Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Chanel Collette on Moving Past Body Image and Toward Health

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

In this podcast, I interview Chanel Collette all about her experience transitioning from a long-time physique competitor to embracing other forms of motivation in her training, and all of the mindset shifts and body image hurdles that come with that. Most people get into strength training and bodybuilding to achieve a certain look, whether it’s losing fat, building muscle, or both. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with training to look good, but once you have a few years of proper training under your belt, progress is so slow that it becomes unnoticeable. So how do you stay motivated and keep training fun once you’re no longer seeing changes in the mirror every week, month, or even year? That’s one of the topics I discuss in this podcast with Chanel. In case you’re not familiar with Chanel, she’s a former physique and wellness competitor who competed in various bikini shows and won Ms. Bikini Universe in 2014 and overall champion at Fitness Universe in 2016. She’s also a strength and conditioning coach, currently serving as the CEO and head coach of Audacious Athletes, who has helped thousands of people (and women in particular) get stronger, not smaller. We’re also glad to have her on board as a long-time Legion Athlete! In this episode, we discuss her history competing and how it led to a body image and scale weight-focused mindset, the psychology of being stage lean, how her concept of a “good physique” has changed, managing training stress, how she’s made training more fun and enjoyable, and a lot more. So if you want to learn how you can move beyond an image-focused training mindset and incorporate other forms of training motivation, definitely listen to this interview! Timestamps: 8:24 - What’s your history with training? Why did you start competing? 14:29 - The psychology of being stage lean. 18:39 - What has helped you deal with body image issues? 19:49 - Has your idea of a good physique or what you like to see in the mirror changed? 25:36 - What elements of your training motivate you? What do you pay attention to in terms of performance? 29:03 - What are your favorite unilateral exercises? 31:00 - Do you track reps in reserve (RIR)? 37:42 - Managing training stress. 41:07 - Now that you’re no longer competing, have you changed your training in ways to make it more enjoyable? Are you doing things in the gym you wouldn’t have before? 56:48 - Should you put accessory exercises near the beginning of your workout if they're not progressing? 1:04:33 - Where can people find you and your work? Mentioned on the Show: Chanel’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chanelcollette/ Chanel’s website: chanelcollette.com Audacious Athletes: audaciousathletes.com Books by Mike Matthews: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/

Oh, hello, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I'm your host, Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today. And if you haven't already, please do take a moment to subscribe to the show in whatever app you are listening to me in so you don't miss any new episodes. And it helps me because it boosts the rankings of the show.

Now, this episode is an interview I did with Chanel Collette about her experience transitioning from a long-time physique competitor to embracing other reasons to train, other motivations, and particularly going from being very focused on body image to being less focused on body image because there's nothing wrong with caring about how you look and there's nothing wrong with that being a major part of the motivation to continue going to the gym. Anybody who trains regularly and who looks good, who says that they don't care at all about how they look and they only do it for the health benefits and the psychological benefits and so forth. And they're lying. And maybe they're even lying to themselves. Maybe they just don't want to admit that vanity is a major driving factor

in the fitness game. And that's okay. So long as you are aware of it. And so long as you don't allow it to become your entire identity. So that is what today's interview is going to be about. And Chanel and I also talk about staying motivated to keep training once there are no major changes to see in your physique anymore. Once you have your forever physique, basically. And for most people, that is probably five to seven years of consistent training. They're going to gain more or less all of the muscle that is genetically available to them in their first five to seven years if they do the most important things mostly right most of the time, as I like to say.

And then, of course, there's just body fat levels and guys can comfortably hover probably around 10%, maybe a little bit leaner until they start to feel bad. And women can stay around 20% until they start to notice lowered energy levels and worse mood and period disruptions usually, and so on. And so for many people who reach that point, it can be demotivating to realize that there isn't much progress left to make on any front. So how do you stay motivated? How do you continue going into the gym and training hard and enjoying it. Because if you really don't enjoy it, it is going to be hard to stick to. So Chanel and I talk about that as well. And in case you are not familiar with her, she is a former physique and wellness competitor who competed in various bikini shows and won Miss Bikini Universe in 2014 and overall champion at Fitness Universe

in 2016. And Chanel is also a strength and conditioning coach, currently serving as the CEO and head coach of Audacious Athletes. And her and her team, they have helped thousands of people and women in particular. They specialize in helping women get fitter and stronger. And Chanel is one of the first sponsored athletes who ever signed on with my sports nutrition company, Legion, which is pretty cool. And I really appreciate her support over the years and her belief in Legion and our mission to not just create great supplements, but help people get into great shape and great health. Also, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one best-selling weightlifting books for men and

women in the world, Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner leaner, stronger, as well as the leading flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best body ever. And you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes & Noble stores. And I should also mention that you can get any of the audiobooks 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account. And this is a great way to make those pockets of downtime, like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. And so if you want to take Audible up on this offer, and if you want to get one of my audiobooks for free,

just go to www.buylegion.com and sign up for your account. So again, if you appreciate my work, and if you want to see more of it, and if you want to learn time-proven and evidence-based strategies for losing fat, building muscle, and getting healthy, and strategies that work for anyone and everyone, regardless of age or circumstances, please do consider picking up one of my best selling books, Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, and The Shredded Chef for my favorite fitness-friendly recipes. Hey, Chanel. Happy Friday, as people say.

Yeah. Happy Friday to you too, Mike. Nice to be here. Nice to finish off my Friday afternoon work week with you. Yeah. Yeah. Same. Thanks for taking the time to come on the podcast. I appreciate it. I'm excited. Absolutely. Yeah. So what I wanted to talk to you about is something that you have a lot of experience with in having worked with many people over the years and particularly having worked with many women. And this is a discussion that I think will be very valuable to many women listening, but also to men. And that is, I guess, where we can start.

