Stronger Than Your Boyfriend
Stronger Than Your Boyfriend
Q&A 107: Back Fatigue, Perimenopause, is Collagen Good Source of Protein?
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Question 1: Why is it that I always feel “sore” (by sore I mostly mean just the normal fatigue after lifting) everywhere, but my back) My back seems to be the hardest to engage?
Question 2: What is your current hyper fixation meal?
Question 3: For a woman going through perimenopause, other than getting in enough protein and strength training, what's the best way to lose body fat and keep muscle.
Question 4: How do I know if I'm actually training hard enough for muscle growth? I leave the gym feeling like I worked hard, but I'm not sure I'm pushing enough to see results.
Question 5: Is collagen protein a good supplement to take to help me get enough protein throughout the day?
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Welcome to the Stronger Than Your Boyfriend Podcast. We are Heather and Katie, owners of Barpat Fitness, here to help you stick through the bullshit and toxic misinformation that permeates the fitness industry. Today we have the QA podcast.
SPEAKER_01We sure do. And if you want to ask us questions, join our Facebook group. Stronger than your boyfriend. Works the line of the DMs on the social media. Yes. Slide in. If I said that, slide right in.
SPEAKER_00Alright, let's start with question number one. Question number one comes from our Facebook group. Why is it that I always feel sore? And by sore I mean just the normal fatigue after lifting. Everywhere but my back seems to be the hardest to engage. I do warm up pretty well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's the back and the glutes. I'm assuming by back we mean lats versus the lower back. I mean a little lower back soreness is okay, but I I think I think this person is talking about the lats. Yeah. Yes. I would think so too. Yeah. Back and glutes. Those are the hardest muscles for people to feel. And the reason why is because we just we lack connection there because we don't engage those muscles a lot throughout our day. And or we don't think about them, which it's hard to think about them if you're not engaging them. So those two things going hand in hand. And it's also a part of this because both of those muscles are on the back of your body. So it's not something that you again think about. But I tell my clients this all the time: lats, glutes, hardest muscles for people to feel. It takes a while. Yeah. And I I wonder what the warm-up is. I'm sure it's, you know, a warm-up to engage the lats is um easier for a lack of a better word, because you can do some like band pull aparts and really focus on retracting and depressing the shoulder blades, which is key to doing any rowing type of movements and you know, vertical pulling movements too, like a lap pull down. I think that one, everyone has different exercises as far as them feeling it in the muscle group that they they lack feeling, right? So for you, it could be lap pull downs, or it could be like a single arm row where you're really isolating. Same thing for the glutes, too. I find some people they'll do, you know, one person does Bulgarian split squats, they feel it only in their quads, and the next person, that's the move where they feel in their glutes. So it depends on the person as well. But I think it just takes a lot of time. A lot of time, a lot of practicing that mind muscle connection and more back volume potentially, just depending on what your program looks like.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I also think there's a lot of variables here, like feeling sore or fatigued. If you haven't changed the stimulus in a while, then you're probably not going to feel any soreness or fatigue. Right. But if you were to change the stimulus, maybe increase the reps, you know, or do something a little different with that muscle group, it might be that that's really what makes us sore a lot of times. It's just a change in stimulus. So I wouldn't worry about it too much. Um but also, you know, think about your programming and if it's time for a little bit of change, maybe you have some adaptation that's happened. But also, yeah, I agree. Those are the two spots that like I can train my glutes all day and they will feel like the biggest pump, but I don't, they don't, then my quads are sore the next day.
SPEAKER_01Like, you know, it just happens. Yeah. And that's another thing is soreness doesn't necessarily mean anything. It just means you either had some sort of novel stimulus to that muscle or you worked it really fucking hard. So if you're doing a row or a back movement or movement that works your lats, and you don't necessarily feel sore or fatigued after, it doesn't mean that those muscles weren't working. Right. It's just that your brain doesn't feel it as much as other muscle groups, which you can work that with a mind-muscle connection, but it's not that those muscles aren't working or that they didn't get any stimulus, which they did. It's just, you know, okay, you didn't work them hard enough to feel sore, but as we know, soreness doesn't mean anything other than um, you know, whatever news novel stimulus or too much volume potentially.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, the the two movements that I feel like I that come to mind that kind of have always made my back feel like, oh shit, I worked are seal rows and pendole rows. Yeah. Like if you throw in some heavy seal rows or pendle rows, yeah, just gonna I I feel it the next day.
