It is popular these days to laud discipline and the ability to endure suffering. The problem with this is that it ignores people’s values and preferences. Some people can bear more hardships, but others are drawn to certain types of hardships. Some people--gasp--like running, and many lifters do not. Matt, for example, enjoys waking up early and getting things done. He’s done this since he was young. It’s not a challenge for him. Staying up late, however, to complete tasks is difficult. The path...
Jun 10, 2021•39 min•Season 15Ep. 4
One of strength training’s biggest benefits is CONFIDENCE. As people grow stronger, overcome difficult things, and build a more capable body, they tend to carry themselves differently and bring confidence to other areas of their lives. Increased capability lends itself to more confidence. You know your body and do more and meet physical challenges better than it did before. You know that you can do difficult things, repeatedly, and gain confidence from that. Finally, as you train you begin to bu...
Jun 09, 2021•39 min•Season 15Ep. 3
This is a throwback to the early days of the podcast. Matt and Scott discuss the concept of voluntary hardship: what is it and how does it refine us? Life will undoubtedly present difficulties. This is involuntary hardship. Choosing to go through something difficult, however, seems to provide benefits. Essentially, this is delayed gratification: do something hard now to delay the benefit to a future you. Working, working out, saving & investing money, growing food: these all require work now...
Jun 09, 2021•38 min•Season 15Ep. 2
Life comes with difficulties, no matter what we do. Hardship comes voluntarily or involuntarily, but for any hardship our mindset before, during, and after matters: how we approach and process challenging events matter. Hardship--voluntary or involuntary--can refine us and improve our relationships, or it can beat us down and weaken social ties. Our relationship with the event--which we define with our mindset--helps determine the benefit to us. Why are you taking on the hardship? What are your ...
Jun 07, 2021•39 min•Season 15Ep. 1
Brett Bartholomew joins Matt & Niki to discuss the art of coaching: what is coaching and how to do it more effectively. Brett is the author of Conscious Coaching, and you can find out more about Brett & his work here . Consider experience versus exposure. Experience requires skin in the game. You might have exposure to lifting and ideas around coaching or business, but do you have experience doing it. An example might be the difference between criticizing podcasts versus doing a podcast ...
May 31, 2021•56 min•Ep. 368
Niki talks to Chewjitsu (aka Nick Albin), a competitive black belt Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practictioner to discuss BJJ, strength, sports-specific training, & balancing various physical attributes & life pursuits. You can find him here: https://www.youtube.com/user/chewybjj https://www.chewjitsu.net/ Chewie is a strength advocate within the BJJ community, a community that sometimes dismisses strength as sloppy or cheating or preventing good technique. While proper technique is important, the...
May 24, 2021•48 min•Ep. 367
Matt & Niki and your lifting and life questions. Topics include coaching certifications oriented to coaching females, shoulder pain from presses & squats, adductor tears during squats, office strength groups, and power clean rack position. 0:00 Introduction & BLOC Party Overview 8:16 Programming During Weight Cuts Gained a bunch of weight during LP, having a USSF meet coming up: still want to hit big numbers, but want to lean down Performance doesn't have to suffer very much with sma...
May 17, 2021•52 min•Ep. 366
Gillian Ward joins Niki Sims to talk weight cuts and Niki's recent experience cutting weight, which Gillian helped her with. Why cut weight, and how do you cut weight if you decide to cut weight? Weight cuts aren't for beginners, and people need to really think about why they want to cut weight. This isn't about sustainable weight loss like we've discussed with Take Charge 10 and the Nutrition Series. It's probably better--especially around weight cuts for weight class events--to compete in a he...
May 10, 2021•43 min•Ep. 365
Rachel Reynolds joins Bekah & Anna Marie to bust some strong moms myths, including toning & tightening, burning belly fat, giving you energy, and confidence. 0:00 Introduction 2:57 Energy to Keep Up with Your Kids doesn’t give you energy, but gives you strength & confidence & calmness it’s a give and take because it also takes energy 6:31 Tightening & Toning Your Body nope lifting does probably does what you want “toning” to be & do visible muscles but not too many muscle...
May 07, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 14Ep. 5
How do you balance all your responsibilities and set a positive example for your kids? Bekah and Anna Marie discuss what they’ve found works for themselves and their clients. It can feel impossible to train while maintaining your other responsibilities. Despite this feeling, training can help bolster your ability to uphold your other responsibilities. Capable, strong moms who regularly subject themselves to difficulty can better weather difficult times. Training helps set an example for your chi...
