Speaker 1: If you've ever stood in front of a schedule trying
Speaker 1: to decide am I needing cardio today or am I
Speaker 1: needing strength today? We're gonna stop doing that math because
Speaker 1: that's solving the wrong problem. Welcome to the Transformation Station Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Christina, owner, operator, and founder of the Transformation Station,
Speaker 1: and this is where we talk about getting stronger while
Speaker 1: navigating real life. If you're trying to stay consistent through
Speaker 1: the ups and the downs and everywhere else in between,
Speaker 1: this is for you. Okay, so we're gonna talk about this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna clear this up because this is a question
Speaker 1: I get all the time. People look at the schedule
Speaker 1: and they see butts and guts, power burn, circuit, tempo, step,
Speaker 1: and lift, and they try to slot it into a box.
Speaker 1: They're like, is this cardio? Is this like strong fit?
Speaker 1: Is this like zoomba or pound? And the answer is no,
Speaker 1: those style of classes are They're not either one. It's
Speaker 1: its own thing and it's called metabolic conditioning. The short
Speaker 1: form our classes power burn used to be called met con,
Speaker 1: which stands for metabolic conditioning. And honestly, I don't think
Speaker 1: that it gets enough credit for how smart doing metabolic
Speaker 1: conditioning style of workouts actually are. And here's a confusion
Speaker 1: because a lot of people think that a workout has
Speaker 1: to pick a lane. It's either one thing or the other.
Speaker 1: You're either doing cardio, you have your heart rate up,
Speaker 1: you're sweaty, you're breathing hard. Or on the contrast, you're
Speaker 1: doing strength. You're doing heavy, slow, controlled strength movements. You're
Speaker 1: building muscle, two different goals, two different classes, and then
Speaker 1: you have to pick who your fighter is. Metabolic conditioning
Speaker 1: it doesn't accept those rules at all. The whole idea
Speaker 1: is that with metabolic conditioning style workouts is you're moving
Speaker 1: through strength work. You're doing your squats, your bicep curls,
Speaker 1: your rose you're still getting that strength training and resistance,
Speaker 1: but you're doing it with a structure and more of
Speaker 1: a pace, and often there's minimal rest in those workouts.
Speaker 1: So your heart rate's climbing because how the work is organized,
Speaker 1: not because you swapped out weights for jumping jacks. You're
Speaker 1: still lifting. In metabolic conditioning workouts, you're still building strength,
Speaker 1: you're just doing it at a format that also torches
Speaker 1: you in a conditioning style, So like when someone finishes
Speaker 1: a circuit or a power burn and they say that
Speaker 1: felt like cardio. Sure it did. Your heart rate was
Speaker 1: up pretty much the whole time. We tend to interval
Speaker 1: circuit and power burn, so it's almost like a hit training,
Speaker 1: but it's not like extremely high to extremely low. It's
Speaker 1: like riding the wave. You're also underload pretty much the
Speaker 1: entire time, so you're using all the muscles in your body.
Speaker 1: You don't have to choose between cardio or strength. You
Speaker 1: get both at the same time. And that's the whole
Speaker 1: design of metow metabolic conditioning. And if you listen to
Speaker 1: a podcast that I spoke with, actually I was talking
Speaker 1: to Christina Torres, so that is our zoom instructor at
Speaker 1: the Transformation Station. We have a few zoom instructors here,
Speaker 1: but that podcast specifically, we were talking about like sports
Speaker 1: training and stuff like that, and I had shared when
Speaker 1: I was before I opened the Transformation Station, I was
Speaker 1: actually training for police work, and that's that is how
Speaker 1: I got to my best conditioning, my best strength, my
Speaker 1: best fitness level was doing power burned workouts at least
Speaker 1: five days a week, so like we don't need to
Speaker 1: do hours and hours of cardio and walking and then
Speaker 1: having another version that's only just lifting, Like you can
Speaker 1: do those workouts all at the same time. There is
Speaker 1: power and drive in metabolic conditioning style workouts, and I
Speaker 1: think sometimes like that's what the piece that people miss
Speaker 1: with strong fits specifically because they're similar, but they have
Speaker 1: a different intent, like strong fit. Strong fit is one
Speaker 1: of our most I will say it is. Thus the
Speaker 1: strong fit is the most popular class at the transformation station,
Speaker 1: and it's about building muscle and strength. And there's there's
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of fluff inside a strong fit.
