86- Stop Chasing Soreness: The Real Markers of an Effective Workout for Women Over 35

In this episode of MilesFromHerView, host Kat from KatFit Strength challenges common workout myths and redefines what makes a fitness session effective. Learn why sweat, soreness, and exhaustion aren't reliable markers of a successful workout and discover how to measure your progress through practical, functional, and personal goals. Kat also emphasizes the importance of recovery as a key component of training. Whether you're diving into strength training or balancing a busy life, find out how to achieve your fitness goals with consistency and a mindset focused on genuine improvement.

00:00 Introduction: Rethinking Effective Workouts

00:52 Welcome to MilesFromHerView

01:51 Holiday Season and Finding Time for Yourself

03:02 Debunking Workout Myths

03:07 Myth 1: Sweat Equals a Great Workout

05:15 Myth 2: Soreness Means Progress

07:15 Myth 3: Total Exhaustion Equals Success

09:39 Myth 4: Longer Workouts Are Better

11:04 Markers of a Great Workout

26:05 Practical Examples and Homework

29:49 The Importance of Recovery

31:02 Conclusion and Key Takeaways

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Transcript

0:00

What if I told you that some of the most effective workouts don't leave you drenched in sweat? What if you could have an incredible challenging workout and wake up the next day with zero soreness? What if the number one marker of a great workout isn't how exhausted you feel, but something completely different? You may be in a new phase of your fitness journey where you've spent years of doing hi. You've crushed cardio for hours. You know what it feels like to be completely wiped out, but now you're shifting into strength and power training and you're using the same metrics you always have today we're going to completely redefine what great actually means. But the truth is, if you want to age strong and well, the markers of a great workout are very different than what you've been taught.

Kat: 0:53

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.

