Broads: The Bold & Badass Fitness Podcast for Women

You’ve been told cardio kills your gains. Or that you need more of it. Or that HIIT is the answer. Or that HIIT is the problem. You open Instagram and find a different opinion every time, and at some point you just start guessing because the information around cardio is genuinely that contradictory.

Here is the thing: cardio itself is not complicated. The noise around it is.

Just like with strength training, there are nuances with cardio that you need to know if you want to see + get results.

Most of the time, the lack of results are not because you’re doing too little, but usually because you’re doing the wrong type, at the wrong time, for the wrong goal. This episode fixes that.

What's Discussed:

The three types of cardio — Zone 2, steady state, and HIIT — what each one actually does to your body, and why knowing the difference changes everything about how you program your week

Why Zone 2 is the most underrated form of cardio for women who strength train — and why a 30-minute brisk walk during a work call counts as a legitimate training session

The Peloton problem: why the popular high-energy classes are almost always steady state or HIIT efforts, why that is not building the aerobic base you think it is, and what to choose instead

How much cardio you actually need based on your goal — strength-first, balanced fitness, or training for a specific event — with realistic session numbers for each

The interference effect: why doing cardio and lifting too close together blunts the results of both, why order matters, and the one exception that is not actually cardio

Six signs your cardio volume is exceeding your recovery capacity — including the ones that show up in your joints and your sleep before they show up anywhere else

Why the fix is always subtraction and not more effort — and why none of the warning signs mean you are failing

A practical weekly structure for women lifting four days a week and women lifting three — with specific session types, timing, and how HIIT fits in as a tool rather than a default

The specific cardio plan for the busy woman who lifts two to three days and has a Peloton she uses once a week. Let’s simplify this!

If your joints have been feeling beat up, grab the free Mobility Guide — five minutes a day for seven days. https://www.broads.app/mobility-guide

For the full picture on how cardio, protein, and strength training work together to actually shift your body composition, the free Body Recomp Webinar covers all of it. https://www.broads.app/body-recomp-webinar

Ready to have your cardio and training programmed so everything works together instead of against each other? Apply for BroadsCOACH at broads.app/broadscoach.

Learn more about Broads:

https://www.broads.app/

https://www.instagram.com/broads_coach/

https://www.instagram.com/broads.podcast/

Check out more from Tara LaFerrara:

https://www.taralaferrara.com/

https://www.instagram.com/taralaferrara/

YouTube: @TaraLaferrara TikTok: @taralaferrara

Most women have been told to manage stress with mindset work, talk therapy, meditation and breathwork, or just pushing through. And those things can help… but none of them address what the body is actually holding — the tension that has been living in your muscles for years. And the stress patterns your nervous system built to protect you are still running in the background long after the original stressor is gone.

That is what somatic healing addresses. And most women have never heard of it.

Liz Tenuto spent ten years living with chronic pain and insomnia that started at fourteen. She saw every specialist, tried every modality — acupuncture, yoga, massage, meditation, craniosacral therapy. Nothing lasted more than a few days. It was not until a ballet teacher pulled her into a somatics class that something finally shifted. She cried in the bathroom after the first session — not from pain, but because it was the first time she had ever stopped being hard on her body. Her insomnia was almost gone within four lessons.

Liz Tenuto is the creator of The Workout Witch, a somatic movement educator with a background in psychology and ballet, and the author of When the Body Speaks: How Somatic Healing Sets You Free. She teaches zero-equipment somatic exercises — tiny micro-movements that release habitual tension, dissolve stress-holding patterns in the muscles, and regulate the nervous system — to nearly four million followers across Instagram and TikTok.

