Episode 19: Five reasons to lift heavy weights

Welcome to the Beauty of Better podcast, where we help moms thrive in health and faith.

Hey, mama, welcome to our podcast.

We're really excited to talk to you today about five reasons why moms in particular really need to be lifting heavy weights.

So this is more of an exercise-focused session here, and we're gonna start by just talking about what is lifting weights, what is lifting heavy weights and resistance training even mean.

Then we're gonna talk about five specific reasons why it's really, really good and really important.

So resistance training is this term that's used a lot in research, but in everyday life, people don't really say resistance training, but it really means the same thing as like strength training.

That's the word that people use.

So if you hear people say, I'm lifting weights or I'm doing strength training, that's the same thing as resistance training.

So those words all mean basically the same thing.

And the first reason why moms need to be lifting heavy weights and doing strength training is because it's increasing your lean muscle mass on your body.

And what that means is it's basically increasing the muscle that you carry around with you everywhere you go.

So let's say you weigh 150 pounds on the scale.

A chunk of that is muscle and bone and tissues and things like that.

And then there's a chunk of that that is adipose or fat tissue.

So when we talk about improving lean muscle mass, we're just talking about that 150 pounds could stay the same number, and you might gain 20 pounds of muscle and lose fat, but your number on the scale might stay the same.

So your body composition or how much muscle compared to how much fat you have on your body is changing, and you might see a difference in the way that you look shape-wise, or you might see more muscle definition on different parts of your body if you're gaining muscle.

But if the number on the scale is not changing, that is fine.

It's not always needed, right?

So just keep in mind that, you know, trying to...

If you're trying to lose weight or that's related to some health goal that you have, that's okay, but you might actually be getting healthier by gaining muscle and losing fat, and the number might not change on the scale.

So as far as talking about training with weights, so in order to build muscle, we have to lift weights.

And we have to lift weights that are heavy enough that they challenge us, so they need to be heavier than your purse.

I always think it's funny when I talk to moms who are like, oh yeah, I like to go lift lightweights at the gym.

And I'm like, well, how much does your kid weigh?

And they're like, oh, my kid's like 50 pounds.

And I'm thinking, okay, well, you can lift more than like 5 to 10 pounds then, if your kid is 50 pounds and you're lifting them around.

So the importance of strength training and training to build muscle, if you learn how to move your body safely and correctly, all those daily tasks that you're doing with your kids get easier.

But also, muscle tissue, just having that on your body is going to burn more calories at rest just to maintain that tissue than fat does.

And I don't have like a, you know, sometimes people like hold up, they're like, this is what a pound of muscle looks like, this is what a pound of fat looks like.

But basically, a pound of muscle is like much smaller and denser, and then a pound of fat is like a lot bigger and softer.

So that's why sometimes the number on the scale doesn't change, but the way that it looks changes because you start to gain more muscle.

So basically, we want to gain muscle.

It's good for our metabolism because it requires more calories just to like maintain it at rest.

And it also, yes, it just helps us get stronger and all sorts of good things.

Does anybody else want to jump in on that one?

I just want to add one thing.

So sometimes when you see that the composition might be changing, a cue to see is how is your clothes fitting?

So even if you see that 150 is still there, but you just notice like, oh, my jeans fit differently around my butt.

It seems like it's just a little bit tighter.

Oh, maybe these squats have been working.

Right?

So you'll notice looseness or tightness in certain areas as those muscles develop over time.

And then I think resistance training in general is a patient process.

To really see the work that you've done in the gym is going to probably take a good four to six weeks.

But we won't get into the physiology of that necessarily, but just know that the resistance training to really see these results is going to take a little bit of time.

I think I would add to that too, that it's not a comfortable process, and I think it's intentional, right?

Where our bodies like comfort, we like routines, but it's like you're literally creating discomfort for your body because your body's learning to adapt and build muscles to something new.

So don't expect it to be a comfortable or easy process.

Like as Kelsey said, like you have to lift weights that are heavier because your body needs that tension and needs that discomfort to be able to adapt and build muscle to it.

I just love your example, Kelsey.

That's a good thing to realize.

