The Uneducated PT Podcast - Episode 90: Mastering Exercise Selection / Aaron Davis Coaching

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Featuring special guest Aaron Davis of Aaron Davis Coaching In this jam-packed conversation we dive deep into the art and science of strength training, habit formation, and what it really means to be a coach. Aaron helps us cut through the noise and answer the questions every trainee—and every trainer—wrestles with:Rep ranges for hypertrophy: How many reps should you really be doing to maximize muscle growth, and why the “one-size-fits-all” advice you see online misses the mark.Beyond “optimal training” tropes: Aaron breaks down the nuances behind the bold claims of social-media fitness influencers and what you need to know to build a program that works for you.Tempo talk: Is controlling your lift speed essential, or just another way to overthink the basics? Find out when it helps—and when it holds you back.Keeping clients on track: Proven strategies for trainers to keep frustrated clients motivated and consistent, even when progress seems slow.Technique vs. joy: Why chasing “perfect” form can sometimes suck the fun out of training—and how to strike the balance between safety, effectiveness, and enjoyment.What is (and isn’t) coaching?: Aaron’s definition of true coaching, the lessons he wishes he’d learned earlier in his career, and practical insights for anyone looking to level up their mentorship game.Tune in for real-world wisdom that will transform the way you train, teach, and coach—no PhD required. Whether you’re a dedicated lifter or a budding personal trainer, this episode will challenge your assumptions and equip you with actionable tools for long-term success.Aarons IG

Okay, I'm going to start with a couple of your quotes that I was looking up that I thought was really good. So you said your exercise selection isn't as important as some would have you believe. So just for the people listening to this podcast who are told that they need to do, you know, ex-exercise to produce Y results. Why don't you prescribe to that sort of thinking? I think first of all, it depends upon who the individual is that's hearing that message. So I think there are probably some people out there who do need to do specific exercises. You know, I mean, it was, Arnie was it.

He's got that quote about him being a sculptor and he's looking to add little bits of muscle to the statue, whatever it was. And so if you are an athlete of a competitive nature, there are probably exercises that you probably do need to do. But I think what often gets missed on social media is that, you know, you and I and anyone who creates content can just put anything out of that and anyone can watch it. And what I not worry about, but what I find sometimes in conversations with people is that someone will watch a video that's potentially aimed at someone with a very specific competitive goal. You've got to do this exercise to build this particular part of your upper chest, let's say. And for some people, that may be true because they're at such an experience level there that they're so accomplished, that a tiny change in exercise selection might have a tiny change in the outcome. but for myself and mostly people I work with, I don't think that that's what makes the difference.

And I think that spending too much time and bandwidth worrying about it ends up putting more hurdles and more obstacles in people's way. And it's not what makes the difference in the end anyway. There are some people who will probably find the a specific bicep curl variation is important for their bicep development. But I've never coached anyone that that would have, apply to. So when I'm when I'm when I'm when I'm when I'm putting content out I'm you know, I'm a bit like yourself, but like most people I'm thinking who do I tend to work with?

What do I do with my own training? What have I experienced? Um, yes. So I guess it's just the up that that sort of theme is just to offer a bit of pushback on the notion that specific exercises are going to unlock specific results and that for you, whoever the person viewing this content is, that's worth considering. And I think for most people, it's probably not. Do you, do you think, do you think, it's important as content creators to be specific in terms of who you're talking to in terms of your audience. I know most people will kind of know their audience, but it seems that then when people give out advice, it's the people that don't need to take on that advice that are listening to that

advice. I think yes and no. I can see both sides of the argument because I think the problem is, or one of the challenges, as anyone who creates content, is that you've got a finite time to grab people's attention. And so if at the start by every video, you list all of the people that this is not for and all that's for, you know, it's tricky. I think that there's an equal amount of responsibility. I think that the people viewing the content, there's a degree of responsibility on them to hopefully be able to get to the point where they can filter that out. You know, if you're watching a coach, if I think if you're following a coach or you find yourself watching content for a coach who does lots of physique transformations,

to photo shoots, that sort of thing. And that's not what you're after or you have bad experience of that in the past or that's not your goal, then having the ability to kind of filter that person, not filter them out completely, but take what they're saying with a grain of salt and go, probably not, probably not for me. So I think the responsibility, the tricky part is the responsibility lies, I think, on both sides of the argument.

But I can see why, you know, like, creating content that people watch is challenging. And so if you're trying to work on your hooks and your angles and your jump cuts and there's so much that people do with content these days, if you are then also thinking, right, I've also got to make sure that every single person that watches this knows exactly who it's for. I just think it's asking a lot of everyone. So I think somewhere, would that be fair to say somewhere in the middle?

It's a nice idea in Terry, but in practice. practice, it just becomes a little bit too difficult. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think so. I think if you go to, if you see someone's, if you've never, if you're not seen someone's post before and you see a bit of their content, if you go to their page and you scroll through their last month or two of content, you generally speaking get a feel for what sort of things they are helping people with in fitness, for instance. So no one's ever seen a before and after on my page. So if someone is looking to achieve that, if that's their goal, hopefully they will.

come to my page and go, probably not going to be the best person to help me. Like I don't do, I don't train physique athletes. So there's nothing about, there's nothing really about bodybuilding or, you know, getting on stage. So if that's what someone wants, hopefully they will find those sorts of people. And if they watch my sort of content and I say, hey, your exercise selection doesn't matter. But that person very specifically has received feedback from a judge that they need to build

a specific part of their body, then what I'm saying to them doesn't apply. and hopefully they'll pick that up if they scroll through because I'm like, cool, this guy doesn't know what you're talking about when I'm and so, yeah, I think you're absolutely right in that then in terms of the consumer, it has to take some self-awareness. I know myself, it's like if I scroll through a video and it's like a content creator saying something that I disagree with and then I'm like, no, that's wrong.

And then I have to check myself and be like, well, no, it's not wrong. It's just not my values or the people that I would talk to and kind of being able to kind of pull yourself even back in terms of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. I think if someone is sharing misinformation or sharing something that's harmful or wrong, that's one thing. But I think if someone is sharing something like you're sort of saying for their audience that doesn't match up with what I do, doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.

But it's easy to watch that sort of stuff. And there's a reaction, as emotional reaction, go, that's a lot of rubbish is why. Yeah. So well, yeah, is that sort of fair to say? Yeah. Yeah. So I was even just thinking of an example in my head, even away from kind of exercise selection and stuff like that. So like I would speak a lot about, you know, interpersonal relationships and social connection and, you know, taking time away from work to spend time with your friends and your family and stuff like that. So, you know, if I'm scrolling through, let's say an Alex Hermose video and he says I spend more time doing X, Y, MZ, it's not that he's wrong and what he's saying, but I'm just looking at it from a different perspective, but I could, easy, you have that emotional reaction and be like, no, that is wrong. You need to spend more time with your family because that's important, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, no, 100%. And I would probably

feel the same way. Like a lot of that sort of content in my, from my view, it's a bit eye-roly. You know, I'm like, oh, it would go again. But some people, that's what they want to hear. For some people, that's what their, their ambitions are. And for some people, that's what they need to do to get there. And so, you know, it's difficult. He's not saying that you have to do that. He's that if you want to be able to do X, Y, Z, this is how I did it, this is what I recommend you do. And you can't argue that. You can disagree with it, you know, personally. But it is tricky.

