Latest / Empower Your Menopause / Episode 40: Functional Fitness After 40: Your Shortcut to Strength, Energy, and Unshakable Confidence

Transcript

Episode 40: Functional Fitness After 40: Your Shortcut to Strength, Energy, and Unshakable Confidence · Empower Your Menopause

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Empower Your Menopause, or welcome back, we hope.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is a podcast where we are ditching outdated advice to give you real tools to help you thrive in midlife and beyond.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Coach Julie and I'm here with Coach James.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're gonna talk about one of the most powerful and misunderstood tools for women in paramenopause and postmenopause, and that is strength.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're not talking about gym selfies or doing deadlifts or trying to become some muscle-bound um body competitor.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the kind of strength that actually helps you carry your suitcase on your fun, exotic vacations and move furniture when you need to, pick up your grandkids, or just walk into a meeting feeling grounded and confident.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this episode is for you if you've especially if you've never really liked exercise, maybe you're worried it's too late to get started, or if you feel like your body just isn't bouncing back the way it used to.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to break down what functional fitness really is, how to get started, and why it is the key to keeping your independence, energy, and mojo for years to come.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive straight in.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to ask, James, what is functional fitness and why should we care?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Julie.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, functional fitness really is just being fit enough to do everyday tasks in life.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, like you said, you know, being able to get out of a chair without um having to use your hands to push you up, being able to get on a plane and lift your suitcase into an overhead locker, um, any kind of thing that you would do in normal life.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing is, is that people often get confused when it comes to this idea of going to a gym and either lifting some weights or doing some kind of strength training, and as you said before, they do kind of feel as though it's going to turn them into some kind of sort of like muscle-bound behind.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is that any kind of movement that you do in a gym, you know, whether you're just there to train on some basics or whether you're an Olympic level power lifter, you are mimicking things that you do in real life.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: And in real life, there is what are called seven movement patterns.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: So the first one is quite basic, really.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like they call it either a carry or a walk, depending on which kind of sort of like literature you read.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: But basically, it's just motion, right?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Locomotion rather, moving forwards in some way, shape, or form.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: That can be carrying something, or it can just be walking.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, if you're walking, you are carrying your body weight as well.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Let's not forget that, right?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Then you've got push movements as well.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: So pushing something away from you, you've got pull movements, pulling something towards you.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: You've got squat, which is what you do when you sit down or you go to the bathroom.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hinge movements are the ones that kind of allow you to bend at the waist and pick up something heavy off the floor.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Then you've got rotation as well, which, as the body implies, it's turning left, right, around your own trunk, and then you've got lunges, which is a big step forward and the ability to step back.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when I used to do more personal training than health coaching, the way I kind of explain these seven movements to people would be imagine that you're a woman and you're about to get into your car to go somewhere, you and you're carrying a handbag with you or a bag with you.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: You need to walk towards the car, you need to do a pull movement to open the car door.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: You need to do a combination of a lunge and a squat to actually get into your car seat.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: You need to do a rotation movement to put your handbag on the passenger seat next to you or into the footwell of the passenger thing, and then you need to do a pull movement again to close the car door.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: So almost all of those functional movements, those seven patterns, come into play in the most basic of things that we do on a daily basis, just getting into our car.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: How much more basic could something be as an action than that?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you can explain it with those seven movements.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're doing exercise at home or you're doing something in the gym, you kind of want to replicate those movements, and when you add in things like either your body weight or an extra weight, whether that be a dumbbell, a kettlebell, a couple of um back in lockdown.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: I used to do exercise sessions for um senior people, and we used to just use cans of tomato soup as as weight.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it can be cans of tomato soup, it can be filled water bottles, it can be sticking a ton of books or some rocks into an old backpack and wearing it when you when you add that extra weight in, then that kind of adds to the load, and that can add to the benefits of it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not just purely about exercising for aesthetic reasons, which is why many of us tend to end up in the gym, it's more about things like your energy levels.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: How are you feeling?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Get up and go, have you got that vava room for life, that zest for life?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's about mobility, it's being able to stay mobile for as long as possible.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: We know full well that post-50 years old muscle deteriorates really really quickly, bone strength deteriorates really, really quickly.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you're and that's for everybody, right?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: But even more so if you're a woman and you're going through the menopause transition, whichever stage you're at, as soon as estrogen starts to head on the DLO, then you're at risk of both uh impaired muscle and impaired bone strength, and so having that mobility helps us prevent injuries, it helps build more muscle, it helps build retain our bone strength, it gives us that balance of adding extra in to combat for that that's lost.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the the main thing I think that comes from all this, of course, is just confidence, just being able to say, I am confident that I can do X, Y, of Z.