Shadowing Practice: How To Tell If Your'e Training Hard Enough - Learn English Speaking with Video
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a lot of people do wrong when it comes to getting in the gym
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and lifting weights is they simply do not train hard enough.
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You don't rock up to the gym day one and know what it feels like to train till failure.
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You need to teach your body what that is and challenge yourself, surprise yourself.
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And if you can't do it, you can always go back down to the lower weight.
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Do you need to be spending two and a half hours at the gym?
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An effective workout can be 30 to 40 minutes longer doesn't equal better.
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If you are doing a two-hour workout with 12 different glute exercises, you need to promise us that you're going to try something different,
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scale it back, and just give it a shot for four to six weeks
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and tell us we're wrong because you won't be able to.
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You won't be able to.
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Welcome back to the Oil Let's Talk podcast.
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I'm Kate.
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And I'm Gemma, a space for no BS conversations for the women who want more.
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Today, we are diving straight into part two, episode two of the fitness series.
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And we have a lot to say.
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So without further ado, is that right?
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Adieu?
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Without further ado.
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Adieu or ado?
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I don't know.
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I don't know.
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Let me know, Kate Morris.
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What's your first point?
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Um, you've caught me off guard because you didn't even intro what we're going to talk about today.
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You just said we're coming in hot with our second episode.
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Well, today's episode, we want to talk about how you can actually train hard to get the result that you want.
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Now, when I think about this from a very basic level, this is what I actually feel like a lot of people do wrong
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when it comes to getting in the gym and lifting weights and getting a particular result, is they simply do not train hard enough.
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A lot of women still feel like, oh, we're going to get bulky, we're going to get too masculine, I say in quotations if I lift weights,
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and usually they'll go in and they'll lift super lightweight, maybe they're afraid of getting injured and eventually just get to the point where they're like,
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well, I'm not really getting anywhere closer toward my goal.
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So today we really want to break down how to train hard to get the results
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and achieve the things that you want.
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And again, guys, it's going to feel a bit boring.
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I'm sorry, but we're breaking down the basic terminology that you need to know around training till failure, what RIR is, and really getting into the nerdy shit.
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like the training intensity again is another skill like you don't rock up to the gym day one
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and know what it feels like to train till failure you need to teach your body what
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that is and you also need to realize mentally the the blocks
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that you can have in terms of like what it actually feels like
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when it's hard but you actually can give more so I think
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that that's like again another thing
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that we need to view as just like a skill
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that you need to learn with your body with experience in the gym.
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And when it comes to training intensity, I like to break it down with a couple different things to think about when I'm training.
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One of those, you already, I think you mentioned it, RIR, but I always like to think- What does that mean?
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Raps in reserve.
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Just for anyone that doesn't know.
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There's also an RPE scale, the rate of perceived exertion.
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They're both just fancy ways of saying- Same, same.
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Same, same.
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Like, are you training close to failure?
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Now, we don't want to train to failure with every single exercise, with every single session, because it's going to be really hard to recover
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and to also get stronger because we're just maxing out all the time.
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But what I'm usually keeping an eye out for is just being one to two reps away from failure, which I kind of put in my head on that scale of being like,
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this should feel like a two RIR roughly.
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And then I can test that every once in a while.
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I can truly do a set to failure to kind of gauge how far off I am based on what I thought.
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So for the visual girlies, what does that look like?
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let's just visualize a leg extension machine if I have three sets of eight
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and for one month I've been stuck at 27 kilos
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because I thought that 27 kilos was only a couple reps away from failure with this test
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that you can do you can just send it with
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that last set and if you can do more than 12 reps
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or more than 10 reps at the weight you're currently stuck at
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that really tells us that you are undershooting because you're doing four more
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and potentially what happens
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when people do this test is they can end up doing 20 on the leg extension
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and they realize oh I could actually do a lot more
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so again it's a it's a test you need to kind of see
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and you surprise yourself with how strong you are like you're
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like wow I could really push it a lot more than what I realized yeah
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and a lot of the time people don't do that
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because they are afraid of afraid of injury or afraid you know maybe they just don't think that they're strong enough, another way that I like to look at,
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okay, am I training hard enough?
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Is what is the speed of the movement that I'm doing?
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So again, we'll use the leg extension just for this example.
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If I'm getting to my last, say, six reps out of eight, and those reps are starting to really slow down,
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that would indicate to me that I'm probably lifting, quote unquote, heavy enough.
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And I'm not undershooting like Gemma was speaking about before.
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So also paying attention to the speed of the reps that you're doing.
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Fancy word for you.
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Training velocity.
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Training velocity.
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Yeah.
