Midlife Strength Training Myths Busted with Jennifer Kirsch

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If you are hearing lift heavy shouted from the rooftops and you feel fear of injury or simply the inability to comply, this is your episode. Consider your midlife strength training myths Busted! Strength training should be a non-negotiable for women in midlife, menopause, or after. Yet midlife women still tend to believe in long-existing myths related to them or strength training. And might I add, fairy tales like that you have to, or you can, have muscle tone without muscle. That you can lose fat without muscle, and most of all, that you can age well without muscle.

By the end of this episode, my hope and my guess—

so you will identify and consider any current midlife strength training myths busted. For decades, the fitness industry has been featured— thinness, sex appeal, bare-bellied 22-year-olds to promote fitness, there's been much less talk about health, longevity, and disease prevention. Maybe until now. There's been no talk about hormone balancing support, and we're unpacking it all today.

My guest, Jennifer Kirsch, is a personal trainer and nutrition coach specializing in helping women 50 and over build strength, confidence, and consistent through simple, effective workouts.

With nearly 30 years of experience, she's passionate about empowering women to feel their best at every stage of life.

I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions and about fitness in menopause and beyond before you knew to ask them. The goal to help accelerate your results with science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. And it's not just about you, but the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, and an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the scenes and the science of optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve.

Jennifer Kirsch, welcome to Flipping 50. Thank you so much for being here.

Debra, thank you so much for asking me on. I'm excited to chat with you.

Well, and for everybody who's here and listening, this literally is the first time we've met other than virtually and kind of in passing, like many of you potentially with either one of us in, you know, timeline scrolling and there we are and it's like, huh. You know, because we're paying attention to this. So I'm thrilled to be here and chatting with you. And let's just be very transparent about the way that this podcast interview came about. So Jennifer posted something and I immediately shared it to my story because I was like, are you paying attention to this? All of you, meaning all of you who are listening, you're walking, you're lifting, you're driving right now, that there is this gap right now in information we have available. And it's kind of like this saying, just because it's there doesn't mean you should use it. You know, if there's a machine in the gym, it doesn't mean you just go station to station blindly using it. Does it fit your need, your priority, and your status? And that's really what this conversation is about, if we can talk about it. So Before we dive into the nuts and bolts of why we're here and that, tell us a little bit more about you. Tell me a little bit more about you. So we're at a party fighting over the shrimp cocktail and I say, what do you do? And you would answer what?

Sometimes I don't want to admit what I do because then people have to feel like they have to apologize for whatever it is they're doing. No, but I have, I, yeah, so I, I have been a personal trainer for almost 30 years. This year will be 30 years in group fitness and I got started basically, interestingly enough, When I got out of college, I was a communications major. I had my kids really young, and I wasn't ready to go full time into work. I wanted to stay at home. I had the fortunate— the good fortune of being able to stay home with my son. But it was like, I want to do something, and I really love fitness. So anyway, long and the short of it, I started teaching group fitness, got certified certainly right thereafter, and then just continued to build on my education from there. So that was 1995. And actually, back in college, I worked in a gym just like at the front desk, and I had been around it and I always loved it. But, you know, back in the '90s, was it— I don't even remember there being personal trainers. I don't remember there being people say, oh, when I grow up, I want to be a personal trainer.

Yeah.

No, like, like right now I'm floored that people say now I want to be an influencer. I'm like, what? Are you serious? It is a thing.

Oh my God.

So a couple things just here. First of all, communications major. What an asset to end up being a teacher, but also being a trainer and dealing with the emotions that come with applying the science. It's so good. And I would say that one of the hardest things we do is, you know, it's in any job working with people, right? One of the best things, one of the hardest things, one of the— yeah, it's communicating. And so I love that. And I would say to your, you know, you just worked at the front desk. Yeah, no, because everybody knows that desk runs the show.

