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Brianna Battles  00:01

Welcome to the Practice Brave podcast. I am the host Brianna Battles, founder of pregnancy and postpartum athleticism, and CEO of Everyday Battles. I’m a career strength and conditioning coach, entrepreneur, mom of two wild little boys and a lifelong athlete. I believe that athleticism does not end when motherhood begins, and this podcast is dedicated to coaching you by providing meaningful conversations, insights and interview topics related to fitness, mindset, parenting and of course, all the nuances of pregnancy and postpartum, from expert interviews to engaging conversations and reflections. This podcast is your trustworthy, relatable resource for learning how to practice brave through every season in your life.

Brianna Battles  00:51

Everyone, welcome back to the practice brave podcast today. I’m doing a solo episode

Brianna Battles  00:56

to kick off 2026 now there is always so much going on at this time of year in my own life, obviously, really going full send into all things for pregnancy and postpartum athleticism, but that’s every year for the last decade plus. What’s different about this year is my family and I have opened a jiu jitsu gym in our local community of Eagle, Idaho, and that has been about a year long process of trying to bring it to life, from buying a mixed use facility and turning that into a gym the last few months has been a significant process, but it’s one that, like we’re really excited about, And it’s just a cool way to, I guess, extend the value of entrepreneurship and of doing something that you love to our children. Now it’s mostly going to be jared’s jared’s business. He’s managing most of it. But of course, being somebody who loves jiu jitsu and loves business, and this is a big part of our family, it will also be something that I am involved with and attached to, and I think it’s just a really great way to showcase the ability to, you know, take what you love, what you’re interested in, and pursue it as a career. And that is been something I’ve been really lucky to do through pregnancy and postpartum athleticism and really caring about the longevity of female athletes and integrating the motherhood experience into it, how that’s such a significant transformation. That’s something I will always care about, something I’ll always identify with, which is why it’s been easy to sustain the pregnancy and postpartum athleticism brand for honestly, about 12 years now, since that started, once I became a mom, and now I’m really excited to share entrepreneurship and business and something that we can all grow in as a family with battles jujitsu. So if you haven’t been following along that process, go check it out on Instagram. It’s at battles Jiu Jitsu. So I wanted to talk to you today about this time of year because, like, obviously, there’s a lot going on in my life, but every single mom I talk to right now feels like we’ve just gone full cent into 2026 coming off the holiday season. And I don’t know about you, but I had a really hard time just doing anything consistently through the holidays. It was the entire month of December was filled with travel, with eating, out of routine, with just like the extra layer of responsibility and stress and and things to figure out. I just my routine was so sporadic, and it just felt like really not myself and not in my body. And so coming into this new year, it’s really easy to want to just go all in and start dieting or start a new exercise program or sign up for a race. And while it’s really great to have resolutions and goals, I find that a lot of people struggle with sustaining that. And I know this is not new news to anybody, but I feel like when you have an athlete brain and you’re really driven like that, and you get derailed at different points of time through the year. Specifically, the holiday season can be a time where we we all get a little bit we’re just out of routine, even if it’s not all or nothing. For me, this year, it was a lot of it was a lot of nothing. For the last few weeks of December, it is still easy to get back into a routine. I tell people like, I’m kind of an object that needs to stay in motion, whether it’s oftentimes it’s a lot of motion, but for the most part, it’s really hard for me to lose momentum. And I know that this is something I love, this is my job, this is something I believe in. And yet it’s still really easy to get into that all or nothing mindset, and this time of year, tends to ask for the all that full send of going like into the extremes and maybe not being comfortable in what your body looks like. Maybe