Matt: I am a strong believer that the work that you and your team at Girls Gone Strong are doing is some of the most important work in the industry today. Your team recently reached 100,000 likes on FB and launched a resource providing strength training education and programs for women. Now that you can finally breathe how is everything going?

Molly: Absolutely! First of all, thank you. We think what we’re doing is extremely important. Girls Gone Strong was started about three years ago by a group of 6-7 women in the fitness industry who were all very passionate about getting good information to women. The group came together very naturally when we we’re watching one of the girls at a powerlifting competition. We wanted to get together for a lifting session and it eventually turned into something a lot bigger. The group realized that by coming together and combining each of our unique perspectives we could build that would have a lot of value. We ended up building a community for women who were interested in learning about not only strength training, but about living their best life. You can come to GGS to learn how to squat properly, what the best type of yoga is to complement strength training, how estrogen dominance affects their fat loss, etc. We wanted it to be an all encompassing website because we felt like there wasn’t a good resource out there that took women from A to Z with strength training and the other aspects of fitness.

Obviously strength training is important, but that’s not all women need to look good and feel good, which is what we’ve found that the large majority of our community is looking for. Of course there’s going to women who want to be top-level powerlifters and others who want to do Ironman triathlons and such, but in general the majority of women simply want to feel strong and capable with fitness enhancing their life instead of becoming their life. We wanted to put together a resource through GGS that did that with the Modern Woman’s Guide to Strength Training. I always tell people you can’t just lift, you can’t just run, you can’t just stretch, you know? There’s a formula to looking and feeling good which has several different elements. For example, learning how to master your breathing is part of the resource, we talk about foam rolling and soft tissue work, and warmups beyond just walking on the treadmill for a couple minutes. Strength training is the cornerstone of what we do, but everything else that we add complements it. We’ve built in the energy system and cardio portions as well, which are quite different from what you’ll see from those who believe that cardio is the end all in fitness (not our style). We’ve seen individuals who were able to lose fat without any cardio as all, but we weren’t going to leave it out because there are great health benefits from building an aerobic base. Being able to recover quicker between sets and workout sessions along with improving your sleep quality. We incorporated HIIT work and made sure to incorporate breathing work at the end of workout so they can leave the gym feeling nice and relaxed just like Yoga classes do. Long story short, we felt like we wanted an extremely comprehensive resource that gave women everything they needed no matter if they were just getting started or looking to fill in the gaps with their current training. Obviously I could talk about this for another 45 minutes because I love it so much (laughing), but we were extremely happy to put this resource out there to help women for a long time.

Matt: The fact that several great minds came together at a powerlifting competition and eventually resulted in this awesome resource is incredibly cool. My girlfriend is going through the Guide right now and loves it. What were some of the big lessons learned from going through the process of putting the resource together and getting it out to the world?

Molly: The biggest lesson I learned is that I actually can function on less than 45 mins of sleep a night for three months straight (laughing). It was incredible. It was so much more involved than I ever would have imagined.

What I’ve realized is that if you want to reach a large audience then marketing is a critical element to getting your message out there. Personally I feel that I have a moral obligation to get my information to as many people as possible. In order to do that you have to figure out how to best position yourself and your product to spread the message as far as you can. For me this was huge. I had a online software in the past for people to help people customize a nutrition and training program that matched their life which was very cutting edge for 2006, but we didn’t know how to market it. We spent ridiculous amounts of money building this incredible resource and no one ever bought it because we literally thought if we build it they will come. It wasn’t able to grow or evolve because we didn’t know how to market it at the time.

The other piece was that putting together a resource like this took wayyyy more time than I thought. We had a team of 7-8 people working on it for four months, 2-3 people working on it for nine months, and in the last month about 5-6 other people joined to start helping. I now see why no one else had done it before because it was a huge product.

Matt: I think that’s so interesting. Obviously the fitness market has been flooded with eproducts over the last 10 years, but there are still huge gaps that still exist. Your team worked incredibly hard to fill one of the biggest in my opinion and the product deserved to be marketing like crazy because of the impact it could have. Much more so than the 20th ebook released highlighting new Tabata style workouts.

