Episode 8: Muscle & Mindset w/  Mira Gracia 

September 1, 2017 

─  Highlights in the show:  

● Why is it so critical to find a good coach/trainer? - 14:13 ● The importance of having a long term coach/trainer - 20:08 ● Osteoporosis and strength training - 27:50 ● Coach Mira talks about body image - 32:16 ● It’s about the journey - 46:04 

  Tyna Moore: Hello. Welcome to Pain-Free & Strong Radio. I'm your host, Dr. Tyna Moore. My guest today is Mira Gracia. I'm so excited she's here. She's my coach. She is the person I go see twice a week, who keeps me strong and keeps my head in the right space, and keeps my muscles working. I'm so excited to have you on today, Mira. I wanted to go ahead and introduce you a little bit on my end just from what I know of you, and then I'll let you take over time, okay?  Mira Gracia: Great. Thanks for having me.  Tyna Moore: Yes, I'm so happy you're here. Coach Mira, she's a native New Yorker. She moved to Oregon about 10 years ago. She is the owner of Industrial Strength Gym with her husband Tony Gracia. Boy, I don't even know, you're just a complete badass, honestly. You're a huge idol of mine, and I have to tell you that. I'm really excited to talk to you about what we're going to dig in to today. 

The last 10 years, your main focus has been strength training, Olympic lifting, from what I know of you. You've really leveled up with some competitions recently. I'll let you tell the audience about that. It seems to me like your love is barbells and kettlebells and all things strong, so I'll let you take over.  Mira Gracia: Great. First off, again, thank you so much for hosting me and for having me on the show. I absolutely love working with you. Just real quick, as Tyna mentioned, my husband and I own Industrial Strength Gym in Portland, Oregon. We are a strength training facility. My husband's love is Jiu Jitsu. He's been practicing that for about 14 years. He 

 

 

  

handles the martial arts side of things. Then, we both run the strength conditioning portion of things. 

As far as what we specialize in, it's strength training. The different tools that we like to use come in the shape of a barbell. They come in the shape of iron and steel. They come in the shape of a kettlebell. It could also come in the shape of a mini band. They're just tools in order to help us achieve the goals that we're trying to achieve. Sometimes, for some people, they're not ready for weight. Body weight is enough for that person to initially start with. 

As far as what we offer, strength and conditioning classes, those are focused on our barbell program. Basically, that is to build mass, get stronger. We also offer kettlebell training, which is a little bit more metabolic in nature, so you're absolutely going to build muscle and you're absolutely going to build durability and resiliency, but you're also going to get a lot of conditioning that the barbells don't offer. We don't do barbell lifts for time because even the most proficient lifter eventually will get tired, and the risk reward ratio doesn't quite add up in our book. 

We use the kettlebells because they're really annoying actually use, which makes them a great tool at just general body awareness and making you feel stronger. We do that through the kettlebells, then we also offer athletic training classes, which are highly scalable from someone who just had a baby, and is just trying to figure out how to use their body again, to someone who was a former D-1 collegiate football athlete and wants to move better and offset all the desk work that they do every day now that they’re out of school. It's really scalable. It's probably one of our most popular classes. We use everything from joint mobility exercises, to core stability, balance, and agility as well. Then we also go through a strength and endurance phase as well using different things like prowlers and whatnot. 

Then, obviously, on the martial arts side of things, we've got the Jiu Jitsu, we've got the kickboxing as well. As far as our member base, we've got a combination of men and women. Age ranges anywhere from 13, being our youngest member to, gosh, 72, I think. She's our most senior member.  Tyna Moore: That's awesome.  Mira Gracia: Yeah. She kicks ass.  Tyna Moore: Well, what's I love about your facility is the goal is strength and endurance and mindset. Everybody who works there is a complete Jedi. You guys all are ... Well, I send people there all the time. I'm like, "No, you don't understand. You'll walk in and you'll be intimidated. It's a big industrial space, the music is booming, but it's all about respect, it's all about meeting the person where they're at. Everybody is on the same journey. It's just the different places in the journey."  Mira Gracia: Exactly. I like to look at it that way just because for the person who feels intimidated, and we've got them a lot. We've got them a lot. People are like, "Oh my god, I 

 

 

