July 29, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode, you'll learn about common misconceptions in strength training related to gym "cheating." Discover why certain training methods are not only valid but can be the right choice depending on your needs and goals.
You'll get insights into choosing the right techniques and tools for your fitness over 40, especially if you're new to lifting, managing injuries, or looking to optimize your performance.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
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Common myths around strength training tools and techniques.
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How gym machines can be beneficial tools in your workouts.
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Why sumo deadlifts are a legitimate lifting technique.
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Practical reasons to use lifting straps during strength training.
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The importance of individualizing your training approach.
Enjoyed this episode and want more?
If you want a lifting program that tells you exactly what to do, try 7 days of Strong with Steph here >> https://stephgaudreau.com/workout
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steph Gaudreau (00:00):
So when it comes to fitness, in particular
(00:03):
strength training, there's noshortage of big, bold, hot
takes, black and whitestatements and things that are
really designed to getengagement on social media. And
these include statements like x,y, z is cheating. And when it
comes to the gym, when it comesto strength training in general,
(00:26):
this concept of something beingcheating is really overdone.
It's so dramatic, and it'softentimes lacking in the one
thing that We really need inthis world, which is come you?
(01:16):
Oh, Hello, there. It's been ahot minute since I've recorded a
podcast, and I'm happy to saythat feel your strength is back
with some new episodes that I'mgoing to be rolling out in the
near future. And you'relistening to the first one right
now. I am going to take a littleretrospective and do a look
(01:37):
back, because I think it'simportant, especially as a woman
podcaster in this space. Butthis year 2025 is the 10th
anniversary of this podcast, ofme podcasting. The podcast has
had a couple of names along theway, but 10 years of podcasting,
(01:59):
I started in June of 2015, so Iwould be remiss if I did not
celebrate and mention the 10thyear of this show. And of
course, thank all of you. Anyonewho's ever listened to the
podcast, if you've subscribed tothe podcast, it matters. It
really does. And for everybodywho's ever recommended an
(02:19):
episode to a friend or a familymember or a training partner.
You all are why I do this show,and I definitely have enjoyed,
over the years, this gift ofbeing able to connect with you
on your favorite podcastplatform, but really to bring
(02:41):
you some more detailedconversations that are
oftentimes very much lackingfrom the space of social media.
So thank you so much for beingaround whether you've been
listening for a year, a fewmonths, you've just found the
show, or you've been with mesince the beginning. And of
course, a huge thank you to allof my incredible guests that
(03:04):
have come on over the years. Youreally, truly have made such an
impact on my community. So thankyou to all of my past guests as
well. I've also been deep inworking on strong with Steph, so
that is my 12 month progressivestrength training program for
women over 40. But it is notjust 12 months. It is now turned
(03:25):
into three separate years ofprogramming, and I have people
in their third year, which iscompletely mind blowing to me,
and also just so cool to seepeople's growth over a year, two
years, three years, and howthey've made strength training
such a consistent part of theirlives, not perfect, but
(03:46):
consistency, how they've made acommitment to strength training
and challenging themselves andgrowing and seeing the results
of that, and not just in thegym. It is cool to be able to
celebrate especially with mypremium members, those are the
people I check in with everysingle week, and we're really we
know each other well by thispoint. To see people's progress
(04:08):
and hear about their their PRsand the things that are going
well is incredible, but also tohear how strength training is
making an impact beyond the gym,everything from people's
osteoporosis screening numbersimproving to going on vacation
with family. And one of myclients recently told me about
(04:30):
how she was getting in and outof a boat all day long, I guess,
on vacation, and she couldn'tbelieve how much better her
balance was, and she was able todo that so much more easily. And
people noticed, and she noticed.And those are the moments that
when I hear that, when mylifters share that with me, when
I see their posts, when theysend me messages, is the best
(04:54):
feeling in the world. You.
(05:16):
And we still do roughlyquarterly doors open. So if
you're curious about when thenext one's coming around, you
can always reach out to me onsocial media as well, but the
best way to do it is to go andsign up for the wait list. It's
a no obligation wait list. Youall know how I roll, but if you
want the best chance at eitherone of the Limited Premium spots
which are always going to fillup, you want the early bird
(05:38):
bonuses that I send out if yousign up from the wait list, or
you just want to be informed,then you can do that, and I will
make sure that that link goesout in the show notes. You can
also go to Stephgaudreau.com/workout and I will
send you a free week ofprogramming. It's a sample,
right? You can only get so muchof a taster in in a week long,
(06:01):
considering the program is ayear plus, but you can get a
sense for what it's like andwhat the workouts are structured
like, and that's again, at Stephgaudreau.com workout. So yeah,
that program is rolling alongreally well, and that's been
super cool. I've been updatingstrength, nutrition unlocked. So
that program is now in itsfourth year, and I'm going back
(06:22):
and really adding a lot,improving a lot, but making it
super practical for people, andfocusing on that as sort of the
action taking part. So that'sover at Steph
gaudreau.com/apply, yeah, andthat's, that's kind of it. What
else has happened since I lastdid a podcast. I think I had
(06:46):
maybe gotten my black belt atthe point of which I did my last
recording, or I had justreceived my black belt in
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which is,now seems kind of real, but at
the time, did not seem real atall. So now a black belt in BJJ,
and also, yeah, still liftingand doing my thing and still
(07:08):
playing drums as well. So I justpassed my one year anniversary
of playing drums. I am actuallygoing to record an episode.
Probably the next one that I dois you
(07:38):
so the last thing I'll say isthat I'm currently not recording
video for this podcast, and thereason is, I found myself it was
taking me so much longer torecord episodes because the
video component, and I'm used tobeing on video on if you follow
me on Instagram, I'm on videoall the time, especially in My
(08:00):
stories. That's nothing new. Butthere was something about
recording, quote, unquoteofficial video and putting it on
YouTube. And I'll still putthese episodes on YouTube,
YouTube, YouTube, just withoutthe video. But there was
something about recording myselfand being ultra conscious of how
I look when I speak and thingslike that, and it's because
(08:22):
YouTube is fucking brutal. Thecomments are brutal. And my my
best trolls come from YouTube,for sure. But I was focusing. It
became such a point of stressfor me that I was it was either
taking me way too much time torecord, or I was second guessing
everything I was saying. Itreally took me away from sort of
(08:45):
the early roots of this podcast,which was a bit more
conversational, a bit lessformal, and I didn't like that.
