Programming Clients for the Long Game with Annie Miller

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 140. Today I'm sitting down with Annie Miller and we're talking all about programming clients for the long game. Are you ready? Let's get started. Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance and movement, package and position their products and services and get out of of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast. What's up, coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and if this is your first time here, welcome. Super pumped that you're here. I'm really excited to introduce to you Annie Miller, who is a strength coach navigating the space that is entrepreneurship. After graduating with her degree in exercise and Sports Science In 2013, becoming a certified strength and conditioning specialist, changing course from college strength and performance coach to personal training, she found her calling in the online world of health and fitness. Any empowers women to learn as they train and enjoy their lifts again without being asked to figure it out for themselves. Instagram is our favorite platform for fitness and entrepreneurship and this is where you can find her hanging out most of the time. And in today's episode, she shares her journey and where she even started, got inspired to become a strength and coaching specialist. How she went from from training athletes to the general population, how injury has changed her life and the way she views programming and commitment, commitment to both business growth as well as getting your health and fitness dialed in. And she talks a lot about the importance of support and we go deep inside of this episode and honestly, it was really fun. Loved her energy, love hanging with her and I cannot wait to introduce her to you. So without further ado, let's roll that interview. What's up, Annie? Thank you so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

I am good. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited.

This is going to be fun. I can't wait to just dig into your journey. Can you start, please, by sharing with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there.

Absolutely. So I come from the world of college strength and conditioning, so that is why I got my exercise and sports science degree in the first place. I wanted to work with athletes as I think a lot of trainers are like, I Only want to work with athletes. Nobody is, like, really, really passionate about gen pop when they're starting out, I don't think, or not from the strength and conditioning realm, perhaps from just general personal training. So after doing that, I absolutely loved it, but found that, you know, when I looked 10 years down the road, I was like, I don't actually think I see myself in this. In this realm. Um, when I looked at you traveling.

A lot, like, did you have to, like, where'd you go to school? Like, what?

Went to school at Concordia University in Portland, and I interned at University of Portland for my two year internship as a strength and conditioning coach in college strength. Um, and basically it came. I came to this, like, crossroads of I either need to accept a GA somewhere and get my master's in exchange for being a college strength coach somewhere else. And I watched, I guess in two years, I saw a lot of transition and turnover with strength and conditioning coaches and really having to, like, up and move. Like, you have to take every opportunity in that world that comes to you. And I also got married in the last semester of college. And so my husband and I kind of had a pact of, like, when I'm done with my schooling, if you are moving up in the company that you're working in, to my husband, then I will just figure my ish out and I will do something else. I knew at that point that I didn't want to do strength and conditioning in the college realm anyway. And if he wasn't moving up in the business, then we would follow me to wherever I wanted to continue my schooling. Because I also thought about, like, physical therapy. My dream was kind of, or not dream. But one idea I guess was I had a lot of physical therapy experience as a client, as a patient, and I loved it. And I. I also saw gaps of, like, I wish I had a physical therapist schooling, but to apply it as a strength coach or as a personal trainer. So anywho, that was kind of the pact we had. When it came down to it, he was moving up and he was the main breadwinner. So we stayed where we were. I opened my business, Fit Design by Annie in 2015, decided, you know, I cannot possibly work in a globo gym. You know, I do want to train people, but, like, on my terms, in my way, with my programming, not under the realm of anyone else. And I did apply for, you know, those kind of standard jobs. And I just. I couldn't. Like, my gut, I was like, I would rather fail on my own than, like, work for Somebody or under a principal that I don't agree with. So struggled, you know, 2015 to 2017, but did fill my in person training clients and steadily built an online presence. Which is what? Like, I wish if I could scream anything from the rooftops for trainers, it would be. Even if you are training people in person, build an online presence of some kind like you, it will only benefit you, I swear.

I mean, yeah, it's so true. Even if you are building a brick and mortar, because people go to the Internet and they're like, well, so. And so what are they doing? Yeah, so good. Sorry, keep going.

No, no, it's all good. I actually just. I was gonna post this on Instagram the other day. I'm looking for a sports masseuse in my area. Their web presence and websites are atrocious. And I'm like, I'm literally choosing the one that has the best information on their website. Because some of them, I'm like, this is, this is a joke from a business standpoint. So anywho, just the importance of a web presence, even if you have a brick and mortar is like, I can't stress it enough. So Fast Forward was building basically my online platform as I was also filling in person, which I do suggest, if you can, because it just makes that transition into the online world world so much smoother. You're not starting from ground zero after like building this great practice for five years in person. That means nothing. When you transition into the online world, it does in terms of your experience. Right. And the value that you can bring. But if you haven't given yourself any platform, you really are starting from zero. No one knows who you are unless you're, you know, some celebrity trainer or for some other reason. So, um, but you'll be surprised.

