riverside_zina_& abby _ jan 28, 2025 001_abby's_studio

The podcast, Resilient Strength, is back for season 2 and will focus on movement. The hosts, Abby and Deena, share their personal journeys with movement. Abby fell in love with movement through playing sports in school and later discovered weightlifting. Deena always had a lot of energy and found ways to move and stay active. She tried various forms of movement and eventually opened her own fitness studio. They discuss the importance of prioritizing exercise and finding motivation. This season aims to provide inspiration for both beginners and those looking for new ways to stay active. Welcome, Resilient Friends. We are back for Season 2 of our podcast, Resilient Strength. We're so excited. We're going to be talking about movement this season. I can't even stand it. I'm so pumped. Thank you so much for joining us today. Before we get started, we wanted to quickly just introduce ourselves again for any of you guys who are along the ride for the first time, starting with us new. My name is Abby Smith. I'm certifiably five foot and a half inch, full of joy, in love with my husband, exercising, and pursuing holistic health. Think of me as a high energy, nerdy, ticker type that loves God, my husband, movement, wholeness, and I love to think about things differently. Resilient Joy is a lived out loud, multi-generational podcast covering various topics that lead us to build our resilience and choose joy. For this, we're sharing our journey, and this is not a substitute for medical advice. We're jumping right in today, and we're both going to share how we got started on our movement journeys. Abby, why don't you kick us off and say, how did you fall in love with movement? How did you get started loving it so much? Yeah. I was kind of a sports girl in school, and I fell in love with field hockey. From there, it just became like, well, I really like playing the sport, but I wanted to stay in shape outside of the seasons that I played. I'm sorry, you guys, if you hear my dog munch on his breakfast. It started there, and then it just kind of builded on that, and then after I stopped playing competitive field hockey in high school, it was kind of like, well, I love movement, and how do I keep doing this? Because at the end of the day, I felt good. I felt healthy. I felt strong, and I was like, I don't want that to just end because I'm in college, and so I found weightlifting, and the good and the bad, fell in love with that, and that'll be part of the journey that I talk about on this, but yeah, so it started out as a little girl, 14 or 15, just playing sports, and I wanted to continue to play in that element the rest of my life, because I think life's too short to just shorten play to high school or middle school. It's supposed to be a whole life journey. Oh, I love that so much. Deena, how did, so you have your own fitness studio, so talk about how you even got there from what I know of you having a typical nine-to-five job to then now you're a business owner, and you excel, and this is your specialty, and this is your life, so talk about it. Let me, I want to hear everything. Woo! Fun story. So, if you guys don't know me, I have a ton of energy, and I got to figure out what to do with all this. I grew up in a time, as a, Jen, I'm sure, here, I grew up in a time where maybe workouts were just starting to be super popular, but my parents, that wasn't their generation, so they weren't encouraging that type of lifestyle, so it was just something that, I've got to do something with this energy, or I'm going to go cray-cray, so just moving, running around, climbing trees, riding bikes, like I just did that from, like, little. My poor mom, she was a little older mom when she had me, but she would, fun story, she'd have to put a little leash on me on the clothesline so that she could get all the laundry done when I was a little one, because I would just run everywhere. She said I never walked, I learned to run before I learned to crawl, so I can just picture these stories that she used to share, she'd have me on a little wrist leash and tie me up to the clothesline so that I could run back and forth, back and forth, and get all my energy out so she could get the laundry done, otherwise, she said she couldn't get anything done, or she'd fill up a little pool of water and she said I would just carry little buckets and go fill things up, back and forth, back and forth, so anyway, this has been my whole life. That may be too much information, but I thought it would be kind of funny, because it cracks me up. I'm just imagining you literally running in circles around a clothesline, like a little tetherball. Hey, it worked, you know? I think they'd probably call that child abuse now, but back then it was probably sanity for her, right? Back then it was called exercise. Yeah, right? But I'm thankful. Hey, I grew up fine. So, that led to, I didn't really, I went to such small schools, I didn't really have the opportunity for sports as an outlet. I was so excited in high school when I might be able to join the girls' basketball team, but we didn't have enough to actually make a full team. We had five girls and we needed seven. We had had two substitutes to be able to play in the high school league, so I didn't actually get to play, but I was really good at running. I could outrun pretty much anybody. I was little and fast and could outrun