Andy Talks Fitness with Friends

Good morning and welcome back! This week we welcome a special guest, Sarah Arnold, the Director at ISI Elite Training, located right here in The Nations. Featuring functional fitness that focuses mostly on strength training with a sprinkle of cardio, ISI Elite is here to help change the training landscape in Nashville. Sarah found her niche in fitness over the years and brings energy and passion t...

Good morning and welcome back to the show! Today we have a very special guest and someone Zack and I admire as a coach, educator, and author: Dan John. Dan has been coaching athletes and adults for decades, and has amassed a following for his simple but super effective style of training. In the decade or so that I've been coaching clients and athletes I have referred to his work on many occasions...

Hey there and welcome back to the show! This week Zack and I talk Dan John-isms, assessments, flipping the programming script, and all things kettlebell training. Grab a beer and enjoy!

Good morning and welcome back! This week Zack and I are honoring the man, the myth, the legend, Louie Simmons, a juggernaut in the field of powerlifting, and a man that was taken from us too soon. We talk about Louie and the mark he made on the lifting community, the kind of man and coach that he was, and the art of coaching and what it means to us. Grab a beer and enjoy!

Good morning and welcome back! Today Zack and I are enjoying some dark beers and discussing some important changes we're making: given the crisis in the Ukraine, we're not longer calling exercises "Russian" anything. Instead, we're renaming and re-branding; a critical change since Zack has a brand new YouTube series out on the kettlebell swing! If you're looking to clean up your swings, swing on o...

Good morning and welcome back! This week we have a very special guest with us, Megan Crozier, on all things nutrition. Megan is a Functional Nutrition Therapy Practitioner, and after having her own difficulties with nutrition and fueling her own workouts, she focused her efforts and energy on studying nutrition, hormones, and metabolism. Through her experience and education she now helps countless...

Hello and welcome back! After a long weekend of debauchery in Vegas, where I got to play like an adult in a lawless land, Zack and I come to Czann's to talk about play. Specifically, how we can incorporate play into our sessions with clients. I'm all for hard, boring training most days. After all, that's how you get results. But I'll be the first to admit that sometimes this can be very boring; an...

Good afternoon and welcome back to the podcast! Today we have a special guest and #1 fan of the show, Tracy Cook! Tracy met Zack back in 2014 and started training together. Having deadlifted but never really competed with a barbell, Tracy took the plunge and entered her first powerlifting competition in 2015 and was instantly hooked. Fast forward to today, Tracy has competed in 17 competitions! A...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are sitting down at Czann's brewing drinking some delicious milk stouts and talking all things fitness. First, we start off on a small rant about nutrition! Next, what does it mean when we talk about General Physical Preparedness (GPP)? What does it mean to look and feel athletic? Athletic for what? Strong, for what? We all want to be stronger, leaner and...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are back at our favorite - Czann's Brewing -  and today we're chatting business ethics. The fitness industry is rife with bad players, poor business practices, and dubious claims. Today we talk about boundaries, values, and ways in which we conduct our respective businesses to ensure we're doing right by the people who support us. Grab a beer and enjo...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are enjoying some delicious oatmeal stouts courtesy of Czann's Brewing in the Nations. Has the thought ever crossed your mind to take an ice bath and, like a crazy person, actually enjoy doing it? Yeah, me neither. But over the weekend a Wim Hof seminar popped up here in Nashville and Zack was all about diving right in and learning not only to embrace the...

Good morning and welcome back to the A2Z Podcast! Today we host a special guest, fellow strength coach and fitness enthusiast, Sam Pfister. Sam got his start in fitness while hustling and grinding in the gauntlet of all gauntlets - in politics. While working and interning in the DC area, Sam started doing Crossfit in his apartment and over time sharpened his coaching and programming skills. When t...