You'll be surprised. Like, some of the people that I've worked with that have. That are celebrity trainers, they still struggle. Right? You know, there's, it's, it's. We're all, we're all. Everyone has a day one.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So then in 2018, I. We made the leap. So my husband said to me in 2017, like, we were making good money, um, we didn't need anything else. And he was like, what if we just traveled the world? And I was like, yes, wrote that shit in my planner and we took off nine months later.

So. Amazing.

Yeah, I mean, I said, you know, I need to make a little bit more money in my online business. So he quit his job, I became the breadwinner, and 2018 is kind of like that pivotal year for me. So it was the sink or swim. And I think anyone transitioning from in person to online is going to have to have that sink or swim moment. Otherwise you will just stay like you're comfortable, there's nothing pushing you, there's no need to go fully online and you don't have to. Some people do want to still have an in person presence and also train online. But 2018 was great. Did a lot in my business, obviously traveled the world for a year. And then in 2019, I added business coaching to the fitness side of things. So I had scaled my fitness business successfully in 2016, 2017. I was getting interest from people like, hey, how are you doing what you're doing? Just organic observers of what I was doing on mainly Instagram. And I was like, I'm never going to coach business, Never. Because I hated, I loathe to the depths of my soul every business coach and their approach on Instagram, mainly in my DMs. Like, it was just, I would go to somebody's account and I'm like, you haven't even built a health and fitness business. Like, where is the proof of you understanding the field that I am in and the demands of doing this? So finally in 2019, I felt that I, I had reached a enough success for my integrity to say, I'm going to help people do this as well. Finally after saying I never would. And that's where I'm at. So 50% of my business is fitness based mainly strength and conditioning. And then the other side is business. And all of that is mainly for females. So in the fitness side it's all female. In the business side, I would say it's 97% female. But of course there are some males that, that resonate with my message and I will not turn them away. And my main thing is just loving the process, finding joy in the process for fitness and business and efficacy. And those were things that, you know, I saw missing as well as authenticity, like actual authenticity. Not kind of the salesy scammy, sometimes manipulating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, that's me.

I love it.

Okay.

Are, are you still training online?

Oh, yes. Yeah.

And you love it?

Yep.

I'm curious, you know, what was your, what was your experience going from like collegiate athlete to gen pop? Like, what was that transition like? I'm curious.

Um, it was like a mindset shift of my own. Like I had my own little epiphanies, um, because I actually also interned at a physical therapy clinic, which Bridge the gap between like, you're done with physical therapy, but you're not ready to return to not even sport for like an athlete athlete necessarily. Um, but even just, you know, active people who want to run or lift weights or do whatever, like you finish pt. That doesn't mean that you're, you're ready to go squat what you were squatting or to run the amount of mileage you were running or any of that. So that was kind of a, my first experience with some gen pop. Still active gen pop, but gen pop. All different ages and sizes and things that I wasn't necessarily used to in college athletics. So I found that more rewarding than the collegiate athletes. The collegiate athletes are so fun, right? They're so fun. You, you can try stuff and you can really push them and that's great. But like the, the changes that are made in a, for lack of better term, normal person's life, they just hit different, I think, than, than an athlete. And maybe that was my own like expectation being flipped on its head. Uh, but that was, that was huge for me. And then like I said, I did fill, you know, 40 to 50 hours a week with in person training, which was general population. So do.

Yeah. Do you do any, do you do any in person now or is it all or no.

No. So I always was very passionate about program design. So I loved my clients, but I never like, loved training people in person. I was always very much so. Like, I like the behind the scenes, I like the planning, the programming. And so I always knew, even when I started training in person that I wanted to find a way to just write programs behind the scene. Like that was my, my end goal always from day one.

So what are some of the program I love for you to expand a little bit on? You know, what are some of the programming principles that you live by and what are some of the things that you see your coaches struggle with when it comes to programming? Because I feel like that is a very challenging thing for many people.

