Annie Miller keeps it real (as always) in episode 246 of The FitsPRO Podcast. She discusses starting and growing your biz from her perspective as well as the perspective of many coaches she has worked with. Tune in to learn more!

Get full show notes at anniemiller.co/246-realistic-expectations-in-starting-and-growing-your-biz

Annie Miller covers 5 common mistakes in program design that apply to both templated and individualized coaching. Tune into episode 245 to get the breakdown on the 5 mistakes and what to do instead. For full show notes visit anniemiller.co/blog

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Annie Miller breaks down three ways to get leads (or create warmer leads) and turn them into customers. Tune it to learn then apply these to your own business. For full show notes visit anniemiller.co/blog

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Annie Miller discusses four different points to consider when choosing your accessory work. Whether you program for others or yourself, you'll want to tune in. Get the full show notes at https://anniemiller.co/blog/

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Annie Miller shares a free resource to get clear on your ideal client and breaks down exactly what your first offer in the online space needs to do. Tune in now!

Get the full show notes at https://anniemiller.co/blog/

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Annie Miller discusses goal oriented programming, having both client and coach goals, and client efficacy. She gives multiple examples of how to align workouts to seasons and specific objectives. Tune in to learn more.

Get full show notes at https://anniemiller.co/blog/

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Tune into Episode 240 as Annie Miller shares more behind the birth of her second child, the prep involved both physically and mentally, and how early postpartum is going so far.

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Today I bring you five specific things to focus on if you’re wanting to build an online business in the world of health and fitness (and bring in a profit!)

I created a workshop in 2020 – 3 steps to build a PROFITABLE online heath and fitness business.

And named it this for more than one reason…

Businesses need to not only generate revenue but be PROFITABLE.

Many people think “oh I am just going to start an online business” because perhaps it looks “easier” than other options in life…I can assure you the benefits and possible autonomy are there, but make no mistake it is NOT easier.

And to be very frank, most people won’t be successful. Because most people are not meant to be entrepreneurs. The online world has simply created an allure – the allure that if you’re a coach or practitioner in person, you can do it online with ease and make boat loads of money. LOL False.

Now, with that…I am team, if you think it can happen, and you have what you need to MAKE IT HAPPEN, you can. PERIOD.

So, if that’s you. If you’re driven by the possible freedom and okay with the reality that will be anything but easy, you’re my people.

If the idea of being the creator and the solver of your own problems is more appealing than passing issues to someone else to handle, or worse, solving someone else’s issues, then lets do this.

If it physically pains you to do things someone else’s way when you have a different idea, this might be for you.

If being everything – the social media manager, the email marketer, the web designer, the coach, the accountant and the customer service manager is okay with you, then this might be the right path.

I don’t say these things to scare you away or paint a big black x over your rainbow and butterfly painting. I keep it frank because it’s reality. And I want you to be prepared. Prepare to go from passion to profit in the online space.

So, let’s.

I called this episode the New Coaches Guide but let me be clear…

Not NEW Coach

NEW to the online space.

NEW new coaches should work in person however it makes sense in your area of focus. But ALSOOOOOOO you’re winning if you can do both – build and establish that online presence for FREE while working in person as you strategically and organically make that transition online.

1 – CLARITY on what makes you different – your area of focus – your niche.

Call it what you want. I don’t care.

Find this through ACTION

What made you different in person?

What comes easy to you?

What is your philosophy?

Listen to episode 237 on how to set yourself apart as a do it all coach

ICA avatar creator download

Know your niche content guide.

2 – CONTENT frequency

Messaging becomes more clear

You have a passion – how well do you communicate that online? Put in those reps

Builds dependability, knowability and credibility

Keeps you front of mind – thiiiiiiisssss is profitable

3 – YOUR OFFER

What do you sell? Who do you help? How? What’s your process?

GET NITTY GRITTY HERE

Client experience

Collecting social proof and sharing it

4 – SALES

You HAVE to sell your offer. Often in the beginning, without hesitation or doubt. Not that others can see and feel anyway.

You have the least confidence in this phase. But you NEED PROFIT.

Weekly – mentions, and direct sales

Build awareness and welcomeness!

NOT asking people to apply or work with you WILL NOT create profit.

5 – CONSISTENCY

Be in this for the long haul and the daily grind

Remember that frankness we started this episode with? We’re closing it out with the same vibe.

You gotta be here for the process. My most successful fitsPROs are:

Curious about themselves

Curious about their process

Curious about their audience

Here for the learning and refinement.

Here for the reps.

They enjoy this. Not EVERY part. But genuinely, the journey.

And THAT + their clarity is WHY they’re profitable.

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If you find value here, on The FitsPRO Podcast, then pretty please head over to iTunes, subscribe, rate and review the show. It means the world to me when you spread my message to more humans.

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ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:

Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness Business

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No matter the weight training program you follow when starting out, you will likely experience a honeymoon phase.

You’ll feel like you are adapting quick, making gains and getting stronger. This is what we call the newbie phase. And I hope you enjoy it. Because its a precious time in training.

That phase ends at some point however. The weights stop increasing with ease. The same shit feels just as hard as it did last month, or three months ago and you’re like, what is happening? Have I plateaued? Am I overtrained? Do I need to do more?

That’s what we’re unpacking in today’s episode – all you need to know about newbie gains and lifting.

Many adaptations are taking place when you ask a muscle to contract repeatedly as a given load, with a given speed and then recover. To be clear, the adaptations to training happen in the recovery from said training. That’s where the anabolic affects take place. Two of those adaptations driven by different styles of training can be…

Neurological AND metabolic adaptions

You need BOTH and can HELLA benefit from both when starting out.

That’s heavy load, low rep lifting, and high rep low load lifting. Both should be challenging, but in a different way.

And both can help build a strong foundation of movement patterns, capacity and strength.

So when you start training and you’re PRing every week, upping weight on every exercise, are you getting stronger? Are you gaining muscle? What’s actually happening?

That leads us to:

Skill vs actual muscle growth

You are not likely putting on significant muscle growth, or rather your “gains” and improved force output week to week in the first month or two of training are NOT from increases in muscle mass. They are from building skills – neurological adaptations. Your muscles and mind muscle connection are becoming more proficient from practicing these movements for several reps every week.

These neurological adaptations don’t STOP as you start acquiring more muscle mass. They simply account for most of your “newbie gains” in the first few months of consistent training.

And that neurological piece will be there, responsible for weight increases regardless of your program, or rep scheme.

But then we do have those differences that I mentioned earlier – in the long term, neurologically demanding training stimuli is going to be more pronounced in lower rep, higher load training like traditional strength training. Strength is very much a skill. While higher reps and lower loads (but still challenging) will likely drive more metabolic adaptations – more mitochondria inside the cell, a high demand for ATP regen and production, etc.

What happens when the PR’s slow, and weight stops going up?

You haven’t plateaued per say. You simply need to begin and will likely benefit from more variance in training factors and intention in program design.

That doesn’t mean you need to confuse your muscles. It simply means that upping JUST WEIGHT or JUST ADDING REPS isn’t enough week to week or month to month anymore.

We can manipulate tempo, rest periods, yes – load and volume, exercise variations and more when it comes to training factors that can lead to more muscle growth or strength gains for you as a trainee.

Question worth asking:

What are you expecting from your training? More muscle mass? More force output (strength?) Higher capacity/fitness?

Your program needs to be pushing for and providing the right stimulus.

And you as the trainee need that clarity so you can find the right program for your needs.

If you think you don’t have training expectations, you likely do. And your reaction to results from said training will reveal your expectations. 😉

If you’re coming off newbie gains (in your first year or two of training you likely have not PLATEAUED. If you switch a training factor up or just stick to whatever program you’re following, the gains will start to appear again in time. Just might be slower than you’re accustomed to in that newbie phase.

I have a full episode on four types of training plateaus and what to do for each. Be sure to check that out as well if you truly do think you’ve plateaued and you’re unsure how to know or what action to take.

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This episode is for my people. The people who go against the “be a master of one” narrative.

You can’t have more than one offer. You can’t have more than one ideal client or area of focus.

While I understand that perspective and the truth in it (I mean I have an Ideal Client Avatar download and a Know Your Niche content guide), I also think it’s misunderstood in the online health and fitness industry.

YOU NEED CLARITY. Clarity breeds confidence. Confidence in your offer, how you help, who you help, how you got to where you are and why you take the approach that you do. If you can gain clarity in these areas, you’ll be far more likely to TALK about them – in your content, in sales, in all the places it likely matters. And THAT, I assume, may even lead to more revenue for you. Which you need. Because you own a business.

You don’t have to CHOOSE nutrition OR mindset OR training.

It you DO need clarity on HOW you do those things and how to differentiate yourself from competitors.

Some of this will happen, naturally, if you are building a personal brand. Someone may literally choose to work with you, because of your music preferences, that you share, or other pieces of your life that are intertwined into your online presence.

But you do need to be clear on the business side of things and your actual methods. As a byproduct, you will likely become more confident in talking about your offers, and how you help people. It’s a win-win.

So, if you feel like you do it all, just like everybody else, and you don’t know what sets you apart, hopefully today’s episode can lead you to a bit more clarity. Or at least how to find that clarity in your own time.

DEFINE YOUR VALUES3-5 core values.

May overlap with personal values.

Drive behaviors – ACTION.

What do you believe – in general and in terms of you approach as a coach?

Philosophy IS a massive piece of health and fitness. Take my long haul mentality for instance. That is not a value, but a belief, based in a value I am sure. Of what? Maybe tied into efficacy. One of our core values here at Annie Miller Concepts.

Free write or google some values. But DEFINE them.

Then after you list those values, ask WHY?

Answer that question.

Then paint a picture. What does that look like? How does that core value manifest itself in your approach to health and fitness, or in health and fitness in general? This needs to apply to your area of focus of course.

But considering this episode is for “do it all” coaches, it may be a more broad belief/picture and that’s fine!

Your values, as I’ve said, permeate everything. So, let’s get into that.

DEFINE YOUR METHOD/APPROACHYou have one. Whether you’ve written it down in a system, and on your sales page or not.

Today, you have no excuse. You now know you need to.

WHAT IS YOUR APPROACH? Is there a series of steps you take every client through?

Many of you work with clients 1:1. That’s great and each of their protocols can be individualized, but HOW DO YOU GET TO THAT PROTOCOL?

That’s my question. If you’ve never considered your method, CONSIDER IT NOW.

FIND IT, carve it out. It exists.

You may not have a coined method. But can you define pieces of your coaching approach more clearly? Can you give them phases? Or names? What does your coaching include? What are all the pieces and why do they matter? What do they do?

Ask all these nitty gritty questions to find the answer of what sets you apart.

You should have a pretty good idea if you answer these honestly.

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ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:

Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness Business

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If you want growth on Instagram, you need to focus on engagement. Shareability, and engagement, which means your content needs to be engaging.

Today’s two tips, or how to make all content more engaging for your audience, from stories, to reels, to static posts and more.These are simple, and they are going to require consistency and time in order for them to work. But you will be able to implement them immediately. And that’s the goal. There’s action that you can take even while you are listening to this episode. Which is, how you’re going to get more engagement.

1 way to make content more engaging…

MAKE IT EASY

You are the leader of your audience and I need you to view yourself as such. Recently, I posted a question box that got no engagement. I got one question from someone asking me where I buy my jewelry. Which is a fine question if it’s amongst other valuable questions in relation to fitness, business, or education. That can be rather discouraging or annoying. When it’s the only question you get, and you’re offering your time for free in order to help people.

That’s probably one of the top frustrations that I hear from people trying to build a personal brand on Instagram. Question boxes can make your life so easy because content begets content.

People are literally providing pieces of content for you to create. And it feels good when your audience responds and interacts with you. That’s the connective piece of social media.

So instead of moping around about the fact that I got no engagement after thousands of people saw my question box, I just got in my stories, and called out my audience and said something along the lines of you guys really have no questions this Sunday morning? I will gladly get in my fourth lift of the week and stay off this app, but I really do enjoy answering your questions. So if you have any, go back and put them in the box. I basically made fun of the situation and brought light to it. Within five minutes I had like at least 15 to 20 questions.

I’ll say it again, you are the leader of your audience. That doesn’t mean you’re a dictator. It means that people have chosen to follow you and you do have leverage and helping them help you.

So first things first, you need to view yourself as and take on the role of being a leader for your audience. There is agency in that and truth in that.

Then you’re going to make it easy for them. Always always always filter everything through how easy it is for your audience to engage with you. It’s not putting up a question box in your stories, or simply having a call to action in your caption. Can you put the call to action in the actual reel? Can it be the first thing that you say in the caption? Can you give them options to choose from? Can you have them vote on some thing? If you did a number to post, 10 things you’ve learned from 10 years of fitness, ask what number resonates with them the most.

Make it easy.

Have them DM you a word if they want more information on some thing, put up a poll with only two options.

You get the idea. How can you make an engaging with your content easier for people who already follow you?

If you bought your contact or created on the fly, think about that this week or this month.

MAKE IT HUMAN

One of the weakest points I see in people trying to build personal brands in the health and fitness industry online is that they minimize the personal piece. They don’t embrace storytelling, or even identifying with their stories are. They’re brand story, we’re looking at daily life as a story.

I encourage you to embrace that if you feel that this might be somewhere that you’re lacking.

Tell at least 1 story per week. In your stories OR in a post. PRACTICE.

doesn’t need to be serious but can be
Can be funny and connective! Kid drop off line chronicle, what you’re shopping for, any experience you’ve had!

Identify your brand story if you haven’t

View and share your client case studies from the HUMAN piece

How can you bring to light the more human portion of your brand?

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Proficiency is truly the name of the game when it comes to movement patterns, strength and muscle building.

When people talk about muscle memory or mind muscle connection, what are they really referring to?WHAT

In short, I’d say, the proficiency, strength, and consistency of your neural pathways from brain to muscle when contracting.

WHY

This is where touching, visualizing or thinking about a given muscle contracting can actually cause a stronger contraction, and more fibers to be recruited (find study).

That is the mind muscle connection. And it will likely behoove you to work on it it gaining muscle, strength or better movement patterns are goes of yours.

HOW

First off SLOW DOWN – focus on tempo

Isolated movements VS compound movements

isolated – touch, or think about. Close your eyes OR look at the muscle (where mirrors aren’t actually a terrible idea)
Compound – rather than just going through the movement, focus ONE section or muscle. Either that is prime mover, or that you want to work on.

Squat – focus on quads let’s say

Picture them lengthening across the knee as you lower down.

Think of them controlling the descent for you.

Then…

Think of them pressing the floor away as you stand up from the bottom of the squat. Picture them shortening as they straighten your leg, bringing the knee from flexion to extension.

In a pull up – focus on the lats

Picture the lat contracting, pulling your upper arm toward the low back and hips.

You get the idea.

You may or may not find that you experience a burning sensation QUICKER than you normally would when going through the motions in a bit more disconnected manner.

That’s normal. And should be celebrated!

You’re also not doing it wrong if that DOES NOT happen.

Can be applied to warm ups and movement prep or mobility as well

Overall really important even as trainees to be curious about the muscles you’re using and the direction of the fibers you’re attempting to work.

Fiber direction and attachments

This might be a stretch, no pun intended, but, like I mentioned with the squat and your quads, it can be helpful to think about when the muscle is stretching, and in what direction. This is where, focusing on range of motion, and shortened, or length and positions can be helpful. Obviously, if you are a trainer, you can educate your clients on this. If you are a trainee, don’t sweat it. But feel free to be curious, and slowly learn about the muscles, roughly where they attach in the body and the directions in which they contract.

Let’s look at the glutes because who doesn’t love working their glutes in 2024.

Next time you work, your glutes, focus on the lengthening phase as well as the shortest position.

In the hip thrust, that length and position is going to be at the bottom. And then want you to contract your glutes from that bottom position in order to bring your hips into extension. Literally think about your glutes being the muscle that controls that movement.

We can then look at some thing like a curtsy, reverse lunge, where the glutes are, both lengthened, sagittally, and you could argue transversely or along the frontal plane at the hip. Basically you’re stretching Gluth max in the center of your butt cheek if you will, as well as Gluth, Max fibers and Gluth need with the working leg crossing your midline. So your outer upper butt.

This would be especially true. If you’re doing a curtsy reverse lunge with your front foot elevated. So from a deficit.

That’s what you were looking for in that movement. Is creating a big and deep stretch at the bottom of that curtsy reverse lunge. That’s where the tension is going to be highest on the working Glute. In that lengthened position.

Again, this is not something to stress about. And if you’re not able to accurately picture, a muscle and its lengthen or shortened position, it’s not like you can’t build muscle. You’ll be just fine.

You want to get the most out of your lifts, focus in on your mind muscle connection if you’ve gotten a bit lax.

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ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:

Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness Business

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2023 was not my norm…It was my first year as a mom-preneur. And though I don’t love that title. It’s a thing. It’s very real. And it took some trial and error. So, let’s dive in.

No revenue goal but a need to maintain
Biz + baby trial year (unexpectedly grow another one 🤣)

2023 was a year of essentialism and gaining clarity of biz and life NOW

Lots of tension and fog into gaining said clarity. Lots of 12 minute back and forth voice memos with colleagues and team members. Lots of INTROSPECTION.

Which led to:

1 = 2-5 year goal of hitting 7 figures without using ads

me, Maddy, Paige, web team, open to other contractors

FOCUS

2 = “One stop shop for health and fitness professionals”

Be the most helpful brand in my industry

EVERYTHING is filtered through these lenses.

2023 choices aligned with future goals and wins:

Trademark Built by Annie!
Trademark FitsPRO!
YouTube launched! (2,000 subs by end of year)
Channel reached monetization by end of year (tiny but a big deal)
Web platform creation (WE OWN IT ALL)
Secured CEUs for FitsPRO! (Higher incentive to buy)
able to step away from IG for TWO MONTHS (re: lower revenue but THE FREEDOM still)
Seamless launches – seriously so low effort and predictable. Almost felt disconnected to where I want to revamp some things in 2024
High rev to work ratio – terminated all 1:1 offers to make ROOM for working ON the business, and ways to generate more rev (see lower income this year but calculated choice).
Clarity in where efforts and energy should go

Overall 2024 goals, tasks and focuses:

No more sitting around and seeing how biz goes – that life just isn’t for me. Fine for a season, needed as I literally had NO IDEA what to expect.

So we make specific AF plans for 2024

List them in priority order (priority determined by ease, and also time – launches of certain things, seasons it makes sense to work on given projects etc).
We hold them LOOSELY
stable audience growth across IG and YouTube
NO REV LEFT ON THE TABLE
No more live 1:1 (power hours, biz, fitness) – OPTIMIZE PASSIVE

NEW OFFERS

Pp funnel – Masterclass & bonuses
Update FitsPRO Funnel
Free week of BBA through 3 Day Mob Guide
FitsPRO 2.0 – the scaling portal
- Determine OUTCOME & MODEL (it’s a portal, but what’s the takeaway and timing/how often it’s launched).
- Self assessment leads to a track / action plan

Offer Specifics

Overall – we have a CAPTIVE CUSTOMER (buy multiple offers and become lifers)

FitsPRO wins:

3-5 FitsPROs per month with little to no marketing

People pay in full

PP wins and insights: High contrast to FitsPRO

Fastest buying cycle of any signature offer

Niche offer with the least competition

BBA wins

Client retention

Over six figure generation still

Security through:

3 month minimum implemented
12 month monthly payment plan added
Community added

2024 focus is generally LEAD GENERATION & NURTURING CUSTOMERS

I haven’t announced this… but we’re Implementing / trying a free week of BBA
We’re adding a programming workshop at some point
And a new business offer

We also have sprint sales throughout the year and November – Bday + Black Friday promo on the calendar. Overall optimizing profit and leaving less on the table.

2025 is AUDIENCE GROWTH as offer suite will be up to date with all new funnels established.

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Flexibility is the capacity for mobility. And mobility CAN certainly make for superior strength and hypertrophy.

I mentioned in another podcast recently that more and more I view mobility as youth.

Range of motion can be looked at in passive and active lenses.

Passive = flexibility. Think sitting in the splits or doing a pec stretch in the doorway. These are passive and/or assisted.

Active range of motion = mobility. How well can your muscles move your joint through its range? Think about sliding into a straddle and using your legs to pull yourself back up. Or for the pec example, doing shoulder CARs. What is your shoulder mobility if you simply and SLOWLY take your shoulder through internal and external rotation as you flex and extend your shoulder in as large of a circle as you can?

If you don’t have the passive range, you won’t have the active range. But you can absolutely HAVE the passive range and still not have the active range.

So what is the role of mobility and flexibility in performance (let’s say strength and movement patterns in this case) and building muscle?

That’s what todays episode is all about.

And it matters. It’s why mobility is integrated into Built by Annie programming.

Mobility and Flexibility benefits for Hypertrophy

More muscle fiber recruitment (more range often = more STRETCH leading into a contraction)
More functionality
Potentially less pain
More range = more time under tension potentially

Mobility and Flexibility benefits for Strength

More range = more potential to build strength at different angles (improving OVERALL strength of a movement pattern or muscle group)
More mobility potential to be GAINED
Loading an end range and pushing that end range can be HIGHLY effective for gaining even more mobility (light loads likely)
More range, like hypertrophy = more fiber recruitment if loaded properly which IS potential for strength gains
More comfortability within a movement pattern
Less energy leaks within said movement pattern

Hyper mobility is a thing. And it’s VERY important that we gain STABILITY in addition to flexibility and mobility. But generally, for most people, there are few downsides to gaining mobility and strength.

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Coaching philosophy is so much more than the methods you adopt and whether or not you think cardio should go before or after a lift, whether you think macros are necessary or not.

A massive part of your coaching philosophy is shaped by core values.

Rather than saying “crafting,” it’s more like identifying or carving out. It likely already exists but you have yet to claim it, identify it.

Why brand values matter

they’re the foundation and backbone of your brand – from content to hiring to how you work with clients, and even the structure you choose for your offer.
They’ll align with or misalign with your audience and potential customers
They can and ideally do keep you grounded as a coach and entrepreneur

What are core values

Personal core values vs brand core values

Business:

Personal: I’d say are beliefs that drive BEHAVIOR.

THEY’RE DIFFERENT but absolutely have carryover if a personal brand

THEN we have, and those values will permeate and sometimes dictate the actual methods you use.

YOUR METHOD

Schools of thought you pull from / align with
Personal experience within the field (performance and professional)
Who do you look to? Researchers? Brad Sheonfeld is my go to, Charles Poliquin was massive in influencing my program design approach. Joel Jamieson in conditioning. Why? They’re simple, easy to apply and WORK. That aligns with my no bullshit, long haul mentality and value. They also EDUCATE. Aligning with my value of efficacy and knowledge.
So, how have your values shown up in your philosophy? In your methods? Look for it. Write it down.

A beautiful thing happens when your brand and coaching philosophy are rooted in values. It only leads to clearer communication in your content, emails, across all platforms. Which brings aligned clients and more ease and joy in your business.

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It’s no secret I am team lift for life. That is largely where my phrase “long haul mentality” came from. Because I am a sucker for the grind – the day to day that no one wants to do, but everyone needs. The process by which they get the REAL results that they want.

It applies to weight lifting, career, building a business, any pursuit of something more than the mundane.

Today we dive into physical, mental and spiritual reasons for women to lift weights. Most of these apply to men as well, but 85% of you are ladies, and that’s who my clientele have always been, so, that’s who we speak to today.

Weight lifting is in the simplest sense, applying science to a set of skills that you build over time. This CAN and more often than not, does, manipulate the body in the form of adaptions.

Those adaptations are WHY women need to lift weights. Being stronger, more mobile, having higher self efficacy and esteem are rarely bad things.

First up and possibly the most focused on FEMALES:

1 Increase bone densityOsteoporosis is far more prominent in women than in men. We naturally hold less muscle mass, and provide less tension to all of our connective tissues.

Bone is not highly vascular which means it takes LONGER for the bone to adapt to stimulus. Muscle adapts quickest, tendons and ligaments next, due to their lack of vascularity. And lastly, bones.

Locomotion happens via our muscles pulling on bones via tendons. That’s literally how our bodies move.

Providing tension to these tissues is how we cause NEW tissue to grow, and become stronger. That’s what we want. In this case for bones.

It can take six months to a year for significant bone growth to take place from weight lifting. Again, applying LOAD and tension to the skeleton is what causes this demand for new growth.

Load and tension can come in many forms – ie jogging. But weight lifting is the most superior way for this to happen.

Improve and USE mobility

There is some kind of saying about your mobility and age or lifespan. Like you’re only as old as your spine is mobile or something like that.

This is true in my opinion for all mobility. I trained people in person for five years before going fully online. And for me, the sixties was where I saw the largest gap in ability.

I trained three to four 62-67 year old women. One was a national swimmer and had amazing fitness, though she did lack strength, which is what we were working on. One could not get off the floor from a split squat and had a terrible base of fitness.

I’ve had family members in their sixties hiking mountains and playing with grandkids and those who need assistance for daily movements. There is obviously context there, and many variables at play. But witnessing these differences is what brought the importance of mobility and strength to my mind as a trainer.

Mobility, and many other pieces of fitness fall under “you don’t use it, you lose it”

2 Increase muscle massThis might be an obvious one. But important nonetheless.

I like to think of this in relationship to other tissues which the human body can be comprised of – mainly fat.

If you’re not building muscle, or largely comprised of muscle…and muscle is how we cause our bodies to MOVE, what are you made of? Truth is, a fair amount of that will be fatty tissues.

Overall health benefits from hosting and maintaining muscle mass in comparison to fat mass.

Muscle is harder to build for women than men. This is due to our natural make up as well as hormone profile. Not a bad thing, we can certainly build muscle, but we definitely have to be intentional about doing so.

And muscle mass becomes harder to hang on to as we age. So the importance of building and maintaining becomes more and more pertinent.

Dr Gabriel Lyon has so much research and information on this. I never thought of muscle as so metabolically advantageous until hearing her speak on several podcasts. Look her up.

3 Mental fortitudeThis falls outside of the more physiological reasons. If you’re pushing yourself in the gym, you’ll experience challenges. And through taking on those challenges, you’ll see that you are resilient. That your mind and your body are both resilient. You can be uncomfortable and stay under control or push through.

And if you’re doing this for the long haul, you’re bound to have days and seasons where you just don’t want to. But you choose to, over and over.

4 Endorphins To quote Elle Woods – people who workout have endorphins, and people with endorphins don’t kill people.

But in all seriousness – anecdotally speaking, I almost always feel better about my entire day when I’ve worked out. Maybe that’s the endorphins. Maybe it’s that I prioritized myself. Maybe it’s the decision making, or pushing myself. I am sure there is research on this I simply haven’t dove into it.

5 Self efficacy and esteem * Accountability to self – doing what you don’t want to, daily or working on a skill, exercise you don’t like. * b. A way to tune into our physical self. One of the biggest things I missed in the early postpartum period was TUNING IN through my normal warm up/mobility. * When you lift, you feel like you look better (even if you don’t – it’s a thing).

6 Improve and USE strengthUnder the same level of “obviousness” as building muscle…

Feeling capable and BEING capable
Muscle mass is potential for strength (back to body composition – fat vs muscle and utility).
Building skills through lifting
USING those skills (different kind of mobility)

7 The domino effect* More water intake, learn about recovery, higher protein intake, prioritize sleep, makes better overall health decisions.

Moral of the story is, weight lifting is amazing, and provides endless benefits for women. Do the thing. Lift the weights. Get the direction you need. And commit to the long haul.

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Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness Business

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There can certainly be a lot of carryover between how to grow your brand audience on IG and how to increase your income. Often just being front of mind for people is the lowest barrier to increasing applications or enrollments.

We’ll separate the two for clarity but know that there is mainly positive carryover from audience growth tactics possibly to income.

Brand GROWTH (audience)

None of these are new – I simply want to do a refresh for you in order to bring your focus back to 1-2 of these if you’ve slipped up in your IG approach lately – it happens. And we then we bring it back.

You know I love stories, but they aren’t for GROWING. They’re for selling and connecting with your warm IG audience so we’ll talk about those during income growth.

Client centric + personal story telling

OWN YOUR STORY (past or present process)
Bring it back to the consumer and THEIR experience
Content that helps them NOW, where they are (they’ll share that!)

Frequency – high volume posting

More posts = more reps for you, better messaging, better creatives, more engagement, more potential for exposure and viral status posts, and less overall pressure
7-21 times per week. 7 minimum if GROWTH is the goal.

***posted 2 times per day when I came back from my 8 week break this year and had 2 posts/reels go viral from that. Those posts alone Brough in 3,000 new people. The double posting was worth it due to those two posts landing.

Mother categories

Covered in FitsPRO and IG 101.
Still live by this
Provides bumpers – which build trust and area of focus (expertise)
Go deeper with less.

[repeatability + sharabelity])

Growth = SHAREABILITY and relatability
- Something people get fired up about (positive or justice vibes), a common experience or struggle – can be funny (taking off a sweaty sports bra) or serious (over sexualization of women in fitness)
  - Both are RELATED to my area of focus but not DIRECT. So it would bring in IDEAL CLIENTS. That’s KEY. Trends don’t always bring quality followers.
But low key saying fuck the checkboxes and trending reels…YES even for growth.

I find half the time that whatever the trend is, it dies or doesn’t work. I can count on one hand the amount of times that a trend worked in my favor – meaning I gained IDEAL CLIENTS into my audience.

By all means, if a trend feels right and you can capitalize on it within brand alignment, GET IT. But please don’t let the pressure of hopping on trends keep you from creating actual content that your audience and ICA would find helpful, relatable, or sharable. A twitter graphic with a bold statement goes a long way.

Income / application GROWTH (clients)

I was talking to a past 1:1 biz client turned colleague a while back. We were discussing lofty financial goals and what refinement it takes from a business standpoint – very “slow down to speed up” vibes.

She made the comment “I doubled my income in ___ (year) by just yelling about my offers more on instagram and email” and I died. Because #TRUTH.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a biz client, follower or fitspro embrace talking about their offer more consistently and BAM – they see applications and enrollments.

Not ONCE, not vague information. But REALLY commit to talking about “all things your offer.” – clients, who it’s for, problem solving, the process, options people have, etc.

IG stories or – client case study posts

How I grew my biz (bless IG stories)
The how, process, your personal coaching approach!
Prospects see themselves in their shoes

Depends on your offer model but

1x per week hard call to action to apply
Client case studies
Story telling (the why, your own experience right now or in the past)
FOLLOW UP – Lord Almighty people have forgotten about the best way to make to money in the online space – follow up with people who have inquired!!!!

People get busy, they legit forget or they just need a reminder. I have personally hired two humans due to them following up with me. Because, like I said, I got busy, it got put on the back burner etc but I really did want to hire them, just needed some bugging.

If you can get comfortable with receiving respectful “not at this time” or no response at all, the follow up takes such little time, but holds so much potential for those YESSES.

And if someone says no, LEAD THEM to another place they can take in content from you, or join a mailing list until they are ready.

Social proof up the ying yang

Physical, video, written, screenshots etc

It can be a lot but I’d suggest sharing this once per week as well – on socials to be specific.

Audience growth doesn’t ALWAYS = income growth. And if it does, typically there is a 3-12 month gap between those. It all takes time.

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Today’s episode can be applied to any platform where you provide content to an audience. That means podcasting, email, YouTube, instagram or elsewhere.I’ve been talking a lot lately about building trust with your audience because trust is the #1 thing we need as businesses in order for people to PAY YOU. And most online health and fitness coaches I talk to want to get paid.If you happen to be building a personal brand, then I believe you have an extra opportunity to expedite that trust. People relate to, and connect with PEOPLE. You’re the face of your brand and likely who the audience is interacting with.Do not limit yourself with how you could go about sharing any of this. I can see these sent in a newsletter, on an IG story, in a graphic breakdown with context, etc.1 Walking the walk Show them your process RelatabilityImperfectionYou are human and struggle to + this is how you make decisions easily.Ie: how you select foods, how you use a certain piece of programming within your training, mental struggles and processesYou don’t need to be more fit or strong than your clients. However, it might make sense if you are also active and share your own journey.I always say you don’t HAVE to train the way you train your clients (or eat the way) but there is certainly power, and I believe, respect in seeing a coach apply to themselves what they as of us as clients.2 Client case studies OR self study, OR use other other people as examples if you don’t have clients yetAllows people too see the HOWTake them behind the scenes Ie: helping a client PR, decrease body fat, increase muscle mass, experience food freedom, ear more, get out of pain etc. Where were they? What did or do you plan to implement?3 Providing SOLUTION based contentI think people get lost or held up when we say “solve a problem.”Sometimes, thinking in the frame of solutions, or tips can be easier to apply.Bite size, digestible content APPLICABLE IMMEDIATELYKeeps them coming back for more (aka THEY TRUST YOU)Shows you know what they are currently experiencing, thinking, feeling etc Sometimes before they were even aware of it.You have to know your ideal client and your niche for this. Which are not the same thing.You’ll find clarity ON your ICA and your NICHE through creating content and interacting or receiving feedback from said audience.IMO This is the foundation of the other two pieces we talked about.Do this at a high frequency to build trust.I know these can seem simple. And that’s because they are. Building trust is not a complex task. It’s simple, and takes intention, consistency and time.Leave the FitsPRO Podcast a reviewIf you find value here, on The FitsPRO Podcast, then pretty please head over to iTunes, subscribe, rate and review the show. It means the world to me when you spread my message to more humans.Want more podcasts? Click here to skim the archives.P.S. Save this value packed episode for later over on Pinterest!ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness BusinessFree ResourcesSupplements: Legion Athletics Code ANNIE for 20% offSkincare: Fré Skincare Code FDBA for at least 15% offBags: Vooray Code ANNIE for 20% offShop Annie Miller Concepts Apparel HERE!

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I asked my IG audience and my email list to send me topics they'd like me to either rate as over, or underrated, mainly in the field of fitness. And let me tell you, this was a FUN ONE.This episode was unplanned. I literally answered these spitfire, off the cuff. First thoughts that came to mind is what you get here. So, tune in for details on the following topics. Here are my ratings:Squats: Overrated by those who want to grow their glutes, underrated in terms of functionality and bang for your buck hypertrophy.Lululemon: Underrated. I know. I know. Trust me.Pre workout: OverratedConverse: Undecided. Back in the day, overrated. Much better training shoe options nowLateral raises: Underrated - sooooo many uses and variations if boulder shoulders are a goal of yours.Spotify premium for workout playlists: LOL I don't listen to music.What is underrated for shoulder mobility? This one was fun...Not giving it to you here. Tune in.Personal training certification: Needed, overrated but they shouldn't be. They just wildly underdeliver. It's complicated.Social media content creation: UNDERRATED. I said what I said.Deload weeks: UnderratedMorning routines: Over romanticized but actually underrated in the simplest use of them.Exercise Bands: Overrated by people who think they are going to built a booty by only using bands. And underrated by people who think they are dumb.Scheduled non-working hours: Mmmm neither. Tune in for my personal experience with this.Intermittent Fasting: Overrated. Big time.Creatine: Underrated. Even with it's popularity. More people could benefit from it than do.The (athletics) background of your coach or trainer: VERY interesting...The equipment you are using: Overrated in the sense people put too much weight on this (no pun intended).These answers require context. But I wanted to give you my short answers here. Again, listen in to hear more about where I draw these conclusions from.Leave the FitsPRO Podcast a reviewIf you find value here, on The FitsPRO Podcast, then pretty please head over to iTunes, subscribe, rate and review the show. It means the world to me when you spread my message to more humans.Want more podcasts? Click here to skim the archives.P.S. Save this value packed episode for later over on Pinterest!ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness BusinessFree ResourcesSupplements: Legion Athletics Code ANNIE for 20% offSkincare: Fré Skincare Code FDBA for at least 15% offBags: Vooray Code ANNIE for 20% offShop Annie Miller Concepts Apparel HERE!

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You know the kind of testimony you read - either as a consumer or as the recipient - that just makes you go YES! That’s exactly what I wanted to hear! (the power of social proof!)This can be the norm for your business if you help your clients out. YES, the way in which you ask for testimonies absolutely shapes the type of testimony you receive.We want testimonies that do a few things:Meet the prospect where they are via the completed client taking them back to the beginning.Demonstrate CLEARLY the aha, takeaway, win, result etc. I am careful using the word “promise” here due to us not LEGALLY being able to promise an outcome.Generally is CONCISE.AuthenticWE have to ask the RIGHT questions to get all of this.I am the queen of recieving long-winded testimonies - which are great for ME, but not for someone reading my sales page and wanting to get the bullet point takeaways from my services. With that… I find it interesting that a lot of coaches I work with and speak to find it awkward or strange to ask for feedback and testimonies from their clients. OR only use screenshots as testimonies and never get a formal testimony! WHAAAATTT ARE YOU DOING?!There is so much more praise left on the table. And possibly great marketing material.Today we’re going to go over different types of testimonies that you might receive in the online health and fitness space, how to use them; but more importantly, how to help clients give you the highest quality testimony that you are looking for from a marketing standpoint. The power of social proofLow pressure marketingConfidence for YOU & PROSPECTWhen you have testimonies from clients, backing up your coaching approach, that gives you confidence in marketing your services. It can also provide confidence in prospects to invest their money with you.…Your motive vs a client’s motive is not the same. The prospect knows that.Unless a current or past client is in an affiliate program of some kind, and they’re getting a kickback, most social proof is not from someone who is trying to sell you something. It’s from someone sharing their genuine experience, and likely some kind of transformation that they had in working with you. There are no strings attached for this person. And that’s why social proof is so vital for a brand. Because it can do a fair amount of the selling for you. Or at least affirm the rest of your marketing. …Other people have trusted your process and had success with it. And now potential prospects know that. Not because YOU told them, but because your clients did.GAIN CREDIBILITY through “social PROOF” - YOU HAVE BACKING NOW.You’ve gained credibility because people say that what you do works. And they’re using their own words to do that.This is a massive reason people and brands will BETA test before launching something. Not only to improve the service or offer but to GET FEEDBACK that backs their marketing from consumers.Let’s look at different types of social proof that you might receive as an online health and fitness professional. THREE TYPES OF SOCIAL PROOF:Screenshots, Written testimonies, photos/videoEspecially in the digital era, this can come in the medium of screenshots from a training app and successes that the client has had, or from a communication app like Voxer or slack.Get legal approval - form, asking, make it anonymous, put it in your terms when they join.It can be built into your terms that they agree to when signing a contract, or joining your program. And there are also more specific client testimony release contracts, and forms that can be implemented into your business. Back to the screenshots. Just because something is a screenshot does not mean that it’s a “low quality” testimony. SUPER POWER OF SCREENSHOTS = ORGANIC in real time of the processIf you can get an organic screenshot of someone sharing their succ...

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To be clear, I am not a Physical Therapist. I am simply a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, I have a degree in Exercises Science. This is for educational purposes only. You need to consult with a physician, chiropractor, physical therapist, or some other medical professional to make decisions and your training on pain.Today’s episode will hopefully bring to light some things you can focus on within your training that may help prevent injury specific to what we can control through weightlifting.These are in my opinion just generally good practices if you are someone who lift weights and wants injury prevention. Or if you are a coach in the strength, and hypertrophy world.Movement prepSpecific to prepping the joints and muscles used that day. I.e. Bulgarian split squat rock backs before a squatting day, or shoulder cars, or prone wire raises before shoulder press day.If for a one on one client, these movements would be individualized based on assessment and strengthening, weak points.In a templated program, this could absolutely address general issues, we can says, or in balances, that we know people have. I.e. doing tibialis, taps or ankle dorsiflexion work before squat day, or scapular, pull ups or push-ups before benchpress. Generally people like ankle dorsiflexion, and also like control of their scapula.By focusing on movement, prep and implementing this before, you’re lifting, you might be mitigating possible, weak points in the gaps that you have within muscular and balances as well as movement patterns.RPEsimply working at an appropriate rate of perceived exertion. Being sure that whatever load you are working at is not exceeding your capacity for a given movement. Meaning that you can complete all of the reps with proper form and little to no pausing.Conservative WeightAlways start conservative and buildDon’t be afraid to drop weight if load, it does happen to exceed capacityParticularly helpful and coming back from injury or a rehab phase. But a general good rule of thumb.TempoI learned the phrase slower down, then up from active life during their immersion course. This goes in almost all of my programming unless there is a specific tempo.The intentional with tempo. Don’t just go through the movements.Can be fast, or slow. But generally we want to control eccentric.Restactually take itI thought here is avoiding working at challenging loads under fatigue. Particularly true with high central nervous system demand. So larger, compound movements, or explosive movements.Managing VolumeNot within one work out, but phase to phase or week to week.No big jumps, mainly via increasing volume.Sleep/RecoveryPrioritize thisWhere you actually experience the anabolic effective working outMost systems in the body are working to bring you back to homeostasis.If you feel like shit, start your work out as is and see how you feel. If muscles are cramping, or your fatigue, in quicker than usual, back off.I think it goes without saying that using proper form is probably a good idea. It is not that proper form, automatically mitigate any chance of injury, or even the bad form inherently causes injury. As I mentioned in any position, if tension that we have not experienced exceeds our capacity within that position, we will likely experience injury of some kind .Leave the FitsPRO Podcast a reviewIf you find value here, on The FitsPRO Podcast, then pretty please head over to iTunes, subscribe, rate and review the show. It means the world to me when you spread my message to more humans.Want more podcasts? Click here to skim the archives.P.S. Save this value packed episode for later over on Pinterest!ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness BusinessFree Resources

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Most professionals that I work with in the online space for the face of their brand. They are a personal brand. Meaning that they have to cultivate a brand based around themselves, their ideal, client, and the problems that they solve or their area of focus. Your brand started before it was a brand. Especially in that it is a personal brand, parts of your life are going to be integrated into it. I touched on this with your brand story and Becoming an Authority in Your Niche in Episode 222.There is a reason that you work for yourself, and the reason that you have the philosophies that you do. Today’s episode is about identifying the journey that got you to where you are, being able to articulate that, and then continuing to establish your brand.Let’s be clear in that all of this is applies to all personal brand copy and content in free form - email, social, search based platforms.Compelling - aka CONNECTIVE without the human piece, you have a weak personal brandMessaging people want to consume, is helpful and keeps them coming back. Your story is STICKY.What does your brand focus on from a problem perspective?what do you give people?What tips do you provide?What do you make easier or more doable for your consumers?What does your brand stand for? Aka what do you also stand for in the confines of your industry and area of focus?what’s a go and what’s a no? Identify both.We do this heavily inside the social media module of FitsPRO foundationsyour code of conductCLARITY is compelling Think of brands you follow or buy fromDocumentaries you watchThere’s a clear story line. Clear messaging. And it lands with you.Your personal brand will grow and evolve over time. More than a non-personal brand. Be okay with that.you’ll add experiences and clarity.The HUMAN piece is where the change will likely happenYou’ll rack up new stories and build upon old onesTELL YOUR STORY. See what happens.Leave the FitsPRO Podcast a reviewIf you find value here, on The FitsPRO Podcast, then pretty please head over to iTunes, subscribe, rate and review the show. It means the world to me when you spread my message to more humans.Want more podcasts? Click here to skim the archives.P.S. Save this value packed episode for later over on Pinterest!ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness BusinessFree ResourcesSupplements: Legion Athletics Code ANNIE for 20% offSkincare: Fré Skincare Code FDBA for at least 15% offBags: Vooray Code ANNIE for 20% offShop Annie Miller Concepts Apparel HERE!

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Cats out the bag! If you missed it, go watch my NOVEL of a video on Youtube announcing bebe 2. I walk you through the how, timeline, reaction, feels, navigating postpartum while being prenatal again, compare pregnancy one with round two and so much more!I don’t believe I ever made a definitive podcast episode in my first pregnancy about how I planned maternity leave. So, I wanted to be sure and do that this time because it’s very much so the same.Being self employed means no paid leave. And being a personal brand means that if you want to take time off from being LIVE as the face of your biz, then A LOT. And I mean A LOT of prep work has to happen before that season.Postpartum with bebe 1 I took 10-ish weeks 80% off of work. No calls, no creation unless I wanted to.But podcasts, emails and content was still being published because I prepped it all ahead of time.I think I had 6-8 weeks of IG fully made, and some rough notes/outline for the rest of maternity leave.Launches took place during that time as well. So I can straight up tell you from my 2023 year map that I launched both Pure PROgramming and Built By Annie in February and March, which was still during my maternity leave.That’s kind of my point - it looked like business was running as usual because it was. It was simply all put into place MONTHS in advance.Emails were scheduled by my assistant, she kept Built By Annie going, I’d terminated all 1:1 fitness, and took 12 weeks off of calls with 1:1 business clients, pre-recorded all podcasts through March 2023, and my assistant formatted and scheduled those. All I had to do was look at my schedule for content and be sure that got published on the gram.Stories were my day to day, as usual, aside from launches. In which case I referenced my launch map for what to post on which days leading up to, and during launches. This is no different than a usual launch. Most content is created, and we leave some room for improv. I will say that I used plain text on white space FAR more during maternity leave than face to camera video. Worked just as well as face to camera. Sometimes I actually think it’s easier to consume that way.All of this is pretty much my same plan for bebe 2!But I want to take you behind the scenes of HOW I prep for all of this content to live while I settle in to being a mum of two, almost under one!The maternity timeline planning started in August. Bebe is due Dec 27 2023. Maternity leave will be after my scheduled C-Section through the end of March 2024.A BIG NOTE TO REMEMBER is that I work ahead in business. So really, in March, I will have to begin drafting and recording podcasts, writing Youtube scripts, creating IG content etc.Which is all in my year plan google sheet. Working backwards is the name of the game.For example: On Dec 1-7 Paige and I are recording 16 youtube videos that will take me through maternity leave (if you missed my youtube BTS podcast, this also provides two reels per week for me for IG content - huge win).That means I need to draft 16 in depth, linked and formatted scripts. I can do four per week in November, or spread those out in October and Nov (this is more realistic).I make notes for, record and edit one podcast per week. And I’ll need to have Jan - March or April ALL DONE in December. Last maternity leave I was literally recording and editing podcasts the week before I gave birth. I don’t love this for me but it might be the same scenario this time.The current plan on my month to month map is to have October and November episodes done in September, and December and January episodes done in October. Then November and December can be for Instagram content batching and finishing those February - March or April Podcasts. I will re-evaluate as that timeline gets closer.… Do we see why it was wise to discontinue 1:1 biz? It’s high ticket, sure, but 13 hours of calls per month just is not conduciv...

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When people say you don’t need a niche, I ask how that’s going?I’ll wait.Anytime we talk niches, I feel like the question comes up: Is online health and fitness coaching “saturated?”Does that matter?Just an excuse to say you won’t stand outDon’t buy into that conversationI always push back with - even if the industry IS saturated...does that mean no more coaches should enter? No other professionals needed, we're good. No. How silly is that?Instead of focusing on the saturation level of the industry, focus on YOU and what sets you apart.“Standing out” and “rising above the noise” is not as hard as you might be making it out to be in your headHere’s how you can become the go to person (in your audiences mind) for your area of focus (some people call this your “expertise” but few humans are TRUE experts if we’re being honest).If you don't have my Know Your Niche Content Guide, get it here!1 | BE YOU (take time to figure out what that means)how you speakwhat makes your brand human? What’s your vibe?core values being clear2 | Know your philosophy and WHY ( + your brand story)Coaching approach (your actual methods and beliefs in health and fitness and how those effect/apply to your audience).Where did you come from? What’s the backstory?“My story” was not what I thought it had to be. That WAS my super power. That IS what set me apart.3 | Who you want to work with / what problems you want to solve Two approaches to your ideal client (client based and problem based)Being sure to speak to ONE PERSONTaking time to define this and commit to working on your messaging, rep by rep, post by post, email by email.THEN you need to repeat that shit ALL THE TIME with CLARITY and authority. Don’t beat around the bush. Simplify simplify simplify. If someone can’t apply or understand what you’re saying, then you’re unable to build authority, credibility and therefore trust - which we NEED as a business that needs to make money.It (all of the above - YOU, your philosophy and your niche) should permeate your content:content you create to provide bite size help for your audiencecontent you create to entertain (the fun side)content you share in client case studies (your philosophy and approach - gain credibility)Get clear on the three main points we covered today and see what your confidence does from a brand voice standpoint. I hope for you, that it increases. Leave the FitsPRO Podcast a reviewIf you find value here, on The FitsPRO Podcast, then pretty please head over to iTunes, subscribe, rate and review the show. It means the world to me when you spread my message to more humans.Want more podcasts? Click here to skim the archives.P.S. Save this value packed episode for later over on Pinterest!ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness BusinessFree ResourcesSupplements: Legion Athletics Code ANNIE for 20% offSkincare: Fré Skincare Code FDBA for at least 15% offBags: Vooray Code ANNIE for 20% offShop Annie Miller Concepts Apparel HERE!

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In strength training, you’re training skills. You’re entering into a practice with asymmetries, past injuries, weak points and more. Whether you were an athlete or have never played a sport in your life, very people have perfectly balanced muscular and joint function.To be clear, that is not the end goal of training. And you’re not failing if your body is not yet in perfect balance.BUT - a massive use and benefit of strength training can be to improve weaknesses. And that, as a byproduct, also improves our strengths. Aka why strength training is the GOAT in my opinion for longevity in a physically functional life.So how do you go about improving movement patterns and gaining strength in areas we have weakness? Just keep going? Add more weight? More reps? That's what we answer today.I share my process below - what to focus on if you're a trainee or a trainer.Find the leaksBoth of these are most easily identified through simply videoing lifts. And typically they'll become more prominent as load increases. We lose efficiency and it shows through the movement, in one way or another.Energy leaks where you break positionThis happens when you see an area of the body "give" during a movement. Think knees caving in (valgus) coming out of the hole in the squat. Or elbows flaring out during bench press. There is a weak part of the mechanics within the movement. The point here is to identify the weak point - where is it happening? And what is actually happening during the energy leak?Sticking points where your velocity slowsYou'll be able to see this in video. Velocity slowing as volume increases is normal. That should happen through the WHOLE concentric phase. A sticking point typically manifests when the load increases and velocity slows through a specific portion of the concentric phase - think half way up from the squat, or at the start of a pull up for many people. This differs from an energy leak as form doesn't break. The movement simply SLOWS and then picks back up.Break the skill down into parts & train the partsOnce you've identified the actual weakness, you'll need to TRAIN in that specific position and portion of the movement where either the energy leak or the sticking point happens.We can gain strength in 15 degrees in either direction of an isometric contraction at a given joint angle. Ie: You have a sticking point half way up in the pull up. So, you add in isometric holds at or just before that 90 degree position. And then reap the gains in 15 degrees above and below that point.In general you're going to ADD capacity before load. That comes through adding time under tension holding the proper position (energy leak) and then "powering out" of said position if working past a sticking point.Train the actual skill under less load, with more controlThe goal here being to NOT break position or to keep speed consistent depending on what form of weakness you're training.Train weak points often Like any other area of the body, if you want to make gains, we need to CHALLENGE the movement and the tension placed on said movement from a muscular standpoint. I say these drills or adaptions (adding 1 and 1/4 squats, or isometric holds in pull ups) take the place of your normal prescription. You can then add in extra work (say clamshells or abduction work for knee valgus) in the warm up or as burn out after the lift.But train these OFTEN and be consistent. It will take WORK to build up weaknesses. ;)Side to side discrepancies If you're addressing side to side strength imbalances (ie your right shoulder is stronger in single arm vertical pressing or your left leg fatigues slower in step ups), then follow these progressions:Start on weak sideMatch strong to weak side load and repsAdd extra set to weak side (AMRAP)Retest strength or capacity on each limb (choose weight to perform right and left. Rest between sides.

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My business has generally increased revenue on a trend for the past five to six years. This year (2023) that won't be the case. And today, I want to share WHY. Because this is not simply happening to me, I am CHOOSING it.

For some context I'll dive into:

No monetary goal this year

Monetary goal in 2-5 years - decisions this year help set that up.

Big life change NEEDED SPACE

Just wanted to see life with baby

Investing in new strategies

YouTube

Big web project for maximizing profit and client experience

My current focus is alignment of life and biz which led to dropping all 1:1 services (fitness, power hours and biz). Yes, these are my most expensive offers and I let them all go.

It's a trade of less money (for a season) in order to have MORE TIME to generate more PASSIVE income down the road.

We also discuss profit vs revenue and how that $80k loss last year from FB ads plays a roll in comparing this year to last.

And what would an episode on making less money be if we didn't talk about comparison. I am HELLA focused on not getting caught up on revenue comparisons or any comparison at all other than alignment.

BIG THOUGHT / TAKEAWAY after chatting for months with fellow multi 6 and 7 figure colleagues:

In entrepreneurship, security comes through continual growth. This is the feeling - the thought. Versus someone who finds security in the SAME income for YEARS via a 9-5. If you're generating the same revenue month after month in your biz, you've built a sustainable business and yet, it perpetuates the feeling that without constant growth, it's all going to fall apart, your clients are going leave and it will all come crumbling down.

Tell me I am wrong. Entrepreneurship is weird like that. Please know that though this feeling is common, it's not rooted in truth. So, I'll ask...

Even if you’re doing less or the same, what other factors are at play?

I’m currently working less than I ever have, lifting the most consistently I have in literal YEARS, am full on raising a child, and making damn near the same amount as I was previously. Within $80k of that number annually. That’s a win. And it took a lot of processing to see that.

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After working with gen pop, college athletes and online clients, I believe there are four main types of plateaus that take place within long term strength and hypertrophy training:

Mental
Seasonal
Actual Physical performance
Muscle growth

We’re diving into all four of these plateaus and what you can possibly implement as a coach or trainee to work through them.

Mental:

I bring this up first because I think this can initiate other types of plateaus we experience in training AND can be a result of, or byproduct of other plateaus.

This is when you’re just out of it, not feeling it, in a “funk” – maybe motivation to train is lower, efficacy is lower, perhaps you even have a negative connotation with training when it’s normally something you enjoy.

Seasonal:

Sometimes there are cycles we see once we’re training for the long haul. It could be summer for you, or maybe the fall. Finals season – some time of the year that tends to bring upon inconsistency or a lull in your training. And it throws you for a loop every time. You plateau – physically, mentally, etc.

The earlier you can get in front of this the better off you’ll be.

change up expectations (lower frequency or intensity) but keep modality the same
take on something new that you enjoy
Accept a maintenance phase but be intentional
Actually choose a new goal to work towards so you have a joyful and purposeful focus during this time.

Actual Physical performance

Strength or power output comes to mind for me. This could be with one exercise or across the board. I am thinking more across the board. Overall plateau in your performance.

First off – this IS a sign of overtraining (not taking enough deload weeks and going from supercompensation and over-reaching to actual over-training) and/or under-recovering.

consider a deload week or two (lower the intensity and volume by 30%. Meaning complete 70% of the work you normally do – weight and volume. Let your body TAKE A BREAK.
You may even need a COMPLETE break from the gym. Yes, do less. Much less. Your body will not lose gains. In fact it might just THANK YOU.

Point of these approaches is to come back REFRESHED & RE-ENERGIZED (your mind and your body).

If it’s not a reload we need, you can look back at programming. If you’ve been doing the SAME THING (variations, sets and reps, weight etc) it might be a good time to switch things up a bit more than you normally would.

Try new exercise variations or take a season to drive up work capacity (if you’ve been working near maximal loads for a hot minute).
Get specific – you’re plateaued. Work your weaknesses and sticking points with whatever lifts you’re currently doing.

Muscle growth

Along the same lines as physical performance.

Nutrition is going to be a factor to evaluate here as well, though that’s not my area of expertise.

Take a deload (count on feeling deflated – you’ll be carrying less water in your muscles. don’t worry, it will come back upon lifting. You haven’t loss muscle with taking a week or two off).
Change up variation OR more specifically push range of motion.

Range of motion is HIGHLY underrated when it comes to building muscle and the potential for muscle fiber recruitment.

Lower the loads (I know – unexpected) and focus on creating as much TENSION as you can in the muscle groups you’re working).

Just some ideas outside of “I’m plateauing, I must need to do more” – NO Silly Susan, you probably need to DO LESS, God bless, or do different.

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I say that I wish I started YouTube 5-7 years ago. But fact remains, it would not have been the best use of my time in that season.

Like many people, I started my business because I was DEPENDENT on it generating revenue for me. Youtube was no promise of that. And IG was a much quicker route to the income I wanted.

Guess what…still is.

Yes, I believe that with all the social apps that have come and gone, or even stuck around, IG is the place to be if you have an online service based biz and want to build brand awareness, relationship and make that money.

Without further ado, 5 reasons why Instagram is still the best platform for starting your biz:Reason 1:

High frequency posting – reps for you, brand awareness, messaging, trial and error with little downside, exposure to trying different approaches and seeing what sticks or doesn’t (youtube – you try one thing on one video and have to wait weeks or months to do it again for more data)

Reason 2:

Daily exposure to audience

Builds trust, and likeabiliity. Possibly expedites trust.

means you can do direct or DM sales much more frequently because it’s sandwiched with normal day to day free BTS and goodies.

Reason 3:

Consumers are prepped to buy

Swipe up, click the link, link in bio, sponsored posts. People are primed to purchase and find products and services they want to invest in on Instagram.

Someone commented on a post the other day and said she’s mentioned/launched 1:1 twice and no one has signed up.

I have SO. MANY. QUESTIONS.

What does “launching” look like? What is her offer? What are the details? What is the actual sell? What is the onboarding process? Do they have to apply? etc

If you don’t know these things and can’t articulate them confidently, you won’t have sales. And if that’s you, join FitsPRO Foundations.

Reason 4:

Kind of a piggy back off number 1 but it exposes you, as the creator to different forms/mediums of content. You can find your groove and how YOU best convey your message.

It’s rare that on one social app you have text, graphics, photos, short and long form video, live video, real time video etc.

Instead of viewing that as overwhelming, view it as an opportunity to try and see. I follow people who have built entire businesses on twitter or swipe graphics and have literally NEVER posted a video.

Now – they are VERY clear with their messaging and its highly shareable content. Which brings me to number 5.

Reason 5:

Ability to either go viral or be shared organically at high volumes AND frequency. Good luck going viral on Pinterest or YouTube. And even if you do on TikTok, let me know what it does for your actual sale numbers…nada.

Once you have systems in place, you have a much better chance of getting those new followers onto a mailing list or even into an offer. Might not be RIGHT AWAY, but in 3-9 months time.

It’s the best way to organically grow the top of your funnel for most health and fitness pros in the online space. Period.

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I know it’s August, but it might as well be fall. What I want you to get from this episode is the clarity you need an order to follow the program that makes the most sense for you come September, October November through the new year. Aka your fall fitness goals.

The season is one of my personal favorites to train during. It’s always a chaotic season. And training can give you something to focus on, and bring you into the new year feeling really great about your past decisions, and where you’re at.

I always tend to get my strongest in the fall. It’s just what happens in the type of training that I choose to do during that time. So the season just has a special place in my heart.

I like to encourage people to push through the fall. To really own this time of year and whatever it is that you want from your health and fitness.

If that’s you, then this episode is going to serve you well. I want to go over some possible goals and types of training so you could explore from September through the new year. And how you can reach those goals and enjoy the focus that you have, the autonomy that you have through the next four or five months.

In this episode I dive deep into the possible goals listed below and what it ACTUALLY looks like to go after these in your training.

Strength
Skill(s)
Something new
Something you’ve enjoyed in the past
Adding in cardio to your normal strength training
Hitting a given load on certain lifts
Adding reps each month to certain exercises
Lifting 4 days per week (choose a frequency and stick with it no matter the intensity).

Just remember that the goal has to have a strong why, and you need to understand why you are going after the goal. We need a clear goal, and a clear why. And then a process we can enjoy. You know that I am all about the process. But the process only exists based on a clear goal. That is why I wanted to talk about this episode.

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Have you thought about outsourcing for your biz? If so, today's post is for you.

I’ve mentioned this another podcast before, but your first hire does not have to be full-time. And hiring can seem so overwhelming to so many entrepreneurs who are going at it alone. I remember being at the cheer gym and training one of the cheer moms. She was an entrepreneur, and a very successful one at that. She would always talk about the beauty that comes with hiring people. And I always told her that I just wanted to go it alone. I never wanted to hire or manage people. Which is still the case. I have one right hand woman. But I also have several contractors that I pay to do certain tasks in my business. We called this outsourcing.

Outsourcing is not having an assistant or other coaches underneath you.

By definition from Oxford Languages, outsourcing is

• contract (work) out or abroad."you may choose to outsource this function to another company or do it yourself"

This is different than hiring an employee.

I like to think about this as one off tasks, or specific duties within your business that someone else can do, that you are not required for. Your goal in business should always be to move closer and closer to the spot where you are only doing the tasks within your business that demand you to do them, or task that you personally enjoy doing, and are fulfilling to you. So, even if someone else could do the task, you enjoy it, and there’s no current downside of you doing it.

I think about things like formatting emails for you, or doing design work, or editing a piece of media for you. Someone on boarding your clients if it doesn’t need to be you. There’s lots of different tasks that we can outsource in business depending on the business model that you have

How do you know when it’s time to outsource?

Some people begin outsourcing very early on in business. Others wait 5 to 7 years to outsource. There is no one-size-fits-all equation for this. But I hope that I can give you some questions to ask yourself in order to determine if it might be a good time for you to pay for someone to do something in your business for you. This, either frees up time for you to do more in your business or just frees off time PERIOD.

Oh, my first answer is just before or when you hit your ceiling. I waited to the point of being at my ceiling to hire. And I should’ve hired just before that. So I was busting at my seams before I brought someone on to help me. I had reached the point where I literally did not have a single extra second in the day to grow my business. I was just trying to take care of all of the tasks in my business that keep it going. I do not suggest waiting to this point to hire help. Because when you do hire, you may need to have time to create systems for a person to follow, or loom videos, and trainings for that person. And that requires time from you as well. Again, that depends on what task your outsourcing. But it’s something to keep in mind.

Do you feel like you are starting to reach your maximum with your client load, or just the task that you have to complete within your business?

If you feel like you are approaching that, then I want you to determine what tasks you might be able to outsource. Ideally, these are tasks that are either very time demanding for you, or task that you don’t enjoy doing, and or you are bad at. These are the categories we want to outsource first.

You might also go down the route of outsourcing for whatever new thing you are wanting to create. So if your business is for one on one capacity and you still want to take care of all of those one-on-one clients, but you want to build out some kind of other offer in order to scale, Then, perhaps you bring someone on or outsource different tasks involved in creating and bringing that new offer to life. For instance, I brought on a funnel specialist to help me build out my FitsPRO Foundations funnel.

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As a woman over 30 myself, I’ve fallen victim to or given into some common myths, but also found truth in them. Today I want to discuss possible shared experiences for those of us nearing 30 or in your 30’s.

I say nearing because I personally started to notice some of these “differences” in my late 20’s vs in my 30’s.

Let’s dive in.

A slowing metabolism:

There is new research that suggests that metabolism does not slow due to age alone until later in life - around 50’s and 60’s. And that the result of a slowing metabolism is more to do with lifestyle than age.

Diet needs to be more restrictive:

It “felt” like I could eat anything and get/keep results. Many twenty somethings do. But we must go back to the metabolism data. Were you more active overall “back then”?

You know what, maybe it DOES need to be more restrictive now than when you were 22. But is that because you’re 33 now? or because you have a lower TDEE? You workout less frequently and less intensely? Because I’d bet buko bucks it’s the latter.

I could eat whatever I wanted (which is not true but I had a much larger buffer) when I was 22 because I was training twice per day for short bouts, or once a day but six days per week at very high work intensities, coaching competitive cheer where I was on my feet, spotting tumbling and coaching, and/working an internship in college strength - another very active job.

Let’s compare that to my 30’s…

Self employed, sitting at a desk, barely leave my house, and train for 35-50 minutes four days per week…

Which lifestyle allots for more leeway in the diet? Not age specific, lifestyle dependent. higher TDEE, higher intensity in workouts overall - intensity being heavier loads and likely higher work capacity, more consistency at a higher training frequency.

This is just MY example and comparison from 20 something single college student to working for myself to build my business, traveling the world full time starting at 28, and training taking a huge back seat.

That does bring me to another point. Muscle mass.

Muscle mass:

Having muscle mass is so so so important for many functions. If you’ve never listened to Dr Gabriel Lyon, I suggest you do if the conversation of obesity or having fat mass vs the importance of having muscle tissue. She knows far more than I do about the metabolic function and health of muscle. So, I’ll lead you there.

But what I can infer and speculate, is that having muscle is an important game changer. And it’s importance may increase with our age.

Because if one thing DOES change, it is the rate of tissue decay and regeneration. We know that around age 30 this increases decade by decade. Meaning higher rates of tissue decay vs generation.

Please do not use that as an excuse to say you can’t build muscle past 30 years old or that you atrophy much quicker than you used to. Because that’s stretching this claim big time.

The same muscle building and retaining principles apply at 20 as they do at 30 as they do at 40.

We need to provide a stimulus strong enough that requires new tissue to be built and we have to provide proper recovery for this to take place - sleep, hydration and protein intake being at the top. Stress management being secondary to those. I said what I said.

Obviously muscle mass comes from the training we take part in.

Adaptation to training:

Personally, I find that building muscle requires MORE recovery for the same effort. I can’t directly back this by science but it’s been my anecdotal experience.

Take that with the largest grain of salt. I just know I was training more, and sleeping less, and was more jacked at 18. Though I probably have possessed more total muscle mass since those years.

The upside of training for years is that as consistent training age increases, you can likely get away with doing less and still maintain muscle mass AND strength. But there is data that suggests that to GAIN muscle and strength,...

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In case you missed it, I took eight weeks off Instagram in May and June.

Check out that podcast on Youtube behind the scenes.

I took 50% rev cut for the eight weeks I was off Instagram - This decision was still very much so needed.

Came from lack of exposure

Lack of plugging offers in stories

No active launching at that time.

Thus, I made more than May and June combined in July (back on + launching PP).

My new approach:

Youtube reels for education and driving to YT, sparking curiosity

Swipe graphics - either stream of consciousness or statements

Off the cuff FTC reels if I make them OR

Video from phone or professional B roll with Text over the top - statement, question, prompt, philosophy, tips. Whatever makes sense

Posting twice a day for 4 days per week:

High frequency and volume = more potential for growth.

In the 30 days I’ve been back on Instagram:

Gained 1,433 followers

Lost 459

Net gain 974

So almost up net 1,000 followers. That data was not a full month so I assume I’ll hit 1,000 new news by a full 30 days.

That image will be in the show notes as well.

To be clear that came from posting twice per day for a month since being back - but ONLY four days per week.

Some posts flop, far fewer took off, but they DID take off. And that brought in the new humans. This is what high frequency and volume posting does. Period.

More chances to be seen. More opportunity for growth. It is that simple.

Now, we can’t post trash and grow. But we also can’t FULLY predict what will and won’t catch traction. I know what posts have viral potential for my own brand. Sometimes I am right, sometimes it doesn’t work out.

But the more you post, the less connected you are to how each individual post does.

For instance one of my biz clients (which I just ended with this month went from 5-6k to 14k in our time together). Not from some strategy of mine. But because she posted daily, every day and sometimes twice a day. AND she got CLEAR AF on what content she would create. Let me make so clear that she RARELY if ever makes reels. Her post popular posts are swipe graphics so that’s what she optimized.

I am spending less time than ever on the app.

That’s the other plus:

More creation = more time in my brand messaging and philosophy and less time consuming. I just don’t get much from the consumption in this season.

I check stories of friends and that’s about it.

Having the reels cut from YouTube = HELLLLLAAAAAA less work for me (which again, I am PAYING FOR). There is always a trade off.

Using the captions app or IG captions. I caved. I made the decision to just use captions app if I have a FTC video and need captions. I do not have time and it’s not WORTH my time to type out on brand captions in Final Cut Pro for a piece of content that dies in 24 hours. It just doesn’t make sense.

Future plans

Same same.

At least two weeks before any launch I will post twice per week for 4 days per week.

Still take my 48 hours off

Use YT for two reels per week

Lean into carousel posts

Leave the FitsPRO Podcast a review

If you find value here, on The FitsPRO Podcast, then pretty please head over to iTunes, subscribe, rate and review the show. It means the world to me when you spread my message to more humans.

Want more podcasts? Click here to skim the archives.

P.S. Save this value packed episode for later over on Pinterest!

ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:

Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness Business

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Supplements: Legion Athletics Code ANNIE for 20% off

Skincare: Fré Skincare Code FDBA for at least 15% off

Bags: Vooray Code ANNIE for 20% off

Shop Annie Miller Concepts Apparel HERE!

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Let's talk about your website audit.

It's no secret that I don’t do and have never done sales calls. I filled my online 1:1 roster via IG stories and taking people behind the scenes of my coaching. (AKA social proof and selling online). Followed by solid sales pages and applications. That's what we're diving into today regardless of if you do or don't do sales calls.

We want those calls to be a CONFIRMATION. Not you actually selling anything. Less work for you, better qualified inquiries. More Hell Yesses. That's the goal.

Overall, we need straight forward messaging - on free platforms and sales pages. As well as clear expectations - for offers, freebies and your brand.

Your website needs:

Pages - home, offers, application page/link, payment, about (non-negotiable for me), a way to contact you. That’s it.

CLEAR > CLEVER or CREATIVE across the board. Yes, we want humanness especially if you have a personal brand. But FIRST, be clear.

My current home page breaks it down into categories - into fitness click here. into business click here. Takes them to my offers for fitness and offers for business. Period.

Home page is NOT:

Your about me page.

Your sales page.

IT IS YOUR DIRECTORY. YOU ARE HERE. WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO NOW?

Preventing confusion and providing direction is your first step in increasing conversion from your site. Not pulling people in 13 different directions. Or talking about yourself. (Which is why doing a website audit is a great idea).

Sales pages should include all of the following:

Who it’s for

What it does

Understanding your client and where they’re at and where they’d like to be (demonstrates compassion and clarity)

Social proof if you have it

What it includes

Expected timeline

Overall philosophy (being sure this aligns with their expectations)

Application or payment method

Make buttons CLEAR for the love of all things holy.

Use white space and photo banners to break up text - this may not directly lead to conversion but I know I have straight up left sales pages before because it’s so unpleasant to experience as a prospect.

In ALL of this - think of yourself as a consumer and WHY you purchase from some sites and not others. What factors and language keep you around? What deters you?

Be conversational and personal. Not robotic. Don’t confuse professionalism for being cold and losing all human touch in your copy.

YOUR COPY IS YOUR SALES CALL HERE. Your words lead people around your site and to eventually buy from you. Look at copy, then formatting if conversion is low.

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Today we are talking about the subject of hypertrophy, and how training to failure, trash, volume, and high loads can possibly play a role in that. And I want to be clear that trash volume does not play a role in hypertrophy. So we will define what trash volume is as well as what higher volume in general can do for hypertrophy potentially.

As I’ve explained on multiple platforms, but for any of you who might need a refresher, hypertrophy just refers to an increase in muscle cell size. When that happens collectively in multiple muscle cells, the overall size of the muscle increases. And we have hypertrophy. So muscle growth, and hypertrophy are and can be used interchangeably.

Hypertrophy is a goal for most people who lift weights in someway shape or form. People either want to put on muscle size because having muscle mass is great for metabolic health, because muscle mass is the potential for strength output if performance goals are what you were into, and, of course, from an aesthetic standpoint, if you want to have a toned appearance, then building muscle would be a goal you have. Probably the primary one.

Training to failure

There was a point in my own training career that I followed a specific program that took the last set to failure on every exercise. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I put on a large amount of muscle mass during that time. I was also like 19 years old and very much so in a muscle building prime. I was also working out six days a week, and eating like a linebacker. So there were a lot of factors at play there. But I do think that training to failure was one of those significant factors in my muscle growth.

There’s plenty of research that supports, turning to failure and the stimulus of muscle protein synthesis, which we need in order to build muscle. But then we have a question of how often you need to be training to failure, or if you even need to be, or can we get the same effect from trading close to failure. For instance, within 1 to 2 reps of failure. that is my personal philosophy based on experience and the research that I have read. It’s the same as volume which we will get into. There is a point of diminishing returns.

It’s clear that you do need to train close to failure in order to build muscle.

If that is the approach you were taking. The reason behind this is that by training close to failure, you are recruiting as many muscle fibers within that muscle as possible. Range of motion does play a role here as well. But as a general rule of thumb for hypertrophy, one effective approach will be to train many of your working sets, until 1 to 2 reps are left in the tank. That would be an RPE of eight or nine, and an RIR of one or two. Not every set needs to be like this on every single lift. But for a good portion of your working sets, I would argue this does need to be the case.

Specifically for accessory work. Where there is less risk involved training to near failure. On the contrary, I would not suggest this approach for many of your main compound lifts, depending on your training age. Your training age refers to how many years you’ve been consistently lifting weights for. If you have a lot of experience under a heavy, barbell, or moving a heavy barbell, I would be less concerned with you trading close to failure on every set. But even then I might not advise it. I’m just not positive that it’s needed in order to build muscle if that is your goal. There’s definitely research that supports high-volume training as well as high load training for building muscle. And there may be less risk involved with training at the higher volumes with lighter weights. That’s just one perspective. Personal preference also comes into play. And like I said, in trained athletes, there was one study that showed with back squat, that the high volume low load group, as well as the high load low volume group both significantly increased muscle size.

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Last week I dropped my first six YouTube videos. Actually, they were posted for me and I just got to watch them go live. Along with their partner blog posts.

If you listened to my episode about taking a break from Instagram for 6 to 8 weeks, that was in large part due to drafting 17 YouTube videos, scripts, and actually taking seven days to film all of that continent with my friend, old boss, and videographer Paige Major from Paige Major Creative.

Today I want to take you through the production, and behind the scenes of what all went into, my YouTube approach, and why I am taking the approach that I am. As well as tools that we used, and cost of production.

I don’t feel like people talk about these things transparently. Especially on YouTube. So allow me to be that person for you. Note that this is just my own approach and experience. I will make clear that though I’m entering YouTube as an amateur on that particular platform, I am not an amateur in my field, nor am I an amateur at creating content.

Let's talk YouTube Debut

Back in the beginning of 2021 I was continuing my Facebook ads journey that ended in a loss of $80,000. A loss I was willing to endure, but that certainly left a bad taste in my mouth when it came to investments and the direction that I wanted to take my business from a growth standpoint.

But I knew that something had to be done. And I was clear on the fact that whatever money I invested next was going to be in order to get me in front of an organic audience. So I would pay for that service, but not actually do paid advertising if that makes sense. I was still going to have to pay probably the same amount to get me in front of more of the right people, but again not through paid advertising.

I learned through my own Facebook and experience that I really do think my style is best received over a long period of time. Building trust, and having a buying cycle of about 3 to 12 months, regardless of my program or course.

So I committed to playing the long game. And either hiring a PR agency to get me on podcasts and things of that sort. Or to venture into YouTube to tap into a new market.

After interviewing and meeting with a very specific PR agency, it was a hard no for me and the appeal of YouTube and having control over my organic contact just seemed more and more appealing. I enjoy teaching long form anyway. It’s actually something I struggle to cut down for Instagram. And Instagram is actually one of the reasons that I also went with YouTube.

I want to start off with some background education. Instagram is a social platform. YouTube is a search based platform. Meaning that the lifespan of content can be years or even decades now. You type in some thing in the search bar and the most popular videos pop up. That video can be seven years old, and often is seven years old, depending on the topic of the content. If that video is properly formatted, ideally that lead someone back to their channel to binge more information, or helpful links are in the description that take them back to the website, or affiliate links that they’re making money off of so on and so forth.

On the flipside of that, Instagram content dies after 24 hours for the most part. There are absolutely pros to this, and that if something doesn’t do well, you can totally reformat it and repost it to see if it does better. It’s not a total loss. That obviously doesn’t work the same on YouTube. And there is much more effort that goes into creating YouTube content, and formatting that YouTube content from the description to the tags to the keywords, etc. So there is absolutely more effort required and more risk involved with youtube. Which is why I still would not suggested for someone who is just starting out I do not think that it is the best use of your time when running a business.

I know that sounds kind of contradictory, because I do think that YouTube is king when it comes to content,

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Something that has become a thing for me in this season of training is time. I've got 40 minutes or less to get my lift in. One hour if I am lucky. Not doing a full body warm up. Cardio straight into movement prep. 3 to 4 lifts. 3 to 4 days per week. That's what I have to work with.

You may be wondering how I'm still able to make gains. I am in a building and recovery phase. Atrophied from pregnancy and postpartum, so I am able to reap those newbie gains due to the season. If I was training, normally, not atrophied, three days a week could be enough to maintain, but likely not gain.