And I'll let you start your discussion and your explanation wherever you want. Probably your background as a competitor will be relevant to this. But I wanted to open with your thoughts on training in a way that is very focused on how you look. And as a competitor, that is obviously the primary focus, at least with all the people I've talked with who, now strength competitors aside, but bodybuilders, physique competitors, they often will say, yeah, I don't care how strong I am. I don't care what I need to do in the gym per se. I just care about looking a certain way because that's the game. Of course, that's how you're judged. And so I understand that. And a lot of people getting into fitness, that is the primary motivation initially. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that is either they want to lose fat or maybe they're starting

out very small and they want to gain muscle. They want to look a certain way, but then eventually, and I can relate to this in my own training, you gain a fair amount of muscle, you gain a fair amount of strength, and you then realize that if you're going to remain a natural weightlifter, not much more is going to change. I'm happy with my physique now, but this is it. This is what I've got. It doesn't like 10 more years of weightlifting is not going to make very much of a difference that before and after image, uh, it's not going to be very impressive. It's going to be, Oh yeah, you looked pretty good. And, uh, I guess you still look pretty good. And that's, uh, that's it. That's what 10 years of training got you. And, um, and then this is

something I've written and spoken about in that if you want to still enjoy your training, still look forward to it, still maintain, it's not just maybe motivation, but find it fun and actually want to keep going. I think you have to move away from the solely body image focused motivation to, you at least have to incorporate other motivations. And these are some of the things that I know, again, you have a lot of experience helping people make that transition. And so I think it's enough of my rambling preamble. And I'll just give the floor to you. So I started physique competitions solely out of the point at which I was in an audience and I was like, I can do that. I'm really not having any clue how I would do that or that I even could, but I just,

it like just immediately came to me that I could as a former endurance athlete, I had just started to tap into progressive training or quote physique, progressive training, meaning I was working with some other fellow bodybuilders and physique athletes. And, and it seemed like my physique was already starting to shift from, you know, pain in my knee from my running. And I was like, wow, I can actually like run now, you know, intermittently and not have knee pain, but I'm also getting a lot stronger. I was just seeing so many positive benefits to strength training and with strength training, um, now being transitioned over to like, from a physique standpoint, I was like, wow, I can really do this. So for me, it didn't actually start like, I want to look a certain way. It was like, oh, I can just do this. So my initial

impression with physique competing wasn't, I think, how normal people or how normally people get into it. But it was more of like, I can do this kind of mentality. But then as I got further into it, that psyche of watching the scale go down, having the scale go down being a necessity for my, you know, quote, improvement or my success rate was determined based on that scale going down. So over the years, I chased that, I chased that so hard. And that's when you know, I dealt with hormonal issues, because I constantly chased a lower number. And my physique, like you had mentioned, there was a point at which it just stopped progressing, honestly, because I was just chasing that one number. And so it's like, I have this before, and then I have this after.

And nothing was really looking that much different. And it was so hard to maintain that after I could not sustain it. And so then I had to kind of retrace my steps. I had to come back to the foundation of, you know, overall training progression again, and understanding that the aspect of nutrition was going to be so important for me and spending enough ample time away from dieting. So, you know, I had this time in time in about 2017, where I about lost my marbles when it came to physique competing. And I didn't really know if I actually was going to be able to go forward with it. So then I spent most of 2018 increasing my calories, doing the things I needed to do, gaining the appropriate amount of mass and areas. And I was still able to compete at bikini at that point.

My physique was still within that division criteria. So I competed at the very end of 2018 in bikini. And then I knew I had learned from my mistakes and I knew I needed to take a whole year off of training. And I, like you said, fell further in love with progressive training. I fell further in love with, wow, I can actually eat more in a very sustainable way. I can go out to eat and I can see scale stability. I know a lot of women struggle with dining out or social instances where they do one thing off their quote plan and they gain five pounds overnight and they just, it becomes such a mental game at that point. And so I had finally

gotten to a point in 2019 where my body didn't face those fluctuations anymore. And so along with that came even more muscle tissue though. And so I pushed myself outside of the bikini division, not even realizing I did it. We got into my 2020 season. And if anybody, fellow competitors who are listening to this, who competed in 2020, my heart goes out to you. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was the hardest thing to plan. But in general, I just wasn't seeing the scale drop. And as a bikini competitor, I was so used to seeing that happen. So I had this like kind of freak out moment that I'm never going to do this again. But it was just my body was never going to look like the bikini criteria again. And my scale weight was not going to ever be that small again. So I had pushed myself into a division that I chose to compete in wellness.

So that was the last point at which I stepped on stage was as a wellness competitor. And I see where that division is going. And so like you had mentioned, it's like, I had to decide if I wanted to push my physique to that criteria and fit in that box, or if I wanted to just sustain the physique that I had kind of earned myself in 2019 of like, okay, I can do all of these life things. I can go on a vacation. I can go in the gym and have fun. I can maybe not just only focus on my glutes all the time in my training and I can actually like have a very well-rounded and balanced training program because I couldn't have those well-rounded programs when I was literally vying tooth and nail to gain, you know, an extra pound of muscle in one specific area of my body. And that's just so challenging to

do. And it kind of takes away a little bit of that fire that you have for training when you're putting some, you know, painstakingly efforts. And I had some hip issues to begin with too. And I think a lot of those hip issues have to do with some of the very glute focused work I would be doing when I wasn't doing a balanced training program in a lowered caloric deficit. So, you know, all of those things go hand in hand to kind of set you up for not the most fun training sessions. And so like what you said, I just had to embrace being able to accept that I wasn't going to fit in a specific box if I wanted to live a training life and a lifestyle that I wanted to have, you know, for the future of myself, essentially. Not saying that, you know, I'm still a huge lover of bodybuilding.

I love the sport. I love all the athletes still. Like, I just had to decide what was best for me, ultimately. all the athletes still, like I just had to decide what was best for me ultimately. And has it been hard for you to transition from the physique that you had then to the physique you have now? And I don't say that as a backhanded comment. What I mean by that is, and I've experienced this to some degree, I've never competed, but for example, what I've, what I've experienced is once you've been very

lean. Now I haven't been staged lean, but, um, I've been pretty lean for, for photo shoots, call it six or 7%. You know, when you have ab veins, you're pretty lean. And so once you, once you get pretty lean, uh, anything fatter than that kind of just feels fat and like, yeah. And so have you had to deal with any of those kinds of issues? Yeah. Um, for sure. I think anybody who's ever been stage lean, your, your, your mind and your psyche is not going to be perfect after that. Like you just, you're going to struggle with that. You know, where a lot of competitors will understand this, and maybe this will be a new, you know, new concept to your listeners.

