40fit Radio

Today Coach D's good friend Cliff Canipe joins the podcast to discuss the importance of strength and pursuing voluntary hardship for developing character and leadership. Cliff is an international minister based out of South Africa. He travels throughout the continent working with local church leaders to develop their theology, their church operations, and leadership presence in the local community.   Cliff is a man of God, but his version of Christianity is by necessity a rugged and practical one. Working primarily in poor, underprivileged areas of the world, he regularly calls upon both physical strength as well as the strength of character he has developed under the barbell to lead others in difficult economic and sociopolitical situations. In his eyes, it is not enough to be merely spiritual, or intellectual; you must develop your physical self in step with the other aspects of your being.   Cliff shared a verse on the importance of strength for leaders. Joshua, a leader of the Israelites who helped lead t

In Part 2 of our discussion with Starting Strength Coach, Registered Dietitian, and nutrition expert Robert Santana, we learn how to set appropriate macronutrients for weight loss, and what to expect during the weight loss process for a novice lifter.   You can follow Robert on Instagram @the_robert_santana where he posts helpful nutrition tips and tricks. You can also find him at Barbell Logic Online Coaching and Renaissance Periodization, where he offers customized, one-on-one strength and nutrition coaching. If you're in the Phoenix area, be sure to check out his new gym Weights and Plates!   Got a question about nutrition, or training in general? Send us a message on Instagram or send us an email at info@40fit.com!   Connect with 40fit Radio 40fit website Facebook 40fit Masters Community 40fit Radio on Instagram

Today we welcome back Starting Strength Coach and Registered Dietitian Robert Santana! Robert joins us to talk about making the transition from weak and overweight to strong and lean. Specifically, we look at a theoretical 45-year old woman who needs to lose about 40lbs of bodyfat while increasing her strength and muscle mass.   In the course of coaching hundreds of clients, Robert has developed a nutrition coaching style that revolves around habits and accountability, rather than macros and calorie counting. Although he adapts to a person's preference for tracking, he prefers to start by having the client take pictures of everything they eat for 7 days. From there he will identify which foods the person is not eating of, and increase those in the diet. For most people new to strength training, this is protein. Women should eat between 120-150g of protein per day, while men should aim for 200-250g depending on size and bodyweight. Getting enough protein ensures that the client will recover properly from her w

Coach D and Coach Trent welcome runner, rock climber, wakesurfer, and physical therapist Michelle Baker, DPT to discuss her training for the Boston Marathon. Michelle PR'd her previous marathon time for by 23 minutes, ending with a race time of 3:34:51. She credits her success to a combination of regular strength training, interval/speed work, and nutrition experience gained from her previous marathons.   Michelle is an all-around athlete, having played sports from a young age. After a layoff from sports in college, she discovered endurance training while in PT school and began running 5k and 10k races. She quickly became hooked and ran her first half marathon, then full-marathons, punctuated by occasional trail runs as well. Michelle describes her first marathons as brutally hard, as she learned how to develop a strong mindset and properly fuel her body for the hours-long race. Nevertheless, she stuck with them and slowly began getting better.   Recently, she began working with Coach D to improve her times.

Coach D and Coach Trent dive into the nuts and bolts of conditioning in today's episode. Conditioning Concepts was one of the foundational episodes at the beginning of the podcast, explaining the metabolic pathways or energy systems of the body, and how they fuel different types of activity. Today's show details the nuts and bolts of incorporating conditioning into your training program, including concurrent conditioning and strength training.   First off, a disclaimer. Conditioning is not for novices! If you have not run through a novice linear progression and built a solid strength base, you don't need to do conditioning. At this point, focusing all your effort on lifting heavy will provide all the conditioning you need. You have a limited reserve of recovery resources -- especially as a novice -- and strength training during the linear progression will require ALL of those reserves. Besides, as discussed in previous episodes, strength training works primarily the ATP/Phosphocreatine energy system, but it u

It's a busy time of year at Deaton ranch, with tons of hay waiting to be bailed, barns being built, and horses needing to be worked. Recently, while working out a small gelding in the arena, Darin got bucked and -- because he was using an unfamiliar saddle -- was unable to kick off properly to avoid getting pinned by the falling horse. The 800lbs gelding landed squarely on his outstretched left leg, on the knee. In today's show, Coach D walks through his process of dealing with the injury, from assessment to treatment and rehab, as well as maintaining a positive mindset.   Several people were with Darin when the fall occurred, and they responded with alarm, telling him how bad it looked and wondering if he was OK. It's easy in these situations to let the emotional response of others override your logical brain, and convince yourself that you are indeed badly hurt before you've done a calm self-assessment. So Darin told them to give him some space, he got up, and started walking to determine the extent of the

