CategoriesFemale Training mindset muscle growth Program Design Strength Training

Maybe Less Isn’t More

Peruse pretty much any fitness magazine targeted to women and you’ll inevitably see words like, “lose, fat-loss, tight, drop a size, tiny, hot, and lean” plastered all over its pages. This is unfortunate.

Women are programmed, often at an early age, to be less, that in order to be attractive and have self-worth, the smaller you are the better.

I say: Bull to the shit.

It’s no secret I’m a firm advocate for women to strength train. Time and time and time again I witness women transform their bodies (and mindsets) when they choose to nix the endless elliptical sessions in lieu of picking up some barbells.1

There is nothing wrong with choosing to be more.

I am pumped to help promote The Bigness Project from Kourtney Thomas and Jen Sinkler. It’s everything I’m a fan of when it comes to directing women to the right kind of information.

Please enjoy the guest post Kourtney was kind enough to write below.

Maybe Less Isn’t More

I used to be one of those women who made a point to talk about how little space I took up. I’d brag about taking the first middle seat I came to on a Southwest flight because, “I’m just a little girl!” On top of that, I made a point of keeping everything about my already small body as tiny as possible. Because, after all, being less is more when it comes to women’s bodies, right?

More like “Yeah right!”

Over the years, I eventually began to see that there was another way to go. And while, yes, I do walk around in a petite frame, I’ve come to see that what I do with it and how I carry myself can convey a whole different message.

When I first got into fitness, though, it was pretty much cardio only for me. I loved group cycling and endurance running. I enjoyed sweating all over the floor teaching a high-energy cycling class, and I loved running out to the middle of nowhere and melting into nature and myself.

At the time, I didn’t yet grasp that my participation in each of these sports tended to reinforce that same, constant message for me: that less is more. Endurance runners have to be rail-thin so they can be fast. Group cycling classes will claim to burn a gazillion or so calories. The rest, if not explicitly stated, is often implied in skewed marketing messages: stay little.

In time, I experimented and found my way to some weight training. But I started with methods I thought wouldn’t make me too big or bulky. And obviously, to burn more calories, because I still believed that less was more. Along the way, I began to see glimpses of a different way though. Who is this Jen Sinkler person, and what is this Lift Weights Faster stuff I see? Oh my goodness, Girls Gone Strong?

Strong? What a novel concept!

And women were using…what was that called again? A barbell? I was clueless and petrified to touch the thing for the first time, but I eventually gave myself a dose of my own tough love, sucked it up, and walked into the weight room one day. As it turned out, it wasn’t so bad, and I felt capable of being there! (I also realized not everyone knew what they were doing in there.)

And, so, I started with strong, and I believe in that wholeheartedly. I completely agree with Tony when he says that training for performance in lifting is a great place to start. I not only saw my strength come up substantially, but as Tony has also mentioned many times before, I began to see significant physical changes in my body shape and composition.

I was getting bigger. Bigger! Everywhere. And I liked it.

I liked it so much, in fact, that it became my primary goal. I’ll never forget writing my initial email to my first coach and my No. 1 goal as “Gain some size. As much hypertrophy as possible.” Oh, how different that was from the last 30 or so years of my life — that a woman should actively say to herself, I don’t want to shrink. I want to grow! I don’t want to lose weight. I want to gain! And then deliberately work toward getting bigger?

It took a little time to get behind fully, I’ll admit. Just like so many other women, I’ve been conditioned by the mainstream messaging to know nothing other than slender, slim, and thin-is-in. Not to mention, quiet, polite, and ladylike. Flipping the script on all of that doesn’t happen overnight. But changing my training focus to hypertrophy not only helped me to discover the most fun kind of training ever (seriously!), but it helped me to embrace my own body, more than I ever thought possible.

I used to hate my “linebacker shoulders” and big arms. Now? Are you kidding me? Let’s beef ’em up so I can bust out of my sleeves! I used to cringe at my outer thighs and cover them up with my hands so they’d look like the ones I saw in the magazines. Now? I cannot stop leg pressing because I want to see my muscles through my pants.

Letting go of less is more was freeing. It was empowering. It was a gift, an open door to start exploring what other mainstream misconceptions might be out there. I’ve always been one to go a bit against the grain and question the norm, and while it took me a little while longer to do it when it came to what I wanted for my body, when I got there? Everything changed.

