Straight Shot Radio

Here's the audio from a Facebook Live Q&A hosted by Coach Bruce and Coach Moe! They answered questions about how to reduce your intake of sugary drinks, why breakfast is important for fat loss, how to mimic the effects of Ozempic through diet and exercise, and what the best strategies for recovery are. Follow us on social media to be part of the next live chat!

Coach Bailey and Coach Delaney take over the show in this episode! They hosted a live chat on facebook where they answered questions about overtraining vs. under-recovering, ideal shoes for working out, how to tell if you're lifting heavy enough, and tons more as we had a LOT of people join in and comment throughout the live stream. Thanks to everyone who tuned in! 

We cover whether or not you can lose fat and tone up certain areas of your body, how to swap proteins in and out of your diet to avoid burnout, how dietary protein contributes to fat loss, and more. If you're struggling with knee, low back, or shoulder pain, we've got something for you. It's called Train Away Your Pain written by Straight Shot Coach Bruce Carpenter and it's packed with insight, information, and workouts to help you get out of pain and get back to training. Click this link for your free eBook: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/aHtbO3m/TrainAwayYourPain

We're back! This episode is an audio version of a Facebook live by Coach Jonny and Coach Bruce where they talk about how to beat sweets cravings, fact vs fiction on preworkout supplements, and strategies to train around injuries using techniques found in Coach Bruce's new eBook. You can download this eBook FREE via the link below!: "Train Away Your Pain"

Could resting and icing your injury actually PROLONG your symptoms??? Doctor Matt Silver from Alpha Project Phyzio joins me to talk about the new school style of physical therapy, why resting and icing an injury ISN'T the best way to heal it, and how you can learn from him at his upcoming workshop at Straight Shot Training on Saturday, January 8th at 9am. Dr. Matt is also the host of the Health and Fitness Frederick podcast if you'd like to check his show out as well!

This week on the show we've got holiday nutrition, keto vs. macro tracking, multiple workouts a day, the pump after working out, and training for power. Thanks to everyone from Instagram for submitting their questions!

Whether it's the holidays, a vacation, an injury, or a nasty stomach bug that causes you to lose 5lb in 2 days...things don't always go as planned. But it's how we get back to things and stay consistent where we can that allows us to make progress over a longer timeline.  I share a recent personal experience in this episode plus give you details on an upcoming knee pain workshop AND unveil the 28 Day Free Coaching Challenge that launches in January!

Coach John and I answer a question we've gotten from a lot of people when they see how we eat and train: “How do you choose to do difficult things?” Is it a personality trait? A series of decisions? A product of our training itself? Find out in under 20min with this episode!

December is this strange middle ground between thanksgiving and the end of the year when your schedule is different, your sleeping is off, your eating is all over the place with parties and traveling, and - oh yeah let's try to find a time to workout in the middle of all of that too.  In this episode, I want to help you find a way to stay a little more on track throughout December with your diet and workouts AND give you some ideas on how to set yourself up better to take on your 2022 fitness goals (that you can absolutely start on now!)

We're going to let you know what to expect during your first personal training session! We'll also give you some tips on how you can be prepared for your session AND how to make the most of your recovery afterwards. 

Much like a Thanksgiving meal plate, we weave together some random topics into a gravy-smothered 38min of fitness knowledge in this week's episode.  Coach Delaney joined me to go over training protocols when you're sick, how your limb length affects your lifts, and what our top picks for protein bars are. We finish with our takes on what Thanksgiving foods are overrated and which are underrated (with some controversial answers I'm sure...). 

We have been putting together a nutritional ebook for our awesome clients! This resource will have a grocery shopping guide, recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and shakes, an audio crash course in macronutrients and meal prepping, a recovery checklist, AND tips for eating out at restaurants without your diet going off the rails! Now, ideally, you want to make the majority of your food at home so you know exactly what you're eating and how much of it you're eating. That being said, we know eating out with your family and friends is fun and sometimes it's necessary to eat out on the road with your busy schedule. So in this short episode, I give you some quick tips to make eating out healthier! Note: Don't stress too much about sticking to all of these tips (especially if it's a big occasion). Allowing yourself the freedom to have “unhealthy” foods in large amounts every now and then will not impact the big picture and will actually help you keep a more well-rounded diet overall!

