ERS Walk & Talk Podcast
ERS Walk & Talk Podcast
Strength Training Explained with Demetrius Bailey
Unlock the secrets to effective strength training with Demetrius Bailey, a seasoned coach with a wealth of experience training professional athletes and military personnel. Demetrius reveals practical strategies to integrate strength training into your daily routine, helping you prevent injuries and improve functional movement. Learn how key exercises like squatting, deadlifting, and pressing can transform your fitness journey, no matter your current level.
Discover why maintaining muscle mass is crucial as we age, with startling statistics showing adults lose 2-3% of muscle mass each decade after the age of 40 without proper strength training. Demetrius introduces the concept of "microdosing" workouts—short, impactful sessions that fit into even the busiest schedules. Understand the role strength training plays in everyday tasks, from lifting to maintaining good posture, and gain practical tips for initiating and sticking to a regimen with 20-30 minute sessions, three to five times a week.
This episode also debunks common myths about strength training, such as the fear of becoming bulky or the misconception that it stunts children's growth. Demetrius offers creative ways to use household items for exercises and underscores the importance of proper form to prevent injuries. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned athlete, this discussion will equip you with the knowledge and motivation to build and maintain an effective strength training routine. Don’t miss the inspiring success stories and expert advice that make strength training accessible and beneficial for everyone.
Resources:
Starting a Strength Training Program Webinar Link
DPS Fitness Wellness Unit Daily Workout Calendar
DPS Fitness Wellness Unit Capitol Complex Class Information
5-Day Strength Training Challenge Playlist
A short muscle is a weak muscle, and so when we're sitting in our desk and we're sedentary, our muscles are getting shortened. When our shoulders are rounded forward, if we're stuck in this position, the next thing you know we need to express shorter range of motion. When we lose that, that's where injuries can occur. The long game of strength training is really to help prevent injuries, things that we kind of take for granted, you know, taking things off the ground. Well, if we're not preparing or training for that, then something as small as picking groceries up off the ground and we're not thinking about all right, is my back flat, is my core engaged? Then that's how injuries can occur. You can tweak your back just lifting groceries off the ground.
Speaker 2:Hi and welcome to the ERS Walk and Talk podcast. Today we have an exciting episode on strength training featuring Demetrius Bailey from the DPS Fitness Wellness Unit. Demetrius brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this discussion. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Exercise Science from the University of Alabama and a Master's degree in Physical Education and Human Performance from the University of Alabama and a master's degree in physical education and human performance from the University of West Florida. Demetrius began his career training professional athletes in the MLB, nba and NFL. Then he spent five years as a collegiate strength coach and he's also worked with Air Force and Marine Forces special operations before joining the Texas Department of Public Safety. He holds certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association and the American College of Sports Medicine.
Speaker 2:In this episode, we discuss the benefits of strength training how to properly perform three functional movements squatting, deadlifting and pressing. If these terms seem intimidating, stay with us, because these are things you do every day in life. Demetrius provides a common sense approach to strength training and he makes it accessible and understandable to all of us. So, whether you're just getting started or you're already training, this conversation will reinforce the benefits of doing it right. He also shares great resources and recommendations for where to start. He also shares great resources and recommendations for where to start. I'm so happy you're here to listen to this enlightening conversation with Demetrius. Here we go, all right. Good morning, demetrius, and thank you for joining me as a guest on the ERS Walk Talk podcast. It's really good to see you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, lacey, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:I'm honored to be a part of this. Yeah, I wanted to just kind of let everybody know a little bit about who you are. I've sort of already formally introduced you in the intro, but if you could share just how you got involved with strength training in the first place, that'd be great.
Speaker 1:Of course I played basketball in high school. I wanted to play football, but parents wouldn't let me because I had a concussion and they were like nope, that's it. So I grew up playing basketball. In high school we were introduced to a private strength coach and so that was my first introduction to strength training was in high school. And you know just that feeling of like getting stronger and knowing that me playing basketball and getting stronger was helping me be a greater defender and I was able to be more explosive and that being able to translate into basketball helped out a lot.