So I think you've got to try to that fine line of, is this person sharing something that's subjectively incorrect? Or are they just sharing what their audience wants to hear, what they do, their perspectives, their thoughts, their opinions? And it is difficult to tread that line sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, I think I've rambled on in circles. Is that all sort of make...

No, that makes perfect sense. I think you're absolutely right. It's trying to tread through the weeds, and there's no ones to it. And another one from you is for years, I convinced myself that I wasn't built for overhand pull-ups. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about that story? Because I think it's important in terms of, you know,

telling yourself stories that you can't do something or you're not built for something. I think a lot of the listeners could probably relate to that in different areas of their fitness journey. Yeah, sure. So my background is in like strength and conditioning. So played lots of sports growing up, worked with a lot of athletes, rather than the sort of conventional personal training route of working in the gym,

fat loss, body composition, stuff like that. And so when you get into strength and conditioning, you go through a lot of assessments. You've got to assess the person on the table, you put them through the FMS, you find out what people can and can't do, and then you assign regressions. And I think over the years, a lot of that has been refuted,

would that be the word? But these ideas still hang around and people will still share them. And I will see content online saying, if you can't do X, then you haven't earned the right to do Y. Or if your body doesn't move this way, then straying outside of that

is going to end up in injury and stuff like that. And I think that by and large, in general, the stories we tell ourselves, the way we see ourselves, ourselves, ourselves, you know, has an impact. There's a really cheesy poem that my dad shared called The Man Who Thinks He Can.

I'm not going to recite it, but just anyone's welcome to go and have a look. And I guess the idea is, first of all, most, you have to have a belief that you probably can do something in order to attempt doing it. And with physical training, to bring it back to the actual point, like, I think we often forget how adapt to all our bodies

are. You know, again, I see analogies about bodies being like cars. You need to take care of them and do like your MOT. You do an MOT on a car way you do the same body. And it's like, well, yeah, if I drive my car into a wall or if I scratch it, it starts to deteriorating to get it to fix. But actually stress is how we grow, you know, like you lift weight, your bone density increases. You know, you build up scar tissue. You get calluses all over your hands and they're horrible. And so I think I think I just don't like the idea. that people out there will be avoiding certain exercises that they might want to do because they feel like they aren't built for it. They're not designed for it.

They can't do it yet. And it's not saying, no, forget all that. Just jump straight and give it your best go. Like if someone's never run, then telling yourself, I can't run a 10K right now is reasonable. But it doesn't mean you can't run. It just means you can't do that stuff yet. With the overhand pull-ups, like my mobility sucks. I've played lots of basketball, lots of rugby.

I've got some bum shoulders. And so for a long time, I told myself that I just wasn't built for pull-ups because the very few times I try, it would kind of hurt. And I'd fath round do some mobility drills, never took it seriously. And it wasn't until I just started taking, doing pull-ups more seriously, that everything was fine in the end. It wasn't an instant. But I think the first step is removing that idea of I can't do something because of a limiting factor. when I think in reality oftentimes if we soften our expectations and go

right I want to be able to do something I'm going to spend some serious time approach it within 10 put in effort consistently I stand a good chance of getting there in the end and there's nothing wrong with me I think that people feel like there's something wrong with them or that they're missing something or that other people can do something that they can't

and I think when it comes to fitness it doesn't end up bearing out in the long run Yes do you think there's kind of this push and pull between desire and like, you know, fear or fail. And so it's like, I'm not going to do it because I've tried it before and I wasn't able to do it. So then, you know,

I don't like this exercise versus, you know, you do exercise that just comes naturally to you so you're more inclined to do it more and more. And then also like, you know, if you say that, oh, I can't run, but you don't really have a desire to run, then

you probably won't. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. I see what I mean, yeah, the desire has to be there. And you're right, I think that our bodies sometimes suit certain movements. So do you have movements like, because obviously you've been trained for a long time? I'm assuming you have movements that maybe just feel a little bit better. Yeah, for me, even like I would be, because I'm naturally slim. Like running has never been a problem for me.

Never in my life. Like, I've never had any kind of injuries with my knees, my calves, my hips or anything. I'm quite light on my feet. So it's a very easy thing for me where, you know, know, something that might be because I'm quite light, then something that's quite a heavy and difficult movement might be a little bit more difficult for me. Squats as well because I'm short, they're very easy for me

versus someone who might be a little bit taller. And shock, I enjoy doing them. Yeah, no, exactly. So I think that some of us will always find some movements easier. You know, if someone's got really long legs, they're going to find squating more challenging. And they may not ever squat as well as someone who is naturally built for it. So it's not to say that everyone's going to end up at the same point.

Like, you know, sometimes we naturally find ourselves port to sport. Like I'm like 18 stone, 6.3, like, I can run when I'm playing sports. Going out for a long run has never really been my cup of tea. Can I do it? Sure. But I don't enjoy it. I don't have a desire to it. And I think there's always going to be that limiting factor because it's hard to move 18 stone for, you know, two hours on flat ground.

So, so I don't, but I think it's, I think it's the difference of saying, I'm just, you know, saying I can't do something full stop. That's, that's the, the issue. That's the sort of the, the message to push back against. You, you, you naturally squat far better than me. I may never squat as well as you with that four range of movement. But if I wanted to squat, I could, I could get there. So yeah, there's got to be a desire. And I think that it's easy to fall into things that you like doing anyway. And again, that's perfectly fine. This is all choice in the end. It's your body.

You can decide what you want to do with it. But I think that if you have that sort of internal dialogue with that little voice in the back of mind that says, oh, don't even bother trying to do X, Y, Z because you can't do it. I think it's worth trying to work, trying to sort of resolve that and work through it. If you don't want to do it because you don't care, that's cool. Like, it's not everyone's cup of tea. But if you're not doing something that you'd be. curious to explore that you would like to be able to do and you're not doing it because

you've just decided or you've got that sort of voicing back your mind, I think that's what, that's where it's worth working through that. Yeah. Yeah. We're worth exploring that. Absolutely. One of your recent videos that I really loved and you were talking about people getting into certain camps in terms of exercise selection. I think you were speaking about kind of a functional exercise and kind of paired with like a bodybuilder optimized exercise. Could you kind of explain that for the listeners? Yeah, sure. So again, like, I think I was never really into any of these specific camps.

So you've got bodybuilders, power fosters, crossfitters, strong manners. So I played sport. And when you're doing S&C coaching for sports, it's kind of whatever you need to do, you get the person to do. And when you're working with props, you train them very differently to the wingers that come in. You just give people the movements that they need and the programs that they need to get stronger or get fit or get faster. And I think, again, one of the things that I see online quite a lot is that you get specialists within a field, coaches who work, like we said, coaches who work with physique athletes.

