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Own Your Lazy

Own Your Lazy

by | Feb 13, 2025 | podcast

Listen:

Change Requires CHANGE

If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️

APPLY NOW

Change Requires CHANGE

If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️

APPLY NOW

Transcript:

Open Transcript:

Cori (00:00):
Welcome to the Redefining Strength Podcast. Everything you need to succeed on your health and fitness journey, even the stuff you don’t want to hear. I am incredibly lazy and I own it, and I actually credit this with the fact that I’ve become more disciplined because of my ownership of my own laziness. So let me explain. We are creatures of comfort and convenience and ease. When we think about the habits that we repeat, they’re often easy. They’re unconscious. They have solved a problem for us, and they’ve become so innate they don’t take any willpower or thought to really replicate. It’s why it’s really hard to break some of those habits, like maybe coming home from work and going straight to the cabinet. We’ve ingrained that pattern so much so that we don’t even think about it. It’s convenient, comfortable, and easy, but this same fact of the fact that we are creatures or comfort, convenience and ease is why new habits are so hard.

(00:53):
Because a lot of times they take thought they’re uncomfortable, they’re different than what we’ve always done. There might be a learning process which is hard involved. And so when we’re thinking about this, the more we can embrace that we are the creatures of comfort, or as I like to put it lazy, the more we can break down those new habits we’re trying to implement, and even the habits we’re trying to unlearn in a way that allows us to steer into this and make it more comfortable, easier. So when we think about habit change, it’s the unlearning process of habits that might be there and the learning process of new habits. New habits might be easier to implement because there isn’t an unlearning process that has to go there. So if you’re trying to implement a totally new habit that you don’t have any bad habits with, you might be like, okay, great.

(01:33):
I can easily do this new thing. It fits in right away. It’s comfortable enough and convenient enough, no problem, right? There’s no unlearning. Unlearning is what makes things often hard in that we have to make that conscious break that pattern as we’re creating that new pattern, which often also clashes with what is easy, comfortable, and convenient. So when we think about this, the first step might be to make things so small that we make that habit. We’re repeating that we want to stop a little bit harder because by just doing that, all of a sudden we’re building towards the other habit. Or by implementing the new habit, we might want to break it down into such a small component that it also helps us stop the other one. So things that really can work are shifts in our environment, especially for old habits and routines.

(02:15):
You might’ve heard me use this example in the past, but it’s something that’s so silly in nature, but made such a huge impact. So we don’t have to think about these things being super dramatic, but I had a problem with what I called the one more game where if I started eating a piece of candy and I had multiple little mini candy bars, I felt like I just always ate the entire bag. And so I wanted to stop this pattern. So when I did get it and I wanted to have a few pieces, I would put some now out in the cabinet and instead of leaving the container of all the other candy, the bag of the candy in the cabinet as well, I put in the freezer. Candy in the freezer tastes just as good, if not arguably better than in the cabinet. But just shifting that so that it was in the freezer, I felt like it was there whenever I wanted it would last.

(02:56):
Now eons even longer. It stopped me from feeling the need to have more of it, and sometimes now I still take it out of the freezer and eat right from there, but I’m not as tempted because it’s a different pattern interrupt for me, it’s a change in my environment, which may not work for you may seem very silly because again, it’s still just as good, if not arguably better. But that changed the routine from being something unconscious to enough of a discomfort, a new hard, just a little bit more difficult and a little bit more out of mind that it helped me. Same thing with learning new habits. You might say, Hey, for my goal to see results as fast as possible, I know tracking macros is great, but it’s overwhelming. It seems tedious. It seems just like something I can’t do. It’s so hard.

(03:37):
So you mentally resist it, even if you could potentially physically do it. So instead of just going straight to trying to force that which ends up making you feel restricted, you push it back even mentally more, which makes it even harder and uncomfortable. Think about what is the easiest, most comfortable thing to do with that. Maybe you’re like, Hey, I’m okay tracking as long as I don’t have to actually make any changes to start. Or, hey, maybe I’ll write down my food or maybe I’ll take pictures of my food, or maybe I’ll even focus on specific things at each meal to hold myself accountable and track in that way. One habit doesn’t have to be done in one way and won’t be done in one way by everybody or even by ourselves over the course of our life. But we want to think about how we can make those habits we want to break harder and the habits we want to implement even easier.

