Stronger Together with Sandpoint Strength

Many women are told that fatigue, weight gain, poor sleep, mood changes, and low energy are simply part of getting older.

But what if they're not?

In this conversation, Sarah from Revival Wellness explains what actually happens during perimenopause, why hormone changes can start earlier than most women realize, and how those changes affect everything from energy and body composition to sleep, recovery, libido, and long-term health.

Whether you're experiencing symptoms yourself or trying to better understand what your spouse, friend, or family member is going through, this episode offers a practical and approachable look at one of the most important health conversations women aren't having often enough.

When Crystal Baines joined Sandpoint Strength, she was an overwhelmed single mom of five who couldn't run around the block without an asthma attack. More than a decade later, she's lost over 100 pounds, cut her body fat in half, performs weighted pull-ups, and coaches others through the same journey.

But this isn't a story about quick fixes.

It's about showing up when you don't feel like it, working through injuries, celebrating small wins, and realizing that lasting transformation comes from consistency—not perfection. If you've ever felt like you're too far behind or that change takes too long, Crystal's story is proof that steady progress can completely change your life.

At 67 years old, Lenny Hess isn't slowing down. He still skis, hikes, travels the world, climbs ladders for work, and is always planning his next adventure.

But getting started at the gym wasn't easy. Like many people, he was intimidated by what he thought CrossFit was and almost let that fear keep him away.

In this conversation, Lenny shares why accountability matters, how strength training has helped him keep doing the things he loves, and why staying active isn't about looking younger—it's about protecting the life you've built and continuing to say "yes" to new adventures.

Tonisha Monteith spent 14 years doing gymnastics she didn't want to do, quit at 18 when she dislocated her elbow, and spent the next two decades resisting anything that looked like a gym. In between, she had two kids, fostered five more, adopted three — including one she had a dream about before she knew he existed — navigated adrenal fatigue, panic attacks, and autoimmune issues, and tried CrossFit once when she was at her worst and walked out even more depleted.

Last August she walked into SSC and said just get me started. A few months later she became a coach.

This conversation covers all of it, including why the gym finally worked, what she thinks about youth sports, and why her mom — a gymnastics coach who wouldn't let her quit — is somehow still mostly right about everything.

Kenny loves lifting weights. He will tell you this repeatedly. But as he gets older and starts thinking about being around when his son has kids, and his kids have kids, he's paying a lot more attention to the numbers that predict whether he'll actually make it to that table.

This solo episode walks through five cardiovascular metrics — resting heart rate, heart rate recovery, heart rate variability, VO2 max, and blood pressure — what they mean, what you should be shooting for, how to measure them without getting lied to by your watch, and what to actually do about them. There's also a solid rant about HRV wearables that is entirely earned.

Aaron has done Hyrox solo and as a partner. Mike found it on his own, signed up, and trained for eight weeks — mostly so he'd have something to actually work toward. They finished together in 1:11, beat their goal time, and are both vaguely considering doing it again despite spending the final two weeks of training fantasizing about going back to regular class.

This is a debrief on what Hyrox actually is, what the training looked like, what the event felt like, why the running ruins everything, and whether this thing has staying power. Kenny is cautiously becoming a fan.

This is Sarah Adair's second conversation, and it's the one a lot of men have been waiting for. She covers everything that should be in a men's hormone blood panel — total testosterone, free testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin, estradiol, thyroid, cortisol, and why most of those numbers mean less than you think in isolation.

She also breaks down why the standard every-two-weeks intramuscular injection protocol creates exactly the peaks and crashes it's supposed to prevent, why estrogen in men is mostly not the problem people think it is, what actually happens to fertility on testosterone replacement and how to protect it, and what's behind the broader decades-long decline in male testosterone levels.

If you've ever been told your labs are "within normal range" and still felt like garbage, this one is for you.

Nick Bandy spent the winter working with football and softball athletes on strength, speed mechanics, and durability — and the feedback started coming back in April when they showed up to their first camps and outran everyone.

The point of this conversation is simple: if your kid plays a fall or winter sport, right now is when the work should start. Not six weeks before tryouts. Not the week school lets out. Now. Nick breaks down why that's true, what the summer speed camp is going to cover, and what the difference actually looks like when a kid shows up to their season having done the work.

Karie Lee Knoke called SSC asking about a women's fitness special. She said she needed to gain about 30 pounds and get a lot stronger. When pressed on why, she asked for an NDA.

She was preparing for Season 9 of Alone — 75 days solo in Labrador, a 50-pound recurve bow she could barely draw, a blizzard that lasted three days in November, and a final decision she had to make twice because the first time the lighting wasn't good enough.

She came in second. She came home at 90 pounds. It took two years for her full self to come back.

Recorded around Valentine's Day, this one is Kenny and Jenn talking through something they've had a thousand versions of privately — how your health affects your relationships, what happens when one partner starts improving and the other pulls them back to the couch, and why training for the person who picked you is a better goal than training for revenge.

They also get into GLP-1 medications and what's missing from most people's approach to them, why nutrition dogma creates food fear that outlasts the diet, and what the right metrics actually are when you're trying to measure progress.

It wanders a little. It's the good kind of wander.