Oh yes. So I actually just. Shameless plug. I mean it's not open right now, so it's not really a plug, but I just dropped in January a peer programming course. So it's a 12 week programming course for the very reasons you're talking about. People over complicate it, which makes sense because programing is this endless toolbox. And so it is so difficult to know when you are starting from ground zero. Like what bumpers and structures do we put in place to kind of start here with some rigidity first and you know what, what is really black and white for us. And then we can start exploring some of those gray areas once we just understand the basics. I am very master the basics from a programming standpoint. Master the basics from a movement standpoint. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. Like the more simple you can make something I think the better. And I'm very big on like, I think coaches feel this pressure to make every phase of programming a brand new phase of programming. And my perspective is like, I kind of minimal dose effect. But also we want to change the least amount possible to get the stimulus that we want and not completely bore the client. Like, yes, I love that is a piece of this. Right. Like, we want clients, especially for me, efficacy being a part of my kind of core value. Clients need to enjoy what they're doing. But I also want clients to see like, wow, we only changed tempo. We did not change sets and reps. We didn't change the weight, we didn't change A single exercise in this phase feels completely different than last phase. But my movement patterns are more solid and they're noticing those things. So that's kind of my overarching, like simplicity and basics is. Is what I love.

I love it. And you talked about two different principles. You talked about movement and then you also talked about, you know, pro. I can't. I think it was programming was the word. Can you.

Yeah.

Can you go deeper a little bit into like, what are the principles that you do look for in a successful program build?

So it depends on obviously the, the purpose of the program is going to be completely different, but like looking very general as context.

Yeah, general.

I want the squat, hinge, push, pull, carry needs to be in there. That's my own. My own principle. Right. Like that's some. That is a hill I will die on. And then I always look for bilateral, unilateral and then some kind of balancing of the planes of movement. So I don't need every single workout to have sagittal, frontal and transverse plane movement. But I want to make sure that we're not completely neglecting any of those. Likely not sagittal, but mainly frontal and transverse planes. Let's have everything is so anti rotation. I want to make sure that we can rotate our body and that we have that control and that we have that symmetry on both sides. Another thing that I look at are I think that mobility should be built into strength training. I don't think that that extra work should necessarily always be separate from the training. So in all of my programs, I call it movement prep but it's basically core and mobility work related to whatever they're going to be doing that day. And that is something that I feel very strongly about and that I think should be included in all strength training, especially if we want to move through full range of motion. Like, even if a power lifter, you know, they're not going to squat ass to grass in a competition. I don't work with power lifters, but that is not the most efficient way to lift the most weight. I respect that. But for longevity and joint health and overall strength, it does benefit them in some way, shape or form. To move full range of motion through a squatting pattern, whether that is a front rack, step up, whether that is a Bulgarian split squat, I don't care. I'm very much so. That would be another principle, I guess, is looking at patterns. So when I say squat, hinge, push, pull, carry, I'm not talking about just back squat, just conventional deadlift, just overhead press. Right. We have lots of exercises that fall underneath those categories, which I have like a hierarchy, if you will, of movement that is related to like the animal kingdom hierarchy. But yeah, those are, those are some of my principles, I guess. I love that.

Can you dive deeper into, you know, talking about what your hierarchy is of movement? Like, what are the movement patterns that you live by? And then I'm also curious about variability and variations for your people that can't necessarily, or think they can't necessarily move in that way.

Yes, that's another. Like, that is huge on efficacy as well. So when someone I'm big on, like, like I said, I've had a lot of experience with injury myself and Ben.

And I want to.

I want to hear about that injury.

Yeah, for sure. Okay.

So it's okay. So it's kind of. The hierarchy is very similar to what I said about like bilateral unilateral. So we have at the top we have squat, hinge, push, pull, carry. And again, not every movement falls into that. Those boxes nicely. Like there is gray area. But again, I think when we're first starting out, it's very helpful to start with some rigidity and some structure rather than being overwhelmed by all of the gray. We have the bilateral versions for a squat, Zercher squat, front squat, zombie squat, goblet squat. These are all bilateral, using both of our legs doing a squatting pattern. And then we have unilateral bias. So B stance squats, a step up would be like a full unilateral movement. You are not pushing the way that I do them anyway. I guess you're not pushing off the back leg at all. Whereas like a Bulgarian split squat is a unilateral bias because we do still have that back leg with some weight in it. It is not a true unilateral. If you want to get nitty gritty, it's not a true unilateral movement. We have the bilateral versions, then unilateral bias and then unilateral. Then from there we get into what differentiates a squat from a hinge. Largely the use of the quads or the hamstrings also where the joints are bending at. Normally with a hinge we do not have knee flexion. You certainly can have fixed KN flexion, but typically we do not. So it almost goes into like a push pull from that hierarchy from the unilateral. Then we start to look at more. If you want to call it isolation work, you can. Nothing is like, it's very hard to truly isolate something which we know. But then we get into basically quad work versus hamstring work or glute work, anterior, posterior. So just basically big compound movements moving down, making sure we hit unilateral and then into that isolation work. Very much so how you would program an actual workout. Right. There's carryover between those two. Two things.