Yeah, they know everything in the early, in the early morning shift, no less, you know, 5 AM. And, and definitely. But yeah, so I've worn a lot of hats. I was a fitness director for a while, and then I would say since about 2005, 2006, I really started to niche heavily into the over-50 space. And only, not even not even— it wasn't necessarily a thoughtful career move, it just sort of happened. Meaning I was working in a boutique studio, and typically what happens in a boutique studio is there's a certain financial component to that, right? It's not a big box gym, so the people that can afford your services tend to have a little bit more disposable income. So I was starting to get all of these women who were late 40s, early 50s, whose kids had left home, and they were like, it's time, it's me time, I want to take care of myself, I want to learn how to do this properly, I, I have weight to lose. And, you know, really up until then, all they had be done as maybe, you know, maybe a little Pilates or basic, you know, aerobics classes at the gym, that kind of thing. And they wanted real training. So, you know, I remember sort of looking up a couple years after that, maybe 2010, the year I turned 40, and I looked at my book and I was like, so the average age of my clients is 55 years old. All of— I had a couple of men in there, but mostly women. And I was like, wow, isn't that interesting? But I love that you said that piece about communication because I think one of the things that has led to my longevity, my interest, and also some success brick and mortar, but maybe even also online, is that I've had a front row seat to what you are going through at this time of life. I get it. Even before I was there, I was starting to get it. So I've always been a little bit younger than my clients, but not that much younger. I'm 54 now. So I feel like I got a lot. I got a crash course in things that you really didn't learn with your personal training cert.

Mm-hmm. So true. And we should say that right now, that for both consumers and for those of you who I know are health coaches or fitness instructors and trainers listening, you know, if you don't know or you feel like, I, I'm at a loss for how to help my client— and often that first shows up when you feel like an imposter because you can't help yourself, right? You don't get this in a basic certification, and you don't get it in a 4-year degree. I know because I write the exam questions for certifications and I taught for 15 years in kinesiology. We didn't, we didn't mention the word menopause, not one time ever. We don't talk about the difference between hormones training males and females and a disservice. And hopefully this is turning around right now because more people like me are saying out loud, we don't do this. Even doctors are saying I'm an OB-GYN and we don't talk about menopause. We weren't trained. I'm like, what? How can that be? How's that possible? Yeah, yeah. So I love, love, love what you're talking about, and I want to unpack this for everybody listening, that there's a gap, right? There are most common misconceptions that we're going to bust through, but I think they're on two sides. There may be consumer misconceptions, but now all of a sudden we've got some new science emerging in the last couple of years about what's true for bone density now, what's true for gaining strength and aging much better. But where's the gap? So we'll just give it to them right away. Where do you and I agree right here that there is a gap?

I think, well, I think my whole— well, how we found each other, how we found each other, and you found that post was I kind of— I said something maybe that might have come across a little flippant, but really it was, it was actually come— came out of something I said to a colleague. Was like, since when all of a sudden are menopause doctors like experts on strength training? And I think that's exactly how I said it. And I thought, yeah, I'm going to make a post out of that. Because listen, I think first and foremost, I think it's wonderful that we're having this conversation, that it's so— even 10 years ago, Debra, I feel like there was like shame around menopause, like not even the change, or, you know, or women were like, my clients were like, yeah, I think I need to go on hormones, you know, like embarrassed about talking about. Now it's like no big deal. So for that, I think it's been amazing. But with anything, and I'm sure you can agree, in the fitness space, gosh, every 5 years there's a new it moment with whether it's diet or exercise. It's like with the diet, it's either gluten-free or vegan or cleanses or keto. And then in the exercise front, it goes from Pilates, yoga, HIIT training, and on and on it goes. And I think being in the industry as long as I have, I'm sort of used to these cycles. And I feel like right now menopause is absolutely having a moment. And on one hand, yes, I think it's awesome that we're talking about it, but it's also an opportunity for money to be made. And that is one of the things that I see, that I, I see it being capitalized upon, and people who are maybe not experts in exercise talking about that. And maybe I wouldn't say deliberately misleading people, because we all know social media is based on sound bites, So unless a person, a consumer goes and does a deeper dive and listens to podcasts like yours or reads books, they're maybe not going to know. They're maybe going to hear women need to lift heavy, low rep ranges, heavy weight, and go, am I doing that? Am I doing the wrong thing? What am I doing? And I get DMs and comments like that in my feed all the time. Women are questioning themselves, and I feel like, well, let's back up and lend some context. And unfortunately, in social media, lending context is tough because that's not what gets the likes, and it's not what gets the shares, and it's not what people stop to read, generally speaking. So unless the consumer wants to really do a deeper dive, they might be coming up pretty confused, and that is not really what we want.

