69. Messy Reps Still Count

In this episode, we unpack the three non-negotiables that help new and returning women lifters make real progress. They are probably NOT what you think.

Along the way, we call out the common traps—random workouts, cherry-picking favorites, and chasing aesthetics without muscle—that stall results and sap confidence.

I share hard-won lessons from decades in fitness and coaching women.

Then we shift from theory to practice: the difference between a routine and a program, how a structured plan removes decision fatigue, and simple ways to read your body so you can move better and lift more with fewer setbacks. 

If this conversation moved you, leave a quick review so more women can find and follow a stronger path forward.

If you want the deeper lessons behind strength training, I write a weekly newsletter called Between Reps: Building the Unbreakable Woman. Check it out HERE

Instagram: www.instagram.com/tianamoves

Website: unbreakablemb.com

Email: info@unbreakablemb.com

Grab my new Strength Training Program: HERE

Disclaimer: This show is for education and entertainment purposes only.  This is not intended as a replacement for therapy. Please seek out the help of a professional to assist you with your specific situation.

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Unbreakable Mind and Body Podcast. I am your host, Tiana Gonzalez, a multi-passionate creative, storyteller, and entrepreneur with a fierce love for movement. This is our space for powerful stories and actionable strategies to help you build mental resilience and elevate your self-care practice. Together, we will unlock the tools that you need to create an unbreakable mind and body. Welcome back to the show. I am your host, Tiana, and I have a question for you for my people who work out. What is something that you wish someone had told you sooner? So if you're new to lifting, or if you've been going for maybe a year or so to the gym and you still feel lost, this episode is for you because we are going to cover, in my opinion, the three non-negotiables for people who are new to lifting. And we're going to talk about how these things will carry you further than any trending program and how a structured plan will remove the guesswork so you can actually focus on getting stronger. I've been working in the health and wellness and fitness industry for a little under 30 years, which almost saddens me to say, but I was blessed and fortunate enough to grow up in a household where my parents were very health conscious, very into eating well, training properly, particularly my mom. So I was blessed in the sense that I was exposed to a lot at a very young age and learned some of the same truths that I believe in today over 30 years ago. I am echoing a lot of the same things. And I will tell you, after so many years, I have seen people come and go. I have seen so many women start something and they just fall off. And I can see specifics and things that lead people to progress. It's like you're looking at this road or this path in front of you. And right now, there's potholes, there's a barricade, there's a crack, there's an issue, there's a stop sign, there's an animal crossing, there's a railroad, like you know, just imagine anything and everything in your way. And as you become more experienced and as you get to know your own body better and learn how to trust yourself, those things sort of clear away. And if you spend enough time in the gym and you people watch, there are people who come into the gym and they are not loud, they just come in, they do their thing, they have a great workout, they feel well at the end, they're not dying or in the fetal position every single time. They know how to push themselves just enough, and they leave and they begin to see progress. And there are others who will show up who may do the same sort of actions and yet they don't make that kind of progress. They don't feel as confident, they don't trust themselves in the same way. So, what do most women get wrong when they start lifting? And I am gonna gear this conversation more towards women because that is my general forte is strength training for women, if you didn't know that already. Well, the first year of lifting is always exciting, right? It's easy to mistake being busy for making progress. The first trap that I see often is just randomly selecting exercises. Maybe seeing someone do something on social media or going to the gym with a friend or their boyfriend or their husband, or just someone else who's a little more experienced, and then later returning to the gym and trying to replicate what they did or copy what they saw. There's also cherry-picking favorite exercises. And this just results in gaps in your strength, in imbalances, in hitting plateaus. And this is the person who sometimes will come to me and they listen to a ton of podcasts. They can reference influencer names, they may be wearing the most popular brand of athletic uh attire. We call that athleisure wear, I believe. Maybe I'm getting that wrong. But yet it's like information overload and they are completely overwhelmed. That's going to be difficult to navigate. We almost have to undo that. Now, the second trap I see is chasing the wrong outcome. I want to tell you a little bit. Here's the first sidebar, and my regular listeners know that I always go on sidebars, and my sidebars have sidebars. So, sidebar number one. I want to say many of us begin to exercise