Craving the peace of mind that your diet is actually supporting your muscles and your workouts are actually improving your bone health? In today’s episode, I’m giving you just that with my FREE strong muscle and bone assessment! This science-backed tool will group you into one of five strength identities, and today I’m offering a sneak peek into each of them!

The assessment takes just 60 seconds to get your strength score. Your strength identity will provide actionable tips to become stronger, leaner, and more energized. This quiz will help you figure out where you are and what to do next. Take the quiz to find out which strength type you are:

The Powerhouse

The pinnacle of fitness. With 80% lean muscle mass, optimal body composition, and high energy, these individuals are strong, athletic, and performing at their peak. Strength training is a top priority, recovery is intentional, and fitness ranks among their top three daily commitments.

The Fit but Brittle

Strong on the outside but lacking inner support. These individuals lift weights and follow nutrition plans, yet their bones aren’t getting the stimulus they need. Strategic impact exercises and heavier strength training are essential to build bone density and protect against future injuries.

The Muscle Seeking Maven

Dedicated but not quite there. They're showing up for workouts, like classes and Pilates, but missing the strategic progression needed for visible muscle tone. With the right approach to increasing weight loads and dialing in nutrition, especially protein, they’re on the brink of a breakthrough.

The Soft and Struggling

Trying, but feeling stuck. Life is demanding, and their body doesn’t respond like it used to. Despite the desire to get back on track, consistency is hard to find. Often dealing with higher body fat and lower energy, they feel far from their former fitness self.

The Rocking Chair

At the starting line. They feel tired, overwhelmed, and disconnected from physical health. Exercise has been absent for years, and comfort often comes from food. These individuals don’t need a boot camp—they need gentle beginnings, simple nutrition shifts, and encouragement to take that first small step toward feeling better.

Take the quiz now if you’re ready for the tips and resources you need to get moving and take your fitness to new levels! Anyone and everyone can become stronger and healthier.

You can get FREE access to my 4-week Strength Without Stress program right now! This program will help you reduce the systemic inflammation that’s caused by overly intense or lengthy workouts. It’ll help you build and maintain valuable lean muscle without the fatigue from other programs.

To get free access to Strength Without Stress, post a Review wherever you’re listening. Grab a screenshot of your review before you post it and upload at: https://www.hollyperkins.com/review

This is a limited-time offer before it sells for $197–grab it while you can for lifetime access.

Be sure to Follow and Subscribe so you'll know exactly when new episodes are available on Tuesdays.

Topics covered:

● (01:35) Introducing the Strong Muscle and Bone Assessment

● (08:34) The Powerhouse

● (12:32) The Fit, But Brittle

● (20:49) The Muscle Seeking Maven bridges being active and truly fit

● (25:50) The Soft and Struggling is a wake-up call to feeling better

● (30:02) The Rocking Chair Ready is ready for smart strength building

Resources Mentioned:

● Transcripts can be found on the official blog page for this episode at hollyperkins.com/blog

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 healthcare professionals for any such conditions.

Mentioned in this episode:

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If you've ever wondered how you rank in terms of your muscle mass and bone health, you might find it helpful to have a science-backed assessment to guide you. Wouldn't it be great to know if your diet is actually supporting your muscles or if your workouts are actually improving your bone health? Up until now, that resource didn't exist in a simple, yet comprehensive formula to guide your next steps in becoming stronger, leaner, and more resilient. Your prayers have been answered, because starting today, you can get the answers you need by taking my free Strong Muscle and Bone Assessment. If you want to get some insights into how you're actually doing, keep listening.

Hello, and thank you for being here. If you are new, welcome. I'm Holly Perkins, and I help women—mostly over 40—improve your body composition so that you are at least 70% lean muscle, because this is going to reduce your risk of disease and help you to stay in the game of life and out of the rocking chair. And today's episode is all about giving you clarity, because if you're over 40, and you're working out, eating well, and still not getting the results that you want, you are going to want to hear this.

This one is a good one. I've created a brand new, science-backed tool called the Strong Muscle and Bone Assessment, and at the risk of bragging—okay, I'm gonna go ahead and brag for a moment—it's really brilliant. I have worked on this quiz, really, probably for a number of years now, putting the concepts together and finally sitting down and building it out in an objective way that actually aligns with medical fact. And you might say, “So why is this so brilliant, Holly?” And I'll tell you. As I've been writing my next book, Muscle and Bone, I have been compiling all of the research that's needed to support my statements and my programming. I put so much time into research, just like I do this podcast, and with each citation, I very naturally arrived at this system of determining if you—or any woman—is actually optimized to build or even just preserve lean muscle, and if you're taking the necessary steps to improve bone strength and density.