Last week we discussed the importance of work -- especially physical work -- and it's impact on the mind and body. This week is a 180; we're talking about rest. Now, when we discuss training we often talk about recovery in terms of food and sleep. Sleep is a crucial part of rest, indeed, but it's not the whole picture. Rest is both recovery, in a training sense, and recuperation for your hormonal and mental health.   We know that psychological stress is stress on the body, just like stress from lifting heavy weights, doing a hard conditioning workout, or running a marathon. It's not as easily quantifiable as a workout, but psychological stress causes elevated cortisol levels, can impair mood, and, gone unchecked, can lead to "burn out," leaving you in a deep hole mentally and physically.   No one wants that! So Coach D walks through some suggestions for incorporating rest -- not just recovery -- into your life: Disconnect proactively -- before you hit the wall, unplug and disengage from your work and media/i

Coach D is back with a solo show reflecting on his recent trip to his ranch in Stephenville, TX.   Connect with 40fit Radio 40fit website Facebook 40fit Masters Community 40fit Radio on Instagram

Coach D discusses his departure from CrossFit and the reason he sold his CrossFit gyms to eventually open a Starting Strength affiliate gym. Coach D and Coach Trent also examine the philosophical and practical differences between the two training methods.   Connect with 40fit Radio 40fit website Facebook 40fit Masters Community 40fit Radio on Instagram

Dr. David Puder, a psychiatrist and fellow barbell enthusiast, joins Coach D and Trent today to talk about the research connecting strength training to better sensorium (cognitive function) and reduced cognitive decline in older populations.   Dr. Puder runs an excellent podcast on psychiatry, psychotherapy, and mental health that you can find here: https://psychiatrypodcast.com   You can also follow Dr. Puder @dr.davidpuder on Instagram.

We've all heard them all before, so often that they stick with us even today. Fix your posture! Shoulders back! Stand up straight! Stern motherly commands reminding us of our postural deficiencies and exhorting us to repair them. This assumes poor posture is a choice, however, and that posture can be changed. Coach D explains how posture is the result of both genetics, environment, and our habits, and discusses whether poor posture is something that can -- or should -- be fixed.   What is good posture, anyway? Coach D explains normal, good posture as measured against a plumb line -- a vertical line that bisects the body in the frontal, sagittal, and transverse planes. From a side (transverse) view, that line should: Fall in the middle or slightly anterior of the earlobe Bisect the acromion process, Down through the middle of the elbow (the hands will be slightly forward) The spine should show a gentle double S curve from the cervical to sacral region. The plumb line should bisect the middle of the thorax dow

As we discussed in Episode #14, life occasionally decides to deload you. It happens in a variety of ways: schedule changes, crazy workloads, moving, or perhaps an injury. Some of these road blocks are just that -- temporary setbacks in training -- and we do our best to train through them, albeit at a slower pace. Other road blocks, like injuries, stop us completely. Often it's not clear, especially to new trainees, what is a temporary setback and what is a true injury. How do we tell the difference?   Coach D and Trent walk through the signs and symptoms of true injuries, including some red flags that indicate going to a doctor, and discuss practical strategies for training through minor injuries such as tweaks, pulls, and other aches and pains.   Connect with 40fit Radio 40fit website Facebook 40fit Masters Community 40fit Radio on Instagram

Fifty episodes in the BOOKS!! Thanks for sticking with us so far, sharing your challenges and successes with us, and walking this fitness journey with us. Today Coach D and Coach Trent have a little pep talk about training through adversity. It's a word that coaches throw around a lot, and it's kinda vague. That's intentional -- adversity can be a lot of things. It usually means different things to different people. Maybe it's lifting the barbell when you've got a muscle injury, maybe it's finding time to train with a crazy busy family life, maybe it's laying off the cheetos when it's time to dial in your nutrition. The details are unique to you, but every person has to face challenges from time to time. How you choose to deal with these challenges often determines where your health ends up -- good or bad -- five, six, years down the road.   Now, adversity doesn't mean injury, not in this episode. There are times when we must intelligently assess and address our training problems, and sometimes that means app

