59- How I Build Training Plans That Work (For Real Women With Real Lives)

In this episode of MilesFromHerView, host Kat, a seasoned strength trainer, ultra marathon runner, and mother, discusses how to tailor fitness programs to the various 'seasons' of life women go through. Kat shares insights on how to match workouts to one's current goals, energy levels, and life circumstances to build momentum and see real progress. She provides practical advice, using case studies and client stories, on creating exercise regimes that fit around busy lifestyles, whether you're rebuilding after an injury, maintaining during a hectic period, or pushing towards bold goals. Listeners are encouraged to discern their current season to ensure their training supports their life rather than competes with it.

00:00 Introduction: Finding the Missing Piece in Your Workouts

00:38 Welcome to MilesFromHerView

01:27 Understanding Program Design for Busy Women

02:12 Adapting Workouts to Life Changes

04:04 Client Stories: Real-Life Successes

04:59 The Evolution of Training Programs

06:42 Seasonal Frameworks for Training

07:17 Building Foundations and Progressing

12:12 Strength, Conditioning, and Skill Building

15:12 Rehab and Rebuild: Overcoming Setbacks

21:54 The Importance of Feedback and Adaptation

26:29 Conclusion: Aligning Training with Your Season

27:22 Closing Remarks and Call to Action

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Transcript

Kat: 0:00

Ever feel like you're doing the workouts, but something's not clicking like you're showing up, but not really seeing the progress you hope for. In this episode, I'm breaking down what might be missing the right training season for wherever you are right now. We'll talk about how to match your workouts to your goals, your life, and your energy, so you're not just working hard, but actually building momentum. I'll also share a quick client story that shows what can happen when your plan finally fits. By the end, you'll have a clearer path to move forward and set yourself up for real progress. Welcome to MilesFromHerView, the podcast powered by KatFit Strength, where busy women like you find practical solutions to fuel your fitness journey with authenticity and resilience. I'm Kat, your host, a mom of two active boys, a business owner, and an ultra marathon runner and a strength trainer in her forties with nearly two decades of experience. I'm here to help you cut through the noise of fads, hacks, and quick fixes. This is a space where we celebrate womanhood and motherhood. All while building strength and resilience and reconnecting with you from a place of self-compassion and worthiness. Whether you're lacing up your running shoes to go out for a run, driving your kids to practice or squeezing in a moment for yourself, I'm right here in the trenches with you. Let's dive in. Welcome to MilesFromHerView I am Kat, your host. And today I am walking you through how to approach program design for yourself and also how I approach program design with my clients who wear many titles. They are women who might wear titles of career, woman, mom, partner, friend, daughter, all the things in between. And they want more from their training, but they also need their workouts to work for them. The truth is most women I work with aren't new to fitness. They've done the workouts, bought the gear, downloaded the programs. But at some point it stopped feeling aligned. They didn't feel like themselves anymore, not physically, not mentally, because life shifted. Maybe it was a job change, a health challenge, a new baby perimenopause, or just plain burnt out, but their workouts didn't shift with it. Oftentimes when that happens, we feel. Like we go on pause. We feel like we failed the programming, like we can't get it together. However, your training should shift depending on what season you are in. Are you rebuilding after an injury or life change? Are you trying to stay consistent through a busy season or are you ready to push and see what you're capable of? Each one of these areas deserves a different kind of plan. And in these different areas, you can cycle through them in a year's time, multiple years, or even in a quarter. That's something I'm personally working through right now. We're getting ready for summer here. My boys are about to be home full-time, which means my schedule, my own training windows, and how I structure my day all have to flex. On top of that, I am getting ready to run a race that I've been training for for several months this weekend. If you're new here, I'm a runner and I do ultra marathon, trail races. What that means is anything over a marathon distance, which is 26.2 miles this weekend, is a 40 miler. I've run this distance numerous times. My longest race, I've done multiple hundred mile races and this weekend I know is going to be a huge mental and physical goal for me. It's been a stretch to balance work, family, and my own training, and I know so many of you are living that same rhythm. Now, you may not be training for an ultra marathon, but you are doing so many other things and are at capacity. So I'll dive into, again, utilizing client stories in case studies. There a lot has been extracted to keep their identities private because I am really big on not oversharing my client's stories, but giving you a taste because chances are you are going to. Understand, and maybe