1:41

Welcome back to MilesFromHerView. If you're joining us for the first time, I'm so happy you're here, and if you are a returning listener, I am very happy to have you here as well. Currently when I'm recording this, we're in the thick of the holiday season and I don't know about you, but December is an absolutely wild. Time, the year end rush family commitments. And honestly, it's just, it's just a lot. And in the Northeast we got our first real snowfall with a deep freeze, and it is way too early for all this winter to actually be wintering because winter has not even started. But here's what I want you to know. Despite all the craziness, find those pockets of time that you can carve out for yourself. Maybe it's 30 seconds, maybe it's one minute, maybe it's 20 minutes. Find those moments. Prioritize your health. Maybe it is taking a few deep breaths. Maybe it's doing a set of body weight squats. Maybe it's just closing your eyes for a moment with no distractions and just tuning into your breath. All of that is a win. Today we're gonna be talking about what a great workout actually is and what it isn't, and skills to help reframe your mindset. So we're gonna start with debunking some myths. Myth number one, drenched in sweat. You don't need to be pouring out tons of sweat for a workout to be. A workout. Here's why we tend to believe this is sweat is very visible. It is tangible, and you literally can see the evidence that you worked. So it's that immediate feedback response. So we've learned to equate sweat with effort, but the thing is, and this is important, sweat is primarily. Thermo regulation. It's your body's cooling system. So it's not exactly a measurement of how hard you worked or a metric of a great workout. It's a measure of how much your body needs to cool down in that moment. So think about factors that affect sweat, humidity in your environment, what you're wearing, how hydrated you are, your genetics. Some people. Just sweat more than others. That is me. I'm a sweatier. I am someone who sweats. And yes, as we get older and our thermo regulation changes, using your sweat output as a metric of defining a great workout is comparing apples to oranges. So let's give a practical situation here. Let's say you're doing a heavy barbell back squat you're doing three sets at some serious weight. Your muscles are deeply engaged. You're activating your stabilizer muscles. You're working against gravity. You're demanding a lot from your body, but you might not be sweating that much from it. Why? Because the workout is short and intense, not prolonged. You're not moving your body continuously for 45 minutes. Now, compare that to 30 minutes of jumping rope. It's a continuous movement, elevated heart rate. The whole time and by 15 minutes you're drenched which one is a better workout? Well, the thing is they're different workouts and they serve different purposes. A barbell squat is creating a strength stimulus, and a jump rope is creating a cardiovascular stimulus. One isn't better than the other. They're just different. And if you're transitioning into a progressive strength training routine, you need to understand that you're probably not gonna sweat as much as you did in a HIIT routine, and that's completely fine. Myth number two, soreness means it worked. This myth is probably the one that is most confusing for a lot of people, especially when we hear no pain, no gain. And when we start or are engaging in a progressive strength training program to build and maintain strength, you may not feel sore that day or the soreness that you feel. Will be different than the soreness that you associate with getting a really good workout. I'm talking about that soreness, where you're altering how you're moving in your daily life. Or you're cringing at going up and down stairs, maybe sitting down or getting up off of a chair, maybe even reaching for pain reliever. So when. You get sore. You experience something called doms, delayed onset muscle soreness, and it typically shows up 24 to 72 hours after your workout. science says DOMS is caused by microscopic tears in the muscle fibers and the inflammatory response That inflammatory response is actually part of how your muscles adapt and stronger. So what we want to think is soreness doesn't equal progress. Soreness can happen when you build strength, but soreness is not a requirement for progress, and most importantly, your body adapts and soreness naturally decreases. So you'll start having fewer aches and pains even when you are making progress. Your body adjusts to your training routine and experiencing less soreness is a sign that you are progressing, and it means your body is adapting. I don't want any of my clients to chase soreness because soreness isn't a metric of a great workout. It can also be a sign of over training. Myth number three, total exhaustion equals success. I wanna paint the picture for you for this one, because many might have experienced this. You finish your workout and you're an absolute mess. You're dripping in sweat. Your muscles are visibly shaking. Your face is turned like gorgeous, shade of tomato red, and you sit on the floor for five minutes. Just trying to think about standing up. You're completely and totally exhausted. For some finishing a workout in that state feels incredible. They feel like warriors. They feel like they have earned it, and I get that. But for some people, that is your worst nightmare. They just wanna feel strong and capable and not destroyed. And here's what I want you to know, regardless of which way you view that scenario, whether it's like, yes, that is how I wanna feel after every workout, or please no, absolutely not. Finishing your last rep with absolutely nothing left in the tank is not the box you need to tick