Ep 017 Strength for Life: Amanda Oparanozie on Women and Weights
If you’re intimidated by hardcore CrossFit workouts or don’t want to get big and bulky by lifting weights, never fear—strength training is for everyone, and this episode with Amanda will put you at ease.
We unpack the ideal strength training program for women, whether you're beginner or intermediate, in this conversation with Amanda Oparanozie, co-owner and head coach at OBK Fitness.
Amanda sheds light on the vital necessity of strength training as we age, not just for external appearance but for the profound internal and eternal benefits it brings.
She addresses common fears surrounding weightlifting and provides valuable advice on starting a strength training routine. Tune in to explore how strength training intertwines with holistic health, helping to balance the spirit, soul, and body in our fast-paced modern lives.
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About Amanda & OBK Fitness
I was born and raised on Galveston Island, where fishing, surfing, jet-skiing, rollerblading, and beach volleyball fill my fondest memories. I graduated from Sam Houston State with a bachelor's degree in psychology before I realized fitness was my true calling. For the last two decades, I have done everything from traditional weightlifting to kickboxing classes before my husband introduced me to CrossFit in 2013. I have enjoyed incorporating all these styles into our workouts in hopes that we can reach a broader scope of our community. I use what we teach at OBK Fitness to increase my quality of life, create fun memories with our 3 kids, compete in obstacle course races, and give my best at any sport.
Connect with Amanda and OBK Fitness
Key Tips & Takeaways
The Importance of Regular Exercise: Amanda emphasizes the significance of integrating regular physical activity into our lives, highlighting its benefits for both mental and physical health.
Strength Training for Women: She challenges common fears and misconceptions about women and weightlifting, encouraging strength training for its myriad health benefits.
Nutrition and Recovery: Amanda places a strong focus on the role of nutrition and recovery in fitness, outlining how these elements are crucial for overall health and well-being.
Tailoring Fitness to Individual Needs: The podcast sheds light on customizing fitness routines to suit individual goals and abilities, underscoring the importance of personalization in exercise.
Holistic Approach to Fitness: Amanda’s philosophy extends beyond physical fitness to encompass mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being, advocating for a balanced and holistic approach.
More Resources
Show Notes
Please. note, show notes are automatically generated and contain some grammatical errors.
Ep 017 Amanda Oparanozie
Amanda: It's nice to work out three days a week. And so something is better than nothing, period.
Yeah. However, to think three days a week, you know what ends up happening. You have four other days to change your mind. So it's like, ideally if you could work out five to seven days a week, that'd be awesome. And then do the math. That's 20 minutes a day. That's it. If I did it seven days a week, 20 minutes, that's not long at all.
Stephanie Hodges: Okay. You probably know that working out is important for everyone. But that doesn't mean you necessarily feel motivated to strength, train, or want to put strength training into part of your regular routine. But today, we're going to talk about why it's so vital for all women to invest in strength training. Not only for their external appearance, but also because of the internal and eternal benefits, which is what our guests Amanda Oparanozie is going to talk about today. she's a co-owner and head coach at OBK fitness.
And she's going to give us some background on why this area is so important, how to overcome the common fears that women have around lifting weights. And she's also going to give us some great exercise prescription so we can get started.
Welcome to the Wholly Well Journey podcast. I'm your host, Stephanie Hodges. Join us for weekly faith based conversations on holistic health to uncover practical tips for how to thrive and apply biblical wisdom to our busy modern lives. From fitness to food to fasting, we're here to discover what it means to have a healthy spirit, soul, and body.
Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
Stephanie Hodges: Welcome everybody, and today we are talking with my friend Amanda Oparanozie, and Amanda and her husband, Nnamdi. We have known personally for a long time, and they have a gym called Obi K, and it's kind of a CrossFit style gym. But I've been in there and I've seen. All kinds of people who they call athletes, everyone.
And Amanda's gonna speak to that in a minute. And so even if you're a person that you're not really into weightlifting right now, you're not into working out, you're not into CrossFit this conversation's gonna be really important 'cause we're gonna talk to everyone at every level about why strength training is so important for you.
