Getting strong with Lisa-Marie Gleeson

0:02 A listener production. This is Crappita Happy and I am your host Castunn. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. Today, I'm talking with Lisa Marie Gleeson. Lisa has been involved in the fitness industry for the past fifteen years. She's a qualified group fitness instructor and she's the national group fitness coordinator at Fernwood Fitness.

0:46 I wanted to talk to Lisa about the importance of strength training for women, especially women over the age of forty, which is me and my age group. And the reason for this is that I know that many of us who grew up in my era, we're all conditioned to believing that. It was all about the cardio. We all had to burn calories, and I know from my conversations with women that there are still a lot of women who have a reluctance to picking up lates or to focusing on strength training. So I was really interested in getting the facts about why we should be focusing on strength training, especially as we get older, and some really good basic tips about where to start if we are totally new to this. Here's my conversation with Lisa.

1:33 Lisa Marie, thank. You so much for being on the Crappy a Happy podcast today. Thank you for having me. Lisa, you other group fitness instructor and national group fitness coordinator at Fernwo Fitness. But let's just wind it back to the beginning and can you tell me how did. You first get involved with group fitness. Yeah, absolutely so. Actually, my passion for fitness started many, many years ago when I was around seven years old as a dancer. My passion for dance really blossomed, you know, over those years, and as I got a little bit older, I started to teach dance to the younger students and I really fell in love with being a leader and inspiring those younger girls, you know, to do great things.

2:17 Fast forward a few years too, when I was in my early twenties and the dance school that I attended sadly closed down. As a young girl, I really struggled to find my place at a different dance school, and so that kind of marked the end of that era in my life. But I really still I really missed the fitness. So I decided to join the gym and was immediately drawn, of course, to group fitness. You know, it was just such a fun environment. The music was there, the dance moves were there, the rhythm, the energy. I absolutely loved it, but I was still missing that part of being the inspirer, being in front of that that audience and teaching them. So that's sort of what prompted me to train in some group fitness programs and start to begin building my career as a group fitness instructor.

3:12 So, Lisa, what was it about those group fitness classes that you particularly enjoyed? So, as I mentioned, it's really about that sense of community and the empowerment of being in a room where, for that moment in time, everyone really shares that one passion, that same passion and that's for fitness. So you know, that's really big for me. And the fact that that shared energy really vibrates off everyone else in the class. And as I mentioned as well, that huge sense of achievement and accomplishment at the end of that class. So was when you first got involved in this, Lisa, So you said in your early twenties, did this immediately become kind of your career or is this something that you did along the side of something else. I'm curious about kind of how you transition to this being your full time gig.

4:07 Yeah. Absolutely so. No, I wasn't always just about fitness for me. I was actually in the interior design industry coming out of university, and so I worked a full time job, but I managed to squeeze my group fitness classes in before and after my job, which was great, great way to start my day, great way to end my day. Then eventually, you know, I started to grow a family, so I became a mum and working full time wasn't an option. I had my first two children quite close together, so I didn't go back to my full time job. And what I loved about group fitness was the flexibility so I could build my own schedule.

4:47 It was, you know, my own timetable, really and I could work that around my young, growing family, and that really just stuck. I loved it so much that I never went back to interior design. And here I am, they still going. So what have you noticed, like, what changes have you seen. I mean it's a huge industry, the fitness industry, but what changes have you seen over the past fifteen years. Yeah. Sure, Look, obviously, group fitness classes, you know, like your strength classes and those aerobic style classes, they're always going to be popular. They've always been popular. They're always going to be a great choice or a great option for members at the gym. But I think the biggest trend growth that I've noticed, I'd have to say, is that HIT movement, so the high intensity interval training sort of type of exercise. So, you know, life is just getting more and more busy every year, and I think that as the years go by, women in particular, you know, we're focusing more on our careers. We're working mums, we're trying to get through our days as best we can.

5:54 And this idea of HIT training, this idea of being able to get a fan fantastic workout in a small amount of time and still achieve great results, still keep our health and fitness in check, is really quite attractive. So, you know, like I said, the evolution of that HIT style training I think has really been huge over the last fifteen years and really popular. I think particularly amongst women. And we've got a fantastic program at fern would called Fit thirty which is all about our small group training for women and like I said before, also achieving those great results in just thirty minute sessions. And yeah, don't you think there's something really appealing about that.

