Podcast 1

The Origin Story of the Exercise Coach and Why Strength Changes Everything

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SHOW NOTES

Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson reveal the origin story of the Exercise Coach and the one book that completely changed the trajectory of Brian’s life by transforming his understanding of what strength training can do in your life and how quickly you can see results. Find out how the Exercise Coach is changing lives 20 minutes at a time.

• The goal of the Strength Changes Everything podcast is to inspire and empower people to live life at their full physical potential. Simply put: strength changes everything.
• Effective personal strength training fundamentally changes everything about your body for the better. It also changes the requirements to get all of the health and fitness results that matter most to you.
• If you want to look better and feel better then this podcast is for you, especially if you’re over 40 and started experiencing the effects of the aging process, even if you’re not excited or interested in going to the gym.
• Brian is also going to discuss the Exercise Coach which is the application of the principles that flow out of the Strength Changes Everything philosophy.
• Brian has been in the fitness industry for the past 20 years and in the process has become pretty passionate about a few things, mainly the science and business of fitness and getting the value of fitness knowledge into the world.
• As a former athlete, Brian became very interested in the science of strength training which led to him going to school for kinesiology.
• The classical science aspects of his degree made sense to Brian, but his education left him with a lot of questions on the application of strength training.
• On the last day of his schooling, a classmate gave Brian a book to read called A Rational Approach to Strength Training, and just by reading the first few chapters, it transformed Brian’s understanding of exercise.
• Brain learned an approach to exercise that was very different from the approach that he had been exposed to in school or as an athlete. The new approach can be summed up in three things: the science says that exercise should be brief, intense, and infrequent.
• Brian tells the story of how he worked with a basketball player and helped him put on over 20 pounds of muscle over the course of 12 weeks while only exercising once a week for 20 minutes to get those results.
• Brian’s newfound approach caused a bit of conflict with the department he was working in and eventually, Brian decided to leave to find somewhere else he could apply those principles. He found a fitness studio that specialized in the application of those principles and after working there for a year found that he was extremely passionate about helping people of all ages and fitness levels.
• That was also around the time that Brian discovered his entrepreneurial spirit and when he and his wife co-founded a business called the Exercise Coach.
• Brian partnered up with another company called Exerbotics to launch the franchise. The technology they provided allowed them to standardize the approach and customize the plan more deeply for anyone that wanted to participate.
• Brian now has hundreds of locations of the Exercise Coach all over the country with plans to open more over the coming years.
• Amy’s story started off by being introduced to Brian many years ago in the Chicago area. She had recently given birth to her second child and was trying to get back to her pre-baby weight and found herself spending hours each week exercising in the only way that she knew which were long runs.
• Brian invited Amy and her husband to try out the Exercise Coach program and within six months, she noticed an incredible shift in her body composition. For the first time in her life, she felt athletic and capable.
• At the same time, they learned about the nutrition aspects of fitness and started making healthier choices. She got so excited about healthy eating that Amy started a blog on the topic.
• Once Amy started learning about the profound health and longevity benefits of strength training she realized that it’s truly a transformative thing and can change the trajectory of someone’s health for their lifetime.
• Right before the birth of her third daughter Amy and her husband moved to Minneapolis and decided to open their own Exercise Coach.
• The first five episodes of the podcast are meant to be the foundational overview of the Strength Changes Everything philosophy.
• We’re going to cover why not all exercise is the same, why people aren’t exercising and the obstacles people face in their fitness journey, the scientific paradigm that underlies the philosophy, the problem of people’s loss of health and fitness and they age, and what can be accomplished by a 20-minute workout once a week.