Raise the Fitness Industry Standard with Compound Performance

You're listening to the ptprathid Podcast, episode six. Today I'm talking with Compound Performance and talking all about raising the standard in the fitness industry, specifically how to become a critical thinker and how to go from cookie cutter system style thinking into a critical principle based thinker when it comes to helping clients get outcomes. So stay tuned.

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 in movement, package and position their products and services and get out 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.

Hello, welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. I'm super pumped for today because we have a very special guest. We have Matt Domney and Kyle Dobbs from Compound Performance. And in this episode we talk all about what it means to raise the standard in the fitness industry. This was a very special episode to me because if you've known me for any amount of time, then you know that I actually learned how to train under Kyle. So Kyle used to be my fitness manager back in the day when I first started and he was really the person that inspired me to get better at being a trainer, learning biomechanics and really study the science of training. And of course from back then to now, things are always evolving, things are always changing. But I always looked to him to. So it really just guide me when it came to where I should be looking in terms of becoming a better trainer in terms of the science of training. And so through working with Kyle, I had the pleasure of getting to know and working with Matt. And this is just such an awesome dynamic duo. I love hanging out with them and we had a really good conversation and also in full transparency, working with Compound Performance and Matt and Kyle, they were really the people that helped propel me into doing what it is that I'm truly meant to do. And so what I mean by that is for so long I kept resisting teaching marketing. I didn't want to teach marketing. People would ask me what should I do about this. They would ask me about business stuff, they would ask me about online training. And specifically that was happening from the moment that I started my my business. And I think that's because of two reasons. One, this is what I'm designed to do and two, it's because I was a fitness manager and primarily I was already working with trainers, but I just kept resisting it and it wasn't until Kyle came to me and we started having a conversation and he was asking me just a couple of things that really just led me in this direction. And it just became very clear that this is what I was supposed to do and what I was meant to do. And so the truth is that I never would have done this and I never would have gotten here, both in the science of training and both in my marketing position if it weren't for compound performance. So this episode is very special to me and I know that you're going to love it. So without further ado, let's go ahead and run that interview. Hello and welcome to the show. How are you guys doing?

Doing good. Thanks for having us.

Doing great, Bev. Thank you.

Great. So why don't we just. Without further ado, let's go ahead and dive in. Can you just explain a little bit about who you guys are, what compound performance is about and how we. How we got here?

Yeah. So I started compound performance almost three years ago and Matt joined me almost a year and a half ago or so somewhere around there. And we've kind of been rolling with it ever since. We, we work with both trainers and then from development and education standpoint and with clients from a training standpoint. So I handle the majority of the one on one and personal development. And then Matt and I kind of tag team the group, group development as well. And that's something that, you know, for us has become a passion. We love working with clients. We also love influencing trainers and helping to kind of raise the bar and raise the standard from that perspective. So we work in both individual and group capacities on that standpoint. And again, that's something that really just tries to create a lower barrier to entry for anyone who wants to work with us in any setting. So we're completely remote. So we work with people all over the world, which is nice. We've got a lot of different countries in this group right now and it's going really well. We're getting ready to open up the Q3 mentorship for the group. So really exciting things happening right now. We're reformatting everything, kind of reworking and adding more content, adding more presentations and yeah, it's keeping us busy. We're pumped.

Super exciting. I love to be part of it. Like I was saying a little bit from my intro, I was talking about how really Kyle was the one for me. That was just a huge. A huge mentor for me, both in business development and also in, you know, the science of training and learning how to actually train clients. So it's been really fun in our time together to just like go for, you know, full circle from the beginning to all, you know, all here all of a sudden. So it's been really exciting. So you mentioned, you know, that your guys slogan, something that you stand for and I know that this is relatively new, but that whole concept behind raising the standard. So can you just talk a little bit about what that means?

Yeah, I'll talk a little bit about it from the development side and I'll let Matt kind of handle it from the training side because that's a lot of what he does. He works with all of our athletes and clients from that perspective too. But really where we see our biggest area of opportunity to help influence just the industry and people in general is not really focusing on that, making that top 1% just that much better.

Right.

We don't see a huge return on that. We're really big into taking that, that young trainer that's looking to transition something even better or greater within their career or grow within the environment they're currently in and help them just be the best they can be within whatever that environment is.

Right.

And so we go through, within the development plans, everything from personal development. So we look at a little bit of like a behavioral analysis plus a strengths analysis and trying to figure out, you know, where people are and creating self awareness of where they are and where they can, you know, drive more energy and where they can maybe peel some back.

Right.

