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How do you set yourself apart as a coach? One way is knowledge. Understanding the fundamentals that underlie anatomy, physiology, programming, technique, and platform coaching will differentiate you from the typical personal trainer. Set yourself apart with knowledge. It's easy to get a personal training certification. Even earning a degree in exercise science offers no guarantee of competence as a coach. Have a basic understanding of science. Anatomy & physiology are key here. Get a high school textbook on anatomy and physiology and read it and understand it. If you acquire this level of understanding, you stand head and shoulders above the vast majority of personal trainers. The real goal of education is to learn how to learn effectively. There are an endless number of educational pursuits, so learning HOW to learn is more important than WHAT you learn. By learning how to learn you enable yourself to continue your pursuit of knowledge to whatever you want or need to learn. Learning should be a lifelong pursuit, no matter your career, and if you want to be an excellent coach, you have to be a lifelong learner. Continue to improve and learn and get better. The Academy Principles Course is targeted at barbell enthusiasts who love to learn more and geek out on barbell & barbell-related topics and those coaches looking to master the fundamentals (or principles). GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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Niki & CJ discuss overcoming imposter syndrome as a coach. The address what it is, why it's normal, when you may be beyond your abilities, and practical tips to deal with it. Learn more about overcoming imposter syndrome as a coach.

Doubt, fear, and anxiety is normal. With coaching, or really any venture, you will likely experience internal self-doubt but may also have a fear of being discovered or exposed as a fraud or imposter.

This appears and persists despite evidence to the contrary. Regardless of accomplishments, success, credentials, you still have a feeling of not being qualified.

You're in good company, as this feeling is nearly universal. This is a sign you care, and literature suggests that those who face these feelings are less likely to cheat and more likely to work harder to improve.

These feelings have become so prevalent that an entire industry has arisen to overcome imposter syndrome.

These feelings appear or heighten especially around 2 phenomena: challenging obstacles & stress accumulation.

When a client quits, you get a client who is a bit outside your comfort zone, or you're asked to do something novel but generally within the realm of your skill set, these feelings will likely arise.

Obstacles are opportunities for growth. If you successfully overcome a novel challenge--heck, even if you fail but try your hardest--you will learn and improve as a coach.

It is true, of course, that there are challenges that are truly beyond your abilities. How can you think about these?

You can ask yourself: Am I as qualified and ready as I can reasonably be? You could also add a "...yet." For example, "I'm not qualified to coach professional powerlifters...yet." This allows for the possibility for growth.

Stress can accumulate, create heightened negative emotions, and leave us with feelings of being a fraud or imposter at work. You may feel like you're in a "trough of despair." What can you do?

First, think about the immediate stressors. You the helpful HALT acronym. Are you any of the following:

• Hungry
• Angry
• Lonely
• Tired

As Niki says, you can deal with these through lunch with a friend and a nap.

You can think about conditions generally in your life. CJ discusses how as an early coach he took on too much work, which prevented him from addressing his own nutrition and training. He felt worse physically, and that carried over to how he saw himself (plus, he actually didn't look the part of a physical trainer or coach).

Lastly, there may be actual medical issues like anxiety or depression, outside of coaching or your professional pursuit, that can be addressed and improve this element of your coaching.

This is hard to discuss. You can't and really shouldn't address this with your client. That being said, you should admit when you don't know something and look it up. You can admit to not feeling great and that you're not 100%.

Consider your coaching more of a collaboration than a mechanic working on a car. Explain your thought process. This can help get buy-in.

Discussing this with colleagues can come with the fear of them denying any feelings of fraud. Talking to someone in another career field can leave you with the easy excuse that "it's different for that professional field."

Lastly, while the fake-it-til-you-make-it mentality isn't wrong, it can go too far. You shouldn't necessarily take on every client. You may be honest with clients you're on the fence on and develop a 3-month test run. This enables you to see if you're up to the challenge while being upfront and honest with the potential client.

Because, if you truly fake it--not simply fake some confidence, but lie about your abilities and credentials, you'll likely come to believe the lie yourself. The uncomfortable feelings of imposter syndrome should result in growth or--if grounded in lies and deceit--will enable you to overcome these feelings through buying your own lies.

Overcoming imposter syndrome as a coach or overcoming imposter syndrome at work can be challenging. Try some of these tips and approaches out.

GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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Niki & CJ Gotcher discuss how to determine your values, identities, and priorities (VIP). These underlie WHY, HOW, WHAT, and FOR WHOM you coach. Learn about what these are and how you can more consciously develop and refine these over time (they aren't set in stone). Whether we do so consciously or not, we have some notion of our coaching VIP. Something brought us to coaching our friends or family or diving a bit more deeply into why we might train a certain way or how training can be more effective. Approaching these more systematically and really thinking through them can help us better understand ourselves, potentially reinvigorate our coaching practice, and help us know what to say no to. What we say no to can tell us much about what we value and what our priorities are. Why? Well, it's easy to say yes to things. Early on as a coach, you'll probably say yes to every possible opportunity to coach someone. You need the experience, and a priority early on might be simply get as much experience as possible. As you progress as a coach, however, you'll start to prefer certain types of clients or gravitate toward certain types of activities. Some may love the challenges of programming for competitive athletes, who constantly try to squeeze the most our of their performance. Others may like hybrid athletes, who try to elevate multiple physical attributes. Some may simply find joy from helping older clients regain capabilities they thought they had lost forever. Beyond finding a niche, the stakes go up for us as coaches when we transition from hobbyist to professionals. We're asking for money and ultimately making a promise that we can provide more value to the client than the money they paid us. More responsibility can often lead to more introspection and why we're doing coaching at all. GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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Consistency leads to PRs and meeting your goals, more than any other factor (form, programming). Nikki Burman, Director or Client Experience & Exclusive Coach at BLOC, discusses how as a coach she helps others and how a lifter she personally achieves consistency. Learn how to never miss a workout. Nikki often talks to clients who are considering quitting training and online coaching with BLOC, and her approach is "let's find a way to make this work." What this means if not forcing the way on the client, but rather examining and looking to improve two main things. The first item she considers is the lifter's support system. Not, as a coach, she cannot necessarily improve the support system BUT she can help be a support system of sorts by encouragement and accountability. She can also see if there are some sources of support that might not be underused or unused in the coach's life. Secondly, she asks "is the plan realistic?" Missing workouts can lead to a accumulation of discouragement and a sense of failure. The lifter is often following an unrealistic plan. Programs can be unrealistic for many reasons. A lifter may begin a block program that is realistic, but a life event occurs that makes that program no longer realistic. A client may feel burned out, get injured, get bored, or reprioritize activities in her life. How can lifters more easily accumulate workouts? Shorter workouts, potentially with optional exercises, can make it easier to get in the gym, and on those days where the motivation is there, you can do the extra work, on the other days just get the meat and potatoes done. Shifting how the workouts feel can help. That might mean getting a pump, getting sweaty, changing exercise selection, or doing things like AMRAPs, myo reps, or other means that can provide quick, different workouts that still enable productive stress. A misalignment of how important we think an activity is in our life versus how important our effort or time suggests it may be can lead to guilt. Niki suggests the following exercise, which can help you see that misalignment. List important activities and pursuits in your life. Give them an importance from 1-5. Then think about how much time and effort you put toward those activities, and identify the misalignments. Can you make that 5 a 4 and truly live it out as a 4? Build consistency, ensure your program is realistic, and learn how to never miss a workout. GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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Lots of people execute novice programming repeatedly, and even in advanced programming a lift is being increased through novice programming. So, how do we think about novice programming, returning to it, and how it really differs from true advanced programming? Following MED programming principles, we follow a simple yet hard program because it is effective. The simplest program is the manipulation of one training variable. For a strength novice, typically, this means increasing intensity in a linear fashion while keeping other variables constant (volume, exercise selection, frequency). At the point at which you can no longer increase only one variable - when more than one variables have to be manipulated to progress - you are not a novice. Even on advanced programs, however, the simplicity of increasing the stress for a lift or lifts linearly through univariable manipulation typically makes sense. So, for example, you may have a supplemental squat lift on your deadlift intensity day on a 4-day split, even as part of block programming. You often increase the stress of this lift by simply adding weight to the same volume. Similarly, on a daily undulating periodization program, which is a type of concurrent programming where you train multiple physical attributes at once (hypertrophy, strength, power), you still add weight to the lifts in their respective slots. Lastly, a truly advanced lifter may have some advanced lifts but others that need to be progressed with novice programming. This may be because a lifter has focused on one lift while not training other lifts (e.g. someone benched all the time but only ever really did one leg day with machines, so their squats and deadlifts need novice programming). Another situation is post-injury where some lifts were affected but others could continue as normal. For many people, novice programming is simply a somewhat regular thing they accomplish because of life factors (vacations, business travel, sickness). The thing that brings people to advanced program is consistent training over a long enough period. If a lifter repeatedly has disruptions to training, linear progression will be something he returns to frequently. We may adjust what LP looks like, we may take bigger jumps and not grind it out as much, but some type of linear progression is the quickest way to return to previous strength levels - and surpass them.

GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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Training means you have a script or program that you follow, but whether by your choice or life circumstances, you may have to or want to go off script. So, if you're a novice and have to or want to go off script, how do you navigate the potential difficulties and tradeoffs of going off script? 0:00 BL1K! 21:53 RIP Papa Reynolds 24:53 Off Script as a Novice Lifter As a novice, you can progress quickly. For strength, this means that if you graph your progress of the weight on the bar for your lifts it will follow a line. This is a simple, hard, and effective way to train, which lets you build the habit of training, gain confidence, improve your form, and increase strength and quality of life. You cannot always--or may not always want to--follow the script. Some examples of off script events or activities include:

• sickness or injury
• vacation or business travel
• sports or other physical activities
• powerlifting or strengthlifting meet
• unplanned PR

Different situations demand different adjustments, and it's better to plan for off script events than (e.g. powerlifting meet) than choose unplanned activities (e.g. unplanned PR) so you can both prepare and recover appropriately for them. Consistent "off script" activities will slow your strength progress, and that's okay. You'll have to adjust your program (so you'll adjust the script) and adjust your expectations. If you have a coach and participate in physical activities that the coach is not programming, communicate with your coach (to the best of your ability) when, how often, and what those activities are like. If something unexpected happens (e.g. a BJJ session is much rougher than expected), let them know. Vacations and business trips can be planned for, and you'll have to decide whether you'll train during that period or not. You can adjust planning before and after (and potentially during), and may have to take a step back afterwards. Unplanned PRs can be fun, and for advanced lifters you may develop a knack for knowing when it's there and take it. For a novice lifter, you're progressing quickly, so we don't recommend the unplanned PR...but, if you do it, realize you might have to take a step back or at least reduce the stress following the PR. Developing patience can help here. If you're sick, depending on how sick and what it is, you may still be able to get into the gym, but might simply take it easy and have the win being that you got in the gym. If you were really sick, you may not only have taken off training but might have lost some muscle if you mostly laid down. Take a step back, and adjust your mindset--it's a part of life, and you'll get back to (and surpass) where you were before. So, training requires a script, that script may need revisions in advance or on the fly, but to always be off script or revising the script means you're not really following a script or program at all, and then you're not training. GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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Tanner Guzy joins Matt & Niki to talk style & its effects on how you look & feel. Check out Tanner Guzy and his style coaching https://masculine-style.com/ Improving your style isn't about showing off or strutting around. It's about self-respect and adorning your body with clothes that help make you feel and look good. Tanner points out that when he's looking and feeling good, he's thinking LESS about his appearance and better able to be present and really spend good time with friends and family. When he is unhappy, he often IS focused about wishing or thinking he looked a little more like this or less like that. For Niki, she doesn't feel good when she does not uphold her boundaries. These situations typically involve social interaction, where she might eat or drink a little more than she otherwise would. Let us examine what is often an indicator of someone not looking and feeling good about himself. Baggy clothing is often used to hide our unhappiness with how we look. It has another issue, however, in that form-fitting clothing that enhances how we feel gives us feedback about when we might be gaining a bit too much weight. Our clothing, when dressing in a way that enhances how we look, thus helps provide us a natural metric for what we're doing. A similar situation is the lifter who finally goes through LP and starts putting on muscles and suddenly her clothes don't fit. While she might think that she has gotten bulky and isn't happy with how she looks, investing in a couple new outfits that flatter her new, more muscular body will help show off her work, and help make her feel good about how she looks. For both training & style, people often look to celebrities for "this is how I want to look." Tanner has a concept called "aesthetic synonyms" for this. While the person is pointing to something unachievable (he or she has a different body), Tanner can help that person identify what resonates and how he can move closer to that aspect for his own style (and for training, for his own body & athletic development). Related to this concept of style is authenticity. We don't mean to boast, but we'd like to put our best selves forward. We don't mistake humility for mediocrity, but rather aim high and work to achieve excellence. Authenticity may be hard to identify, but inauthenticity sticks out like a sore thumb. We undoubtedly have all seen someone who turns us off as inauthentic in promoting themselves, a product or service, or an idea. If you're a coach, it's important to be authentic and build trust. The client is becoming vulnerable for you, so you cannot betray that trust. Do not belittle or insult the client, but you also try to bring that person's best self forward. Yes, the client has identified something he needs to improve and actuate that improvement. Your job is to move that person closer to the ideal, building him up. So, consider taking style more seriously, as it is a tool to enhance how you look and feel. GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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We return to the foundations of programming before we jump off into more advanced programming discussions in upcoming podcasts. Why are simple, hard programs the most effective? How do we decide what to do out of the countless options. The concept of MED evolved out of the idea that what coaches were doing, as opposed to simply jumping from one program (novice linear progression) to another program (some HLM or Texas Method variant), was making small changes to modify LP that led to the intermediate program. GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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Coaches compared notes and realized this is what others were doing, and Matt & Scott explored this on earlier podcasts. And, when you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. Changing 1 or 2 variables allows you to tinker and better evaluate which changes work in general and which changes a specific lifter responds well to. With enough consistency over a long enough time, lifters' programming will get complicated. But we don't need to unnecessarily complicate things, and we don't want to throw huge amounts of volume at a lifter because then it's difficult to have anywhere to go from there. This applies to LP with the intensity as well. While you may be able to do 30 more pounds on your squat day 1, if you start with your absolutely 5RM, you really don't have anywhere to go from there. So, we program simple, hard programming (sorry, but simple & easy doesn't work). We keep things as simple as they can be. We change programming based on the lifter's other life stresses (expected & unexpected). And we build habits & consistency to lead to the changes we want to see.

