In this conversation, Cheryl McColgan emphasizes the importance of strength training for overall health, particularly as we age. She discusses how even short sessions can be effective and encourages listeners to incorporate strength and stability exercises into their routines.

Cheryl highlights the benefits of consistency and the need to challenge oneself with appropriate weights to stimulate muscle growth. She also addresses common misconceptions about strength training and reassures listeners that it’s never too late to start.

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Episode Transcript

Cheryl McColgan (00:01.902)
Hey everyone, I’m Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal Nourish Grow and welcome to a day 25 of your 30 day healthy habits challenge. This is one I’ve been waiting for to send to the very end here the last few days and that is to challenge you to do a short strength or stability session. So this is not going to require any equipment. It’s not going to require going to the gym or anything like that. But I just want you to try it if this is something that you don’t do on a regular basis.

because strength training has just so related to so many aspects of health. There’s more and more stuff coming about all the time. It is maybe more important than strict cardio for a lot of reasons, but it supports again, functional health, just moving around on a day-to-day basis. And it’s a lot of longer term, less health risks when you strength train. So strength and stability, it all supports healthy aging, it supports confidence and just again, your function in daily life. I always say,

you I’m training to be able to get off the toilet by myself when I get older because these are the kind of things that people lose the ability to do because they lose the strength in their legs. And that is just crazy scary. Also short short sessions are easier to maintain and it builds this consistency, which is an awesome thing for habit building. I’ve actually been following along with this other podcast recently called mind pump. I’m pretty sure that’s right. Like 99.9 % sure. But anyway, these guys have been

training people for years and years and years and just a great collective wealth of knowledge. And they have programs that are just 15 minutes a day. Now people do them six days a week for strength training, but that 15 minutes a day, it supports the habit, keeps the habit going. And it’s enough time if you do for 15 minutes, you probably do two to three sets of some strength training exercise, kind of a full body.

idea and they’re doing all the big lifts like deadlifts, squats, lunges, that sorts of thing. I don’t have their program unfortunately, but that’s the idea behind it is supporting this daily habit, doing it an amount of time that doesn’t scare people off and that people can fit into their schedule. And that’s all it takes to build strength. You can build strength with that little of strength training a day. And actually if you didn’t want to do it 15 minutes a day, like if you would have to go to a gym to do this and that seems like, oh, that’s a lot of

Cheryl McColgan (02:26.766)
driving time to go to the gym for just 15 minutes of work, even just two days a week of a longer strength training session that hits all parts of your body is enough to get 80 % of the 80 to 90 % of the strength that you’re going to get anyway. It comes from just two days a week. You’re hitting your muscles two days a week. You’re waking up the muscles two days a week. You’re stimulating the muscles to grow by lifting heavy enough that it puts a signal in your body to grow.

If you’re just doing something little and repetitive, that’s not a signal for the body to grow. That’s why you got to lift heavy for you. People get scared when they hear lift heavy because they think it means, you know, for example, that I would go pick up a 200 pound, you know, barbell off the floor. No, that is not. That’s too heavy for me. Right. I’ve got to do what’s heavy for me. And that means something that I can pick up and do maybe six, eight, 10, 12 reps. That’s the kind of range that’s really good for strength building and growing muscle.

And so you want to just do something that’s heavy enough for you doing these little two pound weights. If you’re, you know, even the average woman that might that even if it’s heavy for her, like for a week or two, that’s very quickly going to be too little of weight to cause any real change. So sorry for the little that was a bit tangential, but I just to get the idea of you definitely want to do it. If you’re going to go ahead and do it, like at least give yourself enough.

of a challenge that it makes some difference. Now, all that being said, I said you don’t need any equipment for this one and you don’t because especially if this is completely new to you doing body weight exercises and things at home are going to be plenty of new stimulus for you to try. If you already lift, you already have access to a gym, then I would just maybe challenge you to try a couple of exercises that you haven’t, don’t normally do or you don’t normally.

