254 | Better Is Better: Redefining Progress Beyond Heavy Weights

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What if everything you thought about strength training was keeping you from making real progress? If you're struggling with autoimmune issues, chronic fatigue, or simply feeling overwhelmed by fitness culture's "go hard or go home" mentality, this episode will be your permission slip to train differently.

After my Hashimoto's diagnosis, I watched my deadlift numbers plummet from 200+ pounds, and initially felt like a failure. That journey led me to develop what I call "Smart Strength" – a training philosophy that prioritizes quality over quantity, sustainability over intensity, and personalization over cookie-cutter approaches.

Think of people like plants – some are cacti that thrive with minimal care, while others need daily misting and careful tending. Your fitness approach should honor your unique needs rather than forcing yourself into a training style that depletes you. Women's bodies, in particular, have different recovery requirements and hormonal considerations that many traditional programs ignore.

Progressive overload doesn't always mean adding weight. Changing tempo, stance, rest periods, or set schemes can create significant training stimulus without necessarily lifting heavier. This means you can continue building strength even during periods of limited energy or when managing chronic conditions.

Ready to escape the burnout cycle? Join me in exploring how to create a sustainable fitness approach that respects your body's limits while still challenging you to grow stronger. Follow me @TinaWeilandFit to continue the conversation about redefining what strong looks like for your unique body.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
of the Tea with Tina podcast.
Today's episode is about how totrain smarter and not harder,
and I kind of like had this termand who knows, somebody could
have coined this term already,but I had this term in my head
called smart strength, and ifyou've been here for a while,

(00:21):
you know that I, within the pastlike three years, got diagnosed
with Hashimoto's.
It's an autoimmune.
I've struggled with hormonalimbalances, periods of low
energy, constant drain andpost-COVID, post-hashimoto's
diagnosis.
I've never been able to getback to my regular intensity of

(00:43):
strength training, like I wasdeadlifting 200 plus pounds and
it felt good, right, you know,you're the normal tired, the
normal muscle soreness.
But now it seems like, nomatter how much I try to
progress and recover and eat andmanage stress and all those fun
things, I just can't, andthat's fine, I've definitely
come to terms with that.
I just can't, and that's fine,I've definitely come to terms

(01:06):
with that.
But I'm trying to find a way totrain in a way that fits me,
where I'm not just, you know,doing a little amount.
I'm training smart, right,something that's going to
challenge me and progress me butalso minimize intensity, so I'm
not like drained that day andand feeling beat up and worn out
, right, and I think there's alot of the reason I recorded out
right and I think there's a lotof the reason I recorded this

(01:28):
is because I think there's a lotof people out there like me.
I think, uh, whether you have anautoimmune or a chronic illness
or maybe you're going through astressful time in your life,
there's people that havedifferent thresholds.
I was actually just thinkingabout this in terms of plants,
since I'm a plant lady.
I want you to think of peoplelike plants.
Right, we have snake plants orcacti.

(01:49):
They can go like a monthwithout water and they love all
this sunlight.
Meanwhile, there's plants thatneed to be misted every single
day and have constant moisture.
There's some that like to be inthe dark.
You know, there's differenttypes of plants that need
different things, and I want youto visualize yourself like that
.
I think there's some people thatthrive off of like doing crazy

(02:12):
shit.
They just love chasing thathigh.
They're adrenaline junkies.
They're doing craft, butthey're doing marathons.
They're doing all these things.
Some of some people are likereal chill and they just want to
like do some yoga, walk on thebeach.
And then there's people thatare everything in between, but I
don't think anything'snecessarily right or wrong, and
that's the part that bothers me,because I feel like there's a

(02:34):
lot of fitness that whateversection you're in, they'll kind
of knock the other section andbe like you know what?
This is the only way.
If you don't do this, this iswrong.
And I kind of got that in myhead in regards to, like,
bodybuilding and strengthtraining, because I always felt
that strength training was amiddle ground, uh, to cardio and

(02:55):
yoga, which we'll just kind oflike have a spectrum there.
And you know, for me strengthtraining, I always thought like
okay, once you can generally doaround this weight, you'll stay
there right.
Like I mean, things may changeif you get an injury and you
know, if you hit a PR, you knowif you hit 200 pounds, that

(03:15):
doesn't mean you're gonna beable to do 200 pounds forever,
and like you can't go below that.
But it just really messed withme when I had to really cut back
the strength that I was lifting.
But you know what, looking backat it, strength is still a
middle ground because strengthtraining is relative.
You can be challenged by threepound dumbbells.
Go take Pilates.
I bet you'll be using one pounddumbbells.