With the days getting shorter, darker, and colder, seasonal depression, mood changes, changes in sleeping habits, or even just a lack of motivation or desire to get to the gym can make sticking to your training routine difficult if not impossible.  In this episode, the Straight Shot Coaches give their recommendations for modifying your training, diet, and recovery to help you do your best to get through what many people find the hardest time of the year to stay healthy both physically and mentally

This episode was so terrifying of an endeavor to approach alone, that I enlisted the help of Straight Shot Coaches Delaney and John, as we walked through the haunted graveyard that is the world of health and fitness trends.  From high fructose corn syrup to rounded back deadlifts, we dug into some of the scariest topics we could bear to get through. Listeners beware, this is an episode that may shock and disturb you…like a brownie you just found out is made with kale. Grab your trick or treat bucket and get ready to fill it with fitness knowledge treats with this spooky…and laughter-filled episode from some of your Straight Shot Coaches in our first episode recorded in our new studio!

It doesn't matter how old you are, it's never too late to start moving better, get stronger, and live a healthy and active life.  In this episode, I share why “starting late” isn't as uncommon as you think, and how continuing to train with a strength and conditioning program over the course of your life is completely realistic if you approach it correctly.  Whether you're 19 or 91, there's something in this episode for you!

I've mopped a LOT of gym floors in my career as a coach, but two instances stick out to me as very special and defining moments in my life.  In this episode, you'll hear both stories bookending a brief timeline of my journey with Straight Shot Training with a whole lot of gratitude to the people that have made it all happen.  If you're new to Straight Shot Radio, this episode is a GREAT place to start!

The Korean dystopian masterpiece "Squid Game" is set to be the most-watched show in Netflix's history, and has sparked a flood of memes, parodies, and discussions all over the internet.  The other day I was thinking about how one of the games in the show reminds me a lot of working towards a fitness goal. And it's probably NOT one of the games you'd suspect if you've seen the show.  In this episode, I share 5 tips from the contestants in Squid Game that may help you lose weight, gain muscle, get stronger, and improve your overall fitness.

As a personal trainer, I try to get my clients to make most of the food they eat. However I know people are going to eat out occasionally, and sometimes, it's going to be at a fast-food restaurant.  It may surprise you, but if you're going to eat fast food, I'd honestly recommend Taco Bell. I know that may sound odd to you, but if you listen to this entire episode, I'm positive I'm going to tell you some things you didn't know about Taco Bell and MAYBE even change your mind if you think that there's no way you can eat healthy food there.  Missy Schaaphok, a registered dietician on staff at Taco Bell contributed a TON to this episode where we give you an inside look at the 15-year journey Taco Bell has been on to make their food healthier for everyone no matter what their dietary preferences are. Links from the show: www.straightshottraining.com  www.tacobell.com/nutrition www.tacobell.com/food-for-all-journey www.instagram.com/missfoodierd   

Whether it's a work trip or a vacation, consider this episode as your guide to staying on track with your fitness, while still relaxing and enjoying yourself, and allowing your body to get some rest and recovery. It's a tough balance, but the tips I share in this episode should help you find a happy medium between being too strict and going completely of the rails on your next getaway.  I cover nutrition, hydration, sleep, workouts, and more in this strategy-packed episode. 

Losing weight is one of the top reasons people start working out, but it's only one of the MANY benefits to your physical and psychological health that you get from regular exercise.  I review an article from NetDoctor UK in this episode with 12 non-weight loss benefits from working out plus give you some updates on our studio, a new Straight Shot Training coach, and the highly anticipated "Taco Bell" episode coming out soon!

This is NOT your typical circuit training workout. These long-duration, low-intensity circuits will help you build your aerobic engine, improve your overall health, optimize your recovery, and manage your body composition. The best part is, they WON'T leave you heaving on the floor and you'll actually feel better the next day after doing them. In this episode, I explain how this method works and give your exact instructions on how to design your own aerobic circuits!

KILL NEGATIVITY MAKE ADVANCEMENTS. It's a fitness and lifestyle brand with a powerful message of overcoming adversity with militant positivity. It's with this mindset that KNMA founder Kwame Asante hopes to help elicit a positive change in the clients he coaches, the individuals who wear his clothing line, the members of his community, and eventually people across the globe as he grows his brand.  In this episode, you'll learn about how Kwame's injuries early on in his athletic career lead him down this path of choosing positivity over negativity, and how he's developed his message into a stylish brand of fitness and apparel along with a hard working media team. Side note we forgot to mention in the episode: KNMA is also Kwame's initials!