6:40 I can remember when the I mean, you know better than I would, but I remember when we first started hearing about HIT and it was just so talked about because of its effect, like how efficient and effective those workouts were, you know, this whole that you didn't need to be slogging it out for an hour. You could be exactly you know, could get a really effective workout done in twenty minutes or thirty minutes, like you said, Yeah, so no wonder Yep, they're so popular. Yeah, And I think the other great trend or probably education that we've become more aware of over the years is functional training. So functional training is all about training our bodies so that we can perform every day movements every day you know, activities in our own lives, for example, bending down, picking up some groceries, taking them from the car to the house. Even simple things like sitting down on a chair and being able to get up easily.

7:38 You know, some of us may take these movements for granted, but as we get older, it's really important that we continue to focus on moving our bodies in these ways because it may not always be that easy. And so I think functional training has also been a really popular way of exercise as well. Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned that, because certainly for me, as I have got older and I have noticed legally injuries and things that I used to be able to do easily that aren't so easy anymore. And there's this cumulative effect of some of those old injuries, you know, like the lower back starts playing up, and like you said, it's those bending and twisting and things that you do every day where you need to really focus on mobility as you get older, and your whole attitude to movement and exercise, at least for me, I know, really does start to shift to function over any kind of aesthetic like needing to lose weight or get a six packet really is about like wanting to grow older and be able to stay active and mobile and do the things that you want to be able to do in life.

8:55 That's exactly right, cass And You're not alone there. You're absolutely not alone. There are so many women who feel exactly that way. And I think that the important thing to remember is not to get to that point and then think, oh my gosh, and it's never too late. But if we can try and avoid getting to the point where we think I'm here now, I need to try and do something about it. But rather, you know, set those wheels in motion much earlier on, so that we continue to move freely and comfortably for many years. I want to talk to you, Lisa about I touched before about the difference between men and women. I guess we've always had this kind of notion or this stereotype in our heads about you know, the men that go to lift and they want to get big and bulky, whereas women typically it's been more about you know, getting in some cardio and you know, in the old days, you know, like more burning calories and trimming down. I really want to talk to you about why women need to be doing more strength training.

10:02 What do you notice. I'm particularly interested in what you notice in terms of women's attitude towards weights and lifting weights and focusing on strength training. Yeah. Sure, so over the years I've certainly noticed more of an understanding amongst women of the importance of strength training, and it's quite obvious that more and more women are building that confidence to get out there on the gym floor and start to lift some weights and work on their strength, not necessarily their muscle and building visible muscle, but really focusing on the strength and the benefits of what strength training gives us, particularly as women. However, in saying that, there certainly has been and still is this misconception about strength training and the idea that it is going to make us bulky, that it's going to make us lose our femininity if we lift weights. And that's really what we're big on at Fernwood as well, is educating women that it's not about necessarily, like I said, building those visible muscles, but really learning what the importance of strength training does to us in our lives as well.

11:19 So what are the benefits of strength training, like why do we need to do it? Well? As women, specifically, as we get older, we start to experience bone degeneration and this is something that we can't avoid unfortunately. So during and after those menopausal years, women experience a drop, a significant drop in estrogen levels, and this is something that men don't actually experience to that same degree. And estrogen is the key regulator of bone metabolism, so as those estrogen levels drop, so does our bone density, meaning our bones become thinner and not as strong. And we can really turn this around by putting a bigger focus on the strength training and weight bearing exercises, not just as we creep closer towards those menopausal years, but as I mentioned earlier, from a much younger age, so we can really get on the right foot early and stop this degeneration in its tracks early.

12:27 So specific to women, that's why strength training is really important and why we need to become involved. And when you do still come across women who are a bit wary or they've got ideas in their head that if they lift weights they're going to become really big and bulky. I think that there are still women who have those fears, like what do you how do you reassure them that that is not going to happen. Yeah, absolutely, it's definitely still a thing. And I believe that this is all about educating women on the different types of strong training programs that are available. So building big, defined muscle, say for competition or for bodybuilding purposes, and that's totally okay if that's what you want, and we have training programs available, But this means putting your body through a really strict program. It's about lifting, you know, quite heavy weights and small reps, and there's also a really specific diet that goes with this type of training.

13:28 So building muscle in this kind of way isn't something that just happens by accident. We have to train specifically for this, So I think educating women on that is really important. A basic strength program that we would prescribe to women at fern Wood focuses more on lighter weights and higher reps, and this type of training builds long, lean muscle tone, and it's more about keeping strong, fit and healthy and supporting our bones and our joint I think once you start to explain this and really build that education around it, it builds more confidence and reassurance in the clients.

