Summary:
In this episode, Mikayla Foss shares her expertise and experiences in the fitness industry, offering insights on navigating challenges, embracing opportunities, and fostering growth. She discusses the importance of understanding women’s health and performance, emphasizing the need for tailored approaches in training and medical research. Mikayla highlights the significance of building lean muscle, especially during menstruating years, and the impact of hormonal changes during perimenopause and menopause. Through her journey, she provides valuable lessons on resilience, adaptability, and innovation, inspiring listeners to take charge of their paths and embrace new possibilities
Transcript:
Vanessa Leone (00:00)
Hello everybody, welcome back to Meant to Move. I have with me a lovely friend who I met just recently, actually last year at conference. Hey Mikayla, nice to have you.
Mikayla Foss (00:11)
Hello, thanks for having me. It’s so good to chat.
Vanessa Leone (00:15)
It is, it is really good to chat. this is one of my favourite parts about podcast is I got to meet you last year at fitness conference. I absolutely loved your session. We totally vibed. We got to go and do a fun little like market down in Bangkok and have a great time. And now I get to have you on the pod and we’re to talk all things women’s health performance, everything that goes with that. And I’m really excited because this is
a topic that’s obviously close to our hearts. But it’s a topic that I think is important for everyone to know. And you know, we have a lot of male trainers listening, but I also think we have a lot of, you know, males whose partners might be influenced by this or their sisters or their mothers or et cetera. And I think the question that I wanted to open with is
You know, we’re talking about women’s health, women’s performance, but why is it important for everybody to know about this stuff?
Mikayla Foss (01:15)
Yeah, I mean, you kind of just said it, women are 50 % of the population and we are here right now because of women and anyone who’s ever lived owes it to the menstrual cycle. it’s just, it’s important to have a greater understanding. A, if you’re a coach on how you’re going to approach each individual, we look at all accounts of someone’s readiness and their physiology. So why wouldn’t we look at the gender differences?
Mikayla Foss (01:40)
And then yeah, like how you treat your partner or your mother and understanding their hormone fluctuations and what they’re maybe going through during different phases of their cycle is probably going to help you in the long run too. Yeah, we’re helping you out.
Vanessa Leone (01:55)
I’m a strong advocate for that. Yeah, exactly.
It’s a favour. We’re giving you lots of favours today. I like it. Sorry. I think one of the things in our emails that we were going back and forth about what we wanted to talk about, you use this phrase, how can we set women up for success? And I really, really liked that. What do you mean by that?
Mikayla Foss (02:21)
Yeah, so women have been historically underrepresented in medical and performance-based research. To go a little bit down a tangent, it wasn’t really until 1993 that the NIH actually passed that women and minorities have to be included in medical research. So we really just didn’t have a lot of information in regards to women. And so we were giving women the recommendations made for men.
And we were just telling them to maybe make it smaller or alter it in some way, but we weren’t really tailoring to their individual physiology. So to set women up for success is going to require an understanding of what’s actually happening in their bodies, encouragement, empathy. And ultimately, I just want women to feel empowered by this conversation. I think there’s a lot of maybe the media or whatnot portraying women.
on their period or going through their luteal phase and saying like, you need to just do yoga, Pilates, sit, watch a movie. Like you can’t push hard and strength train. And it’s like, are those things setting us up for success in the future, in the long-term? And that’s really what I’m passionate about.
Vanessa Leone (03:35)
That’s a great, that’s a great answer. Thank you for that. That’s really, really cool. And interestingly enough, I had this performance research written down because I think this is important. You’re coming from a performance background, I suppose you’re teaching performance as well as health. If someone is not really understanding what we mean by performance research, let’s, kind of maybe dive into this just really quickly as like a setup for where we want to go.
because a lot of the health and fitness advice we receive comes from athletes really initially, doesn’t it? Like they kind of get tested on athletes and then it gets, you know, filtered down and passed through us. So when you say that women weren’t in this performance research, can you go a little deeper?
Mikayla Foss (04:22)
Yeah, A, it is performance based from a sports performance standpoint, but also medical research as well. So it really, we were excluded initially because in the fifties and the sixties, there was a drug called thalidomide that was prescribed to a lot of women as an anti-nausea medication. So a lot of pregnant women were prescribed this medication and there wasn’t enough studies or research done on the drug. so essentially a lot of women started
birthing children that had severe limb deformities. And after that, that it just was like huge halt on including women in medical research because we didn’t know the implications that certain drugs could have. And then again, it wasn’t until 1993 that we said, no, we need to include women in this. So that’s from the medical lens, the performance-based lens.
I do mean sports performance. Only four to six percent of studies have been done on women from the sports performance lens. But I also mean the corporate lens, the how you show up as a parent or just a human in the world. Like everything we do is some type of performance and having the capacity to meet the demands of everyday life is important. Whether you are an athlete or whether you are
a badass CEO wanting to go give a presentation and be able to meet that moment that matters to you.
