BarBend

The Online Home for Strength Sports

How to Build a Fitness Following (with Andrew Coates)

Written by David Tao
Last updated on August 10th, 2023

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Today I’m talking to trainer, writer, and speaker Andrew Coates. I met Andrew in person about a month ago at Strong New York, but he’s been on my radar for years. Andrew has built a following online and also contributes to some of the biggest publications in fitness, including — you guessed it — BarBend. In this episode, Andrew gives his playbook for building an online fitness following and talks about how to separate influencer hype from real, valuable fitness knowledge. I hope you enjoy.

Before we get into that, I want to give a quick shoutout to today’s episode sponsor, Thirdzy. Thirdzy’s PM Recovery Collagen is formulated to help you sleep deeper and recover faster. It’s got collagen peptides to support muscle, bone, and ligament health, plus sleep-promoters like magnesium, L-theanine, and tryptophan to help you fall asleep and stay asleep for better recovery. I’m personally a huge fan of magnesium before bed to help with relaxation. Wake up feeling energized and ready for the day and training ahead. Use code BarBendZzz — that’s BarBend with three Zs after it — for 25% off today.

Andrew Coates on the BarBend Podcast

In this episode of The BarBend Podcast, David Thomas Tao and Andrew Coates discuss: 

  • When the fitness community reconnects in person (2:10)
  • The first online fitness pros who paved the way online (4:00)
  • How Andrew built his following online and expanded his career to new heights (7:40)
  • The easy way to build profiles and connections — just show up! (10:30)
  • The most prolific writers in fitness (14:30)
  • How to not tick off editors (20:00)
  • “One of the best feelings is to share and support other people” (25:00)

Relevant links and further reading:

Transcription

If you get started with some of these things and just keep going, be consistent with it, and travel and get in front of the people and support them and connect with them, then all this opportunity grows. Sometimes you have to lean into it and take a leap of faith before you even know what the hell you’re doing.

 

We often have this sour grapes narrative that, “Oh, larger following is a vanity metric, or we don’t need it.” We need to shift that attitude. It’s a way to share your experience and knowledge with more people.

David TaoDavid Tao

Welcome to the “BarBend” Podcast, where we talk to the smartest minds from around the world of strength. I’m your host, David Thomas Tao, and this podcast is presented by barbend.com.

 

Today I’m talking to trainer, writer, and speaker Andrew Coates. I met Andrew in person about a month ago at Strong New York, but he’s been on my radar for years. Andrew has built a following online and also contributes to some of the biggest publications in fitness. Including you guessed it, BarBend.

 

In this episode, Andrew gives his playbook, I mean, the full scope of the playbook for building an online fitness-following, and he talks about how to separate influencer hype from real valuable knowledge. I hope you enjoy.

 

Before we get to that, I want to give a quick shoutout to today’s episode sponsor, Thirdzy. Thirdzy’s PM Recovery Collagen is formulated to help you sleep deeper and recover faster.

 

It’s got collagen peptides to support muscle, bone, and ligament health, plus sleep promoters like, magnesium, L-theanine and tryptophan to help you fall asleep and stay asleep for better recovery.

 

I’m personally a huge fan of magnesium right before bed to help with relaxation. Wake up feeling energized and ready for the day and training ahead. Use code, BarBendZzz — that’s BarBend with three Zs right after it — for 25 percent off today. Now, let’s get on with the show.

 

Andrew, it’s so great to have you on the podcast. This is for context for those listening. This is coming off us meeting in person for the first time at Strong New York about, not quite a month ago, and I feel like we’ve been in each other’s orbits for years.

 

Meeting in person was fun, a little jarring. I had to get over some social awkwardness, but you are nice and gracious, so I appreciate that.

I know I’m big and terrifying-looking, but no, it’s great to meet you and be like, “I blow it away with what you guys have done with BarBend.” As I had said in person, watching BarBend as a brand skyrocketing to being this, in my mind, standing toe-to-toe with more established juggernauts like T-Nation and Muscle and Fitness.

 

I feel like though you guys go in different directions and different media than, say, Generation Iron, you guys are both soaring in this media outlets about the greater fitness world. I think you guys own strength sports. You own Olympic lifting supports.

