April 20, 2026 • 30 mins
A gym member asks if she is too old to deadlift, and we unpack why that belief is so common and so wrong. I share four practical steps to start lifting safely, build confidence, and track real progress.
• the “too old” myth and how social media fuels it
• why muscles respond to training at any age and what hypertrophy means
• how fitness marketing sells insecurity and fake body labels
• why the deadlift is functional and confidence building
• what actually gets in the way: coaching gaps, too much too soon, fear, mobility needs
• four action steps
• the deeper reason strength matters:
Did you know you can send me a text message or a voicemail?
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Website: unbreakablemb.com
Email: info@unbreakablemb.com
Disclaimer: This show is for education and entertainment purposes only. This is not intended as a replacement for therapy. Please seek out the help of a professional to assist you with your specific situation.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:07):
Welcome to the Unbreakable Mind and Body
Podcast.
I am your host, Tiana Gonzalez,a multi-passionate creative,
storyteller, and entrepreneurwith a fierce love for movement.
This is our space for powerfulstories and actionable
strategies to help you buildmental resilience and elevate
(00:28):
your self-care practice.
Together, we will unlock thetools that you need to create an
unbreakable mind and body.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm your host, Tiana, and onthis episode, I'm going to share
a story with you about aconversation that I had recently
with a member at the gym where Iwork in person.
(00:49):
Now, we're going to keep comingback to this story, but the main
takeaway is that she asked meabout age and if she was too old
to start doing something for herbody, for her health, for her
longevity.
And by the end of this episode,you'll walk away with four
(01:10):
things that you can doimmediately.
If you are in a similarsituation where maybe you think
it might be too late for you, oryou're a little too old to learn
something.
I will tell you, it's never toolate to start.
And these four tips are going tohelp you get organized, have a
strategy, and an easy way toimplement so that you can start
(01:34):
to lift and start to feel betterin your own skin.
So this woman approached me inthe gym last week.
I have no idea how old she is.
Maybe she's in her mid-40s.
And she says to me, Am I too oldto start deadlifting?
And I had to pause for a secondbecause I could tell that that
(01:58):
question came from something shehad heard.
Maybe something she saw onsocial media or something that
she heard people talking aboutin a class or on the fitness
floor.
And I'm here to say it rightnow.
If that is a belief that maybeyou carry about something that
you want to do, you're not tooold.
(02:21):
You're exactly the right age,you're in the right place, and
it is the right time.
Now, this isn't the first timethat someone asked me if it was
too late for them or if they'retoo old to start lifting to see
any sort of measurable gains andto feel any sort of positive
impact.
And I'm sure it won't be thelast.
(02:42):
Because due to the age ofinformation in which we live in,
it's easy to get caught up in arabbit hole of information on
pretty much any topic.
And so if you start to watch afew pieces of content on any
platform that have to do withstrength training or strength
training for women, or whatlifting weights can do for
(03:05):
women, there is no limit to howmuch information is out there.
But it can be very confusing, itcan be incredibly disheartening,
and it could be discouraging forsomeone who is just looking to
get started and make even just asmall impact or a fraction of a
(03:27):
gain and not necessarily competein a powerlifting meet or to
create a social media accountwhere they get a ton of
followers that are just based onlooking at them work out.
But really, the people, thewomen specifically, who are
looking to feel better in theirown skin, it can be very
overwhelming and very confusing.
(03:50):
And I feel like there are agroup of women who believe that
they've missed their chance orthey've missed their window or
it's too late for them, orperhaps that their body is past
its prime, that maybe theyshould have started doing this
20 years ago, but now thatthey're in their 40s, 50s, 60s,
it's too late.
(04:10):
And that's just not true.
It's possible to make a lastingchange, it's possible to
catalyze muscle and to grow it.
We call that muscularhypertrophy.
And it doesn't matter how oldyou are.
Are there things that you needto consider that you should take
(04:32):
into account depending on whereyou're at?
Yes, absolutely.
But the idea that you've missedthe boat is absolute hogwash.
Now, I am very lucky.
I grew up with very physicallyactive parents.
My dad was a karate instructor,he had his own dojo, my mom was
(04:52):
a dancer, and after a few yearsof us living with her, I don't
know if you guys know this.
I've talked about it in previousepisodes, but I did switch
households.
So I moved in with my mom and mystepdad full-time around the age
of 12.
And it wasn't too long afterthat that my mom left her job.
(05:13):
She used to work at Macy's andHerald Square in the cosmetics
department, and she became agroup fitness instructor and a
personal trainer.
And this was in the early 90s,way back in the day.
My mom was so ahead of her time.
So I have an advantage because Istarted young.
I saw these female physiquesfrom magazines, from fitness
(05:39):
books, from videos that my momwas collecting that she would
sometimes do in our living room.
I was seeing women go to the gymand exercise, not only in
classes, but also liftingweights.
And I was introduced to it soyoung.
(06:00):
I never really considered ifthere was some sort of cutoff or
if there was an age where itmight be too late for someone,
because that idea just was notsomething that ever crossed my
mind.
In fact, it sounds insane to meeven now.
So considering that that wasback in the 90s, and here we are
(06:22):
in 2026, and I'm still having tohave this conversation with
people, you can only imagine howfrustrating it could be for me.
The fitness industry sellsinsecurity.
They sell this idea that youthis strength.
They sell this idea that youhave to look a certain
(06:46):
aesthetic.