Vanessa Leone (05:46)
Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s a really good setup, I think, for like what we’re going to talk about today. So let’s dive into kind of the meaty question. You mentioned women’s health span. You mentioned, you know, lean muscle. You mentioned preparation. Let’s dive into if you had someone starting, I don’t know, let’s talk about the age that you’d want to start with someone. If you could set this woman up for success for health.
through her life, what would that look like?
Mikayla Foss (06:18)
Yeah, mean, starting from children, right? Youth. I think there is something so special about talking to girls, so young women, about their performance, not in a way of aesthetics and how they look, but how what they put in their body is gonna help them and how powerful they’re gonna be and encouraging women to stay in sports and to keep doing those things, not from an aesthetic lens, but…
what else it will bring into your life. So I think from the younger age, it is more about the intention behind our conversation with girls and how we’re speaking towards things like working out and fuelling and how that can empower them versus what it’s going to make them look like. And then when it gets to women of menstruating age, not pregnant women,
that is really about putting on as much lean muscle mass as possible to best set you up before perimenopause and menopause. And so that is resistance training. That is true high intensity intervals. That is preparing your body for success from a metabolic standpoint, but also just a moving well standpoint, having the mobility and stability requirements that you need to go perform your best. And then when we get into perimenopause, menopause,
that’s really looking at setting yourself up for success from a central nervous system standpoint. We know like things of consequence happen at speed. So whether you’re slipping and falling, you need to be able to react to that. And when you start to lose estrogen, that is heavily correlated with your actin and myosin filaments and how you create muscular contraction. So as you get older, if you’re not doing that heavy, powerful lifting,
you could slip and fall and hurt yourself and that’s not going to set you up for success even later into being elderly. So it’s just always looking at not only the mindset aspect, the performance aspect, but how you’re going to be able to go show up your best, do all the things that you love to do and not have your physical inabilities get in the way.
Vanessa Leone (08:29)
Yeah, yeah, I love this. This is great. Okay, so I’m having a flashback of, of, me or, I went to an all girls high school and, PE was always a, a sensitive subject was always really challenging, I suppose, to be able to, this is where we really noticed that divide between girls who lacked, you know, moving or playing sport and the girls who just
)
who really didn’t want to, who felt like because they maybe weren’t good at sport, that that really wasn’t for them. And you know, menstruation played a huge part in it. Even then, girls would be getting their period and being like, no, I can’t, I can’t play sport. I can’t do this. So perhaps maybe let’s talk about what happens in that menstruation and kind of maybe why people might feel like, I’ve got my period, I don’t want to do anything or I don’t feel like moving. What happens there?
Mikayla Foss (09:35)
Yeah, I think there’s such a, it’s so taboo to talk about and where I grew up in the U S in Kansas, the Midwest. I remember, I don’t know about you, but we had one class. was like a day in fifth grade where they split up the boys and the girls and like the girls went and learned about their periods. And I don’t still to this day know what the boys learned about. That will be a mystery, but it was very like hush hush. And we got little like pamphlets and like a bag with like a pad and a tampon in it. And they were like, good luck.
have fun. And it was kind of this thing of like some of my friends had it, some didn’t. But I think it was just so not talked about. And then a lot of women get into sports or like dance, gymnastics, and instantly maybe go on birth control to try to like have control over their cycle or regulate that. And it was almost this badge of honour. I grew up as a dancer. It was almost this badge of honour if you didn’t get your period or you lost your period because there was
this, there’s just this feeling around like, you must be working really hard that you don’t have a period. Like you must be so lean and that’s like a sign of hard work. And so I don’t know, it was just such a cool thing to not have it, not talk about it. Like, I don’t have to deal with that. And almost became like a competitive nature, at least in dance and I know in gymnastics too. So ultimately I think it comes down to it’s not talked about enough.
the detriment of low energy availability and not having enough fuel coming in and losing your period wasn’t really talked about. It was just very hush hush. And so for women that struggled with that or girls that struggled with that or maybe had heavy bleeding and didn’t understand their symptoms, probably made them not wanna do sports altogether. They were like, I’d rather just avoid it instead of feeling uncomfortable. So I think the more we can talk about it, the more we can educate women.
the better they’re going to be and hopefully stay in sports because we know that has so many benefits, regardless if you go play professionally, but just in your work ethic, your tenacity, your movement ability as you get older. A lot of women who played sports growing up are now CEOs of companies. I don’t know the exact statistic there, but I’ve read something along the lines of like women who played sports turn out to be really great. Period.
Vanessa Leone (11:58)
Finally,
yeah, good choice of word. It’s interesting because…
Mikayla Foss (12:01)
Science.
