I recently posted on Facebook that I just had one of the biggest accomplishments of my personal training career: I got my grandma to start strength training. Inevitably, someone asked me how I did it. To which I replied, “significant psychological manipulation.”

Yes, I said it very tongue-in-cheek, but make no mistake about it – it was difficult. It took years, and eventually, I thought that it would have such a significant impact on her health that I better figure out how to get her to “buy in” to the concept of strength training.

In this article, I outline the obstacles standing in the way of my grandma strength training, as well as the tactics and strategies that I used to finally get her to do it.

And if you want to see her do some exercises, they’re below. Isn’t she a cutie petutie? 😉

Obstacle #1: I’m Too Unhealthy

            Yes, my grandma is 71, but she has the health of someone much, much older – diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, arthritis, and probably other things I don’t even know about.

She’s afraid that a change to her routine (of sitting on her couch most of the day, and on occasion, going for a walk to the grocery store and back) would make her worse. Nonsense.

But hey, why listen to me? After all, what do I know about health and fitness? I just wrote 4 books, and 400 articles on the topic. No big deal.

As the baby, I have no credibility. No matter my age, no matter what awards I win, no matter what books I publish. A baby can’t possibly know anything about health and fitness. OK.

So I pulled up some videos of Russian-speaking people with arthritis strength training, and feeling better because of it. Some more people with osteoporosis that were able to strengthen their bones with strength training (I know, I know. It’s crazy to think that you can strengthen bones with strength training. Strange things happen).

Now that made an impression. Now her impression wasn’t any longer me trying to convince her. Now, her impression was that these are her peers, with nothing to sell, who don’t know her, extolling the virtues of strength training.

Obstacle #2: I’m Too Old

Although my grandma isn’t really “old” in the true sense of the word (she’s only 71), she came from a country (Soviet Union) where life expectancy was much lower than Canada. So yeah, by those standards, 71 is old.

And when I show her exercises, she says “but you’re young, you can do that. When you get to be my age, then we’ll talk.” Great attitude, grandma.

How did I try to convince her? By telling her that I’ve worked with lots of clients her own age. This isn’t me doing it – it’s her peers doing it.

Too bad that it didn’t work. Still not convinced. Never mind that I gave her specific case studies of clients her age and older that we’ve worked with, and got great results, like Gord, Carole, Bruce and Faye, etc. She wouldn’t have it.

So I had an idea: why don’t I show her videos of people her age, her background, and who aren’t models or athletes strength training. So I went through Youtube, found 3-4 videos of Russian people in their 70s and 80s, who were strength training, and singing the praises of it.

Now my grandma’s impression: “I want to go buy some elastic bands for strength training.”

Me telling her to do it: 10 years. Three or four videos showing her people her age exercising: a total of 11 minutes. Boy, am I glad I spent 10 years lecturing her. Not.

In any case, we had a small victory.

Obstacle #3: My Joints Hurt

            So yes, my grandma does have arthritis, and as a side effect of certain medications that she’s taking, she has pain in her elbow, shoulder, back, and knee. Just a short list.

We had to find a way for strength training to be challenging to the muscles, but easy on the joints.

No problem. That’s kind of our forte, and I even wrote an article about joint-friendly strength training.

So I had my grandma try an exercise, and if it bothered her, I would make the small changes outlined in that article, and now, the exercise was no longer an issue, and could be performed properly.

Obstacle #4: I Don’t Have Time

Now that is a big fat lie, if there ever was one. My grandma is retired. She has no hobbies. She sits most of the day, watching TV, or talking to other tenants in her building, or grocery shopping. She has all the time in the world.

But hey, the “I don’t have time” excuse is legitimate in her mind, even if it isn’t in mine.

So I came up with a routine for her that is literally 4 minutes long. At first. I gave her the fewest exercises that work the most muscles.

Was this routine highly effective? No, you can’t get a lot done in 4 minutes, but the point here isn’t so much effectiveness. Not at first, anyway. The point is just to get her to carve 4 minutes out of her day, 3-4 times per week to do this routine.

After a few weeks of consistently doing this, we bumped it up to about 8 minutes, and at that point, she started to see some changes.

Obstacle #5: I Forgot

            If strength training hasn’t been part of your life for 71 years, and you’re just working it into your routine, you just forget. There was an easy solution to that one: I call my grandma every morning, and now that she had her routine, I reminded her to do it 3-4 times per week.

Plus, when I would come visit her, I would actually watch her do her exercises, to make sure that she’s making progress, and that her technique is still good.

Obstacle #6: Why Should I Do It?

            This obstacle kind of floored me. I was flabbergasted to say the least. As if the list of benefits as it pertains to my grandma isn’t long enough:

Nope. Not good enough. Not strong enough motivators. But I did notice something: she was starting to complain to me that her arms are getting flabby.

Ah-ha! I now had my “hook point.” Forget telling her that strength training will make her healthier – that wasn’t working. I told her that it would tighten up her arms. It worked. We went to buy elastic bands (I’ll elaborate on why elastic bands, and not weights in the next point).

Obstacle #7: I Don’t Like Weights

OK, so my grandma has this image in her mind that anyone who lifts weights is an athlete, and young. She didn’t fit into either category, so that “wasn’t for her”, as she said. She had 3-pound dumbbells at home, and that’s all that she could see herself lifting. Never mind that she could do those dumbbells more than 30 times, and it really wasn’t a challenge for her. No. Anything over 3 pounds is “too heavy.”

Obviously, this was a mental block, not a physical one.

Fortunately, elastic bands don’t intimidate her the way weights do. Fine. Whatever gets the job done. We bought elastic bands, and I showed her some exercises with them. My estimate is that the average amount of tension in the elastic bands in different exercises is 15-25 pounds (depending on the exercise). But hey, 15 pounds in a dumbbell is intimidating. Fifteen pounds in an elastic band is not. Whatever.

Of course, she asked me how much weight I thought she was lifting with an elastic band, and I said “probably about 5 pounds.” But let’s keep that between you and me, OK? 😉

Oh man! That was such a long list of obstacles/excuses that I’m tired from writing this article. But in the end, it’s worth it.

And this, my friend is how you too can use significant psychological manipulation to get a significant other to strength train.