WHOOP Podcast - The Best Exercise for Building Muscle, Bone Health, and Longevity with Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

On this episode, WHOOP Global Head of Human Performance and Principal Scientist, Dr. Kristen Holmes sits down with exercise scientist Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple for a refreshing, evidence-based conversation that cuts through some common myths in fitness. Together, Dr. Holmes and Dr. Colenso-Semple unpack how social media has fueled misinformation around hormones, menopause, menstrual cycles, strength training, and recovery.Dr. Colenso-Semple challenges popular narratives around cycle syncing, hormone optimization, and sex-specific training. The episode makes the case that while men and women are biologically different, the fundamental principles of building strength, improving fitness, and maintaining health are remarkably similar. The discussion also explores hormone therapy, hormonal birth control, testosterone, Zone 2 training, and why consistency is the true path to long-term results.Whether you're new to exercise or a seasoned athlete, this conversation offers practical, empowering advice rooted in high-quality human research rather than hype. If you've ever wondered whether you're "doing it wrong" because of your hormones, this episode will leave you feeling informed, confident, and ready to focus on what actually matters.(00:41) Who is Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple(01:24) The Misinformation Around Fitness(03:48) Understanding Fitness Facts(06:50) The 3 Biggest Fitness Myths(08:29) Addressing Fears Around Training in Perimenopause(17:36) What Habits Work and What's Just Marketing?(19:19) Improving Bone Health and Avoiding Fracture Risk(23:26) Does Hormonal Birth Control Affect Your Training? (29:23) "Women Are Not Small Men"(32:56) Should You Be Cycle Syncing Your Training(38:49) The Secret To Strength Gains & Achieving Body Composition Goals(44:06) Is Resistance Training The Key To Longevity? (46:05) How To Fit Movement Into Your Busy Schedule(48:55) The Important Role of Recovery on Fitness Gains(55:02) Should You Be Cycle Syncing Your Training?(01:01:35) Risks of High Testosterone For Training(01:10:24) Are There Any Fitness Shortcuts?(01:15:40) Combatting Misinformation OnlinesFollow Dr. Lauren Colenso-SempleInstagramWebsiteSupport the showFollow WHOOP:Sign up for WHOOP Advanced LabsTrial WHOOP for Freewww.whoop.comInstagramTikTokYouTubeXFacebookLinkedInFollow Will Ahmed:InstagramXLinkedInFollow Kristen Holmes:InstagramLinkedInFollow Emily Capodilupo:LinkedIn 

If there was a secret quick fix, it wouldn't be a secret. I think when we focus too much on the physique, the aesthetic kind of as our only outcome, then we get a little bit lost in the sauce and we're less likely to stick with it long term. We get discouraged. We're so driven by the way we look instead of what we can do. I can tell you we're going to be way more grateful for what we can do down the road. My hope is that when people start lifting weeds, that you catch the bug because there's something really empowering about witnessing yourself gets stronger. Dr. Lauren, Kalenzo Semple, welcome to the Wootch. Thank you.

I've been following you for a long time. And I think recently, I would say in the last year, you have really emerged as like this voice of reason in the space of exercise. And I will say personally that you've been such a welcome voice. I mean, as someone who's pretty steeped in this space and from a lot of angles, I have just genuinely appreciated your perspective and your ability to translate very complex. Well, you make the complex very simple without kind of losing the nuance. That is so hard to do. So thank you for all of your contributions.

And I just can't wait to dig in today. Thank you. Okay. We're going to just talk about, you know, fitness culture in general. you know, there's a lot of claims that are being made. It gets spread, I think, faster due to, you know, the social media platforms. The chance for misinformation is just has never been higher, I think. I'd love to just start with your background and what you've observed and why you've stepped in.

Well, I grew up in a time where I think fitness information directed to women was abundant, but the flavor of that has changed over time. And so I'd say before fitness for women, air quotes, was very much geared towards quick fixes and the six-week challenge, and we're going to promise you these dramatic body composition changes. And there was never any focus on consistency or longer-term goals. It's always lose this, many pounds for summer or shredding for the wedding. 10 pounds and 10 days. Yes.

And even a group fitness culture of which I was a part because I worked as a trainer in New York City. And so while I was there, there was very much a focus on group fitness for women. And still, I saw so many people with body composition goals not going about it the right way or the most optimal way, the most goal appropriate way. and now I see a new more complex flavor of misinformation because it appears to be evidence-based. We're in this time where everyone wants the science. They want that PubMed IT.

Yeah. But what that means is it sounds credible. Sometimes it sounds pretty complex. And so then the take home is, well, you take my word for it. I'm not really explaining the why behind the what. And the thing about good science communication is even when physiology is complex, and it can be, we should be able to break it down for the general public to say, this is what I'm recommending, and here's why, in a way that you can understand and take in and be able to apply those principles moving forward.

Yeah. You know, I think a lot of the confusion comes from, and I see this in kind of the sleep and circadian space, folks who are well educated about the science, maybe don't let the lay person know or the public know that there may be mouse models or, you know, and those insights are derived not from humans, right? And I think the women's space is, I mean, rodents don't have a menstrual cycle to be really clear, right? But yet we are abstracting information and creating programming around those data. So maybe just talk a little bit about how should the public think, how do they know whether or not the scientists, the exercise physiologist, who specializes in women's health, is talking about actual human data? Well, the scientist should be transparent about that. And the message should be, based on this mechanism or based on what we have observed in a rodent model, I might hypothesize X.

It rarely comes across that way, though, unfortunately. And so in some cases, unless you actually have access to the data, you don't know because it's being presented as if this is something that has been observed in human women. And while rodent models and cell culture, I mean, that's kind of the basis of where many scientific questions start. The purpose is to go on and generate hypotheses that are tested in humans. And I can think of countless examples where we thought, oh, this is. is exciting. You know, time-restricted feeding was one of them. People thought this could

be a game-changer because of what was observed in rodent models. Or artificial sweeteners, people thought, oh, there's something really scary here because of what was observed in rodent models. But as you said, when we think about hormones, it's not an appropriate model. Even menopause, it's not an appropriate model. Metabolism is different. Lifespan is different. Body size is different. And of course, the types of studies that you're doing when we are deleting a gene or over-expressing a gene. All of this is scientifically interesting, but not practically relevant. And if we're talking about exercise or nutrition, we have to pull from the most relevant human data in order to make those recommendations. So the advice is, before you take

advice, understand where those data are coming from. Yes. Because to your point, the scientists communicating information might not always be transparent, and frankly, most of the time isn't. And if you're going to make a claim, you should be able to say, well, women need to do this differently because we've observed in this study and that study that when they were performing this exercise for however many weeks, we observed the outcome of interest, whether that's changes in body fat, changes in muscle size, changes in strength, whatever the outcome we're discussing is, then that's the data we look to to answer that question. I mean, it sounds so obvious, but it's not happening. when you were near enough. I know. Yeah, that's well said. There's so many misconceptions out there,

but what would you say are like the three biggest myths about when we think about just fitness? It's very hard to narrow it. I know, I know. We'll get to more than three. But I think just to kind frame this up, like what are, you know, if you had to kind of create, maybe a better way of thinking about it is there's three buckets, you know, and where do people get tripped up the most based on what they think is true but actually isn't true. One of the biggest misunderstandings, and that's not only on the consumer side, but also on the communicator side, is who are we talking to? And so what is relevant for the new exerciser is probably, or what is relevant for the elite athlete is totally irrelevant for someone just starting out on their journey. And so we're so driven by this kind of word,

