Episode 184: How to Maximize Your Workouts In Menopause (Live Session)

If you’re walking, doing cardio, lifting weights, and still wondering why your body feels different after 40, this episode is for you. Let’s talk about how to make your workouts work with your menopausal body instead of constantly pushing it harder.


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Transcript

Becoming MindStrong Episode 184: How to Maximize Your Workouts In Menopause (Live Session)

Speaker 1  0:00  
Some women lose up to 10% of their muscle mass. The harsh truth is, if we're not counteracting it, you are because you're losing tremendous amounts of lean muscle mass and bone density. And it's the reason why high intensity cardio is giving you the opposite results. I want to break this conversation into three parts. Welcome back to the Becoming Mindstrong podcast. My name is Rachel, and I'm the founder and CEO of Mindstrong, where we have been helping peri and postmenopausal women for nearly a decade now, we have helped over 7000 women and counting peri and postmenopause is who we are and it is what we do. Inside Ignite, our signature 12 week program, we host what we call weekly lunch and learns for our members. I love a lunch and learn. We have a resident naturopath. We have a resident neuroscientist. We bring in every expert we can get our hands on to deepen learning, and once in a while, I'll come in and do a special presentation again to just deepen that well of knowledge that we provide. So, what I'm sharing with you today is the replay of a live workshop I recently did in a lunch and learn called "How to Maximize efficiency when it comes to workouts in menopause. I hope you enjoy. Today we are going to talk about maximizing workouts in menopause. I want to break this conversation into three parts. The way that I always like to teach is I like to zoom out, 30,000 foot view, then we funnel in a little more, and then we funnel in a lot more, and talk about logistics. So what that looks like for us today is we're going to start with a really big picture mindset conversation about workouts in general. Then we will funnel it in a bit more to talk about cardio versus weight training, specifically in a menopausal body, and then we will funnel it in the most and talk about logistics of how to maximize workouts from a very nuts and bolts perspective. Sound good? Okay, beautiful. So let's start really big picture because as someone who hates the nutrition industry, thinks it sets us up for failure. Not only sets us up for failure, but sets us up to beat the living bajoogies out of ourselves because we think then that we are a failure. I think this is a really important conversation to have, especially around workouts. So, first thing that we need to understand is that nutrition is 90% of this game, and I say that line a lot, and I harp on that line a lot because we get a lot of women who come to us, and they're like, "Rachel, I have an injury and I can't work out. Rachel, I don't have time to work out. Rachel, I go to the gym and I see these these big sweaty dudes making weird noises in the weight section, and I don't want to go anywhere near that. Heard I've been doing it for 10 years. I still don't want to go anywhere near that. And the answer is, you don't have to work out. We can heal your metabolism. We can get you with a functioning metabolism, losing weight, whatever your goals look like, with nutrition alone And workouts number one make it go a heck of a lot faster, and number two workouts can help us preserve lean muscle mass and bone density, both of which we lose at a pretty alarming rate at at this time of life, which we'll talk more about in a second. So, do you have to do them? Absolutely not. Do they help? Absolutely. And I am always a fan of baby steps and momentum. If you've been if you've been here for a long time, you can say it with me. Baby steps and momentum is the name of the game of everything, and that is not Rachel's laws of health and fitness. That is human psychology, right? I talk a lot about Freud discovered something called the pleasure principle, and the pleasure principle states: if you are a human being, if you have a pulse and a heartbeat, we are designed by human nature to avoid pain and seek pleasure. So when we try to go zero to 100, specifically with workouts, right?

Speaker 1  4:18  
I think most of us have been there at some point in life, I went from basically molding into my couch to six days a week, an hour and a half of intense workouts. I'm walking like a baby giraffe. I can't even get on and off the toilet. I'm miserable. I'm never doing that again. Right? I know I've I've been there before. That doesn't last. We have like one week where we feel great, and then we feel like garbage, and then we never go back to it. When we can flip the script and say, "What is the bare minimum that I can commit to this week? This is an exercise, like mindset exercise. Your coach can literally do with you. What is the bare minimum that I can commit to this week? Maybe it's 215-minute weight training sessions a week. What's going to happen is we're going to do our session at some point that week. We'll be sitting there at work and we'll be like, "Ooh, I feel a little bicep, mom. That feels pretty good. I like that. Let me go do more. So we do a little more, and the next week we're like, oh, I caught a glimpse in the mirror. My booty's popping. I like that. Let me do more of that, and we do a little more. Major life overhauls do not happen by going zero to 100. It'd be great if they did, and if they did, most of us wouldn't be here because diet culture's been selling us that pill for centuries now. I don't know how long. What actually creates a major life overhaul is this: it's baby steps, it's momentum, it's getting snowball rolling down a hill. So, big picture number one: if all we focus on-I'm going to put all in air quotes because it's a big all-but if all we focus on is nutrition, you will see results. If or when you're ready to add workouts into the mix, your coach can literally take you through one of our favorite exercises. Do the bare minimum, which is about human psychology about getting that snowball rolling down a hill. Makes sense so far. Okay, let's take it a step further. Let's say you are going to work out. Like my bare minimum is I'm going to do two 20 minute workouts this week. It is a true statement for every human being, and it is a true statement times 100 in menopause that the most bang for your buck is weight training over cardio. And I want to spend some time here and clarify, and then we're going to get deeper in the weeds of how to maximize workouts. There's a lot of fear mongering around cardio in in the diet world, especially in this periposmenopausal stage of life. If your social media feed looks like mine, it's like people come to us scared to walk their dog because everything's telling them cortisol, don't do cardio. And they're like, "Oh, can I go for a walk? Yes, go for a walk. Steps count. Any trainer out there? It's like steps don't count. What are you talking about? The point of exercise is movement. Do your cardio. 10 minute walk after meals. One of the best things you can be doing for your blood sugar. Count your steps. Go for a walk after dinner. All fantastic, and there are a couple truths to the human body that we need to understand. Number one, truth of every human body is that the more lean muscle mass we have in our body, the faster our metabolism runs. So especially if we're someone who's trying to get our metabolism back online, weight training, resistance training, which we're going to talk a lot more about, is one of the best bangs for your buck because it's the most efficient way to build that lean muscle mass. Which means your metabolism's working for you not only when you're in the gym, but all the time sitting by the pool drinking a pina colada. Your metabolism's on fire because you have a lot of lean muscle mass, that's true of every human being. The more lean muscle mass you have in your body, the faster your metabolism runs.