So they're, they're working efficiently as well. And then we start looking at the actual process of training. You know, everything from, you know, just looking at biomechanics, looking at how to assess people, looking at how to look at those compensatory strategies and start looking at, you know, corrective strategies that might be putting them into a better place from a training environment, training position standpoint. And then we start looking at their business as a whole and making sure that they're actually communicating with the right demographic. The people that are going to be working with them need to be again, the people that are going to benefit the most from the services they are actually providing. Right. So we work with them from a marketing perspective too. You know, you help us with that tremendously, which we're always thankful for. And then the individual is very, very similar to that. It's just again really attacking those individual focuses for anybody that I'm working with specifically and making sure that we use our time as efficiently and effectively as possible from that perspective.

For sure.

Yeah. And from a From a training aspect, what we try to do is we try to just apply the exact same principles that Kyle was just talking about for the business development where we're just teaching people the most efficient ways to get to where they want to go and help them hit their goals in a very like a time efficient manner where they're doing everything that's a little bit more science based, a little bit more based in like very, very good, very strong anecdotal evidence and very strong like actual evidence from like a hypertrophy standpoint or strength development standpoint. So we're just trying to also raise the standard of just individual training programs to cut through all of the, all of the noise and the crap that's out there with a lot of these different programs that just promise you results super quick. We're always very objective and honest about how everything's going to go. And we just try to raise the standard in the coaching, the coaching relationship by just providing super good quality programming and allowing for a tremendous amount of feedback from the client so that the client develops ownership and autonomy with what they're doing. Because again, the whole point of like coaching in general is I don't want necessarily to keep all of my clients forever. Like there will be some that will stick with a remote trainer and a remote coach forever because they just want that objective feedback and they want somebody to just look at everything that they're going to do and program it out in a way that makes more sense for them. Like I'm one of those people, I will always have a coach because I will either for myself, either always over program or under program. But my goal for most of my people is to learn how to do things for themselves so that they can build in their own feedback mechanisms so they can learn how to progress and change a program appropriately when they need to do so. So that's again what we're trying to do with raising the standard in terms of training programming is give people the autonomy that they need and give them the answers that they need to create long lasting change and long lasting solutions that will work for them or which they can then apply to all of their other people that they work with if they're also a coach themselves.

So I love one of the things that you said too about I am someone who will always have a coach as well. In addition to the accountability that, you know, I'm always going to push myself harder when I know someone's looking at me. But I also want to be on the cutting edge of science and being on the cutting edge of training because things are always changing.

Hmm.

So would you say that your training programs that are geared towards the, you know, general population, or are they geared towards trainers?

So what I'm about our training demographic and like Kyle, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but our training demographic is really geared towards anybody that cares about their performance and health and longevity. So it's not necessarily. And that's, that's one of the things is like, if you look at how Kyle and I present ourselves on social media. Yeah, sure, we use a lot of big words. A lot of times we use words like mutation and counter mutation, which a lot goes over a lot of people's heads pretty often. But one of the things that we also try to make sure that we do is we try to make sure that whenever we're, we're meeting the client, whoever it is, where they are, in terms of their level of education and their level of understanding. So, yes, we can apply these same principles that we apply for somebody like yourself, Bev, or somebody. Like when I'm training Kyle, I can apply the same exact principles to a person who has just stepped into the gym for the first time in their life. It just matters how I'm going to present the information to them and how I'm going to talk to them about it. So our programs are really just geared towards anybody who's fed up with like the kind of like the cookie cutter nonsense and they just want to get a little bit more custom approach to doing what they want to do and make sure that they're moving in the right direction for themselves.

Yeah, so that's an excellent point. And you know, it really comes down to communication.

Right.

Because we're, we're very principle based when it comes to training. We definitely have things that we believe in, but when we start looking at the programming and periodization, right. Like it can be applied to any demographic. It's just scaling and it's the language that we use to instruct it.

Right.

And cue those people. So we're not going to change the actual programming that we're doing just because somebody has a lower training age or is a little more unfamiliar with the gym. We might just change certain exercise selections. But when we look at the patterning and how things are set up, sets, reps, accumulation into intensification, things of that nature, it's going to be very similar because it's all things built on our actual training principles. Yeah, I think that's a really good comment and just idea from that is it's not so much about what the exercises are or what the movements are. It's just how we explain them.

Right.

And, you know, we can say countermutation, or we can say anterior pelvic tilt, or we can say stripper butt.

Yeah.

You know, we could tucking your pelvis or counter Mutation. Right. We can talk about mutation and those things. It's really just finding terms that resonate with the person that we're actually speaking to because we want them to be able to understand we're talking to. And social media, we use a little. A little more complex language, probably just because we are talking mainly to trainers, especially from an educational perspective. But that doesn't mean that we're exclusively for trainers from an actual training perspective.

