LTB Podcast

In today's show, Stuart welcomes Claire Winter. Claire, who is Lift The Bar's head of operations, has been on the podcast lots of times before talking about her experience as a personal training client and on topics like belonging as a fitness professional. Today, they talk about three topics - losing clients and why it's probably not your fault just now, burnout and how to take better care of yourself and her upcoming customer service course. Timestamps are below!     Timestamps: [01.05] - Why it may not be your fault if you're seeing clients drop off just now. [14.30] - Retention tips.  [20.48] - Burnout. [33.48] - Claire's upcoming customer service course.     Find Out More About Claire: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/claire.winter.963        Find Out More About LTB: Website: http://bit.ly/2TDiQjz  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liftthebar/ 

In today's show, Stuart welcomes Eric Helms. Eric runs the bodybuilding prep company 3dMJ and writes for the monthly publication, MASS. They discuss how he thinks we can make exercise more appealing for the gen pop. They then have a 40-minute discussion about perfectionism and all that encompasses it including how to better understand it, seeing it in your clients, seeing it in your coaching and how to move away from it towards what he calls 'excellence'. Timestamps are below!     Timestamps: [01.00] - Getting more people into exercise. [13.45] - Rise and grind mentalities in exercise. [19.05] - Perfectionism. [26.45] - Eric's struggles with perfectionism. [33.12] - Seeing perfectionism in your clients. [38.45] - Perfectionism in coaching. [43.02] - Moving away from perfectionism if you struggle with it. [56.55] - Making sense of what kind of success you want.     Find Out More About Eric: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helms3dmj/  Website: https://3dmusclejourney.com/  MASS: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/mass/        Find Out More About LTB: Website: http://bit.ly/2TDiQjz  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liftthebar/ 

In today's show, Stuart welcomes back John Clark. Starting on the 5th of July, John is going to attempt to run 48 marathons in 48 days across 48 counties of England to raise 48K for a charity he created called Miles4meals. If you'd like to get involved by sponsoring, raising money or taking part, head to miles4meals.co.uk/484848. They discuss why he's doing this, what his prep looks like, getting himself mentally set, dealing with the chance of failure, moving away from gym ownership and much more. Timestamps are below!     Timestamps: [02.03] - How he's feeling about doing 48 marathons over 48 days. [08.28] - What's driving him to attempt this charity event. [17.58] - Handling failure & figuring out your why. [33.28] - The preparation for running 48 marathons. [35.40] - How you can get involved/ support John for his event. [39.23] - Moving away from gym ownership.     Find Out More About John: Charity Website: https://www.miles4meals.co.uk/484848 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_john.clark/        Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

In today's episode, Stuart welcomes back Mark Council & his partner Ste Whitaker. Mark & Ste own a gym called Platform Performance, which they opened together in 2017. This is the third episode of the series called 'gym owners corner' where Stuart brings Mark on to discuss the realities and challenges of being a gym owner. In this episode, they discuss their business partnership. How it functions, why they think it works and some things they'd advise you to look out for in a business partner. Timestamps are below.       Timestamps: [02.00] - How their gym reopening since lockdown has gone? [05.00] - Their roles within Platform Performance. [10.40] - Business partnerships. [29.00] - Red flags to look out for.     Find Out More About Mark/ Ste: Facebook Mark: https://www.facebook.com/mark.council Facebook Ste: https://www.facebook.com/stevie.platform.3  Platform Website: http://platformpt.co.uk/      Find Out More About LTB: Website: https://liftthebar.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/liftthebar/

In today's show, Stuart welcomes Chris Bradley, also known as The Glasgow PT. Chris runs a gym in Glasgow and a mentorship programme for trainers called The Upgraded Coach. They discuss what he remembers about his first-ever PT session, how he approached lead gen in a commercial gym, getting through the tough times as a trainer, taking your business seriously and how to think about outsourcing. Timestamps are below!     Timestamps: [09.17] - His first ever PT session. [15.37] - Mentorship & investing in yourself. [20.52] - Lead gen in a commercial gym. [29.37] - His hardest phase in year 3 of personal training. [40.52] - Outsourcing and delegation.     Find Out More About Chris: Instagram       Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

In today's show, Stuart welcomes back Krista Scott-Dixon from Precision Nutrition. They discuss public speaking, self-acceptance, getting coached as a coach, firing clients, mental health and managing overwhelm. Timestamps are below!     Timestamps: [02.15] - Tips on public speaking. [11.25] - What Krista was like as a child. [15.25] - The challenge of self-acceptance. [19.30] - Coaches getting coaching. [25.55] - Getting triggered by clients not doing things. [30.05] - Firing clients. [40.45] - Looking after your mental health. [45.25] - Managing overwhelm.     Find Out More About Krista: Website Precision Nutrition Website Facebook       Find Out More About LTB: Website Instagram Facebook

