Train. Eat. Think. Episode 10 - The Power of Coaching

The Power of Coaching: Why Everyone Needs Guidance 

Hobbybuilders and lifestyle fitness enthusiasts alike may wonder, "Do I really need a coach?" The answer is a resounding yes and yes even coaches need a coach!

In this episode Francis and Ben talk about being coached and how this has helped them be better coaches also. 
Walking the walk and talking the talk in their own journeys with busy lives there is a need to be held accountable and given support. 

They also share our ups, downs and how having a coach makes all the difference. Indvidual struggles and learning that has helped develop their physiques and knowledge in order that to better serve clients. 

Also discussed is the importance of understanding, empathy, emotional guidance and providing motivation, focus and ultimately RESULTS. 

For online 121 coaching enquiries/information

Please contact Francis on X/Instagram @coachfhm or email fmeliacoaching@gmail.com 

Contact Ben on X/Instagram @benjaminyeezus or email benyeezus@gmail.com  

Thanks for listening. See you next week :D 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Train, eat, think. Episode number ten. Coaching.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

The power of coaching.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Episode 10 already, mate, isn't it? We're in. I mean it's absolutely flown by, and uh I'm super buzzing because obviously, as I shared with you, I listened to some episodes when I was travelling away there um just just over the weekend and and and and just buzzing, buzzing to do more, buzzing to get into this one. You know, gonna be a lot of value for people in this. Uh why, as coaches, you know, we have our own coach and just some things beyond.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Yeah, the uh the power of coaching, mate. Yeah, I think it's uh you see this a lot on the timeline. I know a lot on Switzerland and a lot of people have uh there's lots of coaches out there, and I know a lot of people work with different coaches and not just in not just in what we do with uh you know obviously our online fitness coaching and helping people get in shape. There's a lot of other sports where whatever sport you're in, you know. I think you look at any of the top athletes in the world, mate, whatever sport it is, your football, boxing, UFC, everyone's got coaches for everything these days. And you know, for good reason, for for for sort of getting the expertise and the the advice in a specific area for certain things. And a lot of people don't have a lot a lot of time to be uh looking into the the ins and outs, so they they just uh they hire it out. And yes, it's there's definitely a lot of benefits of good coaching.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

I mean the great thing is not not just being coaches but being coached ourselves. We'll be able to speak hopefully on this podcast about our experiences, our anecdotes, what what we've learned, and also what we've still to learn and what we still want to experience in terms of our own journeys, you know. If knowledge was enough, we'd all just fix ourselves. You know, we've got years of experience, training under our belts, nutrition, but there's still at points, you know, blind spots, there still can be elements and something that you're gonna find out very soon, Francis, about emotion potentially clouding your judgment, especially when you're going to that point when you're going to stage. Because it's just I always say don't make a decision wet when you're on a prep, don't make a life-changing decision. So, yeah, it's just about being you know objective, and that objectiveness can be you know for some uh quite a struggle because you you lose the lack of or the ability to rationalise, you end up negotiating and and changing seven things in a week, and maybe one of those seven things worked, but but what was it? And I think what a coach can bring to the table is you know that perspective that you might be able to lack so you can have all the knowledge, you know, the old line that everything's out there on Google, yeah, but you know, what it lacks is giving you perspective, maybe calling you out on your own BS, you know, and that's not just going to apply to somebody that's new out the rap or into training and their journey. This goes into intermediate and advanced, and again, as you say, people in different spaces, tennis, there's loads of different sports out there with coaches. Um, even in football, soccer, for example, you've now got things like set piece coaches, so the specialism. Um, and hopefully here we can show the power of of coaching and for for people that want better outcomes and and to remove the guesswork.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

I think you you make a that's a very good point about the the the emotional response to it's not just what we do inside the gym, it's it's it's your nutrition piece, scale weight is a big one as well. The visuals, you know, so many people are wrapped up. There's a lot of emotion attached to what we do, of course. We're human, and that that's that's totally normal. There's nothing wrong with that. You know, we are all human. But I think one of the big things that my job as a coach, and I I know yourself as well, I probably end up stopping a lot of clients doing nonsense and getting out of their own way. Like the amount of questions that I might get on a week-to-week basis, you know, just as an example, um uh I want to drop calories. Uh I think we can go faster, you know, as an example with with genuinely a person might be seeing a great rate of loss, everything is perfect. You don't need to change nothing. It this situation it's just you being too emotional and being too impatient, and having again a good coach in your corner with a second pair of eyes on things, just going, Look, just rein it in a touch, everything's going fine. The last thing you need to do is go dropping calories now and increasing the deficit as an example because you'll start to burn the candle at both ends. So if you were on your own and you didn't have that second pair of eyes or that guidance, you then turn a situation that's going perfectly and you'd make it worse because again, too emotional, too impatient, and you can't step back and take that bird's eye view of everything. And and and that's one thing that I have as a coach is you you you step back, and obviously, we're working with people, so you you do have that emotional connection with them, but sometimes you have to step back and detach from what's at play and and look at a lot of your metrics and what's actually going on and don't where they might be uh emotional about the scale weight, and when you zoom out and you look at the big picture, because you can you've got to have that ability as a coach, you can help direct and guide people uh in the right lines or the right space that they need to be going without the emotion attached to it. So I think that that is that is a big, big benefit of uh of coaching.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

I mean, it's so invaluable that having that 30,000 foot view and looking at your your journey as a whole, and you make a great point, you know, I can go a bit faster or whatever. You want to be dieting on as high calorie as you can, especially if you're you're seeing those results outside of the skills. Yes, obviously, we want the scales as a confirmation, but those non-scale victories are so important, and I think there's a a really good important point here to mention that fat loss is completely different from weight loss, unless you're doing a sport where you need to weigh in and you need to be of a certain weight, you don't really need to concern yourself as much because when you're going for fat loss, it's going to look and feel slightly different. You know, you could pull I don't know seven, ten, fourteen pounds off someone by taking down carbs, taking down food volume, stopping taking salt, and you get away with that for like a week, maybe. And then obviously, again, as you've said, Francis, you're starting to create massive fatigue holes for yourself, deficits that you can't get out of. And another thing you're probably going to do as well, you're going to metabolically adapt sooner than you would. So all that patience and and consistency comes into it. And that is an element of experience as well. You know, experience doesn't remove the need for accountability. People know exactly what to do, but they still can end up second guessing. So that uh sort of lane between knowing and executing are where most people, I would say, come a cropper in the space, whether that's in a deficit or whether that's in an improvement phase. And that's where, again, as you've alluded to, you know, your coach can come in and give you a little shake or to say, no, this is what we're doing. Because at the end of the day, your coach has got the the roadmap, knows where you're on, knows what needs to be done, and that's the great thing about it. You can outsource that all and you don't need to worry because you know it could be somebody that's working many jobs, it could be somebody that's got lots of responsibilities, they don't really have the time to go and look it all up. And obviously, when we are dealing with people on a daily basis like that, you know, you you get to know and understand and you can take people on that journey. But one of the things that really helps, obviously, and and we can attest to by having our own coaches, which we do, is we we perform differently having that support and accountability element.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