off every single time you exercise. A truly successful workout can be one that improves your mood, challenges your muscles appropriately, gets your heart rate up, and simply just gets your body moving. You can make phenomenal progress, like real measurable, life-changing progress without. Burning yourself out or being drop down to the floor exhausted. In fact, if you're burning yourself out every single time you're exercising, you're setting yourself up for injury, for over training, and for eventually burning out on fitness completely. And that's not what we want. The thing is, when you are 35, 40, 45 or beyond, consistency matters more than intensity. Yes, you need to challenge yourself, but if you are so wiped out from every single workout that you can't recover properly, if you're so exhausted that you skip your next workout because you're still recovering, you are not doing yourself any favors. We're looking to build the long-term game here. We're not training like we are in our twenties where we're trying to race the person next to us on the treadmill or beat the person next to us in the group fitness class. We're training because we want to be strong, age, strong and more resilience, and that requires consistency, and consistency requires recovery. Myth number four, longer workouts are better. No, that is not true. Life is busy. I know you know this. You're juggling many things, work, family, kids, holidays, all of it. And the idea that you need to carve out one to two hours every single day to make it count is so stressful and it's absolutely not true. Here's the reality. You don't need hours of free time to achieve your fitness goals. Whether you love Pilates, weightlifting, hit bar, whatever your jam is, you can have a genuinely great effective workout under 30 minutes. Studies show that when it comes to seeing results and making progress on your fitness journey, consistency is better than intensity and duration. Multiple shorter workouts throughout the week. Is always going to be better than one long session. So think of it this way. Three 30 minute strength training sessions beat one 90 minute session, five 20 minute workouts, beat. One 100 minute workout because your body adapts to consistent stimulus you recover better and you're more likely to stick with it. So for a lot of you, especially if you're mom, the idea that you can get an effective workout in 20 to 30 minutes. Actually life changing. It means you can fit this into your life and be consistent and consistency is everything. I will say that until I'm blue in my face. So how do we know if we're actually getting a good workout if this program is actually serving us? Some of this is gonna take some mindset shifts, and I'm gonna give you some practical solutions and also know there's no one size fits all with it. So I'm gonna give you framework that you can apply in your own situation. Marker number one, appropriate intensity for your body. There are general guidelines here. We typically say moderate to vigorous intensity, which translates to 50 to 80% of your baseline exercise capacity. But here's the key word. Baseline that's individual to you. Your baseline is different from your friends, the fitness influencer, your body 20 years ago. It's different today. So when you're starting out with strength training, your baseline might be lower, and as you get stronger, your baseline increases. So what's appropriate for you in month one is not going to be appropriate for you in month six. That's progress Why those generic workout programs can be tricky is they give you a percentage or a number, but they don't know your body. So they don't know where you're coming from. They tell you what you should be doing versus you understanding yourself and your baseline. So a practical way to think about it is if you're doing strength training, you should feel like you're working. But not at your absolute maximum. You should feel like you could do one to two more reps if you had to, but you're choosing to stop where you are. If you're doing cardio, you should have a conversation but not be able to sing. That's moderate intensity and at vigorous intensity, you can only say a few words before you need to catch your breath. So marker number one is you're working on an intensity that's appropriate for where you are right now, not where you were six months ago, or not where you want to be in six months, where you are today. Marker Number two, rate of perceived exertion. So the rates of perceived exertion is part of the Borg scale. I use a modified Borg scale. The Borg scale goes from six to 20, but for me, I use a one to 10. It's just modified. It's a little cleaner and clearer for clients and myself when we use it. We want to be working between a six to an eight on the RP scale. So when I rate workouts, there is the sets, the rep range, and the RPE number that is different with the different exercises. Doesn't mean we're all over the scale. A majority of the exercises are between a seven to an eight, some might be between a five to six. The reason behind that goes into what is the exercise, not just doing, but how many muscles are engaged, and the primary movers So your bigger muscles, we're gonna be able to lift at a higher intensity. Your smaller muscles, just to have smaller muscle fibers, which are less muscle fibers to recruit, are going to be at a lower RPE. Does not mean it won't be challenging. It's just a way so that you will be able to decode. Am I challenging myself with the weight? Can I feel an effort when I am pushing or pulling in this rep? For strength training specifically, this means each rep should feel like you could do one or two more if you absolutely had to at the end of your set, but you're going to stop there. You're maintaining control, maintaining