Yeah, I love that. And I think what you point out is our consumers, and that's ourselves if we're in anything, we know enough to be dangerous. And so we get that soundbite and then we run with it. But we're making decisions like really too quickly or judging too quickly. And why is it that women often ask this question? Am I doing it wrong? Why do we assume it's us? You're right. Like, wait a minute, maybe the comment was thrown out by someone else a little too flippantly. And maybe they took one 10-minute soundbite out of a 2-hour interview and you don't know what came before or after it, and, and you're missing a few pieces. But to your point, I think it is most definitely what a couple of friends and colleagues coined is the menopause gold rush, you know. And yes, we're having more conversations than ever before, and that is awesome. And, and hopefully it will benefit our 20 and 30-somethings most of all, you know, because we're learning it in the middle. If they learn it earlier, they'll be hopefully doing preventative things, although I have to ask myself sometimes, will they? Would my 30-something self have listened to me? I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know. You don't know what you don't know. And it's funny that you said that because I thought to myself, I was like, maybe I'll rebrand myself for the 30-something crowd and say, hey girls, right? This is what you need to do. You know, but all kidding aside, yeah, I do. I agree with you. The gold rush. And that's part I see taking place too. And, you know, on one hand, I think it's wonderful that there are knowledgeable folks writing books. And, you know, there are many books now available in the past 3 years that if you want to get your hands on, which is great. I've read them too. I always laugh when somebody says, you know, did you read this? I'm like, of course. I'm trying to stay on the pulse of everything. A lot of it, you know, there's like with anything with exercise and nutrition science, new things come to light. And so there is some of that, but historically, there hasn't been a lot of research. On midlife women. And so we're left sort of guessing. I know for me, doing the research that I have done, but also real life practice is where I— it's back to what you were saying before. There's certain things that can't be taught on an exam. And so I'm thinking more so from the stress piece in the orthopedic place where my mind goes first, like life stressors at a time where your body is not as resilient to stress. It's like a perfect storm. So we'd have these women come in and look for change in their bodies, but like realizing there's so many other things going on in this individual's life that again, that's not showing up in your personal trainer manual. Nobody's giving you the playbook on how to deal with it.

So yeah, that's exactly right. And I think the thing that you also in your post got back to is we are maybe not taking, or some of these women who want to jump ahead and go right to, I'm going to be doing the ideal prescription for bone density that now we know, which is like 5 sets of 5 reps. So by the way, everybody, that's not a suggestion. If you're just off the couch right now, that's not where you go, you know, but that takes months to get to that point, if not years. And some people never get there. And if you go slow enough, you will realize where's the point where you can't go there, can't go any further without risking injury. So we have to weigh that risk-reward. But I think the onboarding and the level of— we used to say 6 to 8 weeks, you know, is that first 6 to 8 weeks. It's all about the neural connection, your brain benefiting, and you can't rush that. By lifting heavier weights. So why do that and risk an injury? But for women in midlife now losing estrogen levels, we know injury risk goes up. I'm sure you've seen it in working with midlife.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Yep.

Right.

So talk about— you came to the conclusion that, you know, in what you've seen anecdotally that building that foundation and taking a longer time to do it and just solidify it like you were building a house is so important. So describe to maybe a beginner or somebody who's even intermediate or more experienced who keeps getting injured what you mean by that.

