Cathy Meehan: Welcome to another episode of the Me Hand Mission podcast. And as you see, I have Eric Barber, our favorite online trainer. Hey, Eric.
Eric Barber: Okay.
Eric Barber: Thank you.
Cathy Meehan: Great. So I brought Eric on today because I know a lot of us may be jumping back into training, but there’s also some of you that you might already be advanced or you might be intermediate. And I just wanted Eric to help explain the differences in those levels because I know some people that are going back to the beginning, maybe they haven’t worked out in a while. Maybe you’re actually going to be a beginner even though at one point in time maybe 10 years ago you were advanced. So Eric if you can help walk us through those differences and how you know we can navigate our workout plans using those levels.
Eric Barber: I love it. This is right up my alley. Great question. To me, in my brain, everything breaks down to beginner, intermediate, advanced, and then elite. Okay? I don’t really pay attention with anything elite. I’m not training somebody to be a better swimmer or to be a better basketball player. You know, that extra 10 % that professionals need. That’s not what 99 % of personal trainers and all of us out there doing, we’re more geared towards helping people get fitter, stronger, faster, that kind of thing. So elite training needs to go to the specialists. So that leaves us with beginner, intermediate and advanced. And I think at 56 years old, I think that anybody who has taken a long break from working out should be humble and put themselves right back at a beginner level, even if it’s only for a month. Because if a person builds consistency when the workouts are easy, right? And at a beginner level, they’re gonna wanna keep going to the gym and you wanna leave the gym wanting just a little bit more, especially in the beginning. That’s one of my secrets. Every time I’ll take a break from working out, let’s say life happens and it’s been two months since I worked out on a regular basis.
Cathy Meehan: Hmm
Eric Barber: And I know that if I try to go in and do what I normally do, I’m to get busted up, right? So I need to be humble. And I don’t necessarily take myself down to a beginner’s level, but I definitely go from advanced down to intermediate. So the intermediate person who has spent time in the gym, years in the gym, but they’ve had months or even years off, they need to go back to a beginner’s level. Just be humble, even if it’s just for one month. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about on this one. So if you do that and you make consistency the main point rather than intensity or anything like that, you’re going to find yourself getting into the gym on the second month and the third month and the fourth, and then it becomes habit and then you’re back into your shape again, or better.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah. I know for me, because I had to go back to beginner because it had been years since I had worked out. And really what you taught me was that consistency. Number one, I needed to kind of like reevaluate my daily lifestyle and how I was going to fit in, you know, going to the gym and doing all those things. But it was that consistency and, you know, changing my schedule little bit. And you’re right. I worked out just enough that I wasn’t so sore that I
Eric Barber: Right. Yep.
Eric Barber: Right.
Cathy Meehan: didn’t despise going to the gym. I actually wanted to go to the gym. It made a huge, huge difference. I see probably a lot of people fail in that area. they, you know, they wake up and they can’t move, then they have no motivation. They don’t want to go to the gym.
Eric Barber: That’s right, that’s the secret.
Eric Barber: Alright. Yeah. I see that more often than not. I see people go in there, hit it hard for a week or two or three, and then they’re just like, holy moly. And they just can’t, you know what I mean? That’s not the right way to go about it. As we get into our 40s, 50s, 60s, when you’re young, who cares? You’re bulletproof. You can do, you know what I mean? You can beat yourself up and bounce right back. But yeah, as we get older, we get more responsibilities. We’ve got…
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Right. Yeah. You bounce right back. You bounce right back.
Eric Barber: you know, previous injuries that, you know what I mean, whatever, medical conditions, it’s, you have to be smarter now as you have to train smarter than ever before as you get older. So.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, and I would think in addition to a workout plan, you know, you also have to make sure that you are eating better or cleaner. Make sure that you’re sleeping so that your body can recover. I mean, there are so many things that you also need to do to incorporate just besides the exercise. So, you know, that beginner level, it’s really like it’s a opening up a whole new world.
Eric Barber: Yeah. of workout, nutrition, just healthy lifestyles, which I think is really important. Mean, and the, I think the better your start, the more likelihood you are going to move on to advanced and, you know, more, more difficult things and stuff like that.
Cathy Meehan: Right.
