It's just me, Dr. Mike T Nelson, on today's episode of the Flex Diet Podcast. I share some updates and reflections from my coaching and training journey. I also recount my experience at the Coach Catalyst Super Coach Meeting Summit, a fantastic event that blended presentations on training, business, and mindset and offered a great opportunity to connect with fellow coaches and enthusiasts.
It's just me, Dr. Mike T Nelson, on today's episode of the Flex Diet Podcast. I share some updates and reflections from my coaching and training journey. I also recount my experience at the Coach Catalyst Super Coach Meeting Summit, a fantastic event that blended presentations on training, business, and mindset and offered a great opportunity to connect with fellow coaches and enthusiasts.
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[00:00:00] Mike T Nelson: Hey there, what's going on? It's Dr. Mike T. Nelson, back on the FlexDiet podcast here, where we search to provide you great info and actions to increase muscle performance, improve body composition, and do it all within a flexible framework without destroying your health. I am back. It has been crazy busy with a bunch of deadlines.
[00:00:28] with books. Yes, the rumors are true. Trying as hard as I can with Coach Cal Dietz to get the Triphasic 2 book out early this fall. Hoping to announce, announce a release date in the next week or so. I'm so excited to get that out. It has been a, to say, an extremely long process is underrated, I guess. I started on it working with Cal.
[00:00:59] Eight and a half years ago, and then basically shit canned everything about three years ago, because he had so much new information in the meantime. And right now we're at 14 brand new methods to help you more geared to the performance athlete, field athletes, football, track, swimming, things where your numbers in the weight room are related, but are not necessarily the main thing.
[00:01:30] Obviously Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, and even kind of bodybuilding, body composition, numbers in the weight room are more important for someone who's playing rugby or American football, hockey, the numbers are more associated. And it's the transfer of that to feel the performance that matters the most.
[00:01:51] So those are the 14 methods are all geared towards that. Having worked with Cal for a long time, I'm super excited to get all this new information out, so stay tuned for announcements coming there. We'll have probably in the next week or so, I'm gonna release some information from the book. So stay tuned for that.
[00:02:13] And, yeah. Can't wait to get that done. So that's been eating up a lot more time and then was also at the coach catalyst, super coach meeting summit this past Saturday and Sunday, rest in VA, super awesome event, huge thanks to coach cav cane, Trevor all the staff coach catalyst for setting that up.
[00:02:37] It's a. Huge amount of work to put on an event like that for about, I think they had 150 people attend, which is amazing. The event was great. Got to see tons of friends there again. I got to be on a panel talking about fitness training with Anna, Ben Mayfield from Australia. My good buddy Jeb and I were on the panel, which was a ton of fun.
[00:03:03] That was Saturday morning. Thanks And yeah, just super fun to meet everyone. Thank you to everyone who came up to me to say hi, really, really appreciate that. And yeah, I've been to a lot of events and some events are great. Some are, are okay, but this one was really good mix of presentations stuff on the business side, on the training side, mindset, and more.
[00:03:32] And everyone there was just super cool. So shout out to the Coach Catalyst guys for just having a great following, great community, and then stayed an extra day on Monday to hang out with Cab and some of his crew there also. So today I wanted to go over a short one. It's just me. I got this question, man, probably like three times over the weekend.
[00:03:57] So I thought, Hey, this is probably worth, doing a very short podcast on it. I've got a whole bunch of guests lined up that are coming up. It's just in the process of scheduling, finding time with their schedule, my schedule to get them all recorded. But stay tuned. Got a ton of guests. I think you're really going to enjoy.
[00:04:17] So the number one question I got over the weekend was, if you could go back in your coaching and training career, What is probably the number one thing you would have done differently? So for those who don't know, I originally started coaching clients. I would say my official start date was 2005. That was the first time someone actually paid me to train them, which was in person.
[00:04:45] I had completed my NSCA CSCS exam. Funny story, I actually overslept for the darn exam. I was so paranoid about doing that and my alarm didn't go off. I got up late. I literally woke up as the test was starting. The test was 35 minutes away from my house. I got in my car, sprinted out the door as I was driving down.
[00:05:11] The test was at the university of Minnesota, ironically. And I called my neighbor to see if I even closed the garage door cause I couldn't remember. And when I got there, the test had already been closed. They usually don't allow anybody in. And one of the proctors came out to use the bathroom. So I pleaded with her if I could get in to take the exam.
