Peach Podcast
Two guys and an occasional guest breaking open topics on: Purpose, Energy, Attitude, Commitment and Health through shared experiences.
Peach Podcast
S2EP13: The Power of Heavy Lifting for Women: Breaking Myths and Building Strength
Have you noticed the weight room at your gym seems to be drawing more and more women! With growing evidence that strength training is even more crucial for women, this eye-opening conversation sheds Iight on a topic that is sometimes misunderstood. Buckle up and listen in as we're joined by Destiny Golden, a multifaceted fitness expert who's breaking barriers in how women approach weightlifting.
Destiny brings a refreshingly unconventional background to her work as a certified personal trainer and nutritionist. From her roots learning circus arts as a child to performing fire spinning at Burning Man, she's merged her free-spirited nature with structured fitness expertise to create a truly unique approach. Her training philosophy goes beyond physical transformation to address emotional and spiritual wellbeing—setting intentions before workouts and helping clients use strength training as a vehicle for personal growth.
One of the episode's most compelling revelations is Destiny's forthcoming app "Gymstrology," which combines women's weightlifting with astrological timing. She explains how collective energy patterns observable through astrology can help optimize when to schedule heavy lifting days versus recovery periods. While this innovative concept might raise eyebrows among skeptics, Destiny's practical explanation makes a compelling case for this unexpected marriage of ancient wisdom and modern fitness science.
We tackle the persistent myth that weight training makes women "bulky," with Destiny providing both scientific evidence and practical experience to put this concern to rest. "If you know how to bulk overnight, let me know," she jokes, explaining that highly muscular female physiques require years of dedicated training. Instead, she highlights the profound benefits women gain from lifting heavy: increased bone density, hormone regulation, injury prevention, and remarkable confidence that radiates through all aspects of life.
Whether you're a competitive athlete looking to prevent injuries, someone seeking to age gracefully with strength, or simply curious about this empowering approach to fitness, Destiny's insights will transform how you think about weightlifting.
Follow Destiny on Instagram @embodiedexercise, @gymstrology.app, or webpages Embodied Exercise or GymStrology to discover how strength training might be the missing piece in your wellness journey.
Hey, hey, hey, welcome to the Peach Podcast. Just a couple of dudes and an occasional guest breaking open topics from everyday life on purpose, energy, attitude, commitment and health. So, if you're ready, listen in as we live, to learn from our losses, gain from our gratitude and laugh as we level up. Always remember, if you ever feel stuck, all you got to do is just start. Come on, let's go. Welcome back to Peach Podcast with Doug and Daryl. And if you are a brand new, first time listener, welcome to Peach Podcast. If you are a brand new, first time listener, welcome to Peach Podcast.
Speaker 1:If you are a brand new listener, it's probably because you are or have been invited by our guest or a past guest, and we just want to take a moment to welcome you to our community, the Peach Podcast community. It's filled with love, excitement, nutrition, weightlifting, exercise, running, cycling outdoors everything to fill your heart, mind and soul, to keep you going, Especially if you feel stuck or overwhelmed or just frozen and can't seem to get started. We hope that our content and our guests can provide whatever is needed for you to continue to take everyday, ordinary situations and create an extraordinary life. We have an awesome guest. I'll introduce her in a little bit. But before we get going, daryl, why don't you tell me what's on your mind real quick?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, I'm super excited about the podcast today. We've had this discussion quite a bit and I'm so glad, such a blessing having you up in Hillsborough with your brother in the gym. You met some amazing people in health, wellness and fitness and everything else, and you came back and you were so fired up and you said I am absolutely going to focus on getting our guest on the show today. So it's a great subject. So, doug, I'll hand it over to you, introduce our guest and I'm super excited about this podcast.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. When I met this guest when I was down there working with Joe, I observed her. I saw what she did. She had a cool vibe, just just meeting her and being introduced to her and then just watching her work. And actually last time I was down there I got to listen to her.
Speaker 1:I don't know if she saw me creeping, but she was she was doing an intake with a potential client and it was really cool. Some of the questions. She really peels back the layers and gets deep and helps the client understand. You know she tries to understand what the client really wants and kind of drives them through that process. It was really cool to just listen and watch and be a fly on the wall. But our guest right now is Destiny Golden. She's a certified personal trainer and a nutritionist who's been very passionate about wellness for almost 20 years. She's formally studied exercise science, massage therapy, reiki, ayurveda, ayurveda.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:Ayurveda, I knew that would happen.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Destiny. And nutrition. As a corrective exercise specialist, she's helped countless clients find freedom from pain caused by frozen shoulders, knee injuries, pelvic floor issues and a whole lot more. So, without further ado, man, let me man. It's about time, Destiny. I had to chase you down, lock you down and schedule you, and thank you for saying yes. So, without further ado, Destiny, Golden, why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey to personal training? Or start off with tell us a little bit about yourself. Where'd you grow up, what was it like? And maybe describe yourself a little bit?