And their content will be about this is how you get as jumped as you can in a short time frame as possible. And again, that's completely fine if that's what that person's goal is. but I think that for anyone who, for anyone that doesn't apply to it, they end up missing out in a lot of calls and stuff. But it's very easy, I think, again, on social media, you talk about that responsibility with, is a responsibility on the person creating the content

or the person consuming the content, if you see someone like some absolutely jacked guy talking about these are the optimal exercises to grow your triceps and to grow your biceps, and you're a lad that wants to get more, massive arms, you're going to follow that. You're going to do that. And I think that sometimes in the long run that misses out because you may not have ambitions to step on stage. You might talk bigger arms, but you also kind of want to be able to do these other things alongside that.

And so I think that if you fall into the camp of just doing optimized exercises, you miss out on other things. So as an example, there's been a lot of, there's content I see where people will isolate their arms for say tricep well with cables, where they'll use bands or straps or cuffs to sort of anchor their upper arm in place so that they can do their tricep exercise and it is truly an isolated exercise. And if the argument is this is going to optimize your tricep exercise, I'm perfectly happy to accept that. I don't know if it's true, but cool, let's just assume it is. But I think that what it misses that one is that you're then taking out a lot of the other muscles that might stabilize or hold the shoulder in place whilst you're doing it,

which if your goal is just to be huge and jacked, you don't care at anything else, that's not a big deal. But if you kind of like the idea, if you want to be able to sort of play sports, if you want to be able to go and you're like overhead pressing, it's not unreasonable to suggest that you should be able to do your tricep pushdowns without having a strap holding your arm in place because the muscles around that area should be strong enough to just do that. I think that's a reasonable thing to suggest. So if you fall down the rabbit hole of, I've got to optimize everything to align with these particular muscle groups

in these particular ways, I think you end up missing out on that stuff. So again, I think it ties back in with when you're watching this sort of content, what is it you, what is it you really want? And it's okay to want different things. It's okay to want to be able to do like high,

it's okay to want to be able to do a high rocks and have jacked arms. You just have to find the middle. because if you just trained in a optimized hypertrophy bodybuilding fashion, you're going to find the high rock stuff really, really tough. Yeah. Does that sort of make sense? That makes perfect sense. And I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with is the confusion of I want to do all

these different things. Like I want to be in great shape, but I also want to, you know, be able to perform and, you know, try out all these different experiences, whether it's a half marathon or a high rocks or, you know, into a competition and I think they find it difficult to know where to put their time and energy into. Yeah, of course. And I guess, again, the challenges that you're following creators who are probably very good at what they do, very good at coaching what they coach, but it's usually a very narrow field. That's why they're big within the bodybuilding community or they're big within the power of team community. And again, it's kind of point, is it their responsibility to tell people in every post?

it's tricky. It's a it's a minefield. So I you know, I feel for both sides of the fence coin argument, whatever. Yeah, so that's it. I think the way I've trained the way I coach is that like you say, most of people I work with have sometimes conflicting goals. And so the message is just still the good stuff from all of these individual camps and sort of find a way, to bring it together. And doing one doesn't mean you can't do the other. Like you can do the optimise bodybuilding stuff and you can still go out and run. One doesn't cancel out the other, but you're probably better off straight. You're probably better off not committing to just one. You know, I'd say the same with a lot of nutritional principles. You know, people have very set ways with nutrition. And I think it's kind of the same. I think if you, if you fall into one particular

camp, it can end up being a bit of a fragile approach. You know, if you, you, you know, if you, need to always meticulously track your calories when you can no longer do that or when that becomes a burden or becomes an issue it's like what have you missed out on what other skills whatever approaches have you forgotten about have you not worked on what do you have to fall back on um so i think taking more like a a broader approach is is is better for most people in the long run again unless you're someone who like wants to be mr olympia yeah yeah So like, sorry, no, you go ahead. No, I was going to say, so like with your own train of interest,

you talked about running, you talked about squatting. So it sounds like you have like a mix, a mixed approach as well. What do you find yourself doing or yourself coaching? I think I really like what you said there about steal the good stuff. And yeah, I completely agree. I've never been a specialist in anything, but I'm okay with that. I enjoy doing a little bit of everything not so well.

but it's because I enjoy it and you know like you said I'll you know do my isolation exercises like a bodybuilder I'll do my you know functional stuff and I'll enjoy deadlifting and I'll enjoy a barbell back squat even though you know I might be better off doing a hack squat or whatever it is and I enjoy going out for a run and I'm never going to be you sane bolder Mo Farah but you know just getting a little bit of everything it's I I think that's a nice way to live your life without kind of um you know being too hyper-focused and no and no don't don't get me wrong like i like people who who are that like just laser focused in one field and and really great at that i think that's amazing and i think that's something to be celebrated as well but um then that's just not that's not the way that i live my life

yeah and i think as well it ties in with the whole exercise selection sort of message too because i think it's easy to get this impression that you have to be doing all of these things to get a certain outcome. So again, you know, the hyperchievous, building muscle is the example that comes to mind. You can do things like you said there. You can do your back squats rather than a hack squat. And maybe it's slightly less optimal for building your quadriceps. But we're talking about a percentage difference that we're not going to notice anyway.

You know, like is strapping my arm two-way cable so I can truly isolate my tricep and do a single arm push down, more optimal for building muscle than, a barbell skull crusher maybe let's assume it is cool how much of a difference is it going to make if i'm training hard consistently eating enough doing enough volume after five years what difference am i going to notice unless unless i am trying to be mr olympia you know like if you're trying to step on stage and have the most amazing jack shredded quads ever then maybe five years of hack squats as opposed to five years of back squats will have a noticeable impact but if you're just trying to get in shape,

you're trying to get a bit stronger and enjoy training, you're never going to notice the difference anyway. So a bit like you said, you might as well do what you like doing, what you can do, and don't sweat the percentage points difference in terms of exercise selection or optimised routines

because it's not going to make a difference anyway. And the stuff that does make a difference, like your sleep, your consistency, your mental health, all that sort of stuff, your exercise selection isn't going to change that. So don't, don't sweat it. Yeah, it's like, Like you're you're focusing on the pebbles when the big rocks are right in front of you.

And that's that's for most of the general public is like, you know, whatever's available to you, being consistent, focusing on sleep, focusing on nutrition. They're the big rocks that you should probably focus on. Yes. Yeah, I'm upset. I could I probably should have just said that. You've summed up my entire, my entire point in 20 seconds. We need it. We need it.

We need it. Another one I really enjoyed from you as well. So my knees hurt, but I've had worse injuries. I don't sleep gray. but I've been more tired. Training has never been less optimal, but I still get to do it. Do you think that we fall into this trap

of relying too heavily on the perfect conditions to train? I think potentially a lot of us rely upon the perfect conditions to do anything. That's the most profound thing I've ever said in my life and ever will say. I'll clip that. So cringe. It's so great.

