RTTC #232 How to Keep Strength Training Simple Enough to Actually Do It

In this episode of Running to the Castle, Dr. Ali gets real about why strength training falls off the schedule, and what to actually do about it. 

She breaks down how to match your strength training approach to your life, your goals, and your brain's bandwidth, including when low weight and high volume makes sense versus when machines might be your best friend. 

Dr. Ali also unpacks the concept of neuromuscular demand, explaining why some exercises feel harder than they should, and why that hidden cognitive load might be secretly derailing your consistency. 

Whether you're training for a Dopey challenge or just trying to stay healthy as a runner, this episode will help you build a strength training habit that actually sticks.

Learn more about Stronger. Faster. Finisher. !

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  Hi, I'm Dr. Ali
  I've been running for 15+ years and been in the rehab space since 2012 when I earned my Doctor of Physical Therapy Degree. I get injury prone runDisney runners across the finish line without feeling broken.

Transcript

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Hey, how's it going? Today I'm talking about how to keep strength training simple enough to actually do it. This is Running to the Castle, a podcast for slow, back-of-the-pack Run Disney runners on a journey to running magical miles. Join me, Dr. Alley, as I share the secrets I've gathered as a runner, doctor of physical therapy, and coach. You'll learn the exact ways I get my clients to the castle strong, have a bigger buffer ahead of the balloon ladies, and have time to stop for character photos. Keep listening if your goal is to PR in fun, cross the finish line without feeling broken, and have energy to enjoy the Disney parks. So, of course, disclaimer, you know, strength training is not my favorite. I would rather just go out and run and then stretch and take a hot Epsom salt bath. But being a female in her late 30s at the time of recording this, I know I need to strength train. I need to strength train for my body for longevity as I'm getting older, as women get older. We lose muscle mass, we lose bone density, and strength training are ways to combat that. And it's good for running. It you know, strength training is important, right? It's for running, it's not as important as you see so many people talk about. And let me clarify that because it's not as important as you see everybody else talk about for the sole reason that if you are new to running, if you are always injured and have a race that you can't back out of, or you have a life situation where you can only do so much, I would recommend that the thing that falls off be strength training, or manipulate the schedule to make it so that you get some in, but it's not going to take two hours in the gym, right? And strength training in the gym can be intimidating. So a lot of runners, new runners or Disney runners, where they're not a runner first, you're a Disney adult first, right? Like I'm a Disney adult first. I'm not a runner first. I basically only do Run Disney races and the occasional local race, like what I'm doing for the 10K that I'm signed up for. It's been years since I've done a non-Disney race. Now, part of that is because of COVID, part of that is because life got lifey with um Royal's health condition, and so be it. But strength training can be very overwhelming. And I get a lot of questions about how to strength train the right way. That is a loaded question because what is the right way for you? First and foremost, what is your goal for strength training? Right? Are you looking for body composition changes, meaning you want to lose fat, lose weight? Do you want to be visibly more toned, where somebody can tell, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at those, look at those shoulders, look at those biceps, look at those triceps. You want to have um Jennifer Aniston arms, right? Those would be body composition changes. Or do you want to stop getting injured? And someone somewhere told you that you need to strength train because that's your knee is weak and that's why you need to strength train. Spoiler alert, strength training does not eliminate knee pain. I have all sorts of other podcasts about that. Um, strength training is one of the worst things to do for pain in the moment. Not saying that they it doesn't help prevent it from happening, not that it doesn't help keep things stable and working well and feeling good, but it's not, it's not like the equivalent of popping an ad bill. Okay. But again, that's not the purpose of today's podcast episode. But when you go into the gym, it can be really intimidating. That's what I started to say a few minutes ago. It can be really intimidating. So you may think, okay, well, I'm just gonna work out at home. But one of the problems with working out at home is you can only have so much equipment. I mean, maybe you do have a lot of space and you can set up one of these fancy workout machines. I happen to have a lot of space in my garage to set up a fancy workout machine, but it took me 10 years to be able to get to that point. Before this, I was living in apartments and we had quote unquote gyms in the apartments. They were really like a couple of treadmills and a stack of dumbbells. But I've also been a member of gyms. But at home, runners may say, oh, well, I'll just get some elastic bands, I'll get some light dumbbells, which is great. It's great that you're doing something, but is it challenging you