Finding the Right Fitness Approach for You with Trainer Kyle Dobbs

Gianna is back with a special guest for National Fitness Month. In this episode, we welcome trainer, strength coach, and owner of Compound Performance, Kyle Dobbs, to Stronger U Radio. 
Kyle found his passion for training while rehabbing sports injuries in college. After graduating with a biology/chemistry double major, he moved from the Midwest to New York City and quickly became a high-producing personal trainer at a big commercial gym. Kyle worked up the corporate ladder in education and management as his career advanced before eventually leaving for the private sector. After gaining experience overseeing thousands of employees over several domestic markets, he and his wife relocated back to the Midwest, where he would start his entrepreneurial career. He founded Compound Performance a little over six years ago and has since founded a second company, the Compound Training app, where they have worked with several thousand clients and trainers. 
Kyle and Gianna sat down for an inclusive conversation about fitness from his perspective as a trainer and strength coach. During this episode, they dive into: 

• Kyle’s approach to his fitness routine as a busy business owner and dad 
• Tips for getting started with exercise as a beginner 
• The importance of customization and choosing the right exercises to meet specific fitness objectives, emphasizing strategic use of exercise variations 
• Adjusting frequency and volume to optimize results 
• How nutrition and other lifestyle components factor into performance, recovery, and results 
• Training approaches suitable for the general population versus those designed for high-performance athletes 

You’ll walk away with relevant insights and strategies whether you’re a new exerciser, fitness enthusiast, or a coach. Tune in and then head to the Stronger U Community to share your thoughts.  

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
What's up, guys, Welcome backto Stronger You Radio. Thank you so
much for being here. We areso excited for today's episode, which is
all about fitness for National Fitness Month, and specifically we are going to talk
about weight training and thinking about ourprogramming or where to start when working with
a trainer for example. So ifyou consider yourself maybe a novice on the

(00:25):
weightlifting front or more advanced, thereis something for you here as we talk
about the thousand foot view of trainingand how to think about your week and
then specifically your sets and reps.We break it down in this episode.
We're so lucky to be joined todayby our guest Hile Dobbs, the owner
and founder of Compound Performance, whichis an online training company that provides programming

(00:51):
for individuals and athletes, as wellas mentorship for strength coaches and personal trainers.
Welcome to the Stronger You Radio.Stronger You Radio brings insightful conversations with
top nutrition, health and fitness experts, hosted by Stronger You dieticians and nationally
certified coaches skilled at simplifying nutrition scienceinto actionable advice. Get inspired with evidence

(01:19):
based, practical tips to optimize yourpotential and crush your body composition, health
and performance goals. This is yourtime to level up and become a stronger
you. So, Kyle is awealth of knowledge and has such a great
view and very practical, realistic viewas well as going over the x's and

(01:42):
the O so I know you willlearn something new from this episode. So
let's dive in and build a strongeryou. Welcome, Welcome, all right,
So we are here to talk allabout fitness today, and I'm really
so grateful to have you, Kyle. I know you've been such a force
in the industry. I started asa personal trainer before I became a registered

(02:05):
dietitian and so just all of theprogramming knowledge and sort of all the education
that you put out there, bothpersonal and professional, I know I've gained
a lot from it. So Iwas like, you are a perfect person
to kind of come in lay thefoundation for those of us who are beginners,
and then we have a lot ofmore advanced people in our community as
well. So thank you so muchfor being here with us. Thank you

(02:28):
for having me. I was definitelyexcited when you reached out and I'm glad
we got to do this. Thiswould be great. Yeah, yeah,
so can you just give us alittle background. I know that you started
in more of like a traditional trainingcareer. It sounds like, do you
give us a little bit of yourbackground to where you got to today at
compound your business? Yeah, ofcourse. Yeah. So I'm the classic

(02:49):
like injured athlete rehab turned fitness passiontype guy. So yeah, with school,
I played basketball and I ran track, and I was a double major
biol g and chemistry with the minorand physical science and kind of came right
out of school with a CSCs.It kind of was involved with my minor
and promptly moved right to New YorkCity with my then girlfriend now wife and

(03:13):
had no athletes anywhere to train rightwent straight into the box gym. Realm
realized that I was kind of wayout of my comfort zone in the environment
that I expected, you know,coming out of school at that point.
So I had to really rethink fitnessaltogether, you know, based on what
I had done as an athlete versuswhat my typical client demographic actually looked like

(03:34):
and what they needed, you know, from me from provider. So I
went through and I got you know, my CPTs. I got you know,
the es and the pees, andthen I went through you know DNS
and FRC and pr I courses andall of the above and a bunch of
stuff in between during that time.And I trained exclusively only for the first
seven years of my career, andI was I was a very high volume

(03:57):
trainer. I trained over twenty thousandin person training sessions throughout my career and
then kind of had to you know, fell into love for just like development
and management. So I started doingin house education at the gym I was
at, and that spread into educationfor all of the New York clubs,
and then I started getting into onboarding, so I went through the development of
all of our new hires every month, and to age myself, I was

(04:19):
teaching the FMS and OPT model youknow, for a full day, full
two days, you know, throughoutthat process. And then I finally went
into management, you know, whichwas something I was a little hesitant to
do early on, just through myexperiences with prior managers. You know,
we've all had some good ones,that's some bad ones or whatever. But
I finally did it. That washonestly, when my wife was pregnant with

(04:41):
our first son and I knew thatI needed something a little more stable at
that point, and that was alsoa big push for me there, and
I honestly fell in love with it. Like I really loved the management process.
I love working with coaches, Iloved the development process there. I
worked as a manager in club forjust a singular facility for three years and
was national manager of the year twoof those years. Yeah, for the

(05:05):
organization I was, and then Iwent into a district role and eventually a
regional role before I left the corporategym world. From that perspective, had
an opportunity to be the fitness directorat Peak Performance in New York at that
point, and I was at thetime kind of the premier training facility,

(05:25):
if not in America, in NewYork. It was very popular. We
had all the you know, allthe biggest people and all the people coming
in from an education perspective, andthey were looking at expanding into a much
larger space and then different markets throughoutthe US and abroad, and I was
going to help facilitate that, anda whole lot of stuff happened. Our

(05:46):
our funding got pulled and our investorswalked, and it imploded, you know,
from that point on, so wewere all the whole team was kind
of left scrambling with no job,which is terrifying when you live in New
York. That's not the last youwant to be. Bills come quick,
as they say. So I tooka job I was interviewing and took a
job as the training and services directorfor another company based out of New York,

(06:10):
and I oversaw my two years therebetween fifteen and twenty markets nationally and
about seventy locations and a couple thousandservice providers, everything from trainers to artis
to dpts, to pilates and gyrotonicsand yoga instructors, the group fitness instructors,
pretty much everything, all of theabove, oversaw all of them,

(06:30):
had a lot of travel, alot of moving around, and eventually it
kind of just got burned out onthat a little bit too, mainly because
of the lifestyle. You know.At that point, I had two kids
and I wasn't seeing them hardly atall, which was from my priorities,
not good, you know. Sodid that for two years, and then

(06:50):
my wife and I decided that wewanted to have a complete change of pace
and move back to the Midwest,So we're now here in Saint Louis.
That's where my wife's from. We'vebeen here for almost seven years, so
six and a half years or so, and Compound Performance has been in business
for about six years. So Istarted Compound Performance on my own as a

(07:13):
remote coaching and remote mentorship company thatI really wanted to kind of blend my
areas of emphasis as working with coaches, you know, for the most part,
even the majority of my training clientswere coaches or athletes at that point,
and did really well starting off tothe point where I was overworked pretty
quickly. I was on thirty fivehours a week of zoom calls, which

(07:35):
was a lot for me, andthen had another thirty to forty remote clients
at any given time to program foron the weekends. And took on my
first employee and started scaling my businessinto you know, group opportunities as well
from both the training and education process, and really started growing it from that
point on. Like even last year, we worked with a little over two