What's Discussed:

What somatic exercises actually are — and the hip rocking exercise you can try tonight that uses the same bilateral stimulation technique found in EMDR therapy

Ten years of chronic pain, every modality, and nothing lasting — and the one class that changed everything within four sessions

How Liz's background in psychology and ballet led her to build something that bridges the two in a way neither field had done before

Top-down vs. bottom-up healing — what talk therapy does, what somatics does, and why somatics is often the missing link for women who have plateaued in their healing journey

Why there is no separation between emotions and movement — and what that means for women who are already training hard

The forehead swipe exercise: one minute, no equipment, stimulates a cranial nerve that calms your fight-or-flight response — you can do it in a meeting and nobody will notice

EFT tapping vs. somatic exercises — what the difference is and how to know which one is right for you

When the Body Speaks — the book, the three sections, and who it is actually for

Check out more from Liz Tenuto:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theworkoutwitch/

TikTok: @theworkoutwitch

App and Courses: https://www.theworkoutwitch.com

Book — When the Body Speaks: How Somatic Healing Sets You Free: https://www.theworkoutwitch.com/book

Free resource from Liz: DM "release" on Instagram @theworkoutwitch and she will send you a one-minute hip rocking video to get started.

Ready for coaching that meets you where you are and adapts to your life? Apply for BroadsCOACH at broads.app/broadscoach.

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

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

You’ve tried the plans. You’ve done the tracking, the lifting, the early mornings. You know what you are supposed to do. And still, something is not clicking — not the program, but the mental layer underneath it.

Why does it stick for some women and not others? How do you keep showing up when you do not feel good in your body yet? What do you do when the gym feels like everyone is watching you, when comparison is quietly wrecking your progress, when you are carrying all of this entirely alone and the silence around it is starting to feel heavier than the weights?

Those are the seven questions this episode is built around. Because the macros and the programming matter. But the mental layer is what actually decides whether any of it holds.

What's Discussed:

(0:00) Why the questions in the inbox this time had nothing to do with programming — and why the mental layer is the actual work

Q1: Why it finally clicks for some women and not others — and the real pattern the women who make it stick almost always share

Q2: How to keep showing up when you do not feel good in your body yet — and the moment from Tara's own history she rarely talks about

Q3: How to stop overthinking and find a plan you trust.

Q4: Information overload and deciding what is true for you.

Q5: What to do if the gym intimidates you and how to boost your confidence.

Q6: What to do when comparison is quietly wrecking your motivation — and why her timeline was never yours to begin with

Q7: How to stay motivated when you are doing this entirely alone — and what actually changes everything

Ready to get started?

BroadsCOACH: one-on-one coaching with a coach who knows your patterns, calls you out when you are quitting on yourself, and brings you back when you are in a spiral. Weekly check-ins, coaching calls, and programming that adapts to your life. Apply at broads.app/broadscoach.

BroadsCLUB: done-for-you monthly programming with home or gym options, plus a community of women who are in it with you. Start with a 7-day free trial at broads.app/broadsclub.

Learn more about Broads:

https://www.broads.app/

https://www.instagram.com/broads.podcast/

https://www.instagram.com/broads.app/

Check out more from Tara LaFerrara: https://www.taralaferrara.com/ https://www.instagram.com/taralaferrara/

YouTube: @TaraLaferrara

TikTok: @taralaferrara

Most women spend more time waiting to feel ready than they spend actually building. Waiting until the plan makes sense. Waiting until the timing is right. Waiting until there is enough proof that it is going to work before they will let themselves believe it will. And in the meantime, the thing they want—the body, the business, the version of themselves they can almost see—stays exactly where it is.

Jaime Schmidt did not wait. She started Schmidt's Naturals while pregnant, bootstrapped, making deodorant in mason jars and selling it at a Portland farmers market. She hand-delivered six-stick wholesale orders across town for thirty dollars. When the product stained a customer's shirt, she asked them to mail it to her, washed it, and sent it back. Seven years later, she sold to Unilever—30,000 retailers, 30 countries. She had no ten-year plan. She had an unwavering belief that if anyone could figure it out, it was her, and she built everything from there.

Jaime Schmidt is the founder of Schmidt's Naturals, one of the most recognized natural personal care brands in the world. She is the author of Supermaker: Crafting Business on Your Own Terms, an investor through her fund Color, and a strength training convert who started lifting at 46 and has been watching her body change in ways she did not expect and cannot stop talking about.

