Busting Exercise Myths with Dr. Lauren Shelton

Busting Exercise Myths: Why Consistency and Effort Matter More Than Lifting Heavy With Dr. Lauren Shelton

Welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you and for this episode, strength training. The hype versus evidence.

Thank you for having me.

I can't wait. In this episode, we are cutting through the hype. Debunking some of the crazier exercise myths and focusing on what moves the needle when it comes to getting stronger, staying durable and training in a way that supports longevity. Our guest is Dr. Lauren Shelton, a doctor of Physical Therapy and the creator of Loa Movement. A fitness platform that is longevity and the idea that movement should help us live better for longer.

She works at the intersection of performance and long-term wellness. Her focus is on helping people build strength, mobility and durability with expertly guided workouts. Welcome. I’m so excited to have you here. I don't know if you want to share a little bit more about your background and the Loa Movement.

Dr. Lauren Shelton's Background And Loa Movement

Thanks so much for having me. My dad opened a gym when I was very little. Only a couple of years old, so I grew up in a gym setting. I would clean equipment for $5 an hour to make extra cash. I watched my parents strength train consistently my entire life. They still do now. I was always very interested in strength training. It is part of a regular routine for me. When I went to college, I studied Exercise Science at Carolina.

I started working as a personal trainer soon after and I loved that. However, I felt like in personal training there was a lot of emphasis on aesthetics. I feel like why someone hired me as a personal trainer was based on your body and how you looked and what they're aesthetic goals were. While a set of goals aren't all bad, it wasn't what I was interested in. I didn't necessarily want to work with people solely to help them change the way that their body looked.

Soon after working as a personal trainer for a year or two, I ended up going to physical therapy school. I went to Duke and got my doctorate in Physical Therapy. I then began treating patients. That was fun because it took my concepts of strength and conditioning into a rehab setting. It’s very different from an aesthetic space setting and went from like, “It was all aesthetics. Now, we're trying to get someone back to just regular function.” Maybe they had a rotator cuff surgery or they're having low back pain. Not always post-op.

It might be just coming in with some pain. It’s how we can help them return to function without pain. It’s a very different shift. I then ended up going to do a residency program at Mayo Clinic Florida and did Orthopedic residency and Physical Therapy to further my clinical practice skills. I treated patients for a couple years and then now shifted into what I do, which is virtual fitness.

I have a virtual fitness platform, which is Loa Movement. My goal with Loa Movement is to make strength training feel accessible for everyone. I love using my background in physical therapy to educate throughout my classes. The reality is the average person working out is going to experience some level of pain. I’m helping people to navigate and be able to show up consistently. That's what I do now. I love it. It's been a fun three full years of doing that full-time.

I love it. I use your workout app and they're all amazing. Also, longevity is such a buzzword now but I feel like you have been there before it even became popular. The focus on keeping it safe and strengthening in a way that people can. That's for their future. People used to think about getting stronger for, maybe like a race or some short-term goal but not like they're overall life fitness, especially with your app. You're very good about how important it is to strength train in a sustainable way so that 20 years or 30 years or 40 years you can still be stronger and how important it is. That brings us into our first question of, what is important when it comes to strength training?

Consistency As The Key To Strength Training

I know this sounds cliché but what moves the needle is genuinely consistency. We live in this age of information overload. I hear from people all the time that say they watch/listen to podcasts or they saw something on Instagram. Now they're worried like, “If I don't eat my breakfast before my workout, is it spiking my cortisol? If I don't reach all the way to muscle failure, is it even doing anything for me?” We laugh at this stuff. I have to talk to so many people that they hear all those things. What happens is they end up saying, “I don't know if I'm doing anything right so I'm not going to do anything at all.”

I seriously have that conversation with so many people on a regular basis. They're like, “My stomach hurts from eating breakfast and then working out. I'm worried about working out on an empty stomach because I saw the stuff online about how bad it is. I just won't work out.” It does sound silly but it's so true. If you think like, “If I'm not strength training to the point of complete muscle failure, I'm not getting stronger. Why do anything?”

What we see time and time again in literature is everything works. Anything that you can do consistently and in terms of strength training will work. We'll get into some new ones and this show. The reality is to consistently do strength training. I like to say my non-negotiable movement minimum is two work outs a week. On a regular week, it's great to shoot for maybe 3 to 4 strength training sessions for the average person. I find that number can feel hard if you have kids and a full-time job. All these things like everybody does.

Tweet: Anything you can do consistently in terms of strength training will work.

It starts to feel like, “How do I fit this in?” It's another conversation of like, “If I can't even get in three workouts and why do it at all? I'll just throw in the towel.” Something that's worked for me in my clients is saying, “You're non-negotiable movement minimum every week is just two workouts. If it's a busy week, I want you to get into strength training sessions. Don't go less than that minimum.” That can look like one weekend workout and just one weekday workout. If you're working long hours, I know you have long shifts. There are going to be weeks where that's all you can do is one weekday work out and maybe one weekend.

That is so much better than trying to work out four days, one week and then nothing the next week. On the weeks that you have time, get in three to four workouts but never try to make it so you don't drop below that non-negotiable movement of two workouts. That truly is huge to move the needle. The other thing is making sure that you're doing something you enjoy.

As silly as it sounds, we have researchers. People are going to be more consistent doing something that they love. If you are someone that truly loves CrossFit and loves the community aspect. I wouldn't be trying to convince that person to quit CrossFit and come take my classes. I want them to do something that they love, and they can do weekend and week out for years and years.

That makes sense. Also, in terms of people and the consistency. If you make it doable, you're going to be way more likely to stay with it for the long haul. As you said, if somebody thinks like, “I have to do 4 or 5 or 6 every week and if I miss one, then I have lost everything I've done before.” They're more likely to be like, “I had a bad week. I'm just going to skip next week and the week after that.” Versus, if you have something that's doable like two or on good weeks, you can do more. At least something like that. I feel like it makes it a lot more sustainable for people.

A great conversation shift that I like to remind people is, if you're going to work out four days a week for six weeks, but then you're burnt out because you're so exhausted. That is less effective than working out two days a week for the entire year. We even have literature showing that even two workouts a week can be effective at building strength and muscle mass. There's studies showing that even those two workouts are moving the needle. Sure, shoot for more but if that's like bogging you down, hit to a week.

Tweet: Even two workouts a week can be effective for building strength and muscle mass.

I love that. Again, something you enjoy, which is so important. There's also a lot on Instagram that will be like, “Don't do this work out. You're going to get hurt doing this and this is not helping you. You need to do this workout.” It's like, “What do you love? What are you going to consistently do?” That's important. How would you explain strength versus hypertrophy?

