Lift Free And Diet Hard with Andrew Coates

Sivan Fagan joins the podcast to share her experience and advice in shifting a mostly in-person fitness career to online. Sivan shares her thoughts on how long you need to train in person before you're ready to work online with clients. We discuss the value in long form writing and how to enhance your writing skills. Sivan explains why she believes it's a mistake to try to compete with the "big names" or influencers. Sivan also shares strategy to develop a business training clients in their homes. 

Logan Dubé is energized and fulfilled by teaching fitness education to other coaches. Logan often travels many weekends to present The PPSC and other certifications. Logan explains what it takes to pursue a career in fitness education. Logan also details how to help people change, through changing their energy to support the change strategy. Logan also dives into being a great team player and working within someone else's business instead of needing to build your own. They also detail the pursuit of work life blend instead of work life balance. 

Muscle gain coach Tom MacCormick joins to chat about the effort and tools it takes for people to go beyond getting fit and active for general population training. We dive into the commitment needed to put on serious muscle while getting lean. Though geared toward men, this applies equally to women who want to achieve these goals. Tom also shares his advice for longevity in the fitness industry. 

Mike Howard returns to talk about helping people with good messages while not running afoul of the "lunatic fringe" of extreme nutrition ideology in our world. Mike shares how he approaches behaviour change with his clients, focusing on process goals not outcomes, and choice architecture. We also tackle how to approach or avoid internet arguments. Where there's benefit and where you're using your time poorly. 

I've enjoyed Danny Matranga's media so much I had to bring him on as a guest to share with you. Danny and I dive into career development and how we don't always know the path we're on nor do seemingly polished fitness professionals always have a clear plan. We commit to a process of consistent work which leads to unknown future opportunity. Danny approaches everything with an abundance mindset and we talk about sharing and supporting other fitness professionals. Danny also explains the value of the new emerging social media app Clubhouse as I detail my reservations. We talk in depth about choosing social media to invest time and effort into. 

Jill Coleman guests to talk about how she navigated the uncertainty of the last year while supporting the coaches who mentor under her. We talk about the new social media app Clubhouse, being careful with industry status games, and career growth philosophy. We explore how to get more female coaches into spaces like strength and conditioning while understanding that women often self select into other parts of the industry like general fitness and nutrition. Plus how Jill would advise her younger self given a chance to go back in time. 

My friend Robert Linkul, owner of Training the Older Adult joins to chat about how he pivoted his business this year to navigate the shut down of his business facility. We dive heavily into the importance and opportunity for coaches to market within the older adult population going forward. We discuss important skills to develop to serve and reach this population. We go over the importance of 'top of mind' marketing and social media presence. We also discuss the importance of considering the state/province/county you set up or move business to going forward depending on their policies. 

Carolyn MacDonald takes a short break from her role as Director of Marketing of Renaissance Periodization to discuss content creation. Carolyn highlights how content creation efforts can help find a secure job and then pivot with the time demands and role of the job. We explore who a lot of coaches are struggling to gain traction with their media or even struggle to get started. We hit topics like sharability, the trouble with following trends, and avoiding trying to do it all. Plus what are some low value activities coaches tend to lose time on. 

Long overdue for an appearance, Dr. Pat Davidson guests to talk about the ideas behind his new book, A Coaches Guide To Optimizing Movement: Rethinking The Big Patterns. Pat has developed a reputation of challenging the way coaches thinking about the common ways of teaching and implementing strength training. Pat shares his thoughts of some of the existing training literature and the choice of words we use. Pat also discusses goals and resolutions, how make them effective through good planning. Shake up your approach with this refreshing take on our world. 

Kevin Mullins returns to discuss our different approaches to social media. We talk about goal setting and resolutions in this very first episode of 2021. We discuss our shared interest in writing and the value of long form content for coaches to develop brands. Plus Kevin shares his experience with the importance of truly getting to know yourself before you can really help others, and the importance of making and learning from mistakes along the way.