Join me, Dr Mike T Nelson, on this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, where we shift gears from our usual fitness discussions to explore becoming a better fitness writer. With writer and editor Chris Colucci, we emphasize the importance of writing skills in effectively conveying fitness knowledge across multiple platforms, including social media, newsletters, and videos. Chris shares his professional insights, touching on the role of AI in writing and the current state of writing abilities. We also offer practical tips and resources for those wanting to enhance their fitness writing skills. Sponsors: Check out Chris's top 4 tips for new writers in the fitness space: https://miketnelson.com/flex4. Tecton Life Ketone drink! https://tectonlife.com/ DRMIKE to save 20% Flex Diet Certification to open June 17, 2024: https://flexdiet.com/
Join me, Dr Mike T Nelson, on this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, where we shift gears from our usual fitness discussions to explore becoming a better fitness writer. With writer and editor Chris Colucci, we emphasize the importance of writing skills in effectively conveying fitness knowledge across multiple platforms, including social media, newsletters, and videos.
Chris shares his professional insights, touching on the role of AI in writing and the current state of writing abilities. We also offer practical tips and resources for those wanting to enhance their fitness writing skills.
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[00:00:00] Dr Mike T Nelson: Hey there, what's going on? Dr. Mike T. Nelson here, back on the Flex A Diet podcast. On this podcast we talk about all things to increase muscle, improve body composition and performance, all without destroying your health in a flexible framework. Today we've got a little bit of a detour from the normal topics.
Got my buddy Chris Coluce here, and we're talking all about the process of how to become a better fitness writer. Again, this is a little bit of a tangent. We had our good buddy Shane on here a while back. We'll make sure to link to his podcast also. And as I do a lot of writing for different publications and primarily for the daily newsletter here.
And it's always been my fascination of how people can become a better writer. And I believe that if you are just good at writing I don't think you have to be outstanding or exempt for me. If you can, that's great. It is a great skill because it allows you to then transfer those ideas to more people.
And even if you want to transfer to social media, posts, newsletter, article, or even a video, I believe getting a good basis in writing is extremely useful. And as we talk about here with Chris. I think this is a skill that unfortunately is going the way. Been teaching in some aspect in university setting now, since I taught my first class as a TA when I was doing my undergrad in 1997, which makes me sound old.
Unfortunately, I think the writing ability of people has gotten worse over time. That can be turned into a pro that if you want to be a good fitness writer, There's not much competition really anymore. Obviously there's some people who are doing it really well, but I would argue that most people, eh, not so good.
So in this interview with Chris, we give you some ideas of how you can become a better writer, specifically geared toward fitness. The role of AI, why writing is important. And then I also couldn't pass up the chance at the end to ask him a little bit about some old time strongman just old time lifting in general too.
So enjoy this podcast all about the fitness writing process with Chris. I think you will enjoy it. He's been doing this professionally for a long time, so it's always an honor for me to sit down and get some great ideas for myself. Also wanted to let you know that if you are interested in fitness writing, make sure to check out their new information they have at the Right Spotters.
We'll put a link to that down below in the notes. And then I may run the Flex Diet Mentorship again. I haven't decided yet. So if you are interested, find a way to email me. Yes, I'm doing that on purpose because I only want people that are super committed to it. And part of the business and marketing portion of that is I show you how to actually write.
We've been through one, two, three, four, been through four iterations now. And so far everyone's found it extremely useful. A lot of this stuff I wish I would have learned going back two decades ago when I started doing fitness writing. God, probably even before that. If you are interested in that, find a way, DM me, email me, get a hold of me, and if I get enough interest we might run it again.
Also want to let you know the Flex Diet Certification opens up June 17th, 2024. Your complete system for nutrition and recovery. Go to flexdiet. com for all the information and you can get on to the newsletter. And that's where we'll let you know about, we've got some super cool bonus items coming up. Some of them will be fast action, so they'll only show up as soon as it opens up.
It'll be open only for one week. February, I'm sorry, February. I'm so out of it. This is what happens when you travel to Amsterdam and you come back and your time change is all wonky. It opens up June. 17th through the 24th, 2024. Also, we've got the Flex 4. Go to MikeTNelson. com forward slash F L E X, the number 4.
I asked Chris what his top 4 writing tips are for people. You can only find that there or if you are already on the newsletter, you'll be able to get that directly. So go to MikeTNelson. com. MikeTenNelson. com forward slash F L E X, the number four and enjoy this podcast all about the fitness writing process with Chris Colucci.
[00:04:50] Dr Mike T Nelson: Welcome to the podcast, Chris. How are you doing? I'm good. Thank you. Hope things are good with you. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. We finally got to meet virtually. I met you online through T Nation back many years ago, I think. I lost track of how long ago that was now.
Yeah.
[00:05:08] Chris Colucci: Someone's frozen, of course. I'm sorry, yeah yeah, go ahead sorry.
[00:05:14] Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, that's alright, I think we had a little internet snafu there. Alright, go ahead.
[00:05:19] Chris Colucci: Yeah, T Nation back in the day, the mid 2000s, I started with them, and I remember seeing you back, passing in the virtual hallways, like I said, and yeah, that's where it first popped up on my radar.
And so the kind of stuff you're producing.
[00:05:31] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Are you still doing any work for them at all now, or just occasional articles once in a while?
[00:05:36] Chris Colucci: Not really so much. I spent a good number of years editing for them and handling their discussion forums. They still have their. Or I'm going parted ways, but I I really learned a lot from working with them and not so much in their same sphere right now.
But doing some writing and editing in general.
[00:05:52] Dr Mike T Nelson: Nice. And you're doing more writing in the fitness space, obviously I would assume.
[00:05:57] Chris Colucci: Yeah, primarily in fitness because I began as a trainer in the early 2000s, and that's where I got my base. I started martial arts before that, got into training, stumbled into writing, which I've always been interested in recreationally through school and stuff.
And yeah, really strength and fitness, health and fitness, whatever you want to call it. That's really like the wheelhouse that my writing and editing focuses on.
[00:06:19] Dr Mike T Nelson: What made you get into writing? We'll link to the podcast we have with our buddy Shane, who was on here before talking a little bit about writing and everything, but.
It seems like we were talking before we started recording, It's I don't want to say it's a dying art because I don't think writing is ever going to go away, but if I get one more DM from some 17 year old business wizard supposedly who wants me to do 20 second dancing videos on TikTok to increase my videos and get more people into my services, which The ironic because I only really do one on one online and then sell certifications that generally are like 20 to 30 hours long i'm gonna vomit but it seems like nobody wants to pitch me on.
Hey, here's how to become an actual better writer
[00:07:04] Chris Colucci: Yeah, because it's Not the flavor of the month, but social media as a whole and video focused content has really taken the spotlight as a medium to get your message across for better and worse. Like obviously in the training world, videos help.
Like demonstration videos have been a thing like forever. Demonstration pictures, whatever. But I really think like writing about your training or nutrition ideas Has been around for a century. There were magazines in the early 1900s. There were mail courses where you would send somebody five dollars, they would mail you a book saying what to do.
