Strength Faction

Wanna learn a PROVEN plan for getting more training clients?

You gotta make our FREE webinar on Thursday!

Do you have a mission statement for your Personal Training Business, or are you just wingin’ it?

COMMUNITY.

It’s a huge part of what makes the Faction, the Faction.

Carving your own path in the fitness industry doesn’t mean you have to do it on your own. Having some folks (who are “in the trenches with you”) in your corner, rooting for you is huge.

Beyond everything we teach in the Faction, Community is a core part of who we are.

So when our man came to Chicago a couple weeks back, we HAD to meet up for pizza and beers!

We behaved….. this time, and had a total blast catching up!

Love ya, Jarrod!

FREE COACHING CALL!

Want to make 2023 your best year ever as a personal trainer?

Or are you thinking about making the jump into an amazing new career in fitness?

DM us “I’m in” and we’ll give you access to our weekly Q&A call!

We’re rolling HOT into August with some amazing calls for everyone in our coaching program.

Wanna get in on calls like these and carve your own path in the fitness industry? Enter our Fitness Business Kickstart Sweepstakes today!

Link in Bio.

We've teamed up with the boys at the CFSC and Coach Catalyst to bring you a killer sweepstakes!

You could win coaching, mentorship, education, and the resources to streamline your coaching FREE FOR 1 YEAR!

Even better: You're guaranteed to win and all you have to do is apply!

We know it's a time of transition for a lot of folks in the fitness industry.

You're either working to expand and level up your business.

You're transitioning out of working in corporate fitness and going independent.

Or you're a gym/studio owner that wants to improve their service while streamlining and growing your business.

So, we wanted to do something to help you thrive as you make big changes.

That's why we created the Fitness Business Kickstart Sweepstakes.

To help you kickstart your new business or to kickstart the growth of your current business.

We know how hard it can be, and we also know what the right resources can do for you.

So, we enlisted Coach Catalyst to help you streamline your coaching process and client management.

We got the CFSC boys onboard so you could dial in your coaching process while also getting great continuing ed resources from StrengthCoach.com and MBSC.TV.

And we're here to coach and mentor you through the whole process while helping you put all of the pieces together, from coaching, to programming, to client acquisition...

Like we said above, you win just by applying.

To see the 3 Tiers of Prizes and to enter your application, click the link in our profile!

June’s call lineup is 🔥🔥🔥
We’re covering some essential components of fitness business this month and helping our members take action with them!

Swipe 👉🏻

If you want to crush your program design systematization…

…click the link in our profile and purchase 4 Weeks to Simple, Effective, Efficient Program Design

If two people are in a fire and one person freaks out and the other person empathizes with them, how many people die? Two. They both die.

This word gets tossed around like a catch phrase and it’s not always the best thing to do for someone…

And it’s not always going to happen…

You can still have a great relationship with your clients without being painstakingly empathetic.

Sometimes it’s the worst thing for everyone.

👉🏻 for more…

We’ve got some killer Q&A’s lined up for May!

These are the weekly calls where Strength Faction members solve their problems and take action.

Ya know how most mentorships just dump a bunch of info on you…….. and then nothing happens?

We ain’t about that. These calls ensure that our crew is taking action and kicking ass!

If you wanna see what it’s all about, you can attend our special May 18th call for FREE!
Click the link in our bio to register.

🤘🏻Make Program Design Templates Easy Again🤘🏻

A lot of coaches struggle to build program design templates.

So, if you feel that way right now, you're not alone.

But let's talk a little bit about why they struggle...

It's because of their thinking. They are thinking about writing a program and not thinking about creating an outcome.

That means that they are thinking too broadly. Too many things come into play and it's paralyzing.

However, if you think about solving one, specific problem--about creating one outcome--then you can build a solid template.

Here's what you're going to do...

You're going to build a few lists.

First...what is the specific outcome, or set of outcomes, you need to produce?

Second...what skills do you need to develop to produce the outcome(s)?

Third...what abilities does the client need to develop to achieve the outcome(s)?

Fourth...what exercises help the client to learn the skills and train the abilities?