Defining Strength Versus Hypertrophy

Hypertrophy is building muscle mass or muscle size. Strength is improving your muscle force output. To talk about that deeper, let's define how you would train for the two. You can't fully parse out just training for hypertrophy or only training for strength. By that, I mean when you lift weights, you're going to improve both of those things naturally. You are going to increase muscle mass and increase strength. You can alter your training to prioritize one versus the other.

The ACSM or the American College of Sports Medicine just released new strength training guidelines. I was reading over them, which is exciting because they hadn't been updated, I want to say since like ’09. It's been a long time coming to meet some because there’s so much strength training education coming out, literature on strength and conditioning. It's exciting to see those guidelines updated. What they saw is when it comes to strength, two workouts a week is great. Also, 2 to 3 sets working closer to your one rep max.

One rep max is, what's the max amount of weight that you can lift one time? I like to use the example of a chest press or bench press. With a chest press, it's like a dumbbell chest movement. With bench press, oftentimes people are using a barbell but just working the chest. People can usually visually imagine that movement. If you could load up 100 pounds and you can only move the bar one time. That's your one rep max.

We see that for strength, working closer to that one rep max with lower repetitions for the set is more optimized for strength. There's a lot of nuances here and I'll get into it in a moment. Let's say you are doing a workout and you come in. You're like, “My goal is to improve my strength and improve that one rep max.” You're probably going to want to do working sets of like three to maybe 5 or 6 repetitions because you're working close to your one rep max with the goal of trying to improve your one rep max. That's strength.

You don't need a ton of sets per week. Honestly, just 2 to 3 sets per session. Maybe the full week is looking like 4 to 5 sets per muscle group. Now, hypertrophy on the other hand is building muscle size. We see that the more volume you do per week is more effective at growing muscle size. More like ten sets per muscle group per week. There's quite a few things to parse out here, though. If you're working on your chest and you are doing chest presses, chest flies or a bunch of different exercises for your chest. Those are all those sets that will count towards the chest, but you're also working your triceps in those movements.

Muscles don't purely work in isolation, even if you're doing a very isolated movement. You can't ever only work your triceps. Other muscles are going to be stabilizing. If you're doing a chest press, the target muscle is your chest. You're still going to be eating some triceps. You're going to get some anterior deltoids with the front of your shoulder. Those can count as fractional sets, meaning If you're doing a chest exercise, you can count it as one set for chest and a half set for triceps.

Now, I don't want people to get bogged down in all these numbers because it's not about the numbers. What it is about is the fact that you don't have to look at it so carefully like, “I have to make sure I hit every single week, six sets of triceps, biceps, shoulders, chest, glutes, and quads.” It's not like that because if you're doing a squat, you're going to be hitting most of your leg muscles. The same with if you're doing any compound movement.

I love mixing compound and more isolated movements for this reason. With compound, you're going to hit a lot of muscles. Isolation is oftentimes more comfortable. For someone who's experiencing a lot of pain, maybe he's having a hard time going heavier. It can allow you to use less weight, isolate a muscle and hit fatigue. I want to go back to the strength portion here, though, because I got a lot to say about this. We talked about that one rep max, but this confuses people because they think that, “This means that the only way I'm building strength is if I go load up a barbell and do sets of three reps at my one rep max.”

That's not true and this is because you have to understand how research measures strength versus just strength in real life. As I said before, research measures strength with that one rep max testing. It’s measurable. We're trying to see what you can hit max weight for one repetition. That doesn't mean that other lifts aren't building strength. I like to describe it as studying for a test. For example, I liked Math. It was a subject I was always pretty good at in school. The very first time I took the SAT, I didn't score that great on the math section. It wasn't because I was bad at math. It was because I just need to study more for the test.

I went through and did all those sat workbooks. Whatever. Retook the bath portion and I did significantly better. It’s not that I necessarily got way smarter at math. I just studied more for the test. One rep max testing is just like that. You can do sets of 10, sets of 15 and challenge yourself. You're still getting stronger. It just might not show up as much in that one rep max testing as when you're training for the test and working close to your one rep max with your working sets.

You might be like, “How do I know if I'm getting stronger?” Let's say you were doing a chest press exercise 3 sets of 10 and you're holding 20-pound dumbbells. Six months to a year from now, you're able to do 3 sets of 10 and hold 30 pound dumbbells. It's quite obvious that you got stronger. That's why I like to take it back to like, there's so much nuance. For the average person, it doesn't matter because if you show up consistently, you're moving dumbbells around. As things get easier, you say, “I'm going to add a little bit of weight.” That's progressive overload.

You're consistently moving through strength training and you start to notice, “The weights that were challenging for me six months ago aren't that hard now. Add a little bit of weight.” That's getting stronger. Unless you're like a power lifter or somebody that's competing and you care about your one rep max numbers. It doesn't matter. If you're challenging yourself with the dumbbells that you're using or whatever resistance that you're using. You're going to get stronger. You don't have to stress too much about the nitty gritty there.

Tweet: Unless you’re a powerlifter or competing and focused on your one-rep max, those numbers don’t really matter. If you’re challenging yourself with the dumbbells or resistance you’re using, you’re going to get stronger.

Which I love because I do think that's most people’s goal. They want to be able to live their life. They want to have something that's sustainable, but also be able to run around with their kids and be able to lift up their kids. I can see myself getting stronger just in the fact that my toddler's 33 pounds and my baby's like another 20. If I'm carrying both of them, it's like 55. When I started out, that would have been tough and now it's like, “I can do that.”

Them growing in size is like your progressive overload.

Exactly. Anyway, it's very helpful though to have that understanding of how they test that strength. I do think a lot of people will focus on things like, “You have to lift this super heavy. That's the only way that you're going to get there.” It's like, “You can still get stronger.”

I have found it to be very empowering for people and myself included. I have struggled with knee injuries. When I used to read that literature, I didn't quite understand the test versus real life and what we're looking at. I thought if I wasn't barbell back squatting with max weight I could for like sets of 3 to 4 to 5 reps, what's the point? It’s because I'm not increasing my strength. It was killing my low back. It was killing my knees and it didn't feel good. With all the mobility, formwork that I know and cues and all the things were hard on my body.

What I found is that using slightly lighter weights and more moderate rep ranges. Moderate intensity meaning I'm working more at like 60% to 70% of my one rep backs. I'm now challenging myself with sets of like 10 to 15 repetitions. Still, by the time I get to rep number 10, number 11 or number 12, it's feeling very hard. I am challenging myself. I am getting stronger but I don't have joint pain like I did when I was trying to lift so heavy.