We're even in this age of peopletalking about like a Pilates
body or a bar body.
Um those things are not real.
That's marketing terminology.
This idea that you are going tolook a specific way solely
(07:11):
because of the activities thatyou participate in, and don't
consider your biology, yourgenetic predisposition English,
your genetic predispositions,any um risk factors or health
risk factors that run in yourfamily, what your lifestyle
(07:32):
looks like.
Those things are all incrediblyimportant.
But here is the most amazingthing: your muscles respond to
stimulus at any age, and theyrespond to all kinds of
stimulus.
So you could mix in Pilates andbar and group classes and
running and lifting weights.
(07:54):
And even within lifting weights,there are so many different ways
that you can do that.
You can focus on a powerliftingtype of training.
You could think about preparingfor a bodybuilding show, even if
you don't get on stage, butworking out in that manner where
your focus is on muscularhypertrophy, which is to grow
your muscles.
(08:15):
You could also think about doingsomething like functional
fitness, where you know,CrossFit is one form of
functional fitness where it'smixing all of these different
things together, or perhapstraining like a Hyrux athlete,
which is similar but slightlydifferent from CrossFit, where
you have running as well as someother events like uh lunging
(08:40):
with a sandbag, pushing andpulling a sled, burpees, and so
on and so forth.
But here's the thing all of themarketing in the world may lean
towards a certain narrative,depending on what it's marketing
for.
(09:00):
So people who enjoy promoting acertain modality of fitness may
discourage you from doingsomething else.
It's kind of like looking atbeauty products or hair
products.
And yeah, there are specificproducts for anti-aging, there
are specific products that aremade for oily skin, there are
(09:25):
some made for dry skin, there'shair products made for thick, uh
coarse hair texture or curlyhair, but then there's also
products for fine hair or oilyhair.
So you see where I'm going withthis, but the possibilities are
endless.
And so you have to figure outwhat's going to actually work
for you.
(09:45):
My recommendation is to startwhere you're at.
If you're in your 40s, that'sokay.
If you're in your 50s, that'sfine.
If you're in your 60s, that'salso fine.
What you do and how you do itmay be slightly different, but
ultimately you want to buildmuscle.
And so a deadlift would be anamazing exercise.
(10:08):
And this is kind of why I was sotaken back when this woman asked
me if it was too late for her tostart learning how to deadlift,
because it's one of the mostfunctional and
confidence-building movementsthat a person can learn.
You're literally practicingpicking something up off the
floor and standing up within.
And here's uh a little newsflash for you.
(10:32):
That's something we do everysingle day is pick things up off
the floor and stand with them.
So when you are about to dosomething like a deadlift, you
show up, you get on theplatform, you have an intention,
you can't fake it or tiptoearound it.
(10:53):
You load the bar, you get niceand low, you stand up with it,
and when it comes up, yourentire body knows that you just
did something incrediblypowerful.
And I've had so many clientstell me that the first time they
PR'd their deadlift, and thenthe next PR, and then the one
(11:15):
after that, it changed how theyshowed up in other areas of
their life.
Because it just proved that theycan do something that they once
thought they couldn't do, thattheir body sort of commanded
this inner strength, that theirbody had been training, that
(11:38):
their body had been doingdifficult things, that you had
been choosing hard things, whichprepares you for real life out
in the real world.
So if you're in your mid-40s andyou're just getting started, you
have to remember that you're notreally starting from zero
because you've survived hardthings.
(11:59):
You've lived a certain amount oftime, your body understands
certain stimuli, and you'regonna know what you can handle
and what you can't, what youneed and what you don't.
And of course, with theassistance of a professional,
that becomes a little biteasier.
Not as much guessing in thebeginning, not as much doubt in
(12:22):
the beginning, because you havesomeone there who can be outside
of you and watch you performthese things and give you
encouragement and cue youproperly and give you just the
right dose.
Maybe younger people come to thegym with more enthusiasm or a
little less patience.
But a woman in her mid-40s,she's gonna understand what
(12:47):
consistency actually means.
She may not be as enthusiastic,but she has the discipline.
She understands that she doesn'thave time to waste.
She doesn't have time to try allthese different things.
She wants to do what's going tobe the most beneficial for her
in the pursuit of learning aspecific thing like a deadlift
(13:09):
or growing muscle.
Now, even in my own social mediacontent, I've talked about why
strength training is soimportant.
And then then I've realizedeverybody knows this stuff.
And maybe they don't know allthe nitty-gritty and the
details, but I don't think theinformation is what's going to
(13:30):
really motivate someone to getup and go join a gym or to get
up and hire a trainer or tofollow a program.
It has to be deeper than that.
The inspiration and themotivation at the start has to
be something much more powerfulthan just information, because
(13:51):
information alone is not enough.
And having something to followis also not enough, believe it
or not.
Because guess what?
You could go on any website, youcan go to AI, you can go to
YouTube, you can type in a fewthings and get a complete
workout for free.
So why would somebody want topay for something?
(14:12):
Because they need to understandhow to implement that
information and that programinto their existing lifestyle
and how to do it in a way thatleads them to success and not
into overextending themselves ordoing too much of the wrong
thing and not enough of theright things, or to having an
imbalance.
(14:33):
See, that's where just getting aworkout and following along is
simply not enough.