SPEAKER_01So I don't know. Yeah, and that's the thing. That's what you're talking about. Like, do a different type of row variation. But for me personally, even, I mean, my my lats are really strong, but they are they're never sore. Yeah, you know, like I do pull-ups all the time, I do you know some heavy rowing. I can feel them well when I'm working them because I've just built that mind muscle connection over time, but rarely are they sore. Yeah. And when they are, it's probably because I did a little bit too much, or it was just a new program that I started or a new phase mesocycle that I'm training. So, but yeah, you could do a different or like a shank row. I don't know if that's what it's called. It's like you pull your arms straight back, your arms are straight. That one. Oh yeah. Uh any like anything novel. Yeah. But I don't that'll help the goal here. Right. Yeah, exactly. If you don't feel it, that's different. You know, like if you don't feel the muscle working, like if you only feel your shoulders working, well then we have to work on that scapular retraction, depression, try to, you know, almost deactivate your traps a little bit so we can, you know, work the lats, but those are two different situations. So yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So don't hyperfix on fixate on it. It's probably not a big deal, but also if you want to try something new, maybe that would be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's always fun to try something new. Seal rolls are fun. Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Question number two. What is your current hyperfixation meal? Mine is jasmine rice cooked with veggies in it and grilled chicken. I eat it for lunch and dinner and have for the past two months. That's impressive. Get it. I could do that though. I know you could.
SPEAKER_01Like, I'm that type of person that could do like Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Actually, Katie, the other day I saw this like reel that popped up that was talking about they called it boy kibble. And it was like ground beef and veggies and rice. And I was like, dude, that's what Katie used to eat back in the day. Like, she was just remember. But they called it boy kibble, which was annoying, but also especially. Yeah, okay, boy kibble. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh, yeah, I don't man, what okay. I don't know if I have a hyperfixation meal, but I'm I'm eating avocados with everything. Oh yeah? Okay, yeah. Hyperfixation food. Hyper fixation avocado. Yeah. Emotional support avocado. Put that shit with eggs. I really like ground, I like ground turkey now more than ground beef for some reason. Okay. So the ground turkey mixed with the avocado and a little rice or potato or whatever is really good. Um, I don't know. Yeah, I think it's just it's more so I'll just pick a protein and throw some avocado in it, and it's delicious.
SPEAKER_00I think I should make an emotional support avocado uh image for with a little happy face. Yeah, for our social media posters.
SPEAKER_01They're so good. I can I mean I can eat avocado like plain if I really had to. Yeah, and I'm not talking guacamole. I'm talking just straight up basic ass bitch avocado in everything.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's good. I okay, I don't have a fixation. Well, okay, I actually kind of do. So, like for me and peanut butter. I'm yeah, I was gonna say banana and peanut butter because I'm like right now I have a a chef that I live with, so I am very spoiled in like getting it's hard though, because I have to be careful because there's a lot of fat and everything. Uh so but it's good. Like last night, birya lasagna was for dinner, which is so random, um, which was delicious. But like a bunch of hearty bunch of beer there. Yes, it was. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna portion this out. But here's here's also my problem is fat, because for breakfast, every single day I have I have a very bougie latte machine because I love it. So I make very nice espresso, um, and Americanos, etc. etc. But I always do an espresso, not an espresso, an espresso with whole milk. So a latte with whole milk, full fat, full eight ounces, and then I do a banana and peanut butter every single morning. Yeah. And then Larry gets a little bit of banana and peanut butter usually. Yeah. Um, but so like I start off the day with like fat. It's a and some protein and carbs, yeah. But you know, I have to be a little bit careful because I will not, for anything, get rid of that breakfast. So like I don't care how many grams of fat it is. Like, I will eat leaner the rest of the day if I have to meet my fat macros because I want that breakfast.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, okay. Also, another hyper fixation food for me is peanut butter. Yeah, it's my emotional support peanut butter. Uh-huh. Which I could either just eat on something or I could eat straight out the jar.
SPEAKER_00Straight out the jar. I give Larry the jar when it's empty, like when it's just sweeping out the inside of it.