14:09 Is it true too that this is something that I'm sure I've heard that the more muscle mass that you have lean muscle mass, you know, we're not talking about bulking up, then the more effective your metabolism. Yep, absolutely so for. Those women who are really are focused on no I need to you know, I want to look better or need to lose weight or whatever, then the strength training, as opposed to just doing all cardio, the strength training will actually help them towards those goals as well. Exactly the strength training and also, as we spoke about earlier, the hit training. So our metabolism works better at rest when we do that type of exercise, which means that even when we are not exercising, so at the end of the day we've done our workout, we're perhaps laying down watching TV after a big date and our body is still in cleries And I think that's fantastic. We all need to learn more about that.

15:04 Yeah, that's nice. That's like passive income, isn't It's just passive exactly exercise. My daughter is fifteen. Podcast listeners have followed her, you know, I think she was like ten or eleven when I started this show, and they hear me talk about her all the time, and she keeps getting out. So she's fifteen now and she's really into fitness. Right. We have a home gym. We live kind of in the country and it's a bit of a trip to attend a gym. So we've set her up and my husband with this home gym. But she's really into strength training, like more so than any sort of cardio, and you know, she's so committed to like she gets up early and she gets out there and she does it. But it's really interesting, you know, because a lot of her friends, same age group will say to her, oh, because they see what she's doing, and they say, will you design a program for me?

15:57 Obviously she's not qualified to design programs. I get that, but they will say to her, I just want to grow, like I just want like a j Lo peach or you know, I just want to grow my butt. But I'm not doing any arms. I'm not doing any you know. Because they even at that age, like they've got this fear that they want to have these long. Thin limbs and they're really wary of. Lifting weights and working particular parts of their body that they want to be kind of slim and they don't want to bulk up. So I found that really interesting, Like at that age, like we've got to be educating girls early, don't. We, Yeah, absolutely, and educating on the fact that everyone's bodies are different, and you know, some girls have a really round, peach shaped booty and some girls don't. And you know, I've always said that we can focus on certain muscle groups, but you really need to work your whole body because the chain reaction of the muscles in our body is really important. So just as an exact, you might want to focus on your lower body, so you might be doing some dead lifts on the gym floor.

17:07 What women perhaps don't understand is that you need strong back muscles as well to be able to really drive that force and really lift that bar effectively. So you know, and there are lots of different examples that I could give on this particular idea around making sure that you are strengthening all parts of your body because it needs because it needs to be that. We need to find balance in our bodies, otherwise we're not going to be able to function. How then does the strength training kind of fit in with an overall fitness plan. You know, presumably women are doing kind of a range of different exercises to get the maximum effectiveness, So you know, what's the ideal sort of combination.

17:54 I guess I'm really big on balance, so I think strength training is really important and I would probably suggest strength training two to three times a week, depending on how you're actually working your body, whether you're strength training to work your entire body or whether you're isolating certain parts of your body, for example a split between you upper body and your lower body. So two to three times a week strength training and then of course cardio or find something that you really love. As long as you really love it and you're active, I think that's really key. That's really important, so fitting in some cardio and then of course the downtime, and I don't think we focus enough on recovery and stretching phase. So whilst we need to do those strength sessions, whether that's in group fitness environment or on the gym floor, and we're incorporating some cardio into our weekly schedule as well, we need to make some time to recover. That doesn't mean having days off completely by all means if you want to have a day where you don't do anything at all, that's perfectly fine. But fitting those days in, whether it's just a walk outside or going for a swim, doing a stretch class, I think, you know, it's really important to get into perhaps some yoga or polates as well, because whilst it's important to build our strength, build on our cardiovascular health so that our heart is strong. We also need to focus on our mindset as well, and

19:26 so you know, incorporating rest and you know, a beautiful yoga session or perhaps some meditation I think is really key as well in creating balance in our training. I hope that you're enjoying this conversation and realizing the benefits of positivity in your own life. If you are enjoying the show, please be sure to like and subscribe so that you get notified when you apps drop and head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review. So, Lisa, what do you.

