Weights and Plates Podcast - #26 - How to Get the Most Out of Online Coaching

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

Online coaching is a very popular choice these days, for good reason -- the internet allows people who otherwise would not have access to a qualified coach to get regular feedback on their technique, custom programming, and a sounding board for discussing their health and fitness.   That said, there are a number of limitations to online coaching that you need to be aware of if you're going to do it. Robert and Trent break down what you need to know to find a competent online coach and how to get the most out of your time and money.   Weights & Plates: https://weightsandplates.com Robert Santana on Instagram: @the_robert_santana   Trent Jones: @marmalade_cream https://www.marmaladecream.com Email: [e-mail]

Welcome to the Weights and Plates podcast. I am Robert Santana. I am your host along with Trent Jones, my co-host. Yo, what's going on? Hope everybody enjoyed our last episode with our first guest. That was a lot of fun and still get people talking about it. So I'm glad that those who listened and enjoyed it. We got more of that where it came from, where that came from. Yeah, we're definitely going to have Drea on again for sure. And I had, yeah, I had like three or four people reach out to me and just say like, hey, it was a great episode.

And I sent it around to all of my clients that I have. And basically, you know, I'm trying to red pill them about restaurants. It's like, just, just stop doing it. We didn't even talk about like why the oil is, you know, you know, cooking oil is basically like industrial lubricant. Yeah, no, it came up. It's like axle grease. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, no. Um, just, you know, don't eat, just drink. Remember that? That was like the one thing that like everybody remembers. That's right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. so the lesson is the lesson that you should have learned from all that is just just

drink yeah just go get hammered instead of just become less of a compulsive eater and more of an alcoholic yeah yeah that's it yeah just fine no totally not advising that and uh you know not this this is not medical advice yeah this is not medical there you go this is not medical advice and if you're offended because somebody's an alcoholic that you know um i'm not sorry that i still made that joke and i'll make it again um well let's talk about something that uh well that well i was going to say that we do know i mean you know let's talk about something that that i know a little bit about at least um we were we were chatting offline and you know a little bit about, at least. We were chatting offline, and we were talking about some of the limitations of online coaching. Oh.

Yeah, I know. So there's a lot of good things about online coaching, and we're both online coaches, right? Yeah, we're trying to work ourselves out of a job here, just like last week. Yeah, I know. Andrea was trying to work herself out of a job here. Just like last week, Andrea was trying to work herself out of a job. Now we're doing it. Yeah, we're gonna, we might be shooting ourselves in the foot with this podcast. But yeah, we want to talk about online coaching and kind of some of the limitations because I, so I, I'm curious to get your experience,

your recent experience here, but I've, I've had a quite a few new clients join me online and it's great. I've worked with, I've got some young people, I've got some older folks and everything in between. And one thing that has really come to my attention working with these new clients that I have is that there are some real limitations of online coaching that are really difficult to work around, even when you know what they are. Right. And so I wanted to get into that and kind of talk about like, what, what is on, like who, who is online coaching for, and then why everyone should be getting some in-person coaching too. Like if you're really serious about this stuff, if you really want to become a good lifter and you really want to understand, you know, how to lift, how to train, how to program for yourself, you really need to get some in-person coaching too.

And that's kind of where I'm going to get at this episode. Yeah. Well, first, let's clarify some definitions here as we like to do before we go into a topic. We have online coaching. What we refer to that as is coaching the movements that the lifter is performing. Traditionally, online coaching referred to online programming. They just called it online coaching, but there was no coaching going on. It was you hired an online coach and you got a spreadsheet full of exercises, sets, and reps, and typically

for several weeks, you know, if they had an NSCA background, they might break it up into micro, meso, and macro cycles, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So you basically get a spreadsheet that tells you what to do and then you follow it. And the assumption of that spreadsheet is that you are performing the exercises exactly as the coach intended, which may or may not have been right or wrong, because as we know, there's a lot of bad coaches out there, far more than good. There's an overwhelming number of bad coaches. And in large part, it's no fault of their own. It's just the nature of a growing industry. Nobody knew what was right and wrong. Nothing had been tried and tested in a consistent way for a very long time.

Everybody just did what the, you know, bodybuilder in muscle and fitness looked like he was doing. Everybody assumed that because they looked at the picture and tried to replicate it that they were replicating it. Or, you know, the old time-honored tradition of the high school senior tells the high school freshman how to do it because the previous high school senior told him how to do it and the previous high school senior told him how to do it. So, you know, basically it's, you know, Rip calls it phenomenology. People have just been observing phenomena in the weight room and trying to copy it. Whether they're actually copying it or not, well, there's no way to know because typically nobody's watching the movement closely, comparing it to a model, a reference model that's been tried and tested and evaluating it as right or wrong. So that's why you have an epidemic of high squats in the weight room.

Yeah. Because most people squat high. If they put a bar on their back and try to squat, they're going to squat high because they won't get their knees out unless they're told to do so. And most people cannot squat deep with their knees moving forward. That's, you know, the most common reason that depth is missed on a squat by an uncoached lifter. So to sum up my point, online coaching, in the sense that we're talking about it, refers to watching you lift weights online and correcting the way that you move. That includes online programming as well because, you know, people typically hire us to progress them, right? You can't progress a lift that is incorrect. You know, if I write the word squat, I expect you to squat.

