Lena Cheng (00:00):

On the one hand, we're told more and more these days, as women, you've got to lift heavy. You've got to go for progressive overload, you've got to go hard. But on the other hand, we're also told, listen to your body. You prioritize recovery. Don't push when it doesn't feel right. And I think for a long time I found that very confusing. And so after that entry, I knew I had to get clearer for myself. What does that mean for me day to day?

Michelle MacDonald (00:38):

Welcome back to Stronger By Design. I'm your host, Michelle MacDonald, and today's guest is a woman who just redefined what strength looks like, not just on the platform but in life. Lena Cheng is a TWW client of nearly two years. When she first came to us, she was chasing a set of goals, but what started as a desire to lean out, evolved into something much deeper, a full transformation of identity, values, and purpose. In this episode, we talk about her journey from shrinking to strong, the injury that tested her belief in herself, and the moment she finally said yes to power lifting and owning her space. If you're a woman who's ever felt torn between how you look and what you're capable of, this conversation is your wake up call. Let's dive in. So without further ado, let's dive in. Lena is fresh from the platform. Let's dive in and talk about that journey to becoming the person, the athlete that you are. What did fitness first mean to you when you started with the Wonder Woman?

Lena Cheng (01:52):

So when I joined the Wonder Woman, I was already hooked on lifting and my definition of fitness had shifted from doing a ton of running and cardio to prioritizing weightlifting. So I kind of spent the previous year or so building this foundation with dumbbells and learning proper form through another program that I was working with. And I actually was shocked that I found the whole process incredibly empowering and really kind of addictive. I had never lifted weights in any meaningful way or consistently in my life. And in fact, I kind of went out of my way to avoid lifting weights. I didn't enjoy it. So I eventually found myself outgrowing that program over time, and I wanted to keep regressing, keep learning, keep challenging myself, and I wanted to learn how to work with a barbell. And I knew that I loved that feeling of, I loved the idea of getting stronger, and I felt like the barbell was going to be part of that journey.

Michelle MacDonald (02:55):

Did you see something on Instagram or did a friend of yours, were they doing barbell work? How did that Not

Lena Cheng (03:01):

Really.

Michelle MacDonald (03:02):

No.

Lena Cheng (03:02):

No, I just thought it was so badass. I just thought, I want to learn how to do that. It's

Michelle MacDonald (03:07):

Badass.

Lena Cheng (03:08):

Yeah. And I love learning new things, and you combine that with doing something badass. I knew I wanted to do it

Michelle MacDonald (03:16):

And you did it. When did you realize that strength was more important than being small? That's a big hurdle for a lot of people, and you're Asian as well, and I don't know how much there's a cultural disjunct there between encouraging you to be more small and more reliant, maybe on a male strength. I don't know.

Lena Cheng (03:36):

No, that's right. Well, I'd never really struggled with my weight, so I didn't come into lifting with a focus on size. But I'll be honest, I mean, when I started working with the Wonder Woman, Annie, my coach at the time, immediately put me on a little mini cut, and I dropped this little bit of belly fat that I'd had since I was a teenager. And then all of a sudden I could really see my muscles. I could really feel them working in every lift. I could really almost see that Chenge daily with the videos that I would record and send to Annie of my exercises. How long was the mini cup for? It was maybe like six or seven weeks. So super short. And you had, you said some belly fat from when you were a teenager. I mean, I'd always had that since I was a teenager. And then I had a couple of kids and I just thought it was something I was, it was just me.

(04:34):

And so that was a real turning point, not just because I looked different, but because I found it so satisfying to build strength. And so strength and size became connected for me. The aesthetics were this reflection of the work I was doing to stay active and train with purpose. And yeah, you're right. There is sort of this message that you get as an Asian woman that being small and delicate and demure is such a good thing. And I've just Which is not you. Yeah, I've just never fit into that. Right. I mean, I'm tall, I'm outspoken. I started out my career as one thing. I was a board certified physician, and then I left that behind. I left clinical medicine, even though everyone around me, oh, I'm sure it was shocking, family, what you doing, your wasting your life. And they were really in their own way. So many people were pushing me to be small, to continue living a small life, a small life and not rock the boat. So since then, I mean, that was over 25 years ago. I've Chenged careers, I've built businesses. I've taken a ton of risks. Risks. You look 20, I don't believe it

Michelle MacDonald (05:49):

50

Lena Cheng (05:49):

Seriously,

Michelle MacDonald (05:50):

Like you like a Benjamin button.

Lena Cheng (05:54):

But it's like I've now learned that doing a lot of scary things is so rewarding. You're alive and you come out the other side, you come out the other side and you can't help but realize that I can take up space. I think that's a thing that you get not just as an Asian woman, but just as a woman in general. Don't take up space, don't speak loudly, don't ask questions. I think lifting and now powerlifting has really given me permission to say, no, I'm allowed to be strong. I can take up space. And even when I was at the meet, for example, there's a lot of super strong women there, very experienced women also competing and getting up onto that platform, I still had to tell myself, I deserve to be here. I can take up this space. And even as someone who's learning, I deserve to be here.