you feel bloated, or you’ve been sick and been sidelined. Either way, it’s really easy to be like, All right, I’m getting my shit. Together now, you know, and there’s a healthy way to do that, and I want to share what I’m doing. I want to share what I encourage a lot of the women in my programs to do, and in my community in general, because I understand the athlete mom mentality. We are high achieving in a lot of different categories of life. And so when you feel like you’ve been sidelined again, whether it’s from holiday or from travel or from sickness or whatever it might be, there is a healthy way to start. So I want to tell you about what I’m doing, and almost like this five step framework that whenever I get in a season where I’ve just been out of routine and feeling a little bit derailed. This is what I do to, like, hack myself. I want to start with, I intentionally walk one mile a day, like it’s just it taking that time to go take a lap, whether it’s on a treadmill or go outside for one mile. That is something that absolutely counts. And if you can’t do a mile, tell yourself, like, I’m gonna go walk for 10 minutes, 10 minutes where it’s an intentional effort to walk. And I was talking to my girlfriends over the holidays where it’s like between normal working out, and we remember car pulling all over the place, getting kids to school and sports and this and that. Like, where your attention is in other places. Sometimes it’s hard to have that dose of time to go walk for one mile. So if you can’t walk once a day for one mile, I go once a day for like, 10 minutes or something where you just go and you’re making an intentional effort to walk. I don’t know if you can hear me right now, but I’m actually slowly walking on my treadmill, if you can, hopefully it’s not, not too loud, but again, it’s just a way to get in some movement when it’s easy to be more sedentary, especially if you work from home, bad of butter during this time of year. Just something to keep in mind. So that’s the one. Moving into number two is about lifting two days per week. If you’re like me, you come from a background where, like, it wouldn’t be abnormal to be lifting, like, five days a week, six days a week, if not more, like, where it’s always, like this resistance training is filtered into your training matter what you’re doing, but sometimes we need, like, the like, minimum effective dose. And I feel as if, when you’re entering a season, maybe it’s coming back after, you know, you’ve had a baby or an injury, or you’ve just been out of routine for a while, the minimum effective dose can be lifting twice a week. It could be lower body one day, upper body the next day, or mixed body both the days. But just getting into that routine of twice a week is really, really helpful for just getting back into challenging your muscles, challenging your joints, doing something that is actually that you can commit to. That is the hard part, I think, is we want to go home and go to the gym five days a week, but then the baby was up all night and they’re sick, and then, just like, there’s always something that comes in and derails when we have that really might go more rigid goal. So we have to start small, and then we can scale appropriately over time, once we establish our routine again, once we establish a rhythm. So two good, high quality lifting sessions a week, and you can get that done in like 30 minutes. It does not have to be this hour, hour and a half long training session like maybe you used to do, or you wish you could do. There’s still so much that can be get done where you’re still challenging, your muscles, your joints, your mind, all in like that 30 to 40 minute time frame. The third hack, which, again, none of this is revolutionary. I’m just trying to share, like a way of going about thinking about this is getting protein in three times a day, so like breakfast, lunch, dinner. And I know it doesn’t seem like a lot, but getting in 20 to 30 grams ish can make a really big difference in how you feel and how your digestion operates, how you feel in your training, your recovery, all of that. And it’s easy to just kind of like, fail and kind of guesstimate, like, I just had like, an egg, or I had a little bit at lunch or a little bit of dinner. And it’s easy to dismiss that sometimes, but when you make the intentional effort of like, I know I really want to make sure, even if, like, the rest of the day, other stuff comes up, or we go out to dinner, or we do this or that, most days you are getting a solid dose of protein at breakfast, lunch and dinner, or at least three times, three concentrated times throughout the day.

