278 posts
The other day on Facebook, Mark Schneider asked a great question: <blockquote "Within the SDT/OIT concepts - what defines a “group” or “community”? Is it as loose as “what the person FEELS/perceives” to be part of? Or is there a more concrete idea that may have been used for the research on this...
Habitry is officially partnering with Lift the Bar! Get ready for the biggest hands-on autonomy support program in the world. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Lift the Bar, it’s a place for coaches to get daily coaching, education and support for Personal Trainers. We have been working...
Good news for everyone who loves our podcast, the bettercast, and the work Habitry has been doing for over two years! The short version: As of today, Betterish is here! We’re doubling down on exploring real stories of change. You might’ve noticed we stepped up our podcasting to one episode a week...
This week, I was honored to be a keynote speaker for the YMCA of Canada’s annual summit. When the head office asked me in August if I’d be interested in, “talking to the Managers and owners from YMCAs across Canada about organizing, supporting, and training health coaches,” I felt like Renee...
To kick-off a recent Motivator Meetup, Coach Stevo and I reviewed a new study. The researchers of this study asked an important question: What's more important for goal achievement: reducing experiences of temptation or exerting willpower? We summarized the findings below. You also can watch the...
I remember when I thought it was my job as a coach to motivate clients. It was 2014, and I’d been dreaming of playing coach for almost two years. Finally, I found myself coaching a group online. We had 13 men, who all who wanted to look better naked. Perfect. This was going to be my first-ever...
There is a tradition in helping professions. First you are a client. Then you become a coach. Then you create a system that's the one true way and you teach it to other coaches to become a "Coach's Coach." After that, all you have to do is make a cert, and you're a guru. But what the hell is a...
“How am I helping you?” is a simple question to ask a client. A short five words. Only sixteen letters. Yet such a powerful tool for building strong relationships. This friendly question may even startle the client you ask, but it will also make them think. The ensuing conversation will deepen...
Authors’ note: in this article we go over some tested tips on how to get past dips in motivation. If you enjoyed this article, then you’ll love joining us for our live Q&A session, Nerding Out on Willpower, later this week! When: 2:00PM Pacific Time, Thursday 3/24 Recording will be available later....
By Steven M. Ledbetter and Omar Ganai for Habitry Do you remember the first time you realized an adult was wrong? The feeling in the pit of your stomach when you discovered that your parents not only didn’t know everything, but that they could actually be mistaken? And maybe even be lying to...
I stared at my phone, reading the simple instructions Omar had left for us in the Habitry app during the first Essentials of Habit Coaching cohort. I swallowed hard. No big deal, I said to myself. I got this. He had just asked us to work on a new coaching habit: “I will start group conversations...
Do you know why you achieved the things you've achieved? Do you know how? We're all excited and inspired when we see stories of transformation. In the United States, personal transformation is part of our cultural identity. We see ourselves as people who transform from the lowest status to the...
When I was studying for a Ph.D. in Psychology, I felt miserable. Focusing only on research wore me down. I felt a gnawing desire to go out and practice. To apply psychology. I famously (infamously?) decided to quit grad school not just once, but twice in the span of a year. Facepalm. The second...
Here are 12 great articles that the Motivate Collective found and put together to help you keep your clients moving forward. An explanation of why the "eat until you are 80% full" rule is commonly confusing and ineffective and gives a more flexible and practical solution. Lots of people think that...
When you know you need to make a change, the number of choices and “should”s in the world can overwhelm you. It can feel difficult to know what exactly to try next. Let’s talk about the top five things you should be working on. But… Below you won’t find twenty things to do when you wake up or the...
Well, here you are. You failed at a goal you set yourself. Maybe it was a New Year’s resolution, or maybe it was a longtime dream. Regardless of what kind of goal it was, it can feel terrible to have failed at achieving something you want. And yet it's a very common experience. People often fail to...
A sense of belonging is one of the most important drivers of motivation. And the tougher the goal, the more vital it is for you to feel that you belong to people who understand the struggle. Here's what you should be talking about with people who can support you in your goals. The first two are...
Here are 12 great articles that the Motivate Collective found and put together to help you. Check them out and share one you like with a client or friend! The stories we tell ourselves about our lives become our reality. Since you have control over this, make yourself a hero, or try not to tell...
Coaches, managers, teachers, counsellors are in the business of helping people change. The people we help get a six pack or a pay raise or good grades. Our clients, employees, and students are often desperate for these outcomes. But they don't always want to do the work required to get these...
One of the pieces of business advice I’d heard from Facebook for the last 9 years is, “if your clients are getting results, they’ll tell their friends and you don’t need to market.” In my experience and watching the success of others I’d say that’s about 40% true. I think a truer statement would...
The number one question we get from clients is ‘How can I motivate myself to exercise?’ and it it one of the hardest things to answer because everyone is different. Steven Ledbetter has an MA of Sport Psychology and is the CEO of Habitry. We cover a lot in this interview, so hang on to your boots....
When I start with a new personal training program, there are a few typical steps that we go through. We sit down, chat about the client’s goals, what their experience with exercise/activity has been in the past, what health concerns or barriers they may have, and we even do a little assessment to...
I know what to do, I just can’t stick with it. Sound familiar? Why is it often so hard to make real progress? That’s where Steve Leadbetter aka Coach Stevo comes in. Stevo runs a company in San Francisco called Habitry who focus on teaching people habits and principles to improve their fitness and...
Editor’s Note: Chris Forrest is one of the most humble and client focused coaches we know. Before the Habitry Platform was a thing, we helped Chris start a coaching group on Facebook. A few months into the group we realized he had been running it for free. Coach Stevo’s first free group (which had...
<blockquoteYou don’t know enough. You’re not good enough. You’re just guessing half the time that stuff is gonna work and sooner or later, your clients are going to find out. Your peers are going to find out. And everyone is going to know that you’re not a coach. You’re an imposter.</blockquote If...
For the week of August 24, 2015 Back by popular demand, our Articles for Clients brings you the latest shareable tidbits that fitness and nutrition clients will love. 3 Ways to Use Tracked Data to Meet Your Goals “I recently met a man at a gym where I consult wearing an Apple watch and a Basis...
Almost 9 years ago, my first paying client told me a very simple fact that changed my entire life. Her name was Erin, and she was a 79 year-old Irish woman who had come straight from 6am Mass to hire me. I flashed her a confident smile because my freshly minted certification meant that I had at...
<blockquote "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." </blockquote -- Carl Rogers Most of your clients decided to sign up for your services after months or even years of playing a personal mental battle. A battle in which one part of their psyche pressured...
The first weeks of Habitry’s online program, Essentials of Group Coaching, have been illuminating for our coaches. This program is special because it’s discussion-driven rather than content-driven. Keeping the program focused on discussion (rather than pre-fabricated lessons) helps ensure that the...
I want to share with you a system I have found that helps me focus on what matters for moving my online coaching business forward as well as reduce the feelings of anxiety and overwhelm that can creep up all too often. As my days became busier with our growing groups and I had a constantly growing...
Have you been itching to get to a Motivate Summit, but there just wasn’t one close enough to you? Well good news! Soon, there’ll likely be one in your backyard… Last September, I had this crazy idea of bringing a bunch of people with the same problems together into the same room at the same time....
Coach Stevo is back to talk about proven ways to solidify habits, how to build communities from 2 and beyond, making better decisions, finding what you really want, and more!
The average career lifespan of a personal trainer is 3 years. Many of them drop out after 18-24 months. What’s kicking trainers out of the fitness industry? What do they need to survive past this critical time? It’s not about getting more knowledge of exercise science. It’s about developing a...
Our first instinct when trying to make a change is to change ourselves. Or, if we are helping another person make a change, we try to help them change themselves. It’s a mistake. We try to change people as if they exist in a vacuum. But people don’t live in a vacuum. People are like fish, and fish...