 

I know your publication is becoming a really great resource for training information. It’s been an honor to write for you guys. I’ve had my eyes on that because of the other stuff I’ve gotten right for. I thought BarBend would be a really great publication to be able to put prominently in my bio on my Instagram and say, “Hey, I’m proud to write for BarBend.”

David TaoDavid Tao

We’re proud to have you. It’s funny you mention those other outlets. This is another thing that happened. As we’re getting back to in-person events, I’m running into editors, writers, people from these other outlets.

 

It’s great because oftentimes you mentioned Generation Iron just as an example, we work with Generation Iron a lot. We’ve done collaborative series, interviews, releases, videos, articles, you name it. It’s a pretty small space. When it comes down to digital fitness content, it’s a lot easier to make friends than to make enemies.

 

You say go toe-to-toe, look, I’m honored as someone who founded this as a humble blog years ago. It’s cool to see us be mentioned in the same breath, but it’s even cooler to me that we get to collaborate.

 

You’re someone who works with a lot of different brands, so you see this ecosystem. It’s a bit of a circle, and people will touch all these different outlets. I’m curious how you got into fitness content, specifically at how you got into that ecosystem.

All right. I’ll try to give you that. I’ve been a personal trainer for 12 years. I think this is important piece of context. When I first started as a trainer, I got onto T-Nation very early. I would read T-Nation every morning with breakfast and like, hey, Ben Bruno, Bret Contreras, Christian, Tony Gentilcore, Nick Tumminello, Martin Rooney, etc. learning from these people.

 

As a new trainer, you can’t help but feel like, “All right. Well, there’s this established tear of super successful people, and then there’s the rest of us on the gym floor.” I couldn’t have envisioned what the path from one to the other.

 

I always felt like there’s two different categories, you’re either one or you can’t possibly part of the other. I was at hammered sessions on the gym floor for years and years and years.

 

One thing I did different earlier — again, we’re talking about 9, 10, 11, almost 12 years ago — was I used Facebook as a blog. If you have a touch point with someone, you meet someone acquainted with them, whatever, I would just add them to Facebook and I would gather them up on social media.

 

I got a trainer friend of mine a job with the old company, and he’d asked the director, “Hey, are we allowed to post on social media?” The director said to him, “You know what, there’s only two people in the company who actually use Facebook or use social media.”

 

It was me and Dean Somerset who also happened to work for that same company back then, another T-Nation guy, and much more well established in the industry than I even am now. He’s very iconic. I’ve done tons of his work. He’s a great guy.

 

Over time, I eventually left that company after six years, started out on my own, and then a friend asked me to do a podcast with him. That’s where it started. Also, I started traveling to fitness events. I went to one in 2017 called the Kansas City Fitness Summit.

 

Then I went to Luka Hocevar’s Vigor Fitness and Business Summit later that year, and I met a lot of the industry. Very quickly, you realize that [laughs] everybody is down to earth.

 

I got to meet Spencer Nadolsky and Brett Contreras and Brett Bartholomew and Pete Dupuis who’s one of the partners of Cressey Sports Performance, and Luka Hocevar and Martin Rooney.

 

This is long list of people who are very established in our world. They’re very positive, down to earth, they’re very encouraging. I also met a lot of people on the same journey I was on. With that hyper connectivity, we started to get podcast guests.

 

I hung out with Dr. Mike [inaudible 6:45] in 2017 and had dinner with him. He’s a great guy. He’s a good friend. I get to go down and hang out with those guys for their RP Summits in December in Vegas, the Olympia weekend. I’m going to go to the Olympia for the first time, the expo.

 

With those connections, we started having good guests early on the podcast. The podcast blew up. Then because again, I’m meeting all these people in my travels, and this is a playbook for people. If your coach listens, this is literally your playbook.

 

I wrote this on social media recently some of this stuff, so do this stuff. Add people to Facebook as friends. Follow them on social media, connect with them, bring them on your podcast as a guest, develop those relationships.

 

Then with time, you get connected with more and more people and again podcasted well. Then I started writing for a website. One of my best friends built me a website. She wouldn’t take any money for it. She’s one of the best people in my world.

David TaoDavid Tao

That’s a good type of friend. I wish I had more friends like that.

We all do, but you got to add something, start writing. Facebook blog is not enough. You have to start long-form content creation vehicle, podcast writing. YouTube is a great one, too. I never was super at that one.

