290: Introducing (or reintroducing) Strength Training To Your Life

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Courtney Townley 0:00
Welcome to the Grace and Grit Podcast made for women who want their healthiest years to be ahead of them, not behind them. Join your host Courtney Townley right now. As she breaks down the fairy tale health story, you have been chasing all of your life, indispensable action steps and lasting change.

Courtney Townley 0:28
Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Grace & Grit Podcast. I’m so glad you’re here. And we’re gonna get right into it today. Today’s episode is for anyone who is trying to build a strength training habit or get back into one.

Courtney Townley 0:42
We know there’s lots of research out there that touts the tremendous benefit of regular strength training. There are lots of perks to strength training. It’s not just about aesthetics, it’s about being able to live our life full out. And strength training really helps us to do that. And there are lots of reasons why you may have never built a practice of strength training, or straight from a practice that you once had.

Courtney Townley 1:13
So in this episode, I want to remind you of why strength training is so valuable to the human body and really the human life and how to establish or re establish a practice of it, so you can start reaping all those benefits. Now, this is certainly not the first time I have approached this topic on the Grace & Grit Podcast. I have done lots of past episodes on this very topic, specifically, Episode 29. Yes, going all the way back to Episode 29 and episode 101. And I tell you that because if you want a little bit more substance, if you want a little bit more to go off of those might be two episodes worth revisiting. I’ve also interviewed lots of experts on the beauty of strength training and the power of strength training, including Amanda Thebe, Stacey Sims, Kirsty grows AR and so many others. So if you go to my website, Grace, & grit.com, and you just type strength training into the search engine, you will get all of that goodness.

Courtney Townley 2:24
From the outset, I want to offer that strength training is really a gateway. It is a gateway to More Confidence, a gateway to more movement capacity. Strength training is a gateway to more resilience, both physically and mentally. And it is a really powerful gateway to personal development. Because through a practice of strength training is where we can start to develop things like consistently showing up for ourselves, we can start leaning into the practice of getting uncomfortable on purpose, which of course, skill sets like consistency, and leaning into discomfort will serve us in so many other areas of our life.

Courtney Townley 3:16
I also want to offer that strength training is not a replacement for lots of movement in the day. And the reason I highlight this fact is because you know as a culture, we’re more sedentary than ever. Our world has become very convenient. And convenience is not necessarily it turns out a great thing for our health. So the advent of online business, working from home spending a lot of time in front of technology is really getting in the way of us moving a lot throughout the day. And we know that movement is something that our body needs. It’s a form of nutrition.

Courtney Townley 4:07
And it’s kind of like with food nutrition. We know that protein is valuable. But if you tried to get in all of your protein for the day in one meal, you probably wouldn’t reap all the benefits of eating protein, it needs to be pollinated throughout your day. So your body has an opportunity to really absorb that protein and put it to good use. And the same is true of movement. We need lots of movement in the day, pollinated throughout the day to really optimize our need for movement nutrition.

Courtney Townley 4:47
The reason I highlight this is because so often I have seen people sign up for aggressive strength training programs, CrossFit, really heavy power lifting things of that and Each year or even just going to the gym and working out for an hour, but then coming home, and spending the next 23 hours, sitting on their butt or laying in their bed. Right. So I just want to again, remind you that strength training, of course, is not a replacement for lots of movement pollinated in the day, we really want to lean into both.

Courtney Townley 5:25
I also just want to remind you that there is never one sole solution to improving health. It’s multi faceted. There’s lots of things that improve our health. And strength training is simply one of those things, it is not the end all be all to health. And yet, it is also an incredibly powerful nutrient in the health equation, which is why we’re addressing it again today. So let’s start by talking about the benefits of strength training.

Courtney Townley 6:00
Strength training, of course, preserves and builds muscle tissue. And a lot of you know that I had Stacey Sims on the Podcast just a few weeks ago. And in her newest book next level, she specifically talks about how after the age of 30, women are losing up to 8% of their strength per decade. That’s a big number. And the years around menopause can make this worse. Because estrogen, which is I always say leaving the party at this stage of life is essential for muscle stem cell function and maintenance. So if we want to maintain strength, we want to preserve muscle. Of course, strength training is a really beautiful solution to that.

