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Episode 55: How to Start (and Teach) Strength Training
1k Plays1 year ago
Welcome to Episode 55 of the Movement Logic podcast. In this episode, Laurel answers two questions that she gets regularly from folks online. They are: How can I get started with strength training? And, how can I “learn more about” strength training? Spoiler: the best way to get started with strength training (the doing and the teaching) is by…wait for it…strength training!
In this episode you will learn:
- The three most important elements of strength training—exercise technique, programming, and coaching.
- Why yoga and Pilates teachers are already generally well-versed in exercise technique, but without the added component of external load and the goal of strength.
- Yoga and Pilates teachers are typically not well-versed in programming, which is how we apply the principle of progressive overload to work toward building strength.
- Coaching is key for deep understanding of both exercise technique and programming.
- Laurel’s evolution from teaching yoga to becoming a strength coach.
- The plusses, minuses and trade-offs of DIY program templates, group classes, one-on-ones, and more.
- How yoga and Pilates teachers are accustomed to learning in a live, follow along format, and given then, how it can be a rude awakening to discover that programs in strength are often delivered in PDF format and personal trainer certifications mostly ask you to read a textbook and pass a test.
- Why personal trainer certifications do not provide very much practical know-how for how to be a personal trainer.
- How the Bone Density Course: Lift for Longevity delivers on the three most important elements of getting started with strength and learning about strength training—exercise technique, programming, and coaching.
- How the CSCS is widely considered the gold standard of personal trainer certifications but that it almost exclusively caters to competitive athletes (who make up a fraction of people who resistance train.)
- How being a dedicated student of the thing you eventually want to teach is the most valuable way to prepare yourself to actually teach something.
- How strength is defined, the systems in the body involved, and what the main adaptations (or changes) to your body are when you build strength.
- That we can be strong in many ways,so it’s helpful to have a specific performance goal.
- Why specific, performance goals are the best way to reach health and aesthetic goals.
Sign up for our free info session all about our Bone Density Course: Lift for Longevity Thursday, Sep. 22nd 12 PT/ 3 ET
Sign up for our Bone Density Course: Lift for Longevity before the October 8th deadline! We won’t be offering this for another year.
The NSCA textbook is used to study for the CSCS - Essentials of Strength and Conditioning
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Association of Efficacy of Resistance Exercise Training With Depressive Symptoms…
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Transcript
Introduction to Movement Logic Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Movement Logic podcast with yoga teacher and strength coach Laurel Beaversdorf and physical therapist, Dr. Sarah Court. With over 30 years combined experience in the yoga, movement, and physical therapy worlds, we believe in strong opinions loosely held, which means we're not hyping outdated movement concepts. Instead, we're here with up to date and cutting edge tools, evidence, and ideas to help you as a mover and a teacher.
00:00:38
Speaker
Welcome to the movement logic podcast.
Questions on Starting Strength Training
00:00:40
Speaker
My name is Laurel and I'm going solo today to talk to you about a question. Actually a couple of questions worded slightly differently that I get from a lot of people in emails, DMS, things like that. The questions I get are number one, how can I get started with strength training or interestingly, how can I learn about strength training?
00:01:00
Speaker
I like the slight difference in these questions. One is how can I get started? How can I act? What can I do? And the other is how can I learn about it? Which implies like maybe that they want to do more than just get started. They want to study it in other modes apart from just the experiential.
00:01:16
Speaker
I find I get that second question more from teachers. And in many cases, when I ask them a bit more, it's because they actually want to teach strength eventually in some capacity, whether by weaving it into existing yoga classes they teach or teaching it as a separate offering. Before I get into my answer to these questions, how to get started with strength training or how to learn more about strength training, I want to say thank you to the over 500 people who signed up for the free strength webinar. We hope you enjoyed working out with Sarah and I. We had a blast.
00:01:46
Speaker
Just a heads up that tomorrow, Thursday, September 21st, Sarah and I are hosting a free webinar at 12 Pacific, 3 Eastern, where we're going to be telling you more about the course, bone density course, Lift for Longevity, answering any questions you might have about the time commitment, the content, any equipment related questions. Now, if you're already signed up for last week's free class, you'll get the invite for this free info session.
00:02:13
Speaker
If you didn't sign up for last week's free class, you can sign up for the info session happening tomorrow via the link in the show notes. And when you do, you'll also get a discount code for the full bone density course lift for longevity, which is launching very soon.
00:02:29
Speaker
And that's going to help you out if you choose to invest.
Essential Elements of Strength Training
00:02:31
Speaker
OK, I think to contextualize the advice about how to get started with strength or learning about strength training, I might give you a quick summary of the three most important elements you want to consider for getting started. And then I'll contextualize these elements within a brief natural history of my personal evolution, how I got from where I was to where I am now. And this way, you'll kind of understand my reasoning for some of this advice I'm giving you in this episode.
00:02:58
Speaker
All right here it goes. Here are the three most important elements you want to consider when getting started with strength or learning about strength training. Number one is exercise technique. How are you going to learn to do the exercises efficiently to see the best results? As well as how you might maybe modify these exercises if you need to for your personal needs. Yoga and Pilates teachers understand this element exercise technique very well. It's a big part of our craft.
00:03:26
Speaker
We deal with a lot of exercises slash poses. We deal with the choices we need to make between them. We understand that exercises sometimes need to be modified for individuals. We're virtually swimming in exercise slash pose.
00:03:42
Speaker
or exercise technique within these modalities that we teach yoga and Pilates. But with strength training, now we're adding external load and we're pursuing a different goal, strength. And some of these exercises might also, in the strength training repertoire, be brand new exercises. We never did in yoga Pilates. We certainly probably haven't externally loaded them the way that we will in a strength context.
00:04:08
Speaker
so this prompts us to ask how are we going to learn the technique for doing this because the instruction or feedback you receive from say a teacher or coach if you're interested in teaching this will then also obviously become
00:04:23
Speaker
a part of your teaching and coaching lexicon that you will build from. So this is not new information for any movement professional. We learn, we know we learn to teach movement by being taught movement. So exercise technique. This is one of three elements I want you to consider because these are really important for your ability to get started with strength, but also potentially to offer it in your classes or as a separate offering for teaching people. Okay. So programming is the second element. We have exercise technique. Now we have programming programming.
