January 23, 2023 • 24 mins
I love building functional fitness and strength training plans. It’s the bread and butter of what I do at Kelly Bryant Wellness. There’s a lot that goes into my programs, and a lot of things I consider. However, having someone else craft your workouts isn’t for everyone. Sometimes you want to do it yourself, and so today I thought I’d give you a peek behind the curtain at what you should consider when building your own strength training programs, including:
- The various types of strength training
- How to plan your year, your month and your week
- The foundational movements that should be in your individual workouts
- Some other helpful things that I like to include.
I reference Episode 32: Progress Your Progressive Overload Workouts
If you’re interested in my Strong As A Mother: Live Program, you can find it here: https://www.kellybryantwellness.com/strong-as-a-mother-live/
If you're loving my podcast content, but are looking for something more to support your wellness journey, here are my programs currently available:
Strong As A Mother: Postpartum (https://www.kellybryantwellness.com/strong-as-a-mother/)
Strong As A Mother: Live (https://www.kellybryantwellness.com/strong-as-a-mother-live/)
Strong As A Mother: Prenatal (https://www.kellybryantwellness.com/strong-as-a-mother-prenatal/)
As always, you can find me on Instagram @kellybryantwellness
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Shure MV5 & FaceTime HD (00:06):
Welcome back to the not your mama
podcast, this is your host KellyBryant.
And this week we are going to betalking about workouts.
Specifically, we're going to betalking about strength training
workouts.
Now I've talked before on thepodcast about progressive
overload strength training.
We'll link up that episode ifyou want to learn more about
that.
But today we're going to betalking about the fact that you
kinda need to have a plan ifyou're going to be doing
(00:28):
workouts.
Obviously I have a program whereI offer training plans, as well
as accountability, but you mightnot feel like you want that, or
you need that and you want toknow how to work out
effectively.
So the biggest thing I want youto take away from this episode
is that you do need to have aplan.
(00:48):
I'll give you a very quicksynopsis of what a progressive
overload strength trainingprogram is.
It basically is the science thatshows your body needs to see a
movement several times in orderto actually get better at doing
it.
And so whatever goals you mayhave, whatever strength goals
you may have, you actually doneed to follow a plan that gets
(01:10):
more challenging as youprogress.
And I'll talk more about thespecifics of how you create
that, but the short version isyou need to repeat your movement
patterns week over week.
You need to then progress weekover week and month over month
in order to actually get thebenefit of strength training,
(01:30):
whether that benefit is biggermuscles, more toned muscles
losing weight, aesthetic goals,being able to lift right certain
amount of weight, or being ableto do a pull up, or being able
to function, just, you know,carrying your kids, whatever
goal you may have for resistancetraining.
(01:51):
You have to follow a progressiveoverload strength training in
order to get that benefit.
So a very common mistake that Isee among new lifters and
specifically women is you maybejoin a new gym.
You do that, like one-on-one thefree one-on-one training session
where they're trying to sell youpersonal training and they give
you a program to do that week.
And you're like, okay, I knowhow to use these six machines.
(02:13):
I'm going to do that program.
Forever or you downloadsomething online.
It's like a workout program andyou do that one week over and
over again for the rest of yourlife.
You will never get better thatway because you're not ever,
your body gets more efficient ata movement pattern, the more you
do it.
So, what's actually happening isyou're getting better, which
(02:36):
sounds like a good thing.
Say, you're doing lunges.
You're getting better at doinglunges, but you're not making
them any more difficult.
So what that means is you'reactually getting less and less
and less benefit from doingthose lunges.
You have to challenge your body.
In order to see positive change.
So if you're just do themovements that you're really
efficient at and really good atalready, you get less and less
(02:58):
benefit from it.
On the flip side.
The other mistake that I seepeople make, particularly women,
particularly new lifters is thegroup fitness approach where
it's different.
Every single time you just kindof go in and you're like, I
don't know what I feel likedoing.
I'm just going to like, do somebicep curls, and then I'll do
some stuff over here.
And you know, whether you'reactually doing it in a group
(03:19):
fitness class, like a barreclass, which is different every
time or a yoga class, or justdifferent every time, or you're
just going in the gym and kindof doing what you feel like.
Either way you're notprogressing, right.
You're giving yourself variety,which is good for our muscles in
a sense, but you're not actuallyseeing those movement patterns
frequently enough and withenough sort of like scientific
(03:39):
progression week over week toactually objectively get any
better at them.
So, you do need to have a planand you want that plan to
involve progressive overload.
I want to be clear that intoday's podcast, I'm talking
about resistance training.
So there's also cardio training,which is a whole separate thing.
And that can be, you know, goaloriented where you're training
(04:01):
for an event and you have tobuild up the miles for example,
to run a marathon or to bike acertain distance, or that can be
cardio training.
That's just for cardiovascularbenefit.
That's separate.
A good program probably is goingto integrate some amount of
cardio to compliment yourresistance training.
You're also going to havemobility training in there too.
(04:21):
That's not what I'm talkingabout today.
You can integrate cardio intoany resistance plant and vice
versa.