I like being able to come andhang out with you and have a
more relaxed conversation, andalso not have to be conscious of
myself from outside of myself inthat way. So at least for now,
(09:06):
I'm sticking to audio onlyrecordings, and you can find
them on all of your favoriteaudio platforms, as well as,
yes, still on YouTube, justwithout the video component. So
just a heads up on that too. Iknow this is this intro is a bit
longer than normally we do, butI feel like I haven't recorded a
podcast for at least six orseven months, and so I wanted to
make sure I cut you up on on allthe goodness. But today, all
(09:31):
right, in this podcast episode,we're going to be talking about
some of the things that peoplewill say on social media is
cheating when it comes tolifting, but actually isn't. And
the reason I bring this up isbecause, especially if you are a
newer person to lifting, maybeyou're not brand brand new, but
you're sort of in that beginnerto early intermediate phase of
(09:54):
lifting, especially in the firstyear you are learning so. Very
much. So very much. There is somuch learning happening, not
only in your body, of course,but all of the things that
you're learning that go alongwith lifting and intersect with
lifting, everything from how youmay need to change your
(10:15):
nutrition to noticing that youneed to pay more attention to
your recovery. Maybe you'redoing something like strong with
Steph or another program thatuses auto regulation, or
something like rate of perceivedexertion, or reps and reserves.
So you're also trying to notonly improve your technique, but
learn how to gage your effort.There is so much going on,
especially when you're newer,that it is easy to get
(10:38):
overwhelmed, and it's easy, evenwhen you're following a program,
which I highly encourage you todo, even if you're very, very
new. But when you are newer, andyou are out there and you're
seeing messages on social media,even if you're on a program,
it's really easy, because youmay not be as self assured that
(10:59):
you see posts and you start toworry, does is what that
person's talking are they Am Idoing this wrong? Are they
correct? Am I fucking this up?Should is this cheating? Am I
somehow shortchanging myselfhere? Or you start to worry
you're doing things wrong. Andif you need to know anything, of
(11:21):
course, with nutrition, peopleare always like, Oh, it's so
individual. Oh, we have toreally tailor it to the person.
But lifting is similar in thatit is also going to be
individual, and it is going tobe kind of personal and
contextual, and there is nuance.So yes, we want to focus on the
biggest levers. We want to focuson the biggest concepts, the
(11:44):
things that give us the mostbang for our buck. There's a
tendency for people on socialmedia, especially people who
make content, to start puttingout content that really makes
people worry about the nittygritty, the really tiny things
that don't have as much impact.And then those same folks create
that content, oftentimes to getthe algorithm going. And so you
(12:09):
get these epic battles in thecomment sections. And sometimes
people do this very personallybecause they want engagement, so
they create very polarizingcontent in this way, or content
that's very black and white, andit causes people argue, and so
then you get in the commentsection, and it's a knock down,
drag out battle, or you justsee, again, people coming from
(12:30):
very different perspectives andcommenting or starting to second
guess that, are they doingthings wrong, and are they
messing this up, and do theyneed a new program? Or, you
know, you probably get how thisgoes. So I'm going to cover
three things in this episodethat I see. There are so many
others, so many others, as aquick aside, when I was Olympic
(12:50):
weightlifting, I really neededto improve my posterior chain
strength, and I did low bar backsquat for a long time. And I
also did front squat, so that'smore of an accessory for having
a vertical upright position inOlympic lifting, which is very
important. But people werehorrified that I would low bar
(13:13):
back squat, because you tend tohave more back angle. You're
leaning. You have a little bitmore torso lean, a little bit
more hip drive in something likea low bar back squat compared to
a high bar back squat. So youknow, there are things like that
as well, but these are threethings I see quite often, and I
want to address them, becausechances are you've heard them,
(13:33):
or you will hear them, and it'shelpful to know what some of the
context and nuance would be.Okay. Number One, people will
say that machines are cheating.Machines are cheating. Using a
machine in the gym of some sortis means you're cheating. And
the only pure weight I makemyself laugh when I say things
like this, the only pure way tostrength train and to be
(13:55):
functional is to use freeweights. And I'm going to say
no, machines are not cheating.They can be an excellent way for
beginners to learn, because youare more fixed in your
positioning in the machine,you're not having to necessarily
do something like put a barbellon your back and then learn to
(14:19):
balance that bar on your backand stabilize your torso and
keep everything as upright aspossible, and then, by the way,
squat down and squat back up. Sothey're a great way for
beginners oftentimes to learn.They could be useful if you are
rehabbing an injury. They may beuseful for people who have
serious concerns with theirbalance, especially if you're an
(14:42):
older person, and your balanceis not great, and maybe you have
some bone density loss, or maybeyou have fairly advanced
osteoporosis. Balance is a hugeconcern, and it doesn't mean you
can't use free weights, butdepending on the person how
compromised their balance might.Be and the severity of the
(15:02):
progression, they may needsomething that gives them a bit
more security and safety, like amachine, obviously, again, a ton
of nuance. So if, in time, youcan move to more free weight
use, because you are able to dothat. That's, it's
(15:43):
and so yeah, many peopleoftentimes want to either
progress to a mixture of freeweights and machines, or just
free weights, if possible. Butit doesn't mean that if you are
using machines, that you'resomehow cheating the process of
lifting. What matters most atthe end of the day is that
you're using a load thatrequires a high effort, given
(16:05):
the number of reps that you areperforming. And we're going to
do a podcast on that fairly soonas well, because Lord, I am so
sick of this back and forth, ofpeople shouting at each other
about about things like theweight, the load? Is it heavy?
Is it light? We need to sort allthis out, but do it on another
(16:25):
episode. So machines have a lotof benefit. There are a lot of
pluses, but there can also bedownsides. For example, figuring
out the right settings, knowinghow to actually configure the
machine correctly for yourheight, your limb proportions.
For example, if you are prettyfar outside of the quote,
(16:48):
unquote average, you're very,very short, or you're very, very
tall, or you are a larger bodiedperson, then the machines may
not adjust as comfortably toyou. I have a client who's over
six feet tall. She's about sixfoot two, and, you know, some
machines require a little bit ofextra, a little bit of extra
(17:11):
attention when she's settingthings up, because it's not
always as comfortable. And Ihave clients on the other side,
for example, even if you're notusing machines, there can still
be challenges with free weights.For example, if you're benching
and you're very short, you maynot have a bench that you can
reach the ground supercomfortably and use substantial
leg drive, so you might have toput squat wedges. Or if you've
(17:33):
seen me bench, I usually put myfeet up on an old aerobic step
so I can get enough leg drive,because the bench is just too
high, those sorts of things. Butmachines can bring down sides.
For that reason. Sometimes it'shard to adjust. If you're you're
not kind of like the quote,unquote, average size. And for a
lot of my clients that lift athome, they're lifting at home,
and machines are kind ofimpractical for that reason.