Speaker 1  8:06  
The second fact of human biology that's more relevant to to our world is that menopause is a stage of life where we lose lean muscle mass and bone density at a pretty alarming rate, and that's not fear mongering. That's that's biology. The stat is around 1% a year of muscle mass. The scarier stat is that within the first five years of menopause, some women lose up to 10% of their muscle mass. That is a tremendous amount of muscle mass. This is why it's not just what we hear a lot. Is like it's not just that I feel like I'm gaining. I feel like I'm getting flabbier, and the harsh truth is if we're not counteracting it, you are because you're losing tremendous amounts of lean muscle mass and bone density. So, how do we preserve lean muscle mass and bone density? Number one is nutrition. Number two is weight training, resistance training. It's the second best way, next to nutrition, to preserve our bone density and lean muscle mass. So, if we're going to take our big picture, do the bare minimum, no major life overhauls. Nutrition is number one. We're going to hone it in a little more, and we're going to talk about what's the most bang for our buck? The answer is always weight training over cardio. In my ideal world, if I could wave my magic dumbbell, let's say you were going to do a 40-minute workout, I'd have you doing about 30 minutes of weight training, 10 minutes of cardio. In my world, I don't do cardio every day. It's rare that I do cardio. It would benefit my heart and lungs to do it more. I hate it. I don't do it very much. The most bang for your buck is weight training, so that's what I focus on. If you want to be smarter than I am and focus on your heart and your lungs, few minutes of cardio a day never hurt anyone. It's great for you. What we need to be cautious of with cardio. Is this? This is why there's so much fear mongering. Menopause, as we all know, is a time of life where, as our estrogen drops, our cortisol spikes. One of estrogen's main roles in the body is cortisol control. So, over 40, as that estrogen starts dropping, we naturally have an increase in cortisol. If you haven't learned about this yet and ignite, it's coming up because it's a big topic that we talk about endlessly. So we are already in a stage of life where the vast majority of us need to learn to get this cortisol under control. We're walking around with naturally higher levels. We say our cortisol resilience has lessened. This is why we can't get away with 1200 calorie diets, with working ourselves to death, with putting everyone else first before ourselves, and it's the reason why high intensity cardio is giving you the opposite results. If you are someone who's already under eating, right, your cortisol levels are already spiked higher because calories are our body's fuel, and if we're under eating, we are not helping those cortisol levels. When we add high-intensity workouts, boot camps, CrossFit, all of those hit workouts, we are not doing any favors for those cortisol levels. We are spiking them higher and higher. So it is not that cardio itself is bad; it's that especially if you are an under eater, we have to be cautious about high intensity cardio. Is that making sense? Now, everything in life has light with the dark, right? We have to choose which is more important to us. So I'm going to tell you a story I've I've shared before, but I think it's a good example of this. Back in the day when I was still one-to-one coaching, I had a member. This is a true story. I had a member come to me as a coach. She was eating 800 calories a day. She'd been doing this for years, which is not uncommon in our world. But here's the bananas part. When I tell you this lady ran marathons, it's not like she ran one marathon every single year on her anniversary. She ran like eight to 12 marathons every year. When when I saw her her five days of tracking, I was like, I do not know how you're standing up right now.

Speaker 1  12:19  
Like God bless the human body-it is-it is pretty incredible. It is resilient because you are running at least a marathon a month, some months too, on 800 calories. That is what a testament to the human body. What I would never do, right? If you're if you're a runner, like you know, that is your mental health. That is not just exercise. That is who you are as a person. So what I would never do is tell this person, "Look, you got to stop running. Like we need to heal your metabolism. Metabolism. We got to get more calories in you. You got to stop running. I would never say that because it's like me with my weight training when COVID hit and I had no access to weights. I remember a friend at the time being like, "Who are you? Like this is this is not Rachel. You are not yourself. I'm like, "I know. I'm sorry. I really need to work out. It becomes your self identity, and to me, that that light is not worth the dark. So the conversation was like, "Look, we need to get more food in you because your body is breaking down. So good news! Your healing stage is going to be a lot faster than the average person because you are working so hard. You're burning so many calories, and just a fun little end to this story. That I always love telling this story for this reason: the way runners usually shave like 10 seconds off my run. She was shaving like 1015 minutes off of her run because it's amazing what happens when you actually start fueling your body for runs like different human on the other side. So I say all that to say, if you are someone who's like Rachel, you cannot take my running away from me. I've been going to John's boot camp for the past 10 years. That's my family. I love my HIIT workouts. I've been doing CrossFit. Whatever the story is, no one is telling you to stop. And light with the dark. It is true you are driving your cortisol levels higher, and we're working on it. We're getting your metabolism healed. We're getting more calories in your body. Gun to my head. What is the most efficient, effective workout, especially in menopause, weight training over cardio. So, let's take it one step deeper. Let's say you are going to start weight training. Now, if you're already weight training, I'm going to tell you stuff you already know. That's okay because they say people need to be reminded more than they need to be taught. So, this is your reminder. If you are new to weight training, I'm going to teach you some terms that you might want to write down. Let's start with the very basics. So, if you have been weight training for a while, just plug your ears or go put on headphones, do something else, and come back in five minutes because we're going to start very basic, and then we're going to get more in. The weeds about how to maximize workouts and get more advanced. First, let's start with the basics. This whole concept of low weight, high reps makes you tightened and toned, and lifting heavy weights makes you bulky, is one of the largest pieces of BS that has ever existed in this industry. My theory-I don't know where it started. My theory is that some person on the cover of a women's magazine was like, "Oh, she's a bodybuilder. Gross. We don't want to look like that. Oh, she's a lean sculpted model. Yes, most women want to look like that. Let's put a divide here so that we can sell some pills or shakes or supplements or whatever story behind that. There is zero truth to that, and here's why. Our muscles get stronger based off necessity. So if I have a little two-pound dumbbell, and this two-pound dumbbell is way too light for me, but I read in a women's magazine that low weight, high rep is how I sculpt my muscles. So I sit here and I do 100 reps. We're going to talk about reps and sets in a second. For right now, I do 100 up and down motions with this two-pound weight that's too light for me. I am doing nothing but wasting my time.

