Aging Powerfully: Fitness Secrets for Women over 50 with Jana Barrett

In this episode of 'Spirit of an Athlete,' host Amanda Smith interviews Jana Barrett, a strength and conditioning coach from New Zealand, on leveraging the female menstrual cycle and menopause for effective workouts. Jana, known for her expertise in mobility and unconventional training methods using mace and club bells, shares insights into creating strength and mobility routines suitable for women, especially those over 50. The discussion covers the significance of adjusting workout intensity based on individual needs and hormonal cycles, the benefits of mace training for mental clarity and physical balance, and the importance of incorporating resistance training to prevent age-related bone density loss. Jana also emphasizes the value of understanding one's body and needs, advocating for a more intuitive approach to fitness that accommodates the intricacies of female physiology. The episode is packed with actionable advice for female athletes looking to maintain their physical and mental health through all stages of life.

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Transcript

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Amanda Smith: 0:15

Welcome to another episode of Spirit of an Athlete. I'm your host, Amanda Smith. And on this episode, I invited Jana Barrett from New Zealand to join me and give us a little information around using the woman's menstrual cycle or lack thereof when you get into menopause to work out and what that should look like. We also talked about being a fierce feminine warrior using the mace and club bells. Jana is a strength and conditioning coach, a tech fit instructor, and also my favorite part, a mobility alchemist. Using club bells you can do a lot of work around strength and mobility combined, and I absolutely love this modality, but then of course I'm a Yogi. So I also love hearing mobility tied into strength and conditioning. So enjoy this episode with Jana. Jana, thank you so unbelievably much for joining me here on Spirit of an Athlete and sharing your wisdom and all that you have learned for yourself and for your clients.

Jana Barrett: 1:28

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Amanda. Such pleasure.

Amanda Smith: 1:32

Yes. Okay. So right away, Jana, you come from New Zealand. Where in New Zealand are you at?

Jana Barrett: 1:39

I am in the capital, Wellington. Mmm.

Amanda Smith: 1:43

Okay, so when we did our pre call, you had this glorious picture of, and it wasn't even a picture. It was happening real time. It was the window behind you and the sun was rising over the bay.

Jana Barrett: 1:57

Mmm. Yeah.

Amanda Smith: 1:58

Absolutely gorgeous.

Jana Barrett: 2:01

I am very lucky, although it's just after 6 in the morning, in the middle of winter almost, so it's pitch black outside, so you can't see it today. But yeah, I'm so lucky. I live near the ocean. I live on the Wellington harbourhead, so yeah, New Zealand is a spectacular country.

Amanda Smith: 2:17

Now. Okay. Are you a surfer?

Jana Barrett: 2:19

I am a surfer. Yes.

Amanda Smith: 2:22

Ah, this, this is something that I am so unbelievably, I just, I love surfing. If I lived near an ocean, I would definitely be surfing. All the time. How often do you get out?

Jana Barrett: 2:35

Uh, as much as I can. So I'm, I'm fortunate because, you know, I have reasonably flexible profession because I'm an online coach. So unless I've got clients or face to face clients, I am at my local break. And then most weekends I will be found somewhere around Wellington within a four hour radius surfing. Some, some break with a whole bunch of awesome women that I'm so fortunate to have in my life.

Amanda Smith: 3:03

Do you surf in the winter time?

Jana Barrett: 3:04

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I tell you, it's getting cold. I went out yesterday and it's five mil wetsuit now pretty much. Yeah. It's cold. It gets cold. I only know the temperature in Celsius is 12, but it's, yeah, it's cold. It's definitely cold. It keeps the crowds down. So it's good. And we get the best swell in winter.

Amanda Smith: 3:24

Of course. Of course. Oh, oh, oh, oh, so jealous. So jealous. Okay. So Jana who do you work with?