 

As we got more guests, then I see Dani Shugart who’s one of the editors at T-Nation, long-time writer, is interacting with someone on Facebook that I’m already friends that I’ve met. I sent her friend request. I sent her a message.

 

I say, “Hey, Dani, I would love to have you on our podcast. I’ve been reading your stuff for years. Your stuff’s great.” She was thrilled. She came on as a guest. She was super.

 

Within a couple of weeks she turned around. She’s like, “Hey, all sheepish, would you consider being a contributor for T-Nation?”

 

It’s iconic brand that I’ve been reading for God, forever. I’m like, “Are you kidding me? [laughs] Of course.” That was where that started. Then I started writing for them and that starts to get your name out there a little bit, but it’s also this stamp for coaches.

 

It’s an additional stamp of credibility, authority, which is, it’s not about status. I think a lot of people go wrong because they crave status. They want to have people think they’re important. That’s the wrong lens to look at it through.

 

Look at it through, how much can you serve other people without expectation of anything in return? If you produce content through all these different vehicles, good things are going to happen to you. You’re going to create greater connections. Just support other people with the vehicles that you’re building.

 

Anyway, so that started out and I realized at the beginning of 2020 that I needed to start backing up the writing side of stuff in the podcasting with more of a social media presence. I believe that Instagram is the hub for everything.

 

We now know that TikTok is blowing up. It’s a bit on the wild side, but I still think Facebook has organic growth issues now in a way that it operates versus where it was before. I still think that Instagram has been and currently is the hub for authority within the fitness space.

 

I started the posting daily on it, taking the pieces of wisdom, knowledge, experience, practicing that skill. I study writing a lot. Along the way, I got invitation to write for Generation Iron. When I met you, Edwin Mejia who’s one of the cofounders, was supposed to come and meet me, hang out. I had a guest pass for him at Strong New York.

 

His flight couldn’t get it in time. I also had a guest pass for Jeff Tomko, who’s an editor with “Muscle & Fitness” magazine. I got to meet him for the first time. He’s great to work with.

 

Then I met some of the guys from Men’s Health. I’ll be honest, one of my aspirations is to write for “Men’s Health” someday. We’ll see if I can make that happen. I want to earn it.

 

I kept creating on social media, working on the way of formulating ideas. It gained a little traction slowly, slowly, slowly. I committed to it. I’ve been doing it every day for almost three years. The first year, I started with 3,000 followers through all the connections I had. It grew to 10.5-cool by the end of the year.

 

The next year, picked up a bit, picked up a bit. It grew to 35,000. Middle of that year, a buddy of mine who I’d gone to two of his events to support him asked me to come speak at his event. I said, “Sure. Don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ll figure it out.” It went great. That opened up a ton of doors.

 

I have had so many invitations to speak. It’s so much stuff ever since. I got a NSCA regional conference in December. I’m doing Kabuki Education Week again, that’ll be February this year, Raise the Bar in February in Dallas, which is a big event.

 

If you get started with some of these things and you just keep going, keep going, keep going, be consistent with it, travel, get it from other people, support them, and connect with them, then all this opportunity grows as soon as you have to lean into it. Take a leap of faith before you even know what the hell you’re doing.

 

It’s also very easy to reverse engineer where you are to say, “Here are all the things that worked.” I promise you, if you engage in a lot of these behaviors and if you aspire to be in a position where you are educating and reaching a broader group of people, then a lot of good things come.

 

There’s one more thing I’ll say. We often have the sour grapes narrative that a larger following is a vanity metric or we don’t need it. We hear coaches, people say you don’t need a larger following to be successful in the fitness industry. Those people that are saying it have larger followings. Friends of mine do this.

 

The reality is we need to shift that attitude. It’s a way to share your experience and knowledge with more people. We all are passionate about making the greatest impact possible. You can do it with this more surface-level touch point of social media.

 

Then, you can bring people into things like your podcast, your articles, your YouTube, your email list, your speaking engagements.

David TaoDavid Tao

I love how you emphasize consistency there. I want to talk about that in two realms. One, from the perspective of…I spent a lot of time spent a number of years as the editor-in-chief of BarBend. I no longer am.

 

We have someone, Andrew Gutman, much more talented editor than I will ever be. He steers the ship there with a high level of precision and skill, I will say. Andrew, I know you’re listening at some point to this podcast, so shout out there.