That's not to fear mongers and tell people that lifting is bad. It's not. It's not bad. It's fantastic. Different people's bodies can tolerate different things. When I used to just force myself to train that way, I couldn't be consistent because I felt like garbage all the time. As I said at the very beginning, nothing is going to trump consistency. At the end of the day, when I'm working with someone and I'm trying to get them to overcome obstacles. It is solely so that they'll show up consistently.

Tweet: Nothing trumps consistency.

If someone's like, “I was doing all these barbell lifts. It’s super heavy but I was always just struggling with debilitating back pain.” I'm like, “You can get stronger in a million different ways.” That's what the ACSM new guidelines are showing us. Pretty much everything works. Resistance training across the board. When I say everything, I mean all forms of resistance training are effective to some degree. You can split hairs and try to optimize things, but let's be real. For the average person, that's not the thing that's going to move the needle.

I don't care what my one rep max bench or back squat is. I'm a mom. I've got two kids. I'm a business owner. That number means nothing to me personally, but I do know that I need to be strong because I want to have muscle mass to support. As I age, I want to have strong bones. It’s lifting in that like 10 to 15 rep range. Slightly lighter weights, more like 60% to 70% of my one max has been way more effective for me personally to show up consistently.

That's a lot of people. Something I feel like I hear on Instagram all the time is, again for bone density, for strength, you have to lift super heavy. If you're not lifting super heavy, you're going to miss out on all of the opportunities. We just touched on it a little bit, but can you build muscle with light weights? It seems like a yes. That's so encouraging for so many people. What do you think about weights? What do you need to do if you're using light weights?

Building Muscle With Lighter Weights And Muscle Fatigue

When you talk about light weights, it's very important to understand that's a relative term. This is another thing that is lost in translation through the information overload era that we're in. Immediately when you say light weights, they think like a tiny 2-pound dumbbell. That's like hot pink. When you think of heavy weights, you think of a giant, massive barbell with 300-pounds on it. Those terms don't mean anything.

Let's say you had a 20-pound dumbbell and you said, “This is the weight that I use for squats.” It’s kind of light but if you told me, “I use this 20-pound dumbbell for bicep curls.” I’d be like, “That's pretty good.” There's an example of the natural number on the dumbbells completely relative to what movement you’re talking about and what muscle group you are hitting. Are you talking like your bicep? Are you talking like your glutes?

The second piece here is biomechanics. Let's say you do chest press with 30-pound dumbbells. For those of you who are not familiar, a chest press is elbow bent and you're pressing the dumbbell. You could do it bilaterally with barbells or dumbbells and you're pressing. You might be holding 30-pound dumbbells. That's what I use. That's a pack exercise, but then I can swap that out and hold 15-pound dumbbells. It’s half the amount of weight and does a chest fly. Your arm is much straighter. You've got a longer lever arm. The dumbbell is further from the working joint.

Now you're holding half the weight but you're probably going to feel like the exercises feel pretty comparable in terms of effort. I can do about 15 repetitions holding 30-pounds for my chest press. Probably only about 15 repetitions holding 15-pounds for a chest fly. Using a lighter weight with a biomechanically more challenging movement, it's going to be about the same. Your muscles don't know numbers. They know effort and fatigue. It's not about the number on the dumbbell.

If someone reading is like, “What the heck is the difference between a chest press and chest fly?” I lost her. I have no idea what they’re talking about.” Think about when you're holding groceries. If you're holding ten bags of groceries, you're going to hold them down by your side. Imagine that you strained your arms and held them out in front of you. That's way harder, but it's the same amount of weight. The grocery store didn't change in weight, but you may be exercising way harder by holding it away from your body.

That's where I call it physics on the body. Lifting weights is like physics on the body. This is where biomechanics comes into play. I like to help people with hypermobility or joint pain and show them that you don't have to go to the gym and pick up 300-pound barbells if you don't want to. There are ways that we can mechanically challenge your muscles and help you approach muscle fatigue with lighter weights that maybe feel safer for you.

Maybe feel just more approachable to you or maybe, honestly, that might be what you have at your home and you can't leave for the gym on a consistent basis. It's all about consistency. That's where it comes down to. Lighter weights can build muscle. That's the biomechanical standpoint about how light weights are relative. We also see in the literature that when it comes to muscle mass, we used to think there was like this old school thought process. When I was in college, we were taught that train for strength for sets of like 0 to 5 repetitions then you would strength for hypotrophy for sets of like 5 to 12 repetitions. Above 12 reps was muscle endurance.

That was the breakdown of how you would train based on your goal. What we know in the literature now is that it's not true. What we see, hypertrophy can happen. Building muscle mass can happen at any single rep range. You could do sets of 3 repetitions or sets of 10 repetitions or sets of 20 repetitions. Even studies showing as many as 30 repetitions can build muscle mass provided that the last few repetitions feel challenging.

Let me explain that another way for you. Let's go back to our chest press example. For me, if I'm holding 30-pounds. I can hit about fifteen reps. That will build muscle. Maybe I want to hold 15-pounds and then maybe now I can do about 25 repetitions. That will still build muscle. There comes a point, where if I howled like a 5-pound dumbbell. Personally, at this point, in my strength training journey, I could probably do a hundred repetitions.

That's two too light to build muscle, but the range is pretty wide. I tell people to keep their sets if you're trying to under 25 reps or less. If you pick up a dumbbell, no matter what weight it is and you get to the point where the wraps start feeling challenging. You're starting to get to what's called muscle fatigue and you're under 25 repetitions, you're good to go.

Only so I understand a little bit better. Would you say then like even if you're using a lighter weight, you can sometimes adjust the movements in terms of what we're talking about before, to make the end challenging. You would just get tired if it's a heavy enough weight, but also you could be using lighter weights. At the end, you change out your weights and use heavier weights. As long as it is at the end, you're having that weakness. Would that show that you're getting that or not really?

You can do that but more simply, if you're doing the set and you're like, “I'm going to do sets of ten repetitions.” Since you need those last 8, 9, 10 reps to feel challenging, that's very key. You want those last few reps to feel challenging. You're probably going to have to use a heavier weight than if you're like, “I'm going to do sets of twenty repetitions.” I’m not talking about using different words. It's within the same set. It's more that you're like, “If I pick out a 15-pound dumbbell, I'm probably going to have to do about 15 to 20 reps to get to that point where the rep starts to feel challenged.”

Versus if you had like a 20-pound and then it might just need 10 or 12 or something.