Speaker 1:And so, leaving high school, went to the University of Alabama where I received my undergrad in exercise science, and from there I kind of didn't know which role I wanted to go. So I went the athletic training route at first and then after that I went to physical therapy, the program. I started to get a sense that, okay, this is more of the reactive side to training, so people have already gotten injured. There's got to be a way to sort of try to prevent that. And after I went down the physical therapy route, shadowed a bunch of physical therapists, I found a private strength training gym in Tuscaloosa. I was really getting involved with training those baseball kids and watching their confidence and all that grow and seeing them perform better on the baseball field and the other sports was really awakening to me and just seeing, like the injury risk, kind of you know decreased there. So that was huge for me and so I wanted to know more and so I ended up interning at EXOS, primarily working with professional athletes, and then went on to do collegiate strength conditioning.
Speaker 1:So I was at D1 University and then I ended up getting a grad assistant position at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, florida.
Speaker 1:I had several sports there, so I had men's and women's tennis, cross country women's soccer, volleyball, and then I assisted with football. That was a great opportunity for me to like really get hands-on coaching, being able to work with athlete trainers and head coaches. And so from there went on to be the head strength coach at a small division three school, went on to be the head strength coach at a small Division III school, birmingham Southern College, and so that was a fun time working with over 400 plus athletes, 22 sports by myself, and learning how to manage a weight room. And from there, you know, just to keep it short, I transitioned to tactical strength and conditioning I worked with the military in special operations for three years and then that led me to join the DPS team here in the fitness wellness unit. Conditioning I worked with the military and special operations for three years and then that led me to join the DPS team here in the fitness wellness unit. So that's kind of my introductory and short and how I got involved in strength training.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. A lot of people know that I also started my role in state government at DPS in the fitness and wellness unit. I also relocated my family to to Austin for that job and I know you just you just moved here. Can you talk a little bit about your journey to moving to Texas and taking that role?
Speaker 1:Right. So that's a. It was a huge risk, honestly, because my wife was still finishing her teaching job at UNC Wilmington and so I moved out here in September 2023. And then my wife she had to finish out her fall semester and so packed up everything, actually ended up living in the barracks with above the trainees for you know, three, four months. That transition was rough at first, but my wife now works for DPS as well and she's in the leadership development unit, so we're loving our jobs here. Dps, they've embraced me. It's allowed me to do more, not just coaching, but also do trainings like this, do a lot of education, which was what I was a little bit of missing in my last spot, and so I want to get more hands-on and not just be the coach in the weight room. I want to do a lot more of the wellness side of things as well.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. We're so lucky to have you here first of all and I was thrilled the first time I met you that you were taking on this role and have enjoyed kind of getting to know you and working with you on some special projects, and I always appreciate how much DPS is willing to collaborate with other state agencies to support our entire state's workforce.
Speaker 2:That's one of the things I loved about working at DPS too, it was like it's not just about us, but if we take care of everyone, it helps all of us collectively. So I love it and I'm so happy that you and your wife are here. You'll also have a daughter, from what I understand. That takes up a lot of time and energy, but worthwhile endeavor parenting.
Speaker 1:Exactly. She's a two-year-old bundle of joy and energy and keeps us on our toes at all times.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. All right, so we've talked about a little bit about your background. You have extensive background in strength training and really the reason why I wanted to talk about this today is because I think there's sometimes a lot of misinformation about strength training. A lot of people don't really understand what it can do for them. So let's just kind of talk about the benefits of strength training. To get started, today, in your opinion, or based off of the research, can you talk about what are some of the most significant benefits of strength training for overall health and wellbeing?
Speaker 1:Right. So one of the overall benefits is, you know, increased bone density and preventing the, you know, osteopenia, osteoporosis and that bone loss, as you know, as we age we tend to, you know, lose muscle, and so strength training is going to help reverse that. You know, the more muscle we put on is going to help protect our bones and as we grow and just become more functional throughout our lives. So you know, you don't want to be getting older and next thing, you know, you're not able to play with the grandkids or carry the groceries upstairs or do the things that were typically part of our daily lives. And so it's a lot of things increased bone density, improved blood glucose control, reducing stress levels, improving sleep there's a lot of things I can go on to mention, but strength training in general. People should get involved with strength training just for the simple fact that it's going to help decrease your cardiovascular disease risk and help you live a healthier life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and kind of piggybacking on what you said. With the muscle loss, you and I we just kind of did a webinar on this topic and this statistic that I think is so alarming, and the thing that I think about a lot is that every decade we lose two to 3% of our muscle mass If we don't strength train. I mean that is really just like whoa, that's so important. Um, because of that, lean muscle mass is, like you said, is supporting our, our bone structure. And also, can you talk about how strength training can help us with management of our weight and kind of just what is body composition?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:So the more muscle that we hold onto our body or the more lean body mass that we have, it's going to increase our resting metabolic rate.