“I don't have time to workout” “There's no way I could get 8 hours of sleep” “I'm just too busy to eat healthy” I hear these phrases ALL THE TIME when I'm trying to counsel people on the importance of sleep, nutrition, and exercise. Inevitably, when we actually take a closer look at their day, we find that if we budget time for it, we actually can find more time for them to take care of their body through training and recovery than they thought possible.  It's just that you have to make it a priority and build it into your day. It's like my mom always said, “People do what they REALLY want to do.” In this episode, I walk you through 3 different people's schedules and show you how to find time to sleep 8 hours, eat healthy meals, and work out. I also share lists of ways to be more efficient with your day and places where you're wasting time that could be spent bettering your health and spending time with your family.  

Personal Trainer, Crossfit Coach, and Strongman Competitor John Taylor is back with me for this episode as we give you an intro into one of our favorite training methodologies: The Conjugate Method.  This style of workout programming combines multiple training strategies to help you increase your strength while keeping workouts fresh and fun. Combined with good diet and nutrition practices, the method also allows for optimal recovery. AND the overall strength and conditioning you'll gain from a conjugate program transfers to everything you do OUTSIDE of the gym too. 

Coach Delaney and I are back with another Topic Pile this month and we cover training for different goals, burnout, selecting a workout program, annoying coaching trends on Instagram, a nutrition idea that we DON'T exactly agree on, and some thoughts on the new studio Straight Shot is opening this fall.

Looking to add to your home gym? Or maybe you're a gym owner looking to expand your inventory? Either way, please do NOT waste your money on the types of fitness equipment that I detail in this episode!

It's finally happening. After 2 years of searching, 4 years of Straight Shot being a company, and 13 years since I first dreamed of opening my own studio, we have found our own space. Located in North Frederick at 8411 Broadband Drive, our future home is a beautiful, brand new warehouse that's just minutes from route 15, route 26, and downtown Frederick. In this episode, I'm joined by Straight Shot Co-Owner Chris and Coach Delaney. We answer some of the questions we've already been getting about this new training studio and give you all an early glimpse of the healthy community we're trying to build! 

Everything on social media is fake. OK not EVERYTHING, but A LOT. And coaches are actually making it harder for people to get in shape with the nonsense they're putting out on their channels.  In this episode, I give you some things to watch out for online so you can avoid the hype and do the things it really takes to get fitter and more confident. 

Do we really need to take 10,000 steps a day in order to be healthy? A recent article by the New York Times challenged this idea by bringing to light the origin of the mythical “10K Steps a Day” and compared it to the science from epidemiologists on health and physical activity.  I read through and give my thoughts on the article in this short and info-packed episode!

I have this ongoing note on my phone where I put down ideas, thoughts, questions people have asked me, hypotheticals, funny observations, and controversial things I've seen posted around the internet.  For this week's podcast, I wrote down a few of them on pieces of paper and had Coach Delaney join me as we pulled topics off of a pile and talked for a bit about each one.  We get into swimsuit selfies, training while you're sick, keto vs. vegan diets, letting your body dictate your training intensity, eating one meal a day, building a time machine to change something about our training history, and more. We had a lot of fun with this one, including laughing at Delaney's uncontrollable sneezes that were a result of the hot sauce she put on her chicken. 

Rebecca and Kyle Conrad are combining their backgrounds in farming, fitness, and grocery industries to usher in a new era for a farm that's been in Rebecca's family for 7 generations. Frederick area residents can now go to Reifsnider Farm for fresh local produce and free-range, pasture-fed beef. With Rebecca's background being in fitness, and her having a degree and certification in nutrition, one of the things Reifsnider Farm is looking to do is partner with area personal trainers and gyms to help their clients get easier access to affordable, fresh, nutritious food from a farm that values health and wellness. Plus their direct to consumer model will also give people a chance to see where their food is coming from, and have trust in the quality of food they're eating. In this episode, I chat with Rebecca and Kyle Conrad about Reifsnider Farm and how they're putting their passions to work with a fresh approach to this farm that's been in the family for years. 

Imagine a co-working space that was half office space, half private gym, outfitted with top-of-the-line functional fitness equipment.   That's exactly what Hannah and Jimmy King of Squadstyle Lifestyle have created with SL Studio in Frederick, MD. SL Studio is a revolutionary co-working space that Straight Shot has had the fortunate opportunity to be an early member of. It's at this studio that I'm able to provide clients with a completely different fitness experience than they'd get at a typical commercial gym.  In this episode, you'll hear how Hannah and Jimmy took this idea from their garage gym to the coolest new spot in Frederick!  