Wearables giant FitBit made their initial public offering recently, and the development has ramifications for the entire fitness industry. In this podcast, Coach Stevo of Habitry and Matt McGunagle of StrengthPortal talk about what this news means for coaches and personal trainers and why it's so...
In this episode of the Super Strength Show, Stevo Ledbetter takes us on his journey to becoming a Sport Psychology and Behaviour Change Coach. During this interview Coach Stevo teaches you how to master your life through courage, consistency, and community. More Specifically in this Episode The...
June is going to be a huge month for habit-based coaching. I started Habitry, Co. with Vanessa Naylon in September of 2014 with a mission to "help the most people help the most people." We wanted to create a space where coaches of all kinds could come together and talk about working with clients to...
We love fitness. We love helping people. We love helping our clients reach their goals and beyond. But not all of us are able to make a business doing so, or if we do have a business, we would love to be able to expand without eliminating the precious little time we have to live our own lives. What...
For the week of May 21, 2015 Here’s a new crop of shareables for your social media. Send ‘em to the clients who are looking for a boost today. We’re featuring a video from our Motivation Myth Busting series: And here are 8 more links you should view and strew! Check out the first contribution from...
In this Physique Science Podcast episode, we chat with Coach Stevo about behavior change, working clients, and different coaching methods. Stevo is the nutrition and behavior change consultant at San Francisco Crossfit. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the NSCA and...
In 1963, Jean Nidetch was desperate. She wasn’t desperate to lose weight. In fact, she had lost 20lbs over the previous year. No, Jean Nidetch was desperate to keep the weight off. So she invited 6 friends over to her house to talk about it. Not to talk about solutions. Or fads. Or calories. Just...
There is a quote, probably apocryphal, that changed how I thought about working with clients when I read it. <blockquote "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. " </blockquote -- Henry Ford Many clients come to us thinking they know what they need to change...
For the week of April 23, 2015 Habit-based coaching often requires us to debunk long-held beliefs about behavior change All of this week’s authors are doing just that — on the topics of food rules, failing to go to the gym, mindfulness, and before/after photos. Let’s start with James Clear, who, by...
In this episode I interview Steven Ledbetter aka Coach Stevo. Steven M. Ledbetter, aka “Coach Stevo” is a bonafide fitness nerd. He has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Chicago, an MA in Sport Psychology from John F. Kennedy University, is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist,...
<blockquote "People don’t want to build a foundation." </blockquote <blockquote "Everyone wants a ‘quick fix.’" </blockquote <blockquote "How do I convince clients that there are no shortcuts?" </blockquote <blockquote "They want to get in shape in no time." </blockquote At every Motivate Summit,...
Well, people. We wrote a damn book. A really awesome book of which we are hella proud. It's 204 pages of the entertaining and evidence-based goodness that you'd expect from Habitry, Co. It's got dozens of tips, lots of great stories, and pictures of Coach Stevo as a 14 year-old. What's it about?...
Motivate OAK, June 27-28, will be unlike any other conference in the fitness industry. There will be no set agenda. No keynote speakers. Like Motivate SLC and Motivate NYC, our one and only goal is to provide a space for the most passionate people in the fitness world to come together and talk...
Crazy good week for client-friendly articles. Thanks to everyone in the Motivate Forum. Our featured article is from the Moms Done Dieting blog and enjoyed a lot of attention and discussion. Check out what Lauren Koski has to say: “I know, you’ve seen the AMAZING before and after pictures, but...
Good habits are, ideally, your life’s work. Translating wellness and fitness goals into habits means focusing on process over results. And like a good ultramarathoner or mountain climber does, practicing a habit also means putting one foot in front of the other, over and over, possibly millions of...
What’s the converse of the Golden Rule? If you treated yourself the way you would like to treat others, what might happen? Being generous with yourself might get you further than judgement. The brilliant Georgie Fear explains : [aesopimage imgwidth="435px"...
In the words of this week’s featured author, “It's so important to take back fitness and allow it to encompass health- mental, physical and emotional.” Here’s a vulnerable, inspiring —and for the fitness industry, unusually rational — story from Michele Burmaster: “About a week after I submitted my...
If you are reading this blog, it’s probably first and foremost because you want to help people. In 2010, I was helping people as a personal trainer and decided I wanted to expand my toolkit to help people change their behavior. So I started thinking about graduate school for Psychology. When I told...
Editor: James Mills might be a candidate for "Most Interesting Man in the World." He is a coach, a Lawyer, and his background is in professional ballet and union contract negotiations. He is also one of the smartest people I know, so when he asked me if he could write an article about his coaching...
This week’s themes: focusing on reality, staying positive, and doing things that work instead of things we feel expected to do. Warm up with a tip from Habit Lab: Fat Loss Habit #173 - Exercise Before Breakfast Kat exercises before breakfast because it feels better that way. It’s important to pay...
At the 2nd Motivate Summit this Saturday in NYC, it was 14 degrees with a wind chill below 0. The weather forecast showed 20mph winds and 3 inches of snow were en route to Mark Fisher Fitness. But so were 2 dozen coaches from California, Denver, Detroit, Boston, New Hampshire, Toronto, and all over...
The Habitry Collective loves books. We ask every new member of the Collective “what is your favorite coaching book that is not a health and nutrition book?” and we’ve kept a list of the 141 (and growing) answers. I also maintain an Amazon Wishlist for books on behavior change that has 22 titles on...
Editor: Sean McBride is one of the smartest people I know, so when he told me he was doing 10,000 swings and using a clicker like Seth Munsey, I knew I wanted to get his thoughts on the experience. Luckily, Sean is also a great writer! Last September I went to Utah at the invitation of Coach Stevo....
Here at Habitry, Co. we make communities. We make communities for the simple reason that communities work better. They work better than one-on-one. They work better than “groups.” Communities change people because humans are social cognitive learners (Bandura, 2001), mirror neurons are a thing...
Editor: Michele, a very active member of the Motivate Collective, contacted me about an outlet to tell her story. I was happy to help because I think that these lessons apply to anyone who's thinking of making the leap to owning their own place and following their passion. I hope you enjoy reading...
One of the best features of the Motivate Collective, in my opinion, is that it is a safe space to get advice about what to do with clients that happens to be populated by the best habit-based coaches in the world. Needless to say, the advice is insanely good. Yesterday, a coach asked for help with...
This weekend, there’ll be a run on snacks at your local grocery store. So it’s time for a snackable edition of Articles for Clients! First, help your clients be prepared to stick to their plans when they shop for Super Bowl Sunday by encouraging them to make a shopping list: Fat Loss Habit #60 -...
First, check out the latest fat loss habit video from the Habit Lab: Fat Loss Habit #173 - Exercise Before Breakfast - Habit Lab from Habitry on Vimeo. And now, from our community…when is fitspiration not inspiring? When it’s overbearing. Your clients see many different messages on their personal...
Steven Ledbetter comes on the show to talk about prevent to work motivation techniques that you can use to help reach your goals or to help others. Includes the biggest mistakes coaches make when motivating others, habit-based coaching, and more!
It’s likely that your clients have made a few resolutions by now. Possibly they’ve even started breaking them. Right now, about two weeks into January, the excitement of the holidays may have worn off and your clients may be looking for some extra motivation and direction. The Habitry Collective is...
I've been working with people to help them meet their health and fitness goals since 2008. I still work with anyone who shows up on my front door at 9AM every morning. I'm a coach, but in 2013 I stopped coaching people and started making a real difference. When I started graduate school for health...
Here are some articles written this week by Habitry Collective Members about habits, motivation, and behavior change that you can send to your clients! And this week you absolutely must read Marc Halpern's post on Lean Body 6 about his late grandfather: "Forget about the benefits I got. My grandpa...
Hey Motivators! We hope you’re enjoying the holidays! Grab some of that leftover eggnog and dive in to this week’s recap of all the happenings in the Motivate Forums. This week, we hazed Marcelino Martinez and Andy Fossett into the Collective. Welcome to the Collective! Habitry, Co. released a...