It's the culture now, it's it's the culture night that you develop over time as well, and it's second guessing people's the the decision making, that is what holds so many people back. Are they running the right training split? Are they running the right exercises? Is are my calories high enough? Are my calories low enough? Am I doing enough cardio? Like you you get it yourself, mate. The the amount the amount of questions and second guessing that people can can still do, even when they're under your wing and you've got to settle them down. You know, there's there's different types of clients, different types of people. There's there's people who just crack on like the robots, you know, you'll know what I mean. And then there is there might be people who who ha have more questions, they want to know the ins and outs of things, which is totally fine. I we we welcome that. You want to educate them, of course, but there is people who have more questions and they uh you just know that they're the types of when they're on their own, they would second guess every decision, they would struggle to pull the trigger on a decision and stick with it, and then that's what leads to people the classic flip-flopping program hopping, changing exercises, changing splits. Because there's so much, there's a plot of information out on the internet, everyone's got Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts. Everyone's got everything out there, and everyone is just trying to grab attention and it's all conflict and information, there's all you know, clickbait stuff, don't do this, do that. And it unless you're of a sort of strong mindset and you've been in this game for a long time, a lot of it can be confusion, and it just puts you down so many rabbit holes, and that's where people get lost. It's down these rabbit holes and second guessing. So then when you work with someone who you trust 100%, that's what I always say when I sign up with a new client, uh, and they come to me and go, Look, I'm here now in your corner. I want you to trust me 100%. Any questions you come to me, don't go down rabbit holes. I'm here to set you straight, and that is one of again, I think that's invaluable with the performance of information that's out there, you know, just getting lost down it, but just having someone in your corner who tells you straight, it just uh keeps you on the straight and narrow, massive.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

I think that's one of the things, Francis, that's brought sort of you and I together. You know, I I watched a lot of your content before, just going in quickly on the story. I I saw your content, that's why I followed you. I can't actually remember how you managed to follow me back, but I was kind of kind of buzzing about it when you did. Because the stuff we're putting out is well, we wanted to call the the podcast No BS before we arrived on uh eat um train eat think. Um, and that's what we do. You know, I think in the social media age, there's a lot of fluff, BS, and as you say, headline grabbing, how can I stop the scroll and and and get people talking about this? Uh and as we've mentioned, a lot of the things and a lot of the progress that you'll make, and I'd probably even go as high as 90 to 95% comes from the basics when we're talking about lifestyle clients and even down to people that are probably going to go towards photo shoots and stage, it's those basics repeated that consistency. You know, if someone is following the plan and they they see their endurance uh approve improve when you know your coach is watching. So if it's a check-in on a Friday, um my own check-in was on a Saturday, you know, when you're checking in, you know you've got that target of the week to hit, and that's what's driving you towards that, and then you checked in for the weekend and and you're waiting for your feedback, and it's just you know, helping you be accountable and having that support that says, right, okay, this is what's going well, this is what we need to change. And if everything's going well, obviously we just rinse and repeat and and go again because you know, as as I say, it's it's so basic. We we spoke last week about how hobby building isn't hard, but the consistency element is is one of the things that we need to find.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

You say the word there, mate, accountable. And that's when I uh when I whenever I uh I speak to a new client and on in an onboarding process, it's always accountability they're after as well. That's always that that comes up a lot because you know there's as you say before, like there's a lot of information out there on the internet. You can find you know a lot of good content, of course, there is you know we we're we're big proponents of basics fundamentals done well, executed well. There's no bullshit here. There's you can find a lot a lot of information out on the internet, of course, but it's the execution of that, and people struggle to do it on their own, they really do, you know. And for whatever reason, whether it is people need that accountability or a good kick up the arse, or you know, someone in the corner to speak to and ask questions to, and and uh again, have someone hold them accountable. There's just certain types of people who do need that, they really do, they flourish and they thrive in that environment because you know if all the information is out there. Uh you always get that, you know, when uh whenever you whenever you post anything on Twitter about coaching, there's always some anonymous frog who's like, oh, I can get that on YouTube, I don't need that. Well we'll go and fucking do it then. Go and do it. You know, that's always the response, like it's it's on YouTube, I can get it for free, we'll go and do it then. You know, but there is uh people do need the accountability. I think that is one of the uh one of the big reasons behind what we do, mate.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

I mean it just saves panic setting in, you know, if the scale jumps, there's a bad meal, I've missed a session for you know a really good reason, or you know, maybe there's something going on across the weekend or whatever. I think as well in the social media era, we've got things like analysis paralysis, and I think that's more prevalent now than it's ever been. There's so many people again putting out different levels of content that say do this and don't do this and do this and don't do that. One of the reasons I got into the industry was to try and break down those barriers for people. You know, the the perfect plan, let's just say it doesn't exist. The perfect plan will keep you sitting on the couch or in a room researching down rabbit holes, as you say, Francis. Oh, but this and and stacking that on top of that to do this, and you can't do this at this time. Action and taking action is just gonna wipe the floor with that every single time. Now, there might be things that you learn along the way. I've learned, Francis, you've learned. We've learned that through doing, we've learned that through being coached, we've learned that as coaches ourselves. But what it does help to do is once a plan you know is laid down, there's less reactive decisions. You know and I know if we put a plan together and someone is following that plan, you're gonna get very, very good long runways from the the changes that you need to make. And some people might sort of step back and go, but what are you talking about? And again, Francis, I'm sure you'll share this with me. We we're not making changes every single week because we don't need to, because the plans that we're making will stand the test of time. I'm not saying that we'll never make a change, but what I am saying is with a good enough plan, the right level of adherence and consistency. Again, as as we speak about in the podcasts that we record, we're looking long term, we're looking at 30,000 foot views, and we know that we're going to get on a good run as long as everything is is aligned.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

That's proper coaching, though, mate. And I I I I agree with you right there. Like a lot of my my best clients, the plans don't change too much because it doesn't need to. That's that's good coaching, that's a good plan. It's okay. Uh we've we've got our we've got our split set up, we're recovering well. Again, the volume numbers, everything that we've got, everything's spot on. We're stepping forward brick by brick. Your nutrition is on point. You know, there's every now and then if someone's in a deficit, you know, there could be a little bit of a drop in calories every now and then. It's not going to be every week. If someone is in an improvement phase, you know, there could be a little bit of a bump up of you know a couple of hundred calories here or there, but it's not, we're gonna throw in a cow a thousand calories every couple of weeks. You know, it's it's very, very, very small tinkering, if any. Uh again for the training piece, like for most of it, for the majority of people, it stays pretty similar, but it's consistent execution of the fundamentals done really well to a high standard. And I always tell people that like proper coaching uh uh and getting proper results, it's doing the mundane stuff to a high level that takes you far. But again, people people want to try and complicate this game, they want to try and sound smart, they want to try and get people on the hook and be changing things each week. And this is our special service, this is our special programme, and it's a load of bollocks, like proper, proper training, proper programming, it won't change too much from week to week. Everyone wants to sound smart in this game, but what is intelligent is getting a good fundamental plan and working your ass off consistently with that plan, and that's where again the accountability of good coaching comes in, it's getting someone on a good plan for them and getting them out the way of their own bullshit and distractions. That's what works.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