Once you have your lists, you can organize them into sane, sensible, and sound progressions that lead the client(s) toward achieving the outcome.

There's no guesswork. You know exactly the things that must be included.

You organize them based on pre-requisites and priorities. Keep the stuff that matters and is concentrated toward the goal.

Cut the other s**t.

Then use your training knowledge to organize it into an actionable template based on available training time and frequency.

And now you have yourself a training template that you can use over and over again to help client(s) achieve a specific goal.

Repeat this process until you have all of the templates that you need.

You're welcome. :)

Some clients are energy vampires.

Yesterday during our Gym Systems group call (Gym Systems is our business coaching group) one of the members said that their bright spot was losing a few of his gym members that were an energy drain.

That's right. We celebrated someone LOSING clients.

Everyone on the call is an experienced coach. So, we all got it.

Sometimes it's the best thing that can happen.

But maybe you feel trapped...like you don't get to choose who you work with because you need the money.

Most experienced coaches know that pain.

So, how choosy should you be?

Well, at least a little. It's not worth it to take on gigantic headaches that suck your energy and ruin your ability to service your other clients.

But a little headache if you need the money is probably worth it.

There is no totally avoiding headache clients. But you can minimize how many you work with.

One way is to set yourself up either financially by saving or with another job as you build your training business so that you don't have to train people that you don't want to train.

But that also requires you having a solid idea of who you want to work with and why.

Define it, like clearly define it.

Then craft a plan that allows you to be choosey about whom you work with.

You'll have a better training business. You'll get better results. And you'll be a lot goddamn happier.

✅Client Buy-in

If you want clients to buy into your system, start by having a system.

That might seem obvious, but a lot of trainers throw the word "system" around without actually having one.

This kills their confidence because they don't know what repeatable steps to take to consistently plan and produce results.

So, before you start talking about your training system, have one. Otherwise, folks will sniff out your bu****it.

And you have to market to the right clients. If there is a discrepancy between how you market and how you train, clients won't buy-in.

Why? Because you're selling them something that they don't actually want.

If you market yourself as a coach that helps people improve their physique but you only use bastardized powerlifting training and you don't offer nutritional guidance, well, clients will feel the discrepancy.

Once you have your system established and speak to who you're trying to reach, stick with it! If you make changes in your system all the time, or re-brand yourself all the time, people will bail.

Keeping up consistency gives you the biggest buy-in tool of all: RESULTS!

You need to at least track SOMETHING to show your clients results. Otherwise, why in the name of everything holy are they paying you?
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If you're at square one and trying to create a program design system, or you know that yours could be better, click the link in our profile and check out 4 Weeks to Simple, Effective, and Efficient Program Design. It's a 4-module course that simplifies program design for all types of clients.

Here’s a question that you need to ask yourself…

…what kind of clients do I want to work with?

Too many trainers just take whatever they can get.

But is that what you really want?

Do you want to work with soul sucking energy vampires that want you to constantly “motivate” them?

Probably not.

Do you want to work with people that have specific goals? Like fat loss or military prep?

You have to ask these questions and some more of your own design so that you actually build a career and a clientele that you love working with.

Otherwise, you will burn the f**k out.

You’re no one’s savior.

Let’s say it another way.

You can’t help someone that’s not actively helping themselves.

You can guide a person that’s ready and willing to take action. You can help them better define their actions and give them a plan.

But if someone is committed to going down with the ship, you can’t get them off of it.

All you can do in that situation is go down with them.

This is a point of frustration for a lot of trainers.

We want to help. And that desire morphs into a savior complex. Then we start acting like we are f**king therapists.

The end result is either that we don’t help at all, or we make things worse for the person while stressing ourselves out.

Guide people that actually want to move themselves forward.

Let the other ones go.

Does this sound blunt? Yes.

Is it sound, honest advice? Also yes.

They can’t move for s**t…

What are you supposed to do?

Well, the trendy thing would be to totally disregard their goals and just do the fancy mobility exercises some bendy person put on their Instagram.

But that trend is bu****it.

Instead, keep their goals in mind.

9 chances out of 10 they’re coming to you to look and feel better.

Yes, movement capacity training contributes to meet that goal. But if you only focus on that, you won’t build muscle, get stronger, etc.