So there weren't any other options at that time. But you're always going to, if you do it well, you're always going to benefit from writing out your information. It helps you as a trainer to clarify your thoughts. You can slow down. You can say what you really want to say and take your time to say it and say it clearly.
And also it spreads a little bit easier. Not everybody will want to watch a 45 minute workout video on YouTube. Not everybody wants to be on TikTok. A lot of people don't really have it, and, but people can always like email a link or say, Hey, check out, Mike's new article on his blog or whatever.
So writing is always going to be a thing as long as people can read, which is, that's what I jinx it. But it's always should be an avenue for fitness coaches to get their information across just like all social media is.
[00:08:34] Dr Mike T Nelson: Would you agree that my argument has been. If you get better at writing, which is a never ending process, which we'll get into, you can then transfer that to video, you could take Epsircs, you could try to trim it down, you could expand it, you could make different links, you could make it into a paid product.
I think there's a lot of ways you could go, but I think if you're really good at 30 second videos on TikTok, I don't know if that transfers anywhere else.
[00:09:04] Chris Colucci: Right. I think we're frozen again for a second. We're good.
[00:09:09] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, so I don't know if you're doing like 30 second videos on TikTok if it transfers anywhere.
It
[00:09:16] Chris Colucci: really probably doesn't because it's too short. If you come up with a 2, 000 word article about whatever topic, about an exercise or workout program or whatever, you can break that down into bite sized pieces to repurpose your content, which is a business strategy. It's an efficient use of your time.
You can't really get that so much. You can't repurpose a short YouTube clip, a YouTube short. Because it's already in short form. So there's no where else for that to go. But, yeah. Writing as a whole, also, it's like a lead capture. If you get enough, good enough at writing it's not that challenging to come up with a short ebook, throw it on your site, or just come up with it, and offer it as a lead generator.
Which is a way to build your client base. Again, 10, 15 years ago, maybe more most trainers had blogs and some of them still do. Cause it's persistent. It's a, it's an everlasting and evergreen form of you publishing your own work and your own ideas. And really that not a lot of trainers have blogs compared to back of the day.
But it's. As a business strategy, as a way of building your training platform and getting your own information and message across and elevating your own authority, like it's worth, spending the time to just put a blog together and chip away at it and throw up a little post here and there and just get used to writing.
Cause the more you do it, the better you're going to get at it.
[00:10:50] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I would agree. You mentioned authority. Do you. Do you think writing a book through a, any type of publisher, do you think that is worth your time and effort now? Or do you think that's going away? Because I would say 10 years ago, like if you had a book through a major publication, that was like a big deal.
Like you could be a nobody and you're like, Oh my God, this person got a book, they must be somebody. Do you think that sort of authority status still holds or what do you think's going on with that?
[00:11:23] Chris Colucci: I think to the average consumer, the average potential client, the average reader, it probably still does have some authority of seeing a coach published by or published author or three time published author.
If you dig a little deeper and okay, it's three times self published on Amazon. Yeah. And it was 99 cents. And if you find the sales, he sold like four of them. That next level could backfire. It could be like, looking behind the facade. But I still do think there's still something to being a published author and having buy lines.
Like either published in print, because print media is still a multi billion dollar industry. Like people still buy exercise books, and diet books and nutrition books. So print media in that respect is still, It's still a valid opportunity. But publish online with sites like T Nation, like Breaking Muscle, or Barbend, or Elite FTS, or wherever.
In your About Me page, you, if you have public, as featured in three or four separate websites, that absolutely lends some credibility. And then there's a behind the scenes where I'm not 100 percent sure on the technical aspect. Essentially, the more widespread you are on the internet, the more likely you are to come up in searches.
So if somebody searches for, local nutritionists and if you're published on six different websites and outlets, you have a better chance of ranking higher. So in that regard it boosts you as a, as an authority.
[00:13:01] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. One little tricks. I've done, although probably not all that successfully, is argue for a link back to your site, sometimes in even lieu of any payment or anything else because if it's a pretty big site, like just getting that link, not only does that kind of give you authority within Google, you could actually get actual traffic to that too, which is interesting because at least I can say from actual traffic and clients being published in Men's Health, which while is great and was awesome.
Didn't really translate to any new clients. That's a cool thing to say, Oh, look, I was in this magazine or this quote or muscle and fitness and all that stuff, but there's a weird thing of going offline to back online where, like you mentioned, elite FTS, TMAG, T Nation, other sites like that.
Generally transferred a lot more to the online space too, which I thought was interesting.
[00:13:54] Chris Colucci: Right. Part of that might be due to the friction and online where if they can just and they click the link and it's right
[00:14:00] Dr Mike T Nelson: there.
[00:14:01] Chris Colucci: I'm sure that's a big part of it.
[00:14:03] Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, I'm sure that's a huge part of it.
For sure. Yeah, because someone if they're reading an article, even if you get a link to your website, they actually have to take the print thing, pull up their phone, type in the link versus I'm already online. I just click a button. Exactly.
[00:14:20] Chris Colucci: That's definitely a thing. And it's, again it's credibility.
It's an opportunity to showcase your writing, your skills and what you know. And the more often you do that, just the better it is for you as a professional, like you get more eyes, you get more, you network because peers are going to read that, colleagues are going to read that, and, civilians, so it just spreads you, wider.
[00:14:44] Dr Mike T Nelson: What would be your recommendation, because I'm sure you get this question probably more than I do, of how do I get published on, the FTS or T Nation or those things for people asking the question in the online space, what would be your recommendation?
[00:15:00] Chris Colucci: If you have a website in mind that you are just dying to appear in, that it's been your dream to be published on, T Nation or whatever it is the first thing you need to do is approach it from a business sense and know that website inside and out, know the people that read that website.
Because even between those two Elite FTS has a different target market and target readership than Teenation. So, know who you're writing for, and that's going to inform the way you write. And really the next most important thing, after knowing who you're writing for and studying it is submitting a good first draft.
Because I've said a bunch, if you submit an article for publication, and your editor, because it's going to be edited, Before it gets posted, no matter what. If your editor doesn't have to do that much work to it, you can become your editor's favorite writer.
[00:15:53] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yes.
[00:15:54] Chris Colucci: Which means more work for you, means more gigs for you, whether it's paying gigs, which is money in your pocket, or just attention and traffic to your site, which is good for your business also.
But getting that good first draft, is huge. And that comes from writing well. And writing well comes from practicing your writing and taking it seriously. Just like you would learning another new skill as a trainer. If you don't know kettlebells that much, but you really want to do a kettlebell clean and snatch, clean and jerk you practice it, like practice the skill and you'll get better at it.
That's not a foreign concept to, To trainers and people who train. So good first draft and know who you're writing for. Those are gonna be the top two, two tips.
[00:16:41] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I'd also add, which it seems like you shouldn't have to add this, but I would also add like deadlines are important and don't be a flake because take a few minutes, like you said, and put yourself in the editor's shoes.
