Get Started Today with Rucking with Steph Gaudreau [Ep. 74]

Lisa: 0:00

This is the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast. I'm Lisa Salsbury. And this is episode 74. Get started today with rucking, with Steph Gaudreau. One reason I specifically named this episode get started today is because rocking is so easy to begin. You'll learn how minimal the equipment is. And if you already have a walking habit, which I hope that you do, it will be a seamless integration. You'll want to listen in today to learn all the reasons why this is such a powerful addition to your routine. And we discuss exactly what you need to do to get started. This week is Christmas. So I just want to take a moment and say Merry Christmas and happy new year. I hope you, my listeners have had a joyful month of December as you celebrate the holidays. I think there is maybe one day. Where there is some open slots left in 2023 for free sessions with me, if you want to get that in before the year end, definitely check the link in bio for that. I heard today from a woman that had a session with me back in September that she has been so encouraged by that free call that we did and the information here on the podcast. So consider giving yourself the best Christmas gift by making. Your health a priority. And get that book today. Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food. I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury. I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter. I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating. I am delighted to have Steph Gaudreau here on the podcast today. She is a sports nutritionist and personal trainer. I told her before we started, I actually am feeling a little starstruck. I've followed her for years. I feel like on Instagram and listen to her podcast. Um, I get kind of like, I'll binge several episodes and then I'll forget or something. And then I'll go back. I'm like, Oh man, I've missed so many. So she is a great wealth of information. So welcome Steph. Why don't you introduce yourself a little bit, tell us more about what you do and then we'll get going on our conversation.

Steph: 2:16

Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's great to sit down and chat and talk all things fitness and all the things we're going to get into. Um, so yeah, I'm a sports nutritionist and I primarily work with women over 40 who are looking to build their strength, maybe step into the gym for the first time, or just. Take what they're doing with weights and start seeing better results, um, to build muscle, to improve their performance, both in the gym and outside the gym, because it's truly my belief that strength is a catalyst to amazing things in our lives. And when. We feel stronger and we show up differently and we're, we're just more engaged in life, I think. So that's what I do on the training side. And of course the nutrition piece is part of that. So really helping people to understand how to adequately fuel our bodies, especially. As many of us in our forties and beyond have come from decades of dieting and diet culture and just really trying to take a different approach, you know, how to fuel for having the energy to do the things we want to do, build muscle and, and just show up and stay fully engaged. So I do both of those things kind of independently, but also together because they're both important in. And moving folks forward. So that's what I do. And that takes the form of different programs, coaching my podcast. And so I'm, I'm glad to be on the other side of the mic for once and just be able to relax and answer some questions.

Lisa: 3:43

Yeah, great. I think your phrase of like strength is like the real key. I always just tell people exercise is the fountain of youth. Like there's nothing that has been shown to help us live longer for like basically all cause mortality than exercise. And. Specifically, I think for women to the weight training aspect,

Steph: 4:04

Absolutely.

Lisa: 4:05

I've heard you talk about things about like picking up something heavy. I constantly am telling my clients, like, please use weights that are heavier than your purse that are heavier than your toddler. Right?

Steph: 4:17

Yes. Absolutely. I think in the past couple of years, I had my backpack that I carry with me sort of to jujitsu class and things like that. And it's got, you know, some other stuff in it, but it's not a tiny backpack. And so you think about how many people are carrying a very large purse or a backpack of some sorts. And I put it on the scale and it was almost 15 or 16 pounds. So there you go. I mean, your purse might weigh eight or 10 pounds, you know, as much as a gallon of milk or a gallon of water. And so, yeah, we have these things that we literally pick up and carry every day, but then we get into a gym scenario and we think, Oh, that's too heavy for me, or I should be really careful. But of course, safety is important and mitigating risk is is an important aspect of doing any kind of training. But I think sometimes we undersell ourselves of what we can do. Quite frankly.

Lisa: 5:09

Well, and, and to just the whole problem with women of thinking that if they pick up something heavier or really, really lift that they're going to get, and I'm going to put this in air quotes, get bulky, right? it's really hard to build muscle. Like, I mean, I don't want to undersell what we can do as far as strength and stuff, but just the idea that women are going to get bulky if they, you know, bench press a couple of times a week, it just isn't going to happen.

Steph: 5:35

Mm hmm. And even especially as you're again, kind of in this midlife and, and beyond category of folks, we have more muscle protein breakdown as opposed to muscle protein synthesis. So we tend to be breaking down tissue faster than we're building. We tend to have anabolic resistance, which means again, it's harder for us to build Tissue must be really intentional, even with the things that we're doing. And I think it kind of comes from this era of seeing bodybuilders and the folks at the extreme ends of weight training. There's kind of two extreme ends of weight training. We've got our bodybuilders who are just trying to absolutely maximize their muscle mass quite often with the assistance of performance enhancing substances, but very intentional training and dieting. And it's a whole thing. And it takes in some cases, several years for people to build to what we would consider a peak physique.

Lisa: 6:39

They're also probably doing it full time. They have a staff helping them and they're cutting so much water weight at the end for

Steph: 6:47

Mm hmm.