Courtney Townley 6:59
Strength training also improves our bone density. And in Stacey Sims first book, which was titled roar, she spoke to the fact that half of all women over the age of 50 will break a bone because of osteoporosis. That’s a mind blowing statistic. So strength training helps us to improve bone density. And think of the mechanics of that, when you are using muscles against resistance. You are creating torque and pull on the bone itself. And then the bone has to fortify itself against those stressors. So if you are someone who is, you know, nervous about things like osteoporosis, strength training, can be massively helpful in that arena.

Courtney Townley 8:04
And then of course, strength training helps us to improve the health of connective tissues, like ligaments and tendons, which helps us to prevent injury. Because a lot of injuries are in those tissues. It also helps to preserve and enhance metabolism. So muscle is a very active tissue, which basically just means that it needs more energy in terms of calories to exist. And when we have more muscle on the body, we tend to have a higher metabolic rate at rest, which means you burn through more energy without having to do anything. So when you’re resting your body is actually utilizing more fuel. When you have more muscle tissue. It helps us to improve body composition, which is our fat to lean mass ratio.

Courtney Townley 9:07
And if you don’t know if Gabrielle Lyon Gabrielle Lyon is a muscle centric physicians so she talks a lot about the value of muscle tissue, especially in the aging process. And I love how she describes that, you know we are often sold this notion that we are an overly fat culture. But she suggests that it’s not that we’re overly fat, it’s that we’re under muscled and muscle in her opinion, and I totally agree with this is the organ of longevity. It helps us in the aging process in so many ways many of which I’ve already mentioned here. Strength training also helps us to improve glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity.

Courtney Townley 10:02
If you missed the episode I did with Mary Miller Brooks just again a few weeks ago, we talked a lot about this. We talked all about blood sugar, and the things that we can be doing in our life to help regulate blood sugar. And of course, strength training was one of those things. Strength training improves our posture and stability. It helps to slow cellular aging. It helps to improve Of course, our speed, our power, our agility, decreases blood pressure influences our hormones. There are cognitive benefits to strength training. And like I said in the intro of this Podcast today, strength training contributes to living our life full out. It helps us to develop the mindset and the practice of leaning into hard things on purpose. In other words, embracing discomfort. It’s really the gift that keeps on giving.

Courtney Townley 11:13
Now, I could talk to you all day long, about the benefits of strength training that I have reaped in my own personal life. But I’ve done lots of shows sharing that information. So I reached out to members of my Rumble & Rise community, and asked them to share some of the benefits that they have experienced through strength training. And I’m going to share a few of those answers with you right here.

Courtney Townley 11:40
Marty says, I love how strength training slows me down. And I really have to focus on what I’m doing. Not just go through the motions fueled by momentum, and automatic thinking. It takes my thoughts away from anything else I might be thinking. It’s also an endless learning experience. And I love learning that keeps me young and intrigued with life.

Courtney Townley 12:09
Sandy says I really enjoy feeling the sense of accomplishment, both at the gym when lifting. And then more importantly, in life later, when I need to move or pick up heavy things, and find that they don’t pose a problem.

Courtney Townley 12:29
Celeste says strength training has helped me stay toned and fight the loss of muscle as I age. I feel better with a stronger mindset that I’m caring for myself in ways that my aerobic fitness cannot. It helps me to stay balanced in my fitness goals, and helps me to minimize injuries.

Courtney Townley 12:51
Sherry says strength training has improved my balance and bone density. I also enjoy the sense of accomplishment when I can do something that I couldn’t do before. That really helps my self confidence.

Courtney Townley 13:07
Diane says it’s very meditative for me, especially when I focus on the muscle being worked. And I exhale with the portion of movement that has the effort.

Courtney Townley 13:21
And Maria finally says here that strength training helps to boost my confidence. I love the feeling of accomplishment after doing a strength training workout. It reinforces that thought that I can do hard things, especially when I’m consistent and able to lift heavier weights. I love seeing the progress and progression of lifting heavier, it also prevents me from getting injured so I can keep running.

Courtney Townley 13:48
So there are definitely some common threads here. In these comments. One of which I hear is confidence. So many people speaking to the confidence that comes on the other side of building a strength training practice.