Why committing to a regular fitness routine is vital for your health. And I wanna start out with Amanda just telling us a little bit about their story of starting their O gm, OBK, because it's a really cool story that I got to kind of see unfold where you started in your garage and now you have built an amazing gym community.
So welcome Amanda. And can you just start out by sharing a little bit about your gym with us?
Amanda: Yes. So as you said, our gym is OBK Fitness. We started I mean, the first. Time that Nnamdi and I worked out together was before we dated and we were best friends and so we were workout partners before anything. We had a family and we always worked out. And so it was our garage and our gym. Our gym and our garage actually was our garage always had some form of workout equipment in it.
So that has always been something that. As husband and wife, we've always enjoyed something that we have a lot of common ground on. And so then eventually I was transitioning into my forties and then I wanted to do something fun and something I enjoyed. So that's when I decided I was gonna go get certified in CrossFit.
I had been doing it for years at that point. But yeah, just as you said, once we got certified we started training people out of our garage for free. And that's actually what CrossFit headquarters recommended, recommended to us. You know, they were like, you just need to get some reps underneath you, so you should be training people for free.
We did that. And then we were able to start training a very small group of people in a boxing gym. And that was when we became like, I guess officially official BK fitness back in 2019. And then to your point, we eventually got our own space. So it's just been something that as a family, we have always enjoyed.
Nnamdi oftentimes had small groups in our garage and wasn't a very big garage. But There's so many people out there. We live in an active community, but also too, there's just a lot of people out there that I know are interested, they're intimidated or they just don't know how. And so we wanted to better serve our community in that way by providing a very safe and fun space to be able to come in and learn, you know, proper form in all kinds of various physical domains.
Stephanie Hodges: And what does the name Obi K mean?
Amanda: So my husband Nnamdi is half Nigerian and his mother is white and from America. So my husband is first generation American. His dad is from a small village in Nigeria. The tribe that he's from is called ibo, and it's also the language that they speak so much like many cultures. Names are incredibly important.
So when we sat down, we said, okay, we're gonna do this thing. We're gonna start a gym. We had to name it something. So I was investigating different names and finally was like, you know what? I want it to be something that we stand for. So, OBI actually means to have heart or courage. And then IKE means strength or intensity.
And so I called up my father-in-Law who's Nigerian. And I was just asking him, I was like, all right, dad, I'm just look this stuff up. Is this really what it means? And he said, yes. And then when you actually put those two words together, oh, bk. It's a new word and it means confident. And so that was whenever we were like, that's absolutely what it should be.
We wholly believe in, you know, strength building not only physical, but spiritually and mentally and, you know, having heart and courage. But as I mentioned before, we want people, if they happen to come into our gym, intimidated in any way, we wanna be able to. Help them grow in their confidence, whether that's mental capabilities, physical, spiritual capabilities, or all the above.
Stephanie Hodges: And I, I love that about your gym. I know a lot of people who are members at your gym or have worked out there in the past, and I've seen it, and you have a whole range of ages and fitness abilities. And a lot of times when people hear CrossFit, they're really intimidated. Or maybe they've tried it before or been in a gym and it just felt like too high pressure.
But your gym has a real welcoming family atmosphere, and can you speak to how you've created that? And for somebody that's looking for something similar, like how can they find a gym and what should they look for to ensure it's a good environment for them, regardless of skill level?
Amanda: Yeah, that's a great question. The way that we, I believe that we created that culture was as a family, we always have a why behind what we're doing. So when we started this gym, you know, we're like, why are we doing this? Personally for us, non denied, we wanted to step outside our church walls and. Be able to use our gym as a way to reach the Lost to Love on the Lost and Love on God's people.
So what that required was the main people that started this gym as far as coaching. And that would be, I would say the most important aspect of how do you create the culture is the coaching. It's the people. So it was myself, Nnamdi, and then our sister CeCe. And then we hired, I would say probably the first two coaches that we brought on were also staff members at Celebration or went to celebration.
So immediately we know, okay, we have the same values. And they had a lot of workout experience as well. So bringing those people on who supported our vision of, we welcome everyone into our gym and we wanna provide high quality coaching, you know, our culture. We want it to be fun. We want it to be safe.
