Don't delay your fitness goals - do it now! Complete that rep or set, go for a walk, take your first step. Become the person you want to be. Don't Delay Your Fitness Goals: Start Now! Taking your first steps and the subsequent steps moves you closer to your goal. Too many people will "start tomorrow" or, once they begin, quit when it gets hard or when the initial motivation wears off. This is not about a 4, 6, or 12-week diet or workout routine, it is about taking steps that become habits. Lean,...
Dec 10, 2024•25 min•Ep. 604
Building a strong nutritional baseline is the key to sustainable, healthy holiday eating. Don't derail for your health & fitness goals due to the holidays! How to Build a Nutrition Baseline Building a nutritional baseline is the ultimate holiday eating hack that let's you truly enjoy special holidays meals and days without totally derailing from your health and fitness goals. What is a nutritional baseline and how do you build yours? A nutritional baseline is a normal, habitual way of eating...
Dec 03, 2024•29 min•Ep. 603
Lift your way to a leaner you. Strength training is your secret weapon to leanness, despite the lingering weight loss myth that you should simply diet and do cardio. Debunking the Weight Loss Myth of Cardio & Caloric Restriction You go to the doctor and the doctor tells you that you need to lose a certain amount of weight for your health. He questions why you lift and recommends you perform regular cardiovascular exercise. What do you do? Lift your way to a leaner you (while ensuring you are...
Nov 26, 2024•23 min•Ep. 602
Buy back your time with a professional coach. Coaching yourself means less progress in the gym and more time learning to become a coach. Buy Back Your Time: Grocery Delivery Example You probably need to value your time more. Too often, people avoid certain purchases because they deem them as too expensive. Sometimes this is true, but often buying back your time - a non-renewable resource - is the best thing you can do. Grocery delivery for most people is a no-brainer. You spend little money to a...
Nov 19, 2024•25 min•Ep. 601
Pain and setbacks can derail progress. Overcoming pain and setbacks requires addressing your why and acknowledging how you feel when you perform healthy habits. Overcoming Pain and Setbacks: Oh Snap! A client finds himself making progress in all areas of fitness, at the lightest bodyweight in years and working toward specific barbell numbers. He has a week of stressful work, where sleep was out-of-whack, he sat more than normal, and his schedule was off. He returns to the gym and during his warm...
Nov 12, 2024•35 min•Ep. 600
Mastering fitness habits is the key to crushing your goals and gaining lasting results to boost your health and quality of life. Mastering Fitness Habits: Actions You Do No Matter What Habits are things you do without making new decisions. For Andrew, his four healthy habits are walking, food choices, sleep, and training. He can go on auto-pilot in these areas, which automatically bring him toward his health and fitness goals. Niki's dog died recently. No one would have blamed her for not traini...
Nov 05, 2024•29 min•Ep. 599
Learn why you should walk more, how it improves your health, mindfulness, and quality of life. Don't eschew this pedestrian but effective fitness tool. Physical Fitness Benefits of Walking More A good reason why you should walk more is because it provides many health & fitness benefits. Andrew mentions a study that shows that the benefits of walking 10,000 steps a day equates to, essentially, a "change in effective years" of 8 years. To simplify, it equates to making you 8 years younger than...
Oct 29, 2024•41 min•Ep. 598
Learn about how Jack Armstrong, BLOC client, completed the Three Peaks Challenge for charity. You can donate to the cause here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/daniel-surphlis-1718352507474 Three Peaks Challenge for Charity Jack Armstrong, BLOC client, competed the Three Peaks Challenge. The challenge involves climbing the 3 highest peaks in Scotland, England, and Wales, along with driving to the peaks, within 24 hours. Jack's training had to change, with much higher volume at low intensity and ...
Oct 22, 2024•31 min•Ep. 597
Subscribe to the Build Your Business podcast hosted by Matt & Chris Reynolds, who help you overcome the fears, unknowns, and challenges of business ownership. Learn more about Ryan Matt Reynolds . Learn more about Chris Reynolds , CEO & Founder of Surton . Subscribe to the Build Your Business Podcast If you have a skill or passion you're good at, you may have been told, or you may have considered, turning it into a business. Many coaches began as fitness enthusiasts who wanted to help ot...
Oct 18, 2024•6 min•Ep. 596
Struggling to get back into the gym after a long break? Learn how to overcome mental and physical challenges and restart your fitness journey with our beginner's guide. Returning to the Gym After a Long Break: Shift Your Mental Mindset You went on a vacation, got sick, had a baby, were injured, or had your gym closed down. How do you get back to working out regularly? Niki and Andrew first, of course, recommend that you probably want to avoid this situation if you can. Even if it's just some lig...