Lisa: 6:48

That's not how they look all the time. Even if they have that muscle development, that's not how they're walking around because they've cut in order to, to do that, to make them show up.

Steph: 7:00

For sure. Yeah. So then we had the opposite sort of end of the spectrum, which are, you know, our sort of power lifters, our Olympic lifters who are really in there just trying to maximize the amount of weight that you're lifting for truly, if we're talking about power lifting one repetition at a time. You get three chances at your lifts. So there you go. And that is a very different type of training. And I think most people have, you know, we kind of think of the strong, the strong men, the strong women, those types of exhibition type events. We see people lifting these superhuman amounts of weight or building these superhuman physiques. And we think either one of those is going to happen to it's what, you know, I don't, I want to lift, but I don't want. my body to change in a way that I feel is unusual to me. And the reality is I've been lifting for 13 years consistently. I have yet to achieve bulkiness and women don't have the same hormonal Male you that it's going to take for even someone who has more male hormones to, to achieve more muscle mass. So we can absolutely make a huge progression in terms of what we want to do, but you know that the extremes that we tend to see as representing almost these caricatures of what's possible in terms of human performance or human aesthetics. These things are not what most people who are incorporating a little bit of strength training into their week are doing. And so you're not gonna, like you said, accidentally do, you know, a few sets of squats or some accessory work and end up unrecognizable to yourself. It's just not going to happen in that way.

Lisa: 8:50

that's what really is going to help our metabolism, especially in, in this age at that age, you know, in the forties. So, um, I want to shift gears though, cause I don't want to take up too much time on just the lifting aspect. Although maybe I'll have you back on to talk about that. But what I really invited Steph on to talk about is rucking. So. This was one of those things where like, I heard about it, and then I saw it again and all of a sudden it was like everywhere in my feed and I'm like, what's happening? Why is this like, why are all these random people showing me this? You had Michael Easter on who is the author of comfort crisis. So I listened to that. I read the book. I was like, I'm all in. So I threw on a backpack. I threw in one of my plates from my home gym, just a 10 pound plate, padded it up, you know? And so I've been doing that and, and I'm into it. I'm like, okay, I want to talk about this more. And I've recommended it to clients. It just kind of feels like the, the idea that it's kind of like strength training for people that hate lifting weights and it's cardio for people that just want to lift weights. Cause it's kind of like the best of both worlds, but I want to get all of this information from you as the authority. I know you also did an episode on this. So let's start with what exactly it is. Rucking. It's R U C K I N G. A lot of people are, are like, what word are you even saying?

Steph: 10:11

Yes, my autocorrect is obsessed with calling it rocking, which is very obnoxious. So

Lisa: 10:17

Mm

Steph: 10:18

what is rucking? Rucking is simply the concept of carrying load for distance. So carrying some kind of weight over a distance. Some kind of distance, generally longer distances than we would see if we were doing something like a farmer's carry within a workout where we might be walking for 50 feet and carrying a,fairly heavy weight in our hands or or something of that nature, sandbags or something like that. The term comes from the military term rucksack, which is a large backpack with equipment that many branches of the military will carry. And those packs can get extremely heavy, 80 to 100 pounds, depending on what kind of operator you're talking about, what kind of branch of the military or service. So that's, that's sort of the genesis of what we see now as more of the recreational pursuit. Of rucking, which is generally going to be carrying some kind of weight, either in a backpack style pack or a weight vest, typically on your human person, typically for longer distances and really just trying to build up that endurance to carry load. That's kind of in a nutshell what it is. Um, but you know, people have explored all sorts of interesting things with rucking. So, you know, training for events, training for backpacking, training for specifically going out and doing rucking competitions. There are other fitness, fitness competitions like. Decafit and High Rocks, which have rucking divisions. So it's become its own thing. You know, there are communities that have grown up around it, rucking clubs. So it's sort of that idea of like a running club, but you don't actually run. You typically get together and go for some kind of ruck together. So it's a nice, it's a nice way to get people together as a, as a group, usually locally and, and get out and have some fun. Yeah. Be social.

Lisa: 12:16

I, I think I heard Peter, Peter at TSA too, that it's a nice,, like modulator among the group, because if you are more fit, you carry more weight. And I remember him saying like, he rocks like with his mom, I think it was, or some, uh, and so he's carrying a lot of weight. She's carrying a little bit of weight and then he's getting, the workout he needs as well as, you know, it's perfect for her. So I think that's kind of cool too. Cause like when I walk with my husband, he's significantly taller than me and walking with my older son is even more of a joke. I'm like, your legs go like up to my waist. And so they can just take much longer steps. They're just faster than I am. And so if we put on packs, I imagine we haven't done that, but I'm just imagining that that would kind of even it out a little bit. If they're carrying more weight, then they're going to be at my pace.