because there is something about our body or our physical appearance that we want to change. Not everyone, but there are a lot of us that fall into that category, and that's the category I belong in. Okay. That's where I started. And so maybe you want to put on muscle, maybe you want to lose body fat, maybe you want to change your shape, okay? And that's okay. But the information that is abundant for people who want to do that to accomplish a different physical appearance or aesthetic is very misleading. We are seeing an influx of folks who are using weight loss medications. And I am not an expert on the topic, but what I am an expert on is understanding people. And I am seeing a phenomenon of people who are frequenting the gym now, their bodies look different than they used to. It's none of my business if they're on a GLP one or not, but I tend to be able to identify certain signs. For example, a lot of loose skin, or their arms and legs don't have a lot of shape and curve. They're kind of just long and skinny. And a saggy, droopy hiny, right? There's no muscle in the glutes. So it's just kind of hanging there. And it's none of my business if somebody, you know, feels happy about that or they don't, or they start that journey and then they realize, oh, I need to lift weights. But losing weight is one thing. You need to actually lift weights in order to build muscle underneath your body fat so that when you lose weight, you still have some substance and you still have something protecting your skeleton and supporting your body. So if you don't have that muscle tone to begin with and you just suddenly lose a lot of weight, that is what we're seeing more and more prevalently now is people who are just losing a lot of weight and they're losing it fast, and their skin is hanging on their skeleton, which, you know, whether we find it attractive or not, it's really none of our business. But that is a phenomenon that I'm seeing. So sidebar number two is I already told you. I have sidebars here. Second sidebar is wanting to change something about your physical appearance. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. But I do recognize that there has been a period of time where, for example, the boutique studios, the functional fitness gyms, where the focus became more about doing the exercise and less about what your body looks like. And I love embracing what our bodies can do for us. But there was this time period, I want to say of a solid 10 to 15 years, where it was almost frowned upon to want to change something aesthetically. Like, what do you mean you want to build your glutes? Or what do you mean you want more uh muscle on your shoulders and you want big rounded shoulders, or what do you mean you want to build your back in order to make your waist smaller? We don't do that here. We're doing CrossFit, for example, or we're doing uh a sporting event, or we're powerlifting. It doesn't matter what you look like when you do those activities, your your appearance is not going to improve your performance. And so there was certainly this time period where it was almost like if you wanted to change something aesthetically, you kind of have to keep had to keep it a secret. Now, of course, this is my own personal experience, and this is in the area where I live and in the different fitness establishments and gyms that I frequented. And at one period of time, I was employed at a big box gym. I was coaching CrossFit at a different CrossFit gym. I was teaching a boot camp class at a gym in the Bronx. I was also teaching a treadmill-based class in another gym little boutique studio. So I was kind of all over the map and I saw this often. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to change something about your physical appearance. But thinking about results on the outside, they actually come from what you build on the inside: stronger muscles, better mechanics, and being consistent with your efforts over time. Now, trap number three, back to the topic. So many people think that they should be further along than where they are. I will hear it often where a woman will say, I should be able to do this by now. We've been working together for let's say six months, let's say a year. I should be able to do that. I should be able to do this. And it's frustrating for them. But the truth is six to eight weeks in on a new fitness journey, on a new strength training journey, there is so much to learn in the beginning. It's very difficult to absorb it all, retain it all, to undo bad habits, to mobilize your body properly, and everyone's body is different, and then build strength, not only through the muscles, but also within the joints, so that you can get a proper range of motion and execute the movements well, and then build the strength. So, do you see how you almost have to peel it back to get to the root? And then you address certain concerns and then you build upon it. And so when we look at it from that angle, and of course, we live in the digital age where comparison is everything. I mean, we're spoon-fed a highlight reel of other people's lives, even if it's fake, it can still mess you up mentally. And so there's this idea that, you know, mastery should be happening much faster than it actually is. And I'm happy to say AI is something that will never replace me. It will never take my job. There will always be a need for in-person coaches and trainers because we need to see our clients doing these things in