Kevin: If I tell you, “She’s a strong woman,” what comes to mind?  Maybe your first thought is that she’s emotionally strong, or mentally tough.  What about if I tell you, “She’s a strong 70 year old woman?”  Now what comes to mind?  You’re probably not thinking of physical strength.  That simply doesn’t fit the common narrative for 70 year olds in our culture.  But what if I told you that this woman can squat 250 pounds and deadlift 320 pounds and recently set 12 American powerlifting records?  And then what if I went on to tell you that she’s just getting started, that she is in fact as strong and as energetic as she’s ever been in her entire life?

 

Hello and welcome to the Over 50 Health & Wellness how.  I’m you host Kevin English – I’m a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach and my mission is to help you get into the best shape of your life - no matter your age.  We have a great show for you today – Shelly Stettner is here to share her incredible strength journey.  But before we get to that I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by the Silver Edge.   The Silver Edge is my online personal training and nutrition coaching business where I help you get off the exercise and diet hamster wheel and start making permanent healthy lifestyle changes, so that you can enjoy the second half of your life with strength and confidence, and show up as the healthiest, strongest, most vital version of yourself no matter your age.  If you’re interested in learning more, send me an email at coach@silveredgeftness.com and we’ll start a conversation.  My promise to you is no hard sales pitch, no annoying incessant follow up emails, just an introductory conversation about your personal fitness goals.  OK, enough of that, let’s get on with today’s show!

 

My guest today is Shelly Stettner.  Shelly is 70 year old national powerlifting champion.  But she wasn’t always strong, or even particularly fit.  She spent 30-ish years as a smoker, and occasionally hopped on and off the latest diet and exercise fads of the day.  But then one day shortly before her 65th birthday she caught a look at herself in the mirror, and for the first time saw herself as a frail old lady.  Through a fortunate series of events, she ended up in a gym that specializes in helping aging men and women get and stay strong.  She learned to squat, deadlift and press, and over time she grew stronger… and fell in love with the process and the results, which eventually resulted in her entering – and dominating – powerlifting competitions.  I asked Shelly if she was active as a child.

 

Shelly: I never really stuck with anything for very long. I was more focused on family and school and then being a doctor or medical school, that was really my focus. But then over the years kind of like with diet, in terms of exercise craze and fitness stuff, you name it, I've been there, I've done that at least for a short period of time. There was the aerobics phase, the Jane Fonda thing.

That wasn't my thing. Wasn't really into that. And then the running craze started up that was in the late seventies, early eighties, I believe. I was actually a heavy smoker.

Kevin: Oh, is that right? When did you start smoking?

Shelly: Oh my gosh. I started smoking when I was a teenager, 16, 17 years old. I was got up to a nice unhealthy two pack a day habit into my forties. So yeah, I kind of tried running and smoking but they didn't mix and I’d quit for a short period of time, but then, you know, it would start back up again.

So no, I never had any major health problems, but I don't think I was a picture of health either. There was a yoga phase. I got into yoga, right? Yeah. yeah, it was then back to running, jogging around the neighborhood.

Kevin: So it sounds like a well-rounded, like you said, you didn't really take to any one thing. You tried the crazes, they came and went, but you weren’t the beacon of health, smoking for quite a few years in there.

Now you mentioned just briefly medical school. So obviously you had a pretty heavy academic commitment there. So what were those years like going through medical school? Cause I imagine that's where your focus is. Typically, people that are doing that oftentimes are involved more in the academic pursuit than they are the self care kind of pieces. Would that would that be fair to say?

Shelly: Very fair to say. I was probably getting to be quite unhealthy. I'd put on some weight. Certainly when I was finally able to stop smoking yeah, I was probably my mid forties and the heaviest I'd ever been. And yeah, just basically not very healthy at all.

I mean, I was still kind of sorta active around the edges. I mean, I wouldn't call myself a runner, but I would get out there and I would jog, I would do my three miles every morning. You know, I enjoyed that. But I wasn't really healthy at all.

Kevin: And what did your diet look like back then? Were you health conscious about what you ate?