So you have to have a beginnermindset, even if you are a
little bit older, and recognizethat just because you may know
how to do something by watchinga film or a video or someone
(14:53):
showing you pictures how to getfrom A to B to C, you need to
know how it feels in your bodyon whatever day of the week it
is, with whatever footwear youhave and whatever clothing
you're wearing, and whateverheadspace you're in that you
showed up to the gym at.
You see, that's where the realdifference lies.
(15:14):
Now, the real obstacles.
The real obstacles are gonna bea couple of things.
A lack of proper coaching, maybedoing too much too soon,
listening to too many peoplegiving you advice, and maybe
that inner voice that's tellingyou, I don't know, maybe I'm too
(15:36):
old for this, maybe I shouldjust quit.
This is too hard.
I don't know if I can keep thisup.
I don't know what I'm doing.
Is this the right weight?
And another thing, as we getolder, we may need to work on
our mobility a lot more thansomeone 20 years younger than
us.
That's okay.
(15:58):
You may have a history of painin a certain area of your body
or stiffness and tightness.
You may be trying to workthrough hormonal shifts and
changes.
These are real.
So it's not necessarily the ageas a barrier, but more
specifically where your body'sat, what it's been through, and
understanding that you have toexplain this to someone that you
(16:22):
trust and feel safe with acoach, a mentor, a trainer, who
can then take all of thesethings into consideration and
then give you the proper planand then help you execute it.
So you see where I'm going withthis?
So it's not that the age is theexcuse or the reason, it's being
(16:43):
a little bit more patient in thebeginning.
It's doing our due diligence inthe beginning, it's
understanding that there is alot more information to be
exchanged up front so that wecan come up with a program or a
plan that's going to be highlyeffective for the specific
individual in front of us.
(17:04):
I hope that makes sense.
So I'm thinking about this womanin the gym, and I'm really
hopeful that my words to herwere not too harsh because I had
suggested to her the first thingshe should do is to get a coach,
hire a trainer, get a coach fora couple of months.
(17:26):
Everyone believes that they canlearn something in a couple of
weeks.
You might be able to learn it,but there is a huge difference
between learning it and doingit, and then learning it and
implementing it and embodyingit.
And I know you've heard me talkabout this on other episodes
before.
There's a huge difference there.
(17:49):
Even now, thinking about some ofthe business education that I've
gotten over the years, I'veinvested in mentors and coaches
over the last six years.
And even now, I will hear apiece of information and it's
repetitive.
It's something that I've heardbefore or something that I've
learned before, but yet it landsdifferently now.
(18:13):
And the reason for that isbecause I'm at a different
place.
And so the lesson didn't change,but how I received it and what I
was able to get from it iscompletely different than let's
say five or six years ago,because I'm a different person.
So that first thing, get acoach, get a trainer, get
(18:35):
somebody that you can meet withon a consistent basis that's
gonna hold you accountable andthat you're gonna show up for.
Someone who can watch your form,give you cues, build your
confidence, help you to feelsafe, to then take risks,
calculated risks.
For example, putting a littlemore weight on the bar the next
(18:56):
time you're gonna squat, ormaybe trying a mobility exercise
that you've only seen people doon YouTube, but you were always
scared to try yourself withoutsupervision.
Now, the next thing you could dois when you are starting to lift
weights, make sure you're usingweight that feels like almost
too light.
And I'm saying thisintentionally in the beginning,
(19:18):
because we want to make surethat we get the correct movement
patterns locked in.
And it's not just the movementpattern, but it's also the
internal sequence of events, thefiring of the various parts of
your body internally so that youexecute a clean lift from start
(19:38):
to finish, so that you know whatit's supposed to feel like, so
that you can see yourself andfeel yourself doing the lift
flawlessly.
I hired a trainer in 2020 towork with me towards the end of
2020, and we were doingin-person sessions once or twice
(20:01):
a month, and then he would writemy programs for me.
And the primary focus was on myOlympic lifting.
So the snatch and the clean andjerk, and these are highly
technical lifts, there is a lotof skill involved, and the goal
was for me to hit a specificnumber on the snatch, and then
(20:24):
to just see how far I could getwith my clean and jerk.
And when I tell you that it tookme literally years, not weeks,
not months, but years.
Took me about two years to hitmy goal with the snatch.
(20:45):
I wanted to be able to snatch 95pounds and to do it flawlessly
and from the floor all the waydown into the bottom of the
position and stand up.
And if you don't know what I'mtalking about, I apologize.
But for my lifters out there,you know exactly what I mean.
And there is this amazingweightless moment where the bar
(21:07):
is kind of floating in the airand you are moving your body
around underneath it.
And it took me about two yearsto get there.
Imagine working on one thing fortwo years over and over and over
and over again, undoing badpatterns, breaking old habits,
and working through tight areas,stiff areas, getting through
(21:32):
your mobility, and then alsobuilding strength and courage.
And most of the time, this was aremote relationship because I
was working out by myself andsending him recordings of my
lifts.
That was a lot, and it was alsoa lot of fun.
I learned so much about myselfthrough that.
But getting back to the actionitems for you.
(21:55):
So the third thing here, I wantyou to reframe what.
Too old really means, and ifyou're not someone who considers
yourself too old, the next timeyou are about to say, Well, I'm
too old for that, stop yourself.
Because if you what you mean tosay is you're afraid, that's a
(22:16):
different statement, and itactually has nothing to do with
your age.
Fear is just something that yourbrain is processing, and nine
times out of ten, your brain isprotecting you, which is why you
feel fear in the first place.