Well, it's exactly what you said. It's 6 to 8 weeks of that neuromuscular connection, mind-body connect, especially for somebody who doesn't have maybe the best body awareness or hasn't had much experience with moving your body in a classical strength training style, right? We, we, we know that it's a skill and it takes time to learn. So there's that one piece. And then it takes time and practice and repetition. And then, then you can start to increase loads. I think what I always endeavor to do as a trainer is to really teach people also how to recognize where they can push themselves and where they can't. Because I also think on the flip side of this, traditionally, women of this generation— when I say this generation, I mean like 50-plus— weren't necessarily encouraged to push their bodies athletically. We're definitely wired, I think, more about like women for the most— I would say this is more— and feel free if somebody wants to disagree with this, but I feel like I think women in general have been prompted into the exercise realm more based from vanity first as opposed to performance and thinking about, to your point, like when you're 30, You're not thinking about your bone density. You're just thinking how you look in your jeans. And I get that. And I think to say that a woman in her 50s or 60s doesn't care about that is also not true. However, backing it up, I think we can't skip steps. We need to build the foundation. And honestly, I think in my experience, I think women do get into— I trained a lot of folks in their 60s, 70s. I even have clients in their 80s now. Who are training like athletes that are aging, but they're training like athletes. But we didn't get there overnight, right? We started with movement patterns, me as the trainer recognizing where their compensatory patterns were that, okay, we don't want to load that. We need to work on this. And honestly, sometimes my clients didn't want to exactly know what I was doing. They would just trust me and say, hey, I know this thing you don't want to work on. We're going to work on it because I think it's going to help you. But all that's to say, I think it just takes being discerning. But do I think that can be taught to a beginner? Yes, absolutely. But we have to, we have to walk before we can run, you know, meaning we have to work with lighter loads, get the repetition and the practice, and before we begin to start loading. But I, you know, we know as far as bone density, what we, what we know really simply is that it's the, you know, the shorter, more intense variations of exercises could also include jumping. That load the bone, very simply put. But, you know, not everybody is ready for that. So we might have to work on the other stuff. There's a difference between— if your audience knows the difference between slow twitch and fast twitch muscle fibers— a fast twitch is that more— think, think sprinting, think jumping, think heavy lifting, whereas slow twitch is endurance, lighter weights, lots of repetitions. Both have utility and both have benefit. But the fast twitch is the one that supports the bone density. So that's the one we want to— and that's the first one that unfortunately we lose as we, as we do age, right?

Yeah, twice as fast actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did a whole like media circuit in 2019 before, before the pandemic hit. That was a busy year and nobody was talking about fast twitch yet, you know, and, and that's why it was so popular. It was like I was like, what, are you kidding me? This is what I need to be doing? You know, because everything prior to that had been, like you said earlier, everything goes in cycles, you know, and everybody was talking about super slow.

Oh yeah, I remember that. But it makes sense too, right? Because if you think about it, a heavier or heavy-ish load, if the time under tension is increased, right?

Yeah. And to some extent, even lifting heavily slowly will increase your fast-twitch muscle fiber. But moving slow like that as the only way to get it won't increase your reaction skills. So when there are slips and trips, there will be more likely to be falls.

Yeah, I love that you said that. And I have a theory. We're talking about things in cycles. I think, yes, we're talking about heavy lifting right now, but I think that the next sort of 5-year thing is going to be about balance and mobility because that's something that I feel like is getting lost in the strength training conversation. And I use the analogy like, listen, if we're getting into the stage of like my daughter's getting married this year, she wants to have children. If I'm going to be squatting down and picking up an 18-month-old off the ground, I'm going to need to have not just the strength, but the mobility also to do that safely. Mm-hmm. Right.

Yeah. Amen.

Yeah.

And I think you're exactly right, because we're going right to build muscle to get menopause because we're concerned first and foremost about how we look. And just a little side note, so my mom has passed, but when she was 87, she'd had two— or she'd had a hip replacement, just one at that point. But I was home for a weekend and she was saying You know, if you have some time this weekend, do you think you could help me with some exercises for this? She pats her belly. I'm like, you got a hip replacement. Yeah, you got, you know, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and you want to work on that? I'm like, it's never going to end, is it?