(04:19):
Recognizing even maybe the ideal habit we want to build towards knowing we’re taking those steps because the more we just go right against that hard, we bash our head into a wall. Basically trying to make that habit change the more we are going to push back against it and not want to do it again. Owning our own laziness, what can I be lazy with? Hey, I want to hit macros, so I’m going to map out one day of macros and track one day and create meal prep or even buy meal prep to make it real easy. I love having meal prep. Yes, I do like cooking. I think it’s great to working all these different things, but I also know that I am lazy and at the end of the day, if something takes longer than five minutes to microwave, there are days I won’t do what I should do, what I really want to do in terms of my goals, and I’ll make a choice that I won’t be proud of later.

(05:00):
So instead, I have that frozen meal prep. I can microwave in under five minutes and I can go. So the more you think about, Hey, I’m lazy, let’s own this so that my energy can go to the priorities I really want to focus on. The more you’re going to find ways to make those habits that you want to break a little bit harder and those habits you want to implement a little bit easier, and then find the fun in it. If something is feeling like too much effort, how can you break it down? Because maybe your priorities have shifted. How can you find something new to invigorate it? Maybe you don’t like foam rolling, but you really love listening to the podcasts. Listen to the podcast as you foam roll. Connect those habits, but find ways to steer into making things a little bit more comfortable, convenient, and easy when you want to implement them or a little bit harder uncomfortable and just not as convenient when you want to break them, but own your own laziness and see your discipline actually skyrocket from this.

 

*Note: This transcript is autogenerated there may be some unintended errors.

10 Years Of Fat Loss Advice In Under 10 Minutes

10 Years Of Fat Loss Advice In Under 10 Minutes

by | Feb 9, 2025 | Blog, Diet, Exercises

I wanted to lose fat and get ab definition for the longest time and struggled hard. I blamed it on willpower. My love of food. My genetics.

But I realized it was that I didn’t fully understand these 10 hard truths I’m going to share with you now.

Because I want to help you jump ahead using what I learned over more than a decade!

Starting with the fact that faster results mean CHOOSING to make more sacrifices.

Think of it this way, we all have a budget.

The more motivated we are, the more comfortable being uncomfortable with the changes we are, the greater our budget. The more “in pain” we are, the greater the cost we’ll pay to see results happen faster.

We’ll embrace harder changes. We’ll choke down that chicken and broccoli if you need. The COST is worth the reward.

But if we aren’t as motivated, the goal isn’t as important, other priorities are in the way and we really aren’t comfortable with the changes needed, our budget will be smaller.

The cost of some of the changes, working out 5 days a week, may not be worth it for you.

We need to recognize our budget when we determine how we want to make changes. We need to OWN that we choose how to spend it!

And owning we have a smaller budget isn’t a bad thing, it just helps us manage expectations.

This can help us recognize if we do want faster results, we may have to increase our budget!

And with habit change, what we like to do and need to do often aren’t one in the same.

We may LIKE follow along workouts. We may LIKE not eating protein at every meal. But your goals don’t truly care what you like.

I’m not saying to force yourself to constantly repeat habits you hate. Those won’t last.

But we need to recognize when we’re saying, “That won’t work” to a new habit, or “I don’t like this” and we’re not truly considering, “Is this what is needed to reach my goal?”

You’ve got to ask yourself, “Would I really care if I had to do (insert thing you don’t like here) if I reached my goal?”

Because many of the daily habits we do to have the life we want aren’t things we love. We just do them.

Give new habits TIME to really feel what they are like. Set a firm testing length to allow yourself to fully embrace them and see how they work.

To lose fat and maintain a new physique you can’t just eat and train in the way you always have.

Because your results are the sum of your habits.

That being said, we are creatures of comfort and convenience. The harder a new habit is, the less likely we are to embrace it. The easier an old habit is, the harder it is to break.

That’s why hard truth #3 is Adjust don’t eliminate.

The more we can ADJUST what we are doing over eliminating things, the easier and more sustainable the changes feel.

Instead of just cutting out foods you love, first start by seeing how you can…

Adjust portions of these foods at meals, maybe two oreos and greek yogurt over 4 oreos.

Or B. Making healthier swaps to the recipes or dishes, like baking sweet potato french fries instead of frying them. Or even making a pizza at home loaded down with veggies and protein.

Yes, there are more and less nutrient dense foods, but we need to own our lifestyle if we want to change our lifestyle. Change is a process that doesn’t happen overnight.

So if you enjoy pizza and french fries and ice cream, instead of just telling yourself these things are bad and that you can’t have them, find a balance working them in.

Same thing goes for macros. We need to stop demonizing any specific macro.

Fats will not make you fat. Carbs are not going to cause you to store belly fat.

Both of these macros are key and the exact amounts you need will vary based on your activity level, health concerns and age.

Even cycling macro breakdowns that are low carb or low fat may improve your fat loss results.