Jana Barrett: 3:35

I work with women, mostly over 50, and the women that come to me for help are usually very active, semi professional athletes, former athletes. You know, I coach marathon runners, martial artists, competitive pile lifters, you know, lots of really quite incredible accomplished women, but what happens to them usually just when they hit their late 40s or 50s, they realize that something in their training needs to change. So they either broken burnt out or bored by their training, they usually fall into one of these three categories. So I help them switch or transition into exercise that is more suited to their bodies, but without missing out on the, the thrill, the challenge, and the joy that they used to get out of their training, you know, in their twenties or thirties.

Amanda Smith: 4:42

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. I'm thinking about like, how has my training evolved? So I was, I was, you know, hardcore athlete in high school, junior high elementary school and college. And I mean, that was every day of the week, every day on the weekends, I was probably moving my body like somewhere between six to eight hours on average. And then when I left college. I took a break. My body was like, woman, chill. And so that break looked like me doing nothing. And then when I came back to working out again, I went straight into P90X. Do you know what that is?

Jana Barrett: 5:25

No. Sounds intriguing.

Amanda Smith: 5:27

Okay. P90X with Tony Horton. A little plug right there. So Beachbody is the company that it falls under and you can now get a Beachbody certification and all sorts of fun things with that. But P90X, it was six days a week of working out. One of those days was core. You're following a video on your TV and it was like the inklings of CrossFit.

Jana Barrett: 5:55

Okay.

Amanda Smith: 5:55

You're doing pull ups, you're doing pushups, you're doing a lot of body weight stuff. And then in some of the videos you would do plyometric. So it was jumping around and they had, everything was scaled. It was great. And I got about, you're supposed to do it for 90 days. That's what the whole 90 part is. And the X is extreme. Um, and I think I made it through I made it to about the halfway point. And my body said, you ain't doing it right, sister. And this was, this was in my probably I'm going to say probably early thirties at this point. Right. So I was done playing college sports at 25 and I took a two year break. So 27, 28, somewhere in there. So late twenties, early thirties. And my body was just like, nope, this isn't the thing for you. Is that what you're finding with your clients? They've tried stuff and it was just like, no, this isn't right for me.

Jana Barrett: 6:52

Yeah, definitely. They realize that they can't train in the same way they did in their 20s or maybe early 30s. They usually come to me with some chronic injuries as well. So then, you know, you mentioned the everything or nothing. So that's what happens there. So either they go hard out because they don't know what else to do. And you mentioned CrossFit. I get a fair amount of people from CrossFit as well that are really broken and, and so there is that kind of everything or nothing, or I call it the boom and bust, or like that six week cycle, they go hard out in the CrossFit classes or with their training, they get injury or their old injury flares up, then they have to stop, get rehab, usually takes between, if it's not too bad, three weeks, if it's bad, kind of four to six weeks, and then they start again. So there's that constant, injury recovery, hard work, injury, recovery, hard work. And they sometimes were in that cycle for years. So it varies. Sometimes it takes a surgery. Like I've had a few clients come to me kind of post hysterectomies or post other surgeries. So they realize that physically they just can't go back to running 100 miles a week, you know, just, just because, yeah, there was a, there was a client, my client Suzanne, who was running 160 kilometers, a hundred and yeah, just about 150 kilometers, almost 100 miles a week. Yeah. And her coach didn't believe in mobility and stretching. Love it. Love it. So you can imagine her body the fifties. It was not pretty. So yeah, so it, it kind of varies, but usually women kind of realizing they instinctively intuitively know I just can't do this anymore. Or they just get bored sometimes by the CrossFit or the hardcore culture, because as perimenopause and menopause hits, you don't feel like going hard out all the time. There are some days where, the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause are so many, but a lot of them are low energy, kind of low mojo, feeling a bit blue, a little bit depressed, achy. All these things suddenly start popping up. So even if they didn't destroy their bodies through the actual training, the perimenopause menopause arrives. And usually these women suffer quite significantly because they have been training so hard with complete disregard of their monthly hormonal cycles. There was no tapering of, you know, training in their little phase. There was kind of like, no, it was always regardless of what their bodies were whispering or asking or telling them to do. There was always that. No, no, no, we're training. You know, we're doing it all. And if you don't you're a slacker and you're lazy and that's just not okay. So there is that whole, you know, because it's surprising how a few coaches actually understand how to train women, you know, and our unique, our unique physiology, our unique hormonal cycle that, that runs on a monthly basis. I mean, do you remember any coaches you've had in your sporting career who had you on a monthly schedule, monthly training schedule? I never

