All in FAQs + hacks

Sweat it out, or stay home? (Alternate subject: allergies are the worst. Hey spring! ✨😷)

Sweat it out, or stay home? (Alternate subject: allergies are the worst. Hey spring! ✨😷)

Stephanie Ondrusek
FAQs + hacks, general BAMFery, programming

Illness: it happens to the best of us (and, surely, if you’re reading this, we are “the best of us.” ;) ).

It can be frustrating to be going through a training program, amped about how well it’s designed, how much we love it, and the results we’re seeing…and then get a nasty bout of flu, feel ultra weak, and not know where to go from there.

Do we sweat it out, or rest and recover? When we’re better, do we pick up where we left off, or start over, or abandon it and do something totally different? What about nutrition, once we can eat more than soup and saltines?

Yes, You Can (and Should) Weight Train: To the Pregnant Mamas

Yes, You Can (and Should) Weight Train: To the Pregnant Mamas

Stephanie Ondrusek
FAQs + hacks, coaching, fooooood

Today, I wanna address a few concerns that have come in to me from a very specific population…pregnant ladies and new mamas. There’s a fair amount of info in here, from answering whether or not we should lift during pregnancy to addressing a few body changes to a couple of exercises to begin healing the abdominal wall and pelvic floor starting from a few days postpartum. Buckle up!
Most importantly, embracing the post-baby body is a major key. The experience of pregnancy allows us to be more in tune, more fully aware, and more selfless with our bodies than we have ever been before, most likely. The experience of motherhood allows for weakness and vulnerability, for sure, but also for immense amounts of strength we never thought possible. Check out a few stories here that will hit you right in the feels on this one. Because, this experience is #WonderWomanLoading if I’ve ever known it.

Embrace the suck (you've heard it before, and I'm here to tell you again) (+ a workout!)

Embrace the suck (you've heard it before, and I'm here to tell you again) (+ a workout!)

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, FAQs + hacks, general BAMFery, mindset, workouts

The bench press has taught me what God has been showing me basically my entire life: the dreamers, the doers, the problem solvers, the hippies – we aren’t meant for a life of mundane. We aren’t meant to uphold the status quo, to go with the flow, or do what someone tells us to do just for the sake of doing it. We’re meant to change the world, one step at a time, and to do that, we’ve gotta get in the mud and find out where the pain is and why it hurts. Embracing the suck means more than just acknowledging that it’s shitty; it’s loving every second of it, knowing that it’s useful.

Ultimately, our lives are up to us. We get to choose to be glad for even the things we hate, and we get to choose to make them better, if that’s how we’re so called. The iron can teach us that, and, if we look, so will the rest of life.

Transferable life skills: 4 steps to setting up for the barbell back squat

Transferable life skills: 4 steps to setting up for the barbell back squat

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, FAQs + hacks, general BAMFery, mindset

Ah, the squat.

It’s humbled everyone out there, in one way or another.

We’ve all seen videos of huge dudes with 58 plates loaded on a bent bar amping themselves up, Lebron-ing some chalk around, and looking like their heads are gonna explode somehow go down and come back up with those hundreds of pounds.

An impressive feat, to be sure, but also unlikely to be any of our goals here in real life (cool party trick, though); it’s far more likely to cause a bunch of anxiety surrounding what is, at the bottom of everything, a fundamental movement pattern for life.

We look at the bar, we remember the intimidating videos, we remember that we’re new – that we’re in the conscious incompetence or conscious competence stage of learning – and instantly feel that, because we aren’t yet masters, we’re unworthy. We talk ourselves out of great things every day, team, because of this feeling, and, a lot of times, overcoming this in bigger, more impactful areas of life starts with giving ourselves a smaller victory to build momentum: overcoming this in the gym (or on the yoga mat, or deep in meditation, or if we somehow find ourselves on a treadmill, fill in the blank.).

We’ve cultivated awareness, we’ve gotten our breath under us, we’ve accepted our situation, and here, in the barbell squat, we have our first challenge.

So! I’m gonna walk you through it, from a form perspective, step by step. Because if some meathead dude can do it, so can you (also, hello to any meathead dudes that may be reading this, and sorry you’re on the back burner rn.).

I've Been Kicking Butt for 3 Weeks Now...and I'VE GAINED WEIGHT. What Gives?

I've Been Kicking Butt for 3 Weeks Now...and I'VE GAINED WEIGHT. What Gives?

Stephanie Ondrusek
coaching, FAQs + hacks, mindset

This is normal! SO normal. Where we get into trouble is, this happens, and, instead of keeping in mind these 3+ reasons and staying the course, navigating through the murk, we either say f it and give up, or we try to “exercise off” the weight, thereby increasing our appetite even further, binging, and feeling ashamed about it and bringing on the need to pay exercise penance…repeat ad nauseum.

Solution?

I’ve got plenty!

But the first is to key in and pinpoint what’s happening. If there’s no issue with appetite and random binges, it’s probably just #s 1&2, so stick it out for a few more days.