Vanessa Leone (12:10)
I experienced a similar association with that kind of the period side of things as well. And I would love for people to understand if they don’t know maybe a little bit more about the menstrual cycle, let’s talk about that in a second. But for anyone listening, it’s so interesting. I’m a 37 year old female who’s experiencing her period properly for the first time since I was a teenager. Isn’t that
Insane, right? When you think about it, sorry. And it’s no one’s fault. I went on the pill birth control very early on, like nearly as soon as I got my period from memory, because the doctors just, it was the thing that you did. You just went straight on it. I had to control it for sports, athletics, all of that. And I have been on some form of birth control my entire life. And
You know, there’s been that plethora of pain and endometriosis and we’ll leave that aside for now. But I have just come off birth control and it’s, it’s wild. I’m like, huh, okay. I’m experiencing things like, like I was a teenager and it’s such a strange thing to get my head around. And so for women on birth control, for women who are thinking of coming off birth control, for women who aren’t thinking about it.
What’s happening with this 28 day cycle? What’s going on?
Mikayla Foss (13:41)
Yeah, you were a gymnast, That’s, yeah, dancer gymnast, lots of same experiences. So, so to quickly touch on the birth control piece, and then we’ll go through the cycle. But I think birth control can, it can serve its time and place. And I think
Vanessa Leone (13:43)
Yeah.
Mikayla Foss (14:01)
kind of just coming back to the detriment of it is just that we don’t have enough research when we go back to that and we don’t know if it’s actually helping us in some regards or if it is like you and for myself, I got prescribed it when I was 14 for acne. And so it was like, was that the best solution? And is that the best long-term solution? We just don’t know because there’s not enough research out there. And now you’re probably experiencing like, oh, I’m learning my body. I’m learning like how to tune into my body more and
For so long, I had a synthetic hormone that was regulating it and my period wasn’t even a true period. It was a withdrawal bleed from the hormone. So like a lot of women go through a lot from a mental standpoint and a physical standpoint when they’re on it, off of it, and that’s also not talked about enough. And that’s gonna affect your performance in everyday life. So birth control just can be an interesting thing. It’s not that it…
is good or bad. is just that it’s not researched enough and we as women aren’t told enough about it before we’re prescribed it to make the best educated decisions for our own bodies. As for the actual cycle, so on average you have a 28 day cycle and we know average just means middle of the bell curve so most women fall to either side of that 28 days. The day one is the bleed phase so the start of your period.
And then around day 14, if we’re looking at a 28 day cycle, that’s ovulation. So this is called your follicular or your low hormone phase is how I like to refer to it. So around the first 14 days after ovulation, we consider this your luteal or high hormone phase. And this goes for around another 14 days until your next bleed phase comes. And so this is your luteal high hormone phase. This is when progesterone rises, which is really catabolic in nature.
So it breaks things down and this can be a time where women experience more inflammatory response as they’re preparing to shed tissue. So this is a time where we might need more support from a recovery standpoint.
Vanessa Leone (16:05)
Excellent. I think you just made that so simple. I’ve heard it described before and it’s, they break it down into way too many phases and it’s very confusing. I really like that. That’s, that’s excellent. It’s interesting because you’ve also talked about this low energy availability and just for, you know, I’ll just give my experience and if you would like to give yours, please feel free. But on, on birth control, it was like a constant.
low energy. Like I didn’t really feel like I had like a peak and a trough, particularly at a certain time. And it was particularly towards the end of the life of the IUD that I had, like so low energy, like really low energy availability. And I’m someone who, like in my 20s, like I was one of the fittest people in my gym, in like what I was doing. I was
like a powerhouse of, of particularly, what would you call anaerobic fitness? had a lot of anaerobic capacity. I sprint, get my heart rate up really high and then recover and then go again and then rest and then go again. I’m not good in long distance. Let’s, let’s not go there, but, give me, give me recovery and repeat efforts. I’m like a little energizer bunny. and now that I’m off it,
Mikayla Foss (17:21)
We’ll hit it.
Vanessa Leone (17:32)
My energy availability is insanely different. My iron has actually increased, which is insane as well. And like, I can actually feel these kinds of like, yeah, has a few days here. I’m just a bit, it’s a bit hard. But then all of a sudden I have this like energy shoot up. Like it’s, it’s, I haven’t experienced this in so many years and it’s so nice in that.
what you call the low hormone phase, the bleed. Like honestly, I have not felt so much energy in such a long time and it’s incredible. It’s so cool. What’s happening? Like what’s happening?