But fear is a truth, it it meansthat something's important to
(22:39):
you.
It means that you're nervousaround it.
But we're not gonna let thatstop us.
We're gonna keep going in spiteof the fear.
Now, the fourth thing is thattracking would be incredibly
beneficial here.
Not just tracking your metrics,like the number of weight on the
(23:05):
bar, the number of pounds, orthe dumbbells that you use and
what weights they are.
Yeah, that's really valuable.
You've heard me mention thismany times on the show.
But what about tracking how youfeel?
Doing a little check-in withyourself at the end of the week
and just taking note.
Like, how did you feel eachmorning of the week when you
(23:25):
woke up?
How did you sleep?
What's your appetite like?
How are you managing stress?
How do you feel when you go outin the into the public?
So I explained to a differentperson who I met with, a
different woman.
Um, we were looking at hernumbers on the in-body, and I
(23:46):
explained to her, like, youknow, the amount of pounds of
muscle mass that she has on herbody worked great, especially
for someone who was kind of uhin the beginning stages of
strength training.
She had always done classes inthe past.
And when I explained to her, Ionly had a few pounds more of
muscle than her, but I'veintentionally put myself through
(24:10):
bulks and eaten in a surplus onpurpose and lifted extremely
heavy on purpose and have triedto get more muscular on purpose.
I took my zip-up jacket off.
I said, Do you mind if I take myjacket off?
I just want you to look at mybody for a second.
And she said, Okay.
And I had a black tank top onand, you know, black tights,
(24:31):
plain tights on.
And I did a little spin for herand I said, Do I look really
muscular and manly to you?
And she's like, No, not at all.
And I said, I only have abouttwo pounds more of muscle on my
body than you.
And I push myself incrediblyhard in the gym on purpose
because I'm never gonna beskinny, and I don't even want to
try to be skinny anymore.
(24:52):
So I want to be as strong as Ipossibly can be.
And she asked me, why?
Why do I want to do that tomyself?
And when I shared with her thestory about how I went through a
very serious trauma in 2006, um,one that really changed how I
(25:13):
see the world permanently, um itit was just a deliberate choice
that I am not going to be weakever.
And I think that because of mystrength training and my
willingness to push myself andto seek out those challenges and
to get stronger intentionallyhelped me survive this traumatic
(25:37):
event in 2006.
It was really bad.
And I survived it.
And it took me a long time torecover.
But I'm okay, and I know for afact that I was able to minimize
(25:59):
the damage because of the factthat I was strong and because of
the fact that I could fightsomebody off of me.
But not every woman gets thatopportunity because she doesn't
either have the skills to tryto, you know, fight someone off
of her or to get out of adangerous situation or to evade
(26:20):
trouble in the first place, orshe doesn't have this the spidey
senses like I do, to sense thatyou know, danger is nearby, or
to look over her shoulder whenshe's walking to her car at
night in a dark parking lot, orto be alert, or to be strong
enough to wrestle somebody offof you.
And lifting weights is not goingto necessarily give you all of
(26:43):
those skills, but it's going tohelp you be more robust and to
have the strength so that if youfind yourself in a dangerous
situation, your chances ofgetting out of it, of surviving
it, of evading it are muchhigher.
Now that's my motivation for whyI go to the gym most days of the
(27:07):
week and why I push myself sohard.
And that doesn't necessarilyhave to be your motivation, but
it was very telling as I sharedand glossed over some of the
details while explaining to her,just like I did right now to
you, that I went throughsomething and I never want to
find myself in a dangeroussituation again, that was
(27:30):
enough.
And I could see the wheelsturning in her head, realizing
that, yes, it may sound a littlefanatical, but if you're ever
found, if you've ever foundyourself in a situation like
that, or you felt like you wereat risk, you're gonna wish that
you had certain skill sets.
(27:50):
You're gonna wish that you hadtrained for something, that you
had prepared for something.
And you hope that you never needit.
I mean, that's really the bigtakeaway.
So when I see women in the gymwho think maybe they're too old
to start doing something, orwhen I think about that specific
woman who asked me if she's tooold to start deadlifting, the
(28:12):
answer is 100% absolutely not.
Here's the thing the best timeto plant a tree was 20 years
ago.
But the second best time istoday.
And that's the same withstrength training.
You're exactly the right ageright now to find out what
(28:32):
you're capable of, to go getthat strength that you desire.
So if you're contemplating it,again, get a coach, invest for
the long term to give yourselftime to really learn and absorb
and test things and thenimplement and then embody them.
(28:59):
To go from guessing everydecision out on the floor to
just knowing what's next for youand making those calculated
decisions on the fly.
Starting with weight that'slight so that you can perfect
your form, reframing how youthink about yourself.
(29:21):
You're not too old.
There's no such thing.
And then tracking your progressin more ways than just the
strength metrics, but also howyou feel day to day, week to
week, month to month, how youshow up in the world, how you
present yourself at work or inmeetings or on calls.
How do you carry yourselfthrough the world?
(29:44):
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
I know we got a little deeptowards the end, but I'm an open
book and I live my life this waybecause I know that I can help
you.
I really hope you found thisepisode helpful.
And if you have someone in yourlife who's questioning if maybe
they're too old to startstrength training, please send
(30:05):
them this episode.
Now, as always, check the shownotes.
And by the way, I know I tellyou every week you can send me a
text, but now you can also sendme a voicemail, and I'll be able
to listen to it.