We want it to be welcoming and make it feel like a family, and we also really want it to be encouraging. So that would be the culture. I believe that if people are looking I definitely would. If you don't want to go and try a class. For free. I wouldn't always recommend that actually I would at least want to come in and can I just sit in a class?
Can I observe your class? Because then you get a good picture of, okay, I can watch the coach. I can see who is in here, these different athletes. ' cause that's gonna tell me like the different fitness levels. And how does that coach respond to the fitness levels. I'm listening to the music. What kind of music are they playing?
And then, I mean, you know, are people having fun? That's just a personal preference of mine. So whatever your goals are, whatever your preferences are, I think you, before going into a gym, wanna know what are you looking for? And then I would, I would recommend, can I just come in and observe? Most people that's absolutely fine.
And a lot of times they'll say, Hey, like I said, come work out for free. I wouldn't discourage anybody from doing that, but if it's been a while since you've worked out, just just observe.
Stephanie Hodges: Yeah, and I think it's important, although you can do workouts at home if you're interested in this style of workout or where you're doing heavy lifting and things like that, having good form is so important. And so even if your ultimate goal is you have a gym in your garage you wanna use to at least go somewhere and have an instructor or trainer walk you through proper form, I think is super important.
Amanda: Yeah, it's definitely a high priority for us. We offer group classes, which as you mentioned, is highly geared towards a CrossFit style workout. I. Which is functional fitness and means you're doing all kinds of things from weight training to, we'll call 'em gymnastics movements. Like pull-ups. And most people in our gym can't do pull-ups on their own.
So it's assisted or it's modified and not everybody in our gym, that's even their goal that they wanna be able to do. Pull-ups, unassisted. We also offer personal training, which is great too, because then you can do anything you want. You know, we can do kickboxing, we can do. Boxing, we can do traditional weightlifting where it's like I'm doing more isolated movements.
But I mean, I think the key component for us too is we have goal reviews with our, with our athletes. So we do call 'em athletes. We believe that when you're on our gym, you are training and everyone's goals are different. So you might just be training for life. You actually might be training for a sport.
You can do all those things. And then the goal review is important because we sit down with our athletes and say, how are you doing? You know, what are your goals? Have they changed? And then help accommodate that while they're in there with us. But yeah, CrossFit at the heart of it was always, always meant to be one of the safest sports or forms of exercise that you could do because you're supposed to be learning how to do the form correctly and slowly build up the load or the amount of weight that you're lifting, as well as maybe I don't need to be doing this movement at all. Taking those things in consideration based on injuries and, you know, other factors. So we try to follow the philosophy that was always at the heart of, of CrossFit.
Stephanie Hodges: Yeah. And when it comes to physical fitness in general, like you mentioned, everybody's goals are different, but do you feel like there are certain goals that we should all be looking to achieve when it comes to our physical fitness and what would those be? I.
Track 1: Yeah. Physical fitness from my perspective is just your overall health. I do think that's. Pretty darn close to even like the medical aspect of it as well. I mean, just your overall health. Physical fitness, when we talk about technically what does it involve, you know, involves your cardiovascular health, your muscular health, it involves flexibility.
And so I mean, we're talking about range of motion, you know, with flexibility as we get older, we lose that. We're talking about balance. What's one of the most common things that happens whenever we get older? You know, lose our balance. They fall and traditionally break something, which then, you know, leads to talking about like bone density but also to your physical health which is really cool what you do.
At the very base of it all is nutrition. You know, it really should be nutrition above everything. And then everything builds on top of that. And I think another one that gets neglected a lot, maybe not talked a lot, a lot about as far as physical health would be recovery as well. So yeah. That's as far as the physical fitness go goes.
I would just, if I could sum it up, it's just, it's your overall health.
Stephanie Hodges: I think a lot of people don't think of recovery when they're thinking of fitness, so can you elaborate a little bit more on that about why that's important and what it should look like?