Speaker 4:Sure, yeah. Well, first off, thanks for having me on the show, guys. I'm glad we finally lined it up. I know we've been working on this for a while. So where did I grow up? In Northern California, just about an hour north of Healdsburg, and my grandparents raised me. I lived on a really nice property. We had fresh blackberries, and my grandma was always really into fitness. She would take me swimming every single day. We would go on bike rides, walks, sometimes begrudgingly, because I was kind of a lazy kid, but she made me do it. So I largely attribute my interest in fitness to her.
Speaker 1:Very cool, very cool. So what was it like growing up for you, destiny, other than your grandmother? Like just Destiny, the girl growing up in school, high school? Tell me a little bit about that, so I've always been a weirdo.
Speaker 4:I knew I likeded for much of my childhood and I went to this Waldorf-inspired school that really focused on art.
Speaker 1:That's a cool system.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So two days a week I would go to school and we would do more of the artsy sides of things. So we would do theater class and music and go on nature walks and it was this beautiful property there, I think the only place in California. They have white deer like albino deer. All the deer on the property are albino. A lot of special memories there, yeah. So my grandma she was always really passionate about fitness as a kid. I was not. I was not passionate about it at all as a kid. I did have my ways that I like to stay active. I was really into learning circus arts actually Fun fact about me, yeah, which explains my love for Burning man. Okay, Burning man.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, I've been eight times. I think this year will be nine. Last year I was one of the performers in conclave, so that is the opening circle where we um, we kick off, the man burn and I was one of the fire performers, so I did fire spinning of like fire, uh, fire fan and palm torches.
Speaker 1:And damn destiny, you get down.
Speaker 4:I bet you didn't find that on my website?
Speaker 3:no, yeah doug, this is a destiny golden. Part two podcast.
Speaker 1:Man, there's a whole subject I got we're gonna do a whole, just an episode on her experience at burning man.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so that was one way I like to stay active. As a kid I would do a lot of juggling, a lot of hula hooping. I would walk on stilts.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 4:And, yeah, I liked to go walking around in the forest. It wasn't really with like exercise in mind, but I was very adventurous so I'd go down by the creek. I was lucky enough to grow up in a space where small town, pretty safe, so I had a lot of room to roam and, yeah, just enjoying nature. That was mostly how I got out, and then my grandma pushing me to swim as well.
Speaker 1:Wow, you know what's Daryl. You know what's fascinating about that is now, now as a as a personal trainer. You know she. She brings a lot of structure, but I'm curious to dig in in this episode to find out how does she, you know, marry her freedom and her passion into this structured system for her clients and stuff? So, destiny, I'm getting even more curious about. You know what you do and how you do as a personal trainer. Why don't you tell us a little bit how does that work as a person, your business now, or one of your businesses, I should say? I want you to share what your other business is, your new business that's going to be born soon. But tell us a little bit about embodied exercise. What happens there, who do you serve there and what does that look like if somebody was to reach out to you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I work mostly with women.
Speaker 4:I have a couple guys in the mix, but I do really love working with women and when somebody reaches out to work with me, I have an intake with them.
Speaker 4:And it's optional. Not everyone wants to go down the emotional spiritual route, but I do recommend it. And with that I have an intake of a few questions where people can unpack not only what are their fitness goals but also what are their emotional spiritual goals, and I've really found that fitness is just such an incredible empowerment tool where, beyond just the physique which I do help people with physique, but I don't focus on weight loss it's all about empowerment and, yeah, just as they're getting stronger, they really just feel so much more confident, so much more radiant, and that bleeds out into all areas of their life, whether they're intentional about it or not. So the thing that sets my business aside from the others is we really look at those emotional spiritual pieces and we fine tune. What exactly are those things. We'll pick one or two and then, over the course of X number of sessions, we'll weave that into our sessions.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. So if after someone's willing to answer those questions and kind of get deep like that emotionally and spiritually and all that is, do you use that in trying to move them forward or have them breaking through or move up into different levels with their physical uh, the physical part of their routines, or how do you incorporate that into the overall program?
Speaker 4:I do, yeah. So for the clients that I have who are very, uh, spiritual woo girls, who are on my level, we will set actually an intention before work, working out, and so we'll have just quick check-in about you know, how are you doing, what's your day like, how much energy do you have? And then also, okay, what's going on in life right now. Is there something where you walked into the gym with it and you want to leave it at the gym and let it transmute through the process of strength training?
Speaker 1:Do you ever have a session where you say, when somebody comes in, they say you know, it's been a shitty day, I don't even feel like being here, and and do you ask them okay, well, do you want to carry that into the gym? Or?
Speaker 4:do you want to kick its ass in the gym? My approach is pretty gentle, so kicking its ass, that might come after the warmup.
Speaker 4:If someone just says I'm like I'm beat up today. I'm like that's all good, you know we'll, I'll meet you where you're at and I vibe it out right, like some people. I can see they're feeling beat down, but it's like really pushing hard is what's going to get them out of it. But I am so not about this like hyper masculine training style of just, you know, no pain, no gain, no excuses it, you know it's fine. We all have our off days, especially I work with women and sometimes you know their menstrual cycles, their hormones are, you know, feeling impacted and it's just not the day to push hard. So I guess, yes and no, it depends on the client, depends on the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is very individual, isn't it? Yeah, the other thing Destiny, please share. You were, when we were kind of on here, just before we started pressing record here. You had mentioned that you are working on an almost I guess almost to the end, or where are you in the phase of your new business? What? What is it called and what, what can people look forward to coming up?