While fat is key for hormonal balance, and going lower carb can help us deplete glycogen stores to tap into our fat stores, we also want to note the more active we are, the more carbs we may need.

Carbs are protein sparring, improve our thyroid health and create that anabolic environment for muscle growth. They can be key to us getting that definition especially when training hard.

And by cycling higher carb after higher fat/lower carb ratios, you may benefit from what is deemed the “Whoosh Effect.”

If you’ve ever felt like you looked SOFTER while going lower carb, your fat cells may be holding on to water.

When we increase carbs after a lower carb period, your body can often release this water, helping you see the definition you want as your body feels it is then getting the immediate fuel it needs to stop basically protecting your fat stores.

So stop demonizing any macro. They are all key and should be cycled!

And while all macros matter, hard truth #5 is protein matters most for fat loss.

When we create that calorie deficit, we even want to think about 40% of our calories coming from protein.

This extra emphasis on protein when in a deficit not only helps you lose fat but keep your metabolic rate higher through protecting the lean muscle mass you have.

We need more protein when we’re in a deficit to not only fuel muscle mass growth and retention but also to rebuild and maintain the health of our other body tissues and processes.

If we don’t focus on protein, especially while training hard, our body is going to seek out those amino acids for repair from wherever it can. And our biggest and easiest to use reserves are our current muscle tissue, which we don’t want to lose!

So focus on protein!

This can also help you feel fuller and create a greater calorie burn even at rest as protein requires more energy to be digested!

And going hand in hand with increasing protein is focusing on our hydration!

As we increase our protein, we also want to increase our water intake to help our body process the protein efficiently.

Water is also required for many metabolic and hydrolysis reactions meaning that water helps our bodies burn fat and keeps our metabolic rate higher.

Lipolysis, the process by which our bodies break down fat to make it absorbable and usable, is also dependent on water.

So staying hydrated means better fat loss results. And with getting enough water, make sure you aren’t ignoring the importance of electrolytes to maintain that balance, especially if you are lower carb!

And if we want the best results possible, our diet and our workouts need to work together.

But often when we want to lose fat, we turn to doing more cardio because we often not only feel like we’re working harder, but we see that higher calorie burn on our tracker.

However, this desire to burn more calories in our workouts and out exercise our diet or even create a bigger deficit through our training holds us back.

You need to STOP trying to out exercise your diet.

Have you ever thought…“I workout so hard consistently but I’m not losing fat. I don’t get it…”

It’s your diet. No ifs ands or buts about it.

And you can say you eat well or eat clean all you want, but you can still overeat or eat portions not in line with your goals while eating quality fuel.

You can’t just rely on doing more in your training to burn more calories and make up for any deviations in your nutrition. You can’t just have a cheat day then hit the treadmill to make up for it. While this may have once worked, it’s what’s going to sabotage your metabolic health long term so you start to blame age for your weight gain.

You also have to recognize when you are creating an even greater deficit from your training and then NOT eating enough to fuel and repair. This can also prevent your fat loss results and lead to muscle being lost.

Training should be about moving well, staying functionally fit and healthy and even improve our muscle mass to keep our metabolic rate higher, not just be a time we try to burn as many calories as possible!

When we try to burn as many calories in our sessions as possible, we also often turn our strength workouts into purely cardio sessions. Stop doing this!

While this may make your workouts feel hard and you feel destroyed, this is preventing you from truly lifting heavy enough to promote those optimal muscle gains.

So if you’re feeling super out of breath from your lifting sessions while cutting out rest then complaining you aren’t building muscle, this may be part of the problem!

The cold hard truth is strength workouts are honestly more beneficial for fat loss than cardio especially if we want to truly look more defined and maintain our results long term.

When we build muscle, we help ourselves maintain metabolic health and improve our insulin sensitivity and so much more that only makes losing fat that much easier!

So while cardio has benefit, and shouldn’t be demonized, emphasize strength work for fat loss!

Now some of these truths may not sound fun and I do like to emphasize the hard so we recognize that change isn’t easy.

But if we don’t find ways to make our lifestyle changes FUN, we won’t stick with them long term.

While you may not enjoy doing a specific habit directly, try to connect it with other things you enjoy or allow it to lead into those things so you can change your mindsets about it.

If you like cooking, get yourself some new macro friendly cookbooks.

If you like listening to podcasts and hate meal prepping, get to listen to extra podcasts because you’re meal prepping as you do it.

Even get yourself new exciting tools to make what may feel like a boring habit more fun. Things like new leggings can make you want to workout. Or a fun water bottle can help you remember to hydrate!

But find ways to help yourself make habits more fun, if not at least tolerable!

And then…Fight the urge to do more.