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I always take my mum as a prime example of this.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've talked about my mum quite a bit in some of the workshops and things that we do, and I know that we're going to announce another workshop at the end of this session.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: But my mum is 92, right?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And she can do almost everything that she could do when she was 50.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that is not because she went into a gym and lifted weights and things like that, it's because she kept active.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: She would walk to the supermarket and carry her bags back.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she will she will walk up to my sister's house a mile away from home.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: All those kind of things that are just keeping yourself functionally moving are really, really important, and yes, they do um still fulfill those seven movement patterns that I talked about before.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: But that's really really important.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Have that confidence and the skill and the strength to be able to do that, and so it's not just about lifting really heavy or going and smashing a CrossFit session.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, if you love CrossFit, be our guest as long as you're of course that does spike your stress levels a little bit.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure that you're getting some kind of balance in there as well.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: So please do that.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: But this builds the foundation for all those everyday tasks that we want to keep doing for life.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: So whether it's lifting things on and off the shelves, it's getting off the floor, it's climbing steps, it's getting out into the garden and doing some gardening, it's holding a yoga pose, whatever it may be, it's balancing on one, being able to balance on one leg, all those things make us functionally fitter, and therefore, that is what we're looking for.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking to prolong our movement patterns and our energy for as long as possible, and particularly when we have that negative effect of the drop in estrogen playing biologically against us.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to try and fight that off as long as possible, right?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: And be as strong as we can.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So the more functionally strong you are, the more freedom and independence you're gonna get.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And independence is a really key word because some of you may have heard about those four big muscles that run down the front of your legs called your quadricepts, quad, four of them steps, muscle, four of them, and squats really work your your quads.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: When your quads go, your independence goes because that is when you cannot get out of a chair.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: You need your quads to work to be able to just get out of a chair, and so it's really, really important that we work on functional fitness for as long as possible.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, the earlier you start, the better it gets.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I've rambled on quite a bit there, Julie.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit more what's your view about why this matters so much in midlife?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm keeping over my two penneth worth there.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I d I think you covered a lot of these points, and I I think we have to really take this seriously because of the decline in estrogen.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: It I don't think people, I don't think women realize just yet exactly how much of an impact that has on our bodies because we have estrogen receptors all over our bodies.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And estrogen product protects our bone health.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: It helps us um, it helps us function, helps us with our energy, it helps us with our mood, it helps us with our digestion, our immune system.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are all kinds of things that that estrogen does for us.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And when that starts to decline, we have to look at other ways to keep our bodies healthy.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it's an analogy we use often, but especially when it comes to the loss of muscle mass, that happens at a fairly alarming rate as we age.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it it means we lose our strength and our balance and our flexibility and our mobility, and it means we lose that independence that you talk about.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when you think about it, do you really want to have to have help doing everyday tasks?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm guessing the answer is no.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be able to get around and travel and do gardening and work in the kitchen and put things up on shelves and you know, play with your kids and your grandkids and your pets and all those sort of things.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it really is important.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing is, um, or something else, I guess, there are lots of things.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: We could probably talk about this for a couple of hours.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: But um when when we get into the paramenopause and and menopause journey and postmenopause, we tend to accumulate more fat, especially around our midsection.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a frustration for most of the women we work with and many of the women that we talk to.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And part of that is extra stress.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when you're doing functional fitness, when you engage in a regular activity, not only does that help you balance your stress, which means you're not gonna have um such cortisol spikes, or at least it helps you manage those a little better, but it does help you um battle that accumulation of belly fat and body fat by keeping your metabolism running strong.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at metabolism and bone density and hormone health, staying active and fit is really one of the, I don't know, it's very key to all of that.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you look at if you look around and you think about women you see at different ages, those those bent over, hunched over women who find it difficult to walk normally or to get around or who can't carry things, you know, just is that the future you want for yourself, or is it do you want to be vibrant?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be out and about riding your bicycle and hiking and enjoying adventures until the very last?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is the time to think about it.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and we use the analogy quite a lot about putting into the bank, right?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: The more you do it earlier on, the more you have in reserve to draw from as your body goes through this aging process.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's never too late to start.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen all kinds of research about people in their 80s and 90s in in nursing homes being put on exercise programs and actually being able to ditch their walkers and in some cases even wheelchairs by just getting into functional fitness movements.