  

was definitely a little scared." Men and women. Once they get to know us and they realize we're not big, intimidating, scary people. We're actually just a bunch of dorks who love to train together. Then the cool thing is when someone else comes into the gym, and they feel intimidated because we get new people all the time, our members will actually say to this new person, "Hey, you've nothing to worry about. I got three kids at home. I was scared to shit when I came into the gym, and it's cool." They help each other out, which is totally wonderful.  Tyna Moore: I was completely scared of you when I met you, which is so funny because I never get intimidated. I was so intimidated. Honestly, it was goal of mine to work with you. It took me three years of putting on muscle before I finally felt brave enough to come in and try to get in with you. It was such an honor when you took me as a client. I thought, "Yes, this is a coveted position." I know you are such a humble, humble person. I think that's part of this, too.  Mira Gracia: Totally.  Tyna Moore: You and Tony are both so humble, and yet so strong. I do encourage anyone, and I send everyone to refer everyone there because it's-  Mira Gracia: Thank you.  Tyna Moore: It's about getting strong, which is what we're going to talk about today, specifically, women and strength training, which I am such a huge proponent of. I preach it from the hilltops, I have a lot of followers who listen and understand that I preach it, but then they don't always know why. I'm excited to talk to you about the whys because I think you have an even deeper understanding than I do. Just briefly, how did you get into strength training? As a woman, what brought you to the iron?  Mira Gracia: Before I was married I was dating this guy, and I should actually thank this guy, if he's listening, because on Valentine's Day, the most romantic day of the year, he dumps me. I say, “Okay, well, this sucks. I could sit at home and wallow away my tears or I could go and work on myself," because clearly sitting at home, wallowing in tears isn't going to do anything productive. I go to a 24-hour fitness because I've never been to a gym one day in my life.  Tyna Moore: Wow.  Mira Gracia: I've always been fairly athletic. I grew up practicing taekwondo with my father who is a black belt. He's been practicing taekwondo for 60 years. As a kid, I did gymnastics, ice skating, things like that. I was really athletic, but never exposed to actual weight training or strength training. I didn't know this thing existed. Went into the gym, got bombarded with all these machines. 

 

 

  

I thought, "Gosh, I have no idea how to use any of this." I have my copy of Oxygen Magazine. I'm going to do this workout. Literally, I had it right next door to me. I was thinking, "Okay. This looks like the same machine. I'm going to use this machine. I'm going to do what she's doing for these many reps." I had no clue. No clue if I was doing it properly, no clue why these reps, why these many sets. What was I trying to achieve? What muscles was I'm trying to activate? All of that. 

I came in with a lot of questions because I think, women, generally are a little bit more intuitive. They want to know why they're doing things. Is this good for me? I believe we think a little bit more beyond this motto of “just do it.” I think we're a little more cerebral when it comes to things, which is honestly why I like working with women because I like explaining that. 

Anyways, then got set up with a personal trainer there, and that was the beginning of the end. I was introduced to a barbell and free weights. Luckily, this trainer was not about do this machine and that machine, and this machine. I started just doing basic things like deadlifts and rows and pull ups and things like that. I remember thinking to myself, "Gosh, if I could do one pull-up, one chin up, I would die a happy person," because that seemed so out of reach for me. 

It's been an incredible journey. It's been a life-changing journey. It's given me a new lease on life. It's made me stronger mentally and physically. I'm a huge, like you, a huge proponent of getting other women to get a taste of it and experience their own journey as well. They don't have to follow in my footsteps or your footsteps. They can create their own path. I encourage that. It's something that you can only truly achieve from picking things up or squatting with things or moving with weights because I feel like that sheer act changes you. Gives you confidence.  Tyna Moore: That's so true. It's little wins. It's little wins in life, we take our wins in the form of "I got this job promotion" or "I made this amount of money on this thing" or "I graduated with this degree." When you strength train, you get little wins every single time you train. I was watching a Instagram feed today of a gal I follow. She's a veterinarian, but she's also a big weightlifter. Sometimes, she'll show pictures of animals that they've done surgery on in the ER. Then today, it was her doing a huge box jump. The smile on her face, just like, "Yeah, I nailed it."  Mira Gracia: That's awesome.  Tyna Moore: I thought, that's what strength training is because it's these little wins throughout the day, which translates into big wins in your life, in your personal life.  Mira Gracia: 100%.  Tyna Moore: It leads to such an enormous amount of confidence. I can't even explain it. There's just things that used to beat me down and get me going and now they absolutely do not faze me because I think, "You know what? I deadlifted this much weight yesterday or 

 

 

  