Amanda Smith: 10:28

I had one

Jana Barrett: 10:28

You had one amazing that rarity though. Normally you will run Monday to Sunday or you would run on 12 week cycles, right? Training cycles generally. Very few coaches will design a monthly cycle with that, you know, power phase, the first kind of 21 days and then tapering phase for the following couple of weeks. So that's, that's, you are lucky. That's a rarity. That is an absolute rarity. I have not heard of it.

Amanda Smith: 10:56

It is so Monique Derouen's podcast, we talked about somatics on her podcast. And one of the things she said that it's stuck with me is that most Athletes are told what to do and they never start to think about what they're supposed to do. And I think this is one of the things that we're, we're butting up against. It's almost like you have to have a certification in understanding nutrition, a certification in understanding the body and how you're supposed to move the body and a certification in being a woman in order to combine all of those things and really fully understand how to use this body as an athlete, especially as you're getting older. Her comment though, just struck me because I was like, Oh yeah, I remember walking away from sports and not having a darn clue how to work out anymore. Walking away from, someone telling me on a daily basis, this is what you're going to do. This is what you're going to do. And then me going, you know what, I'm going to hire coaches to do that same thing. And And those coaches again, put you into, here's your schedule. Here's what you're going to do. And, and you just stick to it because that's what you know. That's the world you came from. That's what you were indoctrinated into as a kid, right? How often are you seeing people coming to you really have no clue what their body needs versus what they've been doing?

Jana Barrett: 12:33

I would say that's probably 95 percent of all the women that come to me. Yeah. They, um,

Amanda Smith: 12:39

That's unreal.

Jana Barrett: 12:40

They have a very limiting, kind of knowledge of what exercise can look like. They get blown away by like mobility training, like they realize, Oh my gosh, I can do these really simple, really basic movements every single day for 10 minutes. And the hip pain that's been in my body for the last three years is gone in four weeks. I have these story after story after story of people with women, really chronic injuries, like screaming pains in their hips, in their knees, in their Achilles tendons. And the, I get a lot of surfers as well because just attract surfers into my world, you know um, busted shoulder ligaments and, and they suddenly, I'd show them how to do mobility. And they're like, Oh my gosh, this is incredible. Because a lot of people associate pains and aches with age, which is bizarre because that actually has nothing

Amanda Smith: 13:47

hmm. Totally normal.

Jana Barrett: 13:48

You know, like, Oh, well, I'm just getting older.

Amanda Smith: 13:51

Mm

Jana Barrett: 13:52

I would, I would beg to differ. I would, you know, it's, it's mobility. And, I show women how to exercise with functional tools, because these are women who are high achieving, they have families, they usually have really good jobs and they've been kind of really achieving at high level in their lives, in all different aspects. And, and so I show them how to exercise with like the steel mace and the workouts only take 10, 20 minutes and their mind is blown because they have always been training for hours or two training sessions a week to kind of achieve their goals. And now suddenly they kind of like, Wow. So I can be fit and strong and mobile and all I have to do is 20 minutes a day, is that it? Like they almost can't believe it. It's like, really, is that all you know? And, and, you know, they get, it's just a transition. It's not like they have to give up. Well, they do have to kind of give up something because that is really no longer working, but it's, you can transition to something that is Equally fun and it's equally challenging and it brings you joy and, and really good results,

Amanda Smith: 15:02

Okay. So one of the things that attracted me to you and what you do was what I saw on your website, which, oh my gosh, you guys. Okay. So steel mace.

Jana Barrett: 15:15

steel mace

Amanda Smith: 15:16

And you also do the what's the other one called?