So it's a triage of sorts, and it became very obvious to me in terms of how a person's daily habits shape your future strength. This assessment takes just 60 seconds, and you'll get your official strength score so that you can discover which of the five strength-type identities you fall into right now. This will guide your next steps so that you can become stronger, leaner, more energized, and truly protected in terms of muscles and bone. And it meets you where you're at. It doesn't matter if you are at rock bottom or you are at peak performance—this assessment and the tips, tools, and resources that you're going to get from me are going to help you take another step forward.

And in today's episode, I am giving you a sneak peek of all five of the identities. So whether you're crushing your workouts or just trying to get back on your feet, this episode will help you figure out where you are and what to do next. Over the past six years, I have been doing more and more group coaching, which is something that I absolutely love, and it allows me to work with more women more frequently every single week, and it really helps me collect a lot of data.

Now I have refined all of my methodology down to a science, and pretty much every single client of mine—well, I would say every client—gets great results, provided she follows my methodology. And that being said, because I've got such a good track record, and my clients are so amazing in terms of doing what I tell them to do, I'm actually able to experiment with science, with the current research trends that are coming out, and new techniques to help people get better results that are more permanent but yet also happen faster. So one of the reasons why my clients get such transformational results is because I've learned to identify where you're at in terms of your fitness and health journey.

Some of my clients come to me very deconditioned and far from my preferred 70% lean muscle mark. And many clients come to me because they've reached a high level of fitness and they want to go higher. In many ways, honestly, it really does not matter where you're at right now. What matters is identifying your current level and then having a reference for where you're going. It's like a barometer or a map. We have to know where you are and where you're going. And to know where you're going, we have to know where you are. Because if you're soft and struggling, it's going to require a different strategy to make you a powerhouse. And if you're fit, but you've got osteopenia, you need a very specific training program to help you reach the next level of bone density.

So in this episode, you'll learn how to find out your strength score and the five different identities. What peak and optimal health and fitness actually looks like. You'll learn the real difference between being active and actually building muscle. You'll learn why strength training—not cardio—is your secret weapon, and what to do if you're very deconditioned and just not sure where to start. Imagine if every day you woke up feeling great. You were full of energy and free from aches and pains, excited for the day ahead, and chomping at the bit for your workout. Can you imagine? You love how strong you feel, and you're the one that everyone asks to lift the heavy things. And you actually really like your appearance. Your doctor says that your blood work is perfect, and your DEXA scan reveals strong, healthy bones and perfect body composition. This, my friend, is the goal for all of us, and it's 100%

within the realm of possibility for you too. It is these characteristics that will keep you in the game of life and out of the rocking chair for all of the wonderful years ahead. This is what life is like when you're a powerhouse—the highest level of health and fitness and the goal for living a truly full and vibrant life. Powerhouse is the first identity that you should understand, because if you're eating and working out to become better in any way, this is your target.

So let's jump in quickly so that you can hear all five of the identities and find out how to get your official strength score. In my professional opinion, this is the goal if you want to live a truly unlimited life in terms of your health, your physical ability, your vitality, and your longevity. A powerhouse is unstoppable. She is fit to the eye, meaning everyone notices her fitness when she walks in the room. Her body composition is around 80% lean muscle, and it's obvious. She's lean, she's strong, athletic, and full of energy. Her muscle mass and her bone density are in optimal ranges, or they are even higher than her age-matched demographic. She is strong inside and out.

If this is you—the powerhouse—you're putting in your reps, and your training is dialed in. You know what it means to truly lift heavy, and you eat for performance. Your workouts are in the top three priorities of your life every single day, and you schedule in intentional recovery. Therefore, you never miss a workout. Strength training is your foundation, and you do a variety of cardio-focused workouts on top of it. You've got a well-rounded picture in your fitness activity life.

Each week, strong is part of your identity. And while people might say, “Oh, she's so obsessed or disciplined,” it's really just the lifestyle that you choose into—no food restriction, and yet, you prefer the healthiest, most optimized diet to support your performance and your health. No aches and pains, just beautiful muscle under a reasonable layer of body fat. In truth, you've arrived, powerhouse. This is the pinnacle of health, fitness, and wellness, but there is a twist.

