 Even for us as coaches like we have learned and revised and reformed our model based on what we've learned from teaching and from going through the curriculum You know, it's like the you know when you have a kid They ask you a question and they're just asking the question because they want to know and you start talking and you think to yourself wait That's not a good enough answer You're listening to barbell logic brought to you by barbell logic online coaching where each week We take a systematic walk through strength training and the refining power of voluntary hardship Welcome to the barbell logic podcast. This is Matt Reynolds, you know me I'm pretty much always here and I am joined today by a good friend coach at barbell logic and Really the curriculum director at the Academy CJ Gocher coming to you from beautiful sunny San Diego area. That's really like you have to you have to pay a lot of money for stuff down there basically because it's 74 and sunny pretty much the sunshine tax is terrible. That's right every single day. So thanks for being on the show, man Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here We have you've been on the show once before I think once is that right? Yeah, once before it was a discussing the science. Yeah, we talked about the the problem of Scientism right and you're a big you're a big science guy. We like science. We like studies We just don't put our entire faith and religion in behind Double-blind placebo based university studies. You've talked about the problem with that like all those things are definitely a tool So you can go back and check that out. Scott would be good at talking about what exact episode that is Trent might bump in here And we're like that is episode 74, but I don't know what it is. So thanks for being on the show You have You know as barbell logic has grown as a company We have watched the cream kind of rise to the top and everybody sort of started everybody other than me started as as a coach as a as a really a general contractor coach and You've really found a niche you continue to coach for us and do it well but you found this niche in in the Academy and in really taking the original curriculum that we had and and making additions to it and changes to it and really making it ours and It seems like you've just really flourished in that role. Is that fair to say? It's been like the the Academy thing has been a blast from the beginning even just being a teacher You know on on as the curriculum originally was to now doing the curriculum manager position like I'm loving it. There's a there's there's an element to it which which is coaching, you know There's an element to it which is taking information Simplifying it down getting feedback whether the information was received like it's it's sort of a long long form version of queuing a rep Watching someone go over six months from from kind of like not grasping the ideas to developing as a coach It's it's it's been really cool Yeah, that's a great analogy that you have there like we're coaches. That's what we do, right? We teach and we coach and so We have expanded our services from just coaching clients to coaching coaches And it gives you an opportunity to really be able to to color and and bring to life What the education for future? really master strength coaches are able to learn to be able to to Digest and to the curriculum is I said even before the show you and I were talking off the air that I don't want this to be a Big commercial for the Academy, but holy shit. The the the Academy curriculum is Unbelievable I had all the most listeners will know Jonathan Sullivan I had sully look through all the curriculum in the last couple weeks and just be like I just want some feedback on this and he's like dude. This is this is the best this is the best coaching of coaches I've ever seen and he was just very impressed with it And so that that was great cuz so he was this kind of like third-party You know it could and and and sort of like the wise old instructor that we all kind of look up to Dr. Sullivan and he was he was super impressed and so Tell me a little bit about like how is the curriculum evolving from the original? And I think the original curriculum was great, but as we have moved on over the last year How is that really evolved and and why what was the need for it to evolve to what it is now? Well first things first we had hundreds of data points of Feedback from the feedback from the students feedback from the the coaches who were teaching it Where we were getting feedback as to was this information being received? What was most useful and we kind of reached this critical mass like we have to do something We have we have a core like a kernel of content here That and we have what we need to to make it Better for the audience that we're trying to reach so like we kind of it almost felt like inevitable You know we had to we had to move this forward Like the feedback piece was a huge thing in terms of what what are they getting? What are they not some pieces being the hardest some pieces being Kind of well liked but perhaps not as useful or not as practical to the coach That being their feedback to us and so trying to level load that And strip out as much of the piece that they felt wasn't as practical to them after they had left So that we could put in more and more and more of the things they got the the ROI out of the the bank for the buck There was the focus we wanted We some of the feedback we got was this it was like it was a presentation of information You know and the individual instructor because we do weekly webinars For those who aren't familiar with how the whole thing works There's every week, you know, so the assignment is released. There's readings. There's videos. There's assignments to feedback and in slack And every week the students have an opportunity to post a video of them coaching to post a