Loving my big arms (and doing 10,000 biceps curls) enriched my life exponentially and boosted my confidence about everything through the stratosphere. Who would have thought that working deliberately to bulk up would have that effect? Oh, and it also happened to have the effect of creating a physique that I, personally, consider totally rockin’.

More muscles has meant more everything for me. More quality relationships, more fun, more business, more love. All of it — seriously — because I made a choice to defy that less is more rhetoric and train specifically to be bigger.

Because, sometimes? More is more.

Are You Ready for the Bigtime?

The Bigness Project is a brand-new hypertrophy-training program built to get you built. Written by Kourtney Thomas, a strength and conditioning coach who has spent the last few years focused on the small details that will get you big, this program—or “brogram,” as she refers to it in the most gender-neutral of ways—delivers on the promise of bigger arms and a bigger life.

Consisting of tried-and-true muscle-building techniques, The Bigness Project will guide you through 14 weeks of training that will support your overall strength, develop a stronger mind-muscle connection, and give you a look that leaves no doubt that you lift weights.

Designed for lifters of any experience level, The Bigness Project includes:

  •       A comprehensive User Manual that explains the philosophy behind the program and walks you step-by-step through every aspect of Bigness training and lifestyle.
  •       14-week hypertrophy training program.
  •       A complete exercise glossary including 95 written and photo demonstrations of every movement in the program.
  •       A video library containing 20 in-depth explanations of the most detailed movements and components of the program.

Now available—all aboard the gainz train! To celebrate the kickoff of the Bigness Project, the program is on sale now. Get your copy HERE and join us in the gym this week!

About Kourtney Thomas

Kourtney Thomas is a personal trainer and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with a passion for empowerment and hypertrophy training for women, which she coaches virtually with Kourtney Thomas Fitness. When she’s not at the gym doing some variation of biceps curls, Kourtney loves to ride her Harley-Davidson Softail Deluxe anytime the weather is above 50 degrees, travel to national parks, stay up too late reading copious amounts of science fiction and fantasy, and bake elaborate cakes and cookies—because something has to fuel those gains. Drawing on the above, her personal motto is “Big Arms, Big Life,” and she lives by that daily.

CategoriesFemale Training

The Problem With “Female Specific” Training

Before I dive into the meat and potatoes of this tightly batched, to-the-point, soiree of a fitness article lets first address the obvious…

It’s bonkers that in this day and age if you Google the term “female training” or “women’s fitness” you’re inundated with images like this:

20821722 - fitness instructor exercising with small weights in green park

Copyright: zoomteam / 123RF Stock Photo

We all know what it implies:

1. Donald Trump is bat-shit crazy.

AND

2. Women should train with light weights (presumably for higher reps) for that “toned” and “sleek” look many are after.

And we all know what my reaction is:

Somewhere between wanting to toss an ax into my face and this:

GIF in #Dumbfounded

To say I feel it oozes a toxic tone and connotation – that woman shouldn’t (or can’t?) train with appreciable weights – would be an understatement. Not only does it set women’s fitness back decades (I’m talking pre-Thigh Master era), but it also would make Susan B. Anthony shit a copy of “Hey, You, Woman, Get Back In the Kitchen and Make Me a Sandwich” out of pure rage and embarrassment.

For the Record: the above book doesn’t exist.

I’ve written several pieces on this site (HERE , HERE, and HERE, for example) extolling some of my thoughts on the topic of training women. I’d be remiss not to at least entertain the idea that there are many women out there who, by and large, could care less about deadlifting 1.5x bodyweight, performing a strict, un-assisted chin-up, or doing anything with a barbell on their back.

As much of a fan as I am of encouraging women to pursue performance-based goals, many are happy (and do very well) following programs that suggest they use “light” weights or no weights at all.2

Hey, anything that nudges anyone into a consistent behavior that gets them active where the alternative is binge-watching Netflix is cool with me.

However, being the strength coach that I am, I’m biased, and feel such programs (you know, the ones that promise 10-20 lbs. lost in one week, but only if you follow a cabbage soup detox sprinkled with belly-button lint from a Centaur) lead to inferior results.

In all the articles I’ve written and points I’ve made detailing my beefs with female specific training and the problems I have with it, there’s one “thing” I’ve always neglected to point out.

The Biggest Problem With Female Specific Training is Using the Term “Female Specific Training” In the First Place

I kinda feel stupid for not addressing this obvious point sooner.