Steph: 13:09

Absolutely. I used to be a cyclist. I was a mountain biker and I would do a lot of road riding to train for mountain biking. And quite frequently I would go do group rides. And 95 percent of the people that I would go on group rides with were guys, and they were faster, they were bigger. And I had a heck of a time trying to hang on to the end of that, you know, you see lines of road cyclists, and there's slowest persons at the end. And that would be me trying so desperately to keep up with the pace that's set by the front of the pace line. And that was a really tough kind of. You know, training and experience running could be similar. So if you get together with friends, maybe you don't run at the same pace. So yeah, you're right. You could carry 10 pounds and somebody else could be carrying 45 pounds and it's relatively heavy, you know, a heavy weight for both of you. And you can still do this more social kind of group activity and be outside and enjoying your time together. So it is kind of a nice way to, to level the playing field there.

Lisa: 14:12

So how much weight should you get started with? I, like I said, I just threw a 10 pound plate in a backpack. I already have, of course, anybody listening to this that wants to get me a GoRuck pack, free.

Steph: 14:27

Yeah, this is a good question. And you know, the way I think about this is typically I would say for most humans, 10 to 20 pounds is going to be that starting sweet spot. But some of that is going to depend on things like what is your strength level currently? How used to walking are you? If you don't have a walking habit yet, which is fine. I didn't until April of 2021. I didn't walk daily at all. So if you're not used to walking at all, now you're going to be walking with weight your. Level of cardiovascular conditioning can also factor in your body size. So if you're a small human who's relatively conditioned, maybe you haven't been strength training very much, I would start toward the lower end of that scale. And if you are, you know, it sounds like your husband's a tall, a tall human. Um, he may want to start with. a little bit more weight. And you can always scale up and do that very incrementally as well. So, you know, typically you want to start, I would say for most people in that range, if you're more conditioned, you've been lifting weights for longer, maybe you're a larger, taller human, you've got a bigger frame, then you might tend toward the higher end of that. But yeah, it's, it's amazing how quickly that weight will. Add up because again, we're not just walking down the end of the block and turning around and coming back. Typically, we're going for, you know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, maybe you're walking three miles, maybe you build up to even further than that over time. So, you know, we're going to need to, I would say for most people start a little bit lower and then add up as you go.

Lisa: 16:03

I think obviously always starting small is, is good. I notice with the pack that I'm using, the weight is pretty low. Um, it's kind of around my waist area, just kind of right above. my butt basically. And I wondered about the rucks, the like real rucksacks. I know you have a go ruck and which is the most popular brand that puts the weight kind of higher, a little bit more like between the shoulder blades. Can you carry more? If you have a proper pack that puts the weight where it's quote unquote supposed to be.

Steph: 16:36

Yeah, that's a really great question. I almost think about a pack that's designed for the purpose of rucking. Again, for the, the fitness pursuit of rucking, we're not talking about you're a member of the military maybe, and you're trying to carry an 80 pound, a hundred pound rucksack. Kind of a different situation, but let's say you're interested in something like this. the packs that are, purposely made for this have a sleeve. I wish I had mine here so I could do a show and tell, but it has a sleeve that goes along the entire back of the backpack. And you would slide a plate, typically that's made for the purpose, although you could probably slide a weight plate in there too. And that will keep the load against your spine. And it will also distribute the load from top to bottom. And you're right. Sometimes when people are starting out on I'm always somebody who's a slow adopter for new things. Sometimes I'll try things out. I won't invest in stuff right away. I'll just see if I like it. So I totally get

Lisa: 17:34

Right. That's totally what I'm doing.

Steph: 17:36

Yeah. Yeah. So if you sort of took a regular backpack and you put a weight in there, even if you had a dumbbell or something or something heavy, and you were able to put it in the bottom, you're right. That's going to hold all the weight down at the base of the pack. The idea with. The rucking backpacks that are made for this purpose is you can more evenly distribute the weight. It sits against your spine and it's less likely to shift and jostle around as you're walking. And it's almost like a compact turtle shell that you have on your back. So many people find that they're more comfortable because you're able to do things like, add a, you can have a hip belt, which helps to distribute the load, around your bottom part of your torso. As well as that chest strap and the way that the sleeve is positioned is made to take that weight and flatten it out against the back of the pack. So it's not all just sitting like a lump in the bottom of your bag and swinging about. And that's actually the opposite of what we want to see with The rock, we want the rock to be flush. We want it to be secure and not having that shifting side to side as we walk. I always make the joke, you know, we think about middle school kids in their backpacks and people think I make this up, but the other day yesterday I was out for a rock and I was walking by a school. There's a middle school near our house and kids are getting off the bus and their backpacks were. All those straps are all the way down and they're hanging by their hamstrings, basically. And that's the exact opposite of what we want to see. We want that pack to be, um, secure. We want it to be flush. And in that position, it makes it more comfortable, usually, for people to carry, again, for that longer distance.

Lisa: 19:17

Okay, good. Yeah, definitely. I need to, I need to invest. It's time to get a real rucksack. Um, but so this is kind of all like the logistics, but I want to get into the why, why would we want to do this? What are the benefits specifically for women? Most of my listeners are women. What would be the point? We're not in the military. We're, you know, perimenopausal women. Why are we wanting to walk around our own neighborhoods? Sometimes I have to say I feel a little sheepish walking my dog with a pack on my back. Like, where does she think she's going? But, you know, why would we want to do this?