My current training is using a majority upper lower split.

Not necessarily doing the classic back squat, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press split. But, definitely working with and squatting patterns, one day, hinging patterns, or glutes, and posterior chain, focused, and then a horizontal, pressing, and for pulling day, and vertical, pressing and pulling day.

These basics allow me to hit lower body muscle groups twice per week and upper body muscle groups twice per week.

I am not specifically tracking any cardio, but trying to get steps in mostly via walking. Because upper body days are shorter for me, if I have time, I will add in cardio that last 12 minutes or less. So for me, that’s either tempo work, 12 to 15 seconds as hard as I can resting for the remainder of the minute period for 8 to 12 rounds. Or three sets of threshold‘s. Which would be three minutes of work above 75%, resting for two minutes or when the heart rate drops 50 beats below the height of the working set.

The cardio is literally just thrown in for overall conditioning, and to get more movement in. It is not specifically to add more of a caloric deficit or train for something specific. Just working on that cardiovascular fitness when I can. Because something is better than nothing. But weight training and building muscle is my priority. So that comes before cardio.

As far as an actual program that I am following. It’s a hodgepodge. I’m still following Marcus Filly's Persist as a base. But I’m missing that with my own preferences, and some of the things that I learned through MamaSteFit. Because, though I am just over seven months postpartum, I am very much so still rebuilding my core and deep core connections.

I do find that, especially in seasons where your time and energy is limited, personal preference does play a big role. It’s important for you to enjoy your lift in the exercises that you are doing. If I don’t like some thing or feel something else in this training season, I swap it out for some thing that gets the same job done, but that I enjoy more from a personal preference.

The takeaways: know your season, it’s OK to cut things out and not follow the perfect program. If it allows you to get the most bang for your buck done. Upper lower split will always be the goat. You can make gains on three days per week depending on your training, age, and overall training volume. But higher frequencies will likely be helpful.

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Today I take you nosey Nancy's behind the scenes a bit of my six to eight week break from Instagram. I know that some people think it’s silly when you announce that you are leaving Instagram. Because it can give off the vibe that you think you’re fucking special. Or that anyone cares. But I think of it from the sense of being a business. I show up consistently on social media, and thousands of people take in my content on a daily basis. And they have chosen to do that. So I just think it’s considerate to let them know as well as anyone knew who comes to my profile, that I will be back in X amount of time. So it just sets the expectation, it doesn’t leave people wondering.

I shared briefly on Instagram why I was taking a break. But today I want to give a bit more of the way, as well as my plans, moving forward, and how I am using the time. Because we are in the thick of it.

My time is limited. More than ever. Essentialism is demanded at the highest level.

Actual projects behind the scenes:

YouTube - Paige just left after staying at my house for a week and shooting 16 weeks of content for YouTube. The way I want to position myself on the tube requires a lot of work and research on my end. Which takes time. As I said, something I don't have.

Website - I can't reveal much about this now. But it's in line with my goals on YouTube - aka the positioning and overall brand that is my business. Once this project is finished, I'll do a whole breakdown. So, stay tuned.

Let us discuss "being lukewarm" and how it's the literal worst place to be on the gram.

I do not want this to be misunderstood. Because I do think that success specifically on Instagram requires continuing to show up, and learning to post, regardless of how you feel. It’s a skill, and it needs to be built. We do not build businesses on feelings.

And the people that you look up to most have showed up day after day for literally years without stopping. So let’s make that clear before we dive into this next point.

I was just having a conversation the other day with a 1:1 business client about how having content prepared allows her to waste less time on the app and to remove feelings all together from the app. The content is made, she posted. She respond to comments if there are any, and she posts and her stories on a daily basis, because that part is easy. But when content is not prepped, get the pressure is still there to get a post out, that is where the mindfck begins.

For me, this very situation coincided with two large decisions that I needed to make in my business. And the idea of having to create content for Instagram in comparison, to making these two decisions, investments, and moving forward with them just seemed so ridiculous. If I had content prepared, it would’ve been a different story. But I had run out of prepped content. Back to Essentialism. Was it more important to take however many hours, and days to create content, and write captions, and muster, that creative energy, or two pursue what I believe to be the foundation for my next level of business? It was quite a no-brainer for me.

So if you are in that lukewarm feeling, or you find yourself in the cycle of not having content prepared while also, feeling the pressure to post, I encourage you to do one of two things, or both.

Batch content, and get it on the calendar so that you know when you have only a week left of content, you need to create more.

Be committed to throwing up a post no matter what it is. Re-post something old, or throw up a photo and asking. Engaging question. Keep it as simple as possible and organic to the app. Some people call this a trash post. I call it continuing to show up when other people don’t. Take your pick.

This is not to say that you can’t take six to eight week break whenever you need it, but that my perspective is that you earn certain things with time in your business. If you set yourself up to where you can be off of Instagram,

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Let us talk about bounce back culture, and how, even with realistic, logical expectations, somehow I was still surprised by my body at four and five months postpartum.

I have plenty of family, members and friends, who are active and have had multiple pregnancies and postpartum recover periods. I know in my mind that a realistic expectation for not getting your body back, but feeling more familiar in your body and yes, to an extent looking more like a past version of your body, would take 12 to 18 months.

And that it would be a very slow and gradual process.

Even with that logic, I found myself confused and a bit disappointed in my four and five months postpartum body.

Strength, wise, and performance wise, I felt good or better than I thought I would, but my physique did not reflect that. Essentially, I was used to my genetics working for me. I would describe myself as a super responder to training. Not the best, but, if I train and eat, well, without tracking, macros, or anything, typically I can build muscle fairly easily, and remain lean. I don’t lie about having genetics on my side, and that is the reason that I never used my body to sell my programs. Because I didn’t want people to expect my physique out of my training programs.

There are so many factors in postpartum that are not typical factors in my physical response to training, however.

We have sleep, deprivation, likely, high, cortisol, hormone imbalances, and milk supply to maintain, among other things.

And let me just pause to make the point that this episode is simply sharing my experience, and some of the mindset journey that I’ve gone through this far in postpartum, as a fitness, professional, and someone who logically had what I would consider realistic expectations.

I expected that by six months I wouldn’t look like I never had a baby, but that I would not be 15 to 20 pounds still overweight. And that obviously does not look the same in a swimsuit as it did pre-baby.

I entered a small deficit around the four month mark in my milk supply dropped. I can’t say why, or if I would’ve been eating different foods maybe it would’ve stayed up. But I was drinking 160 ounces of water per day, and the deficit that should have had me losing like a quarter of a pound a week. It was very mild. For whatever reason, my supply dropped, and that was a no go for me.

In soft lighting, I actually feel like I look pretty damn good. It’s clear that my training is building muscle under an extra layer or to a fat. So I started treating postpartum like a bulking phase essentially.

That is, once I felt strong enough, and coordinated enough after what I would consider my rehab phase. Though I consider postpartum rehab to somewhat be forever. There’s nuance there I won’t go into in this episode.

My point on the lighting topic is that in certain lighting at four or five months I looked great in my opinion. My muscle was providing shapes that I prefer on my body. But in harsh sunlight, it was like a 180. I just have a thin layer, or a thick layer in some places of cellulite and literally all over my body. That was not something that I personally expected.

And don’t take this as me hating it. This is just me observing my postpartum experience. The body that I have now is not the body that I will always have. My goal is always performance over aesthetics. And I also want to have more children, so this is just a piece of a much longer journey.

Another expectation versus reality was that I don’t think I will ever fit into 60% of my clothing again. I expected that my body would change in someways for the long term. But holy shit, my rib cage, my feet, in my hips. I just don’t see how they could go back to the way they were. I wouldn’t personally get rid of anything until I’m through all of my pregnancies and can see what body I end up with due to age, changes in pregnancy and postpartum, the physique that I build via weights and nutrition.

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There are always endless things to focus on has an entrepreneur. I should say that there are always distractions for entrepreneurs. Tasks pulling our attention away from where it should be. Today’s episode will hopefully give you some ideas of where to put your time and energy in the back half of 2023 or whatever year you’re listening this.

5 Focuses for Entrepreneurs

Number one is to define your season

This is imperative. It’s very rare that we are able to constantly be in a season of growth, and a season of refinement, or building, or pushing revenue. It doesn’t mean that these things can’t happen within the same season. But you will likely be more successful if you choose one and focus all of your efforts there.

Those are the four seasons that I suggest looking at. Are you in a backend system refinement season?Are you needing to focus on growth across-the-board? Pushing on social media as well as email list or whatever platforms you are on? Think of this as the top of your funnel. Where do you have a free audience? That’s typically where you will focus. Hope there is that within 3 to 12 months those people become paying clients. Sooner if you have a faster buying cycle funnel.

So, like I said, number one is to define your season, because that will lead into choosing some of these other focuses where it makes sense.

Number two is to focus on you

This might sound silly, but it’s necessary. So often and entrepreneurship, even seven years in, you can find yourself so caught up in seeing what everyone else is doing and it will make you question your own approach. When you didn’t have second thoughts prior to seeing what everybody else was doing. This was may be 15% of my own decision to get off of Instagram for 6 to 8 weeks. I’ve built a business that allows me to do that. And I genuinely enjoy a Instagram, but I needed to either Unfollow, everyone, and bring that number down to zero, or just remove myself from the noise, while I works on projects of my own. I always say put your blinders on. Muting or unfollowing wherever you take in information from colleagues in your field allows you to put those blinders on.

Perhaps you’ve been consuming a lot of content, and whatever season you are in requires action. When we are in seasons of creation, we’re planning, removing distractions can be wildly helpful. So that’s number two, it’s just a focus on you, and these last six months of the year whatever that looks like.

Number three is your numbers!

You’re not gonna like this one. Your numbers. Even if you have utterly failed in the first half of this year tracking your numbers were looking at them, I want you to open yourself to your numbers in the back half of this year.

Profit and loss

Key performance indicators

Don’t let the how stop you. I don’t give a shit if you just create a note in your notes app for now, or use a Google dock or a blank sheet. When I started it by Annie in 2017 I literally tracked my monthly numbers in my actual paper planner. Like I said, I don’t care how. Just look at your Numbers, and write them down. See what they bring to you.

Number four

Number four - we’re going internal with this one because I think it’s some thing that people sleep on. And you would have more success, more joy, more satisfaction, and likely more profit if you focus on this in your business.

Number four is your offer, or client experience

So often in business we focus on the contact creation, the funnels, all of the details outside of what actually makes us money. Outside of the actual task at hand within our business. And that is serving our clients.

If you’ve never audited your client lifespan (which is something that we go over in detail inside my FitsPRO Foundations course) I encourage you to do this.

You don’t need my course to focus on this in the back half of the year. But if you’d like that guidance, obviously I would love to have you inside.

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Gone are the days of thinking strength makes you slow and endurance training kills your strength gains. YOU CAN HAVE BOTH. And there are three ways in my opinion. Keep in mind this is with strength training as the focus. That’s important to note for context purposes.

How to Best Incorporate Cardio into Your Strength Training:

If butted up to training, after training

This will NOT kill your gains. Worry not. You’ll actually like get the plus side of the accumulation affect. Try doing your scheduled cardio before your lift, and then after your lift. You may find that you don't have to work at the same intensity to get the same cardiac and respiratory response when the cardio is done post-lift. That's the accumulation effect at work.

If this is unappealing to you and you really want to give your cardio 110% then see option two.

Completely separate from your training.

This is my personal preference and this truly does come down to preference and time availability. Not everyone an do this, but if you can, it allows you to focus ONLY on your conditioning and ONLY on your lifting. If training four days per week, do your cardio on two non-lifting days for example.

If you want more of an "athletic" or "crossfit" feel and are seeking TRUE integration, see option three.

In a fatigue based post-workout metcon/circuit style conditioning.

This would look like a timed, distance or calorie based cardio machine - ie, bike, treadmill or run, rowing etc, paired with exercises that make sense for that day of training. So if doing at the end of bench day, maybe you’re doing rowing, followed by plank shoulder taps and reverse flies or banded tricep extensions.

These exercises are not ones that require high focus, CNS demand and can be performed quickly, or for time without high risk of injury.

You can certainly integrate cardio into your training in more ways than these. But in order to get the most out of both, these are what I suggest.

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Launching is so daunting for so many online coaches. And truly it doesn’t need to be. When you understand the phases of launching and what to do in each of them, it becomes a simple road map to follow (as long as you have clarity in your offer and messaging).

Let us begin by actually defining a “launch.” A launch is a hard open hard close. So if you’re launching a new offer that counts. If you’re re-opening enrollment for an existing offer, that counts too.

There are 5-6 phases of launch and I teach them in my Launching 101 training inside the bonuses of FitsPRO Foundations – today we are mentioning two of those. The two that I think are most relevant on social media.

Social should only be ONE PART of your launch.

Email will likely be the main driver (or can be, if it’s not yet). I go over WHY this is A GAME CHANGER in your marketing approach if you’re not yet optimizing the use of email.

Tune in to today’s episode as I take you deep into the following:

Warm up phase

Use curiosity early
Build momentum – of information and frequency
Drive to waitlist (gives us a MUCH better idea of % conversion)
Education (stories)
Posts related to program but beneficial for the ENTIRE audience
Utilize OLD viral posts – repost or repurpose to increase exposure and profile traffic BEFORE the launch, not during.
The launch is won HERE

Public launch

The foundation is laid
Repeating yourself
Encourage and answer questions
Share enrollments
Drive results and emotional reason for buying/joining
No questions left on the table

When we look at launches in sections or phases and assign certain tasks and focuses to each of those phases it becomes much simpler to follow and execute. Rather than attempting to come up with something to say everyday – feeling very out of touch, and “salesy.” No one wants that. You’re excited about your offer. THAT is what should permeate your selling tactics.

Go get ’em.

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Strength and hypertrophy are often lumped together in conversations around training. That’s because there is heavy carryover between methods used to attain both of these results. BUT there are fine differences and that’s what today’s episode will cover. If hypertrophy – aka muscle growth – is your main goal in comparison to strength, or strength is your priority, today’s monologue should be helpful. And I’m stoked to cover this one with you.

My programming is a mix of strength and hypertrophy but I am personally in a hypertrophy specific training phase and will be for the foreseeable future. Strength training – true strength training requires a high mental load in my opinion. There is no going through the motions. It can be a lot – a lot of time, a lot of brain space, and a lot on the joints. It’s simply not what makes the most sense for my current postpartum season. While I am pushing strength in some of the movements in the program I am following, most of my focus is hypertrophy. So, you should be able to identify through this episode what I am personally practicing in my training.

We’re going over six aspects of training and the differences in their application to training based on hypertrophy vs strength

Let us begin.

RPE* Higher RPE with strength training generally speaking. * Hypertrophy can happen on a much wider spectrum of RPE than strength.

These differences come down to load in relationship to volume. While hypertrophy can certainly be a byproduct of absolute strength training, strength will likely be lower volume (sets and reps) and with higher loads, therefore higher RPE.

Warm up sets vs Pre-fatigue* Warm up sets are a must for strength training. * Pre-fatigue is more applicable to hypertrophy training.

Warm up sets for strength training or select exercises in hypertrophy training ensure that you prime the body for the proper load for ALL working sets. Meaning we don’t leave anything on the table – wasting working sets with loads that are not challenging enough.

Pre-fatigue is used to pre-fatigue the muscle groups you’re focusing on that day in a more hypertrophy based program. If doing lower body with a knee and quad dominant bias, then maybe some light hero squats or quad extensions might be used before the main lift begins.

Warm up sets may or may not be needed. But are definitely suggested and needed for strength training.

Rest periodsTraining absolute strength requires longer rest periods in order to demonstrate repeat strength and get the most force out of your muscle fibers.

As mentioned earlier, hypertrophy can be trained across a large spectrum of volume and load – therefore rest periods. You could see NO REST all the way up to 120 seconds depending on the set and program prescription. I can see reason for both. Either way, actually scheduling and following rest is a great way to be sure you’re working hard enough during working sets. You should NEED the rest in order to complete programmed sets and loads.

TempoI do not have research to back this but should truly find some because tempo is all the rage right now and it’s funny because I have been talking about it as serious missing piece in programming for years.

It will not magically fix programming or get you gains but it’s important nonetheless.

For strength, following a controlled tempo is going to be beneficial for training the SKILL you’re pushing the adaptation of strength in.

For hypertrophy tempo is plays the role of increasing time under tension and possibly better muscle fiber recruitment. We can create a constant muscle contraction with tempo, which is highly effective for hypertrophy training. And not so effective for strength training.

Range of motionWe love the topic of range of motion. In general it’s beneficial for longevity to train in some capacity through your end ranges. ALWAYS training under ALL loads is not going to be your best bet.

Gaining strength across all ranges is going to increase overall strength. It is also going to give you potential to recruit more muscle fibers.

If training absolute strength, shorter range of motion is most beneficial because it lowers the time under tension and obviously requires less distance traveled in moving the load. But like I said, training in SOME capacity for larger ranges will likely have positive carryover to absolute strength in shorter ranges.

For hypertrophy, if you can stretch a muscle and keep it under tension, you’re playing the best game for growth. Because like I said, we can access and call upon more muscle fibers with this approach. Its why you also see body builders hitting a muscle group from many different angles. That’s all about fiber recruitment. Which is the main goal of hypertrophy.

Consistency and Frequency – Hypertrophy: 2 days per week

Strength: Every 5-7 days but can certainly be more often

There is no EXACT must follow rule here. But there do seem to be best practices. And training age does play a role here. I follow professionals who training lower body 5 days per week and they can handle that volume + recover because they’ve been professionally building their work capacity, strength and skills for 15 years. Would not suggest for most people.

Studies suggest that for hypertrophy, training the same muscle group at least twice per week is best for maximizing hypertrophic effects.

For strength, you certainly don’t want to go longer than 5-7 without training a skill and stimulating the muscle group used when performing said skill – often bench, deads and squats. But you could train all three of these skills three days a week and be fine as well. It then becomes a game of managing volume. More than one way to skin a cat.

These were very finite differences but they DO make difference in your training adaptations. So take them for what they’re worth, and happy gains.

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In just closing out tax season, I felt the need to touch on business finance within my scope. Which isn’t much. But I can speak from personal experience, and general base knowledge.

There are many misconceptions around online health and fitness business management and finances and I simply want to make few things clear. Which will in turn, I hope, make your life easier as a solepreneur.

Please do consult an accountant before setting up or making changes to your financial decisions in your business.

I get some kind of fired up when I see business coaches online gloating about revenue generated without any context. Specifically without differentiating between REVENUE and PROFIT. They are NOT the same my friends. And that is an extremely important truth to grasp if you plan to navigate this world of online business.

Revenue is how much you general in sales of services, goods, or through affiliate marketing. Period. How much mula came in? Mind you there are processing fees no matter what third party you’re using – likely something like Stripe, if not Stripe. Talk to your accountant about writing off those fees. Because they are an expense. Your revenue is what happened before those fees.

Then we have PROFIT. Profit in my personal opinion is what we give a shit about. More shits than revenue.

A coach might generate $100,000 in revenue but what did they KEEP? What was still in the bank after expenses? That’s your PROFIT.

I highly suggest you read the book Profit First. It provides a different way to set up business finance and I do think it works particularly well for those who have variable income – meaning month to month is not consistent income. That tends to be the case for many health and fitness professionals.

So, when you’re making your revenue goals, don’t forget about profit. That’s my point. When someone says they can get you to $10k months, is that revenue or profit? It’s a fair question to ask in my opinion.

Now let’s talk about ways to increase both revenue and profit.Revenue: More money coming in – We need more clients, higher price points, or more streams of income.

A massive mistake I see when coaches are trying to increase revenue is that they add one off purchases with no plan to sell or scale that offer. Please please please make sure that if you’re going to create a new offer in your offer suite, that it is 1. Needed in the market. 2. People KNOW it’s needed. 3. And that it’s WANTED. The offer needs to be something that is knowingly desired by the prospective customer.

Do not create an offer for the sake of creating it. We create offers for PROFITABILITY. That profitability comes from people needing, wanting and BUYING said service or offer. Don’t make this mistake.

If you’re depending on the offer to make you money, how much? How often will you need to sell it? If it’s available all the time how are you collecting leads and getting them to convert?

Again, I ask these questions because adding a new offer is actually the hardest way to increase revenue but it’s often the first route entrepreneurs go down.

I’d suggest:

Seeing if you can either increase price of current offers if it makes sense, so you’re increasing the total value of each client and bringing up your bottom line. Add value to the existing offer if needed.

Becoming more proficient and optimizing sales of what you currently sell (rather than creating something new). If there is a legit gap that you can fill with a new offer and your current + new clients would purchase, great. But if you haven’t yet optimized sales system for your current offer, do that first. Squeeze all the revenue you can out of that.

As far as profit goes, that will depend on your expenses. I want to make very clear that I am not saying you HAVE to prioritize high profit. Some people prefer to put all revenue back into the business (creating high expenses and low profit). Neither is right tor wrong. They’re simply different approaches and the joy in owning your own biz is that you have that autonomy. You get to choose.

When I started my business I NEEDED to make money. Like it was actual scarcity. Not scarcity mindset. I did not have the luxury or disposable income to be able reinvest in my biz, so I have always kept overhead extremely slim. In fact until mid 2021 to 2022, my overhead was under $1,000 per month. I like my profits HIGH. And Lord knows mama pays per taxes because of that.

Do as you wish with your business. But I highly encourage reading Profit First, and staying curious about what you consume and what you desire to learn in regards to ze mula.

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Make no mistake this is not a shred for summer episode. But after training clients for a decade, I know that summer comes with resistance to the gym, more time outside, perhaps more adult beverages, and social gatherings. And fitness can take a backseat. But it 100% does not need to. It can actually become one of your favorite seasons to exercise during!

So, today’s podcast will cover some of the barriers that we commonly see when it comes to completing lifts and adhering to programs through the summer months.

How to make workouts shorter

As with most situations in fitness, it depends. You can cut off sets and reps every exercise prescribed, OR cut off the last super set or one exercise. Typically exercises are programmed in order of largest, bang for your buck, highest demand – metabolically, and from a neuromuscular standpoint. So, you can either get the most out of those first few sets or supersets OR you can opt to shave off one set of everything in the workout, as mentioned first. Neither option will make or break your results.

How to modify based on equipment

It’s easy to call it quits if you’re not at your normal gym or home gym. But YOU HAVE OPTIONS. Remember to think of movement patterns rather than SPECIFIC EXERCISES. If you don’t have access to a barbell – let’s say you’re at a hotel and only have a smith machine or dumbbells – that works! Let’s say you’re supposed to do back squats – you can change the pattern slightly to work in a smith machine for the same sets and reps, or choose to add volume (maybe 1.5 to 2 times the reps with a goblet squat). These are things we cover inside Annie’s Secret Lab of Brain Gains for Built By Annie members. There are so many options for modifying and still getting close to the programmed stimulus!
In general you want to mimic the same movement pattern – So think of movement families like squat, hinge, vertical push and pull and horizontal push and pull. Then you have bilateral (both limbs working at the same time) or unilateral (single limb). You want to match pattern and ideally bilateral or unilateral. Those tricks should allow you to modify nearly any exercise. This does come with some experience and a slightly higher training age. But truly something is typically better than nothing!

Best practices for skipping a workout

If you find you are skipping a workout per week or more than two per month, then be sure to alternate which lift you have to miss. Ie if you find you can never quite get that 4th or 5th lift in and it’s always overhead press, we want to be sure you choose to skip your strongest lift one day, and maybe bench press another week, etc. So that we’re not constantly missing a certain set of movement patterns and muscle groups.
Do you actually need to skip it completely? Or can you get in just the warm up and main sets? or just the accessory work? Better to get SOME stimulus than to completely miss that stimulus for a whole other week.
Can you tack on combine it with another lift, like discussed earlier.

There are so many ways to get the most out of your program this summer without skipping. Though it’s totally fine to miss a workout here and there!

Mindset shifts to consider

Busy times ARE the best time to follow a plan and structure because they free up brain space and decision fatigue while allowing you to still work toward your main goal
Is the goal weight loss? maintenance? feeling good? Your expectation will drive your reaction to results that happen.

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With over 200,000 downloads and two years under our belts, we celebrate episode 200 by answering 10 of the most popular fitness questions of all time.

Below is the cliff notes version but it is VERY important you tune in for the whys, nuance and context behind these answers.

And now, the 10 fitness questions:

1. Is working with body weight or dumbbells comparable to a full gym when looking build muscle or strength?At some point you’ll reach limits with body weight and dumbbells. The options that a full gym brings to the table are simply above that which can be done with dumbbells and body weight. Or the ease with which gains can be made. They do not compare.

2. Should I increase volume or load first? Does it matter?I am biased towards increasing volume/capacity, then adding load. But it depends.

3. Is being sore a solid indicator of hypertrophy?Soreness is a sign of POTENTIAL for the adaptation of hypertrophy to take place. NOT a needed indicator.

4. What to do if you’re sick – skip the workout? Or push through?The question is moreso to skip and rest, or go through the motions at 50-70% like a deload week in order to move the body but not tax it further.

5. How do you deal with working out postpartum and being sleep deprived? Isn’t that counterintuitive?The pros outweigh the cons. And I adjust intensity as needed. It’s important that we provide context when discussing workouts postpartum.

Is a movement like bird dogs better for core stability than an ab roller?No. These are simply two different exercises and an ab roller is far more challenging than a bird dog.

7. Is a heart rate monitor needed for improving cardio vascular health?Not NECESSARY but certainly nice to have and can make training easier and more intentional.

8. Cardio before or after lifting?Whichever is more important to your training goals, prioritize that first.

9. Best cardio for cardiovascular health?In short, do what you enjoy. There is no single form of cardio that will yeild the best cardiovascular adaption.

10. Thoughts on cycle synching?* Research does not support the need for this IF a period is healthy * No significant differences in strength and force output or capacity in different phases of cycle * You may FEEL subjectively different. But trust that your body more likely than not can hit normal performance measures

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First off, the lack of education you’re sent home with after this massive abdominal surgery should be malpractice. It’s truly incredible.

I did not plan for a C-section at all. I mean, I planned for the possibility of a C-section as far as my birth plan went, but I was not at all prepared for C-section recovery on the backend of delivery. I had a 72 hour stay in the hospital. So we were there from November 22 to November 25. We went home the day after Thanksgiving.

In the hospital, I purchased MammaSteFit 16 week C-section lifting program, as well as their C-section scar mobilization program. I know that scar tissue can wreak havoc on your insides and tissue mobility. So it was important to me to learn how to mobilize that area and not be afraid of it essentially.

I know that some people don’t experience a lot of pain after having a C-section. But that was not my personal experience. I was on oxy for I think 7 to 10 days from the C-section. My pain was very high for seven days and then on the eighth day, it just dropped significantly. It was like I turned the corner.

The pain for me was in standing up, and I think I also had pain just from also pushing at a 10 vaginally. Because the pain I was experiencing was around the incision, but also just extreme heaviness in my pelvic floor. And near my rectum.

At times, I felt like I had to walk bent over. So the nurses let me know that standing up really tall and straight was actually beneficial for me, so I tried to do that as much as possible, but that was also very uncomfortable.

The lack of mobility was a big mental hurdle for me in postpartum. You already lose so much autonomy. Feeling unable and just not being able to move with intention was one of my least favorite parts of early postpartum.

I found that as far as returning to exercise. I really wanted to move my body a lot sooner than my body was going to allow for. At around three weeks I really really really wanted to move with intention. More than walking. But at that point, I was still finding that, even in moving around my house more , I would get more bleeding, or have more pain the next day.

For instance, at the three week mark, I just did some very gentle mobility, unweighted, lunging, thoracic, spine mobility, and breath work, and I literally had more bleeding the next day, because that was too much. This is just my experience, so take it with a grain of salt . It’s not meant to scare anyone. It’s just literally meant to pull back the curtain on a fit person recovering from a C-section.

Around week four I was feeling a lot better and able to generally walk more and move more without an increase in bleeding. My bleeding was actually almost completely gone at week four. And so I had Mamma stay fit schedule my program start on January 2 which was my six week mark.

I had a five week postpartum appointment, and I was completely cleared for everything, meaning sex, movement, exercise. All the things. She did an internal exam, and my uterus was healing really well, and I only had a two finger separation in my core. So that gave me the external affirmation I needed to move forward. Because let me tell you, I felt like I was in a brand new body postpartum. I could not tell where anything was in my midsection from muscles to organs. It felt very strange. And sometimes even four months postpartum. It still feels weird.

Right at six weeks I began moving and following the program. It was four days a week. And when I say working out or lifting, I mean unweighted kneeling hip hinges. It’s far stretch to call these workouts. And it’s in my opinion exactly what was needed for me. From a mental standpoint, as well as a physical standpoint. It allowed me to get in intentional movement and feel successful. And it also just reacquainted me to my body. I would honestly call the first four weeks a reacquainting phase.

My outlook on returning to fitness was like it always is, a long-haul mentality. I see the first three months as really, just being consistent and taking note of how I am doing and adjusting as needed. It is not to reach a certain goal weight it is not to hit any loads in the gym or any skills even. The goal was literally just to be consistent and follow the program. That was the goal.

I could then reassess where I’m at and what is realistic moving forward as far as performance goals or body weight, goals, or body composition goals. But my perspective was always a 9 to 15 month process.

I’ll also note that my biggest focus or concern was getting to where I felt like my pelvic floor was not an issue, it was strong, maybe even stronger than before and also mobile. And that my incision felt normal. I didn’t feel stretched, or in any kind of compromised position.

That was the biggest hold up for me, or maybe what was most shocking when I started working out. Was just that intense awareness and sensation on and around my incision. Especially on my left side. I just constantly felt like I was at risk of busting open and tearing the incision, so I was extremely conservative with the range of motions that I was using in my movements as well as any load that I was adding to my body.

I would highly suggest following some kind of C-section specific lifting program if you are returning to weight training after having a C-section just because mobilization of that area is so important. And so this program for instance, if I was following included far more rotational work, then I would’ve ever put into any program for any reason.

I would say by nine weeks of following the program, being about 70% consistent, I was able to hit accessory work loads that I was using pre-conception. So doing dumbbell RDL‘s or dumbbell lunges with weights that I was using in the past. It’s kind of a progress marker. The barbell was a whole different story. For whatever reason large compound, axial loaded movements just did not feel right. And I still need far more time to build confidence with the way my body feels in the season. Squats in particular. As well as deadlifts. For both of those I would say that it’s actually more my pelvic floor, than anything to do with the C-section that causes any apprehension.

I just keep reminding myself that there’s no rush, and that I would rather go slow and feel way better then push it and have to have a setback or lose confidence in my progress or my body’s ability. So I am constantly reminding myself to be conservative and it’s also nice that I know I can push in the accessory work. Which has kind of been a saving grace for me. Pushing in the accessory work has allowed me to feel like I am actually building strength and muscle in this season. Without having to push any large barbell compound movements really hard. But it still feels familiar and fun to do those large compound movements.

Movements that I would say made me feel the most unstable postpartum, were any planking or bird-dog variations. I could not do a plank until about eight weeks of following the program, which was what almost 3 months postpartum. And I had to do bird dogs with my feet, pushing against a wall for much longer than the program had them scheduled for. So the program was progressing. Bird-dog variations a lot faster than I felt like my core and my C-section incision could handle. So I just held off on that and now can do a full bird, dog or bird, dog variations, weighted, banded, variations. They’re difficult, but they’re all doable. That’s been a huge area of growth and performance success in the last three months.

Step ups and hip thrusts were the other two exercises that really threw me for a loop. I have never felt so unstable and a step up in my entire life. I felt more stable doing step ups after meniscus surgery then I did being postpartum. My assumption is that has mostly to do with the pelvic floor, and maybe some instability that I have in my pelvis. They are feeling much better. But I had to modify by using a balance stick or holding onto the rack and doing my step ups . It’s just a matter of building strength and stability which I’m fully aware of and willing to do. As far as the hip thrusts go. I don’t know when I will be comfortable doing hip thrusts post C-section. At four months I am still uncomfortable it does not feel good on my incision and I am distracted by how it feels on my incision to where I can’t perform the exercise and get the muscle contraction that I want in my posterior chain. So I have the ability to modify, and that’s what I’ve been doing. For hip thrusts, I have been doing the same single leg, hip thrust variation the entire time in my ass has never been so sore, and I have never felt my glutes so much than using this variation. Single leg exercises are a great way to increase load that you are moving without actually adding external weight. and it is obviously beneficial, especially in postpartum to do unilateral work. So I did not mind doing this variation at all, and it seem to be working for me very well. The variation is with my foot on a wedge. The thinner end of the wedge is towards me, so my heel is on that end. And my back is on a decline bench. For whatever reason, that particular set up is demolishing my glutes. It really is a similar set up to an actual hip thrust machine. So that makes sense. I started with a bilateral version with a band around my hips. So both feet on the wedges. Then did a B stance, variation, and transitioned to a single leg variation. And soon enough I am sure I will add a dumbbell to my hips if I have not already done so. This is until doing barbell hip thrusts. Feels comfortable enough on my incision.

All upper body stuff felt great for the most part. The only exercise that really took some time to rebuild and get used to was pull ups, and push ups.

Pull ups were due to the stretch in the lats that I just have not experienced in a while, as well as coning in my midsection. And push-ups were all about my core. So I’m actually lifting close to what I was mentioned before getting pregnant, but push-ups were difficult because of being in that plank position, which I mentioned towards the beginning of the episode, is being really challenging for me.

And lastly, I want to address bleeding that I experienced. Because this can happen, or is an indicator with C-sections, that you have done too much in your body is letting you know.

After week one of workouts, I had heavy bleeding for 3 days after not bleeding at all for nearly 3 weeks.

I presume this was actually my period returning early because about 3.5 weeks later the same thing happened. And at 3 months postpartum I began tracking with my Oura ring, and 100% menstruated. So, though bleeding can be an internal warning sign, I do not think it was tied to exercise. Simply a coincidence in timing.

Navigating post c section is strange because of the additional internal healing taking place. There was and is just a level of uncertainty that comes with the process. But it can be done and movement can feel amazing and empowering again.

Whether you’ve had a C-section, given birth, are recovering from injury or just in a body you are less familiar with, I hope this episode brings some level of solidarity.

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All of these are centered around and chosen through the lens of what I consider to be the two most important pieces to starting a business in the online health and fitness space.

Building an engaged audience that trusts you – you will not have an online business without this.
Developing a clear AF offer that works

So, as we dive into each of these, remember those two things – in the simplest sense, we need a lead pool or audience, and we need to make money. Which happens via our offer. If we lack clarity on said offer or it does not deliver on what we said it would, then it doesn’t work, you’ll lose confidence, and people will not trust you.

Let us begin. You might be disappointed to find that these are not much different than they were seven years ago. And that’s because the same principles still apply. It’s just how they fit into what is currently available in the online space. Seven years ago, it was blogging and the start of Instagram. Now, a blog may be far less important, but Instagram is like a full-time job. And, I would argue more important than ever.

Strap in for the long haulEven more than seven years ago, new entrepreneurs need to grasp the fact that overnight successes don’t exist and to build a sustainable and profitable business simply takes TIME. There is no getting around that fact.

And the sooner you can embrace the daily grind, the more you will enjoy the process. Just like you’d tell a health and fitness client.

I know that scarcity can be a real thing when starting a business. I am not talking about scarcity mindset rooted in lies and false narratives. But ACTUAL scarcity and the very real need to generate revenue. Just know that this is not going to happen if you don’t have people who trust you, and if you don’t have an offer to sell that works.

So, take a few mantras from my first years of business – “make it happen” and “Be tenaciously patient” – which is not what it sounds like. When I say that, I mean that you need to be tenacious and patient. Lots of work. Lots of intent. Gratification down the road. Patience is needed in addition to all the work you’re going to put in.

Commit to failing fast and adaptingWhen starting out with your business you have the least to lose and least amount of eyes on you. Try all the things. Throw spaghetti at the wall, find your footing, your philosophy and your creative process.

In the beginning, you are the least confident. Which brings about this paradox, where you have not yet gained the confidence and clarity to show up how you know you should, but also, like I said, you have the least to lose. It’s the time where you need to bust out reps like never before. Frequency is your friend in the beginning.

Create as much content as you possibly can. If that makes you feel overwhelmed, I want to be specific with the fact that I am referring to small bite-size pieces of content. Apply that to an email list, a podcast, or Instagram. Wherever it is that you are creating content. Figure out a way to do it daily and at a high frequency. Will get into that a bit later. But the sooner that you can move forward with the fears that you have, when starting out, the quicker you are going to find success. That does not mean that the fear or level of being uncomfortable goes away, it just means that you are able to adapt to existing with those feelings and continuing to move forward. That is the goal, and that would be a main focus of mine, if I was starting out again.

Before I share the next one, I want to preface it with ignoring all of the gurus. You are going to be bombarded with coaches who coach coaches. Facebook and Instagram ads galore. Ignore all of it. What all of these are going to miss is the basics and the fact that you need to just get reps in. Most of the funnels that these coaches are trying to teach put the cart way before the horse for someone who is just starting out in their business. You do not need to be creating a funnel if you have not yet even built an audience that trust you. I cannot stress this enough. I did it myself, and I see it all the time. In the state of desperation, you watch all of the free workshops, and perhaps even invest in people, promising you a proven strategy for a funnel that makes X amount of thousands of dollars, but they failed to acknowledge the fact that you have not yet built an email list or audience that is prepared to purchase from you.

With that, I do encourage you to invest in business mentorship.

Buy a course or hire a coachI encourage this because it can help put the blinders on and save time in making common mistakes.

I also recognize that a lot of coaches don’t have money to invest when starting out. So take it as much free content as you can. The most important thing no matter what route you take is that you are taking action and learning quickly. You can take all the courses in the world. But if you are not applying concepts, you will not have success. And you have not earned the right to blame whatever process you invested in.

I also think that the act of hiring a coach or purchasing a course is also practice in betting on yourself, and your brand or business. It takes a level of commitment and belief to do that. And this matters. That holds wait.

Obviously, I will plug my FitsPRO Foundations course here. But you need to take whatever course makes the most sense for whatever business you are trying to build. For some people they need a one on one coach, for other people, a course will suffice. I lean more towards a course when first starting out because the foundation that you need to build in your business is repetitive. The program that you are going to build out, and the brand that you are building is individual to you, but the concepts that you’ll be applying, and the principles that you are going to be applying, are not unique to you. They are the basis of nearly every business. typically one-on-one coaches are more expensive than a course. So that is why I also lean towards a course if you are just starting out.

Remember that, even if you do have the funds to invest, it’s going to take time, and you just have a lot to learn. These are facts. And they can’t be denied.

That kind of covers her mind that piece of starting out, now, let’s get into actual content, social media, and what it’s like to be in the online space.

Get on Youtube or Instagram or both – depending on time availability

The prime difference between YouTube and Instagram is that YouTube is a searchable platform, and Instagram is a social platform. It’s easier to make sales on social platforms. You can build a following quicker, and, like I said, typically turnover a profit faster because of that. Many search platforms are the long game. Which are extremely valuable, but not everybody has the time to optimize search-based platforms.

The negative side of your social based platforms like Instagram are that content has a very short life cycle, typically 24 to 48 hours. So frequency matters when attempting to build credibility and recognizable business. You will create less content for YouTube, but it lives forever, and can generate leads for you years down the road. This is why, if you have the time I suggest being on both, while recognizing that that is not the case for most people.

I personally regret not prioritizing YouTube five years ago. And think that it’s never too late to start there knowing what I know now, I would absolutely prioritize, YouTube. Especially if video based content is going to be any part of your brand. The only thing we want to be careful of here is doing a bit of market research to see if your ideal client, or any market that is in need of your services is actively searching for what it is that you offer on Google or YouTube. Because at the time of this episode, Google and YouTube use the same search engine and analytics.

I am biased to the health and fitness industry, so in my eyes, Instagram and YouTube are the top places I would be if I was starting out this year. And that’s what this podcast is all about, so there’s my answer on contact creation, platform options.

IG – Post every single day, twice a day with bite size contentYouTube – weekly or every other week content

It’s funny because Instagram is not 2015 anymore but I actually do suggest posting multiple times per day like you did when it was a chronological feed because this is your best chance at the most exposure. Different parts of your audience are on Instagram at different times of day. And as I said, when you are starting out, frequency is your friend. This allows you to hone in on your message faster and learn your own voice, it helps establish credibility, and can expedite trust. It also just gives you reps in creating content for your own creative process.

Because YouTube content takes more time to create and produce, I would start with a minimum of producing a video every other week. You can then use that contact to make bite-size clips for Instagram.

That is what I would do if I was just starting out again.

Build and nurture an email list – weekly, monthly, whatever. Just get people the fuck off of social media.

From YouTube and Instagram, I would be driving people to my mailing list with the utmost intention. I would make my email list relatable, and provide VIP information that I don’t provide anywhere else. If I was to just start out in the fitness realm, I would 110% be answering the most asked questions from my ideal client. Whether they asked it directly, or if I just know it’s something that a lot of people wonder about or struggle with.

In starting an email list, I would create different tags for what people are interested in based on my offers. So if you have nutrition-based offers as well as fitness, I would absolutely be categorizing people from the get-go based on their areas of interest so that I could target them with specific emails.

That brings us to our offerings. Which is the second piece of the most important things when starting a business in the online space. You have to have an offer that works. You have to be able to get people tangible results.

Only offer 1:1 coachingI’ve mentioned in different capacities why I would start with one on one. In short, it gets to the highest revenue, the best testimonies, and the best knowledge of your ideal client in the quickest way possible, and it requires the smallest audience size. That’s why.

Looking back and looking at the current state of the online space, these are the things that I would do, set up, and focus on in 2023 if I was starting an online business in health and fitness world.

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So I lied, and there are only seven program mistakes and how to fix them. But I digress. Let’s begin

Program Mistake Number One Switching things up way too often. As I do programs by other coaches, I am reminded that even some of the most educated people in the space make changes well before they need to. I don’t know if this comes from a worry that people are going to get bored, or just the desire to implement different variations, and have fun with the actual program design. While I understand both of these, the results that people want are probably on the other side of fairly boring programming.

In the postpartum program that I followed, which I do suggest if people, I got to a point where I was modifying over 50% of the programming simply because it was changing week to week and it just wasn’t needed. I wanted to continue the same movements that I had done the week before in order to progress. How are we gauging progress if we are switching up variations and sets and reps every week?

Mind you this is in regards to general strength and hypertrophy training and programming. Not something like CrossFit. Which honestly should still have progressive phases. There’s just a lot more ground to cover in CrossFit.

Put simply, number one is to stick to, at least the same movements per week for an entire month. The sets and reps my vary, depending on the goal of the program, but keep the movements the same. The reason for doing this is two things. We can gauge progress, not only in adding more weight or mechanical load to each movement, but also building those neurological pathways for each pattern. We don’t only build muscle. Part of that process is neurological adaptation, which can’t happen if we are switching it up willy-nilly every week.

Numbers two and three2 = not working at a high enough intensity.

3 = trash volume just to add volume.

The only program I have followed that had high volume that I could understand was German volume training, and a program by Hattie Boil (who has been training for over 13 years and gave very large ranges of volume based on your training history). She can handle high volume at high intensities, because of the capacity that she has worked up over a decade. That is not the case for most people doing high-volume work. Note that I said that she is working at high intensities, as in using high, challenging RPE, and at a high volume. This is what I would consider advanced training.

Most programming involving high volume, mostly in the form of a lot of exercises, is not also working at a high enough intensity to get the results that people desire. Which are in this case, muscle games, or strength gains. More is not always more.

Mechanical load or tension is the main driver of both strength and hypertrophy. So this should be the focus regardless of volume. It’s not that high volume is bad. It’s just that we want to make sure that the trainee is working at a high enough intensity to stimulate muscle growth. think about working at an RPE of eight, or only leaving one to two reps in the tank on most exercises if this is the goal. Which would be an RIR of 1-2.

Number fouris not using warm up sets in order to find the load you are going to use for your actual working sets. Often times we leave gains on the table because your first or maybe even first two sets were not at high enough intensities for the goal of the actual sit and rep scheme. This goes back to RPE, or RIR. Making sure that every set is actually at a proper working load and is challenging. Integrating warm-up sets can be helpful and will ensure that no gains are left on the table.

Yes, I am talking about accessory work. In addition to your main exercises. You won’t always need warm-up sets. But certainly at the beginning of a new phase you might want to use them. Until you know what your proper working load is.

Number five mostly applies to people who program for themselves. And that is only programming what you like, and or are good at. This is a reason in the last two years I have followed other people’s programming. While I straight up, do not enjoy it as much as my own programming overall, I enjoy the fact that I am exposed to things that I would not typically program for myself. I use other people’s programming for a base and then modify as I like.

Just be sure to follow a program that will integrate and work on your weaknesses.

Number six and seven go hand-in-hand much like two and three did.6 = not utilizing tempo

7 = not sticking to or programming specified rest periods

In short, using a tempo, will just ensure time under tension, and has neurological benefits as well when looking at building solid movement patterns. And especially if we are hitting the intensities that I talked about earlier, it will likely be beneficial to actually stick to an implement rest periods. And you will need them, and want them if you are working at a high enough intensity. You shouldn’t be able to start performing your next set after 15 seconds of rest if you’re working at a high enough intensity. You should need that whole minute, for instance.

These are, of course, all things that we implement in all 36 phases of Built by Annie, even in the at home versions. We still move with intent, tempo, consistency, and proper rest periods.

You can always join the waitlist, or if the doors are open, then we welcome you inside. Regardless of if you join my program, program for yourself, or follow someone else’s, make sure you are not committing these mistakes, and I hope you can use today’s episode to get more gains.

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The art of story telling for content and sales.

Something I say often is that content is everywhere and everything can be content.

I also think marketing is everywhere and it behooves us as entrepreneurs to always be observing it.

Most of us spend a lot of time consuming – be it via direct marketing or social media. Take a step back and observe, don’t just consume. Be aware and take note.

When you actually stick around to watch a full video, WHY? What sucked you in? What kept you paying attention? Why didn’t you lose interest?

I guarantee a big part of content that keeps you engaged has to do with story telling. Whether it’s 10 seconds or 90 seconds.

Whether it’s text in a swipe graphic, Twitter or Instagram story. Maybe words aren’t even involved. Maybe it’s dance or a moving landscape.

Story telling evokes feelings and feelings keep us around.

I REPEAT – STORY TELLING EVOKES FEELINGS, AND FEELINGS KEEP US AROUND.Now is when you commit to approaching content and sales through the lens of story telling this quarter – this year.

You’ll see and feel it after this episode I hope, wherever you take in media.

I have my business clients often write out and identify 2-3 brand stories. Events that led to why they coach the way they do. The stories that ultimately shaped their philosophy. The why behind their brand.

If you’ve never done that, it might be a fun and helpful activity. These stories can and should be very grounding for your messaging and therefore your content and sales.

They’re a huge part of communicating and connecting with your audience.

The most important piece of story telling from a business standpoint is that people can either see themselves in the story, or that you draw it back to a collective human experience – relatability OR, inspiration.

Remember the lens we’re seeing this through – business sales and content.

Watching Free Solo is mesmerizing AF and it might inspire you, but it’s not selling you. Though I suppose it massively helped build his brand and bring awareness to him and all he’s accomplished.

Point is, stay focused – we want to dance with story telling on the day to day. In bite size pieces of content and then in sales.

A good story – whether protested through video or text or photo evokes emotion, like we said but it also paints a picture for us. We can see the story playing out – directly or indirectly.

Think about how you can do that with your content. Not every piece, but where it fits.

Story telling doesn’t have to be any specific feeling. It just has to evoke a feeling. Or a series of feelings. I just don’t want you to put yourself in a box. The best thing you can do with storytelling as be authentic as possible. As with anything in business and building a personal brand.

In your content:I encourage you to number one be playful and keep an open mind.

Remember that storytelling is just a more specific piece of connecting with your audience. It should not be forced. That’s why I say I want you to see your contact through the lens of potential for storytelling, or how you can improve your ability to tell stories.

Think of how this can show up in any piece of content that you produce. Whether that is podcasts, Instagram swipe graphics, the caption of a post, or short and long form video.

Always draw the story back to either a shared experience with the audience, or inspiration with action steps that they can take to better themselves. Especially if we are talking about health and fitness. And bettering themselves is not necessarily doing more, it can be having grace for themselves, or looking for joy.

What does storytelling look like with different pieces of content, you might be wondering.

Note that I said the caption. If storytelling is throwing you off, think about painting pictures for your audience. How can you make them feel like they are somewhere, or how can you help them see a certain situation play out? That is in essence, a vital piece of storytelling.

I don’t even know what my last nine Instagram posts were at this point, but go look at them with the goal of seeing storytelling. Do the same with your own. Do the same with some of your favorite people that you follow.

Bring it full circle.

What I mean by that is if you tell a story, or share some thing from your life, bring it full circle with some kind of takeaway or moral of the story. It feels complete when we do this, and more often than not it’s beneficial for your audience.

You might be surprised how much more engagement you get when you begin to create content through the lens of storytelling.

In sales:

This is where I really want you to dive into those brand of stories that you are going to write out.

I don’t want you to play around with identifying some of the story is that your ideal client tells themselves or has experienced.

Once you do that, then we marry the two and write out the story, paint the picture, of where they could be after working with you or once they are inside your program or offer.

I swear this is going to give you so much more confidence in your sales process. Storytelling is in large part the emotional piece of sales. I said paint the picture because I know that the idea of telling an actual story can seem limiting for people. And it’s hard for them to see outside of that box or what that can look like with their brand messaging.

Ensure you are looking at your own brand of stories, and then also the negatives of your ideal clients passed, their present, and their future.

If you don’t know who your ideal client is, then get my free ideal client avatar creator. You can go to anniemiller.co/ICA to get that.

This is a shorter episode, but I really just want to encourage you to look for storytelling in the content that you enjoy, taking in, and the content that keeps your attention. More often than not. It is some kind of storytelling. Each sentence or video clip is taking you into the next part of the story.

Not every piece of contact is going to be like this, so don’t try to make it that way. But where it fits, give it some intentional practice.

And as far as sales go, definitely observe why you buy things, and the stories that you are being told by brands. Both personal brands and large brands. There’s almost always a story involved. And it’s the story that they want you to believe if you buy the product.

Have at it. Have fun. Add this skill to your messaging and see what happens

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Pricing is one of the biggest roadblocks that new and old coaches run into. Not knowing what to charge, and having mindset blocks around different price ranges. Along with not knowing whether to grandfather people, and when they want to increase their prices, or even how to increase their prices.

That’s what we are going to dive into in today’s episode. These are just opinions and my thoughts, so take them for what they’re worth, but I hope that they provide some questions or perspective on the topic. Maybe some affirmation of what you already knew in your gut.

Premium pricing & Discounts

How to use discounts but not devalue your offer – price higher, then cut

I am talking about this topic from the perspective of someone in the health and fitness industry in the online space.

Most coaches start off with some kind of one on one offer whether you are in the nutrition space, fitness, PT or something else. One on one is likely going to fall into premium pricing.

It’s a high touch offer, the demands time from you. In other words, it’s active income, not passive. Which is more of a premium.

I want you to be able to look at that objectively when deciding on your pricing. We don’t want to just say that we are $500 a month because you pulled that number out of your asshole. I want you to lay out the deliverables of what it is that you offer, what value they are receiving and also what time it takes from you. I’ve said this 1 million times but you want to feel compensated for the work that you are doing otherwise you will end up resenting our clients. And that’s just some thing that is silly and doesn’t need to happen.

So let’s say that your offer is above $250 a month, or above $300 a month. You are in my opinion now into premium pricing. Again that is going to be very individual. Maybe you do one call per week, or no calls, but use Voxer to communicate with your clients. If you have taken my fitspro foundations course, you have all of this laid out in your final offer breakdown.

There is messaging out there on both ends of the spectrum – be a gucci brand and never give discounts, and then the need to be accessible.

Frankly you need to decide where your brand is going to sit in the market place. But I don’t think you need to go fine yourself a box either.

So let’s talk about ways you can be premium and offer incentives and discounts.

The slippery slope that can come with discounting your offer is the expectation for people to then just wait for the next discount. In turn, devaluing your offer.

So, when launching, one approach we can take is to price your offer at the higher range of the value you’ve assigned it, and then discount it to a price still with your value buffer. So maybe you could charge $329 to $379. You list the price high and then discount it to a price you still feel good about.

Another option is to ADD value for free vs cutting the price of your offer. Can you create something or add a call or service to make your offer even more desirable? Ideally this is a 1:many add on or something that DOES NOT require you in real time. For example, if they enroll in your coaching by x date, they get access to an excluding on demand training, or a group webinar for planning out their fitness goals this year.

Discounts and promos can be inline with premium offering. That’s my point. You can do both and feel compensated.

I do not suggest heavily discounting your premium pricing. Or if you do, make it limited to the first month for instance. The last thing we want is a 6 month client paying $100 less per month than they should be.

For those who are passionate about accessibility – I see you. Hear me out.

Accessibility AND profitability require large client pools. So focus on creating profit and revenue FIRST, so that you can then scale and create something with a lower price point.

Being accessible but not profitable is not a successful or rewarding BUSINESS plan. It is a passion project. Okay? Little tough love there but I know you can take it.

To grandfather or not

Not charging enough, to grandfather or not? How to raise prices for old members.

This. Is. So. Common.

You had lower price points starting out and then as you build your systems, get client results and gain confidence in your process, you need to increase your prices. BUT HOW?

Per usual, you have options.

If in your gut, you want to grandfather in and have the revenue bandwidth to do so, then do it.

For instance I did this with my 1:1 fitness but only because I didn’t solely depend on that income. I had other offers making up for that deficit and that felt fine for me.

Especially if you have long term clients, consider increasing pricing for everyone.

Here’s how you can do this and feel good about it:

3 month increases and a lot of communication.

People WILL likely leave but you’ll gain new clients at the higher price point. No bridges should be burned here. You should be sensitive to the fact that these people are giving you their hard earned money and that holds weight. You’re about to ask for MORE OF IT. You want the best for them AND you’re running a growing business. So act like it.

Let them know the increases coming and WHY. What has been added or improved over the years/months?

If they don’t want to continue, can you provide other, low price coaches and programs that you back? So you’re still on their team – taking care of them.

No one wants to feel awkward asking for more money. I get it. So I hope these ideas make it a bit smoother for you. That you feel more confident increasing pricing – for new and old clients.

Think about the consumer perspective and how you’d want to be approached about the topic.

To grandfather in or not is ultimately up to you. But be sure to look at it from an objective business standpoint as much as possible.

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We ended part 1 as we arrived to the hospital in active labor, and my utter misconception of what that would look like. If you missed it please be sure to listen to 193 before tuning into this episode. If you don’t, I’ll just make clear again that this is MY STORY and no one elses. Please refrain from making it any more or less than it is.

With that, let’s continue!

UNMEDICATED LABOR (in hospital)

In triage we discovered baby was posterior and his head was tilted. This was one of my greatest fears, if not my greatest fear. I knew that posterior babies often lead to back labor and that was something that I didn’t think I could handle in an unmedicated setting.

For context, my baby had been in perfect LOA position for five weeks leading up to labor. I had been feeling contractions in my sacrum and having pressure in my rectum. But I wasn’t having low back pain like people talked about. So I was grateful to keep progressing as is.

Once we knew his position, the objective was to get baby in a better position, and to drop lower because he was having a hard time entering the pelvis. We did a check when I got into the room and I was at 5 1/2 cm but the baby was still at a -3 or two meaning had barely entered the pelvis. And I was 90% effaced. Aka solid dilation and cervix nearly completely thinned but baby had not dropped.

The staff was AMAZING. We did inversions, side lying hip release (my right side was SO TIGHT my leg almost didn’t drop at ALL when I let my right leg relax – pulling babes head in that direction), forward leaning hip circles, hip and belly releases/vibrations, prone and supine positions. One of the nurses said she’d never seen such an active labor in all her years of nursing. The level of activity was also noted in my chart summary – which I had to read through to get this timeline straight in preparation for this podcast. Because in labor, time is a BLUR.

During contractions I’d tuck my hips underneath me, lifting the belly. This felt HORRIBLY uncomfortable. Not painful but so uncomfortable.

Contractions began to feel much more anterior vs sacral/back. WINNING.

I and the medical staff thought for sure we were going to meet bebe boy on 11/22/22 – we even talked about how cool of a birthday it would be…but he had other plans.

I labored HARD from 5pm – 10:00pm to gain 1.5cm (5 or 6 to 7-8cm).

When I hit 7cm, there was a shift in my demeanor and mindset needs. I put in my Christian hypnobirthing sound tracks and let labor take over. I went with my body. And it was one of the most intense spiritual experiences I imagine exists…for the next three to four hours.

During this time, I was in nearly every labor position you can think of. Rocking on all fours, diagonal lunges, deep squats, birthing ball and peanut ball both used, leaning forward on the back of the toilet.

Again, it was the most primal thing I’ve ever done. The sounds, the swaying, the breathing, the relying on wisdom of other women who have gone before me.

Another fear I found around labor in prepping for it was the fear of just how vulnerable I would be and feel if I went all in. And being okay with that. Being okay with whatever sounds, movements, thoughts, needs came up. That might sound silly but for someone as unemotional and analytical as I am, it was a big deal.

I waited to get into the tub until I absolutely needed it. And it was AMAZING. I even fell asleep between contractions at one point. If you’re planning to give birth unmedicated, USE A TUB. I would have been in it the whole time but it’s a small tub, not a birthing pool.

The pressure began to be in my rectum again, and I was feeling “pushy” + having a hard time not baring down.

Contractions were stacking on one another but not long enough for how far along I was. There was little rest between (signs of transition and being further along in labor than I actually was). By all signs, I was positive I was in transition and close to pushing this baby out. So was the staff.

We did a cervical check and it showed a lot of swelling due to me bearing down, feeling “pushy” (essentially on the outside I was behaving, moaning and moving like I was nearing pushing, yet no progress had been made). I had lost nearly all amniotic fluid, but was still at a 7-8 and baby had barely dropped down, while also turning back to posterior with an asynclitic tilt.

Internal contraction monitoring showed that my contractions were not strong enough to move baby down – I actually really enjoyed seeing this data on the screen. (In addition to the fact that baby just indeed, was not moving down).

1am I had been at 7-8cm for three to four hours with no progress and lots of laboring (it was magical and the hardest thing I’ve ever done). My sister was a freaking Godsend as my doula, I felt supported by all staff and family. It was like I said, fun. So intense. But enjoyable at the same time.

At this point, they needed the contractions to be stronger in order to move baby down. The contractions were stacking on one another, not allowing me to rest between, and they weren’t strong enough with that.

That’s when Pitocin, and then likely some level of pain management via an epidural entered the conversation.

They knew my birthing plan, and had been unbelievably supportive. They said that I could keep laboring, and simply shared that they were concerned about the swelling from bearing down too early and the lack of strength behind the contractions over the last 3 hours.

All totally understandable. I had not at all been rushed or felt rushed in my process.

I candidly said I can’t stop bearing down. It was just happening. The staff was not pushy at all, no pun intended. They were rooting for me, and just gave me the options. They’d seen how hard I had been working for the last 8 1/2 hours. THEY SAW THE OPTIONS I’D EXPLORED, and were there to provide alternatives.

I know the standards for labor stalls, because of the courses that I took, and I had already had two of them essentially which they let me labor through.

Fact was, I was at 7/8 and bebe was still at a zero, but I felt like he was at a +2 at least. This is going to be TMI, but I had said to the nurse when we were in the bathroom that I literally felt my vagina opening like the head was nearing the outlet of the pelvis. I felt like I had made so much progress in those three hours, but according to the numbers I hadn’t. Which is hard to really believe so who knows if some other progress was actually being made, but when I looked at the facts and the numbers they were undeniable.

My sister, Nathanael, myself, and the staff decided on the Pitocin and epidural at this point. I felt that I had tried all the things I wanted to try, and enjoy the natural experience that I was looking for. With the contractions piling on one another and them not being strong enough to move baby down, and me uncontrollably bearing down at the end of each surge, I felt we needed a different approach.

This is where, of course, questions come in – if I waited 1 more hour would he have just shot out? If I would have tried “x position again” would he have dropped? But we can’t play that game. What was most important to me was that I felt I had autonomy, freedom, and was calm in my decision making. And all of those things were true.

EPIDURAL

You guys, when I tell you, that epidurals are actually magic, I’m not over exaggerating. I wanted to feel all the sensations of birth, so an epidural didn’t make sense for me. I also wanted all of the benefits for Baby and myself of a natural birthing process but oh my goodness, if you do not want to feel pain and are not concerned with potential benefits of a natural birth, then, by all means, get yourself an epidural.

After the epidural, I got to 9cm within like 20 minutes of resting, and he’d dropped to a +2 from 7-8cm and -2 to 0. It was clear that I needed to relax more than I was.

I could see that the Pitocin was making my contractions stronger via the monitor. It was interesting to see in my opinion. And the staff let me know that the epidural would take based on gravity. So if I was laying on one side, it was only going to take on that side so they had me gently roll back-and-forth to be sure that it took evenly. I had heard horror stories of epidurals from many women. And I felt very informed, and well lead in my personal experience. It was fascinating.

I had HELLA amniotic fluid and had lost nearly all of it before getting the epidural. And It was FULL of meconium. Baby boys’ bowels had been doing work inside the womb (as did I inside my mom). This was another concern that they had just general risk of infection with the amount of meconium.

At 4am I was checked again, and was nearly at a 10, but had an anterior lip. With my swelling they didn’t want to manually push the lip back (or do anything for that matter). So we did some inversions, side lying peanut ball work, and shaking/vibration (I didn’t realize you could move this much with an epidural! I legitimately thought you were like paralyzed from the waist down. Such a cool experience as well).

This was one of my mistakes. I considered my birthing plan for an unmedicated, vaginal birth, pain management, outside of an epidural, and a path for C-section. But I did not consider an epidural vaginal birth. Which at this point is exactly where I was.

5:15am I hit 10cm and began pushing immediately.

Pushed for an hour with no progress in descent.

All the prep work I had done for pushing was based on an unmedicated birth. It was contingent on allowing the fetal ejection reflex to take place, and honestly relaxing my entire body while allowing the uterus to push the baby out. That doesn’t really work with an epidural because you can’t feel the fetal ejection reflex. Or that was my experience anyway. They did, however, allow me to attempt different, pushing positions that I wanted mainly from my side to due to the epidural, but I actually felt more comfortable on my back slightly elevated.

Babies heart rate was decelerating and the options were keep pushing, cause even more swelling, and likely need forceps or an episiotomy with a 3/4 tear. Or emergency C section.

As you all know, forceps, a vacuum, and an episiotomy were an absolute no for me. These were a situation I’d planned for in possible routes my labor could take. So when they mentioned the C-section, I was all in. I knew that’s what I wanted if bebe boy wasn’t coming out via me pushing vaginally.

I want to point out the downside of an epidural and why I originally didn’t want one – because you can’t feel, you can’t “go with your body” and you’re deeply disconnected from a massive physiological process that is taking place. So I do wish I would have done more research one pushing with an epidural and how to be the most successful with that.

C SECTION

6:15am We went with the c section to get our baby boy out of distress and to not risk further injury to me.

I puked on the operating table and had uncontrollable shakes – my traps and jaw were cramping. I also had the shakes with the epidural. It was a very strange sensation and one I was not prepared for.

Because I’d mapped out the possibility of a c section, I knew I wanted to request Nate be with me, that he could take photos, that I still had delayed cord clamping, and baby came to my chest immediately before pumping his lungs (which needed to happen due to so much meconium). And we got just that. It was invigorating, fascinating, miraculous and beautiful. Truly it was an amazing experience all around.

Every decision was made with autonomy, options and support.

Through my process I came to loathe the phrase “healthy mom, healthy baby” – because it’s so often used as a mask of decisions made for the convenience of providers vs what’s actually best for mom and baby.

But at the end of the day, that’s what I got and I am so grateful we were at the hospital. Three birth experiences in one.

LOL to his head being a cone from me pushing and then them having to shove him back through the birth canal.Birth of the placentaAt 6:43am on Nov 23, 2022, we met our first mini Miller – bebe boy.

You can call it what you want – a justification for actions taken. I think I’d be lying if I didn’t say that his size made me feel a bit better about the route our labor took. I was pleased to see that he was a freaking behemoth with a massive dome. It felt, to me, like a moment of “ah that makes sense.”

He’s freaking adorable, he came in his own time and we love him to pieces.

If you have babies, are with child, have a birth story you hate, are terrified of birth or on the fence, I hope my story brought you SOMETHING.

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Courses I took: MamaSteFit Birth Prep, Pain Free Birth, Christian Hypnobirthing.

Most important questions asked throughout all of these courses was:

How I wanted to feel in my labor process? And values I wanted held in my birthing space.

Calm, autonomy, joy, freedom, fluid, peaceful, and supported

It was extremely important to me to not have fear or external pressure enter my birth space. Dare I say, I wanted to have fun.

I got all of that and it was largely in part to also facing the following sentences and beliefs beforehand. These were from both the Pain Free Birth course and MamaSteFit birth prep.

What you believe about labor will undoubtedly show up in your birthing process.

A vaginal birth is:

my answer: the ideal for mom and baby outside of emergency.

A cesarean birth is:

my answer: an intervention for medical emergency

I wanted, planned and prepped for an unmedicated vaginal birth. And I nearly got it. But bebe Miller had other plans.

My labor was everything I thought it would be from a physical and spiritual standpoint and so much more. I feel like I got to have three birth experiences in one. I got to experience nearly everything I saw for myself, plus paths and routes that I didn’t.

With that – with wanting an unmedicated vaginal birth, I did have plans laid out for when I would be okay with a cesarean, knowing full well that birth does not stick to a pre-set plan. My midwife encouraged me to write out and consider what interventions I’d be okay under what circumstances.

For me, a cesarean was a go if:

Mom or baby heart rate was elevated or decelerated
Infection occurred
Baby lacked oxygen from cord issues or lack of fluid
If forceps, vacuum or episiotomy was going to be used for delivery. That was a hard no for me because of likelihood of 3rd or 4th degree tear.

Other hard nos for me were:

Internal balloon or manual dilation

My labor took many turns. It was an intense, wild ride and my favorite life experience to date. It ended in an emergency C section after laboring at a 7-8 for 3-4 hours with no progress, and pushing at a 10 for an hour.

Today I share the full story. Please respect it and know that it is mine, nothing else. It means nothing for your birth experience. Past or present. I simply share because I have always been amazed by birth stories even before I considered having children myself.

I was a woman terrified of labor. It was a reason I was hesitant to ever have kids. Perhaps my story will be of some perspective, benefit or redemption to other moms or moms to be out there. I know hearing others stories is monumentally helpful to me. Thus, I pass along my own.

Let us begin with making clear:

Shame has no place in the process and experience of labor.

I was talking to an old 1:1 fitness client who had recently had a delivery that played out many of her fears, and almost none of what she had planned or wanted. She was left with a lot of questions and what ifs, wondering if she would have just “x” would things have been different?

I hadn’t given birth at this point but I told her that I thought those questions, and having questions post delivery was very normal.

Almost no birth goes exactly to plan. Yes, some women do really get the labor they dreamed of. Which is amazing. But the majority of labors take a different route than we envision. This is not bad in my opinion. And it doesn’t mean we should not prep for or plan for our ideal.

Birth is beautiful and miraculous. And with every position, movement, approach, intervention, that can happen, I think it’s only natural to wonder about and question how different scenarios could have played out – if we left for the hospital at a different time, or tried this move, or waited 5 more minutes to make that decision, or went with the 39 week induction, or waited 3 more days, or if the labor and delivery team was different.

Outside of labor itself there is possibility, to then, even question your preparation and what may have affected the labor process. It really is a Pandora’s box once our minds start going.

So buckle up, put in your headphones, grab a tissue box because I am bringing you a day by day, hour by hour documentary of my labor AND, the questions that came up for me afterwards, when the fog cleared.

Please give room to question. And don’t feel guilty if you have them. It’s only natural when your birth took one of literally over a million possible routes.

You brought life into this world.

Your body grew a whole new person, an individual soul, and then birthed it – whether in the way you wanted or not, there is no room for shame. Period.

That brings me to my labor progression of bebe Miller, due date Nov 19, 2022. Born Nov 23, 2022 (40 +4) 9.5lbs 22 inches long, head circumference of 15 inches. He was quite literally off the charts. And that context matters.

Labor progression

I want to start the week of his labor because there is this weird time in pregnancy when you approach your due date. You hit 37 weeks, and you’ve now entered a 5 week period of “it could be today or a month from now.” It’s a very strange headspace to live.

Attempting to enjoy the last few days and weeks of just you and baby before you have to share them with the world, being over pregnancy, wanting to see your vagina again in the shower, and preparing to add another human to your life. It’s just a lot.

A friend of mine said the last 3-5 weeks of pregnancy should be it’s own trimester and I couldn’t agree more.

THE QUESTION

“How do I know I’m going into labor?” Is one of the most googled questions.

My journey began exactly 7 days before giving birth.

Nov 16/17

Diarrhea two days in a row – pooping 4 times a day. This was after a few days of feeling extra bloated and just inconsistent bowel movements – which was not normal for me.

Noted an energy increase (especially this late in the third trimester) desire to MOVE 16,17,18th

Nov 18

Generally feeling crampy but constant – not coming and going like contractions.

Nov 19

Bloody Mucus in morning and throughout day – not a lot (not a full mucus plug) but like pink discharge with nearly every bathroom use.

Cramping progressed to on and off

Uterus tightening on and off FOR SURE. Braxton hicks?

Tired today compared to days leading up. Just wanted to rest.

Nov 20

Walked 30 minutes + shower 10am

Pooped 3 times and then cramping intensity picked up with tight uterus at noon.

12pm Started timing contractions for fun just to see.

Pelvic pressure notably increased with the cramping.

Contractions 7.5 minutes apart 45-90 seconds from the get go.

This was surprising to me because everything I read talked about 15-30 minute apart contractions. That was not my experience. Which just goes to show the unpredictability and the individuality of labor.

2pm contractions were more like WAVES that people described.

5pm timing was still 4-7 minutes apart but intensity was picking up, more bloody show/shedding and more pronounced pubic pressure.

This went on all evening.

9:30pm went to bed because contractions slowed. But Nate and I got all the bags ready because we were both like, IS THIS IT!?

when people say “you’ll know” – it’s misleading. You won’t know. You’ll question everything. And yes, at SOME POINT when you’re deep enough in active labor that you’re preparing to give birth, YOU WILL KNOW. But generally, most women I’ve spoke to, did not “know”

I had night sweats, pooped twice in the night and contractions continued on and off – few waking me up. Nothing more than a decent period cramp.

Nov 21

7am wake up, no labor signs

9am Shower/shave (IYKYK)

10am Walk 30 min + lift and mobility

11:30am Cramping starts but constant low cramps

Noon Grocery shop, pelvic and rectal pressure big time increase – thought I might be leaking water

3pm home – eat

3:20pm walk 45 minutes again

6pm Contractions pick up – more intense than yesterday. But same timing. Demanding I change positions, stand up or move. 4-5 minutes apart consistently. Fine between contractions. Ate dinner. And made sure we were packed (again).

8:30pm contractions slow and intensity remains the same. Super tired by 9:00. Took 45 minute nap, had a few contractions. Went to bed at 10.

Nov 22

6am contraction + poop wake me up. Slept great. Few intense contractions at 2-3am. But slept fine.

After two days of early labor (21st and 22nd) 8 hours per day of contractions 4-7 minutes apart)…

At 1pm intense contractions started. 3.5 minutes apart consistently, right away – much more aggressive than the past two days. (This will be the moment that people are talking about when they say you will know, but my point is that I was unsure if I knew the previous two days).

Gushes of bloody show would happen after a good one (strong one).

2:45pm not even two hours later, water broke getting in truck to head to hospital.

I was waiting for mom and sis to get to our house because we had let them know that these contractions were real and things were moving quickly. Mom arrived, saw me and said “what are we waiting for? Why aren’t we heading to the hospital?”

Mom said based on my demeanor, we needed to head to the hospital. Called my sister and told her to meet us there instead of my house. (Back story – my sister was my doula for my birth. We got her certified so I could have my mom, sister and Nate in the room due to visitor restrictions. My sister had doula-ed unofficially for two people already, given birth naturally 3 times and is legitimately interested in labor so it worked out amazing. She got her badge the week of my due date). Moving on!

To answer my mother’s question of why we weren’t going to the hospital already…

I thought it would be slower – mom and sis would come over, I’d get in the tub, and we’d progress through early and early active labor. But I had been in early labor for two days. I never got checked (because it didn’t make a difference to me – so my guess is I was 2-3cm for at least two days). Thus my early active labor was fast and furious.

No seat belt going to hospital. I’d heard how terrible it is to sit in a car and have contractions. FACTS. I sat for the beginning of my first one and then that approach can fuck all the way off and I rode on all fours hugging the head rest. Make your own decisions. I had 4 surges in the car as we live 10-12 minutes from our hospital. And still felt okay between them. So I thought, no big deal.

Held in triage for almost an hour, contractions progressed and I was feeling good.

Still no cervical check.

4:30pm Got into a room – was clearly in active labor upon arrival.

We continue with the unmedicated portion of my hospital labor in part 2 😉

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Lifting weights is the best. You know this is my philosophy – that weight lifting and movement is not a season, but something we ideally take part in until our days come to an end. Muscle mass is king, and mobility is arguably also king. We can get both of these via strength training.

BUT, there are certain ratios to be considered in traditional strength training that need to be considered for this long haul journey of slanging weights around.

Today we discuss deadlift, back squat, front squat, step up, pull ups, dips etc – how set ups and strength may be different based on anatomical structure and biases, but can help balance the body and prevent injury.

Mind you I am not a medical professional and this episode should not take the place of diagnosis or direction from a medical professional. Please consult physical therapists, chiropractors and any other medical professionals before making changes to your training.

For instance in Pure PROgramming, I give coaches options for different assessments they can independently research and use with their clients. Some require further certification and training. But would totally be within their scope if certified. Today we are discussing general standards and metrics for strength and strength balance between movements and sides of the body.

When programming for the masses (templated program) vs individual, it can be beneficial to think “balanced” + “common issues & desires” of whomever you’re programming for. Very generally speaking, that might look like:

Hinge – 2-3 (Main lift and accessory patterns)

Squat – 2 (Main lift and accessory patterns)

Push – 2 (vertical and horizontal)

Pull – 2 (vertical and horizontal)

Carry 1

**or similar ratios to these – again “balanced”

These are your areas of focus for volume of each pattern per week. Think very broad. Don’t stress, this isn’t going to make or break your progress over a decade if some programming doesn’t fall perfectly in these ratios.

So, how did I come up with that?

Well, first off…hinging (deadlift) should be stronger than squatting patterns, so potentially more focus there. And then, I’d speculate after years of training humans in person, online, in the athletic space, and gen pop, that most people are “quad dominant” and have weak posterior chains overall. Or at least a lack of awareness in the posterior chain. So hinge gets two to three points of focus, squatting gets two, and we balance out vertical and horizontal pressing and pulling. Then have at least one day of a carry variation for good measure. But would be VERY open to two or three, as there are so many options. And generally core work is needed – whether in the form of a carry or not. Remember to also think of patterns vs one exercise.

I throw in hip thrusts with hinging. Hinging is not restricted to deadlifts only. Right? WE have options my friends.

When I say “points of focus” I mean large compound movements per week. That can be unilateral or bilateral, but a compound, heavily loaded version of those patterns is being hit for “that” number per week.

Thus, you’ve identified a “balanced” program, and that’s lovely. Nothing wrong with that. It’s how I largely structured my signature Built By Annie Program. But, please feel free to think about how you could choose or create a training split that favors vertical pulling for a phase, or posterior chain work, or squatting patterns and targeting the quads, or even core work! This is all game. This is all okay!

For a females, these are what I consider to be decent strength standards from novice to advanced (based on working with and observing women over a decade from college athletics to crossfit and gen pop):

Take them with as many grains of salt as you see fit.

Advanced Women

2 x body weight back squat
1 x body weight bench
2.5 x body weight deadlift
75% body weight overhead press

Intermediate Women

1x body weight back squat
80-100% body weight bench
1.5 x body weight deadlift
60% body weight overhead press

Novice Women

<60% body weight back squat
<70% body weight bench
70-80% body weight deadlift
<50% body weight overhead press

When you couple strength standards with the ratios you “should” be able to perform for deadlift vs back squat etc, it can get murky. Don’t stress too much. That’s why I shared the generalized, broad view of need to know standards for most humans:

Humans are generally stronger pulling than they are pushing and/or in the eccentric vs concentric
Humans have a larger capacity for strength in horizontal pressing than vertical pressing
Generally speaking, reps performed at any weight on both legs should be equal, same goes for single arm overhead press and single arm row. We want to balance strength and capacity imbalances side to side.