Yeah, When. When I started training, a very. A quote that I heard. I don't know where I heard this from, so you guys will have to look it up. But I heard a quote one time that said that nobody cares how much, you know, everybody cares how much how you make them feel. And that's kind of something that I directly. I'm trying to directly apply to all my. To my training. Because if I just show all of these people how much smarter I am than they are, people like, this guy kind of. Like, this guy kind of sucks. Like, he doesn't really care about where I am. He just cares about giving me a lot of big words and a lot of jargon that doesn't really make sense for me that I don't understand. Whereas if, like, I'm able to explain things in a way that makes sense to that person and they're able to understand it in a way that it's like, okay, cool, I understand the reason why I'm doing this, because X, Y and Z is going to be good for me. And it's about, like, what's going to be something that makes them feel a little bit better. It makes them feel understood, it makes them feel heard, and it makes them feel like we're moving forward on a team. And I'm not just some guy sitting on, like, this, like, computer, thousand miles away from them, saying, you have to do exactly what I'm telling you to do. Because here's how smart I am and here's my qualifications.

Yeah. I think for me, from my perspective, because I've definitely been there where I feel like if I'm in a position as a trainer where I'm trying to prove myself to my colleagues or prove myself to my clients, that speaks more about me and my security than it does to Am I actually going to get my clients results?

Yeah. If you have to sit there and justify yourself and just like explain yourself and defend yourself like that all the time, you've already lost.

Right.

Looking at how people learn, right? Like, we take in information based on familiarity. So that's the brain basically takes all new information and builds it around context of things we already know. So if we just come out and start speaking large words and lots of jargon, like Matt said, things that people are unfamiliar with, they're not actually learning, you know, and if we're looking to educate our clients and actually have them go through the process of like, assimilation of information and being able to apply this stuff on their own, because we're trainers, we give our people homework just like everybody else does, right. So if you're doing some drills in your living room or your backyard or whatever, on off days, we want to make sure that you're able to do those things correctly with the right intention, right in the right position. And if we're not meeting you where you're at from a communication standpoint, you're just doing a bunch of mindless stuff on your own, or you're not doing it at all because you're not motivated to do it because you don't know what to do. So if we're looking at training adherence, a lot of it has to do with building that bridge from a communication perspective. And I think that's something that I know I've made the mistake of in the past.

Right.

You know, I've used all the big words with clients. I've vomited Latin at people and all kinds of things. Right. And biomechanics. And again, I think that's. There's a lot of probably self validation because we're not fully confident in the information we have, or we're just super excited about it and we're not able to read the room and realize that the person in front of us isn't a trainer for a reason. Like, they have a whole other profession that they're passionate about, you know, so it's. I think a lot of it just has to do with people skills and communication, when it all comes down to it. And being able to, you know, train somebody really well while talking about, like, their kids and the vacation they just took and what they're planning for their summer and, you know, where they're going for date night or whatever, like normal conversations that you would have with a real person rather than just talking down to a client because that's your environment or your Scope.

You know, one of the things too that you said, and it's actually one of the things that draws me to your program, which is one of the things that I love about it, is that, you know, there is a difference between information and implementation. And so what I think happens a lot to trainers is we get super excited about learning something. We want to try it on, we want to, you know, tell our clients all about it and say, look how smart we are because we're so excited about this. But then there becomes this barrier, this sense of, oh, wait, that's not what the book said. That's not what happened in this class. Right. And so you have this moment of, you know, and so when you're part of something like the group mentorship, where you're actually implementing the tools, you know, on your own body, you're in your. That's an example of implementing it. And then being able to be in a room with people and being like, okay, this is what happened. And it was, whoa, busted. Right. So I think that, that, that's a huge component that I think often gets missed when we're dealing with things like, you know, weekend certifications or, or no learning, getting your certification out of a book.

Yeah, I think we almost have to look at a lot of that stuff as theory.

Right.

You know, in a perfect world, this is how something is supposed to work is really what most of those seminars come down to from an education perspective. And, you know, I've been an educator and I understand why you have to teach that way. You can't, you can't teach somebody what would happen in every hypothetical context. That's not an efficient way to go through a weekend. So you have to kind of COVID the big rocks and just hope that at that point you've given people enough information to also be critical thinkers and realize that the environment that you're in, whether you're training somebody in a private studio or you're in like a corporate based gym or your remote is also going to dictate what your application is. Because environments give context to information.

Right.

And the person you're working with gives context to information. And understanding that you might learn a whole handful of drills.

Right.

That are super effective. They're correct in theory, but your client just doesn't like doing them. That's not like doing them. There's got. They're not going to work. There's no intention there.

Right.

