Ep 102- 5 Proven Coaching Strategies for Women Over 35 to Break Limits

Kat shares how, in one day, she coached four very different people, including a new client over 35 who doubted herself in the gym and a 14–15-year-old high jumper facing a new height, through the same hesitation: the internal “I can’t.” She explains that what holds us back often isn’t the weight but self-imposed limitations stories treated as facts (too old, too weak, don’t belong) rooted in past experiences, comparisons, cultural messaging, fear of failure, and a lack of evidence. 

Kat offers five questions to identify limiting beliefs and five practical steps to break through them: borrow belief, remove measurements at first, redefine what you’re competing for, gather evidence against the old story, and step intentionally into discomfort. 

She invites women of any age to book a no-obligation 15-minute fit call to build confidence and capability.

00:00 Same Doubt Different Lives
00:57 Podcast Welcome and Mission
01:45 Spring Check In and Setup
03:21 Client Story Borrowed Trust
05:59 Track Meet High Jump Breakthrough
08:10 Self-Imposed Limits Explained
09:06 Where Limiting Stories Come From
11:17 Five Questions to Spot Limits
15:37 Five Steps to Break Through
20:15 Permission Slip and Takeaway
21:10 Work With Me Fit Call
22:40 Outro Subscribe and Share

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Transcript

Kat 0:00

What do a almost 70-year-old woman and a 14-year-old athlete have in common? On the surface, absolutely nothing. Different bodies, different goals, decades of life experience in between them, but. On Wednesday, I coached both of them through the exact same moment, the same hesitation, the same doubt, the same voice in their head saying, I don't know if I can do this. And it was just then I had that conversation four times that day with four completely different people at four completely different times. With four completely different people at four completely different places in their lives, and that's when it hit me the weight. We're all really carrying the weight that actually holding us back has nothing to do with what's on the bar.

0:57

Welcome to MilesFromHerView, the podcast powered by KatFit Strength, where busy women like you find practical solutions to fuel your fitness journey with authenticity and resilience. I'm Kat, your host, a mom of two active boys, a business owner, and an ultra marathon runner and a strength trainer in her forties with nearly two decades of experience. I'm here to help you cut through the noise of fads, hacks, and quick fixes. This is a space where we celebrate womanhood and motherhood. All while building strength and resilience and reconnecting with you from a place of self-compassion and worthiness. Whether you're lacing up your running shoes to go out for a run, driving your kids to practice or squeezing in a moment for yourself, I'm right here in the trenches with you. Let's dive in.