Exactly. If you're using a lighter weight, you're just going to have to do more repetitions to get to that point where it feels tiring. For that, we call it muscle failure. It’s the point where you literally cannot do another rep with good form, though. If you are straining, arching your back and you start feeling like neck and all these other things. You probably already hit failure at your chest because now, your body's trying to recruit every other muscle in your body to move the weight.

I like to give that up because a lot of people are like, “I feel heavier.” At that point, I’m like, “What are you doing? Are you lifting through your feet now?” You have to make sure that you're still talking about the same muscle you were trying to target. That's muscle failure. You can't do another rep. Muscle fatigue is just meaning you're getting to that point where the reps slow down and feel challenging. We see in the literature that you don't need to hit all the way to muscle failure to build muscle and strength.

I feel like that's encouraging. It's something that I have always honestly thought about. You do need that like, “I'm dying. I'm dead,” to get the muscle to build. That's the point they're aiming for.

That's one of the specific things they pointed out in the new ACSM guidelines. I've read quite a few studies showing that, “You can leave what's called reps and reserve.” That's what they call it in the literature and still make similar gains to someone that's taking all the way to failure. It can help someone with that consistency factor. If you're constantly trying to get to muscle failure with every set, first of all, you're going to be pretty darn sore. It's going to be hard to show up on a regular basis.

Tweet: You can actually leave what’s called “reps in reserve” and still make similar gains to someone who is training all the way to failure.

For me, in my workouts, I try to get in a minimum of 3 to 4 workouts a week. I've got that non-negotiable minimum of two. On a regular week, I'm trying to get 3 to 4. I can't be taking all of those to muscle failure because I've just found that I can't show that consistently when I do it. I'm too sore. It makes my body ache. I get to the point where the repetitions slow down, and they feel challenging.

That's that point where I'm like, “That's it. I feel good.” That's what I'm trying to hit. I'm not necessarily trying to get to the point where I physically cannot lift the dumbbell. It's pretty encouraging to see in the literature like, “That's not quite as important as we thought.” As long as the last few reps feel adequately challenging and you're like, “I can't just like, boom, boom and wrap it out.” The resistance is giving you a nice challenge. That's good. You're going to get stronger.

That's awesome. I've had those times where I pushed myself way too far. You can't work out the next day because you're like, “I can't walk. I can’t move. I can't pick up my baby because I’m so sore.” It's good that literature shows that. It's encouraging. Bone density is a hot topic, as it should be. Honestly, bone density is so important. One of the biggest things I see all the time is that those who come in with broken hips, just fall.

Now we're realizing how important it is to try to prevent all that bone loss that you can have. Lifting weights is part of that. It’s getting stronger but with light weights. Everybody says, “You have to lift heavy for bone density.” Do we find that that is true or it has to be these super heavy sets for bone density? Can it also be lightweights?

Strength Training And Bone Density Debunking The Lift More Trial

I did a big deep dive on this because I was curious about this, too. In the past, I was like, “I'm just going to read through all the literature that's available to me.” I spent hours and hours reading this. What I saw is lighter weights can improve bone density. I want to talk about a few things. First, there was a very popular study called the lift more trial. It's from Australia. It was a fantastically designed study. It was a wonderful study. From that study, they concluded that lifting heavy was effective to improve bone density. A lot of people took that setting. They said erroneously lifting heavy is the only way to improve bone density, but that's what study looks at.

I hear that all the time. I've heard so many shows about this. I have people send me messages like, “Did you watch this video?” You have to lift heavy and the lift more trial is what they talk about.

One of my favorite researchers is Professor Stuart Phillips. He talks about this a lot about helping people understand that it's not all about lifting heavy. Let's talk about the lift more. What that trial compared is, I'm sure you're all familiar with how research study design works, but I'll break it down for our readers.

You have a group that's the exercising group and you have a group that's the control group that you're comparing them to. The exercising group did very heavy lifts. I'm pretty sure they did back squats, deadlifts and overhead shoulder press with a barbell working very close to their one rep max. They were doing sets of about five repetitions. Trying to work to that muscle failure point with a very close to their one rep max.

Also, in the study, they did what they call drop landing. Where they had to hold on to a bar overhead. Let go of the bar and try to land with their legs pretty stiff to create impact. That's a lot of parts about the study that people don't talk about. I have read this study many times. It's always quoted to me. I create a lot of content for social media. I have people comment and be like, “You have to live lift heavy and then parentheses.” They'll cite like sighted the lift more trial.” I'm always like, “Have you read the lift more?”

You have these groups that are lifting very heavy and then you have them doing drop landing. The idea is to they want maximal ground reaction force. They're trying to create an impact on the body because that's what their hypothesis was. You need impact and heavy lifting to help improve bone density. Now, when you look at the control group, the group they compared to it. They specifically say in the study that the control group was designed to have minimal effect on bone. Meaning it was a true control. They were doing body weight lunges and calf raises and light stretching.

They designed an exercise program that would be like, “We are designing a program that we think will have almost no effect on bone density.” This is our control group. What they found at the end of the study is the group that lifted heavy and did those drop landings that did improve bone density. They improved by a little bit. Now, also a reminder, that even the most effective strength training program is only going to improve bone density slightly because bone takes a long time to remodel. This was like a year-long study I believe.

Your study has to be at least a year to show changes in bone. That's why consistency is so important because we want people to do strength training, 5, 10, 15, or 20 years when we're talking about bones. Muscle is super fun because it can adapt and like 6 to 8 weeks and you'll see it changes. With bone, it’s going to take a long time. We need people in it for the long haul. Back to the study. You cannot conclude from that study that the only thing that works is lifting heavy. A) They also did these droplets. B) They compared it to a group that was essentially doing nothing.

If you would have to have a study where someone or a group of postmenopausal women because that is what they were looking at. It was listing super heavy at like 85% of their one rep max. We then would need to control the group to be lifting at 70% of their one rep max. That doesn't mean it's easy. That means that then they're going to be doing barbells, back squats, deadlifts and shoulder presses. Two muscle fatigue, but they're just going to do sets of 10 to 12 instead of sets of 3 to 5.

Both those things are going to feel very hard. Effort doesn't equal intensity. Intensity means how close you're lifting to your one rep max. Effort is just like how hard it is. If you're back squatting 200 pounds like we were just talking about and you could only do that three times. That's closer to one rep max. If you are squatting like 100 pounds and you could do that 15 times. Both those are going to feel super hard because one you had to do fifteen times and the only one you did three times.