Even if you're training for amarathon, you do want to be
integrating resistance trainingthat is progressive in nature
into your cardio plan.
So within the kind of umbrellacategory of resistance training,
which just refers to using bandsor a cable machine or your body
(04:44):
weight, or dumbbells barbellsweights, there are three sorts
of levels or three sorts oftypes of programs.
The first level is calledstability.
Your stability programming isnot something that you want to
be doing most likely forever,but it can be a really, really
important introduction intotraining because it's going to
(05:08):
focus on things like balance,maybe addressing some of your
postural habits and making surethat you can safely do the other
lifts.
This is where a.
Lot of our postpartum rehabfalls under the category of
stability training.
Obviously, when we talk about,you know, older folks, you may
be doing stability trainingindefinitely with an 80 year
(05:30):
old, because they're probablynot going to be doing their, you
know, their power lifts.
But stability training, if youare in your twenties, thirties,
forties, fifties, even I wouldsay sixties as well.
I have lots of people in theirsixties, not lots.
I have several clients in theirsixties who have progressed
beyond stability training, butyou want to be progressing
(05:51):
beyond stability training, butit's a very, very essential
baseline.
If you're new to training or newcoming back from an injury or
pregnancy.
So you want to hit thatstability training first again,
that's going to be a.
A lot of balance stuff.
It's going to be a lot of yourpostural exercises, core work,
things that allow you tofunction well in your day-to-day
life.
(06:13):
Kind of the next step up leveltwo, or really levels two
through four, are strengthtraining.
And there's within the umbrellaof strength training, there's
three sort of types of strength,training, there's endurance
strength training.
Those are going to be thingswhere you're doing higher rep
counts, lighter weight, you are,as the name would suggest
(06:35):
training your endurancetraining, your muscular stamina.
It's not the heaviest weight youcan lift.
It's lifting up moderate tolightweight for a long time or
for many reps.
Then you have hypertrophytraining.
Hypertrophy just means musclegrowth.
Most of my strength trainingprograms focus on hypertrophy
(06:57):
because I generally work withpeople, you know, we have that
stability component within mypostpartum programs.
And then once you've graduatedfrom that, I work with people
who have aesthetic goals.
A lot of the time who want tofeel like they look like they
lift, not that you're, you know,jacked and looked like a
bodybuilder, but you have muscletone, visible muscle tone.
(07:17):
And so that's where we get intothe hypertrophy.
And then the last level ofstrength training is your max
strength.
That's your.
You know, your big, heavy liftswhere you see people lifting.
Maybe only three to five reps,but they're lifting really
heavy.
You know, a lot of us have seenvideos or familiar with like the
idea of Olympic weightliftingand Some of those big power
(07:41):
lifts where you are not doing aton of reps, but it's a big,
heavy weight that you'relifting.
That's your max strength and maxstrength is important, even for
someone with an endurance or ahypertrophy goal.
We still need max strength.
Right?
That's the like, The, the motherhad mother's baby is trapped
(08:02):
under a car and you're like, Iwant to be able to lift the car.
I want to be able to pick up the50 pound bag of concrete.
I've been working on a fenceproject, and so there's been a
lot of carrying 50 pound bags ofconcrete and like having to
break them up.
Cause they all got a little wetand so they like solidified and
I'm having to pick them up andslam them down and that, because
(08:24):
they got wet they're not 50pound bags there.
Now I have no idea.
60, 70, 80 pound bags.
That's max strength work.
I'm not trying to do 10 reps ofthat.
I'm trying to do two or three toget the concrete to break up.
So there's a functional placefor max strength work.
And even if you are notintending to be a competitive
(08:44):
lifter who still want toactually train max strength as
well.
And then last but not least.
So just a reminder, we've gonethrough stability, endurance
strength, hypertrophy strength,and max strength.
And then the last step is power.
That's your, your athleticism.
So if you are someone who playsa sport, You want to be training
power?
(09:04):
It's you're jumping, you'rerunning your agility.
All of that is really importantto being able to function well
as well.
Right.
So if you chase after your dogor your kids in your yard, you
want the ability to safely.
You know, pivot, changedirections.
If you're going to be.
Lifting something you want theability to lift faster, maybe be
(09:25):
able to throw things.
So power is a component oflifting as well, but we actually
need to lay a lot of foundation.
Before we get into power withinthe context of what you're doing
in the gym, because we want tomake sure you're not going to
get hurt.
So you have those five levels.
Generally you have a singularfocus on the macro scale, right?
(09:49):
So I said within my programs, alot of the time.
I think of them as being ahypertrophy program, we are
trying to gain muscle size.
That said you are not going tojust do hypertrophy training
every single phase or everysingle month.
So I want you to think aboutyour training on the scale of a
(10:09):
macro level, which may be amacro phase is a year.
And then we go down to the mezzolevel, which would be like a
month or a single four to sixweek phase.
So we can have a macro goal ofhypertrophy training, but we're
still on the mezzo phase goingto go through the different
layers because you're not goingto be a very functional person.
(10:30):
If all you do is hypertrophytraining all the time, or if all
you do is endurance training allthe time.
So we're actually on the mezzolevel going to go through.