But, you know, when you diet down that lean and your organs are not essentially protected by body fat, that's sometimes where you're actually going to regain body fat. The quickest is in your abdomen area. So, and that was always an area. Especially for women. protected by body fat. That's sometimes where you're actually going to regain body fat the quickest is in your abdomen area. So, and that was always an area. Especially for women. Because I mean that there's just, there's biological programming. Biological. Yeah. For the purpose of protecting a baby, right? I mean, so women are going to tend to store more fat around there. Exactly. And so being genetically disadvantaged in that area to begin with from my, you know, my history, I'm Native American and Italian. I wasn't raised without

carbohydrates as a very big part of my life or corn for that matter. Like it just, my dietary intake was just pretty much carbs as a child. Like I don't remember a large focus on proteins, but it's neither here nor there. But so yes, that was a huge, like hard thing for me to deal with because I would gain and I have, I have leaner limbs as a former endurance athlete. I think I changed some of my, you know, genetic makeup there. I have leaner limbs and then I'd be like just gaining midsection body fat. And that's also the more dangerous body fat to have as well in terms of your overall bio biological markers. So, so yes, like I mentally would, would be like, wow, unless I'm stage lean, I'm just never going to have veins in my abs. I'm never going to even have visible veins or visible abs for that matter.

I mean, and they're so fleeting. That physique is so fleeting. It lasts maybe, you know, I was able to hold onto it, quote, not that I was trying to, but I was able to withhold it the longest point after this past season. You know, I just think my body was in a better place, but in previous seasons, yeah, I mean, that physique was gone in two weeks. And even if I was following my reverse diet protocols, and I'm very diligent with that, and I'd have a couple meals here and there, and that'd be about it after show. I'm not, food hasn't been like a big driver of my lack of adherence to my post. No Dwayne Johnson cheat meals after.

No, no. I'm just, that's never, like I said, been up. Yeah, I haven't done that for a while either, simply because I find I actually don't really enjoy it. I enjoy eating off plan here and there is fine. But for when I was younger, I used to have kind of blowout meals just for fun, basically. Yeah.

But then too many times afterward i'm i'm like lying on the couch in pain sweating like why why did i do this so now i'm older and wiser digestion's a huge thing for me um and it's always been a challenge for me to get solid and good quality digestion so it's like now over the past, you know, four to five years, I've really had good digestion. So it's like, if it's not going to help me in any way, and it's going to only like make things harder for the next day or two, I'm like, oh, it's not worth it. Yeah. Yeah. I understand that. So how, what, what has helped you deal with some of these body image wrinkles that you mentioned transitioning from being very focused on low body weight, low body fat to what is now more of a focus on performance.

Obviously, you want to look good. We all want to look good. That is at least half of the reason why we still do this stuff. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Right. There's no, there's nothing wrong with that. I think there should be a level of aesthetic desire within your goals. Otherwise, like what, like what's like, what's the purpose? Yeah. Anybody who says like anybody who's in the gym, let's call it three to five days a week at least yeah you're there to look somewhat good correct yeah no matter what they say yeah no matter what you say you you have some desire whether it be for you know overall health or at both combination of aesthetics but um and did so did your yeah your idea though of um of what is a good physique or what you like to see in the mirror,

has that changed? A little bit. I mean, I would love to have one day seen really carved out glutes because like as a bikini competitor, but just as a lover of bodybuilding in general, that's such like a marker. Yeah, the striated glutes. That's yeah. I mean, it's such a good achievement. Alpha and omega. That's it. Yeah, it's it. So I mean, obviously, like, you know, I've always still wanted to improve that area. Do I hyper focus and change my training so much to the point at which I'm over using that area. No, I just, you know, if it grows, it grows. If it doesn't, I'm still happy. But, you know, I, at first, and while I'm part of the reason why, you know, I think physique competitors have a hard time is because the general population who might see us thinks that we're going to stay that way, that we achieve

that and we're going to stay that way. that we achieve that and we're going to stay that way. I remember going home after my very first competition and my mom was like, so this is where you're going to stay now? This is what you're going to look like? And I'm like, no. And even all the way into- This is when you take all of the pictures and then you trickle them out. The Instagram trick, which you probably don't do but you know some of the people just just for people listening uh keep that in mind when some people some people this is this would be more probably men than women yeah some dudes do stay very big lean and strong all year round and often that involves peds uh almost always i mean if you just look too good for too long, especially in men, right? But regardless, sometimes what people will do is they'll get in great shape and then they'll take

a lot of pictures over the course of maybe a week or two, different settings. And then they will drip those out over the course of months to give the impression that they always look that way. Well, and you funny, you mentioned that because I learned, I learned that lesson the hard way. As I started to get more competitive in competing, obviously the body fat got leaner, the determination to win became more present. And I no longer could have the capacity when it came down to that point to do all these photo shoots. Like mentally I wasn't there. I mean, who knows what my face would have looked like. I've been like half asleep. Um, also I found out as I got older, my face needed body fat to look like more. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, uh, I think one of the, the just elements

of, of aging that makes you look more age, right. And men and women is that you just lose roundness and collagen in my face. I need some roundness and fullness in my cheeks. And otherwise I'm smiling and it's just like, I don't know. I called, you know, I look like Michael Jackson at some point. Like the concave, I already have really high cheekbones. So like the concave, you know, lower facial structure. I was like, no, these photos are not good. So I knew that I was stressing my body out and I'm stressing myself out with the time that I would need to devote to the photo shoots and the energy I would do it. And I remember that my coach at the time saying like,

Hey, do you want to be a bad-ass physique competitor or do you want to be a fitness model? And I was like, okay, well, I didn't really have success as a fitness model. So I want to be a bad-ass physique competitor. So I like learn, like he was great at putting me in like the right head space that I needed to be at for, you know, really what my ultimate goal was not to necessarily look really good in hundreds of pictures, but to actually like win at what I wanted to do. Um, so, so yeah, but I, I now face a little bit, um, you know, there are some little trolls within the YouTube and internet space that they're mainstream people. They don't know that physique competitors are not going to stay that way at all times. And the big one on my YouTube channel that I laugh about is somebody goes in there

and says, my muscle melted away. And I'm like, no, that's not quite how it works. I just have more body fat over top of my muscle now. Nothing melted away. Like I still know like metabolically what kind of amount of tissue that i do carry and i think that's pretty cool performance in the gym too yeah like uh well i'm stronger now than i was then so usually when you lose muscle you don't get stronger stronger no

but it melts i get comments like that every now and then like if i i'll go on an interview sometimes wearing a shirt and and and then it's all, does this guy even lift? Right. Because I'm not that big. I'm, uh, one 93, one 95, six, two, um, lean, pretty lean, not, not, not staging, of course, but fairly lean. Uh, but it's, it's that, uh, with particularly with guys, you'll, you'll get that sometimes

where if you are not that big, you'll wear baggy clothes. And then people are like, so do you still, are you still working out? And then, you know, if it's a tight shirt, it's the, dude, you look, you're huge. Yeah, I know. Yeah, that's a common thing for sure. I think people who don't understand the sport and don't understand what physique competitors have to go through, to them, it just seems so foreign. I mean, and understandably so. It really is if you look at it through- Such a small part of the population.

