The FITSPRO Podcast

Gone are the days of thinking strength makes you slow and endurance training kills your strength gains. YOU CAN HAVE BOTH. And there are three ways in my opinion. Keep in mind this is with strength training as the focus. That’s important to note for context purposes.

How to Best Incorporate Cardio into Your Strength Training:

If butted up to training, after training

This will NOT kill your gains. Worry not. You’ll actually like get the plus side of the accumulation affect. Try doing your scheduled cardio before your lift, and then after your lift. You may find that you don't have to work at the same intensity to get the same cardiac and respiratory response when the cardio is done post-lift. That's the accumulation effect at work.

If this is unappealing to you and you really want to give your cardio 110% then see option two.

Completely separate from your training.

This is my personal preference and this truly does come down to preference and time availability. Not everyone an do this, but if you can, it allows you to focus ONLY on your conditioning and ONLY on your lifting. If training four days per week, do your cardio on two non-lifting days for example.

If you want more of an "athletic" or "crossfit" feel and are seeking TRUE integration, see option three.

In a fatigue based post-workout metcon/circuit style conditioning.

This would look like a timed, distance or calorie based cardio machine - ie, bike, treadmill or run, rowing etc, paired with exercises that make sense for that day of training. So if doing at the end of bench day, maybe you’re doing rowing, followed by plank shoulder taps and reverse flies or banded tricep extensions. 

These exercises are not ones that require high focus, CNS demand and can be performed quickly, or for time without high risk of injury.

You can certainly integrate cardio into your training in more ways than these. But in order to get the most out of both, these are what I suggest.

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ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:

Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness Business

Launching is so daunting for so many online coaches. And truly it doesn't need to be. When you understand the phases of launching and what to do in each of them, it becomes a simple road map to follow (as long as you have clarity in your offer and messaging).

Let us begin by actually defining a "launch." A launch is a hard open hard close. So if you’re launching a new offer that counts. If you’re re-opening enrollment for an existing offer, that counts too.

There are 5-6 phases of launch and I teach them in my Launching 101 training inside the bonuses of FitsPRO Foundations - today we are mentioning two of those. The two that I think are most relevant on social media.

Social should only be ONE PART of your launch.

Email will likely be the main driver (or can be, if it’s not yet). I go over WHY this is A GAME CHANGER in your marketing approach if you're not yet optimizing the use of email.

Tune in to today's episode as I take you deep into the following:

Warm up phase

* Use curiosity early

* Build momentum - of information and frequency

* Drive to waitlist (gives us a MUCH better idea of % conversion)

* Education (stories)

* Posts related to program but beneficial for the ENTIRE audience

* Utilize OLD viral posts - repost or repurpose to increase exposure and profile traffic BEFORE the launch, not during.

* The launch is won HERE

Public launch

* The foundation is laid

* Repeating yourself

* Encourage and answer questions

* Share enrollments

* Drive results and emotional reason for buying/joining

* No questions left on the table

When we look at launches in sections or phases and assign certain tasks and focuses to each of those phases it becomes much simpler to follow and execute. Rather than attempting to come up with something to say everyday - feeling very out of touch, and "salesy." No one wants that. You’re excited about your offer. THAT is what should permeate your selling tactics.

Go get 'em.

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Strength and hypertrophy are often lumped together in conversations around training. That’s because there is heavy carryover between methods used to attain both of these results. BUT there are fine differences and that’s what today’s episode will cover. If hypertrophy - aka muscle growth - is your main goal in comparison to strength, or strength is your priority, today’s monologue should be helpful. And I’m stoked to cover this one with you.

My programming is a mix of strength and hypertrophy but I am personally in a hypertrophy specific training phase and will be for the foreseeable future. Strength training - true strength training requires a high mental load in my opinion. There is no going through the motions. It can be a lot - a lot of time, a lot of brain space, and a lot on the joints. It’s simply not what makes the most sense for my current postpartum season. While I am pushing strength in some of the movements in the program I am following, most of my focus is hypertrophy. So, you should be able to identify through this episode what I am personally practicing in my training.