[00:05:31] I said, I'll take the time cut. I'm not looking for any, you know, special treatment or anything like that. And she's like, well, you know, you missed 45 minutes of the exam. I can let you in, but obviously I can't let you make up that time. I said, that's totally fine. So I was pretty stressed out. Luckily I did pass, which was great.
[00:05:49] So don't show up for your exams. It was nice of her to let me in. So I did that, and that was the first time I actually got paid. So I've been doing this coming up on almost like 20 years now. Which is pretty wild. The first class I ever took out of anatomy and physiology was my undergrad. And I started that in 1992, actually.
[00:06:09] So, been at this for a while. Again, doesn't mean I know everything. But made a lot of mistakes. Screwed a whole bunch of stuff up. So, yeah. I apologize to any of my clients that I first started with yeah, it was, it was barely passable. But again, that's how you're going to learn. So my number one thing that I wish I would have done differently is it's a combined answer.
[00:06:28] So one part of it, part A, I wish I would have just bought somebody's system and just got really good at executing their system. At the time, I thought I could piece together all of. the physiology and put it together and make it work. That was probably a mistake. Eventually I did get some stuff figured out, but man, that was a hair pulling event.
[00:06:53] That was a lot of headache. Clients probably did not get the best results is what they could have at that point. I would have been much better served of sucking it up, buying a good solid system from someone who had already done what I wanted to do. and could teach said system. I was lucky early on.
[00:07:15] I did do the precision nutrition. So I was involved with them early on, which was great. Again, I would have started that whole process much, much sooner. The second part is once you get really good at following that system and really understanding it, then you can branch out on your own. After that, the second part to that is, I would have looked for a system where you could email someone directly with hyper specific questions and to their credit position nutrition back in the day did have a really good forum that was helpful.
[00:07:50] But the downside of forums, it shows you how old I am. You get almost too many answers and different things from different people who may or may not be actually executing the system. Again, I'm all for community. I'm all for, you know, getting different answers and different perspectives. But at the end of the day, I think getting an answer from the person who designed the system and came up with it, or someone who is like a super user, who's a very high level user of the system and have kind of one answer to test out, that's going to be the fastest approach.
[00:08:28] Now, again, that doesn't mean that answer is always going to be correct. But that would have simplified. Man, so much of my headache when I, when I first started. And again, that's why I created the flex diet cert. It wasn't to do an online cert because it seems like everyone was doing that. I actually was doing education online for quite some time and I had a mastermind meeting with Ryan Lee and he said I should just create a certification.
[00:08:58] And I remember, I remember asking Ryan, I'm like, Oh man but. Everyone and their brother like has a certification. This is going back like six years ago when I first started the whole process. And I said, I don't want to be one of those douchebags online. That's just promoting their cert. That's, you know, not verified by anything.
[00:09:16] He kind of looked at me and he's like, well, you're one of the douchebags who could actually have research and references and has been doing this for a long time to actually make it useful. Therefore it would not be the same as. someone who just, you know, threw together a bunch of stuff over the weekend.
[00:09:33] I was like, Oh, okay, I guess that's kind of a valid point. So he's the one who gave me the kick in the butt to do the flex diet cert, which initially I'd been researching and doing all this stuff, using all the concept of clients for many years. At that point, my PhD was in metabolic flexibility, but I was hesitant to do it as a certification for that, that reason.
[00:09:54] But the pro was that did, force me to go back and really spend a lot of time on how to systemize it as best as possible. And honestly, that took me the longest time. I mean, from the time I had that meeting to figure out how I was going to systematize, it took me almost six months of trying things. I would do like float tanks for an hour, hour and a half, and just think about that question of, okay, how would I systematize this?
[00:10:24] Taking people, running them through, asking them questions, doing some beta testing, all that kind of stuff. Because if you have an actual system, other people can then execute it much better and then therefore they can help other people get better results. The second part, as I mentioned with a mentor, that's the other reason why currently, and again, I'm going to try to do this as long as I possibly can with both the PhysFlexCert and the Physiologic Flexibility Certification.
[00:10:52] If anyone enrolls, at least for this year, again I can't promise next year, but I'm going to try to do it as long as I can. If they have any questions, they literally get my private email and they can ask me any questions they want about it. I do that because, again, I think that is what I wanted when I started and that would have been extremely useful.
