What 'Lifting Heavy' Really Means for Women Over 40

Do you keep hearing "you've got to lift heavy!"?

What does this even mean?

Today I'm covering what 'lifting heavy' truly means, explaining the varying levels of exertion, the methods for safely incorporating strength training, and the benefits of such practices for muscle and bone health. 

We discuss:

• Defining Lifting Heavy: Relative Effort and RPE Scale
• The OPT Model: A Structured Approach to Strength Training
• Different Types of Resistance Training
• Benefits of Lifting Heavy for Women in Menopause
• Practical Tips for Lifting Heavy
•  Recovery and Adaptation: Listening to Your Body

Episodes Discussed:

Protein series 

Seasons of Strength: Adapt Your Workouts Through Summer and Beyond

How to Protect Your Vulnerable Areas with Strength Training

The Bone Battle No One Is Talking About: How Strength Changes Everything

The resistance bands I use and recommend

Protect Your Four Most Vulnerable Areas (free download)

Nourished Notes Bi-Weekly Newsletter

30+ Non-Gym Ways to Improve Your Health (free download)

Connect with Amy:
GracedHealth.com
Instagram: @GracedHealth
YouTube: @AmyConnell

Transcript

Graced Health Podcast for Christian Women Over 40

by Amy Connell

I have been seeing something lately and I am wondering if you have noticed it as well. I have mentioned before that I like to read the news while I am eating my lunch. I am on the socials occasionally. I haven't really been posting, but you know, of course I'm still just paying attention. I'm paying attention to what is being said. I'm paying attention to posts. I'm paying attention to some of the funny reels that I enjoy seeing.

And I have been noticing lately that not only is there talk about the importance of strength training in women in perimenopause and beyond, but there is talk about lifting heavy and lifting heavy weights. Now, as a personal trainer, this is a really easy thing for me to compute, process, and move on because I understand about strength training. I help people strength train, and I lift heavy. But I got to thinking, you know, if I was a woman who was trying to take control of my health, my body had been changing a lot over the last few years—whether it was because it was in perimenopause or because we have already transitioned into menopause and I'm just trying to do all the things, as they say—I would be so overwhelmed at the continuing messaging of "Lift heavy. Lift heavy."

Because this is what I would do in my head: I would think, okay, you want me to strength train? All right. But my body has been changing. I get hurt more often. I'm afraid of getting hurt. I'm afraid of doing it wrong. I don't want to injure myself even if I'm not already injured, because sometimes when I get out of bed, I tweak my back, or when I stand up from being in the car after several hours, I'm like hunched over for the first few steps. And I would just work myself into this frenzy of, "I don't even know what they're talking about, and I don't trust my body to lift heavy, and so I'm just not even gonna do it at all."

Now, I don't know if that's how you are or if that's how your brain works, but that's how my brain works. I wanted to come on today and talk some about this concept of lifting heavy. Talk about what it means, what it really, truly means, and because this is what I do, I'm gonna get into the weeds just a little bit, but bear with me because then we will zoom out and we'll talk about how to apply this concept of lifting heavy—or just strength training in general—to you and to where you are.

So in today's episode we'll talk about what lifting heavy means. We'll talk about the framework for which I train my clients. We'll talk about getting started, what that means, and then really why lifting heavy—or what's called max strength—is important for women in our age and stage. And then just some other considerations for women who are in perimenopause and menopause.

So if you feel like you don't know what to do with the term "lifting heavy" or know what that means, or are overwhelmed by the thought of that—even if you aren't fully sure—then this is the space for you today.

So first of all, what does lifting heavy really mean? The first thing I want to say about lifting heavy is that it's going to be relative. That is going to be based on you, how long you have been strength training, if you have been strength training at all, what your natural musculature is like. You know, are you naturally able to lift more, or do you have a frame that doesn't hold as much muscle? It is really more about the challenge level than it is about a particular number on your dumbbells, barbells, bands, et cetera. And we'll talk about all of that kind of stuff later.

You know, the fitness industry can make things really challenging, especially right now. The wellness industry can make things incredibly challenging. And if you don't believe me, then you can go back and listen to "The Wellness Industry Has Lost Its Mind" back in season 23. It's been one of my most popular episodes in the past year or so. Unfortunately, the health and wellness industry is not great about making things clear cut. Actually, this is kind of good because this means that it allows us to use our own discernment and take into consideration what we need for our uniquely created bodies because God did not create one prototype. And so of course, one particular number or a certain number of reps is not going to be universal among everyone who's doing the same movement.