(03:35):
You can be challenged with bodyweight.
Look at calisthenics.
These people are shredded doingjust body weight.
Sometimes 10 pounds is hard.
Sometimes 100 pounds might behard for somebody, 200, 300,
it's all relative.
So I'm using that and I canstill do strength training and
make it be beneficial.
The weights are just going tolook different and just because

(03:57):
I'm not doing a ton of weightdoesn't mean that it's not valid
, right?
And that's where the trainingsmarter, not harder comes in.
So let me get into why that.
Go hard or go home mentality isa lot Okay.
So here's the myth you have topush through exhaustion and
soreness to see results.
This is particularly true to myautoimmune and chronic illness

(04:19):
friends or people who are livingvery stressful lives.
Maybe they struggle withneurodivergence, okay, and
they're just on the edge ofstress and they're burned out
and they're.
It can apply to anybody.
You do not have to push throughexhaustion and soreness because
this leads to burnout, injuriesand plateaus.

(04:39):
People think that if they're not110%, all the time killing
themselves, walking out ready tothrow up because they did 100
burpees, that it wasn't worthworking out.
Your body can only sustain thatfor so long, like if you were
thinking of your body like a car.
If you floored your careverywhere, redlined it
everywhere, slammed on thebrakes, think about how easily

(05:01):
your car would get beat up.
It probably wouldn't last verylong.
There's a some, there's somethat can maybe take it right by
chance, but most of them they'renot.
But if you're easy with it andyou maintain it and maybe
sometimes you have to redline it, but not all the time it's
going to last a lot longer.
And you know, overtraining likethat it puts stress on the body.
Working out is a stressor,while a lot of the times it's

(05:24):
used for positive stress.
Like I said, if your body'salready stressed out and you're
adding more stress onto it, itdoesn't go.
Oh, you're working out, goodstress, I'm not gonna.
I'm not gonna worry about that.
Your body just is like oh mygod, why is my heart rate going
up?
I'm getting stress put onmyself, I can't take this right.
So it does.
It doesn't view things as goodand bad and in turn that causes

(05:47):
you to be inflamed, causes youto be more tired.
Your hormones get off balance.
You, you know you're trying tolose weight and and maybe put on
some muscle, it's, it's gonnabe a lot harder.
And then the other thing is thatwomen's bodies something I've
observed as well um, with ourhormones and our recovery needs
there's definitely studies outthere that say that women need

(06:09):
to sleep longer than men.
Um, and again, like our main,our body's main focus they're
thinking in the caveman brainterms is to have a baby.
Okay, whether you personallywant to have a child or not,
your body is like we are humans.
We need to mate and create moreof our kind so we can continue
to live.
That is that's literally yourbody's main like internal goal,

(06:35):
and it's going to do everythingto protect that.
Hence why we have more fat thanmen.
We need more recovery than men.
We have periods, right, sowe're not built for that same
intensity that men can handle,and even just their body frames,
and they have more testosterone, so they're going to build more
muscle, naturally.
So there's a lot of things thatmake how we train different,

(06:56):
not that it's any less.
Again, going back to Pilates, alot of people shit on Pilates
and they're like, oh, pilates,it's not a good workout, and I'm
not going to lie.
I used to think that too.
I thought it was just a trenduntil I started taking Pilates
and doing Pilates and studyingPilates.
I'm actually studying for mycertification now and it's been
a game changer for me.
It's been a lifesaver.

(07:17):
It's been amazing to have anice muscle burn where I feel
like I'm working but I'm notwhipped after.
And there's plenty of videos ofthese big buff guys trying to
do Pilates workouts and theycan't keep up.
So it's kind of funny to seethe dynamic.
Right, and this is the bigrealization, right, more isn't

(07:37):
better, better is better, right,like you know, if you had one
minute to do as many burpees asyou could, right, let's say you
did as many burpees as you couldand you started to kind of slam
to the ground.
You started to use your lowerback, you started to kind of
slam to the ground, you startedto use your lower back, you
started to get all these impacton your joints because they were

(07:58):
sloppy and lazy, but you got aton of burpees in.
You know your heart rate wouldbe up, but maybe you'd have some
back pain, joint pain, right,uh.
But what if you slowed downthose burpees?
You made them slow andcontrolled and you made sure the
form was perfect but maybe onlydid half what the other person
did, who do you think got thebetter workout?
The person who did less butbetter, because better is better

(08:22):
.
Right Now, let's think aboutgoing back to that concept of
smart strength.
What does that look like?
So?
So, strength isn't obviouslyabout maxing out every session
and I feel like it's easy tothink that, right Like you, just
keep progressing and keepmoving up and wait.
But even if we look at the termprogressive overload OK, if

(08:43):
you've ever heard of that,progressive overload is
essentially getting better atyour strength training, but it's
not always moving up in weight.
We are somehow progressing inour strength training.
So if we take a squat, forinstance, yes, increasing weight
over time is one way toprogressively overload, but

(09:04):
let's say we stick with the 10pounds.
We never move up.
What can we do?
We can change our stance.
Maybe we do a wide stance, uh.
Maybe we do a front squatinstead of a back squat right,
it's going to challenge ourmuscles in a different way.
Maybe we change tempo, we slowit down.
Maybe we do a one second pause.
That's going to make it a lotharder.
Maybe we do a three second uhdescent on our squat.