If, like most of us, there is an issue with appetite, then that’s where our mindset work on peace with food comes in. We’ve talked about it here and here, but, summary, is essentially the same, just a little more work: stay the course. Add protein and veggies, evaluate how that feels, maybe add a few carbs or fat, evaluate, repeat.

There’s no deadline on this goal: it’s all a process. What most of us are actually after is being a version of ourselves that’s a little better than the current model. And for that to happen, all that’s needed is small steps full of change. Which take a shitload of courage, certainly, but are doable, especially when we keep in mind that most of our goals really are about how we feel.

Feeling good >>> looking good >>>>>>>> mental food/scale/fitness prison.

A Post About Resolutions (& how to Create Some that will Actually Improve your Life).

Stephanie Ondrusek
mindset, general BAMFery, FAQs + hacks

I’d love to share with you an exercise I do at the beginning of every year. Writing these things down and remembering that any change starts from a place of love, inspiration, and excitement (rather than hate, blame, and dread of “having” to change this thing we hate…hey man, we’ve all been there and seen how well *that* worked, ::coughcough:: not at all) helps us remember why we got started in the first place. Even though we’re 10 days in, if you haven’t done so already, sit down, write these questions on a piece of paper, set a timer for 15m, and free write/type your answers to find your magic:

1.       What do I do well? What, in particular, went well in [2016]?

2.       Where do I have room for improvement? What do I want more of in my life (feelings or things)?

3.       Why are these improvements important to me? What will I feel or do better by accomplishing this? How will it affect my daily life and routine?

4.       What has been standing in my way of getting this done before now? Why is now different?

5.       What am I willing to give up to achieve this goal? What am I unwilling to sacrifice?

6.       How can I capitalize on my strengths (#1) to achieve the [peace/magic/stability/joy…answer from #3] and make 2017 the year of actual, sustainable change?

On perfectionism and why it's bullshit.

On perfectionism and why it's bullshit.

Stephanie Ondrusek
FAQs + hacks, general BAMFery, mindset

Perfectionism is a shield. It’s a defense move: the belief that if we do things perfectly and look physically perfect while doing it, we will avoid judgment, shame, and/or blame. It’s not about our internal motivation at all. Perfectionism is ALL about other people and trying to earn their approval; it’s correlated with depression, anxiety, and addiction; and, perhaps most frustratingly, it impedes our achievement, because it throws the fear of failure/meeting *OTHER PEOPLE’S* expectations (rather than our own) in our faces, thereby keeping us out of the arena of really trying.

HANGER: Why it happens and how to fix it.

HANGER: Why it happens and how to fix it.

Stephanie Ondrusek
FAQs + hacks, coaching, fooooood

“Hyper-palatable, highly-rewarding, heavily-processed” food… you know, the stuff you find yourself face-first in after a few drinks or that terrible argument with your partner… is a major disruptor. Have you ever noticed that after eating a whole can of Pringles/2lbs of Sour Patch Kids/half a pizza, that you don’t really feel full…or even satisfied? Foods like this light up the pleasure centers of our brain and override our natural “stop” signals. We keep eating, ignoring that we’re stuffed, waiting until we feel sick or blacked out or there’s none left. Typically, these foods also contain relatively few nutrients, so we haven’t nourished our bodies properly: we’ve consumed a ton of calories, very few of which are actually serving us. We’ve moved from mixed eating into pure hedonic eating, and this hormone loop disruption is why it’s so hard to control: our natural regulatory system gets interrupted, and we feel powerless to stop it, as our innate stop-gap measure is thrown out the window.

Nutrition is a Commitment to Serving Ourselves.

Stephanie Ondrusek
FAQs + hacks, mindset, fooooood

Trying to white-knuckle our way through a plan that doesn’t work for us, no matter how “perfect” it is on paper, sets us up for failure, hormonally, mentally, and physically.


Our nutrition is a commitment to serving ourselves. I, personally, hate to disappoint people, and this was a wakeup call for me to stop disappointing myself and instead act in service to myself so that I can better serve others.

So... How Do I Program This?

So... How Do I Program This?

Stephanie Ondrusek
FAQs + hacks, coaching, programming

I add conditioning days to the lighter or more moderate days, mostly from a length-of-time standpoint, both in the gym and in the time it takes to recover. Conditioning workouts, if done with high intensity, are super tough! Overloading my system on heavy days + conditioning is too much; I’d never recover properly to produce enough force for my lifts (with sound movement patterns, anyway) the next day, plus I’d just feel terrible, which is rarely (heh.) the goal.

Placing the conditioning workouts where we will be able to both drive the intensity highest (lighter lift days or days where the posterior chain is activated and primed for movement) and recover in time for heavy lifts is vital to being able to achieve both strength + body change goals. I find many programs run into trouble by trying to do too much all at once, leaving you exhausted after a week or two, and giving up after three, leaving you pretty much right back where you started (we’ve all been there, myself included.).

Finding a balance is huge. This is what works for me and many clients, but all programs are adaptable to your individual needs. Working in the realm of high intensity + building strength is where the magic happens. Figuring out strategies to do both in the context of real life was the game changer for my consistency in workouts, because I was actually having fun AND seeing results.

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