So you're strength training, 2, 3, maybe 4 times a week, but you might be wondering: "Well, what do I do on the other days?" "Should I rest? Do cardio? Lift more? Am I doing enough? Am I doing too much?"  In this episode, I give you some strategies to help you stay active, balance your work to recovery ratio, and find some things you enjoy doing on the days between your workouts.

"Workout Splits" are how you lay out your training across the week in terms of what areas of the body you train or what movements you do. The most common are full body, upper/lower, push/pull/legs, and body part splits, but there are TONS of variations of these.  In this episode, I detail a hybrid split I developed that personally helped me lose 12lb and maintain my muscle mass while adding 20+lb to some of my lifts. 

Wow. What a year.  In this episode, you'll hear a quick version of how we pivoted our fitness business mid-pandemic to launch the current version of Straight Shot, and some big things in store for us starting this week! Consider this episode also an open letter of gratitude to each and every person we've coached this year and all of you who listen to the show, like, comment, and share our posts, and talk about us to your friends. You all are the reason we were able to do what we did in 2020, and I can't thank you enough.

So what should you drink before your workout for extra energy, focus, and improved performance? You'll find out in under 11min with this mini-episode!

So how would a coach design a program for Geralt of Rivia, the lead character in The Witcher? Not, “how did Henry Cavill get huge and ripped for his role on the Netlifx show?”...Literally, how would a program be designed for a 13th century, magically enhanced monster-killer with a bad attitude on a quest to fulfill his prophesied destiny? Obviously, this is a task much too lofty for just one coach, so I enlisted the help of Strongman and Crossfit Coach John Taylor, whose love of The Witcher, homemade fitness equipment, and inventive imagination made for a hilarious conversation.  We tie in a lot of training and coaching techniques throughout the episode that may benefit you in your own program whether you’re just looking to add some variety to your routine, or if you need to battle a giant spider hybrid beast in the middle of a swamp at night armed only with your steel sword…

I share some tips and strategies behind the difference maker in your diet and exercise adherence: Accountability.  Trust me, this is not an introspective pep talk. These are real, practical things you can start doing today to help you accomplish your fitness goals by setting up accountability checks in your diet, sleep, and workouts.  If you're a coach, I've got a lot for you all in this one too, but heads up, I'm a lot harder on you all than everyone else...

Challenges in your life are inevitable, it’s how you choose to handle them that makes the difference between them being something that breaks you down and something that builds you up Coach Ryan Morse, C.S.C.S, has faced countless challenges in his athletic, coaching, and entrepreneurial careers. The way he chooses to take on each trial is the motto of his gym, Crucible Performance, and that motto is “Cherish the Challenge.” Not “tolerate the challenge,” not “hurry up and get through the challenge,” CHERISH it. Drive headfirst into the difficult things both in and out of the gym that will make you a better person physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. In this interview, we hear how Ryan went from a baseball-playing art student to one of the top personal trainers in our area with an award-winning gym that empowers every athlete who enters.

I’m joined by Straight Shot Co-Owner Chris Lewis and Coach Delaney Bodnar as we tackle some of the questions we received from you all on social media.    We cover whether or not you need to return to a gym, plant vs. animal protein in your diet, how to get stronger with chinups, more sleep vs. early morning workouts, and the correct steps to becoming a personal trainer. 

Brad and Naomi Leeman wanted to combine their love of fitness with their desire to have more family time. So they created the SwingSesh: a combination home gym and playground setup.  Brad serves as a Test Pilot in the US Marine Corps and Naomi is an urban design consultant. They came up with the idea for the SwingSesh, designed and engineered it, found a manufacturer, and now have their product available for other busy parents looking to stay active along with their kids.  In this interview, we chat about how parents can model good relationships with exercise to their children and how they took their product from a dream to production.

So you've been counting your calories and trying to make sure you're in a caloric deficit, but your weight loss has stopped...or worse...you're losing muscle mass. How do you continue to lose weight and make sure it's body fat and not muscle that you're losing? In this episode, I give you 7 ways to kickstart your weight loss and make sure you’re losing fat instead of muscle. These methods may not be the first things you think of, but they will keep your metabolism revving throughout the day, and still allow you to crush your goals in the gym while dropping weight.