Kat 1:45

Welcome back to MilesFromHerView. I am Kat, and if you're new here, this is where we talk about strength training, running nutrition, mindset, and everything else in between, and what it really means to build a strong body and a life that feels like your own. I will say today my office door is open, so I do apologize if there is any background noise. It is such a lovely day out. I. Cannot get enough of the birds singing and the sun is shining. I don't know where you're at our listening's from, but we had a really hard winter and it is finally, finally spring. So let's dive into today's episode. It was one of those days last week where. Coaching felt less like work and more like watching the same movie play out in four different times. In four with four completely different people. And what I realized is this weight we're all carrying has nothing to do with the weight on the barbell. So let's talk about the limitations that we place on ourselves with or without knowing it, and how to stop letting them write the story of what you're capable of. So I'm gonna paint you a picture of what my day was like last Wednesday, because it was one of those days where I really, really wanted to talk about this, because if I'm having this conversation multiple times in many different, with many different individuals, with, if I'm having this conversation multiple times. Then I need to share it with you'cause maybe you might find yourself in this situation. So in the morning I started training clients, all women over the age of 35. They were in different decades. And one of them, it was only her second session with me and she walked in and she was struggling, like visibly emotional, almost in tears. And she said to me, Kat. I feel so weak. I feel so out of balance and I don't know if I can do this. I stopped and I looked at her and I said, do you trust me? And she said, oh no, I trust you. I just don't trust myself. And that stopped me in my tracks. This is not the first time I've had a client say this. So I said, okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take that trust that you have in me and just channel it, borrow it. I want you to just focus on picking up the weight. I don't want you to look at the numerical number on the weight. I just want you to do, so what I did was flip the weight over so she couldn't see the number. And when she did what I instructed her to do, and I wanna back up for a moment, I do have a pretty good gauge on my clients of what will challenge them without injuring them. I wasn't handing her any weights that. She would hurt herself. It was weights that were going to help push her outside of her comfort zone. It was weights that were going to set her up for success. And the way I train my clients is they can always move up or down in the weight, no questions asked. All I ask for them and I go over rate of perceived exertion and what I want them to feel and how I want them to be challenged in the session. There's no lift this because I said so, or because you started with this weight, you need to finish with that weight. There's none of that. I work with my CL clients to meet them where they're at and push them a little bit within the comfort of where they're at. You know, pushing them a little bit outside, but keeping them safe in knowing that their form is solid. And when she did that, she lifted heavier than she ever has. And when we finished, she looked at me and said, I feel like I can, I feel like I belong here and I feel really good. So that was around 9:00 AM and we're gonna fast forward to the afternoon. I'm working with teenage athletes. I am at a track meet. I'm coaching at one of the local high schools. And the athlete, he was about 14 or 15. And we, I am coaching high jump. That was my primary event in college. And so I'm super pumped to be back coaching high school athletes, um, or just to be coaching the sport. This is the first time I've coached at the high school level prior to my business and my career, um, in strength and conditioning. I was a college track and field coach. So if you're new here, just catching you up to date. Um, and. We were in the competition and the bar was put at a height that he had never attempted at, so all I told him was just focus on everything that you've been doing and not where the bar is set at. I just wanted him to get a little bit uncomfortable without hesitating. And when I had pretty much the same conversation of like, Hey, I know you're not sure if you could do this, but I know you can. And just take that belief and belief that I know you can, and you know, hold onto that belief, then it will help you. So he did that and he crushed it. He left with a big personal best and a massive smile on his face. So two different individuals, two different times in their life doing two totally different things. Also, in that day, I had two other conversations, very similar tones. One with a woman nearly 70 and another one with a girl who is around. Again, 14 or 15. All different bodies, different goals, different life stages, but the exact same barrier. They were all standing at the edge of what they thought they could do, and every single one of them had to be coached past the voice that they heard in their head that said, I can't. And most of the time we don't even know when we are saying that we can't. These are the self-imposed limitations and what self-imposed limitations are, are stories we tell ourselves about what we can't do, and the sneaky part, we often tell them without any real evidence to back them up. We say things like, I'm too old for this. I'm too weak. I've never been strong. I don't belong in the gym. I've never been an athlete. I have bad balance or my body just doesn't work like that. And we treat these statements like facts, like immovable, truth about who we are, but they are not facts. They're predictions. So they're stories We've written about our