You know, if I write the word squat, I expect you to squat the way that is outlined in starting strength basic barbell training. You might have to use a different bar. You might not be able to low bar, but generally the hip and knee movements should be the same. You know, the setting of the back should be the same. You know, the general overall element should be the same no matter what kind of bar you're using to do it. You know, some old timers can't low bar squat. There's lots of reasons that you might high bar, use a safety bar, a Mars bar, etc. But when I write the word squat, that's the squat I want to see. When I write the word press, that's the press I want to see. When I write the word bench press or the words bench press, that's what I want to see, etc. And why that book? Well, because it's been tried and tested over and over

again and produces a pretty reliable result. I've been training that way for 10 years. And the only time I got hurt was when I looked at the program on a lifting board and said, oh, squat. Okay. I'm going to squat. And I did that and added weight to the bar for three months and then tore my adductor. Then I posted a video up on the starting strength board and was shocked that Rip answered because I'm like, oh my God, he's like a celebrity. He's on all these fucking YouTube videos, you know, and told me that I was, you know, fucking it up. So I don't know how, but I figured out that there were, in fact, coaches that were certified on this method. And I went to one and I was amazed that my squat now looked like, in fact, coaches that were certified on this method. And I went to one, and I was amazed that my squat now looked like, you know, the other coaches and Rip himself. And

I'm like, oh, well, this looks right now and actually feels better. Then I ran it up, uncoached, and then it got heavy, and I didn't have the experience handling it heavy. So I fell into bad habits, tore the other adductor. Right. You know, it took me another year to heal that. Eventually it healed. Then I got, you know, hired a couple online coaches that didn't spend a whole lot of time with technique, just online programmers, essentially, and not software programmers, online training programmers. Right. And then I found a guy that I used to work with that was a pretty good online coach and got my technique cleaned up real quick. Wasn't the greatest online programmer, but he was a good online coach. That happens too. And I got my technique cleaned up and I haven't been hurt in 10 years like that. I've had aches and pains. I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, I've never had a pain lifting heavy weights. Oh, yeah. We're all going to have something.

Everyone gets tweaks. That's a whole other episode. Yeah. There's a difference between a tweak and an injury. That'd be a good one to bring Darren in for. Yes, absolutely. Tweaks are definitely a part of the game for sure. Engage in physical activity on a repetitive basis, and it is hard, even moderately hard, something is going to

hurt at some point or another. Ask a truck driver who has to deliver things. You know, I was about to say, even if you don't, here's the thing, get old enough, right? If you're 23 and you're listening to this, you may not believe me, but you know, just get old enough. It doesn't need to be that much, you know, just wait old enough. It doesn't need to be that much. You know, just wait five, ten more years. And guess what? Even if you do nothing, shit's going to hurt. You're going to tweak something walking up your stairs.

Sorry, but it's going to happen. And if you get old enough, you're going to die, too. Yeah, right? Yeah, I mean, that's the best predictor of mortality is age. The brute facticity of the truth? Yeah. I mean, it's the best predictor of mortality is age. The brute, the brute facticity of the truth. Yeah. So I like, I like the way that you, you kind of, you laid out a bunch of points there about coaching, right? And I think that the biggest one that I see is that coaching is the way we see it. It's, it's kind of, it's a system. is that coaching is the way we see it.

It's kind of, it's a system. So coaching involves multiple things. And when you work with a coach, a coach, not a programmer, not somebody who sells templates, not a personal trainer, right? There's a reason we call ourselves coaches and not personal trainers, right? Personal trainers are exercise coaches.

They're exercise coaches, right? So what we mean by coaching is we have a system for approaching helping somebody to, A, move correctly, right? That's a big task right there. Doing these things, the lifts correctly, whether it's squat, press, bench, deadlift, or some other lift, right? Even if you're doing like an accessory like an rdl or you know heck like even a power clean or something right so these movements are complex they are not most people do not find them no super easy to do so that's a big task right there and then we also have a method for helping the person progress from their starting point to where they want to go.

And that progression is along a number of factors that go into that too, right? So there's a progression of the weight on the bar, right? We want you to actually get stronger. We may have, depending on the lifter's goals, we may have some other athletic attributes we want to train. We want them to have better conditioning. We want to have better balance, better mobility, blah, blah, blah. We all know that stuff is downstream of strength, but that's something we're looking at as well. And then finally, we also want them to progress with their body composition too. And all these things are tied in together. It's a whole system. But that's the thing. When you work with a coach,

if they're good, one thing they're going to do for you, whether you realize it or not, is they're going to be running you through a whole system which is designed to sort of address all of these things, right? Are you moving correctly? Are you doing the movements reasonably well and in a repeatable fashion? Is your programming good enough to produce regular adaptation so that you're actually getting stronger or you're actually gaining adaptation on whatever other goal you have? And then also managing your, your body composition and then just like general health too, right? If you feel like shit, cause you're beat up all the time, that's no good either,

but it's a system. It's a system. And this is where I have noticed that online coaching, I think, presents some unique challenges that are just stuff that you don't even think about, I think, when you're running a gym in person. So yeah, no, when you're working with an online coach, you have to really consider several things. Number one, when we are coaching in real time, that means you're getting feedback in real time. And some online coaches will sit there and Skype with you, and that gets more impractical to set up. And then you've got delays when you're trying to cue somebody

and they have a headphone on. I've noticed that there's lag in time. I don't like Skyping. So the way that most online coaching works, that's current form, is you get the videos after the fact. So we're not going to address Skype coaching because neither, you don't do it, right, Trent?

