Beast over Burden powered by Barbell Logic

Life comes with difficulties, no matter what we do. Hardship comes voluntarily or involuntarily, but for any hardship our mindset before, during, and after matters: how we approach and process challenging events matter.

Hardship--voluntary or involuntary--can refine us and improve our relationships, or it can beat us down and weaken social ties. Our relationship with the event--which we define with our mindset--helps determine the benefit to us.

Why are you taking on the hardship? What are your thoughts about the hardship? If it's involuntary, what's your story about the difficulty?

Think of military units or families who are subjected to hardships: deaths, challenging missions, divorce, tragedy. We know that not all military units or families come out better on the other end. Our stories about these events matter.

If we consider the event a challenge, it should be a self-challenge about seeing how we can push ourselves, not about being better than others or being perceived as good.

In line with this, Matt even argues that past hardships can benefit more today if you reprocess them and develop healthier stories about them.

This ultimately comes down to your values and priorities. Having awkward conversations can prevent huge amounts of mental bandwidth going towards resentments and anger toward others, so it's probably better to have the awkward conversations.

Niki shares her experience with cleaning out her house and ridding herself of unnecessary items. Ultimately, this came down to not holding onto things she doesn't value and don't improve her life. She added that if you don't see the objects in your desired life that you're pursuing, you probably should get rid of them.

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Brett Bartholomew joins Matt & Niki to discuss the art of coaching: what is coaching and how to do it more effectively. Brett is the author of Conscious Coaching, and you can find out more about Brett & his work here. Consider experience versus exposure. Experience requires skin in the game. You might have exposure to lifting and ideas around coaching or business, but do you have experience doing it. An example might be the difference between criticizing podcasts versus doing a podcast yourself or coaching versus criticizing a coaching methodology. Brett works with professional athletes and has developed a knack & reputation for working with "difficult" athletes. He enjoyed the challenge and honing his communication and connection skills with these athletes. An important note, that applies to all coaches and really all professionals, showing your client how smart you are doesn't mean you're coaching them well: this doesn't lead to effectiveness or connection. You need to build buy-in and trust. While technique coaching and intelligent, personalized programming are great, they aren't enough. A point of discussion here is public versus private sector. Consider D1 athletes or military service members as opposed to people paying you to receive coaching. The former have to show up and work as part of their job. The latter can quit at any time, and only continue if they want to. This leads to Brett's ideas of commitment, compliance, or resistance. To create these categories, you need to consider the task and relationship in the situation. Is the relationship good or bad? Does the client appreciate or like the task or not? If both are bad, you get resistance. If both are good, you get commitment. If you relationship is good but they don't buy in with the task, you get compliance. Another factor as a coach is that one-size-fits-all doesn't work. There are different types of clients and athletes (and, again, there's variation within, but categorization aids understanding). There are also coaching types, so you have to know your preferences and tendencies. Most people learn how to coach through a combination of how they were coached and their perception of what is successful (what they observe). When coaching the world-class or professional, you have to consider the difference between behaviors and traits and how they apply to their domain of excellence. Behaviors can be situational (potentially in the case of a world class athlete). Traits stay consistent. If you are truly world class at something, you will be narcissistic in that domain, whereas if you have a narcissistic trait that remains consistent throughout your domains of life. Brett also discusses some struggles he went through when he was younger with overexercising & also finding a way to connect through Dr. Katie. He both wanted to avoid his home life and his friends who began doing hard drugs. He came to compulsively exercise, and was sent to an institution oriented toward people with eating disorders. The treatment was similar to prison, where he had no privacy and no choice. During this time, he felt no connection with the supposed experts and professionals who were supposed to help him. He was even told, as his parting, "You'll be back." Dr. Katie finally connected with him, showing him a way to help others and actually be effective in changing others' behaviors. They end by discussing marketing: how do you ethically self-promote? Well, first, differentiation is critical. What is your brand? How do you communicate your value? If you haven't thought about this, or think this is below you, you still have a brand and are still communicating your value, though not doing so consciously. This episode touches business and health, coaching and personal growth, and the personal and professional. Check it out.