This is how we address strength imbalances in a VERY simple way within your program design. Now, we don’t have these findings if an assessment was not given. But you can find this out in your own program design or practices.

Now we have a good idea of what it looks like to generally achieve strength balance throughout the body. That IS important for the long haul. But also remember that these numbers are not definite. We see this across athletics all the time. Some people are just made for deadlift or made for squats and their strength numbers will demonstrate that. Maybe they have a much larger gap between deads and squat numbers. Maybe it’s much closer. Not the end of the world. If squats are stronger than deads, then we likely need to work on hinging strength though.

Before choosing exercises comes order of exercises selection

The power of unilateral work for side to side discrepancies

BIG FAN. Huge fan of unilateral work, for a few reasons. I remember when Mike Boyle blew my little baby trainer brain back in 2013/14 with the generalized statement that athletes don’t need to squat bilaterally. I was team “if you can squat you should squat.” While I do still believe everyone should squat, my definition of squat is not restricted to the singular exercise of a “back squat.”

Remember PATTERNS > SINGULAR EXERCISE.

If you’ve never researched Mike Boyle, look him up. In this article Boyle references Kuruganti et al. where the bilateral deficit is described as follows, “The bilateral limb deficit (BLD) phenomenon is the difference in maximal or near maximal force generating capacity of muscles when they are contracted alone or in combination with the contralateral muscles. A deficit occurs when the summed unilateral force is greater than the bilateral force.” [36]

Basically: the sum of strength between two limbs is higher than the strength performed bilaterally. [35][36] Meaning if you train a single leg split squat to max strength, the sum of weight lifted by both legs will be higher than the max strength of a bilaterally performed back squat.

I am not making a claim for or against this, simply showing the potential for unilateral work. And looking at the possibility of unilateral strength gains carrying over into bilateral strength gains.

Unilateral training when loaded and prescribed properly may help to address or mitigate these. Either through assessment or through generalized templated programming.

Most people will have a stronger leg and arm. Might be the same, might be different. Unilateral work can sort that out pretty quickly.

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How to find or choose the right business mentor.

I was asked on IG a while back if I ever hired a business coach. The answer to that is no if we’re referring to a 1:1 biz coach.

While I prefer 1:1 for a specific service like accounting or a funnel build out, or managing a podcast, I actually prefer to learn on my own at my own pace.

I am really big on implementation of specific needs for gaps in my business. For me, that has come through multiple courses, and investing in one off services or masterclasses for guidance in a given area.

With that, I know many people prefer a 1:1 coach in various spaces, be it fitness or business, or general life coaching.

So, let’s talk about what you need in a business mentor. Because I still chose my courses and teachers based on a few key things. Things that I believe apply to also hiring a 1:1 business mentor.

Mind you I have definitely made the decision to NOT sign up with various coaches. And I think that speaks volumes as well.

These might surprise you. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But in my opinion, these are the most important factors in choosing a mentor.

Know what you need mentorship onThis is unequivocally the most important piece. It is your responsibility to be crystal clear on what exactly you need from your experience with a mentor.

Expectations are everything. And they will lead to success or disappointment. Because even if you think you have no clarity, I guarantee you have subconscious expectations. We need to bring those into the light and identify them.

That way, we know if this mentor can guide you in that or not. I remember once I began applying for a high level mastermind/1:1 hybrid and the coach actually told me via dm that she didn’t think her mentorship was what I needed. Looking back, I actually think it was, but I wasn’t as clear as I needed to be on what it was that I needed. So, that’s my bad.

Moral is, get clear on what you need. What boxes do you need to check? And can this mentor help you do that? Is that within their wheel house?

In 2022 one of my Fitspros and 1:1 biz client of over a year moved on to her new coach who could fill a different gap for her than I could. I am not passionate about building teams. Hiring coaches and assistants, for sure. But building teams is not my niche. So, she hired for THAT need.

Know your next season. Define it. Hire accordingly.

Do they run their business in a way that is appealing to you? That you want to emulate?This might be one of the most important points. Do they use the tactics, approaches, marketing, and business model that you want to build?

I know this might sound counter to my “no one size fits all approach” and “I don’t make mini me’s” in my business coaching. But also, what will you be learning from this person?

If not the same exact tactics, there is something you’re learning from them that you’ve seen in their business. Maybe it’s their schedule, or again, the model – the way they’ve built out their offer suite. There is likely some stage of their business that was or is appealing to you.

Perhaps it is as simple as their overall philosophy around entrepreneurship. That’s what it was for me when I bought courses from Hillary Rushford back in the day – she was a personal stylist, but I was really drawn to her general approach to business. It was counter to what I saw in the health and fitness industry. And definitely different to what coaches in our space were offering. There were no sales calls in her field. She went on a four month sabbatical to Europe. Nearly everything was passive. That was appealing to me. So that’s who I learned from.

I hope that paints a picture of what I mean by needing to dig their business model without needing to necessarily become a mini me or copy cat of that person or their business.

It’s looking at their approach and saying, yeah, I want a piece of that.

I think I’ve mentioned this before but as an example, I was never drawn to mom-preneurs because their life didn’t apply or appeal to me. Now that’s a different story. I have absolutely paid more attention to women who have families and run businesses. It makes a massive difference I think. And being a mom, and building a family does make one question and refine their business model, what they want from their business, and how they want life and business to look.

Now, that does not mean I have to learn from a mom. I could 100% hire a business mentor who is childless that can help me get closer to what I desire. That takes us back to #1 and knowing what exactly we NEED.

A las, is their business model appealing to you? If not, probs not the coach for you.

Do you share the same values?I would think this is a given. I am not at all saying you can’t disagree with, or have a slightly different world view than this mentor. Absolutely. But generally speaking, from a business standpoint at least, values should be aligned. Not misaligned for sure.

I say this because your values will undoubtedly come up in decision making. And their values will come up in their leadership of you through your process. So, if there is a mismatch there, it will become evident.

If they value money above all else (and this kind of piggybacks off of point 3), and you just want to build a biz that makes enough to vacation one month of the year, then that’s probably not a great fit. You get the gist of this I hope.

What is the structure and does that structure work for your learning style?Ideally you know this before applying. If you need handholding (nothing wrong with that) then the structure of their coaching needs to be VERY HIGH TOUCH, hands on. You’re expecting daily or multiple check ins per week.

If you really like learning in a group setting – seeing and hearing from others, you need to be sure that there is a group piece that is nurtured throughout the mentorship.

If you prefer 1:1 mentorship but need a schedule and structure (like taking you through step 1, step 2, step 3) vs a more free flowing month by month or week by week structure, you need to know that up front!

You might jive with a given coach. But if their coaching style or mentorship structure is not what you ultimately need then you have a decision to make – can you make it work? Or not?

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I remember saying during my internship at University of Portland to the head coach, I don’t know sports. I don’t know positions, or what people should be doing. So I questioned my ability to be a strength coach. And Bradford Scott essentially said to me that we are more so in the business of optimizing the functionality of the human body and training sports. And that resonated with me more than anything ever in my entire life.

That’s what drew me to strength and conditioning in the first place. For me, it was the human body and physiology in general. And that is what I have observed a lot of in 2022 via different sporting events. I did actually consider early in my fitness training career going into the niche of strength and conditioning for MMA athletes.

I’ve been a fan of MMA since I was 16 or 17. And there was a couple fighters locally that Nathanael used to be training partners for. That kind of brings us to the first observation that I have made. Sporting events that have changed or challenged or encouraged my view of strength and conditioning have been the UFC, watching the Olympics, and the CrossFit games. This episode is drawing some broad stroke conclusions from my observations of all of these high-performance events.

Mobility is king

I’ve mentioned this on other podcast episodes, but the Olympics had a large part in challenging my view of the spine, keeping a neutral spine, and the role that spinal mobility plays in the body‘s ability to move as a unit overall. We will expand on that idea today with mobility in general being king (in my opinion) on the movement side. Your aerobic base or fitness is the king on the fitness or conditioning side. Mobility is king of movement. We see this across the CrossFit games, certainly in the Olympics, and most definitely in MMA. Especially jujitsu or other forms of grappling.

Where someone lacks mobility, there is compensation and often injury. Having mobility through your end ranges in the ability to control it is a strength. End of story. It’s an advantage more often than not. Do not mistake this for uncontrolled flexibility. That is not what I’m talking about.

The next time the Olympics rolls around, look for mobility throughout the entire body. Look for it in discus, or javelin, or even rowing, obviously in gymnastics and other acrobatic events. But also in other extreme sports like snowboarding.

Train explosiveness

As someone who is a huge fan of programmer of tempo, we often think of tempo as slowing down movements with intent. But we can also use tempo to encourage and train explosiveness. Being able to explode, and respond to things rapidly is an element of athleticism. If you want to feel like an athlete for life, mode training explosiveness and things like reaction time will keep your name off. In addition to that mobility piece. Moving slow is important more often than not, but moving quickly is also important. And it doesn’t need to be feared.

Adding in for speed like a ladder drill to your warm-ups can be a fun way to do this. We’re intentionally using box jumps super setted with deadlifts. Even doing more jump rope. In the upper body we can use countermovement push/pull exercises on a pulley system or with bands. It doesn’t have to be plyometric push-ups. It just needs to involve speed.

We can absolutely train the adaptation of power production as opposed to force production or in addition to force production. Force production being strength, where time and speed are not a factor.

Again, this is something that I did a lot of early in my strength training. I was also Olympic lifting at that time so speed and power work was built into my programming. But over the years I nearly removed all of it from my programming with more of a strength or bodybuilding focus. So watching these events has kind of sparked the need for power and agility back into programming for myself and for my clients. Again, I think explosiveness is something that we naturally use in play as children and obviously in sports, and then it often dwindles from our forms of exercise as we age, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Bodies often do choose the sport

There is a give-and-take here. I do think that training in certain ways for certain sports does influence the physique and we take on, and often times your natural frame and musculature does choose which sports you are going to be best at. Especially when looking at elite performance. Summers are broad with long limbs and long bodies in general. There is a reason that most elite swimmers have similar builds. It’s not because they swim. It’s because they were given perform as well at swimming.

Again, I am not saying that people are 100% restricted to a sport based on their bio individuality, but I do think there is a component that can’t be ignored in many cases. And certainly, the training influences the physique. but if you were built to be a swimmer, you’re likely not going to be an Olympic shot putter. Genetically we have predispositions towards how much endurance we have, versus how much power we can produce. We know this. And I think it’s fascinating. You see this the most clear I think, in the CrossFit games. Which kind of leads me to the last observation.

The hybrid athlete is more achievable than ever

I saw this in MMA years before I was in the CrossFit world or observing the CrossFit world. Even in college, we talked about how mixed martial arts marries the demand for endurance as well as repeated power output. And that perhaps we can achieve both.

I think it’s become pretty well known in the last five years or so that the bodies ability to adapt to and retain endurance based adaptations and power based or strength based annotations depends more on the recovery and being sure enough fuel is being taken in, in order to actually get the desired adaptations at both ends of the spectrum. We now see in CrossFit said six minute miles on repeat, while also expressing very impressive maximal strength and power output in the same season. Yes, if an athlete only trained power or strength, they would likely be able to get slightly stronger and more powerful than when also trading endurance. And on the flipside if they were only training for a marathon, their strength would likely decrease and they would reach a new level of endurance. But for the most part, the hybrid of endurance and strength or power is more achievable than ever. And we see that through different Olympic sports, CrossFit, and certainly MMA.

So don’t be afraid to mix training modalities for fear that one will take away from the other.

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In many contexts, we hear that less is more. You say it in health and fitness all the times. Focusing on small daily habits that stack up rather than trying to do it all at once. In my experience I’m juggling college, internships, working full-time, and life in general to growing my business, focusing on less and choosing seasons tends to allow for the most productivity and progress. This is the basis of one of my favorite books, and some thing I require or encourage my foot screws to read. That is the book, Essentialism by Greg McKeown.

The book and the concept of the lessons more is fairly meaningless without practice and application. It requires you to define what is a priority, or essential and also, equally as important, to define what is not. You’re giving yourself permission to not do certain things, to do less. And those things might be very good, and things that you do indeed want to accomplish, but we can’t accomplish everything at one time.

In that same breath, you absolutely can accomplish more than maybe you think in one year by focusing on less in a given season. That is what today’s episode is about – how you will hopefully be able to get more of what you want done in 2023 by doing less.

This is going to be especially applicable to entrepreneurs. It’s not just for those early in business, or more mature in business. And nearly any season I have experienced so far, our endless possibilities and what we can focus on. And a never ending to do list if we aren’t careful.

We talked about goal setting for this year in a previous episode. You will hear some overlap in this episode. But we are going to start by identifying one to three goals, and work backwards from there. This is not rocket science. And this is not new. But it’s needed nonetheless. We will consciously and subconsciously always come up with more that can be done. We are very good at filling white space or a lack of clarity with busywork. Having a clear focus to refer back to you again and again can mitigate that.

So what are your one to three goals. I am going to focus on business. Feel free to apply the concepts to whatever makes sense for you.

Is it getting to a certain amount of clients? Making a certain amount of money? Focusing on the email list growth. Each of these seems simple enough, but are massive tasks in your business if you want to make significant growth in these areas. And they require strategy, and refinement as you go.

Once you determine your one to three goals, it’s important to look at if these three goals affect one another are completely separate from one another. I could see email list growth and sales or client roster growth going hand-in-hand. Essentially you are focusing in on optimizing email marketing as a nurturing and sales tactic to help you reach the goal of getting more clients or higher revenue. Maybe your approach to gaining more revenue is creating more income streams. That’s the next task that I want you to complete. Determining goals or mile markers that you would need to achieve in order to reach these 1 to 3 year long goals.

If you want to have a certain number of clients by the end of the year, you first need to recognize that this means you will achieve the goal by the end of the year, not in month one. How many points do you need to attain on a monthly or quarterly basis, whatever makes most sense for you? And what is the plan and marketing strategy for that to happen. We can’t just wish for these things to happen, or say that they are going to happen and expect them to without any strategy in place.

Same with growth on your email list. Where are the email subscribers coming from? How many do you need to gain per week or per month? And how do you plan on doing that? We want to make sure the goals in the numbers that you are choosing or feasible with the audience that you currently have to work with.

I hope you can see where if you are really going all in on these one to three goals, while also maintaining everything else that needs to be maintained in life, in business, you will be plenty occupied.

At this point, we are already a month or two into the year. How are your current goals going? What strategies and systems are being put in place in order to achieve these goals? We need to actively be pursuing these goals, as well as reviewing and refining them as needed. All of your decisions that you make in your business should be filtered through these goals.

If your goal is email list growth, and the opportunity to expand your platform onto Pinterest comes up, that’s not necessarily a distraction from your goal, it’s another opportunity to explore a way to drive traffic to your email list. That’s just one example. Sticking with the email list growth, I let go of opportunities or other projects that might distract you and think about how you can use what you already do to grow your email list. How can you create content that better educates your audience and get them to join your mailing list?

Really go all in on these goals. And I encourage you to be OK with saying this is something else I really want to do, create, or achieve but that’s a 2024 project. Or that project is contingent on me reaching one of these specific goals.

You will undoubtedly spread yourself too thin, very quickly if we are trying to grow the email list, expand onto multiple platforms, increase revenue, create new products, and do everything at one time. Now, all of those things can, and likely will improve if you focus on less. So more revenue might come as a byproduct of you reaching these other goals, or honing in on your contact creation and email list building. So all the results might actually be growth in a bunch of different areas of your business, that grows in multiple areas is more likely to come from you focusing on less areas of your business, ironically enough.

So in regards to your goals, what is most pressing, time wise? Or what is the lowest hanging fruit in your business? Maybe you’ve looked at where 80% of your income comes from, and you realize that is one of your offers. How can you optimize that offer and let go of other things? Or, maybe you determine that you would like to expand your offer suite beyond service or product that makes you your 80%. Either is right or wrong in my opinion, different business models work for different people. But you having clarity on your business model what direction you want to take your business is extremely important. So once you determine your one to three goals and some benchmarks that you need to hit along the way, then we need to strategize which is kind of what I’ve been talking about.

What approaches are you going to tackle? That could be on a quarterly basis, that could mean that you are hiring help. This will be a lot of trial and error likely. That’s not a bad thing. And I would argue it’s required if you are really focusing in on your 1 to 3 goals in optimizing those areas.

Do you need to do market research? Do you need to hire someone? Do you need to purchase a course? Do you need to invest in your business? Do you need to map out possible strategies to try throughout the year? And what will those be?

Then you’re going to review and refine on a weekly basis. And a monthly basis.

Are we hitting those benchmarks? What’s working? What’s not working? And adjust goal expectations, or strategy as you go. This is how you’ll get more done by focusing on less in 2023.

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I adore the topic of this episode. The idea of lifting technique is the literal reason I created Movement 101 in 2017 after rehabbing from a back injury that happened during squatting back in 2014-ish.

Now, I would be lying if I said that this back injury didn’t lead to me becoming a bit of a movement elitist. I’ve used this term before. And for me, it refers to this belief that one way to lift is the best way, that buffer zones are dangerous, and that pain is caused by bad movement patterns. It’s an aggressive and quite frankly tainted viewpoint. Which makes sense, because for me, it was formed in light of a pretty daunting injury.

This becomes a dangerous view because, one, it’s based in fear. It also doesn’t take into account bio individuality of the person who is performing the lifts. And it denies the truth that we can have perfect form and experience pain. And we can also have poor form and not experience pain. These things are not always dependent on one another. Lifting technique is not that black-and-white. So in today’s episode we are going to focus on some key principles that are very important within lifting technique and why they are important. Because there are certainly principles based in bio mechanics that are objective truths.

There are also pieces to training movement technique that lead to positive byproducts. And lifting technique is equally as important for those results.

While becoming a movement elitist is often based around fear or black-and-white thinking, there is definitely truth to the fact that positive lifting technique, or quality lifting technique does have a large safety component to it.

The safety that comes from quality lifting technique is often based in efficiency. We want to generally move the body in the most efficient way possible, or the most mechanically advantageous way possible. Meaning that we are getting the most out of our movement patterns in the safest way that we can. And that’s really what lifting technique does.

It builds quality movement patterns. As a little caveat, I have had a conversation with one of my Physical Therapy friends and movement technique is important, but movement variety is also important. Because by drilling the same exact movement patterns over and over again, underload, for years or decades, we can actually end up limiting ourselves, and causing overuse injuries. That’s some thing that has come up for me personally in my training while I was pregnant. Before I was pregnant I started following the a TG program, and then during my pregnancy I transitioned into following the MamaSteFit prenatal program. And both of these exposed planes of movement and different types of rotation, or just different movement patterns that I had clearly neglected through programming for myself for almost 10 years. I say that because often times I think that when we talk about movement technique we veer towards the big lifts or the big movement patterns of squat, hinge, push, pull and carry. But all movement has technique involved, and quality technique is important for proficiency.

You’ve likely heard me talk about proficiency on other episodes in regard to building both larger muscle cells, and hypertrophy, as well as overall strength.

Having quality lifting technique and building repeatable neural pathways from your nervous system to the motor units that you are recruiting within each muscle fiber is going to be beneficial for putting on muscle and building strength. Strength is a skill, movement patterns are a skill, which is why having good lifting technique is going to be beneficial to you. From a safety standpoint, and from a muscle building or strength building standpoint.

Often times as the coaches and doctors at active life Rx would say, injuries don’t always come from poor technique, more often than not they come from load exceeding capacity. You did too much for what your body could handle. Perhaps, yes, that involved a rep or two with poor technique. But the poor technique was a result of too high of a load for your capacity. I’m not saying that always happens, but I do think that’s pretty common.

So load is a factor that is very important within the conversation of movement technique. We want to keep quality technique as we increase the load. That would be the safety component of this, as well as the efficiency that we’ve been talking about.

Some thing that is driven home inside my movement one oh one resource is the fact that we want to build quality movement patterns, technique, and awareness and then we can add load on top of those. But the priority is quality movement patterns, and becoming efficient and proficient in those, then adding the load. We should not be distracted by the load if we have not yet mastered the basic technique.

So what is quality technique?Generally speaking, these are those principles that I mentioned in the beginning of the episode. Understanding foot contact with the floor, and spreading the toes pressing the whole foot into the floor, creating tension in the foot. Understanding how to find a neutral spine and brace in that position as well as learning how to brace in non-neutral positions. Because this will depend on the movement that you are performing. And we don’t want to become so rigid in the spine in a neutral position that we lose mobility and ability to brace 2° to 15° outside of that neutral position.

Generally understanding that mobility is going to be a big factor in most movement techniques. If you like the mobility to even get into the proper position you are going to compensate somewhere else.

For most barbell exercises or dumbbell exercises, the weight is going to want to be close to the midline for efficiency. Or over the center of the foot in the squat for instance. That might lead to a very different looking squat depending on someone’s limb ratios. Same goes for dead lift. Focus on the overall position, bar path, and where tension is being created, versus if a persons chest is at exactly 45° in a squat, or whether their shoulders are exactly an inch over the bar in the set up for a dead lift. That’s that bio individuality piece that can get lost with movement elitism.

A lack of quality movement technique isn’t probably going to make or break someone’s gains in the beginning, but overtime, as we add load, and that load likely exceeds someone’s capacity, the risk of injury definitely increases in my opinion.

So, for me, movement technique in general matters quite a bit. But is less black-and-white then maybe I used to consider it. It’s going to be the basis that someone builds their training adaptations on top of. And focusing on it has many benefits. When an athlete focuses on their weight training in a skill building manner, I think that it builds a lot more efficacy with their training. It feels good to have to put less effort into a movement pattern, or to feel more natural, or proficient with a given movement. That’s all gaining a skill is, and each lift within weightlifting, is a skill. Strength is an additional skill on top of that movement technique.

So in focusing on movement technique, we can form these foundations within training. Different levels of skills that can be built overtime, and then refined over time. Because bodies do change, and preferences change. But I guarantee if someone starts lifting and moving all willy-nilly, at some point they are going to have to revert back to reviewing, and rebuilding movement technique. So we can’t deny its importance. Especially in the long haul.

Again, that’s why the tagline for Movement 101 since 2017 has been move well, get strong. That is an essence my belief about movement technique.

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To keep one Instagram account or split it?

I could answer this question in one to two sentences so I assume this will be a shorter episode. But one I can refer people to over time becaaaauuussse….

This is one of the most common questions that I get, specifically in regards to Instagram. Often times people have a personal Instagram account to begin with and then they transition into wanting to build a brand or business, and it’s only normal to wonder if you should start a separate account, or keep your personal account as you transition into that business.

I can’t give you a finite answer. Because with most things it depends. But more often than not I lean towards keeping one account. If you really feel that your personal account has nothing to do with your business, and you aren’t going to continue growing your personal account, then you can totally start a business account and go all in with that. Letting your personal account know that if people would like to follow you for whatever it is you’re Brand is going to be they can go follow the new account. That’s certainly one approach that you can take.

I find that most people created a personal account that is still mostly in line with their brand. So keeping it as one makes sense.

I am for one platform as long as you can:

Managing two social media accounts consistently is a massive task. It’s hard enough to be consistent with just one, which is why I really encourage people to keep it as one as long as you possibly can.

When splitting your Instagram account makes sense:Splitting makes the most sense to me when you are in fact going to post a lot more personal stuff on your personal page than what you would like to post on your brand’s page. You saw me do this with me Meandering Miller’s during our world travels. I would still post about the world travels on my business page, but I wanted a place where I could really dump all of the travel experiences and more life based stuff that was not specific to my business.

You see people often times do this once they start a family or maybe they want to post about their kids a lot more on their personal page, so they create a page specific to that. Versus sharing all of that on their business page. And this really does encapsulate the nuance and give and take that is building a personal brand. The personal part of a personal brand is actually far less than what people think. Building a personal brand does not mean that your entire life needs to be on the Internet. It simply means that you are the face of the business, and people need to feel that they can relate to you. The barrier for that is actually quite low. And boundaries can be very helpful with this process.

Having two separate accounts can definitely be one of those boundaries. And you don’t need to link your personal account to your business account if you don’t want to. Depending on what it’s named, it may still be very easy for people to find. I know this sounds a bit all over the place, but these are very personal decisions.

I find that there is commonly resistance with people wanting to share or be vulnerable on the internet. And again I think there’s a misconception with what needs to be shared in order to establish a relatable personal brand. It’s much more about you being yourself than it is about sharing pieces of your life that you don’t see a need to share for your business. My boundaries have gotten stricter and stricter with this as I have grown, and I don’t even have a massive audience. So if that is you, please know the power of building a personal brand. And that you can’t be a robot and do it successfully.

The power of a personal brandThere are things that make you view, and that is why people will work with you. Absolutely, your business needs to solve a problem, and clearly communicate what it is you do and how you help people. But if people don’t connect to you or have an emotional response of any kind, be it humor, joy, or some thing a bit more serious in response to your content and how you show up on social media, something needs to change.

Rather than sharing your children online, or really anything about your personal life, you can share other general relatable scenarios. You can still relate to people in the drop off line at school, without revealing your children. You can still share your morning cup of coffee or routine, without showing your entire house. Don’t let the excuse of boundaries stop you from connecting to your audience. We still need your personality, and perspective on things in order for people to connect and relate with you. To value what you have to say. If people feel like they don’t know the human behind the business at all, again, I will repeat myself – then we are not going to build a successful personal brand. Share the hobbies that you like to do, share a little quirks about yourself, share some thing that you were working on personally.

I know that that veered off from whether or not you should split your personal and business account, but really, in conclusion if you are building out a team and you want a specific page for your business where different coaches can post and that would be a time to split and create an actual business page but still keep your own as a business account as well. More often than not a vote keeping them the same, and more so spending time determining what pieces of your personal life you are going to post via your personal brand, and which ones aren’t going to make it to the gram.

The last scenario is if you’ve built a massive audience on your personal page that has literally nothing to do with your business, then it probably won’t behoove you to post about your business on that page because that’s not likely why you’ve built the large audience. If it is aligned then that’s amazing and now you have a huge lead pool to pull from who are already interested in what you were doing before you started your business. I hope that wasn’t too all over the place, and provided some level of perspective and things to think about if you were considering splitting your personal account and your brand account. If you can keep them as one I would.

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This is something that we go over extensively inside at the loading portion of a Pure PROgramming. But I think that it’s a really simple and effective conversation to have for trainees who are just following a program as well as a topic to revisit if you are a coach. It’s very easy to get married to one approach and forget that these other options exist. And that one of these might make sense for one of your clients or even one portion of a program; where another loading method might work better for another portion of the same lift that you are prescribing or that you are doing yourself. So maybe for the main lift percentages makes sense, and then for most of the accessory work reps in reserve makes the most sense. Things like experience come in to play, and training age.

So today we are going to dive into all of that. We will go over reps and reserve, rate of perceived exertion, Amrap‘s, percentages, and the rule of two. All of these are simply methods that we can use to prescribe a load or how much weight someone is lifting for a given exercise. That’s all these are.

My hope would be that you have a pretty good idea of which one to use when when you’re either choosing load for yourself or a client.

RPE and RIRI actually became a familiarized with rate of perceived exertion, or RPE through conditioning, versus weightlifting. But it can be applied to nearly any type of exercise where intensity is a factor.

There are two different versions one where it is a scale of 1 to 20, and a more commonly used adaptive version which is a 1 to 10 scale. One being no effort at all, and 10 being maximal effort. Generally speaking in training where we are pushing our muscles and attempting to elicit strength or growth, the RPE is going to be above seven. It’s going to be a challenging load.

No another loading method is kind of the yang to the yang of our PE. And that is RIR, or reps in reserve.

I definitely came to know this in my college lifting days. But we referred to it as “go until you have one to two reps left in the tank.”

From a programming standpoint, you might give a range of reps that you want them to hit, like 8 to 12 reps, or 6 to 8 reps. With a weight that is a two reps in reserve. So if they hit eight reps and they feel like they could do three more, the weight needed to be heavier if that makes sense.

It’s literally just working on fatigue, you might just say perform reps until one to two RIR. I might use this on an exercise like push-ups, or strict dips, or pull ups. some thing where I know the number of reps they’re going to be able to perform is within the range that I want them to be hitting. For instance I would never just say one rep in reserve for bodyweight walking lunges for my clientele. They would be doing walking lunges for 30 minutes. Which likely does not fit their goals or the goals of my programming. And that’s why it’s so important to know the goal of your programming or a given exercise prescription, because we want to choose the best loading method for that.

You can think of reps in reserve as the opposite of RPE. So, 10 RP would be zero reps in reserve, 9RPE would be one rep in reserve, so on and so forth. Now inside a Pure PROgramming I have these charts all lined up next to one another, and I prefer ranges then definite numbers. That’s just because how many reps somebody has left in the tank is going to depend day today at a given load. That’s why the next method is not always my favorite. And that will be percentages.

A nice little transition is to talk about training age when choosing between rate of perceived exertion, and percentages. You could argue either way, but if someone has never trained before, or may have a skewed perception of their own exertion, RPE is not always the best loading method for a new lifter. Have they ever gone to failure? Do they know what a 10 RPE feels like? Do they know what zero reps in reserve feels like? Because that’s the only way they’re going to know what one rep in reserve feels like, or two reps in reserve. Or an RPE of 8 to 10. I do have an inkling that many people are not working at true RPE is when they see an RPE in programming. They probably have more like 4-5 reps left in the tank.

So let’s get into another method which was likely, and maybe still is the most popular load method of all time. Again, that is using percentages of a one rep max.

PercentagesPercentages make a whole lot of sense for big lifts like squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, variations of these exercises, even hip thrusts, or Romanian deadlifts. Think big compound movements. You can even apply this to someone who can do a weighted pull up. So if there one rep max with a weighted pull up is 20 pounds, then you could use percentages to prescribe lower working sets.

You can also use percentages that aren’t based on a one rep max. So don’t be afraid to combine these methods. I will often use RPE for working sets of a lift, and then use percentages for back offsets. I’ve talked about this another podcast before. So maybe they perform three sets of three at an RP of nine, and then they do two sets of eight back off sets at 70% of whatever weight they used for the 3 x 3.

Percentages can also be determined from a three or five at max. And I might put the equation in the show notes, but you can look it up. It’s readily available through any personal training certification likely. I do think percentages can be great for a lifter at any training age. I think they have application for a new lift or finding a three rep max, as well as an extremely experienced and advanced lifter working strictly on percentages of their one rep max.

The con that I see with percentages is that it doesn’t take into consideration daily energy and stress fluctuations. I do think that sometimes we lose a bit of the grit and the drive and the challenge when we change up training exclusively on the energy that we have. More often than not your body will show up and perform regardless of these factors. And that’s really fun to see for my clients anyway. But it is a real factor, and some weeks whatever weight is scheduled for 85% effort might feel like 97% effort. Or a weight that is scheduled for 85% might feel like 75% effort and you could push harder that day. This awareness comes with training age, and If an athlete can push one day I want them to take advantage of that, and if an athlete needs to back off one day because a given percentage is just not accurate to their output, I want them to be able to adjust that and not feel shitty about it. So it’s just some thing to note.

The next option is actually a fan freaking tastic option for new lifters. I think that it has less risk than maximal load testing. And it’s actually the opposite of maxima load of testing. So you’re going to essentially find what their capacity is at a given load, what volume they can perform, and then work backwards to prescribe they’re working so it loads. This also gives lifters a really good idea of what zero reps in reserves feels like. If you’ve never used this I highly suggest it. I was first exposed to using this methodology in this manner by Dr. Jacob Harden at his prehab 101 seminar in Canada.

AMRAPSThis is a bit of a guessing game, but with somebody that has a very young training age, we need to communicate that finding a load for a given volume is going to be a guessing game at first. You’ve got to use trial and error to find what you were a different threshold‘s are for different reps and sets. And that’s OK that’s not a bad thing.

So the athlete is going to choose a weight that they think they can perform for 10 to 12 reps and then they’re going to perform as many reps as they can until complete failure. The complete failure needs to be with proper form. So they need to keep form sound, and go until their muscles actually stop moving the weight. But we are not sacrificing form.

Often times an athlete will end up performing closer to 20 reps or more. Again, I really like this because it gives that athlete a feeling of actual failure. And they are only doing this for one set. So they are not going to failure more than once on each exercise.

This is how they will then determine their working set loads. Again I go into deeper detail inside my Pure PROgramming course as far as choosing a load based on how many reps they performed. But if they performed only 10 reps, then obviously they would need to use a lower load for their working sets. Whereas if they performed 20, then a weight close to what they used or a little bit heavier would probably work for their working sets depending on what the volume was.

Even with an intermediate or advanced lifter, I think that using AMRAPS is just a really fun and low risk way of loading for the athlete. So I thought I would throw it out there. I think it’s used far less commonly than some of these other methods. So take it for what it’s worth.

Rule of twoThe last method is the rule of two. This is very trial and error-based. But it’s some thing that I teach all of my clients inside built by Annie. And that is that they should be struggling on those last two reps, they should have roughly 2 reps in reserve on most exercises generally speaking, and if they can’t finish their last two reps they need to lower the weight and re-perform those sets. So it’s just a general rule of two. It’s some thing that I’ve used for over a decade and it seems to work for most people. Especially when they are in a younger training age or learning what loads makes sense for them.

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If you missed part 1 you really do need to listen to it. Context is vital for this mini series. So please pause this, go listen to part 1, and then meet us back here for part 2.

Let’s jump right in to the continuation of my many, many lessons gleaned from my willing, but disappointing $80k loss.

As stated in part 1, we started ads to the free on demand workshop, which upsold with a 24 hour buying cycle to my FitsPRO foundations course priced at $1,894.00

It became clear after four months that people needed a longer buying cycle before they were going to go from cold audience to paying me nearly $2,000.00.

It sounded very obvious to me when a mentor said this to me after I shared my data and experience up to this point. Like duh, why would someone who’s never heard of me before, watch a free workshop, and trust me enough in that 45 minutes to fork over 2k? They wouldn’t.

This made me question the agency as well. Like shouldn’t they have known or seen that? No? I don’t know.

There is so much context here. I am one of MANY. I have friends who this works for but they are LITERALLY the only person who offers what they offer. They fill a serious gaping hole in an industry. FB is riddled with business coaches who coach coaches. To a cold audience, why am I any different? You know? So, perspective and context matters there. Saturation of an industry does really play a part.

If you’re like, well Annie maybe it was your funnel, trust me, we thought of that, but…

Just because funnel performs well with a warm audience, does NOT mean it will perform well with a cold audience. Cold audiences are a completely different ball game than warm audiences.

Because they were making me no money – the two total sales that came in that first 4 months would remain the only 2 of 3 sales that every came from a FB person. I downgraded to driving ads to my ideal client avatar download.

Looking back, I should have just cut the cord then. Not because the ads weren’t working but because there was a clear disconnect with this agency and my approach to business.

With that, I was committed for a year. If I quit then, I’d still be left with the “what if I would have tried driving traffic to a freebie instead of the workshop?” So, we pressed on with our new approach and updated funnel.

I went on to update and lengthen the funnel two more times as no one was converting. Including a complete overhaul, new bonuses, a brand new low level offer, and rebuild of the funnel itself. When I say I exhausted my options and committed to the process, I am for real.

The list WAS growing. That’s where my next mistake came into play.

Testing or gathering more information from the leads being brought in should have happened WAY SOONER.

I didn’t know this was needed but boy did I find out that the leads they were bringing in through their targeting just weren’t even qualified leads. Not from the research I gathered in my last week of working with the agency.

In the last week of working with them, I dropped a new super low end offer and compared purchases from my warm audience and the list I’d built from FB ads. Of course I’d expect my warm audience to buy at a higher rate, but not a SINGLE, I repeat not a single prospect from that FB list purchased.

On top of that, I dropped another exclusive opportunity to buy fitsPRO. If it performed well, even a 1% conversion, that would have been solid data and an indication of what might need to happen with my longer funnel down the road. No bites. Not a single FB ads prospect purchased.

This data made my decision to quit very black and white. It was clear to me what needed to happen. It would have been a different story if the leads being brought in were buying even six months down the road, but fact remained, they weren’t. So I gathered more data after the promo drops because I had a list of over 6,000 leads and knew near to nothing about them. What a waste on my end.

I should have gathered information via an intake of some kind IMMEDIATELY. Which has lead to me gathering said information when people purchase from me. You heard about those intake questions in a recent episode. They’re a game changer. And something I am very grateful to have implemented due to this experience.

And in addition to that, I should have been WAYYYYYY more curious and in the process about who exactly they were targeting with ads. My ads might have been their best performing – meaning highest opt in rates, but if the people weren’t real potential buyers, the leads are of no value, right? My bad there. Again I pretty much had this back and forth in my mind through the entire experience – I am paying for THEM TO DO EVERYTHING. So, shouldn’t I just trust them to do their job, they know more than me. And then this ever-constant questioning in the back of my mind about the approach and how I would do things differently.

That leads me to how I would actually use ads in the future if I were to entertain this venture again:

Ads are for list building (for me, if I ever do them again) or hitting your warm audience during a push / launch

I found through the list survey that I sent out that 50% people had actually downloaded my ideal client avatar from an ad, but they had already been organically following me on instagram for at least 3 months before that.

Thus – the most sensible use of ads would be to target my WARM audience (people who already follow me or are on my ConvertKit mailing list) during a push or launch period. Essentially a retargeting approach vs a cold audience approach. Something you’d think the agency would have suggested at some point, but never did.

There is a legit use there on a much smaller budget and demand. I think this could be a far more beneficial approach and something I am very willing try in the future. More of a sprint, limited time promo approach to warm audience vs a constant marketing to cold audiences.

Other honorable mentions are:

The IOS update was real and definitely effected my ads and the ads of colleagues I spoke to. Less tracking ability makes targeting the right people harder.
I knew what ads I’d seen and purchased from as a consumer and should have been far more voicetrious about trying those vs letting the experts do their thing (which goes back to my very first point in part 1).

The list truly goes on. There are endless lessons in this experience for me that I will 100% take into the future.

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This will undoubtedly be a two part series. Because I am unpacking a year long experience that I think has unending golden nuggets for all of you even if you never take this particular approach to your business.

This is the story of me going all in with Facebook Ads for a year. Between the ads and the agency fee for the agency I worked with, I paid over $80,000.00 and they made me a grand total of $6,000.00 – that’s me being generous. I can only confirm $4,000.00 but regardless. It was a clear loss.

Now, I will not be mentioning the agency. That’s here nor there. They certainly had their faults, but today is about MY LESSONS, TAKEAWAYS and most importantly WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM THEM.

Much context is needed, so let’s dive in and lay down a clear background.

In January 2021 I launched my free on demand workshop, Your Biz Your Way – 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness business. It was a massive hit.

Massive hit being the profitability of the workshop’s 24 hour fast action bonuses driving workshop attendees to buy my FitsPRO Foundations Course.

I hit my revenue and enrollment goals easily for the first half of the year, then it was clear I needed to venture into paid traffic – or so I thought.

The woman who built my funnel was amazing. She saw my numbers after month one and said I was ready for ads right away. But the first month of anything is deceiving right? We see real, more indicative trends over time.

So in June 2021 I set up a call with a Facebook ads agency that a friend and colleague of mine had used and was recommended by more than one person. The context of why this agency had been successful for these people became much clearer after a year of lessons.

I seemed to be their ideal client and we began Facebook ads in September 2021.

Why did I do ads? And what approach did we take?

The reason and driving factor for pursuing ads was to create SPACE. I needed time and space to create Pure PROgramming and set up some other back end things I had planned for 2022 and beyond. I needed to be done with live launching. That was my driver.
I was willing to lose all the money in order to definitively say this did or didn’t work. I needed this particular “what if” off the table one way or the other.

Let me tell you it is now off the table for a very good while.

The agency handled EVERYTHING – I chose the completely done for you package – because again, I needed that. But this was ultimately a mistake.
We targeting cold traffic most of the time. That was the plan. And this is VERY IMPORTANT to note and remember as I unpack all of my lessons.
I generally prefer working with ONE HUMAN than a team or agency

This is a very general lesson that I have learned from two clear cut experiences now in growing my business. I worked with a tax agency that I highly disliked, and now this. Perhaps it’s a me thing. I don’t deny that. But also I do think I just prefer a 1:1 interpersonal relationship, even if it IS with someone on a team or within an agency. I want a go to person and open communication. That’s something that is unequivocally needed for me and the way my brain functions. I need education, to be a part of the process, and to understand things via information to feel safe and informed. This has become undeniable to me through these particular experiences.

Knowing this about yourself is vital as a biz owner. And it may have to come through some less than ideal experiences. But good news is, it’s data to help you move forward and make more aligned decisions.

In hiring an “expert” in something, I need to keep one hand on the steering wheel. I need to keep MY VISION clear and be more forward with questions rather than “trusting them because they’re the expert”

In fact, fun story – it felt very much so like this agency and creative team was trying to fit me and my brand into their box or system and it wasn’t working. Finally (way too long later), I asked why we weren’t doing more face to camera video vs static graphics. They gave me a reason so I took it – again, I know nothing about ads. I didn’t know what questions to ask or how hard to push.

Side note – I’d shown some of the creatives made by the team to a few friends and colleagues of mine and the feedback was clear – it wasn’t me, it wasn’t my brand. Again this was a lesson for ME. For someone who trusts their gut and takes pride in doing so, I really dropped the ball on this one.

Colleagues made comments like “you look like every other business coach and you’re not” “where is the ‘Annie’ factor in this?” “would you create that piece of content?” It was clear there was a misalignment. But the team was using MY brand photos, so in my mind, it was “my brand” and I was letting the experts do their job! I didn’t know what performed well in a Facebook ad? How was I supposed to provide feedback? But I totally felt and valued the comments from colleagues. I had only ever done organic marketing. And frankly, I do it quite well. There is some truth to the fact that what works for organic marketing may not be best for cold paid traffic. We’ll get to that a bit later.

Then when they asked for a creative one week I just said “can I also send a face to camera video and we can compare that performance to the static image?”

I kid you not – my face to camera video became the agencies best performing ad PERIOD. Across all clients, in all fields. Not to toot my own horn but I wasn’t surprised by that. It’s what I do and it’s why people enjoy learning from me. It’s how I attract my ideal clients if you will. (This was also at the point that I had downgraded from paying them to run traffic to my workshop to paying to run traffic to building a mailing list instead because they weren’t making me any money). We’ll cover those specifics in part 2.

So, from that point on we did face to camera more reel and story style ads and the performance went through the roof. At that point I was like…why am I paying you? But I was paying them to run the ads, choose the audiences, and do everything I had no clue how to do. WHICH WAS EVERYTHING.

I was desperate for growth and space, but really should have taken a “done with you” approach to ads rather than a done for you. Because I was way too in the dark and didn’t know how to navigate that experience. Lots of wasted time and money because of that.

Even if hiring an expert, you HAVE to have a clear vision and idea of how you want that expert to perform ON BEHALF OF YOUR BRAND. Do way more research and due diligence than I did. Please.

People buy because of ME – I am a true “personal brand” and that became extremely clear to me
A better approach seems to be focusing on getting my organic content and appearance in front of more people. Not via “paid” content, but paying people to help me do more organically.

Back in August or September 2021 a mentor and colleague of mine advised against Facebook Ads for my brand in particular. He was not wrong. But like him, I was going to learn the hard way. I needed to take this option off the table with a clear win or a clear loss. It was a clear loss for me. But a loss I was willing to take for a definitive answer.

He said to me “people buy because of YOU – you have a true a personal brand and people need to build trust with you, so a PR agency or hiring people to get you on more than one platform seems like a better idea.”

At that point I’d never even considered or really heard of that. But boy does it make sense in hindsight!

The same week I cancelled with the Facebook ads agency I was working with, I got an email from an extremely well known media agency inquiring to represent me and my brand. I can’t say at the recording time of this podcast if that worked out or not, but I am sure I will keep you updated in real time. It felt like a sign to me – a confirmation of types, even if I didn’t decide to work with this Media team.

To conclude, after the ads it was clear that I had lost a bit of vision for my business. I depended on the ads working and just wanted to let go and breath while they worked in the background. That’s not how ads work, even when they’re successful. That was a very clear mistake of my own and a lesson I will take into whatever new venture I approach for growing my business and audience.

Stay tuned for part two where I will be discussing the specifics of downgrading with the agency halfway through the year, marketing to a warm audience vs cold audience, the ads approach I would personally take in the future based on what I learned here and more.

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If you followed me for any amount of time, it’s probably not news to you that I love planning and reflection. They both tend to keep me moving towards an actual goal versus letting life happen to you. They give us intention. Planning without reflection can be pretty useless for most people. So know that everything we talk about today assumes that you will revisit your goal and process on a weekly basis throughout the year. I use Hilary Rushford elegance excellence goals journal in order to do this as well as my day designer daily planner. I’ve used both of these for almost 5 years now and swear by both of them. They may work for you, or they may not, but I encourage you to find some thing that does.

When I talk about having success in 2023, I am referring to both personal and career-based success. Whatever that looks like for you. From an entrepreneurial standpoint I have a bias towards your business serving your life. And setting it up in a way that makes the life you want cohesive with the business that you want.

That’s what I deem as successful. That might involve a revenue number at your job, or a certain amount of clients, or the creation of a new product that you’ve been dreaming of. Ideally those goals are so that you can travel more, spend more time with your family, do more spontaneous things, or have more time to do more hobbies that you enjoy.

So let’s go ahead and talk about step one, which is of course reflecting on last year. I think in order to determine what you want out of 2023, it’s worth looking at what went well and what didn’t go well in 2022. And then of course providing context to that. The start of my 2022 and all the goals that I had nearly all went to the wayside when I found out I was pregnant before we were even done with quarter one of the year. So no I did miss the opportunity for some of those goals,I don’t consider it a failure that I didn’t do much of what I set out to do in 2022 because life quite literally took on a whole new direction. My focus changed, and there were simply different demands on the table.

Assessing last year and gaps

If you had goals in 2022, be it personal or business based, how did those go? What months were your high months, and what months were your low months? And why was that? What did you find went really really well, and what continued to get pushed to the back burner? Even though maybe you wanted it to be a priority.

Did you rest more? Read more? Go on small adventures more? Did you start investing? Move? Did you start a new career? Provide some context and seasons to your last year.

This is what I believe will really set you up for success in your goal planning for 2023. We can make better decisions moving forward when we know what happened in the past, how we behaved, and why that was the case. That gives us context as to what is realistic moving forward.

Planning your goals

A common mistake that I have fallen into myself, and watch other people fall into every year is choosing way too many goals to accomplish. I see no issue with making a huge list of things that you would like to accomplish, but then categorizing them or looking at if-than type of goals. If you achieve this goal than likely these other three goals get achieved along the way. If that makes sense.

For example, some thing that is still on the table for Nathanael and I is the goal of being location independent. For us that means living in our home for the majority of the year but may be traveling for three months of the year. This has become much more of a perhaps then a definitive goal with the pregnancy and just experiencing life with the new baby. But other goals that I have financially and with my business or what will allow the goal of location independence to become a reality if we want it to be. So that goal is contingent on other goals happening.

It’s true that you will be far more successful in achieving your goal if your focus is not being pulled in seven other directions. It also makes it easier to remain focused on that one goal if you are constantly working towards it throughout the year. So I really do encourage 2 to 3 big goals at most. That doesn’t mean the other goals can’t be on the table, but those other goals need to be kind of subsets of the big ones.

Otherwise you will undoubtedly have to let some of those goals go during the year. Better to trim the fat before hand. It’s OK if a girl needs to wait for 2024 or 2025 and beyond. Please remember that I started working on and dreaming up my Pure PROgramming course in 2018. It did not come to fruition until January 2022.

That brings us to the next point of making sure that your goals are in alignment with your wife. I never want people to make goals without being aware of why they want to achieve that thing. What they think it will bring them. Whether that be with fitness, business, or life and relationally. So for each goal that you write down for 2023, be sure to write down next to it why you want to achieve that. What’s the reasoning behind that desire?

Alignment

Within alignment, think about if this goal makes sense for this season of your life. Take my pregnancy and the newborn phase for example. You will have a season of life coming in 2023. What is that season, and does the goal make sense? You would ask that for each one of the goals. For instance one of my goals was investing. But that got pushed to the side when we actually needed cash in the bank for our build because of our situation and me being the breadwinner and self-employed. So that investment goal didn’t match the season of life that we were approaching, even though that does still remain A top future goal. It’s simply gets pushed to 2023 rather than 2022. That goal you could say was contingent on us closing on the house and getting settled in with our finances there.

If you want to travel more, or take small adventures, why is that important to you? What does that bring your life? Why is it a priority? If you want a certain number of clients, what does that look like for the time demand of your business, and why do you want that? Why is that important to you?

Avoid goals without context or a plan

My favorite example for this is when people make revenue goals but then can’t lay out how that revenue goal is going to happen. Manifestation is not my favorite word. Because from my experience of hearing manifestation coaches talk about it, it lacks an actual plan. You could say that I gravitate more towards spreadsheets. If someone wants to make $10,000 a month my question would be how is that going to happen? And again, what does that time demand look like? What is it going to take to get there? And creating an actual plan for that.

With that, yes there is absolutely truth to claiming a goal and writing it down before you have a plan of how it’s going to happen. I am team entertain the dream and then figure out the how.

Personal and business

When I say personal and business, this spans such a huge spectrum of possible goals. No goal is too small to be on your big list. Maybe you want to take one Friday per month off, or maybe you want to stop working at a certain time, or maybe you want to dedicate Saturdays to your online business. I don’t know what your situation is but I consider these schedules goals as well. And they can make a massive difference in how you experience your year.

If your goal around your business is to hit a certain number of clients or to grow your email list or Instagram following to a certain number, be sure that there is a plan in place for those to happen. And then look at what that means for your life outside of business.

Back to the schedule situation, it makes sense that if you want more small adventures that taking one Friday per a month fully off would allow you a time to plan your adventure. Looking at how your business in life can work together is a fabulous way to plan your goals in my opinion.

And then be sure to remember that we often think we can get a lot more done in a short period of time and we underestimate what we can accomplish in a longer period of time.

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Truthfully I think pregnancy and witnessing my body as it goes through a pretty intense transformation as brought up more reflection on seasons I’ve experienced and pursued in the past. And that has me thinking more about things like physique and the scale than maybe I normally would.

So, while I don’t sell physique changes or weight loss, I do think topics like progress photos, the scale and metabolism are very relevant even outside of weight loss or aesthetic goals. Let’s discuss.

Pro progress photos and seasonsTaking progress photos can help you learn how to pose, better seeing and documenting the work you’ve put In. Even in seasons were I had no aesthetic goals, only performance goals (which is most seasons for me), I have taken progress photos. I enjoy seeing the physical changes that happen – the adaptations that take place from training. I am in the business of muscle, and muscle changes over time based on the stimulus we provide.

Learning how to pose, how to make the most of your gains is fun in my opinion. It’s not that these even get posted or shared with anyone. I literally just take them for my own reflection because I enjoy looking back on seasons, whatever they may have been.

Now if you tend to pick yourself apart or have a negative past with taking progress photos or tracking your physique, perhaps you don’t document via progress photos. That’s certainly not what I would want for anyone.

As I said, for me, this comes from a place of curiosity and gratitude. No value or often even a goal is tied to these.

There are seasons I wish I would’ve documented my physique more and now I have no photos to look back on for those periods. It doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. It would simply be nice to have them in my timeline.

So if you do or don’t take progress photos, take what will from this section of the episode. Play around with them, have fun, learn how to pose and then glean a whole new appreciation for people who can because it’s not easy.

The scale, metabolism, and weight liftingI personally use the scale as an objective tool. When tracking macros or through parts of pregnancy, I weigh daily so that I can see weekly averages and the over trend vs one weight per week – which could be a deceivingly high or low day.

If you’re wanting to weigh yourself whether you’re gaining, maintaining or losing weight, remember that scale is a measure of WEIGHT, not fat to muscle ratio. Getting your body fat tested may be mores what you’re looking for.

I really enjoy factors like how clothing fits, or progress photos (how your musculature and shape is changing) vs weight.

As far as metabolism goes, I don’t claim to be an expert, but I do know that more and more research is coming out myth busting the inherent decrease in metabolism with age theory.

I think it’s worth looking at what other factors might be happening with higher age – not blaming metabolism or age but acknowledging changes WITH AGE – less movement, shittier diet?, higher stress?

We know that increasing muscle mass is a way to increase our caloric need and our overall thermic effect. Meaning muscle is more metabolically active and demanding that fat tissue is. Muscle is beneficial for metabolic functions as well as immune function. So, looking at ways we can increase muscle is great but also, not counting on muscle to increase metabolism by 100%.

We want to look at increasing TDEE – more walks, better circulation, more movement through your day in general. This might be the way to the feelings you associate with a faster metabolism. Leave age out of it, lift weights, walk, move and see how you feel?

My fav personal supplementsFirst off let’s be clear that supplements will not win over a shit diet and sleep. This should be clear at this point in 2022. But they can make your life easier. That’s what they do for me personally. They provide ease, and enhance what’s already happening.

For me, my go to regular, mostly daily supplements are:

Whey protein (20g), creatine (5g), pre-workout, magnesium before bed.

We can kickstart muscle protein synthesis by using our muscles, weight lifting, and eating dietary protein. Most people are not eating enough protein to match their goals of wanting to build strength, muscle or improve their physique. High quality protein supplements can help with that.

Creatine is created naturally in the body. It is what helps us create more ATP which is what helps our muscles contract. When we break down ATP it becomes ADP and Creatine provides a phosphate to ADP to make it ATP again, in order to be used for more muscle contractions. We can work harder for longer. Go team.

Pre workout is sparing for me but I do 100% notice less fatigue when I take it – even the non-stim one. For me its the beta-alanine.

And then magnesium before bed for a calming effect but also it aids in muscle contractions. Many people are deficient in magnesium, and my recovery is always better when I take it. For me, particularly at night.

There you have it – a few topics I don’t normally hit on. But are within my scope – I simply don’t consider these an area of expertise for me. I do however think my people, that’s you, can benefit from learning about and exploring these areas within your performance focus in the gym.

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This is going to be long I am sure because real life episodes always are. They’re a reflection of sorts for me, and I am long winded. So, bare with me on this pregnancy episode.

In full transparency, this comes out a month after my due date but was batched recorded at least one month before my due date, so we’re really getting through week 35 in this episode. I am spilling the whole pot of unfiltered tea on my experience through each phase.

If you missed episodes 162 and 163 those were part 1 and 2 of pregnancy real talk from the physical, spiritual and business/logistic standpoint – we covered things like expectations, my personal beliefs and experiences, as well as insurance and us not having it, so on and so forth. Check those out if you need to.

This is like a cliff notes episode of my pregnancy for those who want to know. I have been fascinated by the process so far and how it has advanced and evolved. The feelings in each trimester and how each kind of had it’s own theme.

That’s the take for today’s little recap.

Weeks 1-14 are technically the first trimester. And I felt like trash, I was in survival mode, never puked besides having the stomach bug one day, but was nauseous, fatigued but actually tired (I didn’t take a single nap because I couldn’t), lifted maybe 1 time a week from weeks 7-14 or 16, ate exclusively mochas, bean and cheese burritos, grapes, sour patch kids, and bagels and cream cheese, was never satisfied by any of it and felt like food was constantly stuck in my esophagus. I did this thing where I took or felt the need to take really deep breaths or long, drawn out exhales. It annoyed Nate and I both. It was like a reflex. I don’t know. My GI tract was just all off, constipation, diarrhea, anything but normal was pretty much game. The brain fog was so real, I felt like forming sentences was hard at times, and I poured creamer in my water more than once – I never thought pregnancy brain was real until on more than one occasion something like that happened. I had days were my watch let me know I had 3% of my daily movement, I watched 7 seasons of MTV the challenge, was a complete and utter waste, and planned NOTHING for my maternity leave, the baby registry, my birthing plan etc. It was 14 weeks I really felt you just never get back haha. Your body is building a new organ (the placenta) and it just generally sucks. Oh and on a physical note, I was not a fan of the physical changes happening in pregnancy. I was amazed by my body, yes, but def did not like the changes. I am fully open about that. It can be both.

With that, I consider my first trimester pretty mild. Not puking was really lovely. If everything I listed was the worst that was going to happen, I could take it.

Then, we entered the second trimester. Which in my opinion should really start at week 16. Because that’s when I and many women I spoke to actually started to feel different than the first trimester.

Slowly my brain started working, eggs sounded good, I didn’t feel like everything was going to come back up, I pooped normally, and I had a desire to workout and move my body. I could see the light.

I wouldn’t call it bliss – bliss for me is not being pregnant. But yes, in comparison to the first trimester, the second was starting off significantly better. Those three things were the biggest joys for me – wanting to lift again, enjoying and desiring food, and feeling like I wanted to work/gain some clarity and direction in that area. These were huge.

That’s when I started lifting pretty regularly again and quickly realized I needed to buy a pregnancy specific program. So I did.

Week 19 was lifting and prepping my body. As well as locking in maternity leave plans (which is 12 weeks working at 20% – everything is pre-created, just 1:1 biz communications, some email and social media to keep up with), and beginning prep for that. I was certainly thinking about a birth plan or feeling more nervous about it at this point but avoided taking action there for a bit. Until essentially the third trimester.

The second trimester into the third was also full of intense calf cramps and muscle spasms. Trust I was taking all the magnesium and walking and mobilizing my feet and hips – doing all the things. They were just a thing for me. Worth noting. And so strange. They continued all through the third trimester as well.

I killed workouts from mid May to the end of June, then got a staph infection (MRSA to be specific) through week 27-ish. Which wasn’t terrible, just inconvenient. During that time I was feeling physically great and really wanted to lift. So that was disappointing and just provided a low level of constant stress because I was avoiding taking antibiotics as long as possible. But once one of the follicles started to behave more like MRSA (which is what Nate had had and who I got it from), we got me antibiotics. I wish I would have sooner, because it was clearing up within 48 hours. Lots of time wasted there. But baby and me were good, so that’s all that really matters!

July into early August was taken over by Staph time. That was weeks 22-27. Finally went on the antibiotics in week 27 and was back to killing the game in weeks 28-34.

In that period I decided on my birth plan, bought three birth courses, and we finalized our registry in the second trimester as well. So, if you’re in the first or early second trimester and feel behind or like you’ve lost all gains, have no plan, and no registry, breathe. You really do have time. That early third trimester is also when the crying set in for me – very annoying for someone who is not used to crying. I had two full on breakdowns where Nate legit just laughed at me. Then we both laughed because I couldn’t control it.

I was dealing with my armpit issues, not having insurance and spending money through zoom care and my midwife and finally Nate’s doctor to get real solutions. It was just frustrating. Not the worst case scenario but very frustrating in the midst of moving and prepping for bebe.

Mid August through September I was able to lift 4 days per week consistently again, and that meant I was actually felt my best physically in the early third trimester all the way up til week 35. Lifting, the pelvic and breath work as well as walking did wonders for my SI joint, tailbone and sciatica which all caused their own issues in each trimester. But it undoubtedly was better when I limited sitting. Not surprising.

I felt like weeks 23-28 were where I really honed in on and felt good in my physical preparation but knew that I needed the mind piece even more than the physical. I generally started taking in a lot more information around fear, pain and options for birthing in the late second and early third trimester.

The three birthing courses I got were Mamastefit, Pain Free Birth and Christian Hypnobirthing. All offered something a bit different. My goal was to take in all my options, and just gain awareness of what direction things could go in, have a few plans, and ultimately be as fluid as possible in my birthing experience.

Weeks 30-35 were bombarded with packing, prepping to move, staying in a hotel, with family and moving in. It was utter chaos with a yeast infection in my armpits due to the antibiotic I took for the staph, and then another MRSA outbreak in the pits weeks 33-35. This time resulting in actually have to cut out the boil and do a longer run of antibiotics.

Hoping – at the time of this recording to be able to lift 4 days a week again through the end of pregnancy and ENJOY my last few weeks with bebe boy in my belly before we meet him for real!

Everyone’s pregnancy and birthing experience is individual. It’s the most individual thing that nearly half the world experiences at least once. Insane. And yet people still feel alone in the process. That’s why I share.

I am a woman who never identified with the motherly role, was mortified of child birth and couldn’t conceptualize the idea of actually having a real life baby that I was a part of making. Now here we are.

My values of education and efficacy have never been made so clear as they have through this experience. Their power over fear and their power to create aligned action. I can’t say what my birthing experience will be. I’ve definitely had bebe Miller at this point – so you’ve likely seen at least a snippet of my birth story on the gram. Which is so weird to say now, at week 35 recording this! But I can say I am genuinely excited about it and feel blessed to get to experience pregnancy, labor and the journey of motherhood.

Thanks for tuning in as always, but extra thanks to episodes like these.

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When can you expect to start making sales online?

In 2022 I really began asking and inquiring with people who had purchased my programs. I asked three different things. And I suggest that you ask these three things as well. Where are they found you, how long they’ve been in your audience for, and where they ended up purchasing from.

Yes, some people find me on Instagram or through my podcast and purchase within a month, particularly if I am launching some thing. But most people need to be in my audience for a minimum of three months depending on the price point of the offer. That is what I found through my audience research. Especially for higher ticket items, it appears that someone needs to be in my audience for 6 to 12 months before purchasing. And that’s if they were an active part of my audience, and likely also on my mailing list. I say likely on my mailing list because I find that about 80% of people find me through Instagram who have purchased, and 80% of people purchase through my email marketing. Other people buy directly through links on Instagram or the podcast show notes.

I can’t say that this is exactly what would happen for you and your audience, but that is why I encourage you to start asking these questions of people who have purchased from you, as well as getting this on your intake form for people who purchase from you in the future.

Any time we can gain information like this from our audience, it just gives us more insight into actions that we need to take or how we need to position ourselves in our business. For me it’s clear that I need to grow my Instagram and podcast audiences, or begin to branch out into other platforms like YouTube to expand my audience, knowing that people typically need to Build trust with me over 6 to 12 months before investing. Essentially I need to focus my efforts on building the largest part of my funnel or lead pool, being where I put out free content. It’s clear to me that people then get on my mailing list, and the selling is effective from my mailing list. But also not immediately.

When I sent out a survey to my email list, or a particular segment of my email list, it was also clear that a quick sales funnel was not going to be effective with my audience. Unless they had already been in my audience on Instagram or another platform for 3 to 9 months. So having someone join my mailing list and then immediately try to sell them was not going to be effective. I needed to be more patient and draw out my email sales funnels.

Again that was based on my audience needing to take in content from me for that period of time before making a purchase. And yes we would love to make that buying cycle shorter and shorter from a business standpoint, but it is just true that typically people need to see or hear about some thing 7 to 13 times before they invest.

I will also repeat that the price point matters. I’m sure that I could have a quicker sales funnel for a low end offer that’s under $50 than some thing that is $2,000. So there’s always context. But generally speaking people need more time before purchasing, and that is some thing that I can adjust within my marketing. Marketing specifically via email, to be clear.

And I say email because that is the path that people tend to take. From socials to my email list to purchasing. That’s the route that 80% of people who purchase from me take. So that’s the route we look to refine.

With all of that being said, I encourage you to look at whatever platform you put out free content on and look to either prioritize building your mailing list and selling via email, selling more from that social media platform in general, and really creating content that is going to entertain and build trust in order to get people to purchase from you sooner.

And it’s not likely that someone is going to follow you today and purchase from you tomorrow. You also have to think about Instagram specifically, and the percentage of new followers who actually continue to see your content. Take that into consideration. I encourage you to track your insights on a monthly basis at least, regardless of if 200 people left your audience last month, if 400 joined, or even 200 joined, it might look like you only gain 0 to 200 followers, but that’s 200 new leads in the top of your pool. Don’t forget that they’ve never heard of your offers, what are you do, or how you can help them. You need to repeat yourself, and you need to talk about your offers often. Probably more often than you do.

And then keep in mind that those people will probably purchase from you in 3 to 12 months time if you are consistently selling.

As I’ve stated before, only one percent of your large free content based audience is likely ever going to pay you. And you will have to work for that one percent. Don’t forget it.

If you haven’t gathered this type of information from people who have purchased from you, I encourage you to send out some kind of survey via a Google form to find out. Your insights might be a completely different than my own. And your insights are what’s most important.

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Today’s episode is all about building a shape with your body and training factors that can help with that. I know that I don’t often talk about physique, but, fuzzy changes do happen with the clients that I work with as a byproduct of our training methods. So that is the angle that I am taking today’s episode from.

We can’t spot train fat away, but we can absolutely spot train our muscles, and choose to develop certain ones over other ones with training methodologies. Which is actually one of my favorite things about muscle - Our ability to manipulate it through training and stimulus.

If you are a trainer, feel free to apply this to your client programming, and if you are a trainee, currently following a program, feel free to focus in on some of these elements of training.

First off, we will cover three different training factors today. But all of them assume that you are consistent with your training. And that the training, or programming itself is purpose driven.

1.) Time under tension + proficiency

slower tempoI feel like I am beating a dead horse when I say that hypertrophy requires mechanical tension or load, but it’s true. And it is the main driving factor of muscle growth. If you want to change the shape of your body or musculature, it will require Challenging mechanical loads. Which we will talk about in part two. But it will also require time under tension. This is more specific than just saying volume. Your volume of work could be reduced to your sets and reps. But your tempo is what will actually determine how long those sets and reps take. And that’s what’s most important. three sets of eight just going through the motions will give you a completely different stimulus and result than three sets of eight with a three second down E centric, a pause at the bottom and a one second concentric. I hope that you can see that. If the current program you are following does not include a tempo, then just stick with a general slower down then up tempo.

Slowing down also builds proficiency with a movement. So if you’ve ever heard someone talk about mind muscle connection and your ability to recruit muscle fibers, slowing down the tempo can be one factor that will help with that. When building muscle, we want to recruit as many muscle fibers as we can. Bringing mental awareness to the area that we are working, and the pattern that we are building can be helpful with that. We want to build proficiency always. So if you have just been going through the motions, consider focusing in on your tempo, and proficiency. Think about the muscle that you are working, visualize it, look at it if you can.

2.) Effort

high RPE

As I mentioned mechanical tension or load is needed in order to stimulate the muscle for growth. We want muscle protein synthesis more than we want muscle protein breakdown. That’s literally how we get hypertrophy. And that requires a challenging load. Generally speaking I would want a client to be working at a RIR of two or less when attempting to build muscle. That means leaving two reps in reserve at the end of a set. That just means that it’s challenging. And that’s what we want if we are to build muscle.

I would argue that most people are not working as hard as they should in the gym. As hard or as proficient. Really push yourself. You can always lower the weight if needed. I use the rule of two with my clients. If you can’t complete the last two reps you need to do another site with lighter weight. And you should be in struggling on the last two reps that be able to perform 1 to 2 more without completely breaking form.

I will note, this will also require you to take legitimate rest periods in between sets. If you are working at a high RPE he will not be able to just bounce between exercises and a super set with zero rest. Not if you want to continue with a higher level of performance. If your program doesn’t involve rest periods, or you haven’t been sticking to them,

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These lessons are very specific to our building experience. So you could ask this question to someone else and they would have completely different answers based on their own experience. For some context, Nate and I were not in a rush until I got pregnant. So we really took our time and wanted to do things right without cutting corners. We are also self-employed or retired, so I get that if two people are working 9 to 5 job and raising children a lot more can slip through the cracks, understandably so.

So just be sure to listen to this podcast through that lens.

1.) Choose the right builder

The realtor who helped us find our piece of land as a family friend and she made very clear to us that we needed to choose a builder who we were comfortable dating for the next two years. Because that’s what it would realistically be, a two year relationship. And I could not back her up more on that statement.

We interviewed five different builders, and I’ve mentioned this and other podcast episodes, but we went with the one who filled the gaps that we felt we needed. We’ve never designed a home before, so we don’t even know what questions to ask or what to think about. It’s one of those we don’t even know what we don’t know situations. So we went with the only builder who pushed back on some of our ideas and provided us with other ideas. It felt like a back-and-forth relationship versus them just telling us what to do, or them just doing everything we want without constructive criticism.

Most of my friends who have also built houses and had negative experiences, the negative experiences revolved around the builder that they chose or were handed. So I really do believe that choosing the right builder and interviewing several is paramount and having a good building experience. Someone who you feel like is going to educate you and be on your team. Not just leave you in the dark for two years.

2.) Know that you have options but to be very aware of those options

I have friends who purchased their land and builder and housing plan as kind of a bundle deal. We acquired our land and used the equity in it as a down payment on the construction loan.

There are some ways where you lock in the interest rate for your entire 30 year mortgage, or where the interest-rate is variable until you move in to the home and it becomes a mortgage rather than a construction or build loan. That’s my base understanding.

We personally spoke to several different people. I don’t even know what their specific job titles are. But people in mortgage and loan officer type positions. And that was in order to explore what options we had, as well as what realistic timelines were with me being self-employed and needing two years of tax returns, how much money we needed down to get the land, versus qualify for a land and build loan together.

Basically we knew absolutely nothing going into this and the whole process started by just asking questions and exploring options. So don’t take the first option you hear as the only option. Ask what other ways there are to accomplish what it is that you want.

3.) Know what matters to you and what doesn’t

Where are you will budge, and where you won’t.

Some pretty hefty costs would have brought the total cost of our house down. And those also happened to be things that we weren’t really willing to budge on. Black on black windows, and a whole metal roof would be two of those. We didn’t want metal accents, we wanted the whole roof to be metal. It really defines the entire exterior aesthetic of the house for us. And it does add value. They offered us black windows on the outside with white windows on the inside but again, we wanted all white walls on the inside and it just looks so much better with black windows on the inside to contrast the white walls. Like I said the windows and the roof kind of defined, or were defining aspects of the entire look of the house.

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As we all know, the Instagram algorithm is forever changing, and they are forever making updates to the app. Which all makes it more difficult to predict how content will perform, and how we can grow on the app. What will get interaction and what won’t, and how to increase it.

Today I am bringing you six different ways to bring your Instagram back to life if you feel like it’s in a bit of a rut. But also please know that you are not alone. Everyone else feels it too. And make note, that often, those who are being the most successful on Instagram are the people telling you how to use Instagram, sharing what audio is trending, or how to use a certain trend. It’s just some thing that I have personally observed and think it’s interesting. So let’s go ahead and dive into the six things that you can do to bring some spark back to your gram.

Before we get into this, I have personally done all of these things several times and seen a change in the app. Whether it be engagement from my personal audience, or what the app is showing me as a consumer.

6 Ways to Spring Your Instagram Back into Action

1.) Go live

This can be a super fun way to just reconnect with your audience. I do not suggest going live with absolutely no plan on a whim. You absolutely can if that is what your heart desires. But you may have more success from an engagement standpoint if you schedule the live and let your audience know when you are going to be live and what topic you are going to be talking about.

Why this can spike engagement or bring people back to your page is because going live bumps you to the very front of the Instagram stories feed. So people who have forgotten that they follow you, or haven’t seen your contact in a while may reengage with your content by viewing your live. It’s worth a try.

If you find that you enjoy going live, make it a weekly thing that your Instagram audience can depend on. I am all for always doing what works and not making things harder than they need to be. If something is working, keep doing it.

2.) Post twice per day

Lower the barrier to entry. I would say post a REELS or continent every single day of the week for a while, or choose maybe four days per week that you are going to post and post twice per day. It just switches up what the algorithm is used to you doing. And it also switches up which areas of your audience might see your content. So perhaps overall engagement looks the same on your morning and evening post, but it’s a different set of people who are seeing the content.

I say lower the barrier to entry because people think that post needs to take 30 minutes to create. And they don’t. Not every post needs to be viral worthy, or jampacked with information. Just commit to getting something out.

3.) Clean out who you follow

This is lovely from a consumption standpoint. But I find that it also changes who sees my content, and who I see on the app. So it’s just a way, again, to change up your experience on the app. It might not have any effect on your audience, but also it might. I have found that it changes up what I see on the app and that intern changes who I engage with, and who engages with me. So I definitely think it’s worth a try regardless.

4.) Clean who follows you

This can be overwhelming if you have 10,000 followers. But take 30 minutes to skim through your followers and clean out accounts that look like thoughts, or you know are not your ideal client. I trust you to be able to identify these things. This undoubtedly switches up the exposure of your content. And I also find that it changes what I see on the app. Going back to the previous comment. That changes who I engage with, and then who engages with me.

5.) Take a week long break

Yes, I am telling you to take a week off of Instagram. By all means, start with a 48 hour break if you wish. This is some thing that I do on a weekly basis and absolutely love it.

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A one on one training client said to me in 2016 (when I was really just starting to build my business), that having employees and hiring people to help run your business what is the move to make. Because that way, you can be away, or working on the most important things, while your employees essentially run the business.

But having employees and managing people was never something that appealed to me. My personal goal was basically to make my business as big as possible, and as automated as possible without hiring a team. Seven years into it, I mostly still feel that way. But that may change with having a baby. Only time will really tell how much I can manage, and where I need help.

I have one on one business clients who have 5+ employees that work for them as contractors. I am not against building a team, but I think it’s very important to answer this question if you are currently a solo entrepreneur.

So I hope today helps you look at some of your options when it comes to building your “team.”

First we have to think about what constitutes a team when it comes to running a business. For me, it is literally anyone outside of yourself that helps with your business. Whether that be on a daily basis, or a quarterly basis. If you have a book keeper, or an accountant per se, that will be part of your team.

I simply don’t want you to think that having a team means hiring full-time employees. Because that is not required, and it’s also not likely. Think about a team in the way that you would hire an assistant coach, or a virtual assistant, or an operations manager. Even something like hiring a website person. These are all parts of, or can be, part of building a team. So keep that perspective as we go through this episode.

I do believe that to have a successful team, you need to know how to, and want to manage people.

Certainly more than you want to do the work yourself. This is imperative. And if you think you want to have a team but are apprehensive about your management skills, I suggest not only investing in a team, but a coach for yourself that can teach you how to best manage that team. Which really should be a win-win for everyone.

So if you don’t think you want to hire a team, I want you to think about the longevity of your business. I’m not saying you have to hire a team, but maybe you could start with one person. Essentially look at how many tasks you have to complete within your business at its current state. Can you scale that by yourself? That’s the most important thing to look at. Because it is scaling that typically leads to the demand for help. For some level of a team to begin forming. I speak from experience. I never wanted to have a team or manage a team, but I reached a point where I couldn’t continue growing if I went at it alone. And I'm sharing this because it’s probably going to be true for most of you as well. So what happens when you reach your ceiling? If you don’t want to grow, and you only want to maintain, then you may never need to hire a team. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s why I say it’s most important to know what you want out of your business. I’ve had clients in the past who just want to make a certain amount of money per month, and not push for substantial growth. I’m all game for that, if you have that clarity. It’s the clarity that I’m encouraging.

If you don’t want to have a team, then the approach would be to automate as much as you possibly can in your business. Now, I encourage this whether you want to hire a team or not, simply because it’s best for efficiency. But it will likely be a necessity if you are not going to hire a team.

If hiring other coaches, or an assistant, a copywriter, a web designer, or some other trade is appealing to you, there are some other things to consider in your team building.

Whether you want to hire a team or not, list out all of the tasks that could possibly be done in your business.

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Why I choose to focus on movement patterns and strength over weight loss.

I feel like it’s important to start this podcast off by saying that I don’t have anything against aesthetic goals. I typically have a few aesthetic goals myself. But I address those goals through performance goals that I know will yield the aesthetic changes that I might be wanting. So this is not to shame anyone who wants to change their body. Especially by adding muscle to it. I personally think it’s amazing that we can manipulate the human body via what we do with it. It’s fairly fascinating and what drew me to this field in the first place. But more from a performance standpoint, rather than an aesthetic one.

I get asked a lot if I ever competed in bikini or fitness competitions as well as powerlifting. So I get questions on both sides of the performance and aesthetic spectrum. And the answer to that is that I’ve never done either nor have I wanted to. My answer has always been that I wanted to lift for life. And I’ve been asked dozens of times in the gym over the last decade or more what I’m training for. This tends to be a common question when someone witnesses a woman lifting weights, or training with any intent beyond doing cardio and abs. I hope that that becomes less of a thing, and that training for life via intentional weight training just becomes the norm. Within the health and fitness industry anyway. I don’t know that it will ever be the norm and main stream.

So today’s episode is going to mostly be about the importance of training movement patterns and skills.