Brianna Battles  09:34

Number four is get sweaty four times a week. So that can look like getting your heart rate up through a cardio session, like going on a run or maybe doing like a 10 Minute am wrap. It could mean going in the sauna this time of year, sometimes it’s really hard to get sweaty, depending on where you live, like I’m in Idaho, and while we’ve had decent weather this winter, it’s still like sweating as easily now I can do it at Jiu Jitsu. Of course, that’s always. Really helpful, but we need to sweat. We need to experience that. And so whether it’s like an intentional cardio, cardio session, or it’s getting in the sauna, just getting sweaty, four ish times a week in the way that you prefer can really make a big difference, especially in your mental health. So keep that in mind. And then number five is a five minute spiritual slash mental health practice per day. This is going to look different for every single person. I don’t know whether you’re religious or if you’re spiritual or whatever it might be, if you’re just managing a lot in your mind and in your own self development, this can be really game changing for like, adapting, adapting like how you show up in life and how you feel and how you operate, coming from a place of checking in and being a little bit more self aware, that will have tremendous impact on how You feel in your exercise, in your training, in your role health and fitness routine. If we address the mental side of how we are showing up, it does have a direct influence on how we are physically able to show up, how we’re emotionally able to show up in our families. So again, this does not have to be a a single routine. It’s just that five minutes of practice where you’re checking with yourself, or if you’re religious, maybe that’s praying or doing something associated with your religion. Maybe that is just writing stuff down. It’s an expression of gratitude. It’s something throughout the day where at least one you take five minutes in the morning, or five minutes at night, or whenever it comes to mind, where there is five minutes where you give a little extra attention to your mental and spiritual side of things can really make a big difference. Not something that I started actively incorporating about a year ago, and I feel like it was very helpful throughout all the different challenges and and whatnot that I’ve experienced this past year. And so I just wanted to share that five step framework, coming off of a very big year, seeing into a new year, and we all have different seasons of life that are challenging, or seasons of life that are asking more of us and how we want to show up, and sometimes our fitness and our health gets put on the back burner, whether it’s by choice or by circumstance. Obviously, there are so many instances throughout motherhood where that could happen, or there can be an injury, there’s a setback, maybe, like pregnancy or is different than what you thought it was going to be. Your postpartum is different than what you thought it would be. Or Now your kids are in sports, and that has totally thrown your routine up in the air. Maybe you’re like me and opening and starting another business, and you’re having to acclimate to everything that is new. And we will experience this like our life will continually evolve. Our demands continually evolve as our family evolves, as our careers evolve, and as we evolve, so being able to, like, when all of these new changes start coming up, being able to dial in, like, what we actually have control of, and how we can sustain those things is really, really key. And again, I get why it’s so like there’s such a desperation to, you know, feel more like yourself when you’ve been in a season of different or a season of that feels like a setback, or you’ve just been so out of routine, and, you know, dive straight into the extremes. But I would like to encourage you to keep it very simple, because that’s what is sustainable, and it’s not just about what you’re able to do through the month of January or in the first few months of the year to get to a baseline. It’s what you are doing and able to keep doing a year from now, and habits and a way of thinking that will set you up for what I like to refer to as your lifetime of athleticism. It’s not just about this current season. It’s about knowing how to manage all of the different curve balls, all of the different seasons of starting over, of changes, of redirects, of burnout, of whatever it might be. And just like dosing the you’re dosing your capacity, because that will change as time goes on, as an athlete, mom, as a coaching professional, as a professional in any capacity, it will change over time. So knowing how to manage your own expectations and manage your relationship with your fitness, your training, your nutrition, your body, instead of having that all or nothing mindset that so many of us are inclined for like, we kind of default to because it’s that’s like, what’s easy, that’s what we know, but being able to go back and check in with yourself, and that’s why I like that five step framework, because when in doubt, do I know that I am doing at least a once a day, I. Walk of any like, honestly, aim for a mile, but it can be five minutes, if that’s like, if it’s but it’s intentional. It’s not you just getting your normal steps in. It’s taking that one time a day effort to go on a quick, quick walk. Some days you might have a little bit more time to give a walk than others, but it’s that one effort per day, and then it’s twice a week lifting, because other things might come up again, like your normal morning session might get totally derailed, and then you’re having to do a lunchtime session now, or a bedtime kids are in bed, and now it’s time to lift. But you know that? Okay, I just got to figure this out. Twice a week, twice a week during this season of life, or during this month, when it’s crazy or whatever I’ve been I haven’t worked out in so long. Okay, we’ll start here twice a week. You know that you can commit to, like, a 30 to 40 minute training session three times a day. You’re thinking about getting in your protein. We’re just keeping it simple, a protein source three times a day, and then four times a week, trying to get sweaty in any different capacity, cardio, sauna, otherwise, and then five minutes a day of just checking in with yourself so that you can manage all of the different changes that you’re navigating, like all of them, keep yourself healthy. Not everybody has access to therapy. Not everybody can, you know, sauna, then cold punch and then write in your gratitude journal and have this whole, like, you know, biohacking routine. I certainly cannot do that in the mornings, but one thing I can do is just be a little bit more mindful and trying to, like, use that five minutes be mindful every day. Does make a big difference over time. Now, this sounds too much for you. Pick like one of these things, right? Pick like one or two of these things that you feel like you can realistically commit to, and that can make a really big difference in your 2026 especially your 2026 warm up period, which has been right now with January kicking off. And we have so much in our face, so much temptation to, you know, kind of fall into that all or nothing extreme, either, like we’re still in the like f everything,