But it's like picking out fancy bathroom fixtures when you don't have plumbing. Yeah. We have to have the foundation in place, right? Yeah. So I'd say that's one. And then what I see often in my space is that because men and women are different, women need fundamentally different strategies in order to get to the same place. And the last thing I'll say is aging.

and that what applies as we age is so different that, again, we need different strategies. And so then menopause, for example, that would kind of change the game. And what we used to work will no longer work because of an age or life transition. I find that conversation really interesting. And of course, I have visibility into loads and loads of data, you know, so I can see what starts to go off the rails is actually sleep early on in women, you know, up to four years, before they indicate that they're in perimenopause, you know, and for whatever, maybe that's a cluster of symptoms that they're feeling, that they're like, okay, they change their status to

perimenopause. But the thing that goes off the rail is the sleep. So, but I think what people think is happening is that they don't have the ability to put on muscle anymore or their metabolism is changing in some way. Maybe just talk through that third myth you just identified, because I think that that is really pervasive in that my body is, you know, changing so drastically. And I don't, I don't know that that's happening or maybe just clarify what's actually happening. When we talk about hormones, this is something that really resonates with people. And so the hormone conversation tends to drive a lot of this misinformation, especially with the menopause transition, because the hormonal changes are something people are living and experiencing day to day. But

one, the experience from one woman can be very different from that of her neighbor, right? So there are some women who experience really debilitating symptoms and some women who just don't. And, you know, there are some risk factors that we could point to, but not so much that we could say, oh, I can predict, you know, that you're going to sail through and you're going to have a rough time. The same would apply for pregnancy or even from one pregnancy, the next pregnancy within the same person. So just because, there are hormonal changes, just because there are potential symptoms present, and just because when those symptoms are debilitating, they can have a downstream effect that can ultimately affect things like adherence or motivation or your willingness or ability to stay consistent.

Poor sleep is a perfect example of that. If you're not sleeping well night after night after night, how are you supposed to prioritize your fitness? It's really hard. You're just going to move less the next day. You're going to eat more. You know, we kind of know this. Yeah.

And so when we think about the downstream effects, those can be real. But when we look actually what's going on physiologically, and this is where the kind of truth starts to diverge into a lot of these myths, it would say, well, because you are over 40 or because you are peri-post-menopause, then you need to train in a different. rep range or you should no longer do zone two training or calories in calories out no longer works for you, all these kinds of messages that really make women feel terrified and helpless. Disempowered. A hundred percent. And that's the most harmful part of this because in truth, and we know this from high quality data. Yeah. What works for the younger ones. woman also works for the perimenopausal woman, whether it's how we gain muscle, how we gain

strength, how we increase cardiorespiratory fitness, how we lose weight. Yeah, all those principles are exactly the same. I love that you said that. And I just, we need to scream that from the rooftops, you know, because I think that's, I think to your point, you know, I think there's nothing more paralyzing, you know, then feeling like the rules don't apply to you, that these principles don't apply to you. And you've done such a great job kind of highlighting that and making that very, very clear. One of the things that I bump into a lot by folks who I consider my friends in the space, you know, who are really doing, I think, a lot of good work. But one of the things that I see is that for things like particularly around hormonal therapy,

a body of folks who are like, well, the data don't exist yet. So what do we just lay back and, you know, just be in pain, you know, and just let these symptoms, like, devour us, you know? And so there's kind of that camp. And then there's the real evidence-based camp who are just, you know, who are really following the guidelines that are set forth by the menopause society. And so there's just like there's two fractions. And I kind of see, I observe them go at each other online.

I wish that we could just all kind of get in the same room and figure out how to approach this in a way that is actually helpful for the woman who is listening to both sides and is actually confused. Because both come at it from such a confidence, a confident kind of perspective and position that I think it makes it really hard to disambiguate. What do I actually follow here? So maybe if you can just address that perspective of, well, we don't have the data. we know anecdotally that this is helpful, so let's just, you know, go for it kind of thing versus the evidence. We have to be cautious there because we see this with the peptide conversation going on, right? Where this is so driven by anecdote and there are potential real safety things.

We have to be cautious because it's always going to be a risk assessment. And I think people are so confused and so overwhelmed. And there's this sentiment that, oh, doctors and scientists are gatekeeping, that they're willing to try strategies that really are not evidence. Right, right. But when we think about menopause hormone therapy, we do have very high quality data on menopause hormone therapy. Some people will point to the women's health initiative and say, oh, all of that data is crap. This is not true. Yeah, we stop saying that.

It's some of the most valuable data we have. It was certainly misrepresented by the media. But that's not the data's fault. Every study practically is misrepresented by the media. Let's be honest here. The media will sensationalize because they want the headlines. And that's unfortunate when they do that, because the ramifications can be really long-lasting.

But we know that hormone therapy can be really, really effective for menopause symptoms. And so people who are experiencing symptoms and for whom it's indicated, it's something to explore. But there are other people who are kind of saying, well, this is a longevity hack. So if we're on menopause hormone therapy, we're going to look younger, we're going to be thinner, we're going to maintain our muscle mass, we'll decrease our chance of cognitive decline, and there's all these claims that make it sound like, if I'm not on this, I'm really missing out on the health benefits. And that is a really exaggeration of where we are. Because as of now, other than the symptom management and potential benefits for bone,

cognitive health, cardiovascular health, body composition changes, the data just really isn't there. And I think if we can frame the conversation in a way that makes women who are suffering feel like, oh, I have a potential solution here, then that's a good thing. But also without alienating people for whom hormone therapy isn't indicated or tried it and they had a whole host of side effects so they couldn't really stay on it. And then say, wait, there's no data at this point to indicate that there's a longevity benefit or a cognitive health benefit or anything. I would say we can pretty confidently say that for body composition, we're not seeing a benefit from menopause hormone therapy. And I think that can help just ground everybody a little

bit because it's not a grounded conversation. Yeah, it really isn't. It's like completely unhinged, actually. I think when we look at what are each individual woman going through and where could they benefit? And then the go-to is always hormones when, in fact, let's say it's just sleep disruption. Well, maybe, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy would be a good approach. Or maybe it's just mental health struggles. And so maybe then some sort of mental health approach where talk therapy and or medication would be the right approach. And that's not to say that the hormone therapy isn't effective for what it is, but it's not a panacea for all. Yeah.

And I think that's the important distinction, you know, is that this might not solve your issues. How much is it actually placebo? Do we know? Well, we know that the placebo effect is... Because you get on these hormones and you're like, you know, like, I'm feeling better. I mean, we know that that's the most efficacious pharmacological. I mean, we know that for drug trials. We know that supplements.