Even high performers like you hit plateaus at this stage. You might think that you need to push harder, work out more, or just push in general, and the truth is you don't. Here, it's about refining your approach with smarter periodization, more sophisticated recovery techniques, and practices to address all of the various hormones impacting your training and your recovery. Here, it's all about optimizing muscle and improving your conditioning and more advanced functional skills, so that your fitness at 80 looks the same as it did at 40. It's about feeling good about your fitness and also ever wanting to make incremental improvements for the sake of progress and accomplishment in general. When you complete the strong muscle and bone assessment, you'll get even more specific suggestions to help you do this.

If you discover that you are, in fact, a powerhouse, you can find out if you're a powerhouse by getting your official strength score at hollyperkins.com/quiz. The second identity, one level below powerhouse, is the fit but brittle. You look strong, you are strong, but the bigger question here is, are your bones keeping up with your muscles? The fit but brittle is interesting because it's kind of like a quiet category, and it's subtle. She looks super fit on the outside, and she truly is performing well, but when she looks a bit deeper, she finds that her bone strength and/or density aren't where they need to be to reduce the risk of fractures.

As she ages, I see this woman every week in my practice. She has achieved a very high and impressive level of fitness and leanness. And the trick is that she believes that she has arrived, but the truth is she hasn't. This is the hardest part of my coaching practice: when I see this, I have to say, “Yay, go you,” but we've got some work to do, because your bone density and health are critical. And if she doesn't know how to, let's say, look under the hood, so to speak, she could very easily find out that she's osteopenic or even osteoporotic. She strength trains three to four or more, maybe even times each week.

She follows a dedicated program, and she is intentional with her nutrition and fueling efforts. She almost looks like a powerhouse. Her cardio is prescriptive, just like her strength training. Her body composition is athletic, with between 75 to 80% lean muscle mass. And just to flip the conversation and the script a bit, this would be somewhere between 20 and 25% body fat, whereas a powerhouse is usually around 20% or less body fat. You might think she's a powerhouse until you learn more about her bone health. So if this is you, you're probably assuming that because you're so fit, and you have been for a while, you don't have to worry about your bone density.

You eat really well, better than anyone you know. And so you assume you've got nothing to worry about. Everything looks great on the outside, but your skeleton isn't getting the stimulus that it needs. You're committed to your strength workouts, and you rarely miss one. You follow a strategic and intentional nutrition plan so that you always feel good and perform optimally. The good news is that the fit but brittle can easily become a powerhouse in two simple steps.

Number one, get a DEXA scan for bone density. If you're under the age of 62, you may need to gently and politely demand that your doctor prescribe one for you, because generally, doctors don't recommend them for younger, healthier women. You'll know that you fit this identity if your bone density is either questionable or outside of the optimal ranges. But we have to first start with the knowing through a DEXA scan, specifically for bone density. Once you know where you stand, you'll need to use strategic exercises and specifically impact training to start improving your bone density without jump work, near maximal lifting, or true impact. Bone density suffers in silence, and a lot of women don't know this. Over time, that affects your posture, your strength, your resilience, your independence, your mobility, and your risk of fracture. The key for you to become a powerhouse is treating your bone density.

Impact exercises, just like the other aspects of your plan, plyometrics and jump exercises, will provide the stimulus that your bones need to become stronger. Additionally, you'll want to ensure that you're using weight loads that are very, very heavy with impeccable technique, and those exercises are mostly complex compound exercises like barbell back squats, barbell deadlifts, and bench press. Of course, nutrition is also important. Notice that I haven't mentioned a lot about nutrition. My philosophy is that you can address your bone density better through what I teach—strength training and impact training—more so than nutritional efforts. A person can eat really well for bone health the rest of her life,

but if you're not doing what I teach, your bones will still soften. It's important that you're getting all of the minerals that are needed for bone strength, not just calcium. We're talking Vitamin D, Vitamin K, magnesium, and all of that on top of a very healthy diet filled with tons of vegetables. Again, when you complete the strong muscle and bone assessment, you'll get more specific suggestions to help you keep the muscle that you have, maybe build a little bit more, but also improve bone density, so that you can become a powerhouse down the road. You can find out if you're the fit but brittle by getting your strength score at hollyperkins.com/quiz.

