Nov 30, 2024 · 1h 22m · bigdeal
Kim Kardashian’s Personal Trainer: Transform Your Body In 1 Month | Senada Greca
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Fitness trainer and entrepreneur Senada Greca joins Codie Sanchez to break down female-focused strength training, debunk common fitness myths, and share her personal journey from war-torn Albania and severe mental health battles to building global wellness brands.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Codie holds 25.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Codie as informed peer 3.3 Guest teaching 4.6 Guest disagreement 1.5 Codie pushing back 0.5
speaking balance: gold is Codie, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 42:07 Guest rejects steroid accusations harming female fitness
Senada speaks with vehement conviction against commenters falsely accusing her of steroid use, rejecting the toxic implication that natural athletic progression is impossible for women.
Hardest push from Codie ▶ 50:55 Host presses to defend wine consumptionCodie repeatedly challenges the total elimination of alcohol, testing Senada's stance and attempting to find a permissible framing for her evening glass of wine.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 24:32 Guest explains tempo control over lifting speedWhen Codie assumes intense lifting requires fast execution, Senada decisively reframes the premise by showing that slowing down movement increases muscle recruitment.
Codie holds their own ▶ 32:04 Host cites SSRI usage statistics among young womenCodie brings hard epidemiological data into the conversation regarding the 60% rate of SSRI use among young women, grounding the subsequent physical activity discussion.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Codie as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Codie pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mind-Muscle Connection and Glute Activation Fundamentals | 2 | 7 | 1 | 0 | Codie introduces the glute activation topic playfully as a 'normie.' Senada breaks down the biomechanical vectors, sensory touch feedback, and neurological mind-muscle signaling. | |
| Sponsor Segment: Riverside Content Creation Platform | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Begins with an ad read for Riverside, then transitions to an empathetic biographical exploration of Senada's childhood during civil war and rationing in communist Albania. | |
| Immigrating to the United States and Early Responsibility | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Codie asks clarifying questions regarding the political unrest in Albania, while Senada recounts escaping via the green card lottery and taking on family leadership. | |
| Launching the We Rise Platform and Female-Centric Health | 4 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Codie brings up the drawbacks of intermittent fasting for women. Senada affirms this and elaborates on morning cortisol and sympathetic versus parasympathetic nervous system responses. | |
| Morning Nutrition, Creatine Science, and the Bulking Myth | 3 | 6 | 2 | 0 | Senada educates Codie on creatine for cognitive function and dismantles the widespread myth that heavy lifting makes women bulky without exogenous steroids. | |
| Lifting Heavy for Longevity and Calibrating Intensity | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Codie asks how to gauge lifting intensity and pace. Senada corrects the impulse to lift quickly, explaining why slowing down tempo maximizes neurological recruitment. | |
| Training Kim Kardashian and Navigating Celebrity Fitness | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Codie cites antidepressant statistics for young women. Senada offers clinical insights, emphasizing that 150 minutes of weekly activity outperforms pharmacotherapy in long-term efficacy. | |
| Daily Schedule, Authentic Social Media, and Zentoa Apparel | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Codie and Senada discuss apparel entrepreneurship, unit economics, supply chain friction, and maintaining strict manufacturing quality standards for Zentoa. | |
| Efficient Training and Rebutting False Steroid Claims | 3 | 4 | 5 | 0 | Senada displays passionate frustration when addressing false online accusations of steroid use, explaining how it disempowers female trainees by making natural progress seem unattainable. | |
| Chasing Real Dopamine and Daily Non-Negotiables | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Senada breaks down the difference between viral daily routine aesthetics and sustainable non-negotiables like basic strength work and mindfulness. | |
| Overcoming Perfectionism and Building Exercise Discipline | 3 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Senada explains behavioural psychology tactics for gym consistency, emphasizing action before motivation and removing cognitive friction through scheduling. | |
| Dietary Principles, Giving Up Alcohol, and Breathwork | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Codie playfully tests justifications for drinking wine. Senada discusses physiological heart palpitations from alcohol, replacing it with evening walks and breathwork. | |
| Cutting Through Health Noise and Foundational Nutrition | 4 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Codie asks whether to prioritize caloric deficit or eliminate seed oils. Senada advises tackling foundational macronutrient and protein targets before micro-optimizing. | |
| Stress Regulation, Business Operations, and Kim's Work Ethic | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Codie and Senada discuss delegating brand operations and maintaining client focus while training high-profile figures like Kim Kardashian. | |
| Workout Music, Favorite Movements, and Home Gym Must-Haves | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Senada explains why Bulgarian split squats and pull-ups provide maximum full-body compound value, and breaks down essential dumbbell versatility over kettlebell fads. | |
| Quickfire Fitness Choices and the Imperfect Brick Parable | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Codie and Senada engage in mutual vulnerability around perfectionism, using the Buddhist imperfect brick wall parable to reflect on internal self-worth. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Senada Greca: Touching a muscle during exercise triggers neurological activation
“There's also a chemical Process, if you will, that, that happens when you do actually touch. All of a sudden, your brain is like, oh, that's being worked. Like, it's actually a chemical process that's occurring as well, not just the, a woo-woo that I'm touchin…”
Senada Greca: Maximizing workout results requires ditching music for full concentration
“If we're talking about then maximizing like your results and talking about like the nitty gritty, then yes, you'd want to kind of fully concentrate on what you're doing in that particular moment.”
