Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I have my friend and Michelle Zelner, our fitness in
health guru. She has been a personal trainer, a lifestyle coach,
so much of just helping people be their happiest, healthiest humans.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And last week she was listening when.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
A Rod and I asked a Rod if he worked
out with weights, and he was like, nope, I do
my cardio and I love it, and he does you
as cardio and he does love it. And I was like, no, bro,
you got to start lifting weights. Because one of the
things that I've realized at fifty five, that twenty five
year old me who would go to goldshym and work
out because I had to, right, I hated every single
(00:35):
minute of it, is how important muscle mass is as
you get older. And I'm gonna throw my mom under
the bus for just a second. And I love my mom,
but my mom has never been what's called an athlete
in any way, shape or form. And she's now eighty
years old, and she had a problem with her hip,
and she had to use a walker as they were
sorting out what's going on with her hip. Just using
(00:57):
the walker, she sprained her left arm just using the walker,
and I'm like, Mom, the walker weighs like a pound
and it was too much for her because she has
no muscle mass whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So I start looking around.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
By eighty most people have lost half their muscle mass,
men and women because they're not weight training. And Michelle,
by the way, when I was talking to a Rod,
is lighting up my phone like.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh my god, I gotta come on, I gotta come
on to talk about this. So here she is to
talk about it. Hello, my friend.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well hello Mandy. And I'm so sad that Aerod's not here,
but I know he's going.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
To listen to this. He will because it.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Is my mission to convince him and everybody. Strength training
is literally required for everybody. And you know A Rod's
in that YbI righte, young, beautiful and into I.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Don't look at me. I don't need to do anything.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
And that's the thing is we don't appreciate what. Yes,
if you want to be healthy, happy and high functioning independent,
it's like a car, you have to do preventive maintenance
on it.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
And I see strength training a lot like that.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Right. If you want to be functional later on, well
you got to do what you need to do to
be able to be functional later on. I'm surprised that
that statistic that by eighty we've only lost half our muscles.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And they do say some people, and I think it's
probably most people. Realistically, I think most people have lost
And I'll never forget my now long deceased grammar. When
I went to help her up, she was eighty two
years old, and it was like helping up a bag
of bones and goo.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
There was no muscle mass whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And the reason I was helping her up is she
could no longer get out of a chair without assistance.
And I, you know, I have these things, and one
of the things that I'm very proud of myself, I
don't have to learn by doing the same mistakes that
my parents and grandparents did. I look at them and go,
what that I'm not doing That. I'm not going to
put myself in a position where I can no longer
(03:01):
get out of a chair unassisted.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
That's not how I'm gonna live my life.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And it's one of the reasons that I started exercising,
one of the reasons that I wait train now, and
one of the reasons that we're talking about this today
because I think that for women, let's talk about women
for a second. Women have my age and older this
concept that I don't want to get big, like they're
gonna go lift a five pound weight, they're gonna look
like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Let's talk about the reality of what
(03:27):
that does and doesn't look like.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Right, Well, there is zero percent chance, and I get
that all the time. I just want a tone. I
don't want to build muscle, and let's talk about what
it is.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Tone.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Tone is muscle that you can see because there's no
body fat covering it.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Right, you do want muscle, you need muscle.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I have to I I did a lot of things
early on in my life that weren't great for me. Right,
I have to say, I'm really grateful that fitness and
strength training specifically was introduced to me at a very
young age through gymnastics. I did it all through and
then when I decided to get into the industry, that's
(04:05):
when I actually really got serious about string training. And
I need to give a huge shout out to Kathy Green,
who owned the JIM that I worked at because I
was a cardio queen.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Right, cardiocard got to do cardio but the eighties.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And nineties, Right, it was the eighties and nineties when
everybody you'd walk into a.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Gym and there would be a tiny little weight.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Area and there would be seventy thousand stair steppers and
treadmills and ellipticals and all of this cardio and then
the just the muscleheads went.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Over to the corner with the waist.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, Kathy owned this gym, and Kathy was a trailblazer
in this. This is back in nineteen ninety six seven.
She was lifting weights. She was a personal traansh to Michelle,
you really need to do this more seriously.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
I dabbled, right, but it was I got do cardio.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Well, when I decided to take her up on this idea,
I never looked back. Because your muscle is magical for
so many reasons, obviously the strength to.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Just do life right.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Like when I see people struggling with something, my heart
is like, ugh, if you only were strengthening your muscles,
your life would be so much easier.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Let me talk about that. For some of our older
audience members. My personal trainer loves senior fitness. It's one
of her passions. She has taught senior fitness for a
very long time, and her thing is by doing this
motion when we've got a small weight in your hand
and you're lifting it over your head. You're able to
put your groceries away. And she attaches all of these
(05:34):
things to real life like these are why we're doing it.