So when you are building out your programs, I'm assuming that you also have programs for other colleagues. Like, you know, even coaches need coaches. Right. So I think it's important that we all, we recognize that A B The second thing is how do you deal with your client adherence and do you notice a change versus, you know, with, with someone who already is familiar, say and already has that buy in of it's okay, I need to master the basics and the boring versus someone who is used to the like hit class today, hit class tomorrow and that they're used to more variation. I'm curious how you have built in the buy in for your clients.

Yes, so Built by Annie is my main, my main membership. It's a 12 month membership. There's three different tiers that someone can choose from based on, we have a quiz. So like have they trained in the past? Have they taken, you know, five plus months off of training? So they are, they have experience but they're re entering from like, you know, a serious deficit, if you will. So three different tiers. I feel that people that come to Built by Annie are like already ready to go. So they are either familiar with weight training or they've said I'm done with the hit classes and I'm ready to learn. Right. Like I'm, I'm in this. So I feel that we get a pretty committed group of women from, from the get go. And if there is adherence issues, which we expect, I always say I expect 70% adherence with built by Annie because it's a year long membership. Like shit happens in a year you are going to get sick. You're going to maybe for lack of better phrase, fall off the train. Those things are going to happen. Which is why I'm also big. One of my core values is like the long haul mentality. Something is better than nothing. If you're going to do this for a year, let's have the expectation that you aren't going to be 100% adherent. That isn't a realistic expectation. Not for me anyway. And in my 15 years of training, I can say that 100% adherence is not likely for the long haul. Maybe you could do that for eight weeks. Right? You hit every workout for eight weeks. I can see that. But for 12 months, no, not realistic.

So your commitment right off the bat is 12 months?

Yes. Yep. I do not have a program shorter than 12 months.

Love that. I also, you know, that must, you know that, that must be a lot of, of you know, shifts for people. People are looking for that like quick fix, give me that quick fix. What can I do in that short term? So that must take a lot of like. Well, like you said, you bring, you're, you call on the people who are like, I'm done with this. I've tried that. It doesn't work.

Right. Yeah.

So in your programming, how, how, how long are they working out? Like in terms of their, their pro, like how long are their workouts and how many times per week are they working out?

Um, so you can choose between three days and technically five days. But it's four or five days. So in my premium options that are four to five days, the last day is conditioning and like joint health work. So they don't have to that day if they don't want to. Four days of lifting, I find with one on one with myself just seems to be like for a normal person working a full time job, 4 days seems to be the sweet spot is what I find for most of the women. And maybe that's just like I seem to attract people that want to work out four days a week. I don't know what it is, but I think that that is the, what I have found to be what people can adhere to and have the most success with. From also a strength standpoint.

So yeah, I love that. I love it. And then I'm also, you know, curious about the, the, you know, with that 12 month commitment, knowing that you're, you're, you're attracting people who have, that are invested. How many people do you have to pull back? Like, do you have chronic exercisers, like people that are, you know, used to two a days or they're working seven days a week or they're bodybuilders? You, you know, how much of that work do you have to spend with, spend time with people?

So I actually attract. It's funny that you say that and that's a common question and something I don't tend to deal with because I actually get a lot of people who have done CrossFit and I mean I pin CrossFit as like high intensity stress on your body, all the things and are looking for something that is less of that. So they, they love lifting weights, but they're like, dude, this ruined my body. Like I want to lift, I want to feel strong, but I also like don't want to be in pain or feel like I have to thrash myself every single workout. So it's almost like they've already had that realization and they're in search of an alternative. And then that's where my program comes in. Every once in a while we will have someone that, you know, really wants to push. And it's not with strength training. I don't think that. I guess I can see both. I have seen coaches that argue like you should have energy after your lift. Which that's a very vague statement. So yes, I suppose you should.

How do you know when you have energy?

