Full Transcript for #24: Strength Classes and How They're Holding You Back

think about it, they're designed for entertainment. If if you've gone to the same class for years, how often have you repeated the exact workout? If you've done the same YouTube series or gone to the same boot camp class or strength training class, have you ever repeated the same workout? And maybe your argument will be, well, no, but we repeat the same exercises just in different order. Well, that actually matters as well because your strength and your energy coming into a class with your very first exercise is going to be different than it with your fifth exercise. And that really matters. Having an exercise where it is in your workout is going to have a huge impact on how much you're able to l to lift and your performance in that workout and maybe how many reps you aim to hit versus how many reps you would aim to hit if an exercise was programmed later in your workout. All of that actually really matters for your results. And how often are you actually repeating the same workout? Probably never. And why is that? Because people get bored. Okay? People won't come back to those classes if they are repeating the same thing. So every workout ends up being new exercises or a new order or new circuits or new intervals or different equipment because it keeps it fun. It keeps it exciting. And again, that's not necessarily a bad thing because exercise is good. But your muscles don't care if you're entertained, right? Your muscles are going to respond. To repeated tension over time. And the only way to get that is to have some form of structure. Now you might be like, but that sounds boring. Repeating the same workouts sounds boring. I promise you, I have worked with women just like you for over 10 years now. And almost every single time their mindset gets transformed. Because it might sound boring to repeat the same workout, but you're only repeating those same workouts. Every week for a set number of weeks when you're following a structured program. So it might be six weeks, might be four, might be eight weeks, totally depends. But what makes it inherently fun is because you're doing the same exercises, instead of thinking like, what fun new routine is it? You're going in thinking, how can I beat myself from last week? Okay, this is what I did last week. What improvements can I make this week? So you're actually adding this element of competition with yourself. And that is what's going to create. progress is that structure and that idea of progressive overload. You can't progressively overload random workouts. And this is one of the biggest issues. So let's say you do in a class, you do goblet squats and you do 15 pounds and you do it for 12 reps. But then the following Tuesday you're doing lunges and then on Thursday you're doing jump squats. And then on Monday you're doing single leg squats. How do you actually know if you're getting stronger? Yes, you can could be able to progressively overload by doing those different squat patterns, because all of

those exercises are in the squat pattern. A squat, a lunge, a jump squat obviously, a single leg squat is kind of like a lunge, a Bulgarian split squat, where they're on knee dominant movements. So yes, if you do all of those and you're and you progressively overload those, even if they're different, you could theoretically get stronger, but you have no way to really comparatively adjust the weights in order to progressively overload them, if that makes sense. So you don't really know if you're getting stronger. It might feel hard, but the thing about muscle building is that your body won't adapt unless you f give it something it has to adapt to. And I kind of like the analogy of languages. So we're a multilanguage household and we lived in Germany for a while and our kids spoke fluent German. But as soon as we moved back to Texas and they weren't using it, they lost it. And we even had them in a Sunday German school for almost a year. So they were going to German school every Sunday for three hours in the morning. And even with that, they were losing it. And the reason why was because the teachers at the German school spoke English. And if my kids spoke English to them, they responded in English. And the other kids in the class also spoke English. And so if my kids spoke to them in English, those kids would respond. And if there is not a need to speak the language, Then your brain will let it go. And it's very similar with building muscle. If there's not a need to adapt, then your body won't adapt. You can be surrounded by German and not pick it up and not learn it. You have to actually be forced to use it and then your brain will adapt. And it's the same with muscles. You have to be forced to push them beyond what they can already do. Or you will not change. And if you're never repeating the same lift in a consistent enough way to track it, then that progressive overload that your body needs in order to be able to change becomes almost impossible. The goal in your workouts should be to get better, to get faster, to get stronger, to do a little more than last time in some way, not just to feel tired. Actually, you might have a workout where you progress and it's actually a very effective workout and you don't feel tired when you walk out. And that's okay because that should not be the pure measure of how great a workout is. You should be asking yourself, can I lift a little more on this lift? Could I add another rep to this lift? Can I improve my technique on this lift? That's how muscle is built. Okay. Think about it. This way also. When you're doing those types of classes, they're designed for a group. Everyone is getting the same workout. There's usually one instructor and like 20 women, or if you're online, way more than that, right? maybe one woman is 35-year-old mom, one is 62, you know, is already postmenopausal. Maybe one had, you know, surgery and has knee issues. Maybe you have one that's been lifting for 10 years and just needs home workouts for a while. One who's brand new and just started yesterday. Should they all be doing the same workout? Maybe. There is definitely there's programs that I have where literally anybody could follow that program, but it's about how you follow it that's going to determine the kind of results you get from it. You're not going to approach the workout the same way if you're