The Stronger Life Podcast

Today’s guest is Gini Grimsley - Gini is the Director of Fitness Product for VASA Fitness. She is known for creating cutting-edge programming and introducing approachable, results-driven fitness concepts. She enjoys any opportunity to empower the next generation of fitness professionals and is passionate about furthering their education and expertise to provide opportunities for development and career advancement.
Today's conversation spans everything from the common strengths and weaknesses of new fitness professionals, how to build a brand, how to build teams, and how VASA balances aggressive growth in the gym industry while raising the bar on personal training services for their members.
Follow Gini @gdotperiod
Follow David @dr.davidskolnik.dpt
Follow the Show @essential.strength.podcast
Today's Partner:
GetPPSC - a ground breaking educational platform for Health & Fitness professionals worldwide, offering the Pain Free Performance Certification Course. This course will teach you how to train SMARTER, train HARDER and stay HEALTHIER.
For 10% off any in-person course, go to www.getppsc.com/events and use the code essential at checkout.
Your Action Plan for the week:
This weeks Action Plan is specifically for the health and fitness professionals out there - I want you take a pulse check on your approach with clients and patients. Specifically, I want you to check on your approachability. If you’ve been in the game for a while, have you become excessively calloused by the number of clients who don’t follow through on their goals? If you’re newer to the profession, are you trying so hard to sound knowledgeable that you’re losing the human connection? And if you’re somewhere in between, are you effectively balancing results-driven interventions with empowering communication and energy? I know that I need to more committed to effective communication, especially with my remote clients - that’s my big focus this week. I hope you find this exercise insightful and motivating...

And until next week, I wish you STRENGTH and GOOD HEALTH.

Our guest this week is Brandon Whitehead.
Our Partner on Today's Episode is FNXFit - use the code ESSENTIAL and save 25% on all your sports nutrition needs!
Remember - If you are enjoying this podcast, be sure you’re subscribed, and that you’re sharing these episodes with your friends and family who would appreciate what we’re talking about on a week to week basis!
In today’s conversation, Brandon and I talk about the roll of being open to change as it relates to coaching and to being coached. We discuss the links between gut health and brain health and mindset shift from thinking only about what you’re eating but also about what your body is able to digest and Brandon breaks down his four keys to restoring a healthy gut - remove, replace, repair and repopulate.
Connect with Brandon - @bwlegend_tcmConnect with David - @dr.davidskolnik.dpt
Connect with the Show - @sessential.strength.podcast Action Plan - Your action plan for the week is this - I want to combine two pieces of the the conversation with Brandon today to forge what I believe is a very powerful action plan - mindset and nutrition:

I want you to be open and accepting of chance, and the discomfort that comes with it. Specifically, I want you to be open to the idea of making changes to your diet. I know from personal experience that I am resistant to these changes. I talk to nutrition coaches like Brandon and I read book and articles on nutrition and all the negative impacts of processed food... and then somewhere in my subconscious I justify continuing to eat mostly the same as I always have. I make small changes but... at what cost? At the cost of my gut health? My brain health? My executive function and my risk of dementia? It’s time for some hard change. Some change that initially, might not taste great - because lets be honest, vegetables will never taste as good as potato chips - but its a change that you will be proud of and feel the effects of because don’t kid yourself - even though they’re delicious, you’ve never felt great after binge eating chips or cookies. So accept the challenge to eat foods that make your body and brain happy, even though initially it will be hard.

That’s it for this week. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss next week’s episode with Valentina LeQueue and a conversation about the depths of anxiety and depression, the pursuit of self-love and the importance of being open about your feelings.

Until then - we wish you STRENGTH and GOOD HEALTH!

