Start Strong: Progress Beyond The Mirror

This episode Emma and Laura sit down to speak about progress, how to track it and making sure you don't miss the progress you can't see. 

This episode is for anyone wondering if what they're doing is actually working, especially when the scales aren't moving the way they hoped.

• Why week five is the perfect time to start tracking your progress properly, and how to use a progress card
• The many forms progress actually takes, from lifting heavier, to better mobility or recovering quicker 
• How improvements in mood, energy, sleep, and stress management are just as meaningful as physical changes
• Why your brain defaults to the negative, and the simple habits that help you see how far you've really come
• The coaches' biggest takeaway from six weeks

Comment your 3 noticeable changes from the last 6 weeks or any point in your Strength & Bloom journey. 

Send this to a friend you think needs to listen 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I'm joined with Laura this week on week five, talking about exactly what progress you can't see in the mirror but is actually happening behind the scenes. We want you to, or we just want you to highlight this, but also to help you to help your future self by little things that you can do now that are going to keep that motivation going later down the line. So, Laura, you've actually got clients that are on week five at the moment. How are they doing? How's that going?

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Week five is normally one of the most fun weeks because you're over the hump of everything feels really new, it's really scary. You've kind of started to integrate yourself in the gym. And normally throughout the six weeks, week on week, you are seeing little progress, whether that's a move you couldn't do before, or picking up some new skills, or just starting to feel a little bit better in yourself. I think this episode will be really good to help people understand how to track their progress so that in two months' time they still feel like they're making progress, and over time you get in those good habits on learning what progress to track that isn't just a number on a scale.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Absolutely. And I think when you're on that week five, like I noticed that last night in the gym, some of the ladies were like, okay, what are the cards? What are people tracking? What are we looking for? Week one to four is all about building confidence, right? If you've never done this type of training before, and it is this particular type of training, because I know people that have done boot camps for the last 15 years, and then you plop them into our gym and they still need to be trained like a complete beginner. So when you're new to this type of training, it's all about building confidence and learning the moves, learning where everything is in the gym, learning, you know, different people, different coaches' names, and how different coaches coach you. And I think that by week four, you've kind of got a little bit more experience behind you that you can then start to go, oh, actually, you know, last night some of the ladies were like, I have done this move before. And you can start then adding some weight and start thinking about other things other than just picking up a bar and putting it back down. So that's when the curiosity comes around progress cards.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

One of the biggest things I see is people saying, Oh, I haven't made much progress, not gaining any strength. But it's because they're not tracking it. Like, if you haven't written it down, how are you gonna know? And I think that's when people start surprising themselves when you actually do look back and you think, Oh, before I was on 15 kilos, whereas now I'm on 25. Like, it is a huge jump. And I think also, like you said, it's a confidence in the skill. People see progressing just in weight, but actually, you probably have so many new skills, and there's new things that your body's learned to do, and that is progress in itself. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

The progress cards are there for you to start to write down, and I think when week five is a really good time to do this, but start to write down okay, what was the weight that you got for deadlift? What was the weight that you did for a squat? And when you start to write these numbers down, like one of our ladies that's been with us probably for four or five years, she when I said we've got new cards, she said, Oh, but I need to keep my old card because it is that's your history of training. You become quite attached to it. So week five is a great time to start getting out those progress cards, put your name on one, and start to just every time you come in, just know, okay, I was squatting 20 kilos before. Maybe I can push for 22 and a half or 20, you know, 25 this week, and you will continue to start upping those weights week on week. I think a really good example of this is one of the ladies who we've just worked out her age, and we can't can't believe that. Is she how old did I say she was? 69.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

I think so.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Crazy, crazy, because she's like so young, and anyway, um, she came in and from the beginning she started tracking her, probably from week five, she tried to track in her weight, and her progression has happened so quick because she's so on it with her card. And I didn't train her for a few weeks and came back and I went blimy, you know, you're lifting some serious weight now. And she said, I know, I feel amazing, I feel so strong. And I really do put that down to the fact that she's so analytical about it, she really does. Every time she walks in the gym, the first thing she does is get out her card, and I think the proof is is really in that.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, and I think it's also worth noting about that you might see a number on your card, then you think, Oh, I haven't lifted heavier, but if you've lifted that weight, like at the moment we're focusing on tempo in sessions, so if you've managed to lift the same amount of weight, but you've managed to hold it in a really controlled shape, or you've managed to do more reps, it's all it all counts towards progress. It doesn't always have to be a number going up. It's great if the number does go up, but there are so many other ways we can see that as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Absolutely, and this is what this episode is all about it's the progress that you can't see in the mirror. So I had a client in on Monday night with me, and she was saying, Can you believe it? I can now actually get the bar on my back. She said I couldn't feel, you know, I couldn't have both hands and then my head underneath and the bar firmly on my back when I first started here. So mobility is something that's gonna hugely improve um whilst you're with us. Any other things, Laura, that come to mind when we talk about progress that's not directly in the mirror?

