← Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2567: Women Who Lift: Breaking Myths and Building Muscle
00:49:51
Women Who Lift: Breaking Myths and Building Muscle The new norm. (1:07) Why has this trend shifted? (4:36) Selling strength training for women, the real benefits, and what makes it unique. (7:08) #1 – Promotes better hormone profiles. (7:51)...
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- [00:01]
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- [01:27]
Sal DeStefano
Your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump Mind Pump with your hosts Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer and Justin Andrews.
- [01:39]
Adam Schaefer
You just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Ladies. This episode is for you. This is about women who lift and all of the distinct, unique benefits you get from strength training that other forms of exercise just don't compare with. By the way, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor legion. They make high performance supplements for people who are interested in muscle building, fat loss, endurance, strength. Get yourself a discount. Go to buylegion.com mindpump use the code mindpump and get 20% off your first order. Also because of this episode, Muscle Mommy, our program for women who want to shape, sculpt their body, who want to be strong, who want to have a faster metabolism. That program is 50% off for this episode only. If you're interested, go to maps musclemommy.com use the code women50 for 50% off here comes the show. One of the fastest growing trends in fitness is women lifting weights. It's exploding. And this is a good thing. We've been talking about the benefits of strength training for women for 10 years.
- [02:46]
Justin Andrews
Forever.
- [02:46]
Adam Schaefer
Today's episode, we're going to separate fact from fiction. What does lifting weights do for women? Is it better than other forms of exercise? Should everybody lift weights? Let's go.
- [02:57]
Guest Speaker
We're almost, I feel like we're almost there. Where this is no longer going to be a hot topic. It really does. And I, and I always question it's.
- [03:07]
Justin Andrews
The new norm, is it? I hate that term, but my little.
- [03:10]
Guest Speaker
Bubble that I'm in that I feel that way or is really the general pop even privy to the. The this. Like where if you asked a random lady on the street who doesn't already go to the gym, is she aware of this? Or have we just done a good job so far of penetrating the fitness community? That most women in the fitness community are aware of this now, but we haven't quite moved our way out beyond that.
- [03:36]
Adam Schaefer
No, this is real. It's a real trend. It's a real trend that's being measured by club business international, by Ursha, by gym owners, gym managers. It's a real trend. Social media, you now see this is a huge trend. I see it personally, but of course that's anecdote, but I see it. When I go into gyms, it's very different than it was when I first trained clients, started training clients in gyms in the late 90s. Oh yeah, it's even, it's even different than it was 10 years ago when we started the podcast. I'd like to say that we've played a role in this, but it's been, it's been a massive shift. So gyms now are changing their footprint. They're putting more, they're dedicating more space to free weights and strength training than they ever did before. And the fastest growing demographic that's interested in strength training are both. There's two separate ones that they're seeing. Women in the older population. Well, generally strength training is growing across the board. But historically it was men that were interested in strength training and it wasn't women and it definitely wasn't older population. But now everybody seems to be more interested, but in particular women, because a lot of the myths that surrounded strength training have been dispelled and there's enough women now that that strength trained that are on social media, that is chew its benefits, that talk about how great it is that Women are seeing these examples and going, oh, I don't need to be afraid of this. This is actually a good form of exercise. Then they try it. And of course, you know this. We train clients for years. Yeah. When you get people strength trained, when you get women to strength train, they're sold. So as soon as they do it for a couple months the right way, it's like, this is amazing.
- [05:14]
Justin Andrews
Well, I think that message is definitely penetrated the general public in terms of the value of strength training. And, you know, that they should consider it. I think with the emerging new sort of trend that we're seeing that we even discussed on the podcast before was the, the fact that, you know, we need to be in a surplus and we need to increase calories. We need to be able to feed this muscle growth to happen. Which is something that was always a bit of a reserve because, you know, the thought going in is, I need to lose weight, I need to shed body fat, I need to do like, all these things to reduce calories. When in fact, you know, a lot of times, like women getting into building muscle and really building their body up and, and, you know, increasing calories is, is what's been beneficial.
- [05:59]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah. All the things that go along with strength training are growing.
- [06:02]
Guest Speaker
I mean, I want to, I want to believe that we played somewhat of a role in this. Do you guys think of what other factors have, like, what else has made this trend shift?
- [06:12]
Adam Schaefer
CrossFit, social media, women, the trend of wanting a bigger butt or a rounder butt?
- [06:18]
Justin Andrews
I think that's.
- [06:19]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah, all of those played a role. Right. Because CrossFit, you can't do that without.
- [06:23]
Justin Andrews
Calories and strength training.
- [06:24]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah.
- [06:25]
Guest Speaker
I actually think that is an even bigger role than maybe the credit we give it, because in the 80s and 90s, the Coke supermodel was like the look, the really unhealthy, very thin. Yeah. Super thin, no muscle. And you just don't hear that anymore from even young girls that are like, looking. Looking at other girls on magazines and, and, or social media. They're pointing to girls that are built.
- [06:53]
Adam Schaefer
Yep.
- [06:53]
Guest Speaker
They're pointing to girls that do not look like this thin as a rail look. And so I even think that. And I think what, what, what comes with that is we've had a shift in culture on what the, the what a woman thinks looks pretty or sexy, both men and fit women for that matter. And I think more people are realizing you can't get that body without lifting weights unless you were just genetically born with great muscularity, which is very rare, especially For a female. And we have a lot of these women that have these great shaped butts and bodies and legs, and you can't get that through just running and diet. You've got to lift weights. And so I think that's probably played maybe one of the biggest roles.