This month Weight Watchers, the Google of the weight loss industry announced a new ad campaign. With no celebrities. Or promotions. Or promises. Or before and after photos. It's all real people talking about their real struggles, physical and emotional, with weight loss. In an article for USA...
However, if you are doing something really awesome, you should totes keep doing
One of the problems that the coaches in the Motivate Collective have discovered about Habit-Based Coaching, is that there is just not a ton of stuff out there for our clients to read. They are deluged with questionable crap from magazine covers, Dr. Oz, and other less awesome fitness professionals...
This article originally appeared on Seth Munsey's new blog, "The Client Centered Coach." Seth is one of the many awesome gym owners in the Motivate Collective who are adding habit-based training and behavior change techniques to the way they do business. You can join our conversations on our...
We at the Habitry Collective got a lot of feedback on our free 167 Fat Loss Habits and the general consensus was, "it's too much awesome information! Make it smaller!" Politely ignoring the fact that our biggest complaint was that we were giving away too much for free, we heeded the call for...
This article originally appeared on Seth Munsey's new blog, "The Client Centered Coach." Seth is one of the many awesome gym owners in the Motivate Collective who are adding habit-based training and behavior change techniques to the way they do business. You can join our conversations on our...
For the past two months, the Motivate Forums have been crackling with amazing discussions about working with clients (Not a member? Why not? It’s free and there’s only mild hazing!). A lot of these discussions have centered on communication, and I have found myself teaching my fellow Motivators new...
Steve Ledbetter, a.k.a. “Coach Stevo” is the featured guest on this week’s show and he shares amazing insight on the power of our habits. Let me tell you now, this is a different kind of interview from things we typically discuss on the show, but the insight is extremely valuable for all of us....
We hear a lot of excuses about why people don’t exercise. “I don’t have the time.” “There’s not a gym close to me” etc. And sadly, most questionaries for the CDC, NIH and other government surveys use these misleading answers on their forms, so most of the survey data on how much we exercise as a...
One of the biggest problems that we coaches face is often not recognized as a problem until it’s too late. Until after a few clients have just stopped showing up. Or maybe never came back after that summer vacation. Or joined a Soul Cycle. But this problem starts on Day 1, often during the...
Months ago, when I announced the first Motivate Summit in Salt Lake City, I was scared. Motivate SLC was the first meet up dedicated solely to behavior change in the fitness industry and the first public UNconference in our industry as well. So not only was it new, not only was it weird, it was new...
Health and wellness professionals are often united by a common goal of wanting to help others adopt a physically active, nutritionally balanced, and mindfulness-centered lifestyle. As many of us know, this is no easy task. We are constantly facing an array of barriers to exercise and adherence to...
My friend and mentor Dan John is famous for a quote that should be a required tattoo in the health and wellness professions. <blockquoteThe goal is to keep the goal the goal. </blockquote Years ago I realized that my clients often have absolutely no idea where they wanna go (yet), and often just...
The average Utahan (a word I very recently learned how to properly pronounce—no small for feat for a boy raised in the derrty south) is 29 years old, married, conservative, white, “barely” male (49% of the population is female), stands 5’8”, weighs 170lbs, lives in a two bedroom house with 2.14...
You’re a really smart person. You know more than most people about at least a few things. You might even be an expert at some of them. And chances are, if you’re reading this, more than a few people look to you for advice (or even pay you for it). Maybe it’s about what to eat. Or what to do at the...
One of the sessions at the Motivate Summit was convened with the question: “How Important are fast initial results in long-term client success?” It was such a great question that we decided to keep the discussion alive on the Motivate Forums. Andrew McGunagle summarized what I think is a very...
Matt McGunagle convened a session at the Motivate Summit with the post-it note you see above. These are his notes from that session and a small glimpse into an optimistic future. I led a group conversation on this topic recently at the Motivate Summit in Salt Lake City and wanted to share my...
In October 2013, I decided to take on the 10,000 KB Swing Challenge by Dan John. If you aren’t familiar with the 10,000 KB Swing Challenge, it involves taking a Kettlebell and swinging it 10,000 times in a month. Simple, yet brutally effective. The challenge is broken down into 500 swings a day for...
On a rainy Saturday in Utah, 41 people with the passion to show up got together in a circle and something happened. "I don't know what 'this' is, but it's something amazing," Bill recapped. 41 people, brought together from all over the USA by Facebook, a few blog posts, and word-of-mouth found out...
Bill Nye is a great teacher. He is witty, smart, and above all, incredibly empathetic. He has an uncanny ability to see the world through his students' or readers' eyes and craft his message to meet them where they are at. And he does this with superhuman patience, as demonstrated in his February...
This week’s guest is Coach Stevo. Coach Stevo has been under the mentorship of Dan John for the past couple of years, but before that he received his Masters Degree in health psychology. I met Steve at the recent Perform Better Summit in Long Beach and knew after only talking to him for a couple of...
This week a coach I’m working with got a message from a client of his that was rather disturbing and he asked for my help. “Going through a divorce. I haven't been as engaged, but I intend to be from now on.” Every coach will deal with this at some point, and it doesn't even have to be this...
“Every relationship you will ever be in will fail,” begins the advice of Dan Savage, “until one doesn’t.” I have a lot of different ways to try to communicate complicated ideas simply, but one of the most effective ones I’ve found so far is to reframe my clients’ questions using the sage wisdom of...
Coaches love tools. We have our "teach the squat" cues, our "fix the squat" correctives, and our "nice squat!" congratulations high-five. But what about when the client leaves? What tools do you have for the other 167 hours? One of my favorite tools for promoting behavior change is a simple...
This excellent article is one of what I hope to be a series of perspectives from clients, potential clients, athletes, and regular folks about their experiences with their bodies, behavior, and mindset around health and fitness. Andrea Ellen is a force of nature and I want to thank her publicly for...
Modeling relationships between self-determination, past behaviour, and habit strength (Gardner & Lally, 2013) Clients hire coaches because they want to make progress on their health and fitness goals. At the same time, they have limited willpower and motivation. Given this constraint, how can...
I went climbing for the first time three weeks ago. And like most people who start, I started off doing something called “top-roping”, which is a way to climb the face of a mountain without using most of the tools. So of course I got curious and asked, “How do all those other tools work?” If you...
As a Fitness Professional, we accept that most of our coaching is client centered. We hope to develop a trusting relationship with the individual so as to build the foundation for change. We provide a program, training, nutrition coaching and our own support all with the goal of helping the client...
Many of us in helping professions are familiar with the legal term, “scope of practice,” but there is more to the idea of scope than covering your ass against lawsuits. Scope means “the extent of the area or subject matter that something deals with or to which it is relevant,” but it also means,...
Yesterday, a friend of mine sent me a link to Wrzesniewski et al. (2014). I was excited to see what might be the largest longitudinal study on motivation to date, but as I read further, I began to notice some problems. In the 1970s, two brilliant psychology researchers noticed something pretty neat...
Trigger Warning: This article has some hurtful words that people called me as a kid. If words hurt you, maybe you should skip this article. I played baseball as a kid. Ok, I technically played baseball. I wore a uniform and people threw balls at me while I was holding a bat. I hated it. I hated the...
A lot of really awesome people have signed up for Motivate: A One Day Health and Behavior Change Summit that we are hosting in Salt Lake City on 9/27. How awesome? Last week, a few of those people got so excited about the possibilities of this Unconference and wrote an eBook. In a week. This...
Dan John should go down in the annals of strength training history for many things, but chief among them is the line, “the goal is to keep the goal the goal.” I am very lucky to have a clear and concise mentor because when I look out into the world of coaching, it’s obvious that Dan’s focus is more...
If there is one problem that leads more people to ruin than anything else, it’s that we think we’re pretty smart. It’s a problem so pervasive in social science that it has a name. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is an identified cognitive bias that people who do not know a lot about a topic tend to think...
Matt McGunagle is one of the many awesome people attending Motivate: A One Day Health and Behavior Change Summit. Sign up if you don't want to miss out on awesome conversations about psychology, health, fitness, and technology on 9/27 in Salt Lake City! It’s sad to say this, but the tech community...