They also aren’t broken. They just have some limitations. So focus on what they can do and train those things as hard as you appropriately can!

Also, keep in mind that movement capacity training isn’t just joint circles and stretching.

Strength training done right is movement capacity training.

So find the strength training positions and movements that work for that client right now and f**king train.

Then pay attention and dial in the correct proportions of each type of training.

You’ll make faster progress and the process will be more rewarding for your client.
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Click the link in our bio to register for Program Design University. You’ll get monthly mini-courses that will give you the tools you need to train any kind of client.

Do you have strength standards?

Last weekend we were asked how to go about developing strength standards for clients.

What did we do?

First, we considered what we needed strength standards to tell us. What did we actually need to learn?

We needed to know that a person:

✅has the movement skill to handle heavier weights
✅has the movement fidelity to handle training stress

Once we knew what were trying to learn, we could go about observing and making comparisons.

We paid attention to our strongest and best movers.

What could they do?

From there we worked backwards to develop measurable outcomes the lead to achieving strength and quality movement.

After that we confirmed by testing for months.

At the end we settled on a series of standards that let us know that a client has achieved the movement skill, strength, and movement fidelity to progress to more complex and heavier strength training.

Know what you’re trying to learn.

Use your strongest and best movers to create an ideal.

Work backwards and test.
—-
We have an entire mini-course devoted to developing strength standards in our Program Design University. Click the link in our profile to sign up!

Decisions, decisions.

What do you do in the case that you train someone on a limited schedule?

First, don’t overthink things. If you hyperfocus on every little detail, you’re going to get paralysis by analysis. Then you end up trying to solve problems you don’t actually have.

Then, find out what’s going on outside of their time with you. Are they training? Great. Put your focus on the technical exercises so that you can coach them.

If they’re not training outside of their session with you, then give them a well-balanced training day that they’ll enjoy.

Because if someone is only training with you once or maybe twice per week, you have to consider why that’s the case.

It could be financial. It could be scheduling. It could be that’s what they’re willing to do right now.

Many times it’s just because they want one day per week of stress relief. If you’re equipped to give them that, go ahead and do it.
—
Want program design courses that give you the info you need to write programs for any type of client? Click the link in our profile and sign up for Program Design University.

Great stuff, Gabriel Caldwell] and thanks for the kind words!

Gabriel Caldwell] with
・・・
30,000 foot view of where you are…

by using a wheel.

A wheel consisted of successful traits of successful clients.

Brain child from and the rest of team.

Read from the book “Let the First Rep Suck” by Todd.

Which is a fantastic book.

It doesn’t have pictures but the information is first class.

The wheel allows someone to take a step back, think and process their strengths and weaknesses.

Rate your your wheel giving each category a 1-5 score.

Is the wheel flat on one side?

Or does it look like ☀️?

What you do afterwards is up to you.

You can choose to not do anything or pick one of the categories you would like to improve.

Guiding you from where you are to where you would like to be is our job.

After 3 months or so, rate your wheel again.

Some traits may improve, stay the same, or get worse.

But with strategic planning with an approach you’re willing and capable of doing - you will be pointed in the direction of the person you would like to become.

is holding a seminar on program design this weekend which helps you create a system to save you time and make money.

You know because time = 💵

It’s in Niles, IL - near Chicago.

I’ll be there 😁

What should I do?

We bet you’ve asked yourself that question 100 times already this month.

It’s alright. That’s some normal human s**t.

What’s not alright is not answering the question…

…not doing something.

Especially when it comes to your own training, nutrition, recovery and self-management.

What should you do?

Well, what would you tell your clients to do?

That sounds good.

Go do that.

“I love that you do the same training that we do. That’s a huge vote of confidence.”

One of the members at Chris and Todd’s gym said that to Chris after a class.

Chris had taken the class with the members.

It’s so important for our clients to actually see us train.

Especially to see us successfully use the same methods that we use to train them.

Some gurus will tell you not to make your own training visible…to only make it about the clients.

We call bu****it.

Whether it’s training directly beside our members or posting videos of us training, showing our members that we train too is one of the most important things we’ve ever done.