enough? If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you, right? So we've talked about the pace test for running to figure out your easy, moderate, and hard paces so that you push your upper limits on your speed workout so that you can get faster and you know your easy pace, you know your lower limits of what running pace it it is that is the slowest running pace you could be doing without walking, so that you can actually give yourself some recovery and not be always pushing your upper limits because you it's a balance, right? We don't want to land in the gray zone, but we need to push our upper limits sometimes and our lower limits at other times, right? Same thing with strength. You need to push those upper limits. And there is a wide variety way of doing it, but sometimes the the way that you're doing it is not the best way. So low weight, high volume, that's typically used for rehabbing. So rehabbing an injury, or when you're new to exercising, or when you're just adding a new exercise. Maybe you have historically done exercises, but this is brand new. And you're just kind of getting the lay of the land, figuring out how to do this motion, right? There's also a way to do not quite super low weight and do it at volume to get your muscles to work more at volume. That can be used more of an endurance type of thing. Like if somebody is doing the dopey challenge and they are strength training because they notice that they get really exhausted, their muscles get really just overworked by mile 15, as an example. You may consider doing your long runs and then doing lower weight, maybe a medium weight or even a lightweight and high volume, high repetition, so that your body is getting used to still working, but it's not running, right? There are ways to do this. And then you can challenge your body in other ways. If you don't have as much workout equipment, you know, you can do an isometric hold in the middle of a workout. So let's say you're doing squats and you only have 10-pound dumbbells, but that's not cutting it for you anymore. Well, you could squat and hold that position and be holding on to the weight, or maybe you're doing a wall sit with a weight on your legs, right? You're still working those muscles in a different way. And so those are different ways to utilize strength workouts. So hearing, you know, somebody say that it's the end all, be all, you need to strength train more, you need to lift heavier, like great, fine. That that is going to work for somebody, but newer runners, runners, if you're coming back from injury, uh, whatever the case may be, maybe that's not the right thing for you. And then we run into this thing, which is what I really want to talk about today, where how do you incorporate your strength training with your running and make it so that you actually do it? Because if you're anything like me, if something's gonna fall by the wayside, it's going to be the strength training, right? Like if I have to choose between running or strength training today, I'm going to choose running. I did it. I chose my long run today. I did not do my upper body strength workout today because I chose to run. And then by the time I got home, the timing was off. I had a few things to do, but also it was already 95 degrees in my garage, which is where my workout equipment is. And yes, I can have a fan on and that works well for me. But when I thought about it, I was like, you know what? I'm just, today's not the day. That's it's fine, whatever. But one of the things that keeps runners from doing strength workouts is it's not actually simple enough for them. And so whenever somebody asks me, well, what's the best strength workout for a runner? My answer is the one that you're going to do. So in Stronger Fast Finisher, I have a whole slew of exercises for people to choose from. And based on their initial questionnaire, I will input exercises if they want. Some people have a really solid routine. They don't want me to touch it. I do review it to make sure it is well rounded, but other people have no idea what to do. And so I will put videos in there. Now, historically, I have worked more with people in the rehab space, like coming back from an injury, but I'm kind of moving away from that just based on what works well for the programs I run, right? And so I'm I'm seeing less and less and less of that. And so I'm actually incorporating more videos of using the workout machines. Now, I also didn't have access to workout machines to be able to film on, because at the gyms that I was member a member of, you can't film. You can't film yourself in there. And so that just wasn't an option, but now it's an option for me. So most of my videos were kind of at-home workouts with dumbbells, elastic bands, figuring out how to make things harder that way. And so I, you know, runners will ask me, what should I be doing? And I do recommend hitting all major muscle groups. So quads and hip flexors, I consider one group, posterior glutes, lateral glutes, hamstrings, calf muscles, and then some upper body and some core exercises. I think I listed all of those. I'm not reading it off of a thing. So that's just what comes off the top of my head. So hit all major muscle groups within reason. You can set it up either lower body and upper body workout days. So one day be lower, one day be upper, include core, one or two core exercises in each of those, or you could make them whole body workouts. Ideal situation is three days a week if you're doing whole body workouts. If you're doing split up lower and upper, I do recommend four days a week. Make it simple, make it what you can do. One