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Niki talks to Chewjitsu (aka Nick Albin), a competitive black belt Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practictioner to discuss BJJ, strength, sports-specific training, & balancing various physical attributes & life pursuits. You can find him here: https://www.youtube.com/user/chewybjj https://www.chewjitsu.net/ Chewie is a strength advocate within the BJJ community, a community that sometimes dismisses strength as sloppy or cheating or preventing good technique. While proper technique is important, these same people would likely not dismiss conditioning or flexibility or dedication as things that stand in the way of good jiu jitsu. Strength is important for life, and important for BJJ. Strength is really about building your machine. Add muscle, improve strength, build your injury resilience. Then apply this strength in your pursuit of BJJ. One error many BJJ novices make is they get hooked and then want to improve everything at once, which can cause burn out. Just like with strength, consistency is key, and understanding that we're in this for the long haul can help. If you lift and decide to pursue BJJ, you'll need to set priorities. Likely one will need to be prioritized over the other (though this can change). You may almost assign seasons throughout the year where you put one above the other. For BJJ, you may focus on it for months leading up to a competition. For strength, you may decide you want to hit some new PRs, so BJJ may need to become less important. When it comes to strength training for BJJ, it's really like training for anything else. Strength training gets you stronger, and you apply your strength in BJJ. Many will try to load a BJJ movement with the idea of "sports-specific training." This is really misguided for a couple reasons. First, if you find yourself moving through a particular movement repeatedly in your sport, it probably makes sense to emphasize a different or opposite movement in your training. Second, training is meant to get your body stronger. Apply this strength on the mat, but do the same movements anyone would who is building their strength. BJJ can be a fun, meaningful pursuit that definitely falls within the voluntary hardship realm. Coming to BJJ with your strength will help. This episode will help you consider how best to do that.

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Matt & Niki and your lifting and life questions.

Topics include coaching certifications oriented to coaching females, shoulder pain from presses & squats, adductor tears during squats, office strength groups, and power clean rack position.

0:00 Introduction & BLOC Party Overview

8:16 Programming During Weight Cuts

• Gained a bunch of weight during LP, having a USSF meet coming up: still want to hit big numbers, but want to lean down
• Performance doesn't have to suffer very much with small weight cut if done intelligently
• Top set with volumes can really be a nice combination of hitting enough volume and still hitting the intensity
• Lots of volume can help maintain muscle mass
• Drive up that top set as much as possible

15:21 Certification to Coach Females?

• Do you need to get a certification for coaching females? No
• Need to improve your coaching, in general
• Need to relate to your clients
• Permission to coach mindset: more variation within group than between
• 5x3 works well for lots of people with a deficiency of upper body muscle mass

23:32 Shoulder Pain

• play with squat grip: probably bring it in
• guess at what it is: proximal bicep tendinopathy
• if it persists, put squat at the end of the workout (as squat tends to make rest of workout worse)
• be very specific in where things hurt
• do more sets of lower reps with slower, perfect form
• lower the weight, slow down the lift
• keep pain below a 3 and look for it to reduce over time
• incline dumbbell press?
• work to get the intensity back up
• can also play around with frequency

30:14 Adductor Pain during Squats

• Where is the pain presenting itself? (middle or end of muscle)
• Is it at the tendon or in the muscle belly
• Did you bruise?
• Play with stance angle and ensure form is on point

35:25 Strength Office Activities

• Start a strength training for running & cycling groups, but it's really just strength
• Help coach 1/3 sessions they lift
• Cycling Power Development

38:27 Power Clean Rack Position

• wrist mobility or strength?
• have to think about strength & mobility and what they really are, first

43:00 Most Impactful Non-Strength Books

• Matt: Lonesome Dove, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Measure What Matters, The Bible
• Andrew: Endurance, Man's Search For Meaning
• Niki: Deep Work, Sparking Joy, Into Thin Air, Bone Clocks

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Gillian Ward joins Niki Sims to talk weight cuts and Niki's recent experience cutting weight, which Gillian helped her with. Why cut weight, and how do you cut weight if you decide to cut weight? Weight cuts aren't for beginners, and people need to really think about why they want to cut weight. This isn't about sustainable weight loss like we've discussed with Take Charge 10 and the Nutrition Series. It's probably better--especially around weight cuts for weight class events--to compete in a heavier weight class. Cutting weight adds a large amount of stress and can limit performance. Others may want to cut weight for their job (e.g. the military) or improve their appearance for specific event (wedding, reunion, beach). Finally, some people compete in physique competitions. This is the most advanced type of weight cut, as not only do you want to look better but looking better in a specific way at a designated time is the whole point of the competition. This requires more precise work and dedication, both long term leading up to the competition and in the days and hours before the competition. The amount of weight matters. Other factors to think about here, beyond the reason the weight cut, include: salt, carbohydrates, sweeteners--sugar & artificial, alcohol, fluid intake, and, for females, which part of the cycle the weigh in will occur during. Niki cut weight for a BJJ event and had planned to cut months in advance, so performance mattered. She has also worked with Gillian before, so Gillian had lots of information about Niki with how she and her body react to certain interventions. Niki also has high compliance, so not following Gillian's prescriptions wasn't a worry. Niki was able to be transparent with Gillian of all the relevant details leading up to the event. They knew the amount of time between the weight cut and the event, and Niki knew exactly why she wanted to cut weight. Niki manipulated carbs and liquids, and the suffering window was relatively short. She upped her liquid intake leading up to the event, then cut it immediately before the weigh-in. She also reduced carbohydrates immediately before the weigh-in. Niki & Gillian also had contingencies prepared if, on the morning of the weigh Niki's weight was not where it needed to be. Contingencies can include sauna time or other ways to induce sweating and fluid loss. Because these contingencies were not ideal, it's really important to follow the plan. The contingencies are contingencies for a reason. One hand trick Niki plans to keep is cucumber and lemon in water. Cutting weight is ultimately about manipulating fluid. Outside of manipulating fluids, manipulating salt, processed food, alcohol, sugar, artificial sweeteners, and carbohydrates can all be factors. Gillian's #1 rule is to keep the weight cut healthy: there is no reason to risk ending up in a hospital. Finally, Niki & Gillian discuss what many people can relate to: wanting to improve appearance for a specific event or period of time. Ultimately, this is NOT about scale weight but rather appearance, so fluid can be manipulated to prevent belly bloat. If the event is far off, sustainable weight loss approaches should be planned, and then the icing on the cake can be some fluid manipulation. A final note. Weight cuts can be exhausting, so, again, really think about why you want to do this. You're adding stress to the event, and it might not be worth the effort.

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Rachel Reynolds joins Bekah & Anna Marie to bust some strong moms myths, including toning & tightening, burning belly fat, giving you energy, and confidence.

0:00 Introduction

2:57 Energy to Keep Up with Your Kids

• doesn't give you energy, but gives you strength & confidence & calmness
• it's a give and take because it also takes energy

6:31 Tightening & Toning Your Body

• nope
• lifting does probably does what you want "toning" to be & do
• visible muscles but not too many muscles
• can't promise what you're going to look like
• your body will change
• finding clothes can be more difficult, but more options exist these days

20:15 Burning Belly Fat

• lifting does use some energy and also helps skews calories toward building muscle
• you want to be a gas-guzzling body and eat all the calories, not a prius
• it does take hard work to look a certain way
• lift+nutrition=superpower & real body transformations
• just dropping body weight really won't do what you think it will do (you probably won't be happy with the result)
• you can eat more food

35:33 Body Transformation & Not Feeling Like Yourself

• can cut and get stronger if you start off bigger
• some people have a number they're unwilling to get heavier than, regardless of how they look
• important to have people in your corner (spouse, friends, family)

43:33 Strength Training Builds Confidence

• Yep
• choosing to struggle builds confidence
• sense of control as well

52:27 Why Train as a Busy Mom?

• try it
• how important is your long term health for you and your quality of life?
• find a coach you connect with
• you can do it!
• most people have this "I'm so glad I did that" feeling about training, getting stronger, and the overall process & change
• you won't regret trying it

#strongmoms

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How do you balance all your responsibilities and set a positive example for your kids? Bekah and Anna Marie discuss what they've found works for themselves and their clients.

It can feel impossible to train while maintaining your other responsibilities. Despite this feeling, training can help bolster your ability to uphold your other responsibilities. Capable, strong moms who regularly subject themselves to difficulty can better weather difficult times.

Training helps set an example for your children that choosing to struggle can help, shifting away the idea of body image and appearance to capability and strength, and you might hear your teenage son tell his friends "my mom can bench more than you."

When you embrace voluntary hardship, you will likely find yourself gravitating toward others who act similarly. Beyond setting an example yourself, your children will see examples of your friends and acquaintances. Beyond benefiting your children, you will surround yourself with people who raise you up and make you want to be better.

You'll see confidence and mental health benefits, as you realize you're tougher than you thought. You and your children will see the benefit of individual and short term failure and how pushing beyond these failures leads to long-term success.

Making the mental shift to training can be difficult, so have awareness for what makes this easier and you can try some different strategies. Having a home gym helps tremendously, though you may find that you need to lift at a time when you know that your children won't be around. Plan around your family schedule, knowing when it will be the easiest for you to train, and this might mean breaking up your workouts into smaller parts throughout the day or getting in what you can during the week and then having a longer workout or workouts on the weekend.

You may also want to reevaluate how you spend your time. You almost certainly are spending time on things that, if you think about them, matter less to you and provide less good than training to you and your family.

Finally, you can think about your "done list." This is your to do list at the end of the day or week: what did you accomplish, and how will you feel looking at what you accomplished versus what you didn't? Would it be better that you completed what you did if you didn't train? Probably not.

Return to training if you stop: you can always come back, but when you're training ensure you fit it in--even if the intensity or frequency or volume is lowered: do something. Lift.

#strongmoms #donelist

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Bekah & Anna Marie take on the elephant in the room when it comes to females lifting: stress incontinence. They provide helpful tips and strategies whether you struggle with this yourself or you are a coach who has clients who struggle with this (whether they tell you or not). To be clear, we're discussing what happens if you pee when lifting, usually at heavier weights.

Different types of incontinence exist, and they specifically discuss stress incontinence. Even when it comes to stress incontinence, different types exist and you may find that stress incontinence occurs along familiar patterns for different lifters.

When it comes to stress incontinence, you typically two diametrically-opposed reactions: shroud of same or badge of honor. Lifters may feel ashamed that it occurs and not want to discuss and even consider not lifting anymore, or they celebrate it and see it as evidence of hard work, like some CrossFitters may feel or have felt about puking during an especially hard "met con."

Some things tend to make this more likely. Below are some features or events that will likely make stress incontinence more likely to occur:

• being female
• having had kids, especially 2+
• wearing a belt
• heavier weights
• during a particular portion of the monthly cycle

Don't worry, though. There are ways to deal with this, beyond diapers or pads to absorb the issue at hand.

Below are some important things and potential ways to address this:

• proper instruction on bracing
• incontinence RPE, where this issue limits intensity
• limiting rep ranges
• don't wear a belt
• adjust exercises: high bar
• don't drink caffeine before training on training days
• NOT emptying your bladder repeatedly between work sets
• adjust training during the portion of your cycle where this is more likely to occur
• think about this like a form error that you can address (and potentially a form error that you don't allow and adjust training if it occurs)
• prescribe tonnage goals

Thinking about bearing down like you're going to the bathroom is definitely NOT helpful. Learning proper bracing and valsalva can help, and these muscles can actually be strengthened alongside your other muscles. You may find that these muscles lag behind your others, but you can still get seriously strong even if you limit stresses that tend to cause this to occur. It's more like clenching like someone is going to hit your stomach.

Kegels and other exercises can help, but they simply aren't similar enough to holding a properly braced position for a hard set of squats or deadlifts.

People tend to find that this occurs at a fatigue threshold or intensity threshold. Some women find that longer sets make it harder to prevent this, so lowering rep ranges and doing more sets can help.

Other women may find that a certain intensity causes it. In this case, limiting intensity can help.

If you find that it occurs during a certain time of the month, then you can adjust that portion of the month with lower weights or reps, no belt, tempo squats and supplemental squats that make it easier to control and lower the intensity.

Another thing to note is that trying to empty your bladder before every work set likely only creates an expectation in your body that you need to pee when you train, so this is ultimately counterproductive.

Bekah and Anna Marie have found that this often occurs alongside form breakdown (as, if you think about it, you tend to adjust your body in certain ways when you pee). Just like other form errors, you can learn to prevent them as much as possible and, of course, adjust training when they occur.

There's the mental side to this. You may feel embarassed from this. You may get upset that your platform or clothes get urine on them. There's fear and apprehension, especially when you train in ways that tends to cause this to happen (higher reps or intensities).

Finally, after hearing all this you might feel guilty or not normal if you're a woman and don't struggle with this. That's fine too! Different people struggle with different things in life and lifting, and you don't need to feel bad whether you struggle with this or not.

We should be able to talk about this and help people alleviate and address this issue. This podcast is here to help.