or maybe if you already strength train, you don’t have the stability part as much, maybe you’re gonna try some stability work for this part of the challenge. So just choose like a little, you can make a little circuit mentally for yourself that you’re gonna spend 10 minutes doing this. And so again, if you don’t have any equipment home or anything, maybe it’s an odd and you can just do this if you find it too stressful to think about figuring this out for yourself. Air squats, so just body weight squats. And if you don’t recognize any of these things, if you look here on look on YouTube,

Cheryl McColgan (04:47.554)
You’ll find plenty of videos that will demonstrate this for you, but simple body weight squats you can do sit to stand. So if you are worried that even a squat might be too much for you or too stressful, you want to just literally lower yourself down slowly to a chair and then bring yourself back up using the strength of your legs. So not pushing off with your, know, really using the strength of your body and your core to push you back up out of the chair. You can do some hinge work. So just literally

bending over or if you have milk jugs or soup cans or things like that in the house, if it’s just way too easy for you bending over pretending you’re gonna pick something off the floor, maybe actually have some milk jugs, something like that. And then you could also do pushups. Everybody knows what that looks like. You can do pushups against the wall if you’re not very strong. And if you’re already very strong, you can just do pushups as many as you can in a row would be a great challenge. also wall sits like literally

bending so that your quads, your quadriceps, the tops, your thighs are parallel to the floor and leaning your back against the wall and just sitting there. That’s an isometric exercise, also very strengthening. So those are all just it. So just 10 minutes, you’re gonna move your body in some ways you haven’t tried yet. If you’re looking to create stability, some balance types of things, most people don’t do those on a regular basis. It would always be surprising to me when I was in yoga class, we’d have.

obviously a whole section of that that was balance of balancing on one leg in some way, whether it’s stretching at the same time, holding a foot while you’re balancing on one leg or just simply balancing on one leg without the stability of a wall, something like that could be a good option for this part of the challenge too. So there shouldn’t be too much concern about figuring something out because there’s so many videos online now and just

Don’t pick anything that looks crazy or out of whack or too, too challenging. Just, you know, pick something that makes sense for where you are in your body right now and your current strength and skill level and just make it a little challenging. Maybe make it something new. But getting out of your comfort zone in regards to strength training, think particularly for some women, this is still a barrier. And it’s just such a shame because the

Cheryl McColgan (07:03.362)
things that happen with old age, especially to us women, bone loss, bone density, osteoporosis, osteopenia, all of that can be prevented and reversed. There’s some excellent data on reversing osteopenia and osteoporosis through strength training. So that’s pretty amazing. then sarcopenia, that is the loss of muscle mass as we get older. And if you don’t move, if you don’t put that stress on your muscles, we just continually lose muscle mass.

as we get older and older and become that’s how we become frail. That’s how people are not able to get off the toilet by themselves. That’s how people, you know, quit moving their bodies because they don’t have the strength to anymore. Again, though, this can all be reversed. I think that’s amazing news. But what I’d really love for you to happen is if you can make it a habit now.

and get as strong as you can now. Hey, believe me, it all, it all goes downhill. It’s all fightable. It’s all reversible, but the older you get, the more challenging it gets for a number of reasons. It gets more challenging mentally. gets more, you know, your time is, uh, tends to be more valuable just cause you’re busier as you get older, more demanding job, children, things like that. So whatever age you are now though, it is not too late. It’s not never too late to get started with strength training. You’ve just got to make it appropriate for where your body is now.

and make it consistent. And like I said, if you’re going to do it every day, that is totally fine. Keep it shorter if you’re doing it every day. And if you’re nervous, you can always hire a trainer or like I said, look at videos online, practice the movement at home, feel confident in the movement before you take it to a gym or like I said, hire a trainer. That’s always a good option so that you have somebody that’s there with you that can just guide you and walk you through it and teach you how to use machines, things like that.

So anyway, that is your challenge for today. I hope you enjoy moving your body in this way and challenging yourself. Like I said, make sure you, if you’re using weights in this little part of the challenge, make sure you pick up something heavy enough that’s actually challenging for you. Don’t just like move some little two pound weights around and think that that’s enough. We’re going to like actually try to stimulate some muscle protein synthesis here. So anyway, that is it for today and I will see you again tomorrow.