 

What I will say is from that perspective, consistency is key. If you are a new writer or someone who’s relatively new to contributing fitness content to other outlets, the first thing an editor is going to look at is your social media, not for your follower count, but are you writing clearly?

 

Are you getting across a message? Are you able to communicate? If your goal is to communicate on social media, are you able to do that in a way that is very understandable and very accessible to people? Most importantly, are you doing it consistently?

 

For an outlet like BarBend, we also own “Breaking Muscle,” the best way to fall out of our editors’ good graces is to miss a deadline. Even if there isn’t a specific deadline, because I don’t want to say we work on exact deadlines, it’s to ghost us and get in a consistent pattern and then fall off as far as content contribution.

 

We’re a big editorial machine. All of these outlets are big editorial machines. If a deadline is missed, a piece doesn’t come in, or you say you’re going to do something and you don’t do it in a reasonable amount of time, that’s going to throw a wrench in the works. We have backups.

 

We have systems to deal with that, but it’s going to make us less likely to A, want to work with you again and B, less likely to recommend you to another outlet. I’ve had people approach me and say, “Hey, I want to write for this other outlet. Can you write me a letter of recommendation or vouch for me?”

 

If I’ve had a fantastic experience working with them, that they’ve been consistent, “Heck, yeah, of course.” There have been some instances where I’ve told people, “I don’t think you want to do that because we had problems with your consistency and with your ability to actually deliver the product that we were working with you toward.”

 

Consistency is important if you’re just your toe in. Don’t start in this ecosystem, as I keep saying, unless you’re ready to dive in and produce consistently. The worst thing you could do is burn a bridge by just ghosting someone.

 

I’m curious as to your thoughts on that, if you’ve seen that happen, if you’ve had to deal with that in your own capacity as a content creator.

There’s some definite nuance to this. Everything you said is exactly right. I also want to provide a touch of perspective for anybody who’s aspiring it right. You’ve got people like Shane McLean and Roger Lockridge who are great writers.

David TaoDavid Tao

Prolific, both of them are prolific by the way.

Here’s a little point that’s important for people to realize. I’m actually not as prolific as some article writer. I’m fairly meticulous with the process. I coach full-time. I have an online business. Speaking engagements chew up time. Social media takes a little bit of time. You have to have time for yourself.

 

I’m not Lee Boyce or Shane who are absolute writing machines. I’m surgically strategic with it. I actually want to circle back to Andrew who’s been great. a little quick story about him. I want to say I want to do another piece for BarBend, but I have written one piece for BarBend to date. It was all I was able to commit at the time.

 

I try to serve multiple masters. As long as the publication and the writer are of the understanding that the goal is not to come on as a regular writer, to have two pieces a month, etc., it can be very valuable for you guys to have people who are a bit more freelance. In order to be able to do that, you have to bring a little more value back.

 

My attitude towards all the publications that I write for is, what can I bring and give back to bring my audience back to the publications I’m writing for? If I am giving more than I’m getting out of it, then I feel good about that exchange.

 

I worked very, very hard on reaching more and more people. I have a large social media following at this point. It’s growing. If I get to do something for BarBend, guess what? I’m going to wave BarBend around. The fact I put BarBend in my bio is important. BarBend appears in all of my presentations.

 

I have got a presentation I’m writing, so there’s some talk in there. It’s in my About Me thing. It’s on my website. It’s literally on that As Seen In. There’s links to the articles that I have for everything that I write for. I’m a big believer in supporting any publications that I’m involved with, brand partners, etc.

 

I’ve had the good pleasure of working with a broad array of people. It simply wouldn’t work for me if a publication came and said, “Hey, we want to work with you exclusively.” Sorry. I’m not going to stop serving T-Nation who gave me my start and were good with me, Muscle & Fitness who are great to me, or BarBend who’s been great to me.

 

Story about Andrew, and maybe it goes deeper to the industry, in relationships, and consistency, Andrew and I were connected. I’m trying to remember. I know my friend, Jeb Stuart Johnston, who’s also written for Muscle & Fitness and some of the things. He might have been origins of the initial connection when Andrew was an editor with Muscle & Fitness.