Our guest this week is Mark Bell.
Our partner this week is STRONG Coffee - save 15% on every purchase with the code ESSENTIAL! A portion of every purchase helps support this show.
REMEMBER - if you are enjoying this podcast, be sure you’re subscribed, and that you’re sharing these episodes with your friends and family who would appreciate what we’re talking about on a week to week basis!
HIGHLIGHTS - Mark is back for his second appearance on The Essential Strength Podcast, and today we are talking all about DIETS. For anyone who follow’s mark on social media, you know that he is ALWAYS pursuing some sort of dietary goal and experimenting with different diet principles and approaches to goal-oriented nutrition. In today’s conversation, Mark pulls back the curtain on all the things he’s learned from the last 18 months of dieting in one form or another, and provides some incredible take-home messages for anyone committed to living a stronger, healthier life.
Connect with Mark: @marksmellybellListen to Mark's Podcast: Mark Bell's Power ProjectConnect with David: @dr.davidskolnik.dptConnect with The Show: @essential.strength.podcast
ACTION PLAN - Your action plan this week, and perhaps for the next few months, is to pick a dietary framework, commit to it and learn from the experience. That could mean you try intermittent fasting, eating Paleo, investing in the Vertical Diet... as you learned today it’s not a matter of figuring out the ONE DIET TO RULE THEM ALL, it’s about picking something and sticking too it, and then moving on to something else and sticking to that, rinse, repeat and figure out what works best for you - the current version of you with your current goals and lifestyle. And if that feels a bit too nebulous well - maybe you can start by subscribing to Mark’s PROTEIN MANDATE and prioritizing 0.8-1 grams of protein per pound of body weight every single day, as many days as you can for as many weeks and months as you can. You’ll end up with a daily food intake that looks pretty similar to some of these “named” diets just by subscribing to a high protein intake.

That’s it for this week, be sure to tune in next time for my conversation with Dr. Kristin Phillips about all things pelvic floor, pelvic health and why “more keggles” is not the answer to your problems.

Until then - we wish you STRENGTH and GOOD HEALTH.

Happy Friday Everyone!
David here to announce that we are launching a new component of The Essential Strength Podcast today called Fit & Healthy Friday!!
Every Friday you will get a bite sized podcast covering a health and fitness topic that you can apply to your own life. Think of it as a little gift at the end of a long week, and something to take with you into the weekend as motivation to keep moving in the right direction - THE HEALTHY DIRECTION!
Today, we're reviewing an article that was originally published in Outdoor Magazine's online platform titled - To Delay Death, Lift Weights (click the title to read the full article)
This article was also shared on the Reading List at https://www.strongerinmotion.com
which is the home of my personal training and nutrition business, Stronger In Motion.
In this mini-pod you'll learn about how two different research studies looking at large groups of adults found indicators that would suggest strength training and developing muscle strength may reduce your chance of death when compared to similar but untrained individuals. It definitely motivated me to get in the gym today, and I hope it motivates you to either keep hitting the weights, or to start training for strength as it appears to have some solid anti-aging benefits!
Hope ya'll have a GREAT weekend, and until next time - We wish you STRENGTH and GOOD HEALTH!

Questions or comments? E-mail Us - [email protected] - or hit us up on Instagram - @essential.strength.podcast
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Episode 24
Today is Episode 24 and it’s episode unlike anything up until this point. Today, we are sharing a highlight reel of some of our favorite definitions of strength from guests up to this point.
Featured Guests (in order)
1. Mark Bell
2. Claire Zai
3. Chase Chewning
4. Holly Myers
5. Alex Piccirilli
6. Adrian Conway
7. Max Artsis
8. Cody McBroom
9. Karin Steere
10. Laura Poburan
We’ve absolutely loved hearing each and every guest define what strength means to them and how it shows up in their lives. The 10 definitions in this episode highlight both the diversity of answers as well as the common threads - that strength is more than just physical, that it is about overcoming resistance of any kind, having the confidence to face hard choices head on, and more.

The answers in this episode come from coaches, clinicians, yogi instructors, wellness professionals, business owners, data scientists, and more. And it is our hope that through this diversity of guests and perspectives, that you realize strength is an essential element in all of our lives, regardless of age, profession, interest, or status.
Action Plan
Your action plan is to either write out, or record yourself defining what Strength means to you. If you’re up for it, we would LOVE to hear what you come up with. You can e-mail your definition to me at [email protected] or if you’re feeling brave and want to post your definition to Instagram, tag us @essential.strength.podcast, and tag me @dr.davidskolnik.dpt and @mikemccastle so we can share what you come up with!
What's Next?
We're taking the rest of December off to do some "remodeling" and "house keeping" here at the Essential Strength Podcast, and will be back with our next episode on Wednesday, January 6th! We will be kicking of a series of 10-12 episodes all focused on Mental Health and Mental Strength, and our guest on Jan. 6 will be Ricky Simon, professional UFC fighter, before his scheduled fight on January 16th. Don't miss it!