Redefining Strength Podcast

It’s easy to start a new program and get overwhelmed by all of the changes you feel you have to make. And so..well…we freak out and never end up moving forward. But before you let your brain go into freak out mode…start by focusing on small tweaks! Or as I’ve liked saying “Tweak before you freak!” Because small changes add up. And they help us create something actually sustainable. Too often we fe...

I think often in our workouts in an attempt to do more or that harder variation and last the entire interval of work, we CHEAT ourselves out of the full benefit of moves. We don’t try to work muscles as hard as we can. We actually just try to survive the time we are “supposed” to work in the follow along. And this leads to us CHEATING on moves. Letting our hands shift out in front of us as we do m...

I refused to demo the moves and made friends or co-workers do it. I was comfortable sharing my knowledge behind the scenes. But I also really really really (did I say REALLY!?) wanted to share my passion and knowledge and help others. So Ryan kind of gave me an ultimatum... Ryan basically told me at one point, "If you really want to do this thing, you need to suck it up and get over it and be...

You know that urge to do MORE? To make more changes? Search for a new macro ratio?  Workout longer? Train harder? I think this focus on doing MORE stems from the fact that A. Yes we want results faster but B. We also feel more in CONTROL when we do more. The feeling that we are “acting” or taking action gives us a sense of control. Even though we may not actually be moving ourselves forward and ev...

Tracking our macros isn’t just about restricting what we’re eating to lose weight. It’s about truly learning how to FUEL. Because no matter what result you want to get, from losing weight to body recomposition to gaining muscle to fueling your endurance sport to even simply feeling more energized throughout the day, the macronutrient ratio you are consuming MATTERS. And by understanding macros, yo...

Legend-wait-for-it-dary I love hearing Barney say this in How I Met Your Mother. And almost every time I try to repeat the line, I somehow butcher it haha Anyway, the simple fact is… Not every day can be legendary or no days end up being legendary. You can’t know the good without the bad! BUT even on those not so ideal days we can take something out of them that moves us forward. Here are 4 questi...

So on my Unicorn coaching call this last week, I was trying to figure out another way to describe what I see as the issues we often blame on “age.” Because while, yes our body does change as we get older, so often so many of our issues are from well…a leaky ceiling we didn’t address. If you had a leak and over the years the water kept dripping in that same spot, you wouldn’t be surprised when, fin...

One of my amazing Unicorns  Ellen commented this in the group last week..."Maybe things are not going a 100% as I want them to go, maybe I am not doing as much as I would like to do....but I have a lot of lemons at the moment and not enough glasses to make lemonade in so I just make lemonade out of the lemons where I have the glasses for." So often we have a ton of things going on and si...

Progressions are earned… Often we feel like because we “can” do something? We should do it or we deserve to do it. But the question is…are you really doing it WELL? Are you actually optimizing the movement or doing it just for the sake of doing the “harder” variation? Are you putting a “bandaid” on the true problem? Applying a quick fix just to get through the workout? I don't like doing some...

Motivation that will burn out…especially often the more intense and restrictive we are to start. As cliche as it is…it really is true you’ve got to find a way to enjoy the journey. And that means creating new habits that do fit your lifestyle to some extent. Habits that you enjoy enough to keep repeating until they require no self control to do. Now…You won’t enjoy every habit to start that you ha...

One of my amazing Unicorns asked, “I was wondering if there were general “success” habits that you’ve noticed yourself and/or all clients who’ve met / exceeded their goals practice consistently on the daily?” One of the things I told her that I think is actually at the heart of whether or not we succeed is… We have to remember that we will NEVER be perfect with anything.  It's about learning...

When we start a new program we of course have “expectations” about what we’ll get out of it. But what if the reason we’ve never fully seen the results we want is because of our “expectations” of what the outcome will be? What if we are expecting too much? What if our binary definition of success is holding us back? What if the benefit of each thing we do isn’t as simple as “did we or did we not ge...

