In this episode Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, leads Day 25 of a 30‑day healthy‑habits challenge. She challenges listeners to incorporate a short (10‑15 minute) strength or stability session that requires no equipment. Cheryl explains why strength training is crucial for functional health, healthy aging, bone density, and preventing sarcopenia, arguing it can be more impactful than cardio for long‑term health. She outlines two scheduling models – a daily 15‑minute routine or two longer sessions per week – and stresses that consistency builds habit. Practical exercise ideas are provided: bodyweight squats, sit‑to‑stand, hip‑hinge movements using household items, push‑ups (or wall push‑ups), wall sits, and single‑leg balance drills. She advises choosing a load that feels “heavy enough” to trigger muscle growth (6‑12 reps range) and warns against using weights that are too light. Cheryl acknowledges common barriers, especially for women (fear of heavy lifting, time constraints, bone loss concerns), and encourages listeners to step out of their comfort zone, use online videos for form guidance, or hire a trainer if needed. The episode ends with a reminder to sign up for the email list, visit the show notes, and a medical disclaimer.
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Hey everyone, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, and welcome to Day 25 of your 30-Day Healthy Habits Challenge. This is one I've been waiting for to send to the very end here, uh, the last few days, and that is to challenge you to do a short strength or stability session. So this is not going to require any equipment, it's not going to require going to the gym or anything like that, but I just want you to try it if this is something that you don't do on a regular basis, because strength training has just so related to so many aspects of health. There's more and more stuff coming about all the time. It is maybe more important than strict cardio for a lot of reasons, but it supports, again, functional health, just moving around on a day-to-day basis. And it's a lot of longer-term, uh, less health risk when you strength train. So strength and stability, it all supports healthy aging. It supports of course confidence and just again, your function in daily life. I always say, you know, I'm training to be able to get off the toilet by myself when I get older, because these are the kind of things that people lose the ability to do cuz they lose the strength in their legs. And that is just crazy scary. Also short, short sessions are easier to maintain and it builds this consistency, which is an awesome thing for habit building. I've actually been following along with this other podcast recently called Mind Pump. I'm pretty sure that's right. Like 99.9% sure. But anyway, these guys have been training people for years and years and years and just a great collective wealth of knowledge. And they have programs that are just 15 minutes a day. Now people do them 6 days a week for strength training, but that 15 minutes a day, it supports the habit. It keeps the habit going. And it's enough time. If you do for 15 minutes, you probably do 2 to 3 sets of some strength training exercise, kind of a full body. Idea and they're doing all the big lifts like deadlifts, squats, lunges, that sorts of thing. And I don't have their program unfortunately, but that's the idea behind it is supporting this daily habit, doing it an amount of time that doesn't scare people off and that people can fit into their schedule. And that's all it takes to build strength. You can build strength with that little of strength training a day. And actually, if you didn't want to do it 15 minutes a day, like if you would have to go to a gym to do this and that seems like, oh, that's a lot of time to go to the gym for just 15 minutes of work, even just 2 days a week of a longer strength training session that hits all parts of your body is enough to get 80% of the— 80 to 90% of the strength that you're going to get anyway comes from just 2 days a week. You're hitting your muscles 2 days a week. You're waking up the muscles 2 days a week. You're stimulating the muscles to grow by lifting heavy enough that it puts, you know, a signal in your body to grow. If you're just doing something little and repetitive, that's not a signal for the body to grow. That's why you got to lift heavy for you. People get scared when they hear lift heavy because they think it means, you know, for example, that I would go pick up a 200-pound, you know, barbell off the floor. No, that is not— that's too heavy for me, right? I've got to do what's heavy for me. And that means something that I can pick up and do maybe 6, 8, 10, 12 reps of. That's the kind of range that's really good for strength building and growing muscle.. And so you wanna just do something that's heavy enough for you doing these little 2-pound weights. If you're, you know, even the average woman that might, that even if it's heavy for her, like for a week or two, that's very quickly going to be too little of weight to cause any real change. So sorry for the little, that was a bit tangential, but, um, just to get the idea of you definitely wanna do it if you're gonna go ahead and do it, like at least give yourself enough of a challenge that it makes some difference. Now, all that being said, I said you don't need any equipment for this one, and you don't, because especially if this is completely new to you, doing bodyweight exercises and things at home are going to be plenty of, uh, new stimulus for you to try. If you already lift, you already have access to a gym, then I would just maybe challenge you to try a couple of exercises that you haven't— don't normally do, or you don't normally try. Or maybe if it's— you already strength train, you don't have the stability as part as much, maybe we're going to try some stability work for this part of the challenge. So just choose like a little— you can make a little circuit mentally for yourself that you're going to spend 10 minutes doing this. And so again, if you don't have any equipment home or anything, maybe it's an odd— and you can just do this if you find it too stressful to think about figuring this