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: So thinking about, you know, if you don't use it, you lose it.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's very true.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can get it back, but the longer you wait, the the more work that takes to do.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the good news is um it's there for you.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can build it, you can bank it, and have it to draw from.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a there's a myth I still see.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could find a way to bust this a little more broadly, but one of the great myths is that women will get on a treadmill or go to a spin class, and those are great things.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're not just um disrespecting cardio in any way, but cardio isn't enough.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: We need to do specific resistance work in order to be able to keep that muscle.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And don't worry, ladies, you aren't going to get bulky.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have the physiology for it, we don't have the right hormones for it.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, unless you want to spend eight hours a day and make the make strength training a full-time job and maybe take some some extra stuff to help you with your muscles, you don't have to worry about getting bulky.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you get toned, this is how you get shapely, and this is how you help your body stay fit and well.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I know we've got some stories to share um about client experiences here, because obviously we can talk about this all day long, but but let's talk about real life, real situations.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know, James, I know you've got stories to share.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, I mean, hundreds of them really.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, I mentioned my mum just before there, who's never really stepped foot in a gym in her life, well, at least since she was in her 40s, and even then she would just go and have a sauna and come home.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: But she's always stayed really, really super active.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: So lots of fetching, carrying, picking things up herself, um, and that keeps her fit.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: As I said, she's coming up for a 90-second birthday now, so you know, more power to her.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I've currently got a client in who I work with just in the gym only, and she's 69 years old, and she only started doing strength training a couple of years ago.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but she is, I won't name her for fear of embarrassment, but she is an absolute beast, not in the way of she goes and beasts it in the gym, but in her life, she won't she is unstoppable.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she travels all around the world, she's retired now, she travels all around the world, uh, she is super fit.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um she runs and is for her age group, you're always at the top of a list uh of her races, and she also is strong and she's tenacious and she's confident and she's vibrant, and it comes from a mix of staying physically active and doing some some resistance training.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then I've got other clients who've come to me in the past who've been in their you know, early to mid-40s, again, never really stepping foot in a gym and having real challenges when it comes to shedding the weight that comes at this life stage naturally.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And chasing, chasing, chasing that the the cardio um uh effort to try and and and reduce weight, it's really really struggling with it.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: But as soon as they start lifting some some weights in the gym or start doing some resistance moves without weights, they tend to find that they turn up incredibly uh well and very, very quickly if they put the effort in.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: They tend to find that despite the fact that the scale might not necessarily change, so the numbers on the scales might might not change.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: That is, once again, we'll say this until the cows come home.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: The number on a scale only reflects your relationship to gravity.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't reflect what is going on internally, and what is going on internally is really really important because you can weigh you know 60 kilos and that be 60 kilos when most of it is fat, or you can weigh 60 kilos and weigh and that most of the 60 kilos be muscle, or the majority of it either way.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I can guarantee you that those two people who weigh 60 kilos will look vastly, vastly different because I see it on a daily basis with the people that we we work with.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really, really important to keep doing this all the time, as much as possible.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, examples for me at least, I've got dozens and dozens of them.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: How about you, Julie?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I do as well.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but one of my favorite stories that comes to mind is uh a client, and again, I won't mention her name because I don't I don't have permission, but she she came to me as a referral from from a friend, um, and she said to me before I even started talking about coaching, she just said, by the way, just want you to know up front, I'm not gonna lift weights.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I hate it, so don't even go there.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I said, That's fine.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: We'll, you know, it's totally up to you about how you want to do this.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we started working together, and uh it was a group program.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I provided these these resistance workouts that are kind of fun.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're I call them metabolic conditioning workouts.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of a combination of strength and and cardio, they're short 30-minute workouts, and um I put them in, we start with body weight, then we add some weights, and she decided that she would give it a try because the weather was horrible where she was lit where she lived, and she couldn't get outside to run.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So she decided to try them.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we've we finished up the program after six months, and she and I were having a chat together, and she just said, By the way, these workouts are so fun.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Can you record some more?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, What?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: You said no strength.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I just spoke with her, this was a few years ago, and I just spoke with her a couple weeks ago, in fact, and she was saying, you know, she has uh she was diagnosed with breast cancer while we were working together, so she's been through that whole journey, and she is um still strength training today, three years later.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's her non-negotiable.