Cathy Meehan: Welcome to another edition of the Meehan Mission podcast, where we like to talk about faith, truth, health, and science. And most of all, we want to empower you on your wellness journey. Today’s episode, we welcome Eric Barber, the founder of Barberic Training. And we’re going to talk with Eric about the options of where do we want to work out? Because remember,
Nowadays, we’ve got options. You’ve got commercial gyms, home gyms, these fitness studios. So what is really going to be the best to help you attain your fitness goals and keep you committed and keep you on track? So let’s get started and let’s welcome Eric.
Cathy Meehan: So here’s the big question. We started the workout or we’re going to start the workout, but where do I work out? So let’s talk to Eric Barber, the founder of Barberic Training and my personal trainer. Thank you very much, Eric, for transforming my life. And I would love for you to help educate our audience. You know, maybe they’re thinking about working out, but what are some things I have to consider about?
where do they work out? Because there’s a lot of options out there.
Eric Barber: Yes, there is. Great question. Loaded question as usual. Most people, whether they need to start working out for medical issues, for health issues, or whether they just want to train for appearance, know, changing their appearance, whatever, right? You got the broad spectrum. But they’ve decided to do something about it. Step one, right? Make that mental shift. I’m going to do this. So at that point,
Cathy Meehan: As usual.
Cathy Meehan: Thank
Eric Barber: You’re looking at pretty much getting a membership at a commercial gym or you can get into something like what I would call a micro gym, which would be like your Orangetheory or your CrossFit or F45 or maybe yoga classes or Pilates classes, like a smaller studio or just a micro gym. And then after that, you’ve got training at home, you know, and that could be a garage gym. That could be an extra room that you’ve built out.
I train people, I work out people that train at all three of those. Primarily though commercial gyms and home gyms or garage gyms. The micro gyms usually have coaches there but sometimes people come to me for extra help with changing their actual appearance of their body.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, I know that I had that option because I do have like a home gym, but yeah, it’s kind of dirty and run down and not that inviting. And then I had the option of the commercial gym, which is what I ultimately chose, which was best for my fit. But I’d love for you to walk us through like pros and cons of each one of those.
Eric Barber: Yep. Yeah, I remember that.
Ha
Eric Barber: Yeah, so let’s start with the commercial gyms. gosh, man, I’ve trained everywhere. I’ve trained at Gold’s Gym, Powerhouse Gym, Bally’s, Holiday Health and Fitness, Lifetime, VASA, Crunch Fitness, Planet Fitness. I’ve trained everywhere over my past 35, 40 years. And I would say that for the price point, you can’t
you kind of can’t go wrong with a commercial gym. They’ve got tons of equipment. Really it comes down to when you’re talking about commercial gyms, like I recently trained at a gym nearby and it was locally owned. It was owner’s gym and it was the size of a community gym, of a commercial gym. It was huge and this one dude owned it. And you know,
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Eric Barber: the machines were breaking down all the time and wasn’t that clean, you know, the cleanliness wasn’t up to par. And so it was for his gym, it was too expensive. You know what I mean? He was charging too much. The bathrooms were always nasty, that kind of thing. when I vote now, when I look for a commercial gym, I look for one of the main chain brands, you know, like the
or the VASA or the Lifetime something like that. I like how clean they are. I like all the little amenities. So sometimes when I do a brutal leg workout or brutal back workout, I want to lay in one of those hydro massage beds, you know? Or I don’t like tanning. I get a really good tan, but only if I build up to it. If I have a summer of just being pure white,
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, those are sweet. Those are sweet.
Eric Barber: and then I try to get out into the sun, usually burn, but if I maintain a safe tan throughout the winter, just tanning, their little tanning bed once a week, then when I get out in the sun, I don’t burn. So I do look for that in a commercial gym, that kind of thing. look for, I look at the equipment. I look to see if there’s a lot of pieces of equipment that are broken down. They’ve got those out of order signs on them. If I see two or three of those,
during my walk around the gym for the first time, know, my introduction, you know, they’ll walk you through, they’ll give you a tour. If I see three or four machines with out of order, you know, that’s a red flag for me. I look for clean bathrooms. I have to have a clean bathroom. Saunas are nice, pools are nice, steam rooms. I don’t think they’re the most sanitary. I don’t see how they can be. You know what I mean?
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, that would be.
Cathy Meehan: I kind of agree on that one.
Eric Barber: Yeah, I’ll go into a dry sauna, but I don’t go into the steam rooms. creep me out.
Cathy Meehan: You do make a point though that there are so many commercial gyms that you probably should take the effort to walk through several, you know, and see like maybe like some have a certain like atmosphere and yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
Eric Barber: absolutely. Yeah, like check them all out. yeah. Take an afternoon. And what I did was I pulled out my phone and I typed in gyms and then I just took note of all of the gyms around me. And I started making, you know, I started highlighting the ones that I wanted to check out because some of them I’d look at the pictures or look at their website. I’m like, absolutely not. Some of them I’d look at and I’m like, yeah, I need to go try that. I just recently last week moved
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: From one part of Charlotte to another okay, I moved about seven miles so now I’ve got access to all these other new gyms and So I settled in on LA Fitness I’ve never trained it in LA Fitness, but I went in there and it met I didn’t see one broken down machine the staff were nice. They were cool The location was a mile and half from my home. I’m like wow lucked out on that one. Yeah
Cathy Meehan: that’s good.
Cathy Meehan: that’s nice. Convenient. Yeah.
Eric Barber: They happen to have a pool, so just on a side note, I don’t like doing the same mode of cardio over and over and over again. It makes me want to pull my hair out. I like cardio, I like doing it, but I have to have variety. you know, having the pool is kind of nice, a lap pool, to throw that into the mix. So it’s not just treadmill and elliptical and stair climber and
recumbent and stationary bikes. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, especially if you’re if you’re getting into working out and you get that addiction and you continue to work out, then you’re going to want to have a variety of things so you know that you can experience the different types. And I’m glad you talked about laps because I’m going to be honest, I didn’t even think about doing pool for cardio. So I’ll need to. Yeah, yeah, lifetime. So I I’m going to put a plug in for lifetime. I love lifetime.
Eric Barber: Yeah, and you train at lifetime, They keep…
Eric Barber: Yeah, it’s a great gym. It’s one of the most expensive ones, but I think if you’ve got the money, I think it’s worth it because that gym is on point.
Cathy Meehan: Yes, and that was, you know, one of the…
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Yeah, and if you break it down, mean, the monthly fee, if you break that down to how often I use it, which is six to seven days a week, and it’s got everything. Yeah. I’m addicted. Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
You better not be training seven days a week, Miss Kathy.