So I'm just curious. Like, you know, and if that is the thing, that's great. You know, like, I suppose, you know, as long as there's no side effect. You know, I mean, if you feel better, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Well, whenever we think that there's an intervention, then we're going to feel more positive about the outlook. We might move more.

We might, you know, just think about our food differently or. I mean, and some of the most fascinating. placebo research is in these sham surgeries where, you know, some people get the knee surgery and the other group doesn't, and then they all go through the same rehab, and there's no difference. So the power of the placebo effect can't be, I think, over-seated, but I think it's more about feeling like you have control over something, because I go back to the conversation we had previously about people feeling like they have no control, like their body isn't theirs anymore, and there's nothing they can do about it.

And that is great for marketing because it... Yeah, here's your solution. Yes. Just pay $99, you know, a month. Yeah, and, you know, here's your weighted vest or your vibration plate or your supplement stack, and people are desperate, so they'll pay. Yeah. And I wish that instead of kind of preying on that population,

that we would empower them with the information. You mentioned HRT, no association to improved cognitive function, no association to muscle building, metaboliz shifts, but you did say that there might be some bone benefits. Can you just talk about those data? Well, it depends on the country you're in. So in some places it's actually approved for bone. And in some countries, it's not.

but it's been observed as sort of a secondary benefit. So the primary indication would be for symptom management, but then you'd see, well, over time, you know, if we're doing dexas scans and we're seeing less bone loss with people who are on hormone therapy. But again, if you have a bone-specific concern, then perhaps an osteoporosis-type medication that either slows down bone turnover would,

would perhaps be more appropriate. Because when you're thinking about taking hormones, it's not necessarily going to be side effect-free. There are different ways that you can, we talk about hormone therapies if it's kind of this one-size-fits-all thing, but it's not as well. You know, for some women who contraception is still a concern, then maybe it's actually a hormonal contraceptive.

And so when we, We have symptoms as a concern, it feels more like a, this makes sense. But when you have someone where it's just osteopenia or maybe a previous fracture or family history of osteoporosis without the symptoms, then maybe you're having a different conversation. Yeah. And just mechanistically, as estrogen declines, like, what is the rate of bone loss? I can't imagine like, oh, your estrogen is declining.

All of a sudden, like, your bone, you know, like, it takes. It's very gradual and it's slow. And presumably if you have, you know, if you've been lifting weights for 20 years prior to paramedopause, menopause, you're probably fine. Well, there's a huge amount of individual variability. Yeah. Right. And so when we think of unlike muscle, bone mass peaks in our mid-20s and then we're kind of stuck maintaining what we have. Yeah.

Whereas with muscle, we can start lifting weights at 80 and gain muscle. Right. So unfortunately, it's really driven by genetics and the behaviors when we're children, when we're developing. And so, you know, if you're eating a nutritious diet and you're physically active throughout childhood and adolescence and you're setting yourself up for more success, hopefully. But again, there's a huge, huge, huge genetic component. And the same thing with the degree to which we lose bone. So there will be some people who have been physically active their whole lives and done, you know, quote unquote,

everything right, but because of that genetic predisposition, they will start to lose bone. And an intervention might be appropriate. But those interventions can be really effective. And they're not, and they can be short term. Interesting. So, but certainly we want to make sure that we're lifting weights. And for some people doing impact training is something that they enjoy. But lifting weights is always going to be my go-to for bone because we want people to. the lifting meats for muscle. So it's like a two for one benefit. And we also, I think when we think about bone, we have to think about why we care about bone mineral density as a measure. And it's really, it's a proxy for fracture risk. So we also want to think about fall prevention. It's not just

the number on the scan printout. So I think incorporating some kind of balanced training. And I would do that, again, through resistance training. You can do single leg exercises. You can do something like a walking lunge where you're more likely to be able to catch yourself when you fall because you have that kinesthetic awareness. You're able to move through space under load. And so if you catch yourself off balance, then you're less likely to have that fall and subsequent fracture. I did want to ask you about hormonal birth control. And, you know, because I think that's another, you know, there are two camps with that too, you know, the folks that are like, you know, this is ruining your life. you know, it's masking, you know, all these underlying kind of potential issues that you might have.

Maybe just talk about that debate and help us cut through that noise. The irony is that the people who often push this very anti-birth control messaging are almost always huge fans of menopause hormone therapy. Exactly. So I make it make sense. sense. I don't, I can't. Can someone make it make sense? I just, the disconnect is just, it's excruciating. Yeah, I mean, right? It really, it blows me away. Yeah, me too. Okay. What gets so lost. I feel like I'm for the first time I'm saying some of the stuff out loud. So I just because I feel like I'm in a safe space right now. What gets lost so often from conversations about it's either fertility, sometimes it's athletic performance,

sometimes it's just hormones in general when it comes to hormonal contraceptives, is it's for contraception. And it's a very effective contraceptive. And from my perspective, telling teenage girls not to take advantage of an effective contraceptive is a problem. That's not the road that we should be going down. But if I can, to leave that aside for a minute, when we think about the fear that's kind of being propagated around it, it's usually to say, well, it's going to shut down your natural hormone production. True.

But that's not problematic. It's designed to do that because, again, the goal is contraception. And so when we have these natural endogenous hormone fluctuations throughout the menstrual cycle, it's to prepare for implantation to prepare for pregnancy. And if that doesn't happen, then we menstruate and we repeat the cycle. And so when you add in these low-dose hormones for which we have a lot of data, they've been around for a long time, and the iterations of them are such that doses have been able to get lower and lower and

lower while still being effective to prevent pregnancy. And we're not seeing long-term effects on fertility and not seeing effects on athletic performance or body composition. Or they're also used for people who are having really painful menstrual symptoms. And that can be an effective solution for that. And people are often saying, well, that's just masking the problem. Well, the problem is symptoms that are associated with. menstruation. So if we can address those, that's like saying, I'm going to give you ibuprofen to help with your cramps. Are you just masking the problem? We're addressing the problem.

Yeah. And life is exponentially better. Right. In the exercise space, about half of women, maybe more when you think about more elite athletes are on a hormonal contraceptive. We did a study with Florida State University with Mike Ormstromswe's lab, and we had 700 collegiate athletes participate. And about half were on hormonal birth control or hormonal contraceptive, whatever I want to call it. So, yeah, that seems to be probably, I think, a really accurate kind of take that, although I think it is decreasing. That study was five years ago and just with all of the loud, you know, screaming that, you know, this is really bad for you. I think people are trying to approach it more naturally, which isn't a bad. thing necessarily, certainly if you don't have any symptoms, you know, negative symptoms associated

with the menstrual. But I think the follow-out question, that is, so also the same individuals who are promoting MRT are also saying that you shouldn't go on hormone birth control during paramedopause to deal with those symptoms. Can you make that, can that make sense? It doesn't make sense because it's, you know, estradile or ethanol esterdial, which is the synthetic estrogen that's in the hormonal contraceptive, it's the same. And so, you know, you're either taking that combined with a progestin, which if you have a uterus, you're taking that as part of menopause hormone therapy as well. The distinction is whether contraception is still relevant or not. Right. Right. Yeah. And when you're going through the menopause transition,

at some point people will come off the hormones anyway. And so it's sort of where are you in your journey as opposed to whether contraception is relevant. But the hormones are the hormones. Right. And so it really doesn't make a lot of sense. Unless you're saying, oh, well, we want to use something topical or we're thinking about using vaginal estrogen

is opposed to the oral hormonal birth control, there's a distinction there. It's not about it being harmful because it's acting systemically. It's acting systemically because that's the intention. Right. So you'd think this new sentiment was based on a wealth of data that just came out and people who'd been on birth control for decades and had all these issues. It doesn't exist.