We would have to compare those two groups in a study and then see that only the heavy lifting group, the group that only did sets of three repetitions is the only way we could look at that. You have to lift heavy for bone density. In fact, we have literature showing and larger systematic reviews and meta-analysis showing that lighter weights like lifting. Even as low as like 50% or 40% of your one rep max is still having positive effects on bone density.

Tweet: Lifting even as low as 40–50% of your one-rep max can still have positive effects on bone density. The important thing is that you’re applying progressive overload.

The important thing is that you're doing progressive overload. This just means once it starts to feel easy that you bump up and wait. I like working out at sets of 10 to 15 reps. That feels better on my knees and my low back. Once the weight I'm using at 10 to 15 reps starts to feel easy, I just need to go up a little bit. It's not that I have to be lifting like max like impossibly live for your bones. We see promising studies showing that you can improve bone density working in that 60% of your one rep max.

It doesn't have to be way up to like 85% or 90%. That is so encouraging for people like it. When I told people that it was like light bulbs went off. They're like, “Maybe I will go work out. Maybe I will do resistance training.” I'm more than happy to link some of this research because I want people to see like I'm not just making this up. We have literature showing that. What we also have is a lift more trial that does not prove that only lifting you works. It only proves that it works better than a century doing nothing, which is important. That's a randomized control trial. We would have to have different data showing.

It's not a true comparison. You can't say, “That's the only way that you can get bone density up.” Honestly, it makes sense that you're able to build muscle both ways. Even though bone density takes a lot longer as you said. It would make sense if you can build muscle both ways that it also would affect your bone density.

Exactly. There's more to bone density. We see that also the presence of muscle mass itself is protective to your bones. You have this muscle bone crosstalk. From a metabolic standpoint if you have more muscle mass, it's healthier for your bones. Even if you look at that factor alone, you could say, “If I'm lifting weights and I know that almost anything works to build muscle mass.” We need to show up and challenge ourselves. If the last few reps feel hard, I'm good. That muscle mass is going to be protective to your bone.

The other thing is, it's more than weight training. There's genetics. There's absolutely nutrition. A lot of what you do in your 20s and 30s sets you up for your bone health later in life. Now, that's not to discourage people that are out of their 20s and 30s. This is to encourage people who are in their 20s and 30s to start lifting weights now. You're going to set your bone health up for the future if you're under fueled.

If you are intensely restricting calories, that could have a hugely negative effect on bone density. There's a lot of things. When women lose their cycle, we bat negatively. It affects bone density if they are under fueling and over exercising. It's not one factor. That's important to note. Lifting weights doesn't need to be the only thing you look at. It's always realistic. We got to look at nutrition. Maybe you need to have a conversation with your doctor about different medications if you already have osteoporosis. Lifting weights might need to be combined with medication. There's a lot of things at play.

It is important because you could be doing all this. If you have a critically low vitamin D level, there's a lot. The body is a whole. It is definitely one part of the puzzle. You talked about perimenopause a little bit and it is important. People are starting to realize this in their 20s and 30s. This is like setting the groundwork.

For a long time, people were like, “This is the future, and I don't have to worry about it.” Our generation and the younger generation are seeing what some of our parents and grandparents have gone through. It's been a wake-up call. People are realizing, “I want to change what I'm doing now so that my future looks a little bit different,” which is cool. It's been nice to see that shift that people are prioritizing. What would you say in terms of like when you're in your 20s and 30s, what people should focus on in terms of bone density?

Importance Of Strength Training In Your 20s And 30s

Not being afraid of strength training. When you're younger, oftentimes, it's fun to do yoga and Pilates. All movement has value. I would never discourage someone from like form Pilates or from yoga or from other forms of moving. Whether that be running or whatever. Every single human being needs to lift weights at least two times a week, especially in your 20s and 30s. As I said, that's the peak of your bone density.

We see from that point that what you're trying to do is minimize bone loss as you go on through life. I like to think of it as, “Let's build the foundation now.” Maximize our strongest bone as possible in our 20s and 30s so that we're starting from a higher set point essentially. In 20s and 30s, a lot of times women are struggling with under-eating and body image issues. That's where I want to empower women. Don't be afraid to be strong. Don't be afraid to take up space. Don't be afraid to lift weights. I know I'm talking a lot about women because I work almost exclusively with women. This message is so true for men, too. Older men can fall and break their hips sometimes.

It needs to be a conversation of, “Let's get everyone strength training.” It can be hard if you were an athlete in high school. You move into college and then it starts to be like, “I don’t need to lift weights because I don't play sports anymore. I'll just do yoga or whatever.” That's fine if you love yoga, but can you also strength train, please? That would be my big thing. Add in this two times a week. It doesn't have to be anything super complicated. That's one of my favorite things to do. I tell people with my classes like, “Show up press play, and I'll take it from there.”

It doesn't have to be just an overly complicated thing. You need to show up consistently. Load and build them. Strength builds muscle mass. It'll set you up further down the road later in life, and then don't stop. Keep doing non-negotiable movement minimum through the lifespan. My parents are great examples of that. They've been lifting weights. My mom started when she was 30. I can honestly tell you, I can probably think on one hand, how many times she skipped a full week of lifting.

Tweet: It doesn’t have to be an overly complicated thing. You just need to show up consistently.

She's impressive. That's awesome.

She's not so extreme with it. She doesn't try to work out five days a week. She's anywhere between 2 to 4 days. She goes up. She has dumbbells at her home. She challenges herself. She's seriously as strong as me and older than me, clearly. It's amazing to see her. She's in her mid-60s and has great bone density. She plays tennis outside. She's getting good sunlight, movement with friends, and she trains regularly. She’s been a great motivator to me to see how well she can move and how well she's functioning in her mid-60s. She got a little investment in her health throughout her whole lifespan.

For me, it's similar in terms of seeing my mom. With my mom, it wasn't like always growing up that she would lift weights. Towards the end of my high school and early college, I started taking her to the gym with me and then she found classes that she loved. It's cool to see the difference just in her strength, which is then you can see that strength that translates to everything else in terms of making it easier. It’s like when we go on hikes, bike riding, and chasing her grandkids now.

All of that makes her getting injured way less likely and her being able to enjoy life. It's an encouraging thing for me to be like, “Look at how that's paid off.” You can see such a difference. It's a wild contrast for me when I see people in the hospital that are her same age, which is 70s. I can see my mom who's running, chasing around her grandkids is very healthy and very active, versus patients that I have that are her age or even younger.

They already have all these debilitating issues, where they can't move and enjoy their life. It's a big contrast in terms of how big of a difference this can make. It's encouraging to see when people are putting in the work and doing all the exercises, and how it can be so impactful and so helpful for their lives.