Because a lot of the stuff, especially when we talk about things like respiration and position and orientation and some of these more Nuanced fitness derivatives. We have to understand that for these things to work, the person has to be very self aware and very focused on what they're doing. And if they don't like doing it or they are in an environment that doesn't promote focus, right? If they're in like a globo gym in the middle of Manhattan with 500 other people on the floor in a group fitness studio blaring right next to them, right? It's not going to turn out the way you want it to. So you have to be able to improvise. You have to be able to critically think and be objective and question some of these things and then find better applications for your people, for the people that you actually work with. And that's, you know, a big part of our process is, you know, we, we work on helping, you know, trainers develop their own model. And rather than teaching you our model that works for us with our people in our environment, we try to look at identifying who this person trains, where they train them at, what their prior experience in education is, and building a model based off of that so they can optimize the things they already know and the things that are already consistent within their profession. And that allows them to then be the best versions of themselves while still growing, rather than trying to be like a really crappy version of somebody else. Because that's what we see a lot of is, hey, come take this seminar and learn my model. This is the end all, be all. And you know, Matt and I think what we do works really well for us, but we're also super aware that it might not work for somebody else. And that's okay. That doesn't mean anybody's even wrong, right? It just means a different context. So we can both be right respective to where we're working and who we're working with.

So you bring up a great point and it's actually the perfect segue. And what I wanted to talk about next, which is, you know, I know for me and my perspective and you know, back in the day, I think, and I think we see it a lot in the fitness industry specifically, is that we all have these dogmatic approaches of what's right. And people tend to approach programming or, you know, they tend to approach their style from a perspective of this is right and everything else is wrong. And I noticed a huge shift basically in your content, where it came from, this, this idea of it's not about being right, it's about the context, it's about principles. And so, and you alluded to that just now. So I'd love for you to just expand a little bit more on what it means to be principle based and what you would say compound performance's principles are.

Yeah, I'll kind of leave this off and then let Matt also fill in gaps because he's a big part of what our training principles are. But really what it comes down to is, you know, we have systems based learning in this industry.

Right.

And it's a business. And trainers are being extremely naive if they're not thinking about these acronyms as business businesses that compete against each other for a consumer. And we're the consumer.

Right.

And we have to understand that. We have to understand a lot of what we're seeing on social media and seminars. A lot of the language that we're hearing is nothing more than sales language. All it is. Right. And people have to understand that. And so human beings are naturally very tribal.

Right.

We want to be a part of something and we want to believe that something is the best something ever, or else why would we want to be there?

Right.

We dedicate a lot of time and a lot of money into these systems and to put the fancy acronyms after our names so everybody can identify us by who we associate with.

Right.

That's why we put the acronyms after our names, so people know what tribe we're in. Oh, that's a PRI person. Oh, FRC person right there. Sfma.

Cool.

Kettlebell. Awesome.

Right?

And now they know whether or not they want to talk to us or not. And when they come approach us, we look for their acronyms. We're like, ah, no, I don't think so. I don't think we're in the same line of thought. So we shut it down.

Right?

When in reality, like these things are all just tools. And if we focus on training principles, like things that are very science driven.

Right.

That and then we focus on just biomechanics and understanding how the human body moves and how to work with physics to leverage gravity and load, to integrate specific muscle groups into the movements and the patterns themselves. We don't have to get caught up in all of that stuff. We can just use those systems as a lens that we view movement through. And I think that's a huge part of what we try to teach people is we try to dismantle the dogma right away because we get people from all different camps and I think that's great. And we get them on the same forum. And within the first couple weeks, what's really fun for Matt and I to kind of watch is they all realize they're talking about the same stuff with different words, but we're talking about the same things because the human skeleton is the human skeleton. It has not changed in 200,000 years. And that's what we're dealing with. Right? So that's really where we try to break people down and get them to. And then we just try to talk about principles and understanding those, because that makes training way easier because it tears down kind of these constraints.

Right?

The rule book that you learned with your particular system, and it allows you to now say, okay, you as my client, don't like doing these things. I can use this other stuff. Or this specific drill doesn't work because you're not feeling your left heel and hamstring, but I can, because I know biomechanics set something else up that allows for that or add a constraint that allows for that. Because Matt and I, I think we can both certainly agree, like, we care about outcomes more than anything else. I don't think there's a singular right way to get to an outcome, right, because it's too contextual on multiple parties, the environment, the client, and the trainer. But what we're really big on is figuring those things out to generate an outcome and being flexible in our approach to do so and kind of not dogmatic about, you know, what system we're using or what drills we're using, but really allowing the environment and the client to kind of feed that pathway for us and allow and kind of show us, right, you know, where we need to go from a programming standpoint. And getting feedback on all those things is going to be super important, too, with an. The training process.

