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Leverage education to identify your constraints. Put things you learn into action, and build trust as a business owner with content that leads to conversions.

Leverage Education: Put Insights Into Action As a Content Consumer

You almost certainly consume content in some form. Free or cheap content abounds: podcasts, social media, YouTube, reels, articles, books, audiobooks.

You should be consuming and encountering meaningful, challenging, useful content. You should constantly be learning.

That being said, too many people do not put lessons learn into action. Don't be one of these people. Then, your education is really just infotainment.

You do not improve yourself or your business by knowing more but by improving yourself and your business by changing your habits and applying the insights you learn from these educational resources.

Leverage Education: Build Trust to Create Leads & Conversions as a Content Creator

Some businesses focus on monetizing content and making money through content.

That is not Barbell Logic, and that is not most businesses.

Content is a means to build trust and demonstrate value and expertise. Potential clients (leads) consume your content, they become warm leads, and eventually some of these people will purchase your products or services.

For example, Matt has purchased Alex Hormozi's books (which are cheap) and watched some of his free online content. Because of the value he has gleaned from this, he was willing to pay more to attend an intensive in-person seminar.

Why? Because the free and cheap content, and Matt and Barbell Logic's application of the lessons contained in that content, have provided value. Matt was willing to invest more deeply in a higher level of service with a higher price point because of this trust from previous experiences with the content.

How are you building trust with your potential customers?

Leverage education and build trust.

Leverage Education to Identify Your Constraints

Barbell Logic used the seminar, and has used free and cheap content from Hormozi and acquisition.com to identify constraints within the business and levers to pull that will provide the most return for the least effort, time, and money.

Sounds a lot like MED (not on accident)!

MED does not mean do the least you can. It means valuing your time, money, and effort to get the biggest return on investment you can. It applies the law of diminishing returns. It asks, if you can add 5 pounds to your squat every 2-3 days with 1 set of 5 repetitions of the deadlift, why would you do a program that involves 3x5 or 5x5?

Leverage education to identify constraints and improve yourself and your business.

This podcast is brought to you by TurnKey Coach. Enhance your coaching effectiveness and efficiency with TurnKey Coach. You can learn more by going HERE.

Check out Coaching 101 - the new Academy course designed to cover the basics of coaching. It's leaner and tighter than our other offerings (and cheaper).

Check out the Barbell Logic podcast landing page.

Get Matched with a Professional Strength Coach today for FREE! No contract with us, just commitment to yourself: Start experiencing strength now: https://store.barbell-logic.com/match/ Connect with the hosts

• Matt on Instagram
• Niki on Instagram
• Andrew on Instagram

Connect with the show

• Barbell Logic on Instagram
• Podcast Webpage
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• Or email [email protected]

Take action and train because time & strength wait for no one. Get the most out of your training, & don't spend any more time without barbell training.

Take Action and Train: Time & Strength Waits for No One

Time is our most valuable asset because we can never earn more of it. We can make changes to make more money. We cannot make changes to earn more time (though we can make changes to spend our time in more valuable ways).

You do not want to spend another year, month, week, or even day without moving toward your health and fitness goals. You do not want to be ten years older having not trained. Not only will you be no closer to your goals, you may be further away. Furthermore, you will have lost ten years' time to train and reap those benefits.

But there is no better time to begin training than now. Make the change now. If you're short on time, that is no problem: spend time with simple, hard, effective training that delivers the minimum effective dose for maximum return on investment.

Take Action and Train: MED Strength Training for Maximum Value

You get no better return on your investment of time and effort than using compound barbell movements, such as the squat, press, deadlift, and bench press.

Too many people - especially template peddlers - know because all they are selling is a program, they need to show off by including complexity and many exercise. Because of this, these programs often take 2-3 hours and have needless complexity, as it looks like you received more value with the longer, more complex workouts.

Simple, hard, effective is the way. If you're extremely limited on time, you may even simply perform one exercise a day.

You don't know how much benefit you can get from how little time. It is not easy, but it is simple. It is brutally simple and brutally effective.

Take action and train today.

