The Wonderful World of Training with Niki Sims

Are you interested in weight training but don't know where to begin? Niki Sims is passionate about helping people get to know the stronger version of themselves. With over ten years of barbell coaching and training experience, she knows what it takes to program for life, fine tune form to maximize training stimulus, and provide support to continue to choose strength over weakness. This was a great conversation and I know you'll enjoy it as well. 

 

What you'll hear:

 

• Niki's background and experience as a coach with Barbell Logic (1:50)
• Her early experience in the fitness space (3:50)
• Balancing passion and business in coaching (6:34)
• Her transition to online coaching (11:23)
• Client communication and accountability (12:57)
• Specific training methods and her client demographics (13:43)
• The nutritional component and client engagement (15:29)
• Overcoming common misconceptions and challenges (24:17)
• Personal training and injury recovery (33:19)
• Benefits of natural bodybuilding (36:13)
• Her progress and personal records with strength training (47:04)

 

Where to follow Niki:

 

• Barbell Logic
• Instagram

 

If you loved this episode and our podcast, please take some time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, or drop us a comment below!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com
Today I've got special guest Nikki Sims on the line.
She is a coach at Barbell Logic and we dive deep into the
wonderful world of training. She has worked with countless
clients about how to do the proper lifting techniques, had
manipulate Trician, how to work with people remotely via online
coaching and keep them accountable, motivated and on

(00:21):
track. So we dive into all that, all
the things that we face as coaches, what she's done that's
worked really well for her and her client pool.
We talked about different lifting techniques, different
ways of communication to stay ontop of and on track with their
clients. We just covered it all.
We talked about different piecesof equipment.
We talked about the different gym setups that we like,

(00:42):
different ways to make it work for you with what equipment you
have available to you. So very interesting
conversation. I've got a lot of respect for
her and what she's doing in the lab.
She's changing. So without further delay, sit
back, relax, do the conversationwith Nikki.

(01:05):
We are live, Nikki, how are you?I'm really.
Well. How are you today?
It's good to be here. Yeah, yeah, it's great.
Great to have you. So you are a big advocate for
building muscle, eating healthy and just incorporating all that
from a longevity health standpoint, especially as it
pertains to women, which is something that more women need
to hear. I feel like you probably get it
all the time as well. Women are just fearful of

(01:26):
putting on too much size. And it's just a unfounded
disbelief that is just not serving anybody well.
Yeah, I'm definitely into livingwhat I call a very well marbled
life, which you are probably into since you eat a lot of
meat. Exactly, I didn't.
Have a lot of muscle? Well, marbled life.
So what was the what was the motivation for coining that

(01:49):
phrase? Well, it came from, you know,
many years of trying to fit myself into something that
wasn't me. And I think we spend a lot of
time in our late teens, 20s and early 30s wondering what that's
going to be like. And that's what it that's what
it felt like for me. And then something clicked in

(02:11):
like my late 30s, which is whereI am now, where I just kind of
learned what feeling good actually feels like.
And also realizing that I think a lot of time I just spent
myself not really feeling good or really knowing what that was.
And I see that a lot of my clients, but it takes some work

(02:33):
to figure out what that means. And now I have more of a formula
for me about what that's actually like.
And so it went from like a battle and being like
disappointed and frustrated or never feeling like I was where I
should be, to understanding moreabout the behaviors and the
trade-offs I need to make that make me feel energetic and

(02:57):
healthy and that I can train howI want to and sleep how I want
to. And it's a nice place to be.
It's not perfect all the time, but it's fun to figure out
that's that's within reach, you know?
Yeah, it's kind of crazy becauseI feel like a lot of people are
just not in tune with their bodyat all and they don't even
recognize what feeling good, as you said, feels like, so they

(03:18):
don't feel like they're missing out.
But then once you actually figure it out, it's like you
can't help but judge looking at people that are clearly in pain
and uncomfortable and unhealthy and happy because it's like, Oh
my gosh, you're leaving so much potential on table.
Like if you could just simply, you know, move better, you'd be
able to experience a whole nother world out there.
Yeah. And you used a word that I

(03:40):
totally resonate with, which is being uncomfortable.
And that's so visceral because that can mean uncomfortable in
your pants. That could mean uncomfortable
walking up the stairs. It can mean being uncomfortable
in photos, uncomfortable at the gym.
And it's so worth figuring out what you need to do to be

(04:01):
comfortable. And it means sometimes it means
hard work, but sometimes that hard work is easy because the
payoff is so high, you know? Totally.
Were you always into fitness andyou were just kind of like going
about it in a way that was akin to beating your head against the
wall? Or was this the whole world of
fitness nutrition? Kind of a late bloomer to that
space I guess. Maybe a little bit of both.

(04:24):
I did always love working out. I played sports when I was quite
young, but I was never really a worthwhile contribution to any
team I was on, so I just enjoyedmore time in the gym.
So I would go to the gym after school and just do whatever.
I I mean, I have no idea what I was following.
It could be something from a magazine or I probably had a

(04:46):
personal training session when Iwas 16 and was just doing my
three by 10s on the machines. But eventually that turned into
a little bit of exposure to powerlifting, which did not
click with me at the time. This is when I was in like my
freshman year of college, but that eventually turned into
CrossFit. And that's really where I, you
know, totally drank the kool-aid, got obsessed.

(05:09):
I was working, I got my degree in construction management and I
was working at a really good construction firm.
But you know, it's like, you know, what would be good is if I
quit my wonderful, well paying job and opened up a CrossFit
gym. So went that course, had three
business partners, which is definitely not the great way for
anybody to be financially successful.

(05:32):
So learned a lot of lessons during that phase.
But you know, it allowed me to get into coaching and lifting
and creating spaces for people to start to feel powerful.
And that was really wonderful for me.
That's where I really loved being.
It turned into just barbell coaching, which turned into
online coaching, which turned into barbell logic, which now is

(05:56):
online coaching and online coaching software and and
coaching Academy. So it was just like I was able
to turn my passion into a profession, which was really
fun. I feel like a lot of people that
go that route wind up becoming bitter towards their passion.
So how do you kind of hedge against that?
Cause a lot of people want to pursue their passion but then it

(06:17):
becomes a job that just leaves them with resentment.
Yeah, and that is so easy to be in that state when you're
coaching in person because you are there for a lot of hours and
your dollar per hour gets reallylow, which means it's hard to
reinvest in yourself and it's hard to reinvest in your

(06:39):
clients. So I had, you know, a great
opportunity when Matt Reynolds decided to create Barba Logic
online coaching. I thought it was crazy at the
time, but it was a way for us towork with more clients without
being, you know, kind of slaves to the gym.
So within that online coaching system, I think what has allowed

(07:02):
us to have jobs that don't feel like a huge weight all the time
is creating business practices that are as much automated and
delegated as possible so that wecan spend more of our time and
more of our energy on the relationship with the client.
Because that's where coaches areinvigorated.
That's what they got into this for.

