Fit with Julia

When we opened .gym, I told my clients we wouldn’t be installing mirrors (I had them in my old private studio). A lot of them were skeptical, they were used to gyms with mirrors and had the idea that it helped them with form. I told them just try it out and if you really all miss the mirrors I’d put one up.

After opening the gym without a mirror in sight, no one even noticed. The conversations went something like - “how are you feeling about the no mirrors set up?” and every client responding, “oh! I completely forgot about the mirrors!”

People haven’t missed them, but i’ve noticed how it’s changed our sessions.

1. People barely ever make negative comments about their appearance. Without mirrors to prompt, it just doesn’t come up. In my old spot, when the sun was at a certain angle, I’d hear comments like “wow, I look awful in these leggings” and “can we please do this not looking at the mirror? I don’t want to see myself.”

2. No one’s form has gotten worse. This is no surprise to me, but it is for some. Mirrors do more harm than good. You end up (a) focusing on a moving object (yourself) when ideally you’re focused on a set point, (b) craning your neck to see yourself, which leads to too much movement in the cervical spine (aka the neck - which should remain stable during nearly all exercises) and (c) even if you can see yourself without hurting your neck, it’s usually not at a very helpful angle.

I’d heard others post about the value of no mirrors. I’m theory I always got it, but I honestly didn’t think it would make such an immediate, noticeable impact on clients’ experience. 

Focusing on how you feel over how you look is better for self image, your relationship with exercise - and it will lead to better quality movement.

After all, really knowing how it feels to do a move well means much more than knowing what it looks like.

Can you believe we’re entering the 5th month of our small group program at Strong Friends? It’s been amazing to see the group grow. Our regulars have been getting so much stronger - and we’ve become friends along the way!

We really believe in our program - and the last 5 months have just gone to show that it works. So, we decided to offer an end of summer sale to make it a little easier to experience the full program here at Strong Friends!

Why?

While we love to see new faces dropping in, we believe in our program as a whole. We have classes every weekday that follow a cohesive, progressive plan. When done together they form a full strength training program! Anything is better than nothing, but coming 2-4x per week is ideal.

Why Strong Friends?

—> Small groups mean plenty of one on one coaching time, adjustments based on athlete needs, and no shortage of equipment or space.

—> Big gyms can feel impersonal. We live up to our name, you’ll see friendly familiar faces + people notice and check in when you’re out.

—> Our coaches are the best. We’ve each built reputations as top trainers in San Francisco before joining forces to create Strong Friends! We’re constantly improving our own knowledge to be *even* better coaches.

—> swipe for more benefits!

The deal

50 sessions for $2100 - that’s only $42 per session (with only 6 people max per class, you’re getting a lot of coaching attention!). They can be used anytime over the course of 6 months (on class or open gym).

Families: take another $150 off that for any two (or more) people from the same household purchasing a package.

Not sure yet? We also offer a week trial for $165 so you can see how a full week on our program feels.

Schedule:

M/W/F: StrongFit @ 7am-12pm-5:30pm

Tues: RX Strength (olympic lifting + gymnastics) @ 5pm

Thurs: StrongFit Foundations @ 5pm

+ more classes added as we grow!

How to buy:

Visit the link in bio to purchase, or:

https://strongfriends.pushpress.com/landing/plans/plan_34fa846fa7acb9

📍 1825 Market Street, SF, CA

right @ guerrero and market between hayes valley, duboce triangle and the mission!

transit is easy too with muni stops and bike lanes steps away.

come lift with us 6 days a week!!

Hi! I’m Julia and I read its good to intro yourself on here every now and then.

I’ve been a trainer for about eight years, most of those here in San Francisco. Although I majored in both Politics and Spanish language, I got my first training certs when I was in college down in Southern California (Claremont Colleges).

I grew up in a small town between Tahoe and Sacramento - Grass Valley. My family has been in CA for generations. My boyfriend will attest - I’m very Californian and can easily slip into a thick Northern Californian accent if I encounter one of my people.

I think my politics major gives me a unique edge in this industry - politics is essentially the study of power structures. The relationships we have with our bodies, access to healthy foods, and the ability to exercise regularly are highly affected by these things. It’s not all about individual choice, it’s about education and working to make these spaces available and accessible to more types of people. It makes me so excited to see more kinds of people getting into strength training!

My training style focuses on teaching people to execute classic lifts that have been proven effective time after time - I’d love to get a barbell in the hands of as many people as I can! I truly believe that a good resistance training program can benefit anyone - whether your goal is to run faster without injury, live longer, or just look and feel strong.

the things other people find the most consistently impressive about me are that I was a valedictorian in high school (though now i just tell people to lift up heavy things, luckily my 10 year was canceled for covid so i didn’t have to explain it) and that I drive a manual (in these hills?). I’d like to think I have even better qualities than those, but you can be the judge.