Speaker 1: It's you want to get stronger, we want to build
Speaker 1: bone density. Strong fit is your friend. You use dumbbells
Speaker 1: or use body weight, and you'll use sometimes kettlebells. You
Speaker 1: can pick your weight. A ten pound kettlebell is only
Speaker 1: designed differently as a ten pound ten pound kettlebell. So
Speaker 1: like when we're doing strong fit, it's how much we
Speaker 1: can build. Metabolic conditioning classes are asking how much can
Speaker 1: we build and how efficiently can we can we make
Speaker 1: your body use it? So it's a different question, like
Speaker 1: both are valid, both are useful, not one is the
Speaker 1: lesser version of the other. Some people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: if they haven't tried power burn or circuit or the
Speaker 1: butts and guts cell workouts. They're all structured as metabolic
Speaker 1: conditioning style workouts and they are not lesser because the
Speaker 1: goal is muscle building. So there's there's different things that
Speaker 1: you might like to do. Maybe it's your schedule and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I'm going to do strong fit and
Speaker 1: then stay for a step class or a tempo or
Speaker 1: a zomba or whatever cardio you want to do. That
Speaker 1: is a very nice way to lay out like your
Speaker 1: evening plan or your morning plan whichever. And actually, speaking
Speaker 1: of tempo, tempo is such a great example of this
Speaker 1: because people expect tempo to be slow in controlled, which
Speaker 1: it is, like it's low impact but slow in controlled.
Speaker 1: Under en Augh, volume becomes its own conditioning stimulus. Same
Speaker 1: with step in lift. Like people think step, they think
Speaker 1: cardio classes from two thousand and four, and then because
Speaker 1: we're doing lifting, we're adding load to it, and they go, oh,
Speaker 1: this is something completely different than I expected. This is
Speaker 1: actually challenging. And like when people are coming in and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, well, I love strength training, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to do step in lift with fifteen and twenty
Speaker 1: pound dumbbells. Meanwhile, the people that I see in front
Speaker 1: of me who do use fifteen twenty thirty pound dumbbells
Speaker 1: in a strong fit class, they're using fives and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: my muscles were on fire for the next day, Like
Speaker 1: I felt good and I felt like I did something
Speaker 1: even though I was using five pound dumbells some people
Speaker 1: using three pound dumbbells. People are using body weight because
Speaker 1: it's something totally different. So if you've been picking your
Speaker 1: classes based on, oh, I'm in a cardio mood or
Speaker 1: I'm in a strength mood, I'd actually like to encourage
Speaker 1: you to stop doing that math. Metabolic conditioning classes solve
Speaker 1: for both, and that's the point of them existing, Like
Speaker 1: you're not settling by oh, I guess I'm going to
Speaker 1: do a power burn today. Power burn is the meat potatoes.
Speaker 1: When I first started the Transformation Station, like I said,
Speaker 1: the classes were called metcon and that's what we had
Speaker 1: Monday to Friday. We only had met Con classes at
Speaker 1: the Transformation Station, and then I started to hear that
Speaker 1: people wanted just lifting, so we started our strong fit classes.
Speaker 1: And actually, back back in the day, that name has
Speaker 1: evolved because we're using more of r not more but
Speaker 1: we're using ninety percent of our classes are the Transformation
Speaker 1: Station branded designed. I've been doing this over I'm on
Speaker 1: my fourteenth, fifteenth year in fitness now, I've done a
Speaker 1: lot of personal training all over the world, a lot
Speaker 1: of group fitness and I Designer are programming. So it
Speaker 1: needed a name that gave it that that structure. So
Speaker 1: we went from total body strength to sets and reps.
