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Today Coach D's good friend Cliff Canipe joins the podcast to discuss the importance of strength and pursuing voluntary hardship for developing character and leadership. Cliff is an international minister based out of South Africa. He travels throughout the continent working with local church leaders to develop their theology, their church operations, and leadership presence in the local community.

Cliff is a man of God, but his version of Christianity is by necessity a rugged and practical one. Working primarily in poor, underprivileged areas of the world, he regularly calls upon both physical strength as well as the strength of character he has developed under the barbell to lead others in difficult economic and sociopolitical situations. In his eyes, it is not enough to be merely spiritual, or intellectual; you must develop your physical self in step with the other aspects of your being.

Cliff shared a verse on the importance of strength for leaders. Joshua, a leader of the Israelites who helped lead the conquest of Canaan, said this of his strength (at the ripe age of 85!):

"I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in." (Joshua 14:11)

Cliff holds a PhD in New Testament Studies and founded Equippers International, an organization providing teaching and ministry to churches and church leaders throughout the world. He also hosts a podcast called Talking About Jesus.

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In Part 2 of our discussion with Starting Strength Coach, Registered Dietitian, and nutrition expert Robert Santana, we learn how to set appropriate macronutrients for weight loss, and what to expect during the weight loss process for a novice lifter.

You can follow Robert on Instagram @the_robert_santana where he posts helpful nutrition tips and tricks. You can also find him at Barbell Logic Online Coaching and Renaissance Periodization, where he offers customized, one-on-one strength and nutrition coaching. If you're in the Phoenix area, be sure to check out his new gym Weights and Plates!

Got a question about nutrition, or training in general? Send us a message on Instagram or send us an email at [email protected]!

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Today we welcome back Starting Strength Coach and Registered Dietitian Robert Santana! Robert joins us to talk about making the transition from weak and overweight to strong and lean. Specifically, we look at a theoretical 45-year old woman who needs to lose about 40lbs of bodyfat while increasing her strength and muscle mass.

In the course of coaching hundreds of clients, Robert has developed a nutrition coaching style that revolves around habits and accountability, rather than macros and calorie counting. Although he adapts to a person's preference for tracking, he prefers to start by having the client take pictures of everything they eat for 7 days. From there he will identify which foods the person is not eating of, and increase those in the diet. For most people new to strength training, this is protein. Women should eat between 120-150g of protein per day, while men should aim for 200-250g depending on size and bodyweight. Getting enough protein ensures that the client will recover properly from her workouts and build new muscle mass, which in turns increases metabolism and creates an environment for fat loss.

Once protein intake is in place, Robert focuses on nutrient dense carbs. For most this means eating more vegetables, since most Americans are woefully deficient in vegetable intake. One, they contain a lot of fiber, which many people are short on. Secondly, vegetables take up a lot of space in your stomach and are filling to eat, so you can eat a lot of them without consuming a ton of calories. Lastly, they contain essential micronutrients -- vitamins and minerals -- which are not found in processed foods.

Note that, at this point, Robert has not asked our theoretical women to eat less. In fact he's done the opposite -- encouraging her to eat more of the right things, rather than restrict "bad" foods. This focus on habits is critical, he says, because most clients (women in particular) come to him after years of dieting and calorie-restriction. If he can improve food quality and create a calorie restriction without explicitly prescribing a calorie restriction, then he can help the client create new, healthy habits without developing neuroses around certain foods.

Next week we will talk more with Robert about macros, appropriate timelines for weightloss, and how to properly measure body composition while getting stronger, building muscle mass, and losing body fat.

You can follow Robert on Instagram @the_robert_santana where he posts helpful nutrition tips and tricks. You can also find him at Barbell Logic Online Coaching and Renaissance Periodization, where he offers customized, one-on-one strength and nutrition coaching. If you're in the Phoenix area, be sure to check out his new gym Weights and Plates!

Got a question about nutrition, or training in general? Send us a message on Instagram or send us an email at [email protected]!

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Coach D and Coach Trent welcome runner, rock climber, wakesurfer, and physical therapist Michelle Baker, DPT to discuss her training for the Boston Marathon. Michelle PR'd her previous marathon time for by 23 minutes, ending with a race time of 3:34:51. She credits her success to a combination of regular strength training, interval/speed work, and nutrition experience gained from her previous marathons.

Michelle is an all-around athlete, having played sports from a young age. After a layoff from sports in college, she discovered endurance training while in PT school and began running 5k and 10k races. She quickly became hooked and ran her first half marathon, then full-marathons, punctuated by occasional trail runs as well. Michelle describes her first marathons as brutally hard, as she learned how to develop a strong mindset and properly fuel her body for the hours-long race. Nevertheless, she stuck with them and slowly began getting better.