Like I've been able to get a fair amount of articles that I probably would not have gotten otherwise. Just by the fact that I. Meet the deadline and usually turning something I think is pretty decent that they don't have to edit a lot. And it's amazing just by doing that once you work with an editor, because if you imagine you're the editor and like you get stuff thrown at you at the last minute because, Hey, we got, Especially for, print magazines of, Oh, we got this extra space.
We need this article. You got 48 hours and they got to go find five experts to get in the article or even just an article from scratch. If they know within one phone call, they can probably get an article and it'll be turned in on time and they won't have to be editing it for six hours. And you're that person.
They're probably going to call you over someone else who may have better content, but they know it's going to be a five hour mess. To edit the thing, and they got a 50 percent chance the article is even going to land on their desk in time in order to do it.
[00:17:51] Chris Colucci: Oh, for sure. No, for sure. That's huge. That's it's,
[00:17:54] Dr Mike T Nelson: and that kind of goes without saying, but
[00:17:57] Chris Colucci: it should, does it really should just be a professional, just a pro take it seriously, like that's, I guess it's another big thing is that you're, if you're going to write to support your training business, take it seriously, just like a lot of people take their social media seriously.
It's another aspect of supporting your training business. It's another tool that you use.
[00:18:24] Dr Mike T Nelson: Would you recommend people, in terms of the writing process what is your best process? I've asked this to several people, and I know some people have very complicated things. Other people are like, I just open the computer and I write stuff every day to, what would be your advice for someone who's new and says, okay, You convinced me, I'm going to get into this writing thing.
What would be one, your recommendation for them, and then two, what do you do personally as your writing and editing style?
[00:18:54] Chris Colucci: Interesting question. Sure. I think if you just, again, if you decide that you want to tackle writing and add it to your arsenal almost treat it like a workout, like, all right, I'm going to sit down at two 30 or 45 minutes.
Thanks. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna work on this specific thing. You don't go to the gym and be like, I'm gonna train now. Very few people can get away with that and have it be productive.
[00:19:17] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah,
[00:19:17] Chris Colucci: so you need to sit down and know what you want to write. Are you writing a facebook post? Are you writing a blog post to go on your blog?
about How to front squat so know what you want to write about and just sit down and grind through it don't try to write a three thousand word article a complete eight week training program Don't try and write that out in one sitting because you won't be able to and if you do it's not going to be good You So if you have a big project like that, tackle it in little chunks, but doing something consistently, a little something daily is going to pay off huge.
I know that when I have to write like a either an assignment or a project or whatever I need to start with an outline. An outline is, it's a workout plan. It's, I want to cover this, and this. in this article. So I'm going to cover front squat grip and stance and who should and shouldn't do the front squat so you have an outline to review and refer back to so you don't miss any points because the worst thing you can do is publish something And have it up on a site and then say, I wish I also added if you have your own blog or social media, it's easy enough to edit it back in, but if you submit it, it's gone, it's up on the site and you will look super unprofessional if you email an editor and say, could you also put in this little part, they're not gonna, they're not gonna.
[00:20:41] Dr Mike T Nelson: Especially if it's print. It's bro, that already went.
[00:20:45] Chris Colucci: We'll do an addendum next issue. They
[00:20:48] Dr Mike T Nelson: love you.
[00:20:50] Chris Colucci: You'll get a callback. Yeah, so I, when I sit down to write, I have an article, I have just bullet points of stuff I want to tackle for whatever specific topic. I know if I was just talking to Shane McLean about this when I sit down to write and I need to focus on writing, I need jazz music on, and I never listen to it any other time, just cause it's not my thing, but I need some kind of music that has no lyrics.
Cause I got to come up with my own words to put on the page. And like white noise machines just irritate me. So personally, I'll just put on, whatever instrumental jazz Just get to work and I'll grind through whatever I need to grind through and tackle, as much as I can until almost like when you're repping out and like you have two reps left and now I got one rep left and I really shouldn't do another rep 'cause it's not gonna be good.
I've gotten to that point. I can tell my writing like quality wise, if I keep going another hour, it's gonna just, I'm going to have to self edit so much tomorrow. So I did enough for today. And some writers do like by word count. Like I think Stephen King does 500 or a thousand words a day and calls it a limit, calls it a top, calls it quits.
That's one way to approach it. You could, if you have an outline, you could be like, I'm going to tackle two bullet points today and that's it. So that you can play around with as you go which really ties back to just making it a habit, make it a consistent habit and over time you'll figure out what works best for you.
[00:22:21] Dr Mike T Nelson: And then you mentioned that you edit at a different time. It sounds like.
[00:22:26] Chris Colucci: Yeah, it's if I'm editing work it that's it's almost like a different mindset It's like again like trainers where sometimes we just grab quick workouts in between clients I think the writing brain doesn't really work like that.
You can either be creative and write Or you can be more analytical and edit. It's hard to shuffle between those in one sitting. So I'll have an editing day, where if I have an article from a coach that I have to work on for up on site, like I'll sit down, I'll tackle that, and that'll be the project for the day.
Just get through, and cause that's reading, it's re reading. It's fine tuning, making adjustments, so that really requires a kind of a different hat to put on than writing original content.
[00:23:17] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, that, that's what I found too. If I'm working on bigger projects it's very hard for me to write and edit at the same time.
And one of the rules that helped me out the most was, when I started off, is just, okay, you have an hour and a half, half hour, whatever Just write something like, I don't remember who it was said, but just have a really crappy first copy. But at least you have a first copy of something because if you start writing and start editing sentences as you're writing, I found that was a really good way to get absolutely nothing ever done ever.
[00:23:49] Chris Colucci: Yeah. Yeah. Because you'll doubt yourself every single step. So, like you said, it's a great idea to just get the words on the page and just don't have a blank page. Get over the blank page syndrome as soon as you can, because you can always self edit the next day or spend 10 minutes the next day before you write and just re read what you did and a couple of tweaks and then get back to writing.
But you can't do it as you go. It's just not going to be productive.
[00:24:16] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I find that's very hard. The other thing that helped me too with the editing process is having to be separate. For a while I would even do it in a different location and different music and you know all sorts of stuff just to, like you said, try to get more in that.
Mood and then I had a, I even still have a hard time with this now. I'm just cutting out huge segments of stuff. I just, it's Oh, it's what was the old writing phrase? You have to kill your own babies. Like you just have to edit stuff down. And so I found that if I edit stuff down, but I put it in a separate, I use Evernote as an Evernote word doc, and I just save it for later, even though.
I probably never look at it ever again. It felt easier for me that I wasn't really throwing it out and didn't just delete five pages of stuff. I'm like, Oh, I may use it again. So that was a little trick that kind of allowed me to get rid of stuff.
[00:25:11] Chris Colucci: No, that's a great idea because self editing is so painful.
[00:25:14] Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh,
[00:25:16] Chris Colucci: It's like coming up with your own workout program. Like I love to do these nine exercises, so I'm going to put them all in my program. But you can't. That's not a good idea. So, yeah, no, self editing is a necessary evil and it hurts. And, but it's, if you want to, if you're going to self publish on your blog or on your social, you have to, you can't trust your first draft.