Steph: 19:54

Yeah, that's a great question. I think when we consider the benefits, You know, these benefits are universally applicable, but why they're more important for women who are perimenopausal or in their 40s, 50s, et cetera, it's because of the changes that we're experiencing in our bodies. As we have those shifting hormones during perimenopause and then postmenopausal, you know, we're really looking at estrogen and some of our other sex hormones are settling out to new levels and in particular estrogen settling out to that, that low level. We start to see things like more muscle loss. We can have. bone density issues. So low bone density, lower bone strength overall. And we also see challenges to our cardiovascular health. Quite frankly, our risk for cardiovascular disease goes up as women who go through menopause. We also see things potentially like an increased insulin resistance. In some folks, right? So we're, we have to be concerned about, about these changes to our health on multiple different levels. And as you said earlier, exercise is so, so important. It's one of those health promoting habits that is really hard to argue with because the evidence is so strong. So how can rucking help these things? Well, first and foremost, you know, if we're looking at building strength, especially in our lower body, in our postural muscles of our upper body in our core core stability, core strength, as we're aging, especially if we're not using those muscles, it becomes harder to keep our posture, it becomes more tiring to, you know, sit up straight to stand up straight, our muscles tend to lose strength As we get older, unless we do something to intervene, which is the great news. We can do something about this. So rucking is cool because we're adding extra weight to our body. And so that's going to build that muscular endurance in particularly our lower body in muscles, like our upper body, postural muscles that really forces us when you wear a ruck. It's not the same thing as carrying a load of groceries and you carry a load of groceries. Maybe you've got the old school grocery bag and you're hugging it in the front. You tend to get kind of rounded up. And when you carry a ruck in that weight is on your back, it helps you to stand up straighter. And so that builds up postural stability, that postural endurance of those upper body muscles. If you see, you know, sometimes older folks get very rounded over and we all live in a world where we're. We're texting, we're working, we're on our phones, we're driving, we're hunched over a lot. So building that back body strength is so key. When it comes to the cardiovascular element, getting some kind of low intensity cardiovascular exercise or moderate intensity cardiovascular exercise is certainly going to be A good idea so that we can get out there and experience those benefits and keep our cardiovascular system healthy. But there are some distinct benefits for types of exercise, say like more of a zone to cardio. And you mentioned Peter Atiyah. Um, I know he's talked about that quite a bit in recent, uh, the recent sort of year and it's become more of a new topic, but it's not a new, it's not a new thing at all.

Lisa: 23:07

It feels like a buzzword kind of, but yeah, it's like, um, this isn't new people.

Steph: 23:12

Yeah, it's definitely not new. And again, I, you know, I think back to my cycling days, and this is we're going back to now 2005, four, three, you know, since a long time, and in zone two, cardio has been around for decades at this point. But the concept here is that we're able to see improvements in Our some, some of these aspects of our cardiovascular system. So we become better at, for example, managing lactate, which is one of the byproducts of different types of exercise. We are building more mitochondria. We're having better vascularization. And so we become more cardiovascularly efficient when we are, we're, we're doing this like mod low to moderate intensity. We're not doing what most people think of when they think of cardio, which is A little too easy to be hard but too hard to be easy, which is that kind of middle zone, which is fine to train that middle zone, but we need to establish that lower intensity proficiency first, or in a large part of our training so

Lisa: 24:19

So zone two is a little lower than what we kind of think of as cardio. Is that correct? Is that what you're saying?

Steph: 24:25

Yes. And, you know, I think When we think about going out for a run or a jog, we think about we're just gonna it when you push it too hard, then you know that you've gone too hard. And most people tend to just go hard enough. And, like I said, that middle sort of heart rate zone is it's fine to train there, especially if you're going to be doing things like races and you want to know what that feels like. But the problem is. If we're not building a good aerobic base, which is basically what zone two helps us do, we are less efficient at those higher intensities and walking though. It's wonderful. tends to not be brisk enough to get you into that zone to, um, people love to slice and dice and argue about what exactly is the heart rate and the heart rate is really the byproduct of this. It's like kind of how we can measure it. I like to use the talk test. If I'm out and I'm, I can still speak in complete sentences, but I'm not just going along at like a slow leisurely pace, then I'm kind of in the sweet spot.

Lisa: 25:33

Then that would be zone two

Steph: 25:35

Yeah, so the bottom line I like to remind people here is, it's fine to go for a walk, walk the dog, do your thing, but sometimes we need a little bit more, a little bit more speed, a little bit more intensity, or maybe we could even walk up some hills just to challenge ourselves a bit in that way. Yeah. zone to cardiovascular heart rate zone. So

Lisa: 25:54

and adding weight is one way to add that challenge.