SPEAKER_01I'm finding that I almost like it just alone. Okay. I mean, there's a lot of flavor in peanut butter, yeah. And I don't know why. It's just so it's almost sweet and savory at the same time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Have you had like on accident or because you were at your parents' house or something? Like I'm using my parents as an example, like jiff or uh, what is it? Uh or pe like pet or whatever. Yeah, like the actual like nasty. It is like it really does not taste good. No. I have had it in like a decade and I had it, I don't remember when, a few months ago, and I was like, oh, this is not peanut butter.
SPEAKER_01It yeah, it tastes artificial to me, where I'm like, if I'm just getting ground ass peanuts and some salt, it actually is peanut butter because it's just peanuts.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's wild. What it yeah, and I actually really like the Costco uh peanut butter. If you're like looking to save money and you want to buy the giant jars and the ingredients are just peanuts and salt.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I'll eat any kind of peanut butter that's just the natural kind. And not saying this because you know we're a health podcast, but yes, I am also saying it because of that. But it tastes like if you start eating the natural peanut butter, and I'm not talking like Jif's natural peanut butter, I'm talking like the peanut butter that's literally just peanuts and salt. And you eat that for a while and you go back to a jiff or skippy, man, that shit tastes so fake.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I don't like it.
SPEAKER_00Agreed. It's kind of like if you have dark chocolate for a long time and then you go to eat milk chocolate and you're like, whoa, what is this? Milk chocolate is a good thing. What is this fake ass shit? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It is. It does.
SPEAKER_00Her palate just changes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's the really cool thing. You can change your palate. Yeah, that's neat. If you just put in the work, which sounds weird to say for food, but you can.
SPEAKER_00Okay, cool. Okay. All right. Question number three. For a woman going through perimenopause, other than getting in enough protein and strength training, what's the best way to lose body fat and keep muscle? That I would say sleep is number three.
SPEAKER_01Yes. This is from one of my clients who is very much in the throes of perimenopause. And yes, it's frustrating, yes, but it's just keep on with it. And the other thing I will say is a lot of people think they're getting in enough protein when they're not. And they think, okay, I changed my diet. I am eating protein at every meal, but they're not tracking it. That is the key. Make sure you're tracking your protein. And you might, okay, maybe instead of a bagel, you're now eating eggs for breakfast, but you're having two eggs. It's only 12 grams of protein. That's still, you know, that's not a very high protein breakfast. So that is the key. I think tracking your food, making sure you know how much food is coming in, and on average what you're maintaining your weight at. And then, you know, with the help of a coach, probably you go, we either increase or decrease calories because I understand perimetopause, most women are trying to lose body fat. I do get that, but there might need to be some steps before that that need to happen, aka building muscle, before we can cut you, which means you have to track your food and track your protein. And, you know, if you're working with a trainer, your strength training is covered. But yes, sleep, which I understand is also hard in perimenopause because your sleep's all messed up if you're especially if you have hot flashes and shit. But try your best to have a sleep routine. I think more important than a morning routine if you're gonna pick one. And movement, but not super high intensity movement. So try to move as much as you can throughout the day. The easiest way to do that is track your steps. I just think a lot of tracking needs needs to happen. And I think people just need to get over it, suck it up and get over it if they don't want to track, unless you've had some sort of crazy orthorexic eating disorder type of behavior around tracking stuff. Then I would say no. But for most people, it's like, well, I had a turkey sandwich and I had eggs for breakfast, and then I had like a chicken breast for dinner. I'm like, okay, that's all great, but it's still not enough. You know? And it's not hard to get in enough protein. It's just it feels hard when you're when you're not tracking because you're like, well, this is what I'm eating. But if you saw the numbers, you'd be like, oh, well, instead of two eggs, I'm gonna eat four. And instead of, you know, a turkey sandwich, I'm gonna eat ground turkey and rice or something. You know what I mean? So there's like visual objective changes you can see from that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it you don't have to track forever either, but it's just like you need to do it so we know where to go. We can't, I can't tell you where to go. We can't tell you where to go. You can't tell yourself where to go unless we have objective data. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Mic drop. Great.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's probably it's it's no different. The advice is no different than to a woman who's not going through perimenopause. It's just it feels worse because there's a lot of hormonal shifts happening. It feels a lot harder, yeah. And it sucks, but it's like, you know, uh you could take it a step further and get your hormones tested. And if you need HRT, do that because you'll feel better. But it's still whether or not you're on HRT, these steps will work. It'll just be a little bit easier if your hormones are optimal too.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. And the strength training, it it's cyclical, right? With the strength training and the increases in testosterone that you need, right? So, like the more muscle you build, the more you can you can produce that, and that's it's very, very important for a lot of reasons when you're getting to a certain age, but it helps with balancing your hormones if you're if you're training with the right intensity. So it does take time.