Speaker 1:And so with that you've some people may have heard the term basal metabolic rate, resting metabolic rate, the similar basal metabolic rate, and so with that some people may have heard the term basal metabolic rate, resting metabolic rate, a similar basal metabolic rate, is pretty much going to go geared towards all right, this is the amount of calories your body is going to burn if you're just not doing anything, all right. But resting metabolic rate kind of factors in eating, but resting metabolic rate kind of factors in, you know, eating, sleeping, other bodily functions and kind of just daily living. And so with that I mean the more muscle you have in your body, that more muscle is metabolically active. And so the more muscle you're going to have on your body, the more calories you're going to continue to burn throughout the day and it's going to increase that resting metabolic rate, which is huge in terms of burning fat, because obviously you want to have when it comes to caloric deficit, you know if you're going to be spending more energy, that's going to help in terms of burning that fat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes so much sense and so essentially, if we have more active tissue that's burning more calories, then the like the role of fat is just to basically store energy for us when we're starving is not very active. During the webinar that I thought was really great you said we think our metabolism slowing down just because we're getting older, but in fact it may be slowing down because we're losing muscle mass.
Speaker 1:That's really exactly Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're less active. So, um often I think people may be overwhelmed with the idea of starting a strength training program, like, if you don't know how to do it, it may seem like it's I don't know what to do or how much, and then it's going to be a whole, like time consuming thing. How much do people actually need to do to achieve the benefits of at least maintaining the muscle mass that they have?
Speaker 1:Say 20 to 30 minutes tops, and even then there's ways that you can just sprinkle in strength training just throughout the day, have a in-service coming up in august and one of our speakers is going to be talking about this concept called microdosing. This concept of microdosing is, you know, just small strength training sessions to sort of help eliminate excuses of you know, I don't have the time, and just sort of maybe doing two to three exercises in a session. You focus on maybe a particular muscle group and then you're in and out and that's all you have to do. Obviously incorporate a warmup and a cool down, but training sessions don't need to be long, especially for your average adult. I mean, obviously we're, you know, have busy schedules. It only takes 20, 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:How many days a week would you say? People need to be strength training.
Speaker 1:I'd say you can get away with three to five. I know it's, you know a range there. It depends on you know what your goals are. But I say, if you can get in three training sessions a week and that's you know 20 to 30 minutes, then you're in great shape. Obviously five would be better, but yeah, three to five somewhere in there, three is is good, five will be great.
Speaker 2:That's great. Can you talk about just the functionality of strength training as a benefit, like why, why would we want to engage in these types of activities and how that might help us functionally?
Speaker 1:Right. So every day we wake up and we do a squat, whether we believe it or not, and so squatting is part of our daily lives. Picking things off the ground is part of our daily lives. You know, if we're playing with our kids on the ground, we're going to have to be able to get off the ground. You know, through pressing or ground, through pressing or standing up and reaching for things overhead in our cabinets, or if we're helping friends move, we're having to lift and carry heavy objects. Or, like you grew up on a farm constantly lifting heavy objects, carrying objects on one side of the body, and so all of these things are part of our daily lives. It's, I guess, what we call like functional strength training is that it just kind of relates to what we do in our everyday lives.
Speaker 1:Sitting on our desk all day is not the greatest for our bodies, and so I mentioned this in our webinar. Short muscle is a weak muscle, and so when we're sitting in our desk and we're sedentary, our muscles are getting shortened, and so that's, you know, desk and we're sedentary, our muscles are getting shortened, and so that's, you know, causing our muscles to, you know, to weaken, and so we want to be able to lengthen out our muscles and work on our posture, and so that's another reason for strength training is to increase our posture, because you know, when our shoulders are rounded forward, if we're stuck in this position, the next thing you know we need to express shoulder range of motion. When we lose that, that's where injuries can occur. The long game of strength training is really to, you know, help prevent injuries, Things that we kind of take for granted.