Steph: 25:58

yes. So if you're finding that once you get more proficient, you can go out for longer walks. I, even for myself sometimes find I really have to hoof it when I'm walking just without a pack to get my heart rate to, to kind of Start going up a little bit more. And so, yeah, carrying a pack is adding an external load that makes your body work harder, but it's lower impact than something like running. So if people are looking for that. little extra oomph. You know, you want a little extra challenge to the walking that you're already doing. Maybe you've already established that walking habit. You don't want to add a whole new thing. Then putting on the pack means you keep your habit, but you're just making it a little bit more challenging. It's giving you the benefit also of. Having that external load, you are weight bearing, which we know is important for bone health, and we're loading the skeleton again, thinking about bone health. So we need that extra resistance. Cycling is great. Swimming is great, but those are not weight bearing exercises. And so it's important that we're, we're trying to find ways to load the skeleton. There's a reason why with astronauts, they have to make them work out because they're, they're in a zero gravity environment. And of course we're not in, we're not in zero gravity, but if we're never on our feet, we're never weight bearing. It's fine if running doesn't work for people and Maybe they have a past injury or it's just not for them. They don't, they don't enjoy it. Then rucking is a nice option for still maintaining a walking pace, not as much impact, but yet getting some of these cardiovascular, skeletal, muscle benefits. And then of course, you know, anytime we go out walking or we're working our muscles a little bit more, we're helping with things like insulin sensitivity. You mentioned, you know, metabolism, all of these things. It's a nice way to, to add something new to your routine to make it a little bit more challenging, but yet not make it so uncomfortable. People don't want to do it again. So I think that's one of the, one of the ways that rucking is a nice intermediate is it slots pretty easily into some of those existing things without it having to be, Oh, I have to go to the gym and find a trainer. And,

Lisa: 28:21

Yeah.

Steph: 28:22

you know, I had to pick up a running habit and, Oh my gosh, I haven't done that in 20 years. And it's not something I want to do. Um, so it, it, it's a nice way for people to start seeing some of those benefits without having to go down these other routes.

Lisa: 28:36

I feel like when you touched on this a while back, but the postural benefits as I sit here, hunched over my podcast, Mike, but I really have noticed that mostly in my other walking, when I'm doing errands, you know, at the grocery store that I tend to have better posture since I have been doing this. And it has made me go back to, you know, those things that just stick from random classes in college in my functional anatomy class. He talked about if you have on one side of the body. You'll have muscles that are long, loose and weak. And on the other side, they're going to be short, tight, and strong. And so if you think about the muscles on the front, like in your chest, pulling your shoulders forward are short, tight, and strong because we've hunched over for so long and it's created these long, loose, weak muscles in the back. And when you're wearing that pack and really strengthening that side, it's really making things more even and. Equalizing the strength front and back. And I think I've really noticed that.

Steph: 29:38

hmm. Yeah, that's a good point. I think. Of all the people I've ever worked with, both in person and virtually, I've never run across a single human, including myself, where it was a situation of You know, you've got lots of strength in your back body. It's your front body. We really need to strengthen it's, it's, it's always the reverse. And so most people that I, I work with, you know, they need strength in their upper back. They need to be able to retract their shoulder blades to keep the shoulder blades from dumping forward all the time. And of course we move in and out of positions in life. I don't want anyone to think that our goal is to have you walk around like a. a stiff mummy or a robot and, and be like only holding these quote unquote correct. Yeah. Perfect posture, correct positions, because we've seen how that's influenced people and also made people very afraid to move through different ranges of motion. But exactly to what you're saying, you're right. This is a nice compliment to some of the other strength training that someone might do, for example, in the gym to help them. achieve a better position and develop those postural muscles. So it's less of a conscious choice to stay stiff and rigid and robotic, but you're able to move through daily life a little bit easier. Maybe you have a little bit less, um, aches and pains and those sorts of things. And it's so easy when we start to develop those aches and pains and the disuse that oftentimes is. What those aches and pains are resulting from, it can kind of create a bit of a positive feedback loop where we think, Oh, now I'm so I'm more sore. My back hurts more. So I shouldn't do things. And then that continues that cycle forward instead of the reverse. And certainly, I don't want people to think that rucking is a cure for back pain because back pain can have so many different reasons,

Lisa: 31:35

We're not doctors.

Steph: 31:37

Yeah. Yeah. I always feel like I had to say that as a caveat, you know, we're not saying that, Oh, rucking cured my back pain, but if, if you're somebody who realizes that you need a little bit more of that postural strength, it is one way that you can challenge that postural strength as you're out for a walk. And I just went out, uh, yesterday, I usually rock a few times a week and I went out yesterday and I, I was noticing, you know, how was I shifting the weight around in the backpack and I was kind of resetting and, and just seeing what my body was doing. on that day when I went out and just noticing was I feeling more fatigued or less fatigued in my upper body and, um, you know, how, how light did the weight feel to me? I think that's another one. Sometimes I'll take my, my usual weight out and it feels so light and great. And then other times I think I'm a little bit more tired today. I can, I can feel maybe from the workout I did the day before, or just because I didn't sleep as well. That it's just feeling a bit heavier. So it's an interesting litmus test, I think, for just, just checking in with your body.

Lisa: 32:39

Yeah. Which I preach all the time, mostly with hunger, checking in with your body. But

Steph: 32:44

Oh, yes, absolutely.

Lisa: 32:45

know, there's all kinds of ways that our body can send us information. So not just with our hunger signals, but also with our muscular signals and what kinds of things that we need. In fact, this morning I woke up with a slight sore throat and I thought, Hmm, do I want to do a cardio workout today and make this worse? And what am I getting from my body? Am I more tired? I woke up at like 5 AM, which is. It's quite a bit before I normally do. So, you know, I made adjustments and I think it's so important just to listen to your body and be super aware and not just carry the same weight, do the same thing every single day.