Michelle MacDonald (07:02):

Yeah. I'd be interested to know what role Annie played if Annie in shifting your mindset or helping you clarify. Yeah,

Lena Cheng (07:14):

She did. So Annie, who was my first coach, she didn't just give me programming and my macros. I remember this team call where she talked about the benefits of getting clear on your core values, and there was just something about that that really stuck in my head. I hadn't really formally done that before. I had a sense of what my core values were, but I didn't really sit down and put pen to paper and write it out concretely. So I did spend some time really working on that and going through some exercises to figure them out. And I landed on five structure, boldness, joy, growth and connection. And once I had that framework, it was pretty amazing. It just became a filter for everything, not just lifting. It just Chenged how I made decisions, how I spent my time, what I decided to give my energy to. And so I would just recommend that to everyone. It's just, so take the time to figure out your core values because it can just become this incredibly strong compass for so much of your life.

Michelle MacDonald (08:30):

And intertwining too, I know at TW, we start with the physical because that's the hook. Lose those five pounds or 20 pounds or whatever, get your health back. But we really underscore the importance of the mindset transformation that has to happen, especially if you want lasting transformation, the mind's got to shift. There's no way, I mean, it's so unlikely unless you're really lucky. It's just so unlikely that you're going to be in your fifties and sixties. And if you haven't done mindset work that you are really living according to your values because life is so hectic. And a lot of times we make decisions in our youth that we continue to live our lives by because we're invested in it financially, relationship wise, et cetera. And to be in a community of women that are actually embracing that kind of a deep growth that gives you that long-term success, that's really never ending. You never have to stop growing.

Lena Cheng (09:35):

That's so true. And you're right, unless you get clear on where you're headed, it's too easy to fall back on old habits and old ways of doing things

Michelle MacDonald (09:46):

And just reacting, just surviving the day,

Lena Cheng (09:48):

Just reacting.

Michelle MacDonald (09:50):

Especially when you're successful. When you're successful, it's like pow, pow, your calendar's full. You got all these things to answer do. And when you are encouraged to take a step back, do some self analysis and some deep work, it just accelerates. It amplifies all the work you're doing physically. It just amplifies it. What's your training? What's your training? Why now versus when you started? Has it Chenged or is it

Lena Cheng (10:19):

Yeah, it has Chenged. So two years ago when I joined t ww, my why was, it was kind of about, I wanted to progress. I wanted to learn something new. I wanted to build on my strength foundation, and I still want to do those things. But now it's more about alignment. Am I training and doing things in a way that reflects who I want to be? Does this serve my values? So I'm just much more intentional now. And I think a good example of that is that at the end of 2024, when I was seeing so many t WW women competing in bodybuilding, right? You just see it all over social media. And I just found it so intriguing, fascinating. It looked like a ton of hard work, but it also looked like a lot of fun. And so I thought, gosh, is this something I would want to do?

(11:13):

And I really took some time to think about it. It really did interest me, and I thought about it. I meditated on it, and ultimately it just was a no, at least for now, because it just didn't kind of check off all those core value boxes for me. And I just realized that dedicating that amount of time and energy to something that was not fully aligned with my core values just wouldn't be worth it. But then when I started learning more about powerlifting, I just, yes, it aligned of my core values, but also I just felt this spark and this excitement and energy, and especially I think for me, when it sparks that joy, then I know it's something I should seriously consider doing.

Michelle MacDonald (12:01):

Yeah. It's all about getting that hell. Yes. Right, exactly. And that's good work to do too, because you do not want to go into contest prep chasing something that's not really what you truly want to do. It's a lot of sacrifice.

Lena Cheng (12:17):

It's a lot of sacrifice, and it's so incredible to see you and other athletes up there doing your thing. And I just know it's not something you can go into casually.

Michelle MacDonald (12:28):

You shouldn't really.

Lena Cheng (12:29):

Yeah,

Michelle MacDonald (12:30):

Yeah. Shouldn't a lot of people say, I wanted to tick that off my bucket list. And it's like, there's so many other things that you could do,

Lena Cheng (12:38):

And

Michelle MacDonald (12:38):

Powerlifting is incredible. I recall so viscerally my own meats and just the hoot and hollering, the chalk, the nerve, the tension, needing to go to the bathroom and you're single it, why?