Mikayla Foss (18:17)
Yeah. Well,
first that makes me so happy for you because like that’s probably how your body’s naturally supposed to be. And so that you’re experiencing right that right now makes me so happy for you. What’s happening from a physiological standpoint is yeah, after ovulation as progesterone rises, again, catabolic in nature, you have high pro-inflammatory response, but when it drops back off, which is the bleed phase, your physiology is actually closest to a male’s during that time. So that
follicular phase is when hormonally you are closest to a male’s physiology. And so it’s interesting because a lot of women do PR when they’re on their period. And I think historically we’ve been told like, you’re on your period, maybe don’t push it too hard. And we want to prioritize how the woman feels first and foremost, her own unique individual experience. And sometimes women do feel like crap on their period and they have menstrual symptoms that don’t allow them to push hard. But from a strictly physiological standpoint,
Your hormones just went, whoop, and then dropped off. And so a lot of women do get that surge of energy. I always know like by day three, three to five of my cycle, you can’t tell me anything. I’m on top of the world. Like we’re good. And I think that being said too, that gives me more empathy. And a lot of women, when you have the understanding of what’s happening in your body, by the time you do get to your lydial phase and you’re feeling like lethargic or you can’t hit the weight, it’s like,
I always feel this way on day 24. Like this is just what my body’s doing. And it takes away kind of that pressure of like having to always perform your best and allows you the space to say like, I can scale back. I can focus on technique recovery, be productive in other ways. Cause I know I’m going to hit it next week when I’m in my full regular phase.
Vanessa Leone (20:04)
That’s, it’s, it’s so important that consideration because I’ve talked about this in, in previous pods about how everyone, know, women, men can have this pressure, particularly when we’re at the gym or when, you know, even if we’re just, I wouldn’t say like a heavy gym goer, if you just, you know, you’re doing it for your health and you, and you’re going along and you’ve got your program to follow. If you feel like you can’t meet the minimum standards of your own program, because you feel like
low energy or you feel like shit basically. You feel like you failed yourself because you feel like you can’t do what’s essentially prescribed for you in front of you. And it’s just such a shame that we’re conditioned and we’re programmed to feel that way when particularly females have such, such ability to, to come into these highs and lows. It’s really cool.
Mikayla Foss (21:01)
Yeah, it is, it is cool. And I think if you get the habit of tracking your own cycle and you can really tune in words, that’s just another metric. That’s just another like tool to help you unlock and again, have that empathy and grace for yourself and also know how to structure your training. Like there’s a lot of debate out there about training around the menstrual cycle. And I’ve seen studies that are like, essentially saying, your performance doesn’t change based on where you are in your
menstrual cycle, which yes is true. There is a difference between training and recovering from training and performance, which happens one singular moment. And women have the ability to peak in performance regardless of where they are in their cycle. They can hit those PRs, break world records regardless. So we don’t want to tell women you can’t do this and get into the psychological issue.
But we do want to say it is potentially going to be harder for your body to recover from those high intensity efforts when you’re fighting against progesterone and you have things that are very pro-inflammatory. So how in your training can you structure it in a way that lowers intensity so that you can recover so that you’re best set to hit the moment when it matters? And I think that is what empowers women. And maybe it’s just a…
I have an undulating periodization and my deload week is going to be my late moodial that week before my period. Cause I know that’s when my body’s going to need it. And starting to kind of sync that up and flow literally with your flow like pun intended. So.
Vanessa Leone (22:36)
No, that’s great. And for, and for someone listening, who’s not sure kind of what that means is periodization is kind of like, it’s the same thing. It’s, it’s a increase in a decrease of your intensity and your volume to your training, which you can, you can affect on it. And I don’t think that, you know, a lot of people who would maybe attend classes or again, who are going to that kind of just doing my regular program would necessarily think about that, but it’s important for all, all people, not just females.
it can, and, and I love how you correlated that with performance. It’s just like, you can perform at any time. But if you’re, if you, if you’re sticking to this like program, if you’re looking for health, if you’re looking for longevity, you want to have these highs and lows for training so that overall your performance, you can, you can do what you need to do whenever. Am I hitting the mark there?
Mikayla Foss (23:29)
Exactly. Yeah, you would, regardless if you’re male, female, like you want it never take a deload week and recover. So my view as a coach is how can we pair that deload week with when your body needs it the most and be efficient in that regard? Like I don’t want you to have the deload week when you’re in your follicular phase and estrogen’s rising right before ovulation. And that’s actually going to help you hit those high intensities and feel powerful and be able to recover from it. I’d rather you take it.
when your body needs it.
Vanessa Leone (23:59)
Mm. Super smart. Really good. So let’s talk about lean muscle. Let’s talk about the types of training that we kind of go through. We mentioned a little bit of yoga, Pilates. I’m happy for you to be as controversial or as not controversial as you like. Cause I do get a lot of, a lot of questions about does yoga, does Pilates count as resistance training? And so if you are building up
lean muscle. What’s that? What do you think, sir? You know, there’s no ideal, but let’s talk about these different modalities of training.
