Hard is sexy
“ Hard is sexy. Hard is effective. Hard makes everything easier. Hard exercise is required to maintain and build the kind of muscle that supports health span not just life span.”
- Ericka Thomas
Transcript
Ep 187
Hard things series
Hard is sexy: Goldilocks got it wrong
Goldilocks got it wrong. At least when it comes to exercise. Hard is sexy. Hard is effective. Hard makes everything easier. Hard exercise is required to maintain and build the kind of muscle that supports health span not just life span. That’s our Work IN today. 3 necessary components in any health plan to find ease in the kind of hard effort that’s required for longevity while still supporting our nervous system.
First off let’s all get on the same page with what we mean when we say “hard” exercise or "High intensity" because that is a moving target and for many people especially beginner exercisers it can be a real turn off before they even begin.
Hard exercise in our context for today is anything that is over and above what you already know you can do. It doesn’t always mean working to total muscle failure although it can. And it doesn’t have to include high impact on the body.
If you have never exercised before anything and everything might be more than what you already know you can do. The body adapts relatively quickly and so that means we need to always be asking for more. Walking a little longer, a little faster, a little more weight, a little less rest, any way we can push the edge will do it. And it’s up to you as an individual to decide how fast you want to progress. If you’re new to movement, I highly recommend that you seek out a certified experienced fitness professional to help you get started with good form. It isn’t rocket science but most of us have developed some less than ideal movement and posture patterns through our lives that can lead to injury. So you want to get some help to literally and figuratively start on the right foot.
There are 3 areas that I have found helpful for myself and clients when diving into the kind of hard intense exercise that makes a real difference in the body and gets results. They have nothing to do with the body or the exercises themselves. Intention, Expectations, and Recovery.
Intention
As with all things, intention always comes first and it does matter. We get very different experiences in a work out if we’re coming from a place of punishment than we do from a place of purposeful progress.
It’s worth the time to sit down and think through exactly what and why you are doing this new hard thing called exercise. If you aren’t clear it’s going to be harder to 1. Make the appropriate choices to get results 2. Stay consistent for long enough to see those results. And if you’re working with a fit pro you need to be able to communicate with them exactly what you want.
Strong intentions go beyond what the eyes can see. Improving body composition and bone density is a stronger intention than simply dropping pounds.
Building muscle before and after menopause should be a primary intention for women. If for no other reason than to avoid frailty in the body as we age. The best time to start is right now.
Just an aside here. Losing weight is a fine goal but it’s actually a side effect of fitness and less important in the big picture. If your only goal is to lose weight and change nothing else, what will you do when you reach your goal weight? Stop doing what got you there? Many people do and that’s where the yoyo starts. But if instead of setting a goal you raise your standards for your overall health and wellbeing now all your choices will support a lifestyle where you can reach and stay at a healthy weight.
And that includes doing hard things. Because hard is sexy. And who doesn’t want to be sexy.
I encourage you to dig a little deeper here in the intention setting portion of your fitness adventure. Talk to a trainer if you need to, this is what we’re here for.
Expectations
In yoga we’re always telling students to let go of expectations and yes that can be a good thing. But in the case of hard high intensity workouts, managing expectations works better. I have found that stating up front that a workout is going to be tough is a good thing.
When I’m working out on my own I really need to tell myself that.
Here’s what it sounds like in my head…”This is going to be tough, really tough.It might be painful. I know you don’t want to do it, I don’t either, we might want to quit, but we CAN do this. We’re going to work hard now and then rest. And then we’re going to get stronger.” That’s my internal pep talk. Because let’s face it, in the moment, really hard things can feel endless and terrible, and if you don’t remind yourself that they don’t last forever you will quit too soon.
I say something to this effect at the beginning of all my higher intensity classes. Then we’re all prepared to rise to the challenge.
When people first start out on a strength or fitness program there’s not usually any kind of frame of reference for what to expect. You don’t know what you can do and no one wants to get injured. That’s why working with a fit pro is so important but also so they can help you choose a starting point and then progress you to the next level. In the beginning all of what seems like strength gains are actually coming from simply learning how to do the exercises. The body and the brain are reconnecting and learning to move. That has to happen first. Then we can start to get into the good stuff. Like the endorphin rush from a good hard burn.
