Practical Solutions for Everyday Goals: How To Get Stronger

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome back to another edition of the Red Leaf Fitness podcast, A show dedicated to bringing you stories, interviews and conversations about living a healthy, resilient and productive life. I'm your host, Sean Blinch, and I want to thank you for making time to listen to this episode today and, if you like what we're putting down, we would love it if you would follow, rate and share this podcast. All right, now let's get down to business. Welcome back to another edition of Real World Solutions for your everyday goals On January 16,. I'm sitting here with the lovely Michelle. How are you doing?

Speaker 1: 0:43

Good how are you Good, good?

Speaker 3: 0:48

You have such a radio voice.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Well, it's also because I talk close to the mic.

Speaker 3: 0:52

Oh, is that better?

Speaker 1: 0:53

Yeah, you gotta be on top of the mic. Yeah, I was always told I have a face for radio. Oh my God. But that's not what today's about, is it? No, what we're talking about today is what everybody's trying to do. It's a very noble quest. How does one get stronger? Strong, let's talk about it. So what does it mean to you when you say, when someone says to you, I want to get stronger, what is that? What do you hear?

Speaker 3: 1:37

Oh, that's interesting, I would ask. I would flip that back to them and say what does that mean for you? For me it would mean being able to lift more than I'm currently able to do, run faster, swim better longer, that kind of stuff. So take where I am and improve in a measurable, like metrics, in that way.

Speaker 1: 2:01

And why is it important to get strong.

Speaker 3: 2:05

Oh God, I don't know which angle you want me to answer that.

Speaker 1: 2:13

Start anywhere, we're just rithing.

Speaker 3: 2:17

For me personally. It makes me feel far more capable in everything. So it gives me something to focus on. It helps me create kind of like a game plan for what I want to do and act with a little bit more intention in my workouts in the gym, and it helps me know that I'm moving in the right direction for what my goals are. So if my squats getting better, I'm performing better, I'm doing all the things that are kind of in line with that goal. If it's not, then I got to adjust some shit.

Speaker 1: 2:53

Yeah, it can come on a number of levels, and so you know from what I hear, what you're saying is that for you it's very important from self empowerment standpoint. You want to make sure that you're capable and what that means for you on many different levels. So when it comes to why someone should get strong, just on the more like national level, like across this country, we now know that one of the greatest metrics of life expectancy is how much muscle somebody is carrying. The other one is your cardiovascular health, your body's ability to move oxygenated blood around the venous system and back to exchange gaseous, the gaseous exchange. So muscle mass is super important, right? So you know there's so many. I think my point here is just that there are so many reasons to get strong, and now more than ever because it comes. You know it's a very deep personal connection with feeling capable and wanting to be able to help those around you or whatever it is for you, right? But also we now understand that there are real health span implications to not having muscle yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:34

Yeah. So okay, so let's. We've established why people want to get strong, so let's look at how to get strong. So let's say I roll in off the street. Let's say I'm, my name is Guy, okay, okay, and I'm 49. And I want to get strong. Okay, what would you say to Guy?

Speaker 3: 5:08

I can't with you today.

Speaker 2: 5:12

Look Well, guy, yeah, we oh my God Guy, we, we, we, we, we, we, we we.

Speaker 3: 5:30

I hope every listener now understands a little bit of what Karen and I have to do. Guy would do well to start lifting some kind of weights. So resistance training of some kind and and if he's brand new to to that, body weight is very much resistance training, Body weight, squat, depending on what your start point is Absolutely Effective weight training. So we kind of figure out where he is, where he's at, and we go from there.

Speaker 1: 6:04

Okay. So let's say Guy is took your advice and has now been here for six months and he's coming. Let's say he's coming three days a week and he's seen some improvements. He's starting to gain some, some muscle, but he's hit a plateau.

Speaker 3: 6:27

Okay.

Speaker 1: 6:28

So we're seeing some some good improvement progress. It's fun feeling better, but I've hit this plateau. And now how do I break through this plateau?