Right, right. But I'm also like, you should like need the rest period. Like you should be working. I think a lot of people don't work at high enough intensities when it comes to strength training and hypertrophy training. Like, do you know what an RPE 8 or 9 actually feels like? Because we need to be pushing for those things if we want to actually make physiological changes in our bodies. Oftentimes we actually find that we have to push people to push themselves harder. And that is where the external accountability, although built by Annie, is templated. My assistant coach does check inside every week so she sees their weights that they're using in true coach and she kind of, you know, notices, hey, you know, you've been at X weight for this amount of time and like we are dropping volume so weight should be going up. Uh, we should be pushing ourselves here.

So I actually Love that you bring that up. That most people don't push themselves hard or they don't push themselves. They don't really know What a true RPE A and a true RPE, you know, RPE 9 is. I think that that's a really important point because I feel like you see this very, you know, polarized view in the world in the online space. I'm like, you need to rest more. And then people that are saying, you know, you're actually crushing your body in these really intense workouts, but you're actually not RPE8. So I'd love for you to unpack that a little bit. How do you, how does one know that they're working, that they're not crushing, that they're, they're not crushing their body, but, but actually working at an intensity that they need to adapt?

Um, I think experience or training age does have something to do with that. Right. Um, I think that I actually am for starting with some percentages or this is going to be like a roundabout tangent.

Okay.

I'm for starting with percentages so somebody understands just like what certain weights at certain rep ranges are expected. Right. There's a learning curve there for a trainee. Um, I'm also for starting with lightweight AM wraps. So like, let's find a weight and do 20 reps at a weight and then let's try to hit five pounds more than that for three sets of 10 or three sets of 15. Right. So starting lighter, especially because of that risk assessment with a newbie, like, let's not test a 1 RN because maybe we don't have the neurological understanding of the actual movement that we are doing. The risk to rewards isn't there. I don't think many people need to be testing one RM's, quite frankly, when talking about gen pop. So my, my perspective on that, I guess, is that you learn RPE through years of training and experience. And if I don't, I think it may be unless you have tested a true one RM, it's going to be really difficult to understand what a 10 feels like. And so I do think that that's why I say like I am kind of risk to reward.

Like, do you really want to do that?

Yeah. And I mean, you can. You know, that's the other thing is like an RPE9, I think sometimes people think, oh, that's. That is, you know, an RPE 10 is a 1 RM. Well, no, a 3 rep max can be an RPE of 10. Right. A 5 rep max can be an RPE Of 10 it's still full effort. That is your 5 rep max. You have no more reps in the tank. You would literally fail if you tried to do one more. That's what that means. And until you've done that, it's, it's. I don't know how you would understand what it feels like and how to gauge those things. So I don't think you necessarily have to do a one rep max. But I do think eventually getting people to a spot where they can get to a 5 rep max, maybe then we, then we'd know what a true RPE feels like.

So when you were first building out your business, were you, did you go all in at 12 months right off the bat or did you start with smaller commitments?

So that's a great question. So when I actually first started, I mentioned I struggled from 2015 to 2017.

Listen, we all struggled. That's the beauty of it. All right? If there were no struggles and we wouldn't know the success. So anyway, go in.

Yeah, no, I spent two and a half years figuring out what the heck I was doing. So what I didn't see a lot of, I didn't feel like I belonged. When I looked at Instagram, I was like, I'm not a physique competitor, I'm not a powerlifter, I'm not a crossfitter, I'm not a physical therapist. I'm not like a, you know, body weight booty bands person. Like, where are just the people that want to lift weights? Where, where are we? You know, like, where are my people? And it took me years to find those. So I was trying to fit into some of these boxes rather than just doing what I wanted to do. And so I was doing, you know, body weight workouts and I was hosting 20 day challenges and I had a six week transformation. And the value was in all of those. The information was sound. Right. But that was not attracting people that want to lift for life. Like, I wasn't actually bringing in the people that I wanted to legitimately work with long term. So I always only offered 12 month one on one. Always. So that's, that is what, like when I started Fit Design by Annie, I was like, I'm offering 12 month periodization for one on one clients. So yes, I have offered that from day one. But that's only so scalable. Right. We can only have so many one on one clients unless we want to hire coaches to use our method or fill gaps in our business. Right. That's one way to scale. I did not want to do that, I didn't want to manage people. And so it took me, you know, two and a half, three years to figure out Built by Annie in the messaging it was going to take to get people to buy into 12 month programming. Which is interesting that you say, you know, people are out looking for 12 week programming. I think they are. But I also think that that's all they know and all that has been shown to them or given to them as opportunity. Because when I went to make Built by Annie, I debated doing like 12 weeks. Right. Because that is what was on the market. And that was. There were three frustrations and that was one of the top frustrations that people had was like, even if I find a good program, I have to find another one in eight weeks or another one in 12 weeks. And I was like, okay, so people are down for, for long term programming. Like people who really do want to lift for a long period of time, for the long haul, for the rest of their life, they're willing to maybe risk some boredom to have a program for a year locked in.

