Mike BledsoeProlonged experimentation, Training capacity and PEDs, Communication is the key to coaching, Creating a legacy, and more.
Guest: Mycal Anders
Mycal Anders, MS, CSCS, is owner of Crossfit PHX and CryoPHX. Men’s Fitness magazine ranked Crossfit PHX as #1 CrossFit Box in the US in 2017!
Mycal Anders is also co-host together with Jeff Thornton of Feed Me Fuel Me podcast, which is about how to use the 3-pillars of success everyday in your life: Manifestation, Business, Fitness & Nutrition.
We’re happy to announce Feed Me Fuel Me podcast has joined the Shrugged Collective and will be sharing episodes every week starting Thursday!
More on Mycal Anders
Mycal has an extensive athletic background, he received his Master’s in Fitness and Conditioning from Arizona State University, Bachelor’s in Health and Human Performance from Texas A&M-Commerce, he is NSCA-Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer.
Mycal Anders was also featured on Barbell Business a couple of times: The Value of Mentorship and The Quintessential Gym Owner’s Journey.
Connect on social: Instagram, Facebook, Feed Me Fuel Me Instagram, Crossfit PHX Instagram
Resources: Coach Derz
Book: The Manifestation of Affirmation
5:10
Prolonged experimentation
Mycal Anders spent 10 years as a competitive athlete, playing football in high school and college. He then spent 5 years living a bodybuilder lifestyle, going upwards of 230 lb. and competed at as low as 182 lb.!
One of the major things he discovered as a bodybuilder was that he used to over diet and do way too much cardio. Mycal was following advice from fitness magazines and books, but that advice wasn’t working for him. Once he reduced his cardio workouts, he gained more weight, and was the healthiest he has ever been.
Mycal suggests you take time to conduct your own self experimentation to figure out what diet and training regime works best for you. Don’t try to follow a 90 day program, because what happens after 90 days? You need to explore diets and training for a prolonged period of time.
“It’s really difficult to find out what your body adapts to and responds to if you don’t have the commitment of more than 12 months to truly figure it out.” — Mycal Anders
10:50
Training capacity and PEDs
When you are a beginner athlete (training for less than 3–5 years) no one tells you the crazy volume workouts you read in magazines or online are something you need to build up to.
Beginner athletes need to know it takes years to build up a really big capacity, and that some athletes are using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) that allow the body to perform at insane volumes.
The body isn’t designed to work out 5 hours a day, 5–6 days a week for years at a time. Usually people who train at this volume use external help as our organs can’t recover that fast. For example: People use steroids because they help speed up recovery, which means they help with performance enhancement indirectly.
22:40
Certified fitness professionals
Washington, D.C., is entertaining the idea of requiring fitness professionals to get certified within certain organizations, as well as certified by the state. Just like real estate agents, attorneys, massage therapists, etc. have to get certified, fitness professionals will have to go through the same process.
Just like everything in life, there is the good and the bad about requiring fitness professionals to get certified by the state. On the positive, there is potential to rid the industry of false prophets. On the negative, a lot of the top innovative coaches in the world don’t have traditional certifications and it might deter people with a lot of experience that don’t have the right credentials to stay in the game.
It would also be really hard to enforce these fitness advice laws nationwide, and especially worldwide. Essentially, anyone could go on Instagram and broadcast his advice on how you should move. What is your take as a fitness professional, certify everyone or let people keep freestyling?
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30:20
Community, process, and coaching
How did Mycal Anders create the #1 CrossFit gym in America? With community, process, and coaching.
Community
Mycal is a connector, he brings people together and facilitates conversations. People at his gym don’t just workout for an hour a day next to each other, they hang a lot outside the gym. Gym members travel worldwide together, do potluck gatherings, people got married at Crossfit PHX, real estate deals go down, people helped others get jobs… It’s a real deal community.
Process
Mycal is all about facilitating growth for his staff, although he used to be more reluctant. He used to have combative thinking in his head about doing certain things related to his business and staff, but he achieved a lot of clarity with the help of psilocybin mushrooms. It helped entrust his faith and guidance in his coaches.
Process has many different meanings, such as how do you structure your programming cycles, how are you training and building your staff, are you creating enticing career opportunities for great coaches? Mycal helped his coaches create micro communities within the box. He likes to place people in their creative genius and let them run with it.
Coaching
The ability to coach is really an ability to communicate. When you learn how to say something in 17 different ways, so different people can relate to different ideas, that’s when you are making a big impact. At Crossfit PHX coaches go through 6–12 month internships. There is a lot of listening and watching, lots of scrutinizing feedback from Mycal, and coaches get access to coaching gradually.
46:50
Communication is the key to coaching
The highest leverage thing in the fitness industry is coaching, which is mostly communication. Other skills, such as nutrition, program design, and movement are technical. Communication is what makes someone a great coach.
Unfortunately, the only communication that is currently being built in the fitness industry is group training and personal sessions. The question is: ‘How do you impact your clients more than one hour a day?’
The next revolution in the fitness industry will be a more holistic approach to communication. Mark England, Founder of Procabulary, teaches language and communication skills and says it is the most important part for making an impact.
Professional athletes usually have a hard time transitioning from being a great performing athlete to a great coach. Professional athletes are usually self-centered and they need to shift into being selfless to become a great coach. To get that breakthrough, there is usually a psycho-emotional breakdown that needs to happen.
Pro tip: Procabulary is a Friend of the Show, which means you Get $100 OFF Procabulary Core Language Upgrade course.
54:35
Creating a legacy
Mycal Anders used to have an eye on everything his coaches were doing. He used to check everything including programming, and he probably listened to how his coaches handled every class.
After a while he came to a realization that if he needs to on top of everything, then the system he created is not self-sustaining and needs to be fixed. Mycal shifted his perspective over time from being shy about not knowing something to being comfortably eager and open to learn things from others.
What he loves most right now is to hear about clients progress from his coaches. He loves to know he’s making a long lasting impact by creating something bigger than himself that will outlast him.
Anders Varner
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