We’re going over six aspects of training and the differences in their application to training based on hypertrophy vs strength

Let us begin.

RPE

* Higher RPE with strength training generally speaking.

* Hypertrophy can happen on a much wider spectrum of RPE than strength.

These differences come down to load in relationship to volume. While hypertrophy can certainly be a byproduct of absolute strength training, strength will likely be lower volume (sets and reps) and with higher loads, therefore higher RPE.

Warm up sets vs Pre-fatigue

* Warm up sets are a must for strength training.

* Pre-fatigue is more applicable to hypertrophy training. 

Warm up sets for strength training or select exercises in hypertrophy training ensure that you prime the body for the proper load for ALL working sets. Meaning we don’t leave anything on the table - wasting working sets with loads that are not challenging enough. 

Pre-fatigue is used to pre-fatigue the muscle groups you’re focusing on that day in a more hypertrophy based program. If doing lower body with a knee and quad dominant bias, then maybe some light hero squats or quad extensions might be used before the main lift begins.

Warm up sets may or may not be needed. But are definitely suggested and needed for strength training.

Rest periods

Training absolute strength requires longer rest periods in order to demonstrate repeat strength and get the most force out of your muscle fibers.

As mentioned earlier, hypertrophy can be trained across a large spectrum of volume and load - therefore rest periods. You could see NO REST all the way up to 120 seconds depending on the set and program prescription. I can see reason for both. Either way, actually scheduling and following rest is a great way to be sure you’re working hard enough during working sets. You should NEED the rest in order to complete programmed sets and loads.

Tempo

I do not have research to back this but should truly find some because tempo is all the rage right now and it’s funny because I have been talking about it as serious missing piece in programming for years.

It will not magically fix programming or get you gains but it’s important nonetheless.

For strength, following a controlled tempo is going to be beneficial for training the SKILL...

In just closing out tax season, I felt the need to touch on business finance within my scope. Which isn’t much. But I can speak from personal experience, and general base knowledge.

There are many misconceptions around online health and fitness business management and finances and I simply want to make few things clear. Which will in turn, I hope, make your life easier as a solepreneur.

Please do consult an accountant before setting up or making changes to your financial decisions in your business. 

I get some kind of fired up when I see business coaches online gloating about revenue generated without any context. Specifically without differentiating between REVENUE and PROFIT. They are NOT the same my friends. And that is an extremely important truth to grasp if you plan to navigate this world of online business.

Revenue is how much you general in sales of services, goods, or through affiliate marketing.

Period. How much mula came in? Mind you there are processing fees no matter what third party you’re using - likely something like Stripe, if not Stripe. Talk to your accountant about writing off those fees. Because they are an expense. Your revenue is what happened before those fees.

Then we have PROFIT. Profit in my personal opinion is what we give a shit about. More shits than revenue. 

A coach might generate $100,000 in revenue but what did they KEEP? What was still in the bank after expenses? That’s your PROFIT.

I highly suggest you read the book Profit First. It provides a different way to set up business finance and I do think it works particularly well for those who have variable income - meaning month to month is not consistent income. That tends to be the case for many health and fitness professionals.

So, when you’re making your revenue goals, don’t forget about profit. That’s my point. When someone says they can get you to $10k months, is that revenue or profit? It’s a fair question to ask in my opinion.

Now let’s talk about ways to increase both revenue and profit.

Revenue: More money coming in - We need more clients, higher price points, or more streams of income.

A massive mistake I see when coaches are trying to increase revenue is that they add one off purchases with no plan to sell or scale that offer. Please please please make sure that if you’re going to create a new offer in your offer suite, that it is 1. Needed in the market. 2. People KNOW it’s needed. 3. And that it’s WANTED. The offer needs to be something that is knowingly desired by the prospective customer.

Do not create an offer for the sake of creating it. We create offers for PROFITABILITY. That profitability comes from people needing, wanting and BUYING said service or offer. Don’t make this mistake.