SPEAKER_01 5:06

I think mood is a huge one. It's we have so many people say to me now that they just can't live without it. Like it becomes that thing. If you're noticing your mood's more stable, you're managing stress better, things like that are huge. Whether your clothes are fitting better, like how fit you feel, like even just walking upstairs, like I notice it, but I haven't done enough fitness. I'm not downstairs is always a bit harder. Things like that in day-to-day life that just feel that bit easier. It's so worth noting down because I've feel our brains always geared towards a negative. But actually, if you look at the positives, you realise actually what you've achieved in whether it's five weeks, whether it's two months being with us.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Absolutely. Yeah. I really like the fact that you know that you mentioned mood as well, because it's not again, it's not something that's always obvious, but we hear it when people have been with us long term and they say, Oh, I'm a better parent for being here, I'm nicer to my children. But there's also that element of the endorphins kicking in after your session, you feeling really, really good about yourself after your session, you're seeing what your body can do. Um, and I think that itself is so motivating to then continue on with. So it's it's really interesting in week five. Like, is your mood better? Are your energy levels better? Were you before feeling like you were falling asleep at your desk at three o'clock and now actually you're feeling motivated in the afternoons? Like, are you sleeping better as a result? What else is going on? Because all of these things will impact your body composition way, way more than buying a crazy diet or like doing something unsustainable. Because if everything in your life, if your energy is better, you're less likely to reach out for those foods. If you're sleeping better, you're less likely to crash in the afternoon, which means your diet overall is going to be more sustainable and healthy towards your goals. So all of these things point in the right direction of actually living a healthier and more balanced lifestyle and being able to make choices based on what you want rather than I'm absolutely exhausted right now, my body just needs whatever I can get quickly.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

I think another one a lot of people miss is recovery as well. Like in you probably feel at the moment in your five weeks, you might still be a bit sore. Like I spoke to a couple of ladies this morning, they're still feeling it. Like it does take a little while for your body to adjust. But when your body starts recovering quicker, like say you could fit three sessions in in a week and you used to only be able to fit two, that is a huge sign of progress because it just means that your body's adapted to what you're throwing at it and you're being able to come back quicker more often, add more weight more quickly, things like that. Your body's adapting to the stress you're putting it under.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah, and I like what you said about your brain is always tracking towards the negative. We're always thinking about what we haven't done and comparing ourselves sometimes. And it's so nice to see your weights will progress hugely in the gym in the first like six months to a year of training. When you're beyond that, it does really slow down, and that's not because you're not making progress, but it's just a lot quicker at the beginning. It's harder to maintain that muscle mass later down the line when you've built it. Um, so it's really, really nice to see that your cards will be changing constantly. And I think another note on that is the progress photos. Like we push people, or not push people, but we say to people, we suggest to people to take a photo of themselves, whether it's in their gym staff or in a tight t-shirt or or whatever, however they want to do it, and put it onto our app because only them and their coach can see it. But in six months' time, people that do that are so grateful that you do it because there might not always be the biggest changes on the scales that you want to see, but there will always be big body composition changes later down the line. So if you haven't by week five uploaded that photo, but you are starting to notice the that change, small changes are happening to your body, then I would really, really recommend taking that picture, uploading it to the app or keeping it somewhere that you want to keep it and referring back to it in six months' time because you will notice a difference for sure, and that is so motivating.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah, I think our brains are like I said geared to the negative, but also we just forget, like even week on week. If I do a deadlift last week and then come back to it this week, I'll never remember what I did. I always think I'm going to, but you never actually remember. So actually, having it written down and looking back, I think it can really surprise people. And it's the same with the pictures, like you might feel a bit better, but when you actually see it visually, it's really surprising. Is there anything else you've noticed with six weeks in the past that has really changed the game for them in terms of noticing progress?

SPEAKER_00 9:27

I think I love the first six weeks. It's still my it's still, you know, we're still offering it six weeks, six years, seven years later, because of the fact that I I just love the mindset changes that people go through. I love to see them walking into, you know, a gym and know the name of the person next to them and feel more comfortable in comparison to, you know, the six weeks prior where they didn't know anyone, they didn't know any of the moves, and they felt like a bit of an alien, you know, in the gym. So I love the whole process of the six weeks. I love seeing clients go through it. Um, and I've seen, you know, body composition changes, weight drop-off. But I think the biggest thing for me is is building confidence within the gym. And, you know, I started the six weeks because I wanted to teach women how to lift and I wanted women to feel confident to go into the weight section in any gym. And, you know, as much as we love women staying with us beyond the six weeks, and that's what we hope for. We also love the fact that we're empowering people to, you know, like my question at the end of the six weeks is do you feel confident to go into a hotel gym or a leisure centre gym and play around with the weights? And if the answer to that is yes, then we've done our job, and I'm really, really proud of the women that throw themselves into it, but also the coaches for being able to put them through that process.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

One of the biggest takeaways from this episode should be that there are so many ways you can track your progress. For some people, that might have been walking into the leisure centre gym for the first time. Maybe before even walking into the gym was going to be too much for you, or actually just doing your first squat or coming back from an operation and like doing things for the first time. There's so many ways to notice that progress.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Absolutely. So, what we would love for you to do as a bit of a bit of homework on this is just write down like three things that you have noticed since you joined, whether that was five weeks ago, five months ago, or five years ago. We would love for you to just have a little thing like, is your mood better? Are you sleeping better? Do you feel more balanced? Do you feel like your appetite's changed? Do you feel healthier in yourself? Do you just feel a little bit prouder of the body that you are living in? Um, what are the three changes that you've noticed? And comment them below. Like, we love to hear your comments and read your comments as well. Thanks, guys.