- [07:39]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah. And they're seeing examples of it. So, like, female fitness influencers now promote the benefits of strength training quite a bit. So when you see someone on Instagram that looks the way you want to look and they're saying, I lift weights, you know, I get stronger, there's more, you know, social proof. And the more women you see who lift and the more women who talk about it, the more women who are going to do it. Now, we've been proponents of strength training since day one. Like, when I started personal training, clients, like, this was always the primary form of exercise that I use, and the majority of my clients were women. I mean, that's just the way the personal training clientele, it's for all trainers. Tens of Q is you tend to see more women hired personal trainers, the men. And you always had to overcome the objections and the fears. I'm going to get bulky, I'm going to whatever, and we'll get to that kind of stuff. But once they did it, after it took about two or three months, they were sold and it was like, okay, this is amazing. I feel better, I look better. And the data all supports this. And so I want to. What I want to do is I want to sell strength training for women. I want to really sell it. I want to really talk about the real benefits and what makes it unique. Because exercising in general is good for you, right? Movement in general is good for you, regardless of the style of movement, whether it's dancing, running, swimming, biking, Pilates, yoga, strength training. Like, if it improves your health, you're gonna see benefits, you're gonna probably look better. Right. But what are the unique benefits of strength training versus other forms of exercise? So these are the ones that are supported by some data or a lot of data, but definitely by our experience training lots of clients and also training lots of trainers who train clients. Remember, we've been doing this for over. Over two decades. So here's the first point. I think this is a good point to start with, which is strength training really does promote a better hormone profile in a. In a more effective way than other forms of exercise. Okay. So anytime you improve your health and if exercise is a part of that formula, you're going to see an improvement in your hormone profile. But strength Training is unique in that it encourages a youthful hormone profile because of the signal that strength training promotes. Strength training sends forth a signal that is pro tissue. So one of the primary signals that strength training sends, right? So all exercise sends a signal to the body that says, do more of this. More stamina, more flexibility, more strength, whatever. The primary signal of strength training is build muscle and get stronger. And in order to build muscle, muscle is active. It's this tissue on your body. It's very active, it's insulin sensitive. In order to do that, your body has to organize its hormones in a way to do that. So if you were to look at an ideal muscle building hormone profile, what you would see is a youthful hormone profile. You'd see great insulin sensitivity, which, by the way, the most effective way to improve insulin sensitivity is to simply get stronger and build muscle. Insulin's very, excuse me, muscle is very insulin sensitive. It's a storage vessel for glycogen, which is what comes from carbohydrate consumption or sugar consumption. So when you have more places to store it, you're not going to respond to it in the same way. You're going to have better blood sugar levels. So you're more insulin sensitive. You get growth hormone levels that tend to rise. That's what happens when you start to build muscle. You get, as you build muscle, you get more androgen receptors, okay? That's called androgen receptor density. So these are the locks that the key of testosterone attaches to, to activate. And regardless of what your testosterone levels are, if I were to, to give an example, if I were to double your androgen receptor density or double the amount of androgen receptors that you have, even with the same testosterone, you've now doubled the effectiveness of your testosterone, okay, because it has twice as many places to dock insulin, utilize more of it. And now is that important for women? It's just as important for women as it is for men. There's a myth that testosterone is a male hormone. It's not, it's a human hormone. We just have different ratios. But testosterone is just as important for women as it is for men. And women have the same symptoms that men get when their testosterone is low. So they'll have low libido, more fat mass, less muscle, less energy, less drive, more anxiety, more depression when their testosterone is low. So building muscle increases the effectiveness of your testosterone. And you also get this balancing of estrogen or progesterone as those change throughout youryour monthly cycle. So strength training on its own is far more effective at promoting this youthful hormone profile that your body needs to build muscle, which is the signal that you send with strength training. Other forms of exercise simply don't do this as effectively. And you could talk to any hormone specialist, you talk to any functional medicine practitioner when they're trying to balance out somebody's hormones. Strength training, so long as it's appropriate, is what is typically recommended as a primary form of exercise.
- [12:38]
Guest Speaker
So, okay, and I'm glad you started to go that direction, because I was already thinking of, like, the counter argument for somebody else that, like, let's say I'm hardcore into Pilates or I'm a big runner, and basically anything that makes you healthier than what you were before you're doing is going to improve the hormone profile. So how would you convince someone like me who, let's say, is a hardcore Pilates person, who's already seen the improvement in my hormone profile from doing Pilates, and I believe that's that My. Why. Why should I go switch over to strength training? Like, what. What is your argument for why that's better?
- [13:13]
Adam Schaefer
A better hormone profile, that's a res. That is a result of being healthier is great, but strength training makes you healthier, so you get that effect. But it also directly tells the body to create a hormone profile that is pro muscle building.
- [13:29]
Justin Andrews
We need muscle.
- [13:30]
Adam Schaefer
Okay, so in other words, you're sending a straight, direct signal so your hormones don't improve as a byproduct of improved health alone. That happens. But you're also sending a specific signal direct to the hormones that say, we got to build muscle. We need a hormone profile that does that. And the hormone building profile that builds muscle is the youthful one that you had when you were in your late teens, early 20s. So for a youthful hormone profile, nothing beats strength training. It just directly does it best.
- [14:01]
Justin Andrews
Also, I mean, a lot of those other methods of a lot of repetitive stress and don't have, like, distinctive rest periods where, you know, there's a distinctive difference between strength training and cardiovascular training. And also to, like, oxidative stress and, you know, full recovery, you're not going to. So think of it like this. Sleep is the ultimate balancer of hormones, right? So that's like your. Your body's repairing itself. It's. It's replenishing stores. It's. It's rebuilding cells. And so if you look at that in your training, you have to have, like, these distinctive rest periods in order to then, you know, send the right signal that this is. This is literally, I'm trying to get Gain muscle and strength and strength is the focus. It's not, you know, mixed signaling with cardiovascular training.