20:07 Recommend for somebody who's been a bit averse to strength training or just starting out. What would you recommend to be kind of the top five exercises I guess for a beginner, a beginner sure commanding a strength kind. Of yeah, focus, It's tricky to nail that down to just five. But what I'd like to actually talk on is, to begin with, we would always educate women on working on their compound exercises. So these are exercises that work on multiple muscle groups at the same time, for example, squats and push ups. These types of exercises are a fantastic starting point to really focus on getting your body moving correctly and focusing on great technique in exercise. So compound movements are fantastic to get our bodies moving in the right ways. And then I think it's also really important to start to learn about isolation exercises, so different to compound, they're actually focusing on specific muscle groups and this allows us to get a real understanding of the different muscle groups in our bodies so that we can start to train them effectively. And some great examples of isolation exercises are things like bicep curls and triseep kickbacks.

21:28 So keeping it simple until you're feeling really confident you have built that awareness of the muscles in the body, and then you can start adding more complex movements to your training. So for someone beginning, keep it simple, find exercises that work as many muscles as possible in your body, then start to isolate, and then of course working on your core. So core strength super important. Doesn't matter what you're doing, you require core strength to be able to function properly, so exercises like planks are a really great way to start building that awareness on the strength in our core, how to switch out core muscles on and keep them active.

22:12 So we talked earlier about the efficiency of, for example, a hit workout, how you can get in there and you can get a really effective and efficient workout done in a short space of time. I'm curious to know like to do an effective strength training session. I guess this will vary, but like how much time would you need to allocate for a strength training session to get the most out of it. That's a great question. I suppose this is different depending on what your goals are, but for a basic strength session, I think forty five minutes to an hour on the gym floor gives you your opportunity to be able to work the muscle groups effectively and also give yourself enough time in between each of those exercises for rest and recovery.

22:57 Just right now thinking of my daughter and host training session which go for two hours, because I think she really extends that recovery time. I think there's a lot of listening to music and recovery in her little home gym setup, and I always. Tell her, I'm sure you could do that a lot more efficiently. But anyway, she's up there doing it, so she enjoys it, so she can take all the time she needs. But yeah, I was curious tonight, like, obviously there are more efficient ways to do this if you are you. Know, on a you know, kind of on a bit of a schedule. Yeah. Absolutely, And this is why another reason why I also always say that, you know, getting some guidance from a personal trainer is also really important because of course, like I mentioned, it is based on what our goals are.

23:42 So depending on exactly how you want to train, that's going to make a difference to the length of your workouts. And also, you know, we can really be quite specific if we're training for something in particular, you know, we need to make sure that we are only in that recovery phase for strictly thirty seconds or strictly one minute, whatever it might be, right, So it really does vary. But if you're just as I said, if you're just focusing on a basic strength program, you just want to build some strength, get fit, get healthy, I think forty five minutes to an hour on the gym floor is more than enough in one session. How as a trainer, I guess do you coach or encourage women to kind of overcome.

24:26 You know, any sort of self consciousness. That they might have, or you know, any fear that they might have about getting involved in this kind of weight training as opposed to joining into a group class or something. Yeah. Sure, I think the biggest thing to educate women is on is not to compare yourself to others. And one of my biggest mantras is that everyone was a beginner once. So you might walk into the gym and you know it's your first couple of weeks there as a member, and you walk out there and you know there are women who are lifting some hefty weights or they might even be in group fitness with you know, immaculate coordination. They all began somewhere once. They did not walk into that gym super strong or super fit necessarily, So don't compare yourself to others. And also everyone is different.

25:21 We are all unique. So what works for me on the gym floor in terms of a program or specific exercises may not have the same effect on you and on your body. So we work to train ourselves and our own specific goals, and you know, to be in a positive and supportive network and environment and empower each other rather than compete with each other. Is I think really key in building that confidence. So, Lisa, we've talked a lot about weights training, what about for people? I'm curious to know whether weights are a requirement for strength training. So, for example, before you're referred to a plank, which is obviously just a body weight exercise, can we just use our body for strength training?

26:07 Or if we don't have access to those props or access to a gym, or for stack climb in lockdown, how can we use what we've got to get that strength training. Yeah, you can certainly train effectively at home. So there are lots of body weight exercises that you can do at home that will still help you to build strength, for example, a squat, a lunge, a push up. Sometimes it just takes changing the timing of that exercise to really focus and hone in on certain muscle groups and really build strength in a different way. You know, it may be perhaps in a squat that you focus on the bottom half of that squat, perhaps holding the squat at the bottom or pulsing the squat. If you're performing a lunge, you might elevate your back leg on a chair or a step to you know, change the way that those muscles move. You may even have a resistance band lying around and that can really enhance your workout by you know, targeting deeper muscles. So there are certainly lots of ways just at home if you don't have weights, that you can continue to build and work on your strength.

