Although the field of Sports Science is relatively young, and despite the inherent limitations in studying human performance, we have many Ph.D.'s to thank for our best current evidence. There’s Brad Schoenfeld, Mike Israetel, Eric Helms, Alan Aragon, and Greg Nuck — Wait,  Greg Nuckols doesn’t have a Ph.D.?

If Greg, age 26, doesn’t have a Ph.D., what makes him so well respected by the larger field of Sports Science researchers? What makes him such a credible source that thousands would subscribe to his digest of the latest literature, in “MASS Research Review”? Furthermore what’s led 14 Million people to his blog, “Stronger by Science”?

If you’re thinking it’s due to his wizened bearded appearance, or due to his near 2,000lb drug-free powerlifting total, we advise that there’s more to Greg than meets the eye.

In this episode, we catch up with Greg to discuss how, with a curious mind, skepticism, and logical reasoning, he’s niched himself as a leading fitness writer and a trusted source of fitness knowledge. Additionally, we also discuss progress in the gym, and what to do when progress has stalled.

Episode 24: Interview with Greg Nuckols

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When you're an olympic weightlifting coach, you're a leader, a guide, a teacher: You're the go-to person when people around you need answers. And while this is certainly a position of honor, it also comes with its difficulties, chief among them: Knowing who you can turn to with your questions. That's precisely why we invited Dr. Jason Miller, Ph.D., Renaissance Periodization coach, and founder and head coach of Oklahoma City University/Oklahoma City Barbell Club, onto our podcast. 

Not only does Jason hold a doctoral degree in exercise physiology, but he is a voracious reader who loves learning— he’s the kind of person who’d much rather pick up a textbook than a novel and whose free time is often spent pouring over studies. In addition, he has an impressive depth and breadth of experience as a strength and conditioning coach, olympic weightlifting coach, Renaissance Periodization coach, and exercise and sport science professor. He's coached youth athletes, masters athletes, recreational athletes, Olympic-level athletes and everyone in between. He's a treasure trove of knowledge, and we couldn't wait to pick his brain.

We spent over an hour asking Jason everything from, "How do you bridge the gap between sports performance literature and the practice of coaching?" to, "How do you take anthropometrics into account when writing an athlete's program?" and "How and when do you use variants of the snatch and clean & jerk to build athletes' confidence?" and much more.

He was an incredible sport about it all, and he gave us a LOT of food for thought, both from a technical, programming perspective and a philosophical coaching perspective. If you're looking to dive down the rabbit hole of programming design and coaching methodology for olympic weightlifting, if you've got nuts-and-bolts questions concerning the application of the latest scientific research on strength, power, technique development and more, then this podcast is a must-listen.

Got questions of your own? Contact Dr. Jason Miller on Instagram: @coach_drmiller.

Episode 59: Dr. Jason Miller on the Intricacies, Challenges, and Joys of Coaching Weightlifting

Dane Miller is a force. Twice-over business owner and coach of Olympic competitors, world champions, and NCAA athletes across 7 sports, he combines a deep knowledge of sports performance with business acumen and people skills you just can't teach. We admire the heck out of him, so we invited him on our podcast to find out, essentially, how he does it all. 

What ensued was a highly informative, highly animated conversation about everything from coping with COVID-19 to running a business in the health/ fitness industry to what it's like to train with pioneers such as Dr. Anatoliy Bondarchuk and Charles Poliquin. We dove headlong into coaching philosophy, balancing your passion with the fact that you've got to make money, and the ingredients making up Dane's massively successful approach to programming for sports performance. 

Tuning in as a gym owner who's also a coach? You'll learn you're not alone in pulling insane hours just to get by. You'll get confirmation that making mistakes is par for the course, and you'll gain some refreshing validation that, yes: Juggling your responsibility to your athletes with your responsibility to your family AND your responsibility to your business is damn hard. But not impossible. While discussing his experience owning both Earth Fed Muscle and Garage Strength, Dane explains, "It's all such a process, and you have to be open to that. Just like an athlete needs to be, business owners have to be open to it."

And if it's coaching that you're really passionate about, if you live and breathe the success of your athletes, then you'll learn a lot from this episode, too. Dane explains what it takes to be among the best in the world, providing valuable advice for coaches at any stage of their careers. 

Critically, Dane points out, "My athletes taught me more than anybody." Considering the resumes of his mentors, this is quite a statement. One with which, by the way, we wholeheartedly agree. The best coaches in the world listen to their athletes. Really listen. When push comes to shove, coaching is relationship building. When push comes to shove,"Every system works, but you've got to train your athletes."

Which Dane does expertly. Whether it's throwers, weightlifters, wrestlers, Olympic competitors or kids, Dane is a master of cultivating successful athletes. His prowess emerges, in part, from his experience working with some of the field's most innovative minds, including Dr. Anatoliy Bondarchuk and Charles Poliquin. 