out for yourself. Air squats, so just bodyweight squats. And if you don't recognize any of these things, if you look here on— look on YouTube, You'll find plenty of videos that will demonstrate this for you, but simple bodyweight squats. You can do sit-to-stand. So if you are worried that even a squat might be too much for you or too stressful, you want to just literally lower yourself down slowly to a chair and then bring yourself back up using the strength of your legs. So not pushing off with your, you know, really using the strength of your body and your core to push you back up out of the chair. You can do some hinge work. So just literally bending over, or if you have milk jugs or soup cans or things like that in the house, if, if it's just way too easy for you bending over pretending you're gonna pick something off the floor, maybe actually have some milk jugs, something like that. And then you could also do pushups. Everybody knows what that looks like. You can do pushups against the wall if you're not very strong. And if you're already very strong, you can just do pushups as many as you can in a row would be a great challenge. So also wall sits, like literally Bending so that your quads, your quadriceps, the tops of your thighs are parallel to the floor and leaning your back against the wall and just sitting there. That's an isometric exercise, also very strengthening. So those are all just it. So just 10 minutes, you're gonna move your body in some ways you haven't tried yet. If you're looking to create stability, some balance types of things, most people don't do those on a regular basis. It would always be surprising to me when I was in yoga class, we'd have obviously a whole section of that that was balance. So balancing on one leg in some way, whether it's stretching at the same time, holding a foot while you're balancing on one leg, or just simply balancing on one leg without the stability of a wall, something like that could be a good option for this part of the challenge too. So there shouldn't be too much concern about figuring something out because there's so many videos online now. And just don't pick anything that looks crazy or out of whack or too, too challenging. Just, you know, pick something that makes sense for where you are in your body right now and your current strength and skill level, and just make it a little challenging. Maybe make it something new, but getting out of your comfort zone in regards to strength training. I think particularly for some women, this is still a barrier. And it's just such a shame because the things that happen with old age, especially to us women, bone loss, bone density, osteoporosis, osteopenia, all of that can be prevented and reversed. There's some excellent data on reversing osteopenia and osteoporosis, porosis through strength training. So that's pretty amazing. And then Sarcopenia. That is the loss of muscle mass as we get older. And if you don't move, if you don't put that stress on your muscles, we just continually lose muscle mass as we get older and older and become— that's how we become frail. That's how people are not able to get off the toilet by themselves. That's how people, you know, quit moving their bodies because they don't have the strength to anymore. Again, though, this can all be reversed. I think that's amazing news, but what I'd really love for it to happen is if you can make it a habit now and get as strong as you can now, because Hey, believe me, it all, it all goes downhill. It's all fightable. It's all reversible. But the older you get, the more challenging it gets for a number of reasons. It gets more challenging mentally. It gets more, you know, your time is, uh, tends to be more valuable just because you're busier as you get older, more demanding job, children, things like that. So whatever age you are now though, it is not too late. It's not never too late to get started with strength training. You've just got to make it appropriate for where your body is now and make it consistent. And like I said, if you're going to do it every day, that is totally fine. Keep it shorter if you're doing it every day. And if you're nervous, you can always hire a trainer, or like I said, look at videos online, practice the movement at home, uh, feel confident in the movement before you take it to a gym, uh, or like I said, hire a trainer. That's always a good option so that you have somebody that's there with you that can just guide you and walk you through it and teach you how to use machines, things like that. So anyway, that is your challenge for today. I hope you enjoy moving your body in this way and challenging yourself. Like I said, make sure you— if you're using weights in this little part of the challenge, make sure you pick up something heavy enough that's actually challenging for you. Don't just like move some little 2-pound weights around and think that that's enough. We're gonna like actually try to stimulate some muscle protein synthesis here. So, um, anyway, that is it for today and I will see you again tomorrow.
This has been the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. Again, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow. You can find show notes for this episode at healnourishgrowpodcast.com. If you have feedback on today's episode or questions about the content, please email us at podcast@healnourishgrow.com. We'd love to hear from you. Be sure to sign up for our email list at healnourishgrow.com and subscribe to the show with your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. Join us next time for more information that helps you live your best and healthiest life. Thanks for listening. Content on the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast does not constitute medical advice. Content contained in the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast is not intended as medical diagnosis or treatment. Neither the company nor its owner, Heal, Nourish, Grow LLC, nor any of the company's employees, agents, or guest speakers provide medical advice. The content provided on Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please consult your medical provider with any questions about what health practices are right for you.