When we want results faster, it’s tempting to do more in an attempt to try to speed things up.

This almost always backfires. It can not only physically but mentally burn us out. It can lead to us doing completely unsustainable habits.

The more you feel the mental resistance against a change, even one I’ve listed here, the more you need to break it down to find the smallest step forward you will embrace.

When I say increase protein to 40%, if you’re hitting like 15% of your calories from it, first shoot for 16%, maybe 20.

But realize that an ideal may be the goal…eventually, but you have to meet yourself where you are at now over always trying to do the maximum possible!

For a custom plan and guidance to help you rock those results and create LASTING changes, check out my 1:1 Online Coaching.

–> Apply and Schedule A Consultation Call

The Habit Rock Pile

The Habit Rock Pile

by | Feb 6, 2025 | podcast

Listen:

Change Requires CHANGE

If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️

APPLY NOW

Change Requires CHANGE

If you’re feeling stuck and know deep down that you could be doing better, don’t wait any longer. Your life is not going to change until you take action and make a bold move towards your goals. If you’re ready to take control of your life and start moving towards the results you want let us help you achieve your goals. ⬇️

APPLY NOW

Transcript:

Open Transcript:

Cori (00:00):
Welcome to the Redefining Strength Podcast. Everything you need to succeed on your health and fitness journey. Even the stuff you don’t want to hear, habits are like rocks we’re trying to carry across the field. So I was trying to think about making habit changes as we set new goals and how we usually approach habit change and why we often find that we can’t maintain the habits we’re trying to create and the times that we actually are successful. Not to mention even recognizing why certain bad habits are so easy to keep repeating and so hard to break. In thinking about all this, I came up with this visual that really helped me and I wanted to share it with all of you. It was this idea that we have these different size, big rocks, medium stones, small stones and pebbles all sitting in a pile, and we have this bag that we can use and carry about five pounds across this field, and we need to get ’em across the field to reach our goal, and we want to do this as efficiently as possible.

(00:59):
Most of the time, we don’t want to take extra long to reach our goal. So looking at this pile, I think a lot of times we go, okay, well I’m going to carry the big rocks across first, get as many as I can, and that way I’m doing it when I’m freshest, I’m getting these heavy things out of the way. So if we go to picking up the big rocks, which are those habits I think are often hard, most outside our comfort zone. They’re the ones we think, well, I can do this right now. So motivated. They’re the ones that are sacrifices that we feel like we’re kind of will powering our way through. It’s tracking macros when we’ve always said tracking macros is so overwhelming and we’re going to do it perfectly. It’s the two a day workouts. It’s some of these really intense changes that we make.

(01:34):
This all or nothing attitude type habits, those are the big rocks. And so we go and we put a couple in the bag and either A, we can’t pick it up, so we never actually get started. So overwhelmed with the weight of it, or we get halfway across the field and all of a sudden the bag ripped because it couldn’t carry that weight, and now we can’t even go back and start carrying the other rocks across in any efficient manner. That’s how we often approach habit changes, trying to do these big, overhauling heavy changes that weigh us down and ultimately sabotage us when we run out of that initial motivation and willpower. It’s like we had all this passion and then this passion bomb exploded on us and we couldn’t do anymore. So if you go back to that pile, we now have the medium stones, the small stones, the small pebbles, the medium and small stones we could carry a lot more of, but still, again, it might take us a little bit longer to go across.

(02:22):
These habits are things that might be a little uncomfortable but easier to do, or they might take a little bit more effort, be harder to do, but are more comfortable for us. So thinking about things like if you say working out, working out is technically hard, but if you like doing it, you might be like, this is the thing I can always do. I can’t change my diet, but I can change my workouts. Well, you’re comfortable being uncomfortable in that way. It’s technically a hard thing. You’re just comfortable making changes. So we have habits like that. We also have habits that for some reason we really just don’t like doing. We’re not comfortable doing, even though they’re so easy to do. Not even fitness related. I equate this to doing laundry. It’s not really that hard to do, not even that time consuming, but I hate doing it.

(03:05):
So we all have those habits. It might be meal prepping for you, it might be drinking more water, but those are sort of the medium stones and small stones, and we can get those across. But if we’re only carrying those across, it’s not that efficient. There’s times where we put too much weight in and we bog ourselves down or results don’t happen fast enough, so we lose motivation and we give up because we feel like we’re not there yet. Same thing can sort of be said for those small pebbles. These are the habits that barely push your comfort zone. They’re the really easy 1% changes, and while they can really add up, but we might even be able to carry a whole lot of them across in one go. This is often where we’re like, unless we’re really embracing sustainable changes, we’re like, Ugh, nothing’s adding up because these aren’t sexy.