Speaker 1  16:17  
Maybe I burn a few calories from doing this for an hour, you're not actually building muscle, because if your muscles had a voice, they would say, "What the heck is Rachel doing right now? Like this is like playing with a children's toy. Like I could do this all day, every day. I don't understand what she's asking of us. In fact, in fact, I'm quite bored right now. But if I put down that two-pound weight and I pick up, let's say, a 10-pound weight, and it's a challenge, I can still do it with good form because form is always number one. But it's challenging. I'm pushing my muscles to do what they can't yet do. Now, if my muscles had a little voice, they'd be like, "Ooh, wake up! Like Rachel's asking us to do something that's a little bit challenging for us, we better up our game. We better get stronger. So by necessity, because they're being asked to do what's something they can't yet do, our muscles are going to get stronger. When our muscles get stronger, they get what the the fitness world loves to call tightened and toned. It only happens by pushing your muscles to do what they can't yet do, which we call progressive overload. If you ever hear that term, progressive overload, my definition: pushing your muscles to do what can't yet do. Makes sense. Okay. How do we push our muscles to do what they can't yet do? We have to talk about some terms? You heard me use one already. I'm just going to stick with biceps curls because it's easy to demonstrate on on Zoom. Every time I go up and down, that is one repetition. We call it a rep REP. One rep is an up and down motion. When I set a goal for myself, such as I want to do 10 reps, that's a pretty common one. Those 10 reps live under the umbrella of what's called a set. So a rep is one up and down, a collection of reps. I'm trying not to use the word in the definition. A collection of reps is called a set. In an ideal world, if I could wave my magic dumbbell and give you all the time in the world and have you in a place where we're ready to dive in the deep end, which if you paid attention to part one, I do not recommend. But if we did, we would be doing workouts that include four, three to four sets of 10 to 12 reps of each workout. I'll say that again: three to four sets of 10 to 12 reps. So, sticking with my bicep curls, I go up and down 10 times. Take a little break, drink some water. Try not to go on YouTube and start looking at puppy videos. And next thing I know, an hour and a half has gone by, and I'm haven't even started my workout. Quick little break. Let your body relax. Let the lactic acid get out of your muscles. Do another 10, another break, three to four sets. Okay. Now the key is we have to practice progressive overload. We have to be pushing our muscles to do what they can't yet do. The most effective way to do that is to go up in weight. So let's say I do my first set. I do 10 reps of bicep curls with a seven and a half pound weight, and I'm like, okay, that was pretty challenging, but like I did it. I did all 10 reps. I could get them out. My form was good. I'm golden. In my next set, if I have access to it, we're going to talk about how to do this. If you're working out at home and have less weight, if I have access to it, maybe I go up to 10 pounds, and now I do my 10 reps again. And at the end of those 10 reps, I'm like, "Whew, okay, like, huh? I feel the burn. That one, that one hurt a little bit. Okay, I have choices. This is the conversation I'm having in my head. I could do another set at 10 reps, at 10 pounds, and that would probably be good. Like, I feel the burn. I'm pushing my muscles, but you know what? I'm feeling feisty today. Had a good meal. Took a rest day yesterday.