Originally posted on Hello Healthy, the MyFitnessPal blog Did you know: gyms are at their highest capacity in March, not January? Why? Because, no matter how ambitious we get with our New Year’s resolutions, it takes the weather getting warm and the thought of wearing that bikini or a pair of...
Your new, overweight, sedentary client wants to run a marathon. “I’ve already signed up! It’s 6 months away so I’m really motivated!” Some time in the next 6 months your client is going to fail, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prevent a massacre that might turn her away from a healthy lifestyle...
Originally posted on Hello Healthy, the MyFitnessPal blog You’re home on a Saturday. You’re hungry. Your kids are hungry. So you go to the pantry to make a healthy snack and the only thing you have is a box of stale Lucky Charms and soon-to-expire milk. It takes a series of less-than-stellar...
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. People often intend to partake in physical activity. Yet, just as often, they find themselves frustrated at their failure to act on these intentions. Why is it that people remain inactive despite forming intentions to be active? A study by Conroy et...
One of the most powerful words when people are talking about motivation is the word, “should.” “Should” usually means “if I don’t I’ll feel guilty” and is a hallmark in Self-Determination Theory research of what is referred to as introjected motivation. Introjected motivation is internal, but...
By Josh Hillis Josh Hillis has been at the forefront of habit-based coaching for years. In this article, Josh does an excellent job of articulating “identity-based goals” which promote internal motivation (“I am doing this because it is who I am”) versus external motivation (“I am doing that so...
<blockquoteMe: What would you do with a client who was so untrained, that they couldn't do anything? Like not even a movement yet?Dan John: I’d teach them to plank. Me: Ok, but what would you do for the other 59 minutes in the session? </blockquote I started coaching 6 years ago and in that time I...
When our clients come to us, many of us are quick to ask, “what are your goals?” It’s one of the first questions we learn to ask as fitness professionals. But the obvious follow up question to, “what are you goals” is often left out of our education: “Why?” Why do you want that? Why are you here?...
There is a small revolt going on in the world of willpower research. Baumeister’s dominant “resource-limited” or “strength-model” of willpower has come under some hard meta-analysis in the past 4 years. Chief among them is Robinson, Schmeichel, & Inzlicht (2010) meta-analysis of neuroscience...
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="704.0"] 789[/caption] In the early 1990s, Professor William R Miller, Ph.D. and Professor Stephen Rollnick, Ph.D. developed a simplified form of counseling that could be taught to professionals in health care, social work, and many other fields where...
<blockquoteA young woman came to me at the gym one March for her free assessment. She wasn't overweight, but she was by no means fit. She'd never trained before and her movement assessment showed it. She was a blank canvas, starting from scratch. "I'm a strength coach. If you train with me, I can...
There was an appropriately large hullabaloo this week when CrossFitHQ decided they were not going to let Chloie Jonsson compete in the CrossFit Games Open as the woman she is and she responded to their rationale with a $2.5mil lawsuit. Instead of weighing in on the argument about the legality of...
When I do workshops on habit-formation, people react to the information in a number of ways that I’ve gotten used to seeing. One type of reaction (that I see a lot with fitness buffs) is what I call the, “Tim Ferriss Reaction,” aka “how do I hack this?” These people love the system for fostering...
By Dan John I don’t know how I’ve made it this many issues without posting a link to an article by Dan. In this article for Men’s Health, Dan discusses the very heart of what habit-based training takes: other people. All the science from Self-Determination Theory, to Willpower, to Habits points in...
As mentioned in the Research Review this month, I have long used choice in my coaching relationships as a way to foster autonomy in my clients. This can be scary for many new coaches who think that their value comes from programming their clients’ every moment, but as we saw in Wulf, Freitas, and...
David Dellanave has a radical answer. It’s not The Answer, he qualifies, but it’s certainly the best answer he knows for helping people improve their general strength. “I’ve done my job if I’ve gotten that person to lead themselves.” Mr. Dellanave’s answer might even ruffle a few strength-coaching...
One of the most interesting thing about a lot of habit-based interventions is that many don't do wildy better than other interventions in randomized control trials. They seem to do the same or maybe a tiny bet better. 12 weeks, however (the usual length of time for a nutrition or physical activity...
<blockquoteAn expert is a [person] who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field. </blockquote - Niels
<blockquoteWe learn from each other and grow together. </blockquote - Dan
<blockquoteThe more you equate food with morality, the harder it is to see it as fuel and health. </blockquote - Kristin Laine Newman,
<blockquoteThe present findings extend the literature by demonstrating that even choices that are incidental to the task at hand can have a significant effect on behavior. </blockquote - Wulf, Freitas, & Tandy
<blockquoteHave you had a kindness shown? Pass it on; 'Twas not given for thee alone, Pass it on; Let it travel down the years, Let it wipe another's tears, 'Till in Heaven the deed appears— Pass it on. </blockquote - Rev. Henry Burton, Pass It
<blockquoteAsking the Department of Agriculture to promote healthy eating was like asking Jack Daniels to promote responsible drinking. </blockquote - Denise
<blockquoteThere’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. </blockquote - Scott
Sometime between 62-67 CE, a new bishop was setting up a new church in Ephesus. The bishop, Timothy was new as well and received a number of letters from his mentor Paul with advice about how best to establish the congregation there. Paul warned him against getting involved with the petty squabbles...
I was very excited for Death by Food Pyramid by Denise Minger to come out. As a dietitian, I do not accept much of the common practice today as fact. I think many of the nutrition protocols we use today are built upon faulty science. Some of these faults are because of limitations in research due...
My friend Kristin Newman wrote an excellent post about the problems she sees with her clients and the kettlebell swing. Granted, she is teaching a CrossFit or "American Style" swing and I teach a "Hardstyle" or "Russian Style" swing, but the movement is basically the same from the shoulders down....
Last year I had two clients, a couple, that hired me to help them change their nutrition habits and hopefully lose some fat. They actually had ambitious goals (sub-10% body fat for a gentleman who could have voted for Hubert Humphrey is pretty ambitious), and I agreed to work with them. The reason...
Fitness professionals can be so enthusiastic about getting clients to their goals. We have all sorts of cool tricks, exercises, tips and habits to offer. Yes, eating more protein, drinking water, adding vegetables and getting exercise in are all pretty much indisputable habits to go after. However,...
By JC Deen JC Deen, also no stranger to the Coyote Point Kettlebell Club, has a hilarious style and a great system for keeping people on the path to health and fitness. His online coaching is all about “stacking the deck” to make healthy decisions easier to make until they become habit, which is...
One area of debate in the behavior-research community is the interaction between habits and goals. Wood and Neal (2007) proposes an interesting model (above) that depends on three principles that have been fairly well established in prior research: 1) “Habits are cued by context,” 2) “Habit...
Arthur C. Clarke, the famous science fiction author, is one of a small handful of people to have a set of laws named after him. Clarke’s Three Laws are simple, profound, and provide an excellent framework for understanding the the very edges of what is possible. 1. When a distinguished but elderly...
<blockquoteOne man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word. </blockquote - Robert A.
<blockquoteBe who you want to be. </blockquote - JC
<blockquoteGet as fit as possible while nourishing yourself — truly, deeply nourishing yourself — as well as possible. </blockquote - Krista
<blockquoteIf… participants in activities and observers of the activities focused more on good performance than on winning, the results for the participants’ motivation is likely to be far more positive. </blockquote - Vansteenkiste and Deci
This month’s book is another rare gem in pop science reading, which is to say a book written for lay people by a scientist who did most of the research in the book and who is at the forefront of his field. Brian Wansink, Ph.D. directs the Cornell Food and Brand lab and was Executive Director of...
This month's UNSEEN DEGREES is all about the environment. In this issue of UNSEEN DEGREES you'll find: An editorial about Habit-Based Coaching featuring Arthur C. Clarke and Penn Jillette A round up of articles by JC Deen and Krista Scott Dixon featuring some great habit-based coaching ideas....