Like if you can lift your kids, you need to be lifting more at the gym.

I'm actually, I'm kind of convicted by that.

I'm like, oh, I do that.

I like sometimes pick the lighter weights.

And then it's like reality is you're picking up your kids every day.

So strength training for that.

So you're strong for those tasks.

That's good.

Maybe in a future episode, we'll talk about the goals and sets and reps and how all that ties in.

But just today is just an overview.

Yes.

Good benefits, why we need it.

Danielle, I think you were going to talk about that.

I was just going to say top five reasons.

I'm going to take number two.

So our number two reason for why you should be lifting heavy weights is to improve bone density.

And with bone density, what I want to talk about is specifically osteoporosis.

And when we think about our bones, they're actually tissues.

Their tissues in our bodies build them with cells.

And so when we get to the age of about 35, that's really when we start to lose bone density.

That feels so young, right?

Like I think we had that in another episode about protein.

So yeah, around 35, we start to decrease our bone density.

And when your bones are less dense, they're more fragile, they can break, you can be at higher risk for osteoporosis, which usually gets diagnosed around the age of 50.

But we want to be aware of this around the age of 35 or earlier to start building more bone density, which comes from weight lifting.

And then also something to note about that is, when you hit menopause, your estrogen starts to decrease, so your hormone levels change.

And when that happens, it accelerates bone loss.

So it's literally like you slowly start to decrease your bone density, but then when you hit menopause, you really hit a significant decrease.

And so we want to be working against that, right?

We want to age strong and keep our bones really strong.

And so weight lifting helps increase your bone density and building those tissues so that you can be stronger longer.

Anybody have anything to add on that?

I just love the goal of longevity, right?

So, you know, like you said, stronger, longer.

Although that rhymes, like, that really is like you want to add to those quality years of movement, which I think ties into our number three, which is functional strength.

So this is something that builds functional strength.

So I can break that down for you.

This is kind of what Kelsey was talking about early, activities of daily living.

So lifting your child, carrying in your groceries, you know, moving things around your home, these activities that we do that we might not even think about, like bending over to put a sock on and tie your shoe, like, but you're standing on one foot, like basic things.

We want to be able to engage with the world without those limitations.

And so it requires lifting weights that have synchronicity of multiple muscle groups.

So it's not just going to be a simple wrist curl motion that you're going to do, because, you know, it's going to be something that, like, more joints are going to be active at that same time, because that's how we engage with the world around us.

So some examples could be, like, things like pushups or lunges or squats or kettlebell swings.

That's just a small stuttering of things that could mimic activities that you do on a regular basis.

But those activities will lead to improvements in your overall speed, your agility, your power, and your stability.

And then really to tie in with what Danielle was saying, as you age, one of the things that really put you at high risk with the osteoporosis is falling, right?

Falling and fracturing a bone.

So if we want to decrease that risk, having that stability, that agility, that power, it may feel like, oh, I'm training you to be an athlete, but that's just training so that we can be active with our kids and our grandkids, or if a dog runs by, you don't trip over and break a hip, which I've seen happen with family members in the past.

And so it doesn't have to be, I really want to go down the path of how many days a week and times I'm trying to refrain, but it doesn't have to be as much time per week as maybe aerobic training.

So this could be once or twice a week is better than nothing.

And yeah, we'll get into another session talking about rest and prescription of exercise.

But yeah, I would also emphasize that your core muscles, your trunk muscles, your posture muscles, by doing these multi-joint motions and making sure that you have abdominal bracing and you're really training your core is gonna be critical for low back health as well.

And other things that we'll talk about with our other five.

Can I just pop in a quick question?

Because I'm genuinely curious.

I'm feeling like a fly in the wall in this episode, but I do fitness myself, but yet I'm not necessarily training it.

So I'm just curious, like Pilates versus like weight training.

So like those fine tuning muscles, like I'm thinking of core strength as you were talking about, Cristiana, like, is that a form of resistance training, like Pilates versus like lifting weights?

Yeah, like in the gym.

Yeah, I was like, I think Kelsey and I both probably have responses to that.

