(Leena, studio co-director and teacher, shares her strength training origin story, below…)
My strength training journey has been a lesson in humility and patience.
It has taught me that if I want to go far, I have to go slow.
I started seriously lifting weights about three years ago. I wanted to rebuild my strength after having twins, and hoped lifting weights would help with some chronic pain. I started working with dumbbells and kettlebells on my own, but in the first few months, it didn’t go that well. After a session of lifting, pain in my neck and shoulders would flare up, resulting in days of headaches. I felt lost and discouraged.
Finally I decided to sign up for a 3 month program with Kathryn Bruni Young of Mindful Strength. We had brought Kathryn to the studio a few times to teach workshops, and I trusted her knowledge and approach.
The most important thing I learned from Kathryn was progressive loading. But it took me a few false starts before I really took it to heart.
In our first session, Kathryn taught all of the movements with really light weights so we could just focus on learning the movements and having decent form. I was relieved that my neck felt fine afterwards. That led to me overdoing it in the second session. I was feeling cocky after the first session had felt so easy, and when Kathryn said we could go slightly heavier, I picked up much heavier weights. By that evening, my neck pain had flared up, and a bad headache followed.
I talked over my pain and approach with Kathryn, decided to apply more humility and patience, and went somewhere in the middle for the third session. After that moderate progression, I had a little bit of tension, but no headache – I was finally feeling some progress!
Everything came together for me when later in the program, we had some lectures with Neil Pearson, an incredible pain science teacher. Neal emphasized how pain and tissue damage are often not correlated, and how pain, especially chronic pain, is simply a rudimentary form of communication. Pain is our body asking for a change.
I realized my neck pain was communicating that it needed more muscular support (to get stronger), and that I also needed to go slow.
When the body is adapting, especially in an area where pain is chronic, progressive loading needs to be truly progressive – slow and gradual. Now about 3 years later, I’ve kept up and increased my strength training. I train 2-3 times a week, and now I can easily deadlift well over my body weight, and my squat is not too far behind. I still have to work to find that threshold of progressing at the right pace. Some days I do too much and my pain does flare up, but it’s much less than before.
I am delighted that I now feel so much sturdier and fortified in my body. Areas where I had chronic pain or soreness have faded or gone away completely. My twins are now six, and carrying them feels easy, almost easier than when they were tiny little three year-olds. When you’re stronger, daily life is easier, and that really is a joy! (As well as a privilege).
I used to think that yoga asana practice would be enough for me to feel strong and capable. Now, I feel so passionate about the mix of yoga and strength work. Yoga is awesome for my mental health, my nervous system, and for enjoying a good stretch. But the strength that you can really only get from lifting heavy weights has brought my body much needed challenge and balance.
The Strength Essentials classes have really taken off at The Branches in the last few years, thanks to Nicole’s dedication and passion for it. We are now up to five Strength Essentials classes per week. Because more and more people are getting serious about strength training, we have been working on a new resource to bring together some of our top recommendations and resources.
Nicole has put together a Strength Training Resource & FAQ that will live on our website. It offers great information and resources about progressive loading, working with pain, and also some protein and nutrition tips to support your strength journey. In it you’ll find my favorite four-ingredient homemade protein bar recipe that has been part of fueling my muscle building!
I hope you’ll check it out.
With you on the journey of slowing down,
Leena
The Branches 