And I think one of the really big things to talk about is we get certainty from that experience. So when we have been coached, when we're coached, you know, we get confidence because we know put the work in, do what coach says, follow the plan. And if there's any plateaus or there's something, you know, we can always explain it away in terms of it's maybe this for the week or whatever. Obviously, if that trend is there for a couple of weeks, we're looking deeper because we're asking the questions and we're building up a little uh knowledge in our head, or a little okay, is it this, is it this? But one of the things that really helped me is I was calmer having a coach because I just knew I had to go and do the work. This is what I want you to do, that's fine. I enjoyed the way that I put it that I have I have as coach where it was like do this, don't do that, and if you go to McDonald's during the week, don't don't message me. I I I lived quite well with that. I liked that, that that was right up my street. It's not personally how I coach, but I knew every week I was putting in the shift, I was doing what needed to be done, and again, like you said, there wasn't a lot of changes being made because if you're doing the right things, and whether you're in the surplus or the deficit, you know, you're losing body fat, you can see it, you're getting it in your pictures that you're sending across, or if it's a surplus, you got stronger for the week, recovery is in a great spot, getting stronger maybe added five kgs or ten pounds or whatever it is to either individual lifts, compound lifts, whatever it would be. But I think having that outsourcing that to give you the layer of confidence that you need to then understand and build up your own sort of encyclopedia. And one thing I would say as well, that certainty, it stops people from giving up too early because you've then got a journey to go on.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

That's a great point about building your own encyclopedia and your own knowledge because I was just about to lead on to that. You work with um Jordan Peters for six years, you know, an absolute legend in the British bodybuilding community. You know, if you don't know uh Jordan Peters is or JP, you should do. Um you know, you work with him for six years, mate. And you know, right now I've I've been working with um AJ Morris, who's you know one of the one of the best natural bodybuilding coaches. Um I've been working with him for close to 18 months, and the reason for that, you know, people might say to me, Francis, like you trained for 15 years, you got good results. Why are you why are you getting a coach? What do you need a coach for? It's not that I needed the coach, I wanted the coach to further my education. I wanted to get better, I wanted to seek knowledge from someone who knows more than me, who's got more experience than me, who's got more wisdom of stepping on stage and putting people on stage. I wanted someone who could add more tools to my arsenal. That only makes my process better, but that makes me a better bodybuilder, a better lifter, a better coach because I'm constantly learning, I'm constantly getting better. I'm not just sitting here and just being comfortable. I am striving to get better, learn more. And that feeds over into not only my own processing strategy and my own results, but my clients. My client a lot of my clients have mentioned to me over the last year, like Francis, like you just you just seem to just keep developing your passion and your knowledge even more. And when I get messages like that, I I love that because it lights a fire again, because I I I'm not staying static. So me working with a coach and getting better and leveling up is leveling up my clients as well. So it's just again, it is it's building up when you work with a good coach, you build up your own encyclopedia and you just step forward, your own knowledge just tenfold, and it's just it's the return on investment from. It's massive, it really is.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

I think that's a great point, mate, what you say about return on investment. One of the things a coach brings to the table, you know, you mentioned Jordan there. Absolutely love Jordan to bits, even to this day. Transformed, I wouldn't say not only the UK scene, but made such an impact and the global scene. A lot of things that happened, like wearing flip-flops to the gym, um, started from him. Um, I joke, of course, there's there's loads of different things, but having a coach compresses time. I I found I I was 34 when I started my lifting journey, so I had left I had left some time on the table. My only regret is is that I didn't start at the age of maybe 14 or 15. Um, but another thing that you hear people say is, oh well, I can eventually just you know figure things out for myself is is another one when you when you speak about um coaching, but then you push back and you say, Well, how many years is is it going to take for you to build up all of that knowledge? Again, one of the great things we're talking about here is investing, so investing in yourself, which we've done with people that knew more than us that could take us on the journey, and what we've done on that journey is to get empowered, to continue to get empowered, and that's something I like to share on to my own clients is to empower them with skills for life because it's not just me laying down a law of this is what you need to do. What I'm trying to do is give people options and have a thought process of I could do that or I could do that, and and that's going to work and it's going to take me forward. So that empowerment is there because I don't just want people to be like buying information. Um I want them to be getting progress, but I want that progress also to come with a skill set, and that skill set is empowering them to make good decisions, and it also almost becomes like like a team, it's teamwork anyway, but a really good collaboration. And what you do is you're protecting people from making the mistakes. I myself suffered from them for nearly five years. I got so frustrated, so sick of not making any progress. And again, that's where having a coach for me compressed that time. I made more progress in the six years working with Jordan, and probably even if I scaled that down to within like 12 or 18 months working with him than I had in five years previous. But I wanted to stay, and that's why I stayed with him for the best part of it. It was about six and a bit years, nearly seven years or something. So yeah, what what what a coach can bring to the table is you know, you're outsourcing, they can give you that knowledge back, and you're getting a the return on the investment that you're making.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

It's teamwork, mate, isn't it? It is coaching, it is the best coaching, the best coaching relationships, it it is a two-way street. Like the client will, you know, they'll ask questions what they're what they're struggling with. And then as a coach, it's your job to to to pick up on that and try and help them as best as you possibly can and equip them with the knowledge to navigate around their big roadblocks or what what they've got going on. And I've got a great example of it, and I'm sure you've got many like this. It's it's when uh when people are struggling with you know eating out as an example and staying on point with the diet. We we've mentioned this in the past, and there can be a lot of anxiety around people eating out, how to manage going out to restaurants, and you know, it's pretty common. I I have this conversation probably weekly with a lot of different clients how to handle meals out, and you're equipping them with the education. Look, we go out and we can save some calories, we can order the the best protein option on the menu, and maybe eat a little bit of protein before you go out, you know, avoiding the all or nothing approach. We've we've we've we've been over that in previous podcasts, but it's like a teamwork and it's a communication. They go out, they come back and they they they feed back to you and go, Yeah, you know what, I went out, it was good. We we got through, I still enjoyed myself with the family, I didn't blow over. Thanks for the advice. And they start to build confidence then, they start to get that I can do that, I can go and I can still go out with the family and not blow everything out like out of proportion. I can still do that. I can't believe I can still do that. Like, and it just you you see them getting that that confidence coming from that and that skill set, and you can still enjoy their life, and that that that's a big one for the people that we work with. I'm sure you you see that all the time yourself.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