Shelly: Again, it's sort of like you name it, the diet phase that popped up and I'd been there and done that. I had my vegetarian phase and a vegan phase, like just briefly, that was a bit too much over the edge for me.

I couldn't do the vegan for very long. I was never big on junk food. But you know, I was very conscious of the diets. I think I tried an intermittent fasting stage. I mean, seriously, all of them that came up, I tried it for a short period of time.

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. And they seem like they're cyclical too because intermittent fasting is very hot right now, but it's not new. I mean, that has come and gone. The same kind of low carb craze, it's been in and out of vogue.

Shelly: The Dean Ornish thing. I mean, I don't know if we started talking about it. I would remember. Oh yeah. the grapefruit diet. I mean, you know, grapefruit.

Kevin: Yeah, absolutely.

Shelly: And I think it was for me, you know, it was to be thin, that was the main thing. I don't know how much of it was health conscious. When I was younger, it was probably more just that it was more fashionable to be thin.

Kevin: So yeah, dieting and probably that running less to be strong, capable, and vital and more for a look or a certain weight on the scale. I think that's pretty common that people are chasing that. And those are the tools that are common in the toolbox, right? Well here, eat whatever the fad diet is or whatever the current exercise of the day craze is, let’s hop on that. And then try and chase this ideal body type that we see in in media, et cetera.

Shelly: I mean, being strong, I didn't have a clue. I did at some point I did join a gym cause it dawned on me that I really needed to start doing something more structured.

And I joined one of the local gyms that was close by and I had a personal trainer who would, you know, she was really nice, but I mean, again, I didn't know what to do in a gym, with all the machines and she would take me to each machine and we would do that. And she would tell me what to do and how many reps, she would count it.

And all I needed to do was show up and then she would take me on the circuit, whatever it was. And interestingly, I kind of sorta liked some stuff. I learned physically that I had an ability. I could just look at a dumbbell and all of a sudden I would have a bicep. I mean, I just kind of naturally put on a muscle without even seriously trying. As a matter of fact, I would want to cover it up.

Because even though I knew better, I was still under the belief that if women did strength training of any sort with dumbbells, and I didn't know what a barbell was at that point, God forbid you would develop muscles and turn into and look like a man, which wasn't something I wanted to do.

Kevin: So that's a good point. It’s been a stigma for a long, long time around strength training and women. And obviously that's changing drastically today. I think that there's a number of reasons for that, but not the least of which maybe is social media. We have exposure to more and more women with different types of very strong, lean athletic body types.

Whereas I think maybe 20, 30 years ago, covers of magazines with these very, very unobtainable and unhealthy skinny women on the front cover. Now we're seeing that change quite a bit. CrossFit put barbells into a lot of women's hands as well. And that's changed that stigma a lot. But yeah, I agree that once upon a time there was this - and that that's still out there. Right? There are still women who think that, oh, I wouldn't want to lift with a barbell cause I don't want to get big and bulky. But then they'll turn around and say but I want to get toned. Which really means building muscle at the end of the day. So yeah, that's a good point.

So you joined this gym and that's your first experience in a gym with a personal trainer, you said that gal had taken you around. That is very typical here. Do 10 of these at this way and I’ll mark it on my clipboard. And then we're going to go to this machine. We're going to do this one and you had a good experience, right? So where do you go from there?

Shelly: I noticed some things in the gym that there would be a lot of people, very thin women would be there and men too. And, you know, over time you kind of get to know everybody in the gym. And one of the things that I noticed is that everybody seemed to always look the same. I didn't know what to expect really, but no one ever physically appeared any different to me. I noticed that in the gym. So what happened was,  you know how you can look at yourself over the years? You're younger than I am, but over time, you know, you're just kind of looking in the mirror, doing your usual stuff without really seeing yourself. And I had a moment. I was approaching 65 rapidly.

And for some reason, that day I caught myself in the mirror and took a look and was completely freaked out. I was losing, it's not like I've ever had muscle, but I was losing my shape. I was turning into a little old lady really fast, even though I was going and doing stuff. Sorta. It was sarcopenia. Really fast and it was alarming to me how quickly it was happening.

