Are you ready to redefine your strength and embrace a healthier, more empowered version of yourself? In this episode of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast, I delve into the transformative power of strength training specifically designed for women. With over 30 years of experience in women's health and fitness, I reveal the five essential exercises that not only build lean muscle for women but also enhance overall health and well-being. These exercises—deadlifts, squats, upper back pulling movements, overhead presses, and lunges—are crucial for reinforcing the movement patterns we rely on in our daily lives.
Are you ready to redefine your strength and embrace a healthier, more empowered version of yourself? In this episode of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast, I delve into the transformative power of strength training specifically designed for women. With over 30 years of experience in women's health and fitness, I reveal the five essential exercises that not only build lean muscle for women but also enhance overall health and well-being. These exercises—deadlifts, squats, upper back pulling movements, overhead presses, and lunges—are crucial for reinforcing the movement patterns we rely on in our daily lives.
As I often say, “Strength training is not just about lifting weights; it’s about lifting your quality of life. ” Imagine playing with your grandchildren, lifting groceries, or simply feeling energized throughout your day—all achievable through focused strength training. This episode is packed with workout tips and personal anecdotes from my clients, showcasing how they have transformed their lives by incorporating these essential exercises into their routines.
We’ll explore how building lean muscle for women can improve metabolism, reduce aches and pains, and promote healing from injuries. I emphasize the importance of mastering these exercises with proper technique to avoid injuries and maximize benefits. Whether you're a woman over 35 navigating midlife changes, including menopause, or someone looking to enhance your overall fitness, this episode provides valuable insights into how strength training can elevate your energy levels and mental health.
Join me as we discuss nutrition for women, including clean eating tips and how to eat for muscle gain, ensuring that your body receives the protein it needs to thrive. Strength training is not just about physical transformation; it’s a journey of self-discovery and empowerment. I encourage you to approach your fitness journey with patience and a commitment to gradual progression. Let’s break down the barriers and embrace strength training as a vital tool for enhancing your quality of life. Tune in for a motivational call to action that will inspire you to take charge of your health and wellness today!
If you're interested in womens health, this is the podcast for you.
Get FREE lifetime access to my 4-week Strength Without Stress program today! This unique program helps you build lean muscle and reduce inflammation—without the fatigue from long or intense workouts. All you need to do is post a review of my podcast, grab a screenshot, and upload it at: hollyperkins.com/review
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Resources:
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6950543/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35873210/
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5744434/
• Transcripts can be found on the official blog page for this episode here hollyperkins.com/blog
• Find me on Instagram: @hollyperkins
• Discover more on my website: hollyperkins.com
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Speaker #0 Some exercises are just better than others, and this is especially true for women. As a women's health and strength coach for over 30 years, I have seen what works the best for building lean muscles that are strong, reducing aches and pains, and healing injuries, and actually helping to make your life better. These won't just help you reduce body fat. These five exercises will improve your metabolism and reduce your risk of disease. So if that's something that you want. Keep listening. Hello, welcome, and thank you for being here. With over 30 years of experience in strength training, I've always known that muscle is the magic that most women need in order to live your best life. And just this week, one of our participants shared inside of the Body Composition Project the following. I had my granddaughters over for the day, and we played outside in the snow and did some sledding. It reaffirmed my why when my three-year-old granddaughter got tired of walking up the hill. So I picked her up and carried her up the hill through the snow and back to the house. With all of her snow gear, she probably weighs over 35 pounds. I was able to complete the trek pretty well and I was so proud that I could do it. They are my why on lifting heavy and keeping my strength. And this just gives me the chills. This is what it's about here. I think looking good is important and valuable and respectable. I think feeling great is important. But my bigger question is, what does your current workout and diet programming do for your life? To me, that is so much more important than having ripped sexy abs and a shelf on your booty. And again, I think those things are worthwhile too, but what if you just started approaching your nutrition and your exercise as a means to make your day better? If that's not great motivation, then I don't know what is. And I can tell you that this participant has been doing the five exercises that I'm going to reveal in this episode. This is also someone who has already transformed her body composition. and and is visibly more muscle and less fat. Nutrition is a big piece of the puzzle, but these five exercises do the heavy lifting. Pun intended. Look, if you're battling hip pain or knee issues or back problems, you know it's no way to live and you certainly wouldn't be able to carry your granddaughter or your pet or