Eric Barber: That’s what I try to do with my clients. I try to give them a first month that is so easy to do that at about the two week mark, they’re asking me, it happened just yesterday. I got a new client that was like, can I be doing more? And I’m like, nope, not yet. Trust me. And this happens over and over and over again. So that by the time month number two comes around,
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Nope. Yeah.
Eric Barber: I increase the volume, I increase the workouts, I increase everything across the board because at that time they’ve taken the time to build the right foundation or rebuild the right foundation. And when you do it my way, we don’t leave any stone unturned. I make sure that they train every single one of the major muscle groups in the human body. You know, chest, back, shoulders, biceps, triceps, quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, lower back and abs. Other things like
Cathy Meehan: Right.
Cathy Meehan: And cardio. And cardio, yep.
Eric Barber: Yeah, and cardio. So what I’m looking for in that first month is for them to build consistency, not intensity. And I’m looking, we are actively looking for any weak points. And they pop up as soon as people start training with a well-rounded workout program. You’re like, I didn’t realize that one body part is so weak. For most people, it’s lower back. And anytime people start training their calves on purpose, their calves just get smoked in the first week. But the calves are a very strong, dense muscle group and they catch up really quick. They get strong really quick. But lower back is a big issue. Most people train their, overtrain their, the front side, their abs, completely neglect their lower back muscles. So if you think of it as links on a chain, they’re super strengthening one part of the one link and just completely neglecting another. And when it comes to your core, that’s not a good idea. So.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: I try to give a well-rounded, well-balanced approach to a person’s first month. Every month, really, just, yeah, I scale everything back. What you said about nutrition and sleep, totally true, but you kind of have to separate them. Each one is important in and of itself. Like, you can go to the gym and you can do everything right. You can start slow, build up over time, the second month, increase everything, increase everything by the third month. Now you’re back in your groove. You are
Cathy Meehan: Yes.
Eric Barber: getting fit, you are getting strong. The human body will do that. But if you’re eating like a clown, sorry, if you’re eating, okay, I know.
Cathy Meehan: No, that’s okay because there are a lot of people that don’t realize. So here’s the deal. Let’s talk this just real quick.
Eric Barber: I’m working on my, you know, I grew up in the gym, Cathy, okay? So that’s what you get with me. I get a, yeah. But if you eat.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, no, that’s okay. A lot of people, it’s the real deal, but a lot of people don’t realize that most, the majority of stuff on the shelf at the grocery store is crap. I mean, it really is. It’s got dyes and glyphosate and chemicals that you can’t pronounce. And that’s very key for anybody starting out on a health journey to really just start reading the food labels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can do it.
Eric Barber: Yeah, that’s a whole different… I mean, I could spend hours just talking. Yeah, if you want to talk about that on a podcast. Yep. Very, very important. So going back to my point, you can train and do everything right and still be eating completely off the rails, completely wrong. You’ll still get stronger and fitter. Thank God, right? Thank God that the human body will adapt to physical stimuli.
Cathy Meehan: We can do another topic on that, but that’s very important for people to get their nutrition right. Yeah, yeah, very important.
Eric Barber: [Content continues…]
Cathy Meehan: Yeah. Like middle school.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: That’s different. That’s all. But I do think it should be like a beginning, intermediate and advanced. When I see parents losing their cool at games because the parent wants the kid to win more than… I don’t know. Just… I think that we should cheer our kids on. I don’t think that we should start fights in the stadium.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, that makes sense.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yes.
Eric Barber: Or with the coach and I think that’s taking sports too far. Okay? Every once in a while you get a gifted kid, a truly gifted kid that has a chance at becoming a pro at something, right? That one percenter, right? Every once in a while you’ve been gifted with that kid and that’s where you get into elite training and now you’re paying for elite training and that’s totally different and that’s where I step out. I don’t know anything about
Cathy Meehan: I agree.
Cathy Meehan: Yes.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: that level other than what I watched my daughter go through. My daughter was a ballerina her whole life. And when she turned 18, she got accepted to the Russian Bauschoi Academy, which was pretty prestigious. She was training to be a Russian dancer. She was tall and muscular and
Cathy Meehan: Wow.
Cathy Meehan: I can’t imagine, wow.