Yeah. You look at it through the eyes of your average gym goer. Yeah. And even in the niche of fitness now like I think at first when Instagram came about, it was a kind of playground for physique competitors. But now like we're even a smaller niche within the fitness space of like social media too. Totally. Totally. What are some of the aspects of training that you can and really anybody listening again, who is not brand new. Because if you're brand new, if you do things halfway correctly, you're making progress, you're adding weight to the bar every week, and you're seeing changes in your body every couple of weeks, and it's a lot of fun.

Eventually that slows down. And it's a lot of fun. Eventually that slows down. And so what are some of the elements of your training that motivate you and that you pay attention to as opposed to only maybe paying attention to how your muscles look or how your glutes are developing? And not that you necessarily did that exclusively previously but i think that uh talking about that that could be valuable because um it's again it's it's relevant in my own training and i had to move away from uh measurements and progress pictures because again

so little was changing it just didn't, it wasn't even worth measuring or taking pictures anymore. And so I had to find other things that I could track and care about to, uh, I'm a very routine oriented person. So I was going to do my training regardless, but if I can take simple measures to make it more enjoyable and, um, to, to increase, to make it more enjoyable and to increase, I guess, motivation, I think it's worthwhile. So one of the things I dove deeper into was PT work for my hip injury that I was dealing with and working through mobility work and proper technique for specific lifts that i was having issues with so i kind of have dove deeper into like filming myself training which i always have done in the past but like now i film myself and i'm not necessarily filming for youtube or filming for instagram i'm filming

so i can see my motor pattern i can see my alignment um i can see you know the time at which i'm spending in the eccentric and concentric portions of the movement. I actually like, I feel like I'm like, like you said, like I have the time and the mental energy to devote to like the small nuances of training now a little bit more for myself. And it also helps with obviously myself as a coach with clients. Like I can, I can break down and look at a movement better because I've started to learn more and more about that. But I also like, I pick the big lifts. Like I want to get stronger in my squat again, after dealing with this hip injury, I want to get better at, you know, hip thrusts. I want to, you know, increase the load there. So there's still a couple of movements that are on my to-do goals, but I still focus on

maybe being more of this overall focus athlete and doing a lot more unilateral things. I used to avoid a little bit of unilateral things because typically the time that it took because it adds up on your training. typically the time that it took because it adds up on your training. But now when I don't feel like I'm at a crunch, it's like, okay, well, I'll add a unilateral and I'll take out one extra movement. That's fine for me at this point in my life and in my training, if that's going to help me feel better tomorrow and it's going to be more beneficial for me in the long run to add more unilateral, I'm going to do it. What are some of your favorite unilateral exercises? A single leg, leg press for sure. I don't know. I probably have done that, but it's been a while. I haven't been the gym I used to go to in Virginia. It had a leg press

that you could decouple the platform was two halves. Yeah, exactly. And you could connect them or you could disconnect. Yeah. The coupling ones are the best, but you can get a little tricky with where your feet placement is on the non-coupled ones. Why do you like that so much? My PT put me on it and made me do it. He was like, I want you to press as hard as you can with each leg and see what, what loads we can get till you can't till like fatigue at that point. And that's how we were able to see the, the large, large discrepancy in my ability, in my ability to push in my hip drive. Um, and I, it was like kind of a light bulb moment. I was like, Oh, that's a huge difference. Um, when it came down to also the endurance that I was able to withstand to like my, my left legs just give, it gives out so fast and it wasn't really brought to my attention until the PT took me into a gym setting. I wasn't just in his office. We did a couple of techniques in his office and then he

was like, let's get on the floor. Let's see how this actually works. Um, I love split squats, hate them. Absolutely hate them. Um, curtsy, curtsy, split squats. Those are great. Hate them as well. Um, you know, almost everything unilateral, I hate dumbbell step-ups. I think alternating step-ups, I'm the most clumsy individual doing, but alternating step-ups are great. I just lose count and I trip up myself and I'm like, oh, did I go up with that foot or not that foot? So that's a tough one. But most of the unilateral stuff I do is more for lower body. Yeah. Makes sense. In terms of tracking your training, have you like something that I'll just throw out there and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on something that has, it's a little thing,

and I've mentioned it on social media. I made a note actually that I really should explicitly address this if I update my book for intermediate and advanced weightlifters called Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. It's obviously written more to men and i do plan on doing a female version of that but that is to to start tracking my reps and reserve or for people listening the the number of good reps that i have left in the end of a set now i've talked about track like knowing that uh when you're training and okay if you're doing a compound exercise um something between probably around two good reps left is a good place to end most sets. Like don't push yourself to zero good reps left

on every set of squats. It's just not necessary. And on accessory exercises, it's more appropriate to go closer to failure. If you're doing biceps curls, sure, go closer to failure. You don't have to go to failure, maybe zero or maybe one good rep left. But what I started to do recently is track that. So I use a Google sheet for

planning and tracking my training and have a column for that. And so why I like that is that's where I first start to see progress in a training block. And because progress is, is quite slow at this point, it's nice to see though, that, okay. Um, so I had, um, uh, what was, I was doing benching today, sets of six with maybe one 95 or something. And it's, it's nice to see that, ah, I had two to three good reps left all the way through all four sets, even on the fourth. But the last time I did that, my fourth set was like a zero to one good reps left. So that is a little bit of progress that you repeat that. And eventually that turns into sets of six with 200 with two or three good reps left. And so there have been other aspects of programming, paying attention to the details of programming that have, again, made my training just more interesting.

And that has helped. Are there any similar types of things that you've experienced in how you're training now versus how you were previously? Absolutely. you were previously? Absolutely. I mean, for example, you know, I'm probably not going to get my shoulder PR, shoulder press PR much higher than it is just mechanically my, my weight, my, my, the way my body is set up. Like, I don't think I'll, I don't think I'll, I don't think I'll put, you know, the sixties over top of my head without a, a spot like ever, like ever in my life. Um, and not to say that there's something wrong with that in my progression and training, it's just not going to really happen.