Check out the Barbell Logic podcast landing page. Get Matched with a Professional Strength Coach today for FREE! No contract with us, just commitment to yourself: Start experiencing strength now: https://store.barbell-logic.com/match/ Connect with the hosts

• Matt on Instagram
• Niki on Instagram
• Andrew on Instagram

Connect with the show

• Barbell Logic on Instagram
• Podcast Webpage
• Barbell Logic on Facebook
• Or email [email protected]

Matt talks to Greg Hess, who is implementing simple, hard, effective strength training at West Point.

Strength Training at West Point: Simple, Hard, Effective

Greg Hess is an instructor and athletic trainer at West Point. In this role, he has a host of responsibilities, including immediate treatment of injuries, overseeing mandatory physical training of all cadets during their cadet basic training, and leading an elective course on compound barbell lifts.

Really, what he is doing, in his roles, is trying to spread the benefits of simple, hard, effective training.

During basic training, he exposes cades to the deadlift and bench press, despite the limited time.

In his elective, however, he has more time to instruct technique on the four main lifts, along with the power clean and power snatch. Cadets also learn how to coach other cadets.

This is a good thing. Cadets at the United States Military Academy (West Point) are being exposed to simple, hard, effective strength training.

Learn about something exciting that is going on at West Point.

This podcast is brought to you by TurnKey Coach. Enhance your coaching effectiveness and efficiency with TurnKey Coach. You can learn more by going HERE.

Check out Coaching 101 - the new Academy course designed to cover the basics of coaching. It's leaner and tighter than our other offerings (and cheaper).

Check out the Barbell Logic podcast landing page.

Get Matched with a Professional Strength Coach today for FREE! No contract with us, just commitment to yourself: Start experiencing strength now: https://store.barbell-logic.com/match/ Connect with the hosts

• Matt on Instagram
• Niki on Instagram
• Andrew on Instagram

Connect with the show

• Barbell Logic on Instagram
• Podcast Webpage
• Barbell Logic on Facebook
• Or email [email protected]

Tackling tweaks can be terrifying. You're lifting and suddenly - OUCH - pain. We discuss how to handle these tweaks. Tackling Tweaks: Don't Catastrophize

You're lifting, all is going well, then suddenly you feel pain.

What do you do? How do you handle this? Why me, why now!?

It can be easy to catastrophize, to immediately assume the worst.

The reality is, your workout may be over, it may not be, you may be able to do something. You want to do what you can do, and most tweaks may affect one or two workouts but will have a quick return to normal.

Tackling Tweaks: Step-by-Step

Andrew & Niki break down how Niki dealt with a recent adductor tweak and how this can apply to similar situations for you.

1. Evaluate for red flags
2. Calm down
3. Check for range of motion
4. Incrementally start loading it

The first two steps may be interchangeable, but first check in with your body. Do you feel tingling? Is there bruising or swelling? Is it unilateral or bilateral? If you feel tingling or see bruising or swelling, it is more than a tweak.

Depending on how you are feeling, you may need to calm down. This may involve sitting or walking around.

Check for range of motion. Move into a position of discomfort and see if it gets better or worse. Stop if it gets worse.

Then, assuming you encounter no red flags, begin to load incrementally. It is probably a good idea to do the movement slow and controlled - maybe a tempo variation with a pause. You may adjust the movement to limit the involvement of the muscle that hurts.

Winning may look like getting some movement done - it will likely not look like getting the programmed workout done.

Tackling tweaks does not have to be terrifying. Learn how.

Check out the Barbell Logic podcast landing page. Get Matched with a Professional Strength Coach today for FREE! No contract with us, just commitment to yourself: Start experiencing strength now: https://store.barbell-logic.com/match/ Connect with the hosts

• Matt on Instagram
• Niki on Instagram
• Andrew on Instagram

Connect with the show

• Barbell Logic on Instagram
• Podcast Webpage
• Barbell Logic on Facebook
• Or email [email protected]

Not all metrics are created equal. Learn about the hierarchy of metrics, including targets to improve (TTIs) & key performance indicators (KPIs) and ensure you are measuring what matters.