Weighted Vests For Bone Density And Walking

With bone density, I feel like we can't move on until we talk about weighted vests.

Those are such a trend. I just saw a family and they all had that. It was probably like two teenagers, a middle schooler and adults. The whole family had weighted vest and were going out for a walk. Their dog did not have one.

It’s interesting. Again, I would never discourage any type of movement. All movement is good. I never want to fear a monger and say something is bad or whatever. Do you love your weighted vest? Please don't stop, but there's a lot of claims about weighted vest being this magic bullet for bone density. That's not what we have in the research. This is another case of people citing research studies and maybe not reading them.

I've had so many people be like, “The research says that weighted vest is incredible for your bones.” I will go comb the research and what I have found and I have yet to see a study that has shown me otherwise. Wearing a weighted vest is not going to improve your bone density. Unless you're using it as an extra load during strength training. A lot of the studies that people would cite is someone wearing a weighted vest to do like squats and lunges.

We then have this case of the control group that almost every one of these weighted vest studies is comparing it to someone doing nothing. Literally nothing. It's like, wearing a weighted vest is more effective than sitting on your couch. We'd all be in agreement about that but we don't have any research to say that it's some sort of major groundbreaking thing for bone density. The reality is, we have much higher evidence showing that strength training is more effective for bone density.

I try to tell people like, “If you love walking and then you throw on this weighted vest because you feel like you have to.” Now walking is not fun and your low back is hurting. Your knees are hurting. Instead of going out for a 30-minute walk. Now you're going on a 10-minute walk. I would say that's hindering you more than helping you. We don't want to be adding joint pain. Honestly, I study a lot about breathing and we don't know. Is that restricting your rib cage mobility and breath work? Are you using way more of your neck and then you're going to have a sore neck?

There's so many. With everything, there's a trade-off. If someone's like, “I am training because I'm going to go hike in Patagonia with my family. I have to carry a big backpack.” Weighted vest training might be amazing for you because of the specificity of training. You might need to condition your body for that. If that's not your goal, I would so much rather someone spend like 30 minutes strength training and then just go on a walk and enjoy it.

We have so much more robust research showing that strength training can move the needle for bone density. We don't have that with weighted vests. It's not there. A lot of the studies that showed weighted vest being effective in the study, they were also doing a string training program. Again, we don't have any studies showing somebody lifting weights and then wearing weighted vest on their walks then comparing it with lifting weights and walking without a weighted vest.

That would be a hard study to design but that's the only way to know like, is the weighted vest adding some additional method and all? As of now, the study is looking very promising in that regard. If someone's like, “I didn't know I could skip the weighted vest and my bones will still be.” I give you full permission. You can just enjoy your walks and then make sure to strength train.

I love that. I do think it's important too for people to step back. As you said, sometimes people will be like, “I have to do this because it's supposed to help,” but then they only walk for ten minutes instead of tripling the time. That's going to do the opposite.

One of the studies I looked at was showing that they were measuring. I want to say it had an effect on VO2 max. Don't quote me, but it was a cardiac measure. Maybe it was their heart rate max or what zone they were in or something. What they looked at is someone wearing a weighted vest and then they had someone just take off the weighted vest and walk faster. It was the same.

You think about it. If the weighted vest is slowing you down to the point that you're walking so slow. It's going to be the same as if you take off the weighted vest and walk double the speed. It's the same way with lifting weights. If you're using a lighter weight and you can do more repetitions, it's the same as using a heavier weight, and doing less repetitions relatively speaking. Again, I would love to just go back to the fact that I like talking about this nuance because I like this stuff and it's fun. For the average person, it doesn't matter. Show up. Be consistent with the movement that you love. Don't force yourself. If you hate walking with your weighted vest, please don't force yourself to do it. You don’t have to yeah.

Tweet: Be consistent with movement that you love; don’t force yourself.

Exactly. Also, you don't want to get injured, too. That’s important. I feel like some people are trying to push through that knee pain with their weighted vest. You don't have to do that.

Great Point.

I feel like everybody talks about warm-ups. It used to be like, “You have to do just static stretching and dynamic stretching. You have to warm up before exercising.” Now, you don't warm up before exercise. It has to be afterwards. What do you think about warm-ups, long warm ups, and short warm ups? Are they needed?

Warm-Ups And The Role Of Stretching Versus Strength Training

I will say that like the population that I work with, as I said, are regular people. I'm not working with high-level athletes. If an NFL player who has to sprint from a dead still position to like a max sprint. They probably want to do some degree of a warm up. However, in my population working with regular people, what we see is that if you're lifting weights, you don't need to spend all this time on a warm-up. You could maybe do like 3 to 5 minutes on a bike for some blood flow, but I'm going to be so honest with you.

For my workouts, I don't want to do it all. I have people breathe to help better position the rib cage and their pelvis at the beginning of class. Be a little bit more present. Get their nervous system to calm down a little bit. I then go right into the first working set because it saves so much time. If you're doing a 30 minute workout, you are doing yourself a disservice by warming up and cooling down for five minutes on either end. Now, your workouts only last twenty minutes because you just warmed up and cooled down for ten minutes.

The other thing is. If you're not trying to lift close to your one rep max, this is another reason why I like using more moderate weights with sets of 10 to 15 repetitions. Those first few repetitions in the set are counting as your warmup. If you were going to go and you were like, “I want to know what my one rep max for my deadlift is.” I would be like, “Anna Marie, you have to warm up. You can't just walk up to the bar and try to pull through 300 pounds off the floor. Let's start out and have you deadlift. Start it maybe 85 pounds and then 135. Slowly you go up.” You go, “Let's try it for my max effort and see if I can lift this 300-pound barbell.”

If you're like, “I'm just doing a set of fifteen, then you’re using a much lighter weight because you're trying to challenge yourself in fifteen reps. You don't need to do all these warm upsets. You can just get started. I've read literature. There’s newer research showing especially with strength training. For the average person just going to the gym, there's not a lot of benefit to warming up and cooling down.

If you like and it makes you feel better, you can. If you like stretching a little bit before and after, you can. For me, I'm in such a time crunch with my life. I want my 30 minutes of strength training. I want 27 of them to be strength training. I don't do much of any warm-up or cooldown and I feel great. Lifting weights like that has been effective for me. The research supports it. It's not a huge deal for the average person.

What do you think about stretching? My husband always makes fun of me because I can't touch my toes. Is that a problem? Is that fine? Do I need to stretch more? What do you think?