There is a scale that I think is helpful. It's called the RPE Scale, so that's Rate of Perceived Exertion. And that's a scale from number one to 10. So one is like you're really hardly doing anything. 10 is maximum, maximum, maximum effort. And lifting heavy typically falls into about an eight.

And I'm gonna use a lot of vague terms here because again, all of this stuff is relative to you. Dr. Stacy Sims, who is one of the voices who I listen to because she focuses only on women, she calls it an RPE eight, which is Rate of Perceived Exertion of an eight out of 10.

And this is a high level way of explaining it. If you can do 10 reps of something and after 10 you cannot do anymore, then an RPE eight means that you would be stopping at about an eight. So RPE eight means you are working at about an 80% intensity and you have about two reps left in the tank. So you are not going until total fatigue, but you really couldn't go much more than what you've been doing. She explains it like, "Oh, okay, I could do two more reps if my life depended on it, but I don't really want to."

So when we take this back to what does lifting heavy mean? In general, that's kind of what we're shooting for. We want to go until we only have a couple reps left in what we're doing before we fatigue.

This is not to say there's no benefit in getting lighter reps and doing 20 to 25 reps of that. If you have participated maybe in like barre classes, they will have more of a focus on that type of lifting. Again, there is benefit to that, but that is not necessarily what lifting heavy means. And I'm gonna tell you here in a little bit about this whole concept of lifting heavy and how it is so beneficial—even more than just from a strength perspective—for women in our age and stage.

And if you'll indulge me for just a second, if you are thinking, "Ooh, I don't wanna lift too heavy. I don't wanna bulk up," this will not happen. Okay? I actually took an entire chapter in my book, Your Worthy Body, called "I Don't Want To Bulk Up," which—every chapter is a rule or a myth to break, and that is one of them. You won't get bulky. You might gain some strength, but I promise you you're not going to get bulky. It takes a lot of dedication both in the gym and in your nutrition in order to get that way, and we in this Graced Health space are trying to feel and function our best as we get older.

The term I like to use is "grandma goals," but you can call it whatever you want. So we're not talking about like bulking up and getting into a fitness competition. That takes way more effort than I've ever been interested in doing. We're talking about having the strength in our bodies to be able to move the way that God is calling us to move.

I want to back up some and tell you just really quickly about the agency in which I am certified and their model for having trainers like me train other people. I received my personal training certification from NASM, which is National Academy of Sports Medicine, and I specifically chose them for what they call the OPT model. That's Optimum Performance Training Model. I liked it because it was a stair step approach that guided clients into achieving their goals with lower risk of injury, and with the concept of figuring out your form and slowly growing stronger, rather than throwing yourself in a gym or throwing yourself with a trainer and doing a bunch of weights or reps or anything else that your body's not ready for. So I really liked this OPT model.

Really quickly, the OPT model has five phases. Phase one is stabilization endurance. So if we take those two words out, that is basically working on the inner parts of your body, a lot of core work, and doing that for a while, doing that for a certain period of time, or reps. So that is your like 12 to 20 reps when you do the barre classes, and I'm not picking on barre, I'm just using them as an example. But when you do your barre classes and you're doing 15, 20 reps of a movement with a weight, then that is stabilization endurance.

Phase two is strength endurance. So that is when we start to add some weight, we start to do two to four sets of something and our reps are around eight to 12 reps per exercise. So as we go up the OPT model, then our reps start to decline.

Phase three is hypertrophy or muscular development. Basically, this is the phase in which your muscles will actually grow bigger. So they can grow stronger without hypertrophy, but they will grow bigger in the hypertrophy phase. And that is doing, again, a little bit more sets—like three to six sets—and you're doing about six to 12 reps per exercise.

And so I wanna back up really quickly. So in hypertrophy, maybe we do eight reps and there's some overlap. If you're like a numbers person and you're catching with me, strength endurance is eight to 12 reps and hypertrophy is six to 12 reps. So let's just take eight reps. So where are you at those eight reps? And that's where you wanna be at that 80%. So that means that when you hit that eighth rep, you really only have two more left in you if your life depends on it.