[00:25:37] Dr Mike T Nelson: Any other tips for editing? Because I think there's a fair amount of content around how to get a, first rough draft. I think people can kind of power their way through it. But I remember, I don't know if it was like one of the articles at T Nation or, I think it was like when I remember Lou edited a bunch of my stuff at Teen Nation for a while, or at least a couple articles and also at PDTC and a bunch of other stuff.
And it was always amazing that send it to any good editor and you get it back and you're like, you're all proud of your article. Ah, I think this is pretty good. And he said, that's a really good editor. And it comes back and you're like, Holy shit, this is way better, but it sounds like me.
Like they didn't alter your voice. Like sometimes you get editors who, in my opinion, are not very good. And it's did I even write this? This doesn't sound like anything I wrote, which has happened to me a few times, but it was amazing to me how just seeing that. So I would force myself to go through the edited version and compare it to the previous version I had to try to reverse engineer.
Like I go, how did they figure this out? Like, how do they know to cut this? This is definitely better. And that helped me try to get a little bit better at editing. Although I'd say I'm probably still not the best at it. But any other tips for the editing process?
[00:26:49] Chris Colucci: I think what you said is a huge thing and I recommend it.
When I was working at breaking muscle as an editor, I would recommend to every coach that I wrote on. I said, your stuff, I know my stuff. We'll get through this together. When you see your article up on site, open it up. Open up the document you sent me and read them side by side, paragraph per paragraph.
And you can see the changes. And, a good editor is always going to be open to a dialogue. Hey, why did you Make that change or whatever. A good editor also, like you said, will keep your same voice because every writer has their own voice. Every coach has their own voice. So yeah, so the big thing is looking at the before and after, look at the transformations, which we're used to.
And you can see It might be obvious to you maybe this section you came in with was too wordy and it just got, parsed down a little bit. Maybe this one was too jargony and you were getting in the weeds with technical terms and we simplified it a little bit. But doing that literal side by side, having them open on the same screen is a tip that I always give out.
Cause that will, that'll show you. And it's not, editing doesn't mean you did it wrong, necessarily, it's like some stuff, like I've seen like typos and grammatical errors is a huge part of editing, that, that's something you get wrong,
[00:28:06] Dr Mike T Nelson: that
[00:28:07] Chris Colucci: we correct. But things like formatting, even formatting, like different websites have different article formats.
Breaking Muscle had separate, certain, a certain way they lined up their headers and their section parts. And T Nation now has different ways they set up their article sections. So, again, that comes back to knowing the site you want to appear on. And if you can give your editor a head start by formatting it similar to how it's gonna end up, that's a good thing, that's helpful, that's one less thing the editor needs to do.
Yeah, so, and it's, again, it's a learning process. If you're lucky enough to be published more than once by the same outlet. Then you really want to refer back to, this is what I gave them. This is what they put up. Why did they really make those changes? Maybe I'll send them an email and be like, Hey, was that okay?
What can I do better next time? I used one example. I was talking or Shane, I hadn't an article from a new coach who hadn't really written too much before. And it was about an exercise, and he kept saying, when you're, when you reach a full contraction of the tricep soiree, hold for a peak contraction, and reach, work through a full range of motion when training the tricep soiree.
And I was a trainer for a long time, I've never heard that term, and it's a knock on me. So, I looked it up, and it's the calf muscle. And so I edited his whole article, I changed every reference from tricep surae to calf muscle, or calves, and I sent him a message afterwards. I said, good article, good content, this was overcomplicated, cause I had no clue what it was, no reader's gonna know what it was.
in the future, just use the simple terms. And he was very receptive. He said, that's fine. That's the phrasing I learned. It's anatomically correct or whatever it was. But that, and he was fine every time after that, but that's just like one instance where he wasn't wrong. But it needed to be corrected.
So it's little stuff like that.
[00:30:06] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. The other tip I got, which, when I was doing my Ph. D. writing, which I wish I'd gotten this tip earlier, was because in the technical writing process, I have to edit everything, get granted my advisor and committee signs off, but if you send too many revisions to your advisor, they get very upset with you.
Especially when they find you. Typos and that kind of stuff. But you're in this loop of you've looked at the damn thing like 18 times already. And so you literally don't see stuff that should stand out. And so what I found, I ended up having to do is I had to print it off. I had to go to a separate coffee shop, listen to different music, and then I actually had to start backwards.
So at the end of that whole 37 page section with the last sentence, I would read that sentence in isolation. And then I would go to the next sentence. So I, because otherwise my brain was just filling in everything that I thought was there. And this is more to look for typos and grammatical things. But I wish someone would have told me that little kind of tip before because I just kept thinking if I just try harder and I just keep looking at it again and I actually started just Missing more stuff, which pissed my advisor off even more.
[00:31:19] Chris Colucci: It happens. No that's it. Yeah, that's it. You can go like they say, you can go like nose blind to sense. You can go like eye blind to certain errors, especially with stuff you wrote. I always like also before I submit anything or before I post anything, I like to read it out loud.
[00:31:34] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yes.
[00:31:35] Chris Colucci: Like I verbally read it aloud to my cat or whatever animals in the room. Because that also gives you a different perspective. It makes you slow down and see the words that are on the page. Not the words that you thought you put on the page. I don't know if you saw a couple of days ago on threads, there was a coach and he wrote just a little advice, eat your body weight and protein every day.
And your body will change drastically. And I'm looking at that and I'm like, don't eat your body weight in protein. You eat your body weight in grams of protein. Oh, he forgot to
[00:32:11] Dr Mike T Nelson: convert it. Yeah. So,
[00:32:13] Chris Colucci: And he was getting blasted on it. It's eat my body weight in protein. I'm going to eat 200 and whatever pounds of protein
[00:32:19] Dr Mike T Nelson: a
[00:32:19] Chris Colucci: day.
So that's the thing. Like we know, we trainers know what he meant. Experienced lifters know what he meant, but that's not what he wrote. And he's, he got, he went viral for it. Meh. So it's like little stuff like that. You know what you mean to write, make sure it's what you actually write.
[00:32:37] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and I think that's also one of these weird Catch 22s because I know I suffer from this too. I'll even have conversations with my wife or other people out of the industry and sometimes you just feel like you get stuck for topics and you don't know. And I am horrible sometimes getting stuck in this loop of Nah, everybody knows that.
Right? And then I realized I talked to people on an airplane ride or you go to a conference or even, just people who are in the space and you tell them something and they're like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. I didn't know that. Or you do a podcast or you write an article and they come back and they're like, wow, that was so cool.
That you're like thinking, wait a minute. I thought everybody knew this and it's so different depending upon the audience you're at too. Probably told this story in the podcast before, but years ago I had a fitness coach, a business coach, actually. And so he, we worked on this thing and submitted it to a Yahoo back when like press releases were like a big deal.
So we spent a lot of time on this press release and he's what do you do for training? And we're trying to target, busy executives and everything. I kept sending them. He's no, this is too complicated. Make it simpler. And this goes on for five revisions. So I eventually got down to I sent it to him as a joke.