Right. Which is why it's so important as a trainer, as a coach, as a clinician, to become a critical thinker. Because you're going to. You're going to have those moments with your clients where you're all of a sudden, you know, oh, this drill that's supposed to work, it doesn't work. And then what?

Yeah, I mean, I remember spending 45 minutes of a session trying to teach somebody how to do a single leg rdl.

Right?

And I think all. All trainers have gone through that process before when they're learning something and being like, no, the next exercise progression is a single leg rdl, and if you can't do this, the world's gonna end, so have to learn how to do this. Meanwhile, they're paying for an hour of training, and they get in, like, you know, seven sloppy reps of A single exercise, right. When we could have just picked another exercise and moved right through the session. And physiologically we create more change that way. And psychologically we don't have them leaving feeling defeated like they failed an exercise. Because exercises don't matter. Movement and outputs matter, like the specific exercise itself. That's just a tool to generate a physiological adaptation and a neuromuscular response. It's nothing more than a stimulus. And we can pick another stimulus that can accomplish the same thing if need be. And we don't have to be rigid in what we're doing or prescribing. From an exercise perspective, like I said, I've made all the mistakes. Like I've done this, you know, lots of times, you know, and I've done it even more recently with like, newer systems that I've learned was like, oh no, we have to do this right. If you can't get, you know, left posterior expansion, we're just, we're going to fall apart. Nothing's going to be correct.

Right.

When in reality it's like, well, we could probably actually just set up. If you're not feeling it from a respiration standpoint, I can put you in a goblet squat and have you reach a little more with your left hand and draw that rib down while you're going through your propulsion phase. And all of a sudden you start feeling the right things and you start moving the right way. And maybe respiration wasn't the trick. Maybe we needed to facilitate something biomechanical to generate a more respiration, you know, based environment for you. Right. So there's a lot of ways to get, to get around to the outcome. And I think we, we don't have to be so rigid in our beliefs of which one needs to happen first.

Right.

So, Matt, I'd love for you to speak on, you know, what you would say the compound performance training principles are from, you know, your perspective.

Yeah. So from a, from a training perspective and a programming perspective, it's kind of exactly like what Kyle was talking about. Like we are an outcome driven company that we view everything. Like our first principle is like biomechanics first. So that's one of the biggest things that we're going to look at as soon as we come to every single training program. Like our assessments are all a mix of passive and active. So we're looking at actual passive movements and then active movement. So we're looking at things like hip extension or toe touch tests or shoulder internal rotation. Then we're looking at body weighted movements. Like body weight squats, bodyweight push ups. Then we're actually looking at loaded movements in whatever capacity that person wants to do. Like we usually ask for, or I usually ask for a loaded squat of any variation, the loaded hip hinge, a loaded press, horizontal or vertical, and a loaded pole horizontal or vertical to really get to see exactly what's going on and look at it from a biomechanical perspective to then apply the appropriate constraints for that person to give them the best opportunity and create the best environment possible to reach the outcome that they're looking for. So really the biggest principle that I go by first is biomechanics first. Second one is kind of like again, what Kyle was talking about is being as objective as humanly possible. So again, realizing that nothing, none of it matters if the outcome is not being achieved. I do not care. Like if I have somebody who, like the only time that I'll matter that it matters if like what an exercise is and the only time I get attached to an actual particular exercise is if I have a competitive power lifter or competitive Olympic lifter or somebody who competes in a competitive barbell sport. That's the only time that the lift actually matters. Other than that, everything else and everything like that and when I start talking about how things like dogmatically matter, that's all just noise. That's not necessarily. That could potentially detract from the client experience. So looking at it in like a movement pattern based setting where, okay, cool, this is a knee dominant movement. How many different ways can I load a knee dominant squat pattern? Tons, tons of different ways. So we look at this, Number one is like biomechanics first. Number two would try to be as objective as possible. And number three, my biggest thing is as much communication as necessary with a client. Like, we build in so many feedback mechanisms to really give the client an actual understanding that like we do. Like I say that I care about your programming and then I actually try to show you that I care about your results in your programming. Like that's the biggest thing is there's a very big difference between saying and doing. So we try to do with this in our communication strategies is I provide a monthly feedback form and a weekly feedback form where every single week and every single month they get to rate my performance. So they get to tell me exactly what they like and exactly what they didn't. And again, that goes in with being super objective about things. And that goes in with being a biomechanics first. If I'm objective, if I'm Very objective about the program that I'm putting together. I have no problem receiving criticism about, like, what my client thinks about it, because I might think it's the best thing in the world and the best program that I've ever put together for that particular person's goal, but that person might hate it. And if their experience is poor with that, then they're not going to adhere to a training program and they're not going to get the results that were. That are necessary. So communication and experience is definitely the third guiding principle of how I build a training program with them. Because if you don't have that, you don't have anything else. You can't get to the other training principles. You can't focus on your biomechanics. You can't focus on objectivity if your client is not feeling heard, understood, and like, you care about them.

