Strength Training for Women Over 40: The Real Benefits | TMOHP Episode 196

Melissa McCreery: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is all about getting strong, feeling strong, how to stay strong, and why you want to do that. I am interviewing Michele Riechman. Michele is a doctor of physical therapy and a health coach. She focuses on helping women over 40 lose weight and feel really good and doing that in sustainable ways.

Michele focuses on cutting through the all or nothing mindset, which will be familiar to listeners of this podcast. And she's all about personalizing things. Cutting through mindset traps, and building in realistic ways of eating and moving your body. She's the mother of four. She's the partner to someone in the military.

She gets the chaos of busy life and big changes. And I like the practical and the encouraging approach that she brings to her work. I think you're going to enjoy this conversation.

Well, I am so excited to have you here today, Michele. I think the topic of strength and working out and muscle and why we need to care about all this stuff is so important. But also, I just feel like so often getting in shape or working out or getting, building more muscle, all of that stuff gets piled on this long to-do list that people are already overwhelmed with. And it just has this negative, heavy energy to it.

And I know that is not your take on, on all of this stuff. So I mean, why don't we just start with that? Why, how should we be thinking about moving our bodies and getting stronger?

Michele Riechman: Yeah, and I think we live in such a different world today than hans have most of our lives. So naturally people were more active just getting food, cleaning, all those things.

So I think in our culture today, like where me and you, we have these sedentary jobs and most people do. We have to intentionally think about how we're going to move our bodies. So I think we just have to make that shift that this is something we need to be intentional about.

And I like to break it into two different pieces.

So the first piece is movement. And so movement is like what we think of those 10,000 steps. It's not necessarily exercise; it doesn't have to be fast walking. It is just moving our body. So when it comes to our metabolism, we want a lot of movement.

And we want a little bit of exercise. And so for me, I define exercise as that strength training or when you are getting your heart rate up.

So we want a lot of movement and a little bit of exercise. And we have to be intentional because most of our lives are not set up for that. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. We just have to think like, how am I going to move? How am I going to fit this in my day? How can I get little strength workouts throughout the week?

Melissa McCreery: Okay. That's really different sounding than I have to get to the gym. I know I need to start getting back to the gym. I know I should be getting up early to go to the gym.

Michele Riechman: Yeah. And sleep always comes first. Like, yes, thank you for sleep. Yeah, I've talked to some people and I'm like, no, the first thing you need to work on is getting more sleep.

They're like, I'm so tired. I'm so exhausted. I don't know why. And they're just not getting enough sleep. So we have to get enough sleep so our body can rest and recover. And I also think where it's not helpful to always watch people online. Because you might see someone who gets up at 5:00 AM. And that can be super motivating and maybe it works for them, but maybe that doesn't work for you.

I know I'm a person that needs my sleep, so 5:00 AM getting up workouts would not work for me. And that's okay. I can still figure it out. So we have to just sort of pay attention to what we're doing, pay attention to those thoughts that we're thinking about exercise. So me personally, I don't work out at the gym.

I pretty much do all my workouts at home. We did recently get a Y membership for my kids to take swim lessons and do that. So I will say have gone to yoga classes or I've done a few things there, but only because they are there. But you can do everything you need at your home or, you know, walking outside.

We don't have to go to the gym to get that done. And I think the big barrier with going to the gym is time. Because let's say you want to do a 30-minute strength workout because that's all you need for a strength workout. Now you have to drive to the gym, you have to check in, you have to get there. You might have to wait for some weights or a machine, and it takes so much longer. When if you can invest in having some weights or bands at home, it just goes by so much quicker.

Melissa McCreery: I am so with you on that. I am a morning workout person. Because a couple reasons if I don't work out in the morning, it probably isn't going to happen. But I am deeply invested in only taking one shower. It's like a whole thing, right? So, yes. Yeah. Okay. So there is movement, there's exercise, but you talked about there's cardio and strength, right?

What's supposed to be in the mix, as you know, as we go through thirties and forties and fifties and beyond.

Michele Riechman: Yeah. I think the main focus needs to be strength training. That's where we get the movement. We're getting a lot of walks and someone can do cardio.

The tricky thing with cardio though, is sometimes, and people have probably experienced this. Like if you've actually done cardio and you've done like a long cardio workout, you're typically really hungry after your body just burned a lot of calories very intensely and it wants to refuel. So you're naturally going to increase the hormones that cause you to be hungry.