I said, Oh, how about this? Like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, go lift something Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, do cardio Sunday. Take the day off because that's what 80, 90 percent of my templates were. And he's that's perfect. And I'm like, what? Everybody knows this is like the most basic, stupidest thing ever.
And I'm like why am I paying this guy? Like three grand a month to tell him he's wrong. Okay, fine. Just if you think this is good, like you do it. Submits the thing in, it was like on the. Number one business page on Yahoo for a week. And I got tons of emails from people that are like that was so cool.
Like I've been doing this all wrong and I tried your template and you realize, Oh, maybe the things that you're so used to doing all the time, you think everybody knows, like they may not know.
[00:34:32] Chris Colucci: No, for sure. That's that ties back to know who you're talking to.
[00:34:36] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yes.
[00:34:37] Chris Colucci: I think Alan Cosgrove was one of the first I heard to use the term, use white belt eyes.
Yes. Like a white belt is a beginner. So you know, we're black belts in fitness. Like you need to, again, it depends on who you're talking to. If you're talking to the audience at Muscle and Fitness, it's different than the audience at Yahoo Lifestyle.
[00:34:58] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
[00:34:59] Chris Colucci: Like you can't assume the people at Yahoo Lifestyle know what the posterior chain is.
[00:35:03] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
[00:35:04] Chris Colucci: So, it's definitely knowing your audience, adjusting your message, and and again trainers are used to that. You know how to interact with an untrained, very inexperienced client. Versus a client who hires you who can already squat 225 with okay form. So you know how to adjust your message already.
It's just, it's that assumption that you just need to stay away from. Like I was saying, you just get used to knowing what you know and everybody knows this, right? But no, not everyone knows it. There's YouTube videos on, YouTube videos, on how to use lifting straps.
[00:35:41] Dr Mike T Nelson: You ever notice how
[00:35:41] Chris Colucci: he's lifting the straps?
He's doing it. That's it. But no. If you read the comment section, almost every time, several people will say, I've been doing it wrong. So little stuff like that, for sure. That's why, in terms of diet and exercise, workouts and nutrition, topic wise, there's not that much that hasn't been covered in the last 120 something years, but people will always need to know how to do a push up.
People need to know how to You know, warm up for sprints or whatever. And you as a trainer, as a fitness professional, have your perspective and your unique cues that you can share. And that's where your personality and your unique skillset can shine through. If you write well enough to present it clearly.
[00:36:35] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I think the lifting strap one is a great, is an example of something I think is true. And sometimes this gets to be way too click baity, which annoys me of, this common lifting technique. Have you always been doing it wrong? But I would argue with the lifting strap one. I was one of these people for years.
I'm like the straps this long, you put it and you wrap it around the bar three times, and then you're good. And then you realize later, Oh, wait, you don't need that much friction. You can probably wrap it around the bar once, and then you're not holding onto this big diameter thing, straining the piss out of your wrists the whole time or something, even as simple as.
As that, I think you could make, like you said, a good article out of it, that's something that people probably do all the time, but I would argue that maybe a fair amount of them are doing it incorrectly, but it's something they probably haven't thought of either. So it grabs our attention of Oh, maybe I'm doing this wrong.
And of course, technique gets bastardized into everyone's doing everything wrong now. So you will fall off if you don't use it. Yeah.
[00:37:37] Chris Colucci: Yeah. That's yeah. The clickbait is a whole other thing. Clickbait titles are, I once worked for a place. That they swore they didn't use clickbait titles. They used attention grabbing titles.
Huh. That's a very fine line. That's I don't know about that. But yeah, I mean that also, it may sometimes happen that you submit an article and the editor changes the title. Which, it happens often. That happens often. Yeah, usually it's for SEO purposes. Sometimes, Like how to do the pushup is just not a catchy title.
So, but if you're submitting an article, three exercises you need to do to live forever. No, that's, we all know that's not a thing. We're four exercises you must never do. Yeah that's not a thing, especially if you as the coach are going to use one of those exercises at any point, if you're going to suggest someone to do those exercises.
Don't say never do them like absolute speaking absolutes. It's very dangerous.
[00:38:42] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, but it's also so hard because son of a bitch, people click on those things. It's like the whole, I agree with you. It annoys me to no end, but the whole clickbait thing would go away. People stop clicking on them because I've been in meetings.
I'm sure you've been in way more meetings than I have of. But we did this title, we split tested it, and we got all these more clicks than this other thing, and I'm just like, okay I get it, but what do you want your site to be known for? Are you just optimizing for the acute click per day, or, that gets into the whole philosophy of the site and everything else, and yeah.
[00:39:18] Chris Colucci: I'm very much of the opinion that nowadays, there is such a thing as bad press. It used to be any publicity is good publicity, but we've seen very successful coaches go viral and get memed to death because they post these deliberately outlandish video clips. And it's, it, I cannot and will not believe it is a net positive for their business.
I think
[00:39:46] Dr Mike T Nelson: acutely it appears to be a positive, but I would agree with you that long term it's definitely not a positive.
[00:39:54] Chris Colucci: Exactly. Because who wants to be associated with that type of person, that type of atmosphere? So, but yeah, that ties into just getting attention for attention's sake versus getting attention to promote your information, which might sound Pollyanna, but that should be the point, right?
[00:40:14] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I think. Way too many websites are trying to now optimize for eyeballs on page and lead, ad generation per day. I made sweet potatoes the other day in the oven, which I haven't made for a while. So I was like, ah, was it like 350 or 400? I can't remember the temperature. So I was on my phone standing in front of the oven.
And I Google it and I get to a page. I couldn't even finish reading the darn article. There was pop ups flying in left and right. It wasn't just like one that you click and okay, it goes away. There was ads coming in from the left, the top end of the screen. And eventually I got down to what I thought was the bottom of the article.
And it already pushed me to the next article. I hadn't even finished reading the first article. And I just got so frustrated. I was just like, ah, boil them.
[00:41:00] Chris Colucci: But yeah, that, that ties into site design and ad revenue and that kind of stuff that, but if it takes away from the point, if your website is set up, that your revenue comes from ads versus your website being set up to deliver information and you make your revenue any other way, like that's going to affect.
It's going to affect the quality of the writing. It's going to affect the caliber of writers you get. Because, seriously, credentialed and qualified writers aren't going to want to be on a site that's ugly and that readers don't want to go to, so it affects everything, yeah.
[00:41:41] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and that's my pet peeve, unfortunately, I see new trainers who, you can do a little googling around and figure out how much traffic their site gets and it's very minimal.
And they're already doing like Google PPC ads that are, they're not controlling that have all sorts of weird stuff on their site. And I'm thinking, okay, so now you probably hurt your whole brand reputation. It's hard to even read stuff on your site. And. You're probably making what 2 a month from Google, like really what are you doing?
[00:42:10] Chris Colucci: Right. If the focus just gets back on being a good trainer and knowing your craft as a trainer, as a fitness professional, rather, and just taking steps to get that awareness out there versus the short term, the tick tock viral crazes and the, whatever attention that gets. Like that ties back into what are you what do you want to be when you grow up?