We'll do eight squats. That pretty much fatigues us. We will take a break—or I like to be efficient, so then I would like add in my pushups. And then we would go back to those squats, do eight more squats, go do some more pushups, and then eight squats again. How many pushups are we doing? Well, that depends on the goal and what your fitness level is for pushups. So that's kind of a different conversation, but I hope you're following me here with the phases.

So there's the stabilization endurance—lots of reps. Strength endurance, that's phase two—fewer reps. Phase three hypertrophy or muscle development. So that's when we're doing more sets and then fewer reps. Then we get into phase four. That's max strength. That is 85 to 100% of what is called a one rep max, which is what can you do only one time, and this is what a lot of reels and videos and everything else are made out of. It is people doing a Romanian deadlift one time and dropping it and walking away like they owned it. And good for them wherever they are with that. Getting into a one rep max is a big deal and you should be proud of wherever you are with that, especially if it's something that you have been working toward.

But keep in mind that is phase four. That's not something you want to go into right off the bat. If you are in a program or if your child is in a program where they bring you in and do a one rep max just to get your baseline, in my opinion—my very conservative, I don't want you to get hurt opinion—I think that's aggressive and I don't think that that is safe. But of course you and your trainer know you best.

With that max strength, you are doing 85% all the way up to 100% of your one rep max for one to five repetitions. Meaning that you can only get two or three reps out. You can only get—I mean, it's one to five, right? So I could go through the examples on all of those, but that is how intense and how heavy you are lifting with that max strength.

And then phase five is power. And I'll be totally honest, I don't do a whole lot of stuff in power. That's just not my goal, that's not my client's goal. That's like when you see the clean and jerk and they're pulling up the barbells and going into a squat and popping it up and bringing it down and throwing it down. All that kind of stuff. That's just not in my wheelhouse, so I'm not gonna talk about it. But that is phase five power. Again, phase five, it's a stair step, so that's not something that we're gonna jump into really quickly. We're gonna go from the inside out of our body. We're gonna get those strong, intrinsic stabilization muscles and get those strong and then work our way out.

I like this model because it makes sense and to me it's the safest way to strength train at our age. Safety is something we need to be concerned about because we just don't pop back into place as quickly as we used to. It doesn't matter what it is, it just takes a while. So I wanna be safe, and I want you to be safe in anything that we do together. I'm guiding you to be safe.

Let's talk some about the different types of resistance training, because I think that can be confusing and maybe a little overwhelming as well. Obviously you have your body weight—whatever your size, God gave you a body that can withstand some squatting and some pushing and all of the other things that we can do with our body weight. So body weight exercises are a great way to start, especially if you haven't been strength training in a while.

You can do dumbbells. Dumbbells are the weights that you hold in your hand, and I want you to envision someone or have that visual of someone doing a bicep curl. More than likely, the visual that you get is someone holding—it's like a little piece of bar with two pieces of weight on either end. It's, I mean, depending on the size, it's, you know, 10 to 12 inches long. That is a dumbbell.

Barbells, on the other hand, are longer, so some barbells are going to be more like five or six feet long. I don't really know how long they are, but they are long bars that you put the weights onto. You'll see these more when people are doing chest press or sometimes squats, which I refuse to do squats with barbells because it hurts my back and I'm just not gonna do it anyway. You have the option of just saying no to any modality and I will say no to squats with barbells. That is another modality, a type of resistance training.

There's also machines where you walk in, it'll show you the muscles oftentimes of what you're gonna use in that machine, which I think is really helpful. The bigger the muscles, the more bang you're gonna get for your buck because you'll also probably do some smaller ancillary muscles. And so I think those are great.

It's funny, I was talking with a neighborhood friend one time and she said, "Amy, I've been working out with a trainer and I love her, but she keeps having me do kettlebell swings." And she was like, "I hate the kettlebell swings. I just, there's something about 'em and I hate 'em and I don't wanna do 'em." And she said, "You know what I really wanna do? I just wanna do the machines." And I said, "Well then go do the machines. Tell her you wanna do the machines or maybe you can figure out the machines." Like if that's what you like, let's go way back to the eighties and maybe mid nineties where there was like that Curves fitness for women. That was all machine based. And you know what? That could absolutely be a great way to strength train.

