Baker Barbell Podcast

https://www.andybaker.com/phone-consultations-training-or-business/

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

#19 - The Business of Coaching: 3 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Baker Barbell Podcast

07/07/22 • 91 min

Andy and Dan take a break from programming and nutrition talk to chat about the business of coaching. Whether you're a professional trainer or coach, or exploring the idea, you'll need a good grasp of marketing fundamentals. Andy walks through some mistakes he made early on in his career, as well as mistakes he sees other coaches and gym owners make consistently, and some strategies to avoid them. These include identifying your target clientele, following the three "M's" of marketing, and creating organized processes for marketing and sales.

Interesting in consulting with Andy on your gym or coaching business? Andy offers phone consultations via his website:

Andy Baker

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

Dan Flanick

https://www.andybaker.com/what-type-of-cardio-should-you-do/

#16 - Cardio for Fat Loss, Sports, and the Game of Life

Baker Barbell Podcast

06/16/22 • 93 min

Andy and Dan discuss a perenially popular topic for lifters and trainees everywhere -- how do I do cardio? When, how much, what kind... it's a question that comes up for coaches all the time, and it's worth exploring the various ways it can be approached. As Andy points out, people train for a variety of reasons, but only a small percentage of the trainees at any given gym are serious strength athletes or sport athletes. Most people are training to be generally healthy, so a good coach should incorporate some amount of conditioning into his programs. Of course, for the competitive athletes, the conditoning must be very specific to the sport, if not just sport training itself.

For the majority, however, Andy says the best cardio is the cardio you will actually do. There's no getting around the fact that cardio is boring. Despite whatever novelty you introduce at the beginning, it eventually gets boring. So, the best way to stick with your cardio and get the benefits -- whether its fat loss, heart health, or general preparedness for life activities -- is to remove as many obstacles to doing it as you can. Do your cardio right after your lifting, while you're still at the gym. Don't wait to do it later, because odds are you won't. Don't choose exercises or implements that require a lot of setup, like strongman carries or tire flips, because that extra time spent setting up will eventually dissuade you from doing it altogether.

The best cardio for most people is something simple, that you enjoy... or at least don't hate.

Cardio article on Andy Baker's website:

Andy Baker

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

Dan Flanick

#10 - Training Splits and the Magic of the Four-Day Split

Baker Barbell Podcast

05/05/22 • 70 min

Andy and Dan continue their outline of intermediate programming with an exploration of the various training splits lifters can use to organize their training after the novice phase. While Andy advocates a three-day full body split for novice lifters, he also encourages most lifters who can to adopt a four-day upper/lower split when they tranisiton into the intermediate phase. The reasons for this are many, but one big advantage of the four-day split is the ability to accumulate more volume in a single workout while keeping the workouts fairly short.

However, there are many ways to slice and dice the four-day split beyond a simple upper/lower split, and ways to make a three-day split work for intermediate lifters as well.

Andy Baker

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

Dan Flanick

#9 - The Wide, Wide World of Intermediate Training

Baker Barbell Podcast

04/28/22 • 59 min

Much ink has been spilled about the so-called novice linear progression, the basic starter program for new lifters outlined in Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength Basic Barbell Training 3rd Edition as well Practical Programming for Strength Training (co-written by Andy Baker). And as Dan points out, the novice linear progression contains everything you really need to know about programming -- a series of submaximal yet challenging workouts (progressive overload) accumulated over time will yield lasting strength adaptations.

The same is true of intermediate programming, however the landscape looks much different. There is a brief initial phase sometimes referred to as "early intermediate," in which a lifter can set weekly PR's. That phase does not last long, however, and soon the lifter finds himself frequently retreading the same weights and rep ranges before a PR can be found. This is normal, Andy reminds us, and the focus of training must change to reflect the fact that all-time PR's won't happen frequently anymore.

Instead, Andy says, we should focus on moving our floor up over time. Every lifter has a floor and a ceiling for each lift. Lifters, especially powerlifters, typically think of their ceiling as their all-time PR, usually set at a meet or during a phase in their training in which they have peaked for maximum 1RM performance. While we do want those 1RM's to move up over time, it's impossible for a lifter to stay peaked for more than a very short period of time -- a week at most. Instead, intermediate lifters can work to increase their floor, the amount of weight they can lift on their worst day, as a more reliably and sustainable measure of progress.

Andy Baker

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

Dan Flanick

#6 - Barbell Training for Athletes

Baker Barbell Podcast

04/07/22 • 59 min

Andy and Dan discuss the role of barbell training for athletes in sports ranging from power-based contact sports (football, hockey) to agility and high kill sports (baseball, soccer, golf). As detailed in Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training by Mark Rippetoe, strength is the basis of all human performance. Thus, getting an athlete stronger will have a positive impact, usually a big impact, on their performance.