Speaker 1  20:26  
Felt that bicep bump. Like let's go. Let's let's let's push ourselves. So maybe I pick up a 12 and a half pound weight this time, and I get like three four reps in, and I am just like, oh no! Now I'm swinging my back. I'm using my other arm. Like my form has gone to hell in a handbasket. What I'm not going to do is injure myself. Right when we start doing the lower back swing, glaring the outside, and it's time to stop. So I'm going to do two, three reps. I'm going to say, wait, wait, that was too heavy. I just very simply drop back to my 10 pound, finish out my set of 10, take my break. Maybe the next set I just stick with 10 again. The point is, we are pushing our muscles to do what they can't yet do, always with good form. That is how your muscles get stronger. That is how we build lean muscle mass. That is how we practice progressive overload. I'm going to take this one step further. That is easier to do if you go to a gym, right? We go in a gym. There's a rack of weights from 2.5 up to Flintstone style massive lines, so we can go in increments like seven and a half, 1012, and a half. Most of us, unless you have the world's craziest gym, in which case I'm invite myself over to your house to check out your home gym. Most of us do not have that kind of equipment. Back when I lived in Florida, I had a detached garage that I turned into a gym, and I thought I had a lot of equipment, but a lot of equipment was like five pounds, 10 pounds, 15 pounds, 20 pounds, 25 pounds. That was it. It is not the same as having a full gym. So we have to get a little creative. This is true, also, by the way. If you're at a hotel gym, I'll I can we can see if we have time to go down a rabbit hole about hotel gyms, but for the purposes of this conversation, if the goal is to push our muscles to do what they can't yet do-to progressive to practice progressive overload-and we have limited equipment, this is the only time that high reps might come into play, and I want to be crystal clear about what this is or isn't. Even if you are working out at home, even if you are working out at a gym, it is still true that we have to practice progressive overload. The location did not change the rules of biology. We still have to push our muscles to do what they can't yet do, and the most efficient way to do that is to go up and wait, but if we don't have more weights to go up to, we can do more reps, more up and down motions with lighter weights. It is not the same conversation as high high reps, low weights. It is simply my job is to make this bicep really tired. So while I would love to go up to 12 and a half, I don't have a 12 and a half. So maybe instead of 10 to 12 reps with a 10 pound weight, maybe I do 15 reps. Is that because more reps make me sculpted? Absolutely not. It's because I'm trying to fatigue my muscle, and I don't have access to heavier weights, so I'm going to do more reps to push my muscles to that limit. Does that make sense? Okay. I want to add one more thing here about reps, and then I'll talk to you about building workouts, constructing workouts, and what we call workout splits. And then I'll save lots of time for Q and A. There are lots of things online, lots of studies, lots of data that you will see that says as you get to menopause, instead of focusing on 10 to 12 reps, we should be focusing on six to eight reps. That is not wrong. That is a detail that I do not care about, and I'll tell you what I mean by that.

Speaker 1  24:21  
What they are saying, if I could put Rachel's language on these studies that I'm reading, what they are saying is most of us-not all of us-but most women have lived a lifetime of either cardio or low weight, high reps, and what they are trying to say is, hey, in menopause, that's not going to cut it. We have we are in a stage of life where we're losing lean muscle mass. We're losing bone density. You have to practice progressive overload. You have to push your muscles to do what they can't yet do, if we want to counteract that with workouts. So, if you want to really maximize your workouts, make them punchier, more. Effective, go heavier sooner, meaning instead of focusing on a weight that you can use for 10 to 12 reps, go heavy. Pick a weight that you can only do six to eight reps for. For a lot of us, if you're newer to workouts, that sounds petrifying. Like what? Like that sounds heavy? I'm only gonna be able to lift it six times. No, thank you. That is why I can. Even though we only work with periposmenopause, I still like the 10 to 12 because it's kind of like a runway. Like, yeah, this is kind of heavy, but man, am I fatigued by the end. If you're more advanced, condense time, make it more punchy. Do your six to eight reps. I'll tell you for myself, I kind of use a mix. There are some exercises where I'm like, I'm just warming up. I want to ease my way in. I want that runway, so I'll make sure I'm fatigued by 10 to 12. There are some exercises I'm like, go big or I'll go home. If I can't do eight of these, yes, I'm using the the right weight. To me, there's no right or wrong to this conversation. As long as you are pushing your muscles to do what they can't yet do, as long as you're progressive practicing progressive overload, you are achieving the same result. That's a little more advanced caveat. Okay, last piece to this puzzle. Let's talk about workout splits, I'll tell you different options. I'll tell you what they are. I'll tell you different options. I'll tell you why you might choose each option. A workout split is very simply. I am going to use the word in the definition here. No, I won't. Is very simply how you divide up your body. I'm not going to say how you split your body, how you divide up your body to make sure you hit each body part at least once in a week. I'll say that again. A workout split is very simply how you divide up your body to make sure you hit each body part at least once in a week. So let me list the main body parts for you, and then we'll talk about options. In an ideal week, and I'm purposely saying ideal because if you're brand new, we're not going to worry about any of this. We'll talk about that in a second. If you're brand new and you just do the exercises that look fun, you're on the right path because we're getting a snowball rolling down a hill. And if you want to maximize efficiency, we want to make sure that once a week we are training our back, we're training our chest, we're training our legs, we're training our shoulders, we're training our biceps, and we're training our triceps. And I'll say that again because I see people taking notes. I can't promise it's going to be in the same order. I'm going to do my best. We're going to train our back. We're going to train our chest. We're going to train our legs. I think I actually got it. We're going to train our shoulders. We're going to train our biceps, and we're going to train our triceps. All those years of memorizing middle school names, there it was. So, what we need to decide if our goal is to hit all those body parts in a week, is how do I want to divide up my body and my week to make sure I'm hitting all those body parts?