This week on the show we’ve got Straight Shot Coach Megan Foland. Like most personal trainers in 2020, she had a pretty wild year, except Megan also had a baby in 2020, worked as a respiratory therapist, helped with the opening of our sister company, Kinetix Physiotherapy & Performance, and started coaching for us here at Straight Shot.  We get into all of that in our chat plus we discuss her experience as an Ironman Triathlete, share tips from her nutrition blog, and get a glimpse of how busy parents can juggle family, work, nutrition, and training, AND recovery.

Motivation is overrated.  Sooner or later, no matter how motivated you are to start something, that motivation will fade. And when the motivation to eat healthily, work out, and recover well isn’t there, what do you REALLY need to stick with it? It’s Dedication. In this episode, I share some practical strategies to help you get dedicated to accomplishing your health and fitness goals by properly structuring your training, nutrition, and recovery.  

Continuing with our series on coaches who embraced the challenges of 2020, we have Jess Racz, C.S.C.S. from JR Performance.  Even before the lockdown hit, she was paving her own path, being a female strength and conditioning coach in a male-dominated industry. I first met Jess when she was in high school, working out at a gym that I worked at. We’ve kept in touch over the years and it’s been amazing to see her growth as a coach. But what she accomplished last year is on a whole other level. Jess started her own performance coaching business and opened a physical location in the middle of the shutdown and has grown JR Performance to be a hot spot for young athletes to come and build both strength and self-confidence with her unique approach.  In this episode, Jess shares her experience from last year and all of the struggles and challenges she’s had to face along the way to becoming the coach and mentor that she is today. 

This is the first episode in a series of interviews with coaches, trainers, and business owners who didn’t just go on defense during the pandemic; they charged headfirst into making sure they were still able to help their clients, provide for their families, and grow their businesses by pivoting and rolling with the punches throughout a tumultuous year. My first guest in this series is George Bolden from Bolden Movement. George was working at a local Frederick gym with dreams of going full time with his own side hustle when the pandemic and shutdown hit. He saw this challenge as an opportunity to take the risk and go all-in on his own business...and it paid off. George now runs Boot Camps in parks, does in-home and small group training, holds local fundraisers, and has big plans for growing his company. George’s enthusiasm and energy empower his clients to take charge of their health and make the changes and sacrifices they need to, in order to reach their goals.

Ever wonder why you keep injuring yourself while working out, EVEN if you weren’t using bad form? Well, there are a TON of other reasons why you may have injured yourself and keep injuring yourself. In this episode, I go through a list of possible reasons behind these bumps in the road with your training, and how making these changes in your workouts can have you training more consistently since you aren’t constantly dealing with nagging injuries.  Note: Completely forgot to add SLEEP to this list! How could I forget that?! If you don't sleep 7-8+ hours a night, you're going to run into issues with recovery, and risk getting hurt!

The Straight Shot coaches share our own worst gym moments along with a bunch of your submissions from social media. Look, embarrassing stuff in the gym happens, so we use this episode to laugh it all off together and encourage you to keep coming back and bettering yourself each workout. You'll hear about falling asleep in a yoga class, pooping under a bush, odd bodily sounds on heavy lifts, throwing up on a Goodwill donation box, lots of trips, falls, and funny fails, and other stories we could barely read we were laughing so hard.  One of our funniest episodes to date...don't skip this one!  

If you're looking to balance your many fitness goals, DUP is a method of organizing your workouts throughout the week to accomplish just that. Personally, I used the DUP program I lay out in this episode to hit PR's on all of my lifts while still staying mobile and athletic AND drop 20 pounds over the course of 15 weeks.  In addition to sharing my own experimentation with this training style, I lay out a sample program you can use to start training this way as soon as you're finished listening to the episode!

To drink, or not to drink? If you're a listener of this show, you know we're all about moderation. But what exactly are all those tasty beverages doing to your ability to achieve your fitness goals? In this episode, I lay out what alcohol does to your ability to lose weight, get stronger, run farther, and recover faster, and how a little moderation can make a huge difference in your fitness. 

Teaming up with Chris has allowed me to take what was once a side project of mine, and turn it into a full-time job where I can help more people, have an awesome team of coaches, and build the company up to what it is now while planning for what we want it to be in the future. I wanted to have Chris on so you all could get to know him and his backstory, hear how we met and figured out how to combine our skills, and so we could share with you what we hope to accomplish with our team and our athletes.