(09:28):
Maybe we change up the reps andsets, but not the weight.
Maybe we change up the restlonger rest, shorter rest.
There's a lot of variables thatwe can change to progressively
overload.
That does not includeincreasing the weight.
And again, this is kind of theart form of smart strength,

(09:50):
right, and going into itprogressive overload, not
punishment, small, intentionalstrength gains over time.
I'm not even saying that youcan't progress in weight ever
Like.
You're not just doomed to beinglike at five pounds forever.
You can progress.
It may just look slower thanyou think.
It's not going to be everysingle week, week, right, um.
And then you also have tolisten to your body.

(10:11):
Some days you are going to goheavier like.
Some days you're going to feelgreat and you can just do more
and it's going to come out ofnowhere.
And then the next time youmight be able to do, uh,
two-thirds of that.
Maybe you're on your period,maybe you're at crappy sleep,
maybe it's just one of thosedays.
And then we also have toprioritize recovery.
More muscles honestly buildoutside of the gym.
If you didn't know, when you'reworking out, you're actually

(10:35):
ripping and tearing your musclefibers.
When we build our muscles iswhen we're recovering, usually
when we're sleeping.
That's when our muscles repairthemselves and build back
stronger and, depending on thefuel we give our bodies through
nutrition, that can have animpact as well.
And the other thing issustainable workouts.
Okay, we got to make surethey're sustainable.
You don't have to be in the gymfor two hours.

(10:57):
You could do 30 to 45 minutes,even less than that.
Sometimes, when I'm in the gymand I'm feeling overwhelmed,
I'll be like I'm gonna pick fourthings or five things and just
get them done, and I don't evennecessarily pay attention to the
clock.
Usually it takes me like 20 to30 minutes, but that's it.
I used to feel like I had to doall these things and make sure
I was at the gym for a certainamount of time or it wasn't

(11:20):
worth doing.
And maybe you can work up to apoint to that point but you
don't have to be there all thetime to that point, but you
don't have to be there all thetime and then so kind of
recapping everything.
What does this mean for you?
Maybe you're somebody who'slike me and you know you feel
like you try to do whateverybody else is out there
doing on Instagram and TikTok.

(11:42):
You know hip thrusting like 300pounds and you're like I just
can't, I can't, I can't do this,I can't be doing 100 burpees
till I throw up Like this isjust too much.
And this is where the smartstrength comes in.
Why can't you hip thrust whatyou can hip thrust?
That girl has probably workedup to the 300 pounds over time
and again.
Maybe you'll never get there.

(12:02):
Maybe you have no desire to getthere.
Maybe you will get there.
It all depends on the person.
But you know, if you trainconsistently right, I would say
anywhere between two to fivetimes per week, depending on
your personal needs, yourschedule, your goals you need
structured progression.
You need to go in with a planand think, kind of going back to

(12:22):
the squat example, like stickwith the program for a while.
You can always switch littlethings up, but you know, if
you're squatting, track it andgo.
Okay.
You know this has been easy forme.
I've been actually able to moveup in weight.
Well, now I'm kind of stuck at30 pounds.
So you know I'm going to slowit down a little bit.
You know, and this is somethingif you have no idea how to do,

(12:43):
hire a coach.
Hi, I'm a coach, but you couldhire me and I can help you with
that.
I love helping people who have,like, unique injuries and
setbacks, still be able toprogress, because, again, that's
something that I go through andsomething I help my clients
with Don't train to failureevery single time.
We don't need to max out tillyour legs are shaking.

(13:05):
You're ready to die Like that'sjust using up all of your
energy and unless you're like anathlete with proper recovery
and nutrition, you're going tofeel like garbage really fast.
The first week might feel okayand then after that you're just
going to crash and burn.
And also prioritize thatrecovery mobility, warmups, rest
days, active rest days, right,managing your stress.

(13:27):
Think long-term.
Where will this training styleleave me in a year?
Am I able to sustain this or isit going to burn me out?
Am I going to be dreading myworkouts Like what's going on?
And I'm not even saying likesometimes it's fun to throw in
one of those crazy days.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But don't feel like once youhit a certain point, it's like

(13:47):
you can't go below that again.
You have to keep up with it.
That's not wrong or that iswrong.
I'm sorry, but yeah.
So just some things to thinkabout.
Does this resonate with you?
Have you ever felt like moreintensity equaled better results
for you?
I don't know.
Feel free to share with me.
I'm over on Instagram at TinaWeiland Fit.
You can catch me on Facebook.

(14:08):
You can leave a comment on thispodcast, whatever, but thank
you for tuning in and I willcatch you guys in the next one.
Bye for now.