person and correcting them in real time and coaching them and guiding them and mentoring. And that is another sidebar. So let's get back to the foundations, to the things I actually want you to focus on in your first year, two years, maybe even three years. And, you know, if you're in this period of time, first couple of years, and you're finding yourself frustrated, please take a deep breath and hear me out because you're not behind. And there's nothing wrong with you, even if you feel like you're a little frustrated. All right. So the first thing I highly recommend you focus on are your movement patterns. Now, I just touched on that in my little ramble before when we were talking about mobility and stretching out the muscles with our flexibility training, working through the tight areas of your joints to get them mobile, and then applying load to build strength. There's fundamental movement patterns, squat, hinge, push, pull, core or rotation, and then there's also carry, which carry is similar to hinging if you are picking something up off the floor, but you could also carry something in a in the front of your body, for example, like a large sandbag, which would replicate carrying a large bag or a grocery bag. And these movement patterns matter because once you recognize the patterns, it helps simplify everything. So if you have an issue in one of the movement patterns, until you really figure out what the issue is, is it's maybe you have something going on in your toes and you need to work through the soft tissue in your feet before you start a workout? Is it maybe because you sit at a desk all day and your hips are really tight? Is it maybe because you're on your phone a lot or you're looking down a lot during your day? And so your neck and your traps are really tight. Maybe you're under a lot of stress. And then again, your neck could be really tight. You might be clenching your jaw when you sleep at night. Now, trainers are not with it's there, it's not within their scope of practice to diagnose anything. Okay. We just know patterns, we know signs, and we can make general recommendations for certain things. But it takes time to not only identify where there are areas that can be improved, but then working through it. And sometimes if you start adding a weight in to a movement before the movement is clean or it's you're able to execute it well, you can create a problem. You can get injured. It can also be very defeating because let's say the issue is not the weight nor the ability to do it, meaning that the strength of your muscles, but maybe you have an old injury and that there's one joint in your body that's really tight. There's a lot of scar tissue there. Like maybe you broke your arm, or maybe you hurt your shoulder years ago in a skiing accident. Now it's 30 years later, and you have the strength to push the weight, but the shoulder is giving you a little bit of a problem. That's just one example. The next thing we want to focus on is progressive overload. Now, I used to get so intimidated by that. It sounds really fancy, progressive overload. And what it really means in a nutshell is that you're gradually increasing the demand, meaning you're gradually increasing the weight on your body over an extended amount of time. Now it's not just the weight, but you could in most of the time it's increasing the weight, increasing the reps, or resting less. These are the general ones that you can choose from, but you have to be consistent with it. So a lot of times you'll hear people say, like, oh, I have to confuse my body. No, you don't. You don't have to confuse a fucking thing. In fact, especially if you're a beginner, we shouldn't be confusing anything. We should be doing literally the same workout for several weeks, if not months, if not six months. Because if you do the same workout, then you get to really see how you are making progress. You can track your weights, you can look at your body in the mirror when you're executing the movement, you can reference how you're sleeping and how you feel the next day. These are all signs that can show progress. And the thing is that your body will adapt to whatever stress you give it. So, yes, you have to give it new challenges, but that doesn't necessarily mean a whole new workout every time you do legs, for example. And by the way, tracking really, really matters here. Because if you're just guessing, you could be leaving, you could be leaving some room for improvement, you know, leaving it on the table. Write down your weights, keep a tracker, maybe in Google Docs, maybe somewhere in your notes, in your phone. But it's important because you're not always gonna remember what you did for a certain movement. Now the third thing we want to focus on, and this is the most important of all, is consistency. You could be talented, you could have fantastic genetics, you can take the best supplements in the world, you can have a pristine diet and the most perfect program. But none of that matters a bit more than showing up repeatedly, time after time after time. Strength is built in layers, so every time you show up, you complete a session, it's like making a deposit, and you may have heard me say this before on this show. You're making a little itty bitty deposit into your retirement fund, into your 401k, into your Roth IRA. You it's so small when you look at it day to day that you don't really see the difference, you don't feel it. It's like, you know, that small