(07:57):
thousand coaches and athletes through all allof our programs. A year and a
half ago, we also started anothercompany or founded another company on the tech
side, so we've got a trainingplatform that were going through the beta process
and the launch of right Now aswell, which has been a whole new
experience for me also. So nowI've got developers working under me and a
bunch of you know, basically explainingthings to me like I'm a five year

(08:20):
old every single day. Yes,goes smoothly all the time. Right data
tech is great and it is.It has been an adventure. If I
had it to do it again,I'd still do it. But it's definitely
been a steep learning curve from thatperspective and well out of any of my
education and experience. And throughout thatperiod, I've also I went back to

(08:41):
school and got my master's in organizationalpsychology also, which is kind of random,
but no, I think it's sorelevant to what you do. Actually,
Yeah, so it's definitely that wasa fun process. Also running two
businesses and having two kids and afamily as a late thirties you know,
adults. So it's it's been alot. You know, it's it's busy,

(09:05):
but you know, kind of whatwe were talking about before, I've
been able to scale and delegate andkind of create the you know, the
quote unquote work life balance that worksbest for me from that perspective, and
just really enjoy my day to dayand what I do. You know,
I think that's that's kind of theendpoint we all hope for, you know,
for the most part. Yeah,And I appreciate kind of painting all
that picture out for us, becausewhat I hear is that you have a

(09:28):
very busy and dynamic business and careerand family, much like all of our
members. And I think when wethink about okay, well, when we
look at people who work out dailyor are on some sort of routine,
we often will think, oh,they must have more time than me,
or maybe their lifestyles just set upa little bit differently. And I think

(09:50):
that we can prioritize. But Iguess I'm curious, like when you were
super busy or going to school,how did you still get to train?
Did you maybe cut the volume?Did you less in the days? I
think people would be interested to heara little bit about that. Yeah,
I mean, I think just ingeneral, my my training changes kind of

(10:11):
I mean all the time a littlebit, you know, just from what's
going on in my life and whatmy seasonal goals actually look like. But
from a foundational perspective, it's kindof always remained the same logistically, where
you know, i'd train first thingin the morning, get up early,
get to the gym around five orfive thirty, because honestly, it's the
same with most people. If Idon't get it done at that point,

(10:33):
it's probably not going to get done, or it's going to get done really
poorly later in the day when I'mreally tired and don't feel like doing it.
And I have the advantage of,you know, I grew up on
a farm and I played sports orhigh school in college and we had early
mornings or nothing new for me becauseof that, So I've always been kind
of a morning person and I goto bed at like a thirty nine o'clock

(10:54):
every night. So I'll also freely, freely admit that. But yeah,
it's my that's kind of my timeto myself, you know, and I
enjoy it. It's something I obviouslylove to do. I think anybody in
this profession has kind of a uniqueinterest in that, you know, from
that perspective, which is which isalso something for all of us to remember
that that differentiates us, you knowfrom the people we typically work with.

(11:16):
Is you know, I often hadto understand and be empathetic to the fact
that my clients did not view trainingthe same way that I view training,
you know, from an emotional perspectiveas well, So I love it.
I typically go Monday through Friday tothe gym or running, and then Saturday
is something you know, will eithergo on like a long family hike or
all run, depending on what seasonit is. Right now, I'm I'm

(11:39):
in run mode, looking at halfmarathon a while away, but starting the
training now so just to get theold legs used to it. So it's
like I'll run three to four daysa week and I'm really only strength training
twice a week right now. Youknow, as I tell I'm two hundred
and thirty pounds, like the lastthing in the world I need to do
is, you know, get strongerand get bigger to run distance. So

(12:01):
I'm not I'm really kind of deemphasizingthat to work more on the conditioning side
of things and just the more specificside of things there. But yeah,
it's just I have to get upand get it done early or I'm not
able to do it, and thatenables me to get home in time to
do the family stuff in the morningthat I want to do and kind of
get right and prepared for my day. Yeah, yeah, I think that's
helpful to hear. And you alsocommented on like, yeah, sometimes we

(12:24):
don't expect people to love the gym. For some people, this is like
you just need to check the box. And that's okay too. And I
think what you mentioned about, youknow, okay, you're deemphasizing the strength
portion right now. We get askeda lot, or I'll get asked a
lot, where should I start ifI'm interested in resistance training or putting in

(12:46):
more weight training, and so ifI'm a total newbie, you know,
where would I start? What Istart with one day? Two days?
Like I'm curious if you could walkthrough if you have a beginner, ask
you that one hundred percent. AndI mean even just like I said,
when I worked in the box gymworld, like that was a lot of
my clients coming in, you know, they were new to the gym.

(13:07):
That was one of their first experiencesor at least their first experience in a
while, you know, depending onwhat what their circumstances were. And you
know, typically where I started thosepeople was you know, maybe twice a
week on kind of a full bodyschedule that worked out really well frequency wise.
Was I was able to space thedays out well enough to where it
was a little easier to schedule forthem and maybe again a little easier to

(13:28):
recover from. And even that fullbody you know kind of training split also
allowed for less total volume for youknow, each respective pattern or part each
session, which is also a littlebit more recoverable for clients as they advanced.
You know, it also left alot of different ways to progress that
person, right, So we couldincrease training frequency, or we could change

(13:52):
the split up to where one daywas like a lower body squad day and
upper body pull and the other daywas more of a hinge day and a
push day. So we could consolidatestress a little more each day to increase
training volume per part each day andkind of consolidate those stressors over the course
of one session instead of two,provide more training stimulus. Again, that's
going to leave somebody a little bitmore you know, fatigued or tired or

(14:13):
sore whatever, So again more moreactual recoverability. And that because they had
probably from at that point, youknow, like a Monday to a Monday
instead of a Monday to a Thursdayor something of that nature. So it
just allowed for different ways of progressionregarding frequency or just changing the actual splits
themselves. And that was something thatagain usually I kind of let my clients

(14:33):
dictate, you know, from thatpoint on, just knowing that the majority
of them, you know, we'renot training for the Olympics. You know,
it's like we're training for fitness andhealth and whatever, so they got
a much larger say in what theywere actually doing and what they wanted to
do. Then maybe some of thehigher level athletes that I'm working at now
that have very high specificity based goalswhere it's like, yeah, we kind
of have to we have to dosome things rather than we want to do

(14:56):
some things, or we'd rather dosome things. The further you get into
more the general population training, youget to have more wants and rathers rather
than haves. And I think that'sthat's also something that I had a hard
time understanding, you know, earlieron in my career that I now,
you know, try to try toincorporate more depending on how can you give
an example for somebody that's like understandinglike the wants, like what I hear

(15:18):
you saying is like, Okay,you can do a squat this way,
you know, or a squat thatway? Like, could you give me
an example? Yeah? I thinka lot of it just has to do
with, you know, what's thetrainability of an exercise? You know,
I think when you're when you're lookingat exercise selections, you're you're literally looking
at a vehicle for stimulus, rightmost of the time. So what am

(15:39):
I actually trying to get out ofthis exercise? What what adaptation am I
trying to get? What stimulus doI need to elicit? Right? So,
different exercise variations, different loading schemes, different ways to challenge and you
know, modify, center, amass whatever, Those are going to load
different tissues differently. Those are goingto work different tissues different That requires more

(16:00):
specificity based on what you're trying toaccomplish through the exercise selection, the training
day, the training week, thetraining month, et cetera, et cetera.
When you're working with somebody who ismore fitness and health related, at
that point, it's kind of lookingat, you know, what exercise are
you the most efficient with? Likewhere can I actually get the most work

(16:22):
done without you know, having tolike increase skill acquisition and queueing and teaching
and all these things that sometimes kindof slow down the process when you only
have an hour with somebody. Yeah, you know, and that's where,
you know, for somebody who wasin that gin pop realm, if they're
just starting out and they have troubleyou know, squatting for instance, right

(16:42):
and getting depth and balancing their centerof mass or whatever, like, I
have no problem building up some foundationalcapacity on a like press. We can
go and wait with literally no teachinginvolved. Right, I can just say,
hey, you're going to push againstthis platform around it ten times,
and we're going to try to slowdown a tempo or something like that,

(17:03):
and then we're going to ask howyou feel, and we're going to repeat
it after some adjustments. Right,there's no teaching, queueing, there's no
wasted time within that session. Fromthat perspective, and two weeks, four
weeks, six weeks down the road, that person is probably in a better
position to then go through and tryto teach that other movement or that more
advanced movement too. When I'm workingwith somebody who is more specific and I'm

(17:23):
trying to really elicit something specific fromthat exercise, I have a very narrower
just list of options, you know, from that perspective, and I think
that's something where again, just understandingwhat you're trying to get out of each
exercise will also kind of lead intobetter exercise selection and application from that perspective.