And if you have a question forme, that's the best place to
send me your questions.
So you'll see in the show notes,it'll say, Send me a message.
(30:28):
You can do a text message or avoicemail.
I will get the message, and thenI can answer you anonymously on
a future episode.
I appreciate your time andattention as always, week after
week, showing up here foryourself to better yourself.
I'll catch you on the next one.
Welcome to the Unbreakable Mind and Body
Podcast.
I am your host, Tiana Gonzalez,a multi-passionate creative,
storyteller, and entrepreneurwith a fierce love for movement.
This is our space for powerfulstories and actionable
strategies to help you buildmental resilience and elevate
(00:28):
your self-care practice.
Together, we will unlock thetools that you need to create an
unbreakable mind and body.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm your host, Tiana, and onthis episode, I'm going to share
a story with you about aconversation that I had recently
with a member at the gym where Iwork in person.
(00:49):
Now, we're going to keep comingback to this story, but the main
takeaway is that she asked meabout age and if she was too old
to start doing something for herbody, for her health, for her
longevity.
And by the end of this episode,you'll walk away with four
(01:10):
things that you can doimmediately.
If you are in a similarsituation where maybe you think
it might be too late for you, oryou're a little too old to learn
something.
I will tell you, it's never toolate to start.
And these four tips are going tohelp you get organized, have a
strategy, and an easy way toimplement so that you can start
(01:34):
to lift and start to feel betterin your own skin.
So this woman approached me inthe gym last week.
I have no idea how old she is.
Maybe she's in her mid-40s.
And she says to me, Am I too oldto start deadlifting?
And I had to pause for a secondbecause I could tell that that
(01:58):
question came from something shehad heard.
Maybe something she saw onsocial media or something that
she heard people talking aboutin a class or on the fitness
floor.
And I'm here to say it rightnow.
If that is a belief that maybeyou carry about something that
you want to do, you're not tooold.
(02:21):
You're exactly the right age,you're in the right place, and
it is the right time.
Now, this isn't the first timethat someone asked me if it was
too late for them or if they'retoo old to start lifting to see
any sort of measurable gains andto feel any sort of positive
impact.
And I'm sure it won't be thelast.
(02:42):
Because due to the age ofinformation in which we live in,
it's easy to get caught up in arabbit hole of information on
pretty much any topic.
And so if you start to watch afew pieces of content on any
platform that have to do withstrength training or strength
training for women, or whatlifting weights can do for
(03:05):
women, there is no limit to howmuch information is out there.
But it can be very confusing, itcan be incredibly disheartening,
and it could be discouraging forsomeone who is just looking to
get started and make even just asmall impact or a fraction of a
(03:27):
gain and not necessarily competein a powerlifting meet or to
create a social media accountwhere they get a ton of
followers that are just based onlooking at them work out.
But really, the people, thewomen specifically, who are
looking to feel better in theirown skin, it can be very
overwhelming and very confusing.
(03:50):
And I feel like there are agroup of women who believe that
they've missed their chance orthey've missed their window or
it's too late for them, orperhaps that their body is past
its prime, that maybe theyshould have started doing this
20 years ago, but now thatthey're in their 40s, 50s, 60s,
it's too late.
(04:10):
And that's just not true.
It's possible to make a lastingchange, it's possible to
catalyze muscle and to grow it.
We call that muscularhypertrophy.
And it doesn't matter how oldyou are.
Are there things that you needto consider that you should take
(04:32):
into account depending on whereyou're at?
Yes, absolutely.
But the idea that you've missedthe boat is absolute hogwash.
Now, I am very lucky.
I grew up with very physicallyactive parents.
My dad was a karate instructor,he had his own dojo, my mom was
(04:52):
a dancer, and after a few yearsof us living with her, I don't
know if you guys know this.
I've talked about it in previousepisodes, but I did switch
households.
So I moved in with my mom and mystepdad full-time around the age
of 12.
And it wasn't too long afterthat that my mom left her job.
(05:13):
She used to work at Macy's andHerald Square in the cosmetics
department, and she became agroup fitness instructor and a
personal trainer.
And this was in the early 90s,way back in the day.
My mom was so ahead of her time.
So I have an advantage because Istarted young.
I saw these female physiquesfrom magazines, from fitness
(05:39):
books, from videos that my momwas collecting that she would
sometimes do in our living room.
I was seeing women go to the gymand exercise, not only in
classes, but also liftingweights.
And I was introduced to it soyoung.
(06:00):
I never really considered ifthere was some sort of cutoff or
if there was an age where itmight be too late for someone,
because that idea just was notsomething that ever crossed my
mind.
In fact, it sounds insane to meeven now.
So considering that that wasback in the 90s, and here we are
(06:22):
in 2026, and I'm still having tohave this conversation with
people, you can only imagine howfrustrating it could be for me.
The fitness industry sellsinsecurity.
They sell this idea that youthis strength.
They sell this idea that youhave to look a certain
(06:46):
aesthetic.
We're even in this age of peopletalking about like a Pilates
body or a bar body.
Um those things are not real.
That's marketing terminology.
This idea that you are going tolook a specific way solely
(07:11):
because of the activities thatyou participate in, and don't
consider your biology, yourgenetic predisposition English,
your genetic predispositions,any um risk factors or health
risk factors that run in yourfamily, what your lifestyle
(07:32):
looks like.