Speaker 1:You know, picking things off the ground. Well, if we're not preparing or training for that, then something as small as picking groceries up off the ground and we're not thinking about, all right, is my back flat, is my core engaged, then that's how injuries can occur. You can tweak your back just lifting groceries off the ground, and so you want to make sure that you're preparing for that through resistance training, and that way you know how to properly, you know, pick things up off the ground like groceries, or you know how to reach overhead with proper form and you know grab stuff off a high shelf without having to really worry too much about hurting yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes so much sense. Just thinking about just the normal things that we do every day. And I hear all the time about people say. People will say I was just picking something up and I tweaked my back.
Speaker 2:I was just picking something up and I tweaked my back and we have to condition to pick things up off the ground. Heavy things because that's typically how we end up injuring ourselves doing something that we've always done but we just weren't highly trained in our core gets weak because we sit like this. Even when you said that our listeners can't see me, but I set up a little bit taller Short muscle is what'd you?
Speaker 2:say A short muscle is a weak muscle and so, like lengthening, makes you want to lengthen and just really sit up tall and open up the chest, because we're getting so weak when we sit at our desks like that all the time. So, um, all right. Well, let's talk about for someone who may be new to strength training what advice would you give them to start and to do this safely and effectively. Where would you send somebody for resources or just generally how to get started?
Speaker 1:Right, and so this part is tough because, honestly, if you're new to strength training, you want to get involved.
Speaker 1:The safest way is to, you know, have a personal trainer or someone that is advising you and watching your form and technique. Obviously, there's a lot of virtual things going on nowadays, but if you have a credentialed personal trainer, somebody that's able to watch you and make sure you're doing the right form and technique and showing you how to do things properly, that's the safest way. I say I know gyms can be intimidating these days, but if you don't have access to a gym, the best thing is just to really start light and I would say you know, look up some YouTube videos, but make sure you are looking at some type of video of proper technique on the exercise before you execute it and start very light, start body weight. But definitely my recommendation would be to work with a personal trainer or have somebody that's credentialed, knows what they're doing, that can watch your technique, watch your form, and then you can start progressing on, you know, the reps and the weights and all those things.
Speaker 2:I know that for those that work in the capital complex, or state employees that work in the capital complex, your team is down there a couple of days a week doing strength training sessions. Is that something that you could? Maybe? Even if somebody wanted you to look at their form and you're there teaching that your team could do that?
Speaker 1:Exactly, I'd say, all of our training sessions. You know they're scalable and so you know all exercises are scalable. There's regressions, there's progressions to every exercise and so, like you said, those capital classes you'll post a link to those later but Mondays are 12 and 1245. And this is in the Barbara Jordan building and then on Wednesdays we have a session at 12 o'clock and so those are 30 minute training sessions, but typically total body, and we'll start with a warmup, get you going, explain the workout and then from there, if anybody has any any type of issues, or they're not able to do full range of motion or they're worried about different parts of the body or have previous injuries, we're able to kind of work around that.
Speaker 2:I love that and it's so nice just to have somebody with your credentials there watching and just making sure people are safe. I know it's a group so you can't watch everybody as closely as if like a one-on-one, but it is a way to maybe get some of those questions answered.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:People can't see it. Since this is audio, it's a little bit hard. We can't show form and technique, but could you maybe talk about some of the most common mistakes that you see in movement patterns for strength training?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'll kind of go through, I guess, the basics. I'll start with the squat. So for the squat, I'd say, the common mistakes I see on the squat are people not hinging back and so they'll squat down. And so what I mean by that is when you squat you should start with a bend at the knee and a bend at the hips at the same time. All right, I'll see a lot of people just bend the knees and they're just pushing those knees over your toes, which is okay as long as your heels stay in contact with the ground, and so your ankle range of motion people are typically limited by in the squat, and so they're pushing your knees over your toes. Their heels are coming off the ground. That's adding a lot of stress to the knee. And then, on the flip side, I'll see people do the opposite, where they don't bend the knees much and they'll hinge back too far and their chest is coming down as they're squatting down, and that's going to put a lot of pressure on the back. And so there's this balance between all right, you need a good amount of ankle mobility in order to get down low in the squat, but you also need a good amount of hip mobility with.