Chris, please just, what we'll do is we can put like a, like a tunnel noise. I'll say that because I'm kind of embarrassed that I even, I think like it's easy to procrastinate and put off everything until the right time. I'm sure you have had that conversation with people that you've worked with hundreds of times. I think it ties into that. I think that there's always a reason not to do something or there's always a reason to wait a little bit longer to get back into it. And again, I think having that, that having that approach to fitness or to anything is probably going to, it is probably worth trying to work through and get around.

Where do you think the, where do you think the balance is? Because when I'm thinking about you saying that I'm thinking about, okay, the people that probably need to rest won't rest and the people that probably don't need to rest can probably just decide to. to get on with it, regardless of how they feel, will be the ones to say that, oh, I need to rest. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So the people that need to rest probably aren't, the people that need to rest, assuming that they're doing like crazy stuff of training, probably don't take my advice or want to work with me anyway. So again, if you take a step back and go, who are you creating content for? I'm not creating content for the people who are, who are smashing.

their training every single week. They're super strong. They're super happy where their training's going. So it's not going to make an impact anyway. You know, so I'll be rid of that responsibility. Otherwise, I'll start cavigancing it. This is not for the people who don't need to rest. We'll be able to last track.

So my mind's gone back. What was the question again? So it's for the people who don't need to rest but are resting. Yeah, well, I suppose, I suppose it's always the advice that we need. to take that we don't take so it's like okay yeah your your knees are sore it's aren't optimal but you still get it done it's like um right like i think that there's probably a lot of people then without like pushing the grind hard or hustle culture i'm sure there's a lot of people who probably need to actually take that advice that it's like okay you're a little bit sore uh

you haven't got much sleep lately and like you could use that as a reason not to do the training sessions that you've been struggling to do consistently. But you probably don't need optimal conditions to get something done. No, I think, I think a few little little things to pick up on that. I think first of all, if someone is not sleeping well and they need to improve their sleep,

doing 20 to 30 minutes of challenging exercise isn't going to make that any worse. Assuming they're not doing two hours of training at like 10 o'clock at night. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I think doing 20 to 30 minutes of exercise is probably going to help them sleep because they'll be a little bit more tired.

It's going to optimize their circadian rhythm. It's going to give them something positive. It's going to tire them out a little bit. So I think by and large, if someone is, if someone is injured, don't do stuff that is painful or makes you injured. So when I say, for instance, my knees hurt, I've got like a, I've had like a long term injury in my left knee for the last couple of years and I can't bend it past. which you cannot bend it past 90 degrees about excruciating pain. So I just don't bend it past 90 degrees,

but I still do leg extension, squat, split squats, I just manage it. And the smartest thing for me to do alongside that would also be to go and get a scam and get some professional help. So I completely acknowledge that. I'm being a bit of a meathead about it. But I think it's less about,

you know, grinding and hustling and being mentally tough because I don't buy into that whatsoever. It's not that at all. think it's more a message of, adjust your, hopefully it's a message of adjust your expectations, be flexible and find a way

to do what is appropriate at the time. And I think, you know, you sort of bring up those two camps, those people that should rest more, they're getting something wrong. They need to adjust their approach potentially. And then you've got the people that are resting too much, they need to do a bit more,

and they need to adjust their approach. And I think, again, there's sort of a nice middle ground. So exercise for me is far from optimized. I'm tired a lot of the time. I've got a new bug or new cold every single week. Some brings back from nursery. I had a particular fitness-based goal that I wanted to achieve this year. And I have managed to get on the rowing machine like six times in six months and do a good training session because I'm just run down.

I can't breathe through my nose half the time. Like, I'm just not ready to do it. I still train, but I adjust my expectations because there are things that go on in my life that are outside of my control. Like sleep is outside. Like, I'm not staying up until three of the morning playing video games. So if I have a bad night sleep, it's usually because something's going on at home, with my son, or I get up, I get up silly early a few mornings a week to do my PT sessions. If I've got an illness, like, I can't do anything about that. My son goes to nursery.

He brings back buds and colds. That's just the deal. But it's about still doing something adjusting. your expectations, being flexible with your training and go, cool, I can't do this right now. You know, my knee hurts. I can't do this exercise. But that's not a reason to stop exercising. I need to find a way around it. I'm really run down. I'm really tired. Okay, cool. Don't go to the gym and do like an hour of legs. But can you, if you've got some weights, have you got a band at home, can you do some bandit exercise? It's more about you finding a way to do something that's productive,

even if it isn't what's, again, if it's not what's optimized. It's not what you're not what you would want to do. You don't feel the way that you would like to feel right now. If you can do something about that, do sound about it. Like if you're tired, like I say, because you're playing video games until early hours in the morning, fix that. If you're tired because that's just the deal, then that stopping doing the other things because of that, I think is a bit short-sighted.

Like you don't get to opt out of going to work because you had a bad night's sleep. Yeah, yeah. You just show up because it's your job, whether you're employed or self-employed. you ain't got a choice you're tired you have an extra cup of coffee and you just do your best that day and you just hope that you're going to be a little less tired the next day and I think that if you can apply the same thing to your training to your exercise you know if you wake up and you're really tired but you've got your gym kit packed just turn up to the gym see how you get on if if you're not in the right frame of mind um you know if you're not got the bandwidth or the energy to do like a

really tough high intensity session but you've got deadlifts planned and squats and sprints on the bike. Like, if you cannot having the idea of doing that, just go and train your arms. Go in and walk on an inclined treadmill. Does that sort of make sense? Yeah, it makes perfect sense.

I think that's exactly the point. It's readjusting your expectations of what can be done, but it's not having the all-or-nutting approach of, you know, okay, I'm feeling a little bit tired today, so I'm just not going to do anything or, you know,

I'm just going to go in and destroy myself, even though I'm running on two hour asleep. Yeah, exactly. It's not that grind, hustle, hashtag, you know, I've got a hashtag want it mentality. Because again, I think that's silly. And I think it ends up making training like an aggressive, hostile thing that you do because you're a big butcher alpha male.

It's training, exercising regularly, having a bit of strength training. doing some cardio lowers all risk of all course mortality. Like we'd be silly not to do it. You don't have to go crazy every single session. You adjust what you need to do. But you just find a way. You adjust your expectations so that you don't get frustrated with yourself. You know,

if you walk in the gym and you deadlift a lot less because you had four hours sleep and you get really angry of yourself. Like I used to do that. I was like 20 years old at the time. I was a kid. I didn't have my brain wasn't fully developed. I now realize as an adult that to an extent that's outside of my control, what matters is I still showed up. I gave a good effort. I found a way to do something.

At the same time, if you're not sleeping great, if you're injured, if you've got things going on in your life that are sort of emptying your cup of the freight where the analogy is, then trying to find ways to change that. But at the same time, like I'm, like I say, I'm going to have colds most weeks at the moment. I don't go to the nursery. I can't not train because of that because I just wouldn't train for 18 months. Yeah, adjust your expectations, be flexible. and a way to do something slightly productive. Yeah. Do you have any advice for those who are trying to build muscle at the moment

and are, you know, a little bit frustrated in terms of how slow the process is or lacking the results right now and maybe even talk a little bit about your own experience with building muscle and actually an experience? I think it's fun. Take on. No, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, you about say something.