It's exactly what you said about good good coaching, Francis, and that in a nutshell is good coaching because you're helping to make people better decision makers rather than just saying here's an amount of food to eat. What we're trying to do is work with people so that they get long-term habits, things that are sustainable. You know, there might be occasions, as you've rightly identified, I'm I'm trying to save calories, but I still want to be social, and there might be occasions where it's just like just go out and and enjoy yourself. But one of the things we always say is at no point do you need to eat like an asshat, you don't need to be ordering four burgers with the the bacon-topped cheese fries, the extra triple large portion, and seven milkshakes, and it's about understanding that that never fits into anything, or nothing really good comes from it, because at the end of the day that's just going to be a binge, and that's what we're trying to move people away from. So you're trying to help people build up the habits and the understanding because then they go, I know that I can go out, I can have something, um, and I I I can basically just go straight back to what I do either on the next meal or if it was the last meal at night, the the first thing tomorrow. I read something online and it was like someone talking about how on a Monday they went out with friends and they made the choice to have a good choice. The friends were having burgers, whatever, they made a different choice. On the Wednesday, it was like homemade pizza with a family, but they chose to make something else, and then on the Friday they went to get takeaway from the place, but they made their own meal because. And I kind of challenge that because my take is unless you're going to stage or you're an IFBB pro that needs to be X amount of body fat year round or whatever it may be, okay, the Monday I did agree with that, but Wednesday and Friday, if you're a lifestyle client or you're you're in an improvement phase, you tell them you can't have a couple of slices of pizza and a protein shake if you're worried about your your protein um targets for the day, and even on the Friday, something I love myself, get some boiled rice, some curry sauce, and some chicken. And that's your for me, the meal I look forward to once a week. Perfection doesn't exist, and one of the things I'm always trying to say and get out there is we don't need to be perfect, but we can have laser focus and be sustainable and understand that we can still make progress on that.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

I was just about to say, mate, it's chasing perfection, that's that's what holds people back, and that it's a common conversation I have with people. It's just there's so many examples of it, mate. It's you know, I'll give you another good example, and you probably get this yourself. Like you're at you might have a client come to you, and it's uh you know, they've got travel coming up, and you might have a busy month coming up, you know, traveling to and from places, and it's you get the old message, uh coach, I can't make this work, it's I'm too busy, I'm traveling, and it's uh I'm not gonna be able to train at the same gym, or I'm not gonna have bit have means to prep things and uh let's just put a pause on things, you know the classic, you know. Uh and I think all coaches get hit with this stuff. You've got to try your best again. We we can't hold our clients at gunpoints to you can't do that. We can't we can't hold them at gunpoints, but you've got to try and educate them that okay, you've got a month coming up of travel, not gonna be the same gym. Food is not gonna be 100%. That doesn't mean that you still can't be 85%. Don't chase perfection, but you can still get a good month in the books. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, it's a hundred percent, under percent, under percent, or everything just falls to bits. It doesn't have to be like that. If you've got a busy travel schedule, okay, wherever you're going, there's there's gyms everywhere, there's gyms all around the world, it doesn't matter where you're going, you can organise your training split so even if you have to drop off a couple of days. If you've been training four days, okay, we have to drop it for three days for this next month, still fine. As long as you're organized your training split around to get enough uh sort of stimulus and your volume, what you need, you know, you can drop a training day. Um, maybe you can drop off a little bit of a couple of exercise if you need be. In terms of diet, you know, if you if you're in an Airbnb or a hotel, as soon as you get there, you get you get yourself get yourself to a supermarket, you get some good protein options and get some good get a good bulk of food on deck right away. Will it be perfect from what you used to? No. Is it better than nothing? Absolutely. So you've got your training sorted, you got a decent diet sorted, and then let's say in terms of steps cardio, you can go and get your your walks and your steps in anywhere, it doesn't matter where you are in the world. Uh, can you track your scale weights? Sometimes people don't like to bring the scale with them, I understand that. Not totally important, but you can you can nail the big rocks, you can nail the big rocks, doesn't have to be 100%, but it could let's say it's 80%. So then at after that month of travel and that busy situation that you've got coming up, you get out the other end of that month, you're back into your routine, and you haven't stepped back because you you've still stayed on the horse for that month and done as best as you can, versus sorry, coach, you're gonna have to pause and you pull back and you do a month of no training, your diet is shift for a month and you've done nothing. So then you come back after a month in a shit show of a situation, and that's where again having a coach coming in and trying to keep you on that path, keep you on the horse, it's massive. And obviously, we can only do so much, but again, that's just that this is this is an example of where you know getting people out of the way of their own bullshit really helps.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

The good thing for me to to sort of come back on on that with people is that I travelled for work for the best part of 12 years, and in that time I completed three bodybuilding preps. So I I know exactly what it's like to travel. I know that the um the how work can be, you know, it can be very challenging because you do hours in in the work and you might have um some food with your your colleagues later that night. There's obviously so many different ways that it cuts. One of the times in particular, I was travelling for almost two years solid, coming home on the Friday, back out again on the Monday. I would take as much food with me as I could, and then when I ran out, my cardio in the morning would be going to the supermarket, getting as much stuff in as I could to get me on target for that day. I used to walk about um the site with uh a protein shake, two protein shakers actually, one with one clean, one with protein powder on it, and a bag of bagels and some peanut butter. Because if I worked my lunch, it meant I could go to the gym when I'd finished work because we were on an aggressive schedule. And this is one of the things, Francis, it's never been easier now because you've got your protein yogurt, there's so many different things now. Uh the 30 grams protein meals, 30 grams carbs and moderate fat. You're lucky enough if you've got a microwave on site, for example, you can use that. And something is better than nothing. Again, you make a great point. Even if you don't do you let's say you do four weeks, four days a week of training, that's 16 sessions in a month, and you must drop to three because of how it's panning out. That's still 12 sessions, give or take. So you've dropped four. You know, it's a small percentage decrease and it's a big percentage increase over nothing, you know, and something's better. I I work with gents that are offshore in the oil fields, and when they go off for two, three, four weeks at a time, they don't have access and they don't really have control of the food. But again, when you're working with people on those elements to say weigh your food at a point so that you understand portion control, and then eyeball it so that you know when you're looking at it. Now you can choose if you want to weigh your food forever, if you want to be that about it. It only takes a few seconds. I've actually changed my mind on it. I used to think it was maybe net negative, I think now it's a positive as long as you understand um portion control and recalibrate often, but you can get results from that perfection, just just rip it up, forget it exists as a word, because it's the only thing in the world that people want perfection on is nutrition and fitness and that sort of stuff. If you got 90% on a test, you'd pat yourself on the back at the end of the week, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Yeah. Well, i this is another great point of the benefit of the benefits of culture. It's the psychology of coaching and the psychology of the client or the person you're working with. This situation that we're talking about now about making it work when travelling, this is purely psychological. This is how the person chooses to view this scenario that gets put in front of them. As we said last week, you know, people, roadblocks and obstacles come up, and people are like a deer in the headlights, they shit themselves, they just they they they can't they just they can't deal with that because it's it's too much of a change for them. This has got nothing to do with the the the what whether you're doing push pull legs or full body or what your protein sources. This next month that someone would have coming up with a travel schedule, this is purely psychological on how they're choosing to view it. It's it's all down to that because if someone chooses to view that with a positive lens and goes, you know what? Yeah, it's it's gonna be a pain in the ass, but uh I'm gonna do my best. It's a it's an opportunity to find a way around it. I'm gonna try my best versus someone who just goes again to hear in the headlights, it's nope, can't do it, gonna have to pause, it's not perfect. Um, I'll see you in a month. You know, that and that's just that's purely attitude-based, that's purely psychological, that's nothing to do with anything else other than their own interpretation of the situation. And it's it's science that coax clients through this and I'm having this conversation with them because I've found so many just defaults. It's human nature, human nature, so many, so many people just default to panic modes and anything any change or any discomforts, back away, back away from the challenge, back away from it, and that's human nature. And the more people you work with, you start trying to squeezing that out of them. And I've changed and work with so many clients, and the the whole mindset has changed from maybe week one, week two, and you've been working with them for a couple of years, and they are a different person, the way they view some of the stuff that comes up, and it's always nice to see that, it's all it's all psychological.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