00:04:53
Speaker
includes selecting exercises. Of all the exercises you could select, hundreds of them, which ones are you going to select for the particular, maybe it's individual or the goal? And then, and this is much bigger, how are you going to progressively overload these exercises over the course of weeks and months? So this means knowing how to find, with the resistance you or your student is using, the minimal effective dose
00:05:21
Speaker
that will drive adaptations towards strength because your strength training. So something that's not going to under load and really not create those adaptations of strength. You don't want your programming. That's how many, how much weight, how many reps and sets, right? How many workouts a week. You don't want that dosage to fall below a minimal effective dose so that you're not driving strength. But you also want to make sure you're not going beyond a maximal
00:05:48
Speaker
maximally tolerable dose, right? In other words, we do want training stress to drive adaptations towards strength. We don't want training stress to be too much and overwhelm our student's body's ability to recover from it and adapt positively to it. So programming is about how to progressively overload the exercises we select
00:06:11
Speaker
to train strength toward a certain goal in a way that stays above the minimal effective dose and below the maximally tolerable dose and that progressively takes people from being less strong to more strong over the course of weeks and months. That's programming.
00:06:26
Speaker
Yoga and Pilates teachers do not understand this element well. It is not a big part of our craft. For one reason, it might not need to be, because the goal of Yoga and Pilates is usually not strength. And Yoga and Pilates are fairly low intensity, so much so that people who strength train do them on their recovery days. So Yoga and Pilates teachers deal with a ton of exercises, but not for the purpose of progressively overloading them to build strength.
00:06:54
Speaker
So, the question becomes for you, person who wants to start with strength, get started with strength training, wants to learn more about strength training, how are you going to learn programming? There are lots of ways to do this, by the way, and I'm going to share a number of them with you in this episode. The third most important element for you to consider if you're looking to get started with strength, learn about strength training is coaching.
00:07:19
Speaker
When, how, and with whom are you going to receive coaching? Who is going to observe you performing exercises? Who is going to observe your technique? Who is going to give you feedback on that exercise technique? And who is going to select
00:07:35
Speaker
or help you select the exercises that you should be progressively overloading to reach your goals. Who is going to help you know how to week by week, month by month, progressively overload them? Who is going to help you adjust your programming as needed so that you can move toward your goal of getting stronger? How will this happen? There are a lot of possibilities. A few include
00:07:59
Speaker
to not get coaching at all. Yes, that's a possibility. I'm going to share with you my story and you'll see how it kind of fit into the bigger picture of where I am now. You're going to also have the option maybe to meet with an actual coach in person. Yes, that still happens. Maybe it's online, maybe it's in a live format online like via Zoom, but maybe it could also be remotely where there's no live component, but you are receiving feedback.
00:08:26
Speaker
We'll talk about how that can happen. We're going to get into all of this in this episode. Here's the deal though. Here's the answer to the question. How do I get
Laurel's Strength Training Journey
00:08:33
Speaker
started with strength training? How do I learn about strength training? Here it is. Wait for it.
00:08:37
Speaker
by strength training. Now, ideally, there is coaching that you are receiving around both exercise technique and programming. However, as I mentioned, you can do this without a coach. This is what we're getting into. All right, first, let me share with you how and when I got into strength training and started learning about strength training and when and where I first started to encounter these elements and discover their importance in my evolution up until now. Exercise technique, programming, and coaching.
00:09:03
Speaker
Okay, so for those of you who don't know me that well, I started off only teaching and practicing yoga from about 2008 to 2013, 14, but then around this time I had some really gnarly hip and SI joint pain on and off. I didn't know maybe I needed a hip replacement, maybe I needed to quit teaching yoga, I didn't know what to do.
00:09:22
Speaker
Luckily, I got under the good influence of some folks who are not into the yoga scene, but who were into the strength training and CrossFit scene. And I got the idea that I should probably give strength training a shot because so far other solutions that I had been trying like doing more yoga, doing better aligned yoga or quote unquote safer yoga, getting massages, self massage. These just weren't working. So I invested in one on one sessions with a CrossFit coach.
00:09:50
Speaker
who taught me to do a deadlift, to do a squat, to do a pull up. Well, I couldn't do a pull up, but she had me hanging from a bar and to do a kettlebell swing. And then I started going to the gym and just sort of applying what I had learned from her over the course of a couple of sessions. I think it was about five or six, maybe less.
00:10:10
Speaker
And I started to just sort of wing it with my own programming, if you could call it that. I mean, I knew I needed to do reps and sets. And since I had a long athletic background, I also knew that it needed to feel hard. And since I was used to physical activity
00:10:25
Speaker
feeling hard from hours and hours of practicing basketball, volleyball, track and field, softball. I was not afraid to let strength training feel hard, but I was just like fucking around and enjoying myself enormously. And I was exploring like the machines and the equipment at the gym and many other exercises beyond what this coach had taught me. And then I was inventing my own exercises.
00:10:45
Speaker
And, you know, I think it was like getting sessions from her knowing a little bit gave me the confidence to teach myself a lot more. And also I learned a lot from observing other people in the gym do stuff, right? It's like monkey see, monkey do. This was probably, listen, this is probably not the most efficient way for me to get stronger because, you know, I'm sure that I would have seen faster results sooner.
00:11:08
Speaker
But frankly, during this time, I didn't really know what I was trying to do with strength. I didn't have any specific goals. I didn't think about, you know, being able to do a particular strength exercise, like a pull up or I didn't have like a pistol squat goal. I didn't really even think too much about longevity, bone strength, muscle mass, things like that. I was still, you know, obviously I was 35, so I was still immortal. I just knew
00:11:32
Speaker
that I was happy to not have pain. That was it, that was what mattered the most. I got out of pain. This woman showed me a couple of exercises that got me out of pain. I trained at the gym, got myself out of pain, and I found the gym also to just be a very creatively stimulating place. There were a lot of toys there for me to play with. So I just went in there, really my goal was just to go to the gym. Literally that was my goal, go to the gym. And I would step into the gym and I would start, that would start lifting shit.
00:11:59
Speaker
I would start doing stuff and I would enter into play and discovery mode that was very fun for me. And I said this before on the podcast, I'm also someone who learns by figuring stuff out on my own. I'm very comfortable with ambiguity. I'm very willing to get things wrong. I'm very willing to clearly not know what the fuck I'm doing and to learn from my mistakes. And I'm really, I'm okay with not knowing if I'm doing it right.
00:12:23
Speaker
I know not everyone is like this. So that's the caveat here is like, I'm telling you this because this is, I'm not recommending this. I'm just saying this is how I did it. And I functioned like this for a few years happily. A little coaching gave me just enough exercise technique and really mostly confidence to get started. I had no programming input. So this coach did not teach me how to program. She did not program for me.
00:12:47
Speaker
I was just playing with new exercises on my own and I definitely got stronger. Then in 2018 I had my daughter. By the way, I trained pregnant in these ways all the way up until I was six days late with my daughter and then four days later she decided to make her grand entry and
00:13:04
Speaker
I was back at the gym about a week after having her. I had a totally normal pregnancy and birth. I certainly didn't pick up where I left off, but I started resistance training again almost right away. The doctor gave me the go-ahead to do that. There were limits set. I listened to them. But anyway, I pretty much didn't lose too much time in there. Of course, I was starting from a very different place post-natal.
00:13:23
Speaker
After that, maybe like a couple months after I had my daughter, I invested in personal training sessions with another personal trainer and we would meet once a week and she would program sessions for me to do on my own. So here is the first time where I'm not only getting exercise technique coaching, I'm also getting programming. She's writing programs for me. So then I would take these programs, these workouts that she would write for me and I would go back to the
00:13:45
Speaker
to the gym, to my playground and I would be able to maybe be a little bit more productive and progressively overload some lifts instead of just doing like stuff randomly and start progressing my strength in them. It's around this time too that I also started taking in-person kettlebell classes once a week in New York.
00:14:03
Speaker
I was living in New York City at the time. So up until then, I'd only done yoga and Pilates group classes, and I'd done a few personal training sessions, and I was messing around at the gym, kind of winging it. But now I'm doing resistance training in group class format at a martial arts space. And in these classes, I get more coaching, but again, just exercise technique. There's no programming. Since group classes or one-off classes that you randomly drop into, these don't really support long-term programs.
00:14:32
Speaker
Then the pandemic hit. Right at the beginning, I took a weekend kettlebell certification via Zoom. And you had to be there live. There was no recording. It was like really early pandemic. Everyone was like, what the hell is happening? How are we going to do this? And this is where I get more exercise technique. Again, no programming. Something to note is that it's actually very rare, and I've never heard of this, that a weekend certification in some resistance training format like kettlebells or any free weight you teach
00:15:02
Speaker
They're not going to teach you these weekend certs, they're not going to teach you how to program. They can't. A lot of the times they're teaching you exercise technique. So I was getting coaching because it was Zoom, they could see me, I got some feedback. I took a barbell certification a few months ago actually and that one actually taught you how to tweak programming.
00:15:20
Speaker
to tweak your existing programming to be able to work with people post rehab, but that one assumed the people taking that weekend cert were already personal trainers and knew how to program, which I did, but again, that's not a good option to learn how to program. So these two situations, this kettlebell cert, this barbell cert, one of them doesn't teach you any programming, and the other one sort of assumes you already know how to do it, and then they just help you tweak it, okay? This is very common. All right, so anyway, back to
00:15:50
Speaker
my timeline here. The pandemic is raging and this is when I pivot to teaching fully online and I start offering a completely different modality. I start teaching online kettlebell classes. This is the first time I'm teaching resistance training, but technically I wouldn't even say that I was teaching resistance training because I'm still not really programming for people. Resistance training implies that there is progressive overload happening.
00:16:14
Speaker
So this is me writing one-off classes, teaching a lot of exercise technique, giving people a lot of feedback on their exercise technique, but I'm still not really programming. But I am teaching stuff with free weights, which is super cool and I enjoyed it enormously and I still teach kettlebell classes within my virtual studio. Okay, around this time I started to purchase online
00:16:33
Speaker
templates, okay, templates. These are written programs. Usually you receive them in PDF form. A lot of times the exercises are linked to demo videos in Vimeo. Sometimes these templates are written out on a website, but either way, this is a written out program. So now I'm getting into, I'm starting to realize that I need to understand programming and I'm purchasing these templates, okay, and they're basically DIY. There's no coaching. So now I've got a program, but I've got no coaching.
00:17:01
Speaker
I'm getting a little exercise technique through these video demos, but this is a pretty decent way for me to learn how to program because I see an example of how someone else did it. I needed to actually do the program though. I don't think it would be possible if you don't have any real background in programming, like you've never really formally studied it, to just read someone's program and go, oh, okay, that's how you do it.
00:17:22
Speaker
Like it's better to actually do it. And the thing about a program is it's not something you just do in a workout. It's something that you actually commit to over the course of weeks and months, depending on how long the program is. So to really understand it, to understand what it's doing or not doing or how you might have to tweak it for yourself and then maybe other people, you have to commit to actually engaging in that program.
00:17:44
Speaker
And okay, it's the pandemic, everyone's at home isolating. So it's like, sure, yeah, this is all we have to do right now. Like everyone starts exercises, it's like there's nothing else to do, right? So I did a couple of these programs and I learned a lot actually. I would say it's not my most favorite way to train though, it's like by myself looking at a PDF.
00:18:03
Speaker
And I don't think it's many people's favorite way to train, but listen, it is a pretty decent way to get an intuitive sense of what a program is, what different programs can entail, what the different strategies are that are employed. These are all, of course, based on a goal, right? So the program is delivered with a particular goal in mind. We're trying to be able to do a pull-up. We're trying to be able to do a pistol squat, whatever it is.
00:18:24
Speaker
Then, around mid-2020, within my virtual studio, I started offering a strength program. My first one, and I called it Sweet and Simple Strength, still very popular. This is the first time that I wrote and delivered a program. Now looking back, after I've now got my personal trainer cert, and I've more years under my belt, looking back, I've made a few changes to this program, but it was actually pretty solid. It was pretty good for my first program. I didn't make very many changes to it. So now I start teaching this program within the context
00:18:53
Speaker
of live classes, right? So I'm not just giving people a template. I'm actually teaching every single workout within the program live follow along and my members come and they take it or they watch the recording. And this is what I'll call small group strength training. So we've got one-on-ones personal training sessions with one person and a coach. This was more like one person, me, the coach with a small group of women, usually no more than eight.
00:19:20
Speaker
And they're getting coaching in real time. And I'm not, you know, I'm not programming in the sense that I'm like not telling them exactly how much weight to lift or I'm not telling them every single one, all of the cues that I would be able to tell them one on one. But I am helping them figure out how much weight they should be lifting using the tools of strength training. I'm giving each individual as much feedback as I can as we move through these exercises and training blocks together. So we completed this program together.
00:19:44
Speaker
And around this time I also start meeting with students one-on-one, okay, and programming for them. So now I'm starting to program, right? I'm starting to write programs. I'm starting to work with individuals one-on-one and in small groups.
00:19:56
Speaker
Notice that I still don't have a personal trainer cert, okay? But it's been me, myself, training for about seven years and then toward the end of that, starting to actually teach strength as well. So I continue to create more programs for my virtual studio, handstand, pistol squat, more. Then I moved to Alabama, my family, and I moved to Alabama and I start doing CrossFit.
00:20:16
Speaker
Okay. And I'm laughing because I actually love CrossFit. Who knew? There's a lot of disparaging opinions out there about CrossFit. And listen, it's not all misguided. Some of it's warranted. But I love my CrossFit box here in Huntsville. And it's been a wonderful space for me to feel like a member of the community in a new city.
00:20:35
Speaker
I do receive coaching at CrossFit. I've learned pretty much everything I know about Olympic weightlifting from CrossFit, so that's great. So tons of exercise technique, but really, again, no programming. No programming with CrossFit. It's very random, right, when you go in. And listen, it's random on purpose, and I'll have to do an episode someday about CrossFit because I think people underestimate this modality. It's where, basically, I also got really interested in conditioning and running, so I need to do an episode about CrossFit.
00:21:01
Speaker
Anyway, I start doing CrossFit. I'm in Alabama now. I'm running my virtual studio. Everything's like kind of getting rolling here and around this time. I hire another personal trainer, but this one I meet with differently. I meet with this person remotely. So the first two in New York, I'm meeting with in person. This one, I'm not even doing live in-person sessions. This one that I meet meeting with when I moved to Alabama, it's all remote. So remote personal training is a different thing.
00:21:26
Speaker
Remote personal training, there is no live session where you meet face-to-face on Zoom or in person. Everything is delivered via usually a software like True Coach, which I use with my personal training clients now, and you receive demo videos from the personal trainer. They write a program for you and then you submit demo videos for them to give you feedback. So you're getting coaching, for sure. You're getting coaching on exercise technique and you're also getting
00:21:51
Speaker
programming tailored to you, right? Those are the three big elements you want, but the thing is you're not getting real-time feedback and you're not getting that personal connection. When I meet with my personal training clients online, it's always face-to-face on Zoom for at least one of the sessions and then I might program additional
00:22:09
Speaker
stuff for them to do on their own so this is what's called dual right a dual client we don't meet in person obviously in the flesh because they don't live in Alabama but we meet live okay but then additionally they're not just meeting with me live for every single session they're meeting with me live for a portion of the sessions and then doing more work on their own although one client I meet with
00:22:29
Speaker
entirely live so I think that's a much better option for people who are newer to strength training and it's sometimes just a much better option for individuals because we want that face-to-face interaction. We want to feel like we're in like a more kind of human relationship with somebody rather than just somebody like who's submitting videos and things like that.
00:22:47
Speaker
But anyway, I started doing personal training sessions with personal trainer remotely here.
Pursuing Personal Trainer Certification
00:22:53
Speaker
And this is also around the time that I start studying for and eventually pass the CSCS to get my personal trainer certification. Okay, so now I'm a certified personal trainer.
00:23:04
Speaker
but i've been doing all of this leading up to that now i'm at least seven or eight years into my own training being a student of strength training myself right with various coaches various formats and i've also started teaching it and now i'm getting my cert so here's the deal the degree
00:23:26
Speaker
to which the CSCS prepared me to program is almost nothing. The degree to which it helped me with exercise technique is even less than nothing. What it did help me better understand, so I'm definitely not saying it was worthless. By the way, the CSCS is considered the gold standard of personal trainer certs, mostly because it's most evidence-based, clinicians' favorite. But anyway, what it did help me understand is
00:23:48
Speaker
the different variables involved in programming and it gave me kind of a meta perspective on it. It also helped me understand how strength happens in the body on an intellectual level. It gave me a lot of science.
00:23:59
Speaker
but it gave me almost no ability to program for people or coach people. Also, partly because the CSCS is really geared toward coaching athletes, and I don't work with high school, college, or any type of competitive athlete. I'm gonna say more about the CSCS in a little bit, I don't wanna get too off track, but here's the deal, to actually understand how to strength train. And if you see yourself coaching someday, how to coach, exercise technique, how to program for people, you should be training consistently following a program
00:24:27
Speaker
and being coached. All right, now I think it's a great opportunity for me to plug the bone density course because this is where you're going to receive all three of these important elements. You're going to get the exercise technique, you're going to get the programming, and you're going to get the coaching. Not only that, but Sarah Court
00:24:44
Speaker
is a physical therapist and also brings a clinician's training and perspective to this entire process. The goal of the bones and C course is obviously in the title. It's to build bone. It's to get a shit ton stronger than you currently are in a shit ton. If you don't know what that phrase means, it means a lot. You will see results in your ability to lift heavier and you're gonna make progress in your ability to lift heavier in exercises like the deadlift, the back squat, the front squat, the hip thrust,
00:25:14
Speaker
the bench press, the strict press, the bent over row, the leg assisted pull up and more. Those are like the mini goals, right? You're going to see yourself getting stronger within these exercises.
00:25:23
Speaker
The technique we're focusing on is barbell technique. There are some free weight and body weight exercises mixed in there too. And this is six months of progressive programming that is beginner friendly. You don't have to have barbell or even strength training experience to do this program. Here's the really most unusual and frankly super valuable aspect of this program that you're not going to find anywhere else.
00:25:48
Speaker
This program is live, meaning there are live classes associated with it that are follow along classes that happen every single week for six months except for holidays. This is unheard of, that's 24 live classes. You get the whole program written out for you too in spreadsheet form where each of the exercises hyperlinked to a demo video, so in that way it's kind of like a template, but then there's this live follow along class component to go with it.
00:26:15
Speaker
within that spreadsheet where the program's written out, that's where you're going to track your workout parameters. And we're going to teach you how to read that spreadsheet and track your workout parameters. And that right there is going to teach you a ton about programming, just engaging in that process. As I said, each of the exercises linked to a demo video that is both informative and often entertaining because Sarah and I are teaching them together here in my home in Alabama where we film them.
00:26:39
Speaker
And I don't know if you've noticed we're a little goofy sometimes. These exercise demo videos are in-depth and some of them are as long as like 12 minutes because they'll show you a whole way to like say progress push-ups for example. In addition to the program, the strength training program that you will learn your exercise technique and programming
00:26:58
Speaker
And you'll progress your strength, you'll build bone and receive coaching. You're also going to get two bonus courses. Strength Training 101 is where we peel back the curtain on the programming choices. We teach you the language of strength training. We explain why we've made the decisions we've made. And then all about osteoporosis, where
00:27:17
Speaker
We talk about what osteoporosis, osteopenia are, myths about these diseases, these diagnoses, and then what you can do about them. But let's go back to these live classes because this is the part of this program that makes this ridiculously valuable. These are all recorded, so if you can't make it live, you'll still get the recording. At the end of every single class, Sarah and I are going to do a Q&A with everybody in attendance, which I envision becoming a combination of coaching. You get to ask your,
00:27:44
Speaker
individualized questions and we'll help you with whatever those happen to be. Maybe it's about equipment or some exercise that you're struggling with or maybe it's about how to make the program work for you better. But there's also probably going to be some mentoring in there for those of you who are interested in starting to introduce strength to your students in whatever, using whatever equipment you have or in whatever modality you want to introduce it into.
00:28:07
Speaker
We're also, for those of the students who can't attend live, we're going to be available in email via email correspondence, and there's going to be a live Facebook group. So that's where you could submit your form check videos if you need guidance on exercise technique. We'll be able to see you do the exercises if you submit a short form check video to us.
00:28:23
Speaker
This is coaching. What I'm describing to you is coaching. The bone density course is all about coaching. It's dual coaching, right? It's live and remote. We're going to do one live class with you a week, but we're encouraging you to work out more than that per week. We want you to do at least two workouts per week. And these workouts are going to take you between 30 and 45 minutes to complete on average.
00:28:42
Speaker
The cost of this course works out to be less than $100 a month. And since all the live classes are recorded with everything, the two bonus courses, Strength Training 101 and All About Bone Density, it's almost 30 hours of content and you own it forever. So I'm going to be honest, this kind of opportunity, not only does it not exist, it also doesn't come along very often. We're not going to be offering this again for at least another year. Okay, back to these questions. How can I get started with strength training or how can I learn about strength training? Maybe.
Certifications for Teachers
00:29:12
Speaker
you want to teach it someday. I mentioned you could take the bone density course with us. I'm not going to just leave it at that though. I have more ideas for you, but I want to back up for a second. A lot of time when teachers ask me this question, how can I learn about strength training? I find that they are looking really they're in search of a certification, right? They're, but they're not looking for like what I described with the CSCS because they don't really know that that's what it is. They're looking for something like a 200 hour teacher training where they can kind of pay one
00:29:39
Speaker
large ticket price, go into this certification experience and learn all the things in one nicely, neatly wrapped package. Because I know that's what I was looking for. I wanted a place that I could go every weekend, where I could sit in a circle with other people learning to string train. We could bond. We could eat our lunches together. We could learn exercise technique and programming together under the guidance of our teachers. We could practice teach each other, practice train each other. We could write programs for feedback as homework.
00:30:07
Speaker
And it was going to be great. And I looked for this on the internet and I looked and looked and I was like, wait, why, when I search personal training programs, do I only get the certification?
00:30:15
Speaker
preps that teach me how to pass a test. This was a very rude awakening. Upon further investigation, I discovered that when folks get a personal trainer cert, they're usually just reading a textbook. That's what I did for the CSVS. They're memorizing information that they will be tested on. Then they're taking a written test, usually multiple choice and short answer. They're either passing or failing it. And then if they fail it, they're maybe taking it again until they pass it. And then when they pass it,
00:30:39
Speaker
They're a personal trainer. So I wanted to get my personal trainer shirt at this point, even though I'd already been teaching it, even though I had a pretty good handle on how to personal train. I wanted to get it though because I wanted to lend legitimacy to what I do. And I also wanted to learn whatever it was going to teach me that I didn't know yet. And I'm not afraid of academic style learning. I like textbooks and I don't mind tests even. But I couldn't believe I was horrified that no one was actually going to vet my ability
00:31:07
Speaker
to apply what I'd learned from a textbook before certifying me. So what I got from taking the CSES is I got a lot of really good background knowledge. I got a lot of good science. Very, very little of it immediately applicable to actually training people, but good to know.
00:31:23
Speaker
I did a ton of memorizing things like how many ceiling fans does a 2400 square foot gym need to be up to code? I'm not joking. I had to memorize that shit. I know way more about bioenergy systems, which is super cool. I have a much deeper understanding of the elements of program design. I know a good bit about aerobic conditioning in addition to anaerobic conditioning. I learned a lot of really good information that I do apply regularly, but it taught me almost nothing about exercise technique.
00:31:51
Speaker
and very little about programming for the people who are coming to me to get that information because they're not competitive athletes. Many of my students are actually pretty deconditioned actually, but I chose it because it was evidence-based. It's gold standard. Teachers, you know, would still today, teachers reach out and they're like, oh my God, I'm studying. I'm taking this personal trainer cert. It's got like a much higher pass rate, right? The CSDS has a very high fail rate. It's hard to pass this test, but they're coming to me and like they're doing one that's a little easier, but they're like, oh my God, it's so
00:32:21
Speaker
fear mongery, there's so much dogma and non-evidence-based information. And I knew that I would pull my hair out if I had to memorize that information for a test. So I chose the CSCS for that reason. So I tell you about the PT cert because that is one way to get started with learning about strength training, but it's a terrible way to start. It's absolutely terrible. You don't want to start by getting your personal trainer certification. You want to start by strength training.
00:32:49
Speaker
you want to start by getting a lot of pun intended reps. And so when people come to me and ask me about learning about strength training, specifically the teachers who I think want to teach it and they're kind of they're looking for a personal trainer cert, I discover eventually that a lot of them have only just started strength training. They're not really training consistently. They're not following a program and they're not really getting coached. They're not getting feedback on exercise technique. They're probably not getting, you know, programming that's tailored to them. And when this happens,
00:33:19
Speaker
It sort of reminds me of how when I used to teach a 200-hour teacher training for many years actually, and it was almost every single training, not every single training, but very, very commonly, especially the ones I taught in New York City, it was very common that at least one trainee, every single 200-hour training, I would discover that they had never done yoga before and they're sitting in a 200-hour teacher training as a trainee.
00:33:47
Speaker
Like they'd never done yoga before or they had done a handful of classes and then they decided, I want to take a 200 hour teacher training. That's how I'm going to go about this. I guess they want like a deep dive crash course on the topic instead of like taking weekly classes. And you look, no shade.
00:34:07
Speaker
That takes a lot of something, balls, putzba, whatever you want to call it. OK, that's a personality that exists in the world. But I'm going to say, basically, all of these trainees that would start that way, sure, they got a lot of good solid instruction to get them started on their practice. And none of them were even remotely ready to teach when the training ended, not even close.
00:34:28
Speaker
This is because they didn't have enough of the most valuable type of learning. We need to engage in for fairly long time before we teach, which is the learning we get by being a student of the topic we hope to teach.
00:34:43
Speaker
And so if you're listening and you're thinking, I wanna get started with strength training because I see myself teaching it someday, then here's my first piece of advice. Actually, I think I've given you a ton of advice. Here's another piece of advice. This one's specific. If you haven't been strength training consistently, this means a couple of times a week,
00:35:02
Speaker
ideally following some program or working with a coach or both for at least a year. And now you wonder if you should instead get a PT cert, a personal trainer cert. I'm going to recommend that you hold off on that and first start training regularly with people who know what they're doing.
00:35:19
Speaker
Within a resistance training format, you love, be that CrossFit, kettlebells, barbells, or anything similar. Start training. Get coached. Learn technique. Learn how to program by receiving programming. Follow that programming. Find out what happens. Learn by doing. But let's back up even more. You want to get started with strength training. What even is strength?
