Today, you're going to learn how to improve your body. And your life. In this episode, I detail five strength exercises to give you more mobility, energy, and stamina. Plus, I share three reasons why these exercises are both powerful and beneficial. I am confident that you will feel better AND have more energy throughout your day. And who doesn’t want that!

I haven’t had an injury in over 10 years thanks to these exercises. I detail why (and how!) these five exercises work, plus tips to incorporate them into your routine. To enjoy your life, you’ve got to have a strong, resilient, well-fueled body. So stay with me. This episode is for you. 

My FREE Health State of The Union Address event is happening January 31, 2024 at 8pm EST. We’ll discuss protein intake, building muscle, navigating pre- or post-menopause, plus current nutrition trends. (And stick around for the digital community meetup afterward!) Sign up at hollyperkins.com/event. 

The Nutrition Project is a 12-week live group program that addresses your challenges in real-time. You will learn my eating methodology and gain direct access to me for in-person coaching. If 2024 is the year you get your nutrition right, I cannot recommend this powerful program enough! Add your name at hollyperkins.com/workshop to be notified when spots open up.

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Topics Covered:

• Why these exercises will improve your body (and life!)
• 1st exercise: The Leg Press
• 2nd exercise: Reverse Grip Lat Pulldown
• 3rd exercise: The Walking Lunge 
• 4th exercise: The Deadlift
• 5th exercise: The Bench Press
• How to complete these exercises

Resources Mentioned:

• Listen to the first 11 episodes of Holly Perkins Health Podcast HERE
• Watch tutorials on my Women’s Strength Nation YouTube Channel HERE
• Grab a copy of my book Lift to Get Lean HERE

Follow Me:

Find me on Instagram: @hollyperkins

Learn more on my website: hollyperkins.com

Connect with me on Facebook: facebook.com/HollyPerkinsFitness/

Disclaimer: Content and information as part of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast is for general interest, education, and entertainment purposes only. The use of information on this podcast or materials or products linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions.

Holly Perkins 0:00

It seems to have been lost that the whole point of strength training is to improve how your body moves to reinforce the key joints where big movement happens, and to strengthen the muscles that dictate how well your joints interact with each other. I'm thrilled that the world has finally caught on to the importance of strength training. But it still seems to me that many people are doing it in order to look good, or become skinny. And listen, I think both of those things are worthwhile causes, I really do. And they are just the tip of the iceberg. Your strength training workouts should reflect all the moves that you make in a given day. So you can improve how you move. If you want to reduce painful joints, improve the efficiency of all of your movements, and improve every activity in your life. Keep listening.

Holly Perkins 1:00

Holly Perkins 2:10

if you're over 45 health considerations that impact women navigating pre and post menopause, current nutrition trends to help you feel better now and get the body and energy that you want and so much more. This is a totally free live event just for fun. And it's not associated with any kind of a sale or program offer. It's simply to connect with you. And to share my perspective on what I see is going on out there. This special event will happen live. It's online on January 31 at eight o'clock pm Eastern and is open to everyone. It'll last about an hour and I'll leave time for questions. And if you stick around after there'll be a Community Meetup, I am so eager to catch up here your updates and connect with you especially if you're new around here. You can get the details for this event by going to Holly perkins.com forward slash event. And if you can't make it live, there will be a recording sent out the next day, but only if you register. So come on over to Holly perkins.com forward slash event. Sign up now.

Holly Perkins 3:22

And let's get back to the episode. Rather than doing cool exercises that you see on social media because they seem innovative or unusual or your favorite influencer makes them look awesome, huh. Your strength training plan really should be built of exercises that improve your mechanics. If you're new around here, I help women over 40 and 50 and 60. Learn how to use strength training and intentional nutrition to create the body that you need in order to keep up with the life that you love. Today's episode underscores why this is my motto. Because in order to live your best life and feel good while you're doing it, you've got to have a strong, resilient, well fueled body. If you want to enjoy your life more. This episode is so for you.

