Episode 182: 3 Myths of the Workout World Busted

Think you need to be sore, "shock" your muscles, or never miss a Monday to see results? Think again. In this episode, we're busting three of the biggest fitness myths keeping women stuck, and replacing them with a simpler, more sustainable approach that actually works in midlife.

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Transcript

Becoming MindStrong Episode 182: 3 Myths of the Workout World Busted

Speaker 1  0:00  
Today's episode that way because today we are going to put to rest three of the biggest myths that I hear time and time again, specifically when it comes to fitness, when it comes to workouts. So we're going to dive straight in in the name of keeping today's episode short and punchy. Number one is perhaps the one that I hear the absolute most, and that's if you are not sore, you did not have an effective workout. That is simply not true. Now, in the beginning, when you're newer to working out, you're going to be sore pretty pretty early on, right? And it's going to last. Most workouts are going to leave you walking like a baby giraffe. It's going to leave you pretty sore. Now, if you've hung out here before, you know I am not a fan of zero to 100, right? I think one of the reasons that people set themselves up for failure, or rather, I should say, diet culture has set us up for failure, is because we try to go zero to 100. We go from work to car to couch to now. I need to work out an hour a day, six days a week. I'm walking like a baby giraffe. I can't get on and off the toilet. I'm never going back to that place again because I'm miserable. How many times have we walked that path before? I know I have. So instead, what I am a fan of are baby steps and momentum. Right in our world, we do. When I say exercise, I mean a favorite mindset exercise called "Do the bare minimum. Can I just dip my toe into the water? Can I just get some some momentum going? Can I get a snowball rolling down a hill, because humans, by design, we are pleasure-seeking creatures. So as we take a step that feels good, what we're not going to do is say, "I feel incredible. Let me not do anything else. We're going to say, "I feel incredible. What else can I do? This is how major labor life overhauls actually work. This is how we look back a year from now, six months from now, and say, "Holy cow! I'm a whole different person. That does not happen going zero to 100. That happens through baby steps and momentum. So, getting back on track here, it is absolutely not true that if you are not sore, you did not have an effective workout in the beginning. Yes, you are going to be sore. I don't know that there's ways to bypass that if you are doing effective workouts. If you are practicing what's called progressive overload, pushing your muscles to do what they can't yet do. I've got lots of episodes about that. As you get more advanced in your workouts, it becomes really hard to get sore. Right? It is a rare workout that the next day I wake up and I feel sore, unless I was on vacation, took some time off, sick, whatever the case may be, because I've been doing this long enough that my muscles, even when I'm pushing them, they're really good at recovering. So it is a false, it is a dangerous false statement to say that if you do if you do not feel sore the next day, you do not have an effective workout as long as you are practicing progressive overload, pushing your muscles to do what they can't yet do, you can rest assured that your workout is effective. Real quickly, if you are loving my content, I want to invite you to apply for a free one-to-one strategy session with my incredible all-female team. On your session, we'll talk about where you are, where you want to be, a game plan to bridge that gap, and see if one-to-one coaching is a fit. You can use the link below to access the two-minute application, and we'll see you on your session. Number two, long, long, long, long time ago, way back. If you scroll back in this podcast or in these videos, if you're watching on YouTube, I did a an episode all about do I need to shock my muscles? Spoiler alert: the answer is no. This whole concept that you need to shock your muscles to see results is just absolutely bananas to me.

Speaker 1  3:52  
Because think about this, and if you did listen to that older podcast, this is the example I always use. Right now, if you're watching this on video. You'll see I'm holding a pen. If you're listening on the podcast, rest assured I'm holding a pen. If I want to throw this pen at the wall across my podcast studio, in order to do so, my brain has to tell my arm and my hand, "Hey, we're gonna go backwards first, then we're going to project that forward. Then we're going to let go of the pen once we reach the front of the action. In what world is that a shock to anyone? Except maybe if my dogs were in the podcast studio right now, they'd be shocked. Nobody is shocked because in order to complete that action, my brain had to tell my body what to do. When people say shock your muscles. My follow-up question is, what does that mean? Like, how do we surprise our muscles if our own brain is the one telling our muscles what to do? There is no such thing as shocking your muscles. That cannot exist because by default, our own brain. Is the one telling our muscles what to do? You can't surprise them. You can't shock them. Now, what we need to do is what you heard me reference earlier, right? Progressive overload simply means pushing our muscles to do what they can't yet do. So, if I'm going to take a two-pound weight and that is way too light for me, but I've read some women's health magazine with all its BS, which could be a bonus fourth one here. That low weight, high rep is how you sculpt, which there's no truth to. But I pick up this two-pound dumbbell that's too light for me, and I do 100 reps because that's what this magazine told me to do. I'm not really going to see any results. Maybe I burn a few calories by doing an up and down motion a million times, but my muscles know how to lift that two pound weight up and down. It's not an effective workout. If I put that two pound weight down and I pick up a 10 pound weight and I'm able to lift it up and down with good form, but I am working well by the time I get to my eighth, ninth, 10th up and down motion, which we call a rep or a repetition, right? If I'm if I'm struggling, never at the expense of form, but I have to put in work to get those last few reps out. Now I am pushing my muscles to do what they can't yet do. Now I'm practicing progressive overload. Now I'm going to see results. What we cannot do is shock our muscles. What we capital M must do to see results is push our muscles to do what they can't yet do. So shock your muscles? Absolutely not. Practice progressive overload, pushing your muscles to do what they can't yet do. Absolutely. Bonus one that I'm going to tuck into this number two that you can't shuck your muscles is that low weight high reps is complete and utter BS. You will not see results. We have to push our muscles to do what they can't yet do. You will not get bulky. What a lot of women called bulky takes years of intentional nutrition. I'm going to say that again. Years of intentional nutrition. The women that you see on the cover of health magazines that are on stage competing, their workouts look exactly the same as those women with the lean sculpted muscles that so many of us that want. The only difference is their nutrition, and it is years of intentional manipulation through nutrition. You will not get bulky by pushing your muscles to do what they can't yet do. In fact, you capital M must low weight, higher reps is bonus bonus BS under number two that you cannot shock your muscles.

