179: Why I Always Go Back to Strength Training

I'm breaking down why I will always go back to strength training no matter what season, prep, or goal I'm chasing. I also make my case for why strength should always be the foundation underneath any goal whether that's a marathon, an Ironman, HYROX, or just playing with your kids. I also introduce our new Strength Collection: Pre, Pump, and Post, a three-product system built to maximize your training. CHAPTERS: 0:00 "I Am a Gym Rat at My Core" 2:08 Strength Has to Come First 2:47 "Strength Is Never a Weakness" 5:30 Introducing the Strength Collection 7:43 The Eating Disorder I Don't Often Talk About 10:46 Shifting My Mindset: Food as Fuel 11:54 My First Pre-Workout Ever 14:24 Falling in Love With Bodybuilding & Greg Plitt 19:31 Launching BPN in 2012 With a $20,000 Loan 26:06 The System That Inspired the Strength Collection 27:45 The Age-Old Question: Gym or Running? 34:16 My Best Endurance Shape Ever, But Not Strong 36:46 The 700-Pound Deadlift PR I'll Never Touch Again 42:08 4 Mistakes People Make With Strength Training ORDER MY BOOK HERE: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210 FOLLOW: Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 25% off FOR LIFE ⁠ https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/collections/performance-nutrition IG: ⁠instagram.com/nickbarefitness/⁠ YT: ⁠youtube.com/@nickbarefitness This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal [health or profession] advice. Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) is not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. This podcast may not be republished without the written consent of Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) MB01FIACPRYWBKW

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Nick Bare?

  All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is titled, "Why I Will Always Go Back to Strength Training." Always. I am, and I've said it before, I am a gym rat. I am a meathead at heart, at my core. It is in my blood. It is in my DNA.

• 0:33Nick Bare?

  I remember growing up, as I'm, I'm thinking about my bloodline and my DNA. My dad was a wrestler when he was in high school. And when I was young, I remember watching my dad come home from work. It'd be five, six, maybe seven PM, if I can remember loosely. And I could hear him from a mile away because his windows were down. His music was blaring. It was hard rock. And he'd pull into our driveway and he'd step out and he was wearing wrestling shoes.

• 1:14Nick Bare?

  He was wearing short shorts, a stringer tank top tucked in. And in his hand, he had his double bag and his lifting belt. And he had a mullet and a mustache. And after work, he would go to the gym. He would train and then come home. And I watched my dad come home after a long day, after leaving the gym with a pump and his veins popping out, his muscles full. My dad, growing up to me, was, was a superhero.

• 1:48Nick Bare?

  You know, I'd watch him every morning in our kitchen as my brother and I were eating breakfast, doing his pushups on the kitchen floor. And we never said anything. It was just, this is what dad does every morning. He gets after it. He puts in the work.

• 2:08Nick Bare?

  And he had a great physique. He still has a great physique for being 63 years old.

• 2:15Nick Bare?

  Strength training, when I say it's part of my DNA, it's in my core, it's within the bare bloodline, I mean it, and I believe it.

• 2:26Nick Bare?

  I want to pose a thesis, an opinion, a statement.

• 2:34Nick Bare?

  If you want to be better at anything physical, marathons, high rocks, weekend basketball, or even just playing with your kids, strength has to come first. As Mark Bell says, "Strength is never a weakness, and weakness is never a strength."

• 2:58Nick Bare?

  Dang, that hits.

• 3:02Nick Bare?

  And another thesis or opinion is that if you could only do one type of training for the rest of your life, it should be strength training. Why? The benefits far outweigh the benefits of excessive cardiovascular conditioning, to include the fact that one, muscle loss or sarcopenia is one of the biggest predictors of aging decline and has risk associated with injury, decreased lifespan and health span, and performance.

• 3:42Nick Bare?

  The difference between health span and lifespan, lifespan is the amount of years that you live, you know, if you live to 100, that's great, but if your health span, the last 40 years were garbage, man, that 100 years is kind of a subjective goal.

• 4:09Nick Bare?