Yeah. It's confusing. Yes. I want you to react to this. Women are not small men. is there truth to it it's more of a marketing hook than an evidence-based rationale for sex-based training recommendations right right and you know and i and i think when i zoom out i'm like gosh you know like we got a conversation going right yeah which is awesome but i think as an industry there is always this

gross over index. And I think that's what we're trying to come back to the middle on right now, is that, oh, I'm going to ask well men. So we just need a completely different training protocol. We need completely different eating window timings. We need completely different recovery protocols. We need different, different, different. What do we actually need to do differently as women as it relates to becoming fitter? and healthier. Instead of saying men and women are different, because the statement, women are not small men, is always followed by, and therefore this is what you, as a woman, must do differently. Of course, men and women are different. But the question is, what is the degree to which that should inform differences in how we eat or train? Because I could say, blondes are not brunettes,

or lawyers are not architects, or short people are not tall. Well, do they need to? train differently, we're just stating a difference. The difference doesn't necessarily drive what is relevant in terms of our performance or how we adapt to exercise. Now, when we talk about men and women, obviously, the hormonal differences are going to come up. And we've known so much about testosterone for so long. However, our understanding of the importance of testosterone has changed over time. Right. When I got into this space, I was definitely interested in asking some of these questions because I'm a woman. I was working with a lot of women at the time, and I'm looking at some of the literature thinking, well, a lot of this is in men.

And so when we think about what was happening 15-ish years ago, we were at a point where, especially in the resistance training space, we did need to replicate some of the studies that had initially been done in men. and we needed to explore some of these more female-specific questions. It's not that the hypotheses weren't worth having. But we have to revisit that in the current landscape with the current body of literature. And what we see is a lot of the outcomes that worked for men in these interventions work very similarly for women. And we know that because scientists all over the world have done the work. And so like I said, it's not that we shouldn't have the hypotheses. It's not that we shouldn't do the research.

But when we get the results, then that messaging needs to be adjusted. It needs to evolve with the science. And that is the hallmark of good science and being a honest scientist. We don't dig in with what we hope. the outcome will be. No, no. You're always trying to prove yourself wrong. When I did work with menstrual cycle phase, I was really interested in the, what's going on

in estrogen and muscle, because we didn't have a lot of work in there. We did have some interesting rodent data. And in some ways, it would have been really exciting if it had translated to humans. estrogen is being protective potentially in some way towards muscle. What was the estrogen connection that you were really interested in? Yeah. So at the time, there were a couple of questions. One would be estrogen is somehow protective or kind of recovery boosting because there are.

Like women have some of this magical kind of capacity potentially. And the rodent data, to be fair, is really. interesting because you see, oh, there are estrogen receptors on satellite cells and then, well, satellite cells are involved in recovery and repair. And so would women be able to train more frequently or can women do more damaging exercise and recover? I mean, that's a huge leap. But that was the kind of conversation that was going on. And the other side of that was, is there something sort of anabolic about estrogen? And that's where the cycle sinking stuff comes in, where people People think, oh, that's where it came from.

Yeah. So the idea is, well, you know, this is going to be a more anabolic environment, so you should really resistance train while estrogen is highest. And it doesn't pan out. It doesn't pan out. And I did the rigorous hard work of all that cycle tracking and all those blood hormones and all those muscle biopsies. This is your PhD thesis.

Yes. Yeah. And there's no difference. And this should be good news. It's interesting because people get so angry about it. It's phenomenal. It just takes all the, you know, all the, you don't have to think about it, right? Just go on how you feel.

If you feel good, train. Like, boom. That's it, right? Yes. It's like literally that simple. At the deepest physiological level that we can go, there's no difference. And that, again, how we talked about the menopause transition and lived experience, I'm not dismissing anybody who has severe menstruation.

cycle symptoms. I'm not dismissing endometriosis. I'm not dismissing PMOS. But all of that points to individuality. Yeah. And so, you know, I could ask a thousand women, when do you feel strongest throughout your menstrual cycle? Menstrual cycle meaning from day one of my period to day one of my next period. And I will get answers across the board. Day one, I always PR. Day one, I feel terrible. I can barely even go to the gym and everything in between. And so what that tells us is how you feel will absolutely vary from one woman to the next, even in some cases in the same woman from cycle to cycle. But what do we do?

We auto-regulate. We have some component of individualization that allows for that, or we decide that we're going to power through. And that's why Olympic medals have been won in every menstrual cycle phase you can think. Totally. It's so funny because I carried so much guilt when I left collegiate coaching. You know, I was a double sport athlete in the Big Ten. I played on the U.S. national team for seven years.

I had, you know, coach Jerry Martin. I had some of the best strengthening nation coaches in the world, right? Like training across collegiate U.S. And then at Princeton, Jason Glucci was phenomenal. We did the same thing as the guys. Yep. Like literally, the same exact thing. I leave that, you know, those three kind of experiences.

And then I start hearing every, you know, all of this chatter like, and I was like guilt-ridden. I'm like, I've been training them just like men. And I was trained just like a guy. Like, was I leaving games on the table? Like, the answer is no. And that's a perfect example of why that marketing is so effective. Because it makes it seem like, well, you've been doing it wrong. You know, I have, you're, even me, like I was, and now I can unlock it for you.

Yes. And this is the secret. I mean, it sounds like it makes sense. Totally. There are menstrual cycle phases, and these hormones do fluctuate, and they don't happen in men. So it's a compelling pitch. It is. And it makes it much harder to kind of push back against, even though, you know, I don't have

a personal investment either way. It's just the science is it science. Totally. But when you say it doesn't matter, then people don't like that. People want, people want to know that there's some secret. People want something. It's weird. It's like, you should just feel relieved. I know. I was so relieved. I'm like, this just uncomplicates everything. Yes. It's so freeing. And that's true with so many of the resistance training variables as well, right? The fact that we can get very similar results from machines and free weights.