It shows them that we actually believe in our methods.

It builds camaraderie.

It shows that we aren’t just a whole lot of hot air.

So, no matter what a guru tells you, don’t be afraid to show your clients that you train, too.

And when it’s appropriate, jump in with them and get after it.

(Full disclosure: the class we’re talking about in this post was being coached by one of the coaches. Chris took the class because he didn’t have any coaching responsibilities at that point.)

How do you turn leads into clients?

Knowing how to take a client from first contact to tenured client is a big friggin deal.

It’s seriously everything.

When it’s done right…

It means:
✅your marketing is working
✅your onboarding is working
✅your training and retention is working

But how do you know where and what the first contact should be?

What keeps clients with you for the long haul?

During episode 4 of FitBiz RealTalk, and .lyngso talk about creating the customer journey that starts with the right initial contact and leads them to become a tenured client.

Click our link tree to listen in…or wherever you listen to your podcasts!

What does Strength Faction create? Ass kickers.

An Ass Kicker is a different kind of coach…

Smart, Strong, Fun, Real, and Creative

An Ass Kicker knows that the traditional fitness career path isn’t the only way. And they aren’t happy with being “just another coach.” They rebel against the status quo.

An Ass Kicker doesn’t wait for permission to take action. They believe in their mission and are out to help as many people as possible transform their lives through fitness.

An Ass Kicker defines their own values and their success. They don’t wait for the old guard to define success for them.

An Ass Kicker creates a compelling vision for their life and commits to doing the work…to Feeding the Piggy Bank every day with positive action.

They know that showing up consistently is the secret sauce of success.

Ass Kickers don’t take defeat lying down and they see opportunities where others see obstacles. They know that sound principles and systems are what allow them to successfully adapt to any situation.

An Ass Kicker is a coach that defines their own career path and their own destiny. They’re confident that they can get their clients results and they have the systems and principles to prove it. They live life on their terms—kicking ass as a coach and living the lifestyle that they want.

Man, it’s comments like this from that illustrate why we do what we do.

No bu****it.

We actually want to help and we’ll tell you the truth.

And in doing that, help you avoid mistakes that we’ve made…

…and help you get to a better place in your career, business, and life.

We won’t try to steal your individuality or put you in a mold.

But we will teach you systems that you can use to choose your own path through the fitness industry.

Thank you, Evan. Your words are testimony to why we do what we do.

Continuing education…

Is there a standard amount you should be doing every year?

How do you know what you should be striving to learn?

Other than completing the CEU requirements to maintain your certification, there is no “standard.”

But most successful coaches, trainers, and fitness business owners are constantly engaged in some kind of learning.

Don’t, however, think you need to follow some standardized ideal put forth by some certifying body.

Give them the Robert Downey Jr. treatment: smile, nod, and then do whatever the f**k you were going to do anyway. 😊

That being said, is there a way to know what you should focus on at a given time with your continuing ed?

Yep.

Pay attention to your points of struggle, frustration, and confusion.

If program design boggles your mind, lean into that.

Have trouble communicating and setting boundaries with your clients? Well, there ya go.

Not sure what to do when an exercise is too difficult for a client? Time to learn about cueing and progressions and regressions.

Doing well with coaching and programming but not sure about the next steps in your career? It’s time to learn about planning and fitness business.

When you focus this way, you can craft YOUR path through the industry while staying in tune and consistently growing.

How do you cue your clients to deadlift?

Well, it starts with a solid hip hinge.

If there ain’t no hinging, there ain’t no picking up and putting down.

How in the heck do you teach a client to hinge?

First, be mindful of position. Do they need to learn on their feet or on their knees?

Second, help them understand the movement with simple cues and demonstrations.

For example, we use a simple mantra for getting clients to understand positioning and movement.

TRD

Tall and tight (position)

Reach (movement to the bottom position)

Drive (movement from the bottom to the top)

These simple words have taught, and cleaned up, many-a-deadlift.

What are some of your favorite deadlift cues?

Drop em below 👇🏻

P.S. our very own is teaching this months mini course on “How to Teach Your Clients to Deadlift” keep your eyes peeled for more deets.