(17:45):
And when you have somebody who's morein that beginner stage, it ends
up being way more person focused,where you're really looking at their ability,
what they're able to accomplish, whatthey're able to learn and assimilate really fast
and then apply pretty quickly, versuswhere you're when you're working with somebody way
more advanced, it becomes more taskfocused, and the exercise stelections become way
more Again, the scope is narrowerand way more specific there. Yeah,

(18:08):
I love what you said too aboutthe machines. I mean, I know,
I mean we can probably find argumentsonline for anything in fitness. People
are like anti machines or everything needsto be functional, and I'm just like,
I love that you just mentioned themachine thing because it is such a
great not even just starting point,but it's so nice to just like circuit
through some machines, get everything done, reps are done. You kind of

(18:33):
control the form for someone who,like you said, may not be able
to maintain a certain posture or somethingthat we want to see. And yeah,
I would rather have them get thework done and get the tissue going
well. And I think that's that'ssomething that I think a lot of coaches.
And again, I don't want tomake broader general statements, so I'll
say myself, you know, oryou know, I went through the functional

(18:53):
realm right like I And it waslike I feel like I went through the
functional side of things to like theheight of the functional crew. Yes,
it was like the Kelly Star.Everything was mobility, everything like banded everything.
Everything was proper receptive. Everything wasfreeways. Machines were out like that
was the trend. Nobody used them. You got laughed at if you use

(19:14):
them. That's how I was broughtup too. If you're like, oh
my god, you're on a machinewith your client, you were like a
loser. I was like, ohmy god, you don't think of anything
better to do, Like you know, you're just that lazy trainer, right,
Like that's what you know. That'show we were all taught to things
like, oh, that's the lazytrainer. To put the people on machines
or whatever. And now looking back, it's like, yeah, it's like,
okay, they're highly constrained. Wecan work through very specific ranges emotion.

(19:37):
We can work through full ranges ofemotion or partials depending on what that
person's able to do. So it'svery modifiable. It's very scalable because you
know, it's just literally you canlinear progress, volume and load there,
so you can get clients very comfortableon a machine. You can work through
tissue, you know, just capacityor strength, and you know, for

(19:59):
a lot of people it's like,let's go get some pumps. Like everybody
feels good after a good pump session, and like running a machine circuit and
whether you make it you know,rep based or density based or whatever ends
up being really good for a lotof people, especially people that you know
are new to the gym, becauseit does you know, one, it
gets familiar with movement and two andprobably the easiest way possible, right again,

(20:22):
zero learning curve, Like you justhave to make sure the machines set
up correctly for the height of theperson. Basically it allows them to actually
work. And I think sometimes weget you know, as coaches in the
past, like I've gotten so caughtup with having somebody do like the optimal
thing or the functional thing, oryou know, my personal ideal of what

(20:44):
an exercise should look like, versuswhere can this person perform the most work,
because at the end of the day, like the work is what creates
the change, right, And Ithink that's something where you know, where
we can build the most work fora lot of those early entry people is
with machines and then actually move themin the freeways. So that's something that's
you know, goal specific or aprogression that's needed down the road. But

(21:06):
that's a great starting point for somany people. Yeah. Absolutely, And
I think you mentioned density or reps. I think if you want to maybe
just define some of those because Ithink some listeners may not know that yet.
Yeah. Yeah, so so repsagain, it's like that those are
your typical sets and reps where it'slike, hey, we're into you know,
three sets of ten or three setsof eight or whatever, and you
have somebody, You give somebody avery defined range to work within, which

(21:30):
for some people is very freeing andallows you to modify kind of intensity and
scale that a little bit more becausethe volume is already predetermined, right,
and then density is going to bea little bit more volume based where I
can say, hey, we're goingto go thirty seconds or a minute or
ninety seconds or even two minutes,and we're going to set the weight here,
and I want you to perform asmany reps within this range as possible,

(21:52):
resting as needed, and then we'regoing to work on building more volume
session over session over session whatever.Those are just two ways to kind of
build capacity or tolerance based on whatyour client's goals are. And it's an
easy way to also mix up theapplication of singular exercises, right. So
that's something I used to do alot of with clients, especially clients who

(22:15):
had a hard time with like theskill acquisition or learning new you know,
new skills within the gym, newexercises within the gym. Is trying to
find a way to just have differentapplication processes for the same exercises they were
already familiar with, whether it wasa leg press or r if he split
squad, right, like, ifthey had that exercise down, you know,

(22:37):
I could I could basically manage andmodify the training variables or the way
it was applied, rather than tryingto teach them a whole new exercise every
couple weeks. And that was away to just again speed up the efficiency
of the actual training process for thepeople rather than teaching them fifteen different ways
to split squad or lunch. Sowe can maybe learn like three or four
and just do them in a lotof different ways and probably in the getting

(23:00):
better work done in better sessions becauseof it. Yeah, and that brings
up the topic of like variability too, Like I think, like what you're
saying is like picking the things thatyou can do well and running through those
for a training block, and it'sokay, it's not like I think.
Also with like food and nutrition,people are always like, oh, I
have to eat all different kinds ofvegetables, and I'm like, I actually

(23:22):
don't care. Like, if youwant to pick just a few of your
favorites, do that. I wouldrather you do that because then you'll get
it done. The same thing withtraining. If you are someone that's doing
these main movements and some accessories,like that's great, Like I'm happy if
you're going to show up and dothe thing right. I'm curious what's the
answer. And I know with trainingand nutrition and fitness, there's so much

(23:45):
nuance. But if you had tosay, to maybe a beginner, what's
the least I can do, Likewhat's the minimum effective dose for me from
getting stronger? Or I'm interested inlike lifting weights? Is it twice a
week? Is it once? Couldyou expand on that? Yeah, I
mean I have plenty of clients whostill continue to get stronger on twice a

(24:06):
week training. And again, Ithink you know, from a goal specific
perspective, you know that's that's goingto influence your training frequency if you're looking
at things that are more geared towardslike lean muscle mass and like body composition
goals saying obviously outside of nutrition,but from just a pure training perspective,
you might need three days or maybemaybe four. But if you're just looking

(24:27):
at specifically strength especially and maybe havethat you know, hyper fee as a
secondary goal. I've got plenty ofpeople and I've worked with plenty of people
over the years that made lots ofprogress on twice a week training frequency.
There and again, you want thatwithin like a holistic lifestyle where you're getting
your you know, you're doing whatyou're supposed to do from a nutrition perspective,

(24:48):
you're you're working on your sleep orrelationships, you're your need all all
those good things, right, Butjust from a pure training perspective, you
can get a lot done in twosessions a week, if again it's organized
well, you know. And Ithink that's again, you know, something
that a lot of people, alot of coaches struggle with is just how
how to prioritize, you know,I think we are so inundated with so

(25:11):
much information now more than ever,with social media becoming even more and more
prevalent, that you know, alot of coaches kind of get you know,
shiny object syndrome a little bit.I know. I mean I see
stuff, I'm like, oh,I want to try that, you know.
It's like I do it, youknow, so I know other coersons
do it as well, and it'slike, go, how can I fit
that into my session? How canI fit that into my training week or