Steph: 33:22

And that's the cool part about rucking is you can scale it up or down. And I think that's a huge message for people who are going through this perimenopausal period of life. Or. Just as we're aging and we're experiencing, our body may feel a bit more unpredictable from day to day. It's giving yourself options. So maybe you're feeling on fire. You're feeling great. Maybe you put a little extra weight in the pack today and you just see what happens. If you're kind of feeling about your usual, maybe it's just the weight you usually carry and maybe you're feeling a bit more tired. So you'll take a little bit of weight out. Maybe you go completely unloaded and you don't carry a pack at all. Or maybe it truly is a rest day for you, or you're going to do something like mobility work or stretching or something, but I think the point is, as often as we can, is to look for ways to engage our bodies to move them to get the benefits of different types of movement, but also to give ourselves. choices. And that can be a challenge because many people have come into exercise and it was very rigid or it was only do this. This is the right way. This is the only way. Or we just didn't know that we had more availability, more variety. And so I think the more you can. Tune things up or down, depending on how you feel on that day, you're still doing something. And of course, I always say this too, if you're, if you're fried crispy around the edges, you got three hours of sleep, you're sick, you're, you know, something really shocking and stressful happened. Maybe today's not the day to train or exercise, but you'd be surprised at when you give yourself that leeway to make it a little bit more. easy, a little bit harder to adjust things. You'll find something that typically feels right for today. Instead of saying, no, no, I was going to take a, I was going to do a 30 pound rock core. I was going to go to the gym and do this really hard workout. And I just don't have it in me today. So, you know, I'm just going to Netflix it for four hours. Which quite honestly doesn't make a lot of people feel that good either, but you know, maybe it is what you need today. Um, I always think about at the beginning of the pandemic when a lot of people who never worked from home were suddenly in a position where they could wear pajamas at work all day. And it felt great! It felt great. You're like, this is amazing. And then a few weeks in, you're, you're thinking this feels, this doesn't feel good anymore. You know, sometimes it feels good to take that afternoon off and snuggle up on, on the couch with a cozy blanket and watch a movie. And that feels like exactly what you needed at that time. But sometimes we get into a little bit of that rut where. We just think, well, I'm not able to do this workout today at this level 10. Might as well just wait till tomorrow or the next day or the next day. And then sometimes we can get into a bit of a loop with that too. So it's, it's all about what is something I could do today? What is something that will help me feel better in my body or, you know, help me with my energy or help me with my mood. You know, we have those mental health benefits of movement as well. And I don't think, I don't think we appreciate that as much. You know, we tend to think it's only about the physical body, but it's amazing. What Some movement can do for your mood for how you feel.

Lisa: 36:46

Yeah. I think the other thing about this, like a variety, I kind of, I feel like started into exercise. In an era where it was like, this is the program you do and not to like people have had good success with these types of programs. But, I'm just thinking of a particular, uh, a company that would sell you DVDs. And so I would do that program and only that program. Like I would follow her, you know, six weeks slim down P 90 X. You know what I'm talking about, right? And I thought like, well, I have to do, they, they said, this is day one and this is day two. And I didn't ever allow myself to be like, I don't really want to do that one today. I, what I really need as a walk or instead of cardio, what I need is strength. Like I just got into these, like, I have to do this whole program. And now I'm like, sometimes I lift and I follow so and so's program for lifting. And sometimes I ride my bike and sometimes I rock and just mixing it all up and giving myself that permission to. Just... Create my own program. Basically, based on what my body is needing has been really, really helpful and more fun, by the way,

Steph: 37:59

Yeah, absolutely. I, I have definitely, I guess this sort of the era that we grew up in, I can definitely relate to that idea of the DVDs. And it was like, this is day one and this is day two. And, you know, I think it's fine for people to have a routine to have a schedule, especially for people who feel like that's the thing that keeps them. Showing up, they've created the schedule that works for them, that sort of thing, a hundred percent. Um, but you know, within that, you might have your, your morning is your workout time because you just know you'll get it done. And the day is not going to steal that away from you. Or the likelihood of that happening is fairly low, which I know a lot of people like to try to get their movement done in the morning for that reason. Myself included, I, I prefer to get some, get something done in the morning if I can. And at the same time, it, you know, like you said, it can be where we give ourselves latitude and choice and autonomy is such a key factor in any kind of, health habit change in just behavior change in general is that idea of I have autonomy, I have choice and I can exercise that choice. So no pun intended. So maybe it's, I sort of have that time of my day that tends to work best for me. And that's the, that's, what's more routine about. That then I have to do this exact thing at this exact time in this exact way, or I've somehow failed the system, you know, for me, I try to do two times a week of lifting, but those days can sometimes vary. So that's one thing I tend to. Stick by because that works really well for me is like I can work that in, you know, I can say, all right, I know, Tuesday, I'm going to lift. I'm already at the gym anyway, so I'm going to make sure I get that done there. But honestly, the composition of the things I'm doing can change and. And that's okay, right? So structure is great, but giving yourself flexibility within that is.