Amanda: Yes. So recovery would even include your nutrition, right? I mean, if no matter what I choose to do, if my exercise is walking to improve my physical fitness, you're still outputting energy. Right. And so you need to then refuel yourself, and that often includes water, you know, good food and nutrition, but then you need to make sure that at night you're getting adequate sleep. And that changes throughout the years depending on what season of life that you're in, how stressful, you know, are your days. But rest is when your muscles are recovering. Rest is when you know, even your brain. That's another part too when it comes to your physical fitness, is how are you doing mentally?
So. If I am not recovering well, meaning I don't sleep very well, I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna be at some sort of debt or disadvantage. Which could lead to, I don't feel like I. Exercising or working out which then can lead to bad eating habits. Recovery also including things like stretching, you know after a workout and doing activities.
What that fill you, you know, is what is that? Reading a book, is that spending time with your family. So recovery can look like quite a few things. What are you eating, drinking. Recovery is your sleep and relaxation, but recovery is also what are the things that that fill you?
Stephanie Hodges: That's so good. It's really hard when you're busy, and most people would say, yes, I am busy, especially moms and I mean, not even just moms. Everybody's busy, right? And so for me personally, I'm one of those guilty parties who. I love cardio. Like I love to run long distance running. That's my thing. And so long distance running takes a lot of time.
So then I can find myself shortchanging a little bit on my warmup or my cool down and stretch. 'cause I'm like, I'm done. I have to go do the next thing. I'm like, oh, I'll stretch later. But then of course other things get in the way. I don't end up doing it. The other thing I've seen with running, especially as I've gone through the decades.
Is that I've developed some muscular imbalances and I've seen how extremely important strength training is, even though I don't like it. And so I know that's a big part of what you're doing in CrossFit workouts. And so for all those women out there, for all these variety of reasons that don't like strength training, why do we still need to do it anyway?
Amanda: Yes. So I will a hundred percent say you don't need to do CrossFit, you know, to do strength training. Just do the strength training, because that is how important it is. Strength training, we're talking about resistance, right? So strength training, it's, it's gonna prevent. So much in your life prevent slow deterioration of your, of your muscles.
As we age, we will lose muscle mass, right? So as I strength train, I'm gonna help slow that process down. As us women hit menopause, our estrogen levels decrease. So now my bone density also decreases. Well, guess what? Strength training is gonna help mitigate that. And I mean, to the point to where, you know, so many women do hear this.
They go to the doctor and they have osteoporosis or just, you know, they're on that. On that edge of it and you know, praise God that the response to that first is usually we need you to start lifting weights and, and we're talking like five pound weights. Any sort of resistance to you. We're talking body weight.
I mean, my personal belief is that the most basic movements that you wanna be able to perform is a squat. Lunge and pushup. Why? Because when I'm old, if I fall, I wanna be able to get myself up off of the floor, which would be, you know, equivalent to a pushup. I want to be able to put one foot underneath me, which would be the lunge, and then I wanna be able to stand up.
What if there's nothing around me and I'm in my late eighties and I've fallen to the floor. I want to be able to get up unassisted. So that right there, squats. Lunges, pushups. That's all resistance. That's also very beginner weight training. Weight training is also you know, exercise in general. I mean, it's amazing what happens in your brain.
In your brain. You will. Start forming new brain cells in your brain because you're weightlifting, because you're exercising. What happens to, you know, people when we get older?
We already mentioned balance issues. I mean, or, or slowing down in how we walk. I mean, all those things are happening because first something is happening in our brain, you know, so even like the strength training is gonna, is gonna help with that. Let's see, what else? Just your long-term wellness. I mean, for me, I joke with my kids.
I'm like, I wanna be able to go to the bathroom without anybody's help. I wanna be able to sit on the toilet, get up off the toilet. I wanna be able to enjoy my life be able to move. You know, I got, I believe God designed your body to move, and so how every day you're moving, every single day, you know you're doing something that requires your muscles.
So strength training is, so you can be a human. That's why we should be doing it. Everybody should be doing some sort of strength training and then of course, like you're a runner, you're an athlete. I mean, even more so, right? Whenever we specialize in a sport, there's certain muscles that get neglected because there's certain muscles that we're heavily using.