You know, it's interesting because I attract a lot of people that have nest, have, have felt burned before or they feel it's not necessarily that they're not in it for the long haul, they are. They just get nervous about committing to one person or to one community for a long time. When they, when they've felt like I've been burned before, that can be that that is my biggest hurdle when it comes to bringing someone new into the community.

Where do you find most of your, like on the business side I always ask people like have your people tried F45 or Orange Theory or CrossFit? Like were they a past athlete? Like they don't have to to be these things, but it can kind of help us paint a picture. So where do you feel like most of your audience has spent time in fitness?

From the business side or from, from.

Training side, training side?

The most of my audience have found it through. They were athletes themselves and then they moved into either physical therapy and they had to go to physical therapy. Then they went to physical therapy school and. Or they went, they were training athletes, they were an athlete, then trained athletes and then now are entering their own world themselves for the first time.

Yeah.

High level people who are committed.

Yeah.

But then they're like, well, I don't know what to do. So I'll just do this one person. I'll do this, you know, so it's interesting. It's an interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm also curious. I want to circle back. I'm going to go. We'll move forward, but I want to circle back. How did you get her? Were you an athlete yourself?

Yeah. Yes, I was. So I played soccer competitively and competitive cheerleading mainly. Dabbled in some track and field, dabbled in some gymnastics. But we won't say that I was legit in either of those things, but I did, for whatever reason, get a lot of injuries from, like, age 12 to, like, age 23. Just racked them up. LCL tear in my knee. Who knows if that was overuse. Meniscus tear, had some shoulder thing that is still undiagnosed. Bicep tendonitis. Like, what shoulder issue isn't bicep tendonitis? So that was the diagnosis I got. Never, never found anything to substantiate that. And then my main injury, I would say was actually from a double rollover car accident when I was not wearing my seatbelt. So that was fun. That ended in spraining much of my spine, losing the curve in my spine, neck brace. Nine months of physical therapy.

Oh, my God.

I mean, really, I was fine for the situation. I mean, like, windows blew out, but I was stayed, you know, relatively in my seat. We had four people in the car. But really, I mean, coming out with basically some ligament and tendon issues was pretty good for. For the scenario, for the severity of the accident. Absolutely, absolutely. So very grateful for that. But I mean, those are. Those are the injuries that I call. And this is. You know, some physical therapists would be like, no, I call them perma injuries. It's like, you feel that stuff when the weather gets cold, when the weather changes. I feel that in my SI joint. Right. So there's just. I think the body holds on to some things. So I still am, like, working on. Yes, yeah, I'm.

Great book, great book.

Literally reading it right now. And so that's obviously why that's on my mind. But anywho. So through, like I said, nine months of physical therapy, you learn a lot. And it is fascinating how the body recovers. And I also, later, I assume that that car wreck had to do with my disc herniation that happened during squatting in 2013, 2014. Didn't want to get surgery. Was pretty against that. Went to a really, really great chiropractor who I was connected with through the university in Portland, Oregon. And he was very like, his goal is to get you back under the barbell. He doesn't want you in his office. So again with the Efficacy. Right. Like, it's been a part of my fitness journey. And I think it's so important, and I appreciate it so much. You know, I had another experience with a physical therapist where I. It was for my meniscus recovery, physical therapy, which is a pretty easy thing to recover from in comparison to other surgeries. Right. So I talked about deadlifting, and I was asking, like, you know, there's very little knee flexion involved in that. Like, is it safe to work my hamstrings? Can I do deadlifts or RDLs yet and work the posterior chain? He did not know what either of those were, which I'm not hating on him. I'm hating on the whole lack of education with strength training when it comes to physical therapy at large. Um, and so that was the, like, okay, I'm just going to heal this myself. I'm going to do the research. I was in school at the time of that surgery, you know, spending my hours reading scientific literature anyway, so might as well just read up on how to. How to heal a meniscus injury quickly.

Did.

Got full range of motion by mainly doing my own rehab. I'm not saying that people should do that, you know, consult with your doctor, do all the things. But I do like coaches here.

Coaches here.