And that was about the time that - I work in an emergency room - and one of the docs that I work with was getting ready to retire that year. Dr. Sullivan, Sully. And you know, I asked him what he going to do with his life? And he told me he was a Starting Strength coach and he was going to have a gym and that was what he was going to do.

And he kind of explained to me what he did. I had never heard of this before. So I asked him if I could come over and see what he does. And he was like, yeah, sure. So I went over there to his gym and this was about two weeks shy of my 65th birthday, kind of coinciding with that moment of alarm for myself.

And I went to his gym and just sat there and watched while he was training some people. One of them was a young woman - older than me and tinier than me - lifting this heavy barbell with these weights. And I was like, damn, I want to do that. If she can do it, I can do that. And that's where it started.

I started with Sully. He had written a book with Andy Baker called The Barbell Prescription, and it had not come out yet. They were just getting ready to launch it. And two weeks shy of my 65th birthday, I picked up a barbell for the first time.

Kevin: Wow, that's a great story. And so folks that don't know Dr. Jonathan Sullivan – we’re going to refer to him as Sully -  he's been on this show before and if folks want they can go back and listen to that.

And so that's the first time that you'd actually working out with barbells, right? You were much more used to the more conventional, hey, we're going to do a treadmill. We're going to do these circuits on these machines. But here you're seeing these folks that are older than you. You had mentioned that young woman over 65 doing something strong with a barbell and that had an impact on you.

Shelly: Yeah. It's not like I was completely unaware of barbells and weights, but that was something that men did in dark dungeon type gyms with, you know, bodybuilders, that was in my mind what that was.

That was just not something that women got into. So yeah, this was something I had never seen before. And what's so cool about it is I was taught the lifts, the basic lifts from the ground up in a very simple, methodical way. And it's a small group training. We each had a squat rack and Sully was right there.

And yeah, I went to twice a week and we put a little bit more weight on the bar every time. The other thing too, which, which kind of helped me a great deal is that the whole process, you have to take ownership for what you're doing. He fixed me up with a logbook. Every time you have to log exactly what you do, what the weight on the bar is, what the exercise is, how many reps, the whole bit.

If it's not recorded, it didn't happen. You had to take an ownership. It wasn't like I had him just leading me around and telling me what to do, like a personal trainer. This was my training, which I had never experienced before. Plus I was able to each time as a beginner to put a little bit more weight on the bar every time. So I could actually see the progression that I was making. That was something quite new to me too. Yeah. I just got hooked.

Kevin: Yeah. You can see yourself getting stronger. I'm sure you could feel yourself getting stronger. You can look back in your logbook and objectively see yourself getting stronger as you add a little more weight each and every time. And you referenced these basic lifts. Talk to us about what those basic lifts are.

Shelly: Well, it's a low bar back squat. And an overhead press, a bench press, and a deadlift. And that’s it.

Kevin: So some basic compound movements. And I think people may be surprised to hear that those are the lifts that a coach is going to bring in an almost 65 year old woman, and start her on these lifts because everybody knows that deadlifting is bad for your back and squatting is bad for your knees. So talk to us a little bit about your experience with that as a beginner.

Shelly: Well, first of all Sully is very comfortable in teaching older people about these lifts. I think there's a belief - and I had the same - that I'm going to hurt myself. This is something that I've never done before. I'm going to hurt my back. I can't lift these heavy weights. But you start out at the beginning, which is just the empty bar.

It's a 45 pound bar. And for overhead press there's even a smaller bar you can use. And again, you just start with something that's small and manageable. And you learn the basic movement of the lift over time, and then add a little bit of weight every time. It's almost imperceptible in the beginning. And what's also imperceptible is that your very gradually adjusting and adapting to this and getting stronger. But it was a slow day difficult process. That was the other thing too. This is hard work. it's not like fun like an aerobics class.

Kevin: With everybody sweaty and everybody's smiling. Yeah. This is a different type of workout.