(07:24):
But when we're bogged down with all the logistics of running a
business, paying taxes, managingbilling, managing accounts,
managing scheduling, that's whenthe passion just gets withered
away is running a business. Because running a business is
hard, as you know. And some people, like
entrepreneurs, I think are really, you know, they got a lot

(07:46):
of fire from that, but not all of us do.
So it's nice when you have a community or systems you can
rely on to help, you know, reduce the burden on you and
make it so that you can have a higher output in the things that
actually bring you more joy, which tends to be interacting
with clients. Yeah.
So finding good systems that work, I think is one of the best
things you can do. And knowing that it's OK to

(08:07):
invest in the professionalism ofyour business because if you
don't do that, you're going to just be getting paid too low and
you can't live on that. Which means you, like you said,
you become resentful and burnt out and then you need to go back
to working somewhere where you never wanted to be again, you
know? Yeah, it's funny.
My my brother is trying to starthis own business too.

(08:28):
And he's quickly learning that there's a lot more to business
than just being a expert in yourfield or your craft.
I mean, you can be the world's greatest at that thing, but if
you can't market and promote anddo all the administrative stuff,
like you have no business. Like just the skill set alone is
is just the tip of the iceberg. Yeah.
And things, you know, people don't teach you about, you know,

(08:50):
we had to learn about how to paypeople in all the different
states That and that is like a job I never want to ever do
again. It's like learning payroll taxes
in other States and how to register your business in other
States and, you know, maintaining compliance.
How do you organize all your paperwork for the end of the
year? You have to make all these
really hard decisions that are kind of soul sucking.

(09:13):
Totally. When you were doing the in
person work, did you ever feel like you were hypocritical?
Because like, you were probably,you know, on the verge of
burning outs. You probably weren't getting
optimal sleep. Your nutrition may have been
lackluster, like you just weren't living by what you were
preaching to your clients. I have such a memory of like

(09:35):
every time we wanted to buy moreequipment or when we expanded
the gym, moving those gosh darn horse stall mats around and
like, I never want to touch one of those again.
But like, I remember how exhausting that is and how I
like, couldn't train for a whileafter that because we were so

(09:55):
tired of installing gym equipment while still having to
run the business, you know? And so it's like being in the
space. The space kind of becomes an
energy vampire. And so you don't want to be
there when you're not working, which means where you going to
go work out? Are you even going to do it?
Yeah, no, totally. And I feel like with with in

(10:15):
person gyms too. And I'm it may be a little
different with CrossFit, but like a lot of people that are
interested in the health and fitness space, they want to open
up a gym. Like I want to open up a gym.
Everybody wants to open up a gym, but it's like from a
business model standpoint, when you account for the cost of the
equipment, the cost of the space, whether you're leasing it
or you, you're paying a mortgageon it.
Like there's not really any margins in owning a physical gym

(10:38):
as a business model. So true.
Yeah, we definitely ran into that.
And you really need high volume in something like CrossFit or
most gyms, which means you have to be able to cater to groups of
30, which severely limits what kind of programming you can give
them and what kind of schedule you can have.
Probably works in one of those big Lobo gyms where the

(11:00):
membership rate's $35.00. But if you're going to need to
have, you know, 250 bucks a month from 30 people a class,
what the heck are you going to do with those 30 people every
time they're in the gym? How are you going to have enough
room for them? So it's, yeah, totally agree
with you. Where it's what we've learned is
like just from working with a bunch of coaches is the small

(11:22):
private boutique gym where the space can be minimal and the
interaction can be high. Seems to work really well for
being able to maintain some sortof in person practice and then
really filtering them to the online space.
As long as you can deliver high quality coaching online, that
seems to be a good life cycle for the client is like start in
person, move online, maintain inperson connection as much as

(11:47):
necessary or as much as possible, but be able to
interact with them very high at a very high frequency online.
So you can see how they're doingwith their workouts, you know,
adjust their programming as needed.
They still get to hear you very regularly.
And so I think online coaching, which I think probably had a
rocky start when we all first started getting into this, has

(12:08):
become a really cool way to havea lot of check insurance with
your clients, which increases the personalization and the
value you get out of your coaching experience because it's
really just suited for you in the end.
Totally. When when did you launch the
online component? In 2016. 2016, I don't even
remember when online coaching really started to take off.

(12:31):
I started mine in 2016 as well. But prior to that, I mean, I
remember working with people andit was like very unprofessional.
Like, like an e-mail, you know, back and forth once a week if
you're lucky, like just some generic recommendations, like
not intimate at all, not individualized at all.
And a lot of people, I mean, it seems like everybody's an online

(12:52):
coach now if you look at their Instagram BIOS.
But like so much of it is just cut and paste copycat stuff.
There's not really any, you know, just general or genuine,
you know, connection unless you take it to the next level and
actually treat it like a business, which is exactly what.
Y'all, yeah. And, you know, you trained for
what was it, 33 weeks to prep for a competition.

(13:14):
You need a high degree of personal support when you're
doing something like that, that is not a set it and forget it
kind of situation. So, you know, especially in that
kind of goal, those kind of physical demands, you really
need someone who is there for you in some really big ways,
which I'm sure has carried over into how you run your business.

(13:36):
100 percent, 100%. So I'd love to get into like the
actual nuts and bolts here. So do y'all do primarily because
there's specific genre of training that y'all are working
with your clients? Is it mostly CrossFit oriented
or what's the genre? So CrossFit, well, well, back in
my rearview Mirror Now it's all barbell strength based, which we

(13:57):
definitely step out of the barbell exercises when we need
to. But it's such a good tool
because you can progress it at whatever rate works for someone,
you know, 2 1/2 lbs or 10 lbs. But it's we're here for people
who want to learn how to get strong.
You know, they've usually heard from somewhere, I need to get
stronger. I need to build muscle.