So there's some studies that show people who do cardio, a small percentage will lose weight. Most will stay the same, and some will actually gain weight. So, especially when we're looking from a weight loss perspective. I think just in the past, people always think cardio. I feel like maybe some doctors still say it today, like, get your moderate exercise in, move more, eat less.

Three to five times, eat less. Yeah. , so we need to focus mainly on first getting strength training in. And you can do a little bit of cardio. If you do cardio. You just don't want to overdo it. Where you're increasing those hunger hormones and then you're battling like eating or not eating. It is good to have some cardio endurance, but it doesn't have to be the main focus.

We really want to focus on that strength training. Because what happens, we want to build muscle mass. Because your muscle mass is going to decline when you get older. If you're not doing anything.

And if you've watched someone age, they get smaller and smaller. Their muscle mass decreases and decreases. And so we can combat this by doing strength training. And so strength training is when we're going to feel that muscle burning because it's telling our body to repair, rebuild, and get stronger.

And the more muscle that we have on our bodies, the higher our metabolism is going to be. So if I have two people, they're both 150 pounds, but let's say person B has twice as much muscle mass. They're going to be burning so many more calories sitting on the couch doing nothing. So if we can increase our muscle mass, it's going to help us as we age, we're going to have more muscle.

It helps with like fall risk and things like that, because the stronger you are, you're not going to be

as likely to fall. It also helps, like if you get sick or illness, your body will break down muscle to help your body repair from that illness or injury. So it's really key. But it also comes in at that great standpoint of it can boost your metabolism. And it also really helps with bone health.

And this is especially important for women as we're going into perimenopause and menopause. That we're doing that strength training to increase our bone density, because as we head into menopause, especially the first few years, if you're not taking hormone replacement, that bone density is going to decrease very rapidly.

But one of the things is that if we do strength training, because we're putting an impact on the bone, the muscles are attached to the bone and it puts an impact a strain on that bone and it's like, hey bone, you need to get stronger. So that's why they are always recommending strength training when it comes to, , bone density and decreasing that risk of osteoporosis.

Melissa McCreery: So strength training impacts your metabolism. Strength training also gives you more muscle mass, which I just want to make a pitch for again, defining everything by a nber on the scale is not useful. Mm-hmm. It is not useful. Like, there's all sorts of things that affect the nber of pounds that we see on the scale. But I want to make sure we talk about how strength training impacts metabolism fully and the hormone piece. How does it actually impact your hormones to be doing these things?

Michele Riechman: Yeah, we can dive into the hormones and just about the scale. I gave those two examples with 150-pound person, what if one has, I said double the amount of muscle mass, whatever we want to say.

They're going to look very different and the health of their body is going to be very different. And we all have different body shapes. Some of us are going to put on muscle faster, some less, you know, some are going to have bigger legs, some are going to have bigger stomachs. And we just need to have more acceptance for these different body types too. Instead of like beating ourselves up or wishing we had something else.

Melissa McCreery: I mean, what if our goal was that we just wanted to feel fabulous in our bodies? Yeah, right. I talked to so many women around, eating and their relationship with food and what they should eat and what they shouldn't eat and all the deprivation and the diet culture stuff.

And so often when they get to a place where they're doing what's working, it's about. I finally, I found this way of eating where I feel really good. Like I have good energy, I sleep really good. I don't get foggy in the afternoon. I mean, if that was our litmus test for how we felt about our bodies, right?

 My body's working well.

Michele Riechman: Yes. We totally beat our bodies up. Instead of being grateful for our bodies. Like, think of all the stuff your body has done for you. You know, if you've had children like, oh my goodness. Or even if you're taking care of a loved one and your body is like walking you down the hospital hall, or whatever it is, our bodies do amazing things and we take it for granted.

The end goal doesn't need to be a nber on the scale. The end goal can be, I want to be healthy, I want to play with my grandkids. I want to be able to like go up two flights of stairs and not be out of breath. Whatever that is think of that goal that goes beyond just a nber on the scale.

Melissa McCreery: Yeah. I want my body to, to serve me. I want to feel happy in my body. I want to, which is why I love movement. Okay. And I'm going to take us down this whole other path, but I want to make sure we talk about hormones.

Michele Riechman: Okay. So let's go into that. So there's a couple hormones that I want to talk about. So I'm going to talk about insulin and then estrogen and then cortisol.