Speaker 1: Actually I think it was sets and reps first and
Speaker 1: then it was total body strength, and now I call
Speaker 1: it strong fit, just one word, not to be confused anymore,
Speaker 1: just strong fit. So yeah, so there are different classes
Speaker 1: for what you have energy for for the day, for
Speaker 1: different goals, for different time slots. But I just want
Speaker 1: you to be more open minded about the different styles
Speaker 1: of classes because in the last episode yesterday we talked
Speaker 1: about fitness can be fun. It can also look like
Speaker 1: a lot of different things. So it's not the end
Speaker 1: all and be all only to strength train or only
Speaker 1: to do your cardio. You can exaus all of those
Speaker 1: things at the same time and have such a strong,
Speaker 1: powerful outcome. So if you're my like, if your goal
Speaker 1: is similar to mine, like I'm still chasing fat loss.
Speaker 1: My favorite go to class is power burn is Circuit.
Speaker 1: I love those two classes myself. I also incredibly love
Speaker 1: teaching tempo because we do some tempo lifting in tempo
Speaker 1: as well. It's some martial arts inspired cardio workout. And
Speaker 1: then we also have step in lift, so I also
Speaker 1: teach step at the Transformation station, which is primarily ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent cardio, but then when we add that lift
Speaker 1: component to it, we're getting some muscle recruitment. So at
Speaker 1: one time I was teaching a lot of Zumba, I
Speaker 1: was teaching a lot of step and tempo when we
Speaker 1: didn't have the tempo strength training in that class. So
Speaker 1: I was literally just like a cardio bunny. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I need to lose body fat and I'm starting to
Speaker 1: burn too much muscle because I'm just so fixated on
Speaker 1: only doing cardio, and I want to change my body composition,
Speaker 1: so I want to have higher muscle, I want to
Speaker 1: have less fat on my body. So like, okay, so
Speaker 1: how can I incorporate these things? So then my go
Speaker 1: to was incorporating strong Fit specifically for that season. So
Speaker 1: now that I've incorporated tempo and tempo lifting and also
Speaker 1: step in lift alongside with step class as well. Now
Speaker 1: I'm able to go back to my metabolic conditioning workouts,
Speaker 1: which I know work the best for my body and
Speaker 1: my goals. So that is just a way to pick
Speaker 1: and choose what your workers are. At the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it doesn't have to be complicated. You're like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm happy with moving my body the
Speaker 1: way I want to move my body. If you're chasing
Speaker 1: body recomposition, then maybe it's being more aware of your numbers.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's having an in body composition analysis scan done.
Speaker 1: We have that machine at the transformation station. I do
Speaker 1: MIND once a month. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, so maybe
Speaker 1: it's once avertary months. But I genuinely try to do
Speaker 1: my scan at least once a month to see where
Speaker 1: my numbers are based on what I've been teaching as well,
Speaker 1: because I can be the leader for other people and
Speaker 1: use my body as a tool. However, I still want
Speaker 1: my goals as well, so I know I'm going to
Speaker 1: evaluate and then adjust my sales in different seasons of
Speaker 1: different styles of classes and what my schedule is. So
Speaker 1: if you ever want to chat about these things and
Speaker 1: what would work for your goals, We're going to be
Speaker 1: hosting some complimentary ten minute goal settings with myself at
Speaker 1: the Transformation Station. We did this a couple months ago
Speaker 1: and a few people have asked like, hey, can we
Speaker 1: do this again? So absolutely check out our socials on
Speaker 1: our members app for the link to reserve your time slot.
Speaker 1: If you want your inbody before that and you want
Speaker 1: to have it ready to go. You want to talk
Speaker 1: about your inbody, you want to talk about your strength training,
Speaker 1: you want talk about your nutrition. I have certificates and
Speaker 1: all of those things because I've been doing this for
Speaker 1: so long, so I'm so happy to talk with you
Speaker 1: about that. Feel free to reach out if you have
Speaker 1: any questions, comments, or concerns. You know where to find me,
Speaker 1: Christina at the transfer Station Station dot c A. Until
Speaker 1: next time, see it Oral