I've done it before. I'll do it with a very select few people, but that's not a normal thing for me. No, no. Yeah, no, we generally don't do it. We both have experience doing it, but we generally don't do it we both have experience doing it but we generally don't do it so when we refer to online coaching we're talking about people post of a video we break it down after and then they use the feedback to carry

them into the next workout um and there's a couple of problems number one you have to consider camera angle so we want your feet in a certain place we want your hands on a certain place in the bar so we're going to need a front angle to see that, let's say on the squat, right? Or even the press. Now, however, now I can't see how deep you're going, you know, but I can see if your knees are out enough. I can see if your grip is correct on the bar. I can see if your feet are in the correct place, if your toes are turned out correctly, but can't look at depth. I need a side view for that, right? Can't look at bar path. I also need a side view for that. On the deadlift, typically we want most of these lifts we want to see directly from the side, but then to assess the finer details like the hand placement, the foot placement of the toe angle,

you need a front view to look at that. And then, you know, that requires a lifter to either have two cameras or film multiple videos and then post multiple videos. So there's like a logistical issue there. When we're coaching in person also, and this is the most important thing, there are three ways that we cue people. Verbal cues, you know, we speak to them or shout at them. They're usually short and concise, you know, because the lifter needs to react to them quickly. You don't want them thinking through your words,

so you don't want long sentences and paragraphs. You can do that in between sets, but not during a set. Right. You know, I say knees out, that's two words, you know. Then there's visual cues. We don't really use those as much because typically not very many people can watch you do something and replicate it. This is why bodybuilding magazines fail to produce good-looking lifts in a lot of people. Yeah, right right because they look they do and they do wrong yeah so but some people benefit to watch somebody else do it you know at least for psychological purposes they see it they have an idea i'll yeah i'll do things sometimes

yeah i mean you know some sometimes it could be useful like i'll i'll actually intentionally get in a lifter's like field of vision and like you know point my thumbs out if i want them to shove their knees out and we've discussed that beforehand like that's what that means as just a little reminder without having to yell at them then then the last one the last one this is where you're losing the most online are tactile cues yes where you physically touch the lifter you know and uh i'd say verbal and tactile cues are, you know, our two prime weight, two primary cueing methods that we use to coach lifters. And you can get the verbal after the fact, you know, when you're doing it online, but you can never get the tactile. So

this was about to stay with the squat. I found a way to tactile cue these people that I coach online and they can't get into a correct squat. And I have them a way to tactile cue these people that I coach online and they can't get into a correct squat. And I have them squat to a box, number one. And number two, I use the terribly useful block of wood. So if they're doing both of those things at the same time, they have no choice but to get into a correct squat. It works like a charm. So achieving a correct squat, although not ideal, can be done online using that method. so achieving a correct squat you know although not ideal can be done online using that method achieving a correct deadlift that's a lot tougher because unlike the squat the press and the bench press you're starting with the bar on the floor completely still and you have to

perform a long and drawn out isometric contraction that requires you to pull all of the slack out of the bar your fingers your hand your wrist your elbow your shoulders your neck and do so while keeping your hips in an uncomfortable position for most people most people avoid bending at the hips because osha has been force feeding us this bullshit for a hundred years that lift with your legs. Well, aren't my hamstrings part of my fucking legs? My glutes are too. But what they really mean is squat down artificially to pick something up and bend your knees real deep so that your torso is not horizontal. Well, having a horizontal torso is not a problem. Rounding your back slash flexing your spine is a problem. So if you're bending at your hips and keeping your

spine rigid, what are you going to feel? You're going to feel your hamstring stretching, right? And teaching somebody that, especially in this day and age where a lot of people sit a lot, and we've had a hundred years of lift with legs, it's tough, you know, because you basically have to teach somebody over the internet to pull on an item that is not moving, right, to not actually move it, to basically strain against a stationary item that's heavy. And they have to do that before picking it up. When you do it in person, it's a lot easier because, you know, I'll sit there, I'll put my, I'll rest my forearm across their spine, I'll dig my elbow in, then I'll pull up on their trap to get them to set their back in extension. Right. And then I'll say,

you're not picking that up till I tell you to, and I'll watch the fingers, the wrist, the elbows, the neck. And once I see that they are so uncomfortably tight, they can't pull anymore, then I say, okay, pick it up now. I can't do that online yes so yeah people just have this tendency to want to just yank it off the ground and uh there's nothing fast about the first inch of a deadlift it's supposed to be slow it's supposed to feel like you're quote unquote wasting energy down there i've heard people complain about i don't want to waste energy down there no you're supposed to that's called setting your back and right performing an isometric contraction to stabilize there. No, you're supposed to. That's called setting your back and performing an isometric contraction to stabilize your spine. You're supposed to use up that energy or produce that force against a stationary object.