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: She feels so comfortable that last summer she wore a bikini for the first time and felt completely fine with it.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now she goes to the gym, this is her thing now.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: So she and she just we laugh about it because she says, I remember when I didn't want to look at this stuff, but it's changed my life.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I had a client who um she was 42 when she started working with me.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: She'd not worn a pair of shorts since she was about 16.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now now you now you never see her without a pair of shorts on.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's quite um because she just feels better and more confident about herself.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she doesn't work with me anymore from a from a gym perspective, but I know that she still goes to uh to various gyms lucky to us, partly because I do more of this stuff now than I do actual actual gym work with clients.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it's true, and and the re the reality is is that it is never never too late to start.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, like I said, if you've never stepped in a gym in your whole life, you can still work on functional fitness, and I think it's worth just keep uh emphasizing that distinction as well, because if we talk about the gym environment constantly, I I appreciate that that does put some people off actually working out full stop.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: So if you view it as I am doing this, not because I want to go in and look in the mirror and kiss my biceps and you know do all that flexing kind of stuff, but more because the reason I'm doing it is because I want to stay strong, I want to be able to lift things and carry things, I want to be as active for as long as I can.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the truth is let's not beat around the butch.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: None of us have got a magic formula to reverse aging.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we're all gonna age at some point, but we can try our damnedest to delay that process as much as possible, and one of the ways of doing that is to focus on functional fitness, and again, the emphasis on that word functional, that we're doing things that are gonna help us live better, longer, stronger lives.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then I suppose the other one as well is a lot of people talk about I've got joint pain, I can't lift weights.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: I know the lady I talked about before, who's 69, she um she's got some osteoarthritis in her knee.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it's a degenerative condition, a long term one that you can slow down by doing some movement.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is that all movement can be modified.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to go in and start off in a gym squatting with 20 kilos or 40 pounds in your hand.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can just go in and start off really simply with a body weight squat.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the lady I was talking about has actually found that the pain in her knee, as she's doing more and more, is actually becoming less and less.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so please don't let joint pain and things like that put you off.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's important to start slowly.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's always important to get the advice of a fitness professional.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, women who work with Julia and myself, they can come to us as part of our membership group and we offer strength training programs in there that are all adaptable and we help them do create their own programs from the exercise sessions that we put together.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, if you don't want to use us, go on, go to your local gym, find a personal trainer, look in the yellow pages.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do the yellow pages still exist anymore?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: The yellow pages online or whatever they may be doing a Google search.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's showing my age now, um, talking about the yellow pages, but you will find somebody somewhere who can help you with this, and it doesn't have to be huge amounts.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: At first, I know that the thought of sort of like starting or saying to yourself, I'm going to start an exercise programme and going straight to a 45 or 50 minute session can be quite a challenge.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: So just start less than that.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked before about exercise snacking, don't we?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Or stealth aside, where you can just if you sat at your desk, get up and do 10 squats, walk around the room, you know, pick up a suitcase, whatever it may be.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: It can start us uh with things as simple as that making sure that you are walking to the grocery store store and then walking back with your with your groceries, things like that can really really help as just a really simple starting point if you've not done anything before or you've not done anything for a long time, or can be additional functional strength training on top of an existing um regime.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, like I said, you're never really too old to start.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I think is important here to just bring up is that Julie, you're being rather coy, and you're not talking about your own personal uh story here.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you tell people about your journey when it comes to functional fitness?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because you weren't always like myself, you weren't always the health coach, were you?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: You've not been doing this kind of stuff since you were like in your in your twenties.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Some of it came to you later in life.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it's interesting.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: I have lived with chronic pain since I was 19.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've not let that slow me down, but I have always had issues with my shoulders, and um, because this my shoulder sockets never developed fully and correctly.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So my shoulder my arms would basically just fall out of the socket.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was normal until I started having pain with it.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And um I had a shoulder reconstruction done in 1985 on my right shoulder, and I have limited mobility in that in that arm because of it.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I started developing arthritis there and having a lot of pain.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I I saw a surgeon because the surgery needed to be fixed about four, well, no, about 12 years ago, 13 years ago, and uh I had taken a fall and broke my collarbone and the shoulder, got impingements and all kinds of fun stuff.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the show I was saw the surgeon and he said um he said, you know, uh I can't really do anything for it.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: It wouldn't be worth doing surgery because I can't promise the outcome will be better than what you've got.