 

We had some just initial conversations. It didn’t get very far because then that’s when Muscle & Fitness was sold. There’s some restructuring. Andrew ended up leaving and going to BarBend where we were reintroduced. I’m trying to remember exactly. I think it was David Otay played a big role in that.

 

There’s several other people who’ve given me glowing recommendations to write for different places, but it turns out Andrew was the editor. Like, hey, we washed up on each other’s shore before. I also was referred to write for bodybuilding.com, I wrote an article for them. I was paid.

 

There is a contributors page up there. Same thing happened, they were sold and restructured before my article is published. I don’t officially have an article on their page. Therefore, I don’t put bodybuilding.com on any of my stuff.

 

It’s a giant kick in the pants in a sense because it’s another great brand to write for. There’s a very good likelihood that opportunity will circle around again.

 

I think one of the most important things is make your editor’s job easier. Like you said, “Get your deadlines, take feedback.”

 

Andrew was great to work with because he gave you a lot of feedback. I didn’t give myself enough time before vacation to nail this thing. He said a bunch of stuff back to me. I had to crunch in order to get it to him on deadline, but I learned some valuable stuff there.

 

I was committed to going, “All right. Well, I’m not going to let my editor down. I’m going to make sure this is really good.” It was great to work with.

David TaoDavid Tao

We’ll get back to the conversation in just a moment. First a quick shoutout to our episode sponsor, Thirdzy. Thirdzy’s PM Recovery collagen is formulated to help you sleep deeper and recover faster.

 

Collagen and sleep-promoting ingredients like magnesium and L-theanine make for a potent recovery supplement to help you wake up energized for the day and training ahead.

 

Use code BarBendZzz — that’s BarBend with three Zs after it — for 25 percent off today. Now, let’s get back to the show.

 

I appreciate you giving some of that nuance there. If I could rephrase what I said, it’s about setting that communication and getting on the same page as far as expectations. That is really key.

 

Look, communication is underrated in the fitness industry. If you’re a personal trainer, if you’re training clients, be it virtually or in person, how you communicate is everything.

 

There are only so many cues you can give. There are only so many programs you can write. There are only so many movements you could do. How you’re communicating that, are you communicating that effectively to a client, is everything, as I’m sure you can attest.

 

Communication in the content production cycle is everything because hey, these are machines that are constantly…Everything’s moving forward. A publication doesn’t stop just because you miss a deadline, especially at this scale.

 

I’m curious how your perspective on what you do in your online business, in training clients, has it evolved, I should say, as a result of your content creation?

This is maybe unrelated, but it’s probably one of the attitudes that has evolved the most as a coach. The younger coaches will relate to this, and the more experienced coaches will relate to this.

 

Early on, you’re hyper-concerned with the imposter syndrome of worrying about giving enough to be worth the cost of your training.

 

If you’ve ever had those clients that didn’t develop the independence or didn’t see the results as fast, you can really feel that internally. With enough experience, you start to realize that people show up maybe not necessarily for the goals that you think are important, but the goals that are important to them.

 

I have a lot of clients that it’s really important to them. They’re fully capable of functioning on their own, but they’re busy professionals, doctors, lawyers, business owners. I have a lot of these who love showing up for that hour to hang out, maybe it’s two to four hours a week. They look forward to it. It’s a point of accountability.

 

The value is in the fact that they have this set-up appointment. They have the financial resources to do it. Some of my older adults, my retirees, eight, they do have the financial resources to the train. They love the experience to hang out.

 

For a lot of people, it’s about the consistency of the habit. I’ve gotten a lot better at being really good with eight increasing my rates over time to reflect the value. That’s I think coaches have struggled with.

 

I’m at the point now where I’m not able to take a lot of new people. I refer a lot of it to other coaches, and I don’t want anything in return. I just like supporting other people. I think that’s the big evolution out with content creation. I still love coaching people in person, and I really always want to.

 

With the content creation, especially because I’ve seen that it’s successful, I think the people who may say this thing are the people who struggle with it and it becomes a sour grapes. “You don’t need to do well now. It’s because you didn’t commit to it, you didn’t stick with it, you struggled with it, you didn’t learn how to do it effectively.”

 

It is a really powerful way to positively impact people, even if it’s a superficial touch points on social media. I get hundreds of comments about how much people needed this today, or how much this stuff motivates them or helps to keep them on track. I got a random message, and someone shares with me that they are down 60 pounds.