I think a good summary of that, Francis, is saving people from themselves, yeah. You know, and that's when you get a coach in the door. You know, sometimes it's like permission to do less, and by that, you know, one of the things I see often written out there is people uh either in the deficit, they go too hard off the deep end, so I'm gonna do two hours of Caldo a day, I'm gonna eat don't know why 1200 calories is always so magic, but I'm gonna eat 1200 calories, I'm gonna train seven days a week. Um, and similarly, when they get to the end of that particular cut, it's like okay, that's me, I'm I'm bulking brah, and they go from 1200 calories to four and a half thousand overnight, and then within eight weeks they need to go back into the cut, and you've got you've got the yo-yo cycle, so it's like more of everything, more cardio, being more restrictive. I need to suffer. And you know, sometimes you just need that calm head that says you're you're doing too much, you need to slow down here, we need to look at the bigger picture, you know. I I've got a client that comes to mind just as I'm making this very point when when they came to me, they were a little bit scared of eating food because and and I've seen this a lot, and people that lose a lot of body fat and they get to a new spot, they get scared, and and I understand why that they're gonna go back to the old them. And what I always say is you you got to this point, and you never want to be the old you, so those habits won't come back in. As we always say, Francis, there's no there's no main gaining, you know. I I found a great meal meme uh the other day, or an infographic, actually it wasn't a meme. Um it's 1200 calories in a pound of muscle, I believe it was, but it takes 5,000 calories to build that pound of muscle, which I thought was a really good line, and it just blows that main gain out the water. You know, when people want to grow, we need to eat more, we need to recover more, we need that patience element, and we just need to protect people from themselves, to save people from themselves and show them what the progress is like over a period of time. Something that again you and I have been on in terms of of our own journeys.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

That could be a podcast in itself, just dismantling that one. So we'll uh gonna save that one. We'll just dismantle a whole argument in one. Uh but have to write that down. But what you're saying there, mate, that it look when someone is at the end of a cut, and you know, we I remember the very first time I got lean and all them years ago, and you you you're looking at yourself and you're feeling yourself in a different light than you've never been before. It can be scary to then start adding calories in. The more times you do it, the better you get at it. The more again, I've helped many clients through it, and the more they do it, the more comfortable they get with doing it. But we're only able to do this because we've we've got the wisdom and done it ourselves so many times. You've been through the ringer, you know exactly what your client's going through. That's a big thing of coaching. You know exactly where your clients are, what what what what what potential side effects or emotions or meant mentally they could be feeling at a certain stage because you've been there, you've been there countless times. The peak of a building phase when you might be feeling a little bit softer, you know, the when you first enter a diet and you feel flat and fat and just horrible. And then you know, when when when when you're at the end of a diet and you you feel shredded and you're lean and vascularity, abs everywhere, you don't want to lose that. There's so many, there's there's a the psychology of certain different stages, and you know, we we've been through that, and having that wisdom and experience yourself, you know, you you sort of put an arm around your client and go, look, don't worry, it's alright. Like this is what's gonna happen. Expect this to happen. You'll be sound, and it's it's that it's that that you know, AI can't replace that because AI has not done that, you know what I mean? Putting an arm around your client and going, look, this is what this is what's gonna happen, just this is what you're gonna do, you'll be alright. That human connection, it that's invaluable. And as we we touched on before, we spoke about AI, AI will never ever replace that, it can't.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

No, I mean we we see this so often in the space that AI is gonna replace everything, yeah. And and you're absolutely right. I'm I'm smiling as you're talking there, Francis. This happens so often between you and I. I've literally had a wee point here that says, you know, being coach keeps you humble because we we've experienced all the things, we understand the journey that somebody's on because we've walked the walk, we walk the walk and we talk the talk, and that's all the different stages of our clients, whether they're beginners, we've both been beginners right at the start, and it reminds us what it's like to be on the receiving end. You know, we felt vulnerable at times, we've had to ask lots of questions, and there's obviously been a little bit of doubt, and and you're putting your trust out there, but that's what puts us in a better spot because we remember what people need or what they're feeling at any point in time, because you've been through the whole journey and back and then and then on the journey again, you know. And that's where you can you you've got the empathy, you know. We we understand it needs patience, and we need to communicate with people because they might be feeling something at a point in time, but that's because they haven't experienced where they're gonna go yet. Um, I I had it with a client um this morning that's feeling in the shape of his life, and he started to get the comments from the family. Oh, um yeah, you're looking you're looking a bit skinny and stuff like that. And I said, Yeah, as much as you want to get lean, one of the sort of side effects, if you like, from that is that body fat's going to come from everywhere in your body. Now, I if I remember rightly, I think this client I'm thinking about in particular is around about 47 or 48, and it's the first time he's ever seen these abs. And we've actually managed to do this. I touched a little bit just earlier on this podcast about eating more. He was a little afraid to eat more. And what I've said to him when we had our initial um conversations, I'm gonna get you eating more food, but I don't want you to be scared about that because you're not gonna accrue a lot of body fat. I've seen how active you are, I've seen how consistent you are, even in the things that you've told me before starting. And I know that if we bring your food up, you're actually gonna get leaner as a result. And we're only I'll be honest, we're only seven or eight weeks in, and he's already happy enough in terms of getting lean that he he's thinking in the next few weeks. So I've said maybe until the end of June we'll push it and we'll see what it looks like at the end of June, and then we can take the next course, which is get a bit more muscle tissue, which then hopefully means when he comes back to. And again, it won't look so you know s skinny for want of a better term.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Well, a great example of your client there, mate. He's not gonna listen to you if he doesn't trust you, right? So he that's that's the thing with coaching. You'd have to trust who you're working with and it's relationship building. It really is. It's it's building that um that that connection and uh you you understand what drives your clients. You know, these some of my best clients they become like meets. Like genuinely, I always say this. I I could not that I drink, but you could sit down and have a bevy with them. You could sit down and crack open a beer with some of your best clients and you just talk. And I think it's it's it's building that sort of uh relationship with people. You know, funny story, me today. I posted up, I've I've um I've signed up for my first competition, the PCA naturals, 26th of September in Telford. It's all signed up, it's all paid for. Posted it out on uh Twitter that you know and it's all signed up. And one of my clients messaged me and went, Um, my parents live in Telford. Uh, do your mind ever come to the to the show? Like, you know what I mean? Look at that. That that's that's invaluable to me. Stuff like that, you know. AI is not gonna have that. This is a client I've been working with for two years, you know. We we we get on tremendously well. Great person to work with, and he wants to come and support me at my show. Like, how good is that? Like, that is that is invaluable. That's stuff that you can't put a price on that that is building relationships with people, and you know, it's just it it when I heard the message, it just uh makes you smile, mate. You know, because it shows that you you're making a difference and you're doing a good job.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