- [14:48]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah, well, let me just to back you up. So strength training, you need less of it to produce the result you're looking for than other forms of exercise. So to build endurance requires a lot of practice. Training endurance to build strength, you don't need to do a lot. And so when it comes to stressing the body, which I think we're talking about, Justin, strength training tends to be less of a stress on the body because the dose tends to be less. That's required. Now you can overdo strength training like you can overdo anything.
- [15:18]
Justin Andrews
Right.
- [15:19]
Adam Schaefer
But appropriate strength training tends to stress the body less than appropriate levels of other.
- [15:25]
Justin Andrews
But if you're doing it right and you're actually moving forward, you have to have adequate rest.
- [15:29]
Adam Schaefer
Right.
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Guest Speaker
So I wanna, I wanna stay here because I really wanna drill this point home because I really think that when we think back to all the clients that we train and again, primarily female clients, the, the probably some of the most life changing stories came from the clients that I, my female clients that I got to adopt strength training. And one of the reasons why I was so life changing was because of what you're talking about.
- [15:51]
Adam Schaefer
Absolutely.
- [15:52]
Guest Speaker
And a lot of times I, they, these are clients that did Pilates already or did running or they were active, they weren't. I'm talking about somebody who I got, that was obese and then also I got up strength training and I bounced. I'm talking about people that were already active people, they were doing other forms of modality and then I got them to strength train and it radically changed.
- [16:11]
Justin Andrews
Massive difference.
- [16:12]
Guest Speaker
So if you were, if I, and I know this is putting you on the spot to give me like a generic answer, but I again trying to drill this point home because I know I have listeners right now that have a mob modality of training that they love to do. They go to their class, they've been comfortable doing that for 10 years. It's like, you know, why do I want to switch over to this kind of training? So if you had to score on a scale of 1, 1 being terrible, 10 being the best or awesome as far as balancing the hormone problem. And we look at, I'd say probably the top five forms of exercise, running, swimming, Pilates, yoga and strength training. Maybe Top five? Yeah, somewhere around there, on there. How would you score those and compare them.
- [16:52]
Adam Schaefer
So there's always an individual variance. It has to be applied appropriately. So I'll see how that first.
- [16:57]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, let's let's pretend.
- [16:58]
Adam Schaefer
But, but if it's, if it's applied appropriately and properly for the, for the individual. Strength training is in a different universe. So you have hormone profiles improve because my health is better. And then you have the effect of I'm directly telling my hormones to become youthful because they need to build more muscle. It is above and beyond that. So you talk to, if you talk to any female hormone specialist, you can talk to male hormone specialists, talk to any female hormone specialist. These are doctors that specialize in hormone therapy. So they actually put people on hormones, they put people, women on testosterone, they put women on thyroid or they manage the hormones.
- [17:34]
Guest Speaker
By the way, we just had one of the leading experts in menopause and perimenopause on the podcast and one of the first things that she said is.
- [17:39]
Adam Schaefer
Like strength, strength, they will all tell you strength prescribed, they will all tell you that's the primary form of exercise. And walking would be a really close one just for overall activity.
- [17:49]
Guest Speaker
Yeah.
- [17:50]
Adam Schaefer
And in fact what they'll also tell you when you talk to them is many times they tell these women to stop doing the crazy cardio, do the crazy circuits.
- [17:58]
Guest Speaker
So maybe then you would, you would score like this. And again, correct me if I'm wrong here, like all the other ones I named besides strength training would probably hover around somewhere of getting a five or a six.
- [18:07]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah.
- [18:08]
Guest Speaker
And then strength training is 10.
- [18:09]
Adam Schaefer
That's right.
- [18:09]
Guest Speaker
It's like all those you could argue, oh swimming could be pretty good for health and pro home because they all the other ones all can make you healthier which then improves your hormone profile. But nothing directly impacts.
- [18:20]
Adam Schaefer
Let's talk about the like the main hormone, some of the big issues that women will can suffer from like pcos. Very strong connection between that and insulin resistance. Okay. Strength training building muscle directly combats insulin resistance better than any other form of exercise. Look at thyroid build muscle, your thyroid becomes more effective. Thyroid issues are very common with very common. Yeah. And I'm not talking about all the other hormones, cortisol. Like you build some muscle, you get a natural, you get a much a good profile of cortisol starts to develop because of the muscle building process. And, and then I mentioned that. So yeah. So when it comes to hormone profile, in promoting a youthful hormone profile, by the way, this is anecdote. Okay. But we see this in the gyms. You can talk to any gym owner, gym manager. You see the women in their 40s, 50s and 60s that are good at strength training versus the ones 40s, 50s 60s that do lots of group classes, lots of cardio. They look younger. The strength training, when they look younger, because of this hormone profile situation, which.
- [19:21]
Guest Speaker
I think leads to your second point.
- [19:23]
Adam Schaefer
Correct.
- [19:24]
Guest Speaker
Which is going into the. Have better skin.
- [19:26]
Adam Schaefer
Have better skin.
- [19:26]
Guest Speaker
And I'm assuming this is a big part of that, like, because I think one of the number one things a dermatologist would tell somebody who has got really bad skin, a lot of times their hormone profile is all over the place, and they normally prescribe them things to try and control their hormones.
- [19:40]
Adam Schaefer
So this, though. So here's the other thing. So there was a recent study that I brought it up on, on other episodes where they. They compared the effects of strength training to other forms of exercise, to skin health. Right? The collagen production, elasticity, right? The. The. The visible lines and wrinkles, all that stuff. Strength training was superior because it promoted the rebuilding or the building of the collagen matrix matrices in the skin. Okay, now, now, why is that? Because all, by the way, in this study, all forms of exercise improve skin, right? So anytime you improve your health, your skin's gonna look better. Okay? But strength training, it promotes something called muscle protein synthesis, or the building of tissue. All tissue is. Protein is the building block of all tissue, including your skin. So when you're lifting weights and you're sending this direct signal to your muscles to build, you're also sending this systemic signal to the rest of your body that says, build more everything. And so you see stronger bones and you see skin. Skin. In the data, in the. And again, we've seen this anecdotally, but there, too, yes, the studies show that strength training promotes the building of skin, not just the health of it, but the building of skin. And so when it comes to skin, this is the best form of exercise. And again, we have the studies to support.