your groceries up a hill through the snow, right? every moment of every day. aches and pains will remind you of a limitation. And that is so disempowering on your psyche. No wonder you're in a bad mood or cranky or feeling down, right? Or if you wake up each day feeling exhausted and frustrated because your body isn't getting stronger or leaner despite putting in the work, despite trying, you also know it's a slippery slope to feeling defeated. or failed or that, gosh forbid, there's something wrong with you. No one wants to feel these things. And guess what, my friend? Contrary to what your subconscious may be whispering to you, it doesn't have to be this way. You may think that you're stuck with chondromalacia patella from years of sports or the remnants of a herniated disc or the quote-unquote arthritis that runs in your family. But I am here to tell you, my clients are eliminating every single one of these issues every single day so that they can carry their loved ones up the metaphorical hill, if you catch my snowdrift. So in this episode, you'll learn five exercises that will improve the quality of your life and yes, make your bod look better, how to begin and progress with these moves so that you avoid new injuries and heal old ones. the hormonal implications that make some exercises better than others, and what weight loads to begin with and what weight loads to target for strength and lean muscle. When you do it my way, strength training will help you to become a powerhouse, the person who wakes up each day excited for the day, with a spark of life force energy so that you can enjoy your days along the way. Imagine if you actually felt good. all day long. Can you imagine? And what if you actually felt happy and patient? What would your days look like if you felt like this all the time? And what would your year look like? if you are on fire every single week. Because strength training impacts not just your muscles, but your overall biology. It is a powerful tool for up-leveling every area of your life. So if you're ready to do that, let's get into the five best exercises for strength and lean muscle for women. So in the top spot for number one, can you guess it? Drum roll my... Avid listeners could maybe figure it out, although I like to keep you
guys guessing. Number one is deadlift. And more specifically, the value of a deadlift really is the hip hinge pattern. So I want you to really understand this because it will change everything for you, especially when you hear someone like me saying what the best exercises are. It's not really so much just that it's the deadlift, it's what you get from it. And getting your deadlift right means learning a hip hinge. One of the biggest mistakes, pervasive, that nearly everyone makes before they know this detail is bending over. Like if you're going to pick something up off the floor, bending over by rounding your back and tucking your butt. There is a very good chance that you're making this mistake somewhere in your life right now. Even if you consider yourself knowledgeable about hip hinging, I catch myself doing it all the time and correct it because it's just really natural and honestly the path of least resistance to just bend over without thinking about it. And when human does that, you round your back. Unsupported forward flexion of the spine is incredibly stressful to the muscles around your spine and is most often how and when people pull a muscle. And so what that means is instead of pushing your hips back, you bend forward. So your hips kind of stay in place. You tuck your pelvis and then you round forward. That's called unsupported forward flexion of the spine. And doing this repeatedly over a lifetime really is the leading cause of back injuries. So let me give you an example. When you bend over, let's say I catch myself doing it when I bend over my bathroom sink to wash my face at night, or let's say to put dishes in your dishwasher. Notice if you're rounding your lower back. See, while the spine can round and bend this way, it's not really designed to do it on the regular, and certainly not when you're holding on to something, let's say like a heavy dish. That is considered loaded. So now you're bending forward. and you're loading your spine. And you can do this on the regular day after day, but at some point down the line, if you don't improve this movement pattern or strengthen the corrective way of this movement pattern, that's when you're randomly just doing something in your life like picking up the leash off the floor to walk your dog and you blow out your back. I see this all the time when people tell me their stories. Oddly, they don't. injure themselves during their deadlift at the gym, it was on Saturday when they were gardening and they twisted in a funny way, and there goes the herniated disc. The solution is learning a proper hip hinge. This means that you push your hips back in space and you bend from your hips so that your spine stays neutral and maybe even a little bit arched in your lower back. This puts the load. of your upper body and anything that's in your hands onto your glutes and your hamstrings, which are two really powerful muscle groups, instead of putting the emphasis on the smaller muscles around your spine. And learning a proper deadlift helps you then reinforce this movement pattern so that you can strengthen it. It trains the posterior chain, movement integrity, joint coordination, and general physical power. But here's the thing, a hip hinge is not really a natural movement. This is something I spend a lot of time coaching my clients on because it's just weird to push your hips back. in order to bend over. And I would argue a deadlift is quite possibly the most important move that you need to master because of what I just said and also because you can't avoid this movement pattern for the rest of your life, for the rest of your life, all the years ahead. There will be times when you have to pick something up off the floor, bend over to get the laundry or groceries or a pet. or a child picking up a box or a bucket or something that has fallen to the floor. And because of this, you must learn the movement pattern first, then you have to load it to strengthen it so that you can move in any which way you desire at any point in your day on a whim without even thinking about it. I think in this day and age of visual media and social media, We've forgotten the whole reason for strength training. It's actually not to just make you look awesome. The whole point of strength training is to reinforce the movement patterns you're making in your life all day long so that your muscles carry you through your day and support your joints. That's why you'll never see me teach exercises that look cool or fancy or are to make you look a certain way. I'm teaching movement-based patterns and reinforcing them. And oh, by the way, when you do