Yes. But I do think that our own experiences with injuries and rehab like that absolutely impacts the way that I program from, like, a prehab standpoint, which is why mobility and core work is so important to me because I identified those two things as a missing link largely with my back injury. But I also went hardcore. And maybe people listening to this will also agree with Stuart McGill and lack of spinal flexion. We need to be in neutral 247 and just really rigid versus also exploring the spine should move. We should be able to enter spinal flexion. Jefferson curls aren't actually Satan. It's an okay movement to do. I went really, really, really hardcore in the neutral spine world. No spinal flexion really, really. I call it, like, movement elitist. Like, every movement has to be the same. You have to squat the same. There's a perfect movement pattern for every movement. I definitely went down that road and then came back pretty aggressively in the other direction of. You're going to have so much variance in bio individuality and joints should move. And I'm down for like, loading mobility. Like, let's work on our end ranges under load. Um, so, yeah, that's. Injuries have definitely formed the way that I coach and program today. From my personal standpoint, two things to say.

One is That I forgot to tell you that we have a lot of PRI influenced people that are studying PRI in this world. So that we, you know, it's the same thing. It's like, yep. We get dogmatic about one thing, pendulum swings, and then we keep going and finding the nuances. Then the second thing I was going to say is that what I'm about to say, for anyone who's listening to this, if you're listening and you're struggling.

Right.

Hindsight is always 2020.

Always. Oh, my gosh.

But always, always, always. And it's not always when you're in the thick of it. It is not always to see. It's not always easy to hear what I'm about to say, which is, thank God for all of those experiences that you had, because that's what led you to like, okay, here's a gap. There's the gap, Here's a problem. So I need to. I'm just gonna figure it out. When you're in the thick of it. I'm sure it didn't feel like that.

Yeah, sure. But it is. I mean, for me, like, knowledge is great, but without application and experience, I truly believe it's nothing. Like it does no good for it to be in your brain if you can't use it or if you can't buy it.

No one learns how to swim reading a book. You just. You gotta get in the water.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But when you're in the thick of it and you. You can't. You know, it can be hard to, you know. See, I know that there's a reason. I know I'm gonna learn something, but right now it just doesn't feel good.

Yeah. Yeah.

So how. How long ago was that? I mean, I'm assuming you we're injury free.

Yes. So now I'm actually just. I'm interested in the pelvic floor. I have not had children. I don't know if I will have children. I don't work with a lot of people that have children. I'm just fascinated because I think the pelvic floor is coming up in conversation and importance within our industry for men and women alike, whether you've had children or not. Everybody has a pelvic floor. And I do think that. I know it was neglected in my schooling. I mean, I. We did not study the pelvic floor, like maybe one general biology section. We covered it in anatomy. But the importance of it in lifting weights and breathing and things of that sort, I think it's been wildly neglected. So I'm very interested in that. Currently, I guess, haven't gotten very far, but I'm interested to speak to my injury because I have some lingering. That's why I said that. So I do have some lingering SI joint pain that sometimes will just happen when I'm like, my form is perfect. Like, I will. It is. I have a lovely deadlift. Why is there pain? Like, there's. There's some. Something is off. Whether it is my breathing mechanics, whether it is the way I'm bracing, whether it is that I'm holding stress in my SI joint. So that I would say is, like I said, one of those perma injuries that. Other than that, yes, relatively pain free from past injury, but it's great.

I also love that you are so. I am a mom. And so I have two babes, right? And six. They're six and four. In fact, my husband and I were just looking at videos of them yesterday. Like, I don't know, sometimes when they're really terrible. This is totally tangent. But sometimes when they're really terrible, we have to, like, watch videos of like, when they were cute to remind ourselves, like, oh, they are treasures. But we were. So. We were watching videos of them last night because. Because, you know, bedtime is wonderful fun. And it just. It just brought me. It just. I had this moment of how time is just long and short at the same time.

Right.

Time is. Time is a funny thing. But I didn't get introduced to the world of pelvic floor until I had my kids, until it pertained to me. And I remember thinking, wow, dear God, thank God the body is so resilient because this is something a. I should have been paying attention to as a trainer.

Right.

To my moms and before that. And then in my own body, like, it would have just. It would have just changed the game and how I was a singer and how I lifted.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Would have changed the game if I had just known about it. So I love that we're talking about it not from a mom perspective in the sense that if you live, if you are existing in this world, you need to be paying attention to your pelvic floor. It's not just a mom thing.

Yeah. Especially because, you see, you know, in lifting, we do talk about the diaphragm. Well, the diaphragm's opposite is the pelvic floor. So why aren't we talking about, you know, if we talk about the core from a 360 perspective, then we should be encompassing the pelvic floor into that conversation. So I don't have the answers yet, but I'm interested.