Yeah, for sure. I would definitely say, too, though, you know, that you make a really good point. And I also think that there is a line because ultimately we've talked a lot about outcomes, but when you can get the client the outcomes that they want, then that's what's going to turn it into actual income. It's going to keep them there. But I have found, you know, especially for newer trainers who sometimes are nervous, right, or sometimes, and we'll talk about this next, too, or sometimes trainers really have this misguided belief that programming takes for hours so that they won't program. And so then they end up, you know, talking to the trainer or talking to their client as like, okay, so what do you want to work out today? What do you want to do today? That's a very different perspective and a different approach because now you're basically telling the client, you know, because the client's coming to you for your professional recommendation, they're depending on you to get from point A to point B effective and efficiently. So when you're looking at them, right, they don't know any better. So it's your job, in my opinion, to come from this perspective of this is what I recommend. This is what we're doing, but we need to make sure that we get there.

Absolutely. And the way that I always explain, like, a training relationship to all my clients is that it's a 50, 50 partnership, and you have to put in 50% of the work to. And I'm going to do the exact same. I'm going to do every single thing that I can. But if you're also not meeting me where we have to meet, and we're not meeting in the middle, it's not going to work. And that return, that goes from my way too. Like if I have a client who's just not putting in any effort, obviously there's not going to be any results. But if I'm also not putting in the effort to try to coach that person and try to get them where they want to go, then there's not going to be anything that we can do at all. And we're just going to have a very poor training relationship. So I always try to have them, I always talk to my remote clients about, like, meeting me where I am as well. So we need to be very objective. And if they don't like something, I want them to straight up tell me, I hate this, I hate X, Y and Z. And I'll tell you, okay, here's the reasons why we're doing X, Y and Z. But if you still don't like it after I've told you these reasons why and we've educated the person on the reasons why we're doing this, then we can totally change it and do something different. Because again, we're not married to any particular movements, any particular exercises. We're married to the movements and the principles behind them.

Another way that I've explained it to people in the mentorship is everybody kind of understands storytelling and the hero's journey. The client's going to be the hero, right? Like, they're the ones going on the journey. We're the guide. So we provide the map and the compass. And that map might have alternative routes if we run into like, again, obstacles or things that people don't enjoy.

Right.

But it's still a map. We're not wandering around lost in the woods. Right. Like, those are two very different things. We know that we're still headed north. We're not veering all the way off to the side just because somebody likes to do a certain exercise.

Right.

It's always going to be goal driven and outcome based. Right. But how we apply whatever implementations or the paths we take, those are variable. Like Matt said, there's literally hundreds and hundreds of squat variations that we could come up with between looking at sensor motor competency, looking at capacity, looking at output, looking at unilateral, looking at bilateral, looking at different loading patterns, offset loading, different modalities. Right. Reps, sets, tempo, different schemes, whatever. We're trying to, you know, drive. We can do this so many different ways. It's still a squat pattern.

Yes.

The knee flexion, hip and knee extension.

Right.

It's just the application. We have to pick the application that both drives the stimulus we want. And the client actually enjoys doing it as well.

Yes, for sure. I kind of compare it to, as, you know, a metaphor that I use is, you know, for my children. So for anyone who has, you know, any parents out there who have kids, you know, you're trying to introduce vegetables or bitter vegetables to your children, you're going to sandwich it in between something that they like. So it's something that they like. Here comes the bitter vegetable pill. And then something that they like.

I mean, sometimes you got to put a little cheese on that broccoli, Beth.

Yes, for sure. But then what happens from a psychological point perspective of the client is they get the work that they need to get done, but then also enjoy it.

Exactly. And both of those things have to happen.

Right.

And if you. If you're leaning too far in either direction, the client is not. You're not going to retain the client.

Right.

Because adherence is going to be off. Because it also comes down to, like, if. If nothing matters. Nothing matters, right? Like, if. If you're not firm and all in your beliefs, what value does that show the person that you're working with? If you're. If you're too flexible from that standpoint, there's a big difference between someone saying, oh, I don't really like this version of a squat, and you're saying, oh, not a problem. How about let's work on this version of a squat, right? So we can get the same biomechanical outcome versus saying, oh, well, what do you want to do then? Those are two very different things.

Right?

You know? You know, so that's. I think that's a really great point by Matt is saying, like, we can be flexible in application while still being true to our own principles and our beliefs. And it's very apparent when we're not. And if we don't believe in what we're doing, the client certainly is not.

Going to believe in what they're doing.

Because why would they pay you to guide them if they're running the show?

Right.