  If you had strong health up until you were 60, and then from 61 to 100, you had limited health span, that's a, it's a long 40 years. That's tough.

• 4:23Nick Bare?

  Strength training improves bone density and joint integrity, and there's plentiful hormonal benefits from strength training, building muscle.

• 4:37Nick Bare?

  It improves testosterone, growth hormone, insulin sensitivity.

• 4:44Nick Bare?

  Strength training is foundational.

• 4:47Nick Bare?

  And in my honest opinion, I might be biased, but I believe there's a lot of science that backs this up, a lot of data, a lot of research, studies, practical application. If we had to choose one type of training to do for our entire life, it should and would be strength training, resistance training, being in the gym, moving weight, lifting hard.

• 5:15Nick Bare?

  So we'll get in today, why I will always go back to strength training, why I do always go back to strength training, no matter what prep I'm in, or season, or what my goal is, I always go back to strength training.

• 5:30Nick Bare?

  We just launched our strength collection. I have the products in front of me right now. The strength collection, which I'll get into deeper into this episode, it's a three product system. Pre, pump, and post. So the way that I use the strength collection, the way that I recommend using the strength collection is by stacking pre and pump about 30 minutes prior to your workout. You get increased energy, tunnel vision focus, muscular endurance,

• 6:06Nick Bare?

  blood flow, contraction, better muscle pumps, which if you are into strength training or bodybuilding, you know the pump is king.

• 6:15Nick Bare?

  And then the way that I like to use post is sipping on it during my workout, but you can also consume one serving after your workout. Post is essential amino acids, branched chain amino acids, carnitine, L-tylinate, and Cherry Pure. It is excellent for muscle protein synthesis, stimulating MPS, helping to repair the broken down muscle fibers from your, your strength training, from the workout itself. You know, while you're working out and lifting weights, you are creating these micro tears within your muscle. And then after the workout,

• 6:58Nick Bare?

  through proper recovery and rest and nutrition and supplementation, that's how you actually repair and rebuild muscle tissue. So the Strength Collection is now officially live on our website, bpnsubs.com, a three-product system, pre, pump, and post.

• 7:22Nick Bare?

  Now, let's take it back a little bit.

• 7:25Nick Bare?

  How I fell in love with fitness. I've shared this journey before, but it's pretty applicable to

• 7:35Nick Bare?

  really back up why I always go back to strength training, because my love for fitness started with strength training, started in the gym.

• 7:45Nick Bare?

  And a lot of people don't know this, but as a young teenager, I actually wasn't interested in the gym.

• 7:53Nick Bare?

  All my friends, when we were 14, 15, 16, even 17 years old, they were getting into the gym.

• 8:04Nick Bare?

  And they would train at our high school gym after school was over for the day, or go to a local gym. There was this local gym that I then started training at eventually, and I worked at called New York Fitness in Palmyra, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, that everyone used to go to.

• 8:23Nick Bare?

  And all my friends started getting into strength training in the gym when we were in early high school. And I just didn't. I had no interest. I remember to this day, my parents trying to get me to go to the gym with my friends. I didn't care. School would get out, they'd go to the gym, I'd go home. I don't remember what I did or what I worked on.

• 8:51Nick Bare?

  But that was a weird

• 8:55Nick Bare?

  transition period of my life.

• 8:58Nick Bare?

  Because when I was 13, 14 years old, I went through a pretty severe eating disorder.

• 9:05Nick Bare?

  I was anorexic, I was starving myself. I was afraid of food, I lost significant weight.

• 9:13Nick Bare?

  And

• 9:15Nick Bare?

  You know, it got to a point where my body was shutting down. I was hospitalized from that eating disorder.

• 9:22Nick Bare?

  And for much of my life since then, I have

• 9:26Nick Bare?

  struggled, sometimes more or less, with unhealthy relationships with food. I would now say that I have a healthy relationship with food, but there were many times over the last

• 9:41Nick Bare?

  two decades where I've had

• 9:47Nick Bare?

  hard times and extremely unhealthy relationships with food and nutrition and gaining weight and losing weight. So as I was starting to recover from this eating disorder, all my friends are finding the gym. And I just wasn't interested at that point.