Speaker 4:Yeah, pretty close here. It's called gym astrology. It's a women's weightlifting and astrology app, so it's going to be pretty much strength focused. It's not going to be a whole lot of endurance. Um yeah, mostly focused on those heavy lifts and aesthetics as well, and they're just in training people. For as long as I have, I've noticed there are kind of these collective waves where you go in and just everybody at the gym is zapped. Other days everyone's feeling stoked, they're excited, and I have been able to find that that's linked to astrology and it's actually pretty predictable been able to find that that's linked to astrology and it's actually pretty predictable. So, in order to build the timing, I I'm an astrological novice, but I've hired an astrologer to really give us the top notch. I have the fitness on lock, she has the astrology on lock, so we work together to build a strength training program that aligns with the I guess you could say cosmic energy, universal energy that aligns with the I guess you could say cosmic energy, universal energy.
Speaker 1:So that would make your workouts and the timing predictable. Is that correct?
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah. So, being that we're going to focus primarily on strength in this app, we're going to do our heavier lifts or our PR testing around peak astrological timing Very frequently that's going to align with the full moon, but not always and then we're going to do our deloads or our rest days, which I know you guys want to talk about. That. Maybe I can peer pressure you into rest days.
Speaker 1:Daryl.
Speaker 4:I don't have a problem with rest days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I heard your tendencies, so we're going to schedule that around like astrological diffs as well but is it like, like I'm a taurus, right is, would my strong and and weak days be different than an aries or a leo or something like that? Or? Or is it based on astrology? I guess is is the stars and the moon and all that stuff. Right, I'm gonna talk about novice.
Speaker 4:I'm total novice yeah, a bit of both. So everybody, they have their one primary zodiac sign and then you have a whole chart with a whole list of other things, and so we all do have our individual experiences of astrology. So if you're, let's say, you have a really heavy Leo placement in your chart, you're going to experience the planetary shifts in one way versus if you're Virgo Libra, so on. The planetary shifts in one way versus if you're Virgo Libra, so on. But there also are collective waves where it's like a general right. So everyone's going to experience it a little more and a little less, but there are these kind of universal collective waves of energy that come up, and that's what we're going to be tapping into with Gymstrology.
Speaker 1:That's very cool. I've never, ever, ever and I've been around the fitness industry for a long time have heard anyone taking that approach. Is it, is it out there or are you like, are you?
Speaker 4:no, and that's why I'm doing it yeah, so you're like you're hearing here people on peach podcast first time yeah, actually this is the the first public announcement, first podcast that gyms trollogy is on that's very cool.
Speaker 1:I, I love that. I love that.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I've been into wellness and kind of spirituality for a long time, in addition to weightlifting, and just this whole time I've had these two kind of separately functioning planes of existence and multiple businesses at the same time, where I was doing massage and Reiki over here, personal training over there, and just only within the last couple of years did I have this aha moment of like why am I not connecting? These people want that and need that and love that.
Speaker 4:So I looked long and hard to find something like this out there, um, and to the best of my knowledge, it doesn't exist. If it does, tell me cause, I want to check it out. But yeah, so it's exciting. I have a lot of friends and just community clients who are really into those things separately, and each of us we have, you know, one or two strength apps, one or two astrology apps, but the vision is just really combine them and be able to let each of them power each other to amplify Wow.
Speaker 3:We created an outline and we might just throw the outline out the window. I'll add a couple of things. I was in college, you know, back in the old days, when you're in college, you had to figure out how to make sure that all your undergrad and everything else, and I was like I need five or six more units in, uh, in, uh, the science discipline. And I looked and I sent it for a class. It was cool. Um, it was uh, astronomy, uh, and it was a three unit class and at night you would go up once a week and you'd actually go observe stars and uh and do some things there. Um, that was the single hardest class I've ever taken in my life. Right, and I wish I would have taken more astrology, because there, but the whole study of the stars and everything else and all that was pretty amazing. Basically, astronomy not astrology is basically really hard math, right, basically when you do all the different things. But it opened my eyes to so many cool things.
Speaker 3:Eric and I another person that we train with we're doing an event called Silver Moon and it's a running race. It's at night from we're doing the six hour and they do it on a full moon and basically they have you run around this two and a half mile track in these vineyards and you can either run for six hours, 12 hours or 24. Well, we're not that crazy. So we're going to run for six hours and the whole thing is just a little crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but but we're running from uh six to midnight and it's going to be under a full moon, and so they have all this stuff on there, and they have all this stuff, and so they do it. So we'll have to let you know how that goes, um so it's this next full moon your next full moon? Yeah, in uh april 12th, 13th yes, absolutely, yep, yep, it is, and so it's going to be anyway. My wife calls it an adult jogathon because we're going to be running in a little circle back and forth.
Speaker 1:Oh, really, yeah, I'll probably go down to prepare snacks for them every time I do a lap.