That's the first step. That's the hardest step. That's what makes deadlifts fucking hard. Yeah. So I find that teaching that over the internet is so fucking hard. There's no way. There's no tactile cue that I can come up with to speed speed that up it's bench people have benched before it's bench is a little bit easier and you can introduce tactile cues like i stole uh carl's idea from when

i first met him what nine years eight years ago i think uh partially deflated football under the low back teaches them to arch you know oh yeah yeah you ever done that no i haven't done that to me when i first wanted i've seen the tennis ball yeah but yeah it's like uh okay that's a good one i like that because it's broader yeah yeah so uh or i tell them to roll up a towel if they can't get a football you know so there's some tactile cueing there uh the press is a little bit tougher but the deadlift is where i see it to be the most challenging because of that isometric component that isn't present in the other lifts yeah so uh yeah that's the biggest problem is you are watching these videos you're giving them feedback and it's completely verbal and written and it's after the fact it's not in real time right and then they try to apply it to

the next workout and you see the same shit and Some people pick it up well and some people watch the videos and pick it up. Between the videos and the written comments, they pick it up. But sometimes you get guys that they're dropping their hips way low, picking the deadlift up with a round back, not extending their arms. I mean, it's a lot to think about. There's a lot going on and you're trying to prioritize cues. it's a lot to think about. There's a lot going on and you're trying to prioritize cues, but then they forget because they read it two days ago or they don't look at it right before. I mean, just a lot more that can go wrong because it's not in real time. There's a big, yeah, exactly. There's a big onus on the lifter in online coaching in this manner,

right? So the onus is on you if you are being online coached. The onus is on you to sit there and actually think about your cues that you've been given, right? And to visualize them and then apply them on the next set and then to keep going back to it, right? It's not enough, like you said, just to read the cues and be like, oh yeah, okay, I see what they're saying now. Maybe you don't yet. And that's okay. That's a conversation. Sometimes it takes a few different ways of describing something for it to get through. That's totally normal. But then you have to go that next workout 48 hours later, and then actually reread what you've done. Relook at what you've done. Watch that video, read the cues again, and then think about what it is that you're going to change. How are you

going to do those cues? And you have to actually practice them during your warmups. And you got to be honest with yourself. A lot of people, and I don't have a problem with this. I get it. There's a lot of people who go in the weight room and their brain is off. They don't want to think about anything because they've got a busy job. They've got families to juggle. They've got plenty of other shit in life going on.

So they go to the gym and they're like, I just want to do the workout. I want to see it on the page and then I just get in there, I warm up, I do it and then I go home. And I want to spend as little time and effort thinking about it as I can. I totally get it, right? That is a valid way to approach training. However, you can't expect to

fix things online if that's the way that you approach training. You have to become an active participant in this and you have to actually figure out how it is you're going to teach yourself to do these things using the feedback and cues that you've been given. And if you are this person and you're like, man, well, I just don't want to do that, is then you need to go and find an in-person coach, right? Nothing wrong with that whatsoever. Go find an in-person coach. Absolutely. And I've had to say that to people. I told a guy recently that's traveling to an area where there's a coach and i was like hey man hit this guy up and meet with them they'll speed things along you know yeah yeah um so that leads to the question who needs an online coach typically somebody who doesn't

have access to a coach that can teach these methods we're like i said this is a pretty young industry historically hiring a gym trainer you did that because you wanted to look a certain way and you wanted to feel a certain way while you were exercising. It was all about getting a good workout and looking good naked. Yeah. And, you know, historically, a lot of people just take drugs and exercise and do that. You know, I couldn't tell you the number. We don't have data on that, you know, so don't ask me for it. Other people will do it through diet.

You know, they'll exercise, restrict calories, and they'll look real good. And then other people will just exercise and restrict calories and look like shit, and they're usually the most disappointed. And that's because they just didn't have enough muscle to begin with. So you get a variety of results with that approach. But the whole point was that people weren't hiring a gym trainer to learn how to perform the squat correctly. You know, there were people that got into powerlifting and learned how other powerlifters did it.