Jana Barrett: 15:20

club bell,

Amanda Smith: 15:22

The club bells. Yes. Okay. So I started using some of these tools just a couple of years ago because it became kind of a fad. The Wex ball. Are you familiar with that? That brand?

Jana Barrett: 15:34

No

Amanda Smith: 15:34

So it looks like it's a bowling ball on the end of a bat essentially, and they come in different weights and it's club bells, but it's shaped just kind of different. And some of the people that I follow in the softball world started using those as tools to help their athletes, particularly with shoulder mobility. Right? Shoulder. Not just mobility, but strength. As you, as you learn the movement and progress through it, you actually start to get stronger as well as have that fluid mobility. And that's the, that's the thing. fluidity Do you find that when you use the mace and , it becomes more of a dance, it becomes more of a fluid motion and movement, which is more feminine?

Jana Barrett: 16:19

You hit the nail right on the head. Yes. So there's, there's different types of training with the steel mace. You can just go into like an interval training session and do like five separate movements and use it as, as weights. So you can do that too. And I do that too with people for kind of cardiovascular and metabolic conditioning. And it's, that's quite fun too. But what you're referring to is the mace flows. So that is a basically a mashup, a really potent mashup of yoga, dance, strength training, martial art. It has definitely a component of martial art because a lot of the movement's quite offensive to kill. I mean, it was a weapon. It was definitely a weapon. And I. Yeah, women definitely, me personally and other women respond to it because it is very feminine. Saying that I coach quite a few men as well, and they really love it too because it is a very time efficient way to exercise. Within 10 minutes, you can fit in like, sometimes I will have 10 different movements in one flow. Maybe it takes a couple of minutes to do the flow on each side. And so you suddenly realize that, that you can get phenomenally strong, just doing 10, 15 minutes of flows every single day, especially when you start doing the single handed work with the mace, which is what you saw on my website, where you can kind of swing it around your body just with one. So it's very time efficient, potent, punchy workout that you can do. Anywhere, beach, your garden, your garage, you know, you can take it on holidays. I put it usually at the back of my car, just, you know, take it with me on holidays. It's a very portable, very efficient tool. And it's, I think, most women don't really want to go to the gym and do the back chest trice and bice split, you know, that never sense to me, that never made sense to me as a surfer and as a, if I need to go and dig over my garden It's not back and chest, it's a whole thing, you know, so never understood that, although I've got an 18 year old son who is very much into his gym split with his, with his so that's, that's cool. But they never really made too much sense to me. The mace makes a lot of sense to me because of the complexity of the movements you can create with the mace, which you will never be able to replicate with a barbell or, or a dumbbell. It's the fluidity. It's taking the joint under load through a whole, range of motion in many, many directions. So it not only creates strong muscles, but it creates incredibly strong joints and connective tissue, which is where usually the injuries will happen in the ligaments, the tendons and the joints. But you can build yourself literally joints of steel with, with the mace.

Amanda Smith: 19:35

All right. So I want to clarify for the audience here when I picture in my mind, a medieval mace has a bunch of spikes on it, these mace it doesn't have any spikes and they come in different weights. Correct?

Jana Barrett: 19:48

Yeah absolutely. It's like a, like a meter long steel stick with a ball at the end of it of various weights. Yeah.

Amanda Smith: 19:58

The bar itself, does it change weight as well, or is it only the mace ball that changes weights?

Jana Barrett: 20:04

Only the mace ball. Yeah. The the bar is hollow. Obviously it gets, it gets a bit thicker and I've handled lots of different maces. I mean, you can get maces that are made of wood. Traditionally, they were made from wood, obviously thousands of years ago. different types of wood. They were very long as well. You know, you can see a lot of videos of Indian men swinging steel maces and club bells around, but they were a different shape. Now we can make them out of steel, but yeah, it's, it's the ball that essentially changes weight. So then you get that traction because the ball you're swinging the mace, the ball is the end. So it gives your body a phenomenal, like a core workout, because you're going to have to handle the physical forces you are creating.