see yourself in one of those client stories. Maybe you are someone who is also training for or hopes to train for an ultra marathon, but you're just not sure how that all can fit in. So if you're feeling a little scattered or unsure about how to show up consistently in your workouts, you are not alone. So let's dive into talking about how I build programs that fit real life, not just ideal scenarios because. Real life gets lifey. And like I said, all of these seasons you can experience and I have experienced in a training plan training for a peak race. So with KatFit, and it's kind of crazy. I started my business 12 years ago. My background is in college athletics. I've talked about this many times before, but if you're new here, and this is your first episode, listening, I was shocked how training and it has progressed from when I started in the industry, how training clients was more about the isolated single session and single workout, not the overarching plan I had been told, and at the time, certifications. That I looked at had told you can't program an everyday individual. So anyone who's not an athlete, in the essence of training for a race on a sports team, being paid a professional athlete or an amateur athlete, you can't program for an everyday individual because, their life can't support it. That seemed odd to me. If they come in with goals wanting to build strength, wanting to have a body composition change coming back from pregnancy, um, going through perimenopause, menopause, I'm like, shouldn't we be putting together programs and programs that assess and address these situations. It has evolved. Programming has come a long way, and that is something that I looked at is I took what I used to do with athletes training them to achieve their best. Oftentimes, it was qualifying for the NCAA championship, and I looked at this for my every day clients who are athletes for life. How my programming has evolved is. Clients often fall into one of these five seasonal frameworks. From there, I have pared it down to three, programs. Again, these titles are intentional about progressions. These ones are not what you would find if you picked up. And I'll go into the industry terms and what you might pick up if you are reading a book on strength training and phases but these are the ones that I. Chose to be intentional about progressions and that align where you are right now and where you wanna go. So let's, let's break them down. One is foundations first. This is for rebuilding after time, away from just any organized fitness or maybe someone who has never done a program Maybe you're coming back from injury or maybe there's just been a lot of inconsistency because life. Just as lifeing. This is also where individuals who are prenatal and postpartum are. Because this is really working on the foundations, getting you to expand your capacity. The second area where clients might fall into and, and they will graduate up to built for this. It's for strength and structure and sustainable momentum, and then from there they move into unstoppable. This is for chasing those bold goals with intensity and strategy, and depending on what your body or life is calling for, we layer in, hypertro skill building and capacity for cardio work Now. I wanna preface that and I will go into it a little bit more, is that you will build muscle and foundations first and build for this. You will develop skills in all three and there will be, um, an area to do cardio in all three. They're just gonna look different and unstoppable. With unstoppable, it's for those who have a very good confident in lifting and they've kind of graduated up through the ranks. If you first start working with me, you may start in unstoppable or you may start in foundations first. It depends on where you're at. So the, the, this structure really makes sure that what we're doing in the gym actually reflects what's happening in your life and not the other way around. So right now, just a little bit behind the scenes in the KatFit app. I'm really trying to break this down and make it more user friendly for my clients who they do have so many titles. They're training around school pickups, shifting schedules, sport drop-offs, camp pickups, work, travel, partner work, travel. They are juggling a lot. And as we're shifting into summertime, it typically is a higher time for. Vacations and holiday travel. So as I'm rolling out these updates, I'm also adding to nutrition coaching because you want to be fueled for success and focused on quick grab and go meals. Not just to hit your macros, but also things that you enjoy and you can eat in the car between drop offs, and really setting yourself up for success for those busy seasons and for slow seasons. What your goal actually means in the whole span of programming. How this looks in action is, I wanna be really clear and intentional on how I program because. Again, how I train my athletes, it was setting them up for success and I want to set my clients up for success so that the program is matching the speed in which they can handle and the intensity and the capacity that they have. So consistency and maintenance. We're shifting into some more industry terms. So consistency and maintenance mode is really what I program for women who wanna stay moving, but life is so full right now. They don't know which way is coming and going, but they