I interrupted. I was just saying. I think there's probably a lot of people in that camp right now who are listening, who are like, oh, geez, I've been to the gym for the last two months and I haven't noticed any difference yet and it can get frustrated and that's probably the thing that stops people from getting results because they get frustrated and then they quit.

Yeah, no, 100%. Funnily enough, I think I've scheduled a post to come out later this week where I literally talk for two or three minutes on it because I was doing the maths the other day. So I started training basically like two decades ago. My training has never been solely about, you know, building muscles. So I played rugby, played basketball, did a bit of Jiu-Jitsu. So it's always been alongside that.

But wanting to be big has always been a goal of mine. So I've always had bodybuilding style training alongside that. But it's never been perfect for optimised by any means. I think recently I slipped on the scales for the first time in a while. I lost a few pounds and I was basically 110 kilos. And I remember when I first started training, I was like 15. I want to wait 200 pounds. That was the thing.

I watched a lot of American football. So everything back then for me was in pounds, and now I have to convert it because I do kilos. So I was like 200 pounds is my goal. So I got to 200 pounds at an hour. I was like 16, 17, like trained silly, ate loads of food, did all the body boom and crap. Like I would take Tupperware to college. Not sometimes be late for lessons because I'd be like eating like salmon and rice. I get in trouble from mum and dad because I used to work on a meat and fish counter with wait shows first day more on the weekends.

And so at 5 a.m. I'd be down heating up tin salmon. so mum and dad would come down and like, that smells disgusting. It's actually my brother. They were quite understanding. Anyway, so I did the maths. I've put on 40, basically 40 pounds in 20 years. So two pounds. I basically put on like a kilo.

Yeah, like a kilo a year in 20 years. Now, if I had trained in a more optimized fashion, I could probably probably put a little bit more. if I was more or less genetically pre-dispossessed to put on muscle, I might have gained a little bit more or a little bit less. But a kilo a year is painfully slow. Like, it's not even 100 grams a month. So except on the scales, like, you drained four or five times that week. You're busting it at the gym.

You're eating loads of protein. And you're like, cool, it's 100 grams, being 100 grams. And spread over across your entire body, you're not going to notice it. So I think when I was talking about it, playing sport, the good coaches always talked about focusing on the process and not the outcome. The outcome is, did you win the game? Did you win the league in the process is what did you need to do that day? Did you, did you attend training? When you were playing, you know, so I play

like a lot of second about rugby. So the process wasn't, did you win that game? It was how many of your lineouts that you jump forward did you catch versus did you drop? How many of your tackles did you make versus did you miss? When you carried the ball, did you make ground or did you lose ground? Those things are, too, to say, all within your control. And if everyone on the team completes their process-based goals, usually you win the game. And so I think when it comes to muscle building, the only way to wrap your head around it is to just completely commit and bind to the process. Am I getting to the gym frequently enough? When I'm in the gym, am I training well?

You know, am I doing good exercise for a good range of movement? Am I training with good enough intensity? You know, am I getting close to failure? Am I eating enough protein? every day and we're eating enough calories. And then it's just, it's just, uh,

a, a waiting game to an extent. Um, so I don't have, I don't have any, any nice words for people, any like, there's nothing,

there's nothing that's going to, that's going to make some go, oh, that sounds fantastic. Like a kilo a year is a painfully slow rate of, of games, especially because, you know, fat loss in some ways,

I think maybe slightly controversial take, is a bit easier from a, a mentality point of view because I think you can lose you can lose you can lose weight fairly quickly which is great but I think that if you're going through a muscle building process it's like like you've got to be able to think in years and decades not weeks and months and there's no way around that other than just accepting it and just just committing going I'm just going to keep doing this for longer than most other people will do it for and so long as you're taking off those process goals as long as you can you know be honest with yourself and go okay well I'm doing it

my working sets. If I do three sets of exercise, am I genuinely taking that to a very challenging point? Or am I half-arsing some of them? Am I taking my foot off the gas? Because you can change that. You can fix that. You cannot change the fact that building muscle is going to take forever. But you can change the fact that you're not training as hard as you could be. Again, it's difficult to admit that to oneself because you have to go, right, so this is a knee problem. I need to find a way to train harder. It's uncomfortable. My muscles are burning. I don't have confidence. Like, that's that's that's the deal um but yeah like 20 20 20 kilos in two years um and i i've trained more consistently than most people um i can count on one hand the number of weeks that i haven't

like trained my triceps to failure in a decade um and that was when i was having that injuries like there's nothing admirable about it it's just time it's just time if you i think if people can do something for long enough, they'll get there in the end. But I think that the trick is almost forgetting the end point. Yeah, that's a good point. I think like, it's when you're, because I presume then they're focusing so much on the outcome that, okay, I'm determining all my success on this one focal point. But you just described even like five or six things throughout today that you can deem as a success.

like oh I hit my protein today there's success you know I got to the gym I was consistent that there's success or even used the rugby analogy where it's like instead of focusing on did I win the game which is the determines whether I'm successful or not it's like did I did I achieve this performance based goal

this performance based goal so like when you spread out the amount of wins throughout the day you can be successful in so many different domains that it probably keeps it a little bit more engaged and then just have I built muscle or have I not built muscle yeah exactly and it's kind of reverse engineering it and breaking it down into bite-sized pieces that are within your control and i mean i don't know if i don't know if it's the same but i see like some of the content that you you talk about with sort of loneliness and mental mental health

and stuff like and i imagine to an extent it's not too dissimilar it's do what you know being in a position where you reflect on how you feel in saying i feel lonely do i feel lonely right now yes or no i want want to feel less of this. Like, that's hard to control, and it's not something that changes like that. But if you can reverse engineering go, okay, how many genuine times throughout the day am I trying to connect with people that I like? Okay, I'm not. I'm being, you know, if you're very passive about that, if you're waiting for other

people to make that connection, if you're not putting yourself out there, that's not going to have a massive impact. But that's something that you can control, you know, like you can pick up your phone and you can WhatsApp someone. say, hey, how you doing? Be great to have a chat later or just, you know, there are things I think that you can, you can put in place, you know,

in terms of almost anything. But I think the key is, if it's a big grand goal, it's going to take a while, and a lot of it is outside of your control anyway, breaking it down to things that are within your control, allows you to also keep yourself accountable. Yeah.

You know, I'm not building a muscle. Okay, cool. Take a video of you doing a set of hack squats and send it to me. Okay, great. You probably could, you know, you're going halfway down. So we need to improve that because that will probably have a good, a good impact upon that sets stimulus for muscle building.

It looked like you had about four extra in time, so you need to do two more next time. Like, you can fix those two things. It doesn't mean that you're going to, quons are going to be bigger next week. But you know that your processes are slightly better. And so you'll get to the outcome hopefully sooner. Is that fair? Is that sort of stuff you talk about, because I see you talk about like, Yeah, I thought that was the perfect example.