Amanda Smith: 20:49

Yes. Yes. A lot of centripetal force is what I'm thinking. Hmm. Okay. All right. So a 10 to 20 minute workout and this is cardiovascular, it's mobility, it is strength training. Is there anything else?

Jana Barrett: 21:08

So what I really like that you do the movements kind of on both sides as well in very kind of complex directions. So it's fantastic for leveling the strength in both sides of the body. So often when you're doing double handed work and you do that with the mace as well, sometimes one arm is compensating for the other, or it's the same with legs, but you put mace in one hand and you're swinging it around your body, or you are doing different movements. And then you put it in your left and you realize, Oh, wow. My left hand is so much weaker. My left leg is a lot weaker. So it kind of allows you to correct imbalances in the body as well which is what I really like and it's phenomenal for the brain because imagine you're doing a flow of 10 different movements and you're doing it on both sides. You're going to remember You know where to go, how to coordinate the body, sometimes the mace is in both of your hands, sometimes it's in one hand, and that's what I love about it is that you have to completely empty your mind of any incessant thoughts and clutter, and I coach a lot of people that are neurodivergent or have mental health challenges, OCD, and they love the mace because if you don't pay a hundred percent attention to what you're doing with the mace, it goes terribly wrong, right?

Amanda Smith: 22:42

Yes, you hurt yourself,

Jana Barrett: 22:43

can really hurt yourself and you need to think like, right, I'm going to go through a squat, then I'm going to do an overhead press, then I'm going to move into this movement, this movement. And so it is incredibly nourishing for the brain because it allows you to switch everything off. And really tune in into your body and to, to feel the whispers, to listen to the whispers of the body. It's like, Hey, my right shoulder's a bit tight. I'm not really at that lunge doesn't feel that good on the left. And so it's a lovely way to reconnect with the body. So in the time where we all living in our heads. and are bombarded by thoughts and social media and people and deadlines and work. This is the space of 10 to 20 minutes where you check all of it out. You have to check all of it out and just focus on movement and breath and your body and you being with yourself. And that is what a lot of my clients really appreciate about this steel mace training too.

Amanda Smith: 23:46

I love that. It's got that meditative moving meditation, which there's so many misconceptions around what moving meditation actually is. And I'm like, well, you know, yoga, obviously you can turn walking into a moving meditation if you know how to drop into that space, but that's tough. Usually when we go for a walk. Brain is cluttered and it needs to get uncluttered, but this, you've got a weapon in your hand. Literally you, you could injure yourself. immediately I'm thinking like, yeah, my softball players would definitely get this right away because. They have a weapon in their hand when they have a bat in their hand. It's just a matter of how they use it, right? Are they conscious that they could injure themselves or others with that particular device? Okay. You mentioned the cycles of, of all of this, do you strictly use these tools when working out and teaching others how to work out? Or do you use any other tools besides mace?

Jana Barrett: 24:50

The steel mace is, is my favorite because I think it's the most badass, to be honest. It's the most versatile and potent. But I do have some clients who prefer the Club Bell. I also coach quite a bit of kettlebells too, for people. Some people just have different preferences. I would say that most of my clients really love the steel mace and most of my online community really loves the steel mace because it's so unique. There's also our kind of search to be different, right? kind of think like lifting barbells in the gym. Yeah. You know, people have been doing it for a long time, but you swing a steel mace on the beach. They're kind of, you know, it's a bit edgy. It's a bit badass, it's a bit more warrior and it is essentially wired into our DNA because humans have been strapping boulders to sticks for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. So somehow we have figured out that that is a really efficient weapon and, you know, you put it into someone's hands and they get that look, it's suddenly like they become warriors. Women especially and it builds confidence, but, you know, saying that I still love the club bell. I still do plenty of work with the club. I do, I do love kettlebells. They were my first kind of functional tool love my first crush. So. Yeah, there are just certain things that are better done with certain tools. You know, if you want a bit more brutal strength, you know, then kettlebells are definitely a really quick way to get there. A lot of people have kettlebells at home too, so they're quite versatile. The club bell is a little bit harder to get by, especially a really good, high quality club bells, probably a little bit easier where you are not um, Zealand, but the steel mace is kind of readily available and, and it's fun.