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if you're also just like fanging it on the machine
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and you're swinging your legs extension
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and it's just flying off your legs it's like well that's probably a clear indicator
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that you're lifting way too light
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so all of this stuff you guys will start to get good at
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if you get into the gym
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and you follow something structured I think that's also something really important I know we spoke about
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that in episode one but like
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if you're not following a structured program how are you ever
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going to test any of this how are you going to know whether or not you're actually training to failure?
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How do you even know how strong you actually are?
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How do you even know what failure even looks like
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if one week you're doing an RDL that you saw your favorite influencer doing
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and then the next week you're doing something else
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because somebody else said that Hirox was better
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and then you're going back to doing this because you've realized
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that you've got an injury that's flaring up with Hirox because you stopped.
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Like it just becomes too much.
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It's like we need to stick to something.
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We need to follow it for an extended period of time and we need to get good at it.
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I mean you can't get good at what you don't practice.
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Exactly.
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It's like you can't just be chopping and changing and then being sad that you're not getting stronger.
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It doesn't make any sense.
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No. On the theme of speed of reps, I also just wanted to quickly touch on tempo.
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Velocity.
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I want to quickly touch on tempo because I'm going to say we both would see this all the time.
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The number one thing that gym newbie girlies do, and I would have done this as well, you would have done this, is we're just like flinging through the movements and because we're visual, flying.
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We are flying.
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So for the girlies who are seeing us, lateral raises, perfect example
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if you're doing a lateral raise aka raising your arm up I would normally extend
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but for this example I'll just do this
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if every rep is like this
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and you're just fanging it have a think about actually logically is my shoulder working
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or is the momentum doing the work I always think of
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like the momentum is doing the work my shoulder's not doing the work for
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that example and that's probably the easiest way to explain what I'm trying to say is
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if you are more intentional with your reps and you slow it down, you will get a better workout because the muscle is actually working, which is what we're there for, right?
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So I like to think, I don't want you to become too hyper fixated on tempo, but a good starting place would just be three, one, three, one.
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So three seconds through the movement, maybe a pause at the top, three seconds down.
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It doesn't have to be a perfect science, but all that's teaching you is control.
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And that's a really a good thing that you will one, you'll actually be more sore because you'll be like, oh, I'm actually like working my shoulders and my glutes.
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And two, it actually gives you, you're making the most out of the time that you're there.
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Yeah.
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I always say slow and controlled.
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And it's not about being, you know, at a snail's pace, but it's about actually allowing your mind to connect to the muscle that's moving,
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mind muscle connection, and not just flinging the weights around.
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Also, if you're flinging the weights that quickly, that's another clear indication that it's way too light for what you're trying to do and you probably need to increase it.
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So for me, whenever I train, and this is just a little sidestep, I always think about it through an intentional lens.
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I'm not going into the gym just to get in there as quickly as I can to get out
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or to get in there to throw weight around to then leave.
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It's like, no, I'm going in there intentional, right?
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I'm intentionally going in there with a program to focus on a goal that I want to achieve.
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Same thing with the movements.
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I'm taking my time through them.
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I'm going slow.
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I'm going controlled.
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I'm thinking about tempo.
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I'm testing where my strength is.
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And also I'm challenging myself.
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And I think that this is a big thing too.
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It's like people will stay in the same weight range for a period of time instead of just going, oh, okay, let's just see if I add 1.5 kilos more if I can do it.
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Maybe 2.5 kilos.
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You know what?
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Maybe I'm just going to try instead of being 60 kilos on the abduction machine that I've been sitting at for weeks, I'm just going to go to 65 and challenge yourself, surprise yourself.
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And if you can't do it, you can always go back down to the lower weight.
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Yeah, I love that.
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And I think that leads also really nicely into rest periods
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because another thing that a lot of girlies who've had the background of classes struggle with is
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when I give them a program and they don't know what to do in
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that rest period or they don't want to rest for that long.
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And I have to go through that education piece of being like, no, that's actually what's missing from you getting good results.
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So run it back for a second.
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If you've come from a class background or you're not used to resting in the gym, the rest is the part that allows you to train with quality.
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If you're flying through your sessions and you're not resting, how are you going to push the weight?
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You're not recovered properly.
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So with all of the way that Kate and I always program for our clients, it would be somewhere between 60 to 90 seconds rest between each exercise.
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So again, for the visual girlies, let's think practically here.
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Let's think that you're on the leg press.
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Probably would be written something like three sets of eight reps with 60 to 90 seconds.