- [21:04]
Guest Speaker
You broke it down the way I wanted you to, because I feel like so many other forms of exercise use similar arguments on how. Because getting healthier makes a lot of all these markers improve.
- [21:14]
Adam Schaefer
That's right.
- [21:15]
Guest Speaker
And so there's an argument to be made about going swimming or going running or doing Pilates or doing those things to improve this. But it's like. It's almost like, yes, all those things are good, and yes, all those things make you a healthier version yourself, but nothing is even on the same level as what strength training is.
- [21:31]
Adam Schaefer
No. And I want to be very clear. Like, I'm not trying to discourage somebody to stop doing their form of exercise that they love doing. But what I am Trying to do is. And this is true for most. Most people or most women that work out, they have a set amount of time that they work out. Three days a week or two days a week or four days a week. They don't have all the time in the world. They're not going to do 15 different forms of exercise. And they're like, which one do I pick? Which one do I pick? Because they're all whatever. I enjoy them all. I guess I just want the one that gives me the best results. And many women are, they move away from strength training because of the. The myths that surround it or because they don't know that in comparison to other forms of exercise, they're probably gonna get more of what they're looking for. Right? And that's by far.
- [22:12]
Guest Speaker
And to that point, Sal, this is how I always took a client like that. I would never tell my client, right? And I could never do this with these clients. They love Pilates, love swimming, love running. One of those things. Okay, stop doing that. Let me show you. Improve to you. What I would do is just give me one day a week. Give me one day a week of full body strength training. Let's keep doing your Pilates. The other two days. Let's keep doing your running, like you're saying. And let me show you what one day a week will already. For somebody who's already been doing these things, that's always how I got them. Because then they would be like, oh, this one day a week I added. All I did was let go of one day of my running or one day of my swimming, or one day of my Pilates, picked up one day of this strength training, like this trainer told me, and I've already seen more improvement than I ever have in the thing. And then now they're bought in.
- [22:56]
Adam Schaefer
That's right. The next. This next one is one of the things that I think now women are becoming more aware of one of the components of strength training, which is it allows you to eat more and stay leaner because it builds the lean tissue that burns calories. Now, I know that there's some debate around this, but the evidence is clear with those of us who've coached and trained lots of people. When I have women that I strength train with primarily, and I have them do what's called the reverse diet, where we slowly increase their calories, increase their protein to feed the muscle tissue, we see this dramatic change in their metabolism. I mean. I mean, it's not. This is. It's common. It was common to have A female client be able to eat 500 more calories a day and be leaner.
- [23:41]
Guest Speaker
500 more calories all day.
- [23:43]
Adam Schaefer
That was common. Less common, but still, I would see this would be women who could eat a thousand calories more a day and be able to keep and be able to stay lean. And I'm talking about two days a week of strength training. We're not doing anything else. And they were doing before tons of cardio. Every.
- [23:57]
Guest Speaker
That's. I mean, that. That was what was common too, is that not only did they. Were they able to eat more, but they. This is what sold Katrina. Yeah, I've told the story before. When we first met, I didn't tell her anything about how she was training. I allowed her to do her thing. And I just, I know better than to come in and new boyfriend come in and start telling you how to lift or telling you how to eat. Even though I knew all this stuff that she was doing, I'm like, man, it used to be so much. Until she finally came to me and the first thing we do, cut out all that running. Reverse dieter. Build muscle. Let's get strong. Long rest periods so different than how she'd ever trained before. And you look a year later after that, she looks back, goes like, this is crazy. I'm eating more than I've ever ate before. I'm training less frequently as far as the time that I'm doing that. And I have the best body I've ever had at this point in my life. Like blue and then forever. She was converted after that.
- [24:44]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah. Muscle burns calories at rest. And that's not the full answer, by the way. There's some mystery as to how the metabolism gets so fast through the strength building process and through feeding that muscle, but it really is. It's a real effect and it's traumatic and it's awesome. Meaning you do less work, you eat more and you stay leaner. And I think that really resonates with a lot of women, especially women who've tried to lose weight.
- [25:11]
Guest Speaker
That resonates with everybody, bro.
- [25:12]
Justin Andrews
Cutting calories, lean and have flexibility ability.
- [25:15]
Guest Speaker
Who does that not sound good? Who does the idea of, like, you get to work out less, you get to eat more and stay in better shape. Who does that not sound good? That's right, everybody.
- [25:24]
Justin Andrews
Because otherwise you're cutting, you're getting to a certain point where you just add a little bit of, oh, I'm just gonna have a little bit on the weekend. And it's like, you know, 500 extra calories you feel that?
- [25:33]
Adam Schaefer
Yep.
- [25:33]
Justin Andrews
You don't have that flexibility. It's, it's, it's a rough place.