Do you want to live independently? Do you want to
be able to take care and stay in your home?
Do you want to be able to get up off
the ground if you fall?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Right?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Isn't that the fear that someone older is going to
fall and you're not going to know it, They're going
to be on the ground. That happens more often than
we care to think about because people simply don't have
the physical strength to get up. Okay, so this is
why it's important. But is it ever too late to start?
And that is my next stash.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Too late to start.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
The longer you wait, the harder you need to work
to just maintain and slow down the rate to decline.
The thing is, we are losing muscle mass at a
rate of anywhere from one to ten percent a year,
and you are losing it if you don't use it.
So if you don't do anything to actively work and
build your muscles, and yes, a rod climbing on your incline,
(06:27):
great awesome for your quads.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, that's pretty much the only muscle you're working.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
There a whole bunch of muscles and the rest of
our lower, lower body, our upper body, they all need
to be worked because you can't get through life just
with strong quads. You're also going to create imbalances that
could lead to some other issues issues.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, so let me ask this because this is a
big question, and I've been seeing a lot of stuff
lately like calisthenics are kind of having a comeback where
you're essentially using body weight and you're doing exercises that
you don't even need weights for. What are your thoughts
on calisthenics versus weight training and if it is if
we do need weight training specifically, what are we looking
(07:08):
at in terms of how much weight do we need
to lift?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
So it really depends on the overall goal. Am I
trying to slow down the rate of decline? Am I
trying to maintain? Or am I trying to build? So
calisthenics can help you slow.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Down the rate of decline?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Okay for sure. Now, well, our friend Hazel, she still
does push ups. She's ninety three years old. She does
push up.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
She does crunches, she does squats, she does all of it,
but as far as I know, she uses no weight,
but she has just she's in great shape well.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
And that goes to the overload principle. So it depends
on how many are you doing right to what point
fatigue or failure. So if you do calisthenics, let's say
you're gonna do body weight squats. If you keep doing
those squats until you literally can't do one more squat, right,
then you're going to maintain and probably build. Most people
don't do squats until they literally can't do one more squat, right.
(08:00):
So when it comes to how heavy or how often,
it's really about the overload principle, and that is to
the point of fatigue or failure? Can I do one
more with good form? If you can, you kind of
need to right right now. If you choose not to,
then you have slowed down the rate of decline because
you've used your muscles, but you didn't use them to
the degree that's that's going to build. You may have
(08:23):
used it to degree where we're going to maintain, right,
So it really depends on what you're trying to achieve,
And then you know what exercises, weights, resistance bands, you know,
body weight exercise whatever. Again, that really just I don't
ever want to tell somebody you need to do it
this way, because if they can't or won't do it
that way, then they'll do nothing right. Right. I always
(08:43):
like to look at what are you willing and able
to do right? What is realistic for you? And I
tell I just had this conversation with dear friend yesterday,
you know, when she used to work out, she used
to train with me, and I said.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Look, do push up some squats in your house, right.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Because she's like, oh, I could join this gym and
I could get this equipment. I'm like, get some fifteen
pound dumbells, hold them, do squats, do bicy curls, do
push ups? Do that three times a week. You are
leaps and bounds ahead of where you.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Are today, right right?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And I think that's the all or nothing thinking about
this kind of stuff. Is Okay, I have to join
a gym, I have to go in there, I have
to lift heavy weights. And that's just not necessarily accurate.
It's more about just consistency.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Consistency is so critical.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Are we start to decondition within seventy two hours after
you've stopped using that muscle.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Really, so it takes that well, I can I can
tell you that just from going on vacation, right, I
mean when you go on if now I've started working
out on vacation just because I don't want to have
the drop off when I get back, but even ten
days off, you can feel the difference.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
So when I am out of my normal structure, my
workouts are to prevent the rate of decline. Right, That's
how I manage when I'm not in my normal routine
here at home, I'm traveling, or people are in town
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
The schedule is really really full.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Okay, well, I'm going to do as much as I
can to prevent decline. That's my goal at that time
when I'm kind of in a more regular schedule, I'm
gonna do everything I can to either maintain or build,
depending on where I happen to be in my own
health at the point. Right, And so that consistency is
so critical. And I've I've worked with so many people like, yeah,
(10:17):
I used to strength train, I really liked it, and
then just stopped. Well that's the thing is once you
stop it, I mean, at some point it's almost like
you're back to zero.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah, but totally right.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
This is what I tell people all the time.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
What's been amazing for me is how quickly you can
build strength. It's not like you're going to be lifting
five pound weights for the next six weeks.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
You do five pound weights for a couple of.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Weeks, then you're like, you know what, I can go
up to those eight pound weights this time, and you
can go up incrementally like that so fast?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yes, and you and you have to writ if you
are doing the same thing forever again, you're probably just
slowing down the rate of decline. Which great, that's totally fine. Right.