Speaker 1:That Biggest thing is feet, shoulder width apart. That's a good starting place for most people, and I say you can even turn your toes out just slightly and then unlock the knees and the hips at the same time, and it's okay for the knees to travel over the toes. What we don't want is the knees to sort of like start coming in towards each other or start going on the insides of our big toes. That's what we don't want. As long as our knees are tracking over, I'd say, our big toe or the middle of our toes, we're in a good position there and go down as far as you're comfortable with, all right. Nobody ever said you have to squat. You know full depth and you know your hips are touching your ankles or whatever. Squat down to your comfortable depth, all right.
Speaker 1:You'll see a lot of misinformation out there where, all right, people will try and go all the way down to the ground but then their heels are coming off the ground. That's not what we want. We want a good, comfortable squat. We can work on range of motion, you know, as we start strength training, you know you'll get more flexible and you'll start working on stretching and all that. But to begin with squatting, just go down to what you're comfortable with. Did you have any notes on that? Before we go to deadlift?
Speaker 2:No, I just, it's interesting because you know we're talking about strength and then mobility comes in and I was like going down this rabbit trail in my brain like, oh my gosh, we need to do a whole thing on mobility too, because it takes mobility to build strength. And so, yeah, I love, I love how you said that you know the ankle mobility, the hip mobility, all of those things are super important to be able to lift properly and some of us are so tight from sitting and maybe doing sedentary jobs and not working on mobility for a long time.
Speaker 2:So that'll be another podcast we can do. Let's talk about deadlift.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so deadlift, let's say we'll just start with the barbell. Obviously you don't have to start with the barbell on a deadlift, but the main thing with the deadlift is you're starting from the ground and in that position, your feet we'll just go with the standard deadlift for today. Your feet are going to be underneath your hips, not shoulder width, all right. So feet underneath your hips, toes straight forward, and so when you get down to that bottom position, you want to have your chest up tall and you want your hips to be lower than your shoulders, all right. So imagine if you have, like our trainees, they have their names on their shirts. I want to be able to read their name on their shirt when they're in the bottom of that deadlift position to show me that they have good posture, their shoulders are back and their lats are tight and they're ready to drop to the ground. So if we have a barbell, that barbell is going to be over the tongue of our shoe, it's going to be close to our shins and then from there, full grip on the barbell, shoulders back, chest up tall, and then from there you're just dropping through the legs, and so a lot of things that I'll see wrong or go wrong with the deadlift is people starting with their hips too high or their back is rounded. If their back is rounded, typically I'll tell them to.
Speaker 1:You know, I think Holly used this example the other day. She's like try and squeeze that orange in your armpits and try and squeeze the juice out of the orange, and I was like I've never heard that one. I typically use a pencil. Imagine like a pencil is in your armpits and you want to keep that pencil there. I typically use a pencil, you know. Imagine like a pencils in your armpits and you want to keep that pencil there. And so to engage your lats and now typically get people you know with rounded backs to straighten their backs out.
Speaker 2:Oh, I like that. Yeah, that's a great cue what things I was. As you were talking about deadlifting, I was thinking just about cause. I think deadlift sounds intimidating to people, but you literally deadlift your daughter probably every day. Right, You're picking, we're all deadlifting, we're picking up things from the ground, and so it is a very functional movement. Not that you want people may not want to start with loading a lot of weight on a heavy bar, but just thinking about proper technique and picking something up, like pick up your child.
Speaker 1:Right, and so that's very true. I mean, I pick up my daughter every single day and even then it's almost just kind of habitual for me to, you know, bend down right, you know back flat, and just become habit, because I've done it so often. But you're right, like I still got to embrace my core and do all of that. And so if we want to transition to push up or a pressing movement, I'd say the key thing on that is making sure, let's say, for a pushup, um, you want your, your head and your heels to be you know this very straight line, and so you don't want your hips to be sagging, you don't want your hips to be up in the air. I'm using my hands, like they can see me.
Speaker 2:He's showing very good form, y'all.