that, not only will you avoid injury, heal old injuries, feel incredible, have more energy, but oh yes, it is also going to make you look better without having to really focus on vanity muscles. The deadlift is also what I call the Mac Daddy or Mac Mama of all exercise patterns in terms of the hormone signaling that prompts muscles to get stronger and hopefully fuller, i.e. bigger. There are three things to be considered when choosing exercises that improve strength and muscle size. Number one, compound movement patterns. You hear me talk about that quite a bit. Mechanical tension and metabolic stress. Those are three things that are very important if you really want to change your muscle mass. That doesn't mean an exercise like a bicep curl doesn't have its place. It's just that a bicep curl or a tricep extension doesn't have its place. They do, but those aren't the exercises that really move the needle. And these things add up to hormone signaling that tells your muscles to respond when there is enough weekly volume. You've also heard me talk about that a lot. So you're like, what does volume mean? Volume is just the sum total of work that you do in a week. and we can add it up by... The number of sets, the number of reps, and the weight load that you're doing. And when we really kind of distill it down and talk about it colloquially, we're really talking about the total number of sets that you're doing each week per body area, per muscle group, per push and pull. So volume is just, for example, let's say you do two sets of bench press each week. We know through research that's not enough volume. That's not enough work. to really change your muscles. And so you have to be doing a bare minimum for your glutes, for your hamstrings, for your quads, for them to really, really change. And this is a mistake that a lot of women don't understand. They think, oh, well, I'm doing leg press, three sets of leg press to strengthen my legs every week. And I'm working really hard and I'm using heavy weight loads and I'm only doing 10 reps and I'm reaching failure at the end of those 10 reps. You could be doing everything right. But if you're not getting the mathematical equation right each week, then you're not really going to max out or really even optimize the change to your muscle and the hormone signaling. Compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, rows. overhead presses, bench presses, lunges, and even to some degree loaded carries like a farmer's carry. They involve multiple joints and multiple muscle groups all at once. That's what a compound exercise is. So for example, a squat, you've got three joints involved, the ankles, the knees, and the hips. You really have more than that because even your upper body is responding. Whereas, let's say with like a bicep curl, there's really only one joint that's being affected, the elbow. So a compound exercise involves many muscles and more than one joint. And when you perform them well, here is what happens. Number one, you get more muscle fibers activated at once, almost like a symphony. More is happening in your body, more muscles are activating. You're recruiting hundreds of thousands of muscle fibers. across multiple body areas, multiple joints, multiple systems. More fibers recruited means louder growth signal, which means a bigger hormonal response. That's why we love compound exercises. Number two, you also get higher mechanical tension. Compound exercises allow you to move more overall load, even if the weight itself is moderate. And mechanical tension is one of the most important triggers for muscle growth. And when you slow the eccentric phase, which you know I always talk about, even just by a second or two, you amplify that tension even more. Number three, metabolic stress. You've probably felt this before, the sort of deep, satisfying effort that happens when everything is working together. That effort or intensity creates temporary metabolic stress, which your body interprets as a cue to adapt. So if you think of it this way, a heavy set of bicep curls feels different systemically than a heavy squat. And even if you've never done a heavy barbell back squat, you could imagine, right? Imagine you've got 300 pounds on a barbell across your shoulders and doing I'm five or eight or 10 reps of that. You can imagine how that kind of effort, intensity, and stress is going to be very different than a tricep extension, even if that tricep extension is hard. Make sense? Okay, number four, bigger systemic hormonal response. So isolated exercises, like I've mentioned, bicep curl, tricep