Perhaps, if you think of it likea staircase right, we have level
one is stability, endurance,hypertrophy, max strength, and
then power.
(10:50):
You might go level 1, 2, 3, 2,3, 4, 3, 4.
Like that.
So going kind of up and down thestaircase, building up over time
toward maybe in the scale of ayear, you might have one or two
power phases total.
That's generally what I doinside strong as a mother.
My live program that is astrength training program.
(11:14):
We only have a power phase likeonce or twice a year.
Most of our phases are in thehypertrophied zone, but we're
not constantly in thathypertrophy.
So on that mezzo level, you aregoing to be seeing each month a
little bit of a different focuswithin your lifting.
(11:35):
Then you're going to choose asplit.
And another way of thinkingabout kind of that mezzo level
is also on the week scale.
So on the week or on the monthscale, you're going to choose a
split and a split just means howmany days a week are you going
to the gym or how many days aweek are you lifting and what,
how are you organizing thoselifts?
(11:56):
So a single week you mightchoose to do a push pull split.
You might choose to do an upperbody lower body.
The split you might choose to dofull body three days a week, you
get to decide how do I want tosplit up my workouts?
And there's lots of science orlots of preference involved in
this as well of how do you liketo split it up?
Do you, you know, sometimes I'llwork with people who like to do
(12:18):
quote unquote, the classic brosplit where you do chest one day
you do, you know squat one dayyou do deadlift one day.
Like you organize it by lift orby muscle group.
That's probably the most common.
I don't know if that's justbecause like that's what P90X
does.
And so anybody who's done anysort of intro to weightlifting
has done some kind of bro split.
(12:40):
But you can organize itdifferent ways as well.
I'm a big fan of a push pullsplit.
I also love a full body split.
The reason for that is becausewithin my hypertrophy training,
we do like to get a little bitsweaty because we have those
aesthetic goals.
We want to enhance our calorieburn within the workout and
(13:00):
moving your entire body in aworkout is going to burn more
calories than if you're justlifting chest or just lifting
arms.
So.
So.
I like to do a lot of full bodysplits, but that's not all I do
often with a new lifter.
I will do an upper body lowerbody split or a body part
specific split because it givesyou more time to recover from
(13:24):
being sore.
Right.
So if you're just starting outand you're probably going to be
a little more sore, it's nice.
If you do legs on Monday andthen you don't have to do legs
again for a little while, versusif you do full body every day,
it's like, oh, I got to move mylegs again.
Moving your body is good forhelping with soreness, but it
does, it is a little painful.
So that is how you want toorganize your mezzo cycle.
(13:47):
You want to think about whatyour split is, and then we go
into the micro level.
On a micro level.
We're talking about what do youdo in each workout in one
individual workout?
What are you doing?
So if you've got that splitdefined, that might already tell
you what movement patterns aregoing to do, but you want to
(14:09):
make sure that across all ofyour workouts in a week or
within a meso cycle, that yourweek quote unquote week could be
10 days.
It could be five days.
You can decide what you wantyour split to be, but within
whatever the timeframe is thatyou are doing each workout, you
want to make sure that you'rehitting all of your main
movement patterns.
(14:29):
So that's a squat, hinge, push,pull, carry.
They're mostly exactly what theysound like.
A squat movement pattern issquatting.
That also includes like yourlunges.
Your hinge is a deadliftmovement pattern.
There are also other hingemovement patterns.
Your push is generally refers toan upper body push, but it can
(14:51):
also be a full body push.
So that's going to be your chestpresses, your overhead presses
as well as if you were going todo like a sled push or, you
know, some kind of full bodypush.
Pull is going to be, oh, again,mostly we refer to this as upper
body pull movements, but that'syour rows, your pull-ups or your
assisted pull-ups as well as ifyou're doing a full body pull.
(15:14):
And then we have carry, which isexactly what it sounds like it's
carrying weight.
So that may be carrying weighton your shoulders, carrying
weight in your hands, carryingthe weight on one hand or the
other, but a carry is a reallyessential movement pattern that
I see a lot of people leave out.
And as moms who carry children,All of the time.
It is a really importantmovement pattern for us.
(15:35):
It doesn't feel sexy.
It doesn't feel exciting.
It doesn't feel like you'redoing a lot, but it's really
essential that we are practicingour single-arm carries because
we're going to carry a car seatin one arm or a high, low carry,
because we're going to carry akid in one hand and all of their
(15:56):
stuff.
In the other hand, these arereally essential movement
patterns for moms to bepracticing.
And if you don't have anorganized training plan, it's a
big one that I see people leaveoff.
So within the week, you want tomake sure you're hitting all
your movement patterns, and thenwithin each workout, if we want
to get a little bit more refinedand really be super thoughtful
(16:20):
about how we're training, wewant to make sure we're getting
some core work in every workout.
You want to make sure thatyou're getting some rotational
movements again, very functionalfor moms.
It's the turnaround to yell atthe kids in the back seat.
You want to be able to rotate.
You want to be able to likepivot and go, oh my God, where
did my kid go at the park.