Those things are all incrediblyimportant.
But here is the most amazingthing: your muscles respond to
stimulus at any age, and theyrespond to all kinds of
stimulus.
So you could mix in Pilates andbar and group classes and
running and lifting weights.
(07:54):
And even within lifting weights,there are so many different ways
that you can do that.
You can focus on a powerliftingtype of training.
You could think about preparingfor a bodybuilding show, even if
you don't get on stage, butworking out in that manner where
your focus is on muscularhypertrophy, which is to grow
your muscles.
(08:15):
You could also think about doingsomething like functional
fitness, where you know,CrossFit is one form of
functional fitness where it'smixing all of these different
things together, or perhapstraining like a Hyrux athlete,
which is similar but slightlydifferent from CrossFit, where
you have running as well as someother events like uh lunging
(08:40):
with a sandbag, pushing andpulling a sled, burpees, and so
on and so forth.
But here's the thing all of themarketing in the world may lean
towards a certain narrative,depending on what it's marketing
for.
(09:00):
So people who enjoy promoting acertain modality of fitness may
discourage you from doingsomething else.
It's kind of like looking atbeauty products or hair
products.
And yeah, there are specificproducts for anti-aging, there
are specific products that aremade for oily skin, there are
(09:25):
some made for dry skin, there'shair products made for thick, uh
coarse hair texture or curlyhair, but then there's also
products for fine hair or oilyhair.
So you see where I'm going withthis, but the possibilities are
endless.
And so you have to figure outwhat's going to actually work
for you.
(09:45):
My recommendation is to startwhere you're at.
If you're in your 40s, that'sokay.
If you're in your 50s, that'sfine.
If you're in your 60s, that'salso fine.
What you do and how you do itmay be slightly different, but
ultimately you want to buildmuscle.
And so a deadlift would be anamazing exercise.
(10:08):
And this is kind of why I was sotaken back when this woman asked
me if it was too late for her tostart learning how to deadlift,
because it's one of the mostfunctional and
confidence-building movementsthat a person can learn.
You're literally practicingpicking something up off the
floor and standing up within.
And here's uh a little newsflash for you.
(10:32):
That's something we do everysingle day is pick things up off
the floor and stand with them.
So when you are about to dosomething like a deadlift, you
show up, you get on theplatform, you have an intention,
you can't fake it or tiptoearound it.
(10:53):
You load the bar, you get niceand low, you stand up with it,
and when it comes up, yourentire body knows that you just
did something incrediblypowerful.
And I've had so many clientstell me that the first time they
PR'd their deadlift, and thenthe next PR, and then the one
(11:15):
after that, it changed how theyshowed up in other areas of
their life.
Because it just proved that theycan do something that they once
thought they couldn't do, thattheir body sort of commanded
this inner strength, that theirbody had been training, that
(11:38):
their body had been doingdifficult things, that you had
been choosing hard things, whichprepares you for real life out
in the real world.
So if you're in your mid-40s andyou're just getting started, you
have to remember that you're notreally starting from zero
because you've survived hardthings.
(11:59):
You've lived a certain amount oftime, your body understands
certain stimuli, and you'regonna know what you can handle
and what you can't, what youneed and what you don't.
And of course, with theassistance of a professional,
that becomes a little biteasier.
Not as much guessing in thebeginning, not as much doubt in
(12:22):
the beginning, because you havesomeone there who can be outside
of you and watch you performthese things and give you
encouragement and cue youproperly and give you just the
right dose.
Maybe younger people come to thegym with more enthusiasm or a
little less patience.
But a woman in her mid-40s,she's gonna understand what
(12:47):
consistency actually means.
She may not be as enthusiastic,but she has the discipline.
She understands that she doesn'thave time to waste.
She doesn't have time to try allthese different things.
She wants to do what's going tobe the most beneficial for her
in the pursuit of learning aspecific thing like a deadlift
(13:09):
or growing muscle.
Now, even in my own social mediacontent, I've talked about why
strength training is soimportant.
And then then I've realizedeverybody knows this stuff.
And maybe they don't know allthe nitty-gritty and the
details, but I don't think theinformation is what's going to
(13:30):
really motivate someone to getup and go join a gym or to get
up and hire a trainer or tofollow a program.
It has to be deeper than that.
The inspiration and themotivation at the start has to
be something much more powerfulthan just information, because
(13:51):
information alone is not enough.
And having something to followis also not enough, believe it
or not.
Because guess what?
You could go on any website, youcan go to AI, you can go to
YouTube, you can type in a fewthings and get a complete
workout for free.
So why would somebody want topay for something?
(14:12):
Because they need to understandhow to implement that
information and that programinto their existing lifestyle
and how to do it in a way thatleads them to success and not
into overextending themselves ordoing too much of the wrong
thing and not enough of theright things, or to having an
imbalance.
(14:33):
See, that's where just getting aworkout and following along is
simply not enough.
So you have to have a beginnermindset, even if you are a
little bit older, and recognizethat just because you may know
how to do something by watchinga film or a video or someone
(14:53):
showing you pictures how to getfrom A to B to C, you need to
know how it feels in your bodyon whatever day of the week it
is, with whatever footwear youhave and whatever clothing
you're wearing, and whateverheadspace you're in that you
showed up to the gym at.
You see, that's where the realdifference lies.
(15:14):
Now, the real obstacles.
The real obstacles are gonna bea couple of things.
