

High Intensity Business
Lawrence Neal
High Intensity Business is a high intensity strength training and strength training business podcast offering content to help you realise your health goals, become a great personal trainer, and build a successful HIT business. Content includes training protocols, workouts, exercise science, nutrition, and biohacking. From a HIT business perspective, we cover personal training, coaching, startup, sales, marketing, operations, systems, hiring, scaling, etc. Guests include Dr Doug McGuff, Drew Baye, Skyler Tanner, Patty Durell, Walter Vendel, Fred Hahn, James Fisher PhD, James Steele PhD, Luke Carlson, Adam Zickerman, Kyle Recchia, Adrian Antigua, Bill Crawford, Joe Cirulli, Dorian Yates, Simon Melov PhD, Roger Schwab, Simon Shawcross, and many more.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 21, 2026 • 1h 7min
586 - Service That Lands Clients, Guaranteed — A Strength Training Business Owner's Guide (with Pete Cerqua)
What's the one proven thing that makes or breaks a strength training business? Million-Dollar Trainer Pete Cerqua returns to the podcast to talk about getting people through your strength studio's doors with world-class customer service — and why it's non-negotiable if you're serious about becoming successful. We talk about why it matters, how it looks in practice, and why all the details matter — your body language, your tone of voice, everything you do around a client – and how to execute with practical, real-world examples. Pete walks us through everything you need to know and appreciate so you can separate yourself from your competition. If the prospect-to-client pipeline matters to you, don't miss this one! ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get a FREE course to grow your strength training business here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Want help growing? Book a strategy call with Lawrence here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get NEW Precision-Engineered MedX Machines here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Resistance Exercise Professionals (REP)

Oct 14, 2026 • 54min
585 - Are You Ready For The Strength Training Gold Rush? (with Luke Carlson)
Ever wonder why some strength training businesses thrive while others quietly fade away? Want to make sure you're on the right side of these trends? Discover Strength CEO Luke Carlson returns to talk about the quiet gold rush that's happening right now and how you can take advantage of the boom. We talk about what types of fitness businesses are booming, how they're winning over clients, the big change in why people exercise, and what to do to not lose out on this wave. Plus, we also talk about some important things you need to know if you're a strength studio owner or personal trainer. If you're feeling the pressure of competition or uncertainty in your strength training business, then this episode will help you get clarity on how you can ride this wave of growth that the world of exercise as a whole is seeing! ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get Join the Free HIB community and get a FREE COURSE to grow your strength training business here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Want more help growing? Book a strategy call with Lawrence here

Oct 7, 2026 • 1h 20min
584 - It's Time For Strength Training Business Owners to Embrace AI (with EverStrongSF Founder Abe Williams)
If you're not using AI in your strength training business yet, you could be missing out on a lot more than you think. EverStrongSF Founder Abe Williams explains how he runs a more efficient strength studio now with the help of AI, and he walks through what he did, how he did it, and what you can do with it, with real-world examples. We also talk about how Abe's clients reacted to ARX machines, how he tripled his weekly sessions, and how strength training helped him avoid the worst-case scenario of a life-altering event. Your strength training business will always be personal, but you can supercharge it with AI — this episode walks you through how. ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get a FREE course to grow your strength training business here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Want more help growing? Book a strategy call with Lawrence here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get NEW Precision-Engineered MedX Machines here

Sep 30, 2026 • 23min
583 - A Guide To Starting Your Own HIT Strength Training Business On a Budget (with HITuni's Simon Shawcross)
Want to start your own strength training business, but you're worried about how much you need to spend before you launch? HITuni Founder Simon Shawcross says you probably don't need as much money as you think you do, and he lays out some realistic options if you want to start a successful business on a budget. We go into practical options that actually work, how to find your first few clients, how to do marketing at the start, equipment options, and real-world examples. So if you've been putting off starting your own strength training business because of budget concerns, this episode is for you. Stop feeling stuck — start here and start now! ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Join HIB FREE and Get a HIT Business Course here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Want help growing? Book a strategy call with Lawrence here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get HITuni Certified Now (Use code HIB10 at checkout)

Sep 23, 2026 • 1h 5min
582 - 15 Years After Body By Science — How Does Dr. Doug McGuff Do His HIT Workouts in 2026?
Body by Science was released 15 years ago — does it still hold up? How does Dr. Doug McGuff approach working out today? Blain Duesing and Dr. John D'Ambrosio decided to ask him about it (along with a few other questions) on the Fitless podcast. In this episode, they dive into the origins of Body by Science (like how John Little convinced him to write it), how Doug used to work out then and how he does now (and why), why some clients might need higher reps, female clients and heavier sets, what inroad really means, strength training for Parkinson's disease, and more. This is a great episode from Blain, John, and Doug looking back on the influence of Body by Science on strength training and how it applies to all of us today! ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get a FREE course to grow your strength training business here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Want help growing? Book a strategy call with Lawrence here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get NEW Precision-Engineered MedX Machines here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Thanks to Blain and John for allowing us to republish this episode of the Fitless Podcast — make sure you check them out here.