Mikayla Foss (24:38)
Yeah, I want to preface this by saying I’m actually a registered yoga teacher as well. And I’m like a big yogi. Like I think I told you after Bangkok, I was going to a yoga retreat. So I am never anti-yoga. I do yoga and Pilates every week and I love it. And I think it’s great. from strictly a putting on lean muscle mass standpoint.
you need to have stimulus to create the adaptation. And sometimes Pilates and yoga isn’t the high intensity stimulus that you need. And the word intensity is really in regards to like your one rep max, like how heavy are you lifting in regards to how heavy you could lift for one singular effort. With Pilates, it is that lower weight, higher reps, more muscular endurance, focused training, which can be great for
technique, body awareness, it kicks my butt, like getting the core work, getting the like elongation, like I feel like posturaly, love it. But from a, hey, during menstruating years, non-pregnant, your goal is to put on as much lean muscle mass, you need that stimulus. And so I love a good blend of it. I love, you know, three days a week of heavy resistance training, maybe one day of yoga and Pilates, but we really want to look at that like.
To failure rep range when it comes to women of that age. So I love like a six to ten rep range, almost a failure or one to two reps in reserve to really hit those high intensities. You want to fatigue the muscle to then get the stimulus and create that adaptation.
Vanessa Leone (26:15)
Okay. Here’s the question that all women are
going, well, not all women, I lie. Do we hear a lot? You and I have been training for forever. Traditionally, we’ve been told that training like that, Mikayla, you know, six reps is going to make you look muscly. It’s going to make you look bulky. It’s going to make you look, perhaps less feminine.
not the words that I would choose, but how do we start to break down this stigma?
Mikayla Foss (26:54)
Yeah. First, I think everybody’s definition of what bulky is will be different. And everyone’s preference of what aesthetics you look like are going to be different. Like my body might not be appealing to someone and to someone else it might be their dream body. And that has nothing to do with me. And that has everything to do with their perception. I think, A, it’s a lot harder to put on muscle than you would assume. And B, if you’re
viewing it strictly from an aesthetic lens, you’re going to miss a lot of the benefits of the performance that we’re talking about. But ultimately, we know that lifting heavy weights is not going to innately make you bulky. You need to be in a calorie surplus. You need to be lifting again and again and again for years to really put that on. And so I think women are fearful of it before really understanding the benefits that it could bring to their life. And so I think if we view it more from the lens of how is this going to make me perform better, show up better, feel better.
then you might actually like what your body looks like and then you might not be so scared of it. But all that to say, everyone has their own preferences to what their own body looks like. Up to them.
Vanessa Leone (28:03)
Mm. That’s it. No, that’s a beautiful
answer. It’s so great because, you know, yeah, body perception is so personal. And I, you know, it always kind of breaks my heart a little bit. And when I still hear that from, from women, they’re like, no, I can’t train like that because I’ll just put on muscle. And I’m like, but that’s the point. Like, I’m like, yes, I like, I want you to put on muscle and,
I think that, yeah, it’s understanding our own perception of why we might think that, you know, having more or less muscle is important or is valid and how that relates to our overall health and wellbeing rather than, like you said, just from that aesthetic point of view. you know, cause I remember, you know, as a teenager, I
the defining feature that I really disliked about my body wasn’t, you know, muscular arms or anything like that. It was my muscular traps. So I had, I had like a really muscular upper back and shoulders, right? And so I just had, they’re not so big anymore, but they were really defined. They were really big, they were really muscular. And, and for me, that was as a young girl, everyone’s, you know, you’ve got these
petite little collarbones and hears me, I felt like the Hulk. But no one else really noticed and it was just my own perception of that and eventually my perception of it changed into like, well, I’m actually stronger than like 80 % of the guys in the room as well as the girls. Yeah, yeah. So like, okay, that’s pretty impressive.
Mikayla Foss (29:51)
Talk about it.
Vanessa Leone (29:59)
But I think that acknowledging your own reservations about the way that you look and kind of trying to debunk that is a really good way forward. Do you have any tips for anyone?