I remember listening to a story Mike Boyle said once where he chuckles every time he comes across a “ACL Prevention Program,” particularly when it comes to female athletes.

It’s BS.

Yeah, yeah, we can talk about how research demonstrates that female athletes are 6-8x more likely to tear their ACL compared to their male counterparts, how Q-angles enter the conversation, and even how estrogen receptors during the menstrual cycle can affect things.

20561464 - image of young woman football player hitting ball

Copyright: nexusplexus / 123RF Stock Photo

But at the end of the day, as Boyle noted, there’s no such a thing as an “ACL prevention program.” Any well-designed program that focuses on getting athletes stronger (particularly the posterior chain), teaches them how to decelerate and land properly, as well as works on change of direction and movement quality in general is an ACL prevention program in its own right.

And lets just call a spade a spade:  I don’t think it’s so much an ACL issue with women as it is “they’re just weak” issue.

Now, this doesn’t apply to all women of course. But generally speaking many women are “hand held” when it comes to programming (see above) and it just comes down to getting them stronger.  Plain and simple.

So while I do agree there sometimes exists a slight dichotomy between men and women, what their goals are, how they’d like to look, and how that affects our approach to training them, any program that teaches the basic movements – squat, hip hinge, push, pull, lunge, carry – caters those movements to fit the individual needs, ability level, and anatomy of the person, and then follows suit with the principles of progressive overload….is a (good) program.

Do we really need to call it “female specific?”

CategoriesFemale Training

Some Thoughts On Training Women (Post # I Don’t Know, I Lost Count)

“Can we please just shut-up about Tracy Anderson!?!”

Those were some powerful words uttered by David Dellanave of Movement Minneapolis last weekend during the Expert Panel at The Fitness Summit.

Up until that point a fair amount of Tracy Anderson bashing had accumulated, partly in jest (as the brunt of some jokes), but too, partly because her name came up in several presentations (mine included) as a talking point about the the state of the industry, and I think Dave just kinda got sick of it.

The tipping point, I believe, was when powerlifter, T-Nation writer, and overall nice guy, Greg Nuckols, asked the panel a simple, albeit powerful question: “How do we promote good training information without turning people off from training?”

On an aside, I watched Greg PAUSE squat – ass-to-grass no less – 585 lbs for an easy, clean single last weekend.  I secretly hate him….;o)

As my friend, Harold Gibbons, noted in his summation of the entire event, “This question was posed in contrast to a conversation at the time that discussed how we as an industry can do battle with some of the horrible training suggestions out there.  I say “battle” and “horrible” because we can all be vocal about the disregard for science and safety from certain training methodologies.  While I don’t agree with some of them, I don’t know if these people deserve to be cast as pariahs, as much as we can accept them as well intentioned and flawed with opportunity for growth.”

I’ll be the first to call myself out here.  I’ve done my fair share of championing the charge against the likes of Tracy Anderson, Jillian Michaels, or any other example you can come up with.

On one hand it seems a bit misguided or hypocritical (and I’ve even been called jealous) given the thousands of testimonials they have from women all over the world who have followed their advice with great success and lost “x” amount of weight performing their programs.

That should be commended.  Kind of.

You see, extenuating circumstances aside (medical issues), it isn’t hard to get people to lose weight. Take them from doing nothing to doing something, and “stuff” will happen. How’s that for science!?!

What I hate, what really ruffles my feathers, gets my goat, and makes me go bat-shit crazy….is the incessant fear mongering that the likes of Tracy Anderson gravitates towards and advocates.

Here’s a sampling of some of her better known gems:

“No woman should ever lift a weight above 3 lbs.”

“While running, strength training, and cycling may burn calories, they do not design feminine muscle or get rid of an imbalance that may masquerade as a “problem area.”

“I would never recommend (kettlebells) to women, even women who are fans of bulkier muscle lines.  While bulkier muscles looks OK on women in the 20s and 30s, it doesn’t age well.”

And while I don’t like to use ad hominem attacks as part of an argument, I do find it somewhat “odd” that for as much as Ms. Anderson is an advocate of her own method (as she should be), and for as much as she advocates for a certain look and bastardizes strength training for women…..she’s had fair amount of plastic surgery done.

Doesn’t THAT seem a bit hypocritical?  In an offhanded way, we could make the argument that not even Tracy Anderson got to look like Tracy Anderson by doing the Tracy Anderson Method. #Wordplay

But anyways, getting back on track, she’s a master at toying with women’s emotions and irrational fears towards lifting weights.