Speaker 1  28:14  
If you are brand new, and this is how Ignite is designed, by the way, I love a full body workout because in a full body workout you're gonna do maybe one exercise for each of those body parts. This is great if you're brand new because the name of the game if you're brand new is how do I avoid walking like a baby giraffe and not being able to get on and off of the toilet. That's all I care about when someone's brand new. I want to get the snowball rolling down a hill. I want to make sure that you can walk tomorrow because otherwise you're going to be like, "Screw you, Rachel! I'm never doing this again. A full body workout, you're going to be sore in the beginning. You're going to be sore, and it's not all in our legs where we're sore, right? Doing one or two leg exercises is very different than doing a full 40 minutes on our legs, which equals baby draft. If you are brand brand new and we're practicing do the bare minimum, I don't care what exercises you do. Like literally, what I used to do with my members was like, let's go through the workouts. You literally point to the ones that look fun. Like I have no idea what Rachel's doing that video, but that looks fun. Cool, that's the one we're doing because all we care about is snowball down a hill. And great workout split for for beginners, full body. If you can do a three days a week, you are solid. If you can do a four, you're a rock star. If you do it one, you're still a rock star because some is better than nothing. Let's say you're getting a little more advanced, and you're like, "All right, bored with full body, want to go a little harder. We can go into what we call a three day workout split. Now, a three day workout split could mean that you're only working out three days that week. Or it could mean you're going to do your three days, you're going to rest, you do another three days. Depends how much you want to work out. In a three-day workout split, the name of the game is we want to do what we call muscle pairings. Here's what that means: certain body parts work really well together. When we work out our back, we are naturally also working out our biceps. When we work out our chest, we're naturally also working out our triceps and also some our shoulders. So the pairings I'm about to tell you for a three day split aren't just random. There is one that's a bit random. They're mostly chosen because those body parts work out together. So a three-day split, a common three-day split, it's not set in stone, is you'll do one day where you're going to do both back and bicep exercises for the reason I just said. When you work out your back, you're working out your biceps. So great way to pair them together. So day one could be back and biceps. You do two, three exercises on your back. You do two, three exercises on your biceps. Another common pairing is chest and triceps because when you work out your chest, you're working out your triceps. So you do some chest exercises, some tricep exercises. The third one is is the random one. A lot of people like to do legs and shoulders together. Unfortunately, when we work out our legs, it does not work our shoulders. That would be lovely if it did. It's just kind of what's left over. You could swap those. You could do chest and shoulders, and then legs and triceps. It's just the most common one. So a three-day workout split, a common one, not the only one, would be back and biceps, chest and triceps, legs and shoulders, just by default. Making sense so far. Okay, let me share with you the workout split that I use, and I literally just recorded a podcast last week. It hasn't gone live yet, but it's called the Workout Split I Use and Why You Might Not Want to Use It. So I'm going to tell you what I use and why you might not want to use it.

Speaker 1  32:11  
But some of you might, and then we'll save lots of times for the Q and A because I saw a couple questions drop. I like a five day workout split. So for me personally, I train five days. I'm going to say every week, but it doesn't happen every single week if I'm traveling, whatever else. I try to, I do my best to train five days every week. Some days I throw a bonus six day in there if I feel like it and have time. In my five day workout split, I like one body part per day, and that might not make sense because I told you six body parts, but I'll explain in a second. Let me tell you why I like this split, and then I'll give you options for all of them. The way that my brain works is, and I think all humans to some degree have a completion brain. Mine is like next level, like Swomo jokes. If I'm on a task, the world could burn, and I wouldn't notice because I'm like I'm here. I cannot stop until a task is complete. Some people call that ADHD. I don't like the label, but it is what it is. I am very task oriented, so it's very difficult for my brain to switch gears halfway through a workout, if I'm doing back and it's like I'm going to do half back, half bicep, my brain is like, no, no, no, we're we're not done with back yet. We haven't completed the task. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but that's how my brain works. So I like one body part per day because I'm going to go all in on one body part. That for me that looks like this: I do a back day, I do a chest day, I do a leg day, I do a shoulder day, and then I combine and do what I call an arm day. So biceps and triceps are both parts of your arms. Your biceps here, or sorry, no, that's not right. Your biceps here, your triceps here. So I do an an arm day, so in my five-day split, back, chest, legs, shoulders, arms, which includes bicep, tricep. It works well for my completion brain, and here's the more important part for today of why you might not want to do it. I have been weight training for 10 years, so for me, leaving it all on the gym floor, so to speak, is like I am going to go hard. If you are brand new, doing 40 minutes or an hour on just your back is going to be really tough because, like, 15 minutes in, you are going to be like, for the love of everything, how much longer do I have to do this? Your muscles don't don't have the stamina yet. As you get more advanced and it gets harder to push your muscles, you have to go up more and more in weight. I like this because I can go all in on it. Now, last thing I will say about workout splits: there is no right, wrong, better, best. I just went over and over about why I love. Five day split. Do I sometimes do a three day? Absolutely. If I'm traveling that week and I know either I'm not going to have time to get five days in, or I'm staying somewhere where I don't have access to a decent gym, I will do a back and bicep day, a chest and tricep day. Do I love it? No. But it's what makes sense to maximize efficiency for that week, so there's three. I always like to think of it as three factors that contribute to your workout split. One is how advanced you are. Two is your schedule, and three is just flat out personal preference. I have friends who are professional bodybuilders who do a three-day workout split because they like it. They like back and biceps together. The difference as a pro is they'll do three days, they'll take a rest day, they'll do another three days. They usually work out five to six days a week, but they're repeating the workout, the same workout split throughout the week. So, how advanced you are is part of it, not all of it. How much time you have, right?