(17:54):
Most people don't have machinesin their garage, maybe a cable
stack or something like that.But we can, we can oftentimes
introduce something like apulley system without needing a
full stack, and there areoptions for that. So just know
that if you are using machinesand somebody's like, that's
cheating, it's probably missinga lot of context. They're not
(18:15):
understanding why you might havemade that choice, and it's
totally fine, as long as it'sworking for you, you are if you
can able to progress out into adifferent option over time,
because that's what you want.Cool. But for certain people,
they're a super, super greatoption, and there's nothing
wrong with that. So that'snumber one, machines. Number
(18:35):
two. This one's kind ofpersonal, but people will say
that sumo stance deadlifts arecheating. Sumo stance dead lifts
are cheating. I have had so manypeople on social media tell me
that my deadlift didn't countbecause I was doing a sumo dead
lift. So if you're unaware, sumodeadlift is a very wide stance
(18:58):
deadlift with your arms on theinside of your legs, as opposed
to a conventional or even a hexbar deadlift, where your arms
are on the outside of your legs,with more of a narrow stance in
your legs. Sumo is the opposite.Your legs are very wide. Exactly
how wide depends on the person,but your arms are on the inside
(19:20):
of that. And there are differentthere are different challenges
to using sumo compared toconventional, and there are
different reasons why someonemight choose sumo over
conventional, but it's sort of,I don't know where it came from
and why this attitude hasdeveloped, that sumo dead
(19:41):
lifting is cheating. It's notreal. It's not as hard. It's
making it easier on the lifter,etc, etc. You can sumo deadlift
in power lifting, if you are apower lifter, you can sumo
deadlift. And I have seen manypeople who are incredibly
strong. Um, sumo deadlift. Soit's not like it's a weaker pull
(20:04):
or something of that nature, butit is a little bit challenging.
So I want to talk about that.But bottom line, if you choose
to sumo deadlift, and you'reable to pull the weight off the
floor and come to an extendedhip position, you stood up with
the weight, you lifted it offthe floor, it is not cheating,
(20:24):
period, point blank. So why dopeople say it's cheating?
Because generally, the bar willtravel less distance off the
floor compared to a conventionalstance because of that knit,
that very wide stance of yourlegs. However, if you haven't
ever done heavy sumo deadlifts,you've never really tried them,
(20:51):
you probably don't realizesomething very important, which
is, in order to break thebarbell off of the floor, that
first initial break off thefloor movement compared to a
conventional is a lot harder, isa lot more difficult to break a
sumo off the floor compared toconventional, because of the
(21:13):
stance, and because you havesuch a wide stance, you're also
relying a lot on things likeyour adductors and your quads
compared to something like aconventional so Sumo is arguably
a even though the range ofmotion, quote, unquote, is
shorter, is a lot harder, onaverage, to to actually break
(21:36):
off the floor, especially whenit gets heavy. If you've ever
seen me on my social media, youwill probably notice that I, by
and large, adopt a sumo stance.And that was an intentional
decision that I made quite along time ago, because for me,
conventional deadlifting justdoes not feel that great in my
body. I learned how to sumodeadlift from Laura Phelps in an
(21:56):
extremely cold gym in I think itwas March in Northern Ireland,
it was so freezing in that gym,and Laura taught how to sumo
deadlift. And I just rememberthinking at the time like, this
is actually very technical, andit's not the easiest stance to
learn. It's a little bit moreapproachable for beginners to
(22:19):
learn how to do something like aconventional Sumo is a little
bit more technical, and like Isaid, it's much harder to break
off of the floor, but Iprimarily use sumo deadlift. And
last year I went through sixmonths last, end of last year
into the beginning of this year,I did a six month block where I
did no sumo at all, none, andworked on some variations of a
(22:43):
conventional stance, includingsome deficit work, as well as a
stint of Zurcher deadlifts,which, if you've never done
zertre deadlifts is fun butchallenging. So essentially,
what you have to do is get yourarms underneath the bar such
that the barbell is across thecrook of your elbow on both
sides, and then stand up withit, which is much harder than it
(23:04):
sounds, but I did six monthslearning some different deadlift
variations and incorporatingthat. And of course, as you can
imagine, it did benefit my Sumo.So when I went back to doing
sumo earlier this spring andended up Pring my sumo a few
times. That was great, so I washappy to be back to it, and
(23:26):
ironically, now I'm actuallyback out of it and doing some
hack dead lifting, which iswhere the barbell is behind your
back. And that's a whole otherstory, and also very
challenging. Suffice to say, Ihad people. The reason I bring
that up is I had peoplecommenting on my PR post saying
things like, Oh, well, you didit with a sumo stance. So did it
(23:47):
really count? And I was like,seriously, this, we're still
doing this in 2025 Oh, mygoodness. Okay, so sumo deadlift
is not cheating. Conventionaldeadlift is not necessarily
better. It depends on theperson. So I know people who
have a pretty sensitive lowerback, and they find that Sumo is
better for them because theyhave a little bit more of an
(24:09):
upright posture, and they'reable to, again, tap into that
quad and adductor use as well.So it can work better for people
for different reasons, and thatway, if you want to bias a
little bit more toward thatadductor work, or if you just
like it better, that's okay.It's not cheating. So I hope we
(24:29):
answered that question once andfor all, and it is legal in
power lifting as well. Okay? Andthat brings us to the last one.
I saved the best one until last,because I feel like I have the
most to say on this.
The number one thing that peoplewill say is cheating in the gym,
is using lifting straps. Usinglifting straps. Okay, so, and it
(24:54):
just brought up power lifting.But to be clear, if you're
competing in power lifting orOlympic lifting. Can't use
straps in competition that arenot allowed. So sure, if you
showed up to try to get on theplatform at a competition and
you had straps, you probablywouldn't be able to lift or your
lift wouldn't count if yousomehow were able to perform
your lift. But in general,lifting straps are a really
(25:17):
great way to make sure that yourgrip isn't a limiter to your
training, especially when itcomes to what your legs can
lift. So does that mean thatevery single exercise you
perform, and every single setyou do, including your warm ups,
you have to use straps. No, youdon't have to, but they can be a
(25:40):
great assist. And so quiteoftentimes, especially once my
strong with Steph lifters startto build a little bit, they're
out of the first especiallythree months. And now, you know,
for some of the accessory work,they're starting to see higher
repetitions. Maybe they'reseeing some more single leg
work, or something like lunges,or single leg RDLs or something
(26:02):
of that nature, and they'rehaving to hold on to the weight,
whether it's barbells,dumbbells, etc, and those,
especially unilateral or moreunilateral bias exercises, we're
having to do both sides. And sothe time that we're holding the
weights starts to increase, andquite oftentimes, what I'll hear
for people from people inaccessory work, or also just in
(26:24):
heavier strength work, is that,oh, I just didn't go up because
I couldn't hang on to the bar.And my answer is almost always a
resounding, did you use liftingstraps? And quite oftentimes
they'll say, No, I thought Ishouldn't, because I'm supposed
to work on my grip. We get a tonof grip work in strength
training in general, as it is,and sometimes we have to work on
(26:47):
specific grip work if we want toincrease our grip strength. And
that can be an accessory that wedo. And I did a podcast on
accessory work. It's actuallythe one before this, so you can
go back and check that one out.For example, part of grip
strength is forearm musclestrength, and you might have to
work on some of your forearmmusculature, and there are
specific exercises you could doto bring that up a little bit.