I did this, or I got the barbell off of me" or whatever it was. I was an athlete, too. I was a gymnast. I mastered here and there with different sports. It's an individual sport with a community behind it. That's great because not everybody is team person, but you can make it a team event or you can make it a personal event, whatever you're into.  Mira Gracia: Absolutely.  Tyna Moore: Then secondly, it's translating into the health benefits, which are enormous, but it also translates into such an immense amount of calm confidence. It's that little Jedi magic that you wonder, "How does that person get that?" They get that because they strength train or they do martial arts, and they do something that's challenging that gets them that ... It's that 1% more of calm. I don't know how to describe it.  Mira Gracia: I think you just did.  Tyna Moore: You peck a way at it. I think that's the beauty of being around a good coach. I want to talk about that. I had you contribute to a blog post that I'm working on right now. I always tell people, please find a good coach. There's so many reasons why. (14:13) Can you briefly explain why it's so critical to find a good coach? What that means? What are people looking for? Why it goes beyond just somebody to count reps for you or tell you or even instruct you?  Mira Gracia: Yeah. If you're looking for a trainer, someone who's knowledgeable on the lifts and the execution of the lifts, and can teach you how to do it safely, first and foremost, that's one thing. We at Industrial Strength, we are all coaches. A coach, to me, goes beyond me being able to teach you proper form. It goes beyond helping you through your workout. It's a huge mental aspect of it as well. We've had days where life has just gotten a little crazy. My job is to get you to focus on what you're trying to do in this time that we have together, and sometimes that's teaching you something new. Sometimes, that's allowing you to do a little bit more of something that you already feel comfortable with. 

At the same time, I'm also talking to you or sometimes it's just listening to your vent. Sometimes, it's about giving you little tiny bits of advice. Sometimes, it's about relating what you're doing here with me to how you're going to approach what it is that you've got going on at work or what have you. It's that partnership almost. My coach, for example, my coaches throughout my life, they've been some of my most bestest personal friends because they understand my vulnerabilities and they understand how it is that I need to, I don't know, build the skill set in order to achieve things in life. 

When you're looking for someone to be a coach, I think, it's unfortunately a little bit of the Wild West when it comes to fitness education in the industry itself. Just because someone has gone to school or even a four-year school and got a degree in exercise science, that doesn't necessarily qualify them to even teach with the movements ironically enough. You can't necessarily look at what's on a piece of paper. There are certain 

 

 

  

organizations that I will personally, I would say, endorse because I've personally experienced the education that is required in order to achieve such certification. 

One of those is, for example, StrongFirst. They've got a very tough criteria for their instructors. About 30% of them fail because they either don't show proficiency in the lift themselves, or they aren't able to successfully coach a new person through the lifts, or they don't have the right mental mindset to be one of their instructors. I'm not saying that there aren't other certifications that aren't as rigorous and wonderful. I just can't speak personally to them. 

I would look for some kind of school of strength or educational system or even like Girls Gone Strong, for example. Through that community, I'm sure that you can find someone or a gym in your area that is reputable. Once you find that person, coach, gym that might offer small group classes, for example, if that's what you're looking for, then I would just do due diligence, like go online, research them because there's stuff out there, and do some investigating. Don't just go on blind. Then I would encourage you to actually meet the person face to face because you need to have coffee before you decide the date. We need to make sure that your personalities mesh, and just make sure it's a good vibe.  Tyna Moore: Absolutely.  Mira Gracia: Then, from there, take it step by step.  Tyna Moore: Well, it's important to know that ... Something I get questioned on a lot by the public and by other practitioners is, is there a good book or a good video you could suggest? That almost drives me mildly crazy because, I think, well, first off, if your patient needed their neck adjusted, would you give them a book then say, "Here's how to self adjust your neck" or would you refer them to a chiropractor? If they needed rehab, would you say, "Here's a book on how to rehab your shoulder," or would you send them to a physical therapist and have them rehab? 

That's my argument with finding a good strength and conditioning coach. This is a sport. There's a lot of opportunity for injury. There's a lot of opportunity for things to go wrong. There's a lot of opportunity for growth that I think would be missed, otherwise I've trained by myself and I trained with trainers and coaches. I flounder when I'm by myself. For me, it's priority to be able to make the time and have the funds to pay you because you're my coach in many ways, not just with that kettlebell in my head. There's a lot more to this, and that's what keeps my head in the game so that I can be a great physician and a great parent and a great person in the community.  Mira Gracia: Exactly.  Tyna Moore: (20:08) Because I'm being kept strong and because you and I jive, which is super cool. I think with other people, they say, "Well, I'll just do three or four sessions, and then I'll know what to do. I'll go do it on my own." I want to laugh because I'm thinking, "It took you 12 weeks to unravel my squat," just for us to figure 

 

 

  

out together. I've got this biomechanical background, too. I'm like for us to figure out, "okay, this is what's going on with the hip or whatnot." What do you say to that who say, "Oh, I just want to do a few sessions and then I'll know what to do?"  Mira Gracia: Yeah. I would say, "You know what? I don't blame you because I was in the same exact position initially because I have never paid for any private coaching." I thought, "Gosh, there's no way, A, that I could afford it; and B, I just want to learn how to basically do the basics and then I can go from there." Once I realized I had actually started to do the basics, I realized, “Oh my goodness, there's a lot more to the basics than I thought.” 

For example, taking a lift that is near and dear to your heart, the deadlift, it's by far one of the simplest exercises on earth. You hinge, you pick something up, and you stand up with it. It's not that complicated. At the same time, you know how many layers and layers and layers upon layers of nuance there is to the deadlift itself. If you don't do them correctly, you can really hurt yourself. If you don't brace, you're going to hurt yourself eventually. 