anybody at that point in my life, so I kind of think like running is where I started to go. And then you go to college and put on the college 15 and I was like, well, this is not fun. And then I started lifting weights in college and I came back the next year like, wow, you lost a lot of weight. I was like, well, no, just I started moving again and I'm not sitting down and eating too many McDonald's burgers and going to work and not taking care of myself. I cannot even imagine you eating McDonald's dinner. Well, that was three months on the summer and then when I gained weight from just having those small snacks instead of real food, because I was working from high school to college, I was like, that was the last time I ever did that because of what it did to me. I couldn't believe it. I was like, what is this? This is awful. Anyway, so then I started learning. I was trained to run the gym in college, so that's kind of what got me into lifting weights, which was really a whole fun story like, wow, this is really cool. I got where I could binge press a lot and that was a really fun time. And then it's just progressed it. I think I've tried every movement you can think of, dance, gymnastics. Sorry, big pause here. I'm having a moment of time. So, just think of any movement that you could try and try to figure it out like I tried. Okay, let's do take two on that. So, let's delete. I'll start from, let me start from the first part where I talked about, I tried every movement possible. Okay. I have all this typed out somewhere too. Anyway, so I tried any kind of movement things you can think of from like martial arts to gymnastics to dancing to, I pretty much probably tried a lot of stuff out there. Wow. Just because like when you just want to learn all these really weird things and I would even call crawling through the mud of the military like a form of movement, which was pretty intense. Wow. But really challenging. So, probably my favorite during that part of my life was running because that's that the endorphins, the running high, the runner's high, that was just like a lot of fun. Wow. So, obviously we know that you own your own like yoga studio and your own business when it comes to coaching and all of that, but like let's walk it back, Sina. I'm just curious, like what did it look like for you to prioritize exercise when you didn't have your own business and you were working like nine to five, just as a little tease for some of the things we'll talk about this season? Well, one thing is, one thing that helped me was to stay on track because right, the human body is, tends to laziness, right? So, if we don't have to do something, we might not. So, I have this calendar, it's super simple, I did not even make it complicated and it's a month at a time and I just write on there like, okay, what activity did I do today? And I've done this for years, this is like my little go-to and it's kind of like my self-check if I go more than a couple of days, I was like, oh, I definitely need to get something in. Because I mean, you've got a full-time job, we've got other responsibilities, you know, sometimes you forget to do these fun things, you know, especially when you're married and you got to take care of other things. So, that's just like kind of a little reminder to say, oh yeah, I need to add this in today or whatever. And then, it's not complicated, I didn't write, I did 400 reps of this exercise and I did this for 400 minutes or whatever the number is, I just wrote and then also what I want to keep track of is the different types of movement that I'm doing, like did I do a stretch base, did I do mobility work, did I do strength training, did I climb on my aerial silks, did I do some rotational exercises, did I do push and pull. So, I want all this variety in my life, different types of exercises, so I'm not just doing one thing all the time. So, that's kind of why I started my calendar, so that I can make sure I'm getting all this variety into my life. Because if I don't move or use up my energy, which is one reason I opened an aerial studio, because if I'm moving all day, coaching people, like that burns off enough that I can be a normal human in the evening, yay, it does help me sleep, because if I don't get enough, I can tell that I don't sleep well. So, for me, it's super important that I move for mental health and sleeping health and all that good stuff. Plus, if you have a job where I used to do, so my master's is in computer science, so I used to sit a lot more, so how do I undo all that sitting? That should be a whole episode by itself, but with our new electronic lifestyle, I had to make sure that I was countering those effects as well. And so, yeah, I think, guys, this is going to be a huge season for anyone who is either just starting and is like, I don't move, and I don't have the discipline, I don't have, what's the word? Like, desire? Motivation. Motivation, yeah, thank you. Or someone who's like, I've done weightlifting, I've done running, I've done this, I've done martial arts. And now I'm bored out of my mind. Yeah, what next? So, we really want to go from zero to any level of experience and just open this as a conversation of just how life-giving movement can be. And so, don't get in that mindset of like, oh my gosh, Abby and Zina are going to talk about how we have to work out for two hours a day and I have to move. No, not about that. Right? No. Like, we