If that's your goal, and that's all you want to
put into it, all you're willing or able to put
into it, that's great. If you want to maintain where
you are today, or you want to get better from
(11:08):
where you are today for next week, next year, ten years,
thirty years from now, then that's a little more effort,
that's a little more time.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
It's probably more weight.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
It's different exercises, but consistency is always part of the mix.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I want to give some of the stats.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I actually retweeted this thread from a doctor named doctor
Patty Barrett. And I did look up because I was like,
Patty Barrett is not a real doctor's name, but it
is and one of the things he put on here.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
High levels of.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Muscle mass achieved by regular resistance training are associated with
lower coronary artery calcification scores, which is a marker of
plaque and an indicator of increased risks.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
So that is about your heart health.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Well. And so here's the thing. This is what is
so critical. Muscle is metabolically active, right. Muscle is utilizing
your fuel et glucose every single second of your life.
That kind of sits around and doesn't do anything. You know,
my food issues early on in my life. Yes, I
hesitate to think what my health would have been if
(12:12):
I didn't have muscle. Yeah, because that muscle was burning
up all the sugar I was eating, not all of it,
but a lot of it.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
And if I you know, I'm all about, oh, burn
it off through cardio. Right. No, it's the muscle that
saved me. I know that.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
And as I took strength training more seriously and built
muscle mass and really have worked hard to maintain and
continue to build that. I know that's the reason that
my weight has been able to be stable.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Well, oh well, I'm going to be fifty two next month.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
So I know it's because of muscle because I've had
it and I've never lost it, and I've only continued
to choose to build it over the course of time.
So this is why I'm so passionate about it. And
I everybody, man, woman, I don't care how old you are,
I don't care what your goals are. Skeletal muscle is
the thing that's going to allow you to stay high functioning.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And that's what I want to impart.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
And it's easier to put yourself into a situation where
you're not playing ketchup by just making weight training a
regular part of your life. And I want to give
a few more stats here. Resistance training is associated with
a range of benefits. A fifteen percent decrease in all
cause mortality, a car nineteen percent decrease in cardiovascular death,
(13:26):
fourteen percent decrease in cancer deaths, and with greater than
sixty minutes per week, all cause mortality drops by twenty
seven percent. That's just from lifting weights.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Well, and let's talk about as you get older and
we're unstable, right, muscle around your joints keeps your joints stable, yep,
And you want to not fall down, well, then let's
have some stability.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And core strength is incredibly important for balance going forward.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
It is like the key the whole. Your core is
the key of everything when you get older.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Well in bone density, I mean I talk to a
lot of and there are a lot of very small
framed males and females, and they are at very high
risk for osteoporosis. Yeah, we don't think about osteoporosis when
we're thirty, but we should. Yeah, because by the age
of twenty eight you have achieved peak bone mass. After that,
(14:17):
your rate of withdrawal out of your bone bank is
much more aggressive than your rate of deposit. And so
you know, strength training is one of the best ways
to help continue to build the bone bank because of
the constant contraction of the two muscles around the bone
helping to stimulate that bone growth.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So for me, you know, like I always hated to
work out, it's only been within you know, the last
like maybe five six years, I've found a trainer I
absolutely love and have made it a habit, and now
I'm one of those people that's like, oh, I didn't
get to do any exercise today, because ultimately it helps
me sleep better, it helps with my mood.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I call it the anti murder drug.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Like you know, if you're a high stress individual, there
is nothing more satisfying than working your body to the
point of failure when you are super stressed. It almost
seems counterintuitive, but I think that we all hold this
stress in our body all the time, and lifting heavy
things is the easiest way to just take that physical
part of stress away.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
If somebody is are a listening audience right now and
they don't have any weights, they don't want to join
a gym, what is the best way, like baby steps
to do this.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I mean, I'm always going to be concerned about proper
form and alignment. So if you really don't know what
you're doing, I am going to encourage you to invest
some time and money to work with a professional who
can at least evaluate your biomechanics, evaluate your form. The
worst thing to do is to get hurt. The second
worst thing to do is to waste your time. Right,
And so you know, if you really have never gone
(15:51):
down this road before, then why not just make sure
you're going to do it right. And there's plenty of
people you can find who can even do these things.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Virtually.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
You can find a gym and just do a couple
of these things if you have a decent sense of
body awareness. There's plenty things online, right, lots of apps,
lots of things on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
But keep it simple, you.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Know, figure out what are you willing and able to devote,
how much time and what kind of equipment. Right, maybe
we're gonna start with body weight, We're gonna do push ups,
We're gonna do body weight squats. Awesome, your leaps and
bounds ahead of what you were doing yesterday.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And let me just say this, when I first started
working out with my trainer like six seven years ago,
now I can only do three push ups. And now
I don't even know how many push ups I do
in a workout. It's that many that I'm not counting.