Lisa: 39:58

Well said. so one more question on rocking back to that specifically, is there anything else we need? I I.'cause one of the benefits of walking is just like, put your shoes on and go. when I'm walking unweighted, I don't really pay much attention to my footwear. Do you think that is the other piece of equipment that is essential for rucking and do we need something in particular?

Steph: 40:20

Hmm. Good question. Again, I think if people are first starting out, just wear your normal fitness type footwear. I know that can even vary. That could be pretty wide, but. When you really start to increase the weight, when you really start to increase the distance, there could be a case made depending on the person and their anatomy and how you just feel when you're walking with weight for a bit of a, a bit more of a sturdy shoe. So I'm imagining there are going to be some folks who have running sneakers, which are more cushioned, but may not have. The exact support that you need

Lisa: 41:00

They're a little more flexible than more of that like rigid sole. Mm-Hmm.

Steph: 41:05

they tend to be a little bit more squishy to absorb the impact. This is one of the reasons why I would not lift heavy in running sneakers. Maybe if you're doing some accessory work or something, that's fine, but the thicker and more squashy the soul is, and I don't want to name any brands, but you know what I'm talking about? Everybody knows

Lisa: 41:25

I'll Hoka

Steph: 41:27

Yeah, no, actually, you know, it's interesting because. Again, I think, you know, footwear is pretty personal, but I would tend to think that as, especially as the weight gets heavier, if you don't have the support in the sole, that that can be a little bit harder on the feet. And I'll give you a really great example of this. I normally ruck with one of GoRuck's purpose designed shoes for rocking. And it has a, a more. Stable, less rigid soul for this reason, because you're wearing more weight on your body. These shoes, by the way, interesting side note, if anybody remembers the Reebok pump from a hundred years ago from the, I don't know, when did those come out, the eighties maybe? The guy who developed the Reebok pump footwear. Um, he's Paul. He's a really nice guy. I've met him. Um, but you know, recently I did a GORUCK event. Where most of it took place on the beach. Sounds great, right?

Lisa: 42:33

That's terrible.

Steph: 42:35

It's the beach, it's Southern California. It was warm, but it was all

Lisa: 42:39

Oh, I'm just like thinking the sand. All of that sounds good, but the sand sounds terrible.

Steph: 42:44

It's all in the soft sand, not even on the, you know, where the waves break and it's kind of compacted. There was none of that. It was all soft sand. So normally I would wear my regular sort of, um, go rock shoes, but I decided on this event to wear a pair of trail running shoes because it had a little bit more traction and they were, they're wider. And I just wanted a little bit more, if you think about it, it's like snowshoes, right? So they're a bit of a wider base. And so I wore those, but they don't have as much support. And during that event, I was carrying upwards of 90 to 95 pounds at some junctures for some distances and my feet were so tired by the end of this event. They were almost a little bit sore and I'm a barefoot, you know, like work your feet kind of person. I don't feel like I have weak feet. at all, but they were just really taxed from the softness of the sand and the way your muscles have to work in those environments. And then also just wearing a shoe that was less supportive, but that was a trade off that I made for the other things that the shoe gave me in that event. So, you know, I think for most people, it's probably not That much of an issue when they're starting out, you may not want to wear the most ultra minimalist footwear if you're especially if you're not used to carrying weight and your feet maybe aren't as strong yet. I'm thinking those the five fingers and those like extremely low profile shoes, you might want some little bit of extra support there. But yeah, I think those are some things to consider, especially if you. End up going heavier, you end up going for longer miles when I'm out and I've done some training rucks that were 9 miles, 10 miles. At a time. I wore my more supportive footwear for that reason. But if people have foot issues, foot problems, I mean, you also kind of need to take into consideration your own challenges in, in the footwear that works for you. But I would generally say you wanna stay away from the extremes. which is the huge cloud-like super soft and squishy, or the incredibly minimalist, like almost no soul. You probably want something that's a bit more in between.

Lisa: 44:58

But basically, whatever you're currently wearing walking, if you are comfortable in that, that'll be fine until you carry more weight. Yeah,

Steph: 45:07

I, would say so. Yeah. If you're just starting out, you probably will do well with whatever shoes sneakers are used to wearing. I will say recently Michael Easter, um, had a newsletter. He puts out a weekly newsletter and he was talking about the headline was something like the number one, most common rucking related injury. And I was like, Oh, I got to read this. Cause quite oftentimes he'll dig into some of the literature around rucking, which just. I have to read enough papers about nutrition and stuff as it is. I don't always get to look at the, the literature around rucking, although there is some interesting, albeit not a huge sampling of literature around, especially women and older individuals and carrying weight, which is cool. But the number one, most common rucking injury deal. Did you see this? Do you know what it is? Yeah, okay. This is blisters. Yeah. So, and like, look, blisters are not to be trifled with. You can get infections, you know, it can make walking incredibly painful, but that comes down to generally the fit of your shoes. And keeping your feet dry, so it's