Mikayla Foss (30:13)
You know, it really changed for me, like coming from the dance background, it was very, I have this audition coming up. This is what they want. This is what I need to fit into this mold. I have to do this to change my body or have to train like this, or I can’t eat a lot. And it was very like mentally not great. When I started, I coach now I’m a performance coach at Exos and I work a lot with athletes. And that’s when I really started to change my own perception because I am never telling athletes.
hey, don’t you want that hot summer bikini body? I’m like, Hey, like, did you sleep last night? Like, how’s your fuel? Like, let’s go hit this high intensity lift. Like it’s, it comes from a performance standpoint. And that being said, like, if I’m encouraging other people to do that, and I’m not focusing on their aesthetics, why would I focus on mine? I would rather feel like I’m
strong and I can demo like the best feeling in the world is when a group of athletes is look at you and you pick up the heaviest kettlebell and you do something they’re like, dang, I should probably lift that weight because I weigh a lot more than her. Like I’m an NFL player and she just lifted that like, okay, let’s level up together. And so that’s what makes me feel empowered now is my ability to demo something, demo it well, live, live what I preach and know that I am showing up the best I can in a healthy way. And of course, like
It’s still hard sometimes, just naturally as women. I think bodies are such a trend. Like, isn’t it weird that a couple years ago it was really cool to have like a big booty and now it’s like Pilates body? Thick. Yeah. A couple of years ago, everyone was like, you should sell a big booty program. Like you’d make so much money by telling people how to get a big butt. And I’d be like, that’s kind of my genetics. And like, I like to lift weights, but now it’s like, what’s making money is like women being like, get these like
Pilates body. So it’s always going to be a trend. And sometimes your body and your natural genetics are going to fit that trend and sometimes they aren’t. And again, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with outwards. So finding what empowers you, what lights you up and what makes you feel strong.
Vanessa Leone (32:21)
Hmm, that’s excellent. Really, really like perfect advice. I love that. Let’s talk a little bit about you’ve mentioned how important it is to build this lean muscle. You know, during your menstruation years, not pregnancy. What happens during peri and menopause that changes and you alluded to nervous system changes as well that makes this muscle building phase so important.
Mikayla Foss (32:51)
Yeah, great question. Basically from menstruating age into menopause, there is like a transition, but when we get to what we define as menopause, that is one singular date, and that is 12 months after a woman’s last cycle. And when she hits menopause, one of the biggest changes that I notice or that I hear from a symptomology standpoint is the drop in estrogen.
The drop in estrogen, I mentioned this earlier, but it’s heavily correlated with actinomycin and the contractile elements of a muscle fibre. so being able to really fire and contract and be reactive and prevent yourself from that slip or that fall. Also maintaining lean muscle mass as we get older just becomes more challenging from that standpoint. Also women have about
70 to 80 % of the creatine stores that men do naturally. So we have less creatine available in our bodies, less fast twitch muscle fibres. So as we get older, just really important to continuously eat enough, especially protein, but also the training transitions, less from a to max fatigue.
gaining lean muscle, not that you can’t, absolutely still can, but more from a lifting heavy. so like less reps, high intensity, this is going to be more like powerful heavy lifting. And a lot of women, if they haven’t been training throughout the years, I wouldn’t tell you go trap bar deadlift and like go try to hit that high intensity and go sprint tomorrow. They still need to be taken through like long foundational phases to get them there. But the intent is to get that CNS response to
essentially allow them that like quick reactivity versus like how much can they put on at that point?
Vanessa Leone (34:40)
Yeah, that’s such a great explanation because I think that that’s often the forgotten piece of people. You know, we hear a lot, train heavy, train power, know, lift as heavy as you can. Most of the clients who I see are coming to me injured from a, or from a completely deconditioned phase. So they haven’t been training in months or potentially years.
childbirth or no childbirth, like, regardless, and I’m talking men and women as well, there’s no way that your body is conditioned enough to safely participate in super heavy lifting or a sprint or a box jump even. Box jumps, because you’re never only doing one in a class.
So that’s the key really, isn’t it? There’s that missing link that a lot of people forget about, isn’t that right?
Mikayla Foss (35:44)
Yeah, we want to meet people where they are. And I think if women here, you know, say they’re in perimenopause, menopause, and they hear, to get benefit, I need to lift at a high intensity and be powerful and strong. And I haven’t lifted in years, so I’m just not going to do that. I’m just going to walk. Like that’s not what we want. And so I think, again, when I say intensity, it’s in relationship to the individual as they are in that exact moment. So to one person, a body weight squat might be intense.
And then we can build intensity over time, but it’s like, if someone can do 10 reps of a squat and they have a lot more reps in reserve or left in the tank, then it’s like, Hey, let’s add some load to that and like get that more high intensity stimulus. I also think there’s, there’s a misconception between like HIIT training, like high intensity interval training of what is like defined by that, like the classes and whatnot versus like true high intensity training.
And so a lot of times women are like, well, I don’t want to go do a group exercise class. And I’m like, I’m not telling you to do that. A lot of those classes are putting women in that moderate state of intensity because they’re working for 45 minutes and they might be doing something for a minute on. And if you’re a minute on the clock, you’re not hitting that high threshold. High intensity is like maximum effort below 30 seconds, like all out.