(27:09):
But you just kind of have toknow that you might be doing a
workout where there's a lot ofgrip work involved, or the time
that you're holding the weightsis starting to go up. And what
we don't want to have happen isthat you start to under load
your especially your legs, ifthere is one mistake, and I'll
probably do a podcast on this,like all the things I wish I I
(27:32):
could say very bluntly aboutlifting and why people maybe
aren't getting the results thatthey Want, but especially when
it comes to legs, a lot ofpeople under load. I don't care
if you're doing sets of three oryou're doing sets of 20, we have
to pick a load that'schallenging enough. And quite
oftentimes, we start to run intochallenges with the grip. And so
(27:57):
we won't go up and wait. And inthe short term, that might not
be a huge deal, but if thatcontinues for a while, we might
start to see just lack ofadaptation. We're not getting a
stimulus because we're liftingthe same weights over time. So
in the interest of your legsgetting the proper stimulus and
(28:17):
making sure that your grip isn'tthe limiter in what your legs
especially, can lift, I highlyrecommend using lifting straps
to a lot of my lifters for thosereasons. And again, take your
warm up sets. Usually peopletake their warm up sets without
them, or they're going to dosome of their earlier work sets
(28:39):
without them. And then as theweight starts to climb and they
need a little bit more assist,then they'll put their straps to
good use. But there are also, Iwant to put this out there for
people like That's cheating. Iwant to give you some other use
cases for why it's not cheating.So I had a client who had
(28:59):
hyperhidrosis. Hyperhidrosis iswhen you have excessively sweaty
palms, and no amount of chalk orgloves or any of that was going
to help her, and so she hadextremely sweaty hands, and had
to use lifting straps so shecould actually hold on to the
(29:21):
weight. So she had a medicalcondition in which using straps
really helped her, really,really helped her. And of
course, again, this is actuallya use case in some cases for
something like machines incertain contexts as well,
although it depends on theexercise. But in some cases,
you're maybe not holding ontoweight as much as you are
pressing against handles orsomething of that nature.
(29:43):
Clients of mine, some of themhave osteoarthritis, and in
particular of their hands orwrists, and that can make
holding the weight more painfulor just harder. And so am I to
look at a client who hasosteoarthritis. And you know,
their doctor has cleared them tolift, and of course, be sensible
(30:03):
about their progression andloading and things like that,
but they're out there doing thething, but they need some
assist, because if they have, ifthey over tax the grip, then
that could potentially be anissue. So they use lifting
straps, and they're able to geta great workout. Or also, if you
have finger or hand injuries,one of my clients had trigger
finger, and so needed to havehand surgery. And of course, she
(30:24):
had to avoid that hand for awhile, and we had to get
creative with some of thedifferent variations of
exercises that she did. But youknow, in that case, using
something like a lifting strapcould be helpful. I have had
finger injuries from jiu jitsuthat made it really hard to grip
the bar, especially when the myfingers were very inflamed and
(30:46):
swollen. I've probably tornligaments in both of my ring
fingers, and I actually can'tfully straighten them now,
because I'm a guard player.Guard life, if you do jujitsu,
you kind of know. But in anycase, when I had both of those
finger injuries, notsimultaneously, but it was
actually really hard to holdonto a bar for a long set
(31:09):
because my finger was reallyswollen. So all of that said
it's not cheating to use liftingstraps. Now, there are some
cases where you have to be kindof careful when you're using
straps, and especially know howto use them properly if you're
doing like overhead barbellwork. I'm not going to say you
(31:30):
can never use lifting straps,and most of the people that do
my programs are not doingOlympic lifting, but in Olympic
lifting, you have to really knowhow to use straps correctly if
you're doing overhead work, forexample, snatch work, or
something like that. But we diduse them a ton in things like
cling pulls, snatch pulls andthat sort of accessory work. So
(31:52):
know the context, know thereasoning for using the straps.
Make sure you know how to usethem properly is also very
important, and you know how tolet them go so that you can
release the weights safely, etc,etc. But don't be afraid to use
lifting straps. They're veryinexpensive. Of course, you can
get more expensive styles, like,for example, a Versa grip, but I
(32:14):
have honestly been rocking thesame $15 pair of rogue Ohio
lifting straps for years, andthey're simple, but they get the
job done. I always keep a pairin my bag. I bring them to the
gym with me, and that is what itis. So lifting straps, not
cheating, can be a great tooland a great assist, especially
to make sure that your lowerbody is getting the stimulus
(32:38):
that it needs for growth andchange. Like I said, there's so
many more of these. I would loveto hear from you. Go ahead and
send me a DM on Instagram.What's the most wild thing
someone has told you is cheatingin the gym? Send me a message.
I'd love to hear it, becausethere's so much out there. But
(33:01):
on this episode, we coveredthree of the more common. The
first one was machines, thesecond one saying sumo dead
lifts or cheating. And then thethird one lifting straps. And
hopefully now you have a bettersense for the context. And also,
thanks for allowing me to catchyou up on all of the stuff
that's been happening in myworld, business wise, and also,
(33:21):
personally, I just appreciateyou again. Thanks for being
around and listening to the showand keeping me going for the
last decade. Yesterday, I was aguest on the podcast and
hadn't talked about, really howI got into strength training in
a while. Got into strengthtraining in 2010 I came out of
the endurance world and sittingdown and really talking about
(33:45):
that relit a lot of passion inme and a lot of excitement for
what I do, and remembering themission and why I do this work.
Sometimes it does get a littlehard on social media, or, you
know, businesses is justchallenging. If anybody who's
(34:07):
ever run a business knows thereare a lot of things, a lot of
moving parts, and a lot ofchallenges, and sitting down and
just having that conversationabout why I started lifting and
how it changed me in a reallypositive way, and then why I was
so compelled to make this mywork, and to work with all of
(34:29):
you, and to put this idea andmessage about strength training
out into the world, reallyreminded me about why I love
this and why I'm so committed toit, and Why I believe in it so
much all these years later, soagain, thank you so much for
being part of the community onInstagram, for being on my
newsletter. There are some ofyou have been around since the
(34:52):
very beginning, and I also didcelebrate 12 years of starting
my own business and still beinghere to talk. It, and that was
in in June, so last month, itwas 12 years. So super
appreciative of all of you.Thank you for being here. Thanks
for listening to the show.Please do be a favor and share
it out. If you find it useful,you'll love this episode or
(35:13):
other episodes that I've done.Please share it out to a friend
and please subscribe. It doesmake a difference. It really
helps other people who havesimilar interests to discover
the show and the mission, whichis to help women over 40 get
strong as fuck and do cool shit.So thanks for being with me. I
will catch you next time, anduntil then, you know the drill.