little investment out of your paycheck that you don't don't really miss, or that pre-tax deduction, you don't really miss it because it's so small when it's paychecked to paycheck. But at the end of a year or five years, it's a decent amount of money. And that's the same thing with strength training. The goal in one year shouldn't be to crush and obliterate yourself every single workout, but it should really be just to make going to the gym a part of who you are because and this is something that I think some people don't necessarily want to submit to, but you're gonna have to go to the gym for the rest of your life, and that's a good thing, it's not a bad thing. But I think perhaps maybe because of my generation growing up in the 80s, it was like you went on a diet and then you went off a diet. And the thing is, that's probably the most disastrous thing you could do for yourself because you're gonna get your body into this shape that you dreamed of and you work so hard, and then you just let it fall off. I don't know about you, but that sounds devastating to me. And quite frankly, it is. I've been through that many, many, many times because I competed in bodybuilding shows on and off for 13 plus years. The woman who shows up three or four times every week for an entire year is going to outperform the woman who trains intensely for let's say six weeks or eight weeks and then disappears. Like there's just simply no comparison there. So let's talk about what my solution would be. I'm sure you can guess. It's a structured program. So when we think about a program, I also don't want that word to intimidate you because I think sometimes it does intimidate people. And oftentimes a program and a routine are used interchangeably in. And the narrative when we're talking about working out in conversation sometimes with people, they're not the same. A routine is establishing, you know, the frequency. What's the routine of the month or the year? Let's say, but most people don't plan a routine for a year, they do it in seasons. Your routine is what are you doing Sunday? What are you doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, every day of the week? And then repeat. So the routine is sort of overarching. It's kind of like the broad stroke. The program is where you dial in. It's where you get granular. It's where you look at each day specifically and figure out well, how much time do you have? And how many days per week are you going to actually train? And what is your proficiency level? If you're in the first year to three years, it's probably beginner with all of the exercises, the equipment, the free weights, dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells, plate-loaded machines, cables. So there's a lot there. So if you're somebody who's been beating yourself up because you still don't know how to do everything, be nice to yourself. Give yourself a break. This shit is hard, and nobody was born knowing any of it. It's all learned behavior. So when you have a structured program, it's selecting your exercises intentionally. You're looking at the movement patterns and you're seeing the purpose behind it and how it fits into the bigger plan. We bake in progressive overload. So how are you going to challenge yourself week over week over week? At some point in time, the newbie gains start to taper off and then plateau. And then for a good period of time, you're probably working with the same weights, but you're changing the intensity, or you're using tempo, or you're increasing the rep range, or you're adding an extra set. And so there's where your overload comes into play. The other thing about having a program that is life-changing is that it removes the mental train of decision making. You follow the plan, you put in the work, you go home. You don't have to wander around the gym and wonder what to do next. You don't have to go looking for your favorite fitness pro on Instagram to see what was that machine she said she did, and piece it together with stuff you had from another workout. Now, let's talk about your quality of life because, in my opinion, your quality of life will improve dramatically. Strength that's built in the gym is gonna show up everywhere else in your life. When you're picking up your kids, when you're climbing a flight of stairs, when you are putting on your shoes in the morning, when you're carrying the groceries, when you are walking in a crowded place, when you are putting your carry-on in the overhead bin. These are real life day-to-day examples where your life will become so much easier because of the work that you do in the gym on a consistent basis. Women who build a strong foundation, when they get older, they're able to maintain independence. There's less pain, they're able to do things. It's a completely different experience than the women who decide they're not gonna exercise. I don't want to speak negative negatively about anyone because we all have choices and some things are within our control and some things are not. But I will tell you, when it comes to taking care of yourself and doing your best to try to guarantee that you are going to have a healthy life well into your senior years, you need to be exercising, you need to be challenging yourself with the weights. We need to maintain our bone density. We want to have healthy joints, you want to have good metabolic function and your hormones. Hello, let's not forget about that. Keeping your hormones balanced or as