extensions, mainly target one area, one muscle, or a muscle group. So your triceps are actually three. different muscles, but it's a muscle group. Compound lifts engage the entire system. And when your system is working, your hormonal response becomes much stronger and more beneficial. It's like walking into a room and flipping on a light switch for that room versus lighting up an entire stadium. And deadlift checks all of these boxes. So if you're ready to begin, or progress, here's some things to keep in mind. Number one, you must first learn the movement pattern with excellent technique. So if you've never deadlifted before, or let's say you're over 60 or even over 70, and you've heard a million times deadlifts are dangerous for your back, which you'll hear that message out there a lot, you might think, oh, I should not be deadlifting. That is for young men or very aggressive lifters. But here's what I want you to know. This is what we drill inside of my program, the Body Composition Project, because depending on your fitness level, your ability, and your history, you might need to start very light, let's say 10-pound dumbbells or even a 20-pound barbell, but the truth is you still need to learn the movement pattern. If you are deconditioned or if you've never done this exercise before, you can start it with just your own body weight. so that you can learn to make the movement safely. Now, one word of support. You probably will hear other male experts out there criticizing some of the same exact exercises that I talk about today, including deadlift, like I've already said. The thing I want you to keep in mind is that there are many men in particular out there who have approached these moves and done these moves very aggressively in their younger years. And now they are older. They are paying the price for having gone too heavy in previous years when they were able to without perfect technique. Some of them have gotten injured. Some of them have been doing some of these movement patterns with bad technique for 30 years, and then the injury crops up as they get towards 40 or 50. And so you'll hear people say, there's a very prominent longevity doctor whom I love and know and respect. who actually says this very thing, that he has stopped doing deadlifts and he even questions whether they're valuable or not. And you might hear that and be like, oh, so-and-so said not to do deadlifts, but you have to understand the filter it's coming through versus what I'm teaching. These moves are essential if you want to move well and freely down the road, but you must learn. Excellent technique, either unloaded with just your body weight or with loads that are only heavy enough to trigger strength and muscle gains. I'm talking adding five pounds, 10 pounds, 20 pounds, whereas some of those other voices out there are talking about doing a 335 pound deadlift. That's not what I'm promoting here. Now listen, in a moment, I'll share what weight loads I think women should be getting towards. And I will always cheer you on if you've got flawless technique and you can do 135 pound deadlift. Yes, yes, yes. You have to have flawless technique. You have to know how to do these movements right. And you certainly have to master your hip hinge. The key is to master the movement pattern, which is your body weight only if need be. And then when you add an external resistance like a dumbbell or even a weighted vest or a barbell or a kettlebell or a band or a machine, it doesn't even matter. Whatever weight load you add, only the last two to three reps or so of every single set should be challenging. The rest of the reps really should demonstrate flawless, gorgeous technique. And like I said, this might mean that your deadlift is only 30 pounds. Remember, it's the movement pattern that matters. Number three, and while we're specifically talking about deadlift, I'm leaning into this right now because these principles will apply to the other four exercises. You want to progress only as fast as you can maintain excellent technique. 80% of your repetitions should be done at a weight load where your form is flawless. Then... The other 20% should be heavy enough that you can't keep your technique. This progression applies for all of the exercises that I'm going to talk about in a moment and is what I mean when I say only the last two or three reps of your set should be a little bit sloppy. Everything else should be gorgeous. This is how you get stronger and you build muscle without getting injured. And this is exactly how I've been able to
help my most successful clients heal old remnants of herniated discs, back surgeries, traumatic car accidents, knee surgeries, a variety of very significant ailments and trauma. We've been able to fix and remedy through this methodology. And number four, you might be wondering, so what's the ultimate goal here? Is the goal to just keep increasing and progressing my weight loads over time forever? I hear this a lot. In fact, my best friend texted me this earlier this week. She's like, so I've never really understood progressive overload. Do I just keep going heavier and heavier and heavier and heavier and heavier forever? And the short answer is yes, but you'll eventually find or naturally cap out on your max weight. that gives you the benefits that you want, right? So at some point, the weight load is going to get you free of pain, full of energy, making your body look the way that you want. And so you don't have to just keep going heavier and heavier and heavier forever. The goal is to get to a certain place where you really are a powerhouse and you're bulletproof in your life. And in general, I like every woman to achieve about give or take, 80 to 100% of her body weight for a deadlift. And as an absolute, my goal for you is to achieve at least an 85 pound deadlift. But the sky's the limit. You can go towards multiples of your body weight, 90% of your body weight, 100% of your body weight, 150% of your body weight. Really, the sky's the limit. But I believe every woman at any age really should be able to do an 85 pound barbell deadlift with flawless technique. When you get there, your life is going to change. And yes, this applies to you if you're in your 70s or even 80s. Absolutely without a doubt, the stronger you are, the better your life will be. Remember, it always rides on having good technique. The second exercise for strength and lean muscle for women is the squat. This movement pattern improves quad glute. and trunk coordination and creates full body mechanical tension and metabolic stress. If you were to master a squat pattern or variation, you