And then you want to make sureyou're also training unilateral
(16:42):
and bilateral.
So that just means one side ofthe body movements and both
sides at the same time.
So for example, a lunge is aunilateral movement.
It's one leg doing the majorityof the work.
A squat is a bilateral movement.
You want to make sure thatyou're getting both of those
things you don't necessarilyhave to get both unilateral and
bilateral in every singleworkout.
(17:03):
But you want to make sure asyou're looking over the course
of the week or over the courseof your five day cycle or your
10 day cycle, you're hitting allof the big movement patterns,
and I'm sure that there's morethan I'm leaving off that I tend
to do intuitively, but over timeyou, you expose yourself to more
training plans and you'll go,huh?
I've never done anything likethat.
(17:24):
And that can be like, oh, that'sa gap in my training program.
And I want to make sure Iinclude that.
The last thing I want to touchon is that especially the way I
train, not every workout isstrictly resistance training.
So typically because I'mtraining for efficiency.
(17:45):
I have a busy, busy parents whohave an aesthetic or a physical,
like strength goal, and theywant to be super functional.
So within a workout, we can docardio in a strength workout.
We can do metabolicconditioning, which is just
strength training movements at acardio pace, or you're getting
(18:07):
your heart rate up.
You're maybe doing intervalswithin your strength work.
All of that is available.
But you don't get fancy.
You don't put icing on the cakeuntil the cake is baked.
So you have to make sure thatyou're actually doing a solid,
organized strength trainingprogram before you get sassy and
exciting with throwing in, youknow, burpees and time intervals
(18:28):
and, and treadmill sprintsbetween your sets and all of
these other kind of fancy orexciting ad-ons.
So I'm going to summarizebecause mom brain.
On the macro scale, which isyour year.
You want to make sure that youare having a general focus.
Are you working on a stability,endurance, hypertrophy, max
(18:51):
strength or power and power isyour athleticism.
Then within the year, you'regoing to organize your months to
hit on lots of differentfocuses, but with a general
through-line of working on asingle focus more often.
So you might go up and downthrough those five levels, but
(19:11):
hit your primary focus morefrequently as you go up and down
around it.
Then on the scale of a month ora week, you're going to organize
your workouts into a split whereyou decide to focus on certain
movement patterns or certainbody parts.
Within each workout.
And across your splits, you'regoing to make sure you're
(19:32):
hitting all of your mainmovement patterns, which are
squat hinge, push, pull, carry.
Then on the micro level of anindividual workout, you are also
going to make sure that you aregetting some core work and
getting some rotational work andgetting some unilateral and
bilateral work in and makingsure that you have an organized
clear plan.
(19:53):
Before you start getting fancyand exciting with throwing in
the fun stuff, the cardiomovements and the sweaty and
the, all of the, the the fancythings that you may see on
Instagram as like, oh, you haveto try this thing.
It's life-changing.
Only if you have the basicsdone.
Right?
So that's all a lot ofinformation.
(20:13):
If you are interested and wantto build your own workouts, I
hope that this gives you like areally clear understanding.
You can go from here and goGoogle stuff, right?
What should my rep inset schemeslook like?
If I have a hypertrophy goal,what our endurance rep insects
schemes, how much rest time do Ineed if I'm doing max strength
training?
Those are all questions that theGoogle machine can spit out.
(20:36):
But we've got now an outline ofwhat your movement patterns
should be organized, you know?
Across the day, week, month, andyear.
If your head is spinning andyou're like, oh my God, I don't
want to do this.
Like, yes, I get that.
This sounds important.
And that we should have aprogressive overload, organized
strength training program.
(20:56):
But oh, my God, I can't do thiskelly.
Great.
Let me take that.
I'll take that lift on for youand I will program your strength
training.
If you want to come join myprogram strong as a mother live.
Strong as a mother live is astrength training program.
It is a progressive overloadstrength training program.
That includes two lifts a week.
(21:18):
It's only two lifts a week,which is not a ton for, you
know, someone who thinks of likebeing a gym rat.
It's very, very doable, butacross those, we're really
thoughtful about being efficientand hitting all of these check
boxes.
Then we add in your mobility,your cardio, your core work, you
(21:39):
know, some Pilates sessions,some group fitness style
workouts, so that there's a lotof variety.
And we're getting all of theessential components of being a
healthy, functional person, notjust the resistance training.
It's a big gap that I've seen ina lot of resistance training
programs, where someone deliversyou, here's your lifts with no
guidance as to how much mobilityshould you be doing.
(22:00):
And are we making sure that yourgetting enough, you know, a
mindfulness practice in, andalso, Hey, are you bored?
Here's some things that you cando to avoid being bored.
So strong as a mother live,really addresses a lot of the
gaps that I've seen in strengthtraining programming that's
available to new moms that'savailable to new lifters and
(22:22):
particularly women who may notculturally have a lot of that
sort of gym culture.
Going with the bros and likelearning this stuff.
So.
If you feel like you miss thatday in gym class, where you
learned how to lift, that is theprogram for you.
You do want to have a baselinepostpartum rehab completed.