Speaker 3: 6:41

Yeah. So I mean same idea. You can take this in a few different directions and maybe we should cause. That's an interesting conversation we're having even in the my class this morning. So this it's a very real conversation. First thing you can do is you kind of have these tools in your toolbox, right? So one of them, um, one of the best things I think you've said in in one of your classes was time under tension. So how do we practically, when we're in a class setting, increase our strength? If, let's say that squats not going anywhere and you're consistent in the move, you're moving well, it's not getting any better, we increase time under tension. So that's one practical thing he can do. If we're talking about an Olympic lift and this was kind of the context of our discussion this morning Maybe we need to deload the bar and work positions and work technique and work um the mechanics of the lift.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Let me build on that one Cause. That that's. That's going to be my, my point. So, uh, actually, before I rudely interrupt and just, do you want to finish that Sorry?

Speaker 3: 7:48

No, no, that's go for it Again.

Speaker 1: 7:50

Okay, so, okay. So, let's talk about that one. So, um, when it comes to, let's say, for easy math, my clean and jerk is a hundred pounds and I want to see that thing, or whatever, let's actually call it 200 pounds, cause that's you know easier to work backwards from there.

Speaker 1: 8:09

So you have 200 pound clean and jerk. Um, the first thing that you'd want to look at is what Michelle's saying, is the position. So now, if I'm going to be power cleaning or some power clean of 200 pounds, we have to look at does that new weight put me into, does it force me to catch that lower, and how is my ability to squat clean? So, if I've spent a year always power cleaning 190 pounds to the exact same um receiving point, if I now I'm going heavier and I'm catching it lower, what that does is it says well, how often have you trained your range of motion at that certain weight? So, for example, uh, we get stronger in the ranges, we train them.

Speaker 1: 9:02

So if I haven't been, uh, squat cleaning at 190. Power cleaning at 210, it just doesn't connect. And so what you wanna do is we always think about progress, progress, progress, but there's actually regress. That's a huge tool for us. So you wanna pull the bar down. We wanna make sure that we're training those ranges in their full capacity. So if I'm only squatting to 90 and the second I drop below it, well, look, my strength curve just drops off and I don't feel strong in that range. So when that now I go and ask my body to catch a weight, even though I can catch it at 200, but if I wanna catch it at 210, the body just not gonna work. So that's a very long-winded way of just saying that it's a really good idea to lower the weight a little bit.

Speaker 1: 9:56

Work ranges, build that base and then slowly build back up and re-PRing 200 pounds with a greater range of motion is a blast. It's a really, really good idea. I have another point in there on how to break through plateaus, but do you wanna jump in and add anything?

Speaker 3: 10:16

Yeah, I think it's especially. I think the power clean, squat clean is a great example. So if it was someone I'm working with, I would try to take a look at where in the movement is the breakdown? Are they ripping it as fast as possible off the floor and losing tension immediately? Okay, well, that's a range we gotta work on. You know, is the bar three feet off their hip and they're trying to make contact and it's just flying so far away from the body? Okay, well, that's a range we work on. So to just build on your point, it's going backwards is what allows you to move forward once you've hit those end ranges, and if you're not prepared to move backwards, you're likely leaving a hell of a lot on the table because you don't want to lighten it up. Work positions those are the things that allow you to burst through that upper level strength. For you, there's a breakdown, so we need to figure out where's the breakdown.

Speaker 1: 11:12

Yeah, where's the chick in the armor? Now, what if somebody's like, okay, well, I actually don't have the range of motion to squat clean, sean, that's great and all, but I'm a power cleaner. It's gonna be what I'm gonna be, you know, can I still do this? Yeah, you can definitely still get stronger and work the power clean, but the formula still applies. So, you know, we think about what Michelle's saying.

Speaker 1: 11:38

Where am I catching that and what are the things that are happening in there that are limiting this? So sometimes one of the major things that we see when somebody pulls a power clean really, really high it's a really high percentage of their 1RM is suddenly they don't receive it anymore. Now they catch it like they're gonna be catching a strict press and so there's a bit of a fear you talon claw the bar where it is even so close to good, current and global. Really, what you want to do is you want to be getting under the bar and receiving it on to the clavicle with high elbows. So that why do you want high elbows? Because that's where the delts, the shoulders, are the most padded. They're sticking out and they allow for this like nice, comfortable catch. But that's pretty friggin scary when I'm trying to PR and.