- [25:36]
Adam Schaefer
Muscle is great for the flexibility, to eat more, more food. Next up, you have better curves. I think this is another reason why women are starting to strength train. It started with the build a bigger butt or get a bigger butt, you know, kind of trend. And then, you know, women are like, well, how do I get a bigger butt? We're like, well, your butt's a muscle, so you got to build it. So they started training and strengthening and they saw their butt get rounder. Then they saw their hamstrings get a little better curve. And they started doing upper body exercise. And my posture gets better, my arms look leaner. Everything looks better. Even though maybe I'm at the same weight, even. This is what's crazy about this. Muscle looks good on your body. It just does. Now, can you get too muscular? Yes. Is it, is it likely you'll get too muscular? No, it's extremely unlikely. It's extremely, extremely, extremely unlikely that you're going to strength train and build too much muscle. Okay? That's just the fact, period, end of story. So every single woman listening to this right now, train like a bodybuilder as hard as you want, eat like a bodybuilder as much as you want. None of you are going to come to me and say, oh, I got, I built too much muscle. It doesn't happen. The women you see who look like this are so rare. It's, it's more rare than a seven foot tall person. It's extremely rare to have the kind of genetics that build that kind of muscle. And then many of those women are also on, yeah, they're on male levels of hormones, okay, they're on testosterone or anabolic steroids. You're not going to build muscle. The, the women that look the way that most women want to look like on social media or whatever, these fitness women, they lift weights like bodybuilders. That's what they, that's primarily what they do.
- [27:07]
Guest Speaker
You have to, if you want to sculpt and shape a body, there's no way around doing that without strength training. That it like, we cannot listen, we cannot change someone's morphology. If somebody is 6 foot 5, comparing them to a 5, 2 person and saying, I want my body to look exactly like that. Structurally, they'll never. But you can take these body types that are very different and you can build attributes on, on this person to create the illusion and shape them to look like that. I Mean, again, this reminds me of the overcoming this with Katrina. When we first got there, she did not like lifting, especially stuff for her back. Cause she felt like I had a broad. I had a broad back, and if I touched any weights like that, it just got worse. And I'm like, listen, we. I can sculpt your physique through lifting back exercises and weights to give you this more hourglass. And she just. It was so hard to get her to believe that. But it's like, watch what happens when I build your delts. Watch what happens when we lean out and your waist comes in. And we build it. Like, it'll create more of that. So even technically, her back might have been bigger as far as the actual circumference looks the way she. But it looks the way she wants because we created that sculpt, and you have to do that through weights. You can't do that through any other form of exercise to get the look that people are trying to obtain. And that is the coolest part about lifting weights, is you can sculpt a physique to damn near do anything you kind of want.
- [28:27]
Adam Schaefer
That's right. You could literally pick body parts. You could develop more, you could shape more. It's. It's. It's focused body sculpting. Other forms of exercise, you don't focus. You're. You're doing. You're running a lot, you're moving your legs a lot. You're swimming a lot. You're just. But strength training, I can say, I want more of this, more of that. I want less of this. So I'll focus less on that. And you can literally shape and sculpt your body and build the kind of body you want, the curves that you want next is you feel empowered. Like, one of the most empowering feelings in my experience, for my female clients, one of the most empowering feelings that they would express to me would be when they got strong. And the first time this really occurred, because I would hear this all the time from female clients. Oh, my God. I like lifting weights. I don't realize how much I'd like it. I feel so empowered. I feel so empowered. I know what they meant by that. Empowered. You hear that with women feeling empowered all the time. Like, what does that mean? Like, exactly like, okay, you feel empowered. But then I had a female client explained to me a situation that happened to her where she was traveling for work. And so she comes in to train with me, and she's super excited. I'm like, hey, what's going on she's like, I gotta tell you, the coolest thing happened to me over the weekend when I was traveling. So what happened? She was like, well, I'm flying, flying to China. She worked for a tech company. And she goes, and she was petite woman. She said, for the first time in my life, I put my bag in the overhead compartment by myself. And then she says, I felt so empowered. And then I got it. I understand. I never understood this as a man, because if I need to, I never have felt like I needed someone else to do something for me, to carry something for me. But women often to do certain things, they look to a man to, hey, open this jar. Hey, carry this thing. Hey, move this thing for me. But what if you could double your strength, which is reasonable. If you're not lifting weights now and you start lifting weights, it's reasonable to double your strength. You could do that within a year or two. How empowered would you feel? Twice as strong as you are now.
- [30:16]
Guest Speaker
I think it's the most underrated thing that happened.
- [30:20]
Adam Schaefer
Yes.
- [30:20]
Guest Speaker
That my clients didn't ask for or think they even wanted. It was like, I have so many stories like that that I can tell of the. The female client who came in wanting like, let's say, a look or to get healthy or whatever, and as a byproduct, didn't realize how much they fell in love with the strength part because maybe they just, like, you didn't think about all those. Those things. It's just a second nature. Hey, if I gotta lift my bag above my head, I gotta find someone to help me. Oh, if I gotta carry that big 50 pound bag of dog food, I gotta ask the kid to walk me out and load it up in the car. Like they had all these situations that we take for granted that they feel like I gotta ask somebody else that they no longer had to do because they had the strength to do it easily compared to what it was like before. And they end up then. That was like my favorite was to take someone like that who didn't even realize how much they loved or would like strength, give them that strength. And then they saw all the things that it affected and it was like, oh, my God, I love this.
- [31:12]
Adam Schaefer
By the way, what I said, what I said a few minutes ago isn't is totally reasonable and realistic. Okay. Most women, right, barring injury or mobility issue or some health issue, most women who go from not really strength training to proper, like real strength training, like you lift, you know, weights, you rest, you do sets, you're trying to get stronger. Right. Women who go from not lifting weights to properly lifting weights, it is reasonable to expect that you'll probably double your strength within a couple years.
- [31:42]
Guest Speaker
I would argue double your strength. I would argue way more.
- [31:45]
Adam Schaefer
I'm giving the most conservative, that's what I mean. I'm giving a very conservative answer here. Like think about this right now. If you're listening right now, you're, you're, whatever you're doing, you're sitting down, you're walking, whatever, you're listening to us talk, how do you think you would feel if you were twice as strong as you are not? And we would see it all the time where their, their, all their lifts would go up double in weight. And I'm being very conservative and by the way, I could triple someone.
- [32:07]
Guest Speaker
You feel what it's like to be 10 stronger.