Speaker 3:So one of the reasons we wanted you on here is, just if I look at your website and everything else lifting is self-care right, love that right, helping women find mobility, freedom from pain, empowering, strength. Man, it doesn't everywhere you go lifting, lifting, lifting heavy stuff, weights, mobility, bone strength critical for everyone. But such a focus on women, so talk a little bit about that. It's a big part of your business and you were talking before. That's kind of your jam in your wheelhouse, what you grew up you like lifting weights and so just talk about really the explosion on that and some of the science behind really why that's so important for everyone.
Speaker 4:Absolutely yeah. So, as I touched on briefly, having been in the weight room of the gym for about 20 years, I was definitely one of the first women I saw in there, especially one of the women lifting heavy. It's just been amazing to see women just picking up on why strength training is so important. It really helps us with our bone density. It really helps us with hormone regulation. It just, first and foremost, make you feel like an empowered badass, which is what I want all women to feel.
Speaker 4:And, yeah, I focus mostly on women. Just for that reason it has been such an underserved population, specifically in the heavy, heavy strength side of working out. I just remember growing up as a millennial All we heard was, you know, core and cardio with some light weights. And I just have this vendetta, vendetta against the word bulking. Yeah, bulking, that's not something women really have to worry about. First of all, if you know how to bulk overnight, let me know, because I'm ready for the bulk, but it takes a lot of work, right. So the women who you see, who are just absolutely jacked with, you know, huge biceps, who have quote, manly don't like that but manly physiques, as the haters would say. They've been working for a long time. They're lifting very heavy. They have been in the gym hours a week for, you know, probably 10 years. It doesn't happen overnight. So I just tell women, go, lift heavy. You know, if you're starting to see more muscle tone than you want, you can always scale back or stop where you're at.
Speaker 3:Talk about this cardio. I mean literally it's you gotta have more cardio. I mean, like I'll go back five, 10 years, men, not everyone. Oh, you need more cardio, you need more cardio. I feel like now cardio is like people think it is like a negative. It's not a negative, of course, but why has there been such a shift to more strength and less cardio? Is that just more science or just it's really interesting, the trend, you see, it's almost like cardio is. I wouldn't call it bad, but literally it's more the exception, not the rule.
Speaker 4:Now, yeah, that's definitely my weak point. When you say you ran, you're gonna run six hours. I was like that's about what I run in a whole year, so good on you. Maybe you guys will inspire me to do more running. Yeah, but the the cultural shift. What was your question? Again?
Speaker 3:Just, it's such a such a dramatic cultural shift, right From from cardio.
Speaker 4:You got me off on talking about not running. Yeah, avoid the running, avoid the question. Yeah, dramatic cultural shift and there is a lot of science to it. So, yeah, it was definitely not a very science-based fitness world flashback 20 years ago and that's largely because there just wasn't a lot of research about fitness in general. It wasn't really until about the late seventies that fitness as a positive thing really took off, like the first women's sports bra. I just learned this.
Speaker 4:Recently my client gave me an article about the history of women's fitness. I was fascinated. I read the whole thing through in one sitting. The first women's sports bra was not made until the late seventies. That is bonkers to me.
Speaker 4:Um, yeah, so there just hasn't really been over the history of humanity, or at least the recent history over humanity, a large emphasis on exercise. And over the last you know what would that be 40 years, there's just really been a lot of research coming out just continually showing more and more benefits to exercise, where now we know it's not just for physique but it's also for brain health. It helps prevent, like, degeneration in your brain as you go into older age. It helps prevent osteoporosis. This just hormone balancing it.
Speaker 4:Just I could talk for two hours about all the wonderful reasons to weightlift and cardio is still great, everyone still do your cardio. But now we're seeing that cardio isn't the only thing. And, touching back on that bulking point, women would lean towards cardio because they didn't want quote the bulk. And so they said you know, I need exercise, I want to look really lean, so I'm going to do cardio. But now we have a very substantial amount of evidence that says cardio isn't actually what's going to make you lean and toned or muscular. It's just going to burn the calories.
Speaker 1:So, Daryl, we're out there, we're cycling, we're running, we're doing events, we're in the gym doing all these things and we've had some encounters with women. We're in the gym doing all these things and I mean we've had, we've had some encounters with women. We've had some encounters with women at those events. I know you have some stories, why don't you? I know you have one, your most recent story, about you, Daryl. You were out at a trail run, a half marathon trail run. Tell, tell me about what you. I remember you were talking about that. You were coming up on a finish line and all of a sudden, a cheetah was passing you.
Speaker 3:So Desti and I did, uh did my first um trail run, right. So, um, we were, we're training, we just uh, we just completed um Shamrock or half marathon. We've done it the last couple of years. Doug is much more of a runner. Doug did the CIM a few years ago, so we've got a good group of people that once a year we kind of get in a bit of a running jag and we're just finishing up right now.