Like, why are you a trainer then? Just be an influencer, which is a whole other. Subject.
[00:42:43] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, which kind of leads into this question of what are your thoughts about what sort of model do you use for newer trainers for writing? Like obviously I'm biased towards a newsletter model because I like that it's writing or video focused.
I have to earn somebody's trust by having them give me a legitimate email address. I have to keep their trust because if I violate it or I start going off and get too crazy, then you know, everyone will just unsubscribe and leave me alone. But it also still allows me that kind of autonomy to do what I want.
I'm not subject to SEO. I'm not subject to ad spend or all these other things either.
Right. I think
[00:43:21] Chris Colucci: it dropped off there. I got the gist. I think it depends on what you're comfortable with as a trainer, like what, if you're, how comfortable you are writing. Like a newsletter can be a lot of pressure because you're on a deadline, whether it's weekly or monthly or, whatever you choose to set up for your newsletter, you have to come up with that content every single week.
Something like a blog can be a little bit slower paced because you're not promising to send out a new blog every whatever, unless you're Seth Godin.
[00:43:51] Dr Mike T Nelson: It doesn't want every day for what? 7, 365 days in a row or something like that.
[00:43:57] Chris Colucci: Something bonkers. It works. Yeah. So it works for him.
So that's that. Oh, yeah. He's comfortable with that. That's something he can stick with. So, if you're not the most comfortable or most confident writer, you might not want to put the pressure of a newsletter on yourself. You might want to start with just, social posts like Facebook posts, do long form sort of social posts or do a blog that way you can take your time to write it and self edit and tweak it and then.
That kind of stuff. But it's really finding out what you're comfortable doing. You are sure if you're moderately comfortable sticking to deadlines and creating varied content, cause you, your topics need to be interesting every week then go for a newsletter, you might benefit from that if you can stick with it, because the last thing you want to do is like skip a newsletter and it just doesn't go out this week, that's it.
Because they didn't have anything to write like you said that's going to break their trust immediately. Because they were relying on your information. They signed up, and they asked you what you want to tell them. So, yeah it's, and again, it's figuring out what, the best way you can write, best way you can express yourself, and just go in for that.
Just not everybody, and not every trainer needs to be on TikTok and Twitter and YouTube and Instagram. Like you don't need to be on every social media platform. You pick the ones that you will thrive in, the ones that you'll stick with and the ones that, that help to support your message. So I don't know if that's a non answer, but
[00:45:31] Dr Mike T Nelson: just play around and
[00:45:32] Chris Colucci: figure out.
Yeah.
[00:45:33] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I, in general, I agree with that in terms of, you want to make sure you're still delivering something that's of quality, right? I would say the, not slippery slope, but the opposite of that is how do you counteract that with some people? I know if they never have a deadline, nothing ever feels good enough and like the Seth Godin thing, they never ship anything.
Right,
[00:45:57] Chris Colucci: right. That's, it's, that's related to. Again, seeing fitness writing as a means of supporting your fitness business, your training business, nutrition business, whatever you're in it for. So if you treat writing as a business tool, as a business skill, then you're using it strategically to work towards a specific goal.
Are you using it to get featured in these three websites? Are you using it to set the groundwork long term to be published in Barnes, at Barnes Noble? If you need goals to set some goals. Set a goal to deadlift 675. And work your way there gradually, it's the same idea.
[00:46:44] Dr Mike T Nelson: I agree. What are your thoughts about AI and writing?
I have A friend is in fitness. I don't have permission to use this quote, so I won't use his name, but I'm sure most people would probably recognize him who said, I think I've got about two years left being a fitness editor. So I'm looking for other work now before AI completely replaces my job. And I think he was probably being a little bit sarcastic, but I think there is some truth to that where.
People I've seen entire companies start with, Hey, we'll create your whole website. We'll even populate it with writing for you using, I'm sure they're using AI to write all their stuff and it's probably going to suck. But what are your thoughts about just AI in general for writing and editing for fit in the fitness space?
[00:47:30] Chris Colucci: I think it's a shortcut. It's no doubt. It's a shortcut. It can be a very slippery slope, but very dangerously tempting tool to use. That totally replaces the skill of writing. If you're going to use AI to write a blog post and you're going to post it, you're trusting that it's written well, first of all, grammatically correct and all that nonsense, and you're trusting that it's good information.
They're not telling people that the deadlift targets your chest,
And you're trusting that people will believe that it's you who wrote that. Unless you know YouTube does this, I'm sure other places will, you need to like, admit if AI was involved in the creation of images and stuff like that.
[00:48:17] Dr Mike T Nelson: That was one of my other questions. Yeah.
[00:48:19] Chris Colucci: Yeah. So unless you're saying if you're posting something and letting people believe you wrote it. When you didn't write it, that's unethical at best, right? But if you're using it to get, the groundwork, and then you're going in and improving it and making significant changes and editing it and making it your own, you could try to, I could I can see that as acceptable, as long as you have hands on it, you have fingers in the pie and at the end of the day when it's posted, it's something that you read, you helped to create in a major way, a non minuscule way, and people know that it's, it's not all your work, like it's not that hard to write well though, like it takes some time, it takes a little bit of time out of your day, but it's not like the most impossible skill.
So do you need the life hack, the time hack of getting an instantaneous article that is a roll of the dice, or you'll still have to spend time editing, or is it worth just taking two hours? And trying to write a decent article.
[00:49:44] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I like the whole premise of the book, Ranged, by David Epstein.
As I interpreted his whole thing is, it's really hard to be the elite of the elite in one area. To be the top, the, 0. 1 percent or 0. 5 percent or whatever in the world. However, if you're the top in two different disciplines that overlap, It's much easier to be near the top in that.
So I think of this in terms of fitness knowledge and writing. I wouldn't consider myself an amazing writer that I've been doing that for a long time. But by being in the fitness space and being pretty good at the fitness stuff and being a semi okay writer, now you get pushed up to higher up on the list because you're I don't have to be.
Hemingway to be okay writing in the fitness space. You know what I mean? Like you can and I would argument this is for anyone like if they've got the technical side down and they're pretty good you don't have to be like an amazing elite writer you just need to be pretty good and combine that with your fitness knowledge and right you'll do quite well
[00:50:50] Chris Colucci: yeah it's like I said it's definitely it's you have the knowledge base already you have the information it's just getting it onto the page In a way that's clear and that sounds the way you want it to sound.
That's not the hardest thing in the world. It's you know, everybody took writing in high school and college if you went to college some of us didn't graduate I think also this is gonna so be a stereotype, but I think a lot of or some and about a lot some People who've gotten into personal training might not have been the biggest fans of like english majors or english class You They lean more towards the meathead, persona, which is cool.
No problems. So they might hear writing and be like, oh,
[00:51:36] Dr Mike T Nelson: like they might
[00:51:36] Chris Colucci: just be turned off by the idea of writing and sitting and like a homework assignment. And I've told coaches when I give them, when I give them assignments for when I was working at other publications, I said, I don't want this article to seem like a homework assignment.