I'm not going to go to my accountant. If they just sit, you turn the monitor around and put TurboTax down and be like, all right, go. I'm assess your card. Make any sense?

Exactly. I think, too, you know, I think the key that many trainers miss is that you just have to become a critical thinker. So if you're following your cookie cutter, you're following your dogmatic approach, you're not going to be able to pivot that way until you can start looking at it through a wider lens instead of a narrow lens.

Yeah.

That's just George Box.

Right.

Like all models are wrong, you know, and I think a lot of people say that without really understanding why all models are wrong.

Right.

Again, this comes back to the environment and the person that you're working with will completely dictate the utility of what you're doing.

Yeah, right.

And that like, that's all there is to it. Like if you work in a gen pop clobo gym type, you know, facility and you're coming in there with your cscs and everything you do is strength, power, speed and you're working with a bunch of just normal people, it's not going to go well. If you go to a high level sports performance facility and you come in and you're just working really sensory, motor, low level stuff that doesn't generate those physiological outcomes, you're not going to get the results you want. It doesn't mean either one of those models is incorrect. It means it's a mismatch.

Yeah.

And you have to be able to look at that and like you said, critically, think and understand that you need to change your approach based on the people you're working with.

You mentioned too, you talked about how it's important, you know, that we have, you know, our brain, we're designed to have that tribal community. We're all. Our brain is always looking for, you know, people, you know, that, that, you know, we're always looking for that confirmation bias. I know I teach it from a marketing perspective. Even from here when I'm, you know, have my marketing hat on, I'm thinking, you know, even this concept that we're talking about has the opposite, you know, so that's always going to exist. That's just human nature. It's how we're designed. The key is that we're able to use it when we need it and then. But be able to operate in ultimately from a place that's going to give the client the ultimate outcome.

Yep.

Yeah. And again that's, that's one of the things that if you, if you look at all of these systems, all of them have the same fundamental principles or very, very similar fundamental principles. And I've taken most of them, I've taken a lot of different three letter acronym certifications over the time that I've been a, been a coach. And if you look at the notes that I've taken at every single one of them, they're basically the same notebook over and over and over again. So I just stopped taking notes on all of these because it's like, okay, cool. It's just this is now being said from a different person. And I think that's one of the things that happens with a lot of. With a lot of trainers. Why a lot of people will identify so well with one camp that says the exact same thing as another camp. Because it's like when we were all kids, like, if your mother would yell at you for something and you would never listen, then your father would yell at you for something and you would never listen. And then your uncle would come in and say the exact same thing from a different voice. You'd go, oh, cool. That makes total sense. I'm going to listen to exactly what he said to do. It's the same thing with coaches. Like, we hear the same thing from every single person. It's just finding the voice that you identify with the best and that you can relate to the most, which is.

Such a good thing. This is a good thing.

Yeah.

Because then people, you know that other. Because if everyone resonated with that, with one person, then one person in the whole world would be training 8 billion people.

I believe that's called a dictatorship. Yeah. No, I mean, but that's really what it is, though. And like Matt said, it's. Once you've done enough of these systems and you've gone to enough seminars and taken up courses, a lot of this just comes down to pattern recognition.

Right.

And we spend a lot of our time when we see something new.

Right.

You know, because we're very much kind of along the same lines of, you know, past experience and past education and have a lot of the same, you know, thought processes. I do like to think that we're different enough to kind of check each other a little bit. So we're not just validating same beliefs all the time, but when we see something new and we're like, hey, this is kind of cool, actually, we look into it a little bit more. Right. And we see the material. A lot of what we're looking at is patterns, right? What are the similarities within this system to everything that we've learned? Because that's probably the important stuff. When we keep seeing the same things over and over and over again. It's probably true in most cases, when we see things that are different, those are the things we really have to look at objectively. And we don't only look at those objectively. We also look at our prior beliefs objectively.

Right.

And say, how does this Compare to what we've already learned, that might be a little bit different. And it's not always just judging the new thing, it's also judging the old thing. Because we also don't want to get stuck in that box of, you know, this is the way we've always done it.

Right?

Right.

Because innovation dictates that things will change. Right. Like, we hope that the industry is evolving.

Right.

Because again, we can get super sciencey and talk about entropy and the environment always changing and the people that you're working with always chang changing and being variable. We need a lot of different tools to be able to address an ever changing environment and people who are also changing. From a goals and values perspective, from a training perspective. Just look at what social media has done to fitness. It has completely blown it up. It made it accessible to everybody. You know, Beverly, we started in New York. I started before you, but when I started, like, faith, like Instagram wasn't a thing and Facebook was something that you could only use with a college email.

Right.