If you’re depending on the offer to make you money, how much? How often will you need to sell it? If it’s available all the time how are you collecting leads and getting them to convert?

Again, I ask these questions because adding a new offer is actually the hardest way to increase revenue but it’s often the first route entrepreneurs go down.

I’d suggest: 

Seeing if you can either increase price of current offers if it makes sense, so you’re increasing the total value of each client and bringing up your bottom line. Add value to the existing offer if needed.

Becoming more proficient and optimizing sales of what you currently sell (rather than creating something new). If there is a legit gap that you can fill with a...

Make no mistake this is not a shred for summer episode. But after training clients for a decade, I know that summer comes with resistance to the gym, more time outside, perhaps more adult beverages, and social gatherings. And fitness can take a backseat. But it 100% does not need to. It can actually become one of your favorite seasons to exercise during!

So, today’s podcast will cover some of the barriers that we commonly see when it comes to completing lifts and adhering to programs through the summer months.

How to make workouts shorter

* As with most situations in fitness, it depends. You can cut off sets and reps every exercise prescribed, OR cut off the last super set or one exercise. Typically exercises are programmed in order of largest, bang for your buck, highest demand - metabolically, and from a neuromuscular standpoint. So, you can either get the most out of those first few sets or supersets OR you can opt to shave off one set of everything in the workout, as mentioned first. Neither option will make or break your results.

How to modify based on equipment

* It’s easy to call it quits if you’re not at your normal gym or home gym. But YOU HAVE OPTIONS. Remember to think of movement patterns rather than SPECIFIC EXERCISES. If you don’t have access to a barbell - let’s say you’re at a hotel and only have a smith machine or dumbbells - that works! Let’s say you’re supposed to do back squats - you can change the pattern slightly to work in a smith machine for the same sets and reps, or choose to add volume (maybe 1.5 to 2 times the reps with a goblet squat). These are things we cover inside Annie’s Secret Lab of Brain Gains for Built By Annie members. There are so many options for modifying and still getting close to the programmed stimulus!

* In general you want to mimic the same movement pattern - So think of movement families like squat, hinge, vertical push and pull and horizontal push and pull. Then you have bilateral (both limbs working at the same time) or unilateral (single limb). You want to match pattern and ideally bilateral or unilateral. Those tricks should allow you to modify nearly any exercise. This does come with some experience and a slightly higher training age. But truly something is typically better than nothing!

Best practices for skipping a workout

* If you find you are skipping a workout per week or more than two per month, then be sure to alternate which lift you have to miss. Ie if you find you can never quite get that 4th or 5th lift in and it’s always overhead press, we want to be sure you choose to skip your strongest lift one day, and maybe bench press another week, etc. So that we’re not constantly missing a certain set of movement patterns and muscle groups.

* Do you actually need to skip it completely? Or can you get in just the warm up and main sets? or just the accessory work? Better to get SOME stimulus than to completely miss that stimulus for a whole other week.

* Can you tack on combine it with another lift, like discussed earlier.

There are so many ways to get the most out of your program this summer without skipping. Though it’s totally fine to miss a workout here and there!

Mindset shifts to consider

* Busy times ARE the best time to follow a plan and structure because they free up brain space and decision fatigue while allowing you to still work toward your main goal

* Is the goal weight loss? maintenance? feeling good? Your expectation will drive your reaction to...

With over 200,000 downloads and two years under our belts, we celebrate episode 200 by answering 10 of the most popular fitness questions of all time.

Below is the cliff notes version but it is VERY important you tune in for the whys, nuance and context behind these answers.

And now, the 10 fitness questions:

1. Is working with body weight or dumbbells comparable to a full gym when looking build muscle or strength?

At some point you'll reach limits with body weight and dumbbells. The options that a full gym brings to the table are simply above that which can be done with dumbbells and body weight. Or the ease with which gains can be made. They do not compare.

2. Should I increase volume or load first? Does it matter?

I am biased towards increasing volume/capacity, then adding load. But it depends.