(14:18):
How do I go about doing that? And how do I learn how to squat?
How do I learn how to deadlift? And how do I know how much
weight to do and when? So we like to be the copilot for
anybody who wants to learn how to get stronger, specifically
with a barbell. But we've also worked with
people who didn't have any gym equipment.
We teach them how to do things just in their living room, you

(14:39):
know, bags of dog food, water bottles, you know, anything
where the goal is to create a response where you're building
more muscle over time. And we try to keep it quite
personal based on what equipmentyou have, like I was just
talking about and what's important to you.
Like we don't really cater to competitive athletes.

(15:03):
It's not our bread and butter client, although we love to work
with them. It's really for people who are
like 40 to 55 who want to be able to move.
Well, that's who we love workingwith is because it's it's, it
goes deep. It's to keep their quality of
life high. It's to show up for their
children, show up for their parents who are aging.

(15:25):
And I think that also comes fromus seeing our parents age as
we're like, you know what? I don't want to age like that.
I'm going to do this differently.
How do I do it? Yeah, so many people need that.
Do y'all have like a nutritionalcomponent as well or is it
mostly focused on the movement patterns?
We do, yeah. We have nutrition coaches and we
use the precision nutrition as our and starting off point

(15:46):
because we like to make things that are behavior focused
because that seems to be a lasting change.
In fact, we acknowledge that ournutrition coaching is going to
be higher turn because we want people to know how to make
decisions on their own. And then we'll show up when
someone's making a more significant change or has come
from a time of life where they weren't able to act like they

(16:08):
wanted to. And so then the accountability
component gets a little higher. But if we can teach people how
to make decisions for themselves, that's a win for us.
And based on, again, what's important to someone, it might
get down to being very dialed inmacros, or it might be them
sending us pictures of everything they ate just to know

(16:29):
that someone else is watching, which can be that can be a lot
to change behavior. Totally.
So with with y'all's clients, I know it's probably going to be,
you know, a broad spectrum, but are the majority of them totally
newbies to the weight training component or have they
familiarize themselves with, youknow, different lifting

(16:51):
techniques in the past? Or are you literally teaching
them what a squat is and what muscles that works?
It's mostly people who have beenexposed to the barbell before.
We, I want to say maybe one in every 20 clients is totally new.
And that's why the video feedback is really important
because we can see exactly how they're doing.

(17:12):
I mean, if you know, you've seen, you've seen the first
squat. For many humans, it's just like
they all look different. Yeah.
You have no idea if you don't see the video, if they're going
to depth, if the weight was the right weight for that day.
Are there heels coming off of the ground?
What in God's name are they doing with their back?
So that's where it helps us, like, make the right decisions

(17:35):
for them. But a lot of people have.
They've done Starting Strength. They've just gone to a gym where
they happen to end up with a personal trainer who had them do
barbell work, and they got curious.
Some people have a CrossFit background and so they usually
have exposure to it and they usually have access to barbells.
More often than not, they have ahome gym as well, so they've

(17:56):
already started to invest in their own space for training,
which is fantastic. Most of our clients have home
gyms. Yeah.
But it's it's. Crazy how minimal equipment you
really need to see tremendous progress.
I mean, like my, my private gym is super basic like I've got,
you know, some barbells, some dumbbells I have.
I do have a cable set up but I mean the first, you know, year

(18:17):
and a half of my lifting career were just pieces of equipment I
had laying around the house. Like not even weight related
equipment. And then for like 5 years
straight now all I've had is thefree weights.
I mean, you can do so so much with just a barbell and a pair
of adjustable dumbbells. Yeah, it's amazing the Rep
schemes that you can give yourself, varying rest periods,
tempo work like that. You can.

(18:38):
You can keep it challenging. So how do y'all communicate?
Is it like a specific software that y'all use for video?
Communication, well, similar to you, we started off with like we
had an old school forum and e-mail and it was pretty
archaic. And we then started using

(18:59):
another soft. We used a, a software that's out
there in the market, but we ran into some roadblocks where it
wasn't, we weren't able to do what we wanted to with it.
So we had a couple clients and one of our coaches, they do what
software developers love to do and build an app for that.
So they just on their own started creating software, this

(19:19):
software program that we eventually got to a point that
was good enough to unleash to our, you know, 900 clients.
So we developed our own software, it's called Turnkey
Coach, and it's been really helpful because the video
feedback is just so huge for us that that's all built into it.
We tried to make that very easy to use.

(19:40):
The product manager, his name isAndrew Jackson.
He comes from a lean manufacturing background.
So he's always looking at this through the lens of can we
reduce the number of clicks, Canwe make your workflow really
efficient without it sacrificingthe value to the client.
So we try to make coaching online a very.

(20:02):
Like if we want it to be an experience where it doesn't feel
like you're sitting on your computer having to do 5
different workflows to serve oneclient, you know, like
programming somewhere else, getting, you know, Discord
messages, pulling in WhatsApp, billing on PayPal.
We want it all in the same placeso that you can sit down for an
hour and a half, work with like 30 clients, and then do whatever

(20:25):
else you need to do during the day.
So Turnkey Coach hasn't really allowed us to keep building an
app that allows us to really getall the information we need from
the clients and then have the interface with the coach really
high value, high impact. Nice and have y'all kept that
exclusive to y'all's brand or doy'all like private label that
for other coaches as well? Yeah, we actually just released

(20:46):
it to the market last year, which has been pretty big.
Yeah, we're it's available as software and we're working on
the mobile app now. That's high priority for us and
just continuing to invest and make it as good as we can.
And it's been really neat to learn how other coaches run
their businesses to see the common roadblocks that people

(21:09):
are facing. And that's how we that's how we
design our product. Road map is what is making it
hard for you to coach. Let's figure out a way to make
that less hard for you to do I. Love it.
Innovation's the key. It's fun when it comes to to
online coaching. I mean, I've been doing online
coaching, like I said, since 2016.
So like you, you see a lot of different types of clientele,

(21:33):
different, you know, personalitytypes, different levels of
adherence. And I feel like a lot of people
in the online coaching space have a hard time with just
communication accountability. Like if it's if it's in person,
you know, you've got a coach there working with you.
Like you can push that client, you can kind of see if they're
actually exerting themselves, ifthey're kind of cutting corners.