Eric Barber: didn’t really fit into the traditional English ballet of the petite ballerinas, but the Russians looked at her and there was a dance school in Miami as well, if I remember correctly, that looked at her and they were like, that’s exactly what we want. And I remember Sophia was going back and forth between choosing the Miami school versus the Russian Baoshui Academy. And I think the Russians pushed a little bit harder to have her and really wanted her and she, I mean,
Cathy Meehan: She, so once she got into that professional field, you know, that’s when the sport takes on a different, you know, it’s not as fun at that point anymore. And somebody has to really want it for themselves. Yeah. They have the, the athlete has to really want that for themselves. Cause now you’re seeing the professional side of the sport and that’s totally different than the grade school, middle school, high school.
Cathy Meehan: It’s more like a business.
Eric Barber: experience, even college experience. Like pro level is, yeah. So I think, yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, and you’re right. I mean, such a small percentage of children actually grow up and get in into that one. So. Yeah.
Eric Barber: Yeah, I’m very much into kids being athletic and strong and healthy, eating healthy foods and in sports. You know, my son, I think I mentioned it on my last podcast, he never took to one sport. And I was like, that’s fine. So you’re just going to do all sports, you know, you don’t have to be the best you don’t have, but you do have to get in there. You know, we homeschooled our kids and I didn’t want.
Cathy Meehan: Mm-hmm. Nothing wrong with that, yeah.
Eric Barber: You know, I didn’t want, I didn’t want a weirdo, you know, so I got him into every sport. And to this kid, to this day, my son can pick up anything. It doesn’t matter whether it’s ping pong or golf or tennis or wrestling or jujitsu that kid, he’s had so many different coaches across so many different sports that he, you know, my sister or my, daughter shines because of what she went through that.
Cathy Meehan: You didn’t want weird kids? But you know, I’m just saying that light lake is.
Cathy Meehan: Mm.
Eric Barber: Hardcore ballet background 12 years of it 15 years something like that my son shines because of his Exposure to all these different sports and all these different coaches so it’s just fascinating to sit back and watch my kids as young adults and It’s just I love it. So anyways, I’m not saying that that my way of raising kids was the only way I just know that it really worked. I made I made fitness fun
Cathy Meehan: Yeah.
Eric Barber: I didn’t put a lot of pressure on them other than you need to go to your sport. You need to show up early for practice and be one of last ones out. You need to respect your coaches, whether they’re a coach you like or a coach you don’t like. And let’s, I just tried to make fitness fun. I praised them for their wins and I consoled them in their losses and it was okay. They turned out great.
Cathy Meehan: Right.
Cathy Meehan: Yeah, I did encourage my children to all be have some sort of extracurricular activity and it always involved soccer or you know softball or wrestling or football. It always involved the sport so which you know it just those life lessons that our kids learn by being coachable.
Eric Barber: Yeah, exactly.
Cathy Meehan: and just the exposure to different ways that different adults approach things are so great. But I appreciate that insight on kids and athleticism too. So, yeah, good. Well, thank you so much, Coach Eric. And if people want to find you, where do we find you?
Eric Barber: This was a great podcast. I like this one a lot. This was great.
Eric Barber: www.barbarictraining.com and it’s Barbaric, it’s Eric Barber backwards so it is a misspelling B-A-R-B-E-R-I-C training. On there I’ve got a link to my Instagram, Facebook and YouTube page. And maybe one day I’ll have my own podcast, we’ll see. I don’t know if people like hearing me talk or not but I enjoy this kind of stuff. I can talk. I can talk fitness all day, all night.
Cathy Meehan: Okay.
Cathy Meehan: Great. Yeah.
Eric Barber: It’s all I’ve known for 35 years, 40 years. So yeah, I love it. Thank you for having me on here. I really enjoy it.
Cathy Meehan: Well…
Cathy Meehan: You bet. Well, we’re going to keep picking your brain and you’re going to be on again next month. And so everybody will see Coach Eric again. And until then to all of our listeners in our community, I just wish you the best. I pray that you find the motivation to get out there, work out, focus on nutrition and focus on health. Because I just want to say you’re never too old and it’s never too late to start. And without help.
Eric Barber: Okay.
Cathy Meehan: It’s really difficult to do anything else. So peace to everybody. Share this episode where you can. Like us and have a blessed day. Thanks so much.
