Side Quest Podcast

Dan John is one of the most recognized, influential, and creative minds in the world of strength and conditioning.  He is credited with inventing the Goblet Squat and the athletes he has trained over the years have won countless awards and medals.  For more head to www.sidequestfitness.com/interviewwithdanjohn

In the third episode of Coaches Corner, we discuss athleticism.  Even if you do not play a sport it is important to train like an athlete.  Explosive movements, agility, balance, and strength are all traits that we use every day even if we do not know it.  Joining me on this episode are former guests Adam Fisher, Joseph Brigley, & Nick Sorrell.

For the show notes please head to www.sidequestfitness.com/podcast/

In this episode I chat with Mike Yanda of Fast Lane Fitness.  Mike is an attorney who also works as a fitness coach on the side, all while being a stay at home dad. Mike realized while in law school just how important it was for him to get into shape.  He now applies those same principles he learned on his own in school to help his clients lose fat, build muscle, and get stronger.

For the show notes with links to articles, videos, books, and more head to www.sidequestfitness.com/podcast/

In this episode I interview one of my best friends, Dan Koppenhaver, about his experience of competing at the US National Weightlifting Competition in Dallas, Texas and what went into his training.  Dan is a full time firefighter in Durham, NC and when he is not at the station he is usually lifting.  Dan has made huge sacrifices to reach the level he is at now, including, waking up to train at 4am before he pulls a 24 hour shift at the firehouse.  

Currently, Dan is raising money to get to Reno so that he can compete.  Full time firefighters, unfortunately, do not make a lot of money.  If you want to help Dan out a little but click this link here which will take you to his GoFundMe account where is is close to his goal.  Even just a small donation of $1 can go a long way to help Dan get to Reno so he can crush it!

In this episode we discuss:

• The crispness of autumns arrival
• What physical training for firefighters look like
• What firefighters have to study in regards to emergency training, medical training, etc
• The humbling experience of spending time in the ER during training
• Ben Franklin started one of the first volunteer fire departments
• Remaining humble even while saving lives
• Training never stops
• What spurred his desire to learn the Olympic Lifts
• David Rigert
• Getting back into weight lifting after college
• Joined a local Crossfit Barbell Club after firefighter academy
• John North USA Weightlifting
• FitCon- NC
• Reno- USA Weightlifting Championships
• What he learned from competing
• Travis Mash
• What mistakes he made at his first competition
• Create a ceremony before you lift and do it every time
• Mastering the Mundane: the small details that matter
• Struggling to get sleep while at the firehouse
• Discovering the importance of pre-workout nutrition
• Coffee = happiness
• The psychological benefits of showering
• How much he actually eats in a day
• Ironic Omelets
• Favorite Spice Girl
• Most money he has ever spent drunk at Wendy's
• Longest time he has not taken a shower
• All Natural Gluten Free Showers
• Listening to Katy Perry while squatting, thanks Greg Nuckols
• How long he scrolls through Facebook before he gives up
• Aspects people don't know about firefighting
• Where does he see himself going from here
• Set the bar really high and keep going
• Pants
• GentleGiant (Instagram)

In this episode I interview Andy Morgan of Rippedbody.jp.  Andy is an online nutrition coach and trainer who helps people get ripped with no frustration.  Andy is one of the best in the industry, backing himself up with the best science available then delivering programs to his clients that get amazing results.  He is also one of the pioneers in creating a successful online business.

In this episode we discuss:

• How to adjust diet to successfully bulk
• Birmingham England NOT Alabama
• How did you end up in Osaka
• Angry White Pajamas
• Aikido and the Tokyo Riot Police
• Why He Stopped Martial Arts
• How Getting Hit By an Egg Truck Changed the Direction of his Life
• The Importance of Creating Memories
• Steve Jobs Stanford Speech
• Lean Gains and Martin Berken
• Building the Voice of Reason for Fitness in Japan
• Throw out All Your Best Stuff for Free
• Building Beer Credits Around the World
• Lose weight a slow pace, and smaller than maximal deficits are best, what is your preferred range, 500? 400? 300?
• Struggles of dieting
• The complete guide to setting up your diet
• There are a lot of formulas out there and it can be confusing to anyone, including coaches, so for coaches that are new or maybe follow things "by the book" what is one tip you would give them that has helped you when calculating caloric intake for clients?
• Sense of fullness when eating
• Getting out of bad habits
• The importance of lean body mass on metabolism
• Using tailors tape for measuring progress
• Diet Breaks vs Cheat Days vs Re-Feeds
• Lyle McDonald
• Jason Helmes
• What’s the most money you’ve ever drunkenly spent at McDonald’s? 
• How many days have you gone without showering?
• Who was your favourite Spice Girl?
• You are in the finals for the International Air Guitar Championships, what song do you play to take home the crown?
• What person from history would you want to have dinner with
• Hardcore History
• You mention that many people may be able to come off a diet and stop counting macros, in your experience do these people either 1. tend to eat the same meals all the time or 2. have learned enough about most food out there that they just kind of know whether or not they can or cannot eat it?
• Too much stuff in the house
• You mention for us young coaches at the end "be prepared to work long hours", what sacrifice during your long hours did you have to make that was the hardest for you to come to terms with?
• How to Build a Successful Online Personal Training Business
• Tips for young coaches on what to do to create a great online business
• Love What You Do 

This is the second episode of the monthly "Coaches Corner" series. This episode is all about supplements.

First and foremost, all the guests and myself advise that before you buy any supplement that you first check with your doctor to see if it is something you need.  Joining me in this episode are Tanner Baze, Travis Pollen, Joseph Brigley, Matt Dustin and Mason Woodruff (links to their episodes can be found below)

In this episode we discuss:

- Travis Pollen, Joseph Brigley, Tanner Baze, Matt Dustin, Mason Woodruff

- defining the word "supplement"

- Mason and Tanner started their careers at GNC

- sales training for GNC associates

- prescriptions for natural healing

- Vitamin Packs and high commissions 

- Most asked question on supplements

- Fat Burners

- Selling on Emotion

- Fat Burners are mostly caffeine pills

- Supplements are an unregulated market

- Sneaking in ingredients 

- LabDoor.com and Examine.com

- WADA (world anti doping agency)

- Unless you really need to address something, supplements are probably useless

- Multi-Vitamins

- Fortified Foods

- Supplements Travis is taking after his surgery 

- You may not need the supplements you are taking now but may need the ones you are not, ask your doctor

- Creatine

- Why Creatine is important to lifting and more

- Creatine does not make you bloat

- Examine.com on creatine

- Creatine Phosphate is your main energy source

- Save your money and focus on diet and lifting, not on supplements at GNC

- Unflavored BCAAs, no bueno

- Vitamin D on hormone production, fat loss, and more

- NuTropics

- Athletic Greens and Alpha Brain

- Pre-work outs and do we take them

- Placebo Effect

- Coffee and caffeine in sports (eric cressey article)

- Are protein powders really needed?  

- Get food within 3 hours, not 30 minutes

- Post Workout Monster

- Protein Powders can help hit protein goals, but are not needed, you can always eat more meat

- Protein Bars, and the down side of sugar alcohols

- BCAAs: Are they needed?

- It's sexy to worry about the extremes

- Fish Oil

- Precision Nutrition on Fish Oil

- LabDoor.com

- Biggest Waste of Money We Ever Spent on Supps

- GO TO YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE YOU BUY ANY SUPPLEMENT

One of my original guests, Jason Helmes of Anyman Fitness, returns to the show.  In this episode we got to catch up a little bit on the work he has been doing since he last came on the show in October.  Jason is a middle school math teacher but when he is not teaching basic algebra he is helping clients lose weight and gain muscle and strength.  We discuss a lot in this episode on running a business, dieting tricks and tips, how our wives never take us too seriously, and mindset just to name a few.

In this episode we discuss:

- Mr. Tall Guy

- Billy Madison 

- The resiliency of children

- His 7 month cut

- An act in discipline

- Even coaches do stupid things

- His fall "fulk" or fat bulk

- His calorie range during cutting

- Being a sucker for self experimentation

- 40 pounds down in 7 months

- The evolution of his training philosophy

- Has his views on having abs changed

- One pair of pants

- The feeling of always chasing something

- Conquering the psychological and the physical to improve yourself

- His biggest struggle this cut versus any other

- Getting better at conquering the mental state

- Preventing triggers that cause binging

- Justifications will make fools of us all

- What he does to stay driven and focused with work, family, training, etc.

- Dealing with stress and anxiety and learning how to harness better use of time

- Defining Facebook

- How to Stop Worrying and Start Living/How to Win Friends and Influence People

- How to make systems work for you instead of your working for your systems

- Business is a lack of having systems set up

- Decisive, 4 Hour Work Week, Gorilla Mindset

- Phones Off at 8pm

- His rules he has implemented for his business

- If you practice with all your focus, you get a lot better faster

- False Community of our modern society today with social media

- Jason's e-Book

In this episode I interview Scott Tousignant "The Physique Artist" of Metabolic Masterpiece.  Scott is most importantly a husband and father but also happens to be a natural bodybuilder and online fitness coach.  He got started at an early age in the world of fitness and achieved his dream of opening and running his own gym.  He left that dream after a couple of years because he knew he needed to spend more time with his family.  Scott is also co-hosts a podcast host with former Side Quest Podcast guest Bryan Krahn.