Recently, she began working with Coach D to improve her times. Together they came up with a plan to incorporate strength training 2x per week, with an emphasis on developing the hips and trunk or "core" strength. This meant plenty of squats, deadlifts, and overhead presses. Coach D also encouraged her to run speed days 2-3x per week, where she focused on power; sometimes this included hill runs, since the Boston Marathon includes several notorious hills (one such know as "Heartbreak Hill"). On long-distance days she progressively increased her mileage, however she never ran more than ~18 miles prior to the race. She followed a model known as "cumulative fatigue" in which she tracked her weekly mileage -- a proxy for fatigue -- aiming to progressively increase that number while limiting the total mileage in a single day. As she puts it, "it's like running the last 18 miles of a marathon."

Her times at the Boston speak for themselves, but most importantly, Michelle is healthy, uninjured, and feels great. Her time qualifies her for the 2020 Boston Marathon, which she is already looking forward to. You can follow Michelle's training on Instagram @akmtnmotherrunner.

Got a question about running or endurance training in general? Send us a message on Instagram or send us an email at [email protected]!

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Coach D and Coach Trent dive into the nuts and bolts of conditioning in today's episode. Conditioning Concepts was one of the foundational episodes at the beginning of the podcast, explaining the metabolic pathways or energy systems of the body, and how they fuel different types of activity. Today's show details the nuts and bolts of incorporating conditioning into your training program, including concurrent conditioning and strength training.

First off, a disclaimer. Conditioning is not for novices! If you have not run through a novice linear progression and built a solid strength base, you don't need to do conditioning. At this point, focusing all your effort on lifting heavy will provide all the conditioning you need. You have a limited reserve of recovery resources -- especially as a novice -- and strength training during the linear progression will require ALL of those reserves. Besides, as discussed in previous episodes, strength training works primarily the ATP/Phosphocreatine energy system, but it upregulates the glycolytic and oxidative energy systems too, yielding a conditioning effect.

For those who are mid-intermediates though, conditioning is not only a good tool for fat loss, it's important for improving work capacity (so you can recover efficiently from the higher volume work that come with intermediate strength training), and for trainees with GPP (general physical preparedness) and/or sports-specific goals.

Coach Trent likes to start trainees new to conditioning with simple "monostructural" conditioning workouts: a prowler sled pushed for 5 100ft sprints, for example, with 2-3min rest periods between sprints. Monostructural refers to the nature of the movement -- a static movement with a cardiovascular demand dependent on the intensity (how hard something is pushed, or the weight on the implement in the case of the sled) and duration of the movement. Monostructural workouts are low-skill, and in the case of the prowler do not cause soreness, which could otherwise derail the trainee's strength workouts. They also allow the trainee to get used to putting out large amounts of effort in short bursts without worrying about executing athletic movements.

After introducing the monostructural workouts, slowly at first, once per week, Coach D likes to mix up conditioning types, with an eye toward working in all the energy systems, and increasing frequency to 2-3 conditioning workouts per week. Conditioning "types" or modalities can be broken down into a few categories (this model is borrowed from Crossfit):

• Monostructural -- as mentioned above; sled push/pulls, echo/assault bike, rower, jump rope, wind sprints, swimming
• Gymnastics -- bodyweight movements like burpees, bear crawls, push-ups, air squats, etc.
• Weightlifting -- explosive weightlifting movements such as power cleans, snatches, thrusters, or kettlebells.

As a general rule, one should be careful using weightlifting movements in a conditioning workout. The higher the skill demand in a conditioning workout, the more likely your movement quality will deteriorate as you get fatigued, and thus the more likely you are to get injured. So save the high-rep snatches for time, unless it's something you have to be able to do for your sport (i.e. Crossfit).

Otherwise, Coach D likes to mix up these modalities from workout to workout. Conditioning programming can look more "random" than strength training, but the idea is to work all the energy pathways -- short and intense (phosphocreatine), medium and slightly less intense (glycolytic), longer and medium intensity (oxidative) -- while carefully balancing the stress of the workouts with the demands of your strength training program. For instance, if you have an intensity day with heavy 1x5's on Monday, your conditioning workout should be short and intense, so that you can recover in time for your light day Wednesday workout and volume day Friday workout. Likewise, conditioning workouts following a volume day strength workout should be less intense, to allow for adequate recovery for the following Monday's intensity day.

Conditioning can be further programmed as:

• single modality workouts -- typically monostructural in nature
• couplets -- a mix of two modalities, like rounds of echo bike (monostructural) followed by air squats or burpees (gymnastics)
• triplets -- three modalities

The scientific literature is pretty clear that to maximize the benefits of both strength training and conditioning -- in other words, to do both without one interfering with the other (known as the interference effect in ex-phys jargon) -- you should condition AFTER strength training, on the same day. This allows for maximum recovery between workouts. However, this can lead to long workouts, especially if you are doing a full-body strength workout. For those with limited time, you can do one of your conditioning workouts on your lifting off-day, preferably on the weekend when you normally have a two-day rest period.