So just to be an overall better athlete and perform at a higher level strength training, that way you can, hone in on all those other muscles that you're not used to working.
Stephanie Hodges: Yeah, and it's not just a, like a cliche statement. I personally know two older people who, you know, within the past couple years or so fell in their kitchens. You know, these are, they don't live together. These are two separate people. But both cases, they fell in their kitchen and they were too far away to grab ahold of anything.
Didn't have a phone. One of them, it ended up, he had deadbolted. The door locked it from the inside. So when someone finally came around to check on him, they had to call the fire department to come break the door down, to be able to get in and, and get him. And so when we're talking about this, it's, it's really a real thing that happens for people.
And it's not just waiting until you get to that point in time. Because what you said is true is that your body's naturally gonna be losing muscle mass and strength as you go. And yes, it's true. You can start anytime. You can start in your seventies and, and you'd be encouraged to do that. But it's not good to wait because you come to that.
Bigger and bigger deficit you're trying to overcome. And so even though we're saying all that and, and even though I think that society is shifting a little bit about women and weights, I think that women still have some roadblocks when it comes to strength training. I kinda wanna address those for people.
And I would say the first one is probably still getting bulky. So many women are like, I don't wanna lift weights because I'm afraid I'm going to gain weight. I'm gonna be really muscly and that's not what I wanna look like. How can they avoid that?
Amanda: yeah. They would have to do a lot to bulk up and get, you know, very muscular how I'm imagining they would be. The way to avoid getting bulky is not to avoid weight training at all. Weight training. Is actually gonna help them. Burn fat, right? So I mean, yes, you know, you're gonna get stronger and all those things, but whenever we think about, okay, those women that, you know, we might define as bodybuilders and even honestly, maybe even CrossFit ladies, right?
The ones that compete at a super high level. I know that too. A lot of women are like, I do not wanna look like that. Do you know how many calories they have to consume throughout their day every single day? I mean, it's nuts. It's a whole other job in itself in order for a woman to bulk up, why we don't have as much testosterone in our body.
We have as a, as a man, right? So when we think, oh, I don't wanna look like a man, no worries. You're not, men have that testosterone. Yes, we do have it, but not at the same levels. And yeah, I mean I've never known personally a woman ever that when they heavily get into it and they eat well, right?
Just start changing their nutrition to eat more whole foods and things like that. They're not putting on size. That's not at all what's happening. And you know, unfortunately, I think a lot of us women are very hard on ourselves and so therefore, to me, that also indicates maybe their main motivation for working out or strength training may also be to look a certain way.
And that's just also something that I wanna work really hard to fight against as well, you know, when it comes to that about looking a certain way.
Stephanie Hodges: Yeah, and I would love to piggyback on that point because I think for another reason is that women, when they think about working out, they think I need to burn as many calories as possible because working out and exercise, the point of it is weight loss. The point of it is to look a certain way.
And so I don't wanna, you know, spend too much time just lifting weights if I can burn a lot more calories on the elliptical. What do you say to that?
Amanda: My personal belief as well is like when it comes to ellipticals and, and running and things like that, I think that's so important. I think that's one part of the picture though. You know if we go back to talking about like the physical fitness part, that would be cardiovascular, but we also need muscular fitness and neuromuscular fitness, all those things.
So for me. Especially the women that come through our gym. You know, I have a woman who is almost 70 years old. I. And she's working out in the group with us and she kills it. She can even be a little hard on herself sometimes, and it's not about how she looks, but kind of like what you're saying, it's the output, right?
How many calories I burn. Even though she doesn't care about the calories that she's burned, she'll still have sometimes compare herself to the other athletes that she's working out with and going, oh my goodness, but I'm not doing what they're doing. Reason for that. In our gym, we have three tiers that you choose from.
So she's doing the third tier consistently, but this woman is almost 70 years old and she can put weight overhead, you know, she can do crazy amounts of sit-ups. She can. I'm always just telling her like, my goodness, you know, she can very safely take care of her grandson. And play with him and pick him up.