• 10:09Nick Bare?

  But after starting my recovery from the eating disorder, putting some weight back on and starting to view food as fuel as opposed to a reward

• 10:24Nick Bare?

  or even in some cases, a

• 10:28Nick Bare?

  a negative.

• 10:32Nick Bare?

  Like there was a consequence to to eating. But once I started shifting my mindset around food as fuel and

• 10:42Nick Bare?

  building the body back up as opposed to tearing it back down. And I started eating more and feeling better.

• 10:50Nick Bare?

  I eventually made my way into the gym.

• 10:54Nick Bare?

  And I can't remember exactly why I made that decision or when or what this first couple workouts felt like. But what I can tell you is I remember my introduction to pre-workout supplementation. This was probably.

• 11:14Nick Bare?

  See, I graduated to high school in 2009. So maybe 2006, 2007 is when I

• 11:29Nick Bare?

  tried my first pre-workout supplement. And back then, the supplement industry was a very different

• 11:37Nick Bare?

  compared to what it is today. It was so different. Pre-workout just made its way into the fitness industry, into the market at that point in time. And there were maybe a handful of pre-workouts to try and test. And my first pre-workout I ever used was No Explode. N-O Explode. It was in this red bottle by BSN. And it was a translucent bottle.

• 12:09Nick Bare?

  I remember

• 12:11Nick Bare?

  how it tasted. I remember how it smelled. I remember how much it fizzed up when you shook it up. I remember the first time I ever used pre-workout. Like, I can't tell you the first time I ever walked into a gym, but I can tell you the first time I ever tried pre-workout. I remember where I was, in my bedroom

• 12:32Nick Bare?

  in our house, which was upstairs. And my mom didn't want us using pre-workout back then. So I had to hide it in this cabinet in my bedroom. I go up into my room and I add a scoop to my shaker bottle. I mix it up. And the first time I ever drank it,

• 12:51Nick Bare?

  you know, the first time you ever consume or try beta alanine,

• 12:56Nick Bare?

  it feels like every part of your skin over the entire course of your body, your hands, your arms, your legs, your ears, your eyebrows, they tingle and they itch. And I remember the beta alanine kicking in and the caffeine kicking in and the nootropics and the tunnel vision focus I had. And from that first time trying pre-workout, I was hooked. I was addicted.

• 13:26Nick Bare?

  And I would go to this local supplement shop in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which was next to Palmyra, Pennsylvania. And I would spend multiple days there a week, talking to the person behind the counter. Like, tell me about these new products. Tell me about, you know, what's coming to market? What are people coming here and buying and trying? And what's the feedback from this protein and that amino acid supplement? And this pre-workout? All the brands back then, or majority of the brands back then, aren't brands any longer. There wasn't a lot of innovation. And products didn't taste nearly as good back then as they do now. I can vividly remember that.

• 14:09Nick Bare?

  There were some brutally bad tasting products back then. But you'd mix it up, you'd shake it up, you'd slug it down. And it would kick in and you'd go to the gym. And I was hooked from that moment. You know, and it was much more than the workouts. It was much more than the training. It was the entire lifestyle in routine around strength training. And if we even carve out that niche a little bit more narrow, it was bodybuilding.

• 14:50Nick Bare?

  Now, I was reading the bodybuilding magazines and watching content online, which there wasn't much. I would watch Greg Plitt videos. I had a membership to Greg Plitt's website. Greg Plitt was this hero in the fitness industry back then. He was a West Point grad and then an Army Ranger.

• 15:21Nick Bare?