I think, and I'll try to keep it brief, and then I'm sure Kelsey has some stuff to say.

There's kind of main categories.

There's aerobic resistance, anaerobic and flexibility.

So some of those moves might involve flexibility, but it also depends on a person's beginner intermediate or advanced.

But some of those things are bodyweight exercises that could be functional strength too.

So it really takes a looking at each motion, at least in my professional opinion is like, well, this one's more stretching and this one mimics the bodyweight motion.

So it's not just the whole thing of Pilates is this, but it leans more maybe in a flexibility angle than functional strength.

But there are some pieces that might be functional strength, but we might have some other ideas to add to that.

Yeah, I agree.

I think Pilates is pretty popular right now, actually, especially with women.

And I think the thing with Pilates is it's really, it's fairly hard to measure improvement in strength with Pilates.

If you want to know if you're getting stronger, let's say, and you can squat 45 pounds 10 times.

If you can squat 65 pounds 10 times in two months, then you got stronger.

But with Pilates, I genuinely don't know how you would measure that, because a lot of the movements are just really done slowly.

And I do think it has a little bit more of a flexibility component and probably a core strength component.

But again, I'm not really sure how you would measure that.

And I think that being able to take a measurement of something, train it with progressively loading the muscle with a specific movement.

So functionally speaking, things that are going to translate really well to movements that we do, like Cristiana said.

So like dead lifting, picking something up off the ground and standing up with it, or squatting down, or doing a shoulder press and pushing up above your head, or a row and pulling something, or a chest press, or a push up and pushing something away.

I think those bigger multi-joint movements are considered more functional, but that's also a trendy word right now, like functional strength.

And there is value in doing things that are smaller muscle groups, too, because a lot of those stabilize and support the bigger movements that we do.

And we just want to be balanced in our strength across all the muscles of our body, not just legs, ladies, like we have to do upper body, too.

I feel like it swings the other way when it's men.

They tend to do more upper body and less lower body.

But I feel like I got on a little bit of a tangent, Kathleen.

But does that answer your question?

No, that was so helpful from what both of you said.

Honestly, yeah, because I've always kind of wondered that.

I'm like, because they talk about Pilates being good with that core strength.

And when I started having kids, that's when I got more into weight lifting, because I noticed how I was like, wow, I really feel...

I had three C-sections, and I felt like I really needed to restore that core strength after those.

And for me, I found doing weight resistance training was the best thing for...

Also, I'm kind of an upbeat person, so relaxing Pilates doesn't feel like a workout for me personally.

It does, I know for a lot of people, but I'm like, get me the weights and work it out.

So, I don't know, I noticed for myself that it was really beneficial to lift weights once I started having kids in that season.

I also, I was a long distance runner, did that in college.

So, I was mostly more on the anaerobic side, or aerobic side.

And so then, but then motherhood came, and I realized, oh, all these muscles that I really need to strengthen again.

I found that lifting so helpful.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's great.

I think I would just echo that, like, the, you know, our top five are lifting heavyweights, right, as Kelsey introed.

So if you're evaluating if something is kind of meeting our top five, like, is it heavier than what your normal is, is kind of what I would ask yourself.

Because core muscles are also postural muscles, which are built to be endurance, but we can have a separate episode talking about endurance and the importance of that too.

But we need a blend, right?

Like, we're not just one piece.

Yeah.

Heavy, I mean, generally speaking, if we're going to define heavy, I think if we're talking about the number of times you can do a movement, if it's heavy, that's, in my head, like, that's going to be something that's like lower repetitions, right?

So if you're newer, you're not gonna jump straight to heavy.

You're gonna need to practice more reps to get better at the movement before you increase the weight that you can lift.

So, like, let's say you're newer to the gym and you start doing something, maybe you start with higher repetitions, like 10 to 12 or even 12 to 15.

But in my head, when I think heavy, I'm thinking, like, three to six reps, four to six reps.

Yes, obviously, one to two is really heavy, but that's kind of intense, and we don't necessarily need to lift that heavy all the time, especially there's just risk and reward ratios to consider when you're lifting that heavy.

But anything that you can lift, like, four to six times, I would say, Christiane, I don't know if you agree with that.