Okay, so insulin first. So I'm going to explain what insulin is because maybe some people have heard of insulin resistance. And what happens is insulin is a hormone our pancreas makes and it helps move sugar from our bloodstream. So think we eat something, we eat a piece of bread, and our blood sugar goes up. And the pancreas releases that insulin. And moves the sugar into our cells where it can be used for energy.

Now what happens as we're going through perimenopause is we're a little more prone to insulin resistance. But a lot of us have also changed behaviors. Like we're not as active, we don't have as much, as much muscle. So those things affect it too. And what happens is your pancreas keeps releasing, releasing more and more insulin, but the cells are resistant to it, so it needs more and more to do the same thing.

So over time, the blood sugar goes up. It can, insulin can cause your body to store more fat, and it makes it harder for us to lose weight. So here's the thing with strength training and insulin. Is when we do strength training, we are building our muscle, right? We're straining that muscle saying build stronger, build more, and the muscles like a sponge for that sugar in your blood.

So for example, if someone eats a piece of bread. And does nothing like sits, their blood sugar's going to go up. But if you eat that piece of bread and you start working out, it's the muscle's going to pull and use it for energy. And your pancreas doesn't have to release as much insulin. So the more muscle you have, the easier it is for your body to pull that sugar out of your bloodstream without needing a ton of insulin.

So this means that your cells stay sensitive to insulin. So it's listening when it happens. And that the blood sugar stays more steady. And so I think really managing your blood sugar, learning about it, knowing what foods are going to spike it, knowing that if I move after I eat, my blood sugar is not going to spike as high.

There's people that, you know, wear the continuous glucose monitors. And if they eat the same thing and they move or don't move, that impacts the blood sugar. So those people who move after they eat, they're not going to get as huge of a spike. And this has to do with insulin and our muscles using that for energy, which is the whole key to food.

Food is energy. And I think we get so far away from that because we just have so much food around us. We have so much like tasty processed food. That we get swayed away from the core food is for energy. And it is for celebration, other things too. But the main thing food should be for is energy for our body.

Melissa McCreery: And when you say that food is energy, there's a joyful piece to that, right? Like, food gives me energy. I love it when food gives me energy. And we get so bogged down in the shoulds and the have to's. And the tracking. Food is energy. Like what makes me feel more alive, right?

We don't think about that. Okay, so insulin, that's kind of cool. What about estrogen and cortisol?

Michele Riechman: Yeah, so estrogen, so when we're lifting the weights, that can also help to balance estrogen. So when we're in perimenopause, which is the time before we get to menopause. Our estrogen is declining.

It's a little erratic. It's like an up and down, but it's like slowly going down till we get to menopause. And what happens is that strength training can influence these estrogen fluctuations, and so it can help to regulate the menstrual cycle hormone. So there was a study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning that I pulled up.

And it found that resistance training . That those women who strength trained regularly had more stable hormone levels and fewer PMS symptoms. And so we can see that exercise it also, those people have estrogen dominance. It may start to reduce some of that estrogen too. And so it's just important to realize how much this movement affects these different hormones and things in our body.

So especially as we're going through perimenopause and we're having that up and down, and hormones are changing. That if we are doing strength training, it is helping to stabilize those hormones. I mean, they're still, it's still going to go down. They're still going to be fluctuations. But it's going to make it more stable instead of like those extremes that can happen.

And then with cortisol. And I think this is one too as we were talking about cardio at the beginning. So if someone is not doing cardio and they start doing a bunch of cardio, they can actually increase their cortisol, increase it long term. And I know when I have gone through stressful periods of time, so my husband is in the military, so we move, we have four kids.

And when we have gone through moving, I tend to do a little less strength training. I'll still do it. , and I do more yoga. Because I know that I need workouts that are a little more calming to my nervous system. And so I may not do my like super-fast walks as much either. But once those periods are over, I can feel that I'm feeling better and I can sort of get to doing my faster workouts. Like pushing harder and my strength workouts.

So we have to listen to our body. So we want to make sure that we're not increasing our cortisol and exercise is not feeling like a stress. Now when we do resistance training, you'll get a little cortisol spike during the workout. But over time, they have found that when you're sort of staying, I'll call it your window of tolerance there with strength training. That, that your baseline cortisol is going to approve, improve over time as you have stress.

So you're going to be more adaptable. Like your cortisol isn't going to spike as high for as little things when you are consistently doing some resistance training. Without overdoing it. Does that make sense?

Melissa McCreery: It totally makes sense. I just love how you're giving our brains all this ammunition for why it is helpful to do this stuff.