  He served in the military, transitioned out of the military, was a fitness model, made motivational YouTube videos, and he would create these vlogs and these YouTube videos and he put them on his website and you had to have a membership to access the website and I would watch these, every video. I mean, it ranged from him going into the gym and doing a cardio circuit to a bodybuilding workout, to cooking meals at his house, to DIY home projects of like a remodel that he was doing in his backyard. I watched every Greg Plitt video back then. Unfortunately, Greg Plitt passed away from a training and

• 16:05Nick Bare?

  filming accident years ago, but he is a legend and pioneer, a leader in the fitness space. I would watch his content back then. And like I said, I fell in love with the lifestyle. I fell in love with the routine, the ritual. My whole day, late high school, early college, and even to today, in some way and capacity, I would build my day and my routine and my schedule around my workout, knowing when I was going to consume my pre-workout meal and what it was going to consist of to make sure I was fueled and it digested

• 16:50Nick Bare?

  properly. And then I would time up mixing my supplements, my pre-workout, let that kick in. I would remember back in college, I'd be sitting in my dorm room and I'd, after drinking my pre-workout, go to YouTube and I'd watch bodybuilding motivational videos. Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman, the greats. And I'd watch them train and I'd let the ingredients do their thing and I get so motivated to go hit the weights.

• 17:32Nick Bare?

  And I'd get all my stuff, I'd drive to the gym, and I would train with intention, with energy, with intensity, like pure passion.

• 17:44Nick Bare?

  Those early years for me, I mean, they shaped the, the trajectory of my entire life. I would not be here doing what I'm doing today if it wasn't in, in, this is no exaggeration. If it wasn't for my experience

• 18:03Nick Bare?

  and introduction to pre-workout and bodybuilding and training and the routine and the ritual around it, I fell in love with the lifestyle.

• 18:15Nick Bare?

  And over two decades later, I still love it. And I trained this morning, shoulders and arms, and everything from the pre-workout meal to taking the pre-workout, to setting the conditions,

• 18:29Nick Bare?

  to hitting the gym with pure intensity and intention and passion.

• 18:37Nick Bare?

  Two decades later, I still love it. I love it.

• 18:43Nick Bare?

  Gym culture is something special.

• 18:48Nick Bare?

  Yeah, I've trained for just about everything at this point.

• 18:53Nick Bare?

  Marathons, Ironman triathlons, ultras, high rocks, bodybuilding competitions.

• 19:04Nick Bare?

  But being in the gym, throwing weights around, getting a pump,

• 19:10Nick Bare?

  I always find myself

• 19:13Nick Bare?

  coming back to that style of training.

• 19:18Nick Bare?

  That lifestyle.

• 19:22Nick Bare?

  And that led to the formation and launch of BPN in 2012.

• 19:31Nick Bare?

  Our first product that we launched, the first product that I launched in 2012 out of my college apartment, was a pre-workout. It was flight.

• 19:42Nick Bare?

  And before that, I was, you know, mixing up my own pre-workout in my dorm room, in my apartment. I buy these ingredients in bulk, caffeine, citrulline, creatine, beta alanine.

• 19:59Nick Bare?

  I had this food scale in my dorm room. I had these bulk ingredients and I'd weigh out the ingredients that I wanted and needed for my pre-workout. You know, three grams of beta alanine, five grams of creatine, 200 milligrams of caffeine, a gram and a half of tyrosine. And I would add some like sweetener packets. I can't remember the name of it. It was before electrolytes were a thing, but you could, uh, it's on the tip of my tongue.

• 20:39Nick Bare?

  There were like these flavored powdered packets that I would buy artificially sweetened and flavored. And I would add it to my water throughout the day and they were super popular. But I would add this to my pre-workout ingredients. So it didn't taste bitter and sour and just off.

• 21:04Nick Bare?

  You know, these ingredients on their own, caffeine, citrulline, beta alanine, even though they're unflavored, they have a flavor of their own. Bitter, sour, tart. So I would add flavor and sweeteners to make it taste better. And for a while I was mixing up my own pre-workout.

• 21:28Nick Bare?

  There were times when I had $50 left in my bank account. If I didn't overdraft my bank account at that point, this was when I was in college, really budgeting. And if I had $50 left in my bank account, and I had to choose between going and buying food, or saving it for gas, or going to the local supplement shop and buying pre-workout, I was buying pre-workout. I would prioritize my pre-workout supplementation over everything else.

• 22:05Nick Bare?