(22:43):
And if you do, then strong as amother live is a really great
place to start strength trainingand hitting your full body
training as well.
I would love to see you inthere.
Any of the resources mentionedin today's episode will be
available in the show notes.
(23:03):
So go ahead to your podcast appand open up the show notes, or
you can find them right on mywebsite and I would be so
grateful if.
You would share today's episodewith a friend.
So just go back to your podcastapp, hit the share button, and
send the link over to someonewho you think would benefit from
this.
And lastly, if you want bonusbrownie points, you can go rate
(23:28):
and review the podcast.
This helps new subscribers findus and get.
Some awesome benefits fromlistening to today's episode.
Thanks again for being here andhave an awesome week.
Welcome back to the not your mama
podcast, this is your host KellyBryant.
And this week we are going to betalking about workouts.
Specifically, we're going to betalking about strength training
workouts.
Now I've talked before on thepodcast about progressive
overload strength training.
We'll link up that episode ifyou want to learn more about
that.
But today we're going to betalking about the fact that you
kinda need to have a plan ifyou're going to be doing
(00:28):
workouts.
Obviously I have a program whereI offer training plans, as well
as accountability, but you mightnot feel like you want that, or
you need that and you want toknow how to work out
effectively.
So the biggest thing I want youto take away from this episode
is that you do need to have aplan.
(00:48):
I'll give you a very quicksynopsis of what a progressive
overload strength trainingprogram is.
It basically is the science thatshows your body needs to see a
movement several times in orderto actually get better at doing
it.
And so whatever goals you mayhave, whatever strength goals
you may have, you actually doneed to follow a plan that gets
(01:10):
more challenging as youprogress.
And I'll talk more about thespecifics of how you create
that, but the short version isyou need to repeat your movement
patterns week over week.
You need to then progress weekover week and month over month
in order to actually get thebenefit of strength training,
(01:30):
whether that benefit is biggermuscles, more toned muscles
losing weight, aesthetic goals,being able to lift right certain
amount of weight, or being ableto do a pull up, or being able
to function, just, you know,carrying your kids, whatever
goal you may have for resistancetraining.
(01:51):
You have to follow a progressiveoverload strength training in
order to get that benefit.
So a very common mistake that Isee among new lifters and
specifically women is you maybejoin a new gym.
You do that, like one-on-one thefree one-on-one training session
where they're trying to sell youpersonal training and they give
you a program to do that week.
And you're like, okay, I knowhow to use these six machines.
(02:13):
I'm going to do that program.
Forever or you downloadsomething online.
It's like a workout program andyou do that one week over and
over again for the rest of yourlife.
You will never get better thatway because you're not ever,
your body gets more efficient ata movement pattern, the more you
do it.
So, what's actually happening isyou're getting better, which
(02:36):
sounds like a good thing.
Say, you're doing lunges.
You're getting better at doinglunges, but you're not making
them any more difficult.
So what that means is you'reactually getting less and less
and less benefit from doingthose lunges.
You have to challenge your body.
In order to see positive change.
So if you're just do themovements that you're really
efficient at and really good atalready, you get less and less
(02:58):
benefit from it.
On the flip side.
The other mistake that I seepeople make, particularly women,
particularly new lifters is thegroup fitness approach where
it's different.
Every single time you just kindof go in and you're like, I
don't know what I feel likedoing.
I'm just going to like, do somebicep curls, and then I'll do
some stuff over here.
And you know, whether you'reactually doing it in a group
(03:19):
fitness class, like a barreclass, which is different every
time or a yoga class, or justdifferent every time, or you're
just going in the gym and kindof doing what you feel like.
Either way you're notprogressing, right.
You're giving yourself variety,which is good for our muscles in
a sense, but you're not actuallyseeing those movement patterns
frequently enough and withenough sort of like scientific
(03:39):
progression week over week toactually objectively get any
better at them.
So, you do need to have a planand you want that plan to
involve progressive overload.
I want to be clear that intoday's podcast, I'm talking
about resistance training.
So there's also cardio training,which is a whole separate thing.
And that can be, you know, goaloriented where you're training
(04:01):
for an event and you have tobuild up the miles for example,
to run a marathon or to bike acertain distance, or that can be
cardio training.
That's just for cardiovascularbenefit.
That's separate.
A good program probably is goingto integrate some amount of
cardio to compliment yourresistance training.
You're also going to havemobility training in there too.
(04:21):
That's not what I'm talkingabout today.
You can integrate cardio intoany resistance plant and vice
versa.
Even if you're training for amarathon, you do want to be
integrating resistance trainingthat is progressive in nature
into your cardio plan.
So within the kind of umbrellacategory of resistance training,
which just refers to using bandsor a cable machine or your body
(04:44):
weight, or dumbbells barbellsweights, there are three sorts
of levels or three sorts oftypes of programs.
The first level is calledstability.
Your stability programming isnot something that you want to
be doing most likely forever,but it can be a really, really
important introduction intotraining because it's going to
(05:08):
focus on things like balance,maybe addressing some of your
postural habits and making surethat you can safely do the other
lifts.
This is where a.
Lot of our postpartum rehabfalls under the category of
stability training.