Molly: Oh yeah. The team worked thanklessly for months and I was just lucky enough to be able to be at a point in my life where I could do something like this. I couldn’t have done this when I was running the gym that I founded or at some other place in my life. Other people can poo-poo the marketing side of things, but there’s a reason that P90x has reached millions of people. We don’t have to think that it’s the best program (and of course I don’t), but they reached that many people because they know what to do when it comes to marketing. Since we wanted to get our information to as many people as possible we had to do what it took to get eyes on it.

Matt: Well thank you for doing that because I’ve looked at it and it looks amazing. How has the GGS community reacted to the Guide so far?

Molly: The response has been absolutely overwhelming. The best products and services that are created only take place because there is a need for them. I was getting blown up with emails and FB messages asking for help. These women were saying that they loved what we were doing and didn’t know where to start. Even last night I had a young 20 year old woman emailing me last night at 1am who goes to the gym and wasn’t confident enough to get started strength training. Before I would have spent 45 minutes writing her this big long email to do this first, then watch these 25 Youtube videos, then read this blog. Now I can just say tell her to skip eating out for a little bit and purchase this resource. I can be confident in that the product I’m selling her is exactly what she needs and will be worth 20x the value of what she actually pays for it. Working with me, for example, for just one session would cost about the same as she’s paying for the guide. With purchasing it she now has all of our knowledge telling her exactly what to do. The way that she, or any other, can take this information and scale it is huge.

There were a couple things that we adjusted due to the feedback we got. When we first launched the guide we had a couple different videos on there and the strength training exercise videos were stuck in a 55 minute video block without labels or anything. I don’t know why I thought that people would sit down for close to an hour to watch all of these at one time. When people starting asking how to find select exercises within the video we knew adjustments had to be made. Because of the feedback we immediately turned around and went to our videographer to fix the problem. The exercises are split now and well organized so our customers can find the exact video they want quickly. With all the good feedback that we got it would have been really easy to sit back and be happy, but instead we said, ‘There’s 98% of people that love it. What can we do for the other 2%?’ Of course we couldn’t change everything, but anything that aligned with our approach we made sure to improve. We wanted anyone who purchased this to think it was the greatest thing they’ve ever bought, which is why the community has responded so well.

Matt: I love that you’re labeling it as a long-term investment because that’s exactly what it is. Unfortunately it takes a lot longer than it should to find the right information in the fitness industry. For my brother and myself we started off in the high school gym, then we read Muscle & Fitness magazines, and then after finding T-Nation we eventually found those few trainers/coaches who we really resonated with. In a perfect world someone is introduced to a resource like the Modern Women’s Guide to Strength Training while they are in their early learning stages. The long-term benefits from starting out with the great information would give that person a big head start for the rest of their life.

Molly: Exactly, they can skip all the fluff. Luckily I was introduced to T-Nation and EliteFTS back in 2004, which was really cool. I found a lot of great information from established strength coaches at that time. Fast-forward to 08-09 I was being introduced to Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson. In January of 2010 I even started working with Mike Robertson and have been benefitting from his expertise for 4 ½ years now. It’s cool because I’ve been exposed to the powerlifting side of things, I competed in bodybuilding and figure, the PT and corrective side, and the nutrition side. I’ve literally got to see all the different silos of fitness that exist which allowed me to put together what I think would match what most women want for the longest period of time.

When we started Girls Gone Strong we realized it was like Crossfit in a way. We started out and attracted people that were like us. Then we started to attract people who wanted to be like us. Our goal is to eventually attract those who don’t even know that they want to be like us. Crossfit started out as this community of hardcore people and now they have grandmothers participating. These people might not even really know what it is, but they walk in and find something they like that they never knew they were looking for. GGS had to build a tribe of people like us so that we could turn around and reach out to more people than ever before. That’s what we’ll keep working towards. That community of like-minded women who want to look good and feel good. Women who feel strong, capable, and confident for as long as possible.