I agree, definitely, yeah.

Yeah, like, if it's heavy enough, and you're like, okay, I just lifted that four times, and I can't do a fifth one, like, that's pretty heavy.

So that's what we want to work up to doing something at least like once a week, where we're lifting a heavy amount of weight like that.

But again, if you're new, you're gonna need to work up to that, and it might take, you know, seven to nine months or even up to a year to get to that place where you're comfortable doing that, and where your body is like ready for that type of weight.

So yeah, you can get benefits from starting with higher reps and then working your way down and changing it.

So we don't always have to do the same number, but again, that's a whole nother topic.

So the first, so just to recap, right?

The first reason that we said is important is to increase muscle mass on your body.

The second reason was to improve bone density and reduce your risk of osteoporosis.

The third reason, Cristiana just talked about, was to enhance functional strength and just how you move throughout the day.

And then the fourth reason, Kathleen, I think you were going to talk about that.

Yeah, I was just going to share a little bit.

So it's, you know, just, it really does support mental health and confidence.

And I mean, I can speak to that personally for myself, but you know, research has shown strength training can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety while improving self-esteem and body image in women.

And I can just speak to that personally, you know, we have a kind of newer life situation with a foster son.

And you know, it's been a big transition.

We're his fourth home, and you know, he's only, he'll be turning four here in May.

And each one of those transitions is a bit of trauma for him.

And so, you know, we're learning to find what his triggers are.

And but, you know, some days are really hard.

And today happened to be one of those days that was just challenging a lot of behaviors.

And to be honest, I've just got an increase, of course, is all my body.

I just know it, didn't feel it.

Just with dealing with some of those behaviors, and you know, my kids as well, you know, their behaviors acting up just with the change of the situation.

And so I have found increasingly, like I've been lifting weights more in this season.

And honestly, for me, it has really felt like it just, any feelings of like anxiousness at the end of the day or just feeling worked up from the stress of dealing with things in our home, it actually really just helped work that out of me.

And it's helping me sleep better at night.

But yeah, I've just really noticed for myself more on a personal story of just how it's really helped lift my mood on those days when you just feel a little discouraged and you're just like, oh, and self-esteem too.

And like we were talking about, it's like being strong for your kids.

Like sometimes I have really, you know, strong reactive behaviors in him, and I've had to physically remove him from hurting others, from hurting me.

And to be honest, I'm like, I am able to do that because I've been doing those deadlifts, I've been doing squats, and I just feel like it's a season that's like strength is really called upon me in a new way.

And I just felt encouraged that...

Well, I've also felt the Lord lead me in that, to work on my strength in that way, so that I have enough to bring to the day, and I'm not dragging by the end of the day.

It really has helped increase my stamina and endurance just for our season of life that we have.

I have four kids under the age of eight, so they're all requiring different energy.

But I just think it's such an encouragement for moms out there listening, like if you struggle with depression or anxiety, like I know my own mom, when she got into fitness, it really helped her come out of depression.

That's part of how I got into nutrition and wellness myself, just seeing the dramatic change in my own mom.

But yeah, it can just be such a mood booster.

So I don't know if any of you wanted to share a little bit on that topic as well.

Maybe how it's helped your mental health or confidence.

I feel like it's a great outlet as a mom to have right now.

If you don't recognize my voice, this is Kelsey.

I'm the one with the newborn right now.

So it's a great outlet for me to take 20 to 30 minutes, and go lift some weights, and focus on pushing myself hard in those 20 minutes, and then I feel like I can handle all the rest of the hard that the day has to throw at me, because I just worked hard in the gym.

And it's amazing how it releases stress when you do something like that.

Like you go push yourself, you focus on something for yourself, and then you can come back to whatever you're doing, and you just feel fresh again.

And you, I feel like I can think again, and it just feels like it helps me, I don't know, be, feel more like myself when I do something like that, so.

Well, it helps take your body out of fight or flight, right?

Where it's like, when you have high stress and your adrenaline's rushing, it's like, you start lifting weights and exercising, and it's like, oh, your body is resetting, like it's getting to reset, and then you can process things differently.