(03:45):
They don’t feel like these massive changes for us. So it doesn’t give us that feeling of doing more. It’s often the things we really need to do, but again, it makes us not as efficient or create as fast a change. It’s sustainable, but we still have those other hard habits we might need to embrace. Sometimes it can help us work our way up to them, but we still have all this diversity of habit change we have to make. And we have only so much willpower. We have only so much motivation. We have only so many ways we can shift our priorities. So how can we manage to make habit changes that actually last? This is where you have to think about efficiency in that bag. What’s one hard habit change you can make? Put that into the bag. How can I fit some medium stones and small stones of bear on that big rock?

(04:28):
So how can I include some habit changes that are maybe a little less comfortable but easy to do technically or a little harder to do, but I’m more comfortable with sort of around that? And then how can I put in some 1% changes around that for maybe one of the other big rocks I can’t carry yet? So I’m using all that space efficiently. If I’m combining all these different types of habits into one bag, I’m going to make it across the field as fast as possible. And I might even be able to then say, Hey, I can actually take two of these big rocks. They’re not quite as big in the next go. And you might be able to do a little bit more, be willing to make a few more sacrifices. You are really motivated, or you might hit a time of year, be a little fatigued carrying the rocks across and recognize, Hey, I don’t have the same focus and intensity.

(05:12):
I’m fatigued mentally, even fatigued with the habit changes. I’m going to carry a few more small pebbles in this go. But that way you’re always moving across and you’re moving across as efficiently as possible. You’re keeping that forward with momentum towards your goal. Well, recognizing that different habits have different hard for us and that we can’t just always go at one speed, carrying only one weight of a habit, and that that’s also what sabotaged us. And along the way, we might get lucky and even find a sledgehammer where we can break down some of the big rocks into smaller stones that are more manageable for us to get across. But the more we look at our habit changes not just as one size, one type of habit, but as this diversity, the more we can really assess who we are, what we need, even at this stage season of life, time of the year, to be able to carry across those habits, to be able to use those habits to move forward towards our goal in the most efficient manner possible.

(06:05):
Love to hear your thoughts on this. Hope this really helped you embrace habit changes and even assess some of the habits you’re currently doing to see are these big rocks that are really hard and am I doing too many of them to sabotage myself and overwhelm myself and run out of willpower? Or am I only sticking with the small pebbles? And that’s maybe why, yes, this feels sustainable, but I’m not seeing results snowball as fast as I’d like, and I’m losing motivation because of that. Can I incorporate some of the small stones and some of the medium stones into this to really be efficient in how I’m seeing results happen and be able to get everything moving forward towards my goal a little bit faster?

 

*Note: This transcript is autogenerated there may be some unintended errors.

Are Bulgarian Split Squats Overrated?

Are Bulgarian Split Squats Overrated?

by | Feb 2, 2025 | Blog, Exercises, Functional Fitness

The Bulgarian Split Squat or Balance Lunge is a move you see all over social media. It’s even a staple in many standard gym training routines. Many say it is a “must-do” exercise or the “best” unilateral leg moves.

But honestly, it’s slightly overrated BECAUSE it is so often done INCORRECTLY.

It’s a move that’s far more advanced than we realize and many of us haven’t earned the variation we’re using.

So we don’t see the full benefit of the exercise. And even end up injured from it.

We wobble around and let our front knee cave in. We don’t lower down to the ground using the full range of motion. We rush through as we lose our balance.

Our training should feel hard with purpose. We want every move to truly pay off and yield the best results as fast as possible.

That’s why I wanted to share my favorite static lunge variation to start with and even variations of the Balance Lunge you may use instead.

But before I do I wanted to share 3 key form tips if you are using the Balance Lunge to make sure you’re getting the most out of the exercise!

#1: Set up at the BOTTOM of the lunge.

By setting up at the bottom of the lunge, you can make sure your feet are not only in the right position but also make sure you are truly able to work through a full range of motion.

Because the value in doing the Balance Lunges is in the range of motion. You’re increasing the range of motion to create more of a challenge and progress the exercise.

This increased range of motion puts muscles under greater stretch while loaded to help you see better muscle and strength gains.

It also helps you maintain a bigger range of hip motion. So if you’ve been doing that mobility work, you need to make sure you’re doing moves to fully strengthen through the range of motion you built.

Too often when we do Balance Lunges we aren’t actually going through the full range of motion completely defeating part of the purpose of using them in the first place!

We also aren’t stable in our set up because our feet are at odd widths. This set up at the bottom, allows you to focus on pushing the ground away and set up at a stance you can control.