Dane details the key lessons he garnered from these two greats, providing thorough and judicious analyses of what Dr. B and Charles got unequivocally right, and what he doesn't fully agree with. As with any skilled critical thinker, Dane filters their teachings through his own evaluative system, an exercise which produces his unique and powerfully effective approach to training.

We had such a blast talking with Dane that we invited him on our podcast again! Be sure to tune into Part II when we release it! In the meantime, if you want to learn more about Dane and his businesses, you can visit Earth Fed Muscle's website at https://www.earthfedmuscle.com and follow @EarthFedMuscle on Instagram OR you can visit Garage Strength's website, https://www.garagestrength.com and follow @garagestrength on Instagram.

Episode 58: Dane Miller on the Science, Business, and ART of Coaching

"Your most effective instrument for effecting change is your rapport, your relationship with the client." 

We'll let that sink in for a moment. This quote, so profound in its succinct expression of truth, is one of the many gems that emerged from our conversation with Dr. Lisa Lewis, Ed.D. CADC-II. As a licensed, practicing psychologist, Dr. Lewis is an expert on motivation and behavior change. And while a portion of her career is dedicated to clinical work with individuals seeking to become healthier, we invited her on Episode 57 to talk about the other portion of her career-- the part focused on helping practitioners help others get healthier. 

Dr. Lewis consults with coaches, trainers, nutritionists, physical therapists and other professionals in the health and fitness world who want to improve client outcomes. She helps these professionals tackle issues emerging from what she considers the psychological aspects of their jobs. Meaning, she doesn’t tell coaches and nutritionists and physical therapists what to recommend to clients, she gives them guidance on how to recommend interventions. In other words, Dr. Lewis helps practitioners get clients to comply with their recommendations.

The way that Dr. Lewis empowers these professionals is by giving them insights and strategies derived from extensively researched, evidence-based premises of motivational and behavior theory. These theories hinge on the central tenet that, as Dr. Lewis puts it, "The client has all of the motivation, all the tools, all the drive, all the raw materials they need to make change, and the role of the helper is to facilitate that, is to help them lead themselves." Under this system, the role of the coach or nutritionist or physical therapist is not to force change on their clients, but rather to support clients in making change themselves.

And to do that, practitioners need to understand what will motivate their clients. Dr. Lewis calls upon the self determination theoretical model to delineate different types of motivation for practitioners. From purely external motivation, which relies on direct, tangible rewards and punishments, to purely intrinsic motivation which arises simply from an individual's internal state, this model identifies 5 types of motivation-- 6 if you include amotivation (the existence of no impetus at all)-- that practitioners can "screen" their clients for. 

How does this screening work? Through the strategic employment of communication tools like active listening and motivational interviewing. The efficacy of these tools, as Dr. Lewis explains, lies in the practitioners’ understanding that “[clients] are the experts on themselves. Their success is not up to you as the coach. Ownership stays with the client." Having grasped that, the goal of the practitioner becomes identifying the types of motivations clients have for making behavior changes, then playing to those motivations. 

Crucially, the only way to receive accurate, actionable information from clients is to cultivate strong relationships with them— relationships built on trust, honesty, and compassion. Fostering such relationships is the prerequisite for successful active listening and motivational interviewing. And successful active listening and motivational interviewing are the prerequisites for facilitating successful behavior changes.

It's important for practitioners to recognize, as Dr. Lewis explains, that clients' motivations can and do change. And that means the communication tools she gives to practitioners are not one-time interventions. They're staples of productive, long term practitioner-client relationships capable of adapting to the constantly shifting realities of life. 

And speaking of shifting realities, Dr. Lewis ends this episode by discussing the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on clients' motivation. Finding themselves suddenly confined to their homes and faced with heaps of uncertainty, it's normal and natural for clients to also find themselves lacking the motivation they used to have for engaging in healthy habits.

Now, more than ever, practitioners must be listening to their clients for indications of motivational shifts. Now, more than ever, practitioners must be reinforcing their relationships with their clients. Doing so will not only help their clients develop and maintain healthy habits, it will also support them in deploying positive coping strategies for these unprecedented times.

Dr. Lewis has folded all of her knowledge into an exceptional online course for fitness practitioners entitled, "Psych Skills for Fitness Pros." To learn more about it and Dr. Lewis, you can visit her website, drlewisconsulting.com. You can also follow her on Instagram at: @drlewisconsulting. If you would like to enroll in her course, use the coupon code: PODCAST75 to get $75 off registration.

Episode 57:  Dr. Lisa Lewis on the Mechanics of Motivation

That distance between who you are and who you want to become? It can feel staggering, daunting, even impassible at times. Especially if you’re fixating on the sheer expanse of it. However, if you focus on taking a single step across that distance, things might not seem quite so overwhelming. Because a step is small. A step is manageable. And, as James Clear discusses in our latest podcast, a step is exactly the motivation you need to take another. 

