How To Work Out: Introduction

it had something to do with my hands

Hello! I have been busy creating these strength training programs now for sale on this website and writing supplemental information to go with them. It has turned into a bit of a project and potentially some kind of zine or e-book? I’ll be releasing a chapter each day or so for the next week or so…

Chapter 1:

It had something to do with my hands…..

Welcome to How to Work Out.  This little e-book has been the piecing together of a bunch of future blog posts, meant to supplement the online strength training programs for sale on my website.

Why?

My desire as a human and a coach is to resource and empower people. To reach a specific clientele attracted to my style, the person who loves going to the gym and wants to go all the time, but isn’t sure what to do when they get there. This person doesn’t necessarily need to hire a personal trainer, but could likely use more guidance than a fitness app or free Instagram workout. I would like to offer a gym/fitness orientation from my perspective, one that I hope will empower people with enough information to help them figure out their fitness regimen based on the goals, practice settings, body, and injury history they are working with. We know ourselves, and our bullshit, more than anyone we could ever hire.

While generally the goal and the standard of the trainer is to have as many clients as possible, I haven’t found this model to be sustainable or even rewarding. Much like the clients I tend to attract, I enjoy spending time at home. I am actively trying to divest from reliance on gasoline and driving, time in traffic that could be spent working on this website, researching, writing, doing yoga, writing about doing yoga, making music, chopping vegetables… anything that trainers openly admit to regularly neglecting because we are so busy marketing on social media and essentially repeating relatively the same sessions with relatively different bodies at different places all over town. This is why many gyms operate as group training only, and ultimately I would love to have my own little setup where I could offer this one day. 

Perhaps rather than spending upwards of 1k hiring a trainer, consider investing a small amount in one of these programs, resourcing yourself accordingly, and also allowing me to keep writing, working on my program, and getting back to school and on a path to everybody’s dream in America: having health insurance. This is an accountability and empowerment tool for us both.

Welcome to How to Work Out –

It’s based on the convergence of :

1-  You- your body type, history of injuries, and goals 

2- The setting you will be exercising in and the equipment available to you

3- The training style and frequency available to you

In A Ricochet Way – A little about me –  

I’m Coach Lee, I’ve been training, and studying mindfulness, movement, and embodiment for 20 years. I’ve also been homeschooling (and parenting) two kids for 14 years, which I mention for two reasons:

First- I haven’t taught my kids as much as I’ve resourced them. I figured out how to show them what they wanted to learn- through play, creativity, and on the cheap. That’s the spirit I offer this to you. I am one of those freaks who thinks exercising is fun. I have fun figuring it out and learning about it- I want to give people the opportunity to do that because it’s more empowering, effective, and interesting if you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing; rather than following along with whatever you are told by someone who could never know you as well as you know yourself. I also don’t know anymore how not to transform simple learning ideas into experiences that branch out into different areas of life, so I might as well try to weave these concepts together in one place here.

Welcome to my unschooling world where we put the work in, while infusing it with our own personalities, visions, and ideas of self-love and care, as an act of rebellion. 

Second- Like parenting, this program is more focused on time management, self-care, and mental health, than aesthetics. Working out builds confidence in a handful of ways, one being that I do love how I look when I’m healthy, but the reason I work out is that I am managing the stresses of everyday life and ADHD without health insurance. Exercise is the most helpful tool I have found for maintaining balanced energy levels and moods.  I noticed when I started working floor hours at the gym that I was not alone, and would take an opportunity to dissipate some of the stigma and be more open about the fact that many of us, more and more, are using exercise as a stress management tool to get through the day.  That’s what fuels the fire for me.

In addition to being a Mom and neurodivergent person, I also identify as Coach, Yogi, anthropologist, radio deejay, queer person, mermaid, New Yorker, and non-binary anatomy geek! Biologically I am a female, and I do identify as a woman. I don’t identify as a man, but I do have a lot of personality traits that are traditionally more masculine culturally, and I completely fail at a lot of “girlie” things that I have felt cultural pressure to understand or adapt to.  Being non-binary means that qualities that make me identifiable as a woman have more to do with the life experiences, than the body parts that make me a female….. This topic is a whole other post,  probably a few, but that is one way I can explain it briefly.

I studied Anthropology, mindfulness, and Eastern religions in college, and went on to study Yoga and meditation for 20 years.  Most of my knowledge of training comes from Yoga.  When I began the advanced 500-hour teacher training for yoga in 2021 with Authentic Movements, there were 3 Yoga teachers, as well as a certified personal trainer, and a teacher who holds a PhD in biomechanics and nutrition (and is an absolute shredder massive giant in the gym).  On our first module, the teachers recommended that we supplement our work in the program with strength training, and they set time aside in each module to talk about strength, conditioning, and how the movements relate to Yoga. 

