Lift Free And Diet Hard with Andrew Coates

Steve Krebs joins the podcast to talk about the importance of establishing your values and making decisions in alignment with those values. Steve explains what he means by “make the main thing the main thing, always.” We talk about the importance of the people closet to us in our ability to thrive in our careers.

Jill Coleman returns to share wisdom, experience, and evolving attitudes as her career has grown and roles have shifted. Jill shares how she build her business to where she needed to embrace scaling her team and offerings. Jill highlights her willingness to invest in mentors, especially when it was financially challenging, and how it launched her forward professionally and financially. Jill shares...

Ali Gilbert makes her first ever appearance to talk about her work coaching men and their health. Ali shares a lot of information about why men's testosterone levels are declining and what coaches need to know to help their clients. Ali shares how her niche found her plus her thoughts on if and how you should develop a career nice. Ali also shares why she's leaned into building her own brand and w...

Holly Baxter returns to talk about her career and life progression. Holly shares how her media has changed as her mindset and relationship with herself evolved. You see this evolution from someone who felt pressure to portray an almost superhuman physical aesthetic paired with entrepreneurial career success. Holly is now more open about the challenges and cost of such an effort and shows the diffi...

Sprint coach and educator Derek Hansen joins to share a lot of knowledge about sprinting, sprinting mechanics, and create a bridge to coaches like myself who don't have much knowledge or exposure to sprinting. Derek shares the value in not only working with Olympic medalists and major pro sports teams, but also in working as an educator within the fitness industry. Derek shares the value and fulfi...

Dr. Michael Mash guests to talk about his work with Barbell Rehab, offering educational resources to fitness professionals. We discuss educating coaches about how to deal with their clients experience with pain. Michael shares how to navigate language around pain, and offers nuance to the extreme trend to demonize barbells as tools in our world, all to get more people moving and strong. 

My friend Ben Mudge is back to talk about how and why he's build his new business Be More HQ with his friend Josh Taylor. We talk about how Ben's Cystic Fibrosis affects his long game career decisions. We talk about his brand ambassadorship with Ghost and how to ethically navigate brand partnerships. Plus a lot of discussion about our shared belief in supporting others and Ben's long game career p...

Dr. Nick Nwabueze joins to share his approach to getting his patients healthier and more active. Nick shares his philosophy of proactive health care in prescribing exercise before rushing to medications. Nick believes in practicing what he preaches as a devoted CrossFit practitioner but explains why he doesn't always point his patients to his preferred workout methodology. We also dive into naviga...

Joel Jamieson returns and shares his humble beginnings. Joel shares how he was broke but put everything he had into education and developing relationships with mentors. We discuss all of the keys to a successful career before worrying about social media likes and followers, but we also discuss how we've each approached social media engagement, and the tactics and deliberate effort in building it....

Don Saladino joins to reboot The Lift Free and Diet Hard Podcast after a brief hiatus. Originally intended as retiring this podcast to focus time and energy elsewhere, I realized just how valuable this platform is and I couldn't leave it and everyone behind. Don shares stories of his career, his former gym Drive 495, and the not so glamorous challenges he's overcome to get to where his career is t...

All good things must come to an end. Or at least go on hiatus. Thank you for being a regular listener to The Lift Free and Diet Hard Podcast for 100 episodes, and thank you for being here for the previous 150 with my co-host Dean Guedo as The Fitness Devil. After 5 years and 250 episodes it's time to take a break and focus on other projects. Dean returns as my final guest to talk about the legacy...

Cody McBroom joins the podcast to talk about how he built his successful coaching business with a few key practices. 1) Relentless focus on serving the client/potential client. 2) Building a library of resources to serve his audience and gain relevance with a broader community. 3) A deep understanding of SEO. We share key inspirations and influences along our similar career paths and timelines.&nb...

Sam Miller of Sam Miller Science joins to talk about his career progression, his work mentoring and educating people on the science of metabolism. Sam dives into the gap in our knowledge and the nuanced middle ground between polarized extremes on metabolism, with the goal of helping people who feel lost or unequipped to have these conversations with clients. We talk about how Sam stays grounded an...

Eric Bugera joins me to talk about his work with the Pre-Script team and why they've been successful. We explore the rise in combativeness and tribalism within various fitness industry communities and in our online space, and how to navigate. We also share our philosophies on how to approach social media on our terms to help people.

Derek Mendoza returns to share early details of his February 2023 conference Raise The Bar. Along with cofounder Nick Lambe, Derek executed on one of the best fitness conferences and lineups I've personally attended, in their 2022 inaugural event. Derek shares how they plan to improve upon last time. Derek also shares some of his efforts in building a new coarse for driven entrepreneurs. We dive i...

Enrico Incarnati is a media strategist and videographer, formerly working with Jordan Syatt. Enrico provides tons of advice on developing you media, social media, and video skills, plus he shares his experience working with Jordan Syatt as he grew his own career. Enrico also shares the important choices and skills he feels matter most for creators and fitness professionals now and in the future.&n...

Dr. Gabrielle Fundaro makes her long overdue appearance on the podcast to deep dive into the challenge of navigating a sea of overblown, sensational, combative, and polarizing fitness industry media, while maintaining your values, integrity, and sharing the nuanced truth. Gabrielle shares some practical insight into the evidence based nuance of the gut health discussion and some practical takeaway...

Lee Boyce shares his best advice for new and young fitness professionals on the path to growing your career and media. Lee shares his process for deciding what to allocate his time to and advice for setting boundaries. We deep dive into the value of developing organic and authentic relationships across the industry, and warn against being transactional in your approach to relationships. 

Dr. Caleb Burgess brings his expertise as a doctor of physical therapy and as a strength and conditioning coach to explain some of the tribal and polarizing behavior displayed in the fitness industry and where it intersects with physical therapy. We tease out the nuance of what can often appear to be extreme and polarized positions and ideas, and explain why these battles happen and what you the f...

Matthew Ibrahim returns to talk about his recent speaking appearance at the national NSCA convention and the career path to get there. We discuss how educating other coaches through writing, speaking, and other forms is not about the money but paying it forward to other coaches, and growing authority in the industry. Matthew also shares why he never wants to fully stop coaching clients in person.&...

Marc Megna is one of the ownership team of the popular Miami based gym chain, Anatomy. He's a skilled storyteller and shares lessons from his experience as a pro football player, trainer, gym owner, and other highlights and low lights of his life. Marc is student of leadership and great example of humility. Marc shares what to know before venturing into opening a gym and the best parts of the expe...

Steve Hall of Revive Stronger makes his first appearance and shares the humble origins of his career leading up to his rise as a popular evidence based coach. Steve elaborates on his experience building his online business, on how to choose a great business partner, how he built systems, and how he didn't have all the answers he just learned and figured it out as he went. 

Writer, speaker, and online nutrition and behavior change coach Jeb Stuart Johnston returns to talk about how coaches can improve their communication and messaging to for greater career success and to make a greater difference in the lives of the people we work with. We dive into a big discussion about the discussions coaches fall into that don't help themselves or their clients. We talk in depth...

Brianna Battles makes her first and long overdue appearance to talk about her experience as a coach and educator for pregnancy and postpartum. Brianna shares practical considerations for coaches navigating this huge demographic, as women form the majority of fitness consumers, and many of those women will at some point in their lifetime go through pregnancy, and will then always be postpartum. Bri...

Dr. Jade Teta returns to talk about the importance of communication and connection to making a difference in our client outcomes. We expand into why these skills are so essential to long term career success and growth, and how Jade fostered his own skills. Jade shares why it's important to be purpose focused. He explains how compassion and empathy are the roots of good communication. He also expla...