James Clear is the author of Atomic Habits, a New York Times best selling book about the art and science of habit formation. We invited him on our podcast to discuss the relationship between the habits we form, the goals we want to achieve, the people we are, and the people we want to be. And while this is no small task, James takes it on with the ardor of a lifelong student and the acumen of a natural-born scientist.  

By calling upon a variety of case studies across a broad spectrum of fields-- fitness, the arts, business, and more-- James creates a rich, textured, and empowering picture of the role that habits play in our lives. And that picture, as James explains, illuminates one fundamental truth: 

Everything you do-- every step you take--  contributes to who you are and who you will become.  

And this means getting into the habit of taking certain actions, or steps, makes it more or less likely that you’re going to become who you want to be. “But!” You might be interjecting, “If your identity is so reliant on your habits, what happens if you have bad ones, or if you don’t know how to start good ones?” James addresses this in our podcast, too.  

Critically, he points out that the relationship between habits and identity is not a one-way street. In fact the best way to change your habits is to examine and adjust your identity. As James says,  

“I think that the focus on who we wish to become, not what we wish to achieve, is a better place to allocate our time and energy when it comes to developing habits. Because ultimately, the thing that’s going to make a habit stick is seeing ourselves in that way.” 

Which brings us to a central point made by James in this podcast: “[People] tend to overvalue results and undervalue the process. [But] we do not rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.” In other words, if we spend all of our time fixating on the results we want, we won’t be doing the work we need to do to achieve them. And what is that work exactly? Developing systems that enable us to habitually perform actions that make us the kind of people that achieve the kinds of results we want.  

James emphasizes the importance of showing up in small ways instead of fretting about optimization, he discusses the long-term benefits of diversifying and revising your identity, and he explains the role that our evolutionary biology plays in our ability to form habits. To learn more about James Clear’s comprehensive work on habit formation, check out: JamesClear.com or pick up his book, Atomic Habits.

Episode 56: The Road to Success Is Paved with Good Habits

On episode 55, Pixie Turner, M.Sc., and Alan Flanagan, M.Sc, joined us as we jumped into our coveralls, rolled up our sleeves, and took a look under the sputtering, stalling, overheating hood of public nutrition.

And what did we find there? Increasing rates of food anxiety and disordered eating. Widespread chronic lifestyle disease. And hunger. People are suffering from an excess of food messaging at the same time that people suffering from a lack of food choices at the same time that people are suffering from a simple lack. And if you’re wondering how all of those problems can exist at once, we’re right there with you.

Which is why we decided, with the help of Pixie and Alan, to take the old nutritional engine apart. We analyzed its components, studied its flaws, and tried to identify what’s causing this great big smoking mess. As it turns out, a lot of things are to blame, including economic structures, massive corporations, politics, and the media. As it turns out, problems in nutrition come down to social justice. Not personal responsibility.

That’s right.  Although the “ extensive messaging that we receive around food,” says Alan, “is very much a narrative of individual responsibility,” people aren’t culpable for health issues resulting from poor diets. As Pixie explains, “When you don’t have a lot of money, you might have access to cheap calorie dense food, and that’s it. Or, you might not even have enough money for that. We have [people] that can’t even buy the cheapest foods in society, and then we have this problem where the poor are both overweight and lacking nutrition.” 

The reality is, people who aren’t privileged don’t have agency in their food consumption. And so they are not personally responsible for resultant health problems. That responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of entrenched political ideologies and economic structures-- structures that are responsible for food deserts and food waste-- structures that are built and maintained by the very people whose privileged perspective allows them to buy into that personal responsibly chicanery.

Without action on a large, political scale, this dual burden-- the existence of overnutrition and undernutrition in the same society-- is only going to become worse. Alan illustrates this by discussing the “nutrition transition”, i.e., the growing prevalence of the high fat, nutrient-poor Western diet in developing countries. 

But it’s not just the disadvantaged that suffer deleterious effects of false narratives around nutrition. Those with financial means make perfect targets for charlatans quick to capitalize on their desperation to eat in a personally responsible (read: morally upright) manner.

Food anxiety is not only profitable, but it’s also isolating. When people feel judged on a moral level for their food choices, they’re less likely to seek help from nutrition experts if they need it. And when people judge each other’s characters by their diets, they are less likely to work together to solve public health problems.

Alan and Pixie discuss possible solutions to the issues of chronic lifestyle disease, food anxiety, and hunger-- some of which require interventions on a political scale while others can be achieved by conscientious grassroots efforts. These efforts, of course, should be informed by scientific data gathered from well-designed sociological research. These efforts, of course, should begin with compassion.

Really, as Pixie puts it, any positive change in nutrition “starts with less judgement and more compassion.”

You can learn more about Pixie and Alan by following them on Instagram at @pixienutrition and @thenutritional_advocate.

Episode 24: Interview with Greg Nuckols

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