Yeah, so the pool is nice, you know, Lifetime is known for having very clean pools like they’re really good about Yeah so other things with Commercial gyms, you know, you’ve got your cleanliness. You’ve got the staff. You’ve got the equipment I also I’m a bit of a snob. So I tend to look if they’ve got newer equipment in
Cathy Meehan: It’s very clean also. The whole facility is clean, so I think that’s great.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: Okay. So if I go into a gym, um, and they don’t at least have some hammer strength equipment, I’m just like, Oh, come on. mean, hammer strength equipment is just kind of like, what do you mean you don’t have that? You’ve just got machines. Wait. So, um, but a lot of new brands, hammer strength is a brand that, um, that is kind of a hybrid between machines and free weights. Okay. So
Cathy Meehan: Mmm, good, good.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah. So explain what is is hammer strength equipment? Explain that.
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Eric Barber: It’s when you go into the gym and you see the people pick up the plates and put the plates on the machine, not on a barbell, but on a machine. They’ve got chest presses, it’s plates on each side in there and they’re moving, you know, or leg extension. got your leg extension machine where you just grab the pin and you move the pin upper or lower. But on the hammer strength, you know, you have to load plates for the leg extension.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Cathy Meehan: Got it. Okay. Okay.
Cathy Meehan: OK, well, I learned a new thing. I mean, I’ve been doing those. didn’t know that. I need a sheet on. I need like a. Lingo sheet so that I know what everything means. Definitions definitions.
Eric Barber: Yeah, so plate load. It’s kind of a hybrid in between the two.
Eric Barber: Yeah, yeah. Well, there’s a lot of companies, not to rag on anybody, but there’s a lot of companies out of China that try to do takeoffs from the really good companies. And the equipment might look good, but once you get in there, things don’t move right. You know what I mean? So I look for name brand quality equipment when I go into a gym.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: And I’m not, I’m not too much of a snob, but there’s some really good equipment coming out. Really good barbells, really good dumbbells. So I look for that. so another thing with commercial gyms is the amenities, right? The pool, the jacuzzi, the steam room, the sauna, hydro massage beds, tanning, that kind of thing. But then there’s also, their personal trainers. So I, that’s how, that’s how I lived my life. I was a personal trainer in commercial and.
Cathy Meehan: I think that’s good.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Eric Barber: micro gyms, okay? I trained thousands of people over 35 years, which was awesome, I’m not gonna lie, it was awesome. But I don’t do that anymore because I really like exploring this online coaching space. I’m at a caliber now where it’s kind of a waste of time and energy and money for me to be standing on the floor teaching people how to do simple things. You know what I mean?
There’s trainers that are newer that can do that. So I think if you’re in the position where you know nothing about how exercise works, know nothing about human anatomy, the simple, you know, just machine exercises before you jump into free weights, all these different things, then I would say that would be something that you might want to take a look at. A lot of them, when you sign up, you get like one or three free sessions with a trainer. are going to try to sell you on a package.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, like a complimentary.
Eric Barber: given that’s how they try to help their trainers make money right I have many salespeople sell memberships and then also sell a personal training package with Eric you know and so it’s it’s great it’s how gyms work
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Right. And you want that, you want that training if you are just starting out or it’s been a really, really long time because you want to, think we talked about it before about preventing injury. You want someone to teach you how to use the machines and how to gradually progress so that you don’t wind up injured and, know, and then just stop working out or, you know, just, yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
Eric Barber: Right. Most of my clients are people that have worked out in the past and they know how to work a leg extension and a leg curl and they know how to do a chest press machine and you know, a lat pull down. Most people, 90 % of my people that I train have had experience in the gym. They’ve just too many years have gone by that let themselves go. They’ve had medical issues, injuries, Um, lack of motivation, dropping hormones, whatever.
So, but every once in while, about 10 % of the people that I train have no, they’ve never walked into a gym before. And so my training program, I’ve got like those videos. If you remember on my app, I’ve got videos and descriptions on everything to at least let them know what kind of a machine they’re looking for and the basics of each of those machines. So, yeah.
Cathy Meehan: we gotta up that.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, that was helpful. What about some of the cons for commercial gyms? And I’ll tell you, my number one con is when they’re crowded. And that’s really difficult because you’ll have your list of exercises, but you’ve got to make sure nobody’s on that piece of equipment. And my advice is that you learn when the gym is not crowded.
Eric Barber: Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
Eric Barber: Right. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: and that’s where you can go. typically that’s what I do. I just pick times when the gym is not as crowded, except for like today I have to go after work because of my schedule today. So it’ll be a little bit more crowded, but being crowded was one of those cons.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
Eric Barber: I went to the gym one time and every single piece of equipment that I had written down for my workout that day, I couldn’t get on any of them. So all I did was I, that was crowded. That was the most crowded I had ever seen that gym. It was a zoo. And so, and it was my fault. I went at like five o’clock in the evening, something like that. And it’s just ton of young people just goofing off and.
Cathy Meehan: Mm, that’s crowded.
Eric Barber: So what I did was I just took all of those, whatever it was, seven or eight exercises and I just found substitutions for them and just roll with it, you know? So if I was supposed to do a heavy bench press in that workout and all of the benches were being taken up, I look over and I see one incline bench that was empty. And it’s like, okay, I’m gonna do incline bench press. Cons are definitely how crowded
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: they are. So I’ve noticed a massive shift in gym culture since COVID. Before COVID, you would walk into any gym anywhere and they’d have hired salespeople. And then after COVID, when they reopened the gyms, there wasn’t a lot of money. We had all lost a lot of money at all of us gym owners and corporations all the way down to the small gym owner. Right. So they
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Eric Barber: a lot of them completely cut out the salesperson, which was kind of awesome because then you can now you can go to a gym, get a tour, see if you like it, go home, think about it, weigh in measurement against other gyms and then sign up for your membership right there online. No, no sales pressure, no nothing. So another shift since COVID is gyms are packed now. It’s insane. Like, I don’t know what
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, that would be nice.
Eric Barber: I think people were so bored that they started working out after COVID, like being stuck home. So many people. Yeah. And, and, and we talked about this a little bit last time. The education now is getting so much better. You’re hearing scientists talk, you know, Huberman and all these different people, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, I think her name is all these people that are just.
Cathy Meehan: Well, could be they needed to get out.
Eric Barber: Stud athletes right and they’re they’re bringing science into it. So now all of the you know people that would never Consider going to a gym because that’s where all the meatheads and the jocks are now it’s appealing to all of the intellectuals and now they’re getting in and so the gyms are just packed plus All the big mega gyms for the most part drop their prices down to get people back in the gym at nine dollars a month or nineteen dollars a month
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: And it’s just like, man, like the gyms are just packed nowadays. So since I work for myself now, just, I just go, I’ve learned what times of the day to go. And I just, I just go with that.
Cathy Meehan: Well, I think…
Cathy Meehan: Well, I think there’s definitely a trend going on now of people realizing that they need to get healthy because you you can’t depend on the government. You can’t depend on the fast food restaurants to provide anything healthy. So I really think there is a growing trend of healthy lifestyles and healthy living. And I am so thankful for that because we need more people taking care of their health.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
out.
Eric Barber: No. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Definitely taking care of their health. Well, I was gonna say one more distraction about the big commercial gyms is the distractions because with so many people and moving parts, it’s like sometimes you’ll get those real big talkers in there and that’s sometimes hard to get away from. but I just think, you know, everybody just needs to have a courtesy that if you’re gonna talk to someone, make it hello quick and.
Eric Barber: Yeah. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: I’ll catch you after the workout or something like that. So that’s a little annoying.
Eric Barber: Yeah, that’s another thing. I don’t mind a crowded gym. I actually don’t mind a crowded gym. Pre-COVID, right? Now, the type of people that are in the gyms, it’s like they missed out on the whole gym culture thing. They come in and they sit down on a piece of machinery and they’re just talking to their phone and they’re taking pictures and this and that. And it’s like, hey man, how many more sets you got? And they look at you like you’re crazy. Like,
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah
Eric Barber: How many more sets do you have? I don’t know, like 10. I was like, come on, man. Like I had one guy tell me, why don’t you come back in 10 or 15 minutes? And I looked at him, I was like, I about jerked him right off that. Anyways, I better not say that, but yeah. Yeah, just, yeah. So, so yeah, so I think culture, you know, everybody’s wiping everything down and it’s.
Cathy Meehan: Go find something else to do and then come back and go back.
Eric Barber: It’s just really different now. know, I mean, I back in the day before COVID, if you left a gym, if you left a piece of equipment, sweaty and nasty, you wipe it down. But now every time anybody’s done with any set anywhere, they’re always wiping everything down and it’s kind of cool. It’s like, okay, clean equipment everywhere. Got it. so that’s culturally, that’s a little bit different. And then also, you know, just the culture of
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, that’s good. That’s good.
Eric Barber: A person should be able to come up to you and ask, hey, how many more sets do you have? you’ve only got two more? Do you mind if I work in with you? Like, you’ve got five more. Do you mind if I work in? And at least just have a conversation. That’s how we used to always do it in the back of the day. But now people look at you like you’re absolutely crazy, like you’re hitting on them or you’re trying to bully them off the machine. And it’s like, dude, I’m just trying to ask you how much longer you got left. know, can I work in with you? It’s not a big deal.
Cathy Meehan: you
Cathy Meehan: Yeah
Eric Barber: It sometimes is a big deal if I go, I’m six foot two, if I go up to a little four foot 11 girl and she’s doing her leg extension and I say, hey, do you mind if I work in with you? That might be a bit of an issue because we’re gonna have to adjust the machine for every set for her and for me. Adjust to my length and do adjust to her length. So yeah, so there are definitely pros and cons to joining a commercial gym, definitely.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, that’s a lot of adjustments. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: And one other, that’s what I wanted to talk about. There’s a variety of costs there. So people don’t tell me you can’t afford to work out because you can. Yeah.
Eric Barber: The cost, real quick, the cost of those, that’s the cheapest. Yeah. You can get a membership. Yeah, no. You can go to Planet Fitness and get you a $10 a month membership, or you can go to Lifetime, and I don’t know, when I was there, they were charging 100 bucks a month, but I’ve heard that they’ve gone up significantly since then. So looking at like 10 to 200 dollars a month, I would imagine, for most gyms. Now you get into New York City,
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: you get into LA you’re gonna be charged a lot more than that but but that seems to be pretty average I always look for around 50 bucks a month for a gym you know that’s yeah and so VASA and Crunch Fitness those guys are at 20 and 30 that’s even under my my price range so I’m fine
Cathy Meehan: And that should be attainable, definitely.
Cathy Meehan: Right. Well, and most places won’t lock you into a contract either. So that’s the other thing. I think contracts have really kind of gone away that it’s really more month to month. And then you can start out and maybe start at a lower price gym. And then if it’s something that you really love, the working out and you want more amenities and
Eric Barber: It’s… Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s so much nicer that way. Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yep.
Cathy Meehan: and then you can maybe bump up your price point and go find a different gym. but yeah, you’ve to consider price. Let’s, anything else on commercial gyms? And then maybe we hit home gyms.
Eric Barber: No, that’s it.
Cathy Meehan: No, okay. I think we covered just about everything on that. Yeah. So, yeah, home gyms. So, okay. Okay. And so define micro gym. That’s kind of like, I know you said like orange. Okay.
Eric Barber: So let’s go to micro gyms next because that’s in between the home gym and the, So the next, yeah.
Yeah, mom and pop, know, single owner, small gym. That’s what I’ve done in the past. Well, I’ve run the big gyms. I’ve been a manager of the big gyms, but I’ve owned my own micro gyms. So that’s, you know, one to 5,000 square feet. It’s not a big gym. They’ve got equipment that the owner had to pay for themselves, not, you know,
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Eric Barber: not part of a chain, that kind of thing. Unless it’s something like Orangetheory or F45. But yeah, these little corner, know, these little shopping center. Yeah, yeah. So everything from little yoga studios all the way on up to like CrossFit gyms and that kind of thing. Strongman gyms, that kind of thing. Powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting gyms. Those are gonna be smaller and the
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, you seem in like in warehouse district places that yeah, OK.
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Eric Barber: The clientele on that become more like family. It’s weird. So if you’ve got, you know, your five o’clock, six o’clock, seven o’clock in the morning classes, and then an 11 and a 12 o’clock class, and then a four, five, and six, usually you gravitate towards the time of day that you want to train, whatever works for your schedule, and you get in there and you’re working out, and it’s usually a trainer-led workout, and you get to know the people that you’re working out with every day at four o’clock in afternoon.
Cathy Meehan: Okay, so it’s more class oriented. Yeah. Okay.
Eric Barber: It’s kind of like, yeah, it becomes more like a family type environment. know, it’s really a partner fitness or even solo workouts that you do as a group or could just be a big group workout, things like that. That’s what I ran for 13 years. I owned two CrossFit gyms and it was awesome. I loved it. I was never big into coming from a personal training background. You hear a lot of bad things about CrossFit.
That’s because a lot of people that are coaching and owning CrossFit gyms aren’t really that qualified to, I think. So I had an advantage coming from a personal training background. I would never let my clients do things that they couldn’t or shouldn’t do. So a lot of times I get some young person in there and they wanna do some big sexy muscle up on the rings and I’m like, hold on. First of all,
Cathy Meehan: Hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Good.
Eric Barber: you’ve got to be able to do pull-ups, strict pull-ups, and then we’ve got to build those pull-ups up into something that can flip you up on the rings and do that cool movement. Or maybe just their ego, you know, they want to lift too heavy. So it was cool because I was running 10 to 20 person classes all throughout, at different times, all throughout the day. And so I got to know these people like my family and still friends with
all of them to this day practically, you know, and so, so I think those are really cool. So the pros with that would be community for sure. If you get a good set of workout partners that show up at the same time as you all the time for the classes, that’s just an awesome vibe, awesome feeling. If they’ve got a good coach, if the owner of the place is a good person, sometimes
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: going to these micro gyms and you’re just like, walk out of there and you’re like, I want nothing to do with that community or that gym owner. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yep. And so, you know, you can get really, really fit and have a really good time doing it in a micro gym. and again, it doesn’t have to be CrossFit. could be a yoga class. It could be anything like that, that has multiple classes throughout the day. Burn Boot Camp, all those things. Okay.
Cathy Meehan: Well then, yeah, find another one. Gotta find another one.
Cathy Meehan: I would think accountability would be really high in that kind of an atmosphere because you know who you’re working out with and they know when you’re not there, you know.
Eric Barber: So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric Barber: Now, now a pro and a con of that is you’re gonna have a trainer and that trainer is gonna take you through a workout with along with everybody else. So unlike going to a commercial gym where you just kind of train on your own, now you’re part of a group and you’re being told what to do. Some people, that’s awesome. Just, I just want to come in. I want to decompress my day. I don’t want to think about work anymore. Just tell me what to do. Okay, that’s workout. Okay, great. Let’s do it. Other people like myself,
you know, I’m used to training myself all these years, I’ll go in and I find myself critiquing the workout, you know, or whatever, or maybe I don’t feel like doing that bad day or whatever. So it’s kind of a pro and a con. If you get really good trainers that know their stuff and they’ve got an eye on everybody and everybody’s moving safely and stuff, can really get fit in a place like that. You can get really strong, really fit, really lean.
Eric Barber: really flexible if it’s a yoga type studio. Cons would be it’s going to be more expensive. You’re looking at probably 150 to 200 bucks a month, maybe 250 bucks a month to be part of group classes in a micro gym. Sometimes you can luck out by them having an open gym during the day, like maybe between three o’clock, maybe between two o’clock and four o’clock, they have open gym.
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, okay.
Eric Barber: or 10 o’clock to 12 o’clock, they have open gym, you can go in there and do your own workout. So you miss out on the community vibe, but if that’s open to everybody, maybe you and your buddies can meet at that time and just the three of you make up a workout and do it on their own. Okay, it’s a little bit more advanced, but that can be a pro and a con in and of itself. But it’s be more expensive. You are gonna get coaching. And if it’s a good gym, you’re gonna have a good time. You’re gonna get really, really fit.
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Eric Barber: If it’s a cocky, arrogant trainer, it’s always about them, if they have no idea how human anatomy and physiol… Like if they don’t understand the basic movements of the human body and they’re teaching you how to go through these group workouts, I’ve seen a lot of more high intensity group training go south because of that kind of thing. People get injured.
people get burnt out, that kind of thing. And so as a CrossFit gym owner, I was always walking that fine line of how do I take care of my more elite athletes that can do all the crazy competition stuff and the other 80 % of my members that just want to be fit and healthy. I mean, so I was always walking that line of making sure I’m pushing these guys hard enough and making sure that I’m coaching these guys and getting them what their results were.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, what a good point. What a good point. You’re going to have varied levels.
Eric Barber: Yep. Yeah, another drawback is you’ve got small bathrooms. You’ve got maybe one universal bathroom for everybody. Or you’ve got one small restroom for them. Yeah, yeah, not in the micro gyms, you know? Sometimes I’ll, you know, I went into a chain-wide boxing gym and it was awesome. They had the big water bags and everything.
Cathy Meehan: Oh, okay. No big locker room or… Yeah, okay.
Eric Barber: and it was a group led class through a boxing workout. And I was like, okay, never done this before, let’s do it. And had a blast doing it. It was a micro gym, I don’t know how they did it, but they managed to have a wall of lockers and their bathrooms were bigger enough for people to have their own little stall and stuff. was really cool. So, you know, it’s getting better, the micro gym. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Cathy Meehan: That’s so specialized because I personally cannot imagine just going and doing boxing as a workout. So would that be kind of like an add-on type thing as you get more advanced or something? yeah. Cardi, okay. Yeah.
Eric Barber: That was specifically a boxing gym. It was like a cardio boxing gym. Very similar to like a yoga. Like I personally couldn’t sign up for a month-a-month yoga membership. Kind of like cardio, I would get too bored with that. I need a lot of you know? But that’s just how I train myself as an athlete. I do everything. Martial arts.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, yeah, and I imagine some people want some people literally probably want consistency in the same thing. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely not. So so that’s good. I’m. Yeah. And I’m still sticking with commercial for me, so we’ll talk about who get who should get what. But yeah, let’s talk about home gyms.
Eric Barber: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with it. So that leads us now to the home gyms, right? We got your grunt.
Yeah.
Eric Barber: So home gyms were pretty, you know, not very popular before COVID. When COVID hit and all gyms shut down, was the cost of weights, the cost of equipment went through the roof because everybody was ordering, yeah, dumbbells that used to be a dollar a pound were selling for, you know, two, three dollars a pound or more, you know.
Cathy Meehan: Makes sense. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Mmm.
Eric Barber: Crazy like everybody was pulling their hair out not being able to work out. I know I was so I Got on Facebook marketplace. I’m picking up every kettlebell. I’m calling my gym buddies that have gyms I’m like, can I just borrow a kettlebell? This thing is over, you know or things like that Everything was so expensive and I’ve noticed the prices have been coming slowly coming back down a little bit Because there just isn’t the need for it. The problem the cool thing about
Cathy Meehan: Hahaha
Eric Barber: home gyms, whether it be inside a specialized room, like down in the basement or just a spare bedroom or something, or a true garage gym, right? The cool thing is it’s right there. So if you work a nine to five and you come home and you’re just like, man, it is so nice to have a gym right there. But I will say it’s for those that know what they’re doing.
Cathy Meehan: Right.
Eric Barber: Yep, I’ve had a lot of people say, hey Eric, can you help me out? Can you help me build out my home gym? And I’m like, I can, but you don’t really know how to work out. So I’m concerned that you’ll spend all this money and won’t ever use it.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, because like where would you start? I mean, where do you start? I mean, and I would think that it would be very expensive as you’re accumulating things. Very expensive. But I also, I was just thinking, it’s like, you probably should have some sort of equipment at home, even if you do pick a commercial gym or a group fitness place, because heaven forbid we ever go into another lockdown.
Eric Barber: Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Barber: Right? Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: but there might be times where you can’t get to the gym and then you’ve got at least some basic, some basic things to have at home. And maybe in a few minutes you can tell us some like basic home gym essentials that people should have.
Eric Barber: Sure. So, had a blizzard here a month ago, a month and a half ago, and it shut the city of Charlotte down. I mean, from what I understand, they hadn’t seen a blizzard like that here since 20 years ago, something like that. So, I had my C2 rower, I had kettlebells, I had dumbbells, I had a barbell.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Eric Barber: I had to wait. I was fine. I was working out at Blizzard, know, all homebound, you know, and it was black ice on the roads and all the gyms were closed down anyways. And I just kept my workouts going. It was great.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah. Good.
Cathy Meehan: We have lost connection. Are you back?
Eric Barber: I can hear you. Yeah. Okay.
Cathy Meehan: Okay, it just it. stopped just for a few minutes, but you were saying that you had the snow blizzard and you had your equipment at home.
Eric Barber: Yeah, I didn’t skip a beat. was able to still keep working out, know, get my workouts in. Even during the blizzard, was black ice. People were, you know, all the gyms closed anyways. Yeah, so was like, I’m not gonna go out there and, you know, I have a four-wheel drive. I would have been fine, but it’s the other drivers I don’t trust, you know.
Cathy Meehan: dangerous. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: That’s exactly it. It’s the other drivers. I agree. I agree.
Eric Barber: So, so home gyms are awesome if you’ve got an athlete, if you’ve got a person that knows what they’re doing, you know what I mean? And then there’s the whole accountability thing. Like you need to be the kind of person that doesn’t need accountability that you, if you’re going to home gym, you better use that equipment all the time. cause that’s a, I would rather tell them just find a commercial gym nearby for 30 bucks a month. Why spend?
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: and
Cathy Meehan: Right.
Eric Barber: you know, too grand on getting yourself set up with just the bare basics, you know? So for me to build out the kind of gym that I would be just fine in, right?
Cathy Meehan: That would be expensive, I would think. Yeah, yeah.
Eric Barber: 10 grand, yeah. Because I need all kinds of equipment, you know what I mean? I’ve been doing this for 40 years, so can I get by with just a bench and some dumbbells? Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I’ve got that stuff. I was able to use it all the time whenever anything’s popped up, you know? And I just, sometimes I’ll just get working so much and so hard. I take this, I take this Alpha BRAIN.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Eric Barber: that I’m not getting paid to hype up here. But this stuff, I take the Alpha BRAIN and I’m just like, I get so much work done in four hours, you know? And so there’s been a couple times when I take that and I’m just working so much and getting so much done that I look at the clock and I’m like, my gosh, like, I just went all the way through my workout time and so having some equipment there at my…
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Eric Barber: My home was awesome. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, that’s good. Well, I guess also privacy if you don’t want to work out in front of anybody, you know, I think that would probably be an advantage there for some people. Definitely. So.
Eric Barber: Yep, yep, that’s cool too. Yeah, yeah. And some people are just introverts and they don’t want to be around other people and they just want to train. Sometimes you’ll go through times in life where you just want to be alone, you know. Whereas other times you’ll go through life and you look forward to the gym culture, whether it be a micro gym or a commercial gym. Yep.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
That’s true. mean, I’m going back to, even though it’s a big commercial gym, I’ve already been there long enough that I know, I know all the trainers there, know all the regulars and everything. And so it’s really, it is a sense of community, which is really, really, really great. But so let’s talk about the home gym. Let’s say I’ve been working out for a while, but I just want a few pieces of equipment to have at home.
Eric Barber: Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
Eric Barber: Right.
Cathy Meehan: What would you suggest? And I also love the idea you mentioned Facebook marketplace. So as long as as long as it’s in good condition, I would think, yeah, good brand equipment, which you can probably like Google, you know, some kind of a consumer report on those if you want to research the equipment. But what what should I have in my home gym just as a starter?
Eric Barber: yeah. Yeah.
Good and good brand equipment. Yeah, good brands.
Eric Barber: Go.
Eric Barber: So again, just real quick before I go into that, what you just said just now, choosing good brands, like I’ve had the cheap stuff before, know, the made in China, and I’m not trying to rag on China, but you know, there’s a big difference in equipment. I’ve had those, that equipment bend and like I’ve bent bars on those things. I’ve had them fall. Well, not really. I just don’t think that they were using.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Whoa, you’re so strong.
Eric Barber: the strong tensile strength steel that we, know, yeah. And so, gosh, I’ve had benches fall apart on me when I’m working out on them. I mean, like, that’s not cool. Yeah, that’s not cool. That’s what I mean by the bars. Like, the bars underneath the bench folding under the pressure. You don’t want that when you’re doing a bench press or something like that. So.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Is it the quality? OK.
Cathy Meehan: Mmm. gosh. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Hmm
No.
Eric Barber: Yeah, so I stay away from cheap equipment. get on Facebook Marketplace and I look for good brand equipment. And it’s not that hard. It’s not that hard to educate yourself on what’s good and what’s not. A simple little Google search will tell you what brands are excellent. So I go to Facebook Marketplace before I do anything because sometimes you can get a brand new piece of nice equipment, like really good quality equipment, and somebody just wants to get rid of it.
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Eric Barber: And if you can see that first one on there.
Cathy Meehan: I imagine that a lot of people buy really nice equipment. What did you say? A lot of time it becomes a place to hang your clothes or something. Yeah, glorified coat hanger. And so then they’re ready to get, I bet you could get a lot of really nice things at a good price.
Eric Barber: Pro hanger. Yeah. Glorified pro hanger.
Yeah.
Eric Barber: I’ve had, I’ve helped a lot of people say, you help me sell my home gym stuff? I don’t know how to do it. And I’ll like, okay, go over to their house and I’m just like, all right, well, it looks like you’ve been using this room as an extra closet to hang everything on, you know, and so. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, I, I look for the good. So what I would look for is, you know, not everybody knows their way around a kettlebell.
Cathy Meehan: Mmm. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: What a waste, what a waste, what a waste.
Eric Barber: So I would not recommend just buying a kettlebell or two online because everybody else is. If you haven’t had proper training on it, it’s different than holding a dumbbell. So I would say dumbbells first, because they’re universal. Barbells take up a lot of room. So if you’re setting up your gym in a small room, trying to get a barbell moving around in there can be quite a challenge.
Cathy Meehan: True.
Eric Barber: I always say dumbbells, you know, for women you need a pair of two and a halfs, fives, tens, fifteens, twenties and twenty fives. know, for men you need fifteens, twenty fives, thirty fives, forty fives, fifty fives, something like that, you know, and that and you’re golden like you are. You can do so many exercises with just those alone.
Cathy Meehan: Right, yeah.
Eric Barber: and standing exercises. So the next thing after that would be a bench because there’s so many dumbbell exercises you can do with just a bench. So that right there, those two things, just dumbbells and a good bench, you’ve got all kinds of stand up movements and you’ve got all kinds of bench seated or laying bench movements. Yep. Without a doubt. A pair of running shoes because buying, buying
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, that sounds easy. That sounds easy.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Barber: Quality cardio equipment is very expensive Imagine buying a good treadmill or a good stationary bike compared to a good pair of running shoes and you go out and teach yourself how to Fast walk or to jog, you know what I mean or or trail run that’s really fun, too
Cathy Meehan: Yeah. Well, don’t you talking about that? Don’t you actually really want to do your exercise where the terrain is not a flat like conveyor belt treadmill, where you’re actually outside in the terrain where you have, you different like, I don’t want to say rocks, but you know, it’s just a different terrain for for training.
Eric Barber: Okay, so the flat surfaces have their pros and cons. If you’ve got somebody who is overweight and they’re on a weight loss journey, they don’t need to be running, right? And so if they are walking on a treadmill or on a track, on a high school track and just getting their body moving, that’s a much safer way than trail running. To somebody who’s fit,
Cathy Meehan: No, no, true, true. Just just walk in.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Good point.
Eric Barber: like me, flat surface running is boring and it’s painful for me. It always hits the same part of my shoe on every single one. I’m a big fan of trail running. I love the ups and downs and corners and hopping over rocks and this kind of thing. It keeps me alert. It keeps me paying attention. I don’t just zone out and I don’t feel it in my knees. I don’t feel it in my lower back.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Eric Barber: You learn how to watch where you’re running. You know, you had to pay attention because I’ve tripped over a couple of rocks and tree roots or the over the years and that’s no fun. So I don’t know. I just, I love, I’m not a runner, but I trail run once a week. I love it. It’s my favorite form of cardio. So, there can be a big argument over training inside versus training outside. I don’t think I can, I can make a true statement on that, but I think that there’s.
significant benefits of both. Training outside makes me tough. I’ve noticed. Training in elements, it just adds a whole level of toughness. In CrossFit, we ran in the rain, we ran in the snow, we worked out in the heat, in the sun. It was awesome. I’ve never been as fit as I was when I was CrossFitting.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: Now I go to these commercial gyms and it’s the same temperature every time I go in and everything is sterile and You know, it’s just awesome. I mean it and I think it’s made me a little bit softer I’m not gonna lie, but man, it sure is nice to go into a gym and it’s just this perfect You know, whatever is 69 degrees whatever so Yeah
Cathy Meehan: Yes, you can’t beat that. do. I’m always amazed that I might be freezing outside, but when I get in the gym, it’s the perfect temperature. I don’t know how they do that. I don’t know how they do that. So that’s good. Well, that’s good. I think, did we cover everything on home gym?
Eric Barber: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah, so pros would be it’s right there, right? It’s the equipment that you like and you’ve got your privacy and you can just have access to it. The cons of that, I think that there’s more cons if that’s your only source of working out. Just because nobody’s, you you’ve got to really just remember that that part of your house is separate than the rest of your house.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm, convenient, true.
Eric Barber: because otherwise it just becomes like just another room and you forget about it. You You gotta, yeah, and you really gotta look at this as, okay, daddy’s gotta go get my workout in, like, give me an hour, this is daddy time, you know, or whatever. And you gotta really be disciplined. You’ve gotta be okay with working with minimal equipment, you know?
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, or you turn it into a closet or something like that.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
You’ve really got to be disciplined.
Cathy Meehan: Unless you want to spend thousands of dollars. Yeah, I mean.
Eric Barber: Yeah, so like, you know, the dumbbells on the bench, the next step for me, for me, would, I want some good flooring, you know? cause I’m constantly worried about breaking the floor or doing damage to the floor with dumbbells up and down. I don’t know. It’s just, I like the, the gym matting and that’s what I’m using. Yeah. So mats are huge for me. I just feel like I’m in a gym when I’m on gym matting. You know what I mean?
Cathy Meehan: The mats, yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah, I love a good stretching mat. So like back when I was a wrestler in high school, we had these roll up mats, you know, that we would wrestle on. I was used to always stretching on those. So in the gyms, I don’t like to stretch out on the hard rubber flooring. I like to grab one of those spongy mats, you know, so that’s a game changer right there. Cause then you can do a ton of ab work. You can do stuff where you’re on your hands and knees for your lower back, like bird dogs and
Cathy Meehan: Okay, yes.
Eric Barber: planks and all that kind of thing. And it’s more comfortable, you know, when you’re, when you’re doing a plank on that spongy stretching mat and that kind of thing. So that’s, it’s little things like that. And you just kind of piece together your own little home gym. Some people are motivated by quotes on the wall or things like that, or just music, you know, having a good playlist goes a long way. Right? So if you’ve got a little speaker in there and you’ve got your favorite workout playlist on Spotify,
or Pandora, something like that. That can really make your workouts at home really, really good. So I think that’s pretty much it. It’s very expensive to do a home gym unless you’re just doing the slow method where you just buy a piece of equipment here, a piece of equipment there on Facebook Marketplace. Yep, yep. I know.
Cathy Meehan: That’s good. You’re making me want to go work out. know. Well, I’ve got a couple of questions for you. Just let me pull them out here. So because I think we covered the three types of gyms. But yeah, so they’re easy ones. They’re easy. If someone wants to get in shape but hates the gym, what do they do?
Eric Barber: Alright.
Mmm.
I have no idea what to expect here.
Okay.
Eric Barber: Well, the simple answer is they have to find something that they like. Okay? So, if they truly hate the gym, they’re probably remembering some kind of a negative experience they had. It was probably at a micro gym or probably training on their own at home and it was just boring and a drag. Or maybe they went to a commercial gym and had a bad…
experience with somebody hitting on them or something like that, right? So usually with those people, because I talk to these folks every once in a while on the phone that are asking me about my program, I either try to figure out what that one thing was, or I just start seeing what they would like or what they have done in the past that they actually do like. And sometimes it’s not
Cathy Meehan: That’s good. That’s good.
Eric Barber: Not really what I would consider working out. might be like, well, there was a time three years ago when I was walking every day for half an hour and I just felt great. And I’m like, okay, well, that’s not my kind of working out, but, that is considered a workout and you were exercising your body. So, okay, let’s start there. What about this? What about that? What about this? What about that? And so I helped try to help that person is it, do they really truly hate working out?
or they just had some bad experiences or maybe an injury or you know, some people though, just don’t like pain at all and I don’t, you know, to me there’s a difference between good pain and bad pain, right? Bad pain is when you slam your thumb with the hammer, like that’s bad pain, know? Breaking a bone, that’s bad pain. Good pain is like that exhilaration you feel when you
Cathy Meehan: Right.
Cathy Meehan: It’s bad paint, yeah.
Eric Barber: You know, you’re on your last rep and you’re like, man, I think I’m strong enough this week to do one more. You know, and you do it and your muscles are burning and everything hurts and you set that weight down, but it’s like a good hurt. You know what I mean? So every once in a while, you know, they’re like, I just don’t. Yeah. And they’re just like, I don’t like working out. The weights are just so heavy. you know, I’m just like, I don’t understand.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah. And you do it. The feel good after you do it, you’re like, I did it. Yeah. So.
Cathy Meehan: .
Eric Barber: You know, best not compute.
Cathy Meehan: Well, I like you approached it with more of a positive reinforcement, which is really great. Find something that they like. Me, I would probably say, well, let’s change your mindset. Suck it up, buttercup. Let’s just do it. And so you probably get a better result.
Eric Barber: Well, if you say that to somebody, okay, so if you say that to somebody who’s motivated that hates working out, that’ll work, right? If they say, you find it, hey listen, your doctor tells you that if you don’t start working out, you’re gonna die? Okay, get your, in the gym and you give them that tough love and you’re like, doesn’t matter, you’re gonna do this, we don’t want you dying, here’s what you’re gonna do. So sometimes I have to be that for some people. But,
Cathy Meehan: Yeah. Well, that’s why you’re the professional too. That’s why you’re the, yeah.
yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: If they don’t have the motivation, they’re just sitting, like I talked to a guy, this was not my favorite. I talked to this guy on the phone, he’s like, yeah, my wife told me to call you. And I’m like, here we go. And I’m like, all right, man, well, what are your goals? I don’t really have any goals. I just need to make her happy. And I’m like, well, all right, man, are you happy with your body right now? Yeah, kinda, yeah. And I’m like, okay, so you’re 280 pounds, you’re five foot eight.
and your wife is telling you you’re too fat. Okay, that’s painful, I get it. So you’re taking a call with me to see what I’ve got. But what about this? What about that? I couldn’t do anything to motivate him. I couldn’t do anything. He’s like, I don’t like working out. I don’t like to sweat. I don’t like to, and I’m like, and we got to the end of the phone call and he just, I was like, well, good luck to you, brother. I don’t know what to tell you. I hope that.
you and your wife stay together, because it sounds like I had the biscuit with you, you know? So, some people just don’t want anything to do with it, and I just, I respect people too much, I’ll just walk out, I’m like, okay, alright.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that’s a sad call, but you know.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, right. I mean, you can you can only do what you can do and the other person has to make that choice. And I’m sorry to hear that. But maybe that conversation will come back to him, you know, and especially from his wife. And then maybe he’ll decide to make that change. We can pray for that. Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
Eric Barber: I hope so. hope so. Cool guy. I like him. just lives a totally different lifestyle than me, you know?
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, here’s I don’t know if you can answer this. What’s the biggest lie the fitness industry tells beginners?
Eric Barber: Well, I’m not gonna be very popular. Maybe this might not be the perfect answer, but this is my answer, okay? So, I especially back in the late 80s and early 90s, there was a lot of, Kathy, you’re gonna get me in trouble here. There was a lot of car, there was a lot of used car salesmen that came over into selling gym memberships and selling.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: You’re getting yourself in trouble.
Eric Barber: And it was a horrible time. They would lock people into contracts. Late 80s, early 90s was brutal. These guys, they would shame people into not getting a membership or not getting personal training. That’s why I was never a sales guy. I never liked it. I was always a trainer. I was always on the floor, always coaching. I never liked hanging out with those sales guys.
Cathy Meehan: Hmm.
those. I remember those. Yeah. Yeah.
Mm.
Eric Barber: So my big pet peeve to answer your question would be when they would get that, that feeding frenzy of people, you know, they pull their credit card out and, and what you also need is this. And what you also need is this. And you need this gym towel and you need these gym clothes and you need, you know, and they would sell not what the customer needed, which was a gym membership and maybe a few personal training sessions.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: But they also started trying to get these people on all these supplements and this and that. And it’s like, man, that really, I thought was a lie. Whenever it comes down to money and people trying to make more money and it’s not what’s best for the client, you know what I mean? Because how many of those, I remember these guys, they tag teamed this one girl in the office and she came out of there crying.
Cathy Meehan: Yes.
Eric Barber: and just to get them off her back, she bought everything with her credit card. And I just was like, my God, like you guys are animals, you know? That’s bad, I didn’t like that back in those days. Now there’s no salespeople in the gym, you know? Now you just go in and you get your membership online and we don’t have to deal with all that crap anymore. So telling beginners that they have to get on a ton of supplements,
Cathy Meehan: Hmm
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, that’s bad.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: I don’t know, I think they need to get back in the gym first and get moving. They need to clean up their diet. That’s what I did with you. Remember, in those 12 weeks, I was like, we’re gonna take a break from supplements. You coming from your background, you’re like, oh, that’s, you we do a lot with supplements. And I’m like, I know, hang on. Just for 12 weeks, let’s give your body a break from everything. And then once you are done with the 12 weeks, then start adding them in one by one and your body will be able to tell what’s working for you and what’s not.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yes.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Eric Barber: and you eliminate any kind of supplements that you’re told to take that don’t actually work well with you. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, the dialing in on nutrition was key. think another. yeah, absolutely, because.
Eric Barber: I love supplements. I love supplements, but I like to see my clients training first and eating healthy, like getting their eating under control and then adding in supplements.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, we don’t our food does not have the same nutrition or you know, it’s not packed full of vitamins and nutrients like it used to be. So it is actually caused us to have to supplement with so many different things. But I want the thing that keeps popping up on like some of my feeds on my social media is the fitness industry saying like in 30 days you can have these abs and in 30 days you can have
Eric Barber: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: And like, that is what I’m like.
Eric Barber: That should have been my answer. I didn’t think about that. That right there, that’s the answer. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, well today in today’s world, that’s really what I see is these quick fixes and it does not work that I mean, my challenge was 90 days and yes, I had a transformation but even in that 90 days, it wasn’t what these people are saying you can do in, you know, 30 days at 15 minutes a day or something like that. yeah, or that you can eat anything.
that the guy that’s eating a day full of nothing but donuts and pasta, I’m like, anyway, those are bad.
Eric Barber: Yeah. So that’s, that’s the better answer to your question for sure. I, if I would have thought of that, I would have said that one for sure. there is no quick fix. mean, you know, was that big and peptides and all these different things. These things are helping people get certain results. They just are right. But it’s not a substitute for working out. It’s not a substitute for eating healthy and eating clean. It’s, it’s an addition.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Right.
Cathy Meehan: Right, yep.
Eric Barber: It’s not a substitution, you know what I mean? you know, now that I’m in the online space, now that I’m out of the gyms coaching and I’m in the online space, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, I’m seeing, you now I see all these people all the time dropping in my feed.
Cathy Meehan: Exactly.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, it’s that algorithm. It’s just like, I’m like, stop. Yeah.
Eric Barber: I see it all the time. I see it all the time. see usually young trainers under five years old with all their shiny, perfect muscles and everything. they’re eating a piece of pizza and they’re telling people you can do this too. And have six pack abs. And it’s like, hold on brother. Like you can’t, you can’t do that. You can’t put yourself out there as an expert just because you’ve got a 23 year old
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: And no shirt. Yeah.
Eric Barber: chiseled body and you can eat all the pizza you want. It hasn’t hit you yet. You know what I mean? Yeah, you haven’t gone through life yet. You don’t understand. So yeah, that’s that’s a thorn in my side for sure. Just because somebody looks good and they sound good doesn’t mean that they’re not just a shiny salesman. You know what I mean? And they don’t know they’re talking about and they’re just trying to sell you. mean,
Cathy Meehan: and
Cathy Meehan: Just wait.
Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: You gotta really be careful nowadays. mean, look at the liver king guy, right? Did you follow that Liver king? The liver king, yeah. So just this guy that came out and said you’ve gotta eat ancestral, you know, only. But he’s eating raw meat, raw kidneys, he’s eating animal organs, and he’s just this massively muscular dude.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: The liver, who’s that?
Cathy Meehan: yeah, okay.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Eric Barber: older older guys like forty five i guess somewhere around there and he says he did it all without steroids and you look at his body and you’re like that’s a steroid body like first
Cathy Meehan: and
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, that’s a rarity. mean, that’s a rare. That is not something for the general public to. Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah, well he was lying his butt off. Like he was taking a mountain of steroids, but telling everybody, follow me, take my supplements, and you can be like me. You need to all eat ancestral. And it’s just like, man. So I’ve seen a lot of that stuff throughout the years pop up and then fade away. Pop up and then fade.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah. So isn’t there a phrase, something about if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably, yeah. So that’s ridiculous. But, okay, have one last question. Why do so many people start a workout and quit within a few months? What’s going on? Or a routine, and then they quit.