[00:11:13] If I could have just paid the money, which again, certifications that are solid are not going to be dirt cheap. And had access to the creator or the group of creators of that program, that if I ran into something specific that was not covered in the certification, which if you train the actual clients, that is going to happen and I could get it a specific answer that would have been huge if nothing else, just for the comfort to know that, okay, if I get in a little bit deeper water, Yeah, at some point, you know, know your boundaries and make sure, you know, do everything within, you know, whatever your licensure is.
[00:11:54] Don't over promise and under, under deliver. But knowing that I had someone there to help me out or who may even say, Hey, you know, this is definitely outside your skill set. You definitely need to refer this out. That's totally cool too, which is sometimes the answer. I think that would have helped me kind of borrow their, their confidence to start earlier.
[00:12:15] Cause the only way, just like lifting, the only way you're going to figure stuff out is you just kind of have to start and go forward. So and again, I'm biased. Yes, I do sell certification, the FlexDiet Cert, Physiologic Flexibility Certifications. Yes, you can email me directly once you're in and I'll do whatever I can to help you out.
[00:12:33] Those emails go directly to me. They don't go to an assistant or anybody else like that. And again, the main reason I do that is because I, I still believe that that is the fastest way for people to get better. It's almost like an old sort of apprentice model, again, done online. You have the information, you can work through it at your own pace, but if you get stuck, you have help on how to get better at that.
[00:12:57] And along those lines, the Physiologic Flexibility Certification will also open up again in October. For those who are new listeners here, cause we've got a lot of new listeners. The Flexa diet cert is the main cert for nutrition and recovery. We cover everything from your macronutrients, protein, fats, carbs neat, right?
[00:13:17] So walking, non exercise activity, thermogenesis things like sleep, fasting, keto, basic exercise, et cetera, is all covered there. So this is like your level one. Like, if you can get most clients, or even yourself, really solid in those things, you're going to be doing really, really well. Like, I would say you can easily help 85 90 percent of people that come across your desk.
[00:13:41] Again, there's going to be special cases, there's going to be times we need to refer out even high level athletes. You'd be amazed at the nutrition habits of some high level athletes. So again, they don't always need the latest and greatest. They might. You'd But I think most people would be shocked as to what they actually do for nutrition.
[00:14:00] It's generally, surprisingly, not all that great. So, level one, FlexThyte certification, that usually opens twice a year. Probably won't be open the rest of this year. I'm debating with the idea if I'll open it up for just a weekend for people who want CEUs. I know there's a bunch of people who need CEUs by the end of the year.
[00:14:19] Haven't decided on that yet, to be honest. And then level two is the Physiologic Flexibility Certification. So once you're really good at level one which is the Flex Diet Cert, Nutrition, Basic Exercise, Recovery, then the level two, I looked at, okay, now you're great at the basics, you're executing those, what is the next level of things you can do to increase your body's ability to recover make you more resilient and even anti fragile?
[00:14:50] Meaning you can take stressors and absorb them and actually become physiologically and even mentally better because of that. Yeah, my bias here is that we're going to work on the four pillars within the PhysFlex. These are hormatic, or this is hormatic, hormatic regulators. Can't talk today. Things like temperature.
[00:15:12] Your body cannot sustain temperature as a core body difference of just a few degrees, either too high or too low. You can die. Number two is going to be how your body can handle fuel differences. This is an expanded version of metabolic flexibility. So on the level one, the flex diet cert, we talk about how you can handle carbohydrates and fats.
[00:15:37] And then in the physiologic flexibility cert, the level two, we expand that even more to keto. So ketone production and also lactate production. Number three is pH. Your body has to maintain very, very tight pH. Any deviations too high or too low, again, you're dead. Which means that the body has tons of systems to make sure that this stays in place.
[00:16:05] So in terms of actions, this could be everything from different type of breath work long, slow duration cardio up to high intensity cardio, these things that acutely are trying to increase or decrease pH, just like things with fuel systems. Like if you do a low carbohydrate approach, you will increase the body's production of ketones.
[00:16:25] And again, like all things that has some definite pros and has some definite cons. And then pillar number four is breathing, oxygen regulation, and CO2 regulation. In practice, again, this, these have a lot of overlap. Maybe you're going to do your zone two cardio with a specific breath cadence. You're going to breathe in at a certain rate and breathe out at a certain rate.