You can choose to flex or relax your back foot based on your toe and ankle mobility. But make sure you’re creating that tension down into the bench or box either way to stabilize.

While more load will be on that front leg, you want tension through your back foot to balance as you focus on your front foot pushing down into the ground like a tripod with two points in the ball of your foot and one in your heel!

This helps you truly activate the muscles of your leg and even helps with knee alignment so that it isn’t caving in!

#2: Use torso and shin angle to your advantage.

We think of form as this very set binary thing – good or bad. But with so many moves, there are tweaks to form you can use to emphasize the muscles you want to work and even better suit your unique build.

With the Balance Lunge, you can change your shin angle and torso angle to help you emphasize more quad or more glute.

You can also use these two things based on ankle mobility and knee issues to work around aches and pains.

A more vertical shin angle will help you emphasize your glutes especially when combined with a slight more hip hinge or a slight lean to your torso.

Allowing your knee to move a bit more forward over the all of your foot while maintaining a more vertical torso position will emphasize your quads more.

Which you use will be based on your goals for the exercise. Everything should be included with purpose.

Also you may find that previous knee injuries or even ankle mobility issues impact the postures you use.

If you have issues with knee pain or ankle mobility, even due to previous ankle sprains, you may find you need to use a bit more of a vertical shin angle although you can play around with torso angle a bit.

#3: Adjust your depth!

The higher the bench or box you use, the harder this lunge is, creating more instability and a bigger range of motion. You need to be more mobile and stronger as you increase the range of motion you’re working through.
This makes changing the height of the box or bench a great way to progress this move potentially without adding weights. But it also means the height of the bench is something you need to EARN.

Yet so often we just think Balance Lunge and we just go to any bench around instead of finding one that fits our needs and fitness level.

Don’t be afraid to adjust the height based on your mobility and height. Also don’t be afraid to adjust the height to progress the movement without adding loads.

And if you do want to focus on lifting more, don’t be afraid to even go LOWER than you have in the past to progress and add instability while going heavier. There are so many ways to create progression through how we combine range of motion, stability and resistance!

The importance of the height of the box or bench we are using is too often not appreciated and recognized, which is why I feel so often this lunge is overrated and misused.

Because if you don’t work through the range of motion you’re creating, you’re better off doing a different lunge variation instead and really learning to control it with loads.

Results come from quality of movement.

That’s why I love to start with the Split Squat and even return to this move to focus more on progression through adding heavier and heavier loads while maintaining mobility.

Because lunges are a great mobility and stability exercise for our hips especially when included at the level and in the variation that matches our fitness level, needs and goals.

The split squat is the most basic static lunge variation. But instead of your back foot up on a bench or box, you’re doing this move fully off the ground.

If you can’t yet lower your back knee to touch the ground, or hover right above it, you haven’t earned increasing the range of motion further.

If you aren’t yet able to go to the ground, you can also reduce the range of motion you’re working through to build up.

You can place a block under your back knee and lower to that over going all of the way to the ground. This is a great way to slowly build up that range of motion and hip mobility and leg strength but in a way you can control.

With this split squat, I love to set up at the bottom and focus on maintaining that even pressure between both your foot and back foot, whether you’re doing it off the ground or from the block. This push down into the ground to help you drive up centered is key to helping you balance and really engage your legs.

And like the Balance Lunge, you can adjust torso and shin angle to impact what muscles you activate more.

You can add load to this move as you can control that full range of motion.

And this is where there is extra opportunity in the options and variations of the split squat that you can even use to tweak the balance lunge to fit your needs.

With adding resistance, it isn’t just about going directly heavier all of the time.

You can change where you hold the weights from down at your sides to allow yourself to focus on your legs and grip and go heavier to up at your chest in the goblet position to target your core more.

You can even unilaterally load the weight and hold it on one side to work on core stability. Even holding a weight in the opposite hand from your front leg can help you target your glute medius more especially with that torso lean and vertical shin angle.

You can even change how you’re applying resistance by using a mini band over dumbbells.

The key is understanding there are options to really make this move fit your needs and goals.

And with the Balance Lunge, we so often only increase range of motion by placing our back foot up.

However, you can also progress the basic split squat by raising your FRONT foot up as a deficit split squat.

Even if you love the Balance Lunge and can work through that full range of motion, you may include this to emphasize different muscles and even create progression through the same but different.

Just like you return to the split squat to go heavier while having the more limited range of motion.

With the Deficit Split Squat, some may find this easier to control while getting the benefits of working through a bigger range of motion.

And a very small elevation can have a huge impact. It may even feel better for some with longer femurs or upper legs.