form, and stopping while you still have a little bit in the tank. And why this is important is because RPE is subjective. It's not. About a number on a heart rate monitor, or a specific weight. It's about tuning into your body and understanding what effort feels like for you. And honestly, it is one of the most valuable things that you can develop as you get older because your body changes, your max heart rate changes, your recovery changes, your ability to sense effort. See, that doesn't change. That stays with you. So you're working at an RPE that is roughly between six. To eight, and you feel like you're working, you're challenged, but you're not going absolutely to failure. Marker number three, heart rate response and target zone. Now, I'm not gonna overwhelm you with getting into the nitty gritty of all the numbers, but I'm gonna simplify it for you. So your target heart rate zone is typically 55 to 80% of your maximum heart rate. The simple formula is 220 minus your age gives you your estimated maximum heart rate. So if you're 45, your estimated heart rate is around 175, your target zone would be 96 to 140 beats per minute. Now, every single workout? No, but you want to know your zone so you can recognize whether your cardio is actually elevating your heart rate appropriately. Strength training is gonna keep your heart rate in a lower cardio zone, and that's okay because the different types of exercise create different heart rate responses and both are valuable. So having strength training session, your heart rate might be low, might be between 101 20. During a HIIT workout, it's gonna climb maybe to 150. Plus both are effective for their purposes. They serve different purposes, so it's like they're effective for their specific purpose, and that's why it goes back to sweat isn't always a good marker or being super exhausted because they're training different entities there. Marker number four, progressive improvements over time. This is a big one. This is the ultimate marker of whether or not your workouts are actually working. So can you lift more? Can you complete more reps? Can you maintain better form? Can you increase your range of motion? Can you balance better? Can you move with more control? See, in strength training, we call this progressive overload, so it's about the foundation of getting stronger because we want to be able to not only just lift more, complete more reps, maintain better form, increase your range of motion, have better balance and move with more control. Those all work together, and they're all included in a program that is well written utilizing RPE, utilizing, your cardio zones, utilizing these metrics of are you improving and becoming more functional. So. This is what you should be measuring. Not the sweat, not the soreness. Not the exhaustion. It's the progressive improvement over time. And why it matters is when you're doing hiit, you're probably measured by time. And so you say, I did 45 minutes today, but with strength training, it's measured by stimulus. I left more than last week. it is just a different metric and it's honestly a much more accurate one. Marker number five, recovery in how you feel. So this one does not get enough attention, but it is so important. So after your workout 24 to 48 hours later, how do you feel? I ask this one a lot to my clients. I am not just asking. Are they sore? I wanna know that too. I mean, there are times where, yes, a workout may make you sore, and I don't want you to come away with this as like, I should never be sore in a workout. You can feel some soreness, but it should not be incapacitating like you should be able to function in your life So how do you feel? Are you able to perform your daily activities? Can you climb the stairs without thinking about it? Can you carry things, groceries, kids? Laundry baskets, whatever you're carrying in your house, like can you play with your kids without feeling like you're still recovering? These are signs of appropriate training load. This goes into, we are training our bodies not only to handle our everyday life, but other things we aspire to do, so. This is why we wanna understand like, okay, how is rest and recovery? How are we feeling? It's probably, the most repetitive question I ask my clients and it seems so silly, but I wanna make sure their program is the appropriate training load, that they are still able to progress and be able to thrive in their daily life. So another thing is to check heart rate recovery. A lot of smart watches do this, and it is also really good to see. So we want to look at how quickly does your heart rate drop after exercise? Does it stay elevated? Does it come right down? The other thing is, is your resting heart rate increasing? Again, we have to know the baseline of what our resting heart rate is. But if our resting heart rate isn't coming down or it's increasing, that can be signs that we are not recovering well. Or we may have some cardiovascular challenges, but that is something that you need to start to look at in your numbers. So your body has these internal markers that normalize within 24 hours of your training load, if it was appropriate. If they're still elevated again, that might mean you're over training. So looking at other reasons why it really does matter is when you ask yourself, how do you feel? Are you sleeping better? Do you have more energy? Are you recovering well? And if you're completely exhausted and dragging yourself to your workouts and you're not sleeping well, these are signs that you might need to dial it back, whether it be the intensity or the frequency. Number six, functional improvements. So this one is really, it's huge. This one for me, when I have clients telling me that they can do. More things in their everyday life