A lack of proper coaching, maybedoing too much too soon,
listening to too many peoplegiving you advice, and maybe
that inner voice that's tellingyou, I don't know, maybe I'm too
(15:36):
old for this, maybe I shouldjust quit.
This is too hard.
I don't know if I can keep thisup.
I don't know what I'm doing.
Is this the right weight?
And another thing, as we getolder, we may need to work on
our mobility a lot more thansomeone 20 years younger than
us.
That's okay.
(15:58):
You may have a history of painin a certain area of your body
or stiffness and tightness.
You may be trying to workthrough hormonal shifts and
changes.
These are real.
So it's not necessarily the ageas a barrier, but more
specifically where your body'sat, what it's been through, and
understanding that you have toexplain this to someone that you
(16:22):
trust and feel safe with acoach, a mentor, a trainer, who
can then take all of thesethings into consideration and
then give you the proper planand then help you execute it.
So you see where I'm going withthis?
So it's not that the age is theexcuse or the reason, it's being
(16:43):
a little bit more patient in thebeginning.
It's doing our due diligence inthe beginning, it's
understanding that there is alot more information to be
exchanged up front so that wecan come up with a program or a
plan that's going to be highlyeffective for the specific
individual in front of us.
(17:04):
I hope that makes sense.
So I'm thinking about this womanin the gym, and I'm really
hopeful that my words to herwere not too harsh because I had
suggested to her the first thingshe should do is to get a coach,
hire a trainer, get a coach fora couple of months.
(17:26):
Everyone believes that they canlearn something in a couple of
weeks.
You might be able to learn it,but there is a huge difference
between learning it and doingit, and then learning it and
implementing it and embodyingit.
And I know you've heard me talkabout this on other episodes
before.
There's a huge difference there.
(17:49):
Even now, thinking about some ofthe business education that I've
gotten over the years, I'veinvested in mentors and coaches
over the last six years.
And even now, I will hear apiece of information and it's
repetitive.
It's something that I've heardbefore or something that I've
learned before, but yet it landsdifferently now.
(18:13):
And the reason for that isbecause I'm at a different
place.
And so the lesson didn't change,but how I received it and what I
was able to get from it iscompletely different than let's
say five or six years ago,because I'm a different person.
So that first thing, get acoach, get a trainer, get
(18:35):
somebody that you can meet withon a consistent basis that's
gonna hold you accountable andthat you're gonna show up for.
Someone who can watch your form,give you cues, build your
confidence, help you to feelsafe, to then take risks,
calculated risks.
For example, putting a littlemore weight on the bar the next
(18:56):
time you're gonna squat, ormaybe trying a mobility exercise
that you've only seen people doon YouTube, but you were always
scared to try yourself withoutsupervision.
Now, the next thing you could dois when you are starting to lift
weights, make sure you're usingweight that feels like almost
too light.
And I'm saying thisintentionally in the beginning,
(19:18):
because we want to make surethat we get the correct movement
patterns locked in.
And it's not just the movementpattern, but it's also the
internal sequence of events, thefiring of the various parts of
your body internally so that youexecute a clean lift from start
(19:38):
to finish, so that you know whatit's supposed to feel like, so
that you can see yourself andfeel yourself doing the lift
flawlessly.
I hired a trainer in 2020 towork with me towards the end of
2020, and we were doingin-person sessions once or twice
(20:01):
a month, and then he would writemy programs for me.
And the primary focus was on myOlympic lifting.
So the snatch and the clean andjerk, and these are highly
technical lifts, there is a lotof skill involved, and the goal
was for me to hit a specificnumber on the snatch, and then
(20:24):
to just see how far I could getwith my clean and jerk.
And when I tell you that it tookme literally years, not weeks,
not months, but years.
Took me about two years to hitmy goal with the snatch.
(20:45):
I wanted to be able to snatch 95pounds and to do it flawlessly
and from the floor all the waydown into the bottom of the
position and stand up.
And if you don't know what I'mtalking about, I apologize.
But for my lifters out there,you know exactly what I mean.
And there is this amazingweightless moment where the bar
(21:07):
is kind of floating in the airand you are moving your body
around underneath it.
And it took me about two yearsto get there.
Imagine working on one thing fortwo years over and over and over
and over again, undoing badpatterns, breaking old habits,
and working through tight areas,stiff areas, getting through
(21:32):
your mobility, and then alsobuilding strength and courage.
And most of the time, this was aremote relationship because I
was working out by myself andsending him recordings of my
lifts.
That was a lot, and it was alsoa lot of fun.
I learned so much about myselfthrough that.
But getting back to the actionitems for you.
(21:55):
So the third thing here, I wantyou to reframe what.
Too old really means, and ifyou're not someone who considers
yourself too old, the next timeyou are about to say, Well, I'm
too old for that, stop yourself.
Because if you what you mean tosay is you're afraid, that's a
(22:16):
different statement, and itactually has nothing to do with
your age.
Fear is just something that yourbrain is processing, and nine
times out of ten, your brain isprotecting you, which is why you
feel fear in the first place.
But fear is a truth, it it meansthat something's important to
(22:39):
you.
It means that you're nervousaround it.
But we're not gonna let thatstop us.
We're gonna keep going in spiteof the fear.
Now, the fourth thing is thattracking would be incredibly
beneficial here.
Not just tracking your metrics,like the number of weight on the
(23:05):
bar, the number of pounds, orthe dumbbells that you use and
what weights they are.
Yeah, that's really valuable.
You've heard me mention thismany times on the show.
But what about tracking how youfeel?
Doing a little check-in withyourself at the end of the week
and just taking note.
Like, how did you feel eachmorning of the week when you
(23:25):
woke up?
How did you sleep?
What's your appetite like?
How are you managing stress?
How do you feel when you go outin the into the public?
So I explained to a differentperson who I met with, a
different woman.
Um, we were looking at hernumbers on the in-body, and I
(23:46):
explained to her, like, youknow, the amount of pounds of
muscle mass that she has on herbody worked great, especially
for someone who was kind of uhin the beginning stages of
strength training.
She had always done classes inthe past.
And when I explained to her, Ionly had a few pounds more of
muscle than her, but I'veintentionally put myself through
(24:10):
bulks and eaten in a surplus onpurpose and lifted extremely
heavy on purpose and have triedto get more muscular on purpose.
I took my zip-up jacket off.
I said, Do you mind if I take myjacket off?
I just want you to look at mybody for a second.
And she said, Okay.
And I had a black tank top onand, you know, black tights,
(24:31):
plain tights on.
And I did a little spin for herand I said, Do I look really
muscular and manly to you?
And she's like, No, not at all.
And I said, I only have abouttwo pounds more of muscle on my
body than you.
And I push myself incrediblyhard in the gym on purpose
because I'm never gonna beskinny, and I don't even want to
try to be skinny anymore.
(24:52):
So I want to be as strong as Ipossibly can be.
And she asked me, why?
Why do I want to do that tomyself?
And when I shared with her thestory about how I went through a
very serious trauma in 2006, um,one that really changed how I
(25:13):
see the world permanently, um itit was just a deliberate choice
that I am not going to be weakever.
And I think that because of mystrength training and my
willingness to push myself andto seek out those challenges and
to get stronger intentionallyhelped me survive this traumatic
(25:37):
event in 2006.
It was really bad.
And I survived it.
And it took me a long time torecover.
But I'm okay, and I know for afact that I was able to minimize
(25:59):
the damage because of the factthat I was strong and because of
the fact that I could fightsomebody off of me.
But not every woman gets thatopportunity because she doesn't
either have the skills to tryto, you know, fight someone off
of her or to get out of adangerous situation or to evade
(26:20):
trouble in the first place, orshe doesn't have this the spidey
senses like I do, to sense thatyou know, danger is nearby, or
to look over her shoulder whenshe's walking to her car at
night in a dark parking lot, orto be alert, or to be strong
enough to wrestle somebody offof you.
And lifting weights is not goingto necessarily give you all of
(26:43):
those skills, but it's going tohelp you be more robust and to
have the strength so that if youfind yourself in a dangerous
situation, your chances ofgetting out of it, of surviving
it, of evading it are muchhigher.
Now that's my motivation for whyI go to the gym most days of the
(27:07):
week and why I push myself sohard.
And that doesn't necessarilyhave to be your motivation, but
it was very telling as I sharedand glossed over some of the
details while explaining to her,just like I did right now to
you, that I went throughsomething and I never want to
find myself in a dangeroussituation again, that was
(27:30):
enough.
And I could see the wheelsturning in her head, realizing
that, yes, it may sound a littlefanatical, but if you're ever
found, if you've ever foundyourself in a situation like
that, or you felt like you wereat risk, you're gonna wish that
you had certain skill sets.
(27:50):
You're gonna wish that you hadtrained for something, that you
had prepared for something.
And you hope that you never needit.
I mean, that's really the bigtakeaway.
So when I see women in the gymwho think maybe they're too old
to start doing something, orwhen I think about that specific
woman who asked me if she's tooold to start deadlifting, the
(28:12):
answer is 100% absolutely not.
Here's the thing the best timeto plant a tree was 20 years
ago.
But the second best time istoday.
And that's the same withstrength training.
You're exactly the right ageright now to find out what
(28:32):
you're capable of, to go getthat strength that you desire.
So if you're contemplating it,again, get a coach, invest for
the long term to give yourselftime to really learn and absorb
and test things and thenimplement and then embody them.
(28:59):
To go from guessing everydecision out on the floor to
just knowing what's next for youand making those calculated
decisions on the fly.
Starting with weight that'slight so that you can perfect
your form, reframing how youthink about yourself.
(29:21):
You're not too old.
There's no such thing.
And then tracking your progressin more ways than just the
strength metrics, but also howyou feel day to day, week to
week, month to month, how youshow up in the world, how you
present yourself at work or inmeetings or on calls.
How do you carry yourselfthrough the world?
(29:44):
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
I know we got a little deeptowards the end, but I'm an open
book and I live my life this waybecause I know that I can help
you.
I really hope you found thisepisode helpful.
And if you have someone in yourlife who's questioning if maybe
they're too old to startstrength training, please send
(30:05):
them this episode.
Now, as always, check the shownotes.
And by the way, I know I tellyou every week you can send me a
text, but now you can also sendme a voicemail, and I'll be able
to listen to it.
And if you have a question forme, that's the best place to
send me your questions.
So you'll see in the show notes,it'll say, Send me a message.
(30:28):
You can do a text message or avoicemail.
I will get the message, and thenI can answer you anonymously on
a future episode.
I appreciate your time andattention as always, week after
week, showing up here foryourself to better yourself.
I'll catch you on the next one.
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