If you’ve not heard of it before it’s sometimes called a runners high, but any type of exercise will do it.
For some people it takes longer to find that rush because that hormone pathway may be impaired from chronic pain or inflammation or simple lack of movement. But it can improve over time if you can stay consistent for long enough. I suspect, although I don’t know for sure, that these are some of the folks who flat out hate exercise. And with good reason. Because they never get that feel-good hit afterwards from our internal pharmacology that keeps them coming back.
This brings us to the mindset issue of finding ease in the effort. Expectation touches on this. If you decide that you hate working out before you even start, think constantly that you hate it, and say how much you hate it I can almost guarantee you will fail. I have fired clients for that kind of behavior. Because that’s what thoughts like that are, they are behavior. And if you want a new standard of health for yourself you need to adopt new behaviors that include how you think, not just what you do.
Finding ease in the effort no matter how much effort is a valuable skill. I think of it like when you see a professional athlete or performer or artist, or whatever and you think, wow they make it look so easy. Why is that? Is it because it IS easy? No. It’s because they put the work in to get themselves to that level of performance. You can have that too by relaxing your mind as you move and keeping the effort where it belongs. In the body rather than fighting and resisting in your mind.
Recovery
This might seem like a no-brainer when you’re working out hard, but I’m always surprised at how many people resist the idea of recovery. Or simply don’t understand it. I think there’s a myth here that we can bust around how we actually get stronger. During the hard thing,whatever the exercise is, that is NOT when we are getting stronger. That is just the ask. In other words this hard thing is how you ask the body to give you more. The actual building comes during recovery and rest. There’s not time to build and repair when the body is literally trying to survive and keep you alive in that bootcamp. It has to wait and refuel and then it can build and repair the muscles and improve your cardiovascular function and replenish glycogen stores. That is where the body magic happens.
It’s during recovery after heavy high intensity weight training that our metabolism does its magic. Improving insulin sensitivity, strengthening heart and blood vessels, and building bone.
We can jumpstart recovery into that state after any kind of high intensity training by harnessing the power of the parasympathetic nervous system. And it's so simple. Take 5 minutes to lay down on the ground and do box breathing at the end of your workout will communicate to the nervous system that we’re safe and we can get started on the repairs. The faster you can shift out of the sympathetic and into parasympathetic the better your body can recover.
We can’t always be at a peak fitness level. Trying to stay there is actually a plateau. Planning in active recovery breaks into your program can jumpstart your progress all along the way. It isn’t going to be linear, it'll be more like stair steps. Again that’s something a fit pro can help you with.
Another critical piece of recovery is how we fuel the body. Nutrition and nourishment is vital in order to be able to do hard things in the gym and hard things in life. That’s where we get all that energy. And that’s what we’ll be talking about next week on the Work IN as we continue our hard things series. So stay tuned!
Now having said all this I’d like to acknowledge the fact that for some of us because of our past trauma wounding, the hardest thing we can do is show up for ourselves. And that sometimes means simply walking through the door or making a phone call to get started. If this is you, know that you aren’t alone. There are trauma informed fitness professionals who can help. The hard things we do aren’t always physical and working through them can be just as powerful for our health and wellbeing.
Thanks for listening today!
If you're looking for ways to handle the effects of stress, physically, mentally and emotionally through the body head over to savagegracecoaching.com/theworkin you’ll find all the show notes for this and other episodes plus lots of free resources. And if you’re in a place where you are ready for more and you live in the Dayton Ohio area I’m taking private clients for trauma informed yoga and trauma release exercise in person and online. So you can book a discovery call and we can have a real life conversation. And of course I’d be ever so grateful if you would take a moment to like and subscribe to this podcast wherever you’re listening.
Thanks again everyone and as always stop working out and start working IN.
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Hey there!
I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a health coach and trauma informed yoga professional bringing real world resilience and healing to main street USA.
I offer trauma release + yoga + wellness education for groups and individuals…regular people like you.
Book a call to learn how I can help.