Matt: You’ve become an inspiration to many women in the space. My girlfriend, for example, is a young personal trainer and loves your work. What advice do you have for the young women getting started in the fitness industry?

Molly: Thank you! That’s so cool and means so much to me because I was in that position around six years ago. I’ve been into strength training since 2004, but it was a slow evolution that eventually grew into something more.

First and foremost, find a mentor. Someone that you can intern with, pay to train you, or whatever it takes to surround yourself with the smartest and best people out possible. That’s always going to be my recommendation. I’ve had incredible mentors in the industry and I’ve learned so much from them. These people have been in the industry for 15-20 years and you get to learn in a short period everything that they’ve distilled down from their experience. Personally I feel that my education was fast tracked because these coaches would hand me these sweet packets of information that included all the mistakes that they made.

Just to add to that, look for as many sources of information as possible. I remember back in 06 or 07 I went back to T-nation and scrolled through the archives and created a new tab for every single article that I wanted to read. Literally for weeks at a time I would spend 2-3 hours a night comparing what coaches were saying about similar topics. What do all these different people have to say that came from all these different areas of coaching and strength training? I got to the point where I developed a really good filter and that filter takes years to develop. When it’s developed it tells you why that person is saying what they are saying. It tells you why very intelligent strength coaches can be saying something seemingly opposite thing and neither of them are as wrong or contradictory as you think. You learn why Mike Boyle doesn’t do back squats with his people. You understand why Louie Simmons is obsessed with the reverse hyper. You just get this filter that tells you this is why they say it, this is their background, and most importantly what pieces can actually be applied to my clients.

Lastly, read and absorb as much as you can. Comb sites such as Girls Gone Strong and other great resources. Learn in person from other great coaches. Go to seminars, which can be expensive, but very worth it. Almost every intelligent person in the industry spends the money to go to these seminars and meet the people you chat with online. If you’re interested in getting your name out there (some people are, some people aren’t) starting a blog and getting information out is critical. Even if you don’t feel like you have a lot of information to put out there are thousands of people like you who are in the same position. You can say ‘Hey, I’m just getting started. Come on this journey with me. Do you want to hear about my struggles as someone who’s learning in the fitness industry. Do you want to hear about how excited I was to go to this seminar and meet this person.’ There will always be people resonate with you and your story even if you feel if you’re not an expert in the field yet.

Matt: Where do you see yourself and Girls Gone Strong going in the next couple years?

Molly: Great question. If I knew the answer to that I would be much calmer than I am (laughing). I look at Molly Galbraith and Girls Gone Strong as separate entities. My site is personality driven. It’s more about me and what’s going on in my life. There’s more of a body image, mindset, self-love, compassion twist to it….which even I didn’t know for a while. If you go back and look at my blog archive you’ll see my writing about kroc rows, safety bar front squats, powerlifting, and pretty much everything because I didn’t quite know who I was yet. I just started writing, you know? There wasn’t an amazing plan or strategy to it all. In fact, if I look at my analytics and stuff one of the things that drives the most people to my website is protein shakes (laughing). I did a blog on protein shakes recipes and it drives so much traffic, which is funny because I don’t even advocate protein shakes that much. For certain populations sure, but it’s really not a big part of what I do. You just kinda start writing. What I found about a year ago is that what people liked from me was helping women discover what their best body looks like with minimal time and effort, teaching them to embrace their bodies, and just being good to themselves. If they don’t love themselves now they won’t love themselves when they’re ten pounds lighter.

For Girls Gone Strong we are going to continue to be the authority for women’s fitness. We want to provided anything and everything that people want to know about females living their best and healthiest life on GGS. Whether that’s strength training, good information on supplements, cardio, menstrual cycle, pregnancy, or whatever you should be able to find it here. We plan on continuing to put out the best content possible on our website and see where it grows from there.

If you’d like to follow Molly and Girls Gone Strong go to the links below:

– Molly’s website/blog and Twitter.

– Girls Gone Strong website/blog, FB page, and Twitter.

Note from Matt – There are no affiliate links in this post.