would be shocked at how quickly your strength improves everywhere else. There really is a transference of strength. I find that people are either good at or prefer deadlifts or squats. Few people love them both equally and can do them equally well. Like I'm great with deadlifts and squats are my nemesis. You're usually one or the other. And I absolutely hate, historically, always my whole life, hate squats because they illuminate my weaknesses. And therefore, I believe the exercises that you hate the most are the very ones that you need the most. So this year, I doubled down. on my squats to refine my technique, even at lower weight loads. And I got to tell you, so much about my body and my life has changed because I've been putting more effort into my squat pattern. And as I've gotten better at barbell back squat, everything else has gotten stronger and all of my other joints feel better. I feel different going up and down stairs. My toes feel better. Again, You're never going to make it through life without squatting. And so to your doctor or to your expert that's like, oh, you shouldn't be squatting. It's bad for your knees. Oh, OK. So you're never going to sit down on the toilet again. You're never going to get in and out of a car again. You're never going to sit down on the couch and stand up from the couch again. It's completely ridiculous. If you want to be able to get off the toilet as an older person, please start squatting today. And I'm joking and I'm not. It's really important for you to practice the movement pattern. Remember, I'm not telling you to do a 300-pound barbell squat. I'm telling you to master the movement pattern, and then let's reinforce it with 5 pounds, or 10 pounds, or 135 pounds. So my dad, who is, oh my gosh, going to be 86 soon, started having trouble standing up from his living room chair a while back. And he would really have a hard time getting in and out of his rocking chair. And the first thing I did was bring him out here to the gym and make him practice squats to a chair. And I remember he was like, I can't do it. And I'm like, well, then use your arms. You can do it. Figure it out. And sure enough, he did. And just a few months later, he was able to stand up and sit down 10 times without having to use his arms to swing forward. Because if you can't do this, you've got to do it. Right? Getting in and out of a car is a squat. Getting in and out of bed is a squat. How do you plan to do it when you're 86? Now, there are different variations of squats, so it doesn't have to
be a barbell back squat. It could be a goblet squat, a sumo squat, a landmine squat, or a squat to a bench or a chair. It's the movement pattern that we're talking about here. And if you're someone who's thinking to yourself, I wish I could squat, but my doctor said no because of the arthritis in my knees, I will offer you this to consider. I don't know you and I'm not your doctor and I'm not a doctor in general, but consider this. Maybe your knees have arthritis because you haven't trained your body and its ability to squat appropriately. And so you're moving throughout the day with bad form. You're going up and down stairs without a reinforced system. And that's why your knees are bad. I do not believe that arthritis is hereditary. I think that is a crock of SHIT. I really do. Arthritis is when two bones are not in alignment and they rub up against each other out of alignment, and we can fix that through strength training. And that's why we learn these movement patterns either unloaded, which is your body weight only, or with very light weights so that you can make sure your feet Ankles, knees, hips, and trunk are all moving with the ideal alignment. I really do believe that the fastest way to bad knees or a bad back is by avoiding these movement patterns or compensating around them. Because remember, again, you're making these movement patterns all day long. And if you're not teaching the right way of doing it, you're going to get in trouble. Remember, I'm not telling you to lift your heaviest weight loads out of the gate. I hope we get you there. You might not even lift a heavy weight at all. Who knows? The key is to be able to move in these patterns and then reinforce good mechanics and load it with even just 5 or 10 or hopefully 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 pounds down the road. But it's a journey and it has to start with your body weight learning the movement pattern first. To begin, you can start simply by standing up and sitting down in your chair or on a bench with just your body weight. Then transition without the support behind you. Then add five or 10 pound dumbbells over time and aim to increase the load, the resistance every two to three workouts gradually and slowly over time. And as far as a long-term target, I would love for every woman to achieve about 75% of her body weight, at least in a squat pattern or somewhere around 85 pounds, depending on your history. Up next, I've got three more super important exercises that you must be doing every single week if you want to live your best life. But first, a word from my podcast sponsors.Okay, two down, three more exercises to go. And before I reveal number three, I want to illuminate another common mistake that I see, and that is getting too creative with your exercises. It's really easy to see something cool or interesting on social media, or hear another expert promote certain exercises and then want to try them out. It's very influencing, right? That's why they're called influencers, because it's so easy to be like, oh, so-and-so said this is an awesome exercise. I'm doing it myself, right? But hear me out. The one word of warning is that where there is more complexity of movement, the harder it is to master and therefore it's harder to progress. Since building muscle can be very tricky for most women, especially over 40, 45, I find that learning a deadlift is easier than learning, let's say, a snatch or a clean or a clean and jerk or a Turkish getup. or some really interesting, great