Speaker 1: 12:27

I've now put 10 pounds on the bar, so Some of this stuff is just about and my final point is how do you break through PRs? Is you want to work Higher reps at higher percentages of your one a ramp? So if I'm now power cleaning 200 pounds, it's a really good idea for me to start working stuff at 198, working doubles, working doubles at really, really high, even if it's 190, and and it's also a good idea to don't think about PRs in five and ten pounds anymore.

Speaker 1: 13:03

Yeah the law of diminishing returns states that the longer you do something, the harder it is for you to get good, harder it is for you to be able to actualize those gains, and what? But you know that makes them all the more sweeter when you do get them. So Start thinking about adding Two pounds, a pound on each side with those little disc plates. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:26

PR at 202, 204, 205. Don't always go for okay, I'm gonna go for a five pound PR. Well, when you've been lifting for a long time, a five pound PR is a huge number the huge deal. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 13:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:42

So we should move on to a few other ways to get stronger and also break through plateaus. Was there anything that you want to add on that?

Speaker 3: 13:53

No, I think well, yeah, one thing if your PR is a sloppy 200 and you can turn that into a really clean 200. Yeah, that's a big deal.

Speaker 1: 14:03

I love that point, yeah, so that's still very much progress.

Speaker 3: 14:06

Yeah, it's not always the number on the bar.

Speaker 1: 14:10

Yeah, let's make things look really nice and feel good about them. Yeah, so okay. So another one is gonna be nutrition. So I would ask somebody. I would ask ghee, okay, how, what? How much protein are you? Yeah, you know, people are so surprised when they do a food journal for a week, how little protein they're actually eating was very challenging.

Speaker 1: 14:35

It's super hard, you know, and the the gold standard is one gram protein per pound body weight, but when you're like me and you're a 225 pound dude, 225 grams of protein is actually like that's. You really got to focus on that. So my point is what I would say is run a food journal for three days. Record. It doesn't at this point. We don't care what your other macros are. It doesn't care. We don't care what your fat Intake is or your carbohydrate intake. Let's look at what the protein is, because a carbohydrate and the fat definitely Support that stuff from nutritional foundation standpoint, but it's the protein that's actually going to be repairing the muscle breakdown that you're Putting your body through during a class or during a weightlifting session. So that would be something that's, I think, really important.

Speaker 3: 15:26

Oh yeah a lot. So, I would yeah to build on that. I think the two things outside the gym you can do focus on protein and I'm sure you can guess it. But where's your sleep at? Yeah?

Speaker 1: 15:40

are we my next?

Speaker 3: 15:40

Yeah, oh, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 15:43

Let's talk about. Aren't we aligned, yeah?

Speaker 3: 15:46

Yeah. So if you're finding your performance in the gym or outside of the gym, if you're running, cycling, swimming, whatever, if all Systems seem to be moving well, but that performance is just stagnant, it's not getting any better, maybe even feeling like you're taking a dip. One of the areas I would ask a client is where are we at with our sleep? Are you finding your sleeping? Three, four, five hours a night, six hours a night? But it's really broken. Quality is not very good. It might not be a matter of nutrition or what you're doing in the gym. You can't. You might be nailing those things, but for whatever reason, your sleep is not optimal, and so that might be an area that you focus on and and, and so my two major things when it comes to sleep are going to be a wearable.

Speaker 1: 16:37

So something to track sleep and understanding when growth hormone what. There is an actual phase of the sleep that Floods the body, and Sleep has many phases that come in and do different jobs. There are phases that will sort of there's a there's an incredible thing where there's this fluid that comes up and it will bathe your brain and clean these, like it's some kind of protein, but there's some kind of, there's some kind of byproduct that starts to get really sticky in the brain and and there's a phase of the sleep that actually goes in there and just like bates it and cleans it. It's amazing. Right.

Speaker 1: 17:17

Um, I learned that. I'm just trying to see if the book is up here. I learned that in a um a book called why we Sleep by Dr Matt Walker.

Speaker 3: 17:28

Yeah, it's, one of the world's you know sleep. Yeah, you did a podcast on that.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Yeah. So okay, first of all, let's talk about a wearable. So it doesn't matter if you are wearing a Fitbit or a uh Apple watch or a Garmin. I think we're we're um preferable to uh the Garmin because triathlon and we love triathlon, but you can wear any, just something that tracks it and it's. It's not that these things are all that accurate In fact, they're probably not all that accurate but the longer you do it, the better the data gets. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:01

So if you do this something for two years, there are trends in there that we can start to look at. And you have to remember when you wake up in the morning, you look at your sleep data. You have to understand that this is a. This is a. This is a blinking light on the back of a you know piece of plastic. Do when it's best. This is not supposed to be like. We're not actually.

