2900: 6 Mistakes Women Make When They Start Lifting

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1:09You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. In today's episode, we're going to talk about six mistakes women often make when they start lifting. Now, we have a brand new MAPS workout program called MAPS Upper Lower. It's a four-day workout split And it also has a women's version Where the programming is specific to the things that women like to train Like lower body glutes and shoulders So it's in this program And because it's a brand new program It's 40 % off Go to mapsupperlower.com Use the code LAUNCH Get it for the 40 % off This episode is brought to you by Legion So Legion makes high-quality muscle building Fat-burning and longevity supplements They have lots of great protein powders.

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3:09And there's something that we noticed. There's common mistakes that women often make when they start lifting. Today, we talked about the six most common ones. If you're falling for these, if you're doing these mistakes, you're not going to get great results. In fact, oftentimes you get no results. And these are the reasons why. Let's get to it. You know, we're pulling from our experience of training clients, which honestly, we haven't done in a long time. Do you think that these still are the top six? I do because we have trainers now here at Mind Pump that train clients. And these are still common mistakes and conversations.

3:44and then the questions that we get often. Now, we do have a little bit of a self-selection bias because people who listen to the show will ask us questions. But even those that listen to the show end up performing some of these mistakes. So they're still super common. Yeah, that's why, too, I like to talk to my family and friends and get a pulse, too, about what their general thoughts are around training. But, yeah, a lot of these always show up, man. That's it. Yeah, because I look at them, and I think that they are still common. That's why I asked the question. I'm not sure if there's something that we're missing that maybe that's new or different.

4:18But I do think they've gotten significantly better. There's more awareness. More education's out there. I would say there's more awareness around strength training. So we're not selling strength training here. I think we don't need to do that as much. It used to be the case where, I mean, gosh, 20 years ago or more, when I started training, it was even longer than that. I had to sell strength training. Like, no, no, you need to lift weights. We don't need to do that as much. So a lot of people start strength training, especially women now, but then they make mistakes on that path and end up getting little to no results from the strength training they're performing.

4:52So I think that we need to start with this. What is the goal of strength training, right? When you look at forms of exercise, there are specific adaptations that each form of exercise or that different forms of exercise are really good at inducing, okay? Okay. The, the adaptation that strength training is the best at inducing, because it does a lot of things. It changes your body, does a lot of things. But the main adaptation is to get you stronger. Okay. And through that helps you build muscle. So if you're strength training, the goal is to build muscle. Even if your goal is to lose weight, if you're strength training, it's to preserve or build muscle, which only helps the fat loss process.

5:31In fact, when they compare strength training to other forms of exercise when it comes to weight loss, and then they dig into the data, it's better for pure fat loss because losing weight oftentimes means you lose muscle as well as the body tries to slow it down, it's metabolism. But strength training prevents that from happening. So your goal with strength training, if you're doing it, and if this isn't your goal, then don't do it. But the goal is build muscle, build strength, and all of the things that that contributes to, like a faster metabolism, a more shapely sculpted body, more tone, more all this.

6:02Leaner definition and all that. I think it's important you say that because I think a lot of people, they don't come in and they say, I want to build muscle. They define a look that they're trying to get started. And this is how you go about that. That's right. So somebody who says, I want to look tone, I want to look lean, I want to have shape, I want to have curves, all those common goals that people come in with, the way going about that is to build muscle. That's right. Is to build muscle, reduce body fat, and that's what leads to sculpting the physique to whatever. I mean, that's one of the things that's so awesome too about strength training and lifting weights is that it's so unique to the person and unique to the goal.

6:41That it's like, depending on what you want more of or the look that you want to obtain, you really can program in a way that gets that desirable outcome. That's right. So here's the number one mistake, and this is still a super common mistake, which is I'm going to start strength training, and I'm also simultaneously going to add a lot of cardio-style training to my routine. Now, cardio is a form of exercise. So this would be like running, swimming, getting on a piece of cardio equipment, going for 30 minutes, 40 minutes to an hour, bike. It's a good form of exercise. There's nothing wrong with it, but the adaptation that is induced by cardiovascular training is endurance.