Lena Cheng (12:57):

Oh my gosh, the comradery. I did have to come so many times that day. It's just like five minutes every time

Michelle MacDonald (13:03):

On

Lena Cheng (13:03):

And off. I've been there on and off adjusting

Michelle MacDonald (13:06):

The commands. Everything happens and you are like, shoot. I remember doing the bench and thinking, did I wait for the commands? You go into this kind of weird space. So it's exciting. And doing things like that, I like to say it takes us, they're big, hairy, audacious goals, and they take us as far away from midlife or what we're sold as midlife as possible. So on fire, you are so alive in that moment,

Lena Cheng (13:39):

And I really would love to see more women our age, right? Forties, fifties, sixties, even seventies, doing things like power lifting. It really is, it's so empowering. It's quite actually accessible in the sense that if you can train consistently, you can get your squat to depth, you can pause your bench at the chest, there's no minimum, there's no minimum weight that you need to be able to lift in order to participate and get onto that platform. So I actually think it'ss open to a lot of people.

Michelle MacDonald (14:23):

Okay. So let's segue into, well, we'll circle back to your experience with injury. Let's dive right into stepping out of the platform here. So we know what pulled you. It was in alignment with your core values. You wanted to push yourself, you love a goal, you like to take up space, and this is all about that. So let's keep diving in here. Were any shifts, any mental shifts that had to happen during Neat Prep? Did you have doubts

Lena Cheng (14:57):

That you had to overcome? Yeah, for sure. I mean, one of the biggest mindset shifts was realizing that there's such a big difference between what calculator says you should be able to lift and what you can actually hit on the platform. So

Michelle MacDonald (15:12):

Up or down for people.

Lena Cheng (15:14):

Yeah, exactly. So for anyone who doesn't know, there are these one rep max calculators out there that they can estimate your heaviest lift based on what you can do for multiple reps at a lighter weight. And it's a useful tool, but it really doesn't account for the mental game of standing in front of that bar with those heavy plates that can feel pretty intimidating. And so I had to work just as hard on my head as on my body, learning how to stay calm, to really trust my training and to walk up to that bar thinking like, okay, I've got this. I've done the work, I've got this. And so much of that work and progress really happens before you even touch the weight. That was a big shift for me

Michelle MacDonald (16:06):

That happen during your kind of peaking block where you're working more on triples and doubles and singles. Where did you work?

Lena Cheng (16:16):

Skill? Yeah, that was exactly it. Because one thing to do 10 reps at one 90 or whatever, and then to do 2 15, 2 20, 2 25, it can be intimidating. And so I had to really get confident in the work that I had put into it and really prep myself mentally.

Michelle MacDonald (16:50):

Are, for you, what are some of the, can you relay an aha moment where you're, you're looking at that number that you're supposed to hit and you're really, walk us through that. When you saw that two 15, I am assuming you mean the deadlift or you're talking about the deadlift, right? Yeah.

(17:13):

So you've been doing 180, 1 90, which is still heavy, but it's not the same when you get into the two hundreds. I remember when I was working with Chad Wesley Smith, a fabulous coach, and we were, I think eight weeks out of a meet I'd hired him and two weeks into that, and I had just done 1 92 first sets of four on the squat, and all of a sudden I see two 15 for a double. And I'm like, is he crazy? Is he trying to kill me? Two 15, I've never even done two. How am I supposed to do? And it was, I was actually hyperventilating almost. I'm sure if I'd had a blood pressure cuff on, it would've been like one 60. This is the day before, the night before I saw my numbers and I had trouble sleeping. And anyways, I ended up doing it. Not very well, but I did it. And then the euphoria, I just did this thing. So can you walk me through your experience? What was it like?

Lena Cheng (18:16):

Yeah, I mean, well, if we take my dead lip, for example, lots of up and downs. I'd say even six weeks out. My form was pretty inconsistent at the time. My PR was two 15 for three reps, but I did that in 20, 24, about a year ago. And so I was gradually working my way up and I got to a point where I don't know my form, I just felt like I totally lost my deadlift mojo. And I would go up to the bar and it would be, I don't know, a 202, 2 a five, and I just wouldn't be able to lift it. It was interesting, just like my form was off, I knew it was my form because then I would, in the same block, I would go and do a really, really heavy block pole, like two and a half inches off the ground. So not a lot of difference, but I was pulling 2 25, 2 30, 2 35. I'm like, what is happening? And so it really was really hard on me mentally, because I would keep on pushing myself on the dead lip and trying to do it over and over again. I would go up to the bar, just have this surge of adrenaline and not be able to move it. And I would do that five or six times, and I was just like, I don't, frustrating.

(19:47):

So super frustrating. And what kind of panicked me was like, is this going to happen at the meet?

(19:54):

That would be terrifying if I lost my deadlift and just was up on the platform not being able to move it even an inch. And so I really had to go back to fundamentals. And I think that is the thing that I learned that as the weight gets heavier, you cannot hide from those fundamentals. As the weight gets heavier, the issues with your form starts to come out. And for me, you can't compensate. It was like, yeah, right, exactly. And even with my squat, which was always been challenging for me, with my body tight, I'm tall with long femurs. And then with my deadlift, even though I was previously the most confident about my deadlift, it was just inconsistent. So that actually gave me a ton of clarity. It really showed me where my gaps, not just in my form, but again, mindset, how I respond when things feel off. I used to think that I could just power through things, but now I'm just much more focused on skill and precision and music to my ears. What's that?