It's exactly as you say, mate, that's the impact that you're enable able to have on people. And and as you know, last week I said to you, get those show dates and get it booked, and yeah, I'm gonna I'm obviously gonna try my best as well. I didn't know, I actually forgot that you hadn't booked it yet. I've I've seen your story as well. Um, so I'm gonna try my best to get down um to at least one of your shows, but I think as well that just comes from just respect, mate. You know that people want to come and see you. I know it's not a huge um distance that they might have to travel, it doesn't really matter, but having that rapport is something that's so important, especially as well, because I think in in coaching, you're speaking to people and you're seeing people in spots where they maybe feel that little bit vulnerable. And again, just to mention, we we've been in those spots, you know, somebody might be be mentally tired and they're just feeling you know the the the sort of weight of of maybe where they've been in their journey, struggling for a long time, and they finally got somebody that kind of understands and knows, and and most importantly, helps, and that that's the most important thing, and that's one of the things I've anchored to. I I said again at the start of the podcast, I love Jordan, I absolutely love Jordan Peters, change changed my life, and I I'll I'll tell and say that to anybody that asks me. And for me, as we've spoken about, you know, with with hobby building, bodybuilding, um it's not just about going into the gym and doing that, it's it's bled over to so many different areas of my life, and the confidence and stuff that you get when you start to make that progress. And I don't mean that from a walk into a room and you're you're swaggering and out of ever. Just even how you you present yourself, how when you walk into a room, you've just got a confidence because you're not thinking, Oh, I'm just that, you know, just that tiny wee guy or whatever, and you kind of shrink into the corner. It's about confidence to bring yourself out, which if you're ever in a meeting where there's multiple people, you can get your point across. And again, it's not a can you fight? It's not about um it's not about fighting, it's about you know being able to have that confidence and as the kids call it, the aura, yeah, to do things, but that that's what comes back from you giving um and putting that out there, you get that back, which then helps you in so many different ways.

SPEAKER_01 48:01

You're so right, mate. And it's just uh as you're talking here now, I um it's just it's all it's all connecting with what I'm gonna say. Like from this weekend, I had a client who's you know, you know, the weather's been nice back home in the UK this weekend. Um, so I had a client, he's um he went to the lake district, uh, you know, and he was out with the family, and he's coming towards the end of his diet phase now, right? And it's the first time forever that he's been able to walk around with his top off and have the confidence, you know. The he's in the lakes, the sun's shining down, it's nearly 30 degrees, and he's walking around with his shirt off with his family, and he sends me a message going just enjoying the sun. It's first time of being able to have me top off and feeling confidence. How good is that? Like that is you know, that that's that's that that's invaluable stuff again. It's just that's life-changing stuff, and I I know what that feels like because I remember many, many years ago, even when I was just started training, like you didn't really I didn't feel as confident with my top off, and then you start getting in the gym and you start getting some shape about yourself, and you start taking your top off a little bit more, you you get that confidence, and as you say, you it just grows. But I just I I I wanted to share that story because it's again, it's it's stuff that uh you it shows you're making an impact. It's more than just um calories and macros and a and a spreadsheet. Like that's what people think coaching is. It's not, it's it's this life-changing stuff, and yeah, it's it's it's very, very valuable.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

It's almost like um we wrote this before the show, and we honestly didn't. But you know, that level of confidence for somebody who's put in that work, and we mentioned the teamwork, so that's the coming back and forth, but the physique changes for that person because the behaviour changes, and the behaviour changes because of that empowerment, that giving them the the the the the the step up, you know, whether you call it a leg up or whatever, and it's one of the things about about coaching that's fantastic. People aren't just buying fat loss or buying muscle gain, you know, you're getting tangible things that build into your routine, that give you better habits, that give you results, and that's the most important thing about it all because I mean again it's a it's a it's a walk that I've walked when I started my journey. I was only like 143 pounds and I would never have taken my top off. I remember being in um where was I Ionapa in 2008, and I I was wearing an extra small t-shirt and I wouldn't take it off. I understand all of that because I would have actually rather, I don't even know, chucked myself in the sea than actually take my top off at that point. So I can totally, totally relate to that gent. Totally relate.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

