Broads: The Bold & Badass Fitness Podcast for Women

You know what consistent people have that you don’t?
Nothing.
They’re not more motivated than you. They don’t wake up excited to train. There’s no personality trait, no chip in their brain, no secret discipline gene that makes this easier for them. I don’t wake up wanting to train either, and this is my whole life.
The difference between a woman who’s been training for three years and a woman who’s been restarting for three years isn’t motivation. One of them just stopped resetting the clock.
So this episode is about building the version of training that survives your actual life. Not the fantasy version of your schedule, where nothing goes wrong and every day has two extra hours hidden in it.
In this episode:
Why the version of you who wants this more doesn’t exist
The client who never decided to train, looked down, and was already in her leggings
Monday perfect, Tuesday perfect, Wednesday missed, Thursday “this week is ruined”
What’s actually underneath the Thursday thought, and why it was never about the workout
Why the all-or-nothing woman is perpetually at week one no matter how many years go by
Minimum Viable Consistency — not a downgrade, the actual plan
What it looks like in practice: hotel rooms, fifteen minutes, two sessions instead of four
The fear that permission to do less becomes permission to do nothing, and what happens instead
The bench press I’ve had on a list since 2018
The pull-up that took one of my clients more than two years
Why “still training in 2036” is a better filter than any thirty-day challenge
Fifteen minutes done is worth more than sixty minutes imagined. A smaller plan that keeps going beats a perfect plan that resets.
Write that one down somewhere you’ll see it on a Wednesday.
Timestamps
00:00 Cold open

00:18 Welcome to Broads

00:53 Consistent people have nothing you don't

02:09 What we're building today

03:25 I don't wake up motivated either

04:13 The day that's never coming

04:36 Already in her leggings

06:22 Closer to brushing your teeth than a marathon

07:05 Monday perfect, Wednesday missed

07:38 Thursday: this week is ruined

08:41 What's underneath the Thursday thought

09:30 The boring version

10:03 Perpetually week one

12:03 Imperfect and continuous beats perfect and interrupted

12:23 What survives your busiest month

13:23 Minimum Viable Consistency

13:49 What it looks like in practice

15:56 The plan bends so you don't break

16:28 But won't I use it as an excuse?

17:28 Stop measuring in weeks

18:07 Eight years and a 105 bench

18:56 The pull-up that took two years

19:40 Still training in 2036

21:32 What to do with this
Learn more about Broads: broads.app
Apply to BroadsCOACH: broads.app/broadscoach
Connect with Tara:
instagram.com/taralaferrara · instagram.com/broads_coach · youtube.com/@TaraLaferrara · tiktok.com/@taralaferrara

Rocio Cortez had never played a sport. She'd never been in a weight room. At 27 she walked into a jujitsu gym, and three and a half years later she's training wrestling, striking, MMA and Muay Thai, and she's competed at Apex twice.
The number that matters in this conversation is not the 275-pound deadlift she pulled at a bodyweight of 119. It's three and a half years. That's how long it took to build the body she has now, and she never once trained for it directly. She trained to get faster, to jump higher, to get stronger. The body followed.
Tara and Rocio get honest about what that stretch actually felt like: the days she took progress photos and hated them, the clothes that stopped fitting, the body dysmorphia that showed up right as she was making her best gains.
In this episode:
Why the people you train around change what you believe is possible for you
How to build a circle when you're the shy one in the corner
Grieving friendships that fade when your lifestyle changes, and why the real ones modify the hangout instead
Starting at 27, and how Rocio stopped mourning the years she didn't train
What actually makes you an athlete, and why Tara says you don't have to compete to be one
Why being a beginner is an advantage, not a liability
Training for performance and letting the body sort itself out
103 pounds to 120: learning to use a body that's changed
Diet culture, double zero pants, and 100 crunches before bed
Injury, warming up, and why pushing through isn't a plan
Starting martial arts as a woman when the room is mostly men
How to know you're progressing when the weight on the bar has stalled
Screen time, comparison, and curating a feed that doesn't cost you anything
Timestamps:
00:42 Welcome to Broads
01:35 You are who you surround yourself with
04:24 Building your five people
07:11 When friendships fade
09:53 Starting at 27 and grieving lost time
13:00 What makes you an athlete
14:41 Why Rocio likes being a beginner
18:02 Where the intimidation actually comes from
21:18 Training for performance, and the body that followed
23:40 Diet culture and high school
25:26 103 to 120
27:16 Injuries and the machismo mindset
29:09 Being a woman in a male-dominated sport
30:18 How to start jujitsu when you're intimidated
32:31 "I work out but I don't look like I work out"
33:20 Three and a half years of reps
35:44 Progress when the weight stalls
37:25 Perfectionism, imposter syndrome and screen time
42:34 Curating who you follow
44:36 For the woman focused on how she looks
46:53 Get a coach
Connect with Rocio:
https://www.instagram.com/rockin_rocio/
https://www.rociocortez.com/
Learn more about Broads: www.broads.app