 

The fact that I post on Instagram once a day has been a major thing. I turn around like, “Listen, your hard work,” [laughs] but it’s rewarding and fulfilling. It needs to go, this is valuable. This is not superficial fluff. I certainly won’t dabble, I won’t deal in superficial fluff.

 

If you can develop these content vehicles like I recently put my podcast on hiatus. I retired it, one of the two anyway. I realized that no, I have a really great audience here that can do a lot of good with, so I’m going to reverse that direction. I just needed a break.

 

I needed to [inaudible 23:40] doing it. I also don’t think everybody has an obligation to do this stuff. I don’t think that everybody probably can do it the way that I’ve done it and a lot of other people have in the industry, but I do like to light a fire under people by saying this.

 

If you spend your time complaining about the “influencers and the charlatans” who will never be regulated out of the industry. No amount of regulation and quite frankly laws are probably going to make most of these people go away.

 

If you sit there and complain about them, even if they went away, the people who are buying from them and following them aren’t suddenly going to find you go, “Oh, I like this evidence-based person.”

 

It is upon you to put yourself out there, learn the skills of media creation, be patient and grow your reaching your audience to where you’re sharing better quality information.

 

All of a sudden you’ll notice that the people who have real authentic, engaged followings and multiple media channels, they’re suddenly usually not complaining about the influencers anymore.

 

It’s a very fulfilling thing to be able to have that positive impact. Then when you can have that impact in those relationships and outreach, one of the best feelings is to share and support other people.

 

While I was there, when we were in New York, I introduced a few people to my editor at Muscle & Fitness, some friends of mine, and now they have that connection and some of those friends of mine are going to be able to write for publications like Muscle & Fitness.

 

To me, that’s a pretty iconic brand. I have magazines from them go back 20 years plus, I still have copies of…I’m from St. John’s, Newfoundland. I used to go to the gym with and work out alongside of Frank McGrath, iconic bodybuilder.

 

It might have been Flex, it might have been Muscle & Fitness. I can remember that time. It was Flex. Frank’s on the cover. I still have that. I don’t know, it’s meaningful to turn around and be able to write for those magazines. I think it was Muscle & Fitness, but that’s irrelevant.

David TaoDavid Tao

Where do you see your career expanding or moving in the next five years?

 

It’s a good idea to probably try to have a vision for that sort of thing for most people. I recently read a book that I love Dr. Benjamin Hardy, “Be Your Future Self Now.” Yet I’ve never been particularly good at imagining where I wanted to go.

 

It’s a classic advice for the person we’re trying to help. Let’s focus on the regular behaviors and not the outcome per se. You’ll get to the outcome. I’ve looked around at some of the outcomes I’ve had I’m like, “I couldn’t have even planned or imagined this.” Who knows what’s next?

 

I tend to think in terms of the behaviors show up at as many events as possible. Meet, spend time with new friends and old. Connect with people, support and share other people through my forms of media.

 

Be consistent in serving the people who already connect with me, who self-select to engage with me via my podcast, my writing, my social media, and embrace opportunities when they present themselves. Someone asked me to speak at something.

 

I’m at the stage of my career right now where I’m going to say, “Yes, I’m going to go down to it, hang out.” That’s been incredibly rewarding and it will open doors. Treat your partners well. Don Saladino has been promoting something for him. Right now, I promote events for the Pain-Free Performance Specialist Certification, John Ruston’s team.

 

Clifton Harski pretty much runs that and he’s a good buddy of mine. I have done stuff for Renaissance Periodization, Precision Nutrition, and then all the brands that I write for. That doesn’t happen because you go into these situations going, “Well, what can you do for me?”

 

For me still, and it always will be showing up every day with the things that I’m fulfilled by, because yes, it’s busy, it’s a busy schedule, but I’m fulfilled by these things. Helps sustain my ability to work pretty long hours of coaching people in person, which I can’t see me ever wanting to get away from.

 

I think it’s also worthwhile not getting stuck in this line of thinking, so I do consume media and I’m trying to dive into books about how to scale online platforms. I don’t know what direction I want to go and I don’t know if I ever want to have employees. I certainly don’t want to go into the business coaching realm. [laughs]

 

There are good people in that space but most of that stuff is awful, but I’m trying to be open minded about possibilities as they arise, but put myself in position to be offered a lot of opportunities to which I can then decide which doors to step through. Make sense?