And I also tell women it doesn’t have to be a physical sprint. Like a sprint interval can be battle ropes. can be versiclimber. It can be the stationary bike. Like a salt bike will wreck you. But that’s going to be really low impact. it’s, again, meeting women where they are, giving them the stimulus, but knowing that you don’t have to go physically sprint or lift heavy weight day one. We want to give you the base and the foundational.
characteristics to then be able to go meet that moment.
Vanessa Leone (37:37)
Yeah, I love that. Super important. And I also like to make this distinguish here as well is that lifting heavy could also be your own body weight, right? Because you mentioned body weight squats, but like, you know, let’s put a body weight squat for you and I would be a little bit more of a warm up activity, something that we might use just to kind of move. But doing like single leg hopping.
that or up onto a little step or something like that. That’s intense, powerful training. And that’s body weight. I did some testing the other day. Actually, we got some force plates out. I know, I know your science brain will like this. Yeah. And we had some physios come into our studio and we did some plyometric pushups and that was super fun. haven’t, I, I realized in my own training that I hadn’t been focusing on that.
And it was probably because of that low energy availability, because I hadn’t felt like I was able to push myself like that. And it made me think, I was like, I really kind of neglected this four, five rep pushing like as hard as I can go. And I surprised myself. I was still able to get a couple of reps out of these like plyometric pushups. But most women would look at that and be like, I could never do that. And it’s so…
It’s so attainable, like it’s so attainable for anyone to get that with the right training, the right, you know, help and the right mindset, I think it’s really important.
Mikayla Foss (39:19)
Yeah, I love that. And I, love asking women, when was the last time you jumped? Like sometimes people like just don’t jump anymore. And it’s like, we should be able to be explosive and jump and like feel powerful. And yeah, with the right training, with the right coach, you can build up to that. Some, some people are going to start their foundational phase might be a year long. Like you have to think about it long-term other people, like the athletes that come in for their off season, our foundational phase is like four weeks because they’re not deconditioned. So.
Everyone needs that foundational phase to really make sure they’re moving well. But for a lot of people, it’s going to take a long time and they’re still going to reap benefits of that. Like they might see muscle mass changes and benefits. We just want to get them to the point that scientifically says is the most beneficial for them. But all movement is good movement. A walk is better than sitting on the couch. Like doing something is always going to be better than nothing. And with the research we have, we know that.
We can benefit from doing really true high intensity work as women and we’ve been encouraged not to for a long time.
Vanessa Leone (40:24)
Yeah, I think that misconception that we have in the industry at the moment, that high intensity is a 45 minute class, is just such a damaging misconception. And I think there’s a little bit of that fear inside us to push a little bit.
But there’s also the other side of the coin, like I felt it. I felt that low energy availability that when I do push to those really high intensities, I’m wiped for like days and days and days. So can we talk about maybe, you know, people who maybe want to engage in that and who feel like, oh, I’m just, I can’t, like, I’m so, so tired. What could we, like, what can we do to help boost that energy?
Mikayla Foss (41:22)
We always recommend that people in general, regardless of gender, start by building capacity before going towards intensity. building capacity could be an inclined walk on a treadmill, prioritizing resistance over speed and longer bouts of effort. So if I have beginners come in, hey, we’re going to do three miles per hour, 12 % incline on a treadmill. Like we’re building aerobic base.
Then as they get more aerobically inclined, they built the capacity, their muscles are developed more, then hey, we can start to speed up the pace, maybe take back the resistance and focus on intensity. And so I would say overall, just helping someone build the capacity first, similar to lifting weights, like higher volume, lower intensity or load. And then once they’re good there, then we up the load.
drop the volume or how many reps they’re doing and hit the higher intensity. So bias and capacity before intensity.
Vanessa Leone (42:27)
Mmm, great explanation. I like that. And I like the word capacity. That’s such a great word, isn’t it?
Mikayla Foss (42:32)
Yeah, just your, yeah, your ability, your capacity to do something. And I also think like, if you’re not strong, and then you try to go sprint, your legs are going to like not have the power. I always think like, if you can build that, then like, those other efforts are going to feel better too.
Vanessa Leone (42:50)
And they feel stronger as well. like, yeah. You wouldn’t, you know, go for a job interview without preparing. It’s the same mind space, right? Like you have to prepare, you have to do the homework before you do the hard thing that you really want to do.
Mikayla Foss (43:10)
Yeah. And like looking at cycles, so Exos, we as a company, a couple of years ago, we were like, we aren’t the best resource to the women that come into our facilities because we aren’t specializing in this right now. And so we actually partnered with Dr. Stacey Sims, who I’ve learned so much from, and she is amazing. We took a lot of her recommendations and we said like, how do we apply this to a group setting? Because as coaches,
Vanessa Leone (43:30)
Awesome.