Amanda Smith: 26:45

It is. I love that you're teaching women how to be fierce feminine warriors. That is something that has truly dropped out of society. Women are meant to be the home caretaker and the emotional support and all of those feminine qualities that we innately have, but men also do too. But then when it comes to working out, right. Women will go, Oh, well, I should go to a group dance class or Zumba, or I should do yoga because those are feminine workouts and to one, the need for more women to be lifting weights and putting themselves under load for osteoporosis. I really, truly can't stress that one enough. That's one of the biggest issues that women have as they age is osteopenia osteoporosis. Those two. So you teaching women how to use weight and really wield weight as fierce feminine warriors. Thank you for that.

Jana Barrett: 27:55

Thank you.

Amanda Smith: 27:55

Let's go back to talking about the cycle because this is interesting. I'm in perimenopause and I'm still power lifting and I love it, but I also feel myself being drawn to other modalities, other things that really excite me and it's not because I'm bored yet. When we get into perimenopause. Our cycles start to shift pretty drastically and you mentioned a ton of symptoms. One of the ones that you didn't mention was sleep. Our sleep gets unbelievably disturbed and for as a recovery tool for life, but also for athletes, that's a big knob to turn. How do you help these women when It comes to understanding what they need for their athletic endeavors, their, their physical endeavors, their release. I know for me, working out is a release, how do you help them navigate this when their bodies are going, you can't right now?

Jana Barrett: 29:02

So what I teach women is that it's not about the workout, it's about the intensity. You can take any workout that you have designed, whatever you do, whether you are a runner, a powerlifter, a crossfitter, whether you just do a little bit of mace training in your own home, you need to be thinking in terms of intensity rather than what are you doing? Because regardless of how you feel, even if you haven't slept at all, you can still move your body because you know that that will make you feel better. Right. It makes no sense lying on the bed, feeling sorry for yourself. It's never going to be that great. So you can always move. You just have to move in the right way with the right intensity. So let's say that you had a big powerlifting workout scheduled, but you didn't sleep. So, you know, you can't go for that hardcore powerlifting workout. If you haven't recovered. And you haven't reset your body, rejuvenated, repaired any damage. You just can't, right? And that's what a lot of people don't understand because they still push sometimes through that. And that's a mistake. And injuries happens. I mean, if you're going for a hardcore workout, and you haven't slept, you haven't recovered and haven't slept well, you just can't. injuries and poor recovery and all sorts. So I teach women to have a basically a menu of different types of exercises and workouts. So the super gentle mobility, regardless of how crappy you feel, you can still do 10 minutes of mobility when you first wake up. It will make you feel good. You're still tracking towards, moving well, moving pain free and just doing something. If you're feeling kind of okay, then, then maybe you might just do 10 minutes of mace flows or mobility flows. Maybe that is okay. And so it's about knowing how to let go of the scheduled workout and adjust it to suit where your body is at on that particular given day. So you woke up, maybe you are under stress at work, you had a fight with your husband, your teenager is being difficult, you haven't slept very well, and you've just realized you've put on three kilos. Well, you have to take all of that into account. All of these are stresses. Our nervous system doesn't recognize good stress, bad stress. It's just all layers and layers of stress. So if you have that kind of day that I've just kind of fantasized about or not really, I don't want to have a day like that. Then your exercise will become just another massive layer of stress. On top of it all. So you need to pitch that intensity just right. So the exercise helps you make you feel good. You're still kind of tracking and maintaining your progress, but it doesn't kind of push you into that overstress from which is really hard to recover and you get sick and injured and miserable.

Amanda Smith: 32:28

Yeah, the misery continues, essentially. Thank you for that. That was, yes, I like that. Have a menu.