What's Discussed:

(0:00) The only question worth asking before you build anything: are you willing to bet on yourself before you have proof it will work?

(2:31) What it actually means to erase the identity you have built—and why it is the only way to step into who you want to become

(6:13) The origin story: pregnant, bootstrapped, making deodorant in a kitchen in mason jars and selling it at a farmers market

(9:49) Why the sales skills you think you do not have show up the second you believe in what you are selling

(14:28) What happens when you try to make every customer happy—and the moment Jaime realized it was costing her the business

(16:19) The biggest early mistakes: bad hires, locked-in contracts, and what her motto "say yes now, figure out how" actually costs when there are no limits on it

(17:26) Building while bootstrapped with a newborn—what balance actually looked like when it was not pretty

(19:49) The only question worth asking when the grind gets heavy: are you still happy?

(23:34) How she knew it was time to sell to Unilever—and what intuition actually feels like when it keeps showing up

(28:51) What came after: writing Supermaker, launching Color, and what identity looks like when it expands instead of ending

(39:15) Starting strength training at 46—and what two years of consistent lifting built that she did not see coming

(46:00) Why it is never too late—in the gym or anywhere else—if you are willing to show up

(51:13) Manifestation, visualization, and the delusional belief that actually works

Want a simple place to start fueling for the body you are building? Grab Broads' FREE Macronutrient Guide: The Balanced Plate Blueprint at broads.app/macronutrient-guide.

Learn more about Broads:

https://www.broads.app/

https://www.instagram.com/broads.podcast/

https://www.instagram.com/broads.app/

Check out more from Tara LaFerrara:

https://www.taralaferrara.com/

https://www.instagram.com/taralaferrara/

YouTube: @TaraLaferrara

TikTok: @taralaferrara

Check out more from Jaime Schmidt:

Instagram: @jaimeschmidt

Supermaker: Crafting Business on Your Own Terms https://supermaker.com/book

Learn more about Jamie at https://www.jaimeschmidt.info/

There is a season every woman hits where life gets full, training keeps getting bumped, meal prep stops happening, and the guilt is somehow louder than everything else on your plate.

And I need that guilt to stop.

Not because I’m being nice, but because it is not based in reality. A disrupted few weeks is not undoing months of work. Your body does not forget that fast. The strength you built is still there. The muscle you earned is still there. The progress you made does not disappear just because your schedule got complicated.

So today, I’m breaking down how to get results training less in a busy season. We’re talking about what your workouts actually need to do when you only have two or three of them, what to lean on outside the gym when training drops off, and how to come back without trying to punish yourself for the sessions you missed. Less than normal is not zero, babe. And the version of your routine that fits your life right now still counts.

What’s Discussed:

(0:00) Why busy seasons make women spiral and why the guilt is not based in reality

(2:00) Why missed workouts do not mean you are starting over

(4:30) What your workouts need to do when you only have two or three sessions

(8:30) Why protein, creatine, walking, and the basics matter when training drops off

(13:45) Why one or two weeks off does not mean you lost your muscle

(15:30) Why trying to “make up” missed workouts is the wrong move

(18:30) How to stop treating the routine that fits your life like it is not enough

If you have ever missed a week, barely trained for two, or looked at your calendar and thought, “There is no fucking way I can keep this routine right now,” this episode is going to help you stop turning a busy season into proof that you are failing.  

Find out more from Broads:

Website: www.broads.app

Instagram: @broads.podcast @broads.app

BroadsCOACH: Head to www.broads.app/broadscoach and apply for BroadsCOACH.

Resources Mentioned:

Macronutrient Guide: Want a simple place to start fuelling for the body you're building? Grab Broad’s FREE Macronutrient Guide: The Balanced Plate Blueprint at https://www.broads.app/macronutrient-guide.

Check out more from Tara LaFerrara:

Website: www.taralaferrara.com

Instagram: @taralaferrara

YouTube: @TaraLaferrara

Tiktok: @taralaferrara