Straight Shot Radio

Ep. 118: The Witcher's Workout

So how would a coach design a program for Geralt of Rivia, the lead character in The Witcher? Not, “how did Henry Cavill get huge and ripped for his role on the Netlifx show?”...Literally, how would a program be designed for a 13th century, magically enhanced monster-killer with a bad attitude on a quest to fulfill his prophesied destiny?

Obviously, this is a task much too lofty for just one coach, so I enlisted the help of Strongman and Crossfit Coach John Taylor, whose love of The Witcher, homemade fitness equipment, and inventive imagination made for a hilarious conversation. 

We tie in a lot of training and coaching techniques throughout the episode that may benefit you in your own program whether you’re just looking to add some variety to your routine, or if you need to battle a giant spider hybrid beast in the middle of a swamp at night armed only with your steel sword…

Ep. 117: Accountability Strategies for Better Results

I share some tips and strategies behind the difference maker in your diet and exercise adherence: Accountability. 

Trust me, this is not an introspective pep talk. These are real, practical things you can start doing today to help you accomplish your fitness goals by setting up accountability checks in your diet, sleep, and workouts. 

If you're a coach, I've got a lot for you all in this one too, but heads up, I'm a lot harder on you all than everyone else...

Ep. 116: Cherish the Challenge with Coach Ryan Morse

Challenges in your life are inevitable, it’s how you choose to handle them that makes the difference between them being something that breaks you down and something that builds you up

Coach Ryan Morse, C.S.C.S, has faced countless challenges in his athletic, coaching, and entrepreneurial careers. The way he chooses to take on each trial is the motto of his gym, Crucible Performance, and that motto is “Cherish the Challenge.” Not “tolerate the challenge,” not “hurry up and get through the challenge,” CHERISH it. Drive headfirst into the difficult things both in and out of the gym that will make you a better person physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

In this interview, we hear how Ryan went from a baseball-playing art student to one of the top personal trainers in our area with an award-winning gym that empowers every athlete who enters.

Ep. 115: Q&A with the Crew (returning to the gym, protein, chinups, sleep, and certifications)

I’m joined by Straight Shot Co-Owner Chris Lewis and Coach Delaney Bodnar as we tackle some of the questions we received from you all on social media. 

 

We cover whether or not you need to return to a gym, plant vs. animal protein in your diet, how to get stronger with chinups, more sleep vs. early morning workouts, and the correct steps to becoming a personal trainer. 

Ep. 114: A Home Gym for the Whole Family

Brad and Naomi Leeman wanted to combine their love of fitness with their desire to have more family time. So they created the SwingSesh: a combination home gym and playground setup. 

Brad serves as a Test Pilot in the US Marine Corps and Naomi is an urban design consultant. They came up with the idea for the SwingSesh, designed and engineered it, found a manufacturer, and now have their product available for other busy parents looking to stay active along with their kids. 

In this interview, we chat about how parents can model good relationships with exercise to their children and how they took their product from a dream to production.

Ep. 113: 7 Unconventional Fat Loss Methods

So you've been counting your calories and trying to make sure you're in a caloric deficit, but your weight loss has stopped...or worse...you're losing muscle mass. How do you continue to lose weight and make sure it's body fat and not muscle that you're losing?

In this episode, I give you 7 ways to kickstart your weight loss and make sure you’re losing fat instead of muscle. These methods may not be the first things you think of, but they will keep your metabolism revving throughout the day, and still allow you to crush your goals in the gym while dropping weight.

Ep. 112: Balancing Parenting, Work, and Fitness with Coach Megan Foland

This week on the show we’ve got Straight Shot Coach Megan Foland. Like most personal trainers in 2020, she had a pretty wild year, except Megan also had a baby in 2020, worked as a respiratory therapist, helped with the opening of our sister company, Kinetix Physiotherapy & Performance, and started coaching for us here at Straight Shot. 

We get into all of that in our chat plus we discuss her experience as an Ironman Triathlete, share tips from her nutrition blog, and get a glimpse of how busy parents can juggle family, work, nutrition, and training, AND recovery.

Ep. 111: Dedication Over Motivation

Motivation is overrated. 

Sooner or later, no matter how motivated you are to start something, that motivation will fade. And when the motivation to eat healthily, work out, and recover well isn’t there, what do you REALLY need to stick with it?

It’s Dedication.

In this episode, I share some practical strategies to help you get dedicated to accomplishing your health and fitness goals by properly structuring your training, nutrition, and recovery.  

Ep. 110: Making Her Own Way with Jess Racz

Continuing with our series on coaches who embraced the challenges of 2020, we have Jess Racz, C.S.C.S. from JR Performance. 

Even before the lockdown hit, she was paving her own path, being a female strength and conditioning coach in a male-dominated industry. I first met Jess when she was in high school, working out at a gym that I worked at. We’ve kept in touch over the years and it’s been amazing to see her growth as a coach. But what she accomplished last year is on a whole other level.

Jess started her own performance coaching business and opened a physical location in the middle of the shutdown and has grown JR Performance to be a hot spot for young athletes to come and build both strength and self-confidence with her unique approach. 

In this episode, Jess shares her experience from last year and all of the struggles and challenges she’s had to face along the way to becoming the coach and mentor that she is today. 

Ep. 108: Why You Keep Getting Injured

Ever wonder why you keep injuring yourself while working out, EVEN if you weren’t using bad form? Well, there are a TON of other reasons why you may have injured yourself and keep injuring yourself. In this episode, I go through a list of possible reasons behind these bumps in the road with your training, and how making these changes in your workouts can have you training more consistently since you aren’t constantly dealing with nagging injuries. 

Note: Completely forgot to add SLEEP to this list! How could I forget that?! If you don't sleep 7-8+ hours a night, you're going to run into issues with recovery, and risk getting hurt!

Ep. 107: The Most Embarrassing Gym Stories

The Straight Shot coaches share our own worst gym moments along with a bunch of your submissions from social media.

Look, embarrassing stuff in the gym happens, so we use this episode to laugh it all off together and encourage you to keep coming back and bettering yourself each workout.

You'll hear about falling asleep in a yoga class, pooping under a bush, odd bodily sounds on heavy lifts, throwing up on a Goodwill donation box, lots of trips, falls, and funny fails, and other stories we could barely read we were laughing so hard. 

One of our funniest episodes to date...don't skip this one!

 

Ep. 106: Switch It Up with Daily Undulating Periodization

If you're looking to balance your many fitness goals, DUP is a method of organizing your workouts throughout the week to accomplish just that.

Personally, I used the DUP program I lay out in this episode to hit PR's on all of my lifts while still staying mobile and athletic AND drop 20 pounds over the course of 15 weeks. 

In addition to sharing my own experimentation with this training style, I lay out a sample program you can use to start training this way as soon as you're finished listening to the episode!