As well as the focus on performance goals over aesthetic goals. And What I’ve seen from having that focus with my clients over the past seven years.

I was extremely intentional in choosing the name of my signature 12 month training program back in 2017 - Built by Annie. I wanted it to be known that we were building things. We were building your body, building muscles, building movement patterns, building your work capacity, building efficacy in the gym. Much more went into choosing the name of that program then it just sounded good or making sense.

I don’t have science to back this up, but what I’ve seen anecdotally is that when people have a performance score, or a skill that they are invested in learning, their adherence and joy with that process increases. And I think that’s missing when we only focus on aesthetic goals or wanting to change our body.

Again, even if your main goal or objective is aesthetic, I encourage you to look at certain performance goals that might lead to the aesthetic change that you are wanting. For instance if you want a bigger butt, maybe your goal is to hip thrust two times per week, increasing your capacity one of those days with high reps, in increasing your strength or working towards a strength goal on the other day, say for six reps. Maybe you want to hit 300 pounds for six reps. That’s going to be a lot more of an enjoyable experience than just focusing on growing your butt.

If your goal is to get bigger deltoids, the same thing applies. The performance goal of getting a pull up, or a certain number of inverted rows for your rear adults, and reaching a performance goal for your overhead pressing is going to be some thing you will be far more invested in and proud of than simply growing your delts.

Now, I don’t coach or focus on nutrition but really the same thing applies there. Your performance goals with nutrition if you want to lose body fat would be around getting a certain amount of vegetables in per day, or drinking a certain amount of water, or practicing a certain habit. Focusing on the performance goals versus your weight or the result of lower body fat.

There is so much more to be gained from lifting weights than muscular changes to your body. And that’s why I choose to focus on these things in my own marketing. I also just know that over the years I’ve had a genetically marketable body,

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There are several different approaches to doing cardio within the conditioning world.

Two of the most popularized by the fitness industry are high intensity interval training (HIIT), and low intensity study state training. I think most people understand what LISS is. But high intensity interval training has been very incorrectly marketed to you by main stream media and fitness professionals.

So today we are going to dive into what each of these are, and how to best implement them into your training for their purpose.

There are more types of cardio than this of course. In my Built by Annie premium one and premium two options we include cardio. And it is a rather linear progression from low intensity steady state cardio all the way up into cardiac power intervals. And those progressions are largely taken from energy systems development. You could progress this much much quicker if you were to implement these strategies multiple times per week. And Built by Annie cardio is mainly done one day per week but women certainly see the effects of that progression over the year that they’re inside the program. Doors open October 25th to the waitlist, so make to sure to get on that!

Most people might think that high intensity is inherently better, but that’s completely relative to things like your aerobic base, the goal of your training age, and many other things.

I would argue that most people lack LISS -

Low intensity study state is traditionally cardio done past 30 minutes, up to 90 minutes or more, in zone two of your heart rate zones out of five. That is typically in the 60 to 65% range.

High intensity would be considered zones four and five, say 80%+ and if you want to be technical it refers to using intervals. So this would not apply to staying in zones four and five for say 12-20 minutes. That would be something called high intensity continuous training, or HICT. And I’ve talked about that and other episodes. That, to my knowledge was popularized by Joel Jamison.

Both approaches have their purpose within conditioning. The idea with high intensity interval training is to get your heart rate up very high for a working period, and then let it recover so that you can go again at the high intensity. This trains the alactic and anaerobic systems.

HIIT is high stress on the body, and may require more recovery and low intensity exercise.

LISS on the other hand trains the aerobic system. It is low stress, low recovery demand, burn some calories, increase aerobic base.

You will likely experience some thing with high intensity interval training known as epoc. Or excessive post-exercise oxygen consumption. This is the period of time where the body is attempting to get you back to homeostasis. It’s restoring glycogen, bringing the heart rate and respiration down etc.

This does increase the caloric demand of high intensity exercise. And yes you may burn calories for a longer period of time after high intensity interval training. My main question would be what is the purpose?

As a coach and professional, the purpose of high intensity interval training, which can be implemented in a lot of ways, would be to train those a lactic and anaerobic systems.

Or as the purpose of low intensity study state cardio would be to increase someone’s overall aerobic threshold, and work capacity base of fitness. And two generally increase caloric output if that is something we’re looking to do. I would choose that over high intensity if the goal is caloric output because, again, there is a lower stress demand and lower recovery demand from low intensity steady state cardio.

If you are going to do high intensity interval training (HIIT), you have some options. I’ve talked to other episodes about being sure to place your cardio where it makes sense for your training goals. Generally speaking of building muscle and strength, and performance is your goal, do cardio after your lift.

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If you missed it, be sure to listen to episode 171 for how I went from skipping college to a four year ESS degree, to denying jobs and starting my own business, to low key failing and changing my life with a Instagram course under $300 during my not your father’s rootbeer kitchen counter breakdown.

Today we are headed into brighter waters. Well, it’s starting off that way, then things get a little dim for a bit before we see the light again. 2018 to present day was a rollercoaster to say the least. I mean, it included a global pandemic, so perhaps that’s expected.

We left off in 2016, having purchased Marie Forleo’s B school and feeling like I actually had some direction for the online side of my business.

I’d largely built up the in person portion. That wasn’t my issue but since starting Fitdesignbyannie in 2015, the goal was ALWAYS to be fully remote. I was motivated by no alarm clocks and working from my laptop on my own time. Freedom is one of my personal and brand core values. I really hate feeling restricted by outside forces. Like a job LOL.

So, in July 2017, I’d built a sustainable business online. I had grown a following + close to full 1:1 roster of online training clients. I’d also built out a few other offers which brought in cash but were proving to not be for my ideal client long term. That’s besides the point.

Focus on the sustainable income piece.

Flashback to 2013, I marry Nate before my last semester of college - he’s working at a local high end hippy grocery store. We’re straight up poor.

Four years later, we’d both increased income significantly. We didn’t NEED more money. Of course everyone can use or want more money, but that never ends. We were comfortable and that, for Nathanael had brought up some reflection on life.

That brings us to number four of the six experiences that changed the trajectory of my life

Nate asking what if we traveled [then doing it]

I was sitting on the couch, writing programs and he walks down the hall in his towel after a shower and says to me without any preface, “what if we just traveled the world?” Just like that.

He says he expected me to push back, or question him but I literally said “Yeah okay I just need to make a bit more money online.”

And that was that. The research began almost immediately. He gave his work 8 months notice, and we were off to Santiago Chile nine months later.

I don’t think I need to unpack how traveling the world for 367 days straight changed the trajectory of my life but I will give you the bullet points. And the moral:

Personally, travel is amazing for perspective. Most people may never leave their home town let alone their country. For a multitude of reasons. I’ve talked about travel, myths and expectations in other episodes, so check that out. But just to take the leap was massive. To say we’re going to take advantage of the career path Annie has chosen and do this NOW with what we have, was unmatched.Business: My goodness did traveling give me SPACE. More space than I’d ever experienced in my adult life. I three ‘x’ed’ my revenue that year because of SPACE and the ability + demand to go all in. I built out three tiers of Built by Annie, added educational trainings, got rid of all past offers and built Body Weight for Weight Lifters and the Big Lift Audit. That choice led to clarity by fire.

The moral: If Nate never asks that question - if he never verbalizes that thought, our lives are completely different. Like COMPLETELY different.

If you’ve got a question, a wonder - if something has been put on your heart or mind, ASK or SAY it! You never know.

Fast forward - we loved world travels and planned a round two for 2020. Made it to Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Patagonia - both Chile and Argentina, Australia and then Japan before the Rona sent us back stateside.

That is like 4b because obviously the 'rona changed our trajectory.

But the 'rona was not a decision; though it lead to decisions...

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Sometimes I think we have a tendency to think we need some rock bottom or very large event to change the trajectory of our life. But I’d argue that’s rarely the case. Yes a person can certainly have a near death experience or some kind of epiphany. That’s not my personal experience or expectation for you.

Today’s episode is about both decisions, and also outside scenarios that lead to a large or small change to the path of my adult life. That’s the other important piece of this context - I am referring to my adult life. When I feel I mostly had autonomy and control over my life choices.

I’ve organize these in chronological order. And to be fair, there is actually six of these. Because I just thought of a prequel to what I have listed here.

6 experiences that changed the trajectory of my life:

After graduating high school with honors, in every after school club, and a three sport varsity athlete I decided I’d take off a semester because I hadn’t fully decided on what I’d go to college for, and I didn’t see the point of racking up debt until I knew what that debt was going for.

I had no desire to leave home, I was coaching competitive cheer locally and was happy with that. I am sure my mother was dying inside.

Fast forward - I enroll in a local community college in their fitness training associates program. I was deciding between fashion school, cosmetology or being a trainer. And landed on being a trainer. But wanted to go to school, not just get a cert.

In my second to last semester, we had to interview someone who was doing what we wanted to do. So, I knew of a local strength and conditioning coach who worked with a few MMA fighters in the UFC. He was willing to have me interview him and he told me I needed my CSCS, certainly if I wanted to work in college athletics. But that required a 4 year degree.

After that interview, within a week, I was shifting my whole life, researching Exercise Science, Kinesiology, or biomechanics programs at local universities. Found Concordia, met with their advisor and changed all classes at my community college to essentially set me up for an easy transition to their exercise and science program in a year.

All because of that one interview when I was 19 years old. Thanks to him, I had a new route for my life, which very much so lead to the next 5 trajectory changes.

Me declining two dream jobs

Fast forward to 2013/2014. I complete my ESS degree, get my CSCS, all to decide I wasn’t going into college strength and performance. You’d think that decision alone was the life changing one, but it was the two that came after that really set up the new direction.

I’d interned at two places - University of Portland as a strength coach, and a Physical Therapy Clinic that focused on the gap between physical therapy and return to sport. I’d had a lot of injuries and was always fascinated by the PT world. I used to joke with them that I wish I could get a PT education but use it to train normal people.

So, did’t honestly love my experience at the PT clinic but did love and support the owner.

After my internship I was offered the job of my supervisor. Which never sat right with me, because I was fairly sure he was unaware of this - though I was not one of his fans. Side note, another mentor told me while I was interning there that I should take it as an opportunity to learn what I don’t like, what I won’t do, what doesn’t make sense to me. So, I did.

The pay was good, it would be an amazing job right out of college, but it was also an hour commute and the hours were shit. And, my gut just said no.

I applied for a personal training gym locally but they required you to fill in with group/class coaching and I fucking hated that with every ounce of my being.

I got offered that job as well, was told I was overqualified. And I just said no. It didn’t feel right.

And perhaps that sounds super outrageous for someone who is fresh out of college.

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Today we're covering 9 mindset shifts for entrepreneurs:

These are questions, ideas and maybe ways to challenge your current mindset as an entrepreneur.

Just because someone else does it or doesn’t do it, doesn’t mean you should or shouldn’t do it.

I follow a VERY successful fitness business owner. World known, who still edits his own podcasts and content. He doesn’t have a team outside of coaches and a marketing manager that I know of.

I know another female colleague who is similar. Still edits and uploads all her own content. Still writes all the programming, still works with clients etc.

These examples hit home with me personally because I am that entrepreneur who really is and has been EVERY possible role in her business. And I enjoy doing a lot of aspects that someone else could technically do. I am not the best video editor or podcast editor but I have learned these skills and take pride in doing them. Now, that can change as priorities change. I have the time to do these things now. In the future perhaps I pay someone do them. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve looked up podcast managers and the price just isn’t worth it to me right now.

Point being, I’ve had mentors tell me to outsource things, but I don’t. I tend to trust my gut and feel pretty aware of how I spend my time in my business. As well as where profits come from.

On the flip side, if you see someone taking an approach to an area of their business and a little voice in your head says “you should be doing that too,” I encourage you to question that.

Maybe it makes sense for you, maybe it doesn’t. It’s very important you figure out the motive behind that feeling.

I am 100% for seeing something and saying “hmmm how could that apply or work for me?” All for it. But if it’s coming from a place of thinking you’re behind, or missing out, pump the breaks and find the truth. Might just need to smack on your blinders and get back to your own mission.

That leads well into the next mindset shift

You're not behind

I am not one for toxic positivity. Though, I do think perspective matters and can change the actions we take, especially as business owners.

In the online space we are surrounded by highlight reels that very easily breed comparison. But fact is, you’re not behind. It really is that simple. Your path is not Susan’s path. If you start today, or keep going today, you’re right where you’re supposed to be in YOUR journey. Because it’s YOURS. Not Susan’s. I would push into WHY the feeling of “I’m behind” is coming from. Where is the gap that is allowing that narrative to seep in?

You have what you need to start

One of the biggest lies entrepreneurs believe is that they need “x” in order to start and/or be successful and more often than not it’s just an excuse to stay put.

You’ll only ever make progress by using what you have to do what you can. There is literally always room for growth. So, just start, and keep going. Think of how you can do your best in this season. My first videos were made on an underwater camera we had. I debated making my first podcast episodes via voice memos on my phone. But ended up buying a $63 mic I could travel with. No fancy pants needed. Value is not determined by things. You can provide value and build your portfolio NOW.

I feel very passionately about this because I really do see it as an excuse. I believe everyone has options, and its more about whether one is willing to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to start. Everyone has different privelages and options but most everyone DOES have a way to start - certainly in the western world.

So, entertain that you have what you need now to begin.

The early days are the time to fail - you have the least to lose and most to gain

I’ve talked about this before but it makes sense. You have the least experience when you’re beginning. So you have the least amount of confidence AND the least amount of clarity.

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Over the years I have gotten asked several times about what makes the perfect warm-up, or what a warm-up should include for a given day. Just as there are infinite possibilities for exercise selection in the book of a work out, the same is true for a warm-up. So it can be very overwhelming to narrow down what exactly is a necessity, and what is not. But today we are not stopping at warm-ups. We are going to go through each individual section of a complete lift and define what happens in each of those, and what the intent of each of those sections is.

Daily warm-up

I use a daily warm-up for myself and my clients. Perhaps this is because they come from a sports based background where the same warm-up is done before practice no matter what is happening that day. It’s a way to get the entire body prepared for the exercise that is about to take place.

That’s the value of a daily warm-up in my opinion. It just touches on each area of the body, it brings familiarity and routine to your training, and it also allows you to check in with your body and mind to see how you are doing that day before you head into your main sets. I want to be clear that the daily warm-up should not take any longer than 5 to 7 minutes.

This would include a full body flow. So you would see things like some T spine mobility, warming up the wrist, a spinal flow of some kind, getting into the end ranges in the hips and ankles, and dynamically stretching the quads, hamstrings, and any other area of the body that you think is important to stretch daily. More often than not these are not going to be static stretches. They’re going to be dynamic as we are prepping the body for movement. But if a static stretch is included, whether it be in the daily warm-up or the movement prep, it would be in order to increase the end range that you are Going to use that day. So the static stretch would be preemptive of a dynamic use of that range of motion.

After the daily warm-up you would move into a more specified movement prep.

Movement prep

It’s called movement prep because it is prepping the body specifically for the movements being performed that day. I don’t see a huge need for movement prep if you are doing a more body part style split, commonly thought of as a bodybuilding split. But if you are doing any large compound movements, or the nervous system needs to be prepped for any of the exercises you are doing, I suggest implementing a movement prep.

This is absolutely some thing that is included in the Built by Annie, my 1:1 programming, and is taught inside my Pure Programming course.

Movement prep is going to have a far less movements involved in comparison to the daily warm-up. Movement prep might have 3 to 5 active mobility or core exercises. And again these are put in place in order to prime the patterns, or work on deficiencies that are common in that day‘s movements.

For example, if it’s a posterior chain focused day, or a dead lift day, you might have some glute work ahead of time, some bilateral or unilateral hinging, even some lat and core work in order to draw attention to the muscles that are going to be used within the dead lift.

For a 1:1 program, movement prep would be much more specified to any deficiencies or discrepancies that the client has. But more generally speaking, it’s going to prep for the programming ahead.

Warm-up sets

The warm-up doesn’t stop after movement prep. Warm-up sets are not needed for many lifts depending on the intensity. But for most compound movements, like the squat, dead lift, bench press, overhead press, and any variation of these, even a hip thrust, will likely require warm-up sets before you’re working sets.

Warm-up sets, like movement prep, are meant to prime and prepare the body for heavier working sets. This primes the muscles and the central nervous system.

Your warm-up sets are going to be at lighter loads than your working sets. Again,

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There is no one size fits all for lifting cues. Some thing that will work for you might not work for me. But the goal is always better neuromuscular control, more muscle fiber recruitment, and ideally better movement patterns. That’s what today’s episode is all about. After coaching for a decade in person and online, I have used and heard my fair share of lifting cues and tricks. I might share 10 to 15 today. And I will keep them more broad stroke. Because you could have 20 cues just for your core. That is not the goal of today’s episode.

You may have heard these before, and some of them might be new to you. Or if you have heard them before, perhaps the way that I explain them or reference them might make some thing Klick. Whether you are a trainee or a trainer today’s episode is hopefully going to be a value and very applicable for you or your clients.

Let's get on to lifting cues...

Big back, tight lats - this applies to almost everything. Or certainly large compound movements. I could see this working for squats, deadlifts, even the start of an overhead press, and certainly for bench press. It also has carryover into most hinging patterns or barbell squatting variations.

Big back and tight lats don’t necessarily always feel the same or mean the same thing. But I put them together because I find that I get the same results with clients when I see either of these.

Your lat is one of the largest muscles in the body and it is the largest muscle in your upper body or back. So often times when you say big back people will automatically engage their lats. Or when you say engage your lats, and it will make their back look larger. Both are the goal.

Your lats attach from the top of your upper arm bone, your humerus, to part of your scapula, to your mid spine all the way down to your hip bones. So you can see why we would want to engage the lats, as they really lock everything in from your shoulder girdle to your hips. And we want that, for most compound movements.

I find that big back works best for back squats when a client seems to just be resting the bar on their back, without actually engaging muscles in the upper body. Tight lats can do the same.

The next cue can have a similar effect.

Break the bar - especially on bench, RDL and deadlifts. This has always worked really well for me personally. I just think about driving my pinkies backwards and bending the bar. That typically gets everything engaged that I need to be. With benchpress, I really feel like it locks in my shoulders and lats. And with dead lift it keeps the bar close to my body. It really makes no sense for some people, but I think it’s worth a try.

Elbows forward - same effect as break the. Bar but VERY specific to deadlift. If a client is having a hard time keeping the bar close to them, or locking in their upper back, telling them to turn their elbows forward can be very effective. The lats engaged as well as teres minor and infraspinatus really work to lock on that upper back.

So try yourself or telling a client to show their elbow pits to the front and see what happens with their upper body engagement. Particularly with the dead lift.

Screw in - applies to feet and glutes or hands depending on the lift. Screwing in your feet, especially with soft knees causes external rotation at the femurs via the glutes. Or, rather, the glutes cause the external rotation of the upper leg, and for tension to be created at the foot. Now, the foot creates tension itself as well. And that ideally means a solid foundation. Think of opening the toes, pressing the toes, ball of the foot, outside if it touches and the heel into the ground, then pulling front and back of foot together but not scrunching the toes. Those are different. You’re not curling the foot, just “activating” for lack of better work, the arch, and screwing your big tow into the ground. As for the hands, I’ll use a push up as an example.

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Today’s episode comes from what feels like the expectation even with one on one to have some kind of community aspect (or group program) to your offer. I hope to keep this episode short and sweet, and really just gives you some things to think about in order to determine if you do or don’t want to have a group or community aspect of your offerings. One size does not fit all here, so you could have a large group community of all of your clients across all of your offers if you have more than one. Or you could have a separate community for each one of your offers, only one of your offers could have a community piece, or they could have nothing. And then within having a group or community, you’ve got different structures that you can work with as well.

So let’s get into the different types of communities that you can have.

Because we need to know that in order for you to then say yes I want to have a group aspect or, it’s not necessary.

You can have it from the loosest terms, just a group that people join when they are in one of your programs. There is no structure to this, people can ask questions, or you can maybe post like a weekly wins. But there is no expectation of structure or aggressive value being added. That, for me, is the most loose way to have a community.

Nothing wrong with that, it’s actually the type of community that I prefer to run myself. That is what you will find if you join either my Pure PROgramming or a FitsPRO Foundations courses. It’s just a communal place that people can ask questions and get feedback from either me or other people in the group.

The more extreme approach to having a group aspect to a program is when your clients join at the same time, and there is a structured group aspect. So maybe its group calls on a monthly basis, or it’s that you go live every week that the program is active for, or there is something specific they are learning on a timed schedule. And only the people in this particular round, or cohort are involved in these calls.

Then we have the in between. So really take any aspects of each of those types of groups or communities and you’ve got the middle ground. So maybe everyone who has ever joined the program is in the group or community but different people have different access to certain areas of the platform. This is possible on platforms like Circle, or Slack. You could also have a community where everyone who has ever joined has access to it, but you do go live or teach on a topic every month forever. And maybe those calls are archived somewhere so that when someone joins they get access to past calls in case they missed a topic.

Sharing these three types of community or group aspects is really just so that you can see that you have options. And you don’t have to go balls to the wall with a group or community. There is a spectrum of you being involved in the group. Which is typically the concern for most people - Is that time commitment.

Now on the flipside of that, I’ll ask you some questions that will hopefully lead you to a yes or no answer. Or closer to one of those.

I want you to look at whether or not your service or program requires and or benefits from a group aspect.

This somewhat depends on what is already involved in the offer or the service. Does the group or community aspect fill a needed gap? It may just not be needed. And it also might be the missing piece. But that’s completely up to you and your offer and what is involved in that.

The next thing I want you to think about is whether or not your ideal client or niche desires to be a part of an active community, or if that’s not necessarily needed for them in order to find success and enjoy your program or offer.

Speaking from personal experience, I used to have a community aspect of Built by Annie. And the fact of the matter was my ideal client just didn’t use the group. I am sure that I could’ve cultivated more interaction. But it just wasn’t needed.

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Is the fitness industry saturated?

Since I entered the online health and fitness industry in 2014 to now, the answer to this question in the broadest sense has been yes and no.

I will ask my favorite question and the answer is undeniable.

If the answer is yes, the online health and fitness industry is over saturated, then should you not coach? We should never add any new coaches?

I hope you see that is obviously absurd. Of course there is room for you, your perspective and your passions. You will have a slightly different approach than a coach who agrees with you on all levels. There is still room for you.

So if we established that the fitness industry does have a shit load of coaches in it, then how do you navigate that as to stand out from all the noise as some people would say. That’s the goal of today’s episode.

Health and fitness is also not limited to just a writing workout programs and teaching people how to count macros. Health and fitness spans nearly anything having to do with the human body and or habit building and behavior change. That’s doctors, in chiropractic, physical therapy, pelvic floor health, neurological therapy, and your wider scale fitness trainers. It spans kettlebell specialists, yoga instructors, weightlifting coaches, running coaches. It all falls under health and fitness. Is every single one of those areas saturated, probably not. But as a whole, yes I do believe that the industry is saturated. But I don’t believe that it’s saturated with high-quality professionals.

This is why I think niching down, and establishing your messaging and brand is so important. Because we’re all talking about health and fitness to some extent. What is going to set you apart from other coaches is your ability to communicate, and your messaging.

Your Ideal Client

If you haven’t yet downloaded my free Ideal Client Avatar Creator be sure to do so. This is a great start if you have no idea who you are speaking to online. If you have feelings like you don’t know what to post, or you have trouble coming up with content. Understanding your ideal client can help mitigate some of that.

Outside of your ideal client, your messaging also comes down to your own passions what you want to speak about or create contact around. You truly do not need to create contact that you don’t want to create. In fact I encourage you to steer away from that.

This is also where I think having experience in person can help refine your gifts and passions. What comes easy to you that doesn’t come easy to someone else. This will likely be a part of your messaging and your niche.

Your Niche

Get my Know Your Niche Content Guide here

For instance I was always very good at modifying on the spot, and correcting form. I always really enjoyed program design and I knew that that didn’t come easily to most of my colleagues. So after 2 1/2 years of frolicking a bit aimlessly through the online world of health and fitness, I started to talk about what I wanted to talk about. And that brought about who my ideal client was pretty organically.

I just want to make clear that those two things need to be married and I believe that that’s what makes up your niche. It’s a combination of your ideal client and your passions and area of focus. It can be a bit of a which came first? The chicken or the egg when we are talking about your messaging and your ideal client. Spending some time honing in on both of those will undoubtedly help you gain clarity about your place in this industry.

And ideally that leads to more niched content. Which attracts more of your ideal clients and people who interact with your content.

So let’s do a few little exercises. Sometimes in identifying what we are about, it can be helpful to clearly define what we’re not about. What we don’t want to talk about, what is not of interest to us or our ideal client.

For instance maybe my ideal client is interested in macros.

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CrossFit gets a lot of cult like love and a lot of, frankly, ignorant hate. Some justified I am sure. In light of the recent CrossFit regional qualifiers, I asked my Instagram audience a few questions. The questions were aimed only at those who have consistently participated in CrossFit for 6 months or more. So 3-5 days per week of CrossFit for at least six months. That was the requirement in order to answer my questions.

This episode is NOT backed by science. In fact a physical therapist friend actually said they had some recent decent research that debunks some of the common beliefs about CrossFit and injury volume or frequency, but I am still waiting on that data - I can’t and wouldn’t speak to it until I got the chance to read and dissect it myself. Because truly so much research is bias. But we always hope it is not.

The questions I asked were as follows:

What are the positives/pros/things you love(d) about CrossFit?What were/are the negative sides of CrossFit? Personal experience or observation

How long have you done/did you practice CrossFit as your main medium of fitness?If you stopped, why?

If you still do CrossFit, why would you ever see yourself leaving? Or doing something else? If you can imagine that.

For those who no longer do CrossFit, what do you do now as your made modality of fitness?

I was so amazed and interested by both the volume of responses and the content of those responses that I had to be consolidating that information into a podcast episode. Especially because no one but me gets to see all these responses in the question boxes!

As a disclaimer, I feel I need to share my background with CrossFit because I do and have undoubtedly had biases over the years. Now I feel much much more neutral about CrossFit - largely due to the changes I’ve seen.

I did CrossFit for over six months, under one year in my early 20’s. Loved it. So much. Thought it was way too heavy on overhead volume to lower body volume, and also lacked unilateral work, and lateral work - things I was learning about in school at the time. Ended up with a meniscus surgery, and an undiagnosed shoulder injury that the doc chalked up to bicep tendonitis. So, stopped and changed modalities back to weight lifting and more traditional conditioning with some retcons here and there.

I then as a professional jumped on the CrossFit hate train - “they use momentum for everything, that’s not a real pull up, lack of regulation and anyone can be a coach” etc.

I interned at a physical therapy clinic as a performance coach for six months at the tail end of my college career and past graduation. I was actually offered a full time position but turned it down. The owner and PT’s used to say “as long as CrossFit exists, we’ll stay in business.” They weren’t wrong. A massive percentage of the clientele came from CrossFit. Mostly knee, lower back, and shoulder injuries. That’s the side I was introduced to next. Thus, my disapproval continued.

Even with that said, who doesn’t love watching the CrossFit Games? I watch them every year. Always have.

Stick around till the end for my current stance/view of CrossFit. But now let’s breakdown YOUR DATA.

What are the positives/pros/things you love(d) about crossfit?

Intensity

Unknown Challenges

Mindless workouts - show up, do what’s on the board

Randomness or Variety

Strength, aerobic and skills work all involved

Community - especially centered around WEIGHTS

Lots of ex-athletes mentioned feeling like an athlete again - from a team/community and intensity perspective

What were/are the negative sides of CrossFit? Personal experience or observation

On the flip side - too much variation, not enough consistency on same skills

Overstressed, under recovered (lack of variance in intensity) - too easy to over do it (competition culture)

Pressure to push hard/push through when it wasn’t wise

Joints always hurt/injuries

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Pregnancy Real Talk Part 2!

If you missed part one of this kind of life update on pregnancy and our backstory, make sure to check that out. I will say maybe it’s more the emotional and experiential side of the experience thus far. Today we are going to dive into more of the logistics, challenges and plans

Cost & contextInsurance Providers/birthing planMaternity leave/business plan

I will be talking a lot about personal decisions in today’s episode. And know that they are just that. Our personal decisions, or my personal decisions. And me sharing them in any capacity is a privilege. Because myself or anyone you follow online does not have to share anything with anyone. But like I mentioned in part one, I think that people sharing their experiences can be very powerful and letting other people know that they are not alone if maybe they don’t have a popular feeling or experience - in regards to anything. So let’s get into it!

Insurance

Insurance was actually another one of my reasons that I was scared of getting pregnant because we have not had insurance since early 2018. We are young and healthy, and had all the health insurance we would need through world nomads travel insurance when we were traveling in 2018 and 2019, and the first part of 2020. After we got back in 2020, we had no insurance. We made that decision after inquiring about it. And the costs that come with being self-employed just weren’t worth it to us. So we opted out.

In the back of my mind was always the fear of pregnancy and having to pay out of pocket. But I also knew people firsthand who had paid cash and were able to get close to half off prices because of paying in cash.

For the first three weeks to a month, it felt like Nate’s full-time job to call and research insurance options. It was a pretty massive headache if I’m being honest. Essentially we are outside of enrollment period, pregnancy is not a pre-qualifying factor, and we make too much to qualify for literally any insurance.

I got pretty mad at the system during that time. Because while we are affluent enough to be able to pay for this pregnancy if everything goes smoothly, someone making $3500 a month in the state of Washington would be in the same boat as us if they didn’t have insurance and that’s fucking insane.

Also, Nate doesn’t work, so he had the time to make all of these phone calls and be put on wait for three hours. I just made us think of all the people who don’t have time, or resources. I can be a super sucky an unfortunate situation for so many people. But that’s another conversation. Because today is about our experience.

We were able to get a first ultrasound at a women’s clinic here called Options 360. And that was completely free. So we got to see our little been at nine weeks. It was one or 1 1/2 inches long. And everything was right on schedule as far as growth to that point.

We finally ended up having a zoom call with a personal insurance broker who I found through my friend Paiger Major. She was awesome. Her name is Jackie and her company is called Translating Insurance. She was able to find us one single insurance plan that we could enroll in.

By the way this was after already looking into shared insurance plans, like medishare for instance. And a few other ones. All of which required you to get the insurance, or subscribe before knowing you were pregnant. Or before conception. The options for pregnant people are so limited. It literally infuriates me.

So the limited insurance plan we can pay into is extremely limited. But it does cover the hospital stay up to seven days and actual labor. But it doesn’t cover the doctors fee. I personally wanted to go through a clinic here called Cascadia Women’s Clinic. Thus, we will likely pay out of pocket with them, and get the insurance just for the birthing portion and a C-section if that has to happen.

By the way, I have spoken to many of you on Instagram who straight up paid cash and gave b...

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This podcast episode is the epitome of nuance - of several different emotions and experiences coexisting at the same time. So I want to make clear that if you skip any part of this or take any single part of it as the conclusion of my experience or this episode, you are mistaken and you’re also missing the entire point of this episode.

Bless me and my attempt to keep this episode concise. I’ve already decided to make this a two part series because it’s just needed to get in everything I want to. Bringing a bebe into the world is not a simple thing for me (or anyone I presume).

Pregnancy back story

It’s no secret to my Instagram audience, friends or family that Nate and I were team no babies for a long time. I say that but it’s not entirely true.

If that was the case, we would have gotten him snipped or tied my tubes or taken an actual preventative route. That only makes sense if you’re 100% on not producing offspring.

For us, we’ve been married nine years in August. When we got married, we told people, maybe in three years we’d think about expanding our family. Then three years rolled around, and we said maybe at that five year mark. Then five turned into we aren’t preventing kids (I wasn’t on birth control but tracked my cycle via the Fertility Awareness Method - aka FAM), but if and when it happens, we’ll figure it out.

Therefore we were open to having kids, we just didn’t WANT them in a specific time frame.

I would say I was more against the idea of having kids. And I want to be very careful with my words here. I am simply sharing the most authentic story I can for myself in hopes that it helps other people (both men and women) feel less alone if they had or have similar feelings.

Also, I have always been amazed by and think that motherhood, pregnancy, in the act of giving birth is miraculous. And believe it as a gift. It was just never some thing I saw clearly for myself.

Let’s lay out my situation. I am the breadwinner. And frankly my business has been my baby for the last seven years. Thinking about a child coming into that picture did not seem feasible to me. I couldn’t visualize it working. I’ve never identified with any of the natural motherly tendencies or desires. You could say I have more masculine energy naturally. But the beautiful thing is, Nate is a stay at home husband and is fucking amazing with kids. They gravitate towards him. He’s a big punching bag or cuddle bug, and a big kid at heart. He’s a better cook than I am and he’s hospitable AF.

It’s why we work. It’s not that I am masculine and he is feminine. I want to make that very clear. We very much so respect rather traditional masculine and feminine roles while also letting each person pursue and express what we believe to be their natural gifts - I am task driven. He is relationally driven.

Sooooo all that is to say - I am now, at 19 weeks stoked to raise a babe with Nathanael and trusting him has also allowed me to see myself in the motherly role that will make sense for me.

That feeling is abundantly different than when I found out I was pregnant and two years leading up to it.

From 2018 through 2021 my feelings around possibly becoming pregnant were 110% fear driven. That fact is clearer than ever now. From the fear of actual motherhood - bonding with the baby, balancing my work life, literally not getting to be as selfish as I was without children, to the literal act of labor, I avoided even thinking about the possibility because I was terrified of it all. Stick with me, because I don’t fear these things now.

I don’t even fully know how to articulate it so I’ll just tell you a short story for a visual. I started using Hilary Rushford’s Elegant Excellence Goals Journal in 2018 or 2019. And she lays out that our future has multiple possibilities. So while laying out your 5 year plan can be all well and good, it might be beneficial to look at three possible outcomes for your 3-5 year vision.

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Coaches are always wondering how much they should charge, what to consider and how to increase prices if needed. That’s what we’re getting into today. This is a straight forward, nitty gritty episode.

The market is the first thing we consider.

And where you want to sit in the market. We will go over what is typical pricing in the market of online health and fitness shortly, but where you sit in any market needs to be considered.

Are you a premium brand? Mid tier? That’s up to you and will also be determined by who your offer and your customers.

If you work with high achieving CEO’s, you will likely have a premium brand charging premium prices, doing a lot to make this client’s life easier.

Not every ideal client falls into a specific demographic from an income standpoint, but it can be a factor which is why I mention it.

Don’t let your own money mindset limiters get in the way of charging what you should be charging. For instance if you think “I wouldn’t pay x for this” - consider that perhaps you are not your ideal client. Maybe you aren’t in need of what you’re offering. Or maybe it’s not in your current budget even though you understand the value. IT IS of value to those clients who are willing to pay for it.

Food for thought. You’ll feel much better charging a price that makes proper sense for your service. And they will be invested, ready to do the work. Not guaranteed but likely correlated.

You need to feel compensated for the work.

Don’t limit yourself to thinking about time as an exchange for money. Energy balance and demand is a thing. Charging for your ability to be thorough and efficient is a thing. For instance it took me longer to write 1:1 programming when I charged $99 per month than when I charged $250 per month. People are paying for the experience. Not for how long it takes to create a program. Just something to consider from a mindset perspective.

I talk about this in the perfect pricing guide inside FitsPRO Foundations - pricing should be a win for you, a win for the value of the offer, and a win for the client. Not that the pricing is no big deal for them, but that they understand the value, and feel like they are making an informed and empowered decision in make the commitment to work with you.

If you find that you are indeed undercharging, then increase your pricing.

Don’t make this harder than it is. But do the following, or rather, choose from the following.

You can grandfather in your current clients and simply increase price on your site and in contracts for new customers.

There is no rule for the amount you increase pricing by. You make massive changes by 2-400 dollars or more. Or make smaller increases. $50-$100.

If you’re increasing pricing due to under charging, there is no need to alter your program and what’s offered within. If you would like to charge more but currently don’t provide that level of value, you can make the needed alterations to your service, offer that to current clientele at the higher price point.

If increasing pricing for current clients, you can absolutely go all in and drop it on them but these people did get you to where you are. So I suggest a drip system.

Over three month periods, increase their pricing. You would notify them with the coming structure, and give them time to adjust finances or whatever else they may need to do. Maybe it goes up by a total of $100/mo but it’s a $33/mo increase every three months.

These are just ideas and options. Ideally you communicate what has been added or why the price is increasing so that clients have an understanding.

Your business structure

Not every business model works the same. If you’re going to have 10 online clients but you’re only charging $99 per month, you are capping your monthly income at under $1,000 and likely, back to number 2, not feeling compensated for the work you’re putting in. $1,000 per month, especially in today’s society is a joke.

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I did a podcast back in 2021 on the reflection of my definition of health after traveling the world. It went over things like being able to take a break from all of your supplements and perfect schedule. Essentially can you adapt to less ideal situation. Because I believe that that is part of health. Today’s episode is not that, but kind of a piggyback off of, or a cousin to that episode.

I won’t be going into nutrition because it’s not some thing that I am as well versed in as weight training. But you could obviously dive into nutrition as an additional thing to manage or look at outside of fitness. But I want to look even further outside kind of the normal scope of fitness and nutrition.

These aren’t groundbreaking. They are absolutely normal. And I think it’s pretty natural to venture into these different areas the longer that you have been in not even weightlifting, but just the exercise world in general. This may be a quick episode, but I hope to give you some resources and things to think about an implement outside of your time in the gym.

Breathing

It’s no surprise that this came up considering that I am almost done reading the book Breathe by James Nestor. In my academic brain, there’s quite a bit of pseudoscience in this book if I’m being honest. Or just methods and claims not backed by science. But also just because something hasn’t been scientifically tested, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hold merit. The research world is after all still a money-based practice. Research needs funding. So that’s something to consider in general.

Regardless, it’s no secret that we breathe from the moment we enter this world until the moment we leave this world. And there are more efficient ways to do that given different scenarios. Breath can be very powerful in controlling other areas of our body, especially in regards to our nervous system. Breath is often used in a meditative state to bring the body into a parasympathetic state. In your autonomic nervous system you have parasympathetic and sympathetic. Sympathetic is your turn up fight or flight stimulated side, and parasympathetic is your rest and digest. Meaning it is when we down regulate, and slow everything. We prepare for rest. We recover.

Essentially breath can be used to calm the body, or stimulate the body. So I’m not necessarily telling you to implement any practices. But maybe just pay attention to the way that you breathe throughout the day. Are you breathing through your mouth? Are you breathing through your nose? How do you breathe when you exercise? How are you breathing before you go to bed at night? Just draw attention to those areas, and then if you have the means maybe pick up a book like Breathe, or listen to it on audio. There’s several others that I haven’t read yet that I’m sure will come up on suggestions when you select the book nn Amazon. And at the time of this episode it is on my Amazon page if you want to go to that.

I personally bought the book in the beginning of 2022 but prioritized reading it during my pregnancy just because I know the power of breath during highly painful and intense situations. So I thought I would kind of read that as a base. If you’re looking for an area to focus on with your body outside of training, think about breath.

Mobility

In my mind this is a part of weight training or strength training, but it’s not for a lot of people. So thinking about mobility in all planes of movement. For me I am very restricted rotationally, and honestly with lateral flexion in my midsection.

If you have not yet ventured into mobility, I will link some Instagram accounts to follow that have some different takes to mobility. I definitely benefit from static stretching from a relaxation standpoint. But I find the best long lasting results from active mobility and really working into my end ranges with movement. So check the show notes for those accounts. And then of course the best subscription I know of is still RO...

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Over the last month or so, Instagram has created a lot of updates. And creators and consumers alike are feeling the effects of the constant updates by Instagram. That is what brings up today’s episode. Because it got me thinking about myself, and those of us who have been on the app for 5+ years.

Today’s episode is not a feel good one. But I do hope that you can be real with yourself and objectively question whether any of these apply to you. Because in reality, you have the potential, rather the opposite of these have the potential to let you enjoy your time on the app, and to grow on the app.

Which is technically why you are there from a business standpoint. Yes we want an interactive audience, and we need to generate income from the audience we have on Instagram, but growth will always be needed to some extent.

So let’s get into six reasons why you may not be successful on Instagram or feel like you are being successful on Instagram.

I am viewing success in this episode as being able to generate new followers even if people unfollowing. So when you look at your insights, and you go to audience. You’ll see followers and followers and net new followers. I am far less concerned with your net new followers as I am with just the fact that you’re getting 70 to 100 new people in per month or more. That’s a big deal. That’s 100 people you didn’t have last month, who are learning about your brand, who don’t know who you are, and who might be a good client for you. So we need to focus on those people. Success is having an audience who DM‘s you from your stories, asks you questions, comments on your posts, tags you in their stories. This is in my eyes what success on Instagram is from a social standpoint. And then yes of course, generating actual clients from the app.

You don’t like it

In FitsPRO Foundations we talk about what social platforms you should be on, and one of the criteria is that you have to actually enjoy the app itself, and creating content for that app. You'll end up resentful even getting on the app, let alone having to create content for an app that you have distaste for.

It’s just like health and fitness, or anything that you’re attempting to do, and adhere to. If you don’t enjoy it, it gets exponentially harder to stick with the process.

Posting every day on Instagram, being in your stories, answering DM‘s, doing market research to create new content, being in this continual cycle is going to require you to do all of those things when you do not feel like it. So the more that you actually enjoy it, the easier it’s going to be.

Even with the annoyances of the algorithm, and the changes that are made to Instagram so frequently these days, I try to make a point that it is still my favorite social media app. When I take a week off of Instagram, which I recently did, I genuinely miss interacting with my audience, and also taking a contact from a consumer standpoint. I follow people that entertain me, and that I get value from, and that I may not have access to outside of the app. So you don’t have to absolutely love Instagram, but how do you think it will be who’ve you to enjoy it, or curate your own experience as a consumer on the app in order to enjoy it more And learned about it from an organic standpoint.

I do want to be clear, because I’ve said before, that it wouldn’t be on Instagram if I didn’t have a business. And I do think that’s mostly true. But it still stands that of the social media platforms available, it is my favorite app.

You’re not using it organically

This piggybacks off of my last kind of statement under reason 1.

A couple of my one on one business clients took a break from posting about their areas of expertise for a week or so, and just posted about life, and whatever came up. It was far more entertaining for their audience, and they give them a mental break of trying to check all of the Instagram boxes. It also reminded all of us what Instagram is from an...

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Today’s episode is going to be highly beneficial for entrepreneurs, because that is likely the lens that I will see this through, but it applies to literally any area of your life that you want to see more productivity and in the back half of the year. And I want to be clear that productivity is not doing more in general. It is doing more of whatever it is that you want to do. It’s being aligned with that decision and that goal. And making sure that your decisions or getting you more of whatever it is that you are working on. I was just talking to my assistant the other day and she was talking about how one of her goals this year was to actually be "less productive", and to prioritize more fun. So if she was listening to this podcast episode she is looking at how can she be more productive in having more fun. How can she prioritize having more fun, creating more space, using her time more wisely for what it is that she wants to do.

That’s all to say that I'll use the word productive because I think that moving in the direction you want to go is productive. Versus getting a bunch of things done. You can be very very busy and not productive. Your plate can be very very full, and not productive. That is how we are setting up today’s episode.

We’re going to talk about three different approaches and tactics that you can use to get more done of what you want to get done. You can use all of these, you can use one of them. Or implement whatever makes sense on top of whatever it is that you’re already doing.

No, I am not an expert in behavior change. I am simply sharing things that I have learned from other people, I’ve worked for me. I don’t always get it right, I still do things with my time that I would rather not do with my time, and there’s always room to improve. But that’s my point. Do you have room to improve. You have room to do more of what you want to do and I’m hoping that I can help you in someway to do that.

Daily habits and first step plans

First off if you have not read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, I highly suggest that you do so. When I read that book James put a lot of names to things that I was already doing, or that I had tried in the past. He has this really nice applicable structure to the way that he writes about habits and being more productive in the way that I mentioned earlier.

That’s where I learned, or rather give a name to, habit stacking. Or combining your habits. So for instance, in the summer of 2020, during the pandemic, I started doing LISS cardio AND writing captions, blogs, or drafting podcasts during that time every day. It made me feel way more productive in my work, and it got me more movement in my day. I wasn’t concerned about being present for the cardio, or pushing myself. It was simply to combine two tasks that felt annoying, or daunting, or timely to me. Writing sitting down with no stimulation is fine, but it literally just takes time, and so I like to be doing something else if I can be.

I’ve implemented that recently in my second trimester of pregnancy. So I need to draft and create like 30+ podcasts her maternity leave. And that means I need to get ahead now. So I have started doing 20 to 30 minutes audio first thing in the morning, and drafting up podcasts. And that’s just like prepping the show notes topics on my talk about main points things of that sort.

This is not a main point, but as like a subsection of habit stacking, I also suggest doing something that you want to do first thing in the morning if that’s possible. Get in the habit of rolling out of bed and doing the thing. This is the best applied to someone who wants to meditate or have a breathing practice or do some mobility, or shoot, even drink more water.

This can’t happen for everyone, and I fully understand that. I’m not going to tell the mother of three kids with a full-time job to wake up and do a 30 minute meditation, but if at all possible,

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Today we are only going to talk about three different ways to spice up your hypertrophy set and reps schemes.

All three of them are going to add time under tension in their own respect.

These applications will be added to whatever it is that you are already doing with your training. So I am going to be very specific into how you can use these three methods, whether it be worth one of your lives in your training program, or all of them.

To start off, a standard set and rep scheme includes sets (which is how many rounds you do) and reps (which is how many repetitions you perform within each set). And then we also have tempo. And load. You also have rest periods but we won’t be discussing those today.

That could look like seven sets of three, or five sets of four, or three sets of 15. Your rep scheme could also be wave loading, or some thing a bit more complicated. It could be four by four and increasing weight by 3% each set. It could be a pyramid scheme, where you either increase reps and decrease load on the way up and then do the reverse on the way down. Or like I said wave loading, which could be 642642, using appropriate weights at each of those. Which we won’t get into the specifics of right now.

Just know that those sets and reps will be assigned for every single exercise that you do with an work out. Now let’s get into what you can do or tack on in addition to your normal sets and reps.

Number one and number two go hand-in-hand, in adding specific time under tension in the bottom half of a movement. Or where the extent of the eccentric contraction is happening more often than not.

3 ways to spice up hypertrophy set & rep schemes:

Pauses

You can technically put a pause at any portion of a movement. They are commonly seen at say the bottom of a squat, or at mid shin during a dead lift, or at the top or middle of a pull up.

Adding a pause can be for a single second, or 10 seconds. Or anywhere in between and or beyond that. Point being, to add that time under tension during a specific area of the muscle contraction. And that will be determined by yourself or your coach.

How you might implement this could look different depending on the lift. I’ll use hip thrusts as an example. The pause here will happen at the top of the thrust, with full glute max contraction. You could do this at the top of each rep for say two seconds, or you could add a big contraction on the last rep of each set for 10 seconds. That isometric contraction briefly increases the intensity of the lift, and certainly the demand on the muscle fibers at that point of the movement.

For something like a bicep curl, you could add a pause halfway down. I would curl all the way up, lower halfway down pause for a second or two lower all the way down and then straight back into the next rep. This would be adding extra tension in the mid range of the lift. You could also pause near a sticking point of a lift if you wanted to work on strengthening the muscles within the degrees where are the sticking point happens.

Again, the basics of a pause is that it’s an isometric contraction of the muscle with in either the E centric or the con centric contraction of muscle.. It’s a fun, simple way to spice up your training if you feel you need it. Or if you were looking for a way to spice up PROgramming for your clients, without altering other factors like exercise selection.

Pulses

I first experienced using pulses in a bodybuilding phase when I was probably 20 years old or so. And I’ve never been so sore in my entire life up to that point.

At the bottom of the last rep of every set, we performed 5 to 10 pulses before finishing the last rep. It was absolutely brutal. We were using a weight it was probably an RPE 8 but quickly became an RPE 9 or 10 because of the pulses.

Let’s take shoulder press for this example. Any shoulder press variation. You complete your three sets of eight reps.

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For all my online health and fitness professionals who feel like they have to be everywhere, where is the best place for YOU?

The answer to today’s question is not going to be something that is definite. That’s for a couple of reasons. For one, social media platforms are always changing, disappearing, and new ones are being planted. And also, your creation process and preferences may change overtime, requiring you to experiment or migrate onto other platforms.

So while I may talk about specific platforms like YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and others, know that what we talk about today applies to all social media platforms that come up in the future.

First things first, when you are starting out in business, I am a very aggressive believer in the fact that you need to be on one single platform, go all in, and then you can expand. But I do wish personally, that I would have considered a long-term approach when I chose Instagram to be my single platform years ago.

So keep that in mind as we move forward and break down different aspects of types of social media platforms, and why you may choose one over the other.

We first need to distinguish a search-based platform and a social platform. Because I will be lumping those together today, but they are not the same. And it’s very important that you understand the difference.

A search base platform is a platform where content lives evergreen and has a value for as long as the piece of content exists. This is because when you go to YouTube or Pinterest for instance, you can search how to change your oil in a 2010 Volvo S 60, in the most popular or widely used video could ranked number one even though it was posted seven years ago. Now that person‘s content is continuing to drive traffic without them having to create new content on a daily basis like most social platforms.

Pinterest works the same way. There are still algorithms on these search-based platforms. Even on Google. But your content at least has the potential for longevity and to live evergreen on search based platforms.

The downfall to a search-based platform is time. Generally speaking, it’s going to take a longer period of time to gain traction and traffic, and to monetize anything on a search-based platform. Now that’s not definite, and there are exceptions. But on a platform like TikTok or Instagram, or even Facebook for that matter, the potential to gain followers and an audience that can potentially become customers for you, is higher on these platforms. And can happen more quickly.

But that trade-off is, social-based platforms typically require high frequencies of contact creation and output. Or someone may post one to two YouTube videos per week, which are more time intensive, someone would need to post 5 to 14 pieces of content on a platform like Instagram, TickTock, or Facebook. I mentioned these because they are currently the most widely used social platforms in the world.

All of that is to say, if you can swing it, I want you to think long term and which two platforms make the most sense for you, the type of content you like to create, and where your audience is already searching for the type of information you provide. On one social platform, and one search based platform.

From a business standpoint, it behooves you to be on platforms, social, or search-based, that allow you to generate income. Not directly from the platform necessarily, but that make it easy for a consumer to click a link, and end up on your website able to purchase something from you, or apply to work with you.

Always think about these platforms from a functionality standpoint in the eyes of a business owner. Do you want to create content that is organic to the platform, but also think like the entrepreneur. Never lose that frame of mind.

In deciding which platform you are going to be on, I really encourage people to think about the type of contest that they want to create.

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In light of watching some of the CrossFit qualifiers recently, and purchasing a new program myself, I thought it would be a good time to discuss how to choose the season of fitness that you are in. And also to acknowledge that when you’re doing this for the long-haul, it’s OK if most of your seasons consist of maintenance or working on small things. We don’t always have to be chasing big audacious goals. And also there’s nothing wrong with chasing big goals.

I figure it’s easiest to break this up in specific goals or types of seasons that you could be in within your training. And again, I want to make clear that this episode and my perspective is for someone who is weight training for the long-haul. And probably prefers to feel like they are training versus just working out. Because those are two very different things.

Just working out is exercising for the sake of exercising. So enter the person who is going to crossfit.com and picking a workout off of the website to do. We’re going to bodybuilding.com and downloading a template, we’re going on Instagram and doing a random work out that they saw. I personally have had seasons where that is how I worked out. And if you’re moving just to move your body, I really don’t see a whole lot wrong with that. But there are far more benefits to be gained by following a structured program, no matter what the goal is. And that is what we are discussing today.

Some seasons that we can look at could really be anything, but these are some common ones within the weight training world.

Strength, capacity, mobility or rehab, really hyper focusing on a weak link, improving conditioning, training certain skills, or trying a new type of training all together.

Nothing is to say that these things can’t be worked on at the same time. But everything can’t be a priority at the same time. While we work on some things, other things are going to take a backseat and/or be maintained.

So don’t think that all of these seasons work as an on/off switch. You can absolutely be working max strength in your main lifts and still working to improve our capacity in your accessory work.

And now I ask you what season do you either want to be in with your training, or what season are you currently in if you have an actually defined it?

For myself, I am 15 1/2 weeks pregnant during the recording of this episode, and I would consider the season that I am in with my training as a pre-hab stage. It’s a preparation phase. I know I am not special, meaning that women all over the world give birth to babies under all sorts of circumstances. Every human on earth came to be through a woman. So my body is not special in that sense. But, I would like to feel informed, and educated through the process of preparing my body to give birth. And to also maintain as much of my muscle mass as I can.

This would be similar to a rehab stage. Where it’s going to be very vital for you to not compare what your current body can do with what your past body could do. It’s going to be very important to focus on what you can do, and having a plan around that, so that there is indeed a process to trust. That is why I personally purchased a program from mamastefit.

From weeks 12 to 15 I did three workouts per week on my own, incorporating some more core, breathing, and hip work. But I just know that I would prefer to follow a tried and proven program that someone else has written. It’s the same exact reason that anybody else purchases a program.

What’s most important when choosing a season or a goal for your training, is to be realistic with what’s happening outside of the gym. It’s no wonder that at my strongest, I had the least amount of life stress, and I was napping once a day on a strict schedule. I was able to fill myself very well for my training, and my life and training fit together like a glove. Which allowed me to push very hard, and mentally prepare for my lifting sessions.

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I’ve said before on many podcast episodes, that entrepreneurship is one of the most self refining journeys you can go on. Thus it’s full of opportunities to learn, and that means lots of lessons along the way. I don’t claim to know at all. Half the time I don’t even feel like I’m a real entrepreneur. But I figure if I’ve learned anything over the last 5 to 7 years, it might be of use to you. So it’s worth sharing.

Some of these are going to sound very cliché. But they are true nonetheless. Let’s go ahead and just dive right in.

5 Lessons for an Online Entrepreneurs

Fear of failure and success

I have been afraid of success and failure many times in my life throughout different seasons. It wasn’t until I became an entrepreneur that I was truly forced to face both of things.

I know you’ve heard people say that the faster you can accept failure as a part of the process, the more progress you will make. People say that because it’s true. Successful people say that because it’s true. There is always going to be something to be afraid of if you are growing. Comfort zones are often bordered by fear. Which makes sense, because fear and comfort normally don’t go together.

Fact is, your biggest fears are probably not that realistic, and not that big when you truly think about how you would face that fear, or come back from that situation. That’s one of my favorite lessons from the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.

So I will ask you what you are ultimately afraid of, and to look at the opposite. What if it does work out? What if worst-case scenario doesn’t happen? Is it worth it then?

Again, there is always going to be something to be afraid of. And you won’t necessarily get less afraid of certain things, but you will learn to trust yourself and your abilities the more that you take what you consider to be scary steps.

So whatever that is for you right now in your state of entrepreneurship, I just really encourage you to push forward with the fear and see what happens. It can be something as small as talking face to camera in your Instagram stories, or starting a podcast, or reaching out to network with someone. Fear will continue to be a barrier if you let it, in any situation. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it does tend to be a matter of fact.

Blinders on

Beyond fear of failure and fear of success, entrepreneurship will also rear the ugly head of comparison. Especially, I believe, in the online space. It’s so easy to think that everyone else is running seamless businesses with full client rosters, and doing it with ease. But I promise you that is not the case.

And even if it was the truth, you comparing your journey to theirs is not going to serve you. I am 100% for looking to people that you aspire to be like. People who maybe you want to emulate the way that they run their business. Or people who align with your philosophy. I absolutely love all of that. And I didn’t figure out what I really wanted to do with my business for 2 1/2 years because I didn’t see that what I wanted to do was even an option. That’s in large part why I am very much so for people looking at and taking in information from people they look up to in one way shape or form.

But that is, of course, different than comparison. Comparison is going to happen. It’s silly to think that it’s not. One way that we can minimize it is to attempt to keep our blinders on. More often than not we tend to let our gaze veer right and left when we lack clarity and focus in what it is that we are doing within our own businesses. Or I certainly know that that is the truth for me. When I am most focused on my work, my clients, and growing my own business, I am the least distracted or interested in what anyone else is doing.

In fact, for that reason I know that myself and other colleagues have muted friends and colleagues on social media because it’s just not helpful in all seasons to be seeing what other people are doing.

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Mobility came on the fitness scene in large thanks to CrossFit. Perhaps you disagree or perhaps that is even untrue. But in 2011-2013 CrossFit was booming and thus came a large demand and need for mobility in the fitness industry. People like Kelly Starrett with Supple Leopard, and resources like ROMWOD mobility became more advisable than ever (from my experience and perspective). To my knowledge, mobility has been an important part of sports like weightlifting for decades. But was not as aggressively integrated into general strength training.

Here’s the deal, mobility is, in short, your active range of motion.

This is in contrast to flexibility which is your passive range of motion. Sitting in the middle splits is your passive range of motion, while sliding down into and back out of the middle splits is your active range motions. Can your muscles get you into and out of your end ranges? As you can imagine from these definitions, flexibility is the potential for mobility. For instance if you can’t get there passively, then you more than likely won’t be able to get to or past that point actively.

Why does all of this matter for putting on muscle and/or gaining strength?

I am guessing you’ll have more questions after listening to this podcast than when you came into it. But I don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing. I will do my best to keep it clear and concise, providing disclaimers where needed. I say that because this is not black and white. So, stay curious, and keep context in mind as we move forward.

For starters, it comes down to muscle fiber recruitment.

One could think of range of motion as the practical use of mobility within weight lifting. Range of motion is simply the distance traveled from start to finish of an exercise. Are you lowering all the way down in pull ups, are you squatting ass to grass? These would be considered FULL range of motion (or ROM).

I hope you can see that if you lack mobility in a given area, you may be limiting your potential range of motion in a given lift. This is not the end of the world, most people have mobility restrictions and can still put on plenty of muscle. I don’t wish to scare you or over complicate this.

Why does range of motion matter for strength or hypertrophy? We answer these questions because they CAN BE connected. Muscle mass is the potential for strength. Muscle is the how the body will eventually demonstrate strength (force production).

So now we ask how we build muscle. As discussed on many episodes, there are three main factors - being mechanical tension (this is most important), metabolic stress, and muscle damage. We will be thinking about mechanical tension and maybe muscle damage.

For a muscle to contract, muscle fibers are recruited. Number of muscle fibers recruited and strength of a contraction are positively correlated. Meaning more fibers = higher contraction. This is what we are after both for strength and hypertrophy.

That is also where range of motion comes in. Within range of motion, the muscle is lengthening - this is known as the eccentric phase. That means the shortening phase only has to contract within the range the muscle was lengthened. That also limits the fibers which are recruited. More range of motion has the potential to mean MORE FIBERS recruited. And that means more potential mechanical tension and muscle damage. Ideally, with proper load, recovery, and diet, muscle cell growth or strength gains.

Think about body building and the idea that they want to stress a given muscle from as many angles as possible. The literal point of this is to maximize motor unit recruitment and fatigue. The same applies here. More range of motion or improved range of motion could mean more fibers working.

Remember I said this was not black and white. Just using full range of motion in the absence of a load challenging enough to stimulate the muscles is not going to equate to more muscle or strength.

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It’s no secret that since November 2020, Instagram added another type of content for all of us to create and consume. Many people did not get access to this feature for nearly a year to my knowledge. But I believe most users have access to both consuming and creating reels at the time of this recording.

For the past month and a half, I did a little experiment with creating only original content on reels. And that was because although it’s really fun to use trending audios and voiceovers, it’s very short-lived content. And I think I’ve talked about this before. But that means that I’m depending on somebody else’s audio more likely than not. So if that audio is removed then I lose that Reel. And it doesn’t make sense on other platforms like original content does. For me that looks like blog posts and Pinterest. Obviously if you are using TikTok and then taking that content and using it in a Reel, then that makes sense for dual use content. But that simply doesn’t apply to me. So for an extended period of time I created only original content, to see how it stood up against unoriginal content, and how it was received by my audience.

Today we are going to talk about trends, whether you should follow trends, creating original content and the benefits of that, as well as the benefits of creating with trends. But by the end of this episode I just hope that you have some efficacy behind the choices that you make in regards to creating real‘s content if that something that you feel you need to do for your business or something that you want to do.

What are Reels?

As of now reels are short form video content. They can be literally anything. I’ve even seen people lately posting a single photo as a graphic on reels. like a one second photo that then repeats over and over and over again because that counts as views or time spent viewing that particular reel. Now, I don’t think that is a good tactic from a business standpoint or a creator standpoint. Because as a consumer I don’t enjoy consuming that. So it’s not going to get liked and it’s not going to get shared. That’s my current perspective on this but maybe I just haven’t seen someone use the tactic in a way that makes sense in my opinion.

Timing

Again, at this point these videos can go up to 60 seconds. But I honestly don’t suggest that. And I want to bring your attention to a point that I repeat a lot when speaking on any aspect of business and marketing. And that is the fact that I encourage you to observe yourself as a consumer. How long are the reels that you typically watch in their entirety? Why do you watch those ones? Are there a lot of transitions? Is it entertaining? How did they grab your attention? These are all questions that you can ask yourself while you consume content in order to then use that data and apply it to your own creation process.

I still want you creating more often than you are consuming. But I do think that it benefits us to organically take and content on the app and see what trends are happening, as well as what is appealing to us as a consumer.

So strictly speaking from my own experience I tend to only watch Reels that are definitely under 30 seconds. More often than not under 15 seconds.

No matter how long the Reel is that you were creating be sure to keep transitions very quick. There should be no space before or after you starting or ending a sentence. So if it is an organic piece of content - An original piece of content, then be sure to cut your clips very very clearly and concisely so that they butt up to each other with no gaps.

So that kind of wraps up this idea of timing. And duration of content. Attempt to keep it short, whether you are creating original content or using a voiceover.

Type of content

You also have to consider the type of content I suppose. Especially in the world of health and fitness, you may not even be face to camera. Maybe you are doing a voiceover over the top of an exercise tutorial ...

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Training plateaus are going to happen the longer you have been training for. That’s the joy of newbie gains - in that season, which can last years, you are able to make noticeable adaptations on a monthly if not weekly basis.

And when that time ends, you have likely hit a training plateau. Meaning that you are unable to increase load lifted for a given amount of reps. Or you’re unable to increase volume at a given load. Basically nothing new is happening, and it feels like you aren’t making progress. Thus, a plateau.

Luckily training plateaus are part of the process, and not the end of the world.

If you haven’t taken a deload week, that is my first suggestion before getting fancy with anything, or adding more training stimulus to yourself. If you are not making gains with your current programming and you are pushing yourself, I assume deload would be the way to go.

Doing a deload allows the body and mind time to recover from training that has happened over the past weeks and months. Not only your muscular system, but also your central nervous system. During a deload week it’s not that you do nothing, but lower the volume and intensity of the work that you’ve been doing. These workouts should not be taxing. The point is to keep yourself moving, but not going away the taxes the body or requires adaptation. Which is what we want from our normal training, right? We are applying different stimuli to the body in order to require an adaptation that builds muscle or results in better movement patterns, better mobility, higher work capacity etc. etc.

So rather than adding anything, my first suggestion is always a deload week. Do less to hopefully be able to do more.

If you have done a deload week and or have been implementing deload weeks and you are still hitting a training plateau, then you have a few other options.

Play with tempo, variation, and range of motion. These are in contrast to playing with things like volume. Which we will discuss later.

When playing with tempo, you will likely have to lower the load whether you are making the tempo faster and working on power and velocity, or slowing it down and increasing overall time under tension. Both of these scenarios require a lighter load for maximum power output and development, or obviously increasing that time under tension.

I also want to go back to the idea that less is more.

So while I might play with a variable like tempo, I am not necessarily increasing or decreasing tempo on every single lift within a work out and therefore a training phase. I may just play with tempo on one or two exercises per day to give the body a new stimulus.

Variation in range of motion kind of go hand-in-hand. So sometimes if a client is plateauing on say a dead lift or a sumo deadlifts, I might implement sumo deadlifts from a deficit on their sumo deadlifts today, and maybe rack pulls or pin pulls from a limited range of motion on conventional deadlift day. The deficit on sumo day pushes the range of motion, and it also gets after that posterior hip capsule. The pin pulls on conventional dead lift day allow the client to pull a higher load, but for a lower range of motion. Therefore giving a new stimulus to the muscles.

And I might not change much with the accessory work. Because that single change in the main lift might be enough to push them through the plateau. Range of motion is a very very powerful variable of training that I don’t think people play with often enough. Different muscle fibers are recruited within different ranges of motion. Therefore we can possibly push past a plateau by recruiting more muscle fibers in a given area than we normally would. That’s the magic of science, and honestly, simplicity.

If a client is having a training plateau with a specific movement, I would look at their weakest point of the movement and use pauses or isometrics to work past that sticking point. That could be on some thing as simple as a pull up.

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Everyone wants passive income but no one talks about what that actually looks like - how you get there, and how you maintain it, what you have to have in place FIRST, so on and so forth.

Today we aggressively pull back the veil on those very topics and considerations. Because passive income is the shit. I love it. I think most coaches in the online health and fitness industry should seek to have some level of it. But I also think people have some unrealistic expectations, largely due to coaches selling “how to build a course and make a million dollars with ease” type of vibes. Perhaps this episode can bring the heads down from the clouds a bit and share just one perspective.

You can take what sits with you, and ignore the rest.

Let us define passive income and the gloriousness of it’s sales pitch - You sit back, and make money while you sleep. That’s the idea. And trust me, this is a huge reason I started my online business. There is time and money freedom is the idea of online entrepreneurship in general. That idea gets magnified when we talk about passive income.

Reality #1: You need a funnel

Don’t run away at the use of that word. Stick with me - You must answer the question of how people are going to find and purchase this thing: the course, the one off product, the tutorial - whatever “it” is. How much does it cost? A funnel is exactly what it sounds like: you have your largest pool of your coldest leads at the top. Maybe that’s a free opt in, download of some kind, could even be a free or low ticket 3 day challenge. You need a low level buy in but there also needs to be a time limit on that. The funnel begins once they put their name and email in the box to receive the low ticket buy in.

Depending on the price of your passive offer, you may be able to ask for the upsell to your offer immediately, or it might require a longer buying cycle - maybe a mid tier offer is made, or sever more pieces of free, valuable content. Regardless, the funnel primes the potential buyer to eventually make the purchase of your passive offer.

If you don’t have a funnel, I want you to consider a few things: Mainly the fact that you’ll need to live launch the thing several times before eventually needing to build out the funnel (which ideally takes over the “selling” process for you - through the automated email drip I described above). Now live launching doesn’t mean it’s not passive income. I will eventually build out a funnel with a free or low ticket buy in workshop series for Pure PROgramming. At this time I will live launch 3-4 times per year, but the payments roll in and then my work is done until students submit their final programs for review and certification. So, that’s an example of a funnel free passive income.

That brings me to the next point that I personally looked right passed back in 2015 when I put the cart wayyyyyyy before the horse. Please learn from my mistake.

Reality #2: A funnel without an audience will make no money

Before you even THINK about passive income, you need an engaged, aligned audience who wants what you are going to be passively selling. I cannot stress this enough. You don’t need 10k or even 5k followers. But an email waitlist of 100+ is highly suggested. That of course is relative to the price point and how many of units you need to sell or want to sell. We can’t just wish, we need to evaluate numbers and be realistic with expectations.

I’d add to this that especially in health and fitness, passive income likely comes second to having worked with several 1:1 clients or in a group setting to where you now see a common gap that needs filling, or issue that many people need addressed. Maybe it’s something that you have found you go through with every single client and this could be an automated course, self study. That knowledge only comes from seeing the need repetitively.

On that note, you need to do extensive market research before putting in the time to create a pas...

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Platforms To Explore Other Than Instagram For Business...

Instagram is fantastic from a business standpoint BUT it is forever changing - as is to be expected with a platform we don’t personally control. We must be adaptable while staying aligned to and authentic to our own brand and what people may expect from that brand. Part of building a trustworthy and dependable comes from the fact that you show up mostly how you’ve conditioned your audience to expect you to. It’s basic psychology when you really break it down. But that’s a topic for another day.

Why is Annie, a woman who built her business solely on IG, discussing other platforms for entrepreneurs to consider? Because of the first point I made in this episode. Things are changing. It is not nearly as easy as it used to be to grow an audience on Instagram. It’s not as easy to be seen. It’s not as easy to go viral and it can feel a lot more like a waste of time - or rather, like your time put in to content creation maybe doesn’t give you the return it once did. I know this because I experience it first hand AND my job is literally to help health and fitness professionals build online business, largely with the help of instagram. So, I live and breath this, and witness my FitsPROs and 1:1 biz clients TRYING to live and breathe this stuff.

I still think IG hands down the best platform for building an audience who is eventually ready to buy from you. NO question about that. It has other platforms beat in the combo of daily static posts but also IG stories, where I believe a lot of magic can happen in the world of entrepreneurship. This is all still true. It’s a free platform that, even with being a slower road than it used to be, is still a faster way to get skin in the game than on other platforms. You can argue TikTok is the new Instagram as you can grow a massive following very quickly there. I don’t have personal experience because I just refuse to use the app for multiple reasons. And I don’t have the bandwidth or desire to be there. However, it is a place you may be able to get that 2014 Instagram level of growth if you think it’s a place your ideal clients are hanging out. Probably worth a period of experimentation.

TikTok, to my knowledge is still lacking the main reason for this episode, search-ability and the long game.

Instagram’s hashtags used to be a potential big player in world of getting eyes on your content. And not only eyes but potential clients based on what they were searching in hashtags. I believe this has mostly died out. People who know a lot more about IG and have connections high up in Instagram, have hinted at this. Which I am fine with as hashtags were never a big pull for me and my audience as I never used hashtags to search as a consumer and it appeared, neither did my ideal client. In my advanced settings when I go to post on IG (at this time anyway), there is a new key word option which is a form of SEO - search engine optimization.

We see SEO used on search based platforms or content types - blogs, Google, Youtube, Pinterest, even podcast platforms to some extent. WE LOVE SEO. Why? If we can learn how to speak the language of key words, then we have more control in how our content ranks and shows up when someone SEARCHES for the topic we’ve posted about. This means two big things:

Before I say them - please remember you’re on social media as a BUSINESS AND BRAND. That is the point.

Thus we need to look at these platforms through the lens of a savvy CEO even if you don’t feel like one.

YOUR CONTENT LIVES FOR LONGER. Which means your time is better used and ideally there is higher return on time and effort put into that piece of content.

You see and use this all the time on the platforms I listed: Pinterest, Youtube, Google - it’s what brings up the blogs and tutorials you’re looking for!

Now, as stated, these are SEARCH-BASED platforms. Where Instagram is quick but short lived,

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My Sports Massage Therapist Experience & Action Plan

There is, and has been, tension in the world of strength and conditioning and physical therapy and chiropractic fields as to the benefits, application and need for manual therapy and things like foam rollers. I have personally been all over the spectrum and look to people all over the spectrum as well. Frankly, my goal is always to just call something what it is. To make sure that we’re not selling something or using verbiage that is misleading to consumers.

We must begin this episode with a slue of disclaimers - I am not a massage therapist, I am strength coach, and I am not prescribing you do something. You need to consult with your doctor or health professional on your own to determine treatment or if that is even needed.

Today I am merely sharing my own sports massage experience.

That is IT. Period. Nothing else.

You’re probably, to my knowledge, not rolling out an adhesion or changing the actual tone of your muscles via a massage or foam roller. Okay. Fascia is like super fucking strong fibers that would take an astronomical amount of pressure to actually alter in any way. That’s why I have seen physical therapists on the “no need to massage or foam roll” spectrum make statements like “if I could change your muscle, I’d leave a dent in your leg.” Which I fully understand. BUT also, it’s grey. So is there NO benefit to massage? Or any manual therapy?

Studies that I have seen do not support increased recovery, lack of muscle damage post workout, or long term increased range of motion. Some of the claims we often hear with massage and foam rolling or other types of manual therapy. Don’t quote me on this, but I do believe there is support in increased circulation and causing a parasympathetic response. Especially with massage, these things would be beneficial.

So, I don’t know that the debate will ever end. We need far more research applied to strength, performance and muscle growth to make any bold claims I believe. You’re not lengthening your muscles with a foam roller. We know that. Okay? So use it for it is, turning up the volume of pain, causing temporary relief when said pain and pressure subsides. It’s quite possibly more in the mind than anything. If you’re going to follow that up with some mobility work, good on you.

That very smoothly leads us into why I sought out a sports massage therapist about a month ago now.

Whether anecdotal or not, I am fan of massage. Always have been. Largely because two distinct periods in my life when I physically felt my best were when I was regularly getting massages.

Those two seasons were after an extreme car accident that ended in 9 months of PT and 2-3 times per week with massage therapy. And the other, a very different situation - we were living in Chiang Mai, Thailand and we would both get massages every 3 days or so. They are like 10-15 per session there. They’re also the same every time. So no specificity but just a fantastic mid day full body massage 2-3 times per week. SIGN ME UP.

It should be noted that Nate and I don’t have health insurance. Coming off 2021 health was something that kept recurring in my personal journaling, as well as business weekly, monthly and quarterly reflections. Health for myself and my family. Obviously not having health insurance makes things more stressful. Where you’d normally have an ache or pain and just make an appointment, without insurance you lack that reassurance that so often comes from the doc, right? Normally it’s nothing, you’re fine. When I looked at the issues I was having with my body from a physical sense, I landed on massage as the first step.

I have worked with many many many chiropractors and physical therapists in the past. Mostly reactive rather than preventative. Which sucks - I wish you could see the PT when something is barely beginning versus having to wait for an injury, get an x-ray etc.

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What it takes to get strong.

Often times I think hypertrophy and strength are thrown into the same boat or conversation. And I am not mad at that. There are certainly programs that involve both, and the two topics or training goals are related. Which brings us to the first point...

Let’s first start this episode with off with a precursor. “Consistency” is not one of my main points today because that is a given. You’re not maximizing strength in the absence of consistent training. So, there’s that.

The difference between muscle growth and strength

Muscle mass holds the potential for strength

muscle is the engine that allows strength to be demonstrated

Strength IS a skill

There is a massive neurological, mental and physical piece to building, gaining and maintaining strength

Newby gains

In a very oversimplified sense, to gain strength, we need to stimulate the muscle beyond what it has experienced before.

When a person starts lifting for the first time, anything beyond body weight, or maybe even their body weight alone can elicit that stimulus. There are also massive neurological gains to be made. They are learning a movement pattern and building neuromuscular pathways. Thus in the first 4-6 weeks they likely haven’t built actual strength, rather improved neuromuscular pathways. Which I suppose you could argue is in fact gaining strength. Point is, these much larger jumps in weight lifted and force produced are going to happen early on in someone’s lifting experience. Even as an amateur. These gains can continue for YEARS before a lifter truly plateaus with their strength gains. But that largely depends on the lift.

Say with lateral raises, a lifter may hit 5lbs and realize that is going to be difficult for a very long time. AND the point of this more isolated movement with a long lever is maybe not the lift to drive strength with. Not every exercises is best used for maximal or near maximal strength. Maybe better to push control + capacity with these exercises.

What it takes to get strong

As mentioned earlier you need a greater stimulus than a muscle has experienced to have an adaptation that results in more force produced.

This is in fact the definition of strength. Time is not a factor when looking at strength. It strictly refers to and measures force produced, period. If it takes you 20 seconds or 5 seconds, that is not of value - only the weight lifted.

In theory more muscle could be correlated to more strength if strength is being trained. Remember strength is a skill. A body builder with massive amounts of muscle - even more muscle than someone else may not be as strong as the person with less muscle mass but they’ve trained strength in a given skill. Training the skill is so freaking important when it comes to building strength. That is #2 for what it takes to get strong.

1 is actually building muscle - because, I am a broken record, we need muscle to build strength. #1 and #2 can of course be trained in tandem. A perfect example of strength and hypertrophy working hand in hand. It can and often does happen. Built By Annie is a prime example. I call it strength and hypertrophy programming because that’s what it is. This is also the type or approach of programming I teach inside Pure PROgramming. Simply because most people want to have more muscle and also be stronger. Even outside of sports like body building or power and weightlifting.

Training the skill

If every movement is NOT necessarily best used for building maximal force, what movements should you focus on for strength? Let me be very clear with the fact that there is no black and white rule book. Generally speaking, large compound movements are where we most commonly drive strength adaptations: Multipoint, multi-muscle group movements like squats, horizontal and vertical pressing and pulling, and deadlift variations (sumo and conventional). But you can very much so drive strength in more single joint bias...