Courtney Townley 14:07
So let’s address why you aren’t doing it. Because this is what we’re really here to conquer. Right? Is our resistance and the barriers to building the practice. And of course, I always boil the barriers into four categories because these four categories come up time and time again. So the first reason you aren’t building a practice of strength training or getting back to one is that you aren’t doing your body any favors in the chemistry department. So what I mean by that is you’re not getting enough sleep. So you’re always exhausted. And when you’re exhausted, of course you’re not going to be motivated to strength train. It requires more energy energy that your body doesn’t have. It also means that you may not be feeling doing yourself well. So you might not be eating enough nutrient dense foods. And I’m speaking to all the macros here, you might not be eating enough protein, you might not be eating enough high quality carbohydrates, you might not be Eating Enough Healthy Fats, maybe you’re drinking too much alcohol. And so of course, that is disrupting your chemistry, you’re waking up not feeling so great the next day. And when we don’t feel great, again, we tend not to want to exert more energy.

Courtney Townley 15:37
If you are not honoring your chemistry, in basic ways, you are not going to be consistent about strength training, because it is a very effortful energy dependent activity. The other reason you might not be strength training is because your strategy sucks. And what I mean by that, I know that sounds so elegant, doesn’t it. But either you don’t have a strategy. You’re too busy, you have no time. You keep telling yourself someday when. So you have no strategy, or you’re one of the people who every time you try to get back into a practice of strength training, you try to start where you left off, months or years ago. So you’re making the process way too complicated, way too effort filled, which of course, you can’t sustain.

Courtney Townley 16:42
The other thing around strategy that I think is really important to highlight is sometimes we’re trying to force ourselves to work out in a space that we don’t feel safe in, or we don’t actually enjoy in any way. So I think environment can be a big reason why we aren’t motivated to go strength train. Now, it’s not an excuse not to strength train. But it is important for you to identify that if that is a barrier. It is your responsibility to find or cultivate a space that you do enjoy being in that you do feel safe in. Another reason you might not be strength training is because you are consistently arguing for why you can’t or won’t. And this really boils down to a few things, beliefs, assumptions, expectations. So beliefs and assumptions are things like telling yourself that that’s just not who I am. I just don’t strength train. Well, that may be true, you may not have strength train to this point in your life. But you can certainly adopt a habit at any time. Right?

Courtney Townley 18:02
You can start practicing being a new version of yourself at any time. And who you currently are is simply a culmination of all the things you’ve been practicing. So you can become a woman who strength trains if you decide to not an athlete. Right, that’s another one. You don’t have to be an athlete. Or you could consider that all an athlete is is someone who moves with intention. Right? So maybe you need to reconsider how you’re defining athlete. I hate lifting weights. Anything that starts I hate fill in the blank is always going to sabotage you. I have clients who tell me they hate water, they hate vegetables. Right? They hate moving their body they hate strength training. And to me all that is is you arguing for why you won’t do it. Right?

Courtney Townley 19:04
You probably don’t hate drinking water considering that it is a requirement for you to stay alive. And the same could be said of strength training. If you want a good quality of life as you age. How is it useful for you to keep practicing the thought that I hate strength training? What would be more useful to you have to consider why you hate it? What don’t you like the environment? The exercises like get specific about what it is you aren’t enjoying? Because that can be worked through. Another belief of course is I’m too old. No you’re not. There’s lots of research that shows us that we get incredible benefit from strength training regardless of the age that we start with. And then I just want to speak to expectations.

Courtney Townley 20:03
A lot of women, when they get into a strength training practice, they expect immediate results. And I’m gonna be totally honest with you here, you will not get immediate results, what you will probably get is the opposite of what you expect, you’re probably going to initially feel more tired, more sore, you’re going to have more inflammation, your weight may slightly go up. These are all normal byproducts to starting a strength training program. Do those things last? Of course not. But things get a little bit worse before they get better. The final thing I want to speak to in terms of why you aren’t currently strength training, is an unwillingness to get uncomfortable or do things differently.