video of them lifting Provided that they provide their own self-assessment to get feedback from their peer coaches and then from the staff coach Yes, so there every student is in a class with somewhere between six and ten occasionally 12 other students And a and a master coach of a professor master coach Who's leading the class and there is a there is a there's a group webinar call That's a couple hours once a week we set that class up based on like when that call is going to be So, you know, this class is going to have calls on Tuesday nights at 7 p.m This one's Saturday mornings. This one's Sunday evenings, whatever so you can find one that fits your schedule and You then so you you go through the curriculum You go through the assignments you go through the work and then you get some time to actually spend in a group chat To talk with each other and learn from each other Your group appears but also then learn from the master coach the master coach can give you feedback on On what they're seeing out of the class. That's probably a fair Uh judgment. So yeah, so then so really what I'm hearing you say is them The big difference is that original curriculum for us was written before we launched the academy at all There weren't any students to give feedback And now that we've done it since october of 18 We've had we've had a couple hundred students come through and we've we've been able to have tremendous feedback on What's working? Well What maybe the content was good, but for some reason it wasn't lame I keep thinking about the the old parable of the sewer right of like throwing the seed and it seems like what you're What you've done with the updates in curriculum Is to try to make sure that the seed falls on fertile ground better How do we make sure that the seed hits fertile ground and doesn't hit? You know dry ground or concrete or whatever and never springs and so how do we make this land better and Take root and so that the the students don't just Don't just hear it or read it and do the thing that we all did in high school Which is learn it for the test and then forget the thing But how does it take root and actually grow and and implant in who they are We're taking we're taking as a principle for the coaching academy. There's a john haddy, uh, dr John haddy Started this idea of visible learning that learning happens when the student has a perspective from oh from From the coach or from the teacher's perspective and the teacher sees things as visible from the student perspective We we wanted to be able to see things from their perspective and realize Where they were getting it where they weren't um What they what they loved was the coaching interaction and the weekly webinars and you know that piece of the content Uh, and then it was catching up to to kind of the weekly actual curriculum piece So taking that the the core present presented content and making that interactive making that Inhabitable making that uh bringing in some of that science of learning to to Bring it to life Yeah, that's great. That's great I've noticed that we are having students That are now going through the curriculum for the second time having already taken it the first time either they're auditing the class We're retaking the class What what has been your feedback? What's been their feedback that you're seeing um, that what are they saying is different from The first time through maybe they took it in the fall and spring of of 18 and 19 and now here We are a year later the fall and spring of 19 and 20 What what's their feedback so far that you're hearing from those students who have taken it twice? So we've been blessed to have you know students who were they were excited about it They liked it the first time they were excited about it the second time Uh to to come back and then you know getting that feedback from them as well Uh, probably the the biggest It's it's been positive, but you know when you get positive feedback It's always like well, you know if it's new content. They're getting new things. Of course, it's positive um But kind of the biggest thing has been how it's how it's been tailored to the decision making and the whole coach process So uh the idea that you know just just an example taking uh teaching progressions like Looking at okay. These are a previously. This is a tool that you can take out there and use with your clients, which is great And now there's like a whole lesson on how we use the teaching progressions how we adapt them to the clients depending on who we're working with best practices and and and uh That those changes have been a lot of what we got our most positive feedback about Yeah, it's one of the things I noticed it seems like there is a a greater emphasis on The psychology of coaching and being able to connect with your clients So um, what maybe was a little bit rigid in the beginning like this is kind of the orthodox way of doing it This is what we do has now sort of it's not it's not a do whatever you want sort of thing. There's still very much a A standard to follow and there is still an orthodox way to do this but to understand like hey You're not going to teach the squat the same way to a 65 year old female as you are to a to a 19 year old guy Who's getting ready to go to college to go play football like the teaching progression While the the squat itself or the deadlift itself might look very similar or even the same The way you speak the way you connect the way you emphasize things Changes right that 19 year old kid. He's out there to burn the world down. He doesn't look for the most part, right? It depends on the person That 65 year old lady who's never lifted before she's she's scared And one of the things you have to do is calm her down and make make sure she understands everything's going to be okay She's going to be just fine You might teach her the progression out of a kitchen chair You might you