7:22Okay? So if I'm riding a bike and what I'm telling my body is I want to get better at being able to do this. And so what it does is it gives me more endurance. Strength training, what I'm telling my body is I need to lift heavy things, so I need to get stronger and build muscle. Here's the problem. They tend to compete with each other. Okay? Telling your body to build muscle while telling your body to build lots of endurance means you'll get less of both. You'll get some of both, but you'll get less of both. So if you're strength training because I'm like, look, I want to build my metabolism. I want to shape and sculpt my body.

7:57I want to build my butt. You're better off not putting too much cardio into your routine because, again, your body can only adapt in so many different ways. That doesn't mean you don't move, you don't walk, you don't do other forms of activity. but when you're strength training, that's the form of exercise that you're doing. It is not, I'm going to spend as much time doing cardio. That'll mess things up. So I think this is a common mistake still today, but for different reasons than what it was before. So I believe when we were trainers, when we started, that the look that a lot of people aspire to look like was this real skinny, lean, almost runner look.

8:38and so that was kind of the appeal of like why i think cardio was utilized so much and of course it was also being prescribed by our doctors as your way to lose weight right like if you went into a doctor and you were overweight he would you prescribe you know go running and cardiovascular training and so i think those are the two main reasons i think more more women today are are far more aware of the benefits of lifting weights and why they need to lift weights to build the body they want to build. But rarely ever did I get somebody who would come in and be like, oh, I just need to build. They tend to go, I would like to lose a little bit of body fat.

9:16They think it's going to help the fat loss. That's right. And so that's the main reason why I think what happens, and I think more often than not, and this is both men and women, the extra body fat that they're carrying bothers them more than I want to build my butt or I want to shape my arms or my shoulders. And so the logic behind their approach is i'm going to go burn it off first while i'm building strength right while or i'll go do it afterwards one or the other either one they think they can do it simultaneously right i'll i'll do all the butt exercises and and lifts that help build my butt but then i'm going to eat and run to lose the body fat and so i think that this is still a mistake made but for kind of different reasons does that make sense yeah and the irony of that too is it like ends up bringing the calorie amounts you know down because you're burning more calories on top of that as well and And it's like the building part needs all the building materials to actually build the muscle.

10:09And so it's like a bit counterproductive or like you said, like it's just a longer drawn out approach. It takes much longer. Here's the deal. If your goal is to get leaner, look at nutrition. If your goal is to build endurance, look at cardio. If your goal is to build strength and sculpt and shape muscle, then you look at strength training. That's the way we should view exercise. Not saying it's not good for you, but when you do it all at the same time, your body only adapts so much in one direction. In fact, this will just prove it. There's a relatively recent study where people were interested in both endurance and strength.

10:41And what they did, and they had different groups of people, what one group of people did is they did strength training one week, and then the following week they just did cardio. So they didn't even combine them in the same workout or even in the same week. They went one week one, another week the other one. And guess what happened? They got more strength and endurance than the other groups. because the body adapts in very specific ways. You don't want to throw a million and one different, you know, types of adaptation at yourself. So the point with this is this, if you're strength training to boost your metabolism, build muscle, shape and sculpt your body, even if you're doing it to get leaner, you're better off building.

11:13And then later focusing on maybe building endurance, stuff like that, but doing it all at the same time will take away from your attempts at strength training. And the mistake I often see is that women do do the strength training, but then throw so much cardio on top of it. Nothing happens. They're just burning their bodies out and they're not doing anything. And oftentimes with those women, uh, many times I've done this where I look at the routine and I say, really, the only thing we need to do is take out the cardio. And they all look at me like I'm crazy. Like, I don't want to change anything.

11:39Just take the cardio and watch what happens. And of course, when they do that, they start to build the muscle. They actually start to get leaner because of the metabolic boost. They feel better. Uh, and everything just works much better. The next mistake is, uh, lifting to light, not really using enough weight. to have the right kind of intensity with weights. It's funny because guys tend to go the other direction where they lift too heavy and their form is gone. With women, what I've found, and I find this time and time again, I'll take a client or a friend, I'll watch them do something. They're really focused on the technique and having good form.