Speaker 1:Right, and so the biggest things is your elbows. You want to have almost as a 45 degree angle, and so hands you want directly underneath your shoulders. So if you're in that top push-up position your hands should be directly underneath your shoulders and then when you're going down, your elbows will come out to the side at a 45-degree angle. You don't want your elbows to be out wide, or if you have them in too close, then you're just working primarily triceps. But that 45-degree angle is really going to hit your chest. The chest muscles is what you want to work and to push up, along with your core the most, because your chest muscles, your pecs, run at a or like a oblique angle, and so that 45 degree angle is going to help work your you know your pec major, pec minor a little bit more effectively.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and in that movement, I don't know, pushups are much more difficult for women than men. Do you have recommendations for because, also I think again, a lot of these things can be intimidating and we aren't successful in things we don't want to do it. So what would you recommend for somebody who hasn't done pushups, or it might be a new action.
Speaker 1:So great question. So if you want to start on the ground, you can start on the ground, but instead of having your feet on the ground, you can just have your knees on the ground, and so that'll take a little bit of weight off your body in order to do the pushup, and what you can focus on is even the knee pushups are difficult. You can just focus on going down slow. These are called eccentrics, so, or you can just call them tempo. But you're going down for a count of you know, three to five, and then you can just work your way back up and then go down slow again, and so that's going to eventually build up to where you can do an actual push-up.
Speaker 1:If you don't want to start on the ground, you can start at a desk. Most people have a desk or some type of dresser or something at home, and so you can just have your hands on the desk or the dresser, and because you're not fully with gravity on that, it'll be a lot easier. So if it's still tough in that position and you're able to walk your feet forward, that'll make it a little easier. The more you walk your feet back, they'll be harder, and so, again, you can go tempo on that. So go down slow and then reset your feet and then come back up and reset that way. So those are some good ways to scale. I always tell people who are struggling with either push-ups or pull-ups, because upper body movements are hard.
Speaker 1:The best way to start with that would be to start at the top of the movement and then go down as slow as you can, and you're still going to build that muscle even though you're not doing the full repetition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so just allowing yourself to slowly lower to the ground, you're training the muscles, so then you can actually push yourself off the ground.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. So if you're training the muscles, so then you can actually push yourself off the ground. Exactly that makes sense. So, um, if you were talking to somebody that you know just wanted to start with a few movements to, you've talked about the squat, the deadlift. So lift yourself up from seated, pick something up from the ground and push yourself off the ground, or a desk. So push, squat and then pull. Is there any other sort of common movement that you would recommend for folks that want to get started with strength training?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'd say, you know, depending on your level, you're not comfortable with, you know, grabbing free weights just yet. I mean a typical squat movement. You can just have yourself in the chair and if you have something you can hold on to, you can just, you know, stand up from your chair and those are squats right there. And then if you want to grab weight, it doesn't even have to be weight, it can be a full water bottle. I was about to grab my water bottle. Or you can grab your backpack and that can be your weight.
Speaker 1:So just gradually scaling that exercise, standing up from your chair and then eventually moving the chair away, squat down to a comfortable depth and then coming back up. And I'd say, for deadlift, it can be a water bottle, all right. So imagine your feet are underneath your hips, you have your water bottle in between your legs, and then you're just focusing on good form, good posture, and you're lifting that up full standing position and then back down. And then, for you know, for pressing, for pushups, I kind of already mentioned those scaling options there. So that's what I would start with.
Speaker 1:I know most people don't have a pull-up bar, but I say for you know, for pulling movements other than, like lower body pulling movements. You can just do a row with, you know, your backpack or your water bottle, and it's the same form or same positioning as a deadlift. All you gotta do is just grab an object in your arm and now you're just pulling your elbow back without moving your torso lift. All you gotta do is just grab an object in your arm and now you're just pulling your elbow back without moving your torso. And so these are easy ways.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have to be weights, like I said. It can be a backpack, it can be a water bottle, anything that can provide a little bit of resistance, then that's a great way to start. And then, if you have trouble with that, and then, if you have trouble with that, you can add in more stability. So to say so like the chair, would be more stability for the squat or for the deadlift. You can hold on to something if you need to, or pushups. That's going to be having the desk there. That's going to provide more stability for that movement. So yeah, there's a lot of ways to scale and start off your strength journey.
Speaker 2:That's great. I was thinking about just the other day. We have a rickety old push lawnmower and I couldn't get that thing to start and I was just rowing this is why I strength train.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of functionality, for sure. When you start thinking about your just daily movements and and doing these things how, if you can think about why you're doing the thing that you're doing and how that movement is going to help you in your life, maybe that's a little motivation. What are some of the common misconceptions about strength training that you might like to debunk?