Greca: We Rise app will add career and branding modules in 2025
“Whether that is changing your mindset or navigating through careers, changing careers, or creating your own brand, that's coming in 2025. What we do have now is an expert in habits and a nutritionist expert as well”
Senada Greca: Intermittent fasting disrupts hormones for women in their thirties
“It's not that great, period. If you're, you know, especially when you're hitting your late thirties and early forties, it is just not a good idea because of our hormones. Our hormones are much different than a man's hormones and that can wreak havoc. In our ho…”
Greca: Creatine supports cognitive function and brain health alongside muscle growth
“It turns out that creatine is a pretty important supplement, not just in muscle growth, but in brain health as well. So I have, I've started myself adding creatine to, especially as, you know, get a little bit older, And, you know, we want to really keep that …”
Senada Greca: Women cannot get bodybuilder-bulky from weightlifting without steroids
“Our hormones do not allow us forget to, for us to become that big. Naturally, you know, I'm sure there is Steroids and other anabolics that, like, people can use that can do that, and that's their choice, and maybe that's the fear there, because people see som…”
Greca: Lifting heavy becomes increasingly critical for women as they age
“Weightlifting, it's so important to do right now, or wherever you're at, wherever, whatever point you're at, it is so important, whether you're in your twenties, but then it becomes even more important when you're in like thirties and forties and fifties and s…”
Greca: 'Lifting heavy' means reaching failure at target reps with proper form
“If in a program you're recommended, let's say, 12 reps or eight reps, heavy means going up until that eight or 12 rep, and you're not able to go any further than that. Maybe you have one or two more reps in the tank, but you're basically AKA going to failure. …”
Senada Greca: Kim Kardashian's team hired me by sliding into DMs
“She slid into my DMs, literally. Well, not her, but, you know, her people initially.”
Codie Sanchez: 60% of US women under 30 have taken antidepressants
“For women under 30 in the US, 60% of them at some point in time have been on an SSRI or an antidepressant.”
Senada Greca: 150 weekly exercise minutes is twice as effective as antidepressants
“Just as little as a 150 minutes a week of physical activity can have almost twice as much of the effect as an antidepressant or as a an anxiety medication can have.”
Senada Greca: I still personally create and edit all my social content
“I still manage my own page. I have a few other social media platforms that I'm, I have not given up the controls yet. I manage it. I put the content together. I added the content. So all of what you see is done by me, unless it's something from the We Rise or …”
Senada Greca: Production volume costs make small apparel brands a brutal business
“It's a tough business, especially for a small brand when you're trying to compete with larger brands that can produce tons of units at super low cost, and here you are, you know, producing a fraction at a higher cost, so then you have to pass that on to the co…”
Senada Greca: Margin compression is forcing major apparel brands to cut quality
“Because even those brands are suffering, like just to hear some of the margins that they're having to deal with. It's like, it's, they're suffering. So they're having to cut on quality. They're having to cut corners.”
Greca: Working out twice a day is unnecessary unless bodybuilding
“It's unnecessary. You don't need to be doing two workouts a day. Unless you, that's, You are a bodybuilder, and that's what you're going for.”
Senada Greca: Building businesses means I currently work out less than ever
“Meanwhile, it's like the time in my life when I've worked out the least, if you will. Yeah, I mean, like you were talking about before, meetings take time. As you know, one hour meeting turns into a two hour meeting. Training somebody takes time. It's all of t…”
Senada Greca: Ignore seed oil panics and focus on basic calorie foundations
“I would side with Mike's a little bit on that, in the sense that Let's tackle like the big rock issues, like the easy, the easier issues. And, you know are you eating? What are, what's the calorie amount that you're eating? What's the macro breakdown? Like tho…”
Senada Greca: Zentoa shifted all apparel manufacturing from China to Portugal
“Then we involved them into kind of clearing out and settling that process and the production. In China and moving it to Portugal, where Zentoa is now exclusively being produced.”
Senada Greca: Bulgarian split squats and pull-ups are the ultimate compound exercises
“I would choose a Bulgarian split squat. Because I, because it tackles just like so much of your lower body, like your glutes, your quads to a lesser level, like your hamstrings, and it's a compound because, you know, depending how you're performing it, you kno…”