balanced as possible, this will all take place as a direct result of strength training. And I'm gonna tell you, prevention is always cheaper than treatment. So you're investing in your wellness now so that you'll have less hospital bills later. Think about that. So there's something really important I want to close out this episode with. The biggest takeaway from this whole conversation is that knowledge alone will not produce the results you want. So, yes, we're touching on a lot of important shit in this conversation. And if you need to bookmark this episode and come back and listen to it again and again and again, great. I appreciate that. But guess what? That's just a starting point. Because you need to actually take action. You need to get out there, you need to do stuff. So I'm curious. Do you remember your last three workouts? Do you know exactly what you did, how they went, how they felt in your body? Let's reflect on that. Or how about recognizing one movement pattern that you avoid because it feels really hard or uncomfortable? That might be a good place for you to start and to work through. Now, you might be asking yourself, well, if I don't know how to do it or if I'm struggling with it, how do I work through it? That's a great question. There are a couple things that you can do. Number one, I highly recommend wherever you are, if you have access to a gym, if you have a gym membership, I would find a professional, get a personal trainer, book some sessions, tell them what your goal is, be straightforward and transparent, but get hands-on coaching. Nothing will ever replace having somebody standing right in front of you. And I will die on this hill. And I am someone who, I mean, the whole inception of my fitness business, which the ideas came to me around 2010, 2011. I executed in 2012. I went all in in 2013. But the goal was always to be an online personal trainer. And another sidebar for you, I was a beta tester for one of the world's most well-known online coaching certification programs. And I was a beta tester for the first rollout of the program. It had a different title, it was um delivered in a different format. But I remember that was like the real first big business investment I ever made in myself. I think it was like$750. And I did a payment plan for a couple of payments through PayPal, and it was very, very, very exciting. But it was so long ago, and the whole premise was to figure out how to deliver personal training to remote clients. And I did that for a long time, and I built this business that I wound up completely resenting and shutting down a couple of years ago. Because the truth is that yeah, you can scale, but you can't scale quality. You can't scale hands-on. And those first few years of your training life are crucial. You want to be in the hands of somebody that you trust, that you know is informing you properly, is programming for you, not just piecing together random workouts, because you could do that yourself. You don't need to pay a trainer if they're gonna completely wing it, all right? And maybe I'll do another episode on the things you should look for if you're gonna hire a trainer to work with in person. You know what? That's a great idea. But your other options could be to reach out to me. If you check the show notes, you can send me a text. There are all the links, all of the things at the uh at the footer of the show notes. You'll see the website, you'll see my Instagram, you will see a link to my Substack page, which is where I go even deeper on some of these topics that we're discussing here on this show. And the the newsletter is called Between Reps: Building the Unbreakable Woman. And there's also one more thing that I'll throw in here. I am rolling out a strength program. It's for women who have some lifting experience, but they're looking for clarity, they're looking for structure, they're looking to have that peace of mind. All the things we just discussed in this episode. It's called Lift Like You Mean It. It's a self-paced uh program. The lessons are delivered in a 10-episode podcast. There's progressions, there's video demonstrations, there's a progress tracker, there's all of those things. And it's at an amazing price point for the first rollout of the launch. So it's going to be under$100. And I have to tell you, it's awesome. But again, it's not the same as working with a trainer in person. So if you're somebody who's still kind of a beginner and you're interested in the program, that's great. And you still need to be with somebody in person because there's just so much value in having somebody give you that instant feedback. All right. Listen, wherever you are, be there completely. And trust yourself that if you're stuck, if you're confused, if you're frustrated, you are absolutely capable of getting yourself out of that situation. However, you don't have to do it by yourself. You are not required to figure it all out by yourself. And there are so many different ways that you can solve that riddle or get out of that little sticky spot on your path that we talked about earlier today. Maybe you're stuck at the red light right now or the railroad crossing. But regardless, you got this. You're here, you're giving me your time and attention, and I appreciate it completely. And if this show helped you in any way, please share it with a friend that you think can appreciate and value this conversation just like you did. I will catch you on the next one.