And so, like you said, it's an RPE, rate of perceived exertion per set, or it's an RIR situation. And people forget that there are PRs within the RIR setting. And in fact, to bring the conversation a little back into how a woman could focus on her training, I talk a lot about RIR with my female clients who are in a hormonal dysfunction setting. And we have to leave reps in the reserve. We can't train to failure in those types of settings. And so that is actually 100% an appropriate gauge for how you are progressing without overstimulating or overstraining your central nervous system as well. So a lot of people kind of forget that your RAR is almost a way to protect that nervous

system overload. So you can actually recover really well if you're not tapping into that overload all the time. Especially with the bigger exercises, you're using heavy weights and it's involving a large amount of muscle mass. There is a big difference in terms of stress in the body between a set of squats, call it six reps, eight reps, whatever, and a zero good reps left. Meaning for people listening, think of like your last, your last rep is a grinder. Uh, you, you probably almost didn't get it. That's a, that's a zero good reps left and a two good reps left where

the last rep is difficult. But if you were to video it, you probably would see that the bar didn't slow down much, maybe a little bit. Yeah, exactly. A little bit, maybe in the sticking point, but it looked probably pretty smooth on camera. And that's a lesson that I've had to learn as I've gotten older and just trained more is it's taken a little bit of discipline to end a lot of the, the hard sets on the bigger exercises with two ish. I'm okay. Again, if I, if I have one left on my final set, I'm okay with that on a squat or a bench press or even a deadlift. But if, uh, if set one is a one to two good reps left, then I'm, I'm taking weight off the bar. Whereas previously I would get a push for another, okay. That's probably now a solid one. And then now on the third set,

that's like a zero to one. And then the fourth would be a true zero. And, um, that plus more frequent deloading has, has helped me a lot. It, it has prevented, I haven't had any major acute injuries. I hurt my SI joint one time years ago, but what I would get though are the occasional RSIs, which can still happen, but I've noticed fewer repetitive stress injuries, less sickness, which I can't say is because of that. But I can say previously when I was training just which I can't say is because of that, but I can say previously when I was training just inappropriately intensely, so to speak, or doing too much and not deloading often enough, often a deload would come because of some sort of trip. It could be a work or a vacation where I'm just not going to be able to do my normal thing. All right, fine. Or some sort of illness.

And it was maybe a couple of illnesses a year, maybe two on average, and it wasn't anything severe, but that's why I would have to take a week off the gym because I'd have a cold or whatever. And now, I mean, I've had COVID a couple of times, but it was like mild congestion. So I wouldn't even really have known unless I got tested. And there were reasons in both instances where I got tested. Otherwise I wouldn't bother getting tested because I could care less really. But those are the only illnesses to speak of in a couple of years now. And there probably are other factors that have contributed to that, but I do think managing my training stress better has helped a lot with that.

Yeah. I think training stress is something, you know, I don't think a lot of people necessarily take into consideration until it's too late. And it's tricky because you can, you can work your ass off in a workout and, and then feel pretty good an hour or two later. And you may not realize though, the demands you've now placed on your body to recover from that. At least that's been my experience. Yeah. I mean, one of the things I had to pay very, very close attention to was my recovery just because of where I had pushed my body to in the past in order to sustain the contest prep and the body fat levels that I did have, I had to really protect my training volume a lot over the years. So it was almost this kind of double-edged sword. It's

like in order to keep going, I had to scale back my training, but scaling back my training probably did inhibit my growth in certain areas that may have needed to be more competitive. But overall, I was able to accomplish a goal. I was still able to essentially still train. I never found myself not being able to train on a consistent basis, but I have embraced deloading. I force my clients to deload. I'm like, hey, I hear your feedback here and we're not technically on track to deload,

but I'm deloading you this week. Like there's just, when you start to hear and know that your sleep is getting disturbed, your digestion is off, you're having little sniffles here and there. Like as soon as you overtax your central nervous system, you're gonna be immunocompromised. And people forget that, yes, like most people in the gym are healthy, but the gym is a very pretty

dirty place. Many gyms. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we're all very healthy individuals that are there most of the time, you know, taking care of ourselves, you know, first and foremost, but, you know, it is, there are some germs there. And so I always tell my clients, it's like, you know, if you're not feeling 100%, like don't necessarily feel like you got to go right to the gym. Like you can go for a walk outside. You can let's, let's check what a walk would feel like first before going into lifting. And you know, when one of them has like a long, long vacation and they've had a long flight, typically the first thing I want to do, I got to go in and hit legs. Cause I'm going to sweat. I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to feel like I actually like

lost a little bit of what I gained on vacation. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. We do not go from vacation right into the highest central nervous system taxing workout on your, on your worksheet. Like, that's not what we're doing here. I'm like, let's start off with delton arms. And they're like, really delton arm day. And I'm like, yep. Let's just go in and do a little cardio and move your upper body. Let's let the legs like cool out for a little bit. You just like walked on your vacation 22,000 steps as a tourist. So let's let those legs rest for a minute. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere,

definitely check out my health and fitness books, including the number one bestselling weightlifting books for men and women in the world, Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, as well as the leading flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef. In your training, are you now doing things that you wouldn't have done previously because you enjoy them, but they didn't quite fit in with the more rigid goals that you were pursuing previously? So now basically, are you able to have more fun in your training, even if it's not maybe scientifically optimal in certain ways, you know what I mean? Where you're like, yeah, I'm just going to do this because I like it and I can afford

that luxury now because I'm already at the end game. Yeah. Um, I, I remember distinctively doing a workout while I was in, uh, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It was nothing but supersets back to back. It was total body. Yeah. It was total body. It was total body. And you know, my husband was vacation workout. Exactly. Vacation workout. He was with me and you know, I, I didn't have any like hard set goals or anything. I just was like, you know, I want to move today. So I just, you know, put together, you know, a superset of a

back to a back and chest movement. And then I did leg extension, leg curls, because they had the machines. And I was like, well, I'm just going to literally use everything that they have. That's a machine based movement. And I'm just going to figure out a superset. And I'm going to superset all everything today. And honestly, I had a lot of fun. And like, we had a lot of fun doing it. So, you know, absolutely. Those have those days happen. I feel like I can, quote, play in the gym a little bit more if I'm visiting a new gym. I don't stick hard and fast to my logbook, if that makes sense. If there's a gym that has a cool machine that I've never done before, I'm going to get on and try it.