Michelle MacDonald (21:06):

Music to my ears,

Lena Cheng (21:09):

Right? And strength is great, but if the mechanics aren't there, it's just not going to hold up under pressure. It's just not.

Michelle MacDonald (21:17):

Yeah. And you risk injury, especially if you want to be doing this in your seventies. And we'll touch on that. So it sounds like what you really learned through that whole experience was how important technique was. So how did you figure out what was it that you're doing wrong? What was missing? Was it the slack? Was it brace?

Lena Cheng (21:38):

It was

Michelle MacDonald (21:39):

Total body

Lena Cheng (21:39):

Tension. I wasn't, I think it was actually the block pulls that helped me adjust my form because as I was watching myself on video, noticing that I was sort of leaning back a tiny bit and allowing that sort of leverage to work for me, I started bringing that to my deadlift, and that really was what made the difference. And then all of a sudden, I mean, I don't want to say it was effortless, but it just felt so smooth. Beautiful. So that's what kind of turned it around for me. But honestly, I was DMing Nikki, the coach that helped me get to the platform as Nikki, and I was Googling and on YouTube and on chat GPT, just like, I've got to figure this out.

Michelle MacDonald (22:27):

Sounds like your torso positioning needed to shift.

Lena Cheng (22:32):

Yes.

Michelle MacDonald (22:33):

You may have been a little bit too much over your bar, potentially.

Lena Cheng (22:36):

Yes. Yeah, I think that's what it was.

Michelle MacDonald (22:39):

Yeah. Good. I love how tech have smartphones have democratized learning, technical learning. It used to be you'd have to go to a clinic, an expensive clinic, and have somebody look at your biomechanics and blah, blah, blah. But now you can, and I talked about this on my, who was I talking to? Talking to a gal from super age about why I see gals getting injured and what gals need to think about when they start getting into fitness at a later age. And I say, hands down, biomechanics. And now we're so lucky that we have these smartphones. We can look at ourselves and analyze our posture, how we're moving when we're doing a squat or when we're running or when we're doing a hip pinch deadlift. And on social media like Dr. Aaron Che's account, squat University. We can look at what it should look like. He's tons of great shorts and we can analyze, do I look like that? What is that person doing that I'm not doing? And of course, at tw, we give you a ton of information too. We try to continue to give information on taking the slack out and how to create total body tension and pressing through all three corners of the feet and all that gets

Lena Cheng (23:58):

Yeah, exactly. And it's never ending. So important to just get that coaching.

Michelle MacDonald (24:02):

Yeah. Yeah. It's never ending. And also make sure you keep notes, because if you do leave a lift and come back to it, which it doesn't sound like you're going to be doing anytime soon, but I have left lifts and come back when I do competition for physique competition, I might stop doing dead lifts at a certain point of time we're benching. And then I come back and I've got these great notes, and I drop my videos into my notes too. So it's like I'm not starting from ground zero. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. That's what I was feeling when I was doing that thing, and that's what I was thinking about when I was doing that thing. And you get slide right back into it

Lena Cheng (24:38):

And we, you're building these dossiers for yourself.

Michelle MacDonald (24:40):

You're building these dossiers for yourself. I love that dossiers. That's great. So you want to keep competing. The goals evolved, and I know we talked about that offline, but you want to share with the audience. So when you first started this roughly in the first few months of training, can you remember what your lifts were when you first started with Annie? Barbell lifting? What? Your squat, your bench, and your deadlift. I

Lena Cheng (25:01):

Mean, I had never barbell squatted in my life, and so I started with the bar and I was definitely not going to depth. I think my quads were really weak. My posterior chain has always been fairly strong, but my quads were weak. And then I've got these long femur, so I didn't know what to do with my body. And so yeah, I started with the bar and I was probably stuck in the 60, 70, maybe 80 pound range for a while.

Michelle MacDonald (25:38):

Is that before you asked Annie to use one of your coaching calls to be in your home gen and analyze? Help me. You're like, help

Lena Cheng (25:46):

Me, Annie. Yeah. So for the listeners, I do, as with everyone in t ww, everybody meets with their coach by Zoom once a month. And I figured I can use that time for what I need. And so what I would do is I've got a home gym, and so I would take my laptop down to my gym and we would do live feedback sessions. I remember dedicating at least a couple of sessions to squat because I was struggling with it so much. That was my squat bench again, had never barbell benched in my life started with the bar and those awkward,

Michelle MacDonald (26:33):

Do you still have those videos to chuckle about?