And I would even, yeah, I would, you know, just repeat what you said there. It's like, okay, I can't control the feeling of whether I feel lonely or not. But I can control, you know, the process goal in the day that, okay, did I, you know, say hello to the priest and, you know, have more than two or three words. Did I reach out to a friend and try and organize, you know, an hour where we meet up? Did I actually show up to that? Like all these little things that you are in control of, you're not in control of your feelings. like just like you're not in control of do I feel like I've built more muscle or not but you're in control of all them process goals throughout the day that can be the

wins that you know make you feel like you're moving in the right direction yeah and I think just again adjusting those expectations because you'll see jack people on social media some of them are genetic freaks some of them are taking substances and so that's going to skew people's perception of reality as well so again like I even said this the other day I'm quite glad when I first got into training didn't have access to social media. You know, I came very close on a few different occasions to taking performance-thuncing drugs. Came very close.

Never did. But I'm pretty sure if I was, if I was me now, whatever the phrases, I probably would have. Because you just see these crazy physiques. You see people making change so quickly. You see this freaky stuff. And so it changes your expectations of what a normal human body looks like, what a normal human body is capable of, how it develops. And again, you talk about that frustration. That's going to frustrate.

when you've been training for six months and you kind of feel like you look the same. And I had those feelings when I was, you know, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. And I'd come back from the gym, we've got a nice arm pump. And I'd be, oh, my mom's, I'll wake up the next morning. I'd be like, well, what's happened? I'd get frustrated. But back then, you didn't have social media to compare yourself with other people. It was just the three other guys at the gym.

And if you bought muscle and fitness, it was like Phil Heath, who you never worried about anyway. So again, I sort of empathise with people. and it's tricky and it's tough. I also think that's one of the good things about training in some way is that once you've got some of these accomplishments under your belt, you realize it is mostly just a case of time and effort. One of the things that sort of really, I'd say really helped me like to switch in my mind was

we did several years ago, we did some rowing marathons over the course of the week for like a charity event. And a couple of weeks before, we said, the former us who did it said, We're all going to, it was middle lockdown, we're all going to go and do a rowing marathon. So that on the actual week where we're doing seven back to back over percent days, we know what it's like. We've already done it.

And it was the most mind-numbing thing I've ever done. Like in terms of from a physical thing, it was tough. Like I was out of breath. My ass was on fire. Like it's really painful sitting on a rowing seat for three hours, believe what? Who would have thought that? But the toughest thing was like sort of up here. Because then by the time I got to the end, I was like, okay, cool, I've done that.

So I know, and if I sit on this thing for three hours and I just do the next rep and the next rep. I'll get there in the end. Like it's no longer a big deal because you've, you've got confidence, you've got confidence and you know what the, the end result kind of looks like. I know that if I want to do a marathon, every day I'm just going to sit on this machine

and I'm just going to keep going. And after three hours-ish, I'll get there. And three hours is no length of time at all, really. Like I sleep for two or, you know, twice that length anyway. So I think once you've got some strength or you've got a little bit of muscle that you notice, or you've achieved a fitness-based goal, it gives you that confidence to go, cool, it's just time and effort.

All I have to do is keep showing up and doing these things. And eventually, eventually I'll get there. But it's difficult. Speaking of like physique inflation and trying to navigate through social media, do you have any advice for, let's say there's 17, 18, 19 year old teenagers listening to this episode who want to build a physique and, you know, might be a little bit, deflated in terms of, you know, all the, all the types of physiques that they see on TikTok and Instagram and trying to kind of navigate that.

I think if I was 17 or 18 years, well, back when I was, back when I was 17 or 18 years old, I wouldn't listen to some 30-year-old, like a kind of podcast. So I don't, I think it's full on. They're very, they're very wise 17, 18-year-olds on this. I'm open to taking advice and insight. I think what I would say is that I consider myself very fortunate in that I was never 100% fuss about my physique. So for me, first and foremost, I like I like having big arms that fill out sleeves. But the second I can't dunk a basketball or go out and run comfortably or do two or three other things,

I know that it's gone too far. And it's been too far before where I've not done my fitness stuff. I've put on loads of size. I've got on super strong. and then I had to sit down to go for pee after I walked upstairs because I was out of breath. So I think I was always quite fortunate in that for me, strength training was always grounded in rehab, yeah, functionality, sports and rehabbing knee I had. And then on top of that, I had like the aesthetic stuff.

It's never meant as much to me as it does other people. And I think that that is potentially a slippery slope, but I don't know what anyone in that position can do about it because if you're 17, 18 years old, early 20s and that's what you really want, like no one's going to convince you otherwise. I think some people just get lucky and I think some people get unlucky. I think some people find that they end up, you know, like you say, find themselves in a position where they start taking performance counseling drugs. They start putting too much stock in terms of too much emphasis on how they look and maybe in the long run that doesn't do well in terms of developing poor relationships with your body image, with

food and stuff like that. But I don't necessarily have, I kind of think I was just kind of lucky in that for me, it was never always about that. It's always been a part of it, but it's always been grounded in other things. What can, what does my body allow me to do? And I, I'm always reminded that I've taken far more joy from the things I've been able to do because of my training. Yeah. Then the way my body is presented to the public in a mirror on, on photos. but I don't have any advice. If people love physique development, they'll listen to me anyway,

they can do what they're going to do, and just fingers crossed that they love it and it all ends up okay. I think for the majority of people, it probably will be. You know, I think we get this idea that, I think some people get this idea that bodybuilding or, you know,

physique development is inherently harmful. And I think in outliers and some people it is, I think for the majority of people, will do more good than harm. How's that for sitting on the fence? Yeah. Yeah, very well. I think you're right to because I completely agree with you as well.

Like I'm just thinking about even like 20 year olds that I would talk to in the gym. And, you know, I remember having a conversation with one of them. And he was saying, all I do was go to the gym. I don't really do anything else. And, you know, I sat there and had the conversation. Well, you're only 20. Like, you don't, you don't have any other responsibilities right now. So enjoy your training.

enjoy being obsessive about something. You know, as you get older, there might be other interests and things that you start to dive into. And then your physique and your training might not become as important and that might not be a bad thing. But for now, it's like while you have the time

and energy to put your pursuit into something like this, why not do it? I don't think there's anything. Obviously, you know, it's a spectrum and it can fall too far, like you said, down the other side. But I don't think it's inherently harmful for a lot of teenagers to do.

to be in the gym, you know, being obsessive over that rather than maybe, you know, out on the streets, drinking or whatever. No, 100%. I mean, I was that, I was that kid, like training to me and exercise to me in sport was absolutely everything. At the expense of socialising, at the expense of, like, education, stuff like that. And I have, I've had like one or two, not like close families, but like a couple people will say, oh, sounds like you're a bit obsessed. And I was like, well, yeah, but that's true. That's true. Yeah, fair enough. But there are probably worse things to be obsessed about.