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and what we both do
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and highly suggest doing is not just leaving it to chance of your rest period timing it
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so the apps that we both use time this
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so again visual girlies you're on the leg press you've done
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your first set you open up the training app in an
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ideal world this is what we do we click rest
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and then it counts down 60 or 90 seconds and in
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that time we're chilling out you can you know change the music
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if you were walking you could do a couple little stepies
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around the gym as long as it's not too intense
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and the purpose of this is then you go in for set two
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and you actually can push hard the training intensity
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that leads to the the changes that we're wanting and
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that really does make a really big difference now back to the timing thing
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if you get distracted on social media your session could take double the amount of time it needs to
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and it's also distracting
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and not the mindset you want to be into your in your training session so something that I love doing, I know you also would do this, is phone on Do Not Disturb, timing my rest periods, and I'm being efficient.
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I'm getting in, I know what I'm doing, I'm training hard, I'm resting when I need to rest, and then I'm getting out of there.
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And when it comes to sticking to a program longer term, I think that's also better
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because I'm not needing to spend two hours in the gym to actually get a good session done.
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That was literally going to be my next point.
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It's like the time of your session.
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Do you need to be spending two and a half hours at the gym?
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No. An effective workout that is controlled, that is focusing on progressive overload, that is structured and built around you and your goals,
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your training history, can be 30 to 40 minutes
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if you are doing what we are speaking about in the last episode and in this episode.
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If you're going in and you're flying through the exercises
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and everything's really light and you're not doing your rest breaks and you're not following a program, you probably do feel like you need to be there for longer
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because you don't feel like you're quote unquote getting in a good workout.
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But the reality is if you follow that structure, if you have, you know, the actual goal that you're working towards, you don't need to be in the gym for two hours.
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You don't need to be, you know, doing 18 different exercises on one day.
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It's like you can do four to six exercises.
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That's perfect.
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You don't need to be having this massive list of all these different exercises
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that are just scrambled in there that you're doing off the whim.
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It's like four to six exercises, training with intensity, either, you know, following progressive overload, testing your failure,
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all the things we've just spoken about.
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I feel like I'm just repeating myself in a cycle, but you guys get it.
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No, it's important.
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We need to drill it in because we literally have the same conversations every week.
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So we know that this is important conversation to have.
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You really just inspired a point that I think is an education thing we can go through in terms of longer.
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Doesn't equal better.
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Doesn't equal better.
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Burn doesn't equal better.
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What do I mean by that?
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Sweating.
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Sweating doesn't equal better.
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Heart rate being up doesn't equal better when it's resistance training.
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Now, this is really important because if you've come from a HIIT background, a class background, and maybe even athletics background because you used to do a sport,
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the feeling and sensation that you have after cardio is different to the feeling and sensation you have after resistance training, and they both serve a purpose.
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But if you're used to essentially just feeling fucked up after you train
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and you're thinking that that's what you need to get the results, it doesn't.
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We can both train and not really break a sweat in terms of like puffing and panting and things like that.
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And I can still have gotten stronger in that session, be feeling good, be feeling really all of the things because those are two separate things.
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So do not conflate, fancy word, that the burn, that sensation and how much you wrecked yourself equals results because it doesn't.
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That just generates fatigue.
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And when we look at evidence-based results and progress, it is the things that we have already mentioned, a structure resistance training, pushing the training intensity
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and something that we see quite often is people getting really carried away with volume.
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So again, the mindset, and this is just the girlies that love to just push as hard as possible.
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Maybe you've done a sport and it's like, oh, you know, but it's a mindset thing.
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If you think that training for two hours is better than training for 45 hours, you were 45 hours, 45 minutes.
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You were wrong.
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But we can think that because we just think that the more that we push, the better we get.
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But it's, there's a word that I want yield.
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Well, it's also just not conducive, right?
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Because if you think about it from this perspective, it's all based on your goal.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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So if you, if you're training for two hours, smashing yourself, doing lots of cardio, but your goal is to get stronger it's like
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that doesn't make any sense because you're doing lots of cardio for two hours
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but you're not actually lifting any weight
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but the goal is to get stronger like how are you going to get stronger
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if you're not putting a muscle under any kind of load
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like it's not conducive to getting you towards the goal based on what it is
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that you want now obviously
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if your goal is to you know potentially lose weight let's
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say your goal is to lose weight yeah you probably are
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going to have to do more movement either through steps
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or intentional cardio and it might look a little bit different
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but it needs to be in line with your goal also
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who has the time to train two hours a day unless
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you're probably somebody who is prepping for like an ultra marathon
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or something like that and you've got multiple different
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or a bodybuilder you've got multiple different things
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that you have to do in like one
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or two training sessions a day fair enough
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but like the general person you
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and I gem we don't need to be in the gym for two plus hours we spend 50 minutes of working out.