  So when I launched BPN in 2012, when I was in college, and I shared the story many times before, but I took on a $20,000 loan, found a manufacturer, it just made sense to launch with a pre-workout.

• 22:23Nick Bare?

  Because that's how I fell in love with fitness. And the routine and ritual around that lifestyle is what drew me in and kept me there.

• 22:37Nick Bare?

  Something I like to say is that we are a brand. BPN was built on strength from the early days, the inception, but forged by endurance. What has shaped us to where we are today, built on strength forged by endurance.

• 22:58Nick Bare?

  And to touch on the strength collection briefly.

• 23:03Nick Bare?

  So FLIGHT has been our pre-workout since 2012.

• 23:10Nick Bare?

  Like I said, our first product we ever launched.

• 23:13Nick Bare?

  And we've discontinued the name FLIGHT and we've rebranded it to PRE. And I'll talk about why.

• 23:22Nick Bare?

  So PRE is a similar formula

• 23:28Nick Bare?

  to FLIGHT.

• 23:31Nick Bare?

  We made one change, we added an ingredient. So we added Alpha GPC, 300mg of Alpha GPC, which is one of my favorite nootropics. It's the same nootropic in G1M Sport Plus. Gives you the mental energy, the focus, that tunnel vision focus. It stimulates the mind, but it's not a stimulant, not like caffeine. So we added Alpha GPC to our pre-workout, which is now PRE. It's got 200mg of caffeine, which I believe is a sweet spot, 3.2 grams of carnitine beta alanine, 6 grams of citrulline. It is, in my opinion, a complete pre-workout supplement. Everything you need, nothing that you don't.

• 24:17Nick Bare?

  Then you have pump. So we discontinued our previous pump supplement. About a year and a half ago, two years ago, that was called Endo Pump. We knew we wanted to bring a pump supplement back.

• 24:32Nick Bare?

  And we made it even better. So pump has six grams of citrulline, two grams of nitrates, one gram of agmetin sulfate. You get incredible crazy blood flow, muscular contraction and pump to the muscles being trained. When you stack pre and pump together, 30 minutes before your workout, you get 12 grams of citrulline between the two products. If you know anything about citrulline, that's a great hefty dose. You will feel the muscular endurance, you will feel the blood flow, you will feel stronger pumps. I promise you. And then post, as we talked about branched chain amino acids, essential amino acids, carnitine, L-tylcholine, cherry pure.

• 25:19Nick Bare?

  We wanted to, and I wanted to relaunch some of our strength products under the strength collection. Because I believe a system helps with adherence. And it reduces the friction and lack of education of how to use these products around your training.

• 25:39Nick Bare?

  And I truly believe if you use all three of these products around your workouts, when you go into the gym, it will revolutionize the way you train, the way you feel, the results you get. So the goal with creating a system was to

• 25:57Nick Bare?

  improve adherence. Adherence to the protocol, the way the products were designed to be utilized. And I've shared this with our brand team. And we actually made a social piece talking about this.

• 26:12Nick Bare?

  But the first idea of the Strength Collection was sparked by this skincare system that I used back when I was in high school. It's called Proactive. If you guys are as old as I am, I'm mid 30s, you definitely remember seeing commercials and ads for proactive skincare. I used proactive skincare.

• 26:41Nick Bare?

  You know, when you're young and you're in high school and you're dealing with breakouts and oily skin, you're willing to try anything. And I remember seeing these commercials and it was a system, it was a three-product system. It was the cleanser, it was the toner, it was a moisturizer.

• 27:02Nick Bare?

  And that system helped me adhere to the protocol. And it provided me healthier, better, clear-looking skin. Because I stuck to

• 27:18Nick Bare?

  the products and the way they were meant and designed to be utilized. It was a collection. It was a system. That's what sparked the creation of the Strength Collection. A three-product system to be used before, during, and/or after your workouts to maximize and improve adherence and ultimately a better experience and better results. So you said the Strength Collection is now live. I and we here at BPN are extremely proud of these products, this collection. And we know that you guys are gonna love them too.

• 28:00Nick Bare?

  Especially when used together, all three of them.