12:13And I'll look at the weight that they're doing for how many reps. And I'll say, you know, you could add like 30 pounds. Yeah. And they look at me like I'm crazy. You're really struggling those last two. We add 30 pounds and the form is just as good. It's just much more intense. And of course, you get better results. Especially with the lower body. I can't tell you how often my female clients underestimated how much they could lift. Almost always. Yeah. And I don't know why that is. Maybe because they feel like some of their upper body movements, they can't move nearly as much weight. But I've had female clients squatting, leg pressing, deadlifting, as much weight as my men.

12:50Yeah. Like women can get really strong in their lower body in comparison to their upper body. And so almost always when I was training a female client, I would be able to look at their squatter and I go, oh, you, you easily got 25, 50 more pounds. And they're like, no, no way. And I'm like, oh yeah, you could totally tell by the way you're moving that bar. You need to challenge yourself with the weight that you're lifting. Again, I can't, I can think of right now off the top of my head, uh, over the last even few months of just friends working out. I have a garage gym. I will have friends come over and work out.

13:20And I'll go out there and I'll watch them and I'll add 10, 15, 20 pounds to their lift. That's not a little bit. They were way off. They were way off on the amount of weight that they should be using. They were far too low. I mean, I get miscalculating and being off by five pounds, but if you could add 20 pounds to the bar and still have good technique, you're working out too light and that's not going to change your body yeah this is i think uh singles doubles and triples are incredible yes for this it lets you really push yes there's nothing magical about singles doubles and triples meaning one rep two rep or three sets of three reps yeah right uh as far as what it what it does for muscle building but what it really does is it highlights how much more weight somebody can pull because traditionally when you follow a program even one of our programs the lowest rep range you ever really see is five reps and most programs are like this most programs are like you're going to fall between the 5 and 20 rep range because of all the research and studies when it comes to hypertrophy and building muscle.

14:16But the benefits of getting someone to lift a bar or a weight for one rep as much as they can, it really helps them get a better gauge of what they're capable of doing with five reps. Because a lot of times, they're working out with a weight, they're doing five reps, and it's like, oh my God, this person could do that eight, nine times, no problem. If I show them what they can do in a single or double, they'll build the confidence to do that. Not to mention these numbers when we give, like even in our program, say five reps. I always tell clients this too. It's okay if you accidentally put a little extra weight on there for that five by five you're doing and you only get to four reps.

14:55I'd rather you do that than get to eight. That's exactly how I'd have to coach. I'd say, listen, put on a weight that you think you might barely get five. And if you get to three and you don't think you have another one in the tank, then stop at three. That's fine. This is one of the reasons why women tend to get such great results with power lifting style training. Yeah. Is because they're finally. Pure focus on it. They're focusing on the weight. And I think they get, well, most of my clients I've had, it's like a weight that they have done before. That's right. They're stuck. This is like my comfort zone.

15:27I gravitate towards that. They do it at home. But I also blame some of these circuit training classes because the options are limited and you're kind of hustling through. And there's no rest. How are you going to go heavier? There's no rest. It's an association with the weights, with some of those movements. So, yeah, true strength training, completely different mentality. Totally. The next one, I think this is the biggest mistake. I think this is the most common mistake, which is they're just not eating enough calories. They're not feeding their bodies enough. Do you know how many call for – listen, if this is one of your first times listening to our podcast, I tell you what, probably 60 % of the time, and you guys correct me if you think I'm wrong.

16:04It might even be higher. 60 % of the time, we get a female caller, and the fix is to eat more. They'll call in. I'm not seeing results. I'm struggling. My body feels this. I'm not getting leaner. I'm not building muscle. What's wrong? We look at their programming. Oftentimes, they're doing too much. But oftentimes, they're just not eating enough. Yeah, not feeding themselves enough. We have them bump their calories. We have people call in. we'll have them bump their calories 600 700 calories and thankfully they trust us we'll have them come back and we've had many of them where we've had them come back on in 60 days 90 days and they all say the same thing it was crazy how good i felt and how much muscle i built i got leaner through it your body won't build if it doesn't have enough calories it just won't which is no small feat because psychologically yes you really uh they they really need assurance they really need to be able to see the progression of that and like to be able to get there takes a lot of you know courage outside of their fear of like gaining weight because that's the biggest negative for them i don't care how good your training program is how intense you go and how hard the workout was if you don't give it the nutrients and the building blocks to go build the muscle you won't build you might see yourself get a little stronger because you're getting better at the lifts than you're practicing because of the CNS adaptation process.