With our nutrition, it can be hard to make changes. For some reasons, any time we seek to make a change, we see any sort of tracking or logging as restrictive. But no matter our goals - from performance to aesthetics to health - understanding our diet better is key. And having data to make tweaks? Only makes it easier. We are the ones judging ourselves, not the tracking. And we have to remember, e...

As much as we can become scale obsessed, wanting to see that number go down, what we TRULY want is fat loss. I mean would you honestly care what that scale said if you loved how your arms looked in that tank top or fit back into your “skinny jeans?” NOPE!  You wouldn’t. And I can tell you from personal experience, fat loss doesn’t always mean losing weight on that scale. It can actually mean your...

Results Aren't Happening Fast Enough! HELP! I don’t care who you are or how much you know… Results never happen fast enough. And the even worse part? Often not only do results not happen fast enough but progress is NEVER linear. I bring this up because I know we are all guilty of wanting more. Of considering going to more extremes or doing more to try to get things to happen faster. Or on the...

The easiest path, the intuitive path and the RIGHT path? Aren’t usually one in the same. I shared this story in this video I did for my one on one coaching clients and I thought it was so relevant after seeing some comments in my Facebook group over the weekend, I wanted to share it with all of you… You know those bug zappers…You’d be sitting out there and just hear pop! Pop! Bug after bug would f...

EVERYONE has doubts, fears, times of insecurity. We all need reassurance at points. Feel down about our progress.  We all have a better and worse. I know it can seem like someone else has all of the answers, never has a moment’s doubt about themselves. But I’m sorry. We’re human. Pobody’s Nerfect. I was musing over this the other day when one of my coaching clients was talking about feeling down a...

Movement is medicine. Now I’m not saying that if you have an injury to just keep pushing through, but too often we simply do NOTHING. Then after some time off, we jump right back into what we were doing and wonder why we end up injured again. Why nothing changed. And it’s because we never addressed what lead to the injury in the first place. We never addressed postural distortions, compensations a...

While we want to work toward a new and improved version of ourselves, we have to remember… IT’S STILL US. Same flaws. Same struggles. Same reactions to things like restriction. So we need to remember who and want we are to address our needs and goals as we work to create changes.  We can’t go in thinking all of the sudden everything is just going to change because it is a new year. I actually thin...

This year was definitely….interesting. And there is a lot we can learn from the challenges to help us move forward and get even better results in 2021! Here are some key takeaways and tips to help you rock your goals and learn from the past. You can’t control what you can’t control Something is better than nothing Don’t delay, start today!  There will be ups and downs, but our goal is to make the...

With any goal comes sacrifice. Plain and simple. And the more "elite" the level you want to reach? The more sacrifices you'll probably have to make. Especially if you want results faster. While of course we can't out work time to some extent, the more we want results...well...now...the more sacrifices we will have to make. Versus the longer we are willing to commit to the proce...

"I'm too old." I call BS on this.  Do our goals change? Yup. Does our body change? Yup. But so much of what we state that we are too old for, we actually need to be doing more of. We also have to remember that fitness is always about ability. Our needs and goals do change. And they always will over time,  But more importantly, we have to recognize that lifestyle factors add up. And...

Change requires change no matter how you look at it And often the changes we need the most? Well they're uncomfortable. Changes that make us uncomfortable don't feel sustainable. They feel so against everything we've been doing we find excuses not to make them. We even find ways to try to VALIDATE not doing them. We waste time putting up more mental barriers against the changes inst...

Something is better than nothing and often it is the habits we still want to be consistent with. But also recognizing at times you need even just a MENTAL break can be key. You have 300 other days of the year to dial things in. Focus on your consistency around the holidays. Go in with a plan. How are you going to get back to it after? Meal prep before? Have healthy options on hand? Stay active! It...

Every move is an assessment We constantly need to assess and reassess what we feel working and how we are moving. Because things add up from our daily postures and new injuries impact things. Even different variations included in a new progression can fatigue and affect things. That’s why I utilize these 4 techniques to help me get more out of my training and use each move as a chance to assess an...