• 28:06Nick Bare?

  Now, the age-old question, I've been getting this question for years. If you had to choose between the gym and running, which would it be?

• 28:18Nick Bare?

  Easy answer, no-brainer, the gym. And we'll get into why. But one of the reasons, as I was thinking about this answer...

• 28:30Nick Bare?

  Because they both have pros. Some have cons.

• 28:37Nick Bare?

  When done excessively or incorrectly.

• 28:43Nick Bare?

  But when I think about running. In cardiovascular conditioning and training as a whole.

• 28:52Nick Bare?

  I personally very rarely.

• 28:57Nick Bare?

  Love it while I'm doing it. That's just the truth.

• 29:03Nick Bare?

  But I always love it after I'm done.

• 29:08Nick Bare?

  When I'm on a five hour bike for an Ironman. Do I love it? And love the way I feel? No, not really. When I'm running in the morning, do I always love the way I feel? I mean, sometimes, sometimes I have the runner's high and it feels really good. But oftentimes it doesn't, but I will tell you as soon as I'm done with that run, I feel great.

• 29:35Nick Bare?

  Endorphins are lit up. Energy is high.

• 29:42Nick Bare?

  Like there is truly this, this elevated feeling, enjoy. From endurance training, from running specifically.

• 29:53Nick Bare?

  But when I'm strength training and bodybuilding.

• 29:57Nick Bare?

  I not only love the way that I feel afterwards, but I love the way I feel during.

• 30:04Nick Bare?

  During the movements, the rest periods, the pump.

• 30:09Nick Bare?

  I mean, like I can't talk about this enough. I'll reference.

• 30:14Nick Bare?

  Arnold in the documentary in the film Pumping Iron. If you've never watched Pumping Iron, that's what you should do as soon as possible. Go watch the film, the documentary Pumping Iron.

• 30:29Nick Bare?

  It's a classic. And Arnold talks about the pump. And the chase for the pump and a better pump and how good it feels. When I'm strength training, when I'm bodybuilding. I feel just as good. If not greater during as I do afterwards. That's one of the differences for me.

• 30:56Nick Bare?

  From running compared to strength training.

• 31:01Nick Bare?

  Now, when we talk about training, whether it's strength or endurance, cardiovascular conditioning.

• 31:12Nick Bare?

  You know, if you ask someone, if you had to choose one, which would you choose? And that's obviously opinion, that's biased, that's preference. Like for me, I would tell you, easy answer, no brainer, gym. That is based off of subjective feel and preference as well as objective data. What does the data and science tell me? Now, if the data and science told me that strength training is bad for you and endurance training is better for you, because I love the gym so much, I would still go to the gym, even knowing that it's not as good for me. So that argues the fact that it's not just data driven.

• 31:56Nick Bare?

  It's not just objectively driven. I say easy answer, no brainer, the gym, because I love it. And the research that I've seen reinforces why I believe it's the best option of training.

• 32:13Nick Bare?

  But what matters is your goal. And then applying specificity that is necessary for the goal during that time. So if being the fastest ultra runner in the world is your goal, then your training obviously requires specificity.

• 32:35Nick Bare?

  If my goal for the time being, I mean, over the years, you have seen me training for different goals. Whether that's, like I already mentioned, marathons, Ironman triathlons, high rocks, bodybuilding, powerlifting, or just from a day to day hybrid training approach.

• 32:59Nick Bare?

  You have seen me, and I have applied specificity to my training based off my goals. If I'm training for an ultra or a marathon or an Ironman triathlon, I am spending 90% of my time

• 33:17Nick Bare?

  endurance training.

• 33:19Nick Bare?

  And then a little bit of my time is spent on strength training.

• 33:24Nick Bare?

  But as soon as I'm done chasing down that goal, accomplishing that goal, you always see me go back to strength training and bodybuilding as soon as that prep is done.

• 33:38Nick Bare?

  That is my safe place. That is where I feel my best. But I love chasing down a big goal. And a big goal requires a specific style of training

• 33:51Nick Bare?

  necessary to accomplish that goal.