(21:55):
Whereas online coaching requiresa certain degree of, you know,
self-discipline from the individual to put in the work
when they're not messaging on the software application.
So how do y'all kind of work with that in mind and just hedge
against people deviating from the plan and not truly being
disciplined? Did and you sorry, were you

(22:16):
saying disciplined in by the clients?
Yeah, yeah, by the clients, because I feel like with
clients, if I mean you would think that if they're paying a
coach money, they're going to adhere to the protocol.
You know, you would think that would be the case.
But like as you and I both know,it's amazing what people are
willing to pay but then not do. I can't help but think of the

(22:37):
clients who have hired me so that they could tell me what to
tell them to do. You know, that has so much to do
with how you onboard a client and learning what's important to
them so that you can meet them where they're at and then take
them where they want to go. Because if you give them a
program that they're not bought into, that's when consistency

(22:59):
drops. And what's even worse is
consistency with with silence orlack of consistency and silence
at the same time, which means they're not doing what you
thought they were going to do and they're not telling you why.
And it's really usually because they don't want to or they don't
have the equipment for it. So the program really has to be
built in a way that the client can feel really engaged with it

(23:22):
and it evolves as the client evolves or not.
We actually even have some clients who are just like,
please don't ever change this. I don't like it when you give me
a new thing which is really interesting.
And then we have some clients who will notice like they start
skipping their accessories, theydidn't finish the set, they
didn't upload a video. That is our trigger to start

(23:43):
asking questions. And that's what you have to pay
attention, pay attention to as acoach is am I not hearing
something? And then am I not seeing the
work? So the videos are such a good
way to for them to prove their accountability.
When we stop seeing videos, whenwe stop getting comments, when
we stop getting GIFs, that's ourtrigger to start digging, figure

(24:04):
out what's going on and then asklike, what's important to you
right now? What's holding you back from
completing this? Do you?
Are you totally annoyed at curls?
Let's just give you something different and being able to be
pretty agile with what's important to them while still
giving them what we know that they need.
They know what they want, but wecan help them do the work that

(24:25):
gets them there. So are they uploading videos of
each movements in the the plan like that's how you're kind of
keeping them accountable there? You're seeing that first hand.
Yep. We like to see one video of each
work set because that'll let us know, like I just said, are they
doing it and how's their form? You know, and that's so helpful

(24:48):
for us as the coaches. How am I going to change this
for next time if I need to? Is it as simple as adding some
more weight or do I need to maybe work in a supplemental
variation to help them address this form deviation?
And what cues can I give them toguide the changes that I need to
see so the videos come in? Some of them will send videos of

(25:13):
every work set, but you know ourpromise is to watch one video
per work set unless we want to see more.
As the coach, I'll always, if I don't, if I stop seeing videos
of accessories was like so go ahead and throw in a video so I
can just double check those because those are so easy at the
time we get to the end of the workout.
For some folks just be like Nah,no one cares about this, but we

(25:36):
do. Do you get any pushback from
people that are training in a public setting and are
uncomfortable filming their setswith others around?
Yeah, that's such a good question.
We've definitely run into that before where they're in a very
busy gym or a gym that doesn't allow taking video.
And that's a tough one because we really just can't do our jobs
very well if we don't see how the lifts are going.

(25:59):
However, that can work if it's someone who we've been working
with for like years and we're just like, you know, how to do a
deadlift. I want to see it when we're
approaching weights where thingsstart to look a little
different. But I can trust you when there's
enough trust that's been established, then we might need
to see not might not need to seevideos as much, but it's really
important for us to be able to see how the lifts are going.

(26:20):
Because I just, I get really uncomfortable personally
programming when I can't actually see how they're doing
'cause I, I'm just like, is thisworking for you?
I don't even know. I need to see.
No, 100%. I feel like that's, I mean,
having some form of accountability that they can
also look back on. I mean, everyone's so hesitant
to, you know, submit, you know, progress photos and things of

(26:42):
that nature. But it's like, look, in six
months you're really going to wish you had taken these initial
videos and photos 'cause then you're going to have something
to prepare against at that givenbody weights and, you know,
lifting, you know, volume and things of that nature.
But people that have not yet experienced some form of success
are just very hesitant to, you know, get that initial baseline
established well. That's interesting.

(27:04):
Yeah. I, Yeah, I love what you just
said there. When you don't know what it's
like to make a change, you just think that you're always the
same. And I love that you pointed that
out because it's so hard to go through the process of making a
change when you have no idea what it can feel like on another

(27:25):
side of the mountain. You just feel like you're
constantly on an, on an incline.That's cool.
Yeah. And it really helps you
celebrate wins. That's.
Yeah. We, we tried to add that into
our software by making PRS and workout history really easy to
to see. Like we can look at workout
history of a squat for ages back.

(27:45):
So you really can go back and look at the first squat and be
like, look at what you've done. It's so cool.
Yeah, especially with something like a squat, because I mean
squats. I mean, if let me ask you this
question, if you could only pickone exercise to do for the rest
of your life, what would it be? But grudgingly, it would be a
squat, even though I really justwant a deadlift.

(28:05):
I feel like deadlifts would be agood a good one too.
I mean such like a sumo deadliftwhere you're getting a lot more
posterior chain legs involved. I mean, that would be a pretty
good tie between squats and deadlift.
But like with something like that, people that are in the 40
to 50 year old demographic that you're describing, I mean,
there's that translates to so many movements that they do
throughout their day, like picking up the groceries,

(28:27):
picking up their kids, walking up a flight of stairs.
Like when they can connect the dots there, it's like, OK, this
is not just about, you know, looking better without a shirt
on. This is about having a higher
quality of life into your later years.
And I feel like when you start addressing things from a
longevity standpoint, people cansee the bigger picture.
Yeah, and understanding what it feels like to be uncomfortable

(28:53):
and for it to be OK. You know, I think a lot of
people as they age get told to move less because they don't
feel as well. But what if you, what if you
were OK with being uncomfortable, you know, 'cause,
you know, like a heavy set of five squats that's not exactly
comfortable putting on these sleeves, wearing a belt, you

(29:15):
know, loading plates, unloading plates.
That's I have a lot of fun with it.
But you do spend some time beinguncomfortable, but you're also
OK. And I think that's really
important as we age to know, like, you know what, I'm going
to have some discomfort my body that my hormones are changing.
You know, I'm have less testosterone.
I don't have estrogen anymore. I'm uncomfortable.