And I knew people, friends and all that who were engaged in things that were far more harmful. And like you say, you get to that point where you go, maybe this doesn't, maybe this isn't everything to me now. It's always going to be something I do. I think that that's a good thing, you know, just for general health and well-being, even if you don't have any big aspirations. I think it's something we should all endeavour to do. Like I had to guilt trip my mum and dad into doing some strength training.

um they started like a few years ago because i think it's something everyone should be trying to do some of but yeah i i think when the when the time is right hopefully those people they those when those 17 to 18 years are 25 or 30 they'll go oh hang on a minute i'm neglecting this part of my life now maybe i need to do a little bit less of the training and and i've got a little bit more time at more bandwidth to dedicate to improve my relationships um you know further education having hobbies that aren't just the gym I think that's probably something that hopefully most people just naturally kind of develops and happens. Yeah, I think it does for most people. In terms of there's probably, well, I know there's a lot of kind of personal trainers and fitness professionals

who also listen to this podcast. Just in terms of the kind of like career advice, like for any personal trainers who are maybe just at the start of their career and, you know, just want a little bit of wisdom in terms of, you know, making sure that they have a long and prosperous career. Do you have any advice that you would give to anyone who might be starting out in this industry? I think so I started unofficially coaching people when I was about 15 or 16. I was the kid that would find odds and ends out the back of the rugby club and take my mates through like strongman circuits and stuff.

So I have been training for two decades and coaching almost as long. And the only reason that that is the case is because there is nothing else that I've ever wanted to do or ever could do or would do. I am completely unemployable as a mutual friend of ours who is a kind of mine will attest to I am a maniacal shitbag so I don't I don't have any career advice

I've stuck around because there's nothing else I'm going to do and I love it but I wouldn't I wouldn't give career advice because I've also made lots of bad decisions which in hindsight I can put my hand up to say I've made all of the worst decisions I think it's fairly reasonable to suggest to new personal trainers that they probably want to work in a big commercial gym with tens of thousands of people that they can get.

I didn't do that. I made all the worst business decisions. I scraped through, you know, business is complete chaos for me because I'm terrible of admin stuff and I hate structure. I just make it work. I've maybe had a few lucky breaks. Can I ask another question then? Yeah, go for it. Like, I'm not going to give any advice because it's going to be chaos.

I won't ask you to give advice. What lesson would you have liked to have learned earlier in your career? Lesson I'd like to learn earlier in my career. I shouldn't be a list off about a dozen or so. I think having a more open mind to the aspects outside of just. coaching is hugely important. So I just, I love, I love coaching. Like, I love being in the gym and train my clients and I love working with my clients online. But I also appreciate, I was quite a late adopter with social media and always hesitant, didn't have like any, like any, any sort of like

onboarding process in place for a long time. So I think all of that stuff matters, accepting that if you want to, if you want to be around for a while, I suppose, recognizing that marketing is part of your job, sales is part of your job, just as much as, unfortunately, just as much as the coaching side, I think getting your head around that

as soon as possible is probably good thing, but I think that most younger coaches are probably already good at that because they've grown up with social media. Yeah, yeah. So I was like, the last person to have a mobile phone, the last person to have Instagram.

I was like, I don't need it, I don't need it. I just want to coach people. And the unfortunate reality is, unless you want to be employed, it's not really, how it works and flipping that switch to, I get to create content, I get to share my message, I get to talk to people that align with the way I see things and want to do what I like, what I want to coach. I think getting your head around that is probably a good thing. That's

something that I probably, probably, I definitely could have done with learning a lot, lot sooner. So I guess that would probably be the main one. But I imagine like I said, a lot of young coaches are already doing that stuff because they've grown up with that social media. so I guess that would be that would be one did you have any strong influences in terms of coaches that you followed books that you read that kind of helped with your coaching philosophy or anything like that do you know who Jodafranco is

I've heard the name yet but I'm not so Jodofranco was a is a strength conditioning coach he was he was doing blogs before there before blogs or blogs And he was doing like Q&As and YouTube before it was a thing. So he would upload these like videos from a Nokia 3310. And on his website, he would have asked Joe.

And every day he would log on and answer five questions. And, you know, he was kind of, I think at the time, he was the first person who wasn't working in a big commercial gym that seemed to have some success. They didn't work with like a sports team. So before they were CrossFit boxes, Joe DeFranco had his like semi-private group train session. We're talking like 20 years ago.

So when I followed him online, bought his stuff, when it was my gap year, whilst everyone else was going to Asia and Africa, I went out to New Jersey for eight weeks, stayed in the hotel and were basically cycle seven miles to his gym. And then I do my semi-private session with him, I'm like a small group of other athletes. And then I just hang around and be a nuisance all day. And he'd have like NFL players coming in and stuff like that.

So I think for me, that was my biggest. influence and then going there, he had this sort of semi-private personal training model where there'd be small groups of people who are all similar coming in and sort of too similar from what I do now of my in-person stuff. So I think that was that was the person for me. And like I say, he worked with mostly athletes of some sort like American football players, basketball players, washed up meatheads and stuff like that. Other than that, at the time, you know, there was like Teenation stuff. So like Elite FTS, Dave worked there, Jim Wendler, Dave mostly

guys that just train big strong athletes really but they're not again they're sort of because they were before social media they've got a small presence on social media now but with you know when

you know influences these days content creators these days have like hundreds of thousands of millions of followers so I'm sure hardly anyone even recognises the name and if they do their backs probably hurt their knees ache and they were probably born in the 80s

But that's such a big thing to do as well, probably even back then, is to fly, you're basically flying halfway across the world to go and, you know, discover this, this gym where you never would have been and, and trying to learn from someone. It's like, it kind of shows that like, like, if you want to have a career on something because you're, you're passionate about it, like, them decisions aren't even decisions see it, they're just like, they make sense. Yeah, it's just what we to do. everyone else when they went on their gap here wanted to go traveling and see the world.

I've got no interest in that. I wanted to go out there. I wanted to do, I wanted to do the training that I would see on these blogs and that I see all these like crummy old YouTube videos where there's like three pixels and you can just about make out, you know, there's a human being in that video somewhere. I wanted to go out there.

I want to experience it. And I knew that that's what I liked coaching. That was the way I liked training and just wanted to get insight and just chew his ear off and pick people's brains and just immerse myself. into it. And I think that's also, you know, like if you're a, if you're a young coach and this is what you want to do and you genuinely like doing it, not you like training and so you feel like you'd be a good personal training, but if you genuinely enjoy coaching people, I think so long as you've always got that, you'll just, you'll just find a way and, you know,

you'll get some lucky breaks because you'll just be in the right place at the right time. I think that, you know, that's not, there's nothing that's not advice, you know, be lucky, but I think you will just find yourself in the right place, the right time, often enough to just keep going. When it was, when it was lockdown, I was doing, there's like a hill not too far from me on a road. And I was doing some hill sprints. At the time, obviously, Boris Johnson had closed all gyms.

Clients had dropped through the floor, really, really struggling. and an old friend who I used to play rugby with live further down that road. And I was doing some hill sprints. I was walking down this hill. And this blacked out land road that pulled up next to me. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm running on the wrong hill. I'm going to get in trouble here.