You know, my grandmother did that too. She was like, I remember she was 90 in the nursing home and she was like, my hip, do these pants make my hips look wide? I'm like, okay, here we go. But we have to maintain our sense of humor about this too, because ultimately, women are vain beings, I think, and that's okay.

And that's so true. And it's like, okay, we just have to meet ourselves where we are. So it really doesn't matter. Jennifer and I don't care what motivates you, because it's a two-for-one. You, you get motivated for the vanity, you're gonna get the health benefits. So we're all good with this.

We're good.

We're fine.

Yeah, usually works itself out.

That's what I always say.

If you're doing the right things, your body, the way your body looks oftentimes will fall into place.

Yeah, it is so true. And yeah, I absolutely love that concept of mobility and balance. And I do think we're rushing ahead. We're going for the big things. We've become a little bit— if you think of it, we've become a little bit like guys going for the mirror muscles. Like, we're going for the— give me the quick fix, you know. I want, I want bone density, I want my DEXA scan to turn around because that's the biggest source of fear, potentially, for a lot of women. And I want to look better, and I see other women doing this, so I want recomposition. It seems to be one of the words that's emerging too, right? So let's talk about moderate rep ranges. And first of all, maybe we should define that for everybody listening, but then talk about why you think moderate rep ranges work well for women in menopause and why this is so different and distinct from some of the other advice going around?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, listen, what the, what they, what the studies say is that, that moderate rep ranges of 6, I believe, up to 30 reps, as long as you are working that muscle within momentary muscular fatigue, that is enough for muscular hypertrophy. Will it make you strong as heck? Maybe not. Maybe not. But it can build muscle. And if the goal is building muscle, then that tells me that we can do that. And oftentimes we can do that more safely. We can do that with the recovery time is not as long. I know that for myself and even reports back from my clients is that heavy bouts of lifting end up even when done safely, the recovery time needed to come back from that seems like it takes a little bit too long. And so for me, I want my clients to just be consistent. Because I'm thinking to myself, I would rather you be consistent and work out, work out like 3 days a week, get strength training 3 days a week, than be so sore that you can't maintain that consistency either because you need longer to recover or you get injured. And as we said, injuries, especially tendon injuries, are so much more common once your estrogen drops. So it's like to me it isn't worth the risk of that. That's on a personal note for me. But I will just say I will just say, you know, I do think that lifting heavy is right with the right person, but I'm seeing less and less evidence of it being the right thing for most, unless, unless a female's had like a very extensive athletic career. I feel like for the average general female, I'm not seeing that we're getting to that. But back to your question, what's moderate? It's kind of like when I say what's heavy, what's heavy for you? It has to do with where that muscle fatigues.

Mm-hmm.

Right. So where, you know, if you are saying rep range of 15, like if you're 15 and you're on autopilot, that's one thing. But if you're 15 and you're struggling for that last 3 with still good form, that's probably your sweet spot.

Yeah, I love that. And you've now made it so much more accessible to everybody, right? So I think everybody can like breathe a sigh of relief. Like maybe you don't need just 6 reps, maybe you, you know, can reach fatigue at 12 or 15 or even 20 and still be okay and within range. So some of you have this dual-edged sword thing going on, right? You need enough stimulus to help your bone, and you have arthritic joints. So those are two opposite ends of the continuum when we're talking about lifting a few more reps, lighter weight, would be better for the arthritis so we don't trigger it. And we're not talking more, more, more. There's a point where we also cause wear and tear damage. But for those of you that want bone density, that's where we're typically talking heavy. But I want to come back to this. So I personally professionally wrestle with this one just a little. I, I know some of the recent studies since 2016, we're hearing You know, 5 times 5 reps actually builds bone density. We've seen in our programs reversing bone loss, but not even with that heavy. We've seen it with, with less heavy, more moderate. And, you know, when we say lifting heavy is still the best, maybe or maybe not. But like you said, if risk of injury goes up, is that worth it for us? And if we know, and we do, that 12 minutes of yoga a day helps bone density over longitudinal studies every year for 7 years, we've seen increase by about 1% on average, then we have to look at that and say, well, then probably lifting moderately would actually help because this is just my body weight. In a warrior pose. That's helping with hyperintensity. So it's interesting that we have to be open to not being right, you know, or defending what we always thought, but being willing to say, you know, science is saying this, we have to question, you know, what is right. But above all, whatever we're doing, we have to do it injury-free, right?