Oct 15, 2024•27 min•Ep. 595
Should I lift if I'm tired? It depends, on your tendencies, goals, experience, normal state, and more. We help you answer for yourself if you should lift today. Should I Train if I'm Tired? Experience & Tendencies You're going to feel tired sometimes. What do you do if you feel tired? Should you train? It depends. Niki recently felt tired and ended up taking a nap instead of training. She has learned, over years and decades of training, that this occurs regularly, she knows she will train th...
Oct 08, 2024•28 min•Ep. 593
Learn how to get your back back after a chronic injury. It takes patience, focus on recovery, and a focus on what is truly important. How to Get Your Back Back: What Is Your Goal? You have to remember what your goal is. What matters most to you? Niki had an emotional attachment, built over years with baked-in assumptions she had to reevaluate, about the need for the weight on the bar to go up on a few lifts in a limited rep range. She had to ditch this as the metric that mattered. What she REALL...
Oct 01, 2024•31 min•Ep. 591
Prioritizing your health helps boost all other priorities in your life. Respect yourself and your boundaries and learn how to prioritize your health, no matter what. How to Prioritize Your Health: Set & Protect Boundaries Do not allow work travel or other obligations cause you to abandon your priorities. If you lose your health your work and those other responsibilities will suffer. Prioritizing your health means understanding this is important to you and putting time and effort into it, eve...
Sep 24, 2024•28 min•Ep. 589
A powerlifting meet gives lifters and coaches an opportunity for performance under pressure. Learn the whys, hows, and whats of powerlifting meets. Learn about this and the exciting new International Barbell Federation (IBF) . Powerlifting Meets for Everyday Lifters You don't have to be a 700 lb deadlifter to benefit from a strengthlifting meet. People of all ages and backgrounds have found the purpose-organizing power of signing up for and preparing for a meet. Putting the meet on the calendar ...
Sep 17, 2024•28 min•Ep. 587
Why participate in barbell competition, and if you decide to compete how do you approach it. Learn about this and the exciting new International Barbell Federation (IBF) . Barbell Competition Benefits Andrew interviews Jordan Stanton , owner of Next Level Barbell and the Strength Union , both in or around Portland, OR, as well as former owner of the United States Strengthlifting Federation (USSF). As a gym owner, in-person coach, online coach, lifting federation owner, and competitive lifter, he...
Sep 10, 2024•33 min•Ep. 585
When you know you have a good product, service, or solution, you have unshakeable confidence. How do you develop this? Learn what this is and how you develop it! Unshakeable Confidence: Is It Possible & What Is It? Andrew saw a video of someone handing out bags of money and reacting to people accepting or not accepting it. Seems pretty crazy, to turn a bag of money, right!? Now, in a big city, we can acknowledge that people might not fully understand what is going on, might be skeptical, and...
Sep 03, 2024•28 min•Ep. 583
Stronger means harder to kill, more able to fulfill your work and domestic obligations, and more useful overall. Listen to Matt's talk to the Tactical Response alumni. This group of people cares about being prepared, protecting themselves and their loved ones, and more capable overall. If they are weak, however, they have a gap, and they need to be stronger. This applies to you too. Stronger Means Harder to Kill Would you like to be harder to kill, more resilient, healthier, and more useful over...
Aug 27, 2024•47 min•Ep. 581
We cover the good, the bad, and the ugly in the recent games in this 2024 Olympics Wrap-Up. 2024 Olympics Wrap-Up: the Impressive & the Controversial You have to admit it, Olympians' performances are impressive. The amount of work over years and decades is immense. Genetic gifts abound, but so do mindset and work ethic abilities. Olympians' RPE 10 is not the same as our RPE 10. We value voluntary hardship and appreciate what the human body can do. We stand in awe of the excellence on display...
Aug 20, 2024•21 min•Ep. 579
Back pain for lifters can be scary & frustrating & varies in severity. Learn the causes, treatments, approaches, & red flags as a lifter and coach. Rebekah Krieg, Exclusive Coach & former long-time physical therapist, discusses back pain, how to approach it as a lifter and coach, and red flags contraindicate training. Back Pain for Lifters: Part of the Human Experience Back pain happens. Whether an MRI of your back would look "normal" or "bad," back pain seems to be part of the h...
Aug 13, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 577
Take action and train because time & strength wait for no one. Get the most out of your training, & don't spend any more time without barbell training. Take Action and Train: Time & Strength Waits for No One Time is our most valuable asset because we can never earn more of it. We can make changes to make more money. We cannot make changes to earn more time (though we can make changes to spend our time in more valuable ways). You do not want to spend another year, month, week, or even...