There are many ways to tackle conditioning programming, and this is just the start! If you have questions about your own training, send us a message on Instagram or send us an email at [email protected].

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It's a busy time of year at Deaton ranch, with tons of hay waiting to be bailed, barns being built, and horses needing to be worked. Recently, while working out a small gelding in the arena, Darin got bucked and -- because he was using an unfamiliar saddle -- was unable to kick off properly to avoid getting pinned by the falling horse. The 800lbs gelding landed squarely on his outstretched left leg, on the knee. In today's show, Coach D walks through his process of dealing with the injury, from assessment to treatment and rehab, as well as maintaining a positive mindset.

Several people were with Darin when the fall occurred, and they responded with alarm, telling him how bad it looked and wondering if he was OK. It's easy in these situations to let the emotional response of others override your logical brain, and convince yourself that you are indeed badly hurt before you've done a calm self-assessment. So Darin told them to give him some space, he got up, and started walking to determine the extent of the injury. In a fair amount of pain but able to walk, he got up on another horse (with a more appropriate saddle) and continued to ride and finish the day.

Fortunately, Darin is an expert in dealing with orthopedic injuries so he was able to self-diagnose that he didn't have any major structural damage, just a heck of a nasty bruise. So, at the end of the day he jumped in the cistern for a cool bath, and iced his knee at night. The next day he trained as normal, carefully assessing his squat warm ups to determine how heavy he could squat without pain.

So by taking a calm, logical approach to a scary and unexpected accident, Darin was able to properly assess the situation, manage his emotions, get back to movement quickly, and maintain a positive mindset.

Coach D's keys to managing injuries:

1. Don't react, respond. Stay calm, slow down, and logically assess the situation.
2. Avoid the emotional reaction of the people around you. Focus on how you are feeling, asses your pain level, and decide how urgent you need
3. Get an accurate diagnosis immediately. The diagnosis will determine the timeline and nature of your recovery/rehab process.
4. Get moving as quickly as possible. Motion is lotion! Moving will promote healing in the injured tissues and, importantly, keep your mindset positive as you focus on what you can do.

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Last week we discussed the importance of work -- especially physical work -- and it's impact on the mind and body. This week is a 180; we're talking about rest. Now, when we discuss training we often talk about recovery in terms of food and sleep. Sleep is a crucial part of rest, indeed, but it's not the whole picture. Rest is both recovery, in a training sense, and recuperation for your hormonal and mental health.

We know that psychological stress is stress on the body, just like stress from lifting heavy weights, doing a hard conditioning workout, or running a marathon. It's not as easily quantifiable as a workout, but psychological stress causes elevated cortisol levels, can impair mood, and, gone unchecked, can lead to "burn out," leaving you in a deep hole mentally and physically.

No one wants that! So Coach D walks through some suggestions for incorporating rest -- not just recovery -- into your life:

1. Disconnect proactively -- before you hit the wall, unplug and disengage from your work and media/information consumption. Give yourself down time. Take the time to truly unplug… don't
2. Meditate -- it's proven to increase brain cortex thickness (thus improving cognition and sensorium) and improve memory, willpower and drive
3. Try yoga -- yoga is a low impact exercise with an emphasis on meditation and serenity. Look for yin yoga classes which emphasize long, slow, relaxing movements with deep stretches -- great for lifters!
4. Hot bath / sauna -- a simple, quiet bath can help you calm down and relax after a stressful day.
5. Journaling -- documenting your daily wins, struggles, and thoughts can help keep your problems in perspective, and prioritize long-term thinking.
6. Set boundaries from digital world -- turn off ALL digital devices before bedtime, preferably an hour before. When you take time off from work, disconnect completely. Be clear with clients and coworkers about you availability, and fight the urge to check in when you're supposed to be off.
7. Have sex! It's not just enjoyable in the moment, it releases hormones that help relieve stress, increase bonding, and strengthen relationships.

These are just a few suggestions. Take some time for yourself, and rest. There's more to life than work, training, and recovery, but you need to give yourself space and perspective to discover what that is for you.

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Coach D is back with a solo show reflecting on his recent trip to his ranch in Stephenville, TX.

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Coach D discusses his departure from CrossFit and the reason he sold his CrossFit gyms to eventually open a Starting Strength affiliate gym. Coach D and Coach Trent also examine the philosophical and practical differences between the two training methods.

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Dr. David Puder, a psychiatrist and fellow barbell enthusiast, joins Coach D and Trent today to talk about the research connecting strength training to better sensorium (cognitive function) and reduced cognitive decline in older populations.

Dr. Puder runs an excellent podcast on psychiatry, psychotherapy, and mental health that you can find here: https://psychiatrypodcast.com

You can also follow Dr. Puder @dr.davidpuder on Instagram.