So I come in here not saying there's one that's better than the other. The one that's best for you is the one that you'll actually do.

And the final modality that I would offer you is resistance bands. Resistance bands are longer, they're often about three feet, they've got handles and they stretch. I love resistance bands. And these are what I actually choose for my Strong and Vibrant at Home course. The reason I love these particular resistance bands that I suggest when people join the course—but I like these particular ones because they have interchangeable handles, which means you can put more than one band on as you get stronger. You can put two bands on. I have a client, we do three bands all the time. And so you have all of these bands in one handle and it just ergonomically it works and it seems to make sense.

I also like resistance bands because it makes it easier to do pulling exercises, which are so important to us, especially as we get older, as we're trying to prevent osteoporosis. We're trying to keep our muscles in our back so our posture stays upright. And so I really love the pulling and the particular brand that I like—and it's just off of Amazon and they're like between 40 and $45. Typically they're not much, but the ones that I really like also have fabric over it because these don't last forever. I've had two sets. They last about five years or so, and when they pop, then they're popping, but they're staying within the fabric and they don't like come up and pop you and give you a welt on your face or your belly or something like that. So resistance bands can absolutely be a great modality to use in your resistance training.

Again, the most important thing is finding what you like and stick with it because it doesn't matter what it is. If you only do it once or twice and then fade out because you hate it, it's just not worth doing. Now the caveat is, I think it is good to mix it up a little bit, but when you're just getting started and you're creating a habit of strength training, then do the one that you like the best. Period.

Now let's talk about this concept of lifting heavy. So remember, that's the max strength and that's getting up there into one to five reps. And I'm gonna tell you right now, I do practice max strength on my own. Sometimes going back to what I just said about like, what do you like and what keeps you going? I don't love it. Like I kind of like the feel of lifting really heavy, but I also don't like the inefficiencies of lifting something heavy three or four times and then hanging out for 60 to 90 seconds. To me, I just feel like I'm wasting time. That's just me and my own demons that I gotta work out, but I do do max strength. I don't do it all the time, every time.

So as I am telling you this, I want you to think, does this make sense for me? Does this sound interesting or does it sound like something I would not stick with? The most important thing is that you are doing some sort of strength training. Okay? But I want to explain the lifting heavy and why it can be beneficial for women in menopause.

So we're gonna get into the weeds here. Stick with me for a second because I think you'll find this interesting.

We have two types of muscle fibers. Type one is called slow twitch, and that's more of your endurance. So if we go back to the OPT model, that's more of like your phase one, maybe a little bit of phase two where you are, you can do something for a long period of time. That's also endurance activity like running a marathon or if you're holding a plank or if you're walking. That type of stuff is type one, slow twitch fiber.

Then we have type two. That's your fast twitch, that's your power fiber. Those fibers are the ones that go, they contract, they work really quickly and forcefully, but then they fatigue faster. So I want you to think about more like sprinting with that or lifting a really heavy weight. But you can only do it a few times.

Most people are born with about 50/50 slow and fast twitch fibers. Of course this varies by individual, but what happens is we start to lose our fast twitch muscle fibers faster as our estrogen declines. If you think about these fast twitch fibers being your power fibers and the ones that move really quickly, guess what? They're also the ones that will keep you from falling when you have to, when you trip and like you have to catch yourself. It helps you move quickly and adapt quickly. And these are the things that we want our body to be able to continue to do as we get older.

Heavy lifting—that max strength, 85 to 90% of your max—is one of the very few ways to recruit and maintain these type two fibers. So your light weights don't recruit and don't use these fast twitch type two muscle fibers. When you are going to barre—again, I'm not picking on barre, I promise. I think it's great, I think it's a great class—but when you go there and you're lifting light weights three pounds, up and down, up and down, up and down, times 20, then you're not recruiting any of those type two fibers.

Another element of this max strength is how it can be helpful to your bone density. So when we had estrogen—and I know many of us are in this perimenopause phase, so you know, we're having the estrogen, but it's up and down and all over, and it's everywhere as we know from our moods or if you're like me—but if you are fully in menopause, then your estrogen has totally declined. Estrogen was protecting your bones and now it's not.