Speaker 1  36:03  
Maybe your week only allows for three, so we're going to do that split, and then just flat out personal preference. Do you like doing half and half, or do you like going all in on one workout? Okay, I want to make sure I save lots of time for Q and A, so this is the last thing I'll say. And then I saw some ab questions and things like that. What was I going to say? Oh, in terms of how long to work out, there's my answer is always when people say how much should I be exercising. My answer is maybe a little more than you are right now. That's not always true. Like some people in menopause specifically, we're overdoing it. We're we're pushing cortisol levels too high. We're not taking rest days. I I do not like this concept of like, well, in an ideal world, it would be four days a week for 40 minutes. So it's like, okay, I'm going to do that because I don't necessarily think that's where we should start. I think even if you are like all in, I want to do the best I can. I still like starting with the bare minimum because human psychology is human psychology, and even if you're super motivated, that doesn't negate the fact that you're going to be walking like a baby giraffe if you go all in. So I would rather actually have a podcast called the Jason Experiment, which I the Jason Method, which I named after my brother, my brother and I. I've had to train myself out of this, but where the like we were raised in a family, we're like, you do not have ass. If you're going to do something, you go all in. So my brother is a shining example of someone where the pendulum swings. He's either like ripping out of his suits because his muscles are so huge, or I'll visit him the next year, and he's like, "Yeah, got a little dad bod, stopped working out again. Like it's all or nothing all the time, and it's because of that mindset of like, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it, and if I'm not, I'm not. So the the concept of the Jason method in his honor is I would rather leave myself wanting more, right? Like, "Oh, I'm feeling good. Maybe I should keep going. No, you're not allowed. We said 20 minutes. You're stopping at 20 minutes. It's a little mind game where you're creating a craving. So the next day, it's like, get me back. I didn't fully finish my workout, and then it becomes a pull instead of a push. So that was a very long-winded way of saying, in an ideal world, magic dumbbell waved. If you can do 40 minutes four days a week, you will be fantastic. There are very few people who are actually doing that, and I don't really care because as long as we're focused on nutrition and as long as we're getting a snowball down rolling down a hill, that's what I care about. And I always get asked, "What's the ideal? 40 minutes, four days a week is fantastic. Do not-I'm not going to say "do not. I am not a fan of seven days a week. Your body needs rest. Are there workarounds? Sure. I know bodybuilders who they'll train like their neck. Have you ever seen these things guys use? No, we shouldn't just say guys. I'm sure girls do. I've never seen them. It looks like Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs, they put this thing on their head and they like go like this on a bench and it works their neck. It's bananas. So I know I happen to know guys. Maybe there's girls that do it. They will do like a neck and ab day so that they're like, well, I can work out seven days a week because I'm not using the rest of my body. Okay, like I personally want to sit by the pool some days, so I'm going to take a full rest day. I recommend at least one rest day in a week. All right, so let me just recap, and then we'll we'll have lots of time for questions. I do not recommend zero to 100. Nutrition is queen.

Speaker 1  39:37  
If you're new to workouts, get the snowball rolling down a hill. Your coach can help you do the bare minimum. If you are going to work out, does not mean cardio is bad. Weight training is the most bang for your buck. The more lean muscle mass we have, the faster our metabolism runs. We have to practice progressive overload, meaning pushing our muscles to do what they can't yet do. If we want to get stronger, from there we have op. You can do full body, which I recommend if you're newer. Three day is kind of the moderate. Five day, if you're more advanced. At the end of the day, there's more factors than just your experience level. It's also personal preference and timing. Cool. All right. Oh, we got 10 questions already. Let me dive in. Okay, stomach obliques and butt. I love it. Your obliques and your butt; those get grouped into leg day. So if you want to get really specific about it, which you don't have to if you're newer, but leg day can be divided into parts. You can look at your butt, you you can literally look at your butt. You can you can focus on your butt. You can focus on your quads, which are the front of your legs. You can focus on your hamstrings, which are the back of your legs. You can focus on your calves, which are the lower part of your leg. So someone who's more advanced might have a day where they do legs focused only on quads and hamstrings, a day focused on legs where they focus on butt and calves. I have never personally gotten that specific about it, even in my heydays of lifting. But it's an option. But we group all of those under the category of legs, obliques, abs. Totally personal preference. Swomo is much better about training abs than I am. If you're doing big, heavy lifts, like things like squats and deadlifts, those things are all working your abs. So this surprises a lot of people, but a lot of professional bodybuilders do not actually train their abs because they're bracing so hard on big lifts that they're developing their abs. A lot of us, including myself, I don't do those. Those I still bench press, but like deadlifts and squats, I have a slip disc in my back, so I don't do those anymore. So now I'll throw some abs in. I don't have an ab day. I just kind of do it between sets, so I do my my bicep curl set. I'm taking a break anyway. I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of puppy videos, which I will. So instead of sitting there twiddling my thumbs, I'll go do a quick set of abs, and then I'm ready for my next set on the other side. It's a great way to maximize efficiency. I don't do it every day. I do it more of a when I feel like it thing. Swalmo does it every day, which is why her abs look a lot better than I do. At the end of the day, ab exercises tighten and tone your abs. They do not melt the fat on top of your abs. If you've heard the saying abs are made in the kitchen, that's why, because you can make them pop out more by working them. They will not melt the fat on top of it. That's where nutrition comes into play. Yes, so core abs does not have to be every workout, and you're welcome to do it whenever. Okay, to hold off on workouts till I feel like I have food under my belt. 100% 100% If you are someone who's new, if it feels like a lot, if you don't have time, don't even think about workouts. Nutrition is 90% of the game. In fact, Tracy, I will suggest not touching them yet. Wait until you're further along. Wait until you've got it locked in, and then we can add it in. I'd like to get your take on form faster on the lift concentric motion on the lower centric. Do you hold in the middle? Do you go smoothly? Yeah. Okay. This is a great question. So there is something in the workout world called time under tension. You'll see it written out sometimes as T U T. Just stands for time under tension.