Not All Metrics Are Created Equal: TTIs & KPIs

Two main categories of metrics exist to help measure progress toward strategic goals and gauge the health of the company: targets to improve (TTIs) and key performance indicators (KPIs).

TTIs are your top set of metrics, which have to directly impact your strategic priorities. Your strategic priorities need to align with your tenets and core values.

If these metrics improve, you have moved closer to or met your strategic priorities. These are not monthly or quarterly (though you measure them monthly and quarterly and probably more often than that) but likely annual priorities and TTIs.

KPIs are snapshots of the health of the company. If they improve, they should help your TTIs and strategic priorities (for the most part).

Often times, these are metrics that lower-level employees may care about. The CEO does not need to get into the weeds of Instagram post performance, for example, but the social media manager does.

Some metrics will likely not move, but if they do move you need to identify why they moved (either to understand the success or address the underperformance).

For Barbell Logic this might be churn. A good example in another industry is engine temperature in an airplane. This should remain constant, but if it starts to go up you need to address it quickly.

Not All Metrics Are Created Equal: Hierarchy of Metrics

What you measure focuses your attention, so pick your metrics carefully. The CEO should not be looking at 100s of metrics. Improvements in your TTIs must actually move you closer toward your strategic priorities.

For example, if a strategic priority for you is to earn $50k in coaching revenue this year, revenue is a TTI. KPIs that align with this may be churn, clients, cold calls, and life time value of clients.

Make sure your metrics align with your priorities and your priorities align with your values and tenets. Prioritize metrics: do not measure metrics just because you can.

Not all metrics are created equal.

This podcast is brought to you by TurnKey Coach. Enhance your coaching effectiveness and efficiency with TurnKey Coach. You can learn more by going HERE.

Check out Coaching 101 - the new Academy course designed to cover the basics of coaching. It's leaner and tighter than our other offerings (and cheaper).

Check out the Barbell Logic podcast landing page.

Get Matched with a Professional Strength Coach today for FREE! No contract with us, just commitment to yourself: Start experiencing strength now: https://store.barbell-logic.com/match/ Connect with the hosts

• Matt on Instagram
• Niki on Instagram
• Andrew on Instagram

Connect with the show

• Barbell Logic on Instagram
• Podcast Webpage
• Barbell Logic on Facebook
• Or email [email protected]

How does consistency help us reach our goals? We explore the fundamental but undervalued lynchpin to success that is consistency. Consistency: Lynchpin for Success

Repeated action brings you toward your goal. Obviously, if you want to learn Latin, you need to study Latin regularly - studying Mandarin Chinese will not help.

That being said, a mediocre plan that you consistently follow is better than the "perfect" plan followed sporadically.

Fitness influencers like to argue about the perfect program, the best exercises, the proper technique, and many other things. None of these things matter if you do not train regularly.

The difficult part of this is that you have to put in the effort for a long time before seeing the results you want.

Consistency: Compliance & Technique

This is about actions, not outcome, though the actions bring you to your desired outcome.

Compliance - following the actions that bring you toward your goal - does not mean following a rigid plan perfectly without any possibility or flexibility for deviation.

Rather, it means regularly performing actions that bring you toward your goal no matter what. You train whether you are motivated or not. That may mean bodyweight exercises, shorter workouts, fewer workouts, but it means you do not "go dark" for periods of time.

Consistency of technique, as it relates to strength pursuits, is also undervalued. Having a repeatable way to perform an exercise helps provide a clear measuring stick, let's you know if you completed a repetition or not, helps prevent injury, and targets the muscle groups as desired.

Pursue consistency, because nothing matters as much as this.

Check out the Barbell Logic podcast landing page. Get Matched with a Professional Strength Coach today for FREE! No contract with us, just commitment to yourself: Start experiencing strength now: https://store.barbell-logic.com/match/ Connect with the hosts

• Matt on Instagram
• Niki on Instagram
• Andrew on Instagram

Connect with the show

• Barbell Logic on Instagram
• Podcast Webpage
• Barbell Logic on Facebook
• Or email [email protected]

Are you struggling to identify your core values? Use this bottom-up hack to identify your core values.