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I am so grateful we live in a time where building a personal brand is a doable thing in the online space. That literally by leveraging your views, personality, and interests, you can create a business. I mean it’s not THAT simple, but generally speaking, it’s perhaps more doable than any time before.

We’ve briefly talked about the challenges of boundaries - what to share and what not to share when building an aligned personal brand. But today I want to give you permission to EDIT that, and many other things as you grow your brand.

Editing your personal brand

I was in the DM’s with two different FitsPRO’s from my FitsPRO Foundation course and both were talking about how they feel like they’re “done” talking about a certain subject. Maybe even a subject they widely built their current business on. We know that messaging matters - it’s something that I teach pretty aggressively. But we have to come back to the nuances, transitions and flow of building businesses ran by evolving humans.

Now, I want to make something very clear. This does not mean that its a wise move to re-evaluate your messaging, what you talk about and what you don’t talk about every week. That, in fact, will NOT allow you to build a successful, recognizable or profitable brand. I do think there is a balance between have a brand that is consistent and trustworthy, but allowing ROOM - a percentage that is allowed to change and evolve if needed.

These FitsPRO’s aren’t changing their businesses or the business model - they’re simply refining and honing in on the next season of their business.

I am sure you follow entrepreneurs that have changed their focus, or approach over the last five years. I know I have. And in that process I have fallen more in respect for some and decided to unfollow others. Even if I unfollow, I have to respect and give kudos to the fact that they had the courage to say, “I don’t want to teach ‘x’ anymore, or offer ‘y’ - “I want to pivot, or just remove one aspect of my overall messaging.” I deeply respect and fully understand that from a human and entrepreneurial standpoint.

In a very literal sense, I did a lot of things when starting out because I though I had to. I didn’t know it was acceptable to ONLY offer training without nutrition. But I never enjoyed offering nutrition services. 2.5 years in I finally edited that out of my messaging, freebies and paid offers. THIS IS NORMAL. I can’t stress enough how normal it is to start very wide and broad when you’re building a business. You try a bit everything in order to confirm what sticks, what you do want to do, and what is a no go for you. That is 100% to be expected! That’s how we refine right? It’s taking the tree trunk and carving off chunks to find the art or masterpiece beneath. I know that can sound woo woo but it’s a fantastic and very applicable parallel to the process of building and maintaining personal brand.

Obviously the nutrition piece is literal, like I said. But there are much more emotionally loaded topics on the table as well. Maybe you’ve talked about bodies - sizes, neutrality, positivity, the process vs the result. that’s fantastic, it’s not a BAD thing, but you find that you maybe resent talking about that now - you’re “sick” of talking about that topic. You don’t feel it’s needed, or you’re happy to refer your audience to other professionals for that given topic. People who align with your past messaging - who you can now just tag when someone asks about said topic.

I have also experienced this over the years. As a woman I very much so appreciated accounts that normalize cellulite, aging skin and truly “normal” bodies. But I also see that this is STILL a way to dress up hyper-focus on the human body in a different way. I mentioned on a recent podcast with another professional that my wish is just LESS OVERALL FOCUS AND ATTENTION ON BODIES, period - whether photoshopped and airbrushed, whether using the utter most flattering angles for th...

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So this episode comes about because for most of my years of training, I wrote my program for myself, or pulled from templated programs as a base for my own programming. I’ve never had a 1:1 coach, outside of interning with other performance coaches in person. That mainly comes from the fact that I enjoy being my own guinea pig and have always loved the process of training. Even in seasons where I probably wasn’t as consistent as I would’ve been if I did have a 1:1 coach.

So we moved into our rental in June 2021. And we had pretty much our full home gym set up at that point. But since essentially January 2020 I was wildly inconsistent with training. And that was coming off only training for six months from June 2019 through December 2019 after we were done with our first year of full-time travel. Basically, since April 2018, I have not been consistent with training. And that brought up a lot of past injuries, and just general weaknesses and loss of range of motion that I got as a result of inconsistent training largely while traveling.

Back to June 2021 when we moved into the rental and had our garage him, I trained myself not at the intensity that I was training in 2018, but with the same style of training. And after prepping for shooting over 400 videos for YouTube with Paige Major, my friend and videographer, I just saw that I had some nagging issues that quite frankly I didn’t want to coach myself through. But I did feel that I had the answers or the knowledge needed in order to pick an appropriate program.

That, it’s what brings us to today’s episode. I’m currently following a very well-known coaches templated program, that has everything I need in addition to what my sports masseuse has kind of told me to work on in my own time.

I will likely do another episode on my experience with a local sports masseuse so far and why I sought her out in the first place. So look forward to that.

To program for yourself or hire a coach?

When it comes to being a trainer, I really do believe that you should always to some extent be your own guinea pig. I think there is a power and different level of coaching that comes from you having experienced some of the things that you are going to program for your clients. No that doesn’t mean that you need to move as much weight as them or be in as good of shape as them or even have the same goals or background as them, but having done German volume training or some kind of super high volume training gives you an idea of what that feels like and you can better prepare your clients for that if you happen to program some kind of high volume program or even super set.

I guess really that is just the experiential piece of being a coach. Because you can have those experiences even if you’re not programming for yourself.

There are pros and cons to programming for yourself, and hiring a coach, or following someone’s templated program. I personally find that templated programs are a bit of a sweet spot, because again, it gives you that base but also allows for you to modify as needed, or according to your own preference.

I find a lot of times that coaches have this guilty complex because they know how to program in a way that would get them a good work out, and they know they could be consistent, but they aren’t because they simply don’t have the time or brain space to program for themselves. And even the time and energy it would take to just whip up a single work out four days a week, can be too much. And then that coach is left not working out at all. Not feeling good about themselves from maybe an integrity standpoint, or an outward expectation standpoint. I think that is a fabulous scenario where a coach would benefit from following a template a program in or hiring a 1:1 coach.

Essentially if you aren’t being as consistent as you would like to, or you are bored with the style of programming that you use for yourself, or if you are generally just curious about someone e...

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Lessons I have learned through world travel

I have had several conversations as of late where someone has brought up something and I’ve said that “I learned that via world travels.” Or that world travels made something clear to me that this person had mentioned in a conversation. So it made me think why not hop on a podcast and discuss some of the lessons that I have learned through world travel.

I will start this off by saying there are going to be many many generalizations in this episode. And that I am not some guru, I am not an expert on culture, I am just a chick who has gone to a lot of places and had some experiences, and so I’m sharing those, and what I have learned from them. You are free to take from that what you wish. Or, take none of it at all. That is up to you.

Oh number one, strangely enough has to do with money, perception and options.

When Nate and I took off for world travels back in 2018 everyone assumed we were rich. Some people abroad, and many people here in the states. I get that there are questions when you see someone traveling full-time. Do they own a house? Did they sell everything? Do they still have cars? All of these are very valid questions. And we ask those questions as well. The answer is that if someone wants to travel the world they just do what needs to be done in order to make that happen. Some people own a home and rent it out as an Airbnb, some people sell literally everything and buy a plane ticket. Or some people own a home and save up for several months or years and then take a year sabbatical to travel. Some people keep their jobs, some people quit their jobs and some people get jobs overseas. The moral of the story here is, you have options. And it just comes down to entertaining what it might take for you to do the thing, and if that is worth doing the thing or not.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I was making $2500-$4000 a month when we left for world travels. Now my goal was of course to increase that monthly revenue as we traveled and I did. But we also booked some of our accommodations and flights and things of that sort for seven months leading up to our travels. Again that was what we had to do in order to feel secure in our decision to travel. We sold some stuff, a friend moved into our condo and took over rent for us. We sold one of our cars and kept a car that we don’t have payments on.

So there is no one size fits all answer to "how do you travel the world?"

When it comes to money, perception, and options, it’s cheaper to live in a lot of other countries than the United States. You can get jobs there and still be a resident of the US, and have no monthly payments or debt besides maybe your phone. The amount of ways that exist are the ones that you’ve exposed yourself to. That is lesson number one. There are almost always more options to consider.

With that, like I said, sometimes those options are not worth it and you know we are free to make the decision to not pursue the thing because the sacrifices too big. But we made $2,500-$4,000/mo and met people traveling on $5/day. That’s extreme and would not be possible in counties in Europe for example.

Moving on.

Humans want to be understood and want to understand

The question I get often about our world travels is in regards to the language barriers and if we were nervous about those. The answer is yes, we were somewhat nervous about them, but we had traveled to Spain previously, and Puerto Rico. That’s all the traveling we had done before taking off for a year. And between Google translate and playing a bit of charades, it is clear that most humans want to understand you, and they want to be understood. So if there is mutual effort typically it turns out fine. We only had one or two instances in all of our travels where someone was essentially offended that we spoke English and didn’t speak their language. But that was never the norm.

It’s a humbling experience to not be able to comm...

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Sales has been an ongoing theme in my recent episodes. Or it certainly feels like it has. I think that’s because of recently launching my Pure Programming course and also prepping several of my business clients for their own launches or increases in sales.

Fact of the matter is - if you own a business you need to make money, and many of us in the health and fitness industry did not get a degree in marketing and or sales. And perhaps you don’t have any experience in sales. I know I certainly didn’t. And I also had no interest whatsoever in sales when I started my business because I associated sales with a scammy preconception.

My only experience on the consumer side of sales at this point was at Globo Gyms when they try to sell you on a complementary personal training session after signing up as a member. Or walking into American Eagle or Hollister and being bombarded by the sales associate before I’ve even looked at anything. Or the typical car salesman. Those are the ones that stick out in my mind anyway. I will say that I had positive experiences at Apple because they are not paid on commission. (We asked). So there feels like there’s far less ulterior motive going into them finding you the right product for what you need.

Which truly brings us to sales. And what it means for you as an online health and fitness coach.

3 Questions to Ask Yourself for More Successful Sales

What is my result?

The problem you solve - your promise

I remember the first time I had a colleague look over my sales page for a new service. Due to the fact that I don’t use sales calls, my sales pages need to be very clear when it comes to what it is that I am offering. She asked me what the main take away was from the program. Such a simple question, and some thing that I didn’t know. But it hadn’t made it onto the sales page. One of that should literally be the biggest boldest sentence at the top of the sales page.

We so often just create a service or start coaching without a clear result. And I know that it can be easy for your brain to go to things like losing 10 pounds in ‘x’ amount of time or get strong and gain mobility. But you do have a result and you need to make that clear. Typically we all have a tangible result of some kind. Immeasurable result. Clients being able to lift more weight or gain range of motion, they lose fat or body weight. Or they gain muscle mass. And then there is an emotional result. And this can look a lot of different ways. But I like to think of it as where they were when they started with you from an emotional and mental standpoint, to where they end up during and after the process of working with you.

The feeling of being incapable to feeling capable. The feeling of being lost to having direction. Feeling neutral in their skin. Feeling more ease, or joy. These are also results that you can market within your program. It doesn’t have to be these typical fitness industry results that are so often marketed. And there’s nothing wrong with weight loss or gaining strength, but I think that you probably have more than that to offer your potential clients.

So if you can identify 1 to 2 main takeaways and results from your service that is going to help you more clearly sell that service.

And if you’re unsure on that, ask your current clients or look back on testimonies, or do some market research with your audience if you haven’t started taking clients yet.

You can also just decide for yourself what you want it to be. As long as you can actually deliver on that which brings us to number two.

How do I provide that result?

What is my client journey?

Your process - the how.

Whether you think you have a process or not, you do. If you are going to promise and or claim that working with you and implementing your coaching practices you’ll get someone a certain result, albeit a feeling or a physical change, you’ve got to know how to communicate how that person is going to get from p...

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So you decide you want to start an online coaching business. I’m the online space we have the benefit of not being restricted to a locational demographic. But that is also a challenge.

At least if you’re brick and mortar is in South Bend, that’s where you’re finding your clientele. You can network with local companies, target the soccer moms or what have you.

Online, the world that has access to WiFi or data IS YOURS.

So in such a large pond, you’re not restricted BUT where the frick do you cast your net? How do you know where to look for humans?

Where do you find people who might want to pay you money for your service?

Let us discuss.

We throw around language like “attract” your ideal client.” That sounds great but HOW.

In short that is how you’re going to find and generate leads. Your messaging is step one.

We shall talk about three sections of this lead generation process, “attracting/finding” leads, generating them, and closing them.

You can absolutely build an audience and fail to convert any of them into clients. In fact I’d argue that’s more common than not.

MESSAGING:

Your words and content are going to lead to your humans finding YOU.

Between your messaging and generating leads, we have this tandem, overlapping section that is ORGANIC NETWORKING.

What I mean by this is you naturally interacting with those in your industry. You creating your “circle.” Now, please don’t think of this as a clique. This is business. This is networking, just in the online space. You share people’s content who compliment your area of focus or who you think would be of value to YOUR audience.

Whether they share your shit or not is not of your concern. That’s why I say “organic” - it needs to be organic. You keep your eyes on creating shareable and valuable content. Other professionals will share it from time to time too. Therefore potentially expanding your network and potential client pool.

Please keep in mind that 1% or less of someone’s audience are paying customers. Don’t worry too much about sharing the wealth or being competitively minded when it comes to networking. Most y’all’s people will never pay you a dime - perspective.

That leads us (pun intended) to the actual generation of leads.

You HAVE at least one human in your audience who you can serve. And you can practice these things from day one to expedite your lead generation.

GENERATING LEADS:

Value value value. We must provide VALUE.

Doing mini trainings in your stories and providing very PRACTICAL ways for your audience to get 1% better is how lead generation begins.

Content like this might not go viral but it shows your audience what it’s like to work with you (for free). Eventually these people will reach out, and or apply to work with you because something you shared FOR FREE made a real difference in their life. Imagine what you can do from a paid standpoint!

Mini trainings or client case studies in your stories are a great way to do that. If you’re not on IG, then some other platform - short form video on YouTube or blogs pinned to Pinterest.

Bite size applicator content. That’s the focus for lead generation.

Note I have NOT said to cold DM people. Though that IS an option.

Getting people in the DM’s is a great way to start conversation and NOT ask for a sale. It’s a great way to establish trust and relationship.

I encourage people to DM new followers with a kind, no strings attached welcome message. Let them know where they find stuff, or what they can expect. But there is NO ask. You’re breaking the ice and expediting that possible lead generation.

So let’s say someone asks a question in your Q&A box or DM’s you. And it is regarding something you can help with via coaching or they’ve asked specifically about coaching.

Get people off the app

this does nothing if you don’t have a system in place for that lead to get on a list and in a secure place you can follow up from.

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Inside Built by Annie I have a resource called Annie’s Secret Laboratory of Brain Gains. And in that, there are two trainings on energy systems development. Also known as heart rate training. One of the videos is general and just goes over the different zones and what they mean. The other training goes over how to actually think about and integrate the zones within strength training.

Obviously at heart rate monitors can be used for conditioning, or cardio. That is in fact the main purpose. But they are also a useful tool for those who lift weights as their primary mode of exercise.

I am not sponsored by Polar. But I have used their products since 2011 or 2012. And I am a huge fan. We used their system during my internship at University of Portland to monitor all athletes heart rates during training and conditioning. So I just have nothing but good things to say about the brand and their products or systems.

On Instagram I have a review of my favorite polar watches if you would like to check that out as well. At the time of this episode I currently use the Polar Unite Watch and H 10 strap. And I will say that I have never had a Polar watch be accurate without the use of a chest strap. I don’t know what claims Polar makes about the use of the watches without a chest strap, but my personal experience has been that you need the chest strap.

Today’s episode is going to be about how to use these watches and straps in terms of strength training. Outside of their obvious use, basically. While they are absolutely not needed, as stated earlier, I do think that they have a use. And if you own one and want to integrate it into your training, this episode will hopefully be helpful.

4 Ways to Use a Polar Heart Rate Monitor with Strength Training:

1.) Rest periods

I realize this sounds very simple and elementary. But I use mine to monitor and stick to my rest periods. You could absolutely use an app on your phone or look at a clock. But it’s nice to just glanced down at my watch and see my rest. As well as watching my heart rate drop.

This can also be effective if you want to integrate heart rate training into strength training. I am not saying that this is an end all be all approach. But I’m not mad at it either.

It can simply be interesting to see what your heart rate gets to during your working sets and if it recovers within your scheduled rest. Now the scheduled rest for strength and hypertrophy training will likely be based on the muscular demand and stimulus versus the metabolic stimulus or demand. But the two certainly can be connected. And the watch helps you see that.

So you can stick to your one minute of rest, and/or, start your next set based on your heart rate recovering to say 120 to 135 beats per minute.

This honestly just indicates how quickly your heart rate is recovering between sets. So know the focus of your program and if you need to go strictly based on time. Or if you can play around with going based off your heart rate as well.

That brings us to number two.

2.) Heart rate after the set

I there’s no right or wrong, good or bad here. This is more about learning your own bio feedback. What is a typical heart rate for you after a heavy set of back squats? Or overhead presses. Or a circuit that you do in accessory that might take you three minutes?

What is a typical cardiac response for that type of work within weight training? Again this doesn’t necessarily mean anything about your training, it’s just another way for you to learn your own body and how it reacts to training.

This also allows you in a training sense to understand what a certain heart rate feels like. So you’ll see runners or endurance athletes be able to tell you almost to the beat per minute what their heart rate is at based on how they feel. Not that this has any direct relation or causation when looking at strength training, it’s just another thing to learn about your body.

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4 Simple Tips to Create Content that Converts

Something that comes through without fail on my FitsPRO Foundations intake survey is that people struggle with finding ideal clients online and/or converting clients to sales. Which is why it's important to have content that converts.

We shall dive into pieces of this today. And hopefully you’ll have some level of action to take and apply to ze gram.

And yes, I am specifically talking about Instagram today. So that is what I will be referencing throughout the episode.

You know I’m queen of you don’t have to do “x” to be successful at business.

With that, I only ask you entertain what I have to say; you absolutely are not required to do any of this. Think about how what I share today CAN BE applied to you. Maybe in a different way.

Creating content from your offer

When people say that they have no idea what to post, I get that they might be referring to a lull in inspiration. But if you work with clients in any capacity, or have any level of education and or experience, there is content in your brain. I hope that this episode can help you access it and organize it a bit better. And eventually use that to create content that converts followers into buyers.

One of the easiest ways to create content that directly relates to, speaks to, or helps potential buyers is to pull content directly from your offer. When I say that, I am spanning from your philosophy about coaching or whatever service you offer, to actual methods and tactics that you use within your coaching.

And I suppose that brings up the topic of giving away all of your gold for free. People often times worry about how much free content they should be giving away. But I want you to think about the people that you follow and enjoy the most, and how much free content you have likely consumed from them. Maybe you haven’t purchased from them at all, or maybe you have. And if you have purchased, you can see that what they’re giving away for free is why people are purchasing from them.

Even if you only work with 1:1 clients right now, you have a philosophy and a process. Even if you haven’t clearly defined it. So, I want you to make sure that after this episode you jot down some pillars of your philosophy in coaching or whatever service you offer. As well as sketching out your method. Now in my Fitspro Foundations course we call this the client lifespan or the process.

Remember that we are doing this because we want to be creating content that serves our larger audience, but eventually does get those people who are potential buyers to become clients. Aka content that converts. And that starts with the vast amount of free content that you provide. Which ideally is all in line with what you offer as a business.

Thus, if you are unclear on what it is you do as a business, and the process that you use with your clients, then it makes sense that creating content, let alone content that converts, is very difficult.

So, step one is to get some clarity around your philosophy, your brand story and your coaching tactics or methods.

What are topics that set your offer apart from others, or that you talk about often with your clients?

This could be something as simple as teaching people how to count macros on a sliding scale. Meaning that you are allowed to just track your protein if you want to and that that can be effective. (or whatever it is that you teach your clients). You likely have a style of training if you are in the fitness room.

For me that is using a main lift, like squat, dead lift, benchpress, overhead press or even a hip thrust or a step up as the main lift. And almost all of my clients are going to do that in some capacity.

I do not use fancy workouts, so many of my pieces of content are going to be “boring” to some people. You’re likely going to see exercise breakdowns, with cues, or different variations. And within that messaging I am sharing my philosophy on the fact ...

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Today is for businesses who don’t do affiliate marketing full time. You own a business as your primary source of income. You do not depend on income from working with other brands. And/or that is not your goal.

Remember three things as we head into this episode:

Do what you want Think long termYou can change at any time

This topic has come up in my own personal life as well as with a few of my business clients recently. So I figured it was about time I gave it a permanent place via the podcast. This is not the first time I’ve talked about affiliate marketing. So please feel free to go back and creep past episodes where I talk about considerations to make when choosing brands to work with, and different approaches to working with brands.

As with all of my content, I encourage you to take what makes sense for you, or what sits right with you in the season, and leave the rest. Or possibly come back to the rest later.

And ultimately remember that it’s 100% your choice whether you want to work with brands for compensation or not. Today’s episode is simply here to pull back the curtain a bit on affiliate marketing when your business is NOT IN affiliate marketing. Meaning you are NOT a full-time blogger, contact creator, or influencer.

Maybe I mentioned this before, maybe I haven’t, but there was a trend at the end of 2021 where full-time influencers and content creators were posting each month of the year how many brand deals they had, and how much they made per brand deal, or per month. Now I actually thought this was a really cool trend, because they were educating on how to land brand deals, how to pitch yourself, and how to negotiate for getting paid to post about a certain brand or product.

For me, this is very much so new age blogging. Full-time bloggers get paid for exposure and getting a brand in front of the bloggers audience and subscribers.

I joked that I wanted to make a post sharing how much I make per month from affiliate marketing because I feel like there is a misconception especially in the world of online health and fitness about coaches being influencers. And I’m not saying we can’t be both, but the percentage of which my business comes from my “influencing” is less than 2% of my business.

Also let’s be clear that the definition of influencer is very subjective person to person. So it’s difficult to speak definitively on the topic. Because what I’m referring to may be different than what someone else is referring to - so it’s all just semantics at that point.

So what is affiliate marketing?

In most cases, if you are not a full-blown influencer, or content creator, a brand will give you a link or a code that gives your audience some kind of discount plus gives you a small kick back, or it just gives you a kick back and your audience gets nothing. But ideally you are getting paid or compensated for sharing your link and sharing their product.

Now I know that you might think that this is an easy way to make money. And it can be. But I want people to think long term about their business. I only say this now because hindsight is 2020.

If you already love a brand, and you are a person who really enjoys sharing links or sharing things that you get, AND you do that organically with your audience already - then affiliate marketing can be a simple way to just get a kickback for doing some thing that you’re already doing.

In full transparency, when I started partnering with brands, I was in that boat. Or I was at least willing to try a product for free and then decide if I wanted to work with a brand.

So my question for you is five years down the road when your business is sustainable on its own, do you want to spend time mentioning other brands, keeping up with their promos, or worrying about what that brand is doing and if it still aligns with your brand.

I am not at all saying that affiliate marketing is bad or that it is an inevitable headache because that’s not true.

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4 Aspects of Programming for Better Muscle or Strength Gains

Building muscle and building strength are not the same thing. But the programming topics we discuss today can certainly help with both. And let us remember that muscle mass is the potential for strength gains.

With that, a body builder’s goal is to put on as much muscle mass as possible, while a power lifter or olympic lifter are working to get as strong as possible within their sports. And these athletes’ training can look very different.

So, let’s look at four aspects of your training and programming that can affect your muscle gains and/or strength gains. Take what makes sense, what you can apply and leave the rest, as usual.

All of these aspects are after ONE THING - mechanical tension. Adding new mechanical tension to the muscle group(s) you’re trying to grow. That doesn’t mean more time under tension, though that can be one way to add tension. You’ll see that load, and other demands like range of motion, or angles used also add mechanical tension.

First up, my favorite

Tempo

Tempo in short is the amount of time in each phase of movement - so your lowering, ascending, top and bottom positions - also referred to as lengthening phase being eccentric, and shortening being concentric.

Obviously if we add time to any of these phases, we increase the time under tension - the literal amount of time your muscles spend working. That is if other programming factors like sets and reps remain the same.

I also encourage you to keep load in mind when adding time to tempo. Due to more time under tempo, the load may need to come down. This is very dependent on the amount of time that is added and what the scheduled RPE or intensity is. But if we are attempting to add muscle, we definitely want the change in tempo to be a new, challenging stimulus. That is, after all, the point.

For instance if the previous programming was 4x4 @ 85lbs on a 2.1.1.1 tempo, and you want to alter tempo to add time under tension, that new programming might look like 4x4 @85 on a 2.2.1.1 tempo. We’ve now added 1 second of tension per rep at the same load and volume.

Tiny change - very different experience and stimulus. Bless. The simplicity is what we’re after. Simplicity that can be highly effective.

From a client perspective this also changes just enough to not get bored. On paper it is barely a change at all, but now they’re effectively doing pause squats or bench. Two down, two at the bottom or at the chest, then powering out. This is what I want coaches to understand about program design. More often than not, very little change is needed to create change of stimulus. And change of stimulus or increased stimulus is all that we’re after!

That covers slowing tempo down. You can be very extreme with that, or you can use tempo to add an explosive element to the movement. We know that muscle fibers respond to the demand that is imposed upon them.

There is potential to get after more type 2a and b muscle fibers by working explosively. I like to use intent here. Like I mentioned with squats, “powering out of the hole.” Or powering off the chest with bench. In tempo you can add an ‘x’ or a 0 to communicate this intent. Speed and/or velocity is the goal with using a DECREASED tempo.

Alright, let’s move on to the one of the most basic aspects of training one can use to alter stimulus…

Volume

Though we won’t dive into both of these - I do want you to keep in mind overall work load or volume for a given session, as well as the volume you’re progressing exercise to exercise, phase to phase.

So the focus right now is - How many sets and reps are you or your client completing of a given exercise?

Like tempo, you can change nothing else but sets and reps. Add a set, or add a rep per set with the goal of keeping factors like load and rest the same.

This is likely not going to work for a more advanced lifter.

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I mentioned the other day on the 'gram that I am a doer. I tend to see gaps, and fill them, need something and create it, have an idea and begin exploring ways to execute said idea. But I was not always like that. Not entirely. Entrepreneurship has taught me this. To act without hesitation and figure it out along the way. But to always entertain the possibility. Because why not? What’s the worst that can happen?

I bring this up because if 2021 was anything, it was a year of trial and error.

I knew that going in, but boy did it play out that way. This 12 month season of trial and error meant less control and predictability than I like in my life, quite frankly.

So, let’s go ahead and get to it.

First off…

In episode 100 I reviewed my 2020 and in episode 101 I shared my personal and business goals for 2021 - If you didn’t listen to those, check them out.

But for a short recap my 2021 goals were:

Personal

Stop work at 6pmMore consistent liftingInvesting/RetirementHave house built

Business

Create PRO cramming courseNO fitsPRO Launches (constant push through free webinar)BBA goal that I have had since the remake in 2018Social media and sales strategy refinement

Today, I'm breaking those down and sharing my plans for 2022.

These are going to me mixed rather than personal and then business because this year was one that had life and business affecting one another like never before. Or so it felt.

I am a big advocate of life and business working in tandem. One serves the other. One undoubtedly effects the other. So we must consider both, simultaneously.

Jan 2021 was the launch of my Free Workshop Your Biz Your Way, 3 Steps to Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness Business. I am proud to say that over 1,000 humans have taken the workshop, and over 100 FitsPRO’s joined FitsPRO Foundations via the workshop.

If you recall - the goal was no live launches of FitsPRO - to simply try the evergreen approach and see how it went. Then make decisions as needed.

Gold star for that one!

On the personal front, gyms were shut down again here and I was very excited that Nate and I made the decision to go ahead and buy a home gym set up. But in Jan we didn’t have it yet.

By February I was finally able to start lifting consistently again. I was weak, and in pain but so joyous at the same time.

Feb and March were extensions of Jan but our living situation was wearing on my productivity and some of the professional and personal goals I had.

I’ve mentioned many times before the blessing it was to live with my mother for 9 months longer than originally planned. But I can’t deny the effect I allowed it to have on my day to day routine, or lack thereof.

More context: In March, I was still waiting to see how my evergreen approach to FitsPRO was going to play out - only time would tell. In addition to this waiting game, we were also waiting on information post filing taxes to see if we qualified for the loan we needed to build on our five acres.

This waiting game with the loan also put my retirement and investment goals on hold for obvious reasons.

I mentioned this on IG but our little 3.5 week escape to Mexico was our pivotal moment.

For one, I reached my numerical goal for BBA members - which meant more to me than most milestones. Again - because the number was Nate and my “what if I could just” number we dreamt up in 2018 when we were in Santiago, Chile at the start of our world travels.

A huge motivator for going to Mexico was for me to make progress on the creation of my Pure PROgramming course. That didn’t happen until the flight home - which was pivotal nonetheless.

It was also in Mexico that we received information regarding construction cost and loan information. We’d be postponing our build…again. Which led to the next pivotal decision…finding a rental so that we could have our own space until we build.

That was a massive decision considering saving to build a...

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The best business owners I know, and the people that I look up to most from a business standpoint, have clear and strong boundaries in life and in business.

I find that for me personally, it’s easy for me to have some boundaries, but very difficult for me to uphold others. So this episode is very much for you and me both.

It took me almost all of 2021 to finally be able to stick to my stop working before 6 PM boundary. I believe I mentioned that in my 2021 planning podcast. And I still plan to do a 2021 recap with the 2022 goals focused podcast episode. But that first boundary of stopping work before 6 PM didn’t happen until we literally moved into a rental house of our own.

I absolutely could’ve made other choices while in our other living situation, but I can’t deny the difference that was made by having individual spaces in a house for certain tasks. And while it was a complete blessing to be able to live with my mom for a year, I just wasn’t allotted the luxury of separate spaces for separate things to the extent that we have in our current rental.

So that kind of brings us to one possible boundary. Today’s episode is going to be very broad with possible boundaries that you can play with in 2022 for your online business. From boundaries on social media to boundaries in relationships, with your clients, and with your self in your own work schedule.

Even if you don’t work full-time for yourself yet but maybe you’ve experienced working from home, there are many challenges that come with the luxury of working from home. One of them being, that when a schedule is not imposed upon you, it can actually be very difficult to be productive and have clarity.

And that kind of goes along with not having a separate space for work. Having to go into an office or even a coffee shop allows you to switch into work mode much easier than if you’re working in the same space that you eat, prepare food, watch TV, do anything else other than work. So you can see where working from home brings different challenges than working in an office, or a gym, or any other setting outside of the home.

TIME AND SPACE

And so the first two boundaries, or habits, or whatever you want to call them, or setting work hours for yourself, and creating a designated space for work. And this doesn’t have to be all or nothing. So even with myself, and our current house where I have a full office space, sometimes I just need to switch up my scenery when I go from working on one task to another task. And that’s OK. Really whatever is going to get the work done is best case scenario.

When it comes to setting a schedule for yourself, you can be as specific or as broad as your personality prefers. That could look like working for one hour blocks with 15 minute breaks, where that could look like 23 hour blocks with a workout in between, or a meal, or both. Or as broad as you’re starting work at 9 AM and being done by 6 PM and whatever happens in that window of time is game.

And yes, I recognize the irony, in a bit of satire in the fact that many people leave at 9 to 5 just to end up attempting to stick to a 9 to 5 within their own business. That’s a very real thing, but it can be helpful nonetheless to have that schedule. There’s a difference in having that schedule for yourself versus on somebody else’s watch. And I think that’s a big differentiator.

If you’re thinking to yourself that you don’t have space, or you don’t have a separate room for an office, please know that moving into this rental in June 2021 was the first time in my 5 1/2 years of business that I ever had an actual office. It was always shared with a closet space or laundry room or I was working in the car half the time, or in hotels and Airbnb’s when we traveled.

I just don’t want you to limit yourself, or allow yourself to think that because you don’t have an office, you can’t be productive or that somehow is going to hold you back.

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Entrepreneurship lends itself to lessons, and here are the 5 I've learned in my 5 years of entrepreurership:

Only entrepreneurs get it

I had one business friend up until two years ago. In my first four years or so, I didn’t fit in. I looked around the space of online coaches and frankly didn’t want to be in any of the groups I saw.

They were full of terms like boss babe, or empires. I didn’t want to build an empire. I didn’t feel like a CEO, and the word boss babe didn’t describe me

Slowly but surely I found “my people” - people who did business in a similar way to me; how I wanted to run my business and function as an entrepreneur. We shared philosophies.

I have no quick fix for this, as it happened very organically for me; and not quickly at all.

I could have been more proactive. Perhaps joining a mastermind or more free Facebook groups was the right route, and I just didn’t take it. I can’t say.

All I know, is that entrepreneurship can be lonely AF. Especially in the online world. So just be warned and act accordingly. I think knowing yourself is very important here.

Some of my biz clients go to coworking spaces because they just need to be around humans. Others do just fine all day by themselves. Obviously they all have me as a coach and each other as colleagues, so that helps as well.

It’s just such a lovely thing to know that other people get it. That someone else understands the feeling of sending a wrong link, failing a launch, feeling like you’re in a constant state of trial and error, like working 10 hour or more days is going to be your norm forever. The feeling of your business being like your baby - and the vulnerability of it all.

Only other entrepreneurs get that.

Track your numbers

I know this probably sounds like a broken record, not only from me from every business coach ever. And that’s for a good reason.

When you track your numbers, you have objective data that allows you to make more educated decisions. It helps you to have context behind why you are attempting to move the needle. And what needle you are moving.

When I say track your numbers, I am referring quite literally to whatever numbers you have at this stage of business. And just because you are tracking a certain number doesn’t mean that you have to try and improve upon every single one.

I encourage you to look at all of your numbers, your Instagram followers, your engagement on Instagram, your email list subscribers, your website or application page views if you have that. Your revenue per customer. Your client retention. Whatever metrics you have in your business at this state, track them at least on a monthly basis. And then you can decide which ones you would like to try and improve.

The earlier you can start doing this, the easier it will be to expedite growth in a meeting for manner, and to continue tracking your metrics and numbers as you grow.

Attempting to start looking at numbers when you were three years in can be a rather overwhelming task. But no matter where you’re at in business, tracking your numbers can be fun. Yes, you heard me. Fun.

I find more often than not, the numbers are better than we think. And that’s the joy of numbers. It takes guessing out of the game. It’s completely objective. They just are what they are, and you can decide to put effort into changing them. They are not good or bad, we assign their value.

So there’s just some perspective around numbers whether you are or are not tracking in your business.

I also just want to add to that, I think entrepreneurs can tend towards measuring the success of their business solely by revenue, or the number of clients they have. And there’s so much more context to be given around a business and its success. Especially when we are talking about solo entrepreneurs.

No one has it all figured out

Entrepreneurship is one of the easiest places in life to compare yourself to other people.

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I wanted to have this episode be about 2021 reflection and 2022 planning but I use the Elegant excellence goals journal to do that and their shipping is delayed. So, we shall wait for that and not rush it. I am very much for reflection and planning. I’ve done it on large scale yearly basis and small scale weekly basis very religiously since the start of 2019. I am very much for reflection and planning. I’ve done it on large scale yearly basis and small scale weekly basis very religiously since the start of 2019. Thus, you will get that episode, but for today, we talk about fancy training

As I create this Pure PROgramming course, I am reminded of just how wildly basic my approach to training and program design is.

BUT, today we discuss the fancier side to the basics. I will not be telling you to use bosu balls or confuse your muscles. These fancy friends are simply more advanced basics. They’re fun and also, often require more access to equipment you may or may not have.

If you’ve been doing the same 15-20 exercises for years, within a pretty set range of sets and reps, you might feel the urge to spice it up in your training.

Rather than completely changing programs or modalities for training, I want you to entertain the following methods.

And even if you are not trying to be the fastest, or strongest, most agile or powerful, these methods can be a fun way to stick with familiar movement patterns, while having a bit more fun.

Most of these are full additions or “extras” to tack on to your normal programming. Though the first two are actual programming.

Undulating style for your main sets

In undulating programming - and I say programming because it can be a programming method as well as a periodization - you’ll perform the big lifts multiple times per week, with varying stimulus via sets and reps.

This is very popular in powerlifting for the big three lifts. Squat, bench and deadlift. But it can be applied to more big lifts with the addition of the overhead press. Which is my personal use of the method.

With three lifts you only need three days of training - in which you’d squat, bench and deadlift all three days.

One day might be 5x2

One day might be 4x5

One day might be 3-5x10

A power or max strength day, a mid strength day and a hypertrophy or capacity day.

Where in traditional programming you’d likely be working on ONE of these per PHASE - meaning one month, with undulating the stimulus alters, in this case daily.

If you add in a fourth lift it takes a bit more planning. The goal is still to hit all four big lifts 2-3 times per week with varying intensities.

Another approach I personally like is to use undulating programming for 1 is 2 lifts that you really want to push, or maybe NEED to push.

I’ve mentioned this before, but a squat bias undulating program was a part of my 12 week back rehab process after my herniation.

It was a normal 4-5 day upper lower split but I squatted 3 days per week.

The same could be done with bench press, or pull ups, or hip thrusts.

Fun way to push yourself, or push one skill/pattern.

The next one is also a program and then we get into add on methods.

German Volume Training

Take a season to try out an old great and put on as much muscle as possible.

Is GVT needed to put on mass? Negative. But it’s a challenge, and can ease up the mental load of lifting heavy if you’re finding you feel a bit burnt out.

4-6 sets of 10 reps on 3 exercises per day on a 2.0.2.0 tempo is a different kind of adversity. And it is highly effective. I think it’s a fun experience in a painful kind of way.

With the sheer amount of time under tension one can expect and prepare for more than usual DOMS.

Again, I am not encouraging everyone to do this or even anyone to do this. Maybe you don’t NEED this much volume. But that is the literal basis, stimulus and driving factor of this training method.

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How to create more engaging Instagram stories!

It’s no secret that building an audience is important, and that getting that audience to interact with your content is even more important. But what happens when you feel like you’re doing all of the things, and people are still not taking the bait?

You’re putting the question box up but no Q’s roll in.

You’re using call to actions, but it’s crickets. Or worse, only bots respond.

You tell people to DM you, but you only get reactions.

We need to go deeper. That’s what this episode is about.

If it wasn't made clear yet, this episode is about Instagram stories specifically. I have gone over captions and call to actions in past episodes. Let me just reiterate some key points there:

Look at your HOOK - it’s possible people aren’t even getting to your call to action because your hook didn’t get them to actually read the caption

Give specific options vs open ended, at least until your audience gets used to consistently interacting with your content. Make it easy for them.

Now, today is all about stories.

Where new humans may see your posts (through reach and exposure), your Instagram stories are for your ride or dies. For your humans who follow you, and see you daily. That context is important. Story content can be more intimate, a bit more raw than posts. They serve a different purpose.

To an extent, you need to train your audience. Not as though they are animals. But the more your audience sees others interacting with your content, the more “normal” or “expected” it feels. The ask via a question box is one thing. But the content of the question box is another.

Just like broad call to actions in captions, it’s not going to work in stories either. Thus, lower the barrier to entry for your humans.

MAKE IT FUN. MAKE IT EASY. Or mix fun and easy with intermediate level content. Leverage people wanting to talk about themselves.

Instead of a question box about health and nutrition, try a fun poll series - mountains or beaches, waffles or pancakes, tea or coffee, breakfast or dinner, hotel or airbnb - literally nothing to do with fitness or health. Sure you can mix in some health and fitness ones if you like, but I hope you can see how this is easier and likely more enjoyable for your audience than trying to come up with a question in the midst of scrolling through IG stories, yeah? This particular example is a playful poll.

You can then graduate from a non-health related playful poll to a health and fitness related playful poll - Still play this or that, but use exercises and food or drink options - squats or deadlift, bench or overhead press, conventional deadlift or sumo deadlift, back or front squat, pull ups or rows etc, stairclimber or treadmill, morning or evening exercise etc.

Honestly I encourage you to just think about how you can bring polls or quizzes into your daily Instagram stories content organically. For instance, I was in a coffee shop a while back that didn’t have a bathroom. It was funny to me for obvious reasons - you’re going to serve people coffee and have work space but no bathroom…come on. So I shared that in my stories and put up a poll “shit yourself” “walk elsewhere” - the poll does nothing, and was not even realistic. It was just funny and people like to respond to entertaining content. Not everything has to be for market research or rooted in you ACTUALLY needing feedback.

This gives your audience ways to interact without weight or expectations.

So, there are some light hearted ideas for polls to drive up engagement. Now let’s look at your new and improved question box.

Another approach you can take is to ask what a goal is for their week or a win from last week. This would be question box form but it’s about THEM. An anonymous way for them to state their focus, or celebrate themselves! Give them space to do that on your platform. Share them to your stories to celebrate them as well!

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Today's episode is my take on hiding prices. And it's a hard no for me. While it can be done ethically, tune in to hear the other side and some prompting questions to consider. It's not as black and white as you might think.

If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

LEGION SPONSOR:

I’d like to thank the sponsor of this podcast, the #1 brand of all-natural sports supplements in the world - Legion Athletics.

If you are in the market for adding supplements, I highly recommend Legion. Whether you’re using them to make your life easier, get more protein in, optimize recovery on top of what you’re already doing…

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Go to buylegion.com and use the code ANNIE at checkout to save 20% on your first order, and you’ll get double Legion reward/loyalty points if you're an existing customer."

My Name is Annie Miller and I’ve never hidden pricing from my customers.

I received a series of questions from a follower a while back. These question boxes turned into a DM conversation. And now I am podcasting about it. I swear content is a never ending cycle.

The question box started with “Should you avoid telling price over text / message? Only on calls?”

Before we get into WHY I am against withholding price, and how I get my clients to feel comfortable having their prices for all the world to see, I want to make clear that you’re not a bad person if you hide pricing. And you’re not stupid for using the logic you’ve likely been taught. My hope to offer an alternative. Maybe one you haven’t considered.

It’s just like me not using sales calls. Plenty of my clients use sales calls and ENJOY THEM. My job is to make those as efficient and natural for my clients as possible. That, for me, includes revealing the price before the call. The call is a confirmation of the sale, not where the sale is actually initiated and made. We’ll get to that later.

So, if at the end of this episode you still want to hide your pricing, I respect that. Because I am, as I say, for YOUR BIZ, YOUR WAY. Not your biz, my way. ;)

I simply want to make sure you’re aware of your options.

As I said, I plan to cover two things:

Why I encourage having prices listed or at least starting prices listed.Exact methods I use with my clients to make that a comfortable, natural, and joyous situation

Moving forward, I am going to tell you what I tell my FitsPROs and biz clients - sell and create content from a consumer point of view. You have more market research available to you in the way YOU OPERATE. And if you can learn to observe yourself in consumer settings, you will learn so much.

Why did you make that purchase? What did you think it would bring you? Why did you share that post? What did it make you feel? Why do you scroll past certain ads and get sucked in by others. Observe your own psychology and behaviors online. Become a student of the consumer. After all that is who you’re creating content for and selling to.

Now, let us. Apply that to price withholding. I am a particular type of buyer. If we can acknowledge that bias first, that might be helpful. I want the facts. I want to feel informed, and then to make my decision based on all the info...

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This is a massive mindset based podcast. But will also include my very tangible approach to training these past few months and the results from said training.

At some point I am sure that you have taken a break from training, whether that be forced or voluntary. So, I’m talking about an injury, or health issue that demands a break from training, versus me traveling the world for a year. You could even lump pregnancy into this conversation as kind of a hybrid of those two, being voluntary and involuntary. You certainly at some point will probably take a break from the exact level or type of training you were doing before bearing a child and giving birth.

Let’s start off with one of the most popular narratives I’ve seen and experienced with myself and clients. And that is the frustrations of knowing what you were once capable of.

Common frustrations during injury -

Maybe you’re now working with weights that are below what you used to warm up with. You are extremely de-conditioned. You fatigue much quicker, not only with your muscular system but also cardio respiratory. Even if it’s lifting weights. You might lack mobility, and feel less capable to get into certain positions that you were once able to get into with ease. Or with a lack of pain.

All of these pictures I’ve just painted, number one, I have personally experienced. And number two, they can weigh on a person mentally. And that can be to varying extents. I would argue that the more experience someone has with the come back game, the more they are prepared for those thoughts, feelings, and narratives. I would also say that’s very individual from person to person.

So just know that it’s likely never going to be encouraging to feel less capable than you once were, and I think it’s OK to say that’s justified and that’s pretty normal. We can acknowledge that and then also acknowledge my next point.

Knowing where you’re at - having clarity, and naming the season that you're in for any type of training can take off some of that mental weight and negativity that we felt with the first scenario that I spoke about. So I kind of see this second piece as grace. Having grace for your self, for your body, for whatever happened to you/you chose for yourself.

Essentially, step two has the potential to prevent you or maybe a trainee from letting the first scenario of feeling incapable OR push them to do too much too soon. Simply because they don’t like that feeling and they want to feel strong again. Or mobile again. Or fit, conditioned. And they do too much too soon and then whether that first break from training was from a voluntary or involuntary event, they’ve now landed themselves with an injury or a training setback again.

That’s where defining the season and expectations for that season are very very important for yourself if that’s who were talking about, or for a client if you are the one leading that client through a given season, coming back from a break.

Also, I want to be clear that this “break" that I’m talking about does not have to be from training completely. It can be that you’ve taken a season to focus on something very specific it in that time other things have not been maintained. And maybe now you’re going back to those things and we have weakness, or less ability than we used to. It can also be a single limb that was injured, or just a movement pattern that you have taken a break from. So don’t think that this has to be a full stop with training and then coming back to training.

So scenario one is the mental peace and experience of comparing your current self and abilities to your past self and abilities. More often than not that is going to be disappointing.

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Starting a business in the world on online health and fitness can be overwhelming, and almost discouraging.

First off: If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

LEGION SPONSOR:

I’d like to thank the sponsor of this podcast, the #1 brand of all-natural sports supplements in the world - Legion Athletics.

I recognize supplements are a luxury. I used them in college, shortly after college and then didn’t use them for years. It wasn’t until Legion that are started dabbling in them again. And I can’t say enough great things about this company the quality of their products.

Plus if you’re skeptical, they have a 100% money-back guarantee and free shipping.

Go to buylegion.com and use the code ANNIE at checkout to save 20% on your first order, and you’ll get double Legion reward/loyalty points if you're an existing customer."

A few weeks ago, I reviewed the intake survey from my fitsPROs inside FitsPRO Foundations - I do this quarterly or so to revisit my ideal client and their experiences. Where are they when they decide to enroll with me? How can I serve more humans in that stage of business? For instance, through this episode.

There were a few common themes - and to be clear, these intake forms were from Jan 2021 to September 2021.

Content creation, finding and converting clients online, creating an offer and feeling confident in the price point, automating systems and processes - all of these came up repeatedly. And all of these are covered in depth inside my course. Go team.

But also…the words “getting started” or “where to start” or “I have no idea where to begin” also came up time and time again. In one phrase or another.

That feeling is real. And it’s a BIG feeling. Before I enrolled in Marie Forleo’s B school and Hilary Rushford’s Instagram with Intention course back in 2015, I had my kitchen counter breakdown.

If you’ve heard this story, it’s worth hearing again, so stick with me. If you haven’t, I am about to paint a VERY vivid picture of how I went from in person trainer to online trainer FOR REAL.

Got my biz license 2014 for fit design by Annie. That was in person and online training. Even though I didn’t have any online clients yet. I was using Instagram as my main platform. But I maybe had one to 300 followers at the time and no real direction with what I was doing. This was back in the days of only being able to share a single photo. If you wanted to share more than that it had to be in a grid. So if you look back almost every post in the beginning of my Instagram is a grid with a horrendous Instagram filter. And a super short caption.

So, I was in a limbo period during 2014 - 2015. I was remodeling my kitchen to stay busy. I wasn’t going to be a college strength coach, which is what I had devoted the last four years to doing. And I loved my in person clients but I really did want to be online. And saw potential there. I would say during that time I was borderline depressed. Simply because I lacked clear direction for the first time in my late teen to early adult life. Cue me staying busy with house projects. So as I was sitting on my kitchen counter drinking a not your fathers root beer and tearing up because of the lack of direction I had,

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Everyone knows you need to “niche down” and get clear on your “target market,” your “ideal client.”

In fact I don’t know a single business coach who doesn’t talk about this on some level. That’s for good reason. If you don’t know who you want to solve problems for, who you want to create content for, who you want to work with, then what are you doing? How is that going to help you build a sustainable and successful business?

That’s what getting clarity on your niche does for you - when you have a singular person, or singular experience you. Keep an open mind as we talk about your target market. This topic doesn’t fit as cleanly into a nice little box as people like to think. There are many things that can be beneficial to get clarity on when it comes to who you speak to you in the online space and how you market to them.

SO - This came from a question during a training I did for Fré Skincare on how to create content for growth and exposure.

The woman understood that she needed to get clearer on her niche and who she speaks too online. She knew that this was important for building an engaged audience. But she was like you know, how much do I just be myself and attract people via that approach, and how narrow do I need to get with my messaging? She’d been told by other biz coaches that she needed to be super duper specific and nitty gritty with her niche.

We discussed two approaches. Because you know I believe there are core pieces that every business needs to establish and have clarity on. Yes, 100%. But there are often options on how we get that clarity.

Your options are not limited to the two I’ll share today, and you can certainly use a combination of them as well.

I think a lot of people get caught up in not knowing where to start with their niche. Or get overwhelmed with how specific people might say you need to get with your niche. And while I do think specificity is important. I hope that these two approaches can break down some of the barriers you might be feeling with getting clear on who your niche is.

Let’s go ahead and dive into the first option for identifying your niche

Your offer and business is for a given demographic

Meaning you identify them by age range, gender, life situation (ie: millennial moms, high achieving, middle aged executives, military personnel, cross fitters). Either your expertise and offer demand this, or you have a preference on who you would like to work with. Both are allowed. Both are fine. If you’re like, but I want to work with men and women, that’s okay too! Option 2 is going to be for you.

Looking at a demographic is NOT your niche in it’s entirety.

Your niche is not white skinned, 40 year old moms who make $60,000 per year. That’s exactly what I said it is, a literal demographic. But it CAN be helpful to make some identifying factors clear if they are applicable. Age range, sex, past experiences, personality traits, industry or career, location, beliefs, values, income etc. There are going to be common denominators within your demographic. And some people are going to be very specific with those and other people are not going to be as specific with those. It’s important for you to know if you need to be specific and if there is room for that or if that doesn’t necessarily fit your offer and what you bring to the industry.

When looking at the demographic approach to identifying your niche it’s going to be important no matter what to make sure that you are clear on the shared aspects of people who might be in your niche. So ideally yes you are identifying one specific person and that is who you are talking to in emails, on Instagram, and a podcast, etc. But if you look at someone with an audience of 250,000+, obviously those are all individuals. But there is some thing that has caused all of those people to be drawn to a particular brand. And a piece of that might be that that audience is 90% women. Or 90% ages 24 to 34.

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Whether you're looking to hire in your business now, or you can't even comprehend hiring someone, today's episode is worth a listen. You will at SOME POINT need to pay a human to help your biz grow and run.

I’ve had a few one on one business clients recently hire a VA, or outsource for certain jobs within their business and it made me think about you humans, knowing when and how to hire. Because it can be an overwhelming part and time In business.

First off, one size does not fit all.

I have friends and colleagues who took a completely different approach to hiring than I did. So at the end of this, it’s important to do what makes sense for you, your vision, and the needs of your business.

And even if you aren’t ready to hire right now, I think it’s important to understand what to be looking for in your business before you actually get to the point of meeting to hire. More often than not, and I include myself in this, entrepreneurs end up hiring later than they probably should have.

And when I say hire, I am not talking about hiring full-time employees of your company. Or even a part-time employees of your company. Especially in the online world, it’s pretty common to take two or three different approaches for hiring contractors.

You have options:

Outsource for a given repeatable task within your biz - formatting and scheduling emails or IG posts. Some kind of task that happens on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis in your business. And having someone take over these tasks that don’t directly require you to do them, can free up space for you to either do less work, or do the work that is required of you to take your business to the next level.

I would also put hiring coaches in this category. You are essentially hiring more of your self or fill in gaps within your offer so maybe you do strength training online and you need to hire a nutritionist or registered dietitian on your staff and that is who’s going to work with all of your clients on nutrition. Or you’re simply hiring other qualified coaches within the strength world so that you can generate more revenue through your current offer.

Another option is:

A certain one off project - editing videos for a program, building out your website. They should be hiring a person who has a specific trade and you need that trade within your business. Now, you might hire this person one time and then hire them again in the future for a similar task. But they’re not someone that you’re paying on a consistent monthly basis. A great example of this for myself is hiring the person who built out my workshop funnel for me, or hiring my brand photographer to do brand shoots for me every six months or so. I am paying people to complete a one off task for me in my business that makes my life easier and allows me to generate more profit. But they are not an employee of my company and I do not pay them monthly.

The last option that we’re going to go over is:

Hire a jack of all trades - virtual assistant. And let me remind you that you can do all three of these as well. It’s not like if you have a virtual assistant you can’t hire someone to help you build out your website that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just trying to kind of categorize types of hiring that you might consider when you are ready to hire someone for some part of your business.

And one virtual assistant may do something different for one entrepreneur than a virtual assistant does for another entrepreneur. So it’s a very broad section. But essentially you would just need someone to be able to fulfill the tasks that you have listed out for what you would want your assistant to do. And again that can look very different from person to person.

Just to elaborate on those or give some more examples, I’d prefer to hire for specific one off things that I need done in my business. so - hiring an expert to build out a funnel for me, or Hiring someone to handle Facebook ads for me.

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In today's episode, we're covering simple strength & conditioning tips and considerations like muscular biases, cardio and lifting, menstrual cycle, limiting factors and more.

Today’s episode is brought to you by 8+ years of personal strength and hypertrophy training, trial and error, and 7+ years of working with clients in person as well as online.

Let’s go ahead and get started with one of my favorite tricks of the trade for super setting exercises.

How to work the same muscle group but lower the cardio-respiratory demand

If we know anything about the cardiovascular system it’s when we lay down or go upside down, the heart rate drops. When we stand up, it tends to rise. Of course there are situational factors at play.

So if you’re wanting to work on strength, but you have a client, or yourself, who is rather de-conditioned. Their wind, or cardio respiratory system is their limiting factor in comparison to their strength. We can play off of that knowledge and lower the intensity of one exercise by choosing a variation that is either laying down, or supported in someway.

For instance, a barbell inverted row vs bent over row. I would hypothesize, the heart rate would be lower during the barbell inverted row than a bent over barbell row. In the bent over row, you are standing, and the load extends from the upper back through to the lower back, into the glutes and hamstrings. Where is the inverted rope is going to mostly tax the upper back. Both exercise target the upper back as the prime movers, one allows you to lower the intensity of the movement.

Same goes for choosing a glute focused exercise to pair with a Romanian deadlift.

A lying single leg bridge would be a fantastic option in order to still target the glutes, but keep the heart rate from continuing to rise.

Smaller muscle groups, and supine or supported positions or some thing to think about in your future programming. Again, that’s just one way to still target the desired muscle group, but maybe keep the cardio respiratory demand down. If that happens to be a mothering factor for yourself or a client.

You can of course tax the cardio respiratory system or work on capacity if that is in fact, factor.

That takes us nicely into the next topic. I talked about this in previous episodes, on the blog, and on Instagram.

Cardio before or after lifting

The answer is, it depends. Generally speaking, if strength training is the primary focus we would want to prioritize, and perform cardio or more conditioning base work after the strength training session is complete.

If conditioning is the primary focus, and the strength training is in support of the conditioning, then you would perform the cardio activities first, and follow those up with the strength training or resistance training session.

You essentially want to make sure that the primary focus of your training is not being hindered by the other portion of your training. Whether that be resistance training or cardio.

Also, cardio is not going to inherently ruin your strength gains, or hypertrophy. In fact one of the other points we will talk about today are the benefits that are possible for it’s an hypertrophy training from low intensity steady state cardio.

In present day, we can look at CrossFit athletes is a perfect example of this. They’ve pretty much squashed the idea that you can’t be strong and powerful and have a strong aerobic base at the same time. And be training BOTH of these in the same season.

Yes, of course at the end ranges of the spectrum, endurance-based type one of my favorite focused exercise is going to hinder say pick weightlifter. And on the other end of the spectrum working on type two explosive large muscle fibers is likely going to be detrimental to an elite marathon runner.

For anyone in the middle of that spectrum, there are benefits to being cardio-vascularilly fit, as well as strong. And they can 100% co-exist.

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Last week we covered the first three phases of business from pre-conception, to conception, to embryonic. If you missed that, you’re likely in one of those three stages, so please do go give that a listen, then come on back.

Today we continue from embryonic to infancy. I know that all sounds so young when you can feel like, “oh my gosh, how can I possibly be in infancy when I am beginning to scale my business and possibly even hire multiple humans?!” But I assure you, you are still an infant.

Last week we covered the first three phases of business from pre-conception, to conception, to embryonic.

If you missed that, you’re likely in one of those three stages, so please do go give that a listen, then come on back.

For perspective - I consider my business in the adolescent phase and I won’t be into adulthood for YEARS. I am just BARELY an adolescent in many ways.

As I stated in the last episode, you are not confined to these definitions by any means. Maybe you’re between phases or resonate with a bit from one phase and a bit from another. The point is to identify and define YOUR PHASE, and what you need to focus on in order to make it to the next phase - if that is indeed what you want for your business.

Not every business will make it out of embryonic, or adolescent and that’s A-Okay.

So, small review of embryonic stage - the client roster is full, you feel like the bank account doesn’t always reflect the work put in, and you need to scale, you’re at your ceiling but you also don’t know HOW to do that, because you recognize that what got you from conception to embryonic is not going to get you to infancy.

Infancy

If you haven’t already invested in your biz, I’d argue that infancy almost demands it. Either through hiring a house keeper, going to therapy, hiring a coach, or delegating tasks to book keepers, assistants, and other coaches is definitely going to happen. Directly related to, or indirectly related to your biz, get ready to invest money in order to create space or expedite having a plan to move forward and generate more revenue.

In business, we have these natural ceilings - periods of time where we need to create more space in order to grow. In those times, something has to give. And that’s normally money. Hello infancy.

You’re all in. You’re past sinking or swimming. You’ve proven you can swim, but it’s time to upgrade. You’re either building out an offer suite, to ensure that no money is left on the table, or hiring a coaching staff in order to reach more humans with your signature offer. Either way you’re scaling. This is typically where my 1:1 biz clients come to me at. Here, or in between embryonic and infancy.

In this phase you feel established. You know what you know, and you know how to leverage that. Your messaging is clear, and you’re confident in what you do, even if you need a reminder every now and again. As proud as you are of what you’ve built, you now see how much more you could be doing with your biz. How many more people you can reach - or you can reach your same people but in a new way, from a different angle.

Say you’re in the 3-5k per month mark but you want to hit that $7-$10k mark. This is, in my opinion one of the hardest jumps to make in the online health and fitness sole-preneur game. It’s massive to hit that $1,000 mark, and then $3,000. It’s massive to fill a client roster and be fully tapped out with 1:1 clients, let’s say. But THEN WHAT?! How do you get from that $3k to that $5k and from that $5k to $7k? This is where we go from being an online coach to thinking more like a CEO. To where we work ON business as apposed to IN our business.

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Identifying phases of business is similar to identifying the season of business that you’re in. It helps us set realistic expectations and kind of gauge where we should be at that point. Or what we should be focusing on.

So that’s kind of my hope today, is to help you identify which phase of business you are in, and what your focus might be in your current phase in order to advance to the next phase.

If you have followed me for any period of time on Instagram or been to business pages of my website, you’ve heard me talk about phases of business.

So that’s kind of my hope today, is to help you identify which phase of business you are in, and what your focus might be in your current phase in order to advance to the next phase.

I am unsure if I came up with these, but to my knowledge, they don’t exist anywhere else. If I need to give credit, please let me know. I just enjoy drawing parallels between business and the world of anatomy and fitness. So, here we are.

The six phases of business are:

Pre conceptionConceptionEmbryonicInfantAdolescentAdult

Before we dive into each phase, I want to make abundantly clear that these are not black-and-white. Maybe you feel like you don’t fit perfectly into any of these phases. That is possible and that’s totally fine. What’s important for you, is to maybe define your own phase, and set some expectations for yourself in order to grow your business. So hopefully in one way or another this episode, and my phase examples help you do that.

The phases, just like biology, progress and build on one another.

First up is the pre-conception phase

In the pre-conception phase, you have no income. You have no business yet. But you have an idea or the pressure that something needs to happen other than what is currently happening in your life. And a business might be the long winded answer to that.

There’s a lot of discomfort, and dissatisfaction in this phase. And that’s met with, sometimes, a dream of some kind. There are only ideas and feelings in this phase I like to say. There’s not a lot of answers or even action.

Perhaps you’re training people in person. Or working 2 to 3 jobs. Maybe you’re contemplating a career path switch or pivot. Like I said there is a level of dissatisfaction here or an urge to do something other than what you were doing now. And there can be so many different driving factors here.

Just to use myself as an example because that’s what I can give you without fault. My pre-conception phase was after college, when I was very unclear on what to do with my life. For the first time, mind you.

I had definitely decided that I was not going to get my masters and be a college strength coach, but that was my plan for the last four years of my life. So I was left with a lot of questions, a lot of feelings, and no concrete answers. No sense of direction.

I would say that my pre-conception phase was probably 2014 and 2015 combined. I did start an Instagram account in 2014 or 2015 but with no real direction, no consistency, no hope to get clients. So I knew that I wanted to be online, but that was pretty much the end of the plan.

I got my business license in 2015. And that was for Fit Design by Annie, a fitness training and program design, which covered in person and online though I had no online clients.

This led into the conception phase

So if you haven’t thought about your preconception phase, whether you are currently in it or not, I want you to think back and just identify the feelings and what was going on in your life when you were in that preconception phase.

In the conception phase, we have made a business. Something is indeed happening. This phase to me, starts the hustle,

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To explore unorthodox movement or not?

Something I get asked a lot online is what I used to support or believe in with health and fitness, that I no longer believe in or support now. I’ve talked about this a bit in other episodes and on Instagram, but I used to be quite the movement elitist.

I’ve also mentioned that I think having more rigid beliefs in any instance when you are new at something is part of a natural process.

We see this often in religion or when someone enters a new industry or philosophy in any area. We tend to start with a more rigid system, and then as we expand and get more comfortable in that space, we are open to questions and gray area. Beyond that gray area comes a new understanding.

Early in my strength and conditioning career, my philosophy was a mix of starting strength, Mark Rippetoe, and Kelly Starrette.

None of those resources or people are bad, it was more so that I took all of that information and thought everyone needed to squat the same, deadlift the same, keep a neutral spine all day every day, and don’t veer away from the basics.

Now, I am still a fan of the basics.

I still aggressively support squat, hinge, push, pull, carry. But I am much more open to squatting patterns, hinging patterns, pushing patterns, pulling patterns, and more unorthodox versions of those patterns.

In the world of training glutes we always hear that we need to train the glutes from all different angles in order to get optimum hypertrophy or increase in cross-sectional area of the glute max, as well as the glute med.

That information is certainly not incorrect, and I ask you how it can be applied to other areas of the body.

People who made me question my movement elitism were doc Jen fit, knees over toe guy, the shirtless dude from move you which I believe now is wealth, and Edo portal.

I’m not saying I support these people or accounts forever and always, I am just saying that at one point in my career or another, these accounts and people specifically made me broaden my view of movement for strength and conditioning.

So in today’s episode, I want to explore all things movement, like bracing with a rounded spine, knees going over toes, strengthening the spinal erectors, and exploring end ranges, in general under load.

Along with topics like the fact that everyone thinks that doing single arm high pulls causes shoulder impingement. Let’s just go ahead and start with that right now. I program high pulls for my clients. And we should start by defining what impingement actually means. According to Oxford Languages, impingement in a medical sense means “a painful condition caused by rubbing or pressure on a tendon, nerve, etc., by adjacent structures.”

That does not need to happen, and should not be happening if performing a the movement of a high pull in the absence of internal rotation and scapular anterior tilting.

If you are performing a high pull correctly, it will only strengthen your shoulder joint and the functionality of that joint. The stronger we can be across different ranges of motion the better. Yes? YES.

A high pull is just another vertical pull. We have pull ups as a vertical pull, and things like lat pull downs. The high pull is simply in the opposite direction of those downward vertical pulling movements. And that is largely why I program it for my clients. To balance the strength we’re building in downward vertical pulling.

If performed correctly, a few things should happen. And I think that’s more-so where things can go wrong - in the execution of the movement.

There are a few, very common ways to do this wrong. If done right, you have external rotation of the humerus at the shoulder, and a posterior tilt of the scapula thanks to your lower traps.

Of course, if you do have pain or pinching that doesn’t seem to go away with playing with that movement pattern, or lowering the weight, please seek a professional in the physio or physical therapy ...

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This is going to be a shorter episode, but one that hits close to home for me and many of my clients I think. Fun story - I drafted episodes 121 and 122 and then asked Nate, my husband, what should my next podcast be about. He immediately said “dinosaurs.” But then he followed up with “creating from joy” and I was like OH SHOOT, YES. Thus you can all thank and/or blame Nathanael for this episode about not letting money or pressure take away from creating for joy.

At any stage of business but especially at the beginning, it can feel like you have to create content in order to make money. It can be very easy to create from a place of scarcity. If I don’t post I won’t get clients.

Where there is 100% truth to that, I want to encourage creation from a different perspective today.

This is something that has come up recently with two of my business clients. The “pressure to create” completely ruining the creation process. Sucking the joy right out of something that brings both of these women joy - if money and pressure are not linked to it.

My clients who create the best content (meaning it lands with their audience AND leads to growth for their brand), create content they want to create.

THAT is what today’s talk is about. If you feel pressure to create content, or you feel like your content creation is fueled by checking boxes and making money instead of BEING CREATIVE, you need to listen up.

First off, we all feel that. The pressure. But I’d argue that if you’re not creating content that is joyful for you to create…it’s a bit a of a waste. Right?

A practice that has become a staple in my own business is to create when I feel “off” or “down” or “bored” or “pressured.” But not just to create. To let go of all the “rules” and just make what I want to. Because I believe that’s what I was put on this earth to do. I used to believe I wasn’t “creative” because I struggle to create original things. I think very practically and analytically. But being practical and analytical in nature does not mean I cannot also possess creativity. And the same is true for you.

Creativity can express itself in so many ways. Drawling parallels between concepts is creative for instance. Making people laugh can come from creativity. It’s not drawing, or design alone.

Thus, when I feel like I need to make sales, or disconnected from my audience, or this odd pressure to check all the boxes, I just do WHAT I WANT.

I think this comes from my idea freedom which is “what I want, when I want.” I feel joy when I have options and the freedom to decide what I want to do, when I want to do it. So I lean into that. I hate that term. But it fits. That’s what we’ll get into now…

When the pressure, self-imposed or otherwise, starts to set in, how can we change direction towards joy in our creation process?

So, my first question for you is - what do you enjoy creating? If you don’t know yet, you’ll only find out through trial and error.

AND let me point out - it doesn’t have to be content. It can be an email, blog, workbook, podcast, apparel.

Fun story - my most recent dino + gains apparel launch was birthed from boredom and frustration. An apparel launch wasn’t in the yearly plan. I was supposed to be working on a course, and I was frustrated and bored with that content. So I just said screw it, let’s take a break. But then I had no plan for the break, so I started playing with designs in Canva. After three hours or so, I accidentally built out an apparel line. Launched it a week later. And I am so so so in love with it.

That’s kind of what I am getting at here. When we create from a place of joy, a few things happen. First off, and my favorite point - no one can take that from you. No one can take that creation, the idea and the joy, from you. And secondly, people feel it. I do truly believe that our current state in creating content or a program or course, will permeate what we’re creating.

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Instagram recently announced that they are a video-centric platform. Pinterest started allowing video and swipe-style graphics in 2020, and YouTube favors long videos cut into shorter segments.

Video is the future, and we’ve known that for a few years now.

So, what does that mean for those looking to start or grow a biz in 2021?

You best get comfortable being on camera. Kidding, kind of.

I want to leave you with three thoughts and ideas if you’re starting or running an online business in 2021.

It’s never too late to start, but it also probably behooves you to start and learn NOW. So do listen to this episode with a sense of urgency. Okay? Timing is real, and I get that. Of course. But if you’ve wanted to start a biz, or even just creating free content, let’s go ahead and START.

A few things to note about video - there is not one way to do video. As you listen in, prep your brain to open to video. Now, there are some things you truly despise. I HATE SALES CALLS. I hate hosting them. And I hate being a customer. I would so rather read a sales page, and just purchase something on my own.

This hatred is not rooted in being bad at or insecure in a process with which I am unfamiliar. That’s the difference I want you to explore if the idea of video doesn’t spark a joyful light in your soul.

So ask if it’s that you ACTUALLY hate the process of creating video-based content, or if it’s because you don’t know how, think you’re bad at it, lack confidence or any other reason.

Let’s begin.

Question one:

WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER USING VIDEO FOR YOUR ONLINE BIZ?

First off, video is more captivating than a still photo. It’s just a thing. And in an online world where people are more stimulated than ever, catching someone’s attention is what we’re after. Video can help us do that.

Video has movement, and movement draws us in when compared to a still photo or graphic. Would you agree? I have no study to back this. So, take it for what it’s worth.

We’ll get into types of video you can use because there are ENDLESS options and I hope to give you some ideas, but for now, how have I seen video positively impact my biz?

Video has the potential to expedite trust, and knowability of a brand. It CAN be more intimate than other types of content. Again, we’re talking about potential. Not a guarantee. The content has to be good, and aligned with your audience to do anything. But when compared to still content, video can lead to quicker connection I believe. I certainly feel like I “know” or want to engage with those who I see in their IG stories than those accounts who I don’t. Maybe that’s completely off, but it’s just a small example.

So…

DO YOU HAVE TO CREATE OR USE VIDEO?

In short. No, you don’t have to do anything. BUT in speaking with some very established humans who have far more knowledge about business growth and the future of the online space than I do…I encourage you to explore how video can work for your biz.

You do not have to use video to grow your business. The other options still exist - podcasts, and written form content, photos and graphics, etc. I follow plenty of people who have not created a single piece of video content on instagram. BUT, I’ll also point out that these accounts have already built a substantial following and growth is likely not their main goal. I could be wrong, however.

Ultimately, at any stage of business, you need to be able to prioritize. Yes? To venture into video? Or not quite yet? Keep listening, and trust your gut as feelings come up!

What platforms are you looking to grow your audience and brand on?

Instagram?

Facebook?

Youtube?

Tiktok?

Pinterest?

Of course, Youtube is video-centric. Same with TikTok. Pinterest, IG and Facebook are heading in that direction. BUT, there is ALWAYS context.

I want people to think about the simplest way they can use video on a platform. And that brings us to the next question/point

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This episode was inspired by answering several programming questions over on the gram. My audience seems to want to know what type of programming works for what type of client. And how we program beyond 1:1.

Some professionals are 1:1 or nothing. And I get that. Because nothing will get you more personalized results than working with a 1:1 coach. But what about those who don’t need 1:1 or can’t afford 1:1 services? Are they not deserving of quality fitness programming? I think not.

We can’t talk about this without touching on the idea of scaling your health and fitness business. I’ve said it before. But we have two options which both stem from one idea. The idea is to create more of YOU - to reach more people with your services.

That can happen via two main paths or a combination of them both:1. You can hire more 1:1 coaches to fill gaps in your coaching while offering the 1:1 service you’ve built. 2. You can take what you’ve learned from filling your 1:1 roster, and create a lower-touch membership or group program. This is templated, or mostly templated and people can do it without needing you as their 1:1 programming coach.

If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

Today’s episode tackles the latter of those two options. Templated programming for the masses.

It is needed, there is space for it, and it’s lucrative. We can reach more humans with a lower demand on our personal time.

This is not for everyone. Maybe it doesn’t fit your long term business model. But if you’re listening to this episode, I assume you’re interested.

Before diving in, I am not your program guru, the smartest, or best at programming. So, take what makes sense for you, and discard the rest.

Creating program templates can be a great tool even for 1:1 coaches who find that many of their clients need the same thing, or have the same issues. Maybe you find a general week set up that worked really well? Save it as a template. Like a skeleton.

So, let’s get after it.

We’re going to cover TIMELINE, as well as what goes in the program.

How many phases are you creating? We cannot just start programming willy nilly. We need structure so that we can make sure we get done what we’re trying to get done.

You’ll determine the length of your program time via consideration of your biz and offer model. How often are you opening the doors or launching? Is it a program you want people to be able to stay in and/or repeat time and time again?

I am sure you can see how these questions would help guide the length of the program and how many phases you need to create. Some coaches have ongoing programming that they create month after month forever and always. That’s an option. Some coaches have 12-16 week or 6 month programs. Some have 12 month programs. And these can likely be repeated, or not.

Nothing is right or wrong. That’s important to grasp. You simply get to choose and what to make sure it fits with your big picture plans for the program. :) If we’re scaling, we want to make sure the program is, well, scalable.

Once you determine your timeline, let’s ask some more questions regarding the actual program:

What is the goal of the program?

How many days per week will it be?

What are the daily duration expectations?

Programming for the masses is like sculpting a masterpiece out of stone. You’re essentially chipping away everything you don’t need in order to find only what is essential for the program. Find what is needed. Leave the rest.

What is the goal of your program?

Look at all your 1:1 or even group and in person experience. What are the common desires of these people? And their past training experience?

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2021 Instagram takeaways for business owners...

Oh Instagram - it can be a flaky beezy, that’s what we can actually count on.

I asked my IG audience what Instagram’s enneagram would be if it had one.

My favorite answer was that it’s not on the chart. It has an identity crisis. I’ve never heard something so accurate.

So, with IG and it’s ever changing, now ALGORITHM(S) - Yes, PLURAL - what are creators and brands to do?

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do have a few takeaways after observing and taking active part in some of my data collection in the first six months of 2021.

That is what I plan to share with you today. Take it for what it’s worth. And remember that no matter what, consistency is the actual key. I've been on that god forsaken app for seven years, okay? Those who have “succeeded” either in audience size, interaction, income or all of the above, have been the humans who have done the damn thing day in and day out for YEARS. They’ve rolled with the punches or stuck to their guns and said “I do this one thing really well, and that’s what I’ll be known for, period.”

So, please don’t mistake this episode for a quick fix or some 3 steps to 3x your following in 30 days. No, fuck off with that. Gag me, what a joke. These are practical ways to play the game while like, keeping a hold of your dignity and maybe, just maybe your sanity. But I’m not making any promises.

Alright, let’s get into it, shall we?

Be choosey

I am sure you know by now that you can now make money directly on the app - I keep getting pressured via IG badges to sign up to get paid while going live or something else). I just have to give IG my social security number, and bank information. It’s a no for me.

Listen, that’s the point of this suggestion - remember why you’re on the app. Are you on IG to get paid by IG? Because that’s a flimsy business plan if you are.

My guess is that you’re there to build an engaged audience who you actually enjoy; and to eventually drive those audience members to your business products or services. Yes? Let’s keep our eyes on the prize. Not be distracted by the shiny objects.

Be choosey - I’ve said this what feels like 500 times on this podcast. But yes, I encourage you to always try out the new features. Because you truly can’t say if something is for you or not until you give it a go. I thought I’d hate reels and I find them so enjoyable to create now. I’ve also transitioned from doing mini trainings in my stories to uploading them via IGTV. Technically I could do both of those repurpose. My point is, never count anything out. You’ve got nearly endless tools and options with IG. Find 1-2 things you can do well. Do them YOUR WAY, and get good at them. Be choosy.

And also…

Do what you want in your business -

I have been encouraging business clients and FitsPRO’s to push into having fun on IG and creating what they want to simply because they want to. It can be very easy to let the algorithms and lack of consistency in the effort : result ratio get you down. To suck all the fun out of creating things.

And I truly believe that if you’re trying to build a brand using instagram, you’ve GOT to find a way to enjoy it. Why would you expect anything different than someone who hates weight lifting to repeatedly force themselves to use weight lift to get fit rather than exploring other options that they might actually enjoy? Don’t be that person, but in terms of instagram.

We can’t hate our way to success on that app. Okay?

So if hate can’t be the driving force, are you open to having some fun? Or at least taking a step back and committing to keeping it simple?

That’s my next point.

Keep it simple -

With a new feature dropping every other week, it might do you well to just NOT do it all.

Lower the threshold for content creation. Not every post needs to be banger textbook. It’s too heavy. To create, and for your audience to consume.

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Sharing 4 training methods for intermediate lifters!

Once a lifter has gone through a few bouts of linear progression, what’s next?