SPEAKER_01I will say, and I'm not in parimenopause yet, so this is more anecdotal from the people I've talked to. If you are a young female, strength train. Do your best to build muscle, do not just like cut, cut, cut, burn, burn, burn body fat. The more muscle you have going into paramenopause slash menopause, the better off you will be. And again, I'm not a doctor, and this is very anecdotal, and every every woman's journey through menopause is different. But I think the people who have taken the time to build muscle have far better symptoms. So that's like the case to not just cut calories, cut calories, burn body fat. I mean, there's many cases for that, but that's another one of them.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Question four? On to the next one.
SPEAKER_00All right. How do I know if I'm actually training hard enough for muscle growth? I leave the gym feeling like I worked hard, but I'm not sure I'm pushing enough to see results.
SPEAKER_01This is actually a really good question because it it is hard, especially if you're doing it on your own. If you have a trainer, they'll be able, they'll be able to tell, they'll be able to push you for yourself. Even an online, even a coach, like for my online clients, I'm always telling them, that looks great, but we can go up still. So it's like having that accountability person to push you is helpful. But if you're doing it alone, it's hard because it does take time to learn your body in relation to a rate of perceived exertion type of scale. Yeah. Because, you know, an objective answer I could tell you is just, well, make sure you're hitting an eight RPE. But it's hard to do if you've never really thought about that, right? Sorry, it's hard to, it's not hard to do, it's hard to gauge. Right. Because a lot of people think, oh my goodness, like I don't know if I could do one more rep, but if I were training them, I could say they could do three more reps if I really push them, right? So it's just something that you learn over time, but this that should feel really hard. It should really truly feel like you could do one to two more reps. That's it. And are you, and it's not even necessarily about okay, like in the moment, how much you're feeling, but are you progressing each week? You have some sort of progressive overload happening in your program in your mesocycle. So it's hard because you can feel tired, but it might not be stimulating muscle growth. You could have done too much too. So there's like the feeling tired and sore versus actually getting your butt your muscles, you're stimulating your muscles enough to grow and adapt versus like grow and recover too. So there's the other end of the spectrum. And that's where like soreness doesn't really mean shit. It means you worked your muscles, but you don't really know how hard, right? Obviously, you work them hard enough to get sore. So this is another answer where it kind of depends, but generally you want to make it intense. And if you're training alone, I would say the the more more more than often more than more often than not, I'm gonna tell you to just go do more than what you think, especially if you're a female, because women tend to just not push themselves as hard, whereas men tend to push themselves too hard. So again, kind of depends on you and what you normally you know defer back to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. As far as like intensity in the gym, you know? Yeah, that covers it. I mean, track yeah, tracking your reps and load is helpful for me. Like I because some days I just don't feel like doing it. And so what's nice is that I mean I don't use my Whoop strength trainer all the time. I use it for when I strength train, but I don't like look at it that often. But it does have like what I did last week in it and it saves the weights. And so, you know, if you're using an app that's really helpful and it does at the end tell me how much volume I did and like how much load. And so it's kind of nice to see that trend upward. And you know, you're gonna have good and bad days, but all that matters is that over time you're gett getting more volume and going.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I think yeah, if you want objective data, just track your volume. Yeah. Yeah. Which is sets times reps times the weight. Right. If you're increasing that, then you know you're doing enough. Right. But the feel component is just so subjective. It is. Yeah. It's hard for people. So in the more reps, the more time you put into strength training, the better you'll know your own body, and the better you'll be able to gauge, yes, I can actually only just do two more. Versus when you first start out, you probably feel like you can only do one more when you really could do like six more. So it's it's a hard thing to learn how to push yourself on your own. So if you do struggle with this, I would recommend just hiring a trainer, even just for a short while, so that you know, like, oh, this is what I'm feeling, but my trainer's watching me and they they can see that I could do like four more versus one, you know? So it's like someone from the outside looking in is really helpful. Even if it's just like one or two sessions, right? So that would be my suggestion. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Great. Well, not last question. Yes, okay. Last question. Is collagen protein a good supplement to take to help me get enough protein throughout the day?