And I think— I'm glad that you said that too about the yoga piece. And I think also too back to the arthritis, I am somebody that I have had both of my hips replaced. And I struggled with chronic pain and arthritis for many years. And I'll tell you, it's debilitating, especially in my line of work. And so I, you know, extreme end ranges, not good. Too much load, also not good. So for me personally, my personal programming, I tend to stick in the moderate range. I tend to use a lot of isometric type training to build the strength without putting my joints through that constant range of motion, too much compression, all of that. Again, that's because I sort of— I guess because I know how to do that, meaning professionally, I understand how to maybe do my own programming. But all this to say, it has served me well with my clients who, again, with an aging population, hip replacements, knee replacement, shoulder replacements, ankle replacements, just a lot more commonplace. And so on one hand, isn't it wonderful that we have these prosthetics that can help us go through the rest of our lives a little more functional and a lot less pain-free? However, however, you know, we still need to surround, we need, still need to strengthen the muscles that surround these artificial joints. So the, the need to strength train doesn't go away just because you had a joint replacement. In fact, I would say, I would argue just the opposite.

Yeah. Yeah. So much. And, and I love that you shared that because I think it's such an asset. I, I, nobody listening, if you're a trainer, don't go to those extremes just to, just to be a better trainer, but Jennifer, I think it makes you such a better trainer because number one, now you have the empathy, you've gone through the pain, you know what that's like. You probably know how hard it was to make that decision. Like, is now the right time for me to do it or should I wait? And, and the post rehab and having been through it, you're, you know, so much further ahead than somebody who simply has studied how to do it. So yeah. So anybody who's had or is thinking about a hip replacement. By the way, we'll have all the places to connect with Jennifer at the end of the show. But, you know, I think that's always a great place to start. What would you say to anybody who's listening? And by the way, if you're listening and you're a veteran, you listened for a long time and you are an active woman, please share this with a woman who might, who might need just a little push, a nudge, you know, or, or a boot, whatever. But what would you say to somebody who feels overwhelmed intimidated by, number one, the vast amount of information that probably feels conflicting about what to do, but how to start strength training later in life when you feel like a fish out of water, maybe in that area?

Yeah, I love— well, it's two questions there. Let me first start with the fact, you know, we live in a time where we have more places to get information and media than ever before. And along— we open the conversation with this— and along with that is a lot of flashy sound bites I say steer clear of anybody who's yelling at you, pointing their finger, the secrets they won't tell you, like all of the clickbaity stuff. Just shut that noise off. I think people that speak with a measured tone and even like Debra said, we're learning new things. We have to ask questions. I personally think that you want to follow people who are willing to also entertain the ideas of others and not just stick to their own agenda. So how do you separate that? That's how I would separate it. And so I do separate it. But for the second piece, how do you get started? Very slowly. There are so many great— I would say the other— on the plus side of media is it's allowed somebody like me who's just a regular trainer with a lot of experience to put myself out there and grow. Like create a membership, all of those things where I've been able to support women. So that's been amazing. The impact has been beyond my wildest dreams. But I do think there are some great free resources to start. So if you're like, literally don't want to spend a dime, there are some wonderful— I have freebies. I know Debra does too. That's a good place to start. If it's within your budget, I would hire a personal trainer. And I would also look for a trainer who's closer to your age. And one wonderful thing about people working later in life, like, Do you remember it used to be that people retire at 55? I don't— I was like, that means I'd be retiring in a year. I don't think that's going to happen. But I think there are a lot of women and men that are coming to this as a second career, as I have noticed. And I think that's awesome. While they might not have the on-the-floor experience, oftentimes they've been through their own transformation that gives them a degree of empathy to share with you. So I'm like, that, again, as we said, is not something that can be taught. It's something that's innate. But I do think it makes wonderful coaches. That, you know, even better if they're surrounded by, you know, maybe more senior mentors where they can ask questions. I know that was the case for me when I was younger. I shared studio space with a physical therapist. I learned a ton, a ton.

