This week Andy and I welcome another kettlebell nerd and stellar fitness coach, Vanessa Edwards, to the podcast to chat about fitness and gym ownership. Vanessa got her start when she was dealing with perpetual back pain. She sought treatment through chiropractors and Physical Therapists but eventually started working with a personal trainer to get stronger and build muscle.  In time, she found ways she could leverage weight and move her body to help manage her own pain and was hooked. Today, she owns her own fitness business and helps others find ways to move, lift, and train their body to get stronger, build muscle, and manage or eliminate pain. Vanessa was a joy to have on the show so grab a beer and enjoy!

This week Andy and I are doing an audit: when it comes to coaching and running a business, how do we improve?  How do we fit in the fitness market on a local or global scale? We discuss how we navigate our respective businesses and look to make improvements.  Next, we talk content creation and how, what, and why we approach content creation in our own, unique ways.

When it comes to choosing the right exercise, training program, or diet, we’re always looking for that “magic bullet” or “best” this or that in an effort to get results fast. Unfortunately, what’s “best” for some might not be best for others. Instead, we’re focusing on “optimal.” When it comes to improving your fitness and nutrition, we like to think of ways to optimize what we’re already doing. By choosing the “optimal” approach, we can choose the right tools and strategies for the individual, as opposed to choosing a one-size-fits-all “best” approach.  By optimizing at the individual level, we can take into account unique goals and needs, schedule conflicts, personalities and personal preferences, experience, injury history, and whole slew of other important factor. By choosing “optimal” we can choose the right approach for you and yield positive results and user experience. Grab a beer and enjoy!

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It’s all fine and good to “send it” in the weight room, but it might surprise you to know that the gym is not where the Gainz Magic happens. In fact, without proper nutrition and rest, all your efforts in the gym are mostly useless. Going to sleep and eating your veggies might be boring, but they’re the building blocks of a great, results-driven program. Today we’re talking our favorite strategies for recovery.

Good morning and welcome back! After 26 episodes on the year, Andy and I took a well-deserved week off to rest and recover. We come back from the break with a special guest: Willis Graves. Willis is a local physical therapist and Highland Games athlete, and he joins us today to talk shop. There are ball sports: football, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, and others. There are barbell sports like Olympic Lifting and Powerlifting. Andy and I have had our share of experience in both, but we’ve never tried a lifting sport like the Highland Games, and this is where Willis comes in to school us. The Highland Games as a sport can be traced back centuries, well before our modern version of weightlifting was even an idea. Originally from Ireland and crossing the pond to Scotland, it’s a sport steeped in tradition. Willis joins us today to talk about the sport, the major lifts involved, how he incorporates and traditional strength training to improve his performance. Of course, Andy and I jump at the opportunity to talk shop with a seasoned veteran of a lifting sport we know nothing about, and Willis delivers. Grab a beer and enjoy!

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Andy and I are a little worse for the wear after a weekend with the boys in Austin, Texas but the show goes on! Today we’re talking about decision fatigue: that overwhelming feeling you get when it comes to all the choices you have at your disposal. Part of what makes a good coach a good coach is that they can help you pare down those decisions – cut to the chase – and get on track towards your fitness goals fast. This isn’t a plug for our services, either – human beings naturally and subconsciously look for the path of least resistance when it comes to just about everything: we eat, sleep, and go about our days in very predictable ways. So let’s cut this nonsense about “motivation” or “discipline.” Maybe those of us who engage in fitness have just created our daily habits to include training and nutrition, and now we’re just going with the flow. We’re not better than the average person, we’re just streamlined our lifestyle around fitness in a different way. So we discuss what decision fatigue looks like and how it can be managed or changed. Lastly, we’re talking game changers: things that have been big “bang for your buck” changes in our training or philosophy that’s made a big difference in our results. Grab a beer and enjoy!

Good morning and welcome back! Today, Andy and I are welcoming Mindi Martinez to the gym to be a very special guest on the podcast. Mindi hails originally from the Midwest and through work in the movie industry found her way to LA, Atlanta, and finally to Nashville.  Over the years, Mindi was introduced to CrossFit and, over time, got more serious into Olympic lifting. Here in Nashville, she’s the head coach of the Barbell Club at East Nashville CrossFit where she teaches others how to master the Snatch and Clean & Jerk.  Andy and I both agree that Oly lifts are very much a “lesser strength” of ours as both coaches and trainees, and today Mindi lends her experience and expertise to talk us through her coaching, techniques, and assessments. Grab a beer and enjoy!

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