• 33:55Nick Bare?

  But I always go back to strength training, always go back to bodybuilding.

• 34:02Nick Bare?

  For my Ironman prep

• 34:05Nick Bare?

  this past year, which was November 2025,

• 34:10Nick Bare?

  that was about 20 weeks of strict endurance training. I did very, very, very little strength training. And I got fit. I got fast, I got lean, I got light. It was the best endurance shape I've ever been in my entire life. A 22 mile run almost felt like nothing. I felt light, fit and fast, but I did not feel strong.

• 34:42Nick Bare?

  That goal, that training required specificity.

• 34:47Nick Bare?

  But as soon as I was done with that race, the next week I was back in the gym.

• 34:54Nick Bare?

  So I wanted to rebuild. I wanted to feel strong again. I wanted to feel better.

• 35:01Nick Bare?

  I feel my best when I am prioritizing strength training and then incorporating running endurance training layered onto my strength training.

• 35:16Nick Bare?

  I hear the comments all the time.

• 35:20Nick Bare?

  You didn't build your physique by running.

• 35:24Nick Bare?

  You're right. I did not build my physique from running. I dedicated over a decade to strength training before I actually started taking running serious.

• 35:41Nick Bare?

  I didn't start taking running serious until I transitioned out of the army. I signed up for my first marathon in 2018. And then from there was marathons and triathlons and ultras. And I got serious about running and endurance training.

• 36:00Nick Bare?

  But from the time I started strength training in

• 36:04Nick Bare?

  2006, 2007,

• 36:10Nick Bare?

  up until

• 36:13Nick Bare?

  2018,

• 36:16Nick Bare?

  the priority was strength training. And I ran because I had to in the army. That's the only reason I ran. When I transitioned out of the army in 2017, I said,

• 36:30Nick Bare?

  I will never run a day in my life again. And that has obviously changed because if you look at what happened from 2018 up until today, there have been many miles, thousands of miles logged, many races completed and goals accomplished. But in 2018, after I transitioned or 2017, after I transitioned out of the military, I said, I'm not running a day in my life again.

• 36:56Nick Bare?

  And for a year, I was committed to that.

• 37:00Nick Bare?

  I ate a lot of food and I trained a lot. I was in the gym twice a day. I got my deadlift to a lifetime PR of 700 pounds, which I will never touch in my life again. But that was a proud moment. That was a proud day.

• 37:16Nick Bare?

  And that goal, that 700 pound deadlift, that required training specificity.

• 37:23Nick Bare?

  A lot of strength training, a lot of food, a lot of volume, a lot of intentionally programmed deadlifts to pull 700 pounds off the floor. It required specificity. And the reason I say I will never accomplish that again is because I enjoy a balance of foundational strength and then endurance training layered on top of. And I believe that that endurance training, that running that I do, will and does hold me back from pulling 700 pounds off the floor again.

• 38:01Nick Bare?

  But I didn't build my physique from running. You can get leaner from running. You can burn calories, get lighter. You can burn up both fat and muscle from too much running.

• 38:15Nick Bare?

  But you build a physique, you improve body composition with muscle. And muscle is built from resistance training, strength training, being back in the gym.

• 38:30Nick Bare?

  In the future, I will train for different events and different races at some point. I will probably do another marathon, maybe another ultra at some point. But I can promise you, I will always go back to strength training as soon as that prep is done. Because what I love, and I have to rebuild.

• 38:54Nick Bare?

  But strength training also does improve cardio capacity indirectly in a few different ways. So both can be complementary if programmed correctly. So your cardio can help your strength training, your strength training can help your cardio.

• 39:10Nick Bare?

  When there is.

• 39:15Nick Bare?

  In proportional excessive amount of one of them, it's going to affect the other. So too much running or an excessive amount of running will affect your workouts in the gym, your strength training. Too much strength training will also and can affect your, your running, cardiovascular conditioning. The truth is that stronger athletes can tolerate higher intensity intervals, steeper hills, and longer sessions because their muscles and connective tissues can handle the load, which drives further gains in VO2 max and endurance.