It's a project. It's a project that you get to create that shows off your expertise. So if you approach it with that mindset versus I have to sit down to write. That's going to affect your enthusiasm for it. It's going to affect the quality of work that you create. It's going to affect Whether or not you stick with it and be consistent with it.
So You know, just get writing. It's not that because you're not create you're not writing creatively You're not writing Lord of the Rings. You don't need to come up with worlds and characters and storylines. Like you don't need plots and things like that. You're just sharing. You're just like talking to a client in the gym.
You're just getting your information out there to people. It just happens to be through typing. Like you've just got to type it out.
[00:52:49] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. My, my fear is I go back and forth depending on what mood I'm in during the day. My fear with AI is that it's, we may be in a world that's just all AI generated because it's so fast and so efficient.
But then the quality is just, in my opinion, dog crap. And like you said, I've played around with it for a year. I wouldn't say I'm very good at using it, but I've still been shocked of how often they have the AI hallucinations where it'll literally completely make up something and it will sound correct.
Like you read it and if you didn't have any background in the field, you'd be like, Oh, that sounds sweet. What the, that's not even remotely correct.
[00:53:27] Chris Colucci: Exactly.
[00:53:29] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. That's the
[00:53:29] Chris Colucci: problem.
[00:53:31] Dr Mike T Nelson: And it, a lot of times sounds very boring and wooden. And when you try to make it more expressive, it almost feels like it's over the top, but not in a creative way, if that makes any sense.
It feels like it just threw a bunch of adjectives in front of words, but they don't have that kind of, it's missing the style or description. It just doesn't seem to, I don't know. There's something where it doesn't feel right. It doesn't flow like it. It, it's shocker. It feels very artificial.
It's almost if you hear a song that uses auto tune too much, or is been produced to hell too much, technically it might be more perfect, but doesn't sound as good, right? It doesn't sound like the live version or especially a good jazz or metal or other types of music, like you, you want those slight imperfections.
You want the kind of, what did they do to change this area a little bit, but, Oh, that was a different take on it. Oh, that sounds pretty cool. I think with writing, you want all those things that AI just can't really replicate, at least now in my opinion.
[00:54:36] Chris Colucci: No, I think definitely. And I forget who was talking about it, it was some advertising person, that we're still in the infancy stages of AI.
Oh yeah. We're just getting started. So it's only going to improve from here, which is a pro and a con. If it gets to the point where you don't have those errors, it's The technical errors, if you don't have that stilted kind of voice or non voice, if AI can smooth that out, then it's a very weird space that we'll end up in because you'll have actual human writers competing against AI, and that is totally the plot of a movie.
[00:55:18] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
[00:55:19] Chris Colucci: So, again, you don't, the time and energy. People take to learn how to prompt AI better to get a better finished product and learn how to, prompt it and give it the right cues. You could spend the same time and energy just writing like you're not saving that much.
And you're, as it stands right now, you're just getting lower quality results, which is really not worth it. I don't think many starting trainers in a position, That they're missing out by just getting that quick blog post up or that quick social post up and having it be inferior to something they could actually personally create.
It's just not, we're not there's not a need for it right now.
[00:56:08] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I go back and forth on it because I, so I guess the hybrid approach I've taken so far is I don't think it's going away. I think humans are driven towards efficiency. So it's going to be part of the process at some point or already is.
So I've forced myself to. Use it and play with it and find out where it might be useful. But similar to you, all my reps are not using it. So I've tried to force myself just to see what it's like to get a rough draft and to edit it. And it's maddening to me. Like it, I, it takes me way longer.
It's just annoying. I can sit down and write something that's way better, way faster. The only thing that I've, I have used it, if I get really stuck, like on a piece, I'll put it into AI and I'll say, revise this in the voice of Joe Rogan or, David Goggins or, some character, not that I'm going to write like them, I probably don't sound like Joe Rogan, but I make a different phrasingology and like editing something that wasn't quite mine gets me to a different spot where before, like we said, if you're always editing your own stuff, It feels like someone else wrote it, but yet I wrote the original version.
And then the end version, I find, is a little bit better because it gives you that kind of intermediate, almost you're using it as a very poor editor, right? But you're still editing the final version again. Which is ironic that it's actually added a lot more time to the entire process. It doesn't save me any time at all.
And I don't use a ton of the versions that it throws up, and it definitely gives you weird shit and all that kind of stuff. But it does beg the question in the future of, do we have to then disclose, like, how much of this was written by AI? How much of it was a human? Is it really that different than if we would submit and an editor at a site looks at it and then puts it up?
A lot of times we don't know who edited it. Is it that much different? It gets into a very weird, murky area pretty fast.
[00:58:18] Chris Colucci: It does. It's tricky. I think a big part of that is it comes back to, if you're going to use AI to create content, you have to still be hands on
[00:58:27] Dr Mike T Nelson: and
[00:58:27] Chris Colucci: that you have to read it, you have to adjust it, you have to improve it and put your own spin on it.
But I've seen a little bit here and there, and I don't think some trainers are doing that. Oh, I know a lot of them are not. Yeah, exactly. Because it's just, it's quick, and I had AI write it for me so I can post it. But that's not how it goes. You have to be hands on, you have to fix it and tweak it.
If only, like I said, if only for the ethical sense of, you're posting it on your site, people are barely assuming you wrote it. So either put a written by John Connor byline up top or you have to go in and make some changes which, like you said, it still takes close to as much time as writing it original.
And if you write it original, you're at least getting the mental benefit of building the skill and improving your skill set, writing something from scratch.
[00:59:29] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah that's been my big argument to new writers of, I don't think AI is going away. Yes, I think it'll be a tool that everyone will be using in the future.
But, like you said, if you're not very good at writing and editing, like, how good are you gonna be using the damn tool? You're gonna look at something and be like, I don't know, sounds good. I'm like, that's trash. That's horrible. But you won't, you're still missing the vital skill set of either writing or editing it, if you don't have that.
I think, There's this myth that, oh, we'll just rely on AI to generate everything, and it'll edit it, and I'll just, I'll prompt it the right way. But at some point, like you said, even if you are doing that approach, you have to know what's good, what's not good. How to change it, how to make it better.
You, you're still left going through and doing the writing and the editing process again. So just get better at that.
[01:00:21] Chris Colucci: Yeah. Again it's your skillset as a trainer. If you see a TRX setup and you're like, I can do pushups on that. You do pushups. Cool. But there's a lot more you can do, learn how to use it right.
And you can get a lot more benefit from it. Don't just take the first thing that, that crosses your mind and go with that because you're shortchanging yourself in the long term, and probably in the short term, you're getting shortchanged.
[01:00:47] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and if you already knew how to do pushups pretty good, doing pushups on a TRX, you're probably going to be pretty good within a few reps versus if you've never done pushups in your entire life, if you're doing them on a TRX, you're probably not going to be so good.
[01:01:01] Chris Colucci: Oh, look at this analogy. It just works on all levels.