Obviously, when we talk about,you know, older folks, you may
be doing stability trainingindefinitely with an 80 year
(05:30):
old, because they're probablynot going to be doing their, you
know, their power lifts.
But stability training, if youare in your twenties, thirties,
forties, fifties, even I wouldsay sixties as well.
I have lots of people in theirsixties, not lots.
I have several clients in theirsixties who have progressed
beyond stability training, butyou want to be progressing
(05:51):
beyond stability training, butit's a very, very essential
baseline.
If you're new to training or newcoming back from an injury or
pregnancy.
So you want to hit thatstability training first again,
that's going to be a.
A lot of balance stuff.
It's going to be a lot of yourpostural exercises, core work,
things that allow you tofunction well in your day-to-day
life.
(06:13):
Kind of the next step up leveltwo, or really levels two
through four, are strengthtraining.
And there's within the umbrellaof strength training, there's
three sort of types of strength,training, there's endurance
strength training.
Those are going to be thingswhere you're doing higher rep
counts, lighter weight, you are,as the name would suggest
(06:35):
training your endurancetraining, your muscular stamina.
It's not the heaviest weight youcan lift.
It's lifting up moderate tolightweight for a long time or
for many reps.
Then you have hypertrophytraining.
Hypertrophy just means musclegrowth.
Most of my strength trainingprograms focus on hypertrophy
(06:57):
because I generally work withpeople, you know, we have that
stability component within mypostpartum programs.
And then once you've graduatedfrom that, I work with people
who have aesthetic goals.
A lot of the time who want tofeel like they look like they
lift, not that you're, you know,jacked and looked like a
bodybuilder, but you have muscletone, visible muscle tone.
(07:17):
And so that's where we get intothe hypertrophy.
And then the last level ofstrength training is your max
strength.
That's your.
You know, your big, heavy liftswhere you see people lifting.
Maybe only three to five reps,but they're lifting really
heavy.
You know, a lot of us have seenvideos or familiar with like the
idea of Olympic weightliftingand Some of those big power
(07:41):
lifts where you are not doing aton of reps, but it's a big,
heavy weight that you'relifting.
That's your max strength and maxstrength is important, even for
someone with an endurance or ahypertrophy goal.
We still need max strength.
Right?
That's the like, The, the motherhad mother's baby is trapped
(08:02):
under a car and you're like, Iwant to be able to lift the car.
I want to be able to pick up the50 pound bag of concrete.
I've been working on a fenceproject, and so there's been a
lot of carrying 50 pound bags ofconcrete and like having to
break them up.
Cause they all got a little wetand so they like solidified and
I'm having to pick them up andslam them down and that, because
(08:24):
they got wet they're not 50pound bags there.
Now I have no idea.
60, 70, 80 pound bags.
That's max strength work.
I'm not trying to do 10 reps ofthat.
I'm trying to do two or three toget the concrete to break up.
So there's a functional placefor max strength work.
And even if you are notintending to be a competitive
(08:44):
lifter who still want toactually train max strength as
well.
And then last but not least.
So just a reminder, we've gonethrough stability, endurance
strength, hypertrophy strength,and max strength.
And then the last step is power.
That's your, your athleticism.
So if you are someone who playsa sport, You want to be training
power?
(09:04):
It's you're jumping, you'rerunning your agility.
All of that is really importantto being able to function well
as well.
Right.
So if you chase after your dogor your kids in your yard, you
want the ability to safely.
You know, pivot, changedirections.
If you're going to be.
Lifting something you want theability to lift faster, maybe be
(09:25):
able to throw things.
So power is a component oflifting as well, but we actually
need to lay a lot of foundation.
Before we get into power withinthe context of what you're doing
in the gym, because we want tomake sure you're not going to
get hurt.
So you have those five levels.
Generally you have a singularfocus on the macro scale, right?
(09:49):
So I said within my programs, alot of the time.
I think of them as being ahypertrophy program, we are
trying to gain muscle size.
That said you are not going tojust do hypertrophy training
every single phase or everysingle month.
So I want you to think aboutyour training on the scale of a
(10:09):
macro level, which may be amacro phase is a year.
And then we go down to the mezzolevel, which would be like a
month or a single four to sixweek phase.
So we can have a macro goal ofhypertrophy training, but we're
still on the mezzo phase goingto go through the different
layers because you're not goingto be a very functional person.
(10:30):
If all you do is hypertrophytraining all the time, or if all
you do is endurance training allthe time.
So we're actually on the mezzolevel going to go through.
Perhaps, if you think of it likea staircase right, we have level
one is stability, endurance,hypertrophy, max strength, and
then power.
(10:50):
You might go level 1, 2, 3, 2,3, 4, 3, 4.
Like that.
So going kind of up and down thestaircase, building up over time
toward maybe in the scale of ayear, you might have one or two
power phases total.
That's generally what I doinside strong as a mother.
My live program that is astrength training program.
(11:14):
We only have a power phase likeonce or twice a year.
Most of our phases are in thehypertrophied zone, but we're
not constantly in thathypertrophy.
So on that mezzo level, you aregoing to be seeing each month a
little bit of a different focuswithin your lifting.