(29:38):
But you still need to work. And you need to know that you're
going to be OK, even if you're uncomfortable.
Yeah, 100% when it comes to pushing through that discomfort
and actually hitting muscular failure or close to it and
actually just truly getting fatigued.
How do you gauge that with people?

(29:59):
Because a lot of people, especially if they're not
actually submitting videos, so Ilove that you're doing that.
They they'll, you know, have a prescribed plan, They'll go
through the motions, but they'renot actually pushing themselves
to a target, you know, RPE, they're just kind of going
through the motions. So like, how do you gauge if
they are truly pushing themselves?
Like I'm assuming it's just a visual component to the video.

(30:20):
Like, OK, they probably couldn'thave done another Rep there.
How do you structure? That bar speed, that's an
important one we look for. Is, is the last Rep as fast as
the first one? Did they actually fail?
And was the failure coming from a form breakdown or did it look
like they didn't know what it was, what it should feel like to
push that hard, You know, are arms shaking?

(30:45):
Can I see veins? How red is their face turning?
Are their legs shaking on the deadlift?
And, you know, it takes a long time to learn that you, you
definitely have to build up the,the ability to get to our P10,
which you're very limited by form and strength in the
beginning to, to, to, I think, get to a point where getting to

(31:08):
that point of failure or at failure, is that coming?
Like, let me try and say this a bit differently.
It takes a while to build the grind.
I think people can hit failure because they're weak.
But then when you hit failure when you're strong, it's much
different. You know, like going to failure

(31:29):
now when you're trained is so exhausting.
Going to failure when you're untrained is tiring, but you can
recover from it very quickly, you know, So it's there's
definitely a learning period formost people where we have to
tell them you can do one more Rep next time.

(31:49):
When I give this to you, you're going to go for six reps OK, Let
me see the video of it. Let's see how you did and
letting them know again, you're going to be OK.
Your form looks good. We're working at weights where
everything is just as it needs to be.
Let me see you give that Rep 10 seconds.
And sometimes that's a helpful cue.
Well, Speaking of going to failure, you get some pretty

(32:12):
impressive lifts as well. So 300 squat, 193 bench press,
430 deadlift, 100 chin UPS. Like those are no no small feats
of strength there. The chin, I will say the chin up
was 100 lbs weighted, not 100 reps.
OK, OK, OK. Well, there's like a there's
like a big ongoing, you know, pull up challenge like David
Goggins I think popularized it and now everybody's doing these

(32:35):
crazy repetitions on the pull upbar and I'm so.
I think my Max reps is like 18, yeah.
Yeah, that's a lot, but 100 lbs weighted pull up is no joke
either. I was super stoked about that.
Yeah, I'm working on busting through that again, but deadlift
and chin UPS? I've always been weirdly good at
pulling. Not as good as squatting and and

(32:55):
benching, but I enjoy the pulling exercises.
Yeah, it means well. Overhead press is my nemesis.
I am. Oh my gosh, yeah, you're tall
monkey, huh? No, I'm not even tall.
I have no good excuse. I'm just not good.
So pretty pressed. It's the ultimate ego crusher,
isn't it? The Press.
It is, it is for sure. Do you still do powerlifting?

(33:17):
I don't compete, but I do the lifts.
I, I used to compete in jiu jitsu and I was competing in jiu
jitsu and competing at powerlifting at the time.
This is, I think about five years ago and I hurt.
I, I don't, I mean, my back got pissed off.
I don't have a specific injury, but it got to the point where I
couldn't really do any of the lifts and I couldn't do jujitsu

(33:39):
anymore, so it took some time torecover from that, but I'm back
into dead lifting heavy. My squat variations are with the
transformer bar, the belt squat,and the leg press Chinning.
I can still do my chin UPS, but I also messed up my shoulder
pretty bad. Depressing my program anymore
either. But there's still that forced me
to be really creative with, you know, how am I going to keep

(34:00):
building muscle? And there are a lot of ways out
there to keep building muscle. So that was it.
It was really awful to go through.
But it's also helped me learn how important it is to be open
minded and know that it's going to be OK.
Just going to look different than what you thought
originally. So do you do any form of martial
arts now or are you pretty much totally put that in the?
Rear Nope, I'm out of that now. I loved the community, but I was

(34:25):
also turned off by the injury culture where it was just like,
I'm going to get hurt. What am I going to, how am I
going to work around that? And if you're just doing martial
arts, you know, that's fine. But it was really holding me
back from being able to add muscle.
And that was no longer OK with me.
Like, you know, like I just whenI turn 45, I need to have as

(34:47):
much muscle on my body as I can.And if I'm getting hurt, I'm not
going to be able to do that. So that that just happened to be
the right choice for me, although I loved it, Yeah, it
was so much freaking fun. I wanna get into it.
I mean, that's like something that I've always wanted to
dabble and I dabbled in a littlebit, but I tore my LCO with a
ankle lock like right before I started my last prep.

(35:07):
So I put that on hold for a while.
Yeah. And I can see myself getting
into it. And my son gets a little bit
older if he sees interest in. It'd be really fun, yeah.
It's hard for me to 'cause I'm like an extremist as you are as
well. It's hard to like the idea of
being a Jack of all trades and kind of having all these
different skill sets is really appealing.
But when you want to truly reachyour pinnacle in a given thing,

(35:28):
and other things are without doubt distracting from it in
some form or fashion, it's hard to want to deviate from the
base, you know? You are so right because you see
your ability to perform everywhere else decrease and
that's hard to stomach. And you know, the the more we do
this, and by this I mean physical activity, the more you

(35:50):
understand how to calculate yourtrade-offs and then be at peace
with them. And there might be a time when
that is the thing or one of the things that you want to do
because it's great quality time with your son.
And it's like a fun way to challenge your brain.
I was thought it was like chess for bodies is really fun, so
much different than lifting. And but yeah, it's such a trade