- [32:10]
Adam Schaefer
Imagine feeling strong.
- [32:11]
Guest Speaker
Yeah, you can feel like you go, you get 10 stronger. Any male or female you feel that, you notice the difference, you're 10 stronger, you're double.
- [32:18]
Adam Schaefer
That's right.
- [32:18]
Guest Speaker
That's, it's what, it's life changing.
- [32:20]
Adam Schaefer
That's right. That's right. Next up, you sleep better. So again, this is backed by data. They've done studies comparing different forms of exercise to its effect or impact on sleep quality. By the way, women suffer from sleep disturbances more often than men do. When you look at some of the data on this, it may be due to hormone fluctuations or maybe whatever, but women tend to suffer from sleep issues more than men do. Um, so this is I think an important one. But when they compare strength training to other forms of exercise, strength training wins when it comes to which one improves sleep quality. You know, the ability to fall asleep, the ability to stay asleep, like the different stages of sleep, strength training is the best one. Now again, to be fair, all forms of exercise improve your health, will make you sleep better. But if you want to pick the one that's the best, again, the data supports strength training.
- [33:12]
Guest Speaker
Now do you think that the reason why the strength training? Because I would, I would, the first case I would make is just our bodies were meant to move, we were meant to move, we were meant to do things throughout the day. We have very sedentary lifestyle, so any sort of form of activity is going to greatly improve your sleep. Now would you say the whole thing back to the, like hormonal cortisol, it's the balancing of hormones and, and is what really makes the strength training trump everything else? Because like, like you said, I, I think exercise period daily makes a tremendous difference on Almost on all my clients sleep. But then strength training did seem to surpass it even better. Is that because of cortisol and what's going on hormonally that would make you make that argument?
- [33:55]
Adam Schaefer
We're in speculation territory now because we don't. They don't know why it's better for sleep. So this is pure speculation. But I think it has to do with the hormone. I think it has to do with insulin sensitivity, too. You know, improved insulin sensitivity tends to impact sleep positively. And strength training does it very well. I mean, the strength. Listen, there are studies on obese individuals where they have them build muscle and lose no weight. Like, I'm talking about really overweight people. All they have them do is build muscle. They don't lose a single parent.
- [34:22]
Guest Speaker
All their health markers.
- [34:23]
Adam Schaefer
Well, not. I mean, in particular, their insulin sensitivity. So it's really, really effective for that. So that's speculating as to why. But again, the data shows it's the best for. For improving your sleep. And next up, it's. It's great for reducing pain. It's. Here's. Here's how good it is when applied properly for pain. The primary form of exercise that rehab specialists or physical therapists use when trying to help somebody with back pain, shoulder pain, hip pain, knee pain, ankle pain, whatever. The primary form of exercise they use is some form of strength training. It is not cardio. It is not yoga. It is not.
- [34:59]
Justin Andrews
Because the majority is related to weakness.
- [35:01]
Adam Schaefer
That's right.
- [35:02]
Justin Andrews
And the weakness is. Is really causing the dysfunction, which is the pain signal that, you know, there's something. There's something that's unsupported here. And therefore, your body's job is really to limit, you know, furthering an injury. So, you know, you have these natural limiters. And so if we strength train, we build up that support system, we build up that. That support signal that, that, that feeds back. That's like, okay, this is accounted for and it's strong enough to now, you know, go through these types of.
- [35:34]
Guest Speaker
I feel like this is another one we really have to hammer home because I think it's one of the most important points. I remember when, like, I realized this for myself. Like, I always struggle with kind of low back pain. And so that. And it's very much so related to posture issues. My posture issues are related to weakness into, like, my core hip stability and that. And so I would not think, okay, even as a trainer, I didn't think this way early on like that, hey, my low back is bothering me. I need to get better at squatting, I need like, that. That doesn't. People don't make that connection. They think that, oh, lifting weights is hard. You're gonna do less stressful. If I have bad knees, I have bad back, I have bad shoulders, lifting weights, that could. That puts me at risk. And so that's not a good idea. When. I'm so glad you said that, Justin. That most chronic pain that people deal with is result from. From weakness somewhere.
- [36:26]
Adam Schaefer
That's right.
- [36:26]
Guest Speaker
And strength training is the best way to combat that. And can't stress that enough that I don't know how many clients that I helped that suffered from chronic pain. We got to the root cause of what it was where the weakness lied. That was causing the downstream effect of chronic pain somewhere else. Because that's normally what it looks like, by the way. Like, bad knees is not normally bad knees. It's normally weak hips or weak ankles. Right. I have. I have instability or lack of mobility in the ankles. I have instability of lack of mobility in the hips. Therefore, I feel the stress in my knees. Now, as a client, I perceive that as I have bad knees, I shouldn't squat. And it's like, no, no, no, no. This is what's beautiful about strength training. You don't have bad knees. Like, I'm not talking about somebody who broke their knee or had something made. Like, most people that have chronic knee pain don't have bad knees. They have poor mobility and strength in their ankles or their hips, and that is causing the stress in their knees. And the best thing that we can do is get strong, mobile hips, strong mobile ankles that results in good knees. And that is, like, crazy. And that is most people that I.
- [37:32]
Adam Schaefer
Had to train, barring injury or some kind of autoimmune inflammatory disease. Okay. Barring those two main things. Strong joints. Okay. And why are they strong? They're supporting. Supported by strong functional muscle. Right. Joints don't move on their own. It's the muscle that moves the joints.
- [37:50]
Justin Andrews
Keeps it tracking properly.