know, there are things that so they're sort of say like this is the way we do things Sort of creates that rigidness to go like hold on there needs to be enough flexibility to understand who your client is Everything everything in the so we we start now with the the the block on coaching and and part of the the overarching theme of that Is your values identity and priority your vip and your clients vip? What are their values identity and priorities? Like what do they care about and in the entire course? It's almost like, you know a magnet that follows along and just everything kind of aligns with that as it passes Uh all of our content and all of the the point becomes okay But is this what your client needs in the online space in the in-person space with the client base that you're working with With your skill set. Uh, we've had pts come through this course. We've had you know, uh prior coaches We've had people who have no coaching background, but they're teachers Okay, you bring that to coaching and coach with that And that has has opened things up for us as teachers But that's probably what uh that change in in attitude has been Something we've gotten a lot of positive feedback about. Yeah, that's really good um So a question I'm sure a lot of people are are thinking right now that are listening to this is like who is the academy for Do I need to be a coach? Do I need to have a year of coaching under my belt to do the academy? Like can I benefit from this thing? Going into it relatively green Yeah, it's it's the person who's going into a relatively green that we kind of want So we're narrowing this down like the vip of the student who we who we think will do best coming in And attitudinally we joked it's the barbell nerd, but it's the person who's who's passionate about the content passion about the experience Uh and usually someone who's been coaching for probably less than five years Uh is usually because after after that point, you know, probably other content like the master's classes or things We want somebody who is either looking for their their their coaching future like is this something I want to do I'm passionate about it. I love it. I'm I'm taking the shallow water I'm teaching my family my friends my gym mates, you know, but I'm just like, but is this something I can do professionally Then yeah, like that's kind of who the class is for and then the maybe somebody who's not as familiar with barbell strength coaching But has been coaching other things or has only been barbell coaching for a year or two Like that's where we generally find people get the most like oh, you know the aha moments that really really move them forward So that's that's really good You know, I I've thought a lot about this that that In the beginning for us at barbell logic as we as we launched the business people that joined Both the the online coaching service and the academy service kind of knew what we were about They had been pre-educated, right? They'd read the books. They'd watched our videos They had listened to the podcast things like that and more and more people are coming in that are part of this is just because you know our We've done a good job of of marketing and the seo and people find us from google and And we've created this thing where we that I think has been very successful to not just train clients And certainly that's still the the primary service the pipeline that pays the bills But also a way to train coaches You're getting these people that come in who don't have the same background that the rest of us have It's sort of this hardcore barbell. Let's low bar squat. Let's deadlift. Let's bench press and press and they come from that They come from kettlebell backgrounds. They come from crossfit backgrounds They come from yoga backgrounds or they come from PT backgrounds or athletic trainers that are coming in And so there is I think a tremendous amount of value add For those people to go like man, there is And I think there's a there's an insane value add still for the people who have come out of that Listen, I know why we low bar squat. I know why we conventional deadlift. I know why we do these things I understand the basics of med programming I still man, I've looked I've looked at the academy content. It's so Good and I've taken the test like I you know, I've taken the the professional barbell coach written test It's so good. It's so in depth and it's so like it's hard But it's fun and it's challenging and it exposes your weakness. I remember when I took it, you know And uh, the anatomy is difficult on the on that test the mechanics are difficult I got in there and you know, I did pretty good on the anatomy and remember I've taught anatomy one and two in college although it's been a while I did pretty well on the academy. I got the mechanics and I kind of get my ass kicked a little bit And I was like, whoa, I got a bone up on this stuff And some people I think go into that and it's it's scary for me I think one of the things that's great about the the academy is that it exposes some of those weaknesses But it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't belittle you for them It's like, okay Now we've got ways to bring that thing up and you can start to find the holes in your own coaching I think for most of us It's not like we didn't learn coaching the way we learn math, right? I learned math by you learn the basics of mathematics And then you get into that pre algebra and junior high and then algebra and then geometry and then trigonometry and then Calculus and you know, and you've got this sort of step-by-step progression To make sure that there are no holes in your knowledge about math math always builds on itself I think really up until the academy was launched There's nothing we had ever been put forth but forward that was like that for coaching And so for those of us who have coached for a long time I've coached