(35:35):
Stay strong. You.
So when it comes to fitness, in particular
(00:03):
strength training, there's noshortage of big, bold, hot
takes, black and whitestatements and things that are
really designed to getengagement on social media. And
these include statements like x,y, z is cheating. And when it
comes to the gym, when it comesto strength training in general,
(00:26):
this concept of something beingcheating is really overdone.
It's so dramatic, and it'softentimes lacking in the one
thing that We really need inthis world, which is come you?
(01:16):
Oh, Hello, there. It's been ahot minute since I've recorded a
podcast, and I'm happy to saythat feel your strength is back
with some new episodes that I'mgoing to be rolling out in the
near future. And you'relistening to the first one right
now. I am going to take a littleretrospective and do a look
(01:37):
back, because I think it'simportant, especially as a woman
podcaster in this space. Butthis year 2025 is the 10th
anniversary of this podcast, ofme podcasting. The podcast has
had a couple of names along theway, but 10 years of podcasting,
(01:59):
I started in June of 2015, so Iwould be remiss if I did not
celebrate and mention the 10thyear of this show. And of
course, thank all of you. Anyonewho's ever listened to the
podcast, if you've subscribed tothe podcast, it matters. It
really does. And for everybodywho's ever recommended an
(02:19):
episode to a friend or a familymember or a training partner.
You all are why I do this show,and I definitely have enjoyed,
over the years, this gift ofbeing able to connect with you
on your favorite podcastplatform, but really to bring
(02:41):
you some more detailedconversations that are
oftentimes very much lackingfrom the space of social media.
So thank you so much for beingaround whether you've been
listening for a year, a fewmonths, you've just found the
show, or you've been with mesince the beginning. And of
course, a huge thank you to allof my incredible guests that
(03:04):
have come on over the years. Youreally, truly have made such an
impact on my community. So thankyou to all of my past guests as
well. I've also been deep inworking on strong with Steph, so
that is my 12 month progressivestrength training program for
women over 40. But it is notjust 12 months. It is now turned
(03:25):
into three separate years ofprogramming, and I have people
in their third year, which iscompletely mind blowing to me,
and also just so cool to seepeople's growth over a year, two
years, three years, and howthey've made strength training
such a consistent part of theirlives, not perfect, but
(03:46):
consistency, how they've made acommitment to strength training
and challenging themselves andgrowing and seeing the results
of that, and not just in thegym. It is cool to be able to
celebrate especially with mypremium members, those are the
people I check in with everysingle week, and we're really we
know each other well by thispoint. To see people's progress
(04:08):
and hear about their their PRsand the things that are going
well is incredible, but also tohear how strength training is
making an impact beyond the gym,everything from people's
osteoporosis screening numbersimproving to going on vacation
with family. And one of myclients recently told me about
(04:30):
how she was getting in and outof a boat all day long, I guess,
on vacation, and she couldn'tbelieve how much better her
balance was, and she was able todo that so much more easily. And
people noticed, and she noticed.And those are the moments that
when I hear that, when mylifters share that with me, when
I see their posts, when theysend me messages, is the best
(04:54):
feeling in the world. You.
(05:16):
And we still do roughlyquarterly doors open. So if
you're curious about when thenext one's coming around, you
can always reach out to me onsocial media as well, but the
best way to do it is to go andsign up for the wait list. It's
a no obligation wait list. Youall know how I roll, but if you
want the best chance at eitherone of the Limited Premium spots
which are always going to fillup, you want the early bird
(05:38):
bonuses that I send out if yousign up from the wait list, or
you just want to be informed,then you can do that, and I will
make sure that that link goesout in the show notes. You can
also go to Stephgaudreau.com/workout and I will
send you a free week ofprogramming. It's a sample,
right? You can only get so muchof a taster in in a week long,
(06:01):
considering the program is ayear plus, but you can get a
sense for what it's like andwhat the workouts are structured
like, and that's again, at Stephgaudreau.com workout. So yeah,
that program is rolling alongreally well, and that's been
super cool. I've been updatingstrength, nutrition unlocked. So
that program is now in itsfourth year, and I'm going back
(06:22):
and really adding a lot,improving a lot, but making it
super practical for people, andfocusing on that as sort of the
action taking part. So that'sover at Steph
gaudreau.com/apply, yeah, andthat's, that's kind of it. What
else has happened since I lastdid a podcast. I think I had
(06:46):
maybe gotten my black belt atthe point of which I did my last
recording, or I had justreceived my black belt in
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which is,now seems kind of real, but at
the time, did not seem real atall. So now a black belt in BJJ,
and also, yeah, still liftingand doing my thing and still
(07:08):
playing drums as well. So I justpassed my one year anniversary
of playing drums. I am actuallygoing to record an episode.
Probably the next one that I dois you
(07:38):
so the last thing I'll say isthat I'm currently not recording
video for this podcast, and thereason is, I found myself it was
taking me so much longer torecord episodes because the
video component, and I'm used tobeing on video on if you follow
me on Instagram, I'm on videoall the time, especially in My
(08:00):
stories. That's nothing new. Butthere was something about
recording, quote, unquoteofficial video and putting it on
YouTube. And I'll still putthese episodes on YouTube,
YouTube, YouTube, just withoutthe video. But there was
something about recording myselfand being ultra conscious of how
I look when I speak and thingslike that, and it's because
(08:22):
YouTube is fucking brutal. Thecomments are brutal. And my my
best trolls come from YouTube,for sure. But I was focusing. It
became such a point of stressfor me that I was it was either
taking me way too much time torecord, or I was second guessing
everything I was saying. Itreally took me away from sort of
(08:45):
the early roots of this podcast,which was a bit more
conversational, a bit lessformal, and I didn't like that.
I like being able to come andhang out with you and have a
more relaxed conversation, andalso not have to be conscious of
myself from outside of myself inthat way. So at least for now,
(09:06):
I'm sticking to audio onlyrecordings, and you can find
them on all of your favoriteaudio platforms, as well as,
yes, still on YouTube, justwithout the video component. So
just a heads up on that too. Iknow this is this intro is a bit
longer than normally we do, butI feel like I haven't recorded a
podcast for at least six orseven months, and so I wanted to
make sure I cut you up on on allthe goodness. But today, all
(09:31):
right, in this podcast episode,we're going to be talking about
some of the things that peoplewill say on social media is
cheating when it comes tolifting, but actually isn't. And
the reason I bring this up isbecause, especially if you are a
newer person to lifting, maybeyou're not brand brand new, but
you're sort of in that beginnerto early intermediate phase of
(09:54):
lifting, especially in the firstyear you are learning so. Very
much. So very much. There is somuch learning happening, not
only in your body, of course,but all of the things that
you're learning that go alongwith lifting and intersect with
lifting, everything from how youmay need to change your
(10:15):
nutrition to noticing that youneed to pay more attention to
your recovery. Maybe you'redoing something like strong with
Steph or another program thatuses auto regulation, or
something like rate of perceivedexertion, or reps and reserves.