(11:35):
Then you're going to choose asplit.
And another way of thinkingabout kind of that mezzo level
is also on the week scale.
So on the week or on the monthscale, you're going to choose a
split and a split just means howmany days a week are you going
to the gym or how many days aweek are you lifting and what,
how are you organizing thoselifts?
(11:56):
So a single week you mightchoose to do a push pull split.
You might choose to do an upperbody lower body.
The split you might choose to dofull body three days a week, you
get to decide how do I want tosplit up my workouts?
And there's lots of science orlots of preference involved in
this as well of how do you liketo split it up?
Do you, you know, sometimes I'llwork with people who like to do
(12:18):
quote unquote, the classic brosplit where you do chest one day
you do, you know squat one dayyou do deadlift one day.
Like you organize it by lift orby muscle group.
That's probably the most common.
I don't know if that's justbecause like that's what P90X
does.
And so anybody who's done anysort of intro to weightlifting
has done some kind of bro split.
(12:40):
But you can organize itdifferent ways as well.
I'm a big fan of a push pullsplit.
I also love a full body split.
The reason for that is becausewithin my hypertrophy training,
we do like to get a little bitsweaty because we have those
aesthetic goals.
We want to enhance our calorieburn within the workout and
(13:00):
moving your entire body in aworkout is going to burn more
calories than if you're justlifting chest or just lifting
arms.
So.
So.
I like to do a lot of full bodysplits, but that's not all I do
often with a new lifter.
I will do an upper body lowerbody split or a body part
specific split because it givesyou more time to recover from
(13:24):
being sore.
Right.
So if you're just starting outand you're probably going to be
a little more sore, it's nice.
If you do legs on Monday andthen you don't have to do legs
again for a little while, versusif you do full body every day,
it's like, oh, I got to move mylegs again.
Moving your body is good forhelping with soreness, but it
does, it is a little painful.
So that is how you want toorganize your mezzo cycle.
(13:47):
You want to think about whatyour split is, and then we go
into the micro level.
On a micro level.
We're talking about what do youdo in each workout in one
individual workout?
What are you doing?
So if you've got that splitdefined, that might already tell
you what movement patterns aregoing to do, but you want to
(14:09):
make sure that across all ofyour workouts in a week or
within a meso cycle, that yourweek quote unquote week could be
10 days.
It could be five days.
You can decide what you wantyour split to be, but within
whatever the timeframe is thatyou are doing each workout, you
want to make sure that you'rehitting all of your main
movement patterns.
(14:29):
So that's a squat, hinge, push,pull, carry.
They're mostly exactly what theysound like.
A squat movement pattern issquatting.
That also includes like yourlunges.
Your hinge is a deadliftmovement pattern.
There are also other hingemovement patterns.
Your push is generally refers toan upper body push, but it can
(14:51):
also be a full body push.
So that's going to be your chestpresses, your overhead presses
as well as if you were going todo like a sled push or, you
know, some kind of full bodypush.
Pull is going to be, oh, again,mostly we refer to this as upper
body pull movements, but that'syour rows, your pull-ups or your
assisted pull-ups as well as ifyou're doing a full body pull.
(15:14):
And then we have carry, which isexactly what it sounds like it's
carrying weight.
So that may be carrying weighton your shoulders, carrying
weight in your hands, carryingthe weight on one hand or the
other, but a carry is a reallyessential movement pattern that
I see a lot of people leave out.
And as moms who carry children,All of the time.
It is a really importantmovement pattern for us.
(15:35):
It doesn't feel sexy.
It doesn't feel exciting.
It doesn't feel like you'redoing a lot, but it's really
essential that we are practicingour single-arm carries because
we're going to carry a car seatin one arm or a high, low carry,
because we're going to carry akid in one hand and all of their
(15:56):
stuff.
In the other hand, these arereally essential movement
patterns for moms to bepracticing.
And if you don't have anorganized training plan, it's a
big one that I see people leaveoff.
So within the week, you want tomake sure you're hitting all
your movement patterns, and thenwithin each workout, if we want
to get a little bit more refinedand really be super thoughtful
(16:20):
about how we're training, wewant to make sure we're getting
some core work in every workout.
You want to make sure thatyou're getting some rotational
movements again, very functionalfor moms.
It's the turnaround to yell atthe kids in the back seat.
You want to be able to rotate.
You want to be able to likepivot and go, oh my God, where
did my kid go at the park.
And then you want to make sureyou're also training unilateral
(16:42):
and bilateral.
So that just means one side ofthe body movements and both
sides at the same time.
So for example, a lunge is aunilateral movement.
It's one leg doing the majorityof the work.
A squat is a bilateral movement.
You want to make sure thatyou're getting both of those
things you don't necessarilyhave to get both unilateral and
bilateral in every singleworkout.
(17:03):
But you want to make sure asyou're looking over the course
of the week or over the courseof your five day cycle or your
10 day cycle, you're hitting allof the big movement patterns,
and I'm sure that there's morethan I'm leaving off that I tend
to do intuitively, but over timeyou, you expose yourself to more
training plans and you'll go,huh?