Then there's also nuances of performance right when it comes to all the different myriad of stances and wits and even just in terms of lifting the weight, like actually getting stronger. You soon realize that you thought you knew something but you don't really know. If that's not your expertise, I'm not going to go in there and say, "Oh, yeah I know about Prolo and PRP and this and that because I read a bunch about it online."  Tyna Moore: Or read the book.  Mira Gracia: That's not my expertise. You're the one that's dedicated your life to that area, and I'm going to trust you. I can look on YouTube, and I can look at how to change more oil from my car, but you know what? I'm going to go and pay somebody who's better at it. I'm going to have them do it. That's totally fine. 

I would also say that they have to make that decision for themselves. Sometimes people, they want to do it their own way. That's fine. Then they'll come to realize that it's not working for them. We've had a lot of people come back because they're like, "Hey, I'm just not doing it. I'm not going to the gym by myself. I'm not doing this," or " I tweaked my back, and now I'm seeing the PT. I want to come see you guys after I'm out of pain." That happens a lot. 

Then I also tell them, "You know what? There's a lot of really good resources in the form of books and videos and things like that." The only issue is that even I have a hard time at deciphering what's good and what's total crap. There's 60 gajillion shades of grey in between the really good stuff and the really crappy stuff. To someone who doesn't have a trained eye, it is really, really hard to decipher it and to tell it apart. That's the thing. It's like, "Are you going to spend your entire life trying to figure out who's doing it right and try to copy them and hope that you look like that."  Tyna Moore: It's so true.  

 

 

  

Mira Gracia: Again, it's just that. There's a lot of good stuff out there but you don't know until you don't know.  Tyna Moore: Well, there's good programs out there that are online and good coaches out there putting good online programs out. When I started at your facility at Industrial Strength with Gary Gleeson, who's no longer there, I came to him and I said, "I just want to learn how to deadlift with good form." I was really skinny then. I did not want body composition checking, I wanted to build a body. I was too lean. He moved away, and I went off on my own. I ended up developing some pretty bad habits over that time period. I hurt myself several times. I created some repetitive use injuries. Then I came back to you, and you had to unwind all of that, which has taken us over a year. Then I ended up getting hurt bad enough that now we're just building me back from basics, which I'm really thankful for. 

I wish I had done that originally, which I had not gone off on my own and thought, "I'll be fine," which some people are fine. It's just you literally worked around me. You do a 360 all the way around me when I'm doing the bigger lifts. You're poking at me. You're tweaking my stance. It's stuff that I get so much more out of those five sets of five than I would if I had done that three times over by myself without the proper bracing, without the proper attention in my body, without the proper know-how. I wouldn't do that on my own. In fact, I don't do that on my own. I do a variation of that on my own. When I'm with you, I feel like I'm leveling up.  Mira Gracia: It's a lot more stimulating, yeah.  Tyna Moore: It is.  Mira Gracia: I get it.  Tyna Moore: I think that's absolutely working. The other part that I tell people is being weak is very expensive because I put people's bodies back together on the tail end of things.  Mira Gracia: This is true.  Tyna Moore: It's not cheap. Putting somebody back together is a whole lot more expensive than getting them there in the first place in whole shape. Aging is no joke. You said something to me that I finally got. It took you a long time for you to get through to me, but you finally said something to me because I kept derailing your programming by going and PR-ing my deadlift and screwing up my hip even further. You said something to me, and you said, "I want you lifting when you're 80. I want you still being able to do this when you're 80." This huge lightbulb went off of in my head. I thought, "Oh my god, this is not about chasing PR’s. This is not about my ego. This is about me doing something I love until I'm old and well, into my deathbed," and hopefully, that's a long way off if I stay strong. 

 

 

  

That's what I'm trying to get through to people is this isn't about how much weight can you pick off the ground. It's how much more dense and strong and held together can you make your body. I literally feel like if I got clipped by a car right now, yeah, I’d get hurt, but five years ago if I had gotten clipped...  Mira Gracia: Yeah, you probably bounce up.  Tyna Moore: Yeah! Five years ago, I would have shattered, just shattered literally. I see people every day who have shattered. It's a 35-mile-per hour rear-end car accident or just to step off or step wrong. They literally just disintegrate because their connective tissues are so poorly put together because of poor conditioning. It's like you are waiting to die. Literally, you're going to pressure your hip when you're old and you're going to die. That's what I see in my mind's eye. I think that's where strength training, particularly for women, is so critical. We're training for life.  Mira Gracia: (27:50) Absolutely, yeah. They say that for women, especially, the osteoporosis, it's going to happen. It's just the fact of life. The only thing that has been proven to offset that or combat that, scientifically proven, is strengthening, is to actually get muscle, put that on your body, it makes your bones denser. By the way, it's healthier for you. It makes you stronger, and it makes you live longer. It relieves stress. It has a huge mental benefit. Okay, great, so many awesome side effects. 

For women, the number of women that actually fracture their hip standing, standing, actually fracture their hips standing is appalling. Then you have your people who don't have the awareness, the body awareness to realize that they are falling, for example, until it's too late, until they can't get off the ground and they fractured their hip and they're bleeding out or something like that. These are all ways to effectively combat that. You can start strength training at any age. 

I've got one little girl that I trained who is 13. I asked her, "Why do you do this?" Do you do this because your mom says that you should do this?" She responded, "Yeah, at first." Now, I do this because I know it's good for me to be strong, and I want to be strong." She doesn't know anything else. She just knows that she wants to be strong because it's good for her, and it makes her feel good. 

That is the best thing that I could ever hear. For someone like her, the number of girls that have ACL injuries because the valgus collapsed, and they just don't have good control of their bodies, doing like basic things, like PE class and what not. The fact that she can actually squat with good form, the fact that she actually knows what bracing means is huge.  Tyna Moore: That's going to be huge for the rest of her life.  Mira Gracia: No matter what she ends up doing, it's going to be wonderful. We also have older women who train with us. You've actually met one of the gals when you come in for training. Her surgeon actually said to her, "You need to do some kind of strength training. 

 

 

  

You need to pick up some weights because you were not getting any younger, and your bones are getting pretty frail." That's the only reason why she started strength training is because it was literally doctor's orders. She got a DEXA scan beforehand, she got a DEXA scan recently. She has made changes to her body in the form of being more dense all over. She is more confident. She is definitely a little bit more sassy, which is awesome.  Tyna Moore: That's the best part is when your sass matches your ass or your ass matches your sass.  Mira Gracia: Amen.  Tyna Moore: I have a friend recently see me. He said, "Your body fits your personality so much more that it was." I think it's the truth. It's hard enough being a woman in this world. I'm sorry. This isn't a big feminist comment. It's hard enough being a woman in this world. You're expected to be so many things. I went through it. I went from being a very strong little girl as a gymnast to really losing my strength for a long time, and becoming a skinny, frail woman. 

Then I started seeing patients of mine that were 20 years older who had sustained that skinny frail look because skinny is the way that we think we're supposed to be. They are in chronic pain. They are frail. Their hormones are messed up. Getting them out of that was nearly impossible, if completely impossible. I thought, you know what? What's the antidote to this? It's muscle. Muscle is quite literally the antidote to so many things. You used to be a pretty skinny gal.  Mira Gracia: Oh, yeah.  Tyna Moore: (32:16) When I came in back to see you all those years later, you were like, "Oh my gosh, you used to be so skinny. You're so much bigger now." I was like, "Yeah." That's a compliment. Can you talk about that a little bit and just?  Mira Gracia: I think that I don't honestly know any women, I've never met a woman, even young woman, who doesn't or hasn't gone through some kind of body image issue. Back when I was growing up I thought of myself as a little bit bigger. Even though I look at pictures from when I was younger and I go, "Holy crap, I was super skinny." I look at old pictures, and I think I look anorexic. I was super, super skinny. I thought back then that if I was 115 pounds, I was overweight." I remember getting to 118 and feeling like I was huge. I remember being comfortably 105. 

I remember even when I first started strength training, I remember thinking, "I just want to lose five pounds, so I can fit into my skinny jeans." That was one of my goals. That's what drove me to train more, so that I would lose more weight. That was the total wrong way I go about it in retrospect. It made me realize through all those reps and all the emotional ups and downs of my whole journey, I realized that I am way happier being comfortable in my own skin no matter how heavy I was. It sounds a little weird. I'm 

 

 

  

definitely bigger now, I'm the biggest that I've ever been. Like I said, at about 135 pounds now. 