Speaker 1  43:37  
Essentially, the name of the game. Like if I were going to explain progressive overload to a kindergartner, I would say Rachel wants to make her muscles really, really tired, right? Like you know when you run around and play all day, and then your legs feel heavy and they hurt because you just worked them really hard. I don't teach kindergarten, so I don't know how to talk to kindergarteners, but it'd be something like that. I taught junior high. The point is, I want to make my muscles really, really tired. The best way I can make my muscles really, really tired is through. Now I'm talking to you guys, not a kindergartner progressive overload, because we know that word. Another way that I can make my muscles really, really tired is by focusing on time under tension, right? If I said, "Hey, hold this mug, well, that feels like nothing right now, especially if my elbow's not down. But if I said, "Keep your elbow up and hold this mug for the next three hours, at some point my hand's going to be doing this because my time on detention is real, so if we want to make our muscles tired, we can slow down our motion. Which means I'm going to go back to my bicep curls. I could do bicep curls like this. It would be pretty hard to do if I'm practicing progressive overload, right? Because if the mus if the weight is heavy, I can't really. Go that fast. So let's say I'm practicing progressive overload. I've got a weight that's a good weight for me to use, and I'm doing this. And I want to really maximize my workouts. I can slow down my motion in the name of increasing time under tension. So I could go up even slower. I could squeeze my muscle at the top like I'm flexing, and then I could bring it down even slower. And guess what it's doing? It's making the exercise a heck of a lot harder by increasing my time under tension. I put this under the category of meditating and singing kumbaya to your neighbor every day. Will it benefit us? Absolutely. Do I work out like this every single day? Oh my goodness, no. That would be so boring. So, will it help you? Absolutely. Do you have to do it? No. If I wanted to give you a realistic tool to use, slow your workouts down. Most of us tend to go too fast. It's in our benefit to maximize Tut, and it doesn't have to be painstakingly so slow to be an extreme. That was a long-winded answer. Inner outer thigh on home workouts. Yeah, that's a good question. The simple answer is because it's tough to do at home. So the question is, how do I target my inner outer thighs when I'm working out from home? There's a lot of equipment in the gym that will target inner and outer thighs. You'll see them. There's a how am I blanking on the word right now? Oh, adductor and abductor. There it is, right? So there's the exercise. You put your. It's very uncomfortable if you make eye contact with someone using this machine because their legs are just like this, and then they're going to go in, and then they're going to come out when guys are on it. I'm just like this. Anyway, my trick for that, by the way, is add coming together like you're adding, and then abductor goes out. It's a tricky exercise to do at home. What you can do, and true story behind the scenes, I used to have an exercise in at home that did this, and it was just so awkward that I deleted it because I'm like nobody's going to do this. But if you have like resistance bands or those like old school bands that are like a full loop, if you can get them tight enough, so you lay on your side, your legs are like this, and you put them around your legs, it's like the old Jane Fonda thing. You can open and close your legs with those bands around it. That's the best workaround that I've found for at-home workouts. It's awkward. It's not comfortable. So the only reason it's not in there is it's just it's a tough exercise to target at home.

Speaker 1  47:41  
If you can figure it out, it's great to do. Not, not a deal breaker. Is it okay to do the same full body workout three times a week? Absolutely, as long as I would make sure you're hitting all the body parts, you're pushing your muscles to do what they can't yet do with progressive overload. And honestly, if you're just getting going, I don't even care if you're do if you're hitting all the body parts as you're building a routine, that's fantastic. If I have three days a week that I can realistically get a strength training workout in, is it best to do full body each of those three days, or three do a three day split? There's no right or wrong to this. So if you have three days to work out, you could do either option. You could do a three-day split, or you could do full body. How would I make that decision? Personal preference. I would try full body three days a week one week. I'd try a three-day split the next week, and I'd say which one did I like better, and I would do that one. And then if I get bored of it, I'd go back to a different one. So that's a case where if you know your time, you know your schedule, you know your starting level, then the third factor in that is purely personal preference. Can you discuss breath work with resistance weight training? You guys ask great questions. Yeah, the biggest mistake that we all make, and I'm saying we all because 10 years later I still do it too. You probably know what I'm gonna say, is we hold our breath, right? We start training and we do the hoop, and then our veins are popping. I can't tell you can go on my Instagram. You'll see my veins popping out of my neck and my face turning red because we all do it. There actually is a time and place to hold your breath in weight training. It is not something most of us are going to use. So let me tell you the time and place. Then let me answer what most of us will use. When you're doing, actually, this is kind of a funny story. Behind the scenes, the reason we call cortisol, inflammation, and gut health the big three is that was a little pun with myself because of weight training. There is a big three in weight training, which are squats, deadlifts, and bench press. If you've ever heard of bodybuilding versus powerlifting, powerlifters do the big three: squat, bench lift, squats, bench press, deadlift. So when we were building out Ignite, I was like, "Oh, that's funny, big." Three cortisol. Anyway, that's a joke with myself. But now we're all in on the joke. When you are doing the big three in exercise-squats, deadlifts, bench press-there is a time where you will hold your breath. So the concept is: if I have a big bar on my back, this is my big bar, my pen, and I'm gonna-I'm not gonna do that. That's uncomfortable. I'm gonna squat right now. The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take a big breath in, and I'm going to brace my stomach as if somebody's about to punch me in the stomach. So I'm going to go like that, and I'm not going to be able to talk because I'm bracing right now. So if you punch me in the stomach, I mean I'd feel it, but I'd be braced for it. Then I'm going to go down, and when I come back up, I'm going to use my breath to help me get back up. Very similar with bench press. When I come down, I'm going to go and use my breath to help me come back up. Deadlift, same thing. Most of us are not professional powerlifters that have to be thinking about that level of intensity. So it is true. we can take some tidbits from that and put it into a regular workout. What we don't want to be doing is holding our breath while we're doing bicep curls. What we can do is focus on our breath to help get the the weight up.