Speaker 3: 18:19

Not a sleep study, yeah no, but the value, I think it's like it's consistently inaccurate. Yeah. So it's. It's not nailing it scientifically, but it gives you a consistent measure of or a picture, sorry, of what's going on.

Speaker 1: 18:36

Yeah, and it's something okay and what we measure, we manage and we want to manage good sleep quality, so we want to be wearing one of these Now. There, this doesn't have to break the bank there are $200 Garmin watches that will last you years. I think that's incredible. You know, can't, can't just stress that enough. This is like get yourself some ability to track sleep, Even a journal in the morning where it's like yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:05

I, you know, I went to bed at 11 and woke up at six, boom. Write that down. Every single day. There is a phase of when you're going to sleep that's all based on rhythm, where your body's actually going to do a better job of repairing muscle, repairing anything that's going on. And it's interesting because that stuff's going to happen in the later phases of your sleep. So if you're constantly getting a short sleep, like if you're a five hour a night guy or gal, you're going to be omitting this repairing process on a nightly basis all the time. Now, if you take that and you go three months, six months, nine months, so well, when are we actually going to be able to capitalize on that natural ability for your body to repair? This muscle.

Speaker 1: 20:05

It's super important to get the later phases of the sleep, and so what that means, if you're someone who goes to bed at 10, let's make sure that you're not consistently shorting that sleep and you always because you can get into a rhythm. I go to bed at super early, I get up super early but I still get that building phase because I get a full sleep most of the time.

Speaker 3: 20:31

Yeah, yours is just shifted earlier, mine is shifted early.

Speaker 1: 20:37

So those are my two points wearables and making sure that we're getting the deep, high quality sleep at the end of the night, not shorting that. And how do you do that? Make sure that you're going to bed on a consistent basis. Try to always go to sleep at 10 o'clock and try to always get up at six or five or whatever it is, but make sure it's always the same time every night, when possible. So I got one more point, but is there anything else on sleep you want to add in there?

Speaker 3: 21:10

No, I think you Okay.

Speaker 1: 21:12

Yeah, and the last one ties into sleep and it's just the general idea of recovery. So we know that nutrition and sleep are huge parts of recovery. Are there other aspects of recovery that people should be doing? Should people be eating liver while in an ice bath?

Speaker 3: 21:35

I don't generally hang with those people so I'm not sure. But if Guy is doing that, no, I think. I mean I'm not sure what you have lined up, but for me it's. I always think about what are the biggest bang for my buck items. For me it's training, sleep, nutrition, in that it helps me manage stress. So I kind of group that in those three camps.

Speaker 3: 22:06

I think you can get quite lost in the weeds of trying to really optimize ice baths, eating X, y and Z, supplementing with turmeric, and none of those things are bad. But I would say if you're drinking five or six nights a week and trying to supplement with turmeric, we're maybe we're kind of leaving a lot on the table. So I always I try to think about what are the biggest items I can add into my life. My life is a little bit crazy right now, so I try not to focus on the small things and say what are the biggest things that I can do? And for me it's those three things, and that's what I suggest with clients too, because my life is busy and sure as hell their life is very busy. So what are some simple things we can do?

Speaker 1: 22:54

So the next big important thing in there that I know that you would agree with is just stress management. Stress management has to be one of the biggest deterrents to people's recovery. So if we are not managing our stress, it's impacting our ability to sleep. If we're not managing our stress, it's impacting our ability to eat, because if you're like me, you stress eat.

Speaker 3: 23:19

If you're like me, you under eat. Both of them are not great.

Speaker 1: 23:22

Yeah I, yeah I. It's almost uncontrollable. If I am stressed out of my mind, I will medicate with something because it feels good now. It makes me feel good now so I can make a better decision later, and so it's, it just happens like clockwork. So, when it comes to stress relief and stress management, what are some things that people can do to really, what are the big ones there that can help this Cause? Life's stressful, everyone's time poor. How do we do this?