Right. Which is so much different from I know I should do it. I guess I, it's kind of a geeky thing, but I get excited thinking this is going to really help even out my insulin. Or I'm going to feel better this afternoon if I do this. And then there's also the feeling of just empowerment that comes from when you feel even just a little bit stronger.

Michele Riechman: Yes, and I think that sort of feeds into confidence. Yes. So talk about that. Yeah. When you are stronger, like you said. You just sort of feel better. You know that you can do more. You know that you can take that heavy bag of groceries and you don't have to ask someone to do it.

And so that's going to increase how we feel about ourselves. And we can see ourselves differently. Instead of being someone who is almost more frail or they think they can't do anything. We're going to feel stronger, and then that's going to help increase more likely that we want to keep working out and doing things. And a little different topic.

But I also want to say sometimes if someone isn't like working out now, sometimes you just got to push yourself to get started. Because we also have those like feel good endorphins and hormones and dopamine when we are exercising that get released and boost our mood. So I always tell people like, just tell yourself you're going to do five minutes.

Like literally if after five minutes or 10 you could, whatever time, if you want to stop, stop. But majority of the time, 90% of the time, people will just keep going. Because it feels good. And we sometimes just have to push ourselves to get started to hit that go button.

Melissa McCreery: I think that's so true. It's getting over the inertia, right?

Yeah. And for me, when I'm stuck in inertia. My brain will tell me all these long stories about, like this whole miserable journey that it's going to be. But really the thing I'm fighting is, you know, getting out the door. Or getting my butt out of my chair.

I work with a lot of high achievers. I think that perfectionism is just pretty rampant among so many women. And especially in this topic around wellness. All things wellness seem very, all or nothing and you know, I blew it, so I need to start over and all that kind of stuff.

And so it can be really daunting to start to think about, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to be more consistent with my strength routine. Or I'm going to get started I haven't been doing this. Partly because it can be daunting and the inertia thing, but partly because I feel like we tell ourselves these stories about what we need to do if we're going to do this.

So what would, what do you say to somebody who is feeling a little bit of moment and motivation around, oh, this could be really good for me. What is an easy way to get started? And then how do we, how do we build consistency?

Michele Riechman: Yeah, I was just starting with a new client and she currently wasn't exercising at all.

And so as we were talking, I'm like, how about we just start you with some movement? Like she was a little bit high stress. So I didn't want to start her with strength training. I'm like, no, I don't. I don't think you should start with it. She's like, oh, like that's a relief. And as we talked about walking. She was thinking 60 minutes. And well, I'm so glad we clarified that how about we start with just five or 10 minutes and build that up consistent?

She's like, oh, that sounds like such a relief. Because people, like you said, we get stuck in this all or nothing like we're a hundred percent into these hour-long workouts or going to the gym. Or it's nothing. And really when it comes to exercise, it's actually better to start with 5, 10, 15 minutes to start with, to let your muscles wake up, to not overdo it, to not injure yourself.

It's actually better to start with that. And I think one key that I like to use with my clients to get them started. Is to pre decide what you're going to do. So I know you mentioned morning workouts. I also find that for myself, if in the morning I'm either going on my walk or doing the strength training workout, like doing something in the morning, you are most likely to do it.

So whatever that morning time is for you. Doing something in the morning can be helpful and just pre-deciding that you're going to do this and you have to figure out those thoughts. To get you there where you are doing this. This is just what you decided to do. Start small. I'm going to do five minutes every day this week.

And you're going to build that habit and that consistency. And I think it's important to have to build a habit. It makes it easier if you're doing things almost every day. So for me, I usually don't worry about Sundays. But pretty much I work out or do something every day, whether that's walk yoga or strength training.

Like every day I'm doing something. It's like just become a habit. That's who I am. This is what I do. So we have to change that thought of who we think we are. Maybe we've always been someone who hasn't worked out. Or who hasn't been athletic or coordinated, and we keep defining ourselves by that same story. But we can change that.

No, I'm actually a person who gets up and goes for walks. Like, maybe I'm going to listen to music or put a podcast in and really enjoy that time. We can change that story that we've been telling ourselves to who we want to be. Right. If we want to.

Melissa McCreery: Okay. That one's so important. That one's so important. because I, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it's those like, it's, I, because I feel like what we do with wellness and fitness and weight is we tell ourselves we'll be that person when we achieve the goal.