Whereas before I'd be like, it's not my program. I might do a set on it or something just to see what it's like, but I wouldn't do like, I wouldn't add it or do a full, you know, full four or five sets on it. Um, so I definitely have that. I definitely incorporate a lot more like quote, what they would call like functional movement, like a lot more of a rotational type things like a rotational landmine press or, you know, a wall ball slam, like a rotational wall ball slam, like physique athletes don't do that kind of stuff. I mean, let's be honest. Um, but I, you know, if I close out my

workout and I rarely do, I get to do this, but I look down at my watch and I'm like, well, I got a lot, I got a little bit of time. I'm going to do like some weird, weird shit at the end with wall ball. Cause I went, I'm in a CrossFit style gym. That's got like a really great open space. Um, they have a turf, they've got a sled, like there's just a lot of things to play with. And so I actually just randomly started adding in, um, I mean, this is a, this is a viable physique movement, but the pendulum squat, but I've never been at a gym that has a pendulum squat. My gym has that as well. And that was the first time I'd ever seen it, actually. I was like, that's cool. Yeah. I mean, I've seen it on Instagram and I've seen it in a couple of gyms I've been traveling to. Yeah, it's the first time I've seen it in person where

I'm like, oh shit, my gym. I'm going to use it in my next training. Yeah. Yeah. So I wrote out a training program for myself and I included the pendulum squat in it. And I did it for a full eight weeks and I was like, all right, I'm done with that for a little bit of time. Yeah. I also don't feel like I have to keep something in there. If it's just like something I'm not necessarily looking forward to anymore. I obviously don't, I tell my clients, like, if you're avoiding it, let's figure out why you're avoiding it. Is it something within the physique? Is it something that you're lacking? So, you know, this is one of those moments where like, maybe don't practice as I preach. If you're a client who listens to this or anybody who's a prospective client, because you shouldn't avoid lunges just because you hate them. But like, you know, I'm going to pick and

chew. I'm going to cherry pick a little bit at this point in my life. I'm 36 years old. I've been lifting since, you know, I was 22. I'm going to cherry pick a little bit. You know, and I think it's appropriate to do that even if somebody is brand new, so long as they understand that certain exercises are more effective than others. And if they hate too many exercises, then that's a problem. If they're like, you know, okay, we're going to train your lower body. And then they say, well, I hate every form of squat. I hate the leg press. Basically all I like is I like, yeah, yeah. I'll do kickbacks and I'll do a hamstring curl and a leg extension and that's it. Um, okay. We could start

there, but just, this is going to be slow going. We could do a lot better if, um, you learn to not hate some of these things. Uh, but that I'm sure for a lot of people listening, that's not the case. And the exercises, I mean, I don't, I don't know if I would say I hate any exercises. Some exercises are just not comfortable for me. Just, they don't work well with my body. And so that's why I don't like doing them. And so of course, that's a good reason to not do them. But maybe, maybe if, if again, somebody is, I would say new or, or experienced and there's an exercise that they, maybe they're, they, they're just ambivalent about it.

Uh, it's okay. Um, maybe there's something they don't like about it. And on the other hand, it's okay. And then there's another exercise. It's a viable alternative that they do like. I think it's totally appropriate to choose the exercise that you like. I think it's totally appropriate to choose the exercise that you like. And again, it's just coming back to this theme of when you're not making enough progress anymore to make you excited to go to the gym every day.

And it happens to everybody. Eventually what happens, you have to find other ways to get excited. And again, in my experience, it's been a matter of a lot of these little things cumulatively adding up to training that is just more fun to do than if I didn't bother with any of them. And I didn't really think about it. And I just kind of robotically went through the motions. And in the end, I would say the results are going to be shoulder presses, another element of, it can feel like progression, or at least it can feel there's a novelty to it, is changing different exercises.

So on my overhead pressing, the strongest I've ever been, I remember I did 225 seated. This was seated. I don't remember. My strongest standing overhead was going to be 195 or so, but 225 for two seated. And I don't think I'll ever, I weighed 10 to 12 pounds more. That was like 10 years ago. My one RM is probably, I have to look at my spreadsheet. I would guess 195 to 205 right now.

So it's never, I may be able to get back to that, but I'm never going to exceed that by much. And the same thing applies to, again, standing press, dumbbell presses. But something that I've found useful is to alternate between those because maybe when I haven't done a standing overhead press and depending on how I'm programming it, it might be four months. It may even be longer. Like if I'm, I'm doing Arnold presses right now for minimally, I'll do it for two months. I may do it for four and then switch back to another, another, um, another variation. It's a little bit fun to do an exercise that I hadn't done in a while and, and to, to groove the form back in. and i think there are also other benefits like for

example avoiding repetitive stress injuries by not doing the exact same type of squat or press or deadlift for like eight months on end you know with heavy weight um but is that is that something that that you also do in your training is just intentionally make sure you're you're that you also do in your training is just intentionally make sure you're, you're including variety just because variety is, uh, the spice of life is the, uh, the cliche, right? So, you know, I, I think this brings up a very, very valid point to training is, is changing the plane of motion. Sometimes is a completely, you know,

viable way to change the movement, change the exercise, change your tissue, your, you know, your small ligaments and joints and improve the health of your joint by, you know, changing that plane of motion. So like you said, a shoulder press, you have both the seated, you have the sanding, you have an anterior, you have a single arm shoulder press, whether that be seated and standing, you have the Arnold press. You have a single arm shoulder press, whether that be seated and standing, you have the Arnold press. completely stagnant. People always ask me, like, one of the biggest questions I answer on Instagram is, why do you do a barbell glute bridge from the floor? Is it better than a barbell hip thrust? And I'm like, absolutely not. One exercise is not superior over the other. I've just been hip thrusting for eight weeks and I need to let my hip bones heal. Like, they hurt at this point. And so I need something different in order for me to be able to progress in a couple of weeks on the hip thrust. Again, I need, I need to change that modality. Um, and people forget that you get a different eccentric and concentric portion of the

movement when you change the plane, plane, the motion. And so understanding, you know, training and human anatomy training, combining those two makes for training program design like so much more fun when you realize there's really all these exercises you can do. You're really not very limited. You have so much spice that you can add to your life in the gym. Including machines. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people will stay away from machines because they'll hear, and not that this is wrong, but they'll hear that, generally speaking, free weights are more effective than machines. But then they'll take that to mean, oh, well, I guess I should only do free weight exercises and not use machines. Yeah.