exercise. But if your fitness level isn't there, it's really hard to master these complex movement patterns, especially something like a squat to an overhead press. In my earlier years as a personal trainer, in my 20s, I thought complex exercises like squat to press, or lunge to overhead press, or single leg deadlift to bicep curl, I thought these were really cool because it was like multitasking, right? It was going to get your heart rate up and use more muscles in one exact, one precise set, if you will. But the truth is, if you're dividing your energy, you're not really going to get enough concentrated intensity where you need it to really, really, really, really change a muscle. It takes a lot to build muscle. I don't like to say that because in some ways, the path to building muscle is straightforward. But for women over 45 or 50, you got to be really focused. to truly build some muscle. And a squat variation is a great way to do that. And the third exercise is a bit simpler to learn, I believe, and that is an upper back pulling or rowing move, like a pull down, seated cable row, or bent over row. A rowing pattern, which is known as a horizontal
pull, is great for upper back strength, for posture, shoulder alignment and integrity and spinal health. It encourages balanced joint mechanics of your upper body in coordination with the core. Think of a lat pull down or even a chin up. And in my circles, we believe that optimal joint mechanics demand three times more strength or attention or volume for upper body pulling as compared to upper body pushing. And that's why you'll notice that I don't include an upper body push move like a bench press in today's list because I actually don't think it's the most important move you need to do. There's a trend talking about being able to do a certain number of push-ups for women so that if you fall, you're strong enough to catch yourself. But the truth is, a push-up really should be fueled by your back muscles and your lats. And I will argue If you've got strong lats and a strong core, your pectoral muscles, your chest muscles don't really matter so much. The muscles of the back of your body and your back in general are way bigger and way more powerful. So why is pulling so important? Well, the shortest version is that all day long, you're pulling yourself up against gravity. Think about that. All day long, whatever you're doing right now, you are pulling and resisting against gravity. and the muscles of your back do the majority of the work for your upper body. It is a full-time job to resist the forces of gravity and keep your body in alignment. And if your body's out of alignment, that is one reason why you struggle with fatigue and energy throughout the day, because it's a very exhaustive feat on your system in general to be fighting against misalignment as per your relationship to the earth and to gravity. Humans are walking, talking, physics at play. And it's so easy to succumb to the forces each day and just start that slow, forward, hunched over decline that becomes what we see in so many of our older folks. Upper body pulling helps you avoid this slow slide into slumptown when you're older. Pulling is so important. And if you skip it or do it wrong, it tends to lead to neck and shoulder issues. poor posture, poor spinal alignment, and injury when you're faced with lifting something heavy. Again, you don't have to start with heavy loads on your upper body horizontal pulling. Now, most pulling moves won't be very effective with just your body weight. So you can't just kind of bend over and pull your arms up unless you're severely deconditioned. But for the most part, upper body pulling needs to include a resistance, an external weight load. But you can start with very light weights to ensure good technique. A pull-down or a seated row, generally it's a cable seated row, could start with just 20 or 30 pounds. And a bent over row could be done with an 8 or a 10 pound dumbbell or a 10 or 20 pound barbell. Now listen, if you're beyond this weight loads, I'm not saying that's all you need to do. I'm really talking to the person who does have some injuries or some shoulder issues or back issues. And they're really maybe worried about some of these exercises because these exercises have gotten a bad rap out there. And the key to remember is you have to reinforce the movement pattern. And if you're scared to do so, body weight only or light weight loads. I get the most questions on exactly how to progress in terms of weight loads in general. And while this is something that I dive deep into inside of my coaching programs because it's nuanced and it's very personalized. I will say this, my favorite latest progression is to select three key exercises each week, schedule them for different days. So like squat on one day, horizontal pulling on a different day, and deadlift on yet a third day. And then increase the weight load on those exercises every two to three weeks. Then in between those weeks, the following week, you would select different exercises and follow the same pattern. It may seem a bit complicated, but once you really understand the methodology, it makes a lot of sense and it's working fabulously for me and my clients. One of my most recent labs went into this detail and we talked about it ad nauseum and really spelled it out. It was probably one of my better teachings this year. So if you want to really understand and learn how to progress with this methodology, and in a super cool, and I would argue a very effective way, come over to my website, hollyperkins.com forward slash store, and you can purchase the Stronger Every Week Lab. It's only $20. You'll have it forever. And it's so good. You're going to be purchasing the recording, but then it's yours to