I so love that you've brought that up too. And we have a lot of second career women coming into the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. And I think the other thing that I I don't know that I have thought about until you said it is women who come in at that point don't feel like they have to know it all. They're very comfortable and confident asking questions of a mentor or going to find answers or saying to a client, I don't know, I'll get back to you. And I think in other areas, maybe with a younger trainer, and I don't mean to throw stereotypically all young trainers under the bus, cuz I like to think I was a wiser youth too. But, you know, I think sometimes you feel pressure and don't wanna admit that you don't know because you feel you should when you're younger. And by the time you hit midlife, you realize, oh gosh, I'm never going to have all the answers.

No, I know. Isn't that a wonderful thing? I mean, what you just said there brought me back to when I was 27 years old training. I was like third year personal trainer and I was training every demographic under the sun and I felt like I had to do it all and really put a lot of pressure on myself. But now, and even here, 29 years, I still don't know everything. I mean, if I have a question about a client, an orthopedic issue, I have people. To either call or refer my client to, which is lovely. But also is I got my ego out of the way. And I also have networked over the years, so I know the people that I trust and that I would want to refer. So all of that to say, yeah, I think it's definitely an asset. I don't know that I thought that way when I was in my 40s. I thought, oh, am I going to age out of this career? But if anything, it just revived me because We're an aging population. We're living, we're living longer. We have, you know, lots of things to keep us on this planet longer. I, I for one want to live my body, live in my body as healthfully as possible. It's not, you know, what's that saying that says it's not the, the, the years of your life, but the life in your years. So, you know, what, what do you want your 80s and 90s to look like? Should you be able to make it that far? Hopefully, hopefully. You know, you're in a good, a good spot, at least as far as how your body is functioning.

So I love that. Okay, I have one final question for you. Yeah, two, but the last— okay, okay. If I said you have to choose, which would you rather age gracefully or age racefully?

Racefully with a— oh, number two. Yay.

Okay. Yeah, we can, we can play together. Okay, good. I like that.

10 years ago. Right.

All right.

I love that.

Now, the, the other question is, Jennifer, where can everybody find you? Name all the social places where you are most prevalent and your site, please.

Yeah, great. So very easy. So my website is jenniferkirchfitness.com and my Instagram is @JenniferCourageFitness, as is my Facebook account. And those are the only 3 places I am. I have a little teeny YouTube channel, but I don't really post much there. But that could change in the next year or 2. So free, free content over there. But I have some freebies if you want to check out my website or hit me up on Instagram. Happy to help you out and point you in the right direction.

So good. It's been delightful to talk to you. Thank you so much. Thank you. The links to catch up with Jennifer will be on the show notes, so be sure to hit us up. And if you would do me one favor, if this has been valuable, you got some insight, and/or you just got some laughs, if you would share this with at least one friend, thank you so much to spread the word so that everybody can start Flipping 50 together.

Thank you for listening. To listen to a decade of episodes and, to get the show notes, visit flipping50.com where you'll be able to find all the previous episodes. And I made it super easy to make the most of your listening time and get exactly what you want to listen to as top priority by getting the top 10 episodes in the areas you most care about, like how much protein do you need, weight loss, and other 3 ultra important topics we've identified as our community's top 5. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife women. So go and listen right now. Do you have a question for a podcast? A question you would love to ask, or maybe a story you want to tell? Did you know we have a special group just for podcast question roundups and the answers? My community coaches and I provide answers daily inside of this group, but it's also where I go when I occasionally say, okay, open call for podcast questions, or tell your story. Would you like to be a So if you're looking for a community of women who are also interested in optimizing their health, strengthening their mindset, and looking forward to every new year, join the Flipping 50 Insiders group. That's Flipping 50 Insiders on Facebook.