I mean, it's just so amazing to your point that you made earlier too, then I have a woman in her mid fifties. Who was very hard on herself because she did let herself get to being overweight. But when she first came to us, like she couldn't even jump, like pop, you know, now she can do jump rope.
Now she's running, again, trying to help guide her and not comparing herself to other people. Because the goal in here is how are you feeling? How are you moving? Are you sleeping better at night? Are you, are you having more energy? Are you able to do more things with your family outside of the gym?
So I would love for people to steer away from how I look personally for me, like I'm working out because I want to live a longer life with my kids. I wanna be a healthier version for my children and my husband. I think about it. So instead of your motivation being external, I would love if women would start to make more of their motivation for strength training and even exercise in general to be internal and eternal.
That's my philosophy. Internal, being, as I mentioned, your organs are healthier, they're cleaner, your heart is stronger, your lungs are stronger. Internal motivation being my brain is now I'm slowing down the aging process as I get older. The internal motivation of I'm fighting off chronic illnesses internal motivation of I can still move and walk with my family as I'm getting older. I have three kids, two of them are teenagers. I can play with them on, volleyball and that started from the inside to the out. And then the eternal motivation. I love Jesus with my whole heart.
And I'm so blessed to, quite frankly, still be alive, considering the things that I've experienced early on in life. But the eternal motivation is that God made your body to move. He created it that way with the joints and the tendons and the ligaments and the muscles, and how wonderful is he that he created all these systems to work together, and how is it best suited?
It's through your physical fitness. How do I take care of it? It's that overall health, eternal motivation. Now I can go out, right, make disciples. I can go out and fulfill the purpose that God put on my life. Eternal motivation in the fact that I'm now being a good steward of what he has given me. Yeah, I would love if we could move away from that external motivation.
How do I look? And then move more towards the internal and eternal when it comes to overall health and specifically strength training. It's that important. It really, really is.
Stephanie Hodges: It is so important and what you were saying. Is that comparison piece. It's so huge. We can easily compare ourselves to what everybody else is looking like, how everybody else is doing, what we think the standard is, and that's something that is so detrimental to us, is that the standards that society is showing us are really impossible.
And they're not taking into account the uniqueness of each person's body. And it can sometimes be things as simple as like my kids saying, oh, I, I saw this haircut. I wanna get this haircut. But having to explain to them, well, if your hair is different, like it's a different thickness and texture, then that person's, then the haircut's not gonna look the same on you.
As it does on them, and every hairstylist would tell you that. And so that's true of our hair, but it's true of every part of our body, and it just does us no good in the end when we're just constantly striving for this ideal image that we have in our mind that isn't even something that our own body is meant to look like.
And if we can just let go of the comparison factor. Then we would be so much better off. And it also goes with us being kind and gentle to ourselves over time to realize my body's not the same as it was in my twenties because it's two decades later and I have three kids
Amanda: Yeah.
Stephanie Hodges: You know, that's, that's true for me.
True you. But the, those are things to appreciate. They really are, and, and people may have heard this again, but it's like the fact that you created. Another human being with your body is a big deal. And so women just allowing for these different phases of life, you need to work out and take care of yourself differently when you're pregnant, when you're postpartum, when you're going through menopause, like our bodies go through a lot
Amanda: Yeah.
Stephanie Hodges: and we need to be acknowledging that with the seasons of life we're in.
Amanda: Yeah. I think too, like, you know we assume that. If we look that way, we're gonna be happy. If I could just get there, I know I'd be happy. I just think, way too often ask those people when their main motivation, assuming they do get to that point, let's say they did reach that goal of physical fitness, whatever that is in their mind, , number one, I would ask them, what did it cost you to get there?
And what is it gonna cost you to keep it? But second of all, I think too, what about, these other people who I hope I'm in that category of people who I do work out consistently and I am joyful. You know I had a a, a person at our gym. She was so cute. She was like, you're always so joyful.
Are you a yogi? And so I was like, meaning yoga? And she said, no. And my response to her was like. It's the joy of Christ that you see. However, I mean, even if you're not a believer, I mean, I would even say that if you are investing in your overall health, and it's not to look a certain way, consider the fact that maybe they're happy because they're fulfilled.