Shelly: Yeah, this is really hard physical work, which I had never done before. Which to my surprise, I found really exhilarating. There's something really cool about it. Performing a physical task, like a squat, and in lifting a weight that you'd never lifted before and then realize what you just did, you know?

It's, yeah, it's pretty cool. And then over time to realize that you're getting stronger. I was very de-conditioned. I had never experienced physical strength ever like that in my lifetime. So physically I was starting to do things that my body had never done before. So yeah, there was all kinds of aches and pains and I had worries and I would get a backache. My shoulder would hurt. There would be times that I thought this is it. I'll never squat again. I'm done. Or my shoulder is shot. I'll never be able to do a bench press.

Yeah, but I just I hung in there and there would be days that I would hurt and, you know, we'd have to modify a little bit. But the whole point is I kept going back. You have to be consistent.

Kevin: Okay. So we heard a lot in there. Obviously the idea of progressive overload, first, you learned the mechanics, right? That's very, very important. And you ended up in Sully's gym there and he's one of the best in your age demographic for training.

And you had referenced earlier, he's a Starting Strength coach. And if folks don't know what that is, that's a certification for strength coaches. And if folks aren't sure how to get started in a strength journey with these types of compound lifts, certainly you can go on their website, find a Starting Strength certified coach.

That would be a great way to get started. But you also mentioned that it's hard work. It's a bit of a grind and it requires this consistency to keep moving and moving. And you find yourself for the first time in your life feeling strong. And I'm guessing that that flows into other areas of your life. Is that fair?

Shelly: Oh absolutely. I mean, just dealing with groceries. Before I would get the smaller bags of dog food rather than the 25 pound bag, just because I could manage them a little easier. Well now, I mean, a 25 pound bag of dog food is nothing.

I just toss it up on my shoulder with no problem at all. It's not something that I could lift before. Yeah. So I mean, I had an awareness that I was getting older and I was finding myself looking at assisted living and retirement programs and thinking, well, you know, I better get ready. This is going to be down the road.

Yeah. And I recognize in just thinking about this podcast, I realized that I had no interest or looked at those things in a number of years now.

Kevin: That's very interesting and very telling, right? Cause when you ask somebody - and I say this all the time on this podcast - close your eyes and imagine a 70 year old woman. What does she look like?

What does she do? Where is she? And typically we're not picturing you. We're not picturing a woman who's going out and winning powerlifting meets. Right? We’re not picturing a woman lifting heavy barbells and loving it and moving forward and being strong and capable and vital into her seventies.

And yet, you know, we're hearing more and more stories that are like that. And we realize that, cause I feel like a lot of what's happening is that that's the common narrative. That's the expectation that aging is inevitable. It is. We all meet the same end. But aging can look a number of different ways, right?

It can end up in an early nursing home or it can end up where you're strong and capable and taking on life. And I feel like you're certainly a shining example of that.

Shelly: Yeah, the timing was perfect and I think I was able to really turn around some of the severe muscle loss and frailty. I have more energy now and I am stronger now than I have ever been in my entire life.

Kevin: Say that again. You're 70, right?

Shelly: Yeah. I am stronger now and I have more energy now than I have ever had in my entire. Yeah, in some respects it's like, gee whiz, I would've, I wish I would have discovered all this sooner. But there's benefits too. I mean, it's not like I was a young powerlifter and doing crazy stuff that if I was younger, I probably would have done. I didn't have the opportunity to accumulate injuries and all that.

I'm not at a stage where I'm looking back and saying, oh, I used to be able to lift that and I can't lift that anymore. That's never happened. I've never been able to lift what I'm lifting now, ever. Which is pretty exciting stuff. Yeah.

Kevin: No, that’s very exciting stuff. I love that. So clearly there's a message here that you're never too old and it's never too late to start. And to your point, you didn't just arrest that sarcopenia, that age-related muscle loss. You actually reversed it. You are building muscle, you are getting stronger.

Shelly: Right. Yeah. I really am. I got a PR today.