somebody who's a beginner or somebody that's been lifting for 10 years. If you're somebody who's, you know, very, very busy and doesn't have a lot of time for things versus somebody who has, you know, is 20 years old and has all the time in the world. It's going to be different depending on the individual. And this is where your your training really has to reflect that as well. And you're not going to get the same results if you're expecting everybody. You know, if you're if you're writing a if you're writing a workout class or a program for, you know, the masses, you there has to be an amount of like working inside specific parameters and inside the box in order to meet a wide variety of needs. And that naturally is going to miss a lot of people and cause a lot of people to stay kind of stuck for a while, if that makes sense. In these classes as well, speed is usually what wins. So if you ever just stand back and watch many of these bootcamp classes, CrossFit, Orange Theory, even online classes through body or through a YouTube series. It's usually like, all right, let's move to the next exercise. We've got a timer. Go move, hurry, like minimal rest, keep that heart rate up. We're not really thinking. They're encouraging a little bit of rushing, momentum, right? A lot of times this will come with poor technique. If you're doing something online, there's nobody checking your technique. If you're in a class, that one instructor is not watching everybody's technique to a T. A lot of times those instructors are not actually great at judging technique. and they don't have to be because again, they're doing something for a wide variety. You're not offered a lot of weight in there. So most likely you're not actually lifting a a heavy amount anyway. You're just doing it for a lot of reps so that you feel tired. Because the problem is you can't actually give a room full of 20 women heavy enough weight to actually challenge their muscles and expect one instructor to be able to monitor all of them. It's just not safe. So they just don't even give you access to them. So you don't even have the opportunity, even if you did want to slow that down. and do the class, but do it the quote unquote right way and slow it down and make sure you're lifting heavy enough, you're not even given the opportunity because they don't provide you actual weights that would get you there. You need to go on the gym floor to get those weights. So we get poor technique, we get lighter weights, and really that's the exact opposite of how you maximize muscle growth. Women already don't lift heavy enough. We

have research consistently showing that up to 70% of women are not actually pushing themselves to what they need to create adaptation and change. Women are stopping sets before they're actually close to failure. And then you take these women and you put them in a timed circuit, you know, 30 seconds, this, 45 seconds, and move on to the next. Do you think they're gonna go grab heavier dumbbells and challenge their muscles? No, usually not. You're grabbing lighter weights so you can survive the timer. and again, it's gonna feel hard. Your muscles are gonna feel fatigued, but you're training their endurance. You're not really training their strength and you're not t sending them a signal to get better and to get stronger. And There's this YouTube workout trap as well. So this is this is another one. So I hear women tell me, Well, I've been doing these this YouTube series, you know, by this woman and they're really great workouts. I've been doing them for three years. She's always constantly updating them. And I say, Awesome. Are you stronger? Like, well, I don't I don't really know because today's workout was, you know, 25 minute arms and tomorrow's 15 minute abs the next day is a booty blast. Saturday we were doing some Pilates. Is it fun? Absolutely. Is it Is it is it exercise and is it good as a whole? Yeah, damn better than nothing, right? But it's not structured. There's a lot of room for optimization here. So again, if you're doing these and it's working for you because you're for the first time finding yourself consistent with exercise. And if you were to force yourself to get out of this structure that would mess that up for you, then by all means keep going. But if you're at a point where you want your results to be a little bit different and you're ready to step outside of that and push to see what else you're capable of. There is a lot of room to optimize this type of routine. And just getting out of those classes is one of the best places to start. So, really, what should you be doing instead? you don't need exciting. You need effective. A good strength training program is gonna repeat the important lifts week after week, month after month. Like I said, you're gonna do a program for four to six to eight weeks, at least when you're working with me. This is how I do it: four to six to eight weeks. You're doing a series of workouts in a week. So maybe Mondays is different than Wednesdays is different than Fridays, but Monday from week to week is going to be the same. Wednesday from week to week is going to be the same. Friday from week to week, you're tracking your weights, we're tracking your form, you're tracking your reps, and over time we're going to try to make improvements. And when we're complete a four, six, or eight-week cycle of those sets of workouts, then we switch it up. We're still doing the same movement patterns, we're still doing a lot of the same lifts, but maybe in a different order, maybe a different variation. And we're