So you're also trying to notonly improve your technique, but
learn how to gage your effort.There is so much going on,
especially when you're newer,that it is easy to get
(10:38):
overwhelmed, and it's easy, evenwhen you're following a program,
which I highly encourage you todo, even if you're very, very
new. But when you are newer, andyou are out there and you're
seeing messages on social media,even if you're on a program,
it's really easy, because youmay not be as self assured that
(10:59):
you see posts and you start toworry, does is what that
person's talking are they Am Idoing this wrong? Are they
correct? Am I fucking this up?Should is this cheating? Am I
somehow shortchanging myselfhere? Or you start to worry
you're doing things wrong. Andif you need to know anything, of
(11:21):
course, with nutrition, peopleare always like, Oh, it's so
individual. Oh, we have toreally tailor it to the person.
But lifting is similar in thatit is also going to be
individual, and it is going tobe kind of personal and
contextual, and there is nuance.So yes, we want to focus on the
biggest levers. We want to focuson the biggest concepts, the
(11:44):
things that give us the mostbang for our buck. There's a
tendency for people on socialmedia, especially people who
make content, to start puttingout content that really makes
people worry about the nittygritty, the really tiny things
that don't have as much impact.And then those same folks create
that content, oftentimes to getthe algorithm going. And so you
(12:09):
get these epic battles in thecomment sections. And sometimes
people do this very personallybecause they want engagement, so
they create very polarizingcontent in this way, or content
that's very black and white, andit causes people argue, and so
then you get in the commentsection, and it's a knock down,
drag out battle, or you justsee, again, people coming from
(12:30):
very different perspectives andcommenting or starting to second
guess that, are they doingthings wrong, and are they
messing this up, and do theyneed a new program? Or, you
know, you probably get how thisgoes. So I'm going to cover
three things in this episodethat I see. There are so many
others, so many others, as aquick aside, when I was Olympic
(12:50):
weightlifting, I really neededto improve my posterior chain
strength, and I did low bar backsquat for a long time. And I
also did front squat, so that'smore of an accessory for having
a vertical upright position inOlympic lifting, which is very
important. But people werehorrified that I would low bar
(13:13):
back squat, because you tend tohave more back angle. You're
leaning. You have a little bitmore torso lean, a little bit
more hip drive in something likea low bar back squat compared to
a high bar back squat. So youknow, there are things like that
as well, but these are threethings I see quite often, and I
want to address them, becausechances are you've heard them,
(13:33):
or you will hear them, and it'shelpful to know what some of the
context and nuance would be.Okay. Number One, people will
say that machines are cheating.Machines are cheating. Using a
machine in the gym of some sortis means you're cheating. And
the only pure weight I makemyself laugh when I say things
like this, the only pure way tostrength train and to be
(13:55):
functional is to use freeweights. And I'm going to say
no, machines are not cheating.They can be an excellent way for
beginners to learn, because youare more fixed in your
positioning in the machine,you're not having to necessarily
do something like put a barbellon your back and then learn to
(14:19):
balance that bar on your backand stabilize your torso and
keep everything as upright aspossible, and then, by the way,
squat down and squat back up. Sothey're a great way for
beginners oftentimes to learn.They could be useful if you are
rehabbing an injury. They may beuseful for people who have
serious concerns with theirbalance, especially if you're an
(14:42):
older person, and your balanceis not great, and maybe you have
some bone density loss, or maybeyou have fairly advanced
osteoporosis. Balance is a hugeconcern, and it doesn't mean you
can't use free weights, butdepending on the person how
compromised their balance might.Be and the severity of the
(15:02):
progression, they may needsomething that gives them a bit
more security and safety, like amachine, obviously, again, a ton
of nuance. So if, in time, youcan move to more free weight
use, because you are able to dothat. That's, it's
(15:43):
and so yeah, many peopleoftentimes want to either
progress to a mixture of freeweights and machines, or just
free weights, if possible. Butit doesn't mean that if you are
using machines, that you'resomehow cheating the process of
lifting. What matters most atthe end of the day is that
you're using a load thatrequires a high effort, given
(16:05):
the number of reps that you areperforming. And we're going to
do a podcast on that fairly soonas well, because Lord, I am so
sick of this back and forth, ofpeople shouting at each other
about about things like theweight, the load? Is it heavy?
Is it light? We need to sort allthis out, but do it on another
(16:25):
episode. So machines have a lotof benefit. There are a lot of
pluses, but there can also bedownsides. For example, figuring
out the right settings, knowinghow to actually configure the
machine correctly for yourheight, your limb proportions.
For example, if you are prettyfar outside of the quote,
(16:48):
unquote average, you're very,very short, or you're very, very
tall, or you are a larger bodiedperson, then the machines may
not adjust as comfortably toyou. I have a client who's over
six feet tall. She's about sixfoot two, and, you know, some
machines require a little bit ofextra, a little bit of extra
(17:11):
attention when she's settingthings up, because it's not
always as comfortable. And Ihave clients on the other side,
for example, even if you're notusing machines, there can still
be challenges with free weights.For example, if you're benching
and you're very short, you maynot have a bench that you can
reach the ground supercomfortably and use substantial
leg drive, so you might have toput squat wedges. Or if you've
(17:33):
seen me bench, I usually put myfeet up on an old aerobic step
so I can get enough leg drive,because the bench is just too
high, those sorts of things. Butmachines can bring down sides.
For that reason. Sometimes it'shard to adjust. If you're you're
not kind of like the quote,unquote, average size. And for a
lot of my clients that lift athome, they're lifting at home,
and machines are kind ofimpractical for that reason.
