You're Not a Smaller Man — So Quit Training Like One
You've been running some dude's program. The stronger option is live in the Training Lab — today.
I need you to hear this episode before your next workout, not after. It runs a few short minutes and it might save you wasted reps, wasted muscle, even a wasted year.
Quick picture, the one I see daily: a woman in the gym, following some dude around.
His sets.
His rest.
Three minutes on her phone between everything because his workout template said so. She’s working hard. She’s getting nothing for the effort. And she doesn’t know why.
Here’s why: you are not a smaller man.
You’re a different kind of meat puppet and almost every off-the-shelf program treats you like a scaled-down dude.
In today’s episode I lay out the truthies — peer-reviewed sports science, the kind nobody can argue with at Thanksgiving:
At the same intensity, you can squeeze out 2 to 4 more reps than he can. Copy his sets and he gets the stimulus while your muscles develop abandonment issues.
You recover faster between sets. His three-minute rest is your nap with extra steps. Hypertrophy ain’t happening in the nap.
You can handle roughly ten more working sets in a session before form falls apart. Ten. That’s an entire muscle group some template decided you didn’t get.
You bounce back faster between sessions too — your body is ready to train again before his program says you’re allowed to.
So if you’ve been busting your bazongas and the results don’t match the effort: it’s probably not you. It’s your strategy. Somebody handed you a program built for somebody else’s body. That’s fixable. By tomorrow morning, actually.
Here’s the strategy, and it’s already running:
The Deep Kimchi Training Lab app is the program built the other way around — for a woman with mileage, the stretch marks to prove it, and zero interest in spinning her wheels in the weight room.
What’s live in the Lab right now:
Upper Body Power — the brand-new workout phase. Six weeks, four days a week. Three upper days and one lower, because your legs don’t get a vacation just ‘cause we’re chasing a strong back and shoulders.
You climb for four weeks, week five every last set goes to failure, week six you deload and yes you’ll want to skip it and no you may not.
Newer lifters take the lighter end and the swaps — the program adjusts to meet you. Veterans chase the top of every range.
Two Day Strong — can’t give me four days? Give me two. Minimum effective dose, real progressive strength, no apology required.
The protein tracker — including the front-loaded GLP-1 mode, because if your appetite checks out by 2pm we put the protein where the hunger still lives.
And there’s a secret tucked inside the new cycle. Little movements on the pull days that look too small to bother with. They are not too small. They’re pointed at something in August, and I’m not telling you what yet. Paid members will figure it out around week three.
How you get in
One step. Go paid.
That’s the whole door — Training Lab app access comes with it, instructions hit your inbox, you’re logging your first session today.
It’s a coach in your pocket and in your corner.
This isn’t a stopwatch or a food shamer.
And your subscription does double duty: it keeps the lights on at Save Our Paws, the Romanian rescue I support pulling dogs and cats off the street and delivering them to a better life. Strong women, saved animals. That’s the deal.
UPGRADE TO PAID
You’ve spent years on programs that never once asked where your body actually is. A new opportunity for meaningful muscle — in spite of menopause — is always right around the corner. Might as well make it this one.
The door that says you can’t? It was never locked.
Your pal,
Michelle
P.S. —
Know a woman who’s been following some dude around the gym wondering why her body won’t budge? Forward her this email. That’s how this grows: one woman who deserves better handing it to the next.
Timestamps:
00:00 Cold open — bees, flies, and honey
00:27 Intro
00:44 Why this is for women of a fine vintage
01:03 The woman following a dude around the gym
01:27 You are not a smaller man
01:52 #1 — You can do more reps than he can
02:21 #2 — You don’t need his rest
02:45 #3 — You can handle more volume
03:06 #4 — You recover faster between sessions
03:27 Tangent: train with your menstrual cycle, not against it
04:09 It’s not you — it’s your strategy
04:41 Why the Training Lab app exists
04:56 New cycle: Upper Body Power
05:58 The August secret (just hang on the bar)
06:22 Two Day Strong
06:41 The smarter protein tracker (GLP-1)
07:02 How to get in + Save Our Paws
08:17 Follow + five stars
08:29 The cage isn’t locked
Get full access to Deep Kimchi at deepkimchi.substack.com/subscribe