My weird little career means I visit a lot of gyms. It also means I have seen a lot of gym T-shirts. Gym T-shirts fall broadly into these categories: Ed Hardy Hard-ons Inside jokes no one outside the 200 members will get The vaguely misogynist/homophobic The over-the-top patriotic Well-designed,...
As a exercise psych guy, this time of year is very busy for me. This is the time of year I get the most emails that contains the words, “goals,” “resolutions,” “core,” “tone,” “marathon,” and “pounds.” They started a few weeks ago and their numbers are climbing daily. But I have a confession. For...
I spent two years and a tiny fortune in graduate school learning everything I could about health and exercise psychology. Now that I'm out, I want to share what I've learned (and am continuing to learn) about habits, motivation, and creating environments where clients feel safe to truly and...
One of the most common reasons that people say they do not want to join a gym is because they aren’t in good enough shape. Many people laugh at the paradox in that thought, but as coaches we take it upon ourselves to understand where a client is coming from. Many people fear the judgement, real or...
By Sohee Lee Sohee, no stranger to the Coyote Point Kettlebell Club, writes on Livestrong about the struggles that every one faces with body composition and lifestyle change. Specifically, patience and delegating your energy to the places that matter. As we have learned from the great work of Roy...
Ed Deci and Richard Ryan introduced SDT in 1985 as a framework for understanding motivation and how it can enrich our lives, formalizing it in 2000. Since then, many health interventions have been created with SDT at their core. In their 2012 paper Fortier, Duda, Guerin, and Teixeira, all of whom...
<blockquoteDo what you need to do, and let the itty bitty details take care of themselves. </blockquote - Sohee
<blockquoteThe biggest stopping point is the feeling of inadequacy, discomfort, mistrust, or a lack of self-efficacy. </blockquote - Jonathan
<blockquoteThe strength model offers promise in identifying strategies to minimize short- term decrements in self-control and assist in developing interventions that foster better self-regulation. </blockquote - Hagger et. al
<blockquoteHabits gather by unseen degrees,As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas. </blockquote - Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XV, line 155. Dryden's
<blockquoteThere is a wide gap between knowing… and doing. </blockquote - John Berardi,
One of the most important topics in coaching that has only recently been studied in depth is willpower. Also known as “discipline” or “ego,” social scientists have finally begun in-depth explorations of how willpower works, is affected, is used, and is improved with training and time. The majority...
One of my first clients as a personal trainer was Erin, an 80 year old Irish woman who came into the gym, straight from Mass on a Tuesday, only to find her previous personal trainer had stood her up for the 3rd time. She was hopping mad, and just wanted a personal trainer who would show up. “My...
I don’t know where you are, but here in the USA this week is Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving might have started out as a noble celebration of abundance, but as with most things in a land where Calvinist pilgrims tried to divine who was “elect” by the earthy accumulation of wealth, more is definitely...
I love goals. People love goals. But goals are a tricky thing for most people. It sounds silly to say, but as someone who teaches people how to set goals for a living I can tell you that most of the people I talk to do not understand the goal of a goal. In sports, where the word goal comes from,...
My latest post, "Win or Learn" on Hello Healthy, the MyFitnessPal blog is all about the way we talk about training to ourselves and how to keep moving forward when it feels like we're standing
I live down the street from the headquarters of Twitter and have seen the company move headquarters a number of times all over my neighborhood of SOMA. Interestingly, the original idea for “twttr” was using SMS text messages to communicate to a small group, which Jack Dorsey prototyped and launched...
Almost 4 years ago, I made a transition from coaching fellow Marine Officer Candidates to helping regular people with regular fitness problems. My median client age went from 20 to 40, the amount of time I had with each person dropped from 12 hours a week to 1 hour, and the average motivation went...
My favorite artist is Tobi Wong. He was a designer who called his art “paraconceptual.” That’s an art-school word that means he made his art by appropriating other people’s work and tweaking it to make a grander statement. Like dipping Tiffany’s pearl earrings in black rubber and selling them in...
What's do you think is the best movie ever made? Citizen Cane? The Godfather? Casablanca? Now what do you think is the worst movie ever made? Showgirls? Battlefield Earth? The Room? Finally, what is your favorite movie of all time? Star Wars? Love Actually? Gross Point Blank? The reason I am asking...
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories. -Michel de Montaigne I began dabbling in Olympic Weightlifting in January of 2012. Dan John taught me to hang snatch with a wooden dowel on the beach at Pacifica, and I did some form of the lifts every day until I underwent the trauma of the...
"Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity." -Francis Bacon My job as a strength coach is not terribly fancy (despite the fact that I am). I teach people The Five Basic Human Movements (plus that other one) and help them get stronger. When I...
I bring up language a lot to my clients because the way that we talk and think about things greatly impacts the likelihood that we will do or will not do them. The words we choose can act like a barrier to entry. I'd much rather "take my dogs for a walk" than "go outside and stand around while my...
A few weeks ago when I was at Discus Camp, I got a chance to hang out with some great coaches. I met Chip Morton last year and he surprised me by telling me how much he likes by blog and had been reading it for a while. This year we talked for a good bit about how easy programming is when you use...
For the last two years at exactly this time, I’ve packed up the Coach Stevo Show and flown to tiny Denison University in Granveille, Ohio to hang out with Dan John and the extended family of John Powell’s Throws Camp, aka “Discus Camp.” I’m not a thrower. I’m not a track athlete. But every year I...
Every client stumbles. Weddings, birthday parties, and vacations can be previewed and planned for, but sometimes clients just get distracted or blindsided. They lose focus on the goal and get a little off the path. As a coach, I recognize that I am working with a limited and variable amount of my...
When I am starting a coaching relationship with a new client, there are some obvious assessments. I run them through my little mobility screen. I take them through the Five Human Movements (plus One). I ask them about what they have been eating. There are however, many other things I am assessing...
I was at a fitness conference in August that featured a lot of fantastic thinkers and speakers in the Strength & Conditioning, Physical Therapy, and Nutrition worlds. At the end of the conference, they lined them all up for a panel discussion. The moderator opened the floor to Q&A from the audience...
My clients ask me a lot of questions. In my quest to be a super-helpful coach, I like to give them the simplest, truest answers to those questions. Here is a common exchange: Edna: “How many should I do?” Me: “How many do you think you should do?” Edna: “You’re the coach.” Me: “Well, let’s start...
It’s around this time of year that I start getting “the running emails.” These are well meaning, enthusiastic potential clients who have signed up for a marathon, half-marathon, or tough mudder-type of event and are usually coming to me for a simple training program. Running was one of my first...
<blockquote“Before enlightenment chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.” – Wu Li, Zen Master </blockquote I have been lucky enough to train some pretty fantastic athletes as a coach. One of my athletes drives racecars, a skill he has been mastering since he was 5...
<blockquoteUsque adeo nulli sincera, voluptas, Solicitique aliquid lætis intervenit. “No one possesses unalloyed pleasure; there is some anxiety mingled with the joy.” -Ovid, Metamorphoses, VII. 453. </blockquote In November of 2008, I decided I wanted to become a Marine Officer. This was a dream I...
Last week a friend of mine sent me a link to this comment on Metafilter in response to a question (in italics): <blockquoteI just don't really understand why people have to then develop some kind of mad religious fervor about it Because it's food, and food is weirdly always kind of connected with...
<blockquoteThe object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things,...
A lot of people are traveling to spend time with family this week. People you see only once or twice a year have a habit of noticing very obvious changes in obvious ways. “OMG, you’ve lost weight!” or “OMG, have you been working out?!” Then inevitably, “OMG, what’s your secret?!” When I dropped...
I’ve written a lot lately about the philosophy of training, so I thought a more practical post was long overdue. This week I had the opportunity to take the Coyote Point Kettlebell Club down to Clackfit to train out of the rain and with some new toys. Yusuf Clack has created a killer facility in...
<blockquoteYamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku. Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no realization, no...
Every year, most of us gather together a few times in the fall and winter to utterly gorge ourselves on the food and drink that sane health professionals beg us to avoid. We eat pot-luck dinners with family, stay too late at parties with coworkers, and then go to brunches with friends; never...
This week features a guest post by one of my oldest friends. Noah Soltau is a PhD. candidate in Applied Linguistics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I fenced with him as a teenager at The Baylor School and we have stayed in touch based on a mutual interest in physical fitness, bacon, and...
Go into a store that sells cameras. There are actually thousands to choose from. Some of them are really expensive with lots of features and interchangeable, manual focus lenses; some of them are cheap, autofocus point-n-shoots. Most of them are black or silver, most have a little screen to see...
When I start working with a client, my job is to find Point A, Point B, then the fastest route between them. Dan John calls this “Intervention” and I stole the entire system from him. For the client, the job is the Path; they just need to stay on it and keep moving forward. I present this strategy...
The other week, I got a drop in to my Booty Camp class. She was young, slender, already warmed up, and ready to go at 5:45am on a Monday. I gave mer my schpeel about the class, “80% yoga, 20% picking up heavy things” and she looked freaked out when I handed her a foam roller. “Like, what kind of...
Nine years ago this week, on September 12, 2003, Johnny Cash died of complications from diabetes. Johnny Cash was 71. My Dad was 12 years old when Johnny Cash came to play at the Skyline Drive-In in LaFayette, my hometown of less than 2,000 people in rural Georgia. Johnny got so drunk after the...
I have launched the new CoachStevo.com and boy are my launching muscles sore. Not much has changed to the casual observer, but there are a lot of new capabilities for my clients that will be rolling out of beta in the coming weeks. Since most of you are readers of my blog, I should let you know...
A few weeks ago I told someone what I do for a living and I found myself giving away hundreds of dollars in advice for free again. The young man was tall and very skinny, and told me he “just couldn’t put on muscle.” This was the conversation that ensued: “How often do you squat?” “Well… [looks at...
or How I Learned to CTFD, Pick Something, Then Do it Until I'm Done My clients worry a lot. They worry that they are making the right food choices, performing movements properly, avoiding the bad diet situations, and keeping the company that is going to keep them active. But with all there is to...
Before I was in the wonderful world of fitness, I did the internet marketing thing. Specifically I looked at numbers and made recommendations for how to tweak websites to make them sell more stuff. The world of website analytics revolves around "key metrics." Unique visits, time-on-site, and above...
In January of 2011, I went to Boston because I wanted to see what Dan John and Mike Boyle, two people who’s training styles could not differ more on paper, had in common enough to present together. I was drowning in all the options available to me as a coach and sick of all the cults that had...
The Experience For the month of June, I wanted to give the Big 21 an honest shot. So I didn't care about weight gain or performance in any other area but O lifting. I ate whatever my body told me to eat (this is a fine distinction from eating what ever you want), slept as much as I could, and...
A few months ago one of the trainers in the gym where I play with barbells told me they never saw me work very hard. I would come in with very light warm up, little stretching, no drama, and perform 10 repetitions each of the front or overhead squat, the snatch, and the clean and jerk with about...
One day a few weeks ago, I came up up with a workout. This isn't unusual; it's kind of my job. I did the workout. Then I had a group of strong female athletes do it. Then I had a strong male athlete do it. Then I had the Coyote Point Kettlebell Club do it. I took notes and feedback. I tweaked. I...
My wife flies around a lot. She’s all important and what-not, so she gets to travel to big cities helping people with her elite lawyering skills. Since these are usually quick trips, she travels with a roller bag, a really big purse, and not me. When it comes time to board the plane, a funny thing...
I've been "Russian Kettlebell Certified" for a little over 2 years. My logo is a kettlebell. I have kettlebells on my shirts, pants, hoodies; I have kettlebells in my living room, bedroom, and 600lbs of them in my truck. So it's not surprising when people ask me, "Why kettlebells?" I'm obviously a...
General James T. Mattis is an interesting guy. When I was playing Marine, he was the person I most idolized in uniform. General Mattis (Call sign "Chaos" How cool is that?) has been in the Marine Corps since January 1, 1972. He has commanded Marines in every situation from rifle platoon commander;...
When I was a teenager, my family went on a trip to Great Britain. We drove from London to Edinburgh and made one very special stop at a castle along the way. Now castles are cool and all (especially the ones with dungeons), but this particular castle in the North East of England was extra rad...
My favorite book is The Magus by John Fowles. It was given to me by my first mentor, the late Dr. John Miller. The book is so good and I love it so much that I have never finished it. Every time I pick it up, I come across a sentence so breathtakingly perfect that I have to close the book and leave...
What if I told you there was a single habit that could make you healthier, fitter, better looking, richer, smarter, and more frequently laid? What if I told you that habit had zero learning curve, took less than 10 minutes a day and was practically free? You’d probably ask if I have a bridge in...
Everyone wants to get from Point A to Point B. But one of the great problems on the journey towards health and/or fitness is knowing if you're making progress. How does a sprinter know he is improving? He runs faster on race day. But between races, he might have no idea where he is on his journey....
I have been training every day since the day I met Dan John. I have encouraged most of my clients to do the same. As a result we have all gotten stronger (without getting sore) and I have amassed a modest amount of experience with the Grease the Groove, Even Easier Strength, Easy Strength, 40 Day...
In his 2002 book, How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War from Ancient Greece to the War on Terror, Bevin Alexander makes a big deal of rule #5: feign retreat. It's a damn good rule. Every great commander since Gilgamesh has followed it and boneheads as recently as Tommy Franks have fallen for it....
The vast majority of my clientele are regular folks. They want to feel better, move better, and look better. I have a handful of athletes, but for the most part the people I work with take a casual approach to fitness. I am assuming the same is true about people who read this blog. Which is why I...
Do you remember learning to drive? I look back in amazement that I and everyone in the town I grew up in did not die as a result of me having unfettered access to 3,000lbs of steel and gasoline. And like you are probably thinking about yourself, I wasn't even the worse driver I knew; I was actually...
Why can Jon North snatch 166kg and I can’t? Because he’s snatched 165kg. Pavel tells everyone at RKC certs who’s paying attention that “strength is a skill” and he’s absolutely right. But a skill is an outcome. How does one acquire a skill? By doing it a lot. The process of acquiring a skill is...
One of the great complisults I've gotten as a coach was from a woman in my Booty Camp class. Booty Camp happens to be all extremely dedicated ladies who come to the gym that I teach at every morning at 6am and take what is offered. I designed this class to compliment the other three days a week...
Most of the people who read this blog are my clients and potential clients. They tell me they want to get back into shape, maybe lose a few pounds, and just get a little hotter. As you might have noticed from my weekly Q&A posts, I get asked a lot of questions from those readers. But after doing...
"We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty."-Quintilian In this ongoing series, I deal with common excuses that I hear every day from clients and potential clients. I'm too busy. Oh, did you see last night's American Idol results show? No you're not. Moving more and eating less takes...
In case you haven't noticed from my inconsistent posting last week, Coach Stevo has been a little busy. No this post isn't going to be a pity party. I know that all my readers and clients are very busy, too this time of year. So rather than complaining, I thought I'd set a good example and tell you...
All the blogs I read have done posts about how not to get fat during Thanksgiving. I follow some really great fitness and nutrition experts, so the posts are all very scientific, well reasoned, and long. But many people have asked my advice about how not to get fat during Thanksgiving, so here's...
In this ongoing series, I post (with permission) actual questions that have landed in my inbox. What should I do for cardio? Whatever you want to be able to do a lot of in a given amount of time. Cardio training is getting your body more effecient at using its fuel systems to produce force over...
As far back as I can remember, my right hip has always turned out. My feet were perpendicular; at 12 and 3 o'clock. I blamed 7 years of fencing, but it never really "bothered" me, because I always did things like squat and swing with a little more external rotation than others and it seemed to work...