Speaker 3:So I signed up for my first trail run 13 and a half mile through up and down through the ultra marathon, and they also had a 50K. It was in Salmon Falls in Sacramento. So we take off and we're running and we're really kind of novices and we're learning and we're getting to the end of our half marathon and the 50K, which 50K is 31 miles, doug, it's 31 miles. They started about an hour and a half before us and as myself and Eric are going, I literally hear this really heavy breathing and I look and there's this guy and he's lumbering, he's just crushing it and he passes. And there's this guy and he's lumbering, he's just crushing it and he passes us up and I'm thinking, wow, okay, well, maybe it was one of the men from the 50K right, and about one minute later I briefly saw what I thought was a gazelle run by me with no noise whatsoever and it was this lady that, literally with these legs, and I, just, I briefly saw her and just, and she was in second place and and I was like what just happened? Right, and so the she, she won the 50K.
Speaker 3:Her name actually is Emily Hoggard and when I was up at the Hillsborough Running Company with Doug she's on the poster of Adidas up there and I started following her. She's a world-class runner from Zimbabwe and I just remember the guy huffing two more miles in that race. She would have come in first for men and women, right, but she was like a minute behind him and everything else, and Doug and I have got a lot more things, but you know, we continue to see all over the place. We have another person, doug, a friend of ours that we rode a century up in, up in northern, up in your area. You know she finished a century. She's literally cycling around the world, doug, right, she started in the US and in Europe, in Asia. Now she's in Australia running. So, doug, those are some of mine and I'm so inspired by women overall, just absolutely crushing it out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. And, darrell, I don't know if you remember the, uh, the two centuries we did. We met, um, the at the same century, but two different years. The first year was when, uh, uh, lady, that we all met and became friends was was michelle, right, we're, we're like we had trained for this damn century, for all the hills and everything, and we're crushing it, we think so. And then Michelle comes flying by, we're just, she goes and she's, and she literally looks over at me and she says you ride like a girl.
Speaker 1:And I was just well, and I said well, you are, you are you are a girl and you're kicking my butt man, so that's, I guess that's a compliment. But well, you are a girl and you're kicking my butt man.
Speaker 1:So I guess that's a compliment. But we became good friends. And same thing again with June. A couple years later, we see a lot of women just crushing all these sports and dominating and it's just really exciting to see. But, destiny, I want to ask you you talked about your app and the astrology and heavy lifting. What is it about heavy lifting that helps especially women? What's so good about it for women to get into heavy lifting?
Speaker 4:How long is this podcast? I could go off, I could go off, but my first and foremost thing that I love really is just the empowerment aspect. There is nothing on this planet more empowering than knowing you could deadlift a man and throw him across the room. It's just incredible to feel strong. I've seen it with so many clients. They'll come in and just the fact that they have strength just brings so much good into their life and it really ripples out in all directions. Also, largely just physical support.
Speaker 4:I see a lot of older clients that's a large part of my demographic and just seeing how having strength really helps them prevent and even reverse osteoporosis is amazing. I myself have helped a client reverse her osteoporosis. Mobility is so important, like I have. I work with a lot of frozen shoulders I know you read that on my website and it's very common for especially women, but older people in general just lack of mobility really causing freezing up in the shoulders and, yeah, just staying on it with the strength training is just so important to help prevent those issues as you age. So, in short, empowerment and aging like a badass yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:I love aging like a badass. Yeah, I love that I love aging like a badass. That should be on a t-shirt, yeah yeah, I'll make it.
Speaker 3:Yes, make it, make a sticker yeah, hey doug, let's uh, let's jump into strength training for sports. That's one of the big trends that we're seeing a lot, and I see a lot of podcasts and a lot of different ones or different people we follow. Before, if you were a runner, you ran. If you're a cyclist, you cycled. If you're a sports, you did this. Maybe you strength trained in the off season. But, man, I'll tell you personally for me, destiny myself, eric and Doug we've incorporated a lot more strength training core into our day-to-day, even when we're cycling and running and I am not running anymore or cycling anymore, but strength training plus what I was doing before. I think that's a big thing. So talk about that, because I see that's also a trend People actually strength training while they're doing sports.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the fixer Dave was talking about the last marathon half marathon we ran. He was. He was attributing to doing a lot of hit stuff. He was following you, daryl and Eric, and got into it and, man, he kicked butt on that, that that half marathon, and attributed to the strength training he was doing. But, destiny, yeah, give us some, uh, some feedback on what Daryl was just asking.
Speaker 4:Absolutely yeah. So as a corrective exercise specialist, I work with a lot of people who are inclined towards sports and athletes who there's something holding them back right. Maybe when they're playing soccer they're getting a lot of twisted ankles, maybe when they're running they're having some back issues. And I take people through an assessment that pinpoints what exactly is the asymmetry, and it's not always what you think. So if you have a shoulder injury that very well, or like a recurring shoulder injury that went very well, could come from an ankle issue and foot instability, and now you have just a very slight gate in your walk and it doesn't seem like a big deal because it's slight, but it gives you vulnerabilities in your sport, especially if you're doing something that's more prone towards impact. So if you're, you know, really getting in there and doing a rough and tumble type of sport versus something that's more solo, you're a lot more vulnerable. And with runners specifically, I help them look at their gait patterns and their asymmetries. Overall Runners who are not strength training, they tend to have issues, come in with their imbalances, because we all have imbalances and not paying enough attention to the correct form, the imbalances, because we all have imbalances and not paying enough attention to the correct form, the imbalances are just going to keep growing on each other.