Struggling to Identify Your Core Values!?

Matt has heard that, despite his discuss on developing and defining your core values, and its importance, many are still struggling on how to actually get this done.

Matt was working with leadership at Barbell Logic years back on a business trip, and he and the team identified that they needed to work to identify 5-year strategic priorities.

They had extremely limited time, but using some simple techniques, they were able to establish Barbell Logic's tenets quickly, using a bottom-up approach and the pomodoro technique.

Helpful Hack to Identify Your Core Values

The team had hundreds of sticky notes and a blank wall in the AirBnB they were staying in. Separately, they each wrote down as many important tasks as they could think of.

Once done, they stood back, and began to group them together. Groups became larger groups, as patterns emerged.

What emerged from this process was the 4 tenets that Barbell Logic still has to this day: serve, grow, teach, steward.

Another tool you can use to really identify which tasks you should stop and which you need to prioritize and protect, write down your tasks in the four quadrants of the Eisenhower matrix.

These tips and tricks can help you if you are struggling to identify your core values.

This podcast is brought to you by TurnKey Coach. Enhance your coaching effectiveness and efficiency with TurnKey Coach. You can learn more by going HERE.

Check out Coaching 101 - the new Academy course designed to cover the basics of coaching. It's leaner and tighter than our other offerings (and cheaper).

Check out the Barbell Logic podcast landing page.

Get Matched with a Professional Strength Coach today for FREE! No contract with us, just commitment to yourself: Start experiencing strength now: https://store.barbell-logic.com/match/ Connect with the hosts

• Matt on Instagram
• Niki on Instagram
• Andrew on Instagram

Connect with the show

• Barbell Logic on Instagram
• Podcast Webpage
• Barbell Logic on Facebook
• Or email [email protected]

Learn how to get beyond the sticking points, where failure and quitting too often arise but opportunity and long-term success await those who intelligently persevere. Minimum Effective Action: Where is the Progress?

PRs have stopped, you're not feeling as good as you had been, you'll not looking forward to your time in the gym like you had been.

Sometimes it takes longer to realize than you would think, but suddenly you realize things are not going as you would like them to go (and as they had been before). What do you do?

Because recovery is the limiting factor, it is helpful to think through different areas of your life that contribute to recovery and where you might be falling short or missing the mark:

• sleep (quality & quantity)
• eating (quality, quantity, consistency)
• alcohol
• protein
• routine (do you have one right now?)
• stress

You will likely identify an area or multiple where you are not doing as well as you can. For example, maybe you've fallen out of your normal routine during the summer, partly by drinking more. The drinking has reduced your sleep quality and quantity and also your protein and fiber.

Tightening things up, reducing alcohol, and reestablishing your routine can help.

Minimum Effective Action: Consistency & Path of Least Resistance

Identifying the path forward when you want to make changes can be hard. Really, the simple, hard, effective way is the way forward. Focus on one or two things, and do them consistently.

The change needs to be something you can see yourself doing indefinitely. IT needs to become a habit, so that when you do not have discipline OR motivation, it is the easy thing to do.

For example, for Andrew and Niki they feel bad when they do not work or they eat bad food. It has become easy for them to eat healthier and train because otherwise they very quickly identify they feel bad and see the negative consequences.

Take the minimum effective action to reach your goals.

Check out the Barbell Logic podcast landing page. Get Matched with a Professional Strength Coach today for FREE! No contract with us, just commitment to yourself: Start experiencing strength now: https://store.barbell-logic.com/match/ Connect with the hosts

• Matt on Instagram
• Niki on Instagram
• Andrew on Instagram

Connect with the show

• Barbell Logic on Instagram
• Podcast Webpage
• Barbell Logic on Facebook
• Or email [email protected]

Learn how to prioritize thinking. Take time to improve your approach to those most important pursuits and aspects of your life.

Prioritize Thinking: The Importance of Thinking

Taking time out to think matters. Why?

