Your Fitness App Calls it Strength Training, But Is It? w/ Nikki Naab-Levy

If you are listening to this, there is a good chance you already know that strength is an important part of taking care of your body. So, when we see an App or YouTube-based workout plan that offers strength training, it can be easy to believe that this is the kind of content you should be following. But are you really getting a strength stimulus from your workout? Or is that just what is being marketed to you?

Key Takeaways

If You Want To Get Serious About Your Programming, You Should:

1. Meet yourself where you are at without any shame or judgment

2. Work to understand the nuance of strength training programming and what it really means

3. Reach out to a coach who understands your goals and how you can reach them safely.

Going Behind the Scenes with Nikki Naab-Levy

Nikki Naab-Levy is a strength and nutrition coach who has been involved in multiple arenas in the fitness industry for the last 17 years. She helps women move, build strength, improve mobility, move beyond injury, and find a sustainable approach to nutrition. She is passionate about having the unscripted and messy conversations necessary to help women get stronger and call attention to the problematic marketing in the world of fitness and beyond.

Understanding the Nuance

When using your favorite fitness apps, how do you know that the workouts you are doing are actually focusing on strength? Or if they are the right movements to be doing for your lived experience and goals? 

The truth is, you don't. That's why you need to understand the nuance behind the programming so that you can go out into the world and be able to look at your apps from an informed place of strength development. Picking apart the way things are marketed can help you differentiate between what you are actually getting and can help you pick a program that is effective for your specific goals.

It's Not You, It's Your Workout

Choosing workouts that are not right for you can make you feel chronically injured, sore, tired, or fed up with not seeing any improvements. This doesn't mean you aren't doing it right; it means the training you are doing isn't right for you. The difference between randomly working out and training means that you can acknowledge your weak factors, understand your lived experience, and engage with a program that gives you the runway for the best possible entry point to your goals. While it is not impossible to achieve these things with an app, it is increasingly risky and tricky to see long-term changes without a program built for you.

How do you interact with fitness apps on a regular basis? Share your thoughts and experiences with me in the comments on the episode page.

In This Episode

• Understanding the difference between strength training programs and other types of workouts like circuit training (11:54)
• Analyzing the selection of programming available on many apps (31:22)
• How to create a long-term plan that goes beyond the short-term offers out there (43:45)
• The importance of repetition and practice when it comes to a successful training program (49:54)
• Why you can't put the cart before the horse when it comes to jumping into a program (1:04:12)

Quotes

“We are not hating on the workouts. But we want you to be able to make an informed decision so that if those are your goals, you are able to pick an approach that actually is going to work for you and help you get the results you want without feeling frustrated or feeling like your joints always hurt.” (8:00)

“We know that if you don't feel awful all the time, and you are able to do high-quality work with appropriate weight and appropriate rest, you will be able to see the results that you want and not be super ridiculously sore.” (41:56)

“How we put things togethe