Holly Perkins 4:23

Holly Perkins 5:23

In this episode, you'll learn how strength exercises that mimic the movements you make throughout the day, make you move better throughout the day, get it. After all, that is the whole point of strength training. You'll also learn why technique is the most important consideration of all even more important than exercise selection. You'll also learn the five exercises that directly impact how well you perform your day to day tasks like walking, climbing stairs, lifting heavy grocery bags, picking things up off the floor and standing up from a seated position. Here's the thing. How relieved Would you feel right now, if I told you that you're going to thrive in the next decade of your life, that you'll feel better and stronger and more energized than you do right now? Sounds pretty good, right? If you're anything like me, those words are music to your ears. Personally, I really worry about feeling unwell in the years ahead. That is something that keeps me up at night and really scares me. And I think this is normal, especially if you're someone who like me, who's had to navigate some really challenging health issues. But doesn't it feel good to believe that you might actually age gracefully and feel better next year than you do right now. Even if you feel pretty good right now, don't you want to feel even better, I think we all could use a little bit more of that. So stay with me, because you're going to learn the five best exercises for improving how you move today and tomorrow.

Holly Perkins 7:15

So after 30 years of being in the business of body improvement, I have personally done a complete one ad on nearly every problem that I had in my 20s and 30s. I've gone from debilitating knee pain in my 20s to being able to sit in Hero Pose all day long. If I feel like it now, in my 50s I've gone from excruciating hip pain in my 30s to none in my 50s. I've gone from having every injury in the playbook to now, not having had an injury in over 10 years. All of this was possible because of what you'll learn today. Now, there is one issue that still plagues me, and that is toe pain. But I know exactly what I have to do to eliminate it. And I'm going to speak to that in just a moment. It's irrelevant, I promise. And the exercise that fixes it for me, is one of today's five exercises. So stay with me.

Holly Perkins 8:22

The exercises I do each week, always reflect the movement patterns that need to be strengthened so that I can move freely, safely and feel good every day. Before I reveal the five exercises, it's really important that you first understand why these five moves are so powerful. So please make some mental notes here in the beginning so that when you learn the five moves, they'll really stick in your mind and you'll feel more committed to doing them once you really understand the why behind it.

Holly Perkins 8:59

Holly Perkins 9:58

The five exercises I share today all strengthen these basic common denominator movement patterns that are behind everything that you do all day. Some of the key actions you take each day are walking, maybe jogging, climbing stairs, lifting and carrying heavy things, picking things up off the floor and standing up from a seated position. Surprisingly, what's maybe even more important is the opposite of those movements, sitting down into a chair, going down the stairs, lowering something heavy to the ground. These five strength exercises you'll learn in a minute, all help to strengthen your patterns, so that you make these movements with more ease, safety and efficiency. This means that number one, you'll feel better and have more energy moving about your day, because your body is supported by muscular strength. Number two, you'll be more injury resistant, so that you don't have to worry so much when you're climbing stairs or lifting heavy things or working out in general. And number three, you'll be able to reduce and even eliminate any aches, pains or restrictions that currently bother you, or that limit the things that you do.

For example, something I hear on the regular is a person who loves to run, but they can't anymore, because that hurts their knees, or someone who loves to squat, but their doctor told them not to because of their back pain. If you've got aches and pains, or even outright injuries, it's probable that one of the muscles surrounding the joint is weak, and is therefore causing an imbalance at the main joint or an associated joint, which then causes instability or loss of mobility of that joint. Your chronic aches and pains are always the result of an imbalanced joint. Now, listen, these are chronic issues that I'm talking about. It's different if you've had, let's say, a car accident, and you had some very real and permanent joint damage, that's a little different. I'm talking about the types of aches and pains and injuries you get just going through life. The best way to restore full mobility and stability is through proper strength training, and possibly, to some degree flexibility work. Although personally, I believe that you won't need as much stretching to fix or improve a joint. Once you've got the joint in balance through strength work, I see this a lot in my body and in my clients where when we improve general strength and functionality, they either don't need to stretch as much or don't even feel the desire to stretch. Beyond injuries.

These five exercises improve overall body mechanics and muscular strength so that you move more efficiently throughout the day. And this improves energy and stamina. For my pre and post menopausal clients, I know that the majority of their fatigue can be resolved through strength training, and to some degree nutrition. Now, in order to do this in the most productive way, it's absolutely essential that you perform these five moves with excellent technique. Technique is everything. If you didn't read my first book lift to get lean, please do. If you're doing one of these moves with bad technique, it's not going to help. And it could cause injury depending on how misaligned you are and how bad your technique is. So please know that you must learn excellent technique. It's absolutely critical so that you are loading the appropriate muscles that are intended for the exercises that you're doing. So that you are improving the muscle balance around these key joints that I've talked about.