27:21 It's just about getting creative. You mentioned Lisa before about you know, when you're building muscle, you know there's a particular diet that you have to follow in order to get those results, and so we shouldn't be afraid of that. But I just wanted to touch on food. Is it important that we eat differently to get the nutrition requirements for a strength based program as opposed to if you're doing a lot of cardio. Sure, so again that depends on you know, the particular goals that you're working towards. But if we're just talking about your sort of your basic everyday strength program or you know the combination of strength and cardio, I'm really big on just having a really balanced diet. And I think particularly as women, there is that misconception around perhaps eating less to be able to achieve those goals. And what we need to understand is that we need to fuel our bodies effectively to be able to first of all, have the energy to smash out a great workout, and then to be able to nourish our bodies afterwards so that we can heal and we can see that, you know, our body has the energy to make that change. So of course, you know, when we're talking about strength training, it really is important to be including protein and healthy fats into our diet, for example, eggs, chicken, tuna, salmon,

28:54 those types of foods which aid in the recovery and the growth of muscle. But as long as you have a balanced diet and you're eating enough, then I think that's really important. And of course, you know, we do there are nutritionists who are qualified in this sort of area who would be able to talk on that much more and really tailor the diet to the exercise. Yeah, for sure, I do understand that you're not a nutritionist. I am curious to know, though, would you, based on what you do know, do you advocate for you know, protein supplements or powders or any of those kind of pre workout things that people get very interested in or do you think just a healthy, balanced diet is where it's at and that's all you need.

29:44 I've never been huge personally on protein supplements, but you know, most of my colleagues in my working years at the gym have certainly been advocates for it, So I guess it is based on you know, your own personal likes and what you're wanting to achieve. They certainly do help because obviously it's a more targeted approach and you know, these these supplements have been developed to aid in the recovery of muscle. So I don't say that it's a bad thing, and it's certainly a great tool to have to be able to help you along that journey. But there are certainly plenty of foods that you can eat and nutrients to get from food that can do the same job.

30:32 So in your experience, Lisa, how do you see women in particular benefiting outside the gym when they start to do more of this kind of strength based training. Again, I think this really comes down to the importance of being able to train in order to be able to function well in our everyday lives. So knowing that you know you can be strong and confident in the gym, but you can also walk out that door and know that you can have incredible quality of life and that your training has aided you to be able to get to that point. So whether it's just you know, as a grandparent, being able to be active in the lives of your grandchildren, to be able to, as I said before, bend down, pick them up, play with them, take them on a great stroll along the beach. Perhaps you know, go on holidays and know that you can go for nature walks and not become fatigued, or you know, no risk of perhaps injury or being afraid to just get out there and live a great life. And building a really strong foundation in strength training I think is absolutely key to all of these things, and to be able to get out there and feel strong and have the energy to really fulfill anything that you would like in your own personal life outside of the gym.

32:00 And I would just like to add in there as a psychologist, clearly I am so about the benefit of exercise for mood, and especially if you're feeling flat like as many people, we've all had a tough year the last year and a half, but getting some physical activity the links to mood are. Undisputed. So it's often when we don't feel like doing something that we really need to actually push ourselves to go and do something and move our bodies and then we will see the benefits from it. You're absolutely right, and I know we've been talking a lot on strength training, but I think it's really important to remember that regardless of what you're doing, as long as you're doing something to keep your body moving, to keep your mind active, it is going to be beneficial.

32:52 So as long as we don't get stuck in the rat of having a sedentary life and perhaps falling into too many bad eating habits, it's on a continuous basis, then we're going to have a really healthy mindset. So it may just be that on one particular day, all you can muster is a walk outside for thirty minutes and that's absolutely fabulous. You're going to come home and feel much better after that. So as long as you're moving, you're in the right direction. Yeah, absolutely, Lisa, this has been an amazing discussion. Thank you so much for all of your expertise. I know that our listeners are going to be getting out there picking up those weights and getting involved in some strength training oh, just getting out and moving their bodies. So thank you so much for your time today.

33:38 Absolutely, thank you so much for having me cast. It's been a great experience and a pleasure to talk on. Yeah, strength training and moving our bodies for general wellness. There you have it, some great tips for getting started with strength training, whether you have access to a gym or not, and I hope that you are convinced now of the importance of building in a bit of variety into your workout routine and not being afraid to pick up those weights. This episode was Created in partnership with Fernwood Fitness and I look forward to catching you on the next episode of Crappy or Happy Listener.