And, you know, all things considered, you know, a lot of powerlifting squats over the decades aren't, don't look, aren't the worst thing in the world in order for them to move those kinds of weights you know a they have to go deep enough you know to pass right and b uh they have to be reasonably so when it gets heavy you know you're going to tighten things up but and you know there's a lot of shitty squats too depending on the fed because i already hear rip in my head are you you're gonna let those apf motherfuckers pass or whatever spf i don't know but uh you know there are some feds out there that allow high squats so you know i'm not i'm speaking in general typically a power lifting squat looks better than a globo gym squat squat

right right um a weightlifter squatting typically looks better than a guy at the commercial gym because they're competing and there's rules and you, you know, they're doing, you know, they're like a weightlifter has to squat very deep if they catch the clean very deep. So depth is important to a weightlifter. Depth is important to a powerlifter. So things like that aren't really the errors that, you know, Trent and I would pick up on if we're going to sit there and pull apart a powerlifter squat or a weightlifter squat. apart a powerlifter squat or a weightlifter squat. But if you go to a commercial gym, you're going to see everybody squatting high with their toes pointed forward, their knees buckling, and maybe going down a quarter, maybe an eighth of an inch. So it just goes back to why did somebody, why did people historically hire trainers? Because it was about looks and about

getting a good workout. It was not about moving in an effective way that builds the most muscle mass to the longest effective range of motion that allows you to lift the most weights and makes you a more functional human being. That is not why people would hire a gym trainer. So fast forward, things have changed. These lifts have become more popular. It's become more mainstream to do them, to look better, to build muscle, to get stronger. But still, you know, most people who go to a gym want to look better. So what I find is that when I get a commercial gym type client, if it takes them too long to learn form, they just get real frustrated with it. And they say, fuck this.

I'm not getting good work on it. I'm not getting results. So you can't load something that doesn't get stronger, but that's like a whole separate issue. But to answer my original question, who needs an online coach? Typically somebody who doesn't have access to a coach that teaches these methods, as I said before. And the reason I kind of went on that side rant, if you want to call it that, is because

we're always here promoting starting strength coaches. Why? Because I've gotten the credentials that like the mainstream in academia promote, CSCS, you know, they had the ACSM at one point. I never got any CPT credentials, but there's all these certifications for gym trainers and not a single one of them evaluates your coaching. Not a single one of them evaluates your coaching. Not a single one of them. They are written exams that are taken on a computer now. At one point, the ACSM had practical exams, but what they were evaluating you on was administering exercise tests that were typically performed in a lab at a university.

in a lab at a university. Then you go to the gyms and the gyms are like, hey man, sell the training package and you only got 45 minutes with a client each time because you got 15 for the warm-up and cool-down, you know? So you're not going to do a YMCA step test in a commercial gym. You're not going to conduct a VO2 max test at most commercial gyms. They have that technology now at the higher end ones and they have for a while, but you know, most of the trainers, not all the trainers conduct them. It's not something you do every day, you know, but, you know, the whole point is, yeah, those are practical. You had to do exercising blood pressures, which they don't do at commercial gyms. They're not going to do an exercising blood pressure while you're maxing out on a bike. They had to demonstrate they can run a max test. And it's just all this aerobic exercise testing that you don't do in the gym.

So they eventually did away with that. Now that's a written exam. To become a starting strength coach, you have to demonstrate that you could perform the squat, the press, the deadlift, and the bench press, and the power clean in the ways outlined in the book. And then you have to demonstrate that you can coach other humans. you can coach other humans and by that that means that you could identify and correct errors across a series of five to eight sets depending on the lift is that right trend because you just recently went to one is it still about i think it's eight on the squat and five on the others that's right yeah yeah so you know they don't you're not going to go in there make somebody completely perfect if they are what we would consider a physical idiot. A very hard case just has to become less shitty over

time because that is a reflection of your coaching, right? Somebody who's just mediocre bad better be damn good by the time you're done with them. So the whole point is they want to see that you could lift and they want to see that you can coach. And then there's an oral, oral still? want to see that you can coach and then there's an oral oral still well yeah it's well it used to be written but now an oral exam it was with a panel of other starting strength coaches that you know essentially test your knowledge of physiology anatomy programming all of the sort of the the secondary stuff that you've got to know to be able to handle a wide variety of clients lifting and you know and actually progressing them over time so yeah so there's an academic component to it that comes last you have to demonstrate the practical aspect

before you even show that you have any academic understanding of it. Right. Which I like, because the criticism that Rip and Steph have, Steph is his business partner, complaint that Rip and Steph have over other credentials is that it's all academic and there's no practical. With this, you have to demonstrate practical proficiency before they even waste their time putting you through any type of academic evaluation, which is good because you understand how to do it and you understand why you're doing it. So sorry, people. The Asgard company has a monopoly on this, and I'm not going to recommend

another coach with another credential for that reason because I haven't seen anybody demonstrate that they could do this. And I've did it wrong for many years. I've looked into, I got multiple certifications, looked into others. I see how other coaches are doing it. I've been in powerlifting circles. This is the safest, most effective way to do it. Yeah. Keyword being the safest, you know, I mean, Rip is an ex-powerlifter, but the methods are not designed for people that want to do powerlifting. They're designed for everyday people to perform these lifts in a safe and effective manner so that it transfers to daily function. But again, like I said, this is a pretty young industry, relatively speaking, and, you know, he was the first. So, you know, until something better comes along that shows and proves, you know,

we're the best at doing this. Simple as that. Yeah. And I agree. It's been born out of personal experience too. Like, of course, you know, of course we're going to say that we're the best out there. Right. But, you know, but the thing is like, you can, you can go, I mean, okay. So if you don't believe us, then go to the gyms that are in your town that, that, you know, that you have available to you and go watch, watch the personal trainers. Like, are they, you know, are, so first of all, do they have a clear instruction method of how to perform a new movement, right?