Lisa: 46:13

like in the, in the Forrest Gump movie,

Steph: 46:15

Yeah,

Lisa: 46:16

change your

Steph: 46:17

to do with less to do with rocking itself and a little bit more to do with a type of material. Your socks are made out of the fit of the shoe. when we did the go rock challenge in October, we walked for 17 miles. Over the course of 12 hours, and I did get a, a bit of a blister on my toe. I knew this was likely to happen because in my training walks that were longer, I did develop a hotspot there and it's just the way my feet are. There's just the anatomy of my feet. I have pretty wide feet and my little toe just sticks out in all the, all the wrong ways. Anyway, so, um, I knew I was likely to get a blister and I tried to do what I could to mitigate that and I ended, did end up getting a blister at the end of the day, um, but it's because My shoes are probably a tiny bit on the small side for my feet, but I'm sort of in between sizes. So, you know, the tightness of your shoes, especially if you're on your feet for a long period of time, your feet will swell to some degree. For most people, they're going to expand because you're just. Standing up and gravity does what gravity does. So yeah, proper, properly sized footwear and sort of keeping your feet as dry as humanly possible. Although in that event, we got them wet within the first five minutes. Um,

Lisa: 47:33

because again, the beach,

Steph: 47:35

yeah, the beach and, um, you know, for that, I wear wool socks because going to give you the best shot at keeping your feet, comfortable if they're wet and it's cold. I would say that's probably an extreme situation. You're probably not going to go stand in a puddle or in a pond or something like that when

Lisa: 47:53

you go rucking.

Steph: 47:54

Yeah, so make sure your, your shoes fit well, you know, they're not too tight. That sort of thing is probably. Again, if you're not used to walking, even walking for a few miles, your feet might hurt a little bit. They might just be tired. So, or if your footwear doesn't fit particularly well, you might get a blister toes or, or heels or something like that. So it's less, I think though, a function of the rucking itself and just more a function of being up on your feet and, and covering distance. If you're not accustomed to that.

Lisa: 48:27

Okay. That's really helpful. I think we've covered everything. Um, well, no, there's not, we can't cover everything about rucking, but there are, like you said, some good literature out there, some good data and other people that are talking about this, that you can find out more, but really there's, yeah. I, I found sometimes the more I, like, look for information, it's kind of all the same thing. Like, just put a pack on, put some shoes on, get going. Like, it's not hard. Let's, like, don't overcomplicate it. So, I think anyone could get started today. So, um, just like I always tell people, you can start eating. What you want to eat on your very next meal, your very next bite can be right on plan. So you don't need a Monday morning or a new year's day. You can just start on any random Thursday afternoon. And the same goes for including rucking in your routine. So you don't need any special permission or equipment. You just get to get started whenever you want. So,

Steph: 49:26

Yep.

Lisa: 49:27

all right, well, Steph, why don't you tell people where they can find you in the world and, um, if you have anything to offer.

Steph: 49:34

Yeah. So you can find me at Stephgaudreau.Com, which is my website. I'm probably most active on Instagram in terms of social media. And then also my podcast, which is Fuel your strength. I do have a, a free strength workout sample on my website. If people are interested in that and I can share the URL with you, if you'd like, um, and we can put it in show notes or wherever that might show up. And yeah, I, you know, I just, I, I really love what you said there. I echo that so much. I always think about, you know. Thanks. Thanks to Pope Gregory from the 1500s. That's why we start our calendar where we start our calendar. It's completely arbitrary. Um, you know, we still have something like, I don't know, 40, some 45 days in the year or something like that. I mean, there's so much that can change. Right now, even in an instant, you don't have to have a special ceremonious day or a special, you know, fresh start. Any, any moment could be a fresh start. And I'm a huge proponent of just starting where you are, starting with what you have. You can always trust me. If you want to spend the most on fitness equipment and all that fancy stuff, you can definitely do that in time. But don't set the bar higher for yourself and put more obstacles in your way. So yes, getting a rucking backpack makes sense for a lot of people. Eventually it's a great investment, but if you've never done it and you think, I don't even know if I'm going to like this and just go out with what you have. I'm sure most people have a backpack in your closet somewhere or that you use on a daily basis. Like you said, put a pair of sneakers on, put something relatively heavy in there and

Lisa: 51:12

You can even start with a bag of rice. Like really?

Steph: 51:15

Yes. That's a great one. Books. Um, recently I was on vacation visiting my family and I could only find wine bottles that were like the heaviest thing in the house. I put five wine bottles in my backpack and went for a walk.

Lisa: 51:29

I love it.

Steph: 51:31

Yeah. So start, start where you are. Start, start now. You'll be glad you did in a couple months and you don't need to wait for a specific day or time to, to make a change.

Lisa: 51:43

All right. Well, thanks Steph. It's been a pleasure.

Steph: 51:45

Thank you.

Lisa: 51:46

If this episode has helped you in any way, all I ask is for you to share it. Share it with one friend or share it on your social media tag me. And I'll give you a shout out as well. I have been getting a lot of comments lately about how beneficial the free content is that I have been putting out in the world and sharing it can really help someone else. You can also leave a five star rating on apple and Spotify and review the show on apple podcasts. That also really makes it easier for other people to find it because apple loves that and then they push it out to more people. So your review actually helps other women. Have a great week and as always, thanks for listening to the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast.