Check out Tawna on socials! @TawnaEubanksMcCoy

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Tawna Mccoy joins the Coach Em Up Podcast with host Tim Riley to talk about her experience growing up in a small to town to becoming an IFBB pro bikini bodybuilder and gym owner. She speaks on the subjectivity and toxicity surrounding the sport of bodybuilding, opening multiple gyms with her spouse, advice for aspiring business owners, youth and D1 sports, why GLP-1s are becoming too popular, why fitness classes are a great way to get people into the gym, and much much more! Plus, you can't miss the story about her gym catching on fire...

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00:00:00 Intro

00:04:35 Who is Tawna Mccoy?

00:05:36 Growing Up In Waco

00:09:50 Escaping The Small Town Life

00:11:36 Performance/Sports Upbringing

00:16:56 Navigating Big Life Changes At School

00:19:41 Meeting Husband after a Bikini Comp

00:24:06 Getting into Bodybuilding

00:26:58 Olympias and Bodybuilding

00:27:57 The Problem with Perfectionism

00:30:25 Navigating the Toxicity of Bodybuilding

00:37:23 Main Subjective Criteria for the Old Bikini Division

00:41:13 Retiring from Bodybuilding

00:43:57 Opening Gyms with Your Spouse

00:48:23 The Gym Catches on Fire

00:50:47 What parts of being an athlete help with being a business owner

00:52:22 Hold on to good people and Nurture them

00:57:15 Advice For Opening Your First Gym

00:58:07 Taking Over Existing Gym Spaces

01:01:53 The Reasons Gyms Fail

01:03:41 Advice for Someone Opening a Gym

01:07:31 More Gym Chat

01:09:24 3 Things to be a High Achiever

01:12:46 GLP-1 rant

01:14:57 Was the Shake Weight Cool?

01:15:32 Fitness Classes are the Gateway

01:17:59 Unsolicited Solicited Advice

Check out Nick on socials! @thefitover40man

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Nick Conaway joins Tim Riley to talk strength training for older adults, how to build muscle after 40, and why most men are overcomplicating everything. Nick went from running nuclear power plants for 20 years to building a men's health platform with hundreds of thousands of followers, and this podcast looks at the road he took to getting there.

Nick Conaway built Fit Over 40 Man for guys aged 40 to late 50s who are drowning in social media noise and paralyzed by conflicting fitness advice. His approach strips it down: sleep, a three-day full body workout split, single-ingredient foods, and consistent daily non-negotiables. No extreme protocols. No peptide stacking. No lone-wolf nonsense.

This conversation covers the full picture: how golden handcuffs kept him stuck in nuclear energy, what Carol Dweck's Mindset and Atomic Habits did for his identity after a career-ending CrossFit injury, why men's health has to include blood work, and why male loneliness midlife is a bigger performance killer than bad programming.

They also get into quitting alcohol for fat loss, fitness and longevity as a long game, and why the best thing you can do for an aging parent is get them lifting weights.

Produced by

Q6 Media

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00:00:00 - Introduction

00:01:11 - First annual client meetup in Dallas

00:03:50 - Who is Nick Conaway

00:05:33 - 20 years in nuclear power and golden handcuffs

00:11:23 - Leaving corporate life and betting on himself

00:17:10 - Childhood roots and the fear of career transitions

00:24:05 - CrossFit obsession, overtraining, and emergency rib surgery

00:32:00 - Shifting from outcome-driven to process-driven identity

00:36:00 - Simplifying nutrition and managing midlife stress

00:42:00 - Male community and midlife isolation

00:46:05 - Showing up daily and navigating grief while building a business

00:52:16 - Social media growth, blood work, and training for older adults

01:05:49 - Peptide overuse vs. the alcohol-free generation

01:11:21 - Alternative career and actionable steps for men over 40

01:15:15 - Unsolicited advice

#FitnessOver40 #NickConaway #StrengthTrainingForOlderAdults #CoachEmUpPodcast #FitOver40Man #MensHealthOver40 #HowToBuildMuscleAfter40 #HealthyHabitsForMen #FitnessAndLongevity #FitnessPodcast

Check out Lance on socials! @LanceBrooks_PhD

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Dr. Lance Brooks breaks down sprint mechanics and biomechanics of sprinting at a level most coaches never reach. Tim Riley sits down with the coach, researcher, and founder of Brooks Performance Methods to dig into first principles of sprinting, sarcomere function, quasi isometric contractions, and why the elastic vs force dominant sprinters debate is built on a false premise.

Lance's path is wild: bodybuilding forums to personal training at 24 Hour Fitness and Gold's Gym, then D1 strength and conditioning internships, a master's under Dr. Ken Clark, a doctorate, and postdoctoral work in a Harvard comparative biology lab implanting crystals into rats and running guinea fowl on treadmills. All of it in service of understanding how muscles actually produce force during locomotion.

The conversation covers acceleration vs max velocity mechanics, impulse momentum sprinting, vertical impulse top speed sprinting, horizontal impulse acceleration sprinting, and what Newton's Second Law actually demands from a coach's programming. Lance also dismantles the lazy "science lags behind practice" talking point and explains why mastering basic first principles of sprinting will always outperform chasing hyper-specific applied studies.

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Produced by

Q6 Media

https://q6.media

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:04:09 - Lance's Background and Career Path

00:15:30 - Early Coaching Lessons and Internship Blunders

00:22:34 - Bridging Research and the Field

00:32:14 - Comparative Biology, Animal Models, and Muscle Testing

01:04:30 - First Principles of Sprinting and Biomechanics

01:21:40 - Quasi-Isometric Muscle Mechanics and the Elastic vs Force Myth

01:36:00 - Sprinting/Research Q&A

#SprintMechanics #Biomechanics #CoachEmUpPodcast #LanceBrooks #SpeedDevelopment #StrengthAndConditioning #ForcePlate,#SprintTraining #ExercisePhysiology #Podcast

Check out Ashley on socials! @dr.dwyer

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Dr. Ashley Dwyer joins Tim Riley to break down how chronic underfueling and overtraining wreck your hormones, what the polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) diagnosis changes about previous PCOS treatment, and what creatine benefits for women actually look like in practice.

Ashley Dwyer went from retail pharmacy to NPC bodybuilding to complete hormonal burnout before she hit 30. Every specialist she saw handed her a prescription instead of asking one question about how she was training or eating. Sound familiar?

Tim and Ashley dig into the real mechanics behind HPA axis dysfunction and thyroid suppression, signs of endocrine burnout that most athletes brush off as just being tired, and why your labs can say "normal" while your body is running on fumes. They cover the four distinct subtypes of PMOS, why carbs and cortisol have a direct relationship your coach probably never explained, and what a legitimate reverse dieting after bodybuilding show protocol actually looks like when it is done right.

If you or someone you coach is under-eating, overtrained, and wondering why nothing is working, this episode has the answers. Subscribe to never miss another episode!

Produced by

Q6 Media

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00:00:00 - Introduction

00:01:55 - College Football and Weight Room Culture

00:07:55 - Retail Pharmacy Life

00:11:15 - NPC Bodybuilding, Orthorexia, and Undereating

00:15:40 - Endocrine Collapse and Conventional Medicine Failures

00:23:00 - Underfueling in Athletes and the Female Athlete Triad

00:28:53 - HPA, HPT, and HPG Axes

00:34:30 - Down-Regulation and Intuitive Eating

00:40:00 - Clinical Intake Process and Reverse Dieting Protocol

00:46:40 - PCOS Reclassified as PMOS and Western Medicine Shortcomings

00:52:15 - The Three Root Drivers of PMOS

00:58:30 - Supplements vs. Foundations

01:04:22 - Three Things, Rant and Rave, and Alternate Careers

01:10:10 - Overrated vs. Underrated and Unsolicited Advice

#CoachEmUpPodcast #DrAshleyDwyer #PCOS #PMOS #HormoneHealth #FemaleAthlete #MetabolicHealth #FunctionalHealth #Podcast #WomensHealth

Check out Zack on socials! @zack_zillner

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Tim Riley and Zack Zillner are back in the Austin studio for a full Q&A episode covering strength and conditioning coach salary debates, NCAA 20-hour rule logistics, shin splints, eccentric quasi-isometrics, AI in programming, NIL culture, and whether Tim could survive a bear fight.

Zack breaks down the operational reality of the NCAA 8-hour off-season rule and the full 20-hour in-season window, and explains why sport skill execution will always beat weight room numbers when practice time is limited. Tim reflects on private sector coaching ethics: when an athlete is already buried under school practices, an extra meal often does more than another squat session.

Q&A covers how to build work capacity, why eccentric quasi-isometrics are mostly social media noise, meathead hypertrophy as connective tissue insurance, sleep tracking anxiety and its effect on athletic performance, in-person coaching requirements before going online, AI tools like Relay for programming templates, NIL and transfer portal impact on athlete work ethic, low-tech athlete monitoring tools, and bucket list podcast guests.

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00:00:00 - Bear Fight Cold Open

00:00:32 - Happy Birthday Zack!

00:03:14 - NCAA 20-Hour Rule Breakdown

00:07:29 - Weight Room vs. Court Time Tug-of-War

00:14:05 - Private Sector Coaching

00:18:05 - Strength and Conditioning Coach Salary Debate

00:37:52 - In-Person Coaching Before Online Coaching

00:44:30 - Managing Shin Splints in Sprint Training

00:47:16 - Debunking Eccentric Quasi-Isometrics

00:51:10 - Meathead Hypertrophy vs. Sport-Specific Training

00:53:37 - How to Find Your Coaching Style

00:57:00 - How to Build Work Capacity

00:58:19 - Sleep Tracking Anxiety and Athletic Performance

01:02:20 - Bucket List Podcast Guests

01:08:04 - Advice for International Coaches Interning in the U.S.

01:09:42 - Biggest Challenges in Basketball Strength and Conditioning

01:12:43 - AI for Strength and Conditioning Programming

01:17:36 - NIL and Transfer Portal Impact on Athlete Work Ethic

01:23:08 - Low-Tech Athlete Monitoring Tools

01:27:07 - Bear Fight Simulation

#CoachEmUp #StrengthAndConditioningCoach #StrengthCoachPodcast #AthleticPerformance #CollegiateStrengthCoach #NILAthletes #SportScience #StrengthCoaching #Podcast #ZachEvenEsh

Check out Tim on socials! @timrileytraining

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Tim Riley goes solo on the Coach Em Up Podcast for a Q&A covering apex competition rules, sprint training for beginners, OCD diagnosis, sobriety, and much more. He shares combine stories, his biggest coaching blunders, and why carbs are still the OG performance enhancer.

He breaks down the viral Hyrox biohazard incident in Beijing and uses it to set the record straight on Apex competition health policy. Then he rewinds to age 26, no car, no phone, no money, walking to his first training job out of a Florida halfway house, and explains how he became the person he is today.

On the business side, Tim talks about how watching physical therapist David Gray build ethical, high-value content convinced him to post consistently and eventually launch Cheat Code, open his own gym, and build Apex from the ground up. He shares his rules for hiring new coaches, the real reason Apex does not use weight classes, and his 2026-2027 expansion targets.

Tim walks through how to improve broad jump mechanics with the Blaine Broad progression, covers sprint training for beginners with a slow-to-fast, low-impact-first framework, and shares his experience training Xavier Worthy. He also recounts two genuinely catastrophic coaching mistakes involving a plyo box and a Swiss ball on a treadmill.

The back half of the episode goes personal. Tim opens up about his OCD diagnosis and how Exposure and Response Prevention therapy finally gave him tools that worked. He also reflects on fatherhood, egocentric bias, and what it actually means to live instead of just survive.

This is a strength and conditioning podcast that does not stay in its lane. That is the point.

Produced by

Q6 Media

https://q6.media

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:01:28 - The Hyrox poop incident

00:10:32 - Advice to his 26-year-old self and early sobriety

00:14:48 - Finding venues for Apex and expansion hurdles

00:18:11 - Building influence, business ethics, and launching Apex

00:29:52 - How to improve your broad jump

00:32:49 - Scaling brands and rules for hiring coaches

00:37:13 - Game speed vs weightroom skill

00:40:46 - Biggest coaching mistakes

00:50:11 - Sprint training for beginners

00:54:08 - Apex 2026-2027 road map and international expansion

01:01:38 - Stepping back from full-time client training

01:06:01 - Why Apex does not have weight classes

01:10:41 - Unsolicited advice, lying, and egocentric bias

01:18:20 - Pure OCD diagnosis and Exposure Response Prevention therapy

01:29:11 - Carbs for athletic performance, fatherhood, anxiety

01:37:27 - Managing career transitions and embracing uncertainty

#CoachEmUpPodcast #ApexCompetition #SprintTraining #StrengthAndConditioningPodcast #BroadJump #MentalHealth #OCD #NFLCombine #XavierWorthy #Podcast

Check out Alec on socials! @alecblenis

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Hybrid athlete and coach Alec Blenis is back for his SIXTH appearance on Coach Em Up! Alec breaks down his pursuit of a sub-2:30 marathon while holding serious muscle, training alongside Paris Olympian Yaseen Abdalla, and surviving sodium bicarbonate's most brutal side effects.

Alec Blenis is a hybrid athlete who has been chasing the sub-2:30 marathon while maintaining elite-level strength. In this episode he lays out exactly how he got there: doubling weekly running volume to 75 miles, outsourcing his programming to coach John Davis to kill decision fatigue, and training on treadmills next to a guy who ran a 2:11 in Paris. The interference effect is real, but Alec explains how adaptation eventually brought strength back online. He also speaks on his unorthodox fueling, drinking a liter of OJ a day and over 400 grams of sugar total to maintain his training.

From there, things get weird in the best way. Tim and Alec break down backyard ultramarathon psychology through Mark Dowdle's 5-day performance in Germany, dissect trainer Joel Seedman's Instagram content connecting 90-degree squats to theology, and then unload a stacked Q&A covering high-carb marathon fueling strategy, unilateral vs bilateral training, hybrid athlete training split design, HRV usefulness for athletes, endurance training for heavy runners, treadmill stiffness vs road running, and whether mental toughness drills are actually overrated.

If you are running a marathon while lifting heavy, training concurrently, or just trying to understand the interference effect without losing your mind, this episode has you covered.

Produced by

Q6 Media

https://q6.media

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Introduciton

00:01:41 - Alec's Running Background and Sub-2:30 Marathon Goal

00:07:04 - Marathon Benchmarks, Coaching Value, and the Interference Effect

00:12:48 - Training with Yaseen Abdalla and Mitch Ammons

00:18:23 - High-Carb Fueling: OJ, Sugar, and Surviving Austin Heat

00:27:18 - Backyard Ultras and Mark Dowdle's Psychological Warfare

00:35:36 - Joel Seedman's Eccentric Isometrics and Theological Squats

00:46:14 - Tim's Best and Worst Qualities

00:50:06 - Unilateral vs Bilateral Training

00:52:11 - Session Flow vs Exercise Ordering

00:53:30 - Building Muscle Under High Endurance Fatigue

00:55:04 - Smartwatch Metrics and HRV Skepticism

00:59:01 - Structuring a Hybrid Training Split

01:00:45 - Sodium Bicarbonate Side Effects

01:06:33 - Weekly OJ Totals and Apex Australia Plans

01:09:16 - Single High-Volume Run vs Spreading Weekly Mileage

01:10:06 - Endurance Training for Heavy Athletes

01:15:02 - Heat Acclimatization and Overrated Mental Toughness Drills

01:20:07 - Treadmill Stiffness vs Road Running

#HybridAthlete #ConcurrentTraining #AlecBlenis #CoachEmUpPodcast #MarathonTraining #InterferenceEffect #RunningAndLifting #EnduranceTraining #Podcast #StrengthAndConditioning

Check out Jason on socials! @Jason_rotger @jasonrotger

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Speed and performance coach Jason Rotger joins Tim Riley to break down speed training, sprint mechanics, and vertical jump training the right way. From a near-fatal BMX crash at 15 to Division I decathlon at FIU, Jason's story is as wild as his coaching methods. He dropped his own 100m from by ditching heavy squats, and he'll tell you exactly why your weight room obsession might be killing your speed.

Jason Rotger went from BMX national rankings to pole vaulting, then earned a D1 scholarship as a decathlete at Florida International University. Along the way, he dealt with ankle surgery, a torn labrum, a supraspinatus tear, and a sprint plateau that had him squatting 435 lbs at 175 lbs bodyweight and still running an 11.8 hundred meter. The fix? He stopped squatting and started sprinting. That single shift dropped his time almost immediately.

This episode covers the how to run a faster 100m debate head-on, the real role of plyometrics for sprint speed, timing gates as a non-negotiable coaching tool, 40 yard dash start technique, and how to improve broad jump distance fast. Jason also breaks down decathlon training volume, pole vault physics, and why sprint coaches need to invest in timing equipment for their athletes. He also opens up about completing his first full decathlon post-college without injury. You only lose when you quit.

Produced by

Q6 Media

https://q6.media

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:02:06 - BMX Racing Career and Near-Fatal Crash

00:11:28 - Transition to Pole Vaulting

00:19:14 - D1 Decathlon at FIU and Injury Streak

00:27:36 - First Full Decathlon and Process Mindset

00:31:00 - Mental Grit and the Rocky Influence

00:34:49 - Sprint Plateau and Heavy Squats

00:39:45 - Coaching Collegiate Sprinters to 25 mph

00:44:49 - Vertical Jump Training and Volleyball Athletes

00:48:25 - Coaching CrossFit Athletes for Combine Events

00:52:54 - Combine Timing Systems and Hamstring Injury Risk

01:02:14 - Pole Vault Physics and Apex Targets

01:12:09 - Hottest Takes on Speed Training

01:16:02 - Authentic Brand Building and Event Swaps

01:20:05 - Three Pieces of Advice for Performance Coaches

01:22:02 - Sprint Coach Rant

01:25:41 - Overrated vs. Underrated in Athletic Performance

01:30:43 - Unsolicited Advice

#SpeedTraining #SprintMechanics #VerticalJumpTraining #CoachEmUpPodcast #Decathlon #PoleVault #JasonRotger #AthleticPerformance #Plyometrics #Podcast