Why and how I started lifting heavy things, Part 1

It took a while, but now I get all the hype. Part 1 of a 2 part series about my strength training ~journey~.

This turned into a two-parter. Here In Part 1, I’ll give you a brief history of my relationship with exercise and what led me to start strength training. I’ll also share the equipment I got, my routine, and what did and didn’t work for me initially.

In Part 2, I’ll talk about moving on from my beloved personal trainer, joining a gym for the first time in a long time, and what this practice has meant for me mentally.

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A brief history of my relationship to exercise and my body.

I played sports for most of my childhood. In junior high and high school I played softball, basketball, and volleyball (my fave). I wasn’t like an all-star athlete, but I was athletic and felt comfortable in my body playing sports.

When my senior year volleyball season ended and there were no sports seasons ahead of me, I started running. This coincided with developing an eating disorder, so exercise became about calories out and being as small as possible. Although I’d never liked running before then, I started to run 3, 5, 7 miles at a time. I loved the freedom to do it anywhere, the way it made me feel (even though it always hurt my body), and that it was a surefire way to tame my anxiety. Running became my primary coping mechanism for the next twenty years. I’ve run two Boston marathons and countless shorter races.

I’d “tried” to get into lifting weights at various points in my life: in college, I’d cruise around the gym with my friends, randomly doing machines; before I got married, I got into it for a few weeks because I bought a book called Buff Brides. I know. Look at this cover.

I just…

Throughout my thirties, I occasionally picked up a weight when working out at a gym, but I always felt awkward, intimidated, or bored. In 2019, I joined a local CrossFit gym, but when lockdowns started, I only lasted a couple of months doing the workouts on Zoom before I quit. I never truly felt comfortable in that scene, anyway.

I got a Peloton bike in the spring of 2020, and God bless that thing for saving my life. Over the next two years, I mainly rode it, played volleyball occasionally, and—when the weather was nice enough—walked outside. Overall, though, my activity level decreased significantly after 2020 because I’d moved to a less walkable town. Previously, I’d walked everywhere, even when the weather wasn’t great: to friends’ houses, coffee shops, restaurants, the grocery store, etc., and it took me a while to realize that wasn’t happening anymore.

By 2022, everything hurt all the time. My body constantly ached, new joints were popping and cracking, and I was more tired and sluggish than ever. I’d started to read about perimenopause (I was 44 then), and article after article talked about how imperative weightlifting was in those years, but eh. How? I didn’t want to join a gym again. There were a few dumbells lying around the house, but that was it.

Enter kettlebells (& more)

In the early summer of 2022, I posted something to Instagram about returning to running. I thought maybe if I could rekindle that love, I’d feel good again. A little angel named

Anne Reuss

commented and said she’d love to teach me how to swing a kettlebell.

For whatever reason, I clicked on her profile (her IG videos were so funny, and I loved her energy), then immediately went to her website and filled out her new client contact form.

We corresponded, and she told me how it worked. We’d do an intro session on Zoom so she could see my movements and be sure we were a fit. Then, she’d coach me virtually over Zoom for as long as I needed or wanted. Once I felt ready, she would send me programmed workouts each week, and we’d text with questions on form, videos (she asked for lots of them!), corrections, etc. I signed up immediately.

We had our first session in July. Beforehand, I decided to invest in some equipment. I got:

• Three sets (pairs) of these kettlebells: 8kg, 12kg, and 16kg. I’ve only recently needed to add a heavier pair; these got me far.

• A pair of 10lb, 15lb, and 25lb dumbbells. (I already had 20s in the house.) Later, I’d add 30lb and 35lb ones.

• A weight rack because the workout space was small, and everything on the floor was a mess—it made a world of difference.

• Eventually, I got these weightlifting gloves because I needed help with my grip when my hands got sweaty.

The early days routine

I started out slow: Anne programmed two full-body workouts a week, with an optional third workout if I wanted. My goals were to increase energy, overall strength and tone, and yes, I was afraid of “bulking up” at first (she assured me I would not). Each workout took 35-50 minutes depending on how quickly I wanted to move through it, and Anne is a master of keeping it fresh and fun, which my Enneagram 7 brain loved.

Here are a couple of my earliest videos for Anne. This was before I got the weight rack. Chaos!

I typically did the workouts a few days apart, maybe one on Monday or Tuesday and one on Thursday or Friday, but sometimes the week would get away from me and I’d do them both on the weekend. I’d say half the time, I did the optional third workout. Anne affirmed that it didn’t matter, and this flexibility and spaciousness kept me with her. For whatever reason, I get annoyed by too much “hard” energy. Maybe it’s because I have enough myself? Either way, it worked, and I kept going.

We kept this cadence of 2-3/week for over six months, maybe more. It was an incredibly busy time for me as I was working up to the launch of Push Off in March of 2023, so my reserves were low. I let Anne know when I would be traveling and she’d program workouts based on what I’d have available: if I’d be staying in a hotel with a gym, we’d have more equipment to play with, yay! If it was an Airbnb, she’d program bodyweight workouts.

What worked, what didn’t

What worked:

• Having someone to guide me and cheer me on. I know I wouldn’t have stuck with it without Anne. If you can’t afford a personal trainer, get a workout buddy who’s genuinely committed and put together a program via YouTube, Peloton, or similar.

• Going very slow. Like I said, just two days a week for many months. It felt like so little, but it wasn’t.

• A de-load week once a month with no weight workouts. We started this a couple of months in and it worked wonders. We timed this with my cycle, so the week of my period, I didn’t do any weights—just walking, light cardio, and resting. I came back after those weeks feeling ready and rested.

• Mixing it up. I like variety and things that challenge both my brain and body. Anne was great at this.

• Investing in equipment. If you belong to a gym, you don’t have to worry about this, but I worked out at home, and although it felt like a big investment, it was 10,000% worth it.

• Tons of walking. I kept up my Peloton workouts, hiking in the warmer months, and occasional volleyball, but walking has been the best complement to this training. Plus, it’s a miracle for my brain.

• Less is more. While I did a lot of walking, weather permitting, I didn’t keep up with my other cardio workouts at the same cadence. Instead of 45-minute or 60-minute Peloton rides, I did 20-minute and 30-minute ones a couple of times a week. I also started doing Yin yoga (Peloton) at night. I worried about doing less cardio, but, y’all…nothing bad happened. In fact, I felt better.

What didn’t work:

• Focusing on “results” instead of how I felt. My body didn’t change much for a while, at least not in ways I could see. But I felt better immediately. Focusing on that kept me in it.

• Making huge changes to my eating. I went through a few phases of trying to get really strict about my eating (because why do all this work if I’m not eating “right”?!), and it didn’t work. It will never work for me—when will I learn? (I can see now this was about other things, but that’s a different topic.) Making small changes incrementally is the only way I can do anything sustainably here, e.g., increasing daily protein, and over time, I’ve built up supportive habits.

That’s it for now! What questions do you have? (I can’t answer questions about Anne’s pricing, btw; you’ll have to inquire with her.) If you’ve gone this route, what's your experience been?

Part 2 is coming next week, and it’ll be for paid subscribers.

Laura

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life and Push Off from Here: 9 Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (and Everything Else).

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