How do you craft a clear vision for your work and life?

Like what type of clients you want to work with.

How you want to work with those clients.

Honestly knowing what would make you happiest.

If you’re struggling with this, here’s the most important thing you’ll read today:

You can’t figure it out just by thinking about it.

Read that another time.

You have to act.

You have to do.

You actually have to experience the things. To feel the happiness. To get the real world feedback on whether or not you love the lifestyle and the work.

Whether or not you like working with a certain type of client to get a certain type of result.

You can’t just conjure this s**t up.

Instead, you have to explore and pay attention.

And you have to get in touch with your values.

As you do all this, you stay open and engross yourself with the process.

Because if you focus on the outcome of making yourself happy all you’ll find is a moving target that you’ll never hit.

Essentially, you have to say yes to a bunch of stuff so you know what to say no too.

And as you do that accept that the only thing that can make you happy is your peace of mind.

There’s no ideal work situation that will make you happy.

But if you enjoy the ride, engage in the process, and note what’s working for you and what isn’t with the curiosity of an objective investigator, you’ll gain more clarity on what it is you actually want to create.

As you act and pay attention, your aim at the future situation that you want for yourself will gain accuracy.

Happy Friday.

You have clients that aren’t getting results…

…and you’re pretty sure it’s their fault.

It’s okay. Go on. Admit it.

You’re doing your best to meet them where they’re at.

You’re writing good training programs.

You’re movement coaching is keeping them safe.

But they aren’t getting leaner. They’re performance tests aren’t getting better.

And you’re worried they’re going to say f**k it and quit.

But you’re pretty sure they aren’t getting results because they aren’t doing what they need to do outside the gym.

Their sleep hygiene sucks.

They only drink water every third Thursday.

And they eat like a 9 year old at a carnival.

But you’re worried they are going to blame you and look for another trainer.

Guess what?

They might.

You can do all of the right things and you still might not get a person results.

Because you can’t help anyone change that isn’t ready to take responsibility for their own change.

Do the little things…

…meet people where they are at
…guide with incremental change
…be honest
…create systems that influence accountability

But realize above all else that a person’s transformation is their responsibility.

You are the guide.

Not the hero.

The deadlift.

It’s just about everyone on the planet’s favorite lift.

You pick stuff up.

You put it back down.

You feel like a bad ass.

So it’s no duh that people love it.

The question is:

How do you teach clients to do it effectively and without getting hurt?

Step 1: Progression and regression system

Step 2: Teach hinging skill

Step 3: Qualify your clients via movement capacity, movement quality, and movement fidelity

Step 4: Train that m0thEr f*cker

We’d love to hear your thoughts on training the deadlift.

Drop ‘em 👇🏻

Earlier this month, our homegirl decided to take the leap from corporate life to pursue her passion for being a trainer full time.

First, let’s give her a round of applause!

That s**t ain’t easy and it’s certainly scary.

But she mustered the gumption and made the leap.

We’re honored that the support of the Faction helped her make the decision to actively create the life she really wanted.

Thanks for making us part of the journey, Taylor.

We know a lot of you out there are feeling the same way Taylor was…

…wanting to pursue your passion…

…wanting more for your life…

…wanting a career that feeds your soul as much as it feeds your bank account…

YOU can do it, too.

You can take the leap.

We’ll be here with the mentorship, guidance, accountability, and education to help you make that leap successful.

Click the link below and get yourself enrolled for the Fall ‘21 Strength Faction Coaching Program

https://strengthfaction.com/fall-2021-enrollment/

There are 5 BIG problems that hold coaches back from lasting success:

✅ Poor self-management
✅ Wasting too much time on program design (because you’re not confident your programs are going to work)
✅ No coaching system that shows clients how valuable it is to stay on as your client
✅ No systems for generating new client leads (and managing the business of fitness)
✅ No mentorship and guidance to help you implement these systems

Well, homie, that’s why we created Strength Faction.

Our 17-week mentorship and education program gives you the tools you need to create the life and career that you want in the fitness industry.

Enrollment is open now!

Click the link in our profile to check out the registration page and save your seat for the fall!