- [37:51]
Adam Schaefer
So strong muscles that support the knee, the ankle, the hip, the spine, the neck, the shoulders, the wrists, the fingers. Right. All the muscles that control the movement in these joints, if those all are strong and functional, your joints are fine. They don't hurt. In other words, a strong body doesn't have pain. Now, injury, different. Chronic inflammatory disease of some different. But most pain, a majority of pain comes from weakness. At the root, it's dysfunction. So when you look at the way a joint moves, there's an optimal way it moves, and there are sub or less optimal ways that they move. The less optimal ways are result of muscles that can't move the joints properly either because of lack of strength or stability, they're not working well together. And so that joint starts to tear down, you start to create pain. So strong bodies don't hurt. Again, this is why when you go to a physical therapist with pain and they realize, okay, there's no major injury here, whatever you got frozen shoulder, you have a little bit inflammation, whatever. What they use is strength training. Correctional exercise is just a form of strength training. Whether they use bands or body weight or, or ISO isometrics, it's all strength training. So strength training is the best way to solve pain issues. By the way, regardless of what the kind of athlete you are, if you're, you could be an endurance athlete, you could be a, you could be whatever athlete you are. When you have pain, the form of exercise you use to correct that pain or make it away, Strength training, that's how effective it is. And then finally you look better. You look better. Because strength training changes your body composition. It's not about your weight, it's about your body composition. Okay, a, a, I'll use a male example, right? A six foot tall, 200 pound male at 10 body fat looks very different than a six foot tall, 200 pound male@20 body. I mean very different. 10 body fat. You got six pack abs. Yeah. 20 body fat. You look squishy. Same body weight. The same is true for a 130 pound woman at 30 body fat versus 20 body fat. They could be the same height, same same weight. They look very, very different. So in other words, what's so awesome about this is your weight doesn't matter as much as your body composition, which is great if you're a slave to your scale, which I know a lot of women become slaves to. So in terms of changing how you look, it's the best form of exercise.
- [40:14]
Guest Speaker
I mean, I can't tell you how many times too I had somebody come in who initially wanted to lose weight. And at the end of our programming we were the same weight or higher, yet we were 10% body fat leaner. So, and many times you have to show somebody that before they realize that weight is so irrelevant, it's like it doesn't even matter. I can take anybody, whatever their current weight is and make them dramatically look better and never mess with the, the weight on the scale. In fact, if we do a really good job, we shouldn't see major swings on the scale for the most part. Obviously, if you're hundreds of pounds overweight. The scale is eventually going to come down and it needs to come down. But for most people who think they just need to lose 20 to say even 40 pounds, most of the time that person, I can take their exact weight, never move it, and completely radically change the look of their body by their body composition.
- [41:06]
Sal DeStefano
Got a few questions here. The first one is how many days a week should a woman lift weights?
- [41:11]
Adam Schaefer
Okay, so of course there's a different answer from individual. Individual. But I'm going to say like this is 100%, ladies. Most women are going to get most of the results they want from strength training. With about two or three days a week of strength training. Okay, that's it. Not five days a week, not six days a week, but two, three days a week, four days a week, if you're super advanced is right around the amount of strength training that you're going to need to get incredible results. That's about it. One of the beauties of strength training is you send the signal to build muscle and, and then you let it recover and adapt. You don't need to do it all the time. In fact, doing it all the time tends to give you worse results. And the vast majority of female clients that I've trained who were advanced, well, I was, I was training them three days a week. That's it.
- [41:52]
Guest Speaker
You, I mean, I would really want to know who's asking this question because I do know how hard sometimes it is to get somebody to switch over modalities. I brought that up earlier. Like if someone that was asking this question was the three day week, you know, you yoga person that loves it, doesn't want to let go of it or the swimmer, the runner. I normally would encourage this person, just let me show you one day a week. Yeah, let me show you one day of strength training. Give me, give me a few months of you trusting the process and just trading out one of your other active days of the other modality did for one day training. And I can show you enough results that I could probably get you to do two or three times. And then by the time I get you two to three times, we can damn near do anything. I mean, damn near do anything for from sculpting to performance goals to looking a certain way to building a body part. I mean, you name what you want to do through weight training and three days a week, I can do all of that.
- [42:40]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah. And you know, this brings up a good kind of side point here, which is the, with strength training, the programming Is very important. So programming is what exercise I do, when I do the exercises, how I perform them, how much of it, how much of it in the order I do them makes a big difference. So, you know, all forms of exercise, you need good technique, like running, cycling, swimming, yoga, they all need good technique. So does strength training, definitely. But strength training, like running is like, as long as I got good technique, I just run. Okay. Or cycle or whatever. Strength training, there's so many different exercises, so many different ways to do them. Good programming makes a massive difference versus just lifting some weights.
- [43:24]
Sal DeStefano
I have a lot of weight to lose. Should I lift weights or lose weight first?
- [43:28]
Adam Schaefer
No. A lot of people say, yeah, lift weights. Lifting weights can make the fat loss easier. Period. End of story. Speed up the metabolism, improve your hormone profile. Feed the muscle. Feed the muscle. So don't go and cut your calories like crazy, but allow yourself to kind of build some muscle and set yourself up for some really good fat loss later.
- [43:43]
Justin Andrews
You avoid plateaus and hitting the wall that way. So if you set yourself up for the long term, you get flexibility as a result.
- [43:49]
Guest Speaker
Result. I want to be clear on this too, because we had a caller one time that made a comment that like, oh, I feel like you guys speak to those people that just, you know, need to lose the last 10 or 20 pounds all the time. But you're not addressing those of us that need to lose 50 or 150 pounds. It is the same answer. So if you're listening to this and you're asking the question like that, and even though you need to lose 100 to 150 pounds, the beginning process is the same. So if someone hired me and they only needed to lose 20 pounds versus the person who needed to lose 150 pounds, the beginning of my programming, the beginning of what I had that person do, is to reverse diet and build muscle. Doesn't matter which end of this. It, it just makes the, it makes both those people's journey to getting to their goal much easier than the opposite way, which is, I'm going to just try and lose this weight first, then I'll go build muscle. Not a good strategy.