Do they actually teach anybody first or do they just kind of throw them on there? They're like, hey, just go squat. And then they'll try to like, maybe fix it after the fact, right? Did they ever teach somebody how to do it in the first place? And then are they actually like evaluating what's going on

and then prioritizing fixes and then getting in, you know, and adapting those to that person, right? And is the person actually responding over time? You can see it, right? Are the, are the personal trainers and the trainees that they're working with at the gym, are they getting bigger? Are they getting stronger? Does their movement look good? Is the coach regularly, you know, working with them with them? I don't know. I've been in a lot of big box gyms. I've never seen that. I've never once seen that. I've seen a whole bunch of guys with a lot of energy and girls with a lot of energy and clipboards and they sit there and half the time they're on their phone, but the good ones, they're engaged and talking to the client and stuff.

And, you know, they're checking off the list of exercises that they want to run their client through. And most of the time they have them doing machines because the machines kind of force you into doing the movement one way. On the occasion that they use barbells and free weights, then they're usually pretty poor, right? So if you don't believe this, just go look,

go see if you can find somewhere. Now, I will say this, because there are some people, there's a lot of people, unfortunately, that don't have access to a starting strength coach. That's where we were going with this. That's where we're going with that. I will say I have seen some good coaching in the CrossFit world, but here's a big caveat.

There are some CrossFit coaches that really do understand how to perform the lifts well. Here's the problem., right? There are some crossfit coaches that really do understand how to perform the lifts Well, here's the problem. It's like one percent I don't know what the real number is, right? But there but the your chances of going into a crossfit box in my opinion your chances of going into a crossfit box And finding a competent coach for the barbell lifts is almost zero but If you just get really lucky and you find the right guy who understands how to do these

lifts, then you might find a good coach there. So I don't want to write them off, but you know, it's just the, the, the chances are bad that if you don't know what, if you don't know what a good coach looks like to begin with, right, you're kind of coming from a place of ignorance. So, you know, getting a starting strength coach just ensures that you have somebody that's gone through this process that no one else is doing. So. Absolutely. Online coaching now.

Yeah, now on online coaching, some people, as Trent said, some people do not have access to a starting strength coach. And I can't in good faith tell them to go to the local powerlifting gym or CrossFit box or commercial gym because it's a crapshoot and you don't know what you're going to get. And it's likely not going to be good based on experience and observation, right? So that's when I'll say, all right, hire an online starting strength coach to break down your lifts. And typically we watch every lift from every workout, typically one set per lift, every workout of the week. If you're doing ancillary stuff like curls, I don't need to see that. I might watch it once to make sure you're locking your elbows out at the bottom or minor stuff like that. But typically, we watch all the barbell lifts for one set per lift each workout.

And that's typically how it's done. It's not ideal because you are losing out on the tactile and verbal real-time queuing it's not ideal but it's less shitty than doing it yourself or hiring you know globo gym coach you're gonna still get the same content and the same type of feedback that follows the rationale that underlies those methods. Right. And it's going to directionally move you towards that correct technique.

It just may take longer. It might happen over a longer timeline. So if you're one of these people that, you know, wants a good workout, then we're going to have to probably throw some other shit in there so you feel like you did something. But we're not going to add weight to your squat if it looks like shit, you know? Right. Yeah. I had a guy leg press till I can get a squat in order. You know, I've done that before. You know, it's, there are things that, you know, the online world has taught us, but so yeah, no, it's a, there's limitations, but it's better than not having a coach at all. Absolutely. Most people, I mean, you, all of us, we can't see ourselves moving in real time, so we can't coach ourselves.

And you can film yourself. That's better than not filming yourself. But then you don't know what you're looking for. You haven't looked at a bunch of bodies. You're a lifter. You're not a coach, you know? Right. I still tell lifters when they have persistent problems to film their warm-up so that they can catch these problems before it gets to the work set, like high squats, for instance. You know, that's something they can develop an eye for

reasonably quick, you know? Yes. Yeah. And if they keep getting to a work set and it's high, I say film your warmup starting with the empty bar and fix it before you get to that working weight. So yeah, there's things you can do. I mean, you can film yourself and not have a coach that's better than not filming yourself and not having a coach. But again, you're not a coach, so you don't have the eye to see these things when they're happening. So what you think is right may actually still not be what's best for you, right? Right, right. But then if you hire an online coach, that's the next thing down from in-person coaching. Exactly. So that's, that's, that's the obvious candidate. The second candidate is somebody who's limited on time,

can't make it, doesn't want to drive to the gym, deal with changing shoes, changing socks, and all the other shit that comes along with going to the gym, parking, changing, lifting, changing back, going back to the parking lot, driving home, sitting in traffic. If you have a home gym, then an online coach might be a better option. I have a girl at my gym now. She comes every other week. And she does half online and half in person. And she's doing quite well. Yeah, that's a great way to become quite the competitor. Yeah, I have a lot of folks that I've worked with that will, you know, come in,