(36:12):
off. Life is trade-offs.
Well, see, you ought to do like a bodybuilding show like that
doesn't normally come with this higher degree of risk of injury,
and you're able to lift and justify it all the time.
Man, I have so much respect for bodybuilding competitors.
You all work so hard and are so disciplined.
I haven't ruled it out for myself, but I have to say I'm

(36:34):
not appealed by it yet for my own lifestyle.
What it's interesting because like I look at powerlifting and
my, my wife did a powerlifting meet and she killed it.
But like I look at the, the powerlifting community and
they're so many of them are injured.
A lot of the CrossFit communities injured a lot of the
bodybuilding communities too. But I feel like in the
bodybuilding space, and oftentimes it comes in injury

(36:57):
when people are just excessive with the performance hencing
drugs and they, they push themselves beyond a
physiological necessary means. Whereas like a natural
bodybuilding, it's like you're trying to optimize your health
in the process. So it's like you don't want to
cut corners just to get bigger. So I feel like if you do it
right, it could be a great sportfor overall health and

(37:18):
longevity, but a lot of people just don't do it right.
And like, so that's, I find thatreally interesting to be able to
go into bodybuilding from with ahealthy mindset, because it
seems like it's that much harder, especially because it's
competition, because you're going to be competing against

(37:38):
people who, I'll use the word constrained, even though I think
it's a good constraint who are constrained by their choices to
do this for health versus do this for winning.
So I'm curious, what's that likefor you, knowing that some
people are out there doing that and you're not?
Well, I mean, I compete in natural federations, I've

(37:59):
competed in untested federationsas well, but I generally compete
in all the natural federations. So there's like a 10 year ban on
any, you know, performance sensing drugs.
So I'm typically up against people that are also natural.
And, you know, when you go aboutit that route, you can kind of,
you know, level the playing field a little bit more, so to
speak. And it's not really healthy to

(38:20):
get down to that crazy low body fat for that acute period of
time. But that's why you just don't
stay there. Like, I'll, I'll diet down and
I'll be at that depleted state for, you know, a month or two.
But then I reverse that back up and I'm at a healthier intake,
healthier body fat. And if you only do that ever so
often, then I feel like while itis not optimal from a health and
hormonal standpoint, the mental benefit you gain from it is,

(38:44):
it's is worth it. You know, so the net positive is
there, but like, if you just take that out of the equation, I
think if you do everything else correctly, then from a health
standpoint, it's, it's optimal because I mean, it incentivizes
you to get your nutrition dialedin, to know how to manipulate
your nutrition. But it also, I mean, it just
builds the framework for moving your body on a regular basis,

(39:06):
doing an appropriate amount of cardio.
So you've got cardiovascular health, but those doing, you
know, movements to increase hypertrophy and lean mass.
And the more of that you got, I mean, that's the best antidote
for aging that we know of is having good quality muscle.
And if you're, if you're building that muscle naturally,
then you're not going to be putting yourself at near as much
risk of, you know, bad health outcomes as a result of, you

(39:28):
know, drug overdose later. Yeah, and I like what you said
that you learn how to manipulateyour body weight with nutrition
choices, not just out cardio wean yourself.
Yeah, very different. Do you get a lot of people in
your client pool that are just fixated on cardio and doing that
at the extreme without paying much attention to the nutrition?

(39:50):
That does for sure come up. You know, a lot of times people
sign up for a new coaching service because they're
frustrated about where they are and they they need to be
somewhere different. They are done.
They need to feel different. And we're so ingrained to think
that cardio is the way to do it.And it makes a difference a a

(40:13):
bit. It's can be useful for your
conditioning, but it can also detract from the muscle building
you're trying to generate or you're trying to create a safe
space for. And it's not going to happen
unless, unless you, you're not going to lose body fat unless
you make nutrition changes. And as you know, those changes

(40:33):
it may take a long time to see for a lot of people.
And so there's so much patience involved.
Yeah. I'd be curious on this too.
I mean, I feel like with my client demographic, there is
just this overwhelmingly large amount of people, especially in
their 40s and 50s, men and women, but predominantly women
that have just been chronically under eating, under eating fat,

(40:57):
under eating protein, under eating calories, which is
obviously going to hinder their potential at building more
muscle. So having a conversation around
reverse dieting or just simply eating more food to fuel, you
know, positive improvement in the gym, like that's kind of a
hard sell as well as a coach because they want to lose weight
often times. But if they've been chronically
under eating for the last 20-30 years of their life, their

(41:20):
metabolisms down regularly, their hormones are shots to some
extent and they're just not primed for muscle growth.
So to get them to think in termsof, OK, you know, think of
calories as fuel, you have to fuel your body and that that's
a, that's a hard sell for people.
Yeah, I I listened to that doctor, Stacey Sims on the

(41:41):
Huberman Show episode, and I really loved her mentality of
and this is how I heard it. I don't know if she said these
exact words, but you create a safe environment for your body
to build and maintain muscle. And in order to do that, you
have to eat, you have to work hard and you have to recover.

(42:01):
And working hard is where there needs to be a lot of remodeling.
Working hard doesn't mean three hours of sweating.
It means challenging your muscles resistance wise, maybe
not Rep wise, and it means actually feeding yourself after
you train and before you train. It doesn't have to be a lot, but

(42:23):
like you said, it's fuel. It's so that you can actually
feel good while you're working out and feel good while you're
eating. But there's so much remodeling
around that because it's like wewere ingrained to think that
being depleted equals correct when at this point in my life I

(42:44):
realized, like being energized equals correct.
That's so different. Totally, totally.
But once, once they do it, once they actually feel good, they're
eating the right quality foods, they're eating the right amount
of those foods, they actually start to see their performance,
you know, trend upwards. It's like they can't unlearn it
at that point. It's like they they.