the fact that we can train in high or moderate or low rep ranges, the fact that there's no must-do exercise, you can always pick something else. That's great because that means we're decreasing the barriers. Resistance training is more accessible to people, and that should be good news. Such good news. And the narrative around all of this, from my perspective, it really does just create more barriers. Anything that's, well, you're a woman, and so you shouldn't do it like that, or you have to do it like this. or because of menopause, things that worked for you five years ago, throw that out and do something

else. It's bad messaging because the result is either people don't engage in fitness at all or they throw out something that they were doing consistently that they enjoyed. They loved. What do you find, you know, you work with tons of folks and obviously you're online, you hear the chatter. What do you think people tend to throw out that they love based on all of the chatter and information. I'll tell you what I almost threw out, and then I looked at the data, and I realized that I'd be crazy to do that. But I'd love to hear what your thoughts are. Running, Zone 2 training. Oh, that's love me too. Yeah, when I love just the long, slow jog a couple times a week. I just find it incredibly recovery promoting and indeed looking, I haven't published

these data yet, but it's wild in our data set. When we control for kind of sleep with consistently some of the other confounders, alcohol that, you know, could really disrupt your resting physiology at night. When we control for those things, zone two is just magic. You know, I just wrote a book and I put in there. I was like, zone two is not even exercise. I just think of it as a recovery modality, you know, and I feel like that uncomplicates a lot of the dialogue out there, you know, that it's, if we think about it more as a recovery generating modality, it kind of like gets us away from like, oh, this is an exercise, you know, that we need to be thinking about. But talk more about Zone 2. Yeah. Well, I think for anyone who enjoys going for a jog or really doing

any physical activity of any kind, right, we, any messaging that demonizes that is totally missing the mark because we need more people moving. Whether that's at the gym or doing what they consider structured exercise or just moving in general. So anything physically active that you enjoy that you'll do regularly, let's be cheerleaders of that. Yeah. And the messaging around Zone 2 being somehow bad for women is typically saying, well, it increases your cortisol, okay?

All exercise increases your cortisol, including very high-intensity exercise, including resistance training. Right. including literally any type of exercise, we're going to get an increase by design. It's supposed to increase. So that doesn't work. Women are losing muscle mass and losing bone mass,

and so this is going to make you skinny fat, or it's going to turn your bones into chalk. These are the kind of messages that I hear about it. Not true. Not to say that if you are jogging, you shouldn't also be doing some resistance training. There is no substitute for strength training. but we don't necessarily throw out the zone too because there are many health benefits,

both physiologically, psychologically, associated with that exercise as well. And so anything that you enjoy is what we should be encouraging. And there's no harmful effects that are female-specific. Right. Pilates high-intensity training. What are your thoughts in terms of like the junk kind of zone? own three? Well, I think the question is, who's tracking their heart rate and why? So let's ask that because a lot of the people who are consuming messaging like this either are not tracking their

heart rate or maybe shouldn't be tracking their heart rate because they're kind of in that newbie, let's just start doing something, do it consistently. There's a time and a place for heart rate tracking and heart rate zones. But the zone model comes from endurance athletes train for competition. Right. Exactly. I'm so happy you said that because I think people need to understand that a lot of this discussion and modeling and the, you know, the excruciating detail that we approach training is based off of elite athletes who have very, very, very specific performance goals. Yes. Not everyone else. Right. And Zone 2 training is the kind of bread and butter of the endurance athlete because you can do a lot of it and still recover. They need that volume. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you're,

you know, you're doing all these sprint intervals. You can't accumulate the volume and still recover. Yeah. And the fact is that there are, you know, when you look at the general population, like there are very few, the norm isn't highly trained. Absolutely. And that's what we're talking about here, you know, that a lot of these, you know, details that people get caught up on, they're getting caught up on them when they are not actually in that category of highly trained. And just those rules don't apply to them. Right. And I'll say, well, why are you tracking your heart rate?

And they'll say, well, this activity is good because it gets my heart rate up. I'm like, well, why are we getting our heart rate up? Because if we're just doing it to do it, then we need to think bigger about what is the long-term goal. and training for a competition for a particular athletic pursuit. There's a reason that a marathon runner is going to train drastically different than a power lifter. Right. And so we need to remember that. I think when we're communicating to the general population who's just trying to be healthy

and say, hold on, we have way more options here for you. Yeah, yeah. If you had to basically put a stake in the ground and say, okay, this is actually the most efficacious. form of exercise to improve health and longevity. You can only pick one. You know, where would you say people should apply their effort and their time? I mean, I'm a shill for resistance training. I'm a muscle person.

Yeah, of course, of course. We see you're getting benefits to all systems when you lift weights. And there is no substitute for it. Right. The return is just massive. We're getting the added bone benefits. We know that muscle is important. We know that being able to kind of move through full range of motion,

keep our mobility up is going to matter in terms of maintaining our long-term, you know, functional independence. And as muscle mass declines, as our ability to move through those full ranges of motion decline, and that's where we kind of end up in a place where we're no longer aging well. Yeah. that said, if you're not willing to lift weights, but you're willing to do something else that's physically active, I'll take it. Yeah. Because when we actually, you know, we throw around that term longevity all the time, the biggest buzzword, right?

Yeah. But when we look at the people who are actually living the longest, they're just physically active. Right. They probably live in a nicer climate. They walk regularly. They're not necessarily even doing structured exercises. Right. The gardening, third.

Yeah. And so I never want to discount that other movement piece. Am I just an active person? Because for the busy person, it's sometimes way more palatable to incorporate that stuff throughout your day and say, I'm going to take the stairs instead of the elevator, and I'm going to do that regularly. I'm going to park on the other side of the parking lot, and I'm going to do that regularly. That compounds in such a powerful way, right? Yes. Yeah.

I love that you said that because I think a lot of folks do get hung up on like, I didn't go to the gym for this one hour. But maybe talk a little bit about how to think about the day in that context. Because I think that that's also really empowering. Just be like, hey, you can get a lot of the same benefits of an hour in the gym if you spread it out across the day. Absolutely. And I think this is really relevant for people who are going through extremely busy times in their lives as well. You know, think new parents, for example, when you're like, I couldn't possibly get away for the full workout. Well, when we really start to break it down, you can get a lot done in 10 minutes.

And we can start incorporating time-efficient training strategies like supersets or circuits. And when we think about just physical activity in general, there are things like going for a walk while you're on the phone. or maybe getting a walking pad if you work at home and you're on virtual meetings all the time. Those things don't feel like you are going to the gym because you don't necessarily have to change and get sweaty and drive there and drive back. But they do add up. They do count. And I think we can get really stuck on what we think in our minds as an effective workout. when the truth is we could have a week of really effective workouts and we checked them all off.

But if we only did it for a week, that doesn't mean anything in terms of our long-term health. So it's about what you're doing that kind of compounds over time over months and months and years and years. And our ability to adhere to a particular program like a robot is going to wax and wane depending on life stage. And that's okay. As long as in our mind, we're always doing something active. Yeah, you talk a lot about consistency. Yes. Yeah.

And that's, because that's really, that's the most important thing, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it gets so lost in so many of these conversations because people say, you know, what exactly should I do? And, you know, you can give them this ideal program. But if you don't do it at all, or if you only do it for a few weeks, then we've failed that person. Right.

You have to meet them where they are. And so that's true if you are trying to create a program for yourself. That's true if you're trying to help someone else start their fitness journey. If we aren't giving people something that is attainable, then we're not being helpful. And then once they've done it for a while, then we can focus on adding in the other layers of complexity or optimization or whatever you want to call it. Right, right. I love that. So well said.