May 06, 2021•49 min•Season 14Ep. 4
Bekah & Anna Marie take on the elephant in the room when it comes to females lifting: stress incontinence. They provide helpful tips and strategies whether you struggle with this yourself or you are a coach who has clients who struggle with this (whether they tell you or not). To be clear, we’re discussing what happens if you pee when lifting, usually at heavier weights. Different types of incontinence exist, and they specifically discuss stress incontinence. Even when it comes to stress inc...
May 05, 2021•52 min•Season 14Ep. 3
Anna Marie & Rebekah tackle pregnancy and lifting. There’s lots of bad information and poor choices people can make in this arena. Recommendations generally used to be against any exercise during pregnancy. Luckily, it’s much more common and acceptable to exercise while pregnant. Modifications and listening to your body will help. Anna Marie became pregnant after 4 years of consistent training. Anna Marie’s personality is one where she’ll push things too far and not back off when she should ...
May 03, 2021•35 min•Season 14Ep. 2
Rebekah Krieg and Anna Marie Oakes-Joudy discuss their journey to and with barbell training and share what strength has meant to them and to the moms they have trained. Meet your hosts, two strong people, great coaches, and wonderful moms. Anna Marie, like many, found barbells through CrossFit. She naturally gravitated toward strength workouts and looked to the CrossFitters who focused on strength training. She noticed the immediate benefits to her everyday activities, and loved how barbells hel...
May 03, 2021•33 min•Season 14Ep. 1
Scott Hambrick & Karl Schudt of Online Great Books--Barbell Logic coaches too--discuss Yukio Mashima's Sun and Steel novel with Matt Reynolds. Go to onlinegreatbooks.com and click on Join Now to reserve your spot. Online Great Books can help you with the intellectual side of the voluntary hardship by exposing you to the Great Books of western civilization and discussing them with others in seminar. Sun and Steel follows the protagonist who begins his life focused on mental and intellectual p...
Apr 26, 2021•1 hr 51 min•Ep. 364
Matt talks to Niki about a refinement of MED principles and how PRs play into the ultimate goal of improving people's quality of life and reaching & surpassing their goals. At Barbell Logic, we're really oriented toward the vast majority of people who want to improve their quality of life, and strength and the process of getting stronger can help them. This doesn't mean these people can't get seriously strong, but it means we're not focused on world records or mimicking methods of the world'...
Apr 19, 2021•51 min•Ep. 363
Niki & Gillian review Take Charge 10, Barbell Logic's first ever nutrition challenge. What worked, what did people struggle with, and what did we learn from the process? First, Niki & Gillian would LOVE for you to fill out the survey that you should have received via email. This provides feedback on the challenge. If you started but didn't complete the challenge, WE STILL WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! We'd love to know what caused you to struggle, what worked, and what you might like to see in ...
Apr 15, 2021•42 min
Matt & Niki are joined by Cameron Cox, BLOC Exclusive Coach and owner of Cox Sauce BBQ Sauce, delicious barbecue sauce (getchu some). They answer questions on bicep tears, lifting straps on the deadlift, shoulder pain on the bench press and squat, programming chin ups, getting your others to train more effectively, and a would you rather question. 0:00 Introduction & Cox Sauce BBQ Sauce Cameron Cox of Cox Sauce BBQ Sauce joins Matt & Niki. This came from a family recipe that was spec...
Apr 12, 2021•52 min•Ep. 362
In the last installment of the Professional Transition Series, Brandon Smith joins CJ to discuss his path to coaching. He began lifting because he grew interested in cheerleading in college. When college & cheerleading ending, so did lifting for awhile. He worked in hospitality services and restaurants, and though he enjoyed it he thought about continuing down this path into his 60s and ultimately knew he needed to make a change. He began to lift & coach. Brandon found that his hospitali...
Apr 09, 2021•50 min•Season 13Ep. 5
Eric Feigl jumps on the podcast with CJ Gotcher to discuss his evolution as a coach. Unlike many of the other coaches, Eric has been a long-time coach and personal trainer and even has his own podcast, the Fitness Candor podcast. His story is more one of adapting and evolving and improving his own coaching practice and business. Learn more here: https://ericfeigl.com Eric loves the IMPACT coaching makes on someone’s everyday life. Ultimately every job HELPS people somehow, even accounting. Coach...
Apr 07, 2021•49 min•Season 13Ep. 4
CJ talks to David Aguilera, head of an academy, Barbell Academy student, and strength coach who has worked to grow his coaching practice and, in doing so, found the balance between his life, primary career, and coaching that is healthy and good for him and his family. Learn more about David and Iron Eagle here: www.iestrength.com David began training because he felt the diminishing abilities of middle ages creeping up on him and knew he needed to combat this with exercise. Coaching became a natu...