Good morning and welcome back to the show! Zack and I are sipping some new beers at Czanns and, like many podcast days, we start off with one topic and completely forget about it! Instead, we dive down the rabbit hole of what it means to be a "good" coach - what that looks like; our behaviors; our language; and how we carry ourselves in the gym. Coaching sets, reps, volume, intensity, and exercise...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are checking in from Czann's Brewing and today we're talking about food. In the realm of fitness we often start our journey in one of two ways - we start watching what we eat and make sure to pack our days full of veggies and protein, and eventually add in some fitness here and there; or, we start slinging weights like maniacs with little regard for health...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are hanging out at Czann's Brewing with a very special guest, Samantha Brunner. Sam is a Nashville-based strength coach, yoga instructor and pro kayaking badass. She joins the podcast today to tell us about her fitness journey, how she got into coaching and the types of clients she works with, and some of her favorite outdoorsy things to do. She imparts so...

Good morning and happy new year! Zack and I are really pleased to have you here and we're pumped to be back at Czann's Brewing bringing you a fresh new podcast for a fresh new year. A new year, for many of us, often brings new ambitions, goals, and a brighter outlook - a clean slate to make changes in our lifestyle and health. Sometimes even the most motivated and ambitious of us can stumble a lit...

Good morning and welcome back to the A2Z Podcast! As usual we're checking in and drinking some fabulous beers at Czann's Brewing in the Nations, reflecting on an incredible year. What first started as a pet project evolved into 50 episodes, six guests, over 200 beers, and countless laughs. Zack and I would like to thank you for sticking around with us and cannot express our gratitude enough. Today...

Good morning and welcome back! In an effort to round out 50 episodes in 2021, Zack and I are coming to you from his apartment on a Friday afternoon. This is a deviation from our usual watering hole of Czann's Brewing, but the show must go on! This week, Zack and I are chatting about difficult clients and our experience coaching them. Now, please note that we're not complaining about difficult clie...

Good morning and welcome back to the podcast! This week, Zack and I have the pleasure of hosting one of my clients and favorite humans, Leah. She shares her thoughts on strength training, what she's learned, and how training has impacted her life inside and outside the gym. We share stories, talk about PRs, and look to the future and how fitness might take shape and improve life now and beyond. Gr...

Good morning and welcome back to the show! Today's episode almost didn't happen as Zack spent most of the day stuck in airports with delayed flights, but he made it just in time and we're enjoying our beers at Czann's brewing and talking training. We recap Zack's weekend out of town at a powerlifting meet, and I talk about how things are progressing in my new gym space. Then, we switch gears to ta...

Good morning and welcome back to the podcast! We're gearing up for the last month of 2021 and we have holidays, food, and travel on our minds. This time of year can be challenging to stay on track with workouts and nutrition, but Zack and I got your back - today we discuss how, when, and what we like to do when we're on the road to stay fit. Next, after 9 months of clawing our way back to pre-inju...

Good morning and welcome back to the podcast! Zack and I are posted up at Czann's Brewing and today we're wrapping our series on favorite exercises per body part. Today we're focusing on the trunk: chest, back, and core musculature. We're choosing our favorites and you might be surprised at some of the choices we make! Grab a beer and enjoy!

Good morning and welcome back to the podcast! Zack and I are drinking some seasonal beers over at Czann's Brewing in the Nations talking training. Today we address a few hard lessons we've learned over the years both as coaches, but also as trainees. After so many workout sessions, coaching sessions, sets, reps, and more plates, you'd think we have a steady bead on things. But even we are still le...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are warming up with some pumpkin ales at Czann's brewing, this week broadcasting both on IG live and to a private studio of sorts! That's right, Czann's has graciously allowed us to continue recording the podcast despite being closed on Monday's, giving us the space in private for all the fitness talking. Today we're talking about some extreme training: wh...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are checking into Czann's Brewing after a long and productive training weekend. Zack hosted, and I attended, Liftapalooza 2021 and we had an absolute blast. We as coaches know a thing or two about training, but it never hurts to learn from other professionals in our field and dust off some knowledge we maybe had forgotten, or learn some completely new thin...