still wanna prioritize themselves. So it might look like two to three full body sessions a week, and they're short. So 20 to 30 minutes with minimal equipment might look like with super sets, circuits, and repeatable patterns. The reps are around eight to 12 reps. We're looking at moderate RPE rate of perceived exertion so that in this time. They're moving their body, their ability to build strength is there. They're maintaining their current strength and they're not exhausted. After the workout, they're able to recover from the workouts without being so depleted from life and depleted from workouts that they're not recovering. This is found in my foundations first, and as you transition into built for this. Emily, who is a mom of two, she had an extremely demanding job and she came to me saying, I need something, but I just don't have time for 90 minute workouts. I get it. I mean, I truly do. And so we looked at what is the capacity? What feels right for her in the season? And we built a plan where she did three workouts a week that she could do in 30 minutes, and she was able to stick with it. And within six weeks she was sleeping better. Felt stronger and actually enjoyed working out again. She, you know, also thought that she just could never would have to put herself on hold until her kids got older and her job calmed down. But we found the right intensity for the season that she's in now. Muscle growth or hypertrophy is for when you want to build strength, you wanna, feel stronger. Look. Better in your clothes, feel stronger in your body and in your workouts. The rep ranges here tend to be 10 to 15 plus you're working with superset by muscle group and shorter rest between 30 to 60 seconds. The RPE is moderate, so in this area, this is where built for this is. Capacity and conditioning. This is for women who are really looking to boost their fitness like they wanna feel like they're moving. Again, here it's focused on circuits, finishers, fast paced formats and reps are tend to be higher, 12 to 20 reps, lighter weights, shorter rest, higher energy. So this is also incorporated in built for this and, you know, in the early stages of Unstoppable. So it's not like these different industry term phasings are not seen in my programs. It, they're sprinkled in again at the capacity of which the client can handle it so we're working on building that, capacity, making sure that it is matching the season that they're in so that the overwhelm isn't there. And so they feel set up for success. The next one is strength gain. So this is where you wanna lift heavier. You wanna feel powerful, and you wanna see those measurable gains. So we're looking at compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, overhead press. We're really focused on, uh, lower reps, three to six in the rep range, and longer rest. These workouts demand. Energy, you wanna be fully rested because you are going to be pushing heavy weight. You are going to be exhausted afterwards, you might feel increased muscle soreness. So you wanna have the capacity to be able to rest and recover more, as well as be able to show up to your workouts ready to be focused and push more. These workouts are found in my tier of unstoppable. Mara was a a, a client who came to me and she was already training four to five days a week, but she just felt stuck. She felt like she wasn't making progress. She was doing all the different things. She was strength training, she was doing all the cardio, but we needed to simplify her program and we had to focus on quality over quantity and push her load with purpose. So within 16 weeks, she pulled a 200 pound trap bar deadlift, and she told me I finally feel like an athlete again. Something she had lost. From her college days, she was a college athlete and she wanted to feel that again. Her kids were a little older. She was more rested. She was in control of her career. She felt like she had the capacity to push, and so she had increased her workout days to four to five days a week, but the volume was high and she was just doing the work, but it wasn't focused. We weren't, she wasn't focused on quality of her quantity. It was no fault of her own. We just needed to tweak the program so that she could find that success that she was looking for. Rehab and rebuild. For those, these are for the individuals who are coming back from injury surgery, or maybe a long period of, of not working out. Also in this area, I put in my prenatal and postpartum populations, rehab and rebuild. As a trainer, it's not in the clinical version of someone who is resorted to only physical therapy movements. It's more bridging that gap. Some of my clients, when they're in this phase and when I'm programming them, they might be finishing up a round of, physical therapy. Maybe they didn't have physical therapy from an injury, but we're really working on getting the back end. Maybe it's an old injury and there has been this hesitation to get back to working out because maybe they have and reinjure their injury and we need to build that. Trust that capacity within the body so that they can move more confidently. This tends to look like higher reps, 12 to 15 reps. We're moving a little bit slower. We're really focused on connecting what I call the dots in the body. We're focused on understanding how our body is moving, feeling our muscles move and gaining that internal connection, that