Up next, you'll learn the three identities that are begging for my help, begging for improvement, and require programming elements to move you up the ladder so that you too can become a powerhouse. You'll hear that next, but first, if you can't say, “Holly, I have got some serious muscle, and I am the strongest person that I know,” then we've got some work to do, my friend, because I truly believe and know that is the goal if you want to live a full, vibrant, disease-free, active life and stay independent as you get older. It is not enough to just be active. That is one of the hardest things for me to say because my philosophy is, I'm your cheerleader. I want to move you positively towards any activity because truly, truly, anything is better than nothing. And if you're a listener of mine, you're probably already active. And this is the hard pill to swallow.

Just being active is not good enough to survive this lifetime. Happily, every woman needs to be fit. Now, I know the naysayers and the critics might be saying or thinking, “How could Holly Perkins say that everyone needs to be fit, right? How judgmental?” But the truth is, it's really just fact, and it's reality, and you know it's true. It is nearly impossible to live your best life if you don't feel well, right? And imagine how incredible your life would be if you were truly fit.

So the third ranking identity is the muscle-seeking Maven. She's one of my favorites, and this is the majority of women who come to me for coaching. And this one is sneaky because you're gonna swear it's not you, but when you take the assessment, it might reveal that you are. There is a good chance that this is you. So listen closely. The muscle-seeking Maven works out every week for the most part. She might skip workouts when she goes on vacation or when she's traveling for work. She's definitely active, but not in a well-rounded way. She's DIYing her fitness. She's scanning the headlines in social media and adopting new strategies that weren't designed for her.

She focuses on the exercises that she enjoys the most, like classes or walking, and yes, definitely some strength training. But this could be boot camp classes, this could be Body Pump, or even Pilates. She'd consider herself fit. But once she learns the true definition of fitness, she realizes she's actually missing the bar. This is often a cardio bunny who focuses on different kinds of workouts that, once she looks closer, she realizes are really cardio-based. She believes that in order to lose weight, she needs to burn off the fat. This stage is the bridge between being active and actually being truly strong and fit.

If this is you, you would swear up and down that you're in good shape. I can't tell you, almost weekly, I will get a phone call from this woman who's like, "I'm actually in really good shape. I like my fitness," but there's always a but, and that is the telltale sign of the muscle-seeking Maven. But you just can't seem to burn off the extra layer of fat, and you just can't seem to get the muscle definition that you want. Weight loss is mostly your goal, and you've made the shift to an active lifestyle. You're lifting, you're showing up, you are dedicated to your workouts.

You're doing the work, but you're not seeing the muscle tone, definition, or volume that you want. This isn't a willpower issue. This is really just a strategy issue. The good news is that you're already committed to an active lifestyle, and it's part of who you are, which is the hardest part. The next step is for you to move up the ladder so that you can become a powerhouse, and this means muscle. That's why you're the muscle-seeking Maven. You're probably not lifting heavy enough, and most likely, your workouts aren't truly progressive. If you look back at your strength training workouts over the past two to three months, have you actually been achieving heavier weight loads on key exercises?

That's another telltale sign, because a lot of women are strength training, but when they really stop and reflect, they say, "You know, I haven't really increased the weight on my leg press in a long time," or, "I'm actually not pushing more than 10 pounds on my overhead dumbbell press," in which case you're not truly progressing. It's also likely that you're not strategic enough with your nutrition, and your protein is most likely either too high or too low. In truth, you are so close to being stronger and leaner with the muscle definition that you want; we just need to bring a bit more intentional strategy into your weekly programming and your habits. If this sounds like you, but you're not sure,

the strong muscle and bone assessment asks you all the right questions so that you'll know, and so that you then get my specific tips and resources for improving your muscle so that you can become a powerhouse down the road. Again, you can find out if this is you by getting your official strength score at HollyPerkins.com/quiz. Continuing down the ladder, the next identity is the soft and struggling, and it pretty much explains itself, right? Boy, the number of times a woman is like, "I just am struggling, and I don't like feeling so soft." Sometimes I hear women say fluffy. They don't like feeling fluffy. And that is such key languaging. This is someone who tries to work out each week. Sometimes she does, but more often than not, she doesn't.