I mean, if I see a client or if I myself am finding that I can't progress, like I'm just at a standstill, I'm going to say, is there a plate loaded or pin loaded machine available to you of this movement that we can somewhat do or even somewhat similar to this movement? structured and safe, you know, safer than a free weight machine, they're more stable, we're going to be able to, like you said, push to lesser RIR. We're going to be able to increase that, you know, rate of perceived exertion to where it's high enough to where they can then feel more confident trying to pick up a bigger load in the shoulder press. Okay, do we have a pin-loaded shoulder press? Let's see how far we can progress in a pin-loaded shoulder press. Okay. Do we have a pin loaded shoulder press? Let's see how far we can progress in a pin loaded shoulder press over a couple of weeks instead. I'm doing cable side raises for the first time in a long time. I forgot how hard they are. They're terrible. It's humbling. I'm at 15 pounds for eight. That's where I'm at. Yeah. I mean, that one is also the, so neurologically

advantageous. Like you have to keep doing it in order to even remotely progress. And I, and I tell this with women a lot of times, like they're like, I can't, I can't go up five pounds. And I'm like, well, yeah, anatomically, like you have smaller surface area of muscle tissue. It's going to take a lot longer for you to gain five pounds in a shoulder movement. So the way that machines are designed, you know, we're just not going to hit those, those next tiers for a long period of time. Um, especially, especially with those smaller muscle groups where yeah, you're just not, if, I mean, I think I've been at the same bicep curl for 10 years. Yeah, exactly. Mine's been in the same range. You know what I mean? It's been,

I mean, right now on a good day, I can get the 25s on a bad day. It's going to be 20s. And I'm like, why is it 20s today? It doesn't make sense. Yeah. It's like some days you're in the cosmic strike zone and some days you're not. And you know, if you strike out, you strike out. And on the side raise, if the stack doesn't have two and a half pounds, yeah. What I'm thinking is normally, so in my training, I'm progressing from 10 to 12, sets of 10 to 12 on isolation accessory exercises to six to eight or even four to six on those same exercises at the end of the training block. And my primary exercises are programmed a little bit differently. It's a linear percentage of one rep max goes from tens to like twos and AMRAPs. And so I'm thinking what I'll probably do is because the only way to progress with the stack is in five pound increments. is in five pound increments. So I can do, I can do, I was, I was in 10 to 12 with 10 pounds and I got my four sets of 12, which is my cue for, for adding weight. But then I add, I go to 15 and now I only can do eight. All right, fine. Well, whatever. I'm just going to roll with it.

And I'm just going to do eights now. And, and otherwise I suppose I could, uh, I could try to push for more reps with the 10 pounds or add a set, but ultimately I don't think it'll matter one way or another, but for people listening, uh, the reason I say that is if you're familiar with that exercise, you've probably run into this problem. Uh, and you've, you've probably run into this problem with any sort of shoulder raise, uh, any, whether it's dumbbell or, and then, and then rear raises as well. They're just, they're just very hard to or, and then, and then rear raises as well. They're just, they're just very hard to progress on. Yeah. And then I, you can't, I was going to say you can add drop sets, but you're only up to 15 pounds. So you can't. It's true. Yeah. Yeah.

Or I guess I could do rest pause and you know, whatever, I'm just going to keep it simple. And, um, I'll, I'll go, you know, now, now I'm in the, probably the six to eight range and I'll stay there. And if I can get four sets of, uh, of, of eight, um, with, with at least maybe one or two good reps in reserve on the final set, which is also something that I should, I should just mention a little, um, tip that has helped me. And particularly, again, this is going to be very useful to an intermediate and advanced weightlifter is I don't progress unless I hit my, um, so with my accessory, with my secondary, it's double progression, pretty straightforward. Uh, currently I'm,

I'm going for four sets at the top of my rep range, but I'm also thinking with reps in reserve. of my rep range, but I'm also thinking with reps in reserve. Whereas previously, if my final set was a zero RIR, if I hit my progression target, I would progress. But what I found is that usually would be, or that sometimes, especially as I got stronger and especially with the bigger exercises, that would be a one step forward and then a two step backward type of scenario because, okay, I hit my progression target, but I had to work really hard to do it. I added weight and then I couldn't stay within my rep range for the subsequent sets. Whereas now what I'm doing is again, like on an accessory exercise, I want to get four sets at the top of my rep range. And I want to make sure that

I have at least one good rep left in that final set. If the final set was a zero, I'll probably stick with that one more round. And the next time I may be able to make it out of one. And, and that has been particularly helpful though, again, with the bigger exercises where you can, you can, um, you have more leeway with, with the accessory exercises, but with, with the squat. So, um, for example, if I'm supposed to do sets of four with 85% of my estimated one rep max, if my final set is a zero, but I got four, I'm going to, I'm going to take some weight off of the bar. Whereas, uh, previously I wouldn't do that. I'd be like, ah, whatever. I got my reps good enough. Yeah. One of, uh, well, so this could be a debate question. I'm going to ask you, um, what do you think, um, about

movement of your exercise patterns when you find a sticking point? So would you ever move, you know, an accessory movement to the top of your workout? If you find a sticking point. So would you ever move, you know, an accessory movement to the top of your workout if you find that you're sticking in it because you don't want to have it be pre-fatigued from it being a secondary mover? So that's my question for you. I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense. It just, I guess, depends on how much you care, I guess, right? I mean, it's a good point. That's something that I would say is not maybe, quote unquote, optimized about my training in that regard. However, my primary focus and what I enjoy also is I like to see progress in the big exercises because that's where I still have some progress left. Not so much in muscularity, but in strength,

because I'm working back toward previous PRs in terms of absolute numbers. But I've actually, I've hit a couple relative strength PRs and I'm close to where I was previously because I'm like 10 pounds lighter now. And 10 pounds in body, you know, this, but a lot of people listening, I know it makes quite a big difference when, when you go, if I were to go from where I'm at right now, one 93 or whatever, just the sheer amount of food that I would be able to eat every day, probably be 4,000 calories a day that would allow me to slowly regain weight and get back up to that 10 pounds. That that's going to have a big effect in the gym as well as just the added body weight and the added lean tissue. And so that's fun to me seeing that, you know, in my last macro cycle, I'd have to pull up my

spreadsheet, but, um, so I did the safety bar squat for the first time ever. So, yeah, it's great. Um, I just, I'd never worked out in a gym with a safety bar and I was like, I'm going to try that. And so there was a bit of learning the exercise. And so my progress was probably at least half of the poundage that I gained in 1RM was simply learning the exercise. But in four months, I know that where I ended my AMRAP, and then I estimated one rep max was like 320 on it. And I started, I want to say, I'd have to pull up my spreadsheet, but I want to say I started like 270. So that's kind of fun, right? But now, okay, I'm more familiar with the exercise. I can't expect results like that again. However, if I can gain 10 pounds on a lift in four months, that's fun to me.