they'll either come see me for a form check in person once every two, three months, especially in the first year of lifting. You go through a lot in your first year of training where at first you're just trying to learn the basics, trying to get the movement right. And then three months later, you're actually hitting some serious weight if you've been sticking with it. And so then things start to fall apart again when you're working by yourself and you're not getting regular feedback. And so they'll come in and do in-person. And this tends to pair really well if they're also doing online. So in that case, they come in, get some of those tactile cues and real-time feedback that we're talking about in-person. Then they'll go off on their own and then train at home, but they're checking in with me online. And so we can kind of, we have a reference point back to the original in-person session we did. It's like, hey,

remember when I said do that? Here's this cue, this one, we're going back to fix that problem again that's cropped up or whatever it is. And then, you know, maybe three, six months later, they'll come in for another in-person and we can address some things that have come up that are difficult to fix or have proven to be, you know, obstinate problems online. That's a great thing you can do if you have access to it. But I'll say this, you know, you said that things might take longer online. I'm going to go ahead and say they will take longer, you know, because remember, like when we're working with you online, we're thinking of this as a system. So, you know, there's a lot of folks who have problems performing one or more of the lifts correctly from the get-go. And you might need online,

because I can't put my hands on you and physically put you in the right position, you might need sort of a progressive approach towards getting you towards the right lift. Like you mentioned, squatting to a box, right? If you start out online with me and you are a mile high and we work on that and it's just obvious that you absolutely cannot get down into the bottom of the squat, and I can't be there to physically shove you down there, then what we might have to do is spend a couple weeks squatting you to a box and loading that and progressively getting you down to a correct squat. Okay? So there are situations I've run into where that takes two to three weeks online.

It could have been done in one day in person. You know, so that's something you have to think about. But I have my reasons for doing it. Same thing with there are some people who, you know, need, they have a problem that just keeps popping up over and over and over. So I will give, I will intentionally give them over corrections, I will give them cues that I wouldn't give them in person. Because I'm trying to get them to fix a problem that tends to be obstinate. And I know sometimes those over corrections will cause may cause a problem down the road that will then have to fix. So right,

so we're kind of prioritizing things like, for instance, on a deadlift, I might tell somebody to actually lean back in their heels and pull, because I can't get them to figure out how to keep the bar in their in-person real-time feedback so that I have, I don't have the, the sort of bandwidth, if you will, in this format to explain both concepts at the same time. So, um, it's just going to take longer and that's just, that's just part of the, part of the game. Um, you know, if, if, if, but you know, if this is all you have, then, um, you can still take advantage of it. Just realize it's going to take you longer. In the long run, I don't think it really matters.

Who cares if you get to a good squat in four months versus two months? Like a good squat with adding a significant weight to the bar. It really doesn't matter in the long term. But just realize that comes with the territory. No, and if you do it on your own, you might get hurt, and it may take you a year and a half, depending on the severity of the injury. You have to undo everything. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, just be real patient with this.

Patience is a muscle in and of its own that needs to be developed when you're trying to do something that happens over a long enough timeline. And building muscle and getting strong is something that happens over a long enough timeline. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, I'd say that, you know, the other thing too, is that you're going to have to become a coach yourself. Yep. Right now, this is, this is part of the, this is actually part of the starting strength seminar, which is unique as well. I've never seen any other organization do this. But if you go to a seminar, then you will be asked to coach everyone else in your small group when you're on the platform. Even if you're not there to become a coach, you're just there to lift and learn more about lifting and kind of learn more about the underlying theory and physics behind it. You're still asked to coach other people. The reason being, if you can learn some of the basics of coaching, then you're going to become a better lifter yourself. You're going to

be able to self-identify problems better. And you're going to have to do that, especially when you're working online, because there's a lot of things that happen in between the sets that you film for us and upload that we don't get to see, right? You know, I don't get to see your warmups unless I'm specifically asking you to. And like, realistically, I can't ask you to upload every warmup that you ever do. And I don't want to see it anyway. I don't want to watch 14 videos for a single workout, right? So, um, you're going to have to be able to identify basic problems that you've been made aware of, of your coach, and then try to fix those on your own, right? And guess what? If you stick with this

long-term and you really want to become, you know, a, you know, a more advanced lifter down the road, and that's a goal of yours, well, then you're going to have to do that anyway, just to do the programming. As a short example, right now, I'm running a few guys through a Westside barbell conjugate style programming model. So it calls for them to do, you know, basically to do a whole bunch of variations on the main lifts. You got to do a pin bench press, you got to do a banded bench press, you got to do pause squat, box squat, whatever. Okay, well, you know, a lot of these things are brand new to these guys. They've never done them before. Of course, I'm going to be coaching them through it. But there's a level of like, you've got to be just be able to

figure it out. But the thing is, these guys I've worked with for a few years now, and they've got a lot of experience doing this. So they're actually going to be able to self coach themselves through these lifts, right? So that's that's what's coming down the road. So they're actually going to be able to self-coach themselves through these lifts. So that's what's coming down the road. It's a skill that you'll want to have anyway as a lifter. So you can view it as kind of an opportunity to become a better lifter and more educated because that's going to pay dividends for you down the road. Yep.