Now I did an entire episode on our bone health and strength training's impact on it, and it was called "The Bone Battle: No One is Talking About How Strength Changes Everything." That was back in season 23, episode nine. So I'm not going to talk about all of that again. But basically when we are lifting heavy, when we are having a lot of force pull our muscles away from our bones, then that will help our bones strengthen. So that is the very, very, very high level of that episode. But I would really love for you to go back and listen to that if this is an interesting episode to you.

And of course there are some metabolic benefits to lifting heavy as well. And I have to just pause and say, I know that we are a weight neutral podcast. I call it a weight neutral podcast because I do believe that we can be healthy at any size. At the same time, I don't know about you, but I'm human and I do care about my metabolism. And while I don't want to put all of this diet culture stuff on there, yeah, if there's something I can do to kind of keep the engine running a little faster, I'm gonna do it. And I think that that is beneficial to my overall health. I'm not talking about a body size, I'm just talking about keeping the engine running well, running efficiently. So I don't think I can skip over the benefits of lifting heavy for women in menopause or perimenopause without talking about the metabolic benefits.

Heavy lifting helps increase your, what's called EPOC, that excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, so E is for excess, P is for post, O is for oxygen, and C is consumption. It's a little confusing. So basically your metabolism is continuing to churn at a slightly higher level several hours after you do that because of the intensity that you required your muscles to work out when you were lifting heavy.

You will absolutely build lean muscle mass that is metabolically active. So when you build more lean muscle mass, then yeah, your metabolism's gonna be a little bit higher which can help combat that metabolic slowdown that can often happen in this age and stage. But that is often due to sarcopenia, which is when our natural loss of muscles. So let's try and keep those muscles up and try and keep them active.

So what's the best way to lift heavy? Well, we're gonna focus on compound movements. I call them functional movements as well. Those are your squats, your hinges, like your deadlifts, your pushing, your pulling, and your single leg stuff. So if you are like stepping up onto a box, if you are walking and doing walking lunges, those are all compound functional movements. They also mimic what our body does in everyday life. So what better way to prepare ourselves to feel and function well by in the gym doing the movements that help us?

One of my favorite reels I have seen recently is a woman, and she was doing this kind of strange little—it was a little bit of a hinge and a little bit of a squat, and she was grabbing, what was strange about it is she was grabbing this enormous kettlebell with both of her arms really close and coming back up. And this woman was probably in her seventies. And so the first thing in the reel that we see is we see her pulling her arms in and lifting up this kettlebell and putting it back down, and then walking back up to the kettlebell, lifting it up, putting it down, walking away, and then it transitions to what she was training for.

She had a daughter with special needs who was in a wheelchair. And so this 70-year-old mom was taking her 50-year-old daughter and transferring her from the bed to the wheelchair and then back from the wheelchair to the bed. What—I kind of wanna cry thinking about this, I wasn't expecting to feel this way. What better example of training for life than this woman was doing? It's so inspiring and that's the kind of mindset that I want us to have of let's train for life.

So it's those compound movements, it's those functional movements, your squats, your hinging, your single leg stuff, your pushing, your pulling—not a bunch of bicep curls or tricep extensions, and I'm fine with you doing those as long as you're also doing those functional movements. Okay, tear jerking story aside.

Okay, so how to lift heavy. Your functional movements, compound movements, however you wanna call 'em. You want to do about three to six reps at about 85 to 90% effort. I want to reiterate what I said earlier. This might be something that sounds interesting to you. If you are afraid of it, then I would recommend getting a personal trainer to guide you through it. Or if you just think, that's not how I wanna work out, I'd rather do something with 12 reps, then do the 12 reps. Okay? This is not one or the other. This can be both. And this can be, I'm just not going to right now, but I'm just telling you what all of this lifting heavy, what this actually means.

When you do your reps, your three to six reps, then you want to rest between two to three minutes between sets. If you're listening carefully, then you will say, "But Amy, a second ago you talked about not wanting to wait between 60 and 90 seconds, and that's not two to three minutes," and you would be right my friend, because I do not have the patience to wait two to three minutes. And technically, because you're really trying to refuel those muscles in between, you don't wanna be doing anything else.

