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We discuss 3 lifter pathways: competing, just training (thriving), and recovering. How do these looks, who might find themselves in one of these pathways (and why)? Andrew & Niki explore this.

3 Lifter Pathways - Competing

This pathway involves a state of life where life can support training. For these lifters, training is a high priority.

Nutrition supports training, lifters likely give up other pursuits to support training.

Obviously, life needs to cooperate (and sometimes it does not), but insofar as you can prioritize training you do.

6 months out from the competition, the training can remain fairly general, though the more advanced the lifter is the earlier the training has to be more specific.

As the meet approaches, training will incorporate more heavy singles and doubles. The competition lift will be practiced. The lifter may perform a mock meet.

Lastly, the lifter will peak, letting build up fatigue dissipate and allowing performance to increase (it's easy to screw the timing up here).

3 Lifter Pathways - Just Training

This is really where most people should be most of the time. Training is a priority, but not the top priority. Training is a tool for their deep goals of health and fitness, and nutrition and sleep can support that.

Ultimately, though, if you want to go for a run or a hike, you don't sacrifice this or other physical pursuits for your training.

The volume slot in a training week is the primary stress and needs to be productive. For the intensity slot, it's more akin to practice or skill work. It is heavy, but not scary or grindy.

3 Lifter Pathways - Recovering

For these lifters, training has to take a back seat. This could be due to an injury or major life setback.

It could be, however, a phase of life where time and recovery ability is limited. The lifter wants to continue lifting, but it cannot be as high a priority as the other two pathways.

Metrics may need to reflect the shift in focus. This could be going for rep PRs. It could be consistency. It could be pain (looking for less pain). It could be enjoyment of time in the gym.

3 lifter pathways exist, and they reflect different stages and phases of life. If you train long enough, you'll experience all of these.

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You need excellent customer service for online coaching, not just in-person coaching. Set your online coaching apart from the crowd, provide your clients more value, get more clients, and make more money.

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.

Excellent Customer Service for Online Coaching (Not Just In-Person)

Customer service, especially in a post-COVID world, sets your business apart.

Many coaches and gyms provide excellent customer service. Matt sees three common gyms types: boutique gyms with excellent customer service but poor training, black iron or CrossFit gyms with hard training but poor customer service, and big box gyms that have good customer service with laissez faire training (you can train hard or not).

Coaches who follow something akin to Barbell Logic coaching, with high-quality, 1-on-1 coaching, you know how to provide excellent customer service: show up on time, be prepared, greet your client with enthusiasm even if you're in a bad mood, dress well, etc.

You need to have excellent customer service for online coaching. Don't treat your online coaching differently. Take the principles of high-quality, high-touch coaching and apply it to your online coaching business.

Excellent Customer Service for Online Coaching: Set & Maintain a High Standard

How can you set and maintain a high standard of service for your online coaching business. Look at the list below for some basic things:

• programming done in advance (always)
• communicate where programming is going
• technique feedback
• 24-hour feedback
• screen recording, not just text
• well-dressed
• high-quality microphone

Think about the online coaching experience like you would the in-person experience. As opposed to your client walking into the gym, how does the client interact with you, receive feedback, upload videos, ask questions? How do they pay? Can they expect consistent, high-quality customer service from you?

Have excellent customer service for online coaching.

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/

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Metrics aren't your master. Don't sacrifice important pursuits to the altar of strength (unless you're specializing).

Metrics Aren't Your Master - What Matters to You?

Want to get strong, add some muscle, become more capable, and improve your quality of life and general health and fitness? This is where many of our clients live.

Want to get fat, give up all other physical pursuits, and become less healthy so you can squat more? If so, that's awesome - seriously, some people seek the single-minded pursuit of excellence, such as elite powerlifting.

For most of us, though, this makes no sense. You don't need to gain 50 pounds for the benefit of your squat 1RM. We recommend you don't give up all conditioning so your novice linear progression can last longer. Remember, metrics aren't your master.

For many of us at Barbell Logic, we have stood in the position of deciding not to go for the hike or the bike ride because we needed to go for a 5RM on Monday or do a hard 5x5. The weight must go up!

No, it doesn't have to go up. Seriously, who made this rule? What terrible consequence are we trying to avoid by sacrificing a social life and physical health so Monday's 5x5 goes up five pounds?