Courtney Townley 20:59
Strength training is a practice of discomfort, if you’re not uncomfortable in your strength training, you’re probably not doing it in a way that’s going to affect you in a positive way. Now, I’m not talking about suffering, I’m not talking about intense pain, but there will be discomfort. So are you willing to get uncomfortable? To move your physiology to higher ground? Are you willing to be a beginner, which feels awkward? In order to move your health to higher ground? Are you willing to feel on occasion like not doing it and doing it anyway? You longtime listeners have heard me use this example so many times. But think of all the things you’re doing in the day that you don’t feel like doing, but you do it because of the benefit you want. On the other side. I always use brushing your teeth, making your bed, feeding your dog. You’re not always excited, and thrilled to be doing that. But you do it. Because there’s something you want on the other side. So what would it take for you to get into that same mindset with strength training?

Courtney Townley 22:17
Okay, now I’m gonna give you some just quick and I think very effective tips for getting into a strength training practice, or rebuilding one if you’ve been away from one for a while. So first and foremost, remind yourself why you want to build a practice of strength training. So often I hear women using the language like I need to or I have to. The latter is definitely not true. You don’t have to lots of people choose not to strength train, it is not true that you have to strength train. Why do you want to? Is it so you can keep up with your hiking buddies. So you can PR in a race or some other athletic pursuit? Do you want to strength training to rebuild trust in your body? To always feel ready for an adventure to age? Well, I don’t know what it is for you. But it’s really important that you get clear on why you want to do it. And stop telling yourself that you have to.

Courtney Townley 23:31
Second and I already spoke to this, but it’s such an important point, I’m going to reiterate it expect discomfort, both mentally and physically. If you’re doing it right, you will be uncomfortable. Which is why I always think that strength training is an incredible platform for personal development. If you are not uncomfortable, you probably aren’t changing your physicality. Right, we have to be uncomfortable in order to change. And that’s not just true of muscle growth or muscle strength. It’s true of anything in life. And again, just reminding you that there will be inflammation initially. Right?

Courtney Townley 24:21
Challenging your body in new ways, is going to cause and I shouldn’t even say initially, literally the practice of strength training is a process of creating some inflammation on purpose. That sounds terrible. I know why would you want to do that. But think about it. The mechanics of strength training is that you’re creating little micro tears in the muscle tissue. And then of course, the immune system responds by sending water and nutrients to the place of friction or the place that we’ve created micro tears so the muscle can be Built back stronger than before, right. So when we work out, we damage our muscles, and then our bodies repair them. And inflammation comes into play during the repair process, when the body increases blood flow to the area to replenish oxygen, fuel the muscles and clear out any waste. So inflammation is a byproduct.

Courtney Townley 25:25
Now, again, we don’t want to live in a state of chronic inflammation. We don’t want to push our body so hard, that we create inflammation that we cannot recover from. But we also need to expect that muscles will be sore. Weight may slightly go up initially, or even not initially, like I still if I do is really intense leg workout to this day, I’ve been working out with weight since my 20s. And if I do an intense workout, specifically with my legs, my weight is always up the next day. I don’t freak out about it, I just know it’s par for the course. And then of course, as my body recovers, my weight comes back down. So please, ladies do not use your weight as a reason to not strength train. More specifically, your weight going slightly up as a reason not to strength train. The other tip I have for you is it’s really important that we build a solid foundation first. And a foundation for strength training to me is understanding proper body mechanics, right that keep you safe. Understanding some basic alignment principles when you’re doing a movement. And of course, paying attention to stability of your body parts, so you aren’t getting injured. And this is where it can be really helpful to hire a trainer, or take a class that helps you to build the foundation. So that might be Pilates, it might be foundation training, it might be even a yoga class, right?

Courtney Townley 27:17
There are absolutely yoga classes that are very oriented towards posture and mechanics and stability. If you have a good yoga teacher, all of those things should be baked into a class. The other thing is learning to move your own weight before you start to lift weight. So I used to have a teacher used to say to me all the time, Courtney, you have no business lifting weight until you can haul your own assets across the floor in a way that maintains the integrity of your structure. Right. And she was spot on. So there’s no reason to load a walking lunge. If you can’t do a walking lunge, well without the weight. So always, always, always make sure that you can execute a movement well, before you load it. Warm up right warmup is a part of foundation. When you expect muscles to do a lot of aggressive work, you want to spend a little time waking them up and priming them for that opportunity. The next thing I want to say is progression is your friend. Now, we know that lifting heavy Stacey Sims calls it lifting heavy shit is really valuable, especially in the years around menopause and post menopause.