Speaker 1  7:35  
So if we're talking about getting rid of three of the biggest myths in the workout fitness world number one is there's no truth if you're not sore it's not effective zero truth to that number two is this whole concept of shocking your muscles it's not even a thing it doesn't even make logical sense and bonus one low weight high reps complete yes number three I did an episode a little while ago where I spoke about three things I don't do as a fitness pro that I quote unquote should. If you hung out here before, you know why that's extra cheeky because I hate the word should, and I mention this one. Thing number three is this like bro marketing gross concept of never miss a Monday, right? How many people have made that their entire social media platform. It's Monday. Never miss money. Listen, it is arbitrary rules like that. When I say diet culture is setting us up for failure, that's a perfect example. Let's say that I have decided I'm I'm dipping my toe into the world of workouts. I'm getting that snowball rolling down a hill because I listen to Rachel's podcast and I know it's all about baby steps and momentum. So I decide, you know what? This week, I'm going to do two 15-minute weight training sessions. I'm new to working out. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I understand menopause is a stage of life where I naturally lose bone density and lean muscle mass. This Rachel chick keeps telling me I should dip my toe in, so I'm gonna do two 15-minute workouts. So Sunday night, I sit down, I look at my calendar, and I say, "Okay, perfect. I'm gonna do one 15-minute workout on Monday, and I'll do my next 15-minute workout on Thursday. That seems to work well with my schedule. So Monday morning we wake up. We're like, here it comes, day one of my 15 minute workout. I'm gonna do it after work. So I go to work, and in the middle of my workday, I get a phone call. There's a family emergency. I have to rush home from work. My day has gone to pieces. In no world am I getting my 15 minute workout in. Now I have two choices. Choice one is I can listen to the bro marketers on social media and say, "Man, I missed a Monday. Now I have to start again next week. Option two is I can say, "Okay, I said I was going to work out two days this week. Maybe I can just do it." Tomorrow, and the world didn't end, and I still got my 15-minute workout in. Who cares what days you work out? These are arbitrary rules that are setting us up for failure. Now, is working out on a Monday nice? Sure, it gets you some momentum for the week ahead, right? Mondays for a lot of us, I know, in the world of mind strong, they can be hectic because people have extra time on their hands on the weekends. They're sending a lot of emails. If you own a business, right? People, if your business does not work on the weekends, people can't get a hold of you. So sometimes you wake up to frantic emails over the weekends. There's a lot of life that happens for a lot of people on Mondays. So sometimes taking that time to put the oxygen mask on us, sometimes doing that thing for ourselves can feel really good from a momentum perspective for the week ahead. And if the way that your week rolls out is that you can't get your workout in on a Monday, who cares? What's way more important is that you decide how many days this week am I going to work out, and from there, it does not matter what days they are. Arbitrary rules like this are the reason that diet culture has brainwashed us into black or white, all-in, all-out thinking. Know how many days you're going to work out. Do your best to get them in, if you do, celebrate yourself so you get that dopamine release. If you don't, take 30 seconds, take a look at your week, see how we can better prepare for next week, and try again. It is not all or nothing. It is not black or white. It is not perfection.

Speaker 1  11:35  
Trying to do this 100% all the time is a recipe for disaster. Doing this 75 to 80 percent of the time is how we make it a sustainable lifestyle. Now I could keep going. I could do a podcast of 100 myths in the workout fitness world, but for the purposes today, I'm going to stick with these three. Number one, not sore equals not effective. Zero truth to that. In fact, as you get more advanced, it becomes harder to get sore. Number two has a little bonus one in there. Number two, you cannot shock your muscles. Your brain is the thing telling your body what to do. It doesn't even make logical sense. And with that, what we must do is practice progressive overload. Push our muscles to do what they can't yet do. To do that, bonus myth: low weight, high reps does nothing for you. We have to practice progressive overload. You will not get bulky. Putting on new muscle comes from very specific nutrition manipulation. It must be intentional. You will not do it by accident, and it takes years and years and years. And number three, phrases like "never miss a Monday" are so gross. They're setting us up for failure. Know how many workouts you're going to get in. Get them in. If you don't learn from it, try again next week. The name of the game is that arbitrary rules and diet culture is filled with them set us up for failure. The people who truly make this a sustainable lifestyle are the people who stop trying to put their horse blinders on and say, "If I did not do this perfectly, I have ruined it, and I'll start again next week. Guess what? You're going to spend the rest of your life starting again next week. The people who truly make this sustainable lifestyle are the people who know this is not going to be perfect. Doing this perfectly is not sustainable. If I can do this 7075, 80% of the time, I can stick with it. I can flow with my lifestyle, and that is how we truly make this sustainable. For more information on Mind Strong Fitness, or to apply for a free one-to-one strategy session with my incredible all-female team. Visit www.mindstrongfitness.com.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai