Should You Get a Lifting Program?

Podcast – Steph Gaudreau

Most women in mid-life have a common rebuttal that keeps them from taking the next step when it comes to their fitness and health journey. The pressure that women put on themselves or the expectation that they believe is there to be perfect and execute their workouts without any interruption could be limiting their ability to reach their goals.

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Key Takeaways

If You Want to Show Up For Yourself, You Should:

1. Stop focusing on the perfection monster mindset
2. Focus on ways you can change your behavior through mindset changes
3. Be kind and gracious to yourself and your workout routine

Consistency is Key

I want you to ask yourself, what does consistency look like to you? How would it feel to reframe how you think about your workouts and put less pressure on yourself to never miss a day or take a vacation? Fitness and health do not need to be another stressor in your life. I want you to challenge yourself to shift the way you think about your health and be curious about how you can reframe the way you think about your workouts. When it comes to working out, perfection is not the goal, but showing up for yourself is.

The Science of Behavior Change

If you have been holding back from working with a coach because you are unsure if you can commit 100%, I am here to tell you, that you don’t need to. The all-or-nothing mentality that we have when it comes to our fitness is unnecessary, and I am here to tell you that you still get a benefit even if you can’t do 10 out of the 10 workouts you want.

Showing up for yourself and your health is the first step, and making it work for you and your lifestyle is the key to success. You don’t need to force yourself to do something that won’t work for you, and you also don’t need to do something that doesn’t fit your life schedule. Doing what works for you in your here-and-now body is the best thing you can do, period.

Are you ready to start showing up for yourself? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below.

In This Episode

• Understanding the stages of change and how to approach a new idea (3:40)
• Why you should start a strength training program even if you might not be perfect at it (7:09)
• What is endowed progress effect, and how can it help you make behavior changes (16:10)
• How to avoid the perfection monster through mindset shifts (22:50)

Quotes

“I know there is going to be at least one person listening to this podcast episode, in whatever space and time you find it, who is mulling over the question, ‘Should I get a lifting program?’.” (3:07)

“Ageing is not just this linear gentle slope down in terms of the change in function, but rather, there are these punctuated times in our lives, if we are lucky enough to make it to these ages, where there are some changes going on.” (8:34)

“I trust that the women I work with, who are mostly in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, are doing their damn best on any given day.” (21:41)

“Consistency is more important than perfection. Especially when perfection is something we cannot hold onto.” (22:47)

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Related Episodes

FYS 429: Boost Your Motivation to Train with This with Kasey Jo Orvidas

FYS 427: Your Fitness App Calls it Strength Training, But is it? With Nikki Naab-Leevy

Should You Get a Lifting Program? Transcript

Steph Gaudreau
Should you get a strength training program? If you’re, like many people I talk to, you’re worried that you won’t be able to be 100% perfect, and that can be holding you back from starting on this podcast episode, I’m going to be diving into insight from a very popular classic board game and how it relates to whether or not you want to think about getting a strength training program, especially if you’re a woman over 40.

Steph Gaudreau
If you’re an athletic 40-something woman who loves lifting weights, challenging yourself, and doing hard shit, the Fuel Your Strength podcast is for you. You’ll learn how to eat, train, and recover smarter so you build strength and muscle, have more energy, and perform better in and out of the gym. I’m a strength nutrition strategist and weightlifting coach. Steph Gaudreau, and why once you’re approaching your 40s and beyond, you need to do things a little differently than you did in your 20s. We’re here to challenge the limiting industry narratives about what women can and should do in training and beyond. If that sounds good, hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and let’s go.

Steph Gaudreau
What’s going on? Welcome back to the podcast. I am very happy to be with you on a solo episode today. It’s been a while since I’ve sat down just with myself and the mic and kept it simple, but this message is so important, I really needed to share this content with you today, because I keep hearing this very common thought, whether or not people should get a lifting program. If you’re mulling it over in your mind, there’s a really common sticking point or rebuttal that comes up over and over again that’s kind of holding people back, and I want to dig into it today, not only just from a coaching point of view but in terms of what we know from behavior change.

Steph Gaudreau
And this is such a great concept, what I’m going to share with you today, and how it relates to a really popular classic board game that you’ve probably played at least once in your life. So we’re going to dive into that here in just a moment. Of course, if you’re appreciating the content that we’re bringing you on the Fuel Your Strength podcast, please hit subscribe on your podcast platform of choice, and also head over to YouTube, hit subscribe, and ring the bell there for more notifications.

Steph Gaudreau
And yes, I do have an incredible strength training program that is purpose-built for women over 40. We want to build muscle, add strength, and have a plan, you can check out a free sample a week of the program over at StephGaudreau.com/workout. Just enter your name and email and we will get you those details. I know there’s going to be at least one person listening to this podcast episode in whatever space and time you find it who’s mulling over the question, should I get a lifting program? I don’t know. I’ve kind of been hearing, especially if I’m in my 40s or older, how important strength training is.

Steph Gaudreau
Maybe you’ve listened to other episodes here on the Fuel Your Strength podcast. You’ve heard me as a guest on other podcasts talking about strength training and why it’s so incredible. So chances are you are in the stage of change that’s after pre-contemplation. Pre-contemplation is where you don’t really know that there’s an issue. Most people listening to this podcast, I would say, have some you’ve heard me talk about you have some idea of the fact that strength training is important. So what tends to happen next is being in this next stage of change, which is called contemplation.

Steph Gaudreau
We are kind of thinking, Hmm, is this right for me? Should I? Shouldn’t I? And inevitably, this is where a lot of questions and weighing of options come up for people. When I talk to women who are in midlife, 40s, 50s in particular, but oftentimes beyond that as well, there is a very common rebuttal that comes up that keeps people from taking the next step, and that next step is getting a strength training program, whatever that happens to be, whether it’s strong with Steph, it’s dynamic dumbbells, which are the two that I offer, or it’s something else that you see out in the world.

Steph Gaudreau
It’s something a little bit more structured than your average, a popular fitness app that you would just kind of scroll through, pick a workout that looks good to you on that day, and you kind of jump in and out. There’s not really a progression to that sort of thing. It’s keeping you moving, which is great. We know we’ve talked about on this podcast why that matters, and if you want to hear the episode I did with my wonderful friend Nikki Nabb-Levy on this topic, where we kind of got into the weeds, the nitty gritty, on the difference between things like, for example, a Peloton app versus a strength training program. Then go check out that episode.

Steph Gaudreau
But one of the biggest things that holds people back at this point has to do with the pressure that you’re putting on yourself, or the expectation that you believe is there to be perfect and execute your workouts 100% of the time. And if you think about it, this really goes back into a bit of all-or-nothing thinking right where the reason why you’re holding back from taking that step and getting a structured strength training program is that you think I’m worried I won’t be able to do all of the workouts now that worry might be very well founded. In other words, you might have had an experience before.

Steph Gaudreau
Maybe it was another coach, a gym that you went to, a younger experience. Maybe being on a sports team, for example, where it was really kind of hammered into you that you can never miss a day, that if you skipped a workout, you were going to be falling behind or lacking progress or somehow harming yourself, which we’ll talk about here in a moment. Why that just doesn’t make a lot of logical sense. But there, there could have been a past experience that you’ve had that put that thought into your mind, or perhaps it’s just the way the fitness industry at large talks about fitness on social media.

Steph Gaudreau
For example, never miss a Monday, or the idea that you have to do every single day and a 30-day challenge or a 75-day challenge, maybe, and if you miss a day, you start all over again. We know why. We understand why you would think, well, I don’t think it’s realistic. I’ll be able to do 100% of these workouts. So why would I invest in a lifting program? Why would I even start if I can’t assure myself that I’m going to do 100% of the workouts?

Steph Gaudreau
And so the reality of that is, if you have goals for building strength, building muscle, using strength training, Plyometrics, for example, as a vehicle for helping you with bone strength, bone health, balance, preventing falls, building muscle, avoiding sarcopenia. If you are thinking about strength training for that reason, and you don’t get your program, then you’re going to be missing out on a lot of these benefits, even if you couldn’t do 100% of the workouts. Very, very recently as of the recording of this episode, which is August.

Steph Gaudreau
August 21, 2024, and I haven’t done a deep dive on this paper quite yet, but if I could sum it up in layman’s terms, what was this study looking at? They were looking at molecular changes in the body during the aging process. And the general result of what they found was that aging is not just this linear sort of gentle slope down in terms of the change in function. But rather, there are these punctuated times in our lives, if we are lucky enough to make it to these ages, when there are some changes going on in things like the biological functioning of different systems, disease risks, and so on.

Steph Gaudreau
And these two periods that they looked at, and they found there were some pretty punctuated changes, were in your mid-40s and around the age of 60. Now the 60-year-old one seems to line up really well with an article that came out in 2021 in the journal Science, where essentially what they found was there was a change in organ metabolism around age 60. So we know that around age 60 there are some things happening, including, but not limited to things like sarcopenia, which we know is loss of muscle and strength, or muscle and power, or all three of those things.

Steph Gaudreau
So we know that there’s stuff happening around your 60s. And of course, strength training is going to help with that muscle loss, help mitigate some of that muscle loss and loss of strength and power that we may experience through aging if we choose to not intervene around the 40s or mid-40s, they found some interesting changes with how the body metabolizes, alcohol, caffeine, lipids and so on. So there were some really interesting changes. And I think this is just more food for thought that, hey, it’s not too late.

Steph Gaudreau
There are things that we can do this. We’re not helpless or powerless in these situations 100% we may not be able to completely slow down or change or avoid some of these functions of aging, but there is a lot that we can do right? We can do our cardiovascular exercise because we know it’s a both, and it’s not just lifting weights and it’s not just doing endurance training. We need both of these things for different reasons, but there are a lot of things that we can affect. And so this goes back to my point earlier, with the thought or the fear of, you know, I’m just not going to get a program because I’m worried I won’t be able to do 100% of the workouts.

Steph Gaudreau
Now, let’s think about that for a second. If we’re trying to change our skeletal muscle mass, make improvements there, work on strength and power, and ultimately try to offset some of this muscle loss that can lead to things like sarcopenia. What did it make sense for some amount of strength training, lifting, weights, and resistance training, even if it’s not 100% of the time? And how do we define that? Well, it’s based on the program. But if, even if we’re not able to follow through 100% something is better than nothing when it comes to this.

Steph Gaudreau
So let’s kind of go back to that idea of how we frame our movement practices, how we remain flexible instead of being very inflexible. So if the thought for you has come up that you’re worried you won’t be able to do 100% of the workouts on a lifting program, and first of all, hopefully, that coach, that strength trainer, that personal trainer that you’re working with, is having a discussion with you, or is putting it out there ahead of time. What are the expectations when people join strong with Steph, one of the very first emails that I send out is all about training your brain with regards to this program, and one of the things that we talk about are the expectations that I don’t expect you’re going to do 100% of the workouts. It’s just not realistic.

Steph Gaudreau
Strong with Steph is a 12-month progressive strength training program. How realistic is it that I would expect every single person who comes through the door of this program is going to do every single workout? Now I will say I do have people who get very close and also folks who do every single workout. Are they in the majority? No, they’re not. Shout out to Tori. Tori, you know who you are. Tori is one of the people who did 100% of the workouts in the first year of strong with Steph, She’s incredible. I want to know her secret, but hey, that’s probably not what we’re going to see from every single person.

Steph Gaudreau
What I do put out there is, if you can get seven or eight out of every 10 workouts done, you are still going to make great progress that is still showing consistency in the big picture, right? How do we define consistency, even so? How I would define consistency is for me and this program. Hey, if you’re hitting seven or eight out of 10 workouts, holy shit, that’s really consistent. Do you think logically you will get good results if, during those seven or eight out of 10 workouts, you’re putting forth your best effort? Sure?

Steph Gaudreau
What would happen if we took the pressure off of you to never miss a workout? It would probably feel really fucking great. And at first, you might think it feels a little weird that the coach isn’t expecting me to do every single thing. No, we know shit is gonna happen. We know that over the course of a year, something is likely to go sideways. The dog gets sick, and the kids, have a change in their sports practice. You came down with an illness.

Steph Gaudreau
Maybe you were out playing pickleball. These are real examples, by the way, of people who have done the program out playing pickleball and twisted their ankles. You know you’re gonna have to adjust. Maybe you skip a few days. Give it some time to rest, then you’re gonna get back to your workouts because you know you’re gonna need to work around it. You went on vacation. I mean, so many things happen in a year, and midlife is no joke, you have a lot of responsibilities as it is to yourself, to your career, to your family, whatever it happens to be, plus all the things that you like to do in your free time for fun.

Steph Gaudreau
So how would it actually feel if you went into something thinking, all right, I’m going to reframe this. That I’m going to do seven or eight out of if I can get seven or eight out of 10 workouts, I am doing an incredible job, and I am going to see, likely, some degree of progress, and it’s probably going to be pretty freaking great progress over the course of 12 months, as long as I keep going in the big picture. Now this isn’t just some fluffy idea when it comes to behavior change, and this is where we’re bringing it back down, bringing it back around to the board game I talked about earlier.

Steph Gaudreau
Let’s dig into this. So there’s a very popular board game you’ve probably played. It’s called the game of Monopoly. And when you play the game of Monopoly, quite oftentimes you will get a Get Out of Jail Free card. So if you end up in jail, you get to get out of jail. If you have this card and keep playing the game, the game continues for you, luckily. Now, how does that have anything to do with this concept? In behavior change, in psychology, there is a concept called endowed progress effect.

Steph Gaudreau
Yeah, I know that sounds like word salad, but let’s kind of break it down endowed progress effect. Here’s a here’s another common example of the endowed progress effect, and then how you can use this idea for your own workouts. There was a study that was done where participants were given a loyalty card for a car wash. So you’ve probably received these free coffee is another one you’ve got your favorite coffee shop, yes, they’re going to give you a little stamp card that you’re going to bring in, and every time you get your coffee, which, if it’s me, it’s going to be a cold brew or iced coffee, if you know, you know. All right, so back to the study.

Steph Gaudreau
The participants in the study were given a loyalty card for this car wash. One group got a card that had eight check boxes, and when they got those eight stamps, they would get a free car wash. Okay, so eight empty boxes, here you go. Here’s your loyalty card. The other group got a similar card that required 10 stamps, right? So, 10 stamps, but there were two stamps already marked.

Steph Gaudreau
Okay, so both groups technically needed eight stamps each. We had the first group, all the boxes were blank. There were eight boxes. Get eight stamps free car wash. The second group, 10 boxes, two stamps already marked off, still needed eight more car washes, right in order to get their free one which group was more likely to complete their card and earn their free car wash?

Steph Gaudreau
I’m sure you can probably guess where this was going the group that had the two free car washes already marked off was more likely to actually complete the card. The reason is it made their goal seem closer and more attainable. They had already made progress, even if they didn’t have to do anything to make that happen, they just showed up, right here you show up two boxes marked off with this stamp. This is great, right? So what does this have to do with training? And I want you to kind of think about this now.

Steph Gaudreau
I’m just going to use Strong with Steph as an example because it’s the program that I offer in Strong with Steph. Again, go back to what I said earlier. I would I communicate to people, Hey, if you can do seven or eight out of 10 workouts, then you’re doing an incredible job. Just keep going. You’re still going to see great progress, as long as you put in the effort, right? You could, in theory, mark your sessions complete. Let’s say this is your Get Out of Jail Free card.

Steph Gaudreau
Let’s say shit hits the fan and over the course of three weeks, three weeks times three workouts, is about nine workouts, so we’re in the ballpark. Shit hits the fan. You know you have to miss two workouts. You could check off those workouts as having been completed, and that gives you that little mental boost toward this thing we call the Endowed Progress effect, like, in essence, it’s your Get Out of Jail Free card. Now, of course, if you just want to imagine think I got my two Get Out of Jail Free cards or three. You know, I had a tough week. I wasn’t sleeping well.

Steph Gaudreau
I was having hot flashes in the night. Taxes are due. I’m stressed out. Work has been a mess. My boss is an asshole. Um, whatever is going on in your life, there’s a lot. There’s a lot going on at midlife. And I’m so proud of my lifters who show up for themselves to do something positive for their health and well, being like lifting, even when things around them are not perfect, because we know they’re never going to be perfect. So I’m really proud of people for showing up and doing their best, no matter how many if they get three workouts out of 10.

Steph Gaudreau
Hey, you still showed up and did? You did it? You did the thing. You got one out of 10 workouts. Great. I will never shame you for that. Maybe we’ll have a chat about how I can support you and kind of what went sideways and how we can problem solve around it, of course, but there will be no shaming of, Oh, you didn’t do the well, what’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you doing your workouts?

Steph Gaudreau
Heck no no, that doesn’t happen, at least not in my world. All right. So you can use your two or three get out of jail, free cars, whatever works for you in that idea of giving you that mental relief, making the goal seem more attainable, making the goal of showing up for those workouts seem closer to your grasp, which then has an effect on goal striving and goal-reaching. See how this stuff works. This is beautiful, but so often in Strength Training and Fitness, it’s like, never skip a day. Oh, what’s wrong with you?

Steph Gaudreau
Oh, you’re being lazy. Listen, I trust that the women that I work with, who are mostly 40s, 50s, and 60s, are doing their damn best on any given day, they need support, not belittling. That’s just not what we’re here for as coaches and acknowledging that this period of life is hard. It’s hard. There are a lot of changes with your body and otherwise in your life outside of this, right? This is why being menopause informed is so important as a coach, as a fitness professional, right? How are we going to meet people and support them?

Steph Gaudreau
And one of the best ways that I know to meet people in terms of this concept, is saying you don’t have to do 10 out of 10 workouts. If you can’t get to it, it’s okay. You’re still going to get a benefit from showing up for those seven or eight out of 10, and even if you only got one out of 10, it’s okay, just show up for the next one. Just show up for the next one right?

Steph Gaudreau
Consistency is more important than perfection, especially when perfection is something we cannot hold on to, and we lose the grasp on and then everything falls apart. And then 346, 1224, months later, we realize that that perfection monster has taken over, and we need to find a way around it, right? So we know why all-or-nothing thinking exists. We have done podcasts on this in the past.

Steph Gaudreau
I touched on it even with Casey Joe or VITAS in the podcast that we did on fitness and motivation. So go back and check that one out as well. So here’s the thing, should you get a lifting program if you’re ready, in terms of you have a goal you want to meet that goal, you know that structure will help you. You know that when you’re busy, if you have it there, it’s waiting for you, you’re not going to move it down the priority list, and you’re ready to move through this worry that it has to be 100% like let’s sure you might not be ready for a lifting program yet, but you might be, but let’s not let the I have to do 100% of the time, or else it’s not worth doing get in my way.

Steph Gaudreau
I’m worried I’m going to fail if I’m not doing all of the workouts in an entire year, that just sounds preposterous, by the way, I don’t know that’s just not how I operate as a coach, and it’s really not what we see from behavior change. And the science of behavior change that really helps make an impact. We know that people can make tons of progress without things being perfect. So why are coaches out there expecting perfection? I just don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not them, and so that’s all I can control.

Steph Gaudreau
But I do want to shine a spotlight on this, because if you’ve been holding back because you’re worried about the all or nothing, or you’re worried if you can’t do 100% what if you have to go on a vacation, take the vacation, my friend. You don’t need to lift when you’re on vacation, either. Some people do. They want to get a little bit of activity. They’ll bring bands with them or do some body-weight stuff, especially if they travel a lot, maybe for work. But if you’re going on a vacation for fun. Just enjoy, enjoy.

Steph Gaudreau
You don’t have to lift when you’re on vacation. When you come back, one of my clients said to me, I went away on vacation and I came back. And in the past, without a plan waiting for me, I would kind of default to oh, I’ve got to get restarted. And that mental energy, that sort of build-up of like, Oh, I gotta get started again. I don’t know where I should pick back up, was creating this barrier for her to just go back into it. And she said to me in one of our coaching feedback conversations, hey, having the app there, having the workout in the app, and I could just open it up.

Steph Gaudreau
And she’s one of my coaching support clients, where we check in with each other all the time. She said, having you there and having the plan already there made it so easy for me to just get back to it, instead of waiting weeks or months to resume. So think about how that impacts consistency. All right, so if you’re thinking about this, if this is on your mind, you’re worried about this, hopefully, this podcast episode has given you a way to restructure, reframe, think about things in a different way, because how we think about things, drives our actions, and those actions are going to dictate our results in the big picture.

Steph Gaudreau
Hopefully, this has helped you to deconstruct it a little bit. And if you’re like, yes, I’ve had this fear, Okay, I’m ready to move past it now. You know, you can get out there. Do the thing, get the benefits of lifting mentally, physically, and emotionally, and move yourself forward. All right. I hope this has been helpful for you. If you liked this episode, you found value, you can do a couple of things completely for free to help us out.

Steph Gaudreau
Share this with somebody that you know and love, spread the word, tell them about this episode, hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app or listening platform, or even make your way over to YouTube and hit subscribe over there on the YouTube channel. All very free, easy ways to show your support. And I really, really appreciate it. And of course, if you’re ready to get a lifting program and you want to work with me, check out Strong with Steph.

Steph Gaudreau
We have two options, do it yourself, or coaching feedback. That’s our premium level where you get to work with me directly. Check it out. See what we have on offer. Try the free sample. See what it’s like. You can do that at StephGaudreau.com/workout. All right, it’s been such a pleasure. I’m looking forward to bringing you more solo episodes as the season goes on here. So thank you again for being with me and until next time, stay strong.

Should You Get a Lifting Program? | Steph Gaudreau.