Debinmi
Cathlete
I think her book was written with the advanced endurance athletes like herself (Ironman and other High-level endurance competitors) as they were approaching menopause or post-menopause in mind. Since she wrote the book others have been trying to use her recommendations and those that came out of the LIFTMOR study to adapt them to the average woman, primarily to improve bone health, but also other health issues for older women So her latest interviews and podcasts have switched up the recommendations from her book somewhat to make them more accessible. She has collaborated with Hailey Babcock of the Hailey Happens App to develop a program all women can use. I visited Hailey's website - her beginner program sounds alot like Cathe's original STS but using Total Body workouts instead of a 3-day split. But it starts out with endurance-weight training, then progresses to hypertrophy and strength. Mobility and recovery are integral parts, similiar to Cathe's focus in STS2.0.
She's referring to cardio endurance workouts there - not weightlifting. It's so people can still do their beloved long steady-state cardios like walking, hiking, swimming, cycling/biking and not have it interfere with the core essentials of weight-training, mobility/recovery and Interval-cardio. For many endurance athletes this means long runs/bike rides with friends on the weekends, sometimes in preparation for an event, or just for the social fun aspect. I think her thoughts of a typical essential workout day is: incorporating mobility in your warm-up, lift heavy (now she says all forms of lifting (endurance, hypertrophy or strength - as long as they're done to the point of fatigue - as in most of Cathe's workouts), then adding on a few sprints, then a cooldown and recovery efforts - all done in an hour or less. In her interviews she doesn't advocate for longer workouts unless it's your endurance-cardio days and only if you want it. She strongly advises to avoid Zone 3&4 cardio where many people love their "I'm a sweaty mess" workouts as it's not enought to affect BDNF. Cathe offers plenty of HIIT/METCON workouts to fit the criteria. She also offers a lot of Zone 3&4 cardio for which there's not as much cognitive benefit, although they may be fun and burn a lot of calories if that's your focus/need. Where Cathe's weight workouts don't fit in well is that they are much longer than Sims advocates. (And really Cathe can work us to death, especially in her earlier years - just kidding
, sort of ... lol.) However, Cathe's weight workouts can fit the protocol; and if they're too long, she offers plenty of TimeSaver Premixes to shorten things up, or you can just skip some sets for biceps and triceps so you can add in a SIT.I think the HIIT style workouts which include SIT and METCON work well to increase VO2 Max. Supposedly they increase BDNF (Brain-derived neurotrophic factor) which helps reduce risk for cognitive disorders as we age. That's reason enough for me to incorporate a few SIT intervals into my workouts.
It has been interesting to me to compare Sims recommendations in the book with what she is saying in interviews and podcasts as others are incorporating the research recommendations from LIFTMOR with her recommendations. Even the jump training recommendations are more accessible.