Right? I'm not a, I'm not a walker or I'm not a runner. , I want to do a 5K. Right. Instead of saying, I mean, you can, you can have your goal be, I'm going to walk down the block today and tell yourself I'm a woman who's training for a 5K. Or you can walk down the block and be telling yourself, I am so far away from doing that, and the difference in the energy is so huge.

I'm, thank you for saying that, because that's just a point of passion for me.

Michele Riechman: Yeah. We're not where we want to be. Yeah. But we can start acting and thinking like that person, we can start visualizing what is that person doing? How is that person feeling? Because there's a route there. And we have to start taking that route there instead of staying stuck.

And as you're talking about the 5K, one of my clients,  who, I have a personal training app. We do like strength training and yoga through that. She's like, my son wants me to do a 5K. Like, and it's like three months out. So we're developing a slow and steady plan to get her there. And you don't even have to run a 5K.

She does want to. But I'm like, do you want to walk it like it's totally up to you. We don't have to like think we have to run it because a lot of people do. There's also a lot of people who walk 5Ks.

But we can start slowly building that plan to get to where we want to be.

Melissa McCreery: So you said, kind of just snuck it in there, that 30 minutes is what you need.

Tell us what is strength, because strength training, we throw that term around. , and then you go on Instagram and you see these women with these giant, giant barbells at the gym doing a power lift or something. Like what does, what does it mean that we should be doing strength training? Yeah, give us, can you give us some examples?

I know it varies based on where you are and how long you've been doing it, but what should it look like?

Michele Riechman: I think for most people, and especially starting out, I. Again, it's going to be anything where you're feeling that muscle burn. So it can be body weight, right? Like a pushup weight or a plank is going to be really hard.

We don't have to add weight to that. You know, we may even start with like wall pushups, progress to pushups on our knee, on the floor. Then maybe a full pushup. There's a way to progress those pushups, and that's completely body weight. And then you can also add bands. Bands are a really cheap way to do extra strengthening at home.

What I do most of the time is probably the hand weights. And I am now 43. Like in college, I got some of my hand weights and they're still with me, you know, 20 plus years later. So you can invest in those and you are going to get to keep up. Like nothing should happen to them. And we really only need to do less than 30 minutes.

And we want to do the strength training at least three times a week. So what happens with muscle mass is that we quickly u lose it. And we probably have experienced this, or especially like if you have ever been sick and sort of been stuck in bed for a little bit. Like you're just feeling weaker after. Or if you've done strength training and taken a long time off, you probably notice that you're getting pretty sore when you come back to it.

So we lose strength. We lose muscle mass within about 48 to 72 hours. So we do, when we're doing strength training, we want to be consistent. It is good to sort of space it out every other day. And that way you are increasing your muscle mass and you're keeping it. So if you're someone who does strength training, you know, just once a week, you might be maintaining at best.

So we really want to get, I say three, but at least two you know, everyone's at their own starting point. So figure out what that is. And just finding something you can do at home with weights or your body weight is really a good place to start and to stick with. And I also like doing yoga too. So for me, and a lot of my clients will alternate strength training with yoga.

because yoga, you're still going to get some strength training. You're going to feel those muscles burning, but it's different muscle fibers. because typically in yoga, you're holding a pose. You know, if you're in some type of warrior chair or plank, you're holding it. So it's a little bit different muscle fibers than when you're doing, you know, 12 reps of something.

So it can be good to alternate. And then yoga is great because you also get that stretch. , if you're falling, I want to say good yoga teacher, but that's not it. But you also get the breathing. Some yoga instructors don't cue the breathing throughout that. But I think it's like super helpful because it brings in.

The mind and the body and sort of connects it all. So I think that's helpful when you can connect your breathing to your movement and when you've done 30 minutes of deep breathing as you're doing strength training, like you just feel so much better afterwards.

Melissa McCreery: I like that. It sounds so balanced. And it also, like the yoga helps you stay kind of tuned into your, not kind of, the yoga helps you stay tuned into your nervous system.

Mm-hmm. Which when you're listening to your body helps, you know, okay, I need to really be careful about, you know, I'm probably not wanting to do a high cortisol workout right now. Or I need to, maybe this is a time to be gentler with my movement. So that's kind of a cool plan. But 30 minutes is enough.

Michele Riechman: Yep. That is pretty much all I have done for years and years. And actually I am 43 now, but at 40 I learned how to do a pull up. So super hard exercise. It took me about one month to get it, but I'm up to like five now. It's like super slow progress, like if you want a quick fix, that is not the thing, but I've just stayed consistent with it and I only do that two or three times a week.