So don't be discouraged if you can't do a push up,
or you have trouble doing a crunch, or you have
trouble doing these things, because, like I said, the strength
(16:49):
that you build so fast is so shocking it's so,
and then when you feel strong like that is the
very best way to feel.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
And it's really hard to help somebody wrap their head
around what that feels like when you've never felt it
right right, you get used to just feeling the way
you feel and you're like, oh, that can't be that
big of a deal, and then you feel you're like, WHOA,
I never not want to feel this.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Way exactly, which is why I now work on work
out on vacation because that Monday getting back from vacation,
it's like, well, here, I feel like a.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Giant tabagoo because all I did.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Was eat everything for the last ten days, and now
I'm gonna come back and exercise. Michelle, How can people
get in touch with you if they would? I mean,
I don't know if you still are if you're still
doing that, are you just doing the corporate stuff?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
What are you doing?
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Really? You know? I do a little bit of one
on one guidance coaching. I don't do any personal training anymore,
but I can certainly help somebody sort things out, and
they can just go to my website, Better Beings dot Net.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Contact me. It's very easy to find me.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
This is just one of those things that seems really
really intimidating until you know how to do it and
then you're like, wow, part of me is feeling kind
of stupid thinking that this is you know, it's it's
normal to feel intimidated something you have no idea.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, I grew up in a gym, so it's like,
no big deal. But I get it when someone that's
a foreign world to them and they think everybody's looking
at them and they don't know what they're doing and
they're self conscious, and you know what, we just got
to get over that fear.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Trust me, no one's looking at it exactly. And if
they are looking at you, they're thinking about themselves as
they're looking at you.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
They're not looking at.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You, or they're looking at you and they're thinking, good
job you. Yeah, so happy that you're here in this
gym doing that.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Can we talk about gyms for just a second, because
gyms are not a one is right for everybody kind
of situation. You should go in and look around, like
the time of day you want to go work out,
Like say, okay, I'm gonna go at seven am.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Go to that gym at seven am. Look who else
is there?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
For a long time, I worked out at a rec
center in Douglas County and when I went to the gym,
I was the only person under seventy years old that
was there.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
But I loved it because everybody's like, young lady, are
you dead? Yes, I am. Go ahead and take that.
I've finished, Sarah, thank you. Figure out where you want
to be.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And if you make it a pointment with a trainer
and you don't like them, make it a point with
a different trainer. It's like anything else. It's not one
size fits all.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
No, And I think that's you know, part of like,
oh everybody wants like this cookie cutter, just do this now.