Aug 06, 2024•24 min•Ep. 575
Tackling tweaks can be terrifying. You're lifting and suddenly - OUCH - pain. We discuss how to handle these tweaks. Tackling Tweaks: Don't Catastrophize You're lifting, all is going well, then suddenly you feel pain. What do you do? How do you handle this? Why me, why now!? It can be easy to catastrophize, to immediately assume the worst. The reality is, your workout may be over, it may not be, you may be able to do something. You want to do what you can do, and most tweaks may affect one or tw...
Jul 30, 2024•26 min•Ep. 573
How does consistency help us reach our goals? We explore the fundamental but undervalued lynchpin to success that is consistency. Consistency: Lynchpin for Success Repeated action brings you toward your goal. Obviously, if you want to learn Latin, you need to study Latin regularly - studying Mandarin Chinese will not help. That being said, a mediocre plan that you consistently follow is better than the "perfect" plan followed sporadically. Fitness influencers like to argue about the perfect prog...
Jul 23, 2024•30 min•Ep. 571
Learn how to get beyond the sticking points, where failure and quitting too often arise but opportunity and long-term success await those who intelligently persevere. Minimum Effective Action: Where is the Progress? PRs have stopped, you're not feeling as good as you had been, you'll not looking forward to your time in the gym like you had been. Sometimes it takes longer to realize than you would think, but suddenly you realize things are not going as you would like them to go (and as they had b...
Jul 16, 2024•32 min•Ep. 569
Learn how to get beyond the sticking points, where failure and quitting too often arise but opportunity and long-term success await those who intelligently persevere. Get Beyond the Sticking Points: Frustration, Failure, & Quitting There is a time around 6 weeks into an attempted habit implementation, new diet, or workout routine, where people tend to quit. The early, easy gains end; the long-term changes the person wants have not really been seen; and the path forward remains unclear. This ...
Jul 09, 2024•27 min•Ep. 567
How do we confront uncomfortable truths about ourselves, not get bogged down in negativity, and move toward our goals. Uncomfortable Truths: Coming to Terms with Your Shortcomings You set a goal. Inherent is this is that you do not like what you are doing now. Something must change. You have probably intertwined your identity with the actions that you need to change. The potential pitfall is wallowing in negativity and neuroticism. You may adopt a victim mentality. Clear this hurdle. Uncomfortab...
Jul 02, 2024•33 min•Ep. 565
We investigate accessory lifts: what's the point? Why do auxiliary lifts and how should you think about incorporating them into your training? Accessory Lifts: What's the Point? It's that time of year, where people begin to go on vacation and either take breaks from lifting or ask to do hotel workouts (which they often do not do). What may cause, in part, the low compliance with hotel training is not understanding the point of the accessory lifts that, because of the limited equipment and weight...
Jun 25, 2024•34 min•Ep. 563
We have questions for Niki Sims (and she has answers)! Learn more about Niki, her thoughts on training and life, and her goals. Questions for Niki Sims: Training, Success, & Motivation Andrew asks Niki an assortment of questions. What is a particularly memorable success story from one of your clients? A story that stands out (and there are more, but this one jump into her head) is a daughter of a client who started to lift. Her family lifts, and so she started to lift. Niki could tell someth...
Jun 18, 2024•25 min•Ep. 561
Gauging nutrition progress can be hard, as weight & waist may fluctuate or not change quickly (or as quickly as we'd like). Learn how to better gauge progress on nutrition. Niki and Andrew discuss how you can better gauge nutrition progress and advance in the realm of nutrition. Gauging Nutrition Progress: Subjective Feelings Tracking nutrition progress can be frustrating. The amount of work that goes into changing behaviors, even in a relatively short few day period, with no or little measu...
Jun 11, 2024•26 min•Ep. 559
It's time to conquer your limiting beliefs to finally achieve that goal you've had for years or decades. Conquer Your Limiting Beliefs: What is Possible One of the biggest limiting beliefs is failing to understand what is possible, especially over a longer period of time. People tend to overestimate how much change they can make in a short period of time but underestimate how much they can change over months and years. The short change bias is why so many diets fail and why many media outlets de...
Jun 04, 2024•28 min•Ep. 557
Learn the similarities between building wealth and muscle and how we can learn principles from both to improve both. Similarities Between Building Wealth and Muscle Andrew and Niki have been reading The Psychology of Money , a book that, as its title suggests, delves into how we approach money based on the inner workings of our mind. They really realized, reading this book, how similar building muscle and building wealth are. So many principles of success (or paths to failure) overlap. Some of t...
May 28, 2024•25 min•Ep. 555