And maybe they feel fulfilled because they're outliving life, they're being active. If maybe that's the goal rather than the physical. Maybe it's the endorphins, is the hormones that, again, you're exercising actually benefits your brain in that way. So to assume that you would just be happy if you could look that way.
It's a, it's a big trap. Yeah, that's a big, big trap. And so yeah, that's just something that I feel like all too often it's more of us women, I see it in our gym, that like, to your point, are very hard on themselves, very much comparing themselves. Instead of being honestly content and grateful for where they are.
And it's okay to have goals. But you can't measure yourself today against that goal that may take you a year from now to attain. Right. So, I mean, I'm grateful for today. I'm grateful that I was able to show up to the gym 'cause I really didn't feel like it. That's a win, you know, so, just counting all those wins.
Just because, it'll make you want to keep going. And then quite frankly, a motivation's not always motivating. And sometimes we lose our motivation. So that's why I always go back to, at the bare minimum, we should be doing these things because it's good for your health, even on the days that you don't want to.
20 minutes. Right. I mean, even if it's just 20 minutes, you don't have to spend an hour or anything like that. And the goals are good. Again, we wanna be careful about the, the why behind our goals, just being honest with ourselves as well.
Stephanie Hodges: That's really good to be really looking at your goals and I, I think even just after having this conversation, I. It's easy to go back now and say, okay, I had these goals for how much to work out, or how much I think I should be working out. But really to look at the whys behind everything is so important.
And so I wanna end with giving some practical advice for people, because some people may have a gym they can go to, or like a style like yours where they have classes, they have training where they're gonna get walked through it, but if they're kind of on their own. They don't have that structure. What would you say would be a good program for someone who's beginning, just starting out, and then maybe one for someone who's a little bit more intermediate and doing some workouts, but maybe they're not really focused around what they're doing.
Amanda: For a beginner I, I'm a very visual person, so beginner for me, I would think of letter B. B is for beginner, so B would be for bands and body weight. That's kind of how I would see it. Right. So beginner meaning meeting I. There's a good potential I'm not very strong. And so bands are so incredibly easy to access.
They're, it's on Amazon. You can go to academy and by bands. They have some that are short and thick and they can easily fit around your legs. And then you have bands that look like very large rubber bands. But both of those provide wonderful resistance. So. I can do a full body workout with bands.
A lot of times too in the packaging it has exercises you could use for these bands. So I, again, beginner B is for beginner would also be keep it. B is for basic. Don't try to do too much at once. And so with the body weight movements I had mentioned are great too such as air squats. It's not under any load or anything, or with any weight, pushups pushups you can do off of a wall, you know, if, if that's where our beginning is at.
And that's okay. I. Anticipate to be sore, and that's okay. And the more that you work out, the less sore that you're gonna be. So as well as beginners, I would probably recommend about 48 hours in between working out just to let your body recover. So for a beginner, yeah, that's, I would stick to things like bands and body weight and then try to go 48 hours in between their workout, do the workout for about 20 minutes and everyone's brain is different.
So if you like variety take movements. Set that are on the exercise instructions for the bands. 'cause they will have them and I do simple stuff like write 'em on a piece of paper, cut those piece of papers out, draw from a cup or a hat, three of those papers, and do that on the days that you work out, right?
So now I'm not having to come up with it. Now I'm not having to think about it. But I have a pool, that I can pull from and, kind of randomize that. And then I think eventually, you know, you will start to learn, okay, you know, I like this better. I do believe in trying to find something that you don't just absolutely hate, but we also have to get out of this mindset of.
You know, I don't wanna do that, just like, but it's good for me, so I, I am going to do it. As far as intermediate goes, I mean, you could do a range of things as far as I could work out for 30 minutes a day, five days a week. If I choose to do that, I would alternate it with strength training and then other days, low impact, low intensity.
And just keep alternating those. That's how I follow. And then I do my weekends completely off. I know a lot of associations, will tell you like 150 minutes a week. Break that up. However, you know, you see fit, but again, this idea that you have to spend an hour, hour and a half in the gym if you don't want to.