The deficit split squat can keep that front leg in more of a working range of motion and put the glute under greater stretch in that front leg. And unlike the Balance Lunge, you won’t have more of your weight in that front leg, making it potentially easier to balance with full pressure between both legs and feet.

So as you build up and progress, see opportunity in the options. But don’t just include a move to use it because someone said it was the “best” or a “must-do.”

Make sure every move you use has purpose and that you can use it for quality reps!

Want amazing workouts to challenge you and help you build your leanest, strongest body ever?

Check out my Dynamic Strength Program!

10 Ways to Progress Your Workouts (Without Adding Weight)

10 Ways to Progress Your Workouts (Without Adding Weight)

by | Jan 26, 2025 | Blog, Exercises, Functional Fitness, Workouts

Weights are not the only way to progress your workouts and build strength and muscle.

And the more advanced an exerciser you are, the more you have to even turn to other forms of progression in our workouts to keep seeing results.

These tips are helpful too when training at home or traveling to help you create that challenge to build.

So whether you’re finding yourself stuck at the loads you’re currently using, don’t have heavier weights available or simply need to challenge yourself through the same but different, these 10 forms of progression will help.

#1: Combine Equipment.

Different forms of resistance work in different ways.

Combining two tools can not only help you add resistance when you don’t have a clearly heavier weight but also take advantage of the different ways tools challenge you.

Try combining a band with your dumbbell exercise.

This way you not only have the weight of the dumbbell, but the challenge of the band that increases as it is stretched and forces you to control and decelerate as it shortens.

You’ll be surprised by how even a light band exponentially increases the challenge.

You’ll even find this can emphasize or activate different muscles to a greater extent. Like on a single leg deadlift, you may be surprised by how much more you are able to engage that glute!

#2: Adjust The Range Of Motion.

Changing up the range of motion we are working through can help us challenge our body in different ways.

By shrinking the range of motion and doing more pulses with an exercise, we can spend more time under tension.

This can really isolate a muscle to work it to fatigue.

We can even work muscles under differing amounts of stretch to not only build muscle but address weaker links or areas in the movement.

And pulses can be combined with moves that work the same muscles through the full range of motion to take muscles closer to fatigue when we don’t have heavier weights.

We can also increase the range of motion for exercises to increase the difficulty of a move and load the muscle under greater stretch.

Loading a muscle through a greater stretch has been shown to not only improve muscle gains but also helps you really create stability and strength through a full range of motion so that you mobility work truly pays off!

#3: Create Instability.

When we think about making a move more unstable, we may go straight to adding in an unstable surface like doing a move on a balance board or bosu.

And while these are ways to create instability and force muscles to really activate more and work harder to stay balanced, instability can also be created through taking a bilateral, or two leg or arm movement and making it a unilateral or single leg or arm exercise.

Exercises can be included all along that continuum from two sided to one sided as well based on our exact needs and goals and even to use progression through the same but different.

For example, you could do a two legged deadlift variation, an 80/20 variation, a slider variation, a bench variation, a hand assisted variation and then a full single leg deadlift.

And even if you can do the full single leg, you may use these others to create more or less stability based on the loads you have. Even combining two forms of resistance as you vary the stability demands!

You’ll even notice how other tools besides just an unstable surface, like the sliders, can add instability.

So don’t be afraid to get creative even using things like the suspension trainer or bands to add a little stability challenge to moves!

#4: Adjust Load Placement.

Load placement, or how you hold the weights or resistance, can not only challenge different muscles to different extents, but can actually be another way to create instability as well.

An uneven or offset load, holding two different weights, or a weight on just one side, can really challenge your core especially to stabilize and work.

Where you hold the weight can help you progress moves to target different areas without necessarily going heavier too.

Consider the goblet position, holding a weight up at your chest to work your core more during a lunge over down at your sides.

Even load just one side to work those obliques and fight that rotation and lean.

And on lower body moves, like reverse lunges or step ups, holding the weight in the opposing hand can even help you focus on targeting those glutes more.

But varying where you are placing the weight can create a new challenge to help you build muscle and strength!

#5: Change Up The Tempo Of Moves.

This can mean pausing and holding in moves, it can mean slowing them down or even speeding them up based on your goal for the exercise.

But adjusting the pace at which you do moves can really have an impact on whether you’re even working to build power or strength.

And both improving your strength and your power can help you build muscle overall.

Don’t be afraid to even use different tempos throughout the move.

You may slow down the lower down in a pull up, but return to the top quickly. You may even add in pauses at different points in the move to work on weaker areas.