3. Is being sore a solid indicator of hypertrophy?

Soreness is a sign of POTENTIAL for the adaptation of hypertrophy to take place. NOT a needed indicator.

4. What to do if you’re sick - skip the workout? Or push through?

The question is moreso to skip and rest, or go through the motions at 50-70% like a deload week in order to move the body but not tax it further.

5. How do you deal with working out postpartum and being sleep deprived? Isn’t that counterintuitive?

The pros outweigh the cons. And I adjust intensity as needed. It's important that we provide context when discussing workouts postpartum.

6. Is a movement like bird dogs better for core stability than an ab roller?

No. These are simply two different exercises and an ab roller is far more challenging than a bird dog.

7. Is a heart rate monitor needed for improving cardio vascular health?

Not NECESSARY but certainly nice to have and can make training easier and more intentional.

8. Cardio before or after lifting?

Whichever is more important to your training goals, prioritize that first.

9. Best cardio for cardiovascular health?

In short, do what you enjoy. There is no single form of cardio that will yeild the best cardiovascular adaption.

10. Thoughts on cycle synching?

* Research does not support the need for this IF a period is healthy

* No significant differences in strength and force output or capacity in different phases of cycle

* You may FEEL subjectively different. But trust that your body more likely than not can hit normal performance measures

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First off, the lack of education you’re sent home with after this massive abdominal surgery should be malpractice. It’s truly incredible. 

I did not plan for a C-section at all. I mean, I planned for the possibility of a C-section as far as my birth plan went, but I was not at all prepared for C-section recovery on the backend of delivery. I had a 72 hour stay in the hospital. So we were there from November 22 to November 25. We went home the day after Thanksgiving.

In the hospital, I purchased MammaSteFit 16 week C-section lifting program, as well as their C-section scar mobilization program. I know that scar tissue can wreak havoc on your insides and tissue mobility. So it was important to me to learn how to mobilize that area and not be afraid of it essentially. 

I know that some people don’t experience a lot of pain after having a C-section. But that was not my personal experience. I was on oxy for I think 7 to 10 days from the C-section. My pain was very high for seven days and then on the eighth day, it just dropped significantly. It was like I turned the corner. 

The pain for me was in standing up, and I think I also had pain just from also pushing at a 10 vaginally. Because the pain I was experiencing was around the incision, but also just extreme heaviness in my pelvic floor. And near my rectum. 

At times, I felt like I had to walk bent over. So the nurses let me know that standing up really tall and straight was actually beneficial for me, so I tried to do that as much as possible, but that was also very uncomfortable. 

The lack of mobility was a big mental hurdle for me in postpartum. You already lose so much autonomy. Feeling unable and just not being able to move with intention was one of my least favorite parts of early postpartum.

I found that as far as returning to exercise. I really wanted to move my body a lot sooner than my body was going to allow for. At around three weeks I really really really wanted to move with intention. More than walking. But at that point, I was still finding that, even in moving around my house more , I would get more bleeding, or have more pain the next day.

For instance, at the three week mark, I just did some very gentle mobility, unweighted, lunging, thoracic, spine mobility, and breath work, and I literally had more bleeding the next day, because that was too much. This is just my experience, so take it with a grain of salt . It’s not meant to scare anyone. It’s just literally meant to pull back the curtain on a fit person recovering from a C-section.

Around week four I was feeling a lot better and able to generally walk more and move more without an increase in bleeding. My bleeding was actually almost completely gone at week four. And so I had Mamma stay fit schedule my program start on January 2 which was my six week mark. 

I had a five week postpartum appointment, and I was completely cleared for everything, meaning sex, movement, exercise. All the things. She did an internal exam, and my uterus was healing really well, and I only had a two finger separation in my core. So that gave me the external affirmation I needed to move forward. Because let me tell you, I felt like I was in a brand new body postpartum. I could not tell where anything was in my midsection from muscles to organs. It felt very strange. And sometimes even four months postpartum. It still feels weird.

Right at six weeks I began moving and following the program. It was four days a week. And when I say working out or lifting, I mean unweighted kneeling hip hinges. It’s far stretch to call these workouts.