[01:01:03] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Cool. And second to last question, and we'll get an update on what projects and everything else you've got going on and where people can reach you. But I couldn't let you off the hook without asking you about your favorite old timey exercise. Cause I know you're big into the old time strong man, which I know it could be at a whole nother podcast, maybe at a different point, but I'm huge fan of all the old physical culture, which to me, I've been pre Diana ball, so like 1952 and before, because steroids really weren't a thing per se, as you could argue around the fringes, that type of thing.
But I think. What people back in the day did, those principles still hold today and might even be more applicable now than ever. So what would be your top kind of one, two or three exercises or people that they should check into?
[01:01:57] Chris Colucci: Cool. Good question. First book I would check out, Super Strength by Alan Calvert.
[01:02:02] Dr Mike T Nelson: I think
[01:02:02] Chris Colucci: it was written in, I want to say 1926 ish. Yeah, almost a hundred years
[01:02:08] Dr Mike T Nelson: ago.
[01:02:09] Chris Colucci: Yeah, it's everything we're doing now. It's farmer's walks, it's body weight, it's thick bars. It's everything people still do. He was writing about it. Before bread was sold sliced. So, super strength. That's one book to check out.
Really? I like a lot. I like the idea of different implements a lot of single arm work a lot They don't really do so much single leg stuff. But from what i've seen a lot of single arm lifts overhead single arm barbell lifts particular like I've been playing around a lot with a one arm curling jerk.
I think I saw it in one of Saxon's
[01:02:45] Dr Mike T Nelson: books.
[01:02:46] Chris Colucci: It's on a barbell. So I got a five foot bar. I have an athletic tape in the middle. Cause there's no knurling. Basically like a reverse grip power, clean, rotate slowly and then jerk it up. Just anything overhead. It's like free core training. Like overhead work is like where it's at.
So odd lifts. I have a chunk of concrete that I found, I don't remember where. It happens to weigh 75 pounds, and it's like a big, gnarly triangle, just grab that and carry that. Just weird stuff. Just using barbells and dumbbells and bilateral lifts and machines and stuff. Gets very overdone, or very overemphasized, I think.
So branch out a little bit, do more single arm stuff. Do single arm barbell stuff, even just a single arm deadlift is, can be like an eye opener to a lot of people that's about as basic as it gets. That's like entry level. Just try that. See how it goes. That's probably a good start.
[01:03:46] Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, that's cool. I've heard on some new trainers, the Steinborn lift, for listeners were back in the day shocker, they didn't have, power racks and stuff like we have. So if you were going to back squat, how the hell do you get. The bar off the ground, you could deadlift it, do like a Zurcher version.
You could do a hack squat, but if you wanted to do the classic back squat, you had to pick it up, put it at an angle and just drop under it as the thing rotates onto your back. And I remember showing some trainers a video of this and they were just like, Lately horrified that was a thing.
I'm like, but that, that used to, I'm not saying people run out and do a Steinborn lift with a heavy load. That's not a good idea. But that used to be a very typical lift back in the day. That wasn't weird at all. That was relatively normal.
[01:04:29] Chris Colucci: I think Steinborn got up to 500 for five or something like that.
[01:04:32] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah,
[01:04:32] Chris Colucci: but yeah, you, again, if you see videos on that today, check the comment section and people will flip out.
[01:04:38] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah oh,
[01:04:39] Chris Colucci: you just bought my chiropractor a good deal. Mercedes. No, you're not going to break if you approach it intelligently. If you can't do a signboard lift with an empty bar, figure out why, check your mobility.
[01:04:54] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.
Cool, awesome. That works. So where can people find out more about you? I know you've got some upcoming projects with our buddy, Shane, and a bunch of other things you've got going on.
[01:05:06] Chris Colucci: Yeah, you can check us out. Shane McLean and I are getting together. We've put up vrightspotters. com right with a W cause we're about getting fitness professionals into improve their fitness writing.
So we're all around there. I'm at I'm around, I'm on probably Instagram the most chriscalucci. ny, because there's a few of us. And that's really it. Just floating around check out the RightSpotters, at the RightSpotters on the socials. And it's, we're just helping trainers and coaches become better writers.
And it's not that hard. It's just another thing to add to your tool belt. And it's just, we're just trying to help.
[01:05:45] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and I would make my little plug like we talked about early in the show is if you just get better at writing, I do think it transfers to a lot of things. I think you'll get better verbally explaining your stuff to clients, your client interactions will be better.
You can transfer to video, you can transfer to social media. It's a skill that I don't think is gonna ever really go away. And just the process of doing it does suck and I don't know if it ever really gets easy per se. But nothing Worth really achieving never gets easy. Lifting, there's always another thing or another lift or another weight or something you can add to it.
And I think writing's, just the same, but I think it's a very worthwhile skill to get even average at, I think, because I, unfortunately, a lot of the essays I've had to read for college people in different places. Now they're not very good and it's, no, one's really taught them how to write. It's not necessarily their fault either.
Although I think. It's a skill that's definitely needed and it's definitely worth your investment of the time and effort
[01:06:48] Chris Colucci: I completely agree. It's not that hard to be an okay writer. It's not that much harder to be a good writer just practice it and figure out
[01:07:02] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and if you're a good writer combined with decent fitness and nutrition skills, then you're pretty set to go in the industry.
Like you're pretty good to go. So
[01:07:11] Chris Colucci: It's only going to be a benefit. That's it. That's I keep saying, it's only going to help you professionally.
[01:07:17] Dr Mike T Nelson: Awesome. Thank you so much for all your time. I really appreciate it.
[01:07:20] Chris Colucci: I appreciate the chance. Glad to talk. Thanks a lot.
[01:07:23] Dr Mike T Nelson: Thank you.
[01:07:25] Dr Mike T Nelson: Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Really appreciate it. Huge thanks to Chris for coming on the podcast. Make sure to check out all of his stuff, especially the services he's doing with our good buddy Shane at The Right Spotters. Check them out. Great stuff all the time. Really appreciate Chris coming down here and being so open and sharing with us his experience and some great tips for all of you.
If you want his top four tips and under five minutes, go to mike t nelson.com/flex four FLEX four, and we'll have a link to that down below. That also puts you on the daily newsletter, so you get all the wonderful writings of yours truly nerdy here. And you can check that out for free. Thank you so much for listening.
Also, as a reminder, flex Diet Certification opens June 17th through the 24th, 2024. I go to flex diet.com for all the information there. Also I will be at the ISSN meeting that week. Also, international Society of Sports Nutrition. It'll be down in Florida once again, so hopefully I will see a lot of you there.
If not, I would highly recommend checking out that meeting if you want all the greatest and nerdiest stuff in sports nutrition. As always, thank you so much for listening. Really appreciate it. You can give us whatever stars you feel are appropriate. I hit the subscribe button that goes a long way with the old algorithms to getting us a better distribution or forward us on to a friend who's maybe looking for some tips of how to submit their first article in the fitness space.
Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Talk to all of you next week.
they say all good things come to an end. What's that got to do with this show?
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