Speaker 1:common misconceptions about strength training that you might like to debunk. There's so many, and this is what makes being on social media hard, but I say one of the biggest ones is for women. For them, strength training it'll make me bulky Well, not really. Women are going to have less testosterone than men, right, that's a fact. It's going to be extremely hard for women to put on more muscle. It's going to take other supplementation, and so women are typically not going to be able to put on as much muscle as men, especially if you're starting out. Yes, you're going to build some muscle that just comes along with getting stronger in the beginning. You're going to build some muscle that just comes along with getting stronger in the beginning, but after that, I mean, you can get stronger without putting on muscle. And that's what a lot of people don't realize too is like, oh, I have to put on muscle to get stronger. Not necessarily. Once you get to a certain point, you can do strength training without having to put on muscle size. They're not the same, and so I won't go down that rabbit hole. But yeah, that's a big misconception. I see a lot is that, you know, and I think it's sort of changing in the right direction. I'd say there's a huge women's fitness movement going on, you know, and women are getting stronger, they're posting more online and being in the gyms and being confident. So I think that's sort of shifting.
Speaker 1:I'd say the biggest one I still see is that I'm surprised whenever I still see it is that kids, if they use strength training, it'll stump their growth, and I'm just like, oh my goodness, I have not seen a single research article that supports that and so that is a complete misconception. Kids can strength train. Obviously, be cognizant of the intensity of when you're, of what your kids are lifting. I would recommend they, you know, strength train under you know, a credentialed professional. I, when I was working as an undergrad at Alabama, the youngest kid I was training was seven years old.
Speaker 2:Wow, and so.
Speaker 1:I mean now, he wasn't back squatting you know his body weight, you know with the bar on his back, but he was using dumbbells and kettlebells and was able to lift some pretty heavy loads. And we did focus more on volume and not necessarily on maxing out, because I wouldn't recommend maxing out. But you can definitely groove a lot of movement patterns, especially when they're younger, and the younger that they are and they're constantly doing these repetitions, the more proficient they're going to be when they get older. And so strength training highly advised for youth and young athletes, because the earlier they start, you know, the easier for them to, you know, keep putting on muscle and the better their form and technique is going to be when they start, you know, getting into high school and college.
Speaker 2:That is so interesting, demetrius, I think about. Like with uh, it's so interesting, demetrius, I think about. Like with little kids, like when you watch a toddler squat. They're perfect, their form and technique is perfect, so starting younger while you have the mobility over time, I guess you can keep that mobility. Um, so that's so interesting. Um, I have two teenage boys that love strength training now because they're seeing a lot of the like, the gains, like can actually feel themselves getting stronger. So that's been great to see, um.
Speaker 2:But yeah, man, so so important to start as soon as possible and just don't quit throughout our life, um, and if you aren't strength training and you've never strength train it's never too late to start, right, so we can always start muscle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's research that shows that. You know, even if you start later and you've already kind of um, gone through a little bit of osteopenia, you're losing some bone. That's reversible to a certain extent, and so it's not too late to start strength training, start putting on more muscle, start minimizing that you know, muscle loss as we age process, to sort of maintain and, yeah, reverse some of that bone loss yeah, the body wants to, or the body will adapt to what we do.
Speaker 2:I saw a study I remember this was way back, even when I was in college and I don't. I just remember they did a study on people in their nineties and they were still able to put on muscle, because the body will always adapt to the load as long as we're doing it safely. Um, I could talk about this all day, but just to keep ourselves succinct and on time, I want to go ahead and just kind of wrap up and I was wondering if you could share maybe a success story or testimonial from someone that you know that maybe their life has been transformed by strength training.
Speaker 1:Right. So when I was at University of West Florida, I was, you know, full-time strength coach in the weight room as well, but I also did some personal training on the side, so not just working with athletes. So I ended up working with this older lady and her goal was just to play with her grandkids, and so to me I was like, oh wow, you know this kind of that really more. So opened up like a whole new avenue of strength training for me. We did some very basic movements, like we said, just working on squatting from the chair and then, you know, removing the chair and adding more resistance and, you know, getting her upper body stronger and it's funny, like a lot of the upper body movements.