If you told my younger me that I would, one day, be 135 pounds and be totally comfortable, like honestly comfortable, I would have been like, "You are crazy." My husband even has to remind me and he’s like, "Oh my god, here we go again. Honey, you look amazing." I realized he's right. I feel good. I can wear my shorts. I can wear my bra tops, and I can wear whatever it is that I want to wear. I felt good because I know that I'm stronger, inside and outside. It's just something that I want somehow bottle, so that I can give it to people instantaneously, so they understand what I'm trying to feel without having to go through the years and years of one rep at a time, one rep at a time. It's not easy. If it were really easy, you and I would bottle it, and we would be billionaires, right?  Tyna Moore: Yes.  Mira Gracia: There is no magic pill. You have to put in the time. You have to have the patience. That's what I would encourage people to do is once they find somewhere someone to connect with to start their journey is that the results are not instantaneous. You're going to be sore, yeah, that will happen, for sure. It takes time. You have to look at it from a 50,000-foot view and say, "Okay. What is it that I'm trying to achieve and don't expect immediate results?"  Tyna Moore: That changes over time.  Mira Gracia: Yeah, true.  Tyna Moore: My initial goal was just to be able to deadlift a certain amount of weight, and then I got hurt. Then I had to re-evaluate that, and then it was to get through my divorce. I just wanted to stay sane. Then I think, at this point, it's such a different game. I don't know what shifted, and you've watched me go through it. You watched me struggle with it. I had some hormonal shift. I think it was an anabolic shift. I think I put on a lot of muscle. I put on some fat. It all came on very quickly. It's not distributing exactly the way that I would idealize, but-  Mira Gracia: It never does.  Tyna Moore: It never does. I think my goals now are more about longevity, staying strong, really walking the talk. Then you build different parts of your body. It's not about vanity, it's about functions. It's like, guess what? My shoulders don't hurt anymore. My back doesn't hurt as bad anymore and my different parts of my body. I feel, even though I don't always love, like if I got extremely belly fat or whatever, I feel better. Skinny hurts. Being skinny literally hurt. It hurt all the time for me. I was in so much chronic pain all the time from tip to toe. 

 

 

  

I was scared all the time. When I say scared, I mean, I travel a lot for business. I would be walking down the street, I used to get catcalled and whistled at and harassed a lot more than I do now. It's not because I'm less prettier or anything, or not that you need to be pretty to get catcalled. I don't mean it that way. It's because I literally have a different walk. I have a different presence, I have a different energy.  Mira Gracia: Yeah. Well, you pull your shoulders back, chest is up. You stand tall.  Tyna Moore: Yeah. Just building that posterior chain automatically makes you stand up straight. I used to have to consciously improve my posture. Now, my posture is great naturally. I've had a lot of people comment and say, "I remember you back in chiropractic college, and you were always slumped over. What did you do for your posture?" I'm like, "I built it back. I built the body that holds me up right."  Mira Gracia: Yeah, absolutely.  Tyna Moore: That translates into just day to day about people do not mess with me. They don't mess with me professionally. When I show up to conferences, there's a level of respect that's just automatically handed to me because I am fit and I am walking the talk. It's not about aesthetics.  Mira Gracia: You exude confidence. It's confidence, yeah.  Tyna Moore: Really just matching your inner power with your outer power. I think that has a lot of benefit for women. That's really my passion point.  Mira Gracia: Absolutely.  Tyna Moore: It's just that women, I think, they deserve that. They can earn that. You really have to earn it. It's a lot of work. It took me years just to build what I have.  Mira Gracia: Absolutely.  Tyna Moore: You as well, I remember you three years ago, and you were not as muscular as you are now.  Mira Gracia: Oh my god, I was still skinnier. I was trying my darndest to put on some extra, not necessarily like actual weight because that wasn't necessarily my goal. I wanted to just get strong. I didn't have a particular number in mind for a lift or anything like that because they're so arbitrary. It all depends on your body size, in your proportions, in your biomechanics, and some people are just gifted. I would tell people, "Don't get fixated on what someone else is doing. Really focus on making sure that whatever it is that you do in 

 

 

  

the gym, that you do it for yourself and for your own agenda, and your goals are going to be different than so and so’s." 

This goes outside of anyone who's actually competing as an athletic endeavor. If you compete in bodybuilding, if you compete in weightlifting, if you can compete in strongman competitions and things like that, that's a little bit different because, at that point, you were doing things that are not necessarily the healthiest thing for you because you're doing it for your sport. 

The 99.9% of the people here outside of the Jiu Jitsu community, they're all in here because they want to be more durable, and they want to be more resilient. They want to be more functionally fit. Meaning that at the end of the day, I think you always joke about this. It's like when the zombie apocalypse comes. You want to be one of those people that's fighting them off, right, when the zombie apocalypse happens.  Tyna Moore: We don't want to be bait. We don't want to be zombie bait.   Mira Gracia: Exactly. You don't want to be zombie bait. It's going to be all the people that are not necessarily as bad or weak or whatnot. We're trying to build that, sustainable, comprehensive strength that, like you said, that goes into your old age where you're 80, and everyone is thinking that you're 65, and when you're 65, everyone thinks that you're 40. When you're 40, everyone thinks you're 25. That's super cool.  Tyna Moore: It translates. It translates into travel, for instance. If I want to go hike the Great Wall of China, I want to be able to do that no matter what.  Mira Gracia: Exactly.   Tyna Moore: If I'm in Hawaii, and there's some rocks or cliffs to climb over, I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to see the things and do the things, and have the ability to make that a possibility instead being like, "I can't because my knees are this way or my hips are this way. I'm not strong.”  Mira Gracia: Yeah. Or “I'm just not strong enough to do it.” That's scary, right?  Tyna Moore: It is. It's frustrating because I, at one point, was a high-level gymnast, and I was so strong, and then I lost it all. My journey right now is me just trying to get back to some semblance of that. I'm 43, and you're 44?  Mira Gracia: 46.  Tyna Moore: Oh, you're 46. Oh my god.  Mira Gracia: 46. 

 

 

  

 Tyna Moore: Yeah. Well, you look awesome. You're doing awesome.  Mira Gracia: Thank you. I feel great.  Tyna Moore: Yeah. Probably better than you did at 36.   Mira Gracia: Heck, yeah, 100%, absolutely.  Tyna Moore: Yeah. That's really the goal is just to keep leveling up and really enjoying life because having lost it was probably the worst thing ever.  Mira Gracia: Yeah. You know first hand. Now, you know how precious it is.  Tyna Moore: Yeah. I remember seeing pictures of myself. I was skin and bones, literally. I looked like a skeleton. Everybody was like, "Are you okay?" I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, I look so great. I love the fact that people are asking if I was okay because that must mean that I look striking. It's such a messed-up mindset.  Mira Gracia: It is.  Tyna Moore: For women, in particular. I know men suffer from this as well. I have patients who absolutely suffer from this that are male. There's so much benefit for men, too.  Mira Gracia: Absolutely.   Tyna Moore: It's not about physique, although, that's a nice side effect. It's again, I think for young people, older people, male, female, it's about mindset more than anything. It's about having your hormones work for you. It's about having all of the ... I've got that Muscle as Medicine article I wrote the talks about all the scientific advantages and health advantages. For me, the thing I get most from you is really about mindset piece, which, like we talked about, translates into everything. 

Just so people know, you're too modest so I'm just going to tell the listeners some of your accomplishments here. You just recently won the gold medal for the Masters Weightlifting National Championships in your weight category and age category. Is that correct?  Mira Gracia: Yes, ma'am.  Tyna Moore: Yep. Your StrongFirst barbells start there, your StrongFirst level two, all of your instructors there right now are level two, right, StrongFirst?  

 

 

  

Mira Gracia: Yes, they are. Yeah.  Tyna Moore: Which is kind of Jedi status from what I understand. I think you told me that's pretty unheard of in that community.  Mira Gracia: Yeah. As far as facilities go, I don't know any other one that has a collection of these many instructors that are, at least, level two. The only higher levels that you can get are team leader positions, which my husband was recently appointed as.  Tyna Moore: Awesome.  Mira Gracia: It just means that you know how to coach. You obviously know how to execute the lifts. You can safely teach other people how to be resilient and strong using kettlebells and barbells and body weight. You were touching on mindset earlier. It's also that mindset that we all share in that we're in it for the long haul. That's something that we talk the talk, and we also try as much as possible to blend that feeling. You don't have the words for it. That's nuance into our community just by the way that we speak and talk and act in the gym itself.  Tyna Moore: You really do a good job of it. I used to think, "I can only lift this." I started with the tiny, little bitty kettlebells.  Mira Gracia: You nailed it.  Tyna Moore: I'm barely moving my way up. I can do more now, but it's taken a while. (46:04) I remember thinking, “If I could just get to that bigger weight, if I could just get to that.” It's the same thing as if you think, “If I could just get that six-pack abs or whatever.” That's not what it's about. It's about the journey. It's about what you can do, where you're at, and that's everything. It's about effort. It's about putting good effort for it. You guys have such a cool community. Your classes always look like so much fun. I can see how much commitment and joy all of the participants have. You guys do such a good job of instilling community and bringing people together to have fun. 

I think what people can take from this, too, is you don't just have to have the money to hire private coach. There are ways to get in at different price points that people can afford. Doing group classes with a good coach is one option. Maybe doubling or tripling up with a small group is one option, not necessarily at your facility, but at many of these facilities out there. People can access good coaching in a myriad of different ways.  Mira Gracia: Yeah, absolutely. Basically, when I was first starting out and thinking, "Gosh, I can't afford this," I realized, "Well, gosh, if I didn't go out, literally, one night during the week and by six drinks and my meal, and all this other stuff, I would save $100. I can take that $100, and I can put it towards a private training session. Oh, wait a minute."  