We got to get over the idea that that exists
and just recognize you're a unique individual. You have unique
individual needs. Take the time to invest in yourself so
that your future self can live that life.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
And this is an investment that will pay off over
and over and over and over again as you continue
to age and be strong and be healthy and be
able to get up out of a chair and be
able to get up off the floor if you fall,
and you not fall in the first place.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Well, and I know, especially the YbI that think, well
that will never be me. I'll never have a trust
me getting off the foot right.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah, sneaks up on you a lot faster than you
think it does.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
And that's the thing is, it doesn't have to be you,
but you need to do things to make sure that
it isn't you.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yep, yep, Michelle Zelner a joy as always.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I put a link?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Did I put a link? Did I forget today? I
always put a link? Hang on if I didn't put
a link, I will add a link to Michelle's website,
Betterbeans dot Net.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I actually just got.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
A friend of mine to buy her book, The U Revolution,
because I think that if you are at a point
where you want to change your healthy life, the U
Revolution book that she has is phenomenal and it doesn't
give you the just eat this for three days and
you'll lose fifty but it's very realistic, but it will
help you cut through the crap and create new habits
for yourself.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I will add that link right now.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Thank you man.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
All right, good to see Michelle Zelener. We'll be right
back
I have my friend and Michelle Zelner, our fitness in
health guru. She has been a personal trainer, a lifestyle coach,
so much of just helping people be their happiest, healthiest humans.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
And last week she was listening when.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
A Rod and I asked a Rod if he worked
out with weights, and he was like, nope, I do
my cardio and I love it, and he does you
as cardio and he does love it. And I was like, no, bro,
you got to start lifting weights. Because one of the
things that I've realized at fifty five, that twenty five
year old me who would go to goldshym and work
out because I had to, right, I hated every single
(00:35):
minute of it, is how important muscle mass is as
you get older. And I'm gonna throw my mom under
the bus for just a second. And I love my mom,
but my mom has never been what's called an athlete
in any way, shape or form. And she's now eighty
years old, and she had a problem with her hip,
and she had to use a walker as they were
sorting out what's going on with her hip. Just using
(00:57):
the walker, she sprained her left arm just using the walker,
and I'm like, Mom, the walker weighs like a pound
and it was too much for her because she has
no muscle mass whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So I start looking around.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
By eighty most people have lost half their muscle mass,
men and women because they're not weight training. And Michelle,
by the way, when I was talking to a Rod,
is lighting up my phone like.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh my god, I gotta come on, I gotta come
on to talk about this. So here she is to
talk about it. Hello, my friend.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well hello Mandy. And I'm so sad that Aerod's not here,
but I know he's going.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
To listen to this. He will because it.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Is my mission to convince him and everybody. Strength training
is literally required for everybody. And you know A Rod's
in that YbI righte, young, beautiful and into I.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Don't look at me. I don't need to do anything.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
And that's the thing is we don't appreciate what. Yes,
if you want to be healthy, happy and high functioning independent,
it's like a car, you have to do preventive maintenance
on it.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
And I see strength training a lot like that.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Right. If you want to be functional later on, well
you got to do what you need to do to
be able to be functional later on. I'm surprised that
that statistic that by eighty we've only lost half our muscles.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And they do say some people, and I think it's
probably most people. Realistically, I think most people have lost
And I'll never forget my now long deceased grammar. When
I went to help her up, she was eighty two
years old, and it was like helping up a bag
of bones and goo.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
There was no muscle mass whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And the reason I was helping her up is she
could no longer get out of a chair without assistance.
And I, you know, I have these things, and one
of the things that I'm very proud of myself, I
don't have to learn by doing the same mistakes that
my parents and grandparents did. I look at them and go,
what that I'm not doing That. I'm not going to
put myself in a position where I can no longer
(03:01):
get out of a chair unassisted.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
That's not how I'm gonna live my life.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
And it's one of the reasons that I started exercising,
one of the reasons that I wait train now, and
one of the reasons that we're talking about this today
because I think that for women, let's talk about women
for a second. Women have my age and older this
concept that I don't want to get big, like they're
gonna go lift a five pound weight, they're gonna look
like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Let's talk about the reality of what
(03:27):
that does and doesn't look like.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Right, Well, there is zero percent chance, and I get
that all the time. I just want a tone. I
don't want to build muscle, and let's talk about what
it is.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Tone.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Tone is muscle that you can see because there's no
body fat covering it.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Right, you do want muscle, you need muscle.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I have to I I did a lot of things
early on in my life that weren't great for me. Right,
I have to say, I'm really grateful that fitness and
strength training specifically was introduced to me at a very
young age through gymnastics. I did it all through and
then when I decided to get into the industry, that's
(04:05):
when I actually really got serious about string training. And
I need to give a huge shout out to Kathy Green,
who owned the JIM that I worked at because I
was a cardio queen.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Right, cardiocard got to do cardio but the eighties.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And nineties, Right, it was the eighties and nineties when
everybody you'd walk into a.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Gym and there would be a tiny little weight.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Area and there would be seventy thousand stair steppers and
treadmills and ellipticals and all of this cardio and then
the just the muscleheads went.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Over to the corner with the waist.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, Kathy owned this gym, and Kathy was a trailblazer
in this. This is back in nineteen ninety six seven.
She was lifting weights. She was a personal traansh to Michelle,
you really need to do this more seriously.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
I dabbled, right, but it was I got do cardio.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Well, when I decided to take her up on this idea,
I never looked back. Because your muscle is magical for
so many reasons, obviously the strength to.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Just do life right.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Like when I see people struggling with something, my heart
is like, ugh, if you only were strengthening your muscles,
your life would be so much easier.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Let me talk about that. For some of our older
audience members. My personal trainer loves senior fitness. It's one
of her passions. She has taught senior fitness for a
very long time, and her thing is by doing this
motion when we've got a small weight in your hand
and you're lifting it over your head. You're able to
put your groceries away. And she attaches all of these
(05:34):
things to real life like these are why we're doing it.