And I think it comes back again, mate, and I'm sure I'm sure you've got loads of good examples of this as well. Uh it's understanding the psychology of the person you work with, what makes them tick. Every every client and every person you work with is different. They're all they all respond to certain things differently. You you get to know someone again, you you build up that rapport, you you know what they like, you you know what they might do for the hobbies, you you know what they might dislike. So again, you you build that connection with them. And again, I've got a great story with this, and I I know you're a basketball fan yourself, so you'll um you'll understand this one. So this uh this this happened about a year ago. So this client comes to me and he messages me in the morning and goes, Um, Francis, I I feel I feel I feel lethargic, I feel I'm coming down with some sort of flu, or I just don't feel good. You know, what should I do with this session today coming up? So, you know, I I I knew this, I knew this client from working with him. I knew it wouldn't be negligible to to tell him to go on stream because I I I knew he had a little bit of um sort of steel about him. I knew he could go in there and get it in. So I knew he was a basketball fan. I've seen him with his Michael Jordan 23 Chicago Bulls, um, the jerseys on when we'd we'd had conversations in the past about you know Kobe Bryant and Mamba mentality, and we we'd had a lot of conversations about it. No, I'm not I'm not a basketball fan, I just I'm a fan of elite mentality and top of the top of the top of the whatever sport it is, and what makes these tick. So I'm very familiar with you know Michael Jordan, Kobe. I've watched the The Last Dance so many times, it's a great documentary on obviously Michael Jordan. So where I'm going with this is that because I knew my client he loved basketball, I referred to him about the the infamous the MJ or the Michael Jordan flu game and the the playoffs when the Bulls were playing the Utah Jazz, right? Now, if I'm correct with this, it was game five. Now Michael Jordan was in um apparently he got food poisoning from a dodgy pizza. That's that's the um that that is the the story. But either way, Michael Jordan was on his ass game five, he didn't know whether he was going to play. The the the series was 2-2 going into game five. The Bulls are in in Utah, ready for game five, and Michael Jordan's got food poisoning, he's he's totally sick. So then what he does, he he summons up everything in typical MJ fashion, comes out and scores 40 plus points with the flu and wins the game for the Bulls wins the game winning shot. So I say to my client and go, Look, well, do you remember the MJ flu game? Do you remember what he done when he was feeling on his ass? Go in there and get after that session, get it done, put your best foot forward, gets a message an hour or two later after the session, and he goes, I smashed that session. It was great. Like, thanks for sending me that through. So that's just a story, and where you get an example of understanding your clients, what can make them sick, and trying to, you know, pull a rabbit out the hat when it's needed. Uh it was just it was a great example of it.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

I mean, I think that's a it's a great story that alludes to you know what's possible. I think we we spoke about it last week where the where the mind the the body will want to give up. It's the it's the it's the mind that you need to convince. And if you can convince your mind, then it then it'll take you anywhere. One thing I wanted to put, I think it's a good point here in the podcast tonight, when we're talking about longevity, and I know that you're not a fan, Francis, either of six-week transformations or eight-week transformations where it's just slash calories, zero carb, you know, where people want to white knuckle it for a while. And I don't think I don't feel personally that that's real coaching because you know any monkey can do that. You know, I'm just gonna give you zero food and loads of cardio. You know, what what's your feelings on that, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 54:42

Well, it it's something I I explain to everybody up front. I say, look, if I I I genuinely say this when I first speak to people on the phone, I go, look, if if you if you're after quick fixes, go somewhere else. I I'm genuinely very up front with that. And I say to them, look, if someone's coming to me and you've got too much body fat, we're gonna there's there's a there's a good chance we're gonna have a little bit of a leaning down process, which is then gonna set you up for a bill phase. This takes time. We are we're gonna map out a timeline here of eight, nine, ten, twelve months. You're not coming to me and it's eight weeks and then that's it. I don't want nothing to do with that. I I I would rather not take on a client who's just gonna say, I'm going on all day in six weeks. Can you help me get in shape? Should have started six years ago, mate. Not six weeks ago. You know, I've got no interest in in quick fixes and could because it's it's it's quite frankly, it's a load of bullshit. It's nonsense. Can you lose some body fat in six weeks? Or 90 days? I seen someone tweet the other day saying if you can't make a meaningful change in 90 days, you shouldn't be coaching someone. Well, hang on a minute. What what what does that 90 days look like? If you're talking about someone coming to you who's got too much body fat, you can make a big change in 90 days in terms of taking off fat loss or clean up body composition. 100%, 100%. But if you're talking about laying significant muscle tissue down in 90 days, that's a load of bollocks. You you know, you get unless you're absolutely going nuts on Sven or whatever, like, but that's that's a that's a topic for another podcast, whatever. But 90 days is not a lot of time if you're trying to change your physique massively in terms of muscle building and adding lean tissue. 90 days of fat loss versus 90 days of trying to build muscle, they're different things, totally different things, you know. In in in 90 days, mate, what let's say someone could drop off 1% of body weight a week, someone could drop 12 kilo, 15 kilo easily in uh in 90 days, could make a little bit of a change to a physique, of course. But if you're talking about building a jacked physique, the full package, jacked, a lot of muscle tissue, lean, vascular, with a lot of muscle tissue. We're looking at many, many, many years of work here. So never ever fall for that 90-day shit, and that's something that we do with our culture, mate. We never set people up for these short-term transformations, we're thinking long-term, how can we set you up for the next four, five, six years? Because that's what makes lasting progress.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

One of the really good analogies that I like on this one is like if someone gave you a sports car tomorrow, or let's say your your perfect physique, it would be no use to you because you wouldn't know how to maintain it. And I think as well, part of all of this that we do, Francis, is in the how hard it is. We do it for the reward. Because if you'd done it and you'd completed it and it was really easy, it wouldn't have the same it wouldn't have the same bite about it. You know, a lot of people can get lean, but they wouldn't know how to stay there because they they haven't been taught sustainability, they've been taught some temporary rules about how much you can starve yourself, how many food groups you can cut out, can you do 300,000 steps a day? But what you're gonna look like at the end of that a spaghetti noodle, you know, it's not gonna be great. And that's where again we're trying to stop people making these very mistakes. You're trying to keep people not fully on the accelerator. Yes, we want to be driving forward, absolutely, but you don't want to have your foot to the floor with a nitro turned up to ten, and then you get a pathway down the road. Where have you got to turn to? You know, you need these variables in there that teaches you, you know, about how you can do it, as opposed to just one way, turn on, that's it, and then eight weeks this is going to happen. Because all that will happen in the in the preceding eight weeks is you'll just revert to probably where you began, and even possibly in a worse state, because then you've got habits that are coming in because you've been so restrictive for 56 days or whatever it is, 84 days and 12 weeks. Everything just comes flooding straight back at you at that point because you haven't built the behaviours.

SPEAKER_01 59:10

That's the power of good coaching again, mate. Is you get people thinking of long-term visions and what's to come after this phase that you're in, or whether someone's in a diet phase, you you're already talking about the improvement season, you know, a month, two months before the diet even ends, you're already you're dropping the hints in there about like this is potentially how we're gonna go about it. You know, same at the end of an improvement phase, you're already thinking about so clean up the diet and making sure your cardio is in there as an example, which it should be in there anyway. But you you're already it's you're already getting people thinking about what's next. It's there, it's not just we pull the rug from underneath them and like right shit. But in the diet phase right now, shit is more food, run with it. You're always trying to explain this is what's gonna happen in a couple of months' time, this is how we're gonna do it, and you you're sort of taking them a path on the right direction that they need to stick to. So you're always thinking long term, and you're not just thinking, oh, this is just some eight-week transformation photo for Instagram. Like, that's not culture, that's bullshit.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:14