 

 

  

Tyna Moore: Yeah, it's priorities.  Mira Gracia: It is a priorities. Like you said, there are some people that come to so many different classes that we offer, that they probably end up paying about six bucks a glass at the end of the day. What is it? A venti macchiato at Starbucks, right?  Tyna Moore: Yeah.  Mira Gracia: You have to spin your own lens on it. You just have to ask yourself what's important. It's not going to be for everybody, for sure. We've got a lot of different options like you said. We've got a great stuff. We got a great community. We offer a myriad of different ways to approach strength training. If you're not a barbell person, if kettlebells are a little intimidating, et cetera, et cetera, we've got different things, different tools. It all comes within that common thread of getting stronger in strength training.  Tyna Moore: Yeah. You do great job of, like you mentioned earlier, just welcoming people in all of different shapes and sizes and levels. I've never been there during a class where I thought, "Oh, my gosh, everybody in here just have such a perfect body. I don't belong here, blah, blah, blah." 

I see such a variety of people, different ages, different shapes, different levels. Some people are hauling the big kettlebells. They're built like a brick house. Other people are just getting started. There's such a fun sense of support that the participants seem to bring, that your members seem to bring to one another.  Mira Gracia: Totally. Yeah. It was really encouraging.  Tyna Moore: It's so critical to have community like that for people. Just in general, living in isolation, we're seeing studies come out about that now about how living in an isolated way can be worse than smoking. It's worse for you than smoking. Having community, and I think particularly in some fitness arena, it's really such a good help move for people. It will keep people alive longer.  Mira Gracia: Yeah, absolutely. People get together all the time to go out and drink for happy hour or just to go out on a Friday night and go drinking with your buddies. You can do the same thing at the gym. Instead of drinking, you can actually train or work out. We joke about how 6:00 every night is happy hour for a lot of these people because they come in and they meet up with their friends that they've made here at the gym. Honestly, I don't know how we were lucky enough to do this, but everyone is so encouraging and so supportive of one another. Like you said, it does not matter. We have some girls that are swinging the heaviest kettlebell that we have, which is 60 kilos, which is 132 pounds. That weighs more than the girl that's swinging it. 

Then we also have a gal who is swinging an eight because she just learned. Seriously, it does not matter. It will be like, "I go, you go." One person is cheering for the gal 

 

 

  

that's swinging the 60. Another person is cheering for the gal that's swinging the eight. It does not matter. It's cool. It's really, really cool that way.  Tyna Moore: That's how it should be. I think whether people choose to go to cross-fit facility or a good strength and conditioning facility or even 24-hour fitness. Were you a trainer there because I know your husband was, right?  Mira Gracia: No. My husband was. I was just paying for training.  Tyna Moore: People say, "You can't find a good trainer at 24-hour fitness." That's non-sense.  Mira Gracia: No, you can, absolutely.  Tyna Moore: The one time I got to work with your husband, I was like, "Wow he is a good coach." I listened to him train others. He's got such a great mindset. He said something to somebody the other day. Right after she got done executing a lift. He had to walk her out. He said something like, "I want you to think about one thing you did well. I want you to think about one thing that you can improve on" as she took the walk. I was like, "God, that's just a great thing for life." That's what this is about, right?  Mira Gracia: Yeah, absolutely.  Tyna Moore: That's exactly what this is about. That translates into, for me, being a better parent, being a better partner, being a better doctor, being a better friend, etc.  Mira Gracia: A contributor to the planet.  Tyna Moore: Exactly. Just a better human in general.  Mira Gracia: Yeah, absolutely.  Tyna Moore: Thank God I found something that works for me. There's different activities that work for different people, but I was excited to talk to you today about this because this is my mission. I want everybody deadlifting, especially women. I want every woman out there getting strong.  Mira Gracia: I'm right there with you.  Tyna Moore: Well, Ms. Mira, I think we're coming to an end of our time here together. Is there any words of wisdom you'd like to leave for the audience?  

 

 

  

Mira Gracia: Just that, especially in this particular time and age that we are going through with ... I don't want to get political, with all the stuff that we have to deal with as of late, it is tough being a female in this world. We all need to not put each other down. We all need to actually do the opposite. We need to raise each other up. Whenever we can, support each other, have each other's backs, and compliment each other whenever we can. That's it.  Tyna Moore: Yes. Amen. Yes. Well, I'm so honored to call you my friend. I'm so glad you're my coach, and I just love you.  Mira Gracia: You know I love you.  Tyna Moore: I know. I'm so happy to have you on here because I just wanted to blast this out and make every woman listen to it. I shall train with this.  Mira Gracia: Well, thank you. You're awesome. I love you.  Tyna Moore: Yes. Thank you. Well, people can find you at Industrial Strength Gym. I'll put the links to our website. Any other links she want to provide on this podcast, so people can click through.  Mira Gracia: Awesome.  Tyna Moore: Thank you again, for being here. I have gratitude for you. I appreciate you.  Mira Gracia: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, everyone, for listening.  Tyna Moore: Yes, okay. Talk to you soon. Bye.  Mira Gracia: Okay, bye.             Links in the show: 

 

 

  

 ● Article by Dr. Moore “Muscle is Medicine” ● www.industrialstrengthgym.com