17:22But if you want to build a body, you want to build your physique and you don't give it the materials, the nutrients. It's impossible. It's impossible. It just won't. You'll get good. Maybe you might get good at lifting. You might get good at working out, but you will not reap the max benefits of all that work. I've had young ladies do great strength training, do everything right, get a DEXA scan and come back with osteopenia because their calories are too low for too long. So you have to feed and fuel your body. If you're trying to build anything, you have to feed and fuel your body. All right, the next mistake, and this is a common one too, is not really following a good established structured program.

18:02It looks a lot like winging it, doing my favorite exercises. I'm going to go train this again and train that again, and here's the machines that do that. Here's the thing. And strength training has this kind of reputation, which is interesting. Although I think this is true for all forms of exercise. But strength training, the programming is so important, you guys. It's so important. The sets, the reps, the exercises, how many you perform, the order you perform them, what the week looks like, what the month looks like. These are all things that we talk about as strength coaches when it comes to programming.

18:38And programming makes a big difference. You get two or three pieces that are missing or off, it can significantly impact your progress. In fact, when you look at some of the best strength coaches in the world, ones that produce champion after champion, the difference between them and the other coaches is oftentimes the programming is just better. So follow an established strength training program. Typically, it's not one that a fitness influencer puts out. Typically, it's one that you'll see from strength schools that have a pedigree or good coaches that understand this kind of stuff. A good program makes a huge difference in your progress.

19:17Well, especially I feel like when you've checked all the other boxes, right? When you're doing a good job with the sleep, you're not doing the cardio, you're pushing the weight, you're eating adequate calories, then this is the next step and layer to that is by putting the appropriate programming together. It makes a huge difference. Huge difference. Next up is just not getting stronger and not even thinking that this is an issue. In the first probably three to five years of your strength training, of consistent strength training, the best correlate that will predict whether or not you're building muscle and getting all the benefits of that, like the sped up metabolism, is strength.

19:53If you get stronger consistently over the course of a year, you're going to build muscle. Fact, 100%. So, and the reason why I like strength so much, besides the fact that it correlates so well to the results that we're looking for, is that it's objective. So, you know, I can look in the mirror from one day to the next and I can think maybe I'm not as lean or maybe I don't look as good. Maybe it's the lighting. Maybe I'm bloated. Maybe it's just my, how I'm perceiving myself or whatever. I'm not feeling so good about myself. But if you add 10 pounds to the bar, that's stronger. There is no argument.

20:25I know how much I lifted last week. I know what I'm lifting this week. I'm moving in the right direction. Things are going great. So my favorite tip when it comes to getting stronger and the lifting light point, I did this with Corinne when we first started working together. And it's kind of Justin's point, how much circuit training and classes is kind of bastardized rest periods. And even some of the smartest trainers and advanced lifters I know have never really, unless you're a female with a power lifting background, very few male or female clients, but for certainly my female clients, have ever taken advantage of a three to five minute rest period.

21:01Like literally go put a weight on that you think you can only get a couple times, two or three times and go rest for five minutes. If you're listening to this and you've never had a workout or you've gone to the gym, dedicate plenty of time for yourself so you're not in a hurry. And you're like, I'm just going to squat or hip thrust or deadlift. And I'm going to allow it to take 30, 40 minutes to get through the four or five sets because I'm going to rest five minutes in between each set. and each time I'm going to challenge myself to put on enough weight to where it's hard for me to get two or three out of you and watch what that will do.

