Andy Talks Fitness with Friends

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are doing some 16 oz curls today at Czanns and talking about the ONLY muscles worth working out: the arms. (JK. But srsly). While there are dozens of different forearm, bicep, tricep, and shoulder exercises each, today we're picking our favorite exercise for each muscle to train while we're in the gym. Grab a beer and enjoy!

Good morning and welcome back to the podcast! Zack and I are posted up at Czann's Brewing in west Nashville drinking beers and talking training. If you've been listening for awhile, you know that I'm actively trying to gain some weight. To do so, I've been trying to eat an inordinate amount of food - so much food that I'm rarely hungry and honestly hate to eat sometimes. It's a lot. But for the sa...

Good morning and welcome back to the podcast! In the last couple weeks, Zack and I have broken down and dissected the squat and the deadlift, and this week we continue the trend with the bench press. Whether with a bar or with dumbbells, the bench press is a great overall strength and muscle builder. But in order to use the bench press effectively, you need to learn the skills required to dip unde...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are back at Fat Bottom Brewing talking about, of all things, the moon and dad rock. Whether or not you wanted to learn about the moon and how it came to be, or whether you believe a rock band can keep its name even after members come and go, you're in for a real treat regarding obscure side interests. Fear not! We do actually talk fitness and this week we'...

Good morning and welcome back! Today we have a very special guest on the podcast, our good friend and modern-day Chiro Dr. Jesse Riley. A few years back, Jesse and I crossed paths after mutual clients suggested a man date. And a man date it was - ever since, we've been close buddies and colleagues and Zack and I are fortunate to be friends with him. Nobody has considered us The Three Musketeers bu...

Good morning and welcome back! Today, Zack and I are sipping beers and listening to some great tunes down at East Nashville Beer works and we're talking about squats. What is a squat, why is it important, and how do we go about coaching the squat? Furthermore, what are some different coaching cues and tidbits we often use while coaching the squat? And lastly, we wrap up with each of our favorite a...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are checking into Czann's Brewing again on the west side of Nashville. Today, Zack updates us on his seminar he co-hosted in Minneapolis over the weekend. We chat training, whether fresh in the game or seasoned. We chat about managing total stress and volume, how we approach these facets in our own training as well as our clients, and we update everyone on...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I braved hurricane Ida and ended up at Fat Bottom Brewing, where this week we crossed paths with a gaggle of Instagram Influencers in the wild. Zack was stoked to learn all about these folks, what they do, how they built their audiences, and since they were visiting our beloved Nashville from out of town, we were curious what they do for fitness while on vac...

Good morning and welcome back to episode 33 of A2Z No BS! Zack and I are back at East Nashville Beer Works this week, taking a break from our usual west-side spots and staying close to home. We each had a busy week! The equipment for my new gym was delivered and my contractor is underway renovating my space for opening, and I talk about some of the ins and outs of the whole opening-a-gym-is-cool-b...

Good morning and welcome back! This week Zack and I are checking back into Czann's brewing in the Nations and we're talking data. Over the years, fitness has expanded from simple step counters to a whole slew of new gadgets, wearables, and data-monitoring systems. Ostensibly, with more data related to sleep, stress, heart rate, and VO2max, we can be better coaches and trainees and improve the qual...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are checking in for episode 31 at Fat Bottom Brewing with a new toy! Today we're taking things a little more casually and nerd out on a wide range of topics, including cadaver anatomy, chemistry, the University of Tennessee's body farm, geology, and even a little philosophy with the "value of boredom." In a way, we're both taking things a little slower tod...

Good morning and welcome to our 30th Episode! We've reached a milestone and this week we're happy to introduce our guest, Alexis Bakalakos. Alexis is a physical therapy student, powerlifter, and new coach, and this week we're talking about training. Alexis started training about three years ago, making her a relative newbie to the lifting game and exactly the kind of voice we've needed on the podc...

Good morning and welcome back! This week Zack and I are checking back into Fat Bottom Brewing in the nations and talking about eating and training. After months of healing, we're both on the mend and ready to get back into the swing of things training-wise. Sidelined for most of the summer, we've been exploring movement again, slowly ramping things back up for what we hope is a productive fall and...