Sep 16, 2026 • 1h 5min
581 - One Set A Week (Yes, Really) (with John Little)
There may be pitchforks, so watch your head: What if the secret to bigger gains for your clients was doing almost nothing in the gym? Nautilus North Founder, prolific author, and master strength trainer John Little returns to talk about his one-set-per-week experiments and the surprising results he's seen with this protocol. We dive deep into how much exercise you really need to drive results, when you might want extra cardio (and when it's useless), optimal approaches for fat loss and recovery, the false idol of the bodybuilding "look", and more. If you're still looking at "one set per week" and you're very skeptical, don't worry — even John can't quite believe it himself yet! ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get a FREE course to grow your strength training business here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Want help growing? Book a strategy call with Lawrence here

Sep 9, 2026 • 1h 30min
580 - Personal Trainer Secrets: Attract New Clients and Keep Them Coming Back For More (with Aldon Tibbs)
What if the secret to building a thriving strength studio isn't just better workouts, but becoming the kind of trainer clients actually want to keep coming back to? The Garage Gym Founder Aldon Tibbs talks about how he went from powerlifting and mainstream personal training to building a HIT studio that gets people hooked and spontaneously generates referrals. We also talk about what you can learn from other modalities like CrossFit and Pilates so you can help guide clients better, how to choose equipment that makes your business unique, the power of being fun and likeable, and more. If you're tired of struggling to get clients and keep them with you, this episode will help you build a personal training business that makes it easy to get 'em and grow — check it out now. ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get a FREE course to grow your strength training business here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Want More Help Growing? Book a Strategy Call With Lawrence Here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get NEW Precision-Engineered MedX Machines here

Sep 2, 2026 • 37min
579 - Strength Forum 2026: The Most Important Fitness Business Event of the Year
What's happening at this year's Strength Forum and what can you get out of it? Discover Strength CEO Luke Carlson sits down to talk about what might be the most important and meaningful event for strength training business owners in 2026. We talk about why this matters for you and your strength training business, what makes this different from every other fitness event, who will be there and what to expect, and why you can't get anything from Strength Forum from anywhere else — there are real downsides to missing out on this one. If you love what you do and want nothing more than to make strength training your business for the rest of your life, Strength Forum should be on your radar — check out this episode! ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get a FREE course to grow your strength training business here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Want More Help Growing? Book a Strategy Call With Lawrence Here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ For the complete show notes, links, and resources, click here

Aug 26, 2026 • 58min
578 - The Fitless Podcast Interview with Dr. John D'Ambrosio, Blain Duesing, and Lawrence Neal
If all roads lead to Rome in high-intensity strength training, what should you focus on to get the most meaningful results? In a bit of a role reversal, I'd recently had the privilege of being a guest on the Fitless Podcast, hosted by Dr. John Ambrosio (DC) and Blain Duesing, and they've kindly let me also release the episode here on HIB. We go into some of the biggest lessons in strength training and in business that I've learned, including the right mindset when it comes to training and gains, common mistakes that HIT business owners make, low training volume with higher results, peptides, and more. If you want to see me in the hot seat and what I've learned from asking HIT experts questions throughout the years, please check out this episode, courtesy of John and Blain! ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get a FREE course to grow your strength training business here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Want More Help Growing? Book a Strategy Call With Lawrence Here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get NEW Precision-Engineered MedX Machines here

Aug 19, 2026 • 1h 1min
577 - Deep Dive: Designing HIT Workouts & Making Adjustments For Different Types of People (with Dr. Bryce Lee)
What adjustments should you make (and why) when designing HIT workouts for your personal training clients? Strength Space Founder Dr. Bryce Lee returns to the podcast, and we go deep into HIT workout design, talking about fatigue, recovery, selecting exercises for different types of clients, negative-only protocols, dealing with exercise-induced headaches, and so much more! If you want to know how to really design personalized workout programs that help your clients the most, there's a lot to learn from this episode with Bryce, so don't miss it! ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get a FREE Course to Start or Grow Your Strength Training Business Here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Want More Help Growing? Book a Strategy Call With Lawrence Here ━━━━━━━━━━━━ For the complete show notes, links, and resources, click here