Metrics Aren't Your Master - Know the Rules, Break the Rules

Going for the hike or bike ride or Turkey Trot will likely take weight off the bar in your lifts - you do not have infinite recovery capacity. For most people, though, that's a sacrifice they're willing to make.

Will you some day be lying on your death bed thinking "oh no, I left 25 pounds on my squat because I biked." No, no you won't.

This is where having a coach to help guide your programming really comes in handy. You go for a long hike over the weekend, your Monday 5x5 cannot go up 5 pounds.

This is okay, but it also complicates how you approach programming over time. Many have run into the wall of not knowing what to do once simply adding weight to the bar stops.

We love metrics, but metrics aren't your master. Rather, they serve you and 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/

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Why you should take a vacation: to get into the important, get out from under the tyranny of the urgent, and reset (for work & what is important to you).

Why You Should Take a Vacation - Reset & Relax

Life naturally contains cycles.

You stress yourself in the gym, then you rest to allow recovery and adaptation to occur. Without the rest, there is no adaptation. Without the stress, there is no adaptation. Both contribute to the goal: improvement toward your goal.

After day comes night. Following the cold of winter, comes the blooming and growth of spring, the heat of summer, and the harvest that leads back into winter.

Traditionally, many religions have times of fasting and feasting - and the largest feasts are often preceded by the severest fasts.

If you overreach in training, you deload. Even within a workout, you can lift more weight between sets or run harder on an interval only after you have rested.

We cannot, as humans, grind all the time. It is inhuman.

Why You Should Take a Vacation - Tyranny of the Urgent

You need times to overcome the tyranny of the urgent and prioritize the important.

This includes working "on the business, not in the business." It also includes spending time with friends and family, self-improvement and professional development, leisure and exercise.

Business people and artists build time to allow thoughts to arise in their minds. This may be a daily walk, weekly "no cell phone" days, or quarterly or annual retreats.

Just as we cannot and will not become strong if we were to decide to start a workout today and never end it (sets until you die), neither can we work with sleep, food, leisure, and rest.

Why you should take a vacation (or a walk, a retreat, a break, a day without social media, celebrate a holiday or feast): because you're human.

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/

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People build strong families through strength training. We're, of course, not simply talking about physical strength, but emotionally and spiritually strong families, who witness each other overcome hard things and help each other out through life's difficulties.

Strong Families through Strength Training

Mac started his fitness journey as a young lad preparing for the hurdles of the Royal Air Force. He deployed multiple times, and felt lucky to be able to complete certain extremely challenging training.

He means lucky.

What he noticed, looking back on this training, is people succumbed to injuries when heavy things needed to be carried. Despite being young, lean, and "fit," people who ran a bunch and completed many callisthenic exercises and circuit training were unprepared to carry heavy things over long distance. No one really considered strength training.

Mac and his wife had shared running together. In the middle of a deployment, Mac had his wife smoke him on a 10k run after he had been unable to run for a long period. They enjoyed the shared activity of physically difficult things.

Then, hardship struck the McGregor family.

Mac face ulcerative colitis (UC) and his wife had a stroke. He face medical retirement as the provider for his family. Involuntary hardship reared its head.

Strong Families through Voluntary Hardship

Mac had decided to sign up for strength training with Barbell Logic and had seen positive benefits to his health and fitness. Mac tried to coach his wife, but it did not work. Ultimately, Joel Rasmussen, a Barbell Logic coach from Australia, became her coach and remained her coach since 2019.

His wife has been able to return to physical activities she never thought she would do again. While the progress has been anything but linear, she has regained capabilities.

Furthermore, their children witness them both lifting and doing hard things. They seem their mom and dad getting under the bar, overcoming gravity, and getting stronger and more capable.

Strength training has provided a source of physical, emotional, and spiritual strength. For many people, like the McGregors, they can become strong families through strength training.

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

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• Or email [email protected]

Automated metrics are awesome - measure & celebrate progress toward your or your clients' goals AUTOMATICALLY. Awesome.

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.

Automated Metrics Are Awesome - PRs Matter

PRs matter because PRs measure progress toward your or your clients' goals. They let you know you're on the right track (or they indicate a change is needed).

