August and September strength: back to basics!

Happy August!

In June and July, we tested the waters with a longer strength cycle: repeating and progressively-overloading the same workout for eight-ish weeks instead of our usual four. This worked nicely for my travel schedule and I got great feedback from many of you who loved having extra time to learn the exercises and progress in weight.

To those of you who stuck with it for all or most of that time, I also just wanna say, GREAT JOB. I hope you feel proud! Our little novelty-seeking brains love to mix things up and do shiny new stuff all the time, and it can take a little extra motivation, discipline, and patience to repeat the same workout for a few weeks. It’s really not an easy thing to do, and I was very psyched to hear that so many of you rose to that challenge. (If you didn’t, though, it’s ok: I’m proud of you too!) While we try not to overdo it on “optimization” around here, that longer cycle is actually a bit more optimal for strength and muscle mass-building.

So we’re doing it again! This time, we’re focusing on a handful of very back-to-basics exercises, which I think is perfect for the back-to-school vibes of this time of year :-) Boring works, y’all.

But please remember that you can always take strength program workouts as a one-off if you’d rather not take a progressive overload approach, and you can always lengthen or shorten (perhaps by diving into the archive and picking a new strength workout) the training cycle if you prefer. More reminders and explanations ahead:

• For your first workout or two, take it a little easy. Don’t immediately jump to the heaviest weight you can stand to move. Ease your way in to hopefully avoid destroying yourself with soreness and feeling the need to take a super-long break before you go back for another workout (or even feeling discouraged entirely). THEN start to push. Nudge just slightly out of your comfort zone each time. Grunting, cursing, and heavy breathing all very welcome.

• Record the weights you used, if you’re comfortable (if recording body-related numbers is not good for you, skip this part). You should be trying to use a weight that gets you very fatigued and almost close to failure (i.e. you can’t do another rep) by the end of the minute-long set.

• Repeat the workout at least once or twice more within the week if possible.

• Do this for four-ish weeks (or more!), adding weight to the extent possible for each exercise that uses weight. Keep recording your weights (again, if this feels like a wise move for you) so you can see your progress! You can also mark progress on things like number of reps, longer working time (if you started off needing to take a break before the end of the set, etc.), or positioning (moving toward a more advanced version of the exercise), if applicable.

• You can do the other WOWs that come through over the next couple of weeks as a way to mix things up and supplement your training, if you have time.

• Then you’ll get another strength-training–focused workout in a few weeks, and the cycle begins anew.

• I’m typically a big fan of offering up the option to skip the warmup or cooldown, or one or two rounds of the circuit. However, if you’re doing this in a progressive overload setup, I’d like to encourage you to keep the warmup and cooldown to make sure you’re taking good care of your body. If you can only do one or two circuits the first week, see if you’re able to add a second or third circuit in subsequent weeks.

• A note on weights: If you’re going to go for true strength training, you need some heavy weights. (That’s an affiliate link, which is not a huge part of my business, but every little bit counts; if you’re in need of new exercise equipment, your use of that link would be greatly appreciated! It’s from my preferred brand, Power Systems, which makes very high quality equipment and doesn’t require engaging with Amazon or Target, etc.)

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If you aren’t interested in progressive overload–focused strength training (or not yet), you are very welcome to just follow this video like a regular one-off workout! And you can do the whole thing, or if you have less time or energy than that, you can trim things down by:

• Skipping the warmup

• Skipping the cooldown

• Skipping one or two of the three rounds of the resistance-training circuit

Make it work for you. If you’d like to repeat this workout a time or two throughout the week, great.

Oh, and one more thing before we get into it: Because I sent you three emails last week (ICYMI: the rage-release workout, the perimenopause hot take, and the letter to the influencer hawking a presumably–AI-generated strength program), I’m trying not to overdo it this week and will be skipping the usual Wednesday letter. But always available to you in the comments or the HTM chat, and I’ll see you next Sunday!

Let’s go!