Want to hang out sometime? lmk

Number on the scale up? Don’t let that get you down. it’s only partially a reflection of your actual body mass (weight of bones, tissue, body fat, organs..)

*remember, if weighing yourself causes an emotional reaction it’s not a good metric for you! the number on the scale should just be one data point of many. if you can’t mentally treat it that way, measure progress other ways)

✨what you’ve eaten recently:

food in your stomach weighs something, some foods are heavier than others. some foods also take longer to digest than others (for example, higher fiber and higher protein foods take longer to digest, but they’re an important part of our diet!)

✨what you’ve had to drink lately.

water/liquid weighs something, too.

alcohol will affect weight fluctuation too. It’s dehydrating affect means you’ll likely drop weight immediately after a night out, but a day or two later your weight will increase due to its effect on how you metabolize food, bloating, and the # of calories in drinks you consume.

✨Muscle glycogen storage

For every gram of glycogen stored in muscle, you store 3 grams water. this means a trained athlete could gain up to about 5lbs and burn it all off during an intense bout of exercise!).

things that affect glycogen storage:

🍕The type of foods you eat. If you’ve eaten a lot or carbs lately you’ll store more glycogen - glycogen comes from carbs.

🤸🏼‍♂️ how fit you are. people who train have higher capacity to store glycogen in muscle for immediate use during exercise - a good thing!.

🏋🏼‍♀️ how active you are currently. if you’re fit and take a break for a month, you won’t have as much glycogen in muscle until you resume training. this also contributes to the illusion that you’ve lost strength when you haven’t - lack of glycogen means muscles appear smaller temporarily until training begins again.

questions? drop em below

Why you need to stretch AND strengthen your hip flexors - just because they’re tight doesn’t mean you shouldn’t train them.

Did you know there’s no single muscle called “hip flexor”? Rather, it’s a *group* of muscles that function to flex your hips.

They’re along the front of your hips, above your quads. They contract when you do things like draw the knee up towards your chest or when you hinge forward in hip dominant exercises like deadlifts. They also often flex to compensate - as a result weak core and glute musculature

5 major hip flexors:

re**us femoris (also a quad muscle!)
TFL (a hip flexor thats also a hip abductor, along the outside of your hip area)
Psoas (a deep hip muscle with a higher insertion point above the hips - in the lumbar spine - that’s often under utilized)
Iliacus (another often underused hip flexor)
Sartorius

Why the anatomy lesson?

First, in the words of a client, we love a woman in STEM 🤭

Second, knowing where individual hip flexors insert is important because it helps us understand part of why we can simultaneously be weak and tight. We typically need to work most to strengthen the Psoas and the Iliacus at full ROM (the ones that tie in higher and connect hips to the deep abdominal muscles).

When the Psoas and Iliacus are weak or dysfunctional at a full range of motion, the other hip flexors start doing too much work (and a host of other issues in the lumbar spine and hamstrings, its all connected. Thats when we feel that strain or cramp in the hip flexor!

Solution:

🏋🏽‍♂️More hip exercises where you’re bringing your knee up ABOVE hip level using your own strength.

- try lifting and holding your knee up for as long as you can, as high as you can. Pay attention - keep your lumbar spine (low back) neutral!

🏋🏽‍♂️More dynamic hip exercises where you’re flexing and extending hips through full range of motion, without compensating by arching your back and disengaging abs

- single leg deadlift variaions
- bridge variations
- bird dog variations

not sure on form? hit me up for one off session where we can focus in on your functional hip strength!

*swipe for hip anatomy - highlighted the muscles in question*

I'm hosting an in person squat focused workshop + workout on Sunday June 12th at 10:30am at The Yard in Pac Heights.

This would be a really fun time to meet in person and break a move down that will 100% help you get more out of all your workouts moving forward!

Not only for those interested in lifting heavy, understanding the fundamentals of a squat is helpful for endurance athletes, those brand new to the gym, and those just hoping to get a good workout in before heading out to lunch with me :)

Workshop is $35, but if you can't afford it DM me and I'm sure I can help work something out!

Appreciate you all sharing it with anyone that might be interested :)

Squat Workshop with Julia S Come improve your squat! Whether you’ve never squatted with a bar before, or just want to brush up on technique - this workshop is for you!

ok ok after this i’m ready to come back to fitness content with enthusiasm - i think

gym based goals are cool, but don’t get too lost in them - remember how cool it is that working out gives us the ability to feel better and stronger doing cool things for longer out there in the world with great friends (all trainers are obligated to make a big deal of it when they take 4-5 days from the gym, so here’s that post)

thanks to everyone in this photo for coming out , it meant a lot (especially who came from PA 🥰🥰🥰)

3 ways to work with me remotely!

Did you know that you can work with me on a custom program- whether you live in sf or not? 