And I tell him how they're doing it. And it's this individual. He's like, we do it. I live down the road. And he's just got some space outdoors, so some outdoor jimming. He's looking for personal head. And if I hadn't been doing hill sprints at the time,

because I really loved doing hill sprints, I don't know what would have happened during lockdown because all of a sudden I started working with him four days a week and then you kind of make it ends me and things are going to be okay and if I wasn't running up that hill at that time training that way and if I hadn't coached him three years before

and both of us really enjoyed exercise in some way I don't think none of that would have happened and I'm not sure where I'd be right now so I think sometimes if you really love doing it and you and that comes across to other people that you engage with. I think sometimes, at least I have, I just, I've just been lucky on a few occasions

and that's just kept things going. And you just, you just, hopefully that happens and you keep that momentum. And then you take the other stuff seriously. You do your social media, you do your admin, you make smart decisions. And I think that's, that's all you can really do. And that's all I can offer because that's all of that.

I don't have any genuine advice. No, I love that. No, I love that. I think that's very, very correct in your assessment and I also loved that um you know it's it's it's not about being into fitness it's about being into coaching or it's about being into helping people I think that's a that's a really good point as well and in terms that what like in your opinion and this this is the last question I have for you

and then I'll leave you no no I've been rabbiting around me apologies no I've loved that um what what do you in your opinion what do you think coaching is and and what do you think coaching is not from from what you see and and the way that you run your business? Good question. I think, again, a bit like the first point we made, I think it depends upon what the individual in front of you wants. I think coaching, I think coaching can almost be anything.

That's a very vague response. I think some people need and want lots of coaching. and so if you can deliver that, that's great. I think coaching can sometimes just be writing some numbers on a whiteboard if that's all people need. I think so long as you've got that person's best interests at heart and you're doing good enough by them and you're a positive influence,

I think that probably maybe sums it up as vague and as broad as that is. Because I think I've seen a message on social media saying, you know, like, oh, a calorie number isn't coaching. And I understand the message and I think sometimes that I would agree with that, but if you've got some like super motivated, hyper responsive athlete and they just want to know,

this is how many reps? How many reps should I do on the squats? And you're like, do 10 reps. And they go and do 10 reps and that's all they need. It's not much coaching, but it's coaching. And I think so long as you're a positive influence, when I think about the coaches I've had, I think that, you know,

I think that just shouting at people, if someone responds to being shouted at, if you're that dinosaur coach that you're like a bit of a drill sergeant and someone responds to that, that's coaching. I think if someone hates that and you put them off that sport

or that activity, I think that's not coaching. The action is the same, but I think the person in front of you determines whether that's coaching. That's such a good point because I would have been in the camp of, you know,

instructing, not coaching, and vice versa. And, you know, I only recently actually changed. in my mind on that and when you said that it made perfect sense because you know I would have in the past worked with people who you know you know you needed to kind of like really kind of dive into their behavior change and relationship with food and it was less about just giving them you know a meal plan or a training plan and

getting to do what they need to do but then I had recently had you know someone come to me and you know he was very much responded to just tell me what to do and I'm gonna do it that's how I work best and I don't need anything in depth in terms of conversations or anything like that. And then that worked well for him and he got the outcome and he was happy. And, you know, then I, then that kind of made me rethink my whole process that are. Sometimes that's actually is the right approach. Yeah. It's giving, it's giving people what they need to help them get to the outcome they're trying to get to, I suppose, generally speaking. And you're right. Sometimes I will spend 20, 30 minutes across the week

having a back and forth with one one client outside of like their full. check and install that because that's that's what they need and we can be talking about all sorts of things yeah and sometimes they just sometimes i'm like hey you smash this week is everything good yeah it's good you got your program yeah i got my program you got any questions no yeah cool thumbs up and i think sometimes i think sometimes as coaches you want to do more because you feel like you've got to you know there's something to be you know it's almost like a badge of honor i spend all this time with everyone of my clients just like yeah but if your client doesn't doesn't need that that week and they ignore it or they resent the fact they're like, oh, fucking everyone's barking on, everyone's

rabbiting on again this week I don't need that. Like that's, that's, that's not, I guess I would argue that's, that's not coaching. So I'm happy to acknowledge that it's basically anything. So as long as you're giving the person roughly what they need and you're having a positive impact and you're, you're delivering what that person needs rather than what you want to give them or rather than in the manner that you want to. I think that's it really. Yeah, I found out myself. Sorry. Sorry, I found out myself. It was like trying to over deliver, but that was just an insecurity.

Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah. And if you're worried about like, oh, am I doing enough? And that's a good thing. I think, to be fair, that it's better to be that way than the other way. Yeah. It's better to have that approach and be doing too much and then work your way back from that than to be lazy or uninterested.

So again, I think we can always make those improvements. but I think that it's it's much more admirable to be the person who, whether it's because of insecurity or not, you're doing too much. You're doing too much. You're burning yourself out because you want to do the best by that person and you're not sure if you are. I think that's admirable.

Like it's not the best long-term strategy. You don't need to, but it's a good thing. Whereas if you're like, I said, I'm going to say calories. Oh, he's having a bad week. I'll just tell him he needs to do better or something like that. I think that's not as good. that probably needs work as well. But yeah, yeah.

Like I say, I think the most, most important thing is that by and large, someone's having, you as a coach are having a positive impact upon that person. Because I think the worst thing that can happen is, like some people are bad coaches and some people are bad. Sometimes you're just, you're just a wrong fit, you know. And that happens. And sometimes that's not the right time for that person to be coached

despite their best intentions. But I think the worst thing that can have, happen. The only thing, the only grab I have is coaches who actively put people off in the long run. So if that's, they put them off exercise or they put them off a sport. They put them off a way of training. And that person ends up having that sort of bad association, bad relationship with it. You know, like if you're over delivering, if you're pestering someone and that person doesn't want to hear from you, they're like, oh, he's a nightmare. But I admire the passion about how much cares about high rocks for instance.

Because if you work with someone and they actively put you off of exercise, like you've not just done a bad job, you've done the opposite of what you should be doing, that's an issue that someone else is going to have to pick up on and fix. Outside of that, I'm not too fast. You know, it can all be coaching as well as I'm concerned. Just don't go people off. Aaron, I've absolutely loved this conversation. No, I have.

I think conversation is doing a heavy lifting that. I think it's mostly been a monologue. I don't, I think you don't give yourself enough. credit, I think there's, there's loads of insights for people to listen to. If people wanted to follow up with the work you do, if they wanted to reach out and ask any questions, where can they go to find you? Just on Instagram. I think it's Aaron Davies coaching, AARO, because everyone always gets that wrong because it's not spelled how it sounds. I think that's about it, really. I don't think I want anything else. I've lost my Facebook password about six months ago,

I've not been on since. I download the first every three months and then get off of it and and I'm not on TikTok. So I think it's Instagram, really. Well, if it's totally place, they can find, I think I'd highly recommend because I think you put out some great content and I really appreciate your time today. I'll leave everything in the show notes

for people to go and find you and reach out and pester you, okay? Thank you for having me on. Thank you for the invite and for listening to be Bramble on about training. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, my man.