Lena Cheng (26:35):

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it is just crazy to at and then deadlift. So cute. I started, I don't know, with maybe a hundred pounds. Wow. You had bumper plates broke

Michelle MacDonald (26:55):

In there. You had bumper plates. Yeah, bumper plates. So bumper plates for the listeners, they are plates that are as big as a standard 45 pound plate, so it would put a lifter in the same position as though she were lifting 45 pound plates. It's really great to get people that are new to lifting to practice the correct start position versus being on small diameter plates. So they're called bumper plates, and they also are more forgiving on the floor. They don't clang and bang as much. So if you do have a home gym, they're just a really great

Lena Cheng (27:30):

Investment. It was a great way to get started, and then I sort of advanced from there and did all the variations. What did you end up doing at the meet? So that was when you first started? Yeah, so that was what I said. Yeah. So at the meet on squat, I did a close to 1 27 for bench. I did a 90, close to 94. And even there, it was a little strange. I had done a hundred at home in my gym, but when I did a 99 7 at the meet, I didn't hit that one. How close were you? What happened? Was it a, you missed the call or you got stuck? No, I just couldn't get it off my chest. I mean, I got it a few inches off my chest and I couldn't get it all the way up. And then I hit 2 31 on my deadlift.

Michelle MacDonald (28:23):

Nice. You're a conventional lifter.

Lena Cheng (28:26):

Yeah.

Michelle MacDonald (28:26):

And

Lena Cheng (28:27):

How much do you weigh? I'm thinking about experimenting with Sumo. Sumo, it seems like. How much do you

Michelle MacDonald (28:32):

Weigh? Yeah,

Lena Cheng (28:34):

1 27 now.

Michelle MacDonald (28:37):

Great. So you pretty much squatted your body weight?

Lena Cheng (28:41):

Yeah.

Michelle MacDonald (28:42):

Perfect. And then bench, that's really great. Actually, 94 for that weight. That's a really great, and how long have you been lifting for now? Like barbell lifting? Did you start with barbells right away with Annie

Lena Cheng (28:54):

Barbell? No, I really was doing dumbbells for a while, and I probably got started in August, September of 23, so it's been almost two years. Perfect. So

Michelle MacDonald (29:09):

What are the future goals? Are you aiming for some big numbers, I think, right?

Lena Cheng (29:13):

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, I love the idea of getting stronger, and I also love a goal. I find goals very motivating. So I kind of am thinking what's a good way to combine those two? And I started to explore what it would take for someone in my age category to qualify for nationals. And so as you know, they base it on the total amount of weight that you can lift across those big three lifts. And so for my age and weight, the minimum total is 5 89. And so I would need to go from 4 50, 4 55 to 5 89. And so that's a big difference. But I started thinking, what if I gave myself a longer time period, say two years or so? I know I'm a hard worker, I'm consistent with my training, I prioritize recovery, all the things. Could I actually do this? So I'm talking to Nikki now about planning out some goals for each lift, talking to her about how we might get there, not just grinding, but being strategic about how I train, how I track progress, building in checkpoints along the way. And one thing that I did, because Nikki's amazing and I trust her, but also, but I like bringing ideas to the table and staying engaged. That's

Michelle MacDonald (30:42):

You.

Lena Cheng (30:44):

Yeah. Right. I mean, so I got to be true to myself. So I worked with Chachi PT to explore different training frameworks for women in their fifties, and I checked the milestone pacing and things like that. So it's a big goal, but it also feels possible. And two years is just a loose timeframe. Could it be less than that? Could it be more than that? Of course. But I just like the idea of, again, staying intentional so you know where you're going.

Michelle MacDonald (31:18):

I love it. So do you have a specific goal then for before the end of this year? What do you want to see shift?

Lena Cheng (31:26):

Well, haven't really planned that out yet. Nikki and I are meeting in a couple of weeks to talk about some of those kind of checkpoint milestones, so I'm sure that fairly soon I'll probably have a sense. Okay. By the end of the year, I'd like to be here at these weights with the big three.

Michelle MacDonald (31:45):

Perfect. And you are doing a photo shoot prep, you're doing a mini cut. Are you still doing barbell lifting? Have you switched to a recovery phase? Has anything shifted or is it business as usual?

Lena Cheng (31:58):

Yeah, I think I would love, obviously I plan to get back to bar lifting. I'm not really doing much of that right now in, I think we're doing a recovery type of block right now where there's a lot of unilateral work.

Michelle MacDonald (32:17):

So it's called the GPP phase, general Physical Preparation phase, and you're ironing up the kinks. A lot of times when we're doing this bilateral stuff again and again, very repetitive, we can start to develop some little kinks in the body and one side more dominant than the other. I don't know if you do an alternating grip, do you do an alternating grip

(32:39):

So then we can one and more bicep the others, or sorry, supinated, more bicep the other. And that can affect also potentially imbalances in the body and the back and the shoulders. So you do that unilateral work and you really look at like, oh, on my left side doing a single leg RDL, I'm really hiking over. I can't seem to stay rotated down. And so you're looking for that and you're staying curious. And is there extra work that you want to do to address that? Do you need to do some myofascial release work? Maybe something's gotten kind of sticky. Do you need to do maybe some strengthening work? Right, even strengthening of the feet and ankles.