As Matt has discussed in recent podcasts, and his his upcoming book Undoing Urgency, we need to set up habits and systems in our life that help us actually spend time with the most important things in our life.

How do we spend time with these most important things?

Thinking helps ideas arise, whether they be things we need to stop, do better or different, or start.

How does one do this, though? How does one actually take time to think?

Prioritize Thinking: When Do You Think Best?

Matt has identified a few conditions that need to occur for him to think well, and then a few different environments where he tends to think well.

Matt things best after:

• he has slept
• he has cleared urgent work

The first may seem obvious, but it is truly critical. You cannot think well if you are tired. For Matt, this occurs after a good night of sleep or nap.

Of course, Matt does not immediately wake up and start thinking, but rather after taking care of some quick tasks, making coffee, and clearing his head, he can think.

Critically, he eliminates urgent work. It is difficult to think about the important when urgent tasks are pressing on your mind.

Some of the best environments for him to think include the following:

• walking (alone or with wife)
• long drives
• manual labor
• vacation
• sauna or similar quiet times

Matt tends to have an initial brain dump when an idea arises, and he makes sure to take quick bulleted notes down (don't worry about spelling, format, etc. just get the ideas down).

Later, when he has more time, he fleshes the ideas out.

On a long drive, following this method, he developed the idea for Barbell Logic Online Coaching.

Prioritize thinking!

This podcast is brought to you by TurnKey Coach. Enhance your coaching effectiveness and efficiency with TurnKey Coach. You can learn more by going HERE.

Check out Coaching 101 - the new Academy course designed to cover the basics of coaching. It's leaner and tighter than our other offerings (and cheaper).

Check out the Barbell Logic podcast landing page.

Get Matched with a Professional Strength Coach today for FREE! No contract with us, just commitment to yourself: Start experiencing strength now: https://store.barbell-logic.com/match/ Connect with the hosts

• Matt on Instagram
• Niki on Instagram
• Andrew on Instagram

Connect with the show

• Barbell Logic on Instagram
• Podcast Webpage
• Barbell Logic on Facebook
• Or email [email protected]

Learn how to get beyond the sticking points, where failure and quitting too often arise but opportunity and long-term success await those who intelligently persevere. Get Beyond the Sticking Points: Frustration, Failure, & Quitting

There is a time around 6 weeks into an attempted habit implementation, new diet, or workout routine, where people tend to quit.

The early, easy gains end; the long-term changes the person wants have not really been seen; and the path forward remains unclear.

This is when most people quit. They build a habit of quitting, not knowing how to get beyond this common sticking points.

If approached with wisdom and perseverance, these times are actually doors to long-term success.

Get Beyond the Sticking Points: Perseverance & Long-Term Success

These times are great times to ask for help or dig deeper. For lifting, signing up for online coaching can be great (real online coaching where you get technique feedback and personalized programming) or go in for an in-person technique check up with a professional coach.

If you cannot afford this or, for some reason, do not want to seek a coach, you have to educate yourself and become a coach.

Piling more stress on in and of itself typically does not work. Pulling the stress back often does not work. The stress-recovery-adaptation period must be elongated, no longer one stress event with time afterword, but rather a period of time where you stress yourself, build up fatigue where fitness decreases, and then allow for recovery to allow fatigue to go down, fitness to come up, and ultimately cause more performance (hopefully a PR).

Getting through these sticking points, however, is really the key to long-term success. You have to be able to handle unexpected bad times, keep going, but keep going intelligently so you do not burn out.

Get beyond the sticking points. Learn how to build life-long health and fitness habits. Strength is for everyone. Strength is for life.

Check out the Barbell Logic podcast landing page. Get Matched with a Professional Strength Coach today for FREE! No contract with us, just commitment to yourself: Start experiencing strength now: https://store.barbell-logic.com/match/ Connect with the hosts

• Matt on Instagram
• Niki on Instagram
• Andrew on Instagram

Connect with the show

• Barbell Logic on Instagram
• Podcast Webpage
• Barbell Logic on Facebook
• Or email [email protected]