Kevin: Fantastic. There you go. Okay. We've got you from fairly normal life, to all of a sudden - you said you had that moment right before you were 65, when you looked in the mirror, really looked in the mirror, and didn't like what you saw. And maybe projecting that out where that was leading and through just fortuitous circumstances Sully's going to retire.

He's opening up his gym and you go and just check it out and you have this revelation, hey, I want to do that. And it turns out you're good at it. And of course, part of that is just you are sticking with it and doing the work that it takes to be good at it, but you're good at it. And you like it.

Shelly: Yeah. In, terms of all of the little things that I've tried over the years, I've always been able physically to catch on to stuff pretty quickly. You know, I can watch somebody do something and figure it out pretty quickly, how to do it.

This stuff is hard, I think that's why the Starting Strength method is so good because it's really broken down into basic components so that it allows you to learn the movement and what the components of it are. And then with practice, over and over again, it becomes a more natural movement.

So there's a whole progression with that and, and yeah, I was able to pick up on it. I was able to get strong pretty quickly, relative to where I was. And then I discovered that they had these competitions, and I thought that was pretty cool.

And I was already competitive. I'm competitive by nature anyways. And the log book was cool. Cause I could see where I was at last week. And then someone said something about these competitions and I was like, oh, I want to try that. And someone else said, well, you're not gonna win.

And I stopped for a minute. And I said well, we'll see about that. I just really took to it. It was just really fun to me. And I reached a point where I had learned lifts and I really wanted to do more. I wanted more than twice a week. Also, unfortunately Sally's gym is like on the other side of the world for me, almost an hour to get there.

So I started to branch out and I thought, well, I could join a gym and do this on my own. Much more difficult. It's easier said than done. I still didn't really know my way around a gym, how to set things up on my own. And by that time, the Barbell Prescription had come out and the co-author is Andy baker.

Although I had known about Andy from the Starting Strength community, cause I was soaking up everything that I could to learn as much as I could. I went to a starting strength seminar, which is a great place to solidify your learning about the lifts. And so I was aware of Andy Baker, he wrote the programming part of the book.

He had some programming, so I contacted him and he set up a program for me that I started to do in the gym on my own. Although I actually got somebody to help me with it because I wasn't comfortable in a gym by myself. So this took time. And then I started entering some meets.

Kevin: Now you've mentioned competition. And now you mentioned meets. I think people might be wondering what you're referring to there. Why don't you take a minute and talk about what you're referring to there.

Shelly: Well there's different federations. Actually, my first one was a Starting Strength meet. They had some meets back then. And then there's other powerlifting federations. The USAPL is the one that I belong to. And the, it was those meets that I started to go to more regularly. Sort of like two or three of them. I mean, you can't do too many of them at once, but I got introduced to the powerlifting community and being in the gym and everyone was really supportive, wonderful people.

You learn so much from people they're very generous with their knowledge and I'm not a powerlifter, or at least I wasn't at that time. I was just still basically learning the lifts. So I stayed with Sully for about a year and a half. And then I started with Andy Baker. He's got a barbell club that's online and he puts programming out with that.

And it's a really nice club. And I started doing the weekly programming with the guys - it's mostly guys in the club. But it was really cool. Andy regularly would program chins and dips. So I figured, well, if I'm going to be in the club and all these guys are doing that, I'm going to have to learn how to do it too.

I'd never done chins and dips before. I learned how and I started doing it, and I'd stayed in the barbell club and then eventually Andy does programming for me for meet preparation. All of that. But he coaches me online, but I'm still in the barbell club too.

And I also started with Nathan Peyton, who is a nutritionist there in the club. He does strong man competitions and stuff like that. So he's been doing my nutrition, so that took care of that diet craziness for me too. But yeah, together with the regular barbell training and I've got my diet under control. Yeah, I'm stronger now than I've ever been.

Kevin: Fantastic. Okay. So I want to come back to power lifting here in a minute, but since you brought it up, I do want to talk about the nutrition piece, because obviously you're putting in all this hard work, you're getting stronger in an order to get stronger and to build muscle we're going to have to feed that. Maybe talk a little bit about what your diet was prior to this, and then what your diet looks like now. What your eating in order to maintain the kind of performance that you're doing.