(25:33):
whatever? And a lot of itis either just redundant or unneeded or not
even goal specific for a lot ofthe people we work with. Right,
So I think just kind of creatingthe plan and sticking to it and making
sure that you're driving and focusing onthe work being done and not necessarily trying
to throw in a bunch of newthings all the time. Similar to what
you're saying with nutrition, you don'tneed all the fruits and vegetables. You

(25:55):
just need some like that's all right, and rotate them out seasonally even if
you want to. From that personerspective, try to do the same thing,
you know, or something at leastsimilar, for three to four weeks before
you make a change, you know, get some actual exposures to the type
of training you're doing, progress itover the course of a few weeks,
and then change it as needed,you know, or as interested you know.
From that that's another That's a quoteI think I got from from Jake

(26:18):
Tora, you know, a fewyears ago, where it's it's it's like
with with jimpop especially, I startedadopting like as interested, you know,
with a lot of my accessory work. Yeah, sessions. Right, It's
just like if you've gone through likeall your you know, your meat and
potato stuff, and you're at theend of a session and you've got you
know, arms and abs written youknow, at the end of your session
or whatever, like it's programmed asinterested, Like if you don't want to

(26:41):
do it at all, You're fine. Like, if you're fatigued, if
you're tired, if you're just demotivatedto train that day, don't worry about
it. You know, you're goingto come in another day in the next
few weeks and you're going to bejazzed up about and you're going to go
crush it, you know. Andthat's fine. As long as you got
the more important stuff done, youknow, earlier in and the things that
had the biggest magnitude of stimulus,the most work to accomplish, you're probably
good from that perspective. Yeah.I like that you're seeing that too,

(27:03):
because it brings up something that happenedto me a lot as a trainer,
where someone would come in and bereally concerned about one area of their body
right, Like they're like, oh, I really want to tone up my
arms, And what you just saidwas Okay, there's these main movements and
then maybe these accessories, and so, yes, you want to improve your
body composition and you're let's say saybody part arms or body part that you're

(27:29):
concerned about improving. But I wantpeople to hear when they listen to this,
that the compound movements and the thingsthat you're going to do in the
beginning of your session is also todo that, like you don't need to
stand there and do just buy somecurls and try some extensions to improve your
body comp and your arms. Right. So I'm curious if you could comment
on that. Oh yeah, Ithink it's just you know, again explaining

(27:52):
the clients. It's like, hey, like on these presses, on these
polls, we are working your armsand your shoulders, right, and working
them with they much larger load,you know, So again it's dispersed throughout
more tissues. They're getting work doneand if you still feel like doing you
know, more isolation work at theend of the session. Cool, I've
I've dropped out, you know,I've mapped out ten minutes for that.

(28:14):
You know, from that point wherewe can just like run through like the
arm farm we can get to Yeah, with some pumps, we can make
it happen. That's going to beeven more effective if we drive some preliminary
fatigue, right, And that's whereI think even just understanding you know,
like bio energetics and energy systems,right, Like a lot of the hypertree
based training that we do is verycalcnalytics. So you want to drive blood

(28:38):
into tissues, you want to buildsome occlusion, you want to get you
know, some of those metabolites andother like, you know, just pro
hormones you know, circulating through yoursystem as you're going through the training process.
So even doing some of those higherthreshold lifts prior to your isolation work
is just going to benefit the isolationwork downstream because you already have more blood

(29:02):
and hormones, metabolites, whatever,flowing into those tissues where it's just going
to be that much more effective.Right. So, I think just explaining
the process you know, metabolically,physiologically, whatever, to your clients on
how those things work, and againin terms they understand. I don't expect
any trainer to try to explain totheir forty five year old accountant what metabolites

(29:23):
are and how they benefit your hypertrophydown the road. But if we can
just explain them like, hey,you know this is important, but it's
going to be even better if wedo this other stuff first, it's that
much more effective. If you canjust show them there is a reason that
you've set the session up the wayit is. They're usually like, oh,
Okay, that's cool, Like let'sdo this first and then we'll get

(29:45):
to that, and they have noproblem doing that. But it just has
to be a conversation. And mostof your clients, like in my experience,
like most of my clients just wantedto know that I had a plan,
there was a reason they were doingthe things they were doing in the
order they were doing it, andif I could show them, even in
the most basic levels, like yeah, like we're doing A before B and

(30:07):
then B before C, and thisis why they were cool with it.
And I got very few complaints fromthat point on. Yeah, super smart.
Yeah, I love how you saidthat. And I think one of
the things that I wanted to define, or I would love to have you
define for the listeners. Something Iget asked a lot is Gianna, how
do I know how many reps todo? Like they're like, it's like

(30:30):
just you know, pick a number, right, And so I think,
and there's two things here. Sothere's strength and then there's hypertrophy, right.
And I think a lot of timespeople will come into the gym or
come into to work with a dieticianor a trainer and say, Okay,
I want to be stronger. Andyes, they do want to be stronger,
that's one. But what I hearthrough the conversation and the dialogue is

(30:52):
that they are actually interested in bodycomposition changes, not pure strength. So
I would love to hash that outso people can understand the vocabulary a little
bit more. Yeah, and thatis a conversation. I like that you
mentioned that because that's a conversation.I think all trainers need to need to
dig another layer below just getting stronger, because you know, it's it's important

(31:18):
to understand, like our clients don'tThey don't know the scientific definition of strength,
hypertrophy, muscular endurance or oxidative workor whatever, right, Like they
don't understand there's a difference there whenthey a lot of them when they walk
in the gender there's weights and there'streadmills or ellipticals, and it's like you
go to the weight side to getstronger and that encompasses everything, and you

(31:40):
go to the ellipticals and the treadmillsto do cardio and that encompasses everything in
the same way that you know,you could you could sprint, you could
do tempo repeats, you could dolong duration oxidative work, aerobic work.
You could use that same treadmill fora lot of different purposes that are clearly
not the same, right, Thesame way could be at for really any

(32:00):
of the stuff on the straight trainingside, And I think they're all going
to get you stronger technically in thebroadest sense of the view. But yeah,
it's like what we're really looking atis, you know, reps are
always going to have You really can'ttalk about reps at all without the relationship
they have with intensity, Right.So that's the first thing that I always

(32:22):
tried to work with the clients isyou know, just doing you know,
triples on an exercise isn't going togive you a neurological strength or power adaptation
if you're doing it at really lowload. You're just doing really poor some
maximum work with low volume, Right, So we want to make sure that
if you are doing things in thelower REP ranges, the intensity of what

(32:42):
you're doing them and the load thatyou're doing them with, and even how
you're doing them, they should beprobably concentrically focused. Right at that point
if you're looking for a neurological adaptation, that has to match, Right,
the volume is lower, the intensityneeds to be a little higher. That's
an inverse relationship that we want tokind of keep in mind throughout this process.
Now, if we're looking with bodycomposition, hyperch feeling, muscle mass,

(33:06):
glycolytic work, all of that stuffkind of in the middle, that's
where for me, I program everythingingcurrently. So I look at just categorizing
by stimulus, right, So youhave high, moderate, low, and
that's you're looking at like a moderatestimulus and you're looking at kind of a
moderate volume, right, So you'rekind of meeting in the middle of that
inverse relationship of intensity and volume.Right. If you're picturing like an X

(33:30):
on an xy graph, that's themiddle, right, And that's honestly the
highest stress potentiation for most people whenyou start looking at recoverability, right,
because it's it's the biggest mix ofvolume and intensity put together. And that's
where you're going to get the mostmuscular adaptations because you're going to be able

(33:50):
to challenge those tissues for the longestdurations of time under tension. That's where
you're looking at isometric and ecentric temposyou're trying to slow down. You're looking
at longer length into positions of musculartissue where you can also provide the most
stress too, and those are whereyou're going to be kind of in that
more like eight to twelve REP range, sometimes even as low as six.