Choosing a coach can be daunting, but we can help guide you with what to look for and avoid when you're choosing a coach (and how to evaluate a coach once you're being coached). Andrew provides some helpful frameworks that may be more familiar to listeners: hiring an employee or choosing a contractor or company. We're essentially outsourcing a part of our life to someone who should be able to help us move toward our goals. Whether we don't have the time, bandwidth, expertise, or detachment to coach and program for ourselves, a coach can enhance our physical fitness. A coach's values and experience matter here. People can spout platitudes, but a person's track record is a better predictor of future behavior. Do your values align with the coaches? What athletic experience does the coach have? What types of people does the coach work with, and toward what goals? Does the coach have high turnover or churn? You may have the ability to do an interview with the coach. If not, you may consider the initial bit of coaching a trial run (and, let's be honest, even if you're all-in on a coach or coaching system, it's probably because you've learned about that system or coach over time, through social media, a podcast, or something like that). Some red flags include: -high churn (not keeping clients for long periods of time) -inflexibility or rigidity (my way or the highway) -not asking about circumstances or situations (e.g. how much time do you have to train, what are your goals?) It's important to listen to your intuition here. You're inevitably being vulnerable to come to a coach, so you should build trust with the coach over time. The coach should not betray that trust. That coach will need to push you into discomfort, but ignoring your feedback, fears, or current abilities is a bad sign. What should you look for in a coach? Pretty much the reverse of the red flags. A good coach should have a track record of success and longevity with clients and should have principles and beliefs but apply them to a client's circumstances.

GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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Matt, Niki, & Andrew discuss building habits to achieve your goals. You have habits now, and your results (along any potential access: finances, health, deadlift) are the summation of your habits. One isolated act by itself does not effect excellence, but one action as part of a years of actions does. Continuing your habits is easy. It requires no real energy to continue your habits. Like momentum, it requires energy to change the trajectory of your life. You have to intentionally work to stop or create a habit, and this isn't easy. Andrew shares the characteristics of good habits (from James Clear's book Atomic Habits) that are likely to succeed: obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. What you're doing by following these is increasing the your chance of success in following through. For example, if you're naturally a morning person, trying to start a lifting routine at 10pm at night doesn't make sense. Set up a habit that aligns with your natural proclivities. This doesn't mean it will be easy, but it will be easier. You'll have to have some discipline and fake it before it's easy. It's discipline & motivation that leads to your goal achievement. Eventually, your identity should change ("I'm a lifter" or "I'm a meal-prepper"). The longer you follow a habit, the easier it is to follow, the less energy it takes to follow it. When the habits defines you, it is fairly easy to continue. Some examples may help. Andrew replaced a high calorie snack of nuts and beer after work with yogurt, blueberries, and walnuts. A snack of likely near 1000 calories has been reduced to 350 calories, and Andrew feels better with the new habit. Matt does something physical every single day, even if it is simply a walk. By doing this, he knows that a certain time of day is the time for physical activity. GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts

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