[00:16:47] You might be doing meditation or breath work at rest. You might be doing breath holds or other things like that. So at the end of the day, the goal here is to take these really, really complex physiologic mechanisms and simplify them down into actions. So physiology is complex, but your actions are relatively simple.
[00:17:11] And at the end of the day, there's going to be a way to increase or decrease each one of these four pillars. So that's going to give you kind of eight areas and you will have exact action items for that. So at the end of the day, you'll have 40 action items. And we tell you the system of how to figure out when to use those.
[00:17:31] The cool part is that, again, it's my biased view, that if you're targeting these homeostatic regulators, again, we're not trying to change your core body temp. We're giving you the capacity to absorb more heat or heat acclimation. We're giving your body and training it to absorb the ability to handle changes in temp, maybe in cold.
[00:17:56] So just cold water immersion or ice bath, things like that. And I think if you build up this kind of physiologic buffer zone on each end, this will transfer to other stressors. This will allow you to be able to function in a much more wide variety. So yes, you can do things to increase recoverability with nutrition and sleep and all those things.
[00:18:23] That's definitely great. But I think what gets lost a lot of times is building in things to intrinsically allow your body to recover faster. And again, as I mentioned, my bias is if you train these four areas, these four pillars of homeostatic regulation, I believe that that'll make you just a much more robust, very hard to kill human being.
[00:18:49] And then you can point that at whatever you want to do. Maybe you want to do some crazy long hikes or long endurance, or you've got a super stressful life and you want to recover faster from it, or you want to do more exercise, performance, whatever, you're increasing that innate ability to recover. And my last little point on that is we do talk a little bit about supplements here, but that's pretty minimal.
[00:19:16] I think just like exercise and nutrition are the main thing, supplements maybe add a single digit percentage. Same thing here. If you go online, you'll see anything that talks about resilience or being more anti fragile. It's usually a list of like 18 supplements you need to take. And again, I'm not against, you know, supplements or peptides or even TRT when it's, you know, medically needed.
[00:19:39] However, I think just like exercise and nutrition, the interventions that you do, I like viewing them in terms of exercise, nutrition, breath, breath, work, all those things first. And then if we want to add, you know, fancy technology or supplements on top of that, that would be something to do in addition, not necessarily in place of.
[00:20:05] So my pet peeve right now, like I said, is, You know, want to be more resilient? Take these 17 supplements. That might help, but I think you would better be served by doing very specific types of training, very specific breath work, very specific exposures to temp differentials in a controlled manner. I think that's going to give you a lot more bang for your buck.
[00:20:29] So to summarize, number one question I had is what would you do different if you went back in time? My two part answer is I would definitely just pay someone for their complete system. Again, I am biased because I do sell my own systems. And to be able to ask specific questions to the person or group of people who created it is going to allow you to learn by doing very fast.
[00:20:57] And if a trainer or coach is listening to this, it is perfectly acceptable to get back to your clients and say, Hey, That's a great question. Give me 24, 48 hours to check into this and get back to you. I mean, heck, I just did this the other day. The client who's got some foot issues I've dealt with in the past.
[00:21:16] I felt pretty confident I had an answer, but I wanted a day or two to reach out to some other people who have even more experience with that than I do and make sure I can synthesize all the information and see if I can get an even better and faster response. Which is going to take a little bit of time and I think as long as clients know that's what you're doing and you're working to have it be a better experience for them, then that's totally fine.
[00:21:41] So, as I mentioned, the physiologic flexibility, the true level two cert comes out October. I don't know. I don't have a date yet. Somewhere around October. So listen and look for that. As always, thank you so much for listening to the podcast and my rambling here today. We'll have a lot more guests coming up, some really cool stuff looking at, man, everything from a whey protein, essential amino acids to possibly some stuff on blood work training, cardiovascular hypertrophy, kind of good, good variety of all the things, you know, and love here.
[00:22:19] So thank you so much for listening. Really, really appreciate it. If you enjoyed this podcast and want to share it around, we greatly appreciate it. Hit the ol subscribe button. That definitely helps us with the algorithms. If you have even 10, 20 seconds to leave a review, that would be freakin amazing.
[00:22:37] Because all those things definitely help us move up in the old algorithm. So thank you so much. Really appreciate it. We'll talk to all of you again next week.
[00:22:48]
[00:22:49] What do you suppose they call that? A novelty act? I don't know, but it wasn't too bad. Well, that's a novelty.
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