I love that word reset.

We need it.

We all need it.

Yes.

We have to be able to reset if we're going to teach our kids how to reset, right?

Yes.

So yeah, it's one way that can help us do that, I think.

Totally.

Kelsey, were you going to say our last one?

Yes, I was.

So the fifth one, the fifth reason is that lifting weights helps reduce the risk of injury and improves longevity, which is awesome.

Nobody likes to be injured, and it's not fun.

And by being strong and having better reflexes and better strength to like handle things that might come your way, you're less likely to get hurt.

So that's great.

And it also, I think this came up before, but it improves your longevity, right?

So reduces your risk of all-cause mortality, which is basically dying from any reason at all, which is very cool that it's reducing that, right?

So just having better muscular strength is going to, yeah, it makes your joints stronger because muscles attach to bones, and the bones are connected at joints.

And so the way that your joints move through space, like the stronger your muscles are, your joints can just handle more, and all those things contribute to you being less likely to get hurt.

So does anybody have anything else they want to add to that one?

I think just in general, I think resistance training can be intimidating, especially if people have done it.

So maybe on a future episode, we'll kind of talk about how to break it down into more manageable bite-sized steps.

But if we can just say a goal of maybe one time a week of doing six exercises that you hit each of the major muscle groups, chest, back, legs, core, just keeping it simple like that, that's still success, right?

All this other fancy stuff that we can get into, that's the fine-tuning, it's the icing on the cake.

But you still want to, something's better than nothing.

So even starting with bodyweight or bands is a good place to start.

And then get building your confidence.

So that's kind of...

That's what I was going to mention is, you know, not everybody has a home gym or even weights at home or a gym membership.

And Kelsey, I remember you had some really great videos for one of our classes, just on how to actually start lifting and exercising at home.

So if we could just talk really quickly, just common household items that we could find and use.

Obviously, we have our own bodyweight, right?

And bands, like you just said, but what else could we be using around the house?

Yeah, I mean, I think if you can find something, like sometimes a tub of laundry detergent is like, I don't know, five pounds or so, depending on how big it is, that might be something helpful.

Or one thing that I don't know if I included this in the videos, but if you have like rocks in your backyard, just go find like a little rock and hold that.

Like that can be a perfect resistance if you're doing a squat.

Some type of a bucket, you could, you know, even put something in the bucket, like if your kids have a sandbox, or you've got some water, or put some rocks in the bucket, like you can do something with a bucket.

You can, I feel like buckets are really great.

Buckets, laundry detergent, even like a soup can, if it's like a smaller muscle group, something as small as that could be enough.

If it's a tiny little group that you're working, using like a couch or a chair, right?

If you're doing like a step up or a squat, or even like a hip thrust, you can use a couch to lean against, or a chair to stand on or sit down on.

And I think that there's just, there's really all sorts of things all over your house that you could probably find if you really tried to look for them.

Before, you know, if you don't have a home gym, or weights or things like that.

So, I think again, just starting, and starting with something is always better than nothing.

And it doesn't have to be this like all or nothing mentality.

It can just be like, what can we do to get a little bit better at lifting weights this week?

So maybe I can do like 10, there was a recent study that actually talked about like intermittent squatting throughout the day, have like a ton of benefits, just doing like 10 squats every couple hours.

So, just do that, like start with your body weight, find, you know, do pushups on a wall, do some squats with your body weight, or find a rock or a bucket, or laundry detergent or something.

But I think we just want to encourage you mamas that, you know, lifting weights is a really important part of health and really all women, especially as we get older, we really need to be lifting weights.

Particularly for those five reasons, like we said, right, it's increasing lean muscle mass, it's improving bone density and reducing the risk for osteoporosis, it's enhancing functional strength, it's supporting mental health, and then it's reducing our risk for injury and improving longevity.

So, I hope on that note that you just feel encouraged this week to look for a way that you can incorporate it, even if it's one day a week, and try to move your body and find some resistance to move with it, and we'll dive into it again in another episode and kind of follow this up with some more specifics.

So, we just bless you today, and we just hope that this is encouraging for you.

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