Brianna Battles  17:02

like era coming off of the holidays, or we’re now trying to go full send into getting getting it together. Just know that keeping it simple is what will sustain you and give you the most results and the most most benefit to your health. Long term, we have to show up in a lot of ways. This conversation is not just about being a good athlete or being like the fittest version of yourself. It is about being healthy from the inside out and being able to show up for our life and our other responsibilities that are just as important as our identity and our interests as an athlete. I know this is not always easy to to navigate. So I just wanted to check in with that kind of episode to kick off the new year. It’s just really simple, something that I’m doing personally, something that I share with my community. And if you’re looking for a program to support you right now, you can join the practice brave fitness program at any point in time. That’s my strength leadership program for athlete moms, and this program like, doesn’t really get as much attention as all other programs like pregnancy and postpartum. Programs like those get a lot of attention. But there’s also this season of like, well, like, now what? What am I ready for? What can I sustain long term? What can I do to still feel like an athlete, but in a way that it like compliments my body, my lifestyle, my time, my capacity, my interest, all of that stuff, because those things can sometimes change during motherhood. So I created this program years ago, actually, when covid happened and I had to shut down my women’s strength conditioning class that I was coaching a few times a week when I was living in California. I put the workouts online, and people had been asking me for years to do that, so it finally created a catalyst program, which was the practice brave fitness program. So I’m really excited that this program has been going strong for years now. We have a great community, and it’s just a well rounded strength conditioning program. It’s going to complement your life as an athlete who has other sport and hobby and fitness interest, but also will like, keep you strong and healthy and ready for those both your sport and your hobbies, but also like your in your health and your needs as a as a woman and as a mother. So if that’s something that you’re interested in, we’ll leave a link for that program in the show notes so that you can check it out. Otherwise, I just really encourage you to stick to that five, five step framework, and even just a couple of the steps that maybe like resonated with you again, that’s what I’m doing. It’s just a great way to kind of find your rhythm again, get into routine, and then establish something that that feels like you can be consistent with and it will all add up over time. So thank you so much for listening. I hope you all have a great New Year, and I’m excited for all of the things to come, all of the different guests we’re gonna have on our podcast this year, and quite a few announcements coming soon. Thanks so much.

Brianna Battles  19:56

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the practice brave podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review and help us spread the work we are doing to improve the overall information and messaging in the fitness industry and beyond. Now, if you are pregnant and you are looking for a trustworthy exercise program to follow, I have you covered. The pregnant athlete training program is a well rounded program for pregnancy with workouts for each week that are appropriate for your changing body. That’s 36 weeks of workouts, three to four workouts each week, and tons of guidance on exercise strategy. We also have an at home version of that program. If you are postpartum and you’re looking for an exercise program to follow, the eight week postpartum athlete training program would be a really great way to help bridge the gap between rehab and the fitness you actually want to do. From there, we have the practice brave fitness program, which is an ongoing strength conditioning program where you get new workouts each week and have a lot of guidance for myself and my co coach, Heather Osby. This is the only way that I’m really offering ongoing coaching at this point in time. If you have ever considered becoming a certified pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach, I would love to have you join us. Pregnancy and postpartum athleticism is a self paced online certification course that will up level your coaching skills and help connect the dots between pelvic health and long term athletic performance, especially during pregnancy and postpartum, become who you needed and become who your online and local community needs by becoming a certified pregnancy and postpartum athleticism Coach, thank you again for listening to the practice brave podcast. I appreciate you, and please help me continue spreading this messaging, this information and this work.