They’ve got a 1-3 training years under their belt. They’re familiar with different exercise variations, tempos and working with percentages or RPE. Do they just keep repeating the same linear progressions? Or hop to a new program?

In today’s episode, I hope to give coaches and maybe even trainees some ideas to research and/or implement into their programming. Maybe you already know of these training methods, maybe you don’t. I won’t simply be listing them off, but giving insight into how one would apply these methods into an entire program - including accessory work.

Before we get started, please be reminded that I am not your movement or programming bible. These training methods are tried and tested - like through scientific studies, not just “tried and tested” anecdotally by humans. Take what makes sense for you, ponder it, and stay curious.

Now, I use bits of all of these throughout my 36 total phases of programming inside Built By Annie. Thus, I am partial to them. I just think they are solid training methods to introduce to intermediate lifters. Call me biased, because I am in this sense.

First up!

Conjugate training method or Daily undulating periodization (aka DUP)

I was first introduced to this approach via my chiropractor as we rehabbed my back injury (which happened during squatting). Yes, my back rehab involved squatting three times per week. So, let’s get into it.

The daily undulating periodization is a type of conjugate method. If you read the definition of both from multiple textbooks or the interweb, you might be like…so these are the same thing?

Conjugate method: Repeating the big lifts multiple times per week, in slightly different waysDUP: Changing the volume, rep scheme, intensity of main lifts daily rather than phase to phase.

Same same, yes? For the sake of this episode, yes. Also, I am unsure who FIRST brought DUP to the table, but I know Poliquin has talked extensively about undulating periodizations in general. And though we’re talking about DUP, undulating periodization is also widely used in a weekly fashion - which will make more sense in a second.

In a traditional and even non-traditional linear periodization you might see:

Monday - Bench Tuesday - SquatWednesday - RestThursday - Overhead PressFriday - Deadlift

You could have many other set ups, but the point here is that you’re hitting each big lift ONCE per week, and changing sets and reps, or other factors of said big lifts on a 4-5 week basis. Performing each lift once per week.

With conjugate or DUP, the big lifts are performed three days per week (this is most common from my understanding). That is also most common with the big three powerlifting movements of Squat, Bench, and Deadlift. If, like me, you also add overhead press, you simply juggle a bit more, or maybe only hit OH twice per week.

TECHNICALLY - astrix all over here…You could use a DUP for ONE movement pattern which is a weak link in your training. For instance, squatting three days a week if your squat is seriously lacking. Or benching three days per week if you need to bring up your bench.

So how do you hit one, or all big lifts three days per week and not destroy yourself? Fair question.

Rather than having a “power phase” a “strength phase” and a “hypertrophy phase” you do each of those, once per week, for each week.

Are you tracking?

It might look like this for ONE LIFT:

4x10 back squat for hypertrophy focus day6x2 back squat for power focus day3x5 back squat for strength focus day

In the weekly fashion of undulating periodization, you’d have a week of 10’s, week of 2’s and week of 5’s say. That could also be 8’s, 5’s and 3’s or what have you.

If you apply DUP to all big lifts, it might look like:

Bench + Squat - Day 1Deads + Squat + OH - Day 2Rest day - Day 3Bench + Squa...

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It's time for a Listener Q&A, but first - if you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources at anniemiller.co/resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

Tune into Episode 118 to hear the answers to this Q&A:

Entry pricing - start low, Build client base then raise? Come in strong?

So many of you had eye patches as kids! - “We need the eye patch story”

Travel plans

Plans for taking over the fitsPRO world?

Siblings? And How did you get into fitness?

Were you a leader or follower growing up?

Systems that you recommend for running an online biz?

Main focus in biz when working a full time job/ What should be the points of focus with decreased time?

If you find value here, on The FitsPRO Podcast, then pretty please head over to iTunes, subscribe, rate and review the show. It means the world to me when you spread my message to more humans.

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ALL THE LINKS YOU NEED:

Free On Demand Workshop: 3 Steps To Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness Business

Free Resources

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Bags: Vooray Code ANNIE for 20% off

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How to get more 1:1 clients

If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

In Q1 and Q2 my FitsPRO’s and 1:1 biz clients have had great success with securing more 1:1 roster spots.

It’s something that is likely needed if you’re starting or growing in the online space of health and fitness. We typically start with a 1:1 offer because of a few things, which I’ve mentioned before:

1:1 is often the highest ticket offer - meaning we can secure solid income from the get goIt requires a smaller audience size - you can only take on so many 1:1 clients. Let’s say you need to fill 10 spots. That’s probably easier, even at a higher price point, with an audience of 300 people in comparison to filling 100 20 day challenge spots. You see?1:1 allows us to refine our processes - both in the onboarding and marketing space, as well as the actual process we want our clients through.Lastly, 1:1 allows us to get great testimonies and feedback.And bonus - gaining experience with our 1:1 ideal clients, allows us to see what gaps need to be filled, and who those gaps are for. So that, when the time comes to scale, we can create supporting offers. Or, of course, you can simply hire more coaches and fill more 1:1 spots. Or both.

So, there are some reasons that we typically start with 1:1 training in the online space before creating courses, or group programs. Though, nothing is required. As always.

Now we answer the question of how you actually FILL these 1:1 spots.

For some context, I am not speaking in terms of a hard open and close launch. You’ve opened 1:1 spots, and you’re consistently trying to bring in more applicants. That’s the scenario I am referring to throughout this episode. Okay? Picture painted.

First off, this assumes you have a landing page with an application in place - this application obviously needs to make clear to you if this person is a good fit for 1:1. That’s up to you and the questions you ask.

You can then schedule a sales call, or skip the sales call, send a contract, they pay and sign up.

With the latter, I often think a proper sales page is needed - sales pages simply cover what is often covered in a sales call, right? Who it’s for, how you function, your philosophy, the result, expectations, etc - all to figure out if it’s a good fit for the prospect client.

Once all of this in place, let’s get more clients.

It is my belief that if your roster isn’t full, it’s your fault.

Meaning - you either aren’t selling enough, you’re selling in the wrong place, your messaging is off, or a combination of these three. This is just my belief, take it for what it’s worth.

Thus, we fill more spots through:-Selling more often-Polling your audience-Making it easy & clear for the client

Let’s break these down.

Selling more often.

With my 1:1 biz clients, this always comes as a silly surprise. Not always, but more often than not, when we schedule their sales frequency (2-3 times per week at least), the applications start rolling in. Go figure.

We can’t expect applications every time you mention your service, but you DO need to talk about your service and tell people to apply OFTEN. LIKE REALLY OFTEN.

And here’s the deal - before you say “I don’t want to feel like I’m always selling or bombarding people.”

…I get that. No one likes to be bombarded either. When I walk into a store, I don’t want Shelly all up in my face before I’ve had a chance to look around. Let a woman BREATHE.

But keep in mind, you’re posting on Instagram, sending weekly emails, and showing up in your stories FAR MORE frequently than you’re selling. And not every person opens every email or sees every social media post (referring mos...

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If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

116 | Finding your expertise as a coach In fitness

We often hear coaches encourage people looking to build their business in the online health and fitness space to “ESTABLISH YOUR EXPERTISE.”

I teach and encourage this in my FitsPRO Foundations course.

I don’t think it’s wrong. But I do think it can feel unattainable. Or like “okay but how?” “Do I just pick something, and claim it as my expertise?”

No. And I’d argue most actual experts wouldn’t even call themselves an expert. Others give them that title.

So what do we really mean? And how do you establish/attain your expertise?

We’ve got a few factors to discuss.

Before we get into HOW you actually establish your expertise, it’s important we talk about WHY this is important in the first place.

Do I consider myself an expert? No. Not in terms of having published literature or reaching millions with my work. Now, publishing literature, conducting research, and reaching millions ALONE does not equate to being an expert. But I do think a combination of these things can be helpful in building an expertise.

I could be wrong. Maybe my definition or view of “expert” is wrong. When I think of experts, I think of world renowned creators, entrepreneurs, or humans in general. I think of Shark Tank, Nicole Walters or Marie Forleo for entrepreneurship, I think of Grant Cardone for real estate and MONEY. And Chalene Johnson for all things social media marketing. I think of Mark Rippetoe, Charles Poloquin, and Joel Jamieson for the strength and conditioning, I think of John Goodman for online training. I am speaking specific to my field and specific people I have studied.

So when compared to these people, no, I am not an expert. Not in my mind.

I think of my and/or your “expertise” as your area of focus. Part of your niche. Rather your niche within your area of focus.

It’s important we determine this so that we can become the “go to” person for “x.”

When people hear pelvic floor, they think of you

Or macros, or mindset, or trail running, or weight loss, or hormone management, or movement patterns and lifting form, or flexible dieting, or pain management, or mobility.

I can personally think of 1-3 people for each of these areas of expertise. That’s the goal, but for you to be one of those humans.

This is your “lane” if you will. People come to you for “x.” Period. That doesn’t mean you can’t have multiple areas of focus, but we do want to clearly define them. For you, and your audience.

Okay? So we want to determine an area of focus or expertise so that you know what the heck you’re doing, and your audience knows what to expect from you.

Let’s now get into HOW you might begin to determine that.

Mind you, it took me 2.5 years of business to really nail down my “thing(s).” And I think that’s wildly important to point out. Maybe you find yours sooner. Or maybe you find it later. Perhaps you pivot along the way. That’s all well and good.

We have two main pieces of this puzzle to explore.

One is your passion.

What are you passionate about? What area does that passion fall into?

Speaking in broad spectrum, you can think of things like barbell training or kettle bell training, calisthenics. Or maybe you’re the calorie deficit person. Then we can go in the direction of conditions - so pre or postnatal, injury prevention or rehab, strength training for runners. Forgive me if I lean more towards training vs nutrition or wellness. Apply these ideas to whatever area you fall into!

I believe we all have unique interests and that even if 500 coaches are focused on weight loss or counting macros,

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Fear & Motivation in Our Decision Making

If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

I’ve debated making this podcast for quite some time. Mindset is not my expertise. But it is certainly a factor within my lane, if you will.

And I do think that this topic is extremely important to address for anyone attempting to build a business in the online space.

And truly, this goes far beyond business. You make decisions all throughout your day, in many different areas of life.

Today’s episode is really all about unpacking the motivating factors behind the decisions that we make. Let it be clear, that this episode is as much for myself as it is for you.

As I mentioned in my previous episode, we are all adults, this is free content, and you are allowed to take what you need from this content and disregard anything else. I trust you to do that for yourself.

Again, this topic can be applied to many many many areas of life outside of business. But for today I am focusing on making decisions with in your business and what is motivating you to make those decisions.

I think there are a lot of parallels between fear mindset and scarcity mindset. And possibly parallels between having an abundant, or growth mindset, and freedom.

Now, I have decided to make this episode based on conversations I have had with colleagues in the field. It’s always helpful to hear from and relate to other entrepreneurs who have similar experiences as I do.

From those conversations I thought heck, I might as well do this podcast.

Before we dive in, I do want to make a little disclaimer that I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist, or any type of mindset expert. I am speaking completely from my own anecdotal experience and stream of consciousness. And of course from those conversations that I have had personally.

So let’s look at what possible motivators exist for us making decisions. Because again this is for you and me both.

On a very broad scale, I believe it is true that people are motivated to take action based on gaining pleasure or avoiding pain. Perhaps that is outdated or incorrect. I am always open to hearing if someone has data or corrections for something that I have said.

So we can make decisions in order to avoid something or we can make decisions in hopes of gaining something.

Often times in my own life, when I make a decision based on avoiding some thing, or based in fear, I am making a decision that aligns with complacency.

Humans can fear many things. There is truly no limit to this. And that will be very individual to you. We can fear a reaction from others, we can fear failure, we can fear embarrassment, we can fear judgment, abandonment, and the list goes on. You can even fear success. We can fear being misunderstood, or taken advantage of, or being unappreciated. I am just throwing this out here and you can see what sticks for you.

My encouragement to you through this episode is to analyze where you might be making decisions based in fear. And what that is doing for your business or whatever area of life applies.

Is making decisions based in fear and avoidance ultimately getting you where you want to go? And also, are the things that you fear realistic?

I was talking with a friend the other day about making a pretty simple decision. Yet this decision had a lot of weight given to it by this person.

And we were both discussing how silly it is that we give so much power to thoughts for other people or a reality that might not even exist.

So I ask how much time and brain space are you giving to other people or made up scenarios that you have in your head. I think we do this all the time. I know I do.

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If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz!

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

114 | My opinion on CrossFit, the importance of your personal experience in fitness, what makes a good coach, and do certifications matter?

Today’s episode is going to be somewhat of a mash up, I have nothing more than my personal opinion on things. So please do not take this as biblical or objective truth. You can take or leave whatever you like from this episode. Because again, these are simply my opinions. And each opinion is formed through the lens of an individual, their beliefs system, their experiences and perspectives

I chose these topics based on what I’ve been asked by my audience over the years. And these are some of the most popular topics.

You are free to disagree or hold a different perspective. Please remember this is a free podcast and you are choosing to listen to it. You are a grown adult, and you exit at anytime you feel the need.

I know that sounds dramatic for discussing things such as fitness modalities and what makes a good coach, but I figure we can’t be too careful. And it’s just a good reminder for all of us.

So let’s go ahead and dive in to topic number one which is my opinion on CrossFit

CROSSFIT

For those of you that don’t know, I actually partook in a CrossFit for about a six month period of time while I was in college, and shortly after college.

So, this opinion is not coming from a space that has no experience using this form of exercise.

Whether or not that holds weight, I don’t know but I thought it was worth mentioning.

I think, completely subjectively, that CrossFit as a whole has improved hugely over the last decade. And that is how long I have been following the sport for.

I think that CrossFit does a fantastic job of building community, and welcoming people into practicing fitness. In fact, I think it might do that better than any other comparable modality of fitness.

I would say, my issues with CrossFit are around the programming, and the possible lack of building a solid foundation of both strength and movement patterns before jumping into more advanced exercises.

And I want to make it very clear that this is going to be over generalized. Because someone’s experience at one CrossFit box with one coach can be completely different from even another coach with in that box or another CrossFit box as a whole.

So yes, I am going to be making generalizations about this motive fitness.

I’m not a huge fan of oversimplifying, or overgeneralizing things. But it’s kind of a must with a topic as large as CrossFit.

I certainly don’t think that only Olympians should perform Olympic lifts. That’s silly to me. Well Olympic lifts and some of the gymnastics moves performed in CrossFit or advanced movements, I don’t see any reason for a normal GEN pop person to not progress their way through these movements.

As with any form of fitness, there are going to be shit trainers, and shit programming, that likely puts the client at a higher risk of injury. And I’m not for that no matter what modality a fitness is being used.

That’s not specific to CrossFit though I do think that just given the movements practiced, at the intensity they are performed, there may be a higher risk for injury in comparison to some other forms of fitness and weightlifting.

Truly, that comes down to the coaching and the regulation within a box. That leads me to another issue that I have with CrossFit. Which is the fact that a coach can be certified from a weekend seminar. And just like with your normal personal training, I do not think that this is adequate for someone to become a coach.

With that, any certification is only as effective as the exper...

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Sales considerations to make in your online business.

If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

If you are building a brand and or running a business, you will need to take part in selling a product or service.

Sales were something that I did not enjoy and certainly did not come naturally to me when I started a business.

I’ve mentioned this before, but at first, I skipped the entire module in B school on marketing. It was outdated at the time but also, I wasn’t ready or I didn’t even feel ready to sell anything. I had nothing to truly launch.

It also didn’t speak to the specifics of online health and fitness. And some might argue that sales is sales. While there is truth in that, I think it certainly can be helpful to see and hear examples of sales strategies and approaches used within our field.

So today I hope to share with you considerations to make when you approach or build your sales strategy. Which can be a mixture of copywriting, webinars or videos, sales calls, email marketing. Etc.

First step

Trust is the basis of sales

We buy things because we trust that we are going to get the desired outcome and or what we are paying for matches the value of the product or service. When I buy a double insulated glass coffee mug, I trust that it’s going to work and it’s going to make me feel fancy.

When someone purchases Built by Annie, their investment shows that they trust enough that they are going to have a program that allows them to be more consistent and enjoy their time in the gym while gaining education about their body and lifting weights.

So in every piece of content, in every email you send, within your sales page, your application, or your sales calls, keep “trust” in the forefront of your mind.

You’re building trust with everything your brand produces. And trust leads to sales or the potential for sales.

Also, I have a little tangent that I’ve mentioned in my FitsPRO Foundations course as well as the training I did for FRE skin care and my Instagram 101 course.

And that is to create and or sell from the mind of a consumer. So think about your experience and your thought process and maybe even your subconscious when you are looking to, or decide to make a purchase.

What makes you trust a company? What leads to you finally purchasing from a brand? These are just questions to help you understand the consumer experience in sales. What’s a no go for you, or a red flag? What makes you feel safe in a sales process?

That leads into a lovely segue of consideration number two.

You’re on the same team

Meaning, you don’t want people to purchase from you who will not be a good fit, do not align with your philosophy, or will not get results from your program or service for whatever reason.

You are on the same team as a consumer - meaning, you want to get your audience and those interested in purchasing from you, to make an empowered yes or no decision.

We want our consumers to feel like we are on their team.

This is where the power of referral comes in. Say someone is not a good fit and that they need a different type of program or maybe to be referred to a specialist. That person heightens their trust in you when you refer them to a different type of program or a specialist.

This shows that you still have their best interest in mind and that you don’t just want to make money off of them.

I’m sure you’ve seen it before on a sales page or in a sales process, where someone makes clear who a program is for and who the program is not for.

You know, if you’re feeling these things, or have had these experiences, this program is for you. And on the other end,

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112 - Programming Q’s Part 2

If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz.

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

This is a two part series, answering programming questions from the gram fam. In the previous episode, we covered the following questions:

How you set up individual periodization for 1:1 client?What are your first step during intake and how do you execute them? AssessmentsWhat movements to assess during initial assessmentHow to assess for imbalances & How to work through muscle imbalancesLogic to pairing movements - SUPERSETS/TRI SETS How to know how to include different movements (vertical, horizontal presses/etc) / Push pull ratiosControversial movements (pull behind the neck etc)When a client experiences tightness, how to modify/communicate?How to order movements

So go back and listen to that if you missed it. I did order these somewhat in a sequential manner. So we started with assessments and things of that sort. Now we are getting into training protocol, muscle groups, frequency and so on.

Alrighty, let’s get started with programming part two:

Best strength training protocol

I am not aware if there is a BEST strength protocol according to literature.

But some tried and true methods for strength are wave loading, and Wendler 5.3.1.

A lot of 1:1 programs look similar, is it wrong if two look the same? similar?

In short. No. It is very normal for 1:1 programs to have similar structure.

With time, you’ll figure out what leads to successful outcomes. You’ll repeat parts of this in multiple programs. If you use 10-20 exercises, there will be a similar use of exercises and structures.

As long as it fits the goals, assessments, and accessibility of the client, you’re good.

How often to train given muscle groups?/How often to hit the same muscle groups

Generally speaking minimum of 5-7 days between hitting the same movements and or muscle groups.

Put simply, we need enough to to recover between lifts but not so long that we aren’t experiencing progressive overload.

With that, think of weekly vs daily volume as well. You can destroy a muscle group in one sitting and wait 5-7 days to touch it again, or train multiple sessions per week with less destruction. Remember soreness is not a prerequisite for muscle growth.

Mechanical tension is your main pusher of hypertrophy. So hitting a muscle group every 3-7 days should allow you to progress and recover from mechanical tension.

There is no finite answer to this.

Generally speaking, every 5-7 days at minimum.

Should you always test workouts before programming for a client?

No. But also, I think this is far more important when you’re a young coach or interning. There is truth to practicing what you preach in a literal sense. I know what my BBA clients feel like when they perform high volume, oxidative squats because I’ve done them. I know what it feels like to pair hip thrusts with Bulgarian split squats or do cardiac power output intervals because I’ve done them.

With that, I’ve not done every BBA lift, right?

I’ve experienced and researched segments.

But when you’re starting I think it’s wildly beneficial to try your programming out.

To feel it, and time it vs what it looks like on paper,

Things can slip by you like having a horizontal pulling day after a deadlift day. The spinal erectors can be a huge limiting factor here. I know because I’ve made this mistake.

All you can think about on bench and horizontal pulling is how freaking fatigued your erectors, and maybe even your grip, are.

Been there. Trying your own sets and reps or exercise pairings is a fantastic way to learn. Though I do not at all think you need to try every program before you ...

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Programming Q’s part 1

If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

A while back I asked my instagram crew to drop all their programming questions. At the time, that was market research for something I’m working, VERY. SLOWLY. on behind the scenes. But I didn’t answer the questions at that time. So, here we are, using podcast 111 to rapid fire answer 22 programming questions.

These have been compressed and combined into like topics or questions. We’ll go one by one and hope I can get through these in a timely manner.

How you set up individual periodization for 1:1 client?

My individual periodization is always a combination of things. Their goals, time, assessment etc. Which we gather through our on boarding process.

I like to use 4-5 week training blocks, in which workouts repeat week to week. This way we can gauge progress, build solid patterns, and know what we need to progress next phase.

What are your first step during intake and how do you execute them? Assessments?

So, yep. For 1:1, I have used several types and combinations of assessment approaches.

Since taking the Active Life Immersion course, I use both the flexibility and mobility assessments as well as their strength/balance testing. Some pieces have been removed as they don’t apply to my clientele. I am currently reading through and trying different assessments and applications from Dr. Aaron Horschigs “Rebuilding Milo” book on addressing common injuries and building strong foundations for weight lifting.

What movements to assess during initial assessment?

If you don’t have a certification like FMS or gone through Active Life Immersion course, nothing is stopping you from creating your own assessment.

All you need to do is determine what type of training your athlete will be doing, and what information you need in order to determine that athletes baseline.

This can include components like, but not limited to:

Flexibility (passive ROM)Mobility (joint by joint active ROM)Strength balance (in reference to side to side differences as well as pushing and pulling etc)Muscular enduranceCardio respiratory endurance

So on and so forth.

The assessment I use from start to finish takes two weeks. So change your view or idea of assessment if you’re thinking one time consult. For you, maybe that’s true. But it’s more than likely NOT. Include what YOU need in your assessment, and take as long as you need to gather quality information.

How to assess for imbalances & how to work through muscle imbalances?

This is going to be a two part deal.

I mean, the most simple way to assess for imbalances to test side to side strength with lower body and upper body pushing and puling exercises. There’s no right or wrong choice here, but you need to be able to retest, and be consistent.

As far as imbalances like squat dominant or pushing dominant in comparison to deadlifts or pulling, that comes down to testing strength and/or endurance within those movements as well. This is all covered in Active Life Immersion course.

Take the course, or create your own testing that will give you the information you’re trying to get - squat to deadlift ratios etc.

It’s super important to note, you DO NOT have to test 1 RM. In fact I don’t see the need for 1RM testing for most of the population. The risk to reward is no there for me. I think 5 RM is a great test, or even choosing a weight and performing an AMRAP, then using that amrap score to determine a new weight and rep goal. This was an approach used in Dr. Jacob Hardens Prehab 101 seminar. I am unsure if there is an official test of the sort. Please feel free to correct me if I haven’t given credit.

Now,

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10 things to remember in your first year of biz

If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

Something I always love is when a business mentor or even fitness coach who has 10+ years of experience can continue to meet the newbs where they’re at in their journey. They never lose sight of the beginners no matter how advanced the professional is now, in their craft.

To be clear I don’t consider myself to be one of those people, YET. But I am now five to six years deep in biz and my fav people to work with are (as of now) those in the first 1-3 years of building their online biz.

Thus, we have today’s episode. Where my goal is to give you some helpful reminders for your early years of navigating online entrepreneurship.

Let’s us begin with a prelude.

You’re going to mess up. You will say the wrong thing, send the wrong link, or no link at all. You’re going to offend someone. Your stomach is going to end up in your butthole more than once, for various reasons.

Okay? That’s your prelude. Being a business owner will undoubtedly humble you. It’s in the nature of entrepreneurship. In putting yourself and your gifts into the world. So, just prepare for that rough 20% of this journey. And as hard as it can be, let those experiences refine you as a human.

Now, 10 reminders for your first year of biz:

It’s going to take longer than you think

I’m really just lifting you up here. I know. But I like to keep things real. And not in a cliche way, but like ACTUALLY real.

My husband and I were blessed enough to let us know the realities of marriage before we got married almost eight years ago. It’s not a fairytale, we’re not here to make each other happy. We’re responsible for our own happiness etc. it wasn’t a downer. They just painted a real picture of marriage and it was SO HELPFUL for us.

I don’t depend on him to make me happy, vice versa. We’re on a team. He has his roles, I have mine and we keep our goals on the same page. With that, we’re not experts, don’t have kids, etc. but we had the same mindset before we got married that we do now, poor, well off, all the same.

Sooooo what the shit does that have to do with business? We’re in this for the long haul.

And you need to be in this for the long haul for your business.

It takes time to build a solid offer, find your niche and scale that to where you want.

That’s all very individualized. But where quick results are promised everywhere in the online biz space, I’m here to ask if you’re still down to build your biz even if it takes 4 years?

Only you know that answer. But realistic expectations go a long way in how you take action and respond within your biz.

You don’t know what you don’t know -

Don’t beat yourself up for not knowing something, NOW YOU DO.

Be willing and eager to learn. And remember learning means being wrong from time to time.

Have grace for yourself - there’s so much a solepreneur has to do from building sites and tracking numbers and setting up email automations. It’s a lot.

It’s never too early to start tracking numbers

The earlier you get in the habit of tracking profit and loss as well as Key performance indicators (KPI’s), the better.

Reason 1: you can build on your spreadsheets as you grow. Starting when you have less to track is just smart.

Reason 2: knowing and seeing your numbers allows you to make better decisions in your biz - where you spend your time and what you choose to focus on.

Just because Coach Karel did it doesn’t mean it’s a wise approach for you.

This could be a point in itself but the point here also goes back to sticking to your approach, gifts and what you want for your business.

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Heyo! I thought I’d do a little quarterly review and planning episode recapping quarter 1 over at Annie Miller Concepts. I always love hearing what others are doing, what has worked, and hasn’t worked, so on and so forth.

These types of episodes are insightful, relatable and hopefully helpful to you - even if you’re ahead or behind me in business.

Also, today we’re going into life and business because the two are intertwined, naturally. One affects the other. So we must consider them both.

Before we dive into my fav choices in quarter 1, we had some stressful moments, as is life. So we’ll note those within the positives along the way.

First fav choice of 2021:

Annie’s Daily Dose

I cannot tell you how much I have loved doing Annie’s Daily Dose, daily emails. Bless my assistant, Maddy, for scheduling them all month to month. It’s shown that people will open emails everyday. And that email is most certainly not dead. It just needs to be valuable + digestible enough for the reader.

It’s truly been a joy - and they’re shared on the gram, or I receive a response via email everyday.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, hit up the site and sign up. What do you have to lose?

Next fav choice of of 2021 which was actually a 2020 choice and project. But we’re seeing the fruits and functionality in 2021:

Evergreen funnel for FitsPRO Foundations

I am beyond pleased with this decision. It was quite frankly a bitch to get set up, and in the first week we had over 200 people stuck in waiting on the email list. So they weren’t getting the emails. I about threw my desktop through the wall. But between myself, Convertkit senior support and Maddy, we got it working. Even if it took a month - kid you not.

Still worth it. I loved creating the Free Workshop - Your biz, Your way: 3 Steps to Build a Profitable Online Health and Fitness biz, and she’s doing well. You can sign up for that here!

The plan for Fitspro Foundations was always to eventually have it be an evergreen course. But she needed a year or so of live launches before converting her to evergreen.

In fact, making it into an evergreen course has definitely made me want to play with this approach to Built By Annie and other offers. That’s still to be determined.

Next up fav 2021 choice is a big life/biz one and I am loving it the most.

Pulling back - social media preparation, less time on the app (but same output)

As you can imagine, I expected to love this. But I'm like, REALLY loving it.

I discussed this in my 2021 plans. Essentially I am putting out the same volume if not MORE volume of content, but spend far less live time on the app. So February and part of March for instance, I spent from 8:30-9:30 and 4-5 on the app, posting and interacting, DMing etc. Then every two weeks or so I’d scroll reels to save and like audio for when I batch my reels.

Reels, as a little side note here, were also a fav decision in quarter 1. I wasn’t a huge fan of reels until I found the TYPE that I enjoyed creating. That’s a big key. You can do so much with short form video. Find what you like and makes sense for your content topics or style. I love humor and entertainment WITH education. So that’s the direction I’ve gone.

I will likely do a podcast on how I gained 3,000 followers in one month from doing reels and posting twice per day. I have a few stories saved in my “mini gains” highlight on instagram if you want to go check out that data.

Alright, next up - another 2020 choice that is paying off big time in 2021

Investing in a home gym

We are very privileged to be able to have a garage gym. We live with my mom and she’s been gracious enough to let us take up 2/3 of her garage so we can have a full on home gym.

It’s just been way better than I could have even imagined. I didn’t realize how much I would love it. For so many reasons.

The ease, privacy, adherence, ability to train Nate, create content. All of the things.

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Here’s the deal, Instagram can be great. Platforms are neutral things. We then assign good, bad, or any other label you like to them. IG is literally the ONLY app I personally spend time on. My husband does as well, but he loves him some YouTube. I do not have Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, or any other app on my phone in regards to social media. If you consider podcasts social media, then I have Apple podcasts as well.

But IG is my go-to for consumption. And with that, I create far more than I consume. We actually had the task amongst some colleagues of mine to estimate how many hours per month we spend researching, creating, interacting, or being on social media. I came in around 40 hours a month. Others were all all the way up to 80 hours per month. It was a scary metric to calculate. I think we “know” how much time we spend on social media…but to get real REAL with yourself is quite nerve-racking. It was for me, anyway. And that was only looking at time as a CREATOR. Not a consumer.

So if you’re looking to or you DO use Instagram as your main social platform to help build your brand, whether online or not, let’s consider some things. Maybe IG is for you. Maybe it’s not.

I’ve talked in previous episodes about starting with ONE platform where you build the bulb of your audience and provide consistent free content. Then creating a web like structure where your content can go further, and live on multiple platforms.

I do believe IG and Facebook are the two superior platforms for building an AUDIENCE. One that interacts on a pretty intimate level for a social media platform. On FB we have groups and pages. Whereas IG is one big pool of humans.

So, I do for sure suggest ONE OF THESE, especially for online brands. I loathe being on Facebook. I only have it for ONE group that I manage. And even then, I check it once per week. I also don’t love being IN FB groups.

I am sure some biz coaches would tell me I am missing out by not being active on FB. Maybe I am. But it ain’t happening. I would much rather use Pinterest to drive traffic to my site and podcasts vs putting time into FB. And hey, maybe I change my mind in the future. I know I will eventually use FB for ads. But that’s it.

This brings me to my first considerations for hosting and growing your brand on IG

Is your niche there?

Do you enjoy the platform as a whole?

AND is there a type of content on the platform that you enjoy doing?

First off, if your niche is not there and you cannot solve their problem through this app, don’t waste your time. Being on IG is not a wise choice for you.

Secondly, yes, you can be present on IG and not enjoy it as a whole. But what’s the payoff? I don’t know. Could your time be better spent on another app? One that you resent less? Enjoy more? Do you have more leverage on another platform? YouTube? Tiktok? FB?

You need to be where your niche is and where you can help them most effectively. AND ideally you enjoy most parts of that process.

Something I love about IG is the context I can provide to my topics and the humanness of it. I think it has the potential for professionalism and humanness which is ideal for a personal brand.

And to the last question in this first section - is there a type of content that you enjoy doing on this app? IG gives you SO. MANY. OPTIONS. There is this common misconception that you have to do it all. That’s just not true. I follow accounts who literally ONLY post memes. Or mostly post IGTV episodes. Shoot, I even follow people who still only post a photo and solid caption.

Does using new features increase chances of growth? Perhaps. But you do NOT have to create all type of content, all the time. When was the last time you saw me post an IGTV or go live? I don’t. I prefer creating short form content, OR teaching in my stories.

Is there SOME kind of content you’d favor or enjoy creating on IG? I ask because you do need to be consistent on the app in ...

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Let us begin by thanking me, for bringing this podcast to you. And thank you for giving me the time of day. You’re the best...

If you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

___________________

We are getting fitness-y today with my 10 go to exercises for strength and hypertrophy, specifically.

Most people have their go to 10 exercises even though they haven’t directly identified them.

These are the exercises will likely be the most bang for your buck + exercises that you ENJOY and WORK WELL for you.

Why identify these?

Well, especially when it comes to intuitive lifting, or lifting on the fly, it’s nice to have these go to exercises in your back pocket.

When I traveled the world for a year, it was easy to throw together workouts when we’d get a gym membership or a drop in, because I know my GO TO exercises.

Here they are in short, and then I’ll break down WHY I have chosen each one as opposed to other potential exercises.

Also, I have this in an old IG post if you really want to go digging, but I’ll also tell you here, where each video was taken, IF you don’t happen to go searching for the post.

10 Go-to Exercises:

▪️Front squat (Chiang mai)

▪️Sumo dead (Budapest)

▪️Hip thrust (Arequipa)

▪️Bulgarian split squat (Budapest)

▪️B stance Romanian Deadlift (Santiago)

▫️Bench press/Push up (couldn’t find Vietnam bench video, so you get Peru)

▫️Strict press (home lol)

▫️Pull up (Burges, Belgium)

▫️Seated Row (Chiang Mai)

▫️Farmer Carry (not videoed)

🔺If available high box lateral step ups or pull up machine step downs.

I hope you can see that these are, for the most part, based around the five mother lords of movement - push, pull, squat, hinge, and carry.

Within those top ten, are then your unilateral (single arm and leg) variations of those. Which are also game for your top 10.

Starting at the top...

1.) FRONT SQUATS

I chose front squat over back squats because I can personally get more out of front squats than back squats. I get a larger range of motion due to the upright chest. The pillar strength demand is intensified, and IF my low back is irritated or I am short on time, front squats are just a more comfortable option for me. And they light up my quads and glutes.

2.) SUMO DEADLIFTS

You notice that I opted for sumos over conventional dead’s. I highly enjoy both variations of dead lifts. But sumos are my preference especially while traveling. I enjoy the mobility piece of them. That’s the only thing missing in conventional for me. Though I feel anatomically I fit both positions very nicely. Some people will have a large draw to conventional or sumos based on their body’s natural ability to get into the set up position. That’s totally fine, and normal.

3.) HIP THRUST

I just love a good hip thrust. If you want to build your glutes in the most time efficient way possible, you should be thrusting. They also work well with supersetting with other exercises for efficiency of space, time and equipment. You can use the same bar for deadlifts or RDL depending on the load, or use the bench for Bulgarian Splits Squats or step ups.

4.) BULGARIAN SPLIT SQUAT

Speaking of, one of my all time, if not my all time favorite exercises is the Bulgarian Split Squat, aka Rear foot elevated split squat, aka back foot elevated split squat, RFESS, or BFESS. You get it. This is my go to single leg exercise. I can load the shit out of her, and absolute destroy my quads and glutes regardless of if I have access to literally anything else. They’re a different devil, you know? You get an oxidative response, muscle fatigue and range of motion all in one. Which is the worst, but also,

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This week’s episode is brought to you first off, by ME.

So, if you’re here for the business side of things, then go ahead and join my free on demand workshop, Your Biz | Your Way - 3 steps to build a profitable online health and fitness biz !

And while you’re on the site, snag all the free resources - you’ll find goodies for trainees and coaches or entrepreneurs alike. Much love.

Now, let’s talk mindset.

I am not a mindset expert, psychologist or brain expert. I’m a mere human sharing personal experiences and anecdotes with you, in hopes that we can make some gains in life, business and fitness.

Here’s the deal. I’ve read the Bible, done extensive group counseling, listened to gurus like Tony Robbins, read books like Essentialism, the Big Leap, Atomic Habits and the 4 Hour Work Week. What they all seem to have in common is your mind, how in tune you are with your thoughts, and shifting them when needed to get where you want to go.

I claim nothing but my own thoughts and experiences, okay? So take this for whatever it’s worth.

Our current reality is our perception of something neutral. I could 500% be talking out my ass right now. But the point is that perspective is individual and that’s important to note when observing our thoughts and actions.

That brings me to mindset shifts and some tactics to ponder for more productivity and peace in 2021.

The three shifts and/or mantras are:

Permission to not3 weekly winsSeek discomfort

First up - Permission to not. I’ve mentioned this previously from a business standpoint and how I am able to do all the things. I give myself permission to let things go at any time. I could stop blogging, or this podcast, or my daily dose or weekly wrap. I give out free content like it’s my full time job. And I don’t HAVE TO.

By giving myself permission to not, it takes off the false pressure of HAVING to do ALL these things, ALL of the time.

But this goes far beyond my little business example.

You can give yourself permission to NOT say yes, when you really want to say no.

You can give yourself permission to NOT complete every lift this week, or to edit lifts to fit your time frame. Give yourself permission to NOT have an all or nothing mentality. To embrace the grey.

You see? Giving yourself permission to do less, or to NOT, opens up a new level of freedom and options.

Next up, the practice of: “3 weekly wins”

And the mantra of: “I have wins”

You can list more than three weekly wins if you like. But this is not gratitude. Yes, many of the brightest and likely healthiest minds in the world will tell you that gratitude is an imperative piece of true success. I certainly think so.

But these are WINS. If you’re a go getter or someone who is constantly on the move, this is SO IMPORTANT.

Many of you are your own hardest critic. You neglect celebrating what you’ve achieved because you’re either on to the next thing or you’re too busy being displeased with your current work or state.

But listen to me now, YOU HAVE WINS.

Choose a day of the week and celebrate those wins. Give them space and recognition. They deserve that. You deserve that.

Even on weeks where I feel I’ve done NOTHING, or was busy, yet didn’t actually get anything done, I am surprised to see I had at least three wins.

This shift takes you from feeling behind, like a slacker, or anxious to proud, gracious, and empowered to do the next thing, or make changes to your week ahead.

Maybe your wins are that you said no when you would have yes previously.

Or that you got all your lifts in.

Or that you implemented your bed time routine.

Or that all the kids are still breathing.

Or that you showed up everyday on social media.

They can be ANYTHING, in life biz or fitness. It’s not NOT a win just because it’s not directly related to one area. That’s not how life works.

With all of that, I have started saying, specifically when I am feeling overwhelmed, down,

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Hi, hello, leave a review. Or share it. Keep that in mind as I walk you through today’s episode. Good talk. It’s free info that can literally change your biz, training and life - hopefully for the better. So if you can, please head over to iTunes and give your girl 5 stars + a written review. It really does help more than you know. Much love either way.

All right, let’s talk about training splits, options, why someone would choose a certain training split and the simple possibilities that you have within training splits as well as the logic behind those options.

To start off, a training split is simply what days you do certain categories of exercises on. And of course, how many days per week you lift is a huge factor within what you are going to do, or what you need to get done in the way of training on the days allotted to training.

So, let’s go ahead and break this down. But before that, I am talking about strictly lifts. We are not adding cardio or conditioning to the mix here. That’s a whole other ball game. For now, we stick to strength or hypertrophy based splits.

With training splits we have elements to consider:

How many days per week you can or want to train

Periodization you can use

Goals of training - body building and/or strength

Daily and weekly volume

I just want you to remember those as I cover these examples. I won’t be diving into them, but rather covering the training splits themselves.

A pretty traditional training split is

4 or 5 days per week with upper body focus 2 days per week and lower body 2 days per week, plus a fifth day of full body.

Within that, you’d likely have a knee dominant lower body day, hip dominant lower body day, and an overhead or vertical press pull day, and horizontal press pull day for upper body.

The upper body days are lower intensity by nature. Generally speaking our body demands less energy to work upper body due to smaller muscles and the muscles being closer to the heart.

Lower body days tend to be higher intensity by nature due to the large muscle groups and higher demand for total energy.

Thus, this split works well for a lot of people simply because it hits the whole body on a weekly basis, allows for adequate rest between muscle groups, and has variation in intensity built in.

This split, however, is not the only split you can choose from.

Body part specific training is another split option

I am sure you’re familiar with chest and back, bis and tris, quads and calves, glute/ham. This style of training split can be trained six days per week, hitting muscle groups twice per week instead of just once.

An example:

Chest/backQuads/calvesBis/trisRestChest/backBis/trisGlute/ham

You could of course just use it in four day/week spread as well and hit everything once. Also note that you can split up the same volume of 4 days per week over 6 days per week. So more days doesn’t always = more volume necessarily.

This muscle group specific training split works really well with protagonist and antagonist training methods. Meaning you train chest and back, bis and tris. I separated quads and posterior chain in my example, but you could do quads and hamstrings on the same day as antagonist/protagonist twice per week, or just once per week and then dedicate another day to glutes.

I will note, this traditionally body-building centric training split is not the most efficient. Thus, I literally NEVER use it with my programming. But did use it early in my training years to put on mass. And I can attest to that season being the only time in my life that my biceps actually grew. Go figure. Body building works.

So we covered upper/lower split (consisting of more large, compound efficient movements), and body part, antagonist/protagonist split. Likely over more days per week.

Next up is a classic push-pull split

You might notice that there could be carryover between these training splits. ABSOLUTELY.

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Helloooo and welcome back! You already know I am going to shamelessly ask you to leave a review. It’s free info that can literally change your biz, training and life - hopefully for the better. So if you can, please head over to iTunes and give your girl 5 stars + a written review. It really does help more than you know. Much love either way.

And now, let's dive in to to how to diversify and repurpose your content

First, choose your main platform - where will you provide the most consistent free value?

How we decide that is by asking a few questions:Where is your audience already at? Where can we most organically insert ourselves into their lives?

What type of content do you enjoy creating? Are you gifted at video? Humor? Writing? Connecting the dots? Where can you do that best?

Choose your main platform. For me, that’s Instagram.

Then, choose a second platform which can support or be completely independent of the primary platform.

For me this is my podcast. I have a lot to say, I enjoy the versatility of the content I can create. And people love podcasts. I prefer this to making YouTube videos. Which would be another option for me.

I don’t organically spend time on YouTube, and I much prefer the efficiency of creating, editing and posting a podcast versus video.

And, truly I think my ideal client prefers listening to informative and inspiring podcasts rather than watching YouTube videos, no matter their value.

Perhaps your secondary platform is a Facebook page where you provide live videos or use the content you’ve created on Instagram to also post in your Facebook group or page.

Pinterest is another platform that people sleep on. You’ve heard me talk about this multiple times now. Pinterest is my third platform that I am on.

Also, it’s worth noting that I lump my podcast and my blog into one category but technically those would be two different platforms. My blog is obviously hosted on my blog page of my website, as are my podcast show notes. But the podcast itself can be found on Spotify and Apple podcast and other podcast platforms so those would technically be two separate platforms.

To reiterate, just so that you have a visual, my first platform is Instagram. Then we have the blog and podcast. Those are my top two platforms, OK?

You’re going to choose your primary platform and then choose a secondary platform where you create likely, a different kind of content.

Then we start to diversify that content

Truthfully, you can do whatever the hell you want. Either way, I want tto make sure that you understand the main take away from this episode. Which is to get your content in front of as many of the right people as possible.

Keep in mind that I am several years into this. But you could start doing this from day one. Do what you have the time, space, and capacity for.

So, if my top two platforms are Instagram and my podcast/blog, then I choose which platforms are going to take that content further and spread it out like a web.

Picture Instagram at the center of my web. And then maybe the blog and podcast as two other offshoots. And then we have Pinterest which takes that content and put it on a search engine.

Pinterest works similar to Google. Which favors searchable content. This is something that, at this time, is lacking on Instagram.

You can go to different directions with your web. Some people, and I think this is more common back when blogging was bigger, create a longer form blog post, and then pull that and create several Instagram posts from that one piece of blog content.

I am currently going in the opposite direction, because I have so much Instagram content to pull from and re-purpose.

So I now have two blogs per week scheduled not including Podcast show notes through July based on Instagram posts that I can turn into blog post and then send to Pinterest.

Pinterest then directs people to that blog post and ideally I get more people,

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This podcast episode was not planned, but is inspired by the emotions and the little minor breakdown I had the other day. And when I say minor breakdown I mean that I let literally one tear roll down my left cheek before wiping it up and moving on.

Now, it’s very important that we set the stage for this discussion. I don’t even know if there are going to be legitimate takeaways from this episode. But if anything, it will likely strike a conversation within your own brain. Whether that’s helpful or not is yet to be determined.

After posting about the fact that I had some pretty strong and what seemed like out of nowhere emotions the other day, I had several conversations with females in my DM‘s on Instagram.

So, we are here because if I’m having conversations in my direct messages with several different women, it’s probably worth addressing that topic on the podcast for the rest of you.

OK, setting the stage.

This conversation would be lead very differently depending on the personality, the background, and the perspective that is behind the words.

In this case, that person is me.

I am an Enneagram eight wing nine, and ISRJ-A on the Myers-Briggs or six personality types test which is identified as the logistician. And I am a Questioner with Upholder tendencies from Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies test..

Aka I like and thrive off of logic, facts, systems, proven strategy and I like structure but a primary value of mine is freedom. I’m slow to trust, but very loyal once I do, and I question everything, including myself. Yet through the enneagram eight in me, I would say I have an unusually high trust in my got an intuition. And I am intrinsically motivated. I do not require outward accountability to get some thing done if I want to get something done.

So there is the personality type behind the microphone in this conversation.

You can already see from that personality type that I am likely not a person who leans toward emotion in general, let alone using it to make decisions.

I can come off as brash, direct and cold, all really great things, you know?

And I’m also not one for using your personality as a crutch or an excuse. So while a lot of the things I just listed are strengths, they’re also weaknesses or can lean toward weaknesses depending on my emotional intelligence and awareness.

For instance, I don’t empathize well. I get uncomfortable around emotions. Including my own.

I joked in my Instagram story the other day that I rarely cry. Like we're talking maybe once per year. And therefore when I do cry it’s like I am processing two different perspectives. From one perspective I am like the person that feels awkward when other people cry. You know, the oh my gosh what’s happening, what do I do? Please stop. Do I put my arm around them? Do I rub their back? There’s this whole internal dialogue and when I cry, I am that person to myself - analyzing the situation. Just trying to get a grasp on it.

And then of course I am the person who is having the emotional response of crying. Because I do not cry often, when I do, my first reaction is to ask why it’s happening and to find a solution. I don’t cry, so if I’m crying, something must be wrong, which means there must be a solution. And we need to find said solution.

I hope we are all getting a visual understanding of what is happening inside my body and brain on a physiological level when Annie Miller has the urge to cry.

And that was all simply to help you understand who is leading this conversation. I hope that is very very clear at this point.

So as with narratives around money, or relationships, or self-worth, we all pick up a narrative of some kind around emotions and crying from our childhood. This is only natural.

The narrative that I picked up as a child was that crying is weakness. It’s that simple.

I logically know this is not true in my adulthood. But we can logically know things and still revert back to chi...

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Helloooo and welcome back! You already know I am going to shamelessly ask you to leave a podcast review. It’s free info that can literally change your biz, training and life - hopefully for the better. So if you can, please head over to iTunes and give your girl 5 stars + a written review. It really does help more than you know. Much love either way.

Whether you’re new here or not, I am coming back from a one month hiatus from The FitsPRO Podcast.

Ever since starting my biz, it was very appealing to me to take the holidays off. And the last two years (being 2019 and 2020) I was able to do that for the most part.

With that, myself and my assistant worked pretty freaking hard behind the scenes in October, November and into the beginning of December.

I needed a break. The hubs and I took an impromptu three week getaway - which proved to be even more needed than I knew. And something that brought be joy during that time was knowing I didn’t have to record any podcasts for January.

It’s important to understand that this sentence doesn’t mean the podcast is bad. Or I don’t like it. On the contrary.

I missed creating for the podcast this month. I’m a verbal processor and enjoy educating + giving actionable steps. Perhaps it’s true that the podcast was a source of energy and time drain in my life and biz. But that just goes to show that sometimes good things need a break. Sometimes we can or need to choose to let go of good things in order to create space. Or just REST. Right? Like not everything has to give us more space to create. Sometimes we can just say no to freaking say no. To do nothing. Or to play or have fun or do seemingly meaningless things. Which aren’t really meaningless because they’re serving a purpose. Or joy or rest, or fun.

Fact remains, I needed space and rest. And podcasts are on the bottom of the food chain when talking financials and revenue in my business.

So, what happened in the first month of 2021 with the 8 hours I cleared up via not podcasting?

That’s what today’s show is all about.

You see, my 2021 goals journal didn’t come until midway through the month. That matters for me.

I am a person who very much so relies on clarity, the vision and having a birds eye view of everything in my biz. I feel scattered and unproductive without this.

So for me, January was all about intention behind the scenes.

I reflected more on 2020 once my journal came.

I sat down and via a colleague in my “not a mastermind” as we call it, gave me some pretty foundational work to do in my biz.

Getting clear on:

The mission

The vision

The purpose

The company culture

What we deliver, our offers

Expectations

Values

Social missions and/or giving back

Protocols and more

This is the deep work of biz, if you will.

You’ll find, in life or in business, that we have phases of transformation. It’s like shedding a layer of skin. And I very much so feel this in my current stage of business. It sounds so...idk, woo woo. But I was and am in a stage of “becoming.”

And that requires space, intention and time.

And while the things I listed above, I know, to some extent. Some more concrete than others. It felt right to pull back into my cave, without distraction, and get into the nitty gritty.

These are not yet complete but are very important to me and are in the process for sure.

And thus, I have a word for 2021.

Side note - I don’t do words. I’ve actually posted on socials about the fact that I get more and will get more done than people who have a word for the year. Because I’m an action taker. I just do the things. No time for words.

But that’s not true. My point was that words in the absence of action are useless.

So, my mom shared her word for the year with me and it was like fireworks, and math equations and rainbows went off in my brain. Her word was EXACTLY what I’d been feeling.

“Detached”

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Look, if you’ve made it to episode 101 and never left the podcast a review or given it 5 stars… what even are you doing? Come on. It’s free info that can literally change your biz, training and life - hopefully for the better. So if you can, please head over to iTunes and give your girl 5 stars + a written review. It really does help more than you know. Much love either way. If you’re here, no matter what, I appreciate your support.

Every year of biz has looked so different for me. They’ve all been a season on their own.

No matter what 2020 looks like for you, this episode is for me to share what I am doing moving forward in 2021, from a personal and business standpoint. If you missed it, check out episode 100. That is where I reviewed my 2020 year.

To make this easy, I am breaking my year into topics, or sections. I definitely encourage you, if you own a business, or have goals in different areas of your life, to separate those things from one another when you are planning.

Now, I have mentioned this before, but my favorite yearly and monthly journal/planner from a birds-eye view is Hillary Rushford’s goals journal. Ink and vault is the runner up to this from my experience.

I don’t use either of these on a daily basis. These would be, like I said, from a yearly, monthly, and weekly planning and reflection point.

Because of the 'rona and the holidays, I have yet to receive my goals journal from Hillary. But I have at least had a chance to jot down some of my goals and visions for 2021.

Before we dive into those, something entrepreneurship in general has taught me; but 2020 really drove home for me, is the ability to plan and then adapt as needed. Or, completely pivot if needed. I believe I actually have some episodes on that very topic.

So I encourage you as you do your 2021 planning, to plan, and be willing to take action towards those things. But also be fluid, and willing to adapt or pivot when needed.

That is not something that comes easily to me. So perhaps that’s why it’s stuck out to me in 2020 and my planning for the new year.

All right, let’s get started with some of my topics heading into the new year.

From a personal standpoint, my 2021 topics are

Lifting weightsFinancialTime managementAnd of course to have our house built.

But truly I keep my expectations so low for that project. And as long as Nathanael and I are on the same page, honestly that’s my biggest concern.

If you don’t know, when we stopped our world travels in April 2020, we pushed forward with our post travel plan to purchase land and build a house. We succeeded in purchasing the land, we’ve learned a ton, and though we have our house plans complete, we still are waiting on so many things. Once we submit for building permits and apply for our all in one construction loan, we’re looking at probably three months before we can even break ground.

So honestly the goal around building our home is to just remain on the same page as my husband, and keep the rest of my life together in the meantime.

With traveling the world since May 2018, I have severely missed lifting weights consistently on so many levels.

I miss the way it feels to be strong, I miss almost that relationship with my body. When I don’t lift weights it feels like I don’t communicate with my body. And of course there are tons of other ways to get in tune with your body. It’s just that lifting weights is my preferred method of doing so.

I also miss the way that I feel and look in my body from a physical standpoint. I’m very neutral toward my body, but there’s more in my control and then I have taken credit for in the last 2 1/2 years.

So, Nate and I have invested in a squat rack with a pull up bar, two barbells, up to 250 pounds in bumper plates, a bench, and some bands so that my weightlifting is no longer limited by access to gyms, or gyms being open.

Knowing that we aren’t going to travel long-term,

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Talking reflection, goals and a 2020 recap. It’s tradition for me to recap my year. I’ve always done it, since owning a business, but recently I started sharing that recap with all of you via the podcast.

So here we are, rounding out one of the weirdest years in history. This year was a lot of things to a lot of people. That’s why I say “weird.” Because weird quite literally means “not normal,” and that is the truth.

I mention that because your year was different than my year. And different than any other listener’s year. So my hope to simply share my recap of 2020, some questions I’ve asked and resources I used to reflect on this past year.

Hands down, my fav way to recap my year is via Hilary Rushford’s Year Reflection. It’s pretty in depth, but so so so important for me to do.

We straight up forget what happened. Even in the pandemic, even with it being an election year here in the US, we forget about the small wins, and processes we went through. We lose sight of the year, truly.

My personal favorite part of reflection is that it forces you to focus intrinsically. To look at yourself - what you did, how you felt, relationships you have, what you’re responsible for in your own life. I LOVE THIS. We can’t blame. We can only look at what happened and what we did or didn’t do.

So, here we go.

It’s very important to keep in mind that I recognize how blessed I am to continue working through this year, to have stability, and the ability to pivot if needed. That is not at all lost on me. I share episodes like these to let you behind the scenes of Annie Miller Concepts in hopes that you gain something in a reflection/planning of your own. That my experience somehow helps you.

Okay -

My reflection is always a mix of real life and business because they coexist.

They affect one another. And it’s silly to pretend that they don’t.

I am sure we all had goals at the beginning of 2020. Maybe those goals happened, maybe they were postponed.

My personal goals were to travel the world for another year [January to June, and then September into Jan 2021] and to have our next phase planned in that time. What was the goal for AFTER we travel.

You can imagine how that went with the ‘rona. We flew home from Japan in April, travels were suspended for year. They weren’t indefinitely but we figured we’d be home through 2020 for sure.

Our personal plan was to stay with my mom for that gap [from June to Sept] then figure out life after returning in 2021. Well, we’re now living with my mom until our house is built. We quickly decided upon returning that we’d move forward with our “post travel” plan, look for land, and build.

That was part of the 2020 goal we did know. After traveling, we wanted to have land and build. So like I said, we simply decided to start exploring that option…like, three weeks after we got home. We found a house plan we loved, and after looking at three separate 5 acre lots, we put an offer in on one and secured it. Yes, the Millers own a patch of grass as of September 2020. The same month we were meant to be galavanting around Northern Europe for a 5 month road trip, we tied ourselves to some dirt here in Washington. And our house plans are complete.

We chose a different adventure. And so far, so good.

That is how the personal goals went. We shifted.

As for the business -

This year I had a goal for BBA, a certain number.

We came VERY CLOSE to hitting that number. And shoot, during a GLOBAL pandemic, I’ll take it. I am honestly so so pleased with the way Built By Annie has prospered.

Which we need to discuss because I definitely had to shift in 2020.

Another business goal was to not create anything new.

I’d spend the latter half of 2017 all the way through the end of 2019 literally creating my entire offer suite. In 2019 I vowed that 2020 would be my year of NOT CREATING. Of just launching stuff, and working on my approach/backend and scaling.

Well,

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Today I plan to share with you 5 underestimated movements, and why I think they are effective AF when used properly.

In 2020, the basics have never been so important when it comes to movement patterns.

You know I am the queen of basics, and have literally always preached that the basics work. They always have, and likely always will.

Let's dive in.

5 Underestimated Movements:

CarriesPull up variationsStep upsDeadbug variations - particularly with the upper body demanding tension of some kindCyclist squats

There are many, many more, but these 5, in my experience working with clients and professionals alike, are underestimated.

Let’s dive into each one and how you can use them in your training or with your clients even if you’re at home, or without a gym.

1.) Carries:

Oh my goodness if you are not picking things up, and walking or marching in place with them, DO IT.

Carries have the potential to do many things for you. Especially because we can load them in various positions [single arm, overhead, back rack, front rack, hugging a med ball, with a barbell, with dumbbells]. Truly almost anything goes here.

By and large, carries strengthen your pillar. They demand that you resist abdominal lateral flexion or rotation.

If you’re holding by your side like a traditional farmer carry, then they can be used for grip strength, as well as pillar strength. It’s highly likely that you’ll also find that carries get your heart rate up. Especially if they are axial loaded. Meaning the spine is loaded. Throw some kettle bells in a front rack position and walk 100 meters. Tell me you’re not winded afterwards.

The constant demand to brace your core, breath, and not drop the weights can be a real challenge. One that is often underused, and underestimated.

The other piece of carries which is underestimated is their massive carryover into your other lifts. Think about movement from a center-out fashion. As in your everything originating from your core. Either the core is stabilizing so that your joints and limbs can effectively move around the core. OR the core is the link, allowing upper and lower to generate power as one unit.

Carries, by nature, have huge potential to help you gain strength, and stability in your other movement patterns.

There are many ways to use carries in your programming or client’s’ programming.

I would definitely suggest carrying once per week. If this is for a specific weakness in your training, then progress it like you would any other lift, either by increasing load or distance carried - being volume.

Or, if you’re just adding in carries for general core work, then have fun and try out different variations per training phase. Dealing with weakness in overhead mobility? Then single arm overhead carries might be your ticket. Completely up to you. But no matter what, if able, give carries a go.

Add them in as part of your movement prep, after your lift as core work, or on an active recovery day.

2.) Pull up variations:

I always laugh when women want toned upper bodies and then I tell them to do pull ups, push ups, and overhead press variations. These big compound movements are truly where you get the most bang for your buck, and a well rounded upper body musculature.

Even if you can’t DO a pull up unassisted, you should be doing some sort of vertical pulling.

That’s why I said “variations” - because you can do assisted, chin ups, eccentric work, three position pull ups, wide pull ups, neutral grip pull ups.

And all work your upper body slightly differently.

If you’re not currently doing some kind of pull up in your programming, (and it’s not because you don’t have access to a pull up bar), I would ask why.

It’s also worth pointing that

Pull ups might be one of the most incorrectly performed exercises I personally see in the gym andVertical pulling can have big time positive effects on your PRESSING.

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Ways to make more money in 2021.

If 2020 showed us anything, quite literally on a global level, it’s that we may not be as secure as we thought we were, financially.

Now, I fully realize that not everyone has the privilege or even the capacity to think about how to make more money, create more streams of income, or create a larger nest egg for when shit goes sideways.

But, a fair amount of people, do. And can. That’s who I am speaking to today.

If you have a business or a side hustle. This one is for you.

Even if you don’t, this episode may be helpful.

I was fortunate enough to continue growing my biz through the pandemic (which mind you, we’re still in, here in the states anyway). But that doesn’t mean I didn’t think about what would happen if I lost my client base, and thus, my income.

It’s an unsettling thought.

The plus side to having your own business, or side hustle, is that you have freedom to pivot. Even if it is forced upon you. Your employment likely doesn’t depend on the government mandates. And that’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.

This is also a reason that I am SO FOR people building side hustles and/or having multiple streams of income no matter what. This is doable even if you work a normal, 9-5 or simply aren’t self employed.

Having multiple streams of income is generally a safe bet - again, if you have the capacity to do so.

That is in fact the first way to make more money in 2021

Explore how you can create multiple streams of income

This does not have to be huge or monumental. You don’t have to create new programs or a full blown course. Though, you certainly CAN.

Working with brands is a great way to do this. While affiliate marketing is not the bulk of my personal income, it certainly is a nice trickle of extra income. Especially when times get rough.

If there is a brand you’d like to work with, reach out to them. Ask, or apply to be an ambassador. The worst that happens, is they say no.

Another way to create streams of income is to create a new product or course, or even branch of your business. It benefits me to coach strength and conditioning, as well as business. I am also aware, if I needed to, I could become a style YouTuber and blogger. I love hair, make up and style, or I could build out a planner and sell it. There are options, if I truly ever had to rebuild, and you better believe I have 100% thought about this.

Looking at worst case scenarios and how you would come back from them is one of the BEST TOOLS I ever learned. And I learned it from Tim Ferris in the Four Hour Work Week, which I highly suggest you read.

It’s applicable to those who work in an office or a 9-5 job as well.

So, you can reach out to brands and focus on affiliate marketing, or create new products/services.

You can also invest. Anytime you can make your money make you more money, you’re winning. You’d obviously want to consult with a financial advisor in order to do this safely and effectively.

If you don’t have a side hustle, but you have a hobby, or something you enjoy doing, then ask if there is a way to monetize that? Again, I am speaking to those wanting to make more money in 2021 and willing to put in the necessary work to do so.

Looking for ways to create multiple streams of income is the ticket.

With that, let’s say you have one high end offer. It’s expensive, and you don’t need many clients in order to make a solid income. Great.

Now, your offer pyramid is where we do a few things:

Add MORE VALUE to our current clients - these people are your hottest leads and the most likely to keep purchasing from you.Creates another level of entry point for new customers who aren’t ready or aren’t right for your high ticket offer. Win for you, and for them.And creates more total profit for you.

Now, I don’t suggest offer pyramids until you’ve nailed your higher ticket offers and philosophy. But we’re talking about how to make more money, here.

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10 Common Business Mistakes on IG. If you are trying to grow an online brand or business, especially in the health and fitness field, it is likely that you are using Instagram to help with that process.

Last week, I posted a few photos from my Instagram back in 2014. And that got me thinking about how much the platform has changed in almost 7 years.

When I started in 2014, you could post a single photo, and a limited space caption. That was literally it. If you wanted to post multiple photos it had to be in a grid.

Singular 15 second long videos came about later on.

And then, I believe it was in 2017 when Facebook bought Instagram, don’t quote me on that, that the platform would change at an exponential rate.

Now in 2020, we basically have Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, blogging, and Instagram all on one platform, being Instagram.

I am lucky enough to have been building my business and adapting with the app as each new feature rolled out. Whether you’ve been here since 2014 or you’re just getting on Instagram, it can be a lot to handle and to navigate.

So my hope with today’s episode is to reveal 10 mistakes that I see quite often with professionals attempting to build a recognizable and sustainable business with the help of Instagram.

And do keep in mind that I am coming from the perspective of a health and fitness professional. But I do think that most if not all of these apply to any industry.

Let’s go ahead and dive into the common mistakes:

1.) Creating for colleagues instead of clients

Now, I encourage my fits pros to follow colleagues and friends in the business. The purpose of that is to gain content ideas, and to build relationships in network with these people.

Let me make very clear that it is not to copy or steal content, rather to just be in the know.

But something that can happen when we follow a lot of other professionals in the industry is that we start creating content that we and our colleagues need or want versus creating content that our clients need.

This is why no matter how advanced you get in your own learning experience, it’s so important that you understand who your ideal client is and where they are at in their journey. Because this is what we need to be constantly creating content for.

So if you’re ending up with a lot of fellow coaches and colleagues following you and commenting on your posts, it might be time to reevaluate your content and messaging.

Again, this is super duper common in the health and fitness industry and I think almost everyone ends up going down that road at some point it has to redirect.

If you are like, oh my gosh that’s me. Feel free to download my Free Ideal Client Avatar Creator in order to better identify who your ideal client is in who it is that you want and need to be creating content for.

2.) Not pushing for interaction

What I mean by not pushing for interaction is that I don’t see coaches and professionals leading their audience in an aggressive enough manner.

The fact is that you are the leader of your audience. We are all creating expectations and culture in our corner of the Internet whether we realize it or not. Whether intentional or not.

So I want you to take in that mindset shift of no one is commenting on my post, or my post never gets shared, to getting in your stories and encouraging your audience to comment on and share your posts to their stories. I want you to look at how much time you spend on communicating to your audience what it is that you would like them to do with the content that you create.

If people are still not commenting and sharing your posts, then focus in on your Instagram stories, and encouraging people to direct message you from there, or you can do polls and quizzes and things like that. This is all interaction, and it all conditions your audience to be more engaged with your content.

You are the leader of your Instagram, never forget that.

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It’s pretty well known that I am not against aesthetic goals, but my focus is more so on performance goals, awareness and education.

Not that aesthetics and all of these other motivators can’t coexist. They absolutely can. I am simply saying aesthetics aren’t my selling point.

Also, if some other things are in check, like nutrition, sleep and stress management, I’d argue that if focusing on these 5 things, you’ll likely make some desired aesthetic changes.

So, let’s get started on those performance goals...

When you enter the gym, or approach your workout, you ARE thinking about something. You have a focus, whether you realize it or not.

This episode is geared toward helping you define that focus a bit more. To find some clear direction for your mental game during lifts.

And yes, this takes energy. Some days it is just nice to go through the motions. I get that. But going through motions day to day isn’t likely what you want.

You want to create these little performance goals or focus for yourself.

Number 1 is most obvious and probably most common when people think of performance goals.

1.) Increase weight

In one lift, in all your lifts, increase load. In one set of one lift.

That will all depend on the program you’re following. So like I said that can be an over all increase, per set, or whatever makes sense for your programming and progression.

It’s very easy to become stagnant and just get used to using 135 for squats or what have you. Even if it’s throwing on some 2.5’s, increase the weight and challenge yourself.

If you can’t complete the set or it’s too much, big deal. Drop back down.

We can’t gauge strength if we never take her for a spin.

You want to gain muscle, “get toned” or get stronger, you need to be pushing your strength and mechanical tension.

That also doesn’t mean max out. Don’t get that twisted. But it does mean challenge yourself. And increase some weights if you haven’t in a minute.

Next up is very under-practiced, and honestly not talked about enough.

2.) Focus on your breathing

During sets, before sets, between sets, and certainly if you’re doing cardio.

Breath work is beneficial outside of lifting as well. Lord knows I should work on it more. In the seasons when I have, I see a positive carryover to sleep, training, and overall stress.

As far as lifting goes, do you know how to breathe into your diaphragm? To breath in a 360 degree fashion? To “fill your stomach and back” with air?

Before trying to “fix” anything in your next lift, just start by paying attention. How do you breath? Is it into your chest? Shallow? You feel pretty good about it?

Can you use it to bring down your heart rate between sets? Yes, I’m talking about lifting. Not just cardio intervals.

So, breathing is number 2.

Performance goals here could be anything pertaining to what you have observed about your current breathing patterns.

Number three is also one that I feel most people don’t even have in their program, and certainly don’t pay attention to if they’re winging their workouts...

3.) Rest periods

Stick to them!

Rest periods, or lack thereof, are important. Try me. Do the same workout with no scheduled rest periods, with long rest periods and with short rest periods.

TELL ME IT DOESN’T MATTER.

It does. And it definitely matters if you want to gain muscle, or get strong.

I’ve post this on the gram, and talked about in other episodes, but different rest periods will do different things for you.

Longer rest is typical for strength and power work. As your metabolic systems need time to recover.

Short rest periods, under or around 30 seconds, are going to give you that “pump” - essentially you’re pumping blood and fluid to the muscle and it’s not able to drain as fast as you’re pumping it in. VIOLA, the pump.

This is also why your pump dissipates a few hours after your lift.

Not telling you want rest periods to USE,

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This podcast episode came directly from an Instagram poll that I did a week or two ago.

In preparation for something coming in 2021, I gave four options for my IG audiences biggest struggle in biz:

Content creationOverall messagingMindsetOffer development

In order the results were content creation, offer development, messaging and then mindset. Which I actually found interesting, because I think mindset plays a FAR LARGER role than y’all give credit to…But that’s another convo.

So, with content creation being the highest vote, I asked in a question box, for my audience to elaborate - what part of content creation is currently holding you back?

These were the answers. This somewhat condensed, but you’ll hear repeats for sure.

Batching posts

Batching

How to get started…

Niching down

Regurgitating the same content. Not being unique

It just takes SO MUCH TIME

Where to start

IDK where to start So many things to say

Planning + developing (tech of design, overlays etc)

Feeling like I have nothing to offer

Professional Photo creation

Creating valuable content on a consistent basis

Some days I know what to say, other days I have nothing

Mental energy to create valuable content

Feeling deflated when no engagement

Seeing others post similar content

Systems. I feel totally overwhelmed by all that needs to get done

Creating something interesting and engaging

Don’t know what to post

Overwhelmed

Coming up with ideas

Being consistent

Organizing everything

Headlines that attract + convert

Know what picture to post

Knowing what to post

Creating quality photo/video

Enough photo, planning out captions, time to do it all

Creating engaging captions

Brain is mush. (overwhelm)

Getting people to comment (ENGAGEMENT)

Speaking to ICA

Creating sharable/save-able content (ENGAGEMENT)

What to post about

Educational posts that still drive ENGAGEMENT

Knowing what my audience wants to hear about (TOPIC CHOICES)

How much detail to include

Feeling repetitive - needing to talk about what others talk about

Speaking with authority but not ego/superior

Pictures, timing, batching

Doing it ahead of time (BATCHING)

Knowing what ICA needs from me how to connect

Creating enough content for consistent posting

Super stressed, no creative juices (would benefit from templates)

Honestly, I had to take a deep breath after reading through hundreds of these responses.

I was torn. On one hand, I literally teach ALL OF THIS inside my IG 101 course. Like HELLO - THIS IS WHY I CREATED THIS COURSE!!! BUY IT.

On the other hand, clearly my audience is having very common issues and experiences in attempting to establish their brand on the gram. And I feel that to my core.

It was a both/and situation. Irritated and empathetic in the same breath.

People are overwhelmed, stressed, feeling defeated, and overall ungrounded in their brand on the insta.

And that straight up sucks. It’s not fun.

So, imma say a few things - big surprise…

You’ll probably have a little “both/and” situation of your own in hearing what I have to say. You may like some of it and be offended at the same time…

My main goal is to challenge you + give you tangible ways to drive up engagement and build the audience you want on instagram.

Before the tactics comes the TRUTH.

I had several DM conversations on this topic with my audience, and it was clear to me that mindset was playing a GARGANTUOUS role here.

What I heard was a mindset that was rooted in selfishness and victimhood.

I SAID WHAT I SAID. BE OFFENDED. You want the truth, well here it is. You feel triggered? Well, I challenged you to lean into that.

Listen - this app, Instagram, the algorithm. They aren’t who you’re here to serve. I swear people are more focused on growing their numbers, or beating the algorithm than they are with ACTUALLY SERVING AND INTERACTING WITH THE...

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When it comes to email I am rather old-school. Probably because my first internet mentors were pro email list over social media, while still fully going ham on social platforms.

You’ve likely heard this but I’ll say it again.

We don’t own Instagram, or Facebook, or Youtube, or any other social media. They can disappear or restrict us at any given time.

I have experienced this myself and if I am being honest, I had a mild heart attack when it happened. On two occasions I have been locked out of IG. One of which was during a launch. Not ideal.

I adjusted, and it was fine, but that anxiety was immediate and VERY real. So we must ask - what would happen if IG or your social platform of choice disappeared?

I can tell you my plan, because I’ve thought about this many times.

I know that I personally GET a lot of value from IG. So I would search all my favorite accounts or names on Google, find them, and subscribe to their mailing lists + find out where else they are on other potential platforms.

For my own biz, I would expect email open rates to go up. Now email is where they can hear from me. They can’t depend on IG. I would immediate hit up my other, less used platforms like FB and probably make an account on whatever other platform my audience would gravitate towards. I would decide this based on an email survey that I sent to my list + my Facebook group (if that still existed). And lastly, bless this podcast, I would announce all of that HERE, on the FitsPRO podcast. And you better believe that would include driving people to my mailing list like it was my second job.

That is what I would do if IG disappeared over night. Beyond losing my audience, the bigger concern for me would honestly be losing 5 years of content. It stresses me out just thinking about that possibility. Yes, while I have a lot of content saved, most of it is not. And maybe you notice, maybe you don’t but I repurpose a lot of my old content to make new content. Soooooo very stressful to think about losing it all.

I digress. All of that is to say, we don’t own social…We have much higher levels of control over our email lists and platform.

Email is a step up from social. While social can feel more intimate and perhaps is, from a relational standpoint, email is more intimate from a POTENTIAL BUYER STANDPOINT. These humans are more invested in your offers/services than the bulk of your social media following.

I hope that is fairly easy to grasp. Hitting a follow button is less work and less intimate than putting in your name and email address. Now someone has said, I want more from you. I choose to have you in my inbox.

So you can see the value of email.

But how do you build and a grow an email list?

Allow me to give you three ways/tips/things to consider when starting and managing your email list(s).

From one of my most successful email list and blogging friends - no surprise here -

BE CONSISTENT.

Consistency builds dependability and visibility. Even if someone doesn’t open or read your email, they see it every Tuesday at 6am. It’s one more time per week that they are exposed to you and your biz.

It builds dependability in multiple ways - your subscribers expect to hear from you every Tuesday at 6am, for one. And they know what to expect from you in the way of content. In theory you send emails that are consistent with your brand and of value to your subscribers.

Not only will it benefit you to choose a day and time you send your emails at. You’ll also want to stick to a theme or wheelhouse. Let’s not share your favs one week and then the next a personal story and then the next a free workout. Like, what are we doing here? What did these people sign up for?

All of the things I just listed are 500% fine. But keep it simple. Especially if you’re just starting out.

What would be helpful to your audience? start there.

Also note that you don’t have to send weekly newsletters.

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Last week we went over part 1 of fundamental programming must knows.

This week we continue the programming conversation right where we left off. If you missed last week's episode, stop now, and come back after listening to 92.

Understand mechanical tension and muscle fiber types

Do you even know what your programming is trying to do? Why a given set and rep scheme causes an increase in strength or muscle size?

These are very fair questions to ask. And in my opinion we should be able to answer them fairly easily.

Things that will affect muscle fiber type recruitment and mechanical tension are load used, reps, tempo, and rest periods.

Let us pause and make something very clear. I am not here to shame you for not knowing these things. I am literally here to try and help you better understand these things. Hopefully even just ONE of them.

In moving forward with your programming, make it a point to have a reason and rationale for all of these factors.

My main objective when I interned for two years as a college strength coach was to be great at programming. That was my “thing” if you will. So my mentor set that standard for me very early on. There was no mindless programming. EVERYTHING had a purpose. As it should, truly.

No one asks me or overlooks my programming now, but it behooved me to have that mindset engrained from the get go. So here I am passing it along to you. And make no mistake, a VERY thought through and highly effective program can look VERY simple on paper. Don’t mistake fancy or difficult for thought through or effective.

Back to mechanical tension and fiber types!

Type 1: smallest, high endurance and oxidative capacity, low power output - think endurance athleteType 2: large in diameter, mid endurance, moderate power output and oxidative capacity. think hybrid, she can do both.

Type 2b: Largest in size, high power output, low endurance and oxidative capacity. Think beefcake, or gymnast. Power sports.

These matter because we stress muscle fiber types with different modalities of training. And factors within that training. For instance a heavy eccentric will bypass the normal type 1, type 2 to type 2b progression and go straight to type 2 and 2b. Same goes for max power output like plyometrics. The demand for those big daddy type 2 and 2b fibers is immediate.

So by a rule of thumb, muscle fibers are recruited in order but also remember we’re not robots. As one is recruited, it’s not like the others turn off or stop working. They all live together in bundles. The more demand on the muscle group, the more fibers, and specifically the more type 2 friends will be recruited.

This is the PERFECT segue into tension.

My last point is why you see body builders completely fatiguing the muscle. To the point where they can’t even concentrically contract. They’ll have assistance in the concentric so that they can then control the eccentric. We’re stronger eccentrically than concentrically. #science.

What they’re doing on a physiological level here is two things - recruiting every last muscle fiber that they can and depleting their muscle glycogen.

This is achieved through TIME UNDER TENSION. Or more specifically a large amount of time under tension.

Hello mechanical tension. Before we discuss this, no, you do not need to train to failure in order to elicit hypertrophy. I simply use that example to paint a picture of WHY they’re driving mechanical tension at the highest level.

Time under tension (TUT): We need this to grow muscle fibers, and fiber sizes. This is what we want if hypertrophy or “muscle tone” is the goal of you or your clients.