Pretty much at that point. And there were no fitness pages or fitness groups. It was just another form of communication and like the remote training world and your ability to market yourself and independent training wasn't a thing. If you wanted to be a trainer, you had to walk into a gym and interview to be a trainer because there was no other way to get clients. There's nothing that people had billboards on the side of bus stops in New York. You remember that? Like, I remember that they did.

And also this was like before Orange Theory. This was before Barry's Boot Camp. Like, none of that existed.

So it's like, now all you have to do is search a hashtag and a million pages pop up.

Yeah.

So now the issue is not lack of information. It's too much information to filter through.

Right.

And to figure out what's best for you. And that's where, again, trainers can be of a, of a huge value if they're not rigid in their beliefs. Because we can meet people where they're at rather than just giving them something that, you know, we can post in an Instagram story or whatever.

Right.

You know, there's, there's commercials.

Right.

In marketing, that's what Instagram kind of turns into. And then there's the real product, Right. Which has a lot more depth and a lot more customization and individualization. And that's where, you know, when somebody reaches out to Madurai, we don't even spend time with them in the DMs that much. It's literally like a calendly link to book a consultation. Because we want to get that person on a zoom call as quickly as we can, because that's where we provide context to our information when we can talk to them, understand where they're at and what they want to do. Now we can show a whole other layer of value that an Instagram post will never show. Like, the amount of people that I've that have reached out to me, they're like, I try all your drills and they don't work. And I'm like, that's because you're a narrow ISA with a flexion bias and I'm a wide ISA with an extension bias. I do the drills that work for me.

Yeah.

If you're shaped like me and have the same, you know, strategies that I do, they'll. They'll work. Okay, maybe. Maybe other drills still might be better, but we've had a lot of people that are just like. They're like, oh, that exercise looks great. Where in reality, it's actually feeding their compensatory strategy than it is their corrective one. Right. So, again, like, these things matter. We get you on a zoom call now we can actually run an assessment and talk to you about these things, and we can figure out applications that work for you rather than, you know, you just kind of copycatting things you see on the Internet, for sure.

And clients. Clients, you know, and I would even argue trainers, too. This is why I think it's important for trainers to have coaches as well, is because we can't see what's happening from an outside perspective. You need to have, you know, a proprioceptive look at what's going on, not just inside. You might think that you're feeling something, but it doesn't look like it.

Well, we're all biased, right? I mean, Matt's been coaching me for about a year and a half now.

About a year.

And it's been like. I won't even say probably it's been the best year of coaching that I've had probably ever. Yeah, it's been the longest that I've worked with a coach. But again, Matt understands what I want to do. He doesn't get. Let me get out of the things that I need to do.

Right.

But he allows me to do enough of the things that I like to do, and we stay super consistent with it. And he's always asking for feedback, even for me. I get the same forms that every other one of our clients do. I answer them a little more sarcastically, but that's okay.

Most of the time. It's like, what didn't you like about the program this month? You as a person? And I'm like, oh, sweet. Cool. Thank you. You guys ever watch Stepbrothers? Like, this is the relationship that Kyle and I have. If you guys have ever watched the movie Step Brothers, you know the scene where one of the guys is sitting there, he's like, I just. There's something about your face. I just don't like it. I just want to punch it. What can I do? And he's like, just change your face. He's like, I don't. I don't really think that's possible. That's Kyle and me on a daily basis.

It's true. People think we have super intellectual, like fitness based conversations and it's literally just memes being thrown back and forth at each other. That's our entire text thread.

Yeah.

Well, this has been amazing and I definitely want to be very mindful of of your time. So thank you so much for joining me. Where can I send people who want to learn more about you guys and what you do?

So the website has all of our information and that's just www.compoundperformance.com. and then for me, like my Instagram, all the majority of our stuff's in my link tree. And we're kind of constantly posting more updates to that about just training services and development services and some of the other things that we're doing. And then Matt's also got all his.

Stuff, so you can find me on Instagram attdomni and all my stuff is in my link tree.

Okay, awesome. And if you're listening to this podcast on the day that it's coming out, which is at the end of June 2020, you currently have your group mentorship for Q3 coming out, if not today, but soon, within the next couple of days. So I'm definitely going to put post in the show notes that link as well. So that you can either join us or you can get on the wait list.

We have a fully revamped curriculum that has, we've taken. So the way that Kyle and I have done the group mentorship is we've run this the same way that like we run remote training where we've taken as much feedback as we can from all of the times that we've run this and taken every single thing that we've gotten from people and are trying to directly apply the new things that we've learned that people liked and didn't like to the new round of the group mentorship. So we're really, really excited for the new curriculum and we're thinking we think it's gonna be awesome.

I've seen it. I'm super pumped.

Thank you for having us, Bev.

Yeah, for sure. Okay. Next time, team.

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