David TaoDavid Tao

Totally. Andrew, where is the best place or where are the best places for people to follow along with your work, the content you’re producing, places you’re contributing to, all that jazz?

The short answer is all roads go through Instagram. [inaudible 28:57] . I respond to all messages. If someone shoots me a message, it’s the hidden things, call me back. I will respond to everything. I try to respond to comments, but shoot me a message if you have questions. I’ll always answer questions.

 

My website, www.andrewcoatesfitness.com is obviously there. All my articles that I publish anywhere else are linked through there. I’ve had less and less time to write [laughs] my own stuff for my website. I want to do more than I have the bandwidth doing.

 

I’m terrible at but I’m getting better at setting boundaries around some of my own personal time and downtime. I have two podcasts technically, so I do plan to reboot the “Lift Free and Diet Hard” podcast. There’s 100 episodes of it, but there’s 150 more for 250 from the old format with my old cohost.

 

They’re all in the same stream, so search for Lift Free and Diet Hard. The other podcast is a smaller project called Forever Strength. It’s attached to a group online coaching platform that I share with a client of mine, a mentee of mine and a fellow coach named Bailey Lau.

 

We have an online women’s group program we run for them a year, [inaudible 30:03] thrilled with that. If someone’s interested in learning more about that great, or even how we did it.

 

I probably write more regularly for T-Nation and for Muscle & Fitness as time’s gone on. I have written for Generation Iron. I want to get back to doing some stuff with them. Edwin wants to talk to me. He wants to get me more involved and do some video stuff with them, but they’re always so busy and I’m so busy.

 

I’ve written for you guys and I want to do some more stuff with you guys. I do have an article up on the Personal Trainer Development Center. My friend, Jonathan Goodman. I wrote something a while back and it’s always nice to have that as a writing credit.

 

I used to write for TrueCoach as well, online coaching platform, but they needed something regular and so I politely said, “Hey, I can’t [laughs] give you guys anymore.” It was great to write. It was a great opportunity, great platform.

 

If someone’s interested in getting their writing out there more, check the submission guidelines of any publication. Go to you guys, find out what your publications guidelines are. Look at T-Nation, look at TrueCoach. TrueCoach is really good one.

 

Look at any other publication out there that you like and aspire to. I’m a big believer in earning the rights. You got to put in the work for your own website first is a really essential thing. Study writing. You have to learn that stuff because if you send terrible writing into your editor, you’re wasting your time.

 

I want to send great stuff that my editor doesn’t have too much work to do, but I also want to have the relationship where I will give my editor great ideas and then give my editor card wash to say, “Listen, you can tailor this exactly the way you want to. You have my permission.”

 

I want to give them almost everything that they need. You need to know the voice of the brand and who the audience is and who you’re speaking to. The stuff I write for T-Nation and the stuff I write for Muscle & Fitness are fairly different in terms of what they’re looking for.

David TaoDavid Tao

Andrew, I appreciate your time. It is a pleasure to chat again. I feel like this is a follow up and continuation of the conversation we started in person. Always nice to close at least a couple of loops there.

 

I appreciate your time and looking forward to working with you in the future and seeing you on the road.

I can’t wait. We’ll see each other again in person. It was a pleasure meeting you. Andrew, if you’re listening, if I haven’t already messaged you, we’re going to chat and we’ll figure out a project where I can give you guys something else that’s valuable to you, and then we have BarBend around all over my media.

 

When this episode comes out, I’ll be sharing all over my media. Anybody who’s listening who’s found this podcast through me, do two things. One is, go follow BarBend. Two, is go through BarBend’s library of podcast episodes, don’t just listen to this one.

 

 Look for maybe other guests that you like that you recognize, give more of a listen. If you’re enjoying it, maybe you’ll stick around and subscribe to BarBend’s podcast. That’s how you get back and say thank you.

David TaoDavid Tao

That’s a better plug that I could ever give. With that, thank you, Andrew. Talk to you soon.

About David Tao

BarBend's Co-Founder and CEO, David is a veteran of the health & fitness industry, with nearly a decade of experience building and running editorial teams in the space. He also serves as a color commentator for both National and International weightlifting competitions, many through USA Weightlifting.

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