Eric Barber: It usually is. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Barber: Start a workout program.
Eric Barber: Okay. Lots of answers that one could be poor programming. Maybe it’s too hard, you know? So take somebody like yourself, right? You were athletic when you were young, right? And let’s say a year ago you were overweight and you’re like, I can’t take it anymore. I know what I need to do. I’m going to do it. Right? And you got on somebody’s workout program and it was somebody advanced.
Cathy Meehan: Okay, that’s good.
Cathy Meehan: That’s me!
Eric Barber: Right. And you jump back into it and everything is hurting, but not the good hurt. Like your joints are hurting, your bones are hurting, you’re getting headaches, your things aren’t working the way they used to when you were, you know, poor programming. Maybe their goals are not strong enough. So I’ve noticed, I, I guinea pig myself on a lot of things, right? Like I try things out on myself first before I even think about talking to other people about them. So,
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Well, we’re talking, why do some people start like a routine workout and then they quit? Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah, okay, so the goals aren’t strong enough. So I’ve noticed with myself that whenever I take on something big and something new, I’ve got to make it big. Like I’ve got to focus my whole life on this and I’ve got to just really decide this is what I’m going to do. Because it’s so easy now to just try this or try that, you know. 75 HARD and they just try it. That’s a 75 HARD is like uber strict.
Eric Barber: And if you break any of their little rules in the 75 HARD, you’re like done. You got to start all over again. Same thing with the 30, right? The Whole30, you’ve got to eat perfect for 30 days. And if you break it just one time, you got to start the Whole30 all over again. So, so I’ve noticed it with myself. If I want to, let’s say go on a three day water fast, right?
Cathy Meehan: gosh. huh.
Cathy Meehan: Hmm.
Eric Barber: That’s not just something I’m like, yeah, you know, I think tomorrow and the next day and the next day, I’m just going to take three days off from eating and just do a water fast. no, no. Like I have to make those goals set in stone. that. I am going to do this no matter what. I’m not going to half butt it. I’m going to go all, but you know what I mean? So I think sometimes people, people drop five pounds in the gym over two months.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, no, that’s good. Playing it.
Eric Barber: and they’re feeling better and then life happens and they get distracted from their goal and then they try to come back but it’s been two weeks and they’re like, man, my body was feeling so good, why is it starting to feel bad again? You know what I mean? It’s just, I think having really strong mental goals, even having them written down like that scripture, write the vision on the wall, you know what I mean? Really, I take that stuff very serious and I’ve just noticed
Cathy Meehan: Yes. Yes.
Eric Barber: with guinea pigging myself on things that I can’t just commit to something half-heartedly. I have to really be like, Eric, this is what you’re gonna do. And you’re gonna do it no matter how bad it gets until, you know what I mean? So, yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, I have the goal. Yeah, if you have the goal and then maybe checkpoints or something to to keep from giving up. those are yeah. Yeah, I think that’s great. Eric, you have been such a wealth of information today. Thank you, thank you. So if somebody if I know you do so, we’re going to have you back next month. OK, question, if someone wants to find Eric Barber.
Eric Barber: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Micro goals and then macro. Yeah, absolutely. I’m huge on that.
Eric Barber: I got way more.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Where do they go?
Eric Barber: So, barberictraining.com is my website. It’s my name backwards, so it’s a misspelling on purpose. It’s Barber Eric, Barberic Training. Most people just go to YouTube, I’m sorry, go to Instagram, Barberic Training, and I’ve got just all of my videos on there. And then I found out how to do that little Facebook thing where you can have it switch over and also post.
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Eric Barber: Learned how to do that about six months ago. So I want to see all this stuff. Go to go to Instagram first and then Facebook second. And then YouTube is going to be my new, you know, my new thing. I’m learning how the ins and outs of how to figure out how to do all that. So yeah, I just want to help people, know, I do best at this time in my life. I’m looking for people who are forties, fifties, sixties.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, I mean, that’s that’s our age.
Cathy Meehan: That’s great.
Eric Barber: who feel like their best years are behind them and there’s nothing they can do about it. And I’m over here going, whoa, whoa, whoa, you need a mindset shift. You can totally do this. can do it together. You don’t have to do it alone. And I’ve got a ton of information and help that I give my clients. So I just want to help people, you know?
Cathy Meehan: Yes.
Cathy Meehan: Absolutely. mean, and I am probably your one of your biggest fans and I know you’ve got hundreds of them than thousands of them But I I tell people do not tell me you are too old Do not tell me you don’t have enough money and do not tell me that you don’t have the time because your health is everything and You know, we’ve Eric provided options on where you can work out gave you
Eric Barber: Thank you.
Eric Barber: Yeah. Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: you know, recommendations for trainers, whether it’s a local personal one, or if you, you know, contact Eric for online, that’s what we did online. He’s like states away, but we still had those weekly calls and everything. And, and it just really, you know, he does that, really a unique program for you. And I just can’t thank you enough because it is literally just changed my life. And I appreciate you so much. So.
Eric Barber: exercise.
Eric Barber: Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah, I see. I see your pictures on Instagram and Facebook and I’m like, gosh, she’s just still going. Like, I’m just kidding. Yeah, it’s awesome what you what you’ve been able to do. Yeah, because we got started back in what was it September?
Cathy Meehan: I’m still going. Yeah. Still going. Yeah. It’s at.
The end of September. Yeah, it was the last week of September. Yes.
Eric Barber: Yep. So we trained October, November, December, right? And then you’ve been pretty much on your own January through March and you’re just crushing it. Yeah. See, to me, that means I’ve done my job. Like I get people for 12 weeks, you know, and if I check in on somebody six months or a year later and they’re back to where they were before they started working with me, I feel like I failed because my job secretly, my, not secretly, but
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm. Crushing it.
You did your
Cathy Meehan: you
Eric Barber: on a personal level, my job is to not just give people an excellent meal plan and an excellent workout, progressive workout program that works for them over those three months. Not just the accountability and the stuff I can pour into their life and teach them, but it’s also subliminally, I’m trying to reset their mind to fall in love with health and fitness. And create a love of this stuff that has kept me going for 40 years, you know?
Cathy Meehan: Yes.
Eric Barber: So that’s really what’s behind what I do. It’s not just the 12 weeks. It’s can I help create a true love of health and fitness in this person? Yeah. Well, thank you.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, well, you did a great job. You did a great job. You did. So for all of our listeners, if you yourself or you know someone that is interested in changing and transforming their life, please share this podcast. Like, subscribe to my new YouTube channel. I would greatly, greatly appreciate that. And next month we’ll bring Eric back because I’m sure we’ve got many more great things to learn.
Thanks, Eric. I really appreciate you. Thanks.
Eric Barber: You’re welcome. Thank you.