I was in New York this week and spent my time going to gyms and seeing how people who go to gyms work out. As you know, I spend most of my time either training my clients outside or training with other fitness nerds. My wife insisted that I go to the gym in her building and train her which opened...
In this ongoing series, I post (with permission) actual questions that have landed in my inbox. What muscle does [that] work? All of them. If you're working with me or doing any of the exercises I've mentioned on this blog, the answer to this question will always be "all of them." The movements I...
Dan John knows about carrying around heavy things. He loves carrying heavy things so much that he slapped a picture of him doing it on his first book. In the snow. With a smile on his face. But the praises for the loaded carry is not limited to strongmen and throwers. Mike Boyle recently talked on...
Meh.In this ongoing series, I post (with permission) actual questions that have landed in my inbox. Can I have a Luna bar? Sure! Wait, you're suffering from being extremely underweight, right? Or you just hiked 2/3 of the Appilachian Trail this weekend? A doctor diagnosed you with hypoglycemia...
I learned the kettlebell swing about two years ago from a guy named Antonio who is carved from marble and has a butt you could rest a beer on. Rightly thinking the swing might have had something to do with that, I have swung a bell almost every day since. Without exaggeration, I have performed the...
Part 1: Tight Chest In this series, we are going to look at the factors that are holding you back. The little fixable things that are making you look less hot than you could be, or in today's case, less hot that you already are. These are the weak points that most sedentary people have which I seek...
As a coach, I think a lot about movement. I write a lot about it, too. A couple of months ago, Dan John clued me in to a model of movement that I love called "The Five Human Movements." I loved it so much that he named a workout after me that used all five. But in hanging out with Dan and the other...
Coach Stevo Fun Fact: I majored in the Philosophy of the scientific method at the Univerisity of Chicago, a school that in 1945, pulled out of the Big 10 Conference because football was too much of a distraction. What did I learn from this eduacation? Science is fun. Ok, football is probably more...
"Bobby, can you do me a favor and stand up? I just wanna make sure you still can."I've written about a lot of healthy habits in the past. Most of them were probably pretty obvious, some of them maybe not so much. Today I want to talk about what might be the most obvious healthy habit of all. You...
courtesy of the New York TimesThis week, the world lost 22 amazing men in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. I didn't know anyone on that helicopter, but I know people who knew too many. This article is dedicated to the memory of what those men accomplished and how you can apply it to accomplishing...
There are very few "laws" in physics. And Newton's Four Laws of Thermodynamics are about a "proven" as science gets. As a big fan of science, I have to tell you that in Coach Stevo's House, we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics. That's because your body is a system like any other in that Newton...
When I was ages 4 to… well now, my favorite fictional character was Batman. Mostly because he is everything I wasn't. Since the death of his parents, Batman has been singularly focused and utterly disciplined. He spends every night doing the same noble, difficult, but boring thing: patrolling the...
There comes a time in any training program when you go off the wagon. There are days when you just can't seem to make it into the gym. There are days when you can't get your meal planning together and you end up at In 'N Out. Suck days happen and they happen to us all. But what separates people who...
With rare exception, what most of my clients want is change. They want to change their body's shape or function. They have a goal, and they come to me to help them attain it. Sometimes they have trouble articulating that goal and they need my help to even work up the courage to say it out loud....
I am lucky enough to have four surviving grandparents, three of whom I visited this week. Two drove 12 hours round trip to spend Father's Day weekend at my parent's house, and the other was in the hospital having emergency surgery. Their age-range is 10 years but their "physical age range" might as...
When I was a Marine Corps officer candidate, I went to a little 3-day taste of Officer Candidate School that was staffed by actual Sergeant Instructors from Quantico. After pick-up and a group run carrying all of our trash, my makeshift platoon was introduced to Gunnery Sergeant Mata. If you speak...
Have you ever gone to a bookstore and looked at how many diet books there are? Have you every wondered why there are so many different exercise programs on the internet? Or why every trainer is an expert in [latest fad workout, body part, etc.]? Well at great risk to my physical well being, I am...
People like to cut corners. Everyone is looking for a shortcut to wealth, happiness and hotness. And so it's not surprising that people look to take shortcuts at the gym. Everyone wants to be hotter, stronger, leaner, and faster yesterday. And I get it. Doing things is hard, especially things that...
What's the difference between you and someone who is really freaking strong? What's the difference between the average 5'8" 185lb American male, and the guy in this picture? The guy in this picture is Jim Leonhard. Jim is a free safety for the New York Jets. He's a full 4 inches shorter and 30...
In my previous post, I showed off my abstract thinking skills and presented "Coach Stevo's Real World Model for Strength." It was such a huge hit that I had literally a person ask me, "hey Coach! How do I train for that?" Well good news, everyone: here's the follow up! Coach Stevo's Rules for...
I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be "strong." There are as many kinds of strength as there are kinds of exercises; it really all depends on how you think about things and categorize them. A very popular model that a lot of people smarter than me will tell you about is the...
How often does Melanie Roach perform the snatch? How often does Haile Gebrselassie run? When do writers write and musicians play? Every. Damn. Day. How often do you do the things that you want to be good at? Skills are just habits multiplied by time. And hotness is a skill that you can chose to...
My clients often note the bizarre sound I make when I demonstrate a movement. It's a sharp "TSSST!" sound that many have never heard before. I force air out between my teeth at the completion of every rep and many claim it sounds like I have suddenly sprung a leak. This is diaphragmic breathing at...
The Greatest Pole Vaulter of All Time: Yelena IsinbayevaA lot of my clients want to know how they stack up to my other clients. This is easy in my "Booty Camp" and "Kettlebells to the Wall" classes (they just have to look around) but even they want to know how they stack up to the...
The Turkish Get Up is an amazing movement. A lot of people way smarter than me have said a lot about it and all the best coaches, physical therapists, and trainers have been incorporating it into their programs. But after teaching the Turkish Get Up to a few dozen people over the years, I want to...
There are a lot of movements people like to do in the gym. They push weights, pull at machines, crunch on balls, and elliptical on ellipticals. But how many times in your life will you encounter an elliptical in the wild? Can you imagine a scenario when your awesomeness will be put the test on a...
What if I told you there was something you could start doing now that would make you burn fat, build muscle, prevent disease, extend your life, and make you smarter, hotter, and better in the sack? What if I told you that this "Holy Grail" was backed by every scientific study on the above mentioned...
Hey Coach Stevo, I'm sick of running on the treadmill for my cardio. Any suggestions? Yes, stop running on the treadmill. That'll be $100, please. Cardio is a 6-letter word with a lot of baggage. It's also used interchangeably to mean a lot of things to people in different contexts. Even people in...
How much can you change your body in only 6 weeks? Are you feeling a little chunky? A little weak? Maybe you're sick of the damn elliptical or would like a hot, new booty to show off this spring. Well Coach Stevo's Sophomore Class in Strength is the answer you're looking for! Starting on Tuesday...
One of the hurdles I have to get over with a lot of my clients when they begin their Ticket to Hotness™ is the idea that time in the gym doesn't do anything to you while you're there. Every movement, rest, and rep has a point and that is to place strain on the body and then allowing the body to...
"Hey Coach Stevo, how can I speed this hotness thing up?" First off, let's talk about what you need to be doing. The Ticket to Hotness™, as it were. Resistance training 2-3 times per week. Cardio 2-3 times per week. Mobility 10 minutes per day. Moving every day. Eating in a 250kcal to 500kcal per...
A client actually taking my advice!"What should I eat, Coach Stevo?" This is an important question I get from every one of my clients. And I'm glad people ask, because 90% of bodily change (fat loss, muscle gain, recomposition, etc.) is the result of manipulated nutrition. And people know what to...
"Hey Coach Stevo! My goal is to lose 1lb/wk for the next 10 weeks and I already strength train 3x per week. Should I bike for hour or do kettlebell swings? How many hours of kettlebell swings are equal to an hour bike ride?" -Teresa M. Ok, so your goal is to lose 1lb/wk. I'm going to interpret this...