One of the areas we think a lot about here at Woop is recovery. You know, we have a platform that's, you know, kind of centered around this idea that recovery matters. How do you think about recovery in terms of, as a scientist, and then just as someone who is, you know, actively training individuals and trying to help them achieve goals? I guess what's your thesis around recovery? Well, the degree to which we need to focus on it, it really depends on. on the overall stress that we're putting on the system. Yep. Right?

So if you have somebody who is just working out a couple of times a week, not a ton of stress on the system, they might not even have to think about recovery. Right. Versus you have an athlete in season, and they're so under-recovered because there's so much systemic stress that they're reaching for any recovery modality,

even if it's going to give them 1% of them. They're getting the ice bath and the massage and anything, right? And then you have everything in between. Yeah, yeah. So the question is how much overall stress is going on and then how much do we need to focus on the recovery? And in some cases, it's way more effective to actually adjust the overall volume that we're doing rather than trying to band-aid it up with these recovery strategies that cannot.

wants it be super effective. Totally. I mean, I would say, you know, for moderately to highly trained, to your point, it becomes a little bit more important maybe. You know, you're doing two sessions a day. Like, even if there's a psychological benefit to, you know, stick in your feet in cold water, like, that's worth it. Sure. So one of the things that I found when I was coaching at Princeton, I was using lots of data. And then certainly, while, you know, arriving at Woop, very, very clear that for individuals who, you know, are working out less than an hour, that's going to have no meaningful impact on how you show up tomorrow. It is the other 23 hours of the day where you're drinking alcohol or you're eating like crap or you're not hydrated or you're, you know, inconsistently

sleepway time or, you know, you're eating super late meals and like that's the stuff that gets in the way of recovery. So I think we often don't think of those things as actual recovery, but they kind of are, right, in terms of like how it impacts how we show up tomorrow. So if we're just to separate the discussion out, so if we were to talk about moderately to highly train folks, are there any recovery modalities that stand out based on what you know of the science that are actually really efficacious at moving the needle enough to make a difference? Or is there literally nothing? There's no strategy that's anywhere near as effective as tweaking your training program and making a smarter program. Okay.

Okay, say more, yeah. Because if you're really, if you're truly feeling underrecovered, then maybe you are starting to get some small kind of nagging injuries or you're feeling really going to run down. Maybe you're getting sick more often. Maybe your sleep is disturbed. There are going to be these sort of signs in the background and blurting. Yeah, yeah, totally.

And it's important to listen to those signs. But what we could do, and again, if you're really high-level, athlete and you're in a certain phase, then maybe there's nothing you can do about your training. But I think for a lot of the more recreational, but I would still call them an athlete type person, then it could just be that you increased your volume too much too quickly, or you've added something novel and you just ramped it up a little bit too much. Because when we're kind of in that phase where we are pretty, fit, we've already nailed the consistency, and we're feeling a little too confident maybe,

then we tend to want to really push the boundaries. And I certainly notice, even just working with people, is there's a huge variability between people in terms of the amount of volume they can handle. The training frequency, even for certain exercises when we think about lifting weights, there are certain exercises that are going to be more taxing on the system. If you can deadlift three times per week, you're a rare breed. But those people exist. And do we know why some people can take on more volume versus others? Is it really genetic? Is it, do we have a sense? Not really. It's crazy. We don't know that, you know. But it is just, as obviously being a coach, like you just, yeah, certain athletes are just way more capable of huge amounts of volume. Yeah. Versus other athletes

just don't respond and adapt well to a lot of volume. It's crazy how very, very, very variable it is. And in some cases, if, let's say, you're starting a new training block and you're doing sprints and you haven't done sprints for a while, or you're doing RDS and you haven't done those for a while, so we also have to kind of take into account that initial phase of, okay, I'm going to be a bit sore because I'm doing something new, or I might feel a bit less recovered because I'm doing something new. Stairs, hills, crush me. Yeah. I'll be like, I hate doing them, and then I'll be like, you know, yeah, it'll be two weeks since I've done them. And I'm like, okay, here I go. know, and I just can't, I'm always sore.

But you expect that. Yeah, I totally know. It's not going to put a red flag of, oh, I need to kind of, like, there's something wrong here that I need to address. Reaching for the kind of recovery modalities, they're not harmful, generally speaking, although, you know, the timing of ice baths, maybe. But I think more so you're less likely to set yourself up for success if you're kind of ignoring what could just be too much volume and trying to supplement that with the recovery

modalities because long term it's going to catch up to you. Yeah. Yeah. That's so well said. I love it. So one of the things that we do on our platform is we allow women to track their menstrual cycle just so they can have a better sense of what's happening across, you know, the month. I mean, one thing that we do notice is that there's just.

a wild amount of variability. It's shocking how variable, like women can have, you know, 11 day or a 28 day or a 22 day. Like the range is crazy. Start there. Okay. So there's the myth maybe that we follow this kind of 28 day pattern, right? And that's kind of the norm. So maybe why is that not the norm? And how should a woman think about their own cycle in terms of what's normal? So cycle, meaning the full cycle from the first day of your period to the first day of the next. Some people think just the menstrual period is a cycle, but we're talking the whole thing. Yeah, so the whole, yeah, so not just menstruation, but like the whole actual cycle, yeah.

Yes. So only about 13% of women have a 28-day cycle. But we think about a 28-day cycle because in every medical textbook or that diagram that you can Google, it's always 28 days. It does not follow that pattern, to be clear. I just don't. It doesn't. And when we think about menstrual cycle phase, it typically divides that 28 days in half. And then we have ovulation, which separates follicular and luteal phase.

and that on that nice diagram always occurs halfway through the cycle. Right. Having actually measured blood hormones and tracked urinary LH and many women across many, many, many cycles, which is a hellish ordeal. So painful. I will tell you that those hormone fluctuations that you see in that very pretty diagram, I've seen once, ever, once. The timing and the magnitude of those fluctuations varies.

so much between people. You've seen it once. I've seen it once that it actually looks like that. The degree to which you get that esterile spike on, you know, day nine, and it lasts exactly until day 13. And you're getting a just as large progesterone spike. And then following, some people have small hormonal surgeons. And some people have big ones.

And we have no idea why or what that really means, because people don't measure. the hormones across the menstrual cycle. It involves a lot of blood measurements to really get that diagram. So those surges are not a comment on the health of your period. Are we able to correlate that at all? In research, sometimes we'll use, and this is debated, but the degree to which progesterone spikes in the luteal phase as an indicator that ovulation occurred.

Okay, okay. Whereas the lutenizing hormone spike, which is what you can measure in urine if you get those fertility, like test strips from the drugstore, that is predicting that ovulation will occur. Right, okay. So you're kind of using both of these, but really the only way to determine it is through an ultrasound. So these are all kind of markers for it. But even the spike in lutenizing hormone, so that that is, you know, quote unquote, What you'll see is some women have what we would call a fleeting ovulation, meaning you're only getting that positive test for a couple hours and it's really easy to miss. And for some people, it's a couple days. So there's variability there. If you do bloods, you'll see some people have this huge spike and other people, it's a kind of smaller spike. And really, that's not, it's like either the egg is released and you ovulate or you don't. Right, right, right. There isn't. So it's not like the bigger, the spike the better.

