Most of us know the pattern. You do the workout you dreaded. You push as hard as you can even though you're tired. You check it off. And if you keep going down that road, the exhaustion builds, something gets hurt, and one day you just stop.
My best friend Byrd Graciano has been a personal trainer for about ten years. She trains out of a physical therapy office in Bend, Oregon, and specializes in pelvic floor and hypermobility, so she usually meets women after they've already been injured.
What we get into:
What Byrd sees before you move. Talking a mile a minute before you sit down. Clenched fists. Can't sit still. Asking for more sessions, earlier sessions, a plan for every day she doesn't see you, with no rest anywhere in it.
The pelvic floor piece. A lot of the go-go women Byrd works with are running a tight pelvic floor, and often bearing down instead of lifting. A muscle that's already clenched can't get stronger, because it can't lengthen. Breathing down into it, and calming the nervous system first, is where she starts.
Why does it have to hurt to count? We want proof we did it right, so we look for soreness. Byrd sees that starting to shift toward a better question: did your hips feel better after?
Lift heavy, but your heavy. Heavy is relative, and you build into it. Byrd starts every new client with two to three sessions of bodyweight, no matter how long they've been lifting.
How much is too much. Two group classes in a day. A class before a 10-mile hike. Hard workouts five to seven days a week. A midnight bedtime and a 5am workout.
The dimmer switch. From trainers Jason and Lauren Pak: fitness shouldn't be an on/off switch. It should be a dimmer.
One week off every six weeks. The trainer Byrd learned under ran brutal 20-minute sessions, and he wouldn't train anyone who skipped the rest week.
I share my own version too: years of pushing through workouts I didn't enjoy, and the "I'm not enough" voice that still shows up on the days I skip.
Plus Byrd's five-minute starter workout and what we're both reading: Funny Story by Emily Henry for Byrd, Wild Love by Elsie Silver for me.
Find Byrd on Instagram: Byrd
Want help figuring out what your body actually needs right now? Start at annievinje.com.