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And that gets us results.
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I do literally at the moment, I do 30 minutes of weight training or 35 minutes of weight training
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and 30 minutes on the StairMaster because I'm in a deficit and I want to bump that up a little bit.
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But I also am really loving the cardio element because I think that it challenges me because it's hard.
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That's where I'm like sweating and my heart rate is up.
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Weight training, I'm not really sweating and my heart rate isn't really up.
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Another thing I want to also quickly just tack on here before we wrap up the episode
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is if you are a person who has come from classes, actually not even that, are classes good, are classes bad?
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I know someone's going to leave it in the comment.
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I think group workouts and classes are good if you're a newbie to build motivation,
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but long term, they're not probably going to get you the physique or the goal that you want.
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You're probably going to eventually outgrow a group class
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and you'll probably need to start either going into the gym
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and following something that's more tailored and structured to you with those rest breaks
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that we were speaking about before to actually allow you to rest, recover, but also grow muscle tone.
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Yeah, I really think it just depends on your goal.
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Classes are great for community.
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Classes are great for accountability because you've got people around, you've got an appointment that you've booked essentially, so you have to go, which is different to when you're self-motivated at the gym.
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And any movement is good movement.
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But if you have a goal beyond those things that we mentioned, and you probably do because you're listening to this podcast,
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strength, individualization, and the things that you can't essentially get from a class, then you will potentially get to a phase,
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like Kate said, where you outgrow this because you need something specific to you, you need something structured, and you need something repetitive.
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And a lot of the time, the other benefits of doing the gym side of things is it's more,
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like we said, individualized in the sense of you can have more oversight to what you're doing versus
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if you're in a class and you're just doing stuff who knows
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if your form's good there's not really as much of a review there
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and it can just kind of not be focused in on
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because sometimes the energy of those classes is just to smash yourself
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and I know because I used to run a lot of classes
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and like I loved
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that phase in terms of like the things I mentioned the vibes the vibes are high
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but the vibes high doesn't equal the results a good playlist
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and good people around you doesn't equal results and sometimes we can be very attached to that.
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And I love those things for those reasons.
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But as long as you're just aware of what's actually going to get you the progress that you're wanting.
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Yeah.
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Based on your goal.
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Which is exactly what we want.
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Now that wraps up today's episode.
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Yeah.
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I had one point actually that I wanted to say before you went into that point.
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Oh, just back to the long programs, sorry, the long sessions.
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If you're listening to this, you need to promise Kate and I that if you are doing a two hour workout with 12 different glute exercises,
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you need to promise us that you're going to try something different, scale it back and just give it a shot for four to six weeks
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and tell us we're wrong because you won't be able to.
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You won't be able to because I know
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that you're going to have less time in the gym
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and better results because we speak to people all the time about this.
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And on that note, that wraps up today's episode.
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If you are over on our YouTube, Like, comment, subscribe.
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And if you're watching on Spotify, listening on Spotify, rate this podcast five stars and comment if you're loving the series and we'll see you next week.
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See you guys.
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Bye.
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Speaking Goals for This Clip
This video targets conversational fluency in casual discussions, especially when explaining complex topics (like fitness training) in relatable terms. It helps learners practice transitioning between technical vocabulary (e.g., "RIR," "rate of perceived exertion") and everyday speech, a key milestone for engaging in real-world dialogues. Perfect for those looking to improve their ability to clarify ideas, ask follow-up questions, and maintain a natural flow—skills critical for effective shadowspeak and English speaking practice.
Phrase Bank
- "dive straight into" – to start discussing a topic immediately
- "caught me off guard" – surprised someone by doing something unexpected
- "scale it back" – reduce the intensity or complexity of an activity
- "break down" – explain something in simple, easy-to-understand parts
- "rock up" – (informal) arrive at a place
- "fancy ways of saying" – a more complex term that means the same as something simpler
Fix Your Weak Spots
This dialogue is ideal for improving pronunciation of connected speech and rhythm in casual conversations. Notice how the speakers shorten phrases like "don't know" to "don't know" (with reduced "t" sound) and use filler words ("um," "like") naturally—key for sounding less scripted. Practice shadowing the question "Adieu or ado?" to master the subtle vowel difference and intonation. Additionally, the back-and-forth between technical terms ("RIR," "RPE") and casual language ("nerdy shit") helps learners adjust their tone, a vital skill for shadow speech. Use a shadowing site to repeat sections, focusing on matching the speakers' pace and stress patterns to make your English sound more natural.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to do · used to run |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've caught · I've been stuck · you've realized |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | I've been stuck · would be written · is controlled |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | women who want · working, which is · somebody who is |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.