Episode #370: Dr. Sohee Carpenter on High-Intensity Circuits vs. Traditional Lifting, New Research, and Coaching Her Mom

Barbell Medicine Podcast

Barbell Medicine

Health & Fitness

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this special episode of the Barbell Medicine Podcast, Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum welcomes back friend of the show, Dr. Sohee Carpenter, PhD, to share her latest insights following the completion of her PhD in Sports Science from the Auckland University of Technology.

We dive deep into the research from her recently published paper in the European Journal of Sports Science, exploring a highly relevant question for strength athletes and the general population alike: How do high-intensity circuit training (HICT) and traditional strength training compare?

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Key Topics Covered:

PhD Research Deep Dive: Dr. Carpenter breaks down her study, which compared HICT against traditional resistance training in trained women over an eight-week period. The groups performed the same exercises, sets, and reps, and pushed to similar proximity to failure, with the key difference being the rest periods.
The Results: Find out the surprising, yet encouraging, findings regarding strength gains and muscle growth between the two popular training modalities. The results suggest that for many, personal preference, time constraints, and gym logistics should be the deciding factors for training style—as long as you push close to technical failure.
Circuit Training & Time Efficiency: We discuss why circuit training is a popular option for time efficiency—her study's circuit group completed their sessions in approximately 50-55 minutes, compared to 70-75 minutes for the traditional group.
Coaching Loved Ones: Dr. Carpenter shares her personal experience and advice on training her 64-year-old mother. We cover how she successfully addressed barriers like accountability and self-efficacy, starting with short, positive sessions (initially only 20 minutes) and gradually progressing to longer, more challenging workouts.

Resources:

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and Background

05:02 Research Focus: Circuit Training vs. Traditional Resistance Training

10:00 Study Design and Methodology

14:58 Findings and Implications of the Study

21:36 Optimizing Group Workouts

30:21 Training Family: A Personal Journey

39:40 The Challenge of Progression in Strength Training

41:57 Individual Differences in Training and Motivation

46:00 Overcoming Barriers to Exercise for Older Adults

50:00 Encouraging Loved Ones to Start Exercising

Find Dr. Sohee Carpenter:

Instagram/Social Media: @Soheefit
Website: https://soheefit.com/

Resources Page: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/resources/

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Got pain and need a professional who understands you lift? Or, do you need an experienced coach to help you get the most out of your training? Contact us at [email protected]

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Barbell Medicine podcast where we bring modern medicine to strength conditioning and strength conditioning to modern medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum. And on today's podcast, we have a very special guest, Dr. Sohi Carpenter. She's an evidence-based fitness coach and author based in Los Angeles. She is a friend of the show. She's been on the show before. And I'm going to just list off her CV so you can be as impressed as I am. She has a
0:22.5	bachelor's degree in human biology from Stanford. There's a master's degree in psychology from
0:27.7	Arizona State. And since we previously had her on the podcast in the spring of 2021, she's obtained
0:32.8	her PhD in sports science from the Auckland University of Technology. But it's my pleasure to welcome back Dr. Carpenter to the Barbell Medicine podcast, where
0:41.1	today we'll cover the research she did during her PhD program and her long-term experience
0:45.8	with training her mom.
0:47.3	Sohi, Dr. Carpenter, what's going on?
0:49.6	That's me, I guess.
0:51.3	It's, I don't realize it had been that many years since my last appearance. Honestly, it doesn't feel like that long ago.
0:57.4	Yeah, I think we, you came our New York seminar. So I think that like, yeah, even that was, what was that like two years ago? Yeah, time flight, yeah.
1:04.9	That's wild, yeah.
1:07.0	Yep, so we'll just do this quarterly.
1:08.4	We'll have a quadrenial between your appearances just to catch up on life.
1:12.2	Yeah, but I think the last time I was on, I want to say I was still in the beginning stages of my PhD. And then I've obviously since gone to start and finish data collection and then finish writing my thesis and all that stuff. So then we moved. Yeah, moved. We're still in California, but moved from L.A. out to Orange County. It's still easier to say we're in L.A.
1:31.7	Yeah. Because we're like an hour away, whatever. But now we've got a house.
1:36.0	Yeah. And you've been a speaker at many. Yeah, international conferences. You're like an Adidas ambassador.
1:42.6	So it's been really fun. Yeah.
2:04.3	So besides killing it, anything else going on? I mean, there's lots of things. I don't even know where to. Yeah, lots of things, but like how much do you want to know? Yeah, I wish I would show you. Yeah. We got some projects. Some of them we're not ready to talk about yet, but they'll come to light soon. but basically we're still, I'm still doing the fitness career thing and still love what I do.
2:04.3	Yeah. Some of them we're not ready to talk about yet, but they'll come to light soon. But basically, we're still, I'm still doing the fitness career thing and still love what I do.
2:05.0	Yeah.
2:07.5	She's an excellent follow on all social platforms.
2:11.0	I'll also link to our previous podcast if you want to get the origin story.
	...

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