BarBend Podcast

JamaRR Royster is an elite powerlifter, strength coach, and per his Instagram page, the Pancake Gawd. Outside of squatting north of 700 lbs and coaching handfuls of athletes, JamaRR spends his time educating and inspiring others to be their best selves and building some of the most intricate desserts you'll ever see.

Meg Gallagher, also known as Meg Squats, is a weathered strength coach, powerlifter, and YouTube personality. Currently, Meg has her hands in multiple projects that are all designed to help lifters everywhere improve their strength and knowledge in the world of fitness. Her popular program “Stronger By the Day” helps countless lifters improve on a weekly basis, and her apparel brand, Strong Strong Supply has some of the best lifting-focused apparel and gear in the game.Meg and Jake Boly chat on multiple topics in the world of strength & conditioning. A few in particular that we chat on are the vast differences of how beginners view fitness and how veterans do, and why she’s embarked on the mission of getting a barbell into every woman’s hands.

Today we're talking to Kristin Hedstrom, a personal trainer who is also an Olympian in the sport of rowing. Kristin isn’t the first Olympian we’ve had on the BarBend podcast, but she is the first elite rower to give us insight into what it’s like to train in that sport at the highest level. We discuss the importance of strength training to rowing performance, how Kristin and other top rowers train throughout the year. We also discuss Kristin’s career after rowing, where she specializes in helping clients, particularly women, achieve their fat loss goals.

Today we're talking to Jonathan Goodman, a trainer and author who founded the Personal Trainer Development Center (PTDC) in 2011. The goal of the site was to bring fitness professionals the information, support, and business guidance they needed but couldn’t find anywhere else. I’ve known Jonathan since right around that time, and he’s quietly — and sometimes not so quietly — built what I think is an immensely valuable resource for the fitness industry as a whole. We discuss the past, present, and future of personal training and where the industry will and won’t succeed in moving toward more remote and virtual training models.

Today we're talking to para powerlifter and motivational speaker Garrison Redd. As a high school football player, Garrison had aspirations of going pro. But when he lost the use of his legs after being shot by a stray bullet in his neighborhood at the age of 17, his life took a different course.The 31-year-old Brooklyn native is one of the country’s strongest para powerlifters in the -56kg weight class.We got the chance to talk with Garrison to talk about his origins in the sport, his weekly training routine, his diet and how he manages it, his competitive aspirations, and future goals in and outside of the sport.

Today we're talking to weightlifter, powerlifter, and gamer Ashley Svendbye. After discovering strength training, Ashley trained as a powerlifter for a number of years before making the switch to weightlifting. What she learned about the two strength communities - especially as a cross sport athlete — provides some interesting context on the similarities and differences between the two. Are strength athletes more or less accepting of iron athletes across different sports? We chat on the group dynamics there, along with much, much more.

Today we're talking to Dr. Teddy Willsey, a sports rehab and performance specialist who works with athletes of all levels in building strong, resilient movement patterns. Dr. Willsey is one of the go-to specialists for helping people exercise smarter, and we touch on many of the misconceptions around optimal training and rehab today (including the types of thinking that can actually do the most harm to athletes in the longer term.)We want to give a big shout out to this episode’s sponsor, BSN. BSN has been around for nearly 20 years, and they’re a global leader in sports nutrition. From their protein powder — including their partnership line with Cold Stone Creamery — to preworkout, protein bars, and more, BSN has won more than 35 sports nutrition awards over the last few years.  

Today we're talking to professional golfer Scott Stallings, who has three PGA Tour wins. Stallings may be one of the golf world’s elite, but he’s also been making waves in the fitness community for his physical transformation. About two years ago, Stallings made a commitment to lean out in order to boost his longevity in professional golf. Since then, he’s trained with some of the fitness and CrossFit world’s best, including 4-time CrossFit Games champion Rich Froning. (They’re both Tennessee residents, which has become a sort of new epicenter of functional fitness and strength sports.)We chat about how strength training impacts golf performance, the movements Scott actively AVOIDS as a professional golfer, and the complex training schedule Stallings and other golfers have when active on tour. Ever wondered if professional golfers lift before or after rounds on the course? How does their travel schedule impact training? We chat about all of that and much, much more.

Today we're talking to Bethany Shadburne, a multi-time CrossFit Games athlete who finished in the Games Top 10 in 2019. While many top Games athletes seem to only highlight their biggest lifts and fastest times, Bethany is better known on social media for the minutia; hundreds of thousands of people tune into her posts for creative prehab and warm-up exercises, a routine Bethany prioritizes because of a history of injuries and back pain. Bethany joins the podcast to talk about Games training during quarantine, body parts CrossFitters tend to neglect, and why she almost stopped training completely in the months leading up to her outstanding 2019 Games performance. Note: We recorded this podcast a couple weeks before recent leadership changes at CrossFit HQ and before a series of delays were announced for the 2020 CrossFit Games.

Today I’m talking to Scott Herman, a trainer, BSN athlete, influencer, and founder of MuscularStrength.com. Scott was one of the first mainstream fitness influencers on YouTube and built out one of the internet’s first real video instructional libraries. Scott and I catch up on his background as a reality TV star, how fitness on the internet has evolved, and what he thinks is most misleading in the fitness industry.I want to give a big shout out to this episode’s sponsor, BSN. BSN has been around for nearly 20 years, and they’re a global leader in sports nutrition. For their protein powder — including their partnership line with Cold Stone Creamery — to preworkout, protein bars, and more, BSN has won more than 35 sports nutrition awards over the last few years. (My personal favorite of their flavors? The Birthday Cake Remix Syntha-6. I literally hid some in my desk to keep the rest of the BarBend team from using it all.)