So my training, again, is more focused on, all right, I'm going to do the biggest and the hardest stuff first. And then I do view the accessory work as I do try to progress and I don't just phone it in and like walk through the rest of my workout. But I do understand that after I've done four sets of heavy deadlifts, close-ish to failure, two-ish good reps left, still pretty hard. My horizontal pull that comes next. And then finally, maybe I do some biceps at the end. Yeah. Those are, those are compromised, so to speak. Whereas if I were to do what you're suggesting, uh, yes, that would make a lot of sense for maybe trying to break through a sticking point on those accessory exercises. But then when I got to my deadlifts, my performance is,

is going to be compromised. So that's how I've approached it is again, what are you trying to achieve and what do you enjoy? Yes. Normally the one that I move around, I guess most frequently is a lunge variation or split squat variation because I find them challenging for myself. Balance, once fatigue sets in, balance for those two movements is skewed a lot. So for myself, for my clients, when we're kind of hitting kind of a standstill or they're complaining about doing a split squat or a dumbbell walking lunge or something like that, I will migrate it up to the top. And some people would probably disagree with me doing that. Like I would make people squat, I mean, leg prep, excuse me, split squat or lunge sometimes before a big lift.

And I, and I, and they're like, every time I'm like, not going to, like you said, and I'm not going to be, it's not going to be my best deadlift or my best squat day. That's not the point of that particular program design. day. That's not the point of that particular program design. So inherently understanding the purpose of why you're in the gym or what you're trying to accomplish within a particular cycle is so important. But I do toggle with those like unilateral movements and kind of sometimes bumping them above the more foundational squats and deadlifts because I find that I can eventually progress in my squat more if I also improve in this unilateral way too. And you don't improve when it is at the bottom

nearly as much. So yeah, so that's my argument there. But a lot of people would think I'm kind of maybe weird for doing that. And I do get some pushback, especially if I have a strength client coming to me for more physique type work, or they're trying to kind of come, maybe not be so dependent on strength progression and be more physique tailored.

You know, I kind of flip the script on them and they are like, wait, I've never done it this way. You know, another argument for doing that could be, and you'd mentioned this just regarding, so take the split squat and the balance component of it. If you're always doing, which I agree, the more fatigued your lower body is, the harder it is, especially when you're trying to use heavy-ish weights. If you're doing anything 10 reps or fewer on the split squat, it's heavy-ish and, or maybe very heavy trying to do like fours. And if you're fatigued, you're going to have a harder time with the, with the balance. And so if you're always doing that later in your workout, uh, you really only

know how to do that exercise poorly. Like if we're talking about, yeah, that's a good point, the movement patterns and, uh, and that can get in the way of progression. Anybody who's done a lot of split squats knows that when you're kind of wobbling around, you're wasting energy. Like you're not going to get very far doing it that way. So by moving it earlier in the workout or even to your first exercise, when you're freshest, you are going to do your, let's just say your technically best split squats with it earlier in the workout and doing that for, uh, it probably would be appropriate to do it for at least three or four weeks. If you wanted to hone your technique,

that can make a lot of sense in hopes of then, let's say you now move it back to later in your workout, but you put in that. Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully you've retained. And of course this happens on a neurological level. You're not going to be particularly aware of it, but hopefully now with, with the muscle memory that you've gained by doing all these reps. Well, it'll carry over to later in your workout. I think that would make sense. Yep. Awesome. Well, I'm sure we could keep going pinball around, talk about all kinds of things, but in the spirit of, I usually try to go not too much longer than an hour. People are like, oh, it's too long. But I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. And let's finish up with where people can find you

and find your work. And if there's anything in particular that you want them to know about, anything maybe relevant to some of the stuff we've been talking about, let's let them know. Yeah. So you can find me on Instagram at Chanel Collette and through YouTube at Chanel Collette. YouTube is a little bit of a lower hanging fruit right now just for the sake of building my coaching business and higher. I, you know, expanded my team this year. So if you are looking and interested in coaching, you can check us out at audaciousathletes.com. It's myself. us out at audaciousathletes.com. It's myself and for the women, they're just like the backbone to like essentially me wanting to continue to do what I want, what we're doing. Like having a team,

I didn't really realize how much that would fuel just my desire to continue to do what I do and mentorship and mentorship through them as well. So I absolutely like, you know, that's my, my, my butter. Yeah. It makes it more fun for sure. It's not just me. I'm not just a one woman show anymore, which is so great. But yeah, so that's where people can find me at. We offer both nutrition programming and training programming. So we, you know, do offer clients who don't necessarily want to be in tracking all the time. I mean, I have countless of clients who don't necessarily want to spend their life determining what goes in their mouth by what, you know, an app tells them to do or what I tell them to do. So I think there's not enough coaches out there who just offer... They don't own a food scale.

We can start there. Yeah. And they don't want to buy one. Yeah. Or I just talked to somebody today. She's like, I don't own a weight scale. So that's a viable person who could really want just sound training programming. And so that is something that we do offer. And with that, we do cardio programming because your cardio should be supportive of your training goals too. They're both go hand in hand. So we offer all three components with us. So I also offer training programs on my website at chanelcollette.com some four, six, eight week programs and at-home training program as well. And those are all viable, progressive overload-based programs. Awesome. Awesome. Great. Well, thanks again for taking the time to do this. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Nice to finally do this after many years of being with

Legion. It's been great. I know. I know. I'll say that that's my fault. I should have made it happen sooner. Oh, no. You're cool. I like being the OG. I think I'm one of the OGs. That's true. That's very true. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email,

mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.