Lena Cheng (33:22):

Yeah, I know that's going to be important for me. I definitely have a left right imbalance, right? My right side is dominant, left side is weaker. I notice it on my squat and it's coming out now. I'm doing these single leg barbell Bulgarian split squats. Just this morning did a dumbbell goblet lateral squat, which it's just so hard for someone like me with these really long femurs. And I got to use a super wide stance and it's just really awkward. I'm going for depth, but I am noticing this difference. I'm weaker on the left, so I know they're good for me. Sometimes they're very, very hard, but I just know they're good for my training.

Michelle MacDonald (34:12):

They're so good for the training. Yeah, it's a really important phase to do. And then obviously communicating with your coach always, because you're in your body and things are fresh. I always tell my athletes, communicate to me stuff in the chat, so I really see it and I can put it into your training notes, but you may want to keep certain things in for a while. So even past that DPP phase, you might want to keep in certain unilateral work in, and you're going to want to not just see strength Chenge, but maybe you really want to see mobility improvements and even how you are feeling as you're doing the thing. Like, oh, they feel it feels now pretty much the same left. And,

Lena Cheng (34:51):

And one thing that I also want to mention for anyone listening is that one thing that I felt was really, really critical as I was lifting heavier and getting stronger was foam rolling. And just every day, I really, really feel strongly that that really helped me from getting, do you use a smooth foam getting injured through the process? Rumer? I have a couple of different types. I've got the black one, I've got this, the one with the bumps on it. One. Yeah,

Michelle MacDonald (35:24):

I have a

Lena Cheng (35:25):

Soft ball.

Michelle MacDonald (35:26):

Okay. I was going to say use the ball as well to get in there

Lena Cheng (35:29):

And

Michelle MacDonald (35:29):

Unstick yourself.

Lena Cheng (35:30):

I also have this stick that can help you get into your, I've seen back and your upper back.

Michelle MacDonald (35:35):

What about the gun? Do you use the gun, the fair gun?

Lena Cheng (35:39):

I have a gun, but I don't really like it, I got to

Michelle MacDonald (35:43):

Say. Okay. Is it hard to use on yourself or you don't like how it feels?

Lena Cheng (35:46):

I just don't like the way it feels. Yeah. I don't like the vibrating feel of it.

Michelle MacDonald (35:50):

Gotcha.

Lena Cheng (35:52):

But do

Michelle MacDonald (35:52):

You do anything else? A heating pad? Do you do red light therapy, anything like that? No.

Lena Cheng (35:59):

No. None of that. I think I just got, actually when I made the switch from Coach Annie to Nikki, it just happened to be that she had a team call where we went over phone rolling and I was like, yeah, actually I'm not doing this enough. I really should. And honestly, now, I mean, not only do I do it regularly, but anytime I feel a little bit of something, I foam roll it. I just feel like it.

Michelle MacDonald (36:26):

That sounds like a reel, right? The

Lena Cheng (36:28):

Answer is

Michelle MacDonald (36:29):

Foam roll it

Lena Cheng (36:30):

To foam roll

Michelle MacDonald (36:31):

It.

Lena Cheng (36:33):

I know. It just has been so good for me. It's been really, really helpful.

Michelle MacDonald (36:37):

Let's take a final five, 10 minutes if you have time. Do you have time? I know you've got a hectic schedule. Yeah. Okay. Let's take it out of five 10 and just talk a little bit about how injury, I know you did get injured and who has and got injured. I mean, athletes, we get injured, we try to avoid mindlessly getting injured, but it does happen. And let's talk about how that was a wake up call and how it shifted things for you. So take us back to your injury. So those that are, because a lot of people are afraid, right? They're 50 years old, whatever, and they're afraid to get started and they're afraid of injury. And so let's talk about that. Sure. So

Lena Cheng (37:14):

Back in September of 2024, I was warming up for a set of deadlifts. I was doing a set of eight at 1 95. Very doable for me. My lower back wasn't feeling quite right. It just kind of felt off. It felt uncomfortable, but I shook it off because sometimes you get through the warmups and it does end up feeling kind of better.

Michelle MacDonald (37:41):

Were you wearing a belt? I

Lena Cheng (37:42):

Thought I was wearing a belt. And so I just thought I would power through it. But then three reps in, I felt this real burning twinge in that area, and I just had to stop. Now, I was able to continue with the rest of my workout. I managed to get through it. But honestly, I think what made it 10 times worse was that, as you know, I do a lot of dancing. And at the time I was working on a dance project. I'd been working on it for months. It was a recreation of Michael Jackson's thriller, and the filming was the very next day. And so I woke up that day, I don't know, feeling uncomfortable, but not terrible. I took some ibuprofen, I powered through it. I was uncomfortable, but it wasn't terrible. And then I am sure that I just made it that much worse because gradually throughout the week, the pain just gotten worse and worse. So I couldn't even really walk down the street. And I later learned that it was a tear in my annulus fibrosis, which is, it's sort of the coating of the spinal cord and at the lowest part of my lumbar spine. But thankfully, no disc herniation or anything more serious.