just want to open a conversation of like, hey, are you getting in a walk today? Like, literally from basic movements to maybe some more push and pull and all those things that Zina talked about. We'll get into those kinds of more nuanced ways of moving your body, but at the end of the day, this season's going to be about movement and all the different ways that we can enjoy our bodies and the ability that we have to move. Yep. And finding something that you love. Some people love dance. Dance is so good for your brain. Some people love like, lifting weights. That's awesome. Some people love just to walk and we'll have strategies on like, how can I make my walking more effective? For me, when I learned gymnastics, because I took gymnastics to learn how to do swing dance aerials because that was my passion back in the day, I fell in love with the movement of gymnastics. And then as you get older, you're like, well, I still want to feel like I'm doing gymnastics, which is why I opened my aerial studio. You're never bored. And if some people are bored of the gym, find something really unique and outside the box that challenges your brain and your body. Like, it's cool. Yeah. And so that's like a little teaser. And just to throw some ideas out there of like, what you're going to hear in our little table talks, defining movement and why it's important, the different types of workouts, and just kind of like, welcoming you guys into all of those to help you decide. Like, maybe you don't want to lift weights. We think it's important to do a little bit of everything, but maybe there's a niche that you want to get into that you'll find joy in and that will keep you going back to the drawing board every day to move, right? And so that's what we're here to help you find is like, joy within movement. How do you get started? It just starts with small steps, literally, physically and physically. And then just the influence that we're not going to ignore the elephant in the room, that social media really does influence what we think about ourselves, how we view movement, you know, and how to use it. Honestly, like, it can be a good tool, or you can use it as a negative tool. So we'll talk about some of those, because we want you guys to feel resilient with movement, but not exhausted. Yeah. And honestly, the influence of the culture can be exhausting. It's like, the expectation is, well, if you're doing nothing, there's like the influence of that. Well, rest, self-care, don't move if you don't feel like it. There's that encouragement to do nothing, and there's that like, side of social media that's like, no, treat yourself, eat all the things, don't move, like, there's that side of the culture. But then there's the culture where it's like, you need to exercise two and a half hours a day if you ever want to accomplish any type of physique that you have goals about, or you need matching workout sets, and you need this, and this, and this, and this, when it really just comes down to like, simple ways to find joy in moving, and there's somewhere to settle in the middle of all of that, that isn't... Well, you've got to take into consideration, like, your lifestyle. If you're raising three kids, and you have a full-time job, and you're still having to take care of a house, there may be different types of ways you need to approach, how do I get some movement in, not three hours at the gym, like Abby was saying. So we need to also take in consideration, like, our lifestyles, what do we need to face, how much time can we dedicate to it? Have we been a mover our whole life? Is it natural for you to want to move? Because some people, like me, like, I love my endorphins, so I love to move, because I know I'm going to feel better. Some people, that is not their body composition. Like, it is excruciatingly, it takes a lot of effort for them to get up, and actually to want to move. So how do we get those happy endorphins, so everybody can have that dopamine rush? Yeah! And so that's just kind of like, our teaser, guys, we're so excited for this season. Movement is like, my favorite part of, honestly, besides my husband and my dogs, you know, movement's one of the foundations of my life. And I'm just excited to be able to just talk about it with you guys, and as I sit at my kitchen table, and Zena sits at hers, like, we just want this to be an environment where you can explore elements of play with movement, and just sit with us and learn about it. Even if you're super experienced, great, I'm sure there's something we can learn from you, so maybe you can add in the comments questions or thoughts that you have. Or if you have questions, feel free to put them in, so we know what topics to tackle for you. Okay, let's close this out for the day, after all the teaser alerts. So also, as a personal trainer, it's so important that we find something that we love to do to move. Movement changes your brain, it changes your body, it creates so many good benefits for you, especially as we start to get older. It's really important. So stay on the lookout for our episodes to start on February 22nd. And at the end of the day, we want you to be resilient, and we want you to find joy, and we believe that movement creates joy, and it's a decision. So until the next episode, be resilient, find your joy, we love you. And see you on February 22nd for the launch of our content. We are just so excited, we love you!