(17:54):
Most people don't have machinesin their garage, maybe a cable
stack or something like that.But we can, we can oftentimes
introduce something like apulley system without needing a
full stack, and there areoptions for that. So just know
that if you are using machinesand somebody's like, that's
cheating, it's probably missinga lot of context. They're not
(18:15):
understanding why you might havemade that choice, and it's
totally fine, as long as it'sworking for you, you are if you
can able to progress out into adifferent option over time,
because that's what you want.Cool. But for certain people,
they're a super, super greatoption, and there's nothing
wrong with that. So that'snumber one, machines. Number
(18:35):
two. This one's kind ofpersonal, but people will say
that sumo stance deadlifts arecheating. Sumo stance dead lifts
are cheating. I have had so manypeople on social media tell me
that my deadlift didn't countbecause I was doing a sumo dead
lift. So if you're unaware, sumodeadlift is a very wide stance
(18:58):
deadlift with your arms on theinside of your legs, as opposed
to a conventional or even a hexbar deadlift, where your arms
are on the outside of your legs,with more of a narrow stance in
your legs. Sumo is the opposite.Your legs are very wide. Exactly
how wide depends on the person,but your arms are on the inside
(19:20):
of that. And there are differentthere are different challenges
to using sumo compared toconventional, and there are
different reasons why someonemight choose sumo over
conventional, but it's sort of,I don't know where it came from
and why this attitude hasdeveloped, that sumo dead
(19:41):
lifting is cheating. It's notreal. It's not as hard. It's
making it easier on the lifter,etc, etc. You can sumo deadlift
in power lifting, if you are apower lifter, you can sumo
deadlift. And I have seen manypeople who are incredibly
strong. Um, sumo deadlift. Soit's not like it's a weaker pull
(20:04):
or something of that nature, butit is a little bit challenging.
So I want to talk about that.But bottom line, if you choose
to sumo deadlift, and you'reable to pull the weight off the
floor and come to an extendedhip position, you stood up with
the weight, you lifted it offthe floor, it is not cheating,
(20:24):
period, point blank. So why dopeople say it's cheating?
Because generally, the bar willtravel less distance off the
floor compared to a conventionalstance because of that knit,
that very wide stance of yourlegs. However, if you haven't
ever done heavy sumo deadlifts,you've never really tried them,
(20:51):
you probably don't realizesomething very important, which
is, in order to break thebarbell off of the floor, that
first initial break off thefloor movement compared to a
conventional is a lot harder, isa lot more difficult to break a
sumo off the floor compared toconventional, because of the
(21:13):
stance, and because you havesuch a wide stance, you're also
relying a lot on things likeyour adductors and your quads
compared to something like aconventional so Sumo is arguably
a even though the range ofmotion, quote, unquote, is
shorter, is a lot harder, onaverage, to to actually break
(21:36):
off the floor, especially whenit gets heavy. If you've ever
seen me on my social media, youwill probably notice that I, by
and large, adopt a sumo stance.And that was an intentional
decision that I made quite along time ago, because for me,
conventional deadlifting justdoes not feel that great in my
body. I learned how to sumodeadlift from Laura Phelps in an
(21:56):
extremely cold gym in I think itwas March in Northern Ireland,
it was so freezing in that gym,and Laura taught how to sumo
deadlift. And I just rememberthinking at the time like, this
is actually very technical, andit's not the easiest stance to
learn. It's a little bit moreapproachable for beginners to
(22:19):
learn how to do something like aconventional Sumo is a little
bit more technical, and like Isaid, it's much harder to break
off of the floor, but Iprimarily use sumo deadlift. And
last year I went through sixmonths last, end of last year
into the beginning of this year,I did a six month block where I
did no sumo at all, none, andworked on some variations of a
(22:43):
conventional stance, includingsome deficit work, as well as a
stint of Zurcher deadlifts,which, if you've never done
zertre deadlifts is fun butchallenging. So essentially,
what you have to do is get yourarms underneath the bar such
that the barbell is across thecrook of your elbow on both
sides, and then stand up withit, which is much harder than it
(23:04):
sounds, but I did six monthslearning some different deadlift
variations and incorporatingthat. And of course, as you can
imagine, it did benefit my Sumo.So when I went back to doing
sumo earlier this spring andended up Pring my sumo a few
times. That was great, so I washappy to be back to it, and
(23:26):
ironically, now I'm actuallyback out of it and doing some
hack dead lifting, which iswhere the barbell is behind your
back. And that's a whole otherstory, and also very
challenging. Suffice to say, Ihad people. The reason I bring
that up is I had peoplecommenting on my PR post saying
things like, Oh, well, you didit with a sumo stance. So did it
(23:47):
really count? And I was like,seriously, this, we're still
doing this in 2025 Oh, mygoodness. Okay, so sumo deadlift
is not cheating. Conventionaldeadlift is not necessarily
better. It depends on theperson. So I know people who
have a pretty sensitive lowerback, and they find that Sumo is
better for them because theyhave a little bit more of an
(24:09):
upright posture, and they'reable to, again, tap into that
quad and adductor use as well.So it can work better for people
for different reasons, and thatway, if you want to bias a
little bit more toward thatadductor work, or if you just
like it better, that's okay.It's not cheating. So I hope we
(24:29):
answered that question once andfor all, and it is legal in
power lifting as well. Okay? Andthat brings us to the last one.
I saved the best one until last,because I feel like I have the
most to say on this.
The number one thing that peoplewill say is cheating in the gym,
is using lifting straps. Usinglifting straps. Okay, so, and it
(24:54):
just brought up power lifting.But to be clear, if you're
competing in power lifting orOlympic lifting. Can't use
straps in competition that arenot allowed. So sure, if you
showed up to try to get on theplatform at a competition and
you had straps, you probablywouldn't be able to lift or your
lift wouldn't count if yousomehow were able to perform
your lift. But in general,lifting straps are a really
(25:17):
great way to make sure that yourgrip isn't a limiter to your
training, especially when itcomes to what your legs can
lift. So does that mean thatevery single exercise you
perform, and every single setyou do, including your warm ups,
you have to use straps. No, youdon't have to, but they can be a
(25:40):
great assist. And so quiteoftentimes, especially once my
strong with Steph lifters startto build a little bit, they're
out of the first especiallythree months. And now, you know,
for some of the accessory work,they're starting to see higher
repetitions. Maybe they'reseeing some more single leg
work, or something like lunges,or single leg RDLs or something
(26:02):
of that nature, and they'rehaving to hold on to the weight,
whether it's barbells,dumbbells, etc, and those,
especially unilateral or moreunilateral bias exercises, we're
having to do both sides. And sothe time that we're holding the
weights starts to increase, andquite oftentimes, what I'll hear
for people from people inaccessory work, or also just in
(26:24):
heavier strength work, is that,oh, I just didn't go up because
I couldn't hang on to the bar.And my answer is almost always a
resounding, did you use liftingstraps? And quite oftentimes
they'll say, No, I thought Ishouldn't, because I'm supposed
to work on my grip. We get a tonof grip work in strength
training in general, as it is,and sometimes we have to work on
(26:47):
specific grip work if we want toincrease our grip strength. And
that can be an accessory that wedo. And I did a podcast on
accessory work. It's actuallythe one before this, so you can
go back and check that one out.For example, part of grip
strength is forearm musclestrength, and you might have to
work on some of your forearmmusculature, and there are
specific exercises you could doto bring that up a little bit.