Speaker 1:I would almost just kind of mimic what it would be like to lift her grandkid up in the air, you know what I mean. So doing some light kettlebell overhead presses or just some light dumbbell presses, and her form was pretty good. I mean, she had never strength trained before. But you know, sometimes those are the easiest to work with because they don't know what their body looks like. All you got to do is show them and they're pretty good from there. So, long story short, she, you know, worked with me for about, you know, three months and she was able to play with her grandkids, you know, pain free. She was able to squat down and get on the floor with them without knee pain, without back pain, which is what she was kind of more so complaining about. I still hear from her occasionally and she's doing well. Her grandkids are, you know, not kids anymore, but she's grateful for that time and being able to spend those years with her, her grandkids, and be able to play with them, you know, without pain.
Speaker 2:That's amazing and I think for all of us, we have to think about the why. Right, Like why, why do I want to do this? And everyone's going to have a little bit different reason for strength training. But I just encourage anybody who's listening to this to really think about your why and if you're interested in strength training, there's there's a lot of good resources out there. So, with that being said, Demetrius, could you share for those out there that want to maybe connect with you and learn about more resources? I will definitely put the link to our webinar in the show notes, because we talked a lot in the webinar. We talked a lot about the principles of strength training and designing the program, and there's a visual component of that. So if you want to get more into the weeds on how much, how often, like all of that, you can watch the webinar. But what other resources would you share with folks?
Speaker 1:I'd say, if anybody wants to get in contact with me, I'll just give them my DPS email. It's demetriusbailey at dpstexasgov. Here at DPS, we have a ton of resources in terms of not just our fitness classes, but also webinars, also our classes here at headquarters, and we have, you know, an online library on YouTube as well. Tons of resources there. If you're looking for a book or something, mark Verstegen he has a book called Every Day is Game Day, and I'd say that's a very easy read and also a great way to start being able to put together a strength program for yourself and kind of learn about these very basic movement patterns, how to execute those basic movement patterns. There's great illustrations in there, and it's not just for performance, but it's more so for your active adult who wants to get into strength training and they want to know why strength training is important, what to do, what it looks like, and it's a super easy book to read that's great.
Speaker 2:Don't forget about our five-day strength training challenge as well, of course, that's going on right now yeah, it's, it's almost over.
Speaker 2:Tomorrow is day five, but those are YouTube videos that anybody can do, and so I will also put our five day strength challenge If you don't know what I'm talking about. We did a five day strength challenge where each day, we led participants and there's music and there's a timer. It's like 30 seconds of work with 15 seconds of rest. It's Demetrius myself, jewel Smith from the Office of the Attorney General, mackenzie McIntyre from TxDOT, and each day we basically guide you through a workout. So you don't even have to think about it. They're, like I said, 15 to 20 minutes and I'll put the links to all of those. So it's a good starting place. You can kind of get some ideas for what to do in your own life, or you can just keep doing those over and over again and continue to add weight.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. Well, is there anything else that you'd like to close this out with?
Speaker 1:I just want people to know that strength training is relatively safe, especially if you know the right form and technique and you know how to execute the movements. And it doesn't have to be much. Like I said, 20 or 30 minutes tops and that's with the five minute or warm up and five minute cool down. It doesn't have to take a lot. You can add in movement breaks throughout your day. Just sit up from your desk, maybe do a couple of squats in place, do a couple of lunges in place and do some pushups at your desk, things like that. It doesn't have to be complicated, and so find ways to add in just small movements throughout your day to equal 20 to 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Yeah, it doesn't have to be at one time, so you can just spread it. Spread it out.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that gets our energy up as well, so, all right. Well, thank you so much, demetrius. We're so lucky to have you in Texas and I'm just really grateful for the collaboration with you and DPS and your entire team over there is awesome and, yeah, I'm looking forward to next things and doing something on mobility in the future.
Speaker 1:Of course, anytime.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:You're welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for joining in to listen to this episode of the ERS Walk Talk podcast. We hope you found our conversation with Demetrius informative and inspiring. Remember, whether you're just starting out on your strength training journey or you're looking to enhance your current routine, the benefits of doing it right are invaluable. Please be sure to check out our show notes for all the resources discussed during the episode, as well as recommendations shared by Demetrius to get started and or continue your progress. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast and share it with your friends and colleagues that you think may benefit from this information. Remember to stay active, stay healthy and stay strong. We'll see you on the next episode of the ERS Walk Talk podcast. Take care everyone.