All of these are centered around and chosen through the lens of what I consider to be the two most important pieces to starting a business in the online health and fitness space.

* Building an engaged audience that trusts you - you will not have an online business without this.

* Developing a clear AF offer that works

So, as we dive into each of these, remember those two things - in the simplest sense, we need a lead pool or audience, and we need to make money. Which happens via our offer. If we lack clarity on said offer or it does not deliver on what we said it would, then it doesn’t work, you’ll lose confidence, and people will not trust you.

Let us begin. You might be disappointed to find that these are not much different than they were seven years ago. And that’s because the same principles still apply. It’s just how they fit into what is currently available in the online space. Seven years ago, it was blogging and the start of Instagram. Now, a blog may be far less important, but Instagram is like a full-time job. And, I would argue more important than ever.

Strap in for the long haul

Even more than seven years ago, new entrepreneurs need to grasp the fact that overnight successes don’t exist and to build a sustainable and profitable business simply takes TIME. There is no getting around that fact.

And the sooner you can embrace the daily grind, the more you will enjoy the process. Just like you’d tell a health and fitness client.

I know that scarcity can be a real thing when starting a business. I am not talking about scarcity mindset rooted in lies and false narratives. But ACTUAL scarcity and the very real need to generate revenue. Just know that this is not going to happen if you don’t have people who trust you, and if you don’t have an offer to sell that works.

So, take a few mantras from my first years of business - “make it happen” and “Be tenaciously patient” - which is not what it sounds like. When I say that, I mean that you need to be tenacious and patient. Lots of work. Lots of intent. Gratification down the road. Patience is needed in addition to all the work you’re going to put in.

Commit to failing fast and adapting

When starting out with your business you have the least to lose and least amount of eyes on you. Try all the things. Throw spaghetti at the wall, find your footing, your philosophy and your creative process.

In the beginning, you are the least confident. Which brings about this paradox, where you have not yet gained the confidence and clarity to show up how you know you should, but also, like I said, you have the least to lose. It’s the time where you need to bust out reps like never before. Frequency is your friend in the beginning.

Create as much content as you possibly can. If that makes you feel overwhelmed, I want to be specific with the fact that I am referring to small bite-size pieces of content. Apply that to an email list, a podcast, or Instagram. Wherever it is that you are creating content. Figure out a way to do it daily and at a high frequency. Will get into that a bit later. But the sooner that you can move forward with the fears that you have, when starting out, the quicker you are going to find success. That does not mean that the fear or level of being uncomfortable goes away, it just means that you are able to adapt to existing with those feelings and continuing to move forward. That is the goal, and that would be a main focus of mine, if I was starting out again.

Before I share the next one, I want to preface it with ignoring all of the gurus.

So I lied, and there are only seven program mistakes and how to fix them. But I digress. Let’s begin

Program Mistake Number One

Switching things up way too often. As I do programs by other coaches, I am reminded that even some of the most educated people in the space make changes well before they need to. I don’t know if this comes from a worry that people are going to get bored, or just the desire to implement different variations, and have fun with the actual program design. While I understand both of these, the results that people want are probably on the other side of fairly boring programming.

In the postpartum program that I followed, which I do suggest if people, I got to a point where I was modifying over 50% of the programming simply because it was changing week to week and it just wasn’t needed. I wanted to continue the same movements that I had done the week before in order to progress. How are we gauging progress if we are switching up variations and sets and reps every week?

Mind you this is in regards to general strength and hypertrophy training and programming. Not something like CrossFit. Which honestly should still have progressive phases. There’s just a lot more ground to cover in CrossFit. 

Put simply, number one is to stick to, at least the same movements per week for an entire month. The sets and reps my vary, depending on the goal of the program, but keep the movements the same. The reason for doing this is two things. We can gauge progress, not only in adding more weight or mechanical load to each movement, but also building those neurological pathways for each pattern. We don’t only build muscle. Part of that process is neurological adaptation, which can’t happen if we are switching it up willy-nilly every week.