Jana Barrett: 32:36

Have a menu, have a menu of mobility, walk, gentle mace flow, grantee mace flow. I mean, you can even do a interval. So I coach a system called tech fit, and those are the timers I use. It's a 20 minute strength training session, and you can pitch it at any intensity. You can just go through the 20 minutes. You can just have it to 10. So you can pretty much adjust any workout you have scheduled to, to suit your your stress levels and, you know, not having a good sleep is a massive stress on the body mentally and emotionally too. I become a crying wreck when I don't have enough sleep.

Amanda Smith: 33:20

Ah, I become goofy. I have noticed I have become goofier. I just went to New York city this last weekend and got very little sleep. And the farther we went into the lack of sleep, the more I just got goofier and goofier. So.

Jana Barrett: 33:36

Awesome.

Amanda Smith: 33:36

Like maybe that's where I need to be.

Jana Barrett: 33:40

Oh, yeah.

Amanda Smith: 33:42

Jana, thank you so unbelievably much for sharing your knowledge, your experience and your fierce feminine warrior workouts. Ah, I'm excited to try some because I have fallen in love with mace and with the bells, they are so much fun, kettlebell and the other one that I still at the end of the episode, I'm forgetting the name of it and I'm like, okay, looking through my notes

Jana Barrett: 34:11

The club bell

Amanda Smith: 34:11

you're remind me the club bells

Jana Barrett: 34:13

the club bells, which

Amanda Smith: 34:14

why that word escaped me today.

Jana Barrett: 34:16

it's, it's a metal baseball stick. It's a metal baseball stick match. That's what it is. Maybe that's what's your brain is kind of associating with baseball sticks right? Yeah

Amanda Smith: 34:25

Yeah exactly. It's a bat and it's weighted and it's made out of different materials, but yeah, it looks like a bat. Oh, all right, Jana. People can find you at Jana-Barrett.com anywhere else they can find you.

Jana Barrett: 34:43

Yeah so I'm on Instagram, Facebook, and I also have a YouTube channel. I've just started it. And that's where you can access a lot of steel mace workouts. So I'm starting from the beginning too, because you can see a lot of very accomplished people out on the internet, but very few people are doing the basics, like how to hold the mace, how to switch it and how to, how to start with it safely, because obviously you don't want to start with a 10 movement mace flow. I'll start with three movement mace flow. So yeah, find me on YouTube, Jana Movement Coach, and you can access some free workouts, but I have a Facebook group too, where I do coaching. I'm going to coach there today, actually some core movements. So that's where you can

Amanda Smith: 35:26

Ooh.

Jana Barrett: 35:27

access my coaching and some free training in there too.

Amanda Smith: 35:31

Excellent. Excellent. And I see a free six day mobility challenge. When is that?

Jana Barrett: 35:37

So that's a, that's the evergreen challenge. You can just download for free of my website. Yeah. It's got six days, 10 minute videos. So if you've got any tension or aches and pains, or you just want to feel better and move better and without pain for as long as you live, then that's a really good start to it. There's a lot of stuff in there.

Amanda Smith: 35:57

Yeah, that's the goals constantly thinking for me, what are the things that I can do the rest of my life? And now I'm seeing like 90 year old women doing powerlifting and I'm like, Oh well, there you go. I can still do powerlifting into my nineties. As long as my nervous system wants to do it, as long as it still nourishes me on all the levels.

Jana Barrett: 36:19

Amazing.

Amanda Smith: 36:20

Jana, thank you again so much for being on Spirit of an Athlete with me.

Jana Barrett: 36:24

Thank you so much for having me. It's been so much fun. What a great conversation.

Corina Outro: 36:32

Thanks for listening to Spirit of an Athlete podcast. If you're struggling with your own gut issues and want more direction, you can get an initial body scan from Amanda at bodywhisperhealing. com. In 20 minutes, you can find out what's wrong, get clarity, map the path forward, and get on track to get back in your game. If this episode hits the spot, please let us know by rating, reviewing, and sharing it with a friend. Subscribe now to hear more inspiring stories from other female college athletes who overcame their health issues. Want more, Amanda? Get inspired by finding more at bodywhisperhealing. com