for 20 years I didn't take any sort of academy there are I have broad And deep knowledge of most subjects and then there's a couple of things that the academy will expose in me that I'm like Oof I don't know that well enough and I need to be better and it's not about feeling bad about myself or or making fun It's about like, hey, this is great to expose. I want to know where I'm weak And I want to step up the game Yeah, the I virtually everyone who comes through finds that like they're there is a point to it where they thought Oh, I thought this is a strong point for me and then actually like oh One of the things that comes up is actually online coaching and video reviews You know get providing that feedback for people people who have been you know, we want real-time coaches We want that skill that's a core coaching skill set and then finding like their data dumping as soon as they start You know talking about a video online. They like that's a completely different skill set Yes, or whether it's the biomechanics thing. They're like, yeah, I get the whole biomechanics thing I understand the low bar high bar thing, but when we actually break it down It's like there's kind of that mind blown moment Yeah, and even even even for us as coaches like we have learned and revised and reformed our model Based on what we've learned from teaching and from going through the curriculum and when when students, you know It's like the you know when you have a kid and they ask you a question And they're just asking the question because they want to know and you start talking and you think to yourself, wait That's not a good enough answer. That's right. Now the curriculum team has to go back and reform the curriculum and remake that Yeah, it's uh, we've joked about this before like this are What we've done in coaching has sort of if we weren't already has turned us all into like giant skeptics, right? Like you better have the reason why behind the how because we get really good at the how especially in the western world and the us especially we're great at the house But we're kind of shitty at the why And I think one of the things that the academy has had to do is like there are things that we are we know are true Because our experience tells us that they are But to just say that we know that they're true from experience to not be able to say well, here's why I know like that's been really good to expose that and to come up like boy There has to be a reason behind everything we do We can't just say this is what works or this is it's got to be like well, this is why it works We've had some some really experienced coaches come through and like I said some physical therapists And one of the one of the things they tell me is like one of the biggest Values that they got out of it was the ability to confidently tell themselves So when they say something to a client when they're saying something They're not just regurgitating what they learned somewhere else. That's right They've processed it through other people have challenged them on it and they've had to talk it through And it's so when they're presenting it to a client like they they they can have the confidence to say it Yes, that's a great example too And it actually basically takes the math example I just gave and it takes it even deeper and further into in a more like newtonian math or newtonian physics It's not it's not remembering or being able to understand even or even regurgitating the why but to really understand the why So you understand if this then this In the way we coach. I think that's really the way the academy attacks me So you take the we know these things to be true But here's why they're true and then we really we really fleshed that out in the class so that the students understand I'm not just regurgitating not just the definition of what is true and not just the definition of why it's true But I've really internalized why it's true so that now I can then I think what that's done for us is when you get then Scores or even hundreds of people who really understand the why's It continues to modify the curriculum because now you've got a ton of great minds thinking about hold on Like I hear what you're saying in this in this issue or in week nine But I've noticed this and I think this is the why and it's made us go, you know what We better think about this and even even things that we've found true. Is it true in all contexts, right? So every every time every every time somebody sends out, you know, like they finish the coaching academy And they go out and do their thing They remain as part of our part of our coaching academy slack Like I stay in touch with a lot of my former group, you know A lot of my former students and they come back with how they have taken the coaching academy information Interacted with the world and what the what the impact has been with their clients or where it hasn't been And of course sometimes we're all you know, we're all coaches. We're all making mistakes sometimes It's just like, uh, you know, okay. Remember this thing we talked about but oftentimes it's like Let's adapt that to what's important to you and that's that's where this has been moving. That's great Uh, let's I want to talk a little bit about what Value you get out of this thing but before we do I want I want to do a kind of a final like what's the value prop here For the students that are in the academy. So the the practical takeaways Um that we can offer and and certainly I'll you know as the owner of barba logic I'll tell you that it it exponentially increases your chance to work at barba logic in the and by the way like it's not one of those deals where um We are in a position right now where everyone who coaches in a gym is out of a job Because there are no gyms open And so there is a a tremendous benefit to being able to coach online Um Whether whether it's at barba logic or not But