- [44:37]
Sal DeStefano
I don't want to get bulky, I want to look lean. Should I skip lifting?
- [44:41]
Adam Schaefer
There's that myth again. You know, I'm going to illustrate this a little more. Right. So if you look at the. And what's happened on social media is you have these extreme examples of people with muscle building genetics that are incredibly rare, to the point where there are men who see, you know, Arnold schwarzenegger in the 70s or maybe bodybuilders today. And they think, well, if I lift weights hard enough, long enough, I'm gonna look like them. And there are also women who on social media just look crazy muscular. And so women are like, oh my God, I'm afraid of lifting weights because I'll look like that. The truth is the, the genetics required to build that amount of muscle is so rare. It's, it's, it's probably more rare than someone who's seven foot tall, or maybe just as rare as someone who's seven foot tall. So in other words, when you walk around in the real world, you're not at the NBA. You walk around the real world, how often do you see someone that's seven foot tall? Never. If anything, you remember the time, the one time you saw someone seven foot tall because it stood out and it was so rare. That's how rare these type, this Arnold Schwarzenegger or pro bodybuilder, that chick that's got the veins in her neck. Muscle building genetics are, they're super rare. Then on top of it, they take anabolic steroids, but it's super, super rare. So if you are the person, if you're a woman listening to this, and you're always the buffedest, strongest person at your school in your family, you're bigger and stronger than every male family member and you don't lift weights. You have those genetics. If that's not you, don't worry about it, you're totally fine.
- [46:06]
Guest Speaker
I also think that this is a bit exacerbated at the beginning process of anybody's kind of weight loss or weightlifting journey that doesn't want to get bulky is understanding what's happening too, right? One, you're at a body fat percentage that you're not happy with. You eventually want to get leaner. We're in the process right now of reverse dieting and building muscle. Well, when you lift weights, there is, there's a little bit of inflammation, water retention, carbohydrates, everything gets flooded in the muscle. And so it has this temporary look of like you looking bigger.
- [46:35]
Adam Schaefer
It's more feeling. I think it is the feeling of the tightness.
- [46:38]
Guest Speaker
That's what I mean. And that, and that, that feeling, even a little bit of that perception. Your shirt's a little bit tighter. Maybe it is. You are, it's temporary. And it is part of the process of building muscle, building the metabolism, sculpting the body to get to that point. And so it's kind of think of it. Like, this is like, if you were to tell someone to make this beautiful sculpture out of clay, like, you got to give me the clay to pack on there so I can sculpt and do it. If. And you not going through that process, you're not allowing yourself to sculpt. You're not. You not allowing yourself to go through those temporary moments of fluid nutrition inflammation to look a little bit like that, to temporarily get to the place where you could have the clay on there to sculpt, to carve away, to get the look what you want. Like, we have to go through that process. You have to be okay with it. It's not a forever. You're going to look big and bulky. It's temporarily right now where we're at. But don't worry where we end up. The final sculpture of that is going to look amazing, and you'll be happy with it, but you get to learn to go through that process.
- [47:36]
Sal DeStefano
I heard that. I heard that high reps are better for a feminine look. Is this true?
- [47:42]
Adam Schaefer
Another myth solved by the fitness industry. So any rep range between 1 to 3, 30 done in a traditional strength training format is muscle building. Okay? So all those rep ranges are muscle building, okay? But the myth is that the 30 reps is going to give me this feminine look and that, you know, doing two, you know, reps or three reps with a little heavy weight to make my muscles explode and look bulky. That's false. They all build muscle. All of them build muscle. All of them are going to give you the look that you're looking for. But don't be afraid of low rep. So one of my, my, you know, trade secrets as a personal trainer. A lot of trainers know this, by the way, when you train long enough. One of my trade secrets with female clients was to introduce them to low reps, because I know they never touched them. I know they never did five reps because they were afraid of them. So the first thing I do is train them on five reps. And because it was so new, they weren't used to it. Their body responded like crazy, and they got amazing results. And then they were clients for life. So all those rep ranges are effective, but the most effective rep ranges are usually the ones you're not used to.
- [48:40]
Guest Speaker
Because there is a knowledge of that. Okay, so there's another way to say this to this question, is, you know, the high reps for a better feminine look. There is one example of where that works for that lady. It's the lady who trains three to five Reps. So if you're asking that question and all you train is three to five reps, then absolutely. Training high reps is going to make you look more feminine because you'll build more muscle, you get leaner and you get more tone. That's the only person. That's the opposite is true for the female who trains high reps all the time. The best thing that you could do to look more feminine, to look leaner, to look more tone, to build more muscle is to train three to five reps. It's the novel stimulus that's going to be so important. To Sal's point, anything between 1 and 30 builds muscle is good for the body. Wherever you spend the most time, the opposite side of the spectrum is going to give you the most amount of results.
- [49:27]
Adam Schaefer
Yeah. And a good workout program or good workout program. Yeah. It tends to shift you and phase you through different, you know, rep ranges, which, you know, look, we have workout programs that we design. We have one for women. It's the only one we've ever made specifically for women. It's called Muscle Mommy and it's a fully programmed workout. It's three months long or a little longer. Exercises, sets, reps, video demos, a whole deal. Because of this episode, it's 50% off. We're gonna make it half off. For women who are listening to this episode. You got to the end of it. You want workout programming, go to maps musclemommy.com use the code women50 and you'll get it half off. You can also find us on Instagram. Justin is @mindpumpjustin. I'm @mindpump distefano. Adam is @mindpump app.
- [50:09]
Sal DeStefano
Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically, improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps, Anabolic Maps, Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB super bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free resources@mindpumpmedia.com if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support. And until next time, this is Mind Pump.
- [51:16]
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