#strongmoms

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Anna Marie & Rebekah tackle pregnancy and lifting.

There's lots of bad information and poor choices people can make in this arena. Recommendations generally used to be against any exercise during pregnancy. Luckily, it's much more common and acceptable to exercise while pregnant. Modifications and listening to your body will help.

Anna Marie became pregnant after 4 years of consistent training. Anna Marie's personality is one where she'll push things too far and not back off when she should sometimes, whereas others may back off too much.

She deadlifted and squatted up until the middle of her last week, and used RPE to modify intensity when needed. One important note for her is that she had trained for 4 years consistently and is a coach, so she was well conditioned and in shape and knew how to make intelligent modifications when needed.

Some recommend against starting lifting when pregnant. While it depends on health, previous exercise and activity, and the stage of pregnancy, women can in fact begin training when pregnant, but things will need to be progressed more conservatively. The biggest thing for novices--and pregnant women in general--is managing stress.

When it comes to managing stress, consider that every pregnancy is different, so you don't want to judge yourself against a previous pregnancy. You also don't want to judge yourself against other women and their pregnancy: it's ultimately about your body now. What are you capable of doing today?

Different lifts may prevent pain and discomfort for different people. Some common modifications that you may use include the following: high bar squats, bodyweight squats, rack pulls, feet up on bench press, seated press, tempo squat.

Modifying intensity will almost certainly be required. Some ideas for this are using RPE to modify the intensity if the lifts feel much harder than they should. Another is to prescribe tonnage. This keeps the total work and work capacity up, but allows the lifter to do more volume at lighter weights if needed as opposed to higher weights with less volume.

Expect ups and downs. It's okay if you have to modify a lift or modify intensity or even skip or postpone a workout. This is definitely a place where having a coach helps, as people tend to either be too aggressive or too conservative with themselves.

Consistency matters more than anything else. If you train consistently, even at light weights, you will be physically better prepared for the birth and get stronger.

Following birth, don't rush into training too quickly. Though you may see others return to training or exercise almost immediately after birth, beginning before you are ready can cause injuries and complications and ultimately prevent you from serious training and returning to your previous strength levels as fast as you would have it you had had a bit more patience following the birth. Listen to your body.

Getting back to training helps give many women a feeling of autonomy. Some women have feelings that--because they are supporting the fetus with their body--they lack bodily autonomy. Returning to training can help create a return to normality and bring this feeling of autonomy. Again, though, return conservatively, modify as necessary, and don't progress too quickly. There is a good hormonal environment to train post-pregnancy but, again, beginning too quickly and too aggressively can ultimately create problems that prevent progress.

#strongmoms

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Rebekah Krieg and Anna Marie Oakes-Joudy discuss their journey to and with barbell training and share what strength has meant to them and to the moms they have trained. Meet your hosts, two strong people, great coaches, and wonderful moms.

Anna Marie, like many, found barbells through CrossFit. She naturally gravitated toward strength workouts and looked to the CrossFitters who focused on strength training. She noticed the immediate benefits to her everyday activities, and loved how barbells helped her with body recomposition--not just gaining or losing weight, and how she felt with a stronger, more muscular body.

Bekah also participated in CrossFit, but her first foray into exercise was soccer and sports. After a shoulder injury, she was told she really needed to add some muscle around her shoulder, and this helped push her toward simple, hard, effective training.

Both had female athlete role models, but also felt weird in that they were attracted to strength and athleticism but it wasn't quite accepted.

They find that with moms, a light bulb comes on as mothers adopt this mode of training and see the benefits in their body but also increased confidence. Strength training is part of self care as a mom, and taking care of yourself helps be a better person and mother. Strength training is empowering.

Much of being a mother is about sacrifice and worrying about and taking care of others' needs. It can be hard to justify the time it takes to train and that you're spending time on yourself. Bekah says she struggles--and she finds many moms struggle with the thought: "I want this for my daughter, but I'm not sure I want this for me."

Ultimately, strength training isn't for all women, but more women should try it and many would benefit from it who might misunderstand barbells and their benefits.

Finally, a note to dudes and men and husbands: don't try to convince your wife to train. Be a positive role model, but pushing your wife to train will likely only push her away. She has to come to strength training on her own terms, and you have to understand and support that.

#strongmoms

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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

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• Matt on Instagram
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• [email protected]

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