Coach Darin and Trent talk about time wasters in the gym, and why (how) you should stop doing them! Everyone is "busy" these days, but we know some very busy people that still make time to train 3 days a week. The key is being intentional with your training, and avoiding some common time sinks. Workouts do not have to take two hours or more!   Darin's first tip: walk in the gym and decide that you are going to train. It sounds simple, but framing your mindset in a positive, productive manner tends to make you more efficient in training. What does this mean in practical terms? Write down what you are going to do in your training log, organize your gym bag and clothes before you head to the gym, and visualize what you are going to do.   Once you're in the gym, do your warmups, but remember they are warmups not the workout! For strength training, we follow the Starting Strength model which suggests warmups (for the squat and pressing lifts) of two sets of empty bar, 1x5 with some weight, 1x3 with more weight, an

Coach D talks to the ladies of Fort Worth Strength & Conditioning today about their experience strength training with barbells. The ladies train in their own class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, and they bring it every time. There is a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and experience in the class, but all share a common drive to get stronger under the bar and improve themselves physically and mentally.   Connect with 40fit Radio 40fit website Facebook 40fit Masters Community 40fit Radio on Instagram

Doug Eidd, owner of Doug's Gym, the oldest barbell gym in America at the time of its closing in 2018, joins us today to share his perspective on health and fitness after over 60 years of experience training himself and thousands of others. In his own words, after a lifetime of training he has realized he already knew what he needed to know at 16, when he began training with weights to develop his strength and build muscular size.   Looking for work after the Korean War, Doug briefly considered PT school but was steered away by a friend in the field struggling to make ends meet (the nascent industry had yet to fully integrate with the existing healthcare system, and did not bill insurance at the time). Instead he entered the gym business, opening Doug's Gym in downtown Dallas in 1962. Doug's was one of just a few gyms in the area, but as bodybuilding began to enter mainstream American culture, demand for gyms grew, and the term "working out" entered the lexicon of modern working man.   Doug has since trained t

Coach D and Trent discuss their motivations for training and living a healthy lifestyle, as well as what draws people to the gym. Most people understandably begin their fitness journey out of a desire to look better in the mirror, to "look good naked" as Darin likes to say. This is a fine goal, and one we probably all share to some extent, but people that end up sticking with it, that end up training for months, years, and decades, usually do it for a higher purpose.   What is this higher purpose? It's a spectrum, with different answers for different people. At 40fit Radio, we are essentially centrists when it comes to training. We train all aspects of fitness, focusing first on the best "bang for the buck" training modalities -- like barbell training -- with the philosophy of doing things that will improve our ability to perform in the real world and feel good at the same time. In other words, we train today so that we can train a decade from now, and more importantly, do the things we like to do in life a d

Coach D and Trent discuss what makes a coach, and how clients can apply the basics of coaching to get the most out of their experience training with a coach.   Connect with 40fit Radio 40fit website Facebook 40fit Masters Community 40fit Radio on Instagram  

Coach D and Trent wrap up their series on the shoulder joint with a discussion on interventions and exercises for treating shoulder injuries, shoulder pain, and for developing general shoulder health. Coach D outlines some basic principles for shoulder treatment: the importance of a proper diagnosis, your pain doesn't have to be totally gone to begin training and treatment, work the secondary (stabilizer) muscles with isolated movements if necessary, and focus on compound barbell movements like the press for the majority of your shoulder strength work.   Those of you who reside in Texas, help our state join the 21st century and allow patients to see a physical therapist without needing a referral from a physician first. Texas is one of the last two states requiring referral. Please email your State Representative and State Senator and ask them to co-sponsor House Bill 29 and Senate Bill 732! https://wrm.capitol.texas.gov/  

Coach D and Trent are back with Part 2 in the Strong Shoulders series discussing common injuries of the shoulder, how they occur, and what tissues are affected. Most active people have met someone -- or have experience themselves -- with a shoulder injury. They are particularly common in sports where a large degree of shoulder rotation and velocity are involved (think about a Major League Baseball pitcher). In order to understand the best way to rehab and train our shoulders, we have to understand the nature of the injuries.   As mentioned in Part 1, the shoulder, like all joints, is comprised of several types of tissue: Bones: the scapula, clavicle, and humerus Muscles: the deltoids, trapezius, rhomboids, and rotator cuff muscles (supraspinatus, infraspinatus, subscapularis, teres major and minor) Tendons: connecting the muscles to bone Ligaments: connecting bone to bone; in the case of the shoulder several ligaments form a sort of "sling" which helps hold the glenohumeral joint together Cartilage: on the a