Do you want to live independently? Do you want to
be able to take care and stay in your home?
Do you want to be able to get up off
the ground if you fall?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Right?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Isn't that the fear that someone older is going to
fall and you're not going to know it, They're going
to be on the ground. That happens more often than
we care to think about because people simply don't have
the physical strength to get up. Okay, so this is
why it's important. But is it ever too late to start?
And that is my next stash.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
Too late to start.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
The longer you wait, the harder you need to work
to just maintain and slow down the rate to decline.
The thing is, we are losing muscle mass at a
rate of anywhere from one to ten percent a year,
and you are losing it if you don't use it.
So if you don't do anything to actively work and
build your muscles, and yes, a rod climbing on your incline,
(06:27):
great awesome for your quads.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Yeah, that's pretty much the only muscle you're working.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
There a whole bunch of muscles and the rest of
our lower, lower body, our upper body, they all need
to be worked because you can't get through life just
with strong quads. You're also going to create imbalances that
could lead to some other issues issues.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, so let me ask this because this is a
big question, and I've been seeing a lot of stuff
lately like calisthenics are kind of having a comeback where
you're essentially using body weight and you're doing exercises that
you don't even need weights for. What are your thoughts
on calisthenics versus weight training and if it is if
we do need weight training specifically, what are we looking
(07:08):
at in terms of how much weight do we need
to lift?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
So it really depends on the overall goal. Am I
trying to slow down the rate of decline? Am I
trying to maintain? Or am I trying to build? So
calisthenics can help you slow.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Down the rate of decline?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Okay for sure. Now, well, our friend Hazel, she still
does push ups. She's ninety three years old. She does
push up.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
She does crunches, she does squats, she does all of it,
but as far as I know, she uses no weight,
but she has just she's in great shape well.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
And that goes to the overload principle. So it depends
on how many are you doing right to what point
fatigue or failure. So if you do calisthenics, let's say
you're gonna do body weight squats. If you keep doing
those squats until you literally can't do one more squat, right,
then you're going to maintain and probably build. Most people
don't do squats until they literally can't do one more squat, right.
(08:00):
So when it comes to how heavy or how often,
it's really about the overload principle, and that is to
the point of fatigue or failure? Can I do one
more with good form? If you can, you kind of
need to right right now. If you choose not to,
then you have slowed down the rate of decline because
you've used your muscles, but you didn't use them to
the degree that's that's going to build. You may have
(08:23):
used it to degree where we're going to maintain, right,
So it really depends on what you're trying to achieve,
And then you know what exercises, weights, resistance bands, you know,
body weight exercise whatever. Again, that really just I don't
ever want to tell somebody you need to do it
this way, because if they can't or won't do it
that way, then they'll do nothing right. Right. I always
(08:43):
like to look at what are you willing and able
to do right? What is realistic for you? And I
tell I just had this conversation with dear friend yesterday,
you know, when she used to work out, she used
to train with me, and I said.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Look, do push up some squats in your house, right.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Because she's like, oh, I could join this gym and
I could get this equipment. I'm like, get some fifteen
pound dumbells, hold them, do squats, do bicy curls, do
push ups? Do that three times a week. You are
leaps and bounds ahead of where you.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Are today, right right?
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And I think that's the all or nothing thinking about
this kind of stuff. Is Okay, I have to join
a gym, I have to go in there, I have
to lift heavy weights. And that's just not necessarily accurate.
It's more about just consistency.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Consistency is so critical.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Are we start to decondition within seventy two hours after
you've stopped using that muscle.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Really, so it takes that well, I can I can
tell you that just from going on vacation, right, I
mean when you go on if now I've started working
out on vacation just because I don't want to have
the drop off when I get back, but even ten
days off, you can feel the difference.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
So when I am out of my normal structure, my
workouts are to prevent the rate of decline. Right, That's
how I manage when I'm not in my normal routine
here at home, I'm traveling, or people are in town
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
The schedule is really really full.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Okay, well, I'm going to do as much as I
can to prevent decline. That's my goal at that time
when I'm kind of in a more regular schedule, I'm
gonna do everything I can to either maintain or build,
depending on where I happen to be in my own
health at the point. Right, And so that consistency is
so critical. And I've I've worked with so many people like, yeah,
(10:17):
I used to strength train, I really liked it, and
then just stopped. Well that's the thing is once you
stop it, I mean, at some point it's almost like
you're back to zero.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah, but totally right.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
This is what I tell people all the time.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
What's been amazing for me is how quickly you can
build strength. It's not like you're going to be lifting
five pound weights for the next six weeks.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
You do five pound weights for a couple of.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Weeks, then you're like, you know what, I can go
up to those eight pound weights this time, and you
can go up incrementally like that so fast?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yes, and you and you have to writ if you
are doing the same thing forever again, you're probably just
slowing down the rate of decline. Which great, that's totally fine. Right.