I'm not a huge fan of stretching. Again, I would say it's more from a time management standpoint than anything else. What I tell people is if you're strength training through full ranges of motion, you're loading your muscle through full ranges. You're stretching the muscle as you're loading it. You're getting a two-for-one. For example, let's say you're doing a squat. You're squatting down. You're getting mobility through your knees and through your hips. You're stretching through like the quads. That is the mobility and flexibility that you need in life.

Tweet: If you’re strength training through a full range of motion, you’re loading your muscles through their full range—you’re stretching them as you load them. So you’re getting a two-for-one benefit.

The other thing is people confuse what normal ranges of flexibility are. A lot of people, when they're stretching, their goal is what we would consider more of hypermobility and excessive flexibility. What I found from working in the clinic is, a lot of times people with pain. They're typically excessively flexible. Someone that's not super flexible can still have pain. I just mean that on that spectrum, it's going to be hard for someone who's like, “I can just palm the ground. I got super mobile hamstrings. My hips are super mobile. They've got tons of motion.” That means there's a lot for their body and their nervous system to now control.

They need to be strong in all of those ranges so they don't get injured. Whereas the average person who has more normal range of flexibility, oftentimes is easier for them to get injured and not have as much pain. When it comes to something like the hamstrings. People are always like, “I need to stretch my hamstrings. They're so tight.” If you were to lie on your back and lift your leg up, if you can go to about 90 degrees of hip flexion. Your body and then your hip is bending about 90 degrees. That is normal hamstring flexibility.

Someone that can kiss their kneecap is excessive. What we want is strong reactive hamstrings, the anchor or pelvis that work for us when we're running or lifting. A lot of times when we have overly lengthened muscles, we're trading off something else. At that point, I often see people that clinched their pelvic floor. They tighten in other areas because they're nervous system feels unsafe from all this laxity in their hamstrings.

They start to create stability elsewhere. They start gripping their glutes or clenching their pelvic floor. Excessive flexibility is not the goal and can create a lot of problems. I encourage people. If you do want to stretch, stretch a normal range. Don't shoot for extremes. Now, a reminder, we're talking about the average person. If someone's like, “I'm a dancer and I need to be able to do the splits.” That's a different conversation. That's performance.

You need to do the splits because that's what you need to perform as a ballerina. The same way I wouldn't go tell somebody who's not a professional baseball player, “The best thing for you is to throw hundreds of pitches with your shoulder every day.” No person is going to tell you that's the best thing for your rotator cuff but they need to do that for performance. We're not talking about performance. For the average person, a little bit of stretching is fine.

I personally don't stretch. I find that strength training through full ranges of motion gives me all the mobility I need. I also find that I feel less tight when I'm strong through full ranges. If you have excessive flexibility but you're not strong in those ranges. Your body will also sometimes see that as a threat. It creates tension to prevent you from getting injured. If it doesn't feel safe and you are moving into a range, it'll create tension.

A lot of people that I found that feel tightness in their hamstrings are typically the people that have excessive hamstring flexibility. People that can do the splints. I tell them to back off stretching. We start to load their hamstrings. We keep them out of those excessive ranges. They're like, “I don't feel tight anymore.” Again, stretching is not bad. No movement is bad, but if someone's constantly feeling tight. A lot of times what I find is like you need to work out getting stronger through those ranges. Not just continuing that stretching cycle.

Stretching is almost like scratching an itch. It's like the more you scratch it, the more you feel like you need to scratch it. The more you start your hamstrings, you probably feel tight and need to keep stretching them all the time. If you've loaded them, take a different approach and cool off the stretching. A lot of times that tightness will go away.

I love that. That's very helpful. I also think it's helpful in terms of how much time people have to work out. You're trying to work with intense stretching effort. You do this crazy stretch first and you're warm up. You're cool down and all this. You're not getting the workout in or it has to be an hour and then when are you having the time to do all this? I think that's awesome. We talked about it a little bit, but what do you think about compound lifts versus just isolated lifts? Which is better? Is there one that's better?

Compound Versus Isolated Lifts

I love both. I was talking about hypermobility. This just means someone with more like LAX soft tissues. They're ligaments are more relaxed. They often have more excessive range of motion. Maybe a lot of times people with excessive mobility have more joint pain. What I find with those people is compound lifts. If they were to go to a CrossFit class and they're doing barbell front squats and shoulder presses. I love those movements. Those aren't bad movements by any means, but there's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of things to control.

I find that those people can often have more joint pain. I like a mixture of compounds and isolation. An isolated movement being like maybe they are holding one dumbbell in their hand and doing an isolated bicep curl. Maybe they're lying on their side and doing like a sideline lateral raise for their shoulder, versus like a full shoulder press. Now, they're lying on the ground. Their body is supported.

Overall, it feels safer. They feel very supported and have less joint pain. They can still load their shoulder and work that shoulder to the point where the last few reps feel hard. That's why I like the mixture of the two. Compound movements are nice because they're more time efficient. You're hitting more muscle groups with one thing. Still, when I teach compound movements, I do them very differently.

I often will have some and let's say we're doing a kickstand squat. It's like a variation of a squat where you're trying to load one leg. That helps you hold less weight. If you're loading both legs at the same time, you have to hold more weight than if you're just loading one leg. Oftentimes, I’ll have them have their opposite hand on the wall for support. Again, this gives the body a sense of safety and stability.

They don't feel like they're falling around. Less torque at their knees. Now they can control the movement and focus on loading the target muscle, versus like all these moving parts of maybe standing in the middle of the room and doing a kickstand squat. That's a lot more from a nervous system standpoint. Your environment affects how you move. That would be like saying, “I used to be able to do a tripod headstand in yoga.” I don't know if I can still do it. I'm not sure. I have to try after this. Imagine doing a tripod headstand on the beach. Warm sand. If you fall, what are you worried about? Soft.

Now, go do a tripod headstand on the edge of a cliff. It’s a very different experience. It’s exactly the same on your body with strength training. You go do something like a kickstand squadron or kickstand hinge and you're standing in the middle of the room. There's a lot of moving parts. Your nervous systems can feel very differently than you're up against the wall. You got a hand on the wall. Feel more balanced and more safe.

I moved a little off of the compound and isolated myself here, but those are ways that you can approach it from a nervous system standpoint of like, how do I make my body feel safer so I can focus on loading the muscles and remove some of the other variables? When I am doing a compound move, I try to think like, “How can I remove some of the other variables to make it safe and accessible?” I love isolated movements. I'm going to be so honest with you. They can get a bad rap like, “They're not functional.” They are. When I carry my groceries, that's a straight bicep curl. Strength is strength. Even if you build strength and an isolated manner, it doesn't mean that it doesn't translate to functional movement.