(34:13):
If somebody's a little more trained,they can get more out of that typically,
And that's where you're even looking atthe differences between like milefibrill and sarcoplasmic
yeburtruy, like you can break itdown even more if you've got a really
nerdy client that you want to explainit to. I usually don't, but
that's where you know you're going tobe in those moderate REP ranges typically,
and then you're going to be,you know, the other end of the

(34:34):
spectrum where your low intensity and highvolume is going to be more oxidative work.
That's where I will typically classify moreof my warm ups and even like
tertiary accessories on my programming, andthat's where I look at like skill acquisition,
sensation based things even like active mobilityor dynamic you know, selections kind
of typically fall into that realm justbecause the intensity tends to be a little

(34:59):
low, so you can actually startfocusing on some of those other things,
and that's going to be you know, for most of my people a little
lower on the scale, but ifyou're working with somebody brand new, that
might be the first entry point theyhave, right. And again, how
you organize those through a training sessionis going to be a little bit more
goal specific, and you can categorizethem even you know, you can break

(35:21):
it down even more than I do. But I when I write out a
program and what it looks like onpaper, it's the old stop light analogy
where I got green, you know, green, yellow, red, and
green is like that aerobic work,and yellow or the oxidative work, and
yellow is that you know, kindof moderate stem glycolytic based type pertry work
or some maximal strength work as I'llcall it some athletes, and the red
is my high stem really kind ofcreate team based neurological work if I'm looking

(35:45):
at like ugualization, and how Iplace that throughout a week really has to
do on how I know that athleterecovers from different levels of stimulus. So
my big thing is like the yellowdays typically can't be back to back,
or I'm going to start using outputspretty quickly just because those tend to have

(36:05):
the most recoverability needs. Again,like if we're looking at that xy graph,
what I kind of demonstrate with peopleis like the level of total stress
is almost a bell curve laying overthat, right, So people think the
high stem stuff is the highest amountof stress, but the highest amount of
stimulus doesn't always equal the highest amountof stress, right, because it is

(36:25):
so low volume. Typically, unlessyou just overprogram it, right, people
are okay, Like the next daythey can kind of go into any session
and still perform well. Same thingwith oxidative low stem stuff. It's really
high volume, but it's really lowstimulus. They're usually find the next day
to do a high or moderate orlow stem day moderate stuff. I just

(36:46):
try not to piggyback. And that'sthat's really the way that I'm looking at
it over the course of a week. Yeah, that's super helpful. I
like how you broke it down likethat. And I'm curious as a coach,
if you had somebody, what aresome of the signs or things that
the client is saying that they're notrecovering. Well, yeah, and that's

(37:07):
where I kind of look at amix of you know, those would be
the subjective measures and then you know, the empirical you know, stuff from
their sessions, but the numbers,especially those are something I'm going to look
at, is like are they progressingthe way that I want them to progress?
You know? So that's that's easy, Like I've laid out a plan.

(37:28):
I want things to go up orI want things to go down,
you know, based on whatever exerciseit is, like is it following the
plan right? But alongside that,you know, even probably sometimes more importantly,
I've got to look at the subjectivefeedback that I'm getting from those those
clients. And the biggest things thatI look at, you know, is
one, how are they feeling throughoutthe day. Are they just overly fatigued

(37:51):
all the time, they overly soarall the time? Are they having you
know, issues with eating indigestion?Now that's a big autonomic signal, or
for me that they're hypersympathetic and they'rehaving a hard time recovering and getting into
more of a parasympathetic state. Betweensessions, are they sleeping well? And
then you know, probably even likeone of the biggest ones for me is

(38:14):
like are they still interested and excitedin their training? Yeah, he's a
drag coming. Yeah, Like whenPete when when when clients, especially in
person, like you know, it'slike one of the key things I always
look at with clients is like arethey coming in on time? Like they
used to come in on time.Now they're kind of like at first they're
like five minutes late, then they'relike ten minutes late, then they're fifteen

(38:36):
minutes late. When that starts happening, you know that that for me has
always been like a pretty key indicatorthat I need to switch things up a
little bit and I need to probablyhave a conversation with them and just get
a better understanding of how they feelabout the training, what they're not enjoying
about it, and what I canchange to make it better from them,
you know. And I think thatbecause again that that can be significant with

(39:00):
you know, quote unquote overtraining orjust like a type of training that's maybe
not specific to their goals or atype of training that's not specific to the
things they actually like to do,depending on who your client is. And
you know, interest and engagement isa like that's the canary in the coal
mine for me, that's the thingthat goes before everything else goes. And

(39:22):
some of your clients, especially morein that in person like gen Pop Realm,
I've found are sometimes not vocal aboutthat because they don't they're worried about
your response as a coach. Yeah, yeah, and you know, so
if you're if you're not constantly askingthem and not only asking them, but
you know, showing that you careabout their answers. Right. Again,

(39:45):
a lot of coaches I've noticed inthe past, like they have no problem,
like hey, how do you feellike whatever, and the client's like,
I'm a little down, like okay, and then they don't change anything,
and you're like, why are youasking They're like noted and changes in
the in that case, like you'retelling your client like their feedback doesn't matter
and it's almost better to just notask for it, right, Right.

(40:07):
So I think that's a big thingis you know, having your clients be
involved in the process will help youavoid some of those things. But yeah,
I definitely look at you know,even with like with my remote clients,
the communication is a little different,but we have you know, with
everything I do, I've got aprescribed RPE you know, within the program,

(40:28):
but then they also get to ratetheir RPE after, you know,
for the third set, so Ican also look at the differences there,
Like if I if I prescribe anRPE eight three by three, you know,
of a compound movement, and we'vebeen you know, carrying on,
carrying on, progressing as needed whatever, and then we do, you know,
a five to ten percent load increaseand you know, the third set's

(40:52):
like nine, Like they rate atnine point five, right, it was
almost failure. It's like okay,like I know you're probably not we might
have made too big of a jumpor need to look at the sessions we
did before this, prior to inthe week to make sure those aren't overly
fatiguing you. And I probably needto ask you about the other things going
on in your life. Yeah.I imagine nutrition is a big one for

(41:13):
that too, because that's what I'llsay, like, you know, like
you can have the best, perfectprogram and then if they're not eating enough
or you know, at least notthe rate you're eating is huge, right,
cool? Yeah, that's I hada client. Yeah, I mean
literally last week on his check inand he's he's looking at his first endurance

(41:36):
competitions and it's been primarily you know, just he's a trainer, so just
goes to the gym lifts whatever.He's a pretty light body weight. He's
actually like an ideal size for anendurance athlete. He's like one hundred and
forty five pounds, And just likelean, I was like, man,
you can clip out endurance ath LikeI wish I had your body for what
I'm trying to do right now,Like six four two thirty ain't it for

(42:00):
running endurance stuff. But he's hewas like on we're talking. He's like,
yeah, I have a high fat, high high protein die. It's
like I've been. I was forthe last two years. And I'm like,
okay, that's cool. Like hewas eating you know, sixty grams
of carbs a day, you know, and I'm just like one, god
bless, Like I would be dying, I'd be miserable, like nobody would

(42:22):
want to talk to me. Everif that was the case. Carbs make
me happy. But we're talking,and it's just like hey, for like
what you want to do, Likewe're going to be into like thirty miles
a week, like weekly mileage,like here in the next like six to
eight weeks, like this is goingto be ramping up like your total conditioning
volume for what you want to dois going to go up pretty significantly because

(42:45):
of when you came to me andwhat your first scheduled race is. Like,
I don't have as much like runwayto grade this out as I would
like, So we're kind of alreadyon a cramped timeline. We need to
get some carbs in your body forwhat you're trying to do, because he
was like, I feel terrible,absolutely, and he's you know, he's
training on the floor all day.He tracked. He's like, I get
twenty thousand steps to day training onthe floor in addition to all the other

(43:07):
stuff I'm doing. And I waslike, I was like, okay,
you know, like let's we needto make a plan for this. He
still doesn't want to eat grains,so we're looking at like literally like white
rice, like just the simplest,most digestible form we can get in him.
But I was like, we alsohave to, like, we've got
to grade that out because you're yourdigestion is going to have a hard time