Does her method get results?  I guess.  I mean, I can Google “Tracy Anderson before and after pictures” and get a few hundred pages of evidence.  And that should be commended.  To a point.

Stealing some commentary from “Brent” who left this comment on an old(er) blog post the other day:

Any dipshit can teach to the test, or run a client into the ground, get them to lose x amount of pounds and show off their ‘success’ (usually its even easier in the fitness industry because clients come to you, usually somewhat motivated and willing to do what the ‘expert’ tells them to).

Setting up someone for long term success isn’t immediately quantifiable and is quite a bit harder. Kinda requires skill. It’s why any trainer can have a buttload of ‘success’ stories. The goal though is empowerment (at least in my mind) and setting one up for long-term success. This is more difficult to market though and frankly not as sexy.

Anytime I critique a trainer and someone says ‘yeah but they get good results..”) I just tell them Jillian Michaels and Tracy Anderson have thousands of positive testimonials, weight loss success stories, tweeter followers etc. Smart peeps in the fitness industry bash them though because they do nothing to empower their clients and set them up for long term success. I wonder how many of their clients or Biggest Loser winners come back years later and are like ‘wow, you really changed my life! 

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

In a roundabout way, this goes back to my presentation last weekend where I talked about some of my strategies when it comes to training women.

I brought up Tracy Anderson to showcase a point:  that fear mongering, feeding into, and placating into the irrational fears of (some) women is not doing anyone any favors.

At Cressey Performance we don’t feel women need to train any differently than men. 90% of what we do is the same across the board whether you have a the Y chromosome or not.

I was going to toss in a Sex and the City joke here, and showcase women’s unparalleled infatuation with it, but then I realized I’ve actually watched every episode.  And [cue high-pitched voice here] looooooooooooved it.

Our gals are deadlifting, squatting, bench pressing, performing chin-ups and push-ups, and otherwise TRAINING like the guys.

What stands out, oftentimes, is the psychology that comes with training women.

Men tend to be more Temporal Comparative, where they compete or compare against themselves.

What did I deadlift last week?

What did I squat last week?

How much do I weigh now compared to last month?

Guys tend be more interested in what they, themselves, are doing.

Conversely, women tend to be more Societal Comparative, and compare themselves to other women.

She’s doing “x” amount of weight on the bench press, how come I’m not doing that much?

She has an amazing back.  Why doesn’t mine look that way?

I can’t believe she’s wearing that to the gym. What a ho!

I once had a 50+ year old female client who would beat herself up and downgrade HER results, because she didn’t look like the 22 year-old former Division I female athlete who trained at the the same time as her.

Part of my job as their coach is to help them turn off the negative and unrealistic messages they’re inundated with as they watch television or walk through the magazine aisle, and teach them to compete against themselves.

While it may take some women longer than others to buy into, one of the best things I can do is to get them to focus more on performance based goals rather than less quantifiable goals such as scale weight.

Of course, some women may need to lose some weight….and that’s fine.  But the sooner I get them to focus more on performance based goals like working towards performing a strict push-up on the ground or squatting their bodyweight for reps – the less they are s slave to the scale.  And that’s HUGE!!!

Scale weight doesn’t tell you anything!

The work and effort it will take to eventually be able to do a push-up from the ground, or squat one’s bodyweight for reps, or to be able to perform a strict body-weight chin-up trumps ANYTHING you can do with a pink dumbbell or an elliptical machine or a Tracy Anderson DVD.

Sorry if that rubs some people the wrong way…..but that’s just the way things are.

Of course, if strength training isn’t your bag, and you prefer to use pink dumbbells, perform yoga, and run a treadmill, go for it!!!  As noted earlier: anything is better than nothing. If you like the way you feel doing those things, and your proud of your body….awesome.  You get a gold star.

But please don’t be the person who, despite going to the gym 5x per week, bitches and whines that you never seem to get the results you’re after – or if you do, that they never stick for longer than a few weeks or months – and then continue to repeat the same process over and over and over again.

What was it Einstein said about insanity again?  If you continue doing the same thing(s) expecting a different result…….

Likewise, if you’re a fitness professional reading this post, I implore and encourage you to learn to EMPOWER your clients (both female and male).  Teach them the skills they’ll need to make LONG-TERM progress, be their coach! COACH THEM!!!!!  