It's not necessary. But I would never discourage someone if you enjoy being in the gym and it's been an hour more power to you. However, I still think that an hour is not high intensity. It should be a warmup, which is slowly getting your heart rate up at the beginning of that hour. 20 to 30 minutes is the actual working out.
And then the last part is, you know, mobility, stretching things like that. And so I just think that it's really hard to say, for intermediate, what they should be doing. 'cause it really does depend on your goal, you know? We do functional movements, CrossFit style movements, but that's not for everybody, you know?
So if you like Zumba. Perfect. Do Zumba and you can honestly have little weights in your hands. And that's, you're now in essence doing, you know, strength training. So I think,the key to it too is just exploring, you're a runner. I mean, that's fantastic, you know? And so yeah, I mean, I wish I could give like a more.
Definitive answer, but I do think it's just more important about being consistent in your working out. You have to put it on your schedule, your calendar, you, it is true. You have to make time. But I will say, say as statistically, it's nice to work out three days a week. And so something is better than nothing, period.
Yeah. However, to think three days a week, you know what ends up happening. You have four other days to change your mind. So it's like, ideally if you could work out five to seven days a week, that'd be awesome. And then do the math. That's 20 minutes a day. That's it. If I did it seven days a week, 20 minutes, that's not long at all.
That's a few sets of, squats. That's a few sets of of pushups. My son, if he plays video games when he loses, he does 50 pushups or whatever the case may be. You know, just something and it's not punishment. At all. That's not why he does it. He understands I'm playing video games, I'm sitting on my butt, right?
So I need to make sure I'm getting off and up and being active. Which, again, is the other, I would say, benefit of strength training and working out is now you're setting the example. Right. If you have kids or whoever is in your circle of influence, you can influence them to even improve their overall health as well.
And of hopefully the, the, the thing that becomes is it's not even an option for you to, it's not optional to work out anymore. It just is a part of your life. It's not about punishment. It's not about being miserable. It is about being healthy overall. And as I mentioned, just being a good steward of what God has blessed you with.
Stephanie Hodges: Amanda, I love what you said about the consistency and it really is so true. It's like it's very easy when you're only working out a couple days a week to get sick or to have something come up with your schedule. And so taking that little piece, if it's 20 to 30 minutes, but it's something that you're doing every day and you build it into your routine.
Like that's such good advice for sticking with it, and I think really encouraging for everybody. I know everybody's busy, but that 20 to 30 minutes a day, you know, finding the time to do that is a good priority to have. So we're gonna make sure that we link in the show notes to. The social media for your gym.
I know if people are in the Round Rock, Texas area, they should be checking it out. But even if you're far away, you can watch social media and just get a feel for their gym culture and their workouts. And I think that would really benefit everybody. And I'd love to end with a, a final question because you are such an encourager to women in, in all that you do inside and outside of the gym.
And so if you could go back and give some advice to your 25-year-old self, what would it be?
Amanda: Oh man. 25-year-old self. It would, I was a believer by then not very long. So the thing that comes to my mind, honestly is just wait. Just wait. You tell me 25, I, there's no desire in me to go back to being 25. I was younger, I was stronger, I was faster, and I think physically. But, oh my goodness, I have so much enjoyed every year that I've gotten older walking longer with Christ and just growing in wisdom and joy by just learning more about myself and what God has called me to be.
So at 25, that's, I think I would say just wait. Just wait. 'cause I was so new to the faith and I hadn't changed much, much about my life at that point, so I was still hurting a lot. so yeah, just wait because what God has blessed me with is so much more
Stephanie Hodges: Yeah, it gets better and better.
Amanda: does. It really does.
Stephanie Hodges: Well, that's great. Well, thank you again Amanda, so much for being with us today, and we just wish you the best in your gym and all that you guys are doing and that that would just continue to grow and to impact more and more people for the better.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Wholly Well Journey podcast. Please be sure to subscribe and you can also head over to whollywelljourney. com to check out the show notes and the whole podcast library. That's also where you'll find information about our health and wellness coaching, which you can participate in online from wherever you are in the world.
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