(43:04):
Just you never want to go back. Yeah, You never want to go back.
You start questioning how in theworld you made it this long
without this in your life. And then it's just at that
point, it's the rest is history because they just, you know,
it's, I mean, it's truly the closest thing we've found at the
fountain of youth. Like you can legitimately be
getting better with every year that passes as opposed to
regressing. How do you, how do you like to

(43:25):
get coaches, our clients throughthat?
Gosh, what is it? It's like a couple months in,
they're starting to see some changes, but they also are like,
wow, where I want to be is so far away from where I am right
now. Do you have a lot of people in
that space? Yeah, I mean, everybody's got
this idea in their mind of what they want to look like.
And, you know, we live in such asociety that, you know, fixates

(43:48):
on immediate gratification. And you just have to have, you
have to have that hard conversation, especially if
they're, you know, a candidate for reverse dieting and actually
putting on a little bit of body fat before they're going to be
primed to lose body fats. I mean, kind of depending on
where they're coming from. But I mean, when I look at my
lifting career, like I've been lifting since I was a junior in
high school, I weighed 115 lbs and was super depressed and

(44:12):
self-conscious of how I look. But you, you just start with
where you're at and you get better from there.
I mean, I've got one client now that's and he's in his 70s and
he just started training, just started training in his 70s.
He's like seen his strength literally double in the past few
months because he's getting those beginner gains at 70.
And it's like, you know, once you recognize that once you feel

(44:33):
the difference, once you can wake up and feel sore, and that
soreness is associated with actually making positive
momentum in your life, like that's an addictive drug there
in itself. Yeah.
And the even that story I think is really motivating for
somebody to hear is like you aregoing to continue to feel
different and you have you have time to get there.

(44:56):
Yeah. And The thing is, I mean, the
time is going to pass regardless.
So you're either going to pass that time away, you know,
sitting on the couch watching Netflix and eating Doritos and,
you know, building up your body in a decay state, or you're
going to let that time pass making changes in your life and
habits and routines that actually bode well for your long

(45:16):
term success and betterment. And once you the the beautiful
thing about bodybuilding and just fitness and nutrition in
general is once you start to seesome positive momentum in some
form of fashion, whether it's anadditional Rep on the squat or
an additional plate on the bar or a pound lost or a pound of
muscle gain. It's like that bleeds into every

(45:38):
other area of your life. Like you feel hope, you feel
like you can actually have a direct, you know, impact on your
outcome. Like so many people go through
life thinking that, you know, somebody else is in the driver's
seat, but nutrition and fitness and movement allows you to
recognize that, OK, I can changemy tomorrow's outcome because of
today's actions, and then that bleeds into everything you do.

(45:59):
Dude, you are so right. Like it is.
It is such a great way to learn how to take responsibility for
your actions. And you become aware of when you
have not done well for yourself and you become aware of when you
have done really well for yourself.
And you know you only get one body.
That's your body. It is with you through every

(46:22):
different relationship, every different job, every different
house. Your body is with you the whole
time. And if you can get on the same
team with it and take responsibility for it, you're so
right. Like you really learn the power
of being able to put that into your work, into your
relationship, into your parenting.
And it becomes, it becomes different because you're not a
victim anymore. You have the, you have the

(46:44):
tools. That's so big.
And once you feel that, you become acutely aware of what the
inverse of that also feels like.So you've got this kind of
default, you know, anti slip mechanism in place because like
if you go on vacation for a weekand you're not as on, you know,
track with your nutrition or you're you're not training

(47:04):
because you're, you know, traveling or whatever the case
may be. You are that much more acutely
aware of how much worse you feelor honestly just how lazy you
feel mentally. And you're like, OK, I got to
get back to the gym. I got to get back on my
nutrition. Like you've got like this anti
slip default now because you know what right feels like.
Yeah, it's like that stuff used to feel great or you remember it

(47:27):
feeling great. Maybe in in hindsight, maybe
you'd actually didn't feel great.
But and that kind of thing can be fun for a couple of days.
But even like vacationing gets to a point where you're like, I
need my structure back. I need my salad's back.
I need all my water. Please get me back to my normal
gym, my normal bed. This this fun has run its
course. You know, 100 percent, 100%.

(47:51):
I feel like structure is good, though.
Like we, we live in a world thatkind of appreciate spontaneity
and just, you know, irregularity.
But I feel like once you've got goals in life, once you've got,
you know, a positive trajectory,it's like you recognize that
habits, routines are where it's at and you just gravitate to it.
Yeah. And I think also what you said

(48:12):
about the anti slip mechanism isyou start to have a good sense
of what your values are around how you train and how you
behave. And that space when you've gone
past your, your anti slip moment, you, it's you feeling
like you're no longer in line with your values.

(48:33):
And when you get to train for solong, what's cool is you know
how to get back there very quickly and you know how to not
beat yourself up about it. Yeah, 100 percent, 100%.
Well, Nikki, what's, what's got you excited for this year in
2025? Oh that's a great question.
Well working on my chin up again.

(48:53):
My deadlift is coming back. Super excited about that.
Finally coming back from that back history thing.
That's been so fun. I'm at a new gym in Bellingham,
WA called Training Grounds and it is such a fun gym.
They have like every single piece of equipment I could even
dream of. So I was living in California
where I had a a home gym and then I would go to like 24 Hour

(49:15):
Fitness. But it's like really enjoyable
to be in a bodybuilder lifting gym.
So I'm enjoying that. On that note, I'm curious.
Oh, there's one out there I've been digging called Atlantis.
They've just have some really high quality machines that I've
gotten to dabble with. But for barbell work and all

(49:37):
that kind of gear, I I kind of default to rogue, although I
have a couple of good Rep fitness things.
I do really like the pitch sharkbelt squat.
That is a good one. The the rogue Rhino belt squad
is probably my favorite though. Oh yeah, that one's really good
too. You just get like, it feels like
some belt squat machines. You don't get the same amount of

(49:58):
work over the entire range of motion, which my physics brain
can't quite understand always. But on those ones, it's like
hard the entire time, which it should be, yeah.
I just bought a kabuki safety bar.
Have you ever used one of those?I have that as well.
The transformer bar. Oh my God, I love it so much,

(50:18):
it's so good. It just got delivered like two
hours ago. I haven't even unboxed it yet,
so. I'm excited to put that so
excited for you, dude yes, like it is.
I was having such a hard time back squatting like my back just
is not stoked about back squats and I've we've been trying to
figure out all the things aroundit, but that transformer bar is
amazing. You really get like tons of

(50:38):
variety and how you can change the settings to change your back
angles and for sure that carriesover into how far your knees are
going to go forward or your hipsare going to go back and it is
so much fun. I'm really excited for you.
One particular setting more often than not.
Or do you actually change it quite frequently?
I was exploring different options.