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: But what I can recommend is that you start doing some strength training to strengthen those shoulder capsules because the more you do that, the longer you're going to be able to go without having to have surgery on this one again or the other one ever.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that really hit me because I remember how difficult the recovery was from the shoulder reconstruction and just having pain on a daily basis.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I I decided I'd suck it up and go.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I started working with a personal trainer because I didn't want to make things worse for myself.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I started out thinking, okay, I have to do this, and then I started doing it, and I realized that my pain was lessening as I went along and as I got stronger.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And pretty soon I could I could do things that I wasn't able to do for all those years before.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started enjoying the strength training, and I started realizing I wasn't lifting weights, I wasn't strength training for the sake of strength training.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing that so that I could do all of the other things in life that I want to do, and I could do them without pain, and I could do them independently, and that has now become, of course, a non-negotiable for me as well.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I didn't start strength training until I was in my 40s.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but now I am 61, I'm probably stronger and more fit than I ever have been before because I now we like to hike, I do a lot of gardening, we like to, I learned to paddle board a couple years ago, and I can do those things now and not feel like I need a week of recovery afterwards and cycling.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm back into cycling again.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why functional fitness is so important, is so that we can do all of those things that we want to do and enjoy them and not suffer after doing them.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, now I don't have somebody come in to mow the grass.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: I do that myself with a full-weighted power mower that doesn't have assisted drive on it.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I can trim the hedges and hold that hedge trimmer up and do all of those things myself.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to have a gardener come in and do those things.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that feels really good because again, that independence and that freedom to do things on my own schedule, on my own terms, and enjoy doing them.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I I know a lot of women who say, I hate the gym, I don't like to go to the gym.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to have a gym or machines.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, I've got some some weights in my basement, and that's where I do my workouts.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm perfectly fine with that.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've got resistance bands, I've got some other equipment that I've added over the years, but I don't go to the gym.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's cost me a small investment along the way to to equip myself.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it doesn't have to be this major thing.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I I love it when people say, I don't have the time, because it's it does take less time than you think.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can get a really good workout in 30 minutes, even 20 minutes.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and like you talked about exercise snacks or you know, stealth sizing, getting in five and ten minutes here and there throughout the day will make a huge difference.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, the other thing we've already talked about is women are like, I don't want to bulk up, I don't want bulky muscles.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: But when you strength train, muscle is much more dense than fat tissue.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: People say muscle weighs more than fat, but that's not true because a pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the amount of space it takes up on your body is significantly different.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I went through a period of time where my weight didn't change over the course of three years.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: It changed a few pounds on the scale, but I lost two clothing sizes, and I lost 23 inches off my body from top to bottom because of the strength training, because of that muscle building and toning up.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because remember, muscle is more metabolically active than fat, which means it burns more calories, it needs more calories to sustain itself even at rest.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, especially at this phase of life, when we're trying to get our metabolism going a little better and help us stay at a weight that we want to be at, this is a really, really good way to do that.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to love it necessarily to appreciate what it does for you.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I have clients, certainly we have clients tell us that all the time.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: So let's let's that was a bit of rambling on my part this time, but let's talk about how to get started.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I think the first thing is to think about those seven movement patterns that I talked about earlier.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, gate, walking, whatever you want to call that first one, carrying, squats, lunges, push, pull, rotation, hinge.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you can't remember those off the top of your head, either ask us and we'll we'll tell you about them, or you know, just Google them.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: There are lots and lots of articles about the seven different movement patterns.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Start with those first of all.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need masses of equipment if you're just starting out.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: As Julie said, your resistance bands, super super cheap.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: You can get a set of resistance bands on Amazon, which all will have the different colours that have different um resistance in them.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: These are these long elasticated bands, about a metre or three feet long, or so sometimes with handles on the end, and you can get a set of those on Amazon for I don't know, 20 or 30 pounds, so really, really super cheap and will last you for forever.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: So you can go body weight first of all, then lightweights or resistance bands, then there's this concept of progressive load.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: As you do more of it, you need to have a heavier load, so you need some some heavier weights.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it might be that then by the time you've got some confidence, you do decide to sign up for a gym if you're not already signed up.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: One thing I'd say about gym environments is I know they kind of seem quite scary when you first start out.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: People are actually incredibly, incredibly friendly in most gyms.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, if you go to one where people are doing serious strength training and trying to bulk up for competitions and things like that, maybe not so, but your your your general sort of like town or village gym has got more people going to it that are like you than you might think they have.