certainly at barba logic we have the opportunity and we've got a great team that we've been able to create the The the means for our coaches to just coach It's a turnkey if you're an expert coach and you've graduated from the academy And especially then if you go on and you you earn your your professional barbell coaching certification Then you have created an opportunity for yourself to work here at which the pays Pretty damn good per hour and extremely flexible and you can do it from anywhere you want in the world And oh by the way it continues to run in the middle of pandemics Like we keep coaching our clients when all of the other gyms are closed down So that is a very practical job related piece. What do you see as some of those practical takeaways? Even for the people who won't eventually work at barba logic What are those takeaways for people as a value prop for going through the academy? So regardless of who you are regardless of where you're coming from Our goal is to save you time and frustration You know we're like well I talk about in an article about the flail zone and how so often our even our coaching practice is Unproductive because we don't have the frame of knowledge and we don't have the feedback circle To get what we need out of that coaching practice to advance our coaching knowledge and our skill We provide that so within an online environment that you can use we have that coaching circle We have that feedback loop in 26 weeks. We cover the base of knowledge So you're not going to flail you don't go in and like you get through a session and you're just glad you survived like you you have the Knowledge tools and also the learning tools to to go. Okay. Here's what I learned from that session I can apply to your next I can apply to your next It's phenomenal. Yeah, I I love that you guys have been able to Uh get to that get to that point Let let's turn the tables a little bit from the students to the role that you've taken here at the academy You know, you've been a coach for a long time. You've you are You're an og you came on uh as we launched the thing. So you back. Yeah back in december of 16 um, you know Why do you coach the academy and what are you getting out of this coaching academy? By the way, like you you're a hell of a coach I coach you as a lifter. We haven't talked about this, but you're a pretty damn good lifter for being a little guy You're getting your first your first sniff at uh block training Which you've done quite well and you've done it in your own garage And you've done it with a new baby at home in the middle of a pandemic And so you're doing pretty good knocking out that 91 to 94 percent sort of singles this week You're doing you're doing pretty you're you're rocking there But what what has been the benefit that you've seen for you in teaching the academy You both in your own knowledge and then in your own You know what value has it been able to bring to you to be able to reach out and and teach the students this way You brought it up earlier the the whole um You know kind of how it challenges us like how we're all skeptics now, you know in in that kind of aspect Uh and the coaching academy has done a lot of that for me If there is like probably the single most impactful lesson I've gotten uh just in general in the last few years has been not getting excited about an idea Getting excited about testing an idea and getting excited about finding out that the idea was work You know that it's that it that it works Um and the coaching academy has been a lot of that Uh so much of it like even yesterday I just had a conference call yesterday with uh with one of the groups that i'm with and we were talking about training complexity And how you know one of the things okay the advanced lifter their training complexity increases blah blah blah And one of the things that he brought up is like well in some ways your training complexity decreases Like your life complexity has to focus your priorities have to dial in like your your training becomes the focus of your life if you're going to the olympic games and There are some aspects which are more and some aspects which are less complex And it's it's not like being a coaching academy teacher. It's not like, you know, I'm I've completely thrown away everything I've ever known, you know because because of all that It's but it constantly refines how I communicate how I think about these ideas and how I apply them in my own coaching and training Like there there's no doubt about that. It's like it's not as simple as things get more complex What does that mean and what does that mean? So I you know when I have a lifter, you know, I start getting a lifter who's moving into advanced stages And the handrail of weekly increases Goes away. Yeah, so How do we change those expectations? Yeah, it's good. Yeah, you know I I think you I you kind of um scratch the surface there of one of the things that you and I have talked about in the past of this idea of I think sometimes maybe people get the idea that we are anti science At barba logic and we are not at all. It's interesting that you said what you get excited about is not a new idea But it's testing the new idea And what what I found is that there are people out there that would say when a new idea comes around They would say well, hold on the published studies say That that new idea is not going to work, right? And to me that is Scientism that is that is putting blind faith in the science itself in the published studies And what we do is is we say no hold on there aren't any studies about this thing right now There aren't any good studies and we get an opportunity now One of the things I love about barba logic is that we have a big enough talent pool now Both with coaches and clients to actually do the studies, you know, we we have a we have a uh A guy that's on staff. Greg. He's phenomenal. He's a he's a statistician. We