In today's episode, Stuart welcomes Graham Hurst. Graham, @graphicforcoaches, is a former police officer and online coach turned designer. He creates thumb-stopping, highly engaging social media images for the country's top coaches and PT's. As this is an episode on how I use social media, they spend the majority of their time talking about using social media, creating content, common design mistakes Graham sees trainers doing and getting clients from Instagram. Timestamps are below.       Timestamps: [01.10] - How long Graham has been posting on social media? [03.03] - Using social media as a fitness professional. [05.42] - Content creation tips. [08.23] - Places to find images. [10.40] - Amount of time spent creating posts. [13.20] - His posting schedule. [17.40] - Canva design tips. [19.24] - What trainers can do better with design on social media. [28.13] - Marketing/ sales tips for Instagram. [33.02] - Learning more about graphic design.   Find Out More About Graham: IG: https://www.instagram.com/graphicsforcoaches/ (@graphicsforcoaches) Website: https://www.graphicsforcoaches.co.uk     Find Out More About LTB: Website: https://liftthebar.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/liftthebar/ (@liftthebar)

In today's episode, Stuart welcomes George Branford. George is an ex-professional football, turned personal trainer, turned gym owner. They discuss how he built up his client base in a commercial gym, getting over fears of talking to members, transitioning into an independent gym before finishing off talking about how he and his partner, Emily, got capital, planned it out years in advance and launched their gym, Intent 91.Timestamps are below.       Timestamps: [01.12] - Why did George decide to become a personal trainer? [04.38] - How he found starting in a commercial gym. [06.25] - How he approached building relationships in the gym? [08.42] - Going from knowing people's names to turning them into clients. [12.02] - What frustrated him about other personal trainers. [13.22] - Approaching members if you feel anxious about talking to people. [13.57] - Going from a commercial to being self-employed in an independent gym. [18.52] - Documenting what he was doing on social media as a lead generation strategy. [23.32] - Client base growth tips that George used to get more business. [27.57] - The importance of having someone alongside you who can manage things when opening a gym. [30.07] - How he learnt how to go about opening a gym. [31.27] - Raising capital to open his gym. [36.27] - Talking to his personal training clients about opening a gym and what it was going to look like. [41.22] - A lesson George experienced trying to increase his prices.   Find Out More About George: IG: https://www.instagram.com/georgebranford/ (@georgebranford) Website: https://intent91.co.uk/      Find Out More About LTB: Website: https://liftthebar.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/liftthebar/ (@liftthebar)

In today's episode, Stuart welcomes back Adam Meakins. Adam, @adammeakins on Instagram, was on 6 episodes ago on the 5th of April. In that one, they mainly discussed the problems associated with some of the most popular physiotherapy treatments like massage, K-tape and other manual therapies. In this one, they spend most of it discussing what we know about the association between technique and injury. Should you focus on making your clients form perfect, or should we just let people exercise as they please? They also get into the relationship between core strength and back pain, using medical imaging like MRI's and spinal flexion during deadlifts. Timestamps are below.       Timestamps: [01.50] - What the most interesting recent thing he's learnt has been. [02.50] - What hormesis is. [04.20] - Adam's analogy of why exercise is like a river. [07.20] - What we know about technique and injury? [17.20] - How important is the language trainers use to describe the way people do an exercise/ technique? [19.25] - Taking an exercise out of a clients programme if you don't see what you deem as 'good technique'? [23.00] - Movement variability. [23.45] - When is technique important? [28.55] - Helping a client who is afraid of bending over due to something like a herniated disk? [33.00] - Using a dynamometer to show clients how strong they are. [36.20] - Doing a lot of an exercise to fix pain or injury? (core work for back pain as an example) [42.20] - Medical imaging and how to think about the degeneration of the body. [45.30] - Spinal flexion and how to think about it during an exercise like a deadlift. [51.30] - What positions that he disagrees with are the ones that have the most value? [53.50] - How he has changed the way he debates people online.   Find Out More About Adam: IG: https://www.instagram.com/adammeakins/ (@adameakins) Website: https://www.thesports.physio/  His podcast: https://www.thesports.physio/the-naf-physio-podcast/      Find Out More About LTB: Website: https://liftthebar.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/liftthebar/ (@liftthebar)

In today's episode, Stuart welcomes Catherine Reohorn, a personal trainer turned copywriter. Cath specialises in writing content and copy for fitness professionals and helping them to find their voices. You can follow her @kindcopyuk. They get into her background, how her weight loss & fitness journey shaped the trainer she's become before getting into copywriting - how to write better social media posts, sales writing tips, talking about pain points in a respectful way, creating entertaining education posts and much more. Timestamps are below.       Timestamps: [01.37] - How she found the transition from her previous career of academic psychology into personal training? [04.15] - How much of her journey shaped the trainer she has become? [10.55] - Why showing people around the gym and making them feel like they belong was a huge part of her onboarding process? [14.00] - What Cath got out of her fitness journey, and how that shaped how she worked with her clients. [15.55] - How she found starting as an older personal trainer? [19.03] - How she got into copywriting. [20.45] - What she's learnt about selling personal training using writing? [22.21] - An example of copy that is too pain focussed and can come across as cruel? [24.30] - How to stay respectful and kind with your copy while also encouraging people to buy what you sell? [25.45] - Talking about a scar rather than a wound. [29.49] - What the two things are that personal trainers sell. [32.15] - Where trainers are going wrong with their social media posts. [33.15] - How different online vs offline marketing is? [37.45] - Being yourself and how this can be magnetic in personal training. [42.00] - Tips for writing on social media. [48.10] - How to educate people on social media without being boring?   Find Out More About Cath: IG: https://www.instagram.com/kindcopyuk/  FB: https://www.facebook.com/catherine.reohorn/      Find Out More About LTB: Website: https://liftthebar.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/liftthebar/ (@liftthebar)