Speaker 1  51:18  
So what I might do is focus on going, because that act of forcing breath out can help us with the energy it takes to get a muscle contracted, get a muscle in. It's not, it's not going to be to the extreme that I'm demonstrating this, right? What we don't want is to pass out because we're like, oh, Rachel said to go in my workouts. You don't need to be breathing to that extreme. If you're just focused on number one, not holding your breath, and number two, maybe now and then using your breath to help get a weight up, that would be fantastic. If you are someone who's more advanced, then yes, you might want to use a bracing technique and use your breath to help you get your weight up, but that's really for for more and more advanced. All right, let's see. We got four questions left in six minutes. We got this. How many different exercises do you do for each body part? If I were to go three days a week doing the splits you mentioned over a 46 minute session, how long between sets? Yeah, great question. So in general, how do I want to answer this? Let me answer the the simple part first. In between sets, the goal is to let your muscles recover, right? What we don't want to do-you've heard me make this joke three times now-is go down the rabbit hole of puppy videos. It's a joke, but it's not a joke because we've all done it, right? It's like let me answer this text. Next thing we know, we're 30 texts deep. It's been a half hour, and we're like, "Crap! I have 10 minutes left of this workout, and I didn't do anything. We want to give ourselves enough time that our muscles can recoup, and we can get back to it. For most people, it's like two minutes. I see people in the gym. I'm not this meticulous, but like I see people set a timer to hold themselves accountable. You can absolutely do that. I don't know that it's necessary. Usually, about two minutes will do the trick. Obviously, that depends on your level, your intensity, your your level of intensity and your level of experience. But it's a general rule. In terms of how many exercises, let's say you're going to do a back and bicep day, and you're going to work out 40 to 60 minutes. A good guideline is about four exercises per body part. So if you can do four bicep exercises, four back exercises, it's probably going to take you into that 40-60 minute mark. Now, if you're more advanced than that, by all means, when I do a back day, I do eight exercises on my back. That's a lot. If you are new, do not do eight exercises on your back. You won't be able to stand up the next day. And if you're more advanced, I can get in a 60 minute workout. I can do eight exercises without rushing, without giving myself too long of a break, too short of a break. Like that's kind of my sweet spot. So a lot of this is personal. It's what feels good. It's what feels comfortable. It's what doesn't feel rushed. It's what feels like we're using our time efficiently. But gun to my head, general rule: If you can do four exercises on a body part, you're golden. If you're doing full body, do not do four but four exercises on a body part. That's like one exercise on a body part. That's how we maximize time. Um. Oh, I love it. I love that you're you're loving the workouts. Thank you. All right. We'll call these the last two in the interest of time. I just need help not tensing too much for weights that involve shoulders. I love all the workouts and weight work. I just get neck tension and tight shoulders. Yeah, and you're not alone in this to this day. I mean, 10 years later, there's days after I work shoulders where my my neck and my traps are just tight. So things that we can really pay attention to are especially this region, which we call our traps. Right, a lot of times when we're doing shoulder exercises or even bicep exercises, we start doing this.

Speaker 1  55:12  
Right, if we're doing bicep curls, it's really easy to get into this, and that's where we start to feel the neck pain the next day, especially. So when you're doing any kind of exercise, even for the purpose of this question, shoulders. So let's say I'm going to do shoulder presses like this. The more that I can, I think of arching my back, like I'm trying to tuck my shoulder blades under me, and I'm going to keep my neck aligned. The more I can be conscious of things like that, the better service it's going to do me. Where weight training is one of those things where two millimeter tweaks can lead to a big tweak and not in the good way. So if we're doing things and we're looking down at our phone or we're talking to our neighbor next to us, we are going to hurt our neck because I'm guilty of this all the time. Swan will be working out next to me, and I'm like, "Would you say? And then I'm like, "Oh no! Like, should not have looked over. So you want to pay attention to that neck alignment. You want to make sure that you're keeping your shoulders relaxed, especially your traps. And for anything, shoulders or chest, I like to think of tucking my shoulder blades under me because it gives a nice little arch in my back while I'm leaning back in in my chair. Really, just being conscious of your neck is is going to help. Would body weight workouts still have the same effect? Absolutely. If you've ever done a push up or pull up, they are some of the hardest exercises out there. They will push your muscles to do what they can't yet do. All right, we'll call this the last one. Where does stretching fit with the weight training? Thank you for addressing proper body mechanics. You are welcome. I just recorded a podcast on Monday that won't be released for a while. It's called "The Three Things That I Wish I Could Go Back in Time and Tell Younger Rachel. And spoiler alert: one of them is start developing the habit of stretching. Stretching is one of those things that we put under the category of I'm invincible when I'm 20, and then you get into your mid to late 40s and onward, and you're like past Rachel. Stretching is fantastic for you. Stretching before you work out is important. Stretching after you work out is, I'm gonna say even more important. I don't know if I like the word even more there. It is equally important. Stretching does not have to be this big elaborate thing. You do not have to spend another 45 minutes a day stretching. What I've started to do is every morning five minutes. Why? Because five minutes is better than the zero that I've been doing for the past six, seven years. So I've got my little morning routine that I use to help lower my cortisol. Five minutes of that is a little stretching routine. At the end of a workout, I take another five minutes. It's not a huge deal. Just do some basic stuff, feel better. It has made a tremendous difference in my body. Call it the snap, crackle, pop. Right over 40, and over 40 can mean anywhere from 41 to our most mature member to date is 78. We just start feeling and hearing the snap, crackle, pop, and it's like, what? Whose body is this? A few minutes of stretching a day is is a game changer for that. So doesn't have to take over your life. Does not need to be a full 45 minute thing. If you can throw a yoga class in once a week, you'll feel fantastic. But if you can start implementing five minutes before and after, you're going to feel massive, massive difference. And I say that from from experience and someone who's shaking her fist at 20 year old, actually 30 year old Rachel. I didn't start weight training until I was 30. So, all right, my friends, we could talk about this all day, every day. My intention number one, if you're new to this, is I don't ever want to overwhelm you. So, blanket statement: if you're new, put this in your pocket. Come back to it when you're ready for it. Focus on nutrition.

Speaker 1  59:00  
If you're in the middle and you're ready to get the snowball rolling down a hill, your coach can always help you with do the bare minimum. We can get that snowball rolling. If you're more advanced, one of the reasons the ignite workouts are set up the way they are is you can use it for any level. I literally have friends who are professional bodybuilders who are like, I still use your workouts because I just use heavier weights with the workouts, so it's very much designed that you can tailor to where you are. Because we're practicing progressive overload. For more information on MindStrong 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