it puts energy into your muscle cell,

which will give you that extra rep

or make you a little more explosive.

So basically, it will give you more energy.

@TrainingTable wants to know

what can you do to get exercise in during a day

when you're sit at a desk,

I got a great exercise that I like to do at a desk

and basically you put your hands down

and you press down with about 20, 30%

of your power, and then you suck in your belly button

and you engage the core.

You lean forward a little bit

and you feel that core engaging,

and then you hold it for 30 to 60 seconds.

And this is actually working your spine and your core.

And this is what we call an isometric exercise,

which means it's static.

@Everyoneh8Manny wants to know,

What's your favorite post workout routine

for recovery?

My favorite post postworkout routine

for recovery is laying on the couch and watch a movie.

There's so much talk about optimal recovery, ice baths,

feraguns, and they're all great.

But you know what?

If you work hard five days a week,

you deserve to lay on the couch and take it easy.

So those are all the questions for today.

Good luck on your fitness journey.

Be kind to yourself, work hard and enjoy life.

Thank you for watching Workout Support.

[upbeat music]