Numbers two and three

2 = not working at a high enough intensity.

3 = trash volume just to add volume.

The only program I have followed that had high volume that I could understand was German volume training, and a program by Hattie Boil (who has been training for over 13 years and gave very large ranges of volume based on your training history). She can handle high volume at high intensities, because of the capacity that she has worked up over a decade. That is not the case for most people doing high-volume work. Note that I said that she is working at high intensities, as in using high, challenging RPE, and at a high volume. This is what I would consider advanced training.

Most programming involving high volume, mostly in the form of a lot of exercises, is not also working at a high enough intensity to get the results that people desire. Which are in this case, muscle games, or strength gains. More is not always more.

Mechanical load or tension is the main driver of both strength and hypertrophy. So this should be the focus regardless of volume. It’s not that high volume is bad. It’s just that we want to make sure that the trainee is working at a high enough intensity to stimulate muscle growth. think about working at an RPE of eight, or only leaving one to two reps in the tank on most exercises if this is the goal. Which would be an RIR of 1-2.

Number four

is not using warm up sets in order to find the load you are going to use for your actual working sets. Often times we leave gains on the table because your first or maybe even first two sets were not at high enough intensities for the goal of the actual sit and rep scheme. This goes back to RPE, or RIR. Making sure that every set is actually at a proper working load and is challenging. Integrating warm-up sets can be helpful and will ensure that no...

The art of story telling for content and sales.

Something I say often is that content is everywhere and everything can be content.

I also think marketing is everywhere and it behooves us as entrepreneurs to always be observing it.

Most of us spend a lot of time consuming - be it via direct marketing or social media. Take a step back and observe, don’t just consume. Be aware and take note.

When you actually stick around to watch a full video, WHY? What sucked you in? What kept you paying attention? Why didn’t you lose interest?

I guarantee a big part of content that keeps you engaged has to do with story telling. Whether it’s 10 seconds or 90 seconds.

Whether it’s text in a swipe graphic, Twitter or Instagram story. Maybe words aren’t even involved. Maybe it’s dance or a moving landscape.

Story telling evokes feelings and feelings keep us around.

I REPEAT - STORY TELLING EVOKES FEELINGS, AND FEELINGS KEEP US AROUND.

Now is when you commit to approaching content and sales through the lens of story telling this quarter - this year.

You’ll see and feel it after this episode I hope, wherever you take in media.

I have my business clients often write out and identify 2-3 brand stories. Events that led to why they coach the way they do. The stories that ultimately shaped their philosophy. The why behind their brand.

If you’ve never done that, it might be a fun and helpful activity. These stories can and should be very grounding for your messaging and therefore your content and sales.

They’re a huge part of communicating and connecting with your audience. 

The most important piece of story telling from a business standpoint is that people can either see themselves in the story, or that you draw it back to a collective human experience - relatability OR, inspiration.

Remember the lens we’re seeing this through - business sales and content.

Watching Free Solo is mesmerizing AF and it might inspire you, but it’s not selling you. Though I suppose it massively helped build his brand and bring awareness to him and all he’s accomplished.

Point is, stay focused - we want to dance with story telling on the day to day. In bite size pieces of content and then in sales.

A good story - whether protested through video or text or photo evokes emotion, like we said but it also paints a picture for us. We can see the story playing out - directly or indirectly.

Think about how you can do that with your content. Not every piece, but where it fits. 

Story telling doesn’t have to be any specific feeling. It just has to evoke a feeling. Or a series of feelings. I just don’t want you to put yourself in a box. The best thing you can do with storytelling as be authentic as possible. As with anything in business and building a personal brand. 

In your content:

I encourage you to number one be playful and keep an open mind.

Remember that storytelling is just a more specific piece of connecting with your audience. It should not be forced. That’s why I say I want you to see your contact through the lens of potential for storytelling, or how you can improve your ability to tell stories.

Think of how this can show up in any piece of content that you produce. Whether that is podcasts, Instagram swipe graphics, the caption of a post, or short and long form video.