Apr 06, 2021•52 min•Season 13Ep. 3
If you’re working a job where something doesn’t feel quite right, this is likely the podcast for you. CJ Gotcher talks to Andrew Jackson about his path from planning to become a computer engineer to joining the Navy to climbing the corporate ladder to ultimately deciding to become a coach and pursue whole-ass coaching. People too often think about a career or course of action in black and white: coach or not coach, stick with your career or abandon it. There is a middle path, that for most peopl...
Apr 05, 2021•1 hr•Season 13Ep. 2
Lifting regularly and interested in learning more about lifting and coaching? Jesse shares his story of lifting, coaching, studying in the Barbell Academy, and ultimately deciding to not pursue coaching professionally and how the Barbell Academy helped him realize this. CJ Gotcher talks to Jesse Mecham, Founder of YNAB and Barbell Academy student, about his experience going through the academy. Jesse came to lifting in his teens, reading a special edition of Muscle and Fitness magazine that cove...
Apr 05, 2021•45 min•Season 13Ep. 1
The Barbell Academy provides an online learning environment for passionate lifters, novice coaches, and professional coaches. Whether you're simply interested in the "why"s behind strength training, considering coaching, starting to coach, or would like to deep dive & continue your coaching education, the Barbell Academy offers something for you. Furthermore, it has become the funnel & process to identify new coaches for Barbell Logic & earn your Professional Barbell Coach (PBC) cert...
Mar 29, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 361
Join the Reynolds family to see how they finished the Take Charge 10 challenge, how they feel about it, and what changes they plan to keep. Day 8 you don't drink caffeine 6 hours before bed. This, again, helps reduce caloric beverages in the afternoon & dinner, but it also helps improve your sleep. Good sleep helps bolster healthy living. One way the Reynolds family was able to prepare for a gathering that normally might involve alcohol & food was they prepared the food and ensured it wa...
Mar 26, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 12Ep. 4
Take Charge 10 continues, with booze, veggies, and fiber. On day 5, you eliminate alcohol. For some people, this will be the easiest step of them all. For others, this may cause some anxiety and may be difficult, especially as this falls on Friday if you begin on a Monday. The first day didn't give Matt or the Reynolds family too much trouble. On day 6, you add more veggies. This was easy for the Reynolds, as they regularly eat vegetables. They worked to increase them. An approach Rachel has lea...
Mar 24, 2021•35 min•Season 12Ep. 3
The Reynolds family shares their experience--struggles, victories, stumbles--through the first 4 days of the Take Charge 10 nutrition challenge. Day 1 is drinking more water, and they crushed day 1! They also found that the increase in water intake naturally reduced calories, as they reduced caloric beverages. It also seemed to reduce hunger, which helped reduce calories, because they drank so much water. The second day presented a bigger challenge, largely because of a 16th birthday party. Dan ...
Mar 22, 2021•37 min•Season 12Ep. 2
Matt & Niki talk to Niki and Gillian about the Take Charge 10 nutrition challenge, which begins as a community on March 22 but you can complete anytime you want after March 22. Take Charge 10 is a 10 day challenge, and each day adds another habit. Each day, therefore, builds on the other, so on day 10 you should be trying your hardest to follow all 10 guidelines. ANYONE can do it at ANYTIME, though if you begin on March 22, you'll be doing it along with the BLOC community and many coaches an...
Mar 19, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 12Ep. 1
Actor Ethan Suplee joins Matt & Niki to discuss his journey from morbid obesity to sustainable health--with struggles & stumbles in between. Some of Ethan has acted in movies such as American History X, Remember the Titans, and the Wolf of Wall Street. He also played as Randy in My Name is Earl. Ethan can remember being put on a diet at the age of 5. Since then, he's always felt like he was trying to lose weight. Weighing over 500 pounds, everyday tasks were struggles: putting on shoes, ...
Mar 08, 2021•57 min•Ep. 360
What does the lifetime fitness arc of service member look like? How can the military shifts its physical readiness training to better prepare for the demands of combat? Matt explores these topics with Colin Slade. The first hurdle any service member must overcome is the basic requirements to enter: which include bodyweight & bodyfat, medical, and some basic physical fitness levels. Following entry, however, Colin discusses how the military really fails to develop its members fitness. Readine...
Mar 05, 2021•50 min•Season 10Ep. 7
Matt talks to Marine Colonel Scott Conway about the physical demands of the United States Marine Corps and ground forces in general--those service members whose fight on land. The Marine Corps have a philosophy--and way of training Marines--that involves the idea that every Marine is a Rifleman. Every service has a similar concept--when things go wrong, everyone must be able to react competently, regardless of their primary job in the military and their particular branch of service. Strength dec...
Mar 05, 2021•44 min•Season 10Ep. 6