tracking the progress. And then you actually see improvements. You're doing squat patterns, pressing, rowing, deadlifting, split squats, hip thrusts. You need to keep practicing these movements, adding weight, and that's how you're going to get stronger. And you can kind of think of this as like learning the piano is another good analogy. So imagine if you were trying to learn the piano, and every single week your teacher was like, we're gonna do a different song today. You would still get better at piano. Doing a different song every single day, you'd absolutely get better because you would have to start learning like where the A key is or how to do a chord, right? You would have to learn that. So you would get better. But is it the most optimal way to actually learn how to play the piano? Are you gonna walk away actually being able to play a song in four weeks? No, because you've played so many random songs that you're not able to actually improve and really get good at one. In reality, if you were to learn the same master one song and keep doing it until you master it and then add on to that so it gets j gradually more complicated, you'd walk away after four weeks, not only being better at piano, but knowing how to play a couple of songs versus being slightly better at piano but not really knowing any songs. This is the same. I talk to women who have they gotten better at strength training? Sure. They went from never picking up weights before and now they pick them up and they know how to do a bicep curl and they know how to do a Romanian deadlift. They've been taught what those exercises are. So are they a little better at strength training? Sure. Have they built a little muscle? Yeah, your body responds very quickly to a new stimulus, but you hit a wall really quick. Do you walk away after four weeks knowing how to put a workout together, knowing what your lifts are for a Romanian deadlift and how to push yourself beyond that? Do you walk away knowing how to walk onto a gym floor and have an effective workout? No. They're actually not. learning much at all. So again, lots of room for optimizing. Once again, does that mean classes are bad? No. They have incredible benefits. They build a great community. The motivation is there. The accountability is there. I get it. Okay. If it helps you build consistency, I'm a huge fan. They're fun. You have enjoyment. Those things matter. Okay. And if those classes are the only reason you're even exercising, then keep going. But If you've been taking the same class for three years and wondering why you're not really changing, now you know why. If you've been doing the same things for years and wish you had better results and wish you were able to have the knowledge to get on the gym floor and do something effective and actually see more results that you actually have control over and you can predict those results, then maybe it's time to break out of it, right? And now you know why these things might be holding you back. So what is my recommendation? If your goal is to change your body. Then I want you to use the classes as cardio. So this is something I will do for my clients. I have clients that are come to me in bootcamp classes because they wanted to start using weights and they wanted to be consistent and they wanted to learn how to use weights because they're not just gonna go on a gym floor and pick up a dumbbell and think they know what to do. So the class seemed like the best thing, right? But what we'll do is we'll pull back. I'll say if you want to stay in the boot camp classes, by all means, because you love the community and you love the accountability. I want you to see it as cardio. So I want you to intentionally lower your weights that you're using. If it's a class that uses weights, you're going to do five pounds because your goal in that class is not to get stronger. Because what the work we're going to do in the gym, teaching you how to get on the gym floor, that's going to be your strength work. And you're going to use this class as cardio because most of those classes combine cardio and strength anyway. So we're just going to remove the strength element so we can maximize the cardio element. And move the strength training separate because you're gonna get better results cardiovascularly and building strength and muscle when you separate the two. So we're gonna do that. But if that person isn't necessarily tied to that specific class, but they like the class structure, then I say, let's find a different class. Why don't we go to Zumba? Why don't we go to something that's cardio-based because you have fun, you're consistent. We're gonna do two to three days of strength training outside of those classes. You're gonna use those classes for cardio and then. We still have that enjoyment, we still have that accountability and the motivation, but we also are doing it alongside a structured lifting program as the foundation with those classes, kind of as like you're sprinkled in dessert, not the main course, right? And this is when we see tons of progress. And women thinking that they've been plateaued for a long time, finally busting out of that plateau because they're finally giving their body a signal that they want to change and that their body needs to adapt to the signal that they're giving them, right? So if I could convince every woman of one thing, it would be this: stop chasing the sweaty workouts. Start chasing stronger workouts because muscles don't know how exhausted your heart feels, okay? They only know how much tension they experienced and whether you challenge them a little more than last time. Okay. And this is where the magic happens. If you are Totally ready to jump in. You're ready to stop guessing. You want to follow a structured strength training program that actually progresses over time. That's exactly what I do. That's what I help women do inside my small group coaching program. You get access to my app with plug-and-play strength workouts that I personally build. These are not AI. You get cardio workouts, mobility is included, nutrition education, accountability. I try to work that in because I know that's what you guys like. You love going to the classes partly because there's a community, there's people cheering each other on. I have built that virtually inside my program. Free for two weeks. I would love for you to just give it a try. Come check it out. You get a free onboarding call with me. So we will sit and discuss kind of where you're at, what your goals are, and what the best pathway to reach those goals is going to be utilizing the tools that are in the app. I would love to have you hop in. Go to the link down in the description and you can try that for two weeks. As soon as you're in, you'll get a link to book a call with me. I would love to sit down and meet you and hear all about where you're at, no strings attached. And if this episode made you rethink your workouts, I'd love if you'd share it with a friend who maybe has been in a similar situation, maybe a friend who's doing random YouTube workouts, or somebody that you meet in your class every week but isn't seeing the results that they want. I'd appreciate that so much. And as always, I will see you next week.