thing you could do, if it's just overwhelming for you, maybe you have that whole list, and that whole list might be 15 exercises once we get down into it with the lower and the upper body. Well, pick five of those and do five one day, then do the next five another day, then do the next five another day, and the next five another day. That adds up to 20. Let's say there's 15 to 20 exercises, right? But just divide it up that way. Once you're done with those exercises, you're done. Maybe it'll take you 20 minutes. Maybe it'll take you 30 minutes. Okay. Because if you're going to the gym and you're thinking, or you're working out at home and you're thinking, oh my God, this is like workouts are gonna take me two hours. I don't have two hours three days a week. I would rather be doing something else. Right? Okay, great. Can you do three or four days, 20 minutes? Pick five exercises each day to do and just do those and make it well rounded. So within that, hitting every muscle group and do the first five on Monday, the second five on Wednesday, and the third five on Friday, or whatever the days that you're working out on are. Make it work for you. But another thing that I want to bring up is what if the exercises that you're choosing are actually too demanding of your brain? What if it's not actually that you don't like the exercise or the time constraint's not an issue, but you are finding that you just have so much on your mind that when you're at the gym, having something else on your mind is a stop. That is a blockade. And it may not even be actively on your mind. What if it is subconsciously on your mind? That is going to be a big limiting factor. And this is where I am going to sing the praises of using strength machines, workout equipment, not using dumbbells, not using elastic bands, not doing body weight exercises either. So, one thing that comes into play when you're doing these other exercises, when you have to do lateral walks as an example, monster walks, as they're called in the physical therapy world, where you have the elastic band around your shins and you're walking sideways. When you do something like that, your brain has to be in on it too. You can't just mindlessly do that. Even if you aren't thinking that you're thinking about it, you do have to think about it. Because if you step wrong, if you step too far, or if you don't step far enough, it's not doing the exercise right. Things like dynamic lunges or static lunges. I just talked to a new client the other day where stepping back with a lunge put her off balance enough that she got hurt. And some people may look at that lunge and think, oh, that's super easy. Well, it's really not, especially if you have to get into the position, if you have to step back during it, if it's a dynamic exercise and just the coordination, even if it is a static exercise, the coordination that your body has to go through, we need your neurologic system and your muscular system to be working together simultaneously. So it's neuromuscularly demanding. And if you put your foot wrong just by accident, could you hurt yourself? Sure. It also makes it more challenging. And your brain has to be in on it too. So having to coordinate those movements, even if you're not figuring out the workout yourself, let's say you're doing a class, coordinating those movements, like your muscles and your brain need to be working together. Now, of course, of course, somebody's gonna come at me and say, well, my brain needs to be in on it too, if I'm just using a machine. Yes, yes. But using a machine, the connection of that neuromuscular connection, the neurological system and the muscular system, they are not engaged the same way. In the physical therapy world, as an example, every single little thing that you do in the physical therapy clinic, a physical therapist has to justify it. And they have to justify the coding they used, putting that exercise, that movement, that stretch, even any hands-on stuff, they need to justify that coding to the insurance company if you are using insurance. So the most common billing codes are can't believe I still remember some of these, but 97110s therapeutic exercise. And then there's 97112 neuromuscular reeducation. And those are codes that we submit to the insurance. If you, if you're a physical therapist that does insurance, you submit it to the insurance. But if you were to ever get audited, you have to look at the list of exercises or look at the treatment that's listed under that, because you also have to put how much time you spent on that. So let's say you spent eight minutes on therapeutic activity and 23 minutes on neuromuscular re-education, and then you spent seven minutes on therapeutic exercise, and then you spent 12 minutes on manual therapy. You have to justify what made up those 23 minutes, what made up those eight minutes, what made up those seven minutes? So I used to think about this constantly. And so I used to take students, I used to be a clinical instructor, and I used to take students, and many exercises could fall in multiple categories. And so I'd say, well, what's what are we doing with it? Like, why are we doing this exercise? Because therapeutic exercise versus neuromuscular re-education. Let's say we're doing monster walks, and maybe, maybe the student wants to say monster walks or therapeutic exercise because they're working the lateral glutes. Great, love it. Somebody else might say, Oh, well, I'm going to use neuromuscular re-education because I want to work on them coordinating stepping with the act of strengthening the muscles at the same time. So