Slowing down the eccentric especially, or the part of the move where the prime mover muscle is lengthening, can not only lead to greater muscle gains but even allow you to do a move advanced variation of an exercise than you otherwise would be able to.

And this can help you further build strength. I love using it especially to build up moves like push ups or pull ups!

#6: Spend More Time Under Tension.

Tempos really have an impact on your time under tension, but I wanted to mention time under tension, and specifically more time under tension as its own form of progression for a reason…

Because you can also impact time under tension through range of motion and even workout design.

With time under tension, you are getting a muscle to spend more time working.

Slowing down the tempo of a move makes a muscle work for longer, but so can adjusting the range of motion, both increasing it but also shrinking it.

In moves like even the Get Up Lunge, you’re increasing the range of motion of a basic lunge to go all the way down to the ground, but you’re also shrinking it in that you’re not standing up at the top.

So your legs never completely get a break. They’re in that working range of motion the entire time. And this can create a great challenge without you adding heavier and heavier loads.

Even adjusting workout design to combine moves or use intervals of work, which I’ll go over more in tip 8 can have an impact!

But getting those muscles to work hard for longer can help you increase that challenge!

#7: Switch Up Postures and Positions.

Simply adjusting the posture or position you are doing an exercise from can dramatically change the challenge of it and even the extent to which you feel muscles working.

We don’t realize how much we can often use other muscles or even seek out mobility from other areas to assist.

So even changing up an overhead press from standing to seated may make us have to check our ego and even go lighter with weights.

Changes in our posture can even help us target different aspects of a muscle.

Like a glute bridge and curl is going to hit our hamstrings in a different way than a deadlift because we are working the muscles by moving at different joints.

So don’t be afraid to vary how you’re doing those same basic moves or even consider how to include different exercises to target the same muscles!

#8: Vary Your Workout Design.

We can often get very “married” to specific ways of programming.

I often see people wanting their body part splits over the weeks and workouts with one move done in isolation.

Or they need specific intervals or circuits.

But we need to realize that sometimes varying up our reps, sets, rest intervals and such can really impact how we’re challenging our bodies.

Especially when you don’t have heavier weights, consider timed intervals of work to help you push past failure and do those few extra reps.

Consider even back to back intervals working the same area but with one move that is compound and one that is isolation.

This combination of isolation and compound can even be key if you don’t use intervals but do count reps and sets.

While we may often do a superset when we have heavier weights to allow one area to rest as the other works, sometimes doing back to back moves for the same muscle group can help us work it closer to fatigue when we don’t have heavier weights to challenge ourselves.

Don’t be afraid too to use different rep ranges. If you can challenge yourself for 6 reps great, but if you then have another move that you need 15 or even 20 reps to feel add up, don’t be afraid to use both rep ranges even in the same series!

But realize that how you adjust exercise order and even use different rep and set designs can have a huge impact!

#9: Increase Training Density.

How we design our workouts can also have a huge impact on our training density. But I think it is key to note this as a form of progression on its own.

Because training density is the amount of work you can complete in a certain amount of time.

And often to try to do more volume of work (more reps and set), our workouts just get longer and longer.

But this doesn’t have to be the case.

While we don’t just want to cut out rest from our workouts and turn our strength training into cardio and we don’t want to just add more reps and sets when we don’t have weights to create more fatigue, we can use training density to our advantage to see results.

Because often when we are training with lighter loads, a greater volume of work is needed.

This is also why workout design is so important to consider. Doing even things like timed supersets, compound sets or circuits, or Density Training, can be key to helping you get in more work without increasing time.
Your goal is to use harder variations and basically move more weight but without increasing time and through this create progression.

So consider each week how you can do a harder variation or another rep but in the 10-15 minutes you’ve set for that series!

#10: Adjust Your Workout Schedule.

Many of us may have grown up seeing those body part split workout schedules where each day you work a different area.

But not only have studies shown that more frequently working an area, 2-3 times a week, can be beneficial, but the more you don’t have loads to challenge you, the more you do want to use volume of work, or even training density to your advantage.

And this isn’t just in a single workout, but even something to consider over an extended timeline of a week.

If you are training with limited tools or struggling to build an area, consider adjusting your workout weekly split.

Consider more full body workouts or even hemisphere, dividing routines into upper and lower workouts.

You can even do anterior/posterior splits focusing more on those frontside vs. backside muscles in routines.

But vary what you’re including in your workouts to create that progression, even down to using different tools, different moves, different tempos, all of these other forms of progression, over the week to see results!

Remember we can create a challenge and see better results through not just adding weights but using these other 10 forms of progression! Which will you include in your workouts for a new challenge?

Want amazing workouts you can do anywhere? Check out my Dynamic Strength program…

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