So if you've done my Strong and Vibrant program, you know that I like efficiency. I have said that. In fact, I even got a comment from a user who said, "Sometimes you say that so much it kind of makes me anxious," and yeah, that's fair. That's fair. But I don't wanna waste anyone's time. When we're working out and we're not doing max strength in Strong and Vibrant, we're doing more like phase one or phase two, that stabilization endurance or strength endurance because that program was designed for women who know they need to strength train, but they don't know what to do. And so I am getting you in and I'm getting you in a habit of strength training and no, it's not like total heavy lifting and that's okay because that's not where we want to start when we are starting with strength training.

If you don't know how to strength train, then this is the program for you. We don't do heavy lifting. We don't do max lifting in there because that's not the intent of the program.

But you want to do that heavy lifting. And I have said three to six, some people say one to five. You know, the research that I have pulled have given me both. So let's just say one to six. Okay? So one to six reps, and we'll do that between three and five times. So that's a set. So how many times do you do that? That's a set. And then really you just wanna do that between two and three times a week because you've got to recover and you've got to refuel all of those muscles in between your strength training. Okay?

And I want to pull back and just kind of do a quick mid-episode recap of we're doing these max strengths because we are wanting to stimulate our muscle fibers so that they can respond like we want them to respond when we have to move quickly or adjust unexpectedly. And then also for our bone density so we can continue having strong bones and so they don't weaken. This is not meant to be like this bodybuilding competitive mindset, which there's nothing wrong with if you choose to be in that space. It's just a physiological way of supporting your body as your hormones are fluctuating.

Also, to reiterate, you don't get here overnight. This is not something I want you stepping into. This is for the listener who has been strength training for a while and feels like maybe she needs to do something different. Or if you were one of my participants in Strong and Vibrant at Home and you're like, "Okay, I'm ready to do more," then I want you to start thinking about how can I increase the weight? With the movements that we do in there, many, many of these movements are able to be performed with the resistance bands that we use in here. You just have to be intentional and you have to have an intent for the movement that you're doing.

If you decide you want to step it up and start lifting even heavier, I do want you to keep in mind a few things with regard to recovery. So as we age, everybody's favorite three words—without the estrogen that we typically have, then our muscles will take longer to rebuild after strength training. And as I'm saying all of this, I realize the question may be, "Well, what if I'm on menopause hormone therapy? What if I am on the estradiol patch?" My understanding is our body is not gonna see these physiological side effects that I've talked about if you are on some sort of menopause hormone therapy, meaning that this may not be as critical for you if you are on hormone therapy. But still more than likely, the levels that you have with a patch are not going to be the same as when you were 20. And I say patch because that's what I use. You know, whatever you are using, I, you're following me, right? I think you are anyway.

But still, I think in our age and stage, we can still say these things are more true. We do have slower muscle repair oftentimes because our estrogen has declined. It takes longer for our muscles to repair. You may find that you have increased inflammation. We are also making less progesterone, which means your body may stay in somewhat of an inflammatory state longer after your workout. Again, if you are taking menopause hormone therapy, also known as hormone replacement therapy. But technically, HRT is like if you are in early menopause because of a hysterectomy or something. So trying to use the correct terms here. Y'all work with me. Menopause hormone therapy. If you are taking progesterone in any way, then you know, this won't apply as much to you.

But keep in mind obviously we have sleep disruption. No one needs to talk anymore about that. We all know that. And then of course our stress responses are changing. Our cortisol patterns are shifting that can make us more sensitive to training stress. And then our joint stiffness is affected as well. Estrogen helps maintain your joint lubrication, and so if you are not having any estrogen and you're not adding any more in, then that can mean more aches and pains.

So what does that mean for heavy lifting? Well, it might mean you need to take an extra day in between heavy sessions. If three sessions a week is too much, then knock it back to two. And then instead of having, maybe doing strength training on Tuesdays and Thursdays, maybe do it on Mondays and Fridays or Mondays and Thursdays, like play around with it. There's no formula. So play around with what feels right to you in this season.

You also need to have your active recovery weeks or a deload week is some people also call 'em. Those are doing things like my Be Complete that I have. Those are doing things like really taking the intensity down, doing more stretching, doing more smaller muscle group, like what I call the mini muscles. That's gonna be more of your stabilization endurance, that phase one, but going back and going down the stair step for a day or two, or however many you need in order to not do as much and let those muscle fibers repair.