Speaker 4:So let's say, for example, you have really strong quads but your glutes need work. You're not going to have the stability in your hips to be able to handle those trails, handle those turns, handle those distance runs. To be able to handle those trails, handle those turns, handle those distance runs that's going to travel up and down, you might have some back issues come up, shoulder issues, foot issues. So weightlifting is all about finding those weak points that are difficult to work on while you're actively doing your sport, while you're in your sport, and help you get a competitive advantage in your alternative training.
Speaker 3:Wow, I heard something, doug, and I just wanted to rephrase it. It was a note I took to say they talked about strength training, and strength training isn't just like you said. It could be mobility, it could be stretch, it could be a lot of things. They said it was an insurance policy versus injury and I was like, wow, that I never would have ever thought of that. Right, it was like you said.
Speaker 3:Some people are doing this just to kind of, you know, make sure that whatever they do, they don't get injured. I thought that was a real interesting way to go. Look at it. I will tell you right now, doug, you should be happy with me. I went on a run right before here with Josephine and she drug my butt up to do stretching before this, and every time I do that I feel a thousand percent better, right and so. But it just I don't know Destiny, why don't we do more of that? It's just are we? We just kind of, we kind of skip it or and everything else between doing those extra different things. You know, when you do sports, you just want to do your sport, but, um, I know I need to incorporate it more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and is that something you noticed as well? Destiny that a lot of people skip the stretching.
Speaker 4:Oh, absolutely yeah, Especially, um, I work with a lot of people who are strength athletes and they just want to jump right into it. They want to skip the mobility because that's not what gives me gains, and they want to skip cardio because that's not what gives me gains. Um, but, but it does right. Having really good hip mobility is what's going to allow you to get that nice depth in your squat so you can actually have your lift count in the power lifting meet and you're getting down there without pain, right. So if we're only having enough hip mobility to be able to get right to the competitive level competitive level that puts you at a huge injury risk because you're just barely getting to the point that you can do it and then smashing this huge weight load on top of it, and that puts you at a lot of risk of injury.
Speaker 1:So, destiny, I know you also, you're a nutritionist as well. Touch briefly on that, because I really love that. We're in this zone with the heavy lifting and I think that's the big key topic of this particular episode and we could probably have you back and do a whole series on nutrition. But how do you incorporate that with your clients and how important is it? When you're doing heavy lifting, do you eat a certain way? And I mean, I have my own answers, but I'm curious what do you say? What do you tell your clients?
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely so. As a very general rule, it's great to eat a gram of protein per pound of body weight that you have per day Very general. But for people who are focused more on endurance sports, like runners, you're going to want to have a lot more carbs. For people who are doing things that are more muscle gain aesthetics, like, for example, bodybuilders, you're going to want to hit the protein pretty hard, just so you can really have enough fuel to build those gains. Nutrition so I went to school for Ayurveda in addition to nutrition. Getting onto the unpronounceable word.
Speaker 4:Ayurveda. I'm going to go back and play repeat on this so I can get it right.
Speaker 1:Ayurveda, ayurveda, ayurveda.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I studied sports nutrition and also Ayurvedic nutrition. Ayurveda is traditional Indian medicine, you could call it. I interned at an Ayurveda clinic for three years and studied there and through Ayurveda you really look at a person as an individual. So in Ayurveda no two people are even similar, let alone the same, and through that you go through constitutionally, like elementally, is someone more fiery? You know, maybe they have acid reflux or, you know, are they more airy and they struggle to really build their muscle. So we look at things elementally and very personally and then I bridge that with my knowledge of science-based nutrition and sports education and really create a. I call it holistic sports nutrition. I don't think I've heard that word before, but that's what I call myself a holistic sports nutritionist.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know about the Ayurveda nutrition. That is very interesting. I want to look into that. Or maybe next time I see you I can pick your brain a little bit more. Daryl, you have a question for Destiny, yeah.
Speaker 3:We talked about a lot of things, but you're in there day in, day out with your business. A couple of things. What are some of the common pitfalls you see and what are some of the things that you're like, hey, these are simple principles that work right. Just love to get both sides of the scale from you.
Speaker 4:A very common pitfall is ankle mobility and strength, so overlooked by so many sports, and it's a huge issue. So, with squat depth and good squat form a lot of the time, I'm going to say, more often than not, the biggest issue in depth is actually ankle mobility. So a lot of people they jump right to the hips because the hips aren't dropping. But I wish I had a diagram for you guys, but we're on audio on this podcast anyway. But, um, so yeah, if your ankles are not able to bend all the way, your hips aren't going to be able to come down without your ankles lifting off the ground, and so that is a huge common pitfall where people get stuck on their squats and they don't understand why they're just stretching the heck out of their hips doing all this mobility. Uh, if, if they're being good, right, but they're just they're stuck, they don't know where it's coming from, so they'll find their tricks around it of you know, widening your stands, which pro tip for you guys. That's a nice way to get around it while you're building up that mobility. But I would say that's probably the number one unexpected pitfall that I see in lifters.