21:34I'm just going to tell people right now, if you've never done that before, here's the challenge. This is what people will say. I don't feel like I'm working out. Yeah. I don't even feel like I had a workout. So when I would train clients like this and they would do this and luckily I can sell myself pretty well, they would make the same, they would say that, I don't even feel like I worked, we'd be done with the session. I don't even feel like I worked out. Don't worry, we'll see what happens the next time you train. And week over week, we're getting stronger. 30 pounds to my squat. That's what strength training is.

22:00Strength training is intensity in the set and that's it. Outside of it, you rest, you wait until you can apply yourself again with maximal strength and effort. You don't apply yourself again when you're halfway recovered. You want to be able to apply yourself in a way that's like, I think I can match the set that I just did or maybe even do better than the set that I just did. That's the attitude you have with strength training. That's what builds muscle. It's literally one of the greatest hacks. I mean, I know I've been sharing a little bit of karen's journey of me helping her through this process and you're talking about someone who's a seasoned vet who's been doing these lists for a long time and she's been pring like crazy now one of those reasons is we're fueling our body and we're eating in a calorie surplus that's obviously a huge one the other one is that that was the big unlock when we worked out and i kind of saw her tempo and i went totally when was and i remember the first time i worked out with her and i was just making her rest three minutes and you could see like i was like can you remember the last time you read, she's like, I'd never rest this long.

22:55This feels so long. And I'd be like, you're only at two minutes right now. Yeah, you're at a whole other minute. Yeah, and I'm saying five minutes. Go three to five minutes minimum. Just dedicate a day like that if you've never done this. And when you're doing, whether it's, and I recommend hip thrust, dead lifting. One of the big compound lifts you're doing for your lower body. And allow yourself to just focus on that and to try and do sets of two or three reps and choose a weight that you can, and if you keep getting three reps, no problem, keep adding weight each set as you do with those five-minute rest between and watch what that session looks like.

23:33Totally. And then lastly, and this is just a big mistake because the scale is not a great way to measure progress. And the mistake is that people chase the scale instead of looking at things like body composition. The scale doesn't tell you anything except for total body mass. So if you lost 2 % body fat, but you gained seven pounds of muscle, you're going to be heavier on the scale. And to you, you may think this is a fail. Oh my God, I'm gaining weight. When in fact, you're leaner, more sculpted, faster metabolism, and you look better. The scale oftentimes goes up when you strength train, especially even if you're trying to lose body fat.

24:15I know people are like, I don't want to gain weight. What are you talking about? I'm trying to lose weight. Initially, this is what it looks like when you do it right. Build muscle, gain a little bit, metabolism boost, fat comes off the body. So in those initial stages, you may actually get a little heavier and that could be scary for somebody. Look at body composition. This is what I would recommend people. Dexascan, body fat test. It's a better measurement of what's going on. So the scale might've gone up, but I'm leaner. Boom, that's a success. Or the scale went down and my body fat percentage went up.

24:42What about that one? That's a And even body comp, I would challenge you to do at least two tests in a row that you see to get real trends versus just one body comp. Because a lot of times what happens is you will see strength first and then the muscle follows later. So sometimes people get excited. We had this same mistake. I told this when Corinne and I first started and we were seeing all these PRs. And I was like, man, I was getting so excited. I wanted to see. And I knew we were pushing calories like crazy. I'm like, oh, I know we've built muscle. and what came back was a body fat percentage that we didn't like and that really can spin somebody out and so scale and body comp and body comp is better than scale but again strength is the best indicator and just keep following that but and understand that it does take time sometimes for the muscle to come on so you might see scale go up a little bit strength and prs are coming and then if you go run right to a body comp and you see that and it doesn't come back what you want to see it doesn't necessarily you're even doing the wrong thing it's just muscle will follow that That's right.

25:42That's right. Look, we have a brand new workout program called MAPS Upper Lower. It's a four-day workout split. And here's what's special about this. In the program, we have a women's version. So the programming is specific to what women want to train and develop. Notably, lower body, glute focused, and with the upper body, delt focused over something like chest. So this is programming done for you. Follow the program as it's laid out. Change your body. And because the program is brand new, it's 40 % off. Go to mapsupperlower.com, use the code LAUNCH, get it for 40 % off. You can also find us on Instagram.