I also want to remind you that your heavy weight may be different from session to session, and that's okay. Like we're going for a range. Okay? We're going for that intensity, that fatiguing, that number doesn't matter quite as much. You gotta listen to your body more, and I know this phrase has been thrown around and I talk about it a lot and sometimes it can be confusing of what our body is trying to tell us, but pretend like you're talking to your friend. Or maybe if you have a trainer and if you don't have a trainer, then make up what that trainer would be like. And if you need a visual, like think of me, like what would I tell you if you're like, "I used to be able to lift this, but now I can only lift this." And so then your trainer, you know, hypothetical Amy would say, "Well, are you getting to that like 80%? Are you getting to the point where you're fatiguing with, you know, with only like two reps left?" "Well, yeah, but that's different every time." And then your trainer would say, "Well, that's okay, what's the intent of the movement?" I'm sounding really goofy here. I know, but like, let's not get too focused on the numbers and get more focused on what your body is responding to and how it feels, not only in the movement, but also after the movement.

And I do feel like I need to remind you that if you are going to lift heavy, do not walk into the gym and start lifting heavy, warm up. I take a solid 12 to 15 minutes to warm up almost before any workout. That's just how much time I need. And I don't call it wasted time, I just call it prep time. And it gives me the confidence to do the things that I'm asking my body to do.

Another thing to keep in mind is this concept of periodization. Now, I talked about this back in season 23, episode nine. It was called "Seasons of Strength: Adapt your Workouts through Summer and Beyond." And that talked about the concept of periodization, which is basically changing up your workouts every now and then. It is okay to change up your workouts. I shared earlier that I do max strength sometimes. I'm really not doing it much right now, but you know what? Maybe once my kids get off to school and I'm in a bit more of a routine and more of a rhythm, then maybe I'll get back to that for a few months and then maybe I'll step away from it. I don't know. I don't really have a plan. I probably should have more of a plan, but the point is we can change things up. That's okay.

And the other thing that's gonna be a little bit of a teaser for next week is increasing your intensity, otherwise known as progressive overload. Did you know you can make your resistance training harder without adding weight? It sounds strange, but you can, and actually next week I'm going to come back and tell you how to do that. So I'm giving you a little bit of a cliffhanger, but I want you to come back next week because if you are using the same weights that you've always had, maybe you have like your fives and your tens and your twelves at home and you're like, "I don't wanna buy any more weights, but I wanna make things harder," I'm gonna tell you how, and that will be next week, so be sure to come back next week.

I hope this clears things up in terms of what heavy lifting means, and again, I hope that beyond anything else that I have said today that you realize that lifting heavy is not the most important thing. Are you getting to 85%? Well, do you want to? I mean, yeah, there's benefits to it, but that doesn't mean that you have to do that, but I wanted to take today's episode and just kind of clarify what lifting heavy means. The most important thing is that you are doing something to strengthen your muscles as you age, because if you don't strengthen them today, and if you don't challenge your body today, then everyday tasks will challenge you later. When's that later? I don't know, but they will. So let's take the time, have the intention of strengthening our muscles, which will also help our bones and let us be the women that God intended and created us to be from now until when he calls us home.

I know I mentioned a lot of different episodes in today's episode, so if you wanna go on a rabbit hole and join me for some of those, make sure that you check out the show notes or the episode description, and I have links to all of those.

Also, did you know that I have a cheat sheet on how to protect your vulnerable areas with strength training? So you can go to gracedhealth.com/essentials and download exercises to help our four most vulnerable areas as we get older. And then you can listen to that episode again. It is in the show notes.

Also, if you enjoyed this episode, would you do me a favor and do one of two things? Number one, share it with a friend. Personal recommendations on episodes mean so much and we trust our friends. So if you have someone you love who you think this would be helpful to, send it to her.

Number two, a rating and review, especially on Apple Podcasts. But really, wherever you listen is incredibly helpful. If you can take just a minute and give it as many stars as you think it deserves—I mean, five is great, but if you don't wanna do the five, that's okay. Or if you are watching on YouTube, give this a thumbs up.

Like I said, next week we will be talking about how to lift with more intensity without adding weights. So basically how to lift heavier when you don't have anything heavier. I'm really excited to share this one with you. I've been wanting to do this for a while.

Okay, that is all for today. Go out there and have a graced day.