I also love too, you know, we've talked about this on this, on this show particular is that men too have a pelvic floor. It's just not. Because there's not as many opportunities for pressure to leak out the pelvic floor. It's not talked about as much, but it's still there and it's still. You still need it.

Yep.

So. And it is interesting too, and I know that this is also changing, but a lot of. And I'm going to say female, because it is female anatomy that we're dealing with is that a lot of research has just only done in Norway. Yeah, you see a lot of stuff in Norway and you see a lot of stuff in the older populations, but there's. You can't. Cause you can't differentiate between causation and correlation. So it's a huge opportunity.

Even research on biological females in general is in my programming course. I had to preface like, most of this research that I am referencing in this course is done on biological male males. Right. And so that is just a. It's. It is more difficult to perform research on biological females when we're looking at specifically strength and you know, muscle metabolism and things like that. Anything involving hormones because we regulate on a 24 to 34 day cycle. And you know, if you wanted really controlled data, then all of the biological females need to be menstruating or tested at the same time. You know, day part cycle of their menstrual cycle or phase of their menstrual cycle rather. And so just that there's context. But I am so excited for more research to be done on. On biological females when it comes to.

Strength training and to get 100 people on the same cycle just on like that's gonna be.

That's.

I mean, not. It's not impossible, but it is challenging and it does change the context and how we see the. How we perform and assess the research. So it'll be interesting. Yeah, yeah, it'll be interesting to see. I'm also curious too, as you brought up your, you know, the training. Like, do you have to deal with that? Are you dealing with a lot of hormone stuff in your. In your programming?

In my personal programming or in like the programming for my clients?

In your programming for your clients.

Clients for your female clients. Yes. So it is to me it's like another factor and that's what I teach in my course as well. I am. Some people go far. Like your. You should completely you know, edit your programming around your cycle if you want to do that. Sure. But data is very inconclusive on the, the amount or the effect that your menstrual cycle, if well managed and if not on hormonal birth control, should have on your training. And so for me it's like, you know, how hydrated are you? How did you sleep? Where are you at in your menstrual cycle? It's just another question, a data point that we can look at so that if we do find, oh, in your luteal phase, you always talk about being fatigued or that everything feels a lot more intense. It's like, okay, well that just makes sense. So maybe in that phase you're either aware of that and continue to push, which I have no problem with, it is just a feeling, or you can back off a little bit. And I have no problem with you knowing you're going to back off when you're in your luteal phase and you're going to really, really push when we hit your follicular phase and kind of capitalize on those different phases of your menstrual cycle. It's another factor in my book. Yeah.

Also too, you know, one of the things I want to say and share and I think it's important to note and it's not necessarily bad, it's just that we're, we're in a male dominated industry. It's changing and are going to look at your context. But when I think about when I first started back in 2009, 10.

Yeah.

I was the only one and for better and not that it was bad. And the males then the, the, the guys I worked with have, are incredible humans. I still talk to them today. It's just you're paving the way as a, as a, you know, female, a woman identifying trainer, coach, you were paving the way for what's possible for people.

Well, and I love, I mean I follow several male coaches now who are educated on the female menstrual cycle as I think they should be. Right. Like if we're talking about changing someone or manipulating someone's physiology through training, then we need to consider this person's physiology, which may be different if they're menstruating.

So this is why for me I'm, I'm a huge advocate of you don't have to be your avatar, but you need to care about your avatar as.

If it were you. Yeah. You need to understand them for sure. Like that's the point is to understand that person and where they're at and what they experience.

Yes, absolutely. Okay. Ms. Annie, I want to be very mindful of your time, so thank you so much for pouring into us and really hanging out with us today and sharing your insight. I love your principles and who you are and what you stand for. So I'd love for anyone who wants to learn more about hanging out with you, where should I send?

Pretty easy. Everything is Annie Miller Co. So that is my website where my blog and podcast can be found. It is also my Instagram handle, Annie Miller co. I have. It is also my Pinterest handle and I have a podcast of my own which is just a solo guest. The fitzp Foundations where I talk talk both the training side of things as well as, you know, how to build a business that you don't hate in the world of online health and fitness.

So I love that you mentioned that because I cannot tell you how many people build their own prison, right?

Because it's 100.

They build that you. I'm like, oh, so you left your job to just build another one you hate? Like, it's just, you know. Anyway, anyway, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I really appreciate it.

It. Thank you. It was fun.

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