call him the he's an operational excellence Analyst and the guy can derive Anything from our programming from the he can get into true coach and he can say okay I can see the the average increase of squats in this demographic over the first 12 weeks or the first 36 workouts I can look at the compliance rating By the coach by the they can look at the average of their clients Like, you know, all of those sort of things he's able to do And so we're able at this point because we have the staff And because we have the talent pool and both the clients and the coaches to actually run some of those studies And they're you know, maybe they don't maybe don't publish them Maybe they're not, you know, double blind placebo university based studies, but They're pretty damn good and we got a big talent pool to use And so it is exciting to be able to test this like, you know what we can actually test Do these programming philosophies work? Let's test it That's pretty exciting It's that spirit of science-based coaching is that we We have to test everything that we do and in some ways a published study may not actually be tested If it's never been replicated if it's never actually, you know If it hasn't been applied outside of a laboratory setting and this is our opportunity to do that Yeah, that's great What have you what what's your biggest takeaway? Not just as an academy teacher, but as a as a block coach You you've done in-person coaching for years and years and now you've done online coaching for For three and a half years somewhere in that ballpark pushing four years What are the takeaways that you've learned? How does that change your coaching? You talked about earlier It's very different to coach somebody in real time in person And that's that's a skill set that all great coaches should have You should be able to coach people in person real time But the skill set to communicate After the fact back to your clients via typed word or verbal written words screen recording, whatever. How does that change your coaching? so Probably the probably the biggest thing it's taught me the online actually just straight up online feedback has taught me A little bit of humility about my ability as a real-time coach Oftentimes they correct themselves, you know over the course of a set over the course of several days And narrowing down to find out where is the value add like in real time I'm a cheerful guy. I kind of have a bit of a personality to me So I can bring that to the CrossFit gym. I can bring that to the to the space and and feel like like I'm bringing Something like I'm bringing my energy In online in online coaching, you know Once the first six months is done and the technique is pretty dialed in What do I have now? Like it's the programming skill and it's the okay, you know, okay The program is dialed in and everything's moved in. Where do we add value now? Like how do we make this person's life better? How do we like what's the goal setting focus? What's the lifestyle change like that we can we can continue to help this person move? Uh, and and in the way that they want to go Yeah And like that's probably even the biggest piece how to bring value without boom, you know the blast of of personal energy Yeah, that's that's actually a great point like it's it's just there's It's easy to hide behind The veil of personal energy, you know, and you see this with personal trainers who have no idea what they're doing You're right. We've made for years We've sort of like made fun of that the the guys with the purple polos on at the, you know, what? gym that fitness gym That are just rep counters and some of them are really good cheerleaders, right? They don't have any idea how to coach they don't know anything about anatomy or or physics or mechanics Or like what lifts to do but they're they're probably likeable people. They've got great personalities They probably make a real good coach if they spend some time learning the thing But ultimately like their entire game is I can motivate in the moment Online coaching there's no ability to motivate in the moment none because you're not there They're there by themselves and many of our clients most of our clients are training by themselves in their garage in their basement Right what you do like i'm coaching you and you're out there in your garage And you're you know, and it's and it's hot or in the wintertime. It's cold not there in san diego Because it's never cold but people are going through that and you're go, okay, like I can't I can't hide behind that anymore I can't be a cheerleader. There isn't any of that in online coaching. It's it's very real It's very like okay I can I can give very clear cues to fix the lifts to fix the technique to fix the movement and then I can Give very good programming feedback and programming changes, but eventually you become Almost it's about the accountability And the life coaching and again it comes back to that idea of like value identity What's the p priorities priorities value identity priorities? It comes back to that like identifying that and then being able to Being able to empathize with that with your clients and being able to help them push deeper into Helping them understand here. These are their values. These are this is their identity These are their priorities and how do we continue to flesh that out in a way that's most healthy for them It's been really cool to see and you know, I I honestly I equate it I've talked about this a couple times years ago 10 years ago 12 years ago I played a ton of online poker. Did you know that about me? No I played I mean I almost quit my job as a teacher to be a come a professional poker player This is back when online poker was at least gray area legal In the united states like I'm sure all the servers were they were in, you know, aruba or something but um, and then and then the u.s. Government came in and they shut