• 39:57Nick Bare?

  Strength training improves muscular efficiency. So strong muscles can produce the same force at a lower percentage of their maximum capacity, which means they fatigue more slowly during cardio efforts. And strength training can also improve cardio capacity indirectly with movement quality and durability. So strength work enhances joint stability, posture, and movement mechanics.

• 40:27Nick Bare?

  And you can maintain efficient technique for longer during cardio sessions when you have better joint stability, posture, and movement mechanics. And you actually get fewer overuse injuries when you are incorporating strength training while endurance training. So you can train more consistently over time.

• 40:52Nick Bare?

  Something that I have found with all these endurance preps that I've gone into is that when I remove strength training completely, especially lower body strength training, I find that I am more prone to injury, especially overuse injury. It's really important for me that I build in an off-season and maintain some type of strength training while prepping for an endurance event.

• 41:19Nick Bare?

  Primarily lower body.

• 41:22Nick Bare?

  And if I don't, I find that I get overuse injuries in my hips, my, uh, my feet,

• 41:32Nick Bare?

  my calves, quads, hamstrings.

• 41:37Nick Bare?

  So making sure that I'm doing some sort of, uh, squat, hinge, pull movements, lower body focused, to prevent overuse injuries is extremely important. But strength training on its own can improve cardio capacity indirectly. It is something that should always be incorporated,

• 42:00Nick Bare?

  no matter the endurance goal,

• 42:03Nick Bare?

  because strength is foundational.

• 42:08Nick Bare?

  And as I was preparing this, this conversation, this podcast, there's a few mistakes that people make.

• 42:14Nick Bare?

  One, it's over prioritizing cardio for too long. This is why I like doing these 12 to 20 week preps.

• 42:26Nick Bare?

  You know, there's 12 to 20 weeks dedicated to this one goal that requires a specific set of instruction and programming. And I can commit to that prep. But as soon as that prep is done, I go back to strength training. I rebuild. I feel better. I put some size back on. I put some mass back on. But when you over prioritize cardio for too long, you go from race to race to race to prep to prep to prep and you neglect strength training for too long. This is where you start to feel and experience some of these negative side effects and consequences.

• 43:04Nick Bare?

  Another mistake that people make, not lifting heavy enough.

• 43:09Nick Bare?

  I'm going to have my wife, Steph, come on the podcast soon to talk about how she has started incorporating heavier lifting into her routine the last couple of months. And the changes that it's made to her physique, body composition, the way she feels, the way she performs, the way she moves.

• 43:28Nick Bare?

  Steph has started lifting heavy again and it's made a huge difference in her body composition. So it's not just going to the gym and moving weight around. It's moving a large percentage of your one wrap max on some main compound movements and really pushing weight, lifting heavy. Another mistake that people make is program hopping and not being consistent on one type of program or style of training for long enough to actually experience the results, the benefits, and then ignoring proper nutrition and recovery. Another mistake

• 44:08Nick Bare?

  that a lot of people make. I love training. I love fitness. I fell in love with fitness, as I've shared, through the gym, through pre-workout, and that's led me to where I am today. And there are seasons where I want to train for a marathon. There are seasons where I want to train for an Ironman triathlon. There are seasons where I want to do an ultra and I want to push it and I want to see what my body and mind is capable of. That's a season.

• 44:44Nick Bare?

  A season is layered onto a foundation and the foundation, in my opinion, should and has to be strength. That's why I will always go back to strength training. I believe in it. I love it. I know that it works. It benefits the body and the mind in many, many ways, but it's foundational. And I'll go back to my initial thesis that I wanted to pose.

• 45:19Nick Bare?

  If you want to be better at anything physical, marathons, high rocks, weekend basketball, or even just playing with your kids, strength has to come first. And if you could only do one type of training for the rest of your life, it should be strength training. So with that being said, I appreciate you guys tuning in. If you haven't checked out the Strength Collection yet, pre, pump, and post, go to bpsups.com, try it out. Let me know what you guys think. Transform your training experience and the results you get from being in the gym. And we'll see you guys in the next episode.