You first must develop goals based on your deep motivations and values. Then, decide on metrics that align with this goal. If these metrics increase - if you hit PRs - you are moving closer toward your goals.

Over time, you'll need to reassess your goals and PRs. You may get injured or reach a point where all-time, outright PRs are behind you (no more 1RMs). This is okay.

What you'll have to do is create new PRs to track. Maybe you track PRs after 40. You could track PRs at your lighter weight. Tracking volume PRs, consistency PRs, PRs at different rep & set schemes, or PRs for accessory or supplemental lifts could help you assess progress toward your goals.

Ultimately, PRs motivate clients and measure progress toward goals, indicating if you and your client are on the right path, or you need to change something.

Automated Metrics Are Awesome - Efficient & Effective

Don't go out of your way to remember client PRs - track them automatically. How?

TurnKey Coach automatically tracks PRs across different rep and set schemes, for conditioning, and for consistency. As you provide video feedback, the PRs appear on the screen at the top. It's the first thing to notice and celebrate with your client.

In your programming, you can scroll through PRs for a certain lift and aim for a PR that is there for the taking. For example, a client's last 1RM and 5RM were all-out, RPE 10 grinders. The client, though, may not have gone for a 3RM for a long time. Instead of trying to eke out a small 1RM or 5RM PR that might not be there, go for the easier 3RM PR.

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

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• Niki on Instagram
• Andrew on Instagram

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Lots of squat thoughts & new cues. Andrew & Niki discuss what cues they've found useful on squats and how they've improved their squats and squat coaching.

Lots of Thoughts on Squats

Andrew & Niki discuss some squat thoughts - things they've been noodling over, observing, and applying in their lifting and coaching.

They both have been thinking more about what it means to effect and maintain a rigid torso (as opposed to just extending your back). Too often, the focus here can be only on the back, to the detriment of your front side.

Lifters need to ensure all the muscles around the spine are working - and working roughly the same. This includes the abdominal muscles and muscles around the hip.

Applying these squat thoughts, Andrew has been able to overcome his squat mornings or good morning squats and rather drive up with hip and knees extending together, as they should.

Any deviation from this means inefficient force production with less weight on the bar. It also just simply won't feel as good.

Squat Thoughts & New Cues

Andrew and Niki take all this and share some cues they've found themselves delivering more.

Andrew has said "wrap your spine in muscle" or similar to this, really emphasizing the contribution of all the muscles around the spine working to maintain spinal extension (not simply extending your back or lifting up your chest).

He has also been using more often "balance on your full foot," which is really the master cue for the squat. Too often, though, people aim to have the bar moving straight up and down over the middle of the foot as opposed to realizing that the center of mass needs to move over the midfoot, not the barbell itself.

Let's keep the squat thoughts coming.

Niki cues people to "maintain the distance across the front of your body." She could draw the attention specifically to the nipple line and belt line. These two lines should not move farther apart or come closer but should maintain their separation.

Another cue Niki has been giving is "when you inhale don't get taller." This corrects an idea of back extension (or hyperextension) where people don't crunch down on their abs.

We hope you've enjoyed these squat thoughts.

If you want a Barbell Logic coach to check out your squats, go to THIS LINK and we'll jump on a video call with you and checkout your squat (and other lift) form for free.

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]

Be a person of integrity, every day, always. If you screw up, own it. This leads to business success (and it's the right thing to do).

Person of Integrity: Be One, Always

Integrity underpins business success. Yes, you may think of business that have seemingly grown despite scummy business practices.

Don't worry about them. Life is not fair. Still, you will create loyal customers, have great reviews, and gain word-of-mouth marketing if you show up and do what you say you're going to do and the price you quoted. Be a person of integrity.

Close loops you say you will close. Do things you say you will do. Be reliable, be honest, do the work to ensure you fulfill your promises.

Integrity involves many values. It includes honesty. It includes work ethic.

Person of Integrity: One Bad Action Can Destroy Trust

One failure, even an honest failure, can demolish trust and destroy a relationship.

Matt shares an example of where, in his business running a gym, he was finally able to go on a vacation.

He had been coaching someone who was preparing for a powerlifting meet and failed to send her programming. During her workout, two weeks before the meet, she injured her shoulder.