now we're bringing in coordination. And so I would air for the most part, I would err on the side of neurore-ed for those types of exercise because that's typically the overpowering system. Like somebody could do an exercise, like use the hip abductor machine and be able to do heavier weight than the equivalent of whatever the elastic band is. But when they get to the elastic band, they're like, oh my God, this red elastic band. Who knew it was so tight? Is this brand new? What's going on here? We got to stretch it out a little bit. I can't believe I can only do three repetitions of this exercise. And it's because it's so demanding of your brain and the coordination system as opposed to just using the hip abductor machine. Whereas when you use the hip abductor machine, you don't have to coordinate that extra movement. You don't have to balance yourself and use the tension of the elastic band, press out against it and get your neurons and your muscles firing all at the same time. You really just need to get those muscles firing. So if you are finding yourself not wanting to go do a workout, really being drained and thinking like, these aren't that hard. Or maybe they are so hard and you just can't even balance yourself to do them. Let's say you're doing those lateral walks and you can't maintain your balance, or you're doing a single leg RDL Romanian deadlift, and your balance limits you before how much weight you're doing limits you, right? That would be a reason to go and do a ham curl machine or the leg press, because a single leg RDL is really a really good exercise for your hamstrings and some parts of your glutes. Well, you might be saying, well, let me go do a just a regular deadlift where I'm not having to balance. Well, you still have to balance because you have to balance. If you're using a barbell, you have to balance the weight distribution. If you're doing dumbbells, you have to balance the weight distribution. As opposed to doing a leg press, you don't need to get your that that balancing involved. Or what if you, your hamstrings are so strong that you need to use such heavy dumbbells, but your hands can't hold them. That's not really the neuromuscular thing, but that's just one more thing that I just thought of, right? So this is where using machines would come into play. All you have to do is show up to the machine, make sure you know how to use it, put the pin in for what amount that you want, and do and use the machine. I think this is one reason why I do like the workout machine so much better. I am finding myself now that I have access to the machine at home, I am finding myself just more and more just wanting to do the machines. So I'm leaning into it right now. I have workouts that include lunges and deadlifts and that kind of stuff. And that's that's all well and good. Those are good for me in this season of my life. If I'm either going to do a workout where it's machines, or I'm not gonna do the workout, I'm I'll choose the machines. And I can still lift heavy, right? Like the machine still makes me lift heavy. And of course, you can make a light, a medium, a heavy day. But what I really wanted to draw in on was if you're finding yourself not doing a workout, it may be too challenging or too difficult in ways that you may not have even thought of. And you may be even trying to think, is this even applicable to me? And you you may or may not realize it because it could be subconsciously too difficult for you. Make it simple. If you have access to gym equipment like the leg press, the knee extension, the ham curl, lap pull down, seated row, you know, I could go on and on and on. If you have access to that and you're finding yourself avoiding strength training more often than not, I invite you to go and use those strength machines before you give up on strength training, or before you give yourself too hard of a time for not wanting to go strength train, because maybe the workout you have just isn't optimized for you. And you're trying to force through something that you don't need to force through. This just made me think like, I have a family member who I is very much a night owl. And I do recommend that this family member stop trying to find jobs that require them to be a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The way the world is now, this person could work from wherever they live, but be working for a company that's in a different time zone. So maybe the the actual company is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. But based on where this person lives, they work night hours. So maybe they start at 9 p.m. and end at 5 a.m. and lean into what already feels natural for them instead of fighting it. And that's not a not an exact correlation with what I was just talking about with strength, but that was an example of somebody fighting through something that isn't natural just because this is what somebody else said you should do. You everybody else says you should work 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Well, what? What about, you know, everybody says that lunges are the thing I need to be doing? Everybody says I need to do deadlifts. Everybody says I need to do calf raises. But what if doing those exercises aren't the best fit for you? What if instead you could go and do a ham curl? What if instead you could go and use the leg press? What if instead you could go and use the leg press but do a heel raise, like do a calf raise on the leg press? What if leaning in that way would make you more successful instead of trying to force through something that just isn't a good fit for you?