That’s how Scott Brewer explained his decision to leave his General Manager position at a CrossFit affiliate to open his own OPEX facility—OPEX Midlands, in the suburbs of Lexington, South Carolina.

If you haven’t heard of Ben Pakulski (or Pak-Man), he is a Canadian IFBB Pro, former Mr. Canada, and the founder of Muscle Intelligence. Recently Ben Pakulski joined Carl Hardwick on the OPEX Podcast. The two discussed Ben’s history, how results are built through personalization and his goals for the future. Listen to the full podcast here, you don’t want to miss this one.

Bioenergetics covers Energy System Training and the core biological adaptations required for competitive functional fitness such as metabolic specificity and the new power-time curve. This topic covers pace theory, metabolic training, and how to create the most efficient progressions of work possible. Learn how to create these efficient progressions with sample programming in Mixed Modal.

It’s the reason we’re drawn to things like 30-day diets and cleanses. And it’s the reason clients go to their coaches asking for a meal plan diet. We have been wired to think making a drastic diet change is the answer to losing the 50 lbs. we have put on in the last five years. 

Ahh, the elusive task of writing effective programs. As coaches, we are all interested in writing better, more intricate (program) designs as we learn and grow. After all, individual programs are the foundation that keep clients motivated to train–and keep them progressing through their fitness journey. 

“Previously, women couldn’t even try out for something like being a Navy Seal, and when new opportunities like that opened up to women, it became obvious there wasn’t any kind of programming to accommodate female biology and female hormonal profiles,” said the 34-year-old Cruz, who lives in North Carolina.

When he opened his doors, he had 28 clients. In the last 12 months, this number has increased to 55. Each of them pays somewhere between CA$299 to $379 per month.

On a personal level, he attended a CrossFit facility as an athlete and joined in on group training regularly. Career-wise, he was building a personal training business. He rented space at two local gyms to train his growing book of clients.

As we age, we all begin to suffer from metabolic syndrome, osteopenia (loss of bone density) and sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass). Typically these will be accompanied by a man-made side effect of aging, polypharmacy. Medical professionals will typically prescribe a multitude of medications to offset the side effects of when other, more holistic interventions can effectively address the same symptoms, whilst avoiding the unwanted side effects that so often come with pharmaceutical interventions.

In this weeks Ask Me Anything (AMA) sneak peek, James FitzGerald, tackles the question of how important is it to get sunshine? This weekly AMA is available exclusively to OPEX Coaching Certificate Program (CCP) Coaches as part of our never-ending mission to supply our coaches with a quality education.

Here is some exclusive coaching advice from James FitzGerald himself pulled directly from our weekly Ask Me Anything (AMA) Sessions. In these sessions, OPEX Coaching Certificate Program (CCP) Coaches ask FitzGerald their coaching questions. This week one of the questions was “What are the three best coaching habits I should cultivate?” here is FitzGerald’s answer.

This weekly Ask Me Anything (AMA) sneak peek, provides James FitzGerald’s answer to the question “What is the best way to implement deliberate practice”. OPEX AMA sessions are exclusive content available to OPEX Coaching Certificate Program (CCP) Coaches, in which FitzGerald answers three questions submitted by our coaches, weekly.

Bodyweight training has become a dominant form of exercise in fitness while accessibility to gyms and equipment remains limited. If you are a coach you are most likely familiar with the basics of bodyweight training, but may not have experienced restricting your training prescriptions to movements without load. 

As coaches, we are used to clients coming to us and seeking advice, but no matter how knowledgeable we may be, sometimes our friends and family just won’t listen. In this weeks Ask Me Anything sneak peek, James FitzGerald, gives his top tips for communicating your coaching knowledge to the ones closest to you.

At the beginning of the year you had a detailed plan to progress your client towards their goals in the gym. Then COVID-19 spread, and before you knew it the gym was closed and your client’s ability to train was limited. You were forced to adapt and now find yourself coaching your client through home workouts. While this may have forced you to abandon your original program, it does not mean all hope for progress is lost.

Nutrition is fairly simple when your clients are in a good rhythm–following a routine, buying the same food, cooking the same recipes, and going to the same grocery stores week after week. But what happens if something changes to that routine, i.e., they are forced to stay at home for an extended period? While it may seem like all hope for progress is lost, there are several things you can do to keep your clients progressing towards their nutritional goals during an extended time at home. 

When you hear the word ‘bodybuilding’ what is the first thing that comes to mind? Is it a tupperware of chicken and broccoli, or perhaps an excessive amount of bicep curls? While both of these may be defining elements of the sport of bodybuilding, there are numerous reasons why the average person should be doing exercises derived from this fitness discipline.

The sagittal plane is an axis that runs parallel through the body extending through the head and tail. It is also the plane that most exercises in functional fitness take place. Over time though it has gotten a bad rap as coaches realized the majority of exercises they were programming took place only in the sagittal plane. 

As many gyms of all sizes have lost clients or closed their doors completely, and people have quickly grown bored of Zoom classes, OPEX CCP Coach Benny Evien has taken advantage of the pandemic by using it as a time to show people the value of having a personal coach in their corner. 

Volke, a life-long athlete, competed in both rugby and track and field at a university level. However, his introduction to training others was not through sports performance, it was out of a need for rehabilitation. Volke’s wife had suffered an injury during a rugby match and was not seeing the results they wanted from physiotherapy. Looking for a more practical approach and taking matters into his own hands, Volke started to study coaching and uncovered his passion for helping others live a healthier life.