One of the big factors for me is that the goal should be to make and help empower people be independent thinkers. You know, we're not creating helpless clients, we're empowering people, we're creating people that have capabilities that enhance their skill set, understanding food, understanding a little bit more about behaviour and their own behaviour. Um that's something that I imagine and and you yourself, Frances, have learned. I think we when we spoke, uh you said that you you made a mess one time, I think it was of of of your push-out phase, and and I did the same. But we underst we have understood those behaviours, and what we want to do now is protect people from making that. So, like you say, there we're setting uh little breadcrumbs out to say this is this is what we're gonna do when we move in and out of the different phases. You know, if it's a deficit, we talk about maintaining satiety. We spoke often about our own frozen berries and and then being in there, you know. And and what you're doing is you're not just laying down like a law and saying, Yeah, this is what we wanted to do. You know, we're giving people that education and that power so that they're able to think and think differently, not just yeah, you know, starve yourself for this amount of weeks or shovel as much food in as you can um for eight weeks and then see how much muscle you can get on. Because we know that at the end of the day, there's a genetic limit and a limit just of every individual of how much protein or sorry, muscle tissue that they can accrue from the food that they eat.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

Well, that's it. Like culture it's not a dictatorship, is it? Like, I'm not here like just you must do this, I'm old and you're at gunpoint, so I'm gonna rock up at your front door and choke you out. You know, it's it's it's not that sort of dictatorship. It's you know, you you you you're trying you again, you're building a relationship with them and you're working with them and you meet them where they are. And obviously, yet you know the the there might be certain clients, there can be some hard conversations and they might need a rocker up their ass, but there's some other clients you wouldn't give a rocker up their ass because you know that they can't they can't respond to it. Uh it it it wouldn't be in their nature to respond to that. They need more of an arm around them and like look, it's alright, you know, don't worry about that. Let's try it this way next time. It's you know, but somebody else might need to call me fucking else sort it out. Do you know what I mean? And that's where the the more people you work with, the more you understand them and you get to know them. But yeah, you know, we you'd have to we love this saying, don't we? You'd have to meet the client where they're at, and it's so true for long-term success.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

Yeah, I mean, I like to call it uh lifestyle reconstruction, you know, it's it's a slightly different term than and we're talking about transformations, but you're helping people live their life, how they're going to shop for food, how they prepare that food, how they think about their training, how they think about their eating, and that's not just confined to being in the gym. You know, one of the great things, and there's many great things that you get, but see when people are messaging you and they're saying, I'm away for work next week, or maybe I'm I'm away doing this, and they're already, and I had this with one of my female clients actually, um, went to your neck of the woods, Francis, from where where you're from, not in Venezuela, but to Liverpool, and already had it mapped out about what they were gonna do in terms of eating. They were gonna get a couple of gym sessions in, they were visiting their parents that and one of them trains. I'm gonna go and get a couple of sessions in. We're gonna enjoy this bit of food, we're gonna have a couple of beers. Again, there's no problem with that. But here's all the other things that we're gonna do. I'm gonna try and stay close to my nutrition, and when they checked in after that event, they they did pretty much what they said they would, even though they had a couple more drinks than they expected, they woke up the next day, dusted themselves down, out a walk, out getting the food. Because when they travelled back home, they meant they had their meals, so it's all those things about how you're you're trying to get people to respond and showing again it's not about perfection in that journey, it doesn't matter, but you can still make strides forward because it's a change in the mindset about how you're approaching just life in general.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

Absolutely, Myth and I think lifestyle uh reconstruction, I think it's very, very important. It's not just about what happens inside the gym, it's obviously everything outside the gym, the way we view things with our psychology and you know what meals out and these events that crop up. But just a final point I'd like to make about coaching would be I think it's for me, one of the big parts of my coaching is form checks and people having the ability to send through video footage as well. I think that's a big thing nowadays that that you know people didn't have access to this maybe 15-20 years ago because the phones didn't work properly, but can't imagine trying to send a video of a squat on a Samsung D600, you know, something like that. But I think nowadays everyone's got phones, and you know, I know some people can be a little bit um tentative about taking a tripod to the gym, and I understand that, but when you get past that barrier, if you've got a good coach in your corner and you're sending them consistent form clips each week, that is so valuable. Like I can't tell you how valuable that is, and I always stress to all my clients like form clips are so important because as we spoke about in previous podcasts, it's not about what you're doing, it's how you do it, it's how you execute accuracy, composure, intensity, all of this stuff that nets the best stimulus. So I could give you a plan, but if I don't see how you're executing that, well, how do I know what's going on? So that's where form clips massive, massive, massive part of my coaching, and it's so valuable for people when they get the videos through and the check-ins back, they can take on what they might have been doing wrong and then they can fix it for the next week. So within a couple of months. You just transform the way you're training. So it's again, we we have we have to touch on that because it's that that is extremely valuable.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:08

Yeah, but I mean it's it's something as well. I I absolutely share what you're saying there. When when you can when you can see it, um obviously when we've watched so many videos, you get astute at seeing what it is that needs um tweaked, and people send them through. You know, you can quickly pick out and say, maybe on an RDL, for example, you you're not pushing your hips back enough, or your your boat, your back isn't ironing board straight, for example, maybe overreaching, maybe not reaching down low enough, all of these things that can come in. And I think that's a definitely uh uh a string to to have um uh in the ball. I think I hope that's the right term.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:48

But uh string in the ball, yeah. Yeah, it's it's a big part of the culture, mate. As I say, it's not it's it's not about what you're doing, it it is genuinely how you do it. That's a very, very uh important concept for people to understand. But yeah, mate, I think we've uh we've covered a good bit on coaching there, the the benefits of it. You know, not just uh you know we have our we we have our own coaches, we work with coaches in in the past, uh, and you know, we continue to keep helping people uh day to day, mate. And it's just uh it's it's empowering, isn't it? Making these these sort of life-changing tweaks that you wake up and it puts a smile on your face.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:25

I mean, I wake up every day feeling absolutely blessed, and it's funny I'm smiling again because it's literally, I think it's on YouTube in the little screen, um the little spiel about us, Francis. It's like we're two guys, two coaches, passionate about what we do, looking to learn, and and this is it playing out, you know, for anybody that's listened to this part in the podcast, it's literally playing out in front of you. You know, we're here every week, we're online every single day, we're working with clients every single day, and all we're trying to do is is get better so that we can make everybody else better.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

And that's it, that's a great way to great way to wrap that up, mate. 100%. That's what it is. And we're just gonna keep getting better. So episode 10, before you know, it's gonna be episode 100.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

One coming every week, mate. Absolutely. We'll we'll be there, only be a matter of time.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:22

Alright, it's been an absolute pleasure as always. So if anybody is interested in coaching and wants to work with either of us directly, message you at Benjamin Years on Twitter or X. Uh, and I'm at Coach FHM on Twitter as well. So drop us a message, as I always say, don't worry, we don't bite. Uh, and we will uh we'll get you sorted. But again, great to talk, everyone. Enjoy it as always, and uh, we will speak to you next week.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:51

Epic mate, already ready for episode 11.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:55

See you later. Cheers, bye, bye.