mind body connection there. A lot of core work, stability work is happening and it's often combined with. Light strength work and hypertrophy. So clients who are in this phase start in foundations first. It is highly customized. I'm really looking at getting one-on-one with that person and getting that feedback. So Becky, she came to me in her early fifties and she came to me post-surgery. She had multiple health challenges. She was going through and which resulted in multiple surgeries. Now her lifestyle. She has a very demanding, life outside of her career. She has horses and has a horse farm where she does the work herself. And she had never really followed a formal strength program, but she wanted to build that strength here. She was, she. It's like I'm getting older. I am in my fifties, and I want to be able to continue to care for my horses and live the lifestyle that I want to. So we started slow. We started, we looked at, core strength. We looked at developing that kinesthetic awareness. We looked at her movements that she does in her everyday life, caring for her horses. And incorporated them in the gym so that she can move her body more effectively without getting injured. And here's the thing. She's been able to get back up on her horses and be able to stack hay bills without help or without injury. All of this has been done within a short window. It doesn't take. Years to see solid progress. What it takes is intentional programming and doing the work intentionally. Oftentimes, it is breaking up with what is seen on social media of these dramatic results and fun flashy workouts. Workouts are challenging. I do my best to program with clients that they're feeling that challenge, that they are understanding that we're going to have to repeat motor patterns. Multiple times a week because the body learns through repetition. Alright? If you're listening to this and thinking, okay. I need help figuring out my season. This is exactly what I do at cafe. Whether you're rebuilding, chasing strength, or just staying consistent without burning out, let's bla build a plan that fits your life. Click on the link in the show notes and book a quick consult, zero pressure, just a conversation about what you need and how to get there. One of the reasons why. Clients see success in the KatFit is how I look at when I set up their training. So I went through a lot of phases. I've thrown a lot at you with this. Clients do come in and yes, they want to build on a skill. So this is something, you know, two other phases or one other phase that clients come in looking at is. Here, I've never been able to do a pull up. I've never been able to do pushups. And that's a training goal and we infuse that in as well in all the different phases, whether you're in foundations first built for this or unstoppable. That is programmed in with focus practice. So we're looking at three to five sets of assisted reps or variations, eccentric. Tempo and holds, and it's combined in that strength and hypertrophy. And this is to build that confidence based volume. And it really does help with motivation and variety. So as I had mentioned, yes, we're gonna see exercises show up because they have the different motor patterns that strengthen us and help our body be set up for success in everyday life. Easing those aches and pains helping us. Maintain the rehab from maybe old injuries, helping us give back to our body in which those early postpartum time period takes away. Caring for a a baby is very hard on posture. Programming for that is there, but I understand clients do have aesthetic goals. They have skill building goals that they want to do and see. So in regards to the client, Becky, she had very specific skill goals to be able to feed her horses, care for her horses, and to be able to run the horse farm. So we. Put in skill building movements as well as helping her progress through her rehab and recovery from her surgeries. This is seen in multiple ways in my programs. This is why when I start with, a client, the question I wanna know, and what I'm asking is, what do they really need from their training right now? Are they rebuilding after an injury or a life change, trying to stay consistent through a busy season? Or are they ready to push and see what they're capable of? Because as I've mentioned, each one deserves a different kind of plan, and you can cycle through these in a year. You can cycle through them in a quarter. It really depends and we need to understand. I'm in the process of shifting up my seasons a little bit more because my kids are coming up on summer break. I'm also in the process of tapering for an ultra marathon, so my workout program is gonna look a little bit different. I'm also. Pushing a little harder in my business to bring more resources to my clients, and all that needs to be considered for my training plan. Now, I've talked a lot about programming, but this doesn't work and isn't successful if I am not getting feedback from clients. This is where I see a big difference, where clients come in and maybe they've. Downloaded program. Maybe they've gone to a gym and done workout classes and they're all great programming. I'm not here to say mine is the best or anything else, but sometimes that feedback loop is missing where we, you know, workout classes are great. My clients, I will say this, I do program those in some go to