Now I realize it's tricky to know if you have good technique. It's one of those things that drives me crazy. That's the kind of thing you don't know what you don't know. Right. So there is a bit of conundrum here. But I will say what I'm asking you to do is simply turn your attention to the critical importance of technique and commit in the long run, that you'll constantly be working on your technique you'll constantly be observing and trying to refine your movement patterns, so that you mimic visually good technique. There are a few ways that you can do this. And there's a few ways to ensure that you're actually learning good technique. I've got three for you.

The first is watch video tutorials so that you can see the movement action, you'll often see stagnant photos that are in A and B movement for certain exercises, right, like at the top of a squat and the bottom of the squat. Personally, I find those completely unhelpful. And yes, they do appear in my first book lift get lean, because we're limited, you can't put a video on a book, right, and so they serve a purpose at times. But if you really want to learn to move, well, you've got to be watching video tutorials that you can really see the full 360 degrees of movement pattern. My women's strength nation channel on YouTube has great tutorials for the five exercises that I'm going to share in a minute.

Number two, use a mirror and really scrutinize how your knees, hips and shoulders are moving when you perform these exercises, but really all exercises in general. And number three, shoot a video of yourself performing a full set of an exercise, and then review it later so that you can compare your technique against my video tutorials. And in the coming months, I'll be offering a live group coaching program where I'll help by providing feedback on your technique. It's one of my favorite things that I do in my live group coaching programs. So please stay tuned if this is something you'd be interested in. And or if you're interested in working with me directly as I will be announcing those dates at some some point very, very soon. Up next,

I've got two more reasons why these exercises actually improve your day. And I'll reveal the five exercises, but first, okay.

The second reason why these exercises improve your day and your life is because they improve the integrity of key joints, including your toes, ankles, knees, and hips. Full mobility and stability of these joints is absolutely essential for reducing pain and avoiding injury. You must have full range of motion in these joints in order to move freely without pain. Now if you notice, I'm focusing on the joints of the lower body, because even joints like your back and your shoulders are very much impacted by the movement pattern at your feet, ankles and lower legs. So if we work on this portion of your body, things like back issues, shoulder issues and neck issues tend to clear up a lot more naturally. You must have a full range of motion in these joints in order to move freely and without pain. These five strength moves collectively impact these critical joints helping to improve the range of motion as well as the muscle balance around the joint to improve stability. These moves directly target your joints in a way that helps to improve the joint. These moves mimic the movements that you make throughout the day like toe flexion, knee flexion and hip extension. They reinforce how you're moving.

For example, one of the exercises is forward walking lunges. If you know me, you know I am obsessed with this exercise. I believe it is one of the absolute most important moves that you need to be doing. And you need to be doing it well. Now before you go kicking and screaming and running away, please know that yes, walking lunges are notoriously a very hard exercise. It's a difficult exercise, especially if you're new to it and you're just beginning or if you're not consistent with it. But trust me when I say they get easier with practice. It's also an exercise where if it's hard for you now, it's really easy to progress over time. It's one of those moves that even if it's hard, there's things you can do to make it more comfortable. For example, you can do it with just your bodyweight. You can do it slowly or with support in some way. You can pause at the bottom and turn it into an active and dynamic stretch, you can start with just 10 steps a day, there's so many ways that you can take a walking lunge and make it doable in a very productive way for you. And then it's just a matter of adding steps. And once you get to the point where you're doing quite a few steps, let's say 3040 50, or 60, and you don't want to count, then you can just transition over to doing it for 30 seconds or one minute or two minutes. I'm currently up to doing six minutes nonstop a bodyweight walking lunges. And my goal, my lifetime goal is to get up to an hour, the longest that I've gotten was, I think, 19 minutes of non stop bodyweight walking lunges, which is a huge accomplishment in and of itself. It's going to take me some time to work up to an hour that I know. But I will tell you, my body always absolutely feels the best the more walking lunges that I'm doing.

Now remember, technique is everything. I am always working on my technique, I scrutinize it. I refine it every single day, and I have for 30 years. Now one of the reasons why this exercise is so fabulous, is it strengthens your glutes, your hamstrings, and your quads in a way that improves the mobility of the toes, ankles, knees, and hips. If you do nothing else this year, please start practicing walking lunges as a longevity strength exercise, and promise me you'll work on your technique as well. So as I mentioned earlier, the one lingering joint issue that I have is pain in my toe joints. And more specifically, I have hallux rigidus, which is the medical term which nobody even really knows where my big toe has very limited range of motion, it's swollen. It hurts when I use it. And sometimes it throbs when I don't use it. Most doctors will say pretty much every single doctor will say that it's an arthritic condition and that there's no cure to it outside of surgery. Now don't get me started on this diagnosis of arthritis because it is a diagnosis. But I actually believe there's a lot that you can do for arthritic joints. So let me say this, my toes hurt the most when I am not doing walking lunges regularly, and my toe pain goes away completely when I am. So draw your own conclusion, but I will share mine.