(50:59):
I've only had it in my life for like two or three months, but I
like personally the high bar 3 setting that just tends to work
really well with getting into myquads as much as I want to.
The belt squat, I let it be a little bit more of a low bar
squat look, so I keep my hips a little farther back on that one.
But my back seems to handle the high bar 3 setting pretty well

(51:21):
on the transformer bar. But I've I've done all of them.
Kind of depends on what we're going for my program at that
time. Like if it needs to be heavier,
it'll be closer to the low bar setting, or if it's for like
lighter quad focus work, we'll put it more in like the goblet
front squat range. But you have all those options.
It's really fun. No, I'm super.
Stoked to put that one to the test.

(51:41):
It's it's neat getting a feel for what to do with your arms.
I gotta say with the handles, they're kind of low, so I was
like running into my own thighs for a while.
But I've learned that it can really help you keep the
combined center of mass, so yourbarbell on you over your midfoot
with how you use those handles, which leads to you being able to

(52:05):
lift more weight. So that's a fun thing to feel
out is how, based on how you're feeling in your feet, how do you
need to move your arms to keep everything balanced?
Well, that's funny the the rack handles as well.
So I actually be holding the rack with that because I'd only
use the safety bar up like a fewmonths ago for the first time.
And it was like you don't even need to hold the handles on the
bar itself because it maintains position pretty well.

(52:27):
So I got some of the handles forthe rack.
Oh sweet. So it's kind of like you can
almost mimic the positioning of a belt squat with.
Like a belt squat on your shoulders.
Yeah. So I'm going to play around with
it. But but yeah, I'm excited to put
that one to the ringer for sure.Oh I love it.
I found this leg leg press recently and Atlantis does make
one. Where it's, it's not on a track,

(52:50):
but it's on a pendulum. I know there's a pendulum squat.
It's not that you're actually inlike the leg press laying back
position, but the the weight is on a pendulum.
And that is the best feeling like press I have felt in
forever. So if anybody ever finds one of
those in the gym, they're they're so good.
I love them. You can get into such a deep leg
press position which other like presses I've been on can can

(53:14):
limit that, especially if you'retight anyway.
But the one on like the pendulumis just insanely good.
That's my favorite piece of equipment.
I feel like I'm a kid in the candy store talking about gym
equipment. Like I I travel so much so I'm
always going to new gyms and like trying.
To yeah, equipment. And seeing what I want to put in
my own gym, but it's like, yeah,it's like never ending fun.
Yeah, the belt squat, that transformer bar, that's cool.

(53:36):
You have a cable set up. Do you like your cable set up?
Would you recommend it? Yeah, mine's a legend, which is
pretty good. Like it's got like a four
quadrant setup. So it's got like a a bench, you
know, chest press section. It's got an extension, leg
extension and hamstring curl. It's got a pull down section.
It's got like a like a single cable that you could do, you
know, tricep extensions and bicep curls and stuff with.

(53:58):
But I'm probably also going to get Rogue just came out with
this new. It's like it integrates with
their Rhino belt squat, but thenit's like a functional trainer
as well. And you can attach it to your
existing monster wreck or you can get as a standalone.
I'm probably gonna get it as a standalone.
So it's not, you know, too busy around my squat rack, but that
is pretty slick because you can adjust the height of the pulley

(54:20):
for the functional trainer. So you can pretty much do
whatever you want when it integrates with the the rhino
belt squat. So like you can plate load
whatever you want on there. It's the one to one or two to
one ratio of the weight. So you can do everything.
That is rad. I'm going to Google that right
after this. Yeah, they're proud of it.
It's. Pricey, but I mean like you can
literally have that and be totally set.

(54:43):
Yeah, Dang, that's cool. I love how much they're helping
us build out our home gyms. Yeah, they're they're.
Pretty good. I mean rope.
Rope makes. Good stuff.
It's all just super solid, man. I'm a, I'm a sucker for, you
know, heavy built steel equipment and they, they've got
that dialed in. Yeah.
What are you excited about in 2025?
I mean, everything, we got so much going on.

(55:03):
I've got another kiddo on the way, so we'll have another kid
running around and we got multiple businesses that we've
ramping up. We're starting, we're actually
going to be hosting our first bodybuilding show this year as
well. So you got to pull a.
Trigger. On your bodybuilding endeavors
and just do my show as your first.
Show When is your show coming up?
September 27th. Oh, that's plenty of time, isn't
it? Yeah, yeah, you got plenty of

(55:25):
time, so no excuses now. That's cool.
Well, we're also going to be at the Arnold.
That'll be really fun. We're going to bring our TKC
software there. Oh, we are as well.
We'll be a oh good. We'll we'll we'll come and say
hi. That's good to you.
Do not remember right now off the top of my head.
Yeah, I don't remember my numbereither, but I will definitely be
there with our keto brick business.
So I'll definitely look for. It, yes, OK, awesome.

(55:46):
And whoever's listening, come and say hi to both of us.
That'll be really fun. Absolutely.
Well, awesome, Nikki, we'll definitely have to keep the
conversation going. So glad to hear you can be at
the Arnold. Meet you in person.
Yeah. But yeah, if there's anything I
can do for you, by all means letme know because I'm, I'm a big
advocate for just getting peoplehealthier.
And you are certainly doing thatand giving people, you know, the
skills they need, the equipment that the tutelage they need to

(56:09):
actually get out and move their body.
Thank you. Yeah, hope to keep doing that
and I do appreciate your voice out there and you know, hands on
guidance of helping people go tosomewhere they never thought
they could go and have it be forhealth.
I think that's really powerful. 100 percent, 100% Well, where do
people go to find out more aboutyou and dive deeper into your

(56:30):
world? Yeah, head on over to
barbell-logic.com. That's where our online coaching
exists. Or you can go to Turnkey dot
Coach to learn more about our coaching software.
And if you want to try some online coaching, we have a
discount code for half of your first month.
Just use the code Savage and then on Instagram I am Nikki in
the gym. That's Niki with a period

(56:52):
between each word. So Nikki in the gym.
Awesome. Well, I will certainly link.
It out and make. It easy for people to find you,
and if there's everything I do for you, by all means truly let
me know. Same.
Awesome. Have a really good day.
You too. Take care, Nikki.
Thanks.