In this episode we discuss:

• Being a natural bodybuilder
• Scott's podcast with Bryan Krahn
• The joys of family life
• How he got into fitness
• Finding balance with business and life
• Moving from owning a gym, to training people in home, to coaching online
• The temptation of constantly checking email/social media when with family
• The hardest joy for him to discover on his journey
• Finding motivation as he got older
• Getting back in touch with the old school workouts he did in his parents basement
• His journey from clean eating to a more flexible diet
• Focusing on the day to day stuff
• Developing the mind muscle connection and how it helped him to focus
• Feeling the tension of the lift
• The influence of sports psychology and sports philosophy; mental imagery
• What does he do to get reconnected to his workouts when he gets distracted
• Reduce weight to fill the contraction
• What he does mobility wise as he gets older
• Strength training as he gets older
• Using a foam roller and lacrosse ball
• Fascia stretch therapy
• What is a knot?
• Muscle activation technique
• Alexander technique
• Biofeedback 
• Learning guitar
• Taking a Zumba class with his wife
• Guilty Pleasure track
• Favorite swear word
• Who from history he would have dinner with
• What book outside of fitness has influenced him the most
• What would he do if he met 20 year old him
• Silliest thing he ever believed in
• What he learned about himself while being a competitive bodybuilder
• Practice posing to enhance your mind muscle connection
• Lessons of getting super lean and eating low amounts of calories
• Why he won't get back onstage again
• The art of presenting yourself onstage
• Scott and Bryan's episode about coming out of a cut

In today's episode I interview Mitch Heaslip of Mitch Heaslip Fitness and the man behind Fat Loss Inferno on Fitocracy.   Mitch is a strength and fat loss coach hailing from Canada but currently residing Dirty D, Dallas, Texas.  His clients have been soldiers, police officers, medics and fire fighters.  Currently he works in Dallas as a personal trainer and coaches online helping his clients build strength, burn fat, and building a life long commitment to health.

In this episode we discuss:

• how he got into fitness
• his basketball career in high school
• coaching on Fitocracy
• why fat loss inferno
• the mighty Canadians 
• media in Canada
• poutine 
• get out of your way and crush your own goals
• what goal he had to get out of his own way to achieve
• tiny things he does to help him achieve his goals
• selecting your attitude to start your day
• what he does to fight or u-turn negative thoughts
• fighting ourselves in fat loss
• his one sentence response for explaining fat loss
• the difficulty of cutting out whole macronutrients
• is the extreme approach right for anybody?
• his go to food when he gets a little off plan and cheats
• how he gets himself to bed earlier and the struggle to actually fall asleep
• meditation and its benefits
• meditating outside 
• craziest meal idea that he prepped and it turned out to suck
• cooking with a significant other who may not be on a fat loss plan like yourself
• food is sacred
• team work, individual goals, and how to do it with a spouse
• you have to move from love, not fear
• teaching kids about food, they are the adults of the future
• Fat Boys Delight
• the importance of knowing how to cook
• wrap everything in bacon for ultimate wins
• guilty pleasure track
• what superhero would he be
• backstreet or nsync
• who in history would he have dinner with
• one tip for your fat loss journey
• one thing he found wasn't true about Texas

In this week's episode I interview Matt Cleary of The Cleary Theory.  Born in Britain, Matt Cleary is one of the best trainers in Dubai today. While in the UK he worked with championship winning athletes in the United Kingdom and United States.

He thinks a little more out loud than some when he writes but he hopes that he can provide inspiration even if he goes on a little bit of a rant.  Matt has an uncomfortable relationship with the sun, oves orangutans, irony and superhero movies. He also enjoys to write in the third person.

Matt has a new FREE E-Book available for download on his website, which you can access via this link here.

In this episode we discuss:

Matt Cleary 

• 7 Fat Loss Mistakes You Need to Stop Making, his e-book
• His new found obsession with Ben and Jerry's
• Our favorite flavors of Ben and Jerry's
• How many flavors he can get in Dubai
• Training athletes in Britain 
• How trainers get to see the positive changes versus someone like a surgeon
• How he learns about comic book characters
• The biceps on Chris Evans and how he changed physically
• What fat loss mistake was the hardest for him to stop making
• Why counting macros/calories is important for me
• How do you as a coach teach IIFYM or Flexible Dieting
• Using food as a reward for exercise
• Estimated calorie burn via apps
• If you don't have time to cook, you don't have time to be on Facebook
• Making his bed every day
• Getting the small wins in anything you do
• Setting your day with the first thought you have each day
• How does he bring himself back from a bad part of the day to finish the day on a good note
• What kind of stuff puts me in a bad mood
• The story of a stain on a pair of pants that make my ass look awesome
• Dealing with the unexpected 
• Stoicism 
• Marcus Aurelius vs Seneca
• If you can do something about it, then do something about it, if you can't do something about it, don't worry about it
• Essentilism
• Wasting time debating on Facebook
• Do instead of Complain
• Typing lengthy responses on Facebook and then deleting them immediately
• Fitness debates on social media
• Guilty Pleasure track
• Greg Nuckols 
• Listening to Podcasts while walking
• What non-fitness based podcast he is hooked on: Hardcore History
• The similarities between European history and Game of Thrones
• What person from history would he have dinner with
• If Emperor Palpatine had been a good dude, he could have implemented good change
• The most ridiculous action movie I have ever heard while drunk in college
• World History Street Fighter
• Gandhi is a dick, in Civ that is
• Video games that suck us in and we can spend hours playing