Certain exercises like the walking lunge, improve the movement pattern associated with the joint. I believe that nearly all joint pain and arthritis can be healed or at least significantly improved. And I've seen it done. All it takes is the right strength exercises, some consistency and your attention to good technique. So in this case, walking lunges, strengthen the glutes, which are the most important muscle group of all that governs hip extension. Walking lunges, strengthen the hamstrings, which govern knee flexion and hip extension. Walking lunges, strengthen the quads, which govern knee extension, they improve the flexibility of the hip flexors, otherwise known as your elbow. So as they improve the stability of your knee joint, improve flexion of the ankle joint which is a critical part of being able to move well in general hand is a sign of aging. It's super important to have mobile, stable, flexible ankle movement. And lastly, walking lunges improve flexion of the toes by opening up mobility. So that's a lot of benefits from one exercise, right? And this is what I'm referring to in all five of these exercises. They do so much to improve your overall mechanics that they will help you in everything else that you do.

Over the holidays, I was sitting more than usual and I hadn't been consistent with my workouts in general just like everybody else and but more specifically, I wasn't doing my walking lunges for a period of time and I was kind of just doing them inconsistently. So at the time. After that stretch for about three to four weeks between November into December, my toes were killing me like throbbing so much pain. I know why. So within two to three weeks I have bodyweight walking lunges three times each week, just my body weight. My toe pain is now almost completely gone. Now I realize I'm totally waxing poetic over my love affair with walking lunges. And again, if you know me, you know, but the other four exercises that I'm going to share offer the same kind of benefits for different reasons and different body parts.

Let me quickly share the third reason why these moves are so powerful at improving your body and therefore your life. And then I'm going to reveal the five exercises. The third reason why these five moves actually improve your life is because they translate to all of their movement patterns and activities. When you perfect these moves, you'll be able to perform all other exercises better. For example, it is, I would say almost impossible to perfect a Bulgarian split squat. If you haven't yet perfected the walking lunge. I think it's nearly impossible to have a safe and effective chin up. If you don't first perfect your lat pulldown. And I believe that you will never do a safe pushup if you don't first perfect your benchpress. Now a word on that, in general, I am not a fan of push ups, you will never see a push up in one of my written programs inside of the programs that I sell or even any program that I offer as a freebie. I don't believe in pushups, I've seen way too many injuries from them. I think it's an ineffective movement pattern. Women really struggle with them because of our upper body strength. And there's just so many back and shoulder injuries that come from pushup. So I'm not a huge fan. But I do know that people are in you might want to do that. I know for some people, it's like a lifelong goal to be able to do 10 or 15 Perfect push ups. So I use this as an example, if you are a pushup person, that if it's something you want to be able to do safe and effectively, it's really hard to get there. If you don't first perfect your benchpress which is one of the five exercises, these five moves will help you do all other strength exercises better. And these five moves will also help all your other activities like walking, I walk better now because my toes don't hurt. I've got better walking technique, which means I get more out of my walking and I enjoy it a lot more. These five moves will help you with running, jumping, spinning dance, any activity or workout that you do. And these five moves will improve the integrity of your whole body so that you can do you in life better.

Okay, so are you ready to learn the five moves I'm sure you are. I know you already know two of them. So I'll reveal the other three. Here they are in no order of importance, I feel that they are all equally important and they should appear at least once every week in your workout programming. So number one drumroll is the leg press and more specifically, I am a huge fan of the 45 degree decline sled leg press. This is the kind that you'll see at a gym. Most people don't have these at a home gym, where you're sitting low to the ground, your feet are up in the air about the height of your head at a 45 degree angle. And then the sled lowers downward on that 45 degree angle and you push back up. Love this exercise is one of the most important exercises to perfect and to also build your strength on because it translates to everything you do. You can do a goblet squat. If you're someone who doesn't work out at a gym and you prefer to work out at home that would be the suitable alternative even though there's really no perfect alternative to a leg press. That's why I love it.