keep forever. Moving on. The next movement pattern is a bit controversial. especially in the bro world, or if you've had shoulder issues, and that is an overhead press. This is called a vertical pushing move. It builds shoulder health when done right, and core integration as you push overhead. It's big enough that it triggers the metabolic stress needed for muscle growth, and it increases your pushing power. So from this perspective, I actually prefer my clients to work on their overhead pressing instead of their frontal pressing with like a bench press. That being said, I do teach bench press and I think there's a place for it, but it's not in the top five. And here too, overhead pushing really is important for everyday life. I can't tell you how many people are like, my doctor said I shouldn't push my arms up over my head because of the shoulder injury I had last year. And again, I'm like, Okay, so you're going to live out the rest of your life never raising your arm over your head? To me, that seems like a real life risk. What if you needed to like flag someone down on the road and get their attention and you can't raise your arm over your head? Or have you ever had to lift a heavy carry-on into the overhead compartment of an airplane? It is not an easy feat unless you are strong and you've got the coordination. of a hip hinge, a deadlift, and an overhead press. Putting your suitcase up over your head or a box up over your head is just that. Anytime you have to put even a bag of flour up on your pantry shelf, you are pushing overhead. Beyond that, what I see in deconditioned older people is that they completely lose the ability to lift their arms overhead. Think about it. Do you know anybody? I know my dad has a really hard time. He can barely lift his arms over his head. He had replacement surgery on both of his shoulders. And so his doctor's like, well, you might not be able to have full range of motion ever again. And so he didn't for 30 years. And now I'm struggling to fix it because it's been so long that he didn't go into full range of motion with the arm over his head. Overhead pressing. is so great once you learn the right mechanics. And again, if you are someone who had trauma to a shoulder or a neck, and you might not be able to get full extension over your head, you're going to have to start with just the weight of your arm. This was the case for me when I was in my 30s. I could not extend my arm completely up over my head so that my upper arm could touch my ear with my shoulder girdle released back and down. That's generally because of a weak deltoid and a dysfunctional anterior deltoid. And you can fix it. And so I did it. I mean, now it's like I can crisscross my arms behind my head because my shoulder function and range of motion, mobility, and strength is so good. There are two mistakes to avoid when strengthening an overhead pushing pattern. Number one, flaring your elbows outward when you push. And number two, using too much weight. So many people, even in my coaching group right now, a lot of women are like, I'm doing my Arnold press with eight pounds, which is such a light weight, but I'm having shoulder issues. And to that I say, well, that's because eight pounds is not light according to your current ability. So we got to go down to five pounds. Get the technique right. And then once that is really reinforced, then you go up to six, seven, or eight pounds. Overhead pushing is one of the moves, like a squat, where you can get tremendous value, even at lower weight loads. Higher weight loads are amazing for core development. And I have always credited my ability to get great abs easily because of my overhead pressing. My abs just, boom, rip up when I'm doing like a heavy overhead barbell press. It's really great for core development, but overhead pressing builds strength in the deltoids, the traps, the core, and the arms, and I would even argue in core stability and your back, posterior shoulder stabilizers. It's basically the upper body squat is what a barbell overhead press is, or even a dumbbell overhead press. And if you're able to progress to say, let's say 55 pounds on a barbell press or more, you'll start to see abs and core strengthen and get defined and transform from that exercise without ever having to do an ab exercise or a crunch. So if you're new to this move or have a history of shoulder issues, I do recommend starting with light weights, like even five pound dumbbells to begin with, and really focus on learning the right movement trajectory of your arms. So you'll start at the bottom with your elbows
mostly under your wrists and your wrists under your hands, obviously, and your hands should be about shoulder widths distance apart. So they're stacked on top of each other at the bottom of the move. And this is with a dumbbell or a barbell. When you push, you want to arc forward slightly. You'd have to if you were using a barbell, otherwise you would hit your chin or your nose, right? But you arc forward slightly and keep the elbows. under your hands most of the way up, and then your hands should end over your head. So you'll make an arcing pattern where it's almost like you're pushing forward slightly, and then as you get up towards the last quarter of the move, the barbell or the dumbbells actually travel backwards in space and end over your head, not in front of your face, okay? You really do want your hands and the weight load directly over your shoulders. as per your relationship with gravity. In general, if a client has problems with this move, I will regress to a dumbbell lateral raise for a while to strengthen the deltoids in an isolated way and then bring them back to this compound movement pattern that involves the elbow and the shoulder joints. And lastly, but definitely not least, is a lunge. Did you really think that I would skip a lunge? No way. Now in my world, there are a number of variations for a lunge, but my first preference is always a forward moving walking lunge or even a stationary reverse lunge. I am not a fan of stationary forward lunges, like the kind where you step forward, lunge down, stand up and push back. I'm just, I've never ever been a fan. of that variation because I find that it really does exacerbate and illuminate knee issues. But a forward walking