I’m currently accepting 2-3 new clients for remote coaching (!!) it’s a great option if you live here in SF, it’s also a great option if you don’t

I write custom, strength focused programs that

✨help you train with more focus and intention (ditch the random workouts you find on here and get some that are actually written for your goals, level, and interests in mind)

✨are written with your goals in mind (not mine).

✨meet you where you’re at, regardless of your experience level

✨work with your schedule - the best workout program is one you can do consistently, not the one you can go all out on for a week before giving up. we figure out when - and how much - you can realistically commit to exercising long term.

✨can help you get a good workout regardless of where you want to get it done (stop putting your workouts on hold due to gym access issues, travel, etc)

I offer three main options☺️

✨Remote programming only

✨remote programming + weekly video check in

✨remote programming + 1x per month in-person session in SF

Swipe to see what’s right for you + DM me with any questions!

I’ve just posted a comprehensive blog discussing steps to take in case of a weight loss plateau!

While this post isn’t for everyone, I think it will be a super useful tool for clients + followers that are focusing on weight loss! If you aren’t, feel free to skip out on this one.

This post walks you through how to perform a detailed energy intake audit and get to the root cause of your plateau.

After that, it helps you to apply that knowledge practically in order to determine the best next step.

It covers how to look critically at your cardio, strength, diet, lifestyle, and more.

If you’re struggling with weight loss, this post will help you to determine what changes you can make, where to focus your effort, and (more generally) whether its even smart to continue dieting.

I feel like this will be a resource I’ll link directly for weight loss clients for a long time.

https://julia.fitness/blog/energyaudit (or link in bio)

Performing 1 rep max tests (+ booking max test sessions)

I’m doing some max lift tests with my amazing client this week! Do you want to test yours too? here’s how I write these tests out.

Goal: use weight lifted on higher reps sets to estimate your max. Build up to your 1 rep max in small enough increments to warm up appropriately and avoid injury - without tiring yourself out too much to actually hit your max.

*The first sets might feel too short/light - you might be tempted to add a couple more reps. That’s good! Resist the urge to do extra work in warmup sets.*

How I write it out:

Set 1: 6 reps at about 50% max
set 2: 4 reps at 70%
set 3: 2 reps at 80%
set 4: 1 rep at 90%
set 5: 1 rep at 95%
Set 6+ adding a few pounds on each round until you hit your true max. this may be beyond your estimated max!

remember - its 1 QUALITY rep. Stop when you’re unable to do a rep without good form. Film or bring a friend for feedback.

REST BREAKS:

3-5 minutes on max tests is great (especially for larger muscle groups like those used during squats and deadlifts, etc)

DID YOU GO TOO HARD🤔?

A common sign you probably did too much in the warmup and/or didn’t rest long enough - you can only get 1 rep at a weight you could do a few at in the recent past 🤷‍♀️ simple as that

Not comfortable or don’t have the set up to do it on your own? I offer one-off sessions where we just tests max and nail form, message me for my booking calendar!

Swipe through for a summary + drop your max test questions below 🥰

Can these terms die already?

✨Clean eating

there’s no such thing as a clean food or a dirty food. clean eating is just a dressed up fad diet.

it’s a term thats being used to assign moral value to food and market expensive diet programs. a lot of people say we shouldn’t label foods as good or bad, but then turn around and call foods clean/unclean 🤔🤔🤔 different words, same false dichotomy that needs to die.

what we mean when we use this term is a diet that avoids processed foods. the thing is - most things we don’t go out and pick from a tree ourselves are processed to some extent (oatmeal, rice, yogurt, pasturized milk, packaged meats and protein), and there’s no problem with that at all.

sticking to a diet that primarily consists of minimally processed foods is generally a good idea, but just call it what it is.

toned ✨

We hear the word all the time, but toned actually means nothing in a strength training context. Unfortunately, the word has taken on a powerful - but poorly defined - meaning for those who want to get strong - but not ‘TOO strong, build muscle - but not TOO much muscle. It’s come to be associated with a lean, marketable physique so brands everywhere use it to sell their product.

What is muscle toning,? A muscles ability to reflexively contract. The most common example is a baby - you can tell babies have low muscle tone because they can’t hold their heads up. That’s it.

What do people mean when they SAY toned? People are typically referring to gaining muscle and maintaining low body fat - low enough so that those muscles are visible.

Superfood ✨

this term didn’t come from scientists who study food, it originated in WW2 as part of a marketing campaign for bananas. its mostly misleading and used to justify high markups and make people feel like they *need* expensive foods to be healthy. it suggests the food in question has some powerful or special effect. in reality, there’s no regulated definition based in science. what we mean when we say this is that a food is particularly nutrient dense food, so just say “this food is nutrient dense”

did you learn a thing? what’s another word we should do away with?