00:35:48
Speaker
Let's get a little nerdy here. I promise that I will point all of this back to practicals, but when making the decision about how to get started with strength and learning about strength, maybe we should ask, what is strength? And in fact, you know, a lot of people who want to get started with strength or strength training, what they might first do is like buy a book and read about it. Maybe they're a little bit more intellectually or academically minded. They want to start with the science. They want to start with
00:36:11
Speaker
the nitty gritty kind of sciency details of it. I don't think that's a bad place to start at all. I don't think it's the best place for most people to start. I don't think it's where most people want to start. I think most people want to start experientially building strength in their own body. But I don't know, some folks I think they just want to like, they're already kind of into the human body. They love body science. They're like, well, what even is strength? How do muscles work?
00:36:35
Speaker
I also think that taking this more academic intellectual approach can be very helpful. I also think, though, if you want to teach strength, eventually you should have a little bit of this backbone of science guiding your understanding of strength training, the science of strength, strength physiology, evidence-based practices around strength training. This science should probably be informing you to some extent, and you're going to get, if you do a personal trainer cert eventually, you're going to get a lot of that within your cert. But I think strength physiology is something you can also learn about just by following
00:37:04
Speaker
resources that we talk about here on the Movement Logic podcast a lot online by taking various courses. I have a course, a longer course, within my membership about strength physiology called Strength Science 101. Personally, I've done quite a bit of study on the topic of strength physiology through more academically delivered courses, mentorships. I do a ton of reading, blogs, articles, research papers.
00:37:25
Speaker
I've done some certs, I've taken some courses. I spent a good deal of my time reading and studying about strength, not just doing it, not just training or teaching it, but because I'm actually a little bit, I think, more interested in that nerdy year shit. I find knowing that stuff makes me a better coach and I enjoy learning about it. However, again, none of this
00:37:47
Speaker
studying, reading, taking courses. None of this is as valuable as the time I've spent actually training, following programs, getting coached, and none of this studying is really going to feel relevant or be filtered through any relevant context without this lived experience of engaging in training. However, I think that there's a time and place for this intellectual study. It really complements the experiential, especially
Defining Strength and Adaptations
00:38:12
Speaker
if you want to teach. So what is strength? Let's go back to this question. In exercise science, strength is defined as the ability to produce force, typically maximal force. Interestingly, strength, though, is context dependent, meaning there's a lot of different ways to be strong, not all of which involve maximal force production. In fact, very few do. But in the strictest, most reduced definition, it's a measurement of how much force you can produce, which is typically measured by how much weight you can lift,
00:38:40
Speaker
or how much resistance you can overcome. Interestingly, strength is not one change that can take place in your body either, meaning if you go from having less to more strength, it's guaranteed that more than one thing changed about your body.
00:38:53
Speaker
Many different changes took place across multiple systems including the musculoskeletal system. Think muscles, bones, soft tissues. Also the nervous system or the neuromuscular system. So your brain and nervous system are very deeply involved in strength. The endocrine system, hormones are involved. The cardiorespiratory system, right?
00:39:17
Speaker
This is because strength is the outcome of many different system-wide adaptations in your body. So strength is multifactorial and complex. We've heard that before, right? Pain is multifactorial and complex, right? Injury is multifactorial and complex.
00:39:35
Speaker
Human beings are multifactorial and complex. Strength is multifactorial and complex. Strength is also specific. Remember that I said we can be strong in many ways. So depending on how we train, that input will determine what we will then be able to output.
00:39:52
Speaker
in terms of performance. This is where I'm going to bring it back to the practical and offer you another piece of advice if you are interested in getting started with strength training or learning about strength training, which is this. Because strength training is the outcome of many adaptations that take place in the body and it's specific, the type of strength you develop depends on how you're training. It's important that you have a goal and the more specific your goal, the better.
00:40:16
Speaker
pick a performance goal. Now when we think performance goal, we might not really know what that is. Performance goal is just something you can show, something that can be objectively measured. Say you want to be able to deadlift 100 pounds by the end of the year, that's a performance goal. You want to be able to do a single bodyweight pull up, that's a performance goal. You want to be able to do one pistol squat, that's a performance goal. Maybe you want to do five pistol squats, that's a performance goal.
00:40:39
Speaker
You can always change the goal, right? If you don't know what your goal should be, just pick a goal, and then start trying to reach it, and then eventually you'll be like, I don't really care. Actually, now I know more now that I've started training, so now actually I want my goal to be this.
00:40:54
Speaker
Or you realize, oh, this goal is really unattainable. How can I deconstruct it to make it more attainable? And then change your goal to that. The reason I recommend a performance goal, something that you can objectively see. I can see someone do a pull up. I can see someone deadlift 100 pounds. I can see someone perform five pistol squats. The reason I recommend it be a performance goal is that
00:41:14
Speaker
Given that there are just so many ways to be strong, depending on the context, and there's so many exercises to choose from, if you have a goal that is specific it will help you notice your results, which is very motivating. It will also help you connect the dots between
00:41:31
Speaker
what you're specifically doing in your training with your exercise, your exercise technique, and your programming, and the specific adaptations you're seeing. For example, in the bone density course, some of the sub-goals, in addition to building bone and getting strong as fuck, will be for you to improve your performance of the compound lifts. You're going to receive coaching that will help you do that, and programming designed to take you from lifting what you can lift today
00:41:58
Speaker
And helping you to lift a lot more than that six months down the road. So the compound lifts that you're going to see that progress in are things like the deadlift, the back squat, the bench press, the strict press, the bent over row, the hip thrust, et cetera. So have a goal. Not only that, but have a performance goal. And the reason I say performance goal additionally is because
00:42:18
Speaker
Oftentimes the best way to reap the results of other goals that you might have. A lot of times people are like, I don't really care if I can do a pull-up or a pistol. I just want to be healthy, right? So that's a really general goal. But if you pick a performance goal, you're guaranteed to also, in pursuit of that performance goal, improve your health and longevity. Additionally, maybe your goal is aesthetic.
00:42:39
Speaker
Maybe you want to be more tone. Pick a performance goal. One of the best ways to see results in health and longevity and aesthetics is through the pursuit of a performance goal. All right, so have a goal, have a performance goal, have a specific performance goal.
00:42:55
Speaker
So strength is the outcome of many adaptations that take place in the body, and strength training is the process we undergo to accomplish this. When we learn about strength in a more academic or intellectual way, we might really start to nerd out on the fact that there are some pretty amazing changes that training creates in our body in addition to taking us closer to this performance goal. And here are just a couple of ways we can physically change our body's tissues or our capacity, our tissue capacity with string training, right?
00:43:24
Speaker
five main changes that can take place. So the first one is muscular adaptations. This is the one most people think of. Hypertrophy is the enlargement of muscle, right? And so we think strength means bigger muscles. That is true to a point. There is such a thing as being stronger and not getting bigger muscles, but for the most part, strength means bigger muscles. These are visual changes we can see. So this is connected to that aesthetic goal.
00:43:49
Speaker
It's also connected to almost all performance goals. There is such a thing as having too much muscle on your body, so what's interesting about athletic training athletes is that a lot of times what athletic trainers are trying to do is actually maximize strength without increasing body weight because when athletes' bodies weigh more, they are harder to move around the court or whatever, but for the most part, stronger means bigger muscles. You can also see things like fiber type.
00:44:15
Speaker
switches so you can go from a certain type of fiber that is most capable of producing power in your muscles and it can actually switch to a different type of fiber that's better capable of producing maximal force or vice versa. So that's fascinating to me. You can also see neural adaptations, right?
00:44:34
Speaker
First one was muscular adaptations, now neural adaptations. Your brain literally learns how to send bigger signals to your muscles. It also learns how to send those signals faster, depending on how you're training. And so if you're sending bigger signals, you're going to get more motor unit recruitment, more force.
00:44:53
Speaker
If the signals are being sent faster, this might relate more to speed and power. Another type of adaptation that our bone density course really plays on is the connective tissue adaptation. So bone is a connective tissue and tendons and ligaments are connective tissues. Cartilage is a connective tissue. So strength training creates mechanical forces that stress or cause deformation, strain to your tendons, your fascia, your bone. And when it is a minimal effective dose,
00:45:23
Speaker
also called a minimal effect of strain. This can cause those tissues to adapt to make themselves stronger. So they're less injury prone. And so one of the best outcomes of strength training is actually it reduces injury risk. I found this to be the case with my yoga practice, right? It took a lot of my pain and niggly injuries away. But also now that I've started trail running, by the way, I've started trail running, I love it, and I'm running downhill,
00:45:50
Speaker
I hear from a lot of other runners who've been running a lot longer than I have, put in a lot more mileage than I have that the downhills really bother their knees or their quads feel like jello. And I know maybe I just need to give it more time, but I'm like, I love the downhills. They don't hurt my knees at all. I don't feel my quads turning to jello because I can squat heavy. I squat heavy a couple of times a week, right? So running downhill is not strength training, but my strength training has made it so that my tissues are more resilient
00:46:18
Speaker
to the forces of running downhill, which is super cool. So those connective tissue adaptations can be fabulous ways to just make your body tougher, more durable. So we've got muscular adaptations, neural adaptations, connective tissue adaptations. We've also got endocrine response changes. A lot of these are not chronic changes. Like you're not gonna change like the resting levels of your testosterone or estrogen necessarily, but you're going to get better at dealing with training stress
00:46:46
Speaker
In other words, your body is going to get better at being able to sustain higher exercise intensities and it's going to get better at being able to recover from those higher exercise intensities.
Impact on Cardio-Respiratory Responses
00:46:58
Speaker
That's a large part of that has to do with your endocrine response, which you are affecting with strength training. And then finally, cardiovascular and respiratory responses. Now, strength training does not improve your VO2 max, which is the gold standard way of measuring cardiorespiratory health. Okay, so it's not an effective way to raise your cardiorespiratory health, unlike aerobic endurance training is, but it is
00:47:23
Speaker
adaptation that's still taking place in your body that your body is getting better at handling the cardio respiratory demands of strength training. So it's very specific in the sense that like you might start off strength training as a beginner and find yourself really out of breath and like your heart is racing but then as you adapt your cardio respiratory systems adapt to strength training you don't feel like that anymore.
00:47:43
Speaker
So that's kind of interesting, right? All right. And so what is strength, right? Strength is the outcome of many adaptations in the body that lend your ability to produce more force. And so you can learn about this on an intellectual level and really geek out on it. But most importantly, if you really want to learn about strength, you engage with strength training, and you know that these things are happening to your body,
00:48:05
Speaker
which makes it even more interesting, lends even more meaning to it. And I'll leave you with this. Not only is strength the outcome of many physical adaptations that are taking place to your body's tissues to make you capable of producing more force and to be less injury prone and just more durable and tougher, more resilient and help you live longer, but also strength is a feeling. Now listen, you can feel strong even though you're objectively maybe deconditioned.
00:48:31
Speaker
I think it's possible to feel strong in any condition, right? Because strength means different things in different contexts. But I also think that it's highly likely that if you build strength in your body through the process of strength training and you are objectively stronger, you may also notice that you feel
00:48:50
Speaker
stronger. And it's no secret there are many mental health benefits, evidence-based mental health benefits to strength training. There's quite a bit of good evidence coming out about how strength training has been shown to reduce depressive symptoms in healthy adults as well as meaningfully reduce depressive symptoms in clinically depressed adults.
00:49:12
Speaker
So this is a very exciting time for strength science. There's also many mindset benefits to strength that I've personally anecdotally experienced and I've heard others express as well. When I started to strength train, a lot of other things changed in my life. I started to take a more leadership role in my yoga community. I started to teach my own workshops and offer my own trainings. I started to speak out against what I felt were
00:49:42
Speaker
unhelpful, dogmatic, and sometimes harmful practices within the yoga community. I developed a voice and a point of view and I started to share it with enthusiasm and confidence. And I don't think it's a coincidence that this started to happen around the time that I began to build physical strength.
00:49:58
Speaker
So how can we learn about strength training? How can we get started with strength? There's so many good reasons to do it and we can engage these questions both experientially and intellectually. Of the two that I've discussed with you here, intellectual, the experiential, I hope that you hear me saying that by far the best way to start really learning about strength is to start training.
Learning Through Experience vs. Academia
00:50:17
Speaker
Change your own strength. Make changes to your body. Change your muscles. Change your nervous system. Change your connective tissues.
00:50:24
Speaker
Change your endocrine response and your cardiovascular and respiratory responses to strength training. I know I sound like a massive nerd, but do it and make those changes. Know that those changes are happening. So how do you do that? How do you start doing that? How do you start strength training? Let's review some of the formats that I've shared with you in list form now to help summarize this episode.
00:50:45
Speaker
So the three elements that are really important for you to consider is exercise technique, programming, and coaching. Of course, I've plugged the bone density course where you're going to get all three of those things. What are some other ways that you can get started with strength training? One-on-ones. Personal training sessions with a coach. Absolutely incredibly potent way to get started with strength training and to learn about strength training. You can do this in person. That's always going to be live. You can also do it online, which can be live or remote or both.