Episode Notes
Nutrition advice for women is loud, contradictory and usually built for someone else's body. In this solo Q&A, Tara answers the nutrition questions you sent in, and keeps it real about what actually matters.
In this episode:
Intermittent fasting for women: who it can work for, and why stress, poor sleep and under-eating can make it backfire on your hormones, energy and cycle
Whether you need to track macros, and why protein is the one number worth knowing
The protein math: 0.7–1 gram per pound of body weight (or goal body weight), and how to build up gradually instead of doubling overnight
Easy high-protein options at home and on the go
What to look for in a protein bar: 15–20g of protein, under 5g of added sugar, and fiber to keep you full
Healing your relationship with food: dropping the good/bad labels, getting out of the all-or-nothing trap, and why mindful eating starts with slowing down
Going alcohol-free when your partner drinks: boundaries without blame, NA swaps that make date night easier, and coming back to your why
You don't need to weigh every bite forever. Give it three days of looking at what's actually on your plate, find the protein, and build from there.
Tara is a Precision Nutrition–certified coach, not a registered dietitian. This episode is for education, not medical advice.
Resources mentioned:
Macronutrient Guide: broads.app/macronutrient-guide
Learn more about Broads: broads.app
Connect with Tara:
instagram.com/taralaferrara
instagram.com/broads_coach
youtube.com/@TaraLaferrara
tiktok.com/@taralaferrara
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For women who strength train consistently and feel like something is still missing, it is probably not the program or the effort. The tools that elite collegiate strength coaches use with their athletes — plyometrics, isometrics, contrast training, tempo work — are almost never included in general fitness programming. In this episode, Erica Lowery breaks down exactly what those tools are, why they work, and how any woman can start adding them to her week without overhauling what she is already doing.

Erica Lowery, MS, CSCS, is the Director of Athletic Performance at the University of South Alabama, where she oversees strength and conditioning for volleyball and women's soccer. A former Division I volleyball player at Texas A&M and Liberty, Erica has spent her career on both sides of the barbell — competing at an elite level and coaching young female athletes through the fears and patterns that hold most women back from ever touching a weight they actually need to be lifting. She is also an APEX athlete and has trained for the USA Bobsled team.

What's Discussed:

What it is actually like to coach freshmen athletes coming in scared on day one — and how Erica builds the relationship before she builds the program



Erica's own athletic background: D1 volleyball, how the weight room at Texas A&M changed everything, and the moment she realized training was the one thing she could always control



What Erica tells young female athletes who are scared of getting bulky from lifting — and the "toned" reframe that actually lands



Why nutrition and recovery account for 75% of results — and what that means for women who are working hard in the gym but not seeing it translate



Plyometrics and the 9'4" broad jump: how foundational strength — not endless jumping — is what actually built Erica's explosive power



Why women should add jumping to their training even if they are not athletes — durability, daily life, injury prevention, and why being scared of stepping off a curb is a training problem not an age problem



How to start adding sprinting and jumping to a three-day strength week without increasing injury risk — the progressions, the order, and how slow is actually fast enough



Sprint progression timelines: four to six week blocks, short to long, slow to fast, and why Erica pulled her hamstring multiple times before she followed her own advice



What isometrics actually are, why they speed up soft tissue recovery faster than rest does, and how Erica used them to train around injuries instead of stopping completely



How to use isometric holds when you are not injured — warm-up applications, tempo work, building strength at the bottom positions most people skip entirely



Why isometrics build muscle and why they are one of the most underused tools for women who have plateaued on standard rep schemes



Isometrics for travel and bodyweight training — how collegiate athletes train on the road with no equipment and still make progress



What most general training programs are missing: tempo work and athletic movement — and why just doing three sets of ten forever is quietly capping your results



Following a plan, tracking your training, and why switching programs every few weeks is one of the most common ways women accidentally stall their progress



Erica's personal training right now: Apex prep, sprinting focus, and what she is going after once the competition season is done



Recovery, mobility, and why sleep and nutrition are still the 75% — even for an elite-level athlete



The perfect warm-up structure: 10 minutes max, foam rolling to mobility to low intensity to max effort, and why more is not better here



What it actually means to fail a lift — and why it is a sign you are pushing yourself, not a sign you are bad at this



Creatine: safety, energy output, cognitive recovery, and why Erica has been taking it since her freshman year

Ready to have programming that builds on itself the way it is supposed to? Apply for BroadsCOACH at https://www.broads.app/broadscoach.

Learn more about Broads: https://www.broads.app/ https://www.instagram.com/broads_coach/

Check out more from Tara LaFerrara: https://www.taralaferrara.com/ https://www.instagram.com/taralaferrara/ YouTube: @TaraLaferrara TikTok: @taralaferrara

Check out more from Erica Lowery: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericalowerystrength/ Links: https://linktr.ee/ericalowery

Most women who are not seeing results from their training are not failing because of their program, their supplements, or how hard they are pushing. The problem is consistency — and not in the way most people think. This episode breaks down seven specific ways to build the kind of consistency that actually holds, so you can stop spinning your wheels and start making progress that compounds.

If you have been training for months and nothing is changing, the answer is almost never a new program. It is almost always the gap between what you are doing and what you are doing every single week without negotiating. Consistency is not a personality trait. It is a system. And once you have the right one, everything else — strength, body composition, confidence — follows.

What's Discussed:

[00:55] The hard truth about why results are not showing up — and why it is almost never the workout plan

[03:30] The one thing most women overlook that silently costs them progress week after week

[09:15] Why measuring success on the scale is keeping you from seeing what is actually changing in your body

[14:40] Why motivation is not a strategy — and what to build instead so you show up even when you do not feel like it

[22:05] What perfectionism in the gym is actually costing you — and why imperfect workouts always beat no workouts

[30:10] The shift that separates women who quit from women who stay — and how to get to the other side of it

 

Ready to stop figuring it out alone? Apply for BroadsCOACH at https://www.broads.app/broadscoach.

Learn more about Broads: https://www.broads.app/ https://www.instagram.com/broads_coach/

Check out more from Tara LaFerrara: https://www.taralaferrara.com/ https://www.instagram.com/taralaferrara/ YouTube: @TaraLaferrara TikTok: @taralaferrara