workout classes. So again, I'm not here to bash, but. This is where sometimes downloading a program or picking workouts at random don't align with our seasons because we're not closing that feedback loop. So one of the reasons why my programming also works so well is they're not just following the plan. We're tracking what matters. I'm understanding. How their stress levels are, how they're sleeping, really what is their focus, what is their goals? Those are gonna change. If you're coming into a week where your partner's traveling, you have work, travel, your childcare falls through, your plan needs to change a little bit and adapt, or else you're gonna find yourself. Quitting and not because you are not capable, but because we're not understanding that we're in a really crazy season. So that's where we might have to dip into a week or two of maintenance so that when you come out of that little bit of busyness, you're able to meet back up with you know where you're at in your strength training. So in the app, clients might leave notes like, feeling tired today, backed off my weight. Awesome. That's huge. If you're feeling tired, let's say the baby was up all night. Let's say you had a work project. Let's say your child had night terrors and you had disruptive sleep. Disrupted sleep is a real thing in perimenopause and menopause. You should not feel like you have to show up and perform because this all goes into it. You need quality sleep. In order to push heavy weights or the weights that you had been pushing. Another note that I see often is I used a heavier dumbbell and I was able to move the weight. Okay? Yes, you are gonna, I want clients and I have a space that they do that they can always push harder. And they have that comfortableness knowing that they can choose a weight, and they've picked up that weight, pushed the weight, pulled the weight, whatever the movement is, and recorded it, and then move back to the weight that they have been able to move successfully. This is how we bridge the gap to get ourselves stronger. Another one I love is when clients, and I do fullheartedly agree, split squats are just my arch nemesis, but they are so good for you is when clients say, Hey, I did this exercise and it didn't suck. That's huge. That is so huge because it's not about perfection and progress is not linear. We see on social media oftentimes Instagram because it is very visual that. The, quick snapshot, maybe you follow a fitness influencer. And it's just like they have endless energy. Their workouts are always on point. There's never the setback or, um, depletion of energy. And so in our minds, even though, yes, I'm saying this and you're like, yeah, I know that's not true. It can present this. False narrative that something's wrong with me if I'm not always lifting heavier each session or able to lift the same weight I lifted last session. The fact that goes into it is. Recovery, stress levels, fueling all of the things. So when you are not in a beautiful container, like my college athletes were, where they were in their twenties, I'm gonna say had little to no responsibilities, I could push them in a lot different ways. So it's not about perfection, it's about pattern recognition, and that's how we build real progress over time. And those little details is how we make smart changes, how I understand where my clients are at and I, know all the science and I am the one who can help program it for them so that they are constantly set up for success. It's about responding and not just powering through. So I'm gonna leave you with this. What season are you in and is your training actually supporting that or fighting against it? So as I mentioned right now, I'm personally in a season of adapting and adjusting summers here. My boys are almost outta school, and like many of you, I'm moving things around to make space for my family, my work, and also for my race This weekend. It's not perfect and it's not always gonna be pretty. Trust me, if you saw, if I could give a detailed everything, my life does not look pretty. It's not like I have this perfectly curated time to always do my workouts. I don't. There's constant adjustments with my workouts, but it's aligned to where I'm at and that's what I want for you. Your season that you're in isn't forever, but it does deserve to be acknowledged. Thanks for listening to MilesFromHerView and if this episode helped you think differently about your training. Share it with a friend, and if you're curious about what season you are in, I'd love to help you find it. Keep moving forward. One rep, one step, one mile at a time and no matter the season, progress is progress. I'll catch you in the next episode. Thank you for tuning in to MilesFromHerView, powered by KatFit Strength. If this podcast inspires you, don't keep it for yourself. Hit follow or subscribe to stay updated on the new episodes, and leave us a review to help more women and moms discover this space. Your feedback fuels this podcast and I'd love to hear what's working for you or what topics you want to dive into Next. You can connect with me on Instagram at KatFit Strength, or share this episode. With a friend who is ready to embrace her strength. Remember, fitness isn't about perfection. It's about showing up for yourself and finding strength in every step of your journey. Until next time, keep moving forward one mile at a time.