Okay, so you don't have to do something long. I, when I started to want to learn how to do a pull up and do it correctly, I looked at different programs. I went with a program that was 10 minutes a day. They wanted to do it five days a week. I'm like, there is no way my muscles like need a rest. But there were other programs that were like 45 minutes. I'm like, no way.

So. If you're learning how to do things effectively, you don't have to put in that much time. And it goes back to the idea when it comes to our metabolism. We don't want to stress it. We want that lot of movement, walking steps, that kind of thing. And we really just want a little bit of exercise.

Melissa McCreery: I think a lot of people just relaxed hearing that. All right. What haven't we talked about? Anything that you want to make sure that we cover before we end the episode?

Michele Riechman: I don't I think so. And I think again, well one, so on my website and my freebies, I have a five-minute core training. So literally starting with just five minutes a day. I also have a free five-day exercise challenge, 15 minutes a day. So I think those are two great things if someone is interested in starting some exercises. One, learn how to exercise correctly.

Like as with anything, you don't want to learn it the wrong way. And then have to like retrain your muscle memory. Especially when it comes to things like squats and lunges. You want to be making sure you're doing those right? Especially as we get older, we don't want to put any extra strain on our knees or our back.

And when it comes to core, most core exercises are missing some key components. So we really want to learn how to engage our core, especially if you've had children. We need to learn how to engage that lower core so we can zip our abdominal muscles together instead of pulling them apart. So learn how to exercise correctly, but it can be really simple.

And even simpler if you guys aren't walking much. Start with walking five or 10 minutes. And I think it's so easy to get overwhelmed and hear so many different things. So even after this podcast, I encourage people to just pause and like, what do I need to take away from this? Maybe, maybe you don't need to do anything.

Maybe you do. But what do I need to take away? What is my starting point? And you, I like, people have a brain dp list. Like maybe you think you need to do these five things. What can, what's the one thing you feel is doable to do right now? And start with that. And you can come back to those things later.

Because we all need a starting point and that starting point is different for everyone.

Melissa McCreery: , that right there was such a brilliant takeaway. And it's something that we talk about all the time on this podcast. It's what is, why do, what do I want to take away from this? Because the wellness world and the social media world is full of things people offering you things that you should want, right?

And that is in big, huge quotes, right? Or that you should do or you. And I always say, I can go for a walk and come home with this list of 20 things that I should do. because my brain has time to think and stop. And then I have to be like, wait, why?

Why should I do those things? Yes. What do I, what do I want? What's the outcome I'm seeking? And , I would add to what you said too, is it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Like is, am I a little bit stronger this week than I was last week? That's great.

Michele Riechman: Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes when it comes to strength, you may not even see it week to week.

Yeah. And that's okay. You sort of think that long term. Mm-hmm. And especially when it comes to strength, sometimes you'll notice it in functional things too. Like being able to carry things or go up and down stairs and you just start to like feel better. And it's really how our bodies are intended to be.

We're intended to be strong and to be able to work and use our bodies. It's just not our lifestyle anymore. So again, it goes back to just being a little intentional about it. And knowing that we have to do something a little different because our culture, our society, our job just isn't set up the way that really our bodies are meant to be used.

Melissa McCreery: Our bodies are meant to be used. This is so cool. Okay, so we're going to put the link to the, , core challenge. And it's a 15 minute

Michele Riechman: report. Yep. Yeah. On my freebie page. Yeah, you'll see those links. So there, it's a great starting place if you haven't exercised and you want to know how to exercise correctly.

Melissa McCreery: Okay, we'll put those in the show notes. And where can people find you?

Michele Riechman: Yeah, so I have my own podcast, Healthy Beyond 40. So that is a great place to come listen to me and check me out. Yeah, and on the freebie page you'll also be connected to my website. So that can be a great place to find out more about me.

Melissa McCreery: Perfect. Thank you for coming and talking to us about all these things around strength and movement today. I'm going to pull out my weights. I've been working on that. I have been working on that. I just like to get outside in in the smer. It's hard for me, but I love the reasons, like these are these things that you can think about, about why this is helpful for me and my body to do this.

Michele Riechman: Yeah. Thank you. Absolutely. And you can take those hand weights outside.

Melissa McCreery: I can There. There you go. Good point. Okay. Alright. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on the show.