Michelle MacDonald (39:10):

Lucky. I wonder, this is something I was talking about during my interview, dehydration. There's two things that happen as we get older. One is just being less hydrated. And so even though there's a part of our tissues that just as we get older and men and women, we experiencing that we also want to make sure as athletes, that we are very hydrated and we're making sure that we're taking our electrolytes, whether that's food wise, like I salt a lot, so making sure that that's on par, and then making sure you're warming up properly and we have to warm up a little bit longer as we get older. And then the other thing too is just that there is also for women, as we go through menopause, we've got that drop in estrogen, and there's a shift as well with, for lack of a better word, how juicy our ligaments and our muscles are. And so just being aware of that too. So when we do feel off, I treat that intuitive off very seriously. Now I have been hit hard by the dragon's tail, let you have, and I'll just go do leg presses or something. I'm like, ah, something feels weird. I'm just going to do leg presses.

Lena Cheng (40:27):

Yeah. So I actually misspoke. The annulus is actually the outer layer of the disc. And so I do think probably it's very easy to injure that. And I probably was dehydrated, but what really made it hard was that very soon after that, my husband and I left for a trip to Turkey. Ouch. And so physically, it was really terrible. I was sitting on that long plane ride. I couldn't lift my bags, I couldn't really bend over to tie my shoes. And it's that chronic pain needling kind of pain, walk around it. It was awful. It was just so hard to go from being fully functional and feeling strong and then having this incredible setback. I'm just not a

Michelle MacDonald (41:18):

Person. And you weren't doing anything. You were doing a weight that was like, what an RP seven.

Lena Cheng (41:25):

Yeah. And so mentally it was hard. I don't like that feeling of feeling I'm behind, I'm behind. I'm not keeping up. I'm starting from square one, which is not true.

(41:41):

Yeah, exactly. But it was a wake up call for sure. And now I think about those things. And to your point about just the warmups, that was one thing where even though in the lead up to the power lifting meet, my workouts in terms of sets and reps were fairly short and sort of low reps, maybe smaller amounts of sets. As we got close to the meet, it was those warmups, right? I spent a ton of time warming up because when you're lifting that heavy, I just wanted to make sure that my body was ready. So it gave me respect for that for sure.

Michelle MacDonald (42:17):

I even think of things now that I'm older, now that I'm 54, I don't sit as much. So if I'm doing heavy work, I just, I'm kind of almost a little bit paranoid of sitting when we have those in power lifting, strength training, we do these along three minute rest periods, maybe even five minutes if it's a deadlift, one RM taking a long break, make sure our creatine phosphates back to where we want it to be. And we're just really rested. And I don't like to sit because I'm like, ah, the idea of anything not being really juicy and fluid. So I like to move a little bit, stay more in a standing position and just really stay fluid more. So thinking about that too, thinking on you, I think a lot about my pelvic floor now, even as a woman who hasn't had kids that still can age. And so just making sure I'm engaged properly. So you said yes. What do you do for that?

Lena Cheng (43:16):

Yeah, it's just something I think about a lot. I know, and I have had a couple of kids, and so it's just something that I don't have issues with it now, but I certainly don't. I want to protect my body so that I don't develop those

Michelle MacDonald (43:34):

Issues. I was talking with a client who had a little bit of incontinence her first time ever doing barbell hip thrusts, and she hasn't had kids, and she's in her, I think she's 49. And I said to her, well, do you have any other signs of GSM? Right? And she said, well, I can't really tell because she hasn't, she hasn't had an active sexual life and gals that are listening to this probably going to identify with this. And I said, well, it's something that's worthwhile to check out because the genital urinary symptoms of menopause, they're progressive and early intervention with something like vaginal estrogen, it's not systemic if you're concerned about that, you don't have to oppose it with progesterone. It's not considered MHT, but it's very, very beneficial for that. And lubrication won't help with that. And the positives are of course, the health of your pelvic floor. It's not just about whether or not you can have intercourse, it's the health of the tissues in that area. And things like incontinence can start to percolate if you're someone who is affected that way. So I hope that was clear cut for people. I don't want everyone to get worried, but we don't talk enough about the health of the tissues in that area. And it's important to keep track of that because pretty, it's relatively easy to intervene early and you don't want to leave that too late.

Lena Cheng (45:15):

Yeah. Well, when you said it's something we don't talk enough about, there is one thing related to injury that I don't think we talk enough about as a strength training community. And that's balancing the advice that we get. Because on the one hand, we're told more and more these days, as women, you've got to lift heavy. You've got to go for progressive overload, you've got to go hard. But on the other hand, we're also told, listen to your body. You prioritize recovery. Don't push when it doesn't feel right. And I think for a long time I found that very confusing. And so after that entry, I knew I had to get clearer for myself. What does that mean for me day to day? And so I've been asking a lot of people that I respect how they strike that balance. And I talked it over with Nikki who gave me the simplest but the best advice.