or the things that they were doing without thinking about it, whether it be standing up easier. Some of my clients ride horses, so it's cleaning stalls, doing farm work. Some of my clients are in the thick of it with kids, so carrying the bucket seed, carrying a, putting a load on the body. When these things become easier and they have less aches and pains, that is a functional improvement. So here's what it can look like. What a functional improvement. Means is you're noticing real, tangible differences in what your body can do everyday life. Can you get out of a chair more easily? That's the sit to stand test, and it's actually one of the best predictors of independence and quality of life as we age. So if you can go from sitting to standing without using your hands, without struggling, without your knees giving out, that's functional strength. Can you balance better on one leg? That's important because. It predicts your fall Risk. Falls are one of the biggest health risks as we age, so being able to stand on one leg with confidence for a period of time is generally important and balance. Isn't lost solely in your seventies and eighties. Balance goes away in your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties. If we are not training it, can you carry heavy things, groceries, car seats, kids laundry baskets? Can you do that with better posture and less strain? Can you walk upstairs without holding a railing? Can you play sports or activities you enjoy without pain or limitation? See, all of these things matter, and these are the things that show you if your training is actually translating to your life. And yes, there is body composition, how your body looks and feels. You might not see a huge change on that scale, but if your clothes fit differently. You will see muscle definition, you'll carry yourself differently. That's functional improvement. And the marker number seven is meeting specific goals. Great work routes look different for different people because they have different goals. My clients all have different goals. There is a commonality among all of them where they want to continue with their freedom, with their, independence. They want to age more resilient and stronger. However, Intricate goals are specific to them. So if your goal is strength and power, did I lift more weight or complete more reps before? If your goal is to improve cardio fitness, your marker is, can I sustain a longer and recover faster if your goals functional aging and independence? Am I noticing improvements in my daily life? Your goal is mental health and stress relief. You know, is your mood improving? Do you feel less anxious? And if your goal is body composition, you know, how do I look and feel? How do my clothes feel? So before you can even define like what great means for your workout, you have to define what your goal is. And a great workout is one that really moves you towards your defined goal. Nothing less, nothing more. But I do find that individuals sometimes. Don't take the time to understand what they're looking for and fall into the, if I'm not sweating, if I'm not exhausted, if I'm not sore, therefore it's not working. Methodology. We talked about the myth and we've talked about the great markers. So the mental shift you need to make is this. You are moving from how hard can I go to, how strong can I become? And this isn't just semantics, this is a completely different mindset. So when you're doing hit or other higher intensity, a body pump class, the mentality probably was whether or not you articulated it was how much can I push? How fast can I go? How exhausted can I get? And that made sense for that type of training. But with. Progressive strength training. The mentality is what is the right challenge for my muscles? What will make me progressively stronger? And those are different questions. And here's something that might sound counterintuitive. Strength training is not about looking exhausted at the end. It's about looking stronger. It's about being stronger. The difference is exhaustion is visible, strength is real, and you don't need to finish your workout, gasping for air, unable to move. You need to. Finish your workout, knowing you've challenged your muscles appropriately and that you can recover well for the next session. Shorter, more frequent sessions are still going to serve you and serve you better than doing one long intense workout, followed by days of recovery. So first thing, reframe your mindset from how hard can I go to? How strong can I become and how can I be consistent? So I'm gonna give you some real examples in how to apply these markers. Example, one Monday strength session, let's say Monday morning, and you do a 30 minute strength training session. You do barbell back squats, some chest presses, some rows. You're lifting weights that challenge you. And here's what's happens. You are not drenched in sweat. You're not sore the next day, and you are not completely exhausted at the end of the workout. Old. You might think that wasn't a very good workout. I didn't break a sweat, but let's check the markers. Did you work at an appropriate intensity? Yes. You felt like you could do one or two more reps. What was your It was a seven to an eight. You are working, but you're not maxing out. Did your heart rate respond? Yes. It elevated during your sets and then recovered pretty quickly. Did you make measurable progress? Yes. You lifted some weight, the same weight as you did last week, and this form felt better, or you lifted more weight. Did you recover well? Yes. Tuesday morning, you feel good and ready for your next session. Did you notice functional improvement? Yes. Carrying the groceries in from that day felt very easy and getting out of your car felt stronger. Did you move