Good morning and welcome back! This week Zack and I are checking in at Fat Bottom Brewing, dodging storms and taking advantage of their 2-for-1 specials. Today we start the podcast talking about the "brutal truth" about getting and staying fit. Now, "fit" might be a loose term here, meaning something different depending on who you are and what your goals are, but of course we attack the question f...

Hello and welcome back! Me and Zack are checking in again at Czann's this week chatting all things fitness. First, some new science has come to my attention regarding HIIT and cardio and where it may (or may not) fit your muscle gain goals. Further, if time is a resource, how are we going to use it for fitness? Are we investing in an asset or losing in a liability? And lastly, as chat some philoso...

Good morning and welcome back to A2Z! This week Zack and I are tuning in from my dining room table, escaping the heat and enjoying the company of my dog, Jane. This week we're talking about goals: Zack turned 33 this past week, and as we get older we ask the question "what do goals look like for each of us as we get older?" In other words, how do we define our goals? How do we measure progress? Ar...

Hey there! Zack and I are coming in hot off the heels of July 4th with our 25th episode! We're checking into Czann's Brewing in the Nations and talking about coaching, seeking to understand our clients, and falling in love with the process. It's a doozy so grab a beer and enjoy!

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I check in back at Bold Patriot brewing with our special guest, train! And by train, we mean literal train. But that didn't stop us from talking shop. Zack tells us about divin' into last week's #AndysEats with his Peach Chicken recipe, while I share my new recipe of the week: Spicy Shrimp over lemon basil Orzo . It was bomb-diggity. Next, we're talking trai...

Good morning and welcome back! Zack and I are back at Bold Patriot Brewing this week talking about training, cooking, and beer drinking. This week we introduce a new segment we're calling Andy's Eats, where I discuss some of the bomb-ass meals I've been cooking at home and how they've turned out. Speaking of cooking, I like to follow a recipe for a number of reasons, but after awhile I'll start to...

Good morning! This week, Zack and I are enjoying the sunshine, talking fitness, and cracking beers at East Nashville Beer Works. We start today with a little sports psychology: what is "arousal" and how does it affect performance? What does it mean to be under-aroused when playing sports or lifting weights? How about over-aroused? When it comes to sport or lifting you can't come in flat, but you d...

Hey, gang! Zack and I each took a week away for some R&R but we're back, feeling fresh, and ready to podcast! This week we host Tania Lopez, a strength coach and fitness enthusiast right here in Nashville. We start today by discussing content creation: what we put out on the interwebz to try and help our clients and fellow coaches make sense of all this fitness stuff. Each of us has our own ap...

Good morning and welcome back! This week Zack and I are checking in from my hot back yard. We start this week by talking about kettlebells: Zack is releasing Kettlebell Foundations, a beginner's guide to training with kettlebells. If you're getting into fitness for the first time and you're looking for a comprehensive guide and instruction manual for kettlebells, Zack is your guy. You'll find this...

Good morning! Zack and I are back at Bold Patriot Brewing drinking beers and talking fitness. What does it mean to be coached or be coachable ? Zack and I are both coaches, and even though we have the tools, resources, and knowledge to write our own workout programs, we have each hired coaches in the past. There are a number of benefits to outsourcing our own coaching, and we each describe the thi...

Good morning! Zack and I are back. Ya know what grinds my gears? Reductionist and intellectually lazy fitness advice. While social media loves soundbites, tweets, or memes, they're largely unhelpful or possibly damaging. Nothing in fitness or nutrition is black and white: it is grey, nuanced..."it depends" as we say. It depends on who we're talking about, what we're talking about, and the applicat...

Good morning and welcome back to A2Z No BS! We're back at our new watering hole, Bold Patriot Brewing, where I got a head start on beers and Zack joined me to chat with part owner of the business, Papa, about Revolutionary War history. Bold Patriot has a delicious lineup of beers, and each one is named after a patriot who played a role during the war. Zack and I thoroughly enjoyed our history less...