What I want you to grasp here from a programming point is that time under tension and eccentrics will drive up likely muscle damage, and mechanical tension. Which we need to grow muscles. It’s truly that simple. Know what you’re doing when you choose a set and rep scheme, weight and tempo.

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Programming is a SKILL

Let’s make clear that you don’t learn programming from one freaking podcast episode, book, or blog post. It takes practice, trial and error and experience to become a proficient and confident programmer.

For those that are confused, I am talking about writing strength and conditioning or fitness training programs for a client or group of clients.

Here’s the thing with programming, and I’ve said this before - there is not one way to program. That’s the beautiful and often super overwhelming and frustrating truth about programming.

There is no a+b = c for strength or endurance or power. Want to increase your back squat or bench numbers? Do x. It doesn’t work like that.

So before we even get into the foundational must knows, I encourage you to embrace the fact that you have a blank slate to work with when it comes to writing programs. Rather than being overwhelmed by that, attempt to see freedom here. The freedom to develop YOUR PHILOSOPHY.

Trust that I went to my professor’s office in college more than once complaining about how hard programming was. I just didn’t get it. I was student who wanted a tried and true equation. It’s not that tried and true equations don’t work for increasing strength, power, muscle size or endurance. It’s just that there are SEVERAL for each of those.

If you’re overwhelmed or feel incompetent, you should.

I don’t say that diss you. I say that because programming IS overwhelming. It IS complex. But when done efficiently, it becomes quite simple. So don’t give up. Like anything else, it takes practice, and implementation. Often, on yourself.

Now, let’s begin with the foundational programming must know’s from Annie.

And to be fair, these are my opinions and observations from ten years of programming + being in this field. I by no means know everything. Not even close. Take these for whatever they’re worth to you.

First off, you must understand basic anatomy and physiology as well as what muscle action is happening during a given exercise.

For instance a hamstring curl and an RDL do different things for the hamstring, and I would not substitute one for the other.

A glute ham focused back extension would be a much better substitute for RDL, whereas supine slider curls or prone bench ham curls would be a better more accurate substitute for hamstring curls.

One primarily focuses on the concentric phase and shortening range of motion, while the other focuses on the eccentric phase and stretching to hamstrings.

This is where having a college degree is not required but is definitely helpful. You learn all about anatomy and physiology before you even get into programming. So that when programming does come about in your last year of uni, you already have a base of understanding in what muscles attach where, and how they function.

If you don’t have an A&P background, then make time to study the human body. There are plenty of free sites online that allow you to view muscles, their origins, insertions and actions. It’s honestly just fun, especially if you enjoy this stuff.

Sure, I suppose you can get good at programming without this understanding but likely not.

A place you could even start would be Mike Boyle’s joint by joint approach.

And to be honest, Julie Read has a really fun anatomy coffee table book called Muscles to the Masses and I absolutely adore it.

Understand the generalized set and rep schemes for power, strength, hypertrophy and endurance

Once you actually get into programming, I’d argue that step one is to simply grasp that there are different adaptations from certain set and rep schemes.

While there is LARGE variance here, and it is not this black and white…sometimes it can help to start with a rigid structure, and then enter grey areas as you gain a better understanding.

Power: 1-3 reps, 2+ minutes rest, 40-60% of your max [with power, the factor of time comes into play - how fast can we move somet...

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I just took three women through a launch. And it got me thinking a lot about my first few launches of each of my programs, and the launch mistakes I made along the way.

Why? Because these women were experiencing some of those same early launch feels that CAN happen. Not always, but often.

For those of you who don’t know, you have a few options when running an online business.

You can launch, do pushes, or have ongoing enrollment.

These are all different approaches to get your ideal client to invest in your offer, service or product.

I have tried all three by the way. And launches work the best for me, so that’s what I do, as well as what I teach.

For some quick definitions - a launch has an open and close date. The doors will literally close and someone cannot enroll, join, apply, or sign up after the launch is done.

A push is a combination of a launch and ongoing enrollment. This is where someone can indeed enroll or apply anytime but every three months, let’s say, you bring attention to your offer and market it far more heavily than you normally would. The doors won’t close after a push, but you’ll being giving less info about it to your audience.

Then we have ongoing enrollment. This can look a lot of different ways. For instance I don’t open and close my one time purchases items. Anyone can purchase Body Weight For Weight Lifters, Big Lift Audit, Movement 101 or Instagram 101 at any time. I could do pushes for those if I wanted or a little promo. But they’re up for grabs all day everyday. This is a large part of my passive income stream. These programs to date have generated over 15k. We call this the power of passive. And by we, I mean me, right now, in this moment because I’ve never heard that but should def coin the phrase. If any of you steal it, I’ll know.

So, there you have it. You can have open enrollment and talk often about your singular offer, you can do pushes, or launches.

And you can certainly use different approaches for different offers. There is no rule book here. It’s all game. And most importantly it’s what works for you, your offer, your biz model and your audience.

Thus, you can see where this might take time and a lot of trial and error.

Now, let’s get into the three biggest launch mistakes I see and how to fix them. Because I have def made all of these myself.

3 Biggest Launch Mistakes

Not preparing and nurturing your mindset BEFORE + DURING the launch

Launches can be a HUGE emotional and mental rollercoaster. It’s so easy to attach worth, value, desperation and codependency to your launch. All of which are not healthy, nor helpful.

There are very normal fears that arise when one is preparing for a launch. And if you’re not careful, those fears will permeate your launch content.

Fears that you’re wasting your time. That you did all this work, and no one will join. Fears that your message won’t land. That you don’t actually know what you’re talking about. An overall lack of confidence in your offer, and ability to bring this offer into the world.

It’s not good. It’s all normal. But again, not helpful AT ALL. Especially if you choose to believe it, and then act on those feelings and beliefs.

I’m no psychiatrist or mental health specialist. What I do know is that beliefs drive feelings, and feelings drive actions. Soooooo we’ve got to address some of these feelings and beliefs BEFORE launching so that we don’t completely lose our mental shit during the launch.

Here’s the deal. You know I am a bit of a tough love gal. I get to the point and feelings aren’t really my deal. L O L.

With that, I know these truths and questions to be helpful.

When you’re focused on failing, you’re robbing your potential clients of a perfect offer for them. You’re no longer focused on graciously leading your audience. It’s truly selfish.

What do we know to be true - if your messaging is clear, if you’ve defined who this offer is for, what it does,

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I discussed the topic of post-rona fitness as a guest on Daniel Hong's podcast. So, I thought I'd echo that here, on my own show. Because I think there are great takeaways for you, my audience.

While fitness definitely changed for my clients and myself during different stages of quarantine due to the pandemic, it is mostly going back to normal for us.

By normal, I mean we are all somehow, someway getting our hands on a barbell or heavy kettle bell. Now that looks like garage gyms, dining room bench press between two stools, outdoor facilities, and of course some of us are back in gyms, for the time being.

So when I say normal, I don’t mean the same as pre-pandemic times. It’s an important distinction to make.

I think this topic is nuanced and VERY individual to each person, their life, their circumstances, and so many factors outside of just “is the gym open?”

Most of my clientele are affluent, have held on to their jobs, have a supporting partner or found work during the last six months. And they place an extremely high value on their relationship with exercise. They find joy in the gym, or better yet, with the barbell. So, that has proven to be one of the last things they are willing to give up. Which I think is freaking awesome. But there is also privilege in that.

I would hate to have this episode be from the standpoint that everyone, everywhere can just build a garage gym or pay for a 1:1 in person socially distanced personal trainer. That certainly is not and will not be the takeaway from this podcast.

What I do wish to ponder is how people in different scenarios can move forward with movement into 2021 - from both the trainer and the trainee perspective.

We will start with the coaches and health and fitness professionals, and then discuss the client perspective. Which I am actually really excited to talk about.

I specialize in online coaching. I have never owned a brick and mortar because I didn’t desire the headache that comes with starting, running and owning one. For 10+ years I watched my friend, past boss and now branding photographer have a brick and mortar for a competitive cheerleading gym. And quite frankly it was a hard pass for me.

With that, I recognize that many of you may have owned or at least worked at a brick and mortar facility before the pandemic. And you’re likely trying to figure out your future as we speak. That’s a huge deal. It’s serious. But also, awesome. You’ve got so many possibilities.

First off, brick and mortars aren’t gone. You CAN have one.

Whatever you decide to do, you’ll need to be ready to adapt and pivot when needed. I say that meaning FOREVER. Be ready and open to pivot and adjust when needed.

It’s no secret that those who could adapt and pivot during the last six months did well and may even be thriving now.

So, for trainers were in person before, we have a few questions to ask:

Did you want to transition online? Hi, you’ve had the last six months to start the process. Not build a whole freaking business from scratch. But to at least begin building your presence and platform online.Do you want to work with people in person as your main gig? If yes, then you’ve had the last six months to brainstorm ways to make that happen. I have watched several trainers who work solely with people in person, host the same style class but via Zoom. Get paid through PayPal, make an email list, maybe set up a FB group community, and keep on keepin’ on. Boom.

That’s scalable to some extent and certainly still enough accountability for your clients. You can see them, hear them, and coach them. Of course there are limitations, but still, it’s way better than NOTHING. And could easily hold you over for a few months.

Next up, hello outdoor boot camps, yoga classes, and lifting sessions. These all existed pre-rona by the way. People have been hosting outdoor fitness FIVE-EVER. Limitations here are equipment, and weather.

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Two options for scaling your business...

I wanted to do today’s short episode because I think it’s common for coaches in the online health and fitness space to create an offer, likely 1:1, have some success, and then be like, “Shit, what now?” Your roster is full, your time is spent, and you literally can’t do more work. So you can’t make more money either, unless you raise your prices. Which is fine, but what’s the end game?

That, my friends, is where scaling comes into play.

How we scale is to essentially replicate ourselves.

You scale a business once you’ve got a proven system or product that works. You can then scale THAT offer or product, or scale your business another way.

Today we discuss both options.

There are not only two ways to scale, but these are what I see most often. Especially in the online health and fitness space.

Think of a brick and mortar shop. Once they’ve nailed down their product or services, systems that work, and proven that what they have created is sustainable, they open another shop using those same systems.

Same goes for scaling your business. But we’re not opening another shop. We’re duplicating you or your process. Tracking?

Even if you’re not ready to scale now, you’ll want to be some day. Well, I can’t guarantee that either. But it is likely that you will reach a ceiling with a 1:1 service or even a single service that is not 1:1.

At some point you’ll need help. But which kind, that is up to you.

Option number one for scaling:

Creating an offer pyramid and passive income

We can continue offering value without increasing your workload by creating passive or partially passive offers. Aka building an offer pyramid.

The passive piece wins because it keeps paying after creation but is no work for you. Again, this doesn’t skip out on value for your clients. Just takes out the real time work for you.

Your second, third or even fourth offers will be something that your clients from your current offer would benefit from. These are what I call supporting offers. Which are valuable on their own, or in combination with your other offers as well. These do not compete with one another.

You never want a prospect to be confused which offer is for them based on the offer descriptions. Let’s make life as easy possible for potential clients.

Options we have here:

Create a resource of some kind. This can be a course or educational PDF. For me think about the Big Lift Audit or Movement 101 on the fitness side. And Instagram 101 on the business side.

Or you can create an automated or mostly automated and streamlined membership. This is assuming you have a 1:1 higher touch offer to begin with. The membership would that system with less touch points and personalization. Again, for me - this is my Built By Annie Membership in fitness and FitsPRO Foundations in business.

When you begin to look at scaling, you should have a pretty freaking solid idea of who your target audience is and what they need or desire from you. You’ll know what they would find helpful.

Perhaps you’re marketing to an earlier version or a more advanced version of your ideal client for your current offer. Your ideal client in a different stage or level than what you are currently helping.

This is by no means a one size fits all deal. You have so many options here. But if you haven’t learned about your ideal client, this will be a challenge, and you’re likely not ready to scale anyway.

Whatever you choose needs to be scalable. That might sound obvious but you’d be surprised how many entrepreneurs don’t understand what it means to scale.

Look at the growth potential of the offer. Can 10 or 100 people join and it be the same amount of work for you? Or relatively close? Or does the workload increase but 10x when we go from 10 to 100 customers?

For instance with Instagram 101, no workload increases. Literally none. I could have 10 or 300 people in the course and nothing chan...

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I am a student of the gram. And I encourage all those who take my Instagram 101 course to also embrace the status of “student of the gram.”

If you want to use any social media platform to grow and solidify your business or brand, it will behoove you to learn about it - to observe the platform objectively.

Market research is a powerful tool. It sounds fancy but it’s not. Take note about what is going on with your profile and audience as well as others’ profiles and audiences.

We also do this inside Instagram 101. What does well? The goal here is to determine what you enjoy + your audience responds well to. This way, we are leveraging your preferred media and adding value to your humans. Win-win.

We’re always looking for that win-win.

So, in today’s episode I plan to share with you what I have observed throughout 2020 on Instagram with small and large accounts alike.

For some context, I follow people in different arenas outside of health and fitness. But the point is we’re all “creators.” I enjoy following style accounts, photographers, travelers, bloggers and general content creators. It feels organic to the platform and I learn a lot from them and how they use social media.

That’s just to say that if you’re only following people in your field, it can be useful, refreshing and fun to branch out into other genres. It’s truly the same as a writer telling other writers that if they want to get better at writing, to READ LOTS OF BOOKS.

You want to get better at leveraging Instagram for your brand or business?

Follow a wide variety of accounts on the platform.

We will begin with the fact that Instagram is always changing.

This is the rather obvious observation numero uno.

The observation doesn’t stop with the fact that IG is ever-evolving. It’s the fact that those who use the platforms newest features early on may not get completely screwed as the algorithm drives traffic towards those using the new feature. Enter, Instagram reels.

You’ve got to be willing to roll with the punches. You also won’t lose your business or fail if you don’t use every feature.

Don’t sweat it. BUT - I do encourage you always try the new feature a few times simply to see if it might be for you and your audience.

Some people have absolutely thrived with Instagram reels. And I frankly see it being much more successful than IGTV because it is more digestible and shorter for compact entertainment or education. It’s more interactive than a typical post. You can have real length captions unlike IGTV. So all in all, reels might be worth your time.

Worth a try at least.

As is any new feature.

For instance, I found that my audience is not about IGTV. And if they are, it’s got to be under 3 minutes. So I don’t typically do them. It’s not content I enjoy making, and my audience doesn’t respond well to it either. Not for fitness. Though my episodes on eyelashes and messy buns have done well. Again, that’s just not my priority.

Sticking with the subject of content…

You don’t have to do it all to build a successful brand on Instagram.

I know of creators and professionals who almost exclusively post one type of content. And they’re winning.

This goes back to being really freaking good at what you do and clear about who you help and how you help them. And of course, being consistent. You can use every feature instagram has but if you aren’t clear and consistent, you’ll still fail at building and profitable business or brand. PERIOD.

Some creators use IGTV several times per week. These people thrive with video content. They’re good at it, and it is valuable to their audience. Some people exclusively create infographics, therefore that is what’s expected by their audience. They’re good at it, and it performs well for them.

All of this is to say, find what works for you, and leverage it. If you enjoy video and your audience is responsive to it, then create more video. Explore creativity there.

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You’ve likely seen or heard of the hierarchy of needs within fitness in some capacity. In my Built by Annie program my clients get access to something called Annie’s Secret Laboratory of Brain Gains. And in that lab, I have a video training on the two hierarchy of needs that I see and use in working with my clients. I have also seen other ones that are different than these. So I don’t want you to think that these are some gold standard. This is just my professional take on fitness and movement hierarchies.

Fitness hierarchy

Cardio respiratory endurance, strength endurance, strength, power, skill.

Movement hierarchy

Flexibility, mobility, strength, power, skill.

These hierarchies obviously begin to cross paths at strength, power, and skill. But the point of today’s episode is to look at how these hierarchies show up in your strength training. Or really, in the higher tears of either hierarchy.

We know how hierarchies work. Picture a pyramid and the foundation of these hierarchies would be the bottom level. So on the movement side, that’s flexibility and on the fitness side that is endurance.

So let’s break these hierarchies down one level at a time

A lot of people in the strength and bodybuilding world poo poo on low intensity steady state cardio. If you’ve ever seen anyone on social media post about LISS, they’re talking about low intensity cardio respiratory endurance. Training in an aerobic state for long durations. At least 35 to 60 minutes and even well beyond that.

Your cardio respiratory endurance is essentially your capacity. It is your aerobic capacity, not your anaerobic capacity, but your aerobic capacity lays the foundation to build your anaerobic capacity as well as your ability to recover between sets.

I can speak to the power of building your aerobic capacity in my recent return to the gym after seven months off. I have taken several breaks from lifting in my almost 15 years of strength training. And I died far less in this come back compared to others. The only factor that changed for me, was that I had been doing some level of steady state cardio the last three months before heading back into the gym.

I hadn’t lifted more than 25 pounds in seven months, but I didn’t feel like throwing up after three sets of squats simply due to having a better aerobic capacity and base to work with.

I will say I think I am the weakest that I’ve ever been during a come back phase, but at least I’m not weak and completely deconditioned.

That’s all thanks to the bottom tier of the fitness hierarchy of needs.

Do you want to lift more for longer periods of time? Then don’t poopoo on your aerobic capacity. It’s the basis of all fitness.

Feel like you’re dying during your lifts and your lungs are your limiting factor? Add in two days of low intensity steady state cardio and tell me how you feel a month later.

After your aerobic capacity comes your anaerobic capacity

This is essentially how long you can go for without the presence of oxygen. Your aerobic capacity is your ability to exercise for a long duration in the presence of oxygen. The longer you can do that without passing over to an anaerobic state, the higher your aerobic capacity is. Once we cross over into the anaerobic state, we are now working that in aerobic capacity.

Think about things like thresholds or cardiac power intervals, where we are working at one and a half minutes to three minutes over eighty percent of your max heart rate and then attempting to recover as quickly as possible from that. Again, the better your aerobic capacity is, the more of a head start you will have in the anaerobic training.

How is your ability to function at high intensities? This will be a reflection of your in aerobic capacity. Elite CrossFitters likely have very high anaerobic capacities. They can train at high intensities for repeated bouts. They also likely score well in all other areas of each hierarchy,

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I straight up felt the need to create this episode based on some of the content I’ve seen on the gram in the past few months. Some of it is spot on and absolutely amazing. Some of it is, well, not - which leads to today's post of 3 ways to improve your content.

Not all content is for everyone. I rarely do IGTVs, while I follow professionals who post multiple per week. I’d say it’s their main form of content.

Old school feed posts and stories are my form of content. Feed is education. Stories is real life, behind the scenes or further education.

It can feel like you have to do it all. And I am here to tell you that you don’t, but whatever you choose to do, it needs to work. You feel me?

So today my hope is to help you improve your content, specifically on Instagram. Better content ideally leads to higher interaction. Higher interaction leads to higher reach, and over time, a bigger, devoted audience. Which is goals.

These are options. Meaning you can use them all or only one. It’s not a step by step process, rather a toolbox to pull from.

First up - this one is something I have mentioned many times but to this day leads to my best content. HANDS DOWN.

Create content based on your clients

Obviously you need to have or have had clients for this to happen. But stick around for number three if you do not yet have clients. And even if you serve no clients yet, still listen. Because this will make your content creation so much easier in the future.

If a client asks a question, hello - create a post on said topic. Shoot, think of three ways you can talk about said topic! Why?

Because you’re currently at your desk, thinking of what your potential ideal client needs from you. What content are they wanting. What are they wondering about…?

YOUR ACTUAL CLIENT JUST ANSWERED THAT FOR YOU. If your clients have a question, most of the time, it’s pretty safe to bet that your audience is wondering the same thing. Or they don’t even know they need it, but they do. And now, you’ve heard them.

This is not limited to questions either. Often I create posts, and I know my colleagues create posts just based on conversations they’ve had with a client. A struggle, or success, or topic in general comes up. And you’re like, oh yes, I should make a post about this.

It’s truly a rather cyclical thing - you create content that attracts your audience, small percentage become clients, clients help create your content that then does an even better job of attracting the right clients, so on and so forth.

Definitely worth paying attention to if you have not yet done so and do in fact have clients currently.

Next up. You might not love this, but it’s super freaking simple, obvious, and also works.

Look at your metrics and those within the industry (market research)

Keep doing what does well…

It’s true that there are 50 exercises to work the glutes…but if we know that 5-6 work really well for us, isn’t wise to just stick with those 5-6 but alter load, variations, time under tension and so on?

Same goes for content! SAME SAME MY FRIEND.

It’s market research time. What does well for you? You can’t actually see this inside Instagram unless you’re a business account. And if you are in fact attempting to build a brand on the insta, you should be a business account.

Look at your insights.

I literally give you a chart inside Instagram 101 for tracking content by what does well with shares, saves, likes, comments, and reach. But you can do this without my chart. We want to look at all of these factors because you’ll start to see trends.

What type of content does well all across the board? Maybe it shows up in your top content for shares, saves, and reach. You should probs make more of that content. Right?

This also allows you to see what types of content tend to do certain things for you. Some subjects or literal types of contents (like infographic vs video) are more savable or sharable.

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Get ready for a fitness question/myth busting mash up.

This episode is a compilation of fitness related questions I have received over the years or as of lately. While each of these could nearly be individual episodes, I kind of dig the mash up vibe. Like rapid fire fitness Q&A or debunking session.

Before we get to it, we will be covering:

What is a shock phase?What causes muscle soreness and the muscle burn?What causes the muscle pump?Will cardio ruin strength or muscular gains?Should you do cardio before or after a lift?Can you gain muscle while losing fat at the same time?Strength vs hypertrophy set and rep schemesCan you gain strength without gaining muscle?Is HILIT a thing? If so, how?

Fitness Questions/Myth Busting:

What is a shock phase?

I mentioned this in my stories a week ago when I re-entered the gym for the first time in over seven months.

And it’s very important that you grasp what a shock phase is and when you can expect it.

First off, a shock phase would be after a new week of training where your body is undergoing several new types of stimulus or levels of stimulus. So when I came back to the gym after a several month long break, I was increasing all factors of my training by default. Increased load, intensity, volume, and tempo.

This is with the context that I had only been doing at home workouts with a 25 pound kettle bell. Even if I were to only use an empty barbell for every exercise, I would nearly be doubling my load. Are we tracking? I hope we’re tracking.

It’s called a shock phase because you have an abnormal response to your training stimulus. This normally results in very high levels of soreness. We can expect this in the first week coming back to an “old normal” style or modality of training.

You can also expect that you will not be anywhere near as sore the following week, which is why it’s called a shock phase. Like I said, it is an abnormally intense response to the new training, yet it feels like your body adapts by the next week.

Perhaps you have experienced this.

It doesn’t even have to be that you have taken a long break from training. It can just be any time that a large new stimulus is introduced to the body. For instance even if I was a very well trained in a strength perspective. Like squats, bench, deadlifts, and overhead pressing. If I went to a gymnastics clinic I would be devastatingly sore the week after, but if I kept going another week or two and did the same exact thing, I would be far less sore.

What causes soreness and muscle burn?

Lactic acid doesn’t make you sore or cause the burning sensation in your muscles.

Micro tears in your muscles cause soreness. Hydrogen ion build up creates the burning sensation you feel. That’s also not lactic acid or even lactate. Though lactate is produced at the same time hydrogen ions are released, but it’s the hydrogen ion that makes the pH more acidic.

ATP is our muscle/energy power source. it’s what we need for our muscles to function. To contract. ATP is produced through a process called glycolysis.

Hydrogen ions are formed as a by-product of glycolysis. Thiiiiiisssss is a factor in muscle fatigue as well as the burning sensation you feel due partially to the pH imbalance in the muscles.

When oxygen is not present, we have anaerobic phosphorylation. Which uses the cori cycle - this is where lactate is produced during glycolysis as well as the hyrdrogen ion. ATP is produced, as with oxygenation, but lactate is also produced, then transported to the liver to be turned back into glucose so that more energy (aka ATP) can be produced.

Yay science.

Bottom line, neither your delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) nor the burning sensation are from lactic acid. DOMS is from muscle damage (remember the micro tears in the muscle fibers), and the burn is primarily from hydrogen ions.

What causes the muscle pump?

The main factor in the muscle pump is fluid and blood being literally p...

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If there’s one thing that I have become known for in the online health and fitness space (from a business standpoint), it’s the fact that I don’t use and have never used sales calls to generate revenue.

This is not a magic trick. Just like sales calls, there are specific tactics and pieces that make a sales call successful or not. And the same goes for a sales page.

I did an Instagram post about this recently but in Fitspro Foundations I teach my nine step sales page blueprint for sales pages that actually sell. Even with these nine steps, a sales page will not be effective if the sales copy does not connect to and adequately communicate with the ideal client.

Today I am going to cover four pieces of sales copy and considerations that you need to get clear on when you are creating sales emails, sales pages or sales content for your offers. This will apply to almost any offer in the health and fitness space.

Even if you do use sales calls, this is still valuable information, and information that you should consider in whatever your sales process looks like.

The first of the four is old, but true and highly effective in connecting your potential buyers.

Pain and pleasure points

If you have been in sales for any period of time you have likely heard about pain and pleasure points. That’s because humans are motivated to take action based on a pain and pleasure. These sound dramatic and aggressive and can feel manipulative if you are not using them from a place of empathy and compassion.

Your ideal client is likely going to hire you to help them with something that they have been unable to do on their own. We know that. But we need to effectively communicate that we understand where the ideal client is currently. What thoughts are they having and what experiences they may have had in the past.

These are your pain points. The pain points represent the current state that the client is in. From a mental, literal, and emotional standpoint.

You can see where this would be a difficult thing to identify if you are not crystal clear on your ideal client and on your offer.

That’s also why in Fitspro Foundations we identify the ideal client first and then the offer, and then sales later on in the program.

I suggest having 4 to 6 pain points. And the more specific, the better. Again on your sales page or in your sales email or spread out within sales content, you are going to address and identify these 4 to 6 pain points. She is unsatisfied with where she is now but what does that look like?

What is she unsatisfied with? What frustrations does she have? What thoughts does she have in regards to the topic of your offer?

This is what we are talking about when business coaches say to get inside your ideal client's brain. It is not from a manipulative standpoint. It is so that you can further understand her. Because if she doesn’t feel met and seen where she is right now, she’s certainly not going to trust you to get her desired outcome.

These pain points may be very straightforward or very “in the feels” depending on what your offer is and what your coaching style is as well.

As far as pleasure points go, the way I teach it is that the pleasure points are where your client desires to be.

So we covered that pain points are your client's current state. That makes the pleasure points where your client would like to be. Again this can be a literal thing or an emotional state. Perhaps they would like to feel neutral about their body or food. Or they would like to re-comp their body. Perhaps they’d just like to be consistent. Those would all be communicated very differently.

Same goes for pleasure points. Choose 4 to 6. And they can be exact opposites of the pain points or completely different. Again so much of this depends on your personal ideal client your offer and your coaching style. You have to know these things before you can create effective and authentic sales copy.

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Today’s episode is specifically speaking about a strength or hypertrophy based program. The honorable mention will cover conditioning if that is a part of your program, but this assumes that you have an aerobic base to work with when it comes to your strength training. If you lack an aerobic base, that would need to be an additional part of your program.

Having a strong aerobic base allows you to push for harder and longer within your strength sets. Anyone who tells you that low intensity steady state cardio does not benefit strength and hypertrophy is lying to you.

Of course there is context within that. You will not likely train for a marathon and PR your back squat in the same training phase. But, in separate phases, the marathon training will likely benefit your potential for strength gains down the road. Simply by giving you a high work capacity. High work capacity means you can build muscle. Muscle mass is potential for strength gains. The end.

Now, let’s dive into the 5 aspects of any good program.

This is different than my other episodes on building out a program skeleton and what not. This post would be the specifics that live with in your program skeleton.

First up - really a multi piece aspect.

Squat hinge push pull carry

An effective program can either include all of these in a single day, or spread out within a 3 to 6 day program. All of these could be used in linear periodization or a daily or weekly undulating periodization. Those details are less important than making sure the program includes all of these movements.

The reasoning behind including these movements is to keep a balanced physique as well as strength balance. Something that can happen when we only squat or only deadlift is that we become dominant in those movement patterns and less efficient in the opposing movement pattern. It’s true that some people may favor one of these movements, but it is important that your program includes both.

Generally speaking your deadlift should be stronger than your back squat, which is stronger than your front squat, which is stronger than your overhead squat and so on.

While pulling is stronger than pressing, it is problematic if you can do 13 pull ups and not a single strict dip, right?

I also want to point out that this can be for an individualized program or general programming.

Obviously if the program is individualized to you, hopefully you have done an assessment of some kind to figure out if you need to maybe be squatting two days a week and deadlifting one day a week or doing carries two days a week to bring up your grip strength. But generally speaking, a solid balanced program will include squatting patterns, deadlifting patterns, pushing patterns, pulling patterns and some sort of carry.

If you have strength imbalances and you follow a balanced program, it won’t necessarily undo those imbalances. I hope that makes sense.

I don’t love using the word functional, because all movement is functional by the literal definition of “functional.” But you should be able to squat, hinge, push, pull, and pick up something and walk with it.

I’d also like to point out that I said the word patterns behind each of those because a high box step up is a squatting pattern, a Bulgarian split squat is a squatting pattern, a dumbbell sumo deadlifts is a dead lifting pattern, a single arm kettle bell deadlift is a dead lifting pattern. I think it’s important that we don’t restrict our thinking to only a back squat when we talk about squatting, and so on. Think in terms of patterns instead.

That’s all on that. Hopefully your program includes all of these movements and accessory work that helps build these movements.

Onto the next aspect of a good program.

Progressive overload

This probably seems obvious, but I think it’s important to talk about different ways that we can elicit progressive overload within our programs. I could be wrong,

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Today’s episode is one that you need to take with a grain of salt. These lessons are very personal to me, but may apply to you, so don’t think that just because I found one of these distracting and un-useful, that it must be distracting and un-useful for you.

Always stay true to you, your biz, and your gut, as much as you can.

My five early lessons in biz (some useful, some distracting at the time but useful down the road) were:

How to decide where to hireThe power of funnelsWhat SEO isCreate repeatable, multi-use contentThe need for email list building

Let’s start off with:

How to decide where to hire

I learned this during a course I took a year and a half into business but did not yet need. The course was Elegant Excellence by Hilary Rushford. I got it when I bought B School by Marie Forleo. But I was not ready for the Elegant Excellence course.

This was for someone who had been sprinting in their biz, likely scaled and needed to become far more efficient. They needed space to breath, and stop working in their business, rather on it. That state is a very common one to find yourself in when building your biz. But I was just in the beginning stages. I didn’t even know what a launch was. Let alone have the desire to work less in my biz. If we’re being honest, I may have had a business license, but I didn’t yet have a real business.

In Elegant Excellence, Hilary and her team covered how to choose what position to delegate or hire first. That can be HUGE. It’s been huge for me in hiring my assistant. She now manages all of BBA for me, among a million other things, so that I can put my time elsewhere. Hiring tends to do that. It keeps you, as the CEO in your zone of genius. If you don’t know what that is, read The Big Leap. It’s the book I read when we took off for world travels in May 2018. Seemed fitting.

Back to hiring though. I know entrepreneurs who hire FAST, very early in their biz. They are delegation queens. And that’s awesome. It was never and still is not my desire to manage people. I love my assistant because she is assertive, and I don’t have to babysit her. That’s what I need. And these are important things to know about yourself as an entrepreneur. My friend Joelle manages 5-6 coaches underneath her. That’s her system. And it’s how she scaled. She’s amazing, and to be honest she has done it more successfully than I’ve seen.

I scaled via automation and low overhead costs. To each his own.

But this is about HOW TO DECIDE WHO, AND WHAT AREA TO HIRE FOR.

This was informative that was not helpful then, but helpful three and half years down the road.

You basically make a quadrant, four boxes within a big square.

In the top left is your Joy + Genius (what you love doing, plus you’re good at it.Top right is what you like doing but it’s not your zone of genius, someone can do this better than you. For me - this is 100% web design. I LOVE designing my website. Always have. It’s a creative outlet for me. People literally have full time jobs as web designers. Yet here I am, building mine from scratch, from day one, to now, five years in. It’s just something I like doing. So I do it. Bottom left is Genius but you don’t love it. You can do this, and do it well, but you would rather not.Bottom right is neither your genius or your source of joy. Meaning you’re not good at it, and you hate doing it. Think taxes. Maybe not. I actually enjoy dealing with numbers. But for me, this is formatting and scheduling blog posts, or navigating Pinterest in order to drive traffic to my blog and freebie downloads.

Before making your quadrants, you’d list out everything you do in your biz right now. All tasks on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Then drag them into your quadrants where they fit.

Again, for me, creation would be in my genius + joy (I create the things - the programming, blog content, podcast content, canva workbooks), but the implementation of those things would be in my bottom le...

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Today we get to bro out a bit. To talk shop in the gym. Covering the mistakes people could be making.

I often find that people could get way more from their training than they do with a few simple changes to their time in the gym.

That is literally why I created fitdesignbyannie years ago. Between going to school for fitness training and then exercise and sport science, I would go to the gym and watch women attempt to lift weights.

In watching them, I would think to myself, I presumably know what they want, but they’re not going to get it by training the way they are. The way I was observing them at LA fitness.

While it’s now five years later from starting fitdesignbyannie, the same mistakes still exist.

And that brings us to today’s episode on the biggest mistakes you’re making in the gym.

Context is important. So let us make clear that I am referring to strength and hypertrophy based training. This is for women looking to gain muscle and strength. Let us also make clear that if you want to look “toned,” you are in this group of humans. Being toned is literally the appearance of having muscle tone at rest. Which you can’t do without the presence of muscles. The more common issue is the layers of fat over the top of said muscles that can prevent you from looking toned or instead looking “bulky.” That’s all a topic for another time.

Let’s get into mistake #1

Training for strength but not using long enough rest periods

What I mean is that you’re using a challenging weight, 75% + of your 1RM and/or RPE (rate of previewed exertion) of 8-9 but you’re only resting for 30 seconds or so. The body and it’s systems take time to recover between sets.

You want it to recover if you’re wanting muscle growth or strength gains.

I guess we need to note what is actually needed in order to experience hypertrophy (muscle growth). Aka what has to happen to get your GAINS.

You need three components - mechanical tension (this is the loading of the musculoskeletal system), muscle damage (micro tears in your muscle fibers from the work being done) and metabolic stress (this is your glycogen and ATP depletion comes in).

At the very basic level, we need these three things to make gains. And then of course you need to be able to recover from your training, and eat enough macronutrients to elicit muscle growth.

But we’ll stick to what happens inside the gym.

So mistake #1 is essentially that you are causing the mechanical stress and likely the muscle damage but you may not be optimizing the metabolic damage. Or better put you could be getting more out of your metabolic systems if you took a full 90 seconds all the way to three minutes of rest between sets.

The two main energy systems used in the strength and hypertrophy type of training I’m suggesting will be your phosphagen and Glycolytic systems.

It’s important to note that our systems, just like our three types of muscle fibers are not robots. You’re not only using ONE system or ONE type of muscle fiber in these stages. But the body will recruit or depend more heavily on one system or type of muscle fiber over another. And there are natural progressions with factors like time, exertion and intensity.

The energy provided to our muscles in order to contract is something called adenosine triphosphate or ATP. This is how we power our muscles. And it is produced via the phosphagen system. Yay science. When the ATP is used, he loses a phosphate and becomes Adenosine diphosphate or ADP. And that’s where our friend phosphocreatine comes in to help create more ATP. As the phosphate in the phosphocreatine is added to the ADP, to take it from a di, to a triphosphate again. Yayyyy energy for more muscle contractions. That is my simplest and honest understanding of the phosphagen system.

But that shit takes TIME MY FRIENDS!

To fully re-synthesize your ATP can take 3-5 minutes. Now, I am not telling you to rest 3-5 minutes between all sets.

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The relationship I want to discuss today is one that I have lived. I have been aware of this but didn’t put an actual name to it until Dr. Sean Pastuch brought it to my attention during my appearance on the Active Life Podcast. And he said it came from Adee Cazayoux.

I am not positive where this idea originated from, but it’s apparently called the “Success Funnel” and my plan today is to discuss my experience with this idea.

So on that podcast with Sean, I had mentioned that I had hired a branding specialist to finally get a logo and legitimize my brand. Up to this point, five years in, I had jimmy-rigged my brand. Literally EVERYTHING you’ve seen up to this point was just me dinking around in Adobe and Canva in attempt to create a recognizable brand. Which was fine.

But that is no longer acceptable to me or, I believe, my audience and where I want to go. THAT, is where Sean mentioned Adee telling him about the Success Funnel.

If you picture a funnel on it’s side, you’ve got one end with a big ol’ opening, and the other end with a defined itty bitty tiny point.

The wide open end is were we start. That can be in literally ANYTHING NEW. Learning a new skill, starting a business, learning a new job.

Obviously in our example, the success funnel is in regards to building a brand or business. In the beginning, in the open end, there is room for much more error and low quality.

That’s where “just start” comes from. There is less to lose, more room for error and lower quality of content production. Now, you can have high quality content when it comes to value, but not necessarily the production OF said content, right?

So don’t get that twisted.

This idea of the success funnel and the relationship between room for error, quality, and success is an important one to grasp, I think.

Like I said, I’ve lived this without realizing I lived it and am living this now.

For me, the fact of the matter is that in order to move forward in my business, it is no longer acceptable to not have a legitimate brand.

There are stages of business - embryonic, adolescence, and adulthood. Sure you could argue there are phases in between and after those, but for now, let’s stick to those three.

I also address pre-conception and conception when I breakdown my years in building a business. The point is, that in each of these phases, there are things that don’t matter in one phase, but have to matter in other phases.

And let it be clear that what I do in my embryonic and adolescent phases is not what you will do. Not completely. Every business is different.

You may start your business with a complete brand and gorgeous logo immediately. I don’t believe it’s needed in order to build a business and make money. But when you reach a point that you have multiple offers in an offer suite, a full blown website, and are on multiple platforms…it becomes an expectation that your brand is recognizable and cohesive. That it feels put together. It elevates your brand to the next level for sure. And is absolutely a part of separating yourself within your market place.

So you can choose to brand at different stages of business, but there comes a point where it is an expectation. It’s somewhat unacceptable to not be branded. This is OF COURSE, subjective.

I know that I have not purchased from coaches based on not fully grasping their brand even though I know they make six figures or have reached some level of success. But I am over here with the thought that it is unacceptable for them to not be professionally branded. And I have gone with other people, who provide the same value, but have a definitive brand.

Does that make sense? I hope it does.

As you get deeper into the success funnel, further away from the large opening, and closer to the point, certain things become less acceptable, and expectations go up.

That’s a part of growing an expert brand. Continuing to improve and raise expectations.

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If you don’t know, I am a big fan and supporter of using quarterly planning in life and business. Really it’s like creating a macro phase of strength training. Same concept. You define a large goal or two and then plan out months and weeks and the process by which you plan to reach those goals.

We are half way through this very historical and interesting year of 2020, and quarter two was made up of months April, May and June.

Let’s start off with the personal reflection, current situation and future planning. I think this is fun and I always enjoy hearing other people’s perspective and processes, which is why I choose to share mine with you.

Because so many of your 2020’s have not gone as planned, I think it’s important that we give that the space it deserves.

So pre rona, the plan for us was to travel through the first week of June, come home for three months and then take off for a 4-5 month road trip through Iceland, Scandinavian countries, some of Russia, Scotland and Ireland. That would have been Sept through Jan 2021.

The rona sent us home early as Japan began to shut down in April.

So, a month and half early, we bought flights back home, to the US. After about two weeks being home, we had some decisions to make regarding our future. The plan after 2021 travels was to possibly buy land or a house or both.

So long story short, we decided to do that NOW. And if you haven’t caught on, Nate and I tend to just do the things.

Less than one month after being home, Nate, my sister and our nieces and nephew drove out to a piece of property, we inquired with a family member in the title and building community, and started seriously pursuing options for purchasing land.

Three properties and exactly two months after being home, our offer was accepted on a 5 acre lot.

So, there’s that. 2020 plans quite literally flipped on their heads. But beautiful nonetheless. It’s a different adventure than we had planned. But an adventure nonetheless.

In the meantime we live with my mumsie and are figuring details out as we go. Taking action, and rolling with the punches.

While your 2020 plans may have been a bust, or perhaps you experienced loss during the last six months; loss of income, social interaction, maybe you even lost a loved one, 2020 is not forever and perhaps you got to rest or have a period of rest coming. Maybe there is an even better opportunity ahead. I don’t run the universe, so I don’t know. And I also don’t say that to be toxically positive. Grieve losses, be disappointed. And maybe there’s good too, in the present or in the future.

Okay, now that you’re up to date on the Millers, we can discuss business.

You see, business is largely based around our lifestyle. So I don’t plan my business schedule and launches or product creation until we have our travels planned. That way, I can make sure it’s cohesive.

But now, travels are postponed. The Scandinavian road trip is not off the table, just not happening in 2020.

You can track whatever you like in your quarterly review and planning.

This may pertain to life goals and projects, or business specific goals and projects.

My life goal for for 2020 was to have a plan for post travel life and to have the second half of 2020 travels planned. Now we’re clearly buying land and building. So that life goal has been decided and is now taking shape.

In business, this looks like number of people in certain programs, and hitting financial goals.

For me personally both of those are on track for my annual goals which are my biggest focus and/or concern.

But this can look like literally anything:

Email list growth

Overall audience growth (across email and social media)

Having certain guests on your podcast

Creating relationships with five women you desire friendships with

Hiring a mentor

Sticking to a certain number of Instagram posts per week.

Launching a new product

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If I have been known for one thing on Instagram from day one until now, it is hands down, my reputation for not exploiting my body, but still providing value and growing an audience.

It can be done my friends.

This comes up often in my DM’s. How to grab attention, get interaction and grow without showing your butthole.

That’s the goal today - to give you some legit ideas on how to make that happen.

It can definitely feel easier to just post a flattering photo with some suggestive skin. But let’s keep in mind that this action may not attract the audience you’re truly wanting or the reputation you're working toward, and that matters when it comes to people actually paying you money for your services.

I always say that if you can’t grab attention on Instagram without exploiting your body, you simply lack effort, creativity or both.

Remember - butthole tactics are easy.

We are not taking the easy route.

You must get creative. And I might add, this should be fun! It should be fun to prep content and think about how it’s going to be received.

Ways we can do this:

Use words

- we’ve talked about the hook before. This is your first sentence. What grabs the viewers attention.

Having a good hook is important. But step one is the photo, image or graphic. That’s what stops the scroll right?

Something that is becoming more and more popular and has been wildly successful for me is to essentially put the hook as the actual post.

That can be just text as the photo or an applicable photo with text added next to or over the photo. If you go to my Instagram you can find examples of both.

These are bold statements, which grab attention, and more importantly, don’t involve my butthole.

Make the words polarizing

either stand for something, or use attention grabbing verbiage.

I tell my pelvic floor specialists to use the word vagina. It grabs attention. Then they can educate and make their legitimate point in their caption. But no one is stopping their scroll to read about incontinence.

I did a post comparing and defining the differences between the single leg RDL and single leg DL. Instead of using text on the image that said RDL vs DL, I said “stop mixing these up, they’re not the freaking same.”

Which one is more likely to catch attention?

And which one are you more likely to read?

People so often underestimate the power of words. Or know the power of words but then don’t leverage that power for their own brand and business.

Use funny, playful, or questionable photos:

a smile is great. And those posts are needed. But we want to draw people in, away from scrolling.

This can be done by simple facial expressions. Ones people can relate to. You see this all over my feed.

Be expressive. Play with your expressiveness.

Serious faces amidst smiles are intriguing to people.

Me making a confused and frustrated face matches a post about small biz taxes or not understanding how to write efficient programming.

Instagram is a visually creative platform by nature. Push into that.

One of my FitsPROs, colleagues and gram friends creates super relatable and hilarious gifs. They all look the same and are on brand. That’s her way of stopping the scroll and demanding attention.

Like I said, creativity and effort are the only things holding you back.

With all of that, it might be helpful to keep a few things in mind.

People react, respond to and share things that are relatable.

This is why it’s so incredibly important for you to understand your ideal client. Get my free download here!

Is she or he a parent?

Do they like to lift alone?

Do they workout at a globo gym?

Are they hybrid athletes?

Do they measure their food?

What do they love?

Do you know their philosophy about food and exercise?

What do they think is bullshit?

All of those things drive, or could be driving the content you create. Content that stops their scroll,

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Today’s episode idea came to me last month, with everything happening here in the states with Covid, injustices and people’s behavior overall. During some of my personal work, I found myself reflecting on some of mentors/heroes/people I hold in high regard. Soooo I figured why not share some of that with you humans.

These are strong attributes, practices, and constants that I see in the humans I guess you could say I aspire to be like - in literally every aspect of my life:

1.) Stay true to themselves

Go figure, right? The first step of this is to obviously have a deep and growing understanding of self. We can’t stay to true to something we are not yet aware of.

You can tell they are on their own team. They make self discovery a priority, and then they stay true to that. Well, to the parts they want to cultivate. Obviously part of self discovery is finding less than desirable things out about ourselves. Or that’s been my journey anyway. They own all the parts, stay true to their true self, while being aware of the ugly parts too.

2.) Stay true to their values

Hiiiiiii obviously this is a huge one for me. And it was one of the biggest and best pieces advice I received early in business. I actually shared this in an IG post a week or so ago.

Our values permeate everything right? They drive our beliefs and therefore our actions. Their values are clear to me. Not in that they state them, but that they live them out. I see them in their life. In the way they use their voice, or lead, or coach, or run their company. How they process things.

It’s no secret that I think knowing your core values is one of the most important things we can get clear on as human beings.

Know them, and then stand firm in them.

3.) Have a firm philosophy & speak their truth without apology

My heroes, they’re just so grounded, you know? Like they just feel so freaking grounded. Like they are standing on firm ground. I guess they speak their truth without reservation. Not because they believe it and won’t hear anything else. But because they’ve done the work. They’ve taken in A LOT of information over years and have landed where they are. I am not articulating this well. But I hope you get it. They speak clearly and firmly.

4.) Life long learners.

There’s not much to elaborate on this one. They are not stagnant and they are open to learning. While they are firm in their values and philosophies, they are open to conversations and learning from new perspectives.

I think this comes natural to VERY FEW human beings if we’re being honest. It’s extremely dangerous to think you have no more to learn about a topic. ANY topic. I’ll leave it at that.

5.) They dream big

I do think that some people are dreamers. That some people have an easier time dreaming big. As a highly analytical, realistic and practical personality type, dreaming does not come easily to me. It’s very scary actually.

And you might be like, but Annie, you traveled the world for a year and a half, and are now six weeks later, closing on 5 acres and land want to build your dream house. I GET IT. You might be confused as I am aware my life can look like that of a dreamer.

FACTS: I married a dreamer. And he married an action taker.

So we do the things. His dreams scare me, but also, have helped me to be open to dreaming big. And he gets to see those dreams come true because if you give me a task, I will stop at almost nothing to complete that task.

On this note, I’ll say that my mentors/heroes are dreamers in large part because they are not afraid of failing. Not that they don’t acknowledge that they can fail. But they welcome challenges within the dream and are willing to adjust where needed during the process. They simply believe the dream can happen, and they are deserving of it. Which is where I get caught up most of the time. Maybe you relate.

6.) They act big - they do the things

When I say act big I am really saying the take ac...

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Okay I think this is going to be a very fun episode. Mainly because I look forward to the implementation + conversation that comes out of this topic of polarization.

I was VERY scared to be TRULY polarizing in the only space that I have.

While I was never a normal fitspo, and never “fit in” in the what I would consider to be the norm of the world of online fitness, I also didn’t REALLY start actively speaking out in a polarizing manner until 2018. And I didn’t start doing it OFTEN until maybe late 2019 and 2020 to date.

Before we get into polarizing topics, how to address them, what to expect when you open the door for hate, and so on, let’s define what a polarizing topic is by definition.

According to Oxford Languages on my little Google search, to polarize is to:

“divide or cause to divide into two sharply contrasting groups or sets of opinions or beliefs.”

Thus, you can see where CHOOSING to be polarizing may be completely and absolutely terrifying. But I must remind you my friend, that you are not trying to be for everyone. You are trying to draw deeper and closer to your ideal client + drive out those who are NOT for you and your brand.

Being polarizing does that and more.

Beyond cultivating a stronger, more die hard audience, being polarizing also leads to viral exposure, relatively speaking.

I say relative because if you have 100 followers, then getting 1000 likes and 100+ shares is the most viral for you. For someone with 20k+ 2000+ likes and hundreds of shares would be viral. It all depends on your day to day comparison.

Bottom line, stepping out and speaking firmly on a polarizing topic gets ATTENTION. And hi, you want attention.

To recap:

Being polarizing can result positively in:

Larger than normal exposure, likely to YOUR PEOPLE. Because your die hard audience members will share with their friends, who align with your ICA. Win-win. More people in your audience who are likely your ideal client.

It more clearly defines to your audience what you and your brand stand for. What is a go or no-go for you and your business, program, brand, self.

Drives people out of your audience who don’t belong here. I repeat, you are NOT for everyone. No one is.

Now, let’s discuss some topics and how to land on a polarizing topic that feels natural for you. It will be scary to speak out no matter what. Maybe. Who knows, maybe you love it.

Polarizing topics:

I will give examples from business and fitness as I coach both and speak out in both of these arenas with strong polarizations.

I need to say something real quick, just in case we aren’t clear on WHAT a polarizing post is.

IT IS NOT YOU GETTING ON YOUR SOAP BOX AND COMPLAINING LOUDLY.

THAT’S JUST IMMATURE AND ANNOYING. Let’s be clear.

When I refer to a polarizing post, I am referring to you speaking out about something you disagree strongly with (an unpopular opinion), providing reason for WHY you disagree and your action in the other direction. How does you disagreeing benefit your audience. WE MUST KEEP THIS AT THE CENTER OF OUR POLARIZATION.

So, now that that’s out of the way…

First off - your polarizing topic(s) should, like I said, feel natural.

What angers you about your industry. Or breaks your heart? What elicits a deep emotional response from you?

Legitimately think about it. If you don’t know, pay attention to what sets you off this week or month. That’s your topic, my child.

What makes you want to yell and scream. What posts do you secretly send to your friend and talk shit about? Mmmmm? I know you do it! That’s your topic.

But remember, you’re going to compose your thoughts, and determine why you’re speaking out on this topic. We’re not just complaining. You have a solution. Don’t be the person who complains without leading.

If you don’t know - my polarizing topics in fitness are the speaking out against the sexualization of the fitness industry, against selling with your body,

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I asked the gram fam what kind of content they wanted from me in this season. How to transition back into the gym was a very popular answer, so I thought I’d make a more in-depth episode for you.

There are MANY things to consider when entering the gym after a long break. These are just a few that I’ve been talking about with my clients over the past few weeks.

Keep in mind that everyone’s set up, life and access has been different during quarantine here in the states. So take what applies to you.

Number 1: Leave your ego at the gym door.

Whether you had access to weights during quarantine or not, let’s just plan on leaving your ego out of your re-entry the gym. If you love the weights, you can expect to want to push it. You might want to jump right back into weights you used before quarantine, or push yourself until everything burns and you’re dying. How about let’s NOT do that.

You want to remain consistent - to be able to workout four or five days per week and still function. Being irrationally sore will not allow for that to happen. Please for the love of all things holy, remember that your gains come from your ability to RECOVER. Not from how hard you go in the gym.

I start with this one because it is the source of what I predict to be an influx of injuries for humans re-entering the gym and going ham.

Shift your mindset to conservative. Be conservative. Your ego is dangerous and not always logical. Mmmmk?

Number 2: Your work capacity may have taken a hit

You won’t need much to get a challenging workout in. This is actually a plus. If you’ve lowered volume, load, frequency, and/or intensity from March until now, which is June 2020, then you will be challenged by lower loads, intensity and so on.

Sure, you can be disappointed by fatiguing quickly, and having to use lower weights. But that’s also great when we think about time spent in the gym. You’re building a base. Accept where you are, and be consistent.

Also, I am sure I’ll say this more than once - but make sure you’re recovering well from your workouts. No matter how un-intense you might view them. They’re plenty challenging to your body, where you’re at now. If you want to build muscle and recover, make sure you’re prioritizing sleep, and protein intake; among other things of course.

Number 3: Your end ranges may be rusty

Unless you were actively working on mobility during quarantine, you might feel like you need to “dust off the cobwebs” as you try squatting ass to grass. And working mobility is one thing, but exercising your mobility under load is a whole other situation.

Take your time in your warm up, and keep control in your end ranges during your lifts. You’re not a broken little baby child. But be AWARE as you re-enter some ranges you may not have experienced in a few months.

If your hips are tight or you feel restricted, don’t be a turd and push through. Be mindful and work within your current ranges. Progress those ranges just like you would anything else.

Number 4: A tip - Go lighter with large compound lifts or power movements like squats, deadlifts, cleans, pressing and so on.

I gave this example on Instagram the other day. This particular tip pertains to you if you have not access to barbells during quarantine.

We must consider a few things within this one.

You will likely use barbells for larger compound movements, like I mentioned.

These movements tend to be metabolically demanding. Even with lighter weight than you used to use, you may fatigue quickly. There also tends to be large room for error in these lifts.

Remember that lifts are skills. And if you’ve haven’t worked on a skill for some time, you can expect some energy leaks when you practice that skill again. This is not to say that you will feel like you’ve never squatted or bench pressed before. It’s just to say, let’s use a weight that allows us to focus on the movement vs. focusing on how you’re simply trying to survive.

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Remember that you need to check the show notes to see if you were review-er of the week, and then keep an eye out to see if you were listener of the month as well. That will be in the show notes and Annie’s Weekly Wrap. You can subscribe to Annie's Weekly Wrap at anniemiller.co/news.

This will likely be a quick episode but hopefully useful for those of you if you run a biz and think you need a website.

All websites are not created equal, and all websites do not serve the same purpose. Today, I hope to get you some clarity on what type of website or website platform might be the best fit for you.

First off - let’s look at what a website should DO.

Websites can act like employees. They have the ability to make money for you, while you’re doing other things, even sleeping. That was one of the first things that attracted me to having an online business. It was when someone said - make money while you sleep. Now, it took YEARS before that concept came to life for me. But fact is, having the right website or sales page can make this happen.

We won’t get too much into the weeds here because what really makes you money is what’s ON the website or sales page. Your sales copy, the images, the communication piece, the client experience. That is what truly allows a website to make you money while you sleep. And we are discussing none of that today. But we do cover this in depth in Fitspro Foundations under our sales page section.

So, a website can make money for you.

It also communicates your brand feel, or vibe if you will.

Your website or sales page dictates the beginning of your client experience. Whether that’s a one time purchase or an application to work with you.

You might notice that I keep saying “website or sales page.” That’s because you may not need a full blown website.

Please don’t make the mistake of going to my website and thinking you need a blog, an Amazon page, a product page for single purchase items, brand deals, and multiple offers. That will simply overwhelm you, and you’ll likely end up focusing on the WRONG things if you’re just starting out.

I have another episode on building your offer pyramid - highly suggest checking that out. In short, many people start with free, but have yet to nail down their higher ticket offers. And yes, I absolutely suggest starting with 1:1 or higher end, higher touch programs before building out memberships, or lower ticket and free products or programs. Check out that episode to learn more about that whole situation and my take on it.

Point being - you might only need a single lead page or landing page for your program. Maybe you don’t need a blog. These are things to be considered when taking on the daunting task of building your website or sales pages. It’s so so so important to do what fits for YOU and YOUR BUSINESS. Not what I do, or any other coach is doing. We need to choose a web host that does what you need it to do.

So, you have options. In FitsPRO Foundations we have a PDF with online resources for websites, payment platforms, email hosts, all sorts of things so you can determine what you ACTUALLY need to start and run YOUR biz. Because again, it’s not about what Jennifer, or Tina, or Chanel is doing. It’s about what YOU NEED.

Questions to ask yourself before choosing a platform:

How many programs or products do I sell?

Am I going to be the one in charge of editing and managing the website?

Do I need a blog?

Will I need a place to host a podcast or other media?

Do I sell goods? E-commerce? Some sites aren’t set up for this.

Do I need a membership site?

Am I hosting a course?

Some of these questions will make choosing your platform easier. And it doesn’t have to be ONE. I have three different platforms that I use. I’ll explain that as we go. Knowing what YOU NEED and having it written down can be helpful when going to these web platforms and reviewing your possible options.

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MY TOP RESOURCES FOR ENTREPRENEURS.

I can’t tell you how often I get asked about books, courses, and resources in general for humans starting or running a business.

This episode is about to blow your freaking mind if that’s you.

Imma list off and break down all my favorite courses for building an online business. As well as resources for possible specific pieces of that business like podcasting, email, blogging & brand deals, launches, creating PDF’s and content, websites, Instagram, handling legal stuff and money.

Over the past five years I’ve learned a lot via trial and error and self research, as well asfrom taking courses from people who know how to do what I want to do.

Today I’m sharing literally everything I can think of with you. I seriously have so many things and resources that I wish I knew about earlier in business. So grab a pen and paper because I’m unloading on you in 3...2...1.

Let’s start off with courses you can purchase. These will cover several different areas of business. I have invested in all of these and most are worth the money. I say that because I didn’t need all of them necessarily.

Here we go.

Courses:

Sam Vander Wielen’s Legally Legit Ultimate Bundle

This is an online course on how to set up your online business in a legally sound manner. Sam is a guest speaker inside the knowledge vault of FitsPRO Foundations as well. She covers everything from deciding to be LLC to group program terms to client contracts. You’ll get templates and learn what needs to be in your contracts + how to deliver those and stick to them so that you’re functioning as a legal business as well. I am currently using Sam’s course to redo all of my legal docs, terms, website disclaimers and contracts. I can’t say enough about this resource. Find the link to Sam's course and her free on demand workshop in the show notes.

Instagram with intention Hilary Rushford

This is an oldy but a goody. This course took me from feeling defeated and lost on Instagram to feeling in control and like I could make things happen. I don’t know if the course has been updated or not, but I took it years ago. Like we’re talking 5 years ago. Obviously a lot has changed on Instagram but I still stand by this course. That’s because it teaches you about the basics. My Instagram course is significantly more in depth than this and is geared at building a brand and making money through the platform. But Hilary’s course is a cheaper option and like I said, really dives deep into the basics of what sets your account apart, makes you followable, and gives you interaction tactics.

If you’re looking for a deeper dive, definitely checkout my Instagram 101 course that covers everything from your bio to selling in your stories and tracking engagement. Find links for both in the show notes. I’ve taken other Instagram courses and quite frankly they just aren’t great.

I will also note here that I’ve tried a lot of planning apps for IG and don’t like any of them so I create my grid in canva and then keep my captions in my notes app.

And I use Lightroom to edit my photos.

Starting a podcast - Pat Flynn (sent to me by Taylor Gage of She Thrives)

I used and recommend his free three part series on how to start a podcast. He also has a full on course but the free three part series was literally perfect if you’re just starting out. You’ll go over naming the podcast, making the image, equipment, how to actually record, what software you need, where to host a podcast, how to edit, save, upload, format and schedule the podcast. Just all of the things. It was a serious life saver for me. So many people just said “well you just start it” when I’d ask about how to actually have a podcast. No TINA, that answer is false and there is a shit ton that goes into starting and launching a podcast. Thank you. Take Pat's free situation. Link in show notes.

Launching - Isabella Silverio’s Rocket Launcher Lab

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It's time for a Listener Q&A. These are some of my favorite episodes. I asked you guys to give me questions on IG on literally any topic - life, travel, fitness. I'll be answering them rapid fire, but since I'm long winded it won't be THAT quick.

I have no prepared answers and have not looked through them, so I have no idea how long this will take. I hope to answer as swiftly and clearly as possible, and the questions will be anonymous. Below are an abbreviated version of my answers, for the full response, tune in to the podcast.So, without further ado, let's dive in.

If you could be a strength and conditioning coach for any team who would it be?

I would be a coach for MMA or wrestling because I've always been drawn to those sports - even since high school. My husband was a training partner for Rick Story and I have never taken part in martial arts but have been a huge fan of martial arts for a very long time. Not necessarily a team but type of athlete would be men or women in mixed martial arts.

Where to start with setting time, emotional boundaries and energy management? I can schedule and time block block but keeping energy and focus is tough.

Hard to answer because I don't know what you've tried specifically. If you have written a schedule and time blocked and you're having trouble keeping energy and focusing doing those things, then I would look at a few things. How long are you giving yourself and what is the expectation during that time block?

For example, it can be really overwhelming if I say "finish BBA home plus." That involves me creating 12 different phases of programming. Instead of writing a task that involves 12 other tasks, break it down into smaller, more digestible pieces because that makes you feel like you have to focus on smaller bits at a time. That has worked for me. I learned that I really only like to focus for 1-2 hours at a time, then I have to take a break (walk, eat, scroll IG).

I enjoy doing those things and am more productive if I do those things every 1-2 hours. And then get back to work of course - don't go on a downward spiral of not being productive, but I do think it is a learning process with you and yourself. If you find yourself not continuing to focus, ask yourself, is the time block that you have too large? Or the task in the time block too overwhelming?

I'd love to hear more about your competitive cheer experience...how did you get started?

I was the little sister that wanted to do everything my big sister did. She played soccer, I played soccer (even though she only played 3 years, I played through high school). She did competitive cheerleading and my mom would have to work so she would drop me off at my sister's practices - so I sat and watched. This is where I met Paige Major - who I cheered under, then cheered for and worked with. And who is now my branding photographer and strategist. Basically I did it because my sister did it. I loved the work ethic, loved the team aspect of it. Everyone on the competitive cheer squad has a purpose. It is not like soccer; you are not as replaceable.

There is a dependability in competitive cheerleading, it's another level of camaraderie and teamwork that I found really appealing. Started middle school, did it through high school. I decided not to do it in college but then started coaching right off the bat. I wasn't really keen on leaving my hometown, I didn't want to go away to college. Probably could've cheered most places, and some coaches were disappointed....but you know me and you know I do what I want haha. Coached for 10 years before we started traveling the world.

Whats your advice if you have two groups of ideal clients?

Your two groups of ideal clients are strength and conditioning for gymnastics and general population. I would say focus on one of those first, especially if this is online. Focus on your offer and relationship with one of those groups first,

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THE INS AND OUTS OF EXERCISE AND TRAVEL.

I wanted to talk about this topic because it’s been a huge portion of the last two years of my life. And that is working out while traveling. Like, what does that reality look like. What I’ve experienced and some of the ways I go about moving while traveling the world.

First off - nothing will be as good as having consistent structure with a purposeful program.

This is why I lose strength and muscle mass while traveling EVERY TIME.

So let’s dive into what working out while traveling the world looks like.

Cardio becomes more prominent for sure. Why? Because it’s easy and it can be done literally anywhere.

The point for moving oftentimes is simply to get our heart rates up. So we run stairs in our building - 4 times from bottom to top, recover on the way down.

We go on runs - this was huge for us in Rio De Janeiro because they had an awesome beach front on Copacabana. The weather was great and the scenery wasn’t bad either. In colder places we will do jumping jacks or burpees. Simple intervals - 1 minute on, rest on heart rate. Or we can do tempo like 15 seconds on, 45 seconds rest. That works really well for more intense work like jump squats.

That’s all way more cardio than I would choose to do at home. But man it just feels good to sweat and move with intention outside of sitting and walking.

Cardio is also mindless and time efficient. And while travel seems like a luxury, and it is I suppose, it’s also draining. Which you know if you’ve traveled before.

We also keep in mind our daily movement. For instance in some locations we walk A LOT, on a daily basis. But in Patagonia, we were driving 8-9 hours per day sometimes, burning the LEAST amount of calories and compressing our spines. After those days the body just craves movements. I would argue that our bodies felt the worst during that road trip. It was so much sitting. Which led to quite a few body weight workouts on days off from driving. Our joints were definitely in need of some love.

In that location there was obviously hiking that was taking place - which killed our feet more than anything. But we were both rather pleased with how our cardio and muscles felt.

As far as exercise outside of cardio, Nate and I are very different. I can’t speak to his logic. But here’s mine.

I have my go-to exercises

These are normally the most bang for buck for retaining strength, having a high metabolic demand, and getting joints moving at different angles.

Most of the time is done with body weight. Especially now that we travel faster. In our 2018/2019 travels we had 4-5 one month gym memberships. So we had more opportunity to work with extra load.

But when we move faster, body weight is what we use most often.

My logic is this: I want to keep movement pattens fresh. So I do a lot of squats, step ups, single leg RDLs, cossack squats, handstand holds and Bulgarian split squats. For core I do a lot of plank shoulder taps, V ups and hollow holds.

Upper body is by far the hardest to get after with body weight alone.

Sets and reps vary as I’m not following a program. Although sometimes I do just pull straight from my Body Weight for Weight Lifters program. Especially if I’m needing some mobility focus.

For lower body I typically stick to single leg exercises because they can be more metabolically demanding. And there’s a heavier load. Right? So when I’m doing Bulgarian split squats with the majority of my weight on one leg, that’s more difficult for me to move than doing a body weight squat using both legs simultaneously.

I also LOVE the deep range of motion I get in that front working leg.

Same goes for choosing the single leg RDL. I normally load those bitches up with a 45 lb dumbbell but that doesn’t mean I can’t benefit from doing them with body weight. They give my hamstring a great functional stretch and lengthening contraction.

And that’s where tempo comes in.

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PIVOTING IS INEVITABLE.

You’re not on a one way road for eternity with no turns, road blocks, or change of direction. You will at some point, in business, in life or in training, need to pivot.

And while pivoting on a soccer pitch or basketball court is a quick and often explosive event, it doesn’t have to be in other areas of life. Not always anyway.

I want to discuss when to pivot - what might indicate that you need to pivot? How you might pivot successfully and the power that lies within change of direction.

You can pivot in ANY area of life. Deciding to make a baby is a definite pivot in your life. Starting at a new gym or a new job is a pivot. A pivot is, like I said, a change of direction. In business this could be a small decision like combining two Instagram accounts or huge decision, like changing your business name and offering a new type of service. This was my case in 2018 when I renamed my biz of 3.5 years and in 2019 when I starting coaching business in addition to fitness. These were big pivotal moves and they had immense power.

They were also terrifying. Which is something that often happens along with change.

So, let’s dive into what might happen before a pivot. What might lead you to thinking you need a change of direction. Ideally we don’t pivot via HAVING TO, but that can absolutely happen as well. Something happens in life or business that forces a pivotal event or choice upon you.

But often, we just feel off, or unsatisfied. Perhaps out of alignment. We can also experience some sort of inspiration. You go to an event or have a conversation with someone and realize that you need to take a new course of action.

So you either experience resistance in an area or a tugging or inspiration on the other end of the spectrum.

Because I’ve experienced this mostly in business, that’s what I’ll discuss. But feel free to relate this to anything.

If you’re unsatisfied and experiencing a level of resistance, you’ve got to look at why. Maybe you need to keep grinding but maybe it’s time to pivot. I say that about the grind because if we pivoted every time we felt resistance, we wouldn’t complete anything, ever.

You could be feeling resistance and need a day of rest, or a little brain dump and then get back to work. I have another episode all about how to get out of a slump, so you can check that out as well. It will be linked in the show notes.

We’re talking about pivoting, not getting past a lack of motivation. Right?

But we still need to know where the resistance is coming from in order to determine where your new direction will be.

That’s where I think EITHER the lack of satisfaction or alignment comes in.

When I transitioned from seven years of in person training to online, that was a huge and terrifying pivot. I’d been building my online platform for years, but I still depended on the security of in person. The decision to cut that off and go all in online was both unknown and so incredibly needed.

I loved my in person clients. They were great and they were certainly not the problem. But I knew I had more to offer and I had reached my ceiling in person. I remember being in the gym, just thinking of everything else I could be doing online. My clients didn’t need me in person if we’re being honest, and I knew it. That left me resenting my job. Again, not resenting my clients, but feeling like I was selling myself short - holding myself back. I found myself thinking, “If I could just use those hours spent in person to build my online business.”

That’s when we know we need to pivot fam. If you’re constantly thinking about doing the other thing, when you’re doing the current thing, you needed to pivot YESTERDAY.

This is the type of resistance I’m talking about.

Nate actually experienced this when he brought up the possibility of traveling the world.

If you don’t know how that all came about, here’s the short story.

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MONEY, BUSINESS, LIFE AND TRAVEL.

Not an accountant, not a financial advisor. Simply sharing my experience and takeaways with finances after almost two years of world travel, growing a biz and doing life in and out of the states.

A huge thing for us when we want to do ANYTHING in life is the HOW. How do we travel the world? And how do we save for a house? Or how do we budget for x and y? How do you pay taxes when you live for more than six months outside of the states? Or how do you plan finances when you have inconsistent income? How do you start investing? And retire as an entrepreneur?

Right!? It’s always the HOW? We just want answers, AND we want to know we’re not alone. That’s someone else has done it before. I say “we” as in everyone. Which might be a lot to assume of me. But I find in most areas of life, that people are generally searching for the “how.”

That’s kind of what I hope to provide today. To pull back the curtain on questions you probably have around our finances, and biz life + travel.

I know I wish people would talk about this stuff, so here I am, talking about it. These aren’t finite, my way or the highway suggestions. They aren’t even necessarily suggestions. Simply our experiences and how we do biz, life and travel from a financial standpoint.

Finances and Biz

You already know I am going to tell you to follow and listen to Chloe at deeper.than.money, and read Profit First if you’re an entrepreneur. Profit First completely changed the way I do biz from a financial standpoint. Before we left in for world travels in 2018 I was desperately searching for a way to track finances and keep my shit straight while spending a lot of money in foreign countries and running a business.

We did a nauseating amount of research on which cards didn’t get flagged for overseas purchases and which ones reimbursed foreign ATM and transaction fees. For us the best option was Charles Schwab. We have absolutely loved them so for. It was easy to set up multiple accounts - which you’ll learn about in Profit First if you read it.

And then we have accounts at an entirely separate bank for taxes. That way, we transfer the money every two weeks to the tax account and it’s out of sight, out of mind. Again, you’ll learn about this tactic in Profit First.

Also - Nate is not an owner or partner in my business. I just keep saying “we” because we both view the money I make as our money. Which is a whole other conversation and I think Chloe from Deeper.Than.Money has done a podcast episode on finances as a couple. But the mindset you and your partner have around finances is more important than I can express. Being on the same page can literally keep relationships from falling apart.

What is it, like sex, finances, religion and kids are the four highest reasons marriages fail? I could be pulling that out of my ass, but I swear that’s a thing.

So, check out Chloe, and know that I think it’s super duper important for partners to be on the same page - whatever that looks like with finances.

For us, the money I generate is just as much Nate’s as it is mine. Know that this is where we’re functioning from in biz, life and travel with finances.

You can come up with an equation - which is basically what Profit First has you do. Equation meaning a % that goes to taxes, biz expenses, and whatever else you need it to go. This can be very individual in your biz.

Then you can do the same thing in your life based on what your biz pays you. I don't know how many times I’ll say this - but we follow the Profit First equation. No surprise I am sure.

Everyone’s equation will be different. But I really like using % instead of a dollar amount every month because I have a biz with inconsistent income. So no matter what, the % are the same every two weeks when I transfer money to different accounts.

That’s another point. We “do finances” every two weeks. Ideally this is the 10th and 25th but when traveling it happ...

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I HAVE PHASED OUT + ADDED ALMOST TEN PROGRAMS IN TWO YEARS.

I hope that if you’re an entrepreneur or you want to be, you learn A LOT from this episode. Today I am aggressively pulling back the curtain on the past years of my business and the transition to what it is in present time.

This episode came from this idea that people see my biz now, where it is, and may not know where it came from.

And that sometimes we need a reminder to not compare our first year of biz (or anything for that matter) with someone who is further ahead.

Even more, to not copy what someone else is doing because they will likely change or even get rid of whatever you just copied. I have done this in the past and throughout my entrepreneurial journey.

Thought “oh, so and so does this, and they’re successful, so I should do that.” Now, I am not talking about copying verbatim, rather concepts and formatting. But still, I’d roll something out, thinking I’d be done, and then that person who I got the idea from, rolls out something new and better. It’s just not a good plan fam. You’re always behind, and you’re not focused on you and yours - what your audience really needs from you.

So, I’d like to share some of the programs and segments of programs that I’ve had through the last five years and why I no longer offer them.

Even if you’re not an entrepreneur there is likely a takeaway here for you on some level.

I had the first four programs all the way into 2018. So the transition to the Annie Miller Concepts you see now didn’t happen that long ago.

And the transition I am talking about came out of really honing in who I was meant to serve and what that person truly needed from me. That would be my Ideal Client Avatar and I literally used my FREE PDF Ideal Client Avatar Creator to clearly define my dream audience. Then promptly got rid of all programs that didn’t serve that person.

Which brings me to my first four programs that I no longer offer at Annie Miller Concepts:

20 day challenge

6 week transformation

Pull up guide

Macro + nutrition breakdown

Starting with the 20 day challenge -

This was my first ever offer and I straight up made it while I was still in college and I saw Emily Schromm doing her 21 day challenges. It was appealing. $21, 21 days and you basically give people the basics. It’s a kick start. Mine was nowhere near hers. But it was valuable AF. I made videos for 20 days and posted a new one everyday in the Facebook group. They received recipes, workouts and handouts. It really was a shit load of value and mine was $20 for 20 days.

It worked too - people lost weight and inches. I got testimonials, and people always joined.

But there was so much wrong with this.

I was attracting people who were not actually my ideal clients. The offer didn’t make any sense for where I wanted to go and who I wanted to work with. I loved writing weight lifting programs. People who are looking for a 20 day kickstart ARE NOT looking for a legit weight lifting program…Not a great start to my offer pyramid or offer suite.It was $20 and I had like 300 followers on Instagram and 47 people on my mailing list…I also paid for Facebook ads that did absolutely nothing for me because I had no idea what I was doing. I am on team organic growth and sales until you’re established. Then enter into paid advertising when you can hire an expert to do it for you. That’s my personal take, you can have yours.Do the math - $20 and a small audience is not how you make a sustainable income online or in person. And I did a challenge every quarter. The most I ever had was 52 people I think. Thats $1,040 folks…Mind you, it was not easy to run these challenges either. You heard me list off what was included! Videos, daily workouts, emails, facebook group, PDFs.And Lord knows barely any of that was automated. I was doing an ungodly amount of work for barely any money. NOT A GOOD BUSINESS MODEL.

So,

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YOUR TIME NEEDS PROTECTING.

Time is THE MOST important in my opinion. It’s one of the only things in life we don’t get back. I don’t say that to be dramatic, rather realistic.

When it comes to relationships, goals, rest and anything valuable to you, I encourage you to focus on learning to protect your time.

You have choices. And those choices often either include you being in control of how your time is used or you allowing others to dictate how your time is used. Because that is the truth - yes, there are always things that will happen outside of your control. That’s life. But far too often, I think people allow other people and circumstances to use up their time when they’d rather be using it otherwise.

That’s the real topic of today - how to lead with decisions that feed how you ACTUALLY want to use your time. And this WILL inevitably cause you to get uncomfortable because it means saying no to people, turning down invitations, and having people question you. THAT can be a very hard reality for some people. You don’t want to disappoint, or feel awkward, or have someone else feel awkward.

But you are not responsible for the way your NO makes someone else FEEL. That’s in their backpack, not yours. More on that later.

So, just know that protecting your time sounds fancy, and liberating. But it’s not easy, and you may offend loved ones and friends in the process. Just a heads up.

Now, let’s get into the three ways you can start protecting your time.

And in protecting your time - creating more freedom, space, and clarity for you. To reach goals, create goals, or just do whatever the heck you want to with it!

Number one…

SET & EMBRACE BOUNDARIES

As an entrepreneur and someone who has taken training very seriously over the years, learning to set boundaries around my time has been monumental for reaching goals and staying on course. And this is not something I am naturally good at. I don’t know that anyone is naturally good at this to be honest.

I can imagine for moms, protecting your time is HUGE. By default, part of your time is simply NOT YOURS. This is also why I tell single women to chase their freaking dreams with everything they have while there is no significant other or small humans to consider in that process. It’s the optimal time to be selfish. So I encourage it heavily. That’s not to say you can’t chase dreams and goals in a relationship or while raising kids, but it would be naive and borderline ignorant to think it’s the same as doing so without having other people to consider.

As moms, you have the demands of other humans whose survival literally depends on you. So, protecting the small amount of time you get yourself can be a game changer.