SPEAKER_01So yes and no, I you're kind of splitting hairs, right? If you're getting the an optimal amount of protein, and that's the keyword, optimal, not the you know, daily recommended protein, which is very minimal, but an optimal amount of protein. So let's say you're getting one gram per pound of body weight, and 20 of those grams come from collagen, splitting hairs totally fine. It collagen protein, the only issue, quo issue, is that it's not a complete protein. So, you know, technically it doesn't have all the essential amino acids. It's one of those that's like really good for your skin and your nails, etc. But again, if you're eating complete proteins otherwise in your diet, I wouldn't stress too much about it. And I don't know, if you do a protein shake and some of it's whey protein and some of its collagen, great. But if you want to take collagen, take it. You're a grown-ass adult. You could do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00You are a grown-ass adult. All right, I wanna I wanna show you this. I made an emotional support avocado. She's so cute. She's really cute. She's gonna go on our on our story.
SPEAKER_01She's so cute. It's like her, it's a little tiny little smile. Face with a big old belly with the pit. Super belly. Uh that is that's fucking hilarious. Now I need you don't have to do it right now, but I want to see what an emotional support jar of peanut butter looks like because I mean I will like just take a jar of peanut butter to the gym, have it as a snack. Like that's just what I do. I feel like yeah. Or like a spoonful of pe emotional support peanut butter. I wonder what AI would come up with for this, but yeah. That is so that she looks so what's her name? What should her name be? Are we posting this?
SPEAKER_00It's going on the story for sure.
SPEAKER_01Okay. When this drops. I need to by the time this drops, I need to find it. I need her to easier.
SPEAKER_00Wait, I I have your peanut butter coming. I'm gonna need I'm gonna need to show you your emotional support peanut butter. We need uh we have this so cute. Wait, hold on. Hold on, scroll up.
SPEAKER_01I can't see. Okay, hold on.
SPEAKER_00I gotta I gotta come.
SPEAKER_01Hopefully everyone's still staying tuned in. Oh, she's cute too!
SPEAKER_00Um she's adorable.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00Why does she have a robot? I don't know. She has a blanket. She has a little blanket on, she's cold. She's a bougie bitch.
unknownShe's a bougie bitch.
SPEAKER_00So cute though. She looks delicious. She does look delicious. This is going on the story as a teaser, but this is so funny.
SPEAKER_01And you know, it's so it's so obvious, too. Like, of course, you're into lifting and health and fitness and you love peanut butter. Yeah, I know. It's delicious. And no, almond butter is not the same, nor is cashew butter, peanut butter, peanut butter. And once you see my little jar of emotional support peanut butter, you'll know.
SPEAKER_00Great. I'm so glad we're using AI for good over here. Yes, we are. But you should only use it for good.
SPEAKER_01Okay, all right, awesome. Okay. Well, if you if you have questions you want to ask us or tell us what your emotional support food is, again, join our Actually, you should totally do that. You should totally just join our Facebook group, strong boyfriend, and then tell us what your emotional support food is. And I bet most of you are gonna say peanut butter. Is that yours? Or is it like the peanut butter and banana?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's gotta be the combo, but it has to be with a latte too, like a good latte.
SPEAKER_01But like you have to have one food that's your emotional support food, like just a standalone.
SPEAKER_00I really think it's peanut butter and banana because when I was in Hawaii and I was sitting on the balcony in the morning drinking my coffee or whatever, I would go next door to this coffee shop and pay like seven bucks for this what they called monkey toast, and it was toast with peanut butter and banana on it, and it was so good. And I just had to have it every day, even though it was so expensive. So I think it might be banana and peanut butter.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that's fair. I mean, it is a stellar combo. Weird. Like, I will not eat a banana alone, I will only eat it if there's a bunch of peanut butter on each slice. I will like I understand the combo is legit. Yeah, dude. It's really legit. But that's just because peanut butter makes everything better. Most things. Most things. Alright, so okay, well, this dragged on. It really did. It's great. Okay, well, I'm just gonna say peace out. Peace out.