Not only did that client fire Matt as his coach, but he lost a friend. Matt and his wife had developed a friendship with the couple. That relationship has not healed, even to this day.

So, be a person of integrity, today, tomorrow, and every day until you die.

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]

Snapping back to your Goldilocks zone after you fall short of the actions you know will lead to your goals is a must. Whether this occurs after a vacation, a holiday, a weekend with friends or family, or simply a slow slipping of standards, this is an important skill for sustainable nutrition. Learn how to do it without overreacting.

Snapping Back to Your Goldilocks Zone - Falling Short

What is the Goldilocks zone? This is that golden mean where you're eating and training enough but not too much. You're looking, feeling, and performing good and are moving toward your goals.

For most people, they fall short by moving toward the vices of sloth or gluttony. Most people don't tend to train more than they should or underfeed themselves (though these people exist).

Many opportunities to turn away from the path toward your goals exist. You may go on vacation, enjoy a few too many desserts over the holiday period, indulge in too much beer during the summer, or have a long weekend with friends of family. You can likely think of more occasions.

No matter how or why you find yourself not moving toward your goals, symptoms arise. What happens to those who move away from healthy habits for too long is their senses are dulled. They essentially cannot realize that they feel bad because it's their normal state of being.

What does overindulgence look and feel like? For Andrew, it's feeling like a "turd sandwich." For Niki, it tends to result in bloat, feeling less comfortable, getting less high-quality sleep.

Let's examine what the Goldilocks zone looks and feels like.

Snapping Back to Your Goldilocks Zone - What's Normal

The Goldilocks zone feels good. The bloat goes away. You're getting good sleep, training regularly (but not overdoing it), and eating at maintenance (or at a small deficit).

Niki feels comfortable in her clothes and generally feels good. For her, it takes a couple weeks to slide back into this.

Her recommendations for how to get back on track include the following:

• Drink plenty of water
• Cut out the alcohol
• Eliminate processed foods
• Add in veggies (lots of colors & fiber)

For Andrew, it's a return to baseline. He tends to eat the same meals for breakfast, lunch, and snack. Not only does he know what he will eat but how much. He also knows which things he can adjust to reduce calories further, if needed.

For example, he can add walnuts to his yogurt, or not. He can reduce the oatmeal portion for breakfast or, potentially, even remove it.

It's takes practice, observation, and time to see if you're back on path, not doing quite enough, or, if you're overdoing it. Let's look at what overreaction looks like.

Snapping Back to Your Goldilocks Zone - Don't Overreact

Overreaction for many likely comes from either a place of fear, guilt, ignorance, or some combination thereof.

You may fear the results from the recent behaviors, and instead of returning to actions you know that work, you think you have to swing the pendulum back hard.

Acting out of guilt looks similar. Because you overindulged, you feel you must almost punish yourself.

Lastly, you may simply not have a well-established baseline, so you swing the pendulum back strongly because you're not sure what else you can do.

When it comes to training, it likely looks to trying to burn yourself into a calorie deficit through cardio.

Healthy nutrition is sustainable nutrition. Effective training builds toward goals and can be done for the long haul.

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

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

Stop being cheap! Consider the value of your time and invest in things that make you money and provide you value.

Stop Being Cheap: Value per Unit Time

Too many in the fitness industry value their time too little.

Comparing options for online coaching platforms, you see one option is $1 cheaper per client per month.

The other option prioritizes efficiency, helping you coach more clients in less time.

Which to you go with?

Too many go with the first option.

Start thinking about the value of your time.

As a coach, think not only about the value you're providing to your clients, but the value per unit time. Eliminate things that don't provide value, focus on things that do, and become more efficient in delivering those things.

Spend more time on the important, not the urgent.

This means you can coach more clients, you can spend more time finding more clients, you can spend more time working on your business, not in your business.

Stop Being Cheap: Consider the Value of Your Time

How much money can you make during the time you perform menial tasks (e.g. grocery shopping, mowing the lawn)?

Consider the value of your time and stop being cheap.

If you can make $200 per hour, why would you mow your lawn?

Instead, do the things that make you money.

Think of this as buying "back" your time. Of course, you're actually buying it up front, not buying past time back.

So, stop being cheap: consider the value of your time.

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]