lunge or a reverse lunge puts more of the effort onto the glutes and the hamstrings and less so on the quads, but in a way that's really well coordinated. Forward walking lunges are on the list today because they, number one, reinforce gait. mechanics. So this means they reinforce how you move when you walk. They combine a squat with forward movement, right, which is how human moves. We generally move forward in space. They improve hip and ankle mobility and flexibility and stability. And essentially, they are an exaggerated walking or running pattern. And so forward walking lunges improve and reinforce and strengthen that movement pattern. We all need to be reinforcing that because we all need to have good mechanics when we walk. Even if you aren't doing an exercise, this helps you to walk better. The mistake I encourage you to avoid is thinking that Lunges cause knee pain. And again, you'll hear that messaging out there. I hear it from orthopedic surgeons all the time. Don't do lunges. They cause knee pain. No. Poor technique when you're doing lunges will cause knee pain for sure. And so if you are someone who thinks you're using good technique, but you experience knee discomfort, we got to really take a look at your technique. Because as soon as we fix how you're doing your lunge, boom, that knee pain goes away. you actually get stronger and better. And I think it would be valuable to share a bit of my own story. So when I was in my 20s, I was an avid runner. I was doing a lot of the things that I teach and preach today, but I didn't have the appropriate muscular balance between my quads, hamstrings, and glutes. And I had excruciating, debilitating knee pain. I could not sit in hero's pose in yoga at all. I remember going to yoga classes all through my 20s and being so mad and frustrated when people could just sit on their feet. You know, like when you bend your knees and tuck your feet underneath you and sit on your feet. I thought people were crazy that they could do that. I could not do that. Flash forward all these years later, because of everything that I teach you, I can sit on my feet for an hour if I wanted to. My knees are the best they've been in my entire life and I will be turning 54. next week. Dare I say, I've got bulletproof knees. Now, I know I'm tempting the goddesses of fate by saying that, so knock on wood, but I really do have the best knees I've ever had in my entire life, including when I was 17 and 18. I always had knee issues as a cheerleader. So again, if you have knee or even ankle, foot, or hip issues, it's entirely possible that you have them because you haven't learned and trained and reinforced this movement pattern, if you only knew how many years I have been refining my walking lunge, my reverse lunge, and my Bulgarian split squat, which technically is a squat, but I almost kind of consider a Bulgarian split squat like a
lunge. You do have to learn the right technique as always, and you should absolutely start slowly with walking lunges with shorter sets because This is one of those exercises where you are in a longer eccentric phase and that tends to cause DOMS, which is delayed onset muscle soreness. And so if you haven't been doing walking lunges, keep it short because you will be sore the days following that workout. I have a real love affair with walking lunges because they improve gait mechanics, as I said. They improve coordination between your toes, your arches, your ankles, your knees, and your hips. They improve flexibility of the hips and the hip flexors. They strengthen the glutes, the hamstrings, and the quads in a really great balanced way. If you haven't been doing them, you'll want to start with just your body weight. I don't care how fit you are. If you haven't been doing walking lunges, please start with just your body weight for just one or two sets of even just 20 steps because you will get super sore. Even if that feels super easy for you. you will be sore afterwards, so start slowly. Then you can progress each workout a little bit by either adding more steps or more sets, and then eventually, of course, you will load it. I do think it's helpful to work up to three sets of 30 steps with zero soreness before you start adding an external load like a dumbbell, a barbell, a weighted vest, kettlebells, etc. When you begin to load it, you could start just by adding five pounds or even 10 pounds. Five pound dumbbells in each hand, two and a half pound dumbbells in each hand, a weighted vest. But from there, the sky really is the limit on these. If you know me, you know that I love doing extended time body weight walking lunges where you work your way up to 10 or 15 minutes of nonstop walking lunges. I love that and I find it to be magic. Or you can keep the step count lower and load it. In terms of an upper target here, I would even say adding like 50 to 60 pounds to your walking lunges through the use of dumbbells or a barbell works really well. Okay, my friend, and that is it. The five best exercises for strength and lean muscle for women. This was a longer episode, I know, but I think it was worth it. And it certainly is important. Are you excited to get to it and start implementing these exercises? If so, please promise me that you'll start slowly, progress intelligently, and be sure to commit some time each week to really learn the right technique for all of your strength training exercises. And there might be a part of you thinking, ugh, Holly, can't I just go work out? Do I really have to overthink it like this? And the answer is yes, of course, just go work out. As I always say, anything is better than nothing, so just get started. And then when you have a bit more bandwidth for improving your skills, that's when it's time to educate yourself so that you can get better results with better technique, and then you really create the body that you really want. in an unlimited way. I hope that you enjoyed this episode and I hope you will stay tuned for another brand new one on Tuesday of next week. Stay strong, my friend.