Speaker 4:And then just mobility in general. Really, it's something people just want to jump right into the workout. But mobility. Doing that it helps prime your nervous system for being able to do heavy lifts. Through your mobility and your activation work, you, if you know your muscular imbalances and what has a tendency to not really light up for you, you can focus on that in your mobility. So if you know that your quads are much stronger than your glutes which is pretty common in people you can know that before your workout you need to help your quads relax and your glutes fire up. So you can really get specific with your mobility training and that's going to help you as an individual.
Speaker 3:Wow, I'm going to throw something out to you real quick. Um uh, I don't know if you heard about a cyclist. He's one of the top cyclists called Teddy Pagaccia.
Speaker 4:Uh, I've heard the name. I'm not familiar with the story though.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So he's just, you know, kind of top three, really great, great people. There was a video of him before um one of his upcoming races, and he had some bands and he was playing around and he was doing activation. Right, he was doing these activation and they put a and somebody put it on Tik TOK and everything else. Somebody said that did more for activation than anything in the world of cycling because, like you're literally your number one person in the world spends 15 to 20 minutes activating and doing mobility stretches before he gets on a bike and it was like so simple. It's like, you know, we all skip it, but like literally, it'd be like Michael Jordan. If Michael Jordan did something, you'd be like, well, of course I'm going to do what Michael Jordan is, but it feels like the whole activation. You know, like well, of course I'm going to do what Michael Jordan is, but it feels like the whole activation and mobility is one of the things. If you do it well, it works best. I hadn't even heard the word activation until about a year ago.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I challenge you to find a high-level athlete that is not doing warm-up and mobility drills before every competitive event. It's just something you need to do in order to get your body primed and ready for top level, peak performance. And even if you're just like a more casual person in the gym you know, not everyone listening to this is going to be a competitive athlete it's still going to help you prevent injuries. So if you, for example, are just jumping right into a really heavy upper body day, that's how people's rotator cuffs get torn, that's how their backs get quote thrown out Right. So doing those priming activation things are really important, not only for sports performance, but also safety and technique.
Speaker 1:This has been such an amazing podcast, Destiny, Thank you so much. We're going to move into our next section, but before we do, I just want to ask you is there anything you want to share? Lastly, or before we close off, and then I want, and then I'm going to ask you the names of your companies again, and then what's your Instagram? Because I know on Instagram you actually give examples on how to do certain lifts, you give little tutorials, which is really cool. So I think it'd be cool to just shout it out on here and we'll also put it in the show notes so people can click on your Instagram handle and, and you know, see some of your videos and whatnot. But is there anything on your heart that you kind of want to just share before we move into the last part of this episode?
Speaker 4:Yeah, something I want to touch on a lot of people who, specifically, are endurance athletes. They'll go towards strength training to really balance out their program, but they end up doing more endurance style of lifting. So they're over there lifting, you know, 20 plus reps and wanting that to build their strength and a balance to their program, but what they're actually doing is just running with weights. Right, you're still getting that cardio out of it and you're doing a more like, uh, like high heart rate circuit training style. So you know that that's a great way to work out. There's nothing wrong with it. But if you are doing it as a supplemental balancing activity to your already high cardio life, you're going to want to focus more on not necessarily super low rep range, but no more than, say, about 12. And you don't really want to be doing heart rate training. You just want to leave that to your already really cardio rich life. And you know, lift when you're lifting, don't run with weights.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. That's that's, you know. Come with my weight lifting background. I stick to, uh, you know, just my lifting day, my leg days, my leg day, my chest days, my chest day, and it's I heavy, low reps and um, and then I save my cardio for my running or cycling.
Speaker 3:but, daryl, you're running with weights man, that's all I'm saying oh man, I was like, did doug tell you to say this?
Speaker 4:because no, is this you?
Speaker 3:I'm working on getting better, but literally, like you said, i't. I've seen so many people say eight to 10, you can do 12, but why would you do any more? And I'm like, oh really, I mean, that is such a key piece of thing and I haven't heard running with weights, but that's going to, that's going to be in my mind, but but it is very interesting because you know, as an athlete, you think, well, if 10 is good, 15 is better, 20 is, you know, best, right, but that's that's not true. So, uh, thank you for uh correcting me. Um, uh, that's good.
Speaker 4:And I think that's on the goal right.
Speaker 4:So if you want to do kind of more of a two for one type of workout where you just want to get strength and cardio in all at once because that's your time or you know that's your preference, that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you are wanting to do it as more of a balancing feature to your already high cardio life, that's when you're going to want to stick to not necessarily low rep ranges per se. You can, but just not high rep with cardio and your rep ranges also do influence the outcome. So if you are, let's say, wanting to train to be a power lifter this might sound obvious, but not everyone thinks this through. If you're wanting to train to be a power lifter and get really strong, explosive power, you're going to be in the lower rep range, higher weight.
Speaker 4:If you're wanting to do aesthetics so you want to quote look stronger you're going to be in the lower rep range, higher weight. If you're wanting to do aesthetics so you want to quote look stronger you're going to stick more to like six to 12 rep range. There's some discrepancy around that rep range, but that's ish. And then endurance is 15 plus reps. So if you're already running, stick more to 12 and below.