Since I am a fucking dork and pride myself on studentship and was looking for a fun pool for my kids and me to play in, I joined the gym and did the simple strength and conditioning circuit provided by the Yoga teachers. It felt great, like years of fatigue, soreness, and discomfort had melted away by simply doing a few rounds of a simple dumbbell circuit two days per week and swimming some laps.  Perhaps just like you would, I wanted a thorough rundown of the gym and everything available, and I wanted some more training. It was worth it to me personally, and for my career, to invest a bit in becoming a certified personal trainer so that I could work with people who were not necessarily interested in the spirituality or stretching aspects of Yoga. So, I did.

As it happens, everything I learned in the NASM program was covered in the anatomy prep work modules my Yoga teachers offered before the advanced training- and a lot more. I also had the opportunity to study therapeutic Yoga with Joe Taft at the Asheville Yoga Center, which was an education itself. This is a great compliment to the Yoga teachers and training, with no shade towards NASM.

NASM offers a great ongoing resource library, CPR and other training, and a pretty solid foundation and base of knowledge for how to get started as a trainer. Many certifications that are not accredited by a University are in fact meant to be simple starting points for the student to figure out which direction they want to go in and build upon, and the NASM certification does achieve that.  

How I Created My Program 

I realized quickly when I started strength training how years of Yoga asana being my exclusive form of exercise had impacted my body in different ways; how I was sturdy and nimble, in some ways and wildly unstable in others.  

The main areas I wanted to focus on were my hamstrings, shoulder stability, and core strength through pull-ups and deadlifts.  I wanted pull-ups as a goal because I used to be able to do a zillion, I mean eleven (hello 3rd-grade class record and take that Marco B!) of them as a kid, and was shocked and appalled to find I could only do ONE after all of these years. So I made them one of my first gym goals.  

My hamstrings and shoulders were areas of major weakness so I knew I needed to tackle those. 

My first time deadlifting was like my first cigarette; I just knew I loved it and wanted to do it all the time, so now I’m a deadlifter. And that’s how I got started! I chose those few things to focus on and went for it. If a whole program seems intimidating to you I invite you to simply choose a few things you are interested in and practice them for awhile, while you orient yourself and get the hang of showing up to the gym. 

I tried some AI apps for workout programs and got a few online, but I found them all kind of boring.  I was also beginning to see how the movement patterns of strength training directly related to the “hard” Yoga poses I had been chasing my whole Yoga career. Like how learning to bench press and pull-up was helping me crush my handstands, and how learning the components of the “sissy squat” would help me with my wheel dropbacks, and so on. So I started crafting my own 6 day strength training program in which each day complemented a different “hard” Yoga pose, and incorporated mobility and cardio.

I fell in love with this program so hard and let me tell you why:

In most strength training programs, each day focuses on one area like the legs or the chest.  It’s efficient, but the idea for me, of wearing every area of my legs or chest out to failure every week is not sustainable, and that has more to do (I think) with ADHD.  Yo….  If I can barely walk out of the gym on leg day it seems predictable that I’m not going home and making a salad, straightening up my room, doing my skincare and so on- I am collapsing, fast and hard. I love working out to dead failure sometimes, but I can’t do it every time to the point where my recovery is going to affect my diet and mood negatively.  I like to do it when I know I am 1) feeling feisty, 2) looking forward to somewhat of a recovery day, and 3) going home to a day or two’s worth of prepped food I can easily throw together, or a crock pot full of something delicious with protein and veggies galore.

Having this program based on Yoga poses, rather than focusing on burning one area to death gave me far more balanced recovery periods, more balanced overall soreness, and more mobility and sustained energy.  

Consistently coming back to the poses has given me clear and visible mile markers and paths to work along, rather than simply making gains (Of course I love making gains! But that stuff will fluctuate so it’s helpful for goals to be multifactorial). 

That is the short version of how I came to strength training and offering the programs I am currently offering.  

The longer version has more to do with…. needing something to do with my hands. Do you ever feel that way? 

As 2020 brought on a sort of reckoning period for us all, I found myself: 

-processing being diagnosed with ADHD at 36 years old, being kinda pissed about it and challenging myself to finish something I had started years before (the advanced Yoga teacher training)

– absolutely losing my shit after the death of a sibling, needing to grab a hold of sobriety, and turning to the gym

-absolutely losing my shit as my kids got older and were no longer interested in following me around every second of the day and being a little Arthur Russell about it (A Little Lost) 

-recovering from trauma and being interested in feeling more confident and strong in my body

-divesting away from yoga and looking more toward simplified and science-based perspectives on movement and anatomy   

So I needed a new thing and to make some big changes. This set me up perfectly- even if being a personal trainer is a mere pit stop or supplement to another career, I’ll take this knowledge with me for life and will always want to share it with others. Maybe I will write more about all that trauma and whatnot one day in my memoir, but the remainder of this little e-book will be 

How To Work Out.  

Each chapter will provide a roadmap to help investigate how your body uniquely relates to the different aspects of movement practice- to empower and show you how to resource and accommodate yourself, and effectively create healthy exercise habits in the timeline that makes sense for you.   

I’m looking forward to letting the rest of this project unfold over the next week –

Props to Jim Metzke for editing this for me and everything 😉