I've never done anything likethat.
(17:24):
And that can be like, oh, that'sa gap in my training program.
And I want to make sure Iinclude that.
The last thing I want to touchon is that especially the way I
train, not every workout isstrictly resistance training.
So typically because I'mtraining for efficiency.
(17:45):
I have a busy, busy parents whohave an aesthetic or a physical,
like strength goal, and theywant to be super functional.
So within a workout, we can docardio in a strength workout.
We can do metabolicconditioning, which is just
strength training movements at acardio pace, or you're getting
(18:07):
your heart rate up.
You're maybe doing intervalswithin your strength work.
All of that is available.
But you don't get fancy.
You don't put icing on the cakeuntil the cake is baked.
So you have to make sure thatyou're actually doing a solid,
organized strength trainingprogram before you get sassy and
exciting with throwing in, youknow, burpees and time intervals
(18:28):
and, and treadmill sprintsbetween your sets and all of
these other kind of fancy orexciting ad-ons.
So I'm going to summarizebecause mom brain.
On the macro scale, which isyour year.
You want to make sure that youare having a general focus.
Are you working on a stability,endurance, hypertrophy, max
(18:51):
strength or power and power isyour athleticism.
Then within the year, you'regoing to organize your months to
hit on lots of differentfocuses, but with a general
through-line of working on asingle focus more often.
So you might go up and downthrough those five levels, but
(19:11):
hit your primary focus morefrequently as you go up and down
around it.
Then on the scale of a month ora week, you're going to organize
your workouts into a split whereyou decide to focus on certain
movement patterns or certainbody parts.
Within each workout.
And across your splits, you'regoing to make sure you're
(19:32):
hitting all of your mainmovement patterns, which are
squat hinge, push, pull, carry.
Then on the micro level of anindividual workout, you are also
going to make sure that you aregetting some core work and
getting some rotational work andgetting some unilateral and
bilateral work in and makingsure that you have an organized
clear plan.
(19:53):
Before you start getting fancyand exciting with throwing in
the fun stuff, the cardiomovements and the sweaty and
the, all of the, the the fancythings that you may see on
Instagram as like, oh, you haveto try this thing.
It's life-changing.
Only if you have the basicsdone.
Right?
So that's all a lot ofinformation.
(20:13):
If you are interested and wantto build your own workouts, I
hope that this gives you like areally clear understanding.
You can go from here and goGoogle stuff, right?
What should my rep inset schemeslook like?
If I have a hypertrophy goal,what our endurance rep insects
schemes, how much rest time do Ineed if I'm doing max strength
training?
Those are all questions that theGoogle machine can spit out.
(20:36):
But we've got now an outline ofwhat your movement patterns
should be organized, you know?
Across the day, week, month, andyear.
If your head is spinning andyou're like, oh my God, I don't
want to do this.
Like, yes, I get that.
This sounds important.
And that we should have aprogressive overload, organized
strength training program.
(20:56):
But oh, my God, I can't do thiskelly.
Great.
Let me take that.
I'll take that lift on for youand I will program your strength
training.
If you want to come join myprogram strong as a mother live.
Strong as a mother live is astrength training program.
It is a progressive overloadstrength training program.
That includes two lifts a week.
(21:18):
It's only two lifts a week,which is not a ton for, you
know, someone who thinks of likebeing a gym rat.
It's very, very doable, butacross those, we're really
thoughtful about being efficientand hitting all of these check
boxes.
Then we add in your mobility,your cardio, your core work, you
(21:39):
know, some Pilates sessions,some group fitness style
workouts, so that there's a lotof variety.
And we're getting all of theessential components of being a
healthy, functional person, notjust the resistance training.
It's a big gap that I've seen ina lot of resistance training
programs, where someone deliversyou, here's your lifts with no
guidance as to how much mobilityshould you be doing.
(22:00):
And are we making sure that yourgetting enough, you know, a
mindfulness practice in, andalso, Hey, are you bored?
Here's some things that you cando to avoid being bored.
So strong as a mother live,really addresses a lot of the
gaps that I've seen in strengthtraining programming that's
available to new moms that'savailable to new lifters and
(22:22):
particularly women who may notculturally have a lot of that
sort of gym culture.
Going with the bros and likelearning this stuff.
So.
If you feel like you miss thatday in gym class, where you
learned how to lift, that is theprogram for you.
You do want to have a baselinepostpartum rehab completed.
(22:43):
And if you do, then strong as amother live is a really great
place to start strength trainingand hitting your full body
training as well.
I would love to see you inthere.
Any of the resources mentionedin today's episode will be
available in the show notes.
(23:03):
So go ahead to your podcast appand open up the show notes, or
you can find them right on mywebsite and I would be so
grateful if.
You would share today's episodewith a friend.
So just go back to your podcastapp, hit the share button, and
send the link over to someonewho you think would benefit from
this.
And lastly, if you want bonusbrownie points, you can go rate
(23:28):
and review the podcast.
This helps new subscribers findus and get.
Some awesome benefits fromlistening to today's episode.
Thanks again for being here andhave an awesome week.
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