If that's your goal, and that's all you want to
put into it, all you're willing or able to put
into it, that's great. If you want to maintain where
you are today, or you want to get better from
(11:08):
where you are today for next week, next year, ten years,
thirty years from now, then that's a little more effort,
that's a little more time.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
It's probably more weight.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
It's different exercises, but consistency is always part of the mix.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I want to give some of the stats.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I actually retweeted this thread from a doctor named doctor
Patty Barrett. And I did look up because I was like,
Patty Barrett is not a real doctor's name, but it
is and one of the things he put on here.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
High levels of.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Muscle mass achieved by regular resistance training are associated with
lower coronary artery calcification scores, which is a marker of
plaque and an indicator of increased risks.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
So that is about your heart health.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Well. And so here's the thing. This is what is
so critical. Muscle is metabolically active, right. Muscle is utilizing
your fuel et glucose every single second of your life.
That kind of sits around and doesn't do anything. You know,
my food issues early on in my life. Yes, I
hesitate to think what my health would have been if
(12:12):
I didn't have muscle. Yeah, because that muscle was burning
up all the sugar I was eating, not all of it,
but a lot of it.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
And if I you know, I'm all about, oh, burn
it off through cardio. Right. No, it's the muscle that
saved me. I know that.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
And as I took strength training more seriously and built
muscle mass and really have worked hard to maintain and
continue to build that. I know that's the reason that
my weight has been able to be stable.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Well, oh well, I'm going to be fifty two next month.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
So I know it's because of muscle because I've had
it and I've never lost it, and I've only continued
to choose to build it over the course of time.
So this is why I'm so passionate about it. And
I everybody, man, woman, I don't care how old you are,
I don't care what your goals are. Skeletal muscle is
the thing that's going to allow you to stay high functioning.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
And that's what I want to impart.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
And it's easier to put yourself into a situation where
you're not playing ketchup by just making weight training a
regular part of your life. And I want to give
a few more stats here. Resistance training is associated with
a range of benefits. A fifteen percent decrease in all
cause mortality, a car nineteen percent decrease in cardiovascular death,
(13:26):
fourteen percent decrease in cancer deaths, and with greater than
sixty minutes per week, all cause mortality drops by twenty
seven percent. That's just from lifting weights.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Well, and let's talk about as you get older and
we're unstable, right, muscle around your joints keeps your joints stable, yep,
And you want to not fall down, well, then let's
have some stability.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And core strength is incredibly important for balance going forward.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
It is like the key the whole. Your core is
the key of everything when you get older.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Well in bone density, I mean I talk to a
lot of and there are a lot of very small
framed males and females, and they are at very high
risk for osteoporosis. Yeah, we don't think about osteoporosis when
we're thirty, but we should. Yeah, because by the age
of twenty eight you have achieved peak bone mass. After that,
(14:17):
your rate of withdrawal out of your bone bank is
much more aggressive than your rate of deposit. And so
you know, strength training is one of the best ways
to help continue to build the bone bank because of
the constant contraction of the two muscles around the bone
helping to stimulate that bone growth.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So for me, you know, like I always hated to
work out, it's only been within you know, the last
like maybe five six years, I've found a trainer I
absolutely love and have made it a habit, and now
I'm one of those people that's like, oh, I didn't
get to do any exercise today, because ultimately it helps
me sleep better, it helps with my mood.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I call it the anti murder drug.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Like you know, if you're a high stress individual, there
is nothing more satisfying than working your body to the
point of failure when you are super stressed. It almost
seems counterintuitive, but I think that we all hold this
stress in our body all the time, and lifting heavy
things is the easiest way to just take that physical
part of stress away.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
So let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
If somebody is are a listening audience right now and
they don't have any weights, they don't want to join
a gym, what is the best way, like baby steps
to do this.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I mean, I'm always going to be concerned about proper
form and alignment. So if you really don't know what
you're doing, I am going to encourage you to invest
some time and money to work with a professional who
can at least evaluate your biomechanics, evaluate your form. The
worst thing to do is to get hurt. The second
worst thing to do is to waste your time. Right,
And so you know, if you really have never gone
(15:51):
down this road before, then why not just make sure
you're going to do it right. And there's plenty of
people you can find who can even do these things.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Virtually.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
You can find a gym and just do a couple
of these things if you have a decent sense of
body awareness. There's plenty things online, right, lots of apps,
lots of things on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
But keep it simple, you.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Know, figure out what are you willing and able to devote,
how much time and what kind of equipment. Right, maybe
we're gonna start with body weight, We're gonna do push ups,
We're gonna do body weight squats. Awesome, your leaps and
bounds ahead of what you were doing yesterday.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And let me just say this, when I first started
working out with my trainer like six seven years ago,
now I can only do three push ups. And now
I don't even know how many push ups I do
in a workout. It's that many that I'm not counting.