future based on incomplete and oftentimes completely wrong data. So where do these stories come from? Well, they come from a few places. So one past experiences. Maybe you tried something once and it didn't go well. Maybe you fell, maybe you got injured, maybe you felt embarrassed, and your brain said, noted, we are never doing that again. And now that one experience became the rule two comparison. Maybe you walked into a gym and you looked around and everyone else looked like they knew what they were doing. Everyone else looked strong, coordinated, confident in you thought to yourself, well, I am definitely not that way, so this must not be the place for me. Number three, cultural messaging. This one is huge and especially for women. Because women have been at the heart of marketing messaging telling us how we should feel, how we look, and especially how we should age. The world tells us we're supposed to get weaker. Slower and more fragile. The world tells us that we're supposed to be thinner and also never age, and that our bodies are supposed to decline as we move through the decades. And if we internalize that message, we stop. We stop trying before we even start. Number four, the fear of the unknown. What if I try and I fail? What if I look stupid? What if I can't do this? So instead of risking failure, we just don't try. We protect ourselves by staying small. And five Lack of evidence. To the contrary, if you've never deadlifted 200 pounds, how do you know you can't? If you've never done a pull up, how do you know your body isn't capable? You really don't. You're just assuming. And here's the thing, these limitations aren't protecting you. They're stealing from you. And every time you say I can't, you're making a decision about your future based on that story, that may not even be true. So how do you know if you're limiting yourself? I'm gonna give you five questions you can ask yourself. So if you are in a spot that you can type out them on your notes app, or if you need to pause the episode and grab yourself a pen and paper, if not, come back to the episode so you can listen to these questions and respond to them, you know, journal about them. So, question number one, what am I avoiding that I haven't actually tried? Is there a movement, a weight, a challenge that you've written off without even testing it? For example, I can't do pull-ups. Okay. Have you ever trained for pull-ups or are you just assuming that you can't, because you tried that one time in eighth grade gym class and it really did not go well? See, there's a difference between I can't, and I haven't trained for this yet. Question two, what story am I telling myself about my body, that I'm treating it as a fact? I'm weak. I have bad balance. I'm un, I'm not coordinated. I'm old. Says who? Okay. Is this measurable or objective? Is this measurably or objectively true? Or is it just a narrative you've been repeating so long that it feels true? Question three. When was the last time you surprised yourself physically? If the answer is, I don't know, or never, that may be a red flag. That means you're playing it too safe. That means you're staying inside your comfort zone so small that you're not even testing the edges anymore. And with this one, I'm gonna add a little asterisk here. This does not mean that you should do something. So far out your comfort zone that you could injure yourself. So for instance, I will use myself. I was a high jumper in college the last time I high jumped was over 20 years ago. Well, no, it was about 20 years ago. I at practice with these high schoolers, am not going to just attempt to try to do a high jump. It might. Be okay, but there's probably a good chance I'm gonna jar my body in a way that it has not been used to. And that kind of goes back to, I have not trained for this, so I know, gosh, I'm gonna contradict myself here, but there is a limitation of putting on myself. But that's because I have not trained for it yet. So when you challenge yourself, it is something. That you are just testing the edges a bit. Again, we're not flowing through it and going from, sitting on the couch to sprinting. Question four, what would I try if I couldn't fail? And this one I absolutely love. And this one I ask myself, I. If I couldn't fail, like when I wanna put a challenge up for myself, I ask myself, would I try and do this? If I knew I couldn't fail, and the answer is yes, then I'm gonna try and do it. Because the gap between your answer and what you're actually doing, that gap is your limitation talking. So if you tried heavy squats or sprinting, or a handstand or a half marathon, if you knew you couldn't. Fail then. The only thing stopping you is your fear. Fear of failure, not your actual capability. Question five, am I letting age, gender, or past experience write my future?'cause here's the truth. My client, who's almost 70, she's gaining freedom, she's getting stronger, she's living proof that the story we're told about aging, especially for women, is not inevitable. It's a choice. So did any of these questions land? If you're sitting there right now realizing, oh, I've been doing this, I've been limiting myself, and I didn't even know, good. That is the first step because you can't change what you don't see. So now that you see it, you see the limitations, you see the story you've been telling yourself, now what? How do you actually break through? And I'm gonna give you five practical steps. These are the same things I coached my clients through last Wednesday, and they worked, whether you're 14 or you're almost 70, step one, borrow belief. Remember my client who said, I trust you, but I don't trust myself. That's okay. Start there. If you can't believe in yourself yet, borrow someone else's belief in you. A coach, a training partner, a friend who's seen you do hard things before their belief becomes the bridge. You walk across it until your