Courtney Townley 28:57
Now, when we say lift heavy, we’re talking about weight that you kind of max out with around five reps. So to exhaust yourself within five reps is very heavy weight. Now, should you start there, of course not. Based on what I just told you previously, you want to move your own body weight before you load anything. But once you start loading and exercise with weight, be gentle. Right you maybe you start in the 12 rep range, and then you work your way down to eight reps. And eventually you work your way into the five rep range. But if you start by lifting really heavy, you’re going to get injured, you’re or you’re going to be so broken down physically. You don’t want to be consistent about strength training.

Courtney Townley 29:56
I would also say there’s a progression to how we use equipment right initially You don’t need to use a lot of equipment. Again, we’re just using our own bodyweight. But there are machines that are designed to help support you, when you are learning how to support yourself, right. So you can definitely use gym equipment, machines that help you to support your spine. But obviously, the objective is for you to do that work. So, getting away from supportive gym equipment can actually be a way to advance yourself in strength training. And also sure things like Olympic bars are wonderful to use in strength training, they allow you to lift so much heavier than a barbell, or a dumbbell ever would. But you probably don’t want to start with an Olympic bar. You might yet right, because again, that’s going to require that you’re already lifting 35 to 45 pounds, which is what most of those bars weigh.

Courtney Townley 31:08
So start with dumbbells, start with resistance bands. Start with things that you feel confident using and work your way up to more advanced equipment. Keep it simple, I cannot emphasize this enough. You do not need highly complicated programs really ever. But especially not in the beginning. I always introduce to my students the power of six programming, which is really just a combination of six movements that allow us to work almost every muscle in the human body. So what are those six movements? Well, you want to do some kind of squat. And there’s 1000s of ways to squat, right, but choosing a squat. Choosing something that promotes hinging at the hip, that might look like a deadlift, it might look like a bridge. It might look like some kind of hip extension. You want to do a some kind of lunge, it could be a stationary lunge, a forward lunge, a reverse lunge, a walking lunge. Again, there’s lots of ways to lunge. Something that pushes weight away from you. So an overhead press a push up a tricep press. These are all mechanics that push weight away from the body.

Courtney Townley 32:44
And then of course, we want to do something that pulls weight towards the body. a bent over row a seated row a pull up. And then I like to incorporate either a weighted carry, which works a lot on stability of the body. It’s literally walking for a distance while carrying heavy weight. or doing some kind of oblique exercise. Because the we often don’t rotate the spine enough in our workouts and there’s so much value in maintaining, of course, that range of motion. So again, just to recap, a squat, a hinge, a lunge, a pushing exercise, a pulling exercise, and then either a weighted carry or an oblique. It’s just a great way to start. And if you did that program, twice a week or three times a week. It’s a great start. And it doesn’t take you a tremendous amount of time. I go into a lot more detail about the specifics of this in Episode 101. So you might want to go back and revisit that. Be reasonable about the dosage.

Courtney Townley 34:03
If you haven’t been strength training at all, that is an awesome place to be. Why do I say that? Because doing just a little bit more will benefit you. So rather than the all or nothing thinking that I know a lot of us tend to get into the trap of how can you just up level, your commitment to strength training by 1%. If you’re not doing any, maybe you just do 120 minute session this week. That’s an improvement. It is easier to add strength training in over time than it is to take away and I see a lot of people you know, getting inspired to strength train and then they commit to a like five day a week boot camp. They feel terrible. They don’t want to continue. And then of course they don’t really build a practice of strength training. So remember winning begets winning And to feel like you’re winning, you have to set the parameters up that allow you to win. You don’t need to slaughter yourself.

Courtney Townley 35:11
In fact, I highly recommend that you do not track what you’re doing. So strength training is dependent on progressive overload, the concept of progressive overload, which is when you gradually change a variable, and there’s lots of variables in strength training, the amount of weight, you’re lifting the frequency with which you’re training, the number of repetitions, the pace of the exercise, you’re changing these variables up, in order to continue to challenge the muscle tissue. And this is how we build strength and how we build muscle. And a lot of people go to the gym five days a week, for more than an hour at a time, and they’re doing the exact same full body workout with the exact same way, the same sets the same reps the same effort for years on end. And of course, their body doesn’t change. The human body won’t change unless it is forced to. And muscles love to adapt, they’re really good at adapting. So if we aren’t tracking what we’re doing, and we don’t slightly change the variables, when we’re working out, we’ll get very complacent in our training. So we just want to push the parameters slightly.