So yeah, no, because at some point you might not want to upload videos onto a platform forever and you might just want to kind of steer the wheel yourself and that's fine. You know, we all eventually get there. I haven't had a coach in three years. I liked having a coach a lot and, you know, would like to try it again sometime. I just have had no interest. I typically just call Rip when I'm stuck and get a few comments and then tweak it, you know, and try to do that. But in general, you know, you're going to have to become a coach to some extent. At least you're going to have to know your own body and how it moves. It may not translate to you coaching others because to coach others, you have to watch thousands of people. But if you watch yourself thousands of times and read through the feedback and look at it you're able to identify it and eventually eventually you become able to feel it we certainly have had to go through that yeah so yeah it's you know it's worth it to invest the time there the online coaching is not for everybody you know so we talked about who it's for. Some people, if you're a physical idiot and you have very poor coordination

and you're spending three months in the damn squat, and I'm not just talking about fine-tuning things for three months. I'm saying you're still squatting high and don't know where your center is and rounding your back and all these other things. You probably need an in-person coach. And if you don't have one, that's unfortunate. Yeah. But some people just are not good candidates for online coaching for that reason.

If you're just very, very uncoordinated and not good at physical activity in general and don't know what your body is doing at any point in time, it might not be good. It might not be a good use of your money. I've had to send people to in-person coaches before. Then I've had guys that didn't have them available. And, you know, I kept working with them, but I just told them I'm like this, I don't know how far we're going to get with this, you know? And I had them do other things that were easier, like with machines, to keep them exerting themselves. So, I felt like they were doing something while still teaching the lifts. But yeah, it just takes some people time,

you know? Right. Yeah, exactly. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. No, not at all. But you just got to be honest with yourself. And I think that's the main, that's one of the main takeaways here for this episode is if you're going to do online coaching and you want to get the most out of it, you got to be really honest with yourself about your abilities, but also you have to be honest with yourself about your discipline and motivation and your mental capabilities. I've worked with some people that have struggled with consistency and getting in the gym. And a lot of times what it comes down to is this stuff gets hard, right? It's already hard enough at the beginning, just learning how

to move correctly because we're pretty exacting about what we, what we require, you know, and what, you know, we're not going to stop until we see that a good squat or deadlift or whatever is being performed. But that's not hard in terms of physical exertion. It's just hard in terms of like making your body move the right way. Well, a few months down the road, all of a sudden it gets really hard in terms of physical exertion. You're going to be more uncomfortable than you may ever have been before. And that can be really tough for some people do. Some people have no problem with this. Some people have a lot of problem with this. Maybe you've never done anything physically hard before in your life, right? And I've found that a gym environment, if you can find an in-person coach and a gym environment where other people are doing this stuff with you,

that can make a huge difference. If you struggle with actually being consistent because you don't know how to push yourself under the bar, that can be huge, right? Because then all of a sudden you realize that there's other people that are doing this too, and you're not alone, and that everybody else feels the same way, right? You know, I trained this morning and it's still hard, right? Workouts are never easy, right? And we've both done this for years and years and years. We've done thousands and thousands of squats. They never get easier. And never get easier. Squats still suck. It never gets easy. Yeah, exactly. But we've developed a habit and we've developed a discipline around it. We've

learned how to manage our minds, right? And so we don't let that get to us, right? It's like, yeah, it's hard. It sucks. But we still get in there and get it done because we've trained our minds to learn. It's like, you know what? That's just discomfort. I'm going to shove that to the side here. I'm going to do what I need to do. And then, you know, and get my workout in. So, um, you know, be honest with yourself. That's all, you know, all I'm trying to say with this is if, if that's something that you struggle with, then maybe you need to find an in-person environment where you can kind of learn what it means to actually train and what that looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like. That's right. I think we pretty much nailed that on the head.

So I think it's probably a good time to close out, huh? Yeah. So now that we shed on online coaching, you can hire us for online coaching at. Yeah, there you go. There's the punchline. Right. Yeah, we'll give you the, where you can find us info.

And that's where also you can hire us. So listen closely when we close out today. Well, thank you for tuning in to the Weights and Plates podcast. You can find me at www.weightsandplates.com where you can buy online coaching too. Or you can find me at www.weightsandplates.com, where you can buy online coaching, too. Or you can find me on Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore Santana. Then the in-person gym is weights double underscore and double underscore plates.

They don't do online coaching. They refer it to me. That's right. Yeah. I like it. You can find me, Trent, at marmaladecream.com. Just send me an email there. I do offer online coaching. I have got, oh, let me check here. I've got two slots left of online coaching. I only keep a certain number of slots on a regular basis. But if you'd

like to work with me, you can do that. Send me an email, Trent, at marmaladecream.com, and we'll get you set up and going. You can also find me on Instagram at marmalade underscore cream. Bye.