Okay, got it. But ovulation can occur earlier. So if we go back to our 28-day cycle, we could have a day-9 or a day-10 ovulator. Or in that 28-day cycle, we could have a day-20 ovulator. And that's just normal for that woman. What that means is if you're early or late, you have these dissimilar length phases. So when we talk about this messaging of exercise or nutrition adjustments around the cycle based on phase, it starts to become way messier because instead of having two weeks

and two weeks, you have one week and three weeks. Or you might have someone who doesn't have a 28 day cycle and has a 21 day cycle or a 37 day cycle. And so all of that really throws a wrench in these beautiful kind of cookie cutter recommendations or depictions of a quote unquote normal menstrual cycle. How do you think that's like slowed progress down? in terms of helping women understand their bodies better? I think having conversations around menstruation and normalizing it is a good thing. Yeah. Because nobody really did that when I was a teenager.

Right. And it was something you're kind of always trying to hide and you would never talk about it with your coach. No, no. Having open conversations about it is good. I think everything else that's come along with it is bad because so much of the cycle, type messaging will say, you should do yoga and light stretching for this week. Well, that doesn't make any sense because now we're giving a blanket recommendation to all women to change a full week of how they're training.

The long-term ramifications of that are substantial. Or, you know, in some of these models, it'll say, well, you should be doing, you know, lifting for this week and then high-intensity interval training for this week and then Pilates for this week, well, we're never going to make any progress in any of those if we keep changing up what we're doing from week to week to week. So all of that messaging around because of this hormone profile, you should feel like this or you should do this or you should avoid that. None of that is helpful. And I think it just adds so much more confusion where then people think, oh, if I'm training hard today, I'm doing something wrong. Right. Another popular thing I see online is that all

women should be taking testosterone. What are your thoughts on that? Is testosterone going to help women build muscle? Is it going to help them? I think where this messaging is targeted is toward perimenopausal, metaposal women. So maybe talk about it from that perspective. And then if you can add just some information for men as well, that would be great around. Let's start there. Okay. So why and when does testosterone matter? When we think about sex differences, testosterone matters because men go through puberty and during puberty the surgeon testosterone coincides with an increase in muscle mass and so that's why you get to untrained adults and the man will be more muscular and stronger right and we can attribute that to testosterone however once

we start training the relative gains in muscle size and strength are similar in men with higher and lower testosterone assuming they're within what is a very wide normal range and between men and women. So our understanding has evolved, where it used to think, oh, testosterone is this huge driver of hypertrophy. And during puberty, it is. But in response to training,

it's a lot less relevant than we once thought. And we see that because men and women are gaining similar relative rates of muscle, despite a 15-fold-plus difference in testosterone. Okay. Okay, that's wild. Because I think that that is not how we think about testosterone, you know, just at all. And there's a sort of misconception that women are always going to be at this huge disadvantage

because compared to men, the testosterone levels are so, so much lower. Yeah. Now, that tells us that muscle growth is not dependent on testosterone, and so there are many, other things that play physiologically, which is great. It means that we're not at a disadvantage. Right, right. The caveat here is once we start introducing exogenous hormones and we're getting into those super physiological levels of testosterone, yes, then it matters.

Of course. And that can be helpful for men and for women. Right. And we're talking, bodybuilders taking- But those super physiological levels also introduce potential side effects that are like, not, not trivial. Yes. And so when we get into the kind of perimenopause testosterone conversation, now what we see is

women will start, testosterone in women will start to decline. So you look at testosterone on average in your 20s, in your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, it's starting to decline. That decline doesn't accelerate across the menopause transition at all. Wow. So that's another misconception. There's no decline in testosterone at menopause. You see these women online who are like, I took testosterone. You see them like doing their, you know, latro and their back is all muscular and like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I guess you're saying that your testosterone caused this muscle gain is what is being implied.

Right. And then we're selling testosterone. Right. Okay. Susan Davis, who is in Australia, is an amazing, amazing scientist and expert on this topic. but she's done great work in this space. And testosterone can be helpful for low sexual desire. And that is what it has shown in the research.

That's why people are prescribing it in an evidence-based way. Okay. So for libido. Yes. At low levels. Low doses. The goal is to sort of mimic what would be at physiologic level. Okay.

When we think about the levels required for us to get muscle growth beyond what we would otherwise get from training, then we're getting into those levels that are much, much, much, much higher. And if we do, then we're potentially getting unwanted facial hair, back hair, acne, clitoral enlargement, voice deepening, some of which cannot be reversed. So we don't want high levels of exogenous testosterone and women. And we would have to go there if we wanted the muscle benefits. So if you're taking the low levels, which you should be, if you're taking it for low sexual desire, then you're not getting the muscle benefits. If you're taking the high levels, then you're risking all of these potentially unwanted side of that.

I mean, the amount of misinformation just around testosterone alone is mind-blowing. Yeah. mind-blowing. I can't even imagine how many women have been impacted by this in a negative way. And when you look at a lot of common threads and stuff online, people will say, oh, just lie to your doctor and tell them that you have a low libido because the other way, so you can get it for the body composition benefit. Because this isn't like something you want to mess around with. Right?

Like, what are people doing? We're treating. Is this we're just desperate? Or what is the, what, what, what? I just don't understand how we could be so cavalier with these exogenous compounds that have like real side effects. Right. And in massive intra-individual variability. Yes.

On an uneducated individual around this topic would just maybe wouldn't be aware that what was good for her isn't good for me. Right. Like in my age, my fitness levels, my diet, my sleep. I mean, there's so many variables that impact what the doses should be for me. Right. And none of that is being taken into consideration from what I can understand, what I can see. That's true. And people are going to these other kind of sources that maybe don't even have their full health history because they're just trying to get access to it.

Right. And it's really interesting because when you think about, you know, 20 years ago, 15,000. years ago, taking exogenous hormones or injecting yourself with peptide drugs. This was sort of a bodybuilder, locker room thing, or maybe a niche biohacker thing. And now we're living in a time where it's very, very normalized. And people are very open to self-experimentation. And it's one of the scarier things about the industry right now. It's different experimenting with compression boots versus like

hormones. Yeah. And I think that's where we've just taken this leap that seems a little wild. And I think with some of this because the use of somaglite and other

JLP ones is so kind of ubiquitous and injecting oneself with those is normalized that people kind of equate some of these other less studied substances as sort of similar to that. Right. Okay.

So bottom line, we don't need to be taking exogenous testosterone to build muscle in paramedipause and menopause. No, and I wouldn't recommend doing so because the levels you would need in order for it to be effective come with some very serious unwanted side effects. Right. And more importantly, we know that good training builds muscle. Right. Pre and post menopause.

