First of all, this is not meant as a replacement for getting actual training. If you go to a CrossFit Box or any weight lifting gym you will definitely want to get the education that they have to offer you and get the feedback they give to you. If you end up going to a regular gym, I don't know that I would rely on their instruction for weight lifting- in this case I would suggest checking out a couple online programs for learning proper form for various weight lifting exercises:
Beginners Guide to Lifting Weights for Women
Free Youtube Channel: Girls Gone Strong
WHY WATCH ME USING A BROOMSTICK
Mainly the purpose of me doing these demos for you is to
kill the intimidation factor of weight lifting
that has been there for us a lot women.
The reasons I didn't weight lift at all until I did were:
- One of those which we already discussed which is not knowing there's a big benefit to it, not knowing that that is something a women can and should do. I didn't know any of that. Hopefully we've addressed the value of it in the other exercise videos.
- The other factor is because of the INTIMIDATION FACTOR. I didn't know a thing about weight lifting. I was one of those women that felt like I didn't belong to that weight lifting section and that it's too nerve wracking. Way to scary to walk over to that part of the gym where where no other woman is. Or to walk into a specialty gym ABOUT weight lifting - what if there are only a bunch of guys in there? I will feel SO weird (hint, there's honestly more women than men in most the classes at my crossfit, including plenty of women in the 50-65 age bracket- so just do it- walk in ladies!) Anyhow, so I made these demos where we're going to start off with learning the main lifting movements with a broomstick. You can do it with me and do it in your own home. I feel like this is a good way to make you feel a lot more comfortable with what you would be doing. And as you get familiar with the terms and the movements that intimidation's going to go away.
The whole point of this really is to hopefully help you feel brave enough to walk into a CrossFit box or into a gym with a barbell class to try it out. I think a lot of us would start things a lot sooner in life if we didn't feel intimidated. There might be a lot of things that we do eventually do but it takes 1-3 years to actually do it. Do you have any examples of that? It might be something as simple as doing a hobby or trying a new restaurant because I don't know what to expect. Specially in many cases doing something new alone is more intimidating than going in a group. Typically, for some of us we're going to be starting a new exercise program alone. So by getting some advance knowledge of what the movements are and how to do them, you'll know what to expect a little bit. You'll be able to walk into these places kind of knowing what you're going to learn, what it's all about, and feel a little more comfortable and be able to help you take that step 6 months earlier or 1 year earlier.
What you're going to find are all of the demos with the broomstick in my house. I need you to watch those first. I really do break down the movements, I show it to you and then I walk it through you and have you do it with me. I also showed some of the different tweaks to be aware of.
I also have demos of me at the gym, at my local Crossfit box. I will show you them with the barbell, what they look like with the actual barbel with a little weight on them.
SCALING - Modifying Movements When Needed.
Sometimes you can't actually do an exercise as it's shown. For instance push-ups and pull-ups for women - we can pretty much NEVER do these the "real" way at least at the beginning- it took me a long time to do a full-on pushup and pullup. But there are plenty of modified movements for these that are scaled down that will allow you to be able to do the movement while also building your strength towards being able to do a real one.
So I'm going to show you scaling movements for this.
You will improve but you don't need to wait until you feel like you're thin enough or fit enough to start a workout.
With working out you don't need to wait until you've lost all your excess weight.
Heavier Women are GREAT At Weight Lifting
I'm telling you even if you're 50 lbs or 100 lbs overweight you can do heavy weight lifting and do it well. In fact, it's a lot of the sturdier gals that are maybe overweight, they are often the ones who can lift the most weight and that's because when you become overweight you don't gain only fat, you'll also gain muscle. Your body will gain muscle as necessary to support your whole body and do your everyday activities.
What this means is that however overweight you are, you still have more muscle than the average person who is thinner so as a result if you're doing a deadlift or back squat you're going to be able to lift a significant amount of weight fairly quickly and feel good about it.
A heavier woman than me at my crossfit is ALWAYS able to out-lift me on a squat of deadlift.
This can seriously build your self confidence and feel incredibly good. What I like about this is you're not waiting until you reach some pinnacle of thinness to do something that is positive for your body. As far as goals go there's only so far you can go with being thinner and thinner and you're going to cap out pretty quickly. It also gets to be really hard. In order to get thinner and thinner requires you to kind of live less and less of the life you want to live.
Whereas in weight lifting and building strength, skills and capability, those are skills you can improve for a long time. You can continue to improve your form and how much weight you do. It's something that will drive your body to be more and to do more. And that is really positive for you mentally and psychologically.
Additionally, building muscle now, even if you're not done losing weight, will make your future weight loss efforts go faster and be more productive as you have a higher metabolism when you have more muscle, which means that you will lose more fat when you reduce your calories (like on hCG) to lose additional weight.
You don't have to wait until you're done with your hCG Journey to start doing this. To give you an example, I started CrossFit around my 3rd round of hCG. I still did 2 more rounds after that but in between my round I would Crossfit. I actually took longer breaks between rounds because I was enjoying what I was doing with my body during those periods. I had that whole 3-4 months doing training and building my body up, making it stronger and making it more capable. Then when I started my hCG I took a break from Crossfit because my body is not capable of doing the hCG and the Crossfit at the same time. Again I'm not necessarily saying you can't do that. You might be able to do it still but you really need to tone it down but that is hard to do because you really push yourselves especially in a group environment. When I got back to Crossfit after my hCG round I felt that I did not lose strength. Because when you lose fat it's kind of automatically adding to how much weight you can lift in way because you're no longer carrying that fat so now that extra weight can get carried into the barbell and you'll be stronger as a result.
That's how I did it.
I cycled hCG and Crossfit for my last couple of hCG rounds.
Now I've been off hCG for years and just doing my workouts. I really encourage you to do that because I feel like you're going to get much better results from your whole weight loss journey overall if you do that.
As much as I love hCG because it keeps you from having a lot of muscle loss still when you lose weight, you will lose a little bit of muscle when you don't use the muscle. If you're body doesn't have a reason to have it or to build it you will gradually lose it.
According to studies, as we age, muscle loss will accelerate if we don't actually do something to let our body know that we need the muscle and to build more.
We can do that in between hCG so by the time that you get to the end of your journey, you're going to have a healthy metabolism or increased metabolism. Whereas if you didn't do the working out in between, your metabolism may gradually slow down as a result to your body adapting to being a lighter weight and having less muscle.
I'm really excited to share this with you. Remember, you don't have anything to lose just watching these videos. You don't have to commit to anything just watch the videos! This is a free bonus with the program. Just check 'em out and see what you think and just be open to giving it a chance because what it can do for your body is really amazing.