it all down and so you couldn't do it but um Playing online when I played online poker, I could I could 16 table It's called so I could play 16 tables at one time online So the the number of hands you see an online poker goes way faster than in-person poker anyway So at at it's worst it's 16 times faster than regular poker. So you just see so many Well, then I could go to a casino and sit down at one table and could just rake, right? Well, I actually think it's been the same thing for me in my coaching is that When you're no longer able to hide behind the veil of being the cheerleader And the energy and you've really got to focus on the coaching and you've really got to focus on the technique You really got to focus on the programming Then when they take you out of that online setting and put you back in real person Setting in in coaching somebody in real time or doing a seminar You're able to connect on such a better level because you now also get to use that sort of motivational factor But that's not what it's all about. It's still really about the depth of the coaching skill And I think that's been really cool I think people fear that they're going to lose their ability to coach if they shift in the online space Like I'm seeing part of different coaching groups and things I see so much So much of this conversation now that you know Coronavirus is happening and so many people are getting pushed online from what they were doing before And so many people are like, you know, oh, I'm gonna forget what I had to do as a coach I'm like if I wasn't coaching online, you know before block Like if if I hadn't been doing that now that I've had the exposure to it I would always want to keep that in my tool set. There's like there there's a value I'm gonna pull these things out. I can't touch you anymore I can't I can't come up with something between set to set. So I have to set session intentions I have to I have to direct your focus and and coach you to coach yourself And that that's something that is useful to an in-person coach. That's right a skill set that I didn't really have It's harder to do It's much harder to do and like you said, we talked about those cues. We can't use visual cues We can't use visual cues in real time, right? There are actually some things we can do we take the screenshots and we can mark on the, you know So we certainly we there are some visual cues we use Um, and we can't use tactile cues or at least unless we say, hey, you need to use a tubo for your knee or something Like we indicate that they need to use a vet, but we're not able to do that So everything that we do is half has to be done via either verbal communication or type communication, which by the way Those two things are completely different, right? Like if I'm giving feedback on a screen recording And I'm speaking to someone in this podcast microphone I don't say the same things I say if I if I'm going to type out the cues to them That's different and people have never thought about that stuff before so it's It's been really really cool and very very much a refining process I think certainly for me and I know for you as well, but I also think for all of our coaches and so Um, let dude. Thank you for this. I want to I want to one of the things I want to wrap up with Is what are can you go back to some of those times or what are your favorite high points? Either as an academy instructor or as a as a coach at block that you can be like This this is awesome. This is this is going well So It was my first uh, uh, that that one's pretty that one's pretty easy. It's a coaching academy has this on my mind So, uh, one of my first coaching academy groups At the time it couldn't have been perfect Like it was it was just before the call was supposed to happen the knock on the door You know, there's the there's the box waiting for me and I pull out a t-shirt The the group had uh group 25 and it all pitched in to get a t-shirt It was coaching academy group 25 with the barbell logic logo and it said rule number one. Don't be a bitch And it was it was just a one-off shirt and it showed up right before the class Right before the class and I go I go to the class and that's that's a story in of itself But I go to the class like I started I'm laughing I have the shirt on and as people log on to zoom like they're all wearing the shirts Oh, they all had it too. That's so cool. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome See, I mean that's the thing that everybody will always have and then and then it'll lock the memory of that class of academy group 25 Which in any other sense is just like this can just get lost in all of the other academy groups And now you've got this tie to those guys back And I think it's really cool Like you said that we maintain good relationships with those academy students moving forward when they graduate from the academy It's not like hey, you know cyanara see it they remain part of the community part of the slack group They're professor. They're whatever. What are we called the professor coach? Their mentor coach stays in contact with them and then for a lot of for a lot of those students They end up being opportunity for them to continue to grow as students either as an intern or or associate coach at block Or to know that they're close to that and they have an opportunity to take a master's class or a couple master's classes Which are those deep dive classes and specific skills skill sets like anatomy or programming or whatever And and and they end up having the opportunity potentially to work at block but also to I think one of the things that's awesome is like you said they they take the academy and then they walk into the gym Or they walk into they're surrounded by other coaches in the gym that they're at and they know It's not an arrogance, but they know like I I know so much more than anybody else in this room right now So there's