(46:11):

And she says, she tells herself, don't be dumb. Do not be dumb. And so that's become one of my mantras. And really it means so much more than that. It's like be in tune with how I'm feeling. Don't chase numbers at the expense of my body or just to check the boxes, right? I love to check off those boxes, but don't be dumb is this reminder that, listen, I'm in this for the long longest, the long game. Bugger wrote that, don't be dumb. We need to get a don't be down. It means training with intention, making adjustments with intention, and think about the long game. Honestly, it just another

Michelle MacDonald (46:53):

Day live to lift another day. Absolutely. If I don't get this number today, I can get it tomorrow. If you're not feeling it, I like to prioritize my certain lifts. And it's like if I don't feel a hundred percent, I was telling this to one of my clients who's got a phenomenal bench presser and she can't really lift heavy with their lower body. And I said, that's your big day. So if you're getting off the plane, you shift that lift, go do your lower body, sit on the leg extension or whatever, shift your bench to Friday when you're hydrated again and blah, blah. So you have that flexibility is not set in stone. What's set in stone is you being in attunement with your body and your goals, and what levers can I pull so I can optimize myself this week? And that's the journey. That's the journey becoming, if that's the journey, becoming an advanced athlete.

Lena Cheng (47:47):

And even I had a more minor injury sort of at the end of March where I strained my lat. I was doing some pullups and I could feel this pain down there. And so here I was in prep mode for a powerlifting meet, and my lat was really bothering me. So, but Nikki did a great job sort of adjusting my programming so that it was really taking a lot of pressure off of my lat, whether it was I moved to trap bar deadlifts, I did a lot of feet up bench press, and it was translated over pretty well once I was able to get back to it.

Michelle MacDonald (48:29):

Beautiful. And that's the adjustments that you have to make really, I mean, like I said, injuries come in as we get older, the chances go up no matter how many boxes you tick off. So it is important to develop that nuance. Don't be dumb if you're feeling something live to lift that another day and shift things around. Take more warmups potentially. There's lots of ways to progress too. Sometimes I'll just, if my joints are feeling a little bit icky, I'll drop the weight down, I'll do more volume, or I'll do isometrics or pre fatigue. As long as I'm pushing myself to that failure, it doesn't happen a lot, but I know enough to pull that tool out of my back pocket. And then I avoid doing something heavy where I'm a little bit compromised, not quite feeling a hundred percent. And then pow. That's when you have those little snaps and needles happening. And as I said, as we get older, the tissues just are not as deeply hydrated. Our recovery goes down. That's the same for both men and women. And so we just want to be smarter about noticing and then pivoting.

Lena Cheng (49:42):

Yeah, it's really Chenged the way I look at my training for sure.

Michelle MacDonald (49:48):

Let's tie it up here. I mean, we covered so much, Lena, I'm so excited for you. When I heard in the pipeline that you were going to do a me, I'm like, damn, that's perfect goal for you. And also just such a great example for other people in the community. A lot of times people get really hung up on just wanting to do a competition, which is a fabulous goal, but there's so much else out there. And I think strength training and having a strength goal and being out of your comfort zone, being in a competition, they're so joyful. Strength competitions. And I'm glad that you did that. And I know that you're a big champion of the community, and I thank you for that. And so people listen to you, right? You're a real influencer in our community, that's for sure. So I have a lot of gratitude that you are so willing to share your journey and all of

Lena Cheng (50:44):

It. It's been just so rewarding to be part of it. And honestly, I'm inspired by so many other women in this community. Everybody is sort of shining in their own way, and it's just been so gratifying to see all of that.

Michelle MacDonald (51:00):

It is great. So we'll see you in, we'll see Toronto. We'll see you at the Cocoa King shoot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm so looking forward to that. That's 10 minutes away or something. And maybe we'll get a lifting session in. That'd be fun. Oh

Lena Cheng (51:17):

Yeah, I would love that. I

Michelle MacDonald (51:18):

Love that. Alright. Thank you so much. And guys, thanks for joining us on this episode. And if you're interested in powerlifting, you can go and find a local meet where you live. Lena's story is what Stronger By Design is all about. It's not just about trading hard, it's about training purposely. It's about resilience when things go sideways and choosing strength over smallness, especially when the world tells you to shrink, here are three takeaways. I hope you lead with one. Your goals are allowed to evolve and they should. Two injuries don't end your story, they just refine it. And three, the best progress starts when you stop training for the mirror and start training for you guys. If this episode resonated, please share it with a friend. Leave it a review, share it on your socials. Stronger by Design is in the top 1% of global podcasts, and your support helps us cut through the noise and bring more stories like Leanness to the woman who need to hear the most. And remember, the podcast exists to help you think critically, park your judgment and build a powerful life on your terms. We're not here to fit in. We're here to lead.