Mikayla Foss (43:38)
It’s sometimes hard. like, okay, I have women that are all in all different phases of their cycle. Like, how do I train them all at one time and still give them that specialized training, paying attention to these things and kind of going from the like volume and intensity conversation. We essentially had a group of women that came in and trained with us. I got to be their coach, which was awesome. There was 15 of them and I got a daily survey from all of them.
and they told me when their period started. So I knew when they were at day one of their cycle. And then at about day 15, I moved them to like the luteal or high hormone phase group. And on the board, I just had intensive group and extensive group. My intensive group was the follicular low hormone phase. And they were doing that low volume, high intensity training. Like they were doing sprint intervals. They were doing trap bar deadlifts, five sets of five.
Then my extensive group was more in the three sets of 12, 15. They were still lifting, but they were focused more on volume over intensity. They were doing longer work periods, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to hit as high of an intensity, but they were still building capacity. So even from the lens of where you’re at in your cycle, we can alter that. And that kind of comes back to the conversation of like, you don’t just have to do yoga and Pilates while those can be beneficial.
You can still lift weights and you can still run, but like, can you alter your work to rest ratios? Can you alter the percentage of your one RM and do more volume to help you better recover from those efforts?
Vanessa Leone (45:13)
a great story. It’s so important that they hear that the group setting, this is one I often get challenged with. It’s too hard when you have that many people. It’s not. You’ve got to be a better coach. You’ve got to figure out a system and that’s a great system. I love that. That’s excellent.
Mikayla Foss (45:25)
Yeah, was just similar movement patterns, pretty much same workout of the day, but just different volumes and intensities. And we phrased it as intensive, extensive, so we weren’t necessarily writing their private health information up on the board. we kind of, eventually they inferred what it meant, but.
Vanessa Leone (45:53)
No, but that’s
perfect. they’re good uses of it because it’s like uses of those words, because it’s it’s not necessarily, like you said, it’s physiological. And even though, you know, you might feel different at different times, that’s totally valid as well. When you’re looking at long-term training, it’s more about consistency and patterns than it is about how you feel on a singular day. And so you can still modify.
on a singular day, but be within the pattern. think that that’s, that’s something to really focus on. That’s cool. I really like that.
Mikayla Foss (46:30)
Yeah, and going off that, like for women that were menstruating, I left their names off the board completely because like we talked about physiologically, we knew that, hey, you could actually go PR today and hit those high intensities. But if you don’t feel good, I’m not going to, as your coach tell you, no, you have to go hit those just because that’s what the science says. Like your personal experience matters more to me. And so I would just say, hey, if you don’t see your name on the board, you choose what feels good to you. And over time, the more educated women became.
they started to bias towards training intensely because they were like, I am empowered and like, I can hit this high intensity. And some of the women even told me like, after I did that, I felt better. And I was like, yeah, it’s known that if you can hit those high intensity, sometimes that can help mitigate cramping and mitigate menstrual symptoms. But sometimes you just need to be empowered to be able to do so or be told like, you are capable and you can go do this, but I’m not gonna force you to.
Vanessa Leone (47:31)
Yeah, yeah. Thank you for saying that. That’s so important. That’s, I love hearing stuff like that. The empowerment piece is huge. Really cool. We’re going to take it super personal for my last question. Not to, just cause I love your time. So I talk about movement therapy. Movement therapy encompasses anything essentially that you could do for your body, for your mind, for your emotions that feels like therapy to you.
At the moment for yourself, what are you currently doing that you would classify as movement therapy?
Mikayla Foss (48:09)
Long walks. I recently moved and I’m in a new neighbourhood right by a canal. So there’s some water and it’s just like miles and miles that you can walk. And I feel like there’s been a lot of just chaos around my life lately. A lot of personal changes, a lot of like professional stuff happening. That’s all good, but it’s, it’s stress.
And I think when I walk, a lot of things become clear to me. I’m allowed to hear my thoughts. You can do a meditative walk where you’re noticing different colours and whatever. then sometimes I’m like, I’m just going to go and see what happens. so yeah, it’s kind of a way to not be structured, not think. Sometimes I might invite a friend or listen to a podcast and other times it’s just me and my thoughts. And it’s really clarifying for me.
Vanessa Leone (48:59)
Love that. That’s beautiful movement therapy. Excellent. Thank you for that. Mikayla, that was amazing. So good. If anyone has any questions, we’ve got your contact details that will be in the show notes. Please follow Mikayla. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
Mikayla Foss (49:04)
Okay.
Thank you so much for having me and for the conversation. Like I said, it’s just making these things less taboo, empowering women and opening the conversation so people can better learn and we’re making change by doing so. So thank you.
Vanessa Leone (49:32)
Yeah, awesome. Until next time.
Mikayla Foss (49:34)
Until next time.
Vanessa Leone Movement Therapist 