(43:29):
with this, probably early on inthe process. So we started incorporating some
more fruits and more veggies and thenyou know, some some white rice in
there, and it's just like hewas easily like fifteen hundred calories a day
under what he probably needs to beyeah, for what the amount of work
he's doing, you know, Andit's just like that's that's going to be

(43:49):
a major major miss down the roadfrom everything from just you know, recovery,
but also just like autonomics whatever.You know. I had a period
of time when I was rowing fairlycompetitively in my early thirties, and I
was working in New York still,and I was I was in you know,
more of a regional position, soI was walking around the city to
different facilities all day, I wastrying to train. I was rowing seventy

(44:13):
to eighty thousand meters a week betweenall my days and still trying to lift,
and just felt terrible, right likejust every every autonomic dysfunction you could
think of. And I got myyou know, I was talking to my
friend Ben House, who I know, you know. Also, He's like,
let's get your blood work done.You know, just see what I

(44:34):
mean. My room is like twopoint fifty, Like, I mean,
I was tainted. Yeah, andhe's like, all right, let's look
at what you're eating. And Imean he was just I'm not going to
quote him because it's a little disrespectful. But he's like, you're you're not
eating the way you're supposed to,you know, from that perspective. And
he literally had me make like twoshakes a day that were a thousand calories

(44:57):
each, and like after two weeksof two thousand more calories day, like
I felt like a new human being, right, yeah, less irritable,
less fatigue. I was like,this is crazy. I mean it was
what, like my fingernails were chippingoff, like my hair was falling out,
like I was raging thirty four likeit was. I was a mess.
Yes, digestion was all screwed up. I couldn't keep weight on like

(45:20):
it was. I was a mess, you know. And I was like,
after like two weeks, I waslike a new person. Got my
blood work done again, like mytestosterones back up into like the low seven
hundreds. I was like, wowthat and it's it was literally just from
not eating enough. Yeah, Andthat's really I'm glad you're saying that because
it is important. Like even justlike missing snacks or certain like it can

(45:43):
it can make or break of likebeing under fueled or not even like a
snack, especially if you're having thatmuch output, and you're really lucky that
it only took a few weeks toget back. I take a lot longer.
Yeah, I bounced back quickly.But it was just like it was
such an eye open informing you know. And that's something like because I'm definitely
like I'm I've taken you know thatthe trainer, you know, variations of

(46:07):
you know, nutrition SERTs or whatever. So I know enough to know I
don't know enough kind of is mybig thing with a lot of that where
it's just kind of like, yeah, like I didn't really I just didn't
think about it. You know.It's like I was, you know,
I looked healthy, you know fromsomebody looking at but it's like, yep,
I felt terrible all you know,And it was just like it wasn't

(46:29):
it wasn't really on my radar thatI wasn't eating enough and I wasn't,
but I wasn't kind of calculating allthose other factors. As a high stress
job, it was a lot ofjust daily movement, it was a lot
of training. On top of that, I was eating healthy right like I
was. I was like I waslike on a paleo whole foods diet at
that point right where I was likeeating quote unquote really healthy. I just

(46:52):
wasn't eating nearly enough. Yeah,food quality was high, but quantity was
way too long. So yeah,yeah, and I think that's why I
like gets stronger. You Like wehave sections where like we do want to
see like your total need, yourmovement throughout the day. What kind of
job do you have? You mentionedstress, that's a huge one, Like
what phase of life are you in? Are you a caregiver now for an

(47:14):
aging parent or do you have children? Like there's so many of those components.
It's not just I walk around,I lift weights and that's it,
right, Like, there's so manycomponents that make it more complicated. So
I appreciate this point of the conversationfor sure. It was rough, Like
we're on a better track now.Yes, you've learned, you lived in

(47:36):
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(47:57):
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(48:19):
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Stronger You begins. Let's do this. One thing that I heard you mentioned,
I think it was on another podcast, and I really liked it.
It was we touched on a littlebit in the beginning, but you were

(48:43):
big on finding what people are goodat, or finding their strengths and using
those rather than just like you kindof called it skill acquisition, like teaching
them. Could you speak on,you know, finding your strengths and really
leveraging those a little bit, absolutely, you know, and that's definitely it's
multifaceted for sure. You know.You can look at that from a movement

(49:06):
perspective, you can look at thatfrom a general output perspective, you know,
so we kind of look at bothwithin our assessment process. And you
know, movement wise, you know, we go through a pretty basic movement
screen and and really all I'm lookingat is, you know, where are
you comfortable? How do you manageyour center mass? You know what what

(49:27):
is mobile, what is not?And from there, you know, that
basically tells me what exercise selections,what loading strategies, what what are going
to be best and external constraints aregoing to be best for you, you
know from that perspective. So it'slike if I have somebody who you know,
has a problem with like squat depthand they're kind of leaning over and
that they're in more that hingey squad, right, you know. One something

(49:51):
that doesn't get talked about a lotis I'm going to look at morphology also,
right, you know, and that'ssomething where you know you and here
in for instance, your squat's probablydon't look the same basically hides and builds,
right, So you have to takethat into consideration, you know,
as you're going through the process.But regardless, once I see that,
you know, I've got a fewthings that pop in the mind where it's

(50:13):
like, okay, like if Iwant you to have more vertical translation of
the pelvis, if I want yourknees to be able to slide a little
bit farther forward and get out ofthe way, so that can happen if
I want your tors a little bitmore upright, there's some very easy things
that I can do to kind ofguide you into that via loading in constraints,
right, I can give you alittle bit of a heel wage.
I can front load you. Ican do a lot of things that are

(50:35):
I can I can potentially even youknow, for a newer client who's maybe
not loading like a front hold withlike a TRX or something like that,
just to help stabilize them, right, So I can find a way to
give you a squat right rather thantaking squats off the menu. And I
think that's super important because you know, when I when I was coming into

(50:57):
the industry with the certifying bodies andthe acronyms, right, the you know,
all the I don't need to namethem, but all the acronyms,
the tribes, you know, alot of it was like, we're going
to do this movement screen and we'regoing to find out, you know,
what you can't do, and we'regoing to just do a bunch of correctives.
But we're going to avoid the actualthing. We're not going to do
that or do everything but the thingthat you're and hope that the piece has

(51:21):
come together for the whole, whichsometimes works. I've had success with that,
and I've had a lot of alsojust like lack of success with that
strategy for some people because there's toomany pieces sometimes and there's not enough time
to do all the things and bringit together. And now I kind of
look at it, it's like,okay, like I can take that person

(51:42):
now and I can give them likea front loaded heel elevated squad. I
can put them on a hack squad. If I have a machine, yep,
you have that handy for me.I can do something on a Smith
machine that will allow them to positiondifferently right. I can find different constraints
that are going to allow for orthe range of motion of the pattern than
I want. And I think thatthat allows me then to just say like,

(52:05):
hey, we're going to squat,but we're going to find the squat
that works well for you right now, rather than like we can only squat
this one way. Yeah. Ilove that, and I think that's so
important for everyone to hear listening likeif you are somebody that, like your
friend does this one movement a certainway or with that certain low, like
you can do it differently and you'restill benefiting. Yeah, like you're you're

(52:27):
still like the biggest thing that I'mlooking at with a lot of people.
It's like, you know, andagain this is you know, way back
from the FMS, it's like,does it hurt? Yeah, right,
And if it doesn't hurt and it'strainable, we can probably just keep progressing
it in a lot of cases evenif it doesn't look exactly like what we
want it to because again, likethat that might be a strength deficit more

(52:49):
than anything else. That might bedue to capacity and fatigue, which right,
right, you know, And Ithink that's that's something that I've learned
to do over the core so manymany years. Is you know, as
I'm starting somebody new in the trainingprocess, I need to remind myself often
that it's like they don't need tolook like the finished product in the first

(53:10):
week of training, like before theycan actually train, right, they don't
have to have perfect biomechanics the firstweek of training. We can work through
some things and sometimes it's better towork through some things and fail a little
bit and learn from those things.Right, That's I think it's interesting.
And I also as a coach,I really like to just learn, especially