Shelly: Oh, my goodness. It's night and day. Gosh, I guess I would try, but I could never manage the counting calories. And the different components. How many carbs, how much protein? I couldn't. It was just not something that I was into at all. It was too confusing for me. I couldn't stick to it.

I mean, there's different apps that you can get and it was like just I just didn't have time. So what Nathan does, he basically tells me what to eat. And so I've turned over my meals to Nathan, who's a wizard. I don't know how he does what he does, but I eat what he tells me to eat when he tells me to eat it.

And basically my whole view of food has changed. It's just fuel now. And I eat small meals, about five times a day, protein at each one. And it's very controlled. My diet's a little bit different on training days. And I check in with him every week, depending on where my training is he will adjust my diet according to what the needs of training are. So yeah. And my body composition has changed. Oh yeah. I have muscle now I have more muscle and less fat, whereas before it was the other way around.

Kevin: Okay. So thanks for sharing that. And by the way, for folks listening, I'll drop all of these all these references we're talking to in the show notes, you can go there and find the Starting Strength, find the book, and find Andy Baker or find Sully and Nathan. So we'll drop all that in the show notes. Let's go back to the powerlifting. So not everybody listening is going to know what a power lifting meet looks like. Can you just describe what that competition is?

Shelly: Well, there's usually platforms where there's different flights of lifters that will go. It's organized into weight class and they're the three lifts – the squat, bench press, and deadlift. So the first group, everybody does squat. And then when those are done, everybody does bench press, and then deadlift

They're boring things to watch unless you're really into it. There's referees that judge very strictly how the lifts are done. It has to be a very precise way. It's either a good lift or not and then you can win your weight class or your division. Some of them are open you know, an open division. Others are grouped together by age. And then there's weight classes within that. So there's state organizations, and then there's a national organization.

And then there was worlds with the IPF but there's been a big fallout with all that. But I did get nominated to go to worlds for the USA team, but that is not happening this year. It may not happen ever again.

Kevin: Okay. Well, let's talk about, you've been successful in powerlifting meets as it turns out, right? I believe that you were the USAPL national champ here recently. Right? Talk a little bit about that and how that went down.

Shelly: Yeah, that was really exciting. Of course, at my age the competition gets more slim. There's not that many 70 year old, 63 kilogram females that are doing powerlifting like this. But yeah, I set 12 American records for my age and weight class it was very exciting. It was in Daytona beach in Florida and it's the whole week actually, but it was a really fun experience. I had never done anything like that before. So yeah, I won the championship. Got first place.

Kevin: And how how does that feel? I mean, it's not that long ago that you weren't strong, that this world was completely foreign to you. How does it feel when you complete this meet? And then you find out that not only have you won, but that you've actually set these American records in your age and weight class?

Shelly: Yeah. Well, it just means that now I have to break it.

Kevin: There you go. All right. And that actually leads me perfectly to my next question, because now I want to ask you what's next? Where do you go from here?

Shelly: Yeah, well, I have a meet in November that I've started training for and getting ready for that. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm really disappointed at the moment. It's not just me. It's a lot of us with the fact that we're not going to have the world championship, right? I wasn't going to be able to go. I got nominated, but I wasn't going to be able to go to Sweden this year.

Because it was impossible to get a passport in time with the COVID thing. And so I figured, well, so I'll shoot for it for next year, but it looks like that's probably not going to happen. So we'll just have to wait and see. There might be another federation that'll pop up. That'll join with the IPF for worlds.

I don't know. USAPL is gonna develop, I think, a pro series. And there should be some room for masters lifters in there, too. So I'm hoping.

Kevin: You're not going to rest on your laurels is what you're saying.

Shelly: No, I have records to break. It really helps to give focus to training.

Kevin: The competitions you mean?

Shelly: Yeah, it gives me that goal and that focus and it's a structure to my lifting. That just helps with motivation.