For men and for women, and for women, regardless of menopausal status. We just need effective training. And we need to also remember that if we are constantly chasing fat loss or weight loss, then we're not primed for muscle building. So many women have both goals. They want to gain muscle and they want to lose body fat. And you can do that to a degree. But if you are in a substantial calorie deficit, you can't expect to put on a lot of muscle mass

because the physiological environment isn't set up for that. Yeah, right, right. So in my ideal world, I would say, give me six months, nine months, even a year, maintain your weight, really focus on building muscle mass and then focus on the fat loss. Because I think when we're just constantly chasing weight loss, you never end up really getting those body compositions changes that you're after. Yeah, yeah. That's such a great point. And I think the thing I keep hearing, certainly today, but just in all the conversations, just in the way you come across, like your narrative arc is one there,

There are no shortcuts. Yeah. So we just talk a little bit more about that. Because, you know, you're so articulate in terms of how you think about consistency and kind of showing up for yourself and all that. But what would be your advice to someone who, like, I think we still believe that there's a quick fix. Yeah. Like there's still this magic bullet. Like, you know, there's this like, we just want it so desperately.

I think we just allow, we just can dupe ourselves into, like, believing that. maybe just help someone shift their mindset away from that. If there was a secret quick fix, it wouldn't be a secret. So anyone promising you that is being dishonest. Because when, you know, GLB-1s are a perfect example of that. As soon as it was approved for obesity, it was everywhere. Everyone knew about it. Everyone was excited about it.

And so when something works, it's not a secret. Yeah, yeah. And adaptations like muscle growth take time. If you're lucky, a really, really small amount in two months. Yeah. It's a long game. When you're really working at it and you're showing up and you're showing up and show. So it's a long game.

And also, I think when we focus too much on the physique, the aesthetic kind of as our only outcome, then we get a little bit lost in the sauce and we're less likely to stick with it long term. You get discouraged. Yes. Yeah. And we're so driven by the way we look instead of what we can do. And I can tell you we're going to be way more grateful for what we can do down the road. And so my hope is that when people start lifting weights, that you catch the bug because there's something really empowering.

about witnessing yourself gets stronger and thinking, well, look how much more I can do this month than I could do two months ago. And that can be really empowering. That can keep you coming back. I love that. And I think what you're tapping into is just like figuring out your why, you know, which obviously as coaches, we know that that's so important. But I think that that step is often skipped. And that's why we don't see retention, you know, and we do see a lot of attrition. and people who are engaging in these programs. But I think that hopefully the message has heard that you're not going to find some sort of secret

in some corner of the Internet that no one has known before that's going to totally transform your body. No. And when we talk about the benefits of exercise and people will kind of tune this out. But when you really think about it, if I said, do this thing and you're going to increase your lifespan and decrease your risk of diabetes and decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease and decrease

your risk of all these cancers and improve your cognitive health and increase your ability to live well and independently for longer. I mean, what other drug or supplement or activity has that many benefits? I mean, none. Like, we'd all be taking it if that was a drug. Of course. Of course. Yeah. No, it's so well said. And, you know, sometimes what do you say to the, and I think that that list of wise, you know, is, you know, probably really compelling for the 48, you know, to kind of 60 year old or whatever. What do you say to the 28 year old who, you know, just, again, like is trying to figure out, all right, how do I, I need to consistently train, but I'm having. I'm struggling to figure out my why. You know, like, what's the motivation for that person?

Because it's hard for them to think about, like, oh, lifting my grandkids, like, up when I'm, you know, it's just not that compelling of a, it's not a motivating factor for those folks. That's true. Yeah, you know, I think that strength gains and kind of competition with oneself can be a good motivator. Yeah. The body composition changes can also be a good motivator.

Because my hope is that they kind of work in concert, you know. Maybe you get into it because you know you're supposed to for health, but then you start to really enjoy it because there's something about when you keep showing up and you watch yourself progress that is motivating. Or maybe you get into it because you want to look better in a dress. But the same thing happens where you really feel like, oh, you know, it's not just about showing us. and spending 30 minutes and leaving. It's about beating your former self. Right, right. Yeah, I think, too, one of the things that I would always say to my student athletes is that you can look a certain way on the outside, but obviously internally, you know, that's kind of the scorecard that really matters, you know, is that internal kind of fitness.

And when you think about this notion of internal fitness, there's obviously lots of ways to kind of measure how you're traveling, right? Like, are there any blood panels that you think are particularly helpful or any biometrics that you think are, you know, helpful for someone who might need that kind of motivation to kind of help them see, you know, because some of the adaptations externally come slow. But if you're like, oh, damn, my resting heart rate, like, decrease. Like, I started doing more high, you know, more interval work or, you know, oh, wow, you know, like my heart variability improved. Do you think about it in those terms at all? I think it depends on the person. If you're somebody who loves data, then yeah, go for it. Yeah, yeah.

But also don't get too tied to numbers like that. You know, people will say, oh, should I get a Dexa every six months or something like that? And I'm like, I don't, because maybe it's not going to show an improvement, and I don't want that to derail someone. So we kind of have to, it's a bit of a push and pull where the data is good, but we don't want to get so dependent on that as our only measure of success. We have to think bigger picture as well. And I think the just mental health benefits of exercise as well, we don't talk about those enough. And regardless of what's going on in your life, just getting that workout and can make your day just improve the, you know,

stress level decrease. You just feel better. Yeah, I'm glad you called that out. There was a really interesting study. I don't know when this was published, but it looked at a cohort of men. And I don't know where they're, you know, maybe they're mildly depressed or had, you know, some sort of mental health, maybe issues in the past. But started strength training two times a week, I think, for just like 20 minutes. Yeah. And they saw great increases in just their overall kind of mental health over the course of six months, I think. Just two, 20 minutes. sessions. It was like what it took. So to your point, you know, I think there's like, yeah, there's just outsized benefits to exercise, right? And nothing that, and there's no medication

that, you know, can replace those benefits. And that's a perfect example of how low a dose can be beneficial. We see benefits in all spheres from a two 20-minute sessions per week. So, and that's really attainable for people. So to realize, like, wait, you know, I don't need to overhaul my whole schedule. If I can just get that in, if I can just start there. Yeah. And you get, I think to your earlier point, you know, like that becomes like once you start that, it's kind of this positive flywheel. You know, a lot of other things start to happen that are positive in your life. And you, you know, you kind of are more inclined maybe to move more. And, you know, all of a sudden, before you know, year in a routine where you're working out five days a week, you know.

Yeah, and for me, I prefer to go more frequently for shorter because I get, it's like I get that hit that helps for my kind of mental health, but I also find that, you know, I can recover more easily and it keeps the routine going because I'm going regularly. It's the same. Like I try to lift every day, you know, but sometimes those sessions are 17 minutes, you know, the other times there may be 38 minutes, you know, but I just try to. I'm just going to do a little something. Do a little something.

And that really does make me feel consistent. It makes me mentally. Like there's just so many positive benefits. You know, am I progressing my training perfectly all the time? No, but that doesn't even matter. I don't think in the end, you know, like. Showing up is way more important than literally anything else. Yeah.

Well said. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to just make sure people here? We've got a lot of engaged listeners, you know, who really, really, really care deeply about their health, you know, and are victims of misinformation. You know, what do you, what do you want to leave with them? Educational content shouldn't make you feel afraid or confused. So keep that in mind when you're on the internet. I love that. That's such a perfect frame. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you.