Katie Sonier, a renowned fitness trainer and influencer, showcases her weightlifting prowess on Instagram, inspiring many with her rigorous sessions. In a recent video captioned "We in the kitchen," Sonier demonstrates her commitment to fitness through intense weightlifting routines. According to ACE Fitness, lifting heavy weights significantly enhances intramuscular coordination and activates large muscle fibers, crucial for muscle growth and strength. Sonier emphasizes the importance of setting performance goals, stating in her post, "I like to always have performance goals I’m working for in my training. It helps keep me ‘motivated’ & helps me continue to challenge myself year after year... If we don’t have things we’re working for, we get bored. We start trying less. It all can become meaningless. And that’s when we might quit." This philosophy not only drives her forward but also keeps her engaged and progressing in her fitness journey.
1. She Lifts Weights
As you can see from her Instagram post, Sonier likes to lift weights. ACE Fitness states that weightlifting has a lot of benefits. “Using heavy weights increases intramuscular coordination, the number of type II motor units and the amount of muscle fibers engaged within a specific muscle. Have you ever felt your muscles shaking while lifting heavy weights? This is because you are recruiting and activating the larger type II muscle fibers, which are only stimulated to work when a muscle is challenged with heavy resistance or working to fatigue.”
2. She Has Goals
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Sonier likes to set goals to help her stay in shape. She talked about this in the caption of her Instagram post. “I like to always have performance goals I’m working for in my training. It helps keep me ‘motivated’ & helps me continue to challenge myself year after year. You need that if the goal is to keep going. If we don’t have things we’re working for, we get bored. We start trying less. It all can become meaningless. And that’s when we might quit.”
3. She Warms Up
Sonier shared some of her favorite warm up exercises in this Instagram post. She captioned it, “Here’s my current warm up before my upper body training sessions. It’s simple & takes me about 5 minutes. My body felt good after this & I performed our #TWK upper body session well. Something I’ll preach til the end: Skip a set before you skip your warm up 🤝 Racked barbell trap release: like a deep tissue massage, but better maybe. Quadruped t spine rotation: getting movement through that upper back. Back bend: great stretch through the chest, shoulders, hips, and back. Good prep for a bench arch. Quadruped banded scap depression & retraction: I like these to practice movement through my scaps, getting my shoulders both down & back. Also good bench prep.”
4. She Trains Her Hip Flexors
Sonier revealed in this Instagram post’s caption that she likes to train her hip flexors. “What short term decisions do we need to make to keep our bodies as healthy as possible for as long as possible? Here’s an example of what I’m working with right now in my own training: I have hip flexor pain with my barbell back squat stance (deep hip flexion with external rotation under load). So I’m committing to 4 weeks not loading that stance. Instead working with a narrow stance smith machine squat (pain free). And recommitting to strengthening my hip flexors (with these HF raises shown here). Then I’ll reassess how I’m healing.”
5. She Does Chin-Ups
Sonier is seen doing chin-ups in this Instagram video. She captioned it, “It’s chin up day. We had some fails & some wins. I respect my efforts across all sets. Which teaches me to respect myself 🤝 4 sets: Set 1: + 57.5 fail (PR here is + 62.5). Set 2: + 55 x 1 (barely). Set 3: + 50 x 1 (also barely). Set 4: BW x 12 (PR match that I haven’t hit in years).”