Kevin: Sure. I think that if we have an end goal, that really can keep us motivated through all those really hard training sessions, right.

You're training for something and you're getting all these additional benefits along the way. So Shelly, if you're comfortable, can you tell us what weights were you were hitting on your most recent the USAPL lifts, just so folks out there can get an idea of  your squatting, benching, and deadlifting. What kind of weights are we talking about?

Shelly: Well for squat my top weight in the gym I've hit 250 which is good.

Kevin: 250 pounds on your back and to squat below parallel is - let's face it - that's good for anyone.

Shelly: Yeah, well, I'm 130 right now, 134 pounds. So yeah, so that's not too shabby. At nationals my squat was 240. Or 242 actually, they do kilograms. Bench press, top bench press is 139. Again, they use kilograms so it comes out to about that. And deadlift 320.

Kevin: Wow. Okay. So thanks, I just wanted folks to have an idea of what sort of weights you’re lifting. I think that's fantastic. So just keeping on the training just for a minute longer, you're doing a lot of work. And like you said, you're stronger and have more energy than ever. What do you do for recovery in order to be able to put in all this hard work?

Shelly: Well, it may not be as much hard work as you think. My coach, Andy Baker, who hands down is a genius, he just is.

Kevin: Yeah. I think the industry kind of regards him that way.

Shelly: Yeah. So my training is what's called a four-day split. So on Monday I'll do bench press, Tuesday I'll do squat, Thursday bench press accessory stuff, and then Friday is deadlift day. And what Andy does somehow, I don't know how he does it, I just do what he tells me to do. And I've learned I don't question. I trust him totally with it. But he manages my stress. I don't know how he does it. I will have scheduled de-load weeks.

Yeah, and the amount of work that I do with the amount of volume or intensity is something that he fine tunes to me. And we've worked together long enough where he can tell when I'm getting fatigued sooner than I can. So I think it's really crucial to have a good coach. I would not be able to do this on my own, no way.

Kevin: So he's programming in that recovery for you, as you'd mentioned, you have those de-load weeks. He knows you well enough at this point to know when to push you and when to back off.

And we've had him also on the show as well, and he talks a lot about you and your work and specifically your programming. So if folks want to listen to that, certainly they can learn more there. So, Shelly, this is right up my alley, right? I, I love your message.

I'd love your energy. I love what you're doing. You are a great inspiration. How can people that want to reach out to you connect with you? How can they get in touch with you?

Shelly: Well, I have an Instagram, which is kind of interesting to me. I just kind of started doing that recently. So yeah, they can follow along. I'm putting some training stuff in there.

Kevin: Yeah. I think I saw today, did you hit, you hit 230 for doubles on your squats today? Is that right?

Shelly: Yeah.

Kevin: Holy moly. Yeah. That's fantastic.

Shelly: Yeah. And this is, this is a good example. I don't know how Andy slipped that in there. I wasn't aware that I was going to be doing something that I had never done before. And matter of fact, I didn't even look initially, I thought. I'm just gonna go ahead and do the job for the day, right. And then it's only when I look back, I was like, you know, I wonder if I've ever done that before. I don't think I have. And yeah, this was a first,

Kevin: That's great. He's got to get you stronger for November for this next meet. Fantastic. Well, Shelly, I want to thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your story with us and your journey. You are a fantastic inspiration, a great ambassador for healthy, strong aging, and I wish you all the best in all your future endeavors.

Shelly: Oh, well, thank you. Thank you for having me on.

Kevin: OK folks, that’s our show for this week, I hope you enjoyed today’s conversation as much as I did.  Hopefully this conversation has you reconsidering what’s possible, and that you’re inspired by her story and the fact that it’s never too late and you’re never too old to start on a fitness journey.  All the links to the resources we discussed in this episode and more can be found at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode74.  And you can continue the conversation over there as well, I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on today’s show.  As we wrap up our time together today, you can show your support for this show by giving this podcast a five-star review on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on, and be sure to subscribe and follow so you don’t miss any future episodes.  I really appreciate you spending your time with me today, and until next time, stay strong.