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's really it can be really, really supportive.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Choose some functional exercises that you can feel are really easy.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: I know that Julie has been running a squat challenge in our Facebook group.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we'll put details of how to join the Facebook group if you're not already a member in the show notes.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the squat challenge, what day are you on at the moment, Julie?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're on day 84, I think.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: 83.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: So they started off doing one squat on day one, two on day two, three on day three, etc.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: And there are people still doing that, people who've never squatted in their life before are now doing 83 squats in a day.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: Don't have to do them all at once.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody's expecting you to do 83 one after the other.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: You can do 10 in the morning, 10 a bit later on, 10 a bit later on, and build up.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: But really, really simple to do that kind of thing.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Practice just sitting in a chair and getting up again.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: As I said before, carry your groceries back from the store, stand on one leg when you're brushing your teeth.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: All really simple functional exercises that you can choose to do everyday acts, and then focus on form.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for those people who are interested in joining us in our membership, we have form videos now for hundreds of exercises where Julie and I have recorded mini videos that show you how to squat properly, how to do a push-up properly, how to do a lunge properly, etc.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: etc.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: etc.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Which you can access again.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Google them if you need to.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: Focus on form, then breathing and consistency, doing a little bit day to day.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And really, you know, from a motivation point of view, you don't really need to be motivated.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: What what greater motivation is there than to think to yourself this helps me live a longer, fitter, happier life?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: If we don't want that, then we need to start talking about some other stuff.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, that should be something that motivates us all, right?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Longevity, staying around, being as active as long as we as long as we can be.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so all you need to do is work on a system that makes it doable for you.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um Julie, I think this is probably a good time to talk a little bit about our workshop shop next week, right?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: We have a great workshop coming up.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so if you're listening to these things and nodding along and thinking, you know, this is what I need, you want to stay active and healthy as long as you can, then this workshop is going to be a great place for you to start.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's going to happen on April 30th at 5 p.m.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: UK time, which is noon eastern, uh, 9 a.m.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: and Pacific time zone.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's called Four Common Menopause Mistakes Most Women Make and How to Avoid Them.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're going to talk about how to work with your body through this phase of life, um, thinking about the different things that may be holding you back from seeing that that physical body that you want, having that experience through the menopause journey that makes it more smooth and easy for you to navigate.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to be coaching you during this workshop.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it is a workshop, which means you're going to put some effort in so that you leave that workshop with a doable plan that fits your life, not some formula that works, you know, that we say is one size fits all.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: So this is very customized for you.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the really cool thing is if you join us live, everyone who's there live gets to be entered into a drawing to win three free months of our club membership and some extra bonuses that value altogether over 400 pounds or$520.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's pretty exciting, and that should be motivation to help you get started as well.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to join us, you can go to four mistakes.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's the number for mistakes.fabulousbeyond40.com to register.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: We'll drop that link in the show notes, of course.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're not sure about the workshop and you want to just talk it out, you can get in touch with us.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: We offer a free roadmap session where we can help you provide um, you know, put together a plan and take a few steps forward to get you on the on the road to better health.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll drop all of those links below in the show notes.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, James, you want to wind us up?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: So just some key some key takeaways, then I suppose uh functional fitness is absolutely imperative if you want to live a longer, happier, freer life.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's not necessarily about going to the gym, it's about doing movement that will benefit you and having some kind of resistance element to that, whether it's be body weight, bands, weights, makeshift weights that you make up yourself with a bag and some some bricks, whatever it may be.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: There are many, many ways of doing it.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Strength equals self-respect, self-trust and self-leadership.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, you don't have to do it alone.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're here for.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you need us, we're going to put all the contact links below the show notes.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: So look out for those.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: There'll be a link to our Facebook group, there'll be a link to next week's workshop and a link to our free call as well, if you'd like to book a free call with either of us.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that's it for this week, then.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we've been James and Julie from Fabulous Beauty On 40, hoping you stay strong and stay fabulous until next time.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you then.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.