[The Best] Three Ways the Internet Is Making You a Bad Coach, and More

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Best Content of the Week

This week’s best content offers two very different approaches to size: how to get bigger, and what life is like for people who are perceived to be too big.

On the one hand, they’re completely different topics. One is about training for muscle growth, while the other is about weight bias in society. But if you think about it, you realize what a luxury it is for trainers and clients who struggle to put on weight when so many people are vilified, ostracized, and discriminated against because they struggle to lose it.

Sticking with the size theme, we have valuable insights for fitness professionals about how to build a bigger, more resilient business, and why you should pare down your media consumption and learn to trust yourself.

— Esther Avant

Best Article

Three Ways the Internet Is Making You a Worse Coach — Mike Robertson, Robertson Training Systems

Taking in too much information can riddle you with doubt. One problem, Mike Robertson says, is that it’s too easy for super-confident people to get us to assume they’re right and we’re wrong. Robertson’s message is ultimately reassuring: Trust yourself. If what you do now is working well for your clients, you may not need to change anything. Trying to fix what isn’t broken will probably make it worse.

— Shane McLean

Best Video

How to Get Bigger and Stronger at the Same Time — Jeff Nippard

Is it possible to get both big and strong simultaneously? In this 13-minute video, Jeff Nippard summarizes what the science shows us (with the help of Greg Nuckols’ research review). He follows that with specific steps to combine low reps for pure strength with moderate to higher reps to trigger hypertrophy.

— Esther Avant

Best Social Media Post

Mastering the Pull-Up

There’s more to the pull-up than hanging from a bar and pulling yourself up. Like any other feat of strength, there’s a skill component. Jen Comas explains and demonstrates how to go from a passive hang to a hollow hang, and how to incorporate isometric and partial variations.

— Christina Abbey

Best Podcast

What’s Our Deal? — Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes, Maintenance Phase

The hosts of Maintenance Phase bring uniquely subversive points of view to the world of health of fitness. Aubrey Gordon is an essayist who calls herself Your Fat Friend. Michael Hobbes is a journalist for Huffington Post and cohost of the You’re Wrong About podcast, which tackles historical events that most of us misremember or misunderstand.

In this inaugural episode, they tell personal stories to illustrate the sobering realities of weight bias in everything from medicine to everyday life. No matter how enlightened you consider yourself, you’re guaranteed to learn something you didn’t know about what’s it like to navigate our fat-phobic world when you’re one of the fat people the rest of us are afraid of.

— Mike Howard

Tired of training clients at 5 a.m.?

We all have to pay our dues. For many fitness pros, that means training clients or teaching classes or opening your gym long before the sun comes up.

But if you’ve been paying those dues for years on end, maybe it’s time for a change. Time to try something different. Time to consider another way to make a living while still doing what you love.

That’s why we created the Online Trainer Academy.

Since 2016, we’ve helped thousands of personal trainers, nutrition coaches, and gym owners—serious, passionate fitness professionals like you—launch online training businesses.

They all have one thing in common: What they were doing before wasn’t working for them.

They needed a change, and their Online Trainer Academy Level 1 Certification gave them the knowledge and skills to make it happen.

Already training clients online? If you make more than $1,000 a month from online coaching, and looking for a more scalable business model, you may be a better fit for the Online Trainer Academy Level 2.

Or maybe you want help getting your own fitness back on track? If so, we can help. Click here to learn more about Online Trainer Coaching—the world’s first online training program specifically designed for fitness and nutrition professionals.

The Author

Esther Avant is a certified personal trainer, nutrition coach, sports nutritionist, pre- and postnatal coach, mom, and military wife who coaches women online. As the owner of Esther Avant Wellness Coaching and founder of the Gone For Good weight-loss program, she specializes in helping women lose weight and keep it off without another diet or gym challenge. You can find her at her website, on Instagram, and on Facebook.