(27:09):
But you just kind of have toknow that you might be doing a
workout where there's a lot ofgrip work involved, or the time
that you're holding the weightsis starting to go up. And what
we don't want to have happen isthat you start to under load
your especially your legs, ifthere is one mistake, and I'll
probably do a podcast on this,like all the things I wish I I
(27:32):
could say very bluntly aboutlifting and why people maybe
aren't getting the results thatthey Want, but especially when
it comes to legs, a lot ofpeople under load. I don't care
if you're doing sets of three oryou're doing sets of 20, we have
to pick a load that'schallenging enough. And quite
oftentimes, we start to run intochallenges with the grip. And so
(27:57):
we won't go up and wait. And inthe short term, that might not
be a huge deal, but if thatcontinues for a while, we might
start to see just lack ofadaptation. We're not getting a
stimulus because we're liftingthe same weights over time. So
in the interest of your legsgetting the proper stimulus and
(28:17):
making sure that your grip isn'tthe limiter in what your legs
especially, can lift, I highlyrecommend using lifting straps
to a lot of my lifters for thosereasons. And again, take your
warm up sets. Usually peopletake their warm up sets without
them, or they're going to dosome of their earlier work sets
(28:39):
without them. And then as theweight starts to climb and they
need a little bit more assist,then they'll put their straps to
good use. But there are also, Iwant to put this out there for
people like That's cheating. Iwant to give you some other use
cases for why it's not cheating.So I had a client who had
(28:59):
hyperhidrosis. Hyperhidrosis iswhen you have excessively sweaty
palms, and no amount of chalk orgloves or any of that was going
to help her, and so she hadextremely sweaty hands, and had
to use lifting straps so shecould actually hold on to the
(29:21):
weight. So she had a medicalcondition in which using straps
really helped her, really,really helped her. And of
course, again, this is actuallya use case in some cases for
something like machines incertain contexts as well,
although it depends on theexercise. But in some cases,
you're maybe not holding ontoweight as much as you are
pressing against handles orsomething of that nature.
(29:43):
Clients of mine, some of themhave osteoarthritis, and in
particular of their hands orwrists, and that can make
holding the weight more painfulor just harder. And so am I to
look at a client who hasosteoarthritis. And you know,
their doctor has cleared them tolift, and of course, be sensible
(30:03):
about their progression andloading and things like that,
but they're out there doing thething, but they need some
assist, because if they have, ifthey over tax the grip, then
that could potentially be anissue. So they use lifting
straps, and they're able to geta great workout. Or also, if you
have finger or hand injuries,one of my clients had trigger
finger, and so needed to havehand surgery. And of course, she
(30:24):
had to avoid that hand for awhile, and we had to get
creative with some of thedifferent variations of
exercises that she did. But youknow, in that case, using
something like a lifting strapcould be helpful. I have had
finger injuries from jiu jitsuthat made it really hard to grip
the bar, especially when the myfingers were very inflamed and
(30:46):
swollen. I've probably tornligaments in both of my ring
fingers, and I actually can'tfully straighten them now,
because I'm a guard player.Guard life, if you do jujitsu,
you kind of know. But in anycase, when I had both of those
finger injuries, notsimultaneously, but it was
actually really hard to holdonto a bar for a long set
(31:09):
because my finger was reallyswollen. So all of that said
it's not cheating to use liftingstraps. Now, there are some
cases where you have to be kindof careful when you're using
straps, and especially know howto use them properly if you're
doing like overhead barbellwork. I'm not going to say you
(31:30):
can never use lifting straps,and most of the people that do
my programs are not doingOlympic lifting, but in Olympic
lifting, you have to really knowhow to use straps correctly if
you're doing overhead work, forexample, snatch work, or
something like that. But we diduse them a ton in things like
cling pulls, snatch pulls andthat sort of accessory work. So
(31:52):
know the context, know thereasoning for using the straps.
Make sure you know how to usethem properly is also very
important, and you know how tolet them go so that you can
release the weights safely, etc,etc. But don't be afraid to use
lifting straps. They're veryinexpensive. Of course, you can
get more expensive styles, like,for example, a Versa grip, but I
(32:14):
have honestly been rocking thesame $15 pair of rogue Ohio
lifting straps for years, andthey're simple, but they get the
job done. I always keep a pairin my bag. I bring them to the
gym with me, and that is what itis. So lifting straps, not
cheating, can be a great tooland a great assist, especially
to make sure that your lowerbody is getting the stimulus
(32:38):
that it needs for growth andchange. Like I said, there's so
many more of these. I would loveto hear from you. Go ahead and
send me a DM on Instagram.What's the most wild thing
someone has told you is cheatingin the gym? Send me a message.
I'd love to hear it, becausethere's so much out there. But
(33:01):
on this episode, we coveredthree of the more common. The
first one was machines, thesecond one saying sumo dead
lifts or cheating. And then thethird one lifting straps. And
hopefully now you have a bettersense for the context. And also,
thanks for allowing me to catchyou up on all of the stuff
that's been happening in myworld, business wise, and also,
(33:21):
personally, I just appreciateyou again. Thanks for being
around and listening to the showand keeping me going for the
last decade. Yesterday, I was aguest on the podcast and
hadn't talked about, really howI got into strength training in
a while. Got into strengthtraining in 2010 I came out of
the endurance world and sittingdown and really talking about
(33:45):
that relit a lot of passion inme and a lot of excitement for
what I do, and remembering themission and why I do this work.
Sometimes it does get a littlehard on social media, or, you
know, businesses is justchallenging. If anybody who's
(34:07):
ever run a business knows thereare a lot of things, a lot of
moving parts, and a lot ofchallenges, and sitting down and
just having that conversationabout why I started lifting and
how it changed me in a reallypositive way, and then why I was
so compelled to make this mywork, and to work with all of
(34:29):
you, and to put this idea andmessage about strength training
out into the world, reallyreminded me about why I love
this and why I'm so committed toit, and Why I believe in it so
much all these years later, soagain, thank you so much for
being part of the community onInstagram, for being on my
newsletter. There are some ofyou have been around since the
(34:52):
very beginning, and I also didcelebrate 12 years of starting
my own business and still beinghere to talk. It, and that was
in in June, so last month, itwas 12 years. So super
appreciative of all of you.Thank you for being here. Thanks
for listening to the show.Please do be a favor and share
it out. If you find it useful,you'll love this episode or
(35:13):
other episodes that I've done.Please share it out to a friend
and please subscribe. It doesmake a difference. It really
helps other people who havesimilar interests to discover
the show and the mission, whichis to help women over 40 get
strong as fuck and do cool shit.So thanks for being with me. I
will catch you next time, anduntil then, you know the drill.
(35:35):
Stay strong. You.
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