00:51:10
Speaker
So the pluses are you're going to get that coaching. Hell yeah. You're going to learn a ton about exercise technique and programming and it's going to be tailored to your specific needs. Hell yeah. The downsides, it's a bit expensive. It's the most expensive way actually per hour to engage in starting strength training. And also for those of you who like doing things in groups, it may feel tough to stay motivated when it's just you doing the thing. It might not be the best choice for you for those two reasons.
00:51:38
Speaker
One thing I'll say about the money though, when you put your money behind learning, you're more likely to take it seriously because of the sunken cost fallacy. You're just not gonna waste your money, right? So keep that in mind. Money can be a very powerful motivator. So there's also small group personal training or small group strength training. This format could be in person, which would always be live. It could also be online where it could be live or remote. If it's remote, what I mean by that, it's prerecorded. You're watching the recordings of classes.
00:52:07
Speaker
You're going to get coaching, especially if it's live, you'll get hopefully in the moment coaching. And you're also going to learn exercise technique and potentially programming because if this is small group strength training or personal training, what's implied there is that we're following a long form program. It's not just random classes you're dropping into.
00:52:24
Speaker
The downside is you're not getting 100% personalized attention, but it's a hell of a lot more personalized attention than you would get from, say, program templates you purchase online. It's less expensive than one-on-ones. And if you like doing things in groups, you might feel more motivating to be with a couple of other people doing it with you. Then there's group classes, like the kettlebell classes that I mentioned that I took in New York or that I offer in my virtual studio. Also CrossFit is a group class. These formats could be in person.
00:52:52
Speaker
that would always be live or online. You could take them live online. I don't know if CrossFit is available live online but formats like it are. You could also take
00:53:00
Speaker
recorded versions of those classes. You will get some live feedback if you're attending some live presentation of these group classes. You're gonna learn some exercise technique, but you're not gonna get the programming. Okay, so here's where we don't get the programming is these group classes. So the first two one-on-ones and small group personal training, ideally you're gonna get some insight on programming. Group classes where you're just popping in randomly, or even if you're going to the same one week after week, there's no real map for how you personally are gonna be progressively overloading your strength.
00:53:30
Speaker
Not that you're not gonna raise your baseline of strength by going to these classes, you absolutely will. Hell, I got stronger just winging it in the gym. But you're not really gonna learn anything about programming if someday you hope to program for other people. You can purchase training templates, right? That's gonna be probably delivered in somehow like a platform online or a PDF.
00:53:48
Speaker
You're gonna get probably video demos of the exercises. You can see the program written out. You can engage in the program experientially. You can learn a lot intuitively about that program and start to get a feel for programming. You're not gonna get any coaching, no coaching. All right, so we kind of were trading either. We're always getting exercise technique, right? Exercise technique is a dime a dozen.
00:54:07
Speaker
You can go on YouTube right now and have millions of videos that teach you exercise techniques. So that's not the thing we're really paying for. The thing we're paying for is that individualized exercise technique, which is delivered through coaching and programming, which is usually best delivered through coaching. But again, you can buy these templates.
00:54:23
Speaker
Then we've got our live and pre-recorded weekend certifications, like the kettlebell certification I told you I took at the beginning of the pandemic and also the barbell certification. These are all over the place, like a weekend certification that will teach you how to do X, Y, or Z with some free weight. These are going to give you exercise technique. They're probably not going to do much for teaching you how to program. They might teach you how to modify programming for some particular population of people, which is cool. There's prenatal certifications, postnatal certifications. It's good. It's good information. It's great stuff.
00:54:52
Speaker
but definitely not something you want to start off with. If you are just really interested in kettlebells and you want to take a kettlebell cert, just know that you're going to mostly learn kettlebell technique. You're not going to learn how to create a kettlebell program for someone, but you might really learn a lot about how to teach a group class, a group class around kettlebells, which is great if that's what you want to do. Finally, you could always just wing it.
00:55:16
Speaker
It's not the best way to go about this, but look, I got by winging it for several years. I had a little input to help me wing it better. And I gradually got better at winging it when I wasn't really winging anymore. Cause I actually knew some things about programming and exercise technique. But listen, your creativity, your intuition.
00:55:35
Speaker
and your ability to apply common sense and feel it out should not be underestimated. And if that's your style, I say go for it. No program, no coach, no exercise technique, no problem. Just go to the gym, try to figure it out. You have my permission. You could build strength in any of the ways I just listed.
00:55:57
Speaker
But if you really want to understand it, especially for the purpose of teaching it, if you really want to stick with it because you're engaged in it on deeper levels or if you need accountability, right? If you need someone who's expecting you to be there, there are a couple of things I want you to consider, maybe prioritize.
00:56:19
Speaker
prioritizing. Prioritize one-on-ones or small groups and prioritize opportunities to engage with one-on-ones and small groups in live formats. So where there's going to be like face-to-face contact, whether it be online or in person. The bone density course is kind of the ultimate small group personal training hybrid program.
00:56:40
Speaker
that is geared toward everyone but plays into people who eventually want to teach strength as well because we do so much peeling back of the curtain in Strength Training 101. It's also for folks who are looking to build bone. It's designed for beginners. It's progressive. It lasts for six months. There are no courses that I know of that teach barbell technique online with follow-along classes.
00:57:04
Speaker
That's one, and I have never, ever seen one created for women who are not also 20 and competitive athletes. So we created the bone density course with these two questions in mind.
00:57:19
Speaker
How can I get started with strength? How can I learn more about strength training? But then also, of course, the goal of building bone, because we see that there is just such a need in the fitness world, in the strength and conditioning world, for an offering designed for people who are often made to feel like outsiders to barbells, to heavy lifting, which is the equipment and the style of lifting that's probably most conducive to building bone and improving maximum strength, both of which are key to longevity.
00:57:48
Speaker
All right. I think that just about wraps this up. I hope that this episode has been helpful in helping you navigate your options when seeking to get started with string training or learn more about string training. Make sure you sign up for tomorrow's info session. If you want to come and see Sarah and I live online, ask your questions, please also feel free
00:58:12
Speaker
to submit questions to us via our website. We'll be sure to try to answer them in the info session. If you sign up for this info session, you will receive a discount on the bone density course, Lift for Longevity. The card on that is closing October 8th, by the way.
00:58:29
Speaker
So there's a few weeks left to get that. And we won't be offering it again for another year. Finally, check out the show notes for links that I referenced in this episode. And if you like this episode, if you find the information that Sarah and I are curating, researching, crafting,
00:58:47
Speaker
and producing for you on this podcast and you want to give us a thank you. You can do that really easily in the form of a five star review and you can go the extra mile. We super appreciate hearing from you. You can do that with a written review as well in the platform where you get your podcasts. Finally, thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for being a part of our movement logic community. We will see you next week.