Nevertheless, the athlete is NOT a powerlifter or weightlifter. Their sport doesn't consist of lifting barbells. Therefore, their training probably won't look much like the powerlifter's training beyond the novice phase of programming. After the basic barbell movements have been introduced, there may be sport-specific needs for variants of the big lifts as well as accessories. Andy and Dan break down how you can better use barbells to train sport athletes.

Andy Baker

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

Dan Flanick

#3 - Lessons from Westside Barbell: Concurrent and Conjugate Training for the Advancing Athlete

Baker Barbell Podcast

03/17/22 • 64 min

As they advance through the early stages of intermediate training, many lifters opt to use a block-style training program. In block training, training is organized into discrete phases or blocks, during which the lifter focuses on a single adaptation at a time. Typically blocks start with a volume or accumulation phase aimed at stimulating hypertrophy and building work capacity with lighter weigths and higher rep ranges, followed by a transmutation block of increasing intensity, and finally a peaking or realization block in which volume drops substantially and the lifter tapers toward heavy singles in the competition lifts. It's a tried and true method, but there are a number of problems.

The athletes at Westside Barbell, led by Louis Simmons, have developed alternative training methods which can also work quite well, while avoiding the problems of block periodization. Andy and Dan break down the basic concepts of Westside's conjugate system, the concurrent model of training, and the pros and cons of these models for different types of lifters and athletes.

Andy Baker

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

Dan Flanick

#1 - Welcome to the Baker Barbell Podcast: Unstick Your Training

Baker Barbell Podcast

01/28/22 • 55 min

Welcome to the first season of the Baker Barbell Podcast! In the inaugural episode, strength and conditioning coaches Andy Baker and Dan Flanick discuss some common reasons athletes get stuck in their training programs, and how to get progress and momentum going again.

Andy Baker

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

Dan Flanick

#34 - Mitigating Injuries Under the Barbell

Baker Barbell Podcast

03/08/24 • 99 min

In today's episode Coach Andy Baker discusses the most common injuries he sees in barbell training and his strategies for reducing the likelihood of their occurence. The key word in the title is "mitigating" injuries, not preventing them! If you train hard for years, chances are you will deal with an injury at one point or another. While barbell training is a very safe activity, injuries do happen, regardless of how good your technique, programming, and recovery are. That said, with some preparation and attention to detail, you can reduce your chance of injury during trainign and maintain longer, sustained periods of productive training.

Andy focuses on a few key areas of injury mitigaton: technique, programming, and recovery. Technique is important, and Andy breaks down the most common technique errors he sees that can potentially lead to injury. Many injuries can't be traced to a technique issue, however, and are more likely the result of poor programming -- accmulating too much fatigue for too long with no strategies for adjusting the exercise selection, load, and volume during high stress times. Likewise, recovery can play a huge role in the time it takes to recover from heavy bouts of training, and inattention to quality food, sleep, and outside stressors can increase the chance for injury.

No one likes to talk about injuries, but they are a reality for people engaged in hard physical training. Armed with a little knowledge, however, you can minimize your chances for injuries, and down-time, significantly.

Andy Baker

Web: www.AndyBaker.com

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

#30 - Strength or Hypertrophy? Identifying Your Weaknesses

Baker Barbell Podcast

11/29/23 • 43 min

The pendulum swings on in the fitness industry, and right now "hypertrophy" is the hot topic (or as Andy likes to call it, bodybulding with a small "b"). Many people who got into powerlifting over the last decade and half, and subsequently retired from competition, have started looking for ways to train hard beyond the squat, bench, and deadlift, and bodybuilding is a natural progression. Influencers on YouTube and social media have jumped in, detailing their transition from powerlifting and basic strength training programs to more advacned bodybuilding routines. While these routines may be a good fit for the developed strength athlete, the constant shift in attention from the leading fitness influencers has left many newer trainees confused.

So what's the big deal about hypertrophy? Andy outlines three main factors that drive strength development. One of those is hypertrophy. Once a trainee has acquired sufficeint technique and inter/intramuscular coordination, adding more muscle mass is the most reliable way to get stronger. As Andy notes, many of the successful powerlifters today are the most muscular ones. Not necessarily the heaviest, but the most muscular (for their height and weight class).

Andy explains how he evaluates new trainees by identifying their biggest gaps and weaknesses, and working on that. Many youth athletes spend a lot of time practicing, and therefore display high levels of cooridination and skill in their sport, but they are small and light. For these athletes, strength and size are a clear weakness, and they need to devote a lot of time to getting big and strong. A college level sprinter, on the other hand, weighing 185-215lbs and squatting in the 400-500's, probably needs to devote the most time toward technique, not driving his squat up.

Before you choose your next program, think about where your own weaknesses lie. Answering that question makes programming decisions a lot clearer, and will give you a faster path to progress.

Andy Baker

Web: www.AndyBaker.com