own belief catches up, and I promise you it will. And I'll give you a little story. The first time I was standing on the starting line of my first 100 mile race. I had no idea. I had doubts. I didn't think I was going to finish. Surely I had trained I wanted to finish. I, but the fear of the unknown was getting to me in that moment, those final couple minutes before the race began, my youngest son gave me a big hug and he said, mommy, you are gonna run a hundred miles today. And I thought, he's right. I'm going to run a hundred miles today. And any time during that race I thought I couldn't. I reflected back on his hug and his words affirming his belief in me that I could do it. I crossed that finish line and I finished, and his belief in me was the launchpad in affirming that belief in me that I could do it. Step two, remove the measurement, at least at first. Don't look at the weight, just do sometimes the number is the limitation, the scale, the pace on your watch. The. Number of workouts you're doing a week, the weight on the dumbbell. So take it away. Focus on that action, not the outcome. Can you complete a rep with good form? Can you finish the mile? Can you show up and do the work? The metric will come, but first you need to prove to yourself that you can. So take away all the data and the numbers. Step three. Redefine what you're competing for. My almost 70-year-old client isn't competing for podium finishes. She's competing for her independence, her right to live fully in her body. As long as she's here, my client in my forties is competing to feel like she belongs in her own skin. So ask yourself. What are you competing for? Maybe it's not a personal best. Maybe it's not a race time. Maybe it's freedom. Maybe it's confidence. Maybe it's proving to yourself that you are not done yet. Reframe strength training as reclaiming authority over your own life, not just building muscle. Step four, seek evidence against your story. Your brain is so, so good at finding evidence that confirms what you already believe. So flip the script. Actively look for proof. Actively look for proof that you're wrong about yourself. Did you lift heavier than last week? Write it down. Did you run farther without stopping? Track it? Did you do something? You couldn't celebrate it? I cannot say this one enough. Celebrate it. Celebrate even a small half step or even a quarter step or a 16th of a step forward. Celebrate it. It all matters, and then build a case. Build a case against your limitations. Stack that evidence until that old story doesn't hold up anymore. Step five, step into the discomfort on purpose. This one is so, so big, my teenage athlete. Was hesitating at that edge of unknown, and that's where growth lives. You don't have to leap, but you have to step. Just one little micro step outside your comfort zone is enough. Try the heavier weight. Sign up for the race show up in the gym even if you feel like you don't belong, because here's the truth, you don't grow in familiar, you grow in uncomfortable. And here's your permission slip that I'm gonna leave you with. You don't know what you're capable of yet, and that's not a bad thing. That's not something to be afraid of. And that is the whole point. The only way to find out what you can do is stop writing the ending before you've even started. So last Wednesday, I watched four people step beyond what they thought they could do and into what they didn't know they could do. And every single one of them left different than the way they came in. Stronger, more confident and a little bit freer. And that's what strength training and athleticism is really about. It's not about the weight on the bar, it's about the weight. You're not lifting anymore. The weight of, I can't. The weight of I'm too old. The weight of I'm too weak, the weight of I don't belong. And if you're listening to this right now and you're realizing you've been playing smaller than you need to, I wanna help you test that. I work with women. Online who are ready to stop negotiating with their limitations and start building evidence against them, whether you're 40, 50, or 70, or anywhere in between, whether you've been training for years or you've never set foot in a gym. If you want to compete for your independence, your freedom, your authority over your own body, I wanna work with you. Head to the show notes. Hop on a call with me. 15 minutes, no obligation, no hard sales pitch, no forcing of anything. Let's talk about where you are, where you wanna go, and what is actually, and what is actually standing in your way. Let's build a case against I can, because I'm telling you right now, you are more capable than you think. Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you've enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who needs to hear. Hear it. Screenshot it. Tag me on Instagram at KatFit Strength. I wanna hear from you. If you just wanna write to the podcast, click the message thing. Write to me. If you're ready to stop limiting yourself and start testing what you're actually capable of. I hope to see you on my calendar to be able to speak to you. Hop in those show notes. Book a fit call. I will see you next week. Keep moving forward.

23:53

Thank you for tuning in to MilesFromHerView, powered by KatFit Strength. If this podcast inspires you, don't keep it for yourself. Hit follow or subscribe to stay updated on the new episodes, and leave us a review to help more women and moms discover this space. Your feedback fuels this podcast and I'd love to hear what's working for you or what topics you want to dive into Next. You can connect with me on Instagram at KatFit or share this episode. Road with a friend who is ready to embrace her strength. Remember, fitness isn't about perfection. It's about showing up for yourself and finding strength in every step of your journey. Until next time, keep moving forward one mile at a time.