So don't be discouraged if you can't do a push up,
or you have trouble doing a crunch, or you have
trouble doing these things, because, like I said, the strength
(16:49):
that you build so fast is so shocking it's so,
and then when you feel strong like that is the
very best way to feel.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
And it's really hard to help somebody wrap their head
around what that feels like when you've never felt it
right right, you get used to just feeling the way
you feel and you're like, oh, that can't be that
big of a deal, and then you feel you're like, WHOA,
I never not want to feel this.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Way exactly, which is why I now work on work
out on vacation because that Monday getting back from vacation,
it's like, well, here, I feel like a.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Giant tabagoo because all I did.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Was eat everything for the last ten days, and now
I'm gonna come back and exercise. Michelle, How can people
get in touch with you if they would? I mean,
I don't know if you still are if you're still
doing that, are you just doing the corporate stuff?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
What are you doing?
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Really? You know? I do a little bit of one
on one guidance coaching. I don't do any personal training anymore,
but I can certainly help somebody sort things out, and
they can just go to my website, Better Beings dot Net.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
Contact me. It's very easy to find me.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
This is just one of those things that seems really
really intimidating until you know how to do it and
then you're like, wow, part of me is feeling kind
of stupid thinking that this is you know, it's it's
normal to feel intimidated something you have no idea.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, I grew up in a gym, so it's like,
no big deal. But I get it when someone that's
a foreign world to them and they think everybody's looking
at them and they don't know what they're doing and
they're self conscious, and you know what, we just got
to get over that fear.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Trust me, no one's looking at it exactly. And if
they are looking at you, they're thinking about themselves as
they're looking at you.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
They're not looking at.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You, or they're looking at you and they're thinking, good
job you. Yeah, so happy that you're here in this
gym doing that.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Can we talk about gyms for just a second, because
gyms are not a one is right for everybody kind
of situation. You should go in and look around, like
the time of day you want to go work out,
Like say, okay, I'm gonna go at seven am.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Go to that gym at seven am. Look who else
is there?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
For a long time, I worked out at a rec
center in Douglas County and when I went to the gym,
I was the only person under seventy years old that
was there.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
But I loved it because everybody's like, young lady, are
you dead? Yes, I am. Go ahead and take that.
I've finished, Sarah, thank you. Figure out where you want
to be.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And if you make it a pointment with a trainer
and you don't like them, make it a point with
a different trainer. It's like anything else. It's not one
size fits all.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
No, And I think that's you know, part of like,
oh everybody wants like this cookie cutter, just do this now.
We got to get over the idea that that exists
and just recognize you're a unique individual. You have unique
individual needs. Take the time to invest in yourself so
that your future self can live that life.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
And this is an investment that will pay off over
and over and over and over again as you continue
to age and be strong and be healthy and be
able to get up out of a chair and be
able to get up off the floor if you fall,
and you not fall in the first place.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Well, and I know, especially the YbI that think, well
that will never be me. I'll never have a trust
me getting off the foot right.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah, sneaks up on you a lot faster than you
think it does.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
And that's the thing is, it doesn't have to be you,
but you need to do things to make sure that
it isn't you.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yep, yep, Michelle Zelner a joy as always.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I put a link?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Did I put a link? Did I forget today? I
always put a link? Hang on if I didn't put
a link, I will add a link to Michelle's website,
Betterbeans dot Net.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I actually just got.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
A friend of mine to buy her book, The U Revolution,
because I think that if you are at a point
where you want to change your healthy life, the U
Revolution book that she has is phenomenal and it doesn't
give you the just eat this for three days and
you'll lose fifty but it's very realistic, but it will
help you cut through the crap and create new habits
for yourself.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I will add that link right now.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Thank you man.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
All right, good to see Michelle Zelener. We'll be right
back
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