Number two, I mentioned it but I'm gonna give you more clarity on it and that is a reverse grip. lat pulldown. You can use the band if you work out at home. But again, I am a huge fan of a gym based cable machine where you can anchor your knees and you can use heavier weight loads when you're ready. More specifically, it's the reverse grip lat pulldown where your hands are facing your face. And your hands are about the width of your shoulders. Again, visit my women's strength nation channel on YouTube and you can find the video tutorial there.

Exercise number three is my beloved walking lunge. I absolutely love it. I will go on and on and on and on and on about it.

Number four is the deadlift and this is a controversial move out there in the world. This is one of those things where doctors will say if you've had a back injury or a hip injury that you should avoid it. But here's the thing. There's going to come a time in your life where you need to pick up something off the floor. Whether it is a pet, or a box or a bag of groceries or something, you're going to have to bend over and pick up something off the floor and there's a good chance it's going to be something heavy.

The deadlift is probably if I had to pick one exercise for the rest of my life, my sort of what exercise would you take to a deserted island, it would be the deadlift because it translates to so many things that you do in your life. And it's a complex movement, so it will take you time to learn perfect technique on this. You can start it with very light dumbbells, you can start with three or five pound dumbbells, you don't have to start with a 45 pound Olympic bar, or even more than 20 pounds, you can start it very lightly. You do have to start this exercise with some resistance. You can't do it with just your body weight because you need the weight in front of you to counterbalance to actually learn the move appropriately. This is an exercise that I'm always workshopping with my clients and with my students in my group coaching program. And I'm forever workshopping for myself because it is a bit more complicated, but every minute that you put into it is worthwhile.

And the fifth and final exercise is benchpress, which I mentioned, you can perform this with dumbbells if you work out at home. I absolutely love a bench press because most women don't have natural upper body strength and it is the great complement to your reverse grip lat pulldown, it's the pushing exercise to the pulling of your lat pulldown.

Now, I realize you may be wondering exactly how to put these exercises into practice. And you might be curious about set progression or reps or you know how much weight to use and all of those details. And the truth is, it's impossible for me to offer a very specific programming here as there's all kinds of people listening. And this is the art and science of what I do. There isn't a one approach to programming that works for everyone. And if some coach ever tells you that there is run the opposite direction, because there's not. But this is why I offer live guided coaching programs.

So for now, I am gonna give you some direction. And the first thing is aim to complete these exercises either together as a workout, or individually spaced throughout the week, each one time each week. Okay, so you could take all five exercises, do them as a workout once a week, or you could split them up as part of other workouts once a week. That's where you're going to begin. Over time, you can increase the frequency, then begin with moderate weight loads. And like I said, you can start with body weight for your walking lunges. This is going to allow you to perfect your technique, you do need to start with a moderate, comfortable weight load so that you can adjust the positioning of your legs and hips and arms and all of those body parts so that you can learn perfect technique. If the weights too heavy, you're not going to be able to make those micro adjustments that you see you need by looking in the mirror, then increase your weight loads every two to three weeks by five pounds or less. But five pounds is a good place to start. And the last tip is to aim for three sets of 10 to 12 reps for each exercise. And that's it. So easy, right? Take your time and be sure that your technique is perfect. That might take some time. Like I said 30 years later, I am still always refining my walking lunge technique. And it's pretty darn good. But I think I'm someone who strives for achievement and always just being a little bit better. And the truth is most of us can move a little bit better. By taking your time and starting with moderate weight loads,

you're going to be able to feel the benefits quickly, especially if you have problematic joints. And it only takes two to three weeks to see improvement, providing you're doing it right. If you feel weak, or tired or are sick and tired of aches and pains, I promise there is something that you can do about it. I have completely redesigned my body. And the only time that I get into trouble is when I'm not consistent with all of the things that I teach. And as soon as I get back to my good habits, I'm Wonder Woman again. And after 30 years of practice coaching other women. I know it's possible for you to

I hope you enjoyed this episode. And don't forget if you want access to my four week strength without stress program which is totally free forever. Be sure to rate and review this episode right now all you have to do is leave your comment your review wherever you're listening. That could be at the bottom of the blog page on my website for this episode. It could be on Apple podcasts, or on Spotify. When you leave that comment, simply grab a screenshot, and then come over to Holly perkins.com forward slash review and you'll be able to send it to me you'll get immediate access to the program for free, I promise and stay tuned for a another brand new episode on Tuesday of next week. Stay strong my friend