So while I understand I set myself up for snarky comments by starting a post off with “can we please just shut up about Tracy Anderson,” and then proceeded to write another blog post on Tracy Anderson…….I hope people can appreciate the overall message/tone.

Which, in a roundabout way can be summarized like this:

One of the best compliments you can receive from a client is when they no longer need your services.

When they finally reach their goal(s), are able to make them stick, and can then look you pointblank in the eyes and say “I got this,” your job is done.

There’s no need to exploit people and cater to their fears.

CategoriesFemale Training Motivational

Want To Really Earn Your Cake?

My sincerest thoughts go out to all of those who live in the NorthEast (particularly New England), and it’s my hope everyone made it through Snowmeggedon 2013 safely and without much incident.

I’m not going to sugarcoat anything: Boston got its butt handed to it, with roughly 30+ inches of snow. We woke up Saturday morning, looked outside, and both Lisa and I were like “whoa!”  After a few cups of tea, about a lb of bacon, a pep talk, and Lisa dressing me up like the little brother from A Christmas Story (I can’t move my arms!!!), I eventually made the trek out to do my fair share of the shoveling.

But being a central New Yorker at heart, and having grown up in the lake effect snow capital of the world, the storm paled in comparison to some of the doozies I experiences growing up.

However, just to give a bit more scope of how much snow we actually got, here’s a picture we snapped of someone’s car completely buried.

I spent a good hour digging out my car, and also did the good samaritan thing and shoveled out the two cars parked next to me as well.  It never hurts to earn some quality karma points in my book!

Anyways, the city was pretty much shut down for two days – no public transportation as well as a ban on driving (and parking) – while plans were made to remove all the snow.

By late yesterday morning (Sunday), all the main roads were cleared, or at least drivable, and most of the side streets were passable (albeit most were one-lane only), which is a testament to the city and all the folks who worked tirelessly to clean things up.

Well done, everyone.  Well done.

My only point of contention – and I realize I’m setting myself up as the ornery jerk here – is that I really wish the recreational runners of Boston would have some freakin common sense.

Now, I have absolutely nothing against runners, and I think any form exercise is better than nothing.

Having said that, while driving to work yesterday, on more than one occasion, I had to swerve to avoid someone running IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STEEET!!!!

As it was, the roads were narrow enough due to the mountains of snow everywhere. And it certainly didn’t make things easier to have to maneuver my car Jason Bourne style around human beings.

What really irked me was the borderline cavalier attitude many (not all) of them had. As if it was perfectly normal to be running in the middle of the street the day after one of the biggest winter storms in more than 20 years.

Okay, more power to them. And I respect anyone who will still go out of their way to not skip a workout.

But have a little feel!

La-la-la-la-la-dee-de-dum-la-la. Oh look!  I-95 is clear!!!  Fartleks!!!!!!!!!!

Likewise, the sidewalks weren’t much better.  Most were very narrow and very icy, yet when walking to the store to get some needed items, both Lisa and I (as well as all the other pedestrians out) had to dodge all the various runners zipping past as if they were getting any benefit for being out there in the first place.  I mean, it seemed like most were attempting to NOT break an ankle rather than trying to maintain a specific tempo.

Would it have killed them to skip one day, or, if they really needed to get their heart rate up, to I don’t know, shovel a sidewalk???

Okay, I’ll step off my soapbox now. Just talking about it makes me want to jump through a window.

Switching gears, the snowstorm served as an impetus for something else, too. Something a little less irritating.  It gave me the opportunity to catch up on some much needed reading.

I was sent a copy of Dan John’s latest book, Intervention, a few weeks ago and unfortunately it was relegated to my “to read later when I have time” pile.

Since I wasn’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future, I decided to hunker down and read a few chapters.

Not surprisingly, I loved it!  I pretty much love anything Dan John writes, and this was no different. And why not:  he has over 30+ year of coaching experience.

While I still have a ways to go before I finish it, there was one passage I wanted to share that really resonated with me and helped feed into my incessant campaign on why I continue to encourage women to turn to strength training in lieu of those lame cardio-pump classes.

And yes, sometimes even running.

Here’s the passage:

Recently, a woman told me her friends can’t make a mistake.