Courtney Townley 36:36
With each training session, that might be lifting one or two pounds more in a session, it might mean that you’re not taking such a long break in between sets, it might look like you pick a slightly more complex version of an exercise that you’ve mastered. And this is where it can get a little tricky, right? Because we want to be consistent enough that we give the muscle an opportunity to adapt. But then once we have adapted, we want to change the programming up. I don’t think this is something that you have to worry too much about in the initial phases of getting back into a practice. You could pick a program that you stick with, for you know, four to six weeks. Before you actually have to question changing that program up significantly. There’s a lot of things you can challenge within the program itself, to keep your your muscle evolving.

Courtney Townley 37:47
And of course, I have to say add joy, as a tip, we have to enjoy the process of strength training. Otherwise, why would we keep doing it? Right. And so some of the things that helped to pollinate joy into the strength training process is training with people finding a community that you can connect with around strength training. Look for environments, like I said earlier, that help you to feel safe and that you enjoy being in listen to music that you love. Manage your brain when you’re strength training. Again, it’s not a half two, it’s a get to, it’s a want to. I already spoke to respecting your chemistry. But I will say again, you got to respect your chemistry. If you want to stay consistent with strength training, you have to respect your chemistry, which means we have to get sleep. Because that’s where all the magic of strength training happens is in the recovery, where the muscle repairs itself. And if you’re not giving yourself an opportunity to repair, because you’re not sleeping, you’re not resting. You’re not doing yourself any favors. We have to eat enough protein, we have to eat enough in general.

Courtney Townley 39:05
A lot of people are trying to go into a heavy strength training session with by fasting, not helpful. Your muscle uses glycogen as its primary fuel source for strength training. And if you are not eating before you strength train, you’re going to feel very depleted very quickly. Also hydrating drinking enough water.

Courtney Townley 39:32
Remember we talked earlier about the inflammation process and increasing blood flow to get all the nutrients to the muscle and get the toxins out. Water is a big part of all of that. So if you want to build a solid practice of strength training, you have to start respecting your chemistry. And then the final thing I’ll say here is explore what strength training opens up for you. Again, I don’t operate that strength training Is it a means to an end like it’s not, it’s not the final destination. Strength training, again, is a gateway, it opens up so much more opportunity for movement for exploration and for adventure.

Courtney Townley 40:17
So, as you get stronger, consider what this might open up for you. What are things you might want to explore because you’re feeling more confident, because you’re feeling more resilient because you’re feeling stronger. Strength training, I promise you will expand your life in so many ways. You will have more trust in your body. And when you have more trust that your body can support you, you have less fear. And when you have less fear, you tend to take more risks, you tend to live life a little bit more full out. And that’s how we gain confidence is by living life full out. And with more confidence, we get to express more of who we are. So I have long believed that the things we resist the most are the very things that will change us in the most profound ways. So if you are resisting strength training right now, just consider that. That by leaning into the discomfort of starting to build a practice, it might change your life in ways that you never could have anticipated.

Courtney Townley 41:48
And of course, if you want help with this, I will tell you, I know I’m dropping this Podcast in July. But inside of my membership community, which is Rumble & Rise, in September we are going to be dedicating that month will be dedicated to the theme of up leveling your strength training practice and your movement throughout the day. So if you’re someone who could use a little bit of help with this, definitely consider coming to join us anytime but definitely in September.

Courtney Townley 42:18
You can find out all the details of membership by going to graceandgrit.com/readytorumble. I hope this was helpful. I hope it just gave you a little bit of fire for leaning in to the work that you’re feeling called to do assuming that you chose to listen to this podcast because you are feeling called to strength train. And again, there’s lots of past episodes that you can reference for this. There is the support of Rumble & Rise that you’re welcome to join at any time and I’m sure that I will be doing more episodes on this very topic in the future. I hope you have a great day and I will see you again next week. Take care

Courtney Townley 43:05
Thank you for listening to the Grace and Grit Podcast. It is time to mend the fabric of the female health story. And it starts with you taking radical responsibility for your own self care. You are worth the effort and with a little grace and grit, anything is possible.