(53:31):
in person when I've got somebody infront of me, Like I want to
see how they self organize. Twotasks, two different challenges, right.
I used to always joke about likethe single leg RDL was like the one
for me where it's like I wouldjust tell people what to do and like
not even cue it. I justwant to watch what you do, like
how you have around like that drill, because nobody does it right, nobody

(53:53):
does it well the first time theydo it. It's like that's not something
we do as people, you know. So it's like okay, it's like
which way are you leaning? Likewhat's you know? Are you able to
balance? Which way are you falling? What? What hand are you even
reaching with? Are you reaching ipsilaterally and just not rotating your pelvis?
Are you reaching contralaterally and staying evenand lateralizing whatever? Is your foot all

(54:15):
over the place? So are youbending your knee? Like what's happening?
You know? Because they're from there, I can I can get feedback.
I can ask how they're doing,I can give more specific cues rather than
just throwing every queue at them beforethey even attempt it, and then we
can see, if you know,one like how they take that information and
they actually apply it, because that'salways what I look at with you know,

(54:38):
and this is probably what you've seeneven working with really high level athletes
in the past two is the biggestdifferentiator for high level athletes with me is,
you know, the most foundational levelis that they take information and they
process it way like magnitudes faster thanlower athletes. And when you have somebody

(55:00):
who can do that physically and physiologically, neurologically, yeah, over the course
of five, ten, fifteen years, they turn into like an NBA player
if they've met their potential. Yeah. But it's like it all starts like
I see it with my with kids, you know, my son's ten year
fourth grade basketball team. Like youjust see kids that they're not like running

(55:21):
faster, jumping higher right now,but you look at how fast they pick
up skills and you're like, ohyeah, after hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
of different skills, learning them fasterand applying them better over and over and
over again, layered on top ofone another. This kid is probably going
to be a much better athlete thanthe others by the time they're eighteen,
right, Like, that's where yousee the potential really early on. So

(55:45):
I used to look at that witha lot of my evenin TOOP clients too,
because that would also teach me downthe road, like how realistic is
it for me to try to introducenew things into their program frequently? Exactly?
Yeah? And then is it worthit? Like or are we going
to get done for work done?Yeah? I mean a story that I
tell and this is probably my mylongest term client that I ever had.

(56:07):
They're like, I mean, they'relike our godparents in New York now,
like they're they're literally the godparents ofmy oldest son, and like we lived
in their apartment they had in theirtheir top floor for like three years in
Brooklyn. And she was one ofmy first clients, and I like,

(56:28):
I don't know, probably two monthsinto our training, we did single leg
guardiales. And that's why I usethis as an example. We did them
for fifty five minutes of an hourlong session and she might have completed Steven
Raps. Wow, And you know, I felt terrible the whole session because
I'm like, Nope, that's notit, don't do that, Nope,

(56:49):
nope, try to do this.So I do this. She was super
frustrated, obviously with the process,and you know, she texted me,
you know, later that day andshe's like, I have cooled down,
but I have considered not like evercoming back. Oh yeah yeah, And
you know, I just apologized profuselybecause I was horrified at the session and

(57:14):
everything else. But that was ahuge lesson for me as a coach,
Like I just wasted an hour thatwoman's time, and not only that,
I made her feel terrible, yeah, about just what she was doing and
what her goals were. You know, again not intentionally, not with poor
intentions or whatever, but that sessiondid far more damage than any amount of

(57:36):
good that you know, three setsof ten of single a Guardielle could have
accomplished over the course of that.So, like, that was a huge
early on lesson for me as acoach, where it's just like, yeah,
like that's a good exercise, butit's not good for everybody at every
moment exactly. Yeah. No,I have stories like that too. Thank
you for sharing that, because Itotally really you're just like why did I

(58:00):
spend so much time? It's likeyou want to empower people and make them
feel good walking out of something.So I know you you obviously know that
it was horrifying, like the wholeholding, the whole session like I was,
I was part of, like sweatingbowl. It's just like oh my
gosh. Right, and then youdon't feel good either. It's like nobody,

(58:20):
this is a train I couldn't stop. This is such a bad experience
for both of us. This isnot good. I mean that that is
really helpful. I hope people takeaway from that like yes, like you
don't have to force it, Likewe can move on and try something different.
If you're working out with a trainer, if you're working out on your
own, and some of the thingsthat you were talking about is just being

(58:44):
good trainers and coaches, is watchingpeople move. And so I'm curious if
somebody's maybe you know, obviously there'sa feasibility component to this, if someone's
never lifted weights, do you recommendthey work with a trainer maybe once,
get a program once, Like howcould we you know, help kind of
all spectrums here for getting started.I definitely think you know, working with

(59:08):
the trainer at least a few timesjust to learn the movements that are going
to be the most important would bebenefit to anybody, you know. And
I think that's again, that's somethingthat applies in all realms, you know.
You know, it's it's just likeif you're trying to do anything,
like a little prior instruction is goingto go a long ways, you know,
regardless of what that actually is.So I think if you've got somebody

(59:30):
who's coming into the gym for thefirst time, yeah, like spending a
couple of weeks working with the traineronce or twice over that period just to
learn, if anything, just tolearn how to use the machines and set
them up properly is a valuable toolthat will that will set you off on
the right path. And just againI'm not going to say eliminate frustration,

(59:51):
but hopefully diminish frustration potential, youknow, down the road as you're kind
of going through that process, becauseyeah, it's any of us who've worked
in a gym, you know,any any type of gym for a long
period of time, had you know, it's like we might not know everybody's
names, we know faces, youknow, at a certain point and it's
like you see somebody new come inand you never see them again. You

(01:00:14):
see them, you know, yousee them come in a couple of times.
You just kind of go through themotions and kind of wander around and
do some random like bicep curls here, like extensions over there, because they've
just they know how to use thatthose actually they've seen other people do them
or whatever. And you'll see themlike for three days and they never come
back. Yep. And I thinkthat's something where again it's just yeah,

(01:00:37):
walking into any environment where you're alreadyprobably not super comfortable, you know,
and not knowing what to do,not knowing anybody. I think just you
know, again, having that littlebit of instruction, making a contact and
building relationship with at least a fewpeople who work at the gym that you
can you know, ask questions tohere and there at least have a conversation

(01:00:59):
with, you know, I thinkis a huge way to kind of get
started. I think that's one ofthe things that I again immediately became cognizant
of when I first started, youknow, working in that realm. Is
you know, as someone who hasalways been comfortable in my body, grew
up playing sports that you know,got into the weight room and was you

(01:01:21):
know, coached very well at thecollege level very early on, and taught
how to do things and had alot of confidence in that process. Realizing
that other people had the exact oppositerelationship with fitness, you know, kind
of hit me like a ton ofbricks. And it should enough, but
I became hyper aware of it whereI was like, oh, people come
in here like terrified. Absolutely,it's like their worst nightmare to come to

(01:01:45):
the gym, especially the busier,the worst it is, you know,
so find a friendly face, youknow, And I think that's where you
know, even when I was inmanagement, like we used to even talk
with the front desk, you know, people that the attendance at the front
desk just checking and checking out whatever, Like they were the kind of the
first line of you know, entrypoint for a lot of those people.
It's like, you know, oneof our goals for all of them was

(01:02:07):
like, no every member by name, I just have them comfortable coming in
and have them greet you back,you know, whenever possible, you know,
ask them questions whatever. But thenyeah, the training staff too,
you know, say hi to everybody, learn people's names on the floor.
You know, again, don't don'tbe overbearing, don't offer you know,
unsolicited advice. But somebody asked questions, like answer them, you know,

(01:02:29):
from perspective and be friendly. Justgenerally be friendly. And I think that
that goes a long way if you'rea member as well. Like having those
that first couple of sessions and meetinga trainer and building relationship with them and
having just a touch point, Ithink goes a long way, you know,
just staying with that process. Yeah, I think everyone always feels like