Speaker 1:Thank you, destiny. That was some awesome man. That was like that. We couldn't have scripted that better, daryl, come on man.
Speaker 4:Running with weights. Running with weights. Doug paid me 20 bucks to say that.
Speaker 1:I'll get you a t-shirt. Daryl, Running with weights, people Move out of my way.
Speaker 4:I actually sold out saying I went to a conference recently, a fitness conference and I took a workshop with a I believe he was a physical therapist and he said specifically that running with weights and I was like, oh man, that exactly describes what I've been talking about all this time. So it's great. I hope you steal it from me too.
Speaker 1:He is, I'm gonna get him a t-shirt for it, so it'll great. Full in phrase. I hope you steal it from me too. Yes, I'm going to get him a t-shirt for it, so it'll be all good. But Destiny people can look up your website. It's I believe it's embodiedexercisenet. I'll put it in the show notes as well. But what? Do you have another website for your new business, or is that still being in development?
Speaker 4:I do, yeah, the website's up and running. So embodiedexercisenet is for my mostly in-person, some online personal training and nutrition, and then gymstrologycom is for the women's weightlifting and astrology app.
Speaker 1:Awesome. And then social media wise. How can people get ahold of you?
Speaker 4:For embodied exercise, it's just at embodied exercise. That's the handle, and then for gym astrology, it's gymstrologyapp on. So far, just Instagram.
Speaker 1:Okay, great. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom part of our show notes and you will find live links to Destiny on Instagram as well as her websites, so that you can follow her and receive great information on health and wellness as you continue your health journey. All right, now we're going to transition to. One of my favorite parts of our podcast is quote card. It's where Daryl or myself will provide a quote to the other person without them knowing what it is, and then we just have to ramble off what's on top of our head. And what I especially love is when we have guests, and the guests get to participate in this as well. So, destiny, daryl has a quote for us this week. It's his turn to give one, and so you and I will go ahead and just shoot off what's on the top of our head. Daryl, go ahead, my brother, take it away.
Speaker 3:All right. So here's one that I saw and I kind of liked it. So perseverance is not a long race. It's many short races, one after the other. I'll read it one more time Perseverance is not a long race.
Speaker 1:It's many short races, one after the other. Ooh, I like that, destin, do you want to go first?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that makes me think of how improvement is never linear, right? So people think so. For example, I have a client. She recently has had not too severe, but some health stuff come up. She got sick, she went on a vacation and had a few semi extended breaks and she just would come back so frustrated of like, oh man, now I have to start over from the beginning.
Speaker 4:And I said, no girl, like we've been lifting together for, you know, a year plus, if you take a week off, we're not back at zero. Right, we were up to I don't know, maybe for that that moment, let's say we were at her 100, we're down to like 90, 90 or 95. And so, just by, oh, I got a thumbs up. Hey, thanks For people listening I got a zoom thumb, um, and so when we get back into it, it's going to go right, back up, right, and we're just going to keep having this upward trend with a little dip down, upward trend with a little big town, little dip down. And that's just, that's the nature of progress, right, it's consistency, consistency, those little dips, they won't throw you off when you even it all out in the long run.
Speaker 1:Love that Destiny, thank you. Thank you. My little two cents will be you know, when I've worked with people in health and nutrition and whatnot I have, you know, people have, for some reason and I think it's human nature people have finish lines in their mindset and they think that when they, you know, they lose the quote unquote weight. That's the easiest example I can give right now is I've lost my 50 pounds. I'm here and I always, even before they get there, and even especially when they get there, I said okay, you're not at the finish line, you're actually now at the starting line. It's the starting line of the rest of your life. You're not at the finish line, you're actually now at the starting line. It's the starting line of the rest of your life. And along the way, you are going to continue to end up at new starting lines, at new starting lines. This work you've done has just prepared you for your new starting line.
Speaker 1:The starting lines never end, they keep coming until the day you die, if you want to live a life that's progressive and moving forward and in constant motion and moving and continuous, because health although you can take breaks and you and you do need to rest and you need to make that part of your lifestyle. Um, you know, it's like anything else, if you stop it completely, then your health stops. You know you will become unhealthy at some point. But if you put enough deposits of health in your bank, you can afford to take a week off, two weeks off, even a month off from time to time and, um, you know, do some active recovery stuff or some simple um movement modalities out there just to kind of stay limber and loose. So you, when you get back into it, it's not like starting from scratch and I liked what you said, destiny it's like some so many people come back and like, oh my gosh, I got to start from scratch.
Speaker 1:It's like, no, you're not starting from scratch. What about all the things we learned in the year or the months or the weeks we did just to get to this point? You didn't lose that knowledge. It's there. So we're definitely not starting from ground zero. We are starting from just this day and we're going to continue the journey and keep moving forward. So that's what that quote reminds me of. That's it. Any last words, daryl?
Speaker 3:Nope, many short races, one after the other.
Speaker 1:Amen, amen. So with that said, man, we're going to sign off and close out, like we always do, and I'm going to say what do I normally say, daryl? No, I say say what do I normally say, daryl? Now I say god bless and peace out each out, we're out.