Speaker 3: 24:00

Oh God, it's a podcast on its own.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Maybe can you start in the night and let me Okay, one of the things that I think is so important that I don't know if enough people are doing is prioritizing, at the end of your day, something called down regulation, down regulation. We are up regulated all fucking day. There's always an email to get back to you, a text message to get, and it's like now people are hitting you up on email, facebook, text, whatsapp, instagram and if you're on other weirdo, like you're on TikTok, people are talk, talk, ticking you. People are snip, snapping you. You know Snoop, getting a snoop chat. Okay, don't send me a snoop, y'all.

Speaker 3: 24:57

It's just how funny you think it is, that's what makes it? So good.

Speaker 1: 25:02

I'll hang out. I'll hang out. I'm not answering snoops later in the day. I'll get back to my snoops in the morning. Oh, all right, let's get back on track.

Speaker 3: 25:14

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 25:16

I'm crying Snoop chat, but my point is you have to down regulate because there's always something going on, and not only that, but you have media that actually makes money. The more it freaks you out, because the more eyeballs that they can actually show that are in tune with something to hire the value of the advertising space. So we have now incentivized ourselves to be more pissed off, more scared, more filled with anxiety. It's because it makes money. So down regulating. So actually, look, how do you do that? Okay, many ways to do this.

Speaker 1: 25:57

One of the ways that I feel it works best for me when I get home, I lay out my planner. I have this planner what the hell's it called? It's called a full focus planner. I'll sit down and I'll look at my to-do list that I wrote out in the morning, and you don't have to do that. But you get home at the end of the day and you write out some of the things okay, what's left in my day? And I just sort of write that out. Okay, none of this stuff's gonna happen today, and then I'll put the date on the next page and I'll spill those things into the next. I'll look at all the emails. Okay, what has to be hit. I have this rule if it's after six o'clock, unless this is massively urgent. That is just that is just that. I'm not returning this because it just never ends.

Speaker 1: 26:41

And it's not just me, it's everybody. And so I'll actively down-regulate and I'll try to maybe do a three minute or a five minute meditation or something. But if I do that it just changes who I am from six to 9 pm and it just sets me up into the next day better, and when I don't get to do it because I don't always there's stuff going on kids I'm just not as good. So down-regulation, I think, would be my big one. First, stress management.

Speaker 3: 27:12

Yeah, I think the idea of making a to-do list for me is critical. Pull all that shit out of my brain and put it on paper really goes a long way, and I know this sounds whatever, fluffy, whatever. I think we can all probably be better at doing and finding a few minutes to do something that makes you happy.

Speaker 1: 27:35

Joy, I don't think we do that enough.

Speaker 3: 27:37

I think we dump a lot of energy into other people, whether it's your kids, your spouse, your partner, your colleagues, whatever. I think a lot of us are quite good at doing that and we don't leave enough space for it for ourselves, even if it's five minutes. I had a client once during the pandemic who she was telling me every like three times a week she would go and get a latte. She fucking like lattes. It just felt nice to do something just for her.

Speaker 1: 28:10

She liked them a latte.

Speaker 3: 28:11

Yeah, yeah, nice shot, but I think it's something that we could probably all get better at doing. Find just something that actually adds some joy to your life. That doesn't need to be a lot.

Speaker 1: 28:28

So, to summarize, on how to get stronger, how to break through plateaus, you wanna be making sure that you're looking at the big pillars, which are nutrition, sleep, recovery, making sure that we're making use of the tools that we have around us, whether it's classes. Getting a trainer's really good idea, shameless plug, for sure. For sure, getting a trainer is a great hack on how to make sure that you get yourself stronger.

Speaker 3: 29:02

Yeah, you outsource it to people Whose job it is to help.

Speaker 1: 29:05

Yeah, we are the pros. That's what we do. We know what's up and just making sure that you're hitting things like stress relief. We have a sauna here at the gym. That's a tool that you can use. It's super, super powerful. We haven't even talked about that one today. Mobility, down regulation and I really like Michelle's Final Point, which is prioritizing joy. That's a huge, huge thing that a lot of us don't get to do Because suddenly there's not 24 hours of being aware of it, there's just definitely less. Yeah, there's less.

Speaker 1: 29:38

For sure. So, okay, this has been practical solutions for your real world goals, with Coach Michelle and Sean on how to get stronger and break through plateaus. Hope you enjoy it. Sure, thank you.