(01:02:50):
everybody's watching them, which is onenot true, But like my relationship with
the gym was a little bit different. It was like I was kind of
like on the train mill, justlike watching everybody else do the things right,
like out on the weightroom floor liftingand doing all that, and then
and then later you know, wellI can back up, so I remember
just what empowered me the most.It's so silly, but like even just

(01:03:15):
writing out what I was going todo that day, it wasn't even a
set program. I was like,these are the things that I'm going to
do, and I like got thecourage to like go and do it,
and I was like, oh,Okay, that wasn't so bad. People
weren't like staring at me like asmuch as I thought, you know,
you feel uncomfortable. And then Imean from there it's just like, yeah,
it's like being comfortable forming relationships.But then I think when I became

(01:03:37):
a trainer, you know, yearslater, and I realized, oh wow,
Like I see all these people walkingon the treadmill. They never go
on the weightroom floor. And notthat I'm speculating that they want to be
on the weightroom floor, but Ijust have an idea that that's probably where
they're comfortable because you just press thequick start green button and you're moving and

(01:03:59):
that's fine to a certain extent,and like on those aerobic days and stuff,
but we're not going to see asmuch change or like get that strength
or hypertrophy that we want until wego on the floor. So I like
the idea of you know, doinga comp session or doing one session if
you can afford it, like understandlike, hey, this is the layout,
this is where how these pieces ofequipment work. I think that can

(01:04:20):
go such a long way for people. Yeah it's big, you know,
I think I like what you saidabout even just writing down the plan too.
You know. It's funny, likeI tell everybody, like my wife
is not a gym person. He'sa person who goes to the gym.
But she's not a gym person.Yeah, she worked in fashion and and
tier design and now in tech andI don't want to say grudgingly, but

(01:04:42):
she goes to gym three four timesa week because she you know, she
she wants to more so for youknow, her own goals whatever. But
she's not passionate about it, youknow, from that. And it's like
even there, like I write herprograms. It's like, she won't use
our app. She's like, that'sway too complicated. I write a in
notes literally writer program in our notes. We have a shared now and it's

(01:05:03):
just like but that gives her likea direction to go. I love that,
you know. And it's just she'salways been she's been a good like
guidepost for me because like she's sheis the gim pop client. She's the
ideal mid to late thirties, youknow, not you know, probably still
a gym novice by by any accounts, body composition, esthetic goals, doesn't

(01:05:28):
care about performance whatsoever. From thatperspective, you know, really just again
it's it's all it's all aesthetic andjust looking good, feeling good, whatever.
And it's like I can run justabout anything past her and she'll and
she's also not afraid to tell meit's stupid, you know, She's just
go do that. Like it's like, all right, stuff, I personally,
I'm not going to do that.Well that's good. She knows her

(01:05:51):
boundary. Yeah, And it's like, you know, and I think that
but that helped me a lot,you know, again earlier in my career,
and you know, we always jokeabout you know, fitness people,
you know, dating and having relationshipswith fitness people, and it's like I
met a lot of people who don'tknow like what normal people are like because

(01:06:13):
of that, Like they have ahard time with that realm. And even
you know, when I've been youknow, in the mentorship process with coaches,
like I'll work with a lot ofyoung coaches and it's like like,
so what do you do like forfun? And they're like, I work
out. I was like okay,So like with and they're like like people
I work with, it's like okay, so you're in a gym, six
days a week and your hobby isworking out and you hang out with other

(01:06:36):
trainers. I lived that life too, Like it is funny. You're like,
oh okay, like cool, youknow. So it's it's always been
interesting to kind of because people belike yeah, yeah, and they're like
oh yeah. It's it's like thosememes where it's like, you know,

(01:06:57):
the twenty two year old trainer istelling a forty year old mom of four
to just sleep more and to liftharder, and it's like so out of
touch, and so I yeah,we both recognize that. It's like,
oh okay, so what are oneor two things that you do for a

(01:07:18):
stronger you that keep you feeling goodand healthy? Obviously you train, but
I would just love to hear someof the things that you think are factors
in your success. Yeah. Imean I think a big part for me
is, you know, I knowjust personally, like I have to sleep,
you know, like I joked aboutlike like I've got Grandpa hours,

(01:07:39):
Like I go to like I startlike getting ready for bed at eight o'clock.
You know, it's at eight thirty. I'll read until like basically I
fall asleep, which is usually aroundnine and but it's like if I stay
up later than that, I juststruggle. Like every everything from you know,
my actual session, whether it's runningor training or whatever, to just

(01:08:00):
even my work productivity in moods forthe next day is going to suffer.
And I know it's going to suffer. The other aspect of things is I
try, I mean on it,like, families such a huge part of
it for me, Like that's nottraining related, but that's why I train,
you know, for a lot ofa lot of reasons, and that
I think having a big, abig reason for what you're doing is always

(01:08:23):
going to be kind of a guidinglight from a motivational perspective. And again,
you know, the motivation versus disciplineI love, Like you know,
we're comparing our gin pop clients toNavy seals on a daily basis. It's
awesome, but like the like alot of people do need motivation, and
honestly, from a psychological motivation precedesdiscipline every single time. Anyway, that's

(01:08:44):
a whole nother tangent rabbit hole thatwe probably don't need to get into.
But but that's something where like thatalso like kind of keeps me grounded,
you know, and I think forme, like I'm going to be forty
two in December, Like I wantto be able to play basketball with my
kids. I want to be ableto, like my oldest runs track.
I want to be able to runwith him and a few you know in
the morning and kind of do thosethings. I want to be a good

(01:09:08):
example for them, you know,my wife and I talk about that all
the time. Is just providing agood example just you know, again,
like being active and healthy, Likewe go hiking on the weekends. We
spend as much time outdoors with themas possible, and that's a big part
of our just family dynamic is doingthose things. And then from a training
perspective for me, like I kindof mentioned earlier on you know, in

(01:09:30):
the podcast, like I switch itup a lot, and I realize,
you know, from my training perspective, like I train hard, but I
also understand that it's like if it'snot fun, I'm not going to do
it. You know. I'm tooold to like suffer through things just to
do them, you know, AndI think I don't think that's necessary for
a lot of people. So Ido think, you know, programming,

(01:09:50):
puritization, like all of those thingsthat's going to be super important for a
lot of clients and a lot ofyour higher level specific your specificity based clients.
But I think it's also important toremember that, you know, a
lot of this stuff is fairly arbitrary. Like you you know, kind of
what we're talking about in the exerciseselection, Like you don't have to do

(01:10:10):
this specific variation. Yeah, notthat big of a difference between an RF
he splits squad of walking lunge,a static lunge, a front foo elevated
splits squad. Like there's a littlebit of a difference in range of motion
and whatever, but they're all splitsquads, like they're all single like swap
patterns, like do the one thatyou like to do, switch it up
every week. If you're somebody whocraves a lot of variation, you know,

(01:10:32):
from that perspective, we don't haveto be super rigid in the way
that we go about things like showingup and getting work done is going to
be more important for most people.And if the rigidity diminishes the experience for
a lot of people, like theirtraining is going to suffer because of it.
And I'm somebody who that definitely appliesto from that perspective, Yeah,

(01:10:55):
definitely, some people definitely need morenovelty than others. I totally agree and
under stan that. And so tellus where we can follow you or find
out more about what Compound offers,where we can just learn from you and
go off. Yeah, yeah,I mean the easiest place social media wise
is Instagram. That's the only again, like I just can't do others like

(01:11:17):
one social media platforms all I canreally handle. Compound Performance Underscore on Instagram
is where you can find me,and my link tree has you know,
most of the things that we're offering. Our website is Compound Performance dot com
and that'll kind of show everything else. Yeah, if you're a coach,
we do have educational products and servicesas well. We do live seminars and

(01:11:42):
have a schedule up for what we'redoing this year. And then from a
training perspective, we work with individualsand have team training options also with them
that love it. Yeah, I'velearned a lot from your content. So
thank you guys for putting out allthe important information that you do, and
thank you so much for talking toStronger you Nutrition today. We really appreciate
having you. Thank you so muchfor having me, it's been fun.

(01:12:05):
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