towards your goal? Yes. Your goal is getting stronger and you got stronger. That's a great workout by every marker that matters. Example number two, Wednesday cardio session. So it's Wednesday, you do 20 minutes of hit, you do jump squats, mountain climbers, high knees, and here's what happened. You're sweaty, your heart rate is elevated. You feel worked. Let's check the markers. Appropriate intensity, yes. Higher than your strength. But appropriate for cardio. RPE. It was around, seven to Maybe borderline nine. Higher intensity, which is right for this type of training. Heart rate response. Yes, significantly elevated. You are pushing your cardiovascular system, but you were recovering during the rest time. Measurable progress. You did more reps and you move faster than last week. Recovery. You felt good by Thursday. Functional. You noticed your endurance has improved. You ran up the steps and you were not having to take a moment to pause, to catch your breath moving toward your goal. Yes, your cardiovascular fitness is getting better. This is a sign of a great workout, different from Monday, but equally valid. So you see the difference. Both are great workouts, but they look different. They feel different. They serve a purpose. The key is that you're intentional about what you're doing and you are checking the markers that actually matter for the type of training. So here's your homework This week, I want you to think about your specific goal. Let's say you wanna get stronger and more functional as you age. I want you to pick. Three things that you're going to track. The first one needs to be quantitative, so a specific number, how much weight you're lifting, how many reps you're doing, how far you are going with any cardio component, time-wise or whatnot, number two, something qualitative. How do you feel? How are your energy levels? Your mood? How strong do you feel? This is subjective, but it's real and important. And number three, something functional. Something from your everyday life. Can you do a single leg balance better? Can you get off the floor easier? Can you carry groceries with better posture? Pick something that matters to you. Those are your three personal markers. And track those three things. Don't track sweat. Don't track muscle soreness. And don't track post-workout exhaustion. Track how you feel in real life functionality. And I'm gonna hammer this point home because it gets overlooked and invalidated as a vital part of training. But it isn't. Recovery is not a break from training. Recovery is part of your training. And think about it this way. Your workout is the stimulus and your recovery is when adaptations happen. Your muscles don't get stronger during the workout. They get stronger during sleep. During rest during proper nutrition. So when you're sleeping enough, eating well and taking active recovery days, managing stress, you are not wasting time. You are actively training. So this means sleep is part of your training. Aim for seven to nine hours of sleep. Nutrition protein, carbs, healthy fats to recover to build strength active recovery days. This is light walking, Pilates, yoga, stretching. Those are part of your training. They help clear metabolic waste and promote blood flow. Managing stress is part of your training. So cortisol interferes with recovery and adaptation. So when you approach recovery in this way, you're not taking time away from your fitness. Multiplying the effectiveness of your workouts. So recovery is not a break from training. It's when training actually happens. I'm gonna wrap this up because. I think you have everything you need. If you feel like you have a question, if you want more clarity around anything I've talked about here today, message the podcast, I'd be happy to entertain that If you want to hear more about this. Message podcast, or if you have another topic idea, you would like hop into the show notes, click the message button, and you can just message me directly. I answer all of the messages personally and be it that we are in the middle of the holiday time. Please allow for a little bit of time for me to respond. I genuinely will respond to you and it will be from me. So here are some big things I want you to remember. Number one. Sweat soreness and exhaustion are not reliable markers of workout quality. You've been taught that they are, but they're not. They can happen, but they don't need to. Number two, progressive improvements in strength and function are what actually matter. Measure by progress. Measure by what your body can do, measure by real life functionality. Number three, your age and fitness level change. What appropriate intensity means for you, you're not comparing yourself to yourself 20 years ago. You're not comparing yourself to a fitness influencer on social media. Number four, consistency beats intensity for long-term result. Short, frequent workouts are better than sporadic long ones every time. Number five, recovery is part of training. Not a break from it. Sleep, nutrition, active recovery, stress management, these are all part of a fitness plan. Those are the five things I want you to hold on to. I genuinely thank you so much for joining me today, and if this resonated with you, please share it with a friend who may be thinking about strength training or trying to understand how they can improve their relationship with fitness. If you haven't already done, please rate and follow the show. This helps other people like you find the show. Until next time, stay strong, stay consistent, and remember, you're not training to be exhausted. You're training to be powerful.

Kat: 34:28

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 KatFitStrength or share this episode. Road 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.