What? Well, what she told me was this: Since they were attacking fat loss with aerobic work and strict dieting, they didn’t have any wiggle room. The woman, who holds herself nearly year-round at a very impressive 19% bodyfat, told me she enjoys desserts, cocktails, BBQs and fine food. But, and this is a big but, she can also do 10 pullups. She is very strong in the weightroom. In other words, her glass is so big, she can afford to cheat a little here and there.

That made no sense to me. Then I watched her train and thought about some other women I work with. When she presses an impressive kettlebell overhead (half her bodyweight with one hand!), her entire system has to gather up resources, and then adapt and recover from the effort. When little Edna at my gym thinks the five-pound dumbbell is heavy, she isn’t going to tax her body very hard.

Edna can’t eat cake.

Ladies: read that again and let it sink in. I’ll explain a few things in a second.

I’m not kidding, read it again.

Now for most, you may be wondering what the whole ” her glass is so big, she can afford to cheat a little hear and there” means.

What kind of glass are we talking about here?  A standard 8 oz glass?  A wine glass?  An Optimus Prime collectors mug I got in a Happy Meal circa 1985?

Well, any glass really. The idea, though, is to make the glass bigger!

This is an analogy I first heard from Eric Cressey in his Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual, and again later on from Master RKC instructor, Brett Jones.

Think of strength as a glass, and the water inside the glass as all the “qualities” we train for:  endurance, strength-endurance, power, agility, speed strength, strength speed, having the ability to somehow take F.O.R.E.V.E.R in the bathroom getting ready, you know, those types of things.

The smaller your glass, the less “qualities” you’re able to express, let alone at a high level.  That said…..

Strength is the basis for everything. 

You can’t be “fast” without having some semblance of strength (or horsepower) in reserve.  You can’t improve your timed mile, or taking a bit further, your marathon time if you can’t generate more force into the ground to propel yourself forward.

The larger you make your glass, the more liquid your’re able to place inside said glass, and the likelihood your performance improves.  Whatever your endeavors may be.

If you’re weak, the glass is almost filled to the brim, and there’s little room for improvement.  And, I’d even argue for those more aesthetically minded:  you can’t even come close to getting as lean as you’d like if you’re weak in the first place.

If you’re someone who’s idea of “working out” is performing endless repetitions of arm circles, curls, and extensions with those cute, 5 lb pink dumbbells – and it’s hard – guess what?

You can’t have cake.

And that sucks.

Conversely, if you’re someone who places a premium on getting stronger (maybe working towards being able to perform ten solid push-ups, or one dead hang bodyweight pull-up, or maybe 1.5x bodyweight deadlift, or something as simple as learning how to squat properly), and you actually place a stress upon your body and force it to, you know, do something…… and do it hard……

……the more “wiggle room” you have when it comes to your nutrition.

While not a concrete train of thought, I think most people reading can appreciate the general tone I’m getting at here.

For example here’s Lisa this past Saturday afternoon while we were snowed in.  While she could have just as easily watched The Notebook or forced me to watch a Julia Roberts marathon, she didn’t.  Instead she spent part of the afternoon randomly walking up to the chin-up bar and busting out some reps.  Here’s her third set of five:

 

Not to brag, but I don’t think there are many women out there who could just casually walk up to a chin-up bar and start busting out reps.

Wanna know what else she can do:

– Bench press 160 lbs.

– Deadlift 225+ lbs for reps.

– Perform 10+ flawless push-ups.

– Teach 4 spin classes per week.

– Read the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy in one week (true story).

– Leap tall buildings in a single bound (less true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she could actually do it).

Wanna know what else she does:

She feels no remorse when we go out to eat on the weekends and orders a steak (with potatoes) and dessert afterwards.

She also eats out of the bread bowl.  GASP!!!!!!!!!

To her credit:  she works her ass off, and has put in A LOT of hours in the gym to look how she looks.

As Coach John alluded to:  she doesn’t necessarily have to be as “on point” with her nutrition (even though she is) and can get away with a few cheats here and there because she’s STRONG!

This isn’t to suggest that every female reading needs to rush out to their nearest gym and commandeer the squat rack (although, that would be pretty cool).  All I’m suggesting is that it wouldn’t hurt to turn the page, turn off the Tracy Anderson DVD, and start lifting some appreciable weight.

I’m not saying all of this to be snarky, and I hope it’s not coming across as such.  In every sense, I’m saying all of this to EMPOWER you.

For some this should read as a profound epiphany.

At least, I hope it is.