It's the beginning of a new year and you know what you need to do. Eat better. Drink Less. Go to the gym more. But you knew all that last year and the only thing that seems to have improved is your tolerance for wine. Well get started the right way by learning "Healthy Habits with Coach Stevo!"...
It probably started last Wednesday. Maybe it was that huge meal you cooked for your family, or maybe it was the extra 5-6 eggnogs you kicked back on Christmas Eve. Either way, with all the festivities of this holiday season you are probably thinking to yourself, "when was the last time I ate a...
Coach Stevo's Actual Iron Gym (note the athletic tape replacement grips).I have coached dozens of men how to bang out pull-ups and even a handful of dedicated women. A single, unassisted, USMC-style pull-up is a very high benchmark of physical fitness for the ladies, but it is completely...
Just in time for the holidays! Treat your friends, family, or even yourself to Coach Stevo merchandise and gift certificates. Coach Stevo kettlebell logos and slogans are available on everything from t-shirts, to blankets, booty shorts. I recommend the Zipper Hoody. It's high quality from American...
First, a little science. Protein is one of the three macronutrients, along with fats and carbohydrates, that comprise the foods we eat. A gram of protein is about 4 net calories, and is most often associated with meats, dairy products like yogurt and cheese and, to a lesser extent, nuts, legumes...
Coach Stevo's Sunrise is canceled tomorrow, December
So I'm on vacation in NYC and staying with my sister-in-law, who has a very nice gym in her apartment building. It has more cardio machines and floor space than my gym in SF. It also has more people that do not know what they are doing. I watched a trainer put a 95lb man through 6 different tricep...
"Hey Coach Stevo, can women get too bulky lifting big weights?" Can they? Yes. Will they? Very unlikely. Quite frankly, I spend most of my day trying to convince women to either eat a little more or significantly less and that is not a recipe for muscle gain, no matter how many heavy things you...
So, I did it. 10,000 swings in 23 days. What's that look like? I averaged 435 swings per day, but that's not an insightful statistic. On some days I did none, and on my last two days I swung the bell 2,500 times. The fact is, swings are simple. And once you learn a few tricks, it's pretty easy to...
My wife pointed out to me today that every women's magazine in the world has Thanksgiving diet tips this week. Since I like to think of myself as well versed in the zeitgeist of fitness (everyone's swinging bells now, right?), I thought I would cut through the fat and give you some real Turkey Day...
Today I woke up and decided to do 1,000 hard-style kettlebell swings in an hour. 1,000 days ago, on February 14th, 2008, I woke up and decided to run a mile. What a difference 1,000 days makes. There are many reasons that we can decide to change something in our lives. We can make ourselves do...
There's something that 3,300 kettlebell swings in a week will teach you like nothing else: It's all in the hips. What's "all?" Everything. Anything. Whenever you move, whenever you stand or sit still, you are using your hips. There are (at least) 17 different muscles that act on the...
So you've been thinking you wanna change your body. You wanna drop some fat or gain some hotness. Maybe you just want to get Coach Stevo's autograph (he's dreamy!). Well on the first Wednesday of every month, you'll get your chance... for free! This Wednesday at 6:30am in South Park) will...
Last night I decided to do something stupid. I decided to do 10,000 hard-style kettlebell swings in the month of November. Ok, so stupid might be debatable, but I think we can all agree it is hard and entirely arbitrary. And while the goal is lofty and foolish, my reasons for doing it are are...
Posterior What? Look in the mirror and what do you see? Pretty face, nice chest, good abs. You're a sexy mofo! But wait a minute... your back always hurts, you couldn't pick up a sack of flour off the floor, and your 40yd time would be measured in minutes. What? Why?! Because you got no bootie,...
The Cook Hip Lift Most people have trouble with glute activation. Glutes are pretty much the most important muscle in the body for functional movement (and hotness), so training those butt muscles to fire is an extremely important part of any training routine. Cook Hip Lifts, which I stole from...
Eat Less. Move
"Hey Coach Stevo, what's with people running in those ridiculous shoes with the toes?" Ok, so there's a guy named Christopher McDougall who wrote a book in 2009 called Born to Run. In this book McDougall finds a bunch of native Mexicans called the Tarahumara who like to run a lot. Some of them even...
Never Say Never or Always. This is a philosophical point, but one that I feel is important for creating the body that you want over the long haul. I was having a conversation with a young guy who wants to become a personal trainer. He is going to work at a big corporate gym where (ostensibly) they...
I watch people train all day. They lift, they jog, they stretch, and sometimes they come back again. Most do not, but those that do usually see results. But then there are those that I see every day and seem to be treading water. They bang away at the equipment in desperation and frustration,...
I tell people all the time that, "this stuff ain't rocket science." By "stuff," I mean taking care of your body, and by "ain't rocket science," I am totally lying. Quite frankly, working out and being in the best shape you can be to move through this world shares a lot in common with rocket...
Things have been kinda quiet on coachstevo.com, but that's not because I've gotten lazy. For the past few weeks, I have been attacking the next stage in my fitness education: nutrition. When I lost all this weight in 2008, I learned a lot about how to avoid sugar and eat proper portion sizes, and...
One of the main problems that people complain about (and that trainers project onto clients as a problem) is "core strength." I have seen these buzz words in magazines and on gym membership ads for years and it has begun to bother me. Not that publishers and gyms are using it as a hook, but the...
It's running season again, and while I don't recommend running for all (or even most) of my clients, I simply cannot live without it. The fascinating thing about running to me is testing the limits of my own fatigue. But this leads to a question: What is fatigue? What is the mechanism that allows...
There are a handful of exercises that I do every day. The swing, the get-up, push-ups and pull-ups. Chief among them is the pull-up: the quintessential bodyweight exercise. The pull-up is the great equalizer of upper-body strength. It utilizes the Latissimus Dorsi mainly, but they are assisted by...
My last article was a smashing success. Many people told me, "I'm never gonna run again!" The problem is that most of those people didn't run in the first place and now are doomed to a life of fatness if they can't get some cardio in. So I thought I'd write a follow up article to defend running. My...
I'm a runner. I love it. The only exercise I love more than running is sex. I love the personal solitude and the struggle to beat the clock and the honesty of that objective achievement. For me, running is the purist measurement of my personal performance. But I really shouldn't run and you...
I could write an entire book on the swing. There are very few movements as simple as the swing that have so many benefits accessible to so many people so quickly into learning it. Even better than the push up and the pull up (which I love), I can't think of anything that comes close to the total...
To better understand why hard-style kettlebells are so great for women, a little anatomy is in order. And let's get right to what matters -- The clitoris. Most people, women included, think that the clitoris is the little eraser-head sized nub of flesh atop the vulva. The "man in the rowboat." But...
It has been a week since I became Russian Kettlebell Certified so I am writing a bit about the RKC and why I like kettlebells so much. First of all, let me say that I chose the RKC for the same reason that I choose anything: it was really hard. The RKC is an expensive certification with very high...
Vanity is a very powerful emotion. We do a lot for the sake of vanity, even if it is completely ridiculous. But one of the things that I have always had trouble doing for the sake of vanity is get in shape. Now if that seems like an odd thing to say, how many people do you know who lost a ton of...
I like science. A lot. So a few months ago when I read this article in Time, I got very intrigued. Turns out there is a correlation between people who engage in regular cardiovascular exercise and weight gain. "What the What?!" you might be asking. Well, yes, it's true. Now here come the Personal...
One of the problems of being good at something is that you tend to do it to the exclusion of everything else. I happen to be good at running, and it wasn't until I got injured and started training with kettlebells that I noticed that I had the flexibility of an 80-year-old. And I'm sorry, it...
Coach Stevo here, introducing myself. Hope you like the new website, as well as twitter and Facebook. Subcribe to this blog and expect me to post as often as I can. And I promise it won't just be a feed of my latest