a confidence in their coaching because of of the skill set that they've been able to refine in the academy I think that's been really really cool and and everybody understands that you do your job better When you're confident in your job, and I think this is the other piece It it blows up the dunning kruger effect It makes it it just because people you get these I especially online People come in and like I got this I know how to coach I'm an expert and you get in there and you get your ass kicked and then you realize not an expert, right but But you come out of it and you You know so much more than you knew going in and you probably come out of it the first time in the academy being like boy There's a lot of stuff that I still don't know and what it's really done I think too for the academy professors is it's really made them the true master They are the subject matter experts on these things You have all things coaching like one of the things that we never even thought about was the refining process that would occur in Our academy by the people to the people who actually teach the class It's refined them make made them so much better of a coach. So Lots of wonderful value props there, you know for us Just on the business side. It's interesting. We don't We've never cared about the profit of the academy I never care about making a dollar on the academy because of what it We will indirectly make money on the academy because it we we understand the bottleneck is There's not enough expert coaches and we're making expert coaches and we're going to need more And in the end we need them so I couldn't care less about making a dollar on the academy It's we want to get as many people in there as we can because we need more people to become expert coaches Because the more expert coaches we have the more people we can reach I mean this really is The thing we believe in it very much is much like our religion It's it's our way of life and we we believe this is the way to go about living life It's training and training hard and we have these values And I think it's been really good to be able to to create a system that makes more people Who can help people do that? It's been pretty cool It's been a blast. Thank you for being on the show If you're interested in the academy again, I'd realize this some of this is felt sort of like a big sales pitch for the academy That's not the goal. We just wanted to talk about what the amazing value prop was there is you you certainly can go Group 42 is filling up right now. So 41 groups done and full some of those are currently going group 42 starts may 26th And those that group will meet on Tuesday nights at 5 p.m So you're welcome to to click on there that will fill up fast with max's out at 10 So there's just a few of those left and then we will give other options for future classes If that one doesn't fit your schedule, you can get in there and request a different time And we will do our best to meet your needs dude. Thanks for being on the show cj gocher new dad Great lifter awesome coach and academy director at uh or curriculum director at the barbell logic coaching academy You've done a great job with that curriculum All of the new curriculum if you sign up for the class At this point all new classes are all new curriculum and have been for about three or four months now that curriculum that new New version of the curriculum and then even more stuff in store for the next step to try to figure out How to get this on a better online learning environment more like an online classroom Sort of setting So fun stuff coming up in the future But uh man, you got to check out that new curriculum if you're interested in Refining your skills as a coach even if you don't plan on being a full-time coach If you're in the field if you're a pt if you're athletic trainer If you're just really in to learning this stuff and you've read the books and read the articles and watched all the videos And listened to our podcast and like what's the next step The next step is this learn how to coach your your your family and your friends better You're probably already doing it refine that and what you might find is you'll fall in love with with some of this stuff And some of you will end up moving and and doing this as as a second career Uh and for many people it'll it'll start as a part-time thing And you'll continue to work your full-time job and then what we found with a lot of our Our coaches is that eventually you'll leave that job at the bank or the post office And you'll you'll just coach because that's where your passion is and because there are opportunities now to Actually support your family that way, which is is really pretty cool That should be on the show you guys are listening to a barba logic podcast If you like the podcast, please give us a five star review at itunes or stitcher or any of the places that you love Listening to the barba logic podcast again You can share an individual podcast as well from stitcher directly on your instagram or social media So we love that as well share one of your favorite episodes with With your friends and family and all your followers, especially You know if you're one of those people that listen to us and you've got like four million followers on instagram Just just share it share it and then I'll you know, maybe I'll send you a check just for fun Or some flowers or a new barba logic hat or something So uh if you want to reach out to cj you have any questions about the academy you can reach him at c Goat your g o t c h e r that spell that right at barbell hyphen logic dot com Also easy to find on the website barbell logic dot com And you there are lots of places to reach out and ask questions if you have questions about the academy We'll put you in contact with anyone who can someone who can answer your questions Thanks for listening to the show and we'll see you in a few days