I love side-lying hip abduction. It’s glue leg work down on the ground. Now, it's not the only thing. Standing exercises are very important, but the mixture of the two helps people be like, “I can load the muscles. Get more volume. Show up on a more regular basis.” My body feels better than just doing barbell front squats. That's what I found to be very helpful for people is that mixture of the two.

I also think about what you brought up in terms of using it, then in a protected environment. Doing this in a way where it's safe for people, because if you get injured right, then you're not going to be able to consistently do this. Pain is another reason where people are like, “I can't do this.” Which also brings up another question. A lot of people struggle in terms of working out and it's causing pain. What do you do when people are basically complaining, “I can't work out?” It’s because they're just in too much pain. How do you address that or tweak it?

Addressing Workout Pain And Customizing Movements

Honestly, one of the first things I help people understand is maybe we can use a little bit of lighter weights for a period. Maybe we can drop down and still work you to muscle fatigue. Maybe we start gearing a little bit towards some more isolated movements just to minimize some moving parts. Those are just quick high-level things.

It's important for people to realize that exercises are made up and this might sound silly. Think about it. Our great grandparents were strong because they were doing manual labor and their life was challenging. They were doing sideline lateral raises and glute bridges. Those things that we do to load our muscles are relatively made up. The reason why that's helpful for people is because then they realize, “I was doing like this, kickstand hinge movement for my glutes and I wasn't feeling in my glutes. I was just feeling it in my lower back and I was hurting.”

It's very empowering to be like, “I'll just do a different glute exercise because exercise is made up.” I say that in my classes a lot because I like to remind people like I'm the guide and you're the boss. If there's a different exercise that I've taught in classes before. Oftentimes, I'll even show other options that people can use that will work better for them at the moment. That's what you should take. I like to use myself as an example here. I deal with a lot of knee pain. I tore my ACL when I was in high school playing sports. My right knee has always been my Achilles heels.

For literally decades, I used to think that, “I am a failure as a human being if I'm not doing barbell back squats.” I felt that back squats are the most important strength training move in the gym. Every single influencer that you swipe through on Instagram is like, “You got to do squats.” I would show up and all that, I never ever felt like my glutes or my quads were the thing that we're getting to muscle fatigue. It was just my knee and my low back would kill me.

I tried and I tried and finally, I had to come to terms with myself like, “What are you trying to prove? If this movement isn't working for you, it's not working for you.” Other variations like maybe a front squat or a dumbbell goblet squat or the kickstand squad with my hand on the wall. Maybe a reverse lunge or a rear foot elevated split squad. There's a thousand exercises I could program for somebody or myself to crush my glutes and have significantly less knee pain and low back pain. That's what you should do. If the goal is getting stronger and feeling better, then don't force a movement on you that's not serving you.

Tweet: If the goal is to get stronger and feel better, don’t force a movement that isn’t serving you.

Which is so important. I've had to retrain myself because I feel like growing up, you always go to these workout classes. They're like, “You can modify it.” To me, in my brain, modifying was like I'm weak. I can't do that even if this is hurting me. I can be injuring myself. Modifying me means that I'm weak and that is not it at all.

I have a member that made up a phrase. She calls it customized instead of modify. She was like, “Modify has this negative connotation that like, ‘I couldn't do this because I'm weak. I have to take this sad option.’ I customized it for me.” Think about it. Remember we said weight training is like physics on the body. We are all made up of pulleys and levers. Our pulleys and levers are different size. We have their body proportions. There's a lot of different factors at play here. We have different injury histories. Someone's femurs might be long. For other people, the tibia or torso might be long. There's a lot of different factors that play.

Different stages of life. You're pregnant. You have more laxity. There’s so much.

There’s tons of factors. This was a conversation I had with a member that was a great light bulb moment and shift in her mindset. She was just saying, “I feel like when I'm doing a move and I'm having pain, if I just push through and I get stronger, then that pain will go away.” I have to tell her. I was like, “Think about this. You're doing a movement and it's causing pain. Why would that painful movement all of a sudden then cause you to be out of pain? That's not how it works.”

You're just like picking the scab by continuing to do a painful movement over and over again. It's not getting you out of pain. It's putting you back in that pain cycle. You need to look at that. She was specifically talking about a kickstand or a hinging movement for her. There's a lot of things that can go into a hinge. She might need more work on opening her posterior pelvic floor or lengthening through the posterior pelvic outlet. There's a lot of mechanics. Maybe she needs to work on isolating her hip from her low back movement. We can work on all these forms.

That's great. We will do that, but for now, if she's doing a kickstand hinge and she doesn't feel any of her booty. All she feels is debilitating low back pain or not even debilitating. All she feels is low back pain. I'm like, “You're not going to get the outcome you want, which is stronger glutes. If all your feelings are low back pain. The outcome you'll get is more low back pain.” You have to choose a movement where you're like, “I feel this in my glutes. This is effective for me.” That's the move you need to do.

You can't keep expecting and be like, “I'll just push through this pain and eventually I'll get stronger. I'll get better.” It doesn't work like that. A lot of people think that exercise inherently needs to be painful to be effective. That's also not true at all. Tiring out a muscle and that muscle fatigue is very different from experiencing joint pain like low back pain and knee pain. That's an important differentiation.

Tweet: A lot of people think exercise has to be painful to be effective, but that’s not true. Muscle fatigue is very different from joint pain like low back or knee pain—and that distinction matters.

It is. Again, that's something I had to retrain myself with. I feel like I have to kill myself. I need to not be able to walk tomorrow or something, then I can't work out for another couple of days. It’s because I have died. My other issue was then in myself when I should have just listened to my body and done this in a healthy way. I love that it's not modifying but customizing. I'm going to remember that one.

I know. It's so good. I got to give her mad props there.

That's awesome. This has been so great. I love talking through all this stuff. I know I've learned tons and I'm sure everybody reading also has learned hopefully. Hopefully, we can have another session. I love all the education.

Thank you so much for having me. This was awesome. Feel free to contact me if people have questions or want to reach out. I'm always happy to answer. I love these conversations. It’s so fun for me.

Anybody looking for a workout routine, look up Loa Movement. It's amazing. Ten out of 10 recommend.

Thank you.

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About Dr. Lauren Shelton

Founder of Loa Movement.

As a busy mom, entrepreneur, and Doctor of Physical Therapy, Lauren founded Loa Movement out of a personal quest for a fitness program focused on longevity; one that valued a science-based approach to strength training and breathwork. Lauren’s journey includes extensive education and clinical practice—coupled with study through the Postural Restoration Institute® —  inspiring her to create a program that enhances your life instead of hindering it.