This one really hits home for a lot of women, because it's a reality check. Her intentions are good. She knows she's trying. She believes that fitness is in her future. She wants to work out more and more often, and she tries to eat right. The problem is, when we really stop and take an objective assessment, she finds out she's actually not doing what she's intending, and because of that, she's missing the mark. She's softer and heavier than she knows is best for her health. This isn't just, "Oh, I'd like to lose five pounds to have a six-pack." She knows she's far from where she wants to be, and the biggest complaint here is usually body fat, and more specifically, belly fat, because she's so tired from busy days juggling work and/or family, it's rare that she's actually able to get more than just some walking in each week.

She's finally reached a place where she doesn't recognize her body, and she feels far from where she once was or far from where she wants to be. Life has really demanded so much from her that her health and her fitness have taken last place on her list of priorities. If this is you, you'd admit and notice that you've been strong in ways that don't show. You've been holding it together, pushing through the days. You've been showing up and showing up. You put everyone's needs above your own, and it has caught up with you. Your body doesn't respond to exercise and diet like it used to, and you actually feel like your age is catching up to you. This is often the place when a wake-up call invites you to finally make some big changes so that you can stop feeling this way and start feeling even just better.

Better would be good for you, and yes, down the road, someday, maybe even vibrant. The good news is that you're aware of the truth, and you're aware of your desire to be better, but the powerhouse might feel so far away that you can't even begin to start because you almost feel it's not possible. You just want to feel better. You're motivated, and there is that little voice in your head that reminds you how many times you failed. And if that's you, know this: you haven't failed. You haven't failed because you haven't really tried hard enough for long enough to make a real change.

But you're not broken. You just need a strategy that works with your biology where it is right now and within the realities of your life. If this sounds like you, the good news is this is your comeback chapter, and you're ready. One more rung down the ladder is our final identity, the rocking chair. Ready, my friend? If this is you, we gotta talk. If you're listening to this podcast, you might feel like you are at rock bottom, but very few of my listeners would actually be in this category. That's my hope anyway, because this is rock bottom for her. There is nowhere to go but up, and really, in an odd way, that is good news. She's on the struggle bus, and she has been for a very long time.

She's constantly tired, she's always overwhelmed. She's usually soothing herself with food, often at night, and she hasn't seen her athletic shoes in years. She's older than her years, and her muscle mass and bone density show it. Now, listen, she may or may not be overweight, but she's deconditioned, and she's certainly in bad shape. She never considered herself the working out type and never really caught the health and fitness bug. There's a part of her that knows she should be wanting more. There's part of her that does want to be different, but she feels so far from anything better than this. In time, she will be in a rocking chair, spending her days dependent on others.

If this feels like you, hear me out, because this isn't about judgment, and it's definitely not about giving up. This is about coming back. This is about progress, doing just a little bit better so you can start your journey. If stairs feel hard or your body just doesn't move like it used to, this stage is your invitation to rebuild from the inside out. And guess what? No gym is required, no extreme anything. It's really just about smart, intentional strength, building inner and outer strength designed to restore your mobility, your energy, your confidence, and your self-assurance.

You haven't missed your chance, because this, my friend, is your chance. And since there's nowhere to go but up, the good news is that starting is simple. I want you to just move—just one day, just one step. This could literally be a 10-minute walk down your street or a 20-minute stretching video at home. All you need to start moving upwards is action, and that is it. Even a small baby step moves you in the right direction, because anything is better than what you're doing now. Add one vegetable today and more water tomorrow, or choose one new healthy habit that you can do today and repeat tomorrow, and then repeat it. But warning: I encourage you to ease into everything so that your new actions are easy to repeat.

We need them to be repeatable so that you don't get overwhelmed. And if you can take just one step each day for seven days, you will start feeling better immediately. Now, if you hear this and you're scared that this might be you, please visit HollyPerkins.com/quiz right now so that you can find out. It's important. The strong muscle and bone assessment only takes 60 seconds, and it's going to give you the insights that you need to get moving.

You'll get tips, tools, and resources to help you start this new chapter. So get ready to head over to my website now and find out your official strength score. I am so excited to find out where you rank, and oh yes, I will be watching. So, on your marks, get set, and go, because I'm going to be able to help you put the pieces together so that no matter what your current strength score is, I can help you become even better than you are now. And remember, your current condition is simply a reflection of your past actions. Anyone and everyone has the ability to become stronger and healthier—everyone, and at any age. You can build the strong muscles and healthy bones that you need to really live a truly vibrant life. It's just a matter of taking the first step, and I got you covered there. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and please stay tuned for another brand new one on Tuesday of next week. Stay strong, my friend.