‘The Wellness Process’ Explains Why 15-Minute Workouts Can Actually Be More Beneficial for Women

If you’ve ever dragged yourself through a workout that left you feeling worse than you walked in, Lia Bartha gets it. On The Wellness Process with Elizabeth Endres, the B The Method founder unpacks why so many women are still chasing three-hour treadmill sessions and punishing HIIT workouts—then wondering why their bodies feel wrecked.

From explaining why “the pelvic floor is a hammock of muscles that you can’t see” to why 15 minutes is actually enough movement for the day, Bartha makes a compelling case for slower, smarter, longevity-focused movement that supports your whole life—not just your workout log.

Why Bartha says your mindset shows up in your muscles

Bartha says your body knows when you’re moving from panic instead of presence. She tells Endres that when movement is rooted in stress, punishment, or the urge to “beat [your] body up in the gym,” the physical response follows. Cue the tension spikes, inflammation rises, and results that have clearly plateaued. 

Instead of zoning out, distracting yourself, or blasting music to get through the hard parts, Bartha wants you actually in your body. She explains that when movement becomes mindless, “you can’t necessarily be the most effective in that time that you’re working out.” Your muscles follow your mindset—meaning frantic energy creates frantic effort, and grounded intention creates grounded strength.

That’s why her classes slow you down, keep you present, and ask you to actually feel what’s happening. It’s not fluffy woo-woo; it’s biomechanics with receipts.

15 minutes is actually enough

Bartha knows the spiral well—the one where you’re convinced a workout doesn’t feel like enough unless you’ve crushed yourself for hours. She admits that when she stopped dancing, she fell straight into that trap. What started as harmless treadmill walks with friends turned into a mindset where “that doesn’t feel like enough because I’m not even thinking about what I’m doing,” which then led to feeling like she “need[ed] more and more time there.” Before long, she was working out so intensely that it ruined her day.

Her fix? Less time in the gym.

Bartha tells listeners the shift happens when you replace quantity with actual connection. Instead of zoning out on autopilot for hours, she wants people to try small, intentional sessions. If a workout is truly working with your body, not against it, you shouldn’t need three hours. You shouldn’t even need one. Fifteen focused minutes, done with presence instead of panic, can do far more than a marathon treadmill session you dread.

The pelvic floor you can’t see (but definitely feel)

Bartha spends a big chunk of the episode talking about one of the most misunderstood parts of the body—the pelvic floor. “The pelvic floor is a hammock of muscles that you can’t see,” she says, which is exactly why most people forget it even exists. Until something goes wrong, that is.

And according to her, a lot is going wrong. Back pain, hip pain, painful sex, constipation, leaking when you sneeze—Bartha says all of it can trace back to the pelvic floor not functioning the way it should. Surprisingly, the issue isn’t always weakness. More and more women come to her with the opposite problem: “it is too tight. How do I release it?”

She says the fitness world has pushed “strengthen your pelvic floor” messages so hard that people now have over-tense, over-worked muscles they don’t know how to relax. And when those muscles can’t release, everything else gets stuck too—mobility, digestion, even desire. Her solution is slow, intentional movement that helps you build awareness, bring blood flow back to the area, and retrain the body to engage and let go. 

Constipation, travel, and tension

If there’s one topic that instantly unites a group chat, it’s constipation. Bartha laughs about it, but she also takes it seriously because so many women deal with it daily. “Everyone’s like, we can’t go to the bathroom,” Bartha tells Endres, especially when traveling or stressed. And yes, food can play a role, but Bartha says movement—specifically the right kind—matters just as much.

As previously mentioned, a tight pelvic floor is a culprit for a lot of issues, including going “number 2.” She explains that people often think they’re constipated because of diet, when in reality “the pelvic floor might be too tight, causing you to not be able to release.” Add in travel, disrupted routines, or tense hips from hard workouts, and everything just…stalls.

If your digestion shuts down the moment you leave your house, or the second you get stressed, Bartha wants you to know your body probably isn’t “broken.” It’s asking for release, not punishment—and a little mindful movement might help everything start flowing again.

To hear more advice from Lia Bartha, listen to the full episode of The Wellness Process, available wherever you get your podcasts.

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