I also want to point out this doesn’t have to be bath tub time or self pamper time. It’s just saying you’re going to spend X amount time doing Y and then setting boundaries to protect that relationship with yourself and your time. So whatever it is that YOU want to do with YOUR TIME - that’s what I am referring to.

So, how do we set boundaries around our time?

First off, you can’t have a boundary if you don’t know what you’re keeping in and out of bounds right? And side note - you’ll find that all three of these “ways to protect your time” overlap and can be used together.

For setting and embracing boundaries - you’ll need to come up with the actual boundaries.

If you work for yourself, this is stopping work at a certain time, or perhaps dedicating a certain amount of hours to work per week.

For anyone - this could be sleeping with your phone in a different room.

In relationships this could be how much time you give a certain person per week or per day depending on the relationship. How much time you give to a certain task within that relationship.

Play with this. There is no boundary to boundaries. You have time, and you’re simply deciding what is a yes and what is a no for that.

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CARDIO IS NEEDED. PERIOD.

It’s no secret that I like lifting weights more than doing cardio.

That includes any form of cardio - lifting weights faster, running, rowing, biking, stairs, hiking, all of it.

BUT - we need cardio and being conditioned has awesome carry over into lifting more weights. So here we are, talking about cardio.

Imma share five reasons to do cardio. And I’ll likely dive a bit deeper into some of these than others, but I’m stoked for this one. So let’s get to it.

NUMBER 1: Improve energy systems

Under ESD we improve heart rate variability, improve our anaerobic and aerobic thresholds.

High HRV - anabolic state (recovery state)

Low HRV - catabolic state (lead to over training rather than over reaching)

Want to be anabolic AFTER training, which is also why a cool down is important. You’ve ramped yourself up from training, and are in a catabolic state. A cool down can help bring it back to a more anabolic, parasympathetic state.

It’s not only WORKING at a certain heart rate but then working on getting it DOWN in the rest interval - often 50 beats below max during the working period. This has huge carryover into strength training and work capacity. Your ability to bring the heart rate rate down after a working set so that accumulation doesn’t completely toast you when you should be focused on taxing the muscles.

It just teaches you so much and it brought me back to loving cardio and conditioning after hating it for years. And that’s because I had purpose for it. There were goals within the heart rate training and it gave me a protocol to follow. Which for me, makes it more enjoyable and attainable. For instance I needed to keep heart rate at 170 +- 5 beats per minute for three minutes. And then rest for two minutes or until my heart rate drops to 130. And that’s how you track progress - how quickly the heart rate recovers. When it starts to not recover, you know you’re reaching your current threshold.

ANYWAY - you can see why it’s amazing and effective.

I have been following Joel Jamieson for almost 10 years now. Before Instagram posts were education based, I used his blog, 8 Weeks Out almost exclusively for conditioning information.

And then of course I use his protocols in BBA for conditioning - and that’s from his book Ultimate MMA Conditioning. It’s a super easy but understandable read, and has progressive protocols for cardiac output, thresholds, high intensity continuous training, cardiac power intervals, and so on and so forth. It gives PURPOSE to your cardio and I swear once you know about energy systems development, you can’t go back and all other cardio feels pointless.

But, it’s not always pointless...which brings us to our next point.

NUMBER 2: Improve cardiovascular health

This is a follow up and likely a byproduct of number one. Ideally improving your energy systems improves your cardiovascular health.

And when I talk about cardiovascular health I am referring to your heart's ability to function optimally and efficiently. Get blood where it needs to go with the least amount of work.

That’s really it. As you improve heart rate variability and recovery, your heart becomes an efficient, well oiled machine, which then puts less stress on your heart.

NUMBER 3: Increase caloric deficit

This one is where “pointless cardio” is fine. This is not a scenario I use with my clients, but it can certainly be effective.

There is SOME truth to cardio being aligned with losing weight. And in the simplest form, it can increase your caloric deficit. We then need to consider your strength training. And in that case I’d suggest doing cardio separate from strength training or after strength training if they have to happen back to back.

I have a full call on this in Annie’s Secret Lab of Brain Gains, exclusive to Built By Annie. But if strength training is the main goal and cardio is just being used as a tool to burn more calories instead of eatin...

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HOW TO DEAL WITH INCONSISTENCY.

My goal for this episode is not to stop inconsistency for good, or give you a three step process to be consistent with everything always, but to help form a new mindset around inconsistency and give you some important questions to ask in that process.

We can’t talk about inconsistency without first having SOMETHING we’re trying to be consistent with.

You have a goal, you tell yourself you’re going to do it and then you keep falling short. We’ve literally all been there. You want to swear less, be more present with your kids, get to the gym 5 days per week, add in your cardio, start doing mobility, get eight hours of sleep, work three hours per week on your biz, whatever. This can be in a relationship, in the gym, with a specific area of health or fitness, with your kids, or with your business. Anywhere you could possibly have a goal of being consistent, you can fall short.

That’s what we’re exploring today - how to deal with that lack of consistency when you see it happening, particularly over and over again.

Just as a preface - I’ll be speaking from working with my training clients and business clients; as well as my own personal experience with inconsistency.

First off, I can tell you right now that shaming yourself and sitting in the “I’m just a failure” puddle of guilt is not going to benefit you.

So that’s def NOT the ticket to dealing with inconsistency. Listen to me now - inconsistency is simply a data point from which we can dissect WHY that inconsistency is happening and then make the needed adjustments.

I want you to embrace that - not literally embracing inconsistency, but inconsistency as a simple piece of data. Not a weight attached to your lack of abilities or self worth.

That’s the mindset shift piece of this.

Then comes the question - why is the inconsistency happening?

We’re simply collecting data so we can do better fam.

When a 1:1 client of mine seems to be struggling with adherence to their program or goals, we ask WHY?

There are three possible answers here.

1.) The goal needs to change

2.) You’re legit just being lazy and we need to build a new habit/embrace the grind and build some momentum

3.) The environment around the goal needs to change

When I say environment I mean that the goal is legit, it is not the problem, but life and scenario around that goal is moldable and needs to change.

Maybe the client wants to get 3 lifts per week in and is only getting 1 or 2.

We’re going to walk through this example. Feel free to apply it to whatever area of life you’re experiencing inconsistency with.

Option 1 - the goal needs to change. We’d choose this if nothing in the client's life can change. She’s doing everything and legit cannot get all programmed days in. We need to either drop expected days, or embrace the body weight at home options.

Option 2 - Client is being lazy, building momentum in the wrong direction and simply needs to turn it around. They just need to get it done. We need a kickstart, the one week of consistency that will lead to her making choices she wants to be making. Sometimes it really is that simple: it’s not one big thing, it’s just getting the work done. The grind, if you will. Sometimes we just have to grind.

Option 3 - Client is choosing to go out 1 or 2 nights per week. This includes a few drinks and that all leads to less sleep in those nights, lower weekly average of sleep, lack of motivation and momentum the next day. Which then leads to shame and feeling bloated, and like a failure... sounds aggressive and slightly dramatic, but that’s the story for this example and it’s real for a lot of people.

In this case life outside of training can change. Perhaps social life is a bit of a sacrifice, but it can indeed change and getting three days of training in is more important than the aftermath of those nights. Not to mention she’s in her 30’s now,

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WHERE IS YOUR PLACE IN THIS FIELD?

I am coming at this from the perspective that some of you are trying to find your place as a coach and some of you are trainees. And I honestly think it’s beneficial for coaches to understand WHERE their clients are so they can meet them there.

It can be SO HARD and take a long freaking time to feel like you belong in the health and fitness space. Whether it be online or in person. To really have a place and feel comfortable there. Not comfortable in a bad or restricting way, but like - really happy to take up the space that you do in this field.

Likewise as a trainee, you want to feel like you belong, like you’re joyful and confident in your health and fitness experience. And believe it or not, I think the answers are the same for both the trainer and the trainee in this situation.

Hear me out.

I believe there are a lot of factors that play into this.

The two main factors are your philosophy and the people/environment you put yourself in.

That is how you find your place.

And it won’t happen overnight. I mean, the people and environment scenario might happen overnight, but the philosophy will not.

And yes, let’s make it clear that I strongly believe in clients having and developing their philosophy around training or nutrition or whatever area of health they’re practicing. Your beliefs and thoughts in this area need to align with your coach of choice...so it matters.

That’s my take anyway. And I’m a huge advocate for client efficacy so that makes sense. I don’t think clients should do whatever their trainer says all the time, I encourage questions and I want clients to be curious just like I want professionals to be curious. No one should ever stop asking questions in my opinion. Again, it’s an opinion and a belief. And also probs because I am personally a questioner on Gretchen Rubin's 4 Tendencies so this is a natural part of my personality which I’m sure is annoying to some.

So let’s dive into the philosophy portion of finding your place in the world of fitness.

Finding your philosophy

Your space will naturally be within the facility of humans who either have a similar philosophy to you and/or the same values as you do.

I found my space in the in person space very much so in college athletics and performance rehab.

In the online space, I’ve found it with people who are education based, whether they are physical therapists, dietitians, strength coaches, or chiropractors. And yes, all of those humans are in my space. We share the same space because we are for educating our clients, being transparent, and being professionals. Those are my people. And let me tell you it took a HAWT minute to find them.

Small story time - when I entered Instagram and online training back in 2015, I had no space. I’ve talked about this before. I didn’t feel like I belonged. I hadn’t been exposed to anything in the fitness world other than the boxes. When I say boxes, I mean the powerlifter box, or bikini competitor box, or cross fitter box, or fitspro box, or doctor box. I was not in any of those boxes. My philosophy was based off part of all of the boxes, and I felt like if I just went all in with one of these boxes, I’d have community and find my place in this field.

But you and I both know that’s false. Which is why I didn’t do that. I simply kept sharing what I knew to be my truth in the world of lifting weights and moving your body.

Slowly, VERY. SLOWLY…I found my humans - my no bull shit, knowledge and application based humans. Five years later, I proudly take up my space in this field and that is largely in part due to other professionals welcoming me in that process.

It’s what I hope I am now doing for others on Instagram - providing a place for young coaches to develop their philosophy, ask questions, and put into practice what they’re learning. Who knows if it’s happening, but that’s the goal for sure.

So,

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QUARTER REVIEW + GOAL PLANNING.

This is early - and I clearly haven’t recapped my entire first quarter. But I have gathered all data thus far and started planning quarter 2. I really hate waiting to plan a quarter until I’m in it. If you’re new here or I haven’t mentioned it, I prefer to be a month or two ahead of schedule with as much as I can. That way I’m only doing real time work with things that have to be done real time.

For instance during a launch, all the emails and posts and Canva images are done. The emails are pre-scheduled and all I’m doing is showing up in real time on social media and viewing my numbers.

Therefore we’re here, discussing quarter one and two while still in quarter one.

If you don’t use quarterly planning and you’re an entrepreneur, I highly suggest it. This is something I wish I would have started way earlier in business. You don’t need a complex business to benefit from quarterly planning.

I use Amber McCue's Fresh Start planner for my more tactical biz planning. And then Hilary Rushford's Elegant Excellence journal for the life/emotional/dreaming aspect of business. I think emotional health and awareness + aligning your life and biz are very important.

So that’s where I do my actual quarterly, and monthly planning.

As for quarter one of 2020 - we must discuss my annual goals because that’s where the quarterly goals and markers come from.

In quarter one so far, I’m am on track for my annual revenue goal which is lovely.

This is the joy in tracking numbers and doing quarterly goals. Because if I wasn’t on track for that goal, or any goal, I’d need to either change the goal, or determine how I’m going to reach the goal in the coming quarters.

So we’re on track for the annual revenue goal. If you don’t have revenue goals, I also encourage you to make that. And then look at how that might happen - how much does your offer cost? How many would you need to sell? How many launches or pushes does that mean? And so on. It’s a good practice to get into even if you’re just starting out.

In quarter one I also had a FitsPRO Foundations launch and a Built by Annie push, as well as down-sells from each of those.

That simply means that I had an enrollment period for those main programs and then a promo of some kind for another supporting offer right after those bigger enrollment periods.

Both of those launches went great and I want to dive into the context of those. Because it’s important to look at going forward. I have launches coming in quarter two and the numbers and data from quarter one are useful to me in planning those Q2 launches.

I straight up nailed the FitsPRO launch and down-sell to Instagram 101. It was my fourth or fifth launch of FitsPRO. Therefore I have data from 4-5 launches. I felt that I’d found the timing of what information to deliver when. But it was also the first week of the new year and that means people are ready to start something new. They’re inspired to take action and sign up for things. Therefore I take that context into consideration. That’s part of the process in business. You learn your seasons. When are people most willing and ready to buy? To invest? And to start a program?

In tracking my numbers from that launch I was able to plan the next launch which will be this month. Emails have already started going out to the waitlist. I realize it’s still quarter one but this launch will cross over into quarter two.

I tried a new promo last round for a downsell to IG101 and that went VERY WELL, even better than expected. It was the first time doing that. So I do plan to do something similar for future launches. Just like last round, I’ll track numbers and see how it goes.

As far as Built by Annie goes - I reached my goal of getting a certain amount ladies in the doors. But I did something VERY different this round.

So back in November I did a birthday month promo for four weeks. We call this a push vs a launch.

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TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG?

I purposely have this following the episode where I say if you’re in the online space you need to be better at writing. Because in some aspects, yes, I think blogging is dead, or is slowly dying. Perhaps it’s just a phase.

It’s not dead in A LOT of places, which is where I have decided to spend my time and shift my focus over the the last year or so.

I will say, I am not a wildly successful blogger. I enjoy writing and providing content for my audience, that’s why I do it. A goal of mine is to monetize my blog, as a lifestyle blog including personal content, travel, fitness, entrepreneurship and my fav brands/products.

With all of that background/disclaimer out of the way, let’s discuss if blogging is dead, and whether or not you should have one.

First off, if blogging is what you want your full time gig to be, you need to take Julie Solomon’s Pitch It Perfect course. I took it, it’s great. Also made clear to me that blogging is indeed a full time job, and it’s not my #1 passion even though I enjoy doing it.

So just keeping it real, if you want to be blogger, where your income is strictly from brand deals and sponsorships, then Julie Solomon is your guru. And welcome to a full time job.

As far as the Google algorithm and statistics go, yes, blogging is dying. I have several friends whose blog traffic has plummeted in the last year or so. We’re talking like 500% less daily traffic to their blog.

Now, that matters if you depend on SEO or search engine optimization for new leads to come to your blog. Which likely matters if you are indeed a full time blogger.

With that, I don’t have world wide or US stats on blog traffic across the board. I just know that something similar to the decrease in Instagram exposure seems to be happening to humans in the blogging world as well.

True for some, not true for others I’m sure.

That brings me to my thoughts on blogging and whether you should do it or not.

Just because Instagram views are down does not mean you stop posting all together or that your main squeeze humans are not interacting with your posts.

I believe the same is true for blogging.

I view blogging as a deeper dive into the topics I cover on IG, and with a wider span.

It’s also where my podcasts are hosted via show notes, so keep that in mind.

Via the blog and podcast, I can dive much deeper into program design, coaching, business, travel, personal experiences and my favorite brands and resources. And I can do it in a manner that is not annoying to those who don’t want to hear or read about those things.

A blog gives you a space to narrow your funnel from places like Instagram. It gets them off the social media platform and onto YOUR PLATFORM...onto your site. From there, hopefully they join a mailing list of some kind. This is like hitting the follow button on Instagram, or the subscribe button on YouTube or your podcast app.

Do you have to have a blog to build an email list or loyal audience? No. 100% No.

But it’s a great place to serve your audience on a deeper level and expand your reach at the same time. If Instagram is your first step in the funnel, your blog would be the next.

So no, I don’t think blogging is DEAD. I think that’s a bit dramatic. But I think we have to shift with the times.

Again, I don’t have stats, but I imagine less people are cooking from home and more humans who may have cooked from home in the past are using things like Hello Fresh or other meal delivery services. So if you’re a food blogger, that may effect you.

For fitness, I used to LIVE on blogs like T Nation, Livestrong and 8 Weeks Out when I first started my career. But now I’ll be honest, I get most my knowledge and daily reading from Instagram. With swipe posts, doctors and small blogs in the captions, I can get most of what I’m looking for on a platform that I’m already on. And outside of that, I tend to just read research articles.

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THE ONE THING I SUGGEST YOU WORK ON AS AN ONLINE BIZ OWNER.

This episode is really two things I think online entrepreneurs should always be working on, but even if you know one...it doesn’t do you any good if you can’t do the other.

We communicate in the online world, MOSTLY via writing.

Now there is a caveat here. And that is if you solely use video or some other medium to communicate in the online space. Say you have a YouTube Channel or you only make videos for Instagram and then your product or service doesn’t have a sales page with writing, rather people have to apply to get on a call with you and that’s where you make the sale.

IF THAT IS YOU, then this mostly doesn’t apply to you.

But if you’re like most other sole preneuers in the online world, and write captions for Instagram or emails or blog posts and have a sales page on your site or landing page where someone will decide to enroll in your program or not... well then, I’m talking to you.

You need to, and will likely forever need to get good at writing.

This does not mean you need to be an author, or have perfect grammar. What I really mean when I say “get good at writing” is spend time improving your ability to communicate through the written word.

It makes sense doesn’t it?

If how most of your humans hear about you, your offer, and what you do is through reading...it makes sense that you’d want to get better and better at writing to your audience, yes?

So, when I say that writing is the #1 thing I think entrepreneurs should work on, it’s really a two part deal.

If you get better at communicating through the written word, that’s great...but you also need to be clear on what it is that you’re communicating and who you’re speaking to.

That’s where part 1, or 2 if you want to call it that, comes in. You forever need to know your ideal client and be working on how to communicate to her or him effectively. In a way that makes them feel as though you already know them, yet you’ve never met.

So I suppose part 1 is knowing your ideal client, and part 2 is the writing piece. How good are you at communicating with your ideal client? We are forever improving on both of these through our entrepreneurial journey.

That’s in part because you should be writing to him or her in most of your free content on social media, on your sales page, and day to day if you actually have clients already.

You’re always learning, getting feedback and diving deeper into who it is you’re here to serve in this world.

And if you’re on Instagram or want to have an expert presence on Instagram...congratulations, you’re now a writer.

Any area you provide free content to your audience is an opportunity for you to practice your writing. How you communicate to your dream client. To your human of choice.

It’s a chance to use new verbiage, new examples, see what sticks and how people react.

You might not think you’re writer and you might resist it still, as you listen to this. But it would behoove you to embrace the idea that you ARE in fact a writer. That you have the space and ability to improve. And that if you do improve, you will see growth in your audience, interaction and inquiries to work with you.

It is no secret that in the comment section of my posts and in my DMs you can find comments like “woah I’ve never felt so seen in my entire life. It’s like I almost have chills because this is so accurate.” And “never felt so understood and seen by anyone I’ve ever met” and “wait, has Annie been secretly stalking me?”

No I didn’t make those up. Those are direct quotes from my Instagram comments. You can read the post in the show notes and see for yourself.

Those comments and DMs roll in for two reasons - I’ve spent an aggressive and dedicated two years learning about my ideal client and working on my ability to communicate through writing.

Now, how do you get better at writing?

I get it. I am aware that I actually enjoy writing,

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HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST EXERCISES.

There are infinite exercises in the world. And if an exercise is any form of movement, then the choices are, quite LITERALLY, infinite.

The issue with this is that it can be overwhelming when you need to choose only 5-6 exercises for a lift and there are HUNDREDS to choose from. I get it.

The other issue I see with this is that coaches, trainers and trainees often just choose 6-8 exercises from under the sun and run their clients or themselves into the ground thinking that they are being effective, when that is likely the furthest thing from the truth.

It’s more likely that if they continue down this “any asshole can write a hard workout” path of programming, imbalance and injury will set it. Also, constant confusion is not how you get results. So there’s that.

We’re here now to discuss how to select exercises that are NOT from the “any asshole can write a hard workout” playbook.

The goal of today’s episode is to help you, whether a coach or trainee, to experience more ease, logic and confidence when choosing what exercises to do and when.

As you know, I believe knowledge is power, and EMPOWERING. I think when we feel informed and educated on a topic, we gain confidence and take more action in that area of life. This case - in the gym or in your programming.

Today should also help you understand why your coach might have chosen a certain exercise for you. Maybe you hate it, but since you can at least grasp the purpose of the exercise, you’re more willing to do it.

Now, let’s define what I mean when I say exercise selection:

It is the decision to choose a given exercise and the REASON for choosing it.

The reason you might choose an exercise typically revolves around strengthening an area, improving mobility in an area, gaining power through certain muscle groups, the functional aspect of the exercise, or to build muscle in a given muscle or muscle group.

Which means we first need to determine the goal at hand. Then we choose the most appropriate exercise.

If you want to increase power output, doing no dynamic work is not going to be very effective, right?

You can also choose one exercise for very different reasons.

Maybe one person squats to strictly gain strength while another does it for a physique goal - to have a balanced lower half.

We must consider the goal.

The goal for the majority of my programming combines these, and then leans more heavily towards some than others depending on the client:

Improve mobilityIncrease strengthIncrease work capacity

And we’re always improving movement patterns.

But the REAL goal within all of those remains:

To create balanced work for the joints (push, pull, vertical/horizontal push pull, squatting vs. hinging etc etc)

This is also why I encourage coaches to use an assessment of some kind. If you don’t know where your client is starting from, at least for 1:1, how can you program in a manner that will yield results?

My two week assessment lets me know all mobility restrictions + if my client is squat dominant, right or left leg dominant, right or left arm dominant, push or pull dominant, if they have a grip strength discrepancy, if they are strength vs. capacity dominant and so on.

THAT is what I base my 1:1 programming off of. If you have no clue what I am talking about, take the Active Life Immersion Course for coaches.

If you’re strictly going off of training goals, or aesthetics, this can be a much simpler process.

Goal - increase muscle mass in shoulders and glutes.

Or widen my back, and grow my quads.

Those programs wouldn’t be in line with my programming style of balancing the body joint by joint. The exercise selection in the body part specific program is going to favor say deadlifts, hip thrusts, and more hip dominant work, where as the quad growth goal program will favor squats, split squats and knee dominant exercises.

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ARE YOU REALLY HEALTHY?

Today will challenge your view of health and it might just ruffle a few feathers but what’s new? I am not here to make you feel good. Or for us to agree on everything. I am here to challenge you and raise the standard.

So here we are.

This topic came to me in 2018 when we started traveling and continued to intensify as we made our way around the globe.

Here’s the pressing question…

Are you “healthy” if you can’t travel without 16 powders, teas, remedies and pills? Would you survive without your kombucha and collagen?

I ask that on the premise that my view and definition of health has changed from perfection and stability to ADAPTABILITY.

Now, this was in fact me before we left for round one of travels. I took the same all natural pre-workout from silver fern, drank my collagen in my coffee every morning, took all my vitamins and the same protein after every workout. And finished up my day with some calm magnesium and home-frozen siggi’s yogurt. All the products may or may not still be linked on my amazon page.

But, traveling put things into perspective for me and that’s what I am sharing with you in today’s episode.

Not to take you away from all your supplements. But to perhaps help you see how amazing and resilient your body is...even WITHOUT all of the things.

And maybe to challenge your current definition or view of health.

I also don’t think there is ONE definition of health.

My picture of health before traveling the world was much more structured than it is now.

It was more extreme - eating almost the same thing daily for at least two of my meals, getting eight hours of sleep, lifting heavy weights, taking all my supplements, focusing on nutrient timing and so on.

I wouldn’t say I had a social life, or walked at all outside of my exercise.

Now, clearly what I just stated CAN be healthy. But it can also be extreme, and rarely are extremes healthy.

The goal was near perfection.

Now, the goal is much looser.

Like I stated, my version of health is now adaptability.

Are you so married to one type of exercise that you’re unwilling to move your body in another way just for the sake of taking care of yourself?

Because that’s not healthy.

Does your gut freak out if you’re not on a perfect diet?

While I realize that can be SO REAL, that is not healthy. Many in the health space in the states are working to restore their gut. My question is, once restored, can your gut adapt to and tolerate different cuisines and variance in your diet?

I just found myself thinking SO OFTEN during our travels “so many people wouldn’t, or couldn’t do this because of their “healthy” lifestyle.”

I don’t mean to offend. And I really don’t feel like I’m articulating this well. But I’m hoping it lands somewhere on the board and you get what I’m trying to say.

I guess I see health now as more well rounded, and more grey. We walk so much more than we used to and I hated that when we got home we stopped walking.

I enjoy the diversity of foods we eat. Those experiences enhance my life. I am not restricted by foods - Nate definitely becomes more sensitive to dairy when his stress is higher. It’s realizing things like that. Is it the food? Or the stress? The lack of sleep? You know?

Many parameters are the same for us.

I got so many DMs when we travel - how do you stay in shape? How do you find healthy foods to eat? How do you deal with a lack of lifting weights?

And those questions are welcome.

I am sad if that’s the top things you consider when TRAVELING THE WORLD.

But to answer them - we walk a lot, we go on runs, Nate ran the stairs in our apartment the other day, we do body weight workouts and have bands, and we get gym memberships when we can. Ideal? No. Extreme? No. Healthy? 100%.

Extreme was my struggle in the beginning of travels 2018 - if I didn’t have weights, I wasn’t working out. And I HATED THAT.

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IF YOU'RE HUMAN, YOU'VE EXPERIENCED A SLUMP.

I have wanted to speak on this topic for a long time. And I think that’s partially because sometimes I feel like people think I don’t experience slumps, or low motivation. Which is hilarious because motivation is NOT how people become successful in any area of life. Discipline and a strong why is how I believe people build success - in the gym, in life, in business, in relationships.

With that, I think we’ve all experienced a slump in life or biz or fitness. You just have no motivation or motivation for the wrong things.

Like you’re motivated to work on creative things but they’re really just busy work and have nothing to do with your essential task. Example - wakes up wanting to create new content for a project that isn’t on the table until 2021…but should really track numbers from your last launch…yes, this was me last month.

Or you go to the gym and just walk on the treadmill instead of getting your lift in (we’ll talk about this).

Or you’re just beside yourself. Not in an angry or upset way. But you’re observing your current state and not digging it? Have you ever been there? You’re not where you think you should be, you’re unsatisfied but not sure why? Something is just OFF.

Today I plan to give you three tools to pull yourself out of the slump and into the RIGHT ACTION - to get you feeling accomplished and proud of your decisions. In alignment if you will.

Before we dive into these tactics I want to make clear that this will take time and effort no matter which you choose. I may be helping you get out of a slump but it won’t be by snapping your fingers.

Also, mind you that these tips are coming from a very systematic, black and white human. So these may be different than what might be best for you. Either way, let’s get to it!

1 - Revisit the year plan, month plan, big goal, or weekly tasks.

This tip assumes that you have already established a goal, some destination you’d like to reach this year or month or whatever. It assumes you have taken the time to set a new standard, and you’re feeling off track from the original route.

If you have not actually laid out your goal with an action plan…well that’s your new step one.

I’ll share my example because like I said, this literally happened to me a while back. I felt like I was twiddling my fingers and kind of wading in the water versus going to toward a goal with clarity.

It doesn’t take long for me to address this issue because wading in the water is not productive and I hate not being productive.

So, I used tool #1.

I found myself wanting to start a new project - a project I don’t plan to start until 2021 or while we’re home for three months in 2020. THAT is not what I needed to be doing. And it would not have been a wise use of my time. I was aware of that, yet I still felt lost as to how I SHOULD be spending my time.

Enter revisiting the year, month or week plan. Or all of those for that matter.

I plan three priorities for my week. This happens on Fridays, when I review my week - three wins, three lessons, three priorities for the upcoming week.

I learned this practice in my mastermind in 2019 and while it was overwhelming at first, it was SO EFFECTIVE for me. Therefore I’ve kept that habit rolling strong into 2020.

For the week we’re discussing, I’d laid out my three priorities in my journal. It just so happened that I’d already accomplished two of my three priorities - two tasks which had a lot of stress tied to them.

This is likely why I was left feeling unmotivated and a bit drained after completing them. When Thursday rolled around, I was lost. Blank schedule. So why not create something new, right?! NO. Sure, maybe if the top priorities are done. But they weren’t.

So instead of starting a brand new project, I got my eyeballs on the third priority. And that felt UH-MAZING. It had been a top priority to draft up podcasts through the time that we’d be in Pa...

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To offer FREE or not to offer FREE?

Before we dive into this episode I am officially starting to pick reviews of the week and reading them at the beginning of each episode! This is low key super exciting for me because it still baffles me that there are human beings who listen to me week after week. I’ll receive DM’s from people who find the podcast, binge listen to it and then tell me how much it’s helping their coaching, biz or life and I just can’t even with myself.

So, review of the week comes from Lindsey580

That means you have been entered to be the listener of the month, which will receive a non-membership program of choice for 50% off.

Noooowww for today’s topic.

This has been an ongoing conversation since the beginning of business I am sure.

To offer free things or not to offer free things

I’ll start out with a giant spoiler alert…YES. You need to offer things FO FREE. But we can’t say that without discussing the spectrum. Because there is definitely a spectrum.

What I mean by that, is that there are different types of free content and that free content does different things for your biz.

Lucky for you, we are diving into ALL of them today.

Free content to establish trust

Social media content - high volume + no upsell (typically).

This is not directly related to your offer. But still adds value to your audience. You’re providing tips, tricks and truths that your warmer leads will take, apply and see value in. These humans will likely purchase from you down the line.

Email newsletters - a step up from social media.

Again this content is free. But these people have done more than hit the follow button. You’re not just a part of their daily scroll, where they’re seeing hundreds of other accounts. The humans said, yes Tina, I want more from you. I never want to miss what you’re layin’ down. So Imma put my name on your email list. This human knows they are your people, and are likely interested in your offers.

Blogs, YouTube videos, Podcasts - similar to social media. Free - not directly related to up-sell or specific offer of any kind.

Yes some blogs, emails or podcasts will be directly mentioning or offering something if someone joins your program, but that is not the purpose of the content most of the time.

These are just another way to provide deeper value than an Instagram post. Same topics you probably discuss on insta, but with more depth.

Everything above is free and you should at least be doing one of these on a consistent basis.

Those were free content not attached to any specific offer. Meaning there’s not a direct up-sell to your program.

Freebie to upsell

Now we get into your freebie, as I call it.

This is your intentional free content meant to give a potential client a taste of your offer, and then up-sell them. The goal is to get them to sign up for your program from the freebie.

Now, this could be anywhere from a PDF download to an hour long webinar or 5 day challenge.

You’ve got options here.

We can use a freebie from social media or your site such as my Free 3 Day Mobility + Core (this is pulled directly from BBA).

You get to choose how soon after the downloadable PDF you attempt to up-sell to your program. Mine is a 3 week email drip system that gets people to purchase Big Lift Audit or join the BBA waitlist. Now, I am always playing with this to see how we can get higher conversions. But I share just as an example of what can be done. And why you’d have a downloadable PDF.

A webinar is something I use for selling Fitspro Foundations. I have my free three mistakes online health and fitness coaches make in their biz and how to fix them in one week. This is an hour-long intensive life webinar. The three mistakes are pulled directly from FitsPro Foundations. This is super valuable whether someone enrolls in Fitspro or not. But if someone is on the fence, or considering Fitspro, it is a perfect way to spend one hour sharing ...

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[lack of humility and credentials amongst “health coaches”]

This is a short follow up episode to last week’s talk on the importance of training people in person before transitioning to the online space (focusing on the different types entitlement with coaches).

Even when I posted in my stories that I was going to touch on this topic, I was immediately flooded with DM’s from people looking forward to the conversation.

So here we are, with a deeper and more specific episode about what I see as entitlement in the online space of health and fitness.

Imma address this from two angles.

One being from newbs - trainers fresh out of certification or schooling and they want to live that financial freedom, work from anywhere, online coaching biz life…

Second being from coaches who have worked in person for five years or so, and expect to transition online, fill their client roster ASAP and be respected from the get go…

Both scenarios are REAL - I have seen and had conversations with both, and neither will lead to success. Which is why we’re here. To face facts, and do better.

Some fields and job forces require a “climb the ladder” approach.

I’d say fitness, personal training and coaching in a CrossFit box all fit into that category.

It is a field that requires experience in order to build trust - from your colleagues and potential clientele.

Who you associate with and learn from can be monumental for your success. But no matter what, YOU NEED EXPERIENCE.

And that experience might come at a cost to you - your time, FO FREE.

It’s called an internship, or apprenticeship. You gain invaluable experience, at the payment of resources, referrals, and references that do good for your name.

ENTITLEMENT SCENARIO #1 - THE NEWB

This - this is what is missing in the online space. We’re talking scenario one now. The newb baby coach who has little experience, resources, or a network but wants to live that online coach lifestyle.

And let’s not even get into the lack of business experience in this scenario as well. Like you’re trying to get clients with little to no actual hands on training experience and then also trying to build a business at the same time. GOOD. LUCK. It’s not wonder the lack of success is REAL.

The culture of fitness is changing and transitioning to the online space. It has been doing so for the last five years at least. You can find top notch programming and coaching services from people all over the world. It removes the ceiling for the trainers, and increases resources for the trainee.

So yes, it’s amazing.

But with this valuable online space, we must still hold a standard for new up-and-coming trainers.

The reality is, if you want TRUE success in this field, especially online, (and by “true” I mean sustainable results for your clients and income for you), you have to start at the bottom and work your way up.

Now that doesn’t need to take five years. But I do believe the more experience you get in person, working under coaches you look up to, the more success you’ll have online IF you can translate it well.

There is much to be learned after you get that certification. SO. MUCH. TO. BE. LEARNED.

And by all means, build your online platform WHILE WORKING IN PERSON! I am not saying you can’t have a voice in the online space until you’ve trained in person. What I am saying that I’d like to squash the entitlement that people should somehow trust you, and pay you money when you have built 0% reputation in the industry.

So, I'm squashing entitlement and encouraging both - GET ALL THE IN PERSON EXPERIENCE YOU CAN - while building your online platform and ALSO learning about that space. It will make your transition so much easier. And then you won’t end up like scenario #2…

ENTITLEMENT SCENARIO #2 - THE TRANSITION-ER

The experienced coach who has little experience in the online space but knows their shit in the face to face training space tries to make the tra...

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DO NOT COACH ONLINE BEFORE HAVING COACHED IN PERSON.

In the world of online health and fitness, it is becoming more and more common for people to want to be online coaches straight out of the gate instead of coaching in person first. I may even do another episode on that issue all together and how I see it as entitlement and a desire for quick success vs. client servanthood and changing this industry. I digress…

So, for today’s episode - someone either graduated college with their exercise and sports science, kinesiology, biomechanics degree AND/OR, they get their certification and want the freedom of coaching online before they have significant experience coaching in person.

It’s a thing. I know because I receive DM’s about it all the time from young coaches wanting to build an online business.

And I never encourage a coach to work online without first having worked in person.

Just like I would never encourage someone to be an online client before having worked with a coach and received instruction IN PERSON.

It goes both ways in my opinion. There is too much value to be missed in the in person experience for both the client and the trainer when you jump straight to online training.

I believe there is invaluable experience when working with clients and other coaches in a real, face to face setting. Your certification or education is nothing without job force experience.

Do you know how to apply that knowledge to a human being?

Do you understand the different ways a person can squat?

Have you coached a human through the bench press or pull up?

Have you helped someone move around their injuries? Had hard conversations with clients who are hyper focused on their physical image?

Direct translations from in person to online

Things I learned from working as an in person trainer, strength coach and performance coach in the private, college and physical therapy sector include, but are not limited to:

Customer service - how you greet a client. The importance of the client experience.Time management on the floor and off the floor - how to time a 45 minute or hour session appropriately including a full warm up.Boundaries - what happens when a client no shows? Calls the morning of? How is that dealt with? You might be thinking that has no carryover to the online world but it 100% does. Coaches do not consider all scenarios before having contracts written up.Programming - this is a topic I get asked about maybe more than anything by fellow coaches. I’ve said someday I’ll create a programming course, because I know there is such a high demand for people who want to understand the ins and outs of programming + feel confident in their ability to assess & program efficiently. So, no surprise here...working in person is a freaking gem for programming.

You get to see first hand different limitations people have, commonalities in the assessment process. You’ll find your go-to back up exercises and quick on the spot alterations to certain movement patterns. You weave creativity with efficient purposeful programming. So, you’re gaining experience actually writing the programming ahead of time, and then you get the on the spot trial and error + direct feedback from the client.

I’m also going to add grit to this conversation. In person schedule and online schedule are polar opposites. In person you’ll likely work a split shift, 5 or 6am start time to about 10 or 11am. Break from 11 or noon to 4pm. Get your lift in, some lunch and programming, then train clients until 8pm. Your hours will often be opposite of normal work hours. Now, this could be TOTALLY false depending on the sector you work in. Obviously this was my truth for seven years of coaching in person, but in college athletics it was 5:45am to 7pm with teams in and out of the weight room all day. And it was a different schedule depending on the day. At the physical therapy clinic it was a mixture of the two,

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MY VIEW OF MANTRAS + FAV MANTRAS TO DATE.

I actually used to think mantras were kind of woo woo and stupid. But when you learn more, you know more and you can then make decisions based on that knowledge.

Now, I didn’t look up, nor do I know the definition of a mantra. But I know I was thinking of them in a restricted manner before. So I’ll share my journey to embracing mantras and then walk you through my four favs over the last two years or so.

Looking back, I’ve used “mantras” pretty heavily throughout my life whether it was in sports or religion. Many uses of positive self talk are in a mantra-like form. I’ve certainly used them by default with lifting weights - repeating the same word or phrase before a lift or even during a lift in order to get me through it with a positive and successful mindset.

I personally think of mantras as a word or phrase we repeat with the intent of changing our current reality into one we desire more than our current state. Often, if not always, mantras are things we either believe, or want to believe.

So, when I started thinking of mantras as a simple mental practice to better myself, it opened doors of possibility. Because like, I said, I had previously thought of mantras as something that happened with a shaman in a cave with smoke and ancestors. Which may also be true, but not the practice i was looking for. To each his own.

Okay, let’s get into my fav mantras that I have used and seen growth from over the past two years or so.

The first one comes from an entrepreneurial standpoint FOR SURE. I don’t remember if Allison Tenney or my Mastermind said it first, but it was def from one of those humans.

Mantra #1 is:

THIS CAN BE EASY

It is so common to feel overwhelm and mild panic in the work of entrepreneurship. Shit hits the fan more often than not, especially when you’re just starting out. Obviously with the more experience you have, the more confidence you gain in your ability to solve problems and roll with the punches.

But even then, it’s never fun to have the wrong email link go out to thousands of people, or the internet to crash during your live call, or just...doing your taxes, in general.

So when we got home, I was pretty stressed and had given myself some rather unrealistic deadlines for producing and launching the Big Lift Audit with an update to Built By Annie. It was a lot. There were tears. And Nate and I had also planned a two week road trip during this period of time for his birthday, so the pressure was on to get a nauseating amount of work done in a VERY short time.

And so I started repeating “this can be easy” “this can be easy” - and I kid you not, just verbalizing that possibility into reality brought a sense of calmness and confidence in myself. It went from complete and utter chaotic overwhelm to “We can do this. People need this. What needs to happen first?”

That was the first time I REALLY put this mantra to work and I have used it countless times since, in order to keep my cool and accomplish something that seems overwhelming, unrealistic, or just down right frustrating.

In the process of hiring my virtual assistant, contacting the state, and creating and terminating accounts for two months, you better believe “this can be easy” kept me from physically reaching through the phone to rip off the heads of state employment officials.

So, give it a try in literally ANY area of life when you need something to feel more possible than it feels right now. I’d even use this in lifting or a hard workout. It’s a simple mindset shift into possibilities.

There is a #1.5 that kind of goes along with #1.

I have time

I heard this from one of my 1:1 clients. She was in a stressful season and had a lot going on. It was more than she felt like she had time for. So she was repeating “I have time.” I immediately fell in love with this phrase and have used it on several occasions since then.

Again,

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LIFE. TRAVEL. BABIES. NATE. WORK LIFE BALANCE.

Life updates! Today is the first podcast of 2020 and at the date you’re listening to this, Nate and I are likely aboard a plane to Mexico City, which is our first location of many on round two of world travels.

Now, I realize I titled this podcast episode “Life Update & Travel Itinerary.” But it’s going to feel like a travel podcast simply because that’s the bulk of our life on 2020. We will also talk kids, work life balance, and what Nate does in all of this. For those of you who don’t know, Nate or Nathanael is my husband of six and a half years now.

So today you will for sure get our travel itinerary - as much as we have planned anyway. And our plan for coming home between our travel bouts. Because no, this time we are not traveling for a year straight.

That was the goal the first time around - travel the world for 365 days. But this time around, we’re being more picky and strategic with our travels.

Here we go, let’s dive into some life topics and updates.

Oh, but first - if you’re not following @meanderingmillers on Instagram make sure you do so. I’ll be saving IG stories there for each location. And then also make sure you join my mailing list for Annie’s Weekly Wrap which includes a recap of Instagram, travel blogs, podcasts and my current fav brands.

Okay, now let’s actually dive in.

2020 Travel Itinerary

We shall start off with the fun stuff - our 2020 travel itinerary and some details within that.

As I stated, we are starting off with two weeks in Mexico City.

Why Mexico City? A bustling city with over 20 million residents? Because it was on our list last time and we didn’t go. Their food is amazing from what we have read in blogs and seen on YouTube food travel channels, it’s a bang for your buck location and we wanted to work our way down to Patagonia so that we’d be in Patagonia in February and/or March. January is peak season in Patagonia and we wanted to avoid that as much as possible. It will still be busy when we’re there because it's Patagonia, especially since the southern most regions have a rather short season for visiting.

It just made sense to start in Mexico City. We also want to see the ruins and pyramids near Mexico City. And Nate made sure we’re staying in a “hipster” or “nomadic” neighborhood. Basically we’re staying in the safest neighborhood with the most food options. For those of you who don’t know, food is a HUGE motivator for our travels and especially for our Airbnb or accommodation choices.

We also made sure to get an apartment with a gym in it for our first location because we wanted the transition to world travel to be as smooth as possible. Having access to a gym and not having to find one, and figure out week passes, or day passes, helps that process.

After two weeks in Mexico City, eating all of the tacos for 80 cents, we head to Santa Marta, Colombia for one week.

Last round, we were actually deciding between Santa Marta and Rio De Janeiro, Brazil for our month long stay in South America. We chose Rio and absolutely loved every second of it. We’d love to go back and visit again in the future if the political situation is stable and safe.

Santa Marta is a small coastal town just east of Cartagena. It’s less touristy and more laid back than Cartagena. And last time around we chose Rio for the versatility and access to fast WiFi, which I need that for my work. We will spend 7 days in Santa Marta, which is enough time to enjoy the Colombian beaches and get up to the National Park which I’m the most excited for. Nate and I definitely lean toward natural beauty over cities.

Then we have a short flight to Medellín - another one that has been on my list for a long time. Medellín is obviously known for its history with drugs and narcotics and of course, Pablo Escobar. But for at least 10-20 years now, it’s been on the up and up and is a thriving metropolis from the research we’ve done.

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LETTING GOOD THINGS GO, FOR THE WIN.

Today’s episode is based in something that I’ve talked a lot about before, and that is the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I first read this book from an entrepreneurial standpoint, but I think the practice of essentialism is applicable to anyone and everyone.

For me, the biggest take away from the book was this idea that in order to become an essentialist, you have to practice only saying Yes to things, people, and events that are a Hell Yes. And you basically say No to everything else.

That makes sense and sounds good enough on the surface level, but when you dig a little deeper, Greg McKeown makes clear that that means saying No to things that might be a Yes, just not a Hell Yes. That means saying No to good things. Which is exactly where today’s podcast episode comes from. Because I think it’s a very important point to make when we get serious about deciding how we want to spend our time and how we might reach any goals that we have for ourselves, whether it be in life or in business.

The daily practice of essentialism.

Like anything you want to be good at, it’s going to take effort on a weekly, if not daily basis. It will require you to be mindful of not only big decisions, but little decisions. And ideally these decisions are either leading you toward or away from whatever it is that you’re trying to get to.

So I do think it is equally as important to have some sort of direction. In fact I don’t think you can really practice essentialism if you don’t have some sort of goal or direction that you are trying to work toward.

And I make the point that it is going to be a daily practice, because it’s not easy to say No to things that would usually be a Yes. To say No to otherwise good things.

I’ve used this example before in my Instagram stories, but for a season of my business I completely stopped blogging, because it wasn’t a Hell Yes for that season. I had a lot of other things that were at a higher priority for where I wanted to go and what my focus was for the given season of my life and business. Blogging is a great thing. It helps my audience, gives me exposure, and I enjoy doing it as a creative outlet. It’s a “good thing”, but it was not a Hell Yes for my given season. Therefore it was a No.

The same could be said for training really hard versus just moving my body and maintaining. There are seasons where pushing my body to new limits is a Hell Yes and there are seasons where that’s a No. That doesn’t mean that I don’t work out at all, it just means that going hard in the paint is not a Hell Yes for the given time.

Like I said, the practice of essentialism takes daily efforts and mindfulness. It’s not easy to say No to things that are Yes typically. But the more you do it, the more you see how beneficial it is for your life and getting you where you want to go.

I would also note that it’s very freeing. It felt so good in that season of my business where I didn’t blog to know that I could go back to blogging at any time. Just because it wasn’t a Hell Yes for a month or two of my business didn’t mean that I would never blog again. it didn’t mean that it was forever a No. It just meant that for a given duration, it needed to be a No in order to create space for my Hell Yeses.

It’s definitely a struggle. Not an overnight thing.

We’re humans with feelings and passions and desires. While I am all about being multi passionate (look at Hilary Rushford, Jenna Kutcher, Joanna gains and Jordan Dooley). All doing all the things successfully. But they did them ONE. AT. A. TIME.

I truly do believe you can do all the things, just not all at once. This is a pillar of Essentialism. It’s literally the cover of the book. Instead of putting your efforts in 17 directions and getting nowhere fast, focus in on ONE or TWO directions and go ham.

I’m sure you’ve heard this suggestion and logic in some way before.

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2019 was honestly one of the best years of my life thus far. That is largely in part to traveling the world. It didn’t suck. As well as business growth and financial stability. YES, I believe we ought to be grateful in all states, which is easier said than done. But if we’re being honest, money does, to some extent, allow for more freedom and less specified stress IF dealt with like a good steward.

Which is something I’ll talk about a bit later, because money mindset was something I worked heavily on in 2019. This was simply because I was making more money and wanted to be responsible with it, but knew that I had false beliefs around money that would not benefit me, my marriage or my business.

So, kudos to world travel and business. Because its all a part of my life and self growth. I read less books and had more experiences. I made more friends on the internet than I’ve ever had in real life.

And I learned so much this year. So let’s dive into my five big takeaways from 2019.

I’m WAY more flexible

If you don’t know, I am an introverted Type A, ISTJ-A on Myers Briggs, 8 Enneagram and shift between a Questioner and Upholder on Gretchen Rubens four tendencies.

All of that means I like structure, systems and predictability. I want to know the end of the movie before I watch it. I want to repeat things that work and am slightly terrified of things are new to me, with no proof of being efficient or productive. You get my drift.

Now picture the person I just described, traveling the world while running and scaling an online business…

Really, that is WHY I can do both successfully, BUT like any scenario, our strengths are often our weaknesses as well.

When 2019 hit, we were off to South East Asia, very little of which we had planned. I had an option to remain uptight and want to plan every little thing (which is what I tend toward), or I could learn to go with the flow. At least a little more.

We actually got to the point that we were booking things as we went rather than super far in advance. I will say that we like having our flights and hotels booked ahead, just for peace of mind. But it’s so easy to travel in Southeast Asia that it was a great time to be more flexible. When we found out I was invited to go with Fre Skincare to Morocco and got the dates, we pretty much just filled our time between seven countries in Southeast Asia and then planned an impromptu road trip through Portugal before heading to Morocco.

That flexibility transferred to business and life in general. It’s still important for me to plan. But I am definitely more flexible with those plans and sometimes even find myself feeling restricted if my scheduled plans don’t align with what I feel like doing that day.

I don’t know if you are comprehending that that is a HUGE deal for me. I am a changed woman.

Another area of growth was relationships.

I made more friends

I went from starting college and working to being in college, working and interning, to working, training people in person and building an online business.

Add in the blaring introvert in me, and you can see why a social life was not a priority to me.

Yes, I had friends. But if I had a choice between getting coffee alone and getting coffee with a friend, I probably would have chosen alone. I was busy, SO BUSY. And I reset by being alone, slowing down, reflecting and creating space for my brain to breathe. Which is not how feel when with people, even people I love.

So, here I was 5-6 years in to being BUSY AF and not pursuing friends, to traveling the world with one human. A human I happen to love, and who I will spend the rest of my life with. But I’d yearned for more friends and connections for YEARS. And it was like a burning desire once I went all in on my online biz and started traveling the world.

It was very apparent I needed friends. And I happened to find mine on Instagram.

You think that’s weird?

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3 TRUTHS YOU NEED TO EMBRACE ABOUT PAIN

The topic of pain is so important to discuss as professionals in the health and fitness industry, and really, as a human being. If you’re human, you’ve experienced pain. And it’s so multifaceted because pain is, in a physical and emotional sense, perception. It’s subjective. Which for me is beautiful because it really takes away the comparison of one person's pain to another.

My objective today is to challenge some of your beliefs around pain, from both a fitness and emotional viewpoint.

And to hopefully give you some efficacy within your pain. You’ll be able to look back and reflect on past experiences with pain, as well as be better equipped the next time it enters your life. Again, from a fitness or emotional perspective.

My personal experience:

I have to state that I’m not a doctor or psychiatrist or mental healthcare professional. I’m just a girl who has experienced her fair share of pain through injuries and life experience. And I happen to be a certified strength and conditioning specialist who has one puny year of internship in a physical therapy clinic, and a whole lot more time as a patient in physical therapy (cue torn LCL, meniscus, 4 broken arms, years of ankle sprains, and a double roll over car accident, after which I went on to compete with my team at a competitive cheerleading completion, ending in a neck brace, followed by 9 months of chiropractic, PT and massage three days per week...and disc injuries ever since).

That lovely list is NOT to brag, but to simply to say I am not whipping this pain stuff out of thin air. I am speaking from experience both as a repeatedly injured human and as a current strength professional who does not want you to be in pain and/or be a victim to your pain.

Okay, now that we cleared up that this is not medical or mental health advice, let’s dive into the three things I think are monumentally powerful when talking about pain and how we experience it. And these are all HUGE for coaches or professionals who work with humans that may experience pain in the gym, so listen up.

I also want to give credit where credit is due. I have had these beliefs for the better part of 10 years, but they were re-instilled in me at Prehab 101 with Dr. Jacob Harden. And some of the verbiage I may use could be from him. So, strength coaches, PTs, chiros, go follow Jacob. @dr.jacob.harden on IG.

If you’re looking for another organization of professionals in line with these philosophies, check out Active Life Rx. They’re doing VERY big things and I actually just completed their Immersion Course for Coaches where we touched a lot on client communication and programming around pain.

So, holy cow, #1. I swear there will be tactical take aways here.

You are not your injury or diagnosis

Might sound simple but it can be freaking profound because it is WAY TOO COMMON for people to identify with their injury or diagnosis.

Hear me out:

I believe this for physical pain as well as emotional pain: you experience depression, you are not depressed. You have a disc injury currently and you go around saying “I have a bad back” like it can’t be fixed.

You are more than one aspect of your life. I don’t struggle with anxiety or depression but there are many other types of emotional pain someone can experience. If you’re human, you probably have some baggage and have experienced pain in some facet of life. And I believe it’s part of the human existence.

It is imperative that you view pain as an experience. Not as a permanent condition. Now, if we get into the weeds here and talk terminal illness or injury, it could get dicey. And I respect that. But that is not what I am referring to here.

My point is, that when you make it a permanent thing, you’ve removed the possibility of change. You’ve already limited yourself. And ultimately I don’t think that’s what you want.

So, plain and simple; that’s #1.

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YES TO LESS STRESS AROUND FINANCES & MONEY.

Oh money. Something we all have. But rarely talk about. We have so many stigmas around money. We believe lies based on what we observed before age seven.

It’s something we don’t learn nearly enough about in school (in my opinion) and quite frankly we often allow it to have far too much power in our lives for better or worse.

This is all magnifies if you happen to be an entrepreneur and are now managing not only your personal finances but also your business's.

And imma just go out on a limb and say that most entrepreneurs are WINGING their finances with no clue if they’re “doing it right.” I also don’t fully blame them because there is truly no rule book on this. No clear cut road map that fits all businesses. Then you add our personal money mindset issues and limiting beliefs and we have a super ineffective foundation and system for finances.

With all of this I have to make a disclaimer that I’m not a financial advisor or CPA. I’m not a money ANYTHING. I’m an entrepreneur who is navigating this all the same as you.

But I do feel I have some helpful tips for you, and I want to talk transparently about money because I don’t think money remains daunting or taboo when we bring it into the light. Then its power is taken away and it becomes another subject we can learn about, like anatomy, spirituality or language. Money is neutral. It’s an exchange of energy. It is not good or bad in nature. And it’s my personal belief that money simply magnifies our current state.

If your spending habits are an impulsive shit show now, they’ll just be a BIGGER impulsive shit show when you have more income.

Soooo anyway, woah. Let’s get into how to have less stress around money and finances.

Allow me to lay out some of my past money beliefs since you may or may not identify with them -

Money = stress when you don’t have a lot. And money = greed when you have a lot. People who have a lot of money, who are rich, must be greedy and selfish.Money dictates feelings, your emotional state. Good or bad.

Now I will say from a very young age I knew hard work did not equal money. My mom worked HARD. We delivered newspapers on the weekends, and stocked Little Debbies with her on top of working at Safeway. But we did NOT have an excess of money. EVER. I picked up on the fact that hard work didn’t equal money very early in life.

Which has always helped me look at efficiency FIRST. How can we make more by doing less and providing the same value?

Nooowww the big one. My childhood drove me to want to make money and keep it all to myself. I knew I didn’t like not having money.

Therefore if I earned money, I was going to keep it to myself. No one was going to bring me back to those feelings as a child. Because of course I was terrified it would go away or it wouldn’t last or there wouldn’t be enough. This is not a great mindset folks. I don’t suggest it.

Now, perhaps you relate to some of those. Maybe yours are different.

I probable have more I haven’t realized yet. But no matter what this first tip will help you feel stress about money and finance.

Read about it

Become a student of money, and increase your financial literacy. Apply what you can.

We feel left in the dark around money. We are clueless and uninformed, left only with our childhood beliefs around money. No wonder we experience stress around the subject.

And it can be daunting to start because we often don’t know where to start.

My fav books for business are Profit First and You’re a Badass at Making Money. I don’t know of any for personal finance or money mindset specifically but know that following people like Hilary Rushford and Chloe from Deeper Than Money has been great for me.

I want you to see the possibility of being empowered around money, not trying to work a system or wing it, but truly being a good steward of money. The fact that the finances don’t have to be a complete shit sho...

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HOW MANY DAYS PER WEEK SHOULD YOU TRAIN?

This is a question I have received so many times via the gram and in real life conversation.

I’d say it’s more common among newer lifters, people who are just starting out or new to weight lifting specifically.

The question is multifaceted and I plan to cover the topics of:

“How many days should I lift?” “Is three or five days per week better?” and“Can I progress only lifting three days per week?

I am sure you’ve either had or heard some rendition of these questions. People just want to know how to spend their time wisely in the gym in order to get the results they are wanting. And I don’t think we can blame them for that.

So, I’ll answer all questions with my fav answer + give a generalization then dive into things like training age and options for three, four or five day per week training sessions.

It depends

First off, to answer all training questions, IT DEPENDS. How many days you should train per week depends on your training history, your current goals, what you’re actually doing in the gym during your training sessions, and so much more.

To give a blanket statement would be ignoring all of the factors just stated. But I will give you a blanket statement, nonetheless. Then dive deeper into what all goes into that statement.

How many days per week should you train?

Generally speaking, three to five.

That is a VERY vague statement my friends! Is that three days a week at 30 minutes per session or 90 minutes per session? Is that high intensity work? Strictly strength training? Do you see why yes, it may be true that 3-5 days per week of training will get most humans the results they’re looking for, but there is SO MUCH more that goes into that answer.

Let’s lay the ground work here so you understand what context I am speaking from.

We’re talking about my humans who want to increase strength, mobility, work capacity or a skill of some kind. Skills ranging from a back squat to a pistol squat, pull up or muscle up. Okay? They are training upper and lower body. Whether that happens on the same day, we don’t know yet. But humans need to work their entire body, that’s where I am coming in answer this question.

With the above scenario… 3-5 days of training seems to work for most humans - why not two days per week?

If you’re training two, you’re maintaining at best or only focusing on one area while everything else decreases.

If someone is wanting to improve one area, sure, two days per week would do it. But if you’re wanting to maintain strength, and muscle mass, MAYBE. With very strategically planned lifts. But we are likely NOT making gains training twice per week. The caveat here would be for a newbie. Yes, someone with a very young training age [meaning they are new to weight lifting] will make gains only training twice per week. Most of these gains will be neurological gains. Their body is learning A LOT of new skills and improving neural pathways from brain to muscle.

If you have experience weight training, two days per week might allow you to maintain if you’re working at 75% of your max. But I wouldn’t count on making any gains.

I don’t say six days per week because I honestly don’t think the average person looking to get stronger, increase mobility or work capacity or perhaps improve body composition needs to be training six days per week. And if they are, they better be able to get a proper amount of fuel and recovery for it. This is not of course scientifically backed. I am only speaking from personal and client experience. Training four to five days per week seems to be a sweet spot for gains, consistency, and joy in the gym.

This allows for work to be done on mobility, strength, and work capacity + play with training splits without exceeding 70 minutes in the gym per session. Because we must consider time and energy spent per session as well. We aren’t taking about body builders or competitive weightlifters or cros...

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GOAL SETTING 2020

As we near the end of 2019, I thought it would be fun to recap some of the things I learned this year + how that changed my planning tactics for 2020. My hope is that you gain some insightful takeaways from this episode for your own new year plans.

Now, I must preface this by pointing out that I am THE BIGGEST fan of NOT waiting for the new year or any date for that matter to start doing the THING. Whatever “the thing” is. I am on team start now, start messy, write it down and take action today.

I mean, I started planning 2020 in November and have already completed some of my 2020 goals. Which just speaks to the power of creating goals, writing them down, and brainstorming a plan. I literally don’t have words to express my feelings around the power of diligent planning combined with messy action. Truly, magical things happen when you commit to a planning process, and reviewing that plan often.

So, let’s go ahead and dive into some of the things I did in 2019 that went well, along with things that have created different actions heading into 2020.

2019 - things that worked

I’ve talked about this previously, but quarterly planning was life changing and was a huge mindset shift for me from business owner to true CEO.

I love paper planners. I live by them. In fact I recently published a blog post with my fav planners heading into 2020.

One of which was Amber McCue’s Fresh Start Workbook & Planner for 2020.

I used her 2019 version starting in Nov of 2018 to REALLY start planning my 2019 year.

She breaks it down from main annual goals to quarterly focus goals, and then month to month goals which are of course in line with your quarterly goals.

Then at the end of each month, you review your last month, see what worked and what didn’t so you can make adjustments moving forward.

I know. That sounds like a lot of time, and work. And to be honest, it is. But it was also far more effective than NOT having a plan, or having a half-assed plan in my head, or straight up winging running a business. Right?

I knew after using it for just one quarter that I’d be using it again in 2020. So I did.

Goal setting: What I’m doing in 2020

In November I began reflecting on 2019 and planning 2020.

In 2019 I had too many goals. I decided in 2020 to cut it down from four big goals to two big goals.

I won’t be revealing those here. But in focusing on just one or two things, I already feel less overwhelmed than I did last year at this time. It’s so refreshing to know that I will only be honing in on two areas of my biz in 2020. That frees up so much headspace for me. Especially with the amount of travel we plan to do in the new year.

Because I have chosen to focus on 1-2 areas of growth, I have already began tackling those and am well on my way to reaching my goals.

I also want to point out two things -

My goals for 2020 were goals I had in 2019 and didn’t reach. I was not actively trying to reach them. And we all know a goal is great, but it’s nothing without a plan and ACTION. These are still things I want very much so for my biz. So, I simply pushed them to 2020 and they are now my main focus.WITH THAT. I made a goal in the end of 2018 that I didn’t want to create anything NEW in 2020 - no new products. I knew I’d be creating all the things in 2019 and just wanted to BREATHE, optimize and align those services in 2020.

So, yes. A goal in 2020 for me is to NOT open any new things. I know you might think that is crazy. And I will likely update some things. But if you’ve ever created anything you know how much time, effort, sweat blood and tears goes into not only the creation process, but the marketing, launching, email list building, sales page creating, and so on. It is not simple, and it is not easy.

In 2019 I created, launched and relaunched A LOT of things. Which has given me an amazing base to work from in 2020.

Now for me, it’s about optimizing those offers,

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I WENT FROM POSTING SEVEN DAYS PER WEEK TO ONE FOR A MONTH.

For those of you that don’t know, I went from posting seven days per week to posting once or twice per week or the entire month of October. I was still in my stories almost daily.

Today I will cover why I did it, how the experiment came about, the numeric results from the experiment and the subjective/emotional results from the experiment. As well as who I think can get away with posting less and how to go about doing it.

When I mentioned it to the gram fam - that I’d be posting less, I got DMs asking where I got the idea. If it was just stress or I needed a break from the Insta or what.

Truth be told, it was a combination of three things:

I needed a break. I was burning out. And burnt out humans don’t create helpful and valuable content. Not to their normal standard anyway. I hadn’t taken a break from posting every day on Instagram for almost four years.I know that stories get me 3-5x more views and a lot more DM engagement than the feed. A far larger number of REAL meaningful interactions with my followers happen from my stories. Which is also why I encourage entrepreneurs and coaches to GET IN THEIR STORIES. You can expedite the know, like and trust from there.I had observed other successful Instagrammers doing it - they were posting less often but still getting engagement. People seemed excited that the person was posting and it didn’t seem to matter that they were posting less often. It was still enough to stay relevant, and they were still present in their stories, so it didn’t even feel like they hadn’t been posting in their feed.

When it comes down to it, I am a student of Instagram. I love it. It’s my favorite social platform. And for me; what was the worst that could happen? Engagement might decrease? I lose some not loyal followers? Big deal. If the worst happens, I know how to rebuild. I know how to get engagement back up. I know how to nurture an audience. But what if...what if I can do less work, and still serve my people well? I wouldn’t know unless I tried it, and I was more than willing to try.

You guys, I am literally SO excited to share these findings with you. Partially because I learned SO MUCH in the process and partially because I am intensely refreshed after reducing my output by 85% for a month.

Story views and engagement - no change

I was still receiving all the DMs in response to stories. Still well within my normal range of views within 24 hours. My highest days stayed the same being Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays.

Profile views over last 7 days - no change

I expected this one to decrease, especially with less likelihood of getting on the explore page and less opportunity for my followers to share my posts. But it didn’t. I figured posting in your feed drives this number up but perhaps that isn’t always the case. In fact the only time I really see this number spike is when a post goes relatively viral, which actually happened in my last post of October.

My post got 50 + story shares, 434 people sent it via DM to their friends, 433 comments, 218 people saved the post, 2,611 liked it, it reached 18,035 people, and lead 6,503 people to my profile. On top of that, I gained 2,000 followers in 48 hours. View the post here.

1-3% engagement is normal and expected on Instagram with the current algorithm. Back when I started, 10-15% was normal.

Now, what constitutes a viral post is 9-10% engagement. My engagement on that post was over 10%. Clearly.

So let’s go on a little tangent here, which wasn’t planned. But that viral post is worth talking about. And I mean, what a freaking way to close out a break from Instagram right? The irony kills me. Posts 85% less, one of four posts in a month goes viral and viola, all the exposure literally overnight.

Now, I want you to remember that followers and likes don’t equal income.

Yes, the post was a very passionate post,

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Today I’m taking you through a few topics around money from a consumer and biz owner point of view.

We’ll cover:

Why we buyMoney mindset (something I’ll likely work on five ever)A pricing formula

Pricing is one of those things that seems so simple to me now, but I remember it being crippling so many times earlier on in biz.

Now I have a bit of a formula to follow. Formulas make things easy. They take the emotion AND your wallet out of the process.

Emotions aren’t bad. But they are also not how we choose what to charge for our services. They are however how we decide to PURCHASE a product or service.

In my mastermind we were discussing why people buy things. It’s multifaceted of course. Humans aren’t robots.

There’s always emotion involved. ESPECIALLY with what we’re likely talking about. Which is making an investment in ourselves and/or asking someone to invest in themselves via our offer.

People will buy from you because they are at point A and they believe you will get them point B. They feel that you will support them, or provide the map they’re looking for. They believe you’ll help them reach a new level of themselves. Or get them out of the hole they’re in now. Maybe it’s healing their relationship with food. They want to feel free from bondage and obsession. Maybe they just want more headspace. They don’t want the gym to cause more stress than it needs to.

Look at yourself, why do you buy things?

To feel good? Look the part of a certain status? To decrease worry? To improve yourself? Reach a new level? To support a local cause? To support the planet?

These are pretty normal reasons that people buy:

Get ResultsExpress a StatusConvenienceSelf ImprovementSocial/environmental mission

I pay to get my nails done because it makes me feel put together. Even when everything else is a shit show, it literally brings me joy to look down and see my fresh gel nails.

I pay coaches for two reasons: I want to feel less overwhelm, and get over my next hurdle. Whether that’s having more successful launches, or creating better systems, or figuring out how to hire someone so I can remain more in my zone of genius.

I pay for grass-fed meat because I have the money and because I value my health as well as the way the animals are raised. That’s more on the environmental side of things, right?

So, that’s all jus to say that a lot more goes into making a purchase than “wanting something, and then buying it.” Feelings drive most of our buying decisions.

And those decisions can be empowering or destructive. Buying things does not = making wise or massively expensive investments.

That’s where money mindset comes into play.

Let’s talk abundance vs scarcity mindset for a minute.

I did not grow up with money. My mom worked at Safeway and that was more-or-less our income for a four person household.

I remember delivering newspapers door to door and going with my mom to stock Little Debbie’s pastries on early weekend mornings. Okay?

So, were we impoverished? No. I had food and a roof over my head. But was money viewed as plentiful and overflowing in my home? Absolutely not.

Money to me was synonymous with stress.

We were never going to have enough and we would be restricted by it. That was my belief. I wasn’t going to have nice things. And I certainly wasn’t going to give it away if I had it.

I also learned very early to work hard. BUT that hard work did not equal more money. If you believe that hard work = money, let’s set that straight right now.

It’s false. There are plenty of hard working people in this world, and in America that do not make “good money.” Does that mean you shouldn’t work hard? No. That’s not my point. It’s simply that working hard does not equal more income. In fact the goal of en entrepreneur or my goal anyway has been to provide the same value, but work less. To become more efficient. That’s where I believe the money is.

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THREE FACTORS HAVING THE LARGEST EFFECT ON YOUR HEALTH.

I called this episode the 3 Biggest Health Factors because it could have been titled three factors affecting your health, affecting your training results, affecting your quality of life, your energy levels, your sleep, your hormones, or literally EVERY aspect of health and probably your LIFE.

So, I decided on The 3 Biggest Health Factors. It’s a weird title but it’s also the truth.

If you are measuring nothing in regards to your health now, or are only tracking your workouts, I am going to encourage you to start tracking at least one of these factors after this episode.

You know I like to give you actionable takeaways. I am here for the improvement of humans. Not to talk into a microphone under a freaking blanket just to hear my own voice.

Also, these are simple…you’ve likely heard them before. Please, do not dismiss them. Ask yourself how you are doing in each of these areas. It matters. And it makes a difference, like I said, all across all aspects of your health.

Okay, number one (these aren't in a specific order by the way…)

1: Sleep

Get your freaking sleep. You’ve heard you need 8-10 or 7-9 hours. Yes, science shows that generally, humans function optimally with somewhere between 7-10 hours of sleep. Science also shows that women typically require more sleep than men. Which I am all about because I LOVE sleep and definitely lean more towards that 10 hour mark.

I am all about making my waking hours more efficient so I can get the sleep I enjoy having.

BUT it’s not all about the duration of your sleep, rather your QUALITY of sleep. I am sure you have slept 8-10 hours before but you wake up five times during the night and feel restless. That is not the kind of 8-10 hours these sleep studies are suggesting.

I loved the way a professor of mine in college worded this. If you are sleeping 8 hours a night but you miss one hour every night of the week, you miss 7 total hours of sleep that week, nearly a full night of sleep. And if you’re like me, YOU FEEL THAT. Can you function? Absolutely. But will you possibly catch a cold, or be tired when 2-4pm hits? 100%.

This is also why I encourage you to track your sleep. Because reality is often different than our perception - when it comes to most things regarding our health.

Now, I understand some people do not have the luxury of getting 8-10 hours per night. But that doesn’t mean the effort to improve sleep quality or consistency should stop.

Really number two and and three affect your sleep as well. But we’ll get to that soon enough.

Start by tracking your sleep. You can do this manually if you like in a notebook or chart. But if you can afford it, there are watches like FitBits and Polar heart rate watches that will track your sleep duration and quality for you. I am sure there are probably apps now that track your sleep without any gadgets as well. Maybe not, but worth researching.

When you track things, you can improve them. What we measure we can manage, right?

So track your sleep, and look for ways you can get more or higher quality.

Since coming home from our world travels I have continued two things that we picked up while sleeping in establishments around the world: ear plugs and eye masks.

I shared the ear plugs we use on IG but maybe I can add them to my Amazon page as well for you guys. They are softer than the ones you’d use for shooting ranges and things of that sort. They’re less aggressive but work just as well.

What do ear plugs and eye masks do? Eliminate distractions for your body to be awakened by. Get you into a rhythm; into that deep sleep you want and need.

But do what works for you. Just know - sleep is your body’s time to recover on ALL physiological levels. So if your sleep is shit, so is your recovery, and likely your hormone function, immune system, and all of the things.

I will also say that some people really don’t require 7-10 hours...

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CURE FOR YOUR CONTENT RUT.

Sometimes creating content can seem bothersome, annoying and time consuming. Other times it’s super fun, you feel inspired and are filled with creative ideas.

This episode is moreso for the first situation. When you need some structure, someone to get you going as you stare at the wall, or blank piece of paper or empty notebook app.

I should preface this by saying if you don’t know your ideal client, you’re going to be shooting darts at a dartboard that’s 300 meters away with a blindfold on. Okay? You need to know who you’re speaking to before creating content...if you don’t want to waste your time that is.

So, you’re in a content rut or just feeling like you’ve created everything you can create (which we know is never the case), then read on!

This goes for blogs, emails, Instagram posts, YouTube videos, podcasts, literally any media you can create for an audience.

Start with a subject matter.

For me, I decide if it’s going to be fitness based, life based, travel based, or business based.

If you have categories you post in or use with your audience, this will be helpful. I go over all of that inside Instagram 101 and fitsPRO Foundations.

You’ve got your topic. Now give yourself some structure.

Choose an intro; your click bait:

3 ways or tips to ____ (build muscle, be more efficient in your workouts, recover effectively)How to:Choose locations for world travelUse lifting strapsStart building your email listCope with comparison online

Your "favorites."

My 5 favorite glute exercisesMy 3 go-to mantras

Then you have the secretive ones. Like:

The four things no one told you about being an entrepreneurThe worst cue you could ever useUnpopular opinion about _____

Whatever applies to your audience.

Now, I don’t use post topics like this all the time. But they can be helpful in getting the creative juices going whenever you’re in a content rut. Or even when short on time and need to bust something out really quick.

Having a headline like this allows you to build a skeleton to your content. You know what you’re laying out. Your three tips, or five fav exercises, or the worst cue and why it’s so terrible. Maybe you include what to say instead.

I hope you can see how this tactic can be helpful. Like I said, it gets you thinking in a creative manner but also in a very specific one. Which can be beneficial when creating content.

I’ve often ended up actually batching content when using this strategy because one idea leads to the next, and before you know it I have twenty post headlines and topics made. Much like you just heard me ramble them off.

Okay, moving on.

Poll your audience

This is one I use often. Hi, you’re creating content for them. You can ask them to vote in the comments. You can send email surveys, or submit ideas via instagram stories. You’ve got options. Use them.

Polling your audience is great for a few reasons. It gets you connected with your people. It allows you to see who is REALLY invested in the content you’re creating. Who are your die hards? This can also be encouraging when you’re feeling unmotivated. You’ll see that people WANT to hear from you and value what you bring to them on whatever platform it may be.

Even if two people respond, that STILL gives you data. Create something based on what those two blessed humans sent you! Or better yet, create more than one post around the topic.

This also gives you feedback as to what your ideal clients (or potential ideal clients) are wanting from you. What problems are they wanting answers to? What topics come up more than once? That’s great data for you moving forward with your content and even product creation.

Next up…

Repurpose old content

Thiiiiissss one is pure magic once you’ve been in the game for a minute. Look, not everyone in your gram fam or on your email list sees every post or reads every email.

And even if people saw it the first time,

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HOW TO TRAVEL THE WORLD - TIPS AND TRICKS.

Important things for travel prep, like travel insurance?

For travel prep I am going to say you have a few must need, or need to know items.

These include but are not limited to:

Travel insurance - we use World Nomads. Fun fact, we were exempt from needing insurance in 2018 because we were out of the country for the months that we did not have insurance. So, that was winning. Travel insurance does not count as normal medical insurance. Know that.

World nomads has a few options, we went with the highest option just to be safe. We were traveling with a drone, camera, lenses, two laptops and some valuables that we felt were worth having coverage for. Nate's wallet was stolen in our first location, Santiago, Chile, and we filed a claim and received $83 I believe it was. Yes, that was stressful, but it was nice to know that when we rented a vehicle, like in Europe for four weeks, we knew we had coverage. They also provide hotlines that you can contact in case of emergency or sickness that will lead you in the direction of English speaking doctors and facilities. Insurance is always for the peace of mind, right? Rarely need it, but sleep a little easier knowing you have it.

Next would be two V’s of international travel - vaccinations and Visas.

Vaccinations - You can look up what vaccinations are required and then suggested for the countries you are planning to visit on the cdc website. Then find a travel clinic near you or simply call your doctors office and they will lead you where you need to go, because it is likely that they do not provide these vaccinations.

Visas - The Miller’s had a rough go with visas on our first trip around the world. We misunderstood the rules for the European 90 day tourist visa and overstayed by 23 days. That was fun - I’ve mentioned it before, but we drove, took buses and had flights through 14 European countries so our passports looked like a hot mess and we were not asked about any of it or our timeline until we flew from Poland to Singapore. Plan was to finally leave Europe from the Helinski Airport in Finland. We had a 45 minute transfer and they held us at customs. We were clueless. Long story short, we thought Scotland broke up our 90 days and then restarted a new 90 days when we entered back into the European Union. But the rule is 90 days WITHIN 180 days. And we def stayed for four months in Europe. Oops. Because we weren’t coming back anytime soon, they gave us the stamp, let us go, and we sprinted to our gate.

When traveling from Philippines to Vietnam, waiting to board our plane, we were informed we needed a visa for Vietnam. Somehow in our planning we just didn’t see this. So, having lodging booked and an itinerary we needed to try and stick to, we hopped on the computer, missed our flight, expedited visas, booked a new flight for the next day and got a hotel room near the airport. It was a rush. But it all worked out. Just a few hundred dollars later.

Just do a google search fam. “do US citizens need a visa for _____" (enter desired country).

From there it can be tricky or super easy depending on the country. Some countries are visa upon arrival, other require more info + passport and a photo to be emailed etc. Just depends. Which is why I say the two V’s need to be addressed early on in your planning, VACCINATIONS AND VISAS.

Beyond insurance and the two v’s I would suggest having a credit card that will benefit you while traveling long term overseas. You don’t want to deal with foreign transaction fees or your bank blocking your card because you’re in Bangladesh. Plus you get all the points if you use a credit card.

We did annoying amounts of research before we left on round 1 and we love the Chase Sapphire. This also gave us the option of tacking on the Priority Pass which gets us into nearly all international lounges. Which fam….I cannot tell you how much lounges have changed my life.

The FITSPRO Podcast: Recent Episodes

Annie Miller

1 way to make content more engaging…

1 = 2-5 year goal of hitting 7 figures without using ads

2 = “One stop shop for health and fitness professionals”

1 - Revisit the year plan, month plan, big goal, or weekly tasks.